nfaust1 Reviews

Mayonaka (2022)

Beautiful, gripping, poetic movie.

[9/10 · 22 October 2023]

This Neo-noir styled character drama follows three emotionally detached, spiritually damaged characters through the dark, neon spotted, Tokyo night. Each broken by lost hopes and disappointment, they take to the streets to find something or someone to validate their loneliness and even perhaps fill the emptiness.

We learn that one of the characters plans to commit suicide ant the end of the evening; another character loses his job and drunkenly insults his boss. The boss, once alone, sits quietly in an outdoor cafe looking at his phone longingly at photos of his dog. The drama here is not in what happens next. What keeps us tied to these characters is the way circumstances provoke them to reveal themselves - to each other, to themselves, and to us, watching the film.

Robert Capria, writer, director, cinematographer, and editor, confidently urges the viewer to keep watching; we wonder, even worry about these characters. What are they going to do next, where is this film leading? Capria focuses our attention firmly upon the people we follow, achieving, moment by moment, a genuine sense of lives being randomly lived, moments of connection and moments of loss flowing back and forth across the screen, leading to some irrevocable conclusion. The acting is impeccable, as is the entire visual display that Capria seems to causally create on his small budget, drawing us deeper and deeper into the dark and into the lives of these characters.

A deeply moving, visually compelling independent film, well worth an audiences' attention.

Frankenstein vs. Baragon (1965)

Post atomic bomb surrealism from Toho via director Honda

[10/10 · 4 April 2012]

Rated 10 because this movie does not deserve the 3.9 rating in has (as of the date of this writing). It's detractors here call is preposterous and unbelievable as if Toho Studios had intended it to be realistic! Well, I'll let you in on a secret: they didn't. I just watched the 2007 DVD release, the 90 minute version that was not shown in the United States. With all the connecting scenes intact, one may follow a particular narrative logic, but its just enough to justify the film's wild, out of this world visuals. For once, this series of films starts out with a very human story. After the pre bomb sequence, we jump to (the film's) present and learn that a boy is scavenging the area for food. It is assumed that he is a casualty of the Atomic Bomb, orphaned and left to fend for himself like an animal. Introducing this character into the world of giant monsters, a genre that Toho exploited after the success of GODZILLA, makes explicit what the other films in this series imply. Add to that, the fact that the boy's blood beats through his veins aided by a heart carried across oceans, from Nazi Germany before the end of World War II. This Frankenstein creature is a child born from the unsettling union of war time villains; World War II's two fallen countries. He has been tossed out into a hostile world, destined to tower over all, feared and shot at, like the creature born of dead bodies imaged by Mary Shelley. The monster foe that Frankenstein eventually fights has been awakened from the earth's core. We first encounter it during an earthquake at an oil rig. The implication is clear. The Toho special effects were rather obvious even back then. But if you settle on the notion that the story itself reaches outside anything realistic, one finds widescreen splendor in the surrealistic visuals that grow more and more operatic as the film progresses.

Pornography: A Thriller (2009)

A challenging, intelligent, thriller of a different kind

[8/10 · 6 December 2010]

Slow and boring — a badly told story: are the two objections reviewers here reiterate in different ways over and over. And yet, the film I saw couldn't be more enticing. PORNOGRAPHY: A THRILLER is methodical, character driven, but certainly not boring; and considering its ambitious three part narrative, I'd say this seamlessly rendered film ends up being the engaging puzzle it was intended to be. Writer/director, David Kittredge has clearly thought about his subject long and hard, for the kind of cubist back and forth he's cooked up brilliantly exploits thriller hooks to explore the relationship between hardcore sex acted for the camera and the imagination of those who get off on watching it. Even with the ghost of David Lynch in obvious attendance, Kittredge's thriller plot does not seem stolen or manufactured, as others would have you think; it reflect the artist's ambiguous relationship to the subject. The film is saying that pornography arouses us, body and mind, with temptation and dread; two sides of the same coin. Here's a gay film that truly challenges its audience to think. No gay bar clichés, no stupid, camp posturing pandering to a marketable demographic. If someone says this is boring or not well done, it means the film went over their heads.

Halloween (2007)

Great film - Great director - DON'T MISS IT.

[8/10 · 31 August 2007]

Most comments want to trash Zombie's movie because it's not the original, or it doesn't do what the original did. Too bad, because Zombie's film is both a respectful homage to the original and, in a way, a summary footnote to it. Zombie's movie works best when it's as far away from the original as possible. And really, it's not boring, pointless, drawn out, and all the other things people are calling it. I would say that most of the negative comments here are really subjective complaints that chastise the film for not being what the writers want it to be, totally sidestepping what the film actually is and what it does. I'm not saying the film works totally from beginning to end, because it doesn't. But there's more good here than not. Zombie takes this kind of story seriously. His focus on Michael displays a disarming sincerity that gives the film's best moments the kind of weight missing from the most recent, generic horror films. Rob Zombie is an important director and, even with its faults, this movie is well worth our time and our money.

They All Laughed (1981)

Bittersweet and Screwball

[10/10 · 10 April 2007]

Peter Bogdonavich has made a handful of truly great films, and THEY ALL LAUGHED is one of his best. The cast couldn't be better equipped to play this light but slightly bittersweet screwball comedy. Interestingly enough, the witty, light touch Bogdonavich so effortlessly employs gives the film a rather disarming emotional core. Fresh and immediate, the film starts with absolutely no explanation. There's no soundtrack music to cue us. We meet the characters in action, and as Bogdonavich glides down the streets of New York, the film unfolds effortlessly. Robby Muller's camera captures it all with an understated simplicity that seems accidental, but surely isn't. The cast is terrific. In every way, a classic.

