"The Hobbit". A (mostly) unexpected treat

"The Hobbit: an unexpected journey": Peter Jackson, 2012, USA-New Zealand

 

...where Peter Jackson turns JRR Tolkien's "The Hobbit" into a trilogy.

When I first heard that Peter Jackson was going to adapt JRR Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings”, I was fascinated and hopeful. He was known mostly for the outrageous monster splatterfest “Bad Taste”, but also the creepy and careful “Heavenly Creatures”. The guy could obviously do subtle and story as much as he could gonzo insanity so I was keeping a hopeful open mind. And so it was that I went with a friend to see the first “Lord of the Rings” instalment on New Year’s Eve and, for the next two years afterwards, we did the same. They were, for me, instant masterpieces. They were perhaps the greatest example of fantasy artwork brought to life ever put on screen; they were also some of the greatest monster movies ever made and perhaps THE argument for CGI, being also some of the greatest special-effects showcases ever made (an argument that others have mostly not matched). They were, indeed, closer to how I had visualised fantasy/fairy-tale narratives as a kid. The extra-extended editions were even better. Yes they were: a mammoth cinematic and audience undertaking. The attention to story and to detail (dirt and grime visible in the Frodo’s fingerprints when he picks up the ring, for example) made the film a long, long otherworldly pleasure; the downbeat tendencies helped to imbibe seriousness to otherwise absurdist ingredients. Despair, death and desperation coloured everything, making them grand apocalyptic visions too. I also considered them commendable war films.

I think we have been spoiled since. Every other blockbuster is a special-effect bonanza – particularly with the advent of the relatively young super-hero film genre and the fact that CGI makes EVERYTHING possible, if not actually convincing – and cinema has followed the “Lord of the Rings” precedents with “Harry Potter” and now regularly indulges in multi-film storylines and accepts that audiences are happy to wait and hold out for, and keep coming back for, the bigger multi-film narratives. This also helps to made sequels less obnoxious. Even “The Chronicles of Narnia” made it to a trilogy, even though it has, possibly unfairly, not reached the same giddy following of some others. Games systems and games are more cinematic than ever and the CGI lines between games and film effects are harder and harder to distinguish – interactive film! Every "Dr Who" episode is a special-effects wonder of sorts. What “Lord of the Rings” did is familiar turf now.

And the truth is, Jackson’s “King Kong” dissatisfied me and Del Toro’s “Hellboy 2” was just okay and he has since been curating so-so productions; so in truth I was expecting to be disappointed with “The Hobbit: an unexpected journey” too. Well, despite the crap trailer – because all contemporary trailers serve their films in the worst possible manner, I observe – it would seem that Jackson has simply picked up from where “Return of the King” left off with Del Toro backing things up and encouraging. Okay, so arguably “The Hobbit” is a little softer – because it is about discovering one’s own heroism in a far less despairing and dark environment than the apocalyptic “Lord of the Rings” Middle Earth – but it doesn’t betray it’s preceding trilogy. The whimsy stays the right side of zaniness; the monsters are horrible and often terrifying; the pacing is languid but reaps great rewards. Even as there is a slow build-up with all the dwarves assembling around the reluctant Bilbo through the plotting of wizard Gandalf, there are the most tantalising flashbacks to mitigate any boredom and to promise that the best is very much still to come. The novel “The Hobbit” is markedly thinner than the trilogy that precedes it, of course, so Jackson is raiding the appendices and legends to widen the scope and horizons and, perhaps, giving Bilbo’s adventure more maturity through association. The first flashback to the dragon assault (we don’t see the dragon Smaug, just the effects of his attack plus a flicker of tail) got this particular viewer’s pulse racing with anticipation. By the time we get to the fighting rock giants – let me just say that again, monster fans: fighting rock giants – I was sold. This, I thought, is something I could watch allll day long: and I was thinking is when a couple of characters were talking away in Elven outpost of Rivendale. I couldn’t, of course, but the feeling was that I didn’t want things to stop, and I was only halfway through the film.

Wow, I continued to think: I am really enjoying this. The fantasy vistas and the monsters and the sheer scale of the piece had thoroughly won me over. Why would I have any reservations? I gave myself over to cinematic joy. Slowly I was reminded exactly why I had fallen totally in love with the “Lord of the Rings” films. I knew others would be indifferent, but I was thrilled by “The Hobbit”.

Too slow?? Too long?! Some say.

And?

I care not. What else is this fantastical, this lovingly made, this carefully developed, this joyous and fun?



 

 

Just as Ridley Scott’s “Blade Runner” and “Alien” have proven to be definitive visualisations of science-fiction, Jackson’s Middle Earth films must be the epitome of fantasy cinema. The fantasy, otherworldly panoramas Jackson and his team create from New Zealand locations and computer-generated wizardry are continually ravishing, realistic and exceeding almost all rivals. I think the trick, the magic ingredient, goes something like this: unlike most peers, Jackson focuses continuously and unwaveringly on story and character, treating the fantastic and fabulous with seriousness; which all creates a context that elevates the fantasy visuals and the computer-generated monsters so that they have the essence of realism, so that they transcend that look at this special effect! and self-congratulatory sense given off by so many other films. That is, the effects do not feel like an end unto themselves and for all of their sense of awe, they are at the service of greater forces and rewards of narrative, story and character. One can happily give in to being awe-struck because all the elements of cinema are in action, are being attended to. (It’s prudent to mention that Jackson isn’t the only writer that this is all helped by the contributions of Fran Walsh, Del Toro and Phillipa Boyans to the screenplay.)

