8/1/15 (Part Two): Remember That One Time at Camp?

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A.D. Miles, Amy Poehler, Ben Weinstein, Bradley Cooper, camp counselors, Camp Firewood, Christopher Meloni, cinema, co-writers, comedies, coming of age, David Hyde Pierce, David Wain, Elizabeth Banks, ensemble cast, film reviews, films, Gideon Jacobs, H. Jon Benjamin, horny teenagers, inspired by '80s films, Janeane Garofalo, Joe Lo Truglio, Judah Friedlander, Ken Marino, Kevin Sussman, last day of camp, love triangle, Marguerite Moreau, Marisa Ryan, Michael Ian Black, Michael Showalter, Molly Shannon, Movies, musical numbers, Nina Hellman, one day, over-the-top, Paul Rudd, raunchy films, romances, set in 1980s, sex comedies, silly films, Skylab, summer camp, talent show, The State, Wet Hot American Summer, Whitney Vance, writer-director-actor, Zak Orth

How you approach, and ultimately enjoy, David Wain and Michael Showalter’s Wet Hot American Summer (2001) will probably depend on a few different variables: how you feel about ’80s teen sex comedies; how you feel about summer camp; how you feel about short-lived ’90s sketch-comedy troupe The State; how you feel about parodies of ’80s films, in general; and, perhaps most importantly, how you feel about silly movies. If any of the above set off the kind of drooling response that would put a smile on ol’ Pavlov’s face, the safe best is that you will, in all likelihood, absolutely love this giddy little ode to obliviously horny camp counselors, their perpetually hormone-ravaged young charges and the inherent insanity of Reagen-era America. If not…well…this is probably gonna be as much fun as getting hung from the flagpole by your tighty-whities. Let’s see which side of the line you end up on: fall in for roll call, campers!

It’s the last day of camp at Camp Firewood (August 18th, 1981, to be exact), which means exactly one thing: it’s also the last chance for everyone, counselor and camper alike, to have an exciting, life-changing summer romance. Good thing that hooking up happens to be everyone’s number one concern (the safety of youthful swimmers? Not so much.): there will be no shortage of star-crossed lovers, awkward triangles, odd pairings and horny virgins at this little summer soiree!

In short order, we’re introduced to a ridiculously diverse group of walking stereotypes and quirky characters, all of whom we’ll get to know much better over the course of the day/run-time. There’s Beth (Janeane Garofalo), the dour, “who gives a shit” camp director and Henry (David Hyde Pierce), the disgraced college professor (associate professor, to be exact) who has a summer home near the camp; counselors Andy (Paul Rudd), Coop (co-writer/creator Showalter) and Katie (Marguerite Moreau), who are involved in one of those aforementioned awkward love triangles and incredibly disturbed Vietnam vet/mess cook Gene (Christopher Meloni) and his put-upon assistant, Gary (A.D. Miles).

We also meet perpetually bawling arts-and-crafts instructor Gail (Molly Shannon), who’s constantly being counseled by her own pre-teen wards; walking hard-on/closet virgin Victor (Ken Merino) and his best friend, the impossibly geeky Neil (Joe Lo Truglio); Susie (Amy Poehler) and Ben (Bradley Cooper), the “perfect couple” who also serve as the camp’s directors/choreographers/entertainment personnel; voracious counselor Abby (Marisa Ryan), who pursues both peers and campers with equal aplomb; ditzy valley girl Lindsay (Elizabeth Banks) and McKinley (Michael Ian Black), the stylish guy who ends up capturing Ben’s eye. Don’t forget Steve (Kevin Sussman), the curious fellow who seems to think he’s a robot and ends up saving the entire camp by (literally) summoning rock ‘n roll salvation from the skies.

The film, itself, is merely an excuse for all of the above (and many, many more) to get into one hilarious, goofball, silly or outrageous situation after the next: romances are formed and broken (one character notes how they were “just friends” that morning but had already become “more” by noon, all on the way to falling out of love by the evening…not bad for one day!); friendships are tested; guys try (and often fail) to get the girl(s); Beth tries to keep the whole place running despite nearly constant stress (as if a raft full of kids in a dangerously turbulent river isn’t bad enough, Skylab is falling from space…right on top of their heads!); a can of vegetables speaks and sounds an awful lot like Mr. Archer himself, H. Jon Benjamin…you name it, it probably happens.

As befits a film that features quite a few sketch/improv comedians (out of eleven regular cast members from The State, six are featured here (Showalter, Wain, Merino, Truglio, Black and Kerri Kenney), while Shannon and Poehler got their starts on SNL), Wet Hot American Summer is a nearly nonstop barrage of gags, sexual innuendo, over-the-top characterizations and restless energy, all culminating in the kind of talent show set-piece that delivers as much as it promises (the Godspell bit, in particular, is priceless, especially when introduced by Poehler as “some people who suck dick”).

The point of the film, as with any comedic parody, is two-fold: poke fun at the original source – in this case, teen sex comedies like Meatballs (1979) and Porky’s (1982) – and entertain/amuse on its own merits. In both cases, Wain and Showalter acquit themselves much better than anyone might reasonably expect. As a 1980s parody, WHAS is spot-on, nailing not only the obvious mise-en-scene (plenty of butt-rock classics on the score, feathered hair and mullets, endless references to kitsch/catch-phrases/cultural ephemera) but also the themes, clichés and stereotypes that seemed to freely flow through many films (especially comedies) from that era. WHAS takes its ’80s-worship to pretty ridiculous heights (obviously) but that’s just what the material calls for (deserves?).

Even divorced from the ’80s parody aspects, WHAS is a complete blast from start to finish. Credit a clever script (the film is incredibly dumb but never stupid: there’s a huge difference) but don’t fail to give each and every member of the incredible ensemble cast their fair dues: to a tee, the group manage to build on each others’ performances, becoming something akin to the Voltron of silly comedies. It’s hard to pick out favorites here, although Merino is a constant delight as Victor (full disclosure: Merino has been one of my absolute favorite comedians for some time now) and Paul Rudd is impressively all-in as the temper tantrum-prone Andy. Garofalo does her patented combo of stressed-out/checked-out, while Shannon gets lots of great mileage out of the running gag involving her “road to recovery” via pre-teen psychotherapy.

Of an incredibly game cast, however, perhaps none are more so than Law & Order: SVU mainstay Meloni. Trading the brooding tough-guyisms of Elliot Stabler in for the ridiculously unhinged Gene is a nice move and one that would hint at Meloni’s post-SVU slide into sillier comedy versus gritty police procedural. There’s a night and day difference, here, and many of the film’s biggest, funniest scenes have Gene right at their wacko little hearts.

Perhaps due to my belief that the film was nothing more than a really dumb and cheap parody, I studiously avoided Wet Hot American Summer when it first appeared in 2001, even though I liked The State enough to catch the odd episode, here and there. This, of course, is why “assume” usually makes an ass of you and me: not only wasn’t WHAS the insipid, stupid film I assumed it was, it actually turned out to be one of the better, consistently funny and endearing comedies I’ve seen in several years.

In fact, I ended up liking the film so much that I eagerly plowed through the recently unveiled prequel TV series, Wet Hot American Summer: The First Day (2015), in what felt like one sitting. To my even greater surprise, the series actually manages to one-up the already impressive film, bringing back the majority of the cast (the first film’s unstated joke about 20-year-olds playing teens is even funnier when the cast is now nearly 15 years older and playing younger versions of themselves…the meta is strong with this one, indeed!), along with a raft of great newcomers including the likes of Michael Cera, Jason Schwartzman and several cast members from Mad Men. It adds nicely to the “mythos” established in the original film, while also serving to answer some questions and smooth over some particularly odd headscratchers (we learn the full story of H. Jon Benjamin’s talking veggies, for one thing, and it’s definitely worth the wait).

