tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87858597308686283162024-03-13T07:59:00.747-07:00Hugo Stiglitz Makes MoviesKevin J. Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17275402809912728035noreply@blogger.comBlogger498125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8785859730868628316.post-52648219723872580092018-12-20T11:37:00.007-08:002018-12-20T12:29:47.665-08:00The Rider<div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">THE RIDER (****)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I found <b>THE RIDER</b> to be genuine and sincere in ways that are for films these days. It is aided by some fantastic acting (Brady Jandreau's face says so much!) that feels so natural you'd swear you were watching a documentary (the family in the film is portrayed by a real family: Brady, Wayne, and Lilly Blackburn) and some gorgeous cinematography by Joshua <span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">James Richards that beautifully captures the wide open spaces of South Dakota. It's not too talky (which would have robbed a lot of the film of its power) and doesn't have conflicts in the traditional sense, but it's such a confident film in how it shows its protagonist Brady coming to terms with his life (as he sees it) stopping before it ever really got started.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">There's a real sense of confidence and beauty and care in every aspect of the filmmaking here. It's one of those movies that provides a glimpse into a world that I know nothing about, and I was happy to visit this small reservation ranch in South Dakota and to be around these characters. It has a tremendous sense of place, and I appreciated that the director (Chloe Zhao) didn't feel the need to overstate things. Whether it's in letting a beautiful shot speak for itself, the power in a whistle in one of the film's final moments (that one got to me), or the subtle, understated way she let's us know that Brady--a rodeo pro that suffered a tremendous head injury after being bucked and is advised by doctors to never ride again--is coming to terms with his post-rodeo life (there are no melodramatic moments of exposition where characters yell and cry about dreams not achieved, etc.).</span></div>
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There is also a montage of Brady training a horse, trying to tame it. To describe it here in detail would not do the scene justice (it would sound boring), but it is one of the most intense (I had anxiety every time Brady was around/on a horse) and fascinating scenes of the movie. I watched in awe at Brady's process (this is where it feels like a documentary), at watching a professional do their thing and do it well.</div>
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I loved it.</div>
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Kevin J. Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17275402809912728035noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8785859730868628316.post-16007982865176646102018-12-20T09:07:00.001-08:002018-12-20T09:07:16.558-08:00The Nun<br />
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THE NUN (***)<o:p></o:p></div>
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Make no mistake, <b>THE NUN</b> is not a good movie. It is quite
terrible in certain moments (it has the most generic scare moments and some truly
awful dialogue—there is actually an exchange that goes: “The blood of Christ” “Holy
shit.” “The holiest.”), but it’s a lot of fun and really quite something to
look at. My interest was piqued when friends and other critics I trust had
mentioned that the film had a very Italian feel to it, specifically Michele
Soavi’s <b>THE CHURCH</b>. There is a bit of Soavi’s <b>THE CHURCH</b> in that there is an
evil buried beneath a beautifully creepy old religious building, but that’s
just plot stuff. Where <b>THE NUN</b> really gets it right is in the tone, and this is
where I could see the Italian connections being made. <b>THE NUN</b> moves along
quickly enough (the movie is only 96 minutes, which is a plus in my book) and
its ridiculous plot is really just there to just act as a backdrop for the
impressive setpieces. And this is where the comparisons to Soavi and Italian
horror are apt. Director Corin Hardy (whose previous film <b>THE HALLOW </b>I'm unfamiliar with but am now definitely interested in checking out) has a lot of fun dumping <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">everything </i>on the viewer in the same
nonsensical way that Italian horror eschews narrative coherence (there are <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">a lot </i>of scenes of characters just
wandering around searching in spooky locations—I had no idea why, but it didn’t
matter to me) for tone. <b>THE NUN</b> gets the feel of an Italian horror movie right,
and if one approaches the film with the mindset just enjoying the film’s
setpieces (whether they be the copious amounts of eerie shots inside the church,
fog drenched woods, or the hallucinations of the characters), I think they’ll
be pleasantly surprised. Hardy seems to understand that one does not come to a movie
called <b>THE NUN</b> thinking there will be new ways in which a film of this ilk will
scare you. But <b>THE NUN</b> did surprise me because the tone is perfect (it’s always
interesting to look at) and the filmmakers seem to be having fun with this goofy
premise. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />Kevin J. Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17275402809912728035noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8785859730868628316.post-90383887820417189072018-12-13T10:47:00.000-08:002018-12-13T10:47:09.218-08:00The Predator <div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">THE PREDATOR (**1/2)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Incredibly loud and wonderfully stupid in its
first hour, Shane Black’s <b>THE PREDATOR</b> is a stripped down machine in its
opening setpieces but gets derailed by Predator backstory that is just plain
stupid. I did not come here for Predator mythology; I came for the predictable
Shane Black snark and gory fights between a ragtag group of military outcasts
and space hunters. The first half of <b>THE PREDATOR</b> delivers on this; the second
half loses steam quickly (despite Black keeping his big action film under two
hours, which was much appreciated, the film does drag a bit at the end). The
acting and the chemistry are perfect for a movie like this, and it’s one of the
reasons why despite the soggy second half, <b>THE PREDATOR</b> is a lot of fun. Boyd
Holbrook in the lead has charisma and when Olivia Munn is actually given
something to do (which is just in the early parts of the movie) she’s quite good,
too. The real standouts, though, are Trevante Rhodes (who has “action star”
written all over him) and Sterling K. Brown (who takes a thankless role as the
evil government agent and sinks his teeth into it). The beats are all here for
fans of the original <b>PREDATOR </b>to recognize the winks and nods to the original,
but by the end I just didn’t care that much to see this thing become franchise.
But it does have predator dogs! </span></span>Kevin J. Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17275402809912728035noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8785859730868628316.post-44050508316041803082018-12-13T10:45:00.000-08:002018-12-13T10:45:25.219-08:00First Reformed<br />
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FIRST REFORMED (***1/2)<o:p></o:p></div>
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Paul Schrader wears his Bresson and Bergman influences on
his sleeve with this one, and the result is a tone appropriately austere. Filmed
in the Academy ratio, every shot is beautiful and compact—from the great
opening tracking shot, to scenes of characters just sitting inside and talking,
to the harsh, cold Northeastern exteriors that match the harsh, cold interiors
of the church. Ethan Hawke’s amazing performance as Reverend Toller might just
be the performance of the year (and one of the of his career). The
juxtaposition of Toller (a Thomas Merton type who wonders why the church isn’t frontline
stewards on issues like climate change) and his boss (a wonderful Cedric the
Entertainer, who plays an aspiring Televangelist that wrestlers with the role
of the church in an ever-changing, more extreme 21 st century) so were some of my
favorite moments because Schrader doesn’t resort to cheap tactics that make
Toller seem out of touch or make his boss seem inconsiderate of his conflict. There’s
more to <b>FIRST REFORMED</b> than that dynamic, though, as a certain event acts as
the catalyst for Toller thinking this way, and Schrader uses the framework of a
thriller (there have been many comparisons to Schrader’s own <b>TAXI DRIVER</b>) to
tell its story. And it’s a great conceit by Schrader to frame his film this way
because from the film’s opening moments, I couldn’t look away. There’s nothing “fun”
about this movie in the way that a lot of thrillers are “fun” but <b>FIRST
REFORMED</b>—despite its minimalist approach—really moves through its story with a
tremendous amount of momentum that filled me with a lot of anxiety as we watch
Toller deal with his numerous conflicts (internal and external). I couldn’t
take my eyes off of what was happening, and I know I’ll be thinking about this
one for a long time. I can’t go full four stars, though, because of that ending
(even though I really like the abrupt cut). <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />Kevin J. Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17275402809912728035noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8785859730868628316.post-20903578019026770962018-12-10T12:44:00.002-08:002018-12-10T12:55:58.374-08:00Hereditary <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">HEREDITARY (**)</span><br />
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I don't mind arty horror. In fact, most of the Euro-horror I love so much eschews narrative for showy aesthetics; it’s one the aspects I find most appealing about that particular subgenre. I like David Cronenberg movies because they get under your skin and scare in a way that isn’t obvious. There are ways to do arty horror and still have your movie be, you know, scary. However, in the last decade or so there has been a handful of horror films whose filmmakers are hyper-focused on differentiating their it’s-not-horror-but-it’s-horror films via narrative. The aspirations of these films show a crop of filmmakers that would rather have their horror film seen as Important and Significant than scary/unnerving, as if their only take away from film school viewings of <b>NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD/DAWN OF THE DEAD</b> was that George Romero was inserting social commentary into his horror films. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>THE WITCH</b>, <b>THE BABADOOK</b>, even aspects of <b>IT FOLLOWS</b> are just a few modern examples of the Significant horror film that I didn’t hate (<b>THE WITCH</b>, in fact, I liked quite a bit); however, Ari Aster’s very unscary and incredibly banal <b>HEREDITARY </b>with its awful soundtrack that is there to constantly remind you that everything you’re watching is Significant and Creepy is not one of those examples (for an example of the pervasive ambient soundtrack designed to unsettle the viewer that really works, see Rob Zombie’s <b>THE LORDS OF SALEM</b>, which also executes this whole type of Satanic Horror film narrative much better and is much more interesting to look at). I couldn't help but feel worn down by the film's glacial pacing and laughable attempts at overt horror. Scene by languid scene (man there are a lot of slow tracking shots that lead to nothing in this movie) the film trips over itself as it progresses into its more gonzo elements (there are insects on faces and coming out of mouths in this movie, but Fulci it is not). These moments should have elicited a fun, “What the fuck is happening!?”* response but instead each of these moments becomes a slog as over and over we get characters looking at something offscreen (or wandering towards something offscreen), a slow push in from the camera, a THUD THUD from the soundtrack, and lots of tracking shots that are supposed to signal ominous situations but end up being nothing more than tedious foreshadowing.</div>
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<b>HEREDITARY </b>works hard at being arty horror, but it also overplays its hand at the worst possible moments when it wants to try and convince the audience that it’s visceral horror. The film’s “shock” moments don’t land because the momentum of those scenes is always being cut short. There’s just way too much focus on plot and not enough attention paid to what makes a horror film fun and scary. For example, there is a cutaway to a severed head covered in ants that is a fine cutaway for a horror film—appropriately gruesome and shocking in concept—but is inserted at the worst possible moment for what the filmmakers I think are striving for that it made me laugh out loud when they cut to it. However, the moment that cutaway interrupts is a piece of overacting by Toni Collette that is so laughable that I didn't mind the awkward editing decision to interrupt that moment, but it seemed out of place for what the film is trying to be. It’s a moment that strains to say, "SEE THIS IS A HORROR MOVIE" because this feels like it was made by people that don't necessarily love horror movies. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I was trying with this one. I really was. A lot of critics I respect love this movie. There are elements of it that I really like (the set design, the sound mixing near the end where despite how ridiculous the clucking noise is as a device, that noise and the sound of the pencil hitting the paper actually startled me as it was isolated on my good-not-great rear speakers), but the overbearing soundtrack and the over-the-top acting and the lack of understanding what makes a horror film scary got on my nerves. <o:p></o:p></div>
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* As I watched the film, I thought, “huh, I think this is a film trying to say something about trauma and moving on and the (literal) ghosts that haunt us, etc.”, but unless I totally misread the film's final 20 minutes, I think the film’s final 20 minutes undercuts that interpretation. Which is too bad because had <b>HEREDITARY </b>been more along the lines of something like Mario Bava’s underappreciated <b>SHOCK </b>with its equally over-the-top performance from Daria Nicolodi (and the equally gonzo things that happen to her in that movie), I could have been on board with it. <b>SHOCK </b>does the kind of “protagonist trying to keep their shit together” ghost story better than most, and I thought that's where <b>HEREDITARY </b>was heading before the banal Satanism angle took over. Anyway, this is all to say people really should see <b>SHOCK</b>. <o:p></o:p></div>
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http://kolson-kevinsblog.blogspot.com/2013/10/italian-horror-blogathon-shock-aka.html</div>
<br />Kevin J. Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17275402809912728035noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8785859730868628316.post-55868565941769328722014-01-20T15:40:00.001-08:002014-01-20T15:40:35.056-08:00John Frankenheimer: The Train<a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-nCSPKJAwqlc/Ut2wfflsiiI/AAAAAAAAJek/-QSW9FvGIHA/s1600-h/The_train_poster%25255B2%25255D.jpg"><img alt="The_train_poster" border="0" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-bcKEsDqQlXM/Ut2wgNEdlCI/AAAAAAAAJeo/9gf0TVV4R7A/The_train_poster_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" height="320" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="The_train_poster" width="209" /></a><br />
Growing up with action films in the ‘80s and ‘90s — memorizing every John Woo slow-mo gun battle, every world-weary Bruce Willis character quip, every Ah-nold one-liner, and every single frame of something like <em>Lethal Weapon — </em>I didn’t have to look hard to see the influence that Frankenheimer’s approach to the action film in <em>The Train </em>had on the films that I remember so fondly from my formative years. I love what Matt Zoller Seitz says in <a href="http://www.dallasobserver.com/1994-12-01/film/brute-force/" target="_blank">his remembrance</a> of <em>The Train</em>, calling it: “A huge, roiling, clanking, screeching, rumbling hulk of mayhem that seizes you from frame one and never lets go, the film takes such visible delight in the image of small, desperate men blowing huge things sky-high that it amounts to the very first Joel Silver picture.” <br />
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Indeed, <em>The Train </em>does remind one of those early ‘80s/’90s Joel Silver produced actioners, but it’s also something that those movies so often fail at being: it gets you to care about the characters without spending a whole lot of time on character development. There’s something to be said about the way Frankenheimer keeps his film moving at the clip it does but also makes sure to stop long enough so that the viewer is always able to get their bearing and be sure what the characters’ motivations are. This isn't just a fun action movie because stuff gets blowed-up real good; it’s an impressive technical spectacle because, to be sure, but it's also impressive in how it gets you to care about what's happening despite its economy of dialogue and character development. Again, I’ll invoke the great Matt Zoller Seitz here: <i>The Train</i> “balances intellectualized suspense and primitive violence, so that one quality reinforces the other in a never ending cycle of mechanized frenzy and spooky stillness.” <br />
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I’ll get back to that “spooky stillness," first, though, the plot: Set in occupied France during the last days of Nazi control, <em>The Train </em>concerns itself with Paul Labiche (Burt Lancaster), a French railroad engineer and Resistance fighter who must keep a train filled with valuable art from leaving France for Germany. Colonel von Waldheim (Paul Scofield), is the German military officer in charge of the train, and he carries a special affinity for the art collection that he watched over in occupied Paris. His plan is to take art back to his homeland despite orders to the contrary; however, Labiche and his team try to thwart his efforts. <br />
It’s a pretty simple premise, really, and that’s what is so refreshing about it. The motivations for both characters are clear, and we get the classic cat-and-mouse game between Labiche and von Waldheim that would be just as at home in something like (to pick a random ‘90s action movie that I love) Andrew Davis’ <em>Under Siege</em>. And because of <em>The Train</em>’s simplicity, the temptation is there to see the movie as nothing more than impressive setpiece after impressive setpiece. <br />
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But Frankenheimer gives us moments that challenges this all-style-no-substance argument like the exchange between our two main characters at the end where von Walheim says, "Those paintings mean as much to you as a string of pearls to an ape!" This statement makes the viewer question Labiche’s motives throughout the film. He may indeed “feel” nothing for the art, so what his motivation then? His sense of duty? Mere revenge? Is it a moral stance (the film does seem to be about the value of life being more important than the value of art). These are questions that most action films don’t ask their audiences to consider, but Frankenheimer does, and he has summed up his reputation as an action director in numerous interviews, calling himself a director of “character-based action movies.” <br />
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These deeper character aspects of the film were intended to be more overt during the film’s initial production. Due to the disappointing returns after making Luchino Visconti’s <em>The Leopard</em>, Burt Lancaster was extremely cognizant of his waning stardom. When he signed on to do <em>The Train</em>, the film’s initial director, Arthur Penn, was much more interested in making it a small-scale character study. Nervous that this would only compound his run of bad box office, Lancaster fired the director and called in his favorite for-hire filmmaker Frankenheimer. I have made mention of this before, but their working relationship always makes me laugh. Perhaps Lancaster brought Frankenheimer on because he knew that Frankenheimer would let him do his thing and instead focus on the technical aspects of the film. <br />
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And so it was: Frankenheimer asked the studio to shut down production in order to allow him the appropriate amount of time to rewrite the script, turning <em>The Train </em>from small-scale character study to larger, more ambitious action film. But again, that doesn’t the mean the film is without heart, nor does it mean that Frankenheimer’s only imprint on the film is from the technical side of things. <em>The Train</em>’s character's aren’t merely cutouts designed to stand in front of large-scale setpieces where lots of things explode. <br />
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In fact, Frankenheimer has said, “Actually, all of my films have the same theme, and that's a definite choice on my part. I take a character and push him to his physical or emotional limit, to see how he reacts. I think that's the only way you can ever really reach the limits of a human personality, and that's what I'm interested in exploring in my films." So instead of making the film a smaller-scale character study, Frankenheimer heightened the action in order to achieve the same goal that Penn was going for. <br />
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A quick note about the actors playing those characters: Both Lancaster and Scofield are great as two stubborn men engaged in a battle of wills (there is a small role for Jeanne Moreau, playing an innkeeper , who assists Labiche, but it feels like another shoehorned female role in an all-male movie a la Ava Gardner’s role in <em>Seven Days in May</em>). Once the action starts, and the motivations for both characters becomes more about defeating the other, <em>The Train </em>never lets up, and neither do the characters. Von Waldheim and Labiche both suffer from a case of severe tunnel vision and are willing to go to great lengths (and in some cases even kill) in order to win their cat-and-mouse game, disregarding the effect it has on those around them. I love the way Scofield utters that final line to Lancaster’s Labiche (stated above); it’s his final attempt to differentiate himself as being better/different than Labiche. Lancaster is equal to the task (I’m warming up to him the more and more I see him in these strong, silent type roles) and a real physical presence on the screen (I also love that he doesn’t even attempt to do a French accent). Lancaster’s performance, in fact, gives credence to the notion that <em>The Train </em>is a masculine action film at its very core. <br />
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I want to get back, for a moment, to that phrase that Matt Zoller Seitz used in his essay on the film: “spooky stillness.” Yes, the film is masculine (Burt Lancaster being the avatar for such masculinity as it sure seems like he’s doing his own stunts here, and pay attention to the scene where he is panting like a madman as he crawls up a steep hill and then takes a dangerous fall down the hill in, again, what looks like the actor doing his own stunt), but it also slows down for more reverent moments. And this is due in large part to the way Frankenheimer frames his shots or slows down just enough so that we let the power of a scene wash over us while only hearing the mechanical noises of the train.<br />
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The framing in the film is classic Frankenheimer — as we’ve discussed numerous times during this retrospective, he frequently uses wide angle lenses and shoots characters in a basic two shot but employs deep focus — and the most effective of these framing devices is when the elderly train engineer, Papa Boule (Michel Simon), is executed. While Labiche pleads with Colonel von Waldheim, we see in the background the three German soldiers shoot their guns, and then from behind a wall we see Boule’s body slump down. It’s a powerful moment — made more so by the way Frankenheimer frames it and then isn’t in a hurry to rush to the next scene. “Spooky stillness,” indeed.<br />
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<em>The Train </em>is one of the most brilliantly kinetic action films I’ve ever seen. And even if one chooses to disregard its obvious (or “low hanging,” an annoying term that so many poo-pooers like to say and then pat themselves on the back) existentialist tone and themes, it still has its technical merits<em> </em>to fall back on — it still can be regarded and studied as an important and masterful piece of filmmaking purely based on its technical merits. Every frame of this black-and-white beauty has something interesting to look at: the characters faces (again, often shot close-up and in a two shot with deep focus), the grimy and gray setting that fills the frame, the way the action drives the narrative (the editing is really something). It’s a film with some serious impact — there’s a real tangible quality about the film — as Frankenheimer gives us shots of the giant train barreling towards the camera (we understand early how massive this piece of machinery is), or showing in high angle long shots of the train barely escaping huge explosions and a potentially disastrous derailing (which, as shots go, must have been hell setting up for). It’s truly a piece of filmmaking that holds up — not only does it hold up, but it puts nearly every modern action film to shame — and showcases what Frankenheimer was best at. <em>The Train</em>, like the best actioners from any era, is a film you <em>feel</em>. <br />
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Frankenheimer would return to the paranoid thriller with his next film, <em>Seconds </em>(it would conclude his unofficial “paranoid trilogy”), but would close out the decade with more elaborate, setpiece oriented films like <em>Grand Prix </em>and <em>The Gypsy Moths</em>. But neither of those films are quite as good at balancing the character elements with the technical elements, making <em>The Train </em>one of Frankenheimer’s best, most memorable films of his very prolific and successful run during the ‘60s (we’ll talk more about this with his other films, but the ‘60s were an interesting time for Frankenheimer — perhaps the last decade where he was a real “known” filmmaker before the Scorsese’s and Spielberg’s and Friedkin’s and Coppola’s burst onto the scene kind of leaving him in the dust). <br />
<br />Kevin J. Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17275402809912728035noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8785859730868628316.post-12757798989920527042014-01-06T07:00:00.000-08:002014-01-06T07:00:03.432-08:00John Frankenheimer: Seven Days in May<a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-yS8fKcqiVRQ/UsdEF7qObRI/AAAAAAAAJeI/TP6VxnHJVYw/s1600-h/Sevendays_moviep%25255B2%25255D.jpg"><img alt="Sevendays_moviep" border="0" height="320" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-eOO3kTas5Ew/UsdEGXpBQqI/AAAAAAAAJeM/6zMvjJp_Gzk/Sevendays_moviep_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="Sevendays_moviep" width="206" /></a><br />
