Amazon Pilots
I mentioned the other week that Amazon released 14 pilot episodes for original series. They haven't made a decision about which series will get picked up, but I watched a bunch, so here are some thoughts. High level summary: "Meh."

• Zombieland - This was probably the only show I was actually curious about, and it acquitted itself reasonably well. It's tough to compete with the talent of the movie, but it actually worked well enough, and some of established in the movie actually fits the TV mold (notably the "Zombie kill of the week"). It's clearly not hitting on all cylinders and it's not as polished as the movie, but it has potential, and I could see myself watching this.
• Alpha House - This show about 4 Republican congressmen who are roommates clearly has the best pedigree. Name actors, Doonsbury writer, and so on. That talent does show in the final product, which is probably the most composed of the shows that I watched. But it wasn't all that funny, and the one-sided politics means that it won't be surprising or interesting either. Again, the pilot was fine, and there's potential here, but I could also see this crashing and burning.
• Onion News Empire - As a fictional show about a ridiculous news channel (i.e. it's not an actual fake news show, it's a story about people who put on a real news show that's, uh, fake), this one was ok, and I chuckled at a few jokes, but it's ultimately nowhere near the level of brilliance that the Onion is capable of. Again, I suppose it could grow some legs, but I was fairly disappointed by this one.
• Those Who Can't - This show about a misanthropic trio of teachers who act outrageous and inappropriately towards their students sounded awful, but was surprisingly engaging. It's got a sorta It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia lite vibe going on. It seems a little too reliant on the characters' apathy, which is a joke that could get old pretty quickly, but I could see this working if given room to grow.
• Browsers - People started singing and I immediately checked out. It's actually one of the better reviewed shows, but I couldn't even be bothered with watching it.

That's what I watched. I wasn't too enthused by any of the episodes, but I think that's more of an issue with Amazon's process here than the shows themselves. Comedy shows are cheap to produce (which is no doubt why Amazon is starting with them), but they usually take a few episodes to establish themselves and grow into their premise. There are very few comedies that launch with a pilot that is representative of what the show will ultimately become. A few of these episodes show promise, but who knows how any of them would play out. I watched them because I was curious, but that's because this is a sorta novelty thing. Perhaps if I came away from this experience with more than a "meh" feeling, it would be different, but at this point, I'm not particularly inclined to take more chances on these Amazon shows, which has to be a problem for Amazon. I'll be curious to see which shows get picked up and move forward (though apparently Zombieland won't, according to the creator's tweets, which indicate that fans of the movie really killed the show for some reason...)



Star Trek: TNG Tidbits
The Star Trek: The Next Generation Third Season BD came out recently, replete with bonus materials. Of course, it's obscenely expensive (Star Trek releases have always been so) and probably only purchased by obsessives. Us normal fans just fire up episodes on Netflix pretty easily, but then we miss out on remastered HD visuals and bonus features. Fortunately for us, Hercules from AICN has done a seemingly comprehensive recap of all those special features, and there's lots of behind the scenes gems to be had. The general consensus is that season 3 is where TNG turned the corner from a decent show into a great show, and a lot of these features apparently focus on that. Some interesting tidbits:

* A "technobabble generator" created as a joke by a friend of Shankar became a frequently utilized not-joke writers' room tool.

Always funny to hear about the teching the tech tendencies of the writers...

* Moore and Braga lament that "Star Trek: Generations," which they labored on for a year, didn't turn out as well as "All Good Things," which took two weeks to write.

* Piller argued against the other writers who wanted Wesley to stay true to his fellow cadets in the season-five episode "The First Duty." Piller prevailed and Wesley did end up throwing his friends under the bus to put Starfleet Academy honor first. The episode, relates Shankar, is now used at the U.S. Air Force Academy to teach cadets about the honor code.

* The writers reveal Brent Spiner grew weary of stories involving Data's cat Spot. As a practical joke, they inserted into one script a scene in which Data invents a collar that translates Spot's meows into English.

* One storyline that was much fought for before Piller shot it down was to kill Will Riker and replace him permanently with his transporter-mishap doppleganger Tom Riker. "It was a chance to reinvent the character," explains Moore.

* Patrick Stewart, perhaps envious of William Shatner, apparently told every TNG writer he met that Picard wasn't "shooting and screwing" enough.

* Behr had a great episode idea about Picard getting promoted to admiral and Riker given the captaincy of the Enterprise -- and how Picard dealt with the promotions. But Roddenberry insisted Picard's insecurities regarding his new life were out of character, and the script was scrapped. That concept evolved into the episode in which Picard gets boned on the pleasure planet.

* Frakes was always annoyed when the writers made Riker turn down offers of commanding his own ship. He (and many fans) felt his willingness to decline a captaincy was out of character.

Frakes hits the nail on the head with that last one. I mean, I get why it was done (the show must go on, and having Riker off on some other ship would be either contrived or lame), and it made for some good episodes (The Best of Both worlds 2 parter with the Borg being the most obvious), but the character of Riker was such an experience hound, always game for just about anything, that it's hard to believe he would turn down a captaincy.

* Ironically given the subject matter of his first script, Moore was not a fan of children living aboard the Enterprise. He also never understood why a psychotherapist was always sitting on the bridge next to the captain. Moore was also no fan of the replicator, which he believed an enemy of drama.

* Rick Berman, Brannon Braga and Moore all once lamented that they should have saved "Yesterday's Enterprise" for the plot of the "Generations" movie, with the Kirk-Spock Enterprise swapped for the Garrett-Castillo one.

* The staff, which at the time included future "Battlestar Galactica" mastermind Ronald D. Moore, would often refer to Data as "a toaster."

Lots of other interesting stuff in Herc's post...



The State of Streaming
So Netflix has had a good first quarter, exceeding expectations and crossing the $1 Billion revenue threshold. Stock prices have been skyrocketing, going from sub 100 to over 200 in just the past 4-5 months. Their subscriber base continues to grow, and fears that people would use the free trial to stream exclusive content like House of Cards, then bolt from the service seem unfounded. However, we're starting to see a fundamental shift in the way Netflix is doing business here. For the first time ever, I'm seeing statements like this:

As we continue to focus on exclusive and curated content, our willingness to pay for non-exclusive, bulk content deals declines.

I don't like the sound of that, but then, the cost of non-exclusive content seems to keep rising at an absurd level, and well, you know, it's not exclusive. The costs have risen to somewhere on the order of $2 billion per year on content licensing and original shows. So statements like this seem like a natural outgrowth of that cost:

As we've gained experience, we've realized that the 20th documentary about the financial crisis will mostly just take away viewing from the other 19 such docs, and instead of trying to have everything, we should strive to have the best in each category. As such, we are actively curating our service rather than carrying as many titles as we can.

And:

We don't and can't compete on breadth with Comcast, Sky, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Sony, or Google. For us to be hugely successful we have to be a focused passion brand. Starbucks, not 7-Eleven. Southwest, not United. HBO, not Dish.

This all makes perfect sense from a business perspective, but as a consumer, this sucks. I don't want to have to subscribe to 8 different services to watch 8 different shows that seem interesting to me. Netflix's statements and priorities seem to be moving, for the first time, away from a goal of providing a streaming service with a wide, almost comprehensive selection of movies and television. Instead, we're getting a more curated approach coupled with original content. That wouldn't be the worst thing ever, but Netflix isn't the only one playing this game. Amazon just released 14 pilot episodes for their own exclusive content. I'm guessing it's only a matter of time before Hulu joins this roundalay (and for all I know, they're already there - I've just hated every experience I've had with Hulu so much that I don't really care to look into it). HBO is already doing its thing with HBO Go, which exlcusively streams their shows. How many other streaming services will I have to subscribe to if I want to watch TV (or movies) in the future? Like it or not, fragmentation is coming. And no one seems to be working on a comprehensive solution anymore (at least, not in a monthly subscription model - Amazon and iTunes have pretty good a la carte options). This is frustrating, and I feel like there's a big market for this thing, but at the same time, content owners seem to be overcharging for their content. If Netflix's crappy selection costs $2 billion a year, imagine what something even remotely comprehensive would cost (easily 5-10 times that amount, which is clearly not feasible).

Incidentally, Netflix's third exclusive series, Hemlock Grove, premiered this past weekend. I tried to watch the first episode, but I fell asleep. What I remember was pretty shlockey and not particularly inspiring... but I have a soft spot for cheesy stuff like this, so I'll give it another chance. Still, the response seems a bit mixed on this one. I did really end up enjoying House of Cards, but I'm not sure how much I'm going to stick with Hemlock Grove...



Miss Jean Brodie's Modestly Magnificent, Matriarchally Manipulative Springtime-For-Mussolini Movie Quiz
Dennis Cozzalio of the Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule blog has posted another of his famous movie quizes, and as always, I'm chomping at the bit to provide my answers. Previous installments answering questions from Professor Hubert Farnsworth, David Huxley, Professor Fate, Professor Russell Johnson, Dr. Smith, Professor Peabody, Professor Severus Snape, Professor Ed Avery, Dr. Anton Phibes, Sister Clodagh, and Professor Arthur Chipping are also available... This time around, Miss Jean Brodie has concocted "a genuine corker of a questionnaire which is sure to divide allegiances and facilitate shocking betrayals of confidence over accusations of cheating and excessive IMDb referencing, even if you're taking the test alone." A curious assertion, seeing as though Miss Brodie herself has cheated by including several questions recycled from previous quizzes (marked with an asterisk). Well regardless, let's sharpen those #2s and start cheating:

1) The classic movie moment everyone loves except me is:

The challenge with this question is that it's tough not to just pick a classic movie I don't love and pass that off as a "moment"... so yeah, I'm not a big fan of Easy Rider, except, you know, the classic scenes where they're motorcycling past gorgeous landscapes, set to awesome classic rock music. I actually do love those sequences, even if I don't love the movie. Looking at other responses, it seems that When Harry Met Sally... is not faring so well, but I think that scene is fine. So I'll choose something from a film I really do like, in a sequence that is expertly framed and staged: the crop-duster sequence from North by Northwest. Like I said, it's well done and visually arresting, but at the same time, why would anyone think that this is the best way to attack someone? It's one of those engineer's disease things where I get taken out of the movie as I try to figure out logistics of what's going on. A failing that lies squarely on my shoulders, not Hitchcock's, but that's the best answer I can give for this one. 2) Favorite line of dialogue from a film noir

I'm shocked that no one has given the answer that first leapt to mind. Maybe it's too obvious but this line from Double Indemnity encapsulates everything about noir pretty neatly: "Yes, I killed him. I killed him for money - and a woman - and I didn't get the money and I didn't get the woman. Pretty, isn't it?" That it is.

3) Second favorite Hal Ashby film

Well, I've only seen two, and since I love Harold and Maude, it looks like The Last Detail takes this one by default. However, I should really get off my arse and see Being There sometime.

4) Describe the moment when you first realized movies were directed as opposed to simply pieced together anonymously. *

I honestly can't think of a specific moment in which this happened. I guess it was a sorta slow revelation. I can't even really remember when it was that I sorta developed my own personal auteur theory, which, to be sure, was not particularly well considered. It was really just a realization that the director attached to a project was a more reliable indicator of quality than the actors, purely based on being burned by great casts in bad movies (which, come to think of it, was also realization that dawned slowly, over the course of years, to the point where pinpointing a moment seems impossible).

5) Favorite film book

Given that I read a lot, I'm a little surprised at how little I read about film. My default answer would have to be Understanding Movies by Louis Giannetti. My copy is the 8th edition, but I think it's up to the 12th or so now. It was the textbook we used when I managed to take a film course in college (despite having almost nonexistent electives) and it provided me with a nice toolbox for film analysis...

6) Diana Sands or Vonetta McGee?

Vonetta McGee, mostly because of her work in one of my favorite bad movies: The Eiger Sanction. From memory, her character's name is Jemima Brown and she thinks Clint Eastwood can "broil a mean steak." She actually doesn't have that big of a role in the movie, but for some reason, I found her memorable.

7) Most egregious gap in your viewing of films made in the past 10 years

I feel like I've kept up with everything that I've wanted to keep up with. The gaps tend to be things that have never really moved me. Stuff like Mumblecore or contemporary Iranian cinema (or similarly obscure foreign groupings of films that aren't Asian). I've seen some of this stuff, but I don't really have any desire to check out more, especially since the gaps in my viewing from films made before the last 10 years are so much greater!

8) Favorite line of dialogue from a comedy

You've got to be kidding me. Way to narrow it down, Miss Brodie! I'll just give the first thing that came to mind, which is Dan Aykroyd's perfect delivery of "Listen... do you smell something?" in Ghostbusters. Unfortunately, that's probably not even my favorite line in that movie, let alone all comedies.

9) Second favorite Lloyd Bacon film

Dude has 130 director credits in IMDB, and I don't think I've seen any of them. Call this one a mulligan.

10) Richard Burton or Roger Livesey?

Richard Burton, because I actually know who he is and have seen him in movies and stuff.

11) Is there a movie you staunchly refuse to consider seeing? If so, why?

There are tons of movies I don't particularly want to see, but that's not really a staunch refusal, and I'd probably watch anything once, if properly motivated.

12) Favorite filmmaker collaboration

It's funny, I didn't even consider the director/actor collaborations that everyone answers for this one. My mind went immediately to Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, who collaborated on Grindhouse and Sin City (and probably others). For director/actor combos, I'd go with something like John Woo and Chow Yun Fat, or the obvious Scorsese and De Niro. 13) Most recently viewed movie on DVD/Blu-ray/theatrical?

On DVD, it was Devil in a Blue Dress, which was very good. On streaming, it was Side by Side, an interesting documentary where Keanu Reeves (!?) interviews filmmakers about the rise of digital filmmaking (and the fall of photochemical film). Definitely worth a watch. And in theaters, sheesh, it was A Good Day to Die Hard, which I suppose was entertaining enough, but didn't really do that much for me.

14) Favorite line of dialogue from a horror movie

Another impossible question, though this seems more manageable. The first thing that came to mind was Psycho, but even there, I've got two: "A boy's best friend is his mother." and "We all go a little mad sometimes." Some good ones in Halloween too: "It's Halloween, everyone's entitled to one good scare." and Dr. Loomis' ravings about Michael Myers: "I met this six-year-old child, with this blank, pale, emotionless face and, the blackest eyes... the *devil's* eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realized what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply... *evil*."

15) Second favorite Oliver Stone film

A tough one, since I have a clear favorite (JFK), but the rest are all sorta on the same level. I'll say Platoon as a second favorite.

16) Eva Mendes or Raquel Welch?

I have to admit that neither filmography does much for me, but despite One Million Years B.C., I'll have to go with Eva Mendes, who still shows some promise...

17) Favorite religious satire

Life of Brian. Duh.

18) Best Internet movie argument? (question contributed by Tom Block)
19) Most pointless Internet movie argument? (question contributed by Tom Block)

Hay, you asked the same question twice! Take your pick: Is film criticism/culture dead? Let's rank Pixar's films! Is X film sexist/racist/whateverist? Is Ferris Bueller a projection of Cameron's, ala Fight Club? (Good call with that last one, Jeff Gee, thx) Here's a quiz consisting of 31 questions about film, you should totally answer them. And so on.

20) Charles McGraw or Robert Ryan?

Wow, two people I know and like about equally. Granted, I haven't seen more than a few movies from either actor (despite their lengthy filmographies), but I'll go with the coin toss winner here, Robert Ryan.

21) Favorite line of dialogue from a western

In Once Upon a Time in the West, three men confront Harmonica, who asks if they brought him a horse. The leader, clearly planning to kill Harmonica, sez that it "...looks like we're shy one horse." To which, Harmonica replies: "You brought two too many.", then proceeds to shoot down all three, then take one of the horses. There are some others ("When you have to shoot, shoot. Don't talk."), but I'll leave it at that.

22) Second favorite Roy Del Ruth film

Yep, it looks like I need to take another mulligan here.

23) Relatively unknown film or filmmaker you'd most eagerly proselytize for

Last year's hyperactive Detention merits a mention here, as it is certainly one of the most underseen films that I think would be popular if only people knew it existed. On the other hand, it is a reallly weird movie and probably has limited mainstream appeal. But I love it.

24) Ewan McGregor or Gerard Butler?

Well, here's the thing, I don't think either of these guys are particularly great at picking projects to work on. They can be great at times, but they're both in a lot of crap too. And I mean a lot of crap. Ewan McGregor might have a slight edge at this point, I guess, and he usually manages to be good, even in bad movies (see: Star Wars prequels)

25) Is there such a thing as a perfect movie?

In terms of objective evaluation, probably not. Fortunately, no one is even capable of objectively evaluating a movie (at least, not in a meaningful way). But then you get into the morass of subjectivity, and it becomes difficult to pick out what's perfect. Perfect movies are like love. It may not be perfect for everyone, but it's perfect for me at that particular time, and things that I'd hate in any other person/movie, I'm willing to tolerate... nay, love in some others. So yeah, that makes sense, right?

26) Favorite movie location you've most recently had the occasion to actually visit *

Well, this is lame, but I'll have to give the same answer as last time: 30th Street Station in Philadelphia, most recently seen in Blow Out. Oh, oh, wait, the Llanerch Diner from Silver Linings Playbook. Technically, I haven't eaten there recently, but I've driven by it since seeing the movie...

27) Second favorite Delmer Daves film

Nope, never seen any of his movies. I had 3:10 to Yuma on my DVR at one point, but then my DVD pooped out and I had to replace it. So close, yet so far away.

28) Name the one DVD commentary you wish you could hear that, for whatever reason, doesn't actually exist *

Tons of options here. Orson Welles seems like he would be fascinating. Certain contemporary filmmakers, for whatever reason, don't do commentaries for their own films, like The Coen Brothers (who have done a couple, but not most), Quentin Tarantino, and Christopher Nolan. So let's get the four of them together in a room and have them do a commentary for... well, any movie, really, but let's say Pulp Fiction, just for the yuks.

29) Gloria Grahame or Marie Windsor?

Can't say as though I'm overly familiar with either, though I have seen movies by both. I'll go with Marie Windsor, for The Killing...

30) Name a filmmaker who never really lived up to the potential suggested by their early acclaim or success

There are a depressing number of answers to this question. M. Night Shymalan is an obvious one. Richard Kelly is another, though I did enjoy The Box more than most and he's still young enough that he could emerge big time.

31) Is there a movie-based disagreement serious enough that it might cause you to reevaluate the basis of a romantic relationship or a friendship? *

I can't say as though there is. I value differences of opinion and if we all liked the same exact stuff, life would be rather boring. I don't get the internet fanboyistic tendency to harass people who hold different opinions about movies, games, etc... I'm sure there would be stuff that a friend (romantic or not) likes that would give me pause if I found out at a certain crucial period of our friendship, but then, I probably have the same sort of weird taste for something too. I mean, come on, did you see above where I said I liked The Eiger Sanction?

* a classic or, if you must, recycled question from quizzes past that Miss Brodie thought might be interesting to revisit

And that's all for now. As always, it was a blast coming up with answers for this one...



The Oscars
The Academy Awards! At this point, every conceivable opinion you could have about the Oscars has become gauche. Whether you're genuinely enthusiastic, profoundly bored, or searingly cynical, you've got a pretty lame outlook on the event. It's not your fault, it's just the hand we're all dealt. I've found that two things help make the show palatable: beer and mockery. And predictions!

For the past 9 years (!?), I've been "liveblogging" the Oscars. When I started this practice, blogging was still mildly hip and cool. Now the concept of a "liveblog" is hoary and lame. As such, who the hell knows what I'm going to do tonight. I will certainly update this post throughout the show, but I probably won't do so as often as I have in the past. Or maybe I'll take to twitter, like any sane person would do. We'll just have to wait and see what happens, won't we? If you're interested, previous installments are here: [2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004]

In accordance with tradition, I'll lay out my predictions for major awards right now:

• Best Picture: Argo. I'm as surprised about this as you are. Like everyone else, I thought this was going to be a Lincoln year. But Argo has a lot of momentum from other awards shows, it's got an actor as a director (always popular with the actor-heavy Academy), and finally, it's a movie about how awesome Hollywood is and how Hollywood saved the world or something. Oh sure, Affleck wasn't nominated for director, and those two awards usually track together, but it doesn't seem like that rule is as relevant now that the best picture category can feature up to 10 movies. It stands to reason that these awards will eventually split at some point. If I were voting, I'd pick Zero Dark Thirty or Django Unchained, but they almost certainly won't win (because torture bad and Tarantino's movie uses the N word a lot). Also, Kathryn Bigelow already got her Oscar just a couple years ago, and even though Zero Dark Thirty is drastically better than The Hurt Locker, no one will see the need to reward it. Les Miserables is a musical, a genre which rarely wins, plus it seems to have a mixed response anyway. Amour will take the Best Foreign Language Film award. Everyone will see the nomination itself as reward enough for Beasts of the Southern Wild. Life of Pi seems divisive. Silver Linings Playbook is a wildcard, but I don't think it will win. In the end, I think it still comes down to Argo or Lincoln.
• Best Director: Steven Spielberg for Lincoln. This is basically by process of elimination. Benh Zeitlin is out because he's so young that just the nomination is reward enough (as mentioned above). Michael Haneke will be getting the Best Foreign Language Film award, so no need consider him. David O. Russell seems more likely to take a Screenwriting award (a typical compensation move). Ang Lee took a lot of chances, but such ambitions are rarely recognized. Spielberg brought a revered historical figure to life. Plus, slavery is, like, really bad. And Spielberg managed to say that without excessive use of the N word, so I guess that makes his movie more palatable. Or something. I would be genuinely surprised if Spielberg doesn't win (and given these nominees, he would probably be my pick too).
• Best Actress: Jennifer Lawrence for Silver Linings Playbook. Perhaps a consolation prize for this movie, but also a recognition for the rising star of Lawrence, who has paid her dues (already been nominated once) and I suspect many will be pleased at her Hunger Games stardom as well. Oh, and she was also pretty good in the movie. There's always that. I'd give Jessica Chastain fair odds as well, but she plays a torturing torturer (who totally tortures people), so maybe that will hold back a few votes (she would probably take mine, though it's close). Quvenzhane Wallis is the youngest actress to ever be nominated, but I think the pattern with this film is that the nomination is enough. Emmanuelle Riva is the oldest actress to ever be nominated and she's a genuine legend... but only in France, which won't play here. Naomi Watts is in the slot normally reserved for Meryl Streep, a charismatic actress that everyone likes all the time, but such nominations rarely win.
• Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis for Lincoln. No contest here. Everyone else should feel honored to lose to Day-Lewis, whose performance is legitimately amazing (if I were voting, he'd be my pick).
• Best Supporting Actress: Anne Hathaway for Les Miserables. Really just based on people liking her. Perhaps as an apology for pairing her with James Franco as an Oscar host or something like that. I didn't see Les Mis, but from everything I've heard, she was the best part and that I Dreamed a Dream thing is catchy too. The only other nominee I could see winning is Amy Adams, who is another popular actress who should be rewarded sometime, but I think The Master might be a little too cerebral for the Academy.
• Best Supporting Actor: Tommy Lee Jones for Lincoln. Because who the hell knows with this category? Everyone in the category has already won an Oscar, so no one really cares here. That being said, I think the other main contender will be Robert De Niro, because he hasn't done anything worthwhile in a long, long time, and maybe the Academy wants to throw him a bone as encouragement. But he has to go up against Tommy Lee Jones, who fought to abolish slavery, so yeah, tough call. In all honesty, anyone could take this home.
• Best Original Screenplay: Django Unchained. I know I've been down on this movie's chances because of Tarantino's usage of the N word, which theoretically should be most attributable to the script, but this is a really tough category to pick. Mark Boal's script would have a better chance if it didn't endorse torture (which it doesn't, but that's the perception). Amour will get the Best Foreign Language Oscar. I'm surprise Flight was even nominated. Moonrise Kingdom is actually an interesting Dark Horse nomination here, as maybe the Academy will seek to reward Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola because they snubbed them in all the other categories (seriously, what's up with that?)
• Best Adapted Screenplay: Silver Linings Playbook. Consolation prize for David O. Russell. On the other hand, if Argo has a good night, it could snap this one right up.
• Editing: Argo. Even if it doesn't take best picture, it will probably still rack up some of these technical awards.
• Cinematography: Skyfall. Definitely not the conventional pick here (which is probably Life of Pi), but I'm pulling for a career consolation prize for Roger Deakins, who has been nominated 10 times without a win.
• Visual Effects: Life of Pi. Though there's also a strong contender in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, I'll chalk some lost votes up to the whole 48fps thing.
• Makeup: Les Miserables
• Costumes: Les Miserables
• Musical Score: Argo
• Best Song: Skyfall. I never realized that this is actually Best Original Song, which explains why I Dreamed a Dream wasn't nominated (it would have probably killed if it was). As it is, I'll just go with Adele, as everyone seems to like her.
• Best Animated Film: Frankenweenie. A tough category to pick this year. Normally you just look for the Pixar film, but Brave has not fared so well, and the category is actually pretty strong this year. I'm betting on Burton, but I wouldn't be surprised if any of the other nominees won...
• Best Foreign Language Film: Amour. Seems like a lock.
• Best Documentary: Searching for Sugar Man. This is a notoriously difficult category to predict. Supposedly the rules for who can vote on this category were broadened this year, so that puts another spin on things. Still, Sugar Man has momentum, and it's a feel-good doc, which sometimes wins out over more "important" docs....

So there are my picks. I'll be back later tonight, though I think I'm going to be mostly just tweeting or something. Who knows? Will post an update here either way.

Update 7:30 pm: It looks like Twitter will work for this, so I'm just going to insert a twitter widget here. Feel free to leave a comment here or @ me on twitter...





More Year End Movie Cramming
I've made some excellent progress on the annual year end movie cram session, uncovering at least two top 10 films in the process. Of course, I've also discovered some additional movies that I figure I'll watch before I ever get around to compiling a top 10. Some of these show potential, some are almost certainly horrible, but I want to watch them anyway, because I'm a glutton for punishment. Not really, but most of these are on Netflix Instant, so I'll probably give them a go anyway.

• ParaNorman - Alright, I'm cheating a little here because... I already watched this one, but it was one of those things I kept hearing about in year end movie discussions of underrated movies, etc... And actually, this one seems to have garnered a fantastic reputation. I can't say as though I quite loved it that much, but I did really enjoy it and am really happy I caught up with it.
• The Pirates! Band of Misfits - Alright, let's keep the animation theme going (Maybe time for a best animated film category in the annual Kaedrin Movie Awards?). I didn't hear much about this back when it came out, but hey, it's the Wallace and Grommit guys (I think?), so I'll give it a shot.
• The Three Stooges - I dismissed this back when it came out, but I've been told it's actually very funny. I've also been told it's horrible, but who knows, maybe it will make a good KMA nominee at some point.
• Trouble with the Curve - Eastwood's cragly old-man period continues. I can't say as though I expect much out of this, but why not give it a look?
• Something from Nothing: The Art of Rap - I'm not a big rap fan, but good documentaries will often bring you into worlds you never thought you'd find interesting. And I do like documentaries about the creative process, so this could be a winner.
• The Queen of Versailles - This documentary is showing up on a lot of top 10 lists and whatnot and it's on Netflix Instant, so I'll check it out. I'm not overly enthused about the subject matter, basically chronicling the opulent excess of a rich family as they're forced to buckle down during the 2008 economic woes. It almost feels like slightly upscale reality TV.
• Mansome - It seems like Morgan Spurlock is really cranking out mediocre documentaries these days, but you know, I tend to find them oddly entertaining, even if never quite approaching the level of profundity that he things he's achieving.
• Sleepwalk with Me - I've heard a lot about this movie, and yet, I find that I can't really describe it at all. Seems to be generally well respected though, and it's on Netflix Instant, so I'll check it out.
• Bullhead - One of last year's Best Foreign Film Oscar nominees, didn't really get a release here until 2012.
• Dark Shadows - Lots of mixed signals about this. It seems like a horrid mess, but the bits and pieces I've seen of it seem at least entertaining, even if it never really comes together.

And who knows what other things will come up. Like I said, I'm not really expecting any of the above to knock my socks off, but I guess there's only one way to find out for sure.



The Hobbit
So I saw The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and I have no idea what to make of this movie. My thoughts on this movie have become a gigantic bundle of contradiction, and instead of eventually resolving itself in time, it's just getting bigger and bigger, like a snowball rolling downhill and turning into an avalanche. I've seen a lot of reactions to this film, and I've had the rather odd experience of agreeing with what everyone said about the film. Which is to say, I agree that the film is great, that it is horrible, that it's action packed, but boring, that 48 FPS in 3D is pretty cool, that it really sucks too, that somehow the first third of the story is overlong, yet I can't wait to see more. What the heck is going on here? Let's break it down a bit more.

Let's talk about the elephant in the room first. The Hobbit is the shortest book in the whole Lord of the Rings series, and it's a rather simplistic adventure tale written for children, yet Peter Jackson and crew have decided to split this up into three films. What's more, each film is looking to run close to 3 hours in length. The cynical response to this is to call it a simple money grab, and for sure, New Line certainly greenlit the project for exactly that reason, but I get the impression that Jackson genuinely believes in what he's doing here. I also get the impression that Jackson is being enabled by those around him, that few are telling him not to do something so extravagant. That is pure speculation, of course, but I feel like Jackson got a little carried away with this project and no one tried to stop him.

But how is it possible to do this? Well, technically, I suppose this isn't just a straight adaptation of The Hobbit. The story is certainly padded out, but not by making events in The Hobbit last longer, but by delving deeply into the supplemental materials of Tolkien's universe. Stuff like The Simarillion, of which there exists a ton of material to draw upon.

So rather than a Wizard and a bunch of dwarves dragging a hobbit along on an adventure, we get all these background sequences where we see historical digressions on dwarf culture, or Radagast the Brown riding a sleigh pulled by bunnies, or a mysterious necromancer mucking with the lands, or Gandalf speculating on the rise of Sauron with the elves, and so on. There is an interesting balance that Jackson is trying to go for here. The Hobbit is a really light story, which means that it could be a bit jarring when viewed in light of the more intense LotR trilogy films. These new scenes help integrate the movie with the rest of the series and give it more depth... but I'm not entirely sure that was needed. Again, I didn't find any of these things boring or poorly done, but then, they're just not necessary either.

Does this actually work? Damned if I know! If you're down with the whole Tolkien universe, and I suppose I am, then it's all good, I guess. I'm the type of person that appreciates details that hang together in the end, even if some things aren't strictly necessary. On the other hand, I can totally understand the complaints that this movie is overlong and boring. There's a lot of unnecessary stuff here, and while I appreciate detailed narratives and explanations, I'm also a fan of economical storytelling. While Jackson and Co. managed something rather spectacular with the original LotR trilogy, ruthlessly trimming parts of the story that were superfluous (I mean, is anyone really all that upset that Tom Bombadil didn't show up in Fellowship of the Ring?), they went in the complete opposite direction with The Hobbit, adding tons of extraneous stuff that wasn't even in the narrative to begin with. I can appreciate the skill with which this was done and I was never bored while watching the movie, but at the same time, I would probably have liked this better if there were only one movie that was tightly plotted.

I hold out hope that at the end of this whole process, instead of releasing even longer extended cuts on DVD/BD/Streaming, Jackson will buckle down and produce a 2-3 hour cut of the movie (which, again, is looking to be 9 hours or so long). Given the amount of extra stuff in this movie, I'm pretty sure that would be possible. I also doubt this will happen officially, but I can pretty much guarantee such a thing will show up on the internets, Phantom Edit style. It would probably be an insane amount of work, but I wouldn't put it past Tolkien fans, who certainly qualify as cult fans, despite the popularity of these movies.

Alright, next up is the presentation. I saw the movie in 48 FPS IMAX 3D (jeeze, that's a lot of acronyms). It was simultaneously interesting and terrible. I guess I can see where Jackson is coming from with this. 48 frames per second does impart more information to the viewer, and it makes fast camera movements appear smoother and more detailed. This is especially helpful when it comes to 3D, and I think this is the first time I saw a 3D movie in IMAX without emerging from the theater with a splitting headache. Should that be attributed to 48 FPS? I'm not sure, but from what I've seen, that might be a fair bet. On the other hand, I found the presentation lacking in many ways. One of the interesting things about it is that I don't really know how to describe it. I'm not alone, either. Everyone seems to be grappling with the problem of describing this presentation, whether they're proponents or detractors. Many have called it more realistic looking and smoother, which sounds nice, but then, detractors are saying it looks like an old, crappy TV show or a video game. There's also the notion that more realistic looking can also contribute to a sorta uncanny valley kinda experience, where the supposedly better experience of more FPS ends up feeling creepy or unnerving. From my perspective, while the movie clearly has great production design and special effects, the presentation detracts from the experience considerably. I suppose I fall down more on the detractors' side here. I found it distracting at first, but eventually got used to it. But the fact that it was no longer distracting doesn't mean that it looked good. Ultimately, I found the whole enterprise rather pointless. I didn't get anything extra out of it, except that this is yet another piece in the puzzle of my cognitive dissonance with this movie.

There's a part of me that wonders if my instinctual response to this is because I'm used to film and that I'm just being a luddite, but I've really grown to dislike 3D, and I don't think that 48 FPS has really changed my mind on that. There's just something so strange about the experience that it's really hard to get over it. This feels like more than just a simple change that I need to get used to. Besides, it's not like I've never seen higher frame rates. For example, I get why video games go for higher frame rates - it's an interactive experience, so faster feedback is always going to feel better - but I don't see the need in the world of film.

There are some things I'm not so conflicted about. Ian McKellen has always been fantastic as Gandalf, and this movie is no exception. Martin Freeman is a wonderful addition to the cast and comports himself rather well, especially in key scenes like the game of riddles with Gollum. Speaking of which, that scene with Freeman and mo-cap Andy Andy Serkis as Gollum is the highlight of the movie. While the beginning of the film felt meandering and overstuffed, the last third was pretty well done and delivered some satisfying arcs that I didn't realize were being set up earlier in the film. Oh and remember that first, horrible trailer with that dwarf song? Yeah, I hated that trailer, but the song actually felt much better integrated into the movie. I thought it was actually somewhat movie. If, like most of the film, a little unnecessary. But it was a good kind of unnecessary.

In the end, I really enjoyed this movie. I also kinda hated it. I... really don't know how to parse my response here. Ultimately, I think I would have rather had a single film that told the simple story with the normal 24 FPS 2D presentation. But I don't begrudge Jackson for trying something new either. Gah, I feel rather feckless when thinking about this movie. I keep throwing thoughts at it, but nothing seems to stick. It's like I'm stuck in some sort of quantum loop, both loving and hating it all at once. The cat is both alive and dead, the electron is a particle and a wave, it's all very paradoxical. But it is happening... so what do I say? I don't know. I do know that I'll try to watch the next movie in regular 2D. Assuming that will even be possible. And I do still hope that someone puts together a 3 hour (or shorter) edit of the entire series at some point. I suppose that says something.



Year End Movie Cram Session
With the end of the year approaching and most blogs and newspapers and other outlets already releasing their top 10 lists, I always find myself excitedly rushing to catch up with movies I missed throughout the year... while keeping up with the late-year prestige releases. Some might find this to be a chore, but I always end up having a lot of fun discovering movies I didn't know about or think I'd enjoy. Oh sure, there's the occasional tedious bore too, but that just makes the real surprises that much more enjoyable. As of this writing, I've seen 48 movies that would be considered a 2012 release, which is actually a little low compared to the past few years, perhaps because I didn't end up at any film festivals this year. So I've got some catching up to do, and fortunately, there are lots of good movies coming up or already available on streaming... Indeed, the latest episode of Filmspotting SVU has covered this very topic, and some of their streaming choices have an overlap with my choices below...

Current Releases or Coming Soon

• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - Duh. To be honest, I'm rather annoyed that this book, the shortest and simplest of all the LotR novels, is being dragged out to three movies... but on the other hand, it looks pretty good too. Seeing this tonight, actually.
• Django Unchained - The "D" is silent. It also stands for "Duh".
• Zero Dark Thirty - A movie that I was originally not that excited about, but more recent trailers are definitely more compelling and it's getting a lot of buzz too. Most feedback seems to indicate that it's a great movie, but there's some controversy over the portrayal of torture in the films. Not having seen the movie, I will refrain from any sort of judgement on that, but at the very least, I think it could provide for some interesting discussion.
• Save the Date - Tiny indie romantic comedy. I've actually heard good things. Release looks to be limited, but I believe it will be showing up OnDemand.
• Life of Pi - I originally dismissed this based on what I thought was a pretty awful looking trailer, and to be honest, I'm still not very enthused about this movie. That being said, I'm hearing good things from critics, so maybe it's worth a shot. Who knows if I'll actually get off my butt to see this, but it's possible...
• Jack Reacher - Tom Cruise's shenanigans aside, I'm actually a big fan of Christopher McQuarrie as both a writer and director (even on films people hated, like The Tourist), so I'm interested to see what's up with this one.
• John Dies at the End - A movie I've been looking forward to all year long will finally come out in a limited theater run and OnDemand. To be honest, while I enjoyed the book, I didn't totally love it... but director Don Coscarelli always intrigues me, and everything I've seen about the movie so far has been pretty great.

DVD/BD and Streaming

• Killer Joe - This small thriller directed by William Friedkin and starring Matthew McConaughey (who is having a surprisingly good year) got some attention when it was released, but I was never able to find it in theaters. Comes out on DVD/BD this week.
• Jiro Dreams of Sushi - This documentary about the world's greatest Sushi chef comes highly recommended, and it's on Netflix Instant. Definitely need to catch up with this one.
• FDR: American Badass! - Ah yes, one of Kaedrin's Weird Movie of the Week picks finally becomes available (not sure how long it's been on Netflix Instant, but now I definitely need to check this out).
• Once Upon a Time in Anatolia - Lots of critics seem to love this movie, but they're also careful to call it deliberate and slow and difficult to get through... things that don't usually work for me. But again, it's on Netflix Instant, so I might give it a shot.
• Lockout - AKA Spacejail! Honestly not expecting much out of this, but hey, it sounds fun in a so bad it's good kinda way.
• Casa de mi Padre - I remember hearing about this Spanish language Will Ferrell movie when it came out and wondering what the heck was going on... Figured it might be worth giving this a shot.
• Penumbra - A movie I missed out on at last year's Fantastic Fest, but which I do want to catch up with.
• A Separation - I suppose it's technically a 2011 film, but I do really want to see this film at some point. Even if I can't count it towards 2012, there's always my best 2011 movie of 2012 award!
• Silent Night - Ah, it just wouldn't be Christmas without a homicidal Santa movie.

And there are probably a dozen other lesser efforts that I'll probably check out as well, but the ones above seem to show the most promise. I'm probably missing some good stuff as well. With luck, I'll hit that magical 70-80 number of movies that it usually takes to actually compile a top 10.



Cult Movies in the Internet Age
Recently on Twitter, Dan McLaughlin asked: what would you regard as cult classic films made after 2000? As Sonny Bunch notes, this very much depends on how you define "cult" films. As it turns out, I've written about this before:

Cult films are (generally) commercially unsuccessful movies that have limited appeal, but nevertheless attract a fiercely loyal following among fans over time. They often exhibit very strange characters, surreal settings, bizzarre plotting, dark humor, and otherwise quirky and eccentric characteristics. These obscure films often cross genres (horror, sci-fi, fantasy, etc...) and are highly stylized, straying from conventional filmmaking techniques. Many are made by fiercely independent maverick filmmakers with a very low budget (read: cheesy), often showcasing the performance of talented newcomers.

Almost by definition, they're not popular at the time of their release, usually because they exist outside the box, eschewing typical narrative styles and other technical conventions. They achieve cult-film status later, developing a loyal fanbase over time, often through word-of-mouth recommendations (and, as we'll see, the actions of fans themselves). They elicit an eerie passion among their fans, who enthusiastically champion the films, leading to repeated public viewings (midnight movie showings are particularly prevalent in cult films), fan clubs, and active audience participation (i.e. dressing up as the oddball characters, mercilessly MST3King a film, or uh, jumping around in front of a camera with a broomstick). Cult movie followers often get together and argue over the mundane details and varied merits of their favorite films.

While these films are not broadly appealing, they are tremendously popular among certain narrow groups such as college students or independent film lovers. The internet has been immensely enabling in these respects, allowing movie geeks to locate one another and participate in the aforementioned laborious debates and arguments among other interactive fun.

Not a bad explanation, but the whole thing is still a bit subjective. Sonny observes that modern cult movies have an additional obstacle:

In our modern, hyperconnected age, however, a key component of "cult" is lost. If you've heard of a film, you can see it. It's on TV and if it's not on TV it's on a streaming service and if it's not on a streaming service it's on DVD and if it's not on DVD you can probably torrent it. That element of discovery, of being in on something no one else is in on, is lost.

In many ways, the cult classic has been replaced by what I like to call the cable classic: There is a certain class of film that was lightly attended in theaters and derided by critics only to find a huge audience on cable and DVD. Zoolander is probably my favorite example of this phenomenon: Zoolander has gone on to find a huge audience in home viewings, is highly quotable (a key component to any "cable classic"), and is constantly the subject of sequel rumors.

He's very right about how connectivity plays into this. A big part of why something would be considered cult was that you really had to work just to get a chance to see it. For example, nowadays everyone knows about the 80s and 90s Hong Kong action movie scene (and even if you haven't directly seen them, you've seen a million Hollywood movies influenced or just plain ripping off those movies). But back in the 90s, a buddy and I used to ride the train into Philly and skulk around Chinatown trying to find crappy bootleg VHS tapes of movies we were never quite sure what to make of... I mean, the internet existed and it didn't take long to figure out who John Woo and Chow Yun-Fat were, but who's this Tsui Hark guy? Ringo Lam? Johnny To? What the heck is Wu Xia Pian? It's not like we had iPhones and internet connections. We just saw a poorly labeled VHS with a title on it and took a chance. We ran into our fair share of duds that way, but more often than not, we found some fascinating stuff.

Nowadays? You just throw Full Contact into your Netflix Instant queue and marvel at the bullet-cam shots, all from the comfort of your couch.

Of course all the other elements of cult still apply. The quirky, non-mainstream sensibility, the passionately loyal fanbase, the obsessive analysis and debate on the internet. Of course, even that element has been eroded by our connected age. Lost fanatics were endlessly analyzing numerology or recording episodes and going over them frame by frame like they were the Zapruder film. These are cult movie tendencies gone mainstream.

And indeed, cult movies don't always stay cult. No one would consider It's a Wonderful Life a cult classic these days, but despite it's pedegree, it had a lackluster release and languished in obscurity for decades. It wasn't until some observant TV execs noticed that its copyright had expired without being renewed that it started to become mainstream (and how could it not - apparently multiple stations would air that thing repeatedly during the holiday season). This might give another clue as to why the internet is breaking down cult movies: on the interwebs, no one gives a crap about copyright!

Anywho, we should probably get to the meat of the question. As a working definition, I'll say that a movie must enjoy a certain degree of obscurity as well as a small but fiercely loyal and dedicated fanbase (as evidenced by large-scale public demonstrations, obsessive analyses, comprehensive wikis, etc...) I'll start with Sonny's first batch of suggested post-2000 cult movies:

• Requiem for a Dream - This is a tough one. One reason it did so poorly at the box office was that Aronofsky refused to cut the film when the MPAA gave it an NC-17, instead releasing it as just an "unrated" movie (which would effectively doom any movie, as the big theater chains would never exhibit those movies). On the other hand, as Sonny notes, this movie is a mainstay on "brilliant films I never want to see again" lists that are constantly being compiled by internet nerds. To me, this is borderline cult. There's enough here that there are probably people watching it on a dare, which is kinda cultish, but on the other hand, you don't see a lot of people obsessing over this one film and going over it frame by frame like you do with some other movies...
• Pootie Tang - This is an interesting choice. The only reason this is even known about is that it was written and directed by Louis C.K., whose star has been on the rise the past few years. Lots of people obsessed with his TV show are thus seeking this out. I think it still remains to be seen if this congeals into an enduring cult classic, but it's got potential.
• Black Dynamite - I certainly do love this movie, and it ticks that obscurity card well enough. My question is just how obsessive its fans are. I really don't know the answer to that, though it's worth noting that there's an Adult Swim animated series that might be an indicator. Of what, I'm not sure!
• Hard Candy - I'm really not sure about this one. I liked the movie enough to put it on my top 10 list that year, but is it really cult? It's certainly obscure, but I don't see a lot of passionate public discussion on this movie. But who knows? Maybe teen girls all put on their red hoodies and organize viewing parties on college campuses or something.
• Idiocracy - This is definitely what Sonny calls a "cable classic". For whatever reason, the studio only did a half-hearted theatrical release, but people in love with Office Space sought this out on DVD, and it's gradually gained a big following, to the point where most people know what you're talking about. Perhaps not a cult classic due to the trappings of the information age, but pretty close.
• Oldboy - As Sonny mentions, this is a bit of a cheat because it's foreign. However, in the film nerd community, there is a pretty slavish dedication to the Korean film scene in recent years. Unfortunately, the ease of access to this movie kinda deflates its cultish tendencies. You don't see college kids trolling around, er, Koreatown(?) looking for bootlegged copies anymore.
• The Room - This is the only pure, undadulterated cult classic in this post. Along with The Rocky Horror Picture Show, this movie is the poster child of cult movies.

One of the things that's tough about this is that I feel like cult movies take a while to establish themselves, and these movies have only been around a few years. They need time for people to discover and subsequently obsess over them. That's why, even in the above list, most of the movies are from before 2005. With the exception of The Room, I don't think that any of them are sure bets, but they've all got a certain potential. Here's some others that have come up in this discussion, or that I just want to talk about:

• Firefly (and I guess Serenity) - I'm not entirely sure this meets the "obscure" criteria, though I will say that it is almost definitely not appreciated by a mainstream audience, which kinda does earn it some cult cred. Plus, the fanbase that does exist for this is the very definition of cult. Small, passionate, and obsessed. Not only do the fans have a name for themselves (Browncoats), but they are still, a decade later, obsessing over the short-lived, 14 episode series. Even the original Star Trek had 3 (long, 25+ episode) seasons for fans to sink their teeth into. But these Browcoats almost make those Trekkers look like mainstream folk. To this day, there are multiple podcasts dedicated to the show that have been running for years. Think about that. A series that was cancelled after just 11 episodes (3 were unaired) has inspired multiple people to prattle on and on about the show for almost a decade now. What the heck are they still talking about? I don't really know, but this is pretty cultish! And that's before we get into the way they try to incorporate Firefly lingo into their speech ("Shiny!" or "'verse" and probably lots of others) or tediously transcribing and translating all the Chinese language lines in the episodes. The list goes on. Cult classic, right here.
• Primer - This ultra-low budget, twisty time travel tale is obscure enough to qualify, and the lengths to which fans go to understand the narrative (and all its timelines) is impressively cultish. A solid choice.

There are a lot of other movies that I think have potential, but which haven't quite attracted the right level of obsessiveness to really qualify as cult (like Rian Johnson's Brick and The Brothers Bloom).

In the end, I agree that the internet is a bit of a game changer for cult movies. The internet trends towards the Long Tail and ever-smaller niches (not just in entertainment), which are traditionally the domain of things like cult movies or other underground scenes. Of course, none of this is going away, it's just changing. In accordance with Kaedrin law, I will end with an appropos Neal Stephenson quote from The System of the World:

"It has been my view for some years that a new System of the World is being created around us. I used to suppose that it would drive out and annihilate any older Systems. But things I have seen recently ... have convinced me that new Systems never replace old ones, but only surround and encapsulate them, even as, under a microscope, we may see that living within our bodies are animalcules, smaller and simpler than us, and yet thriving even as we thrive."

Companies Don't Force You Into Piracy
But let's be honest with ourselves, that doesn't mean that all those same media companies don't suck. Let me back up a minute, as this is an old argument. Most recently, this article from The Guardian bemoans the release window system:

A couple of months ago, I purchased the first season of the TV series Homeland from the iTunes Store. I paid $32 for 12 episodes that all landed seamlessly in my iPad. I gulped them in a few days and was left in a state of withdrawal. Then, on 30 September, when season 2 started over, I would have had no alternative but to download free but illegal torrent files. Hundreds of thousands of people anxious to find out the whereabouts of the Marine turncoat pursued by the bi-polar CIA operative were in the same quandary

This is, of course, stupid. This guy does have a pretty simple alternative: wait a few months to watch the show. It's a shitty alternative, to be sure, but that doesn't excuse piracy. As Sonny Bunch notes:

Of course you have an alternative you ninny! It's not bread for your starving family. You're not going to die if you have to wait six months to watch a TV show. You're not morally justified in your thievery.

Others have also responded as such:

This argument is both ludicrous, and wrong. Ludicrous, because if piracy is actually wrong, it doesn't get less wrong simply because you can't have the product exactly when and where you want it at a price you wish to pay. You are not entitled to shoplift Birkin bags on the grounds that they are ludicrously overpriced, and you cannot say you had no alternative but to break into an the local ice cream parlor at 2 am because you are really craving some Rocky Road and the insensitive bastards refused to stay open 24/7 so that you could have your favorite sweet treat whenever you want. You are not forced into piracy because you can't get a television show at the exact moment when you want to see it; you are choosing piracy.

This is all well and good, and the original Guardian article has a poor premise... but that doesn't mean that the release window system isn't antiquated and doesn't suck. The original oped could easily be tweaked to omit the quasi-justification for piracy. Instead, the piracy is included and thus the article overreaches. On the flip side, the responses also tend to overstate their case, usually including something like this: "you can't have the product exactly when and where you want it at a price you wish to pay." This is true, of course, but that doesn't make it any less frustrating for consumers. And with respect to streaming, the media company stance is just as ludicrous as those defending piracy.

Here's a few examples I've run into:

• HBOGO - This is a streaming service that HBO makes available to it's cable subscribers. It's got a deep back catalog of their original content, as well as much of their current movie lineup. Sounds great, right? What's my problem? I can't actually watch HBOGO on my TV. For some unfathomable reason, Comcast blocks HBOGO from working on most streaming devices. It works on my computer, and it was recently launched on XBOX 360 (but I have a PS3 and I'm not shelling out another couple hundred bucks just so I can gain this single ability), but is otherwise not available. I'd like to watch the (ten year old) second season of Deadwood, but I can't do so unless I sit at my desk to watch it. Now, yes, I'm whining here about the fact that I can't watch this content how and where I choose, but is it really so unreasonable to want to watch a television show... on my television? Is this entitlement, or just common sense? How many dedicated streaming devices do I have to own before I can claim exhaustion? 4? 6? 15? Of course, I've got other options. I could purchase or rent the DVDs... but why do that when I'm paying for this other service?
• Books and Ebooks - So I'd like to read a book called Permutation City, by Greg Egan. It was originally published in 1994, frequents Best SF Novel lists, and has long since fallen out of print. This is actually understandable, as Egan is an author with a small, niche audience and limited mainstream appeal. None of his novels get big print runs to start with, and despite all the acclaim, I doubt even this book would sell a lot of copies here in 2012. Heck, I'd even understand it if the publisher claimed that this was low on their ebook conversion priority list. But it's not. The ebook is available in the UK, but I guess the publisher has not secured rights in the US? I get that these sorts of rights situations are complicated, but patronizing a library or purchasing a used copy isn't going to make the rights holders any money on this stuff.
• DVD on Linux - I've got multiple computers and one runs linux (at various other times, I've only had linux PCs). One of the things I like to do for this blog is take a screenshot of a movie I'm writing about. However, it is illegal for me to even play my DVDs on my linux box. These are purchased DVDs, not pirated anything. To be sure, I'm capable of playing DVDs on my linux PCs, but I'm technically breaking the law when doing so. There are various complications in all sorts of digital formats that make this a touchy topic. Even something as simple as MP3s trip up various linux distros, not even getting into stuff like iTunes or DRMed formats.
• Blu-Ray - A few months ago, I wrote about a movie called Detention. I loved it and wrote a glowing review. Wanting to include a few screenshots to really sell the movie to my (admittedly low in quantity) readers, but when I plopped the BD into my shiny new BD drive on my computer, the BD player (Cyberlink PowerDVD) informed me that I wasn't able to play the disc. I was admittedly lazy at the time and didn't try too hard to circumvent this restriction (something about reinstalling the software (which I'm not even sure I have access to) and downloading patches and purchasing some key or something?) and to this day, I don't even know if it was just an issue with that one disc, or if it's all BDs. But still, who wins here? I get that the IP owners don't want to encourage piracy... but I don't see how frustrating me (a paying customer) serves them in the end. It's not like this "protection" stops or even slows down pirates. All it does is frustrate paying customers.
• iTunes - I don't even really know the answer to this, but if I don't have an AppleTV, is there a way to view iTunes stuff on my television? I don't have an iPad, but if I bought one, would I be able to plug the iPad into the TV and stream video that way? I think there is software I can buy on PC that will stream iTunes... but should I have to purchase extra software or hardware (above and beyond the 5-10 devices I have right now) just to make iTunes work? And the last time I toyed with this type of software (I believe it was called PlayOn), it didn't work very well. Constant interruptions and low quality video. The fact that there are even questions surrounding this at all is a failure. For the most part, I can avoid this because Amazon and Netflix have good selections and actually work on all of my devices (i.e. they actually care to have me as a customer, which is nice).

Now, this doesn't mean I'm going to go out and pirate season 2 of Deadwood or any of the other things I mentioned above. Frustration does not excuse piracy. No, I'm just going to play a game or read a different book or go out to a bar or something. I have no shortage of things to do, so while I do want to watch any number of HBO shows on HBOGO, I can just as easily occupy my time with other activities (though, as above, I've certainly run into issues with other stuff). Pretty soon, I may realize that I don't actually need cable, at which point I'll cancel that service and... no one wins. I don't get to watch the show I want, and HBO and Comcast are out a customer. Why? I really don't know. If someone can explain why Comcast won't let me stream HBOGO, I'm all ears. They don't have the content available ondemand, and they're not losing me as a customer by allowing me to watch the shows (again, you have to be an HBO subscriber to get HBOGO).

I get that these are all businesses and need to make money, but I don't understand the insistence on alienating their own customers, frequently and thoroughly. I'm not turning to piracy, I'm just a frustrated customer. I've already bought a bunch of devices and services so that I can watch this stuff, and yet I'm still not able to watch even a small fraction of what I want. Frustration doesn't excuse piracy, but I don't see why I should be excusing these companies for being so annoying about when and where and how I can consume their content. It's especially frustrating because so much of this is done in the name of piracy. I suppose this post is coming off petulant and whiny on my part, but if you think I'm bad, just try listening to the MPAA or similar institution talk about piracy and the things they do to their customers to combat it. In essence, these companies hurt their best customers to spite non-customers. So I don't pirate shows or movies or books, but then, I often don't get to watch or read the ones I want to either. In a world where media companies are constantly whining about declining sales, it's a wonder that they don't actually, you know, try to sell me stuff I can watch/read. I guess they find it easier to assume I'm a thief and treat me as such.



Cloud Atlas
A couple months ago, the Filmspotting SVU podcast discussed what's known as Hyperlink Cinema, those movies that are comprised of multiple, seemingly independent but actually interconnected narratives, and co-host Matt Singer came up with a test: "Would these stories hold up on their own without each other? If we pulled one story out and made it a short film, would that short film be worth watching on its own?" That's an interesting criteria for these movies, as so much of what makes them interesting is not the story itself, but the structure. These movies are screenwriters' dreams, lots of opportunity for playing with time and locations and themes, and devising a way to make it all a big puzzle that unravels itself as the movie plays out. What Singer is getting at with his test is that many of these films sacrifice character or drama in order to make the structure work...

So how does Cloud Atlas, the new film from the Wachowski siblings (is that what we're supposed to call them now?) and Tom Tykwer, hold up against that test? I'd say it doesn't hold up that well, but there's enough going on in this movie that I think it remains worthwhile, and given that the theme of the movie is essentially that everything is connected, it makes sense for the movie to be a slave to its structure. Based on a sprawling, ambitious novel by David Mitchell, the movie tells six different tales, ranging from the distant past to the distant future, with the same actors playing roles in each timeline. There's some notion of reincarnation or distant relationship between each actor/character and each timeline, and each story is connected to each other in some way or another.

Unfortunately, all of the stories are trite and clichéd. Some work better than others, but I get the impression that they're almost parodies of their respective genres. The movie is certainly self-aware enough that it might try for that sort of thing, and not having read the book, I can't say whether or not that was an intention, but in practice, it doesn't quite congeal the way I think they hoped it would. That being said, none of the stories are boring, and the real triumph of this movie is one of editing. The transitions between each story are relatively seamless, with visual motifs used to great effect while still quickly and effectively establishing which story you're in. While I was puzzling out how each story related to the other (which is part of the fun of hyperlink cinema), I was never confused as to what story I was watching or what was going on. The Wachowskis and Tykwer make this look easy, but I'm of the opinion that this sort of thing is much harder than it looks, and I was really surprised at how well done that aspect was.

Of the six stories, the one I liked the most was set in a futuristic Korea, where a clone escapes servitude and becomes a sorta rebel. It had a very 70s science fiction sorta feel to it, complete with shocking Soylent Green style revelations. The ending of this segment left a little something to be desired, and there is some amazingly bad makeup in evidence here, but it was the most interesting of the six segments. I actually enjoyed all the other tales well enough, though again, there's a lot of cliché to wade through, including some really on-the-nose type stuff (especially with the slavery segment).

While I don't think any of these stories, if lifted from the movie and screened separately, would work by itself, each one of them has a hook that could lead to a great story or movie. The general ideas of each story are solid enough, it's just perhaps the act of compression combined with the didacticism of the script that lets the movie down. I'd be really curious to see how well the book actually accomplishes this. I imagine a lot of subtleties of this story would be better suited to the written word than the screen.

For instance, this is a movie with a message, and boy do they really want you to know that. This is one of the more didactic movies I've seen this year, with characters constantly spouting the story's themes in clumsy and awkward dialogue. The notion that everything is connected, that small actions have far-reaching consequences, that inaction is an action, these are all fascinating topics, but the movie clearly doesn't trust the audience to make those connections and frequently lays them out in bald, explicit, literal speeches. This sort of thing tends to work better on the page than it does onscreen, and because I'm sure Mitchell was not constrained by things like length, he could perhaps have spread the themes out so they didn't seem like a sledgehammer hitting your face.

In terms of performances, everything is mostly adequate, though I do think some of the makeup jobs were distracting and unnecessary (others were not nearly as bad, and some were very successful). From a technical perspective, everything works very well. Visually impressive, and for a movie this didactic, I thought a lot of the visual transitions between stories were exceptionally well done. Again, the editing is perfect, and the music is quite effective as well.

I've ultimately come away with a good feeling from this movie, but it's also clearly got some big flaws that hold it back. I'm actually quite impressed with how well the stories were weaved together, and I found the movie entertaining and thought provoking, I just wish that the filmmakers trusted us viewers a little more.



Pop Quiz, Hot Shot: James Bond
So I saw Skyfall a few days ago, and whenever a new Bond movie comes up, it seems that I always reminisce about all the other Bond movies I've seen. After approximately two minutes of exhaustive googling, I've determined that there aren't any quizes or memes or whatever that I can desperately latch onto, so I made one up. You're welcome.

1) Favorite James Bond actor?

Well, it might seem trite and cliche to say Sean Connery, but there's a reason he's the typical answer to this question. He more or less originated the character as we know him, so it's tough to go with anyone else. However, if Daniel Craig continues his run (he's 2 for 3 at this point, by my reckoning) for a few more good movies, he could give Connery a run for his money. Unlikely, though.

2) Favorite James Bond movie?

Casino Royale is the movie that really hooked me into Bond, and I think it remains my favorite for numerous reasons. In particular, the first third of that movie is utterly perfect and the best action film out of all of the series. The second and third acts drag a little bit and things do get convoluted at times, but it all worked out reasonably well for me. I'd say Goldfinger deserves some recognition as the film that really refined and perfected the Bond formula. Of the other Bond films, I like a lot of them, but many are middling efforts at best, and most don't seem to age very well. That being said, even the bad ones aren't without their charm, which is why the series has been so enduring.

3) Worst James Bond movie?

I'll give this to Never Say Never Again, though Diamonds Are Forever is nipping pretty closely at its heals. The commonality with both these movies is that they were failed attempts to reinstate Connery as Bond. Also, they're nigh incomprehensible stories. The one saving grace for Diamonds are the henchmen, Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd. Oh sure, they're silly characters and make no real sense, but they stand out in a movie that bad. That's kind of damning with faint praise, to be sure, but that's why I went with Never as the worst.

4) Favorite villain/henchman?

The one/two punch of Auric Goldfinger and Oddjob from Goldfinger is pretty hard to beat.

5) Favorite Bondian double-entendre?

Another obvious win for Goldfinger: Pussy Galore. However, that answer is so blindingly obvious that this should really be the Pussy Galore memorial list. And thus, I think Octopussy merits special mention, not just because it's silly, but because they actually went ahead and named the movie after the double entendre.

6) Favorite Bond girl?

The obvious answer is Honey Ryder, played by Ursula Andress, from Dr. No, but since that's so obvious, I'll go with Vesper Lynd, played by Eva Green, from Casino Royale.

7) Name an under-appreciated Bond moment.

Moonraker has garnered a rather low reputation among the Bond films, perhaps even rightfully so, but one of my favorite moments in all of the movies is in Moonraker. Bond is hanging out at the estate of the villainous Hugo Drax, and in his villainy, he invites Bond to participate in a pheasant hunt. He even hands Connery a shotgun. But it's a ruse! One of Drax's henchmen has taken up residence in a nearby tree and levels his sniper rifle at Bond's head. Just then, a few pheasants are kicked up. Bond lifts his gun, gives the birds a lead, then pulls the trigger. Drax laughs and says "You missed!" Cut to man in tree falling, cause Bond just shot him. Bond says "Did I?" Annnnd scene! Sheer brilliance. Watch it online here.

To finish this comprehensive survey of James Bond films, I leave you with this parting thought, something I think we all say at some point whenever a new Bond movie is out: Holy crap, I posted cat picture on the internets. I'm, like, a real blogger now. Only took a dozen or so years.



Disgruntled, Freakish Reflections on the Disney/Lucasfilm Deal
In the midst of the Frankenstorm, those of us on the east coast felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out... in joy! We feared that... something wonderful had happened. Alright, so calling this deal "wonderful" is an exaggeration, but on the whole, I think this will be a positive thing for Star Wars nerds everywhere. For the uninitiated, earlier this week, Disney purchased Lucasfilm, a deal encompassing the Star Wars franchise as well as ancillary entities like ILM and Skywalker Sound. In addition, Disney announced that it plans to release Star Wars Episode VII in 2015. No details on the creative aspects of that movie except that George Lucas will remain involved as a "creative consultant". Disgruntled, freakish reflections on the deal:

• Some might be concerned with Disney's corporate greed, but I find their lack of faith disturbing. In all seriousness, it's not like Lucasfilm wasn't in a constant state of money-grubbing, merchandising, and DVD/BD double dipping, not to mention George Lucas' constant tweaking of the original series (i.e. a crowning achievement in trolling). In fact, this might be one of those occasions where greed works to our advantage. Corporate greed may drive Disney to, you know, give the fans what they want: a pristine, restored, anamorphic HD release (blu-ray, download, streaming, whatever) of the theatrical cuts of the original trilogy. As Jonathan Last notes:

  For too long we've been held hostage to the personal artistic visions of George Lucas who, like Stalin airbrushing his enemies out of state photographs, carefully disappeared the original theatrical cuts so that Gredo could shoot first, CGI spectacle could muddle up Mos Eisley, and a young Hayden Christiansen could appear to Luke Skywalker and automatically make him realize that he's his dad.
  
  Now Disney's corporate greed could give us the product we've always craved. All hail Disney corporate greed!

  Plus, it should also be noted that Disney seems to have a pretty good track record of allowing acquisitions to thrive on their own terms. Both Pixar and Marvel seem to be in pretty good shape. Heck, even Studio Ghibli seems to have done well under the Disney umbrella. If Disney puts out HD copies of the theatrical cuts of the movies, this deal will have been worth it.
• According to this painfully corporate interview with Lucas, he has "treatments" for 7, 8, and 9 and he'll be a "creative consultant" on the new movies. I have no idea what this means for the upcoming films, but I'm cautiously optimistic. While I'd love to see Timothy Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy up on screen, I'm doubting we'll get anything like that (perhaps they'll throw us a bone and feature a Thrawn cameo). I don't know how closely Disney will be obliged to follow Lucas' "treatments" of the new films, but as long as Lucas isn't actually writing the scripts or directing the movies, we should be in pretty good shape. As much as I've ragged on Lucas in the past, I think the guy does have pretty good ideas, and if you look at movies where he was a producer (but not writer/director), he's actually got a pretty good track record. Empire, Jedi and the first three Indiana Jones movies are all fantastic. Crystal Skull gives pause, though. Much of this will depend on the actual creative talent that Disney hires for this, which will, no doubt result in entitled hand-wringing by fans. Again, I'm cautiously optimistic.
• Speaking of hand-wringing about creative talent, I think these new movies represents a conundrum for movie nerds. On the one hand, I want these movies to be good and thus it would be nice to get good creative types involved. On the other hand, that means that these creative types won't be working on their own original ideas, which is depressing. Does Disney dare hand the franchise over to young talent? Do they go with more established types? Do they hire a hack? There's a lot of pitfalls here, and I have to say that I'm not too enthused about a lot of names being thrown around. Christopher Nolan doesn't feel right, and I want him to work on original stuff anyway. JJ Abrams (and his regular stable of writers, like Lindelof, Kurtzman, and Orci) doesn't feel right either, and his writing staff is hit-or-miss at best (Star Trek reboot good, Prometheus and Transformers hideously bad). Zack Snyder might work, except that he's Zack Snyder and I've never really loved any of his movies. Edgar Wright could be a good pick, I guess, but again, I'd rather he work on original material (or at least obscure adaptations). Really, none of the names being thrown around seem that great to me. This seems like an impossible choice, but again, cautiously optimistic here.
• I'm not particularly excited about any crossover potential, which seems to be where a lot of nerds go whenever a deal like this is mentioned. Still, I don't think we've seen a lot of Marvel/Pixar/Disney crossover, so I don't think we'll see Star Wars mixing it up. Except maybe in video games. Marvel vs. Star Wars, anyone?
• Speaking of video games, maybe Disney will rev LucasArts back up and make some of them adventure games from the 90s again. Or maybe even reboots of X-Wing and/or Tie Fighter (I spent a lot of time playing those games in the 90s!)
• Four words: Pixar Star Wars Movie. Perhaps a post-IX movie? Let's make this happen while Pixar still has that creative talent (though some may say that it's already too late, given the last couple Pixar movies).

Well, that's all for now. Again, I think this will be a generally positive thing for Star Wars fans. Ironically, it may even be a good thing that Lucas has been trolling everyone for so long, as it's brought the series down a few pegs, to the point where it doesn't seem so sacred that a new movie would never work. Fingers crossed.



6WH: Week 6.5 - Speed Round and Halloween
It's hard to believe that six weeks have passed and the big day has arrived, but here we are. As per usual, I have not actually written up every movie I saw during this festive Halloween season. Sometimes a movie just doesn't fit with a given week's theme, or perhaps I only caught a portion of it on television, and sometimes I just don't have much to say about a movie. So every year, I close out the marathon with a quick roundup of everything I saw that hasn't already been covered. Stay frosty everyone, here we go:

• Sisters - An early Brian De Palma thriller where he, of course, apes Hitchcock... but to good effect. Lots of interesting twists and turns, and a couple of great split camera sequences too. Totally worth watching, actually one of the better things I saw during the marathon. ***
  
• The Hunger - Tony Scott's first film, it's an overly artsy vampire flick that features a lot of boring long takes and you never really know what's going on and you don't really care anyway and hmmm, lesbian vampire sequence? Visually impressive, with feints towards some interesting concepts, but not much to really sink your teeth into. **
• Idle Hands - Stoner comedy meets horror, and the results are actually a lot of fun, though I think your mileage may vary depending on how much you're into this sort of thing. Which, for some reason, I am. This may have been one of the most enjoyable movies of the marathon. ***
• The Devil's Backbone - This is sorta like Guillermo del Toro's dry run for Pan's Labyrinth. A ghost story set in a creepy school during the Spanish civil war, this one is very creepy, with some great spook sequences, though it doesn't quite put you through the emotional ringer like Pan's Labyrinth (which isn't necessarily a bad thing).
• Assault on Precinct 13 - John Carpenter's first film about the last night a police station is open. Staffed with a skeleton crew, they take in a crazy dude who, it turns out, has been marked by a local... gang? It kinda plays out like a zombie film or a siege film. Some really disturbing stuff (including a brutal child murder), but an ultimately effective and tense affair. I kinda enjoyed the relationship between Napoleon (one of the prisoners) and Ethan (the one cop left at the station) and the whole thing works well enough. I haven't seen the 2005 remake, but this original film strikes me as something that could certainly be improved upon, even if I enjoyed it quite a bit. ***
• Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 - This movie is a bit of an abomination. It's not strictly a found footage movie, but it makes overtures in that direction by having the characters film themselves and watch the tapes later when they're trying to figure out what happened during a particularly raucous night in the woods. Some interesting ideas at the beginning here... It's a movie that acknowledges the existence of the first movie - very meta. But things devolve into silliness and boring shenanigans. A potentially decent twist at the end, but ultimately worthless unless you're a bad movie aficionado. Or Burn Notice fans! *
• Slither - I forgot just how fun and gross and gory and entertaining this movie was. Another take on the pod people, but with some disgusting alien physiology, and lots of other fun stuff. Plus, captain Malcolm Reynolds! James Gunn needs to make more of these (apparently he's been tapped to make the Guardians of the Galaxy movie, which could be good I guess, but I'd rather he have the freedom to make something wacky like this or Super again). ***
• Creature from the Black Lagoon - I thought I had seen this before, but it must have been one of the sequels or something because I didn't remember any of this. It's another one of them Universal monster movie classics, but I don't think it has fared quite as well as the others. It was entertaining enough and worth watching, but not one of my favorites. **1/2
• 28 Days Later... - I forgot how effective the first half of this movie is, and was wondering why this movie doesn't loom larger in my mind's eye... and then I got to that final third of the movie, which just drops off a cliff at some point. It's still weel made and effective enough I guess, but to me the emotional center of the film (spoiler!) is when Brendan Gleeson gets turned. It's just so heartbreaking, and the film never really recovers from that. Also, the motivation of the military guys is rather silly. *** (maybe less, but I love that first 2/3 of the movie)
• The Shining - A classic, one of my favorites. I guess it's a little slow moving, but I love it anyway. There's just something so discordant, so unsettling about the movie that really gets under my skin. Also worth checking out, Filmspotting's sacred cow review... ***1/2
• Ghostbusters - Yep, it's kinda an annual tradition at this point, and this is a true comedy classic. ****
• Ghostbusters II - And this was quite a letdown from the perfection of the first one. Vigo is actually a pretty nice villain, but otherwise, this movie just devolves into ridiculousness. Gah, they drive the Statue of Liberty with a fricken Nintendo controller. **
• Paranormal Activity 4 - I almost forgot to include this, which I think says something about the movie, which is fine I guess, but the series is really starting to show some fatigue at this point. The present day setting and fancy tech gizmos don't really add too much to the proceedings (though I guess the Xbox Kinect thing was used well enough) and at this point, I'm happy enough with the series, but for the first time, I'm not really looking forward to more movies. But who knows, maybe they'll surprise me. I'm kinda shocked it's managed to last this long. Worth watching, but probably the worst in the series so far. **1/2
• Phantasm - Another annual tradition, not much else to say about it, but check out Radio Free Echo Rift's most recent podcast for a fun discussion of what makes this movie tick.
• Halloween - "You know, it's Halloween... I guess everyone's entitled to one good scare, eh?"
  

So there you go. Another year, another crapton of horror movies. By my count, I watched 34 movies and 20 television episodes (I suppose I should have mentioned that I watched 8 Treehouses of Horrorses, but methinks I'll save that recap for next year sometime). This is actually somewhat less than last year, though I did have a film festival somewhere in there, which is tough to compete with. As usual, I'm significantly outpaced by the likes of Kernunrex, who averages something like 2-3 movies/shows a day. Not that it's a contest. It's been a great season, and don't you worry, next year's marathon will be on us soon enough. Have a great Halloween everyone!



6WH: Week 6 - No Discernible Theme Week
Coming down the homestretch! Though we're battening down the hatches in preparation for the Frankenstorm (pretty much directly in the path over here), we nevertheless took in some horror films this weekend, because we're dedicated like that here at Kaedrin. Alas, no real theme this week, though that's a sorta yearly tradition of its own. Let's see how we did:

• The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (trailer)
• This is gonna hurt... a lot. (Robot Chicken)
• Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (trailer)
• The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 - So, what to do when confronted with a chainsaw wielding maniac? Dennis Hopper knows the score. In this movie, he fights chainsaws with more chainsaws.
  
  But I'm getting ahead of myself. This sequel is quite the odd duck. Hopper plays a former Texas Marshall named Lefty who has been hot on the trail of the cannibals from the first film... for a dozen years. So yeah, not very good at his job, but we're rooting for him anyways. It seems that said cannibal family has moved on, settling in the Dallas area and winning chile cookoff contests. Their secret? It's all in the meat. They're also quite the interior decorators. Anyway, when a DJ accidentally records the call of a victim, things get hairy for her. Or something. Plot isn't exactly the strongpoint of this movie. Inbred hicks with metal plates in their head? Hot chainsaw on chainsaw action? Yes. Storytelling? Not so much. That being said, it's an enjoyable enough film. It's a little goofy, but the series hadn't yet completely devolved into outright parody of itself (if memory serves, that distinction is held by the third installment). Tobe Hooper is an effective craftsman, and there's some creepy visuals here, though Leatherface is the sort of guy that's creepier the less you know about him... and we get a little too much of a look at him in this movie. Things go on perhaps a bit too long, but again, this is a mostly fun experience. **1/2
• Jack Chop (short)
• Howling III: The Marsupials (trailer)
• Audition (trailer)
• The Loved Ones - I don't know how I heard of this movie, but here it is, piping hot off the Netflix queue. It's a sorta Aussie torture porn flick, though not quite as extreme as other entries in the sub-genre. On the other hand, it does feature a creepy father/daughter kidnapping (what can I say, dude loves his daughter) and a frontal lobotomy administered via a power drill.
  
  For his part, our intrepid hero does pretty well for himself despite said lobotomy. The main thread here is pretty effective and visually interesting, though I don't know that there's really enough there to sustain the entire movie. As it is, the thing is padded out by our hero's buddy, who is taking a hot goth chick to the school dance. As near as I can tell, there's no real purpose to that thread in the movie at all, except maybe to pad out the length a bit. It's an interesting movie, and worth watching for fans of torture porn. **1/2
• The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror I: Bad Dream House
• The Raven, read by Vincent Price
• Vincent Price Wine Cooler Commercial
• House on Haunted Hill - Nothing like a little Vincent Price to liven up the Halloween season. In this movie, he plays a millionaire who invites 5 other people to spend the night in a haunted house, paying $10,000 to each person who survives the night. Clearly a movie that owes a lot to The Cat and The Canary, with multiple shots seemingly lifted right out of that earlier film. For a movie made in the 1950s, there's actually quite a bit of spooky imagery, and the film effectively establishes a lot of tension during the early proceedings. As things proceed, we find out that Price and his wife don't exactly have the best of relationships, and are plotting to kill one another and blame it on the other guests. This is all in good fun, though the tension mostly dissipates once you realize what's going on. Still, the twists and turns in the final act are entertaining and well done, and at 75 minutes long, the movie certainly doesn't overstay its welcome. ***

I didn't realize it until now, but if I had been more careful about the third movie selection, I could have done a power-tool murder weapon theme or somesuch (I'd think of a better name, but since I can't actually use that theme... what was I talking about again?) Anyways, it's been a fun six weeks. The big day is coming up quickly, and if my home hasn't been completely devastated by the Frankenstorm, I'll post the annual Speed Round - quick takes on all the other movies I watched this season, but which didn't quite make it to their own post. See you (hopefully) on Wednesday!



6WH: Jekyll
The Six Weeks of Halloween horror marathon continues with this BBC series written by Steven Moffat, who would go on to produce the most excellent Sherlock series as well as take on the show running responsibilities for the most recent seasons of Doctor Who. Like Sherlock, Jekyll is a modern-day retelling of a famous Victorian-era story, in this case Robert Louis Stevenson's famous novel, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

As with a lot of other British shows, this one is a simple, 6 episode season that has had no real follow-ups (though I suppose Moffat left things open enough in the end to continue the story if needed). Once again, this is a bit of a modernization of the story, so Moffat is able to play with the conventions established in Stevenson's original novel, even to the point of self-awareness by referencing Stevenson's novel.

The show starts a little on the slow side as it establishes the setting and situation our main protagonist is in. Many mysteries and conspiracies are cycled through, and our main character has quite the interesting arc, making you wonder who is the real villain of the story. For the most part, this plays out in a grand tradition of fun, as you learn more and more about Jekyll and Hyde, their origins, and how they impact those around them. I don't want to give much away, but there are plenty of red herrings and mysteries that are eventually resolved in a somewhat satisfactory manner.