The Arrangement (1969)

An admirable failure.

[8/10 · 3 August 2006]

Not classic Kazan, for sure, but not a total failure either. Was lucky enough to see the film in Paris a few years ago on the big screen. Was struck by Kazan's attempt to break free from the well made play structure he'd so successfully mined in the past. The linear story, though, won out, making the film uneven and stylistically self conscience. But even so, what a marvelous failure. Kirk Douglas, in Kazan's opinion may not have filled Brando's shoes, but, my god, he tried. Dramatically speaking, the film is exploring a state of mind; the character played my Douglas remains, for the most part, in a very static position throughout. Douglas never allows the stain of self pity to disfigure his action. Sitting still, thinking, we see in Douglas a man pulsating with anger, remorse, and the need to act. It's a valiant and satisfying performance even though, like the film itself, we're more aware of what it's reaching for than what it actually holds. The performance, though, that really struck me as being brave and bold is the one given by Deborah Kerr. She's the wife, and she has a lengthy scene late in the film where she and Douglas stray into the intimate area of their married life. Sexually frank and mature, the scene alone is worth the entire film. These two characters discuss intimacy, and then act on it, in a way I've never seen in a film. Kerr was one of the most adventurous actresses of her day; a truly great talent. She gives Kazan the raw, unguarded kind of performance one usually associates with Liv Ullman in her Bergman films.

The Devil's Rejects (2005)

More than one bargains for, this movie is a masterpiece.

[10/10 · 24 July 2005]

Most of the critics, even those who like the movie, miss its point. Not a 'good guys/bad guys" kind of movie, it's not actually even a horror film. We might think it is because Zombie's visual prowess rips the screen; in this, his power is damn near overwhelming. Right away, he pins us down with in your face close-ups and fast cutting, and we stay down all the way through the movie. The point is not so much the story that unfolds, it's the experience of the story that's important. The viewer is the main victim here, and I don't mean that as a criticism. Rendering us powerless is, I think, the film's goal; Zombie wants us to feel, but he also wants us to think about what we feel. In a good verses bad melodrama we stay hooked because we want to know how the story is going to turn out in the end. Given the extremity of this experience, I think it's pretty clear from the very start that nothing good will come from this; the good guys and bad guys are pretty interchangeable, and by the end dust and blood is all that will be left.

Some critics seem to think Zombie glorifies his violence. Some even go so far as to say he wants us to root for the crazy family. This confuses me, because at no time did I feel Zombie condones the Firefly family antics; their victims, unlike in most Hollywood movies, feel what's happening to them. Indeed, the Firefly's, themselves, feel what's happening when the Sheriff turns the tables. Nothing glamorous here, at all. And if, for instance, the Entertainment Weekly critic really believes this film is a Hard Rock, guts and glory celebration, I really wonder: what movie did he see? Because Zombie's movie is not about rooting for this character or that, it's about the conflict between power and powerlessness. We're inside a world of moral and physical decay, a world devoid of meaning beyond that which stimulates senses, otherwise dulled and empty. HOUSE OF A THOUSAND CORPSES starts off with " God Is Dead" on a truck crossing the frame. Yes, He most certainly is, and with each mindless, crazy pop culture reference that follows, we begin to realize that culture and though is also dead; dead, but eating itself. Zombie has defined his point ever further in this movie. Torture in DEVIL'S REJECTS comes with comment; the characters talk, talk, talk; I think what they say is an attempt to give their actions meaning. But what meaning is there, even when the Sheriff does his bit, in annihilation? I think that's the film's point. We are meant to feel the physical and moral force of the film's violence; from the beginning it's a no-win situation all the way around the board. That ending, with Zombie's ironic use of Freebird, is the ending of BREATHLESS, BONNIE AND CLYDE, THE WILD BUNCH, THELMA AND LOUISE, and maybe a bit of WHITE HEAT all rolled into one. Zombie's two movies are both sharp and sophisticated social satires masquerading as exploitation movies. Within this form, Zombie can cut to the bone. He doesn't have to be nice or even justify his intention. He can leave out motivation that, in other kinds of movies, distance the viewer's relationship to violent and unpleasant action. We live in a violent world, and, with terrorism and such, it just seems to be getting worse and worse. The Fireflys do terrible things - and we accept what they do as being terrible - but the movie does not make them hockey mask killers with supernatural powers. These characters are human, they are a family; being so, they come at us with a frightening reality. Real people do terrible things. Zombie's vision seems modern and unpretentious to me. These people are real, and seemingly hopeless. What they believe and want out of life is reflected in how far they will challenge and tempt and goad those who have the unfortunate luck to be in their path. Sexual gratification doesn't seem to be the point: to them, an act of torture is a challenge, it's a philosophical act. That final moment chills us not because it's the Wild Bunch taking their last stand; we are effected because these characters have nothing, stand for nothing, and, somehow, they know it. This is a brilliant, serious film, a masterpiece that, I think, in time, will reveal much about our world and its current condition.

Rob Zombie is one of the most important directors of his generation.

