We're back with the latest set of five fucked-up films. I've arranged them from worst to best this time, because these five ran the gamut from "almost worthless" to "stunning cinematic achievement" with three stops in between. As always, I watch these so you don't have to.
Antichrist (2009): Lars Von Trier directed and wrote this quiet, dark story about a husband and wife whose young son dies, turning the wife into a basket case and the husband into a cold, condescending therapist. They decide to go out into the woods, to their one-time vacation spot, so she can explore and conquer her fears. This one is half slow burn and half shock piece, with some majorly disturbing visuals. It says a lot without a ton of dialogue about the lines between love and hate, pleasure and pain, innocence and guilt. On a more literal level, it's about people losing fights with their demons and pride coming before the fall. It's a hard line to walk when you try to be gross-out and thought-provoking at the same time, and for me, this missed the mark. I'll allow that it makes its points well and doesn't beat you over the head with them. It just tells a simple, sad story that touches on a lot of universal themes. I just can't recommend it- not because I was scarred, but because it was a predictable unpleasant slog apart from the occasional pornographic and/or extremely violent scene. Truth be told, those brief and intense moments are the only thing that landed this movie on "most disturbing" lists. It wasn't fun to watch or even interesting, but there was a commendable elegance to the story and its message that kept it from being a complete waste of time. I guess a D+ is where this one ends up.
13 Sins (2014): In this American remake of a Thai thriller, we follow the story of Elliot, who is little different from Craig in "Cheap Thrills": recently fired, drowning in debt, needs money to start a family. While Craig's ticket to the good life is a heavily intoxicated David Koechner, Elliot receives his escalating dares on a mysterious cellphone, with the late George Coe (RIP, Woodhouse) telling him he's on a game show and under constant surveillance. The payouts rise much faster in "13 Sins" than in "Cheap Thrills", but the tasks are also more gut-wrenchingly evil and difficult. Other than that, it's kind of the same movie only less funny, entirely unsexy, and more twisted. It's dark, but not haunting. It's clever, but not thought-provoking. It's got Ron Perlman, but in a role that encourages the viewer to take him seriously, which I'm pretty sure can't be done. And it does something I can't stand: a character says the (rather obvious) theme and message of the movie verbatim. It made me roll my eyes in "Martyrs", a film with much greater ambitions, and it doesn't work any better here. Mildly entertaining and occasionally cringe-inducing, but nothing original or special. C-.
Jacob's Ladder (1990): Tim Robbins stars in this reality-bending story as Jacob Singer, a Vietnam veteran who, like Billy Pilgrim, has become unstuck in time. Nobody from his battalion in Da Nang can remember anything about their last night in action, and many of them are regularly pursued by demons in their present-day lives. Unless those demons are hallucinations, or unless all of Jacob's fellow soldiers are all lying to him. Or unless any of a million other possibilities. For extra gut-wrench points, Jacob also has to deal with a divorce from a woman he still loves, a new girlfriend who is less than patient with his crazy, and the accidental death of his son, played by Macaulay Culkin. That brings me to the next notable thing about "Jacob's Ladder": check out this murderer's row of moderately famous people who were bit characters here before they went on to bigger things- Ving Rhames, S. Epatha Merkerson, Jason Alexander, Eriq La Salle, Kyle Gass, Lewis Black, and Culkin. Simply stunning. While the acting, cinematography, hair, and wardrobe is all very 1990 and embarrassingly so, the method of storytelling and (for lack of a better term) the mindfuckiness of this movie was well ahead of its time. I didn't think it was a keep-you-guessing movie. I thought it was just about Agent Orange, paranoia of the government, and PTSD, which was impressive in and of itself because PTSD wasn't really a thing in 1990. But it blindsided me and zoomed out my perspective multiple times, and I was always happy my predictions were wrong. Really good work, apart from the 1990 hair and 1990 stereotypes of blacks and Jews in New York City. I'll give it a B.
Kynodontas (or Dogtooth) (2009): Finally, we get to a film that delivers what I'm looking for. Instead of blood and gore, Greece's "Kynodontas" sets up a ludicrously insane premise, commits to it fully, and then just lets the characters live it. A mother and father of three have raised their now-grown children to believe that the world outside their fenced-in manor is uninhabitable, full of untold danger, and they aren't safe anywhere but home. It focuses on the beyond-naive, childlike personalities of a grown man and two grown women, raised in an alternate reality and never taught to question it- or, indeed, to think at all. The acting of the son and daughters is really quite remarkable in that the characters only have three emotions each, all of them in their most juvenile form: terror, glee, and puppy-like unconditional trust. Their faces remain guileless and without a trace of nuance for ninety minutes. They tussle and chase each other like toddlers one minute, then exchange pseudo-sexual favors for trinkets the next. It's like a prison movie, except the inmates don't know they're in prison and they love and adore their captors like gods. It goes to some shocking and taboo places- of course it does- but the movie's real accomplishment is establishing, then exploring, the set of conditions that allows the three main characters to grow to adult age without ever being close to truly human. Fascinating, compelling, original, and utterly alien. I give it a B+. It could have been an A, and one of the best movies this project has led me to, but I felt like the premise had potential to be infinitely twisted, and the twistiness was all too finite.
We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011): This one's been on my list since I started this series of posts, but I was saving it because everything I read had me convinced it would be one of the most disturbing movies I've ever seen. Having seen it, I now wish I'd saved it for last. "Kevin" works on a different emotional axis from the other highlights of this series, and on that axis, it's a goddamn masterpiece. It stars Tilda Swinton and John C. Reilly as Eva and Franklin, the parents of the titular character, and we see Kevin at three different phases of his life: a silent, defiant toddler, an increasingly vulgar and hateful young boy, and finally as the sometimes charming, sometimes casually violent adolescent. We know from the start that Kevin does something horrific, as the film isn't chronological. We see Eva driving toward flashing police lights. We see her trying to remove red paint that somebody splashed all over her house. We see total strangers curse her out in public. Interspersed with those scenes of the fallout, we watch Kevin grow up into a psychopath, his hate and rage focused almost entirely on Eva while Franklin remains convinced he's normal. Thanks largely to Jasper Newell, who plays 6-8 year old Kevin with a startling lack of humanity, you feel like you're in the room sharing an uncomfortable silence with the characters for most of the movie. Director Lynne Ramsey fills every setting with red at one point or another: with paint on the house, with police lights, in a grocery store in front of shelves of tomato sauce, or even in flashbacks to the Tomatina festival to show a pre-motherhood Eva as a happy, young, well-off world traveler. The red makes the film physically hard to watch; as the characters deal with their own internal trauma, the constant of the color burns your eyes as if to warn you away from watching through to the end. This boldness turns individual screenshots of the movie into works of art, even without context. After each interaction between Kevin and Eva you're more tense and less patient, wondering what form Kevin's hatred will take as it goes from a simmer to a boil. The climax and resolution are extraordinary, and like the other truly worthwhile films this project has shown me, it left me with one horrifically beautiful and indelible image. Marion hits bottom in "Requiem for a Dream". The final shot of "Inside". The kiss goodbye in "Funny Games". And now, Kevin's curtain call. It's these moments that I'm looking for whenever I start to watch a potential fucked-up film. It could have wound up anywhere from A to F given the content, but this movie is everything I hoped it would be. The plot structure, cinematography, casting, acting, and even the sound are all deserving of the highest praise. I'm giving it an A. Along with the aforementioned "Inside", "Requiem", and "Funny Games", we have a new entrant in the top tier of disturbing cinema.
Showing posts with label The Joys of Mental Illness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Joys of Mental Illness. Show all posts
Monday, August 10, 2015
Monday, July 20, 2015
Where We're Coming From Will Be The Death Of Us
It's been a long time since the Messed Up Movies project saw some play over here on RtH. No excuses, I'm just an inconsistent person and I liked writing about baseball and playing Magic more. But I've been binging horror movies lately, and accidentally came upon a few that fit the criteria for this series: that is, movies that get inside you and won't leave. There's no "Funny Games" or "Inside" in this set of five, but that's like saying not every sci-fi movie is "A New Hope". These are all worthwhile if you like seeing things you can't unsee and thinking things you can't unthink.
Audition (1999): I watched this one soon after my last post in this series and don't remember it too well, but lucky for me Past Dave wrote it up. Take it away, Past Dave!
In another of Takashi Miike's best regarded films, a lonely widowered film producer decides to use the audition process to find a new wife. This goes about as badly as it could possibly go. The last half hour of the film is a red nightmare, the rules of space and time go out the window, and we're put right into the psychotic mind of Asami (Eihi Shiina). I give it high marks for acting- Shiina is a great psycho. The film's pacing is agonizingly perfect, establishing so much while opening up new questions, the critical mass of which sends everything spiraling out of control. While it's not as easy to follow or cartoonishly entertaining like Visitor Q, the script and the acting are better. It gets a B-.
Thanks, Past Dave! And now, to the movies I've actually watched during my current binge...