The production is generally well orchestrated, with solid visuals and music, if perhaps not quite as polished as a usual TV production would be. It shares a lot in common with Sherlock, though it clearly retains an identity of its own. The crucial part of Dr. Jekyll (and his modern incarnation as Dr. Jackman) and Mr. Hyde is played by actor James Nesbitt, who certainly sinks his teeth into the part. He may even delight a little too much in the part, which becomes a bit showy. Of course, it's quite a juicy character, a man with two distinct and opposite personalities, so there's not much to complain about there, and again, he does quite a good job keeping up with the production.

As horror, it's not really gory or scary, per say, but it certainly touches on such sub-genres and establishes a tension all its own. I found the beginning to be a bit on the slow side, but it became more involving as things went on, and there were certainly of twists and turns ans the series progressed, each episode ending on a minor cliffhanger, but proceeding anyway. I wouldn't call this a masterpiece or anything, but I had a fun enough time giving it a gander during the Six Weeks of Halloween...



6WH: Week 4 - Now Playing
Alrighty then, enough with the obscure historical horror. Out with the old, in with the new. This week, we look at some current horror flicks. Two are still in the theater, one just came out on Netflix Instant (it was apparently in theaters a month or two ago), and all are worth watching.

• Frankenstein (1931 trailer)
• Frankenstein's Fiancee (Robot Chicken)
• The Thing Goes Zombie (short)
• Frankenweenie - A surprising return to form from Tim Burton, this is an excellent, loving homage to all those old Universal horror movies. Obviously the Frankenstein movies are referenced extensively, but it's clearly got a more general love for the genre. The story concerns young Victor Frankenstein and his dog Sparky. Victor is a bit of a loner, and when Sparky unexpectedly passes on, he vows to bring back his beloved pet. He is, of course, successful in his endeavors, drawing the attention and ire of his competition in the school science fair.
  
  The tale of Frankenstein has always been one of caution against meddling, but this film attempts to modernize the idea, indicating that science is basically value neutral and can be used for good or ill. The movie stumbles a bit in the ridiculous town hall scene, but is otherwise pretty successful at stressing these themes. It's beautifully shot in black and white and the stop motion animation and production design are top notch. Ultimately, though, it's a movie with a heart, and I'll admit, the theater got a little dusty in the end. Ok, so this isn't really a scary movie, but it will still appeal to horror fans and is a must see for just about anyone. ***1/2
• Paranormal Activity 4 (trailer)
• The Ring Video Dating (Robot Chicken)
• Insidious (trailer)
• Sinister - This movie was written by C. Robert Cargill, perhaps better known as Massawyrm, who made his name writing about films at Ain't It Cool News. In short, he's done well for himself. The movie is somewhat derivative of the current trend in found footage and passive-aggressive demon possession (popularized by the Paranormal Activity movies and stuff like Insidious), but it puts an interesting twist in both, making this a worthy effort. The found footage portion is exactly that - a character in the movie finds a bunch of old movies and watches them as research for a book he's writing. And the films, chronicling a series of bizarre ritualized murders, are intensely creepy and unsettling. This film might dip into that well a bit too often, but they did such a great job with those in-film home movies that I didn't really mind. There are some typical horror movie tropes going on here too (apparently no one's heard of light switches - this is a dark movie) and there's some clumsy exposition courtesy of a college professor, but I don't know, all of this stuff ended up hitting the right note for me. And the demon at the heart of the mystery is indeed creepy and well done. It's an effective film, if not a perfect one. ***
• The Netherbeast of Berm-Tech Industries, Inc. (short)
• Phantasm (trailer)
• Martyrs (trailer)
• The Tall Man - Writer/director Pascal Laugier is perhaps best known for 2008's Martyrs, pretty much the end-all-and-be-all of torture porn. It's a movie I have a lot of respect for, even if it was an aggressively (and intentionally) unpleasant watch. This movie is the follow up, and no, it has nothing to do with the Phantasm films. Instead we get a twisty exploration of child abducting Urban Legend, starring Jessica Biel as a mother trying to catch up with her abducted child. Or is she? The movie shifts gears early and often, consistently keeping me off balance. This is a good thing, although some of the twists do rely on obscure side characters that I didn't notice much earlier in the film, which added a little confusion at times, but for the most part, the twists worked out well enough. Unfortunately, I don't quite know what to make of the "truth" of what's going on here. I don't really buy it, though it's reasonably well constructed. This is nowhere near as intense or disturbing as Martyrs, but there are some similarities when it comes to the whole secret societies and conspiracy angles. It's certainly well shot and visually interesting, and the acting is fine (music is a bit lackluster, but not distractingly bad or anything). And the movie is gripping and tense enough as you watch, it's just, again, once you learn the full idea behind the premise, I don't know how convincing it really is... A worthy effort, and I'd be curious to see what else Laugier does. **1/2

That's all for this week. Stay tuned, next week is Italian horror week. Got a couple Argento films lined up, along with some other stuff...



Professor Arthur Chipping's Maddeningly Detailed, Purposefully Vague, Fitfully Out-Of-Focus, Back To School Movie Quiz
Dennis Cozzalio of the Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule blog has posted another of his famous movie quizes, and as always, I'm excited to provide my answers. Previous installments answering questions from Professor Hubert Farnsworth, David Huxley, Professor Fate, Professor Russell Johnson, Dr. Smith, Professor Peabody, Professor Severus Snape, Professor Ed Avery, Dr. Anton Phibes, and Sister Clodagh are also available... This time around, Professor Arthur Chipping, colloquially known as Mr. Chips, notes that "school is back in session, which means it’s time for yet another movie quiz." There's no real theme to the quiz this time around, but in the spirit of the Six Weeks of Halloween, I'll try to steer things into the realm of horror whenever possible (Update: only partially successful at this.) Ok, enough jibber jabber, let's answer some questions.

1) What is the biggest issue for you in the digital vs. film debate?

This is a tough one because all of the issues that are coming to mind are sorta meta-issues. In theory, digital lowers costs for productions and makes things much easier to distribute (this includes theatrical distribution, but also stuff like On Demand and, of course, the internets). In practice, the movie industry's obsession with piracy has pretty much muffled most advantages on the distribution side of things, and theater chains haven't exactly jumped at the opportunity to leverage digital distribution in an ideal way. It would be great if my local Regal dedicated a few timeslots a week to offbeat, indy, or even older film series. Judging from my own anecdotal experience with that theater, they could certainly stand to sell a lot of tickets that way. However, I know that this is easier said than done. Studios make showing movies in a theater an expensive proposition right from the get go, whereas, even a handful of tickets for something you already have the right to show will make you money. Again, digital could make this easier, in theory, but from what I've heard of digital distribution, the process is incredibly onerous and painful to use thanks to all of the copy protection, DRM, etc... The future is digital, and from a technology standpoint, we're almost at the point where you'd be able to implement an ideal distribution network for all movies (heck, most media in general). Unfortunately, the business side of things is holding technology back.

2) Without more than one minute's consideration, name three great faces from the movies

Since I've been watching a lot of horror films lately, the names that come to mind are Angus Scrimm, Bruce Campbell, and Shelly Duvall. Distinctive faces, all. 3) The movie you think could be interesting if remade as a movie musical

I have a deep dislike for movie musicals. That being said, a full length Planet of the Apes musical, a la The Simpsons, would probably still be better than that Tim Burton remake. "I hate every ape I see, from Chimpan-A, to Chimpanzee!"

4) The last movie you saw theatrically/on DVD, Blu-ray, streaming

In theaters, Frankenweenie, which I enjoyed greatly (probably the best Tim Burton movie in a decade, probably more). On DVD, it was The Devil's Backbone, which I also thought was quite good. On Blu-Ray, I've got Bernie, a movie that really surprised me in that I totally loved it. And on streaming, Bloody Birthday, a so-bad-its-good Kids are scary and hate you! movie (part of this past weekend's Halloween horror movie marathon). Actually a pretty good run here.

5) Favorite movie about work

The obvious answer here is Office Space, though looking at other answers, I see Glengarry Glen Ross, The Hudsucker Proxy, and His Girl Friday, great movies all. But I'll stick with Office Space.

6) The movie you loved as a child that did not hold up when seen through adult eyes

I realize I'm in the minority here, but Terminator 2: Judgment Day is kinda terrible. It still holds up as a solid action film with good special effects, I guess, but it jettisoned everything that made the first movie special without really adding anything interesting to the mix. I loved it at the time, but as I got older I started to see the cracks. This David Foster Wallace article neatly encapsulates my view, though I don't know that I'd put it quite the way he does (nor would I extrapolate in the way he does). Ok, fine, it doesn't "neatly encapsulate" my view, but you should read it anyway.

7) Favorite "road" movie

Many possible ways to take this. Mad Max and The Road Warrior are obvious answers, but I'm also fond of Midnight Run (a different sorta "road" movie, I guess), and in the interest of keeping it real with the Six Weeks of Halloween, Road Games makes for an intriguing concept. It's perhaps not perfect in execution, but the premise of taking Hitchcock's Rear Window on the road is beautiful and I really enjoyed it.

8) Does Clint Eastwood's appearance at the Republican National Convention change or confirm your perspective on him as a filmmaker/movie icon? Is that appearance relevant to his legacy as a filmmaker?

Completely irrelevant and it doesn't change my feelings towards any of his movies, whether I love or hate them.

9) Longest-lasting movie or movie-related obsession

These questions seem awfully imprecise and vague. I'm not entirely sure what this is getting at, but in accordance with my marching orders, I'll say horror movies.

10) Favorite artifact of movie exploitation

Again with the imprecision. Is this asking about exploitation films? Or about artifacts that are exploiting movies? For the former, my answer would have to be the trailers and posters, the trashier the better. For the latter, well, let's just say that this action figure of Boba Fett sitting on my desk here holds a special place in my heart. 11) Have you ever fallen asleep in a movie theater? If so, when and why?

I'm not sure if I ever fell asleep outright, though it was a very near thing when I saw The Squad at Fantastic Fest. It was a few days into the festival, in the midst of a day with 5 movie viewings scheduled, and it was just an awful, boring, stupid movie. I may have rested my eyes for a moment or ten.

12) Favorite performance by an athlete in a movie

The first thing that popped into my head: Kurt Thomas from Gymkata (he single-handedly defeated the Soviets... with Gymnastics!) Popular opinion seems to be Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in Airplane!, which is certainly a worthy choice. And if you count wrestlers, you've got Andre the Giant from The Princess Bride, and Rowdy Roddy Piper from They Live. But who are we kidding? Gymkata is set in the fictional country of Parmistan. Population: Communists. And they're defeated because of their baffling but convenient placement of pommel horses throughout their country.

13) Second favorite Rainer Werner Fassbinder movie

It begins: I have not seen any Fassbinder movies. As usual, I expect similar answers to be given for several other questions in this quiz.

14) Favorite film of 1931

Hoo man, this is a tough choice. M or Frankenstein? Yikes. I can't decide, as both are superb (though I can decisively pick them above other 1931 movies I've seen, which are surprisingly many).

15) Second favorite Raoul Walsh movie

Oh, this question is diabolical. Back in Professor Peabody's quiz, you asked for our favorite Raoul Walsh movie. At the time, I hadn't seen any, so I had to abstain, but I eventually went out of my way to watch White Heat, just because of the quiz (this came in handy on another quiz). Alas, that remains the only Raoul Walsh movie I've ever seen, thus I must abstain from this question as well.

16) Favorite film of 1951

Strangers on a Train, hands down. There are other worthy contenders, but no one beats the Hitch.

17) Second favorite Wong Kar-wai movie

I must admit that I'm not a huge Wong Kar-wai fan, though I've seen enough of his movies to declare Chungking Express my second favorite.

18) Favorite film of 1971

This is another tough one. I'll go with Dirty Harry for now, but I do have a fondness for The Andromeda Strain as well. Lots of other juicy choices that year too, but I'll leave it at Dirty Harry... 19) Second favorite Henri-Georges Clouzot movie

The Wages of Fear, after Diabolique.

20) Favorite film of 1991

Raise the Red Lantern is a masterpiece, though it's not something I love to rewatch all the time, like The Silence of the Lambs. Still, that's a pretty great one-two punch.

21) Second favorite John Sturges movie

I'll go with Joe Kidd, though I should really watch more of his movies...

22) Favorite celebrity biopic

The first thing that came to mind was Amadeus (does that count as "celebrity" in the modern sense, especially given that it's more about Salieri than Mozart?), but Ed Wood is a ton of fun (hmm, Tum Burton getting a lot of action in today's quiz).

23) Name a good script idea which was let down either by the director or circumstances of production

Too many to answer. Most recently, I was thinking this about a few German Krimi movies I watched for the Six Weeks of Halloween. Some really fantastic ideas there, but they wound up a little on the messy side when translated to the screen.

24) Heaven's Gate-- yes or no?

I haven't seen the movie, but sure, why not? I find it hard to say "no" to a movie, even one I don't particularly like or agree with. I kinda equate "no" with censorship, and fooey to that.

25) Favorite pairing of movie sex symbols

The one that immediately came to mind was Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie in Mr. & Mrs. Smith, but upon further reflection, the George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez combo in Out of Sight is probably a better choice, as that movie is clearly superior. I'm not even that big of a fan of Clooney or Lopez, but I really enjoy that movie and they have great chemistry together.

26) One word that you could say which would instantly evoke images and memories of your favorite movie. (Naming the movie is optional - might be more fun to see if we can guess what it is from the word itself)

Booooyyyyyyyyyy!

27) Name one moment which to you demarcates a significant change, for better or worse, on the landscape of the movies over the last 20 years.

A lot of options here, but in accordance with decorative gourd season, I'll pick something from the horror genre. The Blair Witch Project wasn't the first "found footage" mock documentary (heck, it wasn't even the only one of those from 1999), but for better or worse, it popularized the idea to the point where it broke out of the horror genre. Two other horror movies could also qualify for this: Scream (reviving slashers in particular, and horror in general) and Saw (popularizing the whole torture porn thing).

28) Favorite pre-Code talkie

Gabriel Over the White House, a completely bonkers but surprisingly relevant movie. I was totally flabbergasted by this movie when I first saw it. It's this tacky, unbelievable leftist authoritarian fantasy, and it's utterly riveting.

29) Oldest film in your personal collection (Thanks, Peter Nellhaus)

The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1926), Hitchcock's first movie (part of a collection I bought once). 30) Longest film in your personal collection. (Thanks, Brian Darr)

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Special Extended DVD Edition clocks in at 251 min (And the other LotR extended editions would probably also top most of my other movies). Coming in second would be the Das Boot Director's Cut, clocking in at 208 minutes, barely edging out The Godfather: Part II which is "only" 200 minutes (though, notably, the only theatrical cut mentioned in this answer).

31) Have your movie collection habits changed in the past 10 years? If so, how?

I don't buy nearly as many DVDs/BDs as I used to. This changed most dramatically when I first signed up for Netflix (somewhere around 2005, give or take a year), though more recently the cheap availability of online streaming has also begun to change my habits. Discs are becoming more and more of a pain. I have to, like, get up and walk over to the player in order to swap out discs. Alas, when you're into exploring obscure movies, discs are usually your only options.

32) Wackiest, most unlikely "directed by" credit you can name

I always enjoy it when Alan Smithee directs a film.

33) Best documentary you've seen in 2012 (made in 2012 or any other year)

I've not watched a ton of documentaries thus far this year, but I did really enjoy Bobby Fischer Against the World. Heckler was actually a very interesting discovery, and it becomes more of a meditation on criticism in general than heckling. Ok, so maybe "mediation" is too weighty, but I really enjoyed the movie. Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel and Machete Maidens Unleashed! were great fun, but not exactly insightful or anything.

34) What's your favorite "(this star) was almost cast in (this movie)" anecdote?

Well, Tom Selleck was considered for Indiana Jones (apparently he turned it down). I don't think other answers are possible.

35) Program three nights of double bills at a revival theater that might best illuminate your love of the movies

There are seriously way too many options here, but I came up with something that covered a few interesting themes:

Night one: James Cameron (back when he was still awesome) - The Terminator and Aliens - These are just two of my favorite movies of all time. They pair well together and would make for an exciting, adventurous start to my three nights of double features.

Night two: Cultural Cross-Contamination - Yojimbo and A Fistful of Dollars - Let's see here, John Ford westerns inspired Akira Kurosawa to make structurally similar samurai films, then crazy Italian Sergio Leone takes one of those samurai films and converts it back to the world of westerns, infusing it with spaghetti. Bitchin.

Night three: Sensory Overload Night - Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and Detention - This will be an exhausting, but rollicking night. A good way to end a three day marathon of double features though.

36) You have been granted permission to invite any three people, alive or dead, to your house to watch the Oscars. Who are they?

I always stink at questions like these. Let's see here. Stanley Kubrick, Armond White, and Alison Brie. Kubrick and White will either come to blows, or have the most interesting conversation evar, which will represent a nice bonding experience for me and Alison.

37) Favorite Mr. Chips. (Careful...)

Not having seen any of the movies featuring the good Professor, I will have to abstain from this question. I will, however, wax poetic about Charlie's Chips. Does anyone remember Charlie's Chips? It was this giant delivery truck that would tool around town, delivering potato chips in giant tins to anyone who subscribed. When you ran out, you simply put out the bin, and the Charlie's Chips dude would pick it up and deliver you a full container of chips. This was somehow a rational business model in the 1980s. So there, nothing to do with movies, but all this talk of Chips made me think of it, so there. I hope you're happy now.



6WH: Week 3 - Revisiting 1981
This was originally going to be a week chock-full of slashers, but despite an excellent start on that front, things gradually got less-and-less slashery. As it turns out, all three movies are bona fide members of the horror class of 1981, a year in which changes in distribution and low-budget independent filmmaking conspired to release an explosion of horror movies on an unsuspecting populace. Much of this was driven by the slasher craze, but horror in general was booming in the early 80s and particularly in 1981. Naturally, I've already seen a lot of the classics from that hallowed year, but there were a few high profile movies I'd missed out on for whatever reason, so here goes:

• Thursday the 12th (Robot Chicken)
• Thanksgiving (fake trailer)
• Scanners (trailer)
• Happy Birthday to Me - Someone is offing the cool, smart kids (but I repeat myself, heh) at a prestigious prep school, but who? There are approximately a gajillion red herrings in this film, as the mysterious killer takes out each of the "Top Ten" students, and Ginny keeps having weird flashback to past trauma. Lots of suspicious characters, including one of the Top Tenners that specializes in... taxidermy? This leads to amusing puns along the lines of "Hey, stuff it, dude."
  
  Happy Birthday to Me!
  Directed by J. Lee Thompson (who made the well regarded Cape Fear), this is one of the more fun examples of the teen slasher genre, with creative deaths (including a neat scarf in the motorcycle wheal death, a death-by-barbell, and the most famous weapon, death by shish-kebab) and a series of goofy, Scooby Doo-like twists at the end. There's even a grand unmasking as the true killer is revealed. Clocking in at 110 minutes, it's one of the longest slasher movies ever made, but it's still a lot of fun. Not quite top tier, but certainly top of the middle tier. ***
• The Evil Dead (Japanese trailer)
• My Bloody Valentine (trailer)
• Driving Lessons - Halloween Deleted Scene (short)
• The Funhouse - This is a film that's generally lumped into the Slasher sub-genre, but in the end, I have my doubts. It certainly starts off by totally aping Halloween and Psycho, but it winds up being a practical joke, not a real shower-murder scene. As the film progresses, things certainly get tense, but it's still not quite like a traditional slasher, as the villain seems to have more in common with monsters like Frankenstein (whose mask the killer wears for the first half of the movie or so) than the past-tragedy-inspired killers of your typical slasher. Unlike most killers, this guy evokes a certain amount of pity, even if he's terrifying and deformed.
  
  The plot revolves around a bunch of stupid kids who elect to spend the night in the titular Funhouse of their local carnival, only to find said deformed monster murdering a fortune teller over an expensive handy. Naturally, all the doors are locked and the carnies can't leave any witnesses... hijinks ensue. This one certainly takes its time, but once it gets going, it's pretty solid. It's atmospheric and tense, featuring much less gore than you'd expect for a movie of this era, but it gets the job done. Not one of director Tobe Hooper's best movies, but a worthy effort nonetheless. Probably somewhere in the middle of the middle tier of slashers, definitely worth watching if you like that sort of thing. **1/2
• Jason's Deceiving Speed (Robot Chicken)
• The Prowler (trailer)
• The Burning (trailer)
• Bloody Birthday - And this one wound up being very light on the slasher elements, probably better classified under the realm of Kids are scary and hate you! movies. In this case, said kids were all born during an eclipse, thus making them into psychopaths who begin exploring their murderous tendencies starting around their 10th birthday. Lots of foreshadowing, as people who deny the kids what they want get their inevitable comeuppance. Not a lot of gore, but they make up for it with lots of boobies. It's not scary or even very tense at all, but it winds up being great fun, as it seems to recognize just how silly it is, and it revels in making you hate those sneaky little shits as they engage in their murderous shenanigans. Kid actors in movies are usually a precarious thing, but here, those eclipse kids are kinda awesome, always smirking and looking all smarmy and evil. Overall, not really a noteworthy film, but I had fun with it. **1/2

So there you have it. Not really sure what next week will bring, perhaps some stuff currently in theaters, or maybe just a week with no discernible theme. Stay tuned!



6WH: Tales from the Crypt - Season 1
Tales from the Crypt was one of those shows I was vaguely aware of, but never really watched much. Let's just say that I was young and foolish and didn't appreciate the Crypt Keeper's puns. Now? I value a good pun. Is that value ironic? Oh God, am I becoming a hipster? Well, whatever, I figured it was worth revisiting this show, and since the first season was only six short episodes, it wasn't too much of a time investment. It's funny, but I never quite realized just how much talent was involved with this show. In this first season alone, we've got episodes directed by Walter Hill, Robert Zemeckis, and Richard Donner. And that's not even considering the familiar actors and writers. Plus, the episodes are a relatively short 25-30 minutes, so even if you don't care too much for an episode, you don't have to put in that much time. So let's see how the first season fared. There were only 6 episodes, so I got through them pretty quickly:

• The Man Who Was Death - So what happens when an executioner (the guy who throws the switch on the electric chair, to be specific) loses his job because the state outlaws the death penalty? Why, he simply starts freelancing his executioning, that's what.
  
  This was actually a great start to the series; well acted and visually interesting with an appropriately ironic outcome. Lots of longish takes and breaking of the fourth wall, and well written too. Like The Mad Executioners from this past weekend, this one also has shades of Dexter, as the executioner punishes folks who are getting away with murder... I really enjoyed this one, and it set the tone rather well for what would follow.
• And All Through the House - Regular readers know of my affinity for Holiday Horror, and this tale of murder, greed, betrayal, escaped mental patients dressed as Santa, and general mayhem makes for a fine addition to the pantheon of axe-wielding Santas (of which there are surprisingly many).
  
  Santa!
  Directed by Robert Zemeckis, this seems uncharacteristic for him, but the episode's got a goofy sensibility that seems appropriate. Series is two for two so far!
• Dig That Cat... He's Real Gone - A bum is endowed with 9 lives and attempts to get rich at a carnival sideshow by using up his lives as Ulric the Undying. Basically, he kills himself on stage, and people pay boatloads to see it. Great central performance by Joe Pantoliano and you know what, even Robert Wuhl is pretty great as the sleazy sideshow showman. Again we get lots of fourth wall breaking as Joey Pants explains how he came to acquire his 9 lives (let's just say that it involved a mad scientist and a cat), and overall, this is the third straight great episode.
• Only Sin Deep - Well, I guess they can't all be winners. This tale of a gold-digging hooker who sold her beauty to a pawn shop so that she could seduce a rich dude is fine for what it is and certainly better than a lot of other horror anthology episodes I've seen (I'm looking at you, Fear Itself!), but it's a distinct step down from the first three episodes. For a series whose premise essentially boils down to "Isn't it fun to watch bad people get their comeuppance?", it's hard to say that I just didn't like our main character here, but I really just couldn't see much redeeming quality to her character. In the first three episodes, the main characters had at least some likable traits, however minimal. This lends a certain pathos to the tragedy. Here, we've got nothing. And she's pretty dumb to boot. Not horrible or anything, and the premise could work, but I wasn't a big fan.
• Lover Come Hack to Me - Rich but meek Peggy marries handsome douchebag Charles. Aunt Edith is wary of Charles (assuming he's just marrying Peggy for her money), but Peggy just wants to have a nice honeymoon. But, of course, the road is blocked and they're forced to spend the night in a spooky house. Hijinks ensue. Interesting change of pace for the series so far, and a nice series of reversals make this one an improvement over the previous episode, but perhaps not the best of the series so far. Still, I liked this episode quite a bit.
• Collection Completed - Ah the perils of retirement. The great M. Emmet Walsh plays Jonas, the new retiree who doesn't seem to enjoy spending time with his wife and all of her pets. Naturally, he takes up a... hobby. Heh. Solid episode, but a little on the melodramatic side, which ain't really my thing. Still, it's fun enough. Not quite the strongest finale for the season, but a worthy episode nonetheless.

So the quality seemed to fade a bit towards the end of the season, but it was all enjoyable enough that I immediately added season 2 to my Netflix queue.



6WH: Week 2 - The German Krimi Film
One of the more obscure sub-genres of film is the German Krimi, which translates to "crime" or "mystery thriller". Interestingly, these movies all had their origin in the crime novels of ridiculously prolific British author Edgar Wallace (dude wrote somewhere on the order of 175 books). I had never heard of these movies before, but J.A. Kerswell devoted a short chapter to this movement in his Slasher Movie Book.

...the krimi was at its height of popularity from the end of the 1950s to the mid-1960s (although it was still being made into the early 1970s). Mostly filmed in Germany, the krimi films fetishized England and presented a decidedly Germanic idea of Englishness, which produced an otherworldly, alternative reality. ...These krimis are typically peopled by dastardly villains in outlandish costumes - featuring everything from a green skeleton in a cape to a whip-grasping monk in a red habit and pointy hat.

Increasingly flirting with the horror genre, the krimi satisfied the conventions of the crime caper as well as Teutonic farce.

By today's standards, these are pretty tame films, and as the description above might imply, they're not out-and-out horror, though they have leanings in that direction. There are some key horror conventions on display here though, including POV shots, macabre mad scientists, masked killers, and, strangely, a lot of throwing knives. I'm glad I tracked these down, but the overwhelming reaction I had to all of these movies was that they had some interesting ideas that weren't quite fully developed. This was perhaps due to the time they were made, but hey, if you're looking to remake movies, these seem like great candidates to me. Anywho, let's get this party started:

• The Hitchhiker's Guide To Murder (short)
• Night of the Lepus (trailer)
• Frogs (trailer)
• Fellowship of the Frog (aka Face of the Frog) - Adaptations of Edgar Wallace novels were produced as early as the 1920s, but the heydey of the krimi began in 1959 with the release of this film about a mysterious criminal mastermind known only as "the Frog", who peppers his daring heists and robberies with the occasional murder. Hot on the Frog's tail is Scotland yard, with an assist from an amateur American detective (and his British butler). The Frog's costume, featuring a mask with gigantic glass eyes (lending the impression of a frog), is actually somewhat effective, if a little on the outlandish side.
  
  The Frog
  His dastardly scheme winds up being pretty silly though, and I'm not quite sure I really understood what he was getting at with his plan. Basically, he wants to win the affection of a pretty lady... by terrorizing her brother and father? There's a nice Scooby-villain unmasking at the end of the movie too. There's a lot of neat elements here, but nothing to really pull it together into a great film. I actually really enjoyed the amateur American detective guy, he's kinda like Batman without the costume: embarrassingly wealthy, fights crime in his spare time, has a British butler, fancy car, and wacky gadgets. And the Frog has the makings of a great villain. He leaves a neat little calling card after each heist, and he brands his loyal minions with a little frog symbol too. Cool elements, but alas, the film settles for something less than satisfactory. I'm glad I watched it, but it's not a particularly accomplished film. **
• Final Destination 2 (trailer)
• The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror XIV: Reaper Madness
• The Life of Death by Clive Barker (short story from Cabal)
• The Mad Executioners - This film was made a few years later, while the krimi was enjoying great popularity, and the story here fares much better than Frog, though there are still some odd components (which we'll get to in a bit). The story begins with a mysterious hooded society passing judgement on a criminal who thought they had gotten away with their crime. We later find out that there's been a series of executions by this society, each victim a criminal who was "beyond the reach of the law" (shades of Dexter here, perhaps this movie was an influence?) Each body is found with a file detailing all the evidence, and the victims are hanged with an infamous hangman's rope, stolen from a museum. Soon, we see copycat societies taking up the cause, and a mysterious rash of gruesome beheadings has claimed the sister of our heroic Scotland Yard detective.
  
  A Mad Scientist
  This movie is an improvement over Frog, but some of these elements don't quite fit together. In particular, the side-story about the mad scientist experimenting on decapitated heads seems kinda tacked on, like it was from another movie or something. On the other hand, there's a lot of red herrings, which always kept me guessing, and while the tale may be a bit disjointed, both of the main threads are intriguing enough on their own... It all comes together in the end, and I found it a reasonably enjoyable experience, but again, it feels like these ideas could be more fully developed. **1/2
• Stephen King's It (trailer)
• The X-Files: "Humbug" (tv show)
• Tales from the Crypt: "Dig That Cat...He's Real Gone" (tv show)
• Circus of Fear (aka Psycho-Circus) - This film was made as the krimi was winding down, but it's also probably the best of the films covered in this post. The movie opens with an extremely well filmed heist. I particularly enjoyed the way director John Llewellyn Moxey cut between the various groups of criminals by employing imagery of watches and clocks. Anywho, the heist doesn't go quite as well as planned, and a guard gets shot. This leads the crooks to split up, one of whom heads towards a creepy circus, where he quickly runs into the business end of a throwing knife.
  
  POV Shot
  Other crooks become suspicious and start looking for the body and money he was carrying. The film is actually populated by well-respected actors of the likes of Christopher Lee and Klaus Kinski, and some nice dynamics at the circus keep things interesting. Of course, Scotland Yard is also on the case and as the bodies start to pile up, the suspects seem to be piling up. There's lots of fun to be had here, including a masked lion tamer and a scheming little person. Once again, I don't know that the movie fully delivers on its various ideas, but I found it to be the most enjoyable of the three, and the most visually interesting as well. **1/2

Apparently latter krimi pictures were coproduced in Italy and released as giallos there... Italian Giallo films had emerged and evolved alongside the krimi, but quickly overtook the German sub-genre in terms of visual style, violence, and mayhem. I found this to be an interesting exercise, but I'm a much bigger fan of Giallos and quite frankly, these aren't really horror films. There are some horror elements, but for the most part, they're probably, at best, thrillers.



6WH: The Slasher Movie Book
I like slasher movies. There, I said it. Of course, longtime readers of the site (all 5 of you!) already knew that, as slashers tend to comprise an inordinate proportion of movies watched during the Six Weeks of Halloween horror movie marathon I do every year. As sub-genres go, it's not particularly well respected, but again, I like them. I've written about this before, so I'll just say that I find them comforting, like curling up under the sheets on a cold autumn night. Oh sure, they're all working from a relatively limited and predictable formula, but sometimes that works and I'm a big fan of folks who are able to find new and interesting ways to think inside the box.

Despite all the slasher movies I've seen, I'm far from an expert. Enter The Slasher Movie Book. I didn't realize this, but the book was written by J.A. Kerswell, who runs Hysteria Lives! website as well as the Hysteria Continues podcast I mentioned recently.

Having read the book, I think it's safe to say that Kerswell is indeed an expert, and not just on slasher movies. Indeed, the first several chapters of the book cover broad swaths of horror movie history. He's mostly focusing on proto-slashers, but it's clear that Kerswell has broad expertise in the rest of the genre as well. As most horror movie histories begin, this one starts with the Grand Guignol (a theater in Paris that specialized in short plays featuring graphically portrayed acts of torture, murder, and general mayhem), but quickly transitions into silent horror films (which have guided my recent viewings).

From there Kerswell spends a chapter on German "Krimi" (translates roughly to "Crime" or "Mystery Thriller") films, a sub-sub-genre originating in the 1950s that I'd never even heard of before (as such, I will be devoting this coming weekend to some Krimi films I was able to wrangle from Netflix, tune in Sunday to see the results!), then moves on to the Italian Giallo movement (which is a sub-genre I've enjoyed greatly) and other similar proto-slashers from the 60s and 70s.

But the bulk of the book focuses on the Golden Age of the Slasher film, those hallowed years between 1978 and 1984 when slashers were formally codified and replicated ad nauseam. Starting with Halloween and basically ending with A Nightmare on Elm Street, there were seemingly hundreds of slashers made and released in that era. And Kerswell's seemingly seen every last one of them. I mean, I know I said I'm not an expert, but this dude outstripped my knowledge on just about every page. The book is nearly comprehensive, especially in the Golden Age portions. Unfortunately, that breadth of film knowledge comes at the expense of depth. Most films warrant little more than a sentence or two. The classics of the sub-genre obviously get more attention, though even these portions are not exhaustive. But really, how could they be? There are probably a thousand movies mentioned in the book; going into meticulous detail on every single one would be tedious and boring.

Instead, Kurswell does a pretty deft job and summarizing the ebbs and flows of the genre, from the origins of various conventions in early films to the progression of said conventions through the Golden Age. He traces the genre's roots as they move from gritty realism to a reliance on the supernatural to the self-reflexive parodies that kept it alive. He's identified the trends and movements within the genre while cataloging examples to demonstrate. This is a book I assumed would bog down in repetition or simple regurgitation, like that part in the Bible where Jeremiah begat Jededia, Jededia begat Jebediah and so on, for like 10 pages. But this never really reached that kind of boring territory for me. Of course, I'm kinda obsessive about this stuff, so this book fed me a steady stream of new and unknown movies, all contextualized with stuff that I was already familiar with. It worked well.

The book rounds things out with a look at International slashing, the dark days of slashers, "Video Hell", the reinvigoration of the sub-genre at the hands of Scream, and a survey of latter day horror.

I found out about the book from Brian Collins, the guy who runs the estimable Horror Movie A Day website, and I think his review is pretty spot on, and he's qualified to make statements like this too:

...there's enough evidence throughout the book to suggest that I won't always see eye to eye with him, as he refers to New Year's Evil as "dull" (no movie with a killer name-dropping Erik Estrada can be considered as such, in my opinion) and considers the (IMO) rather bland House On Sorority Row to be a top-tier slasher on the same level as My Bloody Valentine. But I have to remember that everyone has their own favorites; the book's introduction explains that Halloween II was his first slasher and thus he has a soft spot for it, though he's thankfully honest about its shortcomings in the text itself. And he's on the right (meaning: MY) side for some other underrated flicks, such as the 2005 House of Wax, and he also (correctly) refers to Cold Prey II as one of the best post-Scream slashers, a bit of a surprise given his affection for Halloween II, which it was clearly aping.

I'd never judge a book of this type on a few opposing views of some low-rent slasher films, however - it's meticulously researched and the occasional flubs are likely due to typographical error, not ignorance (though he seems to suggest Wes Craven directed Hills Have Eyes 2 AFTER Nightmare On Elm Street, when in reality they were just released that way). But I'd have to stop just shy of calling it "exhaustive," as there are some puzzling oversights. No mention is made of 1991's Popcorn, for example - strange given the fact that it was one of precious few slashers of that time (and fairly well regarded to boot), and Craven's Shocker is also missing, odd considering that the "death" of the slasher cycle of the '80s could probably best be exemplified by one of the genre's founding fathers trying and failing to create a new slasher icon. No Dr. Giggles either, another "too late" attempt to revive the sub-genre. I wouldn't consider this odd in a typical book that just covered the marquee titles (Friday the 13th, Halloween, etc), but come on - there's two paragraphs on To All A Goodnight but not even a passing reference to Horace Pinker? For shame...

Brian is dead on (read: he agrees with me) about New Years Evil and House On Sorority Row, and some of his omissions are good calls to... One omission I would mention is Alice Sweet Alice - Kurswell does mention it in passing under it's original title (Communion), but I would have expected more info on what I thought was one of the clear proto-slashers (I mean, not even a picture of that creepy mask? Come on!) You can't please everyone, I guess. As mentioned above, Kurswell needed to walk a fine line here. Too much info and the book gets cumbersome and boring, too little information and doofuses like me whine about it on the internets. Again, this book is about as good as it gets when it comes to breadth of information.

It's also a very pretty book. Paperback, but all in color, with oodles of gorgeous poster art and stills. I'm not one of them poster art curators that seek out foreign lobby cards and obscure movie art, but I can appreciate that sort of thing when I see it, and if that's your bag, you'll love this. Tons of goofy stuff, along with genuinely effective imagery.

It's a fun book for fans of the sub-genre. Kurswell seems genuinely enthusiastic about the subject and treats it with a respect that few do. As a result, I've come away with dozens of movies I want to track down (if not, uh, hundreds). But don't worry, I'm only planning on spending one week on out-and-out slashers (probably next week).



Six Weeks of Halloween 2012: Week 1 - Silent Horror
The leaves are turning, the wind is gusting, little plastic corpses and bite sized candy are showing up in grocery stores, along with graveyard themed decorations and mutilated pumpkins. It's my favorite time of the year, and as usual, it's time to celebrate the season by watching lots of horror movies. As usual, Kernunrex has gotten the festivities started off in style, and gives as good an introduction to the concept as one could hope for:

Halloween, the high holiday for horror geeks, has no equal. When is the science fiction fest? Which day do comedy kooks celebrate? Would there ever be a spaghetti western wingding? No, horror is special; it's primal and emotional, tapping into the deepest parts of our psychology and yanking at those uncomfortable pieces we normally pretend do not exist. Something this unique deserves more than a mere day of honor at the end of October. I say: let Halloweentime last for six weeks!

Hell yes! Six weeks of horror movies and pumpkin beer, let's get this party started. Stock the Netflix queues, batten down the hatches, it's gonna be a bumpy ride. Every year, I start off the season thinking to myself: self, you should probably become more familiar with silent-era filmmaking, why not spend a week doing so? Then I promptly forget as I tear through a bunch of trashy slasher movies or Giallos or what have you. Well not this year!

My experience with silent horror films is pretty much limited to a viewing of Nosferatu not that long ago. I guess you could also consider Hitchcock's silent film The Lodger as horror too. The silent era of film is a bit of a blind spot in general, so it's definitely something I should be making myself more familiar with, and this provided a good excuse. So it was a quiet weekend, if you take my meaning. Let's see how much choices were:

• Grindhouse: Don't (fake trailer)
• The Haunting (trailer)
• The Others (trailer)
• The Cat and the Canary - The original tale of relatives brought together in a haunted house for the reading of a will, this thing seemingly presages, well, every horror movie ever made. Haunted house, check. Escaped lunatic, check. Prowling POV shots from the killer's perspective, check. Scooby-like plot to manipulate the will, check. Goofy, incompetent cop, check. Creepy housemaid, check. Indeed, the cat-and-canary analogy itself could describe the way killers stalk their victims in countless horror films (though I guess it's more frequently referred to as cat-and-mouse).
  
  The atmosphere of this film is quite effective, but the creaky old manor, filled with cobwebs and secret passages, is yet another horror staple that we've all seen dozens of times. As with most of my experience with silent films, this one moves a tad slow and the acting style of the era was one of overemphasized motions and theatrical gyrations. As visual storytelling goes, though, this one is actually one of the better examples that I've seen. A must watch for students of horror, but perhaps not something that would thrill general viewers. ***
• Shining (fake trailer)
• The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror V: The Shinning
• The Shining (trailer)
• The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari - This is another movie that sorta foreshadows a lot of the genre that would come later. In particular, a case could be made that this is the first slasher, though the film also seems to have been a major influence on Noir films as well. In terms of it's visual style, it's a most striking example of the German Expressionism style, with a set design that is very angular and thus somewhat unsettling. Expressionistic films are not usually this overt or bold, but this film really does get in your face with that sort of distortion of reality. The story itself is somewhat pedestrian. Dr. Caligari sets up shop in a local carnival to exhibit a Somnambulist, a man he claims has been asleep for decades, but who walks and talks in his sleep. The Somnambulist is kept in a coffin (aka the titular cabinet), and Caligari breaks him out and has the crowd ask questions. One unfortunate soul asks "When will I die?" and the Somnambulist's reply is "At first dawn!" Sure enough, the next morning at dawn, the man is found dead.
  
  More hijinks ensue, and there's a few reversals and twists towards the end, but the thing that really sets this movie apart are its visuals. Really, it's just the set design, with it's discordant, angular lines, that is most memorable here. There is basically no camera movement at all, apparently the result of a low budget. This makes the overtness of the film's expressionism a little more explainable, as that's how they sought to make the movie visually interesting. Alas, the film has a preponderance of intertitles, making this rather textually heavy despite its silent origin. Again we get slow pacing and melodramatic acting histrionics. It's another influential and important movie, but I liked The Cat and the Canary much better... **1/2
• Monster Realty (Robot Chicken)
• House Of Wax (1953, trailer)
• House Of Wax (2005, trailer)
• Waxworks - Perhaps the least horror-like movie of the bunch, this nonetheless has some unsettling, weird elements that at least go in the right direction. The story concerns a writer hired by a wax museum to create backstories for the various wax figures. This makes the film into a sorta anthology as the writer concocts tales for three figurines. Harun al Raschid is a Caliph who gets caught up in a squabble between a baker and his wife. Ivan the Terrible thwarts attempts at his life, only to go mad when he thinks that one has succeeded. And Spring-Heeled Jack seemingly threatens the writer in the wax museum! Each story is shorter than the last, though, making this a somewhat lopsided affair, with the grand majority of screen time focused on Harun al Raschid and Ivan the Terrible. Fortunately, all three tales are worthy and interesting, even sometimes incorporating surprise twists. There's a cleverness here not really present in the other two films I watched this weekend, and despite not being horrific, it's still pretty entertaining. That being said, it's got the same pacing and acting ticks that I notice in most silent films. It's a fun film, well worth checking out for film buffs... ***

Well there you have it. I still can't say as though I'm in love with the silent era, but I do find some of these movies fascinating, if only because of their influence and historical value. Next week, I shall return with some proto-slashers, including a German Krimi film and whatever else I can scare up.

Update: Rex posted some thoughts on The Cat and the Canary.

Again Update: Bonehead XL is also writing about The Cat and the Canary. It's all Cat and Canary, all the time on the internet! You should watch it too! Ok fine, he's got a bunch of other reviews too and his site promises to be another 6 weeks of Halloweeny fun.



More X-Files Episodes
In what's sure to be an anticlimactic post, I'm going to list out a few of my favorite X-Files standalone monster-of-the-week episodes. Apologies for the lateness of this post, as my host apparently experienced some "hardware failures" over the weekend. All is well right now, though I had skipped the Sunday entry (first miss in years, so cut me some slack, Jack) and I even lost some Beer Blog stuff (though regular posting has resumed there as well). But I digress. Where was I? Ah yes, X-Files. A couple weeks ago, I revisited the series in general and listed out some of the most popular episodes. Today, I'm going to list some of my personal favorites, which may or may not be episodes that frequently show up in best-of lists. It will be earth-shattering to you all, I'm sure. Here goes:

• Bad Blood (Season 5, Episode 12) - This has always been one of my favorite episodes, but it's also probably the one entry on this list that will also show up frequently in discussions of best episodes. It's another Vince Gilligan penned episode, so once again, I feel like its stock has risen as Gilligan's career has flourished. The story is all about vampires, and it's actually the second episode to tackle that classic monster (I guess it's worth noting that vamps weren't quite as hot a commodity as they are today). The first episode, 3, did not fare to well. Overly morose, obtuse, and kinda boring. Bad Blood, on the other hand, captures that goofy spirit the X-Files strayed to rather often, ultimately resulting in a much more satisfying story. But it's the Rashomon-like (update: according to Wikipedia, it's an homage to a specific episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show) structure of the plot that makes this noteworthy, as much of the story is told in flashback, first from the perspective of Scully, then from Mulder's perspective. Naturally, this yields two very different tales, further mining the chemistry of Mulder and Scully's relationship (one of the shows big strengths and something sorely lacking in the previous vampire episode). The two stories then converge into one, with an unlikely, but satisfying conclusion. Also of note, a great multi-faceted guest performance from Luke Wilson as the town Sheriff (who, of course, appears completely differently in the two different accounts).
• Darkness Falls (Season 1, Episode 20) - Series creator Chris Carter wrote this episode about disappearing loggers in a remote Washington state forest. This one showed up towards the end of the first season, and I remember being enthralled by this story, cementing this as a show I would pay attention to... Unlike a lot of the episodes discussed thus far, this one is less of a goofy tale and more of a tension-filled, almost horror episode. Lots of great touches, from the nature of the threat (which came from chopping down a 500-1000 year old tree or something) to the dynamics between the agents, the logging company guy, the forest ranger, and a wacky environmentalist. There are these great scenes where the camera lingers on the power generator and the light bulb in the cabin they're staying in (this is notable, as the tiny buglike creatures they're facing are afraid of the light). Revisiting the episode recently, I'd say there are some aspects that don't hold up entirely well, particularly the ending, but it all fits with the show's themes and aesthetic. It's not a direct reference, but I kinda like the government conspiracy angle in the final moments of the episode. Very Raiders of the Lost Ark, I'm surprised the dude didn't use the exact words "Top Men". Still, this is certainly an episode worth your time.
• Ice (Season 1, Episode 8) - Written by the duo of Glen Morgan and James Wong, this one is actually an entertaining retelling of the novella Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell, which is the same source material for the more well-known movie incarnations like The Thing. There are some small tweaks that keep things interesting, but this is clearly a derivitive episode, and you'll recognize a lot of it, from the Arctic research station to the paranoia and so on. It's a solid episode, and it actually shares a lot of traits with the aforementioned Darkness Falls, though the latter episode clearly had a more original feel to it. Despite its derivative origins, it's still a great episode, well worth watching.
• Die Hand Die Verletzt (Season 2, Episode 14) - Another Glen Morgan and James Wong script, this one featuring one of the more terrifying monsters in the early seasons. I will not spoil who or why, but I like the show's take on that old hoary satanist trope. If one were so inclined, the episode also has something to say about organized religion in general, and it does so in a clever way.
• Je Souhaite (Season 7, Episode 21) - Another of those goofy later season episodes written by Vince Gilligan, this one doesn't seem to get as much attention, but I do love the episode, which is very funny and tightly plotted, with a surprisingly upbeat ending. It's playing all the typical Genie tropes, and it's kinda sad/goofy at first, but it builds steam as it goes, and I think it's one of the unsung episodes of the series...
• Honorable Mentions: War of the Coprophages, Small Potatoes, How the Ghosts Stole Christmas, Monday, Arcadia, The Goldberg Variation, Hollywood A.D. (an average episode, but worth watching for the split screen bubble bath scene alone, and it's nice to see Skinner used to comedic effect), and ok fine, this was a fool's errand, there are tons of great X-Files episodes and most of these honorable mentions are just as good as any episode listed thus far.

So there you have it. I should note that I haven't really delved into seasons 8 and 9 (aka the years when David Duchovny gradually left the show, leading to new partners for Scully, etc...) There's actually some surprisingly good stuff in those seasons, but I don't think I watched them on their initial run and thus am less familiar with them. Hey, perhaps I can milk a third post out of this...



Revisiting The X-Files
I'm not a big TV person, but as it turns out, this is less a result of quality than it is of convenience. I think it's the broadcast model that really grinds my gears, but in this age of DVRs and Streaming services, I find myself gravitating towards a lot of television shows that are fully available. This includes a lot of discoveries, but I also value the ability to go back and revisit a show I once loved. As you might guess, I've been watching a lot of The X-Files lately (the whole series is available and easy-to-mainline on Netflix Instant).

Clocking in a 9 seasons and 200+ episodes, it's not a series that lends itself to a single blog post, but it's still worth talking about. There were, of course, two main threads in the series: a continuity of alien/government conspiracy plot-based episodes (though not the first series that attempted such long-term storytelling - Twin Peaks and Wiseguy come to mind - it was still quite ahead of the curve in this respect), and a series of one-off creature of the week type episodes. The continuity episodes established an elaborate mythology that quickly became too dense and nonsensical to me. I'm not sure if that's just because I missed the occasional episode (and thus had no idea what was going on), or if it was because the overarching conspiracy just made no sense, but the general consensus is that the overall storyline went on a little too long, was drawn out over too many seasons, and just got overly complicated and downright silly in the process.

I was always more interested in the one-off standalone episodes though, and they're the ones I keep returning to... Some are memorable favorites, some are new discoveries, things I'd never seen before. One thing that strikes me now is that the series really did consist of an eclectic mixture of elements that worked surprisingly well. There are stoic episodes consisting of deadly serious tragic figures, or lighthearted comedic takes on normally staid subjects. There were a lot of horror or science fiction tropes thrown out there, but also more realistic takes that only feinted towards the paranormal (in particular, there were some serial killer episodes that had little to no supernatural elements). The series was one of the few that could scare you like a good horror movie, instill suspense like a Hitchcockian thriller, impart that expansive sense of wonder that's the hallmark of great science fiction, or just plain make you laugh with expertly crafted comedic episodes.

I haven't really revisited any of the mythology episodes, but the standalone stuff has held up remarkably well. Monsters, aliens, psychics, freaks, serial killers, urban legends, claustrophobia, disease, the series took on quite a broad set of topics. In addition to the subject matter, the series is notable for its production values. In particular, I think the series had great cinematography. Sure, it sometimes gets a little too dark and the special effects are certainly showing their age, but for a TV show made in the 1990s, it's remarkable. Most television of that era had a sorta "flat" feel to it, but the X-Files always seemed to have qualities more closely related to film. That's not particularly rare in contemporary television (especially with the rise of pay cable network television like HBO), but back in the day, watching television that had filmic qualities was quite an eye opener, and as the series progressed, they managed to push boundaries and play with conventions more than most shows of the era. Take, for example, the episode Triangle, which consisted of four continuous shots (there were actually a few more than that, but clever editing made each segment seem continuous, with only commercials breaking up the action).

I had originally planned to list out my favorite episodes that were also somewhat obscure - the ones you don't hear much about - but perhaps it would be good to quickly revisit the series' regularly accepted best episodes (and save the obscure ones for their own post). Unlike a lot of series, I find that my favorite episodes are pretty well represented among the typical best-of lists out there, so here they are:

• Jose Chung's From Outer Space (Season 3, Episode 20) - Darin Morgan only wrote 5 episodes of the series, but his influence is clearly felt in the entire show. In particular, he brought an offbeat, humorous perspective to a show that could easily have become mired in alienation and despair. To be fair, those were certainly themes of the series, but thanks to writers like Morgan, they were not overbearing themes. This particular episode is one of the rare alien-focused episodes that doesn't connect with the series' mythology (and thus, one of the rare alien episodes that I enjoyed!) The episode is structured around a series of flashbacks and interviews, highlighting several different points-of-view and numerous unreliable narrators. This structure is leveraged for all it's worth, often emphasizing the humor, but also just plain weirdness inherent in the premise. Jose Chung is an author is seeking to write a book about alien abduction and thus he gloms onto Mulder and Scully. It's an interesting and fun episode.
• Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose (Season 3, Episode 4) - Another Darin Morgan penned episode, this one retains much of the goofy humor that Morgan is known for, but also infusing a tragic poignancy in the form of Clyde Bruckman, a psychic who can predict the circumstances of peoples' death. There's an interesting serial killer story going on in the background here, but this is really about playing the agents against Bruckman. In particular, I like the way this episode plays with skepticism among Mulder and Scully. Apparently actor Peter Boyle won an Emmy for his role here, and it's easy to see why. Morgan won an Emmy for writing as well, and again, it's easy to see why.
• The Post-Modern Prometheus (Season 5, Episode 5) - This one's written by series-creator Chris Carter, and represents one of those broadening episodes that tried to break through typical formulas for the show by varying the style considerably. It's filmed in black and white and features a modern take on the Frankenstein story - a goofy homage to Universal's famous monster movies, with some comic book tropes thrown in for good measure. It's a really weird, surprisingly light-hearted episode, with lots of quirky details (in particular, the monster Mutato's love of Cher music has always stuck with me as a memorable quirky element here). Definitely one of the series more adventurous episodes.
• Drive (Season 6, Episode 2) - I'm not sure this one would have made the list a few years ago, but because writer Vince Gilligan and actor Bryan Cranston were both involved in this episode, many have revisited this one in light of their later work on Breaking Bad (another series I'm trying to catch up on). Gilligan is actually responsible for a lot of great X-Files episodes (including another called Pusher that often makes best-of lists) and you really can see his style in both these episodes and his later work on critical darling Breaking Bad. Gilligan was one of the few to successfully pick up the goofy humor once Darin Morgan left the series, but this particular episode features very little in the way of humor. It's actually once of the tenser affairs in the series. There's a government conspiracy angle that fits with the series themes, though it's still standalone. A lot of tension is ratcheted into the premise by working with a sorta counting-clock mixed with geographical limitations, and the unrelenting pace is matched by a rather dark and depressing ending. There's a lot of haunting moments here, though I do think that Gilligan tends to rely on certain crutches in his storytelling, particularly with respect to characters not explaining themselves (something I've noticed in Breaking Bad as well). In any case, this is a very well crafted, if disturbing, episode.
• Home (Season 4, episode 2) - Generally considered to be the best of the standalone episodes, this one featured a script by James Wong and Glen Morgan (brother of the aforementioned Darin Morgan). It's also probably the most graphic and disturbing episode of the series. While many of the series' horror beats relied on "boo" moments of monsters jumping out of the dark screen, this one relied on a slow burning story concerning a terrifying clan of inbred backwoods hillbillies, calling to mind an entire subgenre of horror that, quite frankly, this episode pretty much outclasses (with maybe one notably exception of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre). Some of the most terrifying, disquieting moments of the series are contained within, and this is a must watch episode for any horror fan (or fan of the series). It's actually one that I missed upon its initial run, but which I discovered years later in an eye-opening experience.

There are, of course, lots of other regularly praised episodes, but I'll save them for a later post, along with some of my personal favorites.

The X-Files has a clear legacy, but few shows that followed have really captured what made this show great. The broader legacy includes all of the shows writers and directors, who've gone on to write and direct shows like Lost and Breaking Bad. There have been a few recent heirs to the series, though none has really approached the versatility or depth of the X-Files. Still, shows like Warehouse 13 (a sorta mashup of X-Files and that wacky Friday the 13th series) and Fringe do their best, and even succeed in some limited degrees. At this point, I'm guessing there won't be another series like The X-Files, and maybe that's ok.



Detention
Director Joseph Kahn has only made two movies, but they're both impossible to categorize. Oh sure, Torque is clearly a Fast and Furious clone, but Kahn made it his own. It's a movie that "so bad it's good" doesn't even begin to describe. Back in the day, Nick Nunziata did as good a job as possible describing it:

When I say that Torque is the most shamelessly synthetic and overstylized action flick ever made I mean it in the nicest way possible. This film makes cheese blush. It gives bullet time lead poisoning. From the first computer assisted race sequence to the climactic Chop-Kawasaki and Mach 48373 race through the city, Torque revels in excess in ways that would resurrect Don Simpson and eject him from his grave in slow motion as doves gather and carry him to the surface of Venus where he is pelted with little rocks shaped like Jerry Bruckheimer's night terrors. As the film unfolded I seriously found myself falling in love with its utter fakeness and bold arrogance. You know the kind of love I'm referring to. The love an inmate finds after cell blocks B and C ventilate his colon enough so that he forgets what it was like before the whistling sound began to waft from his drawers twenty-four hours a day. Before his ass had its own climate. Torque is that rough lover, the one who punches you in the eyes when he/she is happy and does spinning monkey kicks to your coccyx when he/she feels melancholy. This film has the Goodyear blimp testicles to recreate a quote from The Fast and the Furious (also produced by Neal Moritz, one of this film's many Summerian summoners) and then scoff at it.

It scoffs at The Fast and the Furious, a film that not only made this film possible but one that looks like a Cassavettes flick in comparison. Let that sink in. I'll wait.

I can't say as though I truly enjoy Torque as much as its cult following suggests, but Kahn's latest film, Detention, is something I fell in love with right away.

Within 5 minutes of Detention, I was on board. And, judging from the reviews (and even audience reactions), most other folks wouldn't be. But that's ok. This isn't a movie for everyone. It's a movie for the information-overloaded internet and texting generation (you could consider me on the outside of that, I think, but not so far outside that I can't appreciate what this movie is going for). Referential, manic, kinetic, goofy, this thing makes Scott Pilgrim look like an Ozu film. Smash cuts, whip pans, excessive cross-cutting, flashbacks, flashbacks within flashbacks, on-screen text, and did I mention how referential this movie is?

It's not a subtle movie. You could say that's a bad thing, but for me, it's rocketed past unsubtle and into some sort of transcendence. This is a movie that makes hyperbole seem inadequate. You could say that this is a movie that's trying to hard. It could feel like an exhausting experience, an endurance test, or maybe a seizure-inducing bomb. It seems like everything that I think is great about this movie could equally be considered a flaw by detractors. But while I can see why people would feel that way, I quite enjoyed it.

The story, inasmuch as you could say it has a story, is about Riley Jones, a high-school "loser" who runs afoul of a slasher-inspired killer. Er, sorta. It's like a demented mixture of John Hughes and Donnie Darko and Freaky Friday and countless horror films. Kahn is riffing off of current horror movie trends, notably torture porn, but fusing it with references from the 80s and 90s. In fact, the 90s references seem to be about on par, if not more prevalent, than the 80s references.

The movie is so fast paced that I suspect it will reward multiple viewings. It's packed with references, not only in the dialogue, but also in the visuals and conceptual design. For instance, there's a movie-within-a-movie slasher franchise called Cinderhella, and our main character, Riley, is walking around with one shoe for most of the movie. So while this film is ostensibly hitting you in the face with a sledgehammer (in the form of editing and writing), there are some subtle touches when it comes to stuff like this. The references are widely sourced; not just movies, but also music and fashion and probably stuff I didn't even come close to picking up on... If you get it, it's awesome, and if you don't, you might not like it. On the other hand, this is a movie made for the internet age. In interviews, Kahn suggests that he expects the audience to pick the movie apart and look up references on the internet. Indeed, I can see this movie gaining a big cult following who will go on to cultivate a wiki or something that would catalog all of the myriad references. Is this a good thing? I guess that depends on your perspective, but I'm glad someone is playing around with that sort of thing for this new generation. Referential art is certainly not a new thing, even excessively referential art.

Kahn is pushing the boundaries of information processing. Consider how fast the on-screen text is displayed. which is clearly calibrated for a younger, texting-obsessed audience. Other folks might be tempted to tell this movie to get off their lawn, and that's ok too. I will admit, the movie is all over the place. That might trip it up some in the second and third acts, but it ultimately holds together well and I suspect that some of the seemingly goofy plot machinations that emerge later in the movie fit together tightly. For a movie featuring time travel, angry Canadians, alien bears from the planet Starclaw, and copious amounts of vomit, this is quite the feat. Again, I think repeated viewings might be necessary to break the code.

This is bold, audacious, adventurous filmmaking at its best. Sure, it's totally bonkers, but it's got a manic energy that's hard not to like. A part of me, the part that tries to overanalyze and nitpick everything, doesn't really know what to make of it, but on a pure entertainment level, it's something that really appeals to me. I suspect you'll be hearing more about this movie when it comes to Kaedrin awards season... (Incidentally, I tried to take some screenshots from the BD, but it appears that BD's copy protection means I can't actually watch it on my PC, despite having a BD drive and "approved" player. Yet another instance of DRM making it hard on those of us who want to support filmmakers.)



Final Girl Film Club: The Initiation
It has been far too long since I've joined in on the Final Girl Film Club, so I'm rectifying that situation with this month's pick: The Initiation. It's not quite the cheesefest of some slashers, but on the other hand, it actually acquits itself reasonably well. Definitely a second tier effort, but well worth watching for fans of the sub-genre.

Things get kicked off, as they often do in slashers, with a tragedy in the past. A young girl awakes in a room filled with decapitated dolls (this is brought up again later in the movie, though never really explained). She hears strange noises, so she goes to investigate. As she approaches her parents' room, she glimpses them knocking boots in the mirror. Naturally, she takes this opportunity to stab her father in the leg... at which point, some strange man bursts into the room. The father grabs a bottle of liquor and attacks, but he only succeeds in dousing the man in alcohol. Stunned, he falls backwards into the roaring fireplace, whereupon he immediately bursts into flames. All pretty standard slasher tragic history stuff here, but then the twist: It's all a dream! (This sort of cliched "twist" is a recurring theme in the movie.)

It appears that this is a recurring nightmare for Kelly, a college freshman played by Daphne Zuniga. She's probably most famous for her work in Melrose Place, but to me, she will always be Princess Vespa. Here, she's pledging a (not at all creepy) sorority, and the head of the sorority informs her (and her sisters) of the typical 80s college movie prank they must carry out: they're to break into Kelly's family's mall and steal the security guard's uniform. Delightful. But don't get your hopes up yet, because it'll be another hour or so before we get there. Instead, we take a detour to a sanitarium (never seen that in a slasher before, eh?) where we see a Nurse Ratchet wannabe sticking it to the inmates, including a dude with burns all over his face and a penchant for gardening. This in no way foreshadows anything, right? Of course, Ratchet wannabe girl is murdered during a daring sanitarium escape scheme in which numerous crazies have gone missing... including someone Kelly's parents are afraid of!

Meanwhile, Kelly's got the hots for her dream analysis professor Peter, who thinks he may be able to help her interpret her recurring nightmares. He takes her to "The Dream Factory", otherwise known as the basement, whereupon he hooks her up to all this fancy equipment, with the help of his wacky aid, Heidi. We immediately trust Peter because he's super intelligent, as demonstrated by his repeated references to Freud and Jung. Also: Science! Anywho, we find out a little more about Kelly and her dream as well as a childhood accident where she fell out of a treehouse, slipped into a coma, and then emerged weeks later with amnesia. As Heidi speculates, that ain't no nightmare man, it's a memory! Heidi will later perform quite the Scooby sleuthing on Kelly's past... There's a lot of meandering in the second act, but it nevertheless manages to maintain momentum and entertainment value. For instance, there's the typical slasher party sequence, complete with cheesy 80s live band music and a bonkers theme - everyone dresses up as their "favorite suppressed desires". This generally manifests as girls wearing slutty costumes, but there's one dude who dresses up like a giant penis. Of course!

Elsewhere, people are mysteriously dying, courtesy of the aforementioned gardening implements. This relatively short list of victims includes Kelly's father, who is beheaded on his way to see his mistress. In one of the film's more brilliant and retrained comedic touches, Kelly's mother notices that he forgot his glasses, and runs outside, only to find his car driving off (this is presumably the killer covering his tracks), and exclaims "Sometimes I think that man would forget his head if it wasn't attached!" This, again, is just after he was beheaded.

Next up, we finally get to the aforementioned mall prank... but it appears that our killer has gotten there before our heroines. There's a lengthy sequence in which the porn mustachioed security guard who doesn't know how to button his uniform shirt and wears cowboy boots is stalked by the killer, eventually succumbing to yet another gardening implement. Not sure who this guy is, but he clearly thought this was his prestige moment and gives a full-throated scream as he dies. I believe he was nominated for an Academy Award that year, but didn't win. Finally, the girls get to the mall and devise a plan wherein everyone splits up to find the security guard and separate him from his uniform. Naturally, the other sisters in the sorority have contracted out with the frat boys to give the girls a good scare (classic 80s prank twist), and of course, they get picked off one by one in a series of increasingly odd sequences that, nevertheless, never quite reach the levels of insanity or gore you want out of a good slasher. Sure, there's a basic level of competence here, but there's nothing here that you haven't seen before.

It's ultimately all good fun. There are a series of obvious twists and turns in the final minutes of the movie, again carrying forward the theme of cliched plot devices. This movie really does check off the slasher boxes pretty well. It's got everything. Past tragedy, suppressed memories, Freud, Jung, sanitariums, burn victims, evil twins, awkward revelations of child abuse, lots of T&A, obscure tools that are nonetheless common weapons in slasher movies (most notably the speargun), bad 80s music, faux-science, the list goes on and on. Pretty much every thing about this movie, every kill, every plot development, every character is derivative of other slashers... and yet, it works. It works pretty damn well, actually.

That is the paradox of slasher movies, I guess. They're so formulaic and so derivative, and yet, so comforting in their sameness. It's like horror movie comfort food. Like putting on a warm sweater on a cold winter's night. As slashers go, I'd put this in the upper portion of the second tier. It's clearly not top tier stuff, but it gets the job done well, and there's a lot of nice little touches. This movie essentially represents a really nice appetizer for my upcoming 6 Weeks of Halloween horror movie marathon, which I now cannot wait for...

Some more screens and commentary below the fold, though not a ton, as it's a pain to take screens off of Netflix's streaming. This is Kelly's father, played by Clu Gulager, who I actually kinda love because he's in a lot of movies, and his son is the lunatic director from season three of Project Greenlight (the best and most kooky season of that unfortunately long defunct series). Part 2 of Kelly's father's death is a beheading done in shadows! Yet another common slasher trope. Yep, it's a penis costume. Not sure what "suppressed desire" this tracks to for this guy, but whatever, I think... this is probably a good place to end this post.



On Nitpicking
I watch a lot of movies and thus it follows that I also consume a fair amount of film criticism, mostly through the internets (reviews, forums, podcasts, etc...) One thing I've noticed recently in a few high-profile movies is that many reviews resort to long lists of nitpicking. I'm certainly not immune to this tendency - I tried to minimize my nitpicks in my Prometheus review, but if I were so inclined, I could probably generate a few thousand words picking the nits out of that movie. I really disliked that movie, but were the nitpicks the cause? Another movie I could probably nitpick to death is The Dark Knight Rises... and yet, I really enjoyed that movie. We could quibble about the quantity and magnitude of the nitpicks in both films, but a recent discussion with a friend on both movies made me start wondering about nitpicks again. It's something I've seen before, though I don't think I've ever really written about it in detail.

The origin of the term comes from the process of removing the eggs of lice (aka nits) from the host's hair. Because the nits attach themselves to individual strands of hair, the process of removing them is tedious and slow. You could shave all the hair off and later, chemical methods of treating lice infestations became available. But the term nitpicking has lived on as a way describing the practice of meticulously examining a subject in search of subtle errors in detail. In the context of this post, we're talking about movies, but this gets applied to lots of other things.

When it comes to movies and TV series, nitpicks can go either way. Some will claim that the existence of nitpicks are evidence that the show or movie is sloppy and poorly made. Others will claim that the nitpickers are missing the forest for the trees. Nitpickers just don't "get it" and are taking the fun out of everything. In fairness, there's probably an element of truth to both sides of that argument, but I think they're both missing the point of nitpicks, which is this: Nitpicks are almost always emblematic of a deeper problem with the story or characters. Oh sure, there are some people who can't turn their brains off and nitpick because they're just analytical by nature (one definition of engineer's disease), but even in those cases, I think there's something to be said for a deeper dislike than the nitpicks would seem to indicate.

Nitpicks are the symptoms, not the disease. I didn't dislike Prometheus because, for example, their spaceship was in a constant state of thrust at the beginning of the movie or because there was no explanation for how the ship maintained gravity in space. But both of those things were immediately obvious to me, which tells me that I wasn't really immersed in the story that was being told. As the movie unfolds, a number of breathtakingly stupid plot developments were continually taking me out of the story. Perhaps if the movie wasn't so stupid, I may have overlooked those initial observations, but as the nitpicks mounted, it became harder and harder to overlook them. I don't go into a movie hoping that it will suck. There's a certain amount of goodwill that a movie has to wear away at in order to ruin immersion, and for whatever reason the quantity and magnitude of nitpicks with Prometheus wore out that goodwill pretty quickly. The Dark Knight Rises, on the other hand, didn't bother me nearly as much. In fact, as I mentioned in my review, most of the nitpicks I have with that movie came to light after the fact. It's what Hitchcock calls a "refrigerator" movie: something that makes sense while you're watching it, but falls apart under critical examination (while standing in front of the refrigerator later in the night). That being said, for lots of people, that wasn't enough. And that's perfectly understandable.

In general, it seems that people are perhaps less objective than they'd like to think. One of the great things about art is that the pieces that move us usually aren't doing so solely on an intellectual level... and when it comes to emotion, words sometimes fail us. Take, for example, a comedy. The great thing about laughter is that you don't have to think about it, it just happens. Different people have different tastes, of course, and that's where subjectivity comes in. But for whatever reason, we don't like to admit that, so we try to rationalize our feelings about a given movie. And if we don't like that movie, such rationalizations may manifest in the form of nitpicks. None of this is absolute, of course. Most art works on both intellectual and emotional levels, and as you gain experience with a given medium or genre (or whatever), you will start to pick out patterns and tropes. One of the interesting things about this is that what gets labeled a "nitpick" can vary widely in scope. Nitpicks can range from trivial mistakes to serious continuity errors, but they all get lumped under the same category. As such, I think it can be difficult to discern what's a nitpick and what's the root cause of said nitpick.

A few years ago, I was discussing John Scalzi's book Old Man's War in an online forum. I (and a number of other forum members) enjoyed the book greatly, but one person didn't. When asked why, she responded that it was disappointing that, during one scene earlier in the book, a doctor spent time explaining how some machines worked to his patient. This is a nitpick if I've ever seen one. What she said was true - it was somewhat unrealistic that these two characters would stop what they're doing to have a discussion about how certain technologies operated. But I was wrapped up in the story by that point, so I barely even noticed it. Even after it was pointed out, it didn't ruin the book for me. She was not invested in the story though, so that scene was jarring to her. After further discussion, it turns out that this was a specific manifestation of a larger issue she had with the book, which was that it lazily introduced concepts through awkward exposition or dialogue, and never followed through on any of it. I don't particularly agree with her on that, but I can see where she's coming from.

I think the lesson here is that when people are nitpicking a movie to death, it's not necessarily the specific nitpicks that are so bothersome. Perhaps, in some cases, it's the combined weight of all the nitpicks that causes an issue, but I suspect that even in those cases, the nitpicks are merely the most obvious examples of a deeper problem. I think both critics and defenders would do well to recognize this sort of thing. It's fun to list out nitpicks or examples of something you don't like about a work of art, but that's not really what criticism is about. I don't mean to say that you can't or shouldn't do this sort of thing, just that it would be useful at some point to look back at that list and wonder what it was about the book or movie or whatever that inspired you to meticulously chronicle minor errors or whatever. This is probably easier said than done. I can't say as though I succeed at this all the time, but then, I'm just some dude wanking on the internets. Ultimately, all of this is somewhat superfluous, but it's something worth considering the next time you find yourself cataloging trivial errors in detail.



Obscure Movie Corner
I always hate it when I see a list of "Movies you've never seen before" or somesuch on the internets. It just seems so... presumptuous and conceited. Like all lists, sometimes they're good, sometimes they stink, usually they're somewhere in the middle. Well, recently a friend of mine asked me for some recommendations for movies he might not have seen (based on a discussion in meatspace about Christopher Nolan's first film, Following, a movie he had not seen). "Go deep," he says, so I did. This all happened on twitter though, and that 140 character limit is a bit chafing. Plus, it seems like an interesting topic for this here blog, which will also let me bloviate about these movies at length. I always enjoy highlighting the offbeat or obscure movies out there on my blog, and one thing you'll notice about some of the below recommendations is that a lot of them have shown up on the yearly Kaedrin Movie Awards or Top 10 lists (2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006) or elsewhere on the blog. But sometimes I think they get buried and again, I always like an opportunity to shine a light on obscure movies that folks don't talk about much... So here we go:

• Following - Might as well start here, since this is what inspired the list in the first place. It's Christopher Nolan's first film, and you can very much tell that it's from the same director as the breakout Memento. The premise is that a young writer starts following random people he sees on the street. The point is to get ideas for his writing, but of course, he eventually follows the wrong person and hijinks ensue. It's a small movie, told asynchronously (though not quite as mindbending as Memento, it's still a pretty interesting exercise in editing and storytelling). It's actually something I'd like to revisit sometime, but if you haven't seen it and you've enjoyed Nolan's work, it's worth tracking down. And it's on Netflix Instant, so it's pretty easy to find!
• Fish Story - This is the first movie that came to mind when tasked with obscure movies someone might not have seen. Director Yoshihiro Nakamura has been slowly gaining a cult following amongst film nerds of late (I became aware of him at last year's Fantastic Fest), and with efforts like this, it's easy to see why. I don't really want to say much about this - it's pretty rare in this day and age that you get to sit down and watch a movie without knowing anything about it. Not that knowing basic premise is all that damaging to the viewing, but still, I had a really nice experience in part because I didn't know anything about it going in... Also on Netflix Instant, so definitely something to add to your queue and watch ASAP. Alas, not much other stuff from Nakamura is available in the US (but if you get the chance, A Boy and His Samurai is also great).
• The Mission - The first of three Johnny To movies on the list, this is one that doesn't seem to get a whole lot of attention, but I really love it. To gets overshadowed by other Hong Kong action directors like John Woo, Tsui Hark, and Ringo Lam, but for my money, he's the best director working in Honk Kong today. This one is a relatively straightforward gangster tale, but it demonstrates To's distinctive style well. Woo is known for choreographing beautiful, almost balletic action. To seems to have a more meticulous, intricate, chess-like strategy to filming action that is really quite striking. This movie features a lot of it, where you see a team of bodyguards take up positions, and To films it in such a way that almost all of them are on screen, despite the fact that they're well dispersed around the area. Really striking stuff. Not available on streaming, but readily available on Netflix DVD...
• Breaking News - Another Johnny To movie, this one included mostly for the opening action sequence, which is absolutely astounding. I actually mentioned it a while back in my post on long takes, and this thing is really quite well done, and again demonstrates To's ability to stage intricate action sequences. The rest of the movie is solid, though it never quite reaches the heights of that opening again. Still worth checking out. Again, available on DVD.
• Mad Detective - The last of the Johnny To movies, this one is quite a bit more wacky than the preceding films. It's got a strange, supernatural element and a sorta elliptical storytelling style that I think is quite striking. There's not a ton of action here, but To's knack for intricate staging still plays a big role. [Full Review]
• Hard Candy - I'm not entirely sure how obscure this one is, but people rarely seem to bring it up. It's one of Ellen Page's breakthrough movies, and a well deserved one at that. Be forewarned, it's got some heavy stuff in it - it's about a pedophile and features only two characters and one major setting. It's difficult to describe, but it manages to generate a lot of tension, and quite strangely, your sympathies sorta shift around as you're watching. Not everything is what it seems! Worth watching.
• Brick - Again, not really sure how obscure this one is, but this mashup of high school and film noir is definitely worth watching if you haven't seen it. Also a good idea to catch up with director Rian Johnson's early films before he hits it big time with Looper. Speaking of which:
• The Brothers Bloom - Rian Johnson's sophomore effort is perhaps not as tight as Brick, but it's still a blast. It hits all the con movie tropes while still managing to carve out an identity of its own, and while the ending isn't quite perfect, it's still better than I was expecting. It's a lot of fun, with a neat, twisty plot and some great performances (particularly Rachel Weisz and Rinko Kikuchi, who are just delightful in this movie).
• Timecrimes - Best director name ever Nacho Vigalondo's intricate time travel tale that illustrates a chain of consequences that result from a mistaken, 1 hour trip back in time. Cascading paradox avoidance and a light tone, though it doesn't shy away from its darker side. Really wonderful little film, and I can't wait to see more in this vain from Vigalondo. In the meantime, you should also be able to check out his other film:
• Extraterrestrial - More of a romantic comedy than anything else, it is set on the backdrop of an uneventful alien invasion, giving it an interesting vibe on what could have been a simple retread. May disappoint fans of Timecrimes, but I had a lot of fun with it.
• The Man from Earth - Definitely among the most obscure movies on this list, it's also a very low budget movie that mostly takes place in a single house, featuring a bunch of conversations by some academics and their buddy, who's moving on. For a film that is very talky, there's a pretty well established dramatic throughline, and some interesting twists and turns. Well worth a watch.
• Tucker and Dale vs Evil - A neat little movie that turns the Hillbilly Horror subgenre on its head. It's a ton of fun, especially for folks acquainted with horror tropes. By the way, don't watch the trailer for this, as it gives away a lot of the jokes. I've sung the praises of this one for a while now, and I know I've turned at least a couple people onto it... why not check it out yourself?
• Gambit - Near as I can tell, this is hugely obscure, and I don't know why, as it's quite spectacular. It's something of a heist film, starring a very young Michael Caine and Shirley MacLaine... It's got an unusual structure, but that only serves to keep you off balance, and things never quite go the way you'd expect. Unfortunately, it's no longer available on Netflix Instant, and they don't have the DVD either. But it is available on Amazon Streaming (for purchase). I really wish this were more widely available, as it's a really wonderful addition to one of my favorite genres (the heist film). If you get a chance to see it, don't pass it up.
• Blood and Black Lace - Ok, so probably not that obscure for Horror genre hounds like myself, but if you haven't had the chance to check out the Italian Giallo films, this is an excellent place to start. It's one of the few films that can lay claim to birthing the slasher sub-genre, though it doesn't feature any of the excess that sub-genre is known for. Still, it's got a body count and a masked killer, but it's impeccably filmed and well worth watching for any student of the horror genre.
• M - Alright, so this one is definitely not obscure by any stretch of the imagination, except insofar as people from my generation tend to be somewhat ignorant of films made before the 1960s (ok, unwarranted sweeping generalization, but I think you can see my point). If you've ever hesitated about this movie, don't, it's exceptional. Fritz Lang's classic tale of a serial killer (of children, no less) who runs afoul of the local criminal element (in a beautifully ironic twist, the police get so frustrated that they can't find the killer that they crack down on the typical criminals, who quickly get sick of this and resolve to find the killer themselves so that they can get back to business as usual). Lang's brilliant expressionism, along with great performances and photography, make this film an absolute classic.
• Martin - This might be my favorite of George Romero's movies... and it's not even a zombie movie. It's about vampires. Sorta. It's actually a pretty unique and modern take on the vampire, much more interesting than a lot of contemporary takes. Seek it out.