And then: when Gollum appeared, eyes flashing in the dark, I heard the audience mumbling with pleasure and the film positively purrs with delight. Andy Serkis’ Gollum is surely one of the greatest special effects ever put onto film. When he first appeared in the “Ring” trilogy, the shock of how good Gollum was, being a CGI creation, of how much it could withstand close-ups and scrutiny, was a revelation and he is still a total joy. Again, this is also because of Serkis’ wild performance the terrifying and the pathetic/terrifying character that Gollum is, which makes him utterly compelling. The showdown of riddles, the battle of wits between Gollum and Bilbo likely trumps any hard-man duelling present in other action films (which are, for the most part, just as unhinged from reality as Middle Earth).

Even, it seems to me, such a ridiculous creation such as the Great Goblin is salvaged by performance and being treated with seriousness. The Great Goblin and his humungous double-chin is repellent and borders on the off-puttingly silly; but Barry’s Humphries voice and straight-forward dialogue grounds him into the rest of Middle Earth.

And yes, Martin Freeman is a great Bilbo, making him amusing without being farcical.

It is a treat to have all the key cast return to maintain continuity from the previous films. Ian McKellen, Ian Holm, Elijah Wood, Hugo Weaving, etc, all return (and yes, it is still mostly an all-boy’s affair, even though the film tries to stress Cate Blanchett’s Galadriel as much as possible).

Even Sylvester McCoy is used well (and that bird-poo stained beard really is icky; one of those details that makes each character and segment memorable.)

The Orcs range between slightly softer versions and just as frightening and ugly as before.

There is the most remarkable range of facial hair.

And so on.

I think that here was a film that tapped into the indiscriminate enjoyment of pure imagination and love of monsters and adventure that I bore as a boy. It seemed to me that, somehow, any critical faculties were cheerfully being bypassed or put aside for the greater good of being purely entertained. “The Hobbit” it thoroughly complimentary to the preceding “Lord of the Rings” films and proved that Middle Earth is a place that keeps on giving. I, myself, cannot wait for the next film. And I really, really cannot wait for some full on dragon action.

And how delightful that is.   

 

"Martin" posters

Here is a selection of wonderfully inventive and evocative posters for George A. Romero's fantastic 1976 serial killer/vampire flick "Martin".

 

"Giant black hole in tiny galaxy confounds astronomers"

Somewhere amongst these lights is a very big black hole.

"This galaxy seems to be very old," Dr Van den Bosch said. "So somehow this black hole grew very quickly a long time ago, but since then that galaxy has been sitting there not forming any new stars or anything else.

"We're trying to figure out how this happens, and we don't have an answer for that yet. But that's why it's cool."

By Jason Palmer
Science and technology reporter, BBC News

Buttons and McGuffins

John Holbo at Crooked Timber is discussing "The Curious Case of Bejamin Button", and fun things such as Metaphysical McGuffins and allegory get a good ol' grilling. I make a comment too (I've not seen the film, but read the Firtzgerald short story).

On using "The Master" to draw dividing lines in audiences.

 

Rachel Cook's review of Paul Thomas Anserson's "The Master" has this as its header:

 

"Paul Thomas Anderson's long-awaited cult movie has pleased the critics, but most of us will find it heavy going"

 

Riiiight. Because there are two species on the planet, right? So called "critics" and the rest of the audience. Because audiences aren't critical, I guess, and critics aren't the audience... Oh, wait: perhaps that is meant to be that critics aren't "real/genuine" audiences. And Rachel isn't a critic, having her work printed on a national platform, presumably being paid for it; no, she's with "most of us". Geez, I mean, haven't we got entire new generations coming out with Humanities qualifications who have been trained in the delights of criticism and analysis? Hell, I'm a pretender just like anyone else - and I have this blog to prove it - but critics siding with the great unwashed popular audience to sniff at unpopular critical opinion... condescends to everyone and benefits and respects no audience at all. Oh, I'm not really bashing Rachel Cook, not particularly even if her post has instigated this blogpost, but why buy into that rubbish Grand Canyon dichotomy between popular and critical audiences, as if the two never share a overprized box of pick-and-mix at the local multiplex, or a coffee at the repertory cinema somewhere in the city?

 

I liked "The Master". Do I get my "Elitist" pass now?

 

Do critics sit in the front rows and the rest of "us" at the back?

 

Cook asks, "Will the public want to see The Master twice? I doubt it."

Well, I'm the public and I do want to see "The Master" twice, because I believe repeat viewings will offer repeat rewards, perhaps further insights from the details. I see no benefit in such a generalisation and, again, it feels like condescention and class-baiting of some kind. And from the critic of 'The Guardian'. Some films, you know, need watching more than once ('The Shining' seems to improve with every watch, for example). Isn't that one of the first insights of critical thinking?

 

She says that neither of the  lead characters in "The Master" change. That is not my perception at all. "But no film, surely, should end exactly where it began," she adds. Really? No? Why not? Because of the all-powerful if tired and trite concepts of character "journeys" and "arcs"? And what if lack of movement - narratively; geographically; for characters  - is the very point of the film? Stagnation is a theme in itself, for example. And that is not what happens in "The Master". Perhaps character obliqueness is the very point. Perhaps the changes are slight or barely percievable... not everything has to be underlined. And the two main characters of the film do change, and they don't change: that's part of the thematic content too and their mystery. 

