Off the Trail and Dead in the Woods.

As I left the house this morning I looked up to see an enormous black crow flying overhead. Then I looked in the backyard and saw this:

Okay, it wasn't quite that, but there was a murder of at least a dozen giant Ann Arbor crows picking apart the remains of a human corpse. Or maybe it was a garbage bag. Either way, There's a storm coming!

With Halloween in 2 days and the election a week away it's time I admit failure in my grand scheme to bounce through October blogging like ghostbusters...er, gangbusters? The distraction of the Detroit Tigers' exciting yet ill-fated run to the World Series is much to blame. Anyway, here's my attempt to quickly shore up the rest of my intent and give you an overview of what I did manage to see, and some of the other films I wanted to write about in depth.

(I did make the effort to check out Paul Thomas Anderson's new one, The Master, but since it's prime Oscar bait and not pertinent to the Halloween theme I'll save that for another time.)

After good luck with Slither and The Host I ran into a stinker with Rubber (Dir. Quentin Dupieux, 2010). I was drawn to the wild plot description about a lone abandoned tire coming to life in the desert, gaining telekinetic powers, and going on a kill crazy rampage. There are some fun parts and cool effects, but the winking self-consciousness of the audience within the movie and the breaking-the-fourth-wall stuff came off extremely stilted, and some scenes drag on for far too long with no forward movement. Ultimately, Rubber blew a flat.

On the other hand, my other random-pickup-and-let's-have-a-looksee was pretty enjoyable. The Eye (Gin gwai) (Dir. by the Pang Brothers, 2002) A blind girl gets a cornea transplant, but as she starts to adjust to having sight she starts having malevolent visions. This one was a lot more enjoyable, with some truly creepy scenes, and a couple of legit jump-out-of-your-seat moments. There is some hokeyness to the doctor/patient love story, and you have to put on your reading glasses, but like so many other great, original Asian nail-biters (Ringu/The Ring, Ju-On/The Grudge) this one underwent a Hollywood remake in 2008 starring Jessica Alba. Just as with those, I can't imagine HW managed to improve on the original.

My favorite film of the month, however, was John Carpenter's They Live (1988). It's a camped-up Invasion of the Body Snatchers starring 80s wrestling superstar "Rowdy" Roddy Piper. He's chewing bubblegum and kickin' butt while uncovering an alien plot to slowly take over the human race through highly sophisticated subliminal conditioning. Thankfully for Earth has a hard-headed sidekick and his trusty Truth-Tellin' Sungees:


That's pretty much it for what I managed to watch this month (probably something on tap the next couple of days, then round up the political stuff by this weekend)

I will round out October by throwing some recs to check out if you're in full Halloween mode.
If you are on the East Coast you should probably NOT watch Take Shelter. Instead, just take shelter.

Here's a great youtube compilation of quotes that will inspire you to find something to watch

Wanna get Dis-Oriented?
In addition to The Host, The Eye, Ringu, etc. there are a slew of other great films from the Far East that are worth a look this week. From Oldboy to Audition, even going back to the mother of all monster movies, Godzilla. If I had to pick one weird one to suggest it would be House (Hausu). Not to be confused with the 1986 Steve Miner horror/comedy of the same name (also pretty great), this one is a really bizarre, almost psychedelic trip from 1977 by director Nobuhiko Obayashi. A group of schoolgirls takes a summer holiday to visit a long lost aunt who may or may not be a witch. But yeah, she totally is. It sets up slowly, but by the time one of the girls is dismembered and swallowed up by a piano you'll be WTF'ing over and over. And never trust cats again (not that your ever should have in the first place).

Speaking of Houses...

Let us not forget some other ominous edifices, from Psycho's gothic house overlooking the Bates Motel to The Amityville Horror house's all-seeing windows, to the lonely dilapidated farmhouse in Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Apartments are no better, as Roman Polanski can brazenly attest: With Repulsion, The Tenant, and Rosemary's Baby, he created a loose, unsettling trilogy that will make you rethink tenancy as a safer option. My favorite haunted house, though, is Hill House from Robert Wise's 1963 classic, The Haunting. With a terrific backstory, and mostly a simple, sinister use of editing, sound effects and chilling music, you'll be on edge as the inevitable dread builds up inside the characters as their sanity slowly disintegrates and the unseen horror advances.