Well, I could probably go on like this for another 10 or 20 movies, but I'll leave it at that for now...



On The Inevitable Batman Reboot
This list of five things he wants in the Batman reboot (assuming that the next film in the franchise will be some form of reboot) has some interesting notions. I'll have more to say about some of his other demands, but if I were ever tapped to make a Batman movie (or comic, for that matter), this one would be my keystone:

Make Batman a detective.

The full name is "The Dark Knight Detective." Batman isn't just an urban vigilante in a strange getup - he's a master detective whose deductive skills rival Sherlock Holmes. This element of Batman is historically underplayed, and Nolan's Batfilms in particular have ignored his detective element (or, more truthfully when Nolan has engaged the detective element it has been in a way that makes Batman seem stupider, like the fingerprints on the Joker's bullet thing).

Tell a story where Batman isn't just punching guys but where he's engaged in a real mental match-up. Where he's not only riding in his Batmobile but also piecing together seemingly mundane and pointless clues. Where he's seemingly at a loss but is actually one step ahead of the villain. Look to the Robert Downey Jr Sherlock Holmes films for a sense of how to do this.

He loses me with the Downey Jr. Sherlock Holmes reference (I guess they're fine for what they are, but are they really something to emulate?), but otherwise, this is spot on. Batman's first appearance was in Detective Comics, after all, and he's supposed to be the world's greatest crime solver. Why not give him an actual mystery to solve? As the Devin Faraci (the author of the piece) notes, this aspect of Batman is historically underplayed, but everyone loves a good sleuthing, so long as the mystery is actually clever and not just obscure (i.e. don't hire Lindelof and Abrams, though I suspect people would lobby for that duo). To my mind, this sort of story would be an ideal fit for The Riddler as villain, but I'm getting ahead of myself. More on villains later.

As for Faraci's other suggestions, I don't feel strongly about most of them, but let's take a look anyway. Maybe I can muster up some invective or praise:

• Less Frank Miller, more Grant Morrison. Having already copped to not having read the comics, I'm not really qualified to respond to this, but I think I can go along with the general point, which is to make Batman less grim and gritty and more fun. Makes sense, but there's also a fine line to walk. I'd like to avoid the Danny Devito Penguin, if you please. Say what you will about Nolan, but I like his mixture of realism and comic book fantasy when it comes to a character like the Joker.
• Get rid of the bulky rubber outfit. I'm mostly ambivalent about this one, though I agree that it would be nice to see a good portrayal of the grey suit. On the other hand, the grey suit has that whole Underwear of Power thing going against it, so I'm fine if they stick with the black armored stuff.
• Have it take place in the DC Universe. Again, not really qualified here, but I would want anything in this vein to be subtle and on the periphery. Post-credits sequence would be acceptable. I may have more to say on this a little later in this post.
• Don't you dare make it an origin story. Hell yes. Wholeheartedly agreed here. As Devin notes, "I'll allow a visit to the grave of the Waynes, but that's it." Heh.

So, what would I really want out of a reboot, besides making Batman a detective and eschewing the origin story? I'm glad you asked:

• Give Batman a single villain. Look, I get it, Batman has the strangest, most memorable, and all around best rogues gallery in all of comics. But please, please show some restraint here. Villains seem to multiply in sequels, but I'd respectfully request that be avoided as well. You only have two hours or so, and it's exceedingly difficult to manage the balancing act of having so many characters onscreen. What's more, it's completely unnecessary. You want to do a story with The Riddler and The Penguin? Fine, make two different movies. It's not like the studio doesn't want two more movies. Keeping the number of main characters to a minimum is another reason I don't really like the idea of opening Batman up to the rest of the DC universe (though I suppose that can be done responsibly).
• Avoid the Joker. I know someone will eventually get the unenviable task of rebooting the role of the Joker at some point, but for now, you have to leave this one alone. There's just no beating Ledger's Joker right now. Maybe with the passing of time, a new take on the Joker can emerge, but for now, let's just focus on the rest of that neglected rogues gallery. What I would have loved to have seen with Leger's Joker was a situation in which Batman would consult with Joker in Arkham, Hannibal Lecter style ("What became of your lamb, Batman?") That is one situation where multiple villains would actually work. Alas, I still think it's too soon for such an approach. A Harley Quinn approach would be an interesting way to reprise the Joker's themes without the Joker himself... but I'm digressing.
• Don't set up a sequel/crossover. Like limiting the story to one villain, this is all about focusing on the matter at hand. I think some leniency could be made on this point if the setup is minimized and subtle, like in a post-credits sequence (Nolan managed pretty handily in Batman Begins). This one is another reason I'm not a fan of opening Batman up to the rest of the DC Universe. Again, it could be done responsibly, but there's a big possibility the movie would pull an Iron Man 2.

So there's my five requests. I suppose an honorable mention could go to leaving out a love interest for Batman/Wayne... but that sorta goes along with the minimizing characters theme I've got going with the list. My movie would be pretty simple from a number of characters standpoint, but perhaps more complex from a theme and plot perspective (as befitting a mystery, though obviously there'd have to be enough characters to maintain suspicions). This is straightforward stuff: Make him a detective, pit him against a single villain who is not the Joker, and don't say anything about sequels or origin stories. It's minimalist, but don't worry, I can guarantee this won't happen. Unless Hollywood calls, in which case, I'm all over it.



The Dark Knight Rises
On Thursday into Friday, I took in a marathon of all three of Christopher Nolan's Batman films. This presentation has put me into a more reflective mood than I would have if I'd only seen the latest installment, The Dark Knight Rises, so there's going to be a fair amount of wandering discussion to start the post. The short, spoiler-free news here is that The Dark Knight Rises is a worthy successor to The Dark Knight, though it doesn't quite approach the latter's true greatness. To a certain degree, this film does suffer a bit from sequelitis, but much less so than any other comic book franchise to reach a third installment. I'll try to keep spoilers to a minimum, but if you want to avoid them, I'd stop reading and come back once you've seen the film.

The modern comic book franchise has an interesting pattern that is unlike most movie series. The first film tells the origin story, and is generally competent and commercially successful. Rarely do these first installments achieve greatness, as origin stories are difficult to pull off. The origin itself is usually the most interesting part, but it also crowds out the villain or inciting conflict a bit, making the conclusion of the movie seem rushed or awkward. Still, by that time, the movie has probably ingratiated itself to the audience to such a degree that imperfection is tolerated if not celebrated. For his part, Nolan did an excellent job with Batman Begins, which is one of the better origin stories in modern comic book movies.

But the interesting thing about comic book movies is that the second film often eclipses the first. There are, of course, exceptions to this. The Burton/Schumacher Batman series certainly fell prey to the challenges inherent with sequels. Iron Man 2 suffered less from being a sequel than from being a building block in a larger scheme, though the problems are similar. However, most comic book sequels in the oughts were surprisingly good (perhaps because they learned from Burton's mistakes). The origin and world-building was out of the way, and the filmmakers were free to tell a straightforward story arc. This made for sequels that were tighter and more assured than their predecessors. Think X2 or Spider-Man 2. And, of course, The Dark Knight (which is my personal favorite).

This leads into the third film, which, for numerous reasons, tends to be the last film. One of the interesting things about comic book movies is that they often tend to retain the creative team from film to film. This becomes a commercial challenge, as the productions then get more and more expensive, and with expense comes other limitations. Plus, the actors have aged and the director wants to move on. Knowing that this is their last chance with the material, the third film often becomes crammed with the comic's famous remaining story arcs. Multiple villains, additional characters, and at least two major story arcs get smushed into a single narrative, muddying the waters quite a bit. As such, series with a good second installment end up faltering under the weight of expectation (because the second film was so good), expediency, commercial considerations, and overstuffed narratives. We end up with Spider-Man 3 and X-Men: The Last Stand. Neither series has fully recovered, though both have had spinoffs or reboots, with varying degrees of success.

So, does The Dark Knight Rises succumb to the same pressures? Perhaps, but it's as good as I could have ever expected. It's certainly miles ahead of the aforementioned third films, even if it doesn't quite reach the heights of its predecessor. It's worth taking a look at why The Dark Knight was so successful. To my mind, it's because that movie transcended its origins. It felt less like a comic book adaptation, and much more like its own entity. This isn't to hate on comic books. I'm not someone who looks down on the medium or anything, but one commonality to most comic book movies is that they feel like an adaptation. And what do we know about adaptations? The book is usually considered to be better than the movie (with a few rare but notable exceptions), and while I haven't read a lot of comic books, I suspect this is the case for the grand majority of film adaptations. But I don't get that feeling from The Dark Knight. There are some who will complain about how grounded the movie is, almost like it's ashamed of its comic book origins, and that's certainly a discussion worth having, but to me, that's just the film trying to be its own thing. It's a realistic take on the concept of a vigilante, and it acknowledges the problems with such a stance (something few superhero movies do). There's a devil in the details vibe to the film that just works so well - Batman is damned if he does, and damned if he doesn't. The Dark Knight isn't good for a comic book movie, it's a good movie, period. Again, it transcends its roots, and that's why I love it.

Now, it is not a perfect film. There are some plot machinations that didn't fit well and Nolan is not known for direction action sequences (to my mind, he's much more notable as a writer and storyteller than as a visual stylist, though he can certainly hold his own), but to me, all of that is overlooked because of the narrative and emotional arcs that were weaved through the film.

The Dark Knight Rises has similar imperfections, but it never gells together quite as well as its predecessor, and indeed, it feels like an adaptation again. Like a lot of third installments, there are more villains, more side characters, more story arcs smushed together here, but Nolan somehow manages to make it work. I was very worried about all the new characters - Catwoman, Bane, Blake, and several others - and while I'm not sure all of that was necessary, they did a good enough job with it all. It helps that they cast talented and charismatic actors in those roles. Anne Hathaway is wonderful, a breath of fresh air in an otherwise stuffy series (but, uh, stuffy in a good way). It's unfair to compare her to Heath Ledger's joker for a number of reasons, but from a charisma and charm perspective, she did remind me of that performance. Unfortunately, while she has a hefty side role, she doesn't really have a ton of screentime (one of the problems with having so many characters). Joseph Gordon-Levitt does an admirable job as rookie cop Blake, but I couldn't help but think that his character felt a little tacked-on. I wouldn't change it, because I ultimately like where its going, but it does add to the feeling that the film is a bit stuffed.

So we come to Bane. I have mixed feelings on this matter. In truth, I think Nolan exceeded my expectations. Bane is a worthy villain, even if his byzantine plans are a bit of a retread for the series (we find out why later in the movie). He also shares some of the villainy duties with other characters, though Bane is clearly the big bad here. Tom Hardy does his best, but for a character that is so expressive, it's frustrating that we can't ever see his face (the various costumes and disembodied voice are a little strange too, but I went with it). At one point in the film, there's a bit of a flashback, and we do get to see him sans mask. It's such a weird feeling, because Hardy really is a magnetic presence in any film, and he displays that more in a split second of the flashback than we get whenever he has the mask on. He works as a villain, but he's got big shoes to fill, and it's tough to beat Ledger's Joker. It's a bit of a conundrum, one of those things that makes the movie feel like an adaptation, rather than its own thing. Again, I've not read a lot of Batman comics or anything, but I'm guessing that Bane works better on the page than he does on screen. The being said, he gets the job done.

Christian Bale is dependable as always, and he's given some heft to chew on in this film. Nolan has taken the character in an interesting direction. As the film opens, Batman hasn't been seen for years and Bruce Wayne is something of a recluse. Selina Kyle piques his interest, and he eventually figures out a way to don his costume again. It's an interesting dynamic, and I'm glad to see that they've acknowledged the wear and tear of the superhero lifestyle (even if it's handwaved away a bit later).

I won't go into too much detail about the plot. It goes places I didn't expect, which is nice, but it also feels comic-booky. Again, I don't mean that in a pejorative sense, except insofar as it makes this movie feel like an adaptation. I suppose you could argue with that distinction, but that's what I get out of it. As previously mentioned, Bane's plan is audacious and complex, and thematically, the film tackles relevant economic themes, particularly the occupy movement, and it does so in ways I didn't really expect. Does the plot hold together well?

Alfred Hitchcock might help here:

Dear boy, quite obviously you've never heard of the icebox syndrome... I leave holes in my films deliberately, so that the following scenario can take place in countless homes. The man of the house gets out of bed in the middle of the night, and goes down stairs and takes a chicken leg out of the icebox. His wife follows him down and asks what he's doing. 'You know,' he says, 'there's a hole in that film we saw tonight.’ 'No there isn't,' she says and they fall to arguing. As a result of which they go to see it again.

Hitchcock referred to this as "the icebox trade" or "refrigerator talk", neatly encapsulating the notion that a movie works well while you're watching it (because of a fast pace or tense atmosphere), but that falls apart while standing in front of the refrigerator for a post-movie snack. This is something that impacts both The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, though I think it impacts that latter far more. For me, it ultimately worked, the same as how Hitchcock's films worked, but I've seen other folks complain about this aspect of the film.

As an action director, I feel like Nolan has made some strides in the right direction. I did get a weird vibe from the two big fights between Batman and Bane, mostly because it made me think of Rocky III, with Bane in the role of hungry up-and-comer Clubber Lang, and Batman as the complacent champion, Rocky. Again, it's weird to be thinking of that movie during this one, but that's what happened. Indeed, I got another weird movie connection with Alfred's Affleckian speech about seeing Wayne in Italy or somesuch. These aren't really complaints though. The fights were clearly choreographed and well shot, and the ending of the film is satisfying. Nolan managed to kill off Batman without killing off Batman, which worked for me (though this hint of optimism may strike others as being too convenient, I kinda loved it).

In the end, what we've got here is a good film. It's not as transcendent as its immediate predecessor, but it stands up favorably to the first film, and indeed most of the comic book canon. There are a lot of things about this movie that will mold to fit your preconceptions. If you're inclined to go with it, as I was, it will come out ok. If you're not, if you're looking for reasons to dislike it, you'll come out with your suspicions confirmed. That being said, it's a fitting end to Nolan's trilogy, even if I'm certain the series will continue. The series as a whole has raised the bar for comic book movies, and few have even approached its high points.



Brave
First things first: Merida's hair is glorious. I'm not an animator and I don't work with computer graphics very much, but I have a detail oriented mindset and thus I think I can appreciate all the work that went into getting that hair to work so well. Apparently there was a whole team of folks at Pixar working on a new hair simulator that could handle Merida's curly red hair, and again, I'm no expert in this realm, but I'm guessing the amount of physics that went into modeling how different bits of the hair worked was large and complex. Then they had to tweak it all to simulate wet hair (for what I believe is only a single scene in the movie). It's impressive stuff.

So... is the movie Brave as good as the hair portrayed within? Maybe! It's not a top tier Pixar production, but I'd put it somewhere towards the top of their middle tier. Which is to say, it's better than most films (animated or not). Pixar is at a strange place right now. After an impressive run in the oughts, they appear to be running out of steam. Or are they? It's strange that every time a new Pixar film is released, there seems to be a referendum on the whole of their oeuvre. People love to rank the films and argue whether or not they've made a truly bad film (for the record, I don't think they have, even if I didn't love Cars 2).

And this film had even weightier expectations because it was the first Pixar film to feature a female as the protagonist. It was also the first Pixar film to be directed by a woman, though she was apparently replaced at some point in the production, leading to a co-director credit. In recent years, there's been a fair amount of talk about Pixar's gender problem, but I'm on record as arguing that this sort of analysis completely misses the point: "Traditional Disney fare was always a sorta female dominated affair. Lots of princesses and love stories and yada, yada, yada. There were the occasional male-dominated stories, of course, but overall, animation was female dominated. One of the big things Pixar did to establish itself as something new and different was to focus on boys ..." Put simply, I don't think this movie is getting a fair shake in this respect. If this was a Disney or even Dreamworks picture, I think folks would be raving, but they expected so much from Pixar that I think the film is getting crushed under that weight of undeserved expectation.

I appear to be playing into this a little bit. I mean, I've written three paragraphs already and I haven't actually said anything about the movie, except how awesome the hair is. And while the curly red hair is spectacular, it's also a bit superficial. So let's get into it. The film focuses on young Scottish princess Merida, a fiery tomboy who loves riding her horse, archery, and climbing mountains. Her mother is in a constant struggle to get her to act all lady-like, but her father seems content to encourage her less elegant pursuits. Things come to a head when visiting clans vie for Merida's hand in marriage. I will admit, this is something of a rote premise. The initial parts of the first act come off as being very Disneyish. There's even some bad Scottish kilt-lifting jokes (which I suppose are unavoidable, but still). Now, "Disneyish" isn't inherently bad, but I can totally see why people wouldn't be very thrilled by this setup. Fortunately things get better from here.

It's hard to describe the rest without getting into spoiler territory, but I'll try. In essence, Merida runs away and meets up with a witch and there's a curse and she ends up spending some time with a friendly bear. And it's fantastic. This is where the movie sets itself apart. The bear is fantastically animated, walking around on two legs and somehow managing to maintain some sense of dignity, though I think the bear eventually learns the value in acting in an undignified manner.

The real heart of the story, though, is Merida's relationship with her mother. This, I find, isn't something that's very common in movies like this (I could certainly be wrong about that, but I found it refreshing). Now, I'm a guy, so I don't know how well the movie actually captures that whole dynamic, but it's got a ring of authenticity to it (and in general, female critics seem to praise this part of the film, even when they don't like it overall). There's an excellent scene in the first act where the director is cross cutting between the mother and daughter, establishing the things they want to say to each other but can't or won't. There's some stuff in the second act that works really well between these two, which leads into the final act. There's a bit of a grinch-like transformation at one point, making me wish there was perhaps a little more meat on the bone of the story, but there's a clear throughline to the plotting that ultimately works well. In a very real sense, the movie is as much about the mother as it is about the teenager (which, again, is a refreshing change of pace).

It's a movie that isn't perfect. It did leave me wanting more - more of the mother/daughter relationship, heck more of the father/daughter stuff, even some more of the little brothers, and especially more of that excellent second act stuff with the bear - but that's not the worst problem a movie can have. Like I said, there's a clear throughline to the story, so I'm willing to go with it. The premise is a bit rote and the transition between acts is a bit rushed, but I think they managed to put enough of a spin on the typical "princess" story that it was worthwhile. The score is fine but the songs are dreadful. That's the one part of the film I don't think I can really overlook. Just horrid.

What we're left with is a very good film. I think it's being a bit unfairly maligned. It's true, Pixar has done better, but that doesn't make this a bad movie. I don't know that it will make the top 10 at the end of the year, but it will certainly be a contender. Well worth seeing, and I think that mothers and daughters will get a lot out of this (but don't worry, there's plenty of action and adventure for the guys). ***



Promethean Link Dump
I certainly had my issues with Prometheus, but I also must admit that it does strike a nerve. There are isolated sequences of sublime beauty or wrenching tension, but they're not held together by anything substantial. I think the movie is stupid, but it's at least interesting stupid, which is why I think the film has become so divisive. It's got such a well calibrated sense of stupid that it actually makes you want to talk about it, which most dumb movies don't manage. Even if you're just cataloging the movie's many flaws, you're still engaged with it in a way you don't with regular bad movies.

This movie is a special kind of bad, and as such, there's a lot of interesting discussion surrounding the film. As I mentioned in my previous post, it seems like everyone is talking about this movie, even folks I wouldn't normally expect. For instance, every podcast I listen to on a regular basis has devoted a segment to Prometheus, even the ones that aren't solely focused around movies. Extra Hot Great, Filmspotting, /Filmcast, Reasonable Discussions, Slate Culture Gabfest, NPR Pop Culture Happy Hour, The Jeff Rubin Jeff Rubin Show, and probably a bunch of others have all done so. But there's a ton of other discussion surround the film that I also wanted to point to, in case you were jonesing to read about the film, which I admit is kinda fun, even if I didn't love the movie:

• Prometheus Unbound: What The Movie Was Actually About - So this guy on Livejournal (!?) has a pretty thorough discussion of the movie and it's philosophical and mythic underpinnings. Lots of interesting stuff here, but as is the case with a lot of things, I'm glad a lot of this is subtext:

  From the Engineers' perspective, so long as humans retained that notion of self-sacrifice as central, we weren't entirely beyond redemption. But we went and screwed it all up, and the film hints at when, if not why: the Engineers at the base died two thousand years ago. That suggests that the event that turned them against us and led to the huge piles of dead Engineers lying about was one and the same event. We did something very, very bad, and somehow the consequences of that dreadful act accompanied the Engineers back to LV-223 and massacred them.
  
  If you have uneasy suspicions about what 'a bad thing approximately 2,000 years ago' might be, then let me reassure you that you are right. An astonishing excerpt from the Movies.com interview with Ridley Scott:
  
  Movies.com: We had heard it was scripted that the Engineers were targeting our planet for destruction because we had crucified one of their representatives, and that Jesus Christ might have been an alien. Was that ever considered?
  
  Ridley Scott: We definitely did, and then we thought it was a little too on the nose. But if you look at it as an “our children are misbehaving down there” scenario, there are moments where it looks like we’ve gone out of control, running around with armor and skirts, which of course would be the Roman Empire. And they were given a long run. A thousand years before their disintegration actually started to happen. And you can say, "Let's send down one more of our emissaries to see if he can stop it." Guess what? They crucified him.
  
  Yeah. The reason the Engineers don't like us any more is that they made us a Space Jesus, and we broke him. Reader, that's not me pulling wild ideas out of my arse. That's RIDLEY SCOTT.

  As I said, I'm pretty happy this wasn't explicitly referenced in the movie, but it's fun to read about it on some dude's blog like this.
• The Science of Prometheus - a review, containing a lot of spoilers - With a title like that, I was expecting this to be a bit dry, but it's actually a lot of fun:

  Seriously guys? Cinema trips with my pals are better prepared than this. No one thought to ask what they’d be doing when they signed up for a 4 year round trip to a new planet? The money must be really good. ...
  
  As we’ve discussed, this is probably the most slap-dash, ill-prepared scientific mission ever. No one really knows what to expect, and they only carry out atmospheric analysis on arrival to let them know if they can step out onto the surface without dying instantly. On the upside, they have gorgeous space suits to go out in (costume designer and long-time Scott collaborator Janty Yates deserves high praise). Holloway is the spitting image of Commander Shepard of the Normandy in his suit, which I liked for no clever reason.

  There's lots more and it's very good.
• Film Freak Central Review - Another review that sorta craps on the movie, but in an interesting way:

  It's time, probably long past time, to admit that Ridley Scott is nothing more or less than Tim Burton: a visual stylist at the mercy of others to offer his hatful of pretty pictures something like depth. If either one of them ever made a great film (and I'd argue that both have), thank the accident of the right source material and/or editor, not these directors, whose allegiance is to their own visual auteurism rather than any desire for a unified product.

  That's a bold statement... but I can't really fault it.
• SMS dialogue between Noomi Rapace and an Engineer - Heh. "All will be revealed in James Cameron's PROMETHEUSES"

Well there you go. Interesting stuff. Stay tuned for some Redshirts action on Sunday.



Prometheus
I am surprised at the reception Prometheus is getting in the press. I wasn't a huge fan, but for the most part, it's getting positive reviews, even from people I'd expect wouldn't review it well. Adam from Filmspotting gave it a pass (to his credit, Josh did not), Ebert gave it 4 stars, A.O. Scott was generally positive, and heck, even the snobs over at the Slate Culture Gabfest were pretty happy with the movie. In fact, it seems like everyone is talking about this movie. The weird thing about all this is that every one of those positive reviews acknowledges the things I hate about this movie, but for some reason, they don't seem to care as much. The consensus seems to be that the movie is gorgeous and visually stunning, but stupid (which is usually attributed to the script). I agree with that, but I guess I place a higher value on storytelling than critics.

I suppose I can see where they're coming from, but as a Science Fiction nerd, I'm wondering if I hold movies like this to a higher standard than the more general film nerds out there. Part of it is that there really are so few science fiction movies out there that actually capture the same sensawunda feeling I get from reading science fiction... and one of those movies is definitely Ridley Scott's first Alien film. To me, this sets a high bar, and Prometheus doesn't even come close to that level of storytelling.

Prometheus certainly strives for more than Alien, and I suspect that ambition mollifies some critics, but I would much rather a film that delivers on what it promises than a film that reaches for the stars and doesn't even come close. I'm ultimately not even really willing to credit the film for ambition, as its attempts at depth are all ham-fisted and awkward at best.

The film certainly starts out with some promise. I was a little on-edge when we first see the spaceship in a series of admittedly pretty establishing shots. This is a nitpick, but the engines were firing, as if the ship was in a constant state of acceleration. This is typical in a Hollywood film, but rewatching Alien made it a depressing thing - this was something the earlier film got right. In the grand scheme of things, it's not important, and I was willing to overlook it at first, but looking back on the film now, I find it emblematic of the intelligence displayed in the film. This is where being a science fiction fan probably kicks in - I like a film that at least makes an effort at scientific plausibility and rigor, and this film has almost none.

I was quickly heartened to see the montage of the robot David, played excellently by Michael Fassbender, as he went about his duties on the ship while the human crew slept for the 2 year duration of the trip. There's a focus on character there that isn't really present in the rest of the film. After that opening sequence, Fassbender's David is generally relegated to playing the sinister robot that no one can trust. This is also a bit depressing, because at one point, it almost seemed like the film was really going to deliver on the parallels between the humans looking for their creators, and David's struggle with his. Part of the problem with any ensemble piece is that the story will often not give enough attention to the side characters, or it will give too much attention to everyone and muddle the results. We see both in this film. I think there was a lot of potential in the story for David's character, but it is mostly squandered.

The more we learn about the plot, the worse the movie gets. We're treated to a clumsy scene of exposition where the two main scientists in charge of the expedition explain what's going on, and in the process they neglect to display any scientific prowess at all. They make crazy inferences from millenia-old cave paintings, attribute the whole thing to a race of "engineers" that actually created the human race (despite not having even a modicum of evidence), and fall back on spiritual hooey when questioned. Now, the whole science versus faith struggle can be an interesting one and certainly warrants exploration, but while this film makes overtures in that direction, it never really goes more than skin deep. These are just sloppy plot points used to get our hapless humans into dangerous situations with monsters and stuff.

Charlize Theron plays the corporate suit, meant to be smarmy and icy cold like the other businessfolk in the Alien universe, but she never quite comes off that way. She seems mildly selfish and concerned with her own well-being, but her display of basic knowledge about things like quarantines (I mean, seriously? This is an expedition to find alien life on an alien planet, and there's no easy quarantine procedure?) and self-preservation comes off as being slightly refreshing in a movie where a geologist responsible for mapping an alien cave system gets lost. I think Theron's performance is pretty good, but she's just written very poorly. She has a scene with the ships captain, Idris Elba (who does a fair enough job representing the "trucker in space" archetype established in the original Alien), which is cliched and a little off, but actually works because, you know, there's two people acting like normal human beings. But otherwise, she's given some pretty shit lines (I found it odd that she actually pronounced the word comma between "No, father" at one supposedly revealing scene later in the movie... oh wait, she didn't pronounce it, the script was just that bad) and her characters arc really goes nowhere.

I don't want to turn this into a catalog of nitpicks and complaints about how wrong everything is in the movie. Others have done a pretty good job nailing stuff like that down, but I do want to call out the worst offender. Right, so we have a group of scientists exploring a series of alien cave systems. They come across a long-deal alien being. The geologist immediately freaks out and wants to leave, which, ok, fair enough. Then the biologist joins him? In other words, the person who would ostensibly be the most interested in a dead alien body decides to leave too. Ok, fine, I can deal with that I guess. Then they get lost, which I think I already mentioned makes no sense, as the geologist has been mapping the entire place with his fancy probes, but whatever, they're lost and there's a storm outside and no one can get them. So they make their way to the creepiest location in the building, a room with a bunch of vases leaking suspicious black liquid. Ok, sure, let's go with it. Then an obviously aggressive and terrifying snake-like alien creature pops up like a cobra, spreading some flaps to reveal its teeth... and the biologist guy decides to approach it like it was some sort of adorable puppy. Now look, I get it, these characters aren't aware that they're in a horror movie, and as a prequel, they're unaware that this thing has face-hugger-like attributes, but it's acting in obviously threatening ways and the biologist, of all people, decides he should just stick his hand in its mouth or something? To no one's surprise, it attacks him and eventually shoves its way down his throat, doing god knows what to him. Quite frankly, I don't even really remember what comes of him. It's sorta dropped later in the movie.

Like the aforementioned thrusting engines at the beginning of the movie, this is just one representative example of the many things this movie gets so very wrong. It's a movie that pretends it has some sort of lofty goals of exploring mankind and creation and spirituality and all sorts of stuff, but the fact of the matter is that the people in this movie aren't really characters. Some of them get a solid set-piece or two, but they're otherwise bland plot-delivery devices, useful only so that the screenwriters can tell us what the movie is about (rather than letting us grapple with those big questions ourselves). Like I said, some of the characters get some good moments, but these only become more frustrating when you realize that they don't really add up to anything.

For example, there is a great set-piece where our main protagonist (at least, I think she is) finds out that she's "pregnant"... of course, she's pregnant with some sort of alien organism, rather than a real child (in an awkward exchange earlier in the film, we learned that she was barren). Sinister robot David wants to freeze her for the trip home (normally that sort of thing would be left to the corporate weenie of the expedition, but whatever), but she bravely escapes and runs to a med-pod and gets it to extract the organism. It's actually a really well executed sequence, and Noomi Rapace gives a great, raw performance here... but it's just sorta floating in the middle of the movie. It's not entirely clear why any of that happened or what difference it made and it doesn't really fit with the whole biology of the Alien universe. In fact, the movie seems to assume that complexity is what makes the whole Alien life-cycle interesting, but that's just so wrong. The original Alien portrayed a rather elegant system, and Aliens grew on that and expanded it in a logical way. This film just throws in extra steps and new creatures for the sake of doing so.

The film is gorgeous, well composed, even a little interesting. The first forty minutes or so show a lot of potential, but the rest of the movie fails to deliver on any of that promise. Nearly everything about this movie is well done, except for the script, which is just horrible. The fact that it's a prequel to Alien, a movie that got all of these things right, only makes it more disappointing. I suspect that Sonny Bunch is right when he speculates as to how this movie got to be made as an Alien prequel, rather than as a standalone feature:

Ridley Scott: You see, it’s a movie about finding out who we are. It’s a search for God, in a way—and a reflection of what happens when God has judged you to be a mistake. We’re talking a big budget, high-octane movie with a spiritual side.

Fox Exec: Well, Sir Ridley, I’d be interested if the price is right.

RS: I’d say we can do this for, I dunno, $150M or so.

FE: Yeah, well, I dunno about that. I mean, your last few flicks haven’t exactly blown away the bean counters—Robin Hood, Body of Lies, American Gangster, A Good Year, Kingdom of Heaven…that’s a decade of flops, man. I’m not sure I can really authorize that kind of scratch.

RS: OK, well…….what if it’s a prequel to Alien? ::shrugging::

FE: HERE’S ALL OF THE MONEYS. ::hands over bag with dollar sign on it::

I don't know that it happened exactly like that, but I do know that the prequel aspects of this movie are absolutely worthless. It adds nothing important to the Alien canon, and you could argue that it, in fact, subtracts rather much from the series. This could have been a good movie, which only makes it all the more depressing. Given Ridley Scott's previous work, I have to wonder if there aren't a few other versions of this film on the cutting room floor. Perhaps one with a noir-like voiceover that the studio thought might work, and a 5 hour directors cut or something. But I really can't see how that could possibly save this turkey. There's enough interesting stuff going on in the movie that it always manages to hold your attention, and I suppose there's a few scenes were big stuff done blow up real good, but the film is ultimately lacking in the most important area: the storytelling.



Sister Clodagh's Superficially Spiritual, Ambitiously Agnostic Last-Rites-of-Spring Movie Quiz
Dennis Cozzalio of the Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule blog has posted another of his famous movie quizes, and as always, I'm excited to provide my answers. Previous installments answering questions from Professor Hubert Farnsworth, David Huxley, Professor Fate, Professor Russell Johnson, Dr. Smith, Professor Peabody, Professor Severus Snape, Professor Ed Avery, and Dr. Anton Phibes, are also available... This time around, Sister Superior Clodagh "has fashioned a quiz organized loosely around themes of religious belief and representation in the movies", which, now that I think about it, isn't a particular specialty to me. Perhaps it's my 16 years of Catholic schooling (and exposure to actual nuns) that has caused me to neglect religious filmmaking, or maybe it's because most films examining religion aren't particularly sympathetic. Whatever the case, here are my answer's to Sister Clodagh's quiz:

1) Favorite movie featuring nuns

I had a tough go on this one. There are a lot of movies with nuns, but few where the nuns are actually prominent characters. My first thought went to Two Mules for Sister Sara, a movie I don't even remember that well, except that I remember enough to know that it doesn't really qualify for this question... I've actually not seen this quiz's namesake in Black Narcissus, so that's a no go. Looking at the other answers at SLIFR, I see one that works for me though: Sister Mary Stigmata (a.k.a. The Penguin) in The Blues Brothers. The nuns I've come into contact with never contained mystical powers, nor did they smack their students with rulers, but I grew up in the namby pamby 80s. I've heard stories, though. (Oh, and in the course of one of the other questions below, I found Dead Man Walking - which is a great movie featuring nuns... among other things.) 2) Second favorite John Frankenheimer movie

I'll go with Ronin (with The Manchurian Candidate being my favorite), but while I've seen at least 5 or 6 other Frankenheimer movies, I probably should also take a look at Seven Days in May and Seconds (which would be the punniest answer to this question, tee hee).

3) William Bendix or Scott Brady?

Hell, I don't really know who either of these people are... But looking at their filmography, I see that Scott Brady was in Gremlins, which is pretty awesome. Then again, I can't even picture him in that and William Bendix is in a few movies I'd like to catch up with at some point: Hitchcock's Lifeboat and William Wyler's Detective Story. But not having seen those movies, I guess this one goes to Brady on a technicality.

4) What movie, real or imagined, would you stand in line six hours to see? Have you ever done so in real life?

I have certainly never done so in real life (though I do seem to recall a huge line stretching around the block for Return of the Jedi in my youth... I don't remember how long it took to get in, but I'd be surprised if it was six hours). At this point in my life, I can't imagine doing that for simple entertainment purposes - heck, I get annoyed when I have to wait more than a minute or two to buy a ticket these days. But I suppose that if someone invents a movie that will confer some sort of powers (or immortality or something) to its audience, I'd be willing to wait the six hours for that. I'm not holding my breath though.

5) Favorite Mitchell Leisen movie

I can't say as though I've seen any of his movies, though perhaps I have seen an episode of The Twilight Zone that he directed (if so, I have no remembrance of it). I have done an exhaustive ten-second analysis of his filmography though, and shall thus declare Death Takes a Holiday a movie that interests me. So there.

6) Ann Savage or Peggy Cummins?

Peggy Cummins, because I've actually seen movies that she's in... and I even recognized her name. Poor Ann Savage... but it's hard to compete with Gun Crazy and Curse of the Demon.

7) First movie you remember seeing as a child

As if I needed a reason to question the reliability of human memory, this question hurts. The first movie that jumped into my head was The Terminator, but that came out way too late to be my first movie, and I know I've seen others before it. As previously mentioned, I remember the line for Return of the Jedi, but my memories of that showing must have been superseded by the dozens of other times I've watched that movie. I do remember watching Dumbo at some point. I have no idea how old I was at the time, but I'd put that at around 4 years old, as that age is where my mind points to as containing the first real, concrete memories (including a distinct memory of asking how old I was - I may have done that before, but I was 4 years old when I started actually keeping track of my age).

8) What moment in a movie that is not a horror movie made you want to bolt from the theater screaming?

I can't say as though I've ever wanted to do that. I can only remember walking out on a movie once, for Tank Girl, which was emphatically not what I wanted to watch at the time. I do remember getting sick in Cloverfield - and I'm not typically prone to motion sickness either - but instead of bolting from the theater screaming, I simply closed my eyes until my body was able to establish some sort of equilibrium.

9) Richard Widmark or Robert Mitchum?

Robert Mitchum, hands down. I mean The Night of the Hunter, Cape Fear (both of 'em), and Out of the Past... heck, even Scrooged. Tough to compete with Mitchum's filmography.

10) Best movie Jesus

This is a tough one, as most of the obvious choices are from movies that I'm not that big a fan of... I honestly can't think of a truly great performance as Jesus. Dafoe's Jesus is pretty good, I guess, except that's not really the Jesus I know. I've never seen Sydow in The Greatest Story Ever Told, and from what I hear, the movie ain't particularly good (though he's apparently good in it). Honestly, the best answer I've seen for this one is John Turturro from The Big Lebowski....

11) Silliest straight horror film that you're still fond of

There are probably dozens of answers I could give here, as I tend to enjoy silly horror films, but the only real possible answer for me is Phantasm. Granted, I does still strike a nerve at moments and can be genuinely compelling, but it's low budget and horrible acting sometimes make the film laughable. In particular, the sequence where the Tall Man's finger turns into a bug is a masterpiece of silly cinema. It's a movie that I've always loved though, perhaps because it is earnest, but silly. 12) Emily Blunt or Sally Gray?

Emily Blunt by default, as I've actually seen movies she's in. This is mildly unfair though, as I'm much more familiar with the filmic period of Blunt than the filmic period of Gray (who was most active in the 30s and 40s).

13) Favorite cinematic Biblical spectacular

Ben-Hur, hands down my favorite Biblican spectacular, probably because it only touches on the Bible peripherally. Most of the other Biblical epics struggle to compete with the minds eye from having read the Bible from a young age. Ben-Hur is based on a novel and had multiple film adaptations before the Charlton Heston, William Wyler take that I love so much, but it still feels like an "original" story, something I value more and more in these days of remakes and marketing-driven films.

14) Favorite cinematic moment of unintentional humor

The obvious answer is the "I hate sand" monologue from Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones, but I wasn't really laughing at the time because I actually wanted those movies to be good. I don't really have a list of unintentionally hilarious cinematic moments, but I could probably come up with hundreds of examples if given enough time. Another few that just came to me: several moments in The Happening are just cringe inducingly funny (I'm thinking about the scene where Marky Mark pleads with his students to care about the bees, or the scene where he tells this completely off-the-wall story about how he went to a pharmacist or something), and then there's the scene where Miles Dyson dies in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, which is just hysterically funny in a moment that is supposed to be deadly serious.

15) Michael Fassbender or David Farrar?

Michael Fassbender, though again, we're hit with two different time periods, and I'm much more familiar with Fassbender's work than Farrar's... Also, Fassbender is pretty fucking awesome.

16) Most effective faith-affirming movie

I had a hard time with this, then the ideas just kept pouring through to the point where I can't pick a favorite. I'll start with a pair of Christmas classics: It's a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street, then move to more modern times with Field of Dreams and one that I saw in the SLIFR thread that I would have never thought of, but which fits: Groundhog Day.

17) Movie that makes the best case for agnosticism

People seem to take different stances on agnosticism, so this question will definitely provoke different sorts of answers depending on how you define agnosticism. Some think it's all about doubting or questioning the existence of a deity, and their answers indicate such (including snarky ones like "anything directed by Michael Bay makes me question the existence of a god"). Personally, I tend towards the notion that agnosticism is really about the difference between belief and knowledge - I think we are all agnostics of a sort, even if we call ourselves Christian or athiest or Muslim or whatever. The movie that comes to mind here is Contact, which explores the subject at angles. I don't think the movie is perfect and some aspects haven't held up as well as I'd like, but I do love the conflict at the heart of the story. Science versus religion, fact versus faith, knowledge versus belief. I have not read the book, and from what I understand, the film stops short. But judging on the film itself, I think it makes a certain sorta sense that aligns with a lot of my feelings on the myriad subjects tackled. In essence, I don't see the conflicts described as being all that conflicting. Science and religion sometimes struggle with the same questions, but their approaches are so fundamentally different, and the questions so impenetrable and that I think both are necessary...

18) Favorite song and/or dance sequence from a musical

I generally hate musicals, so I have no idea, but I'll choose the most obscure thing that comes to mind, which is a song from Stingray Sam that consists mostly of the two parents' names and their offspring's name, which is a portmanteau of the parents' names - for example, Fredrick and Edward produced Fredward. It's a brilliant song. Here, watch it:



19) Third favorite Howard Hawks movie

The Big Sleep, with His Girl Friday being my favorite, and Rio Bravo being my second favorite. In all honesty, the answer could be any of those three, depending on my mood, as I love them all. I also have an affection for Sergeant York, but that's a more sentimental and personal thing...

20) Clara Bow or Jean Harlow?

I'm going to have to take a mulligan here, as I'm not really that familiar with these actresses' filmographies. I've frequently observed that I need to get better acquainted with the silent era, though I've not made much progress in that direction.

21) Movie most recently seen in the theater? On DVD/Blu-ray/Streaming?

Most recently seen in the theater was The Cabin in the Woods (which I loved), though after tonight, it will be The Avengers. On Blu-Ray, it was The Thing remake/prequel/reboot thing (pun intended) that strikes me as being an object lesson in how CGI effects are inferior to practical effects. Also, it was a fine, but pretty unnecessary movie that doesn't really come close to the classic Carpenter version. On streaming, it was Machete Maidens Unleashed!, a documentary about the Filipino exploitation scene in the 60s and 70s (this will come up later in the quiz).

22) Most unlikely good movie about religion

I have not seen Life of Brian in many years and thus don't remember much about it other than it was funny and surprisingly thoughtful.

23) Phil Silvers or Red Skelton?

Yeah, so I don't really know either of these guys. Skelton sticks out in my head, but I don't really know his filmography that well. And Phil Silvers was in It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, which I remember enjoying despite the fact that it's a bit overlong.

24) "Favorite" Hollywood scandal

Not much of a scandal follower myself, so I can't really think of many, except perhaps the Hollywood blacklist stuff, but even then, I'm not too interested in that sort of thing. I'd rather watch movies than gossip about actors and actresses, thanks.

25) Best religious movie (non-Christian)

This was surprisingly difficult, as most every religious movie I've seen seems to involve Christianity in some way or another. The Wicker Man came to mind, but that's not really a serious exploration of paganism, and much of it is played off of the Christian leanings of the main character. A Serious Man is a great movie and it's got a lot to say about Judaism. I've got to give credit to the guy who answered I Walked with a Zombie, which also brings to mind The Serpent and the Rainbow, both of which (superficially) involve Voodoo. It's been so long since I've seen Gandhi that I'm not sure how religious it really was... Jeeze, this question is harder than it should be. 26) The King of Cinema: King Vidor, King Hu or Henry King? (Thanks, Peter)

Erm, yeah, once again I'm not terribly familiar with any of their work, but I'll go with King Hu for his work with the Shaw Brothers and his work on Wuxia Pian pictures.

27) Name something modern movies need to relearn how to do that American or foreign classics had down pat

This is a deceptively difficult question to answer, but I'll say dialogue, writing in general, and originality would be welcome in modern movies. Hollywood seems to be stuck in this weird marketing mindset which says that movies can't be successful unless they're based on an existing property. Hence the recent spate of remakes and reboots, along with the trend towards franchises that's been on the march for several decades now. It's not so much that this stuff is inherently bad as that it's seemingly pervasive these days, to the point where Hollywood is putting out movies based on board games (which I'd honestly not mind if they actually went out of their way to hire someone talented to write an interesting story - I'd love to see that sort of thing flourish, but from what I've seen, that ain't happening). Conversely, American independent cinema is running too far in the opposite direction, making unpalatable, aggressively insular, "personal" films that are often actively hostile to their audience. That sort of middle-ground where movies can be entertaining but still very good seems to have been lost.

28) Least favorite Federico Fellini movie

Shocking confession: I've never actually seen a Federico Fellini movie. I should probably get off my butt and see 8½, but I've heard so much about that movie and despite the praise, it never sounds even remotely interesting to me. Ditto for La Dolce Vita. Call me a philistine, I guess.

29) The Three Stooges (2012) - yes or no?

Sure, why not? I've never been much of a Three Stooges kinda guy, and I probably won't see this in the theater, but I'm not actively opposed to it either. This might just be my temperament though, as there's a question like this in every quiz, and I'm pretty sure I always answer "yes" because perhaps it feels like censorship to say "no" and who am I to judge what other folks like.

30) Mary Wickes or Patsy Kelly?

Boy do I suck at these. I don't really know either one that well, but I'll go with Patsy Kelly. Because I said so, that's why. Also, she's apparently in Rosemary's Baby. So there.

31) Best movie-related conspiracy theory

I have no frickin idea what the "best" conspiracy theory is, but one I just ran across thanks to that Machete Maidens Unleashed! documentary is that one of the women who went over the the Philippines to film one of the many women-in-jungle-prison movies made there was never heard from again. The folks at SLIFR have identified a couple of other good ones though, such as the rumor that Stanley Kubrick faked the moon landings on the Universal lot and the one where Steven Spielberg directed Poltergeist. But the best one is probably The Dark Side of the Rainbow....

32) Your candidate for most misunderstood or misinterpreted movie

I'm going to go with The Godfather, for a number of reasons. The big knock against the film is that it's "romanticized" or "sentimental", but I think that completely misses the point. Like a lot of great gangster movies, The Godfather does show a sorta romantic aspect to the mafia of olden days, but it also doesn't shy away from the nasty stuff either, and the very end of the film is quite disheartening. There's also a lot to be said about the cycle of violence in the film that many folks seem to gloss over. I suppose a lot of this is arguable, but perhaps that's why The Godfather is a classic.

33) Movie that made you question your own belief system (religious or otherwise) I'm having a lot of trouble with this one, in part because it's either too specific, and I can't think of an example that matches that criteria, or it's too vague, and nearly any movie that makes me think would qualify. I lean towards that more general version, but again, that means that there are so many movies that could fit into the answer to this question that it would really be unfair to answer with one or two movies... and I don't have time to list out hundreds!

Well, that wraps up this edition of the movie quiz. I know I'm really bad at the actor/acress vs actor/actress questions, but I still love these quizzes and am already looking forward to the next one (which will hopefully be in the summer instead of skipping a season like this time)....



The Cabin in the Woods
It's difficult to talk about this movie without spoiling it, but I'll start with the notion that if you're a fan of horror movies, you should really go see this(more spoilertastic commentary will be below the fold). This is rather strange, as the movie isn't entirely a horror film, though it contains lots of horror elements and tropes. It's not really a horror comedy either, though it is very funny at times. It's got satirical elements, but it's not really a satire. It's a strange beast, but a very interesting one. Movies like this don't come around that often, so check it out.

Again, trying to avoid spoilers here, but looking at the filmmakers is instructive. The film's got a script from Joss Whedon, which should tell you something, and then you've got Drew Goddard, a regular in the Whedon and J.J. Abrams writers stable. In other words, expect genre deconstruction and mysterious folk lurking in the shadows. Or something.

It's certainly not a perfect film, but it's probably the best thing I've seen so far this year, and the most fun too. Unfortunately, it's hard to talk about it for fear of spoiling. It's not a movie that relies on a single twist or anything and you can tell from the movie's title what's coming. Heck, it's not so much a title as it is a premise: kids go to a cabin in the woods. Guess what happens next? But Whedon and Goddard make the sub-genre feel fresh in a way you don't see very often. Again, it's not reliant on a big surprise, but rather a series of small twists and tweaks, starting from the first scene in the film, none of which are particularly earth-shattering on their own, but which build upon each other to create an effective cumulative result. Again, if you're a fan of horror movies, you need to see this.

Well, that's probably enough trying to skirt around the details. Spoilers aho, fun ahoy! So very quickly, yes, there are five kids (each conforming to a stereotypical archetype like "The Fool" and "The Virgin") that go to spend the weekend in a remote cabin in the woods. And yes, they are attacked by a family of redneck zombies after they read some latin aloud whilst investigating a creepy basement. But the most interesting thing about the movie is that the kids are basically being manipulated by some sort of shadowy organization; an effort lead by Bradley Whitford and Richard Jenkins. At first, this organization seems like the villain, but it seems that this ritual destruction of youth at the cabin is actually necessary to forestall an even bigger disaster - the rising of the Lovecraftian elder gods.

Of course, the kids don't play along quite as expected, and while first half or two thirds of the movie are pretty conventional, the shit really hits the fan in the last third. When we first find out what the kids were facing (redneck zombies!), I was a little disappointed... but then you get that last sequence of the film, where everything just goes crazy. Horror fans will delight in all of the references (throughout the whole film, but especially in the climactic sequences). Unfortunately, the film doesn't quite stick the dismount. It's going fantastically for a while, but then Sigourney Weaver shows up and delivers some clunky exposition that didn't quite hit the right note for me. Don't get me wrong, it doesn't ruin the movie or anything, and the ultimate outcome of the film is fine.

To use the gymnastics metaphor, this movie is like a routine that starts off conventionally, well performed, but nothing we haven't seen before. But then, about two thirds of the way through, some really amazingly acrobatic stuff starts happening, leading to a huge dismount. The movie doesn't stumble, but it's not an entirely clean landing either. It's the sort of thing where the audience at home is exhilarated by the performance, but the announcer says something like "Ohhh, that's gonna cost them a tenth of a point" or something absurd. Still very high scores and everyone cheers, but not quite a perfect 10.

There's a ton of metaphorical possibilities with this movie though. For example, Devin Faraci effectively argues that the Whitford and Jenkins characters are actually the heroes... or maybe anti-heroes of the piece, not the kids:

That's the real twist of the movie. After all, you know right from the start that the events in the cabin are being controlled. But the assumption is that this is something insidious, something evil. I've seen a lot of reviews that utterly misunderstand the truth about Downstairs. The truth is that these guys are saving the world. Once a year they engage in a sacrifice that saves the world. It's terrible, and you may have issues with how they go about it - especially the way they blow off steam partying and betting - but the reality is that there are dark forces that needed to be contained, and this is how it's done.

Whedon and Goddard have apparently often compared themselves (in the roles of writer/director) to the Whitford and Jenkins characters (the ones manipulating the kids in the movie). If they're the filmmakers, then the elder gods could be the audience - us. Or you could say that the elder gods are the studio execs and we're the kids being slaughtered. You could go the more serious rout and claim that the young are being sacrificed at the behest of their elders.

In any case, there's lots to chew on here, especially in the realm of media and the audience relationship with creators. It calls to mind a lot of other films, while still being distinct and worthwhile on its own. I'm think of The Truman Show or maybe even Rubber, which are a little more explicit in their exploration of audiences, but still quite effective.

Many of the questions that are called to mind in this movie surround the tropes and conventions of horror, which you could argue have become stale and are somewhat disturbing in and of themselves. I mean, why do we enjoy watching the young get slaughtered by monsters? Seeing this movie now also paints The Hunger Games in a less flattering light, as that book/movie never really worked for me. I could tell it wanted me to be asking these same questions, but I was never immersed enough in the world to care. The Cabin in the Woods has a lot of things that I'd think would pull me out of the story too, but they never really did. I mean, the logistics of capturing, storing, and maintaining the monsters would be pretty absurd, as is the notion of the "Red Button" (though I appreciated the touch of the two step activation system - it's not a button anyone would ever want to press, but if you're going to build it, it's comforting to know that they made it safe enough that it wouldn't be accidentally triggered!)

I could probably ramble on and on about the symbolic interpretations of the movie or all of the references, but I'll just end with a few of my favorites:

• Badass Digest has a wonderful screencap of the white board that lists out all of potential monsters. We get to see a lot of these things in the final third of the movie, but just the list of names is brilliant in itself. When I first saw the movie I was straining to see as many as possible. The ones that jumped out at me upon viewing were the Deadites (a reference to Evil Dead II) and, simply, "Kevin" (I don't know if that's just there to be random, or if it's some sort of reference to We Need to Talk About Kevin - a movie I haven't seen, so I have no idea if this even makes sense). But having a clear snapshot of the board is awesome; there are so many great options on the board. So many questions (and it's good that they're not answered too). I have to wonder why some of the options weren't chosen in the betting pool - what's so wrong with Reptilius or The Dismemberment Goblins that no one chose them in the pool? And I love the ones that are sorta duplicates, but have been made distinctions anyway. The one mentioned in the film is Zombies vs. Redneck Zombie Family, but I think my favorite on the board is Witches vs. Sexy Witches.
• On one of the podcasts I listen to, someone (I think Joe from Extra Hot Great) lamented that all of the monsters were generic versions of things that have more specific versions. For instance it's clear that the "Hell Lord" (aka Fornicus, Lord of Bondage) is a reference to Hellraiser, but for obvious reasons, the filmmakers would never be able to afford to buy up the rights to all of the referenced monsters (or representations thereof that we would recognize). Personally, I love that they're not the exact representations or names we recognize. I think it would have been kinda annoying to see Pinhead show up in this movie. The movie clearly derives all the monsters from somewhere, but there's still at least an element of originality at play here that would be lost if they used existing properties.
• I think one of my favorite parts of the movie was their hilarious take on Japanese Horror, and I would have loved to have seen more than the short glimpses of the other (failed) sacrifices around the world.
• Though not explicitly referenced and clearly not exactly comparable, did anyone else get a Cube vibe from the whole facility?
• I really like the breadth and specificity of some of the references. There are big movies and small movies, old classics, old B-movies, and newer fare too. I mean, Angry Molesting Tree (clearly a reference to The Evil Dead (the first one)), Snowman (which could be for pure absurdity value, but then, there is Jack Frost), Dolls (basically from The Strangers), Twins (presumably a reference to the Grady twins from The Shining). And then there are even some original addtions - the "Dragonbat" seems to be unique to this film.

Well, there you have it. I think this is a movie I'm going to end up owning, just for the extras I hope are on the disc!



Weird Movie of the Week
Last time on Weird Movie of the Week we discovered some presidential badassery. This time, we've got a ripping tale of aliens, nazis, and lasers: Courtesy of Zach Carlson from Badass Digest, here's a summary:

Watching Zone Troopers, you get the feeling that it's accidentally ten times better than it's meant to be. The plot and dialogue seem like they were written on a comic shop toilet stall: Four likeable WWII soldiers named things like "Sarge" and "Mittens" stumble across enemy lines and the Reich's most carefully guarded discovery: a massive interplanetary spacecraft. One of its pilots has escaped unharmed, and joins our boys in a full-metal lazer-battle against Hitler's lil' shits. We even get to see Eva Braun's boyfriend get smacked straight in the kisser!

Ah, the 1980s. Apparently this movie is actually real and is available through the magic of Manufactured-on-Demand DVD from MGM. Or something.



IV, V, I, II, III, VI
Have you figured out what this post title is about? Yes, folks, it's time for some epic Star Wars geekery. Fortunately for me, Rod Hilton has done all the legwork in a very long and well argued essay. The title of this post is known as the Ernest Rister sequence, and it represents the order in which the Star Wars films should be viewed.

There have traditionally been two main strategies for ordering the series. George Lucas would have us watch them in chronological order, which is obvious lunacy for numerous reasons (which Hilton studiously trots out), but most of us nerds have decided that the natural progression is actually in order of release (which is IV, V, VI, I, II, III). There are less flaws with that ordering. Hilton's reasoning here is a bit stilted, as it rests entirely on the "Special Edition" versions of Star Wars, but to my mind, the primary problem with the release order strategy is that the series then ends with a whimper. The prequels provide background and little else, and even that background is largely already known. Ending a six movie marathon with III would be quite a downer.

We could add a third strategy here for those bitterest of nerds, which is simply IV, V, VI without any acknowledgement that there were other Star Wars movies. Hilton, to his credit, acknowledges the charm of this option (and even links us to some Despecialized Editions of the movies), but he also sought out other orderings, just in case you actually do want to watch the other three movies. Enter the Ernest Rister sequence: IV, V, I, II, III, VI. The argument for this strategy is surprisingly compelling:

George Lucas believes that Star Wars is the story of Anakin Skywalker, but it is not. The prequels, which establish his character, are so poor at being character-driven that, if the series is about Anakin, the entire series is a failure. Anakin is not a relatable character, Luke is.

This alternative order (which a commenter has pointed out is called Ernst Rister order) inserts the prequel trilogy into the middle, allowing the series to end on the sensible ending point (the destruction of the Empire) while still beginning with Luke’s journey.

Effectively, this order keeps the story Luke's tale. Just when Luke is left with the burning question "how did my father become Darth Vader?" we take an ex­tended flashback to explain exactly how. Once we understand how his father turned to the dark side, we go back to the main storyline and see how Luke is able to rescue him from it and salvage the good in him.

The prequel backstory comes at the perfect time, because Empire Strikes Back ends on a huge cliffhanger. Han is in carbonite, Vader is Luke’s father, and the Empire has hit the rebellion hard. Delaying the resolution of this cliffhanger makes it all the more satisfying when Return of the Jedi is watched.

Hilton goes on to then suggest his own variant of the Enest Rister sequence, which he calls the Machete Order: IV, V, II, III, VI. Haha, I see what he did there.

Search your feelings, you know it to be true! Episode I doesn't matter at all. You can start the prequels with Episode II and miss absolutely nothing. The opening crawl of Episode II establishes everything you need to know about the prequels...

Hilton has a very detailed and, naturally, nerdy description of why this is the superior sequence. For my part, I find this an acceptable order. My biggest concern is Vader's shocking revelation in Episode V. As long as that surprise is maintained, I'm pretty happy with the ordering, and there are a lot of things to like about the Rister or Machete ordering. Unfortunately, my nieces have already be indoctrinated (using the traditional order of release sequence), so I can't test the theory out on them, but if another opportunity to introduce someone to the series ever comes up, I might give it a shot. One nice thing about the Rister/Machete order is that both start with the best movies in the series, and once you get past the reveal in part V, you can lay out the strategies to the person watching and see which way they'd like to go.

Ok, so I think that's enough nerdiness for now. (Thanks to JVL for the link)



Tasting Notes - Part 5
Yet another edition of Tasting Notes, a series of quick hits on a variety of topics that don't really warrant a full post. So here's what I've been watching/playing/reading/drinking lately:

Television

• Fringe - I posted about the first couple seasons a while ago, but I've recently caught up with Season 3 and most of Season 4. To my mind, the show really came into its own in Season 3. What started out as unfocused and aimless has very slowly evolved into a tight, well-plotted series in season 3. I'm not sure I'd call it great, but Season 3 was a lot of fun. There are some ridiculous things about the series as a whole, and that's still there, but it all seemed to be worked out in the third season. Season 4, on the other hand, seems to have taken a few steps backward. It's actually very disorienting. Everything from the first three seasons is now unclear and less important. This was probably their intention, but I'm not entirely sure I like it. I mean, we've spent three seasons getting to know these characters, and now we're in yet another alternate universe with the same characters, but they're all slightly different. I'm not ready to give up on the show or anything, but it seems like the show is back on its unfocused track...
• Netflix Watch Instantly Pick of the Week: Terriers - This is an interesting series. It was cancelled after the first season... and while I can see why (the film is almost incessantly anti-mainstream, often finishing off episodes on a down note), I did still enjoy watching the series.

Movies

• The Secret World of Arrietty - Solid Studio Ghibli film. Not perfect, but well worth a watch and very different than typical American animated fare. Here's my question - what's with the title? It's so weird and unapproachable, whereas the source material, a book called The Borrowers, seems much more appropriate and marketable. This just makes no sense to me. (I suppose one could also quibble about the term "borrowers" since that implies that the goods will be returned, which doesn't happen either. There's actually an interesting discussion to be had here about what constitutes theft/stealing in the world set up in this book/movie.)
• Act of Valor - A very... strange movie. I don't quite know what to make of this. It stars actual, active-duty Navy SEALs and... they are clearly not actors. Any scenes with dialogue are a little on the painful side, and it doesn't help that they keep talking about their families and how they can't wait to get back to their family and isn't being a father great? I'd give a spoiler warning for what happens here, but it's pretty damn obvious from, oh, the first 5 minutes in the movie what's going to happen at the end. All that being said, the action sequences are very well done and seemingly authentic, though there are a number of scenes shot to resemble a FPS video game. For the first time ever, I think it actually works in this movie, though it's still a little strange to see movies and video games blending together like that.
• Netflix Watch Instantly Pick of the Week: Gambit - Classic heist film starring a very young Michael Caine as a burglar who hires Shirley MacLaine to help rob one of the richest men in the world. Caine's got a great plan, but of course, things rarely go as planned. Or does it? Tons of twists and turns in this one; very entertaining and satisfying. Highly recommended. (Update: Well, shit, Netflix apparently took it off Instant Streaming... and they don't even have a DVD for the thing. It is on Amazon Instant though...)

Video Games

• Shadow of the Colossus - I finished Ico a while ago and I loved it. I've since moved on to the other Team Ico game, Shadow of the Colossus. I've actually played this before, but I never finished it. The HD remix that's available on the PS3 now is actually quite nice, though the game still seems a bit stunted to me. Don't get me wrong, it's got great production design and an interesting structure (basically 16 boss fights and that's it), but some of the puzzles (i.e. how to defeat each Colossus) are a bit too obtuse, and once you figure them out, it can still be a huge pain to actually defeat your opponent. It just seems like sometimes the game is giving you busy-work just for the sake of doing so... That being said, I'm determined to actually finish the game off, and I am kinda looking forward to the next Team Ico game, which should be coming out sometime this year.
• Upcoming Video Gamery: Mass Effect 3 came in the mail this week, and I'm greatly looking forward to it. It took me a while to get into part 2, but once I got there, I enjoyed it quite a bit. I'm a little intrigued by the fact that my character/team from the second game can be transferred to this third game. Not sure how dynamic that makes things, but I guess we'll find out.
• Other Video Gamery: I've played a little Soul Calibur V, and fighting games remain inscrutable for me. I can get some of the basics down, but once I get into the more advanced maneuvers/enemies, I fall apart pretty quickly, and the game doesn't seem to do a very good job teaching you the more advanced aspects of combat. At this point, I have more fun creating custom characters than actually fighting. I also got a copy of Resistance 3, which is just another FPS with aliens and guns and big explosions and stuff. What can I say, I'm a sucker for that sort of thing.

Books

• Of the eleven books posted in my last Book Queue, I've read 5. I've only got two books left in Lois McMaster Bujold's excellent Vorkosigan Saga, and I've posted about some of the other books I've read.
• I'm currently finishing off Shamus Young's Witch Watch, and I'm enjoying it quite a bit.
• I may end up finishing off the Vorkosigan books next, but I'm also quite looking forward to famous security wonk Bruce Schneier's latest book, Liars & Outliers. It promises to be informative and level-headed look at "trust" from a security professional's standpoint.

The Finer Things

• I've had lots of great beer recently, but I'll just link over to my beer blog rather than repeat myself here. I've been updating that blog much more often than I ever thought I would, and it's been a lot of fun. Check it out!
• I think I'll be posting on Sunday about my next Homebrew. I had originally planned to make it an "Earl Grey" beer, but it turns out that food-grade Bergamot oil is somewhat hard to come by (most of what you can find is made for external use). I may still end up getting some flavor from a few teabags of Earl Grey, but it will probably be less prominent than originally planned. Again, more details to come.

And that's all for now...



Favorite Films of 2011
Once again, I find myself attempting to sum up a rather unusual year for movies. Here we have a year of movies that managed to transcend mediocrity, but none which achieved true greatness. There were a ton of good movies released this year, ranging from a good way to spend a few hours to... a very good way to spend a few hours? Again, nothing seemed to really hit on all cylinders this year.

The theme of 2010 was a questioning of reality. I don't see a theme in 2011, but I do see some patterns. The one that sticks out to me is that there seemed to be a preponderance of art house genre pictures. These movies tend to be low budget schlock-fests, even when they're good. But this year, several talented directors took on unusual genres, and instead of schlock, we got deliberate pacing punctuated by visually spectacular moments of beauty. From cosmic existentialism (The Tree of Life, Melancholia, Certified Copy) to straightforward action (Drive) to westerns (Meek's Cutoff), we got a ton of unusual takes on standard genres this year. There are even more examples that will be listed below. Does this really qualify as a Theme (capital T) for 2011? Probably not, but it's the pattern I'm most struck by... it seems that all the interesting movies this year were playing with form and genre...

As of this moment, I've seen 75 movies that would be considered 2011 releases. Add in the 19 movies I saw at Fantastic Fest, and that brings the grand total up to 94 movies. This is a record for me, though probably much less than a lot of critics would see in a year.

The standard disclaimer goes double for this year: creating a list like this is an inherently subjective process, and I seemed to have struggled with the list more than expected, to the point where I'm having trouble orienting films on a pure 1-10 scale. For the past several years, I've always had a pretty easy time with the top 5 movies of the year. I would have a little more trouble with the 6-8 picks, and the final two were always impossible to pick. This year? I feel like I've got 10 movies I want to cram in those 9 and 10 slots, with maybe a few in the 6-8 realm... As such, I'm breaking from tradition this year and listing out my top 10 in alphabetical order. A bit of a cop out, sure, but what are you going to do? Sue me?

I used to put this list together by trying to figure out the best films of the year, but in the past few years, I've been gravitating more towards my favorite films. There were films I really respected this year that never quite connected with me the way they did with critics, so I have a feeling my list will be more personal and unusual than most top 10s... Indeed, this is probably the least commercial list I've ever put together (there are normally at least a few big budget Hollywood type films on the list, but not so much this year...) My hope is that this will make for a more interesting list to read, but enough babbling, let's get this show started:

Top 10 Movies of 2011
* In alphabetical order

• 13 Assassins: Takashi Miike's period Samurai action flick is among the prolific director's best films (that I've seen at least). A rather straightforward tale following the titular 13 assassins as they take on an evil lord bent on domination, this film is often graphic and disturbing, but also thrilling. Especially in the final action centerpiece of the film, which sustains the tension for a remarkably long time. Well worth watching for action fans.
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [BD] [Winner of 1 Kaedrin Movie Award]
• A Boy and His Samurai: Set in modern day Japan, a child and his mother stumble upon a man in Samurai garb. It turns out that he is actually from the Edo period. It's something of a cliched premise, a fish out of water story, but the film studiously executes on every level. What could seem derivative ends up being simply charming. A sweet, sincere, and heartfelt film... Unfortunately, it hasn't really received much of a distribution outside of Japan, but if you get a chance to see it, it's well worth your time.
  More Info: [IMDB]
• Extraterrestrial: Nacho Vigalondo's take on an alien invasion film is actually a romantic comedy, and it's all great fun. Julio wakes up in Julia's apartment with quite a hangover. After some awkward pleasantries, he seeks to depart... and that's when they notice. Cell phones, land lines, television, and the internet are down. And there's something massive in the sky above Madrid. Again, we've got a cliched premise, the alien invasion, but Vigalondo almost completely ignores it in favor of the romantic comedy aspects of the story. Twisted, a little silly, and very funny. Unfortunately, this is also not really available yet...
  More Info: [IMDB] [Capsule Review]
• Hanna: Director Joe Wright's take on a modern day fairy tale, this is dark, action packed, fantastical stuff. Excellent performance from 17-year-old Saoirse Ronan in an exceedingly difficult role. Also a wonderful Chemical Brothers score. I initially thought of it as being a bit thin, but it has only grown in my mind as time goes on. I really quite enjoyed this film and recommend it highly.
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [BD] [Winner of 2 Kaedrin Movie Awards]
• Knuckle: This intriguing documentary follows 12 years in a longstanding feud between two Irish Traveler clans. The strife goes back decades, and through numerous interviews and bare-knuckle fights (officiated by third-party clans, this is the seemingly preferred way to resolve arguments), we get a close look at the circle of violence in action. This specific tale is heartbreaking, not just because of the people involved, but because it's a microcosm of all human conflict. The pattern presented here is instantly recognizable and applicable to a wide range of conflict. It's not a perfect film, but it's one that has stuck with me since I saw it...
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [Capsule Review]
• Rubber: What a wonderfully absurd and weird movie. Another deliberately paced genre film, this one is visually interesting enough to keep momentum, and it has a lot to say about movies and audiences. Plus, come on, it's hard not to like a movie about a sentient tire named Robert who can use his telepathic powers to make people's head explode. There's no way to really encapsulate the greatness of this film in a short paragraph, but this is an intriguing movie and a must-watch for any genre fans out there...
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [BD] [Winner of 2 Kaedrin Movie Awards]
• Tabloid: Errol Morris' documentary about a former beauty queen charged with abducting her quasi-boyfriend, a Mormon Missionary in England. The whole story was covered in the British Tabloids, and boy is this a corker of a story. Just when you think it can't get any crazier, it does. And then it just keeps going... An interesting story in itself, but also more broadly applicable and thought provoking when it comes to the nature of attention seekers and the tabloids that feed them (and us). And the British tabloid reporters are hysterical (particularly the one who keeps talking about the "spread eagle" position, even verbing it at one point!) I can't recommend this one highly enough.
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [Winner of 1 Kaedrin Movie Award]
• The Artist: This modern day silent film is getting a lot of Oscar buzz and it's already gotten some backlash, but when I finally caught up with it, I found myself surprised by how much I enjoyed it. To me, this one falls under Howard Hawks' belief that all you need to make a good film are "three good scenes, and no bad ones." For me, there might even have been more than three scenes - the deafening silence of applause, a lady and a jacket, and a few others... Yeah, Hollywood is going to be all self-congratulatory about this movie come Oscar time, and I don't think I'd put this near the top of my list were I not ordering it alphabetically, but I think it still deserves recognition (now if only they'll make one of my other proposed silent films!)
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD]
• Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: This was the slot that was really hard to fill. If this were an ordered list, this is the slot that would be interchangeable with a bunch of the honorable mentions below. And this movie is flawed, but very interesting. At once jam packed and deliberate; overstuffed, but leisurely. Maybe I'm a sucker for intricate spy stories that are less complicated than they seem, but I found myself very taken by the movie. An exceptional performance by Gary Oldman anchors the film and makes it more approachable, despite the bland emotionlessness the role requires. Dour, stoic, bleak, and contradictory. Somehow the movie worked for me, despite the fact that most of my description makes it sound like a movie I wouldn't like. I'd have a hard time recommending this to anyone, actually, but I did really enjoy it myself, so here we are...
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [BD]
• Tucker and Dale vs Evil: One wouldn't expect a film playing with the genre conventions of Hillbilly Horror could also represent an interesting statement on the nature of prejudice, but here we are. Indeed, because of the humorous nature of the film and its subject matter, it's almost more effective than films that tackle the subject head-on. But don't let any of this high-minded talk fool you, it's a really funny little film that doesn't have any pretensions about what it's trying to do, and a must watch for horror fans. Another highly recommended film.
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [BD] [Full Review]

Honorable Mention
* Also in alphabetical order

• Attack the Block: A big ball of genrerific fun that just never quite reached the heights for me that it seemingly did for some critics. I really enjoyed it though, and there were some thematic confluences with real world events that helped make this movie more interesting than I think it even really intended. Another alien invasion cliche here, though this one actually plays up that side of the story, and it manages to succeed where a lot of lesser movies fail (in particular, it takes some initially unlikeable protagonists and makes you root for them). Another film that could have subbed in for Tinker Tailor on the top 10 proper, depending on my mood...
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [BD] [Winner of 1 Arbitrary Award]
• Cedar Rapids: A most unusual comedy, this one follows a small-town boy as he makes his way to the big city for an insurance convention and quickly gets in over his head. Great ensemble cast - Ed Helms, John C. Reilly, Anne Heche, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Stephen Root, Kurtwood Smith, and even Sigourney Weaver. Lots of hijinks ensue, but things go deeper than expected without getting overwhelming either. A neat trick, that. Another candidate for that tenth slot on the top 10...
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [BD]
• Certified Copy: This is a movie I like thinking about more than I actually liked watching. It's a study in ambiguity. It makes no real sense, and thus there are so many differing interpretations you could take that it becomes something of an existential exercise. Unfortunately, films where two mildly unlikeable people just talk around each other for a few hours with no real point aren't usually my thing, and thus it was a bit of a slog to sit through. Director Abbas Kiarostami grounds the movie in realism, but about midway through, a conversation with a woman working at a coffee shop changes everything. It's a movie where I was constantly asking myself what was going on. There are lots of interesting ideas here, for instance the idea that in art, often a copy can be as good as the original. How does that play out in the movie? What is the real relationship between the man and the woman? I'm at a bit of a loss here. I really like a lot of the discussions surrounding the movie, but I didn't particularly enjoy sitting down and watching it...
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [BD]
• Drive: Nicolas Winding Refn's art-house version of The Transporter, but much better than that sounds. After an intense and exciting opening chase sequence (that focused more on subterfuge and concealment than pyrotechnics and speed), the film switches gears, telling a bit of a love story through nothing more than long, meaningful glances and facial expressions. Oh, and explosive, gratuitous violence. This one narrowly missed out on a top 10 slot, and who knows? I think that if I were to compile this list on some other day, it might have made the list ahead of Tinker Tailor. But then, it could just as easily have not made the list due to at least a few of the other Honorable Mentions here...
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [BD] [Winner of 1 Arbitrary Award]
• Elite Squad II: The Enemy Within: A Brazilian film about police corruption, I was a little worried about the politics of this film, but it eventually settles on a synthesis, not endorsing either side, but rather, emphasizing that both sides must work together in order to succeed. It's an interesting, well considered position, and films that can pull off that balancing act are few and far between. I've actually never seen the first film in the series, but I did find this one quite well done. Yet another candidate for that coveted tenth slot of the top 10...
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [BD] [Capsule Review]
• I Saw the Devil: Kim Jee-woon's epic revenge film is certainly a sight to behold. Ultimately it didn't stick with me as much as I initially expected, but it's still one of the surprisingly many Korean films about Vengeance that's worth watching. In this particular case, you better be prepared for some particularly brutal and disturbing stuff, but that's the way these films seem to go.
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [BD] [Winner of 1 Arbitrary Award]
• Midnight in Paris: I've never been a particularly big fan of Woody Allen, and this film does have a lot of his stamp on it, but on the other hand, the fantastical trips to the past were absolutely delightful. It was the present-day stuff that seemed so caricatured and mind-numbing and so... Woody Alleny. This is totally a film worth a watch, just to see the interactions with historical figures in Paris, but I just couldn't get past Allen's usual ticks, nor could I quite reconcile the apparent message of the film (nostalgia for the past blinds us in the present - an intriguing idea, actually) with what Allen was actually showing us on screen. Instead of demonstrating his point to us, he tells it to us through dialogue... but what he actually shows us is the opposite message...
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [BD]
• Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol: Good old fashioned, action packed fun. From director Brad Bird, who has made some of my favorite animated movies (notably The Incredibles), in his live action debut, he has shown a deft hand here. I'm not sure I ever really considered it for a top 10 slot, and there are things about it that I don't love, but it was still a ton of fun and I'm really excited to see what Bird will do next...
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [BD]
• Rise of the Planet of the Apes: I enjoyed this movie, but I have to admit that I'm surprised by the amount of praise heaped upon it by critics. For all the fun and successful motion capture performances, the film still suffered a bit from awkward dialogue (some awful clunkers in here, as well as a few groan-inducing clichés) and a stilted story (which is ultimately what put it down here in the honorable mentions). Still, a rousing climax and a great character arc for Caesar the ape. And let's not forget Maurice the CGI orangutan, the only true the voice of wisdom in the film!
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [BD] [Full Review]
• The Greatest Movie Ever Sold: Morgan Spurlock made a name for himself with a concerted effort at brand assassination, so it took guts to make this movie: a movie about product placement and branding that was completely financed by... product placement and branding. It's a great idea for a movie, and the fact that it's Spurlock making it adds a bit of tension to the proceedings that wouldn't be there for other filmmakers. Then again, that might not be such a great thing. Ultimately only a surface-level affair, it was still interesting and very entertaining stuff. Worth watching!
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [BD] [Winner of 1 Arbitrary Award]
• The Guard: An eccentric Irish policeman teams up with a straight-laced FBI agent to take down a drug ring. Another most unusual movie that doesn't really go down the way the premise would have you believe. Great performance by Brendan Gleeson as the baffling and confrontational Irish policeman, and a mostly endearing character, despite his many quirks. It's an interesting movie and I'm glad I got the chance to watch it, but something about it never clicked with me either...
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [BD]
• The People vs. George Lucas: A documentary covering the career and movies of George Lucas, and the many complaints the man has garnered over the past 10-15 years. It's an interesting and entertaining documentary, provoking questions about the ownership and meaning of art itself, as well as providing something of a catharsis over some of the beloved films Lucas has made and... changed. It's not quite as one-note or unfair as it sounds - this isn't a long bitching session about, for instance, Greedo shooting first, though there's certainly a lot of that there. It's a fair movie, albeit one that ultimately comes down on the side you'd expect. Definitely worth a watch for any Star Wars or Indiana Jones fans out there who are hurting...
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD]
• The Muppets: A delightful little film that nonetheless had me wondering about a few things when it was over. There's nothing particularly interesting about the plot and indeed, it seems unnecessarily disjointed and a little confusing in the end. That being said, the movie is filled with fun gags and nostalgic callbacks that are really wonderful fun. I had a great time with it, but it's also not something that really stuck with me, so it falls down here in the Honorable Mentions...
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [BD] [Winner of 1 Kaedrin Movie Award]
• Win Win: An interesting little film about families trying to make it by. I find it difficult to really talk about this movie. It's got lots of funny moments, but it's not really a comedy. Perhaps you'd call it a dramedy. It's got dramatic substance without being overwhelmed by heft, and it was one of the more enjoyable underseen films of the year. Definitely worth a watch and a contender for that coveted tenth slot...
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [BD]

Just Missed the Cut
But still worthwhile, in their own way. Presented without comment and in no particular order:

• Source Code
• SUPER
• Hobo with a Shotgun
• Limitless
• Contagion
• Hugo
• Bridesmaids
• Another Earth
• Bill Cunningham New York
• Paranormal Activity 3

Conspicuously Absent
These are films that are almost universally recognized in critics' circles, but which didn't really connect with me. Again presented without comment and in no particular order:

• The Tree of Life
• Meek's Cutoff
• Moneyball
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
• Melancholia

Should Have Seen
Despite the record number of movies I saw this year, there were still a few that got away. This could be because of limited distribution, or because I just didn't find the movie that compelling until after it was out of theaters or something like that... Again presented without comment and in no particular order:

• The Arbor
• Project Nim
• The Interrupters
• The Descendants
• Take Shelter
• The Help
• Martha Marcy May Marlene
• 50/50
• Cave of Forgotten Dreams
• A Separation
• The Trip

Well, there you have it. More than you could ever want to know about my favorite movies of 2011. Did I miss anything? Are my picks wildly off-base? Feel free to leave a comment. I have to say that I'm sorry that two of the films on my top 10 aren't even really available on DVD/BD/Streaming yet. I usually hate it when critics do crap like that, but I do love both of those movies, so they have to stay on the list. I think this might also be my least commercially successful list ever. I don't quite know what to make of that, but here we are...

