7/14/15: This Little Light of Mine

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cinema, Conor McMahon, couples in peril, couples on vacation, creature feature, film reviews, films, foreign films, From the Dark, Ged Murray, Gerry O'Brien, horror, horror movies, independent film, Irish films, isolation, low-budget films, Michael Lavelle, Monsters, Movies, Niamh Algar, night-vision, peat bog, Pitch Black, set in Ireland, Stephen Cromwell, Stitches, The Descent, weekend in the country, writer-director

Several years ago, a horror film emerged from the ether (so to speak) and gave me a righteous thumping upside my head: the film was Stitches (2012), the filmmaker was an Irish writer/director/editor named Conor McMahon and it became, hands down, one of my favorite films of the entire year. By turns horrifying, hilarious and almost ludicrously splatterific, Stitches was a glorious return to the good old days of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise and introduced the world to one of the greatest, new horror icons of the 2000s: Stitches, the homicidal, undead clown. Death by ice cream cone? Two scoops, please!

After a few years of silence, McMahon’s newest opus, From the Dark (2014), has been unleashed upon a largely unsuspecting populace. As someone who not only liked but positively loved McMahon’s previous film, I found myself greedily seeking more of the same: after all, horror-comedy is never an easy sub-genre to pull off but the writer-director made it seem so easy-breezy the first time around, who can fault me for pulling an Oliver Twist? Proving he’s anything but a one-trick pony, however, McMahon’s newest film is the furthest thing from his previous one: From the Dark is an ultra-serious, low-budget and very modest production (the entire cast appears to consist of four actors, including the costumed creature) that involves a bickering couple stumbling upon ancient evil in the picturesque Irish countryside. While the film never approaches the sublime heights of Stitches, it handily showcases another side of an extremely exciting new(ish) filmmaker and points the way towards an interesting future.

Sarah (Niamh Algar) and Mark (Stephen Cromwell) are a young couple who set off for a romantic getaway but end up running into the usual raft of horror movie problems: their car gets stuck in the mud, in the middle of nowhere, and Mark is forced to set off and find help, as Sarah waits with the vehicle. Characterization is light but we get a few basics: the couple aren’t married, yet, although Mark’s dim view of the institution of wedlock doesn’t bespeak of a particularly rosy future. They bicker a little, although we can tell there’s a lot of love here. We also get the notion that Sarah is the stronger of the two, both mentally and emotionally: again, never bad qualities to have in a horror movie heroine.

Mark ends up stumbling upon a seemingly deserted farmhouse, although an intriguing opening scene has already set the scene for this, as well: our first image is of a grizzled old farmer digging up some sort of “body” in a peat bog, a body which seems to move of its own volition after the farmer leaves. We witness “something” attack and drag the farmer into a nearby pond, which makes Mark’s discovery of him standing in the dark farmhouse, zombie-like, somewhat disconcerting. After bringing Sarah back to the farmhouse, in order to help the seemingly wounded farmer, he suddenly turns on the couple, attacking viciously.

To make matters worse, the “thing” that the farmer initially dug up is roaming around the countryside, looking like a rather terrifying combination of the troglodytes in The Descent (2005), James Sizemore’s creations in The Demon’s Rook (2013) and Max Schreck’s take on Nosferatu. It’s big, monstrous, vaguely humanoid and seems to be very hungry (or angry…it’s a little hard to tell). There is a bright spot, however (quite literally): the creature can’t stand light, similar to the monsters in David Twohy’s under-rated Pitch Black (2000). Thus, Sarah and Mark retreat to the “safety” of the farmhouse and make a desperate stand, utilizing flashlights, lamps, candelabrum, makeshift torches and anything else they can get their hands on. If they can only make it to the morning, perhaps the healing, warm rays of the sun will wash away the evil. It’s going to be a long, dark night, however…a very long one, indeed.

Were I not such a huge fan of McMahon’s previous film, From the Dark would, most likely, have hit me a lot harder than it did: as it stands, however, I can’t help but feel a tad disappointed, even though there’s nothing particularly wrong with the finished product. It is a bit familiar, true: if I’ve seen one recent indie horror about a couple stranded out in the wilderness, I’ve probably seen at least five (to be fair, maybe four). It’s not like McMahon and crew drop the ball on this facet of the film: despite the familiarity, Algar and Cromwell are a likable enough pair and everything moves forward at a fairly fast clip. The cinematography, courtesy of Michael Lavelle, is plenty evocative and atmospheric, even if the occasional camera shake feels woefully out-of-place. The creature looks great from farther away and pretty good from up close (the closer we get, the more it looks like one of the aforementioned Descent critters) and there’s a really intuitive use of light and shadow to help build suspense and tension, both of which also tie into the basic mechanics of the film.

Pretty much everything is in place, yet From the Dark still feels a touch under-cooked, just a shade less developed than it needs to be. For one thing, there’s absolutely no mythos attached to the monster whatsoever: while I found the recent Horsehead (2014) to be cagier than necessary with its titular creature, From the Dark vaults straight past “mysterious” right into “unnecessarily vague.” The creature acts and looks sort of vampiric (the Nosferatu nod, being buried with a stake in its chest), infects people like a zombie, has night-vision (hence the light resistance, I’m assuming), has human-like hands and feet and, at times, seems to be able to fly around (or, at the least, run really quickly and silently). I definitely didn’t need an awkward exposition scene where an old townie holds a flashlight under his chin and tells us a ghost story but I also needed more than what we’re given. As it stands, we don’t even get the vague insinuations of age-old mutations hinted at in The Descent: we pretty much get a monster, which chases our protagonists around for a while.

This sense of vagueness also points towards another major difference between From the Dark and its predecessor: From the Dark is a markedly less clever, inventive film than Stitches. While this might have a little to do with the differences in tone (Stitches, after all, was an extremely dark comedy featuring a motor-mouthed comic in the lead sociopath role), some of the cleverest, most outrageous aspects of Stitches were the incredibly inventive death setpieces, not the hilarious dialogue. In these moments, Stitches was not only one of the smartest, wackiest modern films, it was one of the smartest to come down the pike since the glory days of the ’80s.

As compared to Stitches, From the Dark is as bare-bones, meat-and-potatoes as it gets. The only setpiece in the film that really stands out (aside from the beautifully Gothic final confrontation) is the one where Sarah maneuvers from the upstairs of the farmhouse to the ground floor, moving a lamp, as necessary, to provide meager protection from the rampaging creature. It’s a gloriously tense scene, exquisitely blocked and genuinely thrilling: too bad that so many other scenes devolve into your basic “run and get chased” formula. Stitches was a film where you never had any sense of what’s coming next: from clown sex to death by ice cream scooper, McMahon seemed to pull twists and outrage seemingly out of thin air. Here, McMahon seems to be following a pre-established recipe, giving us all of the required beats and moments for this type of thing but with a decided lack of “seasoning”: even the creature’s aversion to light hearkens back to Pitch Black, which managed to make much better use of that particular “gimmick.”

Despite my disappointment, however, I still enjoyed From the Dark. While Stephen Cromwell’s Mark got a little tedious and whiny by the film’s conclusion, Niamh Algar’s Sarah was always a sturdy protagonist and a more than suitable “final girl” to move the proceedings into their logical conclusion. In fact, I was so impressed with her organic progression from “scared” to “ass-kicking” that I’m going to make a point to follow her more in the future: I’m hoping that more filmmakers take McMahon’s lead and start making Algar the focus of their fright flicks.

I also really liked the film’s look and atmosphere, for the most part, and totally dug the idea of the monster, even if the actual execution was a little too vague and anonymous for my taste: I found myself thinking about it for some time after, trying to fill in the missing pieces. This, of course, is pretty high praise for any film, least of all a low-budget horror film: if I find myself thinking about any of it afterwards, that’s always a big plus, in my book.

There’s no doubt that Conor McMahon is one seriously talented dude: irregardless of its numerous issues, From the Dark is still vastly superior to many similar films. It’s also great to see that he’s not a one-trick-pony: anyone who can create something as giddy and uproarious as Stitches, yet follow it up with something as serious and glum as From the Dark seems poised to avoid pigeon-holing at all costs. At the end of the day, however, I’m nothing if not a greedy bastard: for that reason, I’m gonna be holding out for another Stitches. Serious or funny…flip a coin. As long as McMahon’s next film displays the same delirious level of invention and imagination as his killer clown opus, I’ll be that proverbial kid in that proverbial candy store.

 

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10/10/14 (Part One): What a Drag It Is Not Getting Older

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31 Days of Halloween, Adam and Eve, Anton Yelchin, art films, auteur theory, Bill Laswell, Christopher Marlowe, cinema, Dead Man, Detroit, drama, ennui, eternal life, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, Ghost Dog, hipsters, horror movies, husband-wife team, independent film, Jeffrey Wright, Jim Jarmusch, John Hurt, Mia Wasikowska, Movies, Only Lovers Left Alive, romance, romantic films, Tangiers, Tilda Swinton, Tom Hiddleston, Vampire Code of Conduct, vampires, vampires vs humans, writer-director, youth vs old age

In certain ways, the classical notion of vampires is equitable with the current phenomena known as “hipsters”: vampires are intelligent, urbane individuals who look down on the dregs of “normal” society, take pleasure in obscure, archaic entertainments, consider themselves to be more sophisticated than those around them and lament the tawdriness of the modern age in contrast to purer, more interesting “times gone by.” Minus the blood-sucking bit and aversion to sunlight (well, perhaps not completely forgetting the aversion to sunlight bit…), that description sounds an awful lot like the current conception of hipsters. At the very least, both groups appear to share a common attribute: a completely world-weary and jaded viewpoint that makes snark and sarcasm more natural go-to responses than honest simplicity. For bored, ageless vampires, the business of “living” appears to be as much of a burden as “regular folks” are to the modern hipster. The whole thing is just so…gauche.

