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Tag Archives: adventures

4/24/15: A Boy, A Girl, A Jungle, A Gem

12 Tuesday May 2015

Posted by phillipkaragas in Uncategorized

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'80s adventure films, 1980s films, action-adventure, action-comedies, adventures, Alan Silvestri, auteur theory, Back to the Future, blockbusters, cinema, damsel-in-distress, Danny Devito, Dean Cundey, Diane Thomas, Film auteurs, film franchise, film reviews, films, Forrest Gump, jungles, Kathleen Turner, kidnapping, Manuel Ojeda, Mary Ellen Trainor, Michael Douglas, Movies, odd couple, priceless jewels, Raiders of the Lost Ark, ransom, Robert Zemeckis, romance writer, romances, Romancing the Stone, stolen treasure, The African Queen, The Jewel of the Nile, treasure map, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Zack Norman

romancing_the_stone_by_edgarascensao-d7carpy

What, exactly, would you get if you were able to somehow crossbreed John Huston’s indelible The African Queen (1951) with Spielucas’ (patent pending) Raiders of the Lost Art (1981)? If you performed this bit of alchemy nowadays, I’m guessing that you’d probably end up with something that bore a pretty close resemblance to Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) or its ilk. If you did this back in the ’80s, however, it’s pretty much a given that you’d come up with Robert Zemeckis’ Romancing the Stone (1984). Equal parts odd-couple romance and globetrotting adventure yarn, Romancing the Stone is the box-office blockbuster that, effectively, kicked off Zemeckis’ career, directly leading to some little indie film about race cars called Back to the Future (1985). As they say: a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step…for Zemeckis (Used Cars (1980) notwithstanding), that journey began right here.

Best-selling romance writer, Joan Wilder (Kathleen Turner, in only her third full-length film), may write about passionate, sexy, self-assured and ass-kicking heroines but life definitely doesn’t seem to be imitating art: in reality, Joan is meek, nerdy, awkward and chronically single, spending her days with her cat (Romeo, natch) while she waits for the flesh-and-blood version of her hunky leading man, Jesse, to swirl into her life and spirit her away to fun, adventure and love.

Adventure (albeit of the less than desired kind) makes its way into Joan’s life after she receives word that her sister, Elaine (Mary Ellen Trainor), has been kidnapped by miscreants (Zach Norman and Danny DeVito) in Columbia. The kidnappers demand that Joan head to South America and bring the treasure map that Elaine mailed to her, a map which purports to show the location of a fabled, priceless jewel. When Joan gets to Columbia, she immediately finds herself pursued by the sinister, murderous Zolo (Manuel Ojeda), a corrupt military leader who will stop at nothing to acquire the jewel.

Just as things look grim, Joan is saved by mysterious, handsome and wise-cracking Jack Colton (Michael Douglas), an American ex-pat adventurer who could, quite literally, be the very personification of Joan’s beloved “Jesse.” Jack spirits Joan away and she enlists his aid in rescuing her captive sister. As the kidnappers decide to take matters into their hands and pursue Jack and Joan, our heroes must also out-maneuver Zolo and his men, who are never far behind. Will Joan finally find her knight-in-shining-armor? Will Jack be able to put aside his more avaricious impulses and inherent dislike of Joan’s needy, city-slicker ways long enough to fall in love with her? Will our plucky heroes succeed in finding their massive emerald or will the jungle serve as their final resting place?

In many ways, Romancing the Stone is a prototypical ’80s adventure film: bright, silly, full of decidedly antiquated notions on gender politics (Joan is never much more than a hapless damsel-in-distress and Jack is often so macho as to become completely cartoonish), lots of engaging setpieces (Joan and Jack’s tumble down the river rapids is an easy highlight, as is the evocative bit where they stumble upon the treasure, complete with a skeleton in a crashed plane) and as little common sense as necessary to propel the storyline to its designated conclusion.

What really helps to vault Romancing the Stone above the competition (aside from the involvement of adventure auteur Zemeckis) is the stellar performances and chemistry of the three principals. Romancing the Stone would be Douglas’ first major foray into blockbuster entertainment (although some might argue that The China Syndrome (1979) really got the ball rolling for him after the success of The Streets of San Francisco (1972-1976)) and the role fits him like a glove. By turns smarmy, sly, genuine, put-upon and roguish, Douglas’ Jack Colton is the dictionary definition of a kickass “antihero” and definitely deserves his place in the action flick roll books. For her part, Turner is outstanding: never less than imminently likable and empathetic, Joan Wilder is a real hoot and Turner has a blast bringing her to cinematic life. Douglas and Turner have tremendous chemistry throughout, recalling nothing so less as Bogie and Hepburn’s performances in the aforementioned African Queen: any of their scenes together are smooth sailing but the parts where they lock horns, like stubborn rams, are pretty unforgettable.

On the villain side, DeVito (as usual) is an absolute scene-stealer: the bit where he wrestles with the extremely tall lady is a complete riot and his interactions with the dastardly Zolo hint at the sarcasm-etched wrecking ball that the future Frank Reynolds would become. Here, we get DeVito just as he was transitioning from the small-screen madness of Taxi (1978-1983) into his unforgettable big screen career. While there’s way too little of DeVito in Romancing the Stone, the producers rectified this by bringing DeVito, Douglas and Turner back for a sequel, The Jewel of the Nile (1985), that featured quite a bit more screen-time for good ol’ Ralph. Years later, the principals would once again reunite when DeVito directed Douglas and Turner in the absolutely essential The War of the Roses (1989), a re-teaming which managed to frame the earlier relationships in an entirely different light.