Maniac (2012): In this reinvention of a 1980 slasher, Elijah Wood plays Frank Zito, a guy who restores mannequins when he's not taking scalps off of women. When he falls for Anna, a French artist who wants to use his mannequins in her show, the movie takes us inside Frank's head and shows us his perspective, and it doesn't let us out. He takes pills to quell his psychosis, but they're mostly ineffective to begin with and eventually they don't do anything. He lives in a delusion that his mannequins, wearing his gory trophies on their heads, are alive and part of a bizzarre harem. He sprays Raid in his back room obsessively in a futile attempt to keep the flies away from his 'girlfriends'. He has flashbacks of his mother (played by America Olivo with a very high sexy-creepiness-to-screen-time ratio) turning tricks and doing cocaine. It's not clear if we're witnessing Frank's final descent into madness or if he's been in this place for years, but it's tense, unnerving, and unrelenting. "Maniac" owes much of its existence to "Psycho", but it brings some original twists to the old Oedipal tropes, and Elijah Wood is more sympathetic and captivating than Anthony Perkins ever was. America Olivo as party-girl Norma Bates is a huge mark in "Maniac"'s favor as well. I'm giving this one an A-. One of the most intense and believable movies I've seen thus far in the project.
Spring (2014): This is one I don't want to spoil too much, because what it's really about is something very powerful that's best left as a surprise to the viewer. The plot follows Evan, a young American man who loses his father to a heart attack and his mother to cancer. He gets in a bar brawl the night of his mother's funeral, and believing the police are after him, he hightails it to Europe, where he meets British hooligans, exotic femme fatales, and a kind old man whose orchard has trees that grow both lemons and oranges. That's all the plot you're getting from me. This movie is as beautiful as it is disturbing, an inspired fusion of classic Hollywood backdrops and pacing with 21st century cinematography and characters. I'll give it a solid B.
Cheap Thrills (2013): As the title suggests, this one is distinctly American in its sex-drugs-violence theme. The one thing that makes it worthwhile is David Koechner, of Anchorman fame, playing the role of the mysterious millionaire who pits two childhood friends- down-on-his-luck Craig and mob debt collector Vince- against each other in an escalating series of dares for ever increasing sums of money. I didn't expect to write this one up as a messed-up movie. Half an hour in, I was pretty sure it was going to be forgettable stock horror, but strange things happen when you give David Koechner enough cocaine. The bluntness of his commands- proposing self-mutilation in the same tone of voice as when he offers $300 for the first man to make him a vodka tonic, while his gorgeous wife (Sara Paxton) watches with avid interest- ratchets up the unpredictability. The resulting chaotic spiral is a good ride that keeps you guessing. That said, the movie acknowledges its low ambition early and often, and it winds up being as close to a popcorn movie as anything I've written about here. It delivers exactly what it promises, and that makes it a C.
Creep (2014): While I enjoy the cocaine-and-strippers vibe of movies like "Cheap Thrills", there's something about minimalism that I take very seriously. My favorite movies in this project are small-cast, small-setting, limited timeline. With no distractions, every facial expression, every vocal tic, every extended silence becomes relevant and fascinating. This is why "Creep" is good. Written by the two actors and directed, found-footage style, by one of the two, it's the story of a filmmaker named Aaron who's hired by a guy named Josef. Josef is dying from a brain tumor and wants to leave his unborn son a video to let him know who his father was. As you might expect, Josef is a real piece of work. It's the suspense equivalent of "awkwaaaard" humor. While that cringe-y effect doesn't work for me in comedy (Seriously. Zooey Deschanel needs to stop immediately and take Kristen Wiig with her.), it's a completely different experience when it comes to horror. You're never quite sure how damaged Josef is, and in what way. You're sympathetic because he doesn't realize normal people don't call it Tubby Time, or put on wolf masks and sing the Peachfuzz song, but you're screaming at Aaron to get the hell out of the house regardless. It's going to take a while for me to be sure how I feel about "Creep", but no matter what, Josef is an original and compelling character who defines the film. I'll give it a B+, and that might be a little low. There's something very special about this film.
Audition (1999): I watched this one soon after my last post in this series and don't remember it too well, but lucky for me Past Dave wrote it up. Take it away, Past Dave!
In another of Takashi Miike's best regarded films, a lonely widowered film producer decides to use the audition process to find a new wife. This goes about as badly as it could possibly go. The last half hour of the film is a red nightmare, the rules of space and time go out the window, and we're put right into the psychotic mind of Asami (Eihi Shiina). I give it high marks for acting- Shiina is a great psycho. The film's pacing is agonizingly perfect, establishing so much while opening up new questions, the critical mass of which sends everything spiraling out of control. While it's not as easy to follow or cartoonishly entertaining like Visitor Q, the script and the acting are better. It gets a B-.
Thanks, Past Dave! And now, to the movies I've actually watched during my current binge...
Maniac (2012): In this reinvention of a 1980 slasher, Elijah Wood plays Frank Zito, a guy who restores mannequins when he's not taking scalps off of women. When he falls for Anna, a French artist who wants to use his mannequins in her show, the movie takes us inside Frank's head and shows us his perspective, and it doesn't let us out. He takes pills to quell his psychosis, but they're mostly ineffective to begin with and eventually they don't do anything. He lives in a delusion that his mannequins, wearing his gory trophies on their heads, are alive and part of a bizzarre harem. He sprays Raid in his back room obsessively in a futile attempt to keep the flies away from his 'girlfriends'. He has flashbacks of his mother (played by America Olivo with a very high sexy-creepiness-to-screen-time ratio) turning tricks and doing cocaine. It's not clear if we're witnessing Frank's final descent into madness or if he's been in this place for years, but it's tense, unnerving, and unrelenting. "Maniac" owes much of its existence to "Psycho", but it brings some original twists to the old Oedipal tropes, and Elijah Wood is more sympathetic and captivating than Anthony Perkins ever was. America Olivo as party-girl Norma Bates is a huge mark in "Maniac"'s favor as well. I'm giving this one an A-. One of the most intense and believable movies I've seen thus far in the project.
Spring (2014): This is one I don't want to spoil too much, because what it's really about is something very powerful that's best left as a surprise to the viewer. The plot follows Evan, a young American man who loses his father to a heart attack and his mother to cancer. He gets in a bar brawl the night of his mother's funeral, and believing the police are after him, he hightails it to Europe, where he meets British hooligans, exotic femme fatales, and a kind old man whose orchard has trees that grow both lemons and oranges. That's all the plot you're getting from me. This movie is as beautiful as it is disturbing, an inspired fusion of classic Hollywood backdrops and pacing with 21st century cinematography and characters. I'll give it a solid B.
Cheap Thrills (2013): As the title suggests, this one is distinctly American in its sex-drugs-violence theme. The one thing that makes it worthwhile is David Koechner, of Anchorman fame, playing the role of the mysterious millionaire who pits two childhood friends- down-on-his-luck Craig and mob debt collector Vince- against each other in an escalating series of dares for ever increasing sums of money. I didn't expect to write this one up as a messed-up movie. Half an hour in, I was pretty sure it was going to be forgettable stock horror, but strange things happen when you give David Koechner enough cocaine. The bluntness of his commands- proposing self-mutilation in the same tone of voice as when he offers $300 for the first man to make him a vodka tonic, while his gorgeous wife (Sara Paxton) watches with avid interest- ratchets up the unpredictability. The resulting chaotic spiral is a good ride that keeps you guessing. That said, the movie acknowledges its low ambition early and often, and it winds up being as close to a popcorn movie as anything I've written about here. It delivers exactly what it promises, and that makes it a C.
Creep (2014): While I enjoy the cocaine-and-strippers vibe of movies like "Cheap Thrills", there's something about minimalism that I take very seriously. My favorite movies in this project are small-cast, small-setting, limited timeline. With no distractions, every facial expression, every vocal tic, every extended silence becomes relevant and fascinating. This is why "Creep" is good. Written by the two actors and directed, found-footage style, by one of the two, it's the story of a filmmaker named Aaron who's hired by a guy named Josef. Josef is dying from a brain tumor and wants to leave his unborn son a video to let him know who his father was. As you might expect, Josef is a real piece of work. It's the suspense equivalent of "awkwaaaard" humor. While that cringe-y effect doesn't work for me in comedy (Seriously. Zooey Deschanel needs to stop immediately and take Kristen Wiig with her.), it's a completely different experience when it comes to horror. You're never quite sure how damaged Josef is, and in what way. You're sympathetic because he doesn't realize normal people don't call it Tubby Time, or put on wolf masks and sing the Peachfuzz song, but you're screaming at Aaron to get the hell out of the house regardless. It's going to take a while for me to be sure how I feel about "Creep", but no matter what, Josef is an original and compelling character who defines the film. I'll give it a B+, and that might be a little low. There's something very special about this film.
