Category Archives: Movies

Cinematic October

 

First off, sorry about not posting yesterday. I awoke with aterrible migraine and between the pain and the light-headiness after the medication took effect very little creative brainpower remained.

October 2021 is shaping up to be quite a cinematic one for me. I kicked off the month with Venom: Let There Carnage, wasn’t great wasn’t terrible. Tonally uneven and bit choppy like the previous film in that franchise.

This weekend it is No Time to Die the final Daniel Craig James Bond film. Craig started with Bond in Casino Royale and is hands down my favorite Bond. While some in his series have been disappointments other have been stellar.

The weekend after Bond will belong to The Last Duel a medieval story inspired by actual events starring Jodie Comer, Matt Damon, and Adam Driver. Directed by the incomparable Ridley Scott if the script is up to snuff it will be a masterpiece otherwise it will simply look terrific.

After the blood and guts of medieval combat we swing to the blood and guts of far future combat with Dune and Denis Villeneuve’s attempt to bring this massive and dense novel to the screen. After his SF films Arrival and Bladerunner 2049 I have some faith that this director can approach the material with the intelligence.

October will close, as it should, with horror and the release of Last Night in Soho, a horror film from celebrated director Edgar Wright and starring Thomasin McKenzie and an actress famous for portraying a Thomasin, Anya Taylor-Joy. From the trailer is appears the film splits it time between swinging 60s London and the present day in a disturbing tale of possession.

All in all, this month looks to be exciting.

 

 

My SF/Noir Vulcan’s Forge is available from Amazon and all booksellers. The novel is dark, cynical, and packed with movie references,

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Spooky Season I: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

 

I kicked off Spooky Season 2021 watching 1974’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a foundational film in the slasher genre and one that I had never seen before. (I must confess of the various sub-genre of horror slashers are among the least like by me.) Made for the equivalent of 700,0000 dollars today, TTCM is a very low budget exploitive movie that had surprisingly little gore or explicitly depicted violence/ It is also in my eye quite dull, uninteresting, and generally unworthy of viewing.

Five young adults, couples Sally and Jerry, Pam and Kirk, along with Sally’s brother Franklin, a wheelchair user, drive is rural part of Texas after reports of graverobbing to ensure that Sally and Franklin’s grandfather’s grave is not among the violated. afterwards they visit the family homestead, long abandoned, and after becoming separated one by one fall victim to a local family of cannibals one of, Leatherface, murders and dismembers the victims with a chainsaw.

Directed, produced, and co-written by Tobe Hoppe, TTCM makes the most of its limited budget, shooting locations, and cast and could have been a far more interesting movie. Its essential flaw is that the five central characters lack any real sense of character. Of these young people in peril the only defining characteristic I can recall from last night’s viewing is that Pam believes in astrology. Beyond that I can’t tell you anything about each of them as a person, other than the cinematic cliches of being quite dim about entering strange buildings uninvited and refusing to go to authorities when people go missing in the wilds at night. This lack of character or personality ultimately means a lack of caring as people stumble blindly into their doom. Rather than a sense of tragedy from unforeseeable events I experienced only boredom and irritation at their actions and dialog. Luckily the movie runs a brief but seemingly interminable 83 minutes.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is currently streaming on Shudder as one of their ‘essentials.’

My SF/Noir Vulcan’s Forge is available from Amazon and all booksellers. The novel is dark, cynical, and packed with movie references,

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Bucking the Genre: Promising Young Woman

 

After the dissolution of the studio system and the abandonment of the Production code the 1970s witnessed an explosion of subgenres of film that had previous been forbidden more graphic sexuality, violence, and nudity changed cinema from studio productions to exploitive independent movies. Perhaps the most exploitive subgenre to emerge from this cinematic chaos was the rape-revenge movie.

