8/16/15 (Part One): A Little Stake, A Lotta Whine

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Alex Karpovsky, Anna Margaret Hollyman, awkward films, bad boyfriends, cinema, commitment issues, Dakota Goldhor, dark comedies, Dustin Guy Defa, film reviews, filmed in New York, films, hipsters, horror-comedies, independent films, indie films, indie horror film, Jason Banker, Jason Selvig, Jerry Raik, Juliette Fairley, Max Heller, Melodie Sisk, Movies, obnoxious people, Onur Tukel, rom-com, romances, set in New York City, sex comedies, Summer of Blood, unlikable protagonist, vampires, Vanna Pilgrim, Woody Allen, writer-director-actor-editor

On paper, multi-hypenate filmmaker (he writes, directs, produces, edits and stars) Onur Tukel’s Summer of Blood (2014) seems like a pretty winning idea: take the neurotic, relationship-based comedies of Woody Allen but insert a vampire protagonist. Et voila: instant horror-comedy goodness! There’s obviously a rich vein to be mined here: imagine one of Allen’s schlubby, lovable losers trying to navigate the choppy waters of not only a terrifying dating scene but also their newly acquired vampirism. If you think about it, the comedy almost writes itself.

In practice, however, Tukel’s Summer of Blood is actually quite a pain in the ass (or neck, if you prefer the punny version). This has less to do with the oftentimes awkward, amateurish performances from some of the cast than it does with the film’s one towering problem: not only is Tukel’s Erik a thoroughly obnoxious, odious jerk, he’s also a massively unlikable, irritating protagonist. As portrayed by S.O.B.’s resident auteur, Erik is a tone-deaf, ridiculously self-obsessed hipster nitwit, a constantly schticking human hemorrhoid who’s never funny, sympathetic or, for the most part, remotely interesting. While the film that surrounds him has its own issues, Tukel’s Erik is the super-massive black hole at the center that sucks the good stuff right into oblivion.

We first meet our hapless “hero” as he and long-suffering girlfriend, Jody (Anna Margaret Hollyman, much better than the film requires), are having one of their customarily awkward dinners at their favorite outdoor restaurant. Jody proposes to her schlubby, commitment-phobic beau only to be summarily rejected: not only is it “cliche” to propose at a restaurant, it’s too “post-feminist” for the woman to propose. Since this little routine has been going on for some time, Jody finally gets fed up and ends up leaving with an old friend, Jason (Jason Selvig). On their way out, Jason offers some pretty valuable advice: “Shave, button up your shirt and get a fucking job.” Well played, Jason…well played.

Turns out that Jason does have a job, although he applies himself as little as humanly possible. He works in an office of some kind where his one and only friend, Jamie (Alex Karpovsky, who’s always a breath of fresh air) tries to keep him on the right side of the boss, Carl (Max Heller). For the most part, Erik just uses his time in the office to hit on comely co-worker, Penelope (Dakota Goldhor, turning in a truly baffling performance). When she spurns his advances due to his age and “not being her type,” Erik swipes a photo from her desk and proceeds to jack off in the bathroom. If you thought romance was dead, you’d better think again, pardner.

After Jody breaks up with him, Erik goes on a trio of awkward, mostly unsuccessful blind dates (all at the same restaurant, natch), two of which end with him getting summarily rejected after saying some truly stupid things. He does manages to seal the deal with one young lady, however, although the thoroughly unspectacular sex (in the most bored way possible, she keeps imploring Erik to go “deeper,” “harder” and “faster,” none of which he’s capable of doing). She only does “great sex,” however, so our hero gets the heave-ho here, as well.

While wandering the streets of his hip, New York neighborhood (Bushwick, natch) one night, Erik happens to bump into the mysterious, debonair Gavin (Dustin Guy Defa). After another awkward, schtick-filled encounter, Gavin bites Erik on the neck, turning him into a child of the night. Rather than be overly concerned, however, Erik is actually kinda over-joyed: he feels great, he’s more confident, can hypnotize his stereotypical Jewish landlord into letting him stay for free and, most importantly, can now fuck like some kind of Roman god. Using his new “powers,” Erik returns to each of his previous “strike-outs” and proceeds to knock their socks off…and turn them into vampires, of course.

As Erik adjusts to his new lifestyle, a lifestyle that includes vampire threesomes, feasting on stoners in the park and being an even bigger jerk at work, he finds himself constantly nagged by one little issue: turns out he really, really misses Jody. In fact, he might actually be in love with her, after all. With only Jason standing between him and presumed happiness, Erik must use all of his vamp skills to try to win Jody back. Can a vampire ever find true love? Only in New York, baby…only in New York.

For the most part, Summer of Blood is a pretty typical, low-budget horror comedy: the film looks okay (the frequent blood-letting is well-done), the camera-work is decent (cinematographer Jason Banker is actually the writer/director behind Toad Road (2012), one of the very best, most ingenious films I’ve seen in the last several years, although his work on S.O.B. certainly isn’t revelatory) and the actual storyline is kind of intriguing. The acting ranges from pretty good (Hollyman and Karpovsky are definitely the best of this bunch) to much less impressive (Goldhor brings such a weird energy to Penelope that I could never figure out if she was disgusted by Erik’s frequent advances or actually flirting with him and the two hipsters that Erik runs into are the very definition of non-actors), with most performances falling in the “decent” spectrum.

As mentioned earlier, the single biggest, critical issue with Summer of Blood ends up being our protagonist, Erik: to put it bluntly, any scene he’s in is a chore to sit through, which becomes a bit of an issue when he’s in every single scene. Erik is never anything more than an intolerable shitheels, a whining, obnoxious jerk who’s endless self-awareness and constant schtick gets old by the three-minute mark and then just keeps going and going, like some kind of Hell-spawned Energizer Bunny.

In any given scene, at any given moment, Tukel’s verbal diarrhea is so overwhelming that it’s impossible to ever focus on the content of any particular scene or moment. He finds a guy dying in the street from a slashed throat, he does a stand-up routine. He runs into a couple of hipsters, he riffs on how he looks like Jerry Garcia. He has an orgy with his three vampire ladies, we get schtick about how he’s not a misogynist because he genuinely likes having sex with multiple women at the same time. To make it classier, however, he lets one of the vamps read from Ginsberg’s “Howl.”

The entire film becomes one massive, never-ending bit of (largely unfunny) schtick, some of it so moldy that it’s practically vaudevillian. It’s pretty obvious that Tukel modeled the film after Woody Allen’s oeuvre and, as stated earlier, there’s nothing wrong with that idea whatsoever. There’s no denying that Woody can be a bit of a “schtick-up” guy, himself: he’s also pretty well-known for portraying the kinds of neurotic asses that most people wouldn’t willingly associate with in the real world. For all that, however, Allen is still able to make his characters at least somewhat likable: he’s a schlub but he’s our schlub, dammit.

The problem with Tukel’s performance is that Erik begins the film as an off-putting creep and finishes that way: there’s no arc, no “dark night of the soul,” no sort of internal change, no notion that anything that transpires has any sort of effect on him whatsoever. Oh, sure, he talks about how he’s a “changed” man at the end but the revelation is immediately given the raspberry by the film’s ridiculously flippant final moment. I’m not sure if Tukel actually meant Erik to come across as a lovably shaggy rogue or if he actually meant to portray him as a hatefully obnoxious dickhead: whatever the intent, the end result is a character that wears out his welcome in three minutes and then sticks around for another 83. Talk about the guest from hell!

The real disappointment with Summer of Blood is that the film isn’t devoid of good ideas. In fact, the ultimate observation about vampirism and commitment issues (Erik doesn’t want to turn Jody into a vampire because then he’d be “stuck” with her for all of eternity, rather than just her lifetime) is a really sharp one and could have been spun into something much more thought-provoking, even within the context of a silly sex comedy. There are moments during the film, such as the great scene where a dejected Erik tries to “comfort” strangers on the subway, that are genuinely funny: the key here, for the most part, is that they’re the ones where Tukel gives his motormouth a rest and just lets his filmmaking do the talking.

I didn’t hate Summer of Blood, although I won’t lie and say that I particularly liked it, either: I’ve seen plenty of worst films, both micro and mega-budget. For the most part, the constant, unfunny schtick just wore me down, like being trapped with an incredibly tedious observational comic in a stuck elevator. I still think that the idea of mashing together Woody Allenesque comedy and vampires is a good one, even if Summer of Blood makes it seem as natural as mixing oil and water. No need to wear your garlic necklaces for this one, folks: Onur Tukel’s Summer of Blood is all schtick, no bite.