Thursday, July 17, 2014
Catching up on the life of The Everlasting Dave
I've heard it said that you can't be a writer unless you write. I've done a lot- a LOT- of writing over the past four months, but none of it has been for public consumption. I want to blog because I have loads of time to kill and occasionally I have something to say, but sometimes all I want to say about the things I care about is whether they're good or bad. Seriously, here are the things I care about:
Baseball. I'm just a little late if I want to do a baseball midseason report, but lately I've just been enjoying what others write and podcast about. Baseball hasn't dovetailed with any of the other things I care about, it's just been its usual awesome self. Mike Trout, Clayton Kershaw, the fall of the Yankees and the rise of the Mariners. It's all been great fun to follow but I can't say I have any original thoughts on the subject. I just picked up the Effectively Wild podcast this season, and like many others I'm saddened by Grantland's poaching of Ben Lindbergh. But I'm sad for different reasons. My personal boycott of Grantland, set in motion by the Dr. V. tragedy, remains in effect. Ben will basically be wiped off the face of the Earth for me. Sam Miller is still great and I'm sure he'll do fine, but man, I was just introduced to Ben and now he's going away. That sucks.
Rock and roll? Well, rock is awesome. The new albums by The Dollyrots and Roger Clyne & the Peacemakers are out and very good. The new Against Me! is already one of my favorite albums of all time. At least two of my favorite bands- Idlewild and Veruca Salt- will be releasing comeback albums at some point over the next five months. It's an exciting time to be a 90's guy. I actually just saw Veruca Salt at Lincoln Hall this past Monday, and it probably ranks in my top five concerts ever attended. Green Day 2001, Jamboree '99, Pearl Jam 2006, Peacemakers 2007, Veruca Salt 2014. I think that's the list.
How about Magic? I liked Journey into Nyx and I love M15, but both more for the flavor and the art than the function. Won some sweet Garruk sleeves and a deckbox at the prerelease, though my failure to open a Nissa is problematic. I've been playing Orzhov Midrange, Mono-Blue Devotion, and Rakdos Aggro with various splashes in Standard and I like them all. I played Orzhov at Grand Prix Chicago and I still think it's the best deck in a vacuum, but I've been more successful killing people with Spike Jesters and Lightning Strikes. Might as well stick with that until I have a few Nissas. And then I will make people die with lands. Bwahaha.
My work in mental health- On myself and with others- continues to go well. I've crossed over into hypomania a few times since they took me off the extended release mood stabilizer and put me on the immediate release, but I'm not complaining. I haven't fallen off the rails into delusion, uncontrolled impulsivity, or substance abuse, which is always what I need to look out for. I've basically just been unreasonably excited about things lately, but it hasn't hurt anything yet. It's nice to feel something, even if I end up feeling more than I want to. My new therapist is very good. I've been gradually tasked with taking on a bigger role in my mental health organization, and facilitating discussion groups once or twice a month has been extremely rewarding. I have an unhealthy need for praise, and I get much praise from the people who like the way my groups go. I never want to do anything unless I can be great at it, and this is something I'll be great at one day. Right now I'll reluctantly settle for being good.
And this brings me to the reason I've resurfaced, because the last thing I care about has been running laps around my brain for weeks now: the imminent return of Terrible Television. I have been watching ABC's "Black Box" all summer long, and it is high on the list of worst TV shows I have ever seen in a lifetime of seeking out and perversely enjoying bad television. I used to watch "Totally Spies", for crying out loud. As someone who loves silly hospital dramas, complicated lead roles, and anything that educates the public on mental health, I had very high hopes for "Black Box". It was supposed to be a prestige series, a "House, M.D." of the brain. It was supposed to show bipolar in a revealing but sympathetic light- as opposed to Silver Linings Playbook, which merely used it as a narrative device to justify aggressive bitchiness. No matter the intentions, "Black Box" is instead deeply flawed on every level. None of the actors are remotely credible, the dialogue and plot evolution are so incoherent and ridiculous it's become a masterpiece of unintentional comedy, the characters fail to be consistent even in the paper-thin, one-dimensional frames they've been given, and worst of all, it gives idiots the impression they are learning about a mental condition from which I happen to suffer and about which I have gone to some lengths to educate myself. I subscribed to this comment thread some time ago to track this phenomenon, and every day I'm greeted with 4 or 5 comments, all of them basically carbon copies of one another praising the show's "intelligence".
I know there are plenty of morons in the world (You, me, and the other 7,247,609,500 idiots breathing air on this planet at the moment) and I know the easiest way to find loud stupidity is to go looking for it. I also know there's a difference between stupidity and ignorance, and part of being a good person is assuming the latter. And so it has fallen to me, your jaded, snarky, profane tour guide of the land of mind-rotting rubbish, to give this show the vivisection it so clearly deserves. One episode at a time, highlighting the best of the worst in wooden acting, dialogue that makes Engrish look profound, and a story that will only be satisfying if every character dies a horrible, painful death in the finale. Terrible Television has been off the Internet for over a year. Starting this weekend, it's back. And this time, it's personal.
Thursday, October 31, 2013
I Can't Go To Bed With You Because You're Fourteen
Some months have passed since I checked in on the messed-up movies project. At first, it was because life was giving me enough reasons to be angry and depressed and I didn't need to complicate the ol' brain chemistry with things like this. Once that passed, I found myself holding solitary marathons of Breaking Bad, which naturally led to solitary marathons of The Wire. I can't recommend the former strongly enough, while the latter was okay. For me, The Wire is just what Law & Order would have been if it had been packed to the gills with sex, violence, the word "fuck", and finished a case in a season instead of an episode. A good show? Yes. But unquestionably overrated.
Before I went on that TV bender, I had watched a few more messed-up movies, and I watched the last two over the past couple weeks. So that means I've got five bite-size reviews, and there's a chance this won't be the last post in this series. Once again, do not watch any of these movies. I'm doing it so you don't have to.
Happiness (1998): This one boasts more famous actors than the typical movie from this project, including Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Lara Flynn Boyle, and Dylan Baker. The unifying theme of several separate plotlines is that everybody decides to do what they think will make them happy, with variable results. It probably would have worked better as three short films of 40-45 minutes apiece, each following one of three sisters: Boyle, Cynthia Stevenson, and Jane Adams. One would include Hoffman in his role as perverted prank phone caller, with Boyle as a target who challenges him via *69 to come over and have sex with her. That plot also includes Hoffman's obese neighbor who he eventually bonds with. One would involve Baker and Stevenson as the suburban couple with 3 kids and a dog, and the dad's sexual obsession with his 11-year-old son's best friend. Finally, there would be Adams' story, which is kind of like Liz Lemon's story minus the good job plus real problems. That leaves out the girls' parents, who have their own quests for old-person happiness going on. As the film switches between these plotlines without rhyme or reason, there's a steady stream of off-putting acts, and a few that cross the line into "Dude! No!" territory. Baker will make your skin crawl in a role that probably did him no favors for his future career. Adams gets the job done as the frazzled, luckless Jersey girl. Stevenson reminded me of Patricia Heaton on "The Middle", except instead of being married to the janitor from "Scrubs", she's married to a child rapist. Boyle is sexy, provocative, and aloof, and in a film with such a strange spectrum of feelings, she's also the emotional center. While everyone else runs themselves ragged in the pursuit of happiness, she knows from the start it's harder to obtain than Unobtainium. I was entertained by this one- Hoffman and Adams are consistently funny even when they're not supposed to be, and Baker is so good I might stop thinking of him as "The warden from Let's Go to Prison." On the other hand, pedophilia is no fun. I'm giving this one a C+.
Sweet Movie (1974): I sat through the whole thing, but I don't know what the hell this movie is supposed to be about. There's some dystopian future elements. There's some Actionist ethos. There's three wonderfully inventive and visually gorgeous scenes that qualify as works of art by themselves. But there's really no plot to follow, just one weird thing after another. If you've got a strong stomach and you're a fan of movies where every scene is either meaningless or symbolic and it makes no literal sense, have at it. But it's not for me. F.
In A Glass Cage (1987): This is the story of Klaus, a Nazi who escaped justice and relocated with his wife and young daughter to Spain. Klaus descended into pedophilia at some point in his wartime experiments, abusing countless young boys and keeping a detailed diary. Some time later, he is overwhelmed with guilt and attempts suicide by jumping from his balcony. He survives, but finds himself confined to an iron lung. Unable to handle it on her own, his wife hires Angelo, a local teenager, to be his caretaker. We soon find out that Angelo was one of Klaus's victims, and in a bizarre and twisted case of Stockholm Syndrome, he still idolizes the man and all he's done with his life. It's creepy, intense, occasionally disgusting, and extraordinarily well acted. In particular, David Sust as Angelo and Gisele Echevarria as daughter Rena bring very complex and demanding roles to life. The movie takes the idea of "breaking the cycle" of abuse and turns it on its ear in a series of uncomfortable events. In a sense it's about justice, I guess, but there's a whole lot of pain to wade through before you get there. This falls into the category of "Good movies I never need to think about again." I'll give it a B.
