Let me preface this by saying… I am not a tv guy. If you’ve followed this blog any, you know that. I can, and routinely do, go months without watching TV. I in fact do not own a tv. But I do own laptops and quite an extensive DVD collection. I keep abreast of what people are saying is hot or good in TV land, and eventually get around to trying the DVDs. And usually all these hyped shows… I’m unimpressed. LOST, 24, PRISON BREAK, HEROES all shows I’ve heard rapturous praise, and finally seen… they’re uneven at best, with some great episodes, but mostly a lot of filler, sub-par episodes. THE WIRE is another show that I heard so much praise for, and finally watched it cannot hold a candle to its predecessor HOMICIDE. Typically it’s the British Television shows that I think are currently knocking it out the park. Shows like HUSTLE and ULTRAVIOLET and JEKYLL and TORCHWOOD: CHILDREN OF EARTH. Because their seasons are tight, they avoid the filler and weak episodes so common to American Television seasons. There are exceptions, a few American shows, that are televison at its finest. DAY BREAK is one of those shows. To say it’s 24 meets Groundhog Day, gives you a crude and unwieldy signpost, and ultimately a lacking one. It is those two things, those two vague and well worn themes, but done right and brilliantly and strong for the whole season. I have things to do, and places to go, and I cannot stop watching the bloody DVDs. It’s BRILLIANT! So of course it was canceled in one season. I mean multi-ethnic cast, strong Black lead character… Oh please cancel me now, and let’s leave on crap like SMALLVILLE, or another CSI or LAW AND ORDER. But while it may have only been one season, at least is was a GREAT FRIGGING SEASON! Try it for yourself. And don’t forget to listen to all the commentaries, pretty great stuff.

DRAG ME TO HELL

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There is nothing quite like having an entire movie theater to yourself. And I had just such an experience at today’s matinee showing of Sam Raimi’s latest DRAG ME TO HELL.

Though that said, DRAG ME TO HELL is obviously a film that plays to having the crowd experience. The jumps, and exclamations of the audience are part of the gestalt in a film such as this.

But having the theater to myself gave me a chance to evaluate Raimi’s film as a film, rather then just a theater experience. And as a film the first 2/3rd made me quite remember why the name Raimi is legendary. He remains an exciting, innovative filmmaker. You can see on the screen all the timing and experience he brings from his Indie days, his big budget days, even his TV days, and it makes the first two thirds of the film quite fun.

The story perhaps relying a little too much on gross out gags, for the juvenile audience, but it is an easily overlooked flaw. It is not perfect by any means but the first 2/3rd of the film moves at a brisk enough pace to keep you from looking at the seams of the movie.

SPOILERS:

However from the séance onwards, the film becomes a little too campy. The wire-fu possessed dancing dude, is pretty much where the film loses me (dancing characters appear to be Raimi’s Achilles heel. I say that to be tongue in cheek, because unlike many, while I agree the third SPIDERMAN was the weakest of Raimi’s trilogy, as a whole I quite liked it. And found the dancing sequence in that film quite enjoyable, however not in this film).

The possessed guy, assistant to the medium who tries to exorcise the demon, his whole appearance in the movie seems like what it is, contrived, and calls attention to itself in a bad way. He comes in and comes out to be the weakest portion of the film. So from that point on the film feels really forced, particularly the ending just seemed (the name of the movie to the contrary unlikely) slapped on to give the audience an unconventional ending.

I think with any ending [spoilers], the film has to earn that ending; has to earn its happy ending or earn its downer ending. This film did not earn its ending.

The ending felt, rather than coming out of the film we were seeing, as if it were there for no other reason then to appeal to an audience that increasingly confuses sensationalism and extremism with quality.

Being an optimist I think most films earn their happy endings. I’m a believer in happy endings. So for a film to have a downbeat ending, it has to, through the internal logic of the film, earn that ending. Films that fail to earn their downer ending, are films like THE MIST (its ending felt forced, and tacked on. But so did most of the film).

As far as examples of movies that earn their downer ending: DESCENT, Raimi’s own EVIL DEAD films, TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, SEVEN, Carpenter’s THE THING, etc.