Ultimately, a comedy really only needs to answer one crucial question: is it funny? Wet Hot American Summer is many things (silly, loud, crude, nonsensical, esoteric, giddy) but, above and beyond all else, it’s definitely funny. Regardless of where your preferences lie on the comedy meter, I’m willing to wager that Wet Hot American Summer will have plenty of opportunities to tickle your funny-bone. As we’re solemnly told at the end of the film, “the entire summer, which kind of sucked, was rejuvenated by the events of the last 24 hours.” Sounds about right, campers…sounds just about right to me.

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7/5/15 (Part One): Home is Where the Haunt Is

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Barbara Niven, cinema, dead children, father-son relationships, film reviews, films, ghosts, grown children, haunted houses, horror-comedies, Housebound, Jack Plotnick, Jeffrey Combs, John Waters, Kat Dennings, Lucas Lee Graham, Mackenzie Phillips, Mark Bruner, Matthew Gray Gubler, McKenna Grace, Mel Rodriguez, Michl Britsch, Movies, multiple writers, Muse Watson, Odd Thomas, paranormal investigators, racists, Ray Santiago, Ray Wise, Richard Bates Jr., Ronnie Gene Blevins, Sally Kirkland, scatological humor, seances, seeing ghosts, Sibyl Gregory, silly films, Soska Sisters, Suburban Gothic, suburban homes, suburban life, suburbia, The Frighteners, Under the Bed, writer-director-producer

Ah, suburbia: endless rows of identical houses, with identical lawns, with identical Suburbans parked in identical carports, tended to by identical suburbanites as they go about their virtually identical lives. For many people, suburbia is the very picture of success: after all, what really says “You’ve made it” more than your own house, family, steady job and reliable source of transportation? For the outsider, misanthrope and loner, however, the very concept of suburbia can be a kind of hell on earth: the place where all dreams go to become pureed into easily digestible slop. As the Descendents so aptly put it: “I want to be stereotyped…I want to be classified…I want to be a clone…I want a suburban home.”

For filmmakers, the concept of the dark underbelly of suburbia is nothing new: after all, films like The Stepford Wives (1975), The Amityville Horror (1979), Neighbors (1981), Parents (1989), The ‘Burbs (1989),  American Beauty (1999) and Donnie Darko (2001) have been equating cookie-cutter neighborhoods with existential dread for decades now. To this storied tradition we can now add writer-director Richard Bates Jr’s Suburban Gothic (2014): proving that there’s nothing wrong with ambition, Bates Jr takes the aforementioned suburban angst films and throws in elements of “I see ghosts” films, ala The Frighteners (1996) and Odd Thomas (2013), as well as “grown children moving back home” films, such as the instantly classic Housebound (2014) and the less successful Under the Bed (2012). If Suburban Gothic never comes close to reaching the heady heights of Housebound, there’s still enough silly, funny and outrageous material here to give genre fans a grin from ear to ear. Plus, it’s got Ray Wise: any film with Ray Wise is, of course, automatically better than any film without him…that’s just basic math, amigo.

Poor Raymond (Criminal Minds’ Matthew Gray Gubler) is in a bit of a pickle, the same conundrum that might befall many twenty-to-thirty-somethings: he’s over-educated and under-employed. Despite having his MBA, Raymond must swallow the bitterest pill of all and move back in with his over-protective, smothering mother, Eve (Barbara Niven), and obnoxious, disapproving and casually racist father, Donald (Ray Wise, swinging for the rafters), an event which is sure to put a crimp in any attempt he can make to take control of his life.

You see, Raymond is a bit of a mess: bullied as a child about his weight and “gifted” with the ability to see ghosts, he escaped his one horse town as soon as he could, hoping to put as much distance between him and the past as possible. Given to wearing outrageously showy clothes (his bright, purple scarf is a definite highlight), Raymond couldn’t be more out-of-place in his old hometown, especially once he ends up back in the sights of former bully Pope (Ronnie Gene Blevins) and his small crew of miscreants. Everyone in town is glad to see that Raymond failed at life, since it (somehow) validates their own humble existences. Everyone, that is, except for Raymond’s former classmate, Becca (2 Broke Girls’ Kat Dennings), who now tends bar at the local watering hole. To her, Raymond was always the only interesting person in town and she’s mighty glad to have him back, even if she has a snarky way of showing it.

Just in time for his homecoming, however, some truly weird shit has started to happen, seemingly centered around the makeshift childs’ coffin that Donald’s gardeners have just dug up in the yard. Before he knows what’s going on, Raymond is experiencing the same ghostly visions that he used to have, this time involving a sinister little girl. As the occurrences become more pronounced, Raymond and Becca are convinced that a wayward spirit is in need of a peaceful journey into the light, while Donald and Eve are convinced that their son is losing his ever-lovin’ mind. As Raymond and Becca dig deeper into the history of the house, however, they begin to realize that the spirit in question might not be that of a little lost girl: it might just be something a bit more on the “extreme evil” side of things. Will Raymond and Becca be able to set it all to rights or will this humdrum slice of suburban life end up destroying them all?

My anticipation level for Suburban Gothic was pretty high, right out of the gate, for one very important reason: I pretty much adored writer-director Bates Jr’s debut, the outrageous Excision (2012), a slice of high school life that managed to combine Grand Guignol gore with fanciful dream sequences and arrived at a wholly unique, if often repugnant, place that wasn’t so far removed from what the Soska Sisters did with their stunning American Mary (2012). Excision was the kind of debut that puts a filmmaker firmly on my radar, which leads us directly to the sophomore film, Suburban Gothic. If his newest possessed a tenth of the gonzo energy of his first, this seemed like a pretty sure-fire no-brainer.

In reality, Suburban Gothic is a good full-step (certainly at least a half-step) down from Bates Jr’s debut, although it’s still a thoroughly enjoyable romp on its own terms. The big difference ends up being tonal: unlike Excision, which buried its blackly comic sensibilities under a lot of very unpleasant material, Suburban Gothic is a much sillier, goofier affair. Nowhere is this made more explicit than the impossibly silly scene where Raymond watches his toenails rise and fall to the tune of the old chestnut “Let Me Call You Sweetheart.” Shoddy CGI aside, the scene has the feel of something truly slapstick and goofy, perhaps closer to The ‘Burbs than anything in Bates Jr’s debut.

This “silly” elements end up seeping into almost every aspect of the film: John Waters shows up as the blow job-obsessed head of the local historical society, the medium’s daughter is named Zelda (et tu, Poltergeist (1982)?), Raymond and Becca dress up in the most ridiculous ghost costumes ever (think Charles Schultz), anonymous hands grab Raymond from every-which direction and there’s more mugging going on than a thug convention. In one of the film’s most notable bits, Raymond masturbates while checking out his favorite site, “Latina Booty,” as an overhead light slowly fills with “ghostly” semen: at the “appropriate” moment, the light shatters, showering poor Raymond in about fifty gallons of spooky spunk. Disgusting? You bet yer bottom dollar! Terrifying? Not quite.

The aforementioned example, however, is also a good example of Suburban Gothic’s ace-up-the-sleeve, as it were: for all of the film’s silliness and scatological humor (along with the jizz, we get a lovingly filmed vomiting scene and a nice, long shot of a turd in a toilet), there’s also genuine intelligence and love for the genre. The light gag might be an easy-shot gross-out joke but it’s always a subtle, kind of brilliant nod to Sam Raimi’s original Evil Dead (1981). There’s also a not-so subtle reference to del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), lots of visual ques for The Amityville Horror and Poltergeist and plenty of cameos by genre royalty (the legendary Jeffrey Combs gets to play a bugshit-crazy doctor (natch), while the Soska Sisters pop up in a crowd scene).

