7/15/15 (Part Three): Lost Swans and Hot Lead

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'90s homage, action films, action-comedies, Adam Buxton, Bad Boys, Bill Bailey, Bill Nighy, Billie Whitelaw, Blazing Saddles, British comedies, British films, Cate Blanchett, cinema, co-writers, cops behaving badly, David Arnold, David Threlfall, Edgar Wright, Edward Woodward, ensemble cast, Eric Mason, fast-paced, film reviews, films, goofy films, Hot Fuzz, ineffectual cops, Jess Hall, Jim Broadbent, Joe Cornish, Julia Deakin, Kevin Eldon, Lucy Punch, Martin Freeman, Movies, Nick Frost, Olivia Colman, Paddy Considine, Paul Freeman, Peter Wight, Point Blank, public decency, Rafe Spall, Ron Cook, Rory McCann, Shaun of the Dead, SImon Pegg, small town life, small-town British life, Stephen Merchant, Steve Coogan, Stuart Wilson, the Cornetto trilogy, The World's End, Timothy Dalton, UK films, urban vs rural, violent films, wisecracking cops, writer-actor, writer-director, Young Frankenstein

There’s something a little off in the sleepy, picturesque hamlet of Sandford, UK and it’s up to gung-ho London super-cop, Nick Angel, to figure out what it is. Sure, the inhabitants of the tranquil little village may seem impossibly friendly, the kind of small-town folks who know everyone’s names and just how many sugar cubes they take in their tea, thank you very much. Sandford may seem impossibly clean, neat and crime-free (no one in town, for example, has even heard of the “M-word” (Murder, doncha know?), let alone done the dirty deed), a peek into a peaceful township where the biggest problems are the “living statue” street performer and a “hoodie epidemic” that vexes the preternaturally polite populace something fierce.

Ask any genre fan worth their salt, however, and they’ll probably all say the same thing: small, quiet little towns like Sandford may seem like oases from the rat-race of the world at large but, dig a little deeper, and they’ll always produce more than their fair share of skeletons in the various closets. Behind every kind, small-town smile lurks a bottomless capacity for evil and down every immaculately cobblestoned pathway? Why, the very heart of Hell, itself! After all…can you really trust someone who seems so…nice?

If you’re Edgar Wright and the rest of his merry band of hooligans, the answer is an absolutely resounding “Hell no!” and the result is the second film in writer-director Wright’s “Cornetto Trilogy,” Hot Fuzz (2007). While the first film in the series, the modern classic Shaun of the Dead (2004), tipped the musty, old zombie film ass-over-tea-kettle, Hot Fuzz seeks to do the same for action-packed ’90s cop films (the final point of the trilogy, The World’s End (2013), takes on alien invasion epics). By using most of the same terrific ensemble from Shaun of the Dead and that patented zany brand of deadpan humor, Wright capitalizes on everything that made his previous film so much fun, while throwing plenty of bones to anyone weaned on actioners like Point Break (1991) or Bad Boys (1995). While the film is always a little goofy, it’s also a smart film, full of blink-and-miss-em visual references, plenty of silly action, some surprisingly bracing violence and enough witty dialogue and outrageous scenarios to keep the punters in stitches. In other words: prime Wright, through and through.

After Nick Angel is promoted to Sergeant and sent to the sticks (his always-on antics are making not only his police peers but his big-city superiors look like ineffectual morons), it looks like his eternal crime-fighting pilot light will be snuffed, never to blaze again. After he ends up in the middle of a pair of suspicious deaths that are unceremoniously labeled an “accident” by the local police force, Angel decides to do his own investigation, with the dunderheaded assistance of one PC Danny Butterman (Nick Frost), the fairly useless son of Angel’s new superior, Inspector Frank Butterman (Jim Broadbent).

