Flavours of the Month: December 2010...

LOOKS:

Twin Peaks - jumping from The Horror Channel to the lovely 10-disc "Definitive Golden Box Edition" DVD (with a healthy dose of extra features), I finished my first tour through the fascinating and memorable oddball drama that was Twin Peaks. If only there had been a third season, because that cliffhanger just leaves you wanting to know what would have happened next. Additionally I dug into the prequel movie Fire Walk With Me, which I talked about in an earlier post.

The Blue Planet - I got this for my birthday months ago, but I hadn't seen it yet, so I figured it was about time I dug into it. Fascinating stuff, but it was the deep sea episode that was my favourite. It's astonishing what's way down there in the inky darkness of the deep sea, isn't it?

Lost: Season One & Two DVD Extras - the show came to an end earlier this year, so I've gone back to the beginning - well, the extra features anyway.

Italian Horror - it's been a lot of Argento-flavoured movies this month, what with Demons 1 & 2 (which he co-wrote & presented), as well as The Bird With The Crystal Plumage, Deep Red, and The Cat O'Nine Tails.

Avatar (Blu-Ray) - a third viewing of James Cameron's mega budget blockbuster. I still dig it.

The Expendables (Blu-Ray) - a ruddy good flick in its own right, but what impressed me most was the feature length making of documentary "Inferno" featured in the UK 3-disc package, which was just superb.


SOUNDS:

Twin Peaks - Angelo Badalamenti and Julee Cruse have been providing the background to my web surfing this month with their hypnotic sound.

Goblin "Profondo Rosso" and "Tenebrae" - from the Argento films of the same names.

Shutter Island soundtrack ("Symphony No.3 Passacaglia", and "On The Nature of Daylight") - both are equally as haunting from Scorsese's superior genre flick.


VIBES & FLAVOURS:

STALKER: Call of Pripyat - I was months late getting into this, but nevertheless I enjoyed the hell out of it. It took a bit of getting into initially, but once I was in, I was all about exploring every nook and cranny. The first game had the better story and climax, but this third entry in the series was the best all-round package.

Seasonal Snow - in January we got a shedload of snow, and this month, not even a whole year later, we got another big old dose of the white stuff accompanied by sub-zero temperatures all month. It's been as cold as -13c in my neck of the woods during the night, so it's been pretty damn cold out there. However it did mean we had a lovely covering of snow on Christmas Day itself, and I can't remember experiencing that before - so that was quite special indeed.

Call of Duty: Black Ops - one of my Xmas presents for this year; it's not perfect by any means (too many scripted moments where you have no player control, muddled battles that leave you a bit confused, endlessly respawning enemies at certain points, and generally not feeling all that different from previous entries in the franchise) ... but on the plus side I did still rather enjoy it (the plot was more interesting and better structured than that of Modern Warfare 2, which was sadly lacking on that front, being inserted into certain historical moments and alternate historical moments was cool, and some of the levels were really damn cool). Hopefully the next CoD game will shake things up considerably - and provide a longer single player experience - but despite some problems that Black Ops sports, I still quite enjoyed it.

The Big Book of Top Gear 2011 - one of the many books I got for Xmas. I've certainly got plenty to read over the coming weeks and months ... this, plus Scott Pilgrim Vol. 1&2, The Walking Dead Vol. 5, "It's Only A Movie" by Mark Kermode, "Driving Us Insane" by Jeremy Klaxon (a spoof), "The Man In The White Suit" by Ben Collins, "The World According To Clarkson: How Hard Can It Be?" by Jeremy Clarkson, and "Ice Cream & Sadness: Cyanide & Happiness Vol. 2" by the Cyanide & Happiness web comic guys.

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And being that this is New Year's Eve - to one and all, have a groovy night and a spiffing New Year 2011!

Deadlands 2: Trapped on Blu-Ray review...

The guys over at High-Def Digest have done a review of Gary Ugarek's indie zombie flick Deadlands 2: Trapped - and in the extra features you'll find a familiar something from DeadShed Productions.