In this subgenre a woman after surviving a sexual assault discovers hidden reserves of strength and becomes a force for vengeance, sometimes solely against her assailant and sometimes against men in general. The movies often ended with final showdowns where she triumphs, often lethally, against her original attacker. Rape-revenge movie is different from movies that utilized a woman’s sexual assault to motivate the protagonist to finally act against the story villain by centering the woman, or sometimes women, experience instead of using her trauma as mere motivation for someone else. Often these movies are very exploitive, using social commentary and feminism as excuses for onscreen explicit violence and nudity.

Promising Young Woman is without a doubt a rape revenge film, the trailers made that much clear, but unlike the vast majority of the genre PYM doesn’t promote the trope that trauma instills growth but rather unflinching it depicts trauma as it is so often in reality, something that shatters lives and personality leaving the person broken and incomplete.

At the film’s opening Cassie, the protagonist, spends her weekend nights playing at being too drunk to stand and when some man takes her to his home to, let’s be blunt, rape her, she drops the sham intoxication and confronts him. Cassie’s life is devoid of friends and joy, she is already broken by the experiences of her backstory. Everything changes after a chance encounter with a former classmate who brings the knowledge that the assailant that escaped any form of justice has returned to town. Cassie switches from random revenge to precise, calculated vengeance against the people that enabled the assault. However, in the course of her revenge Cassie discovers new information that set her on a much darker much more violent path.

In most rape-revenge movies the filmmakers are caught between two terrible paths when forced to depict the sexual violence at the heart of their story. They can depict the terrible events more faithfully and risk traumatizing and repelling their audience or, and this is the case is the exploitive side of the genre, they can titillate with the violence, playing to dark male fantasies. Emerald Fennell, Promising Young Woman‘s writer and director did neither. Rather than show us she restricted our experience to hearing the attack. A brilliant move that sidestepped and exploitive titillation and provided the audience with the horror of what we are capable of imagining. Fennell kept her film and script grounded with a reality we can believe in rather than one of glorified and improbable violence. The ending, fitting with her approach of the subject matter, is dark and with only a glimmer of catharsis. The film’s second act is perhaps is greatest magic trick, inducing in Cassie and the audience a false sense of security that so perfectly mirror the real-life experiences of far too many.

Cary Mulligan’s portrayal of Cassie is nuanced and even when Cassie’s life seems happier with a new dawn possibly breaking her performance contains the tragedy that always exist just under her skin. Like her namesake Cassandra, Cassie is living a tragedy with an inescapable fate that bears down on her like a freight train.

Promising Young Woman is currently playing on HBO.

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Why I Prefer the Theatrical Cut of Aliens

 

Seven years after Alien burst upon the scene and spawned countless imitators and knockoffs the James Cameron helmed sequel Aliens arrive for a fresh round of terror and action.

The version released to theaters in 1986 ran a total of 137 minutes, that two hours and 17 minutes making it a very long film for theatrical distribution. The more over two hours a film runs the fewer screenings a theater can screen in a single day. In 1991 an extended version running twenty minutes longer was released on laserdisc with both editions available on the Blu-ray boxed set collection. Writer/Director Cameron has stated that his preference is for the extended ‘Director’s Cut’ version of the film.

When I first saw the extended cut on DVD/Blu-Ray I agreed with Cameron but over time I’ve found that my preference has become for the theatrical cut.

In the making of documentaries packaged with the Blu-ray release Cameron reports that when the film came in longer than the studio preferred time and technology hampered going through the entire film and trimming scenes here and there to shorten the running time. In 1986 editing was still a physical processed of cutting and splicing film as non-linear editing had not yet become the industry standard. His producer and at the time wife Gale Anne Hurd suggested and entire reel of the film depicting the colony of Hadley’s Hope and the discovery of the alien vessel, and the parasite eggs could be dropped without damaging the narrative. That’s exactly what Cameron did.

It’s the introduction of the reel that I find doesn’t really work and it all comes down to Point of View.

In Alien it is not clear at all that Ripley is the protagonist of the story until late in the film. Perhaps as early as Dallas’ doomed foray into the airduct but certainly by the reveal of Ash’s true nature do we understand that Ripley is our real focus. Part of the terror of Alien is because we haven’t had the protagonist clearly defined, we are uncertain who is ‘safe’ due to storytelling conventions.

Before the first frame flashes past our eyes, before we have gotten our popcorn and taken our seat in Aliens, we know that Ripley is our hero and our eyes into the world. It is he struggle with PTSD and survivor’s guilt that drives the emotional heartbeat of the story. It is her pain that we empathize with and her restoration we are hoping for.

Given that to leap away from our protagonist, our viewpoint character for 15 or more minutes to meet the colonist is a violation of the story’s point of view. We don’t know these people and save for newt, who drives none of the deleted scenes, we will never meet them again. Leaving Ripley for these throw away characters saps emotional investment from the audience and wastes time. With this reel excised from the movie the story remains tight on Ripley, and we ride along with her, knowing no more than her as this fresh horror unfolds.

 

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Excited About Dune (2021)

 

First let me get this confession out of the way, I have never been a devoted uber fan of Dune. I have read the original novel a few times, I see the deeper ecological and sociological warnings Herbert infused into the narrative, but it has never been one of my favorite books but simply an enjoyable one with something to say. I have read the immediate sequel and none of the other books, neither the one by the original author nor the expended one by others, so my interest in the upcoming movie is not from sense of awe about the source material.

I did see the David Lynch film back in the 80s and I even own it on Blu-ray, it is a lovely, strange, and confused mess that is less like Lynch’s filmography that every other movie he has directed. It missed the novel’s core themes but is enjoyable for the train wreck it is.

Denis Villeneuve, a film maker with a track record of interesting and intelligent science-fiction films, Arrival and Blade Runner 2049, is an artist who might be able to crack the titanic trouble that adapting a novel primary about ideas into a visual medium. I am heartened to know that he is not attempting to cram all of the novel into a single film but without the sequels already ‘green lit’ we are in danger of being left hanging with an incomplete story. This Dune has an impressive cast, not that Lynch’s didn’t but I always have issues when family member for no discernable reason speak in radically different accents, and benefits from 21 century visual effects. (I really like the look of the ornithopters, the dragonfly-like wings at least feel credible. I confess to never having successfully visualized the craft while reading the novel.)

Next month I will learn if my excitement is justified.

My SF/Noir Vulcan’s Forge is available from Amazon and all booksellers. The novel is dark, cynical, and packed with movie references,

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Streaming Review: Thale

 

Thale is a 2012 Norwegian horror film about two men, Leo and Elvis, who are contracted to clear away the remains of bodies of people whose corpses were either not discovered before serious decomposing has set in or had died violent messy deaths. While on a job at a remote forest cabin they discover hidden rooms in the building’s basement and a mysterious young woman, nude and mute.

I struggle to accurately name Thale a horror film in part because for so much of the movie’s run time very little occurs. Now, I am not one who lacks patience for a ‘slow burn’ of a horror film, in fact a well crafts slow burn is my favorite style of horror film making but Thale seems to lack enough plot for its scant 76-minute running time which honestly felt much long. As a short feature, 30 minutes or so in length it would have packed a much more powerful punch but over an hour with its extremely limited plot the film drags. The story draws on Scandinavian folklore and had the filmmakers leaned more into that aspect of the tale they might have achieved, even on their quite limited budget, a more effective film. This film is not clumsily made, and it is well shot and well-staged and for some it may act as a curious diversion but for me the film failed to lift off and merely taxied to its runway without every taking flight.

Thale is currently streaming on Shudder.

My SF/Noir Vulcan’s Forge is available from Amazon and all booksellers. The novel is dark, cynical, and packed with movie references,

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The Intersection of Noir and Horror: Mulholland Dr.

 

It has taken me a long time to realized that my endless fascination with David Lynch’s Mulholland Dr. is in part because the dream-logic, nightmare-adjacent film is a fusion of two of my favorite film genres, Noir and Horror.

Mulholland Dr is a twisted terrifying tale of Hollywood, the emptiness of its illusions, the corrosive nature of obsessive dreaming, and the ultimate destruction of self and identity when we allow our dreams to become more vital than our reality.

Naomi Watts stars as Betty a fresh-faced aspiring actress recently come to Hollywood after winning a dancing contest and as Diane, a bitter broken woman whose dreams of stardom and love have been crushed by the heartless engine that is Los Angeles. Laura Harring plays Rita, a mysterious amnestic woman who has barely survived an attempt on her life that stumbles into Betty’s life and Camilla, as fellow actor that has all the success Diane never achieved and who has spurned Diane for other lovers leaving Diane bitter and murderous.

If that sounds confusing it is but that is often the deep style of a David Lynch film. Lynch doesn’t photograph reality but rather his films follow the logic of a dreamer on the cusp of waking and often it can be difficult or even impossible to separate what is real from what is dream and what is symbolic. Lynch rarely will have explanations within his narrative and outside of the piece never explains his work. It is your viewing and your emotional reaction and your interpretation that matters as to a film’s meaning. The film is incomplete without your participation in the dialog between artist and audience and Lynch will not corrupt the process by instructing you on your side of that conversation.

The most common description of the events of Mulholland Dr., and one I agree with, is that Betty is the escapist dream of failed Diane’s life, and that in the Club Silencio scene the dream crumbles revealing disastrous reality that collapses into hallucinatory psychosis.

This film is a niche taste and not for those expecting a direct, linear narrative where what you see on the screen reflects a fictionalized reality.

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My Latest YouTube Fascinations

 

There are lots of crappy YouTube channels pouring poison and lies into a public discourse but there are also loads of content that is educational and fun and belonging to the latter category are some of the channels I’ve discovered doing ‘reaction’ videos. These are people who are watching movies and television, usually for the first time, and reacting to the unfolding story. I’ve discovered three channels that for quite different reasons I find fun and relaxing to watch. These are presented in no particular order.

Natalie Gold A young women who works in the film industry Natalie’s videos provide the most reaction of my three favorite channels. She screams, laughs, and cries very easily but also given her vocation she has a sharp eye for performance, and artistic choices.

Millennial Movie Mondays Ashleigh Burton is a millennial whose life has zigged and zagged her past may cultural movie markers and is now experiencing many of these films for the first time. She is funny with a sarcastic sense of humor and willing to take unpopular stands on popular movies. Watching her channel can make someone feel older especially when something that used to be as culturally all-consuming as a Rambo reference is answered with a ‘Huh? What does that refer to?’

Fictionaldarling This young woman doesn’t overtly display her name and approaches her watches and they are often re-watches not first-time viewings, from a decidedly fannish perspective invested in the characters and their relationships.

 

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Movie Review: Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

 

After experimenting releasing major films in both theaters and on ‘Premium Access’ as a method of mitigating restricted audiences due to the pandemic, and inciting a revolt of its artists, Disney has released the 25th Marvel Cinematic Universe feature, Shang-chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, exclusively for theatrical distribution.

Shang-Chi stars Simu Liu as the titular character, the son of Xu Wenwu, played by Tony Leung, a nearly immortal warlord whose mastery of ten mystical rings grants him fantastic powers and long life. Repelled by his father’s criminal life Shang-chi flees living in secret working as car valet alongside his equally underachieving best friend Katy played by rapper, writer, actress Awkwafina. After his father’s assassins failed to kill Shang-chi his secret of revealed and he along with Katy rush to save Shang-Chi estranged sister before she falls to the killers drawing the pair into a globe spanning mystical adventure that leads Shang-chi in revelation about himself, his heritage, and the meaning of family.

Shang-Chi is a solid entry in the MCU’s ever expanding cannon. It is quite pleasing that the character’s origins have been modified, removing the stain of ‘yellow peril’ and instead centered on a more respectful and accurate portrayal, at least to my under educated eyes, of Chinese culture and tradition. I will leave analysis of the films depiction of Chinese diaspora to those more fully equipped for such examination and restrict my opinions to the movie itself and its place in the MCU.

This film is neither the best nor the worst offering from the franchise’s feature catalog. It is stylish, well produced and directed with solid emotionally grounded performances from the entire cast. It doesn’t fail to have a bit of fun or occasional laugh utilizing the comedic talent of the actors while maintaining a family drama that explores the theme that we are, for both better and ill, the product of our families. A few of characters from other MCU properties make customary and expected appearances but there is one whose inclusion is a genie surprise and thoroughly entertaining. More so if one kept up with Marvel’s studio’s brief experiment run with ‘One Shot’ short films that had been included for a time as bonus material on the home video releases.

Where the film fails to reach the level of the very best Marvel movies are in the areas of the villain’s motivation, which is relatable and character driven but fails to have greater thematic importance such as will Killmonger in Black Panther, and in the a vaguely defined power set for the titular Ten Rings that leads to a climatic battle that at times feels a bit deus ex machina, not so much as to ruin the film’s resolution but enough in my eyes to undercut it. Still the writers and filmmaker avoided tired tropes and cliches such as the villain using the hero’s female friend as hostage, a tactic I would most happily hope to never witness in a film again.

There are two post credit sequences, the first more lighthearted the second more critical to further developments for Shang-chi and his story.

If you have enjoyed the Marvel Cinematic Universe so far then there is every reason to expect that Shang-chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings should provide you with a couple of hours of enjoyment the exact amount dependent upon your precise tastes.

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Things That Bug Me in the Alien Franchise

 

Don’t get me wrong, I adore Alien and Aliens, (Cubed can be dropped into the sea with the tesseract and Resurrection feels like a beta-edition of Firefly), I watched the first film during its

Alien and images are copyrights of 20th Century Fox

premier run in theaters and aside from the chest-buster in the moment before it sped away reminding me of Michigan J. Frog it excelled as a horror film, but there are elements in the pop culture surrounding the films that rub me the wrong way.

Xenomorph: I hate, hate, hate that people call the titular alien Xenomorph. First off Gorman used the term in Aliens, ‘a xenomorph may be involved’ clearly as a generic classification for any alien lifeform since aside from Ripley no one had ever seen or reported this beastie before. So, Bob, I hear you cry what should we call it? In the years before ‘xenomorph, hell before James Cameron’s Aliens was released me and my gaming group had a quite rational name for this thing, the Zeta Reticulan Parasite, since it was discovered at Zeta 2 Reticuli.

Flame Throwers: In the sequels that followed the titanic success of the first film there has been repeated reliance on using flame as a weapon to corral and herd the parasite. Good God people flame and flame throwers are useless against the creature. You can see how well they helped the first crew. Fire didn’t save one and there’s a very rational and simple reason for this. Ash was a fucking robot out to do the company’s bidding and when he suggested fire he was lying and not giving actually good advice. He already understood that it layers of silicon would help protect it against flame and fire.

A Killing Machine: From Cubed onward through Resurrection and the crossovers with the Predator franchise the parasite has been reduced to a slasher, killing to kill without motivation or purpose. In Alien and Aliens, it was following its lifecycle, not killing save when it was forced to or cornered, but breeding, reproducing. While Cameron deviated from O’Bannon’s original intent and planned lifecycle with the introduction of the Queen, O’Bannon had planned that captured organisms were cocooned and slowly transformed directly into the eggs that Kane has discovered, it still worked quite well as a highly unlikely but still credible cycle for the organism to follow. However, in the following movies the beast kills to kill and provided shock in place of horror.

Well, that enough ranting to kick off September.

My SF/Noir Vulcan’s Forge is available from Amazon and all booksellers. The novel is dark, cynical, and packed with movie references,

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