Silly, cute and lots of fun, Romancing the Stone is the kind of breezy entertainment that’s perfect for lazy weekend viewing: while it’s far from amazing (or even particularly original), Zemeckis’ romantic adventure is a perfect example of what made ’80s films so great. For younger generations, the film stands as a perfect example of a simpler, more innocent time, a time when comic book entertainment was still pulpy, goofy fun. In an era where heroes spend an awful lot of time frowning, Romancing the Stone reminds us that this wasn’t always the case: as far as I’m concerned, our modern era could use a little more Jack and Joan. After all: smiling is pretty good exercise, too.

6/6/14 (Part Two): Alpha Males

10 Thursday Jul 2014

Posted by phillipkaragas in Uncategorized

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action-adventure, adventures, Alaska, Alaskan wilderness, alpha males, based on a short story, Bronson, cinema, Dallas Roberts, Dermot Mulroney, faith, fighting animals, film reviews, films, flashbacks, Frank Grillo, Greg Nicotero, guy movies, isolation, Jack London, Joe Anderson, Joe Carnahan, killer wolves, Lee Marvin, Liam Neeson, man vs. nature, Movies, Narc, Nonso Anozie, oil riggers, Ottway, plane crash, Smokin' Aces, snow, stranded, survival, survival-horror, The A-Team, The Descent, The Grey, voice-over narration, wolves, writer-director

DN_TheGrey_A2

Mankind likes to think that it’s the master of any domain it comes across but the reality isn’t quite as optimistic. Sure, we can go into frigid Arctic areas, travel deep below the sea and even walk on the Moon: if we put our minds to it, nothing seems impossible. Throw humans into any of these situations wearing just the frail skins we were born with, however, and see how far we get. We may be able to use technology and innovation to take us further than anyone has gone before but, at our core, we are shockingly fragile, insignificant little things. Without the various safety nets we establish for ourselves, like clothing, shelter and weaponry, humanity is very much at the mercy of the natural world. Hunters are all-powerful when they’re armed but look an awful lot like food when they aren’t. A shady banker with a computer can bring down the world: a shady banker, in the forest, with no protection, will get eaten by a bear…that’s just the way the world works.

Writer-director Joe Carnahan’s The Grey (2011) (an adaptation of Ian Mackenzie Jeffer’s short story, “Ghost Walker”), is yet another examination of “man vs. nature,” one of those time-honored tales where disparate and diverse personalities must come together in order to survive a greater threat. In the process, the characters will do lots of surviving, lots of dying and lots of personal discovery. While this type of story is certainly nothing new (hell, Jack London may have invented this subgenre all the way back in the 1900s), The Grey ends up being an extraordinarily powerful film, anchored by a quietly explosive performance from Liam Neeson and a strong, viscerally violent atmosphere. While popular jokes at the time may have cast The Grey as nothing more than “Liam Neeson punching wolves,” the film is a helluva lot more than that. In fact, it may just be the best survival-horror film since Marshall’s classic The Descent (2006).

We’re immediately dropped into the desolate, snow and wind-blasted wilderness of Alaska, where we meet Ottway (Liam Neeson), our guide through this particular wasteland. Ottway is a master outdoors-man and responsible for protecting the rugged members of an oil-rigging crew from the hungry wolves that endlessly patrol the icy wastes. Ottway is also a hopelessly damaged individual, suffering from some sort of unnamed loss (we get lots and lots of flashbacks) that drives him perilously close to eating a bullet. He doesn’t, however, and boards a plane with the rest of the crew, including Diaz (Frank Grillo), Flannery (Joe Anderson), Talget (Dermot Mulroney), Henrick (Dallas Roberts) and Burke (Nonso Anozie). When the weather gets worse, the plane freezes over and ends up crashing in a spectacular, absolutely thrilling sequence (talk about edge of your seat…literally): the lucky ones are killed in the crash. The unlucky ones, led by Ottway, must now survive in the harsh elements with only the clothes on their backs and a few canisters of pilfered airplane fuel to start fires. They need to get back to civilization but there are plenty of eyes watching from the woods…hungry eyes.

As Ottway does his damnedest to keep the survivors alive, he finds himself butting heads with the worst aspects of humanity, including greed, fear and the selfish desire to survive at the cost of everyone else. In particular, Ottway finds himself at odds with Diaz: while the vicious wolves circle in the darkness, Diaz and Ottway circle each other in the light, sniffing for weakness and constantly struggling for domination. Even as Ottway discusses the need to find and slay the alpha male wolf, the struggle for alpha dominance within the survivors threatens to tear them all asunder. Will Ottway be able to overcome his own emotional issues in order to fulfill his duties as group protector? Will the men learn to work together, against all odds, or will they continue to be picked off, one by one, until only their bones remain to remind of their existence? In order to survive, the men will not only need to overcome the wolves: they will need to become the wolves.

The Grey is, first and foremost, a glorious return to the kind of big-screen adventure-survival epics that used to be de rigueur at the box office back in the ’70s. In many ways, the film isn’t such a huge departure from films like Deliverance (1972), Jaws (1975) or Sorcerer (1977) but a much closer parallel would be the aforementioned one with The Descent. In many ways, The Grey is definitely a survival-horror film: the wolves are introduced in a way that establishes them as monsters (the glowing eyes and frightening baying) and the alpha male wolf is established in a way that sets him up as the “chief bad guy” (the scene where Diaz tosses the decapitated wolves’ head into the darkness, only to be met by the angry response call from the alpha male, isn’t much different from any scene where an evil leader reacts in anger to the death of a subordinate at the hands of the heroes). In this way, the wolves are very similar to something like Peter Jackson’s orcs or Marshall’s cave dwellers and serve a similar function in the film.