I Stand Alone (Seul Contre Tous) (1998): The idea of losing everything, piece by piece, until nothing is left has always resonated strongly with me. I really appreciate ("Like" is not an appropriate word) I Stand Alone because it captures the worst psychological moment that any of us ever face. It's the instant our worst fears are realized, when the last little spark of hope that comes with uncertainty vanishes into a cold, all-consuming despair. The thought process, the theme of loneliness, and the state of humanity shine brightly through the clouds of homophobia and misogyny brought on by the unnamed protagonist. He's a fifty-year-old man, married to a younger wealthier woman who, along with her mother, treat him like garbage. It's a three-act story with clear divisions: Act one, he forces his wife to miscarry via kicks and punches and flees the scene to Paris. Act two is the slow crush of poverty as he tries and fails to find help from friends. Finally, in act three, he decides it's time to go full-on "Michael Douglas in Falling Down" on everybody. This third act and its extended fantasy sequences are what make this movie a part of this project, but the whole thing is an intense primal scream on behalf of anyone who never had a chance. It's not a happy movie, but it doesn't wallow either, and as a whole it's just an emotionally powerful experience. I'm giving it a B+. Explaining why it's not an A would spoil things.
Visitor Q (2001): This dark comedy (I guess?) comes to us from Takashi Miike, Japan's most renowned shock film director. Visitor Q is the story of a nuclear family: a depraved and craven news reporter father, a heroin addict mother, a bullied teenage son who in turn brutally beats his mother, and an older daughter who's left home to become a prostitute. The titular visitor introduces himself by doming the dad with a rock-- twice!-- and next thing we know he's treated as a guest in the family's home. Over a short period of time, the visitor leads each family member to find fulfillment in outlandish and explicit ways, offering no counsel, only facilitation. There's scenes of intense bullying, murder, necrophilia, rape, incest, domestic violence, and something I can only describe as "cathartic extreme lactation". And yet, I laughed out loud multiple times. The only word that comes to mind for this film is "Inexplicable". Is the visitor supposed to be the devil? Do the characters live in a world without consequences? Am I to understand that we're all freaky-deakies at heart? I have no idea. Maybe this was just an extremely graphic live-action cartoon with no moral or purpose other than to entertain by showing us something we've never seen before. And hey, at least it has a happy ending in its own way. Unless I'm wrong. I might be wrong. Either way, the last ten minutes or so get a "Hell yeah!" from me. I lack the emotional wiring to react to the rest of it, unless o_0 is a reaction. So I guess this one's a C+.
Before I went on that TV bender, I had watched a few more messed-up movies, and I watched the last two over the past couple weeks. So that means I've got five bite-size reviews, and there's a chance this won't be the last post in this series. Once again, do not watch any of these movies. I'm doing it so you don't have to.
Happiness (1998): This one boasts more famous actors than the typical movie from this project, including Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Lara Flynn Boyle, and Dylan Baker. The unifying theme of several separate plotlines is that everybody decides to do what they think will make them happy, with variable results. It probably would have worked better as three short films of 40-45 minutes apiece, each following one of three sisters: Boyle, Cynthia Stevenson, and Jane Adams. One would include Hoffman in his role as perverted prank phone caller, with Boyle as a target who challenges him via *69 to come over and have sex with her. That plot also includes Hoffman's obese neighbor who he eventually bonds with. One would involve Baker and Stevenson as the suburban couple with 3 kids and a dog, and the dad's sexual obsession with his 11-year-old son's best friend. Finally, there would be Adams' story, which is kind of like Liz Lemon's story minus the good job plus real problems. That leaves out the girls' parents, who have their own quests for old-person happiness going on. As the film switches between these plotlines without rhyme or reason, there's a steady stream of off-putting acts, and a few that cross the line into "Dude! No!" territory. Baker will make your skin crawl in a role that probably did him no favors for his future career. Adams gets the job done as the frazzled, luckless Jersey girl. Stevenson reminded me of Patricia Heaton on "The Middle", except instead of being married to the janitor from "Scrubs", she's married to a child rapist. Boyle is sexy, provocative, and aloof, and in a film with such a strange spectrum of feelings, she's also the emotional center. While everyone else runs themselves ragged in the pursuit of happiness, she knows from the start it's harder to obtain than Unobtainium. I was entertained by this one- Hoffman and Adams are consistently funny even when they're not supposed to be, and Baker is so good I might stop thinking of him as "The warden from Let's Go to Prison." On the other hand, pedophilia is no fun. I'm giving this one a C+.
Sweet Movie (1974): I sat through the whole thing, but I don't know what the hell this movie is supposed to be about. There's some dystopian future elements. There's some Actionist ethos. There's three wonderfully inventive and visually gorgeous scenes that qualify as works of art by themselves. But there's really no plot to follow, just one weird thing after another. If you've got a strong stomach and you're a fan of movies where every scene is either meaningless or symbolic and it makes no literal sense, have at it. But it's not for me. F.
In A Glass Cage (1987): This is the story of Klaus, a Nazi who escaped justice and relocated with his wife and young daughter to Spain. Klaus descended into pedophilia at some point in his wartime experiments, abusing countless young boys and keeping a detailed diary. Some time later, he is overwhelmed with guilt and attempts suicide by jumping from his balcony. He survives, but finds himself confined to an iron lung. Unable to handle it on her own, his wife hires Angelo, a local teenager, to be his caretaker. We soon find out that Angelo was one of Klaus's victims, and in a bizarre and twisted case of Stockholm Syndrome, he still idolizes the man and all he's done with his life. It's creepy, intense, occasionally disgusting, and extraordinarily well acted. In particular, David Sust as Angelo and Gisele Echevarria as daughter Rena bring very complex and demanding roles to life. The movie takes the idea of "breaking the cycle" of abuse and turns it on its ear in a series of uncomfortable events. In a sense it's about justice, I guess, but there's a whole lot of pain to wade through before you get there. This falls into the category of "Good movies I never need to think about again." I'll give it a B.
I Stand Alone (Seul Contre Tous) (1998): The idea of losing everything, piece by piece, until nothing is left has always resonated strongly with me. I really appreciate ("Like" is not an appropriate word) I Stand Alone because it captures the worst psychological moment that any of us ever face. It's the instant our worst fears are realized, when the last little spark of hope that comes with uncertainty vanishes into a cold, all-consuming despair. The thought process, the theme of loneliness, and the state of humanity shine brightly through the clouds of homophobia and misogyny brought on by the unnamed protagonist. He's a fifty-year-old man, married to a younger wealthier woman who, along with her mother, treat him like garbage. It's a three-act story with clear divisions: Act one, he forces his wife to miscarry via kicks and punches and flees the scene to Paris. Act two is the slow crush of poverty as he tries and fails to find help from friends. Finally, in act three, he decides it's time to go full-on "Michael Douglas in Falling Down" on everybody. This third act and its extended fantasy sequences are what make this movie a part of this project, but the whole thing is an intense primal scream on behalf of anyone who never had a chance. It's not a happy movie, but it doesn't wallow either, and as a whole it's just an emotionally powerful experience. I'm giving it a B+. Explaining why it's not an A would spoil things.
Visitor Q (2001): This dark comedy (I guess?) comes to us from Takashi Miike, Japan's most renowned shock film director. Visitor Q is the story of a nuclear family: a depraved and craven news reporter father, a heroin addict mother, a bullied teenage son who in turn brutally beats his mother, and an older daughter who's left home to become a prostitute. The titular visitor introduces himself by doming the dad with a rock-- twice!-- and next thing we know he's treated as a guest in the family's home. Over a short period of time, the visitor leads each family member to find fulfillment in outlandish and explicit ways, offering no counsel, only facilitation. There's scenes of intense bullying, murder, necrophilia, rape, incest, domestic violence, and something I can only describe as "cathartic extreme lactation". And yet, I laughed out loud multiple times. The only word that comes to mind for this film is "Inexplicable". Is the visitor supposed to be the devil? Do the characters live in a world without consequences? Am I to understand that we're all freaky-deakies at heart? I have no idea. Maybe this was just an extremely graphic live-action cartoon with no moral or purpose other than to entertain by showing us something we've never seen before. And hey, at least it has a happy ending in its own way. Unless I'm wrong. I might be wrong. Either way, the last ten minutes or so get a "Hell yeah!" from me. I lack the emotional wiring to react to the rest of it, unless o_0 is a reaction. So I guess this one's a C+.
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
I Already Live With Too Many Ghosts
I'm obviously pacing myself with these shock movies, but here's five more. This installment features two of the most disgusting movies ever made, and I wanted to wait until I was actually in the mood to see them. The next five, along with some sort of baseball post, will be along eventually.