6/7/15 (Part Two): The Heart and the Loneliest Hunter

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A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, addicts, Alex O'Flinn, Amirpour, Ana Lily Amirpour, Arash Marandi, atmospheric films, Bad City, based on a short, black and white film, black-and-white cinematography, cinema, death, Dominic Rains, dramas, drug addiction, drug dealers, evocative, fantasy, father-son relationships, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, French New Wave, ghost town, horror films, Iranian-American, isolated communities, Jim Jarmusch, John Hughes, loneliness, Lyle Vincent, Marshall Manesh, Milad Eghbali, moody films, Movies, Mozhan Marnò, romances, Rome Shadanloo, Sam Kramer, set in Iran, Sheila Vand, skateboarders, spaghetti Westerns, street urchin, stylish films, vampires, writer-director-producer

Billed as “the first Iranian vampire Western,” writer-director-producer Ana Lily Amirpour’s A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014) is an endlessly fascinating debut, a thoroughly confident horror-art piece that manages to turn its grab-bag of cinematic influences into something effortlessly cool. More Dead Man (1995) than Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), Amirpour’s film throws gorgeous black and white cinematography, nods to the French New Wave, German Expressionism, the holy trinity of Jarmusch, Bergman and Jeunet and the ’80s youth flicks of John Hughes into a blender and hits “puree.” While the results aren’t perfect, AGWHAAN is still a stunning feature-film debut from an amazingly talented new filmmaker and a necessary addition to the existing bloodsucker canon.

Amirpour’s debut (based on an earlier short) concerns the various residents of the Iranian town of Bad City. A virtual ghost town, Bad City appears to be inhabited solely by drug addicts, prostitutes, pimps/pushers, hustlers and the odd street urchin, here and there. Our humble hero, Arash (Arash Marandi), is a hustler who looks like he stepped straight out of East of Eden (1955): with his white t-shirt, blue jeans, omnipresent sunglasses and vintage muscle car, he’s a classic rebel without a cause. His father, Hossein (Marshall Manesh), is a pathetic junkie who owes a wad of cash to the local pimp/dealer, Saeed (Dominic Rains). For his part, Saeed is a philosophical, if thick-headed, thug who isn’t above taking Arash’s car as partial payment for his dad’s debt, while ruling his “girls” with an iron fist. One such “employee” is Atti (Mozhan Marnò), the sad-eyed, thirty-year-old prostitute who plies her trade on the barren, empty streets of Bad City, overshadowed by the towering oil derricks in the background.

As these various sad-sacks go about their repetitive routines, a new force emerges to shake up the status quo: a mysterious, silent young woman (Sheila Vand) has taken to stalking the streets, doling out death to any who cross her path. When the vampiric girl puts a permanent end to Saeed, Arash seizes the opportunity and attempts to fill the void left by the drug dealer. As Atti and the mysterious girl form a bond, however, Arash finds himself similarly drawn to the enigmatic figure. What does the young woman really want? What does the future hold for Bad City and its shadowy residents? One thing’s for certain: if you have to be out after dark, be sure to stay far, far away from the girl walking home alone…your very life may depend on it!

Lush, hazy, hypnotic and vaguely hallucinatory, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is the kind of film that you wrap around yourself like a cozy blanket, consciously giving yourself up to its warm embrace. While the pacing and visuals often bring to mind a perfect synthesis of Jim Jarmusch and Ingmar Bergman’s respective styles (the scene where the Girl skateboards down the center of the deserted street is framed in a way that turns her into the spitting image of Death from the iconic Seventh Seal (1957), while the film’s numerous long takes and relative lack of forward momentum handily recalls the aforementioned Dead Man), Amirpour’s influences are far more wide-reaching than something as simple as “Indie 101.”

Rather, Amirpour has taken a range of different styles and influences and made them all work towards a common goal: in this case, the goal being the film’s all-encompassing sense of foreboding atmosphere. Along with the more traditional indie influences, there are several strong, direct nods to the ’80s youth films of John Hughes (the lovely scene involving Arash, the Girl, a mirror ball and the White Lies’ song “Death” is one of the best examples but certainly not the only one), as well as a strong Spaghetti Western undercurrent (the wonderfully evocative score, locations and sense of big, empty spaces is pure Leone, through and through). On paper, Amirpour’s debut might sound like a rather head-scratching gumbo but the results speak for themselves: thanks to the Iranian-American filmmaker’s deft touch, everything comes together beautifully, giving the film the sort of unifying style befitting something like Jeunet’s exquisitely-crafted fantasias.

While the evocative score and beautiful cinematography (Lyle Vincent, who also shot the upcoming Cooties (2015), is an absolute wizard with a camera) help to give the film a sense of dreamy unreality, the acting keeps everything from dissolving into just another morass of pretty images. Marandi is a suitably cool, aloof “antihero,” while Manesh brings enough genuine regret to his portrayal of the sad-sack, aging junkie to make his character decidedly more complex than he might have been. Rains brings an interesting, almost empathetic quality to his portrayal of the sleazy pimp/dealer, calling to mind a less outwardly insane version of Gary Oldman’s iconic Drexl.

Most impressive, however, are Mozhan Marnò as the melancholy Atti and Sheila Vand as the titular vampire. In both cases, the actresses do a tremendous amount with as little as possible: Marnò is able to express entire worlds of sadness and sensuality with nothing so much as a half-smile and a look from her piercing eyes, while Vand’s portrayal of the Girl is nothing short of ethereal and completely alien. In many ways, Vand’s Girl is similar to Scarlett Johansson’s Female in the similarly eerie Under the Skin (2013): other-worldly, curious, nearly mute and of constant interest to the males around them, the Girl and the Female could certainly share a common bloodline, even if their ultimate goals differ wildly.

Amirpour’s hazy film is many things (seductive, sad, odd, cool and hypnotic being but a few) but it also manages to nail one of the most important aspects of any horror film: when necessary, the film is also genuinely scary. Although the Girl’s attacks have a tendency to rely on some decidedly stereotypical musical stings and old-as-the-hills “scary voices,” the pacing, framing and sense of impeding dread are all masterfully executed, resulting in some great, unique scares. The scene where the Girl stalks a young street urchin is a virtual master-class in how to build and execute: the fact that Amirpour also manages to throw in a clever reference to Fritz Lang’s child-killer classic M (1931) is only frosting on a very tasty cake.

Despite being thoroughly impressed by A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, there were a few elements that let a bit of air out of the proceedings. The aforementioned vampire stereotypes are problematic only because the rest of the film is so clever: at times, relying on the same stock clichés as other vamp films does more to pull Amirpour’s film down than it does to unite it with a common cinematic sensibility. I was also less than on board with the more verite, handheld-shaky-cam style of certain scenes, usually those involving Hossein’s drug use and withdrawal pains. Not only was the handheld style a distinct step-down from the gorgeous cinematography but the “drug scenes” had a different flow and pace that jarred against the rest of the film’s more dreamy atmosphere. In truth, all of these moments could have been cut without damaging the rest of the meticulously crafted narrative.

All in all, Amirpour’s debut feature is a real showstopper, the kind of film that kicks in the door and practically demands your undivided attention. While her debut was set in Iran (although filmed in California), Amirpour’s next film will, apparently, be a “dystopic love story, set in a cannibal compound, in a Texas wasteland,” featuring the combined talents of Keanu Reeves, Jim Carrey, Giovanni Ribisi, Jason Mamoa and the always amazing Yolonda Ross. In other words, it looks like Amirpour is going to continue her fearless genre-splicing. I’m willing to wager that her next feature will grab the world by the scruff of the neck and shake it silly. If it’s half as impressive as her debut, I’ll be the first person in line.

1/28/15: Murnau, Nosferatu and the Big ‘What If”

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award winner, based on a true story, Begotten, behind-the-scenes, black-and-white cinematography, Bram Stoker, Cary Elwes, Catherine McCormack, Chris Wyatt, cinema, Count Orlock, Dan Jones, dark comedies, Dracula, drama, E. Elias Merhige, eccentric people, Eddie Izzard, experimental filmmaker, F.W. Murnau, fantasy vs reality, film festival favorite, film reviews, filmmaking, films, Fritz Arno Wagner, Henrik Galeen, horror, horror films, insanity, John Malkovich, legend vs reality, life imitating art, Lou Bogue, Max Schreck, Movies, multiple award nominee, Nosferatu, obsession, period-piece, revisionist history, Ronan Vibert, set in the 1920s, Shadow of the Vampire, silent films, Steven Katz, stylish films, Suspect Zero, Udo Kier, vampire, vampires, Willem Dafoe

If you think about it, it’s been quite the short, strange trip for writer/director E. Elias Merhige. He first came to the public eye with the notoriously grungy, splatterific Begotten (1990), the kind of experimental art film that Kenneth Anger made his domain in the ’60s. Rather legendary among daring genre aficionados, Begotten was the kind of thing that got passed around on bad VHS tapes and posted online in various pieces: equal parts Anger, Lynch, Jodorowsky and Cronenberg, Begotten will never be anyone’s idea of a good time but it ended up being a great calling card for Merhige, since it gave him an unbeatable underground buzz. After following this up with a couple music videos for Marilyn Manson during his “Antichrist Superstar”-era, Merhige would return to the big screen for his most accomplished film, the multiple award nominee/winner Shadow of the Vampire (2000).

