Hey friends,
Nick and I are just about done editing our 10-minute shorts-- his "Carver" and my "The Yellow Curtain"
Also, some of our newer projects are available on our Youtube page -- http://www.youtube.com/user/Plastikfantastik .
Keep your eyes peeled if you're interested!
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Action Replay
Why Have Action Films Lost Confidence in ACTION?
By A.J. Detisch
I’ve read that nostalgia runs in cycles, usually twenty years, where age groups will bring back into relevance those immortal, fuzzy things from their childhood's cultures.
I'm waiting for that to kick in with my generation of action film directors. I don’t like the direction action movies have been taken because they just don't seem as glorious anymore. As I sit through movies like Doug Liman’s The Bourne Identity or Christopher Nolan’s Batman films, I find myself wondering if I had just watched an action film at all. Don’t get me wrong, Bourne’s is enjoyable, but there was something about the action that made it seem as though Liman was trying to hide the fact that he made an action movie at all.
Those who agree might say it is the way in which the film was cut. The editing rhythms in Bourne try to keep pace with the slick fight choreography- the jabs, kicks, punches. If you have a minute, check out the film’s first fight scene: Let’s analyze:
At this point in the scene I scratched my head and thought “is it the editing rhythms that are throwing it off, or is it the way Liman does coverage in general? I noticed that in this fight scene, Liman implements a highly inductive method of showing close ups of exactly what is necessary to move on to the next shot. We see the knife, Marie screams, they go back at it. Before this, at fifty seconds into the clip, a low angle shows Jason KICK at the gunman, but the audience has NO IDEA whether or not he actually kicks him, we just assume he did because of the sound effect.
To me, this is not action in the action film sense of the word. In reaction, I always feel very nostalgic for the way the action directors of my childhood did action coverage. What would James Cameron have done with this scene, or John McTierrnan? Neither have been very prolific in the 2000’s and it is going to be fascinating to see how Cameron’s Avatar is going to handle its action sequences in the post-Bourne era. I regard Terminator 2 and True Lies to be very satisfying action films because you see the action play out; every blow dealt is seen.
Take this classic scene from True Lies (“the toilet shootout”). The scene is fluid -- the cameras are fluid, probably on a crane or GOOD steadicam, confidently floating around the action. The cuts are quick, but the action is never “avoided.” When I say avoided, I mean Cameron keep his cuts in the same general spatial area (he’s not cutting back and forth from wide angle to close up) to keep it feeling like a long take, even though it’s far from it.
I would argue this allows the viewer to enjoy the action more because the coverage keeps things connected. At the 38 second marker, Arnie kicks the handgun and the viewer can watch it glide down the wet floor. Then it cuts to a minimally wider angle to see the fight continue. I would assume someone like Liman or Paul Greengrass would do this inductively, with a close up of the gun that gets kicked away, and then instantly back into a wider angle of the fighting, breaking the spatial continuity of the action completely.
It feels like an “economy of action” is a tool being wielded by modern action directors, most probably to keep their stories moving. This attitude, however, labels long action sequences (which are nuanced and take their time) as excess. I feel that is what these scenes are subconsciously saying.
Perfect example: Christopher Nolan’s Batman films. The first film clocks in at two hours and fifteen minutes, the second over two and a half hours. The scripts are bursting at the seams with plot and action. How did Nolan handle this? He TRIMMED DOWN THE ACTION SEQUENCES.
Let’s compare the Batman’s infiltration of the Ritz from Batman Forever to the Boss Maroni takedown scene from The Dark Knight. In Forever Batman jumps through the glass roof into a mini pool area, then jumps from it again to take down a slew of henchmen. The scene has a sprawling effect, moving from the pool to the floor, ending up in an underground trap Two Face set up.
In The Dark Knight, a significantly longer movie, the Maroni takedown is quick. Maroni (Eric Roberts) notices him, Batman punches a few guards, and then interrogates him. This was a perfect set-up for an action scene-- balconies, strobe lights, henchmen-- and even though I enjoyed the scene, I missed that “sprawling” effect.