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/2684/deadlands2.html

"I Am Zombie Man" Series (HD, 39 min) — Three short films by British filmmaker Nick Thomson of Deadshed Productions. After a brief introduction by the writer/director, viewers can enjoy the goofy faux-documentary about a very lonely zombie. It's all done for a laugh and a good time, with the third movie in the series being probably the best.

My most memorable movie viewing experiences #6...

Graduate and Beyond:

The Descent (Neil Marshall, 2005):
When – Summer 2005
Where – Home Video
Why – It was sunny outside, it was the middle of the day, and I was watching the flick on my computer on a relatively small screen – and yet despite the setting, Marshall’s ‘chicks with picks’ claustrophobic horror managed to creep me out and cause me to jump on several occasions. Even with further viewings on DVD it still manages to chill, which in the world of modern horror movies really a special achievement.


The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Andrew Dominik, 2007):
When – 2008
Where – Home Video
Why – The titular sequence in Dominik’s luxurious western haunted me for days and days afterwards, but more than that, the entire film was a sumptuously shot slow-burn film with a superb soundtrack. A viewing just recently on DVD recaptured that same impression and I just absolutely loved it.


Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick, 1999):
When – January 2009
Where – Home Video
Why – I’d never watched Kubrick’s final film when it originally came out – at a time when I was busily devouring numerous titles from his back catalogue (repeatedly, in some cases) and indeed it took me a decade to finally get around to seeing this after getting the Director’s Series Stanley Kubrick 10-disc DVD box set. Kubrick’s films had long since become a once-in-a-blue-moon event, so it was nice to have this one that I still hadn’t seen – his final film no less – to devour and re-experience the uniqueness of Kubrick’s visions. It’s not perfect, and not his best, but the sense of occasion and the passionate attention to detail was something to behold in itself.


United 93 (Paul Greengrass, 2006):
When – Summer 2006
Where – Home Video
Why – Greengrass’ frenetic re-telling of the tragic fate which befell the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93 on September 11th 2001 was a perfectly paced and horrifying affair. The tension and impending tragedy of the situation ratchets up with expert timing, until the final sequence in which the passengers storm the hijackers and attempt to regain control of the plane was nothing short of totally-and-physically arresting. Those last minutes of the film, right before the devastating cut-to-black was beyond an edge-of-my-seat experience, so much so that when the passengers first attacked the hijackers I literally leapt out of my chair, fist thrashing into the air, and exclaimed “get those bastards!” (or something to that effect). I can’t think of any film that I have ever seen that has had such a profound and physical effect upon me. Astonishing.


Martyrs (Pascal Laugier, 2008):
When – 2009
Where – Home Video
Why – It’s not a particularly common thing for a horror movie to properly creep me out – not just give me a shock jump – but to genuinely get inside my head and stay there like a nasty infestation. So decisive was the effect of watching this somewhat ‘existential torture’ horror flick, that I had trouble getting to sleep that night, and it remained lurking around in my mind for some time afterwards. Now and then a film will come along that will really get inside your head and trouble you and Martyrs was such a film.

My most memorable movie viewing experiences #5...

Uni Years:

The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941):
When – Autumn 2002
Where – Campus Screening Room
Why – My three years doing my degree in Film & Television Studies was a time when my eyes were opened to a whole host of films that I would have never watched beforehand, and one of the big new things for me was in the first semester of the first year on the Key Issues In Film Studies course when we had a print screening of the Bogart version of The Maltese Falcon. My mid-semester essay was to do with the style of the film, and I became a Bogart fan – consuming Casablanca (one of my all time favourite films, along with The Maltese Falcon), Key Largo, and The Big Sleep in quick succession in the following weeks – and as a result of this tale of Sam Spade, the 1940s has become one of my favourite periods of cinematic history.