After Shadow of the Vampire became a hit, it seemed only natural that Merhige would capitalize on the momentum but it took him four years to follow it up: arriving in 2004, the “serial-killer-killing-serial-killers” flick Suspect Zero had an appropriately pulply, intriguing logline but the film, itself, was universally derided as being strictly by-the-numbers filmmaking. With only one short since that time, Merhige appears to have dropped off the map, leaving us with one semi-legendary experimental film, one bonafide neo-classic and a multiplex fizzle. Despite this incredibly small body of work, however, Merhige has staked out his own unique place in the history of genre filmmaking: any career that includes Shadow of the Vampire could, reasonably, be considered a roaring success.

Existing as a bit of cheeky revisionist history, Merhige’s sophomore movie takes a look at the filmmaking process behind legendary German auteur F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922). In a gonzo little bit of “what if”-ism, the film posits that Murnau (John Malkovich) actually used a real vampire in the role of Count Orlock, the mysterious, ratlike and boundlessly creepy Max Schreck (Willem Dafoe). Keeping the information from his clueless cast and crew, Murnau seeks to make his vampire film the most realistic it can be, possibly in response to being denied the rights to shoot an adaptation of Dracula by Bram Stoker’s estate.

Murnau passes his “star” off as an eccentric master actor who completely submerses himself into his roles, to the point where he “assumes” the identities of his characters. The cast and crew are to address Schreck as “Count Orlock” and are advised to give him a wide berth when not filming: as Murnau tells them, he has little interest in their conversations, praise or questions, since he’s “chasing his own ghosts.” While this strikes Murnau’s group (consisting of producer Albin Grau (Udo Kier), writer Henrik Galeen (Aden Gillett), cinematographer Wolfgang Muller (Ronan Vibert), assistant camera-man Paul (Nicholas Elliot) and lead actor Gustav von Wangenhein (Eddie Izzard)) as odd, they’re all used to Murnau’s eccentric way of working and just think it’s all just a way to build mood, like his insistence on shooting on location, rather than on a studio set.

As plans go, however, using a real vampire in your vampire film isn’t the greatest and the iron-fisted Murnau ends up running into one set-back after another, not the least of which is the fact that cranky, old vampires make really shitty actors: as Schreck continues to ad-lib, screw up scenes, ask for motivation and complain about countless bits of minutiae, the ever-hassled director watches his project increasingly fall to bits. Under the gun from his high-strung, bottom-line-oriented producer and in constant fear of having the project taken from him, Murnau can’t deal with any more setbacks. After the vampire snacks on Wolfgang, forcing Murnau to replace him with the zany Fritz Arno Wagner (Cary Elwes), however, the exasperated director has had just about enough: after all, the selfish vampire wasn’t even considerate enough to “take the script girl,” as Murnau complains…he went right for the “essential personnel.” As the rest of the cast and crew begin to suspect something’s rotten in Denmark, Murnau and Schreck continue to feint, verbally spar and test one another’s resolves. Things may look dire but Murnau is nothing if not dedicated and he’s determined to make his movie, even if it kills everyone around him…and that this rate…it just might!

From the very beginning, Shadow of the Vampire is a fascinating, visually sumptuous and ingeniously edited film: indeed, the opening 5-minute credit sequence, consisting of various murals and drawings, is like its own mini-film, giving a brief overview of not only key events in the general Dracula mythology but also thematic and underlying elements that will inform the film, itself. I specifically mention the editing, since Chris Wyatt’s work here is some of the most impressive I’ve ever seen: the way in which black and white shots blend into color cinematography is eye-popping but just as impressive are the subtle transitions, the ways in which the still images appear to have their own sense of movement, of life. It’s one of the very few times while watching a film that I’ve actively singled out the editing but it’s so masterfully done that it becomes another aspect of the film, rather than the “invisible” part of the filmmaking machine.

The sense of invention displayed in the opening is omnipresent in the film, leading to some genuinely delightful, weird moments: Murnau’s visit to a stylish sex club/drug den is a highlight, even if the scene, itself, makes little sense and Schreck’s underground “lair” is a marvel of strange production design that appears to include either an enormous spider-web or a gigantic iris…either one would fit, even if neither one make much sense, in context. In some ways, the production design reminds of Ken Russell, in particular his Lair of the White Worm (1988) and the filmmakers make terrific use of their creepy, atmospheric castle location.

As mentioned, one of the film’s most delightful visual quirks is the pronounced separation between the “real world,” which is in vibrant color, and the “filmed world,” which is in black and white. In some case, the film transitions between the two effortlessly, as if the black and white footage is being colorized before our eyes. Other times, we go in the opposite direction, as if the life and color is being bleached from the real world: not a bad symbol for vampirism, if you think about it.

As good as the film looks, however, it’s the extraordinary cast that really takes this all the way. Shadow of the Vampire is filled with vibrant, interesting characters, from Eddie Izzard’s wonderful take on the lunk-headed Gustav to Catherine McCormack’s “flapper with attitude” Greta to the dashing, utterly ridiculous creation that is Elwes’ Fritz Arno Wagner. We get the ever dependable Udo Kier doing his usual take on fastidious distraction, while Aden Gillett does some great work as the ever patient, ever indulgent writer.

The MVPs here, however, are undoubtedly Malkovich and Dafoe, two of the most interesting actors in the history of the medium. While I initially felt as if the roles should have been switched (in my head, I definitely see Dafoe as the dictatorial director, while Malkovich seems like a lock for the creepy, eccentric vampire, although this could also be based on recent roles), there’s no doubt that each actor makes the character his own. Our first sight of Malkovich, wearing tiny black goggles and endlessly cranking his camera, is a real doozy and sets the stage for everything that follows: he’s a constant blur of mischievous energy, all nervous twitches, half-smiles and sudden, angry shouting. The bit where he coaches Gustav through a scene only to force him to cut himself with a knife, for “reality,” is superb and his performance in the finale is suitably unhinged.

While Malkovich is always “Malkovich” in the film, regardless of how awesome that might be, Dafoe is completely unrecognizable as Schreck, which ends up being a nifty hat trick for an actor with such a defined persona as his. Nonetheless, he’s superb: feral, rat-like and even a little sympathetic, at times, Schreck is a magnetic personality and it’s impossible to tear our eyes from him. While the makeup work is absolutely uncanny, it’s the subtlest things that really draw out Dafoe’s performance: in particular, he does so much with just his eyes and posture (our first sight of Schreck, stiff-armed and with talon-like fingernails, is absolutely made by Dafoe’s creepy, weird, stiff-legged gait, makeup notwithstanding) that it immediately reminds us of what a truly talented actor he is. Not surprisingly, Dafoe would go on to be nominated (and win) multiple times for his performance, including an Oscar Nomination which he ultimately lost to Benicio del Toro for Traffic (2000). There’s something completely otherworldly about Dafoe’s performance which helps sell the character of Schreck part-and-parcel.

One of the most interesting aspects of the film is how explicitly humorous it is. While not, technically, a comedy, so much of the film is precipitated on some truly funny scenes (the bit where they struggle to get Schreck to deliver his lines is priceless, as is the truly great scene where Schreck complains about how “unrealistic” Dracula is) that the humor definitely becomes a noticeable part of the film. In certain ways, Shadow of the Vampire melds the behind-the-filmmaking-scenes humor of something like Living in Oblivion (1995) with a more traditional vampire narrative, resulting in a rather unique little combination. Combine this with the way the film effortlessly blurs the lines between fact and fiction (every one of the characters are actually based on real people, even if their individual actions are decidedly suspect) and Shadow of the Vampire ends up being a nicely original, individualistic piece of work.

Ultimately, Shadow of the Vampire is extremely well-made but it’s also a whole lot of fun, which may be the most important factor. While he doesn’t entirely turn his back on his debut (the black and white attack on Greta definitely feels like something from his Begotten-era), Merhige comes up with an intelligent, sassy and, at times, suitably outrageous, little bit of revisionist history that should be right up any genre fan’s alley. When the film is firing on all cylinders, it’s a real marvel. Here’s to hoping that Merhige returns from the woods, one of these days, and that he brings something like Shadow of the Vampire with him: witty, evocative and a real treat for film fans (especially fans of Murnau’s actual Nosferatu), this is one of those rare films that feels a lot older than it actually is, in all of the best possible way.