As more and more “accidents” keep popping up, however, Angel begins to suspect that the sleepy town might harbor more below the surface than just an unhealthy interest in winning “Village of the Year.” As Nick and Danny butt heads with the local chamber of commerce, headed by Tom Weaver (a completely unrecognizable Edward Woodward) and slimy grocery-store impresario Simon Skinner (former 007 Timothy Dalton), they begin to get wind of a conspiracy that might, potentially, involve every resident of the lovely little town. When it begins to seem as if the pair have gotten in over their heads, however, there’s only one sure-fire fix: binge-watch ’90s action flicks and then take the fight right to the streets.

Is there really something going on, however, or is poor Nick just going completely stir-crazy in the snoozy little community? As he gets closer and closer to the truth, Nick will learn that there’s only a few things he can put his faith in: his unwavering belief in the absolute power of good over evil, his steadfast determination to rid the streets of any and all crime (shoplifters, beware!) and the universal truth that absolutely anything will explode into a towering fireball once shot. Bad boys? You better believe it, buddy!

Reprising their winning chemistry from Shaun of the Dead, if not their actual characters, Pegg and Frost are exceptionally bright points of light in the altogether brilliant constellation that comprises Hot Fuzz’s ensemble. Martin Freeman, Bill Nighy and Steve Coogan pop up, briefly, as Nick’s self-serving London superiors…writer-directors Joe Cornish, Peter Jackson and Wright, himself, all have cameos…Cate Blanchett stops by for an unannounced turn as Nick’s unfaithful former girlfriend…Paddy Considine and Rafe Spall show up as a couple of idiotic cops nicknamed “the Andes” (since they’re both named Andy, dig?)…the always amazing Olivia Colman (Peep Show, as well as endless other British endeavors) has a blast as snarky PC Doris Thatcher…the aforementioned Dalton (one twirled mustache removed from silent-era villainy) and Woodward (best known on this side of the pond for his titular role as TV’s Equalizer, on the other side for his landmark performance in The Wicker Man (1973)) chew miles of scenery…writer-actor Stephen Merchant gets a great bit as Peter Ian Staker (or P.I. Staker, for the punny win)…virtually every second of screentime is occupied by a phenomenal actor given free rein to be patently awesome.

The result, of course, is an incredibly immersive experience, the equivalent of Mel Brooks’ ridiculously star-studded classics like Young Frankenstein (1974) or Blazing Saddles (1974). When combined with the picturesque locations, the over-the-top action sequences and the often absurd comedy, Hot Fuzz (like the other two films in the Cornetto Trilogy) is its own self-contained universe. It’s this quality that allows moments like Adam Buxton’s outrageously gory death (his head is reduced into a fine mist via the timely application of a fallen stone block) or the unrelentingly action-packed finale to sit comfortably beside more “high-brow” comedy fare like the scene where Angel engages in a crossword duel with a cagey old lady or the one where he rides through town to the tune of the Kinks’ “Village Green Preservation Society.”

There are great throwaway jokes about the amount of damage caused by “good guys” in action movies, the tendency of small-town busybodies to focus on pointless “outrages” like hoodie sweatshirts and street performers over more important issues like corruption and justice and how small town folks in films often slot effortlessly into the “sinister locals” category (one of the townsfolk was an extra in Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs (1971), we’re told on more than one occasion). There’s great comic material here both high and low, literally something for any fan of the funny stuff.

One of the smartest tricks Wright and company utilize is the restaging of famous action movie setpieces from the likes of pop-culture phenomena like Point Break and Bad Boys. While these scenes would function just fine in a vacuum, previous knowledge of Danny Butterman’s much-loved action films makes the experience that much richer: there may be no more sublime scene in the entire film than the one where Nick and Skinner battle it out over the ruins of a scale-model version of the town. As the two punch it out, like warring Gargantua or Godzilla with a particularly stiff upper-lip, a broken fire hydrant supplies a continuous shower of water over the two: in other words, Wright goes ahead and gives us one of those clichéd old bits where the hero and villain fight it out in the rain, pounding abuse on each other as the very skies join in. And it works gloriously: somewhere in “movie heaven,” Riggs and Murtagh are looking down, fondly, I’m willing to wager.