Anyways, stay tuned next week for the annual Kaedrin Oscars Liveblogging event! It should be a real corker.



Taxonomy Platforms
The human brain is basically a giant correlation machine. Well, ok, that's a drastic simplification, but I've often written about how correlation and induction play an important role in life. This is a large subject, but today I want to focus on one result of our predilection towards correlation: our tendency to develop complex taxonomies. For books and movies, we've got genres. For beer, we've got style. Retail stores have departments. You name it, chances are that there's a complex taxonomy describing variations (you'll notice that this post tends to consist of examples from my obsessions with movies, beer and technology, but this would all be relevant to a wide variety of subjects).

This tendency invariably leads to nerdy arguments about specific examples and where they fall within the taxonomy. Is Inglourious Basterds Science Fiction? Are comic book movies science fiction? Should we make a distinction between science fiction and science fantasy? What exactly constitutes a West Coast IPA? What do we call Black IPAs? What are the defining characteristics of a Weblog? What are some examples of the Hillbilly Horror genre? Take a trip down TV Tropes lane, and you're guaranteed to find a comprehensive list of genres, sub-genres, and myriad conventions or cliches.

Why go to all this trouble to categorize everything? What is it about the internet that seems to magnify these discussions?

Well, the most obvious reason for such excessive categorization is that it will communicate something about the particular instance being discussed. Categorizing movies into various genres helps us determine what we're in for when we sit down to watch a movie. Style guidelines communicate what kinds of characteristics to expect from a beer. Genres and styles provide a common ground for both creators and critics, and the reduce the pool of possibilities to a more manageable number.

Those are good things¹, but they're really only scratching the surface of why we taxonomize. Most people get frustrated by taxonomies. It seems that every genre, every style, is inadequate, especially when their favorite instance is pigeonholed into a particular category. Hence, we get the aforementioned nerdy debates on the nature of science fiction or west coast IPAs. Genres and styles are blurry along the edges, and there's a great deal of overlap. Individual works often fit into many categories. If one were so inclined, they could make each category excessively inclusive or moderately narrow, but worrying about the blurry edges of taxonomy is kinda missing the point. In the parlance of hackers, the blurry edges of taxonomy are a feature, not a bug.

I've been reading Steven Johnson's book Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation, and he makes a fascinating observation that genres are the stacked platforms of the creative world:

For understandable reasons, we like to talk about artistic innovations in terms of the way that they break the rules, open up new doors in the adjacent possible that lesser minds never even see. But genius requires genres. Flaubert and Joyce needed the genre of the bildungsroman to contort and undermine in Sentimental Education and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Dylan needed the conventions of acoustic folk to electrify the world with Highway 61 Revisited. Genres supply a set of implicit rules that have enough coherence that traditionalists can safely play inside them, and more adventurous artists can confound our expectations by playing with them. Genres are the platforms and paradigms of the creative world. They are almost never willed into existence by a single pioneering work. Instead, they fade into view, through a complicated set of shared signals passed between artists, each contributing different elements to the mix.

I love the description of genres fading into view, perhaps because you could say that genres never really come into full clarity. That may frustrate some, but that inherent blurriness is where taxonomies derive power and it's what allows geniuses to create their most amazing works. And this does not just apply to art. In Brew Like a Monk, Stan Hieronymus relates an anecdote from Michael Jackson (the beer critic, not the pop star):

In one of the many stories he likes to tell about German, English and Belgian brewers, Michael Jackson first asks a German how beer is made. "Pils malt, Czech hops," the brewer replies. Then Jackson asks the German brewer down the road the same question. "It's the same as Fritz said. That's how you make a Pilsener, that's what we learn in school."

After getting a different answer from a British brewer, Jackson turns to a Belgian brewer. "First of all, you take one ton of bat's droppings. Then you add a black witch," the Belgian answers. "The brewer down the road uses a white witch." Jackson concludes with the lesson: "Belgium is a nation of tremendous individualists."

If style guidelines for Bat Dropping Ale stated that color shouldn't be less than 25 SRM, do you think that would have stopped the brewer down the road from using a white witch? Of course not. Style guidelines don't limit creativity, lack of imagination does.

As Hieronymus later notes, if we didn't make "rules," we wouldn't know when to break them.

That is the power of taxonomy. It gives us a place to start. It gives us the basic rules and techniques. Defining such conventions may seem limiting, but it's actually freeing. You have to understand those conventions before you can break them or combine them properly, which can sometimes result in something inspirational and brilliant. Ironically, this seems to happen with such regularity that I'm sure many "innovations" we see today are repeats of previous revolutions. As Johnson notes, genres and style are part of a stacked platform. They're built on top of even more basic building blocks, notably technology. Technology often recontextualizes existing taxonomies, opening them up to subtly different interpretations. The same innovative idea can be magnified and mutated into something different by technology. It's very rare that something completely new emerges from history. It's more likely something that has existed for a long time, but slightly tweaked to match the times. Taxonomies are platforms. They are not limiting. You build things on top of platforms, and that's why we go to the trouble of categorizing everything we can.

¹ - Nerdy fury on the internets is one thing, but for the most part this isn't really controversial stuff. However, once you start placing taxonomies on human beings, things get a little more complicated. If one were so inclined, an interesting discussion on the nature of prejudice as it relates to the human penchant for correlation could yield interesting insights. Unfortunately, this is not a post for that more weighty (and controversial) subject.

Weird Movie of the Week
Last time on Weird Movie of the Week we examined a touching tale of bovine mutation. This time, we've got presidential badassery: It's apparently real. I really thought I was watching a parody thing here. Even when I started recognizing the actors, I thought it was, like, one of them Funny or Die videos where they trick famous people into doing a short skit or something. But it's a full feature. A feature where a beloved U.S. president rides around on a machine-gun-equipped wheelchair fighting Nazi werewolves (literal werewolves, not those other werwolves). Oh and for those looking forward to Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, it appears that Kevin Sorbo has been tapped to play Lincoln in this film (and according to the writer, "in this movie Lincoln is the king of all badass presidents, but he's a stoner. Other Presidents in office can make him come alive out of his White House painting and ask him for advice if they smoke weed with him.") I also love Ray Wise's interaction with Einstein. Inspired lunacy.



My Most Anticipated Movies of 2012
Before I get started on recapping the 2011 movie landscape (yes, I know most folks are already done with their year end recaps, but here at Kaedrin, we work at a more leisurely pace), I thought I'd look ahead at 2012. My impression of 2011 is an odd one. I really enjoyed many movies I saw, but there were few that really blew me away. It's not quite a year of mediocrity, but it isn't a spectacular year either. 2012, though, is shaping up to be at least very interesting and possibly one of the best years in a long time...

The Obvious Blockbusters:
Most folks already know these movies are coming and they're also something of a known quantity, so I'm separating them out. There are, of course, other big blockbusters coming, but these are the ones I'm most interested in:

• The Dark Knight Rises - I'm obliged to include this one. I'm a huge fan of The Dark Knight, but I have to admit that I have trouble believing this new installment will even come close to its predecessor. I actually don't know much about Bane as a villain and I think Tom Hardy's a fantastic actor, but I can't imagine he'll compare favorably to Heath Ledger's Joker. What's more, this film seems to be suffering from typical superhero-sequel-villainitis - there are apparently three villains here. On the other hand, if anyone can pull it off, it's Christopher Nolan and his typical band of collaborators. I'm excited for this movie, but I'm also a little wary and am trying to temper expectations (I'm also avoiding trailers/marketing as much as possible).
• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - Peter Jackson has reassembled the LotR crew. I don't really need to explain why this is so awesome, but interestingly enough, I think the Hobbit is probably a more mainstream story that will really hook audiences. On the other hand, they're splitting the book (which is pretty short and straightforward in comparison to the rest of LotR) into two movies, which seems like a naked money grab. Still, I can't wait for this one.
• The Avengers - Another superhero tale, this time a superteam comprised of superheroes, each of which has had their own solo movie. The problem, of course, is that all of the solo movies have been profoundly mediocre (with the one possible exception being the first Iron Man). On the plus side: Joss Whedon is writing and directing, which is the one factor that distinguishes this movie from its ilk and really makes me want to see it. But to be honest, I want this movie to be good more because I'd like to see Whedon go on to make something original and interesting (the way Nolan was able to parlay his success with Batman to make movies like Inception).
• Skyfall - Bond finally returns to the big screen. I can't say that I'm too excited about director Sam Mendes for this, but I loved the hell out of Casino Royale and the series has nowhere to go but up after the disastrous clusterfuck of Quantum of Solace.

The Less-Obvious Flicks:
It seems like 2012 is brewing up a lot of original screenplays with talented directors, which is a welcome development. And an exciting one too!

• Django Unchained - Without a doubt my most anticipated movie of the year. Writer/Director Quentin Tarantino is taking on the Western, and he's assembled a fantastic cast to help him along. I'll be curious to see how the tragic loss of Tarantino's long-time editor Sally Menke (frequently cited as an important collaborator) will impact the production, but I'm confident Tarantino will be able to put together something great here...
• Looper - Writer/Director Rian Johnson's take on the time-travel story is another of my hotly anticipated films of the year. I loved Johnson's Brick and The Brothers Bloom, so this one is a no brainer. Also of note: Apparently Shane Carruth (who wrote, directed, edited, and acted in the ultra-low-budget time-travel tale Primer) is pitching in, so now I'm expecting some really mind-blowing time travel stuff.
• Wreck-It Ralph - It's been a long time since I've been excited for a new Disney Animation movie, but it appears the time has come. I don't know much about it, but it's apparently set in an arcade where video-game characters can hop from game to game. Typical villain Wreck-It Ralph gets sick of being a bad guy and attempts to channel his inner-hero. The whole intersection between video games and movies is interesting to me, so I'm expecting a lot out of this one... Also of note: Director Rich Moore cut his teeth working on The Simpsons and Futurama. Excitement level: Rising.
• The Cabin in the Woods - A horror movie with a tired premise ("Five friends go to a remote cabin in the woods. Bad things happen."), but some interesting talent attached (it doesn't seem like it will be the teenager deathtrap that so many of these movies devolve into), including a script by Joss Whedon. Color me intrigued.
• Seven Psychopaths - Writer/Director Martin McDonagh made a name for himself with In Bruges, and this latest film seems like it'll be right up my alley. Apparently the plot features a bunch of gansters and the titular psychopaths and follows the tale of a dog-kidnapping. Also, it stars Colin Farrell, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell, Christopher Walken, Abbie Cornish, Tom Waits, and Kevin Corrigan. Yes, please.
• Argo - I'm not sure how it happened, but Ben Affleck really has quietly become one of the more interesting directors working in Hollywood these days, and this movie seems like another offbeat choice. Apparently it follows a CIA plan to mount a fake movie production in order to save Americans trapped during the Iranian revolution. Yeah. And Jack Kirby is apparently a character? Ok. I will see this.
• The Secret World of Arrietty - It's not often that Anime films get a release in the US (and who knows how many screens this will end up on), but a new film from Japan's Studio Ghibli is always worth a shot (even if it's not directed by Hayao Miyazaki - though he has a writing credit here).

High Risk/Reward Films: This is risk/reward from my own estimation of the potential enjoyment, not from any sort of budget or box office perspective. All of the above movies could be horrible, of course, but some of the below movies seem so strange that they seem like they could either be amazing or horrible. Still, even if they fail, I have a feeling these will at least be interesting failures. This list sorta mutated halfway through into movies that are perhaps less risky, but also have less potential, but I didn't really have anywhere else to put these movies and don't know what else to call this list (Honorable Mentions? Except that there are way more of these than any other list)...

• Gravity - Director Alfonso Cuarón's one-woman show starring Sandra Bullock as the lone survivor of a space mission to fix the Hubble telescope sounds like it could be amazing. But I've never been a big fan of Sandra Bullock, and I've always found Cuarón's Children of Men to be overrated. That being said, rumors indicate that Cuarón will be relying heavily on long takes to tell this story, which could elevate a seemingly simple story into pure spectacle all by itself. Then again, it could also be a tremendously boring character piece with long shots of Sandra Bullock crying or something. Still, an original science fiction tale that might have some hard SF elements is something I am certainly excited for...
• Cloud Atlas - Six interconnected tales that span centuries and genres, directed in parallel by two units lead by Tom Tykwer and the Wachowski Siblings. It's certainly ambitious and it will almost certainly be epic... but the question is whether it will be an epic clusterfuck or an epic wonder of cinema. Neither Tykwer or the Wachowskis have done anything all that interesting recently, so that's not very encouraging, but the sheer scope of this movie is interesting enough to make me want to see it...
• Only God Forgives - Nicolas Winding Refn is always interesting, though he sometimes gets a little too carried away. This film reunites him with Drive's Ryan Gosling and has a pretty strange premise: "A Bangkok police lieutenant and a gangster settle their differences in a Thai-boxing match." Alright, I'm interested.
• Cosmopolis - David Cronenberg adapting a Don Delillo novel about a young millionaire's odyssey through New York in order to get a haircut stars Robert Pattinson. This could be interesting or an utter disaster.
• Bullet to the Head - Walter Hill's return to action films could be decent. It stars Sylvester Stallone, Jason Momoa and Christian Slater(!) and it follows a cop and a hitman joining forces to bring down a common enemy. Everyone involved in this has hit-or-miss careers, so I wouldn't get too excited, but there's potential here.
• The Great Gatsby - The thought of an adaptation of this novel alone wouldn't be that big of a deal, but the movie is being directed by the bombastic Baz Luhrmann. In 3D. I'd like to pretend like I have a clue about how this will turn out, but I have a feeling that I'd never come close to what this will actually be.
• Gambit - A script by Joel and Ethan Coen always intrigues, though director Michael Hoffman's filmography does little to inspire. Still, it sounds interesting: "An art curator enlists the services of a Texas steer roper to con a wealthy collector into buying a phony Monet painting." I kinda wish the Coens were directing, but I'll still give this one a shot...
• Wanderlust - Mostly because director David Wain is pretty awesome. Also, Jennifer Aniston. The premise is lackluster (New York couple moves to a free love commune), but Wain is typically hilarious.
• The Raven - Edgar Allen Poe hunts a serial killer. Interesting casting choice of John Cusack as Poe and a premise that could be great (even if it's pretty well trodden revisionist ground).
• Moonrise Kingdom - Wes Anderson's next film certainly has a great cast - Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Frances McDormand, Harvey Keitel, Bob Balaban - but I'm always wary of Anderson.
• Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter - Yeah, this revisionist stuff was overplayed a few years ago, but this could be a lot of fun, right? Director Timur Bekmambetov can certainly bring some interesting visual flare to the proceedings, though I don't think I really like any of his previous films (but they are pretty!)...
• G.I. Joe: Retaliation - I know, right? This doesn't sound like it would be any good, but I recently saw the preview and it actually looks like an exciting action film with some unexpected starpower in the form of Bruce Willis. I don't really expect much out of this, but it could be a bucket of fun...
• Frankenweenie - Tim Burton? I haven't been a fan of most of his recent stuff, but this animated feature sounds like it could play to Burton's particular brand of whimsy.
• Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance - The first movie was horrible and the preview for this isn't particularly inspiring, but co-directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor (known mostly for the Crank films) have a wicked sense of humor and a manic visual style that could make this movie more interesting than it deserves to be.
• The Bourne Legacy - A Borne flick without Borne? It's certainly got a lot of talent attached and I'm a fan of Writer/Director Tony Gilroy (who wrote the previous installments, though his work on the third was apparently minimal due to the writer's strike), so there's a big potential upside here. But it could also fall completely flat without Damon...

Uncertain Release:
There are some movies in the pipeline that may or may not be released in 2012. But when they do come out, I'd probably be interested in them:

• The Master - I have no idea what it's about, but any movie from Paul Thomas Anderson will of course be hotly anticipated by any film geek. Unfortunately, it's unclear if it will be released this year. I will say, though, that I'm disappointed that Anderson never got to make his adaptation of Thomas Pynchon's awesome stoner/noir detective novel, Inherent Vice (hopefully he tackles that next).
• Inside Llewyn Davis - It's the Coen Brothers next movie. Duh. The plot summary is less than inspiring, but the Coens always seem to make their movies worth watching.

Notable Absences:
For whatever reason, these films aren't inspiring as much interest in me as they seem to be in everyone else...

• Prometheus - On the face of it, it sounds interesting. Ridley Scott directing a new original science fiction movie? Except that it's apparently something of an Alien prequel... and man, the concept of finding out the origins of the space jockey is just silly. Ridley Scott's recent output has been rather dull as well. I guess this could be good, and the preview doesn't look like the abomination that it sounds like on paper, but I'm still not really looking forward to this one...
• The Amazing Spider-Man - An unnecessary remake/reboot that doesn't look like it will add anything new or interesting to the series. I suppose it could be ok, but I have a hard to believing that.
• Lincoln - Don't get me wrong, the involvement of Spielberg and Daniel Day-Lewis is intriguing, but I just can't muster much interest in this biopic...

So there you have it. 26 movies I really want to see, 2 that might have to wait until 2013, and 3 that I'm not that excited for, but will probably see nonetheless... The funny thing? I probably missed quite a few interesting movies! Feel free to share anything I missed in the comments...



Holiday Horror
'Tis the season... for cheesy horror movies! It's something of an annual tradition here at Kaedrin, though the pickings are getting a bit slim these days. Two of the three movies below are only slightly related to actual holiday scares. That being said, I always seem to have fun with these movies, even if they aren't so great:

• Sheitan - So some morons go to a club on Christmas Eve, get kicked out, then decide to spend the holiday at the country house of a girl they just met. Little do they know that the caretaker, Joseph, has other plans for the crew. Satanic plans! Yeah, so the film's big problem is that the protagonists are complete and utter douchebags. French douchebags! Sometimes this isn't the worst failing in a horror movie, but there's a distinct lack of horror here as well (at least, until the end, when things get a little better). Vincent Cassel actually turns in a fun, scenery chewing performance as the satanic Joseph (and apparently he also plays Joseph's wife!) The film is shot well and there's something interesting in the general story. Unfortunately, it's all ruined by our douchey protagonists. **
• Films to Keep You Awake: The Christmas Tale - Ahh, now this is more like it! Still not tremendously holiday focused, but at least there's a Santa-suit-wearing criminal in this one! 5 kids discover a woman (the aforementioned Santa-suit-wearing criminal) trapped in a well. It turns out that she's a bank robber on the run, so the kids attempt to blackmail her into giving them her stolen money. Things don't go as planned. Also: Zombies (kinda).
  
  It's far from perfect, but it's fun and actually pretty tense at times. The kids all put in good performances, and the Santa-suit criminal manages to be pretty menacing after a while. There's a weird movie-within-a-movie thing going on that I'm not sure entirely works, but the general story works well enough and the ending is sufficiently satisfying. ***
• Demonic Toys - Yeah, so I don't think this one has any relationship to the Holidays at all, except that a bunch of toys are attacking everyone, which is actually pretty cool. Don't get me wrong, this is not fine cinema, but it's fun schlock, and while there's a silliness to the proceedings, I did like the backstory. Something about a demon who wants to be reborn and needs to possess a pregnant woman, who happens to stumble into said toy warehouse. Ok, fine, there's not much to the story or, well, the movie, but I had fun with it. I mean, Baby Ooosy Daisy? Awesome. It's actually a pretty bad movie, but fans of bad horror might enjoy it... **1/2

Well, there you have it. There are still a few more Holiday Horror movies in the queue, including Don't Open Till Christmas (though this is apparently no longer available from Netflix) and Santa Claws (get it?) Well, there's always next year!



Nerding Out on Star Trek
Star Trek has been in the news lately, as J.J. Abrams preps the new movie. It seems that Khan will be the villain again (originally thought to be played by Benicio Del Toro, but that has apparently not happened), though there is also apparently a secondary villain who plays an older mentor to Khan. Or something. It was the obvious choice and I'm interested in seeing what Abrams does with the new movie, but in a lot of ways, it's also a disappointing and lazy choice. Not just because Khan was the villain in the original second Star Trek film either. As Devin Faraci also notes, I think one of the things people forget about is that one of the reasons that film worked so well was that Khan wasn't the obvious choice:

Khan wasn't an obvious choice for the original Star Trek II. Basically Harve Bennett watched every single episode of the original series because he thought Star Trek: The Motion Picture lacked a good villain, and took a shine to Space Seed; while it was always regarded as one of the better episodes of the series, Khan wasn't quite the iconic villain he is today.

What made Khan iconic was the fact that his quest for vengeance led to the death of Spock. It seems unlikely that Star Trek 2 will be a remake of Star Trek II, so it's probably a riff on Space Seed - except made more EXTREME for 3D movie purposes. I bet they get Chris Pine to yell 'KHAAAAAAAAN!,' though.

I think I would have rather seen Abrams go in a completely different direction. Either mining the original series for other obscure characters to update for the big screen, or maybe even - and I know this is crazy talk - creating a new character from scratch. The Star Trek reboot was extremely popular, so they've got a built in audience for this next installment. As long as you can make a trailer with a bunch of lens flares, swish pans, and explosions, people are going to go see the sequel. Why not take a chance? Khan is an iconic villain because of his context - none of which has been built up in this new reboot universe.

Anyway, I got to thinking about the existing movies and just for shits and giggles, I ranked them from favorite to least favorite below. Mostly because this post just wasn't nerdy enough. Here goes:

• Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan - The obvious choice, and the film most frequently cited as the best of the Trek movies. I actually haven't seen it in a while, but there are lots of memorable things about it, and of course, Khan was probably the most memorable of the villains in the films...
• Star Trek (2009 Reboot) - Oh sure, it's not a very rigorous movie and I would totally prefer more science in this film's fiction (and what's there is just breathtakingly stupid), but this film is just so much damn fun that it really does catapult up towards the top of the list. I'd actually say it ties with the next few films, but for now, this is where I have it.
• Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home - Who among us hasn't picked up our mouse and talked to it, saying "Computer? Commmputerrr?" like Scottie does in this movie? It's an unusual movie in that it's a sorta fish out of water comedy rather than a sci-fi action film (and quite frankly, those who complain about the reboot's science should take a look at how time travel is portrayed in this film). Fortunately, it's still a boatload of fun.
• Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country - Returning to the series more adventurous roots, this film also wound up being really well done. I feel like I'm saying this for all the movies so far, but it's a lot of fun.
• Star Trek: The Motion Picture - I know, it's slow and plodding and filled with lame glory shots of the Enterprise leaving stardock or something, but I actually enjoyed this one overall. It was a little nebulous and intellectual, but that's what I like about it.
• Star Trek: First Contact - Certainly the best of The Next Generation movies, this one is pretty fun, but it's also much more of a lame action movie than the series or even the other movies. I think this movie also demonstrates that while the Borg were once awesome villains, their continual evolution into ineffectual dweebs was disappointing. They're better than this movie gives them credit for. This movie works, but there's lots of dumb things going on here.
• Star Trek III: The Search for Spock - I'm actually surprised this one fell this far on the list. It's not a horrible movie and I don't hate it, but quite frankly, I don't remember much about it (which isn't a good sign).
• Star Trek: Insurrection - Meh. It's an ok film, and Worf has a space bazooka and everything, but it plays out like a third rate TNG episode. I remember having an ok time with the movie when it came out, but it's ultimately a pretty forgettable experience...
• Star Trek: Generations - And now we get to the part of the list where the movies are legitimately bad. This movie was just so unnecessary and got the TNG crew off to a horrible start. It's one thing to honor the old crew. It's another to try to cater to everyone, and thus make a movie that works for no one. A horrible movie.
• Star Trek: Nemesis - Another terrible movie. Hard to believe that's the same Tom Hardy that was in Bronson and Inception, but yep, that's him. I've always thought that the Romulans would be a good villain for the movies, but it never seems to work out...
• Star Trek V: The Final Frontier - A total abomination, the less said about this the better.

I think my biggest problem with the Star Trek movies is that I consider a lot of The Next Generation episodes better than most of the movies, even including the ones at the top of the list. And even a lot of TNG episodes haven't aged that well, but many are still really well done and interesting. Much moreso than the movies, at least. Speaking of TNG, check out this twitter feed which is throwing out humorous plot summaries from a proposed 8th season of TNG. My favorite episode:

A sentient nebula chases the ship, which has nowhere to hide, because usually it would be in a nebula. Data adopts a dog, snake, and parrot.

Heh, great stuff. Speaking of great stuff, RedLetterMedia has reviews of all the Next Generation movies (in the same style as their brilliant Star Wars prequel reviews) that are certainly worth checking out. Well, I think that covers all the Star Trek nerdery I have right now, so there. I hope you enjoyed it.



The 2011 Holiday Movie Season
The holiday movie season has traditionally been Hollywood's dumping ground for Oscar bait. Prestige pictures are rushed out the door to meet eligibility requirements, and film nerds rejoice that we're actually getting some more intelligent, subtle fair. Well, in recent years, the trend hasn't quite reversed, but big tentpole action films are being released during the holidays now. Avatar came out on Christmas, for instance, and this year, we've got stuff like Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. But there are still some interesting looking movies coming out as well, so here's a few that I'm looking forward to:

• Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel - A documentary covering the career of Roger Corman. The release looks to be severely limited, so I'm wondering if I'll ever get to see the movie, but here's to hoping it at least makes it to DVD/Streaming quickly. It's still right up my alley though, so if I get a chance, I'll jump to see it...
• Haywire - Steven Soderbergh slumming it with an espionage action flick. He's also reuniting with The Limey screenwriter Lem Dobbs on this one, which is somewhat encouraging. Certainly worth a look, though I'm hearing mixed things and I think I saw a preview for this that wasn't particularly inspiring... so I guess we'll see.
• Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - An exceptional cast, notable director, and well-regarded source material. It looks a little on the dry side, but color me intrigued. I could go for a slow-burning espionage thriller right about now, and this looks like it will fit the bill nicely.
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - I loved the original Swedish version of the film, and this looks like pretty much the same movie... but with another talented cast, director David Fincher, and music by Trent Reznor, I'm pretty excited to check this out. I expect to be a bit underwhelmed, but Fincher tends to outperform when I go into a movie thinking that...
• The Adventures of Tintin - Stephen Spielberg has two movies coming out this holiday season, but I'm more interested in this one. I know very little about it, except that it's an animated adventure film directed by Spielberg. What else could I possibly want?
• Other Stuff: War Horse, A Dangerous Method, and Young Adult.
• Stuff to Watch on DVD/BD/Streaming: Attack the Block has been #1 in my Netflix queue for a while now, but it's still at "Very Long Wait". At this point, I'm a little worried about expectations with that one. Also looking to get past the "Very Long Wait" on Bellflower. Others in the queue: Another Earth, The Guard, The Trip, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Martha Marcy May Marlene (making the reasonable assumption that I can't find it in the theater), and probably a few others that I haven't figured out yet.

Note, I didn't include movies that are currently out in wide release and/or movies that I've already seen (i.e. that's why The Muppets and Hugo aren't listed...)

I'm actually a little more on top of things than I thought I was with this year's crop of movies. Part of it is that I've managed to catch up with several films on DVD/BD lately. I'm sure a few other things will pop up between now and when I actually compile my top 10 of 2011, but as of right now, this is looking like a banner year (especially if you add in my Fantastic Fest watching) in terms of movies seen...



Weird Movie Synopsis of the Week
Last time on Weird Movie of the Week, we saw a tale of Elephant vengeance. Against Nazis. This time, courtesy of my friend Dave, we've got a touching story of bovine mutation:

"In this unsettling chiller, a genetic experiment intended to boost bovine fertility goes awry when one of the cows spawns lethal mutant offspring."

Short, but sweet. Does it surprise anyone that this is a film that is available on Netflix streaming? I thought not.

According to Dave, this movie is actually much more well-made than the premise might lead one to believe. I guess we'll just have to see about that, won't we? The movie is called Isolation, and IMDB has rated as a rather hefty (for this kinda movie) 5.9 rating from 2500+ users.



6WH: Week 6 - The Slasher Calendar (Again)
I've done this before, so I won't go over why so many slasher films are centered around holidays and dates, but yeah, they are. I don't know that I've seen every holiday slasher, but there are certainly enough that you could create a calendar of events throughout the year, with at least one or two slashers per month. Fortunately, there are some holidays that are still open, so if I were to actually make a slasher, Flag Day is still available (perhaps I could combine it with jellyfish and crocoroids). Anyway, in visiting the calendar this year, it's become clear that I've exhausted most of the good holiday slashers, and am in the distinct second or third tier. But no matter. Slashers are like cinematic comfort food. So let's get on with it:

• Thursday the 12th (Robot Chicken)
• My Bloody Valentine (trailer)
• The Hitchhiker's Guide To Murder (short)
• Mother's Day - Made not too long after Friday the 13th, this one was still early enough in the popularity of slashers that it doesn't strictly adhere to all the tropes the way a lot of movies afterwards did... It turns out that this was a Troma video, which basically means it's really weird and ultra-low budget (and it's worth mentioning that low budget in 1980 is way worse than low budget in 2011 - these movies look pretty bad these days). So pure B-movie exploitation here. The movie is basically about a trio of women who go camping every year, only this year they chose to camp near an old lady and her nefarious sons, who have a habit of kidnapping and raping girls at the behest of their mother.
  
  So there are some elements of the slasher here, but it's arguably not a slasher. It's also somewhat unpleasant and it doesn't really make a ton of sense. It probably goes on too long too. On the other hand, we've got a little old lady in a neck brace who is pretty awesome, and I have to admit that I loved the last shot in the film, which kinda left me with a better opinion of the film than it probably deserves from any objective evaluation. Only really for genre completists, but maybe some others would get something out of it... **
• Halloween (trailer)
• Thanksgiving (fake trailer)
• Hardly Working: Slasher (Short)
• Graduation Day - Ah, now this is more like it. Another Troma movie, but this is textbook slasher material right here. We've got a tragedy from the past (though not quite the distant past) and a mysterious killer seemingly avenging that tragic death. The film centers around a track and field team (cue obligatory team photo, with members crossed off one by one as the killer makes the rounds). One of the members of the team died of a blood clot earlier in the year, and now other teammates are dropping like flies. The potential suspects are numerous. It seems that everyone is sporting a gray sweatsuit and black gloves (and a stopwatch), just like the killer. The weaponry tends towards the bladed variety, including that badass fencing helmet (good idea for the mask, though its only used a few times). As a whodunit, it's not lighting the world on fire, but it gets the job done. The budget is still super low, and it shows during the kill sequences, which are somewhat creative, but which also would have benefited from some more expertise on the special effects side. They try to get around it with clever camerawork, and sometimes even succeed, but there's only so much you can do with that. Ultimately, this hit the spot much better than Mother's Day did, though its ending isn't quite as great and it's clearly not on par with the best examples of the genre. **1/2
• Uncle Sam (trailer)
• Silent Night, Deadly Night (trailer)
• April Fools Day (trailer)
• New Year's Evil - Probably somewhere between the previous two films in terms of hitting the slasher tropes, the thing that struck me the most about this movie is how much better it looks. I'm certainly not talking blockbuster stuff here, but it clearly had a bigger budget, and you can see that in every aspect of the filmmaking. Though it doesn't hit all the right conventions of the slasher, there are some interesting things going on here. The film takes place on New Year's Eve, where a radio/TV host is counting down New Years across the time zones. She takes a phone call, and a guy calling himself "Evil" informs her that he's planning to kill someone every hour, on the hour. At first, everyone thinks it's a crank call, but then dead bodies start showing up. It's actually pretty fun, and unlike a lot of slashers, you spend a lot of time with the villain. He seems frighteningly normal and even charismatic (and he's a master of disguise! Look at that porno 'stache!), again quite unusual for slashers.
  
  There's way too much 80s rock music and the film unravels towards the end. There are some interesting twists, but I don't think they really figured out a great ending. Well, I shouldn't say that, as the last shot works well enough, I guess, but everything leading up to that feels kinda rushed and disjointed. Ultimately, still a second-tier film, but one probably worth watching for fans of the genre. I actually quite enjoyed it. **1/2

Well there you have it. I can't believe Halloween is tomorrow. This whole season flew by. I'll probably post my typical Speed Round post on Wednesday, as I've seen a bunch of movies that didn't quite fit with previous weeks' themes. And quite frankly, I'm still in the mood for horror. We may just need to make this the 8 weeks of Halloween or something. Have a great Halloween!



Dr. Anton Phibes' Abominably Erudite, Musically Malignant, Cursedly Clever Halloween Horror Movie Quiz
Dennis Cozzalio of the Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule blog has posted another of his famous movie quizes, and as always, I'm excited to provide my answers. Previous installments answering questions from Professor Hubert Farnsworth, David Huxley, Professor Fate, Professor Russell Johnson, Dr. Smith, Professor Peabody, Professor Severus Snape, and Professor Ed Avery, are also available... But now, here are my answers to the sinister Dr. Phibes:

1) Favorite Vincent Price/American International Pictures release.

It is perhaps dreadfully uncool to pick the film the entire quiz is named after, but my pick is honestly The Abominable Dr. Phibes. It's a fine film by itself, but it's also much more influential than most of its contemporaries, influencing the likes of Seven and even Saw (not to mention the franchise that spawned and the whole torture porn sub-genre).

2) What horror classic (or non-classic) that has not yet been remade would you like to see upgraded for modern audiences?

This is quite a difficult question. For one thing, a lot of movies that get remade have no real need of a remake - they're perfect the way they are. So what does need a remake? Well, there are some movies, no matter how great they are, that are just products of a different time, and could use some updating. There are some movies that just don't have enough of a budget or production value, and they could also benefit from a remake. Finally, there are movies that have a really neat premise that fall down when it comes to execution. That last one is especially difficult because they're not normally good or beloved, and thus are unlikely to be greenlit by a studio exec. But for the purposes of this question, there are no studios or commercial concerns, so what movie to pick? Well, when it comes to classics, the obvious choice would be Creature from the Black Lagoon - the only of the old Universal monsters that hasn't been updated and redone ad nauseum. The reason for the Gill-Creature's lack of remake probably has less to do with the popularity of the character than to the fact that it was one of the few Universal creature features that was totally original. Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Mummy (which is mildly arguable, but I'm including it anyway) are so popular because the characters are in the public domain (Universal owns some aspects of the appearance of the various monsters, but that is easily avoided because the characters themselves are not). Because of this, characters like Dracula can be continually reinterpreted and reinvented for new audiences and generations. Indeed, Dracula has racked up over 200 appearances in film - one of the most portrayed fictional characters in all of cinema. But the Gill monster? It will never be as popular because Universal had so tightly controlled the copyright... at least, not until the film enters the public domain. On the other hand, maybe it's a silly movie that wouldn't survive a reinvention. But we won't know unless we get someone talented to give it a shot, and it's probably worth trying.

3) Jonathan Frid or Thayer David?

Well, I've never been much of a Dark Shadows kinda guy, so I'm afraid I can't really give a good answer for this, except to say: Jonathan Frid. Because I feel like it.

4) Name the one horror movie you need to see that has so far eluded you.

There are a lot of questions like this in these quizzes, and my answers tend to fall on a particular era of film: Silent Films. In keeping with that The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is probably the one classic horror film that has so far eluded me. Along with several hundred others, but I keep thinking to myself: Self, you should really become more acquainted with the Silent Era. And then I promptly ignore that impulse. Indeed, for this year's 6 Weeks of Halloween marathon, I had originally intended to devote a week to silent films (including Caligari), but there's only one week left, and I really want to watch me some slasher films. But I will get to silent horror at some point. Oh yes.

5) Favorite film director most closely associated with the horror genre.

A truly difficult and tricky question. Does someone like David Cronenberg count? He spent the first decade or so of his career putting out solid or even great horror films, but he has since moved on to other genres (mostly). How about John Carpenter? He's made two of my favorite movies of all time (Halloween and The Thing), but he's also made some stinkers and he hasn't even made a decent movie in over 15 years (though I have yet to see The Ward). Maybe it's just that I'm bad at picking favorites. Names are just coming to me. Mario Bava. Don Coscarelli. Alfred Hitchcock (does he count?) Sam Raimi. Wes Craven. Jeeze, we could be here for a while. I'll stop now.

6) Ingrid Pitt or Barbara Steele?

Hey, I'm actually mildly familiar with these two. Mildly. I'll go with Ingrid Pitt, because I've seen her in more things, but Barbara Steele is no slouch...

7) Favorite 50’s sci-fi/horror creature.

A tough one. The Gill Creature kinda qualifies (is that really sci-fi?), but in the interest of variety, I'll go with The Blob. There's something just so great about the inhuman, unfeeling nature of the blob.

8) Favorite/best sequel to an established horror classic.

Aliens is the first to come to mind, but while it's quite a tense affair, I don't know that I would call that a horror film (though the Alien certainly was) so much as an action/adventure/thriller. The other obvious choice is Bride of Frankenstein, a film many believe is better than the original (though I'm not with them on that, it's still among the best sequels). And while I wouldn't call anything in the Friday the 13th series "classic", I do have an inordinate fondness for Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI. Yeah, did I say I have trouble picking favorites? Because I do. Oh, and Phantasm II. And definitely Evil Dead II. Ok, I'll stop now.

9) Name a sequel in a horror series which clearly signaled that the once-vital franchise had run out of gas.

This one's really hard, because there are so many horror series, all of which run out of gas from time to time, only to be revitalized (even if only for a short time). There are probably a bunch of Dracula movies that would fit that mold. But what the hell, I'll just say A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, which just stopped the series in its tracks (not that it was soaring so high at that point, but still) and I don't think it ever really recovered...

10) John Carradine or Lon Chaney Jr.?

These two actors have over 500 films to their credit. Yikes. I'll go with Lon Chaney Jr., for The Wolf Man alone.

11) What was the last horror movie you saw in a theater? On DVD or Blu-ray?

Last horror movie I saw in the theater was Paranormal Activity 3 (I was surprised that the series had not worn out it's welcome - I generally enjoyed it). On DVD, it was Lucio Fulci's goretastic The Beyond (fun, but not much to it other than gore, which I will grant, is pretty awesome in that movie). On Blu-Ray, it was Dylan Dog: Dead of Night, a mildly diverting film that was enjoyable enough, though again, nothing special. On Netflix Streaming, it was The Sentinel, a decent 70s haunted house film that is nevertheless kinda sloppy and disjointed and very weird. Interesting, but nothing to go crazy about.

12) Best foreign-language fiend/monster.

The most obvious answer would be Godzilla, though I've never been a particularly huge fan of those movies. The "fiend" part of the question does indeed open this up to probably too broad of a category, so I'll just leave it at Godzilla.

13) Favorite Mario Bava movie.

Oh, this is a difficult one, but after a microsecond of thought, I'll go with Blood and Black Lace. Impeccable. 14) Favorite horror actor and actress.

Oh, this is an easy one, right? Cause there aren't that many actors or actresses that do a lot of horror films, right? RIGHT? Ok, fine, I'll go Boris Karloff for the actor, and Jamie Lee Curtis for the actress.

15) Name a great horror director’s least effective movie.

John Carpenter's Vampires and Ghosts of Mars. Another question that could probably have a thousand answers, unfortunately.

16) Grayson Hall or Joan Bennett?

Again with the Dark Shadows? I decline to answer. Ok, fine, Joan Bennett. There. You happy now?

17) When did you realize that you were a fan of the horror genre? And if you’re not, when did you realize you weren’t?

When I was in fifth grade, I hated horror films. Or, at least, I was terrified of them and avoided them at all costs. Then, one halloween, I spent the night at a friend's house, and we watched Halloween. Nothing like peer pressure to get you to watch something you wouldn't normally watch. And I was shocked to realize that I loved the movie. I was hooked. I started watching all the 80s slashers that came on TV (through my fingers at first, then when I realized that it wasn't that bad, I really started to eat up horror films), and now I watch nothing but horror movies for the six weeks leading up to Halloween every year. Not to mention all the other horror films I watch throughout the year.

18) Favorite Bert I. Gordon (B.I.G.) movie.

I can't say as though I've seen a lot of his movies, but Empire of the Ants comes to mind.

19) Name an obscure horror favorite that you wish more people knew about.

This is a hard one because "obscure" can be a relative term. What constitutes obscure for a horror fanatic? It's difficult, because horror fanatics watch a lot of obscure movies just for the hell of it. But my pick will be Mute Witness, a movie that I rarely hear about, even in horror film circles. I won't ruin it by talking too much about it, but it's about a mute woman who witnesses a murder and then has to escape the clutches of the murderers, even though she's in a remote area and can't speak.

20) The Human Centipede-- yes or no?

Yes. Look, it's a disgusting concept, but I have to admit that the first film is reasonably well made and even restrained. It was nowhere near as bad as I feared. On the other hand, the sequel is pretty foul. But even that is well shot and there's something interesting about what he chose to do in that movie. These are films I would probably never recommend to anyone, but if you're inclined to watch disgusting movies, these are fine.

21) And while we’re in the neighborhood, is there a horror film you can think of that you felt “went too far”?

The aforementioned IMDb - The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence is certainly a candidate, but the one that came to mind after that was Martyrs, a film I have a lot of respect for, but which also made me wonder what the hell I was doing watching this thing.

22) Name a film that is technically outside the horror genre that you might still feel comfortable describing as a horror film.

Genres are inherently fuzzy. That's part of their charm! That being said, a couple examples would be Blue Velvet and The Silence of the Lambs and maybe even Se7en. Did I mention that I'm bad at picking just one film?

23) Lara Parker or Kathryn Leigh Scott?

Alright, Jesus, I'll watch Dark Shadows, ok? Just stop giving me these choices!

24) If you’re a horror fan, at some point in your past your dad, grandmother, teacher or some other disgusted figure of authority probably wagged her/his finger at you and said, “Why do you insist on reading/watching all this morbid monster/horror junk?” How did you reply? And if that reply fell short somehow, how would you have liked to have replied?

I haven't been around too much of this sort of attitude, so I don't really have an answer prepared, but I'm sure I could come up with something about the nature of fear or something. And quite frankly, anyone who's so lacking in empathy that they can't understand why someone would *gasp* like something different than them, is probably not worth responding to...

25) Name the critic or Web site you most enjoy reading on the subject of the horror genre.

Brian Collins and his amazing Horror Movie a Day. I don't know how he does it.

26) Most frightening image you’ve ever taken away from a horror movie.

A difficult one, as the most frightening stuff, for me, is the stuff that's not shown. But just to answer the question, I'll say Phantasm has quite a few shots that haunt me...

27) Your favorite memory associated with watching a horror movie.

Well, I've already mentioned my first viewing of Halloween, so I'll call out my first viewing of Paranormal Activity. Before it got hyped to high heaven, it was just a small film, struggling to get a release. The filmmakers managed to wrangle some midnight screenings (and later used footage of the crowds in their trailer), one of which I got to attend. It was a big and fun crowd, there were lots of scares, and as a midnight showing, I didn't get home until around 2:30. And if you've ever seen the movie, you know that all the bad things that happen... happen at around that time. Let's just say that I stayed up for a while after that.

28) What would you say is the most important/significant horror movie of the past 20 years (1992-2012)? Why?

Two films come to mind. Scream's postmodern approach made it ok to make horror movies again. I know a lot of people don't like it or love it, but it is an important film, if only for the influence it's had on the genre. The other film would be The Blair Witch Project. It wasn't the first found footage, mock-documentary film (nor was it even the only one made that year!), but I think it might be the most effective one, and given the strength of the format over the past decade or so, I think that deserves a callout.

29) Favorite Dr. Phibes curse (from either film).

"Death of the first born" from The Abominable Dr. Phibes. Ironically, an quasi-unsuccessful curse, as well. But it was elaborate and horrifying, moreso than most of the others. 30) You are programming an all-night Halloween horror-thon for your favorite old movie palace. What five movies make up your schedule?

Well, at least you didn't say I could only pick one movie.

• Trick 'r Treat - Gotta kick things off with an ode to the holiday itself...
• Dead Alive
• Shaun of the Dead
• Frankenstein
• Halloween - How can we have a halloween movie marathon without it?

Are you sure I can't pick 10 movie movies? Or maybe 20? This is hard, but I'll leave it at those 5, as I could be here all night tweaking the list.

And there you have it, another great quiz. I'm already looking forward to the next one!



6WH: Week 4 - Wes Craven
The six weeks of Halloween continues with three as yet unseen Wes Craven horror films, including some of his most recent work. Craven's an interesting director. He's worked primarily in horror and he's made at least two or three seminal films in that genre, but even his "lesser" works generally have something going for them. Even in films that don't necessarily work, he always manages to strike a nerve or two, which is more than could be said for most other directors. This week, I watched three of his films:

• Shocker (trailer)
• It's the Gifts That I Hate (Robot Chicken)
• The Serpent and the Rainbow (trailer)
• The People Under the Stairs - I was a little surprised at just how batshit insane this movie ended up being. It's a really, really strange film. It begins with some poor folk, including young Fool and Ving Rhames, attempting to rob the slum lords that have been making life hard. There's a persistent rumor of buried treasure in the rich folks' house, but things are not what they appear. Once the man and woman of the house show up, things start to get really crazy, thanks in large part to gleefully manic performances by Everett McGill and Wendy Robie (both of whom were apparently in Twin Peaks as well). It turns out that they're brother and sister and they've locked their kin in the basement and... holy shit, did he just get dressed up in a gimp costume and start shooting a shotgun at everyone?
  
  Yeah, it's that kinda movie. The other character worth noting is the house itself. Filled with trap doors and secret passages, it's one of the best creepy houses out there. But aside from some well executed "Boo!" moments, it's not really much of a scary movie. Indeed, given the antics, it's actually rather funny. I can't really tell if that's intentional or not, but I had fun with it. It's certainly not a perfect film, but as I mentioned earlier, it does scratch a certain itch. **1/2
• The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror VI: Nightmare on Evergreen Terrace (sorry no vid online)
• Freddy Krueger: Registered Offender (short)
• A Nightmare on Elm Street (trailer)
• My Soul to Take - So if The People Under the Stairs was insane, this movie goes ahead and increased the Batshit quotient by at least 4 or 5. It doesn't make much in the way of sense, but it's strangely compelling and watchable nonetheless. There's something about a serial killer known as the Riverton Ripper and 7 kids born prematurely the night the Ripper was caught and disappeared (they never found the body, zomg!) Naturally, when the Riverton 7 turn 16, the Ripper comes back to kill them all. Or something. It doesn't really matter. It's just an excuse to do some slasher-esque horror, which isn't exactly groundbreaking, but which I generally enjoy. I guess you could say there's a bit of a whodunit as well, but in a movie this bizarre, it's hard to say whether or not it was all that well executed. It's not a particularly good movie, but like all of Craven's films, there's something that strikes a chord here. Sure, it's filled with dreadful teenage dialogue and whatnot, but it all comes together reasonably well. I think the film is a bit unfairly disparaged, even if it isn't particularly great. Perhaps because we know Craven is capable of more, but ultimately, I'd call this an interesting failure rather than an out-and-out failure. It's got some interesting elements and at least he's trying something strange and different, which is more than can be said about most other horror films these days. **1/2
• Wet Nightmares (short)
• Scream (trailer)
• How Scream Should Have Ended (short)
• Scream 4 - The first Scream film was a clever and self-aware slasher film, the culmination of two decades of horror films. The second film looked at slasher sequels, and like most of it's target films, it's not as good as the original. The third film tread that same familiar ground, and like most franchises that make it to a third film, that installment was pretty horrible too. So now we come to Scre4m (Screform?), where Craven teams up with the original writer, Kevin Williamson to take on the whole Remake/Reboot trend. The film opens with a familiar phone call sequence... with a twist. And it actually works really well. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie never quite lives up to the promise of those initial sequences. This isn't to say that it's bad, I actually quite enjoyed it. All the familiar faces are there, along with an all new teen cast that's just ripe for stabbing. In particular, I enjoyed Hayden Panettiere and Alison Brie, though neither is given much to do in the movie.
  
  Still, it's all good fun. Some of the dialogue gets a bit too on-the-nose at times, and the premise is getting pretty tired by now, but it was certainly a big improvement over the third film and maybe even the second film (I haven't seen either in a while, but that's the impression I get). If you're a fan of slashers and dislike the general trend of remakes/reboots, check it out. ***

And that just about covers it for this week. Not sure what I'm going to hit up next week, but perhaps some haunted houses are in order!



6 Weeks of Halloween: Week 3 - Val Lewton Horror
In 1939, RKO-Radio Pictures was the smallest of the major studios. Its first ten years had been tumultuous, but things were looking up. They had just offered the talented youngster Orson Welles a multimillion dollar contract, hoping to capitalize on his success in their radio division. Welles' first film was Citizen Kane, which opened to critical praise and has gone on to be frequently cited as the greatest film ever, but which also lost money for the studio at the time. In addition, Charles Foster Kane was obviously based on newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, who took the film none too kindly. In response to Welles' hubris, Hearst's media outlets boycotted the film, intimidated theaters into following suit, and threatened RKO exects with exposing fifteen years of suppressed Hollywood scandals. Welles' second film, The Magnificent Ambersons was even less successful.

After some leadership shakeups, one of the ways RKO sought to reverse their fortunes was to focus on B movies, and specifical B horror movies. Enter Val Lewton, who was offered "artistic freedom" if he accepted a few conditions:

1. He had to produce "horror programmers" with runtimes under 75 minutes.
2. Each film had to come in under a $150,000 budget.
3. Each film's title would be determined by marketing research.
4. Lewton's salary would be $250 a week.

Lewton readily agreed, famously noting that "They may think I'm going to do the usual chiller stuff which'll make a quick profit, be laughed at, and be forgotten, but I'm going to fool them . . . I'm going to do the kind of suspense movie I like." And he certainly seemed to do so. There were no classical monsters in Lewton's movies (the closest he came was with zombies, but those aren't the Romero zombies we're all too familiar with these days). They seemed unique and rather restrained. In today's gore-happy world of Human Centipedes and Saws, they seem downright quaint, but they're still very interesting.

• Cat People: RKO studio head Charles Koerner was apparently of the opinion that vampires, werewolves, and man-made monsters had been over-exploited and that "nobody has done much with cats." Before Lewton even went to work, the title was chosen: Cat People. Lewton was apparently terrified of cats and drew on folk tales from his native Russia to make this film. The story concerns a Serbian girl, Irena (played by Simone Simon), who is convinced that she is cursed to turn into a panther and kill the man she loves. In theory, very similar to The Wolf Man (and other "enemy within" type stories), but in practice, a very strange yet well executed film.
  
  There a number of effective sequences, including a nighttime chase sequence where the audible footsteps quickly dissapate, replaced by the quieter patter of a stalking cat. There's also a tense sequence in a pool, and another in an office (where our heroic architect brandishes a T-square, which looks very much like a cross). There are some panthers in the film, but the action is usually shown in shadow - an effective choice. I don't want to give the film too much credit, but it does prefigure a lot of what became known as the hallmarks of film noir. Many of the techniques in this film were used ad nauseam in the decade to follow. For instance, many of the scenes are framed in such a way that Irena is confined by shadows or other such shapes (for instance, at the zoo, the shadows of the zoo's cages surround her), indicating that she is trapped by the curse of her people. This was replicated numerous times in film noir, using things like venetian shades to indicate the bars of confinement. Much of this is due to cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca, who was heavily influenced by German Expressionism and who helped refine the various noir techniques throughout the 1940s. Indeed, after launching Lewton's first three films for RKO, director Jacques Tourneur moved out on his own, eventually teaming up with Masuraca again to produce one of the classic films noir, Out of the Past. Cat People is restrained, yet filled with lurid love triangles, repression, and vanity, all exacerbated by the supernatural folk tales of Serbia. The film was a big success, some saying that Cat People saved RKO, which was nearly bankrupted by Welles' shenanigans at the time. It's a tame film by today's standards, but quite interesting nonetheless. ***
• Silver Bullet (Robot Chicken)
• The Leopard Man (trailer)
• Cat People (1982) (trailer)
• The Curse of the Cat People: The most intriguing thing about this sequel? There are no cats or panthers or pumas. Well, in the opening shot, there is a black house cat that scampers across the screen, but other than that, nothing. The title had been handed down from the studio's marketing department, but Lewton, unphased, wrote a "very delicate story of a child who is on the verge of insanity because she lives in a fantasy world." The film features much of the cast of the first film, including the... ghost?... of a cat woman. Despite the lack of cats, it turns out to be a very poetic and personal film about the fears and dangers of childhood. By 1944, RKO had moved Jacques Tourneur on to other things (their thinking being that splitting Lewton and Tourneur, they would get twice the output for the same price), so Lewton hired Gunther von Fritsch, whom he fired almost immediately because he was so slow (remember, these movies were made quickly and on a tight budget). In came a young Robert Wise, who would go on to direct classics like The Haunting and The Andromeda Strain (among many others). Once again, audiences were quite taken with the poetic and humane story presented in the film. It's a very different film, practically unrelated to the original, but still quite effective in its own right. ***
• Full Moon Tonight (Robot Chicken)
• Isle of the Dead (trailer)
• The Seventh Victim (trailer)
• I Walked With a Zombie: I actually watched these films a bit out of order, as this was the second of Lewton's productions, also directed by Jacques Tourneur. A recurring theme of Lewton's work seemed to be his exasperation at the titles he was handed from the marketing department. In this case, he was quite distraught until he came up with the idea to simply adapt one of his favorite books. He described this movie as "Jane Eyre in the West Indies." With zombies. (Note, this was 60-70 years before Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and the numerous mashups that followed). Not being that familiar with Jane Eyre, I can't say as to how successful Lewton was in terms of adaptation, but the film itself is pretty damn good. There are several standout sequences, my favorite being when two women, dressed in white, navigate through a dark field towards the distant drums of a voodoo ceremony (which are, in themselves, a wonderfully atmospheric touch). Ultimately, I didn't find this as enjoyable as the two Cat People movies, but it was an interesting watch nonetheless. **1/2
• The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror III: Dial "Z" for Zombies (sorry, no clips online)
• Ghost Ship (trailer)
• I Sell the Dead (trailer)
• The Body Snatcher: Another Robert Wise film, this time based on the short story The Body Snatcher by Robert Louis Stevenson. Here Lewton was relieved by the good title and the classic source material (which also happened to be in the public domain), though exasperation came later when the initial script, which had introduced much more mayhem than Stevenson's original story called for. Lewton himself rewrote the script at the last moment, making sure that the film still appealed to stars Boris Karloff and even the ailing Bela Legosi. Well, whatever his worries, the film turned out fantastic. Wise and Lewton relished being able to create a period piece that could still be filmed cheaply. Legosi was very ill at the time, so he was not quite up to speed, but luckily, he played a rather small part as the mad scientist's half-wit assistant, so his infirmities were actually appropriate for the role. Karloff was at the top of his game though, delivering the sharp dialogue with gusto.
  
  The story concerns a doctor (played by Henry Daniell) who requires fresh cadavers in order to continue his studies and teach his students. The law being somewhat in opposition to this practice, he had to hire an insolent cab-man (Karloff) to rob the graves of the recently deceased. When there are not enough bodies to meet the doctor's needs, the cab-man resorts to murder! It's all very well done, the relationship between the doctor and the cabby gradually escalates with tension, and Karloff and Daniell clearly got under each other's skin. The film reaches its climax with Karloff delivering a wonderful monologue: "I am a small man, a humble man, and, being poor, I have had to do much that I did not want to do. But so long as the great Dr. MacFarlane jumps at my whistle, that long am I a man. And if I have not that, I have nothing." Karloff's performance is something to behold. Having spent most of his career playing various monsters, Karloff clearly relished playing a human being, even if the character was a manipulative villain. In today's parlance, he's just chewing the scenery. Playing opposite Karloff was the capable Henry Daniell, who certainly holds his own as the conflicted and guilty doctor, ashamed of his past and perhaps even his future. Once again, while perhaps a bit grisly for its time, this is tame by today's standards... but it's definitely worth watching for Karloff's performance alone. ***

Ah, it's good to be back in the flow of traditional 6WH posts. Stay tuned for some quick reviews of the Fear Itself anthology series and I think I'll end up covering three Wes Craven movies next week. Recommendations are always welcome, though I can't guarantee I'll get to it (but if it's available on Netflix streaming or Amazon Prime's free streaming, I'll probably give it a shot).



Fantastic Fest Dispatch #3
Coming down the homestretch, only a few movies/events left to go over. See also: Dispatch #1 and Dispatch #2.

• Extraterrestrial - So. Nacho Vigalondo. Best director name ever? Probably. But he's an institution at Fantastic Fest. You see him all over the place, and later in the night, he's usually drunk and very animated. Here at Kaedrin, we're big fans of his work. His 2007 film Timecrimes made my best of the year list, and is an entertaining and intricate time-travel story. He's also the director of numerous short films, including 7:35 in the Morning, which was nominated for an academy award (note to self: seek more of these out!)
  
  As a followup to Timecrimes, Vigalondo started working on an even bigger, even more intricate script. Knowing that it would take a few years to get that going, he set about doing a film in the meantime, which brings us to Extraterrestrial. Julio wakes up in Julia's apartment with quite a hangover. After some awkward pleasantries, he seeks to depart... and that's when they notice. Cell phones, land lines, television, and the internet are down. And there's something, something massive, in the sky, sitting above Madrid.
  
  It's a setup we've seen a million times before, but it doesn't play out like any other similar film. In a very real sense, this is similar to Melancholia in that the SF premise is only a catalyst for the human story. It is almost literally window-dressing. But unlike Melancholia, this movie remains awesome. It's twisted and funny. Really funny, actually. It's Nacho Vigalondo's take on the romantic comedy, and probably best of it's ilk that I've seen in a long time. It's perhaps a bit silly (it is a comedy, after all), but I think it works very well. It doesn't hit all of my personal buttons in quite the way that Timecrimes did, but in a big way, this is a more assured film, and I'm glad that Vigalondo has avoided the dreaded "sophomore slump". Highly recommended - if you get a chance, give it a watch. ***1/2
• The Day - I don't like post-apocalyptic movies. There are a few exceptions, but a filmmaker has to do a lot to make me overcome my disdain. In this film, we follow a group of 5 survivors as they attempt to make it past cannibal-infested land. They're carrying two jars of hope and faith (i.e. seeds), with which they hope to establish a semblance of civilization again. Of course, they get cornered and have to fight, and there are revelations and twists and turns and badass action sequences. In particular Ashley Bell was impressive as the female lead. Not quite Ripley, but clearly a conflicted badass. It's ultimately a fun film, but I always have nagging questions about post-apocalyptic worlds that are never quite explained. Fortunately, this film wisely chooses to completely ignore whatever caused the apocalypse, instead focusing on the struggle for survival. This mitigates the nagging question problem, though those issues still arise after the film ends. This sort of thing might hold it back from true greatness, but I'm also willing to go with it, and the film manages wring tension out of its premise. Good ending too. If you're a fan of post-apocalyptic movies, give it a try. **1/2
• 100 Greatest Kills - So I was sitting next to a guy during The Day whose name was Tron (apparently not named after the movie - he was born before it came out). Very nice fella, and he told me that I would LOVE this 100 Greatest Kills event. I didn't realize it, but apparently they take submissions for the best onscreen kills, and if you submit it, they'll play it during the event. That being said, they try to keep things obscure, though they do give the classics their due. When I first got in the theater, the lights dimmed, and they started playing Stairway to Heaven while showing all of the most famous death scenes. Great selections here, but this isn't really why you attend. They immediately started playing some truly obscure stuff (quite frankly, I don't remember any of these), including a series of kills from 80s VHS movies. Some of the kills were also quite disgusting. For example, in one of the video movies, a guy cuts open a pregnant woman, grabs the baby, screams, and throws it against the wall. This actually sounds a little more horrifying than it looks, as it's quite low budget and very poorly acted, so it comes off as being a little comical. But still disgusting. Some of the others were also pretty gross. Not helping was the little digital gizmo they had that let them play and replay death scenes, sometimes in excruciating slow motion. Examining the Scanners head explosion frame by frame was pretty darn fun. We also watched the Brad Pitt death from Meet Joe Black many times. The final clip was a 15 minute gorefest from another of those video movies from the 80s (seriously, how do people find these things?) and it was quite disturbing. But they gave out free copies of Tobe Hooper's Eaten Alive, so look for a capsule review of that during the 6WH... Overall, it's a really fun event. If you're not squeamish, it's highly recommended...
• Master Pancake Presents: Highlander - So this wasn't actually part of Fantastic Fest, but my Austin friends got me a ticket to see it and I cleared my schedule that night to see it. For the uninitiated, Master Pancake is basically like MST3K, but it's performed live. The three guys that do it are very funny, and it's actually quite a production. They start off with a simple introduction and banter, set up a drinking game (in this case, you have to drink anytime sparks appear on screen - and if you've ever seen Highlander, you know that anytime a sword strikes something, it emits sparks, so there was a lot of drinking), and then launch into the film, with a brief intermission and skit performed live onstage in the middle of the film. Lots of mocking, especially of Sean Conner's unbelievable performance as Juan Sanchez Villa-Lobos Ramirez (seriously, he plays this Egyptian Spaniard without even attempting to maks his Scottish accent). Very funny, and a great time. If you're ever in Austin, it's well worth trying to get yourself a ticket for Master Pancake! Thanks again to Kaedrin reader and friend Spencer!

And that about covers what I saw at Fantastic Fest. I saw 19 movies, went to 4 events, and of course, Master Pancake too. I won't go through the pomp and circumstance of a full awards post, but here are a few:

• Favorite Film: Extraterrestrial
• Least Favorite Film: The Squad
• Biggest Surprise: Elite Squad: The Enemy Within and Karate Robo Zaborgar
• Favorite Event: Fantastic Debates
• Wish I got to see: A Boy and His Samurai (both showings sold out) and Clown (I just didn't have the good sense to schedule). Oh, and You're Next too.

All in all, quite a successful festival. Will I go again next year? It would certainly be really nice, but I'll have to see what my schedule is like (not to mention money, vacation time, and so on). I definitely want to go to the festival again sometime, as I did have a blast... And that concludes my Fantastic Fest posting. Regular 6WH posts to resume this weekend (this week's theme: Val Lewton horror!)



Fantastic Fest Dispatch #2
As mentioned in the first dispatch, Fantastic Fest was quite a hectic but fun week for me. I don't really have much to say in terms of an introduction, but there are some thoughts on the festival itself interspersed with the movie reviews below. Also, just to mention that this technically represents the second week in my annual 6 Weeks of Halloween horror movie marathon. It doesn't take the general form of most 6WH posts, but there's plenty of horror and weirdness below, so enjoy! See also: Dispatch #1 and Dispatch #3.

• Fantastic Arcade Story In Videogames - One of the neat things about Fantastic Fest is that it's not all movies all the time. Over at the Highball, they set up something called the "Fantastic Arcade". Filled with Free-Play arcade cabinets and various PC/PS3/X360 machines, you could just wander around and play games all day if you wanted. There was a nice indie-game competition as well. And there was even a series of panels surrounding various issues in gaming. This particular panel was all about how to work story into video games, and it featured a team from Lightbox Interactive (makers of the forthcoming Starhawk) and a couple of filmmakers, including best-director-name-ever (and apparently a Fantastic Fest institution) Nacho Vigalondo. The panel started off a bit like an advertisement for Starhawk, but as with any panel featuring Nacho Vigalondo, things derailed pretty quickly and thus became much more interesting. They discussed the preponderance of cut-scenes and the inherent challenges of video games, especially how video games tend to put players "on rails" and the ways around that. Then Nacho started talking about how the Angry Birds are actually the villains in that game (terrorists?), thus kicking off a 15 minute digression into the various incongruities of Angry Birds, including the architectural style of the pigs (their structures often seem pretty impressive at first, but then you realize that they've sometimes just completely surrounded a pig in the structure, essentially burying it alive!) All in good fun. I had to leave a little early to catch my next movie, but it was definitely a lot of fun.
• Melancholia - The best part of this movie was the 15-20 minute interview with director Lars von Trier that preceded the film (he was not there in person as he apparently does not fly, but had participated in a Skype interview earlier in the day). He was very open and honest and even quite funny. The film, on the other hand, was a bit of a mess. I shouldn't say that, as von Trier certainly knows his way around the camera, and the film is, as always, immaculately composed and shot. The story, on the other hand, is quite unfulfilling.
  
  The opening of the film is actually brilliant. It's very arty and experimental and whatnot, but also compelling and visually spectacular (it also doesn't appear to fit in with the timeline of the rest of the film). From there, the movie rewinds, focusing on a wedding between Justine (Kirstin Dunst, apparently recommended to Von Trier by PT Anderson!) and Michael (Alexander Skarsgård, True Blood fame). At first, it seems like a typical rich folks wedding reception at a huge country club, but it soon becomes clear that there are deep problems in the family, and Dunst's character is suffering from chronic depression. This part of the film is somewhat insufferable. After the wedding, we find out that there's another planet (unironically called planet Melancholia) that is on a collision course (or perhaps just a close flyby) with Earth. That is quite an interesting concept, but the film only really uses it as window dressing - something that sets off the depression amongst the family. I'd be curious about the actual physics of all this. For a time it does come off as being plausible, though there is one event towards the end that I couldn't come up with a feasible explanation for... but again, this isn't really the film's main point.
  
  At one point, I thought maybe there would be a twist that the characters were actually on Melancholia, and that it was the Earth that was appearing in the sky, but that doesn't pan out. However, the film does seem to be set in an other-worldly location. They mention a nearby town, but for the most part, the entire movie is set on the grounds of a golf course/country club, and after the wedding, there really aren't any other characters that show up. It's a really bizarre setting for the film, which could have been fine, but I don't think it was really in service of anything. The final sequence of the film is also pretty great, but not enough to make up for all the stuff that happens in between. Again, very well made, but didn't really do much for me. **
• Beyond the Black Rainbow - Very experimental and trippy, like a slower version of the end of 2001, drawn out over 110 minutes. The story, inasmuch as there is a story, is about a young girl who is seemingly trapped in an institute that bills itself as a technological cure for various mental maladies (or something). Who is she? Why doesn't she talk? Why can't she leave? What's going on at this institute? What's with the girl's doctor? These questions aren't really answered, but you do get a series of dreamlike vignettes that are visually interesting, if not really spectacular. As if the film wasn't trippy enough, at one point, we get a flashback where one character does acid, after which we're treated to a 10 minute scene where he's submerged in black liquid and his face melts (Spoiler? Not really.) Things get more interesting towards the end of the film. We see that the girl (and her doctor) seems to have some sort of mental powers, and the film becomes something of an escape film. But that's probably giving it too much credit for plot. There is a narrative, but it seems more appropriate for a 15 minute short than an almost 2 hour film. I don't hate this film. It's got some merits and I'm glad I got to watch it, but it's also not a particularly good film either. **
• Knuckle - There were only two documentaries playing at Fantastic Fest, and this was one of them. It follows 12 years of a violent feud between two (or maybe three) Irish Traveler clans. Most of this is accomplished via bare-knuckle fighting (officiated by third party clans). Interestingly, the documentary seems to have come about by accident. Director Ian Palmer was hired to videotape a wedding, and from there, the various Traveler families (especially the Quinn McDonaghs) allowed him to tag along at the various fights and tape them for their own records. It seems that the feuding families often produced video tapes taunting the opposing family and sending for representatives at the next fight. After 12 years of this, Palmer compiled everything together, did some additional interviews, and made this movie. Videotape isn't exactly a high-quality medium, but in this case, it's an accurate representation of what was happening and everything was very well documented. Ultimately, the film plays out like a microcosm of all human conflict. The two main families in the film are actually blood related, but their feud goes back decades, and few are interested in ending the conflict. Listening to various family members talk about it is almost heartbreaking, not just because these two families seem to be locked in a circle of violence, but because we can so easily recognize the pattern. You can see this sort of needless conflict all throughout history and even in present day conflicts. It might be too presumptuous to apply it to something as controversial as the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, but like I said, the movie is a microcosm. It's a much smaller conflict, but it still seems hopeless, especially when Palmer cuts to young children playing in the street, pretending to fight. It is not a perfect movie, but it was one of the more interesting and thought provoking films of the festival. ***
• Fantastic Debates! - After Knuckle came the Fantastic Debates, an annual tradition wherein two folks participate in a traditional verbal debate, then box for two rounds. This year's debates featured two hobbits debating the benefits of World of Warcraft, two comedians debating whether robots were better than humans, an astrophysicist debating the "fuck Nasa" guy (I'm not generally a violent guy, but I enjoyed seeming him get an ass whooping), and finally, the main event, Alamo Drafthouse mogul and FF organizer Tim League fighting James Quinn (the undefeated bare knuckle brawler from Knuckle) over the topic "Texans are tougher than the Irish" (I particularly enjoyed the way League was able to argue his point while at the same time kissing Quinn's ass). It was all great fun, and there are numerous vids covering the event on youtube. This is the sort of event I'd love to go back in time and watch from previous years. The only drawback to the event was that an apparently great movie was scheduled at the same time, and didn't have any other showings during the festival. Dammit.
• The Corridor - Four lifelong friends go camping in a remote area and discover an impossible hallway in the woods. They've been the best of friends, but things are changing. They're getting older, balder, crazier, and so on. It hits the two main tropes pretty hard. I mean, how many movies about old friends camping do we really need to see? The early-mid-life crisis stuff is a little less trodden, but still a pretty common thing, and the film is a bit too on the nose with some of its commentary on that subject. That being said, the actual corridor piece is pretty interesting, and there are quite a few creepy sequences that result from that. It was actually well made and acted, and I did enjoy watching it, but I think I would have appreciated a little less cliche in the script. **
• Elite Squad: The Enemy Within - One of the frustrating things about film festivals in general is that you don't always get into the popular screenings. But at Fantastic Fest, this can be a blessing in disguise. I had originally planned to see the "Secret Screening" at this time, but it was sold out. I later learned that the secret screenings are generally not very interesting (I was expecting some crazy movie I never heard of, but it was apparently Paranormal Activity 3, which will be out in wide release in less than a month). So I had to "settle" for this film: a most excellent Brazilian film about police corruption. It would actually make a nice companion to City of God. That film was told from the perspective of children growing up in a violent neighborhood. This film is told from the perspective of the police.
  
  At first, I was a little worried about the political posturing of the film. For example, early in the film, the voiceover decries the political left. It's a seemingly typical sentiment among law enforcement: liberals make it hard to do their job. Later in the film, you start to see the corruption on the police side of things. And finally, the film reaches an equilibrium, not endorsing either side, but rather, emphasizing that both sides must work together in order to succeed. It's an interesting, well considered position, and films that can pull off that balancing act are few and far between. Oh, and there are also good characters and even some decent action sequences. I really enjoyed this film, one of my favorites of the festival. This is apparently the second film in a series, so I'll have to seek out the first film, because this was really fantastic. ***
• Karate Robo Zaborgar - Another film that wasn't my first choice, but which wound up being one of my favorites of the festival. It's apparently a loving remake/parody of a 70s Japanese television show about robots, karate, and, of course, sexy lady cyborgs. I don't think I can sufficiently explain the pure insanity on screen here, but it's got everything you want out of a Japanese comedy film. You've got motorcycles transforming into robots (apparently the original series was part of the inspiration for Transformers), a ludicrous love story, a group of down-on-their-luck former police officers called "The League of Smiles", and, of course, someone lights their fart as a form of propulsion. Again, difficult to describe, but I was laughing the entire time. Well worth a watch, especially for fans of Japanese robot cinema! ***
• Borderline - A French film following a beaten down family man and lawyer who stumbles on a bag of drugs, and decides to start selling it to make ends meet. Of course, the original owner of the bag eventually tracks him down, and things go downhill from there. It may not sound like the setup for a pure comedy, but it's quite funny, though it gets a bit dark later in the film. Still, a very solid movie. Not quite as uproariously funny as Zaborgar, and actually quite tame for a festival like this, but it's a fun film. **1/2
• Juan of the Dead - One of the most popular films of the festival, this Cuban zombie film is quite funny. Unfortunately, just by virtue of its title, it forces comparison to the nearly perfect Shaun of the Dead, a film that's better than this one. That being said, there's a lot to like here, and it was definitely one of the funnier films of the festival. Like most zombie films, it doesn't really have much direction, but it's actually got some well drawn characters and some decent arcs that elevate this movie above a lot of other zombie movies. I'm not typically a big fan of zombie movies, but I really enjoyed this and it's definitely worth seeking out. Also of note, director Alejandro Brugués has challenged Fantastic Fest mainstay Nacho Vigalondo to a Fantastic Debate next year (with the topic of "What the fuck is Timecrimes about?". I guess this means I'll need to go back next year! ***
• Cost of Living (short) - I didn't go to any of the film shorts programs that Fantastic Fest had, but they do show some shorts in front of movies, and this one was so good that I had to call it out. It's about two security guards who work at some sort of science institute. Basically one of those places that only exist in video games that create mosters, which of course get loose and start wreaking havoc.
  
  Anyway, Brandon Routh is absolutely hysterical here, and if you ever get a chance to watch this short, go for it (a quick search did not yield any videos, but perhaps it will be available someday). ***
• The Squad - A squad of Columbian soldiers comes upon an outpost suspected of being attacked by guerrillas. What they find is less than clear. A cryptic outpost log sheds no light, and then someone discovers a lone, traumatized survivor in a room that has been sealed off by bricks. Rumors quickly abound that she's a witch that caused the destruction of the outpost. It's actually a somewhat interesting premise. Unfortunately, the entire thing is bungled. I never got a sense for any of the characters, the layout of the outpost and surrounding environs was very poorly established, the squad does not act like any military unit I've ever seen, and everyone actions like an idiot. This is a movie that relies heavily on character interactions, but I feel like we were missing a lot. I didn't care about or like any of the characters, yet the dialogue assumes that we do. All throughout the movie, people keep talking to this one character, Ponce, as if we know who he is or care about him in any way, but of course, we don't. The entire film is framed in medium shots and closeups, and most of the camerawork is handheld and shaky. It's also got some weird depth-of-field issues. All of these things can be effective if used for a specific reason in specific situations. They can emphasize the isolation of the characters or the chaos of battle, but when they're used this often, they yield diminishing returns and only serve as a distraction. The story is almost non-existent. There's clearly some traumatic history for this squad, and the film references it numerous times, but I ultimately found that I could really care less. It wasn't scary, there's no real plot, and its atmosphere suffers because of it. There is actually quite a nice final shot in the film that I really liked, but it was too little too late. My least favorite film of the festival. *
• Let the Bullets Fly - I know a lot of critics say this, and it seems absurd, but watching 4-5 movies a day can be exhausting. By the time I got to this movie on the fifth day of the festival, I was starting to flag. It's a lighthearted action comedy starring Chow Yun Fat and featuring an intricate, Yojimbo-like plot. I have to say, it seemed like it was a ton of fun, and I did enjoy myself, but I was clearly fatigued. Maybe it was just that The Squad sucked so bad, or maybe it was because I'd just seen, like, 5 subtitled movies in a row and this one had really quick dialogue, or perhaps I had too many late nights and early wakeups. I was exhausted at this point. I watched the whole movie and managed to enjoy it, but it's something I want to revisit at some point when I'm more refreshed. I'll refrain from rating it at this point, but it did seem like a good film, so check it out.
• Fantastic Fest Awards - So I was very tired, but this sort of event re-energized me a bit, or perhaps I just got my second wind. There were lots of various awards handed out, including awards for bumpers, which takes some explaining. Most film festivals feature a short promo for the festival itself at the beginning of each screening. That short film is called a bumper. It's usually the same short film, over and over again, but Fantastic Fest is different. They select a theme (this year's was Altered States, which most people took to mean drugs), then accept submissions from local filmmakers, and we wind up seeing a different bumper before each showing. Some are funny, some are disgusting, some are just plain bizarre. The winning bumper was one of the disgusting ones which basically depicted a vasectomy. It was certainly shocking, but quite frankly, it was rather stupid and didn't demonstrate any talent on the filmmaker's part (the way most of the other ones do). Anyway, they also gave out awards for a bunch of films and short films, and it seems that You're Next was a big winner, much to the chagrin of its producer, who had to accept all the awards. At this point, I should note that the awards were basically big beer mugs, and in order to accept the award, you have to chug it... so this guy basically had to chug 5 mugs of beer within about 15 minutes. It was all pretty funny. This was a fun event, but I'm not sure it'd be something I'd want to go to every year (if I went to the festival every year). On the other hand, it was exactly what I needed at this point in the festival.
• The Fantastic Feud - So every year, they do this horror trivia challenge, pitting international filmmakers and critics against American filmmakers and critics. The whole thing takes the format of family feud, and it's quite fun. The only real drawback was that it was really short this year, like only 40 minutes long (apparently previous years were much longer and even more fun). I had a great time, but as previously mentioned, I was exhausted, so I was almost glad to be finished for the day... Still, it was one of my favorite events, and definitely something I'd do again (if I ever go again!)