10/10/14 (Part Two): Vampires Are For Lovin’

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31 Days of Halloween, Anna Mouglalis, cinema, erotic films, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, horror, horror films, Jean Rollin, Jess Franco, Jim Jarmusch, John Cassavetes, Josephine de La Baume, Kiss of the Damned, lovers, Michael Rapaport, Milo Ventimiglia, Movies, passionate love affairs, Riley Keough, romances, Roxane Mesquida, sisters, stylish films, The House of the Devil, vampires, vampires vs humans, voice-over narration, writer-director, Xan Cassavetes

When done well (ie: subtly), modern homages to previous generations of films can be fun and entertaining little morsels, helping to remind modern audiences of by-gone eras of cinema that may have fallen by the wayside in the present. Ti West’s The House of the Devil (2009) was a nearly perfect throwback to ’70s-era “Satanic panic” films, while Jason Eisener’s Hobo With a Shotgun (2011) was the single best grindhouse/classic Troma film that never saw the light of day. These films are successful because they’re able to accurately recapture the particular feel of these types of films without slavishly recreating and copying their individual high points: they might not be wholly original but they’re not necessarily stuck in FanServiceLand, either.

On the other hand, homages that end up as mere carbon copies of older films are significantly less interesting, if not necessarily any less fun to watch: Scott Sander’s blaxploitation goof, Black Dynamite (2009), ended up feeling decidedly slight and pandering by the end, despite having a surplus of energy and some genuinely fun setpieces. At times, it almost seemed as if Sanders and crew were trying to recall specific movies rather than an overall vibe, which has always struck me as unnecessarily reductive. The best homages should remind you of a specific era but shouldn’t, as far as I’m concerned, remind you of a specific film: that gets into territory that’s dangerously close to “re-imaginings” and remakes.

Writer-director Xan Cassavetes, daughter of renowned independent filmmaker John Cassavetes, takes a bit of both approaches with her feature-film debut, Kiss of the Damned (2012). For most of its running time, the film does an admirable job of recalling the gauzy era of ’60s-’70s-era Euro-vampire flicks, the kind of films made famous by exploitation auteurs like Jean Rollin and Jess Franco. There’s the same attractive, if hazy, cinematography…the emphasis on doomed romance and orgasmic, sweaty, passionate lovemaking…the pulsating electronic score…the emphasis on mood and atmosphere over narrative linearity…the leisurely, almost lazy, pacing. At times, however, Kiss of the Damned feels distinctly light-weight and rather unnecessary: it often seems as if Cassavetes is merely conducting a style experiment, similar to the one that Gus van Sant did with his shot-for-shot remake of Psycho (1998). It also doesn’t help that Kiss of the Damned bears more than a passing similarity to Jim Jarmusch’s extraordinary new vampire film, Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), right down to the reappearance of a “bad” sister. Had Jarmusch’s film not been so impressive, it’s quite possible that Cassavetes’ film would have hit me a little harder.

The film begins with our two lovers, Djuna (Josephine de La Baume) and Paolo (Milo Ventimiglia, from TV’s Heroes), as the meet for the first time at a video store. Djuna is a vampire, Paolo is broodingly handsome…it’s obviously love at first sight. Paolo rushes after Djuna when she leaves and ends up coming back with her to her massive mansion in the countryside. Things are looking pretty good for ol’ Paolo until the fun stops: just as Djuna seems to really be getting into it, she fearfully tosses a very confused Paolo out on his keister. Smitten, Paolo heads back to Djuna’s place the next night but she won’t even let him in: instead, the pair end up passionately making out through the latched door (they both must be equipped with lips like anteaters), sighing and blushing as if their very hearts will burst from the intensity of it all.

By the third night, Paolo gets Djuna to let him in and she fills him in on the story: she’s actually a vampire and has a tendency to go “full-Drac” when she’s in the mood (shades of the Schrader version of Cat People (1982)): she can’t see Paolo anymore because she loves him too much (already?) and doesn’t want to devour him in the throes of passion. Sensing a bit of a brush-off, Paolo calls foul but Djuna is determined to prove it to him. To that end, she has Paolo chain her to the bed (for his safety) and the two go at it like determined rabbits. Turns out that Djuna isn’t pulling Paolo’s chain, however: as she gets more and more frisky, her fangs grow and her eyes turn a brilliant turquoise. Seeing this, Paolo does the only thing sensible and unchains Djuna, more than willing to give himself to her, completely. Dog will hunt and vamps will bite, of course, so in no time, Djuna is riding Paolo to ecstasy as she bloodily rips open his jugular vein.

From this point, the film becomes a tad familiar: Djuna needs to school Paolo in the ways of his new lifestyle and the two continue to develop and strengthen their relationship. Djuna even takes Paolo to meet her friends, always a bit of a stumbling block in any fledgling romance, especially when your friends are all vampires and your new sweetheart is a blood-sucking newbie. All looks good for our lovers but things are never as simple as they seem and trouble rears its pixieish little head in the form of Djuna’s sister, Mimi (Roxane Mesquida). Mimi, for lack of a better word, is a real shithead: she’s selfish, immature, violent, sneaky, spiteful and vindictive: in other words, she’s the perfect foil for a pair of wannabe star-crossed lovers like Djuna and Paolo. While our gentle vamps feast on woodland deer for their blood source, Mimi pretty much eats anything that moves, man, woman or child (one of the film’s most impressive setpieces involves Mimi taking home a couple for a threesome and then hunting them in the woods like little animals).

Djuna tries to keep her little sister in check, even going so far as to appeal to her “landlord,” Xenia (Anna Mouglalis), who seems to be some sort of leader for the local vampire community. No one really seems to listen, however, except for Paolo, and Djuna becomes more and more desperate as Mimi’s blood-lust gets stronger and stronger. As Djuna and Paolo fight for their love, Mimi does everything she can to tear apart the couple, setting everyone involved on a crash-course with an unsuspecting human population who are much closer to their eventual extinction than they could possibly imagine.

As mentioned above, Kiss of the Damned is absolutely a case of style over substance, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing: after all, the films that Cassavetes references, such as Rollin’s The Shiver of the Vampire (1971) and Franco’s Vampyros Lesbos (1971), were also classic examples of style over substance. For most of its running time, Kiss of the Damned is quite lovely to look at, although the image can, on occasion, get a bit too blown out. There are some really nice shots on display here, as well, such as the meticulously framed images looking up from the bottom of Djuna’s baroque staircase. The score is particularly good, easily holding its own with historical scores from that era. The acting, like the filmcraft, is also pretty consistent: while some of the performances can lean towards over-the-top or slightly hammy, this is no different from performances in the original films. Euro-horror films of the ’60s and ’70s were not normally known for their realistic, award-winning acting: if anything, the best of these film featured performances that did their best not to trip up the film, which is sometimes the most that you can hope for.

My biggest issue with the film, despite a few specific criticisms (character motivations often seemed spurious, even for this type of film and the problem of Mimi is resolved in a way that is pretty much the definition of deus ex machina, although it does allow for a pretty great resolution to the film) is that there’s not enough individual personality here. Unlike something like Hobo With a Shotgun or The House of the Devil, I was never able to fully suspend my disbelief with the film: it always felt, at least in the back of my head, as if the filmmakers were simply checking specific beats off a sheet. Due to this, it was often difficult for me to engage the film in anything more than an academic way: it was easy to critique the film’s craft (which is pretty damn good, might I say) but more difficult to pull anything thought-provoking out of the film, itself.

Part of the issue seems to be that Paolo and Djuna’s various relationship travails never really seem to faze either of them that much: he ends up cheating on her (in a very confused bit) but it’s no big deal…she kills his friend but he shrugs it off. Too often, the pair don’t feel like a real couple but more like a fairytale, sitcom couple: we know that they’ll have mild issues for about 22 minutes but everything will be wrapped up with a bow in time for next week’s episode. While Djuna and Paolo do have a few more travails than that, mind you, the film still ends up feeling rather anti-climatic, especially with the script’s tendency to write itself into corners and then just whisk the affected parties away to safety.