Martyrs (2008)- In another gruesome French film, two young women named Anna and Lucie (Morjana Alaoui and Mylene Jampanoi) seek revenge on the people who imprisoned and tortured Lucie when she was a child. Lucie is haunted by a grisly, vaguely female creature- the embodiment of her guilt over not rescuing the one person she had a chance to save when she escaped her captivity, as well as her fear that those days will return. When Lucie finds the guilty couple, the Belfonds, she murders them as well as their two children with a shotgun, then calls Anna for help when this doesn't subdue the 'creature'. All this takes place in the first fifteen minutes of the film. The purpose behind the Belfonds' actions is soon revealed: along with many others like them, the Belfonds did not seek to create victims but martyrs. Fully explained by a character's monologue (Show, don't tell. C'mon, everyone knows that), it ends up making some sense and providing a tenuous basis for the second half of the film. That said, everything from the moment Anna finds the secret basement till the end lands squarely in Pretentious Town for me. Even the ending, which is stunning, eye-popping, and impossible to unsee, is too far up its own ass to be as raw and nightmarish as it really should be. In some ways I'd prefer a popcorn slasher, because at least those movies don't lay claim to some sort of quasi-philosophical high ground. The better movies I have reviewed so far all use pain as the canvas, as an ever-present and unrelenting background factor upon which the story can be told. But in Martyrs pain and suffering are the paint, and the picture is of a seriously questionable greater purpose. I can sum that up by quoting a character from Funny Games. When asked "Why don't you just kill us?", he replies "You should never underestimate the value of entertainment." I think that's the right answer, and Martyrs is the wrong answer. I'm giving it a C, because while I didn't get a moment that stayed with me, I can see how some people might. Some people might also appreciate the horror makeup and effects more than I did.
Kill List (2011): In that this is a British action/suspense movie, it already sticks out like a sore thumb amongst all this over-the-line horror. It also stands out because 98% or so is a comfortable watch as such. A hitman screws up, and after eight months, he needs money so he gets back in the game for one last big job. And somehow, Kill List makes that worthwhile. Maybe it's that he needs his money to feed his family. Maybe it's the thick English and Irish accents that make everyone sound like they're talking about soccer all the time. Or maybe it's the fact that, despite the old "One last score" schtick, the plot is complex and engaging. As a change of pace I enjoyed it pretty well, and would give it a B on its merits as an action movie. But that's not what this project is about. It's about being affected, in the right amounts at the right time. It's about hating the filmmakers after you see it, but grudgingly admitting that they did a good job on it. Some movies maintain a high level of intensity throughout for effect, and you can argue Kill List at least attempts this. Then some movies are known for the lines they cross in specific scenes. Kill List does break a taboo or two, and does so unflinchingly. So it's got a little something going for it. But was any of it done with any apparent intent, be it to entertain or make a point? No, not really. C+.
A Serbian Film (2010): Based on what I read, A Serbian Film seemed like the kind of movie most people wouldn't be able to make it through. I am not most people. It's about Milos, a retired male porn star who's offered an insane amount of money to star in one last movie- but the director refuses to tell him anything except how much money he'll make. To its credit, even if the explicit sex and violence is too much, the first half of the film raises a lot of good points for discussion. The director of the movie-in-the-movie sees Serbia as a backward, useless, moribund place and believes that it would take something extraordinary to even get Serbia noticed. Even though I know very little about Serbia, the conversation on national identity is valid worldwide and it rings true. Another potent idea comes from a conversation between Milos and the porn director about the purpose of the adult film genre. The director's idea is to create something that transcends "Something losers who can't get laid can get off to", something with an emotional, psychological, possibly even spiritual component. I admire the vision, seeing as how 99.99999% of porn is utterly unambitious and I find it sad, but at this point the movie stops playing around with intelligent discourse and starts getting really screwed up. Milos is drugged repeatedly with bull aphrodisiac and speed, and if you can imagine something unspeakable, it's probably somewhere in the second half of A Serbian Film. After two particular scenes, I completely understood why "The film has been banned in Spain, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, and Singapore, rejected in Norway, and temporarily banned from screening in Brazil where a decision to repeal the film has not been made yet." (Wikipedia). If you're banned in Brazil, I think it's safe to say you've gone too far. But as I've always been one to test my own limits, and I'm no stranger to mental instability, my viewing experience is probably unique. I'd see something horrible happen and think "Yeah, I came up with that years ago. What else you got?" The great thing about this film is that it didn't run out of answers to that question until the credits started rolling. It's super-intense, perverse enough to be objectionable to just about everyone, and it goes completely off the rails into pure evil more than once . I don't know if I could look someone in the eye and justify the existence of A Serbian Film, but I don't have to. It gets an A.
Salo (or: The 120 Days of Sodom) (1957): I know I already un-recommended every movie from this project, but I'll do it again for this one in particular. Do not watch. It gets an F from me. Now that we've gotten that out of the way... Set in northern Italy toward the end of World War II, four of the most powerful men in the nation gather at a secluded mansion. Joining them are a cadre of young men who fill the dual role of guards and sexual playthings; nine teenage boys and nine teenage girls, kidnap victims all; and the "Storytellers", four older women who we quickly find out are lifelong sex workers. Over the course of weeks, the aristocrats live out all their most depraved fantasies while degrading, torturing, and abusing the eighteen adolescents. The violence is raw, the sex acts are explicit, and the film crosses one line I'd rather never see crossed. Not gonna lie; I threw up a little. First time one of these movies has done that. Now, I appreciate that the world was a radically different place in 1957, and the unabashed pansexuality was probably just as scandalous as the violence at the time. But from my point of view, it was just scenes of unpleasant sex interspersed with scenes of abject filth interspersed with scenes of unchecked sadism. Sure, I could describe A Serbian Film the same way, but Salo never gets the viewer to invest in its characters like A Serbian Film does. You're appalled at the lack of humanity at first, but when the perpetrators are so nonchalant and the victims so resigned and dazed, it stops being shocking and starts getting pointless and repetitive. The fifth time someone is dragged to a private rape room is less horrifying than the first, basically. Even as the aristocrats each take a house-spouse from among the teenage boys, nobody in the movie shows a distinct personality or anything to distinguish himself from his fellow perps or victims. It's a heartless film, and unlike most heartless films, it doesn't even beat you over the head with a pompous pseudo-intellectual message. If it's supposed to be a statement about absolute power corrupting absolutely, that isn't news. If you didn't know that already, then a psychopath who looks like Trapper John brutalizing teenagers with a creepy, tight-lipped grin on his face probably isn't going to help you understand. And if you're incapable of imagining how limitless power manifests, such that you need to watch someone else's idea of it, then I'd suggest you start using your imagination more. Your ideas might still be filthy, but at least that's filth you can call your own.
Snowtown (2011): Also known as The Snowtown Murders, this one is based on the true story of Australia's most notorious serial killer, John Bunting. Sixteen-year-old Jamie, his brothers, and his mom live in a South Australia slum, surrounded by pedophiles, drug addicts, and other winners. One such winner is Jamie's older brother, who rapes him with some regularity. Things seem to turn a corner when his mother meets John, a well-spoken and intelligent man who gets along well with her kids despite his vocal homophobia and other prejudices. When the less-desirable elements of the community start vanishing, Jamie suspects John immediately. Those suspicions are confirmed when John shows him two bodies,one a transvestite, the other, Jamie's junkie friend. The next victim is Jamie's older brother, and after John and his sidekick torture him, Jamie is the one to finish him off in an act of mercy. More acts of torture and murder follow. In his feature-length debut, director Justin Kurzel tells the story with a quiet calm that belies the horror going on- to the film's detriment, in my opinion. In one early scene, John agitates his friends and neighbors until they all sound like Fox News guests, but nobody but John thinks there's anything to it other than blowing off steam. After about twenty minutes of What's Eating Gilbert Grape-style small town hopelessness, the gory truth starts to come out, one corpse at a time. Then we're right back to small town hopelessness until the next victim is chosen. I felt like Kurzel buried the lead a little with this; it's so matter-of-fact, quiet, and dispassionate there's no chance of getting sucked into the twisted world of the serial killer. The graphic scenes of violence don't so much provide shock value as much as confusion, because the film doesn't really establish any sort of tension build. It's just like, "Oh, look, they tore that guy's toenail out. Good for them." Good for my mental health, bad for the purposes of this project. I give it a C-.
Martyrs (2008)- In another gruesome French film, two young women named Anna and Lucie (Morjana Alaoui and Mylene Jampanoi) seek revenge on the people who imprisoned and tortured Lucie when she was a child. Lucie is haunted by a grisly, vaguely female creature- the embodiment of her guilt over not rescuing the one person she had a chance to save when she escaped her captivity, as well as her fear that those days will return. When Lucie finds the guilty couple, the Belfonds, she murders them as well as their two children with a shotgun, then calls Anna for help when this doesn't subdue the 'creature'. All this takes place in the first fifteen minutes of the film. The purpose behind the Belfonds' actions is soon revealed: along with many others like them, the Belfonds did not seek to create victims but martyrs. Fully explained by a character's monologue (Show, don't tell. C'mon, everyone knows that), it ends up making some sense and providing a tenuous basis for the second half of the film. That said, everything from the moment Anna finds the secret basement till the end lands squarely in Pretentious Town for me. Even the ending, which is stunning, eye-popping, and impossible to unsee, is too far up its own ass to be as raw and nightmarish as it really should be. In some ways I'd prefer a popcorn slasher, because at least those movies don't lay claim to some sort of quasi-philosophical high ground. The better movies I have reviewed so far all use pain as the canvas, as an ever-present and unrelenting background factor upon which the story can be told. But in Martyrs pain and suffering are the paint, and the picture is of a seriously questionable greater purpose. I can sum that up by quoting a character from Funny Games. When asked "Why don't you just kill us?", he replies "You should never underestimate the value of entertainment." I think that's the right answer, and Martyrs is the wrong answer. I'm giving it a C, because while I didn't get a moment that stayed with me, I can see how some people might. Some people might also appreciate the horror makeup and effects more than I did.
