Blogorium Review: The Seven-Per-Cent Solution

I don't know what to make of the 1976 Sherlock Holmes adventure The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, although I think that many detractors of the 2009 reboot starring Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law might want to rethink the "it's awful because Guy Ritchie made Holmes an action star," at least once they've seen this curious mishmash of detective fiction, wry but inconsistent humor, nonsensical action, and odd pacing.

The story, which is non-canonical (meaning that it's not one of Arthur Conan Doyle's Holmes tales), was adapted for the screen by the author's novel, Nicholas Meyer* and directed by Herbert Ross, deals with Sherlock Holmes' increasing addiction to cocaine (hinted at in the Doyle stories but made explicit in Meyer's novel; the title refers to Holmes' preferred mixture - seven-per-cent cocaine, ninety-three-per-cent water). In a fit of paranoia, Holmes (Nicol Williamson) locks himself in his study and informs Dr. Watson (Robert Duvall) that the nefarious Professor Moriarty (Laurence Olivier) is plotting to kill him. The befuddled Moriarty appeals to Watson, confused to why he is the source of threatening letters and being stalked by Holmes. Watson and Mycroft Holmes (Charles Gray) conspire to trick the detective into visiting Vienna, home of famous psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (Alan Arkin). During treatment, Holmes, Watson, and Freud become embroiled in a kidnapping scheme involving Lola Deveraux (Vanessa Redgrave), a former patient of Freud and mistress of Baron von Leinsdorf (Jeremy Kemp).

The Seven-Per-Cent Solution is meant to be a comedy - at least, IMDB indicates that alongside "adventure" and "crime" - although you wouldn't really know it for long stretches of the film. While it does open promising that "the story is true - only the facts have been made up," the film teeters between wry and serious. I can understand chuckling at the voice-over from Watson; it relays, in a clever fashion, where this adventure fits in with other Holmes adventures**. The voice-over, which I would suspect Meyer lifted directly from his novel, disappears shortly after Holmes and Watson arrive in Vienna, and the humorous elements could easily be taken as serious, compounded by a shift in tone near the end of the film (more on this below). Whether we're supposed to find Lowenstein (Joel Grey)'s horror at a dead nun funny or not is up to you.

After seeing the film in totality, I was surprised how much Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes borrows from The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, particularly the beginning and ending. The erratic, unpredictable-but-nevertheless-brilliant Holmes bounces around London, confounding Watson, hiding in the bushes, disguised, and generally making life difficult for his compatriots. In this film, the blame lies centrally in his cocaine abuse, but the "manic" Holmes of Ritchie's film is manifest in Nicol Williamson's performance. The stoic, slightly annoyed Watson is less apparently embodied in Robert Duvall, but I must admit I was slightly distracted by his accent, which shifted between bad and laughable (the voice-overs are the worst)***.

Late in the film, after Sigmund Freud's role becomes as perfunctory as Jack the Ripper's in Murder By Decree, the trail of clues gives way to the sort of action 2009's Sherlock Holmes is criticized for: there's a car train chase, a gun fight that becomes a sword fight which inexplicably moves from inside a train car to on top of the train, Sigmund Freud providing the inspiration for Liam Neeson in Taken (I only wish I was kidding), and a moment which I must assume was meant to be clever but is instead painfully stupid (it involves axes and a superfluous train car).

This sequence is followed, unfortunately, by a radical shift in tone, brought about by a need to justify Sigmund Freud's presence in the film (his "treatment" earlier in the narrative merely consists of hypnotizing Holmes while the detective detoxes), and a final hypnosis session ham-handedly tries to explain away Holmes' mistrust of women, his addiction, his choice of profession, and his suspicion of Professor Moriarty. To say much more would spoil the end of the film, but it culminates in an abrupt and brutal flashback that robs the film of its lighthearted tone. Then again, the film also attempts to shoehorn in an eleventh-hour romance angle for no reason.

Unfortunately, despite being well-acted (if not well-accented), The Seven-Per-Cent Solution is too disjointed to be effective as a film. Like its 2009 descendant, the film is all over the map tonally: partly comic, somewhat sleuth-centric, sporadically dark, and unnecessarily action-heavy with a dash of religious overtones. Guy Ritchie's take on Holmes at least balances the disparate elements and settles to entertain, but if you're looking for a funny non-canonical Sherlock Holmes film, might I direct you towards Without a Clue, which is funnier and has a better mystery. Like Murder By Decree, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution is a curio, a diversion, the sort of "Sherlock Holmes meets ___" mashup which is periodically in vogue, but not much more.


* Many of you know Meyers better for his involvement in Star Trek's II, IV, and VI or, as most people like to call them, "the good ones."
** At the outset, the film identifies itself as what "really" happened when Holmes "died" in The Final Problem: Watson apparently fabricated Holmes' death while the detective snuck away to combat his addiction.
*** For the record, Alan Arkin's accent is less laughable, although not particularly good.

The Cap'n: Debunker of Rumours.

Every few months, I hear one of the two statements about my movie viewing habits:

1. You didn't see that? I thought you saw everything!

2. Well, of course _____ sounds bad. Everything you show at (fill in the blank) Fest is bad.


or some variation thereof. When hit with both in the course of two days, it seemed like I needed to once again step up and dispel some assumptions about what I watch, what I show others, and other erroneous assertions made about the Cap'n.

The first assumption is fair, and goes along with the theory proposed last week about what non-cinephiles think that "film geeks" do with their time: watch everything. The truth of the matter is that I have neither the time, the money, nor the inkling to watch every single movie that comes out. I can't even see all of the critically well regarded films, though I do keep track of them, bookmark reviews so I don't forget they exist, and hope that I remember when the DVD or Blu Ray comes out so I can add it to an already lengthy Netflix queue.

As it is, I see as much as I can, where I can and when I can, but I'm just like you "normals": I have other concerns that occupy my time, I have the same mundane day-to-day tasks to deal with. I fit in movies late at night, or in small doses so that I have something to write about (which also takes time). While I'd love to be able to wander from theatre to theatre and soak in everything, then head to the video store (supposing they exist anymore) and rent every old title in stock to accompany the new releases I picked up, I can't do that. Yet. When I can, I'll let you know.

I also read, which may or may not come as a surprise (I don't really know what you assume the Cap'n does with his spare time), not always about film, but in reasonable doses. I find that if I ever want to pursue an education and career writing about film, I should soak up as much information as humanly possible about the aspects of cinema I find interesting, so the texts range from academic theory, compendiums of interviews with directors, writers, actors, and editors about process, work by other critics I admire, the occasional bio or autobiography, and one or two movie guides to use in order to find something I haven't heard of - and that tends to be plenty.

To address the second comment (which the first dovetails nicely into), I openly admit that the "about" blurb on the right side of the page says "trash savant," which implies that the Cap'n is knowledgeable about a certain type of film, one that others might hold their nose while walking past were the metaphor extended to food rather than cinema. I understand that, and it is true that that is a facet of what I watch, show, and discuss. It's also true that the Cap'n has a term coined in his honor: the "Trappening," a deliberate misleading of friends to come over and watch a movie only to show them something horrible (named for my devilish enjoyment of M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening and the dirty trick I played on everyone during Horror Fest III).

Somehow these facts, coupled with Bad Movie Night - an appropriation of what my brother and his friends do for each of their birthdays - has given people the strange notion that this is ALL the Cap'n is interested in. Yes, I take a certain amount of pride in finding the obscure and rightfully forgotten films for festivals; more often than not, those are the films that unite the audience and energize them between films with slower pacing or that are less easy to react to. The atmosphere created by a "party" movie can lift the group up and continue momentum over the night, as many fest attendees will attest to.