 

But, yeah, my reading of the film and my opinion of it and the performances differ from Rachel Cook's, and that's okay. That's why I feel compelled to blog, sporadically, because opinions are what we have. But sniffiness isn't enlightening. "The Master" is heavy-going because, well, that's part of its aesthetic. You can't chide a cat for being cute: that's what the thing is, and you start by giving in to what the thing is and go from there by paying attention to the cuteness, to accepting the cuteness, to blogging about it and, in later stages, amusingly captioning photos of it.  

 

And hell, not all films are for everyone, right? I saw "Skyfall" - great mainstream entertainment - and "The Master" - great arthouse entertainment - on the same weekend, and they served different pleasure centres because they have different agendas. Both are grand flawed gestures worthy of debate - why not!? -  but I see no great reward in setting up mainstream and arthouse as completely antithetical to one another. Indeed, I see the latest Bond revival with Daniel Craig as a highly successfuly mainstream/arthouse hybrid/crossover. Oh, I can be as pigheadedly opinionated as any other film fan (recent examples: email discussions with a friend over the stupidity of Argento's "The Bird With The Crystal Plumage" [me:it is]) and that probably makes me/us as tedious as many film fanatics - but damn it, we're all in it together. I may raise an eyebrow when Mark Kermode is a vocal fan of the "Twilight" and "High School Musical" franchises, but he's a great popularist critic and even if I don't agree, he knows how to verbalise why and how and comes from the starting point that the audience is a united thing, not a fragmented, class-ridden thing. Well yes, film is a joy, but it also reveals so much about us and how we think, feel and conceive the world around us as undividuals and collectively. But, first of all, it is a joy. When you start drawing lines in the sand, if you are a critic, it strikes me as disingenuous; strikes me as buying into the vision of critics as know-alls-and-know-nothings in order to circumnavigate the fact that you don't know how to explicate why you feel the film did not work. And that is why for me Rachel Cook's utilisation of ye olde "Us and Them" seems more, shall we say, "Well THEY didn't like it either, so there!"

 

If you are looking for a more rounded and respectful appraisal of "The Master", where critical reservations are backed up with acute observations, then try Calum Marsh's review at Slant Magazine. I think he reads it right although I believe the film is great despite its apparent flaws. And then there's Slant's Tom Stempel notes, but I also read some of 'The Master' differently to him.

 

 

The Raid

The Raid - Serbuan maut

Garath Evans, 2011, Indonesia/USA

The credits are barely done and the raid of the title is underway. Within ten minutes, the SWAT team’s stealth is blown. In twenty, the big bad guy is calling upon everyone in the high-rise hideaway for the murderous to take down the SWAT team. By thirty, there’s an all-out gun war that should please any fire-power fan used to the American means of action cinema - plus some nice use of light to please the eye - with disposable bad guys swarming like zombie hordes and the rapidly dwindling good guys hacking through floors to get away. And then, at thirty minutes when all the ammunition has run out, then things get going.

 Here is a film as one big action sequence.

And as an action film, it is one big wow.

If a film could bruise you, watching “The Raid” would leave you waking up in intensive care.  Welsh director Gareth Evens goes to Indonesia and makes exemplary martial arts film – in this case, silat, Indonesia’s native martial art. “The Raid” is in effect one long action sequence, untroubled by too much plot or narrative, even though these elements are present enough to bolster repeat viewings: quickly it goes through the shoot-out phase before getting down to its martial arts priorities. There is a dash of the sentimental in order to invest the bare minimum of character details and audience sympathy: we meet our SWAT team protagonist, Rama (Iko Uwais), when he is getting ready to leave for work, kissing his pregnant wife goodbye before embarking upon the raid in question; and later there are some sibling issues and corruption, but that’s about it. No, the true narrative and sub-plots of “The Raid” are the action sequences and the jaw-dropping hand-to-hand combat which is some of the very best ever captured on screen. There is none of the snap-snap-snap editing, the kind of every-second jump-cutting that many contemporary action editors believe heighten speed and adrenalin: no, the best action sequences allow enough space so you can actually see what is happening and how exemplary the fighting and the stunt-work is. The editing here is so fluid and complementary to the fighters that you will most likely barely note the cuts.

And “The Raid” offers wave upon wave of fight set-pieces. When the first corridor melee kicks in, after all the scary-thrilling shoot-outs and hacking through floors is done, “The Raid” truly distinguishes itself as a candidate for one of the best fight-films you shall ever see. Iko Uwais, who plays our protagonist Rama, is not the only cast member who seems to be faster than the eye and a remarkable martial artist. Indeed, most of the cast seem to be so that when the fists, feet, knees, elbows and machetes and knives fly, it’s hard to catch the breath. The punching, spinning, kicking, slashing, ducking, whacking, gutting, throwing and all out violence – and the film is very, very brutal – left the cinema audience I saw “The Raid” laughing with the outrageous riot of action and killing and as a “wow!” and shocked reaction to some of the brutality and artistry on display. Some may feel that the likes of Terence Malick and sub-genres of experimental films are “pure” cinema, but the action set-pieces of “The Raid” equally understand how purely visual film is, and probably in a more primal and visceral sense. And even if the martial arts genre clichés and weaknesses start to poke out here and there, it matters not. If you are going to use a "next level/boss fight" game-consul structure to make a feature, then this is how you do it.

