Fear The Walking Dead 1x03 memes...

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We're half-way through the season now and the fan's starting to get fairly clogged up with the proverbial brown stuff ... I'm absolutely loving this show! It has exceeded my expectations and assuaged my initial fears with ease.

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Click to Enlarge: What a precocious little scamp...

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Double Bill Mini Musings: Fire and Murder...

The Girl Who Played With Fire:
While the first film could stand very much on its own two feet as a solitary narrative, this middle portion of the Millennium Trilogy feels very much the set-up for what's to come in the closing chapter. Furthermore, some of the style of the first film is lacking (it's definitely a shame the filmmakers moved away from the 2.35:1 aspect ratio afforded to the original, which proved more suitable), and it lacks the sense of momentum and drive of the first - but again, this circles back to this being the necessary set-up for the third film.

That said, if you view the three films as one complete entity, then Fire becomes the second act of something bigger and more meaningful. In this context it's definitely acceptable, but even on it's own - when it doesn't equal the superb original - it still has a few surprises up its sleeve. More of a functional, required second chapter, than a stand alone piece of dark entertainment - here's hoping The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest provides the goods for a satisfying closer.


Double Indemnity:
This was one of the films shown during my film degree - on the Film Noir course - but I didn't attend the screening (my essay was on another film - Out of the Past, and I'd already honed in on what I planned to cover in the exam). I always felt a bit guilty about that, for one thing it's often observed as one of the best - if not the best - example of the Noir genre. So it's always stuck in my mind ever since, and I'm glad to have finally gotten around to it - and indeed, Billy Wilder's twisted tale is a damned fine example of the genre.

An Insurance Salesman falls into the web of a blonde bombshell femme fatale, who's tired of her supposedly slap-happy husband and wants him offed. So begins a beautifully crafted (thrillingly so, at times) ever-darkening, and ever-twisting tale of insurance fraud turned most foul. Coming hot off of Team Bondi's L.A. Noire, it's easy to see where the inspiration for one of the late-in-the-game characters comes from (even down to the architecture of his place of work), and well, if you're going to immitate, immitate the best.

While some Film Noirs are deeply convoluted at times (The Big Sleep), Double Indemnity's ace-up-its-sleeve is it's relative simplicity. It's far from dumb (obviously), but rather the plot is tightly bound within motive and procedure. The cast is kept to an efficient minimum, the motivation for the murder is clear (only to become oh-so-muddied in due course as events begin to unfold with expert drip-drip-drip storytelling), and the style never crushes the substance. No wonder it's held in such high regard - a status I'm all-too-happy to further champion.

Hextuple Bill Mini Musings: June 2011...

His Girl Friday:
I've wanted to see this Howard Hawks screwball comedy for quite sometime. Indeed I'm surprised it wasn't shown during my film course (although we did watch another screwball comedy - Bringing Up Baby), and I'm pleased to report that the dialogue was as machine-gun-fast and whip-smart as I'd hoped. It's a marvel unto itself, the dialogue and the delivery. Cary Grant's newspaper editor is still fascinated by his now ex-wife Rosalind Russell (who's about to head off and marry another man and leave her sharp journalistic wits behind), and over the course of the film he pulls out every dirty trick he can to keep her in town and lure her back into her passion for the newspaper game. A mighty fine example of the screwball comedy.


99 Women:
Prior to this point, I believe the only Jess Franco movie I'd ever seen was Oasis of the Zombies (a movie so bad it's kind of good) ... although I have also seen the superior Zombie Lake (which Franco co-wrote). This is an earlier example of the 'Women In Prison' genre, and it boasts an aggressively lurid synopsis that has you believe it's a grot-filled sleaze epic ... when in fact it's anything but. Positively tame for the most part, the back-of-a-fag-packet plot consists of 99 women stuck in an island jail run by a sadistic Warden. Not an awful lot happens, there's an escape, then everything goes back to normal. Best reserved for die-hard Franco-fans.