Based on the best-selling novel by Fletcher Knebel and Charles Waldo Bailey II, <em>Seven Days in May </em>is sometimes referred to as Frankenheimer resting on his laurels by following up his previous film — the masterful <em>The Manchurian Candidate </em>— with yet another paranoid political thriller. That’s a bit unfair, though. <em>Seven Days in May </em>doesn’t have much in common with <em>The Manchurian Candidate</em>. It takes itself too seriously to be a satire, and it seems that Frankenheimer and his screenwriter, Rod Serling, are too busy emphasizing Big Important Speeches than ensuring that there’s any kind of drama or intrigue in the film. The film has a great cast and a fantastic opening sequence, but it ultimately is just too talky. Some of those talky scenes really work thanks to the acting (especially a scene near the end between Burt Lancaster and Frederic March), but ultimately the film feels a lot like Frankenheimer’s previously flawed films like <em>The Birdman of Alcatraz</em>: a film heavy on exposition with some good acting and good setpiece mixed in — but there isn’t much more to it than that. <br />
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The premise of <em>Seven Days in May </em>is as follows: Lancaster plays General James M. Scott, who is convinced that President Jordan Lyman (March) is too soft on America's enemies. He feels so deeply about this that he plots a military takeover of the United States. Every time President Lyman gets close to figuring out the scheme, though, he is derailed by political protocol. Eventually, Lyman seeks the aide of the man who first uncovered the plot: Colonel "Jiggs" Casey (Kirk Douglas), who is more of a reluctant aide as his ties are very strong to the General. <br />
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You see, General Scott has formed a secret base in New Mexico, which serves as headquarters for his plan to overthrow the government. But Colonel Casey begins to think things are odd when he hears of this base — which he is unfamiliar with — as well as references to other bases and units and suspicious protocols that he is unfamiliar with. All of this piques his interest, concerning him to the point where he has no choice but to set aside his loyalty to the General and tell the president about his suspicions that General Scott is planning a military <em>coup d’etat</em> under the guise of a military exercise. <br />
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<em>Seven Days in May </em>is one of the first paranoid thrillers, but it’s not one of the better ones. There are parts where the film really moves — especially in a “The West Wing” kind of a way where there isn’t a whole lot happening on screen, but the acting is so good and the delivery of the dialogue so stellar, that it’s hardly noticeable that we’re essentially just watching people sit/stand around and talk. The film may feel a bit dated (unlike <em>Manchurian</em>) to some since — as Frankenheimer admitted in the DVD commentary — modern audiences would never be able to accept the premise because such a secret plan in the modern technological age could never go by undetected the way it does in this film. He also stated that audiences would never accept the premise because modern opinions of politicians is lower than it has ever been, so audiences would simply roll their eyes at the President’s speech that ends the film. <br />
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But I don’t know that I agree with Frankenheimer. Audiences bought Aaron Sorkin’s idealized White House in “The West Wing,” and as I mentioned above, the film’s emphasis on big speeches about honor and duty and other bits of exposition underlining American Pride is something that would be right up Sorkin’s alley — so the film doesn’t feel <em>too </em>dated. <br />
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And whether or not the film may or may not be dated isn’t even the film’s biggest flaw — that would be Rod Serling’s (best known for “The Twilight Zone,” obviously) script and the unconvincing <em>deus ex machina</em> ending. A lot was changed from the source material, actually, most notably the ending where General Scott gets into a car and simply drives home—his name disgraced and career over after his plan has been outed—whereas in the novel Scott drives his car head-on into another car, killing himself. There’s also the matter of the totally unconvincing subplot concerning General Scott’s former mistress, which feels like nothing more than a way to shoehorn Ava Gardner into the film (otherwise it would have been all men in the film). In addition to these flaws, the film is just too talky in parts and is a bit of a slog through the middle portions where it becomes a pretty dull procedural, but that soggy middle is bookended by some great moments that make the film worth seeking out (and make it so much more than a mere <em>Manchurian </em>clone). <br />
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The opening of <em>Seven Days in May</em> — a protest outside of the White House (which was legitimately shot outside of the front gate of the White House without problems thanks to Pierre Salinger’s, President Kennedy’s Press Secretary, insistence that President Kennedy wanted the film made) gone awry —<em> </em>is one of Frankenheimer’s standout setpieces. It’s really the primary reason to check out the film. In my previous essay on <em>The Manchurian Candidate</em>, I brought up the quote from Jonathan Rosenbaum where he said that <em>The Manchurian Candidate </em>could “conceivably be the only commercial American film linked to the French New Wave.” Here, that link is more overt than ever. The immediacy Frankenheimer and his DP Ellsworth Fredericks give the scene and the way they free their camera from the tripod is really quite jarring when you consider the small, talky movie that follows. <br />
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Here, Frankenheimer once again relies on his experiences with live television as he moves through the crowd of protesters, making it feel like we’re right there in the fight, and at one point even mounts his camera on the back of police motorcycle. The scene is chaotic (and reminds the viewer of the aesthetic choices used in the fantastic ending to <em>Manchurian</em>), and it is no doubt exciting stuff for the time, but, unfortunately, it is also the most exciting and intriguing thing about the film as every scene that follows fails to live up to this great opening. <br />
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Frankenheimer's style of direction is perfect for this film. He uses the same framing techniques and deep focus and wide-angle shots as well as low camera angles that he’s used in all of his previous films. He also worries about the filmmaking and lets his actors act. In an interview with Frank Sinatra on the DVD for <em>The Manchurian Candidate</em>, Sinatra noted how impressed he was with Frankenheimer that he trusted his actors to make the right choices when it came to the script. This is probably because Frankenheimer is a director that is more concerned with the technical aspects of the film than with choices the actors make (why else would he continue to work with Burt Lancaster when the two didn’t really see eye-to-eye?) , and even though the opening scene is a great example of Frankenheimer’s gift for memorable setpieces, <em>Seven Days in May </em>is also a great showcase for its actors, showing that Frankenheimer could facilitate some great performances out of a low key character drama. <br />
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Douglas is great as Colonel Casey, displaying an array of conflicting emotions as he juggles loyalty to his country and loyalty to the General. He was also more invested than if this were just a normal job, for he was one of the major driving forces in getting the film made. Initially he was to play General Scott; however, he insisted that Burt Lancaster be in the film and take the much juicer role. This was all very much to the chagrin of Frankenheimer, who, as we’ve discussed in other entries of this retrospect, had some major problems with the star. Ironically, Douglas and Frankenheimer would be the ones that would butt-heads on the set, while Lancaster would continue to collaborate with Frankenheimer on two more films (<em>The Train</em> and <em>The Gypsy Moths</em>). <br />
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Lancaster and Frederic March have a fantastic verbal confrontation at the end that, in addition to the opening protest sequence, is the other highlight of the film. I loved the was Lancaster just barrels through the President’s arguments because he <em>knows </em>he’s right, and portrays this character as a man obsessed with his righteousness.It’s not just Douglass, Lancaster, and March that are worth watching, though: <em>Seven Days in May</em> also has a couple of nice supporting performances. Character actors Martin Balsam and Edmond O'Brien are great as President Lyman's advisors.<br />
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In wrapping this up, I don’t want it to sound like I’m ragging on <em>Seven Days in May </em>too much. There’s a lot to like here, but the film is a bit of let down coming on the heels of <em>The Manchurian Candidate</em>. Still, the opening is fantastic, and the acting is top notch. Ultimately, it feels a bit like a film Frankenheimer needed to get off of his chest and then move on something less political. However, Burt Lancaster would call upon the filmmaker to rescue yet another one of his films (read: let Lancaster do whatever he wanted), this time from Arthur Penn, as Frankenheimer was brought on for a complete overhaul of <em>The Train</em>, taking it from in-depth character study to action film. The results are a finished product that is certainly the opposite of <em>Seven Days in May</em>. <br />
<br />Kevin J. Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17275402809912728035noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8785859730868628316.post-65412810219870788712014-01-01T18:33:00.000-08:002014-01-02T11:33:31.673-08:00The Wolf of Wall Street<a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-oXXwbvGxfXk/UsTLUaSPRvI/AAAAAAAAJdw/Hw-lmCi_2Co/s1600-h/the-wolf-of-wall-street-poster-theatrical%25255B2%25255D.jpg"><img alt="the-wolf-of-wall-street-poster-theatrical" border="0" height="320" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-oznR1c_r3Sk/UsTLUyqR41I/AAAAAAAAJd4/YVrpxV2Qgmc/the-wolf-of-wall-street-poster-theatrical_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="the-wolf-of-wall-street-poster-theatrical" width="216" /></a><br />
I want to hold off on making any kind of declarative statements about <em>The Wolf of Wall Street </em>until I see it again. It reminded me a bit of when I saw <em>Django Unchained </em>last year (coincidentally another film released on Christmas day that has a great performance from Leonardo DiCaprio): here’s a film from one of my favorite American filmmakers, but something just felt <em>off </em>about it. The pacing felt all wrong at times in Tarantino’s film, but I chalked that up to the fact that it was, sadly, the first time he had to work without his go-to editor Sally Menke (who had tragically died in 2010), whose absence was quite noticeable. Martin Scorsese, however, didn’t have to replace a long-time collaborator and good friend at editor, so he doesn’t have that excuse, for Thelma Schoonmaker did work on <em>The Wolf of Wall Street</em>. Which makes the whole thing so confounding: how in the hell did these two think this version of <em>The Wolf of Wall Street </em>resembled a complete film? Not only does the film resemble something hastily stuck together with scotch tape, it also lacks the headlong energy of the film it is most being compared to, <em>Casino</em>.<br />
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I’m not saying it’s bad — because there are many, many times throughout its three hour runtime that I was enthralled (or laughing my ass off, for the film is very funny). But it doesn’t really earn its length. I never felt like <em>Casino </em>was a three hour film, but boy did I begin to feel that final 60 minutes of <em>The Wolf of Wall Street</em>. And I think one of the film’s biggest flaws is that it think excess is a subtle substitute for that kind of headlong energy found in <em>Casino </em>or <em>Bringing Out the Dead</em>. It uses some of the same narrative tricks that <em>Goodfellas </em>implemented (there’s a moment where DiCaprio talks directly to the audience, explaining what was going on in the room where he works, Henry Hill-like) like multiple voice over narrations, but it lacks the urgency in how that story is told.<em> </em>The film is lacking <em>something</em>; there’s no getting around it. Perhaps my concerns would disappear with another viewing. Like I said, I want to see <em>The Wolf of Wall Street </em>again. It almost demands a second viewing because of just how much happening on the screen while you watch it. <br />
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But the story of Jordan Belfort (DiCaprio) and his merry band of Hedonists (most notably Donnie Azoff played by Jonah Hill), and all of the debauched yens they succumb to, begins to tread water after about the 150 minute mark. The movie feels so disjointed at the end (I thought it had ended two different times). Oh, here’s Belfort on a boat in a storm; here he is sitting at a table talking to some federal agents; here he is making an infomercial; here he is talking to those same agents again; here is wearing a wire; here he is getting arrested...and so on. All of those moments feel so disconnected; or, better yet, they feel like they’ve been dropped in on the viewer with their larger context removed. Those scenes with Belfort made me shift in my seat (I never checked the time, but I was tempted to) because they kept coming on the heels of what felt like natural endings for the film. It wasn’t as bad as <em>Return of the King</em>, but it made me think of it. <br />
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Over and over, the film would gain momentum and then screech to a halt; its rhythms in certain sections felt so uncharacteristically off. Perhaps this is because of the locked-in release date for the film, and so Scorsese and Schoonmaker just threw together what they could (apparently the film had to go from a four hour cut to a three hour cut) and it looks every bit a slapped together effort in parts. The aforementioned scene of Belfort and Azoff riding out a storm on Belfort’s yacht seems so superfluous (my wife turned to me at that point and just asked, “what the hell is this movie?”). And I get it, I mean that’s probably the point of Scorsese’s film: everything about these people’s lives is superfluous. But boy did that scene just come off as flat to me. Again, excessiveness on the screen does not necessarily equate to energy emanating from the screen. So I was just waiting for that scene to come to an end and put me out of my misery. <br />
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Similarly, there are some odd cuts at the end. When Belfort wears a wire and is told to incriminate all of his co-workers, there is a moment where he’s eating lunch with Azoff, and he writes a note on a napkin that informs him he’s wearing a wire and that he shouldn’t say anything that can incriminate him. Well, the next scene is Belfort being awoken by the federal agents (led by Kyle Chandler of “Friday Night Lights”) holding the napkin, informing Belfort that he’s going to jail. Okay. How did he get the napkin? Did Azoff rat out Belfort? Was it found with the feds raided the building (probably)? I don’t need a beat by beat explanation of how they got the napkin, but it’s such an odd cut that feels designed to do nothing more than quickly tidy up the movie. <br />
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Okay, I’m getting too negative here. Like I said, there is so much to like about <em>The Wolf of Wall Street</em>. Primarily, this is Leo’s movie. He owns every scene and seems to be having a helluva time playing Belfort. Make no mistake, the film depicts these men as the douchebags they are, but that doesn’t automatically disqualify the film as comedy. <em>The Wolf of Wall Street </em>is really funny in parts, and that’s almost all due to the sheer enthusiasm and energy brought to the performance by DiCaprio. It’s the best thing I’ve seen him do, and it may just go down as the one performance he’s most remembered for. <br />
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Specifically, I am thinking of two scenes that are brilliant displays of physical acting. The first is a moment where Belfort, via voiceover, informs of his morning ritual with his wife (the fantastic newcomer Margot Robbie): an hilarious argument where Belfort, perched on his knees (its almost like he’s in a constant position of asking for forgiveness), argues with his wife about the name Venice. She wants to know if he’s been messing around on her because he’s been saying this name in his sleep. While he tries to think of a way to weasel out of the precarious spot he’s in, Scorsese cuts away to one of the film’s more wild (and wildly hilarious) scenes where Belfort has hot wax poured on him by a dominatrix named Venice. The energy that DiCaprio expends in this scene is nothing short of phenomenal, mostly because DiCaprio’s face turning red and his neck veins bulging, it never feels he’s overacting in a bad way. And that’s why it works so damn well. It’s one of the best scenes in the film, particularly in the way that Robbie plays off DiCaprio, milking the gag of her throwing cold water on this wild animal, and him getting more and more pissed each time she does it. <br />
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Don’t get me wrong, though, it’s <em>absolutely </em>over-the-top, but it is so in the best possible way — the way in which Scorsese so brilliantly and singularly does excessive. And perhaps the best scene in the film (and certainly the one I’ve heard the msot people talk about) is the scene where Belfort, hopped up on Quaaludes (“I discovered a new phase: the <strike>Bell’s</strike> cerebral palsy.”), tries to make it home before Azoff, who is also hopped up on Quaaludes and is using Belfort’s recently tapped phone, says something stupid (likely) that could incriminate them both. It’s a showcase scene for Leo, who I really want to see do a physical comedy now after witnessing his contorted efforts to get to his car. The scene is some seriously brilliant physical acting by DiCaprio, and it is a scene that somehow pulls off being hilarious, sad, and pathetic. <br />
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I don’t understand the complaints levied against Scorsese and co., saying that he doesn’t condemn these characters enough. Honestly, how can anyone watch the scene where Belfort explains via voice over that Brad (Jon Bernthal from “The Walking Dead”, who is really great in this) commits suicide and then segues to the next scene with a nonchalant, “Anyway,” and think that Scorsese is letting these guys off easy. The final hour of the film felt like nothing but condemnation. In fact, the only character that I was remotely happy to see show up near the end was Bernthal’s Brad because at least his crimes felt petty enough that you didn’t mind laughing at him. There is an argument between him and Azoff near the end of the film that takes place in a parking lot that seemingly goes on forever. I was so tired of Jonah Hill by this point that all I wanted to do was yell at the screen, “Just give him the damn briefcase already!” It’s another example of how some scenes at the end could have been tinkered with, but I also think Scorsese is doing something here that is just as deliberate as the scene with the yacht in the storm: he’s making sure we’re sick of seeing these characters. They are deplorable, and the scene in the parking lot was like finger nails on a chalkboard to me, and I think that’s the way Scorsese and his writer Terence Winter (the two work together on “Boardwalk Empire”) want it to come across. <br />
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At the beginning of the film, I was laughing <em>a lot </em>at/with these characters. So kudos to Scorsese and Winter for making sure audiences turn on these people. This isn’t a tragedy because we feel bad for these characters (I love the pseudo-tragic tone and the way Scorsese shoots the scene where Belfort attempts to kidnap his own child — there’s nothing tragic about it; it’s merely pathetic) and what comes of their lives; it’s a tragedy because nothing is learned in this movie. These men and their lifestyles and their twisted ethos is perpetual. By the end, nothing has changed (I love the callback to the “sell me this pen” moment at the end), and Belfort is simply just peddling the same bullshit in a different arena. We’re not supposed to think their antics are cute or funny, but that doesn’t mean we’re not supposed to laugh during the film. And since the film is funny and I did laugh a lot, that doesn’t mean I believe that the filmmakers are making light and condoning Belfort’s escapades. <br />
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I’ve seen <em>The Wolf of Wall Street </em>described as a three hour version of the memorable cocaine-induced montage that marks the end for Henry Hill in <em>Goodfellas</em>. I don’t know. There are too many moments during <em>The Wolf of Wall Street </em>that lack that kind of frenetic energy. Besides, I think Scorsese already made that movie — it was called <em>Bringing Out the Dead </em>(Scorsese’s most criminally underrated films). I think the sloppiness of the film’s editing gets in the way of <em>The Wolf of Wall Street </em>being on a par with the exhilarating craziness of <em>Bringing Out the Dead </em>or, as I alluded to above, the headlong energy found in <em>Casino</em> with its great musical cues, patented Scorsese whip pans, or other techniques the old master usually employs. Again, I really feel like the editing here is showing us all the excess in order to mask how un-energetic it comes across. Which, again, may have been Scorsese’s intent. <br />
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Rhythm and pacing is such an odd thing to criticize when discussing a Martin Scorsese/Thelma Schoonmaker collaboration. But no matter how tempted I may be to give Scorsese a pass because I know what he may have <em>intended </em>to do based on his previous films, there’s just no getting around the biggest hang-ups I had with <i>The Wolf of Wall Street</i>. And I think this is why I’m so excited to revisit the film. Now that I know Scorsese’s endgame, I’ll be curious to see if the film works on me differently a second time. Perhaps I won’t be so distracted (in a good way) by DiCaprio’s acting that I’ll be able to focus more on what Scorsese was trying to say with his aesthetic choices (I admit, even though I didn’t think music worked the way it usually works in a Scorsese film, I loved his use of the Lemonheads’ version of “Mrs. Robinson”), and maybe not just understand more fully what Scorsese was going for, but to see if I’m wrong in my assessment that <em>The Wolf of Wall Street</em> is a sloppy film filled with some spectacular scenes that never quite coalesce into the kind of finished product we come to expect from the American master. Kevin J. Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17275402809912728035noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8785859730868628316.post-62185448565122784572013-12-31T12:27:00.004-08:002013-12-31T13:23:33.757-08:00John Frankenheimer: The Manchurian Candidate<a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-jKjs3qbmqU4/UsMj1wczv8I/AAAAAAAAJcU/qU61JUHYKuQ/s1600-h/The_Manchurian_Candidate_1962_movie%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img alt="The_Manchurian_Candidate_1962_movie" border="0" height="320" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-WahYZ54yM2U/UsMj2SY80SI/AAAAAAAAJcY/w7T_dQdaEGA/The_Manchurian_Candidate_1962_movie_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border-width: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="The_Manchurian_Candidate_1962_movie" width="200" /></a><br />
One of the driving forces behind this retrospective was the urge to revisit <em>The Manchurian Candidate</em>. I hadn’t seen the film since high school film class, but Frankenheimer’s film — the last of three released in 1962 — is one that I’ve always had the urge to revisit but just have never gotten around to. It’s a classic thriller containing classic performances (Frank Sinatra was never better), sure, but as Roger Ebert stated in <a href="http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-the-manchurian-candidate-1962" target="_blank">his Great Movies essay</a>: "<em>The Manchurian Candidate</em>" is inventive and frisky, takes enormous chances with the audience, and plays not like a "classic" but as a work as alive and smart as when it was first released.” I love the use of the word “frisky” and “alive” because <em>The Manchurian Candidate </em>has an energy that not one of Frankenheimer’s films to this point in the retrospective have had. It not only was, to that point, the best showcase for Frankenheimer’s style, melding brilliantly his experience with live television and aesthetic flourishes (deep focus, handheld, tilts, et al.) that he had been fine-tuning on those previous films, but it was also his most efficient and effective and popular film, and it arguably remains so to this day. <br />
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<em>The Manchurian Candidate </em>is exhilarating and darkly funny and emotionally exhausting; it’s also endlessly fascinating — as both paranoid thriller and political satire (the fact that we can’t trust politics at face value is nothing new in the era of “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report” constantly lampooning our inept government, but it is nevertheless relevant and effective still as satire even if it may not seem <em>as </em>effective as it once was). It’s not just the film’s narrative that is enthralling, though. The mythos surrounding the film’s production and whether or not it presaged the assassination of John F. Kennedy, as well as the subsequent snags the film’s distribution faced because of what the film may or may not have presaged, is ingrained in popular culture. <br />
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For the one or two that may not know what the film is about: <em>The Manchurian Candidate </em>concerns itself with Staff Sergeant Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey), who during the Korean War, is credited with saving the lives of two of his men, who have been reported missing, in combat. The platoon's commander, Captain Bennett Marco (Frank Sinatra), suggests that Raymond be awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroism. When Marco returns to the states, he suffers from a terrifying, recurring nightmare in which Shaw is hypnotized during a demonstration before military higher ups from different Communist nations. During the demonstration, Shaw is ordered to murder the two missing soldiers. Something about this nightmare keeps gnawing at Marco, and he wants to investigate further but has nothing but his gut to back up his claims of a massive government brainwashing conspiracy. However, Marco learns that another soldier from the same platoon has had the same nightmare, and when Marco get him to identify some of the men in the dream, Army Intelligence agrees to help Marco investigate his claims. <br />
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Raymond Shaw's mother, Eleanor Iselin (Angela Lansbury in a movie-stealing performance), is the puppet master behind the political career of her husband, Senator John Iselin (James Gregory). The senator is essentially a McCarthy clone, claiming that a number of communists work within the Department of Defense. Raymond wants nothing to do with his stepfather or his mother, who is parading him around for photo ops and the like. Unbeknownst to Raymond, his mother is a communist agent with a secret plan to supplant her husband as vice president and then have her brainwashed son kill the president so that Senator Iselin can become the new (Communist) president. The catalyst: a playing card. And when Raymond goes into his trances, it is due to the emergence of the Queen of Diamonds during a game of solitaire. <br />
