Double Bill Mini Musings: A load of old Italian cobblers...

Demons & Demons 2:
The Italians, when it comes to the horror genre at least, aren't especially known for particularly great plots. The Italians love the look of something, and that's their primary focus - and so it is with this Dario Argento presented twosome, directed by Lamberto Bava (son of Mario "Bay of Blood" Bava).

The first has a bunch of randomly dated characters (including a pimp-like dude who looks like he got lost somewhere between Saturday Night Fever and a dialogue-light bad guy for Pam Grier to pummel) all attending a secret movie premiere. So begins the movie-within-a-movie, featuring some random mask that cuts you when you put it on and turns you into a demon, who can spread the demon disease through their fingernails. Inexplicably, in the lobby, there is a similar mask (for some reason dangling off the handlebar of a motorbike ... what random movie was this display supposed to be advertising anyway?) that, you guessed it, cuts the cheek of one of the pimp dude's floozies.

She goes all demon on everyone's arse and soon enough the good stuff in the flick finally gets on the go - that being the gore and nonsense violence. Grandiose shots, agonising shots to boot, of demons having their human teeth slowly pushed out by their devilish gnashers (similiar with their fingernails) ... and then constant shots of them wandering around aimlessly screaming ... ... the cast of dated stereotypes and useless fodder, led by the white-suited pimp, barricade themselves and fend off the back-lit, glowing eyed, titular antagonists - and get picked off one-by-one.

Fast forward to a helicopter - for utterly no reason at all - crashing through the ceiling, as well as endlessly dull sequences of coke-headed punks driving interminably around a not-at-all-good-to-look-at Italian city from the 1980s, to simply become yet more fodder, and it's all a bit insufferable, I've got to be honest.

I was rather looking forward to seeing Demons and Demons 2, but neither have the grandiose, painterly vision of Argento's technically superior eye, nor the unmitigated sleaze of Fulci's grindhouse grot. These flicks sit somewhere, uneasily, between, and while Argento's flicks sometimes aren't the strongest when it comes to plot, at least they have one that makes a lick of sense. Demons, and particularly the inferior sequel, is just a bunch of random crap happening.

Speaking of which, the second movie is exactly the same - but in a building - not 'the same like Die Hard 2 is the first one in an airport', no, it's pretty much exactly the same. It again features a movie-within-a-movie, that's supposed to be important, but isn't really, it again features the pimp-in-the-white-suit (this time as a tough-talking gym instructor), it again features a useless rabble of punks insufferably driving around a naff-looking Italian city, it again features gruesomely detailed shots of demon-dental-restructuring, and doesn't make a scrap of sense.

Most of the characters, more so than in the first, are literally nameless, and it's all set in an exceptionally ugly apartment complex filled wall-to-wall with cannon fodder. A bunch of random nonsense happens scene-after-scene in this 'swish' prison, all loosely cobbled together under 'various people need to survive the siege' - and the overacting, just like in the first, is heinous. It's not just naff acting, it's stupendously bad acting, performed by apparently good looking people.

What's worse though is how long it takes for the monsters to transform for most of the movie, until the third act when - for, again, no good reason at all - every remaining side character (in a cast of side characters) instantaneously mutates for 'a scare' (and that's at the same time as being able to impersonate their former selves, which was never flagged up to be an actual ability ... especially as, again, they spend half the movie lumbering around, back-lit, eyes glowing, and screaming endlessly at nothing).

I was really quite interested to see these flicks - the trailers made them look rather enjoyable - but the horrendous scripts, overacting, and general lack of sensible pacing or interest - threw all that out of the window for me. Perhaps if I'd seen them as a young teenager, but there are countless 'lesser' horror movies with far better scripts, acting, and pacing. It wouldn't be so bad if they were 'so bad they're good' (like Zombie Lake, for example), but they're clearly supposed to be something spectacular and they just aren't by any stretch of the imagination. I usually enjoy movies like this, and to each their own, but blimey I really didn't get on with these flicks at all.

There Will Be Blood...