Auteur Jim Jarmusch’s newest film, Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), takes the above parallel between vampires and hipsters to its logical extreme, positing Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton as the bored, ageless vampires Adam and Eve, doomed to cast a disparaging eye on the wreck that is humanity for more centuries than they care to recall. Or, at least, that’s definitely Adam’s take on the whole mess of existence. In fact, he’s so agitated with the inanity of the “zombies” (the vamps favorite descriptor for humanity) that he’s commissioned a wooden bullet and plans to commit the ultimate act of bored defiance: if this world won’t cease its tedium, he’ll just have to cease his existing.

Eve, on the other hand, views things just a little differently. In fact, it’s probably easiest to view Eve as a Gothic variation on the whole “manic pixie girl” ideal: unlike Adam, she hasn’t lost her sense of joy at being alive. As she sees it, living for hundreds of years can get tedious and humdrum, of course, but it also allows for more experiences and wonder than any “regular” person could ever have. After all, she’s best friends with the one and only Christopher Marlowe (John Hurt)…how many “regular” people can say that?

This contrast between Adam and Eve forms the foundation of Jarmusch’s film, his rather belated follow-up to The Limits of Control (2009). As befits someone who tackles genre films in the most unconventional ways possible (Dead Man (1995) is a trippy art-film masquerading as a Western, while Ghost Dog (1999) is a treatise on Eastern philosophy filtered through a gonzo Mafia framework), Only Lovers Left Alive is a highly unconventional film. For one thing, there isn’t a whole lot of narrative thrust to be found here: much of the film’s running time is taken up with the relationship between Adam and Eve and what happens when she leaves her home in Tangiers to come see him in Detroit (despite being married for, apparently, hundreds of years, the couple live across the world from each other, which has to one of the handiest metaphors for long-distance relationships in some time). Plot points do raise their heads from time to time, of course: the couple is visited by Eve’s young, out-of-control sister, Ava (Mia Wasikowska), and must figure out how to replenish their exhausted blood supply. On the whole, however, Jarmusch is largely uninterested in the vagaries of a traditional plot: this is all about atmosphere and vibe, two fronts which Only Lovers Left Alive really takes to the bank.

More than anything, Jarmusch’s newest film is an art film: the emphasis is most definitely on mood, with evocative shots, exquisite slo-mo and deliberate framing taking precedence over any traditional narrative devices. To that end, events sometimes come and go with a sense of arbitrary randomness: Adam’s best friend, the human Ian (Anton Yelchin), is dispatched early on but it so much as cause a ripple in the narrative. Ava seems poised to serve as some sort of villainous character (she’s so selfish, obnoxious and derisive towards humans that she feels cut from a much more traditional “vamps vs humans” film) until she’s pretty much written out of the story without so much as a second thought. Adam appears to be a rock star, of some sort, and much is made in the film about him constantly hearing his music in surprising places (a restaurant, for example) but this ends up having no bearing on the story whatsoever. Like much in the story, these various plot ends aren’t meant to be tied up neatly: they’re used for seasoning, like salt on a steak.

Lacking any sort of driving narrative, the responsibility for the success (or failure) of the film rests solely on its considerable craft: as with anything else in his catalogue, Jarmusch is more than capable of not only making this work but making it work spectacularly well. For one thing, Only Lovers Left Alive looks fantastic: the well-lit daytime scenes may seem a little blown-out but the night-time scenes are exquisite and highly evocative. The score, all hyperbole aside, is a true thing of beauty: not only does it manage to elevate the film, as a whole, but Jarmusch’s musical choices are just a ton of fun, all on their own. The scene where Adam plays his music is pitch-perfect (apparently, vampire music sounds like droning, Eastern-tinged shoegaze, which makes complete sense), as is the truly nice moment where Adam and Eve dance to a Motown tune. The Bill Laswell instrumental that closes the credits totally rips and this was the first art film I’ve seen in sometime that practically demands I check out the soundtrack.

As with all of his films, Jarmusch assembles a first-class ensemble and puts them through some pretty excellent paces. Hiddleston and Swinton are absolutely magnificent as the ageless lovers: not only is their relationship genuinely romantic but the pair make a truly unearthly couple…they not only look but act and sound like age-old creatures living in an era not of their construction. Wasikowska turns in another great performance as the childish, casually evil Ava and is quickly proving to be one of this generation’s most capable genre actors. It’s always good to see John Hurt in a film and he tears into the character of Christopher Marlowe with gusto, although I wish he got a little more screen-time. Likewise, Yelchin and Wright turn in great supporting performances as Ian and Dr. Watson, respectively: Hiddleston’s scenes with Wright are definitely a highlight of the film.

As a huge fan of Jarmusch’s work (Dead Man is one of my all-time favorite films), I went into this expecting nothing short of greatness and, for the most part, my expectations were met. Only Lover’s Left Alive is definitely an extraordinary film, from the peerless performances to the gorgeous cinematography and back to the picaresque locations (the dilapidated, ramshackle setting of the once-might Detroit makes a pretty awesome, if obvious, metaphor for a vampire film, since the city seems as undead as the vampires). That being said, I still found myself slightly letdown by the film: there’s nothing inherently wrong with the picture – truth be told, there’s a lot about it that’s very, very right – but it still manages to feel somehow slight, at least when stacked up against his previous work. Whether this due to my perception or Jarmusch’s intention, there definitely seems to be a disconnect (at least for me), a disconnect that I rarely noticed in his earlier films.

Ultimately, however, my slight dissatisfaction ends up being a pretty moot point: Only Lovers Left Alive is a pretty great film and certainly one of the more interesting vampire films to emerge in some time. The main idea, that ageless individuals with access to all of the music, art, history and time in the world, can still manage to be bored and listless is an extremely relevant one in this day and age of the Internet: after all, humanity now has access to just about everything that Jarmusch’s vampires do and we’re not content, either. It’s an interesting notion, is this idea that having it all really means we get nothing. It’s certainly not the kind of idea that’s par for the course in most vampire films. When you’re dealing with Jarmusch, however, “usual” and “par for the course” are pretty meaningless terms: he’s been doing it his own way for over 30 years, now, and I’m imagining he won’t be stopping anytime soon.

10/2/14 (Part One): The Reason For the Season

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'70s films, 31 Days of Halloween, Assault on Precinct 13, auteur theory, babysitters, Brian Andrews, Charles Cyphers, classic films, co-writers, cult classic, dead teenagers, Dean Cundey, Debra Hill, Donald Pleasence, electronic score, favorite films, Film auteurs, Haddonfield, Halloween, horror, horror franchises, horror movies, iconic film scores, independent film, insane asylums, Jamie Lee Curtis, John Carpenter, John Michael Graham, Kyle Richards, Michael Myers, Nancy Kyes, Nick Castle, P.J. Soles, Sam Loomis, set in the 1970s, slasher films, small town life, writer-director

Apparently, I owe John Carpenter’s classic Halloween (1978) an apology. Despite regarding the film as one of my favorites for more years than I can remember and revisiting it at least once a year, it seems that I’ve been taking it for granted. Call me “lazy” or “too comfortable” but I’ve been treating the film as background noise for far too long now: something to have on while serving up gift-wrapped sugar treats for the young’uns or to zone out to after a particularly long day at work. Perhaps it’s due to the fact that I’ve seen the film so many times, kind of like how we all used to get burnt out on big radio singles back when there was radio. I’ve been looking at the movie for years but I haven’t really been “watching” it for some time now. Obviously, this was a situation that needed to be rectified.

For this year’s screening of the seasonal chiller, I decided to give it my complete and undivided attention: rather than just put it on, I wanted to try to view it (if possible) through unbiased eyes. Essentially, I had a question: if I were viewing this for the first time today, would it still have the same impact on me that it did when I was a kid? It’s a flawed experiment, obviously, since there are so many other factors to consider, not the least of which is that at the time I saw the film, I didn’t really have much to compare it to: by this point, I’ve seen more horror films than I probably thought could ever exist back when I was knee-high to a grasshopper. Nonetheless, I wanted to see if the film could actually still affect me: I’ve been hearing stories lately about young people laughing their way through recent screenings of the film and wanted to see if this forefather to the slasher film still had any of its raw power left. As it stands, I found out two separate things: the film hasn’t lost any of its power over the 36 years since its release…and it’s entirely possible that modern audiences have rocks in their head. I’ll try to prove the former but you’re just gonna have to take my word on the latter.

Since I find it nearly impossible to believe that there are any film fans out there who aren’t at least familiar with Carpenter’s masterpiece (or Rob Zombie’s brain-dead remakes, if that floats yer boat), I’ll just give this the Cliff Notes synopsis: 15 years ago, young Michael Myers (Will Sandin) brutally stabbed his sister to death and was sentenced to an insane asylum. Dedicated psychiatrist Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence) spends the next eight years trying to cure and the seven years after that trying to keep him locked away. When Michael escapes from the asylum on the day before Halloween, Loomis tracks him back to his boyhood home, the small town of Haddonfield. Michael arrives in the town on Halloween, steals some supplies (knives and a William Shatner Halloween mask) and quickly sets his sights on decimating the town’s supply of teenagers, in particular Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis), Annie (Nancy Kyes) and Lynda (P.J. Soles). As day gives way to night, Michael skulks about, picking one person off after the other. Loomis is on the case, however, and has been scouring the town from top to bottom, hunting for any sign of his elusive ward. As Michael closes the distance between Laurie and her two young charges, Tommy (Brian Andrews) and Lindsey (Kyle Richards), will Loomis get there in time or will the resourceful babysitter be forced into a fight for her life against a silent, inhuman monster?

