10/18/14 (Part One): Run, Rabbit, Run!

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31 Days of Halloween, Bill Moseley, cheerleaders, Chris Hardwick, Dennis Fimple, derivative, Dr. Satan, dysfunctional family, Erin Daniels, feature-film debut, Halloween, Harrison Young, horror, horror films, horror movies, House of 1000 Corpses, insane families, Jennifer Jostyn, Karen Black, Matthew McGrory, Rainn Wilson, Rob Zombie, Robert Mukes, Sheri Moon Zombie, Sid Haig, the Firefly family, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, Tobe Hooper, Tom Towles, torture, Walter Phelan, Walton Goggins, William Bassett, writer-director, zombies

As a teenage metal-head who just happened to be obsessed with horror films, White Zombie was pretty much the perfect band: ultra-heavy, groovy, brutal and a visual spectacle that relied heavily on shock imagery and schlock culture, I was a fan from the moment I laid ears on them. I followed the band religiously until they broke up before the turn of the 2000s, at which point frontman Rob Zombie decided to go the “solo” route, continuing to churn out the same brand of industrialized rock minus the feel of an actual band. While I’ve always felt that the solo stuff was a pale imitation of the band era, my rationale has always been “A little is better than nothing” and I continued to check out Zombie’s output, albeit with slightly less enthusiasm than before.

When Zombie announced that he would be turning his attention to films, I was immediately intrigued, given his lifelong dedication to all things horror. His resulting debut, House of 1000 Corpses (2003) ended up being delayed for several years, although I can still recall how excited I was to finally get a chance to see the film in theaters. At the time, I was completely blown away: the film was vibrant, entertaining, gory and as sick as they come, with some phenomenal performances from genre vets like Bill Moseley and Sid Haig. I remember being so impressed with the film that I ended up seeing it a couple of times in the theater, a relative rarity for someone who usually has a “one and done” mentality about seeing films on the big screen.

Over the years, I’ve returned to House of 1000 Corpses periodically, although I must admit that it’s been some time since I really paid attention to the film: it had become so familiar, over time, that I had a tendency to just let it play in the background, only focusing on it during any of the numerous setpieces. When it came time to plan this year’s Halloween viewings, I decided to re-screen both House of 1000 Corpses and its direct sequel, The Devil’s Rejects (2005), and actually pay attention, this time. Similar to my re-evaluations of formerly beloved films, I wanted to see if House of 1000 Corpses stood the test of time or whether it would end up receiving a Clerks (1994)-style drubbing from someone who had “moved on,” so to speak. As might be expected, I found that my impression of House of 1000 Corpses changed significantly after this viewing: while there’s still a lot of the film that I enjoy, it’s pretty impossible to see Zombie’s debut as anything other than a thinly veiled, white-trash re-imagining of Tobe Hooper’s gonzo The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986). Suffice to say, the bloom had definitely come off the rose.

In many ways, House of 1000 Corpses plays like a more hyperactive, pop-culture savvy and polished mash-up of Hooper’s first two Chainsaw films. From the first movie, we get the crazy killer family, creepy farmhouse setting, big guy with a mask and sledgehammer and an insane dinner scene. From the second film, we get the lurid, cotton-candy-colored visuals, Bill Moseley revisiting his iconic Chop-Top character and loads of over-the-top gore, much of it ruthlessly tongue in cheek. While this relentless referencing of Hooper’s original material seemed easier to accept when the film first came out, there’s something about the whole business that I found rather tedious, this time around, like watching a particular rerun of a TV show for the umpteenth time.

Plot-wise, Zombie’s film is pretty old hat: two couples (Chris Hardwick and Erin Daniels as one pair, the Office’s Rainn Wilson and Jennifer Jostyn as the other) stop off at a bizarre roadside attraction, Captain Spaulding’s Museum of Monsters and Madmen, and learn about local legend, Dr. Satan. After finding out that the medical madman was reportedly hung from a nearby tree, the group of thrill-seekers get a map from the good Captain (brought to gloriously filthy life by the always awesome Sid Haig) and decide to check it out for themselves. Unless this is your first rodeo, you’re probably going to realize what a truly terrible idea this is, hopefully quicker than our lunk-headed heroes do.