Ultimately, Kiss of the Damned is a good, if less than revelatory, film, although it does make a pretty swell double-feature with Only Lovers Alive. I really admired a lot of what Cassavetes was doing here and her heart is definitely in the right place: with a more original story and more faith in her own vision, it’s not hard for me to see the film as nothing more than a stepping-stone to bigger and better things. Xan is, quite obviously, a very talented filmmaker and I can’t wait to really see her cut loose: I’m willing to wager that she’s got a film in her at least as good as Gloria (1980), if not The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976). Fans of steamy vampire films should definitely find much to enjoy here and even Michael Rapaport fans get a little love, although his performance is pretty much a glorified cameo. When Kiss of the Damned works, it works quite well, weaving an atmospheric, casually beautiful spiderweb that can’t help but ensnare its audience. When the film is just there, however, it feels so slight that one harsh breath might send the whole thing fluttering into the night sky like ashes. Cassavetes’ debut might remind audiences of the glory days of Euro-horror but I’m pretty sure it won’t make them forget any of those classics anytime soon.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

7/19/14 (Part One): Memory is a Burden

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auteur theory, based on a play, Best of 2013, Byzantium, Caleb Landry Jones, cinema, Daniel Mays, drama, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, flashbacks, Gemma Arterton, horror films, Interview With the Vampire, isolated communities, Javier Navarrete, Jonny Lee Miller, Let the Right One In, misogyny, Moira Buffini, mother-daughter relationships, Movies, Neil Jordan, patriarchy, rape, romances, Sam Riley, Saoirse Ronan, seaside resorts, the Brotherhood, The Crying Game, vampire code, vampires, vampires vs humans

If you think about it, actually being a vampire would be kind of a drag. You get to live forever but all of your friends and loved ones will be long dead, at some point, leaving you all alone (unless they’re also vampires, in which case, party on, Wayne!). You get to stay the same age forever, which would probably be okay if you were between 20-50 but would, presumably, suck if you were either a pre-teen or in your nineties. You’re pretty much constantly on the run, since normal folks probably don’t dig getting their blood drained as much as vamps dig draining it. There are also all of those codes of conduct to get through: like any secret society, there are leaders and followers…imagine keeping a middle-management job for thousands of years and then come complain about your 9-5 job. You’re also going to wind up old-fashioned and out-of-date, at some point: if you were cutting-edge in the 1700s, you’re gonna be a little passe in the 2010s. And, of course, there’s the whole “daylight turns you into ashes” thing: forget about those sunny afternoon picnics!

While these issues with vampirism have, presumably, existed since the very advent of the idea, too few films actually deal with this on any significant level: for the most part, vampires are either seen as blood-thirsty monsters or as tragic, romantic, Byronic figures. Leave it to acclaimed writer/director Neil Jordan, then, to help rectify the situation a little. Fans of vampire cinema will probably recall that Jordan was responsible for one of the more elegant, esteemed vampire films of the ’90s, Interview With the Vampire (1994), which briefly touched on the huge gap between those who embrace vampirism and those who are afflicted with it. After almost 20 years away from the fanged ones, Jordan has returned with another vampire adaptation, Byzantium (2012), based on Moira Buffini’s stage play “A Vampire Story.” While Interview was a lush, big-budget and star-packed “event picture,” Byzantium ends up being a much more elegiac, low-key and subtle, if no less beautiful, film. It’s a world of difference from Interview but, ultimately, I another masterpiece for the Irish auteur.

Byzantium deals with the life and times of young Eleanor (Saoirse Ronan) and her mother, Clara (Gemma Arterton), who seems to be no more than a decade older than her daughter. As it turns out, both young women are actually centuries-old vampires, on the run from the patriarchal vampire Brotherhood and keeping as low a profile as they can in the modern era. This, of course, means a life spent as refugees, never getting too comfortable in any one spot, lest they blow their cover or run afoul of the omnipresent Brotherhood. Clara exists in the same manner that she did before being “turned,” which means she sells her body and exists on the blood from her unsuspecting “clients.” Eleanor, on the other hand, tries to exist in much the same way as any teenager might: she takes classes, strikes up friendships with young men and tries to stay on the good side of her temperamental mother.

Fortune seems to smile on the pair when they end up back at the small, sea-side village where Eleanor spent her pre-vampire days in an orphanage. While at her “day job,” Clara makes quite an impression on a lonely sad-sack of a guy, Noel (Daniel Mays), who invites Clara and Eleanor to come stay with him at the sprawling, dilapidated resort hotel known as Byzantium. Eleanor, for her part, strikes up a friendship with a pale, wan young wine-bar waiter named Frank (Caleb Landry Jones). As mother and daughter each pursue their relationships, for very different reasons, it seems as if the nomadic pair will finally be able to find some semblance of normalcy in their ageless lives. This, of course, is not to be: when Clara’s violent past comes crashing into their present, she must do everything she can to protect her and her daughter from the predatory, misogynistic Brotherhood. Will mother and daughter find “true love” or is the real onus of vampirism the eternal loneliness and isolation that these creatures must endure?

In many ways, Byzantium is a spiritual cousin to Tomas Alfredson’s exquisite Let the Right One In (2008), a compelling, beautiful and almost crushingly sad rumination on love, duty and the burdens of eternal life. The film looks and sounds absolutely gorgeous: the cinematography, courtesy of esteemed veteran Sean Bobbitt (Hunger (2008), Shame (2011), 12 Years a Slave (2013)), is consistently elegant, vibrant and immaculately composed, while the score, by frequent del Toro composer Javier Navarrete, is instrumental in establishing the mournful, elegiac tone.

Without some serious substance to back it up, however, Byzantium would still only be a beautiful, if empty, confection. Lucky for us, then, that the film ends up being another of Jordan’s jam-packed mini-epics. Truth be told, there’s so much going on in the film that it actually felt way too short at two hours: there are numerous elements, such as the extraordinarily detailed vampire backstory, that get something of short shrift in the film but that’s quite a nice problem to have…after all, how often do you walk out of a film wishing there were more rather than less? Byzantium features some very interesting notions on vampirism, not the least of which is the rather amazing manner in which vampires are “created.” While I’m loathe to spoil any viewer’s first introduction to the “turning,” suffice to say that it involves a supremely creepy shrine on a tiny, isolated island, blood-red waterfalls, bats and doppelgängers: it has to be one of the most unusual vampire origin stories I’ve ever seen and is so visually stunning that I found myself replaying the scenes multiple times. I don’t often have the tendency to “geek out” while watching films but Byzantium makes it patently impossible to not become fully invested in every aspect of the production, be it visually, thematically, or acting-wise.

Thematically, Byzantium deals with some pretty heavy subjects: the power struggle between men and women in a patriarchal society; the burden of revenge vs the higher calling of forgiveness; mother/daughter relationships; euthanasia of the elderly; the notion of women as “creators” vs men as “destroyers;” the impossible myth of true love; the way in which the time constantly informs the present; the intriguing idea of vampirism as cure for earthly illnessess…that’s quite a lot to digest in a mere two hours, especially when Jordan takes the time to develop each angle in as much detail as possible. In particular, I found myself utterly captivated by the power struggle between Clara, Darvell (Sam Riley) and Captain Ruthven (Jonny Lee Miller). Ironically enough, Clara main sin, as far as the Brotherhood is concerned, is the fact that she turned Eleanor into a vampire: women are not allowed to “create,” in the Brotherhood…only males are allowed this particular “honor.” Contrast this with the biological reality of women as the true “creators of life” and you get just a small taste of what the film is cooking up.

None of this would have the same impact, of course, if we didn’t become so invested in the characters. Luckily for Byzantium, the film is graced with a pretty exceptional cast. Ronan and Arterton are exquisite as the mother/daughter pair: Ronan’s ethereal beauty is so otherworldly that it’s pretty easy to buy her as an ageless, tormented creature, while Arterton makes Clara a completely three-dimensional character. Clara is not always the traditional “hero”: truth be told, she can frequently be an impossibly selfish, brutal, emotionless monster but she never stops being Eleanor’s mother, which gives the proceedings a rare poignancy. Jonny Lee Miller portrays the unbelievably slimy Capt. Ruthven as a bigger monster than any bloodsucker and Riley brings a quiet sense of elegance to the role of Darvell that’s as close to Byronic as the film really gets. These are not romantic characters, certainly nowhere close to the vampires in Interview, and the top-notch acting helps to sell this unconditionally.

Truth be told, Byzantium is an amazing film, the kind of beautifully made, deep experience that marks the very best cinematic experiences. There are very few filmmakers that combine languid beauty and gut-churning violence in the same way that Jordan does and Byzantium must certainly stand as a high-water mark in either instance: when the film is beautiful, it’s absolutely stunning (there are probably 300 or more “frameable”shots in the film) and when it’s brutal (beheadings are a pretty common occurrence), it absolutely kicks like a mule. Jordan knows that life is equal parts beauty and filth, however: this wouldn’t be nearly as honest without both.