Unfortunately DRAG ME TO HELL’s ending is more MIST then DESCENT.

And I understand that studios increasingly gear films toward an audience that filmmakers are aware can’t appreciate plot, or subtlety, or even beauty, but just bodily fluids and banality.

So increasingly filmmakers crank out lowest common denominator films to lowest common denominator audiences. They create caricatures rather than characters, protagonists as objects for audiences to laugh at or feel superior to (for not being in their shoes). And I think that’s a dangerous itch to train the American public to get used to being scratched; to objectify and even enjoy the pain of the other. There’s a dangerous grooming of the audience that filmmakers are gearing their movies toward; a dangerous commentary about what our degenerating fictions say about our society’s degenerating freedoms.

But such pandering was not something I expected from a filmmaker like Raimi. And to his credit it’s not something I got for the bulk of the film. But unfortunately it is the ending that defines the journey, and I think the film swerved into oncoming traffic at the end.

The ending flew in the face of the internal veracity/logic of the film. How many blank sealed envelopes, with a round item in it are you likely to find in a car? It is illogical (in the logic of the film) that the protagonist would mistakenly pick up a duplicate envelope, or that such a duplicate envelope would just be sitting in the car. As soon as she lost the envelope, then found it again I was on the alert for just such an ending as we got. But I was hoping Raimi wouldn’t be as… slapstick as that.

And that is the perfect word for the ending, it felt slapstick rather than narrative, or emotive, or meaningful.

I think DRAG ME TO HELL is not a film that people who raved about it in the gestalt of the theaters, will judge it as favorably upon second viewing. I think the clumsy nature of the 3rd act, will be clearer when revisited.

An ending has to be a product of the convictions and craft of the filmmaker, as well as the strength of the script/story; and should not be an interchangeable thing. A film is not a video game, it shouldn’t have multiple endings. It is a narrative that should like a novel, build toward a singular end. DRAG ME TO HELL, its name to the contrary, felt untrue to its end.

So all in all, a film worth seeing just for Raimi’s directorial style, but a flawed film. It is a fun date/group movie for most of its running time, but just be aware the ending does not hold up.

**1/2 out of ****.

ORPHAN

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Saw ORPHAN last week with a friend, and in a packed theater, and it was a very odd experience for me. ORPHAN is a thriller with a creepy kid, that’s all you need to know going in. That’s all I knew. It is a technically pretty damn impressive film, that does everything it wants to do, with a nice twist I did not see coming, but I really did not enjoy this film. Because for all its craft, its cliches got on my nerves. (I’m going to avoid the central spoiler of this film, because it is great and you should see it for the twist alone, that said to discuss what I don’t like about the film is impossible without discussing a few other things about the film. So these are very minor obtuse SPOILERS, but they are spoilers, so go see or rent the film first, and come back to compare our takes on the film. You have been warned! )

F**K I’m sick of characters of color being in a movie just to buy it. SICK OF IT. It was piss poor filmmaking three decades ago, and it has just gotten to be a more pathetic crutch today. Which is why I’m such an effing fan of John Carpenter films. Wow, great movies, where the character of color doesn’t necessarily have to be the victim or the villain. And where he typically has more than one character of color. Imagine that? Man, I understand roles are hard to come by for actors of color, but seriously to all actors of color out there: pick your roles with some care!

Because when you, the actor, are silenced… shuffle off this mortal coil; they… the images, will continue to speak for you. Actors like Poitier and Belafonte and Roundtree and Williams understood this. And while this principled stance has made their careers shorter than they otherwise would be, it has also made cinema better than it would otherwise be.

Here endeth that rant.

Onto Cliche and rant two. The cliche of getting the upper hand on the villain, then turning your back on them. OH KNOW, NOT AGAIN!

The last time that was cool was in the first LETHAL WEAPON movie. It’s been done 5 million times since then, notice to filmmakers: IT IS NO LONGER COOL, INTERESTING, OR REMOTELY A SURPRISE so stop effing doing it! Grrrrrr! ORPHAN has this obligatory scene of “surprise the villain isn’t dead”, and it’s just lazy scriptwriting, lazy direction, lazy filmmaking.