An action-adventure film lives or dies by its action sequences and, in this regard, The Grey is a complete stunner. From the initial plane crash to the heart-in-mouth scene where the survivors rappel down a craggy mountain-side to the final confrontation with the alpha wolf, The Grey is one incredibly intense scene after another. Carnahan masterfully coils and uncoils the tension, building up quiet, personal dialogue scenes into explosive action beats, prompting me to (literally) jump out of my seat on at least a half-dozen occasions. One of the scenes, which begins as a confrontation between Diaz and Ottway but ends as a confrontation between Diaz and a wolf, is so perfectly executed that it’s almost a textbook example of how to set-up and execute such a moment. I’ve never been a huge fan of Carnahan’s other films (I positively abhor the empty-headed Smokin’ Aces (2006)) but he displays an absolutely deft touch on The Grey that has me eagerly anticipating his next project.

The film almost always looks and sounds great (the sound design is particularly strong) but I wasn’t fond of cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi’s (who also shot the Oscar-winning Silver Linings Playbook (2012)) frequent over-reliance on blown-out visuals. His landscape cinematography was so beautiful that it was frustrating to have such an obvious visual aesthetic for the more intimate scenes: I get that it’s a cold, white, desolate place…no need to rub my nose in it. Additionally, in the minor quibble department, I felt that Ottway’s frequent flashbacks/dream sequences wore out their welcome pretty early into the film and frequently killed the forward momentum. The sequences did a little to help establish Ottway’s character, although this type of character development seems particularly heavy-handed and unnecessary.

Ultimately, however, no discussion of The Grey can be complete without singling out Liam Neeson for some special recognition. Although the rest of the cast is solid (Dermot Mulroney is particularly good as Talget), this is definitely Neeson’s film. Over the last few years, Neeson has been gradually morphing into an action star, not too far removed from what Bronson and Eastwood were doing in the ’80s and ’90s. In fact, it’s pretty easy to imagine someone like Bronson, Eastwood or Lee Marvin playing the part of Ottway: it’s a quiet, brooding role that requires not only plenty of ass-kicking but also some degree of wounded vulnerability. Ottway may be a man of action but he’s still just a man: Neeson shows us the confusion, fear and conflict beneath his stoic visage, without doing anything to denigrate his inherent heroism. Ottway is not some unrealistically pure “white knight”: he’s just as fucked up as everyone else, yet manages to work through his issues to do what needs to be done. It’s a truly multi-faceted performance made all the more impressive by how little (relatively speaking) Neeson says. Those flinty eyes tell a helluva story, however, and Carnahan/Takayanagi take full advantage of this with plenty of intense closeups, ala Eastwood and his similarly flinty orbs.

While The Grey could, perhaps, be considered the ultimate “guy movie,” (the only women in the film appear in flashback/dream sequences, which is probably rather telling) I think that there’s a lot more bubbling beneath the surface than mindless chest-beating and machismo. This is definitely an action film, through and through, and packed with enough hardcore, visceral violence to please even the most discerning gorehound (the film doesn’t skimp on the “wolves eating people” visuals and there’s one bit involving half of a guy that’s pretty difficult to watch). Along with action and violence, however, there are some surprisingly deep conversations about the nature of faith and there’s one particularly moving scene where Ottway helps a dying man pass on peacefully. They’re rare moments of beauty and serenity in an otherwise unforgiving, harsh landscape but they make the film an overall richer experience.

Ultimately, I found myself quite taken with The Grey: perhaps future viewings will help push it into the neo-classic status of films like The Descent but, for the time being, it simply stands as an extraordinary, ridiculously exciting adventure film. That being said, the film also features one of the most perfect final scenes I’ve ever seen (ruined only so slightly by an unnecessary post-credits tag), a scene that manages to be simultaneously regal, sad and ruthlessly badass. It’s a scene that stops right before it begins, leaving the viewer’s brain to fill in the gap. It’s a wonderful, powerful, amazingly cinematic moment: it’s what movies are all about (in my non-humble opinion) and any modern film should be proud to feature anything close to it. If the finale doesn’t find you on your feet, fist thrust heroically into the air…well, let’s just say that there may not be any hope for you, after all. The Grey is vicious, vital, bloody filmmaking at its very best: you’d be wise to give it a look sometime.

 

3/24/14: The S.S. Low Expectations

29 Tuesday Apr 2014

Posted by phillipkaragas in Uncategorized

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1970's cinema, adventures, Anjelica Huston, B-movies, Beau Bridges, cinema, film reviews, films, Genevieve Bujold, Geoffrey Holder, Jamaica, James Earl Jones, James Goldstone, Movies, odd movies, Peter Boyle, pirates, Robert Shaw, silly films, slapstick, Swashbuckler

Swashbuckler

Most of the time, even if I can’t quite understand a film, I can at least get myself into the mindset of seeing where the filmmakers are coming from. This can apply to things as complex and fairly inscrutable as Primer, Upstream Colour or Sauna, as well as films that are relatively brainless but hopelessly complicated, such as The Last Rites of Ransom Pride, The Box or Stardust. In most cases, the filmmakers’ intents are relatively clear, even if their final product is hopelessly muddled or head-scratchingly confusing. Every great once in a while, however, I’m faced with a film that completely baffles me, not necessarily because I can’t follow the plot but because I have absolutely no idea what the filmmakers actually intended to do. These films, rare as they are, can either function as delicious treats or obnoxious puzzles, depending on how much collective good will the films manage to accrue across their running times. In the case of Swashbuckler, featuring the intriguing pairing of Robert Shaw and James Earl Jones, I found myself with but one coherent thought after the final credits rolled: what the hell did I just watch?

