BRIGHT (2017)

Although Netflix has been a destination point for quality television for a number of years now, their feature film production arm has not exactly been top notch. There are number of Netflix produced feature films that you can see on the service but I'll just mention the two action movies that I'm aware of as 'Netflix films' and focus specifically on their big holiday release of BRIGHT.

Many months ago I watched their production SPECTRAL (2016) and observed at the time that it was a rolling disaster filled with obvious post production work to attempt to bring the film into some kind of serviceable form. That ultimately failed and created a movie that starts out interesting and then bumbles and trips its way straight into abject pointless stupidity and disaster. Proving that there seems to be some glitch with spotting script problems and/or just well-produced and thought out ideas for stories, we come now to BRIGHT (2017).

Netflix has certainly spent the money to make this a good movie. They signed on a star in Will Smith, an excellent group of character actors to fill out the cast, a director who has made at least one very good film and a production team that surely knows how to put together a good-looking product. The weak link in this entire affair is definitely Max Landis' weak-ass script. When my girlfriend read the description of BRIGHT she quickly gleaned something that I should have thought of myself when she compared it immediately to the 1988 film ALIEN NATION. Indeed, as soon as she said that, it was clear to me that BRIGHT is little more than a slightly more convoluted, slightly more expensive and definitely more poorly scripted version of ALIEN NATION. In the 1988 film refugee aliens land on Earth and years later are still trying to assimilate into human society. One of these aliens has now become the first cop on the LAPD and is partnered with an older police officer who doesn't want the assignment. On a call they discover a crime that is much bigger than they can handle alone but also learn that they may not be able to trust their superiors on the force. BRIGHT uses that template but makes a huge world-building mistake.

In this film orcs, elves, fairies, trolls and all sorts of other fantasy creatures are real and have co-existed with humanity for centuries if not forever. But, the modern day Earth of the film is just our world with a couple of thin layers of fantasy details laid over the top. We are shown anti-orc graffiti to delineate that group as the most discriminated against in this society with obvious criminal gangs and heavily segregated neighborhoods making their lower status clear. And then we see that the highest level of this world is occupied by elves who seem to run everything they wish to, along with their well paid human sycophants. Herein lies the fail - if this world has existed with all these races co-mingling for centuries why does it so closely resemble our Earth of 2017? If magic is real why has technology advanced to the level it has in this reality? We're given a few casual lines about the past of this world but never anything to indicate how and why things are as they are. Even the occasional line referencing real historical events such as the Alamo create more questions than they settle. We're not even given a real motivation for the villains' actions beyond just reacquiring a lost magic wand. The story needed at LOT more background information to establish a place that felt like something more than a tossed off idea. This script needed more eyes on it to fix it's inherent thinness.

It doesn't help that the script's dialog is pretty weak as well, substituting profanity for emotion and bad jokes for character devolvement. Will Smith does his best with the material as does the always interesting Joel Edgerton as his orc cop partner but they can't save the poorly constructed narrative. Also, I think Smith may have pulled the chain on his MEN IN BLACK character one too many times now and it might be time to retire it completely. The director handles the action scenes well and actually generates some tension and suspense once things get moving but that and the excellent cinematography are the only consistently well done elements in this thing.

If you're curious, check it out but go in with lowered expectations and hope that NetFlix starts finding better scripts for their big action epics - and soon! 

MOTHER! (2017) - A Few Thoughts

MOTHER (2017) is easily one of the best films of the year. By saying that I have taken a stand on the side of a movie that is garnering the lowest ratings from general audiences in the history of motion pictures. I find this amusing as hell, of course. The audience I saw this with was made up of mostly clueless people there to see the new 'scary' J-Law film and they left that theater confused and pissed off!

Sadly, a general audience was never going to enjoy this film because it does two things that they despise - It asks them to pay attention and it asks them to think. Any movie that requires that you actively mentally engage to understand it is doomed to fail with the broad general audience. This is different from surprising or shocking an audience, which this film does as well. And if you can make an audience think that they are all clever little people because they see what you were doing with your oh so clever storytelling, then they will absolutely love you. If you can give that audience the illusion that it is really smart you will be beloved. (By the way - I think this is the reason why the SAW films were so popular with such a wide audience. Those clever little endings of each film made the audience feel as if they were in on some really smart joke. Even though they weren't.)

