The X Files: I Want to Believe, Dedication, Romance & Cigarettes, Chess in Concert

The X Files: I Want to Believe was boring. Sally and I both fell asleep before the end. I missed the entire climax of the film, but I did see the kiss at the end. I read the X-Files wiki page on the movie though, so I really didn't feel like I missed anything by sleeping. It was so utterly boring. It would've been ok as a midseason non-sweeps episode of the show, but there was absolutely no tension in the film at all. I did wonder what the hell happened to Annabeth Gish and Robert Patrick's characters, but maybe Chris Carter had the sense to act like most of the last two seasons of the show didn't exist, like I have. Because they were not good. How can Fox have such a huge problem with running some shows into the ground and then cut so many others so short? Sigh. Anyway, I really feel like I should have more to say about the film, but the fact that I fell asleep watching a movie with David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Amanda Peet, Billy Connolly, and Callum Keith Rennie says a lot. Also, thanks, Chris Carter for your very subtle point about religion with the whole stem-cell treatment. I knew that there was something missing from the movie, and inept moralizing about how religion can kill hit the spot! There were two priest characters: one was a pedophile and the other wanted to kill a sweet kid because it would have been expensive and against his morals to save him. Ugh. If you aren't able to do so well, all you do is make people who agree with you pissed off. PETA, I want to eat sea kittens even more than I want to eat fish. They will be delicious and adorable as I eat as many as I can. And then I will continue to complain about your frickin' tone-deaf attempts to be the biggest assholes on this planet. At which you are succeeding.

Dedication was the first in an unintentional Mandy Moore filmfest. I definitely didn't go through and add movies from Mandy Moore to my queue. This one is a romantic comedy with Billy Crudup being a children's book writer whose longtime collaborator and only friend Tom Wilkinson dies, and so Bob Balaban pays Mandy Moore to illustrate his contractually obligated book. Martin Freeman has a small role as an English author and competitor for Mandy Moore's love. Justin Theroux began his directing career with this. He didn't do badly at all, and he's still one of those guys that you don't know you know. This film is a romantic comedy, but the script is slightly more interesting than others, at least in the details, because the plot is extremely basic romantic comedy tropes.

Romance & Cigarettes has a great cast, and lots of talent. And is terrible. James Gandolfini, Susan Sarandon, Kate Winslet, Steve Buscemi, Bobby Cannavale, Mandy Moore, Mary-Louise Parker, Aida Turturro, Christopher Walken, Elaine Stritch, Eddie Izzard, Amy Sedaris, and even Cady Huffman and John Turturro in small roles were not nearly enough to save this overblown mess. The musical aspects are just poorly done. I can understand wanting to get good actors, but their singing was usually terrible.

Chess in Concert is something I watched because I remembered watching this at Washington University in St. Louis back in... 1995? and hating it. I wondered if it was just the drama students or whether it was the musical itself. One Night in Bangkok is not a particularly good song, lending credence to the latter, so I was not entirely looking forward to this. But it's a musical by Tim Rice and the two male members of ABBA. Basically three people who are talented (seriously, once Tim Rice stopped working with Andrew Lloyd Webber, Andrew truly sucked) were behind it, but it's a musical about two chess matches and the cold war maneuvering behind them. But beh to this, and pretty much the musical as well. I did like seeing Clarke "Lester Freamon" Peters in it, even though he didn't really sing, but that was hardly worth the 2.5 hours of mediocre music.

Helvetica, Grey Gardens, Gone Baby Gone, & She's Gotta Have It

Helvetica is a documentary about a font (haha, typeface nerds, I said font, not typeface, so remember, there is a comment section so complain there). There were some interesting stories in it, but 80 minutes about it were at least 20 minutes too much. I get it, some people find Helvetica a nice clean typeface. Others object to its nice clean typeface look and prefer crazy grunge fonts. The best parts were when they talked to the English guy who had a great accent and good stories about the typeface. And when they went to the archives of the company that owns the rights to Helvetica and we met the dude with the blue bow tie and the plaid jacket. Most of the others were ok, but I just felt like it was a lot about the font.

Grey Gardens is the story of two of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis' relatives, first told in a documentary in 1975 by Albert and David Maysles and was then filmed by HBO and aired earlier this year, starring Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange, along with Jeanne Tripplehorn. I felt so bad for the Beales and it was basically painful to watch. They're basically crazy cat ladies who have lived together for so long that it's clear that they've sniped at each other for years over the same issues. To watch them slowly attempt to clean and be more social just makes the arguments just worse. I watched both, and while the documentary is all the more painful due to the actual characters, the movie has great performances, even from Drew Barrymore. There are certainly some differences in scenes from both notable mainly due to watching them one right after the other.

Gone Baby Gone was pretty good, especially for a film from Gigli. Mainly due to great performances from actors like Ed Harris, Amy Ryan, and even Casey Affleck. And the cast was full of some other good actors, like John Ashton, Michael K. Williams, and Morgan Freeman (not playing a magic negro like normal!). Michelle Monaghan, however, was terrible. Other than that extremely weak link, it was a pretty good story, although I have no idea how much of it was due to Dennis Lehane's novel, as Mystic River was almost an amazingly good film, until the ending few minutes which were utter crap. Really, Amy Ryan was so much better than Laura Linney that it's almost enough to note how the female characters are extremely one-dimensional. Which may also be due to Dennis Lehane's book.

She's Gotta Have It is Spike Lee's first feature length film, a feminist look at sex and relationships in the 80s. The acting is... well, pretty weak from almost everyone besides Spike Lee. That was kinda surprising, but then again, he was given the best male role in the film. But it's really Nola's film, and it's a shame that Tracy Camilla Johns never really had much of a career after this film.

Pierrot le fou & Play Time

Pierrot le fou is the first Godard film chronologically that starts to be too political to actually be much of a movie. Except that it keeps insisting it is a movie. Which is one of the charms of Godard, but this felt like a warm up for Week End, a better film, as they're both about a couple who goes on a trip and the world around them devolves. That one at least had the amazing tracking shot of the car accident, still one of the best things ever to be put on film.

Play Time is a semi-sequel to M. Hulot's series of films that included Mon Oncle. This is another satire of modern society, with a higher budget, and apparently did very poorly at the box office. I understand. I felt the length more this time. There were still some funny bits, but it felt like it was a satire for the 60s and I just don't find it as enjoyable. Maybe I'm getting jaded. Need new movies please.

Telekinesis! at the Black Cat 6/17

Somehow, someway, I wasn't actually the first person among my friends to find this band. They put out an album on Merge in April. And I didn't hear about them until around then. But MBG came in to work one day and said, "My new favorite band is on Merge." So I got the album and he was right. It's the best thing I've heard this year. There isn't one single bad track, and therefore no real standouts, as "Tokyo", "Coast of Carolina", "Awkward Kisser", and "I Saw Lightning", among others have been stuck in my head for various amounts of time over the last week. That was helped by my usual listening to the entire discography of the band before the show, along with a Tiny Desk set webcast on NPR (apparently Michael is a huge fan of Bob Boilen, and it'll be posted here at some point). During that, they played a bit of the old ELO song, Can't Get It out of My Head, which luckily I can't get into my head. My favorite thing about the picture? The Beatles Anthology book bookended with the Beatles bobbleheads. I want those.

The show was part of a co-headlining tour. An Horse opened at the Black Cat, when Telekinesis! has opened for them the night before in Philly. I'd never heard of An Horse, although they had apparently opened for Death Cab for Cutie in Australia and for Tegan & Sara in the US. There were many people there just for them, as the crowd noticeably thinned after they played. I didn't love them, but they were enjoyable enough, even with the thin sound only a guitar and drums can make, and certainly got me in the mood for Telekinesis!'s set. There were also many underage people there. I guess both bands were kinda emo-y, but I felt very old fogey-y. During An Horse's set, all of the members of Telekinesis! were within a few feet of me at various times. I did not know what the other, non-Lerner, members looked like, but I was too shy to tell him how great his album was. But I was literally standing right next to the other members and I didn't know.

With only one album at only 31 minutes long, and with only a couple EPs and a single out (most of the tracks on those were rerecorded for the album), they certainly couldn't play for very long. So I wasn't expecting all that much when they came out around 10:40. They played for around 40 minutes, missing "Awkward Kisser", but whipping out a pretty good Kinks cover in "A House in the Country" to replace it, and doing every other song from the album (I think). Yes, Telekinesis!'s touring band features an Asian female bassist (who was tatted up). Michael Lerner looked quite a bit like a muppet (Animal in particular), once he took his glasses off and was flailing around but still kinda in one place. The two guitarists, hipster/pedophile/70s Swedish softcore porn actor and Jared Leto were pretty good. The in-between-song banter was slightly repetitive (they said they were very excited about being in DC a few times), but it seemed like it was due to being charged up rather than anything else.

After Michael got out from in front of the drums (to play his small guitar for Rust, he saw there was also a slight problem with the stuffed raccoon on top of Michael's drum kit, as an anti-fur person put an anti-fur sticker on it. And then had a shouted disagreement with Lerner (a vegetarian) over whether it was a real raccoon or not. Seriously? It's, very obviously, a stuffed raccoon. What the hell? I may agree with you guys that fur is evil, but I think you're just a huge bunch of douchebags. You and PETA.

iTunes Meme Takes the Fifth

Four years into this, and I've decided to add to the content by reposting my old blog. So I'm redoing the iTunes meme again again, and noting that I saw 216 films this year (total of 3838 films), meaning I saw 79 fewer films this past year than the previous year. Successfully dating is to blame. Wouldn't trade it though. My consumption of most media has decreased over the past year. I don't even get the shakes if I don't see a movie in a few days.

How many total songs?
24268, that's 61 days, 22 hours, 28 minutes, and 10 seconds or 108.72 GB. That's 1866 more songs than last year, although by when I added current iterations of tracks, there are 2725 more tracks.

Sort by Song Title - first and last?
A.B.C. by The Jackson 5 on the Hitsville USA box set
___ from Regina Spektor's Soviet Kitsch
Same as last year

Sort by Artist - first and last?
a-ha
+/-
Same as last year

Sort by Time - first and last?
We're a Couple from the Spaced Soundtrack
Symphony no. 9 from the BBC Philharmonic's Beethoven's Symphonies
That cuts about six tenths of a second off last year's shortest.

Sort by Album - first and last?
The A List by Wire
() by Sigur Rós
Same as last year

Top Five Played Songs:
Holland, 1945 from Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane over the Sea
Drill Me from Portastatic's The Summer of the Shark
Blue Bird from The Rosebuds' Birds Make Good Neighbors
Sex Is Personal from The Faint's Blank Wave Arcade
Temptation from New Order's Substance
Pretty similar, although my love for Temptation has finally entered.

Find "sex," how many songs show up? 166 (by track is 56, and Song against Sex at 7)
Find "death," how many songs show up? 161 (by track is 55, with 3 The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carrolls)
Find "love," how many songs show up? 1307 (by track is 769, with 15 Love Will Tear Us Apart's winning)
Find "peace," how many songs show up? 27, (by track is 24, (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love & Understanding? winning this one at 8)
Find "rain," how many songs show up? 352, with 190 by track, having Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head winning with 5
Find "sun," how many songs show up? 343, with 219 by track, and Island in the Sun winning with 5
Find "you," how many songs show up? 2837, with 1887 by track and 11 Don't You Evah (well, one is technically Don't You Ever)
Find "home," how many songs show up? 233, with 110 by track and Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) with 4
Find "boy," how many songs show up? 638, with 248 by track and Where Have All the Rude Boys Gone? with 12
Find "girl," how many songs show up? 600, with 284 by track and I Know Ur Girlfriend Hates Me with 9
Find "hate," how many songs show up? 105, with 61 by track and I Know Ur Girlfriend Hates Me with 9
Find "wish," how many songs show up? 67, with 46 by track and I Wish I Never Saw the Sunshine and Blown a Wish tied at 4

XXY, The King of Kong, Food Party & The Yiddish Policeman's Union

XXY is an Argentinian film about a 15 year old hermaphrodite who is struggling to find out where she fits in society, and society trying to come to grips with him. I think him, as that is what the end of the movie would suggest is Alex's choice. It's a shortish film, but great acting, and about something that a lot of people don't think about very much: hermaphrodites, and whether to allow them to make their own choices about what gender to live as. Few hermaphrodites are given that choice, as it is customary to turn them into women soon after birth. In many cases, however, this leads to a gender identity crisis and later decision to undergo a sex change operation. I would like to think that this sort of issue is well-understood, but it really isn't. And until the day when we can stop having huge articles in major magazines about the sexuality of some pop singer, I doubt that we'll ever have an honest discussion about gender identity.

The King of Kong is the great documentary about the world record for Donkey Kong. Of course, it's horribly biased, but I don't entirely care about its accurateness as history (so I'm actually looking forward to the fictionalized version coming to theaters soon-ish). It tells a extraordinary story with a huge asshole of a villain and an all-American hero. I never actually played Donkey Kong or most other arcade games (I have fond memories of the X-Men arcade game and the Simpsons arcade game, but not much else), so the bit of history was interesting, although I knew about the kill screen before, probably from reading a review when this first came out.

Food Party is a show on IFC. Normally I would ignore a weird cooking/craft/bizarre show. But I actually am friends (it's true, Facebook friends and everything!) with one of the cast members of the show. So I felt I had to watch it. I wasn't able to make it through any of the episodes on the website, due to the screaming and crappy sound, but the show itself was slightly better quality filming, and I actually laughed a few times, recognized my friend easily in his multiple roles. Will watch again.

The Yiddish Policemen's Union is a Michael Chabon novel I'd been meaning to read for a couple of years. And I finally started earlier this year until I was so rudely interrupted by my habit of buying and then reading comics. As a huge fan of The Adventures of Kavalier and Klay and Wonder Boys, and to a lesser extent his other works, I somehow put off reading it myself. I did, however, buy a copy for my dad pretty soon after it came out. I loved the book, and highly recommend it for anyone with an interest in Yiddish, policemen, alternate history, and a great detective story. As the complicated history and plot of the book would be far too complicated for me to get into in any detail without just reading the wiki page, I recommend you just read the wiki page. At least the setting part, as the plot is twisty and kept me guessing.

The Naked Prey, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, 2 Days in Paris, & Elizabeth: The Golden Age

The Naked Prey has a monkey fighting a cheetah. Oh, and it's basically like The Most Dangerous Game, except in this case, it's far more racist because it's set in Africa in the 19th century and it has a white guide for a safari being the only survivor of a native massacre. But he only survives to be released naked and then hunted for sport. It was made in 1966. There's genuine footage of animal-on-animal and human-on-animal violence. And man-on-man violence. The story is based on the true story of a white man who was hunted by Black Foot Indians in 1807, and he survived after 11 days of running back to civilization (there's an awesome Paul Giamatti-read version of the story on the Criterion DVD). The movie itself is beautifully shot vistas in South Africa, but man, the racial implications of this film make Rush proud.

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day is a much shorter film than I was expecting, even though it was only about a day in the life of a generally unpleasantly judgmental person. No, it wasn't about me. I have never been a maid. Or a social secretary. Frances McDormand was pretty enjoyable, I will never complain about Lee Pace getting work (the second to last episode of Pushing Daisies wasn't quite as good as the third to last episode, but still better than almost anything else on TV), Ciaran Hinds was enjoyable, as was Shirley Henderson and Amy Adams. Basically, an enjoyable film that doesn't really say anything or mean much of anything. But if you want an enjoyable fast-paced film, you could do far worse.

2 Days in Paris is clearly a personal story for Julie Delpy, writing, directing, starring, casting her parents as her parents (following Before Sunset), and her former boyfriend as her boyfriend. And I think it's mainly about the differences between the US and France. But it's also a belated let's make fun of Americans for being idiots and supporting Bush.

Elizabeth: The Golden Age is the entirely unnecessary sequel to Elizabeth, which was excellent and a much better movie than Shakespeare in Love. I just found this movie boring. Sorry, Cate Blanchett and Clive Owen. I generally like you both, along with Geoffrey Rush and Samantha Morton. But it appears that Shekhar Kapur just couldn't do it again. The sense of watching something that never needed to be made was something I couldn't get rid of throughout the film. And now you've made me retroactively less happy with Elizabeth. Success, Mr. Kapur? I hardly think so.

Weirdly all of these films have non-sexual nudity. 2 Days in Paris has weird pictures with penii and balloons. The others were mainly asses, although The Naked Prey has naked native women breasts.

The Wayward Cloud, Passing Fancy, & Exte: Hair Extensions

The Wayward Cloud is the final (?) film in Tsai Ming-liang's trilogy that includes What Time Is It There? and The Skywalk Is Gone. In this one, thet main male character is a porn star, and he meets up with the main female from the earlier films. There's a drought in Taiwan, so everyone is eating and drinking watermelons. It's extremely bizarre, slow-moving, there's not just a hint of necrophilia, and, oh yeah, it's a musical with very little dialogue. They sing old Taiwanese songs, almost all of which are terrible. Basically, there's a dude fingering a watermelon as a stand-in for a vagina, there's fake-looking sex (I mean, seriously, he wasn't even hard, how could he possibly have actual sex with a dead woman?), forced fellatio (at the climax of the film, pun intended), and man, I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as the earlier two films.

Passing Fancy is an early Ozu film, and it was released in a pack of 3 from Eclipse (the budget Criterion line). As such, it doesn't get the same treatment as Criterion from a visual standpoint, as it looks like crap. And there are far too many intertitles. Hitchcock would have objected to that. I just objected to the boringness. I don't know if there's anything else I could possibly get out of watching more Ozu, considering how many I've seen, so I actually just took the others out of my Netflix queue.

Exte: Hair Extensions is a Japanese Horror film. About murderous hair extensions. Somehow this is not the most ridiculous Japanese horror film I've ever seen. It stars Chiaki Kuriyama (Kill Bill and Battle Royale) as the hero, and Ren Osugi (The Twilight Samurai, Dolls, and a huge bunch of awesome Takeshi Miike films) as the insane morgue attendant who sells hair extensions that start taking over the brains of those who wear them and then having them kill people. Evidently, there's some story about a woman who is kidnapped and her body parts are sold for transplants, or something, but who really cares? Hair kills people! And grows out of wounds and around tongues and over eyeballs and through fax machines and you get the idea. Sion Sono (who did the earlier (and not nearly as deliriously funny) Suicide Club) shifts tones like a wild man, but it just feels like it is supposed to be like that. And I didn't even mention my favorite part (besides the abusive mother and her boyfriend getting their comeuppance and why people would ever want to grow up to wear stupid hair like that): the movie introduced Chiaki's character by having her bike in to work late but narrate everything like she's a film noir heroine. Except that instead of doing it in her head, she does it out loud, explaining she saw someone do it in a terrible TV show and found it funny so she started to do it herself. Which is strange, but then she meets up with her best friend, who also does it, and it becomes another layer of hilariousness.

The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, Syndromes and a Century, Mr. Arkadin, Get Smart, & The Jane Austen Book Club

The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser is a mid-70s Werner Herzog film. To give you an idea about the film, it is based almost entirely upon the extremely strong performance from Bruno S. And because it's Herzog, Bruno S. is crazy. Here's his biography from the IMDB: "The unwanted son of a prostitute, Bruno S. was beaten so severely by his mother at age 3 that he became temporarily deaf. This led to his placement in a mental institution; he spent the next 23 years in various institutions, often running afoul of the law. Despite this past, he a self-taught painter and musician; while these were his favorite occupations, he was also forced to take jobs in factories such as driving a fork lift. Director Werner Herzog saw him in the documentary Bruno der Schwarze - Es blies ein Jäger wohl in sein Horn (1970) and vowed to work with him, which led to his major roles in Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle (1974) and Stroszek (1977). He was very difficult to work with, though, sometimes needing several hours of screaming before he could do a scene." It's absolutely insane, and it's based on a true story. A guy is found in Nuremburg in 1828, with a note, and saying that he had been kept in a dungeon for as long as he could remember. And he has problems adjusting to society. Kinda depressing film, and I'm not sure exactly how this fits in with my idea of every one of Herzog's films being about someone being obsessed, but it could work somewhat as an outsider, rather than being obsessed, as Nosferatu is more outsider than obsessed.

Syndromes and a Century is by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, a Thai, whose parents who were both doctors, and it's basically a fictionalized version of how they met and fell in love. I'm not sure I could do much better than A.O. Scott's opening paragraph of the review of this, "Ever since his films began to attract admiring attention from the international film festival crowd, the Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul has encouraged his tongue-tied Western fans to call him Joe. That friendly, disarming gesture reflects the sensibility behind the movies, which are at once stubbornly difficult — resistant to summary, at times even to understanding — and surprisingly warm and gentle. Unabashed art films that demand patience and close, quizzical attention, they are also generous, unpretentious and funny, posing thorny formal questions in a relaxed, democratic spirit." It's a slightly meandering film, intentionally so, with a final couple of scenes that seem to have little to no relevance to the rest of the film. But if you allow its rhythms to flow over you, it's a very enjoyable time.

Mr. Arkadin is a film that may never be what it should have been. Orson Welles had the film taken away from him in the editing room. The film actually started out as three episodes of The Lives of Harry Lime, a radio show based on his character from The Third Man. Then he started to film it as a multi-European country production, refilming two scenes with Spanish actresses for the Spanish producers. And over the time in the editing room, there were at least five different versions of the film. Two Spanish ones (named for the fake names they've given to Robert Arden) and three versions in English, one for European audiences called Confidential Report, one for American audiences, both of which were butchered from the complicated flashback structure, and a version found by Peter Bogdanovich in the Corinth film vaults. There was also a novelization that was "written" by Orson Welles, but was actually written by Maurice Bessy. So Criterion used all five movie versions, and put together another version in attempting to conform as much as possible to what Welles probably would have done. Unlike with Touch of Evil, where he wrote a 58 page memo detailing the changes he wanted to make, the only way anyone has any idea about what he wanted were some remembered conversations and taking the earliest films as the best indications of Welles's vision. There were some major changes to the structure, including scenes that were put before scenes that clearly said they were after others. The final Criterion Comprehensive version is really the only one that is needed. The film itself is actually pretty good in every scene that doesn't include Guy Van Stratten (played by Robert Arden), and is also good in some scenes with him. When I watched the three versions on the Criterion collection DVD set, I figured he was a terrible actor, mispronouncing words. Now, after thinking about it more, I'm not as sure, thinking that, especially with Welles' tendency to overdub everyone in his films, maybe this was intentional. Maybe he was supposed to be the obnoxious and ignorant American idiot. But man, I was really rooting for him to die.

Get Smart is far too big of a movie for the plot. It's really just too much. The special effects were extremely distracting, and the big action bit at the end was studiously not funny. I like Terrence Stamp, and basically everyone in the cast, but it is never as funny as the original show, just jokes spaced too far apart for any humor to build throughout the film. Sorry film.

The Jane Austen Book Club has a Buffy conference as a punchline (and has a girl identified as only "Girl with a Dog Collar" played by Messy Stench, and that might actually be her name). I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be offended or not. And I'm not sure Grigg is not supposed to make me feel terrible for being a guy who likes Jane Austen, and also is a big fan of science fiction. It's a fairly cheesy romantic comedy, with the Jane Austen hook being the only thing to make it remotely interesting. I didn't regret watching it, but it certainly isn't anything special. Just an inoffensive movie, probably more enjoyable for those who have actually read Austen's books, because otherwise, the parallels will probably be missed. Not that it makes the film much better. Maybe the book is better? Wait, I mean, I'm sure the book is better.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century 1910, Runaways, Preacher, Dollhouse, & Better off Ted

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century 1910 is the first issue of a three-part third volume of Alan Moore's most detailed series. Basically, it's 1910, a new king is going to be crowned, and there's a vision of the future that suggests an apocalypse in downtown London. So the next version of the league has to stop it, meeting characters from the Threepenny Opera (who sing songs based on it), along with Jack the Ripper (along with a surprise answer to who it was, even if it's not a surprise for those who've seen The Ruling Class), a thinly veiled Aleister Crowley, and more (just take a look at this list of characters in the series). Of course, it has it's requisite sex and violence, along with a section at the end which references 2001: A Space Odyssey and then on the next page, The Story of O. Basically, it (and the earlier League books) may not be the most important comics of all time, but they're certainly near my favorite comics of all time. This was better than The Black Dossier, but not as good as the original two volumes. Yet.