The film begins with pirate captain Ned Lynch (Robert Shaw) and the merry crew of the Blarney Cock showing up to shell a coastal fort, disrupting the planned hanging of fellow pirate Nick Debrett (James Earl Jones). Ned and Nick are old friends, of course, and what would any good adventure be without a good wingman? In no time, the pair are sailing the high seas, disrupting the dastardly activities of crooked governor Lord Durant (Peter Boyle) and earning the admiration of comely lass Jane (Genevieve Bujold). You see, Lord Durant is attempting to take over Jamaica, placing the islands under his iron-fisted, weirdly sadomasochistic control, and there are only three things that stand in his way: Ned, Nick and Jane. Hold onto your tri-cornered hats, ladies and gents: it’s gonna be an awfully bumpy ride!

Unlike other genuinely strange films, Swashbuckler actually has a pretty easily digestible plot-line: it’s just your basic pirates against the government tale, after all. Shaw and Jones are fantastic as Ned and Nick, possessing an easy rapport that marks the two as old, fast friends. Truth be told, Shaw and Jones are so good and so natural that Swashbuckler is never a difficult or unpleasant film to watch: it just never makes a whole lot of sense, that’s all. Bujold is good as the stereotypical noblewoman/firebrand but her part is pretty cookie-cutter for this type of film. The pirate crew, which includes familiar genre faves like Sid Haig and Geoffrey Holder, make a great team and many of the sword-fighting, swashbuckling scenes are quite rousing. That being said, however, the film still manages to stuff ten pounds of weird into a five-pound sack.

Without a doubt, one of the strangest, most jaw-dropping aspects of the film has to be Peter Boyle’s genuinely bizarre performance as Lord Durant. Boyle plays Durant like some sort of space alien martinet: his performance includes back-waxing scenes, bathtub romps, multiple yelling fits and more psuedo-sadomasochistic affectations than you can shake a switch at. The giddy apex of insanity has to be the part where Durant punishes his loyal second-in-command Major Folly (Beau Bridges) by having him remove his shirt while Durant’s weird assistant menaces his bare chest with a device that seems to be Freddy Krueger’s razor-glove re-imagined with spoons. Honestly. I couldn’t make this up if I tried, ladies and gents. Even better, the creepy assistant reappears during the climatic final battle, where he attempts to fight swordsmen with his spoon-glove hand-thing. The best way to sum this up, quite frankly, would be with a question of sorts: what the fuck?

We also get wonderful moments like the bit where Beau Bridges overacts so much that he actually cracks up his co-actors (no mean feat when everyone is chewing scenery by the yard), Anjelica Huston playing a mysterious, mute woman who goes by the name Lady of Dark Visage in the credits and Genevieve Bujold’s skinny-dipping for no apparent reason (although good ol’ Robert Shaw seems to get a couple of eyefuls. Shaw makes his grand entrance in the film wearing a skin-tight, bright-red jumpsuit that’s more Studio 54 than Blackbeard and the vast majority of the cast (main and supporting) spend the entire film with giant, goody grins plastered on their faces. Was everyone high on set? At the very least, I’m willing to wager that someone made use of a pretty decent-sized tank of nitrous: the looks on the various actors’ faces are positively beatific! Special mention must also be made of Geoffrey Holder’s Cudjo. Between his super-sized appearance and patented, booming laugh, Holder is a complete delight and the sequence where his acrobats help them infiltrate Durant’s compound reminds me of nothing so much as the various circus action scenes in Octopussy.

Ultimately, the main source of my confusion (Peter Boyle weirdness notwithstanding, of course) is the mixed tone of the film. At times, the film seems to be a fairly straight-forward, if rather silly, pirate adventure: nothing too strange there. At other times, however, the film mixes more straightforward, Goonies-esque action, comedy with straight-up, breaking-the-fourth-wall satire. There’s the aforementioned Beau Bridges performance (those other actors are definitely cracking up: I rewound and watched it just to make sure), as well as the scene where he attempts to fight off Ned and Nick in a low-roofed carriage, only to have his sword continually hit the ceiling whenever he draws it from his scabbard. More telling, however, is the climatic moment where Lord Durant meets his fate (no spoilers here, folks: if you didn’t see that one coming from the first frame, you weren’t paying particularly good attention. Boyle overacts like a champion, clutching his breast and lurching about as if performing a dinner theater version of Hamlet’s climax. The scene seems to go on forever, Boyle shamelessly mugging as if his melodramatic eye-rolling might stave off death, itself. Finally, he tumbles through a window, uttering the immortal final line: “Pull the curtain: the farce is ending!” Normally, I might assume this was just some attempt at a “badass” last line. As it stands, however, I find myself wondering if the filmmakers weren’t actually making some sort of comment on the film, as a whole. Was this supposed to be a farce all along? Had I actually missed something (or several somethings) along the way? Perhaps…but I’m not rewatching to find out!

At the end of the day, Swashbuckler is many, many things (including a tremendous mess) but it’s never boring. Most of the time, in fact, the film is great, goofy fun. Everyone involved, especially Shaw, seems to be having a blast and no one seems to be phoning in their performances. If anything, so much scenery is chewed that the poverty-row production values (the transfer is simply awful and the whole film has all of the visual panache of a dreary made-for-TV film) tend to fade into the background…at least somewhat. In this “glory day” of the “so-bad-it’s-good” film, where intentionally terrible movies are routinely churned out with a wink and a nod, it’s somewhat refreshing to see an honest-to-god B-movie that’s just what it advertises: a silly, goofy, fun time. I doubt if this film will ever hit anybody’s “Best of…” lists but I doubt if that’s why it was made in the first place. For my money? Swashbuckler ain’t a classic but it beats getting tortured with a spoon-glove any day of the week.