While the actual plot is nothing revolutionary, Suburban Gothic is such a good-natured, eager-to-please popcorn flick that it’s never painful to watch: the CGI is fairly well-integrated (save that rather dreadful toenail bit) and if the color-timing on the cinematography seems constantly off (the film has an odd red cast that’s pretty noticeable), cinematographer Lucas Lee Graham (who also shot the much more striking Excision) serves up plenty of nicely composed, evocative images.

On the acting side, Gubler is pitch-perfect as the sarcastic, quietly suffering schlub who must swallow his distaste for everything in order to save his (decidedly undeserving) childhood home. Gubler has a rare ability to mix wiseacre dialogue delivery with Stoogian physical comedy, an ability which serves him well here: one of the film’s easy highlights is the hilarious scene where Raymond accidentally drops an ice cream cake, over and over, until he finally stamps on the damn thing in an abject display of childish tantrums writ large.

While Dennings takes a little longer to get revved up (her early scenes have a rather distracting “I don’t give a shit” quality that’s off-putting), she fully comes into her own by the film’s final reel and her and Gubler make for a believable enough couple. Although she’s never as consistent as Gubler, Dennings shows enough steel, here, to make me interested in her next move: here’s to hoping she spends a little more time in the horror genre…we could use a few fresh faces!

While Niven is fun as Raymond’s mom, Wise really gets to run roughshod over the proceedings: whether he’s proclaiming that all of his Latin American workmen are “Mexicans,” telling his son to “take a knee” as he rolls up to him in a squeaky office chair or apologizing to his black football players for his lack of “grape pop,” Wise is an absolute blast. If anything, his performance as Donald makes a nice comparison to his role as Satan in Reaper, albeit tempered with more than a little lunk-headedness. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if there’s ever a Mount Rushmore for iconic genre personalities, Wise is guaranteed to be there.

Ultimately, Suburban Gothic is a thoroughly entertaining, amusing and mildly outrageous horror-comedy: fans of this particular style will find no end of delights, I’m willing to wager, although I still found myself slightly disappointed by the time the credits rolled (the less said about the ridiculously sunny coda, the better). Perhaps I’ve been spoiled by standout films like Housebound and The Frighteners, a pair of horror-comedies that are pretty much the first and last word on this particular subject…perhaps I was hoping for something with a little more bite, ala Excision. Whatever the reason, I have no problem whatsoever recommending Suburban Gothic (provided, of course, that potential viewers are prepared for the often rude humor), although it’s not quite the Richard Bates Jr joint that I hoped for.

I have a sneaking suspicion, however, that Bates Jr is going to become a force to reckon with in the next several years. If that doesn’t blow yer toenails back, pardner…well, I don’t know what will.

6/24/15: The Cause of, and Solution to, All of Life’s Problems

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'80s comedies, ad agencies, advertising agency, advertising industry, Alan C. Peterson, Alar Aedma, alcoholism, Allan Weisbecker, alternate title, bad films, battle of the sexes, Beer, Bill Butler, Bill Conti, brewery, cinema, comedies, David Alan Grier, David Wohl, Dick Shawn, directorial debut, film reviews, films, homophobia, husband-wife relationship, Kenneth Mars, Loretta Swit, masculinity, Mel Brooks, misogyny, Movies, Norbecker, offensive films, over-the-top, Patrick Kelly, Peter Michael Goetz, racist, Rip Torn, satire, Saul Stein, sexist, silly films, spoof, The Selling of America, TV ads, unlikely heroes, William Russ

Every once in a while, a movie comes along that manages to genuinely surprise me, for one reason or another. It might be a film that’s surprisingly good or even unexpectedly great. It might be a “sure thing” that fails miserably, maybe something by a beloved filmmaker that manages to completely miss the mark. On very rare occasions, a movie might surprise with an unexpectedly thought-provoking concept or some heretofore unexplored insights into the human condition. And then, of course, there’s Beer (1985), also known by the much more on-the-nose title The Selling of America.

In this particular case, Beer surprises by being one of the most outrageously misguided, casually offensive films that I think I’ve ever seen. Coming across as a completely tone-deaf attempt to emulate the societal critique of Mel Brooks’ immortal Blazing Saddles (1974), Kelly’s film is stuffed to bursting with so many outdated, honestly offensive observations on race, feminism, masculinity, nationality, gender and sexuality that it makes something like Porky’s (1982) seem progressive. Beer is a “have your cake and eat it, too” kind of film, a movie that wants to shake a finger at society’s ills while gleefully indulging in the same sort of bad behavior.

A.J. Norbecker (Mel Brooks mainstay Kenneth Mars) has a bit of a problem: the German-born brewery owner is experiencing an unprecedented drop in sales and he places the blame squarely on the advertising agency that’s handling his promotional material. As Norbecker sees it, all beer is just “piss-water”: it’s the ads that really make the difference and he wants ads as cool as Miller and the other major players. To that end, he gives the agency’s president, Harley Feemer (Peter Michael Goetz), an ultimatum: beef up their campaign, increase his sales or lose their biggest client.

Behind the scenes, Feemer and the other guys try, in vain, to come up with anything original. Leave it to B.D. Tucker (M.A.S.H.’s Loretta Swit), the agency’s “token female executive” (their phrase, of course) to come up with the only good idea: they need an ad campaign that will appeal to the common, everyday man who’s the actual market for Norbecker Beer…nothing posh, highfalutin’ or pretentious, just a bunch of normal, macho guys drinking beer. Hiring her old friend, former hotshot director/current washed-up alcoholic Buzz Beckerman (Rip Torn, consuming scenery like a black hole), B.D. goes about putting together the ad campaign that will reset Norbecker’s fortune and secure her own future.

As luck would have it, B.D. and Buzz find their ideal spokesmen when they witness a trio of doofuses accidentally stop an attempted robbery in a dive bar. The three guys are perfect for their purposes, mostly because they’re not real people so much as generic templates: Merle (William Russ) is a good-ol’-boy (complete with steer horns on his Cadillac) fish out of water in big, bad New York City; Frankie (Saul Stein) is an Italian-American construction worker with a raging libido and the kind of enormous, stereotypical Italian family that passes around bowls of pasta large enough to drown in; and Elliot (David Alan Grier) is an uber-nerdy black lawyer who gets pushed around at his blatantly racist firm and fights a losing battle, at home, to prevent his young son from listening to boomboxes (no, really).

In no time at all, Merle, Frankie and Elliot are national heroes and superstars: all men want to be them and all women want to bed them, which is quite a change from their former loser/unemployed statuses. With new-found fame, however, comes a whole new raft of problems. Merle begins to feel a loss of identity and pines for the simpler life, Frankie develops erectile dysfunction just as he becomes a sex symbol and formerly nice-guy Elliot is starting to treat his wife and kid like crap. As the men become more and more wrapped-up in their manufactured personas, their real selves begin to fall by the wayside.

As the campaign continues to pick up steam, B.D. looks to find new ways to keep her manufactured stars in the media spotlight, mostly by injecting some all-important sex appeal into the proceedings (“Whip out your Norbecker…Beer!). With feminists around the country in an uproar, Norbecker Beer becomes more popular than ever, cornering a whopping 50% of the U.S. market. Norbecker, obviously ecstatic, sets his sights a little higher: he decides that he wants to take over the European market, as well, believing that a “surprise advertising blitz” will allow him to take over Germany (his first name is Adolph, after all). Will our hapless heroes end up losing their very humanity, becoming as callous and ruthless as the Madison Avenue execs that made them what they are? Will B.D. ever earn the respect that she so desperately wants? Will Adolph conquer Europe? Whip out your Norbecker and find out for yourself!