In feel (and tone), Hot Fuzz probably hews a little closer to its follow-up, The World’s End, than its predecessor, Shaun of the Dead. Hot Fuzz, however, like the films it references, is an altogether bigger, noisier and more boisterous affair than either of the other films: while Shaun of the Dead was full of great setpieces and The World’s End managed to take a leap into much “bigger” themes, the action beats of the middle film are their own little world. Hot Fuzz is a little “dumber” and “slighter” than the other two but that’s also to be expected: you don’t wade into the fray of silly, adrenalized action movies without getting a little of it on your shirtsleeves, after all.

Despite being less than enamored with Hot Fuzz upon its initial release, the film has grown on me, over the years, in a way that I’m not sure Shaun or World’s End has (although World’s End still has plenty of time to go): once I allowed myself to get swept away by the film’s loud, Technicolor action and ferocious sense of energy, however, it became easier to absorb the more subtle, truly ingenious elements to Wright’s style.

If you grew up on ’90s actioners, harbor suspicions against the status quo or fancy yourself a bit of a lone wolf, Wright and Pegg’s Hot Fuzz practically demands another viewing. Come for the gleeful chaos and copious explosions but stay for the kind of insightful, in-depth and subtle commentary that we’ve come to expect from one of genre cinema’s most unusual visionaries. As Michael might say: “Yarp.” Yarp, indeed.

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11/16/14 (Part Two): The Dance Commander Cometh

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British comedies, childhood trauma, Chris O'Dowd, cinema, comedies, Cuban Fury, dancers, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, foreign films, Ian McShane, James Griffiths, Kayvan Novak, Movies, Nick Frost, Olivia Colman, public opinion, Rashida Jones, romances, romantic rivalry, romantic-comedies, Rory Kinnear, salsa dancing, Strictly Ballroom, UK films

Fear of public ridicule can be a powerful mitigating factor, even for those of us who consider ourselves “above” such considerations: it can affect how one dresses, walks, talks, eats and slurps soup. Concern over our own self-image can result in “guilty musical pleasures,” “ironic” interests in pop culture and “hate-watching” programs rather than admitting to actually liking something “uncool.” If you think about it, it’s a pretty sad way to live: so concerned with the court of public opinion that you’d rather listen to something “respectable” than blast the Eddie Money cassette that you idolized as a kid. When folks can no longer feel free to leave the house wearing their most comfortable clothes, ladies and gentlemen, than the terrorists, whoever they may be, have truly won.

Bruce Garrett (Nick Frost), the heroic schlub at the heart of James Griffiths’ Cuban Fury (2014), knows all too well the high price of looking “uncool”: as a kid, Bruce was a salsa-dancin’ machine, a bespangled dance floor maestro who had the goods to go all the way. On his way to the championships, however, poor Bruce is accosted by a group of loutish teens who mock his shiny red outfit and beat the crap out of him in an alley. Properly chastised, our faithful protagonist vows never to dance again. We, of course, know better: once the dancing bug has bitten you, all you can do is hold on for dear life.

25 years later, Bruce is a buttoned-down, boring as white toast architect and any dreams of championship gold are too far in the rearview mirror to even consider. He’s got a decent job, a boring life and one of the biggest shit-heel co-workers of all time in Drew (Chris O’Dowd breaking the bank on obnoxious behavior): in other words, he’s probably like most of us. Unlike most of us, however, Bruce has got the dancing fever in his veins and, once in your DNA, you’re never completely free of it. All it takes is a little nudge, a wee reminder of how things used to be…how they could’ve been had the fork in the road gone a bit differently. All it takes is one little incident to change everything…if you let it.

Bruce’s “little incident” comes with his company’s new project manager, the adorably quirky American Julia (Rashida Jones). Bruce is sweet on her but she seems to be way out of his league, although horn-dog Drew, ever the cretin, sees her as “easy pickings.” When Bruce finds out that Julia is taking a salsa dancing class, he suddenly sees an in with her, although it means stepping back into his dreaded past and, once again, donning them dancin’ shoes. In order to prevent himself from looking like the rusty, out-of-step idiot he currently is, Bruce hunts down his old salsa coach, Ron (Ian McShane), and begs him to finish the tutelage he started 25 years earlier. Ron’s still a bit pissed off at Bruce, it turns out (being abandoned by your star pupil during a national championship will do that, apparently), but he eventually shelves his hard feelings and agrees to get Bruce ship-shape enough to duly impress Julia.