Whew, I still have a bunch of other things to write about (including a review of Nacho Vigalondo's excellent Extraterrestrial), but this entry has already grown to mammoth proportions, so I'll save that for Wednesday, perhaps along with some other thoughts about the festival. After that, the 6 Weeks of Halloween horror movie marathon will resume as normal.

Update 10/5/11: Added some images to this post. Fixed some typos. Added links to other FF dispatches.



Fantastic Fest Dispatch #1
So things have been quite busy so far. Not much time to really record detailed thoughts, but since it's Sunday, I'll list out a few of the movies I've seen earlier in the week. Tons of fun stuff going on, but quite frankly, not much time to discuss. I'll probably have more time to cover movies next weekend (and since I'm traveling on Wednesday, probably no post then either)... Also, this is technically the first week of the 6 Weeks of Halloween Marathon. Not all of the below movies are horror and thus aren't necessarily Halloween movies, but they're all pretty weird and at least a few are pretty horror-focused. See also: Dispatch #2 and Dispatch #3.

• Blind - I missed the beginning of this movie by about 15 minutes, so I missed out on some of the establishing scenes. Near as I can tell, a blind former police officer becomes a witness to a crime. Naturally, this presents a bit of a problem, and the serial killer starts playing cat-and-mouse games with her. The description initially reminded me of Kaedrin fave Mute Witness, but while this film is well done and engaging, it never manages the suspense of Mute Witness. That being said, it does feature some excellent set pieces (most notably the one on the subway) and some effective relationships. Very solidly constructed thriller, but not something that will blow you away either. **1/2
• Boys on the Run - Bizarre movie about... I honestly don't know how to describe it. It's an exaggerated romantic comedy, in a way, but one with Japanese perverts, inopportune boners and sex workers and the like. Lots of embarrassment humor, a nice taxi driver homage, and one of the best slow-clap sequences I've seen in a while. I really liked the performance from the female lead's roommate - very funny. The ending was somewhat disappointing though, making me wonder why I bothered watching it. It's got its moments, and it did make me laugh, but I never really connected with it either. **
• The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) - Human Centipede 2 has all the disgusting, graphic scenes I was dreading in the first film. Not exactly a good thing, but it represents an interesting commentary on the fans of the original film. Devin Faraci has probably the best take on this I've seen so far:

  This time it’s meta. Martin is a bug of a man, round like a beetle with huge, bulging eyes. He’s Peter Lorre working the dead shift at a parking garage, where he spends his hours obsessing over the movie Human Centipede. Finally he begins to create the ultimate fan fiction - a human centipede of his own, except this one is 12 people long. ...
  
  Martin is a direct parody of the fans. He’s fat and sweaty and awkward and possibly mentally disabled. He’s also a parody of how the detractors see the fans. He’s malleable and unable to tell reality from fantasy. ...
  
  Six is attempting a level of critique that’s impressive, and the film feels like a response to every single review and editorial written about the first Centipede.

  As Devin says, it's a big "Fuck You" movie. I don't think I'd use the word "restraint" to describe the first film, but it actually was pretty cold and clinical and you really don't see that much (it's graphic, but not as much as you fear), while this sequel is dirty, grimy, and explicit. The film doesn't hold back at all, breaking every taboo it can, and then some, leaving me wondering just what Tom Six has planned for the third (and hopefully final) film in the series. In the Q&A after the movie, Six says the third one will be "really sick". Given how grotesque this movie is, I don't know if I really want to take Six up on that third film. One last thing - I'm a little disappointed. I counted, and there were only, like, 40 legs on the creature that Martin creates. While a big improvement over the first movie, that's still, like, 60 limbs short of an actual centipede. Perhaps this is what Six plans for the next film. Anyway, the film is surprisingly well directed and acted, and it does make an interesting comment on the nature of fandom and critics, but I still can't really recommend it in any fashion. You were warned. (this one kinda defies rating, but I'll say **)
• The Yellow Sea - Gritty Korean crime picture featuring more knife and hatchet fights than any movie I've ever seen. Unfortunately, some of that is obscured by shaky-cam action, a trend I wish would just go away at this point. The movie tells the story of a poor cab driver in China who goes to South Korea to find his wife. She's gone earlier to make money, but has now disappeared. In order to fund the whole venture, the cab driver must take on a job - assassinate one of the Korean crime lords. It's probably not a spoiler to say that the cab driver is betrayed at nearly every turn. There's a lot of resilience in the face of adversity going on here, and some nice touches in terms of the nuts and bolts of things. It's a little long, but very complex and never boring. ***
• Retreat - Interesting and twisty single-location film. A troubled couple travels to an isolated island for quiet time, but when a bloody stranger turns up at their doorstep, things start to get weird. The twists aren't quite mind-blowing, but they always keep things interesting. The remoteness of the cottage they're staying at certainly increases the tension a bit, as the only person within radio distance is not answering. On the other hand, there are some stupid horror movie character moments when you want to yell at the characters for doing something so stupid. Thematically, there are some interesting reversals, but ultimately it doesn't really gel. Well shot and well acted, it can be a bit of a downer, but it's worth a watch if you're into this sort of thing. **

And that covers it for now. Again, probably no entry on Wednesday. Maybe I'll get to something on Thursday, but probably more likely to see posting resume next Sunday. There are still about 3 or 4 movies I'm really looking forward to, so let's hope I can actually get into those shows!

Update: Dispatch #2 and Dispatch #3 have been posted.



Netflix's Woes, Continued
In the wake of Netflix's pricing increase, it's been estimated that they've lost somewhere around 1 million customers. On Sunday night, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings attempted to explain the move. He starts off the announcement by saying "I messed up. I owe everyone an explanation."

He then proceeded to explain how he would make up for everything... by totally screwing over customers even more.

Essentially, Netflix is splitting into two independent entities (both owned by the same parent, for now). One is the DVD by mail service, which will work the same as ever, but which will not be named Qwikster. The other is the streaming service, which will retain the Netflix name. I see no reason to do this, but whatever. Maybe it's an accounting thing. But then Hasting drops the bombshell: "Qwikster.com and Netflix.com websites will not be integrated." Um, what? All the sudden, this whole thing went from baffling to insane. The ratings you give movies on Netflix won't be reflected on Qwikster (and vice versa), if you want to change address or credit card info, you have to do so on both sites, and you presumably won't be able to tell if a movie is available on streaming when looking at the Qwikster website.

Now look, I'm not a Netflix hater. I love the service and even with the price increase, it's a great value. I remember the old days of Blockbuster and do not want to return. I even defended their price increase back in July, essentially calling all the controversy an infantile response to Netflix's reasonable reaction to unreasonable studio demands. If the studios charge 10-100 times as much for Netflix to stream movies, it's only natural that the price would increase.

But this new change is utterly ridiculous. What's more, it seems to make no sense whatsoever. I'm not an expert in business practices, but I can't find a single compelling reason to make this change at all. There isn't a single operational benefit to the switch and there's now a massive usability hurdle placed in front of the customer. I suppose there could be some sort of internal accounting or business or stock reason to make this change, but even that doesn't make sense. In July, their stock was nipping at $300 a share. Now? It's at around $130 a share. How does this benefit them? My guess is that the stock will rebound a bit, but that they'll continue to bleed subscribers. The only thing I can think of is that Netflix really does want to just sell off the DVD business and focus on streaming. Depressing the stock prices the way they have means that maybe potential investors will see it as a more attractive investment or something. I don't understand why that would be a viable option, but it's the only thing I can think of...

For the first time since subscribing to Netflix over 6 years ago, I'm looking into alternatives. I will most likely keep their streaming service, but the way they're setting up the DVD service seems to beg customers to look for alternatives. Before the split, Netflix was a unique value proposition. You had access to nearly every movie available on DVD. The streaming selection was limited but growing, and you could always fall back on DVDs if needed. Now? There's no compelling reason to use either of Netflix's services. The only thing that could save this would be if Netflix actually expanded their streaming selection significantly, something I don't see happening anytime soon. And if they keep bleeding customers the way they are, their position at the bargaining table will only get worse as time goes on.

Streaming may be the future of video content, but there's a fairly significant chicken-and-egg problem that needs to be solved first. In order to get favorable deals with the studios, the streaming service must boast a very large number of subscribers. In order to get those subscribers, a streaming service must boast a very large selection. Again, I don't see how this move helps Netflix in any way.

In the end, I'm flabbergasted. I just cannot comprehend what is going on right now. Netflix was great while it lasted. It's a shame it's going away.



Link Dump - Action in Movies Edition
Some interesting movie-related links I've run across of late:

• In the Cut, Part I: Shots in the Dark (Knight) - Jim Emerson's very long but fantastic video takedown of the convoy chase action sequence in the The Dark Knight may come off as overly harsh and gloriously nitpicky, but I don't really have any issues with the complaints he points out either. Sure, in some cases he's just not giving the benefit of the doubt, but most of his complaints have merit. I've always said that Christopher Nolan wasn't as impressive as a director as he was as a writer and, perhaps to a lesser extent, editor (of course, some of Emerson's complaints are with the cuts, so there is that). In the comments at Badass Digest, I also learned that Nolan apparently doesn't use a second-unit or any sort of pre-visualization. If this is true, I think it goes a long way in explaining most of the problems that Emerson points out. On the other hand, Emerson's article at Press Play shows what look like storyboards, so who knows. He also seems to cut Nolan a little more slack in the text, acknowledging some of the constraints that Nolan was working under, but his ultimate opinion is still pretty harsh. But I have to say that I really appreciate this video. A lot of critics say that Nolan's action is incomprehensible and hard to follow, but few take the time to explain in detail what they're talking about. All that being said, I still love The Dark Knight.
• In the Cut, Part II: A Dash of Salt - Well, if Dark Knight fans weren't incensed enough by Emerson's complaints about that movie, they might be driven insane when they see him hold up the middling thriller Salt as an example of a movie that gets action right. That being said, you really can see how much clearer and streamlined the action is in that sequence. I'm really glad that I got to see this video because watching just the part 1 video makes it seem like Emerson is just a stuffy critic making too much of too little, but in this case, he shows how even a mediocre movie (which I did enjoy) can get things right. We need more videos dissecting movies, shot-by-shot, like this.
• Hulk Explain Action Scenes! - So this is an excellent, and very long article about what makes action scenes work. I have one major complaint though, and it has nothing to do with what Film Crit Hulk is actually saying. I realize this is a very usability-nerd complaint, but for fuck's sake man, drop the ALL CAPS schtick. Look, it works in small doses and is indeed perfect for Twitter, but reading an long article in all caps is simply excruciating. I couldn't read the whole thing in one sitting and indeed haven't finished it yet, despite the fact that I really like what I'm reading. What's more is that he's not using CSS or other means to create the all caps effect, he's actually typing this in all caps (meaning that there's no easy way to convert this into normal, readable text). The grammar schtick isn't nearly as bad, but if you're going to be writing long pieces of analysis, it's really unnecessary to spend the entire article in the Hulk's voice. Anyway, this proves to be a nice complement to Emerson's videos.

Both Emerson and Film Crit Hulk are planning additional parts to their respective series, so look out for them. They are well worth while.



No.
So this story is a week old at this point, but it's so amazingly stupid that I can't seem to wrap my head around it. It seems that George Lucas is still screwing with the original trilogy, and he's made the most egregious and ridiculous change yet in the new release of the original trilogy on blu-ray. Here it is (stick with it, the change is about 30 seconds in): As Devin notes:

It’s hard to believe this because Vader crying ‘Noooo!’ was one of the most widely derided aspects of Revenge of the Sith. It’s easy to believe because Lucas is so out of touch and loves the idea of on the nose symmetry between the two trilogies.

And the story has been confirmed by multiple sources, including the NY Times.

It's a flabbergasting change, for a million reasons. Of course, there are tons of stories about it all over, and folks are already creating funny mashups and posting screenshots of canceled orders (I think that's my favorite response actually).

But really, no parody is needed. Lucas's antics have gone beyond the point of outrage or controversy (like some of the other changes Lucas has made) and into pure comedy gold. Russ Fischer notes that: "There is a troll at work here; we just don’t know yet if it is George Lucas, or some anonymous prankster." At the time, the story hadn't been confirmed yet, so Fischer was thinking of the whole thing as a hoax. However, even though it's not a hoax, I think Fischer was on to something there. I think George Lucas is trolling us. I think it's become clear that he is literally playing a practical joke on us, one that has been decades in the making. He spent several years making these amazing movies that everyone would grow to love, only to abandon the whole thing when he finished. Fifteen years later, he put his long-term practical joke in motion by tweaking the old films (Greedo shooting first being the most egregious change), then releasing three poorly made prequels. Not satisfied with the reaction to this (which, granted, made him even richer), he continued his changing of the classics (even convincing Spielberg to change E.T.!), noting that fans went bonkers over every change, no matter how small. He even went and ruined Indiana Jones while he was at it.

But none of these things were good enough, and strangely, he seemed to keep making money off of these atrocities. Every troll gets to this point, sooner or later. When Lucas realized that he could do anything, I think he actually sat down one day and wondered to himself: Everything I've done so far has been small potatoes, how can I really piss these people off? Lots of people have speculated about why Lucas has made the changes he has. Some think it's pure greed - for every change he makes, he can sell a new copy to the same old customers. But that rings hollow. The real prevailing wisdom here is that George Lucas actually believes he is making the movies better. He is an artist! And this is his vision! Or something like that. Well, maybe he really is an artist. Maybe this is his crowning achievement. It's not an achievement in film though, it's an achievement in trolling.

I know it's unrealistic to expect that these Blu-Rays won't sell. They will. But the only way to defeat trolls is to ignore them. Or perhaps applaud their trollishness... and then ignore them. Well played, Lucas. But I'm not buying your movies anymore.



Tucker & Dale vs Evil
In horror movies, taking a vacation in the woods never seems to work out so well. There are a number of variations on the theme, including the traditional slasher (exemplified by the Friday the 13th movies) and, of course, the Hillbilly Horror subgenre in which a bunch of kids find themselves in a rural area (usually in the deep south or, most notoriously, West Virginia), hunted by inbred cannibals. As it turns out, hillbilly horror cinema is a surprisingly deep subgenre, including the likes of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes, Cabin Fever, Deliverance, Wrong Turn, and dozens of others.

Tucker & Dale vs Evil is a new horror comedy that takes full advantage of that tired premise by turning it on its head. It begins with the typical establishing shots of Hillbilly Horror, following a group of college kids as they go camping in the woods of West Virginia. I don't want to give too much of it away, but the twist is that after the initial sequence, this film is told from the perspective of the hillbillies... and it doesn't quite play out like you'd expect. The clever script plays with the tropes of the genre and, quite amazingly, winds up being more plausible than most of its brethren. Even when the misunderstandings and accidents begin piling up and escalating (a process most films of this type usually stuble at), the film maintains an even keel. It's also maybe the funniest movie of the year so far. Anchored by great performances from Alan Tudyk (who you know as Wash from Firefly/Serenity), Katrina Bowden and especially Tyler Labine as Dale, it's a parody with a heart. There are tons of in-jokes and references to other films, but they're subtle and never distracting. It shows reverence for the subgenre whilst skewering it mercilessly.

Again, I don't want to ruin the movie, and quite frankly, I'd recommend avoiding the trailer, as it gives away a number of the comedic beats in the film. It is perhaps not a perfect film, but I was quite taken with it. It's currently available on Comcast's VOD (and perhaps other cable providers' VOD services), though it is a bit expensive (still cheaper than most theaters though). I believe it's slated for a limited theatrical release later in the month as well. It's well worth checking out, especially for fans of horror.

Incidentally, writer/director Eli Craig was the guest on the /Filmcast last week, which is where I heard of this film in the first place. Check out the episode (and the After Dark episode)...



Weird Movie of the Week
Last time on Weird Movie of the Week, we looked at a horror movie featuring bunny suit wearing chainsaw murderer. This time, let's examine a movie about elephants. And Nazis. According to IMDB's surprisingly informative user review, Elephant Fury has a rather interesting history:

Sensation director and actor Harry Piel made the film "Panik" in the period 1940-1943 that was banned by the Promi: the animals running loose from a zoo after a bombardment reminded in 1943 too much of the real bombardments and in Berlin indeed one day the animals from the zoo were running through the streets. The only copy of the film was later destroyed by a bombardment also, while after the war the negative was confiscated by the Russians. In 1951/2 Piel was able to reclaim the negative, shot some additional material and edited a new version under a new title.

By all accounts, it's not particularly good, but the entire thing is available on YouTube (embedded above) and the short description is tantalizing: "Wild Animals Escape Zoo to attack Nazis". Note that the animals do not escape the zoo and attack Nazis. They escape to attack Nazis. Motivation is important, even to animal actors.



Rise of the Planet of the Apes
It's not the worst movie ever made. In fact, it's pretty good. Much better than I expected. It has its problems, and I'm still not entirely convinced that it needed to exist in the first place, but now that it does, it's probably worth checking out. It does not start well, though.

The first scene in the movie is an ape-poaching sequence. It's not terrible, but it's also pretty pointless and doesn't really connect that solidly with the rest of the film. It's not until the second sequence in the film that the bad really gets horrible. I'm going to quote, from memory, some dialogue from the script. It's approximate, but I think you'll be able to see why it's so bad.

JAMES FRANCO: Cliché.

BOSS WHO SEEMS REASONABLE BUT IS REALLY EVIL: Cliché?

JAMES FRANCO: Cliché.

BOSS WHO SEEMS REASONABLE BUT IS REALLY EVIL: Cliché.

JAMES FRANCO: Cliché. Science cliché.

BOSS WHO SEEMS REASONABLE BUT IS REALLY EVIL: Cliché.

JAMES FRANCO: Cliché. Cliché!

Yeah, but from these inauspicious beginnings, the film slowly starts to reverse itself. Interestingly, and perhaps appropriately, it doesn't really right itself until Caesar (which, without getting into details, is basically James Franco's pet ape) grows up and starts to demonstrate his real intelligence. The special effects of the film are getting a lot of buzz. In particular, Andy Serkis's motion-capture performance as Caesar is even being mentioned as a potential Oscar nominee. Not all of the effects are perfect, but those folks over at Weta Digital know where their bread is buttered, and so the really important parts are done extremely well.

One of the problems with the film is that once Caesar begins to gain his independence, the human side of the story becomes less important. By the end of the film, the humans really don't have much to do. Oh sure, there are a couple human villains, but James Franco, for example, doesn't really have much to do once you get to the midpoint of the film. A lot of the human side characters are never really given much to do, even though some are played by really good actors.

The thing I like about the movie is that the film doesn't quite succumb to the traps that are set up early in the movie. For instance, without getting into specifics, the Apes and humans aren't really at war. There is one really fantastic action set piece on the Golden Gate Bridge, and there are some "villains" among the humans, but for the most part, there isn't a full scale war here. The apes aren't out for revenge and they're surprisingly restrained and reasonable.

In the end, there are some real clunkers in the dialogue, and there are some plot holes and really major, groan-inducing clichés, but the film manages to overcome them. It ends much stronger than it begins, which is actually a nice change of pace. I feel like a lot of movies start well and fall apart in the second or third act. This is a film that starts poorly, but gets better, leaving you with a good feeling at the end. It's definitely worth a watch, but maybe as a matinee or DVD. I've got some more spoilertastic comments in the extended entry, for those that have already seen it. Here be the spoilers:

• I think a lot of Hollywood movies would get at least 13% better if they'd just cut out some of the dialogue. In this movie, there's a really fantastic sequence involving James Franco's father, played by John Lithgow. The first time we see Lithgow, we hear him attempting to play Claude Debussy's Claire De Lune on the piano. It's a great piece, and Lithgow's character is clearly having trouble playing it. It's a great way to establish that Lithgow, a musician, is suffering from the effects of Alzheimer's. Then, when the movie breaks into Cliché 34 and Franco (illegally) gives Lithgow the experimental drug treatment he's been working on, we get another great sequence where Franco wakes up and hears Lithgow playing the piano... but this time, he's not having any trouble. What a wonderful way to establish that the drug worked! Then the script goes and ruins it, as Lithgow exclaims "I'm not sick anymore!" Completely unnecessary.
• So when Franco realizes that the experimental drug isn't aggressive enough and that his dad's sickness will return, he admits to his boss (who was understandably dismissive of the project due to an event at the beginning of the movie) that he gave the drug to his father and that he needs to make some tweaks to the formula. The boss is, again, reasonably dismissive of the idea. The project is dead, and so on. They talk for a while, Franco says something, the boss says no, but then Franco says something else, and the boss turns on a dime. No, that doesn't quite explain how quickly the boss changes tune here. The Grinch? Scrooge? Their transformations are downright slow compared to this guy. Even funnier, it's like Franco and the boss have reversed roles. The boss is now reckless and Franco is now conservative. Crazy.
• So Malfoy is in the movie, and he's terrible. Well, I shouldn't say that. His character is terrible and poorly written. He's also given the Charlton Heston references. I'm not sure if they were just ill-advised references or if Malfoy's performance is just really bad, but they were a bad idea. I guess the "Madhouse!" one kinda works, but the "Take Your Stinkin' Paws Off Me You Damn Dirty Ape" line is really awful.
• Not all references to the original are as ham-fisted though. In particular, I'm curious about the mission to Mars that is playing in the background of a few scenes. We see a ship launching and we hear a news clip talking about a manned mission to Mars, then we see a newspaper that says "Lost in Space". I presume this is a reference to the original Planet of the Apes - basically that Charlton Heston was on that trip to Mars and ends up in the future, etc... I haven't seen the original in a while though, so I don't remember if it exactly fits. If so, it makes for an interesting touch, but I'm not sure if this movie really fits with the continuity of the existing series, which kinda has its own prequels built in...
• The sequence that happens after the credits start is awesome and actually kinda clever. What's really fascinating is that it fits in with a book I finished recently called Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond. I have my problems with that book, but there are some really astute ideas in the book, one of which is the role germs play in conquest. Let me back up a minute. One of the things that Diamond contends is that the reason Eurasia dominated the rest of the world is because of the number of domesticated plant and animal species in Eurasia. This domestication lead to increased food production and storage, which allowed people to specialize in other things, which gave rise to cities. All of this gave rise to certain diseases as well, and when Eurasians began to expand to other continents, they brought their diseases with them. For example, North America had native peoples, but not much in the way of domesticated plants or animals, so you didn't get specialists or, more importantly diseases. When the Europeans arrived in the New World, they brought their diseases, which spread throughout North America uncontrollably. We hear a lot in America about how we mistreated the Native Americans, and we did, but the real killer was mostly unintentional. Diamond estimates that there were 20 million Native Americans and that 19 million of them were unintentionally killed by disease. The remaining 5% are all we really hear about though. This is a drastic simplification of Diamond's book, but I think you can see my point. The thing that I found interesting about the credits sequence of this movie is that it's basically doing the same thing. In this movie, the Apes aren't going to hunt down and kill all the humans, but their disease will...

And I think that just about covers it...



Fantastic Fest
A couple of weeks ago, I bit the bullet and booked my trip to Fantastic Fest, a movie festival focusing on genre film (mostly horror, fantasy, SF and action). It takes place in Austin, TX and is primarily held at a couple of big theaters there, notably the Alamo Drafthouse (I've never been to one, but from all reports, they're great). Everything I've heard about this festival is that it is amazing, especially for genre-hounds like myself (and this year's festival aligns pretty well with the beginning of my annual 6 Weeks of Halloween marathon).

They haven't announced the schedule yet (and they should totally get on that), but they have released a bunch of the movies that will be showing. I'm really psyched to see a bunch of these films. Many genre films and filmmakers don't get wide releases, so it will be really nice to be ahead of the game on some of these. Even more interesting is the fact that I haven't heard of the grand majority of the films announced so far, which hopefully means I'll be discovering some films that I wouldn't normally have even had the chance to see. Again, they haven't announced the schedule, but I figured I should take a look through the two blocks of released titles to see what I'm interested in. I suppose there's no real guarantee that I'll get to see all the films I want, but I'm definitely hoping to catch up with most of these films:

• Extraterrestrial - The premise of this one sounds mildly lame - it's another alien invasion movie, this time told from the perspective of a guy with a hangover. Or something. But it's directed by Nacho Vigalondo (best director name ever?), who made Kaedrin favorite IMDb - Timecrimes a few years ago. I love that movie, so I'm hoping this one will overcome its cliched premise.
• The Innkeepers - Basically a haunted house movie. But that subgenre seems ideally suited for writer/director Ti West, another Kaedrin favorite and director of The House of the Devil.
• Let the Bullets Fly - Apparently a very successful Chinese film starring Chow Yun Fat. It's set in the 1920s on a train and seems to be a parody of westerns, or something.
• Pastorela: A Christmas Play - A movie so obscure I can't find it on IMDB. I'm a sucker for Christmas horror though, and it seems like that's what this one is getting at: "When Chucho (Joaquín Cosio) loses the beloved role of Satan in the town’s Christmas play and tries to reclaim the part, all hell breaks loose and an epic battle between good and evil begins."
• Snowman's Land - Ah, I see what they did in the title there. Another typical premise - the hit man's one final job. Still, looks interesting...

There are, of course, lots of interesting looking films that have been announced, and I'm sure I'll see a ton of films while I'm there, but I'm really looking forward to several of the above films.



More on Spoilers
I recently wrote about the unintended consequences of spoiler culture, and I just came across this post which has been making waves around the internets. That post points to a study which concluded that readers actually like to have a story "spoiled" before they start reading.

The U.C. San Diego researchers, who compiled this chart showcasing the spoiler ratings of three genres (ironic twist stories, mysteries or literary stories), posited this about their findings: "once you know how it turns out, it’s cognitively easier - you’re more comfortable processing the information - and can focus on a deeper understanding of the story."

Jonah Lehrer apparently goes so far as to read the last 5 pages of the novels he reads, just so he has an idea where the story's headed. He clearly approves of the research's conclusions, and makes a few interesting observations, including:

Surprises are much more fun to plan than experience. The human mind is a prediction machine, which means that it registers most surprises as a cognitive failure, a mental mistake. Our first reaction is almost never “How cool! I never saw that coming!” Instead, we feel embarrassed by our gullibility, the dismay of a prediction error. While authors and screenwriters might enjoy composing those clever twists, they should know that the audience will enjoy it far less.

Interestingly, a few years ago, I posted about this conundrum from the opposite end. Author China Miéville basically thinks it's extremely difficult, maybe even impossible, to write a crime story or mystery with a good ending:

Reviews of crime novels repeatedly refer to this or that book’s slightly disappointing conclusion. This is the case even where reviewers are otherwise hugely admiring. Sometimes you can almost sense their bewilderment when, looking closely at the way threads are wrapped up and plots and sub-plots knotted, they acknowledge that nothing could be done to improve an ending, that it works, that it is ‘fair’ (a very important quality for the crime aficionado - no last-minute suspects, no evidence the reader hasn’t seen), that it is well-written, that it surprises… and yet that it disappoints.

The reason, I think, is that crime novels are impossible. Specifically, impossible to end.

There's a lot to parse out above, but I have two thoughts on the conclusions raised by the original study. First is that there may actually be something to the cognitive benefits theory of why people like this. The theory and methodology of interpretation of text is referred to as hermeneutics*. This is a useful field because language, especially figurative language, is often obscure and vague. For example, in the study of religious writings, it is often found that they are written in a certain vernacular and for a specific audience. In order to truly understand said writings, it is important to put them in their proper cultural and historical context. You can't really do that without knowing what the text says in the first place.

This is what's known as the hermenutic circle. It's kinda like the application of science to interpretation. Scientists start by identifying a problem, and they theorize the answer to that problem. In performing and observing their experiment to test the problem, they gain new insights which must then be used to revise their hypothesis. This is basically a hermeneutic circle. To apply it to the situation at hand: When reading a book, we are influenced by our overall view of the book's themes. But how are we to know the book's themes as a whole if we have not yet finished reading the parts of the book? We need to start reading the book with our own "pre-understanding", from which we hypothesize a main theme for the whole book. After we finish reading the book, we go back to each individual chapter with this main theme in mind to get a better understanding of how all the parts relate to the whole. During this process, we often end up changing our main theme. With the new information gained from this revision, we can again revise our main theme of the book, and so on, until we can see a coherent and consistent picture of the whole book. What we get out of this hermeneutic circle is not absolute and final, but it is considered to be reasonable because it has withstood the process of critical testing.

This process in itself can be fulfilling, and it's probably why folks like Jonah Lehrer don't mind spoilers - it gives them a jump start on the hermeneutic circle.

Second, the really weird thing about this study is that it sorta misses the point. As Freddie points out:

The whole point of spoilers is that they're unchosen; nobody really thinks that there's something wrong with people accessing secrets and endings about art they haven't yet consumed. What they object to is when spoilers are presented in a way that an unsuspecting person might unwittingly read them. The study suggests that people have a preference for knowing the ending, but preference involves choice. You can't deliberately act on a preference for foreknowledge of plot if you are presented the information without choosing to access it.

And that's really the point. Sometimes I don't mind knowing the twist before I start watching/reading something, but there are other times when I want to go in completely blind. Nothing says that I have to approach all movies or books (or whatever) exactly the same way, every time. And context does matter. When you see a movie without knowing anything about it, there can be something exhilarating in the discovery. That doesn't mean I have to approach all movies that way, just that the variety is somethings a good thing.

* - Yeah, I plundered that entry that I wrote for everything2 all those years ago pretty heavily. Sue me.



Old Podcast Episodes
I sometimes discover a podcast long after it's started, and if I like it enough, I'll head back through the archives to check out some older episodes. In honor of some of the gems I've found by doing so, here are a few really good episodes that are probably worth listening to:

• GFW Radio - 6/26/08 (.mp3) - The now long-defunct GFW Radio podcast, AKA The Brodeo, was a pretty great podcast, but this particular episode breaks from their normally free-flowing format to present a very well produced episode chronicling a stunt they pulled outside a Gamestop. They basically posed as a marketing research firm and pitched crazy game ideas to random passers-by. If you're into video games, you will love how well they lampoon the various conventions of video game marketing. The episode almost feels like a dry run for Robert Ashley's A Life Well Wasted podcast (Ashley was a member of GFW Radio at the time and later went on to do his own podcast). It's really hysterically funny too. I could not stop laughing around the time they started pitching the Founding Fighters video game (a Street Fighter-like game featuring moves like Alexander Hamilton's Knickerbocker Shocker and the Philadelphia Filibuster).
• /Filmcast: After Dark - Ep. 79 - An Evening with Jason Reitman - Most interviews with actors or directos feature pretty much the same canned questions and since these folks are participating in dozens of intervews a day, they pretty much have the same answers too. So when Jason Reitman logs on to the /Filmcast, things just derail almost immediately, as he becomes enamored with the live chatroom and answers all the random questions people are asking (like: What's your favorite Dinosaur? and other similarly enlightening questions). Really fun stuff, and a refreshingly non-typical interview.
• A Conversation on Blogging Ethics and Online Film Journalism - So this isn't really a regular podcast, more of a one time conversation featuring David Chen (of the /Filmcast), C. Robert Cargill (from Ain't It Cool News), Devin Faraci (from CHUD, but now at Badass Digest), and Peter Sciretta (from /Film) as they discuss various ethical issues surrounding the reviewing of movies and how studios try to "buy" good reviews, ban publications from screenings, and the like. Really interesting stuff, and well worth a listen for anyone interested in the industry.

And that's all for now...



Recent Podcastery
I like podcasts, but it's depressingly hard to find ones that I really enjoy and which are still regularly published. I tend to discover a lot of podcasts just as they're going through their death throes. This is sometimes ok, as I'm still able to make my way through their archives, but then I run out of content and have to start searching for a new podcast. I will often try out new podcasts, but I have only added a few to the rotation of late. Here's some recent stuff I've been listening to:

• The /Filmcast - I tried this podcast out a few years ago and my recollection is that I found it kinda boring. I don't know what was going on during that episode though, because I find that this is the podcast I most look forward to every week. I enjoy the format, which starts with a "what we've been watching" segment, followed by a short "movie news" segment, and then an in-depth review of a relatively new release. And when I say "in-depth", I mean very long and detailed, often in the 40-60 minute range. It's also one of the few podcasts to really get into spoilers of a new release (they are very clear about when they start the spoiler section, so no worries if you haven't seen the movie). It's something most reviews and podcasts avoid, but it's actually quite entertaining to listen to (if, that is, you've already seen the film or don't care about the film in question). Also noteworthy is that the show features 3 regular hosts, and a guest host - and the guests are usually fantastic. They're mostly other film critics, but occasionally they'll have actual actors or directors on the show as well - people like Rian Johnson (of Brick and Brothers Bloom fame) and Vincenzo Natali (of Cube and Splice fame). What's more, they don't have these guests on to just interview them - they make them participate in the general format of the show - so you get to see what Rian Johnson has been watching that week or what he thinks of various movie news, etc... It's a really unusual perspective to get on these directors, and it's stuff you rarely get in an interview. So yeah, if you like movies (and television, which they often discuss in the first segment and after dark shows), this is a must-listen podcast.
• The Jeff Rubin Jeff Rubin Show - No, that's not a typo, but don't ask me why he's repeated his name either. I don't really get it. But I do really like the show so far. This is the only relatively new show that I listen to, and so far, it's been great. You may recongnize Rubin from his work at CollegeHumor, such as the great video series, Bleep Bloop and Nerd Alert. In this podcast, he basically interviews someone in each show. So far, we've got an interview with Anamanaguchi (a band that uses old Nintendos as an instrument), a discussion of Game of Thrones with another CollegeHumor guy, Jon Gabrus, a completely awesome interview of a guy that runs pizza tours in NY, and an interview with the guy responsible for writing/directing all those porn parodies that have been coming out lately (brilliant). I have to wonder how well he can keep up the quality of his guests and the variety of topics, but so far, so good.
• Rebel FM - Video Game podcasts are weird. They often spend a ton of time talking about new or upcoming games that you can't play yet, which is kinda annoying. It's also hard to go back and find an episode where they talked about x or y game (and usually the discussions aren't that enlightening because they're just talking about the mechanics of the game). IRebel FM falls into this category a bit, but what sets it apart is their letters section, which isn't really anything special, but which can be a lot of fun. Somehow, they've become known for giving out sagely advice on relationships and other life challenges. It's just funny to see this sort of thing through the lens of a video game podcast.
• All Beers Considered - I haven't done a lot of exploring around the beer podcast realm, but I like the Aleheads website, so I tend to listen to these podcasts which generally cover various beer news stories and whatnot. It's not something I'd recommend to someone who's not a beer fanatic, but, well, I am a beer fanatic, so I like it.
• Basic Brewing Radio - This seems to be THE homebrewing podcast, and it's got a massive archive filled with great stuff (at least, I've found many episodes to be helpful in my brewing efforts). Some stuff works better than others (really, it's kinda strange to listen to a beer tasting, especially of homebrew that you'll never get to try), but there's lots of good stuff for new brewers in the archives.
• The Adventurenaut Cassettes - There's no real explaining this podcast. It's just really weird, disjointed and almost psychadelic. Good when you're in a certain mood, though.

I really only have 3 or 4 shows that I really look forward to every week, but I'm always looking for more...



Streaming and Netflix's Woes
A few years ago, when I was still contemplating the purchase of a Blu-Ray player (which ended up being the PS3), there was a lot of huffing-and-puffing about how Blu-Ray would never catch on, physical media was dead, and that streaming was the future. My thoughts on that at the time were that streaming is indeed the future, but that it would take at least 10 years before it actually happened in an ideal form. The more I see, the more I'm convinced that I actually underestimated the time it would take to get a genuinely great streaming service running.

One of the leading examples of a streaming service is Netflix's Watch Instantly service. As a long time Netflix member, I can say that it is indeed awesome, especially now that I can easily stream it to my television. However, there is one major flaw to their streaming service: the selection. Now, they have somewhere on the order of 20,000-30,000 titles available, which is certainly a huge selection... but it's about 1/5th of what they have available on physical media. For some folks, I'm sure that's enough, but for movie nerds like myself, I'm going to want to keep the physical option on my plan...

The reason Netflix's selection is limited is the same reason I don't think we'll see an ideal streaming service anytime soon. The problems are not technological. It all comes down to intellectual property. Studios and distributors own the rights, and they often don't want to allow streaming, especially for new releases. Indeed, several studios won't even allow Netflix to rent physical media for the first month of release. In order for a streaming service to actually supplant physical media, it will have to feature a comprehensive selection. Netflix does have a vested interest in making that happen (the infrastructure needed for physical media rentals via mail is massive and costly, while streaming is, at least, more streamlined from a logistical point of view), but I don't see this happening anytime soon.

Netflix has recently encountered some issues along these lines, and as a result, they've changed their pricing structure. It used to be that you could buy a plan that would allow you to rent 1, 2, 3, or 4 DVDs or BDs at a time. If you belonged to one of those plans, you also got free, unlimited streaming. Within the past year or so, they added another option for folks who only wanted streaming. And just a few weeks ago, they made streaming an altogether separate service. Instead of buying the physical media plan of your choice and getting streaming "for free", you now also need to pay for streaming. I believe their most popular plan used to be 1 disc with unlimited streaming, which was $9.99. This plan is now $16.98.

As you might expect, this has resulted in a massive online shitstorm of infantile rage and fury. Their blog post announcing the change currently has 12,000+ comments from indignant users. There are even more comments on their Facebook page (somewhere on the order of 80,000 comments there), and of course, other social media sites like Twitter were filled with indignant posts on the subject.

So why did Netflix risk the ire of their customers? They've even acknowledged that they were expecting some outrage at the change. My guess is that the bill's about to come due, and Netflix didn't really have a choice in the matter.

Indeed, a few weeks ago, Netflix had to temporarily stop streaming all of its Sony movies (which are distributed through Starz). It turns out that there's a contractual limit on the number of subscribers that Sony will allow, so now Netflix needs to renegotiate with Sony/Starz. The current cost to license Sony/Starz content for streaming is around $30 million annually. Details aren't really public (and it's probably not finalized yet), but it's estimated that the new contract will cost Netflix somewhere on the order of $200-$350 million a year. And that's just Sony/Starz. I imagine other studios will now be chomping at the bit. And of course, all these studios will continually up their rates as Netflix tries to expand their streaming selection.

So I think that all of the invective being thrown Netflix's way is mostly unwarranted (or, rather, misplaced). All that rage should really be directed at the studios who are trying to squeeze every penny out of their IP. At least Netflix seems to be doing business in an honest and open way here, and yet everyone's bitching about it. Other companies would do something sneaky. For instance, movie theaters (which also get a raw deal from studios) seem to be raising ticket prices by a quarter every few months. Any given increase is met with a bit of a meh, but consolidated over the past few years, ticket prices have risen considerably.

Ultimately, it's quite possible that Netflix will take a big hit on this in the next few years. Internet nerd-rage notwithstanding, I'm doubting that their customer base will drop, but if their cost of doing business goes up the way it seems, I can see their profits dropping considerably. But if that happens, it won't be Netflix that we should blame, it will be the studios... I don't want to completely demonize the studios here - they do create and own the content, and are entitled to be compensated for that. However, I don't think anyone believes they're being fair about this. They've been trying to slow Netflix down for years, after all. Quite frankly, Netflix has been much more customer friendly than the studios.



First Contact
As it turns out, Aliens from other planets do exist. On the other hand, whether intelligent life exists is apparently still open for debate:

It's not nearly as good as Terry Bisson's classic short story They're Made of Meat, but it shares some similarities.



The Unintended Consequences of Spoiler Culture
Chuck Klosterman's recent article over at Grantland (Bill Simmons' new site) features some interesting musings on twist endings and the spoilers that can (potentially) ruin them.

...could The Sixth Sense exist today?

Now, I don't mean "Do we still have the technology to make this picture?" because (obviously) we do. We could make it better, probably. I'm also not asking, "Would the twist to The Sixth Sense be spoiled on the Internet?" because (obviously) that would happen, too. It's simply how the media now works. I'm also not wondering if simultaneously promoting and protecting The Sixth Sense would be a marketer's nightmare, because that's undeniable and not particularly important. What I'm asking is this: Are screenwriters now affected by "spoiler culture" before they even begin the writing process? If you know a twist will be unavoidably revealed before the majority of people see the work itself, and if you concede that selling and marketing a film with a major secret will be more complicated for everyone involved … would you even try? Would you essentially stop yourself from trying to write a movie that's structured like The Sixth Sense?

It's an interesting premise, but even Klosterman admits that it's impossible to know for sure. He gives a few examples: the aforementioned The Sixth Sense, the semi-recently concluded TV show Lost, and the new TV show The Killing. I think part of the problem with the article, though, is that it lacks some of the context of what makes these particular twists work.

Take The Sixth Sense. Writer and director M. Night Shyamalan, as of right now, is almost comically known for his reliance on twists, but it's important to remember that back in 1999, Shyamalan was an unknown. The movie was basically a Bruce Willis vehicle, and even then, it was dumped into theaters in August, the month Hollywood releases movies to die. So what does all that mean? Well, there wasn't much buzz about the movie beforehand - few people were following the making of the movie, thus they didn't have to worry much about spoilers on the internet (and while it's probably worse today, there were still plenty of movie rumor sites active back in the day). The only thing the filmmakers needed to do was to ensure that the marketing didn't give away the twist¹... and luckily, the film had other readily marketable elements.

Shyamalan's problems came later and are mostly his own fault. After the twist ending of Unbreakable, he had pretty much pigeon-holed himself as a twist ending writer. Twists rely on an audience that isn't expecting a twist. This works in a movie like The Sixth Sense because there were lots of other things going on. The reason the twist works so well is that the film wasn't asking you to explain anything throughout the film. The ending provided an answer to a question we didn't realize needed asking. And it did so in a way that didn't feel cheap or contrived. It just fit. But it probably wouldn't work so well if you were looking for it all throughout the film.

This is where Klosterman's point comes in. Once you're known for writing twists, it becomes much more difficult to pull them off. I readily agree that Shyamalan and Damon Lindelof (of Lost) will have trouble writing a new movie/show that is heavily reliant on twists... but only because both of those writers have abused the twist in their previous work. The same goes for most TV series, especially police procedurals, all of which tend to fall into certain established patterns of red herrings, etc... A while ago, in reference to Hitchcock's earliest works, I made a similar observation:

...the "twist" at the end of the story wasn't exactly earth-shattering. These days, we're so zonked out on Lost and 24 that our minds immediately and cynically formulate all the ways the filmmakers are trying to trick us. Were audiences that cynical 80 years ago? Or did the ending truly surprise them?

In this respect, Klosterman is certainly correct: if audiences are looking for your twist, you're going to have a really rough time. So writers known for their twists - even if it's just one big twist - will have to contend with that.

The problem here is that this doesn't necessarily mean that Hollywood is skewing away from twists... just that writers like Shyamalan and Lindelof are. Nothing's stopping anyone else from writing a twist ending, and there's no real shortage of examples, even in the past couple years (I have a whole category devoted to plot twists in the yearly Kaedrin Movie Awards). They just happen to come from movies where we're not necessarily looking for the twist².

Klosterman also points out that hiding the twist can also lead to disappointment. His chief example:

Take the 2008 sci-fi film Cloverfield: The marketing campaign was flawless. Without revealing any aspect of the story, the trailers for Cloverfield made it clear that something cataclysmic was going to happen in New York, and that this massive event was some unthinkable secret. Considering how the media now operates, the makers of Cloverfield did a remarkable job of keeping its details clandestine. Yet this secrecy probably hurt the film's ultimate reception — when people realized it was "only" an updated version of a traditional monster movie, they were often disappointed.

Well, that's certainly one way to look at it. Another way to look at it was that audiences were disappointed because the movie kinda sucked³. Also, that's a "twist" manufactured by marketing, not one related to storytelling or anything. In a very real sense, Super 8 has similar issues, though I think that ended up being a much better movie.

Ultimately, I think the "twist" is here to stay. Oh sure, it may go away for a while as the Shyamalans and Lindelofs of the world move on to more straightforward narratives. But the twist will make a comeback soon enough, just when we least expect it. Which is, of course, the whole point of a twist.

¹ - This is not a trivial challenge. Terminator 2: Judgment Day provides an interesting example. Watch that film with a blank slate, and you'll notice that it's written as if the audience doesn't know that Schwartzenegger's terminator is a "good guy" and that Robert Patrick's T-1000 is the villain. In the absence of marketing, it would be reasonable for someone not familiar with the movie to assume that it's following the same pattern as the previous installment. When I was little, I was a huge Terminator fan, so I distinctly remember a lot of the marketing surrounding T2... and they gave all of it away. Of course, the reveal happens relatively early in the film, but I still remember finding it a bit weird that they spent so much time trying to obscure what everyone already knew.

² - The first example that came to mind was kinda odd because it's not very prominent in it's film (and I doubt anyone would call it out in a discussion of twists), but I always liked it: the last scene in Batman Begins (in the board room, not the action sequence on the train) is wonderful, and I think it did more to cement how much I liked that movie than anything else. It fits very well with the story, and there are even hints about it earlier in the movie. But it's an action film and the twist was far away from most of the central plot points, so I never saw it coming.

³ - I guess that's a bit unfair. The film has its merits, but most people who saw it complained about the shaky cam much more than the fact that it was a monster movie. Seriously, even I had problems with the camerawork in that movie making me sick, and I'm normally fine with that sort of thing. The premise is actually the best part about the movie - a monster movie told from the perspective of normal folks fleeing the attack. No spunky scientist teaming up with a hardened military veteran to take down the monster, just normal folks trying to survive. Unfortunately, the execution of this was... lacking.



Tasting Notes - Part 4
Another edition of Tasting Notes, a series of quick hits on a variety of topics that don't really warrant a full post. So here's what I've been watching/playing/reading/drinking lately:

Television

• Game of Thrones - The season finale aired last week, and I have to say, I'm impressed. My usual approach to stuff like this is to let it run for a couple of seasons to make sure it's both good and that it's actually heading somewhere. At this point, the book series isn't even finished, but friends who've read it think it's great and they say the books get better, so I gave the series a shot - and I'm really glad I did. It's a fantastic series, much more along the lines of swords-and-sandals (a la Spartacus or Gladiator) than outright fantasy (a la Lord of the Rings). People talk about magic and dragons and whatnot, but most of that seems to be in the distant past (though there are hints of a return to that sort of thing throughout the series and especially in the last minutes of the season). Most of the season consists of dialogue, politics, Machiavellian scheming, and action. Oh, and sex. And incest. Yeah, it's a fun show. The last episode of the season doesn't do much to resolve the various plotlines, and hints at an even more epic scale. Interestingly, though, I don't find this sort of open-endedness that frustrating. Unlike a show like Lost, the open threads don't seem like red-herrings or even mysteries at all. It's just good, old fashioned storytelling. The worst thing about it is that I'm all caught up and will have to wait for the next season! Prediction: Geoffrey will die horribly, and I will love it. But not too quickly. He's such a fantastic, sniveling little bastard. I want to keep hating him for a while before someone takes him down.
• Netflix Watch Instantly Pick of the Week: Doctor Who - Most of the semi-recently rebooted series is available on watch instantly, and I've only just begun to pick my way through the series again. I vaguely remember watching a few of Christopher Eccleston's Ninth Doctor episodes, but I never finished that first season. I'm not very far in right now - just saw the first appearance of the Daleks, which should be interesting.

Movies

• 13 Assassins - Takashi Miike tends to be a hit-or-miss filmmaker for me. Fortunately for him, he is ridiculously prolific. His most recent effort is a pretty straightforward Samurai tale about a suicide mission to assassinate a cruel and ruthless evil lord. Seven Samurai, it is not, but it is still quite engaging and entertaining to watch. It starts a bit slow, but it finishes with an amazing 45 minute setpiece as our 13 heroes spring their trap on 200 enemies. Along the way, we get some insight into Japanese culture as the days of the Samurai and Shogunate faded, though I don't think I'd call this a rigorously accurate film or anything. Still, there's more going on here than just bloody action, of which there is a lot. An excellent film, among the top films I've seen so far this year.
• HBO has a pretty great lineup right now. In the past couple weeks, I've revisited Inception, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and How to Train Your Dragon. All of these films have improved upon rewatching them, a subject I've always found interesting. Scott Pilgrim, in particular, has improved it's standing in my mind. I still think it's got some problems in the final act, but I also think it's a dreadfully underappreciated film.
• Netflix Watch Instantly Pick of the Week: Transcendent Man - I mentioned this a couple weeks ago, but it's an interesting profile of Ray Kurtzweil, a futurist and singularity proponent. I don't really buy into his schtick, but he's an interesting guy and the documentary is worth a watch for that.

Video Games

• I'm still playing Mass Effect 2, but I have not progressed all that far in the game. I've found this is common with RPGs lately - it takes a long time to get anything accomplished in an RPG, so I sometimes find it hard to get started. Still, I have liked what I've seen of this game so far. It's far from perfect, but it's got some interesting elements.
• Since I had to hook up my Wii to get Netflix working during the great PSN outage of '11, I actually did start playing Goldeneye again. I even got a Wii classic controller, and that made the game approximately 10 times more fun (but I have to say, plugging the Wiimote into the classic controller to get it to work? That's just stupidly obtuse, though I guess it keeps the cost down). Since I could play it in short 30 minute chunks, I actually did manage to finish this one off in pretty short order. It's a pretty simple FPS game, which I always enjoy, but there's nothing particularly special about it, except for some muted nostalgia from the original.

Music

• The Black Keys - Brothers - This is a pretty great album. Lots of crunchy blues guitars and catchy rhythms. I'm greatly enjoying it.
• Deerhoof - Deerhoof vs. Evil - Another hipster rock album, but I rather like it, especially the song Secret Mobilization. Good stuff.

Books

• I've been cranking my way through Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga novels, of which there are many (and I'm actually quite glad, as they're all great fun). I've covered the first few novels in SF Book Reviews, and will probably have finished enough other books to do a Bujold-only edition in the near future. I'm currently reading Ethan of Athos, which seems to me to be a kinda spinoff/standalone novel, but an interesting one nonetheless (and we get to catch up with a character from one of the other books).
• I also started Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond, but have found myself quickly bogging down (it doesn't help that I have, like, 10 Bujold novels sitting around, begging me to read them) almost from the start. It's not bad, per say, but there's something about the style and scope of the book that bothers me. There are some interesting ideas, and Diamond admits that his methods are, by necessity, not that rigorous, but it's still seems extremely speculative to me. I would normally be fine with that sorta approach, but I'm finding something about this grating and I haven't figured it out just yet...
• If you count the aforementioned Guns, Germs, and Steel, I'm down to just 4 unread books from my last Book Queue, which is pretty good! And I've only really added the Bujold books and Fuzzy Nation since then. I'm actually at a point where I should start seeking out new stuff. Of course, it probably won't take long to fill the queue back up, but still. Progress!

The Finer Things...

• I've managed to have some pretty exceptional beers of late. First up is Ola Dubh Special Reserve 40, an imperial porter aged in 40 year old Highland Park casks. It's an amazing beer, though also outrageously priced. Still, if you can get your hands on some and don't mind paying the premium, it's great.
• Another exceptional beer, the legendary Pliny the Elder (currently ranked #3 on Beer Advocates Best Beers on Planet Earth list). It's a fantastic double IPA. Not sure if it's really #3 beer in the world fantastic, but fantastic nonetheless.
• One more great beer, and a total surprise, was Sierra Nevada Boot Camp ExPortation. Basically, Sierra Nevada has this event every year where fans get to go to "Beer Camp" and collaborate on new beers with Sierra Nevada brewers and whatnot. My understanding is that the batches are extremely limited. Indeed, I never expected to see these, but apparently there were a few on tap at a local bar, sorta leftover from Philly Beer Week. The beer is basically a porter with Brettanomyces added and aged in Pinot Noir barrels. This is all beer-nerd-talk for a sour (in a good way) beer. I'm not normally big into the style or Brett, but I'll be damned if this isn't a fantastic beer. I loved it and unfortunately, I'll probably never see it again. If you see it, try it. At the very least, it will be an interesting experience!

And that's all for now.



The Horror Class of 1981
So a bunch of horror movie websites are collaborating on an examination of horror films from 1981. Six sites, 5 films each, 30 films total. When I found out about this from Brian Collins' post on BAD (Collins is the man behind Horror Movie a Day), I quickly put together a top 5 of my own. I'm clearly outclassed here though - all of my films, even the obscure ones and honorable mentions, are featured among the 30 featured films.

In any case, 1981 was a surprisingly good year for horror films. Folks who follow my 6 Weeks of Halloween posts know that I'm a big fan of slasher films, and in 1981, slashers were at the height of their popularity. You apparently couldn't go a week without a new slasher film being released. Most were horrible, I'm sure, but the year wasn't limited to slashers either. There were also a couple of the finest werewolf movies ever made released in 1981. There were psychics and ghosts and demons and even killer piranhas. A banner year for horror, which is surprising because the 80s don't exactly have the best filmic reputation for horror (especially having just come after the excellent 70s horror).

So without further ado, my top 5 1981 horror films (in alphabetical order):

• An American Werewolf in London: John Landis' werewolf opus holds up pretty well, even to this day. There's something about the setting and the way humor is injected into the film that really balances well. Plus, it's got the best transformation sequence in all of werewolf cinema (the only real contender is 1981's own The Howling). I could have sworn I've written about this on the blog before, but apparently not... It's a classic horror touchstone.
• The Evil Dead: I have to admit to being more taken with the sequels to this film - how often do you hear that! - but that's not to diminish the effectiveness of the film that started it all. Unlike its sequels, this film plays the premise straight and mostly does not waver from it's earnest depiction of an evil presence in a small cabin in the woods. It's ultra-low budget and derivative plot don't really serve it well, but Raimi manages to evoke a lot of tension and creepiness out of the proceedings, not to mention some of its more controversial elements. Again, not one of my favorite films ever, but it's definitely an important milestone in horror cinema and worth watching for that fact alone.
• My Bloody Valentine: Of all the imitators that sprang up after the success of John Carpenter's classic slasher Halloween, this one is the most important. I don't know about the business side of the film (though I do know of the infamous neutering of the film's gore at the hands of the MPAA), but I'm a little baffled that it never spawned any sequels. More details in an old 6WH writeup. Among the throngs of slasher films, this is one of my favorites.
• The Prowler: Another slasher, and a somewhat more obscure one at that (if I was going to pick a film not part of the featured 30 films, this would have been the one). I actually don't have that much to say about it - it's pretty standard slasher fare, but it's way above average in its execution. A solid backstory and special effects from Tom Savini are what really elevate this one above the other imitators.
• Scanners: David Cronenberg's tale of dueling psychics is quite entertaining and very well crafted. Perhaps most famous for it's exploding head sequence, it's got a lot more going for it. However, I did revisit this film somewhat recently, and I have to say that it wasn't quite as tightly plotted as I had remembered... though it still holds up reasonably well, and Cronenberg's script touches on a bunch of other genres that we don't normally see within horror - like espionage and computer networking stuff (pyschic hacking!). It's a surprisingly effective and memorable film.

And some honorable mentions include Ghost Story, Halloween II, Friday the 13th Part 2, The Burning, and the James Cameron directed Piranha Part Two: The Spawning (ok, so he was fired from the movie, but you can see some of his touches here). I suppose I should also mention Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror - the tremendous oddity of which I covered on the blog a while back.

And for reference, here are the links to the aforementioned sites' (much more comprehensive) writeups:

• Badass Digest/Horror Movie A Day
• Bloody Disgusting
• Dread Central
• FEARnet
• Shock Till You Drop
• Arrow In The Head

So there you have it - more than you ever wanted to know about the horror movies of 1981.



Two (Bad) Movie Ideas
At lunch with some coworkers today, the inevitable topic of Palau came up. You see, we all work for a retail website and most of us live in Pennsylvania. Anyone in PA who has attempted to order online will no doubt recognize the pet peeve when filling out the Shipping Address: You enter your info, tab to the State field and press "p", expecting to see Pennsylvania come up... but instead, we get Palau.

This brought to mind a video I recently saw on the interwebs. It's from Jellyfish Lake in Palau. It's a surreal video, and quite dissonant if you're used to typical jellyfish, but these have apparently evolved differently: "Twelve thousand years ago these jellyfish became trapped in a natural basin on the island when the ocean receded. With no predators amongst them for thousands of years, they evolved into a new species that lost most of their stinging ability as they no longer had to protect themselves."

So my first movie idea was a killer jellyfish movie, filmed at Jellyfish Lake in Palau. Andy why not, they've done it for every other type of creature, even seemingly ambivalent ones. The video linked above is almost scary all by itself. You just want to scream, Look out, Jellyfish! Oh God, they've surrounded you! Run! Go! Get to the choppah! All we'd really need is a decent physical actor/actress, a good makeup guy (for the gore), and a camera that can operate underwater. Just imagine all the cool shots that could be in this movie. Indeed, the typically boring horror movie POV shot could be quite effective here - jellyfish have an interesting, irregular pattern of movement, which could make for a really good staling sequence. The great thing about this is that it would not involve any CGI - all practical effects, and in the case of the Jellyfish swarm, I apparently won't even need to do anything special. This could be a great (bad) movie.

Of course, the topic then shifted into Sci-Fi (sorry, SyFy) original movies like Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus and Mega Python vs. Gatoroid. In speculating on the origins of Gatoroid, I stumbled upon my second movie idea. You see, I figure that our story starts with an alligator that has taken up residence in the sewer system beneath a popular gym. Like all gyms, there are lots of steroid abusing muscle-men in residence. But! One day, the police make a drug raid, and in order to avoid getting arrested, our juicing heroes flush all their illegal drugs down the drain... right to our hapless alligator, who unwittingly ingests said drug/sewage cocktail, thus ceasing to be an alligator and turning into Gatoroid!

Now, assuming that's not how it actually happens in Mega Python vs. Gatoroid, I think we're on to something here, but to avoid copyright woes, we may have to switch our monster from an Alligator to a Crocodile, thus making him Crocoroid.

Now all I need is a few million dollars.

Update: A coworker comments: "Why not make Crocoroid's achilles' heel be jellyfish? Then you only have to make one movie." I've made him an executive producer.



Professor Ed Avery's Cortizone-Fueled, Bigger-Than-Life, Super Big Gulp-Sized Summer Movie Quiz
Dennis Cozzalio of the Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule blog has posted another of his famous movie quizes, and as always, I'm excited to provide my answers. Previous installments answering questions from Professor Hubert Farnsworth, David Huxley, Professor Fate, Professor Russell Johnson, Dr. Smith, Professor Peabody, and Professor Severus Snape are also available... But now, here are my answers to

1) Depending on your mood, your favorite or least-loved movie cliché

I seem to have read this question differently than everyone else. I thought it meant we had to give a cliché that, depending on our mood, we liked or didn't like. Others seem to have taken it as meaning your mood at the time of answering the quiz, pick a favorite or least-loved cliché (which is certainly a lot easier than the first one). Well, my cliché kinda/sorta falls into my original reading: I hate/love fakeout dream sequences. Most often seen in horror films, they can be very effective... but they're also overused, often even within the same movie. Some abusers of this include Event Horizon and The Descent (and yet, I really enjoy The Descent). The other thing that often bothers me about movie dreams is that they're so weird. I mean, that's sorta the appeal of dreams in the first place, but dreams in movies often just play out as special effects extravaganzas. And like most special effects, they need to be used to enhance the story. The trick is that the dream sequence needs to have some sort of purpose beyond the ability to mortally threaten the protagonist without actually mortally threatening them, or some other silly shock... Unless it's a Nightmare on Elm Street movie, in which case, all bets are off. Or, I suppose, the dream sequence in A Serious Man. So yeah, dream sequences. Sometimes I love them, sometimes I hate them.

2) Regardless of whether or not you eventually caught up with it, which film classic have you lied about seeing in the past?

I'm honestly having trouble coming up with one, which bothers me because I'm sure it's something I've done before...

3) Roland Young or Edward Everett Horton?

Who? If there was ever a time for me to lie about having seen films, it would be these quizes!

4) Second favorite Frank Tashlin movie

I can't say as though I've seen any of his movies, though I'm sure I'm quite familiar with his work on Looney Tunes (he seems to be a big Porky Pig director)...

5) Clockwork Orange-- yes or no?

Yes, but probably only because Kubrick earned his bullshit with other efforts. It's a good movie, though it is quite unpleasant to watch.

6) Best/favorite use of gender dysphoria in a horror film (Ariel Schudson)

What an amazingly strange question! There really can't be that many qualifying films here, but I'll go with Sleepaway Camp and it's shocker ending. (One of the other commenters answers Psycho, but I'm not sure that really counts as dysphoria).

7) Melanie Laurent or Blake Lively?

I'm not terribly familiar with her filmography, but I'm going with Melanie Laurent, based solely on her performance in Inglourious Basterds. Blake Lively is a fine young actress, but it's hard to compete with a film like that...

8) Best movie of 2011 (so far...)

According to my records, I've seen 15 movies thus far this year, and my favorite three are Rubber, Hanna, and I Saw the Devil (if I have to pick one, it would be Rubber) 9) Favorite screen performer with a noticeable facial deformity (Peg Aloi)

Do scars count as a deformity? If so, the first that come to mind are Harrison Ford's scar on his chin and Tina Fey's left cheek scar. I don't think it matters in either case though.

10) Lars von Trier: shithead or misunderstood comic savant? (Dean Treadway)

Why isn't pompous ass an option? Or all of the above?

11) Timothy Carey or Henry Silva?

I'm not overly familiar with either of them, but I'll go with Carey for his work with Kubrick on The Killing and Paths of Glory. Also, he was apparently on Airwolf.

12) Low-profile writer who deserves more attention from critics and /or audiences

This is an extremely difficult question. Writers are rather low on the totem pole in Hollywood, so it's difficult for most screenwriters to gain any lasting momentum after their initial break. And usually, critics are pretty receptive to those first big success films. Two people came to mind for this: Christopher McQuarrie (of The Usual Suspects fame) and Andrew Kevin Walker (of Se7en fame). Both have relatively small filmographies, but only because much of their work goes uncredited in films.

13) Movie most recently viewed theatrically, and on DVD, Blu-ray or streaming

Theatrically, it was X-Men: First Class, and entertaining and fun superhero movie that actually seems pretty forgetable. On DVD, it was Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, an unpleasant but very well crafted Peckinpah wester set in modern times. On Blu-ray, it was The Tourist (and hey, it's got a script by Christopher McQuarrie), which I enjoyed a lot more than I was expecting (though I can see why critics were baffled by it). On streaming, it was Transcendent Man, a documentary about Singularity proponent Ray Kurzweil (very interesting and well worth a watch).

14) Favorite film noir villain

The first that came to mind was Orson Welles's Harry Lime, from The Third Man. Menace with a grin. 15) Best thing about streaming movies?

The immediacy of deciding what to watch and then being able to watch it moments later. The biggest problem, of course, is that the selection isn't particularly great just yet. But someday hopefully soon, it will be...

16) Fay Spain or France Nuyen? (Peter Nellhaus)

Once again, I'm pretty unfamiliar with both of these, though France Nuyen was in one of those Planet of the Apes sequels!

17) Favorite Kirk Douglas movie that isn't called Spartacus (Peter Nellhaus)

I hate to go with the obvious answer, but clearly Paths of Glory is the winner here.

18) Favorite movie about cars

A difficult question because while the movies that keep coming to mind have memorable cars or car chases in them, they aren't really about cars. Some that I eventually thought of: Mad Max/The Road Warrior and Death Proof. And there are, of course, tons of popular choices that I've never seen...

19) Audrey Totter or Marie Windsor?

I got nothing, though Marie Windsor seems to have been in a couple movies that I've actually seen, so I guess she wins by default.

20) Existing Stephen King movie adaptation that could use an remake/reboot/overhaul

That's a tough one, if only because of just how many Stephen King adaptations there are. I'm not actually a huge fan of King, but I did really enjoy The Stand... and that TV mini-series was kinda lame (especially once you got past the first episode). I think IT, Salem's Lot, and Christine could probably use some updating, though each of those movies/mini-series has its pluses (though the recent Salem's Lot kinda sucked).

21) Low-profile director who deserves more attention from critics and/or audiences

Does Johnny To count as low-profile? I mean, he's probably the most exciting action director working in Hong Kong today, but he still seems to be overshadowed by the likes of Tsui Hark, Ringo Lam, and John Woo. If he doesn't work, I also thought of Ti West (The House of the Devil) and Nacho Vigalondo (Timecrimes), both of whom are young, but who have shown a lot of promise.

22) What actor that you previously enjoyed has become distracting or a self-parody? (Adam Ross)

I have to admit that I find Robert De Niro distracting in most movies these days. It doesn't help that the movies he chooses seem to be pretty bad these days (though I suppose I do enjoy a few of them).

23) Best place in the world to see a movie

I wish I had a better answer to this, but I can't really think of anything. There are a number of components here, but for me it would be a combination of technical matters (i.e. nice seats, unobstructed view, good video and audio quality, etc...) and a good crowd to watch movies with (i.e. a crowd of film lovers who won't interrupt during the movie, etc...) If there are theaters that consistently display these attributes, then I'd be all for them. There's not much around here that qualifies though. Perhaps, someday, an Alamo Drafthouse will show up!

24) Charles McGraw or Sterling Hayden?

No contest: Sterling Hayden. The Godfather, The Killing, The Asphalt Jungle, Dr Strangelove, and many more make him hard to beat here.

25) Second favorite Yasujiro Ozu film

I have, sadly, not seen any Ozu films. Perhaps I should pretend to have seen some and say Floating Weeds. Or something.

26) Most memorable horror movie father figure

The obvious answer is Jack Torrance, played by Jack Nicholson in The Shining, but since there's already been too much Kubrick talk in this quiz, I'll go for a less obvious answer: Bill Paxton's character from Frailty. 27) Name a non-action-oriented movie that would be fun to see in Sensurround

Not being particularly familiar with Sensurround, it seems like a surround-sound type of audio system which would benefit a lot of horror movies, though no specific movies are coming to mind.

28) Chris Evans or Ryan Reynolds?

I'll go with Chris Evans here, as I think he's taken some more chances, though I think both of the actors are pretty decent.

29) Favorite relatively unknown supporting player, from either or both the classic and the modern era

An interesting subject. There are a lot of "character actors" or "that guys" (or "that gals") out there - Filmspotting even did a top 5 on this subject just a few weeks ago, and it's hard to beat that list. However, the one that came to mind (that isn't on Filmspotting's list) was William Fichtner. A quintessential "that guy" in my opinion.

30) Real-life movie location you most recently visited or saw

30th Street Station in Philadelphia, most recently seen in Blow Out.

31) Second favorite Budd Boetticher movie

Another mulligan needed here, as I don't think I've ever actually seen any of his movies...

32) Mara Corday or Julie Adams?

Julie Adams, because her name sounds familiar, not because I know what I'm talking about.

33) Favorite Universal-International western

Yet another mulligan on this one. Not a genre I'm particularly well versed in...

34) What's the biggest "gimmick" that's drawn you out to see a movie? (Sal Gomez)

I suppose 3D would qualify, though that ship has pretty much sailed. I now try to watch the 2D version if at all possible.

35) Favorite actress of the silent era

This would imply that I know enough of the silent era to answer, which I don't.

36) Best Eugene Pallette performance (Larry Aydlette)

I suppose that would be as Friar Tuck in The Adventures of Robin Hood, though once again, I have to note that I'm not terribly familiar with the man's filmography.

37) Best/worst remake of the 21st century so far? (Dan Aloi)

Let's see, for the best remakes, I'll say Ocean's Eleven and The Departed are worthy remakes (I'd include True Grit, but I haven't seen the original). The worst remakes category is a little harder, as I generally try to avoid bad movies! Nevertheless, I've seen some of the Platinum Dunes horror movie remakes, and most of them are pretty terrible.

38) What could multiplex owners do right now to improve the theatrical viewing experience for moviegoers? What could moviegoers do?

Ensure their equipment is functioning properly, and police the theaters to throw out unruly/obnoxious people. Moviegoers can stop being so unruly/obnoxious.

And that just about covers it.



Weird Movie of the Week
Last time on Weird Movie of the Week, we looked at a Hitchcockian tale of mustache disappearance. This time, we've got a bloody, gory and supremely weird movie trailer:


Wow, I'm not quite sure what to make of that. Of course, creepy bunny suits have a surprisingly deep cinematic history, but this one goes a few steps further than normal. Devin Faraci has the lowdown on the film:

It looks kind of hackneyed and silly but also nicely shot - at least much more nicely shot than a movie featuring a bunny suit wearing chainsaw murderer should be. I did some research and at first got excited that this film was about a truly bizarre urban legend from Fairfax County, Virginia that has also spread to Washington, DC. The legend is about a maniac in a bunny suit who attacks people with an axe at a railway overpass. Supposedly it’s based on fact.

Wow. Considering that the film was made in 2009 and was apparently never released, I'm betting we won't even be able to watch this if we wanted. But according to the film's offical Myspace page (Myspace? Yikes.) there's a sequel in the works:

The little germ of a idea has sprouted into a full on 20 page treatment.... a full script is not that far behind. There seems to be a wealth of ideas as to how to continue the story with the characters of Bunnyman. What's really positive about this, is after watching the film, everyone wants to see more. The character has sparked interest, and people want to know what happens next.

Wow.



Browsing Netflix
Taking my cue from Ben, I'm browsing Netflix to see what it's recommending for me. Of course, I can't actually watch this stuff on my nice big-screen TV because PSN is down due to a super-fun security breach and for some reason they won't let me watch Netflix movies without logging in. Thanks, Sony. Anyway, first up, their "Top Picks for Mark":

• Before Sunset - A weird suggestion, considering I've never seen Before Sunrise, but I do believe I have that first film in my queue somewhere, so it's not the worst possible suggestion.
• Boyz n the Hood - I have no idea why they're recommending this for me, but it's a movie I'd like to revisit at some point, so not a terrible choice.
• The Passion of Joan of Arc - My queue is full of Criterion releases and a little while ago, I also threw a ton of silent films in my queue (as that's an era of film I'm not terribly familiar with), so this isn't really a surprise.
• The Man Who Never Was - The first really interesting choice from the list - I've never actually heard of this one, but its description is: "Based on a true espionage story, this World War II drama follows Lt. Commander Montagu (Clifton Webb) in an operation to fool the Nazis into believing that British forces plan to land in Greece." Added to queue!
• The Crazies - The recent remake starring Tim Olyphantastic. I've actually heard good things about this, and I'm always up for some horror, so this is actually a decent recommendation.
• Mesrine: Public Enemy #1 - French crime epic? Not a bad idea. Another sequel (kinda, I think both movies are supposed to be seen together) where I haven't seen the first movie, but it's still a decent recommendation.
• Marwencol - Relatively obscure recent documentary about someone who survives an accident, but suffers from brain damage and deals with that by making an absurdly detailed 1/6 scale model of a WWII-era town. I'd heard of this, but have no idea what to really make of it. Probably an interesting recommendation on Netflix's part though.
• Hoop Dreams - I've always meant to watch this, as I hear it's one of the best documentaries of all time, so a pretty good recommendation here.
• Wallace & Gromit in Three Amazing Adventures - Another not so bad recommendation, though I haven't watched much in the Wallace & Gromit catalog, I'd like to check some of them out.
• The Wages of Fear - Interesting. Another Criterion pick, probably also chosen because I really enjoyed Diabolique (same director).

Some weird picks there, but a pretty solid list! Let's see what else is showing up on the page. They break things out by various categories that they think I like, so let's see what they've got:

• Raunchy Showbiz Movies - Apparently based on my interest in one of the Kevin Smith Q&A DVDs and a documentary called American Grindhouse that I don't remember watching, but which I apparently rated 4 stars (out of 5). Perhaps not the worst category possible, but the top 4 recommendations? A Comedy Central Roast of William Shatner (fleh), Finding Bliss (no idea what this is), The Amateurs (again, never heard of it), and I Want Candy (I got nothing). Strangely, 3 of those 4 are, in some way, about adult films. What are you trying to tell me, Netflix? Can you see my browser history or something?
• Sci-Fi & Fantasy - I'm sure you're all surprised by this one. Top 4 suggestions: TiMER, Adventures of a Teenage Dragonslayer, Mega Shark vs Crocosaurus (it stars Urkel!) and Hunter Prey. So basically, SyFy original caliber films here. Bleh.
• Mind-bending Crime TV Shows - Ok, I can go along with that. And look, the first one is something I'd actually like to watch from start to finish: Twin Peaks. Someone lent me the first season DVDs a while back, but that set didn't include the Pilot episode, so I was totally lost. The other recommended shows are not quite as good: Medium, Life on Mars, and Persons Unknown. There might be something there, but I'm not overly enthused.

So there we have it. Maybe I'll actually watch some of this junk someday. Or maybe not.



Tasting Notes - Part 3
Another edition of Tasting Notes, a series of quick hits on a variety of topics that don't really warrant a full post. So here's what I've been watching/playing/reading/drinking lately:

Television

• Community is actually a pretty fun show. In a lot of ways, it's standard sitcom fodder, but the inclusion of the character of Abed redeems most of the potentially overused cliches. Abed is a pop-culture obsessed film student who appears to be aware that he's a part of a sitcom, and thus his self-referential observations are often quite prescient. The cast is actually pretty fantastic and there are lots of traditionally funny jokes along the way. Honestly, I think my favorite part of the episode are the post-credits sequences in which Abed and Troy are typically engaging in something silly in a hysterically funny way. I've only seen the first season, but I'm greatly looking forward to the second season (which is almost complete now, and probably available in some form, but I haven't looked into it too closely).
• Netflix Watch Instantly Pick of the Week: The X-Files - It looks like the entire series is available. I watched the series frequently when it was on, but I never realized just how many episodes I missed. I was never a fan of the alien conspiracy episodes (in part because it was difficult to watch them in the right order and I never knew what was going on), but I've always loved the "freak of the week" style episode, and now that all of them are at my fingertips, I'm seeing a bunch that I never knew even existed. The show holds up reasonably well, though it's a little too on-the-nose at times (especially in the early seasons). In the context in which the shows were being produced, though, it's fantastic. From a production quality perspective, it's more cinematic than what was on TV at the time (and a lot of what's on today), and it was one of the early attempts at multi-season plot arcs and continuity (technology at the time wasn't quite right, so I don't think it flourished quite as much as it could have if it had started 10 years later).

Video Games

• Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction is a lot of fun, though you can sorta tell that it was a near launch game. I actually mentioned this a while back, and because it was my first Ratchet & Clank game, I didn't suffer from most of the repetitive and derivative elements (which I gather is what disappointed old fans). Some minor usability issues (constantly changing weapons/tools is a pain), but otherwise great fun. I particularly enjoyed the Pirate themed enemies, who were very funny. I enjoyed this enough that I'll probably check out the more recent A Crack in Time, which I hear is pretty good.
• Call of Duty: Black Ops - It's another CoD game, so I got pretty much exactly what I expected. The single player game actually has a semi-interesting story, though the animators fell in love with the overly-hyper cutting and shaky-cam style that is already overused in film, and which is mostly unnecessary in video games. Don't get me wrong, the story is kinda hokey, but it's entertaining in its own way. And, of course, the combat is very well balanced and fun (as every game I've played in the series is...) The game ends with one of the most gleefully manic sequences I've ever played (much better than, for example, the airline thing at the end of CoD4). The multi-player is not particularly noob-friendly, but I got a few hours out of it and even managed to win a round one time. The kills come so quickly that it's pretty rare that you'll escape anyone once they start shooting (the way you can in some other games). This is both good and bad though. All in all, it's a good FPS for console.
• I've started playing Mass Effect 2 for the PS3. I have no idea what's going on with the story (I thought there was supposed to be some sort of PS3 intro thingy, but I didn't see it when I started the game), but I'm having fun so far. It's not something I've been playing a lot though, perhaps because I don't have a ton of time to dedicate to it...
• Remember when i said I would play more Goldeneye for the Wii? Yeah, I still haven't unpacked the Wii from that trip, which is a pretty good expression of how I generally feel about the Wii these days. I guess it's a good thing Nintendo is announcing their next console soon (though I have to admit, the rumors I'm hearing aren't particularly encouraging).