 

1/31/14: Home is Where the Hearts Are (Oscar Bait, Part 3)

05 Wednesday Feb 2014

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Academy Award Nominee, Academy Awards, adventures, animated films, auteur theory, bad movies, Blackenstein, Blacula, blaxploitation films, box-office flops, Catherine Keener, cavemen, Chris Sanders, cinema, Cloris Leachman, couples, cute sloths, Dr. Stein, Dreamworks Animation, Emma Stone, fear of the unknown, Film auteurs, films, Francis Ford Coppola, Frederic Forrest, Harry Dean Stanton, Kirk Demicco, Lainie Kazan, Las Vegas, Movies, musical, Nastassja Kinski, Nicholas Cage, One From the Heart, pets, Raul Julia, relationships on the rocks, romance, Ryan Reynolds, searching for a new home, strange families, tar pits, Teri Garr, terrible films, The Croods, Tom Waits, William A. Levey

Our cinematic journey continues with last Friday’s viewings: we screened an abysmal Z-grade horror flick, an odd musical and another of this year’s contenders for Oscar gold.

blackenstein

Ugh…Blackenstein is proof positive that not all blaxploitation films were equally worthy of consideration. My original intention was to watch this as a double-feature with Blacula but that didn’t quite work as planned. As such, it ended up on a crammed Friday-bill where it really didn’t stand a chance. To be honest, this film wouldn’t have stood a chance no matter where I programmed it: Blackenstein is one colossal flop from the first frame to the last.

Plot (not that it matters) is fairly minimal: Dr. Winifred Walker (Ivory Stone) has come to see Dr. Stein (John Hart, in a friendly, jovial turn that is completely out of place in the story) in order to have him help her fiancee, Eddie (Joe de Sue, who has obviously never acted). You see, Eddie lost both arms and legs in Vietnam and Dr. Stein has been “working in the field of replacing limbs.” Sounds like a match made in heaven! Until, of course, Dr. Stein’s creepy assistant Malcomb (Roosevelt Jackson, who’s actually not bad) takes a shine to Winifred and sabotages Eddie’s treatments in order to get him out of the picture. Eddie head swells up, he gets angry and proceeds to rampage about the city, pulling the guts out of various women along the way. Winifred finally figures out what’s going on and Eddie saves her from Malcomb’s slimy clutches before getting devoured by police dogs.

There’s an awful lot wrong with Blackenstein, issues that pretty much cripple the film and prevent it from even rising to “so-bad-it’s-good-levels.” On a purely technical level, the transfer is absolutely awful: it looks like it was dubbed from TV to VHS. The sound keeps cutting out which, to be honest, isn’t a huge issue since the dialogue is so bad. Filmmaking basics are pretty non-existent: the cinematography is ugly, cuts are jarring, coverage is weird (lots of odd zooms on legs, feet, sidewalks, empty spaces and car doors), the music never fits with any given scene (chief offender being the scene where Winifred waits calmly for Dr. Stein as the soundtrack proceeds to out-Psycho Herrmann’s famous score) and the camera angles are often off-putting. Most of the sets appear to be made of cardboard, although that’s probably being generous, and the gore is about five solid steps back from Herschell Gordon Lewis’ heyday, featuring some of the most ludicrous gut-tossin’ you’ll (probably) ever see.

It goes without saying that the acting is completely wooden and terrible, as if everyone were trying to remember their lines. At one point during the middle of a big “speech,” Winifred proceeds to look down, off-camera: it’s pretty damn obvious that she reads the rest off a hidden script. Eddie is so unemotional that he delivers every last line with a sort of “Eh…what’re you gonna do?” shrug that drove me crazy after a few minutes. The piece de resistance, however, definitely comes from the hospital attendant (John Dennis). He begins by bullying the bed-ridden Eddie before launching into a jaw-droppingly over-the-top “monologue” about how he was kept from serving in Vietnam due to his physical condition. I’m not sure what we’re supposed to garner from this scene but it keeps going and going and going, an Energizer Bunny on crack.

Compared to Blacula, Blackenstein’s faults become even more glaring. Whereas Blacula featured an almost entirely black cast and possessed quite a bit of dignity, Blackenstein only features a couple of black actors and puts them in some pretty humiliating situations. We don’t even get the awesome funky music that powered Blacula: instead, we get two tepid soul songs sprinkled throughout the film, while the rest of the soundtrack consists of weak “Hammer-lite” instrumentals. There’s a niteclub scene, as in Blacula, but it mostly features a comedian telling jokes and lasts for way too long. It’s obvious that the filmmakers envisioned this as more of a Hammer/Euro-trash film than a blaxploitation film but the whole thing has such a confused sense of identity that none of it works.

Like any film made to jump on a hot trend, Blackenstein is pretty bankrupt of anything resembling imagination, innovation or intelligence. Avoid this like the plague.

one_from_heart_mar28

If you think about it, anticipation for One From the Heart must’ve been through the roof when it first came out in 1982. For one thing, it was Francis Ford Coppola’s first film since his iconic Apocalypse Now (1979) and the latest in an unbeatable string that included The Godfather (1972), The Conversation (1974) and The Godfather Two (1974). Audiences had no reason to expect anything less sensational than his previous four films, after all, particularly with that lethal Godfather Two/Apocalypse Now combo. For another thing, musicals were extremely popular box office fare at that time. After all, Annie had come out a scant three months before and would become the 10th highest grossest film of 1982. This was the era of The Blues Brothers (1980), The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982), Victor/Victoria (1982, nominated for seven Oscars) and Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life (1983): a big-screen musical from Francis Ford Coppola must have seemed like a surefire hit.