But what MOTHER does is make very sharp a delineation that most films won't go near, which is that every viewer of any film always brings their own thoughts and experiences to that movie when they watch it. Whether you understand this or not doesn't matter - you are doing it. No two people see the same film in the same way. MOTHER understands this and wants to coax you into viewing this movie in your own personal way so you will read into it what you see there.

For instance, the film that Jennifer Lawrence made and sees when she views this movie is very different from the film that I saw. She has said that she sees this as a metaphor for Mother Earth and human destruction of it. That's an excellent way of looking at things. I like that. But it's not what I saw.

The film that I saw was an allegory about the destructive nature of the creative impulse. How the desire for an artist to create something of transcendent beauty that can be absorbed and enjoyed by a wide audience has the danger built into it intrinsically that it can be misused for Destruction instead of Construction. And the author/poet/creator of these thoughts is both horrified and thrilled by the effect of his creation upon the world around him. The approbation that he gains, the notoriety that he gains, the love that he gains from this broad audience of people who appreciate his work is more important to him than the things that make his creative life possible. That he uses the irreplaceable love in his own life to be able to create the wonderful, touching, beautiful piece of art that inspired all of this attention for himself is unimportant. Or it is just less important than the thrill of being deified by the people who love what he created.

In the end, the Creator is both horrified and satisfied that he inevitably destroys the thing that allows him to be a creative person. He cannot stop the force that is unleashed by his creative impulse even as his life is destroyed by his creation. It seems that in this destruction he finds a new way to create and he cannot stop himself from going through this cycle repeatedly. Indeed, it is the only way in which he knows how to create. Possibly it is the only way in which he can create something so affecting and effective. His act of construction is tied inextricably to destruction. This is the horror of the story. For me, at least.

So, as you can tell, this is not a film for everyone. But I think it's brilliant. 

Brief Thoughts - ARRIVAL (2016)

Ted Chiang is a science fiction writer of some note and many accomplishments. I've only read a few of his short stories but each one has been brilliant showing the author's skill at thinking through an idea to something hidden just on the other side. If I had known ARRIVAL (2016) was based on his fiction I would have seen it opening weekend.

I will not ruin any of the many pleasures this carefully crafted film has to offer but I will take a moment to complain about some of the criticisms I read about the story that kept me from seeing the film until the end of the year. If the only thing you want to talk about after this powerful film has concluded is that it was stupid for an alien race to travel to our planet but not already be able to communicate with us you can officially go straight to hell. The entire film revolves around the fact that the aliens are struggling to find a way to talk to us and even their worldwide project using multiple sites and contact styles is massively difficult. One might make the rather easy leap to think that the complexity of the task and the hardships involved in the struggle just might be the damned point. Or at least one of them. Idiots.

But, to be clear, ARRIVAL is one of the best films I saw in 2016 and well worth seeing. It's thoughtful, smart, emotional and satisfying in ways I had forgotten science fiction can be. I'm not ashamed to say I wept tears of both sadness and joy. 

ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY (2016)

Even though much of the movie-going world seemed thrilled with the last Star Wars film I was quite underwhelmed by The Force Awakens. It was too much a safe rehash of the original film with the barest sprinkling of new ideas scattered about to distract from the dumber elements that piled up as the film barreled along. It wasn't a terrible film but it was far from inspiring or very good at doing more than making fans go squee.

Given that, I was not very excited to go see the 2016 SW offering, but the fact that it was being touted as a stand alone tale and I love seeing science fiction on the big screen means that of course I saw it. Glad I did. This is easily the best Star Wars film since 1980 and the first in just as long to make me actually fear for the lives of the characters onscreen. There is a grittiness and danger inherent in this story that is refreshing. It reminded me that way back in the first two films people died in often harsh ways just as if they were fighting a darkly violent Empire bent on ruthlessly subjugating a galaxy wide population. No fuzzy bears tripping storm troopers, no insane leaps off of impossibly tall buildings and no gravity or logic defying saber fights were present to make the audience wince. ROGUE ONE brings back the sense of danger that makes the stakes of the story feel real. Good guys do bad things, morally hard choices are made and terrible ends come to undeserving people. But, at the same time, there is humor in the film that seems natural to the characters and not wedged into the scene to please children.