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Okay, enough of that. Like I said, <em>The Manchurian Candidate </em>is so ingrained in popular culture that one doesn’t really need a detailed plot synopsis do know what the film is about (the image of the Queen of Diamonds is synonymous with the film’s primary theme). There are so many things that amaze me about the film, and the performances are right near the top of that list. Arguably the best performance Sinatra ever gave (I know many prefer <em>The Man with the Golden Arm</em>), his portrayal as the haunted Marco is great stuff. Notorious for just wanting to do one take (this bit Sinatra in the form of a broken finger during the film’s famous, claustrophobic fight scene with Henry Silva), Sinatra plays Marco’s desperation to figure out the conspiracy brilliantly. Especially in the scene near the end where he plays solitaire with rigged deck in order to get Shaw to tell the truth about the conspiracy. <br />
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Lawrence Harvey is quite great, too, although it’s a more subdued performance. The way he acts with his eyes is one of the most memorable things in <em>The Manchurian Candidate</em>. During the aforementioned scene of solitaire, where Marco is playing with the rigged deck, Frankenheimer films Harvey in extreme close up so that we feel his despair (and the paranoia that underlines the scene) — as if we could walk up to the screen and wipe the beads of sweat off of Harvey’s face — and his sad, sad eye say so much. It’s a helluva bit of acting on Harvey’s part, and it all seems so effortless. The way he plays Shaw as the hapless pawn who has serious women issues (established early during the film’s opening scene in a Korean bordello and hammered home by his awkward interactions with his overbearing mother) is just one of the reasons why the film is so unforgettable.<br />
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The real show-stealer, though, is Lansbury as Iselin. Already having played a similar character in Frankenheimer’s <em>All Fall Down </em>(which was the reason for her being hired as Sinatra insisted on Lucile Ball for the role, but once Frankenheimer showed him Lansbury’s performance as Warren Beatty’s overbearing mother in <em>All Fall Down</em>, Sinatra was all-in), Lansbury plays Shaw’s mother as the proper doting, overbearing — she’s also maniacally evil in her civility. She knows just when to bring moments from Raymond’s tortured past (a forbidden romance with a girl on a summer vacation) to needle him and remind him how much he needs her. <br />
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And in one of the film’s most terrifying scenes, she sits with her son and tells him what he’s going to do (“you are to shoot the presidential nominee in the head” – the matter of fact way she says that is chilling), laying out the plan for her husband to take the reins of the country after the presidential nominee has been killed by Raymond (“the speech is short, but it is the most rousing speech that I have ever read”). The whole thing is chilling because of how Lansbury plays it low-key. She could have easily shouted these lines or made them more menacing by implementing hokey acting tricks like some kind of silent movie villain twirling their mustache; however, she very plainly, very confidently lays out the plan for poor, hapless Raymond as if it’s just another conversation. <br />
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Apparently the character was toned down considerably from the source material. In the book, Iselin uses the brainwashing techniques to have sex with her son. Wisely thinking that audiences in 1962 wouldn’t go for such a plot point, Frankenheimer had Lansbury play that part of the role very minor (the only hint is the scene near the end where she kisses her son on the lips — I believe this was the compromise). Her portrayal of Iselin as the puppet master vicariously living through the two weak-willed men in her life is one of the legendary performances in all of cinema. <br />
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<em>The Manchurian Candidate </em>is also notable for being the film that stands above all others in Frankenheimer’s <em>oeuvre</em>. Only his fifth film, Frankenheimer peppers <em>The Manchurian Candidate </em>with all kinds of signature visuals (a two shot where one character is in focus in the foreground and the other, in focus as well, is in the background is his favorite), and the surreal images and vérité style were not that common to American film at the time. Obviously Frankenheimer is influenced by these styles, but he also implements the documentary he loves to use to evoke that things are really happening at that moment. This is found at the end during the convention and the press conference earlier in the film. <br />
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Frankenheimer, like he does in a lot of his film, uses his experience (and techniques he helped innovate) in live television to evoke a sense that the things we’re watching are real/are really happening at that moment. It’s really quite something (the fantastic opening to his follow-up film, <em>Seven Days in May</em>, is even <em>more </em>indebted to this style), especially in those final moments in the convention hall. But for those final moments in the convention hall, Frankenheimer couldn’t figure out how to stage the setpiece where Marco identifies Shaw’s location logically, so he decided to use something out of Hitchcock’s <em>Foreign Correspondent </em>where a lone light in a window would locate where the assassin was hiding out. Frankenheimer even joked that was would be seen as plagiarism during the ‘60s would seen as homage today. <br />
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I like what Stephen Bowie on <a href="http://sensesofcinema.com/2006/great-directors/frankenheimer/" target="_blank">Frankenheimer’s Senses of Cinema</a> page has to say about this style in <em>The Manchurian Candidate</em>:<br />
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<strong>“Amidst this documentary-styled mise en scène Frankenheimer plants a series of Buñuelian images and draws so little attention to them that the effect is, literally, hallucinatory. The ingenue turns up dressed as a gigantic playing card. One character is shot through a milk carton so that he “bleeds” white. And then there’s the rifle toting assassin with the Medal of Honor pinned directly beneath his priest’s collar. Frankenheimer places each of these moments in an utterly realistic context, never winking at the spectator to acknowledge their out-of-context absurdity. The tone that dominates by a fifth or a sixth viewing may be black comedy.”</strong><br />
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The most memorable of these hallucinatory moments is the opening brainwashing sequence. Frankenheimer and his editor, Farris Webster (who also does a great job of cutting the fight scene between Sinatra and Silva), move seamlessly from subjective point of view to objective point of view in one virtuoso 360 degree pan. The scene begins with the objective point of view of Marco’s platoon sitting in a communist seminar to a subjective point of view of the soldiers attending a harmless and quite banal meeting of the Ladies’ Garden Society.<br />
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What makes the staging of Marco’s dream sequence so memorable and haunting is that it steers clear of the clichéd dream imagery found in most films (even though I like <em>Spellbound</em>’s Dali-designed dream sequences, they aren’t as unnerving as the unflinching presentation Frankenheimer goes with here). Instead, Frankenheimer slowly metes out the information in a single shot — drawing a nice comparison to the way the characters slowly draw card after card during their games of solitaire throughout the film — so that we go from the safe location and boring garden club seminar (the soldiers even yawn and look totally disengaged with their far-off stares) to a stage where the stuffiness of the garden club is replaced with the starkness of the Communist seminar backed by portraits of Stalin and Mao. It’s really quite something, and does a tremendous job — since it shows up so early in the film — of displacing the viewer in a manner that makes everything that follows all the more intriguing because of how Marco’s dream makes us think everything in this world is askew.<br />
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I also love what Frankenheimer and his production designer, Richard Sylbert, do with the blocking. Most shots are just one take (typical Frankenheimer two shot), but they both blanket the screen in political (mainly Lincoln) iconography. There’s a shot where Lansbury sits in the foreground and Harvey enters the scene in the background, but Frankenheimer stages the scene to almost make this a three shot by having a bust of Abraham Lincoln on the desk where Lansbury is sitting, staring at her. He also positions a lamp in a manner that makes the lampshade looks like Lincoln’s iconic hat. There are other scenes, too, for example where Senator Iselin sees his reflection in a portrait of Lincoln or when Frankenheimer has him dress up as Lincoln during the scene where the Iselin’s are at a Halloween party, which also includes the famous shot of Lansbury standing over the Queen of Diamonds costume (just as important an image as Lincoln).<br />
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Frankenheimer’s aesthetics often steal the show (and rightly so in many cases), but it shouldn’t ignored that his approach to the film’s narrative (aided by screenwriter George Axelrod) is what also makes it memorable as a dark satire. Like Bowie says in the quote above, it is certainly Frankenheimer’s straight-ahead approach to the material that allows the viewer to see it as a black comedy. The film never preaches its politics, and that’s because that wasn’t Frankenheimer’s intent — he set out to adapt the source material, and that’s it. They weren’t trying to make any grand political statement. And that’s why despite the film’s Cold War setting, <em>The Manchurian Candidate </em>doesn’t feel dated in the least. I also think that detachment from the material — that straight-ahead approach — helps Frankenheimer and Axelrod create the appropriate tone for the film, which Jonathan Rosenbaum called, “conceivably the only American film that deserves to be linked to the French New Wave, full of visual and verbal wit that recalls Orson Welles.” <br />
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I can’t speak for this since I haven’t seen Axelrod’s films post-<em>The Manchurian Candidate</em>, but Stephen Bowie does make a point to mention that the reason the narrative works as satire on repeated viewings is solely attributed to Frankenheimer as Axelrod’s own attempts at directing satire (<em>Lord Love a Duck</em> and <em>The Secret Life of an American Wife</em>)<em> </em>were apparently the types of comedies that constantly wink at the camera and italicize every joke. <br />
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As we look at <em>The Manchurian Candidate </em>today, we think of it as being a presage to what occurred a year later with the assassination of President Kennedy and the subsequent assassination of the man accused of killing Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald (who many claimed was nothing more than a “Manchurian candidate”). Unfortunately a lot of the film’s provocative elements now seem common place in the political realm, and so seen through the lens of 2013 politics and the farce that American congress has become, <em>The Manchurian Candidate</em>'s satirizing of politicians may <em>possibly </em>feel dated to some. But as a film — as a piece of brilliantly executed paranoid cinema — it’s of the highest order...timeless, I dare say. Frankenheimer was not yet a major filmmaker at this point, but he would cement himself within Hollywood as a major talent known for blending realism with visual metaphor and a kind of “What can I get away with?” mentality. William Friedkin called him “the best, most important, and most innovative filmmaker of his era.” I’ve yet to see enough that makes me think Friedkin is correct, but judging solely on <em>The Manchurian Candidate</em>, I can definitely see where he’s coming from. <br />
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Frankenheimer’s next film was another political thriller, <em>Seven Days in May</em>, which was unfairly criticized for being just another version of <em>The Manchurian Candidate</em>. It’s better than those criticisms suggest, but it lacks the darkly wry undercurrent of this film (it’s also <em>really </em>talky) and plays more like a Very Serious Message Movie than something that gets under your skin and continues to work on you. But really, what could have Frankenheimer done to follow up <em>The Manchurian Candidate</em>? It’s a career defining film, and it’s one of the great pieces of cinema from the 1960s. Kevin J. Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17275402809912728035noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8785859730868628316.post-47334248973858873452013-12-28T14:21:00.001-08:002013-12-28T14:21:45.703-08:00Catching up with 2013: The Lords of Salem<em><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-LtDY-CA4aXc/Ur9N6-VvpwI/AAAAAAAAJb8/EjZNyeCqazs/s1600-h/Lords-of-salem-teaser%25255B2%25255D.jpg"><img alt="Lords-of-salem-teaser" border="0" height="320" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/--jCBODcHH9A/Ur9N7Wz2L6I/AAAAAAAAJcE/HQbbSFDdiqg/Lords-of-salem-teaser_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="Lords-of-salem-teaser" width="216" /></a></em><br />
<em>The Lords of Salem </em>is something special. The type of <em>outré</em> experience found in the best European horror films — a film that made me giddy with anticipation for each scene. I haven’t felt that way in a long, long time in regards to a horror film, and I could easily see myself slotting <em>The Lords of Salem </em>into my regular Halloween viewing rotation. Rob Zombie’s latest isn’t going to be for every horror fan — it’s far too much of a slow burn for it to appeal to the masses — but it’s so visually and aurally on-point, I cannot fathom how some are calling the film boring. Despite the film’s old chestnut of a narrative (Satanism/witches) suggesting that the whole thing may be old hat, and despite the film being slower than most horror films (there’s a surprising amount attention paid to characters, and Zombie gets some good performances from his leads), <em>The Lords of Salem </em>is never boring. It reminded me of some of my favorite Italian horror films (especially Fulci’s <em>City of the Living Dead</em>) and some of John Carpenter’s early work. <br />
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Perhaps those that didn’t care for the movie were merely unengaged in the story of Heidi (Sheri Moon Zombie), a recovering drug addict turned popular late night DJ. Her co-workers, Whitey (Jeff Daniel Phillips) and Herman (Ken Foree) help round out the popular trio known as “The Big H Radio Team.” Like all DJs, they have their bits and their shticks, and one night while doing their show a mysterious wooden box appears for Heidi from an unheard of band calling themselves The Lords of Salem. Once the record is played on the show, all sorts of odd goings-on occur. The music is a huge hit in Salem, and really strikes a nerve with on-air guest Francis Matthias (Bruce Davidson, giving a great performance) who is writing a book about the Salem witch trials. However, Heidi seems to be hearing something completely different than the masses, for every time the needle drops on the LP, she begins hallucinating. <br />
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Or so we’re led to believe.It’s never explicitly laid out whether this is all in the mind of a recovering drug addict who has relapsed, or if this is a straight-up horror film. So, I guess I can see why some threw up their hands in frustration with Zombie’s film or shook their head in disbelief over people like me drooling over the film. It’s a tricky, different kind of horror film. And for that, I am grateful. <br />
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The film’s intentions are elusive, which adds to the dread that underlines every scene; it may not be obvious and explicit dread, but there’s something unsettling about <em>The Lords of Salem </em>that I couldn’t quite put my finger on, and I love it when a horror film displaces me in that fashion than just trying to scare me with schlocky jump scares and cheap looking gore effects. <br />
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I hate when people qualify aspects of filmmaking simply because it is found in a “lesser” genre film, but I’m going to do it here (forgive me): the acting is pretty damn good. Not just for a horror film, but for a Rob Zombie movie, too. Zombie is no different than Tarantino in that he likes to pay homage to the films he grew up with by casting actors from the B-Movies he grew up watching. Here, he casts Foree (<em>Dawn of the Dead</em>), Dee Wallace (<em>The Howling</em>), and Meg Foster (<em>They Live</em>) in various roles to great effect. His wife, Moon Zombie, as the film’s lead plays Heidi to great effect. Her recovering drug addict actually elicits some poignant moment, a rare thing indeed for a horror film. <br />
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One thing I have been noticing more and more with Zombie’s films: he’s pretty good at directing actors. But perhaps nothing prepared me for how well he paced the film. There are some moments where Zombie really slows things to down to develop characters, and for that I was grateful; it makes the ambiance and dread resonate all the more. <br />
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One of the best things about the film is one of the best things about the horror genre in general: the element of surprise. In <em>The Lords of Salem</em>, lots of weird shit happens, yes, but horror films don’t require a fool-proof narrative in order to be successful — sometimes weird shit happens “just because.” And that’s okay and the best kind of surprise a horror film can deliver depending on the context of your horror film. Lucio Fulci (post-<em>Zombi 2</em>) was only ever interested in the image and the displacement of the viewer via the succession of his images. Zombie seems to be cribbing from the same playbook here. But that’s not a dig; no, Zombie is showing himself to be a better director with each film he releases, and similar to Tarantino, he is more and more interested in making a much broader, varied pastiche, which I think gives his films more energy. <br />
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Rather than <em>just </em>making his version of <em>The Texas Chainsaw Massacre </em>(<em>House of 1000 Corpses</em>, <em>Devil’s Rejects</em>) or <em>just </em>making his version of the slasher (<em>Halloween </em>and <em>Halloween II</em>, which was much better than his first attempt at being something more than just a remake), here the breadth of Zombie’s influences is greater as he seems to be making his version of <em>The Shining</em>, yes (the hallways of the apartment Heidi lives are like a more drab version of the hallways of The Overlook Hotel), but also a Ken Russell film (in fact, Zombie stated that <em>The Lords of Salem </em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2cv_UGnV98" target="_blank">was conceived with the idea of being as if Ken Russell directed The Shining</a><em></em>), and an Argento/Fulci type Italian horror film. And I don’t know about all of you, but out of that bunch, that last type of horror film is the most interesting to me. <br />
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Zombie and his cinematographer, Brandon Trost, are indebted to <em>outré </em>nature of Argento’s baroque horror films like <em>Suspiria </em>and <em>Inferno</em>, but even more so they seem to be heavily influenced by Lucio Fulci’s <em>City of the Living Dead </em>(the mummified priests that pop up reminded me of another Fulci creation: Dr. Freudstein from <em>The House by the Cemetery</em>, which got me thinking: if anyone were qualified to remake a popular Fulci film, it would be Zombie)<em>.</em> The way Zombie and Trost shoot the Salem exteriors is eerily reminiscent of the way Fulci and his cinematographer, the great Sergio Salvati, evoked dread with those great tracking shots through the doomed city of Dunwich. <br />
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So, yeah, visually, the film evokes the great Italian masters like Argento and Fulci, but I also saw a bit of Michele Soavi in there. I can’t be sure that Zombie is a fan of Soavi’s <em>La Setta </em>(<em>The Sect</em>), but there sure were parts of this film, especially the ending, that reminded me of Soavi’s own take on the whole women-as-vessel-for-demon-child subgenre. And about the film’s ending: man, is that quite the setpiece. Some disliked the ending, and even though I agree in that I found the lead-up (very Argento) to the film’s coda more intriguing than the payoff, I still loved what Zombie was doing with that ending. I know that final montage isn’t for everyone, but I loved it — it reminded me of one of those gonzo montages Ken Russell would put in one of his films (more specifically <em>Altered States</em>). <br />
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<em>The Lords of Salem </em>has a very Euro Horror rhythm to it, too. Zombie and his editor, Glenn Garland, take a page out of Kubrick’s book by building dread by marking days of the week with title cards, each coming on the heels of a key scene that introduces each day of the week with more dread than the previous (my favorite being when Heidi walks by a grotesque figure in her bathroom...and then it cuts to the title card for the next day). It’s similar to what John Carpenter did in his great Euro Horror-influenced film <em>Prince of Darkness</em>. And it’s a great way to build tension despite very little actually happening on screen. <br />
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I think it is in the editing — the pacing — of the film that I was most appreciative of. I’ve already re-visited the film, and it’s one of those horror films that has a way of getting under your skin — its effects sustaining for days after — and it’s why I think it is one of those films that I could see slotting into my regular rotation of must-see movies on Halloween. It got to me in a way that is very similar to <em>City of the Living Dead</em>: the film has flaws to be sure, but there’s just <em>something </em>about it that gets me, and I think the editing and the way Zombie just lets his atmosphere do all of the talking. <br />
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Aurally, the film is a masterpiece. Zombie collaborates with his guitarist, John 5, to create a truly unsettling score (especially once the needle drops on The Lords of Salem record that drives Heidi crazy). I love that Zombie understands how to use sound to his advantage, which is so crucial for horror film (this should come as no surprise since he is a musician). The music stings are sometimes so subtle—the opposite of what modern horror tells us is scary—that we barely notice there’s music there; however, like the Heidi’s downward spiral thanks to the bizarre record she plays, I felt a similar displacement every time that musical would hum or thump in the background. It seriously unnerved me, which is exactly what I wanted it to do. <br />
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Zombie has claimed that he is done with horror. That’s too bad since <em>The Lords of Salem </em>is just gorgeous to look at. Cliché “Satanism horror film” iconography aside, it's just a pleasure to bask in the imagery on screen. However, it makes me glad that he’s so willing to step outside of the genre he is associated with. I like that he’s willing to go outside of his comfort zone. In fact, <em>The Lords of Salem </em>is so well made and so damn gorgeous to look at and such an affecting experience, that Zombie could be a seriously great director, not just a good genre filmmaker. Kevin J. Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17275402809912728035noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8785859730868628316.post-42226811062705398142013-12-26T08:57:00.002-08:002013-12-26T08:57:42.817-08:00John Frankenheimer: The Birdman of Alcatraz<a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-8y8dPj0MXBA/Urm9iq8UhwI/AAAAAAAAJbk/kZe276JOklo/s1600-h/Bird_man_of_alcatraz342%25255B2%25255D.jpg"><img alt="Bird_man_of_alcatraz342" border="0" height="320" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-dAFjwET9VHE/Urm9jDcqE-I/AAAAAAAAJbo/CbOjRPzsNOU/Bird_man_of_alcatraz342_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="Bird_man_of_alcatraz342" width="212" /></a> <br />
Here’s what I know about <em>The Birdman of Alcatraz</em>: I hadn’t seen it since the summer when I started this retrospective, and I looking around for my notes, I could only scrounge up, “At 143 minutes, the film is way too long.” Insightful, I know. So, seeing how the film is on Amazon Prime at the moment, I decided to re-watch it since I honestly could remember nothing about it, and my notes weren’t offering any help. Well, I can confirm: at 143 minutes, the film is way too long. Like 43 minutes too long. <em>The Birdman of Alcatraz </em>seems to be a popular entry in Franklin’s <em>oeuvre</em>, but I cannot understand why this is. It has little-to-none of the aesthetic flourishes one would associate with Frankenheimer’s later work (as in later that year with the much, much better <em>The Manchurian Candidate</em>), and it boasts one of the most prosaic performances of Burt Lancaster’s (who I am admittedly not a huge fan of) career. The parts of the film that do work are buoyed by some great supporting performances by Karl Malden and Telly Savalas, and an impressive setpiece when the prisoners riots. Other than that, it’s a totally skippable film. <br />
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The well-known story is as follows: Robert Stroud (Lancaster) is imprisoned at a young age for a murder he committed in Alaska. He is taken to Leavenworth Prison where he has some run-ins with the warden (Malden). While in prison, he learns of a situation where his mother was denied the right to see him. Angered by this, Stroud kills a guard and is sentenced to death; however, his mother stages a successful campaign to change the death sentence to life in prison, and the judge agrees so long as the terms include that Stroud spend the rest of his life in solitary confinement. <br />
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While in solitary, Stroud adopts a pet sparrow, which acts as the catalyst for him collecting different types of birds and cages. When the birds fall ill, Stroud experiments with a cure, and as the film’s story moves forward in time, we see Stroud not as a homicidal killer but as an expert on bird diseases (even publishing a book about the subject). Stroud eventually marries (much to the chagrin of his mother) and begins selling his remedies. However, he is transferred to Alcatraz — which was new at the time — where he is not allowed to keep his birds. And it is there where perhaps Stroud’s legend grew largest. <br />
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The rest of the film concerns itself with an again Stroud who is mostly shown as the reluctant rabble-rouser rather than the rebellious and ruthless inmate he supposedly was. Lancaster’s decision to play Stroud’s rebellious attitude as doing what’s best for his fellow inmates in the name of cruel treatment by the prison system is one of the film’s major flaws. <br />
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<em>The Birdman of Alcatraz </em>was Lancaster’s pet project. It’s far too serious, subjective, and self-serving to be an effective piece of filmmaking. Lancaster was inspired by Thomas Gaddis’ profile on the convict’s life and rehabilitation. It is said that it touched Lancaster deeply, and this is, I think, the film’s ultimate undoing. Lancaster is too much in the business of idealizing Stroud (again, known to be a prickly customer, even during his “Birdman” phase) that totally removes any intrigue from the film — handcuffing Frankenheimer and the writers so that it is impossible to view Stroud as anything but an angel. A much more interesting film could have been made about a conflicted, complex, and (yes) even dickish Stroud — who, despite being a convicted murder, does <em>some </em>good. But I didn’t feel like that was the person I got to see.<br />
