Best Movies Of Last Year: THE GREY (2012).

“There are no atheists in foxholes,” as the old saying goes. But what about in wolves’ dens? It’s a question I never knew I had. Just one of many reasons why THE GREY, the new thriller from co-writer/director Joe Carnahan, is such an uncommon and splendid achievement is that it asks (and answers) that question.

I had been sold on this movie from the minute I was made aware that it was to be a survival drama where the great actor Liam Neeson faces off against a pack of hungry wolves. “Herman Melville meets Jack London meets Hemingway meets wolves meets Liam Neeson’s fists.”  That movie would have been just fine.  But this movie is twice as good.  It’s got all the thrills and chills you could hope and expect out of that brilliantly direct premise — but on top of that, THE GREY is one of the more profound, dynamic, and uncompromising illustrations of existentialism I have seen on a movie screen in quite a while. This film goes deep — like “straight to the bone, through the ribcage, all the way through to the soul” deep.

For those of us who have been starving for brutal, bruising, uncompromising American cinema, THE GREY is proof of life.

That was what I had started to write in January 2012. Here’s what I finally wrote about the movie in December for Daily Grindhouse:

THE GREY marked its territory in my number one spot all the way back in January of 2012, and fiercely warded off all comers with teeth bared.  I love all the movies in my top ten and there are plenty still which almost made the list, but THE GREY is the one I really took to heart.  For one thing, I am ready to go to the mat on the argument that the storytelling and filmmaking in THE GREY is at least as exemplary as any of the year’s more award-friendly critical darlings.

The score by Marc Streitenfeld is gorgeous and heartbreaking. The cinematography by Masanobu Takayanagi is crisply delineated and winter-clear.  The script by Ian Mackenzie Jeffers & Joe Carnahan is perfectly-paced and indelible.  And Joe Carnahan’s direction is world-class.  I was a huge fan of Carnahan’s movie NARC, and I think his SMOKIN’ ACES and THE A-TEAM, while surely on the cartoony side of the action-movie spectrum, show action chops on par with the best of ‘em.  I have been following and enjoying his work for a long time, but THE GREY makes Carnahan a canon filmmaker in my eyes.

I was lucky enough to see THE GREY a month early, so I could watch with fascination as it was received by the public.  Considering how thoughtful a film it is, all the simplistic and reductive “Liam Neeson punches wolves!” jokes were almost obscene.  Some of the marketing did seem eager to group THE GREY alongside the Liam Neeson action-thrillers of the last few years, and obviously this is a different thing entirely.  Interestingly, some religious groups embraced the movie, although I’m not sure it’s saying what they may want it to be saying.  And some environmental groups were bothered by the portrayal of the wolves, which is a well-intentioned complaint but misses the point.  First of all, Liam Neeson’s character views the wolves above all with a kind of respect.  But more importantly:  The same way FLIGHT isn’t really about a plane, THE GREY isn’t exactly about the wolves.

Think about the title.  Did you look at the wolves in that movie?  Didn’t look all that gray to me.  They looked almost black.  They blended in and out of that night with ease.  These aren’t real-world wolves.  These are something else.  The wolves in THE GREY are an engine, relentlessly forcing the sands through the hourglass.  In my reading of the title, “The Grey” refers to that space between existence and non-existence, between the white of snow and the black of death. No, this isn’t a movie about wolves.  This is a movie about mortality.

Many fans of the movie have noted how THE GREY structurally resembles a typically horror movie, as the cast of characters are gradually winnowed away, and maybe that’s true, but in that case I’ve never seen a horror movie that treats the ranks of the culled with such care.  Most of the characters who die in THE GREY get sent out on a moment of dignity, even grace, or at least as much as can be mustered.  (There is one major exception, maybe the most upsetting death in the entire film, but that is the one that prompts the film’s most important emotional moment, so it’s not much of an exception after all.)  This is a movie that shows many people dying, yet it is the rare such movie that happens to value life.  That is one reason why I am struck where it matters by THE GREY.

There are also personal reasons.  I’ve spent the last four years attending more funerals than I wanted to attend in a lifetime.  Without any exaggeration and in a relatively short time, I’ve lost half my nearest and dearest.  I’ve been living with death.  This movie is what that feels like.  Wolves and winter – that’s all just visual trappings meant to illustrate an idea.  The point is, there may come a time in your life when everybody you know starts dropping like flies at the hands of some relentless cosmic flyswatter, and then what are you gonna do?  Pray to God?  Good luck there.  Worth a try.  Maybe He answers your prayers.  Maybe He doesn’t answer.  Probably he doesn’t answer.  Now you’ve got a choice to make.  Or maybe there isn’t a choice at all.

“Fuck it.  I’ll do it myself.”  That isn’t a renunciation.  That is, in fact, a profoundly spiritual decision.  This movie illustrates that concept so beautifully that if I had the tears to do it, I’d cry them.  I thank this movie for existing in 2012, and I thank Joe Carnahan and his cast and crew for braving the cold to make it.

For further reading:

My Top Ten Of 2012

THE A-TEAM

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES

@jonnyabomb

A Movie I Watched Instead Of Going On A Date: AGE OF THE DRAGONS (2011).

I can’t speak for every dude who writes about movies on the internet, but as for me, it’s not like I don’t have any options at all as to how to spend my free time. Sure, I fit the stereotype of single and brainy, but I also bring plenty to the dating pool. I’m generally considered to be sweet, thoughtful, loyal, and giving. Most people find me funny. I’m certainly presentable, even considered outright attractive from some angles. I’m currently regularly-employed and employable. I’m terrific with kids and I’ll make a great father one day. Animals also love me (though not always cats). The ladies reading this may be asking, What’s the downside?

Well ladies, the answer may be that I’m addicted to movies. Addicted. Big-time. I don’t know why, but I can’t go more than a day without one. And there’s only so many times you can watch GOODFELLAS or PULP FICTION or BOOGIE NIGHTS or whatever finite number of acceptable classics that normal guys my age watch, before you start sniffing around the outskirts of what’s out there in the great beyond, movie-wise. Sometimes that search can result in a great discovery, and most other times it doesn’t.

When I saw a preview somewhere for AGE OF THE DRAGONS, I knew I was in trouble. Somebody made a version of MOBY DICK starring PREDATOR 2‘s Danny Glover as Melville’s Captain Ahab, in the relentless and dangerous pursuit, not of a great white whale, no, but instead, of a great white dragon.

Aw hell.

I’m gonna have to watch that.

MOBY DICK is often cited as The Great American Novel. Every author is out there trying to write one, but Herman Melville did it almost two hundred years ago. The book is its own Great White Whale. It has influenced countless writers and their works, been adapted to film multiple times, and has many obvious and less obvious descendents in movies such as JAWS and ALIENS. MOBY DICK is so many things — a historical document detailing the whaling industry of its era, a lierary allegory, a character study of obsession and madness, a rousing adventure tale… It’s really good! You should read it.

For a book of more than six hundred pages, the main plot of MOBY DICK is perfectly simple: A young sailor named Ishmael and his friend Queequeg, an intimidating foreigner, get a job on a whaling ship called the Pequod. They meet the first, second, and third mates on the ship — Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask, respectively — but it’s a while before they meet the ship’s captain. When he arrives, he basically takes over the book. Ahab is a vengeful Quaker (which is an oxymoron, for the record) out to destroy the white whale who, in an earlier encounter, scarred him and took his leg. The only question is how many of the crew members will survive his deranged quest.

I love this story — it kind of has an elemental appeal to me at my center. It’s based on a true story! I love stories about sea monsters. As a kid my family took summer vacations to some of the areas described in the book. I grew up obsessed with the whale at the Museum Of Natural History in New York. And technically I’m half Quaker, so I even get that part of it. All of this is a run-up to say that I have more than a passing familiarity with the source material for AGE OF THE DRAGONS, which is why I found it to be even more of a bizarre anomaly than I figured it was going to be.

AGE OF THE DRAGONS is so remarkably bizarre precisely because of its fidelity to MOBY DICK. There is no question that the people who made AGE OF THE DRAGONS have read MOBY DICK, which is both what makes it strangely admirable and what makes it so weird. Let’s look at some of the similarities and the differences.

Well, besides, the obvious.

MOBY DICK is about a large angry whale.

AGE OF THE DRAGONS is about a fire-breathing dragon.

In AGE OF THE DRAGONS, the action is shifted from sea to land. The dragons can fly, but the men who hunt for them travel on land. (Sky-boats would have been a little too crazy. Duh.) Still, their choice of vehicle is in fact a boat.

The boat does have wheels, so I guess that makes sense, and the terrain they cover is generally coated with blankets of snow, so technically the boat is travelling over expanses of water, but again, let’s not mince words here: This is fucking weird. I mean, if you want to get all film school on it, you could possibly attribute the snow boat to being an extended reference both obliquely and literally to Werner Herzog’s FITZCARRALDO, another story of mad obsession, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a fucking snow boat in a dragon-hunting movie.

Not only that, but the winter is apparently one of the utmost extremes, so you know what that means….

!!!SNOW NINJAS!!!

At every moment where I got anywhere near taking this movie seriously, somebody would show up dressed like a snow ninja and I’d have to chuckle. Which is totally fine. There isn’t anything at all wrong, from where I’m sitting, with a movie about dragon-fighting snow ninjas. But if you’re going to make a movie like that, you ought to have a sense of humor, and AGE OF THE DRAGONS is played for straights. It’s pretty dour and grim, missing the fact that Herman Melville had a satirical eye, having penned lines for MOBY DICK like “Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunk Christian.”

