This time around I've even included a few new films viewed in actual movie theaters(IFC Center and Film Forum). I'm on the streets again BABY and it feels fine! Next blog post will also contain the fruits of my NY theater hopping("John Carpenter's Village of the Damned", Cronenberg's "The Brood" and the Dardennes' "Rosetta" all experienced in glorious 35 mm!)
Recommended listening this week? I'd like to tell you that all I've been listening to lately is Derek Bailey and Fred Frith but that would be a lie. I've really relapsed on Ramones influenced pop punk(see my review of Sloppy Seconds' "Destroyed" LP if you wanna glimpse the beginning of the end), exploring the depths of "1-2-3-4"s and _______ is a ________ with varied results. Some real gems have been found (After School Special, The Raggers, Germany's Ramonez 77 and Spain's DDT are being enjoyed by yours truly) and some old favorites rediscovered (The Automatics' 7" masterpiece "10 Golden Greats", assorted Zoinks' songs and The Vapids ) but the irresponsible pursuit of pleasure comes at the risk of experiencing pain and I've felt plenty of that during my journey (THE RENFIELDS), so be warned! If you wanna de-evolve with me then check out this blog: http://oldschoolpoppunk.blogspot.com/
and this youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/TEEN1DOL
Last time Goya crackers were the food of the gods and it seemed to work pretty well...SEEMED. The Goya crackers were actually pretty gross and I don't want to be reminded of eating them so I'm changing the rating system. The rating system for this blog post will be "wolf-buddies" in honor of the moniker bestowed on Michael J. Fox by Jerry "Stiles" Levine in the coming of age tale "Teen Wolf". In this case one "wolf buddy" is not so great and 5 "wolf buddies" is awesome, ya know, because having five "wolf buddies" is better than having just one "wolf buddy". I think this one might stick! AAAAAWWOOOOOOOOOOO!
The Natsty Rabbit (1964) - 2 Wolf Buddies
Who doesn't love Arch Hall Jr.? Well, probably most people if you count not knowing someone exists as not loving them. I guess knowledge of a person's existence is a necessary pre-condition for loving them. So loving Arch Hall Jr. without being aware of the existence of the beautifully malformed wannabe teen idol is an epistemological impossiblity, unless of course you love all sentient beings without reservation, and Arch Hall Jr. might lack a lot of attractive qualities but he didn't and doesn't lack sentience as far as I can tell. Arch Hall Sr.'s place among beings who can rightly be called "conscious" is largely debatable however, once one experiences "The Nasty Rabbit".
Arch Hall Jr. has a small but strong and diverse filmography due to his daddy's hard(if not always justified) work in hopes of making his son a teen sensation, and to their credit most of the films which resulted from this father and son team are pretty good("The Choppers") to simply great("The Sadist", "Deadwood 76", "Egaah", "Wild Guitar"). "The Nasty Rabbit" seems to be the one exception. It shares the cheap, broad, freewheeling good natured-ness of "Egaah" and "Wild Guitar" (both productions benefiting from the involvement of Saint Steckler himself), it even has rock and roll and political intrigue. The film just really never seems to come together due to poor pacing, tedious digressions and some of the most criminal overacting I've ever seen. Every aging actor in this embarrassment fest is cranked to 11 but Arch plays his teen idol/secret agent role grounded and cool. At first I thought Arch Jr. was a little bland this time out but on second thought, everyone else might just be THAT BAD and Arch Jr. might be giving the only thoughtful performance in the film. He certainly would not want to follow in his father's footsteps, who skyrockets to new levels of hyperbolic grotesque overacting(I nearly vomited watching him eat chicken, his beard glistening with grease…oh god. I'll be right back).
"The Nasty Rabbit" is supposed to be a comedy. The problem is it's not funny, just cringe-inducing. I don't usually hold this against most fare of this breed(60's low budget schlock) but in this case the film is such a wasteland of snoredom and tedium that I would have killed for a couple of chuckles.