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But, the dulling of Stroud’s rough edges was intentional. Lancaster made Stroud into more of an existential character — doing good despite the warden and other’s disapproval. This is a character type not uncommon to Frankenheimer films, but again, this version of Stroud (who Lancaster thought was more of a victim of the system than a cold-blooded killer) is nothing more than an avatar for Lancaster’s message: we need to rethink our prison system. A noble intent, indeed, but one that is too sugary-sweet in its portrayal of a known psychopath to support a 143 minute prison drama. The film’s best scenes are when Stroud’s intentions are challenged, specifically in the scene between Lancaster and Malden. But moments like that are few and far between. <br />
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Frankenheimer does his best to light scenes in a manner that suggests as much space as possible — even though Stroud spent 43 years in solitary confinement, you’d never know by the way the film’s <em>mise-en-scene</em>. But this isn’t one of Frankenheimer’s more stylized efforts. In fact, this is more “A Burt Lancaster film” than a “John Frankenheimer film,” and even though the filmmaker was proud of the final product, he did voice regret over the chance to make the film he <em>could have</em> made out of the subject material. But since Frankenheimer came to the film incredibly late (he was honestly shocked that Lancaster wanted to work with him again after their not-so-great experience working together on <em>The Young Savages</em>), and Lancaster insisted on controlling every aspect of the process, it’s no surprise that outside of the prison riot, we don’t see a lot of what we associate with Frankenheimer. <br />
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So as it is, <em>The Birdman of Alcatraz </em>is a too-long drama with some decent supporting performances. But it can’t truly be considered a Frankenheimer film, and even if we were to consider it so, it’s not a very good one. It’s far too impressed with its own sense of moral duty and far, far too languid in its pacing (and not in a good, contemplative way) to elicit any kind of response beyond, “that was a professionally made movie.” No, the real show-stealer of Frankenheimer’s prolific year in film would be his third and final film of 1962, the brilliant (and still exhilarating and relevant) <em>The Manchurian Candidate</em>. Kevin J. Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17275402809912728035noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8785859730868628316.post-79324850169783500452013-12-24T08:19:00.000-08:002013-12-24T08:19:21.811-08:00Catching up with 2013: The Way, Way Back<a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-azOyzwesdhs/UridkL_b0VI/AAAAAAAAJbM/KcZEnAGI_TA/s1600-h/waybackposter%25255B2%25255D.jpg"><img alt="waybackposter" border="0" height="240" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-cInr6Naw3ig/UridkjEanEI/AAAAAAAAJbQ/JzDWyUw76-8/waybackposter_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="waybackposter" width="162" /></a><br />
Tonally, Nat Faxon and Jim Rush’s <em>The Way, Way Back</em> reminded me a bit of Greg Motolla’s wonderful coming of age story <em>Adventureland</em>. Even though <em>The Way, Way Back </em>deals with younger characters, here we have a young male protagonist, Duncan (Liam James), using an amusement park to help him navigate the murky waters of his life that await him post-summer vacation. Those murky waters: which parent he’ll end up living with, each residing on opposite coasts. On the west coast is Duncan’s father, who always seems to have something going on and keeps his son perpetually hoping that he’ll be invited to stay with him. On the east coast — where the film takes place — Duncan’s divorced mother, Pam (the always great Toni Collette), is dragging him along to a beach house with her new boyfriend, Trent (Steve Carell). There, all of the usual coming of age/Summer that Defined My Life stuff happens, with all of the usual characters that inhabit these type of indies (Allison Janney as the acid-tongued drunk and Sam Rockwell as freewheeling guru). <br />
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That’s not to say <em>The Way, Way Back </em>isn’t effective in parts. Rockwell and James are great together (especially their last two scenes, which trend more towards the dramatic), and Anna Sophia Robb’s performance as Susanna, the girl that (mostly) quietly observes Duncan’s behavior, finding him fascinating in the process. Janney and Carell seem mostly superfluous, though, and even though Janney does elicit laughs and Carell elicits cringes, they’re both just kind of going through the motions. <br />
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Superfluous and familiar character types aside, I appreciated Faxon and Rash’s reluctance to use narration or spell out some kind of usual coming of age epiphany via exposition at the end. The Oscar winners do a good job of keeping things humming and refraining from doing any kind radical character makeovers (in fact, I would say I liked this film more than the film they won their Oscar for, <em>The Descendants</em>, because this one is more earnest in that regard). Collette is always brilliant and worth watching, and Sam Rockwell puts a lot of energy into his role, yet he wisely knows when to dial down his shtick as Owen — the immature man-child that shows Duncan how to follow his own path (their introduction to each other, using Pac-Man as an obvious metaphor, is a great scene, but it tips its hand early in regards to what we’re getting with Owen).<br />
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But it feels minor for the subgenre; <em>The Way, Way Back</em> is not as smart about young male life or as funny as something like the aforementioned summertime coming of age tale <em>Adventureland</em>, but it goes down just as smoothly. It’s a totally watchable and smile-inducing experience that is nothing memorable or note-worthy, but it’s perfect for a lazy afternoon/evening. Kevin J. Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17275402809912728035noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8785859730868628316.post-45026264321603324542013-12-23T12:34:00.001-08:002013-12-23T12:34:45.487-08:00Catching up with 2013: All is Lost<a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-jAunJ9fUlFA/Uric1dxuC4I/AAAAAAAAJa8/VRASWMfRbEg/s1600-h/allislost%25255B2%25255D.jpg"><img alt="allislost" border="0" height="240" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-qeO3rZSpMpQ/Uric2NEYmDI/AAAAAAAAJbA/abBSdmlIDw8/allislost_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="allislost" width="162" /></a><br />
J.C. Chandor’s <em>All is Lost </em>is a mesmerizing experience. One of the very best pictures of the year. Much of this, no doubt, is owed to the film’s lead — and only — performance. “Tour de force,” that oft-used cliché when describing an award worthy performance, comes to mind when describing Robert Redford’s performance as Our Man (the fact that he remains nameless and, for the most part, history-less is one of the many things I admired about the movie). And that is an appropriate way to describe Redford since all 105 minutes of the film is all Redford all the time, so the performance better engage the viewer, and it better be something that keeps the viewer always wondering what’s going to happen next. Redford is nothing short of phenomenal here. Redford’s face says it all: the look he gives when he knows he’s in some shit, the devastating look he gives his ship as he watches it sink, and the heartbreaking way he lets go of the tether to his life raft — fully aware that things are about to get even more bleak. There is also moment of realization on that life raft that is so frustrating, so deflating, that Our Man simply cannot hold it in anymore and yells out the most anguished “Fuck!” I’ve heard in quite some time. Is it to God (doubtful since he doesn’t add a “you” to the end of it)? To himself for being so careless? To the life he knows he will not return to? This little moment is just one of many where Redford says so much by doing so little. <br />
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Yet, as crucial as the lead performance is to the film’s success, <em>All is Lost </em>would merely be a “good” film and not a great and memorable film were it not for Chandor’s attention to details (there are so many moments where I found myself on the edge of my seat wondering what he was doing and why he was doing it, watching this character think and process and survive) and the film’s tremendous use of sound (in addition to the great storm scenes, there is a moment where Our Man goes back onto his sinking boat to retrieve some items, and the creaking and cracking and deep moans that emanate from the doomed ship are downright terrifying). The ending will no doubt be a point of contention for some (this will be one of those movies that I recommend to people, and they’ll probably wonder what the hell is wrong with me), but like all great works of existentialism, the ending can mean whatever you want it to mean depending on how you view the world — similarly, like all great existential works, it has the ability to make us inventory on our lives and think about the world in which we inhabit a little differently. Kevin J. Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17275402809912728035noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8785859730868628316.post-79258942604235728422013-12-12T19:30:00.000-08:002013-12-12T20:28:16.753-08:00My answers to PROFESSOR LARRY GOPNIK’S POST-HANUKAH, PRE-CHRISTMAS, POST-SCHRODINGER, PRE-APOCALYPSE SLIFR HOLIDAY MOVIE QUIZ! <br />
<a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-DYRC6ov1p5M/UqpwacuptFI/AAAAAAAAJZU/k87KOqgdZGw/s1600-h/pulpleone%25255B2%25255D.jpg"><img alt="pulpleone" border="0" height="136" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-qr1gvRfWtjw/Uqpwa9SZOaI/AAAAAAAAJZc/7-skiB9fpRI/pulpleone_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="pulpleone" width="320" /></a> <br />
As many of you know, the esteemed <a href="http://sergioleoneifr.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Dennis Cozzalio</a> throws out <a href="http://sergioleoneifr.blogspot.com/2013/12/professor-larry-gopniks-post-hanukah.html" target="_blank">these quizzes</a> (about) every holiday. The one exam that I almost always supply answers for is the Christmas quiz. It comes at just the right time for me: I have had about enough of lull in blogging post-Italian Horror Blogathon, and I just about finish grading for the term when these things go live on Dennis’ blog. These quizzes always act as the perfect remedy to my blogging malaise. I look forward to getting back to it these next three weeks (I’ll be seeing <em>All is Lost </em>tomorrow), filling the blog with all kinds of nonsensical ramblings. Anyway, thanks to Dennis for another fine quiz. Here are my answers ... <br />
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<b>1) Favorite unsung holiday film</b> <br />
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I really like <i>The Ref</i>, but since I saw that answer somewhere else, I’ll go with Harold Ramis’ underrated black comedy <i>The Ice Harvest</i> <br />
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<b>2) Name a movie you were surprised to have liked/loved</b> <br />
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My mind is only going towards recent viewing experiences, so I’ll go with the totally surprising <i>In Bruges</i>—one of my favorite films of 2008—which, thanks to some truly awful trailers, was being marketed as nothing more than one of those awful pithy, self-aware post-<i>Pulp Fiction </i>comedies about criminals a la <i>2 Days in the Valley </i>and <i>Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead</i>. <i>In Bruges </i>is so much more than that though. Anchored by a great Collin Farrell performance (and Ralph Fiennes doing his best impersonation of Ben Kingsley’s performance from <i>Sexy Beast</i>) and the always gorgeous scenery of Bruges, <i>In Bruges </i>is beautiful and funny and sad and violent and vulgar—and it’s all of those things brilliantly. <br />
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<b>3) Ned Sparks or Edward Everett Horton?</b> <br />
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Pass <br />
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<a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-QCGlobinbxY/UqpwbvYtavI/AAAAAAAAJZk/08WwmDgKzOI/s1600-h/vlcsnap-2013-12-12-12h14m06s122%25255B2%25255D.png"><img alt="vlcsnap-2013-12-12-12h14m06s122" border="0" height="170" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-az1OMoy_PUw/UqpwcSaybJI/AAAAAAAAJZo/T3UZ3AzN-Rw/vlcsnap-2013-12-12-12h14m06s122_thumb.png?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="vlcsnap-2013-12-12-12h14m06s122" width="400" /></a> <br />
<b>4) Sam Peckinpah's Convoy-- yes or no?</b> <br />
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YES! Just look at Kris Kristofferson in that picture! <br />
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<b>5) What contemporary actor would best fit into a popular, established genre of the past?</b> <br />
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Michael Shannon…in every genre, for the man can do no wrong. <br />
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<b>6) Favorite non-disaster movie in which bad weather is a memorable element of the film’s atmosphere</b> <br />
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Dean Treadway had a great answer for this one (<i>A Simple Plan</i>, one of my very favorite movies of the ‘90s), and I’m really tempted to just echo what he said…but I guess I’ll go with John Carpenter’s <i>The Thing</i>. <br />
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<b>7) Second favorite Luchino Visconti movie</b> <br />
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I’ve only seen one Visconti (<i>The Leopard</i>). Boo to me, I know. <br />
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<b>8) What was the last movie you saw theatrically? On DVD/Blu-ray?</b> <br />
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Theatrically: <i>The Wolverine</i> (yeah, I don’t get out much, but as I mentioned, I will be seeing <em>All is Lost </em>tomorrow) <br />
DVD/Blu-ray: <i>The Lords of Salem</i> <br />
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<b>9) Explain your reaction when someone eloquently or not-so-eloquently attacks one of your favorite movies (Question courtesy of Patrick Robbins)</b> <br />
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My reaction is to listen. <br />
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<b>10) Joan Blondell or Glenda Farrell?</b> <br />
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Pass <br />
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<b>11) Movie star of any era you’d most like to take camping</b> <br />
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The juvenile male in me wants to say something like Keira Knightley…but since I’m a happily married man, I’ll go with Orson Welles…because it would be fun to eat S’mores and listen to his stories around a campfire. <br />
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<a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-HWIZWwAEU0A/Uqpwcrd8D6I/AAAAAAAAJZ0/_Kn-I_ivOHQ/s1600-h/rib02%25255B2%25255D.jpg"><img alt="rib02" border="0" height="300" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-pOTkNH2-UbE/UqpwdU98lyI/AAAAAAAAJZ4/-uqwcCqjTDc/rib02_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="rib02" width="400" /></a> <br />
<b>12) Second favorite George Cukor movie</b> <br />
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<i>Adam’s Rib</i> <br />
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<b>13) Your top 10 of 2013 (feel free to elaborate!)</b> <br />
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I usually don’t watch recent movies until I’m on Winter break. Since that just started, I haven’t seen enough titles to make a full list. The only 2013 films that I’ve seen that I like enough to put on an end of the year list would be Rob Zombie’s <i>Lords of Salem</i> and Michael Bay’s (yes) <i>Pain and Gain</i>. The former is likely to make the cut once I’ve seen more films, the latter (I suspect) will probably fall into the “runner’s up” category. <br />
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<b>14) Name a movie you loved (or hated) upon first viewing, to which you eventually returned and had more or less the opposite reaction</b> <br />
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I remember not liking <i>Blade Runner </i>all that much when I first saw it in high school, but I love it now. I also remember loving <i>The Last Boy Scout</i> when I was in middle school. In college, however, I revisited it and found it abhorrent. I can only watch it now through a snarky lens. It truly epitomizes all that is awful about the Bruckheimer/Simpson action film of the ‘80s/’90s. I honestly have no idea why my mind went to Ridley Scott and Tony Scott movies right then… <br />
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<b>15) Movie most in need of a deluxe Blu-ray makeover</b> <br />
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<strike>I’ve been sayin’ it for years: Criterion needs to rescue Peter Weir’s <i>Fearless</i>. My full frame, snapcase copy mocks me from across the room.</strike> Peter Nellhaus just informed me via Facebook that Weir's film has finally been released on Blu-ray. So, I'll go with Francesco Barilli's masterpiece <i>The Perfume of the Lady in Black</i>, a little-seen Italian horror film that deserves a much larger following.<br />
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<a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-ihEyg0zYBYI/Uqpwd1GhinI/AAAAAAAAJaE/_iIi4GVqEnY/s1600-h/marcello2%25255B2%25255D.jpg"><img alt="marcello2" border="0" height="305" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-3BROKpg9Hk0/UqpwecVDioI/AAAAAAAAJaI/C-KxhckBD6A/marcello2_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="marcello2" width="400" /></a> <br />
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<b>16) Alain Delon or Marcello Mastroianni?</b> <br />
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Marcello. <br />
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<b>17) Your favorite opening sequence, credits or no credits (provide link to clip if possible)</b> <br />
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I’ve always loved Argento’s way of opening films. Of course there’s his most <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onTYKt5lFNU">famous opening</a> (and rightfully so) in <i>Suspiria</i>, and the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IXk0rut5ZI">opening to <i>Deep Red</i></a><i> </i>is something else, too (thanks in large part to Goblin’s fantastic score), but I’ll go with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IhgSk4zLcI">the showiness of the opening</a> (the reflection in the raven’s eye, the subjective steadicam walking out of the opera rehearsal) in his underappreciated <i>Opera </i>(arguably his best looking film). <br />
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<b>18) Director with the strongest run of great movies</b> <br />
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Recently, it’s been Tarantino. I love pretty much anything the Dardenne’s do. Bergman had some amazing runs, but they were interrupted by some not-so-amazing attempts at comedy. Out of all the choices (and there are many), I’ll go with the obvious pick of Hitchcock and his decade long run in the ‘50s of good (<i>Stage Fright</i>, <i>I Confess</i>) to great (<i>Strangers on a Train</i>, <i>The Wrong Man</i>, <i>North by Northwest</i>) to outstanding (<i>Rear Window</i>, <i>Vertigo</i>) films. Also, some of my very favorite Hitch films are found in the ‘50s (<i>Dial M for Murder</i>, <i>To Catch a Thief</i>, <i>The Man who Knew Too Much</i>, <i>The Trouble with Harry</i>). <br />
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<b>19) Is elitism a good/bad/necessary/inevitable aspect of being a cineaste?</b> <br />
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On the right side of my blog, there is a quote from <a href="http://antagonie.blogspot.com/">Tim Brayton</a> that I think applies here: <br />
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<i>"Clearly, this does not mean that Friday the 13th is more "valuable" than Jeanne Dielman [...] But, given the great many people who have seen Friday the 13th, where is the intellectual dignity in saying, "it's crap", and being done with it? Anything that has become an iconic part of popular culture is therefore inherently worthy of exploration if not automatic respect [...] If we simply throw it out with the bathwater, on the grounds that it isn't "artistic", we also throw out the possibility of ever finding out." </i><br />
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<b>20) Second favorite Tony Scott film</b> <br />
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<i>Man on Fire</i> <br />
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</i> <a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-ITS-MG_4ozg/UqpwexLL-JI/AAAAAAAAJaU/paPr-JDVYMA/s1600-h/french-connection-2-img-24129%25255B2%25255D.jpg"><img alt="french-connection-2-img-24129" border="0" height="320" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-22ekIyX_XY0/UqpwfXR0ZoI/AAAAAAAAJaY/WIuK1wlgNEI/french-connection-2-img-24129_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="french-connection-2-img-24129" width="224" /></a> <br />
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<b>21) Favorite movie made before you were born that you only discovered this year. Where and how did you discover it?</b> <br />
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A tie: <i>99 and 44/100% Dead </i>and <i>The French Connection II</i>. I watched both on DVD for the Frankenheimer retrospective (which I will be starting up again after a looong layoff) I’m doing. Anyway, I’m glad I finally got to see <i>The French Connection II</i> because the rumors were true: it is better than the original. <br />
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<b>22) Actor/actress you would most want to see in a Santa suit, traditional or skimpy</b> <br />
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Can I use my Keira Knightley answer here? <br />
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<b>23) Video store or streaming?</b> <br />
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Video store, of course. Sadly, there aren’t any more in Salem. Some of my fondest memories are riding my bike after school to the local Mom and Pop and wandering through the Horror aisles, studying the images on those oversized clamshells.<br />
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<b>24) Best/favorite final film by a noted director or screenwriter</b><br />
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It’s likely most will name John Huston’s wonderful <i>The Dead</i> here, so in the interest of mixing things up let’s go with Sergio Leone’s <i>Once Upon a Time in America</i>. I also have a soft spot for melodramatic maestro Douglas Sirk’s final film, <i>Imitation of Life</i>. <br />
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<b>25) Monica Vitti or Anna Karina?</b> <br />
<b></b> <br />
Pass <br />
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<b>26) Name a worthy movie indulgence you’ve had to most strenuously talk friends into experiencing with you. What was the result?</b> <br />
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I don’t know how to really answer this one. <br />
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<b>27) The movie made by your favorite filmmaker (writer, director, et al) that you either have yet to see or are least familiar with among all the rest</b> <br />
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I adore Bergman, but I have yet to see <i>Persona</i> all the way through (I have seen the opening and other clips). <br />
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<a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-r4uYSTcwtpI/UqpwgP9wlyI/AAAAAAAAJak/ja2EWd_Hfy8/s1600-h/black_christmas%25255B2%25255D.jpg"><img alt="black_christmas" border="0" height="320" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/--DdGWusIkHQ/UqpwgkCy3pI/AAAAAAAAJao/yT1PKSm-gCk/black_christmas_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="black_christmas" width="214" /></a> <br />
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<b>28) Favorite horror movie that is either Christmas-oriented or has some element relating to the winter holiday season in it</b> <br />
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I could get wacky here and go with the so-bad-it’s-good classic <i>Silent Night, Deadly Night 2 </i>with its infamous “Garbage Day!” line making it an all-time favorite for me. But the only answer here is <i>Black Christmas</i>. <br />
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<b>29) Name a prop or other piece of movie memorabilia you’d most like to find with your name on it under the Christmas tree</b> <br />
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I want whatever is in that damn briefcase from <i>Pulp Fiction</i>! <br />
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<b>30) Best holiday gift the movies could give to you to carry into 2014</b> <br />
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Keep on truckin’ Kevin J. Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17275402809912728035noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8785859730868628316.post-11649543713578890872013-11-01T12:22:00.000-07:002013-11-01T12:22:32.255-07:00Italian Horror Blogathon: Postscript<a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-gQ50HYokkK0/UnP-tEman7I/AAAAAAAAJYE/xLQBQsMHre0/s1600-h/shock3%25255B2%25255D.jpg"><img alt="shock3" border="0" height="172" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-ihYqzZ1nuVA/UnP-uWaTi1I/AAAAAAAAJYM/pEzHxQnWSBE/shock3_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="shock3" width="320" /></a><br />
Well, another blogathon is in the books. I’ve tried to get around to everyone’s blog to thank you personally, but if I haven’t yet, let me just take a moment to thank everyone that participated this year. I’ve said it in previous years, but I’m always blown away by how many of you are as interested in Italian horror as I am, and I’m doubly blown away by the amount of quality found in the contributions I receive. <br />
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So, thanks to <a href="http://antagonie.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Tim</a>, <a href="http://james1511.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">James</a>, <a href="http://misterneil.blogspot.co.uk/" target="_blank">Neil</a>, <a href="http://creatures-of-light-and-darkness.blogspot.co.uk/" target="_blank">Simon</a>, <a href="http://acidemic.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Erich</a>, <a href="http://shebloggedbynight.com/" target="_blank">Stacia</a>, <a href="http://thisisquietcool.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Hans</a>, <a href="http://houglyreviews.blogspot.ca/?zx=19676b890ac04e41" target="_blank">Lee</a>, <a href="http://theoakdrivein.blogspot.com/?zx=744d2fefff7bd971" target="_blank">Dick</a>, <a href="http://jiffypopculture.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Brennan</a>, <a href="http://tomorrowssound.blogspot.com.au/" target="_blank">Aaron</a>, and <a href="http://www.coffeecoffeeandmorecoffee.com/" target="_blank">Peter</a> for your contributions this year. As I always, thanks to the readers. Let’s do this again next year (I’ve already created my watchlist). So thanks again, all! I appreciate your help in making this so much fun to do every year. <br />