As far as epics go for the 2007-2008 period go, my top slot has already been assumed - as you might well know by now - by The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, an absolutely spell-binding, myth-meditating western.

However, there is another heavy weight contender out there - PT Anderson's There Will Be Blood. Mark Kermode has ranted and raved about this film with similar passion as I have for The Assassination of Jesse James (or as my fellow online movie nerds would say, "flat out flaming for it").

It's a timely movie, considering the fuss surrounding oil - the black, liquid gold. It's a tale of ambition, greed, deception, corruption, attempted redemption, anger, murder, capitalism unbound ... basically it's bloated with the sheer volume of narrative themes.

Admittedly, I found the last 40 minutes or so to, not drag, but just lose some of that special something - for me anyway. What preceded this sedate third act (or indeed fourth act) was gripping to say the least. Beautiful images, weighty performances, direction of absolute craft and obsessive precision ... I guess the comparative stroll of the final scenes didn't strike me as hard as they might have done. However, there's always the second viewing, which will no doubt confirm the power of these final scenes for me - not that I deny this now. Perhaps I was personally just beginning to tap out a smidge by that stage, there is a fair shift in gears for the final act.

As already said though, it's a film of brutish strength in all its creative extents, a coming together of artists, which culminated in a modern epic (see also Into The Wild). It seems that amidst the cheap ideas, remakes and MTV-sucking tat, that there is a bit of a renaissance going on somewhere inside Hollywood. Those with plenty of clout (such as PTA and Brad Pitt) are pushing the boundaries of artistic filmmaking, they're trying to seek out something more, something epic, something meaningful. Today it seems, after the inspiring renaissance seen on the small screen during recent years, the 'New Hollywood' era is making a come back.

Such bold entries into the annals of cinematic history will never go away, but will hibernate from time-to-time, now though - the grizzly has awakened, and it's impressive.

My war isn't over, Adrian...

Well, after finishing "A Bridge Too Far", I decided to re-visit the "Rambo" trilogy (soon to join the legion of "4th in the series of" sequels of recent times (the trailer looking awesome), and I have to say, the first movie is awesome. The 2nd and 3rd are good, but not awesome, nor shite...but not superb, although I get their reason for being - 2nd movie is Rambo returning to Vietnam, 3rd movie is Rambo's modern day Vietnam, after ending his personal war with Vietnam he needed a new war to fight, so it ended up being in Afghanistan ... although being thoroughly perplexed by Middle Eastern politics, I don't know where "Rambo 3" fits in with all the shite going on over there now.

All this talk of "Rambo" though, does remind me of the hilarious, yet fully justified, rant from the Angry Nintendo Nerd regarding film franchises and the titles - such as these films:

1) First Blood
2) Rambo: First Blood 2
3) Rambo 3
4) John Rambo

There's not the consistency of Stallone's other franchise, that is the utterly superb "Rocky" series - solid Roman Numberals all the way till the last one, which as we all should know is "Rocky Balboa" - although that is fully justified, it was such a long gap since "Rocky V", and it exists in a different time, whereas the previous films were all quite quick-fired out, or within the same range of time ... it's why I guess "Live Free or Die Hard/Die Hard 4.0" makes sense ... technically ... I say technically, because both those titles suck - just call THAT film "DIE HARD 4" and leave it be, but as Stallone is actually a Jack of several trades, he does inject his own soul into his heroes - particularly Rocky - so I think it makes complete sense of cap-off his two biggest characters by titling their final films after the protagonist.

I recently re-watched the second half of "Rocky II", recent as in yesterday morning when I was waiting to use the internet, and it just reminded me of how awesome those films are (well, the fifth is a bit tosh, but with all the Tommy Gun crap taken about, it's actually still pretty good, because it advances the story of Rocky Balboa onwards). Plus - the soundtrack is just awesome, I listened to the 'best of' compilation whilst doing some title sequence tests for "I Am Zombie Man 3", and considering the story of "IAZM3", whilst listening to the "Rocky" soundtrack, it just fit really well ... the vibes being somewhat similar.