Dark Town (2004 Video)

A great, outrageous urban vampire tale

[10/10 · 28 June 2005]

An urban vampire tale set it a middle class, Los Angeles neighborhood, this movie is a low budget gem. It starts off slow and a little unsure of its tone, but once the vampire antics begin we get one unpredictable set piece after another; the movie soars.

Director, Desi Scarpone, knows how to stage this stuff. Once he gets all the main characters in the house, the movie slips into a truly compelling visual style that perfectly blends action and environment. He stages shots that often comment on themselves with key actions happening in both the foreground and back ground; what we see is outrageous, but how we see makes it real. This middle class neighborhood where a majority of the action takes place, remains perfectly ordinary, even with extraordinary blood drinking and flesh eating going on in it. The level of parody here is high, but like Polanski's FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS, scary and funny constantly intersect. Visually, the movie creates a low rent kind of poetry; there's meaning in all this if you want it.

What really impressed me is how the story sets up certain expectations and then cleverly subverts them. Once all hell breaks loose there's no telling what will happen next. Most low budget horror directors concentrate on gore. We have plenty of that here (some of it rather well done, too), but, interestingly enough, we also get characters that, for the most part, develop. The acting remains uneven, to say the least, but again, Scarpone serves his cast well with staging that works when performances won't carry.

I really loved this movie. A complete surprise, for sure. If you are a horror fan, rent it; the first ten minutes or so do not inspire confidence, but give it a chance. Once the blood starts flowing, DARK TOWN lights up the sky.

Convoy (1978)

Off the Deep End ... Terrific

[10/10 · 6 April 2005]

Okay, it's probably true that Sam went off the deep end when he made this movie. The story doesn't make a lot of sense in its later part, and there are many bits throughout that are admittedly bizarre. But when I watched the DVD the other night, seeing it again for the first time since it was released, the movie astounding me. Drunk, crazy, off the deep end: no matter what state he was in, that man could direct action. CONVOY delivers the goods. Forget about the human characters, they don't really matter. The trucks, awesome and majestic, are the real stars here. Peckinpah obviously loves the way these giant machines move through space. At its best, when its up and running, the movie feels like one long Roadrunner cartoon being played by dinosaurs. Each chase sequence is different and the action we follow is intensified by the very fact that we're watching trucks maneuver and out maneuver automobiles! These action scenes quite simply make you want to shout and cheer and cuss and ... well, go off the deep end - in your own living room! Sam, I think, didn't actually work with the editor on this one. By the time the film was in post he had been fired - I think .. But the footage, the coverage was there. Those scenes were shot with the same fluid grace that one associates with Peckinpah at his best. Not only that, but in a Peckinpah film, when it all gets going, the action speeds up but not so fast that we can't follow what's going on; we remain connected to it because the moment to moment actions tell a rapid story we can follow and understand . Compared to the rapid cutting and computer generated jolts that proliferate today's action movies, Sam's drunken cartoon comes off as being fresh, exciting, and vital. Okay, perhaps I'm going a bit overboard here; this is not one of Sam's brilliant movies, and when the trucks stop chasing the human stories are all but inconsequential. But the action IS BRILLIANT, and the movie still rocks with an unmistakable sense of joy.

Frankenstein Created Woman (1967)

A Terrific Fisher Hammer

[10/10 · 22 March 2005]

There's more going on in this little Hammer than meets the eye. The script reaches for something beyond the usual Frankenstein story, and Terence Fisher accommodates with keenly focused, at times inspired, direction. Start thinking about what is inferred when the soul of a boy, the son of a murderer, is transfered to the body of a crippled, deformed girl. The resulting action does not follow a clear and easy "good verses evil" scenario. Within the confines of a Hammer movie's melodrama, Fisher, a classical stylist and at times a superb artist, often created magic. This is one of those times. The performances are all equally compelling. Cushing gives the Baron more texture here than in any of the other films, I think. Thorley Walters is a good foil, and his befuddled affection and respect for the Baron makes some of this really rather touching. Arther Grant's photography has never been better. I urge viewers to watch the film with an open mine. This is not the usual horror film; it's more a fantasy, a fairy tale.

My Little Eye (2002)

A great creepy thriller.

[8/10 · 24 February 2005]

Why all the bad comments? I don't understand it. True, most low budget thrillers are terrible. Serial killer knock offs without big name movie stars usually depend on gore effects, not characters, to keep us interested in what's going to happen next. This movie, though, is a tightly wound little scare piece that takes its time developing the characters and building suspense. The actors are terrific, the camera work unique and unsettling, and the direction always seems on target. The movie's main gimmick reads like it's going to be glib and possibly stupid, but the actors, and the director's ability to maintain a mood of foreboding, quickly dismisses any possible derision. I bought it and recommend it to anyone looking for a good, creepy thriller.