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In case you missed anything, here <a href="http://kolson-kevinsblog.blogspot.com/2013/10/italian-horror-blogathon-links-updated.html" target="_blank">are the links</a> to the pieces written by the names mentioned above. <br />
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Also, here is what I covered for this year’s blogathon:<br />
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- <em><a href="http://kolson-kevinsblog.blogspot.com/2013/10/italian-horror-blogathon-what-have-you.html" target="_blank">What Have You Done to Solange?</a></em><br />
- <em><a href="http://kolson-kevinsblog.blogspot.com/2013/10/italian-horror-blogathon-spasmo.html" target="_blank">Spasmo</a></em><br />
- <em><a href="http://kolson-kevinsblog.blogspot.com/2013/10/italian-horror-blogathon-killer.html" target="_blank">Killer Crocodile</a></em><br />
- <em><a href="http://kolson-kevinsblog.blogspot.com/2013/10/italian-horror-blogathon-zombi-3-aka.html" target="_blank">Zombi 3</a></em><br />
- <em><a href="http://kolson-kevinsblog.blogspot.com/2013/10/italian-horror-blogathon-shock-aka.html" target="_blank">Shock</a></em><br />
- <em><a href="http://kolson-kevinsblog.blogspot.com/2013/10/italian-horror-blogathon-house-by.html" target="_blank">The House by the Cemetery</a></em><br />
- <em><a href="http://kolson-kevinsblog.blogspot.com/2013/10/italian-horror-blogathon-torso-aka-i.html" target="_blank">Torso</a></em><br />
<br />Kevin J. Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17275402809912728035noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8785859730868628316.post-70582164572805283052013-10-31T18:08:00.000-07:002013-10-31T18:08:36.861-07:00Italian Horror Blogathon: Links (UPDATED 10/31)<a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-unIPidhGcXk/UmjLJnBqLaI/AAAAAAAAJRM/3hqMA_sgZn0/s1600-h/black_sunday-la_maschera_del_demonio%25255B22%25255D.jpg"><img alt="black_sunday-la_maschera_del_demonio" border="0" height="148" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-sfHoJowPnaM/UmjLKn8XNYI/AAAAAAAAJRQ/ewq7VmgFhLE/black_sunday-la_maschera_del_demonio_thumb%25255B20%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="black_sunday-la_maschera_del_demonio" width="320" /></a><br />
Hello, all!<br />
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Use the comments section to link to your pieces. Keep checking this space for updates. I’ll keep this post on top throughout the blogathon for convenience; my daily posts will appear beneath the daily link update. I look forward to reading everyone’s entries! And remember, you have until Halloween night to contribute something. <br />
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<b>UPDATE (4:45): I will be out of the house for most of the night (which means I'll be away from my computer), but continue sending those links if ya got 'em. I'll try to post them from my phone. There's still time! Thanks so much for the contributions, all!</b><br />
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<b>Happy Halloween, everyone! Sadly, today is the last day of the blogathon. I'll be updating the links page throughout the day; I'll also be posting my contributions for today a little bit later. </b><br />
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<b>10/31:</b><br />
<b><br /></b>- Simon sneaks one more review in...and it's an <a href="http://creatures-of-light-and-darkness.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/halloween-hootenannyitalian-horror_31.html" target="_blank">Umberto Lenzi TV movie</a>, to boot. Consider me intrigued.<br />
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- Tim wraps up his contributions to this year's 'thon with <a href="http://antagonie.blogspot.com/2013/10/masters-of-italian-horror-michele-soavi.html" target="_blank">a look at one of my personal favorites</a> (obviously saving the best for last!).<br />
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- As I continue to read Simon's blog, <a href="http://creatures-of-light-and-darkness.blogspot.co.uk/" target="_blank">Creatures of Light and Darkness</a>, I found <a href="http://creatures-of-light-and-darkness.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/top-ten-tuesday-my-top-ten-gialli.html" target="_blank">more</a> Italian horror related goodness that <a href="http://creatures-of-light-and-darkness.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/italian-horrorgiallo-double-dayer-part.html" target="_blank">he covered </a>in September.<br />
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- Goregirl covered her <a href="http://goregirl.wordpress.com/2013/10/30/favourite-five-series-lucio-fulci/" target="_blank">10 favorite Lucio Fulci movies</a>.<br />
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- Tim is back with his look at Lucio Fulci's <i><a href="http://antagonie.blogspot.com/2013/10/masters-of-italian-horror-lucio-fulci.html" target="_blank">A Lizard in a Woman's Skin</a></i>.<br />
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- Simon<a href="http://creatures-of-light-and-darkness.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/halloween-hootenannyitalian-horror_30.html" target="_blank"> finishes his three part look</a> a greats and gems of Italian horror with a look at two of my favorites, <i>Shock </i>and <i>The House by the Cemetery</i>.<br />
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- James is back with a look Fulci's <i>8 1/2</i>-esque <i><a href="http://james1511.wordpress.com/2013/10/31/cat-in-the-brain-1990/" target="_blank">A Cat in the Brain</a></i>.<br />
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- Hans A., of the fantastic blog <a href="http://thisisquietcool.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Quiet Cool</a>, takes a look at Lamberto Bava's oddball <i><a href="http://thisisquietcool.blogspot.com/2013/10/le-foto-di-gioia-1987.html" target="_blank">Deliria: Photos of Gioia</a></i>.<br />
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<b>10/30:</b><br />
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- Tim is back with his Masters of Italian Horror series, he's already done entries for Argento and Bava, this time looking at Riccardo Freda's <i><a href="http://antagonie.blogspot.com/2013/10/masters-of-italian-horror-riccardo-freda.html" target="_blank">The Horrible Secret of Dr. Hichcock</a></i>.<br />
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- Simon continues his Halloween Hootenanny <a href="http://creatures-of-light-and-darkness.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/halloween-hootenannyitalian-horror_29.html" target="_blank">with part two</a> in a series that looks at greats and gems of Italian horror, this time it's <i>Lady Frankenstein </i>and <i>Baron Blood</i>.<br />
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<b>10/29: </b><br />
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</b> - Erich Kuersten, author of one my favorite daily stops <a href="http://acidemic.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Acidemic</a>, chimes in with a look at one of my favorite Italian horror films, Michel Soavi's <a href="http://acidemic.blogspot.com/2013/10/italian-horror-blogathon-stagefright.html" target="_blank"><i>StageFright: Aquarius </i>(aka <i>Deliria</i>)</a>.<br />
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- Tim returns with a review of the Mario Bava classic <i><a href="http://antagonie.blogspot.com/2013/10/masters-of-italian-horror-mario-bava.html" target="_blank">Black Sunday</a></i>.<br />
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- Simon's <a href="http://creatures-of-light-and-darkness.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/halloween-hootenannyitalian-horror_28.html" target="_blank">Halloween Hootenanny continues</a> with what looks to be the first in a series of posts covering Italian horror.<br />
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- And Dick returns with another review, this time with a look at the <i><a href="http://theoakdrivein.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-embalmer-aka-monster-of-venice-il.html?zx=c24f9a677f35c10" target="_blank">The Embalmer</a></i>.<br />
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<b>10/28:</b><br />
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</b> - Aaron Fenwick, of the blog <a href="http://tomorrowssound.blogspot.com.au/" target="_blank">Tomorrow's Sound for Today's Swinging Generation</a>, checks in with a review of one of Argentio's<a href="http://tomorrowssound.blogspot.com.au/2013/10/blogathon-argentos-greatest-hits.html" target="_blank"> more popular efforts</a>, <i>Phenomena</i>.<br />
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- Brennan, of the blog <a href="http://jiffypopculture.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Popcorn Culture</a>, offers up his first contribution to the blogathon with a look at Argento's first film, <i><a href="http://jiffypopculture.blogspot.com/2013/10/italian-horror-blogathon-bird-of-prey.html" target="_blank">The Bird with the Crystal Plumage</a></i>.<br />
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</b> - Finally, James returns with two more capsule reviews. First, <a href="http://james1511.wordpress.com/2013/10/28/death-smiles-at-murder-1973/" target="_blank">a surprisingly good Joe D'Amato film</a>, and then he looks at one of my <a href="http://james1511.wordpress.com/2013/10/28/burial-ground-the-nigths-of-terror-1981/" target="_blank">favorite so-bad-it's-good zombie movies</a>.<br />
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</b> <b>10/27:</b><br />
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</b> - James returns with a look at the disappointing <i><a href="http://james1511.wordpress.com/2013/10/28/baba-yaga-1973/" target="_blank">Baby Yaga</a></i> and the late-era Bava <a href="http://james1511.wordpress.com/2013/10/25/lisa-and-the-devilthe-house-of-exorcism-197374/" target="_blank"><i>Lisa and the Devil</i>/<i>The House of Exorcism</i></a>, covering both versions of the much maligned film extremely well.<br />
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- Neil Fulwood returns with a look at <span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 20.796875px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Massimo Dallamano’s </span></span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 20.796875px;"><a href="http://misterneil.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/italian-horror-blogathon-what-have-they.html" target="_blank">What Have They Done to Your Daughters?</a></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 20.796875px;">; a </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20.796875px;">sequel to the great </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20.796875px;">giallo</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20.796875px;"> </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20.796875px;">What Have You Done to Solange?</i><br />
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</b> <b>10/25:</b><br />
<b><br />
</b> - One of the things I love about hosting this blogathon every year is that it gives me a chance to be introduced to new blogs that I get to add to my daily reading list. Dick's <a href="http://theoakdrivein.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">The Oak Drive-In</a> is just such a blog. <a href="http://theoakdrivein.blogspot.com/2013/10/rosalba-neri-friday-halloween-special.html?zx=99628fedbd6f6a9d" target="_blank">His contribution</a> is on 1971's <i>Lady Frankenstein</i> (which has one of my favorite posters with its line, "only the monster she made could satisfy her strange desires!").<br />
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- Neil Fulwood has always been a big supporter of this blogathon, and if you aren't reading his blog The <a href="http://misterneil.blogspot.co.uk/" target="_blank">Agitation of the Mind</a> on a regular basis...well I just feel bad for you. Neil stops by this year <a href="http://misterneil.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/italian-horror-blogathon-dellamorte.html" target="_blank">with a look</a> at Michel Soavi's <i>Dellamorte Dellamore </i>(aka <i>Cemetery Man</i>).<br />
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- Simon Wright returns with a look at <a href="http://creatures-of-light-and-darkness.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/halloween-hootenannyitalian-horror_25.html" target="_blank">Dario Argento's cut</a> of <i>Dawn of the Dead</i>.<br />
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<b><br />
</b> <b>10/24:</b><br />
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</b> - Stacia, of the great blog <a href="http://shebloggedbynight.com/" target="_blank">She Blogged By Night</a>, has been a longtime supporter of this blogathon and has promised to do an entry on Umberto Lenzi's <i>Orgasmo </i>for two years running now. However, the fates conspired against her every time she'd tried to watch the film, but in year four she finally checks in with <a href="http://shebloggedbynight.com/2013/the-italian-horror-blogathon-orgasmo-1969/" target="_blank">a fantastic essay on Lenzi's 1969 film</a>. Thanks, Stacia!<br />
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- Lee, of the <a href="http://houglyreviews.blogspot.ca/" target="_blank">Hougly Film Journal</a>, has been commenting around here for a couple of years, but now offers up his <a href="http://houglyreviews.blogspot.ca/2013/10/dvd-spotlight-bird-with-crystal-plumage.html?zx=83322dfaefc713c9" target="_blank">first contribution to the blogathon</a> with a look at Argento's<i> </i>first film, <i>The Bird with the Crystal Plumage</i>.<br />
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- James, of <a href="http://james1511.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">The Cameraman's Revenge</a>, was quite prolific during last year's blogathon, and he's off and running once again this year with a look at the film that started it all, <i><a href="http://james1511.wordpress.com/2013/10/24/i-vampiri-1957/" target="_blank">I Vampiri</a></i>, and the film that is considered one of Bava's least interesting efforts (although he makes a case for it), <i><a href="http://james1511.wordpress.com/2013/10/24/baron-blood-1972/" target="_blank">Baron Blood</a></i>.<br />
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- Peter, who authors one of my very favorite blogs <a href="http://www.coffeecoffeeandmorecoffee.com/" target="_blank">Coffee, Coffee, and More Coffee</a>, has contributed from the onset of this humble project. And this year, he doesn't disappoint with<a href="http://www.coffeecoffeeandmorecoffee.com/archives/2013/10/slaughter_hotel.html" target="_blank"> a look at the 1971 </a><i><a href="http://www.coffeecoffeeandmorecoffee.com/archives/2013/10/slaughter_hotel.html" target="_blank">giallo Slaughter Hotel</a>...</i>wait, you're telling me there's a <i>giallo </i>starring Klaus Kinski! I'm there.<br />
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- How fortuitous, Tim, proprietor of my favorite blog on the interwebs, Antagony & Ecstasy, has <a href="http://antagonie.blogspot.com/2013/10/masters-of-italian-horror-dario-argento.html" target="_blank">a review of Dario Argento's <i>Dracula 3D</i></a>, which was recently screened at the Chicago International Film Festival (which Tim has been reporting on <a href="http://antagonie.blogspot.com/2013/10/2013-ciff-guide.html" target="_blank">here</a>) and conveniently coincides with the first day of this-here blogathon.<br />
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- Simon Wright, author of the blog <a href="http://creatures-of-light-and-darkness.blogspot.co.uk/" target="_blank">Creatures of Light and Darkness</a>, checks in with a look at <a href="http://creatures-of-light-and-darkness.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/halloween-hootenannyitalian-horror.html" target="_blank">two of my favorite zombie movies</a>: <i>Burial Ground </i>(aka <i>The Nights of Terror</i>) and <i>Cemetery Man</i>; the former because it's so wacky, and the latter because it's just really damn nice to look at. He also checked out a few <a href="http://creatures-of-light-and-darkness.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/halloween-hootenanny-first-impressions_21.html" target="_blank">Italian</a> <a href="http://creatures-of-light-and-darkness.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/halloween-hootenanny-first-impressions_22.html" target="_blank">horror</a> <a href="http://creatures-of-light-and-darkness.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/halloween-hootenanny-first-impressions_23.html" target="_blank">flicks</a> prior to the blogathon, so explore Simon's blog and check those out.Kevin J. Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17275402809912728035noreply@blogger.com47tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8785859730868628316.post-39070681514455051462013-10-31T11:18:00.001-07:002013-10-31T11:21:58.159-07:00Italian Horror Blogathon: Torso (aka I Corpi Presentano Tracce di Violenza Carnale, aka The Bodies Bear Traces of Carnal Violence)<a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-x3aAmD0XJ4E/UnKYzNhwneI/AAAAAAAAJWg/NNTb6WWu1dE/s1600-h/Torsoposter%25255B1%25255D.jpg"><img alt="Torsoposter" border="0" height="320" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-4mUjqf1iuk8/UnKYz9LwmiI/AAAAAAAAJWo/bOlZb2MMXms/Torsoposter_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="Torsoposter" width="209" /></a><br />
Sergio Martino’s <em>Torso </em>is one of the exploitation masters more popular movies. And that’ probably because it falls somewhere in-between the traditional <em>giallo </em>and the slasher film that would become popular seven years after its release. It’s not the best Sergio Martino film out there, but it’s an interesting look at a director that straddles the fine line between exploitative trash and legitimately good psychological thriller.<br />
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The primary question that swirls around <em>Torso </em>is whether one should consider it a proto-slasher or a traditional <em>giallo</em>. The answer to that question all depends on how one views the two female characters in the film: There’s Jane (Suzy Kendall, who for you Martino fans is essentially the Edwige Fenech of the film) and there’s Dani (Tina Aumont). Both are students at a rather quiet University for international students; however, the school and the community is rocked by when two of the students are found brutally murdered. Dani is a gorgeous art student who gets a strange feeling when she recognizes a red and black scarf that was left on one of the victims. A manhunt begins for the killer (who strikes a couple of more times), and Dani, fearing for her life, leaves the city with Jane and some fellow girlfriends, retreating to a country villa. To the surprise of absolutely no one that is familiar with the slasher subgenre, the killer stalks the girls, turning their vacation from the city into a nightmare. <br />
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So how do we answer the question above? Are we watching a proto-slasher or a <em>giallo</em>? The answer lies in the film’s two halves, two female characters, and its different titles. If we follow Dani throughout the first half of the film, then we’re watching <em>I corpi presentano tracce di violenza carnale</em> (<em>The Bodies Bear Traces of Carnal Violence</em>), a <em>giallo </em>with a literal title (that is indeed what happens to the victims) that leaves nothing to nuance. The first half<em> </em>of the film is very much a <em>giallo </em>in that classic sense: a foreigner involved in a murder mystery, black-gloved killer (although unlike most <em>gialli</em>, the killer, albeit masked, is not kept offscreen), sexualized murders, and a killer that has a few psychosexual quirks. So if we think we’re watching a <em>giallo</em>, then we probably think that Dani is the protagonist because it really feels like the film is going to settle in and focus on her since she holds the key (identifying the scarf) to solving the murder. <br />
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However, during the second half of the film when the girls get to the villa, the film’s tone shifts. Here, Martino amps up both the titillation and the gore, and it is here that we realize that if we see Jane as the protagonist, then we feel like we’re watching a slasher, for Jane is thrust into a circumstance at the end that can be interpreted as a Final Girl sequence (although there is one moment that makes it a mix of both slasher and <em>giallo</em>). The film’s brusque American title, <em>Torso</em>, is a more apt moniker that gets right to what the second half of this movie is all about: a killer dispatches their victims with a bow saw in an extremely cruel and gruesome fashion. <br />
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It was around this time (1973) that the <i>giallo </i>was starting to establish itself as something more than just your basic “Krimi” inspired horror film. Sex = Death trope that became well-worn after only a few years during the ‘80s slasher boom is on full display here, replacing the more languid procedural elements of the <em>giallo</em>. Martino fills the villa with what looks like — with the benefit of ‘80s slasher knowledge — nothing but disposable characters that will be picked off one by one by the killer in a lurid manner (similar to what Bava did a few years earlier in <em>Twitch of the Death Nerve</em>). <span style="background-color: #666666; color: #666666;">However, in a stroke of inspiration, Martino shockingly throws us for a loop by playing off those expectations — giving it a different feel than Bava’s film <em>— </em>and disposing of every girl in the villa, with the exception of Jane, in one off-camera moment. The subsequent scene where Jane discovers her friends’ bloody bodies splayed throughout the downstairs of the villa (something we would see in both <em>Black Christmas </em>and <em>Halloween</em>) is played wonderfully by Kendall (her wide-eyed, “holy shit what is happening” look reminded me of Marilyn Burns)</span><b><span style="background-color: #666666; color: #666666;">.</span></b> The scenes at the villa are more visceral with a final 30 minutes that is essentially an extended (maybe the longest I’ve ever seen) Final Girl sequence that is incredibly tense and one of the best things Martino ever filmed. <br />
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A lot of the interest in <em>Torso </em>does indeed stem from it being a precursor to the slasher, which will no doubt pique the interest of hardcore horror fans. But Martino — an unfairly marginalized director, certainly not one of the “big three” of Italian horror but he deserves to be in the conversation in regards to the top five — seems to be up to something more than just mere titillation, and there is definitely more going on in <em>Torso </em>than it simply being a curiosity solely because it can claim “firsties.” As is evident in his other <em>gialli </em>(<em>The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh</em>, <em>The Scorpian’s Tail</em>, and <em>Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key</em>), Martino was always interested in going for a psychological effect with his films, no matter how rooted they were in exploitation. With <em>Torso</em>, he does give us some wonderfully eerie and ominous shots of the killer (in particular a long shot of the killer in the foggy woods), but the killer is primarily left off screen during the murders.<br />
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It’s a tricky balancing act, too, since so much of <em>Torso </em>feels like Martino’s greatest hits. The structure is a bit all over the place (similar to his other films), and there are some scenes that feel out of place considering the more serious turn the second half of the film takes. I’m thinking specifically of the bizarre ménage à trois — set to an even more bizarrely displacing score by the De Angelis brothers that totally removes any sexuality from the scene — that opens the film, or the hippie party where a couple of groooovy pot-smokin’ college students try to get into the pants of the same girl, only to a get a cigarette butt put out on them for their troubles. Or the gratuitous bits of nudity that would be followed by said nude girls being murdered because...well because they had the <em>audacity </em>to be naked, I suppose. Make no mistake, though, Martino clearly wants us to notice all of the nude college girls, but the film doesn't take the point of view of the killer. It doesn't linger on the violence (the camera lingers very much on their alive bodies, though, with close-ups that are designed to disorientate rather than titillate).<br />
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The best example of this is during the film’s brilliant and horrifying Final Girl setpiece: As Jane crouches and hides, she must do everything she can to keep herself from screaming (and in one horrifying scene retching) while having to watch one of her friends get cut up with a bow saw. Martino wisely keeps things uncomfortably quiet during the scene (throughout most of those final 30 minutes, really) as she watches wide-eyed at the horrifying acts being done to her friends taking place right in front of her. The blocking of the scene (the dead body obscured by furniture) and the framing of these shots is quite ingenious in how it suggests the brutality.<br />
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One would expect Martino to rub the audience’s nose in the ugliness — to linger on the lurid nature of the violence — however it’s possible to interpret Martino's lingering as a means to implicate the audience in the act of watching. I guarantee had <i>Torso</i> been released in the middle of the slasher glut, people would be talking about what a brilliant postmodern attack it is on the subgenre. I don’t know if a director as well-versed in exploitation cinema as Martino is deliberately rubbing the audience's blood lust in their faces, but it certainly feels like <i>something </i>is going on a more psychological level here, which is a common current running through all of Martino’s films.<br />
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<em>Torso </em>is a typical Martino mélange of <em>giallo</em>, exploitation film, and psychological thriller. The first half of the film is the least interesting — mostly because it contains a slog of a mystery and the typical, albeit hilarious, exploitation bits found in other Martino films. It all feels like “been there done that” territory for those familiar with Martino’s work. However, once the film suddenly switches settings to the isolated villa, <em>Torso </em>becomes one of the best and most interesting of Martino’s films. Sure Martino was known as somewhat of a trashy filmmaker, but he was no hack as the the last half of <em>Torso </em>(and his other <em>gialli</em>) proves. If you’re new to Italian horror, I don’t know that <em>Torso </em>is good enough to be in the same league as some of the best gateway <em>gialli </em>by Bava and Argento and Fulci, but for the seasoned fan of the subgenre, the last 30 minutes alone make it essential viewing.<br />
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<i>Note: Formatting issues delayed this entry. I don't know why the text in these last two paragraph isn't uniform with the rest of the post, but I couldn't figure out how to fix it. Obviously the screengrabs did something to the text. Oh well. Enjoy the awesome, albeit NSFW, trailer below. </i><br />