But I guess the makers of AGE OF THE DRAGONS figured, if they were going to take the sense of humor out of MOBY DICK, they’d better put something else in, and what they settled on was — you guessed it — a pretty girl. Her name is Rachel, which, despite there being no character like her in MOBY DICK, actually does mean something in reference to the novel. (I think the Rachel is the name of one of the boats.) Here the character is Ahab’s daughter, who he took in after her family was killed by dragons. Ishmael takes a shine to her, I guess because she’s a better bunkmate than Queequeg, which Ahab doesn’t like but what did he think was gonna happen, really. The actress doesn’t resemble Danny Glover much, which I guess is a virtue because let’s face it, she’s only really in the movie for stuff like this:

Outside of Danny Glover, there’s no one in this movie you’ve heard of before, except for Vinnie Jones. My British friends know Vinnie Jones from his soccer — sorry: football — career, and my American friends know him from SMOKIN’ ACES 2, X-MEN 3, and GARFIELD: A TALE OF TWO KITTIES. He plays Stubb in this movie, but not for long. A dragon breathes on him and he turns into a pile of dust. Sorry if that’s a spoiler. I don’t think anything like that happened in the Melville text, but I guess they only had Vinnie Jones budgeted for a couple days on this shoot. It doesn’t feel like an organic storytelling decision, is what I’m implying.

Anyway the main reason I wanted to see this movie was to see Danny Glover acting weird and talking a lot about dragons, and in this respect I did not walk away disappointed. Basically Danny Glover hates dragons because when he was a young Danny Glover, he and his sister were walking through the woods and a dragon showed up. The dragon turned his sister into a pile of ashes like it did to Vinnie Jones, and it also burned Danny Glover up pretty bad, to the point where he can’t go out in direct sunlight. On one hand that’s a bummer, but on the other hand….

Danny Glover in Snow Ninja outfit.

As I was watching this movie, which has a lot of dull parts — really too many, for a movie that has dragons and Danny Glover dressed like a G.I. Joe character — I gave a lot of thought to Danny Glover, who is an actor I have a ton of affection for, but who has been really under-served by the movies, I think. He’s definitely a guy who has “important actor” status, but who hasn’t been in as many great things as he should or maybe could be.

Danny Glover High Points:

ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ (Clint)

WITNESS (a rare villainous turn)

THE COLOR PURPLE (probably, I haven’t seen it)

LETHAL WEAPON (obviously)

A RAISIN IN THE SUN (Bill Duke version)

LONESOME DOVE

TO SLEEP WITH ANGER

THE ROYAL TENNENBAUMS (funniest part of the movie)

DREAMGIRLS

Personally, I liked SILVERADO, PREDATOR 2, PURE LUCK, and BE KIND REWIND also, but I don’t know if those roles necessarily go on the highlight reel. (PURE LUCK is pretty bad, actually, but it’s a Martin Short movie, so.)

I guess the point I’m making is, for such a prestigious actor, there sure are a ton of movies like OPERATION DUMBO DROP, GONE FISHIN’, LETHAL WEAPON 4, and SAW, on that resume, which also includes an unfair amount of shitty TV shows. Of course Danny Glover has been in some great stuff, but not enough. He needs some Fincher or Mann or Spike or Spielberg in his future. I mean, of course I enjoyed seeing him like this –

– but there aren’t too many of me. I’m a guy who will spend this much time thinking about a version of MOBY DICK that has dragons: Through me does not necessarily pass the road towards Oscars and widespread critical acclaim. And even with that said, I’d probably rather see a sincere version of MOBY DICK than a silly one which I can only watch in the middle of the night when there’s no female presence around to stop me. There’s no reason why Danny Glover couldn’t be given a movie where he can play Captain Ahab for real. He shouldn’t be stuck playing some weird groaning Gollum-esque character lurching around in a cave in Utah at computer-animated dragons.

Seriously, you should see the part when he fights the great white dragon at the end and gets his leg caught in the harpoon — if only for a textbook definition of anti-climax. I mean, I haven’t said much about the effects of the movie: The production value is actually rather good — I liked the sets and the costumes and even a couple of the scenes of the dragons. The actors all take it as seriously as they’re asked to, and the music by J Bateman (either Jason or Justine, I’m not sure which) is better than average for a movie of this type.

But the movie’s pace is slack and all the good dragon bits all happen early on — it’s like the production blew their dragon wad early, and like a bad lover with no follow-through, skimped on the effects in the final scenes. Even Danny Glover turns into computer animation, a cluster of pixels being dragged away on the tail of a fake monster. If it wasn’t enough that he was asked to overact through the entire movie, he doesn’t even get to leave it with any dignity.

So AGE OF THE DRAGONS, sadly, probably not a thing I can recommend. But at least I learned a thing or two about myself.

I learned that all you have to do is say the word “dragons” and I will watch your movie. It’s a foolproof method of advertising. Everyone and their grandma use more common sales pitches such as “boobs” “monkeys” and “explosions” to lure me in, but not everyone promises “dragons” and that brings my eyes over, every time.

The other thing I learned is that if I had any brains at all, I would have just watched JAWS for the 57th time. So maybe strike “brainy” from that list of datable qualities I listed up top in reference to myself.

@jonnyabomb

31 FLAVORS OF HORROR!: LINK (1986).

 

Ever look back at old haircuts from the 1980s and wonder how anybody could have left the barbershop with a straight face?  That’s the way I look at LINK, and the idea that it was ever sold as a horror film.  LINK is a fun movie to watch, but not on its own terms.  It’s a movie that asks an audience to be afraid of chimpanzees.  That’s a lot to ask of an audience.  In real life, chimpanzees are like bears:  They’re terrifyingly dangerous, but they look cute, hence all the “accidents” you occasionally read about in the news.  But in movies, chimpanzees have historically been treated as friends, sidekicks, or punchlines.  You’d be better served making a horror movie about Chewbacca or C3PO.  (I have a feeling these words will come back to haunt me one day soon.)

Let’s begin our visit with Link at the plot-recap gazebo:  The movie opens on a rooftop, where something inhuman and murderous, something we don’t see, is hiding out in the shadows, pigeon bones strewn around nearby.  Right after that mood-setting opening title sequence, we move directly into the main premise, which is this: 

The eternally-lovely Elisabeth Shue, fresh off THE KARATE KID, plays an American college student living abroad in England (where the movie was made), who is hired by an eccentric professor (SUPERMAN 2’s Terence Stamp, who is also eternally-lovely) to help his lab for the summer.  The lab is located a small summer home, which is situated on a cliff high above the coast, with a seaside view, and it’s there that the professor studies the behavioral patterns of a group of super-smart chimpanzees.  The smartest of the bunch is a fellow named Link, who wears butler clothes and roams about the house freely.

There’s something I haven’t told you. 

LINK is about chimpanzees, this much is true.  But the title character is actually played by an orangutan.  His naturally orange fur has been dyed black, or, as it turned out, a sickly shade of brown.  I get it, it’s a safety issue, chimpanzees are dickheads, one of ‘em bit off poor Jennifer Connelly’s finger during the making of PHENOMENA (true story), but still:  We’ve all seen PLANET OF THE APES.  We know the difference.  Don’t give us Dr. Zauis and then tell us he’s the lady one who kept calling Charlton Heston “Bright Eyes.”  It’s insulting to everyone involved.

Meanwhile, back in the movie, Professor Stamp has abruptly disappeared halfway through the story.  Elisabeth Shue gets increasingly suspicious and tries to find out where he went, while trying to run his lab in his absence.  Link and the others may or may not be able to help or hinder her efforts.

That’s it.  That’s the story.  In as many words, I’m telling you that Link is a movie where, for a significant amount of its running time, the only living beings onscreen are Elisabeth Shue and a small group of super-smart chimpanzees (orangutans).  If you’re even remotely like me, there can’t be any more encouraging cinematic prospect on paper.  In 2012, Elisabeth Shue is still incredibly cute (and definitely deserves to be a much bigger star), but Link has her at 23.   And I can’t pretend to get all sophisticated about it – for me, that’s kinda enough.  Show me apes in suits and a pretty girl and I will have to strain to complain. 

LINK was directed by Richard Franklin, who was a protégée of Alfred Hitchcock, to the point that Franklin directed PSYCHO 2.  (The Squeakquel!)  It was written by Everett De Roche, who also wrote 1981′s ROAD GAMES for Franklin.  These are not untalented men, not by a long shot, but this is not their best work.   LINK has a bizarre, unnatural rhythm that seems to be primarily due to some ill-considered pacing, but it could also have a lot to do with the fact that it’s a would-be suspenseful movie that relies heavily on animal actors.  That means that a human character will speak a line of dialogue, and then have to wait for the trained orang’s reaction.  That all happens in real time on film.

LINK also has a weirdly jaunty score, for a movie that intends to make chimpanzees (orangutans) in dinner jackets appear ominous.  The orchestral music undercuts most of the movie’s attempts at suspense.  I was surprised to see that the legendary Jerry Goldsmith supplied the music – you’d think that the guy who scored ALIEN, THE OMEN, POLTERGEIST, and even GREMLINS could have come up with some spookier tunage, but then again it must have been a tough assignment from the outset.