Elephant (2003)

Brilliant

[10/10 · 31 December 2004]

ELEPHANT belongs on the list of all time great films. Gus Van Sant's work continues to surprise, challenge, and even entertain us. When he flops, he does it big time and with no apology. But more often than not he gets inside his material and tells his stories from a point of view that's unexpected and disarmingly human. TO DIE FOR is one the the finest films of the 90's, and Nicole Kidman has never, in my opinion, so deeply entered the zone of a character the way she lets it fly here. I truly believe her performance has a great deal to do with the director, his approach working with actors, and the quirky, disarming way he leads us into the tale. Same thing with FINDING FORRESTER, a story riddled with clichés and over used dramatics. But Van Sant is cagey the way he plays with our expectations, and undoubtedly created an environment on his set to get performances that rise above any teacher/student cliché that would have otherwise prevailed under a less sensitive artist. Sean Connery gives one of the finest performances of his career, playing back and forth, as he does, against his rough and tumble persona. That the film stands primarily on the seamless matching of this old pro and an amateur tells me that Van Sant is a true actor's director. In FINDING FORRESTER, the clichés evaporate and are recreated, reborn as something fresh and new. In ELEPHANT, the kids are real, not actors; they take us through the story with no melodrama to cook things up; we follow the inner lives, the pains, the hopes and dreams of all those who walk the corridors of that school on that fateful day. Simple, direct film making, with nothing in our way. That we know violence is going to erupt, and we know it will be fatal for some, gives these simple life moments a terrifying edge. I found the film intensely suspenseful and unnervingly disturbing. Disturbing because of the film's point of view: since we know what's going to happen, and in some cases, even where ( the library, for instance), we spend the entire film thinking about these lives, the cause and effects of violence, and the fact that moment to moment existence, even painful existence, is precious when the possibility of irrational violence and death exists just around the corner. I don't know any other film that does what ELEPHANT does. And except for possibly Clint Eastwood, there's no other director who could bring such an incredible vision to the screen.

Two Brothers (2004)

A wonderful movie

[8/10 · 27 December 2004]

Am rarely moved to comment on what others say here, but Sarah from Canada's mindless and cynical response to TWO BROTHERS can't go unchallenged. Though far from perfect, I found this movie to be exceptionally entertaining on all accounts. Sarah claims there's no story, no characters, no moral ... on and on. Well, what she says is a complete crock: there is a story: it's about the two tiger brothers who are taken from their jungle home. The two main characters are not human, and I guess the fact that they don't have dialogue presented quite an obstacle for Sarah because she doesn't seem to have followed their story and its moral/ethical significance. Since the movie plays out like a fairy tale, realism here is not the point, hence the broad human characterizations. Rather, the most successful parts of the film allows us to view the world from the animals' eyes, and in doing so we experience their feelings, memories, and needs. I found this to be entertaining and at times quite moving. The film makers ennoble these tiger characters with such power and respect, I find it utterly mystifying that anyone could miss this as being the major point of the film. Please do not let negative comments like the ones from Sarah keep you from watching this terrific movie.

Confessions of a Serial Killer (1985)

Terror is a Man-Robert A. Burns is Brilliant

[10/10 · 21 December 2004]

This movie isn't kidding. That's why so many comments are hostile to the extreme. The late Robert A. Burns plays the serial killer who's confessing, and he's unforgettable. It's one of those performances that really get you because there's no pretense in his acting. Burns plays a guy who, on the surface, seems pretty ineffectual: polite, soft spoken, and when dealing with the police, always upbeat and gentle. But when the seasoned sheriff starts to interrogate our friend, this soft spoken fellow never breaks a sweat nor raises the tone or timber of his voice as he tells of one murder after another after another. I know of no other actor who has so vividly created this kind of sociopath on the screen before. Burns never plays it up. Rather, the contradictions he seamlessly illustrates in this character continually draw us into his horrible world. That's why all these folks have written negative, hostile comments. Burns gets to you in a way that's profoundly unsettling. You can't take you eyes off him. The film itself takes the approach that the world exists to provide killers like this with toys to play with. It relentlessly positions the viewer in the center of the sociopath's experience, creating a world that defies civilized restraint, tenderness of any kind, and replaces all with a cold and casual cruelty. This is a film that reeks of endgame; God is dead and the beasts rely on instinct and the smell of blood to survive. Not a pleasant film, for sure, but in it's own right a kind of classic because it fulfills its goals without generalizing or in anyway trumping up its dark, relentless vision into something like Jason and Freddy, a faceless cartoon. This movie haunts one because the terror it illustrates comes from a very real and very recognizable human being. Terror is a man. Burns is extraordinary, and so is the film.

Salem's Lot (2004)

Why the bad reviews? - this is a great movie

[23 October 2004]

Just watched the DVD and was gripped from beginning to end. Why all these bad comments? King's book reaches into the well worn bag of Vampire clichés and recreates the myth. Instead of a wild, exotic location, his vampire tale happens in our own back yard - small town USA. The movie, like the book, details characters - typical types, but uniquely drawn to perk our interest - setting up ordinary and recognizable patterns of action and behavior. Enter the vampire; strange things happen, the patterns shake and change; the town goes from sunlit Americana to moonlit nightmare. This movie changes many of King's original notions, but maintains the heart and soul of his book. The first fifteen or twenty minutes, introduced by the Lowe character with a steady and pointed commentary,

brilliantly introduces the story's characters while it's signaling the movie's main conflict. For me, this was seamless storytelling; convincing, entertaining, and, with the overall dark mood reflected in the words and Lowe's voice, a foreshadowing that's all the more ironic because what we're looking at is so ordinary. Being a TV mini series, the film makers didn't have to cram the book into a two hour box. Time is taken to develop characters, relationships; action unfolds at a pace that seems steadily natural - nothing is pushed. Knowing more about the characters means we feel more for them when bad things happen. At least, I did. Rob Lowe's measured, low key performance anchors the movie. I believed he was a writer, who's guarded, repressed nature was rigidly calculated as if all things in life progressed like words in a well written sentence. I found all the Vampire stuff genuinely spooky - mainly because it all seemed so sad. With only a few misguided gestures along the way (the incest bit, for one, seemed unnecessary), this director focused the movie with care and respect. Even when "bad" characters are "changed" we feel a kind of empathy that is all but nonexistent in Horror movies these days. Maybe watching it in one sitting, as I did, with no interruptions, is why I could follow and appreciate things that others (based on the majority of these comments) seemed to miss. My opinion is firm: this is a great movie.