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Kevin J. Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17275402809912728035noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8785859730868628316.post-56825297736782454992013-10-30T07:00:00.000-07:002013-10-30T07:00:01.500-07:00Italian Horror Blogathon: The House by the Cemetery (aka Quella villa accanto al cimitero)<a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-ZYpPMz-w99M/UnCiIlV1MjI/AAAAAAAAJUE/xMcS69ck0hA/s1600-h/Quella_Villa_acanto_al_Cimitero_Poster%25255B2%25255D.jpg"><img alt="Quella_Villa_acanto_al_Cimitero_Poster" border="0" height="320" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-3esHL4_LPsM/UnCiJNR_3yI/AAAAAAAAJUM/icGiePvqNbQ/Quella_Villa_acanto_al_Cimitero_Poster_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="Quella_Villa_acanto_al_Cimitero_Poster" width="182" /></a><br />
Lucio Fulci was on something of a roll when <em>The House by the Cemetery </em>was being filmed. Coming off what was his most creative stretch of films, Fulci was definitely establishing himself as the maestro of a particular brand of otherworldly horror. Aided by screenwriter Dardono Sacchetti and longtime partner cinematographer Sergio Salvati, this third entry in Fulci’s “Gates of Hell” series<i> </i>(which also includes <em>City of the Living Dead </em>and <em>The Beyond</em>) is the most neglected of the three films that make up the unofficial trilogy. Even though it doesn’t have the more memorable moments of visceral gore a la <em>City </em>or <em>outré </em>ambiance a la <em>The Beyond</em>, it is certainly one of the Italian horror master’s best films — with an emphasis, more than most of his non-<em>giallo </em>films, on character development and a slow burn, Gothic mood — sadly overshadowed by the films that came before and, more infamously, the films that followed. I was floored by my recent revisit of the film; I had seen <em>House by the Cemetery </em>three times prior to this viewing, and I have to say, my admiration has grown exponentially for a film that I initially didn’t think much of.<br />
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The film opens with a girl and her boyfriend sneaking into an abandoned house for a quick cuddle. The boyfriend wanders off, and as the girl looks for him, she stumbles upon his dead body and lets out a scream before a hand wielding a knife enters the frame. The knife then proceeds to go through the girls head, and in one of Fulci’s more famous effects (seen in the trailer below), the end of the blade comes out of her mouth. The girl’s body is then dragged away by the unknown assailant into a dark doorway just as the camera pans up from the floor to the (creaking) door closing, leaving the viewer without an answer. The film then cuts to the exterior of the house while the credits role. The opening feels very much like an American slasher (the tagline to the American poster is even quite slasher-y with its tagline: “Read the fine print: you may have just mortgaged your life,” which is an amazingly awesome tagline) and not at all like what follows, which is Fulci’s take on American favorites <em>The Shining</em>, <em>The Amityville Horror</em>, and <em>Frankenstein</em>. <br />
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The story proper begins on the same exterior shot of the house, only as the camera zooms in, we see a little girl peering through the curtains, mouth agape, looking out the window in an horrified fashion. Fulci freezes the frame and then zooms out to reveal that the girl is in a portrait that young Bob (Giovanni Frezzi) is starring at. Bob — who we will learn is an obvious takeoff of the Danny Torrance character — is the son to Norman and Lucy Boyle (Paolo Malco and Catriona MacColl), who live in New York but move to Boston for six months so he can take over his colleague’s (who killed his mistress and himself) research. Bob asks his mother who the little girl is, confusing Lucy. He tells her, “the girl in the picture.” Of course when Lucy looks at the picture, the girl is not there. However, when she leaves the room after telling Bob to quite joking around with her and pack the rest of his toys up, Bob looks at the picture again to once again find the little girl staring out the window. <br />
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This opening few minutes is atmospheric and intriguing (especially thanks to Walter Rizzati’s score), but the minute we hear the dubbing for Bob, it immediately takes us out of the movie whenever Bob is on screen; it’s that bad (there is a special feature on the DVD where Frezzi acknowledges the awful dubbing, good naturedly attributing this monstrosity that was out of his control to his popularity among horror fans). Thankfully, Fulci and his crew calibrate, making the awful dubbing (a staple of Italian horror, sure, but Bob’s voice is beyond even the most egregious Italian dubbing) an afterthought. <br />
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Back to the plot: as the Boyle’s move to Boston, they come to find that the house they were initially supposed to stay in is no longer available. However, one of the real estate agents, Harold, suggests “the Freudstein place” much to the chagrin Harold’s real estate partner Mrs. Gittelson (Dagmar Lassander), who takes Harold to task for not referring to it as “Oak Mansion,” which immediately causes Lucy to feel apprehensive about moving into this house. But Norman is so eager to get into his colleague’s aborted research that he agrees to take the keys belonging to the Freudstein house. <br />
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Bob, sitting in the car waiting for his parents to come out of the real estate office, sees the girl from the photo and shares a conversation with her from a distance, hinting that the two have the same kind of psychic/supernatural connection. As soon as Bob moves into his new house, she begins playing with him on a regular basis, warning him and his family of imminent doom if they stay in the house. One afternoon she shows Bob the tombstone belonging to one Mary Freudstein — located outside of the house they’re stating in — informing him that she isn’t really dead. <br />
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Meanwhile, Norman begins to hear strange noises coming from the basement, people in the town keep insisting that they’ve seen him before despite his claims that he’s never been there, and Lucy finds the tombstone — in a great reveal — for one Jacob Freudstein under a rug while she sweeps up around the house. Norman eventually finds out that Freudstein was an experimental Victorian surgeon who conducted illegal experiments in his basement. Hmmm. This knowledge seems to unlock a flurry of unfortunate circumstances (signaled by blood flowing from Freudstein’s tombstone) where people connected to the Boyle’s are being murdered by the mysterious killer from the opening of the film, who then drags them away to an unknown location. <br />
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<em>The House by the Cemetery </em>applies more of a slow burn approach to its story and setpieces. The idea that the townspeople seem to think Norman has visited the town before and that he has a daughter and not a son are admittedly little things, but they add enough intrigue to keep one watching. Fulci really lets things develop, and even though there isn’t that sense of dread that pervades every moment like his previous two “Gates of Hell” films, the attention to character detail here (that isn’t really found in his other two films of the trilogy) adds some dramatic weight to those tense final moments. Perhaps more than any other film he made, it really felt like Fulci was going for a Gothic horror atmosphere with this one. <br />
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This committed approach to make a Gothic horror really gives Fulci’s DP, Sergio Salvati, a chance to create some memorable, Gothic images (big empty mansions, cobwebs, shadowy corners, et al) that are evocative of Bava. Unfortunately, this would be the last time Fulci worked with Salvati, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it’s the last time a Fulci film had this kind of atmosphere in it. Perhaps more important than any other director/cinematographer collaboration in Italian horror, Fulci and Salvati really brought out the best in each other (Salvati was just as responsible for what made the likes of <em>Murder to the Tune of Seven Black Notes</em>, <em>Zombi 2</em>, <em>City of the Living Dead</em>, and <em>The Beyond </em>so memorable). Just a cursory glance at both of their IMDB pages suggests they were creatively stunted after they stopped working together. <br />
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One of my favorite touches of Salvati’s is in the way he switches his aesthetic approach throughout the film, flipping back and forth between a sweeping camera and handheld. In one of the film’s best scenes — it’s both a great setpiece and tremendous moment that moves the narrative forward, something Fulci became increasingly less concerned with in subsequent films — we watch as Norman listens to his colleagues notes over a tape recorder. The camera cuts away from Norman in the library listening to the recording, but we can still hear the message from the recorder (the use of diegetic sound from the tape recorder playing over this scene portends doom in a way that reminded me of <em>The Evil Dead</em>) as the camera zooms in on Norman’s eyes and then cuts to the cemetery outside of the house, switching to an handheld approach, walking the viewer through the cemetery, into the house, and up the stairs before we hear the word, “blood” echo from the tape recorder, triggering blood to poor out from Freudstein’s tombstone. <br />
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At this moment, the camera continues with its handheld aesthetic as it makes its way down the stairs of the basement — crudely gliding over the tables of dripping blood and severed limbs — before zooming in on the image of a corpse with an eviscerated stomach. This handheld approach makes the reveal of what’s been going on in that basement (apparently Freudstein has been collecting body parts and using his victims’ organs to regenerate himself) resonate more viscerally than the more deliberate, Bava-inspired camera dollies used throughout most of the film. Salvati employs the same tactic when Freudstein finally appears onscreen (more on that in a bit) as the shooting style is switched to add more immediacy and menace to Freudstein’s presence.<br />
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It isn’t <em>just</em> an atmospheric horror film, though. Don’t fret hardcore Fulci fans, there are still plenty of those classic Lucio Fulci moments throughout <em>The House by the Cemetery</em>: completely arbitrary moments that displace the viewer (a mannequin in a store window has its head fall off, spilling blood everywhere in a scene that rivals the “What the fuck!?” moment from <em>The Beyond</em> where a random vial of acid falls on a woman’s face); extremely deliberate, “I dare you to look at this” moments of gore; an animal attack (this go-round it’s a bat in what is one of Fulci’s least inspired moments — flesh-eating spiders from Hell it is not); and a loose dream logic narrative structure that plays more like a nightmare (again, though, really toned down compared to the other two films of this series). <br />
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It should be noted that the palpable detachment found in <a href="http://kolson-kevinsblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/italian-horror-blogathon-aenigma.html" target="_blank">later Fulci’s films</a> is not evident here. In addition to the Gothic atmosphere he tries to establish, the other thing Fulci still seems to be invested in is the visceral nature of the film (although to be fair, even if I hate the movie, he did seem invested in that regard with <em>The New York Ripper</em>). The gore here doesn’t occur as often as it does in his previous films, but it is still really gory. The film’s most gruesome setpiece — Mrs. Gittelson being fireplace-pokered to death — was supposed to be even more brutal than it already is. In the scene, Mrs. Gittelson enters the house to tell the Boyle’s that she’s found a new house for them. However, she is approached by someone/something (okay, it’s Freudstein, who Fulci wisely leaves off camera until the end of the film) and gets a fireplace poker in the jugular for her troubles. <br />
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The scene plays out like a lot of Fulci gore setpieces with its overtly languid approach in regards to the moment the fireplace poker penetrates the woman’s skin. This is typical Fulci “I dare you to watch this” filmmaking, and it was intended to be the most graphic scene of Fulci’s oeuvre. When her body is being dragged away (this is one <em>gory </em>image), the remnants of what’s left are much more gruesome than initially implied by the fireplace-poker-in-the-neck scene that precedes it. There was supposed to be a scene where the caretaker’s head was brutalized by the poker as well, but they couldn’t execute it to Fulci’s standards, so the scene was cut (it was, it should be noted, not a scene that the censors cut and therefore has never been restored; I doubt the footage was ever kept). So if one looks closely at the woman’s body being dragged away, they’ll notice the poor woman’s face has holes in it. I don’t know what got into Fulci with this particular scene, but Jesus Christ is it brutal. <br />
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Oh, but just like the best Fulci films, <em>The House by the Cemetery </em>has so much more going for it than simple gore. Despite what the description of that previous setpiece suggests, Fulci is amazingly subdued here. The restraint he shows in saving the reveal of his monster until the very end is refreshing, and it pays off big time, for not only does Dr. Freudstein lay claim to one of the very best names I’ve ever heard in a horror film, but he is also quite simply one of the very best movie monsters I’ve ever seen. The ending comes off as doubly effective because of Fulci’s decision to withhold Freudstein for the whole film. All we have seen of Fredustein to that point is a hand here or foot there — always accompanied by a subjective point of view compete with creepy heavy breathing. This synecdochical approach to Freudstein’s reveal seems appropriate since his MO is to take body parts from others to restore his own body. So the ending is that much more meaningful because the reveal of the monster (who is only screen for maybe 5-10 minutes at the very end) is treated as something special. <br />
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About that ending: it is as good a setpiece that Fulci filmed, containing an ending with a twist that has the appropriate “what the fuck just happened?” tone to it for an Italian horror film. And because we know that Italian horror films tend to favor nightmarish (il)logic more than narrative coherence, I was kind of on board for that ending. The logistics of the final scene made me think of <em>The Beyond </em>in the way it plays with time and space. It’s not as confounding as that weird freeze frame/cracked lens effect Fulci uses at the of <em>City of the Living Dead</em>, and it’s not quite as eerie and unsettling as the ending of <em>The Beyond </em>(where our characters are surrounded by a vast sea of nothingness), but it evokes a tone that falls safely somewhere in the middle of those two endings. <br />
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And really, a lot of <em>The House by the Cemetery </em>will feel that way to people: safe. As I mentioned in the opening paragraph of this piece, <em>House </em>doesn’t have teleporting zombies and a ghost priest that makes people regurgitate their innards, nor is it an ethereal horror masterpiece and one of the greatest horror films ever made. Even though the productions of the “Gates of Hell” trilogy all overlapped, and are very much of a piece (notice the similarity in settings that act as gateways: the bowels of the hotel in <em>The Beyond</em>, the catacombs in <em>City</em>, and the basement in <em>House</em>), they each offer something different. <em>The House by the Cemetery </em>is certainly the most subdued of the three. <br />
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“[T]here’s no logic to it, just a succession of images” is the way Fulci described this loose trilogy, and for the first time I started to notice that all three films, to quote Stephen Thrower, “haunt each other.” Fulci overlaps design (the inside of Freudstein's house looks like the inside of the Seven Doors Hotel), actors (MacColl, specifically), music, and cinematography (although Salvati went for look that's just a touch different with this one, they all definitely feel like some kind of eerie continuum, working together to fuck with the viewer) that give all three films a sense of déjà vu.<br />
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As I watched <i>The </i><em>House by the Cemetery </em>again, I really began to notice how it shares a lot of the same eerie and atmospheric exterior shots as <em>City of the Living Dead</em>, or how it shares the kind of “I dare you to look at this” mentality of drawn-out gore scenes that are downright sadistic and nightmarish in how slowly they play out found in <em>The Beyond</em>. Scenes from each film become more intense and resonate more deeply because of our knowledge of the other films in the series. Because of this, I was able to appreciate <em>House </em>on a much different level than I had in the past; it unnerved me more because I was able to see how it worked in conjunction with the other films in the series, which gives it this kind of cross-tension that is unsettling because even though we aren’t watching the other films, they’re still affecting us. Prior to this viewing, I was always indifferent towards <em>The House by the Cemetery</em>; now, however, I think it rivals <em>Don’t Torture a Duckling</em>, <em>Murder to the Tune of Seven Black Notes</em>, and <em>Zombi 2 </em>as a candidate for Fulci’s second best film. <br />
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Kevin J. Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17275402809912728035noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8785859730868628316.post-81126643942162192872013-10-29T07:00:00.000-07:002013-10-29T07:00:10.012-07:00Italian Horror Blogathon: Shock (aka Beyond the Door II)<a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-rpUuWiGvlCk/Um9jVJqdz1I/AAAAAAAAJTk/xrQ6p5A7MVk/s1600-h/shock_34%25255B2%25255D.jpg"><img alt="shock_34" border="0" height="320" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-8Im8f_Usqc8/Um9jV7Iis9I/AAAAAAAAJTs/fqwepn3F9-o/shock_34_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="shock_34" width="220" /></a><br />
<em>“Death is a part of life, and we must learn from it”</em><br />
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That line is uttered by Dora Baldini (Daria Nicolodi), a tormented mother , to her son Marco (Davin Colin Jr.) about the mysterious death of her abusive husband, Marco’s father. This line echoes throughout Mario Bava’s <em>Shock</em>, and sticks in our mind until the film’s devastating denouement. Death is indeed a daily part of Dora’s life as it makes it presence known in every scene; it is also the driving force behind <em>Shock</em>’s primary theme, which is much more focused on despair and anguish than many of his films from the 1970s. Even though <em>Shock </em>was peddled to American audiences as a sequel to the cheap <em>Exorcist </em>ripoff <em>Beyond the Door</em>, it is so much more than that — laying claim to some of Bava’s best moments (especially regarding the late-era Bava of <em>Five Dolls for an August Moon </em>and <em>Lisa and the Devil</em>) — as it has nothing to do with <em>Beyond the Door </em>(aside from having Davin Colin Jr. play a character that interacts with ghosts), nor is it merely a <em>Suspiria </em>clone as its detractors claim. <em>Shock </em>is one of my favorite Mario Bava films. Yes, it gets a little repetitive at times, but the final sequence, and its buildup, is one of the best things Bava ever filmed. <br />
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<em>Shock</em>’s story centers around newlyweds Dora and Bruno (John Steiner) and Dora’s son, Marco, as they move back into Dora's former home. Dora is returning from a stay at a mental institution (the aforementioned mysterious death of her first husband drove her there) where she received electroshock therapy. Immediately, on the day of the move, Dora is getting bad vibes from the house, which Bruno disregards as silliness, and that once she’s been in the house for awhile, her bad vibes will go away. However, Bruno isn’t there for long stretches since his job, a commercial airline pilot, keeps him away from his wife and her otherworldly inklings. So, with Bruno gone for long stretches, Dora is left alone with Marco in the house that is a constant reminder of death. It isn’t long before Dora freaks the hell out and begins to slowly piece together the events of her husband’s death (clouded by the electroshock therapy, no doubt). <br />
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Haunted by these visions (filmed with a filter to suggest the subjective point of view of an LSD user), Dora’s insanity only grows (there is a moment where a dresser opens and a disembodied hand gives her a box cutter that is one hell of a scene), and the longer she is left alone in the house with her son, the more and more she is convinced that Marco is possessed by the spirit of her dead husband. This all eventually leads to Dora finding out the truth behind her husband’s death, why Bruno seems so flippant towards her ever-growing fears, just what in the hell those visions are all about, and whether or not Marco really is conversing with the spirit of her dead husband (or is it all in her head?). I dare not reveal more (I am assuming this is one of the lesser scene Bava films), for the buildup — and payoff (I love that final shot!) — to the final sequence is so damn good I dare not even hint at it. <br />
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Before I get too effusive with my praise, let me be clear: there are weaknesses in the film. Particularly in the repetitive nature of the screenplay. Sometimes the monotony of the script works in its favor in a “lull you into a false sense of security” kind of way; other times, it’s maddening. For example, there is a pretty noticeable cycle of events throughout the film where, to some effect, you have the following occur: Dora gets an odd feeling, we get a flashback, we cut to Marco who does something odd and then runs away from his mother, Dora searches for Marco when something weird happens, cue Dora telling Bruno, cue Bruno’s disregard for such silly things, Dora has a strange vision, she wakes up screaming from a nightmare, repeat. This is no doubt the part of the film Bava dedicated the least amount of attention to; however, it’s not a lethal detriment as the film’s final 30 minutes (save for one effect that just doesn’t quite work) are some of the finest to grace a 1970’s Bava film.<br />
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The reason for the repetitive screenplay, though, and Bava’s seemingly disinterested approach in his narrative, is because a lot of <em>Shock </em>was a collaboration with Mario’s son, Lamberto, who actually co-wrote the film (and co-directed, albeit in an uncredited manner, just as Riccardo Freda gave Bava the chance to co-direct <em>I Vampiri</em>). So it’s pretty apparent that even though the aesthetics remind us of Mario, the screenplay is certainly atypical for a Mario Bava film. <br />
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(From this point on, to avoid confusion, I'll refer to the Bava's by first name)<br />
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The story goes that Lamberto wrote the screenplay for his father in hopes of giving him a project that had a little bit more of a contemporary feel to it (Lamberto and co-screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti were heavily influenced by Stephen King’s <em>The Shining</em>). Mario also wanted to give his son a shot at learning how to direct, so Mario would sketch out the shots and lay out the scenes in the morning, work with the actors and crew, and then leave for the day in order to allow Lamberto to execute Papa’s vision. It’s probably why some of <em>Shock </em>doesn’t really feel like a classic Mario Bava film (there are certain moments where it looks more like an 1970's American horror film rather than an Italian horror film directed by the great Mario Bava). <br />
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Mario’s work had become a little stale in the ‘70s, and even though his detached and darkly comic <em>Twitch of the Death Nerve </em>is an Italian horror classic (and paved the way for what would be the Dead Teenager slasher film), I don’t find it nearly as interesting (both aesthetically and in the performances) as <em>Shock</em>. The ‘70s, for Mario, brought with it a lot of films with studio interference (most notably <em>Lisa and the Devil </em>and <em>Kidnapped</em>), but that wasn’t the case with <em>Shock </em>— what we see is what Mario wanted us to see. And even though he knocked off work early and had his son film the majority of the scenes, it still looks very much like classic Mario Bava, with it’s roaming camera and all. The only thing that is un-Mario like is that the film primarily takes place during the day — which is a bummer because, c’mon, Mario Bava and the dark go hand-in-hand, but I’m a sucker for horror films that don’t feel they have to rely on the dark to be scary, so I was okay with the broad daylight horror scenes.<br />
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About that camera: Just as Mario did in his best films of the ‘60s (and Lamberto employed in his early films <i>Macabre </i>and <i>A Blade in the Dark</i>), he moves the camera throughout <i>Shock </i>brilliantly and effortlessly through Dora’s house so that every little nook seems ominous. We hear things creaking and cracking, and instead of keeping the camera static — so as to give one the feeling of Dora’s claustrophobic terror — and relying on close-ups to heighten the state of insanity, Mario keeps his camera at medium shot for a lot of the film (there is a brilliant shot in a hallway that looks so normal and unassuming, but when a character ducks out of frame, it turns into one of the film’s best scares), but when he decides to get that camera moving, it's as if it simply wafts through the large house; it’s not obtrusive or showy in the way it moves, which sets us on edge even more than had the camera banged around from extreme close-up and loud noise to the next . <br />
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No, we’re not on edge because we’re thrust via close-ups right into the mind of a woman who seems to be losing it (although Mario does employ some masking/distorting techniques to suggest this); we’re on edge because the camera allows us, the viewer, to feel as if we’re roaming through the large haunted house peaking around corners and peering through obstructed views, afraid of what we’ll hear or see. <br />
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And it should be noted that <em>Shock </em>is just as impressive aurally as it is visually. The sound throughout, especially the final 30 minutes, is really something else. Taking a cue from Argento, Mario here uses a rock group, I Libra (a band that featured former Goblin drummer Walter Martino), to score the picture. Their pulsing and effective faux-Goblin soundtrack, which alternates between piano music and electronic passages (at times it sounds like an arcade game with its bleeps and blips, which is oddly unsettling at the end), is one of the best things about the film (however, it still falls in a tier below Goblin or Fabio Frizzi’s work). I believe it’s also the same theme Umberto Lenzi ripped off (his version sounds more like carnival music) for his awful <em>Ghosthouse</em>. <br />