Lest I start sounding too critical, there are other things you need to know.  There is a scene where a perverted chimp (orangutan) stares at Elisabeth Shue as she prepares to take a bath.  There is a climactic exploding cigar scene.  I’m pretty sure that there are a couple scenes where little people in ape costumes double for the ape actors.  These are all moments that make me glad that I witnessed this movie.

A year later, Hollywood provided an answer to LINK with PROJECT X, where the chimpanzees were heroes, instead of creeps.  According to Wikipedia, however, PROJECT X was besieged by claims of animal cruelty.  LINK wasn’t, so that’s another chalk mark in its favor.  It’s got a growing cult following too, although there’s no re-release or remake in the works, as far as I can tell.  That might be for the best, really.  Like I said at the outset, for a horror movie it’s one bad haircut.  Then again, the hi-top fade is returning, and the mullet never left, so never say never.

Find me on Twitter:  @jonnyabomb

 

 

 

31 FLAVORS OF HORROR!: DEAD & BURIED (1981).

DEAD & BURIED strikes me as a film underrated even by the crowds who usually stand up for films that are underrated. DEAD & BURIED was directed by Gary Sherman (RAW MEAT, VICE SQUAD, POLTERGEIST 3) and written by Dan O’Bannon & Ronald Shusett (ALIEN, TOTAL RECALL).  These aren’t household names by any stretch, but neither are the guys who built the George Washington Bridge, and tens of thousands of people drive over that every single day, get me?

Jason Zinoman’s 2011 book Shock Value does a heroic job of making the case for O’Bannon’s place in the pantheon of important horror filmmakers of the 1970s and 1980s.  However, if Zinoman’s terrifically readable book has an obvious flaw it’s that it’s far too short for such a rich subject.  When I went back to the book to see what it had to say about DEAD & BURIED, there was literally nothing there.  This is a project O’Bannon and Shusett wrote before ALIEN, and got to make (with Shusett producing) once ALIEN conquered the world.  It features early effects work by the legendary Stan Winston (PREDATOR).  It’s a movie worth considering, for its historical import alone.

O’Bannon and Shusett wrote ALIEN and adapted TOTAL RECALL.  O’Bannon, a classmate of John Carpenter at USC, made DARK STAR with the director who would soon take off with ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 and HALLOWEEN. And O’Bannon wrote and directed RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, the movie that introduced talking zombies with a taste for brains to punk music.  Dan O’Bannon is as valuable to the sci-fi and horror genres as just about any more famous hyphenate worshipped by genre film fanatics.  Ronald Shusett has obviously earned his bones as well.

DEAD & BURIED was originally a short story and script by Jeff Millar and Alex Stern, which O’Bannon and Shusett rewrote and then gave to Gary Sherman to direct.  Sherman’s previous film, RAW MEAT aka DEATH LINE (which I will cover at greater length in a future column), is what got him the director job on DEAD & BURIED.  The story needed a director who would go all the way in, and it got one.

DEAD & BURIED opens on an overcast beach in Maine (actually Northern California), where a photographer has stopped to shoot some local scenery. He’s approached by a striking young woman (Lisa Blount), they flirt, and she starts posing for cheesecake snapshots.  She spontaneously opens her blouse, and just when the poor guy thinks his day is made, a mob of locals appears, seizing his camera away and snapping disorienting flash photos as they beat and kick him mercilessly.  They wrap him around a wooden pole with a fishing net, splash gasoline on him, and burn him alive.

It’s a mightily unsettling scene, even to modern eyes (like mine) who have seen three decades of horror hence.  The romantic music, the sudden boobage, and the jarring transition to such savage violence make one powerfully disturbing cocktail.  And the scene isn’t even done with us yet:  The local sheriff, Dan Gillis (James Farentino), and the town mortician (Jack Albertson) arrive on the scene to examine the burnt and deformed body of the photographer.  They kneel in close, looking for the cause of death, and the skeletal figure SCREAMS.  It’s an ingenious and upsetting scare, the likes of which we’ve seen several times since, in films as great as David Fincher’s SE7EN, but DEAD & BURIED has that film beat by a decade and a half!

DEAD & BURIED is full of unnerving moments like that one.  It’s a movie that was actually pared down in many markets due to its gruesome violence.  The scene that was cut, surprisingly, wasn’t the one I just described, but instead a rather infamous act of cruelty that befalls that poor photographer a little later in the film, as he lies helpless in the hospital.

This is only the beginning, by the way.  Sheriff Gillis is called to a new crime scene every morning after that first one on the beach.  The spookiness really kicks in when those murder victims start reappearing in town.  Don’t go picturing zombies — these folks are as unharmed and as generally pleasant as they had been before an angry mob bashed their heads in and set them on fire.  The practiced horror viewer will likely figure out the mystery before the sheriff does, but it’s the journey, not the destination, that makes DEAD & BURIED so indelible.

The story crafted by O’Bannon and Shusett parcels out surprises cleverly, in a way that can be surprising even three decades later.  Director Gary Sherman and his crew make the most out of their locations, making the town of Potter’s Bluff feel like a tangible environment.  The music by Joe Renzetti contributes mightily to the creepy atmosphere.  The ensemble cast, including a young Robert Englund (pre- NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET), is never less than fully invested.  But no discussion of DEAD & BURIED would be complete without mention of its two lead performances.

When I found out that James Farentino (who died in January of this year) was a native New Yorker, I wasn’t surprised: He has a direct, grounded presence that we as the audience depend on to keep us steadily moving through a story that becomes increasingly, horrifyingly unhinged.  He’s a low-key Everyman in the early goings, a regular guy whose very sanity is tested by the town’s journey into darkness.

But if we could retroactively award Oscars to unheralded performances of our choosing, I might have to commandeer the time machine to ensure that Jack Albertson would get his due.  If you’re like me, you either know Jack Albertson as Manny Rosen in 1972′s THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE, or more likely as Grandpa Joe in 1971′s WILLY WONKA & THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY.  Especially if you’ve seen either of those roles, in which he played the definition of the kindly old Jewish grandfather, Jack Albertson’s portrayal of the morbidly sardonic coroner Dobbs will be a revelation.  He’s there to help in the investigation, but he irritates the sheriff as much as he entertains him (such as the comical moment when Gillis arrives at the morgue and Dobbs loudly mentions where his young assistant stashes his weed.)  This was one of Jack Albertson’s final roles, and according to the director’s commentary on the wonderful Blue Underground DVD, he knew he was dying while filming the movie.  So Jack Albertson, a vaudeville performer from way back, clearly relished the black humor and irony in the role, and played it up to the hilt.  Dobbs isn’t just an eccentric with a nostalgic affection for big-band music — there are many more shades to the character, and Jack Albertson’s nimble performance alone is more than reason enough to take another look at DEAD & BURIED.

In addition, I think we can all agree that Jack Albertson has the greatest IMDb profile picture of all time:

 

DEAD & BURIED is playing tonight in Los Angeles as part of Cinefamily’s Video Nasties series.

Follow me on Twitter:  @jonnyabomb

31 FLAVORS OF HORROR!: PHENOMENA (1985).

The other day I was describing PHENOMENA to a buddy who’s similarly enamored of horror flicks, and when I kept emphasizing how wonderful a movie it is, he thought I was fucking with him, since I apparently had a devious smile on my face the entire time. It made me smile just to think about it, but smile weirdly, because the movie is insane. Let me say it here in black-and-white without quotation marks: I sincerely, absolutely believe that PHENOMENA is a brilliant horror film. You can find vastly differing opinions elsewhere, but this essay is about mine.

PHENOMENA, originally released in the United States as CREEPERS (the reason for which will soon be apparent), is the work of Italian horror auteur Dario Argento. I’ve had only limited exposure to Argento’s filmography. I’ve seen ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST at least a dozen times, of course, but Argento was one of several writers on that film, not the director. And I’ve seen DAWN OF THE DEAD a couple dozen times, but Argento’s main contributions to that film as far as I know were in the way of musical compositions and support to his friend George Romero.

The only Argento film upon which I can hold forth in any meaningful way (besides this one) is 1977′s SUSPIRIA, but SUSPIRIA is far from the only notable film in his arsenal.  Argento’s primary milieu is within the genre of film known as giallo.  PLEASE NOTE: I do not and would not claim to be any kind of authority on giallo cinema.  I will explain it as best as I know how, but for a more comprehensive look, please visit my friends at Paracinema. They even have a piece on PHENOMENA, which I will finally read as soon as I’m done writing mine!  I’m sure theirs is smarter, as you’ll see soon enough.  But let’s try to sound academic as long as possible before bringing up the monkey.

So, Giallo:  It literally means “yellow” and it’s an evocative reference to the yellowed pages of pulp novels.  Giallo is a kind of pulp tale, but rather than more traditional pulp topics such as noir or sci-fi, giallo quickly diverged into its own thing.  Generally speaking, giallo films tend to be lurid, bloody psychological thrillers.  Think Alfred Hitchcock’s PSYCHO, only with a significant level-up on the gore.  Giallos may or may not have supernatural elements, but the color red (ironic, due to the name) is a near-constant.  Stabbings abound.  Quite honestly, I stayed away from the giallo genre for a long time because, despite its encouraging tendency to feature female protagonists, giallo as a result and by nature also features a preponderance of graphic and vicious violence towards women.  I’m a guy who prefers monster movies to knife-murders, and — unfairly or not — I’d always figured giallos to be the artier precursor to slashers, like the FRIDAY THE 13TH series.  That assumption is not entirely incorrect, but of course it’d be foolish to write off an entire genre, particularly one so influential. 