And like I say, I quite like where the ending of ORPHAN begins to go, but that cliche just takes me right out of the film, and kills any enjoyment for me. And the whole movie is filled with frustrating and annoying cliches like that. Particularly the character of the husband is so stupid and whiny and blind, that I personally want to reach into the screen and strangle him. The actor Peter Sarsgaard is always such such a swarmy presence in his roles, though that did serve him well in the far better SKELETON KEY.

And the last thing that really kind of got me about this film, it’s really a very vicious film throughout. I mean, it’s bloody dark. Which is absolutely what the filmmakers were going for, but I have to say, I was pretty uncomfortable with the whole film. I’m no light weight when it comes to thrillers/horror, I’ve seen everything from UNIVERSAL CLASSICS to EXORCIST to SEVEN, Japanese Horror, Italian Horror, you name it, I’ve seen it. But a lot of this film revolves around violence around children, putting them in jeopardy, and while this has been done to good effect from films such as NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, LEMORA, WHO CAN KILL A CHILD, TOGETHER BROTHERS, etc., it’s always something I’m weary of. And here in ORPHAN there’s some really explicit violence, and implied violence, and language perpetrated around and at children. How parents of these young actors can be okay with their kids in such explicit scenes, I always find slightly disturbing.

All that’s on the bad. But on the good is that the performance of the cast, for the most part, is fantastic. Vera Farmiga as the mom, Kate Coleman, has been working since the 90s, but this puts her on the map for me. She completely ties you into this movie. CCH Pounder in a thankless role, delivers her usual solid and grounded performance (a great actress, who is typically underused). And the children Jimmy Bennett (The Young James T. Kirk from the new STAR TREK film, who only 13 already has over 30 film and TV credits to his name), and Aryana Engineer (in her screen debut) are excellent in really difficult and intense roles. But it’s the 12 yo Isabelle Fuhrman who is a revelation as the title character. It is an astonishing performance and one I would never have any 12 yo play. However in the long history of evil kid movies, without argument Isabelle’s performance takes the crown.

Director Jaume Collett-Serra, a Spaniard, with this his third movie marks himself as a pushing the edge director to watch. If he can avoid the easy cliches, and the predictable scripts, he may become a house-hold name. Based on this film I’ll check out his previous two films: HOUSE OF WAX and GOAL II. And finally moving onto the writers, the story was by Alex Mace, and screenplay by David Johnson. Their twist I quite liked but, like the director, the writers need to avoid the clichés and the well worn choices of the genre.

An interesting film, with some really unnerving scenes. Not a film I walked out of the theater liking, though my friend— she was more a fan of it then I, but I can not argue that it was compellingly crafted.

An intriguing film, definitely flawed, but overall very capably put together. I wouldn’t recommend spending movie prices to see, but it is definitely one you should rent and decide for yourself. And let me reiterate if I didn’t make it clear, this is not a family film. IT IS NOT FOR KIDS, and is totally deserving of its R rating.

Okay those are all the reviews for this segment. See you next time!

After many years of reading about Argento’s INFERNO I finally got around to seeing it. It starts off promising but ultimately meanders its way to an underwhelming, and more than a little amateurish conclusion. And I say that being a huge fan of Dario Argento’s early work. I think his DEEP RED is a masterpiece and films such as his 1969 debut BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE (as masterful a debut as you’ll find, and something of a warmup to DEEP RED), and his subsequent films of the 70s, are close to masterpieces and all deserving of viewing. However as with many great directors of the 70s, that greatness would not extend into the 80s. In the 1980s director sweethearts of the the age of Aquarius such as Argento, found themselves scrambling to be relevant in an era of Reagonomics and Hollywood Blockbusters and sought to wrangle audiences with gore and excess over craft (And don’t get me wrong there are moments of brilliance in his post 80s work, TENEBRE while flawed, has some really masterfully composed scenes of… tension and horror, and I enjoyed his JENIFER for MASTERS OF HORROR, but on a whole they tend to fail to hold together). INFERNO is on the cusp of that transition from 70s craft to 80s gore, but its failure seemingly has to be laid more at the hands of just a half-baked film concept/story. First the good: Here as in SUSPIRIA the visuals are great. Argento’s use of primary colors, and the use of architecture and sets, drenches the film in this decadent dream reality. However unlike SUSPIRIA it is hampered by an inferior, and annoying score, and a weak and underdeveloped protagonist (The actor who plays the lead like most of the actors in this film, seemed like he had no idea what to do in-front the camera, and just wasn’t someone the audience could really connect with) and the same for the antagonist, the mother of shadows, who appears in the final act and whose final form is pretty darn laughable. All in all a mess of a movie, that has to be laid at the hands of Argento’s script. Those flaws noted, if you are an Argento fan the film is worth seeing for the visuals alone. C-/D+.

