Dario

So, this is a hole in an ostensible horror fan’s c.v., but: I’d never seen a Dario Argento film, at least not all the way through, ’til last night. I watched Suspiria, a gothic potboiler Argento calls a “fairy tale for adults.” I had fun imagining my own silly taglines: Imagine if Vincente Minnelli and Henry James had a kid, and he directed films.

This was absolutely silly, if taken as plot, and only when you could make any sense of it at all. In other words, close to incoherent in terms of narrative. There are a few things that catch us viewers up–oh yes, the dour sinister headmistress! the strange help at the boarding school!–but mostly I stopped caring or paying any attention to the occasional moments when Argento stopped to try and explain things.

Instead, revel in–relish–the absurdly lush compositions and colors. The film’s brighter, its colors deeper, its production design more baroquely detailed and intricate than almost any film I’ve ever seen. You could pause any shot and just sink in. And the compositions and editing are equally beautiful. Take the film as a kind of rich, strange dream–and it’s dazzling. Even the “brutal” deaths are depicted in such florid composed fashions, it’s more like the gory Renaissance paintings of saints than a typical slasher flick.

I’m going to see more of this guy’s stuff. Note to the interested: It stars Jessica Harper, whose weird little-girl head and huge eyes seemed to intrigue many a strange director. Udo Kier pops up, looking way younger and not quite as inhuman.

I almost posted this under Gio’s post on The Leopard… simply to get some conversation going about Italian film. G named a number of big name filmmakers–in the context of a very interesting reading of Italy’s impact on film. I’m curious where Argento’s movies, or any of the gialli, fit into the cultural context….

Eggleston

Michael Almereyda’s wonderful documentary William Eggleston in the Real World spends a lot of time noodling around about subjects Eggleston himself, in the closing conversation, professes to neither understand nor much fret about: what do [his] photographs do? How do they affect us? How do we watch them?

Luckily for us, the film doesn’t care to really answer, nor does it care only about that question. Instead, the film without any of that arty detachment follows Eggleston around as he takes pictures, content (mostly) to watch him work, or in the off hours to drink and draw and play music. He’s never terribly well-defined–and that’s actually to my liking, and the film’s effect. Rather than answering, it enacts the issues of art and image; the cinematography echoes and even at times captures the lush colors and compositions of the photographer’s work, and while never telling us exactly what to think it provokes sincere, curious reflection. I really enjoyed this. (Almereyda’s other doc on Sam Shepard–This So-Called Disaster–is also a fine film, about the staging of a play but best when hanging out with the playwright.)

United 93

This is one intense film. It is relentless and doesn’t let up until the very. last. moment. I was moved and angered but mostly impressed by the economy of the writing and filmmaking (United 93 makes Munich look like a baroque opera). The “villains” are presented as human (for the most part); you certainly feel their passion and their fear. The passengers lack character per se, but their growing desire to try to do something is palpable, admirable, heroic even (though, by the end, things do go a bit Lord of the Flies . . . puns not intended). The chaos on the ground (in Boston, New York, Newark, Cleveland and some military location) is both outrageous and completely understandable–forgiveable even. There are a couple of ideologically loaded moments (the hijackers in the airport walking past large, glossy, back-lit advertisements for various consumer products. The FAA and the military frustrated by their inability to locate the President to make a necessary leadership decision (the gossip that the Vice President over stepped his bounds by ordering planes shot down is not broached). The audience with whom I sat were visibly emotional and very, very quiet. If one was in any way close to this event, I just don’t know how they could sit through the film.

Big Love

OK “The Sopranos” . . . cool, yipee, etc. BUT. I’m really enjoying “Big Love.” At first I had a hard time finding my way in (as if I want to watch a show about a man who worries about having too much sex), but this show has a strange Lynchian bite to it. In fact, it’s downright creepy in the way it makes normal and human a practice that couldn’t be any stranger and, maybe, attractive. Chloe Sevigny is, as always, remarkable. And Harry Dean Stanton, Bill Paxton, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Grace Zabriskie, Mary Kay Place–all turn in good work. But the writing . . . the storylines are just so damned weird and, at times, uncomfortably titilating and frightening. Is anyone else watching?