House of Sand and Fog (2003)

Cold, superficial rendering of powerful story

[4 September 2004]

All the elements are in place for one to be moved by the tragedy evoked in this story of a house and two cultures clashing. I watched with anticipation as the

story progressed, and was curious enough to follow the action to the end. But there was something about the cold, funeral tone the film employs that actually kept its tragic turn of events at arms length. The camera moves at such a measured pace, capturing colors soft and muted, that a sense of solemn doom hovers over all that happens from the very beginning. The movie's entire visual concept directs our emotions, never giving us breathing room to discover for ourselves how we feel about what's going on. The film makers want you to take this as a meaningful and important story, but they don't actually seem to trust the very basic emotions that can and will emerge when real estate, or more specifically one's home, hangs in the balance of conflict. Jennifer Connelly's character is just too passive for this gloomy rendering to play. If she was played fiery and impulsive, the movie's tone would have had something to contrast it. And Kingsley's Iranian patriarch is too noble and introspective to make his moment of horror produce anything but respectful nods. It's like the director wants to have Kingsley's character both ways - a stern father and a noble immigrant; but it's all too politically correct for genuine drama. The actor ends up playing within a very narrow parameter and nothing can really take off; there's no fire left by the time we reach the film's ultimate tragedy. Shohreh Aghdashloo, who plays Kingsley's wife, is the only one in the cast who gets a chance to move us. She plays each scene with an organic feel for what is happening. We empathize because she's the only one in the movie who seems to have personalized what it means to be in constant conflict, her thoughts at odds with what she's saying. Her Nadi is a displaced woman who's learned, through experience what a displaced woman must do to survive. When she slams the bathroom door on her husband and son to preserve Connelly's dignity after a suicide attempt, we glimpse the rage of an entire culture. She is breathtaking. The film is to be taken, I think, as a social and political metaphor; in this suburban conflict we are meant to perceive global significance. Hence the funeral tone and superficial rendering of character and action. But it seems to me that if the story was simply told, without directing our attention to its meaning, we would have gotten all that, and actually discovered within ourselves the emotional connection that such a story produces. But the way it is, I kept wondering why Connelly didn't go down to that screwed up tax office and pitch a tent on their doorstep. .

Open Water (2003)

Nice try, but misses the boat

[21 August 2004]

I liked the idea of the movie and its simplicity. But it doesn't work. Perhaps as a short the movie would have maintained the tension in needed to the very end. This version seems to me rather padded out and clunky. The characters are not well drawn and lack depth. The visuals are muddy and, with the one view we have of the couple in the water, monotonous. The director's vision generalized an otherwise compelling situation: a married couple alone in shark infested waters for nearly 12 hours (?). The drama here is how the two deal with the situation; how their physical and emotional defenses breakdown; and how they ultimately battle the elements. None of these things seem developed beyond the obvious. And since I really had no idea who these people are or what they felt, I wasn't gripped by the situation. Also, certain key moments were so vaguely drawn that I was asking myself, what just happened? when in fact I should have been engrossed. All that said, I applaud the film makers daring and the actors' nerve. I only wish the finished movie lived up to all they no doubt put into the project

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986)

Crazy, gross, funny - Tobe Hooper all the way

[8 August 2004]

OK, so it's not the first one. But how could it be? Texas CHAINSAW MASSACRE is the CITIZEN KANE of horror movies; you don't top that. What this movie does, though, is it takes its crazy ideas and wacks you over the head with them; it goes all the way, and then some. That's the Hooper hallmark. Playing the movie for obvious laughs works to make it even more disturbing. The jokes play against the gruesome carrying on; this is a world gone mad because nothing, and I mean nothing makes sense. We're beyond surreal; we're through the looking glass; which, I think, is Hooper's intention. Stretch falls down the hole - it's not a rabbit hole, and she doesn't meet the mad hatter. But what she does experience is a world that questions sense and sanity. The reason most find this one less satisfying then the first is because it's not seamless; we can see Hooper's gears turning and, unlike the first time, we're actually in on the joke. That aside, Hooper's directorial vision remains consistent. It's not a story, per se, we are following, it's a chase, and we're running, running, running like mad.

Hooper seems to have an unerring ability to get inside the crazies that populate his movies. These weird, disastrous, antisocials he creates have dimensional life; and it's all their own. We follow their thinking, their thought process, and in doing so, the irrational in his movies becomes logical. This is his gift. When he works on material like CROCODILE, where the "monster" is not in some way human, the work stutters and spits. Hooper's mad men are scary because they are human, and their humanity is cleverly displayed. Remember Neville Brand's nutty soliloquies in EATEN ALIVE? Brilliant, I thought. Massacre 2 knows it's being funny, and the surprise we felt in the first one is all but lost. This time, though, instead of surprise, we find ourselves tumbling down the rabbit's hole and we end up with more than we bargained for. Chop Top is one of the weirdest, wildest, funniest, monsters ever put on the screen. Bill Mosley's performance shoots off into areas few actors even know about, much less enter. He is gross, funny, and frightening all at the same time. The crazy things he says are like DaDa ravings; he's the irrational made flesh. Jim Siedow weaves back and forth between rationality and the exact opposite with little or no warning. In truth, he looks like he's on the verge of breaking up throughout the entire movie. The scene where Stretch finds herself tied to a chair at the head of this wildly long table is one of Hooper's finest moments. The entire scene is one long take with the camera tracking into Stretch and then back out over the table, then back in to her, then, yet again, we track back out beyond the table, with Siedow raving on like a mad Baptist minister. The tracking, swooping camera, constantly changing our perspective, creates an almost lyrical sense of grandeur in this mad, mad world; Hooper has let us in on the joke, but he surprises us with such effects because we feel, with the Sawyer clan, the power and drive of their subterranean mania.