The whole Batman film franchise has successfully transcended the superhero genre and is seen by most critics as a serious crime-drama. The cost of this, unfortunately, meant cutting any action that wasn’t relevant to the plot. The two and a half hours moved quickly, but I sure did miss those henchmen takedowns.
By A.J. Detisch
I’ve read that nostalgia runs in cycles, usually twenty years, where age groups will bring back into relevance those immortal, fuzzy things from their childhood's cultures.
I'm waiting for that to kick in with my generation of action film directors. I don’t like the direction action movies have been taken because they just don't seem as glorious anymore. As I sit through movies like Doug Liman’s The Bourne Identity or Christopher Nolan’s Batman films, I find myself wondering if I had just watched an action film at all. Don’t get me wrong, Bourne’s is enjoyable, but there was something about the action that made it seem as though Liman was trying to hide the fact that he made an action movie at all.
Those who agree might say it is the way in which the film was cut. The editing rhythms in Bourne try to keep pace with the slick fight choreography- the jabs, kicks, punches. If you have a minute, check out the film’s first fight scene: Let’s analyze:
- The scene starts out with shaky, uncertain handheld camera. Jason and Marie exchange glances and a man DIVES through the window – it’s a gunman.
- Jason KICKS the gunman’s feet from under him and thrusts his arm up to offset the bullets flying out of his gun.
- They wrestle around a little bit, they cut back generously to Marie who’s scared, and Jason wrestles the gun out of his hand. The shot lingers on the gun and then-
- The fight breaks out.
- Cuts are sporatic (milliseconds long), the two fight. The gunman flicks out a concealed knife.
At this point in the scene I scratched my head and thought “is it the editing rhythms that are throwing it off, or is it the way Liman does coverage in general? I noticed that in this fight scene, Liman implements a highly inductive method of showing close ups of exactly what is necessary to move on to the next shot. We see the knife, Marie screams, they go back at it. Before this, at fifty seconds into the clip, a low angle shows Jason KICK at the gunman, but the audience has NO IDEA whether or not he actually kicks him, we just assume he did because of the sound effect.
To me, this is not action in the action film sense of the word. In reaction, I always feel very nostalgic for the way the action directors of my childhood did action coverage. What would James Cameron have done with this scene, or John McTierrnan? Neither have been very prolific in the 2000’s and it is going to be fascinating to see how Cameron’s Avatar is going to handle its action sequences in the post-Bourne era. I regard Terminator 2 and True Lies to be very satisfying action films because you see the action play out; every blow dealt is seen.
Take this classic scene from True Lies (“the toilet shootout”). The scene is fluid -- the cameras are fluid, probably on a crane or GOOD steadicam, confidently floating around the action. The cuts are quick, but the action is never “avoided.” When I say avoided, I mean Cameron keep his cuts in the same general spatial area (he’s not cutting back and forth from wide angle to close up) to keep it feeling like a long take, even though it’s far from it.
I would argue this allows the viewer to enjoy the action more because the coverage keeps things connected. At the 38 second marker, Arnie kicks the handgun and the viewer can watch it glide down the wet floor. Then it cuts to a minimally wider angle to see the fight continue. I would assume someone like Liman or Paul Greengrass would do this inductively, with a close up of the gun that gets kicked away, and then instantly back into a wider angle of the fighting, breaking the spatial continuity of the action completely.
It feels like an “economy of action” is a tool being wielded by modern action directors, most probably to keep their stories moving. This attitude, however, labels long action sequences (which are nuanced and take their time) as excess. I feel that is what these scenes are subconsciously saying.
Perfect example: Christopher Nolan’s Batman films. The first film clocks in at two hours and fifteen minutes, the second over two and a half hours. The scripts are bursting at the seams with plot and action. How did Nolan handle this? He TRIMMED DOWN THE ACTION SEQUENCES.
