Movies »I Start Counting

directed by David Greene (1969)

If I Start Counting were remade, I know exactly the kind of rote crap it would become: it would star some slutty looking not-quite teen and be slick, boring, and lifeless.

This largely forgotten original however, is none of these things. It’s a bit messy, sure, and definitely unpolished but features a great performance by its actual teen star (who you may recognize from An American Werewolf in London) and really effectively creates an eerie tone.

It might remind one of the tenser quiet moments of Black Swan meets a late 60’s after school movie.

When women are being murdered near an abandoned suburb, a young girl, hopelessly in love with her adopted much older brother begins to come to the chilling conclusion that he may be responsible. Hovering between a world of romantic innocence and the violent, dirty, and painful world of adults, she tries to come to terms with her sexuality and her emotions while trying to disprove her suspicions.

I pretty much live to find overlooked treasures like this and am thrilled that Netflix streaming has embraced the discarded films of the past as much as the newest releases.

And even though (as noted) a remake would probably only be junk, if someone with a sense of mood and style were to remake it, Peter Sarsgaard would rule as the older creepy brother and like almost everything I re-cast in my mind, Juliette Lewis would find herself in the role of a mysterious lady he goes to visit. As for the teen, I’d cast an unknown.

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Posted on June 26, 2011

Movies »Black Swan

Directed by Darren Aronofsky (2010)

I know I am late to the Black Swan parade, but since Darren Aronofsky is pretty much a bad word in our house, this recommendation is for those, who like me, were hesitant to believe the hype because they just hate Requiem for a Dream so much.

After watching the stylized sexual thriller, I was both elated and initially a little disappointed. The first half of the film surprised and floored me with it’s incredibly haunting mood, subtle creepiness, and paranoid tone. It reminds me of the best work of Roman Polanski or Ken Russell.

About half way through, though, when everything breaks apart and the more traditional horror movie events come into play, I felt betrayed that the subdued artfulness had gone out the window. However, once I had finished watching it all and looked back at it for what it was, not the movie I expected or wanted it to be, I realized the somewhat repetitive “gotcha” part felt like it had passed in a few seconds and effectively felt like some fever nightmare.

This manic explosion of insanity did have some truly stunning parts – like a particularly cringe inducing scene involving Portman’s legs and the absolutley exquisite final dance where we see her internal transformation into the black swan flawlessly displayed externally in a feat of special effects and amazing costuming.

Still, it’s the slower paced eerieness that sets the tone perfectly and promises a conclusion more complex and strange than we get.

Portman is very believable as a frigid, scared young woman who seems constantly falling victim to the few people she’s let into her life.

One of those people is her mother, played with tight lipped, quiet obsession by an unsung Barbara Hershey. Another is Vincent Cassel‘s predatory director – a role that could have easily fallen into parody in the hands of anyone less French, oddly handsome, and confident in his lechery.

Mila Kundis doesn’t get much praise, maybe because her role is simpler than Portman’s, maybe because she is, after all, some girl from That 70’s Show, but she is effective and necessary as a foil to Portman’s pent up anxieties. It’s also fun to see Winona Ryder as an aging ballerina, even if I didn’t totally buy her wobbly, cocktail spilling performance.

The Tchaikovsky score is, of course, beautiful and Rodarte lends their ethereal touch to the great costumes.

A surprising and very strange delight.

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Posted on May 16, 2011

TV Shows »True Blood

on HBO

After rolling my eyes through the pilot episode, I was reluctant to give True Blood a second chance. My dad, whose opinion I value, talked me into giving it another try though. The trick is to accept the romance novel, terrible faux Southern accent silliness (“oh my stars!”) and just go with it. I won’t lie, there are still horribly annoying characters (putting me on a long bus trip next to Tara would be torture) who always seem to be overreacting to everything.

The show really doesn’t shine with it’s deep character portrayals, but rather when it gets weird, bloody, ridiculous and focuses on the whole vampire thing instead of the human relationships that are constantly revolving. Otherwise, it kind of resembles season two of Twin Peaks, if you know what I mean.

Not that the vamps are all that “cool”. Strangely, Alan Ball has decided to make them not too dissimilar to mall goths. They hang out at a cheesy spot called Fangtasia that looks like 1995 exploded all over it. A stylish show this is not. But if you want graveyard sex (with the not too shabby “Bill” played by Stephen Moyer), shape shifters, back woods exorcisms, and gut exploding vampires, there’s really nowhere else on TV to find it all delivered in such an unabashed package.

I used the show as part of my birth plan- it was perfect to watch during early labor because it really doesn’t require you to think but can be extremely entertaining once you let yourself go with it. We’ve only seen the first season, but are assured from fans that it just keeps getting wilder and better.