Directors like Mario Bava, Massimo Dallamano, Umberto Lenzi, Sergio Martino, and Lucio Fulci were the most prominent practitioners of giallo films, though genre journeymen more famous for other types of movies, such as Enzo Castellari, Antonio Margheriti, and Fernando Di Leo, also worked in the arena.  That’s how significant a movement it was.  Of all giallo directors, Dario Argento is the one whose name is arguably most synonymous with the genre.  His films THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE (1970), DEEP RED (1975), TENEBRAE (1982), and OPERA (1987), among others, are giallo hallmarks.  The aforementioned SUSPIRIA (1977) is a giallo film with somewhat more of a supernatural angle than usual.  1985′s PHENOMENA is even more of a departure. 

PHENOMENA is a deep, dark fairy tale.  It’s a completely unrestrained work.  It defies convention, throws peerlessly bizarre protagonists into the mix, and veers tonally all over the map.  Clearly, if Argento and his c0-writer Franco Ferrini had an idea, they put it in.  No doubt this is what puts off some of the film’s detractors, but for me, the audaciousness is thrilling and inspiring.  Let’s do a recap and you’ll see what I mean:

The film opens on a cloudy late afternoon in the rolling, lushly green hills of Switzerland.  Right off the bat, what Argento manages to do with wind is eerie and evocative, and the primal unsettling quality of wind through trees is a recurring part of the film.  The instrumental score by frequent Argento collaborators Goblin (the Italian prog-rock band who also did the score for Romero’s DAWN OF THE DEAD) and Simon Boswell is weird and unforgettable and also a kind of secondary character who wanders throughout the film.  So by the time any human characters enter the frame, the tone for PHENOMENA is set.  A busload of young tourists is herded onto a bus by their chaperone, and as the bus is driving off, one schoolgirl is left behind.  She chases the bus, but as it disappears, she realizes how very alone she is.  The girl is played by a young actress named Fiore Argento, and if the surname sounds familiar, that’s no accident.  Argento had no reservations about featuring his nearest and dearest in his films, often in ways that might give meeker hearts pause.  More on that in a moment.

In an epically eerie sequence, the girl wanders through the hillside until she finds a small isolated cottage.  With literally nowhere else to go, she ventures inside, calling out for help.  There’s something chained inside the house.  It breaks free, slashes at the girl, and chases her outside.  We don’t see what the girl sees, although we do see some angles from the vantage point of her pursuer.  The girl runs to a cave near a waterfall, and is run through with a pike.  The attack continues until it’s clear the girl is dead, at which point something falls into the waterfall and is washed away by the rapids far below.  In case it wasn’t immediately clear, the object is the girl’s head.

The next time we see that head, it’s dessicated almost down to the bone, with maggots and worms and all manners of creepy-crawlies doing what they do upon it.  The skull is encased in glass, in the laboratory of a wheelchair-bound forensic entemologist named John McGregor.  McGregor is describing his work to the two police investigators who have come to see him:  He’s a scientist who uses insects to determine the method and manner of a victim’s demise – basically, if the TV show CSI were like this movie, I’d watch the TV show CSI.  Here’s why:  McGregor is played by Donald Pleasence, the veteran British character actor who is probably best known to horror fans from his role in John Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN.  He serves a similar function here.  I should also mention that McGregor has an assistant named Inga who happens to be a chimpanzee.  By assistant, I mean that Inga helps McGregor with his experiments and helps him talk out theories and also pushes his wheelchair for him.  If you’re still reading, I appreciate it and I will understand fully if you want to stop now and run off to watch the movie for yourself.  It’s worth doing.

Into the movie comes young Jennifer, the teenaged protagonist of the film.  She’s played by a then-14-year-old Jennifer Connelly in her first starring role, having previously made her debut appearance in Sergio Leone’s ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA.  Jennifer Connelly is shockingly beautiful in this movie — I say this not at all in any creepy way, that’s not the effect her appearance provokes – she’s like a fairy-tale princess, the kind you want to see no harm befall.  Your eyes go right to her in every scene, but not in any kind of lustful way — she’s simply a striking figure, almost a special effect, and exactly the kind of visual anchor that an unhinged narrative like this one requires. 

Jennifer — Argento allegedly have Connelly’s character the same name in order to help her get invested in the story – is headed to a Swiss boarding school, having been shipped off by a famous actor father who doesn’t seem to care much about her.  Her chaperone is Frau Brückner, a local employee of her father, played by Daria Nicolodi, another frequent collaborator of Argento and the mother of his famous daughter, Asia.  (Both of whom are actors Argento has used repeatedly in his films, to go back to an earlier point.)  Jennifer is dropped off at school and nearly immediately ostracized by the other girls.  There are two things you need to know about Jennifer:  She sleepwalks at night, and she can commune with insects.  She has psychic abilities that give her disturbing images of the future and torment her sleep. 

So one night, while walking in her sleep, Jennifer is awakened by a schoolmate being murdered out in the surrounding woods.  It seems that the killer from the opening scene isn’t done preying upon young victims.  Jennifer gets lost in the woods, but is rescued by Inga, who introduces Jennifer to McGregor.  With their shared affinity for insects, Jennifer and McGregor become fast friends and soon enough they team up to investigate the murders on their own.  Since McGregor is house-bound, he sends out Jennifer with a fly in a box to aid in the investigation.  Jennifer and the fly find the cottage from the opening scene, which leads to more disturbing revelations. 

In other words, what I am telling you is that, in addition to a chimpanzee lab assistant, this movie also has a fly detective.   And songs by famed metal bands Iron Maiden and Motorhead.  And a little person with Patau syndrome.  And I’m not even done recapping yet, but I’m going to stop there, because believe it or not, PHENOMENA has even more twists and turns and seemingly random factors that all collide and result in a uniquely fizzy combustion of weird inspiration.  I don’t want to reveal any more than I already have.

PHENOMENA is an everything movie.  Most people are understandably content with just one or two flavors, and such a mad mixture of elements is too much for them.  Most movies would begin and end with the string of murders at a Swiss boarding school, or with the sleepwalking girl with psychic powers.  The apocalyptic swarms of flies and the chimpanzee protagonist may be five or six too many layers of awesome for the conventional filmgoing mind to handle.  But PHENOMENA is the only movie I know of in which a chimpanzee protagonist and an apocalyptic swarm of flies team up with Jennifer Connelly and Donald Pleasence in order to defeat a deranged murderer — if you know of any others PLEASE let me know – and that is the reason it gets a blue ribbon from me.

Throw everything at me on Twitter:  @jonnyabomb

A Tribute: HAL NEEDHAM.

On March 16th of this past year, I attended a screening at the 92Y Tribeca of BODY SLAM (1986), attended by its director, the literally legendary Hal Needham.  BODY SLAM was the last theatrical feature he directed, and probably not his best, although it was still a whole mess of fun, like pretty much everything else he’s ever done.  Now, Hal Needham is arguably best known to the mainstream as the director of THE CANNONBALL RUN, but that really is only a small part of what makes him a Hollywood legend.

Honestly, I sat in awe through most of the Q&A after the movie, since I know more than most people do about Hal Needham’s career, and still I knew only a little.  Hal Needham doesn’t have a household-auteur name like Spielberg or Scorsese, but rest assured that his is an essential career in American movies.  If you look over his list of credits, you will see that he worked on over a hundred films in the stunt department, whether as a coordinator, actor, or stunt performer, or some combination henceforth.  Here is a partial list of movies with his vital contributions (I’m sticking to the ones I personally have seen or else we’ll literally be here all day):

THE SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS, THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE, DONOVAN’S REEF, 4 FOR TEXAS, MAJOR DUNDEE, OUR MAN FLINT, BANDOLERO!, 100 RIFLES, LITTLE BIG MAN, RIO LOBO, THE NIGHT STALKER, THE CULPEPPER CATTLE CO., WHITE LIGHTNING, BLAZING SADDLES, CHINATOWN, 3 THE HARD WAY, THE LONGEST YARD, and THE END.

Before getting into directing, Hal Needham was Hollywood’s number-one go-to stunt man. He made over 300 movies and broke over 50 bones.

Here are some other facts about Hal Needham, which I excitedly sent out on Twitter after meeting the man in person:

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Hal Needham worked on THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE, and was in the bar fight in DONOVAN’S REEF.  Both alongside John Wayne & Lee Marvin.

(Here’s a pair of Hal Needham bar-fight scenes:)

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Hal Needham jumped from one airplane to another, mid-flight.

Not Hal Needham. But it could be.

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Hal Needham drank with Billy Wilder.

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Hal Needham was best pals with Burt Reynolds and lived for fourteen years in his guest house, “rent-free.”  This was during the time when Burt Reynolds was the biggest box-office draw in the country.  Reportedly, it was exactly the party it sounds like.

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Hal Needham got paid $25,000 to drive a car straight into a concrete wall.  ”It was easy,” he told us.

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Hal Needham escaped a Russian invasion and lost his hearing in an explosion in Czechoslavakia.

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When Hal Needham talks about the Rat Pack, he refers to Sinatra, Martin, and Davis as “Frank, Dean, and Sammy.”  BECAUSE HE KNEW THEM PERSONALLY.