Along the way, they end up picking up a hitchhiker (the director’s wife, Sheri Moon), who leads them to her family’s home after their car appears to get a flat. Once at the homestead, our intrepid young people meet the rest of the clan: Otis (Bill Moseley), the insane “leader” who’s one part Charles Manson, one part Ed Gein; the hulking, mute Tiny (Matthew McGrory), this film’s stand-in for TCM’s Leatherface; obscene, obnoxious and massively irritating Grampa Hugo (Dennis Fimple in a truly disgusting performance); silent, bearskin-bedecked Rufus Junior (Robert Mukes) and the resolutely over-the-top Mother Firefly (genre legend Karen Black, shoveling up scenery as fast as she can chew). Faster than you can say “These folks seem a little odd,” the Fireflys manage to capture our poor couples and subject them to some very disturbing, sick tortures (poor Dwight Shrute ends up getting the worst of it, bringing a disturbing new meaning to the term “merman”), before deciding that their “guests” should get their wish after all: they’re finally going to meet Dr. Satan, even if it’s the last thing they do.

If anything, Zombie’s debut is a pretty great representation of the term “sensory-overload.” For the most part, absolutely anything and everything is thrown at the screen, in the hopes that at least some of it will stick: fake commercials and infomercials, fake horror-movie hosts and their programs, zombies, evil doctors, murdered cheerleaders, Manson-style cult stuff, rudimentary Satanism, demons, creepy graveyards, underground bunkers, graphic amputations and surgical mayhem, deranged talent shows, sub-Tarantino “obscene but clever” dialogue, video game references and, of course, the ubiquitous Texas Chainsaw Massacre nods at every turn. When the film works, such as in the nonsensical but visually arresting Dr. Satan scenes, it’s still a full-throttle nightmare, full of fever-dream logic, crazy visuals and truly nasty gore scenes.

Just as often, however, Zombie seems more than content to simply remind viewers of Hooper’s (much better) original films. Tiny is a pretty weak patch on Leatherface, to be honest, and nothing about the Fireflys’ stereotypically “scary” house is one-tenth as affecting as anything in Hooper’s debut. Zombie’s version of the “wear somebody’s face” bit from TCM 2 is disturbing but nowhere near as upsetting as Hooper’s and Moseley, dynamic as he is, still isn’t doing anything more challenging than combining the characters of the Cook and Chop-Top into one cohesive maniac.

Lest it seem like my recent viewing of the film turned me against it, let me say that I still found it fast-paced, entertaining and endlessly interesting but it’s become rather impossible to ignore the movie’s huge debt to Hooper’s films. At the time of its release, many critics disparaged Zombie’s debut as nothing more than a horror movie “greatest hits” collection, gathering together disparate setpieces and characters from other films and dumping them into a generic “crazy family” story. At the time, I was loath to agree but my perspective now seem much more in line with these original critics, albeit qualified by my (general) enjoyment of the movie.

There are plenty of truly fantastic moments in the film, scenes that still pack as much of a punch today as they did a decade ago: the long, quiet shot as Otis prepares to shoot the deputy is still the greatest thing that Zombie has ever put on film, bar none, and the Dr. Satan scenes are wonderfully goofy, even if they occasionally seem to belong to a Resident Evil film. Sig Haig is awesome (as always), as is Moseley and it’s an absolute hoot to see Rainn Wilson in something like this. When the film takes a moment to calm down, Zombie is able to come up with some pretty great atmosphere: the graveyard scene, with the victims dressed in pink bunny costumes, is the perfect combination of eerie and outrageous, as is the evocative scene where Jerry and Denise are lowered into Dr. Satan’s lair.

Ultimately, my biggest issue with the film ends up being that it doesn’t do enough to stand on its own two feet: in many ways, it feels as if Zombie’s sole intention was to create his own, modern version of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a feat which he mostly pulls off. The problem, of course, is that we’ve already seen that movie, just like we’ve already seen its sequel…how much use do we really have for yet another version of the same story, albeit one with a glossier, more post-modern edge?