It's not perfect. The death of Krennic shows that the reshoots couldn't find a really satisfying way to end his villainous character and the CGI recreations of a couple of characters are only fitfully effective but this is the most enjoyable Star Wars film in decades and is to be applauded for its accomplishment. Yeah, it's essentially The Dirty Dozen reset in SW but it is done very well. I hope that we get to one day see some of the discarded early versions of scenes that turned up in the various trailers just to be able to see why they were deemed less worthy.   

DE PALMA (2016)

Because the famed Belcourt Theater in Nashville has reopened it's doors after extensive renovations I once again have the opportunity to see the occasional documentary on the big screen. Last weekend I ventured into the shiny new place to see DE PALMA (2016) because - of course - I'm a huge fan of director Brian De Palma's movies. I was excited that someone finally decided to talk at length to the man about his work and this film allows us to be a fly on the wall as they go through his entire career movie by movie. That makes for some fascinating stories as we learn De Palma's thoughts about his oeuvre as well as the motivations for specific choices. I loved getting to hear his tales and at times wished we could ask questions too so as to dig into certain themes and influences. I especially wanted more details about the days Steven Spielberg spent on the set of SCARFACE helping set up gunfights and stuntmen. That sounded like a blast!

But in the end I was left wanting more from DE PALMA than the film delivers. It is really only an extended interview and doesn't dig much deeper than it takes to illicit a bunch of cool stories about a man's career. I was hoping for a profound and multifaceted look at De Palma and his movies. As it is, this is more a fantastic DVD extra and less a complete film. I enjoyed it but I hope a better documentary comes along one day with a broader view and maybe a few of his collaborators contributing their thoughts as well. 

THE HATEFUL EIGHT (2015) - Roadshow Screening!

When I learned that Quentin Tarantino's new western was going to be shown in all its 70mm film projection glory at only a few select theaters around the country I readied myself for disappointment. I was sure that since this meant that the theaters screening it would still have to have old style film projectors and our local art house cinema was closing up shop for six months of renovations on the very day THE HATEFUL EIGHT was set to debut that Nashville was NOT going to get the film in this format. Luckily I was wrong! Two theaters in Tennessee got the film - one in Knoxville and one right here in Nashville! Saddle up, boys! It's time for blood! 

 After some research I learned all the details of this version of the film and it increased my excitement. This was to be an old style movie screening in more than just the insistence on film projection. The version being shown turned out to be the longest edit of the film at a little over three hours, which would include an overture at the beginning and an eleven minute intermission in the middle. Tarantino has built the movie like one of the old Roadshow films from decades past! This means that the film that goes out to regular digital theaters in 2016 won't quite be the same as this cut and certainly won't have the overture and intermission. Also, in another nice touch reaching back to the old Hollywood Roadshow tradition, each person attending these screenings gets a souvenir booklet! How very cool!

So, how was the film? I loved every snow covered, bloody minute!

As far as I'm concerned, Tarantino can keep making westerns for the rest of his life. Much like DJANGO UNCHAINED this one is steeped in a vast love of the genre that shines through in every detail. Once again he takes elements from old films and recasts them, reshapes them into a fresh new tale. Besides the visual nods from a dozen movies (Carpenter's THE THING, Fuller's THE BIG RED ONE, etc.) he steals ideas from some great but under seen spaghetti westerns such as Corbucci's THE GREAT SILENCE and Fulci's FOUR OF THE APOCALYPSE combining them with a classic locked room mystery plot. The great Kurt Russell plays a bounty hunter known for bring in his charges alive so they can be tried and hung - emphasis on the 'hung'. His latest bounty is played by the very talented Jennifer Jason Leigh who's character Daisy is worth $10,000 for some unspecified murders. On the snowbound trail their stagecoach encounters Samuel Jackson as another bounty hunter trying to get his latest kills to Red Rock, Wyoming and, after some negotiations, he accompanies them on their way. A blizzard forces the trio and their coach driver to hole up in a lonely business known as Minnie's Haberdashery where they end up in the company of several men, one of whom may have plans to free Daisy from the noose.

This enclosed space is where the rest of the story plays out and it was fascinating to watch! Isolated location, desperate characters, hidden motivations and dark secrets come together in highly entertaining fashion with all involved really sinking their teeth into the proceedings. The entire cast is fantastic with great work from the always welcome Bruce Dern and a very nice role for Channing Tatum, who has turned out to be much more skilled an actor than I first thought. Not just another pretty face, eh, mon ami? Oui.