Runaways was started by Brian K. Vaughn in 2003, and then restarted a couple of years later, and then taken over by Joss Whedon after Brian took over the Buffy Season 8 comics. So I wanted to read them, and I have. Not as good as I personally would have liked, but a generally enjoyable "Don't trust anyone over the age of 18 (later increased to 19)" story about six teens who see their parents sacrifice a teenage girl and realize their parents are all very, very evil. And then the series continues, adding in new characters to replace dead ones, having a psychically linked velociraptor from the future show up, magic, the 1900s, robots, and have cameos from much more famous comic book superheros (it's a Marvel comic, so it's Wolverine and Captain America (along with Kingpin and The Punisher) among others). Basically, I liked it, I'll continue to read it, but it just confirmed that I don't actually like superhero comics in general.

Preacher is gratuitously violent, gratuitously naked, and gratuitously profane (in both word and religious senses). I loved it. There were vampires, crazy ultra-religious types, horse thieves, inbred southerners, a sex-crazed Nazi Harvard-educated lawyer, a disgruntled astronaut (in one of my favorite bits), a war in Heaven, an orgy, a seriously misguided fan of Kurt Kobain who becomes a rock star, and more. Just a great series, and I'm a little disappointed I won't get to see an HBO miniseries based on this. Read it. I want to apologize for not having read this before the last month, as I read the first two collections years ago, but I wasn't buying comics then, and I never read past that, and then I tried one time after that, but I kept getting sidetracked, so I finally just started over.

Dollhouse and Better off Ted are two shows that are too good for network TV. And almost got cancelled as a result. I joined a save Dollhouse facebook group before the show had even started to air, because it was a Joss Whedon show on Fox airing on Friday night. After a rough (well, very rough) first five episodes, with only the previously mentioned Middleman episode particularly good, but once we got to Man on the Street (which Joss had promised would be the beginning of the show being awesome), the show became awesome, and by the end was as good as his earlier shows (Alan Tudyk was great). I didn't even mind Eliza Dushku. Better off Ted was a workplace sitcom. Boo, right? Non-boo. It's from Victor Fresco, who did Andy Richter Controls the Universe (which I purchased on DVD based on the remembering it was funny and my love of the "I'm building a temple to you, made out of shrimp, in my stomach" line, and did not regret that purchase one bit), and stars Jonathan Slavin (also from ARCTU) and Portia de Rossi. The two leads (Jay Harrington and Andrea Anders) are acceptable, but de Rossi, Slavin, and Malcolm Barrett are definitely worth watching the show for. Slavin and Barrett are Phil and Lem, two genius scientists who are like an old married couple, but with science! And de Rossi is the utterly insanely demanding boss. Basically, it's a little wacky, but very funny. I recommend watching both. But it just depresses me about how good ARCTU was, and how pissed I was it got cancelled. I didn't remember it lasting almost two seasons though. So, good on Fox?

Lust, Caution

Lust, Caution is strangely, a movie that would have gotten very little notice, save for the explicit sex scenes. Not that it didn't deserve some of the press, as it's actually a pretty good film, with very strong performances from the good Tony Leung (now matching the not as good Tony Leung as Good Actors Whose Penises (Or Balls) I've Seen (GAWPOBIS? nah, not going to add the tag)), Wei Tang, and Joan Chen, among others much less known. Sure, it's a little too long, and the sex scenes are almost completely gratuitous. Yes, seeing Wei Tang naked was gratuitous (but only in the idea that it does little to show how obsessed with each other they are sexually). I am, however, very proud of everyone who allowed those scenes to be left uncut in the final version. However, the length of the film, along with a fairly basic plot means that it isn't quite as enjoyable as Black Book, which was trashy fun with not as many sex scenes, another movie about a woman having lots of sex with an evil man during World War II. Speaking of sex, the most disturbing part of the film was the initial rape scene. Rape is always disturbing.

Also, for some terrible human people, read the IMDB message boards for the movie, and just wallow in the misogynistic (Wong is a slut for falling for Mr. Yee), homophobic (OMG, thank god I didn't see Tony Leung's penis), and racist (Asians are hairy and weird) postings. And then enjoy the occasional post that's actually intelligent and well-thought out.

Caseus Archivelox: Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones & Persona

2002-05-16 - 11:19 p.m.
I also went to see Star Wars Episode 2, and it was neither as bad as some people were saying, or as good as others (admittedly many fewer were saying that). Lucas set himself up to be trashed with The Phantom Menace. No matter how good this movie was (maybe if he had another Empire, but that's so unlikely that I'll just ignore that possibility), it would be trashed by many, just because it was no Star Wars or Empire. The final battle scenes are really cool, and Yoda certainly does kick ass, as does Samuel L. Jackson. Too bad C3PO is the new terrible character. At first he was just a gay robot, now he's horribly bad comic relief, with just bad puns. Not that there are good puns, but it's like Lucas and Hales couldn't think of a way to add some levity to a serious battle, and thus put C3PO in the Jar-Jar role. Ignoring the fact that in the original trilogy the battle scenes rarely had comedy. There were funny things, but there was not one character that is there only for that. The Ewoks banging on the AT-STs, the tow cables causing the AT-STs to trip, and Porkins were all funny to a certain extent, but back then, they knew that comedy wasn't really for those scenes. When Han and Chewie chase the stormtroopers in Star Wars, that was funny, but it wasn't in the midst of many characters dying and mass mayhem, it was in the middle of comedic rescue attempt of the Princess. Sure, Jar-Jar Binks is the most evil character of all time, for his obvious racist stereotype, but now also because he just was responsible for the downfall of the republic. But that is just one of those things that we have to accept from Lucas. That he's a racist and won't admit it. Jar-Jar is so evilly bad. The dialogue and love scenes were also terrible, while, surprisingly, some of the CGI was also very fake. It's one thing for a movie like Young Sherlock Holmes to have below average CGI (at least compared to now, for the time, it was incredible, even if it was only around 12 polygons), but for a movie that cost $130 million or so and had the top of the line CGI group working on it is almost irredeemable. Lucas is so evil. So, I give the movie a 6 out of 10. Star Wars is a 10, Empire also is a 10, but would be an 11 if I bent the rules, Return is a 9 (I don't like Ewoks and Jabba's palace was terrible (mainly from the Special Edition)), and Phantom Menace is a 4, and that's almost entirely for Ewan McGregor, the pod race, and the final lightsaber duel. Those were good, the rest was bad. Another way to judge the movie is to say that you can pretty much ignore any scene with Anakin until the duel at the end of the movie, because he's just bad until then. Padme isn't much better. Yoda, Obi-Wan and the rest of the Jedi are cool, as is Dooku (Christopher Lee) and Jango and Boba Fett and the rest of the clones. But the movie is just disappointing, not as terrible as the Phantom Menace, nor as transcendentally great as the original trilogy.

2002-05-23 - 1:39 a.m.
Then I watched Persona. That is one weird movie. But v. v. good, and it would have made my lesbian vampire film paper v. v. interesting. The paper could have been better, had I had more time to work on it, and an unlimited amount of space to write about them. Like if I were writing a dissertation on it. That would be really funny if I were to graduate from Duke's F/V program and they list all the dissertations in the program, so you'd see "Lesbian Vampires: Empowered Female or Male Fantasy?" in there, next to all the useful ones. That would be good. Anyway, cool thing noticed while watching Persona: the somewhat jarring credits (and music) were reminiscent of Monty Python and the Holy Grail's opening credits. I am positive that they were spoofing not just Persona in particular but Bergman's films in general.

Caseus Archivelox: Salvador, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Point Blank, The Girl on the Bridge, & Y Tu Mama Tambien

2002-05-06 - 11:22 p.m.
Salvador is really good, even though Oliver Stone showed his biases against the American military. Not that they aren't well founded, but it's colored a couple of his movies to the detriment of them. James Woods is incredibly good in it. It's just a little long. And of course, the fact that it agrees with my politics, and views of Reagan, helps it. I felt like I needed to see it, because it's an Oliver Stone film, and he is a very skilled filmmaker, even if insanely paranoid.

2002-05-07 - 8:16 p.m.
McCabe & Mrs. Miller had most of what I like about Altman (with great overlapping dialogue and nice camerawork, which was muted somewhat by the pan-and-scan tape), except that I can't like Warren Beatty in anything. He wasn't that bad in it, but he's such a despicable character that I didn't care whether he lived or died. The whores in the movie were much better, because they at least wanted the men to be clean before they had sex with them. Every time I think Julie Christie, I start singing "Tom Courtenay". That isn't that bad, but just slightly annoying. The Leonard Cohen songs were nice. Still, even with Beatty, the film was good.

2002-05-09 - 12:19 a.m.
Point Blank was a really good gangster type movie from 1967 directed by John Boorman. He also directed some other very good films: Deliverance, Excalibur, and Hope & Glory, and some trash: Zardoz and Exorcist 2. This one had a lot of flashbacks and forwards, partially because it may or may not be the case that the main character died in the first scene. That isn't really spoiling it because I doubt any of you who read this will ever watch it, and it doesn't hurt the appreciation of the film to know that. The movie was really stylish and Lee Marvin was impressively stoic and cool. I highly recommend it. In fact, the knowledge of his possible death makes the film much better than it would have been otherwise.

2002-05-09 - 5:27 p.m.
I watched The Girl on the Bridge this afternoon, and damn if that isn't one of the better love stories I've seen in a long time. It was made for the romantic film fan, with so many things to take a viewer out of the "real" world within the film, that had it been much longer, I would have found it frustrating. But it was so well made that it knew when to stop, when to push the viewer to suspend their disbelief fully, and be the incredibly romantic film that it set out to be. Very good film.

2002-05-13 - 5:56 p.m.
Then I saw Y Tu Mama Tambien, which was really good. I knew I had seen the main woman before, and it was because she was in Belle époque. And Emilio Echevarría from Amores Perros was also in it. But the movie was just good, with long takes, good acting, and excellent camerawork. The historical signifigance of the entire movie was not lost upon me either.

Caseus Archivelox: Spider-Man

2002-05-05 - 2:21 a.m.
I went to see Spider-Man tonight. Pretty darn good. Much better than most movies from last summer. I think the only movie I spent money on last summer was Planet of the Apes. I of course regret that. Bad movie. Bad. Spider-Man had some cheezy lines, and was pretty predictable. The scene where the New Yorkers attack the Green Goblin wasn't as bad as I was expecting. Lucy Lawless had a brief scene in it, even though she was not mentioned on the IMDB. [Ed. note: This has since been fixed.] Which is weird, because she was credited in the film. The special effects were, as advertised, very touch and go, with some impressive parts, but most were obviously fake. But then again, CGI is pretty easy to spot for someone who has seen a lot of it. And for someone who has written a paper about it, it's even easier. Oh, sure, the paper was pretty bad, but I did write one. About three and a half years ago. I wish I had been able to wait until The Phantom Menace had come out, so I could have trashed that in my paper, but I just had to trash Titanic instead. Oh well.

Back to Spider-Man. Tobey Maguire was really good in it. Kirsten Dunst's nipples are perky. Willem Dafoe continues to be one of my favorite actors currently working. The scene where he does both Osborn and the Green Goblin into the mirror is great. James Franco continues to look just like James Dean. It's freaky, but at least he was really good in that movie about Dean. Even when he's not playing Dean, he just channels him. He's good. J.K. Simmons as Jameson chewed the scenery well. Ted Raimi was fun. Macy Gray sucks.

For some disturbing Sam Raimi trivia, apparently he has seen Kevin Costner fully frontally nude, when filming for For Love of the Game, in a scene that was cut out. Because his penis was hideous. Or they just need to have a PG-13 film. Costner is one of those actors that I hate with a vengeance, even if I like some of his work. The Postman was one of the worst films I have seen in a long time as well. I mean, it wasn't as bad as Battlefield Earth (not much is), and I haven't seen Glitter, but it was still pretty darn bad. He was good in Silverado, JFK, Bull Durham, and Field of Dreams. Not much else. And The Untouchables is so overrated. He has sucked in most of his films. I couldn't make it through 3000 Miles to Graceland, because it was just terrible. Or maybe it was because I was bored and playing computer games at the same time. That could be more of the reason, but the parts I saw were bad.

Caseus Archivelox: The Goodbye Girl, Silverado, The Gathering Storm, & The Gorgon

2002-04-28 - 3:00 p.m.
I also had three movies on in the background when attempting to write the paper. The Goodbye Girl, Silverado, and The Gathering Storm. The first was a sort of dissappointing Neil Simon-penned film, with a good performance from Richard Dreyfuss (especially as an extremely fey Richard III). Silverado was a really good revisionist western with an incredibly good cast (Kevin Kline, Scott Glenn, Danny Glover, Kevin Costner (in a good performance outside of a baseball film or JFK, who knew?), John Cleese, Brian Dennehy, Roseanna Arquette, Linda Hunt, and Jeff Goldblum). Very fun film. The Gathering Storm was based upon the part of Winston Churchill's unfinished 3-part autobiography set from 1936-1940. Incredibly good. I'm a big fan of Churchill, and this was good. Albert Finney and Vanessa Redgrave were excellent as Mr. and Mrs. Churchill.

After that I decided to watch the movie I had taped last night, Hammer film's 1964 classic The Gorgon. Combining Greek mythology with great acting from Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee is great. Sure Megara doesn't look good at all, but it has a lot of atmosphere to make up for that failure.

Caseus Archivelox: The Man Who Wasn't There

2002-04-21 - 1:27 a.m.
I went to see The Man Who Wasn't There, which is one of the funniest films of last year. The Coen brothers really know exactly how to make an incredibly funny film where the characters in the film have no idea that what they are doing is funny.

I was laughing out loud for so much of the movie. The only problem with it was the slightly messed up print that they sent us, with some scratches and other things messed up, but the movie was absolutely brilliant. Better than most Coen brothers movies, although not as good as Miller's Crossing or Fargo. The Big Lebowski is the funniest of their films, but it doesn't have the deeper meaning (if you can say that their films have any meaning, which is debatable) of the previous three movies. But the problem when attempting to rate their movies (as the same occurs when rating any brilliant director (or in this case, directing team)) is that I think of why I like the other movies a lot. So this will probably change the next time I see any of their movies. Like the next time I feel like watching The Big Lebowski. About the only thing that is clear is that The Hudsucker Proxy is their least good. But I like lots of things in it. Maybe Raising Arizona is not as good as that. I'm not sure, stupid mind.

Caseus Archivelox: Mifune & All about Eve

2002-04-17 - 10:16 p.m.
When I came back to my room, I finished off the first thing I taped yesterday, Mifune. AKA Dogme 3. Iben Hjelje (High Fidelity) was really good in it, but the movie suffers from the Dogme filmmaking style. And from an almost unrelentingly sad script full of many unsympathetic characters. At least until the main character gets attacked by prostitutes and dressed up in woman's clothes. That was useful. I haven't enjoyed anything I've seen from any Dogme film. Or anything directed by anyone who has done a Dogme film besides Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark. At least of which I can think.

Then All About Eve again. One of the most brilliant showbusiness movies of all time. Maybe even the best. I can't think of any movies about plays or movies that are better. Few movies are almost perfect. Fewer are perfect. This is one of the few. Even with an annoying rear projection of Anne Baxter and George Sanders walking down the street. But the acting, the script, the directing. George Sanders is one of the great actors of the 40s and 50s. He was great in Rebecca, Foreign Correspondent, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and Ivanhoe. The movie was just incredibly good. And I of course recommend it to all lovers of cinema. I also have to eat my words about Marilyn Monroe. She has her talents as an actress. I don't think she is the most beautiful woman of all time, but she has comedic talent.

Caseus Archivelox: Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer & Metropolis

2002-04-16 - 11:22 p.m.
Then we watched Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. Michael Rooker, he of Mallrats, JFK, and Eight Men Out fame (among others) was incredibly good in it. The movie itself was pretty disturbing, but mainly because it focuses entirely upon a homicidal maniac who never feels regret. However, I tend to agree with Roger Ebert, who decried the film's release as unrated, and I support his proposal for a new A rating for adult, for films that are not pornographic, but too far from mainstream for the MPAA to give it an R. Kids and Requiem for a Dream would have been two other films to get the rating in my opinion. The film wasn't scary, but it was definitely disturbing.

Then I went off to Griffith to watch Metropolis. It was a really crappy VHS copy of the movie. Watching VHS movies on the big screen is bad, because the colors bleed way too much. Also, again, the movie took a somewhat muddled plot full of incredible visuals (Metropolis 1926) and made it into an anime movie (i.e. completely incomprehensible plot with nice visuals). Anime just makes no sense. [Ed. note: my opinion has changed slightly since then.]

2002-04-16
After the previous few movies (since Peeping Tom) disappointing to some extent (although The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was bad mainly for its length and the fact that I was not watching it on the big screen like I did last Halloween), Henry was a slap in the face. Here is a serial killer movie that does not bother with the normal clichés of the genre, with a pair of mismatched detectives triumphing over all odds and making huge leaps of judgment to catch the wily (but ultimately insane) serial killer. For Henry, it really is a Portrait of a Serial Killer, as it focuses entirely upon the serial killer, his motives (or lack thereof) and his sick sense of quid pro quo. After he seemingly recants his life when running away with Becky in the line “I guess I love you too”, he brutally murders her off screen. My guess would be that he used his razor to do that, but the main clue to the brutality is that she ends up in a suitcase on the side of the road. There will be no happy ending for this killer and no redemption for the audience. Although the audience despises Otis for his incestuous, homosexual, and drug dealing ways, Henry is a mass murderer, and clearly has some serious mental issues, and cannot be a fully sympathetic character, and thus when Becky is hacked up, the audience is symbolically as well, with parts wishing that she had been able to change him into a functioning member of society, parts wishing that she had killed him, and parts wishing she had turned him in to the police. However, the movie is unsure exactly what it really wanted to say about Henry’s deeper conflict. The little that is there in an attempt to explain why he is a killer are told with so many contradictions (baseball bat, knife, gun) that we are left wondering whether there is nothing inside him, and that is shown when he looks into the mirror shaving before the last scene. There is nothing that can save him, and nothing that can save the audience from having to face the reality that there are people out there who kill because they can.

Except for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (where the meaning is somewhere in the film, but is completely irrelevant to anything remotely linked to the semblance of a plot), every film we have seen has had a killer of some sort that had a reason to kill, but for this, we have no real reason for the killing. Few films are as mindlessly brutal as Henry, and few films as completely disturbing. Is it as scary as Halloween or Psycho or the Shining? Not really, but it is much more disturbing than most movies I have ever seen.

Baby Mama, The Ten, Paprika, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, & The Long Kiss Goodnight

Baby Mama is basically like the worst of 30 Rock this season, the generally silly adoption subplot (but still funny), except, you know, without it being remotely funny. Good thing: using Be My Baby over the credits. Bad thing: sitting through the rest of the film.

The Ten is a bad sketch comedy movie about the ten commandments. Done by most of the State, you'd think it would be funny. Especially with Paul Rudd, Adam Brody, John Hamm, Winona Ryder, Ron Silver, Famke Janssen, Gretchen Mol, Jason Sudeikis, Justin Theroux, Liev Schreiber, Jessica Alba, Oliver Platt, Janeane Garofalo, Rob Corddry, Rashida Jones, and Bobby Cannavale in the cast, but pretty much everyone of them does some of their worst work. And anal rape jokes are... not funny. Basically, extremely disappointing. Sometimes I really should just listen to the reviews.

Paprika is a great movie, twisty and turny, an anime that actually works. Probably because it's by Satoshi Kon, who also did Millenium Actress and Tokyo Godfathers. He's really a very talented guy, and he does a pretty good job with a very complicated story of a group of scientists who have invented a machine that allows people to watch and get involved in other people's dreams. This leads to crazy dream sequences and excellent weirdness. Strange and awesome.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall is basically worth watching for three things: the constant mocking of CSI: Miami's David Caruso's ability to be a terrible actor with sunglasses, Jason Segel's comfortableness with showing his penis, and his Dracula puppet musical. Other than that, it's a semi-enjoyable romantic comedy, but I don't quite understand why Russell Brand is a famous comedian. He was kind of enjoyable, but all the stand up of his I've seen has been just vulgar and not actually funny. But man, I would so see that Dracula puppet musical many times. I can't wait for Segel's new muppet film. Him singing the Muppet Show theme song was fun.

The Long Kiss Goodnight is overwritten crap. When every single line is acting like it's the greatest line ever written, and characters are stupid but somehow able to stop time so they can run away from an explosion, then it's crap. There were some good lines, but not nearly enough to carry a film, especially one that basically killed Geena Davis's career. Also it was weird to see Craig Bierko play a badass. He's a musical comedy star.

Bounce Ko Gals, Drunken Angel, In Between Days, The Prisoner of Zenda, Midnight Madness, & The Apple

Bounce Ko Gals is basically a Japanese version of Kids (down to the scenes of characters expounding upon the debasing of Japanese society like they were all cultural studies professors). Just as exploitative (no nudity though, just lots of talk about sex and blowjobs and periods, and abortions (and the woman who gets one is severely punished for it, so screw you Masato Harada for feeding into that stereotype)), although slightly less amateurish from a filmmaking perspective. In that it isn't the directors first film. And we have the reason why I had Gunhed in my Netflix queue. This was directed by the same guy. It's really a terrible, terrible film. I mean, every single character is basically there to be a terrible stereotype. I get the exact same feeling of ickiness watching this as I did with Kids. Except really, this is far too stupid to be remotely enjoyable. It wears its cynicism proudly, degrading every person in it. And me, the viewer, for sitting through it. Especially the ending. Ugh. Deus ex machina sucks, people.

Drunken Angel is about a yakuza in post-war Tokyo who gets tukberculosis and the alcoholic doctor who tries to get him to live right. Of course, he fails, because you don't make a movie like this with a happy ending. It's the earliest Akira Kurosawa film I've seen. It does star Toshirô Mifune as the gangster and Takashi Shimura as the doctor, so there's good acting.

In Between Days is about a Korean immigrant in Toronto who is in love with her best friend who doesn't love her back. She does many stupid things throughout the movie, mostly related to money and trying to get the guy's attention. Yeah, it's basically three straight movies about Asians doing stupid things. Somehow, this wasn't intentional. This was made in Canada though, so there was far more English spoken.

The Prisoner of Zenda is the 1937 version, and I saw the 1952 version some time ago. 37 is better, with Ronald Colman in the dual role, Madeleine Carroll as the Princess, Mary Astor as the femme fatale type, David Niven as the young captain, and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. as the criminally underused Rupert of Hentzau. A fun swashbuckling film, and very enjoyable.

Midnight Madness is a movie I'm positive was in my queue for three reasons: Michael J. Fox in a very early role, David Naughton, and the fact that this movie inspired an actual game that in turn inspired The Game, a David Fincher film I enjoyed quite a bit. It's quite an interesting slobs v. freaks v. football v. sorority girls (from a dorky sorority) v. nerds film. Of course, there are plot holes big enough to drive the van with flames and a magic computer that can solve the clues immediately through. And the Disney name at the beginning is kinda weird for a film that has a kid spying on an undressing woman. It also has Paul Reubens in a small role, a clear Star Wars videogame ripoff, and a visit to the Pabst Blue Ribbon factory. It's a very weird combination of stuff, and it's certainly not a great movie, but I didn't hate myself after watching it. Or in the middle, like I did with the next film.

