11/27/15: Fists of Funny

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'80s homage, absurdist, action-comedies, Andreas Cahling, cinema, computer hacking, crowdfunded films, Danger Force 5, David Hasselhoff, David Sandberg, dinosaurs vs Nazis, directorial debut, Eleni Young, Erik Hörnqvist, film reviews, films, foreign films, Frank Sanderson, Helene Ahlson, Jorma Taccone, Kung Fury, Leopold Nilsson, Lost Years, Mitch Murder, Movies, Patrik Öberg, retro-themed films, sci-fi, shorts, Steven Chew, Swedish films, synth scores, time travel, writer-director-actor

Is there such a thing as a perfect roller-coaster? While opinions may vary, I think there are a few key aspects that just about anyone can agree on. A perfect roller-coaster should have a balance of climbs and falls, straight shots and zig-zags: a roller-coaster that consists of one long, steady climb and a corresponding fall may be a great endurance test but it makes for a pretty poor roller-coaster. A perfect roller-coaster should feature plenty of surprise twists, turns and sudden swerves to the left and right: when done right, the only thing you should be anticipating is that big, final plunge into the abyss right before the cars stop and your heart thumps back into your chest. Perhaps most importantly, however, a perfect roller-coaster should be short and sweet. There’s a subtle (but definite) line between pummeling your senses and red-lining your adrenaline  and being reduced to a quivering pile of bodily functions on the blessed pavement. The perfect roller-coaster should leave you shaken, giddy, a little unsteady on your feet and eager to jump right back in line and do the whole thing all over again.

In this spirit, writer/director/actor/tour de force David Sandberg’s 30-minute mind-blower, Kung Fury (2015), might just be the perfect cinematic roller-coaster. Over the course of its short and sweet run-time, Kung Fury wastes not one single minute and features not one wasted, repetitive or unnecessary frame. The effect is like mainlining Pixie Stix and Red Bull, a jittery, explosive and relentlessly inventive trawl through the very best of ’80s-era junk culture, all filtered through a brilliantly absurd worldview that allows for Triceratops-headed police officers, machine gun-wielding Valkyries riding giant wolves and massive, sentient, blood-thirsty arcade games. Kung Fury is what might happen if a teenage metalhead’s Trapper Keeper doodles suddenly sprang to life and it is, quite frankly, rather amazing.

Taking place in a 1985 version of Miami that most closely resembles the neon-and-pastel insanity of Grand Theft Auto, Kung Fury details the adventures of the titular hero (ably portrayed by Sandberg in a genuinely funny, flat-as-a-pancake delivery) as he attempts to travel back in time and stop the evil Adolf Hitler (Jorma Taccone), who has dubbed himself the “Kung Fuhrer” and plots to take over the world with his endlessly impressive kung fu skills. Since this is an ’80s parody, we get all of the standard tropes: Kung Fury is a renegade cop who refuses to be teamed with a new partner after the death of his last one (even though Erik Hornqvist’s Triceracops seems like a perfectly nice, polite dude); he’s got a tech-savvy helper (Leopold Nilssen’s outrageously mulleted Hackerman); the picture quality is constantly marred by static and missing footage; the main bad guy has an army of thousands of heavily armed, killers, none of whom could hit the broadside of a barn if their lives depended on it (which they always do); the acting ranges from amateurish to studiously awkward. Basically, if you grew up on ’80s action/kung fu films (or pretty much anything put out by Cannon), this will be the best kind of deja vu.

While Kung Fury is endlessly fun, full of the kind of giddy, stupid thrills and setpieces that pretty much every comic book/superhero/mindless action film aspires to, one of the most impressive aspects of the production is how damn good the whole thing looks on a ridiculously small budget. After crowdfunding failed to produce enough funds for a full-length, Sandberg and company opted to turn their idea into a short. The whole film was essentially shot in the Swedish filmmaker’s office, utilizing green screens for everything, and budgeted on such a shoestring that they only had one, shared uniform for the scene where Kung Fury wades into an ocean of Nazis. It looks cheap, of course, but by design, not accident. When necessary, the film is as fully immersive as any mega-budget Hollywood blockbuster, stock-footage wolf or not.

Since part of the sheer, unmitigated joy of the short is giving yourself over to its particular brand of lunacy, I’ll refrain from spoiling much more, although I could probably list my fifteen favorite moments and still have enough leftover material for at least fifteen more. Suffice to say that if you’re a fan of absurd fare like Danger Force Five, ’80s action films or bone-dry humor, Sandberg’s Kung Fury should steal a pretty massive piece of your heart. With a promised full-length version over the horizon (featuring no recycled footage which, in and of itself, is kinda mind-blowing), I have a feeling that we’re all going to be seeing a lot more of Sandberg and his inspired brand on insanity.