But back to that earlier question: did the film have any impact on me this time around or did I find myself re-evaluating my lifelong love for the film, ala Kevin Smith’s now odious Clerks (1994)? As it turns out, the film is still just as impactful (to me, at least) today as it was a couple of decades ago: despite knowing every twist, turn and plot development, I was still glued to the screen and even caught myself reacting to a few setpieces that I was sure would be old hat by this time. Now that the “Is it still effective?” question is answered, time to think about the “Why?” part. Why is Halloween still such an effective horror, even as it rapidly approaches its 40 anniversary?

The easy answer, of course, is that Halloween is still so damn effective because it’s such a well-made film. Yeah, that’s a bit of a cop-out but let’s increase the magnification to 1000x, shall we? First off, Carpenter is an absolute master filmmaker: that’s no hyperbole, rather one of those accepted scientific facts. By the time of Halloween, he already had a massively entertaining sci-fi epic under his belt (Dark Star (1974), as well as one of the most undisputed badass films in the history of popular cinema: Assault on Precinct 13 (1976). I’ve already written extensively about Assault on Precinct 13 in another blog but here’s the recap: Assault is one of those raw, primal films that sprung fully formed into the world, like Athena out of Zeus’ head, and proceeded to rewrite the rule book on what low-budget action films were capable enough. Suffice to say that Assault on Precinct 13 would be a feather in anyone’s cap: for Carpenter, he just called it his sophomore film.

But back to Halloween. So we’ve got a master director who’s just taken his first baby steps towards on helluva career. What else do we have? How about that iconic electronic music score? Short of the Jaws (1975) theme song (and maybe Jurassic Park (1993), come to think of it), I’m hard-pressed to recall another film’s instrumental score that’s so easily recognized and functions so Pavlovian among genre fans. The responsible party? That’d be our man John, again, who also wrote the instantly memorable score for Assault. So we have a master director and an amazing musical score…what else we got? Well, we’ve also got a pretty impressive cast, even if they’re mostly unknowns (with the exception of the legendary Donald Pleasence, of course). Despite appearing in a few TV shows prior to this, Halloween was also the big-screen debut of Jamie Lee Curtis, which also adds a few feathers to its cap: film fans, genre or otherwise, know Curtis as being one of the most dependable, strong and fun performers to tread the boards in this modern film era. Curtis’ performance as Laurie is a true watershed moment in horror, since it introduced the horror world to the notion of a strong female lead. While Laurie might not be quite in Lt. Ripley territory, her character is anything but a damsel in distress: Loomis may shoot Michael several times from a safe distance but Laurie goes mano a mano with the fucker, employing hangers, knitting needles, knives and whatever else she can get her hands on to inflict maximum damage. Loomis may be the guy who gets in the final shots (for all the good that does) but Laurie’s the one who softened up the devil, in the first place.

Unlike the scads of “dead teenager movies” that followed in its wake, the “victims” in Halloween are not a clichéd, unlikable bunch of cannon fodder: they might not be fully developed characters in the way that characters in The Godfather (1972) are, for example, but they’re also a light year away from the “horny/stupid/asshole” stereotypes that would pop up in just about every other slasher film ever made. Laurie and her friends may not quite look like teenagers but they definitely sound like them and it’s pretty impossible (for me, at least) to not feel empathy for them. Contrast this to something like Hatchet (2006), which delights in introducing super-shitty characters so that audiences will cheer when they get fed into a wood chipper: it’s a subtle but big difference.

Alright…so far, we have a film with a master director, excellent musical score, effective acting and sympathetic characters. What else does it have going on? Well, it’s got an exceptionally tight script, for one thing, a script which manages to dole out just enough information to get us intrigued but not enough to make us glaze over (I’m absolutely looking at you, Rob Z). It also has some pretty astounding cinematography, courtesy of Dean Cundey, the man with the camera who shot everything from Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks (1976) to most of Carpenter’s catalog (including The Thing, Big Trouble in Little China and Escape From New York), Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988) and Jurassic Park (to name but a very few out of a very impressive career). Cundey uses plenty of gorgeous wide shots in the film, along with that (by now clichéd) “killer’s POV” that’s name-checked in just about 99.9% of slasher films. If you watch Halloween and think, “Gee, this stuff is so cliché,” ponder this, Poindexter: this was the film that pretty much wrote the rulebook on this kind of stuff (if you held up your hand and said, “Bay of Blood (1971)!,” you get points for that, too).

So all that stuff’s thrown into the mix, which should go a long way towards answering the question, “Is Halloween actually a good film?” (Short answer: Of course.) The deeper question, however, is why is Carpenter’s film still so effective despite all the films that have come and gone since? There have been plenty of bloodier, rawer, more frantic, more hopeless and more eye-popping films over the years, no two ways about it. How, then, could I stand on my apple-box and bend your ears about this old dinosaur? Well, folks, there’s a pretty simple answer: like Hitchcock before him, Carpenter is an absolute wizard at creating tension so thick that you could cut it with a knife. From the opening credit sequence (and let’s be honest: it’s one of the coolest, if simplest, credit sequences in the history of the medium) to the final shot, Halloween is nothing short of a barely concealed live wire. Much of the credit for this impenetrable mood is due to Carpenter’s amazing score: rarely have there been musical tones that seem more suited for reaching into someone’s chest and squeezing their heart into strawberry jam. The film also has a deadly serious tone (despite some welcome comic relief via the ultra-snarky Annie), which helps with the oppressive atmosphere. Digging deeper, however, there’s another reason for this: Carpenter has purposefully crafted a world that oozes menace and threat from every pore, regardless of the time of day, the characters involved or the storyline.

Despite seeming the obvious way to go, the majority of Halloween’s narrative doesn’t take place during the evening: some of the flat-out creepiest shit happens right out in broad daylight. Carpenter does something so simple, yet devious, that I’m surprised no one else has really figured this out yet: he lets his monster just walk around among the unsuspecting sheep. During the lead-up to the night-time festivities, Carpenter manages to stick Michael into the corners or margins of just about every shot. Laurie notices Michael watching her from across the street, while she’s in school…Laurie notices Michael hanging out on a sidewalk, in her neighborhood…Michael is just driving a car around through the streets of Haddonfield, as natural as if he were cruising on a Saturday night. Unlike other cinematic monsters, Michael doesn’t seem to strictly a “creature of the night,” as it were. The majority of the kills occur after dark, but the stalking is pretty-much a 24-7 deal.

There’s a reason this works so beautifully and it has to do with that old chestnut of Hitchcock’s regarding showing the bomb: if a couple are sitting at a table and suddenly blow up, the audience is surprised and shocked but only momentarily. If the audience witnesses someone place a bomb under the table, set the timer and leave, however, than we suddenly have a whole other animal…we have suspense. The characters might not know about the bomb but we do, which has the natural effect of keeping us on the edge of our seats: we keep yelling at the screen, telling the idiots to get the hell away from the table but they, of course, won’t listen.

Carpenter’s bomb, so to speak, is Michael. In many ways, he’s like a living ghost that haunts Haddonfield. Since we already know who and what he is, thanks to the opening, Loomis’ description and the harrowing asylum escape, we already know what he’s capable of once he shows up among the “normal” folks. Laurie and her friends might not know who the goony guy in the Shatner mask is but we do and that makes all the difference. Since Michael is an omnipresent force in the film, we never reach a point where he’s not on our minds: we might temporarily forget him, as we get caught up in some bit of teenage minutiae but he’s always right around the corner to remind us. Once the killing begins in earnest and Michael becomes an unstoppable force, it’s almost like our fears have been confirmed: if only those idiots would have listened to us about the bomb, none of this shit would be happening. Thanks to this technique, Halloween has about a million times more resonance and power than generic slashers that merely set up a group of people, establish a threat, wait until dark and kill ’em all.

These are all great reasons to love Halloween, as far as I’m concerned, but there are plenty of other reasons. Nick Castle’s performance as Michael may be mute but he manages to instill no small amount of characterization, none the less: one of my favorite scenes in any horror movie, ever, is the bit where Michael lifts Bob (John Michael Graham) off the floor, nails him to the wall with a knife and proceeds to stare at him, slowly cocking his head to the side as if he were a dog watching a caterpillar. It’s a terrifying moment precisely because it’s such an innocent, human expression: we don’t expect this emotionless monstrosity to express curiosity, after all, since that makes him more uncomfortably human than we’d like. There’s another fantastic scene (in the same part of the film, ironically enough) where Michael puts on a sheet and Michael’s glasses and goes to see Lynda. She expects Bob while we know it’s Michael under the sheet: her goofing around turns to frustration when Bob won’t end the joke, while our hearts jump from our chest to our throat like a strongman test at the carnival. There are about a million ways this scene could have been played out but only one that achieves maximum chills and Carpenter nails it.