Some Vamps Don't Sparkle
So you've got your Nosferati -- 1922, 1979, 2000 -- and your Draculi -- 1931, 1974 ("The Blood of these whores is killing me!!"), Plus all of the great Hammer horror Dracs, and yeah, even the Bram is worth watching for Oldman. (Keanu...not so much.) As far as I'm concerned, Lost Boys has its fangs in the necks of too many, for around that same time but just around the corner lies Near Dark. Just a fantastic re-imagining of a pack of roaming sangre-suckers, with one of greatest bar fight scenes ever put on celluloid.


Screaming with Laughter
If you want some more camp if not all out laughs, it really doesn't get any better than Young Frankenstein. The Evil Dead Trilogy. And Rocky Horror, of course.  Off the beaten path a bit you've got Re-Animator,  Dead Alive, and a personal childhood fave, Killer Klowns from Outer Space.

And don't forget about Monster Squad! This seems like overkill,  but:


Well put, D.

Deep into the Woods #4 & 5 - Jabberwhat?

Been a bit off track again, lots of Tigers and tailgating and work and whatnot. I'm also rethinking the YouTube thing because I attempted to upload a clip and got a nearly instantaneous notice that it was licensed content (duh) and wouldn't be able to embed. Which is a bummer. I'm doing this for fun and to stretch my brain a bit, so I may go back to mostly screencaps to avoid any trouble. This is a little quick & dirty, thoughts are admittedly a bit random and unorganized,  But hey...content!

Going back to squirmy parts of the horrorsphere. After watching Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals I finished the evening with Slither, one of the better recent alien invasion/horror flicks. Shit goes down when a meteorite touches down in a town that is ultimately a backwoods microcosm, because there's an aggressive, sentient virus-slash-alien on board that only exists to invade, take over (creepily), destroy (disgustingly), and move on. Things happen on a local scale but with possibly widespread ramifications, borrowing ideas from classics like Night of the Living Dead and The Blob. Frankly, it's one if the most ruthless and hard to avoid body-snatching devices since Alien, with one of the most disgusting gestational periods ever. It will give you the urge to step on as many creepy-crawlies as you can see, but it will not do anything to alleviate any pre-established squeamishness.

(Trying the blogger vid here instead, but this may be gone before you know it.)

It manages a whole bevy of new ways to gross us out, with a great building of ingenuity in the devices, there are new "Oh HELL No!" moments around every corner, along with pretty convincing makeup and CGI. Storywise, writer/director James Gunn has tried to inject some heart between Elizabeth Banks' character and her husband, but it's set up that she basically loathes him, he's abusive even before he gets the alien inside him, so the latter stuff comes off as fake. Plus, she's obviously going to end up with Nathan Fillon (assuming they survive). Yeah, I'm overthinking this aspect, I guess. Overall, it's gross, fun, smarmy, even Men in Black-ish absent the glossy toys and forced banter.

___

Later in the week I checked out The Host (Gweomul), the South Korean monster movie sensation. I highly urge people to check this one out. It's a Godzilla tadpole acting like an addict hopped up on Heisenberg meth. The thing comes right out in the daylight in the first 20 minutes, there is nothing to hide. So yeah, I'm clipping it here. Pay special attention to the shot starting at 0:01.30, especially the camera movement.

That is just spectacular choreography and a seamless blend of the real-life and CGI. The creature is noticeably computer-generated, but excellently rendered in great detail and quite a sight to behold. And it has some tricks up its, er, sleeves(?) that surprise us as the show goes on. Yeah, we've come long way from giant, lumbering Gojira to an elephant-sized, lightning-quick, amphibious polliwog with razor sharp fangs and an untrammeled, grasperous monkey tail.

In action-based movies developing character is always difficult and unnatural when you have to develop specific scenes to just to develop character instead of letting it flow organically with the story, and The Host struggles a bit through a long, limp middle section that is only saved by the wonderful scene in the rain (you'll know when you see it) which is the arguably the best scene of the movie -- even better than the scene in the sun clipped above.

It has humorous excursions that are a bit jarring because of slapstick juxtaposed with what one would expect to be a very somber tone, but playing them into satirical moments against political and environmental issues that work for the most part.  Also of note, the architecture of the bridges and sewers around the Han River make for beautiful cinematography, reminding me of Antonioni's obsession with structural edifices, but there is movement here, by the camera, the characters, and the flowing river below, that heightens the composition. It all ends in a grand, atmospheric, dramatic final showdown that is on the verge of being balletic. Worth a serious look.