I could go on praising the super-widescreen photography, juicy wild west dialog, mean spirited moments and just the general glory of a film that revels in the joy and power of cinema. But instead I'll just name it one of the best I saw in 2015 and let go at that. These are the kind of films I live to see on the big screen! 

THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. (2015) Score

I cannot stop listening to the soundtrack CD for this film! You gotta check this music out - seriously!



And go see the film - it's really very good.

What I Watched in April

Last month I was able to see the much talked about horror film IT FOLLOWS and I am squarely in the camp of those that were impressed. Indeed, its one of the best of the recently made scary movies I've seen in a long time. The central concept of a sexually passed along deadly threat is an over obvious metaphor but the film carries its idea to such fascinating places and in such realistic ways that having the symbolism so near the surface actually added to the achievement. I've read some viewers complain about the speed of the narrative but I found the calm, deliberate pace to be seductive as I was sucked into the film's world, trying to place the time period (impossible) and character relationships (complicated). As the threat began to manifest itself the film reached heights of creepy dread that thrilled me. Here is a film in complete control of its strengths that also knows where to place its characters for maximum effect. And the score is brilliant as well sounding like the kind of thing John Carpenter would have composed if he retired to just crafting music for other people's films. This is a refreshing change of pace from the current state of the horror genre and I look forward to more from these filmmakers. More like this please!

THE LIVING HEAD (1963) - 5 (Mexican horror effort is OK if slow)

PICTURE MOMMY DEAD (1966)- 7 Bert I Gordon doing a William Castle riff)

PULGASARI (1985)- 6 (North Korean giant monster epic)

WAX (2014) - 6

GOING CLEAR (2015)- 8 (excellent documentary on Scientology)

DOCTOR MORDRID (1992)- 7 (rewatch)

IT FOLLOWS (2015)- 8

PUPPET ON A CHAIN (1971)- 8

JENNIFER (1977) - 6

BEAR ISLAND (1979)- 7 (rewatch)

CASTLE OF BLOOD (1964) - 8 (rewatch)

99 and 44/100% DEAD (1974)- 7 (strange but entertaining crime film)

THE 'HUMAN' FACTOR (1975)- 7 (well done revenge thriller) 

What I Watched in January

For the first time in a couple of months I got out to the theater and caught AMERICAN SNIPER. I didn't really want to see the film but I lost a coin toss and that's just how things go. So how was the film? Well....

Clint Eastwood knows how to make a good film and has proven his abilities over the past few decades to craft a effective, affecting movie. I haven't always been interested in his subject matter but I have always been impressed with his skill. That is true of this film as well. AMERICAN SNIPER is a well made and emotionally charged film - but I just could not connect to it. I've given this some thought and I think there are several reasons for my lack of appreciation of the film.

The biggest problem I had with the film is that I am aware of how much of the story presented is fictional. I understand that this is a movie and I don't expect strict adherence to the verifiable facts in any dramatic narrative, but in this film the most exciting and compelling moments are the fictional ones. The movie spends a good deal of time on the hunt for two characters, one of which did not exist and the other who did, but never crossed paths with the main character of the film. The imaginary one is called the Butcher who is shown as a brutal, nasty bastard whose very name strikes fear into the Iraqi population and to drive this home we are made to witness the Butcher murder a child with a drill in front of his family.

The real world person presented in the film is a supposed Olympic medal winning sniper working for the enemy. Named Mustapha, he pops up throughout the film killing soldiers with astonishing precision and is clearly in the movie to present a black to Chris Kyle's white in the simplistic narrative. But my knowledge that the two were never a factor in each other's lives makes it feel a little odd for the film to try to create such an artificial foe for our hero to vanquish. I think the exploits of the man this movie is based upon are more than impressive enough ingredients from which to build a good story. Why shove these fake elements into this film? Why not tell a more accurate story?