And there, in a pretty huge nutshell, you have it: my rationalization for why Halloween should still be considered not only a forefather to modern horror films but also one of the best examples of the genre that we’ll probably ever see. Like Hooper’s landmark The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), the original Halloween is surprisingly light on actual gore: there are plenty of strangulations and off-screen killing but this is about the furthest thing from something like Friday the 13th (1980) that you can get. This, of course, makes the numerous (and increasingly violent) sequels seem even more half-baked than the numerous TCM sequels: while there was some (small) precedent for graphic violence in Hooper’s film, there’s virtually none in Carpenter’s, despite the subject matter.

Despite not really thinking about Halloween in any meaningful way for years, all it took was one good, close viewing to remind me of all the reasons that this film was always one of my favorites. Like eating comfort foods, there’s just something about watching Halloween that seems natural and…well…good, to me. In a day and age where one-upmanship is the name of the game and jaded viewers have seen just about everything short of actual snuff films, it’s refreshing to return to something like Halloween and remember a time when it was possible for a horror film to make you think and feel without battering you into submission. Watching Halloween in this way has only reaffirmed my earlier love for the film: horror films wouldn’t be the same without Carpenter and Halloween wouldn’t be Halloween without…well…Halloween.

9/22/14: Plowed Under

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alcoholism, black comedies, Canadian films, cinema, drama, Emanuel Hoss-Desmarais, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, flashback narrative, gallows' humor, independent film, indie dramas, Isabelle Nelisse, Marc Labreche, Movies, odd couple, snow plow, stranded, Thomas Haden Church, Vincent Hoss-Desmarais, voice-over narration, Whitewash, writer-director

If there’s a big takeaway from writer/director Emanuel Hoss-Desmarais’ exceptional debut feature, Whitewash (2013), it’s a pretty cynical one: people suck. Oh, sure: individuals may do good, selfless things but the rest of humanity will, invariably, find some way to screw it up. To wrap it up with a nice, clichéd bow: no good deed goes unpunished. The journey to this revelation is a twisted one, however, and there’s a genuine mystery at the heart of this blackly comic little wonder, albeit a small one: why, exactly, did Bruce (Thomas Haden Church) run over Paul (Marc Labreche) with a snowplow?

The event in question happens at the very onset of the film and the answer will be gradually revealed over the next 80-some minutes via a series of flashbacks. What we get at the beginning, however, has all of the linear insanity of a nightmare: we see Bruce run Paul over (via a gorgeous long shot) and then join him as he rides his snowplow off into the darkest recesses of the nearby forest, where the vehicle inevitably stalls out. From this point on, the film splits its difference between being an outdoor survival flick, ala Wrecked (2010), and being a prickly dark comedy about the subtle ways in which humans drive each other crazy.

There’s more to the film than meets the eye, however: much more. For one thing, unlike most survival dramas, Bruce doesn’t appear to be trapped. There’s no giant boulder pinning his arm, no crushed car to keep him in place. Rather, what’s trapping Bruce out in the cold hell of a brutal Quebecan winter is his own internal turmoil. As we begin to piece more of the story together, via the numerous flashbacks, we also start to put together a better picture of Bruce: a hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth type, Bruce is an easy-going fella who’s fond of eating his dessert before his entrée and thinks nothing of helping complete strangers, regardless of the inconvenience to himself. He’s a sad man, in many ways: his wife has died and the house is filled with belongings and memorabilia that makes her an omnipresent figure. There are a lot of facets to Bruce but one questions hangs heavy over everything: why would a guy like this run over someone else with a snow plow?

We do eventually get the answer but, as often happens in these situations, the journey is more important than the destination. As we learn more about Bruce and his “victim,” the mysterious and unbelievably obnoxious Paul, we begin to understand, piece by piece, what might drive a seemingly ordinary guy to snap. By the time we get to the brilliantly concise finale, we have many but not all of our answers. To paraphrase the Big, Bad Wolf: all the better to use our own minds, then.

For a modest, unassuming film, I was most impressed with Hoss-Desmarais’ debut. For one thing, the cinematography (courtesy of Andre Turpin) is absolutely astounding: with no hyperbole, the film looked like a million bucks and featured some stunningly beautiful shots. There’s one shot, where Bruce’s snowplow recedes into the background, taking all of the light with it and rendering the screen pitch-black, that’s practically a masterclass on evoking mood (besides being gorgeously framed). The film’s colors are bright and vibrant, with deep blacks, crisp whites and a truly ingenious use of shadows and negative space.

The other high point in the film, of course, is Thomas Haden Church’s commanding performance as Bruce. For the most part, the film is a one-man show and Church is more than up for the task. Even his voice, deep and reverberating, brings new layers and context to a voice-over convention that is too often misused: the voice-overs in Whitewash don’t repeat unnecessary visual information…they deliver the main character’s inner thoughts and observations in a way that enriches the overall story. If for nothing else, I must praise Hoss-Desmarais’ writing skills and entreat other screenwriters/directors to follow his lead: make the voiceover mean something or get it the hell out-of-the-way.

Awesome voice aside, Church is stone-cold perfect in the role: his dryly humorous quips and facial expressions deliver miles of character in shorthand and the actor is so charismatic that spending an entire film stuck with Bruce is something significantly less than torturous. Truth be told, I had kind of forgot about Church before this film, despite being a big fan of the TV show Wings back in the day. I’m not sure if Whitewash counts as a comeback (did he ever go anywhere or was I just not paying attention) but Church deserves more (and bigger) films in the future. Here’s to hoping this helps kick the door in.

Also impressive, for different reasons, is Marc Labreche as the odious Paul. Paul is kind of a difficult character to parse, since we start to learn about his true character over time. Nonetheless, Labreche is pretty great at hitting all of the necessary beats: his long-winded story about Mexico starts to pull back the curtain hiding the wizard (in a truly organic way), while his ridiculous bar-room dance must be seen to be believed. Most importantly, Church and Labreche make a great odd couple: the film wouldn’t be nearly as effective if their relationship didn’t seem so real.

Lest my praise seem too effusive, Whitewash is definitely not a perfect film. Despite the great script, there are a few odd plot-holes that never get resolved and the back half of the film ends up being more confusing than seems necessary. In the long run, however, none of the film’s problems ever approach the level of “deal-breaker.” The acting is extraordinary (no lie, Church deserved some kind of award for this), the script is tight and the cinematography is flat-out beautiful. Hoss-Desmarais makes particularly good use of the Canadian countryside, which almost becomes a third character in the film. The cherry on the sundae? A pitch-perfect, sardonic, dry-as-dust final shot that feels like the filmmakers decided to take a victory lap.

Nowadays, it seems that cheaply made, disposable independent films are a dime-a-dozen (hell, maybe that’s what Netflix is payin’ em these days). The good ones? Far less frequent. The great ones? Even rarer still. Whitewash, in case anyone is keeping score, is one of the great ones. Here’s to hoping this is the beginning of a long and fruitful writing/directing career for Hoss-Desmarais, who first cut his teeth as an actor in films like The Day After Tomorrow (2004). While moving behind the camera isn’t always the best move for an actor, Hoss-Desmarais proves that the best things don’t always fall neatly within the lines.

9/7/14: Anywhere But Here

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absentee father, Amanda Anka, Benicio del Toro, boredom, Chris Pontius, cinema, coming of age, divorced parents, dramas, electronic score, Elle Fanning, ennui, film reviews, films, Harris Savides, Hollywood actors, independent film, indie dramas, living in a hotel, Lost in Translation, Movies, parent-child relationships, Phoenix, Sofia Coppola, Somewhere, Stephen Dorff, The Virgin Suicides, writer-director

If there’s one big take-away we can get from Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere (2010), it’s that being young, rich and famous is just about as tedious and dull as it gets. Sure, Johnny (Stephen Dorff) may be a famous actor who indulges in endless partying, drinking and womanizing, attending one gala overseas movie premiere after another but it’s the in-between moments that are particularly telling: when not surrounded by paparazzi and sycophants, Johnny’s life seems to entail sitting alone in his hotel room home, drinking and smoking one cigarette after the other. Entitled? Absolutely. Glamorous? Not on your life.

Since this is the movies, however, we know that it won’t be that simple: there’s got to be some sort of catalyst for change. And there is, of course, in the person of Cleo (Elle Fanning), Johnny’s 11-year-old daughter. Johnny’s ex-wife has sent Cleo to spend some time with her absentee father and he’s reluctantly agreed, despite the monkey wrench it will throw into his wastoid lifestyle. Somewhere along the way, however, a funny, cinematic thing starts to happen: Johnny and Cleo begin to connect and the lay-about actor starts to feel the first stirrings of some pretty alien emotions – love, responsibility and a new-found sense of purpose. Perhaps there’s more to life than empty partying and pleasure-chasing. Perhaps it will be 30-something Johnny who finally begins to grow up, rather than his pre-teen daughter. Perhaps it’s actually up to the child to teach the adult the real ways of the world. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps…

As someone who thoroughly enjoyed Sofia Coppola’s first two films, the gauzy, hazy The Virgin Suicides (1999) and Oscar-winning Lost in Translation (2003), I was really looking forward to seeing Somewhere. While I haven’t kept up with Coppola’s career in the same way that I have her father’s, for example, I’ve long felt that she was a ridiculously talented writer/director who was managing to develop her own unique, distinctive vision, a vision that didn’t look quite like anyone else’s (least of all, her father’s). Alas, I found Somewhere to be something of a mess, alternating between deadly dull non-action and bizarre, awkward, vaguely nonsensical “arthouse” elements, none of which sit comfortably side by side. It’s a film that opens with a terribly tedious, repetitious static shot of a car racing around a track and then manages to one-up this tedium at every possible opportunity.