Saving Private Ryan (Steven Spielberg, 1998):
When – Mid-2000s
Where – Off-Campus Bedroom
Why – While I’d already seen the movie a handful of times since not long after its original release, it was during the Lucas & Spielberg course that I came to do an essay on the opening Omaha Beach sequence – a shot-by-shot breakdown in fact, and when you consider how many shots there are in that first 25 minute sequence, it was an arduous task. Every few seconds I’d be pausing the DVD – sat there in my cramped 6ft by 8ft bedroom – and writing down exactly what was happening on screen and how it would fit into my analysis. I’ve rarely studied a sequence in that much detail, and as a result producing that essay has stuck in my mind ever since.


E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (Steven Spielberg, 1982):
When – Mid-2000s
Where – Campus Screening Room
Why – Again during the Lucas & Spielberg course, one of the weeks focussed on E.T. – a film that I’d enjoyed as a kid, but for some reason had come to really quite dislike during my teenage years … I’m not entirely sure why, but I was so switched-off to the movie for some reason. Quite to my surprise then, was when we watched the movie together as a class, and I got totally invested in it. What’s more, it actually choked me up, and as a result my opinion of the movie (which had become bitter for no discernable reason) performed a total 180.


La Jetee (Chris Marker, 1962):
When – Mid-2000s
Where – Campus Screening Room
Why – During the Photography & The Arts course, on which I did an in-depth analysis of the visual language of Antonioni’s Blow-Up, a film which really struck me was La Jetee – the film which went on to inspire Twelve Monkeys. The music, the static visuals in their high contrast black and white brilliance, the dark and weird sci-fi plot – it all left a lasting impression.


Saw (James Wan, 2004):
When – 2004
Where – Off-Campus Bedroom
Why – It’s easy to forget now, as a result of annual sequels of diminishing quality, clarity and box office draw, that the original Saw was a grotesquely dark and brilliant indie horror flick that came like a bolt out of the blue. It was truly chilling in its approach to truly chilling subject matter; its violence was stunningly graphic (and not at all expected or old hat as what the sequels produced), and the big reveal at the end literally left my jaw slung low with shock – in fact that entire reveal, brilliant industrial score included (which still sends shivers down my spine to this day), haunted my mind for quite some time afterwards.


Duel (Steven Spielberg, 1971):
When – Mid-2000s
Where – Campus Seminar Room
Why – Less of a viewing of the movie, and more a group presentation of a theory regarding one particular sequence. Once again on the Lucas & Spielberg course, my group and I had drawn the latter’s stunningly gripping debut chase movie, and we proceeded to – jokingly – argue that the entire movie was an allegory for male rape. We argued (with the rest of the class in on the joke, but not the lecturer, whose Modus Operandi for reading movies consistently skewed towards more Freudian territory) that the great big brute of a truck was raping the effeminate little red car and that it was all to do with sexual dominance in the male species.

Now, there is an argument that can be made for such a reading, or part of such a reading – and we were half-serious about it – but it was this deliberate, joking escalation of the theory into perverse territory that has become one of my fondest memories of film school. In fact the lecturer rather liked our theory!


Napoleon Dynamite (Jared Hess, 2004):
When – Spring 2005
Where – Off-Campus Living Room
Why – During the spring semester of our final year at university, tensions and divisions were beginning to present themselves within our group of four in our off-campus house. Personally I found the final six months of university to be quite a stressful time for various reasons, and after a few blow-outs amongst the group, we needed something to regain the sense of fun and unity that had summed up the first two years of our time at uni.

That movie was Napoleon Dynamite and it was introduced to us all by one housemate who was quite taken with it. We sat down to watch it – a background tension in the air – and within twenty minutes we were all laughing uproariously at the quirky indie-com. The movie became the last big thing that we as a house were all about, and we watched it many times – practically quoting the script verbatim as it would play, and not even when we were watching it, just during a normal day. It was such a thing of the moment, for me at least, that I’ve not yet re-watched the movie since – only the odd moment here or there when it’s been on television – however, when I do, I’m sure it’ll take me vividly right back to those final weeks of university when everything got back on track in the house and we all got that sense of fun back.

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.