In the end it plays something like "Dr. Goldfoot" meets "Batman" meets "Hogan's Heroes" on a ranch in southern California. Sounds great, right? Well, it's not. Someone must have aimed a crap ray at this thing and turned it on full blast. That being said, I WANTED TO LOVE THIS FILM, it's just too goddamn tedious. I'll still recommend it on the curiosity and squandered potential factors, and also because watching a piece of trash with Arch Hall Jr. is still better than watching some other piece of shit without Arch Hall Jr.
If you're not familiar with the Hall family's work check out their certified masterpiece "The Sadist", also lensed by Vilmos Zsigmond and directed by James Landis, which makes you wonder just what went wrong on "The Nasty Rabbit"?!
This video actually makes it look pretty good. Maybe I should give it a second chance?
House of Bamboo (1955) - 5 Wolf Buddies
Sam Fuller expertly employs CinemaScope in this violent tale of American gangsters in Post-War Japan. The photography is gorgeous, the storytelling lean, economical and striking and the best scenes, and their are some damn good ones are handled with originality and strong style, most notably an interrogation on an operating table staged in one dynamically composed shot and an incredible dialogue-less sequence where we follow Robert Stack, mostly in extreme wides as he shakes down a few folks for information.
Robert Stack is brilliant, reserved and calculating but capable of passion and violence, as is Robert Ryan who seethes with a cool menace. Cameron Mithcell pitches his "loose cannon" role perfectly and Shirley Yamaguchi is in turns quietly vulnerable and passionately intense.
The violence in "House of Bamboo" is quick and brutal, slaps and gunshots are sudden and remorseless. In a way the violence is more cold than typical Fuller. The film is set in a world where life doesn't mean much and the best insurance against someone turning snitch is to make sure they'll never talk again. Fuller communicates this pragmatic violence in a way which unsettles us by its speed and dispassionate execution. In this world violence is a tool that gets results and murder is just business. Fuller shows us a cold world but in that world there are some who are willing to fight for love, hope and justice. Stack and Yamaguchi's romance unfolds in lovely turns and supplies moments of real warmth and humor in this dark crime story.
Direction, pure, bold and assured, is what hits us the hardest in "House of Bamboo". Scenes play out in ways which are strong and simple but never deceptively so. You watch Fuller invent and gasp in glee at the strength and brilliance of his invention.
This trailer doesn't do it justice
Seeding of a Ghost (1983) - 5 Wolf Buddies
This is Shaw Brothers black magic awesomeness which I'm giving a very hard recommendation! "Seeding of a Ghost" has just what I'm growing to expect from this truly unique and addictive genre: detailed rituals, disgusting effects, a severely grave tone, intense violence, beautiful lighting and impressive photography.
The last ten minutes of this relentlessly dark tale of infidelity, murder and revenge must be seen to be believed. Hints of "The Deadly Spawn"?! It was almost too much for this little monster to handle.
Seek and enjoy this one asap. SPLATTER.
Here's the last 9 minutes if that's all you have time for
Dragon From Russia (1990) - 3 Wolf Buddies
Sam Hui, Dean Shek and Maggie Cheung in an early nineties adaptation of the popular manga Crying Freeman? Yes, and it's pretty enjoyable.
The laughs and romance are broad but solid. The camera and cutting are fast but clear. The martial arts are quite impressive and plentiful.
Overall, the film has trouble balancing total goofiness with desperate melodrama and unexpected violence but that didn't keep me from having a great time.
Director Clarence Fok employs illogically expressive lighting and stylish camera work to create a sense of the fantastical throughout the film, this is great and works most of the time, but in moments of more brutal violence it lends the proceedings a "cartoonish" feel which doesn't seem quite right. There are moments in this melodrama where the viewer is invited to be affected by the emotions offered up but the shift into this other dimension is just too great. "Dragon From Russia" has a feeling of often unintentional strangeness, the result of kitchen sink film making, of a film which tries to do everything at once and leaves us feeling a bit confused. How big of a problem is this? Not big enough to ruin the film and not uncommon in Hong Kong popular cinema of the time.