While there’s undoubtedly an intriguing film to be made out of the skewering of movie star lifestyle clichés, Somewhere just doesn’t have a whole lot to say. Sparse and spare to the point of feeling underdeveloped, the film comes across more as a series of tedious vignettes than any kind of organic, cohesive narrative: Johnny watches in abject boredom as awkward twin dancers perform a strange pole-dance to the Foo Fighters’ “My Hero”; Johnny watches Cleo figure-skate for what feels like 10 uninterrupted minutes; Johnny shares an elevator with Benicio del Toro (playing himself, natch); Johnny sits for a lengthy makeup session that involves the application of an old man mask; Johnny has an awkward encounter with a male masseuse who drops his own drawers since “if his clients are naked, he should be, too”; Johnny and Cleo attend an Italian awards show; Johnny and Cleo lounge by the pool…it (literally) goes on and on and on. Of the various “scenes,” most are deathly dull, although the bits involving the awful twin dancers and the naked masseuse are, at the very least, more entertaining than the mind-numbing figure-skating routine.

There are a few nods to an actual storyline buried in here (Johnny keeps getting mysterious texts from someone who asks him not to be an “asshole,” pushy paparazzi keep tailing him) but nothing ever develops past the most basic level: in essence, Somewhere is 90-odd minutes of minutiae and ennui. There’s no character development, even if Johnny, technically, finishes the film with a different mindset than he began it (never mind that his character arc ends with his car breaking down and he merrily walking into the horizon because, you know, “regular” people walk places): Cleo never seems to serve as more than a plot device, save for one nicely realized scene where father and daughter share room-service gelato and watch Italian-dubbed episodes of Friends on TV.

It doesn’t help that Johnny is kind of a shitty person to spend any amount of time with: he’s moody, disinterested in everything to the point of being disengaged and seems to exist in a constant state of horny boredom. At a certain point, his non-stop womanizing becomes unbelievably silly (Johnny is so desirable that anonymous women flash him, in public, and he always seems to be coming home to a new, mysterious, nude woman in his bed), although there’s something undeniably creepy about his tendency to follow strange, attractive woman around. Is it only considered stalking if the creep isn’t rich and famous? Inquiring minds want to know.

From a craft standpoint, Somewhere is decent but certainly nothing to write home about. While the cinematography, courtesy of frequent Fincher collaborator Harris Savides, features some truly beautiful night shots, it just as often simply revolves around medium close-ups of Stephen Dorff looking bored. The minimalist electro-score, by French electronica-pop band Phoenix, is so restrained as to recede almost completely into the background, providing the kind of generic score that could have been contributed by any number of faceless soundtrack pros. The acting is just fine throughout, although none of the actors, in particular Dorff, ever seem to display much beyond passionless disinterest and melancholic acceptance.

I really wanted to love Somewhere but I’ll be honest: the tedious opening set a tone that, unfortunately, the rest of the film was only too eager to fulfill. Although I’ve yet to see Coppola’s take on Marie Antoinette (2006) or her critically acclaimed recent film The Bling Ring (2010), I must admit that Somewhere has made me extremely wary. While one less than stellar film does not a career break, necessarily, Somewhere felt like an expansion and doubling-down of the worst affectations in Coppola’s first two films. I’m still curious to see what Coppola has in store for the future but count me as someone who would rather have been anywhere than Somewhere.

7/31/14: You Can’t Be Righteous With Weapons of War

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based on a true story, Better Mus' Come, brothers, cinema, City of God, Cold War, crime film, Dennis Hall, drama, Duane Pusey, Everaldo Cleary, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, independent film, Jamaica, Jamaican films, Movies, Nicole Sky Grey, period-piece, political factions, political struggle, poverty, Rastafarianism, Ricardo Orgil, romance, Sage the Poet, set in the 1970s, Sheldon Shepherd, Storm Saulter, writer-director-cinematographer

For many people who came of age during the Cold War, the threat of another world war and/or nuclear annihilation was a near constant, if ultimately theoretical, source of worry. Western-bloc school children were put through safety drills, fall-out shelters were built and political rhetoric was tossed around fast and thick from both sides. In some countries, however, the Cold War was more than just an ideological battleground: in places like Jamaica, during the ’70s, people were actually killing (and being killed) for this “battle against Communism.” For some, the Cold War was as physical and real as their often difficult living situations.

First-time writer/director/cinematographer Storm Saulter’s bracing debut feature, Better Mus’ Come (2010), examines this very “heated” side of the Cold War, wrapping the conflict up within the familiar trappings of a coming-of-age story. In the process, Saulter comes up with a film that flirts with greatness, even as it narrowly misses the lofty mark set by the similar City of God (2002). Despite not being a classic, Better Mus’ Come is a fairly extraordinary film, full of some painfully real performances, all surrounded by the inherent majesty of Jamaica’s picaresque countryside and humble shanty-towns slums. It’s a vibrant, lively, colorful place occupied, thanks to Saulter, with some truly interesting characters.

Better Mus’ Come begins in 1978, as Jamaica is in the grip of the Cold War: the slums are caught up in the often violent conflict between rival gangs working for the People’s National Party (PNP) on one side and the Jamaica Labor Party (JLP) on the other. Our protagonist, Ricky (Sheldon Shepherd), is a proud Laborite: he sees himself as a freedom fighter devoted to keeping the “Communist threat” out of Jamaica. “Let them take that shit to Cuba,” he proudly sneers at one point in the film. Along with his role as de facto leader of his local gang, a crew which includes his friends Flames (Ricardo Orgil) and Shorty (Everaldo Cleary), Ricky is also responsible for taking care of his young brother, Chris, a task made exceptionally difficult by their nearly crippling poverty. Like many of the residents of their shanty-town, Ricky and Chris don’t even have access to clean, running water, much less luxuries like electricity and “real” building materials. In one of the film’s most telling scenes, Ricky complains about their lack of amenities to the corrupt local politician who employs them, only to be answered with the dismissive notion that “people shouldn’t expect that kind of stuff.” We could go back and forth on the need for electricity but clean water? That seems like the kind of need that supersedes any notions of social status or wealth: everyone, regardless of station, should have access to clean water.

In his own way, however, Ricky is like a young, impoverished Don Corleone: he practically runs his neighborhood, watching out for residents who are getting crushed by strictures like food rationing and mercurial local authority figures. Ricky and his gang make their money by disrupting PNP rallies and raiding “legitimate” construction sites in order to steal and re-sell the supplies, while still finding time to run out any “Socialists” that manage to wander into the area. When Ricky’s gang jumps and nearly kills Pauly, a nerdy young man who kind of/sort of runs with the Socialists, Ricky gets introduced to Kemala (Nicole Sky Grey) and it’s love at first sight. As with any troubled romance (think Romeo and Juliet or the Hatfields and McCoys), all signs and advise point to Ricky and Kemala staying as far away from each other as possible: Ricky’s peers counsel him to “stay away from Socialist girls,” while Kemala and Pauly are intrinsically intertwined with brutal Socialist gang leader Dogheart (Duane Pusey), a sort of small-town Napoleon who’s always “all-in to kill some fools.”

As Ricky and Kemala timidly negotiate their highly hazardous courtship, events come to a head for both the Laborites and the Socialists. Local entrepreneur Souls (Dennis Hall) wants to pay Ricky and his gang to guard the same construction sites that they’ve been ripping off, a curious conflict-of-interest that’s but one of many dichotomies in Better Mus’ Come. Ricky’s gang jumps at the offer, mostly because the $300/week (plus weapons) that they’ve been offered is twenty-times more than the $15/week they normally make. There’s a trade-off, however: working for “the man” means ceding their autonomy in the neighborhood, the equivalent of Don Corleone swapping his power for a fast-food job. It also means forcing more conflicts with the Socialists, which means the potential for more bloodshed. When Pauly tries to use Dogheart as a way to strike back at the humiliating beating he received from the Laborites, killing seems inevitable. Despite his best efforts, Ricky and his young brother are about to be dragged into the howling maelstrom that is Jamaica’s violent political struggles: in the process, Ricky will have to give up everything for the faintest glimmer of a terror-free life and future with Kemala.

I will freely, if begrudgingly, admit that my previous experiences with Jamaican cinema have been much less numerous than my experiences with other world cinemas: before Better Mus’ Come, I’d only seen The Harder They Come (1972) and Rockers (1978), two films which I thoroughly enjoyed. As mentioned earlier, however, Better Mus’ Come actually owes much more to Meirelles’ City of God than it does to either of the above two: at their hearts, both films are about the ways in which otherwise “good” youths are drawn into lives of crime thanks to the crushing poverty and inherent hopelessness of their situations. Between the two, City of God is definitely the deeper, more powerful film: while Better Mus’ Come has plenty of genuinely impactful moments, there’s also quite a bit of melodrama that wasn’t present in City of God. Meirelles’ film also seemed to get deeper under the skin of its characters than Saulter’s does, although this could also be chalked up to Saulter’s relative inexperience: this was, after all, his debut film.

While Better Mus’ Come is not, inherently, a better film than City of God, it’s still a pretty extraordinary experience. Saulter’s cinematography can be quite beautiful, at times (although it also has a tendency to be a little blown-out at others), and it really shows off Jamaica to great effect. While the musical score is a little obvious and intrusive at the beginning, it becomes much more organic and evocative by the midpoint, adding much to the film’s frequently red-lined sense of tension. While the storyline can occasionally get a bit convoluted and unnecessarily confusing (the introduction of some nefarious government agents, at the end, seems to muddy the waters a bit too much in the home-stretch), it unfolds in a fairly straight-forward way for much of the film’s running time, making Better Mus’ Come an easy film to get wrapped-up in.