Movies

• James Gunn's comic book spoof Super continues the trend towards deconstruction of superheroes that's been going on recently in comic book cinema (though things look like they're about to revert a bit this summer). As such, it's semi-derivative at times, but it sticks to its guns (or should I say, Gunns!) and never flinches at its target. It's also not afraid to embrace the weird (such as, for instance, tentacle rape). It's extremely graphic and violent, and some of it is played for laughs, but there's at least one unforgivable moment in the film. One thing I have to note is that there's going to be a lot of teenage nerds falling in love with Ellen Page because of her enthusiastic performance in this movie. She's awesome. The critical reception seems mixed, but I think I enjoyed it more than most. I wouldn't call it one of the year's best, but it's worth watching for superhero fans who can stomach gore.
• Hobo with a Shotgun does not fare quite as well as Super, though fans of Grindhouse and ultra-violence will probably get a kick out of it. If Super represents a bit of a depraved outlook on life, Hobo makes it look like the Muppets. A few years ago, when Grindhouse was coming out, there was a contest for folks to create fake grindhouse-style trailers, and one of the winners was this fantastically titled Hobo With a Shotgun. Unfortunately what works in the short form of a fake trailer doesn't really extend well to a full-length feature. There are some interesting things about the film. Rutger Hauer is great as the hobo (look for an awesome monologue about a bear), the atmosphere is genuinely retro, it actually feels like a grindhouse movie (as opposed to Tarantino and Rodriguez's efforts, which are great, but you can also kinda tell they have a decent budget, whereas Hobo clearly has a low budget), and the armored villains known as the Plague are entertaining, if a bit out of place. Ultimately the film doesn't really earn its bullshit. Like last year's Machete (another film built off of the popularity of a "fake" trailer), I'm not convinced that this film really should have been made. Again, devotees to the weird and disgusting might enjoy this, but it's a hard film to recommend.
• Netflix Watch Instantly Pick of the Week: The Good, the Bad, the Weird - Kim Jee-woon's take on the spaghetti western is actually quite entertaining, if a bit too long and maybe even a bit too derivative. Still, there are some fantastic sequences in the film, and it's a lot of fun. Jee-woon is one of the more interesting filmmakers that's making a name for Korean cinema on an international scale. I'm greatly looking forward to his latest effort, I Saw the Devil.

Books

• In my last SF book post, I mentioned Lois McMaster Bujold's Shards of Honor. I really enjoyed that book, which was apparently the first in a long series of books, of which I've recently finished two: Barrayar and The Warrior's Apprentice. I'll save the details for the next SF book review post, but let's just say that I'm fully onboard the Bujold train to awesome. I put in an order for the next several books in the series, which seems to be quite long and varied.
• Timothy Zahn's Cobra Trilogy is what I'm reading right now. I'm enjoying them, but it's clear that Zahn was still growing as a storyteller when writing these. Interestingly, you can see a lot of ideas that he would feature in later works (and he would do so more seamlessly too). I'm about halfway through the trilogy, and should be finishing it off in the next couple weeks, after which, you can expect another SF book review post...
• I've also started Fred Brooks' The Design of Design, though I haven't gotten very far just yet. I was traveling for a while, and I find that trashy SF like Zahn and Bujold makes for much better plane material than non-fiction. Still, I'm finding Brooks' latest work interesting, though perhaps not as much as his classic Mythical Man Month.

The Finer Things...

• The best beer I've had in the past few months has been the BrewDog/Mikkeller collaboration Devine Rebel. It's pricey as hell, but if you can find a bottle of the 2009 version and if you like English Barleywines (i.e. really strong and sweet beer), it's worth every penny. I got a bottle of the 2010 version (which is apparently about 2% ABV stronger than the already strong 2009 batch) recently, but I haven't popped it open just yet.
• My next homebrew kit, a Bavarian Hefeweizen from Northern Brewer, just came in the mail, so expect a brew-day post soon - probably next week, if all goes well. I was hoping to get that batch going a little earlier, but travel plans got in the way. Still, if this goes as planned, the beer should be hitting maturity right in the dead of summer, which is perfect for a wheat beer like this...
• With the nice weather this weekend, I found myself craving a cigar. Not something I do very often and I really have no idea what makes for a good cigar, but I'll probably end up purchasing a few for Springtime consumption... Recommendations welcome!

That's all for now. Sorry about all the link dumps and general posting of late, but things have been busy around chez Kaedrin, so time has been pretty short. Hopefully some more substantial posting to come in the next few weeks...



Weird Movie Synopsis of the Week
There are weird movies, and they will often have a funny plot synopsis on IMDB or Netflix, because weird stories become even weirder when condensed. Then there's La moustache. The synopsis from Netflix:

Marc (Vincent Lindon) has worn a mustache all his adult life. One day on a whim, he decides to shave it off. Certain his wife will comment on the drastic change in his appearance, Marc is baffled when neither she nor friends notice at all. Even more disturbing is that once he calls attention to it, everyone insists he's never had a mustache.

It is, of course, a French film.

Greek philosopher Epictetus is often attributed with saying something to the effect of: "It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters." And so I ask you, gentle reader: when you read that plot synopsis, how did you react? I, of course, added the movie to my Netflix Watch Instantly queue at position #1. (hat tip to Boobs Radley, who is awesome. See also: this.)



Recent Television on DVD/BD
I don't watch a lot of live television, but thanks to the magic of DVD/BD/Netflix Instant, I can catch up on a series pretty quickly if I want to. The biggest issue with this approach happens when the series isn't done yet, and you have to then either slow down and wait between episodes (and deal with things like commercials!) or wait a year or more for the next set of DVDs to come out. That being said, watching a TV series like this can get really addictive, really fast. Here's a few things I've been watching lately:

• Sherlock - Without a doubt the best Sherlock Holmes series, I've probably ever seen. This includes movies, like Guy Richie's recent Sherlock Holmes and the 1985 Spielberg-produced Young Sherlock Holmes (which I have a soft spot for, despite the fact that no one ever knows what I'm talking about when I reference that movie). Heck, it's even better than the Sherlock-inspired House, which was probably the best modernized update of the Sherlock Holmes ideal... until now. I've only seen the first two episodes, but they're long episodes (90 minutes each), and there have only been three episodes created so far (with another three scheduled to air later this year). But this is high quality stuff. It's got a contemporary setting (unlike the usual Victorian setting) and excellent writing, casting, and acting. The visual style of the show even shows more flare than your typical British production. Holmes has his usual quirks, though he is altogether more likeable here than Greg House or Robert Downey Jr.'s version of Holmes. Watson is fun, though I don't think he's really been given enough time to really shine just yet. And of course, the mysteries are intriguing (indeed, I rather enjoy this more than what limited stories I've actually read). Highly recommended. Thanks to Otakun for his recommendation a while back, as I surely wouldn't have put this in my Netflix queue without that recommendation. He's also got some extra info on the series and some interesting links to online tie-in sites (like Watson's blog, etc...)
• Fringe - I was in the mood for an X-Files style show, and so I popped this series into my Netflix queue and what I found was something that started off in a similar vein, but which pretty quickly managed to establish its own identity. The show revolves around a series of strange science-gone-wrong accidents that seem to be occurring (ominously referred to as, The Pattern), the idea being that there are these mad-scientists out there experimenting with chemical and biological weapons out in public. It's creepy stuff, actually. Of course there's the FBI's Fringe division, lead by Agent Olivia Dunham and her sidekicks: Walter and Peter Bishop. Walter is a fun character, eccentric and brilliant. You get the impression that he's done a lot of bad things in the past, but he's clearly a different person now. And so on. It takes its time, but it eventually establishes a main, overarching conflict which seems pretty compelling. Some of the execution is a bit silly or uninspired (tons of cliches), but it's a generally entertaining series. What passes for "science" in the show is a bit fluffy, but coming from the guys who dreamed up "red matter" in the Star Trek reboot, that's par for the course. In that respect, it reminds me a bit of Lost. Again, generally entertaining, but not something I'm convinced will pay off that well. Still, I'd like to watch more of it (alas, we're well into season 3 now, so I have no idea when I'll be able to catch up).
• Breaking Bad - Based mostly on the enthusiastic recommendations of the /Filmcast, I checked out the short first season of this series about a high school chemistry teacher who learns he's going to die, and to pay for the cancer treatments, he teams up with a former student to cook meth. It's a lot better than I'm making it sound, and very well acted, but on the other hand, there's something a little off about the show that I can't quite place. It was an interesting first season, but I can't say as though I'm all that excited to revisit these characters. I suppose that I can see why the series has inspired so much love, but it just isn't clicking with me. I may give it another chance at some point, but probably not anytime soon.

There are a bunch of other series I have in the queue, including Veronica Mars, Deadwood, and a few others (including some Anime). And, of course, the next season of Sherlock.

Update: Damn you, cliffhanger! (Just finished the last episode of Sherlock.)



Top 5 Long Takes
On this week's Filmspotting podcast, the hosts did their top 5 long takes. For the uninitiated, a Long Take in cinema is referring to an uninterrupted shot that lasts a lot longer than the general editing tempo in the film, usually several minutes. Of course, there are a lot of ways to implement this concept. Some filmmakers, like Ozu or Tarkovsky, are known for more static long takes, meaning that the camera is stationary and the action simply unfolds in front of it. Other folks, like Scorsese or Wells, took the concept further by moving the camera to follow the action. This is usually accomplished by mounting the camera on a dolly and rolling it around on preset tracks (or by using cranes) - thus yielding the term Tracking Shot. The invention of the Steadicam in the mid 70s allowed for smooth tracking shots without the tracks.

You could say that most Long Take/Tracking Shot combos are a lot more showy and maybe even distracting, but I generally enjoy those sorts of pyrotechnics, so long as they're used for a reason, so that's what I'll be focusing on. Now, there are a lot of really famous long takes, but I don't want to make a super-boring list either, so I'll just mention three of the most famous first: The opening sequence of Touch of Evil is a masterpiece and often tops lists like these. The Coppacabana scene from Goodfellas is another classic that always shows up on these lists. Paul Thomas Anderson was seemingly inspired by Scorsese (though he puts his own touches on it as well) in his film Boogie Nights, which features a couple of bravura sequences, including one where the camera even follows someone as they dive into a pool. There are even some films, like Hitchcock's Rope or Russian Ark, that are comprised of just a hadful of shots (indeed, the latter is only a single take). There are, of course, tons of other famous shots like this, but I'm going to be focused on relatively short takes (in the 3-20 minute range). I'm also going to shoot for some more obscure stuff on my list, including some action films (sorely lacking in the Filmspotting lists). I'm going to try and avoid most of the films on the Filmspotting list as well, so there are some other obvious shots that I'm trying to avoid (of course, they also mention about 30 films in their discussion, so it's hard to be completely unique here).

• Snake Eyes - Filmmaker Brian DePalma is infamous for his long takes and has employed them in many of his films. Considering that Snake Eyes is an absolutely terrible movie, this is my pick for best long take from an otherwise bad movie. The actual sequence is pretty astounding though. It basically follows a crazy Nick Cage as he walks into a Casino to go to a boxing match. It's hard to get a good read on how long it really is, but it's somewhere on the order of 15-20 minuntes long. Purists might complain a bit, though, as there may be a cut or two somewhere in the shot (swish pans and moving over black areas allow opportunity to hide a cut, meaning that it will still seem continuous, even if there was a cut), but I still think it was pretty impressive. The shot opens the film. Unfortunately, it's all downhill from there.
• Oldboy - The centerpiece of the film is this fantastic 3-minute fight sequence in a hallway. For those of us from the Nintendo generation, it strikes a particular chord due to the quasi-side-scrolling nature of the sequence. It's one of the shorter sequences on this list, but there's something special about the raw intensity in this one that makes it more impressive than many other candidates.
• Hard Boiled - Legend has it that director John Woo was running out of time (and perhaps budget), so he "compromised" by shooting a few minutes in one uninterrupted take. This only works out to be about 2-3 minutes, but the sequence involves two cops making their way through a hospital filled with bad guys. Lots of gunplay, and the camera follows them through twists and turns and even an elevator. An amazing action sequence.
• The Player - Another opening sequence. This film is actually set in a movie studio, which allows director Robert Altman to make all sorts of references and homages to other famous long takes (including direct mentions of the aforementioned Touch of Evil, amongst other more obscure movies). Coming in at around 8 minutes, it's one of the longer takes on my list.
• Breaking News - And saving the most obscure for last, this is Kaedrin favorite Johnny To's most famous long take, an 7 minute (or so) shootout that starts the film. Really astounding use of the crane on this one, which features lots of movement, but in a relatively constrained location. This is vintage To though, as he's great at intricate staging in his action sequences.

Well, there you have it. A few of those are perhaps very well known and often referenced, but there's at least one that is rarely mentioned when it comes to long takes.

I do have one honorable mention though, and it's a strange one. I don't think I've ever heard it referenced in long take discussions before, but it's definitely at least 2-3 minutes long. I'm not sure why this one sticks with me so much, but it's the scene in Tarantino's Jackie Brown (which has a couple of good long takes, including another opening shot) where Ordell Robbie (Samuel L. Jackson) goes to talk to Beaumont Livingston (Chris Tucker) at a hotel. It's a long scene, and the camera follows them around a bit, but stays relatively stationary, despite the fact that they get into a car and drive around for a while. Again, I don't know why, but that scene always sticks in my mind when I think of long takes.

Well, I suppose that's enough blabbering about Long Takes. Feel free to share any of your personal favorites in the comments!



Oscar Liveblogging
In accordance with tradition, I'll be liveblogging the Oscars tonight. If you're interested, here are previous installments: [2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004] Check back for frequent updates (starting around 8:30 pm EST), and feel free to hang around and leave comments to play along (I've re-instituted anonymous commenting for the event, though I have added a CAPTCHA to prevent spam - sorry for any inconvenience)...

To start things off, here are my predictions for the major awards:

• Best Picture: The King's Speech. This isn't a sure thing, but while The Social Network racked up some early awards, it's been losing momentum and The King's Speech has been picking up the slack. I've actually seen all of the nominated films this year (Indeed, there's an overlap of 5 films with my very own top 10), but as near as I can tell, none of the other 8 have a real chance, unless some weird technicality of the bizarre voting system leads to a true dark horse emerging victorious. That being said, it's worth considering that the grand majority of the Academy voters are actors, and The King's Speech is an actor's dream. This isn't to say that The Social Network is not attractive to actors though, as it has a fine ensemble cast and a wonderful script - it could certainly win. This sort of uncertainty is a good thing for an awards show though - I'm actually looking forward to seeing who wins. And both films actually seem pretty worthy (though as my top 10 might attest, I probably would have a couple of other films up for consideration as well).
• Best Director: David Fincher for The Social Network. That's right, I'm going against the historical evidence here - normally the Best Picture and Best Director awards are tightly coupled - if you win one, you generally win the other. I think Fincher is much more of a lock for this category though. Perhaps that actually does bode well for The Social Network as Best Picture, but I do think we'll see a split, and I actually don't think that's a horrible thing. One other note about the Best Director award: Lots of people are calling this a snub of Christopher Nolan, but honestly, I've been thinking of him more notable as a writer and editor than as a director. He's a good director, of course, and I'd probably have nominated him over, say, David O. Russel (or maybe even Tom Hooper), but in the end, I'm not that disappointed at this snub. Who knows though, maybe we'll see Inception take best picture without the corresponding nomination in Best Director. Unprecedented (or maybe not - I didn't look it up).
• Best Actress: Natalie Portman in Black Swan. Another very tough pick. The main competition comes from Annette Bening, for her role as a hard-drinking lesbian doctor and mother of two. Bening has been nominated twice before, but never won, which is in her favor. But then, her movie is a quasi-comedy, something that rarely goes over well with the Academy, and Portman's role is much more central and demanding. Flip a coin. I landed on Portman, but it could easily be Bening. I suppose there's also a chance for Michelle Williams or Jennifer Lawrence, but that's a longshot.
• Best Actor: Colin Firth in The King's Speech. They might as well have renamed this category "Colin Firth and 4 other guys". Firth is a lock.
• Best Supporting Actress: Hailee Steinfeld in True Grit. I'm betting that Melissa Leo and Amy Adams will cancel each other out (that tends to happen when two performances from the same movie are nominated - a movie that will most likely win the Best Supporting Actor award, see below), and that Academy members will want to reward True Grit somehow... and this seems the most likely place for that. Indeed, how did Hailee Steinfeld get nominated here at all - she's onscreen for practically the entire movie and would have been better suited towards the Best Actress award. Except that the competition is more fierce there and she has a much better chance of winning the supporting role. So here we are. This award is still up in the air though. I don't see it going to Helena Bonham Carter (too small, overshadowed by male peers in her movie) or Jackie Weaver (movie too obscure and deliberately paced for voters), but Melissa Leo could easily take this award.
• Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale in The Fighter. Not a total lock - Geoffrey Rush certainly has some buzz thanks to The King's Speech's momentum, but I'm guessing that won't be enough to overcome Bale's standard actor-friendly move: he drops a lot of weight, puts on a perfect accent and imitation of a real-life character. I think he's got it covered. Mark Ruffalo is certainly charismatic, but I think that was only enough to land the nomination, not the win. Similar forces at work for Renner. The real dark horse here would be John Hawkes (he would be my pick, if I were voting). I'm not sure if Winter's Bone has enough momentum to pull it off, but if it wins a major award, it will likely be this one. Incidentally, one non-nominated performance that could use some more attention: Matt Damon in True Grit.
• Best Original Screenplay: The King's Speech by David Seidler. It's got the momentum. Even if it doesn't take Best Picture, I will likely win this one. It's even got a nice backstory. Seidler wanted to make this movie a long time ago, but he was asked politely by the freaking Queen of England to hold off. Seidler had a childhood stutter himself, and now he's one of the oldest nominees for this award ever. I think he's got it. I suppose there's an off chance that The Kids Are All Right or Inception will score here, but I think it's a long shot.
• Best Adapted Screenplay: The Social Network by Aaron Sorkin. Maybe I'm too attached to this script, but I can't imagine any of the other nominees winning. True Grit certainly has its positives, but much of it is simply lifted from the novel. Toy Story 3 is awesome (incidentally, how is that "adapted"?), but its' going to win Best Animated, so it's safe to write it off here.
• Editing: The Social Network. This is another award that often tracks with Best Picture, but in this case, I think Social Network will take it due to the non-linear narrative structure. The King's Speech could certainly win though, just based on momentum.
• Cinematography: True Grit. Not much to say here. Roger Deakins is hard to beat.
• Visual Effects: Inception. A kinda consolation prize for a movie that probably won't win anything but technical awards...
• Musical Score: The Social Network. Partly because I want it to win, but still, I think it's got a good chance. That or The King's Speech will steamroll over everyone tonight.
• Best Song: "We Belong Together" from Toy Story 3. I hate this category.
• Makeup: The Wolfman. Really? That's the frontrunner? Why do I even bother picking this award?
• Best Animated Film: Toy Story 3. Duh.
• Best Documentary: Restrepo. Always a tough category, this year seems to be caught between two nominees: Restrepo, about soldiers in Afghanistan, and Inside Job, about the recent financial meltdown. Both are sufficiently political enough for the self-important Hollywood crowd, so it's hard to say where it will go. I'm betting war, but it could easily be financial. My personal pick would be Exit Through the Gift Shop, but I think too many Academy voters will hold it's questionable veracity against it (still, would be awesome to see how Banksy manages to accept the award).
• Best Foreign Language Film: In a Better World. This category is usually a toss-up, due to the fact that most of us have not seen or heard of most nominees. From reading around, I get the impression that In a Better World has a lot of Academy-friendly elements. The only one I've seen is Dogtooth, which is decidedly not Academy-friendly (and also excellent, in a disturbing and hard-to-recommend way).

Well, there you have it. Check back later tonight for frequently updated commentary. See you soon!

Update 7:59 pm: Yeah, it's still Red Carpet torture time, so not much to say yet. Instead of watching this, I'm going to check out Alex's Oscar Roundup and maybe watch some of the Flyers Wives Fight For Lives. See you at 8:30, when the ceremony actually starts.

Update 8:27 pm: I'm looking forward to Source Code, though I'm getting a feeling from the commercial that just played that I'll have similar issues as I had with Duncan Jones' previous effort, Moon. Anyway, only 3 minutes to go. In anticipation of some sort of lame musical number, I'm going to crack open my first beer of the night. I'm starting off relatively tame tonight, with a fancy can of Dale's Pale Ale.

Update 8:30 pm: Hurm. The first montage of the night? Over/under is 8. I'm taking the over.

Update 8:33 pm: Great opening skit here. Much better than the lame musical number I'm still expecting later in the show. Love the accents when they're making fun of The Fighter. "The naked girl from Love and Other Drugs" Heh.

Update 8:37 pm: Is there any young actor that has turned their careers around as dramatically as James Franco? I can't think of any. Of course, like Devin Faraci, I Honestly Believe James Franco Could End Up Doing Porn. Not a bad start to the show though, decent monologue too. Fingers crossed for no musical numbers.

Update 8:39 pm: Oh, burn, "Marky Mark". He seems to be a good sport about it, but as someone named "Mark", I have to admit that it's really freakin annoying when people call me "Marky Mark". I imagine it's doubly so for, uh, the real Marky Mark.

Update 8:41 pm: Does that count as a montage? I mean, it's just from Gone With The Wind, but still. We'll make that a half-montage (bringing the count up to 1.5). And now, a Titanic quasi-montage. Make that 2 total montages.

Update 8:49 pm: Well, that didn't take long. I'm now a few minutes behind due to the magic of the DVR. I simply can't resist! Sorry about that. So I just saw that Alice in Wonderland won Art Direction. Nice job, I guess. Decent speech so far, but you know she's not going to be able to say anything because he's hogging the mic.

Update 8:53 pm: She didn't say anything? By choice? Who knows. Maybe she was drunk! Cinematography goes to... Inception! I'm 0 for 1, but I don't mind. And what the hell man, take your glasses off, don't put them on your forehead. Moron. Haha, he chastises the audience for clapping as they're "taking up his time"

Update 8:59 pm: Only three minutes behind now. Kirk Douglas takes the stage. I can never think of this guy without picturing his "prestige" moment in Path's of Glory. He's not sounding so great right now though. But he's right, Anne Hathaway is indeed gorgeous. Helena Bonham Carter just gave a look that she knows she's not going to win. Jackie Weaver looks very happy. Mellissa Leo looks nothing like her character. Supporting Actress award goes to... Jesus, I wish I had someone to hold my cane. He's really dragging this out. But I kinda like it. Melissa Leo wins! And I'm 0 for 2. Yay!

Update 9:01 pm: Kirk's minder from the mental clinic just ushered him off the stage. Heh. She's really speechless. Kinda nice to see that sort of thing, I guess. Holy shit, she just cursed. Awesome. Stupid delay caught it though. They seem to be giving everyone time to talk, moreso than usual. Nice politics at the end of the speech. Ok, come on, next award. Or montage. Or something.

Update 9:06 pm: I love Mila Kunis. Justin Timberlake is Banksy? Heh. Oh come on, who cares about Shrek anymore. Oh, look, I know the first animated short. Because they put it in front of Pixar movies. Timberlake is making fun of old man Douglas, and it's pretty hilarious. And the short that no one cares about wins.

Update 9:10 pm: So is that guy, like, 4 feet tall? Or is the guy standing next to him, like, 7 feet tall? He's tiny! Tall guy manages to get some words in as well, despite the music attempting to play him off. And best animated movie goes to: Toy Story 3. Duh. I'm 1 for 3!

Update 9:11 pm: He's talking like Toy Story 3 was a hard-sell or something. Weird.

Update 9:17 pm: Damn these quasi-montages. We're up to 2.5, I guess. Whoa with the white tuxes guys. Isn't Javier Bardem's accent quaint? Toy Story 3 being an adapted screenplay because it's based on the previous films seems strange to me. Adapted screenplay goes to Aaron Sorkin for the Social Network, because duh. Let's see if he says something good in his speech. It's so obvious that he wrote this speech ahead of time. Heheh. Oh man, they're really trying to get him off the stage. I blame old man Douglas!

Update 9:20 pm: The Figher is "Original"? Hehehe. Oscar for Original Screenplay goes to King's Speech. I'm now 3 for 5. Don't call it a comeback! Great speech so far though. "Late bloomer" indeed, oldest person to win this award. Probably also a prepared speech, but it's.. more natural. And he's already being ushered off stage. And he mentions the F word, heeheh. Nice. I can't believe King's Speech was rated R.

Update 9:22 pm: And I'm finally caught up to real time again. Since it's still a commercial, I'll just say that this Dale's Pale Ale is pretty awesome for what it is. I could drink the entire 6 pack tonight, I think...

Update 9:26 pm: Oh mother fucker! Musical number. "Hugh Jackass" ok, that's kinda funny I guess. Anne Hathaway is very talented, I just can't stand musical numbers. And what the hell, Jackman is apparently right there in the audience. Nice, James Franco is in a dress and "just got a text message from Charlie Sheen." I know you thought I was kidding about the Franco doing porn thing earlier, but now? Not so much, right? Seems very possible.

Update 9:28 pm: Is it me, or is the pre-award banter better this year than in previous years. Best Foreign picture goes to In a Better World, and I'm now 4 for 6. Score. She seems overwhelmed, but not as much as Melissa Leo! And she's very gracious and classy, but boring.

Update 9:31 pm: There's Christian Bale, rockin the crazy-man beard. It suits him, I think.

Update 9:33 pm: Christian Bale wins! I think he might actually be drunk. I know I joke about that sometimes, but seriously, he seems drunk. Or maybe that's just him. He's not embarrassing himself though, and even seems to have a sense of humor about his reputation. Decent speech. I wonder how Marky Mark feels about not being nominated. He's one of the few people not nominated for that movie (not that he deserves to be, but still).

Update 9:37 pm: This was a few minutes ago, but I can't get over seeing Geoffrey Rush with a shaved head. It's so... I don't know what to make of that. It doesn't look right. On an unrelated note, I love how JJ Abrams feels no need to tell people what his movies are actually about. I am looking forward to Super 8 mostly because I have no idea what it's about (I gather it's some sort of Area 51 SF/Action thing, but I'm not sure).

Update 9:38 pm: Holy shit, the President of the Academy! Run! Save yourselves!

Update 9:44 pm: They were only on for, like 10 seconds, but they're like a black hole of boringness. It's like someone scratching the record player. And another montage, this one less quasi- than the others, so I'm putting us up to 3.5 on the Montage count. Man, weird, it's a musical montage too. Still counting it as one full montage. Winner for best musical score goes to: Trentie-poo and Atticus Ross for The Social Network. I'm 6 for 8, a much better showing than I started with. And Trent and Atticus both give a nice, measured speech. Good job fellas, I really like your soundtrack.

Update 9:46 pm: Remember what I said about the pre-award banter being good? Yeah, forget that. Interminable. Sound goes to Inception. Racking up the technical awards, Inception is. Writing like Yoda speaks, I am.

Update 9:48 pm: Wait, didn't we just do sound editing? Well, the Oscar goes to Inception. Again. Good job guys. Next award please.

Update 9:56 pm: Marissa Tomei gets the thankless task of talking about the scientific awards that no one cares about. I would probably find them mildly interesting though. Ohh, burn. "Congratulations Nerds!"

Update 9:57 pm: What the hell is Cate Blanchett wearing? Why do I even bother to pick makeup? But I was right, The Wolfman wins! "Gross" as Blanchett says. Rick Baker is a master though. I'm 7 for 9. Doing pretty good now! Classy move letting the other winner talk. "It was always my ambition to lose an Oscar to Rick Baker. Hehehe"

Update 9:59 pm: Alice in Wonderland wins best costumes. I didn't realize that anything in that movie was actually real. Ohhh, she's got a cheat sheet! And she's... reading right off it. Um, huh. Lame. Can, uh, someone usher her off stage. Ah, here comes the music. Actually thankful for that this time.

Update 10:03 pm: Montage 4.5. OBAMA! YEAHHHHH! OBAMA! LET'S BURN THIS MOTHERFUCKER DOWN! OBAMA! He's a good president because he likes movies and I can relate to him! Kevin Spacy: moron. Oh shit, an actual musical performance. Shit, shit, shit. I thought we got rid of this last year. Shit.

Update 10:05 pm: Oh fuck, they're doing all the songs now. I'm getting another beer. Maybe something stronger than a Dale's Pale is appropriate now. If anyone from work is reading this, I apologize in advance for tomorrow. It's not my fault though. Stupid Oscar musical performances. At least they're all together now.

Update 10:09 pm: Or maybe not. They only did 2 of them. Does that mean we have to suffer through 3 more? Can't we just give the award to Randy Newman like we always do and be done with it? Incidentally, I didn't mention it earlier, but this year had several really awesome music scores. The Social Network was certainly a deserving winner, but Inception had a great one, as did Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and even Tron: Legacy. But I guess we can't have Trent Reznor doing a live show at the Oscars, though I wouldn't mind seeing that. Of course, he's all older and boring now. AHHHHHHH. Stella Artois commercial. Sorry.

Update 10:13 pm: "Shorts are the hardest categories to pick on your home oscar ballot" because no one gives a fuck, Jake. No one gives a fuck. Sorry, that came off sounding kinda angry. And the winner is... Who cares? Next award please.

Update 10:14 pm: She's posing like the Incredible Hulk. Look at those muscles!

Update 10:16 pm: "Shoulda got a haircut." Hehehe. Alright, you redeemed me having to sit through the shorts awards. Guy is funny, even giving the straightforward thanks that he does. Nice.

Update 10:18 pm: What the hell? Auto-tune!? Wasn't that overplayed, like, years ago? Does this count as a montage? Yeah, definitely. 5.5 montages so far tonight. A million dollars isn't cool. You know what's cool? An OSCAR, bitch!

Update 10:19 pm: OPRAH! YEAHHHHHHHH! OPRAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Update 10:22 pm: Why do all documentaries have to be so activisty. Oscar goes to Inside Job, and I'm 8 for 10. Go me. Still would have liked to have seen Banksy attempt some sort of acceptance speech. Ah this guy seems like a big douche. "Forgive me, I'm going to make a boring, trite political statement." Eh, not that bad, he seemed to pull his punches a bit. If you're going to do it, go whole hog. Scream or something.

Update 10:26 pm: Shocking, Billy Crystal is still alive. Of course, his career isn't! Ba-dum-tsshhh.

Update 10:29 pm: MONTAGE! 6.5. This is a montage that isn't even about movies though, it's Bob Hope highlights from hosting the Oscars. Haven't we already done this before? We have to have had a Bob Hope montage before.

Update 10:33 pm: FIGHT! FIGHT! Did Hereafter actually happen? That's a movie that just disappeared off the face of the planet, isn't it? Inception wins best Visual Effects. Score, I'm 9 for 11. Jesus, there's like five million different people that worked on the visual effects for this movie.

Update 10:35 pm: Film editing goes to Social Network and now I'm 10 for 12. Sweet. Nice hug, and nice reference - "We wanna thank everyone that Aaron thanked..." Haha - Oh, and thanks to the academy! Please don't ruin me because I didn't thank you!

Update 10:40 pm: So this Weyerbacher Merry Monks beer says it's a Tripel, but it doesn't really taste like a tripel. A little too peppery and boozy. Not bad, though. "How to Train Your Dragon, that's disgusting" Hehehe. "Winters Bone." Haha.

Update 10:42 pm: Oh shit, more musical performances. Kill me now.

Update 10:44pm: This beer is 9.3% ABV, and it's still not enough to put up with this music. GAHHH.

Update 10:48 pm: And the Oscar goes to Randy Newman for Toy Story 3. Like I said we should do, like, an hour ago. Did we really need to suffer through all those other nominees? Yeah, right, you're surprised. I'm 11 for 13. Thank God this award is over. Oh shut up Randy, 4 songs is too much. It's bad enough that we have to listen to your stupid song!

Update 10:52 pm: Holy shit, is that Celine Dion? I thought we were done with the music. Gaahh. Run! Run for your lives! She will devour us all!

Update 10:53 pm: Yay dead people! Hello Sally! And don't call me Shirly.

Update 10:57 pm: That was montage #7.5, and here comes #8.5, for Lena Horn.

Update 11:05 pm: Last year, we awarded the Best Director award to a Woman for the first time. This year, we didn't even bother nominating one. Holy shit, Tom Hooper wins, pretty much guaranteeing a Best Picture win for The King's Speech. David Fincher mus be pissed, but he seems to be clapping and happy about it. Class act. And Hooper is at least very kind to his competition. "Triangle of man-love." Ok. I'm 11 for 14, dammit.

Update 11:08 pm: The moral of the story is "Listen to your Mother." Right on. Lifetime achievement awards have apparently been relegated to a separate event, like the nerd awards (i.e. the technical awards). Why? They're much cooler than, for example, the short film awards.

Update 11:11 pm: What are the odds that Anne Hathaway and James Franco are going to knock boots after the ceremony tonight?

Update 11:13 pm: Oh man, I know this is a major award, but they're really drawing it out, aren't they?

Update 11:16 pm: Natalie Portman wins! Crowd is really into it... I'm 12 for 15. And she's crying. Just like her role! Thank Mila Kunis for the lesbian kiss scene, thank Mila Kunis for the lesbian kiss scene, thank Mila Kunis for the lesbian kiss scene, thank Mila Kunis for the lesbian kiss scene, thank Mila Kunis for the lesbian kiss scene, thank Mila Kunis for the lesbian kiss scene. Dammit. She didn't thank Mila Kunis for the lesbian kiss scene. Classy move thanking people with thankless roles though.

Update 11:19 pm: "Flub, drink at home" Don't mind if I do!

Update 11:26 pm: I like the way the're doing the big awards better this year than they did the past few years. Surprising amount of applause for Jesse Eisenberg here... But come on, who are we kidding, this is going to Colin Firth, and probably deservedly so. I do think I might have voted for James Franco for this one, but I really can't fault anyone for voting for Colin Firth. And, of course, he wins. 13 for 16, I am. Talking like Yoda again, I am. "I have a feeling my career has just peaked" Hehehe. And a nice, solid, classy, British, dryly funny acceptance speech.

Update 11:32 pm: Man, they're playing the King's Speech over the other nominees. Foreshadowing? Thanks a lot. Does this count as a montage? Probably not. But still.

Update 11:37 pm: I seem to have truly screwed up my award count. Not only did I wrongly think I picked one correctly, but I seem to have missed an award somewhere. But best picture goes to: big surprise: The King's Speech. 13 for 17, I am.

Update 11:37 pm: 13 for 17 works out to around 76 percent, which is pretty decent, though maybe a hair below recent years. Oh well. Overall, a pretty good show. Haha, dude is getting played off by music, good on him for asserting himself. Well, that pretty much wraps up the show, only about 10 minutes over schedule. Not bad, Oscar folk. Wow, Anne Hathaway's new dress really emphasizing... uh, nevermind. Shit, it ends on a musical number. Fuck. This is my last update. Have a good night folks. It's been real.

Update 11:43 pm: Haha, they were just playing music from Top Gun. Yeah, so I lied, wanna fight about it? But seriously, this one is my last update. Probably.



Best Films of 2010
2010 was a really strange year for movies, though in the end, I don't think it's as bad as a lot of people are saying. I think this has to do with the bad first impression made by the abysmal first half of the year. It wasn't until the middle of the year that things began to turn around for me and by the end of the year, things were looking up. Indeed, many of my favorites turned out to have been released in that first half of the year, just with limited distribution. As I caught up with some of the smaller films from earlier in the year, I managed to fill out most of the below list.

As of right now, I've seen 81 movies that would qualify as a 2010 release (with the usual borderline 2009 releases that don't make it to my market or DVD until 2010 - usually foreign films). It turns out that this is something of a record for me, though I have to admit that around 50 of those have been watched since November (previous years were generally more spread out through the year) and mostly on DVD or Netflix Watch Instantly. Anyway, this is probably way more than most ordinary folks, but also less than most critics. I had no problem putting together a top 8, but those last two slots were really difficult to fill. Not because I couldn't find a good film to put there, but because there were too many films that I could put there. Many of the Honorable Mentions could easily fit in those last two slots (the first two listed below).

The other thing I found really interesting about this year is how thematically similar a lot of films were. I actually mentioned this in a recent book review:

One of the themes of 2010 cinema has been a question of reality. Is what we're watching real? Or is it a fabrication? Or perhaps some twisted combination of the two? Interestingly, this theme can be found in the outright fictional (films like Inception certainly induce questions of reality), the ostensibly true story that is notably and obviously fictionalized (a la The Social Network), and most interestingly of all, the documentary. Films like Catfish and Exit Through the Gift Shop are certainly presented as fact, though many questions have arisen about their verisimilitude. Joaquin Phoenix and Casey Affleck collaborated on I'm Still Here, a supposed documentary about Phoenix's strange transition from a well known actor to a crazy aspiring rapper that Phoenix and Affleck have since admitted was something of a hoax (I have not seen the film, but from what I can see, many of the events certainly did happen, even if they were manufactured). In most cases, audiences don't seem to mind the blurring of reality with fiction (this includes myself), so long as that blurring is made clear (that may sound paradoxical, but it is perhaps better understood as the main component of the Reflexive Documentary: movies that acknowledge the biases of the filmmakers and the subjectivity of the material at hand are more trustworthy than movies that claim objectivity). Indeed, one could probably make a case for the presence of fiction in most non-fiction stories. Bias, subjectivity, and context can yield dramatically different results depending on how they're portrayed.

And there are even some other themes that people have been noticing this year (i.e. strong female leads, interesting Mother characters, etc...) This sort of consistency doesn't seem to be present in the past few years, and I found that interesting. Ultimately, I think 2010 has got a bad rap. It's certainly not one of the best years in recent memory, but as usual, I've managed to find a lot of stuff to like.

As always, I should note that this list is inherently subjective and of course most people will find something to gripe about. So be it. One thing I've found interesting in the past few years of doing this list is that I've gravitated away from trying to put together a list of the best films, instead favoring my favorite films. What I'm ending up with is a mixture of both components here and it's a tricky line to walk, but I think it ultimately makes for a more interesting list. So without further ado:

Top 10 Movies of 2010
* In roughly reverse order

• Triangle: The most notable feature of this film is the strange, elliptical plot that amazingly manages to write itself out of several corners, leading to a consistently surprising viewing. The less said about this, the better. This is arguably the least deserving of a top 10 slot, but I'm including it due to it's obscurity and the fact that the film worked really well for me. Fans of Kaedrin favorite Timecrimes would probably also like this movie, as the two are similar.
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [BD] [Winner of 1 Kaedrin Movie Award]
• The King's Speech: The stench of Oscar-bait initially turned me off, but I gave it a shot anyway, and was very glad that I did so. Fantastic central performances by Colin Firth, Helena Bonham Carter, and Geoffrey Rush, and a witty script elevates this film beyond typical indie Oscar bait (though there is maybe one or two groaners in that respect, it was much less than I was expecting). Like most Americans, I don't really get the Monarchy, but I find myself with this sneaking curiosity and awe of the institution, and I find movies like this one scratch that itch.
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [BD] [Capsule Review]
• Kick Ass: Violent, funny, aggressively juvenile, and an absolute blast to watch. I suppose you could argue that this film is trying to have it's cake and eat it too, but honestly, I think it actually succeeds in that respect. There's a sorta self-deprecating nature to the film that I find works really well. Plus, it, well, kicks ass. It also features one of the biggest badasses in recent cinema, Hit Girl (played excellently by newcomer Chloe Moretz). It's maybe a bit unfocused, but still a very good film.
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [BD] [Winner of 2 Kaedrin Movie Awards]
• A Prophet: There's a common trope among ganster movies where the protagonist goes from rags-to-riches via a corruption of innocence, and this movie certainly qualifies. However, setting the story inside a prison is an interesting juxtaposition of the usual cliche. It's a long movie, and it even feels like a long movie, but that is a curiously good thing in the case of this movie. It's not an especially pleasant movie, but it's engaging in a way that most unpleasant movies are not. A nominee for the best Foreign Picture Oscar last year, it wasn't released in the US until this year (and personally, I think it should have won the Oscar).
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [BD]
• Toy Story 3: Pure, unadulterated fun. Another sublime effort from Pixar and a wonderful sequel (two words that almost never go together) to a great series of films (that being said, I hope this is the last). I really don't have much else to say about it (that would fit in this context) so I'll just leave it at that.
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [BD] [Winner of 1 Kaedrin Movie Award]
• True Grit: The Coen Brothers' take on the classical Western, I found it very refreshing to just watch a solid Western without having to bother with all the revisionist traditions that most Westerns these days seem to embrace. Great performances by newcomer Hailee Steinfeld, the always excellent Jeff Bridges, and the underrated Matt Damon (I'd vote for him as a best supporting actor here), and of course the Coens are always excellent.
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [BD] [Capsule Review]
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: I have not read the book this was adapted from, but I enjoyed this movie immensely (except, of course, for the scenes I wasn't supposed to enjoy, of which there are a few). A great lead character in Lisbeth Salandar (an excellent performance by Noomi Rapace) and a well executed mystery immediately propelled this movie out of the early year dregs. I was especially impressed with the deftly executed relationship between Salandar and Blomkvist (something that was sorely lacking in the two sequels). It might get a bit too intense at times, but it worked really well for me.
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [BD] [Full Review]
• The Social Network: A film I initially felt was doomed to become a boring failure. As you might imagine, going into the film with such low expectations lead to a surprisingly fun moviegoing experience and this quickly became one of my favorites of the year. Excellent performances all around, Aaron Sorkin's witty script and crackling dialogue, Trent Reznor's perfect score, and Fincher tying it all together perfectly. Unfortunately, this one is receiving a bit of backlash as a lot of people are now seeing it with much higher expectations and coming away disappointed. But it remains one of my favorites of the year.
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [BD] [Full Review] [Winner of 1 Kaedrin Movie Award]
• Exit Through the Gift Shop: Intriguing documentary ostensibly about street art and one of its most mysterious figures, Banksy. But it's ultimately a much deeper film about the nature of the art community and the reality that art attempts to represent. There's lots of great footage of street artists and an unexpected look at the man behind the camera. This film is probably the poster child for the year's theme of "is it real?" movies. Ultimately, of course, those questions don't matter, as it's a good story in any case. It didn't go where I expected, but I loved where it went. It's a great film and it raises a lot of really fascinating questions.
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [BD] [Capsule Review] [Winner of 1 Kaedrin Movie Award]
• Inception: This is the movie that turned 2010 around for me. An interesting premise, intricate plotting, and internally consistent mechanics lead to that "sense of wonder" feeling that most filmic science fiction is sorely missing. The film features solid performances all around, and the visuals are well done, but the strength of Christopher Nolan, in my mind, has always been story and editing (and in this particular case, the way Nolan weaves music into the film to reinforce the story is also noteworthy). It's a brilliant film.
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [BD] [Full Review] [Winner of 1 Kaedrin Movie Award]

Honorable Mention
* In alphabetical order

• 127 Hours: A surprisingly effective lead performance, a script that makes good use of a single location and Danny Boyle's kinetic direction lead to a very well executed film. That this movie is watcheable at all is especially noteworthy given that most of the audience already knows what's going to happen. It may even have been a bit too hyper or too on-the-nose, but it was still a very good movie.
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [BD]
• Animal Kingdom: Not especially well paced, but an otherwise engaging tale of a family of bank robbers and their feud with the local police. It features an excellent, Oscar-nominated performance from by Jacki Weaver as the Matriarch of the family. Also notable for featuring a teenager that actually acts like a teenager (i.e. he's generally an idiot) and not a precocious mastermind who outsmarts everyone. Again, a bit too slow moving and some unpleasant subject matter, but a decent film.
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [BD]
• The Art of the Steal: Thought provoking documentary about the Barnes art collection, and how various political powers maneuvered to relocate the art from its longtime home in Lower Merion to downtown Philadelphia (despite the clear wishes laid out in Barnes' will). Unapologetically one-sided, but still a fascinating documentary and well worth a watch. Another film that came very close to nabbing the last slot in the top 10.
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [Capsule Review]
• Black Swan: The younger sister to director Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler, the two films share a lot of similarities. Unfortunately, both are similarly flawed as well, especially when it comes to the script. Standout performances from the two female leads, Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis, wonderful visuals from Aronofsky, but ultimately sunk by clunky dialogue and other script issues. Still, a very interesting effort from all involved, and well worth a watch.
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [BD] [Full Review]
• Blood Into Wine: Interesting and slickly made documentary about wine makers in Arizona with a focus on a winery owned by Tool front-man Maynard James Keenan. An interesting look at the wine world from an outsider's unusual perspective. There are a few bits that fall flat, but it's quite an enjoyable watch.
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [BD]
• Catfish: Another intersting documentary, and another of the poster-children for the year's "Is it real?" theme. The less said about the plot the better, but I will say that it made an excellent double-feature with The Social Network (see "Full Review" link below for more).
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [BD] [Full Review]
• The Disappearance of Alice Creed: A brutal but effective tale of a kidnapping gone wrong, with the twist being that it's told entirely from the kidnapper's perspective. A few unexpected twists and turns and a claustrophobic setting lend this one a pretty somber atmosphere, but overall, I thought it was very well done. Another candidate for that last slot on the top 10.
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [BD]
• Dogtooth: Profoundly disturbing and weird, but surprisingly not that difficult to watch. There's an unexpected strain of humor through the whole thing (in particular, I love the Jaws reenactment) and while it is quite distressing from a conceptual perspective, it also raises a lot of interesting questions about parenting and reality (there's that theme again). I couldn't quite bring myself to put it in the top 10, but I have a feeling that this one will stick with me for a while.
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [BD]
• Easy A: This breezy, clever and fun modern-day updating of The Scarlet Letter was a lot better than I expected it to be, primarily due to the lead performance by Emma Stone (and her quirky family). It was a welcome relief from the emotionally draining end-of-the-year fare, though not exactly top 10 material (for me, at least).
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [BD]
• The Last Exorcism: Surprisingly effective mock documentary about exorcism (certainly the best film to cover that subject in the past several years). It's not quite strong enough to make the top 10 (I had some particular reservations about the ending), but it's a lot better than the marketing for the film would have you believe.
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [BD]
• Machete: I'm still not convinced that this movie actually needed to be made, but I have to admit that I had a lot of grindhouse-erific fun with the film. The mixture of political polemic (something I generally hate in my films) with trashy violence and sex actually struck me as working well (much better than either component alone in the film would). Gloriously over-the-top trashy fun.
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [BD] [Capsule Review]
• Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: It's funny and visually spectacular, but I found the ending to be a bit lacking. Even then, this was one of the many movies vying for the coveted 10th slot in the top 10, and it was neck and neck with the films that made it on the list. It's a really solid movie though, and well worth watching.
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [BD] [Winner of 2 Kaedrin Movie Awards]
• The Secret in Their Eyes: Technically the winner of last year's Foreign Picture Oscar, this didn't get a release until this year. Foreign Picture winners tend to make a good showing on my top 10s, but this year, I found that A Prophet was more compelling than this film, which is very good, to be sure (and which was another film under consideration for that last slot on the list). However, I found the film a bit unfocused and maybe even a bit sloppy. Sometimes that can work, but not in this case. Nevertheless, a fine film and worthy of a watch.
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [BD] [Capsule Review]
• Winter's Bone: I go back and forth on this film. Sometimes I love it and sometimes I'm kinda "meh" about it. It certainly moves at a glacial pace, but it features lots of good performances, a stark and unusual (but welcome) setting, and a simple but effective story. I can see why it's a critics' darling, but I can also see why it wasn't exactly a mainstream success. If you're fond of slow moving drama/thrillers, it's certainly worth a watch.
  More Info: [IMDB] [DVD] [BD] [Full Review]

Just Missed the Cut:
But still worthwhile, in their own way. Presented without comment and in no particular order:

• Best Worst Movie
• How to Train Your Dragon
• The Town
• The Girl Who Played with Fire
• The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest
• The Fighter
• The Human Centipede (First Sequence)
• Valhalla Rising

Should Have Seen:
Despite the fact that I've seen 81 of this year's movies (and that this post features 30+ of my favorites), there were a few that got away... mostly due to limited releases, though a few of the flicks listed below didn't interest me as much when they were released as they did when I heard more about them.

• Blue Valentine
• Carlos
• I Am Love
• It's Kind of a Funny Story
• Let Me In
• Buried
• Centurion
• Restrepo
• Last Train Home
• Enter the Void

Well that just about wraps up 2010 movies... Stay tuned next Sunday for the usual Oscar Liveblogging - previous installments here: [2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004]



Lost
Over the past year or so, I've been making my way through seasons 2-6 of Lost. I watched the first season on DVD shortly after it came out, and after following along with the broadcast for a couple weeks of season 2, I resolved to stop watching until I had some indication that the show would actually end (i.e. I was worried the writers would continually make stuff up and withhold any answers indefinitely). I dutifully avoided most contact with the series until early last year. By that time, the writers had declared a definite ending point and from observations of friends' responses to new episodes, I gathered that the show was picking up steam, rather than bogging down.

As you might imagine, given the fact that I pretty much ignored the series for a few years there, I'm not a huge fan of the series. I didn't actively dislike it either, I was just never hooked or convinced that it was going anywhere interesting. But then there were some things I was able to glean about what was happening and then Netflix made all of the seasons available on their Watch Instantly service, at which point, I had no real excuse to keep avoiding it. I burned through season 2 pretty quickly, though again, I was pretty unimpressed. Season 3 was even more of a slog, though I had been warned that this was the case. Apparently during the course of Season 3, the writers/producers agreed on an ending (or at least, how many more seasons/episodes remained). There was an almost immediate improvement in the quality of the episodes, but again, I was not terribly impressed.

Don't get me wrong, I was enjoying myself. I had no issues burning through a bunch of episodes all at once, and having the entire series at my fingertips made that prospect all too easy. Nevertheless, I never really had a problem taking a break either. Last year, I gave up Television for Lent. Despite just having started season 3, I had no problem staying away for 40 days. Later in the year, when I had finished season 5, but season 6 wasn't available on DVD/Netflix yet, I wasn't all that broken up about it. If this was a show that I loved, such delays would have been quite frustrating. As it was, I'm lucky I even remembered to check for season 6.

Ultimately, I'm glad that I did. I still have a lot of issues with the series as a whole, and even the last season itself, but in the end, I found it to be a worthwhile venture. I've tried to avoid Spoilers for most of this post, but there are some things you may not want to know and there are definitely spoilers towards the end of the post. To summarize my thoughts, I found the ending of the series to be emotionally satisfying, but not intellectually satisfying.

This is actually an interesting reaction for me, because I usually respond in the opposite way. For example, a few years ago, I saw the movie Capote and thought it was fantastic. The writing, the acting, the direction, cinematography, just about everything about the film was extremely well done. On an intellectual level, I found it amazing. On an emotional level, I didn't connect with it nearly as well. I have no idea why. There were a couple of scenes towards the end of the film where I kept thinking to myself This is devastating! and yet, I never actually felt devastated myself. I only really recognized the devastation on an intellectual level. There are lots of other movies I feel similarly about, and it's a real shame, because that feeling (or lack of feeling, as it were) leaves those films feeling a bit hollow in my mind.

Lost (at least, the final season) ended up being the opposite, especially when it came to the "Flash-Sideways" sequences. Nothing seemed to make much sense intellectually, but it was emotionally satisfying nonetheless. I'm sure there are tons of people who hate those sequences. They're full of sticky-sweet sentimentality and schmaltz. I'm a guy who doesn't mind a happy ending, but lots of people seem to hate them. You often see these people excoriating Hollywood cinema for this sort of thing, and to be honest, they're not entirely wrong. But sometimes they are, and for me, Lost worked. At least, in that specific respect, it worked.

I think my problems with the series have primarily to do with a few early choices that the writers seemed to get away from in later seasons. First, the series initially seemed like a science fiction story. It is not. It is a fantasy. But the writers attempted to use tropes from SF to spice up their story (in particular, the Dharma Initiative and time travel subplots), and that does represent a bit of a problem because the explanation for a lot of the mysterious happenings on the island basically amount to something like "A wizard did it!" or "It was magic!" Even when it comes to the time travel stuff, there isn't really any science in that fiction - it's all fantasy. There isn't anything inherently wrong with that sort of thing, but leveraging SF tropes implies a certain plausibility that Lost could never really deliver. Once I realized this, I became a little more accepting of some of the more ridiculous aspects of the series, most of which can be summed up as: The island is a weird place and Jacob has weird powers. However, I think there were a number of times when the series established some convention or set of rules, then went ahead and broke them for no other reason than that it would, like, totally make for a sweet cliffhanger. I think this is, in large part, why the series is not intellectually satisfying for me.

This sort of inconsistency was especially frustrating from a characterization standpoint. Jack and Kate love each other, but then Kate loves Sawyer, but Sawyer's evil, no wait he's just a con-man with a heart of gold, but then he does something evil again, but he's really a good guy, but no, he's only out for himself, but then he gets married and settles down and now he wants to kill Jack, but Jack loves Juliet, but Juliet is married to Sawyer even though she really loves Jack, but they're divorced and did I mention that Sawyer is selfish and only looking out for himself but that he's in love with Kate, no, wait, I meant Juliet and then Ben loves Juliet but she doesn't really care, but Jack and Juliet are divorced and Kate and Jack are together but then they're separated and Jack wants to leave the island, but only until he wants to return to the island because it's his destiny, but no, really it's Hugo's destiny, but Jack still has some sort of destiny on the island and isn't meth awesome!?

Now, here's the thing: most of that is actually fine. I don't have a problem with a character who changes their mind or goes through something traumatic and is changed in the process. The issue is that many of these changes happen only because the plot requires them to, not because of a natural outgrowth or reaction of the character. Even worse, the plot often doesn't require such twists - they're only included to make for a snappy cut to commercial or cliffhanger ending. So you get these weird character reversals where Kate wants to leave the island, but she doesn't want to leave, but she does, but she doesn't. All within the course of, like, 15 minutes. I don't know, maybe I'm exaggerating. I didn't make a note every time I thought to myself: Wait, what? Why would this character do that? Oh dammit, end of episode, fuck! But I know I had such thoughts often. (If I ever rewatch the series, I will try to document these occurrences).

Perhaps towards the end of the fifth season and leading into the sixth, this issues seemed to straighten out a bit. I didn't have nearly as many problems during the sixth season. Maybe that's because my brain was so addled by the previous seasons that I knew what to expect, but still, things seemed more consistent. Of course, this only leads to my next question, which is: What the hell were the first 5 seasons for again?

I mean, there's a very basic conflict at the heart of the Lost universe. Jacob vs. Smoke Monster. Protect the magic golden light. That's really it. The rest of the series is basically just some messed up people trying to work through some personal issues. Some of them think the island can help, most don't, but in the end, the island brought them together and ultimately brought out the best in them (well, in a bunch of them). That's all background though, and the aforementioned central conflict? It isn't even revealed in the series until, like, late in the fifth season. We don't even hear Jacob's name until the third season, and even when we think we've seen him, we haven't.

I can accept the fact that it takes a good amount of time to establish characters and their backgrounds and the series is fantastically complex when it comes to that web of character interactions, on and off the island, in the future and in the past. But did we really need 4-5 seasons of that before we got on with the actual story?

Well, this post is turning into a bit of rant about the things I didn't like about the series, and that's not what I initially set out to do. None of the above is to say that the series isn't worthwhile. Indeed, much of it could be construed as nitpicks. I don't think it's possible to have a show air for 6 seasons and not have such nitpicks. Shit happens. A cast member want to quit, so you need to write a quick exit (bye bye, Mr Eko!). Other cast members demand way too much money and a couple others get a DUI so they all need to be written off. These things happen.

And even then, the writers managed to build a story with, like, a hundred main characters. That sounds like hyperbole, and I suppose it is, but it's not that far off. What's more, most of those characters are interacting, before, during, and after their stay on the island. The non-linear exploration of such connections is actually pretty impressive in its own way. If you're a science fiction type, you certainly won't be impressed because there's no real explanation beyond "Magic" or "Destiny" or "Fate" or something, but there is something admirable about the number of characters and the extent to which their stories were woven together. The "Flashback" conceit was something I was quite dubious about at the beginning of the series, but the writers managed at least one shocking twist in that respect. The "Flash-forward" was a brilliant idea, and it was quite well executed. The "Flash-sideways" of the last season was a little baffling, but quite resonant from an emotional perspective.

So we come back to my basic feeling about the series: satisfying on an emotional level, but not on an intellectual level. I have my issues with the series, but it's still a well produced, well written series that can get addictive at times (of course, I was able to stop when i wanted as well, but there were a lot of Dammit! Ok, one more episode! moments as the writers laid one of their cliffhangers on me - even some of the lame ones that break character are still compelling in some way).



The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher
One of the themes of 2010 cinema has been a question of reality. Is what we're watching real? Or is it a fabrication? Or perhaps some twisted combination of the two? Interestingly, this theme can be found in the outright fictional (films like Inception certainly induce questions of reality), the ostensibly true story that is notably and obviously fictionalized (a la The Social Network), and most interestingly of all, the documentary. Films like Catfish and Exit Through the Gift Shop are certainly presented as fact, though many questions have arisen about their verisimilitude. Joaquin Phoenix and Casey Affleck collaborated on I'm Still Here, a supposed documentary about Phoenix's strange transition from a well known actor to a crazy aspiring rapper that Phoenix and Affleck have since admitted was something of a hoax (I have not seen the film, but from what I can see, many of the events certainly did happen, even if they were manufactured). In most cases, audiences don't seem to mind the blurring of reality with fiction (this includes myself), so long as that blurring is made clear (that may sound paradoxical, but it is perhaps better understood as the main component of the Reflexive Documentary: movies that acknowledge the biases of the filmmakers and the subjectivity of the material at hand are more trustworthy than movies that claim objectivity). Indeed, one could probably make a case for the presence of fiction in most non-fiction stories. Bias, subjectivity, and context can yield dramatically different results depending on how they're portrayed.

It is in this frame of mind that I picked up The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective by Kate Summerscale. It was immediately obvious that I was in for something that blurred the lines between fact and fiction. As Summerscale herself acknowledges in the introduction (page XIII):

This book is modelled on the country-house murder mystery, the form that the Road Hill case inspired, and uses some of the devices of detective fiction. The content, though, aims to be factual. The main sources are the government and police files on the murder, which are held in the National Archives at Kew, south-west London, and the books, pamphlets, essays and newspaper pieces published about the case in the 1860s, which can be found in the British Library. Other sources include maps, railway timetables, medical textbooks, social histories and police memoirs. Some descriptions of buildings and landscapes are from personal observation. Accounts of the weather conditions are from press reports, and the dialogue is from testimony given in court.

Even with the acknowledgement, the book is an odd amalgam of embellished factual accounts of a horrific murder, straightforward biographical information of the titular Johnathan Whicher and the family Kent, and a survey of mid-nineteenth century detective fiction. There are times when Summerscale follows one of these three tangential threads too far, but for the most part, she manages to weave them together in a deft and engaging fashion.

The mystery at the center of the book concerns a gruesome murder of three-year-old Saville Kent in 1860. Local police bumbled through the investigation, eventually leading the government to dispatch Scotland Yard Detective Inspector Jack Whicher to the small town to investigate. Whicher sized up the situation and quickly came to the shocking conclusion that the murderer must have been a member of the Kent household. Everyone from Saville's father to his nursemaids came under suspicion, though Whicher favored Saville's half-sister, Constance Kent. However, Whicher had been brought into the case nearly a week after the murder. The evidence was mostly circumstantial and most leads had gone cold before he even started the case.

And it was a very odd case. It's easy to see why fiction authors appropriated so much from the story in later novels. Every clue, every piece of new information, every close examination of the evidence at hand seemed to make the case less clear. Summerscale writes (page 75):

The family story that Whicher pieced together at Road Hill House suggested that Saville's death was part of a mesh of deception and concealment. The detective stories that the case engendered, beginning with The Moonstone in 1868, took this lesson. All the suspects in a classic murder mystery have secrets, and to keep them they lie, dissemble, evade the interrogations of the investigator. Everyone seems guilty because everyone has something to hide. For most of them, though, the secret is not murder. This is the trick on which detective fiction turns.

Summerscale delves into the tricks of Whicher's trade from time to time, and it does make for fascinating reading. I love to read about the devils in the details on which something like this murder mystery hinges. For instance, one of the mini-mysteries the case presents us with is a missing nightdress. This sounds like a minor detail, but Whicher immediately seizes upon the missing clothing as a precious clue. Summerscale takes the opportunity to describe the origins of the word "clue" and why Whicher was so keen on solving the mini-mystery of the missing nightdress (from page 68):

The word ‘clue’ derives from ‘clew,’ meaning a ball of thread or yarn. It had come to mean ‘that which points the way’ because of the Greek myth in which Theseus uses a ball of yarn, given to him by Ariadne, to find his way out of the Minotaur’s labyrinth. The wirters of the mid-nineteenth century still had this image in mind when they used the word… a plot was a knot, and a story ended in a 'denouement', an unknotting.

Then, as now, many clues were literally made of cloth - Criminals could be identified by pieces of fabric.

Summerscale then proceeds to detail several cases where Whicher himself managed to solve a crime due to the fortuitous discovery of unique or identifiable clothing, eventually concluding (from page 70):

The thread that led Theseus out of the maze was true to another principle of Whicher’s investigation: the progress of a detective was backwards. To find his way out of danger and confusion, Theseus had to retrace his steps, return to the origin. The solution to a crime was the beginning as well as the end of a story.

I have a fascination with such details, so of course I wouldn't have minded if Summerscale indulged in more of such analysis, but it's clear that she was trying to walk a tight line. I would be easy to stray too far from her focus on the mystery and the man sent to investigate, and she manages to walk that line well enough.

Whicher is an interesting man in himself. Most of what we know about him is in his police reports and correspondence. I would have loved to read more about the man, but from what I can tell, Summerscale has unearthed every conceivable piece of knowledge about the man, and still came up a bit short. As a plain-clothes detective, he obviously avoided attention as much as possible, which probably explains some of the missing information - for instance, there doesn't appear to be any pictures or paintings of the main available. That being said, he's certainly a worthy subject for study. He seems to possess keen observational skills as well as a knack for finding holes in a story and clues. He appears quite confident in his perceptions, though as the subhead of the book notes, he is somewhat shaken by the mystery at Road Hill House. His initial investigation yielded no convictions and he returned to London a different man, though I think calling this his "Undoing" is perhaps a bit of an exaggeration. Indeed, after Summerscale establishes the central mystery, I feared that the subhead implied that no solution would really be found.

Fortunately, there is a closure of sorts, though I will not spoil the book by delving too deeply into that here. Suffice to say that by the end of the book, we are a bit closer to what actually happened, though the inherent difficulty of rebuilding a picture of the past is one of the themes of the book. In today's day and age, with TV shows like CSI showing what you can do with forensics in explicit detail, it's easy to forget how difficult it would be to figure out what happened in the past (and to be honest, even given the advanced forensic technology available, shows like CSI still gloss over the difficulties of a murder investigation). Mr. Whicher had no such forensic luxuries in his day and had to rely on his cunning and intuition, perhaps moreso than would be comfortable with modern populations. Indeed, one of the undercurrents of the book is how England was reacting to the notion of a "detective" - a concept that was somewhat new to the world. Many felt that detectives were too intrusive and seedy, in it only for the money or glory. Whicher does not seem like that type though. He's reserved and curious, confident in his prowess, but honorable in his manner.

Of course, I'm basing my opinion of the man on what could be argued is a partially-fictional representation of the man and his actions. This question of what is real and what is fiction is something that kept coming to mind while reading this book. Part of that might be the year in film, as previously mentioned, but I think other readers would find such questions arising when reading the book as well. Of the three main components of the story I mentioned earlier (murder mystery, biography, and survey of detective fiction), it is the latter that calls reality into question the most. There seems to be a general idea that quoting fiction in a formal argument is bad form, and as such I can see some people being taken aback by Summerscale's book. While impeccably researched and sourced, she does give the book a flare you don't normally see in non-fiction. As she mentions in her introduction, she uses many devices of detective fiction in her writing. She directly references detective fiction of the day, as well as authors like Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry James, and Wilkie Collins (Arthur Conan Doyle is not really referenced until later in the book, as Doyle did not start writing his Sherlock Holmes books until well after Whicher's heyday). Some of these references are to non-fiction - Dickens interviewed Whicher, for instance, and Summerscale includes many of Dickens' insights into Whicher and the case at Road Hill House - but some references are directly from detective fiction. Again, some might find that inappropriate, but I'm sympathetic to such techniques, and I think Summerscale does an exceptional job mixing fact and fiction, to the point where I don't think the book would be as informative or interesting if it didn't mix those seemingly incompatible components. Ultimately, I think this combination yields some insights that a traditional scholarly effort might have missed, and I quite enjoyed the book for the way it treated both real and fictional detectives (page 304):

Perhaps this is the purpose of detective investigations, real and fictional - to transform sensation, horror and grief into a puzzle, and then to solve the puzzle, to make it go away. 'The detective story," observed Raymond Chandler in 1949, 'is a tragedy with a happy ending.' A storybook detective starts by confronting us with a murder and ends by absolving us of it. He clears us of guilt. He relieves us of uncertainty. He removes us from the presence of death.

It was a good read, and I would recommend it to any one interested in mysteries or the era. Special thanks to longtime Kaedrin reader and friend, Spencer, for giving me this book.



2010 Kaedrin Movie Awards: Arbitrary Awards
So we're finished with the formal awards, but there are always some other awards that don't really require a lot of nominees... and there are some movies that have something so uncommon that it's worth bringing up. Interestingly, some of these awards have actually become a yearly thing, despite never really being conceived as such. In any case, here they are:

• The "You know what happens when a toad gets struck by lightning? The same thing that happens to everything else" Award for Worst Dialogue: Skyline. Not even that talented thespian Eric Balfour could make this crap sound good. "It's not exactly like we have a lot more bedsheets!"
• The Proximity to Jason Vorhees Award for Heroic Stupidity: Piranha 3D. Of course, the gargantuan amounts of stupid present in this film actually constitute its charm.
• The "I Can't Believe They Went There" Award for Dumbest Plot Twist: Shutter Island. Scorsese is brilliant as always, but even he can't undo the damage done by one of the dumbest plot twists ever. I also The Book of Eli, but then, there's not quite the disparity between talent and dumb twist there. In other words, the dumbness seems appropriate for that movie.
• Best Unexpected Gratuitous Nudity: Love and Other Drugs. I like Anne Hathaway. (I assume female audiences enjoy Jake Gyllenhaal as well).
• Best Documentary About Wine: Blood Into Wine. In a move resembling Homer Simpson's decision to attend Clown College, Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan bought and runs a winery in Arizona. This slickly produced documentary is an interesting look at the situation and well worth a watch.
• Most Menacing Florist of the Year: Pete Postlethwaite's character in The Town. Sadly, Postlethwaite recently passed away. He will be missed, as he always classed a movie up with his presence.
• Most Surprisingly Mediocre Movie of the Year: Unstoppable. This movie about a runaway train* looked like it would be one of the worst of the year. Instead we got a competent and surprisingly fun thriller.
• Best Underwater Ballet Sequence: Piranha 3D. This isn't just the best underwater ballet sequence with naked women set to classical music of the year, it's quite possible the best underwater ballet sequence with naked women set to classical music of all time. I suppose an alternate title for this award could be "Best Expected Gratuitous Nudity", a companion to an earlier arbitrary award.

And that just about wraps up the awards for the year. Look for a top 10 list in a few weeks...

* Sorry, I forgot. It's not a train, it's a missile the size of the Chrystler building! Please accept my humble apologies.



2010 Kaedrin Movie Award Winners!
The nominations for the 2010 Kaedrin Movie Awards were announced last week. Today, I'll be announcing the winners of those formal awards. Later in the week, I'll cover less traditional categories in what we like to call the Arbitrary Awards, and at some point in the near future, I'll post my top 10 of 2010 (this will most likely happen in early to mid-February). So let's get this party started:

• Best Villain/Badass: Dr. Heiter, played by Dieter Laser in The Human Centipede. I know, this category is lame. What a bad year for villainy. I seriously considered nominating "speech impediments" (from The King's Speech), that's how bad this year was for villains. I suppose I could add CLU from TRON: Legacy now that I've seen that, but even he is a bit of a lame villain. Ivan Vanko would have been a great candidate if the movie he was in didn't suck so bad. The other nominees were fine, I guess, but in the end, I had to go with everyone's favorite mad scientist, Dr. Heiter, played with a manic and malevolent swagger by (best actor name ever?) Dieter Laser, in one of the more aggressively disgusting horror movies of the year.
• Best Hero/Badass: Mindy Macready / Hit-Girl, played by Chloe Moretz in Kick-Ass. Now this was a much more difficult category to pick a winner in, as there have been lots of great heroic badasses this year. There are a couple that definitely weren't in the running (notably Tom Cruise and Angelina Jolie, though I enjoy both of their characters and their movies), but the rest were pretty much on a level playing field, though how could Hit-Girl not come out on top. I suppose there's something of a controversy around such a young actress portraying such a foul-mouthed and violent character, but I'll be damned if she wasn't hysterically funny and totally badass at the same time. If the movie makes my top 10, it will most likely be because of this character and Moretz's performance. At the time I wasn't sure if such an aggressively juvenile film or the novelty of seeing an 11 year old girl swear like a sailor whilst eviscerating her enemies would stand the test of time. So far, at least, it has. I mean, how can this award not go to the character that responds to the seemingly reasonable inquiry of how to contact her in case of an emergency with this: "You just contact the mayor's office. He has a special signal he shines in the sky; it's in the shape of a giant cock." Brilliant.
• Best Comedic Performance: Kieran Culkin in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. I'm as surprised as you are about this one, but he was damn funny in one of the few movies I found really funny this year. I did seriously consider Chloe Moretz for this one, but then, she's only in her movie for a short period of time overall, and a lot of that is really just action. This is really a category where none of the nominees really jumped out at me, so I really just gave it to the movie I thought best deserved to get a comedic award, at which point, Scott Pilgrim actually does stand out. Thats a lame way to pick a winner, I guess, but I really didn't have any other good ideas.
• Breakthrough Performance: Armie Hammer in The Social Network. Another difficult choice, though this time because there were too many good choices. The shortlist included Noomi Rapace and Jennifer Lawrence (and, ok, Emma Stone), but I ended up going with Hammer because I have to admit, I thought he was awesome in the movie AND that I didn't even realize he was playing two parts (he plays both Winklevoss twins, a testament to his acting ability and the special effects used to pull off those scenes). In the past, this award has traditionally gone to someone I knew, but never expected much out of... Previous winners include Rosario Dawson, Mila Kunis, Josh Brolin and Tom Hardy, all people who I knew and underestimated. This years nominees were mostly young folks who don't have much to their credit, which is very different than years past. Strange, but Hammer was really fantastic in his roles, and I look forward to seeing more of him...
  
  
• Most Visually Stunning: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. There seem to be two different types of visually stunning movie nominated every year - gorgeously photographed movies (for this year, think True Grit, Valhalla Rising, Winters Bone and Shutter Island) and movies that have lots of pretty special effects or animation (like Inception or the Secret of Kells), and I seem to generally favor the special effects for some reason. I'm not really sure why, perhaps because the films I choose tend to be more fast paced and have lots of visual pyrotechnics and creativity, like Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. All of this year's nominees are pretty great from a visual perspective though.
• Best Sci-Fi or Horror Film: Inception. Not sure how much actual science is there, but Inception certainly has the look and feel of great science fiction and it evokes that great sensawunda feeling that makes SF so entertaining. It sets up a complicated set of rules and then subverts them, but it does so in an internally consistent way, which is what makes this movie so great. None of the other nominees really came close (i.e. this is the first easy category this year!), though I will note that I got a very similar vibe from the little-seen Triangle (even if that one's even less of SF and more horror/fantasy).
• Best Sequel: Toy Story 3. This is usually a very difficult category to populate, but this year there were several worthy nominees, though I have to admit that I let a few crappy ones in, notably Piranha 3D, which I allowed based solely on the power of one scene (which will come up when we get to the arbitrary awards next week). I also wanted to note that I was really surprised at how well Paranormal Activity 2 fit into the first movie. There's some clear retconning going on there, but it fits surprisingly well. But in the end, how could I not give this to Toy Story 3? A fantastic movie, sequel or not, and it will most likely be finding its way onto my top 10.
• Biggest Disappointment: Cop Out. I don't know why I had such high expectations for this one, but I apparently did, and boy did it let me down. With the exception of Sean William Scott's performance, the film is pretty bad. From the cheesy Fletch-wannabe music score to the crappy writing to the boring performances (Bruce Willis mostly just sleeping his way through the movie, while Tracy Morgan was entirely too unrestrained), there's not much to recommend about this movie. I really like Kevin Smith's movies, but I have to admit that I'm confused by this direction - if anything, he should be writing scripts for other directors, not the other way around. As for the other nominees, I didn't really love Iron Man as much as everyone else, so the complete failure of the sequel wasn't really a surprise to me. Splice would be most accurately described as an "interesting failure", which isn't that bad in my book. Mother was actually a pretty good movie, but it's gotten so much play from almost every critic out there that I went into it with expectations that were way too high. And I wasn't expecting that much out of Doghouse in the first place. So yeah, Cop Out was the natural choice for me.
• Best Action Sequences: Kick-Ass. Another difficult category, and I'm a little surprised that I ended up with Kick-Ass, but it does, well, Kick-Ass. Part of it might just be the novelty of the young heroine (see Best Hero/Badass award above), but another part of it is that there simply wasn't a ton of competition this year. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and Inception were on the shortlist for this one, but I felt like Inception was driven more by its ideas than its action, while the action sequences in Scot Pilgrim seemed to get a bit repetitive and desensitizing by the end of the film. Kick-Ass was also sorta making fun of itself as well, which helps.
• Best Plot Twist/Surprise: Triangle. Always a difficult category to talk about, as I don't want to give anything away, but I found Triangle pretty consistently surprising. Once I got about 30 minutes in, some stuff happened, and I really had no idea where the rest of the movie would go, and that happens a couple times as the movie goes on. Like Inception, it's got a lot of moving parts that all seem to fit together in the end, but which you don't really see coming until they're there. Of course, it's important to go into the movie knowing as little as possible about it, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem for this underseen movie. Inception was a runner up, as was Exit Through the Gift Shop, neither of which really employ conventional plot twists, to be sure (heck one of them is a documentary!), but both of which took me somewhere interesting that I wasn't expecting. Catfish was kinda predictable and as critic Michael Phillips notes in the latest Filmspotting, The Secret in Their Eyes is like a really great two-episode Law & Order: Buenos Aires (if such a thing existed).
• Best High Concept Film: Exit Through the Gift Shop. Always a difficult category to populate and pick a winner for because the concept is a bit nebulous to start with, but when I thought about this award and Exit Through the Gift Shop, it just made more and more sense. Here's a movie ostensibly about street art, but which ends up examining the person who shot most of the footage in detail, then mercilessly critiquing the art world and hype and ultimately, even itself. The movie is critically examining the very idea of high concept art, so how could it not win? The runner up would have to be The Human Centipede, which is entirely reliant on the disgusting high-concept premise at its core (almost to its detriment).
  
  
• 2010's 2009 Movie of the Year: (tie) Black Dynamite and Mystery Team. There are no clear standouts here, and the two I ended up with are both flawed, but only in ways that I find kinda endearing. For instance, the faux-blaxploitation of Black Dynamite begins to wear thin towards the end, though there are several brilliant sequences in the film (such as the montage in the park where he's kinda playing with his girlfriend). Mystery Team is a little too silly for its own good, but I actually really enjoyed that part of the film. Interestingly, almost all of the nominees here are pretty much comedies. Some have other elements as well, but they're mostly comedies, which is strange.

Well there you have it. Stay tuned for the Arbitrary Awards on Wednesday and, eventually, the top 10 of 2010.



2010 Kaedrin Movie Awards
It's finally time for the 5th Annual Kaedrin Movie Awards! As of today, I've seen 69 movies that would be considered 2010 releases. This is on par with the past few years [Previous Installments here: 2006 2007 2008 2009], but a little less than last year. Regardless, this post marks the beginning of my end of the year recap (only a little more than a week late!) The categories are the same as last year, but will proceed a bit differently. I'll post all the nominations today, but I don't think I'll be announcing one or two winners a day (as I've done the past few years), instead opting to announce them all at once next Sunday.

2010 has been an unusual year for movies. In particular, the first half of the year was pretty disheartening. It wasn't until about mid-summer that things started turning around, and as I've been playing catchup for the past couple of months, I've been finding some diamonds in the rough from the first half. In the end, while I don't think it's been a particularly good year for movies, I think that abysmal first half has ruined the year's reputation. That or the endless parade of mediocrity that seems to be this year's theme. There are a couple of movies I'm still hoping to catch up with before I release my top 10, but there's no reason to delay the awards for that. Besides, one of the points of these awards is that they allow me to give some love to films that I like, but which aren't necessarily great or are otherwise flawed (as such, the categories may seem a bit eclectic). Some of these movies will end up on my top 10, but the grand majority of them will not.