This is an above average fantasy/action/comedy from the height of Hong Kong cinema worth checking out.
Be Warned: This theme song was stuck in my brain for a few days.
Tora-San Our Lovable Tramp (1969) - 5 Wolf Buddies
The first film in the Tora-San series is a beautifully shot and directed comedic family melodrama which mixes both elements to poignant effect. Yoji Yamada mixes expansively poetic photography with earthy humor to create a film which is a lot of fun but not at the expense of forsaking the complexity of human relationships and familial conflicts. "Tora-San our lovable Tramp" (or "Am I Trying?") is funny, often very funny, but the humor is a very natural part of the rhythms created by Yamada, the rhythms of tradition, change and passing time. The poignancy of Yamada's film seems to stem from his ability to depict memorable individuals and their struggles, both personal and interpersonal, within a fatalistically serene world so much larger than they. Yamada avoids setting the characters in stark relief to this world of tradition but their place within the world is not so anonymous as to nullify their personal desires. The truth of Tora-San lies in this harmony.
A beautiful tearjerker with a lot of real laughs. Kind of like Ozu meets Rodney Dangerfield?
The film features a great score and theme song!
With the every new season comes TORA-SAN!
The Bat (1959) - 3 Wolf Buddies
Agnes Moorehead is the best part of this B mystery clunker about a spunky mystery writer who's rented a spooky old mansion that just happens to contain some hidden loot. The Bat, a black hooded, claw handed killer(shades of 2 of my personal faves: "The Creature With the Blue Hand" and "Cat and the Canary") who also employs poison fanged bats as his flying agents of death, is bumping folks off in and around the old mansion in an attempt to get his blood-stained "claws" on some stolen money hidden inside. It's all pretty standardly stiff and stagy but passable if you're in the mood for some old fashioned non-thrills, good natured gloom and don't mind zoning in and out.
Vincent Price lends his usual malefic dignity to the proceedings but unfortunately in the end he doesn't have an opportunity to do much. Agnes Moorehead is, as I mentioned earlier, the best part of this puppy and the scenes involving her and her assistant sneaking around the dark house and locked up in Agnes' bedroom are some of the best. I love when characters you like are forced to sleep in the same room because danger is lurking about, it's like a slumber party! I always find it admirable but strange when characters attempt to sleep even when they sense something sinister might be afoot. I guess in the world of horror/mystery films the night lasts a lot longer and staying awake until daylight just isn't an option.
It's nothing you've never seen before but if you're a fan of old B's featuring wide-shots of miniature mansions, masked criminals, scenes playing out in utilitarian master shots and head scratching police procedure where potential murder victims are allowed to spend the night at a crime scene with minimal police protection, then this is perfectly sufficient viewing for a lazy evening.
Here's the whole goddamn movie
The Car (1977) - 4 Wolf Buddies
I love a good "Jaws" rip-off. Hell, I love a bad "Jaws" rip-off. The Car definitely falls into the category of "good 'Jaws' rip-off" right next to William Girdler's incomparable "Grizzly". Actually in a way "Jaws" rip-offs are always better than "Jaws", maybe in the same way that Don Quixote re-written word for word could surpass the original. The Car is not "Jaws" re-written "word for word" but most of the differences and new elements are quite welcome and interesting.
The plot: an ominous big black car arrives without warning in a small desert town and begins an indiscriminate killing spree.
The characters are likable and more fleshed out than one would expect. There are enough personal struggles to fill another film. James Brolin attempts to build a new life with his girlfriend and two young daughters, Ronny Cox struggles with the bottle and John Marley laments lost love. In the end the characters are likable but that doesn't mean they're safe from danger of the car.