What actually happened, unfortunately, was a bit more akin to the sinking of the Titanic (the actual event, not the James Cameron money-maker): One From the Heart tanked at the box office, taking in just over a half-million in profits, although the film cost upwards of $20 million to make. Coppola declared bankruptcy and would (according to his own accounts) spend the next two decades making films in order to pay back the loss. Although this would result in The Outsiders and Rumblefish (both 1983), Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) and Dracula (1992), it would also result in Gardens of Stone (1987), The Godfather Part III (1990), Jack (1996) and The Rainmaker (1997). So, technically, a complete wash.

So, after all the dust has cleared, how does One From the Heart hold up thirty years later? While nowhere near a classic and a decidedly odd follow-up to Apocalypse Now, One From the Heart certainly has its merits. The film involves the adventures of Hank (Frederic Forrest) and Frannie (Teri Garr), a couple living in Las Vegas and about to celebrate their fifth year together. As will often happen, things are less than ideal: Frannie wants excitement, Hank just wants to chill and Sin City is calling them both to its neon embrace. Before long, Frannie has left and found excitement with a singing waiter (Raul Julia), Hank is tripping the light fantastic with a comely young dancer (Nastassja Kinski) and their poor, put-upon best friends (Harry Dean Stanton and Lainie Kazan, in supporting roles that easily steal the film from every other actor) are trying to help pick up the pieces. Before long, Frannie and Hank will come to realize one important thing: being in love may not be easy but it sure as hell beats the alternative.

First of all, One From the Heart has a pretty unbeatable soundtrack, courtesy of the inimitable Tom Waits. This marked the tail-end of Waits’ drunken troubadour phase, as 1983’s Swordfishtrombones would mark his first full foray into the experimental blues stomps that would characterize the rest of his career. Here, Waits and duet-partner Crystal Gayle are at their loveliest, wrapping the action in the kid of melancholy drinkers’ ballads that could be found on classics like Blue Valentine and Small Change. The score is a perfect accompaniment to the bruised-heart story and is responsible for quite a bit of my goodwill towards the film.

The film also a pretty cool artificial look to it, which makes sense considering Coppola built his version of Las Vegas entirely on soundstages at his new American Zoetrope Studios. While other might disagree (and the extensive sets were certainly one of the reasons why the film went so far over budget), I really liked the look, especially in any of the scenes involving the sign/mascot “graveyard.” As mentioned earlier, Stanton (two years before Repo Man) and Kazan (a few years away from Lust in the Dust) are pretty great in the film: I wish they had at least twice the screen-time, if not more.

What didn’t work for me? Lots of the acting, to be honest, especially from Forrest, Garr, Julia and Kinski. Julia isn’t bad but Kinski is super-obnoxious, reminding me of nothing so much as the “manic-pixie-girls” that currently glut indie-romantic cinema. Forrest and Garr are fairly generic: we don’t necessarily buy them as being in  love, which makes everything else in the film seem sort of silly. As befits the style, much of the film tends to be very theatrical and at least one of the big song-and-dance sequences (a routine that manages to mix Saturday Night Fever with the Vegas Strip) is head-smackingly dumb.

For all of these faults, however, One From the Heart is still a pretty amiable film. At times (although not often), the film is even quite beautiful, reminding me of some of Jeunet’s early work. As mentioned earlier, the music is pretty magical and it’s always great to see Harry Dean Stanton and Lainie Kazan in anything. Did this deserve to tank Coppola’s career and introduce the world to Jack? Absolutely not. Was this a worthy follow-up to Apocalypse Now? Magic 8-Ball says “Very doubtful.”

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And then, of course, it was time for me to be really surprised. While I’m a huge animation fan, I must admit that modern big-budget animated features do very little for me. As a rule, I find them to be too crude, self-referential and filled with disposable pop culture minutiae, the cartoon equivalent of those loathsome “Scary/Disaster/Whatever” film “parodies” that continue to crop up like weeds. Nevertheless, it is Oscar season and I’m committed to seeing as many of the nominees as humanly possible. Since Dreamworks’ The Croods was nominated for Best Animated Feature, I figured I might as well sit through it. After all, it had to be more entertaining than Dirty Wars or American Hustle, right?

And how! Without hyperbole, I can honestly say that I fell in love with this pretty quickly and stayed in love for the entire running time. Similar to The Castle, this is a film about family, first and foremost, and their take on this is decidedly less snarky and screeching than most. With Nicholas “The Fury” Cage playing patriarch Grug, I was worried that this would end up being an over-the-top affair like Shrek. As luck would have it, however, this was Cage with a modicum of restraint and a maximum of charm: not only is his character perfectly lovable, he’s also perfectly realized as the overly protective father/husband/cave-man. The rest of the voice talent is equally great: Emma Stone projects the right blend of defiance and naiety as Eep; Catherine Keener is always great and she’s no less so as mother Ugga; Ryan Reynolds is actually very likeable as Guy; and Cloris Leachman, essentially, reprises her role from Raising Grace, to great effect.

There are plenty of good life lessons to be found here, none of which are delivered with a particularly heavy hand. At heart, The Croods is about the importance of family and the need to face your fears rather than giving in to them. When their cave is destroyed by an earthquake, The Croods must travel across uncharted territory in order to find a new place to live. Along the way, they meet Guy and his delightful sloth friend Belt (quite possibly one of the cutest critters in a long line of animated sidekicks), a ravenous sabre-toothed tiger (which becomes Grug’s pet in one of the sweetest, heartwarming scenes in the whole film) and discover lots of new creatures.