I still think that the perfect roller-coaster is a short, sharp shock to the system. I’m more than willing to let David Sandberg prove me wrong, however: if nothing else, Kung Fury has handily earned him that right. Too much of a good thing? Bring it on.

12/31/14 (Part One): School is Back in Session

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ABCs of Death, Aharon Keshales, Alejandro Brugues, Alexandre Bustillo, Ant Timpson, anthology films, Best of 2014, Bill Plympton, Bruno Samper, Chris Nash, cinema, Dennison Ramalho, E.L. Katz, Erik Matti, favorite films, film reviews, films, foreign films, Hajime Ohata, horror, horror films, horror-comedies, Jerome Sable, Jim Hosking, Juan Martinez Moreno, Julian Barratt, Julian Gilbey, Julien Maury, Kristina Buozyte, Lancelot Odawa Imasuen, Larry Fessenden, Marvin Kren, Movies, multiple directors, multiple writers, Navot Papushado, Robert Boocheck, Robert Morgan, Rodney Ascher, sequels, shorts, Soichi Umezawa, Soska Sisters, Steven Kostanski, The ABCs of Death 2, Tim League, Todd Rohal, Vincenzo Natali

Count me as one of the number of people who love anthology films. Going all the way back to the old Amicus days, anthology films have always been a great way to inject a little variety into your viewing, sort of the equivalent of sitting down with a good short story collection rather than trudging through a full-length tome. Over the years, there have been plenty of anthology films, good and bad, but the basic formula has remained pretty constant: take a good wrap-around segment, add some nice varied shorts with effective twists and shocks et voila! The perfect anthology film!

When The ABCs of Death (2012) came around, the concept was pretty unbeatable: give twenty-six different genre directors a different letter of the alphabet and have them fashion a short, with the only rule being that the shorts must represent death, in some way, shape or form. While some of the shorts were pointless, stupid and/or tedious, many of them were blackly-comic mini marvels and I found the whole thing to be a great way to get exposure to a wide variety of genre filmmakers in small, bite-sized morsels. Needless to say, when a sequel, The ABCs of Death 2 (2014) was announced, I found myself more than ready to absorb the next twenty-six entries in this informative little series. The consensus this time around? Part Two is bigger, better and outrageously fun, pretty much the best party film of the year and a must-see with a big audience, if one gets the chance. A sequel that’s better than the original? You can bet your blood-stained, bottom dollar on it!

As with the first installment, ABCs of Death 2 sees twenty-six wildly divergent filmmakers each tackle a different letter of the alphabet, with the only intention being to depict grievous bodily harm in as many colorful, gonzo and awe-inspiring ways as possible. Some filmmakers take an explicitly humorous take on the proceedings, such as Jim Hoskin and Erik Matti’s offerings, whereas others treat the subject as deadly serious (Kristina Buozyte and Bruno Samper’s exquisite “K is for Knell,” Dennison Ramalho;s brutal “J is for Jesus”). While there’s no real theme, per se, the trend in this particular iteration is towards films from Latin and South America, which provides an interesting contrast with the more Asian-oriented films from the previous ABCs of Death. Despite this, however, ABCs of Death 2 still provides a nice global overview of horror filmmaking, from the United States to Australia, from Africa to Israel, Mexico, Japan and the Philippines.

Any time you have twenty-six different films from twenty-six different filmmakers, you can expect a wide range of quality and effectiveness: in other words, there are going to be at least a few clunkers amid the gems. While I’ll admit that a few of the shorts in The ABCs of Death 2 rubbed me the wrong way (I actively hated Todd Rohal’s P-P-P-P Scary! and was really disappointed by the shorts turned in by Bill Plympton, the Soska sisters and Larry Fessenden), the ratio of great-to-meh was overwhelmingly tilted in the right direction. When the shorts were great, such as with the E.L. Katz, Robert Morgan, Kristina Buozyte/Bruno Samper, Robert Boocheck, Vincenzo Natali, Chris Nash, Steven Kostanksi and Julien Maury/Alexandre Bustillo films, they were practically transcendent, revealing fascinating, new takes on familiar horror tropes and cliches.

In fact, one of the greatest things about The ABCs of Death 2 is just how genuinely interesting the various shorts are. With very few exceptions (Rohal’s short is almost unbearably bad), even the lesser entries are, at the very least, oddball and interesting enough to gloss over any issues with production values, acting, scripts, etc… and make them worthwhile views.