The Apple is batshit insane. About twenty-fivish minutes in, I couldn't take it any more and almost turned it off. It's that bad. Amazingly, many of the actors actually had careers after making the film. Some of them, even good careers (Joss Ackland, Miriam Margolyes, Catherine Mary Stewart, and Finola Hughes). Ok, the last two mainly did soaps, but still, they had careers! Menahem Golan, on the other hand, went on to make The Delta Force and Over the Top, so it's debatable as to whether he did or not. Somehow the latter wasn't the name of this film. The music was almost non-stop, and horrendously bad, ranging from disco to 70s singer-songwriter crap to 50s pop... well, crap (but how about that single entendre!). Utter, utter crap. I do wish I was able to find a version of Universal Melody. Why would I watch this? This. "THE POWER OF ROCK... IN 1994"? Seriously? I unfortunately have to say that it wasn't as enjoyable as the last time I watched a film based on their recommendation: The Wicker Man was less eye-gougingly bad. Ok, really, how can you read a paragraph like "The peculiar genius of The Apple is that every time it appears that the film cannot get any crazier, it ratchets up the weirdness to almost indescribable levels. It belongs to the curious subset of movies so all-consumingly druggy and surreal that they make audiences feel baked out of their minds even when they're stone-cold sober. The Apple is both the perfect mind-fuck to see while high (on life of course, this column in no way wishes to promote the disgusting, disgusting practice of consuming drugs) and a movie that makes drugs seem redundant and unnecessary." and not think that it's at least somewhat interesting. I... have no words to describe what watching this movie was like. I will never, ever, ever watch it again sober. So painful. Even watching the trailer brings back memories I had hoped to bury forever. Like Speed. I'm not sure you really need to rent it when you can get the idea of how bad it is just from the youtube clips. Man, it's hypnotic in its badness (my natural, natural, natural desire is not to meet an actual, actual, actual vampire, by the way). And for those wondering, yes, you have to sit through the entire film to see God's space car.

Lilya 4-Ever, The Quiet Family, Time, Gunhed, & Real Life

Lilya 4-Ever was not a depressing Russian film, no matter what I thought. It was, in fact, a depressing Swedish film, mostly in Estonian, about a teenage girl whose mom leaves her in Estonia to fend for herself when she goes to the US to marry some dude. And, of course, she starts having to do things for money (or candy!) to make ends meet. A younger boy falls in love with her and tries to get her to see that others are using her, but of course she doesn't listen and it just becomes this huge shame spiral that only ends when she kills herself. Just a very depressing film, made worse by the fact that it was based on a true story. People, we suck. Not this movie, though, it's just a horrible downer, but quite good otherwise.

The Quiet Family was remade a few years later. Normally, I would be all aghast, but Takashi Miike remade it into The Happiness of the Katakuris. This film was the original Korean film, and a much more subdued, although still with a wicked comedic streak, look a family who buys a remote hotel and whose guests all start dying. Although it isn't as crazy, it's an actual good film, ratcheting up the tension, and being just kooky enough to keep you guessing. I can certainly see why Miike was so tempted to remake it in his own image.

Time is another Kim Ki-Duk film, about a very messed up relationship. Are there any of his films that aren't about a crazy relationship? I can't think of any. Some better than others, but almost all are about obsessions and how they can destroy even possibly happy people. This movie is about a jealous girl who thinks her boyfriend is cheating on her, so she disappears for a long time and gets extensive plastic surgery to test his love for her. And then comes back and tries to get him to fall for her in some weird ass proof that he was going to cheat all along. And then he does the exact same thing. That's just cracked. Also, there's apparently a sculpture park on an island somewhere in South Korea with a nude reclining with a book over his face and his hand on his hard penis. No actual point, really, just saying.

Gunhed was utter crap. So bad that there needed to be around five minutes of introduction, and the movie still made no sense. There was both an opening crawl, along with an introductory narration. And then it devolves into badly dubbed crap, so bad that the director actually took his name off the American version of the film. I can't blame him. I can't imagine that any film was intentionally that bad. Why the hell was that in my Netflix queue? I honestly can't figure it out at all. It's a terrible live-action anime thing about a fighting giant robot. It was supposed to be a Godzilla movie, but Godzilla was taken out early on in the process. Why was that in my Netflix queue?

Real Life is Albert Brooks's satire of what reality TV does to both the people on the show as well as those filming it. Of course, it wasn't made in the last decade. Yep, it comes from 1979. Somehow, he saw that reality TV is a degrading and terrifying new view into the American psyche, as well as giving him some great lines (and a truly demented final scene). Enjoyable, although your own feelings on the "respectableness" of reality TV and the watchability of it may affect your enjoyment of this. I still haven't found one single reality TV show that isn't a horribly fake, clearly staged, and remarkably self-centered, so this satire was right in my wheelhouse. For those who can get past the "reality" of reality tv and actually watch the crap, it might not be what you want to see.

Caseus Archivelox: Forgotten Silver, The Devil's Backbone, & Cronos

2002-04-13 - 1:55 p.m.
It was Peter Jackson Film Day. First was one I hadn't seen before Forgotten Silver, it was a mockumentary about the first filmmaker to use sound film and color film, and tried to make a 4 hour long biblical epic with the help of the communists and some corrupt American producers. It was really funny. Next was Bad Taste, which I skipped about ten minutes in the middle of because it was somewhat boring seeing those ten minutes again. It was definitely a low budget film. Then I watched all of the Frighteners, because I hadn't seen it in a while. It was good. Sort of silly serial killer at the end, but most movies have that. Well, most movies that have serial killers in them have that. Coolest thing about the movie is that Dammers tries to drown out Lynskey's screaming with Sonic Youth's version of the Carpenter's classic "Superstar". Then I watched almost an hour of Dead Alive. I decided that I only wanted to watch the Kung Fu priest scene, and the entire zombie massacre at the end. If I need to watch them again, it's not like I really have a problem.

After that I went back to coordinate the 9:30 showing of The Devil's Backbone. The movie was a really really good ghost story. Very atmospheric and had some good scares, at least according to a girl in the audience who screamed a lot. The movie only had a couple jump scenes, most were shots where the camera panned, tilted, or tracked away from a character to the disturbing thing, fully anticipating a sort of scary shot. Not really screaming quality scares. But the movie was incredibly well made. I think that Blade 2 is probably a better film than Blade. I really want to see that. Especially because of the midnight film Cronos. That was a great reimagination of the vampire mythos. Too bad there weren't any lesbians in the movie. Guillermo Del Toro is a really talented director, and even Mimic (easily his worst film, no matter how bad Blade 2 may or may not be) shows flashes of brilliance.

Caseus Archivelox: Seven, Psycho, & This Gun for Hire

2002-04-11
When rewatching Seven in class, I was struck by how long and boring the movie is when you already know what is going to happen. The movie gives the audience no pleasure from rewatching it, and thus, I question how this movie has entered the pantheon as one of the greatest films of the 1990s. Although the directing and acting are spectacular, the writing is frustratingly preachy and there is too much depressing worldview to make me watch the movie over again. Another problem with the film is that there are too few tense scenes in the film. Because of the preachy-ness of the script, it became very clear very early on that John Doe would eventually win, and the only tension would occur would be which sin would be next. There are also no scares at all in the movie, and all (any?) of the suspense is released in the last scene, giving the audience no feeling after leaving the film besides being disturbed by some of the imagery, but no feelings that any of this could happen to them. Unless the audience is deeply religious, they would not be disturbed by the seeming threat of eternal damnation for their sins, and thus would have nothing to fear from the film as they would already by scared by reading the bible and some of the (in my opinion) more disturbing religious imagery only referenced in the movie. More disturbing to me than the movie is reading Dante’s Inferno while looking at Hieronymous Bosch artwork. Seven just borrows some disturbing imagery and adds a dark layer of grime to create an ultimately boring parable to catholic values.

Halloween on the other hand, has an incredible opening tracking shot, adequate to good acting (for a slasher film), and a genuinely tense atmosphere throughout, created partially by the great score, but also by the almost constant subjective camera angles that put the viewer into the film completely. Carpenter uses the urban legend of the boogeyman to great effect here, with Laurie and Tommy constantly discussing whether either of them saw a shape or whether it exists. After Laurie stabs Michael with the knitting needles, she says that she killed him, but Tommy correctly states that you can’t kill the boogeyman, and after Dr. Loomis shot him six times, he confirms that it was the boogeyman, also in a way confirming that he will rise again, along with the closing shots of where his body was when it fell out of the second story window, and the shots of where Michael had been previously.

The creation of the slasher genre can be shown in Psycho, Night of the Living Dead, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but few of those films caused the huge number of copycat films that Halloween did. The Fog, Prom Night, Terror Train, and Halloween 2 all followed within the next few years, and those are just the ones with Jamie Lee Curtis. The problem is that few (if any) of the films were created with the style that Halloween was. The later slasher series (Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street) borrowed heavily from Halloween’s sense of moral retribution for sex, the indestructibility of the killer, while adding the twist that the audience begins to root for the killer to win and remove the stupid teens from the earth. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was the film to start that, as Franklin is one of the most annoying characters in slasher history until that fat kid with the afro in Friday the 13th Part 3-D who gives the audience headaches until he is so kind as to give Jason the now trademark hockey mask. Thanks, I think.

2002-04-12 - 12:31 a.m.
I went to horror, which was boring, because we just watched Se7en. I don't remember it being as boring before, nor as preachy. Well directed, stylish, well acted. Wayyyyyy too preachy. Andrew Kevin Walker is not that good of a writer. 8mm anyone? Sleepy Hollow anyone?

Then I struggled through a meal at the Dillo before going to see This Gun for Hire. It was based upon a Graham Greene novel. For those who aren't familiar with him, he's an incredibly good writer of lots of things including spy novels and similar things, but also is just a great writer. If you don't like reading, watch The End of the Affair or The Third Man. The only problem with This Gun For Hire (and since I haven't read the book, I'm not sure whether it is Hollywood or Greene) was that I was able to figure out the ending from the first scene. Stupid Hays Code making it so obvious when a character kills someone, they have to be punished. Then again, the fact that it would have caused some weird sexual tension for him to have survived could have also lead to that.

Caseus Archivelox: Calendar & Ah! My Goddess

2002-04-10 - 1:24 a.m.
Then I went to go watch Calendar for Sexualities. Pretty good, if a little slow, look at how a videographer has problems associating himself with his wife who is falling in love with their guide through Armenia taking pictures of churches. He is more comfortable behind the camera, and it's sort of weird. At least it was short.

Then I went downstairs to watch Ah! My Goddess. When someone finds an anime movie that is not just internally consistent, but makes sense to anyone who hasn't read the manga or watched the show, please let me know because this one didn't. Why are there goddesses that can be summoned by misdialing for a pizza? The movie made no sense. Maybe next week's movie will make more sense. And maybe monkey's will fly out of my bum.

Caseus Archivelox: Novocaine & Little Shop of Horrors

2002-04-06 - 11:04 a.m.
Then at 9ish I went to Griffith to watch Novocaine. The movie was a pretty bland film noir, with the first half an hour or so bucking the trend of most movies by being boring. After Kevin Bacon showed up, it got better, even if it was really obvious what was going to happen at the end. It was just not that good.

I stuck around for the midnight showing of Little Shop of Horrors, which I hadn't seen in forever (and it wasn't even listed on my seen movie list), but remembered the musical version vividly which scared me greatly when I was about five or six or so (and saw in the theatre). The best part of the movie, besides Steve Martin as the semi-sadist dentist and Bill Murray as his masochistic patient, was that Tisha Campbell, aka Gina from Martin, was one of the chorus. Also for some added fun, your porn movie cannot be titled Little Shop of Whores, because that's already been taken. I wasn't going to stay, but [female friend] came by looking for [other female friend], and I stuck around to watch it again. I greatly preferred the musical ending to the movie ending. Just a little too convenient. It was neat seeing Christopher Guest as the first customer though. Even if I didn't realize it was him.

Caseus Archivelox: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

2002-04-04
It’s not every 85 minute long movie that can be said to be both the most influential slasher film of all time and one of the longest 85 minute long movies of all time. This movie of course is both influential and too long. There is too much time spent with the group of teens, as the audience begins to hate them and roots for them to be killed, as they are annoying, especially Franklin, who figures out a way to be the most annoying character in all slasher films that I have seen. Which is interesting, because in most films a guy in a wheelchair would gain the audiences sympathy, but in this one, the audience becomes quickly tired of his whining and complaining. Thus, the more shocking thing about his death is what it does to Sally who is one of the many shocked heroines that do not run away from the man with the chainsaw or knife or axe in so many later films.

Also, there are so many shots that are too long, as we do not need to see so many random canted shots of Sally’s face or the random bone structures around the house. Tobe Hooper has always been a somewhat messy director, not knowing how to make a tightly directed film that has no extraneous shots. Poltergeist is as close as he was to making a competent film, with more of that related to the influence of Steven Spielberg than Hooper’s own style. Few movies are as famous with as little plot or technical competence as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Caseus Archivelox: Psycho, Peeping Tom, Kids, & Jin-Roh

2002-04-02
Psycho is one of the best low budget horror films of all time. The main reason for it is that Alfred Hitchcock, a decidedly high budget director, decided to bring his talent to a low budget film. The black and white camerawork is impeccable, with the camera angles, especially during the police stop scene and, of course, the shower scene, being very well chosen.

Mothers play an important role, as Marion refuses to continue to see Sam until they are able to see each other in public and in front of the picture of her mother. The need to have societal acceptance of their relationship leads to the crime that introduces the more important mother to the story, Mrs. Bates. “Her” disapproval for the imagined relationship between Normal and Marion leads to her murder.

The famous shower scene gives the viewer the sexual thrill of watching her shower before giving us the visceral murder, and when we see Norman come into the bathroom with the knife raised high, we want to stop the murder. But as we cannot do anything about it, we are part of the reason for her death, and are implicated as a voyeur in the murder.

Peeping Tom on the other hand implicates the audience as the complicit voyeur of the murders even more. By filming the murders, we are able (except for Mark’s suicide) to watch the murders from the voyeur’s perspective, and then from the camera’s (and murderer’s) perspective. And the second murder scene goes on so long, and the audience knows exactly how it is going to end (with her death, and subsequent fall into the blue trunk that he has placed in the way of where she will die), that the audience begins to want Mark to kill her quickly and get the overbearing sense of dread to stop. Few movies at the time got the audience to identify so clearly with a serial killer.

Scopophilia is the inherent reason for people to go see movies, as they can spend a couple of hours to watch other people live (or in the case of horror films, die). In this way, it is sort of a mixture between Psycho and Rear Window, as it has the story revolving around the voyeurism of Rear Window with the depraved murder plot of Psycho. The interesting thing is that Psycho was beloved (even if it did scare many of its viewers), while Peeping Tom was reviled, and that is a direct result of the distance from movie-making that Psycho allows, as it has no characters morbidly discussing filming the deaths of the characters.

Another difference between the two movies is that Psycho is filmed in black and white, while Peeping Tom is filmed in bright colors. The black and white Psycho allows the audience to distance themselves from the plot because it is not in color like real life, and it contrasts with the obviously current Peeping Tom’s use of bright colors.

However, both movies use their murderer’s houses as symbols of their inner psyche, with the Bates house’s fruit cellar as the place where Norman hides his mother in an attempt to keep the others from finding her, while Mark uses the huge darkroom as the place where he works over his many inner demons from his childhood. These dark places are where the characters hide their dark secrets.

2002-04-03 - 12:24 a.m.
So I was late to Horror, and the lecture part of the class was shorter than normal, as we had to watch Peeping Tom, which was actually fairly good, if it did make me really uncomfortable to watch it. Mainly because the room was too f---ing cold. Why the f--- does the room need to be 55 degrees? That is completely f---ing unnecessary. The movie itself is a freaky movie about scopophilia and big phallic knives on camera tripods.

Then I came back to West to watch Kids. I ate a piece of matza for dinner before the movie. The movie itself (I had seen it six years ago) is really a bad movie. The acting is pretty bad for the most part (Chloë Sevigny is good, and that's about it for consistently good work), some actors look directly at the camera in crowd scenes, the handheld work is annoying, the characters are on the whole despicable, and it's a depressing look at teenagers. I would be remiss in not blasting Larry Clark for his voyeuristic zeal in filming teens in various states of undress as I had done for Brian De Palma. The only thing I can say about that is that Clark at least has some restraint, as some sex scenes are filmed with no nudity, but I can only assume that is mainly because the actresses were underage. The movie is complete trash. Except for the really good soundtrack by Lou Barlow and John Davis as Folk Implosion.

Then I tried to call some people from my game theory class to get them to explain the homework to me, but they couldn't get it at that point, so I just went to watch Jin-Roh. It was actually pretty good. Nice plotline (only occasionally confusing in a bad way) and well-animated.

Caseus Archivelox: Gosford Park & Lesbian Vampire Paper

2002-04-02 - 12:29 a.m.
I then went to see Gosford Park. I cannot tell you how much I recommend that movie. It's my third favorite film of last year. Behind only The Fellowship of the Ring and Amelie. Those who don't like Gosford Park do not like good movies. It's just that simple. The same can be said for the last two as well. Well, maybe not for FOTR, because those who don't like it hate movies that are literary adaptions of some of the greatest books of all time, that just happen to be an incredibly well made, casted, written, and everything else movie.

Altman is a sort of acquired taste, but the movie is so well constructed, even when it gets into its plot, that you cannot help but love it. Also, Bob Balaban is a god. Even if the movie is terrible, he is excellent.

So I then wrote my Lesbian Vampire paper for the next four hours or so. It turned out very well, as I got to use biting, cunnilingus and fellatio in the same sentence. I'm proud of myself. Here's the sentences I'm most proud of in this paper: Biting can be seen as a sexual act in and of itself, and the similarities to cunnilingus and fellatio are made even more explicit in later vampire films. The vampire's bites are occasionally even seen as kisses by both the viewer and the victim until it is too late for both: the viewer is sexually excited and the victim is dead, or, worse, undead. I almost used "the viewer is erect", but I realized that that would be a little much.

Tokyo Gore Police

Tokyo Gore Police stars the lead of Audition. That movie freaked me the hell out. Apparently I saw it before I started to write my blog, so you don't get my fancy thoughts at the time. But that movie was freaky as hell.

This one... Well, I wish I had watched it alone so I could justify trying to catalogue everything that was in the film, like I did with The Girls Rebel Force of Competitive Swimmers (although this blog comes close (and adds some more pics here). You could read this or this, but I'll try to give you some idea of the film. It starts with an exploding head. There's also many decapitations, delimbinations, and a depenistration during a blow job (result here). There's an alligator-like vagina dentata, a quadruple amputee gimp (who gets both swords and machine guns attached), a golden shower from a flower vagina chair creature, sewn up by teeth breasts (along with a snail girl and a penis nose, a guy who loses his legs and uses the resultant sprays of blood to fly around, a rocket jump done outside of a video game, a broken glass bottle used to cut some dude's face off (result here, a serial killer whose methodology is to stick hollow metal poles through a woman to drain out the blood and then cutting her up to stick in a box (a box in a box, as long as the box was actually in the box...), a missed phone call because of a vibrator, a woman quartered by cars, the doctor has a gatling gun that shoots severed arms, and more. Oh, and I certainly can't forget the fact that the impetus of the film is that there is a very bad guy who turns people he meets into "engineers" who are able to grow weapons from wounds on their bodies. Like the alligator vagina dentata, a penis gun from the depenistrated guy, the woman who was shot in the chest and grew acid-dispensing nipple spouts, the chainsaw wielding maniac who gets his arm shot off and then grows a new arm with a chainsaw attached (end result is this, the main bad guy who rips the top of his head off and grows brain guns (and explains his backstory with a puppet show), and the lead who eventually grows an infrared eye and an alligator-like arm. But the best thing about it are the commercials interspersed (that recall the social satire of Starship Troopers) for designer wrist-cutters and anti-harakiri PSAs.

The movie is completely ridiculous, the pacing is off, but man, there are few things more enjoyable than a film that crossed teh line into ridiculous within a minute of starting and just gets weirder and weirder. Some more pics are here of the all that stuff and more, along with clips. I'm not sure, but I think that site will either make you extremely jealous or extremely squikked. Also, um, all of those links are not safe for work, in case you were wondering for some reason.

OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies, King Lear, Be Kind Rewind, Spider-Man 3, & Hostel: Part II

OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies is a French spy spoof, done very straight up, but with many ridiculous touches, like the main spy is completely oblivious. I'm not sure exactly why I thought that I would like it, as it's a very goofy film, but never as funny as it probably should be.

King Lear was the theatre production shown on PBS, and so little Ian was edited out, which was a little disappointing. Otherwise, the cast was amazing, it's my favorite Shakespeare play, and it was overall a fun time. As fun a time as King Lear could possibly be. Thanks, PBS for at least broadcasting almost all of it.

Be Kind Rewind was a little bit of a good movie in a whole bunch of silliness. Gondry can't just slide on his visual talent, which is most evident in the insanely awesome Swede-ing of the movies. Other than that, though, there are some nice visual jokes, but most of it is just silly. Mos Def is the best thing in the film, and Jack Black just got on my nerves.

Spider-Man 3 is stupid. The dancing Parker? No. No to basically everything in this film. I like the idea of Venom, but the Sandman was worthless, the second Green Goblin was worse, and I am a masochistic idiot for watching this. I couldn't turn away.

Hostel: Part II is just ugh. The first one was fun. This one goes too far. Did I need to see this? No, but this just follows in my mini-fest of "stupid sequels that are actually crap and not worth the time it takes to watch them". Hostel didn't go too far, but this one is utterly ridiculous. Although I appreciate the scene of the cat eating the neck of a body, the killing of Lorna in Bathory-esque fashion was gratuitous. The point is not to get to that point. But it never gets scary or anything other than unnecessary (yes, even the decapitated Eli Roth was little more than a giggle for me).

Doctor Who, Torchwood, 28 Weeks Later, La Chinoise, Dead Like Me: Life after Death, You Kill Me, & From Hell

So back in February, I started to watch all of Doctor Who (the new series), along with Torchwood. And, finally, in early April I finished. There were some delays (I watched the excellent State of Play and Let the Right One In from Netflix to break up the slightly cheeky (in the case of Doctor Who) and entirely cheeky (in the case of Torchwood) Britishness). But basically, I'm here to tell you that Doctor Who was actually fairly enjoyable, especially once Billie Piper left the show (somehow not for good... damnit), while Torchwood was not as good. I didn't watch them in broadcast order, so I already knew some plot twists at the end of the two seasons of Torchwood (sigh...), but I'm not sure even watching them slightly unspoiled would have made me enjoy it more. It just felt like it was trying far too hard to be "adult". Doctor Who was light and fluffy, slipped in funny references (the Shakespeare episode blows away Shakespeare in Love for pure nerdity), and was frequently quite good. Certainly there was some unnecessary returns (why keep bringing back the Daleks after you keep destroying them for the last time? along with each return of Billie Piper), but I enjoyed the show quite a bit, and have added it (along with Torchwood) to my DVR in the hopes that they will broadcast the next seasons at some point this year (in the US, I'm aware that the first Doctor Who special has already aired in the UK).

28 Weeks Later would have been better as a stand alone zombie movie. But comparing it to 28 Days Later just was ugh. The anti-militarism and nihilistic ending was just basically Return of the Living Dead 3 over again. Also, why, exactly was the mother left alone in the hospital complex with no one watching her at all? Seriously, U.S. Military? You aren't that stupid. Stringer Bell would never do anything that stupid. And the genetic immunity made no sense at all. Just a mess of a film that was more successful than it deserved. Danny Boyle would have rocked it. Hard.