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Hal Needham broke the sound barrier in a car.

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Remember the blonde who drives the car with Adrienne Barbeau in THE CANNONBALL RUN?

Hal Needham did that too.

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Hal Needham gave Jackie Chan and everybody else who does it the idea to run the blooper reel over the end credits.  I asked him if he ever saw ANCHORMAN, specifically the end credits, which hilariously just rerun the blooper reel of THE CANNONBALL RUN.  (Adam McKay and Will Ferrell, along with their protegee Danny McBride, are obviously familiar with the Needham catalogue.  EASTBOUND & DOWN is a reference to the theme song of SMOKEY & THE BANDIT.)  Hal Needham told me he hasn’t seen ANCHORMAN, but would check it out.

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Many of the above stories are written about at length in Hal Needham’s autobiography, STUNT MAN!

That’s Hal Needham on the cover, by the way.  You’ll recognize him because he’s on fire.  (He said it didn’t hurt.)

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When writing about Hal Needham’s accomplishments, it starts to feel like making up Chuck Norris Facts.  The difference?  Hal Needham is a badass for real.

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At the screening and Q&A, Hal Needham was a great sport, and a great, great storyteller.   The crowd was cool and asked about almost everything I would have asked.  So most of my questions were about THE VILLAIN.  (Hal Needham started Arnold Schwarzenegger’s career!)  THE VILLAIN is a little-remembered comedy-Western which Needham treated as a live-action Tex Avery cartoon.  Arnold plays the well-intentioned but dopey hero, Handsome Stranger, Ann-Margret is at her all-time most luscious as Charming Jones, and Kirk Douglas plays the Wile E. Coyote styled black-hatted title character, Cactus Jack (which is sometimes the title of the movie in some markets).  Paul Lynde has a very funny cameo as Indian chief Nervous Elk, and Western-movie veteran Strother Martin plays the excellently-named Parody Jones.  Look guys, I’m not gonna argue that this is a great movie in the classical sense, but goddamn did it make me laugh.  And I really shouldn’t have glossed over just how attractive Ann-Margaret is in the movie.  It’s about as good as a lady can, possibly.

BODY SLAM is equally silly — like THE VILLAIN, probably second-tier Needham — but it has plenty of moments.  This was at the peak of pro-wrestling’s popularity in the 1980s, and it’s easy to see why a stuntman like Needham would feel an affinity for pro-wrestlers, who are also under-appreciated athletes.  Like John Carpenter, he also saw the star power of “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, who was famous in the wrestling as a ‘heel’ but in movies like BODY SLAM, THEY LIVE, and HELL COMES TO FROGTOWN* — *the greatest movie title of all time — made a thoroughly likable, blue-collar, and naturally funny (also very, very Canadian) protagonist.  Most of BODY SLAM is concerned with the antics of Dirk Benedict’s character, as the fast-talking, somewhat shady promoter who takes on Piper’s character as a client.  It’s also concerned with ogling Tanya Roberts, as the love interest prone to wearing very, very, very small bikinis.  I was way into all of that as a kid — Dirk Benedict was on The A-Team, of course, and I knew Tanya Roberts from Charlie’s Angels and SHEENA: QUEEN OF THE JUNGLE.  Throw in Billy Barty, Sydney Lassick, and Captain Lou Albano, and there you go, another [very strange and occasionally awkward] party.  The wrestling scenes are great, though.  I’m also a big fan of the Latin-freestyle theme song, though a saner person might not be.

Can’t find a trailer, but here are some clips from BODY SLAM:

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That’s Hal Needham, man.  He likes to make movies with pretty girls and silly gags, some amiable shit-talking and braggadocio, and a couple big crazy stunts.  If he wasn’t so busy jumping from planes and trains, he could have been a big hit as a staffer at MAD.  He’s not one who’s out to change the world with his art.  He just wants to brighten up your day.  Sometimes that’s a noble cause.  I know I’m someone who believes it to be.

In the end, there was little I could say to the man besides “It’s an honor. Your movies have given me and my friends a lot of happy times.”  I don’t tend to get overly excited about meeting famous people.  I had a fun run-in with Stan Lee once, and meeting Clint Eastwood was a highlight, but yeah I will admit this was a really cool experience.  For a Yankee born and bred, I’m a huge fan of the work of this man who is quite possibly the most successful Southern filmmaker of his era.

I’m finally posting this tribute officially because I read some good news for once:  It was announced today that Hal Needham is getting an honorary Academy Award for his decades of pioneering stunt work.  (Read about it here and here!)  It’s well-deserved, especially considering how the ‘major’ awards show so little appreciation of the value that stunt performers bring to action cinema.  We wouldn’t have most of our favorite movies without them.  They literally risk their necks for our entertainment.  (To be fair, they do usually pull the babes also.  It’s a trade-off!)

Hal Needham is one of the most prolific stuntmen ever to work in American movies, and as a director he created some endlessly enjoyable party movies.  Obviously I’m willing to praise his work all day, but it’s great to see that he’s finally getting his due from his peers, his industry, and other fancy people in tuxedos.

Me on Twitter:  @jonnyabomb

From The Archives: DRAG ME TO HELL (2009).

 

Yet another found-footage exorcism movie has hit big at the box office.  This weekend it was The Devil Inside.  Next weekend, who knows?  Some dork is probably planning one right now.  If folks can shell out hard-earned shekels to see that kind of exploitative junk, they should most certainly feel obligated to watch an underseen horror movie from one of the genre’s maddest practitioners, Sam Raimi.  Here’s a cluster of hype-man pieces I wrote regarding Drag Me To Hell back in 2009, both anticipating and then shouting the praises of its release.  This movie still feels underrated.  Give it a try if you haven’t. 

 

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So Drag Me To Hell came out on DVD today. I’m sitting here now with it in hand, and of course, I cracked that sucker open already, having just watched the unrated version. You can’t see me, but I’m smiling.

Horror movies, at their best, are the purest form of cinema. Drama must have speech to be effective, even at the expense of the pictorial end of the art. Comedies can coast on visual humor for a while, but even they eventually need a cushion of words. Horror, however, needs only the most basic tools of the cinematic vocabulary: Sound design and image and motion and as little meat on the bones as possible. Good horror movies are like skeletons that can walk and talk. (And some of them even feature talking skeletons. I have a special love for those, but that’s another story.) In the great Universal tradition, Drag Me To Hell is admirable in its simplicity. It’s a spectral locomotive, engineered expressly to deliver chills and laughs, and it is entirely successful in that goal, even when you’ve seen it before and you know what’s coming.

Less certain is what, if anything, Drag Me To Hell is meant to say. Some great works of horror are able to reflect and/or comment on the world around them and the people who habitate it. Examples of movies in this vein are The Exorcist, Night Of The Living Dead, and Invasion Of The Body Snatchers; examples of novels that do this are Dracula, I Am Legend, and much of Stephen King’s work. Horror can serve as social commentary if intended as such, or it can simply channel the unspoken fears or anxieties of modern society of its time. Thinking about Drag Me To Hell in that way, however, probably won’t lead to much. As sincerely as I adore Sam Raimi’s movies, I’ve always seen him as more of a showman than a philosopher. His movies are meant to entertain – sometimes to make you laugh, sometimes to creep you out, occasionally to make you feel – but always ever is the goal entertainment. 

Christine Brown, the protagonist of Drag Me To Hell, isn’t a bad person. She makes a snap decision that hurts someone, but she has clear motives and she regrets it immediately. She wouldn’t have needed the torment she goes through in order to feel bad about what she did, and she certainly doesn’t deserve her fate. Nor does her boyfriend, Clay, deserve what he ends up experiencing, even if he is played by Justin Long. Clay is written as a guy with specific social and personal pressures, ultimately a decent person – as is Christine. If Drag Me To Hell hasany morality message at all, it’d be that “deserve’s got nothing to do with it.” Honestly, I don’t think Raimi is even saying that much here. The personal details that we learn about the characters are only enough to make us care about them to the extent that Raimi needs us to – if we invest in them at all, it makes the ride that much more thrilling. But we’re not meant to leave the theater thinking about Christine and Clay; we’re meant to leave the theater with a smile.  Really, all we’re meant to do is jump and shriek and laugh maniacally.  Raimi isn’t trying to make us think; not during, and not afterwards. And that’s just fine. When a movie works as well as Drag Me To Hell, “entertaining” is all it needs to be. Sometimes entertainment without message or consequence can be cathartic on its own terms, and therefore is as valuable an experience as any movie with loftier aims.

That’s the scholar in me talking. Sometimes I get serious about these things because I believe that they deserve the consideration. Drag Me To Hell will not be talked about by critics or film students or Oscar pundits as one of the best movies of 2009, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t. Okay, got that all out of my system. Now let’s lighten the mood, huh?

 

Below are the two pieces I wrote this past summer on Drag Me To Hell. They’re interesting because one was written right before I saw it, and the other was written directly afterwards. I had a pretty secure feeling that I was going to like it, but I didn’t know how much. Neither are meant to be too serious. Enjoy them – then go see the movie [again]!

 

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Top 10 Reasons I Can’t WAIT To See *Drag Me To Hell* Tomorrow.

  

 

I won’t be writing a review of Drag Me To Hell, the new horror movie co-written and directed by Sam Raimi which opens tomorrow, because who am I to appraise the work of the master?

 

But I’ll tell you this much – I can’t WAIT.