On the Trail #3: The Better Way?

Now we truly go on the campaign trail with The Candidate (1972, Dir. Michael Ritchie). Robert Redford is Bill McKay: a young, idealistic, do-goody lawyer who also happens to be handsome AND the son of a former Governor. The National Democratic party decides to  rope him into the California Senate race to face the long-time, impregnable Republican incumbent. McKay is hesitant to embarrass himself and take time away from actually making a difference on the ground, but when Democratic strategist Marvin Lucas (Peter Boyle) gives him free reign to say what he wants, no matter how controversial or unpopular, and assures him that he has no real chance of winning -- in fact, promising him that he will lose -- McKay grudgingly takes the opportunity to stir the pot and try to float some real issues into the political atmosphere.

The faux-documentary filming style gives it a real, gritty feel, with an especially 70s, almost Altman-esque aesthetic: a strong ensemble cast, overlapping dialogue, with scenes that burst out of the edges of the frame. The major difference is the usage of an inventive editing style that is especially evident in this rather meta clip. It establishes the eventual rift between McKay’s agenda and that of his party handlers, with an emphasis on the cruel, deft cutting of sight and sound in advertising/propaganda.

Also, aaaahh, delicious Hamm’s.

While McKay builds his brand through candor and accessibility, the machine behind him does what they're paid to do: everything in their power to win. Once he is locked in as the candidate after easily winning the Democratic primary, the power of the Party behind him begins to trump his stances through subtle manipulations. Despite lingering familial tension between McKay and his father, the former Governor (Melvyn Douglas) is brought on board to endorse and glad-hand. His marriage, while seemingly blissful, suffers strain underneath the surface; an affair is alluded to but kept out of sight. He eventually begins the long, painful path to selling out, helplessly relenting his neutered principles to the grinding machine and the faint, glowing possibility of victory. His speeches become robotic, his own ideas totally absent, as one stump speech blends meaninglessly into the next. 

 

The Candidate is a witty, absorbing, and deftly constructed. It provides a still-relevant look into the belly of the beast, where it is frustrating to see that, even though the media microscope has definitely enlarged the scale of everything, basic poli-tactics haven't really changed much in the last 40+ years. 

On the heels of the recent real-life debate, I submit one final (extended) scene, an absolute tour de force, replete with recycled issues, oblique answers, and shifting tides, with Redford looking eerily like a young, hippie, Bill Clinton. Study up before the next dog and pony show, people.

   

The Candidate (1972): 82

Deep Into the Woods #3: Finger-Lickin' Jungle Love

"C'mon baby, where's your guts?"

Just a few scares and some other titillations today. Last night I took in a double feature, starting with Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals (aka Trap Them and Kill Them) (1977) a bloody Italian sexploitation romp from one of the of gurus of the style, Aristide Massaccesi (aka Joe D'Amato). I'd heard of its cult reputation from this book and sought out a copy. It manages to straddle the fence between a couple of other films on that list: the 70s gauzy "softcore porn in exotic locales" of Emmanuelle (1974) -- yeah, right down to cribbing the name -- and the low-budget, stomach-churning savagery of Cannibal Holocaust, which actually came along a couple years later in 1979.

For better or worse, depending on your tastes, Last Cannibals leans heavily toward pornyness until the final somewhat gruesome 30 minutes or so. The story involves a  supermodel/"journalist" and her dashing anthropologist-cum-inamorato who think they may have rediscovered what was thought to be an extinct tribe of cannibals in the Amazon jungle. They decide it would be very smart to trek into the jungle and...I don't really know...make the cannibals try some spicy pad thai with tofu? It doesn't really matter, we know they're probably going to die, right?

Along the way Emanuelle and her beau encounter a "virginal" missionary's daughter, a token black guide who is perpetually shirtless, and a horny husband and wife roughing it out in the jungle, among others. Basically they are all thrown together and go deep into the bush -- yes, that means two things -- until they finally meet the natives and people start getting picked off in grisly fashion.