While my re-evaluation of House of 1000 Corpses didn’t end up damning it to the basement, ala Clerks, it certainly managed to knock the film down a few pegs in my mind. That, of course, is why it’s so important to continually revisit films like this: as we grow and change, as viewers, so, too, do our relationships with these films grow and change. I’m definitely not the same person today as I was eleven years ago and my experience with the film only serves to drive that home. While it may be fun to stop in and visit the Fireflys, from time to time, I’m pretty sure that I won’t be spending much time there. There’s a reason why Hooper’s original is such an amazing film, a reason that Zombie’s re-do can’t touch with a ten-foot pole.

7/30/14: Support Your Local Spirit Squad

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All Cheerleaders Die, Amanda Grace Cooper, back from the dead, battle of the sexes, Brooke Butler, Caitlin Stasey, cheerleaders, Chris Petrovski, Chris Sivertson, cinema, co-directors, co-writers, Felisha Cooper, film reviews, films, football players, girls against boys, Heathers, high school, high school angst, high school cliques, horror films, horror-comedies, Jordan Wilson, Leigh Parker, Lucky McKee, magic stones, Michael Bowen, Movies, Nicholas S. Morrison, rape, Reanin Johannink, Sianoa Smit-McPhee, Sidney Allison, teenagers, The Woman, Tom Williamson, troubled teens, Warlock, Wiccan, writer-director

For a time, Lucky McKee and Chris Sivertson’s All Cheerleaders Die (2013) is a rather nasty piece of work, a combination of the high school clique napalming of Heathers (1988) with the lethal gender conflicts of Donkey Punch (2008). Just as the film seems like it’s really going to dig its teeth in, however, it inexplicably becomes a mish-mash of Warlock (1989) and Dragon Ball Z, which is a much less effective, much sillier combination. As someone who was really blown away by McKee’s last film, the thoroughly uncompromising, jaw-dropping The Woman (2011), I was really hoping that his follow-up would continue the discussion on the battle of the sexes in a similar, uncompromising manner. To say that I was disappointed…well, that might just be the understatement of the year.

From the get-go, All Cheerleaders Die seems to be taking us down a fixed but certainly intriguing path: the film begins with hand-held footage of vapid head cheerleader Alexis (Felisha Cooper) performing a routine before landing on her head with a sickening crunch. Cut to the title, red letters on a black background. From here, we meet Alexis’ “friend,” Maddy (Caitlin Stasey). Maddy was the one filming the opening footage and, for all intents and purposes, seems to be the farthest thing from a stereotypical high school cheerleader: she’s droll, sarcastic, a budding journalist and quite intent on avenging Alexis’ death. To this end, Maddy tries out for (and makes) the cheerleading squad, although she rightfully hides her true intentions from her new “friends.”

Once ensconced within the spirit squad, Maddy goes about trying to detonate the popular girls from the inside-out. There’s Tracy (Brooke Butler), who’s now dating Alexis’ former boyfriend, quarterback Terry (Tom Williamson); Martha (Reanin Joannink), the team captain and Martha’s little sister, Hanna (Amanda Grace Cooper), the team’s put-upon mascot. Maddy blames each of the girls (along with their football player boyfriends) for Alexis’ death but saves the bulk of her vehemence for Tracy and Terry. By wheedling herself in close to Tracy, Maddy begins to drive a wedge between her and Terry, claiming to have evidence of Terry’s infidelity. On the periphery of this toxic little group is Maddy’s former best friend, the Gothy Leena (Sianoa Smit-McPhee), who also happens to be a practicing Wiccan and, apparently, was once Maddy’s girlfriend. Maddy has been dissing Leena, lately, which is all part of her plan to ingratiate herself in with the cheerleaders: this, of course, makes Leena feel like she’s been betrayed by the only person at the school who actually seems to understand her.