Let's address the main point for a moment, and where assumption one dovetails into assumption two: the idea that I will, or would want to, watch "everything." The second postulate goes further to assert that I will watch anything as long as it is "bad," which is demonstrably untrue. In fact, I turned the point around to the person who made it when he bemoaned how terrible Transformers 2 was. Here is a reasonable facsimile of the discussion:

Me: Now wait a minute... I never saw Transformers because it looked awful. You not only saw Transformers and hated it, but still went back and saw Transformers 2, which you knew you wouldn't like.

He: Yeah.

Me: And I'm the one who watches "bad" movies?

He: Fair point.

In the interest of full disclosure, the conversation then turned to the fact that I had seen Michael Bay's The Island, which I didn't like, in part because it sounded exactly like Parts: The Clonus Horror, a film I only knew existed because of Mystery Science Theater 3000. If you want to negate my point, there's your opportunity. I also mentioned an interest in seeing the 1989 film Red Scorpion, starring Dolph Lundgren, which was met with some derision.

Red Scorpion may well be a terrible movie; in fact, I've seen no kind words written about it, but my reasons for seeing it have nothing to do with the "quality" of the film. My interest in seeing Red Scorpion, like my interest in The Island, has to do with its place among other films. That the existence of Red Scorpion is one of the most surprising things in a film as revelatory as Casino Jack and the United States of Money spoke to me. I had no idea that lobbyist Jack Abramoff dabbled as a Hollywood producer, and this apocryphal piece of film history makes seeing Red Scorpion worth the diversion into "bad" movie territory.

Every now and then, I'll get a wild hair and watch something like Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li or s. Darko or, yes, Death Bed: The Bed That Eats, and despite the fact that the first two reviews appeared with the caveat SO YOU WON'T HAVE TO, people seem to think that I only seek these movies out. Yes, they're easy to describe and the reviews are often memorable because I go out of my way to describe the lunacy and ineptitude on display, but it isn't the only thing I write about.

The fact that I enjoy the loopy, nonsensical narrative of Death Bed and its novel, totally unexpected way of having the bed "eat", or the fact that Hillbillys in a Haunted House delivers nothing the title promises (but is still charming in a stupid, earnest manner), does not mean that I'm only going to program those films at festivals. What I run into by the time you get to 8 official "fests" is the risk of repeating yourself too much and running out of films that are going to surprise people. So I take risks - some pay off, like the deliriously offensive Blood Car and ThanksKilling, and some don't, like the turgid Matango or the lifeless Navy vs. the Night Monsters.

Do I sometimes relish in how much you hate these films? Yes, at times; I never said the Cap'n was sadistic, but many of you keep coming back knowing that there's a 50/50 chance things could not work. They can't all be as woefully pathetic and hysterical as The Giant Claw, after all. I appreciate your willingness to venture into uncharted territory with me, but by this point I had hoped more people would realize that's not all that makes up the Cap'n.

If not, then maybe "Good Movie Night" would be fun, if a bit redundant conceptually. Beats me; I just thought you were already watching those without my involvement. Am I assuming too much?

Quick Review - Val Lewton: The Man in the Shadows

Forgive the brevity of this review, but Val Lewton: The Man in the Shadows is a captivating glance into the working process of what can best be described an auteur producer, a man of whom there is no audio, no home movies, but who influenced horror in a more profound way than anyone not named James Whale or Tod Browning. Val Lewton's inventive approaches to overcome budget limitations resulted in hypnotic, uncanny, and suggestively disturbing films, and The Man in the Shadows covers his story, the films, and analyzes themes and recurring motifs in 76 minutes - just a little longer than most of his RKO pictures.

Narrated by Martin Scorsese (who also "presents" the film above the title), Kent Jones' The Man in the Shadows begins with the regime change in RKO that effectively sullied Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons forever. In the wake of this shift, however, RKO also decided they wanted to compete with Universal's successful horror division. They hired a script editor and assistant of David O. Selznick, Val Lewton. Lewton, the child of Russian immigrants, was raised by his mother (a script editor) and aunt (a star of stage and film), and the film hints the impact of their upbringing has something to do with the female protagonists of most of his films.

When he joined RKO, the creatively frustrated Lewton decided to build his own team to make "A pictures with B budgets," so he brought in director Jacques Tourneur, editors Mark Robson and Robert Wise in order to make the best of hectic schedules and little money - a run that included Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie, The Seventh Victim, and The Leopard Man. The result, as The Man in the Shadows examines film by film, are ethereal, suggestive films where characters wander into danger rather than recoiling in terror. His working relationship with Boris Karloff in Isle of the Dead, The Body Snatcher, and Bedlam are given ample examination, particularly into the question of how much "horror" really exists in the horror films. The documentary also covers his two non-horror films at RKO (Mademoiselle Fifi and Youth Runs Wild), before briefly covering the change in regime that swept Lewton (like Welles before him) out, and his troubled period of bouncing from studio to studio prior to his death at age 46.

Because there is no footage of Lewton, or audio recordings, excerpts from his correspondences with studio executives are read by Elias Koteas, the only glimpse into the mind of a man highly critical of his own work. The documentary also includes interviews with Robert Wise, film historians Alexander Nemerov and Geoffrey O'Brien, psychologist Dr. Glen Gabbard, Lewton's son, and admirers Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Pulse, Cure) and producer Roger Corman. Much of the interview footage is devoted to exploring themes, rather than specific technique, of delving into Lewton's melancholic stories and uncanny subtexts, and the film could be regarded as much a psychological sketch of the producer as it is a Hollywood narrative. The documentary is never dull, and feels greater than its slight running time might suggest.

A word of warning: the documentary features a considerable number of clips from Lewton produced films, including scenes that are more than likely going to spoil Cat People and I Walked with a Zombie for first time viewers, as well as giving away major plot points in Curse of the Cat People, Isle of the Dead, and Bedlam. I'm not sure how many horror fans that don't know who Lewton is (or, more importantly, haven't seen many of these films) are going to seek out a documentary about his impact on horror, but I advise you save The Man in the Shadows until after watching at least I Walked with a Zombie, Cat People, and The Seventh Victim. The films are all worth your time and will only enhance watching what is already a fine documentary.

Retro Review: Night of the Living Dead (30th Anniversay Recut)

(editor's note: if you somehow arrived here looking for Tom Savini's 1990 remake of Night of the Living Dead, please follow this link.)


Ugh. You should know things aren't going to be pretty when the first (and most accurate) description of a film is "ugh." Can one even begin a review with an "ugh"? Have I basically assured you this is less a "review" and more "evisceration"? Is that apropos of "proper" film criticism, or have I already guaranteed that the term "proper" has no place in a "blogorium"? Oh well, Retro Reviews are designed to be more, *ahem*, informal than typical reviews here. After all, these are as much about reflection as they are about assessing the film on its relative merits.

Wait, I still have to assess the 1998 John Russo recut, 100% free of Romero input and it shows of Night of the Living Dead on its own merits? By "its own merits," I hope that means I can dispense with a recap of Night of the Living Dead - if you, for some reason, haven't seen George Romero's Night of the Living Dead, then the edited "special edition" created by its writer for the film's 30th Anniversary won't mean a thing to you. Even if you have seen it, it probably won't mean a thing to you, but this review is going to focus exclusively on what Russo was attempting to do, how it impacts the original film, and why it is this version of the film (mercifully) drifted into obscurity because of how readily available copies of Night of the Living Dead are.

The first thing you should know if you've never seen the 30th Anniversary Edition of Night of the Living Dead is that John A. Russo, the writer of the film, is perfectly aware there was no copyright on the original film. Romero is aware too, but he's content on simply continuing the story of the "dead" despite the decline in quality as he presses onward. Russo, on the other hand, had bigger plans, ones that bear the particular stench associated with "Star Wars Special Editions," released one year earlier. And this time, Russo slaps that copyright on twice, just so we're clear that this version of NOTLD isn't public domain.