Let’s compare the Batman’s infiltration of the Ritz from Batman Forever to the Boss Maroni takedown scene from The Dark Knight. In Forever Batman jumps through the glass roof into a mini pool area, then jumps from it again to take down a slew of henchmen. The scene has a sprawling effect, moving from the pool to the floor, ending up in an underground trap Two Face set up.
In The Dark Knight, a significantly longer movie, the Maroni takedown is quick. Maroni (Eric Roberts) notices him, Batman punches a few guards, and then interrogates him. This was a perfect set-up for an action scene-- balconies, strobe lights, henchmen-- and even though I enjoyed the scene, I missed that “sprawling” effect.
The whole Batman film franchise has successfully transcended the superhero genre and is seen by most critics as a serious crime-drama. The cost of this, unfortunately, meant cutting any action that wasn’t relevant to the plot. The two and a half hours moved quickly, but I sure did miss those henchmen takedowns.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Il Deserto Rosso (1964)
Michelangelo Antonioni's "alienation Trilogy" of "L'Avventura," "La Notte" and "L'Eclisse" didn't seem to exhaust his artistic flair for questioning humanity's relationship to its increasingly mechanized world. He followed the trilogy with "Il Deserto Rosso" ("Red Desert") a work that serves as both a companion piece to it and a bridge connecting it to his later, more detailed and less abstract English-language films. With the introduction of color to his advantage, he reworks the same themes of the "alienation trilogy" but enhances them with a stylized color palette of greys, reds, greens and browns. It makes for a pristine and unforgettable visual experience that takes Antonioni's body of work into a fascinating new direction.
The opening credit sequence establishes two of the most prevalent and effective motifs explored in "Il Deserto Rosso": the manipulation of focus and sound. First is a single shot of a treeline, which is set against a gray sky, completely out of focus. The shot pans over to a power plant, clouded in smoke, then cuts to an assemblage of ugly exterior shots to the point where one hopes the shots stay out of focus. Throughout the sequence Antonioni uses a droning soundscape of industrial noises which are blended with a haunting female voice, strangely provoking either lament or hope.
A few loud bursts of fire shooting from a rig announce the story's beginning. The lovely Monica Vitti is once again Antionioni's socially disconnected protagonist, this time Giuliana, who is introduced guiding her young son amongst the backdrop of a worker's strike at the plant. Her behavior instantly seems odd as she approaches a man and asks to buy his sandwich, which he is in the process of eating. She seems desperate and confused, but her well-groomed beauty and opulent, green pea coat show her obvious wealth.
One learns through dialogue that she is a psychologically troubled woman whose everyday consciousness has become seriously effected by a traumatic car accident. Despite being treated in a psychiatric hospital, she is far from recovered - seen through her constantly jittery and disoriented behavior. She eventually meets with her husband Ugo, who has either a striking lack of sympathy for his wife's condition or a complete ignorance of the existential angst that it has led her to.
Afraid to be alone, she confides in his partner Corrado (Richard Harris) instead. He's a warmer man, but still very much a product of his endlessly busy environment. As she joins him on a trip to recruit workers for a project overseas, she sees that he is trapped in a meaningless cycle of work. This cycle is externalized in a conversation Corrado has with one of the potential workers' wives, who asserts that he will have trouble recruiting her husband because the separation between them would be too troubling. Such a separation seems to be at the core of each of the characters' wounds, and the relationship Giuliana forms with Corrado is as cyclical as anything else within the film's world.
The film breaks free of its stylistic and thematic limbo in only one scene, when Giuliana tells her son a story to comfort him when he is apparently suffering from an apparent neurological problem. The story is about a young girl on a deserted beach who seeks isolation, until she is disturbed by ships approaching the shore in the distance. Antonioni recreates the tale, allowing his color palette to break down, contrasting Giuliana's reality with a varying amount of shimmering color. The scene is a counterpoint to the rest of the film, ironically using the device of storytelling to "escape" the reality created on screen.