Things come to a head when Maddy encourages Tracy to send Terry a nasty breakup text message. When Terry shows up at that night’s cheerleader/football player kegger, the shit really hits the fan. Maddy pressures Tracy into shit-talking Terry in front of his team and you’d have to be completely dense not to see the gathering storm clouds. Indeed, after standing there, emotionless, Terry hauls off and punches Tracy square in the face, a shocking, gritty piece of violence that immediately seems to set the film on a grim track as a visceral examination of violence against women. Maddy tries to get the other football players to jump Terry (they don’t), Martha tries to call the police, only to have Terry snatch away her phone and the cheerleaders jump in their car and take off, pursued at maximum speed by the football players. As Leena watches in horror, the car containing Maddy, Tracy, Hanna and Martha plunges through a railing and straight into a pitch-black lake. Leena does what she can to save Maddy and the others but their bodies are already cold and water-logged by the time she hauls them to shore.

At this point, there were at least a handful of paths the film could have taken: it could have kept the revenge angle, with Leena taking up Maddy’s mantle; it could have had one of the girls survive, making her the avenger; there could have been a falling out among the football players, pitting the more hesitant members against gung-ho Terry and his best buddies. What the film opts to do, however, is to spin the film off into an entirely different direction: namely, All Cheerleaders Die transitions seamlessly from a gritty “battle of the sexes” into an FX-heavy supernatural thriller, sort of a cross between Warlock and Drag Me To Hell (2009). You see, Leena uses her magical powers to enchant the magic stones that she carries around: these stones than “reanimate” the dead girls, as it were, granting them with such things as super strength. The trade-off, of course, is that the cheerleaders must now feed on blood in order to sustain themselves. In other words, the cheerleaders are now zombie/vampire hybrids who are powered by magical glowing stones imbedded in their innards. Suffice to say that any sense of “grit” or “realism” just flew out the window, along with most of the savvy plays on high school cliques and popularity contests.

Instead, we end up with a film that consists of the cheerleaders playing cat-and-mouse, of sorts, with the football players. When the guys return from their little murder spree, they strut through the school like they were, literally, the cocks of the walk. Until, that is, the cheerleaders return to strut through the school. The guys know that the cheerleaders went into the lake, so suspect some sort of teenage version of Gaslight (1944): Terry, for his part, isn’t so sure and gets all the confirmation he needs when one of his guys witnesses Leena levitating her stones in the middle of class (Leena also ended up with a stone in her chest, despite not being dead, which appears to have amplified her magic powers). Every time the cheerleaders kill one of the football team, their power increases exponentially. This fact isn’t lost on Terry, who decides to turn the tables by consuming the cheerleaders’ magical stones and increasing his own powers. Soon, with the ranks on both sides decimated, it’s up to Maddy and Leena to finally put an end to Terry’s reign of terror. Will they be strong enough to stop him, however? And what other tricks might Leena have up her sleeve?

Right up to the point where the film transitioned from a tense, blackly comic drama into a full-on supernatural action film, I was largely, if not completely, on board. In many ways, All Cheerleaders Die plays like a lesser version of All The Boys Love Mandy Lane (2006) or a very light version of Heathers. While I didn’t love the film, I could appreciate where it was heading and looked forward to seeing if McKee was going to get as extreme as he did in The Woman. Once the magic, glowing, floating stones appeared, however, it became pretty impossible to take the film seriously. It doesn’t, of course, help that the CGI on the stones is utterly absurd and awful, reminding of nothing so much as all the damn cheesy “lightning and laser eyes” effects from crappy ’80s-’90s direct-to-video sci-fi epics.

Once the film finds its footing as a silly supernatural tale, it manages to recover a bit, based purely on its ability to grab the concept with both hands and refuse to let go. While the stones never do look any better than the similar effect in Warlock, there are a few eye-candy moments in the latter half that are well-executed (the bit where Tracy’s stone causes Ben (Nicholas S. Morrison) to bleed out in slo-mo, ala liquid droplets in zero gravity, is pretty awesome, as is the final jump-scare, which handily and honestly sets up a sequel). The biggest issue is simply that the two separate aspects don’t really cohere, making this seem like a couple different films jammed together.