The Call of Cthuhlu (2005)

It’s always been a difficult thing to try to film an H.P. Lovecraft story. Stuart Green’s two, three, FOUR films aside, as they’ve got nothing to do with the dreary, humorless spirit of Lovecraft. (Green’s films are in fact funny and bright – the two things they shouldn’t be. And while I enjoyed his first two Lovecraft films, they do little more than exploit the author’s name)

There’s The Dunwich Horror (1970) starring Dean Stockwell and Sandra Dee, and Lcuio Fulci tried to do a zombie version of a story in 1980, but all of this is crap really; there’s a couple dozen awful things out there made after Re-Animator planted the idea in cheap filmmaker’s heads – they throw in the word Cthuhlu and stick poor Lovecraft’s name on the cover… At least when Roger Corman ran roughshod over Edgar Allen Poe he left a batch of great Peter Lorre and Vincent Price moments (at the very least) in his wake.

Well, I came across a beautifully designed DVD cover at Jerry’s in Los Feliz a few weeks ago for The Call of Cthulhu and grabbed it. Jerry’s I might add, just might be the best video store for Lovecraft related films – even if they are mostly rotten. Continue reading The Call of Cthuhlu (2005)

What a country!

In formerly repressive Soviet Union, vampires is so crazy! Is like whole country a battleground–between good and evil!

I should do all my posts in Yakov Smirnoff’s voice. So, like, Jeff and I saw Night Watch, which was kind of deliriously fun. I’m going to cautiously draw a comparison with Von Trier’s The Kingdom, because both films have a loopy laughing-gas good time reinvigorating some pretty standard cliches. (The caution is: no way no how does Watch approach Lars-ian lunacy. But it’s at least far afield from the somber darkness of much “horror/fantasy”.) Will it appeal to D&D players? You’ll have to ask Bruns, but for those of us who can’t tell this world-building mythos from that one, I Continue reading What a country!

vengeance is mine

sympathy for mr. vengeance is a stupid name for a movie, and as per sunhee is not the name of the film in korean; in korean it apparently translates directly as vengeance is mine and so i’m sticking with that. who the hell decides to make stupid changes to movie titles for english audience releases?

anyway: we watched it last night. i liked it a lot. stylistically very subdued compared to oldboy but with far more social and physical heft. to take the latter first: pain and violence are far more real here, we see slashed bodies and blood oozing out of the slashes, the sadism is not leavened with comedy as it often is in oldboy. i’m not sure what to make of the social part. Continue reading vengeance is mine

Young Adam / Nine Songs

I keep watching movies I find interesting then not writing about them. Then I forget the specific things I liked about them in the first place. These two films are hardly similar, but they do treat sex and nudity in a frank way, and I enjoyed both of them, though I’d hardly call either of them great.

M. Winterbottom cranks out the films. He’s directed five since the very enjoyable 24 Hour Party People , but this one had sex – AND bands, so it got my attention. Continue reading Young Adam / Nine Songs

woody, when he was silly

watched take the money and run last night. ah woody, why did you have to go ingmar bergman on us? you were at your best when you were silly, tossing off sight gags and set-ups without punchlines. you were the natural inheritor of the marx brothers and vaudeville but that wasn’t good enough for you, was it? well, at least you didn’t go soft in the head like all those 70s comics. but why am i addressing you in the first person like this?

he’s obviously made some great films after love and death (annie hall, the purple rose of cairo, sweet and lowdown) so i don’t want to push this early silly woody vs. later serious woody thing very far (and annie hall probably belongs in the first group anyway) but when i watch these old movies i wish he still made things like that. no one else seems to have after he stopped.