"Red Desert" is an uncomfortable movie to say the least. It subjects the viewer to such dreadful, existential coldness which is more unrelenting than any of Antonioni's previous works. There is a constant onslaught of eerie, disquieting sound design creeping throughout the scenes slowly destroying objectivity. The surreal ugliness of the primary color pallete is equally effective in creating this atmosphere. Antonioni uses these objective elements to completely convey Giuliana's psychological torment and the effect is undeniably haunting.
The opening credit sequence establishes two of the most prevalent and effective motifs explored in "Il Deserto Rosso": the manipulation of focus and sound. First is a single shot of a treeline, which is set against a gray sky, completely out of focus. The shot pans over to a power plant, clouded in smoke, then cuts to an assemblage of ugly exterior shots to the point where one hopes the shots stay out of focus. Throughout the sequence Antonioni uses a droning soundscape of industrial noises which are blended with a haunting female voice, strangely provoking either lament or hope.
A few loud bursts of fire shooting from a rig announce the story's beginning. The lovely Monica Vitti is once again Antionioni's socially disconnected protagonist, this time Giuliana, who is introduced guiding her young son amongst the backdrop of a worker's strike at the plant. Her behavior instantly seems odd as she approaches a man and asks to buy his sandwich, which he is in the process of eating. She seems desperate and confused, but her well-groomed beauty and opulent, green pea coat show her obvious wealth.
One learns through dialogue that she is a psychologically troubled woman whose everyday consciousness has become seriously effected by a traumatic car accident. Despite being treated in a psychiatric hospital, she is far from recovered - seen through her constantly jittery and disoriented behavior. She eventually meets with her husband Ugo, who has either a striking lack of sympathy for his wife's condition or a complete ignorance of the existential angst that it has led her to.
Afraid to be alone, she confides in his partner Corrado (Richard Harris) instead. He's a warmer man, but still very much a product of his endlessly busy environment. As she joins him on a trip to recruit workers for a project overseas, she sees that he is trapped in a meaningless cycle of work. This cycle is externalized in a conversation Corrado has with one of the potential workers' wives, who asserts that he will have trouble recruiting her husband because the separation between them would be too troubling. Such a separation seems to be at the core of each of the characters' wounds, and the relationship Giuliana forms with Corrado is as cyclical as anything else within the film's world.
The film breaks free of its stylistic and thematic limbo in only one scene, when Giuliana tells her son a story to comfort him when he is apparently suffering from an apparent neurological problem. The story is about a young girl on a deserted beach who seeks isolation, until she is disturbed by ships approaching the shore in the distance. Antonioni recreates the tale, allowing his color palette to break down, contrasting Giuliana's reality with a varying amount of shimmering color. The scene is a counterpoint to the rest of the film, ironically using the device of storytelling to "escape" the reality created on screen.
"Red Desert" is an uncomfortable movie to say the least. It subjects the viewer to such dreadful, existential coldness which is more unrelenting than any of Antonioni's previous works. There is a constant onslaught of eerie, disquieting sound design creeping throughout the scenes slowly destroying objectivity. The surreal ugliness of the primary color pallete is equally effective in creating this atmosphere. Antonioni uses these objective elements to completely convey Giuliana's psychological torment and the effect is undeniably haunting.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Mister Foe
Mister Foe/ Hallam Foe (2007)
Review by AJ Detisch
Directed by David Mackenzie
Written by David Mackenzie and Ed Whitmore, based on a novel by Peter Jinks
Cinematography by Giles Nuttgens
David Mackenzie’s follow-up to the brilliant Young Adam wants to be a feel-good underdog story of a lonely voyeur who is trying to confront some psycho-sexual issues with his dead mother. It wants to be gritty, realistic, and mysterious. At the same time, it wants to be funny and nonjudgmental of its disturbed lead as he establishes himself as an adult.
