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...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.