For me this is worst element of the film - it's well made on every level but knowing how I was being lied to by the artificial narrative I always felt the strings being pulled. I felt the heavy hand of emotional manipulation all of the time. Within the first hour I realized what I was watching- a propaganda piece. That doesn't make it a bad movie but it does make me angry that we still create this kind of movie in the twenty-first century. I'll never forget how I felt when I discovered just how little truth there is in the classic film SERGEANT YORK (1941). The movie was produced as propaganda to push American sentiment in the direction of intervention in the European war being waged by Nazi Germany. It's things like this that make me worry - what war are we being prepped for by a film like AMERICAN SNIPER? In the film Kyle often refers to the Iraqi fighters as 'savages' which is what I would expect from soldiers on a battlefield but I don't want it to be the way we think of them anywhere else. It worries me that this is how a large portion of the American population will view the Iraqi War - as a fight against savage animals worthy only of death. I guess as long as we can demonize the enemy we'll always feel righteous as we kill and I'm disturbed by the idea that we still churn out movies to make us feel good about that. 

THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD(1974)- 9 (rewatch)

RIDDICK (2013)- 8 (director's cut is even better)

BREAKHEART PASS (1975)- 7

THE INVISIBLE RAY (1936)- 7 (rewatch)

CAST AWAY (2000)- 7

ROJO SANGRE (2004)- 8(rewatch)

THE SPIRIT (1987)- 4 (terrible TV movie version - but I kind of like it!)

THE HEAD (a.k.a. Die Nackte und der Satan)(1959)-  6 (not bad mad scientist film)

TERROR ON A TRAIN (1953)- 5 (not bad but not great time bomb tale)

CYPHER (2002)- 7 (good SF thriller)

SUPER BITCH (a.k.a. MAFIA JUNCTION) (1973)- 7 (well done Euro-Crime)

BLOODRAYNE: THE THIRD REICH (2011)- 2

THE WRECK OF THE MARY DEARE (1959) -7 (good thriller)

THE LEGO MOVIE (2014) - 7

$10,000 FOR A MASSACRE (1967) - 7 (solid spaghetti western)

STAR WARS (1977)- 8 (rewatch)

PLANET OF THE DINOSAURS (1977)- 3 (good stop motion saves it from a lesser rating)

SNOW DEVILS (1967)- 4 (rewatch)

A SAINT...A WOMAN...A DEVIL (1977)- 3

SANDOKAN THE GREAT (1963)- 7

AMERICAN SNIPER (2015)- 6 (well made but empty) 

What I Watched in December

I wasn't able to go out to the theater a single time in December and that is not cool. I wanted to see several films in wide release but could not manage to make the time to go. Instead, on New Year's Eve, I agreed to rent THE INTERVIEW and see if Sony's hack cost them a triumph or saved them some embarrassment. Actually, I'm sure the film would have earned a butt-ton of money regardless of the silly controversy around its release but I would probably never have seen it - and I wish it had stayed unseen by my eyes! Oh, the pain!

First, I have to say that the Rogan/Franco comedies have been very hit or miss with me. PINEAPPLE EXPRESS was a stultifying bore but THIS IS THE END was very funny and surprising in its desire to provoke the audience. Sadly that desire to mess with the audience is put to bad use in this new film as the story is never more than a poorly thought out idea. What they have could have made a pretty good short film but at feature length the seams not only show they tear. The contrived plot mechanics are so perfunctorily staged ("Yeah- you're not a REAL journalist, bro!") that they might have been better off skipping the half-assed attempts to provide Rogan's character with motivation beyond fame and glory. And Franco's character is such a joke that I kept waiting to laugh at his antics but the film never lets you into the story enough to see his self-centered TV host as anything more than a silly cipher. I knew I didn't care about a damned thing that was happening when Franco's character is having his huge revelation about the true nature of his new buddy Kim-Young Un and all I could think about was how expensive his shoes must be.

I'll give the movie credit for being fantastically photographed but as a comedy it just failed for me. Next! 

THE SKIN UNDER THE CLAWS (1975)- 4 (OK but poorly directed thriller)

THE RAID 2 (2014)- 9 (awesome!)

MY FRIEND, THE VAGABOND (1984)- 6

SNOWPIERCER (2014)- 6

ARSENE LUPIN (1932)- 8 (excellent mystery)

SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT (1984)- 7 (rewatch)

MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW (1937)- 7 (good sort-of Christmas film)

HELLBENDERS (2012)- 4 (misfire of a great concept)

SILENT NIGHT, BLOODY NIGHT (1974)- 5 (OK but muddled)

THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER (1940)- 9 (excellent!) 