As far as I’m concerned, Neil Jordan already had the kind of back-catalog that most filmmakers would give their right arm for: from The Company of Wolves (1984), Mona Lisa (1986), The Crying Game (1992), Interview with the Vampire (1996) and The Butcher Boy (1997) to Byzantium, Jordan has made a career out of elegant, difficult films. When his films have managed to break through and wedge themselves into the popular zeitgeist, as The Crying Game and Interview did, Jordan has proven that he can be just as indelible a force as Coppola, Scorsese or Spielberg. With Byzantium, Jordan may just have crafted his most exquisite film yet, which is no faint praise for such an artisan. It may have taken him a while to return to horror filmmaking but let’s hope that we don’t have to wait 20 years for the next one. Byzantium is the real deal and any fan or student of cinema, regardless of their interest in vampires, would do well to see this as soon as possible.

6/29/14 (Part One): What a Buncha Bloodsuckers

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Batiste Sornin, Belgian films, Carlo Ferrante, co-writers, Dracula, exiles, film crews, flashbacks, Fleur Lise Heuet, foreign films, found-footage, horror-comedies, independent film crew, Julien Dore, Pierre Lognay, satires, Selma Alaoui, Vampire Code of Conduct, vampires, vampires vs humans, Vera van Dooren, Vincent Lannoo, writer-director

By this point in the 2010s, it seems that we’ve seen every permutation of vampire in films that we possible could: we’ve had the vampire as tragic Byronic figure [Dracula (1931 and 1992), Interview With the Vampire (1994)], rat-like monstrosity [Nosferatu (1922), 30 Days of Night (2007)], bumbling idiot [Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995)], moony-eyed, sparkly teenager [Twilight (2008)], swinging ’70s hipster [Count Yorga, Vampire (1970), Dracula AD 1972 (1972] and even action-hero [Blade (1998)]. We’ve seen black vampires [Blacula (1972), Scream, Blacula Scream (1973)], female vampires [Queen of Blood (1966), Lady Dracula (1977)] and even non-vampires acting in decidedly vampiric ways [The Last Man on Earth (1964), Martin (1978)]. At this point, are there any vampires we haven’t seen?

Turns out we haven’t seen Belgian vampires yet, an issue which is handily rectified via Vincent Lannoo’s snarky Vampires (2010). In this particular case, writer-director Lannoo’s bloodsuckers are definitely of the more mundane variety: they don’t turn into bats or wolves, hypnotize innocent virgins or wear flared pants. There’s nary a cape to be found and there won’t be any one-way trips to Transylvania to tromp around mist-shrouded castles. What do Lannoo’s vamps do, you might ask? Well, they end up doing a lot of the same stuff that you and I do: they raise families and deal with defiant children, fall in love, fight with each other and make fun of people they consider “beneath” them. They go to school, hold down jobs (when forced to) and live in modest suburban tract homes. On the flip side, they also devour humans and turn to ash in the sunlight, so there are a few minor differences, I suppose. These are not vampires as terrifying, other-worldly harbingers of pestilence or uber-romantic, doomed poets: these are the obnoxious neighbors that you hide behind the couch to avoid whenever they come knocking at the door.

Vampires begins with an extremely funny bit that establishes the kind of world that we’re about to step into. We’re informed that the Belgian vampire community reached out to a small, independent film crew and invited them to come interview and film the community, as a way to open up understanding between humans and vampires. After the first couple of attempts fail spectacularly (some vampires are able to control their impulses better than others), we’re told that a third film crew was actually able to complete their assignment, albeit posthumously (in one of the film’s many clever bits, the film is dedicated to “Jean, Helene, Jose, Clarrise and Jerome’s arm”). In this way, Vampires parallels itself with similar found-footage concepts, such as Cannibal Holocaust (1980) and The Blair Witch Project (1999): we’re, essentially, watching the final footage of folks who are no longer with us. With this witty intro, we’re off to the races.

We’re introduced to the filmmakers’ subjects, a small family of vampires led by constantly put-upon patriarch, Georges (Carlo Ferrante). What’s piled up on Georges plate? Well, for one thing, he’s got a wife, Bertha (Vera van Dooren) who’s more “hillbilly” than European sophisticate. He has a son, Samson (Pierre Lognay), who’s managed to violate one of the only vampire taboos by sleeping with the leader’s wife and a daughter, Grace (Fleur Lise Heuet), who yearns to be human, files her teeth down, dresses in pink and has a human boyfriend. He has a contentious relationship with the downstairs neighbors, Bienvenu (Batiste Sornin) and Elisabeth (Selma Alaoui), a couple of old-fashioned vampires who are childless, slightly stodgy and entirely disapproving of their upstairs neighbors’ “wild” lifestyle. In short: Georges biggest problem is the modern malaise of “polite” society.

As the filmmakers continue to roll camera, we get plenty of insights into what it means to be a vampire in Belgium. Their “meals” are delivered by the police and consist of “undesirables” and illegal immigrants (“We’re currently having a wave of black Malians, all of them young, between 20 and 30…delicious!”). Only vampires with children are allowed to have their own homes (explaining why poor Elisabeth and Bienvenu get stuck in the tiny basement, forced to sleep standing upright in their coffins). Each vampire family lives with a human dubbed “The Meat” that provides them with continuous sustenance and no one has to work. For vampires, it’s definitely an ideal situation.

There are, of course, always flies in the ointment and Grace’s rebellion, combined with Samson’s hotheaded stubbornness, are two of the biggest ones. As things come to a head regarding Samson’s affair with leader Little Heart’s wife, Eva (Alexandra Kamp-Groeneveld), Georges and his family will need to make some big changes, some of them decidedly life-changing and rather frightening. The scariest of them, according to Georges? Why, moving to Montreal, of course! Will Georges be able to keep his family together, all while trying his damnedest to uphold the Vampire Code of Conduct (created by Count Dracula, himself)? Will Grace get her wish? Will Elisabeth and Bienvenu get a child? Will Samson ever learn to keep it in his pants? And what about the creepy, skeletal clown vampire, Ronald, that’s propped against one of the walls: what’s his deal? The answers, of course, all lie within…if you dare!

Films like Vampires live or die (no pun intended, I swear) by how insightful their commentary is, since this is, technically, a satire and not a regular-old horror film. In that regard, Vampires is pretty exceptional, finding some rather ingenious ways to blend discussions of Belgian and French-Canadian politics/mores within the context of a modern vampire family. The notion of the police “feeding” the vampires in order to take care of their own political issues is pretty biting (sorry!), as is the discussion of how humans aid and abet the undead: another great bit occurs when the family goes to buy Grace a new coffin for her “death-day” celebration (pink, of course) and we get to hear why the human coffinmaker, Jean-Paul (Julien Dore) is so willing to work with vampires. After all, who else ever buys more than one coffin in their lifetimes? A guy’s gotta eat, right? There are also some pointed insights into the vampire notion of education, which entails watching (and laughing at) gory horror films and practicing the proper way to bite victims (in a bit that closely resembles CPR training). The vampire school is held in the same location as the human school, albeit at night. As the human school administrator admits, they’ve rarely had problems with the vampires, save for the occasional spot of blood on the walls and that one kid who went missing at Halloween years ago: pretty good odds, as far as he’s concerned.

The film also attempts (and largely succeeds at) the same kind of meta-commentary that informed another Belgian pseudo-documentary, the incendiary Man Bites Dog (1992). In that film, a film crew follows around a serial killer and ends up assisting him in his crimes, unwittingly at first but more enthusiastically as time progresses. The point is pretty clear: there’s a fine line between being an unbiased observer and being an accomplish. In Vampires, we got a similar bit when the film crew observes the pen where the vampires keep their human quarry: as the humans beg the film crew to let them out, the crew refuses, on the grounds that interfering would upset the natural dynamic that they’re going for. It’s a thought-provoking notion and throws shade on a generation that would rather capture an incident on their iPhones than actually help someone: the point is as relevant today as it was back in 1992.

While Vampires is stacked to the rafters with political and social insights, there’s also plenty of room for more traditional comic beats. In particular, Grace’s desire to become a human is extremely funny (although it becomes poignant in a later scene that provides a breath of fresh air from the film’s overriding atmosphere of sarcasm), as is Samson’s generally shitty attitude: teenagers suck, vampires or not. The bit where Samson and his friend, Steve (an American who toured with the Doors, played a long gig and woke up as a French vampire, complete with accent), kidnap a mentally disabled man from a hospital (“Now we have The Meat AND The Vegetable!”) is particularly mean but leads to one of the film’s best set-pieces as the dumbass duo accidentally convert their victim into a vampire and must then chase him about in order to “put him down.” Georges exasperated response (“You really are little jerks”) should be familiar to any parent who’s ever dealt with a willfully obnoxious kid. We also get a great bit involving Grace and Samson insulting each other with increasingly hurtful insults (“Slut!…Cocksucker!…Babytooth!…Priest!!”), as well as the priceless “Gift of the Magi” bit wherein Grace only wants to become human, while her human boyfriend would love to be a vampire: oh, you crazy kids!