Make no bones about it: Beer (or The Selling of America, whichever you prefer) is an absolute mess, albeit a fascinating one. The biggest, most obvious issue with the film is that director Patrick Kelly (on his sole production, apparently) and screenwriter Allan Weisbecker (who also wrote an episode of Miami Vice) have absolutely no grasp on the supposedly satirical material whatsoever. Beer ends up in that nebulous “no-man’s-land” between pointing out the systematic stupidity of things like sexism and racism and actively upholding said prejudicial viewpoints. It’s the equivalent of someone who goes out of their way to explain that they aren’t racist before busting out the most virulently racist joke you’ve ever heard. It’s the “feminist” who drops a wink while telling women to get back into the kitchen, the “progressive” who thinks the term “twinkletoes” is a perfectly acceptable descriptor for a gay man.

Time and time again, the film seems to be attempting to poke holes in these very real issues while also attempting to milk them for easy, shallow laughs, many of which end up being more than a little mean-spirited. At one point, B.D. tells Elliot that he isn’t “black enough,” so he goes home and watches a handy “black studies” videotape, picking up such important tips as grabbing his crotch, swaggering and walking around with a boombox. When he shows up to the next shoot looking like an extra from Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo (1985), B.D. is absolutely shocked: “You look like you just stepped out of the ghetto! When I said ‘black,’ I didn’t mean ‘black-black’!” Funny shit, right?

Or how about the thoroughly “fresh” way in which Frankie’s entire family seems to have stepped out of a dinner-theater version of Mama Mia, complete with endless shouting and fainting when our friendly mook reveals that he plans to move out of their unbelievably crowded apartment? He’s only 29, after all, which is way too early for a good Italian boy to cut the apron strings. Frankie’s also such a completely irresistible ladies’ man that even when he can’t get it up, his conquest-of-the-moment blames it all on herself, begging him profusely for the opportunity to “do better” and not “disappoint him.” Whatta guy, right?

We even get a heart-warming, climatic scene where Merle and Frankie must wade into the “horrors” of a gay bar and “rescue” poor, drunk Elliot from a fate worse than death: that the scene devolves into the kind of rousing fist fight that would be more at home in Road House (1989) probably goes a long way towards indicating where the filmmakers sympathies lie. Never fear, however: it’s all balanced when ol’ Norbecker decides to market a new “lite” beer to gay men. As we see him cavort with a bunch of half-naked men in a sauna, he delivers the immortal pitch-line: “You can take it in the bottle or you can take it in the can.” Because, you know, “can” is also used as a slang word for “butt” and that’s kind of funny, right?

Truth be told, not much in Beer is actually funny, though nearly all of it is pitched at the kind of frantic, hysterical pace that usually denotes slapstick comedy. There are moments that manage to shine through the mess: the various TV commercials are actually pretty good and Buzz gets in a great line about how he once made Alan Ladd look “six feet tall” (I’m a movie nerd: that’s the kind of reference that makes me chuckle, sadly enough). The acting is also just fine (or, at the very least, it’s all of a piece with the film’s overall tone), with fantastic turns from David Alan Grier (in a very thankless role) and Loretta Swit (in an even more thankless role).

While I frequently found myself cringing during the film, my heart really went out to poor Swit: she really is a great actress and she gives the performance her all but it’s a ruthlessly stacked deck, from the get-go. Nothing about the character of B.D. really makes sense (at one point, she actively fights against sexualizing the ads, only to flip-flop a moment later) and the filmmakers seem bound and determined to humiliate her as much as possible. Rather than letting B.D. succeed, since she mounted a successful ad campaign and won a coveted CLEO award, we instead get the pathetic culmination where Merle comes to his senses and decides to leave, spurring B.D. to bed him to stay: “Do I have to get down on my knees,” she asks, with her tone and body language pointing to the obvious.

Turning B.D. into the butt of the film’s joke actually manages to sum up the movie’s problems in a pretty good nutshell: while Beer makes noises about tackling issues like sexism, racism and masculinity, it’s pretty clear that its sympathies lie elsewhere. The feminist protesters are portrayed as shrill nuts, the gay men in the club are lascivious wolves, the German guy is power-mad and the only one who makes any sense is the guy who looks like he stepped out of an old Western. It’s a stacked deck, regardless of how ridiculous the prejudicial portrayals are: showcasing an eye-rollingly obvious example of racism isn’t the same thing as condemning or commenting on it, after all.

There will, undoubtedly, be many who would counter my observations with the rejoinder that Beer is nothing more than a typical, ’80s comedy (almost, but not quite, a sex comedy, to boot): was I really expecting any kind of astute observations on anything? I’ll freely admit that I never expected Beer to be a great film, nor even a particularly smart one. There’s nothing wrong with dumb, politically incorrect comedies: I saw more than my fair share of Police Academy and Porky’s movies, growing up, and I don’t consider myself to be a raging, misogynist beast. This is a very different era than 30 years ago (or even 10 years ago, to be honest) and certain mindsets have a tendency to look as quaint as museum setpieces in this day and age.

At the end of the day, however, Beer can really only be judged on its own merits. As a film, it’s silly, nonsensical, occasionally funny but, for the most part, resoundingly lunk-headed. With too many detours into genuine racism and sexism to have much modern value, Beer/The Selling of America will probably best be remembered as a curio, a representation of a time when films could flaunt flagrant stereotypes, all in the guise of “making a statement.” Don’t be fooled, though: the only statement here is that this Beer is warm, flat and skunky.

5/25/15: Zom-Beavers Wander By the Lake

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Al Kaplan, Bill Burr, Brent Briscoe, cabins, cheating boyfriends, cinema, Code Monkeys, Cortney Palm, dark comedies, dark humor, directorial debut, Ed Marx, electronic score, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, girls only weekend, goofy, gory films, horror, horror-comedies, Hutch Dano, isolation, Jake Weary, John Mayer, Jon Kaplan, Jonathan Hall, Jordan Rubin, Lexi Atkins, Movies, multiple writers, Peter Gilroy, Phyllis Katz, practical effects, Rachel Melvin, Rex Linn, Robert R. Shafer, silly films, sorority sisters, toxic waste spill, Troma films, writer-director, Zombeavers, zombie films, zombies

There’s a point in Jordan Rubin’s ridiculously fun Zombeavers (2014) where our hapless heroes need to execute one of those standard “shoring up the defenses” scenes that’s as much a fixture of siege films as the actual siege itself. Working together, the group goes through all the familiar motions: moving dressers against doors, nailing boards across windows, frantically working to keep what’s outside from coming inside their small, isolated cabin. Despite their best efforts, however, it seems to be a losing battle, the gist of which isn’t lost on one of the exasperated survivors: “You do realize that the whole point of a beaver is it chops fucking wood, right?”

It’s an astute observation but, more importantly, it’s a damn good line and pretty much par for the course in a debut feature that’s always more intelligent than it seems, never quite as crass as it means to be and an easy step above similarly goofy horror-comedy fare. Writer-director Rubin comes from a long background as a writer on TV comedies (most notably the crude but effective Crank Yankers and several late night shows, including Craig Kilborn and Carson Daly) and his script (co-written with Al and Jon Kaplan, who also handled the fabulous score, just as they did with the criminally under-rated Code Monkeys) is consistently smart, if constantly silly. The biggest coup? Rubin and company manage to take a fairly dumb concept (zombified beavers) and inject just enough genuine tension and action to keep the whole thing from floating away into the ether. Zombeavers may be the class cut-up but it sure as hell ain’t the class dunce.

Kicking off with a fantastic gag involving a heavily disguised John Mayer and comedian Bill Burr as less than attentive truck drivers, we immediately get the nuts and bolts of the tale: a mysterious barrel falls off the truck, proceeds down a river and winds up at a beaver dam where it’s inspected by a couple of cute beaver puppets. If you grew up in the ’80s, you probably know what mysterious barrels that fall into rivers do and, by Jove, that’s just what happens here: exit the cute, friendly little beavers…enter…the zombeavers!