The Card Player:
After the rather disappointing The Stendhal Syndrome, and the solid Sleepless, I was quite pleased to find that this Argento giallo flick from 2004 was pretty decent. A maniac is on the loose, challenging the police to win at games of poker to save the lives of his potential victims. While the climax is curiously void of tension (it's a touch wacky, to boot), and the plotting is typically light when it comes to characterisation and motivation, it moves along at a decent pace and manages to involve you for the most part. Naturally its far from Argento's heyday, and while Sleepless was better, it's not an atrocity by any means.


A Town Called Panic:
Fellow Brits might be familiar with those Cravendale milk adverts featuring a jumble of plastic toy figures (all stop motion animation) ranting at the top of their lungs about how mad-for-milk they are. Well this is that - but an entire feature film (in French), featuring Horse, Cowboy, and Indian. It's gleefully childish (in the best possible way) in its almost bedtime story-like narrative - Cowboy and Indian seek to build Horse a BBQ for his birthday, requiring 50 bricks, but they accidentally order millions of them, which leads onto a bizarre journey (which at one point involves a giant snowball-flinging Mech-like metal penguin piloted by scientists). Beautifully shot, the animation is simple - but joyously so - indeed it reminds you very much of your own playtime when you were a child (minus the barmy French characters shouting feverishly). It's a film for all the family and it's highly recommended you check it out.


A Nightmare On Elm Street 2010:
Wes Craven's franchise-starting 1984 original had an inventive idea driving the properly crafted narrative, and it introduced us to a pitch-perfect new face of terror (well, until he turned into a cartoon character marketted - bizarrely, even perversely - to children as a cuddly rogue at the height of his popularity). Samual Beyer directs his film debut like a music video (he's best known for the video to Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and Green Day's "American Idiot" videos). Like a music video it's impatient to get going (the movie begins at minute zero with us already in a nightmare), and due to the rush you care little (if at all) for the protagonists.

On the one hand it wants to rip-off the famous moments from Craven's decidedly far superior original, and on the other it wants to branch out ... but whenever it does, it hints at an idea that could have (in the hands of a talented screenwriter who cared about motivation, characterisation, tension building, and pacing) created a really interesting new take on a well-worn genre legend. Then it goes and blows it, time and again, and just cobbles together a bunch of vaguely connected dream sequences (none of which are scary, let alone chilling, nor mildly cool). Half of the cast feel totally disconnected (more like celebrity wannabes, than anyone interested in acting), and the other half that have any talent are totally wasted (I'll be interested to see Roony Mara take on The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo under the superior direction of David Fincher, and Kyle Gallner in Kevin Smith's much-talked-about chiller Red State).

Only one sequence - a flash back to how-and-why Freddy got fried - holds any intrigue (indeed, a talented screenwriter could have crafted a deeply dark origin story), but that doesn't save the movie from being a heartless, witless, and completely-and-utterly pale immitation of Craven's iconic original. Presentationally it feels like an imitation of the Friday 13th remake, which in-turn was an imitation of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake, and The Amityville Horror remake (all produced by Platinum Dunes ... or 'The Remake Assembly Line' as it should be known). These Platinum Dunes movies have dropped in quality consistently with each new product that's foisted upon the horror community (notorious gluttons for punishment, whose curiosity inevitably kills the cat) from good-but-still-inferior-to-the-original, to downright woeful.

Jackie Earle Hayley is also wasted here - under a supposedly 'more realistic' (yet entirely unconvincing, nor frightening) mask - with a dud script and a director who blows his load almost immediately revealing too much of Freddy early on (several times). This could have been a golden opportunity to make a dark origin story that avoided the content of the original almost entirely, but instead this is just another cash-hungry, churned-out, load of old bullshit. Avoid it like the plague, and let's hope they don't make a sequel to it!


Salt:
Angelina Jolie, a CIA agent, discovers she is an undercover Russian sleeper agent and goes on the run in this far-fetched, but briskly entertaining actioner. It does a relatively decent job of keeping you guessing (enough at least) throughout most of the movie, the action is entertaining, and the punchy running time stops it from outstaying its welcome. It's no classic, but it's a fun way to spend 90 minutes.