The acting in Vampires, especially from Georges and his family, is quite good and goes a long way towards selling the concept: if anything, everyone underplays which makes it all that much more plausible. I was particularly taken with Batiste Sornin and Selma Alaoui as the stuffy “old-schoolers.” At first, the pair seem like kind of one-note parallels to the more modern upstairs clan but become increasingly endearing and sympathetic as we learn more about them. Ferrante is excellent as Georges, bringing quite a bit of multi-dimensionality to the role, although I was always rather confused by van Dooren’s distinctly white-trash take on Bertha: it was the only performance that seemed overly goofy and over-the-top.

While Vampires works spectacularly well as a nasty little satire, it’s less successful as a first-person POV/found-footage film. Oftentimes, the perspective is confusing, making it unclear who, exactly, is supposed to be shooting the footage. We also get several flashbacks, fashioned as old-school newsreel footage, that further confound the issue: are we to believe that the film crew is somehow able to record their interviewees’ flashbacks? Color me baffled, to say the very least. There are also some tonal inconsistencies that prove a little jarring, including a truly horrifying attack on an apartment building that feels like it belongs in a different film. None of these issues are particularly deal-breaking but they certainly detract a bit from the movie’s overall impact.

At the end of the day, Vampires is an easy recommendation for fans of both vampire films and pseudo-documentaries (iffy perspective or not, the documentary aspect still comes through loud and clear and is very reminiscent of Man Bites Dog). While the film is generally easy-going and more witty than shocking, it’s still got plenty of eye-opening bits (the discussion of vampire sexuality, by itself, opens up a pretty big can of worms that includes incest, polygamy and implied pedophilia), as well as enough genuine blood and guts to satisfy the horror crowd. While it’s not always completely cohesive, Lannoo’s Vampires is always entertaining, frequently laugh-out-loud funny and often extremely insightful. If you thought that you’d seen every kind of vampire available. give Vampires a shot: these vamps may not sparkle or mention “the children of the night,” but they sure do look a helluva lot like average, everyday people. By itself, that’s pretty damned scary.

1/29/14: Some Homes are Castles

Tags

'70s films, Abby, Anne Tenney, Australian films, B-movies, Blacula, blaxploitation films, Charles Tingwell, cinema, Coastas Kilias, Darryl Kerrigan, Dracula, eminent domain, Eric Bana, feel-good films, films, happy films, horror films, independent films, low-budget films, making a stand, Mamuwalde, Michael Caton, Movies, Rob Sitch, The Castle, The Full Monty, the Kerrigans, Tiriel Mora, uplifting films, vampires, William Crain, William Marshall

Of the many, many sub-genres available in the wide world of film, I must admit a certain fondness for the blaxploitation genre. I grew up on films like Shaft, Dolemite and Across 110th Street (one of my all-time favorite movies): I’ll stack any of these films up against whatever you’ve got. Blaxploitation horror, however, was always a bit of a dicier proposition. When done poorly, you ended up with travesties like Blackenstein (which we’ll review in a future segment) or goofy romps like Abby. Upon occasion, however, there were some real gems to be found here: Sugar Hill and J.D.’s Revenge are both atmospheric little chillers and Scream, Blacula, Scream is a minor classic. The best of the bunch, however, as well as the forefather of them all was William Crain’s Blacula.

Blacula begins in a fairly typical way for an American International production (Corman is definitely a spiritual forefather to the proceedings): a dark and stormy night at Dracula’s castle. The distinguished African Prince Mamuwalde (William Marshall) has sought an audience with Count Dracula in order to request his assistance in ending the slave trade to North America; Dracula, for his part, really likes his slaves and wouldn’t mind a few more. He turns on Mamuwalde, bites him, curses him (“I curse you with my name. You shall be…Blacula!”), seals him in a coffin and walls his wife up to starve to death in the tomb. In other words, this Dracula is pretty much a colossal, racist asshole.

An inspired animated credit sequence (seriously cool, maybe one of the coolest credit sequences ever, to be honest) leads into the present day, where a couple of the most outrageous gay interior designer clichés in the history of moving pictures are purchasing several items from Dracula’s castle (a Transylvanian yard sale?). They fall in love with the coffin, even though they haven’t opened it, and lug it all the way home to Los Angeles. Once there, Mamuwalde (now Blacula) rises from his centuries-long sleep and proceeds to break fast on our friendly duo. He then stalks the streets until he accidentally runs into Tina (Vonetta McGee), who just so happens to be the spitting image of his long-deceased wife. What’s a lonely vampire to do but court this lovely creature? Turns out Tina’s friends and sister aren’t too keen on the idea, especially after some sleuthing turns up the truth about Mamuwalde’s origins (for one thing, he lies about his age). Dr. Gordon Thomas (Thalmus Rasulala) teams up with Lt. Peters (Gordon Pinset) and the LAPD and they all attempt to run the bloodsucker to ground. This culminates in a chase through a warehouse and the ultimate act of melancholy acceptance.

As far as low-budget horror films go, Blacula is certainly no worse (nor much better, in certain ways) than many others. The film is actually much less gimmicky than it may sound, functioning more as another straight-faced, if slightly unoriginal, adaptation of Bram Stoker’s classic novel than anything else. Unlike Blackenstein, the majority of the cast in Blacula are black, with the majority of the white actors portraying the police. Cultural aspects are also interwoven much more organically through the story, from Prince Mamuwalde’s origins to the fantastically funky Afro-Cuban theme song.

In fact, for the most part, the film actually comes across as very low-key and highly respectful. William Marshall portrays Mamuwalde with a tremendous amount of dignity and nobility, as truly befits a Prince, and there’s very little in the way of slapstick humor (the interior designers are about as comical as it gets). Marshall, a trained Broadway and Shakespearian actor (as well as the King of Cartoons from Peewee’s Playhouse), actually worked with Crain and the producers to give his character a back-story, which certainly helps to elevate the story into the realm of tragedy rather than exploitation. The love story also feels genuine and not tacked on, something else that ties it in more intimately with the source material.

As befits a low-budget horror film from 1972, however, all is not smooth-sailing. The makeup, in general, is pretty bad but poor Blacula’s makeup is particularly awful: he basically just grows a widows-peak and unibrow. Some of the dialogue can be pretty silly (“Vampires multiple geographically.” “It’s a goddamn epidemic!”) and the gay characters are obviously very out-moded and rather derogatory. Everyone involved came from TV backgrounds, which definitely influences the overall look of the film (think Kolchak-esque production values). Marshall is pretty spectacular in the titular role, however, and the ending packs a pretty decent emotional wallop. All in all, Blacula ends up being one of the better low-budget vampire films out there and definitely worthy of a screening. Be forewarned, however: you’ll be humming the theme song and performing “air horns” for the next week straight.

Sometimes, it takes me a while to really connect with a movie. I may watch something a few times and appreciate it but it may take me a whole lot longer to actually like it. Take Fincher’s The Game, for example: I actively hated that film when I saw it in the theater but, after watching it several more times in the ensuing years, I’ve actually begun to like the movie. Give it another 10 years and I’ll probably love it.

Some films, however, hit me immediately, going straight to my reptile brain and setting up residence in my immune system. I fell completely head-over-heels for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly when I first saw it, for example and after finishing Taxidermia for the first time, I promptly started it all over again. It’s hard to tell why some things get to me more than others. I do know one thing, however: I fell instantly in love with Rob Sitch’s The Castle and it will, in all likelihood, become one of my favorite films in the future.

The Castle is an Australian film that could, for lack of a better term, best be described as a feel-good film. Right off the bat, we’re introduced to the Kerrigan family, an ultra-lovable clan of eccentrics. There’s Darryl (Michael Caton), the resourceful, ever-optimistic patriarch and his loving, supportive wife Sal (Anne Tenney) or, as their kids say, “If Dad is the backbone, Mum is the other bones.” We also meet their kids Dale, Steve and Tracey (Stephen Curry, Anthony Simcoe and Sophia Lee, respectively) and Tracey’s husband, Con (Eric Bana, in his screen debut). Another son, Wayne (Wayne Hope) is currently serving a prison sentence, not because he’s a bad person, but because he listened to the  wrong person. There is absolutely no sense of shame as far as Wayne goes: his family loves him just as much as if he were sitting before them.