La Chinoise is Godard at his most Godardian. I probably could have made more sense of it if I knew French, as some of the intertitles and graffiti were not subtitled. I feel like it suffers from being a little too radicalized, although there are touches of playfulness that made his earlier films so great, but the preachiness that ruined Godard is in full effect.

Dead Like Me: Life after Death sucked. Pure and simple. Especially with my complaints about the show not finishing the first time, to have it extended in this fashion, with a new Daisy and Mandy Patinkin not back (replaced with Desmond from Lost, but in a horrendously bad subplot), is actually worse than not bringing it back. So yeah, I complained about not seeing an ending back in 2007, but I still kinda wish it didn't have an ending. Or that they had splurged and brought back Laura Harris (who, even though Canadian, did a much better Southern accent than the Australian Sarah Wynter, who didn't even bother with the accent) and Mandy Patinkin and thought for a second about whether it would help to bring it back. Because we just got another character disappearing without much of a goodbye and a movie that at under 90 minutes long still felt like it was channeling the extended edition of Return of the King when it came to endings. Avoid unless you're a masochistic Dead Like Me fan.

You Kill Me is... why the hell did I add this to my Netflix queue?

From Hell is something I knew why I added it, although I definitely have added and removed it at least once before. It certainly isn't a particularly good movie, and I'm not going to go into the historical inaccuracies. Maybe I should try reading it again. About the only thing notable about From Hell is that Alan Moore hadn't yet gotten pissed enough with Hollywood to take his name off the film. I'm pretty sure that he didn't have a better impression of Hollywood after this. Eeesh. His feelings are well deserved.

Crooked Fingers & Neko Case at 9:30 Club 4/8

Again, the 9:30 Club conspires to mess with me about seeing the first or second nights of shows by announcing a second night after I've purchased tickets to the first night. Damn them. Neko sells out here in DC (mainly for putting on an amazing show, just like she did in 2007), so just acknowledge that there will be two shows and plan accordingly. This would have bothered me a lot more, had Crooked Fingers not been scheduled to play a show at Iota the next night, so they were only going to open for Neko on Wednesday, not Thursday (although man, bringing in Will Sheff to open instead is not a bad thing...). I got to see them, so I didn't care, but had I really wanted to see them, bought tickets to the second night, and found out they weren't playing, I would have been pissed.

Anyway, based on that review from two years ago, I was expecting a great show, and I got it. Crooked Fingers could play songs I don't really like as long as they play New Drink for the Old Drunk, and I will stupidly sing along at the top of my voice and love the show. I may not be a fair observer, but that is really all I need to love seeing Crooked Fingers. They haven't disappointed me yet.

Neko, on the other hand, just has to sing. That voice is so outstanding that the fact that the songs are quite good is just an added bonus. This time, she had a huge screen behind her band, with an owl overlooking the stage, and projected various images and videos behind it, including the video for People Got a Lotta Nerve.

One of the highlights of a Neko Case show is the banter, and it was again funny. But boo to her for going to both, and boo to Becca for the same. Kelly Hogan makes any concert more enjoyable, as she can talk while Neko spends time (an inordinate amount of time, not long periods, just almost between every song) switching guitars.

Also, Arne Duncan was kind of goofy. I mean, I appreciate the desire to reach out to those who might not listen to other arguments, but having the Secretary of Education request that people at a Neko Case show consider working in Education is a little weird. It's not like Neko is not political (far from it), but it's that her causes are much more geared towards animals. But if Neko gave it her blessing, I guess that's ok, even if I find it a strange.

With any complaints you may think I had about the show, you are missing my high praise. I will definitely go see both bands the next time they come through DC, especially if they continue this awesome trend of coming through together.

Setlists:

Crooked Fingers

Broken Man
Bad Man Coming (something like this version, but imagine the drums even more insistent and awesome)
You Can Never Leave
Let's Not Pretend To Be New Men
Luisa's Bones
Phony Revolutions
Your Control (for some reason, not with Neko, who performs on the album track)
Angelina
New Drink for the Old Drunk
So Long Savannah

Neko Case

Maybe Sparrow
People Got a Lotta Nerve
Fever
Hold on, Hold On
The Pharaohs
Middle Cyclone
Deep Red Bells
I Wish I Was the Moon
I'm an Animal
Prison Girls
The Tigers Have Spoken
Margaret vs. Pauline
Red Tide
Don't Forget Me
That Teenage Feeling
This Tornado Loves You
-------------
Vengeance Is Sleeping
Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth
Knock Loud

National Arboretum

It's not really a museum, per se, but it does have a museum on grounds (the awesome National Bonsai and Penjing Museum), so I'm going to review it anyway. Especially the Bonsai museum, which had stuff like this. It also had a Moon Gate where a couple were having their picture taken (one of many Asian couples there, along with just about everyone besides my family and Ms. Albright at The Dancing Crab later that night, which was the most Asians I've ever seen (percentage wise) at a non-Asian restaurant). Anyway, I really liked the ones that had little model people in them, and the ones that looked like the top of hills. Unfortunately, the Tropical section was closed. After that, we headed to the National Capital Columns (kind of incongruously placed on top of a hill, and there was a very pregnant woman taking pregnancy pictures in black short shorts and a halter top, which provided something extremely disturbing to look at), then drove around the Azaleas section (which wasn't blooming yet), past the closed for renovation fern valley, and headed to the Magnolia and Holly area. It was absolutely gorgeous, and Ms. Albright had to restrain herself from running from one Magnolia to the next and smelling the all the flowers. I tried to restrain myself from climbing a Magnolia that was perfect for climbing (and failed to stop, but I did only go a little way up it). The last thing we saw was the Asian Collection, which had a pagoda and some Chinese Redbud, which are not worth going off the path to smell, no matter what you may think they smell like. So basically, I really enjoyed my day, although I got a little sunburned (not as bad as last Memorial Day), but would definitely do again, in a few weeks when the azaleas and some other flowers are out.

Asobi Seksu at Rock 'n' Roll Hotel 3/28

Honestly, I don't have a lot to say about this concert. Hush isn't nearly as good an album as Citrus, which I consider to be almost as good as My Bloody Valentine's albums, but I still like all three of their albums. But I just couldn't get into the show all that much. And a set list would be utterly worthless. This guy has a lot to say about the concert (I did not notice Yuki taking her jacket off, but I am pretty sure I would not have needed to "change my shorts", at least partially because I was wearing jeans), although I disagree on the merits of Tyvek.

To give you an idea of the Tyvek lead singer see this. Also, imagine a huge douchebag who talks loudly in the back of the crowd during the headliner. So loud that you can hear him even with the wall of noise that is Asobi Seksu. So loud that you can hear him and he bothers you when you are wearing ear plugs because Asobi Seksu is so loud. Seriously, Asobi Seksu was the loudest concert I have ever been at, and I specifically remembered to bring my ear plugs because I knew they would be loud.

I did end up eating at Granville Morris with Ms. Albright ahead of the concert, which was very good, if the curry mayo was disappointing, as was the two-hour wait. So long to wait for mussels and frites (although I did get to watch the first half of the Pitt-Nova game). Food was better than Bistro Du Coin though.

Let the Right One In

Let the Right One In is the best vampire film since... well, I honestly can't remember the last vampire film I enjoyed this much. Certainly not since I started this blog in June of 2005, and according to Netflix's vampire section, none. That can't really be right, but I am struggling to think of one. Nosferatu is great, but that's honestly the only one that's at the same level. Considering all the vampire films I've seen over the years, it's amazing that I don't hold more of them in higher regard, but so few films are as enjoyable as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, and fewer still are anything other than unintentionally campy (or, more annoyingly, intentionally campy) retellings of Dracula or some other silly story.

It's the touching story of a young bullied boy with divorced parents in a suburb of Stockholm, and how his life is changed when he falls in love with the girl next door. Who just happens to be a vampire, a more feral vampire than from traditional vampire movies. It's not so much the story that elevates this film above other vampire films, but it's the visuals and tone: the suburb is consistently covered in snow, and short of a couple of scenes during the day, filmed at night, giving the apartment complex's playground a foreboding look that adds to the tension. Everything about the atmosphere of the film is perfect. I cannot recommend this film enough. Although see if you can find a screener copy.

(Don't read either of the next two links unless you have already seen the movie. Or hell, don't even read the second paragraph because it's a big spoiler for both the movie and the book.)

Unfortunately, there are a couple of problems with the DVD, not the fault of the movie at all, but of the DVD producers. The subtitles have been changed and for the worse. The DVD actually defaults to the English dub, which was horrendous, so I quickly switched to the Swedish and English subtitles, but had I known it was going to be this simplified version, I would have just found a copy of the screener. Weirdly, I saw this blog post linked from Slashfilm yesterday, and it was then posted to Monkey See, A.V. Club, io9, and Metafilter today. I am not the only person bothered by this. Good. It is unconscionable for DVD producers to do this to films. You can mess with bad dubbing, but the subtitles should be as close to accurate translations of what's going on on screen as possible.

Less bothersome, especially due to the adaptation by the original author are the changes that were made to the story from the novel. SPOILERS: I never once got the impression that Eli was supposed to be a eunuch from the movie, and the one shot of Eli naked from the waist down to me was just her vagina sewn up due to either torture or to avoid being raped by Håkan. Not that Eli was actually a castrated boy. The book may have spelled that out, but the movie allowed it to be much more ambiguous and that worked better, I think. I got that Håkan was a possible molester and clearly what Oskar was going to end up being like in many years. The changes to Oskar to make him a more appealing lead were nice, although the use of Pig as a slur doesn't work with the actor who portrayed him. Anyway, all of these changes just make me think that Ebert wasn't wrong to refer to Eli as a he. Well, Ebert refers to Eli as both in the review.

Caseus Archivelox: Night of the Living Dead: 30th Anniversary edition & Dawn of the Dead

2002-03-28 - 9:41 p.m.
We watched the 30th Anniversary edition of "Night of the Living Dead". That was quite simply the worst rereleased film of all time. The added scenes had the worst acting in the movie. This is a zombie movie, where the worst acting isn't the zombies. That sort of tells you how bad the acting was. The added scenes where a priest doesn't become a zombie by prayer and splashing holy water upon the zombie bite also goes against the entire idea of the movie. The new scenes were also edited in horribly.

2002-03-28
You already know how much I absolutely detested the added scenes and new soundtrack for Night of the Living Dead. The desire of some people to ruin films in the name of supposed profits makes me sick and supremely disappointed.

I will not dwell upon the completely unnecessary scenes, or the horrendous acting, or the fact that the added scenes actually detract from the impact of the scenes. The original film is one of the most perfect horror films, as it works as both a gruesome and gore-filled shocker and also as a multi-layered allegory for civil rights, Vietnam, communism, or even the over-reliance upon television. The dominant white male society almost destroys the strong black male, and when it fails at first, it finally succeeds at the hands of the suggestively racist sheriff’s posse. A small amount of Americans is constantly attacked by a much faster growing and relentless enemy and is slowly destroyed. Americans, instead of actually escaping, sit around waiting for the TV to tell them what to do. The original ending, although ultimately destroying the occupants of the house, ultimately confirms the status of society, suggesting that the society needs to work harder to make it better.

In contrast with the low budget masterpiece of Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead had a much larger budget and was in color. And, although Dawn of the Dead was a sequel made by the same director, they show what the larger budget can do for a filmmaker’s vision. Romero’s use of black actors as the take-charge (and most sensible, along with Dawn of the Dead’s Francine) characters goes against the Hollywood stereotype where the black character always dies and is supporting cast to the white actors. Also, Dawn of the Dead is the first of the zombie movies that has zombies that obviously have some memory of their past life, and thus, it allows Romero to touch upon the consumerism that was so prevalent in the 70s (and still to this day), by having the zombies wander around the mall.

The gore effects in both are great, and help to make the movies less obviously deeper meaning than some other pretentious horror films. That is always a bonus, because pretentious movies almost always fail miserably because they cannot be good movies. Message films need to have a sense of humor about themselves, or at least be good films, or else they will end up being respected but not watched, something that Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead certainly do not deserve.

Caseus Archivelox: Return of the Living Dead III, Rosemary's Baby, & Spriggan

2002-03-26
Having seen both the first and second part of the series (which were basically the same movie), and having heard that the third part was much better than the first two, and a zombie movie about teen angst, I was hoping for a great movie. I was not disappointed. The movie, while unfortunately structured within the schoolboy nihilistic Return of the Living Dead movie framework, almost breaks out from it by turning one of the rules of the movie on its head: zombies that are in love can now remember that they were in love, and have no real desire to eat their loved one’s brains. This goes against the first movie, as a guy dies in his lover’s arms, immediately attempts to eat her brains. This is not a bad thing however, as it allows for the disaffected teen within us to empathize with the female zombie who is trying to find her new place in the world, after waking up with a hunger for brains. In previous movies, zombies were just something that needed to be destroyed.

One problem I have with the ROTLD movies is that they have unnecessarily nihilistic endings that do not normally fit with the sequels. After the first one, in which Louisville is destroyed by a nuclear weapon and the zombie contagion spreads, how can the next two movies be made, as the first one proved that the military could not destroy the zombies, yet they somehow have contained them enough to keep the general public from understanding that there are a large amount of indestructible zombies running rampant? I find it silly to think of that. At least the sequels to the Universal horror films attempted to explain this, while these movies just move on, reference the earlier movies occasionally, but refuse to explain how they can happen. Part three’s ending is unnecessary, as they decide to turn the biofilter off to destroy mankind because they are trying to turn zombies into weapons? Should the fact that the people who tried to do that died due to their own creations have anything to do with a reassessment of the military’s policy? And one last complaint about these movies is the fact that dead bodies suffer from rigor mortis and have problems being bent, but here once they turn into zombies they move quickly, have almost superhuman strength, and cannot be destroyed, which goes against all the rules of zombie movies.

Rosemary’s Baby
I find that of the sort-of-scary, psychological thrillers that are now classified as the new classics of the horror genre, I like Rosemary’s Baby the most, as seems like it is more realistic than the others, with less reliance upon the supernatural for its effectiveness as a movie. Until the ending scenes, the supernatural is just suggested, and could be explained as the doctor does towards the end when he says that it could be a result of normal pregnancy hysteria. The ending itself is sort of anti-climactic, however it follows from the intense love of a mother for her child that she would care for it, even if it were a badly deformed, demon baby. The reason I like the movie so much is that Roman Polanski does such an effective job in building suspense and horror throughout the movie that it makes one uncomfortably scared throughout the last hour of the movie and long afterwards, because it seems real. It broaches the idea of Satanism, cannibalism, witchcraft, and selling your soul to the devil so well, that while looking back at it, it is clear that they are fantastic ideas, when watching it, you believe that all of this could happen. Mia Farrow is excellent in this role, as the audience sees everything from her perspective and eventually identifies with her view of her baby as her own, and it does not seem like she is crazy for caring for her offspring, even if it is the Anti-Christ.

2002-03-27 - 12:04 a.m.
At least it was Return of the Living Dead III, not a great movie by any stretch of the imagination, but better than the first and second, and somewhat interesting. I don't like the Return movies as they all have nihilistic endings that are just silly, and I am sure it's just because they work from the Romero blueprint, even though they fail miserably as Romero did it first and best, and the Return movies are just too silly to be anything more than pitifully inept social commentary. Ooooh, military makes zombies, military lets zombies loose, zombies eat lots of people, military bad. Duh.

I went to go watch Spriggan, some silly dubbed anime on 35mm. Our showing was listed on the official Spriggan web site. Too bad the movie never explained how spriggans got the name spriggan. And there was some stupid stuff about Noah's Ark being responsible for controlling the weather and evolution. I don't think it made any more sense when watching it. Apparently, it was a movie from the middle of an anime series or something, and thus, if I were willing to read the manga, I'd be able to understand it. About the only good thing about the movie was that it was well animated.

Caseus Archivelox: Carrie

2002-03-21
The more times I watch this movie the more upset I become. The book is a good if not great novel about a teenage girl’s struggle to come to terms with her newfound powers of attractiveness to the opposite sex, while the movie is trash that emphasizes that Carrie receives her power through emotional distress rather than through womanhood. And he just had to make the shower scene in slow motion with lots of very young women fully nude, did he not?

Brian De Palma's Carrie is a shy girl who barely changes and is then destroyed by her own power. She is a girl who attempted to control her emotions, and by De Palma's extension, her telekinetic power. After the shower scene, and her suggested masturbation, a release of her sexual tension, the onset of her period caused her to lose control of her emotions, and show her power. Carrie began to experience the spiraling emotions that occur in the stress of puberty and prom. When the bucket of blood fell, so soon after the dizzying high of dancing with Tommy, she lost control again. Her emotions and telekinetic power finally destroyed her, as she became suicidal after being so embarrassed at prom and after the huge emotional stress of crucifying her mother.

The two Carries have different uses for their telekinesis. King uses telekinesis as a metaphor for the growth of Carrie into a woman, while De Palma uses it as an outlet for a frustrated teenager. De Palma needed to have a universal teenager with whom men can lust after, and all women and men who were harassed in high school can identify. Part of that is that the audience that the movie was trying to attract was teenage boys, as they are a large portion of the movie going population that Carrie would attract (Clover 4-5). Stephen King's shower scene was not erotic at all, yet the eroticism is overpowering in the slow-motion scene in De Palma's movie. Because of De Palma's constraint of having to make a profit on the movie, he was forced to make characters that are different from the original intent of King's version. He has conventionalized the conflicts and Carrie's rage so that more people can directly identify with Carrie. King could stretch more for his characters, making them deeper, and delve into the supernatural, as he was not gambling with other people's careers: he was simply writing a novel.

I believe that with a couple years of distance from when I wrote the previous two paragraphs (from a paper on the differences between the book and the movie, and it is an seven page paper, and not particularly good), I am less willing to accept De Palma’s version as strictly an attempt to make the movie make more money by adding nudity, but it is his fetishistic desire to see young women naked (including his future wife) that caused him to add the completely gratuitous nude scenes.

Caseus Archivelox: Porn Week, In the Realm of the Senses, & Revolutionary Girl Utena: The Movie

2002-03-19 - 12:36 a.m.
I went to print out some papers for class. I started to look through them. PORN!!!!!!! I love this class. Actually the chapters were from a book on pornography, and the pictures were all grainy, although I am told that there was a large amount of sexual acts that were portrayed. Apparently in the original version of the book from 1989 the author said that she would not include any pictures, then changed her mind in the next ten years, and included the chapter with the aforementioned graphic pictures of sexual acts. As I said, the pictures aren't really clear, but the library almost didn't put this thing up on e-reserves. I think that's bull because I can watch "Salo" at the library, but they have a problem with really small grainy pictures on a random e-reserve link that can only be accessed by Duke IPs. Ummm, yeah.

Then I went to the class. Porn week is weird. Hey, we're watching porn, but ohh, we're not watching the sex parts, we're watching the acting parts, and we're watching it in a class of around 18 students, around 3/4 of whom are female, and I just keep wondering why I'm even watching this crap. So yeah, porn week sucks. Pun intended.

We started out watching part of Russ Meyer's first film, "The Immoral Mr. Teas". It was this thing that Benny Hill wishes he could have made if he could have shown nude women. This repressed guy who starts to see naked women all over the place, but he's just insane. Funny scenes: he sees naked women on a rubber tire swing and the narrator (because there's no diegetic sound at all in the movie) talks about the use of rubber in history, then he sees naked women asleep, then he sees naked women bathing and he takes off his shoes and wiggles his toes around in the water. Read Freud, then you'll appreciate the last one a little more. It was really tame for the opener for porn week. Russ Meyer's films are actually usually pretty funny. And softcore, lots of ass, little tit, and no bush, and certainly no male nudity, although see my earlier comment for fun Freudian implications of feet.

The next film was "Deep Throat". I'd already seen it. But we watched the scene were Linda's mom talks her into seeing the doctor, and then most of the next scene, before the actual deep throating actually begins. So no male nudity, but there were some long shots of Linda's vagina. They couldn't go to a close-up because if they did, it would have shown her clitoris and the entire movie would have been ruined. But the acting was still bad, with some really bad puns. The doctor is using a bubble maker and they pop on Linda Lovelace. She then asks him to stop getting her wet. Stop for giggling... and on with the entry. At the end of the part of the scene that we watched (i.e. right before the fellatio), one girl asked, "So did they actually show that (i.e. oral sex)?" I almost laughed out loud. Porn movies are full of worse stuff than that movie (although I don't remember any other movie with a Coke douche...). The movie was also this bootlegged copy of it.

The last movie, and one that [gay grad student teacher] didn't have time to talk about was this gay porn movie called "Technically Virtual" or something. We watched that because [gay grad student teacher] was told that gay porn was much better than current straight porn. If it was, I'd hope that there are straight porn movies that are just sex, because the acting was really, really horrible. The funniest thing [gay grad student teacher] said today was, "Czech gay porn. I was told Czech gay porn is the best." Is Hungarian gay porn different? What makes Czech gay porn better? I was confused, and I just want to say that we didn't see any real nudity from this movie, although in skipping ahead through chapters on the DVD, we saw some thrusting. [Gay grad student teacher] also expressed surprise that a movie on DVD wasn't good. I didn't want to tell him that the porn industry has been incredibly adoptive of new technologies well before mainstream Hollywood.

2002-03-20 - 5:08 p.m.
After that class, I ran back to West to watch "In the Realm of the Senses". I was lead to believe hard-core. I was completely correct in that belief. Penetration, fellatio, a facial, a bird-shaped dildo, an orgy, an egg stuck inside a woman, lots of shots of the same penis, rape, a drunk guy getting hit in his penis with snowballs by small kids, handjobs, strangulation for sexual purposes, a 68-year old woman being killed by having sex with the main man, and a fairly graphic castration scene of a fully erect penis. And I watched this in a dark classroom with about 10 other people, evenly split between men and women. Almost two hours of porn is a lot. Oh, and the movie gradually went from something of a plot to almost no plot at all. The director was trying to say something about the censor board of Japan who are so strict that he was forced to film it in Japan, and then send it to France to edit it, and I believe it's still banned from Japan. So all in all, I found it somewhat tedious. You never realize how boring it is to watch two people have sex for almost an hour straight until you do that. (ed note: I've since rewatched the movie and have a much higher opinion of the film.)

So I then went to Griffith to watch the Revolutionary Girl Utena movie. I went and was absolutely completely confused by the first bits. Nothing made sense, even though I kept asking [female friend] what the hell was going on. She said it was one of her favorite movies, and she couldn't explain most of it. Nothing made sense. There were a large amount of Freudian bits of the movie, but it didn't seem like it was internally consistent.

Caseus Archivelox: Cat People

2002-03-19
About two minutes after they were married, I immediately thought, “Irena and Oliver are not having sex.” It was really obvious. The fun of the movie is that Irena is completely uncomfortable being intimate with Oliver, and yet he still does not understand why she feels uncomfortable with him. The fact that we never see the transformation increases the sense of Irena not really turning into a panther, even as Tourneur includes slight references to “The Wolf Man” with the following of the dirty footprints leading to the conclusion that Irena (or in “The Wolf Man”, Larry Talbot) turned into the cat (wolf) and killed the sheep (the gravedigger) and almost killed Alice (Gwen). Since the movie was made just one year later than “The Wolf Man”, it is unlikely that this was just a coincidence, especially as they both deal with characters that allow their inner instincts or fears to manifest themselves in changes in appearance.