For my money, although each one of the fight scenes is great, the middle half hour that features two hallway fights is exceptional. I am not a martial arts specialist but these fights alone seem to me to be two of the greatest ever filmed in cinema in their speed, dexterity, intimacy, ferocity and editing. They are also broken up by a consummate suspense scene where our hero and his injured colleague try to brave it out in a hiding place in a sympathetic resident’s apartment which only helps to meet the view that Evans knows exactly what he is doing. He does not even make the widely made mistake of allowing the sub-plot about siblings on different sides of the tracks to drag the tale into sentimentality, or that of police corruption to overburden the final moments.

For a sheer rush of adrenalin, choreography, violence and bone-crunching fun, “The Raid” is one of the best. This, people, is how it is done.    

Films and "Best Ever" Lists

"Best Ever?" (... I'll do you an A to Z)

So yes, there was and continues to be a huge amount of commentary on the Sight and Sound Bestest Film Ever poll, which is now apparently “Vertigo” with "Citizen Kane" apparently magicked down a notch. Such a poll is always going to be interesting and enlightening as much as it is frustrating and redundant, but nevertheless film aficionados do love to get stuck into this stuff. Hell, even I enjoy grading films on my private What I Watch list. But in the end, it was an email from my friend The Intriguing David Gadsdon that summarised what I could not really find energy to articulate. He wrote:

“Been reading that Sight and Sound poll, it's becoming very stale because people are voting for the same films in large numbers. There some interesting inclusions, but never in great enough volume for them to make any dent on the overall poll, so you always get the same stuff at the top. Not that it doesn't deserve to be there, but when it's always there it means that the poll appears to be in a vacuum that seems to stifle debate as to what other films could be considered greatest. If the results never change the list is in danger of becoming irrelevant (if it isn't already).”

Indeed, and I concur.

You see, I adore “Attack the Block” as both a fun monster flick and as social commentary, and I would argue that it achieves and executes its objectives every bit as much as “Vertigo” (hah!), but it’s apples and oranges and I would have a hard time calling it one of the/my best films ever. Who would ever agree with me? but it gives me great joy, many thrills and much mental engagement. 

Where is the room on any Bestest Film Ever list for “An American Werewolf in London”, which is one of the films I have seen many, many times over since I was thirteen and would always, always sit through? And does the fact that I would always watch “American Werewolf” mean it is, by extension, one of my favourites, and does that segue into being considered by me as one of the best?

Same with Leone films... although they are easier to throw in a Best Ever list. Some argue whether “Once Upon a Time in America” or “- In the West” is the greater Leone (I’m an “In America” guy). But Sergio Leone is one I am likely to say is Best Ever on consideration of his whole oeuvre, just like Ingmar Bergman, Takashi Miike, David Cronenberg, Kieslowski... etc...

There are so many other favourites of mine that I couldn’t justify being on a Best Ever or even Best Of list... Joe Dante’s “Matinee”? Or fresh in my mind: “The Raid”? OK, let me stop.

What such lists do achieve is in outlining and conveying the taste of the list-maker and introducing some films that you/I may not have been aware of. So, in that spirit, I wish to throw down a list of some of my favourites. What is hard is to stick true to my taste and not to wrangle the list into a list of what makes me look cool, or what I think should be my top ten. Hah. But these are the films that I know have had profound effect on me, that I enjoyed to the utmost, that changed the way I watched film and all of that jazz. Let’s see... I am going to get around things by doing this A-Z style, with an intention to do lists of favourites by genre or whatever later on. High-brow? Low-brow? Whatever… it’s all good. This should give you some idea of where I am coming from and what I enjoy the most. Because it’s fun. Indeed.



A QUICK A-Z OF BUCK THEOREM'S FAVOURITES (some)
 (by looking at my film collection so far)

The Adjuster
Bad Education
Come and See
Don't Look Now
Europa
Fanny and Alexander
Gummo
Henry: portrait of a serial killer
In a Lonely Place
Joe the King
Kiss Me Deadly
Let the Right One In
Metropolis
No Country For Old Men
Once Upon a Time in America
Paperhouse
Quatermass and the Pit (1958 tv series)
The Raid
Santa Sangre
Toto the Hero
Unbreakable
Valley of the Bees
Where the Wild Things Are
Xtro
Young Thugs: innocent blood/Young Thugs: nostalgia
Zodiac

I am aware that some of these come under "best film I have under that letter" as opposed to "Outright Best Ever". Or rather that "Xtro" remains a film that fascinates me and has done since I was an under-age youth illegally hiring out 18 certificate films from the local video shop, and yes its roughness and oddness is all good. No one is going to agree with me that it is one of the best ever films made, or even one of the best ever horrors, but I have a great fondness for. It is the highest graded film I own under "X" and I'll stand by it. Same with Takashi Miike's "Young Thugs" double-bill for "Y". But, yeah, I love all these titles, if some more than others.

Self-evidently, an A-Z will miss out many others. I shall maybe make more... later...

Because it IS fun.