Russo opts to drop 15 minutes of footage (a great compendium of what's missing here) and replace it with 15 minutes of his own, newly shot prologue, flashback, and epilogue material, none of which has any bearing on the original film's beginning, middle, or ending. Newly shot material tends to have this effect, like inserting Boba Fett into an existing (albeit previously unfinished) Jabba the Hutt sequence from A New Hope.

The Night of the Living Dead 30th Anniversary's new footage comes courtesy of Russo's decision to provide backstory for Bill Hinzman's "cemetery zombie": instead of simply being a ghoul that Johnny and Barbra mistake for a graveyard visitor, he's now an executed child murderer being buried in an unmarked grave, which allows for seven minutes of two gravediggers (Grant Cramer and Adam Knox) yammering with a Prison Guard (Scott Kerschbaumer), the family of the murdered child (George Drennen and Julie Wallace Deklavon), and the Reverend Hicks (Scott Vladimir Licina), before Hinzman's coffin is opened and he rises from the dead. Apparently, there's enough time for the gravediggers to escape before Johnny and Barbra arrive, although their truck leaving cuts immediately to their arrival.


I'm going to focus on Reverend Hicks, because Licina's character carries over into two of the other three major additions: a TV interview with Hicks where a zombie bites him on the cheek, and a "One Year Later" epilogue where the Reverend claims he didn't turn because he was "chosen by God" and that the living dead are "demons from hell" the righteous can (and will) overcome. But wait, Ben (Duane Jones) is still killed, only the nihilistic closing is replaced by Reverend Hicks providing a "happy ending."

Licina also wrote a new "score" for this version of Night of the Living Dead, a term I use loosely since it consists entirely of the same keyboard "theme" repeated ad nauseum that manages to rob the film of any suspense it had. Gone is the sparse, hopeless, background of Night of the Living Dead; in its place, a laughable "goth" soundtrack you'd expect to hear tacked on to a Public Domain release of Nosferatu. It doesn't help that Licina sticks out like a sore thumb in the new version: Russo does a perfunctory job of trying to make his new cast look like they existed in 1968, but Licina's Anton LeVay look-alike pulls viewers back into the late 1990s:


Not only is Russo's new dialogue terrible, but the amateurish acting (and terrible ADR while the gravediggers are driving) fail to salvage any of the hackneyed conversations about how "it ain't right" that Hinzman should be buried in a cemetery for "what he done." Worst of all is Licina's Reverend Hicks, and his final, asinine monologue about how "through me, a miracle has been worked*" that not only undermines Night of the Living Dead's bleak atmosphere, but is so stupid, so out of left field, that one wonders what Russo had in mind when he wrote it.


The other addition to the film isn't a negative or a positive, but an unneeded sidestep into flashback territory, ostensibly to include more "zombie" action and half-heartedly bridge the original film with the newly tacked on ending. After Ben recounts the "gas station" encounter with the dead, he barricades the farmhouse while a radio broadcast plays describing an attack nearby, and Russo cuts away to show the undead coming back to life and shuffling around, including a "waitress" zombie:


that is inserted into "crowd" shots outside of the farmhouse later before being killed during Reverend Hicks' attack. It serves no other purpose than to provide more gore, give a few more friends and family of Russo the opportunity to play "living dead" on camera, and removes the audience from the claustrophobic house.

I realize that it's cruel to attack a writer for wanting to go back and revisit a screenplay he co-wrote and make changes, but like The Version You've Never Seen of The Exorcist (which followed two years later) sometimes the director got it right the first time. The 30th Anniversary Edition of Night of the Living Dead serves no purpose, frequently cuts away from the main action for no reason, and tacks on moralizing prologues and epilogues with characters who have nothing to do with the story. It's a total waste of time. Say what you will about Tom Savini's 1990 remake of Night of the Living Dead (I happen to be a fan), but I assure you the Russo re-jiggering is the nadir.

For a while, Anchor Bay's release of the 30th Anniversary Edition was the biggest game in town on VHS and DVD: it had a wider release than most fly-by-night Public Domain copies of Night of the Living Dead, was better publicized, and claimed to have both versions of the film on the disc (it didn't, as the "original" version still had Licina's score overlaying on the soundtrack). Thankfully, Elite Home Entertainment released two better versions of Night of the Living Dead on DVD (one of which was the much lauded Millienium Edition), followed by a higher profile DVD release of the film designed to coincide with Dimension's release of Diary of the Dead on home video. These days, it's much easier to find any of those versions than the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad 30th Anniversary recut.

In fact, I'm going to slap a So You Won't Have To on this review as well, because there's no reason anyone should ever subject themselves to this garbage.

Ugh.


* actual quote.

Blogorium Review: All the Boys Love Mandy Lane

All the Boys Love Mandy Lane is a refreshingly good "teen" slasher film from 2006 that has, for reasons unclear to most, yet to see release in the U.S. in theatres or home video. The Weinstein Company acquired the film, released it overseas, and then sat on it, presumably indefinitely, for stateside distribution. This is a shame as its star, Amber Heard (Pineapple Express, Zombieland, Drive Angry) is on the rise, and the film itself is head and shoulders above the remake heavy, PG-13 friendly films that pass as "horror" these days.

Mandy Lane (Heard) is a junior in high school and the subject of many a high school fantasy for members of the opposite sex. Her friend Emmet (Michael Welch) seems to be resigned to his status, but when his jealous head games accidentally kill Dylan (Adam Powell), a wedge is driven between Mandy and Emmet. Nine months later, Red (Aaron Himelstein) invites Mandy to join his friends Jake (Luke Grimes), Chloe (Whitney Able), Bird (Edwin Hodge), and Marlin (Melissa Price) at his father's ranch, and Mandy, feeling lonely, agrees to join them. No sooner have they arrived than someone begins picking off the students, one by one. Is it the mysterious ranch hand Garth (Anson Mount)? A jealous Emmet? Or did Dylan really die when he jumped off the roof and missed his pool?

Aside from being a well made slasher film, one that actually builds some suspense and doesn't fixate on elaborate traps or outlandish kills, the cast is actually pretty good (what a novelty!) and doesn't grate the nerves in ways that recent teen-centered horror tends to. Every character has an arc (of sorts) that plays out during the film, one centered around a particular insecurity that is, if nothing else, a step above the slasher archetypes: stoner, jock, mysterious stranger, asshole, slut, and ethnic stereotype. Oh, and "Final Girl." Mind you, all of the characters map on to these types in a superficial level, but All the Boys Love Mandy Lane actually allows them to interact and, y'know, grow a little instead of just getting knocked off*.

There's also an efficiency in the storytelling that's refreshing: the standard "why phones don't work" or "why they don't just drive off" are handled in passing, but logical ways, and the film takes place over the course of one night in a remote location with enough space to separate the kids when egos are bruised.

What really sets the All the Boys Love Mandy Lane apart from films of its ilk (think the Sorority Row or Black Christmas or Friday the 13th remakes) is the way director Jonathan Levine and writer Jacob Forman shift the trope of "Final Girl" almost immediately. Mandy Lane is objectified before we've even been introduced to the character proper - this is the first shot of Amber Heard in the film:


The "Final Girl," a trope as old as slasher films, is almost never the subject of the male gaze, and as Mandy Lane walks down the hall of her school, she has the undivided attention of, well, all the boys, as well as some of the girls. Mandy Lane is an atypical "Final Girl"; her virginity is seen as something to be conquered by nearly every male character in the film, and each of them, regardless of the peril surrounding them, all use their best pick up line in order to have "first dibs."