Kill List (2011): In that this is a British action/suspense movie, it already sticks out like a sore thumb amongst all this over-the-line horror. It also stands out because 98% or so is a comfortable watch as such. A hitman screws up, and after eight months, he needs money so he gets back in the game for one last big job. And somehow, Kill List makes that worthwhile. Maybe it's that he needs his money to feed his family. Maybe it's the thick English and Irish accents that make everyone sound like they're talking about soccer all the time. Or maybe it's the fact that, despite the old "One last score" schtick, the plot is complex and engaging. As a change of pace I enjoyed it pretty well, and would give it a B on its merits as an action movie. But that's not what this project is about. It's about being affected, in the right amounts at the right time. It's about hating the filmmakers after you see it, but grudgingly admitting that they did a good job on it. Some movies maintain a high level of intensity throughout for effect, and you can argue Kill List at least attempts this. Then some movies are known for the lines they cross in specific scenes. Kill List does break a taboo or two, and does so unflinchingly. So it's got a little something going for it. But was any of it done with any apparent intent, be it to entertain or make a point? No, not really. C+.
A Serbian Film (2010): Based on what I read, A Serbian Film seemed like the kind of movie most people wouldn't be able to make it through. I am not most people. It's about Milos, a retired male porn star who's offered an insane amount of money to star in one last movie- but the director refuses to tell him anything except how much money he'll make. To its credit, even if the explicit sex and violence is too much, the first half of the film raises a lot of good points for discussion. The director of the movie-in-the-movie sees Serbia as a backward, useless, moribund place and believes that it would take something extraordinary to even get Serbia noticed. Even though I know very little about Serbia, the conversation on national identity is valid worldwide and it rings true. Another potent idea comes from a conversation between Milos and the porn director about the purpose of the adult film genre. The director's idea is to create something that transcends "Something losers who can't get laid can get off to", something with an emotional, psychological, possibly even spiritual component. I admire the vision, seeing as how 99.99999% of porn is utterly unambitious and I find it sad, but at this point the movie stops playing around with intelligent discourse and starts getting really screwed up. Milos is drugged repeatedly with bull aphrodisiac and speed, and if you can imagine something unspeakable, it's probably somewhere in the second half of A Serbian Film. After two particular scenes, I completely understood why "The film has been banned in Spain, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, and Singapore, rejected in Norway, and temporarily banned from screening in Brazil where a decision to repeal the film has not been made yet." (Wikipedia). If you're banned in Brazil, I think it's safe to say you've gone too far. But as I've always been one to test my own limits, and I'm no stranger to mental instability, my viewing experience is probably unique. I'd see something horrible happen and think "Yeah, I came up with that years ago. What else you got?" The great thing about this film is that it didn't run out of answers to that question until the credits started rolling. It's super-intense, perverse enough to be objectionable to just about everyone, and it goes completely off the rails into pure evil more than once . I don't know if I could look someone in the eye and justify the existence of A Serbian Film, but I don't have to. It gets an A.
Salo (or: The 120 Days of Sodom) (1957): I know I already un-recommended every movie from this project, but I'll do it again for this one in particular. Do not watch. It gets an F from me. Now that we've gotten that out of the way... Set in northern Italy toward the end of World War II, four of the most powerful men in the nation gather at a secluded mansion. Joining them are a cadre of young men who fill the dual role of guards and sexual playthings; nine teenage boys and nine teenage girls, kidnap victims all; and the "Storytellers", four older women who we quickly find out are lifelong sex workers. Over the course of weeks, the aristocrats live out all their most depraved fantasies while degrading, torturing, and abusing the eighteen adolescents. The violence is raw, the sex acts are explicit, and the film crosses one line I'd rather never see crossed. Not gonna lie; I threw up a little. First time one of these movies has done that. Now, I appreciate that the world was a radically different place in 1957, and the unabashed pansexuality was probably just as scandalous as the violence at the time. But from my point of view, it was just scenes of unpleasant sex interspersed with scenes of abject filth interspersed with scenes of unchecked sadism. Sure, I could describe A Serbian Film the same way, but Salo never gets the viewer to invest in its characters like A Serbian Film does. You're appalled at the lack of humanity at first, but when the perpetrators are so nonchalant and the victims so resigned and dazed, it stops being shocking and starts getting pointless and repetitive. The fifth time someone is dragged to a private rape room is less horrifying than the first, basically. Even as the aristocrats each take a house-spouse from among the teenage boys, nobody in the movie shows a distinct personality or anything to distinguish himself from his fellow perps or victims. It's a heartless film, and unlike most heartless films, it doesn't even beat you over the head with a pompous pseudo-intellectual message. If it's supposed to be a statement about absolute power corrupting absolutely, that isn't news. If you didn't know that already, then a psychopath who looks like Trapper John brutalizing teenagers with a creepy, tight-lipped grin on his face probably isn't going to help you understand. And if you're incapable of imagining how limitless power manifests, such that you need to watch someone else's idea of it, then I'd suggest you start using your imagination more. Your ideas might still be filthy, but at least that's filth you can call your own.
Snowtown (2011): Also known as The Snowtown Murders, this one is based on the true story of Australia's most notorious serial killer, John Bunting. Sixteen-year-old Jamie, his brothers, and his mom live in a South Australia slum, surrounded by pedophiles, drug addicts, and other winners. One such winner is Jamie's older brother, who rapes him with some regularity. Things seem to turn a corner when his mother meets John, a well-spoken and intelligent man who gets along well with her kids despite his vocal homophobia and other prejudices. When the less-desirable elements of the community start vanishing, Jamie suspects John immediately. Those suspicions are confirmed when John shows him two bodies,one a transvestite, the other, Jamie's junkie friend. The next victim is Jamie's older brother, and after John and his sidekick torture him, Jamie is the one to finish him off in an act of mercy. More acts of torture and murder follow. In his feature-length debut, director Justin Kurzel tells the story with a quiet calm that belies the horror going on- to the film's detriment, in my opinion. In one early scene, John agitates his friends and neighbors until they all sound like Fox News guests, but nobody but John thinks there's anything to it other than blowing off steam. After about twenty minutes of What's Eating Gilbert Grape-style small town hopelessness, the gory truth starts to come out, one corpse at a time. Then we're right back to small town hopelessness until the next victim is chosen. I felt like Kurzel buried the lead a little with this; it's so matter-of-fact, quiet, and dispassionate there's no chance of getting sucked into the twisted world of the serial killer. The graphic scenes of violence don't so much provide shock value as much as confusion, because the film doesn't really establish any sort of tension build. It's just like, "Oh, look, they tore that guy's toenail out. Good for them." Good for my mental health, bad for the purposes of this project. I give it a C-.
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
We're all gonna die (No matter what the plastic surgeon told ya)
So I've been working on a project for the past two months or so. I love rock and roll, baseball, and television, about all of which I've written thousands of words. I've always loved movies just as much, be they hilarious, horrifying, or just plain real- yet I haven't written a word about them. I didn't want to just churn out a "here's my ten favorite movies" post, because that's kind of a malleable list and I wouldn't learn anything from typing it. So in an effort to sound informed, I combed list after list of great films. I took movies from AFI's 100, Oscar history, cult classics, modern day masterpieces... whatever. If I hadn't seen it and felt like I should, I listed it and watched it. After a few weeks of this, I got bored because if a movie was a total waste of time (I'm looking at you, Paul Thomas Anderson) I didn't really feel like it earned the right for me to type a paragraph about it. If a movie was truly something special (Mystic River, Network) my thoughts could be distilled down to "OMG see this immediately." If it fell somewhere in between, I would end up convincing myself I loved or hated it by the time I was done writing about it. In the end, I was happy I'd put the time into watching those movies, but I wasn't the least bit happy with the writing results.
How do I change that? Simple, I have to care more. I have to have passionate feelings about anything I write about, and "Anyone who doesn't think this is an amazing movie can go suck eggs!" is not a passionate feeling to me. It's fanboyism, and if I want to be a fanboy I'll just start writing about bands I like. So I needed to figure out how to care- a common theme in my life- and this time I found the solution in my past.