For Love's Sake

For  Love’s Sake:
The Legend of Love & Sincerity
Ai to makoto

Takashi Miike, Japan, (2012)

Takashi Miike is so prolific and diverse that’s it is almost a chore to keep up with him; he’s a master of genres and as punk as he is classical and consistently unpredicatable and surprising. Of late: “13 Assassins” and “Hari-Kari” one moment and “Yatterman” and then “For Love’s Sake” next. This also means that he shall often throw anything but the kitchen sink in if the material is a little, shall we say, silly and underwhelming. This is helpful when he is doing his Manga adaptations, because Manga is often quite bonkers and narratively wild and emotionally hyperbolic and ridiculous; or at least the bulk of Manga that gets adapted seems to be. “For Love’s Sake” is, for the most part, delirously silly and over-egged: it comes across like a parody not only of overwrought Japanese school dramas but also of Baz Luhrmann’s “Romeo + Juliet” and the teen romance genre as a whole. The performances of the musical numbers are, for the most part, very funny: the tracks are a mixture of Japanese ‘60s pop tracks and original songs with straight enough lyrics, but it is the characters lauching into musical numbers as if they believe they are in their own musical (which they are) when most characters around them aren’t quite so sure that makes it so all so amusing. Manga and Miike is often prone to changing mood and mashing up extreme and sentimental elements indiscriminately, and if the first half of “For Love’s Sake” feels like barmy parody, and is definitely funny, the second half is dragged down by that sentiment that asks us to take seriously the absurd and unhinged declarations of love by characters that feels very much like unhinged psychology.

No one in “For Love’s Sake” is in good mental health. We are expected to go along with a main macho character, Makoto (Satoshi Tsumabuki) who solves everything with violence and who is indeed so violent that he will happily take on entire gangs and come out on top. Oh, and who happily slaps women around. Then there is Ai (Emi Takei), a girl who is delusionally obsessed with Makoto and whose insane pursuit of him with declarations of anti-violence and love are so trite, they are hilarious and surely satirical of youthful romancing; all that being in love with the idea of being in love, etc. When he keeps telling her where to go, you agree with him. Then there is Hiroshi who is also obsessively in love with Ai with that nerdy tactic of hanging around her in the hope that one day she might fall in love with him: the gag becomes that he turns up everywhere after her, but make no mistake that he is a stalker. The school of delinquents adds to the bunch of Asian dramas that make it look as if Asian education is a hellhole (I am thinking of, oh, “Confessions”, “All About Lilu Chou-Chou”, “Whispering Corridors”, “Friend”, etc etc). That the gangs are mostly femal dominated is a nice mixing-up of typical classroom gangs and this leaves plenty of room for the gag that most of the main bad girls are in love with Makoto. Oh, and there is the seventeen year-old boy who has the body of a middle-aged man too (he has some kind of aging disease??). It all comes across as the fantasy of some dysfunctional lovesick teenager with a fevered pop-addled imagination.

My favourite moment of violence? An unbroken take where the camera stays over Makoto’s shoulder as he wipes out an entire gang stuffing full a hospital corridor. But there is also the opening fight during which Makoto sings throughout the punches and kicking. All the dance numbers in the first half have their moments, though.

It’s overlong by at half hour and at least two songs and the earnestness drags as much as the emotional outpourings, although even the later passages are alleviated by sudden bursts of inventiveness: a bad girl’s flashback to her childhood trauma is brilliantly rendered as animation, for example. Even the closing Anime flashback feels like it might possess genuine emotional effect if we were not being asked to associate it with such ridiculous and two-dimensional characters. This, however, is typical of Manga and Anime where we are often to take at face value that people are in love, despite the lack of convincing romantic detail. Characters generally just end up shouting one another's names in various states of hysterics. Miike is also not always one to turn to for emotional engagement: there is often the sense that his films are experiments in free-form cinematic tricks and tropes rather than speaking deeply to the audience, but this depends upon the particular project (films such as "Rainy Dog", "Hari-Kari" and "Big Bang Love: Juvenile A" are different stories altogether).

“For Love’s Sake” is gorgeous to look at, funny and violent for the most part, then undone by the typical Manga sentimentality. If you are looking for the real deal about growing up with neglect and violence, look to Miike’s two “Young Thug” films for revelations, scathing insight and some genuine emotional engagement. “For Love’s Sake” shall not win many new Miike fans, but even at his most conventional, he often seems to be making all the films all at once and no one quite does it like him. There is no doubt that it is at least unforgettable, because Miike's work always leaves some kind of aftertaste, even if this example is candyfloss with punches and pretences of substance.

P.S.: The British Film Institute puff piece for "For Love's Sake" by Tony Raynes says, "This is the kind of movie that hits you, and it feels like a kiss." This indeed is indicative of the problematic nature of deciding what one is meant to take from the film if looking for any depth. It is also one of those faux-poetical nonsense summaries that seems to think equating hitting with kissing is something lyrical.

Dredd

DREDD

Pete Travis, 2012, UK-USA-India

Well it’s got to be hard when the general public opinion starts with “It’s not as bad as that Stallone version,” but there it is. “Dredd” also suffers from coming on the heels of the hugely impressive “The Raid” with its identical plot. Action guys trapped in a crime-ruled highrise full of people trying to kill them. Perhaps, though, the problem is that Alex Garland’s story does not feel distinctively Dredd. Its Megacity One futurescape feels very much akin to the near-future grunge so familiar from, say, “Escape From New York”, “Robocop”, “The Warriors”, and a dozen others, even this season's "Looper". As is so often the case, perhaps “Blade Runner” already beat Megacity to the punch. Well, Megacity One from the pages of “2000 A.D.” probably inspired the neon urban hell of “Blade Runner” in the first place, plus the films already mentioned, so there is that. The Mega City 1 of “Dredd” feels a little cosy as a dystopia in comparison to the lunatics-on-the-loose police state hellhole of the comics, and even though the film has several decades of Dredd legacy and city psychosis to draw upon, there is, again, not enough of the uniquely Dredd here.