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As previously mentioned, the denouement is so brilliant, and the buildup is one of the best things Mario (and Lamberto, for that matter) has done; it was a worthy final chapter to his amazing career. The sheer lunacy and intensity of those final moments — brilliantly played by Nicolodi, who is just fantastic throughout — is simultaneously unnerving and poignant as we see the unraveling of our protagonist’s psyche. It’s all punctuated with a final moment that is a bit cheeky, sure, but I can’t think of a better note for <em>Shock </em>to go out on — and it makes those words that Dora utter (quoted at the beginning of this piece) resonate even more deeply. <br />
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<em>Shock </em>is a must see for horror fans, Italian horror fans, and especially for Mario Bava fans. I don’t care that some say (mainly the film’s detractors) it isn’t technically a Mario Bava film. It has his aesthetic stamp on it throughout (or at least I feel like Lamberto was able to execute what his father laid out for him) while feeling different enough to standout from a lot of the similar and safe films he was making in the ‘70s. Certainly there are <em>better</em> Mario Bava films than this (I don’t think it’s even debatable that most of his horror films from the ‘60s are <em>better </em>than anything he produced in the ‘70s); however, I find myself admiring <em>Shock </em>the more I watch it (I’ve seen it three times now, and I find something new with each viewing) and the more I think about it (goddamn that ending is good). It’s the best horror film Mario made in the ‘70s, and it’s absolutely one of my five favorite Mario Bava films. <br />
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<em>Note: The only trailer I could find was in Italian. There is a TV ad for the film under its American title </em>Beyond the Door II<em>, but it gives away one of the best scenes of the movie, so I won’t be providing that for you here. Anyway, enjoy the Italian trailer</em>. <br />
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Kevin J. Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17275402809912728035noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8785859730868628316.post-59209628956157840792013-10-28T07:00:00.000-07:002013-10-29T02:04:54.114-07:00Italian Horror Blogathon: Zombi 3 (aka Zombie Flesh Eaters 2)<a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-XZy7btU2gwg/Um4Nh6fQBvI/AAAAAAAAJTE/3vgx8noktyw/s1600-h/zombi3_poster%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img alt="zombi3_poster" border="0" height="320" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-R8jS-pnp4vg/Um4Nia-u-dI/AAAAAAAAJTM/h93tmLj7IH8/zombi3_poster_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border-width: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="zombi3_poster" width="196" /></a><br />
It may seem odd to some readers that during the four years I’ve done this blogathon, I have never done a proper review for Lucio Fulci’s <em>Zombi 2 </em>— one of the most famous of all Italian horror films. So now would seem like as good a time as any to get it out of the way, right? However, for this reviewer, Fulci’s failed sequel seemed like a more interesting film to tackle for a couple of reasons: one, I hadn’t yet seen the film; second, I wanted to make sure I got to at least one Bruno Mattei/Claudio Fragasso (the brain trust behind <em>Troll 2</em>) collaboration for this blogathon. Finally, how often does one get to tackle all three filmmakers — Fulci, Mattei, and Fragasso — with one review? So I decided to move forward with a review of <em>Zombi 3</em>, an horrible attempt from a filmmaker trying to reclaim his glory from earlier in the decade and a depressing avatar for the dying days of Italian horror. <br />
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Lacking hardcore gore and an atmosphere of dread, <em>Zombi 3</em> plays more like Mattei’s Italian action films<em> </em>than a legitimate sequel to Fulci’s famous film — something fans of the film noticed immediately and booed accordingly after the film premiered in Italy. In fact, it plays more as a sequel to the Mattei/Fragasso shitfest <em>Zombie Creeping Flesh</em>. The film that actually plays more like a natural successor to <em>Zombi 2</em> was actually Andrea Bianchi’s <em>Burial Ground </em>(aka <em>The Nights of Terror</em>), what with its emphasis on makeup and gore effects. At least Bianchi’s film — despite how goofy it is in parts — <em>wanted </em>to be a serious (a relative term, I know) horror film like <em>Zombi 2</em>. Fragasso and Mattei’s film just plays like any other ‘ol Bruno Mattei movie with its horridly bland exterior medium shots, flippant attitude towards mise-en-scene, pedestrian pacing (there are no painfully tense moments like the “splinter in the eye” scene to be found here as scenes of “tension” are over before they begin), and shoehorned action scenes (often ideas for scenes that were left over from his countless action films that he would film simultaneously in one location). <br />
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Quickly, the plot: <em>Zombi 3</em> opens with a man stealing an experimental chemical weapon known as "Death One" (which isn’t as good as previous Mattei/Fragasso chemical weapon name “Operation Sweet Death” from <em>Zombie Creeping Flesh</em>) from a lab. As the authorities chase after the thief, they accidentally shot the container of “Death One”, spilling it all over the thief. The wounded thief flees to the nearest hotel to hide before turning into a zombie. As the military descends upon the hotel (dressed up in white suits with gas masks a la the military from Romero’s <em>The Crazies</em>, which isn’t the first time Mattei stole this image), they shoot and kill the thief, burning his body per the orders of the US General responsible for “Death One.” The scientists working on “Death One” advise against this since the ashes could get into the air and infect the locals. The General will have none of this talk from <em>a scientist</em>, and orders the body to be burned, outbreak be damned. <br />
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Well, as you probably can guess, the body is burned, and the ashes are released into the atmosphere, causing hundreds of people to turn into zombies. As was the case with Mattei and Fragasso’s previous zombie film, a random group of military men (GIs? Mercenaries?) happen upon the region and meet up with an RV filled with women and Patricia, who has lost her boyfriend to the zombie plague. They eventually make their way to the hotel where the outbreak initially occurred, running into a bunch of zombies. This is all cross-cut with the scientists (who are outraged that they had to work on such a dangerous assignment...because I guess the name “Death One” wasn’t a big enough tipoff for them?) arguing the military officials about the best possible way to stop the outbreak. <br />
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After several years of promising a legitimate sequel to <em>Zombi 2</em>, Flora Film announced <em>Zombi 3</em> with Lucio Fulci as director. This would no doubt excite fans of the horror film (who hadn’t seen a good, serious zombie movie for quite some time), but more specifically it would invigorate Fulci acolytes (who admittedly weren’t as large a group in 1988 as it is now; however, fans of the director still very much existed, and they still hadn’t seen a good Fulci film for almost seven years) whom Flora was expecting to flock to see the film — after all, <em>Zombi 2</em> was one of the most popular and profitable horror films to come out of Europe during that era (in the extremely rare case of a domestic film making more money than an American import, it out-grossed Romero’s <em>Dawn of the Dead</em>, titled <em>Zombi </em>in Europe) — so it wasn’t like the people at Flora were grasping at straws, here. The only problem was that the people at Flora hired the hackiest hack of them all Claudio Fragasso to write the script, and what he produced was a script that Fulci abhorred, causing him to abandon the project. <br />
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Now, there are so many conflicting rumors regarding the making of <em>Zombi 3</em>. In Jay Slater’s book <em>Eaten Alive! </em>he interviews Fragasso who claims that Fulci was ill and the film was supposed to be a direct sequel to Fulci’s <em>Zombi 2 </em>(okay, but then why was the script so dissimilar to Fulci’s first film?). Later in the same chapter of Slater’s book, he mentions an interview with cast member Beatrice Ring who recalls very little about the shoot and which director shot which scenes, only remembering that the shoot was a complete disaster and utterly chaotic, claiming that Mattei didn't know what the hell he was doing. In Stephen Thrower’s book <em>Beyond Terror </em>(hard to find, but I highly recommend it for Fulci fans), he cites an interview with Fulci and Fulci’s daughter who both debunk the most popular rumor that Fulci couldn’t complete the film because he was deathly ill. In fact, Fulci claims he was not critically ill — although he was uncomfortably ill at the time of the shooting due to the tropical climate of the Philippines — he was just fed up with Fragasso’s script and Flora’s unwillingness to all him to alter the script. All of this led to Fulci walking off the set, forcing Flora to turn to Fragasso’s buddy and hack extraordinaire (yes, a hackier hack than even Fragasso): Bruno Mattei. <br />
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One can guess by taking a look at the final product that it was evident Fulci’s frustrations also stemmed from that fact that he was <em>sorely</em> missing the technical crew he employed on <em>Zombi 2 </em>(most important being his longtime DP Sergio Salvati, who never worked with Fulci after <em>The House by the Cemetery</em>, but also composer Fabio Frizzi and makeup artist Giannetto De Rossi), and the film was cast with awful actors that give the whole thing a “don’t take this too seriously” vibe (say what you want about Tisa Farrow and Ian McCulloch, but hot damn are they Oscar caliber actors compared to what we have here) — its tone is all wrong and actually is more akin to Dan O'Bannon’s spoof <em>Return of the Living Dead</em> (they even ripped off the theme of that movie) than anything resembling Fulci’s classics from the late ‘70s/early ‘80s.<br />
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The amount of footage that Fulci shot that ended up in the film is debatable (some claim as little as 20 minutes, others claim as much as 70 minutes), but it’s certainly clear where Fulci’s footage ends and Mattei’s begins. Fulci preferred to film on a set, and the graininess/brightness juxtaposition is indicative of how the film was shot and by whom (Fulci’s scenes look like film; Mattei’s footage looks like video). Also, exteriors, when used, are lit in such way as to give them a kind of eerie <em>City of the Living Dead </em>feel. The scene where the zombie birds attack some poor anti-environment schmuck definitely feels like Fulci (although it is disappointingly subdued for a Fulci “animal attack” scene). As does the scene where one of the girl’s falls into some water and zombies emerge from a cave, shrouded in fog (copious amounts of fog, I should add, that seems so out of place, as if he just had some left over from <em>Conquest </em>and decided to use it up here) and back-lit by an eerie green light — that feels like Fulci, too. <br />
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One scene that was kept that Fucli definitely shot — and that he absolutely took credit for — was the flying zombie head scene. In one of the film’s most asinine moments, a zombie removes their head and places it in a refrigerator in order to fool an unsuspecting female victim. The person then opens the refrigerator door only for the zombie head to come flying out — but only as a distraction, mind you — as the beheaded body of the zombie leaps out and tries to kill the poor woman. Apparently Fulci was very proud of the flying zombie head scene, claiming it as one of his very favorite moments put to film. That should give you some insight into Fulci’s creative thought process in 1988 — the Lucio Fulci of <em>The Beyond</em>, this ain’t. <br />
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As for what we can claim as Mattei’s footage: well, as previously mentioned, Mattei’s aesthetic preference was in exterior shots (so he could mask how cheap his film looked), and in random action scenes and horror setpieces that are over before they begin, so it’s pretty easy to spot his footage there. The fast, <em>Nightmare City</em>-esque zombies well-versed in jujitsu rolling definitely feels like a Mattei addition. The action setpiece at the hotel is obviously Mattei. And the odd shift in tone from wacky zombie movie to nihilistic horror film at the end of the film with the dudes dressed up like characters from <em>The Crazies </em>(a look Mattei would use as well in <em>Rats: Nights of Terror</em>...yeah, I don’t know why I know that, either) killing humans in a case of mistaken identity is all very much Mattei. <br />
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Look, though, weapon-wielding zombies that move fast and do karate isn’t the reason <em>Zombi 3 </em>sucks (in fact, one could argue that Mattei’s additions are simultaneously the best and worst things about the movie). I mean Fulci did have a zombie fight a shark in <em>Zombi 2</em>, for Christ’s sake, so he wasn’t averse to asinine ideas, and, as previously discussed, one of <em>Zombi 3</em>’s most asinine (and memorable) moments is a scene with a freaking flying zombie head. Just one loo at some of the bizarre setpieces that Fulci lazily implemented and executed in his post-<em>House by the Cemetery </em>films shows a once great director devolving into hackdom. So, no, Fulci isn’t free from criticism here; there is plenty of blame to go around for all parties involved. We can’t just assume that the old Fulci would have returned (no matter many of us wish it could have been so) and turned this steaming pile of a script into gold had he seen the project through. <br />
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What made <em>Zombi 2 </em>so great beyond the gore effects was the unbearable tension and dread that Fulci fills the frame with. There’s something so much more ominous about the voodoo plague infiltrating the East Coast shores of America than the silly premise of zombie ashes in the atmosphere. And that blame squarely lies on the shoulders of Fragasso and his awful script. As big a fan I am of <em>Zombi 2</em>, it may have just been in Floras best interest to leave well enough alone. Look, I love a <a href="http://kolson-kevinsblog.blogspot.com/2013/10/italian-horror-blogathon-killer.html" target="_blank">“so-bad-it’s-good” movie</a> as much as the next person (hell, I actually love how off-the-wall the Mattei/Fragasso collaboration <em>Zombie Creeping Flesh </em>is; it’s one of my favorite “so-bad-it’s-good” movies), but this goes beyond that fun category into ignominy; there is no “so-bad-it’s-good” or “guilty pleasure” vibe that emanates from this piece of schlocky trash. <br />
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One more <em>Zombi </em>film followed (there is another called <em>Killing Birds </em>that had the <em>Zombi </em>name tacked on to fool what little consumers were left that were interested in this series) in the series — directed by Fragasso and written by an even worse writer than he (spoiler: it’s his wife) — and it plays as something even hokier than <em>Zombi 3</em>, making for a viewing experience where one longs for a wooden splinter in their own eye. <br />
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This is such a depressing movie to think about, for <em>Zombi 3 </em>could have been so much more than what it was; it could have meant so much to Fulci’s future (Fulci died eight years later but not before making eight more movies), it could have meant so much to the future of the subgenre, and it could have been something that was a definitive moment for theatrical Italian horror, proving that the gory, ethereal spectacles that Fulci helped popularize in the early ‘80s was still a valuable commodity in Italian moviehouses. But, the producers waited nearly a decade to make this “sequel", and in doing so, wasted a great opportunity on a horror movie that people wanted to see; and instead, they produced what is without a doubt one of the most miserable horror experiences I’ve had in a long, long time. <br />
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<br />Kevin J. Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17275402809912728035noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8785859730868628316.post-57498012017501904722013-10-26T08:00:00.000-07:002013-10-26T08:00:06.184-07:00Italian Horror Blogathon: Killer Crocodile (aka Murder Alligator)<a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-kFSWxj64YQg/UmtRTYkQRNI/AAAAAAAAJSc/m481MBoxQ20/s1600-h/poster%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img alt="OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA " border="0" height="320" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-pIV3B4NUgmU/UmtRT8CeCuI/AAAAAAAAJSg/bDL_Jm8jcqg/poster_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA " width="222" /></a><br />
One of the staples of 1970’s/80’s Italian cinema was the cheap knockoff of a popular American blockbuster. These American films would infiltrate Italian cinemas and put all kinds of thoughts in the heads of struggling producers of Italian genre films. The general consensus was that aping these blockbusters was the surest way to financial success. Not completely destroying the industry—but certainly hampering its creativity—these knockoffs pretty much dictated what Italian horror directors could make. Certainly the big names like Bava, Fulci, and Argento could do what they wanted, but even they weren’t immune to this craze. Whether it’s <em>Beyond the Door </em>(<em>The Exorcist</em>, <em>Rosemary’s Baby</em>), <em>The Night Child </em>(<em>The Omen</em>, <em>The Exorcist </em>(again)), <em>Absurd </em>(<em>Halloween/Halloween II</em>), <em>Great White </em>(<em>Jaws</em>), or something like <em>Tentacles </em>(an odd amalgam of <em>Jaws </em>and American disaster pictures like <em>Airport</em>), the idea behind these films was that whichever popular American blockbuster had been imported at the time could be copied, made on the cheap, and turn a profit for little-to-no effort.<br />
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These knockoffs weren’t just relegated to the horror genre, though, as countless <em>Mad Max</em>, <em>Conan the Barbarian</em>, and Sly Stallone clones popped up with the likes of <em>The Raiders of Atlantis</em>, <em>Conquest</em>, and (a personal favorite of mine) <em>Black Cobra</em>. Some of these films try to disguise themselves as being original, others are blatant ripoffs that just piggy-back off a popular title despite either having nothing to do with the original (Fulci’s <em>Zombi 2 </em>did this — and is probably the only film to be successful <em>and </em>original in doing so — whereas other filmmakers like Umberto Lenzi gave his film, <em>Ghosthouse</em>, the title of <em>La Casa 3 </em>simply to trick people into thinking it had something to do with Sam Raimi’s <em>Evil Dead </em>series, which was titled <em>La Casa </em>in Italy) or not getting permission (my favorite might be the very unofficial sequel to the ozploitation favorite <em>Patrick</em>, <em>Patrick Still Lives!</em>), and some even steal from their countrymates (Fulci’s <em><a href="http://kolson-kevinsblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/italian-horror-blogathon-aenigma.html" target="_blank">Aenigma</a> </em>is nothing more than a poor facsimile of Argento’s much better <em>Phenomena</em>).<br />
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Whew. All of that to say: I watched <em>Killer Crocodile — </em>a film surprisingly fun and professionally made (its 35mm look honestly shocked me) for not only being a bad knockoff of <em>Jaws</em>, but also being an <a href="http://kolson-kevinsblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/italian-horror-blog-thon-graveyard.html" target="_blank">Italian horror film made in 1989</a> (by the way, just what in the hell are they still doing making <em>Jaws </em>knockoffs in 1989 anyway?). Everyone has their own opinions about these kind of so-bad-it’s-good movies, but, hey, I had fun with what I was given, and if you’re a fan of said so-bad-it’s-good genre flicks, then there’s probably something for you to enjoy with <em>Killer Crocodile</em>. <br />
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In what would be another eco-themed horror film from the late ‘80s in Italy, <em>Killer Crocodile </em>opens with...oh, who am I kidding? It’s a <em>Jaws </em>knockoff; I’ll give you all one guess how it opens...<br />
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...so, yeah, we have ourselves bad soundalike musical score, a woman skinny dipping while her doofus boyfriends sits on the beach aloof, subjective underwater camera, yadda yadda yadda. After the opening scene, we’re introduced to a group of environmentalists that arrive at the delta town where the killer crocodile (or MURDER ALLIGATOR! as the alternate title suggests) is running (swimming?) amok. For you see, there are some bad guys dumping waste in the water. About these villains: they’re hilariously cartoony and not the least bit menacing. Here, take a look:<br />
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Anyway, the film’s threadbare plot is essentially about those meddling kids, headed up by Kevin (played by Anthony Crenna, son of Richard), investigating the goings-on of this town and thwarting the polluting villains at every turn (with plenty of eco-conscious exposition along the way) as if it were an episode of “Captain Planet.” Every now and then the film takes a break from the team of ecologists yelling at the villains (one is a shady judge played by Van Johnson) about the damage they’re causing by polluting the waters to show us the killer crocodile (MURDER ALLIGATOR!) chompin’ on some townfolk. The characters are always finding interesting ways to fall into the water (the ecologists, especially, because I guess you have to be in the water to test it?). In particular the moment where a little girl on a dock hangs on for dear life and a man (her father?) tries to rescue her, but instead of pulling her up, he climbs down and attempts to push her up to safety, resulting in him falling down into the awaiting chompers of the killer crocodile (MURDER ALLIGATOR!). The whole thing is preposterous, yet it has the look and feel of a setpiece they were building their film to; instead, it ends up coming off as hilariously awful due to the obvious lack of budget as the film just speeds through the scene (there’s also little-to-no gore effects). <br />
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There’s also a subplot about a grizzled croc hunter named Joe that has to teach those pansy ecologists a lesson in killin’ not preservin’; they, of course, being the good liberals that they are, object because they’re “against killing of any kind” (this line is offered to you in the trailer below so that you can bask in Anthony Crenna’s wonderfully monotone delivery). However, when ol’ grizzled Joe gets injured, and is relegated to watching the rest of the film from the banks of the river, he must pass the torch to Kevin,(and he does this by throwing him his hat in a moment that plays like something of “The Simpsons” episode where they go see the <em>The Poke of Zorro</em>; I was half expecting the character grab the hat and yell, “yes!” before the credits rolled), who swallows his morals and gets the job done. <br />
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<em>Killer Crocodile </em>had some famous names working on it: Its director (working under the pseudonym Larry Ludman) is none other than genre producer extraordinaire Fabrizio De Angelis (who produced almost all of Fulci’s best work), the screenplay was co-written by arguably the most famous Italian horror screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti (some of his screenplays include: <em>Twitch of the Death Nerve</em>, <em>Murder to the Tune of Seven Black Notes</em>, <em>Cannibal Apocalypse</em>, <em>The Beyond</em>, <em>City of the Living Dead</em>, <em>The House by the Cemetery</em>, <em>Demons</em>, and many more), and the crocodile effects were done by Giannetto di Rossi (the man who was responsible for the makeup for Fulci’s <em>Zombi 2</em>; he also directed <em>Killer Crocodile 2</em>). <br />
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Obviously these guys are talented — or at the very least have done a good job of surrounding themselves with talented people — yet <em>Killer Crocodile </em>is so obviously tired and uninspired that one is left wondering what the hell happened. The lack of a legitimate director seems like the most likely explanation. Everything points to this being a case where a successful producer on a very popular film looks at the director of his film and thinks, “I could do <em>that</em>,” and then falling on their face when it comes time to do a little directing. <br />
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This isn’t the first time De Angelis went outside of the realm of producing and ended up making a film that was total crap (he watched Fulci closely on <em>Zombi 2 </em>and then proceeded to write a script for what would become the awful <em>Zombie Holocaust</em>, using the same actors and sets as Fulci’s film). <em>Killer Crocodile </em>ended up being the best thing he would direct, though, as he moved away from horror and onto bad action movies with the likes of all six <em>Karate Warrior </em>movies and, my personal favorite, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099922/?ref_=nm_flmg_dr_10" target="_blank"><em>Karate Rock</em></a><em> </em>(do yourself a favor and click on that link). As for the rest of the trio: Sacchetti was most likely just a consultant (but there his name sits, so “credit” where it’s due), and di Rossi was most likely hampered by lack of budget because his killer crocodile (MURDER ALLIGATOR!) looks really silly. <br />
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Many familiar with this blogathon know that I like to feature one goofy, “pizza and beer” movie. In the past it’s been films like <em><a href="http://kolson-kevinsblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/final-girl-film-club-burial-ground-aka.html" target="_blank">Burial Ground</a></em>, <em><a href="http://kolson-kevinsblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/italian-horror-blogathon-contamination.html" target="_blank">Contamination</a></em>, <em><a href="http://kolson-kevinsblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/italian-horror-blog-thon-absurd-aka.html" target="_blank">Absurd</a></em>, or <em><a href="http://kolson-kevinsblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/italian-horror-blog-thon-nightmare-city.html" target="_blank">Nightmare City</a></em> (warning: some of those links will take to reviews from when I first started this blog, so...potentially awful writing awaits!). And so this year, I offer <em>Killer Crocodile</em>; it’s fun trash and should be seen as nothing more. Granted, your mileage may vary on a film like this, but in a subgenre rife with lurid trash that (at times) makes you feel icky, sometimes a goofy little number like <em>Killer Crocodile </em>isn’t such a bad thing, you know.<br />
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Kevin J. Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17275402809912728035noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8785859730868628316.post-23977501100123273822013-10-25T07:00:00.000-07:002013-10-25T07:00:09.934-07:00Italian Horror Blogathon: Spasmo<a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-LBie3YK8dFA/Umgeg0TwEHI/AAAAAAAAJQM/T5Vj2y59E5w/s1600-h/spasmo%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img alt="spasmo" border="0" height="320" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-eQmZ6cwyxng/Umgehfg3nZI/AAAAAAAAJQQ/WvlQSA9nd7I/spasmo_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="spasmo" width="233" /></a><br />