To meet this end, the film tries hard to be youthful. Its poster has hand-drawn letters looking like that of Juno. Its original soundtrack is comprised of fast-paced indie rock which tries to convince the audience that Hallam is OK; just a little misguided. But strangely the film is anything but youthful.
Like Young Adam this film’s central mystery concerns a drowned woman- in this case Hallam’s mother. Young Adam keeps its mystery quiet, contemplative, and paced well enough to hit you with the truths as they come. Hallam Foe does the opposite. It foregrounds its character’s psychosis so clearly and so early that he never really does anything outside his expected parameters. The opening scene is Hallam in his treehouse watching his sister fooling around with her boyfriend. Hallam swiftly interrupts, asserting his presence in the household. Here we see everything that Hallam will do for the rest of the movie.
The mystery surrounding his mother’s drowning is whether it was suicide or murder by his father’s girlfriend. The audience can never really trust Hallam because, besides being creepy, we think his obsession has led him close to insanity. This hindered the mystery element for me because Hallam is too sporadic to be relatable. Right when he's found some clues that would support his claim he runs away from home, at first it appearing to be looking for the police. Then he gets extremely sidetracked by a girl who resembles his mother, which frustratingly leads the story away from the mystery element.
While Jamie Bell does bring out some very endearing traits in his lost character, he was limited by the obviousness of his psychological needs. This movie is in no way mysterious, yet it is not blunt either. It tries to be realistic in dealing with such issues, but it adds a very self-conscious spunk which registers itself as quite the opposite. It goes for a soundtrack-heavy, Trainspotting attitude to help the audience root for a protagonist who scales buildings, picks locks, and camps out for the sake of voyeurism. These urban peeping tom adventures Hallam engages in are way too difficult for an inward-drawn country boy to engage in and they are not sexy, giddy, or pleasant. They are more neutral than anything; not propelling the character or story. Mackenzie makes you understand Hallam, yet he fails to build common ground.
He expects you to enjoy Hallam’s trials and tribulations without much ideological justification. The film hinges on its audience’s perspective on voyeurism/the kind of person who engages in it. Obviously, most people would be disgusted by it. And Hallam Foe realizes that, but it does not let us see Hallam weigh the morality of his decisions. He goes from person to person, trying to fill his deep void. There is a particularly disturbing line from Hallam’s love interest Kate where she drunkenly says “I love creepy boys,” perhaps asking the audience to do the same. The line tries to foreshadow her understanding of him (her motivation remains vague throughout) and tries to further us from judging him. It’s not hard to like Hallam, but it is very hard to participate in his adventure- if it is even an adventure at all. All the while, the film tries to use its flamboyant soundtrack to mask its indecisive mood.
Great performances are weighed down by a film with a weak third act, muddy development, and needlessly ambiguous direction from Mackenzie. Recently this film was re-named for a US release, and for what reason? Not only is it more unappealing, but the hard truth is that the Hallam character never earns the title 'mister.'
Review by AJ Detisch
Directed by David Mackenzie
Written by David Mackenzie and Ed Whitmore, based on a novel by Peter Jinks
Cinematography by Giles Nuttgens
David Mackenzie’s follow-up to the brilliant Young Adam wants to be a feel-good underdog story of a lonely voyeur who is trying to confront some psycho-sexual issues with his dead mother. It wants to be gritty, realistic, and mysterious. At the same time, it wants to be funny and nonjudgmental of its disturbed lead as he establishes himself as an adult.
To meet this end, the film tries hard to be youthful. Its poster has hand-drawn letters looking like that of Juno. Its original soundtrack is comprised of fast-paced indie rock which tries to convince the audience that Hallam is OK; just a little misguided. But strangely the film is anything but youthful.
Like Young Adam this film’s central mystery concerns a drowned woman- in this case Hallam’s mother. Young Adam keeps its mystery quiet, contemplative, and paced well enough to hit you with the truths as they come. Hallam Foe does the opposite. It foregrounds its character’s psychosis so clearly and so early that he never really does anything outside his expected parameters. The opening scene is Hallam in his treehouse watching his sister fooling around with her boyfriend. Hallam swiftly interrupts, asserting his presence in the household. Here we see everything that Hallam will do for the rest of the movie.