I, for one, have enjoyed the “Judge Dredd” comic strip on an off ever since I was a kid and I found Megacity 1 to be a terrifying place. The population seemed clinically insane and the Judges were merciless and brutal in response. A rock and a hard place barely covers it, and was Dredd hero or terrifying authority figure? I couldn’t tell. Indeed, in this version of the city he patrols, it looks like the early days of the city that appears in the comics, which maybe isn't a bad place to start but it doesn't have quite the Supporting Actor presence as fans might like, despite the Overwhelmingly Obvious Voiceover that namechecks Megacity history and geography before abandoning them for a far more stripped down B-level Judge Dredd tale.

And what to do with Dredd, a character who is deliberately two-dimensional, fascistic and authoritarian, legendary, invulnerable, unflappable and, shall we say, sociopathic and narrow in his view of the law? More than that, he is satirical. In Pete Travis’ film and Karl Urban’s winning chin performance, Dredd is droll and, most likely for the better, probably more ambiguous in the flesh. However, it is Judge rookie-psychic Anderson (Olivia Thirlby) who gets to take her helmet off and is the focus of the film’s concerns: there is the rookie/mentor narrative, the fact that she too comes from the wrong end of town (implying that Judges predominantly come mostly from the ranks of the cloned privileged?) and that she has, you know, feelings, which might interfere with good manly Judging. None of this is particularly original and engaging but this does weigh the film more in Anderson’s favour than Dredd’s, despite Karl Urban’s chin and steely line delivery. In this version of the character, too, Dredd feels a little more vigilante than lawgiver, and the social satire seems to have disappeared under a veneer of action-film brutality; oh, Dredd has always been violent, but the satire was nearly always dominant.

As it is, the dialogue is almost all exposition and not nearly witty enough, or even interesting. For a generic and overly familiar set-up and narrative, it’s far too talky. We know this plot. What we do have, rather than light-relief or wit, is what I might call the shock-relief of the ultra-violence. The slo-mo sequences brought about by the slo-mo drug poisoning the city blocks do provide a nastily graphic shoot-up sequence where the wounds and blood burst in stretched-out detail, which makes a nice relief from the fast-fast-fast and incomprehensible cutting currently in vogue for most action sequences. It is also used to give the villainess – Leana Heady, you know, out-macho-ing the men – the one moment of grace in the film, in closing; which seems perverse.

I suspect “Dredd” will continue to hold on to a very respectable reputation, especially once from under the altogether more exemplary “The Raid”, and it’s enjoyable for sure, but there is the sense that it really isn’t quite reaching its potential. Perhaps, again, the mistake is thinking this most outrageous of characters is a more vigilante fantasy rather than satire. Perhaps it’s in focusing in the action part of Dredd rather than the bizarre and the grotesque which typifies his world in the comics. If this is an early version of Mega City 1 and this film fits into a bunch of sequels – in the style of Bond, say – where the city and Dredd expand and offer up, truly, the bizarre details and urban insanity of the comics, my belief is that it would truly benefit from being part of a greater whole. So I hope for more and better.

__
P.S. Oh, and I know many thought this was a good representation of 3D, but it just pissed me off that I had to pay more to watch it with glasses that caused light loss and very little improvement, if any.

Dance mash-up delight!

From the Dangerous Minds blog, Marc Campbell has created a fantastic mash-up: footage of dancing kids from 1956 accompanied by a great selection of later, alternative, more punkish tracks such as The Velvet Underground's "Run Run Run" and The Buzzcock's "Why Can't I Touch It?", not to mention Outkast and The Normal! This is what the internets was made for.

Frightfest the 13th Day 3

OUTPOST II: BLACK SUN

Sequel to rather good stripped-down Nazi-Zombie film. With the sequel inflated to try to accommodate the scale of the original concept – Nazis have built amazing-machine to create an indestructible supernatural zombie/phantom army – it implodes and ends up with lightning-from-fingers to resolve he undead problem. A certain earnestness keeps things a little grim and eerie. Best of all is the cinematography and lightning where the shadows are the same grey as the zombie skin.

PAURA 3-D

Italian giallo homage – in 3D! (which improves nothing) – where three guys break into luxury villa to party away, but there’s something in the basement. Enjoyable thriller hinging upon the degradation and torture of a beautiful woman: half of the films I will see will feature this in some way. The guys aren’t total jerks so the dilemma is to do the right thing and save their own skins too. Slick direction, some crowd-pleasing nastiness and a little pathos help keep this stylish and memorable.

Under the Bed

Despite its moody greys and blues, ‘Under The Bed’ barely knows what to do with itself. Under the kid’s bed is a festering monster of all the household’s males, threatening to tear them all apart. It’s a “Goosebumps” episode with added Fulci-gore at the end. Bad acting and baffling narrative make this unintentionally humour: the Frightfest audience was having a great time chuckling away through the last act when the fact that the moodiness really couldn’t disguise the weakness of the whole enterprise. At one point, the parents wake up their sleep-deprived boys who are sleeping on the sofa in order to make them go to a sleepover... it really doesn’t make much sense. Hilarious answer to the monster problem – throw mum’s ashes at it!! – really tops off the whole shruggable affair. Too gory to be a Dante-like kids’ horror; too underwhelming for anyone else.