The rules for this are the same as last year: Nominated movies must have been released in 2010 (in the US) and I have to have seen the movie (and while I have seen a lot of movies, I don't pretend to have seen a comprehensive selection - don't let that stop you from suggesting something though). Also, I suppose I should mention the requisite disclaimer that these sorts of lists are inherently subjective and personal. But that's all part of the fun, right? So here are the nominees for this year's awards:

Best Villain/Badass
It's been a bad year for villainy... I was able to fill the category, but only by putting some real stretches on the list. As with previous years, my picks in this category are for individuals, not groups (i.e. no vampires or zombies as a group).

• Max, played by Jason Patric in The Losers
• Dr. Heiter, played by Dieter Laser in The Human Centipede
• Ivan Vanko, played by Mickey Rourke in Iron Man 2
• Torrez, played by Steven Seagal in Machete
• Santa, played by Peeter Jakobi in Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale

Best Hero/Badass
Heroes, on the other hand, are having a much more badass year. There were so many choices, I had to actually cut a few people off the list and I still ended up with a very large list... Again limited to individuals and not groups.

• Mindy Macready / Hit-Girl, played by Chloe Moretz in Kick-Ass
• Roy Miller, played by Tom Cruise in Knight and Day
• Lisbeth Salander, played by Noomi Rapace in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
• Evelyn Salt, played by Angelina Jolie in Salt
• Machete Cortez, played by Danny Trejo in Machete
• Victoria, played by Helen Mirren in Red
• Teardrop Dolly, played by John Hawkes in Winter's Bone
• Rooster Cogburn, played by Jeff Bridges in True Grit
• One Eye, played by Mads Mikkelsen in Valhalla Rising

Best Comedic Performance
Another lackluster year for comedy. I ended up pulling a few unconventional choices into the list...

• Chloe Moretz in Kick-Ass
• Sharlto Copley in The A-Team
• Jonah Hill in Cyrus
• Michael Keaton in The Other Guys
• Kieran Culkin in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
• Emma Stone in Easy A

Breakthrough Performance
Interestingly, this is a pretty decent year for young actresses, as the grand majority of nominees are female. As with previous years, my main criteria for this category was if I watched a movie, then immediately looking up the actor/actress on IMDB to see what else they've done (or where they came from). This sometimes happens for even well established actors/actresses, but not so much this year...

• Chloe Moretz in Kick-Ass
• Noomi Rapace in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
• Kieran Culkin in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
• Armie Hammer in The Social Network
• Jennifer Lawrence in Winter's Bone
• Emma Stone in Easy A
• Hailee Steinfeld in True Grit

Most Visually Stunning
Sometimes even bad movies can look really great...

• Shutter Island
• Inception
• Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
• Winter's Bone
• 127 Hours
• Black Swan
• True Grit
• The Secret of Kells
• Valhalla Rising

Best Sci-Fi or Horror Film
I'm a total genre hound, despite genres generally receiving very little attention from critics. This is a category normally dominated by Horror, but there's at least one solid SF nominee (and another two that are sorta mixtures). The list is still weighted more towards Horror, but a respectable showing for both genres:

• The Human Centipede
• Predators
• Inception
• Paranormal Activity 2
• Black Swan
• Triangle

Best Sequel
A surprisingly long list of options this year (in each of the 4 years I've been doing this, there's only been 3 options). Now, at least one of these is a pretty bad movie, but I included it anyway.

• Toy Story 3
• Predators
• The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
• Piranha 3D
• Paranormal Activity 2
• Jackass 3D

Biggest Disappointment
Always a difficult award to figure out, as there are different ways in which a movie can disappoint. Usually, expectations play just as big a part of this as the actual quality of the film, and it's possible that a good movie can win the award because of high expectations.

• Cop Out
• Iron Man 2
• Splice
• Doghouse
• Mother

Best Action Sequences
This was a decent year for action, though not especially a standout year. This award isn't for individual action sequences, but rather an overall estimation of each film.

• Kick-Ass
• The A-Team
• Inception
• Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
• Machete
• Red

Best Plot Twist/Surprise
Not a particularly strong year for the plot twist either, though there are a few standouts.

• Inception
• Catfish
• Paranormal Activity 2
• Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale
• Exit Through the Gift Shop
• The Secret in Their Eyes
• Triangle

Best High Concept Film
This is always a strange category to populate because the concept is a bit nebulous, but nevertheless, there are a few interesting choices...

• Triangle
• Machete
• Exit Through the Gift Shop
• Splice
• The Human Centipede

2010's 2009 Movie of the Year
A 2009 movie I didn't get to see until 2010... This is always a problem for the amateur movie lover. Towards the end of the year, 500 movies come out, but they only play in New York or LA for a grand total of like 3 hours (enough for 2 showings at each theater!) Plus, there's always a movie I dismissed and neglected to see which I end up seeing a year later and loving. A few good ones this year (er last year, no this year):

• Black Dynamite
• Mystery Team
• The Slammin' Salmon
• The Invention of Lying
• Pirate Radio
• Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

Anyone have any suggestions (for either category or nominations)? Comments, complaints and suggestions are welcome, as always.

It looks like there isn't a clear leader in nominations, but there are 4 films coming in at 4 nominations each: Inception, Kick-Ass, Machete, and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Nipping at their heels is a whopping 5 films with 3 nominations each, including: True Grit, Winter's Bone, Triangle, The Millenium Trilogy Movies (perhaps an unfair advantage there), and, surprisingly, Paranormal Activity 2. Even more films have 2 nominations each, and more than that with just 1. Overall, 34 movies were nominated (not including the 2009 movies or the "disappointment" award), which is still a pretty good showing, I think. So I'm going to give it a week and then hopefully announce all the winners next Sunday, followed by some Arbitrary awards and (eventually) a top 10.



2010 Catchup Progress, Part 2
The year has ended, but the 2010 Catchup continues. Last time around, I had only seen about 5 of the movies on my original list, but I've been some pretty good progress since then, knocking about 10 more movies off the list (plus 2 additional films that weren't even on the list):

• The Art of the Steal: Not a heist flick, but rather a documentary about the Barnes art collection, and how various political powers maneuvered to relocate the art from its longtime home in Lower Merion to downtown Philadelphia (despite the clear wishes laid out in Barnes' will). Unapologetically one-sided, but still a fascinating and thought provoking documentary. I'm not entirely sure I buy completely into the filmmakers' side of things - one could certainly mount a pretty good devil's advocate case against them - but on the other hand, the way the powers-that-be went about moving the collection is pretty dirty. ***
• The Fighter: Add one part Raging Bull, two parts Rocky, and Christian Bale into a pot. Bring to a boil and stir vigorously. Profit. In all seriousness, it's a lot better than I was expecting, but it's also a little on the disjointed side. For instance, it seemed like Melissa Leo and Christian Bale were almost in a different movie. Great performances, but they're a lot more over the top than anyone else in the film. Mark Wahlberg is passable, which is about as good as I could have hoped in a movie where he has to share the screen with great actors. **1/2
• The Kids Are All Right: Well done family drama hits all the appropriate notes, but I fount it lacking in some ways. Great performances all around and a good central story, but some of the side-plots are given short shrift. I can see why some people love this film, but it didn't do a whole lot for me. **1/2
• Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale: Already wrote a full review of this one, and the Samichlaus beer I had after... ***
• Easy A: Breezy, clever, and fun, it was much better than I expected. Great central performance by Emma Stone and a solid supporting cast anchor the film on top of a clever script. It's not Oscar-bait or anything, but I was really surprised by how much I found myself enjoying this... ***
• Exit Through the Gift Shop: Intriguing documentary ostensibly about street art and one of it's most mysterious figures, Banksy. Instead, Banksy turns the tables and highlights the guy behind the camera, who turns out to be quite the lunatic. I'm not sure I totally buy Banksy's conceit here, but while I suppose that questions of the film's authenticity are valid, it ultimately doesn't matter much. I really enjoyed the film for what it was, and could even delve a bit deeper than expected to gain some insight into the art world in general. It doesn't go where you'd expect, but I really enjoyed the trip it took me on. I didn't watch them together, but this would probably make a nice double feature with The Art of the Steal (both are available on Netflix watch instantly). ***1/2
• True Grit: The Coen Brothers's take on the classical Western, I found it very refreshing to just watch a solid Western without having to bother with all the revisionist traditions that most Westerns these days seem to embrace. When I saw the preview for this, i was a little worried about Jeff Bridges voice - something sounded so off, so manufactured about it. But in the context of the film, it was fine, and complemented a good performance. Newcoming Hailee Steinfeld is fantastic and manages to hold her own whenever she's onscreen. For some reason, Matt Damon hasn't been getting a lot of buzz for his work in the film, but I think I might like his performance the best out of all of them. Will probably have a place on my top 10 of the year list, whenever I manage to get to that... ***1/2
  
• Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work: Believe it or not, Joan Rivers plays a small role in my professional life, which only made this documentary more interesting because I really didn't know or remember where she came from or all the other stuff that she does. Despite her constant self-deprecating comments (which got on my nerves by the end of the film), she seems to do a tremendous amount of work. The most interesting thing I saw, though, were some clips from her standup routine, which is quite dirty and very funny. Ultimately, there wasn't a ton to this movie, but it was a solid study of an interesting person. **1/2
• The King's Speech: This movie seemed like such obvious Oscar-bait that I didn't originally plan to see it, but after hearing a few reviews and seeing that it managed to get wide distribution, I gave it a shot and was very glad that I did so. Fantastic central performances by Colin Firth, Helena Bonham Carter, and Geoffrey Rush, and a witty script elevates this film beyond typical indie Oscar bait (though there is maybe one or two groaners in that respect, it was much less than I was expecting). One thing I loved about the film was that it didn't feel the need to completely "cure" the King's stuttering problem (and indeed, the King's response to Logue's jesting comment that he "stammered on the W" is the perfect illustration of why that was a good thing). ***
• The Secret in Their Eyes: Technically a 2009 release, it won the Oscar for best foreign film... but wasn't released in the US until 2010, so I'm including it on my list. Indeed, for the past few years, the best foreign film Oscar-winner has appeared on my top 10 list, so my expectations were high for this one. Unfortunately, it didn't entirely live up to my expectations, but it's still quite a good film. I just found some aspects of the film a bit sloppy, and didn't connect with some of the subplots. Still well worth a watch. ***
• Mother: There's something about the way Bong Joon-ho makes movies that just doesn't connect with me. I was not at all impressed with his previous effort, the overpraised The Host, and while Mother manages to be a much better film, it's still not something I totally connected with. The great lead performance by Kim Hye-ja wasn't really enough to save the film for me, though the plot is much tighter and less tonally inconsistent than Joon-ho's previous film. I'm glad I saw it and I can see why it's garnered the praise it has, but it wasn't one of my favorites. **1/2
• Vengeance: Director Johnny To has been a long time Kaedrin favorite, but despite this film being one of my most anticipated of the year, I have to admit that it was extremely disappointing. There's a nugget of a good movie here, but it's drowned out by some really clunky dialogue (perhaps the partial English language nature of the film had something to do with that) and some baffling plot choices. Even the action sequences, which To normally excels at even in bad movies, came off as a bit trite and uninspired. Again, the overall story has its merits, but I found the execution lacking. It kept my interest, but it's not especially recommended. **
• The Secret of Kells: It looks like this is another 2010 on a technicality movie, but this animated film is well worth checking out, if only for the visually dynamic style that permeates the screen. Occasionally, I think the film delves a bit too deeply into the stylish visuals and the overall story is a bit on the weaker side, but it's still a compelling and stunning film. **1/2
  

This brings the total tally of 2010 films I've seen to 65, which is pretty good, especially when considering that at the beginning of November I was only at around 30 films... And there's still quite a few I have to check out. Keep an eye out next weekend for the Fifth Annual Kaedrin Movie Award Nominations! [Previous Installments here: 2006 2007 2008 2009] If you have any suggestions for either new categories or nominees for existing categories, by all means, leave a comment or send me an email (or however you want to get in touch with me)...



Professor Hubert Farnsworth's Only Slightly Futuristic Holiday Movie Quiz
Good news everybody! Dennis Cozzalio of the Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule blog has posted another of his famous movie quizes, and as always, I'm excited to provide my answers. Previous installments answering questions from David Huxley, Professor Fate, Professor Russell Johnson, Dr. Smith, Professor Peabody, and Professor Severus Snape are also available... But now, here are my answers to Professor Farnsworth:

1) Best Movie of 2010

Well, I'm still catching up on a lot of 2010 releases and I'm terrible at picking favorites, but as of right now, I'll have to go with the relatively boring choice of The Social Network or Inception. Nevertheless, those are the two movies I connected with the most this year.

2) Second-favorite Roman Polanski Movie

These days I find it hard to separate the "fugitive child rapist" part from the "great filmmaker" part of Polanski, but I guess I'll have to go with Rosemary's Baby as my second favorite.

3) Jason Statham or Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson

Well, they both make some rather craptacular films, but Statham seems to actually have a few really good films to his credit. Plus, I hate professional wrestling.

4) Favorite movie that could be classified as a genre hybrid

I thought this would be a lot harder, but the answer came pretty quickly: Alien. The two most prominent genres being blended here are science fiction and horror, and it's a superb example of both genres.

5) How important is foreknowledge of a film’s production history? Should it factor into one’s reaction to a film?

I've been thinking a lot about film critics lately. In particular, the age old question of why critics like different movies than mainstream audiences. Without going into too much detail, I think the primary differentiator is the knowledge and appreciation of context. For instance, in order to truly enjoy a movie made a hundred years ago, you have to have some knowledge of what it was like to live back then and also be aware of the limitations of film at the time, and so on. Indeed, it might even be worthwhile to look into what effects the film had on society at large. I suppose someone without that cultural and historical context can still enjoy the film, but not as deeply as someone who has studied all those external factors. Now, "foreknowledge of a film's production history" is but a narrow part of a film's context, but it's certainly relevant. Whether or not it "should" factor into one's reaction is almost irrelevant. All of one's knowledge factors into one's reaction to a film. What one should do, however, is be aware of this fact. Context is not limited to the direct knowledge of the film itself, but all knowledge. One of the reasons people enjoy rewatching movies is that while the movies don't change, we do, and so rewatching a film involves incorporating new knowledge and perspectives, which can still be illuminating. So I'd say it's important, that it should factor into one's reaction, and that as long as one acknowledges their perspective, it's probably a good thing.

6) William Powell & Myrna Loy or Cary Grant & Irene Dunne

Not particularly familiar with the pairings, but Cary Grant & Irene Dunne, because I said so.

7) Best Actor of 2010

My first instinct is James Franco for 127 Hours. However, a few others popped into my head: Christian Bale in The Fighter, Jesse Eisenberg and Justin Timberlake in The Social Network, and maybe a few others. Also, I haven't seen a few films with contenders, like The King's Speech. But I'll stick with my instinct on this one for now.

8) Most important lesson learned from the past decade of watching movies

I think the aforementioned recognition of the role and importance of context in our reactions to movies is a big one. A lot of our reactions to films are colored more by context than I think we care to admit. Luckily, acknowledging that is the first step towards getting a more complete understanding of film.

9) Last movie seen (DVD/Blu-ray/theater)

In theaters, it was True Grit, which was great. I was a little worried about Jeff Bridges' voice in the trailer. Something sounded so off, so manufactured about it. But in the context of the film, it was fine. And the Coens, as usual, are fantastic at this whole moviemaking thing.

On Blu-Ray, it was Easy A, which was breezy, clever, and fun. Much better than expected!

On DVD, it was Silent Night, Bloody Night. Among the not-so-crowded holiday horror sub-genre, it's near the top, though I think it's also a bit overrated.

Also, I think it's time to add a new option to the list: Netflix Watch Instantly (or, at least, streaming). I'll go first, the last thing I saw on Netflix streaming was Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, an interesting look at someone I never thought much about (despite the fact that she's impacted my professional life in some ways).

10) Most appropriate punishment for director Tom Six

I don't think he necessarily deserves punishment, but the ironic thing to do would be to make him the middle piece, if you know what I mean.

11) Best under-the-radar movie almost no one else has had the chance to see

This is a difficult question because the reason "almost no one else has had the chance to see" something is that it didn't get a very wide release and/or isn't available on DVD. Unfortunately, that's almost as likely to affect me as it is anyone else! However, there are a few movies I've seen that might qualify. The first one that came to mind was Playing Columbine, a documentary about video games and their impact on society. I was really taken with this movie when I saw it at the Philadelphia Film Festival a few years ago, but it never really got a release and its DVD is not widely available (it's not even available on Netflix, though you can buy one for $35 from their website), so "almost no one else has had the chance to see" it. I don't know that it's worth the price of the DVD, but if you get a chance to see it and you like video games (heck, even if you don't), it's well worth watching.


12) Sheree North or Angie Dickinson

Angie Dickinson, because, come on, Rio Bravo. Then again, Sheree North is Babs Kramer. But Dickinson.

13) Favorite nakedly autobiographical movie

Though it certainly didn't happen the way it was portrayed on screen, I'll go with Adaptation. If you require something more traditional, I guess you'd have to go with Almost Famous.

14) Movie which best evokes a specific real-life place

I'm finding this one extremely difficult to answer. The first thing I thought of was the recent spate of Boston-set films that seem to portray the gritty underbelly of the town... but then, I've only been to Boston a few times and I'm certainly not up to speed on their criminal undergrounds. Next, I thought of 127 Hours because I saw that recently and it also has a very well established sense of space and location. I felt like I knew the geography of the area despite never having been there before. I don't think any of those are really good answers to this question, but that's what I came up with.

15) Best Director of 2010

Given my choice for best movie, the obvious answer would be David Fincher. The Coen Brothers probably deserve some consideration as well as a few others, but Fincher seems to take the cake.

16) Second-favorite Farrelly Brothers Movie

Hmmm, well, I guess it would have to be There's Something About Mary, though I do have a soft spot for Kingpin.

17) Favorite holiday movie

I go back and forth between the two classics: It's a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street. If forced to choose, I guess I'd go with Capra's masterpiece, but again, they're both classics.

18) Best Actress of 2010

The first actress that came to mind was Noomi Rapace for her performances in the Millenium trilogy movies from Sweden, but then Natalie Portman was also great in Black Swan, as was Jennifer Lawrence in Winter's Bone. Heck, maybe even Emma Stone in Easy A. But as with the actors, I'll stick with my instinct on this one...


19) Joe Don Baker or Bo Svenson

At first, I thought: how could this not be Joe Don Baker. But when I look them up on IMDB, I notice that Svenson is in a ton of movies I like. As bit parts, sure, but still. I'll stick with Joe Don Baker though, as he was my first instinct...

20) Of those notable figures in the world of the movies who died in 2010, name the one you’ll miss the most

I think I'll go with what has to be a common answer to this one: Leslie Nielsen.

21) Think of a movie with a notable musical score and describe what it might feel like without that accompaniment.

The first thing that came to mind was the soundtrack to John Carpenter's classic Halloween. Part of the reason I'm choosing this one is because the story of how the music was created is famously due to the fact that an executive saw an early cut of the film without music and thought it wasn't scary. I've actually written about this before, quoting Carpenter himself:

I screened the final cut minus sound effects and music, for a young executive from 20th Century-Fox (I was interviewing for another possible directing job). She wasn’t scared at all. I then became determined to "save it with the music."

And save it he did. Another example from the world of horror would be John Williams' score for Jaws, which incorporates a long build-up of tension that is eventually released in horror.

22) Best Screenplay of 2010

So Aaron Sorkin's work on The Social Network is certainly worth consideration here, but I'm going to go with Inception. You'll note that I didn't include Christopher Nolan in my discussion of best director, and I think that's because he's more notable as a writer than as a director. It's the ideas and storytelling that he excels at. I suppose you could argue that Inception is overly dependent on exposition and info-dumps, but I think the puzzle-like structure of the plot is an achievement in itself.

23) Movie You Feel Most Evangelistic About Right Now

Well, if someone wanted a suggestion for something in theaters now, I'd suggest True Grit. If they have Netflix, I'd suggest Exit Through the Gift Shop (a documentary about street art, with a twist) or, probably the most obscure movie here, Blood Into Wine (a documentary about wine-makers in Arizona, including Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan).

24) Worst/funniest movie accent ever

John Malkovich's ridiculously over-the-top performance as Teddy KGB in Rounders features the absolute worst/funniest accent ever. "Mr. Son of a bitch, let's play some cards!"


25) Best Cinematography of 2010

Roger Deakins' work in True Grit comes to mind.

26) Olivia Wilde or Gemma Arterton

My first thought was Olivia Wilde, but that's only because I know who she is. It turns out that I knew Gemma Arterton too, but not as well. Neither has a particularly impressive resume and I like them both, so I'll stick with my first instinct (though Arterton was my favorite part of the horrible Quantum of Solace, and she wasn't even the main Bond girl).

27) Name the three best movies you saw for the first time in 2010 (Thanks, Larry!)

Excluding 2010 releases (since we're already talking a lot about them in this quiz): The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, and Blood and Black Lace. Honestly, it was a bit of a slow year for me in terms of older films and I didn't make it very far on my list of the Greatest Movies I've Never Seen. Ohh, I forgot about The Birds - that should definitely be on this list...

28) Best romantic movie couple of 2010

Love and Other Drugs comes to mind. It's a pretty cliched film, but the two leads have a great chemistry together. Plus, nudity.

29) Favorite shock/surprise ending

Ever? That's incredibly difficult. I suppose I have to acknowledge Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back, but I think that's mostly due to the fact that I was so young and impressionable at the time. Psycho has a pretty great ending that actually managed to surprise my jaded teen self... And I have to admit that Lone Star caught me completely off-guard. Se7en has a good one, and while I know a lot of people don't like it, I do think The Usual Suspects has a fantastic twist ending. I could keep going and never actually reach a favorite.

30) Best cinematic reason to have stayed home and read a book in 2010

Well, I don't need a cinematic reason to read a book, but I suppose the craptacular first half of the year (which, as I'm discovering on DVD/BD/Netflix, wasn't as craptacular as I thught) was a pretty good reason to stay home. Then again, the worst movie I saw in theaters this year came out relatively recently: Skyline (which is absolutely terrible, though I have to admit that I love the gloriously stupid ending).

31) Movies in 2011 could make me much happier if they’d only _______________

Uh, be better? Good movies are always welcome. I suppose we could do with less 3D BS as well.

Well, there you have it.



Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale
Early Christian history shows a lot of attempts by Church leaders to attract followers by setting their holidays to coincide with existing festivals and celebrations. In the case of Christmas, the Church chose December 25, as it coincides with pagan winter solstice festivals that were popular in most cultures. As such, most of the folklore surrounding Christmas is an amalgam of both Christian and Pagan traditions. Examples include Christmas trees, mistletoe, and, of course, Santa Claus.

Santa Claus, as we know him, can largely be traced back to the poem A Visit From Saint Nicholas, published in 1823 and written by Clement Clarke Moore. However, Moore was pulling from a long tradition of Christmas gift givers, which were, in themselves, pulling from older pagan traditions. And while our current vision of Santa is jolly, many of the precursors are more varied. We all know about the "naughty or nice list", but we generally shy away from graphic descriptions of what happens to the naughty. Many older traditions did not. Case in point, the Finnish "Joulupukki", which translates to "Yule Buck" or "Yule Goat".

One of the reasons pagan cultures chose to celebrate the Winter solstice is that the shortest days of the year are in December, and once you reach the solstice, the days start to get longer again. In Finland, these festivals would celebrate the return of the daylight and would often feature a personification of the evil spirits that were leaving as the days got longer. These spirits were often wore goat skins and horns and demanded presents. It was a loathsome creature, and it frightened children (which parents no doubt used to their advantage, getting their kids to act nice). Once the Christian traditions reached Finland though, this somehow got flipped around, with the spirits now benevolent and delivering presents instead of wreaking havoc.

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale is a new Finnish movie that wonders what would happen if we discovered the original "Joulupukki". According to the research of the film's main character, young Pietari, the original Santa was not a very pleasant character, so villagers tricked him into freezing water, then covered the resulting ice cube in sawdust and so many rocks that they created a new mountain. Cut to present day, and a crazy American businessman is attempting to find the real Santa, and is excavating a nearby mountain, much to the dismay of local Reindeer ranchers. Pretty soon, their Reindeer show up dead and children start to go missing.

This is not your typical holiday movie, nor even is it your typical holiday horror film, a subgenre I've been exploring over the past few years. It takes a while to get going and while I enjoyed the ending, it was a bit of an anti-climax, as you never really get to see the true horrific power of Santa (on the other hand, I do wonder if that sort of explicit explanation would lose something)... That being said, the film has a dark, dry sense of humor that isn't quite explicit, but which made me laugh out loud several times. This is the debut film of writer/director Jalmari Helander, and it's clear that he has a good eye for interesting visuals and while he does not resort to many horror tropes, he does manage some creepifying visuals, such as the weird wooden dolls that Santa's little helpers leave behind while they're kidnapping naughty children or, heck, even Santa's little helpers themselves.

The ending of the film escalates into the absurd, but in an entertaining and welcome way. My favorite part was when young Pietari suddenly turns into an 80s action hero and starts dropping one liners like "It's either me or Santa. I suggest Santa." (OK, fine, that was 2 lines, but still.) I'm still not entirely sure what to make of the epilogue, though it's still a wonderfully absurd notion.

In the end, I don't know that this is up there with the Christmas horror classics like Black Christmas, but it's probably still an upper tier picture, and it's well worth a watch for fans of dark holiday shenanigans. ***

Update: After the movie, I headed over to the local beer bar, Eulogy, and had a nice Austrian beer called Samichlaus. Guess what that translates to.



2010 Catchup Progress
So the great 2010 Movie Catchup has proceeded quite well so far and while there are still many things I've yet to see, I've made good progress:

• Cropsey - Ostensibly about a New York urban legend about a crazy old man who kidnaps kids, the film veers into a more real-world direction, delving deeply into a series of child disappearances and the real life Cropsey that the community pinned the murders on. His name is Andre Rand, and while he certainly had a checkered past and a creepy demeanor, there never seemed to be much in the way of hard evidence (despite reams of circumstantial evidence). The film touches on that, as well as some other oddities like satan worshipers and mental hospitals, but ultimately falls a bit flat. It's got a lot of interviews with relevant folks, but the filmmakers weren't able to get an interview with Andre Rand himself (despite a lengthy correspondence via mail) and it feels almost like they were counting on that. It's an interesting and watcheable documentary, but it falls a bit short in the end. **1/2
• Blood Into Wine - Since this movie about Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan's winery in Arizona involved alcohol, I took the opportunity to drink some fantastic beer whilst watching. More comments on Kaedrin Beer Blog. In short, it's a movie that is well worth watching, especially for any Tool fans out there. ***
• Black Swan - The younger sister to Aronofsky's The Wrestler, the two films share a lot of similarities. Unfortunately, both are similarly flawed as well, especially when it comes to the script. Both films look fantastic, and while The Wrestler was visually toned down, Black Swan affords Aronofsky with more freedom to use cinematic language, and use it he does. Unfortunately, the whole thing plays out like a master chef adding exotic ingredients and ussing all his culinary powers to create a gourmet dish out of Kraft Mac n Cheese. Is it edible? Of course? It's even good. But it's not great. The film is much more ambiguous than most of Aronofsky's efforts, and I thought that part of it worked really well. Fans of the "mind fuck" will enjoy that aspect of this film, and I thought that was well executed.
  
  My biggest issue is with the main character, Nina Sayers (played well by Natalie Portman). She reminds me a lot of Hugh Jackman's character in The Fountain, in that she's constantly on the verge of tears (if not outright crying), to the point where I cannot believe that she'd ever succeed in ballet. The film's script is constantly telling us that Nina is a flawless but icy and cold dancer, but I spent the entire film assuming she would make a mistake. For the most part, she doesn't, but the way Aronofsky films those scenes seems to emphasize Nina's insecurities, to the point where I couldn't believe that anyone would think her a good dancer. In the film, we're told several times that her technical proficiency makes her perfect for the role of the White Swan, but that she lacks the unbridled passion and spontaneity needed for the Black Swan. But she's shown with such a lack of confidence that I never really bought that she would be good in either role. Part of this issue may just be that I have no fucking clue what makes a good ballerina. I mean, obviously I can tell when someone falls down or whatnot, but I see no difference in the way Nina dances versus some of the other dancers. I mean, they all look great, but it's the way we hear Nina's breathing and Portman's face, while wonderfully expressive, seems to constantly show a look of anxiety. This isn't Portman's fault, it's clear this is what the screenwriters (and probably Aronofsky) wanted, but it just doesn't really fit.
  
  Aronofsky's visual style is about as brilliant as it gets here, but as with his last few films, I think his choice of material is a bit lacking. Ultimately, Aronofsky is able to save this film with his visual style, and maybe some of the more ambiguous script elements are handled well too. For instance, the character of Lily (another great performance from Mila Kunis) is seemingly inconsistent throughout the film, but that's perfect because she is seen through the insecure lense of Nina. The mother and ballet director are mostly thankless roles, maybe a bit too exaggerated. The psychological thriller and horror elements are fantastic, though not quite as prevalent as the film's marketing would have you believe. Sorting out fantasy and hallucination from reality can be difficult at times, but in a good way. The ending is pitch perfect, in much the same way as The Wrestler's ending (both employ a similar, and wonderful, final shot). Aronofsky is also able to convey a certain excitement or energy in the progression of ballet, something I found invigorating, despite not being at all familiar with the form. It's a good film, ambitious and ambiguous, and I enjoyed it quite a bit, but it has some serious flaws as well. ***
• Alice in Wonderland - I don't have a whole lot to say about this, except that I was surprised that I didn't hate this. Indeed, I quite enjoyed it, even if I know that it embodies all those Tim Burton cliches that have gotten so tired of late. The CGI is lame and production design is typical Burton and the script has little to do with the actual source material, but that was exactly as I expected, only better. So while "I didn't hate it" isn't exactly a ringing endorsement, and this most certainly won't be making the top 10 (or probably even honorable mentions), it's also not terrible! **1/2
• Doghouse - I have to admit that I'm disappointed in this one. I've become a big fan of director Jake West's previous effort, Evil Aliens, but this newer film lacks a lot of the energy and splatterific fun embodied by that earlier film. The film follows a group of guys taking a trip to a small rural town to get away from it all, but then they find that the town is filled with murderous zombie women. As with most zombie films, there's a lame societal commentary here, this time focusing on a battle-of-the-sexes. There's a fair amount of humor, some decent performances, and even some clever solutions to various problems throughout the film but ultimately the premise falls a bit flat for me. **
• Bonus: Torque - Ah, the joys of accidental Netflix queue ordering. I forgot this was actually in there and despite it not being a 2010 movie, I watched this so-bad-it's-good candidate with high hopes, and I was not disappointed! It's gloriously awful! Nick Nunziata's review says it better than I ever could:

  When I say that Torque is the most shamelessly synthetic and overstylized action flick ever made I mean it in the nicest way possible. This film makes cheese blush. It gives bullet time lead poisoning. From the first computer assisted race sequence to the climactic Chop-Kawasaki and Mach 48373 race through the city, Torque revels in excess in ways that would resurrect Don Simpson and eject him from his grave in slow motion as doves gather and carry him to the surface of Venus where he is pelted with little rocks shaped like Jerry Bruckheimer's night terrors. As the film unfolded I seriously found myself falling in love with its utter fakeness and bold arrogance. You know the kind of love I'm referring to. The love an inmate finds after cell blocks B and C ventilate his colon enough so that he forgets what it was like before the whistling sound began to waft from his drawers twenty-four hours a day. Before his ass had its own climate. Torque is that rough lover, the one who punches you in the eyes when he/she is happy and does spinning monkey kicks to your coccyx when he/she feels melancholy. This film has the Goodyear blimp testicles to recreate a quote from The Fast and the Furious (also produced by Neal Moritz, one of this film's many Summerian summoners) and then scoff at it.
  
  It scoffs at The Fast and the Furious, a film that not only made this film possible but one that looks like a Cassavettes flick in comparison. Let that sink in. I'll wait.

  As Nick notes, this is either a 0 out of 10 movie, or a 10 out of 10 movie, or both at the same time.

2010 Movie Catchup
So the general consensus seems to be that 2010 hasn't been a particularly good year for movies... and for the first half of the year, I was definitely in agreement. Things have turned around a bit since then, though, and it's looking like some of the smaller films from earlier in the year are being released on DVD/BD around now. Normally, I've got a ton of current-year movies under my belt by this time in the year - usually around 60-70. When I finished off the 6 Weeks of Halloween horror movie marathon last month, I took a loot at my list and saw about 30 movies from 2010. So all throughout November, I've been playing catchup on 2010 movies. I've made some headway, but there's still quite a few movies I want to catch up with before I put together the annual awards and top 10. So let's start with new movies that are coming out in December:

• Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale - I don't remember how I found out about this one, but I'm super excited to check out this Finnish movie about an archaeological dig that unearths the "real" Santa, who then proceeds to go on a murder spree (of course!) Ok, so it sounds terrible, but I have an affinity for such movies and this one opens on 12/22 in Philly. Score.
• Black Swan - Initial reports appear mixed, and judging from what I've heard, I'm not going to love this. But I'll watch anything Aronofsky puts out.
• The Tourist - I know this looks like typical Hollywood trash, but the talent involved is somewhat intriguing.
• The Fighter - Another one I don't have particularly high hopes for, but it's been getting good reviews, so I guess we'll see.
• TRON: Legacy - Low expectations here, but should be fun.
• True Grit - I have to admit that Jeff Bridges' voice gives me pause, but it's Coen Brothers, so I'm in and will probably love this.

Next up, 2010 movies that are or will be available on Netflix Watch Instantly:

• Cropsey - Documentary about a creepy urban legend? I'm in!
• Mother - I have to admit that I'm not quite on the Bong Joon-ho bandwagon, but I'm still interested in checking this movie out...
• Vengeance - I am, however, on the Johnny To bandwagon, so I will most definitely be checking this one out.
• Blood Into Wine - A documentary about the Wine business (apparently features Maynard James Keenan of Tool fame).
• The Art of the Steal - Documentary about the power struggle to control a group of famous paintings after the owner's death.
• Restrepo - Documentary about soldiers in Afghanistan.
• Exit Through the Gift Shop - Documentary ostensibly about street artist Banksey, but apparently things get twisted around in other directions...
• Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work - Documentary about the woman, the myth, the legend.
• Red Riding Trilogy (1974, 1980, 1983) - Three movies telling the story of a 14 year manhunt for a serial killer.
• Terribly Happy - Seems kinda like a serious version of Hot Fuzz... big city cop forced to take a job in a small town, hijinks ensue.
• The Good, the Bad, the Weird - A Korean take on the Spaghetti Western? Why not! Technically been around for a while, but it just became available for most to see this year.

Finally, 2010 movies I'll probably be checking out on DVD/BD (again via Netflix) in the next month or two:

• The Secret in Their Eyes - Technically this won the Oscar for best foreign picture during last year's Oscars, but it wasn't released here until this year. These movies often end up on my top 10, so this is a natural choice.
• Doghouse - I don't think this battle-of-the-sexes zombie flick will be winning any awards, but I really enjoyed director Jake West's previous schlock-fest, Evil Aliens, so I want to check out this movie.
• Easy A - I wanted to check this out when it was in theaters and I suppose I had no good reason not to, but I never got around to it. From what I've heard, it's surprisingly good, so I guess we'll find out!
• The Kids Are All Right - Doesn't really sound like my type of movie, but I'll check it out anyway because everyone seems to love it.
• Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time - I've heard it's the best video game movie ever made. I've also heard it's terrible. Of course, those are not conflicting statements.
• The Expendables - I've heard bad things, but really, how bad could it be? Not super excited about this one and may not get to it, but it's on the list!

So there's 25 movies I want to see in the next month or so. Something tells me I won't get to all of them (particularly junk like The Expendables), but I'll give it the good ol' college try. Of course, there are probably a few other movies coming out on DVD/BD in January that I'll want to check out as well... but interestingly, I think I could put together a decent top 10 list right now if I had to, which is actually a pretty good sign (and I'm virtually certain that some of the above movies will make their way onto the list as well). 2010 didn't get a particularly good start, but it's shaping up to be ok (for me, at least).



Tasting Notes...
Another edition of Tasting Notes, a series of quick hits on a variety of topics that don't really warrant a full post [Previous Editions: part 1 | part 2]. So here's what I've been watching/playing/reading/drinking lately:

Television

• The Walking Dead has been an agreeable series so far, though I do have one major issue with it. Indeed, it's one of the things that always bothers me about zombie movies. In short, nothing of import actually happens, and this series is a good example. It starts out promisingly enough, with the sheriff waking in a hospital (a la 28 Days Later...) and setting out on a mission to find his family during the zombie apocalypse. But then he finds them in, like, the second episode, leaving no real purpose to the series. Everyone is so reactive, and that's where all the tension comes from. That's fine for what it is, and each episode seems pretty well constructed, but the focus is more on characters rather than any sort of story. What's more, I don't really see an overarching story emerging since zombies are uniformly boring antagonists and the notion that "humans are the real monsters" is just as lame if not even more boring. The show is entertaining enough, but I'm not really in the "Best New Show!" camp just yet either (then again, of the "new" shows, it's the only one I'm really watching, so maybe I should be in that camp...)
• Courtesy of WatchTrek.com, I've been revisiting some of my favorite Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes. Not sure how long this site will be up (it certainly doesn't seem official), but it's pretty damn cool. Favorite revisited episode: Peak Performance.

Video Games

• I've started Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, and it's quite good! If you've played the first game, you pretty much know what you're in for, but it's still a lot of fun. The biggest observation I have about the game is a more general one about how sequels always need to strip you of all your abilities and weapons, then gradually give them back. The God of War games are the worst in this respect (I mean, really? Kratos forgot how to spin around with his blades of whatever?), but Uncharted has that too - you start the game without any weapon, then a dart gun, then a pistol, gradually working back up to the more powerful guns. Of course, that's only about the first hour, but still. I hate that. It's a big part of why I never got into GTA IV either - lame cars, lame weapons, etc... start the game, which is boring. I've already played the same game like 5 times before, why do I need to keep going through the paces?
• Now that the hockey season is in full swing, NHL 10 has entered the playing rotation again. It's amazing that something so repetitive can continually keep my interest, but there you have it.
• Has anyone played the new Goldeneye for the Wii? Is it worth picking up? I'm hearing good things, but I'm almost always disappointed by games for the Wii these days...

Movies

• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 is fine, I guess, but like the past couple of films in the series, I can't really shake the feeling of filmmakers simply going through the motions (minor spoilers for the rest of the paragraph). I understand that there's a certain difficulty in adapting such beloved source material, but I think the final book could probably have used some liberal editing when being translated to the screen. Do we really need to portray all 7 horcruxes in the movies? Do we really need to break the last book into two movies? Indeed, I think that's the biggest problem with this movie, which is that it's incomplete. They chose a decent place to end the first part, I guess. There's a meaningful death... but then, the really strange thing is that the death that happens in this movie is probably given more attention and fanfare as Dumbledore in the previous film. And while I always liked the character who died and was sad to see him go, I don't think he needed quite so heroic a sendoff. In any case, there were plenty of things to like about the movie - it's quite beautifully shot, there's a great animated sequence in the film, and for the section of the film intended to be all about character building, there are a few decent action sequences (there is, for instance, a nifty "shootout" in a coffee shop that I rather enjoyed). I'm looking forward to the last film, but then, I still think the fourth film is probably the most fun...
• The Quentin Tarantino and Edgar Wright commentary track on Hot Fuzz is amazing and worth the price of the BD alone. (Update: Ohhh, there's a page that neatly collects all the films referenced in the commentary - 190 in total, which is pretty astounding.)

Books

• Currently reading Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. It's great, and it reminds me that I need to revisit that (planned) series of posts that touches on this subject...
• My recent beer brewing adventures were preceded by some books on the subject, notably How to Brew by John Palmer (also available online for free) and The Complete Joy of Homebrewing Third Edition by Charles Papazian. They're both pretty good, though I'd probably recommend the Palmer book for those just getting started (as I was). Papazian's book is good too, though I have to admit that his frequent advice to "relax... don't worry... and have a homebrew" is really annoying for the first timer (as, you know, I don't have any homebrew yet, and why don't you just rub it in some more!?) I think he might address that situation once, claiming that bottled beer is ok for the first timer, but it's still annoying. Anyway, while the beginner's section could use some work, the rest of the book is rather interesting (though I have yet to read the final sections on Advanced All Grain brewing) and there's lots of detailed information and recipes and whatnot (I think my next beer will be based on his recipe for a Belgian-style Tripel - page 191).

The Finer Things

• Lots of beer lately, but I'm getting started on the Holiday Seasonals. Checkout my thoughts on Anchor's yearly Special Christmas Ale and Rogue's Santa's Private Reserve on the Kaedrin Beer Blog.
• I know nothing about cigars, but in hunting down some gifts for the holidays, I got a few Cusano cigars and greatly enjoyed the Cusano 18 Double Connecticut Robusto. Whatever that means.

And that about wraps up this edition of tasting notes!



Link Dump
A few interesting links from the depths of teh interwebs:

• Singel-Minded: How Facebook Could Beat Google to Win the Net - Wired's Ryan Singer makes an interesting case for Facebook to challenge Google in the realm of advertising. Right now, Facebook only advertises on their site (in a small, relatively tasteful fashion), but it's only really a matter of time until they make the same move Google did with AdSense. And their advantage their is that Facebook has much more usable data about people than Google. The operative word there is "usable", as Google certainly has lots of data about its users, but it seems Google's mantra of "Do no evil" will come back to bite them in the ass. Google's promised not to use search history and private emails, etc... to help target ads. Facebook has no such restrictions, and the ads on their site seem to be more targeted (they've recently been trying to get me to buy Neal Stephenson audio books, which would be a pretty good bet for them... if I hadn't already read everything that guy's written). This got me wondering, is targeted advertising the future and will people be ok with that. Everyone hates commercials, but would they hate them if the ads were for things you wanted? Obviously privacy is a concern... or is it? It's not like Facebook has been immaculate in the area of privacy, and yet it's as popular as it ever was. I don't necessarily see it as a good thing, but it will probably happen, and somehow I doubt Google will take it for long without figuring out a way to leverage all that data they've been collecting...
• If We Don't, Remember Me: Animated gifs have long been a staple of the web and while they're not normally a bastion of subtlety, this site is. They all seem to be from good movies, and I think this one is my favorite. (via kottke)
• The Tall Man Reunites With Don Coscarelli for John Dies at the End: I posted about this movie back in 2008, then promptly forgot about it. I just assumed that it was one of those projects that would never really get off the ground (folks in Hollywood often publish the rights for something, even when they don't necessarily have any plans to make it) or that Coscarelli was focusing on one of his other projects (i.e. the long-rumored sequel to BubbaHo-Tep, titled Bubba Nosferatu: Curse of the She-Vampires). But it appears that things are actually moving on JDatE and some casting was recently announced, including long time Coscarelli collaborator Angus Scrimm (who played the infamous Tall Man in the Phantasm films), Paul Giamatti and Clancy Brown. This is all well and good, but at the same time - I have no idea what roles any of these folks will play. None seem like the two leads (David and the titular John). Nevertheless, here's to hoping we see some new Coscarelli soon. I think his sensibility would match rather well with David Wong (nee Jason Pargin). (Update: Quint over at AiCN has more on the casting and who's playing what)
• Curtis Got Slapped by a White Teacher!: Words cannot describe this 40 page document (which is, itself, comprised mostly of words, but whatever). Its... breathtaking.

That's all for now.



Double Feature
While not quite the accidental double feature I ran into a few weeks ago with Catfish and The Social Network, I saw a pair of movies this weekend that share an uncommon type of protagonist. Both are a bit off the beaten path and thus don't really have a ton of mainstream appeal, but they're both worth watching...

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest is the third and (for the moment) final movie in Stieg Larsson's "Millenium Trilogy". It has the unfortunate reputation of being the worst of the three films, but while I can certainly see where that comes from, I think the problem lies more with the source material than the films. Which is not to say that the source material is bad or anything, just that this film and the second film are really part of a single whole. The first film made for a great introduction and featured a solid, self-contained story. The two sequels are intertwined. You can't watch one without needing to see the other.

The common complaint about this third film is that it basically represents a rehash of the entire series, and there is something to that complaint. However, I find that there's also something satisfying about how things play out, even if they do so in a mostly predictable fashion. For me, the thing that the first film had that the sequels don't is the relationship between Lisbeth Salandar and Mikael Blomkvist. That was what impressed me most about the first film, but in the sequels, the plot requires a physical separation of the characters and the interactions through intermediaries just aren't the same. And in this film, the majority of screen time belongs to Blomkvist, who isn't as interesting as Lisbeth (who spends most of her time in a hospital, jail cell, or courtroom, and her interactions are mostly speechless).

So perhaps it isn't quite as good as the first two films, but it's still a worthy effort that's better than most of its competition. To me, the first film is clearly the best. The two sequels, taken as a whole are quite good, but can't quite recapture the magic of the first. It's rumored that Larsson left behind plot outlines and half finished works for a number of additional sequels, and the original trilogy has been far too successful to let those sit unfinished. This could, of course, be a blessing or a curse. There are many pitfalls possible in potential sequels to these three films, but there is also the possibility of recapturing the magic. Also, while I'm not normally enthused about Hollywood remakes of foreign films (especially when they're made so close together in time), I have to admit that the talent being assembled for the remakes looks promising.

There are certain similarities between Lisbeth Salandar and the hero of Winter's Bone, yet they're very different characters. Ree Dolly is the primary focus of Winter's Bone, and she's a 17 year old who's faced with a sick mother and two kids to raise (not her kids - they're her brother and sister). She does not live for herself; everything she does is for the benefit of others. Early on in the movie we learn that she dreams of joining the army. Later, we find out that the only reason she would do so is because of the signing bonus, which would be a boon to her cash-strapped family. So aside from being strong and independent, she doesn't really share anything else in common with Lisbeth Salandar, but that's enough. Roger Ebert actually catches on to the most courageous thing about this character in his review:

Ree is played by Jennifer Lawrence, a 19-year-old newcomer who has already starred in Jodie Foster's next film. Lawrence embodies a fierce, still center that is the source of her heroism. She makes no boasts, issues no threats, depends on a dogged faith that people will do the right thing — even when no one we meet seems to deserve that faith. “Don't ask for what's not offered,” she tells her little brother, although the lives of her parents seem to be an exercise in asking and not offering. Did she raise herself?

(emphasis mine) That she "depends on a dogged faith that people will do the right thing" is an interesting and rare thing in a thriller of this nature. Usually you can expect this sort of independent movie to be so steeped in misery that the only resulting feeling is despair. But this film is different. The "faith" espoused by Ree is something that makes her much more courageous than most film heros. It's not glamorous and it won't earn her any fanfare, but it gets the job done. This isn't to say that everything is fluffy bunnies and rainbows, but there is a very "real" feeling to the film.

The story is relatively straightforward. Ree's father, a meth cooker by trade, has disappeared after putting the family's house up as collateral on his bail bond. If he doesn't show up for the trial, the family will loose the house. When Ree is informed, she says "I'll find him," with the quiet determination and resolve that is uncommon for folks in her situation. The film does bog down a bit as Ree goes from person to person, many of whom are seemingly from the same family (though the relationships are rarely very clear), and eventually begins to piece together what happened to her father.

The film is perhaps a bit too long considering how simple the story is, and thus the pacing is a bit too slow, but it's still a striking movie. Filmed on location in the back woods of Missouri, the setting is atmospheric and evocative. In a time of economic downturn it seems appropriate, but I suspect the setting of this film was the same even when business was booming. Visually, the film is stark and while not showy, it's effective. The acting is great, especially the lead (as already mentioned, Ree is played by Jennifer Lawrence in an Oscar-worthy performance) and her uncle, played by John Hawkes. Given the nature of the story, there would be a real danger of falling back on caricature, but writer/director Debra Granik never lets that happen, which is quite impressive.

In the end, I really enjoyed both of these movies, even though both suffer from some flaws that many would find deal-breakers. I don't expect either to really broach the top 10 at the end of the year, but they're both quite interesting in their own ways and I'm glad I got to see them...



6WH: Week 6 - No Discernable Theme Week
These six weeks have absolutely flown by, but lucky for me, Halloween falls on a Sunday this year, which is basically giving me an extra week of horror watching.

• Pinhead's New Look (Robot Chicken)
• Werewolf Women of the S.S. (fake trailer)
• The Thing (trailer)
• The Fog: I really wasn't trying to have a Jamie Lee Curtis movie every week this year, it just seems to have worked out that way (I swears!). This one was on my list for the more mundane (and inexplicable) reason that I never saw this follow-up to John Carpenter's classic, genre-codifying Halloween. The film starts off with an old man (played by the excellent John Houseman) telling a campfire story of tragedy and revenge. Legend has it that an unearthly fog will descend upon the hundred year old fishing town, and the ghosts of murdered sailors will return to take their revenge. The film starts out great, following numerous unexplained occurrences throughout the normally sleepy town and digging into the checkered history of the town's founding. A series of payphones ring, cars in a parking lot start honking and flashing lights, a priest finds an old journal hidden in the walls of the church, and so on. Carpenter captures it all and infuses it with dread. You know nothing terrible is going to happen just yet, but you know this foreshadows a coming menace. The first two thirds of the film do a great job of establishing that atmosphere of dread, and even manage to instill some fear in the blank, featureless fog. The last third becomes a bit more conventional and maybe a bit too convenient, but it's still eminently watchable. The ensemble cast does a reasonable job here. You'll recognize a lot of the smaller folks from Halloween making a reappearance here, as well as some bigger hitters like Janet Leigh, Hal Holbrook, and Adrienne Barbeau (though I think that Barbeau's radio broadcasting schtick kinda wore out its welcome at that same two thirds point of the movie.) It doesn't really approach Carpenter's masterful Halloween or The Thing, but it stands on its own as one of a long string of successful Carpenter flicks in the early 80s. ***
  
• Shining (fake trailer)
• The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror V: The Shinning
• The Shining (trailer)
• Cookers: Ultra-low budget tale of meth cookers and their paranoia as they use too much of their product and slowly go crazy in the abandoned hose they've chosen to hide-out in. I hated this movie. I think my biggest issue is that I really hate watching people on drugs just for the sake of doing so. If there's a larger purpose to the drug use or a coherent storyline, then it's usually fine, but in this movie, watching meth take its toll on three pretty unlikeable characters is just a torturous experience and I hated almost every second of it. There were occasional respites in the misery, such as when Merle (he wears a John Dear baseball cap and a hillbilly mustache, just in case you didn't understand that he's white trash) recounts an urban legend of a young girl who disappeared mysteriously and the ghost that supposedly abducted her, but even those aren't that great and the way the film attempts to tie that in with the rest of the "story" doesn't really work too well. The film looks like it was shot on a crappy, consumer-grade video camera from the mid-90s. Normally this wouldn't bother me, and to be honest, they did a reasonably good job with what they had... but given that I really fucking hated watching these characters tweaking out, it was just adding to the frustration. I know some folks find this movie entertaining, and I suppose if the concept of watching people tweaking out on meth sounds fun to you, give it a shot, but I really hate this movie. To me, the best part was watching what happens to the character of Hector. The problem was that it took 90 minutes to get there. I wanted it to happen approximately 87 minutes earlier. Not recommended! *
• Jack Chop (short)
• Just Take One (short)
• Vampire Chase (Robot Chicken)
• Dead Birds: Another low budget haunted house film, this one turned out, oh, about a million times better than Cookers. It actually takes place during the Civil War era, and it follows some bank robbers who take refuge in an abandoned plantation house after one of their heists (naturally, said heist had gone wrong and lots of people ended up dead). Of course, the house is haunted in the extreme and has no intention of letting the wayward robbers leave. It's an effective setup and it's executed really well. Despite the extreme nature of the characters, they are actually able to induce some empathy, thanks primarily to some excellent casting. Most horror these days tends to cast young and pretty teenagers, but the filmmakers here went for a more seasoned bunch, and the film is better for the choice. Henry Thomas plays the leader of the crew and does an admirable job. Patrick Fugit plays his injured brother, and manages to make a lot out of very little. Nicki Aycox and Isaiah Washington also do quite a good job, despite little in the way of screen time. But the real surprise were the two smallest characters, played by Michael Shannon and Mark Boone Junior (both of whom are guys you'd recognize from other stuff, but not necessarily know all that well - they are "that guy" actors). They're total mercenaries, ruthless and cold (Shannon gets to unleash some pretty unrestrained racist rants, even)... yet, you can't help but enjoy watching them. Ultimately, they get what's coming to them and then some, which is where this movie really surprises. It's very restrained and deliberately paced, and it has an almost Japanese flavor to it, though the setting is distinctly American. In this age of hackneyed remakes and sequels, this makes for a great, refreshing mixture, and while I'm sure some would crave more action, I thought it was pretty well balanced. While I'm sure this had a higher budget than Cookers, it was obviously still quite low, and yet this film looks really good. All of the practical effects are great and the film is photographed really well.
  
  The only real complaint from a visual perspective is the CGI, but that is used quite sparingly and it worked well enough for me The one thing I'm not entirely in love with is the ending. It's not terrible, but it feels like they kinda wrote themselves into a corner. There's no real satisfaction there, and that might have been the point, but there's still something a little off about the ending. Nevertheless, it's well worth the watch. ***

Well, that covers what will unfortunately be the last week of full-time horror movie watching, but stay tuned on Wednesday for the typical Speed Round, feating short capsules of a whole slew of other stuff I've watched during the season. Not sure what I'll be posting on Halloween proper, but I plan to celebrate by rewatching Halloween (natch) and maybe checking out the new Walking Dead series...



6WH: Week 5 - Slashers
Coming down the homestretch already? The past 5 weeks have absolutely flown by... There's still a bunch of movies I want to watch and I'm not sure I'll even be able to get to them. In any case, this week, I got back to basics and went with a favorite sub-genre, the slashers! They've been a staple of previous years, but I specifically attempted to decrease my consumption this year because I like to mix things around a little. So far, I think I've done a pretty good job of that, but I couldn't stay away for too long - here's what I watched:

• Thursday the 12th (Robot Chicken)
• Grindhouse: Thanksgiving (fake trailer)
• Scream (trailer)
• Terror Train: So I know Jamie Lee Curtis got her start in the Halloween movies and earned the title "Scream Queen" but I never realized how many horror/slasher movies she was involved in in the early 80s slasher explosion. Indeed, this movie marks the second movie I've watched and been surprised to see her in (the other being the Ozploitation flick, Road Games). This film takes place on a scenic train that a bunch of college frat boys have rented out for the night. Of course, a freshman prank gone wrong a few years ago is ripe to be avenged, and you'll never guess who the killer is! Or something. It's a surprisingly tame entry in the slasher sub-genre. There's some brief nudity and some blood, but nothing gratuitous. The unique, cramped setting does make for some nice atmosphere, and the surprise of seeing Jamie Lee Curtis and even a young David Copperfield (an aside: magic shows can be very impressive in person, but they never make the transition to movies very well - we've all see hundreds of making-of documentaries showing how almost anything can be accomplished on screen with a little trickery, even before the era of CGI. As such, while Copperfield's magic is pretty awesome, it's also a bit suspicious.) was a welcome change of pace. It's ultimately not that scary, but there's a lot to like about it. **1/2
• Wet Nightmares (short)
• It's the Gifts That I Hate (Robot Chicken)
• The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror VI: Nightmare on Evergreen Terrace (sorry no vid online)
• Maniac: Meet Frank Zito. He misses his mommy! He's also a murderous maniac that likes to scalp his victims to create wigs for his collection of mannequins. This is a bit of an oddity when it comes to slasher films. For the most part, the film is told from the perspective of the killer, played by the decidedly odd (and perfect for this part) Joe Spinell (you may remember him as a wiseguy gangster in The Godfather, or as a wiseguy gangster in Rocky). Spinell is perfect in this roll, whether he's delivering manic monologues or just skulking around in his killin outfit, and to the extent that this movie works, it's mostly due to Spinell's performance. The rest is due to the makeup effects by Tom Savini, whose work is as gloriously gratuitous as ever (the standout sequence involves a shotgun shot to the head). Otherwise, the story is a bit of a mess. I guess this is to be expected considering that the story is told from the perspective of a nutjob, but that doesn't really make it an endearing movie. That's not really what it's going for anyway, but that still doesn't make it fun to watch. Then again, I have to admit that it was a bit more artistic than I expected and I did really enjoy the ending, where things just start going way over the top and falling apart. It's a must watch for students of the genre, though it's not one of my favorites. **1/2
• Twilight at the Towers, by Clive Barker (Short Story from Cabal)
• Slaughter High (trailer)
• King in the Box (short)
• Pieces: I think you could say the other two films in this post had some sort of relatively high aspirations. Neither were going for an Oscar nod or anything, but they didn't seem like they were just attempts to cash-in on the successful slasher sub-genre. Pieces, on the other hand, is a much more exploitative experience. The story is about a chainsaw-wielding maniac who is chopping off various victims' body parts, presumably to put all the pieces together into a Frankestein-like (perhaps Frankenhooker-like is more accurate) monster. Lots of fun horror tropes here. Axe-wielding kid, the crazy bearded groundskeeper, a kung-fu professor (!?) who claims he ate bad chop suey, a water bed murder, lots of chainsaws that can cut through the human body like butter and gratuitous gore in general. Though not aspiring to much, I think this might have been the most fun of all three of this week's movies. There's some great gore and lots of unintentionally hilarious moments. The highlight for me was when the undercover cop discovers that the killer managed to murder someone right under her nose, after which she exclaims something to the effect of "Bastard! You bastard! BASSSTAAAARD! BAAAAASSTAAAARD!" It goes on for about a minute (I know that doesn't sound much, but a minute of screen time is actually quite long for something like this).
  
  BAAASTAAAARD!
  I don't know if the actress was intentionally hamming it up, or if she thought it was her prestige moment, but I prefer to think of it as the latter, as that makes me laugh even more. The other notable sequence is the very last scene. I don't want to ruin it because it is pretty surprising, but it's... eye opening, to say the least. **1/2

That's all for now. No idea what's next, but I think it's probably time for a no discernible theme week! Maybe I'll have some updates on Wednesday as well... Oh, and go Phillies!



6WH: Link Dump: Other Halloween Movie Marathons
It would seem that I'm not the only one watching lots of horror movies in preparation for Halloween. Here are a few blogs I follow that have been watching tons of movies:

• Six Weeks of Halloween - I would be remiss if I didn't call out kernunrex first, as the whole reason I do my six week marathon is because of him, and he's racking up quite the list this year, posting reviews almost every day.
• Final Girl: Stacie Ponder, as always, has wonderful things to post during the month she dubs Shocktober. This year, she's been collating a number of top 20 horror lists that people sent her (much to her surprise, she ended up with 732 different movies on the master list, which is pretty astounding). She's also got other lists, and some more lists, and pretty much lists everywhere. This blog has been a long time Kaedrin favorite, so give it a shot.
• Need Coffee - As per usual, Widge and the gang are watching lots of movies and finding obscure audio and video horror bits that are always fun to check out.
• Horror Movie a Day: I'm sure everyone thinks they're all badass for watching horror movies all month, but Brian watchings horror movies every day, all year long. And posts about them too. And he's been doing so for several years now. I'm kinda in awe of this.
• Midnight Tease: I seem to have infected Ben with a desire to participate, which he's been doing on a weekly basis like myself. Some interesting stuff, as always.
• Hey! Look Behind You: Nicki has been doing a 31 days of Halloween thing as well, with at least a post a day. I don't know how everyone does it. I can barely keep up posting twice a week!
• I'm leaving out hundreds of blogs here, but lucky for me, Countdown to Halloween has a pretty large list of other blogs doing the month of horror thing, so if you're still itching for more horror, check it out.

That is all for now. I think this weekend I'll be getting back into some bread-and-butter slasher films of the early eighties.



6WH: Week 4 - Zombies!
The Six Weeks of Halloween horror movie marathon continues with some zombies! I've never actually been that big a fan of zombie movies. Sure there are a few good ones and they have a certain amount of influence within the genre, but there's something that never really connects with me. They're such a blank slate that you can apply almost any sort of sociological message to them, which is one reason we see so many zombie movies. This isn't to say that the sub-genre of zombie movies is worthless though, and I can certainly accept that many people find these movies and their repetitive tropes to be comforting (after all, I'm a self-admitted slasher fan). Indeed, I don't mind the more mindless entries in the sub-genre, it's when pretensions start to run high that I start to waver. Nevertheless, there have always been some zombie movies that I've wanted to see for one reason or another, and below are three:

• Honest Zombie (Robot Chicken)
• Scourge of The Undead (fake trailer)
• Shaun of the Dead (trailer)
• Zombi 2 (aka Zombie): In 1978, George A. Romero released Dawn of the Dead to worldwide success. In Italy, it was released as "Zombi" and Italian director Lucio Fulci was so taken by the movie that he made his own zombie movie and called it "Zombi 2". Of course, Fulci's movie was not related to Romero's film in any way and to make matters even more confusing, "Zombi 2" was released in the US simply as "Zombie". In any case, this was the film that really cemented Fulci's career (see earlier 6WH post on Giallo films for more Fulci), and it establishes many of the mainstays of his later cinema: zombies, gratuitous gore, eye gags, etc... This film, in particular, is notable for two standout sequences. First, there is a scene where a zombie fights a shark (seriously, the scene takes place underwater - you may have seen parts of this scene recut into a Windows 7 commercial, with a Discovery channel voiceover). This battle alone is worth the price of admission here, but there is another sequence that actually made me cringe. That scene features an eye gouging in explicit detail. The rest of the film is pretty much your average zombie island film. The characters aren't especially well established and the story is practically non-existent, but who cares, there are zombies fighting sharks here people! **1/2
  
  Zombie vs. Shark
• Dawn of the Dead (2004) (trailer)
• 28 Days Later (trailer)
• Gay Zombie (short)
• Cemetery Man: I have to admit, I have no idea what's going on in this movie. Is it supposed to be a black comedy? Is it some sort of weird existential meditation on life and death and sex and relationships? Or is it just a pointless series of zombie gags? Rupert Everett plays Francesco Dellamorte (which translates to Francesco of Death), the titular cemetery man who works in a town where the dead come back to life about 7 days after they're buried (after which, he kills them (again)). He has a brief relationship with a widow (who becomes a zombie and thus must be killed), and then he starts to lose his mind and kill human beings (instead of the zombies he normally takes care of)... but someone else keeps taking credit for his kills. There's also a pretty funny episode where his mute assistant falls in love with a zombie head. The zombies here are a bit weird - they talk and act like regular humans, except that they seem to have developed a taste for flesh. Anyway, by the end, I wasn't sure what was going on and I didn't really care much either. For people who appreciate ultra-weird movies like Meet the Feebles or Delicatessen, you might want to take a gander, but even then, this is an inferior movie. It's stylish, but I'm not sure there's much of a point. **
• The Signal (trailer)
• Zombie Idol - Part 2 - Part 3 (Robot Chicken)
• Slither (trailer)
• Night of the Creeps: Does this technically count as a zombie movie? Most descriptions of the film mention the term zombie, but these aren't your typical zombies. They're really just dead people who are hosting a slug-like alien creature. Director Fred Dekker clearly has a love for old-school SF and horror movies (not to mention noirish pot-boilers), and you can really see that shining through (the same can be said for Dekker's more popular The Monster Squad), from the opening sequence (set in space!) to the hilarious noir detective/action hereo, played brilliantly by Tom Atkins. He answers the phone and bellows "Thrill me!" Later, in a nifty bit of self-awareness, he exclaims: "What is this? A homicide, or a bad B-movie?" If you've ever seen James Gunn's excellent Slither, you'll notice a lot of similarities here. It's not a classic or anything but it's a ton of fun and well worth a watch. ***

That's all for now. Not sure what next week's theme will be (if there is one!) but right now, it's looking like either Silent Horror or slashers. We shall see. There also might be a few mid-week updates if I see more movies...



The Catfish Network
I saw two movies this weekend and it turns out that I'd inadvertently stumbled into a great double-feature. Based on the cryptic but positive comments on the /Filmcast a few weeks ago (not their recent review), I made a mental note to see the movie Catfish. I knew nothing about the movie except that a couple people on the internet found it interesting. In this world of constant film scoops and trailers that spoil the movie, it's pretty rare for me to see a movie without ever having heard of it, so I relish these opportunities.

Also opening this weekend is a movie I knew too much about: The Social Network. Directed by David Fincher with a script by Aaron Sorkin, this was one of the years most hotly anticipated films. The original teaser trailer, featuring a striking cover of Radiohead's "Creep" by a Belgian girls' choir and a quasi-cheesy montage of Facebook clicking, was intriguing, but the expanded trailer that featured actual footage of the film was... not so encouraging. Fincher's track record of the past few years has been a bit spotty. I really liked Zodiac, but it certainly had its problems. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was a bit of a mess, but it was watchable. In both cases, I think my problems were more with the script than with Fincher (though I guess you could say his judgment of what to work on was lacking). So when i saw that Fincher was making a movie about Mark Zuckerberg and the founding of Facebook, I was a bit skeptical. The involvement of Aaron Sorkin did pique my interest for a bit, but then I realized that his record over the past few years has also been a bit spotty. The trailers did nothing to help my skepticism... so imagine my surprise when I ended up loving the movie.

It is, of course, a really strange movie. I don't normally care for biopics, but this one gets it exactly right - it focuses on one, well defined episode in someone's life (where most biopicks get bogged down in tangents and don't really have a point). This is a good thing in any case, though perhaps it's even moreso because Zuckerberg is only 26 years old (or perhaps they were forced to limit their scope because he was so young). Anyway, the movie is fantastic. Sorkin's script is crackling with fast-paced, witty dialogue, the actors seem to be able to handle that, Trent Reznor's score is surprisingly well matched, and Fincher ties it all together.

The most interesting thing, though, is that I have no idea how much of it is true. It's not a documentary and I'm positive the story has been simplified and dramatized. Seeing that alone would have been interesting, but seeing it on the same day I saw Catfish was positively serendipitous. You see, Catfish is also about Facebook (after a fashion) and it actually is a documentary. And yet... I have no idea how much of it is true.

I don't want to give anything away with Catfish, so I'm not going to go into too much detail. There is definitely something real about the documentary, but there's also something a little fishy (pun intended!) about it. Ultimately, it doesn't really matter. Even if it was entirely fake (and it's not), it would be a worthwhile story (albeit one with relatively low stakes).

The Social Network tells the story about the founding of Facebook. Catfish depicts one of the interesting effects that Facebook has lead to (though it's not entirely reliant on Facebook)... If you're into movies, it's a great double-feature to take in.



6WH: Week 3 - Ozploitation!
Last year, I had the good fortune of watching Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!. I love these types of documentaries about a narrow spectrum of movies. Making-of documentaries about a single film tend to get a bit repetitive, but in a movie like Not Quite Hollywood, you can cover dozens of interesting films (in this case, the film covers tons of obscure films from Australia's exploitation film industry). Unfortunately, not a ton of these films are available on DVD/Netflix, but I was able to find several for this week's Halloween movie marathon:

• Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! (trailer)
• Howling III: The Marsupials (trailer)
• Long Weekend (trailer)
• Patrick: Richard Franklin's slow-burning tale of a nurse assigned to take care of a comatose patient named Patrick is quite the interesting film. The central performance here is from Robert Thompson as the titular Patrick. He spends the entire film in a stationary position, laying down on the bed, staring blankly and unblinkingly forward. It's a seemingly simple and repetitive performance, but the more I think about it, the more I'm impressed by it. Thompson can't react to anything that's going on around him. He can't blink, he can't focus his eyes on movement, he can't flinch. This sort of passive performance has to be harder than it looks, and it's strangely effective at establishing tension in the film. You just keep waiting for something to happen...
  
  Of course, that's not the only thing this film has going for it. Director Richard Franklin freely admits to his aping of Hitchcock's style, and while I don't think this film really approaches the hights of Hitchcock's best, it's well above the average horror film in terms of photography and framing. The characterizations are surprisingly well done and and the manifestations of Patrick's power ramp up in a well planned progression. I'm sure there are some people who would find the film slow and poorly paced, but I found myself engaged throughout the entire film and never got bored. All in all, it's an effective film and well worth a watch. ***
• Next of Kin (trailer)
• Razorback (trailer)
• Dark Forces (trailer)
• Thirst: I'm not entirely sure what to make of this film. A wealthy woman is kidnapped and informed that she comes from a long line of vampires. The kidnappers claim to be superior to the human race due to the fact that they drink blood. They "farm" humans for their blood, and they're attempting to condition our heroine to drink blood, and thus fulfill her family's destiny. Or something. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The centerpiece of the film is a half-hour long dream sequence, thrusting our heroine from one horror set-piece to another. Actually, I'm not sure if the entire film isn't a series of dream sequences. There's a certain unreliability to what we're watching, and added to the lack of coherent story, I don't think it works particularly well. There are a few standout sequences, such as the shower scene or the woman drowning in a vat of blood, but ultimately I'm not sure it was done in service of anything worthwhile. If you're a huge fan of cults or vampires, it might be worth a watch, but it didn't do too much fore me... **
• Wolf Creek (trailer)
• The Survivor (trailer)
• Rogue (trailer)
• Road Games: When I was in high school, I drove across the US with my brother and uncle. One of the interesting things about such trips is that you actually tend to see the same people over and over again. You might pass someone in the morning, stop for lunch, then pass the same car again later in the day. You might see the same folks at the camp site every night, and so on. Apparently this phenomenon is even more pronounced in Australia, where there are only a handful of roads that take you across the continent. Writer Everett De Roche and Director Richard Franklin, both big Hitchcock fans, looked at that phenomenon and somehow came up with the idea of creating a sorta moving Rear Window. Instead of setting it in an apartment complex, they set it on the road, which allowed them to show the same set of recurring characters over and over again while instilling a certain kinetic energy into the story. Of course, the film doesn't entirely live up to , but it's still a rather effective thriller.
  
  The story concerns a truck driver who notices a strange green van that's picking up hitchhikers in conjunction with a series of disappearances. The truck driver is played by Stacy Keach, and he's a surprisingly well established character. He seems to be a big fan of poetry, constantly quoting his favorites and playing games with the hitchhikers that he picks up. When he says that he's a man who drives trucks, not a truck driver, you almost believe him. He picks up Jamie Lee Curtis at one point, and she seems hellbent on discovering what's going on with the green van.
  
  I think I knew I was in for a good movie here when I saw the first murder sequence. At first, I thought I was going to be seeing kinda standard slasher fare, but Franklin immediately defied those expectations with a gorgeously photographed and well orchestrated horror sequence. The film is nearly bloodless, but it almost doesn't feel like it. There are only a handful of attacks, and they tend to rely on implied violence rather than gory detail. When I was planning out this week's movies, I didn't realize that this film and Patrick were done by the same director, but I'm glad I've discovered Richard Franklin and look forward to perhaps seeing more of his work in the future... ***

The one film I wanted to see but didn't get to here was Howling III: The Marsupials, which looks like an incredibly cheesy, low-budget blast. It's actually available on Netflix Watch Instantly, but I just ran out of time. In any case, I'm hoping enough other films will be available for another week of Ozploitation next year, as I really enjoyed these movies (I'm even glad I watched Thirst, even though it's not quite my thing)...



6WH: Slasher Statistics

There are certain RULES that one must abide by in order to successfully survive a horror movie. For instance, number one: you can never have sex. BIG NO NO! BIG NO NO! Sex equals death, okay? Number two: you can never drink or do drugs. The sin factor! It's a sin. It's an extension of number one. And number three: never, ever, ever under any circumstances say, "I'll be right back." Because you won't be back. -- Randy (Scream, 1996)

The slasher film is an unusual beast. It's often criticized for its lack of originality, simplistic premises, repetitive nature, and strict adherence to formula. Of course, it's often praised for such qualities as well. For fans of the slasher, watching a new film that follows the formula is like eating comfort food.

Ahhh, horror comfort food. Watching an '80s bodycount film, I find, is relaxing. You kinda know what's going to happen and all of the characters act in predictable ways, but that's why it's like putting a sweater on on a chilly day.

The funny thing about this is that the so-called formula isn't exactly precise. I've written about genres in general before:

A genre is typically defined as a category of artistic expression marked by a distinctive style, form, or content. However, anyone who is familiar with genre film or literature knows that there are plenty of movies or books that are difficult to categorize. As such, specific genres such as horror, sci-fi, or comedy are actually quite inclusive. Some genres, Drama in particular, are incredibly broad and are often accompanied by the conventions of other genres (we call such pieces "cross-genre," though I think you could argue that almost everything incorporates "Drama"). The point here is that there is often a blurry line between what constitutes one genre from another.

As such, it's usually easy to spot a Slasher flick, even if there are lots of traits that are uncommon or unique. That being said, there are a number of characteristics common to a lot of slasher films:

• A Killer: Usually a lone, male killer, but not always.
• Victims: Usually more than two victims, introduced at the beginning and slowly killed off as the film progresses (in the manner of Ten Little Indians)
• A Survivor: Usually a female, and usually the main protagonist that defeats the killer in the end.
• Gratuitious Violence: Usually a variety of weaponry is used to dispatch the victims in a relatively gruesome manner. Rarely are impersonal weapons (such as guns) used, except in certain exotic cases (such as the speargun, common to the Friday the 13th series). More personal weapons, like knives and other bladed weapons, are usually the norm, and the result is generally depicted in gory detail.
• Sex: Nudity and sex are usually involved, and are generally indicators that those participating will die. Sometimes this is a deliberate commentary on sexuality, sometimes it's just a more specific example of punishing those who are distracted.
• History: There is usually some tragedy in the past that is being revisited upon the present in some way. This is less common than the above tropes, but still frequent enough to be mentioned.

There are tons of other tropes that I could go into, but that covers a good portion of the conventions used in the slasher film. Another interesting thing about the slasher film is that while there are a number of Ur Examples (i.e. primitive slashers) and Trope Makers/Codifiers, there are some pretty distinct time periods that are important. Again, there are lots of pre-slashers, notably movies like Psycho and Black Christmas¹, but for all intents and purposes, the slasher film started in 1978 with Halloween and went into overdrive with the release of Friday the 13th in 1980. The period between 1980 and 1983 saw the release of countless imitators and sequels, and by 1986, the sub-genre had slowed considerably². There were still some series limping by (Friday the 13th, Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, etc...), but by the mid-90s, the sub-genre was all but dead. Wes Craven then revived things with the ultra-self-aware, mega-referential Scream, but by that point, the tropes of the sub-genre were so well established that subverting them became the order of the day. Post-Scream slashers don't quite resemble the early 80s slashers and perhaps deserve their own sub-genre definition (neo-slashers?).³

So to me, the "true" slasher film was made between the years of 1978 and 1996, with the primary concentration being in the early 80s. Sure, there were a ton of influential films made before 1978 that featured or established important tropes, but none of those films even approached the success of Halloween and it's imitators. Similarly, films made after Scream were forced to acknowledge the tropes and conventions of the sub-genre, and thus they shouldn't really count.

In 1992, Carol Clover coined the term Final Girl to describe the lone surviving character at the end of slasher films, and a new controversy was born. Because of its seemingly rigid conventions, the slasher film is ripe for post-modern interpretations and deconstructions, and it's easy to get carried away with such things. Clover started a more academic discussion of the sub-genre, and it's continued for the past 18 years. The discussion has mostly revolved around the role of women in these films, with the general contention being that more women are killed than men, and in a more graphic way. There have been papers arguing one way or the other, and as you might expect, none are particularly definitive.

Which brings me to a relatively recent scholarly article, Sex and Violence in the Slasher Horror Film: A Content Analysis of Gender Differences in the Depiction of Violence (.pdf). Published in 2009, the article summarizes the existing arguments and, more notably, attempts to do a pretty thorough quantitative analysis of 50 slasher films.

The article is detailed and thorough enough that it would be of interest to any fans of the genre, even if it's possible to nitpick a number of details in their methodology. Given what I wrote about above, I think you can see where my nitpicking was focused. In particular, I was baffled by the film sample list (see page 11).

Earlier in the article, the authors discuss previous efforts, and dismiss them for various reasons. One of the previous articles is criticized for a small sample size - which is a pretty legitimate criticism. Another is criticized because it selected films by commercial success:

The sample size in the Molitor and Sapolsky (1993) study is adequate; however the decision to sample the most commercially successful films may raise problems with sample bias and interpretation of the findings (Molitor & Sapolsky, 1993; Sapolsky et al., 2003). Films featuring frequent presentations of extremely graphic violence may appeal to a smaller audience, generating lower box office revenues. Thus, the findings in the existing research may not reflect the true nature of violent presentations characteristic of the slasher subgenre.

This I find less valid, especially given the author's concerns surrounding the impact of slasher films on society. If a film is not commercially successful, it is less influential, almost by definition.

All that being said, the authors came up with a new methodology which involved using IMDB's power search capabilities. To my mind, their new methodology is probably just as problematic as previous studies. Their definition of the slasher sub-genre seems a bit broad, and as such, some of the films chosen as part of their study are questionable at best. For one thing, they include several pre-Halloween films and several post-Scream films, which dilutes the sample. Indeed, some of the films are arguably not even slashers. For instance, the inclusion of two Saw films seems like a bit of a stretch. It is true that Saw leverages some similar tropes, but it's also one of the defining films in a different sub-genre - the "Torture Porn" film. Perhaps I'm splitting hairs, but I can't imagine anyone jumping to Saw when asked to think of a slasher film.