The mystery surrounding his mother’s drowning is whether it was suicide or murder by his father’s girlfriend. The audience can never really trust Hallam because, besides being creepy, we think his obsession has led him close to insanity. This hindered the mystery element for me because Hallam is too sporadic to be relatable. Right when he's found some clues that would support his claim he runs away from home, at first it appearing to be looking for the police. Then he gets extremely sidetracked by a girl who resembles his mother, which frustratingly leads the story away from the mystery element.
While Jamie Bell does bring out some very endearing traits in his lost character, he was limited by the obviousness of his psychological needs. This movie is in no way mysterious, yet it is not blunt either. It tries to be realistic in dealing with such issues, but it adds a very self-conscious spunk which registers itself as quite the opposite. It goes for a soundtrack-heavy, Trainspotting attitude to help the audience root for a protagonist who scales buildings, picks locks, and camps out for the sake of voyeurism. These urban peeping tom adventures Hallam engages in are way too difficult for an inward-drawn country boy to engage in and they are not sexy, giddy, or pleasant. They are more neutral than anything; not propelling the character or story. Mackenzie makes you understand Hallam, yet he fails to build common ground.
He expects you to enjoy Hallam’s trials and tribulations without much ideological justification. The film hinges on its audience’s perspective on voyeurism/the kind of person who engages in it. Obviously, most people would be disgusted by it. And Hallam Foe realizes that, but it does not let us see Hallam weigh the morality of his decisions. He goes from person to person, trying to fill his deep void. There is a particularly disturbing line from Hallam’s love interest Kate where she drunkenly says “I love creepy boys,” perhaps asking the audience to do the same. The line tries to foreshadow her understanding of him (her motivation remains vague throughout) and tries to further us from judging him. It’s not hard to like Hallam, but it is very hard to participate in his adventure- if it is even an adventure at all. All the while, the film tries to use its flamboyant soundtrack to mask its indecisive mood.
Great performances are weighed down by a film with a weak third act, muddy development, and needlessly ambiguous direction from Mackenzie. Recently this film was re-named for a US release, and for what reason? Not only is it more unappealing, but the hard truth is that the Hallam character never earns the title 'mister.'
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Doomsday (2008)
One thing that makes "Doomsday" an interesting entry into the neo-post-apocalyptic genre is its blatant recognition of the "Mad Max" era the movement owes itself to. Unlike the gritty realism of the "28 Days Later" movies and the "Private Ryan"-indebted "Children of Men," "Doomsday" takes the ultra-seriousness of its own kind and reaches back to the Eighties to create a sense of comedic contrast. Not that the film is exhilarating or side-splittingly funny, but it finds a new voice for familiar material and manages to be cheaply amusing from beginning to end.
The film starts with a Malcom McDowell voice over that tells us of a wicked virus that has isolated Glasgow and other parts of Scotland. A large wall is built around the area to quarantine the virus and annhialate the infected people. In London, order is barely maintained from a series of Orwellian lies being fed to the media. Here, we meet sexy English police officer Catherine Sinclair (Rhona Mitra) and her government-affiliated ally Bill (Bob Hoskins). Bill is told about a community of survivors beyond the wall including a power-hungry scientist Kane (McDowell) who might hold the cure. Little do they know of a band of rebels, who are spiky-haired, cannibalistic savages with a taste for S&M chic. Sinclair is sent with a few fortune soldiers on a suicide mission to find the cure and somehow make it back to the wall alive.