Umberto Lenzi’s <em>Spasmo </em>is one of the most gonzo-<em>gialli </em>I’ve ever seen. In fact, don’t let the labeling on the cover of the DVD fool you, this is not a “<em>giallo </em>classic.” Oh, that’s not to say it isn’t good; it’s just that I don’t think I would go as far as calling <em>Spasmo </em>a classic...or even a <em>giallo</em>, for that matter. At least not a <em>giallo </em>in the traditional sense, for <em>Spasmo </em>is more a psychological thriller than a black-gloved-killer-stalks-promiscuous-women horror film. And in fact, <em>Spasmo </em>is surprisingly tame for a film directed by Lenzi (more on that later), and maybe that’s why I liked it so much. I will freely admit from the onset of this review that I am perhaps overrating <em>Spasmo </em>because I was okay with its goofiness, and I found myself just having so much damn fun with it. <br />
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Trying to sum up <em>Spasmo</em>’s plot seems like a pointless endeavor, what with all of its convoluted twists and turns (I read a handful of synopses after I watched the film to try and get it straight, but I wasn’t sure I still got <em>everything</em>), but here goes: A young couple is making out on a deserted road when their afternoon delight is interrupted when the man notices a woman hanging from a tree. Naturally this ruins the mood, but as the couple moves in to get a closer look, they realize that the dead woman is really just a well-made, extremely lifelike rubber dummy. And then the film begins proper. This opening hints at things to come, but Lenzi interjects these moments with people finding these dummies as a break from the primary story. At first, we’re not sure what these fake murder scenes with the dummies mean (some are found on the beach, others in the woods; some have knives inserted them, others are smeared with fake blood), but to give credit where it’s due, Lenzi finds a meld these interjections into his primary mystery. <br />
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As for the primary plot: Christian (Robert Hoffman), an heir to an industrial fortune, meets a women named Barbara (Suzy Kendall), who seems to have some kind of sexual power over him as he instantly becomes obsessed with her. It doesn’t take much convincing from Christian before she takes him back to her apartment where Christian is sure to get some as long as he shaves his beard. And, no, that’s not a joke; there is a line in the film where she tells him he’ll get lucky so long as he shaves his beard off. So, while in the bathroom, Christian is attacked by a gun-wielding stranger, who he ends up killing. When Christian rushes out of the bathroom to tell Barbara about what has gone down, she suggests they go back into the bathroom to get some evidence. However, when they return to the bathroom, the man is gone, suggesting that the whole thing was just in Christian’s head. <br />
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And so <em>Spasmo </em>goes. The rest of the film consists of Christian trying to convince others of what happened in the bathroom; he and Barbara taking shelter in what is supposed to be an empty seaside castle that belongs to one of Barbara’s friends only to come across two total strangers (what would a seaside castle in an Italian horror film be without strange goings-on, though, right?), one of which is a woman that seems eerily familiar to Christian; and Christian following the mystery of the identity of his killer (who is now stalking him at the castle) all the way to its shocking conclusion (like any good <em>giallo</em>, Christian is the everyman character that takes the investigation into his own hands). Not to mention the bizarre scenes of the dummies being found hanged and stabbed across the countryside interjected throughout the film.<br />
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There’s so much more, but I’ll stop with what I have. Coming from the director of such trash as <em>Cannibal Ferox</em>, <em>Welcome to Spring Break </em>and <em>Ghosthouse</em>, it’s hard to remember a time when Lenzi really cared about his craft (<em>Seven Bloodstained Orchids</em>, a film <a href="http://kolson-kevinsblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/italian-horror-blogathon-seven.html" target="_blank">I reviewed last year for this blogathon</a>, is another great Lenzi <em>giallo</em>), but he seems to really be trying with <em>Spasmo</em>. There isn’t much evidence (aside from his Italian crime movies) to suggest that Lenzi was anything more than a hack, but films like <em>Seven Bloodstained Orchids </em>and <em>Spasmo </em>suggest, at the very least, a capable filmmaker that was wanting to try for something different with the <em>giallo</em>, a subgenre<em> </em>that was losing steam by 1974. <br />
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Once again (just as we discussed yesterday with <em>What Have You Done to Solange?</em>), a director is given a mighty assist from Ennio Morricone, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eMu2iQJBJo" target="_blank">whose score here</a> is one of the film’s highlights, beautifully underlining each scene with the appropriate displacing score or musical cue that suggests Christian isn’t sure of what’s real and what isn’t. After all, a film where lifelike, human-sized dolls keep popping up in ersatz crime scenes requires an off-kilter score, and Morricone delivers in spades. Perhaps more than any other genre composer, Morricone is as important to the film's tone as any other member of the crew. <br />
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Aesthetically, Lenzi does something interesting with this one in that it’s not shot like most <em>gialli</em>; there is no black-gloved killer lurking in the shadows, there is no subjective POV of the killer menacing nude women, there is no amateur playing detective and solving the case before the police do, and (perhaps most surprisingly considering this is Lenzi we’re dealing with) there aren’t those gratuitous, lurid moments of exploitation. In some cases, that’s disappointing because that lurid exploitation usually comes off as great cheese — especially when Lenzi does cheese (see: <em>Hitcher in the Dark </em>and <em>Welcome to Spring Break</em>) — and makes for entertaining trash at times. However, <em>Spasmo </em>plays it straight, and as far as a legitimate mystery, I was shocked by how into I was and how (sort of) neatly and (sort of) logically it all wrapped up.<br />
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All that to say: the film is fairly subdued and straight forward in how it’s shot. Lenzi does a good job of hinting at Christian’s possible insanity (the trailer is more gonzo than the film) with little camera tricks here and there, but outside of the requisite 1970’s zooms (not just relegated to Italian horror, mind you), Lenzi lets his story do the heavy lifting. <br />
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And this is what I alluded to in my review yesterday: A lot of people find <em>gialli </em>boring because the majority of them are the antithesis of what so many associate with the great Italian horror films of Bava and Argento and Fulci, where ethereal aesthetics take precedence over logical storylines (this is more applicable to the latter two filmmakers than the former). Don’t get me wrong, <em>Spasmo </em>has energy, but it’s in the narrative (even if the opening bits are kind of a muddled slog) not the aesthetics. A rare thing, indeed for Italian horror. But every now and then, I’m in the mood for that kind of Italian horror film, and I caught <em>Spasmo </em>on the right day.<br />
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So, this review is getting as jumbled as the plot to <em>Spasmo</em>, so I guess I should wrap this up. Here’s the best way to approach <em>Spasmo</em>: like the majority of Italian horror, the viewer needs to leave their logic at the door and just enjoy the ride. But unlike most (popular) Italian horror, the film is light on atmosphere and crazy aesthetics that detract from the illogical narrative. <i>Spasmo</i> is an head trip, for sure — a psychological thriller more than your average stalk-and-slash <em>giallo</em>/Krimi procedural — and Lenzi <em>wants </em>us to pay attention to his crazy mystery. And because of that fact, I really dug it. I love what Lenzi does with the first half of his film (even though it doesn’t make a lick of sense), and I was pretty floored by the miraculous feat Lenzi is able to pull all off in melding the majority of these insane elements together into some kind of coherent ending. But it will take patience on the viewer’s end; the film borders on excruciating tedium in that first hour, but if you stick with it, you’ll be rewarded with one of Lenzi’s best efforts, and, really, one of the best and most fun of the later era <em>gialli </em>that you’re likely to come across. <br />
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Kevin J. Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17275402809912728035noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8785859730868628316.post-34168769113798581922013-10-24T08:00:00.000-07:002013-10-24T08:00:03.507-07:00Italian Horror Blogathon: What Have You Done to Solange? (aka Cosa avete fatto a Solange?, Terror in the Woods, The School that Couldn't Scream, The Secret of the Green Pins)<a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-IeBguQjo97I/UmLdd1QSOhI/AAAAAAAAJPk/_aIAqrLRjmc/s1600-h/What-Have-You-Done-to-Solange-Italian-Poster%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img alt="What-Have-You-Done-to-Solange-Italian-Poster" border="0" height="320" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-1IvLj3prmEg/UmLdeOPRXbI/AAAAAAAAJPo/TPPYmbiL440/What-Have-You-Done-to-Solange-Italian-Poster_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" style="background-image: none; border: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" title="What-Have-You-Done-to-Solange-Italian-Poster" width="224" /></a><br />
I think of Italian horror in <a href="http://kolson-kevinsblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/italian-horror-primer.html" target="_blank">stages</a>: you have your Gothic stuff from Bava, you have your ethereal horror a la <em>Suspiria</em>, you have your cannibal subgenre, you have your cheap knockoffs of popular American films, you have your zombies, and you have your <em>gialli</em>. It is this later category that Italy is most known for. Sure, anti-narrative fare like the Lucio Fulci’s <em>The Beyond </em>is what stands out the most to fans, but it is those early <em>gialli </em>— with their whodunit, Edgar Wallace-esque narratives and block-gloved killers — that most people think of when the topic of Italian horror comes up. The sheer volume of titles that continue to be unearthed, cleaned up on DVD, and presented to American audiences is staggering. There are still so many <em>gialli </em>that I’ve never even heard of that I continue to come across every year I do this blogathon. These films have a higher percentage of being terrible because if the mystery isn’t engaging, there usually isn’t a whole lot about the film’s aesthetic that engages me. Whereas with a film like <em>City of the Living Dead</em>, for example, may confound me and even make me laugh at how silly it all is — but damn does it look great in stretches. This is not always so with a <em>giallo </em>— where if the narrative is a slog, then the entire film is usually a slog because there usually just isn’t anything too pretty to look at (unless, of course, you’re Mario Bava) to distract you from how boring the film is.<br />
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All of this is to say that when Dario Argento burst on the scene in 1970 with the release of <em>The Bird with the Crystal Plumage</em>, there was a bit of resurgence for the <em>giallo </em>— a subgenre that dominated Italian horror for much of the ‘60s. It would only last until Argento (and American horror films like <em>The Exorcist </em>that were hugely popular in Italy) changed the game years later with <em>Suspiria</em>. All of this is to say (and here I am nearly two paragraphs in, and I haven't even mentioned the title of the movie I'm talking about yet) that when I popped in Massimo Dallamano's <i>What Have You Done to Solange? </i>for this blogathon, I was absolutely floored by how into it I was. It's one of the better<i> gialli </i>I've seen.<br />
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I'll make the plot synopsis brief since (even though the film is 40 years old) nobody wants a good mystery ruined for them. The film opens with a man and a woman makin' whoopee in a rowboat. The man in question is Enrico Rossini (Fabio Testi, who later starred in Fulci's <i>Contraband </i>and other <i>p</i><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>oliziotteschi</i></span></span>), an Italian gymnastics instructor who has moved to London, with his German wife, to teach at an elite Catholic girls school. His wife, Herta (Karin Baal), is also a teacher at the school, but alas, it is not her who is in the rowboat with Enrico...that rapscallion. Italian stereotypes aside, Enrico is the youngest teacher at the school and the girls love him. Some are even in love with him, and Enrico, never one to disappoint his students, begins an affair with Elizabeth (Christina Galbo), an 18 year-old senior whose family is very prominent in the community. <br />
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So, back to the rowboat: Enrico and Elizabeth are necking in the rowboat when Elizabeth swears that she has seen an heinous action on the riverbank. This ruins the mood (Enrico isn't convinced and thinks she's just trying to play defense against him) and acts as the catalyst for our mystery as the next morning Enrico reads the newspaper, learning that there was indeed a murder in that location the day before. Even more worrisome to Enrico is that the victim was a fellow student of Elizabeth's. What makes the mystery so intriguing at first is that it's a balancing act between Elizabeth's vision and Enrico trying to hide his infidelity when the police come snooping around the school.<br />
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Naturally Enrico doesn't want his affair with a student to get out, considering it could ruin the school's reputation <i>and </i>his marriage. But when more students end up dead (the method of which, a knife through their vagina, is rather gruesome), Enrico has to give in even though he maintains that the information<i> </i>he has, and what little Elizabeth actually saw, can't really help the police with their investigation. In typical <i>giallo</i>/Krimi fashion, Enrico fears that the investigation is focusing too much on him and not trying to find the real killer, so he takes matters into his own hands and begins investigating the murders. This "everyman as police investigator" is a required element in these kind of films, and even though most <i>gialli </i>have convoluted mysteries with huge plot holes, <i>Solange </i>is surprisingly adept. Enrico's investigation leads him to the truth before the police, natch<span style="background-color: white;"> (with one of those wonderful bits of exposition found in almost all <i>gialli </i>where he says, "the revenge he planned was symbolically obvious..." while gathered with the police around the dead body of the killer)</span>, but the reveal of the film's central mystery is at once horrifying and surprisingly poignant. <br />
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<i>Solange</i>'s director, Massimo Dallamano, was most known for his work as DP on Leone’s <em>A Fistful of Dollars </em>and <em>For a Few Dollars More</em>. The only film of his I was familiar with prior to this film was the <em>The Omen </em>rip-off <em>The Night Child</em>, whose trailer pops up a lot of on exploitation trailer comps (spoiler: it's no good). But I have to say, <i>Solange </i>makes me more than curious about his other work (only <i>The Night Child </i>and his earlier <i>Devil in the Flesh </i>constitute horror), especially his <i>p</i><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>oliziotteschi</i> since the mystery in <i>Solange </i>is so solid. Here, he shows enough restraint during the murders that the film doesn't come off as lurid trash, and with a big assist from </span></span>Ennio Morricone's score (with its great opening theme, posted for you below), he's actually able to pull off a poignant coda; a rare thing, indeed, for a <i>giallo</i>.<br />
<br />
As I mentioned earlier, there usually isn't much aesthetically going on in these <i>giallo</i>/Krimi films, and <i>Solange </i>is no different. There are exceptions to be sure (anything by Bava, Argento, Martino), but the real joy and craft is in how well the filmmakers unfold their mystery and whether or not they can successfully pull the rug out from under the viewer. However, the look of <i>Solange </i>is surprisingly coherent, never getting in the way of the central mystery. It's surprising because the DP is non other than Aristide Massaccesi (better known to Americans as Joe D’Amato). This isn't the zoom-obsessed (although it is 1970's Italian cinema, so there are going to be zooms whether you like it or not) Massaccesi who would become the hack we love to rib on this blog; no, this was before the days of filling up his CV with crap like <em>Emmanuel and the Last Cannibals</em>, <em>Papaya: Love Goddess of the Cannibals</em>, <em>Sexy Nights of the Living Dead</em>, and <em>Porno Holocaust</em>. His camerawork here is more than serviceable, and it suggests the sort-of-capable filmmaker we would see in spurts in <em>Beyond the Darkness </em>and <em>Anthropophagus</em> (the only two films of his I've had anything positive to say about).<br />
<br />
Perhaps the best part about <i>Solange </i>is that it's interested in all kinds of little details that move the mystery along. There are Red Herrings, to be sure, but they're quickly dealt with, as it really comes across as Dallamano and co. were sure not to insult the intelligence of the viewer (there's an interestingly self-aware line at the beginning of the film when Enrico says, “a suspicious wife is a very boring character," essentially eliminating his wife as a potential suspect) by paying more attention to the nuances of the mystery. This made me giddy, for it is a rare thing indeed for a <i>giallo </i>not to completely fall of the rails logically.<br />
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“If I’ve seen one <em>giallo</em>,<em> </em>I’ve seen them all” is a common sentiment among horror fans, and so as I wrap this post up I just want to throw my weight behind the film and urge those that think all <i>gialli </i>are the same to give this one a shot. Even for those that are squeamish and don't like Italian horror because of its penchant for the grotesque, really, with the exception of one gruesome looking x-ray and a flashback that is admittedly disturbing (although free of blood), <i>Solange </i>is light on gore, and contains one hell of a mystery. In fact, it's the rare '70s <i>giallo </i>that is more interested in its mystery than gruesomeness. See it; it's well worth your time.<br />
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Kevin J. Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17275402809912728035noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8785859730868628316.post-8015842180051058282013-10-22T10:26:00.000-07:002013-10-22T10:26:47.221-07:00Italian Horror Blogathon begins this Thursday!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP0XME8l3Umc_-R_BQeHDSVhOp-ujr5EN4__yInY2k75jCPRV4UnkzN1HrnC30EGlN7iuaJAJysDJB2hUtLF5nsXaugYoxirEuo22Lmy-pURDCdp9Z4D-1SfbZulJgLW7aZf3nrxIF-ag/s1600/torso1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="203" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP0XME8l3Umc_-R_BQeHDSVhOp-ujr5EN4__yInY2k75jCPRV4UnkzN1HrnC30EGlN7iuaJAJysDJB2hUtLF5nsXaugYoxirEuo22Lmy-pURDCdp9Z4D-1SfbZulJgLW7aZf3nrxIF-ag/s320/torso1.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b>The Italian Horror blogathon begins this Thursday! I'll have a post up early Thursday morning (around 7ish Pacific Time); you can use the comments of that post to give me the links to your pieces. I'll update the post every morning during the blogathon with the most up-to-date links. The blogathon goes until the Halloween night, so there is still plenty of time to find something to watch and participate. Help spread the word by posting this info and banner on your blog. See ya in a couple of days!</b><br />
<b><br /></b><b>Below is the original announcement with all of the information and banners</b><br />
<b><br /></b><b>....</b><br />
<br />
Ciao a tutti!<br />
<br />
As many of you know, this time of the year marks a time of black-gloved killers, zombies, cannibals, and all kinds of Italian horror goodness here at Hugo Stiglitz Makes Movies. This is always the one thing I most look forward to (blogging-wise) during the year, and I cannot wait to share this space with all of you and your great entries once again. If last year was any indication, we should have a lot of entries for this year's blogathon as many of you have indicated that you're once again interested in participating. If that is the case, then please post the following information along with one of the banners (linking back to this blog) on your blog.<br />
<br />
<b><u>What</u>: </b>4th Annual Italian Horror Blogathon<br />
<b><u>Where</u>: </b>Hugo Stiglitz Makes Movies<br />
<b><u>When</u>: </b>October 24-31<br />
<b><u>Who</u>: </b>Anyone that wants to watch an Italian horror movie and write about it! (Seriously, you don't have to be some horror maven to participate.)<br />
<b><u>Why</u>: </b>Because it's fun! (Check out past years <a href="http://kolson-kevinsblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/italian-horror-blog-thon-links.html" target="_blank">here</a>, <a href="http://kolson-kevinsblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/italian-horror-blog-thon-day-one.html" target="_blank">here</a>, and <a href="http://kolson-kevinsblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/italian-horror-blogathon-links.html" target="_blank">here</a> to get in the spirit)<br />
<b><u>How</u>: </b>Just watch an Italian horror film and write about it; any time during the blogathon send me the link either via email or the comments section, and I'll post it for all to see.<br />
<b><br /></b>
When the time comes for the blogathon, I'll have another post up with some instructions (it helps if you link to the blog in your post so that others can read what people are submitting) as well as having a main entry where you can post your links in the comments section (as in previous years, I'll keep an updated version of this on the top of the page with all of the latest links). I'm always honored by the quantity and quality of the entries that I get, and I have no doubts, thanks to all of you, that this will be another successful year. So please join in the fun! If you have any questions about what to watch and write about, ask in the comments. I'm always happy to offer suggestions.<br />
<br />
Below are the blog banners (I've added more for this year as I've updated some of the banners from earlier blogathons) that I'll hope you'll put on your blogs to help promote this thing. Also, I am posting a link to an Italian horror "primer" of sorts -- a very crude and rudimentary attempt at offering some kind of introduction to the subgenre for the uninitiated -- I did last year that attempts to cover a lot of what I find interesting and special about this particular subgenre (it's definitely not complete considering the fact that I really wish I would have mentioned the importance of music/sound in Italian horror). Until then, Buona visione!<br />
<br />
Link to <b>Italian Horror: A Primer </b>can be found <a href="http://kolson-kevinsblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/italian-horror-primer.html" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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Banners:<br />
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Kevin J. Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17275402809912728035noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8785859730868628316.post-79394132525212921952013-09-22T07:00:00.000-07:002013-10-22T10:27:37.968-07:00Blog Announcement: Announcing the 4th Annual Italian Horror Blogathon<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Ciao a tutti!<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
As many of you know, this time of the year marks a time of black-gloved killers, zombies, cannibals, and all kinds of Italian horror goodness here at Hugo Stiglitz Makes Movies. This is always the one thing I most look forward to (blogging-wise) during the year, and I cannot wait to share this space with all of you and your great entries once again. If last year was any indication, we should have a lot of entries for this year's blogathon as many of you have indicated that you're once again interested in participating. If that is the case, then please post the following information along with one of the banners (linking back to this blog) on your blog.<br />
<br />
<b><u>What</u>: </b>4th Annual Italian Horror Blogathon<br />
<b><u>Where</u>: </b>Hugo Stiglitz Makes Movies<br />
<b><u>When</u>: </b>October 24-31<br />
<b><u>Who</u>: </b>Anyone that wants to watch an Italian horror movie and write about it! (Seriously, you don't have to be some horror maven to participate.)<br />
<b><u>Why</u>: </b>Because it's fun! (Check out past years <a href="http://kolson-kevinsblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/italian-horror-blog-thon-links.html" target="_blank">here</a>, <a href="http://kolson-kevinsblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/italian-horror-blog-thon-day-one.html" target="_blank">here</a>, and <a href="http://kolson-kevinsblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/italian-horror-blogathon-links.html" target="_blank">here</a> to get in the spirit)<br />
<b><u>How</u>: </b>Just watch an Italian horror film and write about it; any time during the blogathon send me the link either via email or the comments section, and I'll post it for all to see.<br />
<b><br />
</b> <br />
When the time comes for the blogathon, I'll have another post up with some instructions (it helps if you link to the blog in your post so that others can read what people are submitting) as well as having a main entry where you can post your links in the comments section (as in previous years, I'll keep an updated version of this on the top of the page with all of the latest links). I'm always honored by the quantity and quality of the entries that I get, and I have no doubts, thanks to all of you, that this will be another successful year. So please join in the fun! If you have any questions about what to watch and write about, ask in the comments. I'm always happy to offer suggestions.<br />
<br />
Below are the blog banners (I've added more for this year as I've updated some of the banners from earlier blogathons) that I'll hope you'll put on your blogs to help promote this thing. Also, I am posting a link to an Italian horror "primer" of sorts -- a very crude and rudimentary attempt at offering some kind of introduction to the subgenre for the uninitiated -- I did last year that attempts to cover a lot of what I find interesting and special about this particular subgenre (it's definitely not complete considering the fact that I really wish I would have mentioned the importance of music/sound in Italian horror). Until then, Buona visione!<br />
<br />
Link to <b>Italian Horror: A Primer </b>can be found <a href="http://kolson-kevinsblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/italian-horror-primer.html" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
<br />
Banners:<br />
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<br />Kevin J. Olsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17275402809912728035noreply@blogger.com20