The lack of any sort of measurement of influence is another issue. This is a more general problem, but it impacts this study in particular due to the random nature of the sample collection. For instance, there is no way that a movie like Cherry Falls should be used as a representative member of the slasher sub-genre. A study that focuses on commercial success of a film (i.e. box office and home video sales) would never have included that film.

Ultimately, these complaints amount to nitpicks. Even with these flaws, some of the study's conclusions are still interesting:

Contrary to the findings reported in previous research, the current analysis suggests that there are several differences in the nature of violent presentations involving male and female characters. Male characters in slasher horror films are more likely to experience relatively quick, graphic, and serious acts of violence. Comparatively, female characters are more likely to be victims of less serious and less graphic forms of violence, such as stalking or confinement, with increased cinematic focus on depicting close-up states of prolonged terror. Women in slasher films are also more likely to be featured in scenes involving sexual content. Specifically, female characters are far more likely to be featured as partially or fully naked and, when sexual and violent images are concomitantly present, the film’s antagonist is significantly more likely to attack a woman.

This is ultimately not all that surprising, though I do wonder about a few things. For instance, since the Final Girl is a common convention, and since the final battle with the killer is likely to last a lot longer than earlier murders, it would make sense that the violence against women characters is less serious, but prolonged. I suppose one could also argue about the inclusion of non-physical violence as violence, which could get a bit hairy. The stats surrounding nudity and sex are also interesting, though I wonder how they would compare against other film genres (action films, for instance). The study presents the slasher as some sort of outlier, but I don't know if that's the case (not that it would excuse anything). I don't know that any of these correlations can be tied to a causation, but it's interesting nonetheless.

It's an interesting article, and well worth a read for anyone interested in the sub-genre. Thanks to And Now the Screaming Starts for the pointer and stay tuned for the next installment of the Six Weeks of Halloween movie marathon. That's all for now, but don't worry, I'll be right back!

¹ I'm particularly fascinated by pre-slasher films, of which there are many. Psycho, Peeping Tom, Blood and Black Lace (and other Giallos), Twitch of the Death Nerve (aka Bay of Blood), The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Black Christmas, Silent Night, Bloody Night, Alice Sweet Alice, The Hills Have Eyes, and so on. Even some older films nor normally associated with slashers presage the idea, like Thirteen Women or And Then There Were None.

² In particular, April Fool's Day and Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI, both released in 1986, began to recognize the conventions of the genre and started the self-awareness trend that would culminate in Craven's Scream. There are probably lots of other good slashers made during this 1986-1996 corridor, but the slasher film was seriously on the decline at that point.

³ It might be a bit insulting to Film Noir, but there are some parallels here. Critics basically defined the film noir after the fact and once that definition became popular, all new films that featured noir-like characteristics became known as neo-noir. Of course, this is not a perfect parallel, but there is a similarity here. Once people self-consciously started making noir films, they lost a certain quality, and the same is probably true for the slasher, and in particular, films like Scream and those that followed.



6WH: Week 2 - Sixties Horror
At first, I didn't think I'd have a recognizable theme this week, but then I realized that these three films were all made in the 1960s (even though one is probably more of a thriller than a horror film, I'm going to let it slide, especially since it does feature several horror hallmarks). So here we go:

• The Others (trailer)
• The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror: Bad Dream House (sorry, no vid online)
• The Haunting (trailer)
• The Innocents: The quiz I posted on Wednesday featured a question about picking a Freddie Frances directed movie, and my answer indicated that his fimography as a cinematography was more impressive, and The Innocents is a prime example of why. Speaking of that quiz, I think one of the questions could have been something like "The Innocents or The Haunting", as these two films certainly share a certain thematic similarity. The Innocents isn't as bold or striking as The Haunting, but that sort of subtlety is its defining characteristic. The film is an exercise in suggestive storytelling, so the lack of pyrotechnics is appropriate and even contributes to the film's repressive atmosphere. This isn't to say that the film is poorly made - it's just that the filmmakers are so confident in their story (based on Henry James' horror milestone, The Turn of the Screw) that they don't feel the need to spice things up with flashy camera angles or stinging audio cues. The camera moves fluidly and the cinematography is gorgeous, but neither really calls attention to itself. The acting, especially Deborah Kerr's performance, is very good, but again, not showy. Kerr's repressed personality is well portrayed, but this doesn't exactly set the screen on fire (nor should it).
  
  The story concerns a governess hired to take care of two children in a country manner. The children's parents have died, and their uncle is a lifelong bachelor who is unwilling to change his ways, so he hires Miss Giddens (played wonderfully by Deborah Kerr) to take care of the kids. When she first arrives, she meets young Flora and all seems well. But then Flora's brother Miles comes home early, having been expelled for reasons that are unclear. As the story proceeds, we get hints that the previous nanny and caretaker were lovers and that they've corrupted the children somehow. Like Miles expulsion from school, the servants transgressions are never really all that clear, and all we have to go on are certain suggestive cues.
  
  There are some genuinely creepy moments in the film, and there's certainly something to be said for a subtle and suggestive story, but something rubbed me the wrong way about this film. It may have been the ending that left me a bit cold, or maybe it was just that I kept thinking about The Haunting as I was watching this movie. Director Jack Clayton has said that he wanted to get away from the popular horror films of the day (his contemporary competition would have been Hammer Horror), and in that, he has certainly succeeded (I like this film much more than the Hammer films I've seen). There's a lot to like here and the film probably deserves a larger audience, but I also think there's a reason this is a cult film that's often overshadowed by the likes of The Haunting. **1/2
• Freaks (trailer)
• Shining (fake trailer)
• Grindhouse: Don't (fake trailer)
• Carnival of Souls: Moody and atmospheric, this tale of a car crash's lone survivor is short and sweet. The most notable thing about the movie for me is the soundtrack. Our heroine is an organist, you see, and she's been hired to play for a local church. But after her accident, she seems strangely withdrawn... almost like she doesn't have a soul! The organ-heavy soundtrack is quite evocative and Candace Hilligoss's empty (in a good way) performance hits the perfect note. It's difficult to tell a story with a main character who has no soul because, well, how can the audience relate to that? But Hilligoss imbues her performance with enough pathos that you can't help but feel for her. Plus, she keeps seeing this strange ghoul-faced man all over the place, eventually leading her to explore an abandoned carnival, and as you might expect, things get even weirder from there, including an interesting but not entirely unexpected ending. **1/2
• Rear Window (trailer)
• Rear Window as Three's Company (fake trailer)
• The Simpsons: Bart of Darkness (sorry, no vid online)
• Wait Until Dark: Perhaps less of a horror film than a mere thriller, this film does feature a number of striking horror-like sequences, enough so that I'm not going to disqualify it (plus, uh, I didn't have any other sixties films lined up for this week:p). The plot is simple and maybe a little gimmicky. A doll stuffed with drugs accidentally makes its way to the apartment of Susy Hendrix (Audrey Hepburn), and a group of criminals (lead by a sinister, infamous-sunglasses-wearing Alan Arkin) conspires to get it back by conning Susy.
  
  The gimmick here is that Susy is blind, leading to several scenes where our villains attempt to exploit their ocular advantage. Unfortunately for them, they're not as smart as they think, and Susy pretty quickly figures out what's going on (or, at least, she realizes that things aren't as they appear). The film starts a bit slowly, but the tension mounts pretty evenly as the film proceeds, leading to a few standout sequences late in the film, including excellent use of darkness, sound, and an exceptional "boo!" sequence towards the end of the film that will probably shock you even though you were expecting it. ***

Not positive what will be next, but coming up will definitely be a week of Silent Era Horror and some Ozploitation.

Update: Yeah, I should probably mention some other folks doing some horror movie blogging as well. Ben has been infected by my efforts and inspired to watch some horror in preparation for the season (this time, he's going for underwater horror), and of course, kernunrex continues his yearly marathon (which had originally inspired me in the first place). I haven't looked around a ton, but I'm sure lots more folks will be starting up once we reach October...



Professor David Huxley's Laborious, Licentious Spotted-Leopard Labor Day Film Quiz
I'm a few weeks late to the party, but Dennis Cozzalio of the Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule blog has posted another movie quiz. Previous installments answering questions from Professor Fate, Professor Russell Johnson, Dr. Smith, Professor Peabody, and Professor Severus Snape are also available... But now, here are my answers to Professor Huxley:

1) Classic film you most want to experience that has so far eluded you.

The last film quiz had a similar question... and sadly, I still have not watched The Apartment. I don't really have a good excuse for this one either.

2) Greatest Criterion DVD/Blu-ray release ever

This is a difficult question, seeing as though I've probably only seen somewhere around 10% of the movies in the Criterion Collection (and many of the ones I have seen haven't necessarily been the Criterion version), but the first thing that came to mind was the Ultimate Three-Disc Special Edition Box Set of Brazil. I think a big part of this is that, at the time, Criterion was the only company putting out DVD releases this thorough, and this one blew me away. It featured two versions of the film - Gilliam's directors cut and the "Love Conquers All" version - and an exhaustive series of special features chronicling the film's production and the studio meddling with the US release that ultimately lead to the creation of a new version of the film that had a happy ending. This sort of treatment isn't that unusual today, but back then, it was, and it was all the more notable because it was created in service of a relatively obscure cult film.

3) The Big Sleep or The Maltese Falcon?

I had to rub my eyes for a second because these questions asking us to pick between two movies (or actors/actresses) usually feature at least one option that I'm not at all familiar with. In this case, I've actually seen both films (it's been a few years, but I've definitely seen both)... yet I'm still having trouble picking. For now, I'll say The Big Sleep, though it's not like I have anything against The Maltese Falcon.

4) Jason Bateman or Paul Rudd?

Wow, two in a row where I know what you're asking about. It's another tough one, but for now I'll have to go with Paul Rudd, though Bateman has been coming on strong lately.

5) Best mother/child (male or female) movie star combo

The only thing I could really come up with here is Janet Leigh and Jamie Lee Curtis, which appears to be a pretty common (i.e. boring) answer to this question...

6) Who are the Robert Mitchums and Ida Lupinos among working movie actors? Do modern parallels to such masculine and no-nonsense feminine stars even exist? If not, why not?

I'm at a bit of a loss here. I'm no expert on his filmography, but it's not like Mitchum was surrounded by contemporaries who did what he did, and I can't really think of anyone working today that comes close either. The closest I can come is Clint Eastwood, but he's still quite a bit different (interestingly, I was wondering the other day if any younger actors could fill Eastwood's type of role these days?). I have to admit that I'm not at all familiar with Ida Lupino, but when it comes to no-nonsense actresses, someone in the comments of the SLIFR thread mentioned Christina Hendricks. I guess that's cheating, though, as she's more of a TV star. No-nonsense characters seem to be less common these days though, so perhaps that could account for the lack of actors taking on that sort of role (or being type-cast as that sort of character).

7) Favorite Preston Sturges movie

The Lady Eve (these questions are easy when you've only seen one film in a director's filmography!).

8) Odette Yustman or Mary Elizabeth Winstead?

Mary Elizabeth Winstead, as she's been in a lot of decent movies already (and not so decent movies that I don't really mind). The most notably thing Odette Yustman has been in for me is Fallout 3, where she did voice acting for the Overseer's daughter (she shot me down).

9) Is there a movie that if you found out a partner or love interest loved (or didn't love) would qualify as a Relationship Deal Breaker?

I always find stories about this amusing, but I can't think of a single film that would ever provoke this kind of reaction in me. Perhaps if I hated every film she liked, there might be a problem, but in that case, I suspect it would really just be symptomatic of deeper problems.

10) Favorite DVD commentary

The tricky part about commentaries is that the best commentaries are usually done for bad movies. There's no pressure to defend poor choices or mistakes, and thus the filmmakers tend to be a little more comfortable and honest about the production. The biggest problem with this is that you actually have to watch bad movies in order to get to these types of commentaries. For instance, I've heard that Joel Schumacher's commentary for Batman & Robin is fantastic because he doesn't really hold back and openly admits mistakes and problems with the production. I have not heard the entire commentary, but I saw a clip once where he admitted to redesigning the batmobile in order to sell more toys (or some such). That's not my answer though - my pick would be Kevin Smith's (and the rest of the cast's) commentary on Mallrats. All of Smith's commentaries are entertaining, but the failure of this movie at the box office adds that extra dimension that can make a commentary great. You get lots of moments between friends, like when Smith and others berate Affleck for liking Malcolm in the Middle, but you also get stories about how the marketing failed the movie and how studio execs convinced Smith to tone down some of his more raunchy humor. It's excellent stuff. (I'd love to see a commentary on Zack and Miri Make a Porno, but Smith was apparently so distraught at some of the behind the scenes wranglings that he didn't want to do one - hopefully once he gets some time and movies behind him, he can revisit this...)

11) Movies most recently seen on DVD, Blu-ray and theatrically

On DVD, it was Don't Torture a Duckling, Lucio Fulci's disturbing Giallo (part of my 6WH horror movie marathon). It was a decent film with a few standout sequences, but it doesn't really compare to the top tier of Giallos.

On Blu-Ray, it was Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, a self-aware, neo-slasher mock-documentary. It features some interesting components and puts a name to the many conventions of the genre, though the only really new terminology that's coined is the concept of an "Ahab" (basically, in the context of slashers, the primary example of an Ahab would be Dr. Loomis from the Halloween films). Ultimately it's not a great film, but it was an entertaining enough watch.

In theaters, it was The Town, Ben Affleck's surprisingly strong sophomore effort as director. It's not going to win awards like Gone Baby Gone, but it's still a solid film. I wish more films like this were made and I'd be more than happy if Affleck spent the rest of his career putting out little crime thrillers set in Boston.

12) Dirk Bogarde or Alan Bates?

Ah, there we go! I'm not especially familiar with either of these actors, but I guess I'd give it to Alan Bates, as I've actually seen a few of his movies.

13) Favorite DVD extra

Well, I've already given two of my favorite examples (the Behind the Scenes documentaries about Brazil and the Love Conquers All version of the film, and Kevin Smith's commentary for Mallrats...) so I'm having trouble picking another favorite. Kevin Smith does have some other great special features, like the (seemingly) 2 hours of deleted scenes (with introductions) from Dogma. There are some interesting making-of documentaries on my copy of The Terminator and The Thing. Alien and Aliens also have pretty good special features. But now we're just getting into movies I like! Someone in the comments at SLIFR mentioned the Fruity Oaty Bars feature from Serenity, which I find funny (both because it warranted a special feature on the DVD and because someone actually picked it as their favorite extra). In a more general sense, my favorite extra feature is a commentary track (especially if done well!)

14) Brian De Palma’s Scarface— yes or no?

Yes. Though I certainly don't get the absolute worship the film receives, it is a reasonably well done movie.

15) Best comic moment from a horror film that is not a horror comedy (Young Frankenstein, Love At First Bite, et al.)

The answer here is obviously from Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI. I'll chose the title sequence where the camera zooms into Jason's eye, where you then see Jason sashay accross the screen, James Bond style, and swing his trusty machete, filling the screen with blood that eventually spells out the title. I laughed for a solid ten minutes when I revisited the film recently, not remembering that this film was so self-aware. There are several other choices in the film, such as a couple's attempt to bribe Jason with an American Express card, the fact that one of the children in the camp is reading Jean Paul Sartre's No Exit, and the way Jason holds a dismembered arm and cocks his head, as if thinking "Huh, his arm came off. Will wonders never cease." I suppose you could make an argument that this movie is a horror comedy, but most of the film retains the typical, earnest slasher movie style, so I think it counts (and there are a few legitimately creepifying moments, though maybe that's just nostalgic remnants of my childhood poking through). There are actually a bunch of other movies I considered for this, including Evil Dead 2, Dead Alive, Re-Animator, Tremors, and An American Werewolf in London (though again, you might consider at least some of those to be horror/comedies)...

16) Jane Birkin or Edwige Fenech?

I got nothing.

17) Favorite Wong Kar-wai movie

I have to admit that I'm not a particularly huge Wong Kar-wai fan, so I've not seen a lot of his films. Of the ones I've seen, I'd say In the Mood for Love, which does have a legitimately interesting premise.

18) Best horrific moment from a comedy that is not a horror comedy

This one was a lot harder than question 15... Does Raising Arizona count as a comedy? I remember finding The Lone Biker of the Apocalypse a bit creepy when I was younger... I guess another option would be the end of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

19) From 2010, a specific example of what movies are doing right…

I loved Inception and hope its success augurs for more of the same. Even if it's just a few new movies that are not based on existing properties, I think that'd be a win. I'm not tremendously confident of that, but it'd be nice. Another thing that seems to be going well is the concept of digital distribution. I've caught a few movies on IFC On Demand, which means that I can watch some of those hard to find movies without even leaving home (even if it's playing in Philly, this means I can avoid the traffic and the parking, etc...)

20) Ryan Reynolds or Chris Evans?

Hey, two more people I know. This must be a record. Anyway, I guess I'd probably go with Chris Evans, as he seems to make more interesting choices.

21) Speculate about the future of online film writing. What’s next?

I'm not sure. Everything seems to be getting smaller. Perhaps film critics who post exclusively on twitter or some other sort of micro-blogging format. Or the other direction: the return of long-form film criticism. Ultimately, I don't think much will change. Old school outlets and criticism will continue to lose ground to the seemingly endless throngs of online critics who work for peanuts (if that).

22) Roger Livesey or David Farrar?

Filmspotting has been doing a Powell-Pressburger marathon, and so they've been talking about these two guys... but I haven't seen either of them, so I can't really pick.

23) Best father/child (male or female) movie star combo

The first that comes to mind is Kirk and Michael Douglas, which I guess is a boring answer, but the only others I can think of are also boring. Given my answer to the mother/child question, I suppose I could also go with Tony Curtis and Jamie Lee Curtis, just for the sake of symmetry.

24) Favorite Freddie Francis movie (as Director)

Not tremendously familiar with his work, but I guess I'll go with Tales from the Crypt. He seems to have a more impressive resume as a cinematographer than as a director.

25) Bringing Up Baby or The Awful Truth?

Seeing as though I've only seen one of these, I've got Bringing Up Baby by default.

26) Tina Fey or Kristen Wiig?

I guess I'll go with Tina Fey on this one, though I do really like both (Wiig, for instance, was the best part of Knocked Up, and she was only in it for about a minute or so).

27) Name a stylistically important director and the best film that would have never been made without his/her influence.

What started with John Ford westerns moved to Akira Kurosawa samurai films and then back to the westerns with Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood. If I have to pick my favorite spaghetti western, it would be The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, but the entire sub-genre owes a debt to what came before.

28) Movie you’d most enjoy seeing remade and transplanted to a different culture (i.e. Yimou Zhang’s A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop.)

I was going to think of an answer for this, but then I saw Patrick's answer at SLIFR: "I'd love to see what Hayao Miyazaki would do with the Wizard of Oz."

29) Link to a picture/frame grab of a movie image that for you best illustrates bliss. Elaborate.

I had a surprisingly hard time with this. The first shot that came to mind was the end of It's a Wonderful Life. On the other end of the spectrum, I also thought about the end of Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, but again, I couldn't get a good screenshot of that (and I suspect that Capra's visual talent outweighs that of Danny Leiner). 30) With a tip of that hat to Glenn Kenny, think of a just-slightly-inadequate alternate title for a famous movie. (Examples from GK: Fan Fiction; Boudu Relieved From Cramping; The Mild Imprecation of the Cat People)

I stink at these, but here are a few: Star Embargos, Inglorious Bastards, The Texas Chainsaw Picnic, Reservoir Puppies, Eyes Wide Open , and hmm, if I had to choose a favorite, it would be the Texas Chainsaw one.

And I think that about covers it. See you on Sunday with some 60s horror.



Six Weeks of Halloween 2009: Week 1 - Giallo Films
Halloweentime is my favorite time of the year, and like kernunrex, I celebrate the season by watching a ton of horror movies, eating bite-sized candy, drinking pumpkin flavored beer, and playfully decorating my home with (fake) corpses and mutilated pumpkins. I've got Netflix queue full of movies and only 6 weeks to get through them all, but if you have any suggestions, feel free to leave a comment or play along!

I'm starting this year with a distinctive Italian sub-genre known as the Giallo. The word "giallo" means "yellow" in Italian, and the sub-genre takes that name because of the distinctive yellow backgrounds on a series of pulpy, Italian crime/mystery novels. The defining characteristics of these stories are all familiar to fans of traditional pulp fiction. There's usually a whodunit murder/mystery element, combined with lurid sexual themes and often bloody violence. These films started appearing the in the early 1960s and ultimately lead into the slasher craze of the early 80s (may of the elements of the slasher are prefigured in Giallo films - more on this below).

• Psycho (trailer)
• Here's Your Problem... (Robot Chicken)
• Hardly Working: Slasher (short)
• Blood and Black Lace (1963): The origins of the modern slasher film are usually traced back to Hitchcock's Psycho. That film, of course, is not really a slasher, but it originates some of the common tropes of the sub-genre. Rumor has it that Italian director Mario Bava saw Hitchcock's film and was so inspired by the brilliantly staged death sequences that he vowed to make a movie with three times as many deaths. And thus was born the body-count movie. Even beyond that, this film prefigures the modern slasher more than any other of its contemporaries (until 1974's Black Christmas). Besides the body count, it also features a masked killer (and it's a surprisingly effective mask, perhaps because it's so simple and elegant), some POV shots, lots of young models, and well staged, violent deaths though means of elaborate or unusual weaponry (in particular, the three-pronged metal claw stolen off of a piece of armor). Of course, Bava is a much more talented filmmaker than much of the slasher-ilk that would follow, and this film features several exceptional set pieces, and not all of them are murder sequences either.
  
  The film takes place in an Italian modeling agency/fashion house. The first victim is almost immediately dispatched and later, one of the models finds the victim's diary and places it in her purse. Bava playfully dances around the scene, first executing a quick montage of paranoid onlookers, then orchestrating a long sequence where the bag never leaves the camera's gaze, but characters maneuver around the screen, attempting to get at the diary (which presumably holds some sort of clue about her murderer, and the assumption at this point is that it's someone at the fashion house that's responsible).
  
  The production design is also well done. It seems to feature a lot of ornate, body-shaped objects such as mannequins, statues, and suits of armor. The effect being that you always feel like you're seeing people who aren't really there. Bava's impeccable sense of framing almost always frames the murders in the presence of these figures (Bava will also follow up a murder by moving the camera towards an angelic figure, an interesting symbolic motif that persists throughout the film). Ultimately, the story of the film is rather commonplace by today's standards, but it's extremely well made. Bava is known as the father of Italian horror, and his influence can be seen far and wide, both in future Italian cinema as well as American cinema. Bava's Twitch of the Death Nerve (aka Bay of Blood) is especially influential (it's another slasher precursor, and it's also blatantly copied by the early Friday the 13th films, especially part 2) and Planet of the Vampires seems to have an awful lot in common with Alien (though Bava's film absolutely pales in comparison to Alien). All in all, Blood and Black Lace is a great film for those in love with the genre. It may seem a bit tame by today's standards, but that's only because we're so used to the conventions this film helped to establish. ***1/2
• Deep Red (trailer)
• Black Christmas (trailer)
• Susperia (trailer)
• The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970): Dario Argento's directorial debut is a well executed murder mystery that shows some hints of what's to come in that director's career. In a lot of ways, it's very derivative of the aforementioned Blood and Black Lace, but Argento manages to assert himself a bit by the end of the film. Many of his trademark themes are here, in particular the idea of a protagonist who sees something of great importance but doesn't realize the significance of what they saw (or can't remember a key detail of what they saw). One of the interesting things about this film is that on the police procedural side of the story, we see a lot of precursors to the current forensic craze (represented by TV shows like CSI, etc...). This film taking place in the 60s, the methods are somewhat primitive, but it's an interesting element (and it makes me wonder if, thirty years from now, some joker will be saying the same things about CSI). While I've not seen a ton of Argento's films, this film ultimately takes a back seat to his later works, in particular the exceptional Deep Red. This film is worth a watch for Argento fans, but if you're not familiar with him, I'd recommend Deep Red ahead of this... **1/2
• Zombie 2 (trailer)
• The Beyond (trailer)
• The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror III: Dial 'Z' For Zombies
• Don't Torture a Duckling (1972): Lucio Fulci's disturbing and controversial tale of a series of child murders is reasonably well made and very disturbing. Part of this is just because of the subject matter - killing kids is a pretty lurid and manipulative thing to do to an audience, but this film goes there, and it doesn't flinch. Interestingly, the most disturbing death scene in the movie features no children at all. I don't want to ruin the sequence for anyone who decides to see this, but the way Fulci juxtaposes music with the violence during the sequence is expertly done. And that scene is quite violent and relatively gory, even by today's standards (well, maybe not quite, but it's close). Fulci would later become known for his out-of-control gore, but he's still somewhat restrained at this point in his career (the zombie films he produced in the late 70s and early 80s are another story). The controversy surrounding the film is not only because of the age of the victims, but because of a somewhat critical stance against the Church, which is apparently something of a no-no in Italian cinema. The film was only released in the US on DVD in the past few years. Like Argento's Crystal Plumage, this film is a solid example of the genre, but probably not for a casual viewer (if you enjoy Deep Red and Blood and Black Lace, you might like this).

Well, that about covers it for this week. Except that I probably need to watch a dozen other Giallo movies! Lots more movies on the docket for this year, including a few good old fashion hauntings, some crazy Japanese splatter films, and maybe even some silent horror. Stay tuned!



Deep Thoughs on Piranha 3D
Piranha is not a good movie, but it is just about exactly what you'd expect and thus, it can be a lot of fun if you go into it with the right mindset. It's one of those movies (like Snakes on a Plane) where movie reviews and ratings won't really sway an audience. This is a movie where tons of ferocious fish chow down on a bunch of obnoxious kids celebrating Spring Break. That either interests you, or it doesn't. Either way, I don't think anyone expects it to be good, and it's not. So this isn't really a review, but I had some assorted thoughts I'd like to share.

• So the premise of the film is that an earthquake has opened a hole to a subterranean lake-within-a-lake. Fortuitously, this happens right at the start of Spring Break, when the lake on top of the subterranean lake is normally invaded by drunken teens. What no one knows yet is that the subterranean lake has housed a particularly vicious species of piranha, and later in the film, we meet piranha expert Christopher Lloyd, who informs us that these piranha have been extinct for millions of years, and that these ones only survived because they resorted to cannibalism.
  
  Obviously, this premise is flimsy and doesn't really deserve much consideration, but I began to wonder: Is it possible for a species of piranha to survive in isolation by resorting to cannibalism? Imagine my surprise when a very thorough and exhaustive 2 minutes of google searching yielded mildly supportive evidence. Apparently cannibalism is common among fish species and look at this simulation! It's clear to me that this movie is more plausible than I gave it credit for. I mean, if you can't trust a tech demo simulation of fish found on the internet, what can you trust?
• Once the shit hits the fan, deputy Ving Rhames yanks a propeller off a boat, starts it up, and proceeds to annihilate all surrounding piranha by swinging the propeller through the air and the water. My question: Once he sticks the propeller in the water, wouldn't he be, you know, propelled in the opposite direction? My extensive internet research has revealed that it was unwise to apply traditional physics to the awesome power of Ving Rhames. Amazing.
  
• Despite relatively tepid box office returns, this movie was still judged to be a success, and thus we can look forward to Piranha 3D part two, probably next year. For some reason, this made me wonder about the fate of the town in this movie. Surely they would be economically destroyed by this whole disaster. Or maybe not. Maybe they have a surprisingly robust economy and could handle the shock of decreased tourism. I think it actually could be pretty funny to set the sequel in the same town if they could come up with a ridiculous enough justification for it.

I have to admit that I'm surprised at the amount of good press this movie is getting. I mean, it's essentially a remake of a 30 year old, low budget, exploitative rip-off of Jaws, and it attempts to do approximately nothing new with the premise, unless you count the addition of the typical 21st century mean streak that has emerged in most horror of this decade. Oh, and I guess the underwater ballet sequence is astounding in its gratuitous glory. It's a bad movie, but I had fun with it.



Tasting Notes...
Another edition of Tasting Notes, a series of quick hits on a variety of topics that don't really warrant a full post. So here's what I've been watching/playing/reading/drinking lately:

Television

• The only show I watch regularly is True Blood, and even that has been a bit of a bust this season. There are some good things about this season, but it seems like all the side characters are annoying this season. Even Lafayette seems to be getting annoying. You can't keep increasing the number of big character arcs indefinitely, and this season definitely hit the limit and then stomped over it. All that being said, it's still an entertaining show, and last week's cliffhanger was kinda interesting, except that I know better than to trust that it will be conclusive, which is probably a bad thing. Unless it turns out the way I expect, which is kinda ironic. A damned if you do, damned if you don't situation, I guess.
• Netflix Watch Instantly Pick of the Week: Mythbusters. Yeah, we've all seen these epsiodes, but putting them on Netflix Watch Instantly is a problem. I didn't know they were on there until Shamus mentioned if off-handedly, and now I find myself watching them all the time.

Video Games

• It turns out that I've played approximately 0 hours of GTA IV since the last Tasting Notes, so I'm thinking that I should just move on to something else. Complaints are, more or less, the same as last time. All the good things about the game are the same as GTA III, and all the new bits only seem to weigh it down. And for crying out loud, it's ok to let people save their games whenever. This is something that I've become pretty inflexible on - if you have static save points that force me to replay stuff and rewatch cutscenes, I'm not going to like your game much.
• In lieu of GTA IV, I've been replaying Half-Life 2 on my PC. It's interesting how great that game is, despite its aged mechanics. It got me thinking about what would make for the ideal FPS game (perhaps a topic for another post).
• Portal is fantastic, but you probably already knew that. Still, for a 3 hour gaming experience, it's just about perfect. I only got stuck a couple of times, and even then, it was fun piecing together what I needed to do... Well worth a play, even if you're not huge into gaming.

Movies

• Machete is brilliant trash. Interestingly, Rodriguez takes the opportunity to address politics and make a point about immigration. This sort of hand-wringing would normally be annoying, but the mixture of polemic with gloriously over-the-top action, gratuitous nudity and violence, is actually pretty well balanced. On their own, those two elements would be cloying or frustrating. Mix them together, and you've got something altogether different, and it works really well. Also working well, Lindsay Lohan in a bit of self-aware stunt casting (I can't really say that the role "transcends" that with a straight face, but it does go further than simple exploitation). Not working so well: Jessica Alba. She's fine for most of the movie, but when it comes time for her to give an inspirational speech, it's kinda embarrassing. Danny Trejo, Michelle Rodriguez, Jeff Fahey, Cheech Marin, and Don Johnson (!?) are great. Robert De Niro and Steven Seagal are kinda sleepwalking through their roles, but they're fine. In the end, it's trashy fun, and I have a feeling it will stick with me more than other trashy summer fare.
• The American, on the other hand, is slow, ponderous and ultimately pointless. A promising start, but rather than build on that, the tension evaporates as the film slowly grinds its way to an unsurprising conclusion. Poorly paced and not much to it...
• Netflix Watch Instantly Pick of the Week: Beer Wars. A documentary about beer, featuring a pretty good cross-section of the craft brewing leaders in the US, as well as some interesting behind-the-scenes info about legal side of things and how the laws impact the rest of the distribution chain. Really, it's just fun to see interviews with some of my favorite brewers, like the guys from Dogfish Head and Stone brewing, or the Yuengling owner (who seems to get drunk and spill some beans). If you like beer, it's well worth a watch.
• Netflix Watch Instantly Pick of the Week That I Haven't Even Seen Yet: Mother. This Korean thriller made waves in the film-nerd community earlier this year, so it's on my must watch list. Seems noirish.

Books

• Currently reading: Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis. It's quite good so far! For some reason, I'm not reading as much lately, but I'm about halfway through this.
• I can't help myself: four new books into the queue: Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age by Clay Shirky, The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective by Kate Summerscale, and Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond (Thanks to Spencer for those last two!). To many things to read, too little time...

The Finer Things (aka Beer!)

• Brewery Ommegang is probably my favorite brewery in America, and I recently managed to get my hands on some of their more uncommon brews. BPA is a Belgian-style pale ale. Not as hoppy as an IPA, but also not quite as tasty as Ommegang's other beers. An interesting experiment, but not something I see myself turning to very often. Bière De Mars, on the other hand, is great. I think Ommegang's standards are pretty tough to beat, but that one holds its own. It's a seasonal beer and a limited batch; the one I found was from 2008. It was well worth the wait. There are a bunch of other Ommegang seasonals or specialty beers, but the one I really want to find is the Tripel Perfection. The Tripel is probably my favorite style of belgian beer, so I'd love to see Ommegang's take on it.
• Some interesting stuff in my fridge: Saison Du BUFF is a collaboration between three local breweries. This batch is from Victory, but the formula was created by Victory, Stone, and Dogfish Head. I saw a case of the Dogfish Head somewhere, but didn't want to buy it until I tried it out. Also in the fridge: Fantôme Saison (this comes highly rated, but I haven't seen it around until now), and a few pumpkin or Octoberfest ales.

And that's all for now.



Trigger Man
An earlier post on Ti West's excellent The House of the Devil lead the cryptic emailer mentioned in that post to recommend West's previous film, the ultra-low-budget Trigger Man. It's an interesting little film, mostly because it is essentially a concentrated version of what some people really hated about The House of the Devil.

Like, House of the Devil, the plot of this film is easily summarized: three buddies head out to the woods for a relaxing hunting trip. With a title like Trigger Man and three apparently inexperienced young guys with guns, it played out almost exactly as I expected. But not right away. I suppose there are some who'd say that the first half of the film is a bit dull, and there's probably something to that. The film is certainly slow. But there's also something effective about being lulled into a sense of security that this film exploits. At one point maybe 20 minutes or so into the movie, after our heroes have been quietly walking through the woods for a while, one of the characters hefts his rifle and pans around the area... and spies a doe! Never has a female deer been so menacing.

I don't think it's much of a spoiler to say that the deer does not shoot back at our hero, but there's no way that sequence would have carried the weight it did if we hadn't spent the previous 20 minutes trudging silently through the landscape, building atmosphere with every step. As someone who has been deer hunting myself, this movie actually does capture that sort of excitement that can only come after spending a morning waiting for something (anything!) to cross your path. After a while, even a squirrel can be exciting.

Of course, that's not all this film has to offer, and while I had a pretty good idea of what was going to happen, I did find myself startled when it actually did happen. From that point on, I found myself surprisingly off balance, even when West reverts the film back into quiet nature walk mode (only to jolt me out of my reestablished reverie, I should add). There is even that horror staple of gratuitous gore at one point, but that sort of thing works much better in a movie like this than it does in a lot of other schlock-fests (though I do have a soft spot for slashers, for some unfathomable reason). Later in the film, an eerie abandoned factory makes an appearance, and West takes ample advantage of the strange shadows thrown by overpasses.

This is pretty clearly a low-budget film, and at times I did find myself wondering if the stylistic choices were done for artistic reasons, or because of technical limitations (or, as is sometimes happily the case, both). For instance, the film does have a distinct vérité feel. West never goes all Greengrass on us, but a handheld camera is clearly used for most of the shots. This does sorta put the viewer in the position of voyeur, as if if we're actually there, following the characters with a camera (but without the whole found-footage conceit). Indeed, there are numerous shots from behind, following characters as they move. I would be curious what choices West would have made if he had more of a budget.

The DVD had a Q&A session with West, cast, and crew, and one of the things that really surprised me was that he says almost none of the film is improvised. The film only has about 20 lines of dialogue, and most of it is pretty simple banter between the three leads (I thought for sure that the Predator reference was an improvisation). After finishing the movie, I contemplated whether it would have made for a good silent film (the concept of a modern-day silent film intrigues me) - and I think it would, so long as you could leave the sound of gunshots and maybe the babbling water of the creek.

Ultimately, while I enjoyed the film and found it satisfying, I would have a hard time recommending it to anyone but the most strident fans of West or slow burning horror (i.e. people who think The House of the Devil is for speed junkies). Perhaps being immersed in the hustle and bustle of teh internets primed me for spending some down time following some doomed hunters as they trekked through an eerie environment. I guess it's not a film I see myself popping in all the time... It's a wonderful experiment, and I enjoyed it on that level, but it certainly has its flaws. In any case, I guess this means I should check out The Roost (which, I have to say, seems like it would be very different from the other two West movies I've seen).



Groundhog Day and A/B Testing
Jeff Atwood recently made a fascinating observation about the similarities between the classic film Groundhog Day and A/B Testing.

In case you've only recently emerged from a hermit-like existence, Groundhog Day is a film about Phil (played by Bill Murray). It seems that Phil has been doomed (or is it blessed) to live the same day over and over again. It doesn't seem to matter what he does during this day, he always wakes up at 6 am on Groundhog Day. In the film, we see the same day repeated over and over again, but only in bits and pieces (usually skipping repetitive parts). The director of the film, Harold Ramis, believes that by the end of the film, Phil has spent the equivalent of about 30 or 40 years reliving that same day.

Towards the beginning of the film, Phil does a lot of experimentation, and Atwood's observation is that this often takes the form of an A/B test. This is a concept that is perhaps a little more esoteric, but the principles are easy. Let's take a simple example from the world of retail. You want to sell a new ring on a website. What should the main image look like? For simplification purposes, let's say you narrow it down to two different concepts: one, a closeup of the ring all by itself, and the other a shot of a model wearing the ring. Which image do you use? We could speculate on the subject for hours and even rationalize some pretty convincing arguments one way or the other, but it's ultimately not up to us - in retail, it's all about the customer. You could "test" the concept in a serial fashion, but ultimately the two sets of results would not be comparable. The ring is new, so whichever image is used first would get an unfair advantage, and so on. The solution is to show both images during the same timeframe. You do this by splitting your visitors into two segments (A and B), showing each segment a different version of the image, and then tracking the results. If the two images do, in fact, cause different outcomes, and if you get enough people to look at the images, it should come out in the data.

This is what Phil does in Groundhog Day. For instance, Phil falls in love with Rita (played by Andie MacDowell) and spends what seems like months compiling lists of what she likes and doesn't like, so that he can construct the perfect relationship with her.

Phil doesn't just go on one date with Rita, he goes on thousands of dates. During each date, he makes note of what she likes and responds to, and drops everything she doesn't. At the end he arrives at -- quite literally -- the perfect date. Everything that happens is the most ideal, most desirable version of all possible outcomes on that date on that particular day. Such are the luxuries afforded to a man repeating the same day forever.

This is the purest form of A/B testing imaginable. Given two choices, pick the one that "wins", and keep repeating this ad infinitum until you arrive at the ultimate, most scientifically desirable choice.

As Atwood notes, the interesting thing about this process is that even once Phil has constructed that perfect date, Rita still rejects Phil. From this example and presumably from experience with A/B testing, Atwood concludes that A/B testing is empty and that subjects can often sense a lack of sincerity behind the A/B test.

It's an interesting point, but to be sure, I'm not sure it's entirely applicable in all situations. Of course, Atwood admits that A/B testing is good at smoothing out details, but there's something more at work in Groundhog's Day that Atwood is not mentioning. Namely, that Phil is using A/B testing to misrepresent himself as the ideal mate for Rita. Yes, he's done the experimentation to figure out what "works" and what doesn't, but his initial testing was ultimately shallow. Rita didn't reject him because he had all the right answers, she rejected him because he was attempting to deceive her. His was misrepresenting himself, and that certainly can lead to a feeling of emptiness.

If you look back at my example above about the ring being sold on a retail website, you'll note that there's no deception going on there. Somehow I doubt either image would result in a hollow feeling by the customer. Why is this different than Groundhog Day? Because neither image misrepresents the product, and one would assume that the website is pretty clear about the fact that you can buy things there. Of course, there are a million different variables you could test (especially once you get into text and marketing hooks, etc...) and some of those could be more deceptive than others, but most of the time, deception is not the goal. There is a simple choice to be made, instead of constantly wondering about your product image and second guessing yourself, why not A/B test it and see what customers like better?

There are tons of limitations to this approach, but I don't think it's as inherently flawed as Atwood seems to believe. Still, the data you get out of an A/B test isn't always conclusive and even if it is, whatever learnings you get out of it aren't necessarily applicable in all situations. For instance, what works for our new ring can't necessarily be applied to all new rings (this is a problem for me, as my employer has a high turnover rate for products - as such, the simple example of the ring as described above would not be a good test for my company unless the ring would be available for a very long time). Furthermore, while you can sometimes pick a winner, it's not always clear why it's a winner. This is especially the case when the differences between A and B are significant (for instance, testing an entirely redesigned page might yield results, but you will not know which of the changes to the page actually caused said results - on the other hand, A/B testing is really the only way to accurately calculate ROI on significant changes like that.)

Obviously these limitations should be taken into account when conducting an A/B test, and I think what Phil runs into in Groundhog's Day is a lack of conclusive data. One of the problems with interpreting inconclusive data is that it can be very tempting to rationalize the data. Phils initial attempts to craft the perfect date for Rita fail because he's really only scraping the surface of her needs and desires. In other words, he's testing the wrong thing, misunderstanding the data, and thus getting inconclusive results.

The interesting thing about the Groundhog's Day example is that, in the end, the movie is not a condemnation of A/B testing at all. Phil ultimately does manage to win the affections of Rita. Of course it took him decades to do so, and that's worth taking into account. Perhaps what the film is really saying is that A/B testing is often more complicated than it seems and that the only results you get depend on what you put into it. A/B testing is not the easy answer it's often portrayed as and it should not be the only tool in your toolbox (i.e. forcing employees to prove that using 3, 4 or 5 pixels for a border is ideal is probably going a bit too far ), but neither is it as empty as Atwood seems to be indicating. (And we didn't even talk about multivariate tests! Let's get Christopher Nolan on that. He'd be great at that sort of movie, wouldn't he?)



The House of the Devil
This month's selection for the Final Girl film club is Ti West's 80s throwback horror film, The House of the Devil.

When I was growing up, there was a local legend about a building known as Satan's House (also known as the Cult house, the Devil's house, and probably a dozen other variants). Located in Southeastern PA, not that far from Delaware, the house sits at the top of a hill, and the road that winds around the hill is probably the creepiest part of the whole experience. The windy road is narrow and lined with trees. This alone would not be cause for alarm, but it seems that all of the trees... instead of growing up towards the sky, they grow horizontally, pointing away from the road (as if trying to escape the unspeakable horror of Satan's house). This isn't the best picture of the road, but it gets the point across: Obviously this is proof that the house is home to some sort of satanic cult. Some of the more fanciful conspiracies claim that the house is owned by the Du Pont family and that various members of the family married their cousins in the house (so as to keep their money within the family), and then used the house to hide away the inbred children (or monsters or whatever).

The funny thing about this is that it's probably just a house, and the trees lining the road probably grow like that because of the way the sunlight hits the area, but the conspiracy theories of Satanism persist even to this day. This sort of irrational fear of Satanism was rampant during the 80s, and director Ti West has latched onto that idea and created a remarkably authentic 80s-style horror movie featuring shifty families, satanic rituals and a creepy house. The film even starts with a cheesy text opening informing the audience that in the 1980s, over 70% of Americans believed in abusive Satanic cults and that another 30% rationalized the lack of evidence due to government cover-ups... Plus, it's based on a true story! Not sure if it actually is or if West is pulling a Fargo, but it doesn't really matter, does it?

The basic premise of the story is that a college student in need of some quick cash agrees to take a babysitting job at said creepy house. And that's pretty much it. However, writer/director West manages to wring a lot of tension out of this simple and seemingly overused premise.

I first saw this movie earlier this year, when I was still attempting to fill out my Top 10 of 2009. At the time, I was comparing it to another haunted house movie, Paranormal Activity. There are some superficial similarities here: both movies feature quasi-haunted houses, they both have something of a gimmick at their core (one a "found footage" film, the other imitating 80s conventions), and they're both pretty scary. However, The House of the Devil is made with more artistry and in a more unconventional manner. It's a masterpiece of misdirection and tension building. Unlike the repeated tense and release of Paranormal Activity, The House of the Devil opts to continually build tension while withholding release until the end. This is an interesting approach and the foreboding atmosphere of dread is hard to shake. Of course, from the title of the film alone, you know where it's heading, and aside from one moment early on in the film, it mostly proceeds along an expected path.

The other film this reminds me of is Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof. Both films are an ode to underappreciated grindhouse genre films, albeit films of a different era and genre. Tarantino is going for the great car films of 70s with a little horror mixed in for good measure. West is going for those 80s horror movies where irrational fear of satanism was rampant. I think both films are hugely successful at evoking the feeling of their respective genres, but I think the one major problem with this approach is that these new films suffer from the same major flaws as the films they're imitating. In particular, the pacing is very slow and the characters tend to act pretty stupidly... For film nerds like myself, this isn't really much of a drawback, but it does tend to limit the appeal to more mainstream audiences. It's strange though, because these flaws are so obviously and lovingly reproduced in exquisite detail and with a lot of artistry. Indeed, getting that cheap, grainy filmstock look probably cost way more than doing it "properly" would.

That being said, once things begin to happen, the pace picks up and it's very engrossing stuff. I'm still not sure if it would crack my top 10 of 2009, but I will say that I'll be very interested in what Ti West decides to do next (apparently another haunted house style story). As usual, more screenshots and comments in the extended entry...

Update 7.26.10: Stacie has just posted her review and links to all the other Film Club Coolies (y'all!). I'm also informed via cryptic second-hand email that Ti West has seen my review and that he said the creepy trees in the photo above are just 10 minutes away from where he grew up, which is pretty awesome. I suppose I should mention that the below screenshots do contain some Spoilers, so proceed at your own risk. This is the title screen for the film. Unfortunately, I can't adequately capture the awesomeness of this screen because it happens as a freeze-frame, which is just so 80s. The rest of the opening credits feature these great freeze-frames, but nothing quite so great as this first, surprising one... West does employ a number of long takes and even this fixed shot, which works really well. Basically, our heroine makes a call, then walks away, and then the phone rings again when she's off in the distance. The shot remains the same the whole time, and it's actually somewhat unnerving. Ahhh, a circa 1983 pizza shop. I'll bet that West didn't even have to work that hard to find a pizza shop that looks like this, even today. Still, the look and feel of everything in this movie is authentically 1980s, from the hair to the clothing to the design of the Coke cups. Would you take a job from Tom Noonen? He's obviously not a Satanist, right? She's not a Satanist either. Never mind that she's wearing a fur coat made from the pelts of an undetermined species and that she's got what looks like a decorative chicken scull pinned to it. Those are unimportant details. See that look on his face? It just screams "I'm not a Satanist!", doesn't it? That actor is AJ Bowen, and I actually think he was great in The Signal. He doesn't have as much to do in this movie, but he's still great here (and responsible for one of the best moments in the film). Oh wow, remember the Walkman? Ten times the size of an iPod, approximately 15,000% less storage capacity. This is one of the big set pieces of the movie, where she puts on her headphones and rocks out around the seemingly deserted house. Oh, and those jeans are also pretty awesomely 80s too. Most times, when you're watching a modern throwback movie, they make it seem like all the clothes people wore at the time were awesome and still kinda hip today. Not here. She's got those jeans hiked up in a pretty unflattering (but authentic) way. Ok, maybe at this point I'm willing to concede that Satanism is involved.

And that about wraps it up.



Inception's Sense of Wonder
One of the things that really differentiates science fiction from other genres is the emotional thrill derived from expanding your awareness of what's possible. This doesn't always constitute a complete understanding of the universe around you, just a dawning realization that there's more to the story than you've thought (sometimes this can take the form of contemplating the incomprehensible or even just realizing what you don't know). This feeling is referred to as a "Sense of Wonder" (often abbreviated as sensawunda) and while a large portion of science fiction literature manages to evoke such emotions, SF cinema rarely even approaches the same accomplishments. There are some exceptions, of course, but for the most part, SF movies settle for gigantic spaceships and thunderous explosions and whatnot.

The opening shots of the original Star Wars provides us with a typical cinematic example. The camera pans across a sea of stars. You see a spaceship move across the screen. This imparts a frame of reference for the universe of the movie. Then a much larger spaceship (indeed, it doesn't seem like it will end) move across the screen in pursuit of the original. The frame of reference established by the original spaceship is thus immediately revised in light of this new data. Part of this revision is, no doubt, the expectation that the Star Destroyer will probably be dwarfed by something else (and later in the film it is, by the Death Star). This short sequence actually encapsulates a ton of information: the rebels are small and poorly equipped, the empire is large and powerful. The way the ships are framed on screen also underlines the empire's power over the rebels. And so on.

The realization of the scale and size of the empire is a very small example of sensawunda. And most films don't even contain that much (indeed, the really mind expanding things about Star Wars aren't really SF so much as they are mystical, but that's probably another discussion). There are analogs to this concept in other genres, most notably the horror genre, but the emotions are distinct (the emotion evoked in horror as you realize the scope of the conflict is fear, tension or suspense, rather than the awe or wonder of SF).

Christopher Nolan's new film, Inception, is one of the few films in recent years to actually even attempt to impart a sensawunda, and for that alone, it should be applauded. The interesting thing about Inception is that it manages to impart that sensawunda feeling without relying too heavily on precise explanations of the technology involved. Indeed, I don't think the movie would fare too well if judged solely on the basis of realism.

However, despite this lack of precise technological detail, the film does manage to evoke the sensawunda feeling by devising a set of rules and limitations, then playing around within that box to consistently expand possibilities and sometimes even surprise the viewer. The key catalyst for sensawunda here is that all of the various twists and turns in the story are all internally consistent and logical extensions of what has already been established.

I don't want to go into too much detail right now simply because I don't want to spoil the movie, but things do get pretty complicated and Nolan does manage to ratchet up the stakes considerably more than I had initially expected. There are some concepts or details that I must admit that I'm not entirely clear on, but even in those situations I have a gut feeling that everything does fit.

The critical reception seems to be very positive, though there have been a few high profile dissenters, notably David Edelstein and Jim Emerson. Edelstein writes:

Inception is full of brontosaurean effects, like the city that folds over on top of itself, but the tone is so solemn I felt out of line even cracking a smile. It lacks the nimbleness of Spielberg’s Minority Report or the Jungian-carnival bravado of Joseph Ruben’s Dreamscape or the eerily clean lines and stylized black-suited baddies of The Matrix—or, for that matter, the off-kilter intensity of Nolan’s own Insomnia. The attackers in Inception are anonymous, the tone flat and impersonal. Nolan is too literal-minded, too caught up in ticktock logistics, to make a great, untethered dream movie.

(emphasis mine) I found that last line the most representative of complaints with the movie. Emerson's main complaint, that the dreams in the movie don't seem to be very dreamlike, is instructive, because from what appears on screen, Nolan is clearly not even attempting to make an "untethered dream movie". I think it's funny that Edelstein also throws out a number of other movies, none of which I like better than Inception. I do really enjoy Minority Report, but I don't think it captures that mind expanding sensawunda feeling anywhere near as well as Inception does. If you have a lot of problems with Inception, I really have a hard time believing that you'd think that Dreamscape was a better movie. There is some similarity in basic premise, but I think "Jungian-carnival bravado" is far too much praise for that film (which is an enjoyable enough movie, but also kinda silly and overblown in the way a lot of 80s movies were). The Matrix is the only film on the list that I think gives Inception a run for its money. Both films are derivative in the extreme, though I got a fresher feeling from Inception than The Matrix. On the other hand, The Matrix clearly outclasses Inception when it comes to action. In any case, I don't think any of those films should preclude anyone from seeing Inception.

Emerson also seems to hate Nolan's visual style, but to my mind, Nolan is much more distinctive as a writer than he is as a director. It's not the visual style of movies like Inception or Nolan's true masterpiece, Memento, that strikes audiences - it's the way Nolan plays with narrative and time that really differentiates him. This is more a function of the writing and editing than anything else, and even Edelstein admits that Nolan "thinks like a mechanical engineer" when it comes to his scripting (and this is a good thing). The editing in Inception is certainly worth praising here. Though perhaps not as extensive or bombastic as the eding in Memento, there's a real challenge here and editor Lee Smith deserves a lot of credit for whatever degree of suspense you feel as the film reaches its climax.

Nolan also seems to do a great job combining various genres and then putting a new twist on them. For instance, Inception contains elements of action films, heist and con movies, and of course, science fiction. Elements from each genre are mixed and matched in a way that hasn't really been done before (at least, not with respect to the layered "ticktock logistics" of the plot). This isn't a straightforward version of any of those genres, nor is it a simple combination.

The performances are all pretty good, though I think the real standout is Tom Hardy (of Bronson fame), who just devours the screen. Longtime Kaedrin friend Sovawanea pointed out one of the refreshing aspects of the film: "I found it rather refreshing that they didn't try to contrive a romance in the middle of the mission between Ellen Page and the rest of the guys." There's another element of the characters that I found really refreshing, but I don't want to say it because it might spoil the movie.

This has been a slow year for movies, but between Inception and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, things are at least looking up a bit, and both will most likely find their way onto my top 10 list at the end of the year.



Tasting Notes...
So Nick from CHUD recently revived the idea of a "Tasting Notes..." post that features a bunch of disconnected, scattershot notes on a variety of topics that don't really warrant a full post. It sounds like fun, so here are a few tasting notes...

Television

• The latest season of True Blood seems to be collapsing under the weight of all the new characters and plotlines. It's still good, but the biggest issue with the series is that nothing seems to happen from week to week. That's the problem when you have a series with 15 different subplots, I guess. The motif for this season seems to be to end each episode with Vampire Bill doing something absurdly crazy. I still have hope for the series, but it was much better when I was watching it on DVD/On Demand, when all the episodes are available so you don't have to wait a week between each episode.
• Netflix Watch Instantly Pick of the Week: The Dresden Files. An underappreciated Sci-Fi (er, SyFy) original series based on a series of novels by Jim Butcher, this focuses on that other magician named Harry. This one takes the form of a creature-of-the-week series mixed with a bit of a police procedural, and it's actually pretty good. We're not talking groundbreaking or anything, but it's great disposable entertainment and well worth a watch if you like magic and/or police procedurals. Unfortunately, it only lasted about 12 episodes, so there's still some loose threads and whatnot, but it's still a fun series.

Video Games

• A little late to the party (but not as late as some others), I've started playing Grand Theft Auto IV recently. It's a fine game, I guess, but I've had this problem with the GTA series ever since I played GTA III: There doesn't seem to be anything new or interesting in the game. GTA III was a fantastic game, and it seems like all of the myriad sequels since then have added approximately nothing to its legacy. Vice City and San Andreas added some minor improvements to various gameplay mechanics and whatnot, but they were ultimately the same game with some minor improvements. GTA IV seems basically like the same game, but with HD graphics. Also, is it me, or is it harder to drive around town without constantly spinning out? Maybe Burnout Paradise ruined me on GTA driving, which I used to think of as a lot of fun.
• I have to admit that this year's E3 seems like a bit of a bust for me. Microsoft had Kinect, which looks like it will be a silly failure (not that it really matters for me, as I have a PS3). Sony has finally caught up to where the Wii was a few years ago with Move, and I don't particularly care, as motion control games have consistently disappointed me. Sony also seems to have bet the farm on 3D gaming, but that would require me to purchase a new $5,000 TV and $100 glasses for anyone who wants to watch. Also, there's the fact that I could care less about 3D. Speaking of which, Nintendo announced the 3DS, which is a portable gaming system with 3D that doesn't require glasses. This is neat, I guess, but I could really care less about portable systems. There are a couple of interesting games for the Wii, namely the new Goldeneye and the new Zelda, but in both cases, I'm a little wary. My big problem with Nintendo this generation has been that they didn''t do anything new or interesting after Wii Sports (and possibly Wii Fit). Everything else has been retreads of old games. There is a certain nostalgia value there, and I can enjoy some of those retreads (Mario Kart Wii was fun, but it's not really that different from a game that came out about 20 years ago, ditto for New Super Mario Brothers Wii, and about 10 other games), but at the same time, I'm getting sick of all that.
• One game that was announced at E3 that I am looking forward to is called Journey. It's made by the same team as Flower and will hopefully be just as good.
• Otherwise, I'll probably play a little more of GTA IV, just so I can get far enough to really cause some mayhem in Liberty City (this is another problem with a lot of sequels - you often start the sequel powered-down and have to build up various abilities that you're used to having) and pick up some games from last year, like Uncharted 2 and Batman: Arkham Asylum.

Movies

• I saw Predators last weekend, and despite being a member of this year's illustrious Top 5 Movies I Want To See Even Though I Know They'll Suck list, I actually enjoyed it. Don't get me wrong, it's not fine cinema by any stretch of the imagination, but it knows where its bread is buttered and it hits all the appropriate beats. As MovieBob notes, this movie fills in the expected sequel trajectory of the Alien series. It's Aliens to Predator's Alien, if that makes any sense. In other words, it's Predator but with multiple predators and higher stakes. It's ultimately derivative in the extreme, but I really enjoyed the first movie, so that's not that bad. I mean, you've got the guy with the gatling gun, the tough ethnic girl who recognizes the predators, the tough ethnic guy who pulls off his shirt and faces the predator with a sword in hand to hand combat, and so on. Again, it's a fun movie, and probably the best since the original (although, that's not really saying much). Just don't hope for much in the way of anything new or exciting.
• Netflix Watch Instantly Pick of the Week: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, for reasons expounded upon in Sunday's post.
• Looking forward to Inception this weekend. Early reviews are positive, but I'm not really hoping for that much. Still in a light year for movies, this looks decent.

The Finer Things

• A couple weekends ago, I went out on my deck on a gorgeous night and drank a beer whilst smoking a cigar. I'm pretty good with beer, so I feel confident in telling you that if you get the chance, Affligem Dubbel is an great beer. It has a dark amber color and a great, full bodied taste. It's as smooth as can be, but carbonated enough that it doesn't taste flat. All in all, one of my favorite recent discoveries. I know absolutely nothing about cigars, but I had an Avo Uvezian Notturno XO (it came in an orange tube). It's a bit smaller than most other cigars I've had, but I actually enjoyed it quite a bit. Again, a cigar connoisseur, I am not, so take this with a grain of salt.
• I just got back from my monthly beer club meeting. A decent selection tonight, with the standout and surprise winner being The Woodwork Series - Acasia Barreled. It's a tasty double style beer (perhaps not as good as the aforementioned Affligem, but still quite good) and well worth a try (I'm now interested in trying the other styles, which all seem to be based around the type of barrel the beer is stored in). Other standouts included a homebrewed Triple (nice work Dana!), and, of course, someone brought Ommegang Abby Ale (another Dubbel!) which is a longtime favorite of mine. The beer I brought was a Guldenberg (Belgian tripel), but it must not have liked the car ride as it pretty much exploded when we opened it. I think it tasted a bit flat after that, but it had a great flavor and I think I will certainly have to try this again (preferably not shaking it around so much before I open it).

And I think that just about wraps up this edition of Tasting Notes, which I rather enjoyed writing and will probably try again at some point.



The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Who Also Played With Fire)
Stieg Larsson was a Swedish journalist who wrote novels in his spare time. Shortly before his death in 2004, he began talks with a publisher, and his completed novels were published posthumously. These novels have met with tremendous success, selling more than 27 million copies in over 40 countries. In 2009, three Swedish films based on Larsson's novels were released in Scandinavia. Though American remakes are planned, the original Swedish films are all being released this year... The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was released earlier this year and has just recently come out on DVD (it's also available on Netflix's Watch Instantly service). The Girl Who Played with Fire just came out in theaters this week, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest is due to be released in October. Together, the three novels/films are known as the Millennium Trilogy, named after a fictional magazine in the stories. I saw the two currently available films this weekend and was quite impressed.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was originally titled Män som hatar kvinnor, which translates to "Men who hate women", a much more accurate description of the themes of the story. The film opens with a disconnected set of sequences introducing the three main characters. This is probably something that works better in text than it does on screen, though the plot quickly connects the dots and it's not long before you know all the players and what's at stake.

Mikael Blomkvist (played by Michael Nyqvist) is a talented muck-raking journalist (writing for Millennium) who has just lost a libel case in which his sources were found to be fraudulent. He's sentenced to 3 months in jail, but he has 6 months to get his affairs in order. The elderly Henrik Vanger has been getting strange packages in the mail every year, and he believes they're related to a 40 year old missing person case (where his niece disappeared). Finally, there's Lisbeth Salander, an ex-con who works as a security researcher and who has just found out that her current parole officer has had a stroke. His replacement is a sadist pig who uses his position to coerce Lisbeth into providing sexual favors. Vagner hires Blomkvist as a freelance investigator, and Salander eventually joins him in his research.

The way these apparently disconnected threads are pulled together is well done and the film contains a perfect balance between plot and character. Most thrillers lean too far in one direction, but Larsson and those who have adapted his work do an exceptional job here. I suspect lesser writers, when confronted with an engaging character like Lisbeth Salander, would be tempted to make the entire film a character study about her. On the other hand, there's also the temptation to put all the emphasis on the mystery of the girl who disappeared 40 years ago. Again, this film strikes the balance well. We get some excellent character establishment when we find out how Lisbeth handles her new parole officer - a sequence that is not necessary for the thriller plot, but which establishes the character of Lisbeth Salander quite well (there's a thematic parallel between Lisbeth's situation and the mystery though).

Speaking of Lisbeth, her character is probably the most interesting thing about this movie. She's played with an icy intensity by Noomi Rapace in a performance that should probably be up for an Oscar (though I'm doubting it will be). There is something of a paucity of strong female characters in typical Hollywood cinema these days, so this sort of character is a welcome change of pace. Lisbeth is a tortured soul (let's just say that her parole officer wasn't the first man who hated women that she has run accross), but she's battled through it all, though she understandably has some issues with men. For instance, her relationship with the journalist Mikael Blomkvist is an intriguing one and it manages to walk a rather tricky line. Blomkvist is an old school investigator, while Lisbeth relies on modern technology to do her research. This sort of oil-and-water mixture often plays out through bickering clichés, but not in this film. Once the two characters meet, it doesn't take long for their seemingly disparate styles to merge into a comfortable balance. There is a chemistry between the two and while their relationship grows into the sexual realm, it never feels forced or cloying (another commendable avoidance of clichés).

Clocking in at about two and a half hours, the film covers enough ground and paces itself well enough that it doesn't really feel that long. Though we all know there are at least two sequels, the film ends with closure (as opposed to some sort of cliffhanger). In the end, we're left with an exceptional thriller that balances character development and plot in a well-paced fashion. This has been a disappointing year for movies, so to say this film stands out from the pack doesn't really speak to how good it really is. I can almost guarantee it will be at or near the top of my top 10 at the end of the year.

For a sequel, The Girl Who Played with Fire is quite good, though I don't think it approaches the first. I think the biggest issue I had was that it fell into the trap mentioned earlier about focusing too much on Lisbeth. Many of the other characters from the first film make an appearance here, and a passable mystery is solved, though it appears that all of them are working from different angles. For instance, Lisbeth and Blomkvist rarely interact throughout the film, which mutes one of the more interesting facets of the original film. The film ultimately manages to pull it off, but again, it's perhaps not quite as expertly crafted as its predecessor. Part of the issue, perhaps, is that I have not yet seen the third installment. While the second film ends with a bit of closure, there are still some loose threads which are apparently tied up in the third film. James Berardinelli draws an interesting comparison:

In a strange way, the structure of The Millennium Trilogy reminds me of the first Star Wars trio. The first movie establishes the characters while providing a largely self-contained story with a few "hooks" that can be used to further the narrative in additional installments. The second and third movies are inextricably wedded and function best when seen as parts of a whole. Installment #2 is darker than its predecessor and ends in a cliffhanger. Admittedly, it might sound like a stretch to compare a Gen-X touchstone space opera to a Swedish mystery thriller series, but I'm referring only to the rhythms of the stories, not the content.

Berardinelli also seems to be a little more forgiving of the lack of interaction in this second film and sees it as an equal to the first (if not better). Perhaps I'll feel that way after seeing the third film, but as of right now, I think the first is noticeably better than the second.

In any case, I'm very much looking forward to the forthcoming The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. Apparently Larsson was mostly done with a fourth novel and had outlines and story treatments for several others, so there may be even further installments (though with the untimely death of Larsson, one wonders whether proceeding further would be wise).



Animovie Double Feature
A couple more quick reviews of Anime movies I've seen lately.

• The Girl Who Leapt Through Time: This film opens by introducing us to Makoto, a young girl who doesn't seem exceptional in an obvious or traditional way, but during the course of a particularly clumsy day, she accidentally gains the ability to time travel. At first, she uses this extraordinary ability for superficial reasons: she skips back a day so that she can do better on a test, she skips backward to continue singing karaoke with her friends Chiaki and Kousuke, and so on. Naturally, things become more complicated. There's an element of the monkey's paw here, in that one should be careful what they wish for... even superficial uses of her new power can turn out to have wide-ranging consequences.
  
  
  The movie doesn't get carried away with this though, and one of the things I really like about this movie is that it doesn't let the fantastical elements detract from the human element. It's not a science fiction story - the time travel isn't particularly well established (and there are some open questions in the end) - but it uses those elements as more than just window dressing. At times if feels like more of a high-school comedy, albeit one that grows more serious as the story proceeds. Dramatic elements are intersperced as well. The typical high-school subjects of love and confusion about the future are explored a bit. I'm not entirely sure about the ending, but I liked spending time with these characters so much that it worked well enough for me.
  
  
  The pacing, more than anything else, is what keeps this movie on track. The introduction sets the stage well, and just when you're starting to wonder where the story is going, the time travel elements are established. This leads to a wonderfully light-hearted exploration of Makoto and how she copes with her new powers. And just when that starts to get cloying, the story shifts again as Makoto realizes that her new powers have impacted her relationships with friends and family. In particular, her friends Chiaki and Kousuke seem to be affected, and she just wants things to go back to normal. Interestingly, the time-travel is probably superfluous here - this is exactly the sort of thing that teenagers go through all the time. It all leads up to a climax that was much tenser than I would have ever expected at the beginning of the film. But it mixes all of this together rather well. There are still some open questions and potential plot holes in the end, but I have to admit to having a ton of fun with this movie. Recommended! ***
• Whisper of the Heart: The Girl Who Leapt Through Time enjoyed pretty favorable reviews in the otakusphere, but Pete wasn't too impressed. He says "If anyone wants to see a much better movie about the same thing, watch Whisper of the Heart." So I threw that in my Netflix queue and just watched it today.
  
  It's another school movie following a quirky girl and the people around her. Young Shizuku has been reading books at a voracious pace and she notices that every book she gets at the library has been previously checked out by the same boy... Despite Pet'es recommendation, I found it to be very different from The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. While I thought that The Girl Who Leapt Through Time had great pacing and was able to balance between it's various disparate elements well, Whisper of the Heart doesn't really have great pacing... because it doesn't need to. As a story, it's much more seamless and doesn't require any sort of balancing act. Now, I do think it's a bit too long, but in the end, it's a wonderful story. If the elements of the fantastical in The Girl Who Leapt Through Time bother you, then you probably would enjoy this movie much more. It's a much more grounded film, and everything in the movie falls neatly into place by the end.
  
  
  The thing I liked most about this movie was the way it captured the tentative nature of young teens as they try to figure out what they're going to be doing with their life. Even those who know exactly what they want to do have a certain hesitancy and insecurity about their future, and this movie really nails that feeling. I suppose it helps that Hayao Miyazaki was writing the screenplay, and you can certainly see his hand at work here (especially when you find out about the Baron). All in all, it's a very good movie, and one that will probably stick with me (though I suppose only time will tell).

This was an interesting duo to watch in close proximity. Strangely, I probably enjoyed watching The Girl Who Leapt Through Time more, but Whisper of the Heart is probably the better overall movie and it seems like the one that would stick with me longer. I think both are certainly above average features and well worth a watch, even if they're not really in your wheelhouse (I have to admit - the school drama has never been one of my favorite genres, even back when I was a student...)



Sequel Charts
This set of charts plotting the ratings of various film franchises is rather interesting. Some of them are just about exactly what you'd expect. For instance, the original Star Wars trilogy is very highly rated, and then if falls off precipitously when the prequels start. From there the series begins to climb again and surprisingly begins to reach the heights of the original trilogy.


There are a number of series that have even more pronounced and steady declines (Jaws, Planet of the Apes). Other series have a more chaotic progression. The even number rule for the Star Trek series is reasonably pronounced, except for part 10 (the reboot is not included, though I imagine it would be higher than the last two). The Indiana Jones series has a similar progression, except it's the odd number movies that are the best. I'm a little surprised at how low Die Hard 2 is in the series (it's at least as good as the other sequels). It's also a bit strange to see the latest Rocky and Rambo installments being so high. Perhaps that's because the source appears to be IMDB, and ratings there tend to favor newer movies for a while (after time, these movies tend to level out to more reasonable ratings). Interestingly, the Lord of the Rings trilogy features the most consistent ratings. There are a lot of series that have solid first and second installments, but the third movie is almost always a big decline.

Of course, the listed series are not comprehensive, so I took a few stabs at the missing series. Here, for instance, is the Friday the 13th series:


I have to admit that I'm a little surprised that parts IV and VI, which seem to be the fan favorites, are as low as they are. Of course, they're pretty high compared to most of the films around them, but still. I expected them to be a bit higher. Also, part 2 and the recent reboot seem extremely overrated. The reboot will most likely come down as time goes on (again, I think newer movies benefit from IMDB's system), but the love for part 2 confuses me. I suppose part 2 does have probably the best final girl in the series (and maybe of all time), but the story is crap and the ending is nigh incomprehensible. And Jason isn't even close to becoming an iconic character in that movie.

More series in the extended entry, including the likes of Halloween, Evil Dead, Dirty Harry, Bourne and more! And so we might as well continue the 80s slasher series, here's Halloween:


Mostly unsurprising. The one major outlier is part 3, which makes sense because that was the one that didn't feature Michael Myers.


This series is surprisingly stable. However, I think that the second one is a bit underrated, while the fourth through sixth might be a bit inflated. Also notable is the seventh installment, which rockets back up near the original. I'm not a big fan of New Nightmare, but it's definitely more interesting than most of the films in the series and the return of Wes Craven translates pretty well to higher ratings...


Another extremely stable series, though the second installment is clearly the best.


A pretty clear and definite decline in the series. Notable in that it's one series that hasn't really had a reboot (not that I want one - totally unnecessary).


Interestingly, this is the only series in this post to feature a third installment that has better ratings than it's predecessors. I have to admit that I'm a bit surprised by that. I really like Bourne Ultimatum but I wouldn't put it as that much better than the previous two installments.

Well, that's all for now. In other news, Flyers lost the Stanley Cup tonight. I'm glad they put up a good fight, but what a terrible goal to lose on... In any case, congrats to Blackhawks fans.



The Murnau Stare
One of the films I forgot to include in my Greatest Movies I've Never Seen list was Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. It's a 1927 silent film and it features a number of iconic shots - most notably a scene where a woman and man pass through a bustling street (see this clip, about 3:36 in). One of the things I always find interesting about the silent film era is how much of modern cinema is represented, even back then. While technology and budgets have certainly improved, much of the visual language of cinema was coined during the silent era. In particular, Sunrise has a number of impressive tracking shots and the composite special effects are much more effective than expected.

The shot that struck me the most, though, was this one:


In the film, a city girl vacations in the country and tempts a farm man into an affair. She suggests he drown his wife so that he could be free to run away to the city. It's a rather simple premise, but the man is conflicted, and when he takes his wife out for a boat ride, he stops and favors her with the above stare. Does it look familiar?

Maybe it's just me, but it bears a striking resemblance to what's called the Kubrick Stare. Head tilted downward, eyes tilted upward. It was a favorite shot of Kubrick, and he often employed it in his movies, perhaps most famously in the opening shot of A Clockwork Orange:


A Clockwork Orange
It turns out that the phrase "Kubrick Stare" was coined by cinematographer Doug Milsome, a frequent collaborator with Kubrick. It seems that Kubrick liked to use the look himself when he was feeling angry or mischievous, and it's rumored that his stare was more intense than anything in his films. This shot from a Playboy interview in 1969 captures it reasonably well:


Stanley Kubrick
Again, Kubrick is famous for using this shot, and you can see it in most of his films, often multiple times (see the extended entry for more shots from The Shining and Full Metal Jacket) and being a big Kubrick fan, I was kinda surprised to see it, full formed, in Sunrise.

Of course, neither Murnau or Kubrick have trademarked that stare. In fact, it's a rather common human expression (indeed, my nieces frequently make that face whenever their crazy uncle Marky does something silly). Filmmakers of the stature of Kubrick or Murnau just managed to capture well enough that it stands out. Kubrick's consistent use of that image made it iconic enough that he sorta made it his own. Now, whenever someone uses a shot like that, it's considered an homage to Kubrick... but watching Sunrise is interesting in that light (seeing as though that film was made a solid 30 years before Kubrick even started making movies). More screenshots below the fold... Jack Nicholson flashes the expression numerous times throughout The Shining:




The Shining
Vincent D'Onofrio seems to be using the Kubrick Stare by way of the Thousand Yard Stare (or vice versa?) in Full Metal Jacket:




Full Metal Jacket
There are lots of other examples I could use, but I'll leave it at that for now...



Top 5 Most Anticipated Summer Movies
Playing along with Filmspotting's latest podcast, here's a list of my top 5 most anticipated summer movies. Like the Filmspotting hosts, I'm going to avoid the big name blockbusters and try to find some smaller films that I'm interested in... Movies like Inception, Toy Story 3, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and The Last Airbender are all well and good, but we've all heard about them... What are the surprise hits, the genre pics, and the just plain weird movies we can look forward to?

Part of the reason I wanted to write this post is that I stumbled upon news of IFC Films' VOD program and their plans to brand a genre label, IFC Midnight. It turns out that their lineup for the summer is pretty interesting, and unlike a lot of small, independent films, you can view these in the comfort of your own home (assuming you have access to their VOD service through Comcast and the like) right around the time they come out in theaters (theaters which usually aren't near you, etc...). Not all the films below are going to be available this way, but some is better than none! Anyway, without further ado (and in no particular order):

• The Human Centipede: The less said about the plot, the better (I think - though the title pretty much gets at it, I think - a madman connecting a bunch of humans so that they literally become the titular human centipede). This has been garnering a lot of buzz on the horror film fest circuit (i.e. Fantastic Fest, etc...) and has EW wondering if it's “the most disgusting horror movie of all time”... From what I've heard, it sounds like a blast. Apparently, this is in limited release right now, and it's already available on VOD as well...
• Doghouse: At first glance, this didn't interest me much. It seems like a bromance zombie battle-of-the-sexes movie, which sounds kinda lame (for reference, I'm not a huge fan of zombie movies and I think bromances are beginning to become a bit tired). However, it's made by British director Jake West, who also made Kaedrin favorite Evil Aliens (which, to be sure, isn't exactly fine cinema - but it's fantastically fun, it calls to mind the classic Sam Raimi/Peter Jackson splatstick horror films, and features a few... unique... sequences unlike anything I'd ever seen). If Doghouse is half as much fun, it'd be worth seeing. Available on VOD in June.
• Vengeance: Director Johnny To is another Kaedrin favorite, and I've found his movies are always worth checking out. Here, he's making his English language directing debut, though the story takes place in France and features many of the To regulars. The subject matter of vengeance puts it up against some stiff competition in Chan-wook Park's brilliant, layered Vengeance trilogy (Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy, Lady Vengeance), but I'm betting that To will come up with something great here... This one comes out in theaters and VOD in August.
• Best Worst Movie: This is a documentary about the making of Troll 2 and the subsequent response. Troll 2 is a frequent contender for the honor of being the worst movie of all time (judging from IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes, etc...) I love these types of documentaries, but this one is a bit disappointing in that it doesn't appear to be available anywhere (it's not on VOD, nor does there seem to be any screenings near me).
• Splice: Probably the "biggest" release of the movies on this list, this one is about two scientists who splice together human and animal DNA to create... a monster? Not sure, but it's got a solid cast and some good film festival buzz. It also appears to be getting a semi-wide release, which should make it easy to find in theaters.

And just for the heck of it, 5 movies I want to see even though I know they'll suck (a yearly tradition here at Kaedrin):

• Piranha 3-D: The Pirhana series of movies has a shockingly good pedigree when it comes to the filmmakers involved. The first Piranha was directed by Joe Dante (who would go on to direct Gremlins, among other things) and written by John Sayles (a legend in the inde movie community). Piranha Part Two: The Spawning was directed by none other than James Cameron (he of Terminator, Aliens, and Avatar fame). Now, Alexandre Aja is already an established director, but hey, he's following a pretty good lineage here... I don't expect this movie to be any good, but hopefully Aja will settle down and knock something out of the park next...
• Predators: What can I say, I have a soft spot for this series of movies, and now that they're done ruining AvP, I guess they've set their sights on the Predators themselves (divide and conquer?), but hey, there's some potential for good fun here, so I'll probably go and see it...Still, nothing I've seen about this movie is even remotely comforting. I expect disaster.
• The Expendables: Starring every action star ever to appear in an action movie, I really don't know what to expect from this. Will it be riotous fun in the vein of the traditional 80s action movie? Or will it be a a boring snoozefest in the vein of the traditional 80s action movie? Only time will tell, I guess.
• The A-Team: Yeah, I don't really need to explain this one. Hollywood continues to mine my