Remnants

Post-Holocaust flick: a small rabble of survivors hide away in a cellar and slowly die. The lead hero is a sanctimonious asshole – he is meant to be heroic, but he needs a good kicking – and Edward Furlong just looks ill and uncomfortable. The actors wear their burns, but they don’t look like they hurt. The tone goes for sentiment rather than the horror and it’s all very TV drama until the final showdown with marauders, and then it’s a bit nasty – just a bit. No matter the worthiness of the message, it’s all rather dull.

Maniac

When I heard that Elijah Wood was going to be in a remake of that infamous 70s scuzzfest ‘Maniac’, I was greatly intrigued: who would ever have predicted such a thing would come to pass? At its Cannes Festival screening, there were walkouts after the first five minutes. Well, the first five-ten minutes set the tone and that first kill and scalping is built up to and executed brilliantly. With the soft voice of Woods’ derangement, a fantastic post-‘Drive’ retro-electro score and riveting and upsetting kill scenes – not to mention very believable and lovely women – this was the very first triumph of Frightfest that I saw. A great re-make that I will be returning to again. Not for the squeamish, though.

Buck Theorem at Frightfest the 13th: day 1 & 2

I am at Frightfest the 13^th, Empire Leicester Square 2012. This involves limited time for writing and sleeping and adding nice pics to this post, so I'm just going to plough in and hope for the best and add more decoration later.

Day 1: Thursday 23rd Aug.

The Seasoning House:

Stylishly made; goes for hideous beauty. Highly problematic in both its use of brutalized female bodies and its vision of men purely as rapists, especially those that already like their women bloodsoaked. Frightfest programme booklet bandies about comparisons to Hitchcock and Polanski: no and no (a suspenseful film is not instantaneously Hitchockian). Eli Roth and extreme French cinema are better references: indeed, director Paul Hyett describes ‘The Seasoning House’ (all films are discussed as mash-ups of other films) as ‘Martyrs’, ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ and ‘Die Hard’. Del Toro? Hmm, no. ‘Die Hard’? Well yes, when our diminutive orphaned girl “Angel” (!) starts fighting back and crawling through crawlspaces, one can see comparisons there. Mute and kidnapped for a Balkan brothel where she dopes up and cleans up other brutalized girls, Angel ends up being nothing more than a pixie-sized revenge fantasy against violent masculinity. Brilliantly played by Rosie Day, the film’s weaknesses and problems become more evident as it passes the halfway mark: for example, such hideous masculinity becomes the realm of English actors putting on ‘foreign’ accents thick enough to sit on, putting the male characters in a cultural no-man’s land and at arm’s length. The use of imagery of tortured and gore-soaked women leaves this tale highly distasteful when it is only in the service of another escape/revenge fantasy and not – like the superior ‘Martyrs’ – to reach a genuine polemic and discourse on such imagery. In this way it is far more exploitation cinema than its careful conception and ugly-pretty aesthetic would have the viewer believe.

Bonus: a brilliantly nasty knife fight when Angel first starts fighting back. My first understanding, also, that a huge horror audience will laugh at extreme violence regardless of the seriousness or ugliness of the text as a whole. They laugh because the effects are brilliant; they laugh because they are relieved that the bad guys are getting some just desserts; they laugh because all extreme special effects are funny?

First memorable Frightfest imagery: knife-in-the-mouth moment.

Cockneys vs Zombies

If you find Cockneys inherently funny, then this is probably for you. Lots of gusto, some good lines and gags – mostly to do with Richard Bryars – but really never more than an amusing title with some kind of East End splatter attached. Old People’s home versus zombies is the best side of the film, including Honor Blackman gleefully hammering away at zombie heads. Very broad. Nothing interesting done with zombies at all: as with ‘Zombieland’, zombies are just a pretext for some jokes and a wallowing in guilt-free spree killing (although "Zombieland" did have some interesting undead designs). Comparisons with “Shaun of the Dead” leave the cockneys wanting. Regardless of this, director Matthias Hoene comes across as really winning and interesting (friends of mine, manning the festival's cameras, interviewed him and said so) and plenty of others are going to enjoy this on its own terms. That’s condescending, but there you go. I don’t find gangster-posturing cockneys inherently funny, so not quite for me.

Grabbers

This is more my thing. Humour based upon characters and context rather than gags and excess. Director Jon Wright says he wanted to make a homage to those ‘80s monster movies such as “Gremlins” and “Critters”, et al, and he succeeds. Nice central performances and gorgeous Irish tourist-board cinematography of the little island town suddenly besieged by both small and giant aliens. Despite the fact that the whole things sounds like a bad gag – aliens allergic to alcohol attack Irishmen – it’s all played straight enough that the concept works and doesn’t drown the fun in blarney. First full win of the festival.

Second memorable Frightfest imagery: unforgettable vision of a giant ball of tentacles rolling across the countryside.

And then time to run off to get the night bus home. There’ll be some sleep, but not too much, then back for Day 2’s marathon session.