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Posted on November 10, 2010

TV Shows »The Walking Dead

on AMC

On the plus side, in a sea of boring, routine cop and lawyer dramas littering the new season of television, a gory action drama about battling zombies is welcome entertainment no matter how derivative it is. The Walking Dead boasts awesomely gruesome and impressive makeup and effects and an extremely uncompromising devotion to making things as grim and violent as they want (another example that AMC answers to no one in their original series).

If you ever wondered exactly what shooting a zombie in the head would look like from every angle in slow motion, your days of wondering are over. You’ll get the chance to study the event over and over, starting with a young girl missing her lower jaw.

On the negative side, the pilot really didn’t add anything new to the worn out genre and called to mind other recent, more inventive zombie flicks like Dawn of the Dead and particularly the excellent 28 Days Later (only with an FX caliber hunk Andrew Lincoln rather than the handsome waif Cillian Murphy waking up in a hospital to utter destruction). Is there a strong central character with special skills that will help him survive? Of course. Are some of the only other survivors his wife and son? Yep. Does he find stoic fathers and kids wise beyond their years along the way? Sure thing.

Hopefully, with an entire season to expand on the story, which is based on the comic book series of the same name, the show can spread out and find new ways to tell a living dead story beyond the themes and characters we’ve learned to expect. And even if it follows predictable plot lines, I’ll still tune in – because it’s sure to be more fun than most shows out there.

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Posted on November 2, 2010

Books »Lunar Park

by Bret Easton Ellis (2005)

I can kind of understand why some Bret Easton Ellis fans told me not to bother with Lunar Park. It’s a love it or leave it (The Boston Globe said it may be the worst novel I’ve ever read) book that really depends on how much you’re willing to go with him on a journey, not fueled by sexy young things, drugs and privilege (well, OK there is a bit of that) but on a journey that most closely resembles Poltergeist meets faux self loathing. Yes, Ellis has pretty much created a straight up horror summer reading book with loads of meta meta meta.

The main character is Bret Easton Ellis, and while most of his life story and persona are true, the skyrocketing fame and parties of the real Ellis are well known, much of the biography of this “Bret Easton Ellis” is purely made up. (I was one of the clueless who looked up the book version of Bret Easton Ellis’ girlfriend, Jayne Dennis to see if she was real – she’s as real as Dorsia – which I also looked up). He is a world famous, controversial author now living the suburban life with his wife, her daughter, and his estranged son while reluctantly teaching at his alma mater and trying to carry on affairs with his students.

There’s cocaine, there’s alcohol, there’s clever cynicism.. even Jay McInerney shows up – but the book takes on something entirely new for Ellis when the McMansion he lives in starts to show signs of being possessed. Lights begin to flicker, footsteps burn themselves into the carpeting, a Furby like doll turns animals inside out, and a hairy creature crawls up the stairs. Patrick Bateman , the serial killer from American Psycho also makes an appearance – killing locals based on the novel and young neighborhood boys are (willfully?) disappearing. I’m not surprised that he says the book was an homage to Stephen King because it shares much more with those genre books than I think most fans were interested in.

It’s sometimes complicated, sometimes melodramatic, often cinematic (you can easily see many of the scenes played out in a movie) and definitely surreal but it’s mostly about the pain of bad father and son relationships. Well, that and violent ghosts.

Best to enter this one without expectations and a love for the horror book genre.

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Posted on July 18, 2010

Laughs »Giallothon

Have Yourself a Trailer Party!

Beautiful women, hunky men, high style vintage fashions, J&B, bright red blood, Morricone soundtracks, greatly terrible dubbing, skeletons, black gloves, Edwige Fenech, Ivan Rassimov, and nudity – the Italian Giallo genre offers so, so much, but is sometimes most effective in small visual doses.

Often, though certainly not always, the movies themselves can be tedious, confusing, and too easy to forget. Giallothon, presented in two volumes, compiles these spin tingling, often psychedelic trailers about psycho-sexual killers and is a blast to watch. We have good friend and fellow connoisseur of the cinematic unusual, Matthew to thank for our copy – but you can buy yours at brutallo. Any fan of the genre would be remiss not to.

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Posted on July 11, 2010

Movies »Splice

directed by Vincenzo Natali (2010)

Not to diminish the role of director Vincenzo Natali (though “presenter” Guillermo Del Toro has already done so by prominently splashing his name all over the posters), but the surprise sci fi critical darling Splice is classic Cronenberg through and through (just to clarify: anything pre eXistenZ qualifies as classic) – and it’s not just the very Canadianness of it all (Sarah Polley, possibly the most Canadian actress of all time, stars), nor is it just the crazy-gross flesh-slugs and scalpel surgeries that remind me of the prime of the horror giant (whose films include The Brood, Rabid, and the truly incredible and mind bending Videodrome).

There’s a certain dignity to the movie making that is woefully absent in most like minded thrillers of late that do little more than make you squirm through some gross-out stuff. Unlike such movies that parade half naked actors and actresses who are barely fit for terrible CW teen dramas, everyone here does phenomenally with some pretty tough material.