Double Bill Mini Musings: Demons and Dragons...

The Exorcist:
It's been 12 years since the BBFC unbanned William Friedkin's landmark film - 1999 was a watershed time in my formative years, when a torrent of previously banned or cut movies were unleashed onto the market uncut (for the most part). For a teenage horror-aficionado-in-progress it was a magical time, and naturally The Exorcist still had a certain cache attached to its name. However, for whatever reason, I never got around to seeing it until just now - although having seen practically every money shot from the flick in numerous documentaries and film-related list shows, I was already decidedly familiar with the film, which unfortunately dampened the effect that the movie no doubt has when seeing it with virgin eyes.

However, I could still appreciate - and imagine - what sort of a shock it must have been to audiences around the world upon its initial release. Indeed, the roller coaster trajectory where moments of quiet contemplation are brutally interrupted by sideswipes of chilling disturbance, still manages to raise the hairs on the back of your neck. It's an intelligent film, with a deliberately gradual pace, and a fascination with the clashing worlds of science, psychology, and religion. From monstrous looking-and-sounding machines of medical science dancing like demons over Regan's possessed form, to haunting call-backs to momentary personal experiences of Father Karras, the film rewards a patient viewer with a creeping sense of unease that builds to a chilling finale. It's just a shame that they don't stick to Mike Oldfield's creepily beautiful "Tubular Bells" throughout the credits (whoever thought it'd be a good idea to ham-fistedly chop-and-change the score after that final haunting image could use a slap).

So after all this time I've finally viewed the film itself, despite already being decidedly familiar with the enchanting sound of Tubular Bells, and the numerous famous moments (referenced in such movies as The 'Burbs), and I'm pleased that - despite that crushing familiarity-by-proxy - that it proved to be a worthwhile, intelligent, and haunting experience.


The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo:
I've never read Stieg Larrson's best-selling trilogy of books, and I'm unlikely to ever do so, so I'm purely going on the original Swedish film (now remade in English by David Fincher). Long story short (aptly enough), I found it thoroughly involving. For a two-and-a-half-hour long film, it didn't drag once. Every minute felt loaded with information and subtext, and it was all wrapped together in a beautiful-looking package (which is, amazingly, never at-odds with some of the brutally grim content). As a side note I watched it in the English Language Dub ... now, some cinephiles howl with indignation at the very thought of such a thing for numerous reasons, but I'm much more open to the idea if it's done well (and it was done well here). Think about it, countless countries around the world dub practically every piece of English-speaking film and television on a routine basis ... so why is it such an offence to view a quality English dub? It never felt distracting, and the voices felt suited to the physical presence of the actors.

Anyway, moving away from that issue, the tale of a shamed journalist and shadowy computer hacker investigating the case of a missing girl - which leads onto a series of connected murders - is a dark and deeply involving one. I'm looking forward to checking out the two follow-ups, The Girl Who Played With Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' Nest ... and come December, I'll be quite intrigued to see if the English language remake will stand confidently on its own two feet (David Fincher is, after all, directing). If you haven't already checked it out - do so sharpish.

The Machine Girl...

Essentially this is Japanese grindhouse. It's low budget, it's pretty darn crazy, and it's violent ... but shot on digital rather than film, and promptly covered in de-saturation and high contrast colouring.

Basically, girl with one arm (it gets hacked off mid-way through) seeks revenge for her brother who was bullied to death by a bunch of Yakuza offspring. Obviously, this means attaching a great big gattling gun to the stump and obliterating anything that dithers around in front of it for more than a milisecond.

It's crazed, often fast-paced, extremely violent and doused in the sort of gore that would make Peter Jackson very happy circa Braindead. It does sputter a bit when the story drifts on a tad too long in-between violent bouts of splatter, but when it picks up again, it flies off the handle and seeks to slice your head off along with the rest of the severed hunks of meat.

Solid fare, I've seen better, but I've seen worse. It's all good fun, and a definite must-see for fans of crazy and bloody Asian action flicks.