Hooper is an extraordinary director. Even when his work misses, there's a power to it. In some way or other he understands what it is to be a lunatic, and his major movies, this one included, celebrates the hysteria while putting us non-lunatics through the ringer.

Eaten Alive (1976)

Douglas Sirk in Hell - Neville Brand's finest performance

[10/10 · 8 August 2004]

Tobe Hooper's EATEN ALIVE is like a movie Douglas Sirk would make in hell. Shot entirely on a sound stage, its cheap, artificial look somehow enhances the movie's grimy, lurid appeal. Hooper and company never condescend to the material; they play it crazy but, in an odd way, straight, which validates the distorted world and characters on display. Neville Brand gives what may be the absolute best performance of his career. Like all of Hooper's human monsters, Brand's character makes a kind of sense. He spends a lot of time alone on screen, rambling on and on. After a while, these ramblings begin to connect, and the effect created is not unlike a soliloquy in some wild, blood-lust, Jacobean tragedy. Brand never looses himself, the craziness defines him; he builds a character, bit by bit, that we can connect with and, to some extent, understand. This is why the movie works; its absurdity is understandable. The movie loses focus when we leave Brand for any length of time. But that's o k. When the story brings us back to him, we're grateful. He's our anchor and the reason we keep watching. I wish someone would release a good DVD version of this movie because it deserves a new audience and recognition.

The Manchurian Candidate (2004)

Washington shines in lackluster movie

[31 July 2004]

Jonathan Demme and his writers have re-thought the original in broad strokes, and some of what they come up with has its own energy. Updating it, as they have, offers startling possibilities, but it all seems unfinished and underdeveloped. Basically, their script lacks the unity and the seamlessness of the original, so for me, the movie never let me forget the absolute perfection of John Frankenheimer's version. Demme goes to great lengths setting up his basic premise and the focus and tone of his story gets sort of muddled. Raymond Shaw's relationship with the Jordan family has been reduced to past action and is never dramatized, so when the murders happen there's really no emotional jolt. In fact, what happens is rather silly. Shaw's character lacks possibilities; what's lost to him, and how, comes off as being matter of fact. Liev Schrieber almost pulls off the part, but the script, and Demme's hodgepodge approach keeps getting in the way. I responded to the character's sense of confusion, and believed his gut wrenching remarks about lost love and so forth. But the script left me lost as to how and when his moments of clarity coincided with confusion. Instead of giving way to the character's predicament, I lost track of what's going on, asking myself basic question: what is he doing, what does he know and remember? Does he really walk though the wall of his hotel room to that weird operating room? Or is that some sort of mind game played by the bad guys? Or is it a memory? I have no idea, and I think for a movie like this to really work we have to know at some point or another what's going on; what's real and what's fabricated. To be perfectly frank, I don't think Demme is the kind of director who thinks that way. To say he's not as good a director as John Frankenheimer seems unfair, but may, in fact, be the truth. Frankenheimer moves his version of this story at a lightning pace, never leaving the gaps that Demme does. Likewise, the way Frankenheimer brings us into the weird and paranoid fixations each character experiences has an emotional weight that makes the action exciting. There is confusion, but it's the kind of confusion that propels us forward: Frankenheimer presents clues that we are compelled to connect. Meryl Streep plays the Mother, who in this version is a Senator, as if she's doing a comedy. The same tone in her line readings here can be found in the brilliant comic turn she did in DEATH BECOMES HER. But there's nothing comic in Demme's vision; she offers a character that is playing a role in some other kind of movie, and it's really hard to take her seriously. The only consistent sign of life throughout the film is Denzel Washington who is capable of making his way through the mess of this script with a clear intention and a striking sense of humanity. Washington's character never demands, he goads others in the film to believe him. In doing so, he goads us, as well. The real emotional power of the piece, the movie's core, happens in the scenes he has with Raymond, one on one. His need to discover the truth is raw, and it grabs you. Washington is that rare figure: a movie star who is also a great actor. He is the show here. Without him, this movie would be a complete bust.

The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967)

Pre-GODFATHER classic!