Then I realized my early work did have something special that audiences adored apart from what I humbly thought about them. They occupy a distinguished niche in Italian film history and probably always will.
Dario Argento

I’m always amazed how people get to this site. It is so cool, some of the people who have links to my site. Mr. Walter Koenig being the latest one. Thanks all, for the links. They are deeply appreciated. Okay onto the post: This post is some rambling notes for myself, so bear with it: I just saw REC the Spanish Horror thriller, I’m pimping a review to a paying site, so I won’t say much here except to say, I hated CLOVERFIELD and BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, all these found footage films; and REC avoids the weaknesses and pitfalls of all previous attempts at such a conceit, and manages to imbue it with real strength. The film is fantastic. And damn Hollywood for remaking it rather than just giving it a US release. People aren’t morons, at least most people; this subtitled movie would have done great in the theaters. But the suits in Hollywood are all greed and no taste. So we get watered down Americanized versions of great foreign movies. Typically inferior garbage, that only weakens the strength of the original film. I have not seen QUARANTINE. After being stupid enough to see the garbage that was THE STRANGERS rather than the French original, I’ve learned my lesson. I avoid Hollywood remakes, at least until I see the original first. So REC was worth the wait. Fantastic film. Unfortunately for those wanting to see popular foreign films, Hollywood doesn’t make it easy, because they want you to see their crappy US remake, and buy that version on DVD. So as of this writing, there are no region 1 DVDs available of great foreign films like REC. Thankfully as long as you have a region free DVD player, which you really should have, and access to a foreign DVD seller, you’re good. Because the rest of the world isn’t as crippled and locked down as the studios have the American market. In the rest of the world, they release foreign films theatrically, and release foreign DVDs. Imagine that. And that’s exactly what I did. I bought a region 3 DVD of REC, and it rocks. But realistically you shouldn’t be at the mercy of the studios regarding seeing foreign films and tv shows. It’s all greed. They take a popular foreign series, delay the release of any region 1 DVDs so instead they can feed you their crappy US remake, and their crappy DVD. THEN they release the original series on region 1 DVD! So it’s double dipping! They generate ad revenue on the broadcast of their remake. then they generate revenue on their remake’s DVDs. then they generate revenue on DVD sales of the original!!! It’s a ripoff! So I say screw em. Get yourself a multi-region Dvd, and then you’re not at the mercy of region 1 release schedules. And the funny thing about that is, even when they release foreign tv shows on region 1 dvd, often the DVD is edited and cut differently then the original series. An example of this being JEKYLL BBC series. The show as broadcast in the states was cut, and the region 1 DVD is also cut. So if you want to see this series as it was released you have to purchase the Pal DVD. And if you think the current DVD scenario is problematic, Bluray/HDDVD will further cripple your options, and put you further at the mercy of the studios. Which is why I’m in no rush to migrate away from the DVD. Hell there are enough DVD movies and tv shows I haven’t seen, that if they stopped making DVDs tomorrow, I would have enough used inventory floating around out there, to last me the rest of my life. So screw you Hollywood studios! Screw you FOX! So do your homework people, and don’t be deprived of seeing the films every other country gets to see. Take John Woo’s latest film RED CLIFF. There’s no reason that film shouldn’t have gotten a US Theatrical release. But the greedy studios again, they want to be able to double, triple, and quadruple dip. So you’re going to have to wait to see the crappy Americanized remake or edited version of RED CLIFF, a year after the original has made the rounds. Then they are going to sell you the crappy American DVDs of RED CLIFF. And only after they’ve raked in all this money on feeding you two years of crap, are they finally going to release the original “director’s cut” Region1 DVD of John Woo’s RED CLIFF. So you can wait two years for the Studios to feed you piecemeal John Woo’s vision. Or you know what, you can decide you want to have the same rights