In “Cat People”, the desire to cure themselves from their monstrous condition is just continued from earlier films, like “Dracula’s Daughter”, but in this case, the interesting thing is that the “other” woman and her husband conspire to send her to a psychiatrist who falls in love with her and eventually leads to his and her downfall. As a result of her fear of sexual contact with her husband, a conjugal right, he feels the need to separate himself from her and find a woman more conductive to his masculine desire in Alice, but he does not understand that Irena loves him and becomes jealous as it becomes more and more blatant that he is sleeping with Alice (even as the Hays code would not allow adultery on screen, film viewers have to imagine the adultery that is clearly occurring as Alice and Oliver sit in dark rooms alone all night).

The movie itself is hardly a horror film, as it is a more interesting psychoanalytical look into female frigidity and jealousy. But the entire movie is about that, as there are few wasted lines or unnecessary scenes (except for that dream sequence with the animated cats) and it is very well structured for a short movie. Very few films today are as well put together, even if they are ultimately better, as some of the earlier horror-type films that are very short (something from which bloated Hollywood blockbusters such as “Titanic” or “Pearl Harbor” could learn).

The Broken West & A.C. Newman at the Black Cat 3/18

I was in the front row for the concert. My ears were ringing for quite some time after The Broken West's set. Here's the songs that I remembered... Sigh... I just didn't take anything down.

Down in the Valley
On the Bubble
Ambuscade
Auctioneer
Gwen, Now and Then
House of Lies
Got It Bad
Back in Your Head (Tegan & Sara cover)

The only other problem with being up front was that vocals were kind of hard to hear, so with The Broken West's similarity in songs, I had problems telling the difference. That said, I really enjoyed the set, and apparently, they've been playing that Tegan and Sara cover all during the tour. I did not recognize it. I'm not sure anyone else from my friends at the concert enjoyed the set as much as I did.

I got a setlist for A.C. Well, I took a picture and then gave it to someone else, because what am I going to do with a setlist? I have to say that knowing I was going to get the first three tracks from The Slow Wonder sprinkled in the set before worrying throughout whether I'd get to hear them was nice. Secretarial and The Town Halo, among pretty much all the tracks from the new album, were better live than in recorded versions. Well, maybe more accurately, seeing Carl live playing these tracks made me appreciate him more. Rockin' setlist action follows:

There Are Maybe Ten or Twelve
Miracle Drug
Like a Hitman, Like a Dancer
Prophets
Secretarial
The Heartbreak Rides
The Cloud Prayer
The Palace at 4 AM
All of My Days & All of My Days Off
Young Atlantis
Drink to Me, Babe, Then
The Collected Works
The Changeling (Get Guilty)
Submarines of Stockholm
On the Table
-------------
Come Crash
The Town Halo

Really, quite a good set, and very similar to their set the next night at The Cradle that my friend Alicia was at. And I'm getting recordings of that one and the Broken West set. Actually, they were the same sets. Unfortunately, I won't get Carl talking about how much he loves D.C. and his encouraging of people to do glow-in-the-dark shooters. Yeah, someone requested Drink to Me, Babe, Then early, and he said wait ten minutes and then told them to do some shooters, but they held off, and so others did some non-glow-in-the-dark shooters. He was disappointed. As was I.

Caseus Archivelox: The Exorcist

2002-03-19
When I was younger, I remember my dad telling me that when he saw this movie during a summer when he was living alone in New York he was afraid of walking home that night. When I first saw this movie about five years ago, I was not scared by it, but could see how it could be scary. When I saw it last year, I found it boring. Seeing it again last week has not helped the movie at all.

The beginning of the movie has little bearing at all upon the rest of it, and could be skipped entirely with no detriment to the rest of the movie. The fear of a child being possessed would have been more effective had it not been played out over such a long time. I am not normally a person who likes short movies over long movies due only to length, but it this case, it could have stood to be much shorter.

The priest who is having a crisis of confidence in God is a time honored and old tradition, and this movie just uses it as another trite way to get the audience who normally would not believe in the idea of a character being possessed believing. The problem occurs in the fact that most people do not believe in demonic possession and thus when the inevitable, from the standpoint that the good guys do have something of a victory at the end, happy conclusion occurs, viewers are happy. Many other viewers will have gone to get some much-needed sleep.

In short, the movie was too long.

Caseus Archivelox: The Wolf Man

2002-03-14
In this incredibly short and flimsy movie, I was immediately turned off by the introduction of Lon Chaney, Jr. as “The Wolf Man”, removing any doubt as to who would be inflicted with lycanthropy. I hate when movies are ruined by trailers or poor decisions by the movie studio. Even if that had not been mentioned at the beginning of the movie, the movie is not scary. The makeup was fairly weak, and the transformations were nothing special, and no advance over Dr. Jekyll’s ten years earlier. Even for a Universal Horror film, it was below par.

The shots of the fog going through the Welsh countryside were nice, but the rest of the movie was disappointing when including those scenes. Talbot’s love interest was horrible. She was obviously there because she looked nice, rather than for any acting talent, which was obviously completely absent.

Werewolf movies are about man’s baser instincts taking over, as vampire movies are about repressed sex, and as a movie under the Hays production code will ultimately fail to be about a man succumbing to his animal instincts because a movie cannot show what would be necessary in order to show that fall from grace fully.

Caseus Archivelox: Poltergeist

2002-03-05
I remember watching this movie many times when I was a kid, and consequently having an intense fear of clowns. That one short scene caused me to hate clowns for as long as I can remember. It is not that I fear a clown attacking me; it is that I dislike people with their faces painted white, big orange hair, and shiny costumes. It was nice for the fact that it told me how to tell whether the storm was moving closer or farther to where I was.

Beyond that however, it is an incredibly effective (at least until an unnecessarily silly ending scene) ghost story. Almost nothing supernatural happens on screen, depending almost entirely upon somewhat strange occurrences that happen when characters look away. That is an interesting bit of the movie, as with the exception of the scene when the tree attacks Robbie, the scenes without the supernatural aspects are more effective than the ones with the special effected supernatural.

Throughout the movie, there is no character that we see the entire movie through, and we identify with most of the characters at one point or another, even with Tangina, the psychic who has never done in what she is supposedly an expert. As a young boy when I first saw the movie, I ultimately identified with Robbie, and when watching it this time, I realized how little of it really was about him, and saw it as identifying with everyone in the family at certain times, taking me out of the movie to a certain extent, because I was not as involved with one character as if it had focused on one character.

Caseus Archivelox: The Haunting

2002-02-28
This was an ultimately disappointing film, as you hyped it up too much. It was effective, and the camera angles and sound design were good, but it was just a simple haunted house tale. Not that it was not incredibly influential upon later haunted house films, but I never really identified with any of the characters. I am not an insane, possibly matricidal spinster like Nell, or a psychic like Theodora, or a psychic investigator like Dr. Markway, or a money-grabbing youth like Luke. I never was enough into the movie to care what happens to them. And when the house manipulated Markway’s wife into just happening to show up at the two times she does after her disappearance, it rings hollow from a plot standpoint.

Wise is an obviously talented director, and it causes me to question whether I am jaded or whether the movie has not aged well. I think that it is a combination of the two, and thus I blame the remake for ruining this movie. The understated lesbianism in the movie is much better than the more obvious version in the remake. In some ways, the more obvious lesbianism detracts from the struggle for Nell between the humans and the house as it makes it more of a sexual attraction than when that is there but not emphasized.

Another problem with the movie is that the house turned bad because of what occurred on the house grounds as much as it did for what occurred within the house. I think that haunted house movies work better when the moviemakers acknowledge the silliness and make the house built over an old Indian burial ground. The lack of a real supernatural reason for the hauntings make me more likely to think that it is all within their heads and less scary for a (more) sane viewer.

Caseus Archivelox: Black Sunday, Lust for a Vampire, & Brides of Dracula

2002-03-14 - 12:16 a.m.
I spent today watching vampire films. Well, actually the first one doesn't really count, as it was "Black Sunday" the Mario Bava Italian horror flick, not the crappy movie based on the crappy Thomas Harris novel. It's a witch that was killed in the 1600s, and in the 1800s was revived and needs the blood of her descendant who looks just like her to complete her resurrection. So it was sort of a lesbian vampire film. Not as much as I had hoped though.
So I then watched the end of "Dracula's Daughter" again, and then saw "The Wolf Man". Disappointing.
I went off to Visart to look for lesbian vampire films. I failed miserably, because the selection was horrid. I couldn't find anything for a while, but finally found the second, and supposedly the worst, of the Carmilla Karnstein trilogy of Hammer Horror films, "Lust for a Vampire". It was hidden in the Samurai section, even though it said file in horror on the box. It's just basic softcore from the early 1970s. Bah. Damn lesbian vampire films. Too much nudity, not enough vampire. I doubt I'd be able to find any of the hardcore lesbian movies, as I'm not going off to Railroad Video any time soon, even if there are a few hardcore lesbian films out there.
The question I have for this movie is why a supposedly lesbian vampire would fall in love with a male writer. It makes little sense, and the film itself looks more like it was filmed on video. Problem is that the vampires can walk around during the day with no apparent ill effects, and day and night switch back and forth a lot in the midst of scenes. Of course, the women are beautiful, and look nice naked. That's unfortunately a very poor reason to watch the entire movie. If you don't have the balls to rent hardcore porn, then you shouldn't rent softcore because the acting and other qualities are similar.
The problem with these films is that they are weak on meaning, and strong on sucking. And sucky-ness.
An interesting similarity in the two actual lesbian vampire movies that I've seen is that when the women either fall in love with a man or need a man to protect them, they are well on their way to death. Society and male heterosexual love and its gaze destroys the strong lesbians. The nudity itself is, of course, there for no reason other than to titillate the male audience who is watching the movie. And the strong female characters who reject the patriarchal society are very different from most other softcore porn with females there more to excite the male viewers. The lesbian vampire turns the patriarchal society on its head, and this is why I am writing my long paper on lesbian vampire films.
But before I watched the movie, I watched "Brides of Dracula" which was a good Hammer vampire film (with no real lesbian content, even as it had some small female-to-female attraction). Peter Cushing is a great fun actor. The movie is nice and colorful, and has a great ending.

State of Play, Watchmen, Planet Man, Cruel Story of Youth, The Order of Myths, & Tulia, Texas

State of Play is a star-studded six-hour long BBC miniseries. Basically, everyone in it who has any kind of role is a great actor and does an amazing job. My only complaint was that at six hours, I just wanted to know what would happen next immediately. I couldn't watch it all in one sitting, which sucked. Definitely worth watching as it's a great twisty political thriller, with more than enough Britishisms to make my heart soar. Meat and Tweaks along with various family members recommended it to me for quite some time, and I finally saw it. They were very right.

Watchmen is gratuitous. Violence that wasn't in the book is added, the characterization of the violence is changed, and the squid is gone. I can understand some changes are needed: cutting the Tales of the Black Freighter is fine, and simplifying the backstories is as well, but some of the coolest stuff was changed for no good reason at all: Rorshach's line to the prisoners with Big Figure isn't nearly as effective in the movie, Nite Owl and Silk Spectre's reactions to the plot removes another level of Moore's work. Which is amazing on a great amount of levels, but by dumbing it down and ramping up the violence ignores the point. Also, since when were any of these characters besides Dr. Manhattan superhuman? Moore's point was that they're all messed up mentally to think that fighting crime in a costume is a good idea. Ozymandias is not a crazy psychopath, but a sane man driven to extremes by the horrors of modern society and a really bad hashish trip. But Matthew Goode cannot possibly portray anything remotely complicated. Neither can Malin Akerman. She can portray "I look good naked", but not "I have emotions." Also, can we just agree never to have a sex scene to Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah ever again? Actually, can we agree never to cover Hallelujah ever again? Leonard's version is quite good, and Jeff Buckley's is perfect. STOP COVERING IT, YOU MORONS! Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Jackie Earle Haley are the only people in the whole movie who are consistently good. So here's what it comes down to: the movie is good due to it's source material, and I imagine that the extra scenes, along with adding the Black Freighter back in to make more connections with normal people. That lack of connection hurts the movie. It's occasionally slavishly faithful to the book, but there's absolutely nothing added to make the movie worthwhile. Read the comic. You could see the movie, if you don't mind a fetishization of violence and slow-motion excess. And if you see it in the theater, you can also cringe when the entire audience cheers for the most psychotic activities of the most psychotic people.

Planet Man is a New Zealand short, starring Timothy Balme, aka Lionel from Dead Alive. It's the opposite of Y: The Last Man, as all the women on the planet disappear and the men tend to gayosity. Balme's a sort of film noir-style hero, doomed by meeting possibly the only living female left on earth. It's a pretty interesting short, very low budget, but it's available online and pretty good.

Cruel Story of Youth is a Nagisa Oshima film, seen at the National Gallery of Art as part of a big Oshima festival. It's a little story of a couple who meet when the woman hitchhikes and the driver tries to rape her. The symbolism isn't really much hidden. It suffers from a serious problem in just having a text. It's always difficult to judge acting in foreign films, especially when the language is as different as Japanese, but they were not particularly strong. The main characters are basically just there to comment upon the aimlessness of youngsters in post-war Japan. As such, they're blank slates to complain about how they're making the same mistakes but worse. Eh.

The Order of Myths is a documentary about Mobile's Mardis Gras celebrations, one white and one black. Ugh to racism and the whites who try to argue that this all is fine. Not ugh to the documentary. Really interesting, but man, just the amount of segregation that is not even commented upon by most of the people. It's extremely disconcerting. All the white people saying that there were no problems with racism because the whites and blacks knew their places pissed me off immensely. But those costumes are very fun. And the young kings and queens were inspiring. I was definitely weepy when they visited each others' balls.

Tulia, Texas is a documentary about the Tulia drug bust in 1999, where a white sheriff and undercover cop were big racists and arrested a bunch of blacks. And man, was it messed up. The war on drugs is pants. And with the economy in such bad shape, we should just legalize and heavily regulate pot, and, you know, stop going after the drug users so much and go after the drug dealers. Actual dealers, not made up ones.

TV shows & museums

Reasons for no entry in a while: Doctor Who and Torchwood. Well, a few other things (like basketball (Go Duke!) and social life (hi, friends!)) as well. I'm midway through both season 4 of Doctor Who and 1 of Torchwood. Doctor Who is much better, especially after Billie Piper leaves the show. Eesh to her. Torchwood is still sort of cheesy, but the entire thing doesn't work nearly as well. The goofiness is out of place in a more adult show. Maybe they find their feet? Speaking of TV needing to find its feet, Dollhouse is getting better, but it's still easily the worst thing Whedon has done. It took a while for Buffy to start working after a good pilot, but it certainly did by the end of the first season. Dollhouse's actual pilot (the episode with the Middleman) certainly had a lot of promise and was quite good, even if basically every other one wasn't up to snuff. They've been improving, but I hope Fox allows Whedon the chance to show the episodes. Castle's pilot was fun, but I'm not sure how long that show can last, even though I'm thoroughly enjoying Nathan Fillion having a place to be awesome. Battlestar Galactica has been mindblowing, sometimes in its cheesyness, but I'm still upset that it's basically over so soon. Like, this week. Sigh to the ending of good shows.

The National Museum of American History was recently renovated, and I went there with Ms. Albright, along with an aunt and uncle. I remembered the vague shape of it from when I was there four years ago. There were some problems with crowded areas (it was a nice weekend day, and yet, for some reason, many people were inside). The First Lady's dresses exhibit was way too packed, with lines going all over the place. I did get to see the Colbert portrait, which was nice, as was the pop culture area, with most of my favorite stuff. The war area was also neat, although a little screwed up in design, as the World War I section couldn't be visited in chronological order, and the smell section of the Revolutionary War area was kinda gross. The Punch-esque tea diorama was a highlight. I still like the museum, but I don't need to go back anytime soon, unless there's an interesting exhibit.

The National Museum of Health and Medicine is hidden away at Walter Reed Hospital. Back on Valentine's Day, they had a free lecture on syphilis history in the US. By the way, don't scroll down too far on that page, unless you want to feel as disgusted as I was when I saw the model of a syphilitic penis after the lecture. The lecture itself, however, was a terrible powerpoint presentation. 87 slides, and John Parascandola (author of Sex, Sin, and Science: A History of Syphillis in America) just read them. Ugh. The information was interesting, but if you really want to ruin interesting, just read slides. And again, Americans really treat the sick like crap. And mercury poisoning is certainly much less bad than dying of syphilis, right? The history of syphilis treatments was fascinating. The museum less so, although there were some neat things, like a painting on plastic strips of a vivisected body. I'm not sure if it's really a great museum for those who haven't been in DC that long, unless you're interested in the subject, but for those looking for something most don't see, definitely check it out.

Caseus Archivelox: The Black Cat

2002-02-26
Few films before or since have confused me as much as this one. This is entirely because of Bela Lugosi’s incredibly thick accent. It is like Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker being combined into one person, who talks with marbles in his mouth, in pig Latin, backwards, and expects the audience to be able to follow it when he reads some Judith Butler film theory. It was so distractingly hard to follow that I think I missed some of the back-story of the movie. I am not sure whether that is a bad thing or a good thing, though. Karloff was excellent, and Lugosi may have been as well, if I had been able to understand most of what he said. The major problem for the movie occurs in that, as well as with most Hollywood films, the main romantic leads are bland and the secondary characters, who are rarely given enough screen time, are much more interesting.

Also, the title “suggested by the Edgar Allen Poe story” is one of the grossest lies I have seen performed upon the American public. There was a black cat in the movie. There were no women being buried with a live cat. I was upset. I like Poe, and that movie was no Poe.

The movie was really short, but included some of the most disturbing things I have seen in a movie, let alone one that was made under the Hayes production code. Necrophilia, Satanism, a character being flayed alive, a cat being killed, incest, revenge, murder, and possibly pedophilia are all included, even if not shown on screen.

The sets were very interesting, as the art deco sets are very different from the other horror films that normally have gothic styles, with lots of stone work, although the scenes from the tunnels under the house were reminiscent of the gothic style of architecture.

The use of chess as a metaphor for the struggle between good (Lugosi) and evil (Karloff) was repeated, in my opinion more successfully, in “The Seventh Seal” so it does have an interesting place in film history beyond the first time that Karloff and Lugosi were in the same movie. However, the director, Edgar G. Ulmer, seems to have forgotten to use close-ups to break up the medium-shots that seem to dominate the film. Had he broken up the chess game for the young couple’s life, the movie would have added some much needed tension; as it is, the movie is full of great ideas, but ultimately falls short due to execution.

2002-02-26 - 9:49 p.m.
I did see "The Black Cat", and unfortunately only one cat was killed. And it was offscreen. I'm all about animals being killed on-screen. That was a major problem with "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", the cat didn't kill the bird on screen. Anyway, I found it silly, and I had problems understanding Bela Lugosi. Karloff would have been better in that role, because I could understand him. It's like Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker being combined into one person, who talks with marbles in his mouth, in pig latin, backwards, and expects the audience to be able to follow it when he reads some Judith Butler film theory. To those who don't know what I'm talking about, he was very hard to understand through his thick accent.

Caseus Archivelox: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Fly, & Paris Is Burning

2002-02-25
First off, there is one too many pronunciations of Jekyll. People need to pronounce it correctly. It bothers me when I hear it pronounced correctly (as in the movie) and I cringe because of being misled and not corrected for so many years.

Also, the special effects of the dissolves for the transformations are sometimes perfect, and very impressive for the time. Although occasionally the dissolves are noticeable, I am not sure whether it was because I knew to look for them; they were nicely concealed, and subtler than most computer graphic work today.

I also appreciated the very sexual nature of the film, which, had it been released three years later, with the implementation of the Hays production code, would have been taken out and the film would have been less interesting from our standpoint. Sex is very important in the film, from the obvious lasciviousness of Mr. Hyde and semi-nude Ivy Pearson to the subtler hairy hands of Mr. Hyde (suggesting the “hairy palms” of masturbators) and the nude pictures in Ivy’s bedroom. Jekyll is an obviously sexually frustrated man, and when he is denied marriage with Muriel (and it’s accompanying conjugal rights), he “creates” the sexual predator Mr. Hyde (a play on the hidden sexual desires that he thinks are in all men) in order to fulfill his sexual appetites. With further transformations, the makeup becomes more pronounced and Hyde more disfigured. His sexual desires ultimately turn him into “one of the living dead” and destroy him.

The use of the first person camera help to force the viewer not only to see the world from Jekyll’s perspective, but also to identify with his feelings of sexual frustration and desire. When he is cornered in his lab at the end of the film, instead of using a medium or far shot of Dr. Lanyon pointing Jekyll out as Hyde, Mamoulian uses the first person shot, implicating the audience as a partner in Hyde’s crimes as well, suggesting that since the audience (presumably) took pleasure in the story, they have also turned into Hyde-like sexual deviants.

Having seen many Cronenberg films in my life (Scanners, Videodrome, The Fly, Dead Ringers, M. Butterfly, Crash, and eXistenZ), I am constantly amazed at how uncomfortable they make me feel, although M. Butterfly and Crash made me feel uncomfortable due to their not-as-good-ness, not creepy organic materials showing up in the weirdest places or head exploding. In The Fly, Cronenberg creates an organic monster that eventually becomes fused with inorganic materials (and thus must die, in Cronenberg’s organic-focused worldview). Even without the now famous “Help me” lines from the original film, Seth Brundle’s transformation into a fly is more disturbing and much more graphic than the original, and his use of his own vomit to eat and eventually as a weapon makes the audience even more disgusted than when the baboon is turned inside out. Although the plot holes occasionally get in the way of the audience (without a large amount of suspension of their disbelief), it is more enjoyable than some of Cronenberg’s later films.

The Fly is a painful story about the disintegration of a loved one in front of your eyes, which mirrors the decline of humans into old age, although it has some fun leprosy similarities, as parts of Brundle’s body fall off, and it could almost be seen as a metaphor for AIDS, but that would require some selective readings and ignorance of some of the facts of the movie. But the fears of seeing someone you love fall apart mirror the fears of other horror films of the 1980s like The Hunger, which also revolves around the fear of aging in the consumer and youth dominated culture of the 1980s.

2002-02-25 - 11:05 p.m.
So this morning, I went off to East Campus to watch two movies: "Paris is Burning" and "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde". Paris was a documentary about NYC drag queens in the late 1980s and their balls (note: not referring to their testicles) wherein they dance and strut trying to be things they're not, like being straight. It was funny (catty gay people are inherently funny (note: deadpanned to see who is paying attention)) and informative (I now know that Madonna stole voguing from the balls where it is a sort of way to insult other people by dancing rather than fighting) and eventually sad (one of the transsexuals was beaten to death and left for four days under a motel bed before his/hers/its body was found (remind me not to stay at that motel)). I waited around for [female friend] to watch "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", and enjoyed it. Neat special effects, and lots of sexual innuendo. Although I did manage to embarrass myself when I was mocking Hyde's ridiculous overbite, and [classmate] from my Sexualities class walked by. She had just enjoyed "Paris is Burning" as well. Whoops.

Caseus Archivelox: We Were Soldiers

2002-02-24 - 3:01 p.m.
When I got to the theater around 6:05, there were already a lot of people in line for "We Were Soldiers". It was the typical sneak preview Freewater people running around with our heads cut off trying to figure everything out. That was compounded by the fact that the basketball team's managers didn't show up early enough to get good seats. But it worked out fine, as they got seats. I got to rip Coach K's ticket, and I think [girlfriend] still has his stub. We almost completely filled up Griffith, which is nice, because it only took an extra half an hour before we got started.
The movie itself was fairly good. Nothing incredibly new, but it wasn't as bad as "The Patriot" or most other recent war movies. It was an interesting take on early Vietnam, with not as much crappy John Wayne style heroics (like in "The Green Berets") and more about the fighting in Vietnam rather than emotional head games (like in "The Deerhunter", "Apocalypse Now", "Full Metal Jacket", and "Platoon"). Sam Elliott was good as the cranky Sgt. Major, although his (and most other) dialogue in the movie was mixed way too low. The sound effects and music were loud enough. [Girlfriend] was made really uncomfortable by the violence (and especially by the scene where the reporter (Barry Pepper, making up somewhat for his performance in "Battlefield Earth") tries to pick up the wounded mortar guy, but ends up ripping the charred flesh from his legs, which I found disturbing as well). The movie was sort of full of Randy Wallace pounding some things into the audience's heads. But the battle scenes were well done.
After hanging around to hear Randy defend the movie fairly well, and also "The Man in the Iron Mask", which I probably should rewatch at some point, and again ramming my thigh into the armrests in Griffith (in front of one of the co-producers of the film, who nicely asked if I was ok), and also walking by Marc "Riley" Blucas, but not being willing to talk to him (because I hate Riley), [girlfriend] and I went off to the Purim party.