Although Saulter displays some nice chops behind the camera, the real stars of the show end up being the exceptional cast. Sheldon Shepard is a real revelation as Ricky: by turns hard-headed, sensitive, biased and understanding, he’s a completely three-dimensional character. Shepard is an utterly magnetic performer, no more so than the crowd-pleasing scenes where he plays “godfather” in the slum. It’s pretty easy to see why folks would follow him which, adversely, makes it pretty easy to see why other folks want him dead. Ricardo Orgil is similarly excellent as Ricky’s right-hand-man, Flames, while Duane Pusey is so over-the-top as the reprehensible Dogheart that he often seems like a mustache-twirling silent-film bad guy. The character works spectacularly well, however, giving Ricky a suitably nasty antagonist to play off. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Nicole Sky Grey as the Juliet to Ricky’s Romeo, however: she plays the character with a completely winning combination of vulnerability and steely reserve. At one point, Kemala asks why it’s “so easy to die for nothing” in their country and she becomes, effortlessly, both the film’s bleeding heart and its wounded conscience.

There’s an awful lot to like about Better Mus’ Come: the film is full of tense, well-staged action scenes (the big conflict between Ricky’s Laborites and Dogheart’s Socialists is suitably thrilling but is over-shadowed by the truly bravura scene where Kemala and Chris are almost caught by Dogheart’s crew while hiding in the trunk of a cab), features a nicely realized romance (Ricky and Kemala make a cute, realistic couple) and has plenty to say about Jamaican politics circa the late-’70s. The film sometimes suffers from “feature-debut” jitters but, on the whole, is a remarkably assured creation. Despite my relative lack of knowledge regarding Jamaica’s political history, I was utterly enthralled by Better Mus’ Come.

While the film isn’t based on actual events, per se, it’s certainly inspired by the era it represents and marks a distinct, powerful calling card for an emerging new talent. I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that we’re going to be seeing a lot more of Storm Saulter in the future: while Better Mus’ Come isn’t quite as unforgettable as City of God, I’m willing to wager that Saulter’s next film will be.

7/11/14: The Anarchist and the Damage Done

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Alessandro Mario, anarchists, Bartolomeo Vanzetti, based on a true story, cinema, crime film, Daniel Mooney, David Strathairn, Film, film reviews, historical drama, immigration, independent film, J. Edgar Hoover, James Madio, labor unions, Luigi Galleani, mail bombs, movie, Nicola Sacco, No God No Master, Ray Wise, rights of the workers, Sacco and Vanzetti, Sam Witwer, Sean McNall, terrorists, Terry Green, William Flynn, writer-director

Historical dramas walk a pretty difficult line, in many cases: they need to be close enough to the actual historical events to still be recognized as such but they also need to possess enough of the characteristics of fictional dramas to hold their own as actual cinematic narrative. Too much of the history and you might end up with something closer to a documentary, whereas too little history and you wind up with FDR: American Badass (2012).

In many ways, it’s to the credit of writer-director Terry Green’s No God, No Master (2012) that I didn’t realize I was watching something based on a true story until the character of Bartolomeo Vanzetti (Alessandro Mario) made his first appearance. At that point, however, my old high school history class kicked in and I knew that I was actually watching a fictionalized account of the famous Sacco and Vanzetti trial from the 1920s. Sneaky move there, Terry.

Up to that point, Green’s film had been a well-made, interesting and rather modest film about the hunt for someone mailing package bombs to prominent political figures. The person doing the hunting is U.S. Bureau of Investigations Agent William Flynn (David Strathairn), a kind-hearted, straight-as-an-arrow lawman navigating the often choppy seas of political self-interest and crooked superior officers. He’s on the case after a young delivery boy is literally blown off his bicycle after dropping one of the package bombs. Together with his partner, Gino (Sam Witwer), William ends up tracing the bombs all the way to an anarchist rabble-rouser by the name of Luigi Galleani (Daniel Mooney). Seems that Galleani wants to bring the system down the old-fashioned way: violence. Hiding within plain sight by allying himself with local labor organizer Carlo Tresca (Edoardo Ballerini), Galleani plans to blow up the various rich and powerful members of a planning commission, including bigwigs like the mayor and John D. Rockefeller.

Politics rears its ugly head, however, when various crooked politicos like Attorney General Mitchell Palmer (Ray Wise) and J. Edgar Hoover (Sean McNall) attempt to use the bombing situation as a way to strike back at not only the anarchists but also at innocent immigrants and labor activists. Soon, William realizes that the people he works for are getting harder and harder to tell apart from the criminals he’s been hired to put away.

Into all of this, then, come the aforementioned real-life historical figures of Nicola Sacco (James Maddio) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. Sacco and Vanzetti are a couple of idealistic, hard-working immigrants who also happen to be anarchists and end up getting swept up in the turbulent events of the time and ground into powder by the political system. The pair find themselves framed for a crime that they didn’t commit, tried and sentenced with no thought for actual justice and executed so as to “set an example” for any who might follow in their footsteps. This, then, is really no different from the actual historical record: the fictional Sacco and Vanzetti end up the same as their real-life counterparts.

What’s interesting, however, is how Green treats the pair like footnotes in the film. Truth be told, the subplot about Sacco and Vanzetti might be the weakest part of the film, feeling like more of an extraneous addition than anything actually necessary. It’s abundantly clear from the get-go that our protagonist and primary focus is the character of William Flynn: he’s the “traditional” hero, gets the most screen-time, as a complete character arc, gets a backstory, etc. Sacco and Vanzetti, on the other hand, are more like historical background, similar to the various U.S. Presidents and other historical figures who appear in the margins of films like Forrest Gump (1994) or The Butler (2013). We never learn enough about them to prevent them from seeming more like symbols or plot devices in the film than actual characters.

Minor quibbles aside, however, I genuinely enjoyed No God, No Master. Strathairn is excellent as William Flynn, portraying a character that manages to be tough as nails yet strangely soothing at the same time. In many ways, the film’s look and tone reminded me of a modern TV series such as Copper or Ripper Street and I kept imagining what it would be like to have a serial that followed the adventures of Strathairn’s Flynn. The rest of the cast is suitably good, with Wise doing one of his patented slimy villain roles and Mooney bringing a believably bug-eyed zeal to his portrayal of Galleani. The whole film has a well-made, glossy feel and clips along at an energetic pace: there’s never a point where anything drags and if the film can get occasionally heavy-handed (many of the courtroom speeches in the latter half are hammered home), it never succumbs to melodrama. If anything, Green has a habit of downplaying everything, which works nicely with Strathairn’s laid-back style.

As a character-driven political mystery, No God, No Master is quite good, although I’m not sure how the film stands on a strictly historical level. Certainly, the subplot about Sacco and Vanzetti feels tagged on, as if Green wanted to attach yet one more layer of relevance to the project. He needn’t have bothered: on its own, No God, No Master is an above-average drama and well worth a watch. If you’ve come strictly for the tale of Sacco and Vanzetti, however, you might be at the wrong place.

 

6/21/14: When Brothers Attack

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actor-writer, Alex Rennie, Awful Nice, Brett Gelman, brothers, Christopher Meloni, cinema, co-writers, comedies, dead father, estranged family, estranged siblings, feuding brothers, feuding families, film reviews, films, Hari Leigh, home renovations, independent film, independent films, indie comedies, James Pumphrey, Jon Charbineau, Keeley Hazell, lake house, Laura Ramsey, male friendships, Movies, sibling rivalry, The Money Pit, The Odd Couple, Todd Sklar, will, writer-director

For anyone who grew up with a sibling, Charles Dickens’ famous quote from A Tale of Two Cities may be all too accurate: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” While there may be no truer, closer friend than a brother or sister, these are also the people who know how to push our buttons better than anyone in this big, crazy world. An older sibling may prove to be a tyrant, while a younger sibling may have been a constant source of annoyance while we were young. The frustrating thing about families, obviously, is that we rarely (if ever) get to pick ours: that particular lottery was taken care of well before we had any say in the situation. Writer-director-actor Todd Sklar’s sophomore film, Awful Nice (2013), takes a look at a pair of estranged brothers who may just come to realize how invaluable they are to each other…if they can keep from beating the crap out of each other, that is.

Jim (James Pumphrey) and Dave (co-writer Alex Rennie, channeling Charlie Day) are estranged brothers who end up forced back into each other’s lives after their father dies and leaves them a dilapidated lake house in his will. Jim is the marginally more mature/responsible of the two, given that he actually has a wife, kids and full-time job, while Dave is more prone to eating donuts out of trash cans, stealing complimentary breakfasts from motels and living so far off the grid that he kinda seems…well…like a vagrant. Even though Jim and Dave haven’t seen each other in years, they manage to handily pick up their former sibling rivalry as if no time had passed, including all of the stupid challenges and dares from their childhood (the dinner scene that begins with a drinking challenge – water, beer, gravy – before turning into an arm-wrestling match that morphs into a fist-fight is a particular highlight). Jim has no time for Dave’s foolishness, while Dave can’t stand Jim’s condescending, superior attitude: nothing’s changed since they were kids except for the addition of facial hair.