Since romantic comedies are nothing without a little rivalry, Drew decides that he’s in love with Julia, too, and determines to sweep her off her feet faster than Bruce can say “cha cha cha.” As he smugly puts it, “Women go and get advice from guys like you about guys like me.” This establishes a rivalry between the two that will result in a parking garage dance-off (impossibly silly but also fun) and will culminate in another salsa championship: will Bruce be able to overcome his old fears, put Drew in the rubbish pile, win the competition and get the girl or will this be another example of “too little, too late?” If you’ve ever seen another romantic comedy in your entire life, I’m reasonably sure you can figure out the answer to this ahead of time.

First off, Cuban Fury might seem a little familiar to fans of quirky British comedies since it is, for the most part, exactly like at least two dozen other similar films, from Kinky Boots (2005) to Brassed Off (1996), from The Full Monty (1997) to Calendar Girls (2003). Specifically, Griffiths’ feature-debut reminds me of the cult-classic Aussie flick Strictly Ballroom (1992), which was also about a neebish overcoming the court of public opinion to succeed on his own terms. For the most part, Cuban Fury does nothing to differentiate itself from the rest of the pack although, to be fair, there’s not much it drops the ball on, either. All of the expected beats/scenes are here: the bit where Bruce’s gay friend finally drags him to a nightclub to “let loose”; the dance-off between Bruce and Drew; the climatic finale at the salsa championship; the training montage…Cuban Fury manages to tick each and every one off the list.

Truth be told, despite its complete familiarity, Cuban Fury is a fun, sweet and spirited little film, full of great performances from the likes of Frost, Jones and O’Dowd (even playing a real asshole, O’Dowd is relentlessly watchable and charismatic: anyone else would have played Drew like a complete Neanderthal but O’Dowd somehow makes him kind of pitiable…kind of) and is a quick, fun watch. The script, written by Jon Brown from an idea by Frost, is full of some nice dialogue (Bruce and Drew trade some snappy zingers throughout the film) and everything gets wrapped up in a pretty tidy package by the end. McShane is great as the grumpy salsa expert, although Jones doesn’t do much noticeably different from any of her other roles: she has some decent chemistry with Frost but no one will mistaken them for star-crossed lovers anytime soon. The film’s many dance scenes are nicely realized, with some effective choreography but, again, nothing mind-blowing: this probably won’t make anyone forget Luhrmann’s debut any time soon.

More than anything, my takeaway from Cuban Fury is thus: if you’re looking for a nice, polite, fairly non-challenging romantic comedy with a good cast, Cuban Fury is for film. At the very least, I find it hard to believe that any audience would walk away from this without a smile on their faces. Will you remember the film a year (or even six months) from now? Highly doubtful. Not everything in life needs to be a grand slam, however: sometimes, you can get the same results with a humble little pop-up into the outfield.

10/6/14 (Part Two): Middle Age, Pints and Blue Goop

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31 Days of Halloween, alien invasion, auteur theory, Best of 2013, British comedies, British films, cinema, co-writers, David Bradley, Eddie Marsan, Edgar Wright, favorite films, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, friends, Gary King, horror-comedies, Hot Fuzz, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, male friendships, Martin Freeman, Michael Smiley, Movies, Nick Frost, obnoxious friends, Paddy Considine, Pierce Brosnan, pubs, Rosamund Pike, sci-fi, Shaun of the Dead, siege, SImon Pegg, the Cornetto trilogy, the Golden Mile, the Network, The World's End, writer-director, youth vs old age

Like most vacation destinations, nostalgia is a great place to visit but a pretty awful place to live. While all of us may spend at least some part of our lives pining for “the good old days” and hoping to relive past glories, there comes a time when we must plant our eyes firmly ahead and charge straight into the unknown, lest we find that our lives have become the equivalent of a hamster ball: furious motion with no chance of forward movement. In a real reason sense, nostalgia can kill…but it sure is a pretty poison.