Caseus Archivelox: Bride of Frankenstein

2002-02-11
This is easily the best movie we have seen so far this semester, and it is probably the best of the Universal horror films. The opening scene of Mary and Percy Bysse Shelley and Lord Byron is just the perfect opening for the movie, as it sets the tone of the rest of the film as a camp version of the monster movies that had been the vogue. It spoofs the very movies that it tops in quality. There’s the screaming annoying maid, the staid butler who in unperturbed by the strangest experiences, the sinister mad doctor, the virginal bride, the doctor who does not want to create the monster, but is forced to, and the monster who learns to speak.

The bride of the monster herself is an interesting character, as in about three minutes of screen time, she manages to make an indelible impression upon the audience, and cause observant viewers to applaud Whale’s sense of humor. He has the bride recoil from the monster’s touch into Frankenstein’s arms, a small oedipal twist, with the daughter being afraid of the new man in her life, and retreating to the comfort of her father.

But before that is the best character in the Universal horror films: Dr. Pretorius. He is the best evil doctor in movie history, with a hidden homosexual coded, blatantly devilish character, who moves between Frankenstein and his fiancée again. The devil-ness of Pretorius is made explicit when he compares the mini-devil to himself (predating Mini-me in the Austin Powers movies by over 60 years). The homosexual coding, which is all that was possible during the days of the Hays Code, extends to his drawing Henry from Elizabeth every time they are alone, and when Pretorius and Frankenstein are alone creating the bride for the monster, they are shot in a series of canted angles, but mirrored, linking them together even more.

I have not even mentioned the incredible scenes of the monster and the hermit and the Christ-like capture of the monster by the mob in the forest. The movie is just filled with incredible scenes, inventive camera angles (which must have been incredibly influential on Sam Raimi, amongst other directors), and memorable characters.

Caseus Archivelox: Poison & Frankenstein

2002-02-06 - 12:02 a.m.
I went off to watch Poison. Really weird gay movie. It was for my Sexualities in Film class, so at least that fits. Weird thing is that it was the first of two movies I watched today that included disfigured characters seeing themselves in reflective surfaces with no disfigured features (the other was Abre Los Ojos). Weird.
So I saw five movies the past two days: "The Seventh Seal", "The Magician", "Poison", "Frankenstein", and "Abre Los Ojos". That's too many movies.

2002-02-07
Why is it that the movies that are based upon the original source texts in the Universal horror genres are usually not as good as the later sequels (with the exception of “The Invisible Man” which had no sequels, and was excellent in its own right)? Probably some of that is due to the limitations of the source materials, but I think that most of it is due to the problem that Hollywood has had with most sequels: they are afraid to do anything special with the first movie, in the hope that it can spawn an equally conservative sequel due to high box office receipts. Both “Dracula” and “Frankenstein” do not challenge the audience at all, with simple characters, poor special effects, and laughable dialogue. Although later sequels would succumb to the Hollywood-ization of the stories by making them only for money, both “Dracula’s Daughter” and “Bride of Frankenstein” take the original stories further than before and add in lesbianism and psychiatry, along with dry wit, to make the stories more attractive than the relatively bland first entries in the series. Another point to make is that they waited for five and four years before making the sequels, which allowed for a good script to be written and imaginative ideas to be included. Most sequels today rarely wait more than a couple years, and do nothing special with the story.

I was upset to notice that it was not Fritz in “Frankenstein” and that it was a later movie that introduced Ygor to the audience. I love “Young Frankenstein” and could have sworn that Ygor was in this one, but it was fun to see so many other scenes that had been spoofed so well in “Young Frankenstein”. And “Bride of Frankenstein” has some scenes as well that are famous and incredible.

James Whale is really the reason why “Frankenstein” has any interest to modern audiences today, besides the obvious historical interest.

Caseus Archivelox: The Magician

2002-02-05
An Ingmar Bergman thinking man’s horror film. At least that is one description of it I have read. In the movie, a “magician” (Volger) who studied under Mesmer enters 1846 Stockholm with his wife, his grandmother, a drunk and dying actor, and his handler. He and his wife (Amanda) are disguised (and he has acted mute) in order to throw off the police who want them for undisclosed crimes, but likely related to the fact that they are frauds and do all their healing with mirrors and the like. They are lead to the house of a city council member, who is waiting with a doctor (Vergérus) and the chief of police who want to expose the magician as a fraud. That night, Vergérus tells Volger he wants the magician to make him feel something. During one of their tricks the next morning, one of the servants of the house “kills” the magician. I want to write about one of the later (9 min. long) scenes that is the only scary scene in the movie. The doctor takes what he believes to be the body of the magician up into the attic and performs an autopsy on it. The magician’s wife locks the doctor in the attic at the bequest of a muffled voice and a hand, and after he finishes writing the autopsy’s findings down, the doctor begins to hear and see strange things. First, he hears an extra chime on the clock, and when he tries to start writing more, he sees an eye in his inkstand. Then his papers are knocked off the desk, and when he attempts to organize them, a hand is put on the papers. He stands up, insinuates that it is the heat that is causing him to see and experience these weird incidents and tries to leave, only to find that he has been locked in the room. When the doctor tries to find some tools to break the lock on the door, he looks into a mirror and sees the disembodied head of the magician. An interesting cut to the face of the doctor is used to show that the head is not there for the uninvolved audience, but for the doctor alone, as only after the cut to the doctor’s face do we see the head in the background of the mirror. He tries to confirm that the head is not on the body that he has just autopsied, but something rips his glasses off right before he can do so, and then steps on them to break them. Assuming that he is dreaming, the doctor then sits down to wait until he wakes up, but hears the clock chime again, unnaturally. Right beyond the clock is a mirror, and the doctor sees the magician in it, standing right behind him. As a short bass drum roll is the first music in the scene builds, the mirror cracks, the music stops, and the doctor gets up and runs to the other side of the attic to check the mirror. He backs up against a slotted wall and is choked by a hand that comes through the wall as the drums begin again, and quiet down only to build slowly except for certain startling scenes. Escaping, he stumbles to the other side of the room, and falls into a dirty hole in the floor that could be construed as a coffin. Standing up again, the doctor begins to follow the magician through the slotted wall, until the magician sticks his hand out to stop him. The magician (in the rags of the now-dead actor) then begins to walk slowly towards the sitting doctor who flees, still sitting down. The drums build again, and a tambourine joins in giving the proceedings an eerie rattle, until he falls down the stairs and starts to scream. The magician is stopped from attacking the doctor by the timely intervention of his wife. The doctor says that all he got was a slight fear of death, when it is obvious that he was more than a little afraid for his life.

The scene is genuinely frightening, as the audience is not sure whether the magician is actually dead or not. Vergérus is the pinnacle of science and the fear in his eyes at the supernatural experience that he has (with the magician coming back from the dead to exact his revenge upon the doctor, in classic gothic fashion) is an interesting look at the tendency of all people to believe what they see rather than what makes rational sense when they are threatened. As for music, there is only a small amount of disjointed pizzicato string music at the very beginning as the hand tells Amanda to lock the attic, but for most of the scene there is little dialogue or music, and so the audience focuses upon the strange goings on onscreen. Whenever something strange occurs, the drums stop.

Caseus Archivelox: The Conversation & Training Day

2002-02-03 - 12:04 a.m.
I also saw "The Conversation". I can't believe I hadn't seen that before, it was great. Gene Hackman is such a good actor. The only thing was it sort of freaked me out, because I don't need more reasons to be paranoid.
I saw "Training Day" and it was horrible. Denzel was even bad in it. Fuqua can fuqu-off. Haha, I'm clever.

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains, The Terror of Tiny Town, Death Note, Death Note: The Last Name, & more

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist is extremely disappointing. There was some good music (Bishop Allen cameo), and the basic plot was somewhat enjoyable. And how many PG-13 films climax with a handjob? But the amount of disgusting places gum is put and then put back into mouths is just terrible. I had such high hopes, and it never came close to meeting them. Actually, the best things about the film were the posters in Nick's room. Lots of awesome indie rock posters and album covers. The best thing about the DVD was the puppet performance by Kat Dennings. The movie could have used that bear.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains has a naked 15 year old Diane Lane (in one of her first movie roles). And it was shown on TCM. I'm not sure if I feel dirty or not. But a 15 year old Diane Lane, along with many, many other young women in see-through red tops should be enough to get anyone to want to watch this film. It's a Lou Adler film, who's famous for doing many music related things, like produce Rocky Horror Picture Show, Tapestry, and directed Cheech & Chong Up in Smoke. He's famous, you see. Oh, and it also is one of Laura Dern's first films. And it has Ray Winstone fronting a band made up of Paul Cook, Steve Jones, and Paul Simonon. It's a music industry and consumerism satire, and works well due to the strong performances from Ray and Diane. She's not given that much to do, but she does it well.

The Terror of Tiny Town is horrible. And is is both the best all-midget, all-singing, all-Western movie of all time, and the worst. Seriously, it kind of needs to be seen, but I'm not sure the little over an hour is worth it to most people.

Death Note and Death Note: The Last Name are the two part live-action adaptation of the manga about a student who finds a notebook that, when you write a name in it, kills people within 40 seconds by a heart attack. Of course, the kid is a law student, so he kills bad people, but the police want to find out how he's able to kill virtually anyone. There's a secret police officer who is wacky and awesome, and is pretty much the best thing in both movies by far. Unfortunately, the second movie is not particularly good, but the first one is enjoyable. The second focuses too much on a second death note and a character I didn't like very much. It follows the manga's visual style quite closely, but the added girlfriend character isn't really needed. The CGI'd Angels of Death were crappy, even if they again matched the manga, but really, just not that impressive.

And for those of you who were wondering what was up with my lack of updates, I've been kind of busy with a variety of things, including my social life and embracing my Englishness with watching Doctor Who. It's cheesy and silly and stupid and all, but I still kind of like it. Once I've caught up with that I have Torchwood to go as well. Oh, I've also finished watching Foyle's War, which was a strong detective series and working quite well with my Britishness. It also clears out more stuff recorded last summer. Plus, Masterpiece Mystery has Edward Gorey (who was a fan of The X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer?!?) introductory drawings, one of the things I remember vividly from watching them when I was a youngster with my parents. That's all well and good, but it's mainly an excuse to post a link to The Recently Deflowered Girl, a sadly out-of-print etiquette book. If you didn't see this in January, do so. Seance and Chinese Detective are my two favorite.

Caseus Archivelox: Aaron McGruder speech

2002-01-22 - 9:44 a.m.
Anyway, last night, I went to see Aaron McGruder (writer of "Boondocks") talk at Page, and he was witty and intelligent. For one, he wants people to read Michael Moore's "Downsize This". But he also denounced things like "Ali" (problems with both Will Smith and Michael Mann, but also with the whole idea of the movie, which was derivative and could have been done better, and of course the fact that Mario Van Peebles is still working), "How High" (I didn't tell him that it played much better to the African-American audience than it did to the whites in the audience here at Duke), most of the really cheap "New Wave of Blaxspoitation" (my phrase) movies made for $6 million and that make $25 million, and most African-American actors currently working. He did say he liked Chris Rock (he had gone to see "Two Can Play That Game" with him) and Spike Lee, although he disliked "Bamboozled" as a deliberately false view of Hollywood, when the true version would have been just as skrewed up. He also said he liked "When We Were Kings", which is an excellent documentary, if you haven't already seen it. But he was most interesting on the war, as if you haven't been keeping up with his comic, he's one of the first people to have denounced the war as what it really is, an excuse to shut down the civil liberties of all Americans in the "defense" of a war that cannot be won, as any person with access to explosives can be a terrorist, and you cannot win a war against that. But of course, Bush can never declare the war over, because it just takes one person to blow up a building, and the FBI and CIA love being able to tap more phones and everything. Anyway, the speech was funny and fascinating, and it was great that some people in the audience were treating it as a sort of church meeting, screaming out "yes"'s and such (although no one said "Amen"), and it made the speech more interesting. The problem was that there was a video beforehand, with a white male in the Medical School who said after the MLK assassination (basically, I'm paraphrasing here) "I want someone to calm down the people and make sure they don't come for me". He was greeted with howls of derisive laughter, Bruce. The best guy (from a comedy standpoint, as both Major Dean and Dr. William Turner from the Divinity department were well-spoken about MLK and other issues) was Willie Burt who, at one point, said, "Since this is the only planet that has life on it, that I know of", which got more laughter. He seemed like he was trying a little too hard to sound intelligent.
After that, Alicia and I went to say hi to Aaron at the Mary Lou Williams Center. He was nice and intelligent in person as well.

Caseus Archivelox: Brotherhood of the Wolf & Tell Me Something

2002-01-20 - 11:21 a.m.
The weather last night was pretty bad, and the fact that we were soaked didn't help the movies pass. I sat next to [female friend] for "Brotherhood of the Wolf" and we were both laughing through most of it. Although we were laughing at different parts, as she was laughing at mainly bad translations, while I was laughing at how over the top it was. All in all, one of the stupidest movies I've seen in a while. But the fight scenes were well done, if not too believable, as there was this sword made of bone that would fly out on a chain or something, and all the bad guys always attacked one at a time. 1 on 20 is much easier when the 20 attack very slowly. And since when did French peasants know Kung Fu? Or Indians for that matter? Also, way, way too much slow motion, and not just during the fighting, and the next time I see someone dissolve from breasts to mountains will be way too many for me. Could you get any more juvenile?
"Tell Me Something" was much better. Very stylish, and just confusing enough to make sure that you needed to talk about various plot points to understand it all. I like movies like that. Others didn't, and I think that one or two plot points were sort of holes rather than points, but that could have been (and I think was) intentional. Koreans are like that. (Yes, that was an ethnic stereotype. But I didn't mean it.) Also the film broke in the movie, it was just like Freewater. And the main female character was channeling Gwyneth Paltrow through the entire movie.

Caseus Archivelox: Jezebel

2002-01-18 - 11:45 p.m.
I did see "Jezebel" at Griffith though, and that was sort of eh. It did have some good lines though. It also had a great incredibly uncomfortable conversation. I like them because it reminds me of how I talk to women.
Julie: Oh Preston, you forgot your stick.
Preston: So I did. I forgot to use it, too.
Julie: So you did.
Right after Julie basically emasculated him. Funny funny.
Buck: Well, you talk mighty like a black abolitionist.
Preston: I think you know I'm no abolitionist. I believe the tide has turned against us. But I'll swim against that tide just as far as you will, Cantrell.
That was one of many lines that made me cringe. The movie was full of African-American characters with big bulgey eyes, and at least 90% of their lines were "Yessim" or the equivalent. And I'm supposed to sympathize when these slave-owning characters get killed or die? Hell, I'm happy they die. Stupid racist jerks.
Then they had some silly "Yellow Jack" intertitles, and it was sillily orchestrated.
All in all, a silly movie, but Bette Davis was good. If I were Preston, though, I would have stayed up North and kept Amy. Bette Davis's eyes are too prominent and her chin is too small.

Caseus Archivelox: Dracula’s Daughter

2002-01-31
Considering the fame of “Dracula” and the fact that I’d never heard of “Dracula’s Daughter” before, I was somewhat surprised to find that “Dracula’s Daughter” seemed like much less of a hack job than “Dracula” was. Part of this can be ascribed to the lesser importance of the actual Dracula myth (which severely limited the ability of “Dracula” to create any new ground in cinema), but I think the more interesting feature of “Dracula’s Daughter” is its importance in queer theory.
Dracula’s daughter is the first filmic lesbian vampire, and as such is historically important to see how she is portrayed in the movie. Her male helper (who looks like a mixture between Phil Hartman and Christopher Reeve) is somewhat androgynous and is unable to leave what is obviously a one-sided relationship with the countess. He does her bidding with only one short whine that she had promised to turn him into a vampire instead of another character. The only interesting aspect of his character is his similarity to Cesare from “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari”, another reference to one of the most influential movies of the silent era.
The countess herself is a fairly strong female character who, even after the first murder of a man, has a predilection for “painting” young women in various states of undress. If this movie had been made later, I have no doubt that she would have used nude models instead of just asking for her to uncover her shoulders. But she is a predatory lesbian, who destroys all the women she touches, and thus, the countess must destroy Lili. At least, from the dominant male and societal perspective, that is what occurs, although in reality, Garth’s inability to help the countess fight against her vampiric (lesbian) tendencies is more at fault for the deaths. Zaleska is, by far, the strongest female character in the Universal horror films, and that contrasts starkly with one of the most annoying male leads in Garth. He tortures the woman who loves him unconditionally, ignores warnings, and goes after a woman who is just using him. Zaleska fights against what has been her lot in life, and although she fails, that attempt is not seen in many of the Universal horror films, let alone by a female character. But in the end, she is destroyed not by a man, but by her failure to stay queer and her falling in love with Garth.
The fact that Zaleska looks to a psychiatrist to solve her vampiric tendencies is an interesting twist on the vampire myth. But she cannot solve her vampirism by psychiatry, as it is part of her, and is destroyed by opening herself up to the male psychiatrist. The same could be an argument for accepting lesbian tendencies. She cannot solver her lesbian by psychiatry, as it is an accepted part of her, and is destroyed from a queer view because of her falling in love with a man.

Caseus Archivelox: Dracula

2002-01-29
Considering how many horror films I have seen and enjoyed, my taste for the Universal Horror films of the 1930s and 1940s is mainly limited to James Whale’s darkly comic takes on the genre’s conventions and classic scenes. This movie did not change my mind on them one bit. Besides the inevitable shortening of the plot and the horribly histrionic acting of many of the actors (which is not as necessary for sound films as it is for silent films), there is little to like in this fairly drab version of the Dracula myth. Bela Lugosi labors over every word, as one would expect from someone who did not know any English before starting the role, and his Dracula “acting” is really limited to looking at the camera with a rectangle of light on his face. If someone with more talent had been directing or writing this movie, it could have turned into something much more rewarding, but instead it is a fairly weak Dracula story. Renfield is creepy, but should not have been raised to being the star of the film (as he has been here, because the other male characters are incredibly flat and poorly acted).
Anyway, I just wanted to complain about that movie. The horrible bat effects did not help it much either.
One of the nice things about the movie is the restraint with which it deals with what is normally a main feature of vampire films: blood. The only blood that I remember seeing was when Renfield poked himself with a paperclip. I do not remember even seeing Dracula bite anyone’s neck or seeing any bite marks on anyone’s neck. It is almost as if the vampire parts of the story are being hidden behind what is essentially a creepy story of a foreigner attempting to steal away a woman from her fiancée. Almost all parts of the supernatural aspects of the story have been removed. It is more of a gothic story, with extended scenes of people arguing about the existence of vampires, than a true horror film. Very little is scary in the strictest sense, with more emphasis focused upon the fact that it is almost a story that could occur today. Ignoring the times when Dracula turns into an animal, or the times when he cannot be seen in the mirror (which is driven into the audience’s mind to make sure that they do not miss that subtle shot), it is a fairly traditional spook story.
Another thing about the movie is the fact that it is subtly anti-Semitic, as Dracula wears a Star of David on his cloak and is scared by crosses. He is also a foreigner threatening the well being of the young women of England (and the American audience). “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar”, but I think that with Browning’s history, I would not be surprised if he was anti-Semitic.

Caseus Archivelox: Un Chien Andalou

2002-01-22
With little context or plot, “Un Chien Andalou” could play as a sort of insane person’s dream, and that is almost a definition of surrealism. Nothing makes sense from a rational viewpoint, and nothing is supposed to make sense. No meaning should be clear from the images. There is nothing to link any shot to the next, and, although some shots share the same characters, there is little to suggest that any shots should link to the next one. This is one of the first true surrealist films. Although Salvador Dali would eventually do more work in film, including designing the incredible dream sequence in “Spellbound” (which made sense from a psychoanalytic standpoint), this is the pinnacle of shock surrealism. The shot of the barber cutting open the girl’s eye is so shocking that nothing in film history has been able to come close in causing complete discomfort for the audience. This is, of course, precisely what Dali and Buñuel wanted to do. Although later scenes were not quite as shocking, it kept the dream aspect of surrealism very strong. Ants crawling out of hands, dead donkeys, priests, and the ten commandments on two pianos, two people almost completely buried in sand all defy any logical explanation that would be able to comfort any audience that attempted to watch the film. Surrealism is the attempt to make dreams real, and this movie does this well, as the man fondles the clothed woman, which, with a quick dissolve, shows what he really sees: her naked body. But this shot is only one of many in the film that would make sense from a logical standpoint on their own in a film of otherwise rational shots, contribute to the overall sensory and mental overload that the film forces upon the viewer.
While Buñuel has gone on to make more structured, and sensible films, this one will be his most famous as it was a very early film, scandalizing the audience, and setting out to do what it was designed to do: confuse everyone and not allow for easy deconstruction.

Caseus Archivelox: Nosferatu: Eine Symphonie des Grauens

2002-01-17
This being an unofficial version of Bram Stoker’s famous novel, Dracula, due to the copyright issues brought up by the Stoker estate, the names were changed. Even with the different names, this version of the novel is far superior to most other versions, as there is not the sense of camp that dominates most entries into the vampire filmography. The first vampire film has some of the clichés of the vampire subgenre fully in place, as was inevitable from its being based upon Dracula. However, it does diverge significantly from most vampires, as this is the first time that a vampire is shown to be destroyed by direct sunlight and Nosferatu is the ugliest vampire in movie history: nothing has come close. And most significantly, from the name Nosferatu, which means “plague-carrier”, comes a thinly disguised treatise on the dangers of sex (i.e. venereal disease).
As Nosferatu must sleep every night in the dirt from graveyards that held plague victims, he can be seen as the embodiment of the plague. As he kills, rumors of the plague surround the murders. Hutter himself is an incompetent who is unable to either stop or kill Nosferatu, and the strong feminine character of Ellen is an interesting contrast. The book on vampires also says that the only way to kill a vampire is for a woman without sin to offer herself to the vampire and make sure that he is still there when the cock crows. The effect of offering herself to the vampire can be seen as sex, and coming into contact with the “plague-carrier” must cause her death, but the fact that the plague is brought out into the open, will save many others. The animal nature of Schreck’s makeup (especially the two front rat-like fangs, rather than the more recent use of canine fangs) emphasizes the dehumanizing nature of the plague. Also, instead of the main animal being linked to the vampire being a bat, a wolf and especially rats are more closely related to Nosferatu, making him seem even more abnormal (even for a vampire) than future versions, where the foreign Count part of Count Dracula was emphasized rather than the vampire aspect.