A major difference between "Jaws" and "The Car" is the mysterious supernatural element. Why does the car kill? How does it kill? What is the evil force behind its blood lust? This new element elevates "The Car" to another level of terror and desperation. How do you destroy something which exists outside of that which reality has deemed possible?
The photography is wide and attractive, the cutting precise, the action is deftly handled, the performers are well invested in their roles and there are some genuine shocks along the way.
We enjoy "The Car" because its familiar but its new and exciting all at once; extract shark, insert car and enjoy.
"The Car" is a ride worth taking…yikes, had to be said.
What evil force drives "The Car"?
Island of Lost Souls (1932) - 4 Wolf Buddies
Charles Laughton is outstanding in his role as menacing genius in this stylish adaptation of the Island of Dr. Moreau. His portrayal of Dr. Moreau is infused with a subtle humanity and this added dimension elevates the entire film into another world of complexity. In a lesser actor's hands this role could easily be a flat, goatee stroking cliche, but Laughton's performance becomes the cornerstone of the moral and philosophical storm brewing at the film's core. When Laughton utters the line "Do you know what it means to feel like god?" something stirs inside and you know this is no disposable B-movie.
The images are beautifully dense and complex creating an oppressive atmosphere, the black and white photography (and the beautiful transfer)revealing overwhelming detail. Island of Lost Souls is filled with strong and sometimes radical compositions, giving it an exciting comic book feel, probably laying the groundwork for comics to come (maybe the EC horror comics of the 50's). The exotic setting is a strange expressionist jungle, perfect for this exciting tale of science gone too far, of a man treading in forbidden territory, the perfect manifestation of a dark moral and psychological underbrush.
Bela Lugosi gives a wild-eyed performance as the "Sayer of the Law" in what might be some of the most memorable scenes. In each scene featuring Lugosi and the half-men there is an almost palpable tension created by silence and deliberately measured pacing. Intense close-ups of hideous half human faces and fast cutting make Bela's last scene the most exciting and formally visceral in the film, evoking the radical cutting and extreme compositions of the silent era.
Highly recommend!
"Are we not men?!"
Domain (2009) - 4 Wolf Buddies
This tender story of a young man's relationship with his alcoholic mathematician aunt really surprised me with its simple beauty and humanity.
"Domain" begins with an image of cold, dark water swirling, bordering on abstraction. This image seems to herald a cold dark exploration of of psychic trauma with a nihilistic spin, something in the vein of Michel Houellebecq or Celine maybe. These tendencies are present but "Domain" reveals itself to be much less interested in terrible, devastating personal revelations, and naked ugliness than one might expect.
We spend pleasant moments with Pierre and his Aunt, Nadia, we enjoy their routine and listen with interest to their conversations, her reminiscences and world weary wisdom. Their relationship is easy and natural. The afternoons the pair spend in the park are routine and uncomplicated.
Pierre spends every afternoon he can with his self assured aunt but when her drinking becomes a problem and the tables turn, Nadia becoming the pursuer and Pierre the pursued, her world of desperation becomes evident.
The relationship between Pierre and his aunt is engaging and complex but not suffocatingly so. LIke the well balanced relationship depicted, the style of "Domain" is not overly complicated. The film is photographed with clarity and distance(but not with slavishly 'pseudo-scientific objectivity ) and cut in deliberate and unhurried rhythms.
One sequence in particular, a dream like sequence in a black, void-like night club, breaks firmly with "Domain"'s prevailing style. The highly composed nature of the shots and the slowness(not slow motion) of the characters movements create an 'unreal event', this sequence is a glimpse of a shifting dynamic, another mode of communicating the changing relationships between the characters. Whatever the purpose, the effect is exhilarating and beautiful, and while it is a major stylistic break, it is not a digression for it communicates the progressing action, abstract in nature , clearly.