Our cannon fodder, in this case, consists of a trio of sorority sisters, Mary (Rachel Melvin), Zoe (Cortney Palm) and Jenn (Lexi Atkins), who’ve headed into the woods for a “girls only” weekend. Jenn has just seen a photo of her boyfriend, Sam (Hutch Dano, grandson of Royal), canoodling with a strange girl (or, at least, the back of her head) and Mary and Zoe want to help take her mind off her misery. Or, to be more accurate, Mary does: for her part, Zoe is the kind of amazingly snarky, sarcastic and just plain shitty character who can either make or break a film and she’s a complete blast.

While they settle in, the girls meet a local hunter, Smyth (Rex Linn), who flips the tired, old “leering redneck” cliché on its head by admonishing the young ladies’ skimpy bathing suits and “weird tattoos” rather than wolf-whistling. They also find the beaver dam from the beginning, although it’s now covered in neon-green “beaver piss,” so they keep their distance. As the “friends” play Truth or Dare, a pounding at the door begins as a fright but culminates in that other, great slasher film cliché: the crashing of the girls’ night out by their loutish boyfriends. Seems that ultra horny Zoe can’t go a weekend without screwing her equally horny boyfriend, Buck (Peter Gilroy), so she secretly invited him, along with Mary’s boyfriend, Tommy (Jake Weary) and good, old, cheatin’ Sam.

With our crew assembled, it’s only a matter of time before the zombeavers rear their vicious little heads and, before they know it, our young lovers are knee-deep in ravenous, dead-eyed little dam-builders. When the group is forced to split-up, it seems that tragedy is looming ever nearer over the horizon. As they must deal with not only the very real outside threat but their own internal struggles, a new wrinkle emerges: this is a zombie film, after all, and we all know why it’s a good idea to keep those fellas at arm’s length. Will our plucky heroes be able to pull together and kick beaver ass or have they just been dammed?

On paper, Zombeavers is a thoroughly ridiculous, silly concept, akin to something like Sharknado (2013) or FDR: American Badass (2012): after all, this is a film about zombified beavers…gravitas might seem slightly out-of-place, here. Thanks to a pretty great script, however (it’s probably one of the most quotable newer films I’ve seen), Zombeavers functions as more of a high-concept parody/homage than a lunk-headed bit of SyFy fluff. While it’s not in the same vaunted company as the stellar Tucker & Dale vs Evil (2010), Zombeavers is pretty equitable to Mike Mendez’s fun Big Ass Spider! (2013) in that it mixes fun, dumb gags with more clever, subtle marginalia. One of my favorite bits in Zombeavers is a throwaway gag that features a teenage fisherman wearing a “#1 Dad” ball cap: it works on a number of levels but, most importantly, it’s the kind of absurd detail that makes the film’s world feel so much more complete than it could have, something akin to the immersive worlds of Troma films.

Rubin and company throw a lot of schtick at the screen (particularly once we get to the last act “twist” that introduces a whole other, outrageous element to the proceedings) but most of it actually sticks, unlike something like the obnoxious, tone-deaf Sharknado. Part of this has to do with all of the aforementioned nifty little details but the whole thing would collapse if there wasn’t an incredibly game cast propping it up. Luckily, Zombeavers is filled with actors who perfectly understand the razor-thin line between “campy” and “stupid” and manage to (mostly) walk it with ease.

While the central trio of Melvin, Palm and Atkins are set-up as rather feather-headed (particularly Melvin’s Mary), they have tremendous chemistry together: their scenes have such a quick, snappy pace to them that they handily recall films like Mean Girls (2004) or, to a lesser extent, Heathers (1988). While Melvin’s exquisite comedic timing and Atkins’ slightly ethereal bearing fit like a glove, the real standout is Palm’s Zoe. Time after time, Palm manages to swipe the film right from under the others, whether it’s the bit where she gleefully doffs her bikini top only to cover herself up when a bear looks at her or any of her perfectly delivered bon mots (her deadpan rejoinder of “Maybe you should try going down on me more often,” to Buck’s “I’ve never seen a real beaver before” is so perfectly delivered that it hurts).

As befits their characters, the guys are pitched as pretty unrepentant, obnoxious horn-dogs but it works, for the most part, although Dano never seems to connect with his character in any meaningful way: his delivery always seems awkward and slightly off. Although Weary’s Tommy doesn’t get as much to do, Gilroy’s Buck is another highlight, just like his equally churlish girlfriend. While Gilroy’s delivery doesn’t always work (there are some definitively odd things that he does, beat-wise), he almost hits an Andy Kaufman-lite vibe when it does. His “my dick is asleep” bit starts out irritating but becomes oddly amusing (and weirdly charming) but moments like his bizarrely energetic sex scene (screaming “You’re way too hot for me!” as he enthusiastically humps away) or any of his great throwaway lines (“Who the fuck is crying on vacation day?!”…”I’ll see you in the bone zone!”) are all but essential to the film’s overall vibe.

And back to that vibe: one of the most notable things about Zombeavers is that, despite the assumed crudity of the concept and execution, the film is anything but a collection of stupid “beaver” jokes and frat boy humor. If anything, Rubin’s script constantly pushes against those stereotypes, walking a fine line between embracing the clichés and setting them on fire. This isn’t to say that Zombeavers is wholesome family fare (penis-chomping, eye-gouging and Zoe’s boobs abound): it is to say, however, that Rubin and crew are smart and savvy enough to know that raunchy humor doesn’t have to be braindead…there’s nothing in this film that comes close to approximating the inanity of the aforementioned SyFy tripe, no matter how hard they try.

As should be plainly obvious, I was quite taken with Zombeavers: as a directorial debut, it’s even more impressive. While not everything worked, the elements that really worked tended to soar: the last fifteen minutes of the film are so damned perfect that I, literally, cheered. Since the film ends with a direct, clever set-up for a sequel (there are other things in the woods besides beavers, after all), I’m hoping that Rubin can capitalize on what worked here and come roaring out of the gate on the next one. After all: any guy that can see the inherent, soul-shattering evil of those flat-tailed, buck-toothed bastards…well, he’s pretty alright in my book.

2/5/15: Bad and Breakfast

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amateur films, Aya Cash, bed and breakfasts, butterfly collector, Charles Borland, cinema, couples' therapy, cuckoo clocks, Curtis Shumaker, D.W. Young, dark comedies, David Ullmann, eccentric people, escaped mental patient, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, Happy House, horror, horror films, Kathleen McNenny, Khan Baykal, Marceline Hugot, Mike Houston, mother-son relationships, Movies, muffins, Oliver Henzler, quirky, silly films, Stivi Paskoski, The Happy House, writer-director-editor

Some bad films make it incredibly easy to dislike them. Perhaps it’s a consciously made bad film masquerading as something “genuine,” always one of my pet peeves: there’s a world of difference between an Ed Wood film, for example, and anything that bears the “Sharknado” moniker. Sometimes a film is just offensive and awful, so tone-deaf and mortally stupid that it manages to miss the area marked “edgy satire” and land square in the one marked “trash dump.” In some cases, a bad film will be so irritating, whether thanks to migraine-inducing filmmaking, ludicrously terrible performances or a truly wretched script, that it becomes a complete chore to sit through: this is the kind of film where you check your watch a dozen times during the opening credits, each time secretly hoping for some respite via space-time anomalies. Even though “bad” films can be lots of fun to watch, there are some bad films that do deserve to be pilloried.

Sometimes, however, there’s just no joy to be found in beating up on a bad film. While some bad films are willfully obnoxious, like out-of-control brats throwing epic temper tantrums in public places, other bad films end up being much more sympathetic. Like the aforementioned films of Ed Wood, some films have the very best intentions but end up falling short on just about every level possible. While I always feel a little bad about saying anything negative about movies like this, I also don’t believe in participation awards: a well-intentioned bad film is still a bad film, at the end of the day. In that spirit, writer-director-editor D.W. Young’s The Happy House (2013) is a very bad film, albeit one with very good intentions, sort of like a sweet, slightly lop-eared puppy that just can’t stop crapping on the floor.