Their discovery of the new creatures is, in my opinion, one of the best aspects of The Croods. There were two ways that the filmmakers could have gone about the Croods discovering their new world. On the one hand, we could be shown creatures that are old to us (dinosaurs, big mammals, etc…) but new to the Croods. There’s nothing wrong with this tact, although it certainly makes it a little more difficult for an audience to feel the same sense of wonder. On the other hand, the filmmakers could attempt to find a way to make the discoveries new to us, as well, so that we can experience the Croods new world with the same sense of wonder and excitement that they do. To my great delight, they chose option number 2.

To this end, the filmmakers unleash their imaginations and go hog-wild with some incredibly clever animal-hybrids: we get flying turtle-parrots, land-walking whale-elephants, ferocious owl-cats and multi-colored bird-tigers. In fact, there doesn’t appear to be a “regular” animal anywhere in the film, unless one counts the versatile Belt. There’s so much stuff happening in the margins of the screen that I’m assuming multiple views are necessary to really see everything. Couple this with some truly gorgeous animation (the first time they see the night sky is nothing short of magical), some really suspenseful action scenes (the bit where Guy and Grug are trapped in tar is pretty great) and some truly funny dialogue (“He’s riding the sun!…But not very well.”), and the replay factor for The Croods is pretty high.

Ultimately, The Croods was a film that surprised me early and often. I went into it expecting to see some slick, well-produced but ultimately soulless piece of Hollywood animation. What I got, however, was a gorgeous film with tons of imagination, heart and spirit, a movie that hearkened back to the glory days of animation with none of the needless self-reference of today (if there were any allusions or nods to current pop culture trends/issues in the film, they must have gone largely over my head).

As I’ve done with every Oscar-nominated film, thus far, I’ve asked myself the same question: did this film deserve to get nominated and can it actually win the prize? In this instance? Yes and yes.

1/11/14: Chills, Thrills and Groans

14 Tuesday Jan 2014

Posted by phillipkaragas in Uncategorized

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Tags

adventures, animated films, B-movies, bad movies, computer-animated, Daniel Craig, dark comedies, Edgar Wright, experimental film, Film, Film auteurs, Funny Games, German cinema, home invasion, hullaballoo, Indiana Jones, Michael Haneke, misanthropic, Nick Frost, Party of Five, SImon Pegg, Steven Spielberg, strange families, suspense, The Adventures of TinTin, The Butcher Brothers, The Hamiltons

Our quest to catch up now takes us to this past Saturday for another triple header. On this particular day, my viewing selections were tempered by the fact that I needed something to wash the taste of Funny Games out of my mouth: hence, the segue from that to Spielberg’s Adventures of TinTin. Now THAT’s the kind of counter-programming more festivals need to do!

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Oy vey…talk about suffering for art…We’re all familiar with feel-good cinema: those gauzy, sweet, brightly colored bits of film fluff that usually posit nothing more challenging than a stubbed toe or a willfully spunky ingenue to shake things up. In a world that’s become increasingly cold and hostile, feel-good cinema can be the equivalent of a warm fire on a cold day, returning the essential humanity to an inhumane species.

Michael Haneke pisses all over feel-good cinema before burying it out in the desert. If the word “misanthropy” is defined as meaning, “the general hatred, distrust or disdain of the human species or human nature,” then Mr. Haneke may be one of the premiere misanthropes working in film today. Whether dealing with severely damaged, violent individuals (Benny’s Video, The Seventh Continent, The White Ribbon), the horrors of a violent society invading the sanctity of the home (Funny Games, The Time of the Wolf) or the erosion of life and love (The Piano Teacher, Amour), Haneke has never met a subject to dark or depressing to tear into. Despite his seeming disdain for people, Haneke has had a surprisingly successful career, achieving enough acclaim with his original 1997 version of Funny Games to warrant his American remake ten years later and culminating in Best Foreign Film and Best Actress nods for his most recent film, Amour.

I admit that I got to the Haneke party a little late, not jumping in until the remake of Funny Games. As a big Tim Roth fan, I took a chance, based on his presence, and was rewarded with something rather nasty and unpleasant. Nonetheless, I was intrigued and spent some time touring his back catalog, eventually arriving at his original version of Funny Games. Needless to say, I remember being thoroughly disturbed by the film and promptly sought to put it behind me. Flash forward many years and a lazy Saturday morning seemed like a perfect time to revisit the film and see if it still held any power. Short answer? Yes.

For those not familiar with the story, Funny Games is, ostensibly, a home invasion film. Three members of a family (parents and young son) are vacationing at their lakeside cottage, next to several other cabins and friends. The family is well-to-do, educated (while driving, they play a game of “Name that classical music concerto” and seem like nice enough people. Upon arriving at their cottage, they notice that their next-door-neighbors appear to be entertaining guests, a pair of young men dressed in tennis outfits. When one of the men appears at their doorstep to borrow some eggs, the family become trapped in a seemingly never-ending nightmare of violence, humiliation, torture and…well…funny games.

Part of the terrible, feral power of the film comes from how well-made it is. Rather than feeling (or looking) like a quickly dashed together bit of exploitation nastiness, Funny Games is an art film through and through. The opening, featuring an aerial view of their car driving through winding mountain roads, instantly reminds of Kubrick’s similar opening to The Shining. The film has a cold, clinical look that recalls Cronenberg’s early bio-medical chillers. The acting, particularly from the evil young men is impeccable and, at times, downright heartbreaking. The film has a terrific grasp of tension, feeding out just enough line to keep you hooked, then snapping it back ferociously when needed. Scenes play out for much longer than seem necessary, the camera rarely cutting once things start to get crazy. Unfortunately, watching the film is still about as much fun as getting buried alive.