After visiting their father’s lawyer, Jon Charbineau (Law and Order’s Christopher Meloni in an absolutely ridiculous wig and glasses), the brothers receive some money to renovate the house, along with an offer for Charbineau’s “personal” construction team to take over the renovations. Jim is all for the idea, wanting nothing more than to get the hell away from Dave and back to wife Michelle (Hari Leigh), who’s becoming increasingly annoyed over his absence from home, thinking he’s just using this as an excuse to bail on familial responsibilities. Dave, on the other hand, is so positive that he and Jim can renovate the wrecked house (think The Money Pit (1986) with better wiring) that he spurns Charbineau’s offer and jumps in headfirst, as it were. Taking the bait, Jim decides to stay and renovate the house, naively believing this to be a fairly simple task. Poor, poor, stupid Jim…

As Jim and Dave continue to work on the house, more and more things begin to go wrong: Dave’s flighty inability to focus on the task at hand leads to untold complications (he begins the renovation by spending $900 of their money on an arcade game, which doesn’t bode well); Charbineau’s construction crew, led by the quietly sinister Ivan (Brett Gelman) appear to be made up of Russian mobsters and don’t take kindly to Dave’s obnoxious attitude or desire to do the job himself; Jim runs into an ex-girlfriend, Lauren (Laura Ramsay), which complicates his present marital difficulties; and Dave falls for a waitress, Petra (Keeley Hazell), who may or may not be a Russian prostitute. In time, many of these disparate issues will come together in a perfect storm, forcing Jim and Dave to finally fix their hopelessly fractured relationship. Will it be too little, too late or will family always win out in the end?

While there’s absolutely nothing unique, ground-breaking or particularly fresh about Awful Nice, it does have a particularly potent ace up its sleeve: the film is very, very funny. Uproariously so, if I may be so bold. The script is exceptionally sharp and witty, which helps do a lot of the heavy lifting, but let’s give credit where it’s due: Pumphrey and Rennie are absolutely perfect as the feuding brother. Not only are the two actors individually funny (as mentioned, Rennie channels Charlie Day’s spastic insanity to near perfection) but they work beautifully as a comedy team. They actually seem like brothers, which is no mean feat, but they’re a perfectly synced combo, which is even more important. While the dialogue is consistently great, much of the film’s physical comedy is completely sold due to how in-tune the two actors are with each other’s comedic style: it’s the kind of complimentary acting that can be found in the best “buddy” films, such as The Odd Couple (1968) or Crosby and Hope’s “Road to…” pictures. The rest of the cast is just fine (although Meloni is so silly as to be almost trifling) but the film is dominated by its charismatic, dynamic leads.

When Awful Nice is funny, it’s very, very funny: there were moments during the film where I laughed harder than I had in some time (the bit where Dave sets off the airbag in Jim’s car by jumping on the hood is a neo-classic, as is the running gag where Jim constantly bops Dave in the head with an umbrella, to Dave’s growing irritation ). The film is never dumb, however (aside from Meloni’s ridiculous get-up), and just as apt to blindside with a genuinely impactful observation about Jim and Dave’s childhood or their miserable adult relationship as it is to throw in a scene where Dave gets his ass beat by a couple sneering yuppies. It’s this expert melding of the emotional and the silly that really drives the film: it’s never so lightweight that it floats away but this sure as hell ain’t On Golden Pond (1981), either. It’s a pretty perfect mix and one that I wish more modern “dramadies” would get right.

For the most part, Awful Nice is a pretty exceptional, modest little film. Not everything works, mind you, and there are a fair number of plot developments that just don’t go anywhere (in particular, the bit with Jim and his ex-girlfriend amounts to a red herring and the Russian construction crew is woefully under-utilized) but the film hits more than it misses and is genuinely funny, which can’t be stated often enough. I also appreciated the little absurdist elements that popped up here and there, never enough to take focus off the rest of the action but just enough to let you know that Sklar and Rennie have got more on their minds than just churning out a low-budget film. Awful Nice is gut-bustingly funny, full of heart and surprisingly sweet without ever becoming cloying: in other words, it was a pretty great little film and I eagerly await Sklar and Rennie’s next full-length. Let’s just hope that if Meloni’s in that one, he gets to keep the rug and Groucho glasses at home.

6/19/14: Uncle Walt Wouldn’t Care

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Allison Lees-Taylor, amusement parks, Annet Mahendru, bad fathers, black-and-white cinematography, cat flu, cinema, Danielle Safady, directorial debut, Disney, Disney World, Disneyland, Elena Schuber, Epcot Center, Escape From Tomorrow, fantasy, fantasy vs reality, father-son relationships, feature-film debut, film festival favorite, film reviews, films, guerrilla filmmaking, independent film, independent films, indie dramas, infidelity, Jack Dalton, Katelynn Rodriguez, Lee Armstrong, lost at Disney World, low-budget films, missed opportunities, Movies, pop culture, princesses, Randy Moore, Roy Abramsohn, sci-fi, science-fiction, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, subversive films, surreal, surrealism, the Happiest Place on Earth, the Wicked Witch, unauthorized film, underbelly of America, Walt Disney

There’s certain things that you’ll only ever get one chance to do. You only get one chance to make a first impression, after all, and you only get one chance to see your first sunrise. You only get one chance to sneak up on someone (unless they’re critically careless, of course) and you only have one chance to perform certain orbital procedures, if you’re an astronaut. You only get one shot at a once-in-a-lifetime moment (if there’s truth in advertising) and certain celestial events will only come by once in any given person’s lifetime: be there or be square, as it were. To this list of one-time events, you could certainly add “covertly shoot a subversive sci-fi/surrealist film at Disney World,” since, for all intents and purposes, filmmakers will only ever get one chance at this particular feat. The filmmaker who beat everyone else to the punch? First-time writer-director Randy Moore, whose guerrilla film, Escape From Tomorrow (2013), will probably stand the test of time as the first and last film to be shot in the Magic Kingdom without the express permission of the Disney Corporation. Does Escape From Tomorrow have any real value, aside from the curiosity factor of its genesis, or did Moore’s shot across the bow spoil the party for other, more subversive filmmakers who might want to take a shot at the house that Mouse built? Tack on your wings, grab some fairy dust and let’s take a closer look, shall we?

Jim (Roy Abramsohn) has just taken his family, including wife, Emily (Elena Schuber), daughter, Sara (Katelynn Rodriguez) and son, Elliot (Jack Dalton) to Disney World for a much-needed vacation when he gets a call from his work: due to some sort of vague restructuring, Jim has just been laid-off. Fantastic. Rather than spill the beans to his loving family, Jim decides to keep the bad news to himself and give everyone the chance to enjoy one last family vacation before things, presumably, go to complete shit. The problem is that Jim seems to be going a little cuckoo: for one thing, he’s become obsessed with a pair of underage French teens (Danielle Safady and Annet Mahendru) and has taken to stalking them throughout the amusement park, his young son in tow. Jim has also begun to see very strange things, including some clichéd “scary faces” on the It’s a Small World ride and assorted “odd” images elsewhere. Is the stress making Jim crack or is he, somehow, seeing through the smooth, happy, plastic veneer of the “Disney dream” and into the cold, dead eyes  that lurk beneath it? Why does he keep running into the same strange people, including an obnoxiously leering man in a motorized scooter (Lee Armstrong) and a strangely beguiling, if rather witch-like woman (Allison Lees-Taylor)? And what, exactly, lies below Spaceship Earth at Epcot Center? Before it’s over, Jim will find himself in a waking nightmare of malevolent fairies, demonic little children, strange scientific procedures, absurd medical maladies and enough surrealism to choke Dali. Welcome to the happiest place on Earth: stay as long as you like, just don’t go poking around in the darkness too much…you might not like what you dredge up.

Right off the bat, let me get the kudos out of the way: against absolutely all odds, Randy Moore was able to covertly shoot a film at one of the most “shenanigan unfriendly” places on Earth, get it edited in secrecy (supposedly in South Korea) and get it released into theaters, all without bringing Disney’s eternally sharp ax down upon his noggin. For these facts alone, I can only say: Bravo to you, good sir, bravo. Escape From Tomorrow is a film that should not exist, by any stretch of the imagination, yet it does: this, in itself, is more accomplishment than many films ever see. Moore and his cast and crew were able to shoot the film on the run (certain shots were planned out months in advance and actors rode the rides over and over in order to perfect the takes) and the finished product doesn’t necessarily feel like an ultra-low digital video feature (not all the time, at least). The black and white cinematography looks quite good, most of the time, and Moore is able to use some surprisingly evocative lighting, which must have been no mean feat under the shooting conditions. This is a film that could easily have ended up looking like someone’s covert concert footage (“Quick, security’s coming: stuff the camera under your coat!”) but it rarely, if ever, does: that’s a pretty big achievement all by itself. If Escape From Tomorrow were a children’s’ book, it might be “The Little Engine That Could.”

On the other hand, despite its back-story, genesis and intent, Escape From Tomorrow just isn’t a particularly good film. Moore had a great idea (shoot a film at Disney World, guerrilla-style, that exposes the seamy underbelly of the American dream) but his execution ends up being muddled, clichéd and, worst of all, decidedly uninteresting. For one thing, the film isn’t nearly as surreal and odd as it thinks it is: much of the “creepy” imagery takes the place of decidedly old-hat things like “scary faces” on animatronic dolls (yawn), suddenly jet-black eyes on people (double-yawn) and surprise “demonic faces,” ala the Paranormal Activity films (again?!). There are a few genuinely surreal moments/images once Jim descends below Epcot Center but these end up being a bit “too little, too late,” by that point. Some of the Disney imagery is used to good, surreal effect (the witch is a nice touch, as are the hazy, druggy scenes that surround her) but a lot of it is pretty trite and wasted: the whole “cat flu” angle is aggressively stupid and seems tacked on, to boot, while the closing fairy image has surprisingly little impact.