And while I’m still not completely sure how I feel about Splice, it certainly requires a bit of thought and evokes some very, very disturbing ideas not only about scientific morality, but really creepy concepts of parenthood and human desires and motivations. For the record, it’s super creepy to watch while pregnant.

It’s in theaters now and definitely a more interesting way to spend a couple hours out of the heat than in front of Shrek Forever After, Killers (shockingly not based on the Hemingway short story), or Marmaduke.

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Posted on June 6, 2010

Movies »The Eyes of Laura Mars

Directed by Irvin Kershner (1978)

While I didn’t notice the first time I saw Eyes of Laura Mars years ago, but it’s an American version of a Giallo if there ever was one. And as such it’s got the genre’s shining points and flaws: technicolor red blood, dramatic music cues, silly plot twists that end in a preposterous conclusion, a high body count, and style, style, style! There’s plenty to recommend this 70’s hit despite moments of mediocrity (like a terrible Babs song).

First, the cast. Faye Dunaway is in her prime of easy glamorous wide eyed star power, Tommy Lee Jones brooding is more charming than usual, in an all too brief appearance Raul Julia is the ultimate deadbeat gold digging ex, supermodel Lisa Taylor plays herself, and perhaps most importantly the film opened by eyes to the awesomeness of perhaps my favorite actor, Brad Dourif, who is here the foxiest creep ever put to film. Bomber jacket, jeans, flannel and a chauffeurs hat have never come together so perfectly.

That brings us to the second point: every scene has something fantastic to look at. The styling had me asking myself minutely “hmm, do I need a _____ (hat, blouse, skirt, hairdo, apartment, etc) like that in my life?” The answer was invariably “yes”.

Third, the centerpiece of the movie visually is the provocative work of photographer Helmut Newton. One of my favorite artists who sets the aesthetic tone.

You can watch it now with Netflix on demand.

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Posted on May 2, 2010

Books »Come Along With Me

by Shirley Jackson (1982)

I am an adoring fan of Shirley Jackson, her novel We Have Always Lived in the Castle and her short story, The Lottery (which is included in this collection) are among my favorites. One of the best parts of Come Along With Me are the chapters from her unfinished last novel that lends it’s title to the collection and it’s one of the few here that fully embody the signature strangeness and darkness that I love in her writing,  which I found sadly lacking several of the stories. This is of course a matter of my expectations getting in the way and all the stories, even the lighthearted ones are well written.

It’s a shame so little was left behind of what was sure to have been another incredible novel, but it’s inclusion as well as her darker stories including my favorite, “The Summer People”, make this collection worth a read, at least for Jackson fans. I personally could take or leave the essays and lectures (as unintellectual as it may sound I prefer to read fiction than read about fiction).

I’d advise skipping the intro because it rubbed me the wrong way to have her husband talk about getting the collection together with his new wife, whom he dedicates it to. Kind of disconcerting.

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Posted on May 2, 2010

Movies »The Hunger

directed by Tony Scott (1983)

It stars David Bowie, Catherine Denuve, Susan Sarandon and includes a cameo by a young Willem Dafoe (playing a street punk) and Ann Magnuson. It features the music of Lou Reed, Bach and an unforgettable performance by Bauhaus of Bela Legosi’s Dead. I mean, there’s “cool”, and then there’s Tony Scott’s erotic vampire mood piece The Hunger.

I first saw this movie a number of years ago and remembered a couple of its visually arresting scenes, including that Peter Murphy performance and the rapid aging sequence with its expert special effects makeup; but I’d forgotten how deeply stylized and truly arty it is. Does the artistry sometimes border on indulgent and slow the whole thing down a little bit? Sure, but it makes you miss the audacity behind this kind of moody, visually artful filmmaking that doesn’t seem so common anymore (even though at the time Roger Ebert dismissed it “a movie that has been so ruthlessly overproduced that it’s all flash and style and no story.”) Scott’s take on vampirism has as much in common with today’s glitter skinned wimpy romance as Roxy Music does with The Jonahs Brothers; Marlene Deitrich with Miley Cyrus.

The film was based on a novel by Whitley Strieber (of Communion fame) but major changes were made to the ending to satisfy the perceived need of audiences everywhere to see thousand-year-old vampire Denueve suffer for her misdeeds. A remake is planned at Warner Brothers, but I have very little confidence anything as cool as the original will roll off the assembly line… though Scott, who is deeply involved, has this to say: “I’m not going to tell you how we’re doing it, but I’m controlling it and it’s gone to the next level. It’s not a reinvention or reinterpretation, it starts in New York and it ends up in Sao Paulo, so it’s a very different movie, but it springboards off the original. We’re writing it right now and we’ve got a great writer, Erin Wilson.”

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Posted on March 28, 2010