Triple Bill Mini Musings: The Devil's Proposition for Mandy Lane...

All The Boys Love Mandy Lane:
Considering the title, I thought this was going to be a spiffing horror riff on the sexes and high school infatuation, but alas it never really picks up the suggested ball to run with it. Rather, the notion of the chick that literally all the guys dig is briefly presented, and then ditched in favour of a handful of them (with two 'valley girl' types) sauntering off to a (rather lame) party at a ranch.

It's stylishly shot, but the script just doesn't live up to the potential of the title - there is little in the way of tension, characterisation, motive, and the third act twist makes absolutely no sense at all. Worth seeing for the beautiful Amber Heard in an early starring role, and a couple of fairly original kills, but beyond that it's a real missed opportunity to do something deeper and more interesting.


Race With The Devil:
I think my first knowledge of this flick came with Kevin Smith, a couple of years ago, when asked what movie that his (at the time) proposed Red State most resembled in terms of feel and he said Race With The Devil. That was a good while ago now, but Sky Movies helpfully showed this late one night and I gave it a spin.

While I haven't seen Smith's Red State (yet, natch) I can understand (as a result of the Red State of the Union podcasts over on SModcast.com) why he made the link. It's a movie full of paranoia and an unstoppable sense of creeping menace. Two holidaying couples (travelling in an RV with all the mod cons) find themselves in the crosshairs of a Satanic cult, and spend the rest of the movie trying to get the hell out of dodge and to some sort of safety.

For the most part the film has a gentle pace, but the slow ratcheting-up of the sense that something isn't quite right about some (or all?) of the people they meet leaves you with a palpable paranoia. Indeed, this tension builds gradually towards the big set piece sequence where the protagonists do battle with a convoy of Satanists, which is a genuinely tense experience.

Coming in the midst of the 1970s, with the disaster of the Vietnam war still raw and bloody in the collective American consciousness, and at a time when rumours of Satanic cults in the heart of middle America were rife, this is a classic of its time and a skilled illustration of tension building.


The Proposition:
Directed by John Hillcoat (The Road) and scored by the superb combo of Nick Cave & Warren Ellis (the former also wrote the script), this is the sparsely-plotted, meanderingly-paced tale of an outlaw who is given an ultimatum - kill his older brother, or his younger brother gets hanged. It's a compelling central conflict, but one that is handled from a distance, with lightly drawn characters set amidst the scorched earth, sun bleached frontier days of Australia's outback.

The direction and cinematography has a similarly distanced approach, something that was somewhat carried over onto The Road (another tale set in a desolate land, scored by Cave & Ellis), and it can at times be surprisingly brutal (the key point of which being an agonised lashing). The Proposition, like the land and time in which it is set, is a sweltering, sparse and bloodily violent tale told from a distance - and it's this distancing effect that can keep you, the viewer, from fully connecting with the story, but nevertheless the vision is uncompromising for all its flaws and successes.

Blog juice, it doesn't come in a jar...

That's right, blog juice comes from who you are ... if you don't remember or appreciate that kids summer camp-based reality TV show for kids, that used to be shown in the UK on Channel 4 during the summer holidays, then you're a ... a ... nob, ha!

Why the random glance back in TV time? I've been strolling down TV memory lane at Homepage of the Dead with fellow TV afficianados, and was promptly over-joyed when I was kindly reminded of the glory that was "Pugwall's Summer", again a Channel 4 summer holiday must-watch ... at least I think it was Channel 4, most shows were - like the likes of "Alex Mack", that toxic teen who'd puddle under doors and so forth.

Anyway - point being, I've been on a massive Round the Bend bender, yes pun-tastic wasn't it...and actually surprisingly anarchic and non-PC ... oh those were the days, back when a Cockney crocodile living in a sewer could call his viewers "benders" and not mean it to mean anything other than someone who watched Round the BEND...glorious. You can't beat a show which runs a horror serial styled like a 1950s B-Movie called "False Teeth from Beyond the Stars", to be honest.

So indeed, it's been a slew of YouTube visits for the likes of Fun House, Finders Keepers, Huxley Pig ("oink oink"), Crapston Villas (although yes, that was an adult animation back in the day that I'd try my utmost to craftily record or watch whenever possible like any other self-respecting kid my age) and most importantly above all (yes, even above Round the Bend) - The Real Ghostbusters, my absolute favourite cartoon from my kid-hood...all the better for the nerdgasm being that Bill Murray (who played real-life Peter Venkman) played the voice of Garfield in the CGI movie, a character who was voiced (in the cartoon version) by proper leg-end Lorenzo Music, who also voiced the cartoon version of Peter Venkman ... even more nerd-tastic (yet kinda naff), was that apparently (according to fellow Ghostbuster obsessive Bassman311 at HPOTD) Murray had LM fired as the voice of cartoon Venkman because it made him sound too much like Garfield! Now that's some crazy shit ... I hope I got that last bit correct, it's new to me - just going to show that my chap Bassman311 is a larger GB fan that I, well not necessarily larger, he just obsesses more than I over it ... and I absolutely love the movies and show and had a shedload of the toys as a kid (most of which I still have in my possession)...

Anyway ... onwards ... to something, I duno...