Without spoiling too much, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane also deviates from the slasher formula by unequivocally identifying the killer halfway into the film, removing certain ambiguities but raising others as it moves towards an unexpected ending (even if you figure out the "twist" providing you want to call it that, the manner in which it plays out pleasantly surprised me). The very end, I suspect, is one reason that audiences are split on the film, because it takes the "Final Girl" one step further and forces you to re-evaluate the way horror audiences typically engage with their characters.

In all honesty, I have no idea when you're going to be able to see All the Boys Love Mandy Lane domestically: an import of the UK Blu Ray (all regions) and (region 2) DVD are listed on Amazon for reasonable prices, but if you're looking to rent before you buy, I don't really know how to help you. Since the film has a rather polarizing ending that I hesitate to spoil, you might want to sit patiently and keep your eyes peeled and ears open. It's worth the wait, I think.


* Members of the cast other than Amber Heard have moved on to appear in movies you would be able to see, by the way: Whitney Able is in the well received Monsters from last year; Michael Welch is, apparently, a semi-major character in the Twilight films; Edwin Hodge will be in the forthcoming remake of Red Dawn, and Luke Grimes went on to pick up a recurring role in ABC's Brothers and Sisters.

A Question Even the Cap'n Can't Answer (?)

Here's a question for the casual reader, the fan of movies who doesn't consider themselves to be a "cinephile" or a "film geek": have you ever asked one of your friends (one that does fall into the two categories listed above) what their favorite movie was, only to regret asking what you thought was a simple question after they took far too long to name one movie, or worse, went off on a rambling tangent about the impossibility to "ranking" favorite movies?

It's happened; I know it has. I've been the guilty party who sat there too long in silence, mulling over the options - do I name something that I'm sure everyone has seen, something that is both a consensus "great movie" and actually is a joy to watch? Do I go left field and name something I know you haven't seen, in a combination of "impressing you with my obscure film knowledge" and "turning you on to something you wouldn't hear of otherwise"? Do I go with a movie that has a bum rap, that most people assume is bad because they heard it from someone who heard it from someone who read a bad review? Do I go with a sentimental choice, something I can appeal to on a basic emotional level, one that doesn't need a pointless, intellectualized persuasive argument?

Let's take a look at the combination "obscure film knowledge" and "turning you on to new movies" for a second, because there's a reason that temptation exists beyond ego stroking: by the point in time someone is willing to commit to a life of film theory / history / studies, it's clear to the people around them that this goes beyond a leisurely pastime. It's a passion, a need to learn more than most audiences will ever want to know, and it changes the way that the average film-goer behaves around you. More often than not, people ask me what movies I've seen that "are really good" or "are your favorites" because they want the Cap'n to go beyond the surface level, to exercise that fanaticism in a useful manner.

At the same time, I realize how frustrating it is to walk into that potential landmine, that most irritating of conversation killers. On one hand, you want to engage your "film geek" friend in conversation in a way that stimulates their interests, but on the other, you run the risk of letting them hijack the social atmosphere by hemming and hawing, letting someone else talk, and then abruptly jump in and begin dragging everyone into their world, their way of thinking, until the inevitable lapse into relativism of "well, they're all great to me."

The film "geek" and the "cinephile" belong to an insular lot, a group used to conversing in their own shorthand, where half a film quote is enough to get the point across about an entire genre or a director's entire body of work can be summed up by turning their last name into an adjective (for example, Lynchian*). It's not that deciding on a "favorite movie" is difficult, per se, but rather that inside of our little pockets of obsession, no one ever asks that question. There is an understood (albeit shifting) canon of cinema that need not be discussed regularly, that can remain unspoken until someone raises an innocent question.

At that moment, we're forced outside of a self-perpetuated comfort zone, one that allows us the freedom of criticizing other "Best Of" lists without being held accountable to our own personal lists (and we have them, even if we don't tell each other). It's a nasty trapping of fostering and becoming reliant on our cabal of film geekery - one that I as much as anyone else is guilty of. When I put together "Five Movies" lists, I spend an agonizingly extended period of time trying to find a balance of the factors from earlier, further compounded by the fact that the Blogorium attracts both kinds of film fans.

To close this out on a constructive, positive note, and to avoid the typical relativistic quibbling that would otherwise occur, here are some of my favorite movies, in no particular order: The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Blues Brothers, Sunset Boulevard, Down by Law, The Last Detail, Night and the City, The Americanization of Emily, Blood Car, Apocalypse Now, Mary Poppins, Eraserhead, Touch of Evil, Pinocchio, The Third Man, Psycho, Moon, The Wizard of Oz, Shaun of the Dead, Dazed and Confused, Day for Night, Throne of Blood, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, A History of Violence, Ghostbusters, The Virgin Spring, Murder By Death, Le Samourai, Mona Lisa, Back to the Future, Redbelt, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Taxi Driver, Miller's Crossing, and Brazil.

Am I leaving things out? Oh yeah, but so it goes. Maybe you know every movie on that list; maybe you don't. It's always nice to turn people on to new films, just as it is to be turned on to something I never knew existed, so much so that I devoted whole chunks of programming in Summer and Horror Fests solely for that purpose. But that list is a good start, if you're just curious about film, it might turn you on and tune you in to new possibilities. That's a good start.

I hope I didn't take up too much of your time. For now.



* What would Lynchian be? Oblique, disturbing, vaguely esoteric assemblages of themes and imagery designed to confound the audience and prompt them to engage in heavy discussion after the film ends.

Blogorium Review: Black Swan

(Sorry to do this, but by necessity this review is going to delve into SPOILERS)

I warn you now that this review is going to discuss Black Swan in great detail; it is not a short review, because Black Swan is not the sort of film that someone would want to explore with brevity. Suffice it to say that if emotionally wrenching, relentlessly bleak, psychologically and viscerally disturbing films are up your alley, you should be buying your ticket to the film right now. Everything you've heard about Natalie Portman is true, and you will not be disappointed. Once you've finished the film, please come back and join me after the following (perfunctory) synopsis.

Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) is an up and coming dancer in a New York ballet company living with her over judgmental mother Erica (Barbara Hershey), a dancer who gave up her dreams while pregnant with Nina, and who keeps her daughter in a perpetual state of adolescence. Nina pushes harder impress Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel), the troupe's director, who announces that star performer Beth Macintyre (Winona Ryder) is "retiring," Nina auditions for the dual roles White and Black Swan in Leroy's reworked version of Swan Lake. Thomas feels her perfectionism is ideal for the White Swan, but the emotionally unstable Nina is too reserved to embody the Black Swan, and he begins looking at Lily (Mila Kunis), a new dancer with the company. Can Nina become both roles, and truly embody the Swan Queen, or will her neuroses get the better of her?

One cannot accuse Darren Aronofsky of subtlety, but that should not mean that Black Swan suffers from being direct in its presentation of an emotionally unstable young woman pushed well beyond a reasonable comfort zone. Black Swan is a film littered with mirror imagery, of doppelgängers, and color coded thematic shifts. The film is rich with imagery with which to interpret, although at times obvious visual metaphors appear (for example, Nina's mother always wears black, Lily always wears dark grey of light black, Thomas wears a combination of the two, and Nina begins the film wearing all white and slowly transitions to black clothing by the end of the film; you figure out what's going on there).

That being said, the film is quite reserved for the first half, only hinting at the depths of Nina's psychosis, of her repressed "state," with ambiguous visual clues in reflections - the film is quite seriously littered with mirrors, in almost every scene - but Aronofsky shows restraint early on, only going "over-the-top" in a dream sequence towards the end of the film. Everything else is designed around the physical punishment of dancing, of injuries both real and perceived, like a cracked toenail or Nina's tendency to scratch at her shoulder blades.

Her state of doubt, of the need to be "perfect" is understandable considering the environment she finds herself in - the aloof Thomas, her mother prevents doors from being locked and paints portraits of Nina as a child, the potential threat from other members of the troupe, all of whom are more bitter than supportive. It's no wonder that Beth walked into traffic when she learned that this season would be her last - Thomas left her with no negotiating tactic but the fragility of her body.