On of my favorite moments comes when the hunter, McKenzie, and his sluttish wife sneak away from the rapidly-dwindling group with ulterior motives in mind. Note the awesomely cheesy music and the bonerrific sound effects when they make their discovery:

 Surprisingly, finding jewels in the jungle next to aircraft wreckage is one of the least silly reasons that the characters find to remove their clothes. Not that I'm complaining. Again, this has Italian B-Movie sexploitation written all over it

Things really pick up around that point and there are plenty of not-for-the-faint-of-heart moments at the end. If you're going down this path and looking for bloodthirsty barbarism you'll find a fair share here, but you're better off turning to Cannibal Holocaust. It is a much more frightening film, with a much better setup presented around the idea of "Is it real?!" found footage, making it a spiritual precursor to The Blair Witch Project. However, it also suffers by going perhaps a bit too over the top. While all of the human violence is (thankfully) staged, a number of animals were actually slaughtered while the cameras were rolling, including very gruesome end for a large river turtle. Either film would provide a fair bit of stomach-churning viewing this month, but with Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals you're getting a lot more banging for your buck.

On the Trail...and Deep into the Woods #2: Gross, Bud

On the Trail...
I see that Time Mag also recently put together a list of (they say) the Top 15 Best Political Films of All Time. It’s a good jumping off point, there are a couple that I still need to check out, but I’m fairly relieved. Although I had planned on posting a few of these (Manchurian Candidate, Election, All the President’s Men) I am going a different direction on a lot of others. Their focus is on narrative features, which misses out on some great documentaries and made-for-TV stuff that I plan to cover.

For part deux I’m focusing on a section of film that needs no introduction, Orson Welles’ seminal Citizen Kane (1941). The film was a not-so-subtle jab at news mogul William Randolph Hearst and the plot involving the meteoric rise and calamitous fall of Charles Foster Kane’s political career mirrored Hearst's own scuttled ambitions (while he was a twice-elected US Representative in Congress, he failed in each of his New York Mayoral and Gubernatorial bids.) While controversy hindered the film's initial release, time has been very kind to the film and it is widely regarded as perhaps the greatest ever made. While not a purely “political” film, it still contains one of the most memorably staged campaign speeches in cinematic history, one that successfully makes the man seem larger than life and is truly a benchmark of imagery.

(Ok, maybe I can think of one other film that tops it visually, one that might have even influenced Welles. Maybe?)

I love that moment at the the end of the Kane's speech, as Boss Jim Geddes looks down on the scene from high above, there is an portent of the impending manipulation that is shortly to come.

It is an oft-jumped-on hype train that holds Kane as The Greatest Movie Ever!! It was only recently usurped by Hitchcock’s Vertigo on Sight & Sound’s List after 5 decades at the #1 spot. I have also heard this refrain pooh-poohed as film snobbery at its worst, but only by non-film snobs. I'll admit to snobbery. It's not my personal favorite film, but it is so rich and deep and works on multiple levels, and I always discover something new in it every time I watch it, so I can't argue against the accolades.


...and Deep into the Woods
There is certainly no shortage of horror film lists. Here you go. Here's another. And here and here and here. It'll be unavoidable to rehash some but I'll try to find some fresh picks for you this month, but maybe not so fresh today.

If Kane is a benchmark for ALL film, then the original Night of the Living Dead is my early benchmark for horror (along with Psycho.) It's not the first zombie flick, but it is the one that flipped the switch on the genre and established many of the common tropes that we still see aped and spoofed (and notably diverged from) today: the lumbering, nearly unstoppable walkers that crave human flesh; the contagious bite that will change you into one of them; the ultimately irrelevant speculation that the mysterious origins of the abnormality must be either alien or part of a government cover-up (or both!) 

George Romero made a cottage industry out of the walking dead with classic follow-ups Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Land of the Dead, Dead of the Deaddy Dead Deadness...basically everything with this guy is just dead dead dead dead dead. But not quite. I mean, if they were really dead, would they be coming for Barbara?

It’s creepy, simple, effective. Maybe not quite as gory as later films, but still a face-gnawing good time, and once the freaks start coming they do. not. stop. Still makes my all the hairs on my body stand up and then faint. Yes, my hairs faint. It’s weird, I know. Turn off the lights, blaze a candle or two, board up the windows and bar the doors.