In fact, in some ways, All Cheerleaders Die is a tale of several movies: a horror film, an indie superhero tale, a battle of the sexes film, a black comedy set in a high school…the unfortunate truth is that only a few of these films actually work. The horror elements are well-done, with some nicely realized gore scenes, while the “super powers” stuff is hackneyed and trite. The battle of the sexes stuff ends up being fairly negligible (again, Donkey Punch did it much better and pulled, ahem, fewer punches), while the blackly comic high school material ends up being fairly effective. Focused on any one of these angles, All Cheerleaders Die would have been a much stronger film: as it is, the movie lacks focus and coherence, issues that McKee has never had in his previous films.

I really wanted to like All Cheerleaders Die more than I did but, alas, the film was pretty much one continual disappointment. While the acting was solid, there were never any truly stand-out performances, although Stasey did admirably as the protagonist. The film looked and sounded pretty great, which made the ultra-cheesy SFX all the more laughable and obnoxious: it was almost as if the whole concept of the magic stones was added in post-production, which is just about as bad as it sounds.

I will say, however, that I appreciated how the filmmakers managed to marginalize the concept of the “male gaze”: unlike just about every other horror film involving cheerleaders in the history of horror films, the women in All Cheerleaders Die don’t spend the film in various states of undress, the camera lasciviously tracking up and down their nude bodies. In fact, there’s really only one scene that I can recall that broached this in any way and that would be the one where Tracy has just “reawakened” and proceeds to march across the street, wearing only a bra and panties, in order to find some “food.” In many ways, this is the scene that proves my rule: despite Tracy’s attire, the emphasis on the scene is squarely on her ravenous appetite, not the female form. It’s a smart bit and, unfortunately, one that I wish were repeated more often.

Ultimately, I’m probably so disappointed by All Cheerleaders Die because of my experiences with McKee’s other films: May (2002), The Woods (2006) and The Woman, along with McKee’s entry in the Master of Horror series, Sick Girl (2006), are all fascinating examinations of both feminism and male/female violence, with smart, three-dimensional characters and some astoundingly original/shocking elements. The Woman, in particular, was such a gut-punch that it easily ranks as one of the most unpleasant, yet necessary, films I’ve seen in decades. By comparison, All Cheerleaders Die is an entertaining, yet slight and disposable throwaway: by the time the climax rolls around, with Terry and the surviving women fighting like left-over Street Fighter characters, the whole thing feels like a cheap direct-to-video curiosity, rather than a film with an actual agenda.

If only the film were able to stay on the gritty road it started on: there’s definitely a really good movie buried in All Cheerleaders Die…the evidence of that film is pretty much everywhere you look. The problem, of course, ends up being that there are also at least three mediocre films trapped in there and this is, of course, at least three films too many.

1/17/14: Big Trouble with Taboo Cheerleaders

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'80s action films, action-adventure, action-comedies, Africa, art films, arthouse film, B-movies, Big Trouble in Little China, But I'm a Cheerleader, cheerleaders, Chinatown, cinema, comedies, conversion therapy, drama, Escape From New York, F.W. Murnau, fantasy, Film auteurs, films, flashbacks, foreign films, gay and lesbian films, high school angst, Jamie Babbit, John Carpenter, John Waters, Kim Cattrall, Kurt Russell, Miguel Gomes, Mink Stole, Movies, Natasha Lyonne, Richard Moll, romance, Rupaul, social commentary, sorcerers, Tabu, They Live

My (seemingly) never-ending quest to catch my blog up with my viewing habits continue. We’re still in the past (last Friday, to be specific) but we’re getting closer all the time. Journey with me now as we get a little goofy, a little arty and a little funny.

Pound for pound, I don’t think that there’s been a more successful writer/director from the glory days of ’70s horror than John Carpenter. He’ll always exist in the minds of horror fans for his iconic Halloween (still one of the best films ever, in my little opinion, horror or not) but the rest of his filmography ain’t too shabby, either: The Thing, Assault on Precinct 13th, Escape From New York, They Live, The Fog and the horribly under-rated In the Mouth of Madness are all classics, any one of which a lesser filmmaker would be proud to stake their careers on. There have also, of course, been a few missteps along the way (Ghosts of Mars is a fascinating failure, a movie so tone-deaf that it almost achieves a kind of transcendence and Vampires and his remake of Village of the Damned are mostly gloss and no filler. Compare this ratio to someone like Tobe Hooper, Wes Craven or Sean Cunningham, however, and it’s pretty clear that Carpenter had the more consistent career.