 

I’m not a horror super-fan, I don’t think, but I’m a film connoisseur and a movie lover and I would argue that on the merits of Evil Dead 2 alone, Sam Raimi deserves mention with the greats. That movie is creepy and hilarious and pure and original and visually innovative. And that’s not all Raimi’s done, of course – I love that he’s experimented in many genres, and much of his mainstream work is incredible. I love his Spider-Man pictures (yes, even the deeply flawed third chapter), but since he’s been doing those for almost a decade now, I bet Raimi is amping to let loose some of the anarchic energy he’s revered for by movie nuts worldwide, and Drag Me To Hell looks like that ticket. I’m sold.

Here’s a couple more reasons, so that you’ll all join me:

 

10. Old lady monster. Last time we saw this in a Sam Raimi movie, it was Army of Darkness. Before that, it was Evil Dead 2. Before that, it was Evil Dead 1. This is a good sign.

 

9. Sam Raimi wrote it with his brother Ivan Raimi. Other movies written by the Raimi brothers: Darkman; Army of Darkness.

 

8. Demon hands from hell on the movie poster. Demon hands from hell on the poster mean hell-demons in the movie. Bonus!

 

7. Cinematography by Peter Deming. He’s back! Deming is the guy who shot Evil Dead 2 for Raimi (and Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive for David Lynch), so he knows his way around creepy and disturbing images. And his last movie was The Love Guru with Mike Myers and the comedy mastermind Justin Timberlake (sarcasm alert), so I’m hoping Deming is in a demolition kind of mood himself.

 

6. Ted Raimi cameo – duh.

 

5. In all the pre-interviews, Raimi keeps stressing that Drag Me To Hell is an audience picture. From what he promises, and from what I’ve heard, it’s going to be gory and goofy and wild. Be like me – find the biggest, most unruly audience in town and sit down in the middle of the theater.

 

4. A lead female role is rare, if not unique, in Raimi movies. Usually his female characters, particularly if they’re pretty, are idealized, less nuanced than the dudes, even dull by comparison – the best exception being Bridget Fonda’s Lady Macbeth update in A Simple Plan. It’ll be interesting to see how Alison Lohman fits into the Raimi tradition.

 

3. The title. Drag Me To Hell. It sings! It makes me sing. I’ve been crooning an imaginary theme song all morning. It’s fun for me, if no one else. Give it a try yourself!

 

2. Something truly horrible is bound to happen to Justin Long.

 

1. Seriously folks – if you have even a passing interest in horror movies and, I venture to say, in the art of cinema itself, you don’t need nine other reasons to see a Sam Raimi horror movie on opening weekend. The man is an innovator. He’s a crowd-pleaser and a showman, with the technical ability to keep the critics and the scholars just as happy as everybody else. Best of all, he’s a prankster and (on film at least) a madman, and we need as many of those as we can get, out there making movie mayhem.

 

05/29/2009

 

 

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Drag Me To Hell: My Knee-Jerk Reaction.

 

 

Promised I wouldn’t review Drag Me To Hell, and I’m holding to that. On the other side of seeing it for the first time, all I’d want to report is that it’s fantastic. Oh, did I love this movie.

 

Go see it! Don’t read about it. Go in blind, and go with the biggest audience you can. This movie works on an audience in such a primal way. It’s old-fashioned in all the best senses of the word – Raimi and his producers described it in all the pre-release press as a “spook-a-blast,” which is a William Castle-style appellation which totally fits. It’s a spook-a-blast! And that’s all you need to know about it beforehand – you wouldn’t read a review of a roller coaster before you hopped on, would you? There’s not much I can add to what is already exactly right on point, except of course my own absurd observations and ‘iconoclastic’ reflections.

 

Here’s just a few:

 

* Hey Justin: Why the Long face? (If I’m the only one who laughs at that one, I’m still good.)

 

* Along those lines: Drag Me To Hell turns out to be the rare cinematic argument AGAINST dating nerds. I will not explain, but let’s just say that a guy’s hobbies can undo his major plans.

 

* On the plus side, Drag Me To Hell will hopefully incite a spike inn generosity and kindliness towards ethnically ambiguous old crones. Be nice to gypsies, young’uns, else they curse ye…

 

* A lesson Sam Raimi has absorbed after nearly thirty years of filmmaking: Asn wonderful as terrorizing Bruce Campbell is, it’s even more enjoyable to throw tons of water and mud at a pretty girl in a tank-top.

 

* David Paymer has sad eyes. [That one is TM & © my movie-going compadre, but it’s too apt an observation not to share.]

 

* Repeated threatening of cats makes a movie good.

 

* So do goat puppets.

 

* I can’t wait for the transvestite community to embrace this movie. Expect an lot of “Drag Me To Hell” parties across Chelsea and West Hollywood this October.

 

* Since the movie was rated PG-13, I can’t be too bothered by the parents whon brought their baby along to the screening I attended. But I would enjoy the opportunity to speak with that baby a couple decades from now, just to see how this early developmental influence takes root.

 

Again, you MUST see this movie with a crowd. Some of the audience reactionsn I overheard were nearly as entertaining as the film itself. One in particular is likely to become my new battle cry:

 

“Put your hand on the goat! Put your damn hand on the fuckin’ goat!”

 

Drag Me To Hell is now playing in wide release.

 

05/29/2009

 

 

http://twitter.com/jonnyabomb

31 FLAVORS OF HORROR #19: CARRIE (1976).

For a very long time, Carrie has been a noticeable empty spot on the list of major horror movies I’ve seen.  There’s actually a pretty good reason for it:  Carrie is so entrenched in pop culture by now that it’s one of those movies that everybody knows, with or without seeing it.  If you’re a horror fan, there’s a chance you may not know it as Stephen King’s first novel, but you’d know it as Brian DePalma’s breakthrough mainstream film.  If you don’t know it as Sissy Spacek’s star-making role, you know it as John Travolta’s first major movie role.  If you don’t know about the whole telekinesis aspect, you’ve probably heard about the prom and the pig’s blood.  You don’t need to know who Piper Laurie is to have heard Adam Sandler’s impression of her classic line from Carrie, “They’re all going to laugh at you!“

In short, there aren’t a lot of people who know about movies but aren’t very familiar with this image:

At this point, it can be fairly called iconic.  It’s the climax of the movie, yet there’s no book, documentary, magazine article about horror movies that seems to have neglected revealing this image.  In a way, that’s a dick move — being shown this image kind of ruins a major moment of the movie for those who haven’t seen it.  If you know the scene pictured above is coming, you can’t help but wait for it.  But the spoiler is understandable too — I mean, what better single image encapsulates the history, politics, sexuality, conflict, the impact of the entire horror genre than a pretty girl covered in blood standing in the middle of a blazing inferno?

As I’ve been immersing myself in horror movies this month, I decided it was time to start filling in those gaps, or at least to finally see this movie.  Once I did, I realized that there were still some surprises left on the picked-over craft services table that has been the critical acclaim and endless popular referencing which surrounds Carrie.  And I realized how I had some misconceptions that were ripe to be disproved.  Here are some:

The movie Carrie is about the character of Carrie.

Well, it is, obviously, but also it kind of isn’t.  The story follows Carrie White (Sissy Spacek), a high school girl raised by an insanely religious mother (Piper Laurie).  Carrie is tormented at school by a group of popular girls, ranging from Sue Snell, the nicest (Amy Irving) to Chris Hargesen, the meanest (Nancy Allen), with PJ Soles from Halloween and Stripes falling somewhere in between on the meanness scale.  When Carrie experiences the first blushes of puberty, it coincides with a growing and dangerous telekinetic ability.  Noticing how Carrie is having such a hard time, Sue Snell takes pity on Carrie and has her boyfriend Tommy Ross (William Katt) invite Carrie to the senior prom.  Unwilling to let this go off without a hitch, Chris Hargesen and her own boyfriend Billy Nolan (John Travolta) plot the world’s goriest practical joke.

The movie begins in a strange way, if we’re meant to align our sympathies with Carrie.  It starts in gym class, where Carrie has yet again embarassed herself in the eyes of the other girls during volleyball practice.  Which is standard enough high school stuff, but then that credit sequence happens.

It’s a slow-motion pan through a fogged-up locker room, with Pino Donaggio’s orchestral score playing up the romance of what in other movies would be pretty damn gratuitous, as we see all the pretty girls in the class frolicking with each other, some wrapped in towels, some not at all.  It’s a partial lesson in 1970s grooming practices, is what it is.  I dug up Pauline Kael’s review, where she complimented DePalma for blending “old-movie trash and soft-core pornos to provide ‘heart’ for a thriller.”  That’s definitely true, although the effect of all this youthful beauty is that, by the time the camera arrives at Carrie’s corner of the showers, she seems like all the more of an outcast.  Carrie is alone, huddled in the shower, hands between her legs.  Having seen Prime Cut, I can vouch for the fact that a young, unclothed Sissy Spacek is not at all an off-putting thing, but in Carrie it becomes the first creepy image of the movie — having everything to do with how Carrie sees herself and how the other girls see her.  Carrie is terrified to find blood between her legs (that first blush of puberty), and runs towards the other girls, begging them to help her.  This makes Carrie an outcast not only to her schoolmates, but to the viewer as well!  I can’t speak to how a female audience would interpret this scene, but I think I understand how a male audience is supposed to see it — she killed our buzz.  We were enjoying all that softcore, and then this one weird girl had to go freak out and end the scene.  The first time I saw Carrie, I didn’t get why DePalma would start the movie this way, but now that I think about it, it makes sense.  This is one way to estrange the audience from Carrie, who in any other high school movie would have our sympathies for the volleyball scene alone.  With the locker room scene, we’re told right from the start that there’s something not right with Carrie.