THE ROOST (2005)- 3 (terrible, slow and boring horror effort)

CURTAINS (1983)- 6 (interesting slasher)

DOCTOR WHO AND THE DALEKS (1965)- 7 (rewatch)

THE INTERVIEW (2014)- 3 (clunky, sloppy and dumb in a bad way -I laughed three times) 

Brief Thoughts- SNOWPIERCER (2013)

I find myself in the odd place of naysayer about a much lauded science fiction film. By way of NetFlix I finally caught SNOWPIERCER (2013) and after all the hubbub over the past year I was excited to experience its dystopian vision. For the first hour or so I watched and got a few thrills out of the set up and the excellent cast as they laid out the scenario and introduced the plot but I felt oddly unaffected. I thought it might be a case in which the second half would cement things and bring everything into focus so I was patient. After all- the movie looked great and was being rendered beautifully onscreen so surely the story would catch fire eventually.

Instead I found that as the film progresses I was less involved in the story and was simply hanging on to see what the final act would do to end things. The further forward in the titular train the vengeful rebels traveled the less believable the entire tale seemed until I lost all ability to care and my suspension of disbelief evaporated. The space necessary to make this perpetual motion machine seem real was just not portrayed successfully enough for me and all I kept thinking was 'Do you have to pass through all of these train cars to eat sushi?'

Don't get me wrong- I know the whole tale is a metaphor for society and the necessity for the exploited under classes to fight for the rights that the wealthy claim and hold by force. But once the fictional structure becomes silly and implausible it begins to feel like a very pretty economics lecture punctuated by a few well played scenes of violence. Hell! I agree with the class war sentiments of the story but by the end I just didn't care very much about the characters or their efforts because their plight was so artificial and improbable.

It's a shame - there is a lot to be impressed by in the film but overall its only worth a single watch as food for discussion.

Brief Thoughts - THE RAID 2 (2014)

I cannot believe how good THE RAID 2 (2014) turned out to be! I had looked at the two hour and thirty minute running time and rolled my eyes thinking that surely something had gone wrong. I loved the first film but it clocked in at a smart one hundred minutes so I could not imagine what would cause the sequel to be nearly a full hour longer. Well, now I know- it is that much longer because it's stuffed with pure awesome! Holy Crap-a-moly does THE RAID 2 rock! It is almost too much action movie genius for a single film to contain. I have no idea how many fight or action sequences there are - maybe next time I'll count- but it is staggering how kinetic, frenzied and yet perfectly visual this film manages to be. This is the rare case where the sequel has outdone the original and the entire production crew starting with return director/writer/editor Gareth Edwards should be commended for crafting one of the best action films of the past twenty years.

The first one was good and is a great companion piece to the similar, brilliant DREDD (2011) but the second film is astonishing. More like this, please. 

Brief Thoughts - KICK-ASS 2 (2013)

I held off on seeing this one for a few reasons foremost being the nearly universally harsh opinions on the film from all who felt the need to express one. I never got details of why people didn't like this sequel - only a general dislike that made me think it must have gone in a direction most did not enjoy. I assumed the film must have been a departure from the original in some way that pushed viewers away. But now that I have seen it I am perplexed as to why fans of the first film were unhappy. I may lose some kind of critical cred with this statement but I really enjoyed this movie. Its not quite as impressive as its predecessor but its a damned solid follow up that moves the story and characters forward in clever and honest ways. It is just as transgressive and violent as the first and in some ways more emotionally complex. I liked this movie and wish it had been a success. Guess I'll have to read the comic book sequels to see what the writers decide to do with everyone in the future.

Brief Thoughts - THE COUNSELOR (2013)

Holy crap! How do you have so many good elements in place and still make such a terrible film? This sucker has Ridley Scott behind the camera and a cast that I would have thought could elevate anything but this is a dud. This might be a future touchstone for film nuts to judge against when projects go awry. Everyone certainly gives it their all and I never thought I'd see Cameron Diaz hump a car windshield or Javier Bardem get shot in the ass or that much arterial spray outside of a samurai film but....... what the hell were they thinking? I suspect the fact that legendary author Cormac McCarthy penned the script may have blinded the filmmakers to the ludicrousness of the entire thing. How can something be both half-baked and overcooked? Here's an example sure to curl your toes.