While Carpenter’s name is synonymous with horror, thanks to the invincible Halloween, his films actually tend more towards pulpy, B-actioners, the kinds of films that feature sarcastic anti-heroes chewing gum and kicking ass. In fact, Assault on Precinct 13, Escape From New York, They Live, Escape From L.A., Vampires and Ghosts of Mars could almost be seen to take place in the same universe, relatively speaking, along with another Carpenter film: Big Trouble in Little China.

Like many people (I’m assuming), I was first drawn to BTILC thanks to the colorful box art. Just take a gander at that smiling, machine-pistol-bedecked Kurt Russell, looming over Chinatown like some kind of jolly ass-kicking giant, all manner of crazy shit going down in the background. That, ladies and gentlemen, was entertainment in the VHS age: hook us with some amazing artwork and see if the movie could keep up. They rarely could but BTILC almost does.

Russell plays a wisecracking (could there be any other kind?) truck-driver who must help his friend rescue his fiancée from the clutches of a wicked Chinatown sorcerer (the always esteemable James Hong). In the process, he’ll fight monsters, gangsters and lightning-wielding sorcerers. He might even get his truck back.

As a film, BTILC doesn’t always work and rarely makes much sense. Exposition (what little there is) is usually delivered in large data dumps that go something like: “Lo Pan? Let me tell you all about who he is, where he comes from and what he wants, in great detail.” The dialogue can be exceedingly clunky, even from Russell, which is kind of surprising. The numerous fight sequences have a tendency to keep piling on silly elements (in one over-the-top scene, a gunfight turns into a karate battle which turns into a fight with lightning-wielding warrior sorcerers that fly through the air like human dragonflies) and sometimes come across as no more than martial arts showcases: please stand there patiently while I demonstrate some moves in close proximity to your face, after which you may feel free to shoot me. Thank you.

But do all of these things make BTILC a bad film? Not in the slightest. This is certainly not a GOOD film, mind you, but it shares a pretty similar aesthetic to They Live, which is a good film. It’s always a pleasure watching Russell ham it up, especially during his golden age in the ’80s. Kim “Sex in the City” Cattrall is absolutely awful but this somehow works to her favor. Hong makes a great villain, even if he does get stuck behind a pound of eye-liner and foot-long fingernails: he even gets a pretty cool transformation scene where his skull glows from the inside-out. There’s a pretty decent shaggy monster-thing that Russell battles and an even decenter floating-eyeball-thingy that reminded me of something from my Dungeons & Dragons days. There’s also lots and lots (and lots) of ’80s lightning effects, which get old pretty quickly but are (briefly) rather charming.

In short, if you’re a fan of the more action-oriented side of Carpenter, Big Trouble in Little China should scratch that itch. It’s no Assault on Precinct 13 but it’s a helluva lot better than Vampire in Brooklyn.

I had originally intended to give Tabu its own separate post, since there’s a whole lot going on in this film. Due to my desire to keep us moving forward, however, I decided to see if we could fit this into the rest of that Friday’s viewings. Would it be possible to get any of this across in a shorter format? Let’s see if I’m up for the challenge.

First off, let’s address the elephant in the room: the title. Yes, that is a reference to F.W. Murnau’s final film, the Pacific-Island adventure Tabu. And yes, there’s actually more of a spiritual connection than just the obvious stylistic/plot connections would suggest. In the most obvious example, Murnau’s Tabu is separated into two chapters: Paradise and Paradise Lost. Miguel Gomes’ Tabu is also separated into two chapters: A Lost Paradise and Paradise. There are other, specific, similarities but I would daresay that the biggest connectors are more spiritual and thematic than anything. Suffice to say that you need not be familiar with the original Tabu, or even F.W. Murnau, for that matter, to enjoy this film.

In a nutshell, Tabu is about several acquaintances/friends and their interactions with each other. Pilar (ostensibly the film’s protagonist and moral center) lives next door to Aurora and her maid/assistant Santa in an apartment complex in Portugal. Aurora is just on the good side of senility, when the film starts, and is a bit of a handful: she routinely accuses poor Santa of witchcraft and sees conspiracies around every corner. She also gambles her money away one night after having a dream about a fortune-telling slot machine: she wakes up from the dream and just has to find out if its real. Spoiler alert: it’s not.