Writer-director Edgar Wright’s The World’s End (2013), the third entry in his unofficial “Cornetto Trilogy” that also features Shaun of the Dead (2004) and Hot Fuzz (2007), is a movie that’s not only about the curse of nostalgia but also informed by this very phenomena: it’s a classic case of having your cake and eating it, too, if you will and it’s doubtful that many directors could pull it off as capably as Wright does here. The end result is wildly successful and, as far as I’m concerned, ranks as Wright’s greatest film, thus far, a towering achievement that manages to be equal parts gut-busting and thought-provoking. It’s a film that should be enjoyed by just about anyone but will have particular relevance to that portion of society who find themselves aging into versions of themselves that seem distinctly watered-down from their youthful ideals. For anyone approaching middle-age who’ve ever taken a long look in the mirror and asked, “What the hell happened to me?,” Wright’s got the cheeky answer: “You got fucking old, mate…it happens to the best of us.”

The man-child at the center of Wright’s latest opus is Gary King, expertly portrayed by Wright regular Simon Pegg, who’s managed to turn these type of roles into something of a cottage industry. From his start on the BBC with cult-hit Spaced to more recent films like How To Lose Friends & Alienate People (2008) and A Fantastic Fear of Everything (2012), Pegg has become something of the go-to guy for schlubs trying to relive their youth, characters who would rather get ripped at the pub, play video games all day long and avoid honest work than buckle down and admit that the care-free days are far in the rearview mirror.

In this case, Gary King is firmly stuck in the past: 1991, to be exact, which happens to be the year that he and his pack of friends attempted, but failed, to complete the Golden Mile. The Golden Mile entails drinking a pint at twelve different pubs, culminating in the titular World’s End pub. As far as he’s concerned, Gary’s life never got any better than that one debauched night and he’s spent the two decades since chasing that same dragon. He wears the same clothes as he used to, drives the same junker car, listens to the exact same mixtape and obsessively dwells on every minute detail of that era. When it all gets to be too much, Gary decides to do the only “sensible” thing: get the band back together, as it were, and give the Golden Mile another go.

There’s only one problem: Gary’s crew haven’t seen him in 20-odd years and many of them detest him with a passion normally reserved for baby-stealing dingoes. Never one to let common sense spoil a good plan, Gary goes about insinuating himself back into the lives of his former comrades, all the while trying to wheedle them into giving their old drinking challenge another try. Times, of course, have moved on and so have Gary’s “friends”: Andy (Nick Frost), Peter (Eddie Marsan), Oliver (Martin Freeman) and Steve (Paddy Considine) all have their own lives, jobs and responsibilities to see to and none of them, particularly former best friend Andy, want anything to do with their former “leader.”

Gary’s nothing if not insistent, however, and in no time, he’s got the group back on the Golden Mile. As they pub-hop, however, issues old and new continue to rear their ugly heads: Andy is now a teetotaling “party-pooper” while no one is willing to forgive Gary’s past (and present) churlish behavior. When Oliver’s sister, Sam (Rosamund Pike) enters the picture, new conflicts abound: Gary had sex with Sam in the bathroom on that fateful night so long ago, but it’s poor Steve who’s always pined for her. Just when Gary’s insensitive, assholish behavior threatens to tear the group apart for the second time, they become united in something that seems a bit more important: the group stumbles upon a sinister plot to usurp humanity and invade our planet, a plot which they seem to be in the unique position to foil…even they can quit taking pot-shots at each other, that is. As Gary and his friends fight for the very survival of our species, they’re also fighting for the survival of their long-gone friendships and relationships, seeking to move from the immature past into the responsible present. If they succeed, mankind will live to fight another day. If they don’t, however, we may just see a future that makes Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) seem more like public service announcement than flight of fancy.