The video game-like plot itself is really nothing special. The zombie lore of microvirus holocausts proved itself tired beyond belief in "28 Weeks Later," and post-apocalyptic imagery in general is starting to become banal. However, Neil Marshall seemed to keep himself inspired throughout the production - even as he pretty much recreated scenes and tones from other movies and hoped to bind the film with his own flourishes of originality. He is occasionally successful of this hope, giving the movie moments of shocking bravado when you think it's taking a turn for generic. My favorite scene is a communal blood feast seemingly inspired by the flesh fare in "A.I.," where eighties New Wave music is played over a spectacle of brutality. The scene serves as the film's dynamic centerpiece, allowing the retrogressive style to completely unfold and the movie takes self-indulgent pleasure in its grab bag of influences. The grace of Neil Marshall in that scene, and in the movie as a whole, is that he allows the audience to have as much fun in watching as he obviously did making it.
In the third act, Kane is finally revealed in a tribute to the great revelation of Colonel Kurtz in "Apocalypse Now." His megalomania is established in a familiar monlogue, and the scene carries on with a "Gladiator"-like fight sequence which throws in the sword and sandle epic to the many hats the film tries on. It all feels a bit underwhelming at this point, and Malcom McDowell's latter years status as a B-movie icon seems all the more appropriate. The conclusion shifts back to "Mad Max" mode with an old school car chase and by the end, it definitely feels like a tad too much. Then again, that is precisely the film's unique charm is its celebration of the sci-fi/fantasy days of old that have been all but forgotten in this ultra-serious age. A lot of critics complained that "Doomsday" was laughable in comparison to Marshall's previous breakthrough hit "The Descent." Yes, of course it is. And that's why it's more fun.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Modern Vampires (1998)
Probably seen by most on the after-dark Cinemax circuit of the late 90's, (most likely wedged between an "Emmanuelle in Space" episode and something starring Gary Daniels) the 1998 direct-to-video flick "Modern Vampires" surely amassed some sort of cult following. Directed by Danny Elfman's brother Richard, ("Forbidden Zone") and honing an eclectic cast featuring Casper Van Dien, Craig Ferguson, Kim Cattrall, and the legendary Rod Steiger, this is definitely a unique film in its blend of wild comedy, pop culture, horror and spoof.
Talented screenwriter Matthew Bright ("Freeway," "Gun Crazy") continues his themes of troubled urban youth and the moral perversion of mainstream America with a story about a band of vampires living in L.A., who are carefully trying to protect the secrecy and dignity of their breed. They hunt down reckless prostitute Nico, (Natasha Gregson-Wagner) who has been using her profession to wantonly lure nightly blood feasts, and is consequently calling dangerous attention to the vampire community. The gang is led by the youthfully handsome Dallas, (Van Dien) who falls for Nico and tries to protect her from his contemporaries.
Things get interesting when Rod Steiger's Dr. Van Hellsing comes to town to find Count Dracula among the city's growing vamp population. The best scenes of the movie rise from a sub-plot where Hellsing hires South-Central Crips to help him with the vampire slaying. The comedic contrast between the stubborn, culture-clashed Steiger and the joint-sucking, gangsta-rap blasting thugs is a stroke of genius, and Elfman uses enough restraint to keep the running gag amusing throughout the entire movie.
In similar ways, Richard Elfman allows the campiness of his own direction, and the natural disparity of the cast, to keep each scene entertaining with an appropriately silly tone. Think of the carefully balanced spoofery of "Fright Night," the teenage wit of "Scream," and the schlock of 90's B-movies like "Jack Frost" and you have "Modern Vampires," a send-up of vampire lore that doesn't take a frame seriously. The fun of this movie is that it feels completely aware of its own badness, and seems to string many of its laughs around the kitschy acting and production values.
However, one of the problems Elfman has with balancing spoof and horror is that he mistakenly allows a certain amount of laziness to be taken towards the material. To fully make fun of something, a director needs to have complete control over the things s/he is spoofing. "Modern Vampires" has very little establishment of its own mythological rules, its action sequences are dull, the special effects are half-baked, and the flashy, frequently used editing trick of inserting quick B-roll shots for dramatic effect is annoying. It's too easy to make a slapdash spoof with the excuse that it's "supposed to be bad." Great send-ups know how to poke fun at the subject matter, but give you what you want out of the genre anyway - like what Spielberg did with adventure serials in"Raiders" or what Tarantino did with kung fu movies in "Kill Bill," etc. This film is just a contentedly bad one, with a few laughs scattered around the camp.