As Aurora’s health begins to decline, she asks Pilar to locate someone for her, a Mr. Ventura. This leads Pilar on a minorly epic journey about the city, as she finally tracks the elusive Mr. Ventura to a nursing home. His appearance in the film prompts a flashback to the past, explaining the lovely but tragic relationship that he shared with a young Aurora while they both lived in Africa. This leads to some of the film’s best moments, as the gorgeous black-and-white cinematography really comes alive on the African plains.

In certain ways, Tabu is the epitome and (perhaps) stereotype of independent art-house cinema. The film is shot in black-and-white, in a style that instantly calls to mind Italian neo-realism or Guy Maddin films. It’s slow and elegiac, although prone to bursts of strange whimsy, similar to a Jeunet film (one nonsensical subplot about a house-guest of Pilar’s that never shows up is a particular head-scratcher). Even the music reminded me of various foreign art films that I watched in college. That being said, there’s a lot of beauty in Tabu (especially in the wonderful, heartbreaking opening, which is almost a micro-short by itself) and I found myself genuinely caring about the characters. I won’t pretend that I understood everything (what the hell was the deal with the absent Polish house-guest?) but I was frequently fascinated and always ready for what might come around the corner.

Besides, how can you not like a black-and-white art film that features a garden-party scene where a rich, crazy old man fires a gun into the air, prompting his normal-looking but batshit crazy son to begin kick-boxing and punching invisible enemies? In any other film, that would be a centerpiece. In Tabu, it’s just another day at the office.

Sometimes, you don’t really appreciate a film when you first see it. This was certainly the case when I first saw But I’m a Cheerleader in the theater. I was (and am) a big Natasha Lyonne fan and was really excited to see what she would do after the previous year’s Slums of Beverly Hills. I remember enjoying But I’m a Cheerleader and laughing quite a bit but, ultimately, I never gave the movie much thought after that point.

Nastasha Lyonne plays Megan, a perfectly normal high school cheerleader who just might be, you know…gay. At least her parents, peers and teachers seem to think so, although poor Megan isn’t quite so sure. In order to “fix her,” Megan is shipped away to a conversion therapy program where she learns that sometimes, you’re just fine the way you are and the rest of the world just needs to learn to deal with it.

After re-watching the film, I find that my original impression still holds: I still enjoyed it and laughed quite a bit. This time around, however, I think I noticed a little more, particularly how sharp and cutting some of the dialogue and ideas are. I also noticed Rupaul, who I absolutely do not remember the first time around. Perhaps it’s because I’ve seen so many episodes of Drag Race but I found myself inordinately excited when he appeared, looking as masculine as possible, as a “pray the gay away” type camp counselor.

Stylistically (and thematically), But I’m a Cheerleader is like a less scuzzy, friendlier version of a John Waters film (or a slightly dirtier version of Pretty Baby, depending on your perspective) and even features Waters’ mainstays Bud Cort and Mink Stole in small roles. The production design is extremely bright and vibrant, tending towards lots of pinks, pastels and primary colors. There might be some notion that this is lazy symbolism but writer/director Jamie Babbit has a little more up her sleeve than that.

Looking at Babbit’s filmography, it becomes pretty apparent that she tends to focus on women, whether it be in her films (But I’m a Cheerleader, The Quiet, Itty Bitty Titty Committee, Breaking the Girls) or her TV work (Alias, Ugly Betty, Gilmour Girls, Gossip Girl, The L Word, United States of Tara, Girls), although it seems that her resume definitely leans more towards the small screen than the big one. Although there are some stereotypes floating around the film (especially once we get to the conversion therapy camp), there’s also a lot of genuine emotion and some nicely made points. By the time we get to the film’s point, that opening up your mind and accepting/loving everyone is the best way to live, it’s pretty hard to argue with it.  Here’s hoping that Babbit finds the time and/or support to bring something else to a theater near you sometime in the near future.