[22 July 2004]

If you love movies, this Roger Corman entry into the gangster genre is a revelation. The story is told in a series of loosely connected episodes that supposedly document real circumstances leading up to the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. A narrator tells us what we need to know for each scene, moving the action forward with an astonishing speed and clarity. Corman stamps the Docudrama style with this convention, and it really works; the immediate story is constantly informed by the narrator's voice-of-god telling of characters' past, present, and future circumstances. Even though the visual dimension of the film never escapes its studio locations, Corman's staging and his work with the actors gives it a sense of urgency. Corman has never really been talked about as an actor's director, but here he apparently had the time, the script, and I assume the inclination to let the players rip through the ceiling. The performances are all terrific. Jason Robards (looking nothing like Al Capone!) has an insane, maniacal smile that is often more unsettling than his violent rages. The camera seems to follow him around without the interruption of a cut; his mood swings keep his men in line and the viewer disarmed. True, Robards carries on, but it seems appropriate for the movie. George Segal has two great scenes that seem to play out without interruption. The one with Barbara Hale is a doozy. In fact, all through the film, Corman showcases characters in often ironic situations creating a tapestry of collective behavior that gives the film an amazing sense of vitality. Its the odd, subjective character detail that builds this story; we get involved not in the melodramatics of the story, per se, but rather in the lives of those individuals that come together who create the story.

In a very real way, Corman's approach pre-figures and creates the template for Coppola's internal view of the Mafia in the GODFATHER movies. It lacks the scope of Coppola's saga, for sure. But it sets the precedent. Corman was a terrific director. This movie was the only one he did for a major studio, 20th Century Fox. As a director, a major studio suited Corman, the artist. But as a producer, Corman has written about his distain for studio waste and book keeping. So for the next few years, before giving up directing altogether, Corman continued to work on his own under his safe and financially responsible American International umbrella. If you love movies, this is one you will cherish. Please give it a look. It a rich, satisfying, and disarmingly complex little gangster movie; terrifically entertaining.

In Praise of Love (2001)

A beautiful movie

[11 July 2004]

It's very difficult to see some of Godard's most recent work here in the United States, but what's available confirms in my mind that, as a director, he's still ahead of the game. True, contemporary trends combined with the business of film leave little room in the commercial market for those who work in such a subjective and experimental way - as Godard continually does. But being pushed to the sidelines of commercial cinema does not, in my opinion, automatically mean the artist (in this case, Godard) is any less powerful or innovative. And to my way of thinking, IN PRASE OF LOVE, though difficult at first to penetrate, is a terrifically rich and rewarding experience; as wildly innovative in its own way as the jump cuts were in BREATHLESS over forty years ago. The most ironic thing about Godard's work – all of it – is how his continual exploration of film technique and convention over the last forty plus years has been so thoroughly digested by the mainstream. The kind of non-linear editing that so perplexed many in the 60's is now the basis of modern, Hollywood montage. Music video owes much to what Godard did back then. Fragmenting an action or series of actions in such a way that the result is not an easy, linear flow of time and space, but the visualization of an idea or, more often the case today, an emotion, seems to me an essentially Godardian concept. (Trivialized now, in the way its function serves today's action movies.) The way Godard's technique fragments and folds the past with the present in IN PRAISE OF LOVE, serving, as it does, the very basic conventions of a love story, took my breath away. To me, the film evokes both an intellectual response, and one that is entirely emotional. Left to his own devices, Godard continues to show us that possibilities exist beyond current trends and expectations. His experiments lead the way in cutting edge technique and personal expression. (Indeed, Godard was using tape a long time before the Dogma boys, and I suspect years from now digital tape will in fact be the norm.) So I wouldn't count him our. Not at all. He'll never again be the toast of any new wave, but his influence will always be with us

Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)

Connect the dots.

[9 July 2004]

Any extreme Left or Right statement must be considered with caution because it represents a particular point of view. Truth can indeed be looked at from many different vantage points, and I personally believe it's never just a black or white issue. Moore brilliantly manipulates the conventions of film to make us see and feel these issues the way he does. But I think, from moment to moment, viewers must continually ask themselves: Is this the way I see it? Is this the truth, or merely an opinion? For instance, the sequence showing Bush reading the kiddie book for all those minutes after hearing about the Twin Towers attack: Moore looks at the President's face and sees a man who doesn't know what to do, or, using the image as a dramatic convention, speculates on many of the issues surrounding Bush and his family that will be developed later in the film. Moore's impression may be correct, but as I watched the footage I couldn't help but wonder what would be going through my mind at such a moment? To me, Bush looks honestly stunned and worried. Whatever his thoughts were at that moment, I don't fault him for sitting there all that time, thinking through them. I am not a Bush supporter, and for the most part, I found the connections that Moore makes in the movie to be thoughtful and more than likely ... close to the truth. I don't buy everything he says, even though the film's emotional power tells me that Moore's vision comes from a very honest and committed need to communicate what he believes. A great playwright once said that Art is not a mirror, it's a hammer. Moore uses his art to hammer home the notion that the face of our nation, like Bush's face in the school room, holds a wide range of possible meanings. And we really must look beyond what we're told to see and find the truth for ourselves. This movie is an alternative vision of the last four years. Moore presents social, political, and business concerns like they are dots on a great big puzzle. We are meant, I think, to connect those dots and fill in the picture. After seeing the movie, I sat in my car for a long time thinking through the experience - and it was an unsettling, emotional experience for me. The question, though, running through my mind was: how much of this is really true, and how much of it is mere speculation? The conclusion I arrived at is simple: if only a fraction of what's laid out in this movie is true, and I believe at least a fraction of it must be, then these guys in Washington, the entire crew, have seriously screwed up. Perhaps it's time to unleash the Hounds and hope they can sniff out the actual truth with Starr-like zeal. People are dying over there. And that's NOT an opinion. It's the truth.

The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976)

Unique, Original, Creepy: a forgotten classic.