The most important thing to note about The World’s End is how absolutely, completely and totally enthralling the film is: from the very first to the very last one, Wright’s film grabs the audience by the lapels and doesn’t let go. From rapid-fire dialogue to an endless array of inventive and (frequently) astounding sight gags to one thrilling setpiece after another, The World’s End is absolutely relentless. The film rarely comes up for breath and hardly ever slows down. This could, of course, be a recipe for one very tiresome film: nonstop chaos is almost impossible to pull off, as evidenced by the fact that even mostly successful films like Airplane (1980) feature as many leaden duds as high-soaring hits. Thanks to the exceptional script, sure-handed direction and fantastic ensemble cast, however, The World’s End is one high-point after the other.

Truth be told, I’d already fallen in love with the film by the time the opening credits rolled: the next 100 minutes simply served to reaffirm this feeling. While I enjoyed both Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, there was something about The World’s End that really struck a chord with me. Perhaps it’s the theme of aging gracefully into a more mature version of yourself…perhaps it was the wildly inventive invasion plot…perhaps it was just the fact that the film manages to hit all of its marks and then some…whatever the reason, The World’s End hooked me hard and refused to let go.

Since part of the film’s endless charm comes from the myriad surprises that it manages to throw at the audience, I’d be remiss to shed too much light on any of them. Suffice to say that the film features fist-raising moments galore: a spot-on reference to the under-rated Dead and Buried (1981); clever riffs on Invasion of the Body Snatchers; a throw-away visual reference to The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) that’s made my jaw drop, a little; the fact that the climax manages to revolve around not just one but two classic clichés of sci-fi cinema; Nick Frost playing a neebish…Martin Freeman taking his prim and proper caracatures to their logical extreme…the film is like an endless replenishing box of goodies, coughing up untold comic treasures at a moment’s notice.

The comedy’s not the only thing that hits the mark, however: The World’s End succeeds just as capably as a sci-fi/horror film, featuring some truly intense and frightening scenes. The moments where the Blanks’ eyes and mouths become the equivalent of high beams is a truly chilling moment, whereas the numerous fight scenes are brilliantly choreographed and staged. One fight in particular, which features Simon Pegg moving in and around a brawl while attempting to avoid spilling his treasured pint of lager, is pure gold, perhaps the single best fight scene I’ve seen in years. Make no bones about it: The World’s End is a very, very funny film. It’s also a very thrilling film, however: the two polar opposites are absolutely not mutually exclusive, in this case.

In truth, there’s very little real criticism I can give the film, aside from the fact that I felt the final coda was a bit silly and unnecessary. Aside from that, however, I found myself in a pretty constant state of awe for nearly two hours. The World’s End is a smashing success, a film that sets a pretty high bar for itself, right out of the gate, and then manages to effortlessly hurdle that bar. It’s a film that can be enjoyed by anyone but should be treasured by those folks with even a passing interest in sci-fi (classic and otherwise).

There’s one point in the film where Gary posits that something must be going on with the people in the town because they’ve “changed”: 20 years later and no one seems to be acting the way he remembered. He never once, of course, allows for the distressing notion that he might be the one who’s changed, not them. We’d like to believe that we’re the truest people out there, the equivalent of a bunch of Holden Caulfields stomping through the masses, pointing out “phonies” left and right. In reality, however, we’re all just as compromised as the next person: time and the need to survive make hypocrites of us all.

Gary thinks that if he can just retrace his steps, he’ll be able to unlock some sort of Fountain of Youth, some way to prevent any more of himself from slipping away. He’s wrong, of course: the most that any of us can do is face the future, keep our backs to the past and keep trudging forward. If we’re lucky, we’ll get to make the journey with some good friends and companions. If not, we’ll keep circling the drain spout of irrelevance, ending up as no more than the dreams that our youthful selves never dared to hope might one day come true. When an ultra-goofy alien invasion comedy can make you think about stuff like this, you have what I like to call a classic on your hands.

1/11/14: Chills, Thrills and Groans

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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