I've dealt with mental illness for about half of my life, but at the time I saw Requiem for a Dream back in early 2002, I was unmedicated, unchecked, and as unstable as I ever was. My taste for substances was not yet mature, but through sleep deprivation, the occasional smoked bowl, and various other habits it was not uncommon for me to experience both ends of bipolar in a single day, or even an hour. It was a Sunday afternoon, at the top of one of these downswings, that a friend suggested we watch Requiem for a Dream. Even though I plunged into a severe depression after viewing and I complained incessantly about the people who 'made' me sit through the movie, it was a learning experience for me. The lessons took years- way longer than I'd like to admit- but eventually I realized that A) fiction can't hurt you, and B) movies don't have to make you feel good to be good. It is these lessons that I'm putting to work here, because in a silly, nostalgic, bored, and emotionally reckless way, it makes me sad that no movie since has impacted me the way Requiem for a Dream did. I've been actively avoiding aggressive negativity, protecting my own contentment with tenacity that surprises even me. I've decided, in order to be a more psychologically rounded person, that it doesn't have to be that way. So I did some research on lists titled various things like "Movies you'll never want to watch more than once", or "The most disturbing films of all time", and the early results have been very promising as far as the stated objective goes. Based on how I've recommitted myself to the idea, it would appear I'm more excited to watch French Horror than anything starring Humphrey Bogart or Liz Taylor. Sue me. So, I'm five movies deep into the "messed up movies" list, and here's what I've uncovered so far. Let me make it clear before I continue that these movies are NOT for everyone. In most cases, you can make the argument that they never should have been made to begin with in order to protect the greater good, and I don't disagree with that. So don't watch 'em; you'll regret it if you do.
Requiem for a Dream (2000): This is sort of cheating, because I haven't seen this movie in about 11 years. On the other hand, I never would have started this project without it. So here's the synopsis: Ellen Burstyn is a lonely widow, obsessed with TV infomercials and her own weight. She eventually resorts to starving herself and taking amphetamines to control said weight. Also, the infomercial host is none other than the guy who played the bad guy in both Happy Gilmore and Norm MacDonald's tour de force Dirty Work. Jared Leto plays Burstyn's son. He, his girlfriend Jennifer Connelly, and his friend Marlon Wayans are all hardcore drug users. Their lives revolve around speed and blow, but mostly smack. There's your setup, and for the next hour and a half, everything gets much, much worse. No spoilers here, but the final sequence of the film brought so much disgust, fear, and outrage to a 20-year-old Everlasting Dave that it was a couple of days before he was willing to speak again. Particularly, there is something that The Everlasting Dave enjoyed greatly at the time, and still enjoys greatly to this day, that was very nearly ruined by the end of Requiem. Now, I can't give it too good a grade because I consider it completely unwatchable. But in the words of Hawk Harrelson, it was "right size, wrong shape." It's one of the most powerful movies I'm aware of in terms of direction, acting, and editing, and just because it took me somewhere I didn't want to go doesn't mean it didn't get there. I gotta give it a B. If I was less of a pussy it'd be an A.
Funny Games (2007): I chose the remake over the 1997 original because, well, that's what was available. Naomi Watts and Tim Roth play a couple who take their young son up to a lake house for the weekend. Two preppy-looking young men (Michael Pitt is the leader, Brady Corbet the lackey) show up claiming to be working at a neighbor's house, and asking to borrow eggs. They 'accidentally' drop the eggs, they 'accidentally' drop Naomi Watts's phone in the sink, disabling it, and they 'accidentally' drop the eggs a second time. Then, as Watts and Roth begin to show frustration, the young men demonstrate what has got to be the single biggest overreaction to impoliteness of all time. I was struck by the film's nihilistic slow burn, the general air of unpredictability that comes from good actors playing well-written psychotic roles, and the gen-x parody of human behavior shown by the antagonists. At various points, Pitt turns to the camera and asks the viewer directly what (s)he'd like to see. It's a middle finger to sadists and psychopaths everywhere, to throw up a mirror and say "This is what you are. Do you like it?" But for a legitimate movie, loaded with acting talent, to play with conventions as abruptly and decisively as Funny Games does is kind of exhilarating in a cheap thrill kind of way. I'm giving it an A- for originality and the deliberate, chilling pace at which all avenues of escape are closed for the victims.
Inside,’ or ‘A l’interieur (2007): Most of the movies that constitute this project come with a warning, something to the effect of "This movie will scar you." I ignore those en masse, because I like to think of myself as so jaded nothing gets me off except freebasing ground-up moon rocks. Inside sure did its best to scar me, though. It's the story of Sarah (Alysson Paradis), a pregnant woman whose significant other dies in a car wreck in the first scene of the film. Four months later, both mother and fetus are healthy, and she is set for induced labor on Christmas Day. The film takes place on Christmas Eve, when a mysterious- and unnecessarily gorgeous- woman (Beatrice Dalle) arrives on her doorstep asking to use the phone. Depressed and paranoid, Sarah had told everyone from her family, work, and private life to stay away, and refuses the woman's request as well. At this point the other woman reveals she knows quite a bit about Sarah, and is really there to steal her baby. That's when the breaking-and-entering scenes begin, which are well executed in their play with calm and tension. When the mysterious woman finally makes it inside, one saddening and shocking piece of violence after another is the result, with the movie twisting and turning in all kinds of surprising ways, leading to a final shot that out-haunts Requiem for a Dream and probably every movie ever made. If you see it and find a way to get it out of your head, please let me know. I'm unlikely to ever watch this one again- the shock value would have worn off and the blood would get tedious- but I'm not sad I watched it once. It gets a B- from me. It's no higher because you'd have to be more messed up than me to 'like' it in any sense of the word I'm familiar with. I can't put it any lower because it does everything you want in horror- it makes you forget you're watching a movie, makes you care about the victim, and truly, viscerally, horrifies the viewer.
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father (2008): Every movie I plan on watching for this is original and lacks comparables, but someday there will be another Requiem or Inside. Hopefully, there will never be another Dear Zachary, as it's the only nonfiction documentary currently on my list. Knowing these things really happened makes it just a little harder to escape the brainspace of the film. In making this film for MSNBC- Yes, they televised it- Filmmaker Kurt Kuenne tells the story of his lifelong friend Andrew Bagby, who is found dead in a park in his hospital scrubs, shot seven times. The obvious suspect is the correct one: Dr. Shirley Turner, one of Andrew's coworkers, an ex-girlfriend thirteen years Andrew's senior. After the arrest, Shirley reveals that she's carrying Andrew's child and the film from that point follows two disconnected, but related, threads: Kuenne tours the entire United States and Newfoundland, Canada, talking to anyone he can find who knew Andrew or Shirley. Meanwhile, he covers the struggles of Andrew's parents as they fight the Canadian legal system to keep Shirley in prison and gain custody of baby Zachary- a story that takes place during the filming and contributes 100% of the gut-wrenching drama. Kuenne edits his documentary much like Michael Moore would, relentlessly bombarding the viewer with interviews, photographs, and the rapid-fire progress of the legal story while allowing his emotions to overcome his narration multiple times. It's a depressing and frightening story, but right up to the third-act twist and beyond, Kuenne's storytelling shines a spotlight on what I can only call the humanity of the story. I'm giving Dear Zachary a solid B, mostly on the strength of Kuenne's aesthetic rather than the story he tells.
Irreversible (Le Temps detruit tout (Time Destroys Everything)) (2002)- (*THIS MOVIE CANNOT BE DISCUSSED WITHOUT SPOILERS. YOU ARE WARNED*.) Of all the plots in all the world, the one that least lends itself to reverse storytelling is the rape revenge story. This doesn't stop writer/director Gaspar Noe, who starts with our hero Marcus (Vincent Cassel) being carted out of a gay club and driven away in an ambulance. He's brutalized and barely alive, with the EMT's and police all calling him a "fag". As each scene draws out more of the story, we find that Marcus's girlfriend Alex (the breathtaking Monica Bellucci) has been beaten and raped and Marcus's investigation led him to the gay club, looking for a man known as "The Tapeworm". The rape itself is what makes this film a shock piece. It's nine straight minutes of The Tapeworm holding Alex down on the ground in a subway tunnel while he struggles to stay on top of her. The camera does not look away, even though it's almost impossible to watch the entire sequence. The told-in-reverse background to the incident adds almost nothing to the story: Marcus's friend Pierre is Alex's ex, but he bears no ill will. Marcus is a childish hedonist, but Alex likes him anyway. And of course, Alex is pregnant with Marcus's child, and they want to keep the baby. Seeing these meaningless setup scenes at the end rather than the beginning made this movie, especially the second half, feel like a total waste of time. I'm giving it a D, for "Don't bother".
How do I change that? Simple, I have to care more. I have to have passionate feelings about anything I write about, and "Anyone who doesn't think this is an amazing movie can go suck eggs!" is not a passionate feeling to me. It's fanboyism, and if I want to be a fanboy I'll just start writing about bands I like. So I needed to figure out how to care- a common theme in my life- and this time I found the solution in my past.