"Domain"'s biggest misstep might be an inconsistent structural device. Early in the film passing time is denoted by the repeated shot of dark swirling water, the same shot we see at the beginning of the film, with text on screen telling the audience how much time has passed. It's an interesting device when contrasted with the mundane events it is used to break up but suddenly it disappears. Once more this device reappears but when it does if feels like too little too late. The device seems to be an attempt to make "Domain" a film which it is not, a cold structural analysis of power dynamics. "Domain" provokes consideration of this idea but it is equally a balanced and tender work about the people we love, their strengths and weaknesses.
"Domain" is a film about friendship, power, dependence and love. It depicts the complex power struggle present in personal relationships but avoids the cruelty and devastation we've come to expect from such explorations. "Domanin"'s "final stroke" may seem to be in stark contrast to the tenderness and humanity I've mentioned, but if viewed as a poetic action it is a beautifully symbolic gesture which captures the pain, selfishness and selflessness of all our relationships and their inevitable transformations.
Love the opening song!
Crazy Horse (2011) - 4 1/2 Wolf Buddies
First things first: Does "Crazy Horse" the film objectify the female body? Well, is the Crazy Horse the club itself objectifying? Yes, there are a lot of close-ups of buttocks but if you're making a film about a painter you'll have to show brushes, if you're making a film about a pottery maker I hope you would show hands. For better or worse the butt is the tool being wielded by these artists and its reality is sort of dumb in its evident there-ness, it's a backside. BUT (no pun intended) this part of the human body wielded by these performers becomes a magic wand in a sense, transcending its reality and reaching levels of abstract eroticism. An abstract eroticism which Wiseman doubles, and thus acknowledges, in his repeated zooming in on already abstract performances. At least this is the best way I can find to justify a whole lotta "ass shots".
Does Wiseman have something to say about what the Crazy Horse represents? The crisis of the brand of eroticism the Crazy Horse sells becomes clear in a piece Wiseman brilianty places close to the end of the film: a woman struggles with and embraces the ropes which bind her, she's a prisoner of sorts but also squirms with pleasure as she struggles and dances. The film is filled with verbal descriptions of what the Crazy Horse is supposed to embody, but in the end this performance captures the problematic reality of such eroticism. The question remains though, is this piece emblematic of this myth or the reality?
If the film "Crazy Horse" communicates something else it's the experience of working at a tourist attraction. Seeing the day in and day out of vacuuming carpets and sorting through unflattering photos of customers evokes for any former theme park employee a sense of familiarity. I imagine working at the Crazy Horse is not much different from working at Medieval Times. When the problematic eroticism and objectification of the Crazy Horse is placed along side this tourist attraction element of the film one may wonder if this is not the real focus. The brand of fantasy the Crazy Horse is selling is old and tired and not that different from the Disney co-opted Cirque Du Soleil.
Wiseman is interested in institutions, but institutions are able to function on the basis of ideas, and the eroticism and the vision of femininity created and relied on by the Crazy Horse is an old and deeply seated concept, one which must stay in place in order for the Crazy Horse to exist. Wiseman's film subverts this idea however, the most erotic scenes in his film are instead a woman speaking softly into a microphone or the performers laughing together backstage. The reality is much different than the agreed upon fiction.
"Crazy Horse" is gorgeous and assured. The film is beautifully shot with a dark clarity and cut with precision. In a particular a sequence where Crazy Horse guests are being photographed at their tables comes to mind. In a film which often plays out in unbroken shots a sequence like this one could stick out like a sore thumb but Wiseman gives us just enough repetition to allude to a rhythm and then no more. In a film which could appear deceptively simple a moment like this is a revelation and awes us by its bold difference but mostly by its masterly restraint.
In the end "Crazy Horse" is about the reality of fantasy, the dumb institutionalized nature of mainstream erotic fantasy. The film is book ended by hands creating incredible shadow puppets, the human body creating fantasy with nothing but its own form, shadow and light. This is what the performers do with their bodies, open doors to fantasy, or at least that's what we need to believe for the Crazy Horse to exist.