Caseus Archivelox: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

2002-01-15
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari contains one of the, if not the, first deliberately false flashback in movie history, Francis’s dream sequence, intended to confuse the audience. The set design during the dream sequence itself allows for the audience’s discomfort over the story to be heightened, as the lack of any right angles and exaggerated histrionic acting make the movie seem more unreal. The German expressionist set design causes a cinematically knowledgeable viewer to question the reliability of Francis’s version of the events, as the set design and acting have become the classic way to tell a dream sequence. That the framing parts of the story were added later does nothing to detract from the effectiveness of the sequence. Although it does detract somewhat from the theme of questioning authority, if we are to assume that Francis is not insane, it does cause the viewer to come to the conclusion that the authority in the asylum is more insane than the patients. However, the framing also forces the viewer to look closely at how his story of the somnambulist has allowed Francis to fulfill all of his dreams. Cesare kills by stabbing, using a phallic symbol to remove Alan, the main threat to his being the only lover of Jane. Although the first murder has nothing to do with his love for Jane, it could be taken as either the random murder is the main reason for Francis to be in the asylum in the first place, or, more likely, as a way to justify in his mind that he is not the one who committed all of these crimes, because he never knew the clerk. When he, in his alternate body as the somnambulist, comes to stab Jane, he is incapable of doing so, symbolically showing his impotence, and giving insight to the viewer the reasons for Cesare killing with a knife. After he realizes that he cannot consummate his relationship with Jane, in reality because they are both in an insane asylum, and fraternizing of the patients in that matter was probably discouraged, his mind fixates on the director, the reason that he believes he cannot be with the woman he loves, and invents his version of the events that have so far made up the story, including the linking of the director with the historically insane Dr. Caligari. The parallels between his suppression (in the Carrollian sense) and the director’s in his dream show that Francis has just taken what he knows and projected it upon the other inmates and doctors at the asylum.

From Beyond, Jean de Florette, & Manon of the Spring

It's the "1986 called and it wants its movies back" film fest post.

From Beyond is pretty much a normal H.P. Lovecraft story adapted by the people who were behind Re-Animator. As such, it suffers from being nowhere near as good as that film. One bonus is that this doesn't have a head giving head. That was very freaky. And also at only 85 minutes long, it felt padded. Which is to be expected, since it's based on a short story. I always enjoy a good Jeffrey Combs performance (and Ted Sorel isn't too bad either (even after he has his head bitten off)), but this one was unfortunately dependent more on Barbara Crampton. Who, while having a nice set of breasts and not being afraid to show them off, isn't all that good. When I first saw Ken Foree, I realized he was the token black guy and was going to die. Luckily for the film and my enjoyment of it, most others died too. But not all of them ended up fighting a big sandworm-type thing in their orange bikini briefs. Really? That's how you're going to take advantage of having Ken Foree in your film?

Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring tell the story of a hunchback and his farm, which two neighbors basically steal from him by covering up a spring, and his daughter who takes revenge upon them. It's pretty good, although it's basically two parts of a single story, so you have to watch both. Meaning four hours of French, and only two hours do you get to see Emmanuelle Béart. The first two you're stuck with Gérard Depardieu as a hunchback. Not that pretty. And the ending was a kick in the balls.

Caseus Archivelox: Flirting

2001-12-31 - 5:58 p.m.
This afternoon I saw a movie I had really enjoyed the first time I saw it: "Flirting" a 1991 film with Noah Taylor (from both "Almost Famous" (the manager) and "Tomb Raider" (does it matter? I can't remember who any of them are)), Nicole Kidman (better than in that crappy movie that people keep putting on their best of the year lists, even one that says "10) "Moulin Rouge" Somebody needs to get Baz Luhrmann out of the editing room. Somebody needs to tell him that it's insane to set up one visually encrusted shot after another and then not give us time to drink it in. But like his previous film, "William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet," this whacked-out musical annoyed the hell out of me and then stayed in my head for weeks. No other movie this year believes in its own wackiness the way "Moulin Rouge" does, and that gives it the courage of its heart-on-the-sleeve convictions. You could say Luhrmann's gargantuan production design is a way of disguising the simple story at its core, except that it never obscures the charm of Ewan MacGregor and Nicole Kidman, or keeps their tale of doomed love from getting to us. The most disciplined of undisciplined moviemakers, Luhrmann has made something like a speed freak's version of grand opera." I almost agree with it, except where it says that Luhrmann's style never gets in the way of the story), Thandie Newton (one reason why I thought MI:2 could have been good, but was sorely disappointed), and another girl I recognized this time around, Naomi Watts.
The only problem with it was that it was on WE so it was edited. Some sort of jumpy scenes.
Beh.

Caseus Archivelox: Naked States & Virtual Sexuality

2001-12-14 - 12:06 a.m.
I feel sort of guilty about taping over "Body Heat" with "Naked States" though. Ugh, don't watch "Naked States" anyone. It's horrible. You may be attracted by the fact that it's about a guy who goes around taking pictures of nude people, but at 73 minutes long, I felt it was waaaaaaaaay too long. It could have been about five minutes long. And that probably would have been too long. The guy was just not interesting. If people want to see nudity, I recommend "Virtual Sexuality" a British teen-comedy, with lots and lots and lots of male full frontal nudity. So much that they had to put red x's on top of the penii so that it didn't get an NC-17 rating. Not that a lot of flaccid far off (insert penis euphemism that begins with f) should be enough to get an NC-17, but god forbid, people know what the male and female anatomy look like, because there was no sex at all in the movie. Was it a good movie? Not by a long shot, but it was fairly interesting to know that Hollywood isn't the only one marketing tripe to teenagers that just isn't appropriate for them. I like to refer to this movie as "Disney with dicks", as it's just like a Disney movie, with stupid morals and flat characters, but with a ridiculously dirty mind, but I really haven't referred to this movie in any other place, or to any other people, because I seem to have given some people the impression that I'm only about nudity, when I don't even like being nude in my room alone. I just find nudity interesting when included in movies as an attempt to increase the money the movie makes, but in this movie, I include it totally in the "Gratuitous Nudity" hall of fame, not so much because it wasn't needed for the plot, but I can't figure out why the hell the movie was made in the first place.

Caseus Archivelox: Night of the Comet & Return of the Living Dead

2001-12-08 - 11:19 a.m.
Well, anyway, I wanted to say a little about the movies last night, for those of you who haven't seen it, see "Night of the Comet" as soon as possible. Very, very funny movie, with some great 80s stuff and an interesting line about the last guy on earth not coming on to a woman, so he was either a gentleman or gay. "Return of the Living Dead" was strangely unsatisfying, although the midget zombie was still very funny, and I am a big fan of cataloging the most gratuitous nudity in film, and one character just decides to dance totally nude on a grave, and then proceeds to be completely nude (except for legwarmers, as this is the 1980s) for the rest of the movie. Just sort of not worth it.

Caseus Archivelox: The Quick and the Dead

2001-12-02 - 1:54 a.m.
Another thing, don't start to watch a movie at 1:30 in the morning, even if you like the director and have seen it before, because more often than not, you'll hate the star and wish that someone with talent had been cast in that role, so that the movie wouldn't have been so supreme a disappointment. For this one, it was "The Quick and the Dead". I hadn't seen it in a couple years, and I still think that Sharon Stone is a horrible actress. There is probably a link between seeing someone's whisker biscuit and lack of respect for their acting talents. Although I still respect Jenny Agutter, because she at least has picked some great movies to be in ("Walkabout" and "American Werewolf in London"). Maybe that theory just refers to Sharon Stone. Anyway, all the quick zooms and close-ups didn't bother me as much this time. And Leonardo DiCaprio is a good actor, as is Russell Crowe, probably some of the best work that either of them has done, although "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" and "L.A. Confidential" are still their best. And of course Gene Hackman was excellent.

Caseus Archivelox: Peking Opera Blues

2001-11-29 - 3:05 p.m.
Here's a collection of some great misspelled and misused subtitles from Peking Opera Blues, one of the movies from the Martial Arts Series from Freewater. It not only was funny, but it was a good movie as well.
Keep in mind that I was laughing so hard I missed some.
"God, if I ever sing for a living again, I'll no longer be a man." This was a woman.
"Recarinate as a man."
"Tide him up, if he didn't, take it castrate him."
"There's a woman: knock her up."
"They tossing for the general."
"Is you? How come is you?"
"If you think this place is too crowdy, I'm going to blow up."
"Tide up the bed sheet." "Tide it up?" "Yes."
"Don't pretend to be miserious." (mysterious)
"You feel lonely. Sentence them at night."
Also, they used crowdy instead of crowded every time, knock instead of lock, and tide instead of tie. Lot's of things were crowdy, knocked up, and tided.
I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Cyrano de Bergerac, Protocols of Zion, & Palindromes

Cyrano de Bergerac is a filmed version of the 2007 stage play and stars Kevin Kline as the titular character, Jennifer Garner as Roxane, Chris Sarandon as De Guiche, and Daniel Sunjata as Christian. It's highly enjoyable, due to the always enjoyable Kevin Kline and Chris Sarandon. It took me a while before I recognized him. I'm a big fan of the play, having seen Roxanne many times, along with reading the play back in high school, and seeing Kevin Kline just become him was worth the 2.5 hour long run time. If you have a chance to see it (it was on Great Performances on PBS a couple weeks ago and is on DVD now), I highly recommend it.

Protocols of Zion is a documentary, and I thought it was actually going to be about the history of the Protocols of the Elder of Zion. Which I guess I have to wait for some other movie, or maybe just buy the Will Eisner comic version. This was just a fitfully interesting documentary, rarely insightful, and frequently frustrating in its inability to go anywhere other than the surface. Eh.

Palindromes is Todd Solondz's film. And all that means, for better or worse. Pedophilia, abortion, Christian fundamentalism, shooting abortion doctors, and, above all, utter pretension. Seriously, there's a reason no one else would fund this film. Because it's not good. I liked Welcome to the Dollhouse, and Happiness and Storytelling were at least interesting. This was just bad, with eight different actresses playing the lead, ranging from Jennifer Jason Leigh to thirteen-year-olds to a fat black woman. The thing that pissed me off the most was the Christian fundamentalists were taking in people with birth defects, and they sing terrible Christian music. Just ugh.

Jumper, Wages of Fear, Horrors of Malformed Men, Snake Woman's Curse, & Blind Woman's Curse

Jumper begins promisingly enough, and then Hayden Christensen appears. Is there anyone who would have been good as Anakin Skywalker? Certainly not him, and he's really terrible here, as is basically everyone in the film, even the normally enjoyable Diane Lane, Michael Rooker (both of whom were given nothing to do) and Samuel L. Jackson. The only thing that makes the film enjoyable at all is Jamie Bell, as another jumper who hunts Paladins who hunt jumpers. Apparently, very little of this comes remotely close to the book. So the question becomes, who's responsible for this infanticide? The studio, the director Doug Liman, or the three writers Simon Kinberg, David S. Goyer, and Jim Uhls? Sadly, I think everyone is to blame. The film is only 88 minutes long, suggesting studio meddling in an attempt to make the film remotely sensible. Doug Liman is talented, but there is a messiness to this film that suggests no actual plan to make this film work with such a wooden cast and terrible script. Why, exactly, scriptwriters, did you need to create the Paladins? Why not just keep the NSA as the bad guys? Seriously, this movie is a completely bad idea and sometimes you just need to make fewer crap movies with good ideas that would make someone like me think it could be acceptable. This was not good, Hollywood, not good.

Wages of Fear is the original film that Sorcerer is based on. I saw Sorcerer years ago, and it was a very good and tense film. To describe the plot simply: four guys have to drive a truck of nitroglycerin across Central America. Somehow, it stretches to two and a half hours of extremely tense scenes and greatness. I like films where people just go back and forth in various languages, and this one goes back and forth from French to English a lot, and includes Spanish and German as well. As much as you might expect this film to be ridiculously simplistic, the tension mounts, due to the great direction by Henri-Georges Clouzot, and it's just a masterpiece.

Horrors of Malformed Men is the first in a series of three bizarre Japanese films I watched this weekend. And it's probably the most bizarre film I've seen in a long time. How many films can you think of that are banned in Japan? This is partly due to the title, which references the people disfigured by the atomic bombs (along with using an offensive term in the original Japanese for the malformed men), but also, there are huge sections that are very similar to the grostequeries of Caligula, but it isn't mediocre porn (just many, many topless women sewed to goats or other people). It's actually a combination of short stories by Edogawa Rampo (say it quickly, and remember these are detective stories), but it actually works quite well as a single story. Not sure it's all that good of a movie, but it's really not too much like other ones.

Snake Woman's Curse is supposed to be a ghostly horror movie, but it isn't very scary. It is, however, a condemnation of 16th century Japanese feudal society inequality. Blind Woman's Curse stars Meiko Kaji as a yakuza who accidentally blinds a woman and a cat starts to torment her. There are some weird visuals, and it's somewhat more of a yakuza than ghost movie. Eh to it an Snake Woman's Curse.

Also, I finally made it through my old blog's archives, and I have almost three years of movie reviews to include. I could even include my reviews from my horror class, which are amusing as they're written with the same attention to detail as the blog you're currently reading, but were turned in for grades. How often and how many reviews should I post? Should I just start a new category and call them "Caseus Archivelox" or somesuch, or should I backdate everything? I have around 100 pages of reviews of movies, a few I've already posted, but mainly just half-assed reviews of films I may have forgotten I've seen. I'm leaning towards posting each day as a separate post, tagged with Caseus Archivelox and the date and time of original posting for the blog entries and dates for school papers. But the problem is how many not to overwhelm? If you have any suggestions, comment, and I'll take them in to consideration.

Black Sheep, Mutual Appreciation, & Running on Empty

Black Sheep is very obviously influenced by Bad Taste and Dead Alive. Down to similar shots and gore effects. Of course, it's about as fun, and who can hate on a film that has genetically engineered sheep attacking people and turning them into Sheeple (my preferred term over weresheep, as they aren't really lycanthropes). Who start out by having hair growing out of their wounds, then turning into sheep extremities, and saying things like "baa-a-a-stards". If you liked Dead Alive, it's almost as good, just a lot of insane fun, some terrible acting, and a character named Experience. Of course, for New Zealand, the greater fear is how this would destroy the country due to amount by which sheep outnumber people there. But it's the little touches, like the sheep foot, the "baa-a-a-stards", the sheep phobia: Ovinaphobia, interspecies sex, the scenes of sheep looking very scary by either just standing there or swarming over the hills, and the fact that the special effects were done by Oscar winner Richard Taylor.

Mutual Appreciation is a little too mumblecore-y for me, although I liked the soundtrack (almost if not entirely Bishop Allen tracks). It's pleasant enough, but nothing all too good. I kinda just wanted it to be more of Alan playing shows. Those were the best parts.

Running on Empty just pissed me off. Damn you River Phoenix for dying. He's ridiculously good in this film as the older son of a couple of fugitives who bombed a napalm factory during the Vietnam War. It's not that the other actors aren't good, but River is extremely talented. Also, very attractive. The scene in the woods is amazing acting. And yes, I was a little misty eyed at the ending, even though I knew what was going to happen.

Bender's Game

Bender's Game I saw... well, I must have seen it in early November, as that's when I got it, but I forgot to write it up then, and I just noticed. It definitely doesn't work as well as the first two Futurama movies, even with me being a huge RPG nerd, as I think most of the jokes just felt a little late for a movie released in 2008. Maybe if this had come out in 2002, I would have found them fresher. It's still funny, and any new Futurama is still a treat, but it's a step down.

Nicholas Nickleby, Black Book, The Promise, Running on Karma, A Matter of Loaf and Death, The Wind That Shakes the Barley, & Away from Her

Nicholas Nickleby was actually pretty good. Charlie Hunnam, of the late and lamented by me Undeclared, stars as the titular character, and Jim Broadbent, Christopher Plummer, Jamie Bell, Romola Garai, Tom Courtenay, Anne Hathaway, Juliet Stevenson, Nathan Lane (with Dame Edna as his wife), Alan Cumming, Timothy Spall, Edward Fox, and Kevin McKidd provide able backup. Written and directed by Douglas McGrath, who is also responsible for Emma and Infamous, the less good version of both Emma and the Truman Capote story, he actually manages to make a fine film here, worth watching if you enjoy either social commentary or Dickens (probably both if you enjoy one, really). It's fairly funny, captures the spirit of the Dickens novel without attempting to fit everything into it, and just a very fine way to spend over two hours.

Black Book is a Paul Verhoeven film, so it's full of sex and violence. I enjoyed it thoroughly. It goes to show that Carice van Houten actually can act (and Hollywood had no idea what to do with her, probably because she bleached her pubes on screen here), and the others who are ok in Valkyrie are quite good here. Verhoeven gets slammed unfairly for making Showgirls and Hollow Man (neither of which are good movies per se), but he is also responsible for Robocop, Total Recall, Starship Troopers, and The Fourth Man, all great to amazing films. He is someone who makes watchable films, as long as he isn't censored horribly. I need to make an effort to see some more of his earlier Dutch films. Spetters was kind of hard for me to watch, as I was never able to find a particularly good quality subtitled (or dubbed) version when I looked a few years ago. It's out on DVD here, though, so I'm going to put it in my Netflix queue, along with Soldier of Orange.

The Promise was crap. Sorry, Chen Kaige, but terrible CGI and Cecilia Cheung are not enough to make me sit through crap. The script was a mess, and I didn't even realize that the DVD had a skip in it that made me rewatch four minutes until it skipped for the second time. Avoid like the plague this movie is on Chen Kaige's career.

Running on Karma has Andy Lau in a very fake muscle suit, and starts the movie as a male stripper, who used to be a monk and can see the future and past of people and can talk to animals. He befriends the cop (Cecilia Cheung) who was involved in a sting over his fully nude strip show and helps her solve crimes, including one of a dude who can contort himself in very small places. It is utterly ridiculous. It's co-directed by Johnny To, who's very talented, so it actually is a strange thriller, but with some very, very silly things in it to accept. And then it takes a very, very weird turn in the third act. Karma is a very important part of the film. This ending would never fly in a non-Buddhist country.

A Matter of Loaf and Death is the new Wallace and Gromit short. I am a huge fan of Aardman Animation, and while this isn't as strong as The Wrong Trousers, A Close Shave, or The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, it's up there with Chicken Run and A Grand Day Out. I think I missed cheese. But the animation is as strong as ever, it just didn't quite do it for me as much as their best, although it was full of funny references and terrible dog puns. Still definitely worth watching whenever it actually airs in the US.

The Wind That Shakes the Barley is a Ken Loach film about the origins of Ireland, and the fighting between those who founded the IRA and those who took the Irish Free State way out. As such, it actually is a companion piece with Neil Jordan's Michael Collins, which I saw back in 1996 at a pre-release screening in Cincinnati for an Irish group my grandfather was a member of. Anyway, the film was frustrating, because neither the ubernationalists or the more conciliatory Free-staters were really wrong, so seeing the ending just made me pissed all over again at Eamon De Valera. Damn you. Of course, the parallels between the IRA and terrorist organizations and guerrillas of today is used by Loach very effectively to point out that the British never had a chance in Ireland, and the only surprising thing is that it took so long for them to give up. It's a very good looking film, and for those interested in Irish history, definitely worth it.

Away from Her was directed by Sarah Polley, from an Alice Munro story, and is about a couple, deeply in love, and the wife gets Alzheimer's. Depressing as hell, but beautifully shot, and great acting all around. If you can handle two hours of sadness, I can't think of a better film about Alzheimer's out there. Infinitely better than The Notebook (which I tried to watch once, but man, it was just ugh).

Valkyrie

Balls, I did it again. I forgot to list a movie I saw. Although this time it fits in perfectly with how I felt about it: Valkyrie was utterly unnecessary. For a better idea of it, and much more in depth and well-written and the like, go read the friend I saw it with's review here. There are very, very few bits of it that I don't agree with entirely. I liked The Usual Suspects?

Encounters at the End of the World, You're Gonna Miss Me, Everything's Gone Green, Starter for 10, Dynamite Warrior, Bad Guy, & Cryptonomicon

Encounters at the End of the World is a Werner Herzog documentary (which I saw some time ago, but forgot to review) about how crazy everyone who spends time on Antarctica is. So it's basically a typical Herzog documentary: fascinating. I think that this one may have ventured a little far into sneering contempt for his subjects, as a number of times, he just starts to talk over them. A little disrespectful, especially when he says that they tend to ramble on. Of course, those bits of Herzog being an ass is to be completely expected. It's the parts where he just allows the awesomeness of Antarctica to show, like following the penguins or the below ice scuba diving. Those more than make up for that, and this is a great piece of filmmaking, certainly worthy of consideration as one of the best documentaries this year.

You're Gonna Miss Me is about Roky Erickson, lead singer of the 13th Floor Elevators, the creators of Psychadelic Rock, and, as far as I know, the only band with an electric jug. He was also a huge drug user, and, as an example against those damn hippies, was arrested for possessing a tiny bit of marijuana. His lawyer had him plead insanity, and then he went into a horrible maximum security hospital where everyone else there was a murderer or a rapist, and stayed there for a few years. After finally being declared "sane", he still made some good music through the 70s and early 80s, until his mental problems (that were present well before he became famous) started to make him utterly insane. Clearly a case for serious medical help, his mother (who is crazy and was also traumatized by Roky's drug use and doesn't trust drugs, doctors, or her husband (who may have sexually abused Roky and his four brothers...)) refuses to get him the help he clearly needs. Finally, Roky's youngest brother fights for custody of Roky, and cleans him up and within a year, he's a somewhat functioning member of society. There are some bonus features on the disc that further flesh out the post-movie story: Roky played Austin City Limits in 2005 (and was introduced by that asshole Kinky Friedman), and in 2007 was declared sane enough to be released from custodial care. Of course, his youngest brother has gone slightly crazy, and now denies that there's anything mentally wrong with someone who's declared "schizophrenic" and that drugs don't help. He and his friend, a crazy "doctor" John Breeding, have a bit where they rant about how psychiatry is bull and that mental illness doesn't exist. It was a little hard to follow their "logic", as they were utterly insane. The film, beyond the interest of the story, was full of some pretty good music, although I just wanted the filmmakers to force Roky to clip his nails. Some of them were creepy long. Anyway, I'm very happy that Roky's healthy again, even with all the barriers he had to have others break through.

Everything's Gone Green is a Douglas Coupland script, who is someone I've heard much about, but never actually read any of his writing. This is a slightly smug look at a group of Vancouverites who are all trying to find their place in society, one works as a photographer and writer for the BC lottery interviewing those who've just won the lottery, his best friend is a pot grower, another works as a golf course designer, and another works as a location scout for films. It's kind of hokey, there's nothing particularly brilliant about it, it's a hugely critical of capitalism, and about the only thing I found noteworthy was it's cultural criticism of filming in Vancouver and trying to pass it off as Phoenix or California or some other place it obviously isn't. I mean, the film isn't bad, and it's watchable, but it's just nothing particularly amazing.

Starter for 10 is set in England in 1985, and is about a guy who goes off to college, knowing a crazy amount of useless trivia and wants nothing more than to join the University Challenge team. And his love triangle between the hot blonde on the team and the Jewish student he met the first day at Bristol University. I identified with Brian (played by James McAvoy with an appropriate mix of awkwardness and comfort), and thought the movie was an enjoyable film, that didn't have much to say about much. Apparently, the novel it was based on is much more about class and the non-big three characters are far more fleshed out, which probably would have helped the film a bit. But the best thing about the film was the soundtrack. A great collection of 80s rock, from many songs from The Cure to Echo & the Bunnymen, New Order, Yaz, The Undertones, The Psychedelic Furs, Tears for Fears, and the Smiths to The Buzzcocks and Motörhead. Just a great soundtrack.

Dynamite Warrior is a Thai film that has the martial arts choreographer from Ong-Bak. That has to be why I added it my Netflix queue, right? It's cheesy and over the top (the hero rides into battle riding rockets and, oh yeah, it's set in the 1850s). And the final battle ends with the hero punching the bad guy, who's on fire and being pulled up a rope, in the stomach, knocking him into a tractor, which then explodes. That gives you some idea of how subtle the film is. Sigh.