Black Swan is a bleak, unforgiving film; Aronofsky, with writers Mark Heyman, Andres Heinz, and John J. McLaughlin, have spectacular actors to carry out this relentlessly dark film. Natalie Portman is a sight to behold as Nina, a young woman on the cusp of stardom, wracked with doubts, perceived guilt, and a desire to be perfect at the expense of her own sanity. Portman keeps Nina's calm veneer up long enough that the audience forgets we are only watching the story from her perspective, her interpretation. She guides us along the "did we see that or didn't we" moments, along every implied contact, every askew glance, without ever allowing the audience to objectively judge Nina.

It's important to view other performances with respect to that fact that, in its construction, Black Swan is only ever about Nina. It's only how Nina sees the world, which is why so much of our introductory time with her is spent from the camera placed behind her head. Mila Kunis embraces every aspect of Lily, the temptress, the seductive siren, the glory thief, the reckless youth, and balances them all in such a way that no one side of her ever seems to be the "true" Lily (save for - perhaps - a small moment near the end of the film), but only the "Lily" that Nina sees.

Barbara Hershey is brutal as Erica Sayers, who micro-manages Nina's actions to dangerous levels, insisting on treating her like a child, cutting her nails, and emotionally blackmailing her (Erica buys Nina a cake, and when Nina panics with weight issues, her mother threatens to throw the entire cake out, saying "then it's garbage.") She critiques Nina but then hints her daughter can't handle the pressure, and when Nina lashes out - to what degree we aren't sure, as reality begins to bleed into fantasy at this point in the film - Erica collapses.

Vincent Cassel plays Thomas as imposing, as distant, and to Nina in search of "perfect," but not the perfect she seeks. His advances, suggested by nearly every other dancer, appear less as predatory and more as emotionally manipulative with Cassel - he is as dangerous to Nina as her mother, but not in the way other dancers expect. Winona Ryder doesn't make much of an impression as Beth, and she's not supposed to. Beth's actions are more important to Nina's story - Nina idolizes Beth, and steals he things in an attempt to be more like her - but Ryder has an ultimately thankless job to carry out. But none of these characters are designed to be fully realized, or even archetypal (which they are not, for the most part); they are meant to be concepts of people imposed onto human beings by Nina's psyche, like the leering old man on the subway train or her random "hook up"'s at the club with Lily.

Aronofsky does something very interesting with the staging of Swan Lake; rather than presenting the ballet as its own section (as another film I'll mention below does), he keeps the camera held tightly on Nina as she dances (and Portman, who studied ballet, is certainly doing all or almost all of it), showing us the audience, backstage, and at times, the stage from a front view. Swan Lake is only important to see as she sees it, as is in keeping with the rest of Black Swan.

I must admit that I was hesitant to see the film. After months of positive "buzz," a handful of very negative reviews swayed me by appealing to an esoteric vein of cinephilia: Black Swan had a bit of a critical backlash online because of Aronofsky's "artistic repetition" - borrowing heavily from other, less known, sources: there's a dash of Polanski's Repulsion (the often claustrophobic shot composition), a healthy dab of DePalma's Carrie (the mother daughter dynamic), more than a little bit of Sisters (Nina's "dark side" emerging during sexual encounters), and a hint of Bergman's Persona (how much of Lily is Lily and how much of her is a projection of Nina?). The elephant in the room, the "lift" cited with the most frequency, is Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's The Red Shoes.

The Red Shoes comparison comes with good reason: the films are thematically identical, narrative-ly similar stories of obsession within the world of ballet, centered around one performance that defines the ingenue, but which will bleed over into reality and destroy them. Both films break characters down into a series of triangles - in The Red Shoes, the primary example is Julian / Victoria / Boris, and in Black Swan, you can choose between Nina / Thomas / Lily, Nina / Thomas / Beth, or Nina / Erica / Lily (or Thomas, the catalyst for the Nina pushing away from her mother). Black Swan and The Red Shoes also end in remarkably similar ways, with their respective heroines "possessed" by the spirit of the ballet, and plunging to their "death"s. They are, nevertheless, very different, as I will explain.

While Black Swan is reminiscent of The Red Shoes in essence, its execution is where the films differ, and why many people (including the Cap'n) are able to shake off cries of "copycat!" Aronofsky, in a movie that sets Black Swan apart from many of its cinematic ancestors, opts to shoot a psychological thriller in the same manner he presented The Wrestler to the world: in hand-held photography, often following Natalie Portman from behind or holding closely to her face. Shots away from Nina tend to resemble candid, documentary-esque shot composition. The lighting is designed to appear natural, as though captured from actual sources (lamps, street lights, car headlights).

The artifice is stripped down, so that Nina's descent is gradual, its effects more disturbing. Aronofsky relies on digital trickery slowly but surely in the film, mostly in the films many shots of mirrors, but also on the injuries Nina endures early on - scratches, cracked toenails, tears around fingernails - the cumulative effect of which is far more unnerving than later, less subtle moments of digital manipulation (the legs in particular). Black Swan tends to go off the rails near the end - especially during the dream sequence in Nina's room - but its reckless abandon near the end is tempered by the slow build of body horror earlier on.

The visceral nature of Black Swan reminded me of another film I hesitated to include above: David Cronenberg's remake of The Fly. The moments are fleeting, often misleading hints of more serious injury than actually exist, but one can draw a line from Seth Brundle removing his fingernail to Nina peeling too much loose skin from her finger (if only imagined), or another moment in a dream when something finally emerges from her shoulder blades. The "literal" transformation into the black swan during Nina's performance is, however, something I would not point out as a parallel necessarily - the moment is almost certainly within her mind, as is the dream that opens the film and the "wound" that may or may not have "killed" her at the end. The body fascination, the metamorphosis (including the webbing of toes), is nevertheless an echo of Cronenberg's "Body" period.

The other critical distinction between the two films is that The Red Shoes is a melodrama, a story of love complicating perfection, of obsession that consumes the heart and forces Victoria to choose between her love (Julian) and her passion (ballet, embodied by Boris). There is no romance in Black Swan, only obsession; Nina is utterly incapable of "letting go" of her desire not to be the best dancer, but to be perfect. Her perpetual emotional arrested development (fostered by her mother, a failed dancer) causes her to bottle up raw emotion, and her doppelgänger, the "black swan" Nina that emerges at moments of doubt, of ecstasy, ultimately consumes here. Black Swan dances around sex, but not in romantic terms; sex is a weapon in Black Swan, a tool to drive wedges between people, to unleash a primitive darkness, and more often than not, to disrupt Nina's ability to engage with others beyond a surface level.

I look back at Black Swan, only a few days after seeing it, impressed by the approach taken by Aronofsky, who could have easily embraced a wilder aesthetic in the film (as he did with The Fountain or Requiem for a Dream), but instead chose to filter a psychological study through the grounded reality of The Wrestler - of which there are a number of parallels film students might want to consider looking into, least of all being how each ends - with mostly successful results. I am not generally in awe of a film, let alone one that demands the viewer watch it again; for every clear and obvious visual metaphor, there are a half dozen or so subtle moments that merit further inspection. While Black Swan is certainly the product of fine cinematic antecedents, do not take that to mean it cannot stand on its own; I assure you, it does.

Retro Review: The Goonies (on VHS)

Today's Retro Review is going to be a little bit different, in that I'll be reviewing the experience of watching The Goonies on VHS as much as (if not more than) the film itself. There are a handful of VCRs in the temporary headquarters for the Blogorium, and the Cap'n has been taking advantage of a large collection of cassette tapes I haven't played in years. For what it's worth, I do actually have a copy of The Goonies on Blu Ray, and it would be easy to review that, but in the spirit of this series, let's take a look at an analog version*.