Anyone else see this crazy thing?

MANIAC (2012)

Via NetFlix streaming I recently caught the remake of the seminal trashy horror film MANIAC (1980) and I must admit that I found it to be quite well done. I have to confess that I have never been much of a fan of the original film. Its grungy, filthy look and its generally unpleasant tone always put me off and made it hard to easily enjoy the excellent effects work and the fine performance by star Joe Spinell. I can admire the 1980 film without really thinking very highly of it and I think I'm far from the only horror fan that feels this way. Its a dark, oppressive movie that generates a depressive state in the viewer that makes it difficult to think positively about the work.

By all rights, the same should be true of the remake. It tells the same tale of a tortured man guilt-ridden by his sexual urges, driven to commit hideous murders to calm the horrors in his own head. The ways in which this new version is more impressive (and, for me, more compelling) is in that the story is better structured and the agonized suffering of the main character Frank is more sharply detailed. Part of this is because the film is told completely from the point of view of Frank as he stalks and kills his victims and then deals with his own shame and revulsion at his actions We see him in mirrors and other reflective surfaces as he tries to control his emotions while obsessively scrubbing his hands with steel wool in a Lady Macbeth style attempt to wash away his conscience. We see his home in the backroom of his family's manikin store where he tries nightly to create a world where he is loved and cared for in the ruins of the early life that warped him into his present state. In both versions Frank is a man with serious Mother issues but in this film we see her actions in flashbacks that show specific moments that make her son's adult existence hellish. He can't trust women once they arouse him sexually and this horrific fact makes his burgeoning relationship with a French photographer all the more tragic.

It is in this odd courtship that the 2012 film stands well above the 1980 version. In the first film the scenes of Spinell's Frank and the luminous Caroline Munro out on restaurant dates were out of place and completely unbelievable. In the new film Elijah Wood as Frank is able to get across a convincing sense of being barely able to string sentences together well enough to talk to the beautiful lady come to admire his restoration work on manikins. Her flirtatious nature is sexy but not so aggressive that it triggers his migraine-like need to kill and her careful conversation about a subject he knows well makes the bond they begin to share quite convincing.

Of course, this tale is never going to end well but the 2012 version ends in a way I think is very satisfying. I'm glad this film was produced by the brave French filmmakers that tackled the project as I'm sure that if done by an American team it would have failed quite badly. I'm curious to learn what fans of the 1980 film think about this updated approach. 

THE LONE RANGER gets no respect!

I’m not sure at what age I first learned of The Lone Ranger but I think it was when the ads for this line of toys appeared in my youth. My one solid memory of this is of the origin tale of the character as it was related on the packaging for these pieces of sturdy plastic. It was laid out in comic book fashion and got across the story briefly and effectively enough that I wanted the toys and spent hours playing Lone Ranger and Tonto with them.

I lay this out because most fans of the character seem to have come to it through the Clayton Moore television series of the 1950’s but to this day I have only seen a handful of episodes of that much loved show. I don’t dislike what I’ve seen of it but it held no particular appeal for me so…….

I remember pretty well the hubbub that sprang up around the production of the feature film THE LEGEND OF THE LONE RANGER (1981) and remember thinking it had the reputation of being a silly mess surrounding a character I had walked away from around the same time I lost or mangled beyond repair my old toys. Time marches on and cooler things were out there mostly in the form of Edgar Rice Burroughs novels and Fantastic Four comic books. By 1981 I was occasionally able to get to a movie theater but I never even wanted to catch this incarnation of the Lone Ranger and I even passed up any opportunity once it showed up on pay cable a few years afterwards. What few moments I saw at the time seemed very uninteresting especially when time could be better spent watching THE GODFATHER or SUPERMAN again. In fact, the 1981 LR film made so small a ripple in my movie loving mind that I was only reminded of it when the new Disney produced giant budgeted Summer Blockbuster ® was barreling down the chute to a theater near everyone. Now, I thought, now is the time to finally see that long forgotten and badmouthed western.

“Surely,” I thought, “it couldn’t really be as bad as the press made out back in the eighties. I bet it’s actually pretty good. I’m sure the ham-handed way the film’s producers handled the release and the controversy over letting Clayton Moore wear his Lone Ranger mask in public obscured a quality slice of cinema ripe for reevaluation. I’ll dig the film up and check it out before venturing out to see the new version. It’ll be instructive.”