Which explains why, for a movie with her name in the title, Carrie isn’t exactly the point-of-view character.  We care about her, because she’s played by Sissy Spacek, but we’re also creeped out by her, because nearly everyone else in the movie is, including herself.  The story frequently shifts between its principal characters; in other words, Carrie’s not in every scene.  Certainly, the most memorable scenes are the ones in which she does appear, but the script by Lawrence Cohen (based on King’s novel but making digressions with DePalma’s input) has several scenes depicting the actions and conversations of the other characters, most of whom are talking about or plotting against Carrie.

So yes, we do get all the scenes of Carrie being terrorized by her mother (“They’re all going to laugh at you!”) and demonstrating her emerging psychic powers, but we also get scenes that are entirely carried by the rest of the cast, whether it be Sue Snell persuading Tommy Ross to cut Carrie a break and escort her to the prom, or Chris Hargesen and Billy Nolan scheming to ruin it.  Which brings me to my next preconception/misconception…

Travolta is in this movie.

Everybody’s favorite Scientologist is part of it, but not as much as I was led to believe.  He’s definitely in there, but really just serves as Chris Hargesen’s ridiculously-coiffed henchman.  DePalma eventually got great leading man work out of Travolta, in Blow Out, but this was Travolta’s first major movie role, where he’s cast as the pretty boy, actions playing against looks as he takes part in some cruel business.  I was surprised to see that the way Chris and Billy get that pig’s blood is to actually slaughter a pig.  Kind of unexpectedly awful.  Like this hairdo.

Speaking of which, why did no one warn me about what’s going on on top of this dude’s head?

And he’s this movie’s notion of a dreamboat.  No wonder it’s classified as a horror movie.

One more misconception:

Nancy Allen is not a total babe.

This is incorrect.

I’m most familiar with her from Out Of Sight, where she’s portrayed as middle-aged, and Robocop, where she’s dressed this way:

Here’s Nancy Allen in Carrie:

Glad we cleared that one up.

But let’s get back to the horror movie talk.  Here’s something about Carrie which a lot of people seem to think, but I was surprised to find untrue after my first viewing:

The movie is scary.

Not really.  It’s a lot of great things, but scary it is not — to me, anyway.  Maybe that has something to do with the impact of the prom scene being lessened by its familiarity, as I discussed earlier, or maybe it’s because every time Carrie uses her telekinesis, the highly-recognizable violin shrieks from Bernard Herrmann’s score to Psycho play briefly, constantly reminding the viewer [me, at least] that it’s only a movie.  There’s one great jump-scare that I have no intention of ruining, but that ties into another misconception I had about the movie.

The prom scene is the end of Carrie.

It isn’t.  It’s the climax.  There’s a denouement.  Meaning: Other important things happen, even after Carrie burns down her senior prom.  The prom scene is probably remembered as the culmination of the movie because it’s the big extended setpiece, and the moment of collision of all the most disturbing aspects of the movie.  In his recently published (and highly recommended) book Shock Value, Jason Zinoman writes of the moral ambiguity that makes Carrie’s revenge so unsettling.  She doesn’t just wipe out her tormentors  — in fact, Chris Hargesen and Billy Nolan aren’t even in the gym when it burns down — but she actually wipes out scores of innocents, all those faces in the background we never met, along with teachers such as Mr. Fromm (the likable Sydney Lassick from Alligator and One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest) and Ms. Collins (Betty Buckley), the one teacher who tried hardest to defend Carrie.  Carrie’s vengeance is not righteous.  In fact, her vengeance against Chris and Billy, which is the vengeance we would have most wanted to see, is far more impersonal than what she does in the prom scene.

This is why that prom scene is so indelible.  This is what is so unsettling about the movie.  It’s set up as a conventional story of a high school outsider who has her moment and triumphs over her bullies, but as the audience we never quite root for her the way we should, and her ultimate revenge is way more horrible than we ever wanted.  Carrie isn’t as much viscerally terrifying, spooky or eerie, as it is psychologically unsettling, maddening and unforgettable.  I’d say it more than warrants the high regard which surrounds it.  It’s a classic.

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Cult Classics: PUNISHER: WAR ZONE (2008).

 

   

PUNISHER: WAR ZONE & THE SAD STATE OF THE CINEMATIC SHIT-KICKER.

So I was one of those strange people who watched Punisher: War Zone during its brief theatrical run.  If you’re a fan of left-field action flicks and intentional unintentional humor, I’ll tell you it’s definitely worth that late-night rental.  If you like to get drunk, get drunk.  If you like to get high, get high.  If you’re like me and you’re a screwy enough personality even without adding any chemical influence, you’ll absolutely get a chuckle out of the thing. 

It’s total junk, but you know what?  Maybe most times you like to eat healthy.  But sometimes you somehow end up at McDonald’s.  And on occasion, while you’re there, you might even feel dumb enough to try the Fillet O’ Fish. 

Punisher: War Zone is the McDonald’s Filet O’ Fish sandwich of action movies – if you’re brave enough to try it, it’s a very temporary very positive experience which you will probably regret doing and probably not admit to having done.

No one will ever persuade me that even a moment of the previous two Punisher movies (in 1989 and 2004) were remotely watchable, and I’ve never been much of a fan of the character.  But the Garth Ennis Punisher stories are some of the few comics I have kept up with regularly for the last several years.  I’m not talking about the first few stories he did with Preacher collaborator Steve Dillon – those were over-the-top black comedy that’s not to my tastes.  The previous Punisher movie, the Thomas Jane one, went to that well, and “well” is not how that approach turned out.  No, instead I’m recommending (highly) the bleak, black-hearted stories Ennis has written more recently, including The Slavers, Barracuda, and The Long Cold Dark, in which the cold-blooded vigilante is pitted against enemies even crueler than he is.  It’s the only approach that makes much sense.  You have to go with the vicarious impulse.

So I don’t actually agree with the notion that The Punisher is too one-note a character to hang a movie upon.  Film franchises such as Death Wish and Friday The 13th managed to do very well for themselves with a one-note, mono-maniacal mass-murderer as the protagonist.  And in War Zone, the story actually starts with at least two relatively interesting concepts which could make The Punisher an interesting feature-film prospect.  One, he accidentally kills one of the good guys; two, he’s put in conflict with a cop who has a more traditional right on his side.

The movie just happens to bury that promising story framework in a sloppy, overacted, underlined, frequently hilarious comedy.  War Zone is unstructured, aggressively miscast, and lit like a caricature of a 1985 Michael Mann film.  (Neon is everywhere – I especially liked the shot of a character sitting on a stool in front of a shelf of assorted liquor: cut to a wider shot featuring a lime-green neon sign proclaiming “BAR.”) 

Maybe Garth Ennis himself could have written up a dark, interesting Punisher movie, but that won’t ever happen.  At this point, another Punisher movie is probably out of the question entirely. 

Especially not after you see the performances of the movie’s lead villains, Dominic West as Jigsaw and Doug Hutchison as L.B.J.  These guys are starring in a campy, incestuous John Waters comedy, playing homicidal psychopathic brothers with insanely ridiculous accents.  Somebody went and mixed the Punisher into their weird-ass movie, instead of the other way around.

On the subject of that Punisher – the one place where Punisher: War Zone isn’t totally miscast is with Ray Stevenson.  I first noticed Ray Stevenson in King Arthur, which was not a great movie but it was stocked with great badasses such as Clive Owen and Ray Winstone.  If you know Ray Stevenson at all, you know him from Rome, the HBO series in which, among other things, he pulls out some dude’s tongue with his teeth. 

I don’t know if Ray Stevenson makes a great Punisher, exactly –  he probably projects too much depth for that – but he is quite skilled in the bad-ass arts.  He’s convincing as a shit-kicker in a way that very few actors are, especially these days.  I wish to hell somebody would give Ray Stevenson a different movie in which to practice shit-kicking, because he’s so very good at it. 

Which brings me to a deeper point…

While I was watching Punisher: War Zone, I started thinking about how rare that badass action movies about the great shit-kickers have become.  Shitkickers used to be so popular; not so much anymore.  Where are the big, ugly, mean mother fuckers? 

Where’s Charles Bronson, who was always so many more shades of tough than people give him credit from just the Death Wish films? 

 Where’s today’s equivalent of James Coburn?  Lanky, toothy, fierce, unfukwitable?

Would there be room today for a wonderfully unique, growly, and two-fisted actor like Warren Oates? 

Do we have anyone on the 2008 landscape who could play the kind of roles that men like William Holden, Jason Robards, Robert Ryan, Toshiro Mifune, or Steve McQueen routinely played? 

Could my beloved hero Clint Eastwood have his amazing, legendary career if he were to start out today?

It used to be that movies had a place for men, real men – men acting mean for the sake of good.  They were convincing as tough guys and they gave our dads and grandpas the metaphorical instruction manual as to how to behave.  Looks were secondary, tertiary, or lower still, as qualifications for cinematic supremacy – physical beauty had little or nothing to do with the careers of John Wayne, most likely the most popular and famous American movie star of all time, or of Humphrey Bogart, one of the best remembered.