to see this film as someone in Thailand or London, and buy the DVD today. It makes me insane, how for such a supposedly free country, we are increasingly at the mercy of greedy fuckers. And I understand profit. I have no problem with profit. I have a problem when profit becomes a juggernaut of greed. A beast that eats away at the consumer, rather than just filling the needs of the consumer. And it’s even worse if the country producing the film, is not a western puppet. One of the best films I saw last year was the Cuban bio-pic EL BENNY. I raved about it in my review last year. This is a film that should be seen by everyone. Especially Americans. Because it shows the world as something beyond the sound-bites of our nightly propaganda. Unfortunately that’s the very reason many foreign films don’t get US releases, and don’t get DVD distribution. Which means some of the vital filmmakers of our age, Diop Mambety, Sembene Oursmane, their best films do not make it onto our shores. Are seen once, in a film festival, and then relegated to molding away in someone’s closet. The move to all digital cinemas, will further marginalize such filmmakers. It’s all part and parcel of the same beast. It’s really, to a fine level, policing the content of what each region is exposed to. This even goes to the concept of having alternate endings and versions of films, a fad that i wholeheartedly despise. It pisses in the face of cinema. Why is CITIZEN KANE a classic? Or why is the THIRD MAN a classic? Or High Noon or JAWS or BRAVEHEART or DO THE RIGHT THING or BLOOD SIMPLE? Because these films offer a singular vision. A shared and shareable vision. An iconic and unwavering vision. The fantastic ending of DOUBLE INDEMNITY comes to mind (and yes I know DI had an epilogue that was excised from the final version of this film. But the point is we did have a final version, and it is that one, singular version we saw, and those hard decisions that define a classic film). And because of this, if you are 9 or if you are 90, and you have seen a great movie, you’ve largely seen the same movie. And you can share the memories, the conversation or the wow factor of that movie. It makes you part of a singular conversation. You gasp at the same moments at the end, you wow to the same scenes. It is a cultural connectivity that is very important, and unites the viewers, even if you didn’t see that film in the same theater, or in the same time, or in the same country, it is still the same film, its beats are the same, and you have that in common. That frame of reference. In a world increasingly spinning itself apart, this shared cinematic conversation is a tiny way to keep ourselves together. Cinema then, as that shared endless place in time where all our rosebuds are lost, and all our rosebuds are found. As opposed to today with the move toward multiple endings. Which in the short term may seem an easy way for studios to triple dip as far as revenues, but in the long term it robs that film of its singular vision, its cultural connectivity. In the long term… it hurts film. Because suddenly two people can have seen the same movie, but each remembers different endings. And the film rather than being a unique statement, that is memorable for the very fact it has the balls to lock itself in stone, and lock you, the viewers together, instead suddenly is something ephemeral, and transitory, and… forgettable.

The very act of having multiple endings, negates the ability of a film to be a classic. Period.

It negates the very ability of it to be a film, as far as I’m concerned.

It’s the act of a lazy filmmaker.

Multiple endings are great for “choose your own adventure” books and video games, but cinema has always been the domain of men and women, directors, who have something lasting to say to the world. Multiple endings negates the lasting voice of cinema.

DO you sense I really fing hate Hollywood suits?

And the only reason is because I love Hollywood. I grew up on cinema. I love Cinema enough to defend it perpetually and criticize, perpetually, the small minded, fing trolls, who temporarily, find themselves in positions they are not worthy of, interfering with the course of a medium, that was here long before them, and will be here long after they and their works have turned to dust.

Okay, that ends my rant. I’m jumped all over the place, but in summation…

Screw Hollywood. Get an ALL-REGION Dvd player. Screw Bluray. Support International sellers, and international filmmakers and generally screw Hollywood.

Oh and pick up REC, great movie.