If its possible for a film to be considered “mental torture porn,” than Funny Games would be the undisputed king of that ring. Although there is violence in the film, most of it occurs off-camera, leaving us to merely view the results. The horrible humiliation and psychological torture that the pair put the family through, however, is almost impossible to watch. During an excruciatingly long scene where the pair force the mother to strip down to her underwear in front of her family, I found myself asking the all-important question, “Why?” Not “Why are the bad guys doing that,” since the world is full of truly sick individuals but “Why are we being forced to watch this in such detail?” Like Pasolini’s Salo, Funny Games is a film that not only shows you the shit on the floor but proceeds to rub your face into it. Haneke doesn’t just want to make you aware of the evil in the world: he wants to make you suffer it, too.

Were Funny Games just a streamlined, brutal, unflinching home-invasion thriller, it would be a memorable film. Haneke, however, has something else up his sleeve. At one point, the lead psycho, Paul, is standing in front of his partner, Peter. He turns and winks directly at the camera, although our understanding is that Peter is there, off-camera. This makes sense, of course, all the way up to the point where Paul turns and directly addresses the audience, asking us if we think the family has been through enough. At once, we’re not just spectators but accomplices: if we didn’t want to see the family suffer so much, we’d quit watching and let them off the hook. No film, especially fringe and extreme films, can exist without an audience. In one fell swoop, Haneke indicts horror and exploitation fans, asking the all-important question: how normal is it to want to witness suffering? As a lifelong horror fan, I didn’t much care to answer it. Thanks, Michael: see you again when I’m feeling slightly too upbeat.

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As a remedy for the massive feel-bad vibes presented by Funny Games, I turned to an old master of the feel-good film: the inimitable Steven Spielberg and his recent computer-animated feature, The Adventures of Tintin. I originally avoided the film due to the computer animation (I’m much more of an old-school animation fan) but I figured that only Spielberg could give me the 10ccs of food-times needed to wash away Haneke. Turns out, I was right.

Right off the bat, imagine my immense excitement when, during the fabulous credit sequence, I notice that Peter Jackson is producing the film. Alright…that’s interesting. Not half as interesting, however, as the fact that Joe “Attack the Block” Cornish and Edgar “Cornetto Trilogy” Wright wrote the film. That’s right, boys and girls: two of the best comedic horror/sci-fi writers in the biz collaborated on the script for a Spielberg film produced by Peter Jackson. Essentially, there was no way this would be anything but one big love letter to classical film and it did not disappoint.

Once I actually got into the film, any concerns about the animation style melted away: the animation was actually so realistic that it was easy to imagine this as a life-action film, versus a cartoon. In fact, there are so many visual and narrative nods to the Indiana Jones films that this almost felt like it inhabited the same world. The scene where Snowy pursues TinTin’s kidnappers through a busy street reminds me immediately of the Cairo chase in the first Indiana Jones film, right down to the way in which the pursued item is constantly kept in the same frame as the pursuer, despite their distance from each other: simply genius.

In all honesty, there were too many highlights in the film to count. The battle between Haddock’s ship and the pirate ship is absolutely stunning, perhaps one of the coolest nautical battles I’ve seen. The final duel with construction cranes is amazing and made me wonder why no one ever tried that in the past (hint: probably because it’s impossible). The voice acting, whether from Daniel Craig as the bad guy or Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as the bumbling Scotland Yard duo of Thomson and Thompson, is top-notch and TinTin, Captain Haddock and Snowy make one hell of a team. Massively fun and technologically impressive, I can easily compare The Adventures of TinTin to Wes Anderson’s animated The Fantastic Mr. Fox. Both films showcase outstanding filmmakers boldly going where they (technically) haven’t gone before.

the-hamiltons-movie-poster-2006-1020702175

I’m not sure that mere words can do justice to the sheer awfulness that is The Hamiltons but I’ll try. Imagine, if you will, a torture porn version of Party of Five featuring hammier actors than Troll 2 and The Room combined. Intrigued? Let me finish. The family that we’re stuck with for almost 90 minutes features a stereotypical moody, whiny teen boy, complete with always-filming video camera; a straight-laced older brother that holds down a job, is polite, smart and kind, so is obviously a closeted homosexual; a twin brother and sister that chew through scenery like ravenous warthogs when they’re not busy sucking face and disgusting the audience with the most assinine, ridiculous display of incestuous union since whatever Troma film took on the subject; and a supernaturally strong, feral, beast of a kid brother that looks like…a normal kid.

On top of these obnoxious characters we get a story that blatantly rips off We Are What We Are before becoming something else (read: equally shitty) entirely, a primal-scream breakdown that must be seen to be believed and the actual line “I’m getting awful tired of your hullaballoo,” delivered with as much earnestness and integrity as the actor could manage when being asked to deliver something so obviously Shakespearian in origin.

But am I being a little too mean? Isn’t all of this a bit harsh for a film that probably just wants to be considered a decent little horror film? Absolutely not. The pair of idiot filmmakers behind this call themselves The Butcher Brothers and have already created a sequel. They must be stopped by any and all means necessary, before The Hamiltons becomes the truly shitty franchise that it threatens to become. If we do nothing, we may soon wake up in a world where the Butcher Brothers may continue to create unchecked, turning the world into the goofy nightmare land of Branded.

In short: I’m getting awful tired of their hullaballoo.

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