So I gotta be a little concerned about the state of American masculinity when the most popular action-movie character of the last ten years is…

Captain Jack Sparrow. 

Johnny Depp is great, but while he’s admirably tried to fight it, he’s ultimately, unavoidably, a pretty-boy.  And in the Pirates movies, he’s an action hero with makeup. 

Dude’s got makeup on, and HE’S the ruler of all the pirates?  Tyrone Power was a pretty-boy too, but he went easier on the makeup at least.  But these are the pirate movies our generation gets.  Babyfaces for babies.  I actually like Orlando Bloom, but he’s in those movies to make Jack Sparrow look butch.  You see my point?

The next most popular lead in action movies?  Probably it’s Tobey Maguire as Spider-Man.  Now, I’m a big Tobey fan, despite and/or because of the universally agreed-upon fact that he resembles me pretty much exactly.  (On a good day, I also get the Jake Gyllenhaal comparison, but that works even more damningly towards my point.  Gyllenhaal is twice the romantic, sensitive poet type that Maguire is.)  While Sam Raimi is all the more a genius for casting my doppelganger as the greatest comic book hero who isn’t Batman, I still have an issue with this, weirdly enough.  I’m not sure that our action heroes should necessarily resemble me – at least, not as a rule, rather than the exception.  Our action heroes should look like they FLOSS with runts like me.

The guys who should be in that spot haven’t broke through to action in the way I’m describing. 

Clive Owen has not exactly been able to hit as an action star the way he should be. 

Russell Crowe was holding it down for a minute there, but he rushed off into serious-actor territory and never really returned. 

Bruce Willis was great at it, but he seems not to be doing it [in watchable movies] anymore. 

Sam Jackson is brilliant at it, but he works so often that it’s not special anymore. 

Keanu Reeves and Matt Damon were very solid in the Matrix and Bourne films, but remember, they were cast against type. 

Denzel can do it, but he’s got so many other vivid facets to work at, and all of them are squarely in leading man territory – he’s more a Robert Mitchum than an Ernest Borgnine. 

Daniel Day-Lewis can do it (Gangs of New York) but usually refuses to. 

I could see Mickey Rourke getting it done, but the proper system isn’t in place. 

Remember, I’m not maligning any of these actors – I don’t think I’ve mentioned a one that I don’t think is legitimately great.  I’m merely talking about a genre that seems to have disappeared off the big screen, a joyfully malevolent genre where pretty faces exist only to get pushed in.

In action, real down-and-dirty shit-kicking action flicks, generally the actors who we think of today strictly as character actors should actually be the kings.

Casting Daniel Craig as Bond was a great step, in my opinion.  He was kicked up from villainous supporting roles, in movies like Road To Perdition, to the big time.  I know the ladies find Daniel Craig dreamy, but I like him because he looks like he’s actually been in some fights; maybe there’s even a busted nose somewhere in his hazy past.  I’m not particularly a Bond fan, and those fancy spy extravanganzas aren’t the kind of movies I’m talking about, but I like that he’s out there in big movies.

But outside of all of the above – really, what else is out there? 

I like The Rock in movies, but he’s not the answer we need.  He’s a little too metro, and definitely too funny. 

I like Mark Wahlberg too, a whole lot, but as an actor way more than an action guy – I’ll never be able to forget “Good Vibrations” no matter how good the guy was in Boogie Nights and Three Kings. 

Jason Statham is decent at what he does, but there’s nothing quintessentially American about that guy – he’d ideally be the fourth down the line in a badass ensemble, not the headliner.  Besides, he used to be a male model. Dismissed.

Hayden Christensen keeps getting action roles, but come on now, seriously. 

Hugh Jackman has a little Clint in his look, but also a whole lot of musical theater. 

That kid in the Twilight movie is inevitably going to get his shot in an action flick now, but he looks like Kate Winslet to me.

  
We’re THIS close to a Justin Timberlake action movie.  That’s all I’m warning against. 

And if that happens, I guarantee Lee Marvin is going to be royally pissed.

You know, the world is upside down.  You’d have to vacate movies almost entirely and go all the way to television in order to see the character actor running rampant in his badassed primacy.  You’d have to watch The Sopranos.  The Shield.  Rescue Me.  The Wire.  Oz.  The characters on Lost who used to star on Oz.  And of course, Rome.

All of which brings us back to Ray Stevenson.  He’s part of the solution.  But he can’t do it alone.

Consider all of the above to be an S.O.S.

_______________________________________________________________________

This essay was originally posted in December in 2008. Since then, the most dire prophecy contained within it has come to pass.  The situation has not much improved.  “It gets better,” my ass.

Doesn’t look happy.

 

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31 FLAVORS OF HORROR #1: FRANKENSTEIN (1931).

Of the classic Universal movie monsters, my favorites have always been the Wolfman and the Gill Man.  I love them all, don’t get me wrong – Count Dracula, The Invisible Man, The Mummy, Frankenstein’s Monster and his Bride – they’re all great.  It’s just personal taste: since I was a little kid I’ve adored animals, so the more animalistic characters have that much more of a place in my heart.  As a result, I’ve not revisited any of the Universal monster pictures as much or as recently as I have The Wolf Man and The Creature From The Black Lagoon.  (Those two I seem to re-watch every couple years.)

In an effort to broaden my palette, I recently went back to the 1931 Universal telling of Frankenstein.

Wow.

Mary Shelley’s novel had been around for one hundred years before James Whale directed Frankenstein in 1931, but ever since, the image of The Monster that has been imprinted on our cultural recollection is that of the amazing make-up design by Jack Pierce, painstakingly applied over Boris Karloff’s distinctive features.

Let’s talk about that make-up for a minute:

It’s just phenomenal.  It’s a thoughtful, graceful, and imaginative design that absolutely makes sense for a character who was literally stitched together from pieces of stolen corpses.  At first glance, it still retains the ability to be upsetting.   At the same time, there’s just enough tenderness and depth of emotion to that face that it can be understood to charm that poor little Maria by the river, the same way The Monster has charmed millions of children across the world in the century since.

The look of The Monster can hardly have the same impact today that it must have had when the movie was first unleashed on an unsuspecting audience – in fact, Frankenstein begins with a brief prologue where one of the actors comes out on a stage proscenium and gives an ornately-worded disclaimer warning the audience that what they are about to see might shock and disturb them.  Back then, the audience probably needed the warning!  Remember, eighty years later we’ve all grown up on the image of Frankenstein’s Monster, on Halloween masks and episodes of Scooby-Doo and on boxes of FrankenBerry cereal.  Back then, the film medium was still in its infancy.  Besides The Phantom Of The Opera and The Hunchback Of Notre Dame a couple years earlier, nobody had seen anything this spooky or gruesome on screen.  Audiences certainly weren’t inundated with horrific images the way modern audiences, exactly eighty years later, have been thoroughly prepared to expect and accept.

So in that first official appearance, where the Monster lumbers  out of the shadows, there’s a reason why James Whale chooses to have his camera linger on a close-up for as long as he does:  Audiences needed time to react, and then to recover.  This is what they were waiting to see, what they wanted to see, but when it finally arrives, it stops the movie cold for a moment before the movie can start again.

James Whale’s direction is full of brilliant and memorable decisions like that one.  Those like me who haven’t seen Frankenstein in a while will be struck by the originality of the opening scene, even by today’s standards.  The first real scene (after the disclaimer and the credit sequence) takes place on a barren hilltop at a funeral, from which Dr. Frankenstein (Colin Clive) and his wretch of an assistant Fritz (Dwight Frye, originating the “Igor” archetype that horror films quickly absorbed) are about to steal the freshly-buried coffin in order to harvest the body parts within.  The camera, set at severely tilted angles, glides past the downcast faces of the mourners and roves past a chilling Grim Reaper statue in the background.  It feels like the funeral itself is sliding off the edge of the world.  The scene is starkly bizarre and terrific, just like the rest of the movie which is to follow.

Again, this was a movie made near the beginning of sound in cinema – directors were still figuring out the film medium.  Frankenstein isn’t quite technically perfect; there are a couple jump cuts in noticeable places – but it’s an astounding creative achievement considering the era, and it still resonates today.  The tracking shot of The Monster in the daylight for the first time, staggering through the underbrush, or the famous wide shots of the enraged villagers later on, burnishing torches in the night sky – these are unforgettable, myth-making images.  There’s also more humor in the movie than might be remembered, courtesy of Dr. Frankenstein’s blowhard of a father (Frederick Kerr) and a character known as The Burgomaster (Lionel Belmore), who clearly proves to be amazing even before he farts out his first sentence.

In short, I highly recommend to all to go back to Frankenstein when choosing movies to put into rotation this Halloween.  There is good reason why the classics endure, and I mean this in reference to James Whale’s rendition as much as Mary Shelley’s landmark novel.

The way I watched Frankenstein was on DVD, via the terrific package that Universal released a couple years ago.  Among many other great supplemental features, there is an erudite and informative commentary by Sir Christopher Frayling, a name I know well because I am a massive Sergio Leone nerd and Sir Christopher is considered the world’s foremost authority on the director of the so-called “Man With No Name” trilogy.  He’s plenty knowing on the subject of Whale and Karloff as well.  The movie really does deserve the scholarly treatment.

Any thoughts on Frankenstein?  Hit me up!

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Below is a quick sketch I did of Frankenstein’s Monster.

Okay, one more for luck: