Linking Once Again

I haven't done the whole link thing in a while because I have really done much of anything in a while. I've been juggling studying for exams this week and trying to create a list that is going to be something entertaining, original and meaningful. On that note, I'll have an announcement about that on Monday, so until then you'll just have to wait in suspense, but a review of the Losers will be coming soon so you can look forward to that.

Univarn counts down his five favourite Miyazaki films. I didn't even really know he had more than 4.

Yojimbo didn't really think Kick Ass kicked much ass but Vancetastic did.

I liked Angels and Demons, Wild Celtic didn't like Angels and Demons, Karla liked Angels and Demons and Burning Reels didn't like Angels and Demons. Who will break this tie?

Travis at The Movie Encyclopedia has a video store closing by him and he's picked up a lot of good titles (and some not so good ones too). Check out his haul.

Casey counts down his top 10 super hero movies.

Luke's 34th favourite movie is Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters. A good choice indeed.

Julian Stark is hosting 23 Days of Robert Downey Jr.

Filmgeek didn't like Adaptation and doesn't like Nicholas Cage. Do I really need to tell you I disagree?

Kid in the Front Row discovered Sasah Grey's acting abilities in The Girlfriend Experience, and the rest of her abilities elsewhere online.

Some anonymous commenter is giving Simon's sister a hard time. I know I thought the same thing: what, Simon has a sister?

Thanks to Everyone

To everyone who responded to my last post about creating a mystery list, I thank you. The support has been wonderful and proof that the movie blogging community is made up of people who support each other and are connected through a love of film.

With that though, I have to announce that there is no room left for any more participants. But please, still follow along, tell your friends, leave comments, argue, debate, prove us wrong, tell us how narrow-sighted we are, tell us how ignorant we were for leaving your favourite film off the list, whatever.

And to all those who are following here, wondering just what the heck this thing could be and what it's all about, well, it's a secret, but I'll reveal a few details in the coming days, just to get you excited.

Big Things Just Over the Horizon

I'm creating a list. I'm not going to tell you what the list is about because then it wouldn't be a surprise. What I will tell you though is that I want you to participate. I have a list of bloggers who participated in the Desert Island DVD thing who I will be contacting but some of the people who I read regularly and who read me didn't participate in that yet I'd like for them to participate in this if they are feeling up to it. The reason: if I create a list then it's just another list that I created. However, if a bunch of people vote on it and contribute to it then maybe it can hold some worth. So, if you're interested and weren't on that Desert Island mailing list, drop me a line at my e mail: ml_movies@hotmail.com and tell me that you are interested in participating and I'll e mail the details within the next couple days. Trust me, it will be fun and unique!

Sleepaway Camp

So last night I had a few drinks with the lady and whenever that happens we usually end up watching a really bad movie. It was a toss up between Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, Leprechaun In the Hood or Sleepaway Camp. We ended up watching Sleepaway Camp from 1983, which is a summer camp slasher movie that is about as bad and cheap looking as any I have ever seen (it apparently has 3 sequels too). The movie is about a killer running amuck at a summer camp that is being attended by a mouthy kid and his mute cousin whose father and brother are killed in an opening epilogue that's about as funny as any death scene I can imagine. While at camp the girl is made fun of by the slutty popular girl and the moronic counsellors while the guy in charge of the camp worries about his reputation as people are getting killed off one by one.

The movie itself is never once scary and is oftentimes very funny in it's amateurism (it looks like something I could have filmed on my back yard with a video camera that records on VHS), and leads to a really stupid conclusion that the movie itself advertises as one of the most shocking ever filmed.

Whenever I watch a movie like this I always wonder A) who actually put money into this and B) do people actually take this stuff seriously? So I was shocked when I went on Rotten Tomatoes and found that 7 of the 10 critics featured gave it a positive review. I know, none of these people fall into the Top Critic category but still, they are talking about it as if it is a serious piece of filmmaking. Here's some excerpts:

Tim Brayton says: Not a particularly effective movie... [but] it is an exceptionally memorable one - one that lingers in the brain, disturbing and discomfiting

Some guy named Stefan whose last name is too long for me to want to type out says: classic stuff, the ending is the creepiest since "invasion of the body snatchers"

Rumsey Taylor says: Sleepaway Camp belongs to a pool of slasher films known for their generic prolificacy; it must be noted that it is one of the first and best

Nick Schager says: Still the finest Sleepaway Camp, if only because of its memorable final shot.

And Pablo Villaca says: Capaz de despertar risos graças ao estilo datado (vide figurinos), ao roteiro ridículo e à direção capenga (o acidente que abre a narrativa é genial neste aspecto), merece créditos pelo plano final, que é simultaneamente hilário e perturbador. I have no idea what that means but it was a positive review nonetheless.

The movie's Wikipedia page even quotes someone with a Ph.D who, without giving anything away, wrote about the film for a thesis as if it were a serious work that needed to be considered on some level of social commentary.

So what the heck? Do people actually take movies like this seriously? Does Troma actually produce great works of art with unquestionable social significant and we just don't notice it?

Here's the trailer for this movie, what do you think: stupid or groundbreaking?

Just as a side note, although the trailer looks kind of scary, those scenes are the only "slasher movie" scenes in the entire movie. The rest is just kids doing camp things like playing baseball while councillors in too tight shorts look on stupidly.

Here's the ending if your curious but don't want to sit through the whole thing

Revisiting The Wicker Man Remake (3.5 out of 5)

Considering the first paragraph of my review of Death at a Funeral, I thought I'd look back at a review I wrote for Neil Labute's remake of The Wicker Man a couple years ago.

The Wicker Man is not a very good film, but it’s an interesting experience. It is not engaging, not scary and not even all that entertaining or likable, however I’m giving it three and a half stars which, in some small way, translates into a recommendation. I recommend it because, as big a mess as it is, it’s also dark, angry, cynical and, pessimistic; a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Hollywood has been playing it safe for so many years that it’s kind of uncanny that anyone would have the nerve to make this at all.

That anyone is Neil Labute who, outside of Todd Solandz, is probably the most unrelenting member of the new group of “auteur” filmmakers to emerge from the independent world in the 90’s. However, like many filmmakers before and after, Labute operates under a system that Solandz has thus far been able to escape: the “one for us, one for them” archetype. Thus, filmmakers make a film that the studios can sell, then giving them the freedom to then make the one that’s dear to their hearts. It can’t be stated as fact, but I have a sinking suspicion that if it were not for this system, Labute would not even be interested in poor remakes of cult horror films. However, to view the Wicker Man as the product of its specific maker, we begin to understand why Labute would be drawn to it.

When we first meet the cop Edward Malus (Nicholas Cage) he is involved in an arbitrary scene in which, after pulling over a mother and her daughter whose doll has blown out of the luggage strapped to the top of their car, the car is struck by a transport truck, trapping the two inside as they burn to death.

Miraculously unharmed, Edward, on his time off, receives a letter from a former fiancée who left him at the alter and is now living on a private remote island called Summersisle with her daughter who has gone missing. The letter asks Edward if he could journey to the island and help find her.

On the island Edward is not exactly welcomed. He is greeted by three women who hassle him, asking how he got there in the first place as you must be invited to enter. As Edward begins his search for the missing child he discovers that the island is run by a mysterious figure know as Sister Summersisle (Ellen Burstyn), that men seem to be voiceless slaves and the possibly murderous women talk to Edward in that exasperating way people talk when they are never telling quite as much as they know.

The plot thickens as Edward discovers that the little girl may be his own child and may have been kidnapped by the cultish inhabitants of Summersisle in order to sacrifice her so that the coming year produces a good honey crop (Summersisle is a bee keeping colony after all). I doubt that I would be giving much away if I tell you that nothing is as it seems.

Watching the Wicker Man we get the sinking feeling that it is simply playing by the numbers: the opening sequences spin the wheels of a plot that Labute never fully seems to be engaged in. Instead we discern that he is using the film as a backdrop in which to deal with the fears and anxieties that he so brutally and hilariously tried to repress back in his 1997 debut film In the Company of Men. That film centered on a corporate slime ball named Chad who, feeling threatened by the inclusion of women into the office world, makes a bet with his friend to become romantically engaged with one and then crush her when she least expects it.

In the time that has passed since, we have seen the equality of women in the work force rise and the uncrowning of men as rulers of the working world. The Wicker Man shows us the next logical social progression: a society that has been taken over by women who have created their own laws to govern their own ways of life and are ultimately vengeful towards the men who have repressed them for all these years. Notice how the only man of power on Summersisle is Edward because he is a working professional: a police officer with a badge and a gun, constantly threatening to arrest the women for misbehavior under a law created by men to govern a man’s world. If In the Company of Men was an attack on the shallowness of corporate men in a dog eat dog world, The Wicker Man serves as a counter attack against feminism in a sexually liberated social setting. These women are like Chad in reverse.

What else is interesting is that Edward is allergic to bees. If we trace the bee’s mythology we understand that they were seen as feminine creatures. Homer in his work also thought of bees as wild, untamed creatures. The list of comparisons is endless. It might not be a stretch to believe that this is how Labute perceives militant feminists: as wild and untamed creatures that are willing to sacrifice any man for the betterment of themselves. It seems no small irony that the one man on Summersisle who has the ability to overpower the women is also fatally allergic to bee stings.

The problem is that if Labute’s metaphor makes sense, his film doesn’t. It seems to be operating under the framework of the 1973 Wicker Man, but the plot never becomes more than this; as if Lebute is just spinning the wheels while his interests lay elsewhere. The car crash scene at the beginning seems without purpose, even worse is Edward’s constant flashbacks to it. Characters appear and we don’t know who they are, Cage runs around the island yelling at women, and an ending ritual in which the inhabitants of the island dress up in animal costumes is so strange that we can never quite grasp whether or not Labute is making a horror film or a strange comedy.

The truth is that a lot of people who see the Wicker Man will hate it; it is sloppy, convoluted, and confusing. Yet to not see it might be a shame as it unflinchingly goes for the throat when most horror films seem to be stuck on autopilot. I’d rather a film fail interestingly than succeed without inspiration. I therefore could have hated the film too, but I wasn’t satisfied: why would a great filmmaker reduce himself to a by-the-numbers picture? I’m reminded of a quote from Labute’s great 2003 film The Shape of Things in which a character states that Picasso didn’t take a shit and call it art. He knew the difference and that’s what made him Picasso. I think Neil Labute knows the difference too.

Death at a Funeral (4.5 out of 5)

A reviewer should never be faced with the feeling that their review requires an apology and yet that’s just the sentiments I am faced with over my thoughts on Death at a Funeral. Nothing about this film should work: it’s a remake of a very very minor British film from 2007 that was directed by Frank Oz (the voice of Miss Piggy), it stars Chris Rock, Martin Lawrence and Tracy Morgan, whose names aren’t exactly associated with measures of cinematic quality and it was directed by Neil Labute who is a brilliant director, writer and playwright, but who usually focuses on dark films (often comedies) and shallow, wounded people. This movie has paycheque written all over it.

But here’s the thing: it’s funny as hell. It not only surpasses the original despite being almost an exact remake, but keeps on going until its memory is completely out of sight. Here’s proof that Godard may have actually been on to something when he said that the best way to criticize a film is to make another one.

Here’s the situation. A man has died and it is the day of his funeral. His family is gathering at his home where Aaron (Rock) is hosting. The eldest son, Aaron is worried that his eulogy will not be sufficient especially under the close scrutiny of those who believe his writer brother Ryan (Lawrence) should be giving it. Also around for the proceedings is the boys’ mother, a cousin played by Avatar’s Zoe Saldana whose father hates her white boyfriend Oscar (James Marsden) and would prefer she ended up with Derek (Luke Wilson) who is there with family friend Norman (Morgan) who is in charge of looking after grumpy old wheelchair-bound Uncle Russell (Danny Glover stealing the show). Also around is Frank (Peter Dinklage, reprising his role from the original) as a man with secrets from the father’s past.

See how they all connect like that? So does Labute who, like a brilliant stagehand orchestrates the ongoing slapstick comedy that arises out of the situation like a master conductor. Although the film forges on at full comedic tilt at all times, with several different subplots taking place around the house within the same temporal space, Labute never loses focus amidst the chaos. We always know that Oscar is in the backyard, Frank is in the guest room, Uncle Russell is in the bathroom, etc, with all of the threads building to an equal pitch so that the film not only stays its course, but never loses its momentum either.

The idea behind the film is that of classic screwball comedy. A man just wants to get through the day with as little problems as possible only to have everything go wrong from the beginning. And that’s the essence of the film’s comedic approach: just one damned thing after the other. That’s appropriate. It’s always better when it feels like funny things are happening as opposed to people trying to be deliberately funny. So Labute and his cast take full measures in pushing this situation to the very brink of its comedic potential. There are things in this movie that are vulgar, tasteless and at least one that is just plain wrong, but oh boy are they all ever funny. There’s something about this cast in this situation under the guidance of such an assured filmmaker that everything just clicks. Sometimes films succeed just on the basis that they find that special cocktail of elements and personalities that just go off and magic is born. That happened last year with The Hangover. Here it is again.

Another interesting aesthetic device that Labute employs is that he films many of the scenes in close-ups. It’s as if he understands the actors are funnier than the actions and so therefore focuses on the actors performing them instead of the gags themselves. That makes sense. Labute makes films about people and how they interact and influence each other. Screwball is such a broad generic convention that it can speak for itself, but by keeping the distance between audience and actor an intimate one, we not only focus on the individual, allowing several quick moments of humanity and sweetness to sneak through, but the comedy is played off of the reaction as much as the act itself. Take the James Marsden character, who gets himself into a predicament too funny to even hint at. The situation is inherently hilarious but the mileage that Labute gets off of Marden’s face is invaluable. Anyone could have filmed this same bit (and Oz did) at a medium or long distance and we would have laughed for a moment and then been tired with it. By keeping us close, Labute keeps our interests vested.

And then the film works because of how completely shameless it is willing to be: how far it is willing to go for a laugh and how many it actually gets in the process because of the strange logic every joke follows. Like The Hangover, there is nothing redeemable about this film: it has nothing to say about death, life, society, race, sex, religion, anything. All it wants is to be funny and it succeeds. I used to think that Neil Labute was only good at making Neil Labute films but with this, Lakeview Terrace and The Wicker Man it turns out he can make good films about just about anything, no apology required.

10

Alright so here's the deal. It's Saturday and I'm up to my ears in studying so that I can be ready for the exams I have every day next week. So this is going to be the last post for some time (save for a review of Death at a Funeral). However, this person made a meme where you list 10 movie facts about yourself and then call other people out to do it too. Simon did it and called me out so fine, I'll do it.

10) I hate it when someone asks me if there is "anything good out right now"

9) I used to be scared of blood so I could never watch anything but family movies and PG-13 comedies. Goldeneye changed all that. Now I have an extreme bias for action movies.

8) I've never not finished a movie that I've started. However Cannibal Holocaust is the only movie I have ever hated so strongly that it was a chore not to shut off.

7) I thought the movie version of The Honeymooners with Cedric the Entertainer was really funny.

6) The first movie that brought tears to my eyes was American History X. That ending just came out of nowhere for me.

5) I own every Fellini and Rohmer movie that is available on DVD in North America. I'm working on achieving the same with Bergman.

4) A combination of watching Adaptation and reading the Orchid Thief changed my life.

3) Nicholas Cage is one of my favourite actors. I don't understand all the haters.

2) I own a copy of Disney's least known animated feature Make Mine Music.

1) Every time I watch a great movie it's like falling in love for the first time all over again.

Who I call out:

Burning Reels at Burning Reels

Hal at Forget the Popcorn

Vancetastic at The Audient

Yojimbo_5 at Let's Not Talk About Movies

Univarn at A Life in Equinox