I’ll also take a minute to point out that the effects on display range from the very basic to the very mindblowing: I’m pretty sure that Kostanki’s Wish segment will impress just about anybody, with its absolutely masterful blending of CGI, stop-motion and practical effects. Gorehounds will be happy to know that ABCs 2 very rarely shies away from the hardcore: restraint is not a virtue, as far as these particular shorts are concerned and some of the segments hit some truly nightmarish plateaus.

All in all, ABCs of Death 2 was one of the biggest surprises I had all year. While I enjoyed the first film, I had no reason to expect that the follow-up would be anywhere near this good: when it’s firing on all cylinders, ABCs of Death 2 is, easily, one of the best horror films of the year. There are certain images in this film, especially with Steven Kostanski’s brilliant “W is for Wish,” that I’ll probably never get out of my head…and that’s a very good thing. When it’s good, which is often, ABCs of Death 2 is the kind of film that horror fans will definitely want to remember and cherish. At this rate, I’m already looking forward to ABCs of Death 4: bring it on, you magnificent bastards…bring it on!

12/28/14 (Part One): Dancing Under the Gallows

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86th Annual Academy Awards, Aliza Sommer-Herz, Best Short Documentary winner, concentration camp, concentration camps, documentaries, Holocaust survivor, Malcolm Clarke, piano player, shorts, The Lady in Number 6, uplifting films, World War II, writer-director

At the time of her death last February, at the age of 110, Aliza Sommer-Herz was the oldest, living Holocaust survivor. She was also an amazingly vibrant personality who captivated all those around her with her expert piano-playing, a skill that she cultivated in the years before she was captured by the Nazis and sent to a concentration camp. As Malcolm Clarke’s Oscar-winning short documentary, The Lady in Number 6 (2013) shows, both aspects of Aliza’s life, her piano-playing and her will to survive, were intrinsically linked. As the subtitle states, “Music saved (her) life,” to the great benefit of the rest of us.

Born in Prague in 1903, Aliza was part of an artistically inclined family that counted both Gustav Mahler and Franz Kafka as close, personal friends. Studying under ace pianist Artur Schnabel, Aliza became quite the prodigy in the years leading up to the Nazi Occupation. This skill would end up serving her well once she was transferred to a concentration camp: suitably impressed by her skill, the camp guards kept Aliza around as a sort of “human jukebox,” with any and everyone (including the infamous “Angel of Death,” Josef Mengele) stopping by to request songs and spend time getting lost in her playing. She would go on to perform some 100 concerts while interred in the concentration camp, earning the admiration of everyone around her, prisoner and guard alike.

After surviving the concentration camp, along with her son, Raffi, Aliza would go on to a long, happy life, one characterized by her unrelentingly upbeat attitude (one of her mottos was “It’s up to me whether life is good, not up to life.”) and her continued love of the piano. Even at age 109, during the filming of the documentary, Aliza displayed a vitality and joie de vivre that would be difficult to maintain in someone a third of her age, let alone under the often terrible conditions that Aliza lived through.

Subject-wise, The Lady in Number 6 is unbeatable: Aliza Sommer-Herz is a fascinating subject with a rich, powerful story and enough life lessons under her belt to teach us all for the next century. While any story about the Holocaust is going to be tragic and terrible, at its heart, Aliza manages to imbue so much positivity and love into her tale that it’s all but impossible to get through without a big smile on your face, even if a tear might threaten to roll down your cheek at any minute. At one point in the short, someone makes the observation that when people hear the word “Holocaust,” they only think about the gas chambers and six million dead: there was a whole world in-between those terrible extremes, a world which included many survivors, just like Aliza. In every way, then, The Lady in Number 6 becomes a story of survival and overcoming tragedy, rather than a sorrowful rumination on the unforgettable evil of the Holocaust.

While I fell completely in love with the subject of Clarke’s film, however, I must admit to being less than enthralled with the film, itself. Truthfully, I found much of the film to be a little clunky and choppy: there was also way too much “Vaseline-lens” for my tastes, since this had the effect of forcing emotion into scenes that needed no such help. Aliza is such a fascinating, positive force of nature that no such trickery is wanted/needed: a much more straight-forward style would have suited this better, since Clarke’s filmmaking is often too fussy to be as invisible as it should be.

Technical quibbles aside, however, The Lady in Number 6 is really a lovely little film and deserves to be seen by everyone: if there were more people like Aliza Sommer-Herz in the world, it’s doubtful that we’d be in the kind of straits that we’re currently in. For her ability to keep a brave, hopeful, loving attitude in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, Aliza should live on in our hearts forever.