And my friends, it was instructive. THE LEGEND OF THE LONE RANGER is without a doubt one of the lousiest western movies I have ever seen. I don’t say this lightly. I have seen a lot of B grade westerns from the 1940’s and 50’s but I would recommend even the worst of those oaters over this boring, poorly directed, badly photographed attempt to craft a movie. The film’s only good as a curio of how to have a number of things in place and just not know how to line them up. The script is pedestrian with no energy or verve. It goes out of its way to set up the Ranger’s childhood for no good reason serving only to eat up screen time that could have been better used to tell a story about the freakin’ Lone Ranger doing something!

Much has been made of the casting of the lead and I have to admit that Klinton Spilsbury is no one’s idea of a leading man- except the producers of this film! He isn’t always bad but most of the time his performance is flat and as an onscreen presence he is simply uninteresting. In a genre dominated by actors that the camera loves Spilsbury can't hold his own because the camera doesn't seem to know he's there. Sadly, I don’t even like actor Michael Horse as Tonto either. It was nice to see a real Native American in the role but he has many of the same acting deficiencies as his co-star making things dull every time they are exchanging dialog. After a while I kept hoping the film would descend into deeper depths of ‘bad’ so I could at least start having some fun by laughing at it. But the movie manages to maintain a level of mediocrity that made it hover in the tedious range causing my eyes to glaze over at the paucity of talent being brought to bear on this tale. How could such a well known character become so poorly represented on the big screen? Why was this pretty damned good story being handled in such a lackluster manner? It was just a sad thing to see. The 2013 film was going to be much better than this. Easily!

Woo boy.

I sat down in the theater last month to see THE LONE RANGER (2013) with mixed feelings. The reviews had been harsh but I had heard enough good comments from film nuts to make me think this one might be another of the 'hated at the time but loved later on' movies that I find so endearing. Damn.

I will just start by saying that this film is easily an hour too long. That's right- I didn't mistype that sentence. THE LONE RANGER could have and should have been trimmed by at least an hour and the place to start is the framing story of the old Tonto relating the main tale to a boy in the 1920's. Who thought this was a good idea? I suspect the scriptwriters thought that by couching the story as a Tall Tale told by an Unreliable Narrator they could slide some of their more asinine scenes and uncomfortable juxtapositions by the audience. After all- how do you justify a film that shows the genocide of a tribe of Indians right before it tries to convince you that a man on horseback could ride at a gallop through a passenger train car. One is a terrible, dark moment of real weight and the other is a silly, impossible scene that gets dumber as it goes on. Hell- it started with the Ranger riding his horse on top of the moving train in the first place and just gets more ridiculous as it continues with Rube Goldberg contraptions adding to the visual clutter, confusion and my anger.

Which leads to my second major complaint- the movie cannot decide on a tone. The film jumps back and forth between silly humor and harsh violence and seems to have no idea these two things don't belong together. How could a group of smart people think that a scene in which a man carves the heart out of another man's chest and eats it should be followed up by a scene in which Tonto jokes around with a horse over the man's grave? Yeah, Johnny Depp's delivery is funny as he speaks to the possibly supernatural horse but what are these two scenes doing in the same film? Were two different scripts mashed together?

Which leads me to my third problem- why is there a supernatural horse running around this movie? This beast at one point is standing in a tree and repeatedly magically appears where ever it seems most convenient for the plot. The idea is that the Ranger's survival of the ambush that killed the other Ranger's with which he was travelling is a miracle caused by the gods. What? Why do this? Why can't it just be that he was left for dead and lived because he was found and nursed back to health by Tonto? What is wrong with that story? Why complicate the tale for no good consequence? Adding a supernatural element  is pointless and irritating. Its as if the filmmakers didn't trust the story they were telling and decided to add a lot of nonsense to it to make it more 'interesting'.

And why is the character played by Helena Bonham Carter in this film? She serves next to no function and her steam punk inspired false leg is just more pointless silly filigree on an over decorated set. Ugh. I could go on and complain about the stupid CGI aided stunt work that makes every action scene unbelievable and cartoonish but I'm sick of this thing. They should have made THE Lone Ranger film but they blew it and in the process they have set the character back to zero again. Thanks Hollywood. Fail!