On the Trail...and Deep into the Woods #1: Bride of Frankenheimer

Let’s just pretend I haven’t been really busy moving  3 times in the last 4 months and get on with the movies, shall we? To reset: I have a few things I’m interested doing in over the next month. We’re leading up to both Halloween AND an election so I’m going to try to get my train back on the tracks by doing a month of nightmares. We’re gonna have the requisite horror genre stuff, but also a parallel path of great political/campaign films. (I hate politics, hence the “nightmare” tag, and I know it sounds boring, but it’s made for good film fodder and I promise to keep it interesting.) If I can lay down 15 of each I will consider October a success. Posts will likely be short and sweet and in no particular order, but at least there will be actual content for once. I haven’t been able to watch much this summer -- I finally saw The Avengers this week, so...yeah -- but if I can get some other posts in, too...well...let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Speaking of content, I’ve finally started a youtube account AND my new digs come with the added bonus of a reliable internet connection so I hope to be able to upload pertinent clips to my own private account when needed rather than relying on the Arbitrary Internets to come through for me. Not needed today, since I found what I was looking for, but...score!

Ok, and away we go.

On the Trail...

I’m starting this month’s campaign with one of my favorite movies of all time, John Frankenheimer’s The Manchurian Candidate (1962), a taut tale of international communist conspiracy, brainwashing, and political manipulation. It is steeped in an era of Cold War paranoia but still feels fresh, vibrant, and chilling today.

All the players are at the top of their game. Frank Sinatra was never better as an actor, a true dual threat, even if his character is merely a conduit through which the rest of the action can flow. Laurence Harvey’s undergoes a remarkably steely transformation from a mostly normal if slightly dislikable joe who is really only cold to his domineering mother and buffoonish Senator stepfather, and with the simple turn of a card he turns cold and inaccessible to the rest of the world. Angela Lansbury: damn, she absolutely plunges the knife into every scene.

Oscar-worthy stuff, though she lost to Patty Duke in The Miracle Worker, which, ok, fairly forgivable. If you aren’t sold yet, and don’t mind a few plot spoliers:

Yeesh. My spine is all tingly. That gives some of it away, but don’t worry, it’s plenty twisty. And pretty "Twilight Zone"-y, which I love. The shot here, after the dream dissolve, was a famously dizzying technical achievement for the time. Watch closely as as the camera pans a full 360 degrees and the set undergoes a mind-blowing alteration without any cuts or computer tricks.

Still one of my favorite pieces of film. EVAR.

I found the remake pretty solid, but it doesn't hold a candle to the original. Frankenheimer was in impeccable form in the '60s, following this up with Seven Days in May in 1964 and another lesser-known masterpiece in 1966.

...and Deep into the Woods

For the start of this scary October I’m sticking with Frankenheimer (surprise!) and recommending another bit of unsettling cinema, his 1966 mindfuck Seconds. I love good slashers, serial killers, mysteries, and monsters, and you’ll see some of each forthcoming if I manage to keep at it, but ultimately I have a greater affinity for this type film, something with a subtle, dark undercurrent, a horror grounded in the distortion of reality. The awful building of existential dread is, to me, some of the creepiest stuff out there. It doesn’t beat you over the head with the scares but builds slowly from a smart setup, through small twists, to a stomach-churning finish.

It’s apparently a relatively hard film to find, but there are good chunks of it up on youtube. The plot involves an old man, Arthur Hamilton, who is given an out-of-left-field opportunity to completely change his identity and start an exciting new life as playboy/artist Tony Wilson. Obviously, this pact is not all it’s cracked up to be, even after the docs make him look like Rock Hudson.

The mood is established right off the bat, as we’re treated to an amazing, sinister Jerry Goldsmith score (one of the greatest film composers) and creepy Saul Bass titles. James Wong Howe was a premiere artist of black and white cinematography, and while it starts out a teeny bit gimmicky with its fisheye lens and choppy pre-Steadicam POV setup, it still paints one of the most unforgettable, suck-you-in openings ever captured on film. 

Maybe it's just that I’m just reeeally creeped out by Khigh Dhiegh, the brainwasher from Manchurian Candidate who makes an appearance here as Hudson’s "career counselor." He does a great job in his small part as a manipulative cog under the guidance of a larger, controlling entity, conveniently named, simply, “The Company.” One more clip, a couple plot spoilers herein, but lots of squishy twists left to be unraveled:

Find it. Watch it. Love it. 

As a side note, this movie apparently helped to ticket Brian Wilson on his slow train to Crazytown. Well, we’ll always have Pet Sounds.

Hey, welcome back. More to come if I don't suck. Or have to move again.