I've dealt with mental illness for about half of my life, but at the time I saw Requiem for a Dream back in early 2002, I was unmedicated, unchecked, and as unstable as I ever was. My taste for substances was not yet mature, but through sleep deprivation, the occasional smoked bowl, and various other habits it was not uncommon for me to experience both ends of bipolar in a single day, or even an hour. It was a Sunday afternoon, at the top of one of these downswings, that a friend suggested we watch Requiem for a Dream. Even though I plunged into a severe depression after viewing and I complained incessantly about the people who 'made' me sit through the movie, it was a learning experience for me. The lessons took years- way longer than I'd like to admit- but eventually I realized that A) fiction can't hurt you, and B) movies don't have to make you feel good to be good. It is these lessons that I'm putting to work here, because in a silly, nostalgic, bored, and emotionally reckless way, it makes me sad that no movie since has impacted me the way Requiem for a Dream did. I've been actively avoiding aggressive negativity, protecting my own contentment with tenacity that surprises even me. I've decided, in order to be a more psychologically rounded person, that it doesn't have to be that way. So I did some research on lists titled various things like "Movies you'll never want to watch more than once", or "The most disturbing films of all time", and the early results have been very promising as far as the stated objective goes. Based on how I've recommitted myself to the idea, it would appear I'm more excited to watch French Horror than anything starring Humphrey Bogart or Liz Taylor. Sue me. So, I'm five movies deep into the "messed up movies" list, and here's what I've uncovered so far. Let me make it clear before I continue that these movies are NOT for everyone. In most cases, you can make the argument that they never should have been made to begin with in order to protect the greater good, and I don't disagree with that. So don't watch 'em; you'll regret it if you do.
Requiem for a Dream (2000): This is sort of cheating, because I haven't seen this movie in about 11 years. On the other hand, I never would have started this project without it. So here's the synopsis: Ellen Burstyn is a lonely widow, obsessed with TV infomercials and her own weight. She eventually resorts to starving herself and taking amphetamines to control said weight. Also, the infomercial host is none other than the guy who played the bad guy in both Happy Gilmore and Norm MacDonald's tour de force Dirty Work. Jared Leto plays Burstyn's son. He, his girlfriend Jennifer Connelly, and his friend Marlon Wayans are all hardcore drug users. Their lives revolve around speed and blow, but mostly smack. There's your setup, and for the next hour and a half, everything gets much, much worse. No spoilers here, but the final sequence of the film brought so much disgust, fear, and outrage to a 20-year-old Everlasting Dave that it was a couple of days before he was willing to speak again. Particularly, there is something that The Everlasting Dave enjoyed greatly at the time, and still enjoys greatly to this day, that was very nearly ruined by the end of Requiem. Now, I can't give it too good a grade because I consider it completely unwatchable. But in the words of Hawk Harrelson, it was "right size, wrong shape." It's one of the most powerful movies I'm aware of in terms of direction, acting, and editing, and just because it took me somewhere I didn't want to go doesn't mean it didn't get there. I gotta give it a B. If I was less of a pussy it'd be an A.
Funny Games (2007): I chose the remake over the 1997 original because, well, that's what was available. Naomi Watts and Tim Roth play a couple who take their young son up to a lake house for the weekend. Two preppy-looking young men (Michael Pitt is the leader, Brady Corbet the lackey) show up claiming to be working at a neighbor's house, and asking to borrow eggs. They 'accidentally' drop the eggs, they 'accidentally' drop Naomi Watts's phone in the sink, disabling it, and they 'accidentally' drop the eggs a second time. Then, as Watts and Roth begin to show frustration, the young men demonstrate what has got to be the single biggest overreaction to impoliteness of all time. I was struck by the film's nihilistic slow burn, the general air of unpredictability that comes from good actors playing well-written psychotic roles, and the gen-x parody of human behavior shown by the antagonists. At various points, Pitt turns to the camera and asks the viewer directly what (s)he'd like to see. It's a middle finger to sadists and psychopaths everywhere, to throw up a mirror and say "This is what you are. Do you like it?" But for a legitimate movie, loaded with acting talent, to play with conventions as abruptly and decisively as Funny Games does is kind of exhilarating in a cheap thrill kind of way. I'm giving it an A- for originality and the deliberate, chilling pace at which all avenues of escape are closed for the victims.
Inside,’ or ‘A l’interieur (2007): Most of the movies that constitute this project come with a warning, something to the effect of "This movie will scar you." I ignore those en masse, because I like to think of myself as so jaded nothing gets me off except freebasing ground-up moon rocks. Inside sure did its best to scar me, though. It's the story of Sarah (Alysson Paradis), a pregnant woman whose significant other dies in a car wreck in the first scene of the film. Four months later, both mother and fetus are healthy, and she is set for induced labor on Christmas Day. The film takes place on Christmas Eve, when a mysterious- and unnecessarily gorgeous- woman (Beatrice Dalle) arrives on her doorstep asking to use the phone. Depressed and paranoid, Sarah had told everyone from her family, work, and private life to stay away, and refuses the woman's request as well. At this point the other woman reveals she knows quite a bit about Sarah, and is really there to steal her baby. That's when the breaking-and-entering scenes begin, which are well executed in their play with calm and tension. When the mysterious woman finally makes it inside, one saddening and shocking piece of violence after another is the result, with the movie twisting and turning in all kinds of surprising ways, leading to a final shot that out-haunts Requiem for a Dream and probably every movie ever made. If you see it and find a way to get it out of your head, please let me know. I'm unlikely to ever watch this one again- the shock value would have worn off and the blood would get tedious- but I'm not sad I watched it once. It gets a B- from me. It's no higher because you'd have to be more messed up than me to 'like' it in any sense of the word I'm familiar with. I can't put it any lower because it does everything you want in horror- it makes you forget you're watching a movie, makes you care about the victim, and truly, viscerally, horrifies the viewer.
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father (2008): Every movie I plan on watching for this is original and lacks comparables, but someday there will be another Requiem or Inside. Hopefully, there will never be another Dear Zachary, as it's the only nonfiction documentary currently on my list. Knowing these things really happened makes it just a little harder to escape the brainspace of the film. In making this film for MSNBC- Yes, they televised it- Filmmaker Kurt Kuenne tells the story of his lifelong friend Andrew Bagby, who is found dead in a park in his hospital scrubs, shot seven times. The obvious suspect is the correct one: Dr. Shirley Turner, one of Andrew's coworkers, an ex-girlfriend thirteen years Andrew's senior. After the arrest, Shirley reveals that she's carrying Andrew's child and the film from that point follows two disconnected, but related, threads: Kuenne tours the entire United States and Newfoundland, Canada, talking to anyone he can find who knew Andrew or Shirley. Meanwhile, he covers the struggles of Andrew's parents as they fight the Canadian legal system to keep Shirley in prison and gain custody of baby Zachary- a story that takes place during the filming and contributes 100% of the gut-wrenching drama. Kuenne edits his documentary much like Michael Moore would, relentlessly bombarding the viewer with interviews, photographs, and the rapid-fire progress of the legal story while allowing his emotions to overcome his narration multiple times. It's a depressing and frightening story, but right up to the third-act twist and beyond, Kuenne's storytelling shines a spotlight on what I can only call the humanity of the story. I'm giving Dear Zachary a solid B, mostly on the strength of Kuenne's aesthetic rather than the story he tells.
Irreversible (Le Temps detruit tout (Time Destroys Everything)) (2002)- (*THIS MOVIE CANNOT BE DISCUSSED WITHOUT SPOILERS. YOU ARE WARNED*.) Of all the plots in all the world, the one that least lends itself to reverse storytelling is the rape revenge story. This doesn't stop writer/director Gaspar Noe, who starts with our hero Marcus (Vincent Cassel) being carted out of a gay club and driven away in an ambulance. He's brutalized and barely alive, with the EMT's and police all calling him a "fag". As each scene draws out more of the story, we find that Marcus's girlfriend Alex (the breathtaking Monica Bellucci) has been beaten and raped and Marcus's investigation led him to the gay club, looking for a man known as "The Tapeworm". The rape itself is what makes this film a shock piece. It's nine straight minutes of The Tapeworm holding Alex down on the ground in a subway tunnel while he struggles to stay on top of her. The camera does not look away, even though it's almost impossible to watch the entire sequence. The told-in-reverse background to the incident adds almost nothing to the story: Marcus's friend Pierre is Alex's ex, but he bears no ill will. Marcus is a childish hedonist, but Alex likes him anyway. And of course, Alex is pregnant with Marcus's child, and they want to keep the baby. Seeing these meaningless setup scenes at the end rather than the beginning made this movie, especially the second half, feel like a total waste of time. I'm giving it a D, for "Don't bother".
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Quote of the Day- March 24, 2012
"I can't stop chattering my teeth. Drinking helps, but then I can't stop screaming."
-My Person (In the Grey's Anatomy sense)
-My Person (In the Grey's Anatomy sense)
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