[18 May 2004]

THE TOWN THE DREADED SUNDOWN is one of the most original horror films of the 70's. And that's saying a lot. It starts off as a square-footed documentary with voice over and all the rest. But in the midst of this rather sweet evocation of Texarkana, Arkansas, a hooded madman runs rampant, sadistically killing and killing and killing. The violence, though not particularly graphic, is disturbing because of the way Pierce places it within his documentary structure. The movie's goal, I think, is to show the unspeakable chaos that lies just beneath the facade of America's post war prosperity. How secure is the picket fence world when a hooded maniac may be lurking in the shadows? The mystery is never solved; we don't find out who the killer is, nor is there a climactic moment where all the action peaks. The killings just stop and the dread never really ends, it just recedes back into the city's shadows. What makes this movie so compelling is the straight forward and uncluttered way Pierce lays out his facts. He will dramatize certain situations, but not in the conventional way, not with a continuous rising and falling melodramatic plot. Pierce's approach circumvents the usual horror movie gestures to zero in on what is, in this case, a purely mythic concern: evil in our midst. The killer, not shown to be a "character" in the traditional sense, is a burlap hood with eyes looking through eye holes and black work boot. The killer's visual presence and violent actions are given no motive, no personality beyond the moments of mayhem we see and the destruction we hear discussed. This killer is merely a faceless force, a depiction of nameless chaos, and, because he exists in this removed state the viewer is instinctually compelled to make sense of his actions. Pierce takes the trappings of exploitation and weaves a creepy and, for me, unforgettable midwestern epic.

Charles B. Pierce, an independent producer- director, was the Otto Preminger of the drive-in market. Like Preminger, he was rarely taken seriously as an artist. One reason could be that his film subjects jump all over the place, from horror to Native American stories, to a movie about Vikings staring Cornel Wilde! He thought big and was not afraid to put his name above the title. Even in the post BONNIE AND CLYDE era, the idea that a regional film maker could both embrace and bypass the Hollywood system to actually get films like these made and shown must have seemed strange to most of the status quo.

The one that put him on the drive-in map, THE LEGEND OF BOOGY CREEK combines what appears to be genuine documentary footage with horror movie antics. At first, you think it's a joke, but as it goes on, a strange kind of unvarnished beauty emerges. I wouldn't say the movie's entirely successful (TOWN plays with the same concept and is more assured and less loopy), but it's bold and original and it reportedly made a lot of money. I've seen most of Pierce's movies, not all of which work as well as TOWN, but all of them exhibit a splendid sense of place and style. The late 40's vibe in TOWN hits the mark, and on shoestring budget, I'm sure. Charles B. Pierce was a true film maker, and I'll bet there's a lot to be learned by studying his work and the way he put together his productions. Where is he now, and what's he doing?

The Osterman Weekend (1983)

Ahead of its time - brilliant, entertaining, insightful

[17 May 2004]

When this movie originally came out, five years after CONVOY (a muddled, but in many ways spectacular entertainment), many critics moaned that Peckinpah had yet again displayed his diminished talent. A Ludlum spy thriller, pulp material, given the Peckinpah stamp was not to be taken seriously, period. What nonsense. To begin with, all of Peckinpah's films spring from pulp, and all of them, even the least successful ones, buck and spin with the way Sam applies his vision to the genre conventions he's messing with.

In simple terms, a Peckinpah movie always illustrates the world according to Sam; like a novelist writing in first person, Sam's point of view is the movie's. And that's why they endure today. In THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND, Peckinpah focuses Ludlum's cold war spy antics into a exploration of urban paranoia and governmental abuse. Video as a means to manipulate perception is one of the themes he exploits here, but that's not his main thrust. A group of affluent characters come together for a weekend that turns into a surreal nightmare. The trappings of success that surround this group are not in any way secure enough to withstand the violent, reckless games played on them by a rouge CIA agent (played by John Hurt) who's motive is personal revenge. And that motive, the revenge that fuels his need, in actual fact, has absolutely nothing to do with the affluent group he's playing with. Like the gods in Greek tragedy, the Hurt character uses the Osterman Weekend and its players as pawns, stepping stones, as a way to get at his real goal, the head of the CIA. This notion obviously strikes a chord in Peckinpah; the vision is certainly domestic, but the idea is epic: in the privacy of our homes a kind of virus colors our perceptions and poisons friendships, creates anarchy, and causes death. And the virus - where does it come from? Our own back yard - the CIA.

The film is charged with a constant underlying tension that holds and holds until all hell breaks loose and the affluent house becomes a battle ground. Visually, the movie is stunning. But then, so was CONVOY, but this time Peckinpah has harnessed what he shows and what he wants to say in a simple, tightly wound spy thriller package, Watching the movie today, it's hard to believe that some of the notions that seemed more like the paranoiac mechanics of a potboiler in 1983 have actually come true and don't seem quite as far fetched. By all accounts, Sam Peckinpah was a terribly difficult man, but he was also a visionary film maker who's work gets better and better as the years pass. THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND is not the bad film critics at the time bitched about, and it's not the sad conclusion to a career that started out brimming with possibility. It's a splendid, brilliant - better than brilliant - work of American art by a true American artist: a giant. The world according to Sam is a world that will be looked at a hundred years from now; it will inspire debate, continual analysis, and be ranked with the major artist of the entire 20th century. By 1983,Peckinpah's health may have diminished, but as a film maker he was still powerful and strong as hell.