The Goonies are a gang of kids that live in the "Goondocks," a neighborhood in Astoria, Oregon, consisting of Mikey Walsh (Sean Astin), his older brother Brand (Josh Brolin), "Mouth" (Corey Feldman), "Data" (Ke Huy Quan), and "Chunk" (Jeff Cohen), who are preparing for relocation as the neighborhood is scheduled to be demolished and replaced with a golf course. While digging through Mikey's attic, they discover a treasure map and doubloon that point to the long lost treasure of "One Eyed Willie" a pirate from the 17th century. The boys incapacitate Brand and head out, only to find the path to treasure is blocked by booby traps, and obstacles natural and man made. Brand catches up to the boys with Andy Carmichael (Keri Green) and Stef Steinbrenner (Martha Plimpton) in tow, but they aren't the only ones searching for "One Eyed Willie"'s treasure - the Fratelli family (Ann Ramsey, Joe Pantoliano, and Robert Davi) are in hot pursuit, having captured "Chunk" and locking him in with the Fratelli's youngest, the monster "Sloth" (John Matsuzak).

I've always been willing to overlook The Goonies many logic lapses (and there are plenty if you try to follow the story carefully) and simply enjoy Richard Donner, Chris Columbus, and Steven Spielberg's treasure hunt for its whirlwind pacing and ability to install a sense of awe in what could be just another "kids' movie." Donner, who had previously directed The Omen and Superman and would later make The Lethal Weapon series, is an underrated visual storyteller able to make otherwise inauspicious films imminently watchable.

I'm not sure quite how to dole out the credit between Columbus (who wrote the film and would go on to direct) and Spielberg (who came up with the story and was executive producer, part of the 1985 productions that included Back to the Future, Gremlins, and Young Sherlock Holmes) but I tend to defer to Donner for recurring jokes (like the inability of any of the characters to pronounce words, responding to corrections with "that's what I said!") and a moment that can either be read as intertextual or self-reflexive (when Sloth tears his shirt open, revealing the Superman logo, as John Williams cues the theme from Donner's film).

The VHS experience changes watching The Goonies considerably: Donner shot the film in "scope" (2.35:1), and the cropping is severe. It's one thing to describe the image shift, but here's an extra from the Die Hard DVD that will show you exactly what happens, and then I'll join you on the other side to apply this to the Goonies experience.



On a well worn VHS like the copy of The Goonies I watched, the frame is not only tighter on actors, and group scenes cropped in strange ways, but the tape had a slight fading of the image towards the middle, mixed with some distortion as the magnetic tape had degraded over time. The effect can be jarring in the era of widescreen TVs and anamorphic DVDs, but there's also a sense of nostalgia that accompanies watching a tape like this, one that won't exist for much longer.

Videocassettes were the only way to watch films when I was growing up (people born five years earlier didn't even have that); laserdiscs were too expensive and DVD didn't exist until I was in high school, so if you wanted to see a movie after it left theatres, you rented it at the local video store. Sometimes they sold used tapes, sometimes a friend might be able to make an "extra" copy if you were really lucky, but for the first ten years or so of VHS, the concept of "widescreen" didn't really exist. For people who didn't live on the west coast and have Z Channel, then movies were cropped to a 4X3 format, in order to fill up the screen of standard "square" TVs. It made sense, but it did for a very long time skew the perspective of a generation raised on VHS: every film, classic or new, fit inside the square box. Cognitively, many of us never made the connection that movie screens weren't the same size and something might be missing.

I was six when The Goonies opened, and I remember seeing the film and enjoying the kid friendly narrative with a decidedly un-kid friendly execution (Donner and Columbus display a barely hidden mean streak throughout the film, with a number of moments - like the blender and Chunk's hand or the "Truffle Shuffle" - that would never make a PG film today), and until the film was released on DVD more than fifteen years later, I'd only seen the film in its "pan and scan" iteration. There was a strange familiarity watching The Goonies on videocassette, and while I knew what was missing, the framing was conscientious enough never to disrupt Donner's visual storytelling, as it has on other films I've seen.

In all honesty, as a film geek / purist / whatever, I'm not going to suggest you hunt down a VCR and VHS copy of The Goonies - for one I already know the film is polarizing among people my age, as many people can't overlook the flaws in premise or the film's many "easy out" plot holes. Back to the Future is better constructed, Gremlins balances the light and dark elements with more flair, leaving only Young Sherlock Holmes as a film The Goonies is easily more defensible than. Like Tron, I do feel it holds up better than the "haze of nostalgia" that people assume I view childhood films in, but I freely admit that advocating for The Goonies can be an uphill battle. Watch it for yourself and decide - if you like The Monster Squad, I think it's a safe bet you'll understand why I like The Goonies.


* In the spirit of full disclosure, this is not the worn out copy of The Goonies I grew up with, but a clamshell version circa 2000/01. It still had some wear on it, so that's nice to see it was still being viewed.

Blogorium Review: The Red Shoes

The Red Shoes is a story of obsession, wrapped up in the trimmings of a good old fashioned melodrama, the kind that doesn't seem to exist any more. Nevertheless, underneath the surface of this tale of love within a ballet troupe is a much darker story, one of a need for perfection, to be legendary, the ultimately consumes its principals.

Julian Craster (Marius Goring) is a young composer attending a performance by Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook)'s ballet troupe, when he is shocked to discover that his instructor stole movements of his composition and passed them off as his own. Lermontov is bemused by Craster's accusations, but rather than advise revenge, he offers Julian a position as resident composer, and assigns him an adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson's The Red Shoes for the next season. During a social function, Lermontov is approached by Lady Neston (Irene Browne), who asks him to assess her niece, Victoria Page (Moira Shearer), an up and coming ballerina. Lermontov is unimpressed by the request, but the fiery dedication of Page to a local performance of Swan Lake sways him, and when the troupes prima ballerina Boronskaja (Ludmilla Tchérina) leaves to marry, he offers her the lead in Craster's The Red Shoes. Unfortunately for Boris, Julian and Victoria have developed a relationship of their own, something Lermontov finds antithetical to "perfection" in dance...

What has always fascinated me about The Red Shoes is the fact that Victoria, despite being the subject of the film's promotional materials, appearing on the cover of Criterion's DVD and Blu-Ray release, and generally being the focus of everyone's attention in the film, is never the central character. The film alternates between Julian Craster and Boris Lermontov - with Julian dominating the opening of the film until the focus moves almost exclusively to Boris in the second half - with Victoria appearing as the object of their dueling ideologies. Craster meets Lermontov precisely because his work was stolen, yet he then "steals" Victoria away from Boris until the maestro "steals" her back, forcing an ultimatum of love or ambition.

The film is less about romance than manipulation: Victoria Page is merely a pawn of both men, always being directed, described to, suggested to, and being forced to make life altering decisions. Her own perspective is largely ignored; there are hints that Page has doubts about her abilities, but they are generally shrugged off by Boris, Julian, and choreographer / performer Ljubov (Léonide Massine) - in one notable scene, Victoria complains that she cannot dance to the tempo Julian wrote, and he only later acquiesces and agrees to try it at her pace. Their love is discussed but swept into the background as the attention shifts toward Lermontov, who shows only disdain for his dancers leaving for "love," the ultimate corruption of potential in his mind.

A product of post-war England, The Red Shoes is a globe trotting affair, following the troupe through London, Paris, Monte Carlo, and New York (although the film was not shot in America, the other locations figure prominently into the story), and its approach is easy to mistake as "pure" melodrama - Victoria and Julian certainly appear to be the star-crossed lovers, and Boris the spurned member of their triangle, and when he wins Page back, Julian abandons his debut as a composer to try to win her back. There are moments of romance, of beautiful vistas and professions of amour, and Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's soft focus photography might fool one into thinking that The Red Shoes is merely a romance set to ballet.