 

Day 2: Friday 24^th

Nightbreed: The Cabal Cut

Even when it was released in 1990, I was aware of the legend that this Clive Barker film was cut to ribbons by the studio. The original version was deemed to be lost until an old VHS copy turned up on Barker’s shelf and other footage turned up in Italy, etc. ‘The Cabal Cut’ is two and a half hours long but there was also a three hour version cut and other footage still thought to be pending. The cut is based upon original drafts of Barker’s scripts. 'The Cabal Cut' is mostly comprised of murky VHS prints apparently filtered through static.

I always thought ‘Nightbreed’ was a diverting monster movie, although not especially good it was enjoyably odd, and that David Cronenberg as a hooded serial killer stole the show. ‘The Cabal Cut’, as is and apparently truer to Barker's original vision, reveals a very, very confused film with a lot of stuff happening, and then more happening, but very little cohering or making sense. Stuff happens because it does. For example, why is the underground world of Median meant to be so secret and safe when people just seem to walk in and out of it at leisure throughout the film? All the stuff about who are the real monsters? and the monsters as angst-ridden outcasts feels like the rantings of a juvenile X-Men fan. Also, it becomes seriously camper and camper as it goes on, reaching its nadir when a policeman tongues a garrote lovingly. It’s a total mess and increasingly dull and painful to watch. It becomes apparent that the studio probably saw it and thought what the hell do we do with this? And their decision for cutting becomes quite understandable. What a shame.

But Cronenberg and his buttons-and-zip hood are still totally terrifying and still steal the show.

Elevator

Eight characters trapped in an elevator with a bomb. For the most part nicely written and compelling due to sturdy performances and decent dialogue, but it still feels like a television movie with added gore. The analogies to a post-9/11 world and financial crises are obvious enough to make one sigh without being too hammered home. Well made and diverting but probably nothing more.

V/H/S

I have far too much to write on this to put here, but essentially it’s a found footage anthology by a bunch of directors and, although truly overlong, it is mostly a great success, containing much unease, several surprises and ... well, it is scary. Although my Frightfest pal David found the final segment "hokey", I found myself whooping with delight once I realised what was going on and things really got crazy. The ‘found-footage’ subjectivity seemed to me to open up quite a different and thrilling vibe to the otherwise well-worn genre tales. It has to be said that the handheld and VHS tape aesthetic is probably overdone and likely to induce vertigo and nausea; it would seem that there were no tripods or putting the camera down in the days of VHS.

Again, however, is the problem and myth that no one can pick up a camera without wanting to make a porno and/or snuff film. Again, the male characters are mostly all problematic, bullying and coercing the women to varying degrees, and if not they seem just like tedious juvenile pranksters.

Rec3

The original ‘Rec’ is pretty much a horror masterpiece: one of the best point-of-view films ever made. ‘Rec2’ is a lesser beast, perhaps inevitably, but this third installment throws down the hand-held aesthetic after a fairly bravura opening and gets down to some post-"Evil Dead" kick-ass splatter. This all leaves the intimacy and terror of its predecessors very far behind. Well, maybe that was played out by this point, but what we are left with is a very different beast, much more interested in pleasing its audience with brides-and-chainsaws and comedy costumes and never troubling itself about the full ramifications of a huge wedding party where family and guests slaughter one another because they are infected or in self-defence. There are some nice gags earlier on regarding the characters but it’s hard to reconcile the glee with which the Frightfest audience greeted the chainsaw-on-zombie carnage with the moment where a bus full of children trying to escape is chillingly overrun with the infected.
 

 

The day also featured a rather unexpected and fun run-in with writer and Frightfest organiser Alan Jones. My Frightfest pal Paul and I had decided to forego the Dario Argento Q&A in order to get some food (you have to grab free moments where you can as there isn't much space between screenings). We came back and wandered into the theatre to see if we wanted to listen to Argento, but we did not and decided we wanted coffee instead, so we left. In the lobby Mr Jones seemed to bound across and said to us, "Oh, is he that boring?" Chatting away, I asked if they were going to an Argento film, which they weren't after all and we ended up chatting about how the renowned giallo director doesn't own the rights to any of his films other than "Opera", and how there is only one copy of "Suspiria" for digital projection and that one is booked for the next two years. Mr Jones keeps telling Mr Argento to get a digital copy of "Opera" to carry around with him, but he hasn't. "Oh, when will Argento listen to you?" I lamented on Mr Jones' behalf. Mr Jones threw up his hands and agreed.

I also confessed that although I love "Suspiria", I don't have so much time for Argento's other work (and his new "Dracula" is meant to be crap). I kinda regretted this as I recalled later that Jones is a big fan of Argento's earlier work, but never mind.  
 

Bumping into Alan Jones has been a mini-highlight for sure.

 

Pictures from Mars! (really)

It's Mars!!!

Fantastic.

Links & Stuff

Good stuff...
"Mark Twain Looking Pretty Cool in a Silent Film From 1909"

...and bad stuff...
"A guide to mass shootings in America" with map.

...and Victorian stuff...
"Baby's first butcher's shoop, circa 1900"

... and Maniacal Wood stuff...
I will be at FrightFest this year - this time for the whole event - and this one is intriguing me. A remake of grungy 80s horror "Maniac" with Elijah Wood... that isn't anything I ever would have predicted happening in the world. But I am a fan of Elijah and I am looking forward to seeing if this works. I mean, we don't need any more remakes, re-imaginings and re-boots, but I am curious nonetheless.

... and Soothing Sylvian stuff.