Wendy (Aya Cash) and Joe (Khan Baykal) are a feuding couple who opt for a relaxed weekend at a remote bed and breakfast in order to work on their relationship. The problems with their relationship become quite evident once it’s revealed that Wendy detests b&bs: this was another one of Joe’s ideas that just bulldozes through any and all of her protests, leading us to believe that this weekend might be a little doomed from the get-go. Once the couple get to the titular inn, The Happy House, they quickly settle into a very strange situation. The b&b’s owner, Hildie (Marceline Hugot) seems incredibly nice and bakes a mean muffin but there’s something just a little off about her silent, lurking son, Skip (Mike Houston). There’s also something decidedly odd about her multiple-page list of rules and regulations, the violation of which will result in “three strikes” and consequences that Hildie and Skip laugh away with the rather sinister “you don’t want to know.”

As they settle in to the Happy House, Wendy and Joe meet the inn’s other resident, an eccentric Swedish butterfly collector, Nils Hverven (Oliver Henzler), who’s hunting for an exceptionally rare specimen that’s been sighted in the immediate area. He’s also managed to acquire two strikes, thanks to his apparent disregard for the rules, and he cautions the couple to be careful of the “consequences.” After Nils earns his third violation, the lepidopterist seems to disappear, leading Wendy and Joe to believe that Hildie and her son might be responsible. When the friendly, local deputy (Curtis Shumaker) shows up with news about a dangerous, escaped mental patient, however, a new wrinkle is added to the proceedings. With danger around every turn, Wendy and Joe must figure out who can be trusted and who should be feared unless they want their stay at Hildie’s bed and breakfast to become permanently open-ended.

As I mentioned earlier, The Happy House is not a good film in any way, shape or form. The problems are legion: the acting is uniformly bad, ranging from stagey to under-stated but never once realistic or genuine; none of the performers have any chemistry together, whether playing a couple or a mother and son; the script is tone-deaf and awkward; the “twists” are both obvious and silly; the incredibly odd musical score is jarring and never seems to fit the mood of the film at any given point and the film feels about 20 minutes longer than it needs to be, even though it clocks in around 80 minutes. In fact, one gets the distinct impression that The Happy House might have made a fairly entertaining/amusing short (the film’s “twist” happens at the 30 minute mark and would have formed a fairly decent conclusion to a short) but becomes tedious when unnecessarily stretched to full length.

As far as the acting goes, I assumed that the cast consisted of new and amateur performers but was surprised to find that this wasn’t really anyone’s first rodeo: in particular, I was surprised to find how many films Hugot had under her belt since her performance here was so literal and blunt…there were few scenes that didn’t feel as if she were delivering precisely memorized lines rather than actually inhabiting the character. I have to assume that much of the blame for this lies with Young, especially looking at some of these actors’ past performances.

Despite how bad Young’s feature debut ends up being, however, there’s something that’s so earnest and oddly likable about the film that I feel kind of bad for not liking it. While the film’s script is a complete mess (by the time I realized the film was supposed to be a dark comedy, it was already half-way over), the core idea isn’t bad and there seems like some genuine potential here. Even though none of the actors have any chemistry together, there are individual moments that hint at what might have been possible, under different circumstances. I’d also be remiss if I didn’t point out that the film’s poster is pretty damn fantastic: I wish that level of production design and attention to detail had been present in the actual film but it at least indicates that there’s a vein of real potential running below the mess, even it rarely springs to the surface.

Ultimately, The Happy House was not offensively terrible nor was it the equivalent of fingernails on chalkboard. You could tell that lots of love went into the production, even if the overall results were decidedly south of successful: these appear to be folks who are genuinely interested in making movies and there’s nothing wrong with that whatsoever. On the other hand, The Happy House was, easily, one of the worst films I’ve seen in several months and there’s just no way to sugarcoat that. While I’ll never tire of coming up with new ways to slam something like, say, The Comedy (2012), I definitely don’t get that same enjoyment from this. As long as Young and company keep trying, I’ll keep giving them a shot: I’m not sure if this will ever be “diamond in the rough” territory but, sometimes, you just gotta give the nice guys another chance.

10/20/14 (Part One): Dumb of the Dead

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31 Days of Halloween, Amsterdam, Ben Saunders, Carlo Boszhard, cinema, co-directors, Dutch film, Erwin van den Eshof, film reviews, films, foreign films, Gigi Ravelli, horror, horror movies, horror-comedies, Kill Zombie, Martijn Smits, Mimoun Ouled Radi, Movies, Nadia Poeschmann, Noel Deelen, rom-zom-coms, Sergio Hasselbaink, set in Netherlands, silly films, Tijs van Marle, Uriah Arnhem, Yahya Gaier, zombie apocalypse, zombies

By the time Martijn Smitt’s and Erwin van den Eshof’s Kill Zombie (2012) hits the three-minute mark, it has managed to pull off quite a hat trick and check just about every zom-rom-com cliché possible off the list: Beginning in the “wrecked” present before jumping to the pre-infection past? Check. Put-upon hero who works in an office, has a party-hard, worthless brother, a shitty boss, vulgar co-workers and an unrequited crush on the cutest girl in the office? Check infinity. Quest to save the hero’s “girlfriend” which will ultimately lead to the revelation that someone else actually, you know, like likes him? Check. Pseudo-dramatic moments as former friends/loved ones must grapple with becoming zombies, only to heroically save their friends with their last breathes? Well, maybe those last two revelations don’t take place before the credits have finished rolling but trust me: if you’ve seen at least one zombie-comedy in the last 15 years, you’ll be able to connect all of the dots pretty easily. New to the game? Well, sit back and let the “surprises” roll in, then, my friends: if this is your first race, you could probably pick a worse horse to limp you into the finish line…but not by much, I’d wager.

If Kill Zombie! offers any innovations to the standard zom-rom-com party-line, perhaps it comes from featuring a pair of Middle Eastern leads: to the best of my knowledge, that’s a first for a zombie film, foreign or otherwise. Besides that particular bit of casting acumen, however, everything else about the film will seem distinctly old hat. Unlike similar but slightly better films, however, Kill Zombie! has one mighty big albatross hanging from its gangrenous neck: the comedy is so broad that it approaches slapstick, a tendency which wears out its welcome almost immediately. I have absolutely nothing against comedy in horror films, mind you: I do have a huge problem with categorically stupid comedy, however, regardless of where it pops up.

Take, for example, the buffoonish characters of Nolan (Uriah Arnhem) and Jeffrey (Sergio Hasselbaink), the bodyguards who end up tagging along with main hero Aziz (Yahya Gaier) and his obnoxious brother, Mo (Mimoun Ouled Radi). It’s bad enough that we first get introduced to the pair as Jeffrey is busting out some sub-Karate Kid crane kicks but he then goes on to tase himself in the face (accidentally, since doing it on purpose would be…uh…stupid?), while Nolan gets his fingers stuck in a bowling ball. Nolan ends up winning the stupidity sweepstakes, however, when he gets bitten after stopping to take a bite of cake that a zombie is face-down in. Let me repeat that: Nolan gets bitten by a zombie after stopping to eat cake that, at the very least, is thoroughly polluted by a dead, rotted body. I’ll be frank: that revelation, alone, made my eyes roll so hard that I can swear I saw the bottom of my brain. I get that somebody could have the munchies during a zombie apocalypse: when somebody tries to eat zombie-cake, however, we like to call that a “plot contrivance” in my neck of the woods. The fact that the only two black characters in the film also happen to be the two most idiotic characters is, most likely, pure bad luck but the whole thing ended up leaving a pretty bad taste in my mouth, nonetheless.