While Shearer, Goring, and Walbrook are all riveting in their roles, the real star of The Red Shoes is the performance of the title ballet itself: a seemingly impossible, "how could a live audience see what the film audience is seeing" whirlwind of shifting imagery that showcases the talents of Moira Shearer and Léonide Massine. The performance, which is the central set piece of the film, plays out Hans Christian Anderson's tale - surrounding a young dancer who is sold a pair of red shoes and is unable to stop dancing until she dies - with transitions only possible in film, foreshadowing the rest of the film in an oblique manner.

Without spoiling the film too much, the ballet bleeds over into reality, with an ending that leaves audiences questioning what actually happened to Victoria. Did she choose her fate, or did the shoes? A visual trick carried over from the ballet sequence occurs immediately before the climax, and the ambiguity with which The Archers (Powell and Pressburger's nickname and production company) handle the film's final moments elevates The Red Shoes from a fine film to a classic, one that deftly avoids the simple classification of "melodrama." Too much is bubbling under the surface to merely take The Red Shoes at face value, and its influence on films to follow (from Martin Scorsese to Darren Aronofsky) is tangible to this day.

It's Never too Early to Talk About Summerfest

Some factoids about The ______ Summerfest Massacre 4:

- The Cap'n does not yet have a location to the fourth Summerfest, the home for all horror films obscure and ridiculous. Make the case for your location (preferably within driving distance for the Cap'n) and maybe I'll host it at YOUR place*!

- As it doesn't have a location, Summerfest 4 doesn't have a name yet (it was previously and may again be The Greensboro Summerfest Massacre). I also haven't honed in on a quality "sequel" name for it - Summerfest was in keeping with the Texas Chain Saw Massacre series, but that would mean this year's would be "The Next Generation," which is not only totally inappropriate but also points towards a terrible entry into the series.

I am open to suggestions for "part four" monikers, except for "In Space" because I'm saving that for Horror Fest X. The title will have an effect on the "theme" of Summerfest, so choose wisely. It doesn't have to come from a "part four" of any series (for example: Bloodlines, The Return of Michael Myers, The Dream Master, Mega Shark vs. Testicular Torsion, etc.) Actually, Cap'n Howdy vs. Giant Octopus might be a good one. We'll put up a poll of the best suggestions.

- While planning is still in the preliminary stages, I have decided on at least two "theme" nights - Blaxploitation Night and Star Trek Night.
Blaxploitation Night will include Blacula, Blackenstein, Dr. Black and Mr. Hyde, the return of Scream, Blacula, Scream, as well as any other Blaxploitation horror films the Cap'n or readers can find.

Star Trek Night is a special evening of horror or horror-related films starring former cast members of the original series. They include: Kingdom of the Spiders (William Shatner), Invasion of the Body Snatchers '78 (Leonard Nimoy), Night of the Lepus (DeForrest Kelley), and Moontrap (Walter Koenig). If you can find suitable films with James Doohan, Nichelle Nichols, or George Takei, let me know.

- I am taking suggestions for all other possible Summerfest films, but reserve the right to hold out information on any possible "Trappenings" until the night we view them. If Sharktopus is sufficiently un-crappy, I may consider its inclusion into the Fest.

The Cap'n is really looking forward to this Summerfest; coming off of a very successful Horror Fest V, I'm going to carry on the momentum and provide NC with the best possible marathons of madness, horror, and oddball cult films possible. Like Horror Fest IV, I'm going to try to include readers in on the action surrounding the films, and then plan to catch you off guard with the bizarre and arcane choices.

Be Afraid... Be VERY Afraid...




* The Cap'n tries, whenever possible, to provide snackage, beverages, the films, and transportation for attendees, so don't feel there's a responsibility on your part to cover all the bases, or even any.

A Few Thoughts on SyFy Channel Originals

If there's one thing the Cap'n gets more grief about from friends, it's my unwillingness to embrace the Syfy (née Sci-Fi) Channel Original films. "But you love schlock," they say, "this is the same kind of b-to-z grade crap they churned out in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, so where's the love?"

And it's true: I have no love for Syfy originals like Frankenfish, Mega Piranha, Raptor Island, S.S. Doomtrooper, Ice Spiders, and Grizzly Rage. Beyond that, I really don't like the more recent trend of "giant _____" films that are then combined into dreck like Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus or Dinocroc vs. Supergator (or the forthcoming Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus and Mega Python vs. Gatoroid). I'm not even sure the latter qualify as "Syfy Originals" or if Syfy just airs them.

It is true that I enjoy low budget "thrillers" like Them! or Fiend without a Face or The Beginning of the End. All are imminently watchable, and while cheap often attempt to disguise their low budgets with imaginative monster effects and as many thrills as they can muster with a no-name cast. Attack of the Crab Monsters, a very early Roger Corman film, is still far better than it has any right to be, as does Beast from Haunted Cave. So yes, I do like vintage schlock; now allow me to explain why calling what Syfy does the same is erroneous.

The central difference between the films listed in the above paragraph (plus many, many others) and the weekly Syfy output is simple - every time I see a Syfy Original, it seems like nobody is trying at all. The films are barely competent, and not because the people involved weren't capable of doing so, but because many of them look like they're in it for a quick paycheck. I mean, who's going to see this garbage, right?

That's the impression one quickly gleans from these films, which all seem to follow a similar formula: cast one or two actors / musicians / quasi-celebrities on a career decline in lead roles, find one more B-movie icon to cast in a tiny role that requires as little work from them as possible, fill the rest of the cast out with desperate unknowns, then unleash a Toy Story 1-era CGI monster to kill them off, mostly by eating them because it requires less animation for one "gulp."

The films then pad out the cheap, uninteresting "monster" attacks with long, pointless subplots that continually separate the main characters from the action, introduce superfluous roles for truly talentless amateurs as "comic relief," then eventually get back to the monster in time for the finale, which of late consists of the main characters watching two badly animated creatures "fight" until one or both "die" - at least until the next sequel.

For example, this is exactly what happens in Dinocroc vs. Supergator, minus any recognizable cast members aside from the late David Carradine, who really seemed to be shooting his scenes at home and literally phones in most of his dialogue as the evil corporation head who had something to do with... I don't know, let's say Supergator's existence. Even he doesn't seem to care that he's in the movie, so why should I be enthused that he graced this waste of 90 minutes with his presence? Or F. Murray Abraham trying to stay involved in Blood Monkey before being killed? (Oops, SPOILER).

The Mega-whatevers vs Giant-whatsits are even more transparent in their attempts to draw audiences into interminably boring conversations and lab scenes by including "whatever happened to's" like Deborah Gibson, Lorenzo Lamas, Jaleel White, Corin Nemec, Vanessa Williams, Casper Van Dien, Lou Diamond Phillips, Sean Patrick Flannery, Armand Assante, Amy Locane, Robbie Williams, Mickey Dolenz, Barry Williams, Daniel Baldwin, and Tiffany. The plots are so interchangeable that it doesn't matter how the monsters got there, let's just watch the singer of "I Think We're Alone Now" fight a giant piranha! Then they throw in Bruce Campbell, Robert Englund, Tony Todd, Daryl Hannah, John Rhys-Davies and Jeffrey Combs (or anyone else who won't say "no") to come in and give the film some "cred" for fanboys.

It's fair to note that the other big Syfy trick has been licensing sequels on the cheap, like Lake Placid 2 (and 3), Firestarter 2, Stir of Echoes: The Homecoming, House of the Dead 2, Pumpkinhead (Ashes to Ashes and Blood Feud), Dungeons and Dragons: Wrath of the Dragon God, Bats: Human Harvest, Anacondas 3 and 4, and a remake of Children of the Corn. Of the films I've sampled from that last, almost all of them had the same "we just don't care" attitude that rubs off on the audience.