Bad Guy is a Kim Ki-Duk film, and it's very depressing. Would she really just accept being turned into a prostitute and then fall in love with the guy who forced her into selling her body? Also, there are streets in South Korea where prostitutes just line up and brow beat men into paying for sex? Doesn't this go against everything I know about this culture? Where an actress was just convicted of adultery (seriously, backwards ass country alert), you're telling me prostitutes can just be really obvious on the streets? I never understood why they can do something so obviously illegal in public and not get caught. Not that I think this should be illegal, but my feelings on prostitution and marijuana are basically: legalize it and tax heavily. Because there's a lot of money to be made, plus, neither of them is particularly dangerous unless you keep them illegal.

Cryptonomicon is a Neal Stephenson novel about codes and codebreaking. It's set in both World War II and the present day (as of the late 90s when it was written). Being a huge math and computer nerd, unfortunately unskilled in complicated math and computers, I found it really up my alley. My huge amounts of knowledge of World War II (seriously, I read so many books way back when) still mean that I have a soft spot for that section, and so both sections were very interesting. Plus, the pot shot taken at Reagan was fun. I very much loved the book, and it almost makes me want to read the Baroque Cycle, but I think I'm going to stick with borrowing Snow Crash. If you have my relatively weird combination of interests, Cryptonomicon will be absolutely perfect, but I can definitely see how some wouldn't enjoy it. For some reason, my dad read the review in the Times and bought it many years ago, and still hasn't gotten around to reading it, but I borrowed and read it.

The Da Vinci Code, Cutthroat Island, The Long Good Friday, Executive Koala, & Purple Rain

The Da Vinci Code clearly was going to be made, based on the huge sales of the book, but is there a more useless big budget film? Ridiculous, and somehow, for some reason, they changed the ending to make it much more ambiguous that Sophie is the descendant of Jesus Christ. Too bad, because that was just about the only thing that made the story remotely interesting. Of course, it's crap, based on misrepresentations and the like. Of course, I fully subscribe to the idea that Jesus was a normal dude, and the huge gap in his life in the New Testament, along with the idea that since I believe that Jesus actually did exist, it's highly unlikely that the huge inconsistencies and mistranslations in the Bible could possibly be reconciled. It's obvious that all religions are based on earlier ones, building on myths, trying to explain things that science hadn't yet explained, so a healthy skepticism of organized religion is good, but the least you can do is at least be honest. Dan Brown may be a compulsively readable author, but he's a first class liar.
Cutthroat Island is quite simply terrible in every way. But it's a different terrible from The Singing Forest. There's some talent there, but so little of it is in evidence anywhere remotely near this film that I wonder who decided to greenlight this with such a huge budget. Really, anyone who may have, at one time or after the movie, been a good actor/director/writer/anything seriously did not know what the hell they were doing. They replaced quality movie with explosions. And extra-long boring fight scenes with pirates, a monkey, and explosions.
The Long Good Friday is a great British gangster film. Bob Hoskins gives a riveting performance as a "middle-class" gangster trying to open a casino, and deal with bombings that seem to be trying to eliminate him and his woman, Helen Mirren. It also features a young Pierce Brosnan as an assassin. Really, it's quite good.
Executive Koala is a very strange film, a Koala is a salaryman at a pickle company in Japan, and his wife disappeared three years ago and his new girlfriend just disappeared. And he works for a bunny. Telling you much more about the plot would be ruining it. There's a musical interlude, some strange cultural satire, and some breaking the fourth wall. Definitely worth watching, because I have never seen a film that so nonchalantly deals with something so utterly weird.
Purple Rain has some great Prince tracks, and some terrible acting. The bluray didn't seem like it was worth getting, as it still looked like an old DVD, so maybe they just did a crappy job with the transfer? And Morris Day is supposed to be stupid, but his pants were just too high for me to take him remotely seriously.

CSS and Ssion at 9:30 12/20

So Ms. Sally Albright got me a ticket to the CSS show. I had heard their albums, and had the song from the iPod ad stuck in my head for as long as it had been on TV. With my recent (well, within the last couple of years) much larger interest in dancey electro poppy type of music, I certainly wasn't going to miss this show. Crazy Brazilian music? Yes, please.

The opener was Ssion (pronounced Shun), which she had apparently seen when they opened for The Yeah Yeah Yeahs. They're an art-punk music collective, led by Cody Critcheloe, from Kansas City. Apparently, there are insane people in every town. Insane people who put out amazingly catchy tracks. Saving you the trouble of googling for it, here's the video for Street Jizz (unfortunately with the correct number of z's). They played many tracks from Fool's Gold, along with a mediocre, at best, cover of Nightclubbing. Bits of New Kids on the Block and Michael Jackson lyrics also found their way into songs. Cody danced on a raised platform in front of a screen occasionally showing the lyrics of the songs, had two men in matching leotards dancing next to the platform, and the keyboardist in an outfit that reminds everyone that he is a Boy on both his jacket and hat, and a drummer keeping the insistent beat on orange see through drums. But the ending song, Street Jizz, is one of the catchiest songs I've ever heard. Just addictive to an extreme. Quite fun, and the members of CSS dancing on the balcony also seemed to be enjoying themselves.

CSS came out and put on a pretty fun show, playing all the tracks I knew (um, Music Is My Hot, Hot Sex, Let's Make Love and Listen to Death from Above, and... that's it), and ended with a huge group singalong to We Are the Champions. The show was enjoyable enough, even without knowing the songs, but they were kind of overshadowed by Ssion. For those of you keeping score, Lovefoxxx was attractive, but the weird outfit did nothing for me.

I Am Legend, The Polar Express, The Silent Partner, Overlord, Early Spring, & Equinox Flower

I Am Legend is pretty bad. The first parts, where Will Smith... oh, I mean, Robert Neville is wandering around a badly cgi'd New York City (and badly CGI'd deer and lions) are at least serviceable, but once the CGI'd vampires/zombies start dominating the screentime, it goes right off a cliff and never recovers. I watched it on HBO, so I didn't get to see the alternate ending in great quality, but I saw it online, and it certainly is better, although I wonder exactly why the studio had them change a happy ending to a depressing one. Aren't happy endings what Hollywood wants? Neither was particularly good, and the whole final siege scene was pretty much crap. Blargh. There's a good movie in there somewhere, but bad bad bad special effects just ruined it.

The Polar Express is a bunch of people dead behind the eyes, and the few people not played by Tom Hanks. The animation was off, because the eyes looked dead, and the faces didn't move right. Also, the movie was stretched to the point of pain. Barghle. Why did I sit through this? Stupid.

The Silent Partner has a great performance from Christopher Plummer as a crazy guy who robs a bank where Elliott Gould, Susannah York, and John Candy (!) work. But Elliott Gould took the money first. So Plummer starts about getting the money from him. It's written by Curtis Hanson, he of L.A. Confidential and Wonder Boys fame. As such, it's an interesting little film, with nudity and violence against women (the second of which I was kind of uncomfortable with). But certainly goes to show that the 1970s were a very good time for movies.

Speaking of the 70s, Overlord was originally made in 1975, but vanished for about 30 years until it was redone by the Criterion Collection a few years ago. It's the story of a mild-mannered guy who joins the British Army during WWII and is on one of the first landing crafts to hit Normandy during D-Day. He struggles through basic training, and really is not the soldiering type. And all through this he is terrified by a vision he has of being shot while running up the beach. But the real reason why this film is interesting is the large amount of archival footage provided by both the Imperial War Museum as well as German film archives. John Alcott, who worked with Stanley Kubrick many times (including the brilliantly shot Barry Lyndon), matches the film stock perfectly. Not just a touching story, it's also one of the best movies about D-Day, even as it ends before any real fighting has happened. Definitely recommended.

Early Spring makes me wish I didn't feel this compunction to watch every film by directors I enjoy. It's a more biting film than many of his others, focusing on a salaried man's affair and hiding it from his family and coworkers, but still they all feel like he's telling a similar story in a slightly different fashion. Technically proficient, and with the same strong performances, but definitely of decreasing value to me watching them. Equinox Flower at least doesn't have a title of Relative Time Season. It's really close, but not exactly. The hero of this is a hypocrite about relationships with daughters, and it's about how the women in his life gently push him into the present with their roles in society. The use of color actually fits with the idea of pushing a somewhat backwards looking guy into the present, as Ozu finally moves into color filmmaking.

The Singing Forest, My Straight Boyfriend, Popcorn & Coke, Uninhibited, & Misguided Piss

The Singing Forest is the most immature film I have ever seen. And possibly one of the worst. I also watched it before the previous posts, but I somehow didn't write it up then. The Singing Forest, which isn't really obviously referenced anywhere in the film (I think it may have been the title of the article that the lead wrote after a visit to a psychic), was the screams of victims who were impaled on spikes. I would have known this had I been willing to watch Paragraph 175, but it sits languishing on my DVR, for over two years now. There's just something about a documentary about gay people being persecuted during the Holocaust that makes me feel like I should watch it, but not actually create any desire to do so. I could go through the many, many ways that this film was terrible, but suffice it to say that when the surf drowns out dialogue, that was the best scene in the film. Better than when the barking dog drowned out dialogue, or when we get to see the fiancee's penis because the father stares at him in the shower. All would be highlights of any other film, but only Jorge Ameer is man enough to put them all in one film. That's not mentioning the wedding, the daughter (conceived during a rape where the obviously gay father meets the now-dead mother) being named Destiny, the extremely awkward and terrible dialogue, acting, directing, editing, sound design, cinematography, and so on. I bet even the best boy grips were amateurish. Really, the movie is so bad it must be seen. And then ridiculed for days to anyone who hasn't seen it. Which is what I did, and why I have no idea how I could have forgotten to write about it.

Even better than the horrible main feature though, were the bonus features. It included four short films, one of which isn't on IMDB. My Straight Boyfriend starts with a guy walking into his room, getting naked, and masturbating. Which is totally normal. But then he gets under the covers and continues to masturbate, which, to me, just means messy sheets and a stain. So he's going at it for a while, until you start to realize there's someone in the bed, possibly giving him oral pleasure. At first it's clearly a woman, and then it turns into a sex doll's head (what?), and then the arms show up and it's clearly a dude. This is not subtle. This is stupid. Even worse was Popcorn & Coke, which was about a guy getting "seduced" by an awkward guy and a woman with bad taste in clothes that showed her backfat (which isn't a major issue, but just kind of a bad costuming decision), while the older woman sitting behind him looked on jealously. The star of it, Matthew Leitch, was in both The Dark Knight and Band of Brothers. So someone clearly thought well enough of his acting abilities. It's too bad Jorge Ameer has no talent. Apparently this was the introduction to The Glitter Awards, which he started and curates. In fact, just read his bio from the IMDB, which was obviously written by him (and according to his message board, definitely wrote it, and then changed his nickname). Uninhibited is about a guy who walks into his apartment and turns on the tv, which is showing The Singing Forest, in a not-so-subtle bit of product placement. And then hears his roommate having sex (with a woman!), so he crawls under his bed and when she leaves, and then the roommate clearly knows he's under there and tells him to come out. And then gets naked and into the shower where the guy follows and they start making out. Another winner by Jorge Ameer! But the clear winner for best short included on this was Misguided Piss, about a nerd who watches a great pickup in a bathroom. One dude pisses on another one's leg. This shot is repeated many times, on an already wet pant leg, which is just crap. Also there's a point of view shot of the guy's obviously fake penis pissing. Which is also repeated. So the pissee and the pisser leave the bathroom together, and so the nerd tries it with this big guido, named Rico Riconi (the actual actor), who doesn't take to it and punches him out. All through every one of his movies, he uses bad classical music, and one had a particularly bad cover of some terrible song, possibly Mandy. Now I'm completely blanking on this, so I don't remember. But it was terrible. Ameer's just one of the worst filmmakers currently out there.

Sooner or Later, Zigeunerweisen, Kageroza, Yumeji, & Underworld Beauty

Sooner or Later is an 11 minute short Hungarian film written and directed by István Madarász (and is Elöbb-utóbb in Hungarian). Normally I wouldn't bother watching random short films online, but io9 and Metafilter both linked to it, so go here and watch a short about a late-war secret Nazi experiment to use a time travel serum to go back to win the war. Worth 11 minutes.

Zigeunerweisen, Kageroza, and Yumeji are an informal trilogy of Seijun Suzuki films, and are bizarre and very nonsensical with ghosts and actors playing different people. Sorry, just didn't like them at all. They're basically his only major works from Branded To Kill to Pistol Opera. He clearly was still messing with people, but instead of it being the studio heads like in Tokyo Drifter and Branded To Kill, it is the audience. Underworld Beauty, on the other hand, is a quick little dirty, early Seijun Suzuki film, not as good as his later ones, but it's effective at what it does: a bunch of criminals are chasing after some diamonds. There's a tense scene involving a coal chute, and a lot of naked mannequins, but really, it's just a fun little film. Nothing remotely that interesting except for those who will see anything by a director of which they are a fan.

The Bourne Ultimatum, Little Dieter Needs to Fly, Rescue Dawn, WALL-E, BURN-E, & Presto

The Bourne Ultimatum is the last (maybe? with a successful series, who knows?) Bourne movie, and as such, it finally answers some questions that you don't get from reading the books (which I did back in 2002 after liking the first movie). Julia Stiles is no Franke Potente, and Édgar Ramírez is definitely not Clive Owen. The second two films are different from the first one, but they're all enjoyable spy films. My only problem with them is that they've apparently heavily influenced Quantum of Solace and it isn't nearly as good as Casino Royale? I sort of want my Bourne films to be about revenge, and my Bond movies to be about awesomeness. Revenge shouldn't really enter into it. Maybe I shouldn't condemn it until I've seen it. Maybe it'll be out sometime in the spring on blu-ray?

Little Dieter Needs to Fly is the documentary that Rescue Dawn was based on, so I watched them both in one day. I recommend them both, although Rescue Dawn is considerably longer, but it does have Jeremy Davies and François Chau from Lost, so that was a nice touch. Dieter is Dieter Dengler, a young survivor of WWII who moved to the US to fly planes. In an early (his first, I think) mission into Laos, his plane was shot down and was captured a day later. He survived for months in a prisoner of war camp, and then eventually escaped and survived for a long time before being rescued. Also, Dieter was involved in four more plane crashes as a test pilot after the war. How much of a badass was this guy? The documentary is pretty short, but it covers everything that the movie does in a better fashion. Although, as Werner Herzog directed it, he puts Dieter through some mean things, like forcing him to be run through the jungle with his hands tied. He's a total bastard, but he makes good films. Oh, and Rescue Dawn includes a Steve Zahn decapitation. Not bad.

WALL-E is the newest Pixar animated film. It just won the best film of the year award from the LA Film Critics Association. It's a Pixar film. Of course, I absolutely loved it. Beautiful animation, an extremely touching (no pun intended, but I like it anyway) story, and funny when it wanted to be. I am not sure if it's the best Pixar film, but it's definitely up there. Also on the DVD were BURN-E and Presto. BURN-E is sort of like a deleted subplot than another movie, but it's enjoyable enough. Presto, on the other hand, is the hilarious and extremely awesome story of a magic pair of hats that a magician uses in his act and the bunny who turns the tables violently. Definitely worth a rental if you, for some reason, have seen WALL-E and somehow missed this. Pixar just knows how to make short films that are clever and interesting, and this homage to old-school Bugs Bunny and Tom & Jerry cartoons is just about perfect.

Nobody Knows, Graveyard of Honor, & Graveyard of Honor

Nobody Knows is a depressing film about a group of children who are abandoned by their mom and how they have to survive with the oldest being only 12. I cannot express how sad this film is. It is based on a true story, which just hurt all the more. Hirokazu Koreeda, who also directed Maborosi and Afterlife, gets good performances from the kids, but I do sort of wish it wasn't so heartbreaking.

Graveyard of Honor is a 1975 film by Kinji Fukasaku which was remade in 2002 by Takashi Miike. I watched both. Fukasaku's version is slightly better, as it's less bloated. They're both about a yakuza who struggles to be a not huge dick and getting every yakuza family pissed at him. He fails, and eventually has to fight both his family and other families, along with the cops. Watching these back to back was a little annoying, because he was just ridiculously stupid and overreacting. The Miike film just went on a little long. Fukusaku's film is actually similar to the Yakuza Papers films, firmly placing the story in a historical context, which adds a lot of texture to the film.

The Lookout, I Think I Love My Wife, & Passport to Pimlico

The Lookout was written by Scott Frank, writer of one of my favorite big Hollywood films of the 1990s: Out of Sight, along with another excellent Elmore Leonard adaptation in Get Shorty. He also wrote Dead Again, a film for which I have a possibly irrational fondness. Emma Thompson and Kenneth Branagh are just always great together. Anyway, about the Lookout: Joseph Gordon-Levitt continues his very strong string of performances along with Mysterious Skin and Brick, showing that he's quite talented. Oh, and 10 Things I Hate about You, but that's in a different class. Rural Kansas seems sometimes interesting, and sometimes not very nice. It's an interesting film, and supporting actors like Jeff Bridges and Carla Gugino add some nice performances (well, Carla Gugino is a little underused). A little too influenced by Memento, but still worth watching.

I Think I Love My Wife is Chris Rock and Louis C.K. film remaking Chloe in the Afternoon, one of Erich Rohmer's Six Moral Tales. I'm not sure why it was remade, and I'm not sure why this film was made. It's not particularly funny, and it doesn't really tell a story that seems worth telling. Hey, don't cheat on your wife! Wow, thanks overlong film. And who doesn't like viagra jokes! There's talent in this film, but it is in evidence nowhere.

Passport to Pimlico is an early Ealing Studios comedy about a somewhat crappy part of London that, due to an unexploded bomb that suddenly explodes, discovers that they're not actually part of the United Kingdom but was actually given to the Duke of Burgundy and thus is the lone remaining part of Burgundy. There are some funny bits, and the small guys versus the government is a fine message. Having Naunton Wayne and Basil Radford basically be their same bumbling characters introduced in The Lady Vanishes adds a bit of interest to film buffs. Not as good as other Ealing Studios comedies, but enjoyable enough.

Standard Operating Procedure, Path to War, The War Game, Culloden, & Fast Food Nation

Standard Operating Procedure is the newest Errol Morris film, and as such is a brilliant documentary. It's about the Abu Ghraib scandal, and as such, brought out some very interesting points that I had never known before. Did you know in the famous photo of Lynndie England pointing at a prisoner's junk, he was masturbating? See, I saw the pictures when they were first released, and I never noticed that. Something about my sickening feeling when I first saw them led to me not actually going over them in detail. But man, this film does, made me extremely uncomfortable to see what was done in my name, and then I just got extremely pissed. Seriously, this was just a completely messed up way to treat a human being. I'm so anti-torture now that just the idea that this was condoned by anyone in the military makes me want to call for their imprisonment. Just a sickening display of supposed moral righteousness. This is why they hate us. And it's not really all that clear as to why they'd be wrong.

Path to War is about LBJ's presidency as it relates to Vietnam. I saw people portraying people I know in it. That was fun. It has an amazing cast, universally excellent, and is really an interesting look at just how it seemed completely impossible that we could be drawn into a war there, even as we had no idea how to win it. Statistics are useful, but they can't beat actual experience. And it's frustrating to know that a great man was taken down by stupid rabid anti-communism, when there was so much evidence that Vietnam was fighting for its independence as nationalists not as communists. Seriously, why the hell does the US do so many stupid stupid things. I blame the Republicans. Democrats just couldn't be "soft" on communism, even when it would have been so much better for everyone involved.

The War Game is a documentary about what would happen if England would be the target of a nuclear attack. As such, it's horrifying. I've been reading metafilter and ask.metafilter for years now, and they've mentioned it a few times, and I started to read about it, and apparently it terrified many English children back when it was shown on TV. I can certainly understand that, as nuclear war is a motherfucker. Seriously, the idea of just what would happen and how much of England's population would be wiped out in a first strike, but how bad it would be for those who would survive. Even though it's based on evidence, it's basically a fictional film, and yet it still won the Oscar for best documentary. It's that good.

Culloden is another film made for British TV by Peter Watkins, but this is about the battle of Culloden, the final battle in the Jacobite Rebellion in Scotland. Not the best thing the English ever did, as after they crushed the Jacobite forces, they gave the fleeing rebels no quarter and it led to horrible atrocities committed by the English forces. It's not nearly as good as The War Game, but it was interesting, as you really don't hear much about the Jacobites in any American school class on European history. It came on the same DVD as The War Game, so think of it as an added bonus for that film.

Fast Food Nation is the book by Eric Schlosser that was made into a movie that I saw back in March. I borrowed Tweaks's copy, and enjoyed the little notes she wrote in it (she read it for school). Somehow it actually made me more upset about suburban sprawl and the mistreatment of workers rather than the danger of eating tainted meat. It's a very easy read for a book about maimings and horrible diseases, exploitation of illegal immigrants and young workers not washing their hands, crazy Christians and heartless executives. I need to read Reefer Madness now. Sections on pot, illegal immigration, and porn? My three favorite things all in one place!

Zodiac, Samurai Girl, Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story, & Valis

Zodiac is something I saw a while ago, and forgot to write up with either of my last two posts. But it's David Fincher's long and involving look at the Zodiac killer, a serial killer in the San Francisco area who killed at least five people in the late 60s. Of course, he wouldn't be nearly as interesting had it not been for the codes that he sent to reporters after some of the murders. Quite a fascinating case. The movie stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Anthony Edwards, Robert Downey, Jr., Brian Cox, Elias Koteas, Dermot Mulroney, Donal Logue, Philip Baker Hall, Adam Goldberg, Clea DuVall, and Chloë Sevigny, all of whom I have a soft spot for, or love unreservedly. And David Fincher does a good job, ratcheting the tension, even though you know that no one will ever get caught or charged with the murders. It's just a strong film, all around.

Samurai Girl is an ABC Family miniseries event thingy, six hours about a young girl named Heaven who it turns out is a sort of Japanese Jedi master whose destiny it is to save the world, or destroy it or something. Honestly, I didn't entirely understand what the hell would happen. She is about to get married when the wedding is hijacked by ninjas who kill her brother and send her running off to her brother's friend (who happens to be a ninja master), but not before meeting a goofball (played by Kyle Labine, brother of Tyler from Reaper, which doesn't start up again until January?) and his roommate. The cast is uniformly mediocre (besides Kyle, who's not as charming as Tyler), and Jamie Chung (who is Korean-American and plays Japanese, which I would have been bothered by had this tried to be remotely realistic) formerly starred on The Real World San Diego. So yeah, it's cheezy as hell, but it's surprisingly watchable. As long as you're sitting on your bed, bundled up, under the influence of drugs. And willing to deal with a much worse Buffy ripoff.

Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story was shown on Frontline, and is an interesting look at the history of one of my lifetimes greatest racebaiters: Lee "Willie Horton" Atwater. For those who don't spend too much time reading about the history of Karl Rove and the like, it's probably informative, but other than actually seeing pictures of him palling around with terrorists (black people!) and drunks (George W. Bush) and his face post-steroids, there's surprisingly little there there. Still, I enjoyed it, and enjoyed thinking that Lee Atwater and Karl Rove were so dirty that Ed Rollins thought they went too far.

Valis is a Philip K. Dick novel (I think the first work of his I've actually read, which is surprising based on my enjoyment of movies based on his books), that has been cited in Lost, which is why I have wanted to read it since I saw that Tweaks had a copy. I'm not sure how much I can really explain about it, but the wiki page might help a little in explaining why I feel like it's an interesting and possibly illuminating look at what goes on on the island in Lost. Of course, as for anything attempting to explain what's going on in Lost, a visit to Lostpedia's page on Valis is informative.