And this, friends and neighbors, is what makes The Castle so completely, absolutely magical: these people genuinely love and respect each other! Fancy that: a family unit constructed of love, support and understanding, rather than sarcasm, irony and snarkiness…the mind practically buckles at the thought! These are quirky characters, to be sure, but they never lose one iota of their wonderful innocence and charm, regardless of how strange their actions might get or how much the world attempts to crush them down. For the world will, indeed, try to crush the Kerrigans.

Turmoil comes to their small suburban paradise in the form of a planned expansion by the next-door airport (literally next-door, as in “two-feet-from-their-backyard” close). Their property, along with their neighbors’ properties have been seized under eminent domain laws and they’ve been offered a cash settlement and told to hit the road. Only problem is, Darryl Kerrigan loves his home: it may look cheap, stitched together and decidedly middle-class to outsiders but it’s where he raised his family, it’s where all of his memories are and it’s his home, dammit! He rallies his neighbors, who all pledge to put up a united front. As his neighbor Farouk (Costas Kilias) makes clear, things can always be worse: “He say plane fly overhead, drop value. I don’t care. In Beirut, plane fly over, drop bomb. I like these planes.”

When he can’t get anyone to listen, Darryl enlists the aid of the lawyer who represented Wayne, despite his lack of knowledge in constitutional law cases (“I can’t do this!” “You defended Wayne.” “And he got eight years!”) and proceeds to take the case as far as he can. Along the way, he happens to join forces with a former Queens Council barrister, a legal eagle who just may have the know-how to send the government packing. The whole thing climaxes in a thrilling courtroom dance between the barrister (Charles Tingwell) and those who would deny a man the simple right to raise his family.

The Castle is one of those films that, as mentioned above, I just fell in love with right off the bat. The humor is rapid fire and genuinely funny (blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moments include the super-thin pool table built into the too-small room and Dale’s outrageously useless inventions) and the dramatic moments actually feel real, not tagged on. The acting is absolutely impeccable, especially from Michael Caton: I not only felt like I knew Darryl but I genuinely wanted to spend time with him. This, in a nutshell, is the beauty of the entire film: this is a group of people who genuinely love and care for each other. As a family unit, they are nothing but positivity, acceptance and love. My favorite example of this comes from the family’s dinners, where Darryl constantly extols the virtue of his wife’s cooking: “What do you call this, then?” “Chicken.” “And it’s got something sprinkled on it.” “Seasoning.” “Seasoning! Look’s like everybody’s kicked a goal!” Moments like this could come across as silly and treacly in the wrong hands but the film is so pitch-perfect that it all comes across as sweet rather than cloying.

In fact, the absolute best compliment that I can pay The Castle is that I really didn’t want it to end. I could have probably enjoyed the Kerrigan’s exploits for another two or three hours but the 85 minutes I spend with them was way too short. I was going to compare The Castle to another go-to feel-good movie of mine, The Full Monty (a comparison which the box art even takes pains to mention) but I honestly believe that The Castle is the far superior film. The Full Monty, as great as it is, still has a tendency to manipulate and play with our emotions and expectations. The Castle, on the other hand, just presents a group of really likable characters and asks you to come along for the ride: that’s an invitation I’ll accept anytime.

1/9/14: Upstate Vacations and Old Age

Tags

Al Pacino, Alan Arkin, B-movies, bad films, Christopher Walken, cinema, dark comedies, films, Gallowwalkers, gangsters, growing old, gunfighters, horror films, horror westerns, Movies, so-bad-it's-good, Standup Guys, undead, vampires, Wesley Snipes, Westerns, wish-fulfillment, zombies

When I’m watching movies, I usually take notes. It’s a habit I picked up in film school and it’s stuck with me. I find it useful to be able to look back on my original thoughts about a film after a second viewing: it’s also been useful as far as this blog goes.

As I watched the Wesley Snipes horror/Western Gallowwalkers, I found myself making several notes. Not as many as some films, mind you, since I spent a lot of the time staring at the screen in slack-jawed wonder. Gallowwalkers is not what could be considered a good film. It might be a “so-bad-it’s-good” film but even that’s up for debate. Rather than pen an actual review of the film, I thought that I might just post my notes verbatim. Sometimes, it’s just best to let your id do the talking. Here, then, are the various thoughts that passed through my head last Thursday:

— “The problem with the damned is they don’t stay down.” — Stupid. Why? Does the devil keep misplacing them?

— the silly blonde wigs are ridiculous

— why are they in the tunnels fighting vamps? This is a video game.

— “The gateway to Hell is no place to raise a child.” Well, duh.

— confusing narrative jumps around everywhere

— the film makes less sense as it goes along

— mostly anonymous, masked bad guys skinning people’s faces to wear as their own

— “Forgive me Father, for I have skinned.”

— one character wears two skinned lizards on his head, the tails hanging down the back of his head like limp horns…wow

— the little boy saves Snipes’ life and all he says is, “Kids.” As in, “What’re you gonna do with them?” What an ungrateful shit.

— Snipes kills his partner to “prevent him from bleeding to death,” then laughs about it…what an asshole!

— the Resurrection Rock idea is cool, actually

— end credits are very cool: black and red cartoon/shadow images…most entertaining part of film

— I wish Snipes’ skunk-colored goatee would get an end credit

Standup Guys belongs to a very special, usually rather odious little sub-genre: cinematic big-wigs in their twilight years. As a rule, these films present past matinee-idol caliber stars but place them in situations that the filmmakers feel audiences are clamoring for: growing old. Past examples of this would be Space Cowboys (Clint Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland and James Garner getting old in space), On Golden Pond (Henry Fonda and Katherine Hepburn grow old together) and Red (Bruce Willis, Helen Mirren and Morgan Freeman getting old fighting spies), while more recent examples include Grudge Match (Robert de Niro and Sly Stallone getting old in the ring) and Last Vegas (De Niro, Freeman, Michael Douglas and Kevin Kline getting old in Vegas).

There’s something inherently sad about watching big stars (especially big action stars) in the twilight of their careers. We all know that Hollywood is like a real-life version of Logan’s Run (although I think that the cutoff age nowadays is probably 25: 30 is practically geriatric in modern films) but it often seems that older actors exist simply to get cut down to size: we want to be reminded that these icons are not only fallible but also due to kick the bucket one day. The worst of these kinds of films traffic in maudlin sentimentality, turning formerly treasured roles into old-age caricatures (look how cute and grumpy Clint is! Aww…I think de Niro needs a nap!), operating on the worst kind of fish-out-of-water gimmicks.

Standup Guys features Christopher Walken, Al Pacino and Alan Arkin as former best friends and gangsters growing old. As with most modern-day Pacino films, ol’ Al pretty much just stomps, growls, mugs and jives his way through the film, coming across as a much older, much more obnoxious version of his Frank Slade character from Scent of a Woman. Despite being dialed all the way to “Hey-OH!,” Pacino actually provides some nice moments, including a truly moving graveside eulogy that actually seemed heartfelt, although I still got tired of him pretty quickly. Poor Alan Arkin shows up about halfway through, has some nice scenes and exits stage left before we can really get used to him. As such, it’s pretty much up to Walken to carry the film, a task he’s more than up to.

If Standup Guys has anything to recommend it, that would definitely be Christopher Walken’s awesome performance as Doc. Walken is, easily, the heart and soul of the film. He underplays everything beautifully, allowing for some true emotion to shine through. When he got tough, Walken was terrifying, easily rising to the psychotic heights of his youth. The great thing about the performance, however, was that Walken seldom felt it necessary to there. For the most part, he played Doc as an aging, sweet, moral man who just happened to be a gangster. As strange as it sounds, Walken’s performance in this film may just be in my top 10 performances of his ever: he’s that good.

Ultimately, Standup Guys ends up being a pretty silly, rather inconsequential film. There’s a pretty inordinate amount of wish-fulfillment in the film (old guy has a threesome with two young women and leaves them begging for more; old men become ass-kicking vigilantes; only the good guys can shoot straight; et al), along with plenty of bits that make imperfect sense, at best. Peel back the many layers of this little onion, however, and you end up with one little fact: Walken has seldom been better. His rapport with Pacino feels easy and natural: these seem like lifelong friends. The ending is actually very good and emotionally strong (more wish-fulfillment but it works) and the score/soundtrack is uniformly great, filled with lots of upbeat soul and R & B tracks.

As far as “tough guys get old” films go, you could definitely do worse than Standup Guys. Here’s to hoping Walken gets something else in short order that uses him to as good effect as this did.