Say what you will about schlock films of yesteryear, but they weren't boring. Well, some of them were boring, and a lot of those have faded into obscurity, with good reason. Horror of the Blood Monsters is a turgid, lifeless mishmash of prehistoric and vampire elements, and I can't finish it. I will happily watch The Blob though, because an effort was made to, oh, entertain audiences even as the producers sought a quick buck.

By the way, it's not as though movies with virtual unknowns and limited cgi effects can't be entertaining - Shark Attack 3: Megalodon, which has Torchwood's John Barrowman as its marquee name (nothing against Barrowman, who is great in the movie and on the show, but this did come out four years before Torchwood and I'm making a huge assumption that the average visitor to this site has seen the spin-off of the 2005 relaunch of Doctor Who). It has all of the same hallmarks of cheap "giant monster" schlock, but the film is funny, occasionally surprising, has better than expected "kills," and the best pick-up line in film history (even better than "get the butter"). Blood Car, another Blogorium favorite, has no monster but a better gimmick and My Girl's Anna Chlumsky, and it's better than any Syfy film mentioned above.

There are a handful of Syfy Originals that I've found amusing in small doses - Alien Express, Terminal Invasion, parts of Alien Apocalypse, The Man with the Screaming Brain, and Beyond Re-Animator. It's probably worth noting that almost all of them deviate from the formula listed above in one or all aspects. Alien Express, for example, has actual puppets instead of CG monsters, and even if they look goofy, it's a creative choice. Terminal Invasion makes the best of a limited location, and Alien Apocalypse tries hard (and fails miserably, if enterainingly) to tell an Planet of the Apes knock-off story. I've heard good things about Abominable from people like Dr. Murder and the Cranpire, and he also swears by Hammerhead because of the presence of William Forsythe and Jeffrey Combs.

The recent Sharktopus (with Eric Roberts) at least has the right idea with the goofy trailer and theme song, even if it looks like every other "hybrid / giant monster" movie the channel ever aired. And what is Syfy airing this week? Will it break the trend of movies the Cap'n is happier not seeing? It's - oh, something called Mega Snake. No thanks. Let me know when the execution actually meets the premise of this so-called "schlock."

Retro Review: Out of Sight

Until Sunday night, I hadn't seen Out of Sight all the way through in at least ten years. I'm pretty sure I watched it on video after the film was released in 1998, and I know I at least started watching the DVD once or twice, coupled with the scattered TV airing over the years, but to sit down and watch Steven Soderbergh interpret Elmore Leonard was like rediscovering a favorite movie, one that slipped away into the fog of memory, just waiting to be recalled.

Jack Foley (George Clooney) is a bank robber who has a bad habit of spending time behind bars before he can spend his ill-gotten gains. While in the Glades correctional facility near Miami, Foley piggybacks on an escape attempt with the assistance of his partner in crime on the outside, Buddy Bragg (Ving Rhames). Their scheme goes well until a chance encounter with U.S. Marshall Karen Sisco (Jennifer Lopez) leaves Jack and Buddy with no choice but to take her hostage. Foley is smitten with the headstrong Sisco, and her tendency to go for "bad boys" complicates their impossible attraction of cop and crook. Sisco follows Foley and Buddy from Miami to Detroit, where they're planning a home invasion with a big payoff, thanks to businessman and fellow inmate Richard Ripley (Albert Brooks). An unexpected partner emerges in the robbery, Maurice "Snoopy" Miller (Don Cheadle), a fellow inmate with a sadistic streak. Will Snoopy's involvement jeopardize the score? Will Sisco catch Jack and bring him in? More importantly, does she even want to bring him in?

Soderbergh, working with screenwriter Scott Frank (who had earlier adapted Leonard's Get Shorty and would later work on Karen Sisco, a TV spin-off about Jennifer Lopez's character) wisely eschewed with the original draft's linear narrative. Soderbergh tends to gravitate towards overlapping flashbacks, flash-forwards, and misleading bridges between the two, so Out of Sight benefits from the shift (originally done practically in order to introduce Karen Sisco earlier in the story), where information is slowly doled out as time moves backwards and forwards, finally catching the audience up on the whole story three-quarters of the way in.

I remembered to some degree about having issues with the "love scene" on first viewing: Soderbergh inter-cuts a bar scene between Sisco and Foley with future scenes of the mutual seduction in her hotel room, overlapping dialogue into the flash-forwards. Coming back to the film, it bothered me less, along with Soderbergh's use of freeze frames at strategic points in the film, often used to pause on the situation at hand, giving the audience a moment to consider what they've just seen.

Soderbergh also uses another technique he'd visit again in the future: color coding of sections in the film. Scenes in a penitentiary out west are punctuated by bright yellow jumpsuits, while the Glades correctional facility uniforms are more subdued. Miami light sources are always blown out, and the Detroit section of the film is filtered with a steely blue (except for Ripley's house, which stands out in opulence from the economically drained downtown Maurice Miller claims to run). Soderbergh used a variation in The Underneath and would separate Traffic visually and thematically two years later.

So much of Out of Sight is immediately recognizable, regardless of the length of time that passed between the first viewing and the most recent. Even with the period of time away from the film, Soderbergh and Frank's story is so well constructed that it's easy to feel as though you're visiting an old friend, reminiscing about oft-repeated stories. At the same time, the film is fresh, clever, and funnier than I remembered.

People tend to take George Clooney's status as a leading man for granted now, but when Out of Sight was released, he was very much on the "bubble" as actors go. He'd been in the spotlight on ER, but major film roles were limited to One Fine Day, The Peacemaker, and the disastrous Batman & Robin. From Dusk Til Dawn had hinted to geeks that Clooney could be more than the "Most handsome man in America," but Out of Sight paved the way for more interesting roles in Three Kings, O Brother Where Art Thou, and Ocean's Eleven (re-teaming with Soderbergh).

Likewise, Jennifer Lopez was probably never better than as Karen Sisco, despite the marquee role in Selena and the lurid femme fatale in Oliver Stone's U-Turn. Ving Rhames has a refreshing sense of concern as Buddy, a character that is both unflinchingly loyal yet morally conflicted about his life (a running subplot in the film involves Buddy's need to call his born-again sister to confess, often before committing a crime). Don Cheadle's Snoopy Miller is a real surprise - both comical and menacing without one compromising the other, and Albert Brooks takes a character he could play in his sleep and imbues Richard Ripley with a truly vicious streak on the outside he doesn't have in prison. He's an opportunist that you don't feel sympathy for, even in light of what happens (and almost happens) during his home invasion.

I'd forgotten about the parade of recognizable faces in the film - Luis Guzman as an escapee, Catherine Keener as Foley's ex-wife, Steve Zahn as the perpetually stoned car thief that talks too much, Dennis Farina as Karen's father, Isiah Washington as Snoopy's partner in crime, and Nancy Allen* as Ripley's housekeeper / girlfriend.

There's a small stroke of genius in carrying over Michael Keaton as Ray Nicolette, creating a bridge between the worlds of Jackie Brown (released the year before) and Out of Sight. Add to that a small, uncredited cameo at the end of the film by another actor who played a different character in Jackie Brown, and the intertextual elements between Tarantino's and Soderbergh's films is worth considering beyond the individual stories.

Out of Sight is, after all these years, still a fresh breath of air when so many films of the "new wave" 90s cinema seems dated and stale. It is an easy movie to overlook, to forget, but it refuses to go quietly into that good night. Believe me, that's a good thing. Revisit the film for yourself; you'll be pleasantly surprised.



* By coincidence, I somehow chose two films to watch back-to-back that feature Nancy Allen in small roles with The Last Detail and Out of Sight.