By its very definition, Escape From Tomorrow was always going to have some inherent filmmaking issues: if there’s one thing that guerrilla filmmaking doesn’t really lend itself to, it would definitely be polish and fine-tuning. To that end, the acting in the film is pretty awful, across the board, with Jim and his family being some of the worst offenders. Roy Abramsohn is a thoroughly unlikable presence as Jim, which has equal parts to do with his off-putting acting style (“big and dumb” come to mind) and the rather icky character, itself. There’s no point in the film where Jim following the teenage French girls ever comes across as anything more than creepy and pervy: if there was some kind of deeper meaning Moore was going for, it was completely lost on me. For the most part, Jim just seems like a scuzzy jerk and his various fantasies involving the young girls are both pathetic and severely creepy: if I was his wife, my first call would be to the police and my second one would be to a good lawyer. Moral questions aside, however, is the basic notion that Jim is a truly odious character: whiny, self-absorbed, neglectful of his wife and kids, prone to extramarital affairs at the drop of a hat, callous…none of these qualities seem designed to endear him to the audience, which seems to be the point…but to what end? Like everything else in the film, Jim’s constant assholery seems to exist “just because.”

Despite the film’s voluminous shortcomings (it’s basically just a great concept and a few nicely atmospheric shots, the very definition of “style over substance”), there are inklings of the film this could have been. For one thing, nothing at all is made about the inherent link between crushing consumerism and the “Disney dream,” nor is there any insightful commentary regarding the homogenized “Disnified” vision of the world that the amusement park conglomerate foists upon the globe. If Moore avoids any “big” issues, he also manages to completely miss the small ones, as well: there would have been a truly interesting, nightmarish story here if we could only have focused on Jim’s mental breakdown, exploring his fractured psyche as he begins to fall to pieces midst the hustle, bustle and happy families of the Magic Kingdom. There are some genuinely disturbing avenues to explore with Jim and the French teens, as well, but Moore is all too content to just give us some surface ookiness before retreating to the “safer” ground of stereotypical “demonic” activity. The part where Jim and his young son exchange a lascivious leer while ogling the young girls is at least 1000 times more disturbing than the one where the girls get “creepy faces”: any examination of this angle, however, runs the risk of becoming truly subversive and Moore never gets anywhere close to that particular demarcation.

Ultimately, Escape From Tomorrow will stand as a curiosity and missed opportunity, more than anything else. Owing to its truly unique genesis, Moore’s film stood a very good chance of becoming one of those pop culture milestones, like Jodorowky’s Holy Mountain (1973) or Banker’s Toad Road (2012). Instead, the film ended up being fitfully engaging, occasionally interesting and fairly atmospheric, none of which are praise enough to keep it in the cultural zeitgeist for very long. To be honest, I’m not surprised that the Disney corporation chose to respond to Moore’s film by summarily ignoring it, rather than attempting to suppress it through legal avenues. With the proper focus and a truly subversive goal, Moore’s film could have been the kind of thing that would give Disney executives nightmares for a lifetime, let alone the residual effect on a generation of filmmakers raised on the notion that “Walt Disney” is synonymous with “purity.” What Moore actually turned in, however, was a rather tired sci-fi/fantasy that happened to utilize Disney as a location but failed to dig any deeper into the actual mythology.

There’s a truly terrifying, subversive and harrowing film that could have been shot at Disney World, a film that would be impossible to forget or deny, something that would play on the public’s positive association with Disney while reminding them that large corporations tend to grind up humanity for fuel. Escape From Tomorrow isn’t that film, however, which is a pity: thanks to Moore’s film, we’ve probably lost any chance to really peel back the skin and see what makes the mouse tick.

6/9/14 (Part Two): Father of the Living Dead

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1960's films, behind-the-scenes, cinema, Civil Rights Movement, documentaries, documentary, Elvis Mitchell, film criticism, film reviews, film theory, filmmaking, films, George Romero, guerrilla filmmaking, horror, horror film, horror films, independent film, independent films, interviews, Jr., Larry Fessenden, Mark Harris, Martin Luther King, Movies, Mr. Rogers, Night of the Living Dead, Pittsburgh, Prof. Samuel D. Pollard, Rob Kuhns, Robert Kennedy, Russell Streiner, social upheaval, societal changes, talking heads, the 1960s, The Birth of the Living Dead, visual effects pioneer, Whine of the Faun, writer-director-producer-cinematographer

By 1968, the Summer of Love was officially over: the war in Vietnam was in full escalation, racial tensions led to race riots in the inner cities and the disastrous Altamont Free Concert was but a year away, although neither Robert Kennedy nor Martin Luther King, Jr. would survive to know about it. The Zodiac Killer was still killing, the Cold War with the Soviet Union was still decades from thawing and the hippie “revolution” of the early-mid ’60s had failed to bring about the kind of lasting, peaceful change that adherents hoped for. Hope had been replaced by anger: the 1960s had failed to fix anything and the system was just as broken as ever. Into this caustic stew of fear, anger, war and turmoil slipped a humble little film that would go on to revolutionize not only horror films but the world of cinema, in general. When 27-year-old college dropout George Romero first unleashed his seminal horror film, Night of the Living Dead (1968), on an unsuspecting populace, little did he know that the film would permanently change everything that came after it, directly influencing the next 46 years of horror filmmaking.

Rob Kuhns’ exceptional documentary, Birth of the Living Dead (2013), gives an insightful and in-depth look into not only the making of Romero’s classic film but also the societal issues and developments that made the film not only possible but necessary. Night of the Living Dead was a new kind of horror film for a new era of horrors: when the horrors of Vietnam were being beamed into homes on a nightly basis, the same old “haunted house” scares weren’t going to work anymore. Kuhn’s film does an amazing job of showing just how truly groundbreaking NOTLD was, especially concerning its views on race and the family unit. By the end, he actually managed to give me new respect for a film that I’ve idolized for more years than I care to remember: no mean feat and a pretty sure sign that Kuhns is a filmmaker to keep an eye on.

Birth of the Living Dead takes us through the entire process of NOTLD, beginning with Romero’s background making short films for Mr. Rogers (I was surprised, to put it mildly) and beer commercials before taking the filmmaking leap with his first attempt, Whine of the Fawn (what a name!). When his art film tanked, Romero decided to try his hand at horror and the rest, as they say, is history. Romero served as cinematographer, director and editor, while the entire cast pulled double (sometimes triple) duty both in front of and behind the scenes. Some of the most glorious moments in the film come from the fascinating behind-the-scenes insights that Romero shares about the making of the film. Some of my favorites include the special effects experts who constantly smoked cigars while working with explosives and fuses, the actor/producer who built a wooden bridge with his own hands and the fact that the crew only got their sound edit after actor Russell Streiner (who played Johnny in the film) challenged the owner of the sound lab to a chess match: he won and the crew got their sound mix. For anyone interested in filmmaking, particularly ultra-low budget guerrilla filmmaking, the behind-the-scenes stories about NOTLD are absolutely priceless and worth a watch all by themselves.

Far from just being a “making-of,” however, Kuhns film is filled with plenty of insightful “talking head” interviews and commentary on the era that was directly responsible for Romero’s chiller. We get plenty of great stuff from independent filmmaking majordomo Larry Fessenden, whose enthusiasm for Romero’s film is absolutely infectious, along with historians and critics like Elvis Mitchell, Mark Harris and Prof. Samuel D. Pollard. In a truly magical bit, Mitchell talks about seeing NOTLD at a drive-in, when he was 10, and how it absolutely changed his life. There’s also plenty of on-point discussion about the casting of Duane Jones as the lead in a time where a strong, black hero in an all-white film would have been not only eye-opening but revolutionary. This was, after all, the era where one of the biggest black movie stars of all-time, Harry Belafonte, was not allowed to touch Petula Clark (a white singer/actress) in an advertisement. The fact that Ben’s race is never brought up in NOTLD was totally radical: for the first time in popular cinema, a leading black actor was just allowed to be a man, instead of a symbol. There’s real power in the stories about how the black inner city adopted Ben as a true hero, especially when they’re told by commentators who were actually in the theaters at the time of the film’s screening.

As a film, itself, Birth of the Living Dead is a complete success. The structure is well-organized, the footage and interviews are perfectly integrated and everything has a really exciting, kinetic sense of energy. Even better, Kuhns utilizes some really badass “Sin City-esque” red-and-black graphic-novel-type animation for many of the behind-the-scenes bits, making the whole film even more visually appealing. Birth of the Living Dead looks and sounds fantastic, although that just ends up being icing thanks to the fundamentally solid information being shared. If you’re a fan of Night of the Living Dead, Kuhns’ documentary is an absolute must-see, helping to fill in any gaps and offering up a virtual treasure trove of previously unknown insights. If you’re a fan of independent filmmaking, Birth of the Living Dead is a must-see for the ways in which we see Romero and his small band of true-believers literally wrestle this iconic film into being. Basically, if you like movies in any way, shape or form, you owe it to yourself to see Birth of the Living Dead: documentaries about horror films don’t get much better than this.