But the stupidity doesn’t stop there, friends and neighbors…far from it. We also get the character of Joris (Noel Deelen), who comes up with the brilliant idea to rob a bank in the middle of a zombie apocalypse since, he wisely figures, the cops will be busy trying to avoid getting eaten. Smart move, buddy! We have the obligatory tough-as-nails female cop, Kim (Gigi Ravelli), who manages to go all weak-in-the-knees whenever the milquetoast Aziz looks her way because, you know, she’s a girl and stuff. We get a near-reference to Scarface’s (1983) oft-quoted “little friend” bit that gets cut off just so that the film can remind us how cliché said quote is, which is the equivalent of wearing a band t-shirt “ironically.” We get a celebrity cameo appearance when Dutch soccer star Ben Saunders shows up, as himself, only to be accidentally killed by one of the characters: since I actually had to look the guy up, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that this little joke might just whiz right over a few folks’ noggins, bar the soccer fans in the house.

Most of the time, the film lurches from one mildly familiar setpiece to another terribly familiar one. A pair of zombie-fighting brothers by the name of Barachi appear, for a moment, seemingly so we can get a video game-inspired scene of them killing the undead and then disappear just as quickly. The film throws in a “twist” regarding the ultimate character of Aziz’s “beloved” Tess (Nadia Poeschmann) that seems to be more about “slut-shaming” her (How dare she like guys?! How dare she not fawn all over the “nice guy” who’s spent the entire film trying to save her, even though she doesn’t really even know who he is?!) than actually advancing the plot in any meaningful way. There’s the aforementioned “self-sacrificial” moment that’s so familiar, by this point, that it almost seems as iconic as shooting zombies in the cranium and a completely tedious, unnecessary and unpleasant scene where two of our protagonists bludgeon a third, who’s become a zombie, for what seems like five solid minutes: the scene is shot from the “dead” friend’s perspective and winds up being the only disturbing bit in the entire film, for reasons that the filmmakers probably didn’t intend.

From a filmmaking perspective, Kill Zombie! is competently made, for the most part, although the special effects and makeup tend to be very hit-or-miss. From an idea standpoint, however, everything about the film is thoroughly pedestrian and run-of-the-mill. Even the Amsterdam location ends up being fairly negligible: the film may as well have taken place in Chicago, Nepal, the bottom of the ocean or deep space, for all the difference it ends up making. The whole thing ends with a “twist” that sees our intrepid survivors gearing up to take on a new menace: as Aziz squares off, ready for battle, he snarls, “I hate vampires,” before launching himself into the fray. I’ll be honest: I don’t really have anything against vampires, per se, but if Smits and Eshof are involved, I’m pretty sure that I could learn to hate them, too.

 

7/29/14 (Part Two): Party in the Front, Zemons in the Back

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actor-director, April Mullen, April Mullens, Brandon Jay McLaren, Brittany Allen, Christopher Lloyd, cinema, curses, Dead Before Dawn, Dead Before Dawn 3D, demons, Devon Bostick, film reviews, films, horror, horror films, horror-comedies, Kevin McDonald, Kyle Schmid, Martha MacIsaac, Movies, Rossif Sutherland, silly films, Tim Doiron, zemons, zombies

There’s very fine line to walk with horror comedies between silly and savvy. On the one hand, you have films that trivialize the horror aspects in favor of broad, slapstick-inspired comedy (Saturday the 14th (1981), any of the Scary Movie films). These films are more of a “general appeal” type of deal, something to appeal to folks who have a general knowledge of horror films but are more interested in a wacky comedy. On the other hand, you have films that acknowledge, yet subvert, horror movie tropes and clichés, films like Return of the Living Dead (1985), Parents (1989), Shaun of the Dead (2004), Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006), Botched (2007), Tucker & Dale vs Evil (2010) and Detention (2012). These films are all comedies, in various ways, yet none of them skimp on the actual horror aspects: these are for the genre fan looking for a little “light” entertainment.

Actor/director April Mullens’ Dead Before Dawn 3D (2012) falls somewhere between those two extremes, although it tends to tilt more towards the silly than the savvy side. While the film is generally good-natured and goofy, similar to a live-action Scooby Doo adventure, it features enough genuine horror elements to (mostly) satisfy the fans, including plenty of gruesome deaths and some really decent makeup effects. If the film wasn’t quite as silly and the acting wasn’t quite so broad, Dead Before Dawn would actually be a pretty savvy little film. As it stands, it’s always entertaining even if it has a tendency to overstay its welcome.

Short brush strokes get us to the meat of the story as quickly as possible. Our hero is young Casper Galloway (Devon Bostick), a college student who works in his grandfather Horus’ (Christopher Lloyd) occult shop: the very same shop where Casper’s father died following an encounter with a mysterious urn. Casper’s friends and associates are the usual suspects in films like this: Prof. Duffy (Kevin McDonald) is the high-strung authority figure; Burt (Rossif Sutherland) is Duffy’s creepy hot-dog obsessed teaching assistant; Lucy (Brittany Allen) is the brain-dead blonde cheerleader; Patrick (Kyle Schmid) is the douchebag quarterback; Dazzle (Brandon Jay McLaren) is the token black friend; Becky (director Mullen) is the quirky gal pal who happens to be dating Burt; Charlotte (Martha MacIsaac) is the girl who Casper secretly pines for, who just happens to be dating the quarterback; and Seth (writer Tim Doiron) is the kooky best friend who happens to be pining for cheerleader Lucy.

This mob of clichés all converge on the occult shop after grandpa Horus leaves for the weekend to receive a lifetime achievement award, leaving his well-meaning but rather ineffectual grandson in charge. Casper is only given three rules (Keep the store open during business hours, lock the store after you leave and stay away from the mysterious skull urn that killed Casper’s father) but manages to break the biggest one (hint: it’s not the one about the front door). He ends up unleashing a curse which, thanks to his friends’ inability to take the situation seriously, takes a very specific form: anyone that the group makes eye contact with will later kill themselves and be resurrected as a zombie/demon hybrid (a zemon), which can turn others into “zemons” via a bite. With this established, we’re off to the races.

As all of the group’s associates and loved ones (including Prof. Duffy, Burt, Casper’s mom and the entire football and cheer squads) turn into rampaging zemons, Casper and his friends must figure out how to end the curse before the entire town is destroyed. Since they’re all multi-taskers, the group will also take the opportunity to fall in love with each other, have fights and do all of the things that young college students would normally do…when not fighting demon/zombie hybrids, of course. The whole thing culminates in a slackadaisical ending that’s ripped straight from Wishmaster (1997) yet still gives hope for a sequel (but of course).

Here’s the thing about Dead Before Dawn: it’s got tons of heart. The film is extremely genial and easy-going and it seems pretty clear that everyone involved was having a blast during filming. When the over-the-top acting works, it works extremely well: particularly great is Kyle Schmid (also from the TV series Copper) as the obnoxious Patrick and filmmaking duo Mullen and Doiron as Becky and Seth. All three actors display not only well-honed comedy chops but enough individual characterization to distinguish themselves from the masses. Much less successful, unfortunately, is Devon Bostick as the hero. Casper is a thoroughly unlikable character and his whining, pewling behavior is only exacerbated by Bostick’s awful performance. Dead Before Dawn could’ve been so much better with an actual lead but Bostick is one of the worst things about the film. Equally terrible, unfortunately, is Lloyd, who surely gives one of the worst performances of a long and generally respectable career. He’s never seemed to be one for phoning-in a performance but it’s painfully clear how uninvested he is in the role.

The rest of the acting, unfortunately, is pretty negligible, although Brandon Jay McLaren gets one great scene where he describes how he ended up getting infected (it involves the concept of a “dickey” and is easily one of the film’s biggest laugh moments). For the most part, the rest of the cast is extremely broad, bordering on the amateurish, which tends to drag everything down to a pretty pedestrian level. Add to this the fact that the effects work is exceptionally shoddy (one particular explosion might have been better rendered on MS Paint) and the film definitely has the feel of a self-funded goof. It must also be noted that the film has one of the single worst sound mixes I’ve ever heard: I ended up constantly riding the volume control, since the dialogue needed to be maxed out, which then rendered the effects at airplane levels of intensity.

