Author: reynolds

Halloween

In grade school, every Halloween was marked by a showing of Abbott and Costello Meet the Wolfman (and then playing it in reverse, to the tune of “The Monster Mash”). Now I just do horror films, trying to snatch up recent or older releases for the weeks leading up to 10/31. So…

I started with Lucky McKee’s The Woods, an ultimately-too-predictable take on the gothic: schoolgirls, families both redemptive and corrupted, the dangers of nature, and hints and allegations of sexualities outside of respectable range. Set in 1965, it follows a young, psychically-gifted rapscallion (Agnes Bruckner), sent away for pyromania to the strangely tree-infested academy run by Patricia Clarkson and a bevy of odd-bird women. What’s good about it: McKee has a gorgeous eye (and ear) for the spooky, and the film works despite itself in many instances. The cast is keen, especially Clarkson (and even has a very restrained Bruce Campbell), and there are touches of adolescent sarcasm and sexual agency that were smarter than your average bear. Continue reading Halloween

Seinfeld?

I watched a documentary (Comedian) about being a stand-up, with Jerry Seinfeld in the foreground and an intriguing mess called Orny Adams as counterpoint.

Right off the bat, let’s stipulate that there isn’t too much of the actual stand-up, and, frankly, while I often find Seinfeld amusing I’m not sure he is someone I’d seek out for the funny. The same is true for the array of folks around him–we see Colin Quinn, Mario Joyner, and a few others pop up and discuss “work”–but we get little of their acts, beyond a small clip of Quinn and (oddly) Joyner’s entering or leaving the stage. We do see actual comedy from Seinfeld, and from the young car-crash Orny Adams who seems to be playing note for note Tom Hanks’ brittle comic from the film Punchline. What is interesting is that we see them build a joke up to success; we see, as well, their uncomfortable slips, failures, even outright freezes. Continue reading Seinfeld?

Mountain Patrol: Kekexili

Great little film. Some of the reviews I read said “harrowing”–to agonizingly work away, “with painful slowness”. I wouldn’t say painful, but there is a grim dedication, in the characters and in the advancement of the plot, which in the last thirty minutes (of a short film) does have an absolutely enthralling hold on the viewer.

Set in the high plains of Tibet, the (based-on-a-true) story conveys the tribulations of a group of a volunteer, anti-poaching posse, intent on protecting the dwindling herds of antelopes. Continue reading Mountain Patrol: Kekexili

Silent Hill

Perhaps better silent. Or, if possible, with the dialogue cut, but moans and screams and echoes intact. I must say I did enjoy this movie, and to be honest would not have enjoyed it in the theater. At home, I could cut all the lights, sink into a chair, turn the sound mostly down and speed through just to catch cool visuals. And there are a slew of great visuals: it’s a genuinely creepy aesthetic, and there’s rarely a shot that doesn’t have some nice touch, some cool glint off a moist surface or a sharp angled line through a beautiful wide shot. The story is of course piffle, and I feel bad for Alice Krige, who I first recall from the lousy film adaptation of Ghost Story, playing there and then playing everywhere ever since a spooky evil woman. Would have been nice if this had been simply strange, instead of trying to explain… or if there was a clearer, more starkly-defined sense of urgency to the thing. Instead, it works as a not-terribly-frightening but still malicious dream.

Snakes on a Product Placement

The witness to a terrible gangland slaying, the mcguffin getting those motherfucking Snakes up onto the Plane, rather ostentatiously drains a can of Red Bull as he steps off his motorbike. The audience I was with laughed–if the can had been flashing neon, we couldn’t have been more savvy consumers, fully aware of how the movie was shilling before it began. A short while later (in the quick dispensing of plot), as the witness watches a tv news report about the slaying (and just before the goons come calling to gun him down), the camera slyly includes in the frame around the tv literally stacks of Red Bull cans, all wrapped in plastic. Five minutes and most of the plot later, the witness having been saved by FBI hero Sam Jackson is being cajoled/bullied into testifying, and the good guys toss on the table some evidence of him from the scene of the slaying: encased in a baggie, a drained can of Red Bull.

I really wanted to like Snakes, but the film is an aggressively smart-ass deployment of the crude tools of B-film without any of the smarts or real pleasure the best B-films and recreations of B-films offer. Continue reading Snakes on a Product Placement

TV

I’ve been catching up on last year’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, about which I have. It isn’t the masterpiece it once was, or perhaps (three episodes in) I see no gathering momentum, simply a solid funny half-hour of comedy. Its familiar rhythms and pacing and gags may not startle, but I’m still happy to see ’em.

I also either accepted the suckerbait or made an efficient decision, and ordered up the NBC promo disc for two new shows, available only on Netflix. Continue reading TV

Mean Motherphilosophicking Tough Guys

Okay, in preparation for Michael’s contribution to the discussions, I re-watched Le Samourai. As it finished, I found myself still all revved up, so I stuck in Seijun Suzuki’s Youth of the Beast, which I’d never seen. It rocks. And now I’m in a mood that may lead me to see Mann’s Vice this afternoon.

The mood? Anomitastic. Nihilicentious. Aggressubilant. Without stepping all over Michael’s jump-start on Melville’s film, some quick thoughts on these flicks. Continue reading Mean Motherphilosophicking Tough Guys