Despite some pretty fundamental issues, however, and the nagging feeling that the film runs out of steam well before it crosses the finish line, there’s a lot to like about the movie. There’s a consistently high level of energy that gives the film a gonzo quality, which helps glide over some of the rougher patches. Schmid, Mullen and Doiron are great comic actors and handily steal any and every scene that they’re in (not necessarily the most difficult task when faced with Bostick, to be honest). Some of the film’s more loopy comic moments, such as Burt’s hotdog obsession, are nicely realized and actually funny, although other elements, such as the actual “rules” behind the zemons are distressingly under-developed.

With the current glut of horror-comedies on the market, it’s quite likely that Dead Before Dawn will get lost in the shuffle. While the film certainly isn’t the worst of the bunch, it does have several rather substantial flaws that hobble it from the get-go (the first ten minutes, in particular, are excruciating). For understanding viewers with a little time to lose, however, Dead Before Dawn is a fun diversion, although it’s certainly nothing to write home about.

4/29/14: Dance Like You Mean It

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A Mighty Wind, Australia, Australian films, auteur theory, ballroom dancing, Barry Fife, Barry Otto, based on a play, Baz Luhrmann, Bill Hunter, Christopher Guest, cinema, Clerks, comedies, dancing competitions, feature-film debut, Film auteurs, film festival favorite, film reviews, films, Fran, Gia Carides, Golden Globe nominee, independent films, John Hannan, magical-realism, mismatched couples, Moulin Rouge, Movies, multiple award nominee, outsiders, Pan Pacific, Pat Thomson, Paul Mercurio, Peter Whitford, quirky, romances, romantic films, Romeo + Juliet, Scott Hastings, silly films, Sonia Kruger, Strictly Ballroom, Tara Morice, The Great Gatsby, ugly ducklings, upbeat films, writer-director

Everyone’s gotta start somewhere and, for writer-director Baz Luhrmann, that somewhere was Strictly Ballroom (1992), the quirky, film festival darling that launched his career. From there, of course, Luhrmann would go on to make ridiculously extravagant, lavish films like Romeo + Juliet (1996), Moulin Rouge (2001), Australia (2008) and The Great Gatsby (2013), films which seemed to be defined as much by their excesses and eye-popping production values as for their characterizations and storylines. Strictly Ballroom, however, still stands as Luhrmann’s most human picture: despite it’s silly, slapsticky energy, this is a modest little film about small-town people trying to realize their dreams, a relatable nugget that’s low on flash but high on energy and fun. Although Luhrmann would go on to “bigger and better things,” his follow-up films, to this point, have managed to be neither as human nor as charming as his debut. Sometimes, the simplest things really are the best.

As the title insinuates, Strictly Ballroom is about the world of competitive ballroom dancing or, at the very least, the Australian equivalent of said sport. Our dashing hero, Scott Hastings (Paul Mercurio), seems to have it all: ample talent; beautiful partner, Liz (Gia Carides); loving, supportive mother and father (Pat Thomson and Barry Otto) who run a dance studio; and the admiration of people like Barry Fife (Bill Hunter), the President of the Australian Ballroom Confederation. Scott is a champion and seems a lock to win the Pan Pacific Championship, the dance title that he’s had his eyes on for pretty much his entire life. Everything, it would seem, is coming up Milhouse for Scott…until, of course, it doesn’t.

During a dance competition, Scott and Liza get boxed in by Scott’s smarmy dance nemesis, Ken Railings (John Hannan) and his partner. Feeling trapped and in a panic, Scott loses his head and, instinctively, busts out some decidedly non-regulation, “modern dance”-type moves. His parents are stunned, the Ballroom Confederation is disgusted and his partner is in tears: how could Scott possibly do this to all of them? Feeling suddenly free for the first time, however, Scott refuses to back down, determined to win the Pan Pacific competition with his new-found moves, whether or not the judges, his family or his partner think it’s kosher. Scott finds a kindred spirit in Fran (Tara Morice), a beginning dance student who shares Scott’s disdain for the rules and seems more than a little sweet on him. At first, of course, Scott treats her like the vain, egotistical jerk he is: he blows off her initial request to dance with him with the haughty exclamation, “A beginner has no right approaching an open amateur.” Luckily for all involved, Scott eventually gets over himself and begins dancing with Fran, first in secret and then in public, to the massive consternation of his micro-managing mother.

Everything comes to a head at the Pan-Pacific Grand Prix (where else?), as the various dancers splinter and regroup in various iterations. Skullduggery abounds: Fife and Scott’s mom scheme to get him hooked up with Tina Sparkle (Sonia Kruger); Scott’s father and his friend, Wayne (Pip Mushin) scheme to thwart Fife’s plan to kick out Scott; Scott tries to win back Fran, after realizing his colossal idiocy and former partner Liz schemes to get away from Railings, who’s revealed himself to be an obnoxious drunk. As the madcap carnival swirls to a conclusion, all involved will learn the most important of life-lessons: it’s not whether you win or lose that matters but whether you had fun doing it.

As one of the films that helped kick off the independent movie surge in the early ’90s, Strictly Ballroom will always have a little spot carved out in the hearts of film fans. Unlike many films of that era (fuck you very much, Clerks), the film actually holds up fairly well today, coming across as a spiritual predecessor to Christopher Guest films like Waiting for Guffman (1996), Best in Show (2000) and A Mighty Wind (2003). Like Guest’s movies, Strictly Ballroom isn’t a particularly sharp or mean film: for one thing, the sweet romance between Scott and Fran is too front and center, while the dastardly machinations by the villainous Fife are too broad and silly to have much menace. It’s also clear that Luhrmann, for whatever reason, feels some genuine affection for his characters and doesn’t want to poke too many holes in them: even Scott’s mom, who can sometimes seem like a bush-league, dance studio Cruella De Vil, is given enough backstory justification to explain many of her more questionable actions.

I’ve never really warmed to any of Luhrmann’s post-Strictly Ballroom films (I haven’t even bothered to see The Great Gatsby, although I’ll get around to it some day), although I distinctly recall seeing Romeo + Juliet in the theater and thinking it was a good, but not great, retelling of the old chestnut. For the most part, I find Luhrmann’s films to be the very definition of “style over substance,” particularly the ridiculous excesses of Moulin Rouge!, although Australia is just as over-stuffed and silly, in its own way. Strictly Ballroom is a much more down-to-earth, character-based effort, however, possibly because it was an adaptation of one of Luhrmann’s stage plays. Whatever the reason, this is one of the few Luhrmann films where the actors don’t feel like set dressing, living props only around to show off the consistently impressive production design.

Strictly Ballroom is not, of course, a particularly original or unique film: it manages to hit pretty much every single beat that you would expect from this kind of light, romantic comedy, right down to the marginalized parent who swoops in at the eleventh hour to save the day. That being said, the film is still full of lots of fun, energetic moments: one of my favorite bits was the ridiculous smooth-jazz, instrumental version of Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time that scores the montage scene where Scott (unsuccessfully) auditions a small army of replacement partners. The film is full of nifty little touches like this, perhaps hinting at the overly busy, baroque productions that Luhrmann would later make his calling card. At the beginning, however, he was a quirky, slightly off-center indie filmmaker with a keen interest in exploring some of the odder inhabitants of his native Australia. He may have become a household name with films like Moulin Rouge but I can’t help wishing he’d give us another one like Strictly Ballroom, instead. There are already plenty of big, gaudy, loud films in the world: a few more with a little heart couldn’t hurt.

3/24/14: The S.S. Low Expectations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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