Talented screenwriter Matthew Bright ("Freeway," "Gun Crazy") continues his themes of troubled urban youth and the moral perversion of mainstream America with a story about a band of vampires living in L.A., who are carefully trying to protect the secrecy and dignity of their breed. They hunt down reckless prostitute Nico, (Natasha Gregson-Wagner) who has been using her profession to wantonly lure nightly blood feasts, and is consequently calling dangerous attention to the vampire community. The gang is led by the youthfully handsome Dallas, (Van Dien) who falls for Nico and tries to protect her from his contemporaries.
Things get interesting when Rod Steiger's Dr. Van Hellsing comes to town to find Count Dracula among the city's growing vamp population. The best scenes of the movie rise from a sub-plot where Hellsing hires South-Central Crips to help him with the vampire slaying. The comedic contrast between the stubborn, culture-clashed Steiger and the joint-sucking, gangsta-rap blasting thugs is a stroke of genius, and Elfman uses enough restraint to keep the running gag amusing throughout the entire movie.
In similar ways, Richard Elfman allows the campiness of his own direction, and the natural disparity of the cast, to keep each scene entertaining with an appropriately silly tone. Think of the carefully balanced spoofery of "Fright Night," the teenage wit of "Scream," and the schlock of 90's B-movies like "Jack Frost" and you have "Modern Vampires," a send-up of vampire lore that doesn't take a frame seriously. The fun of this movie is that it feels completely aware of its own badness, and seems to string many of its laughs around the kitschy acting and production values.
However, one of the problems Elfman has with balancing spoof and horror is that he mistakenly allows a certain amount of laziness to be taken towards the material. To fully make fun of something, a director needs to have complete control over the things s/he is spoofing. "Modern Vampires" has very little establishment of its own mythological rules, its action sequences are dull, the special effects are half-baked, and the flashy, frequently used editing trick of inserting quick B-roll shots for dramatic effect is annoying. It's too easy to make a slapdash spoof with the excuse that it's "supposed to be bad." Great send-ups know how to poke fun at the subject matter, but give you what you want out of the genre anyway - like what Spielberg did with adventure serials in"Raiders" or what Tarantino did with kung fu movies in "Kill Bill," etc. This film is just a contentedly bad one, with a few laughs scattered around the camp.
The problems don't end there, either. There seem to be whole expositional scenes missing, the cinematography is bland and the sound design consists of obnoxiously artificial stock effects. There is also some needless, jarringly dramatic material, like when Nico returns to the trailer she grew up in to confront her abusive father. While going along nicely with Bright's body of work, the heaviness is simply unwarranted. The movie is oddly unbalanced, and towards the middle it starts to feel like Elfman didn't have a clue about where to take it.
If one can accept "Modern Vampires," on its own terms, there is still plenty to enjoy. The cast is vibrant and clearly having a good time and there are some genuinely funny moments. The under-appreciated Natasha Gregson-Wagner is a great fit, even making lines like "You're a card that needs to be dealt with" seem purposefully funny. "Modern Vampires" is pure, straight-forward cheap thrills that still deserves a watch - even if you're not just watching it to kill time between Cinemax After Dark flicks.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Chappaqua (Conrad Rooks, 1966)
Who is Conrad Rooks? His only other film credit, besides "Chappaqua," is an early 70's adapatation of "Siddhartha," which was probably more revered for its cinematography by Ingmar Bergman collaborator Sven Nykvist than anything else. The question is asked in "Chappaqua," Rooks' autobiographical depiction of the wonderland of narcotics, which attempts to assess the identity of a man who has relied on consciousness-altering substances since his early teens, as well as the identity of a culture which surrounded his addiction. An informative card in the opening credits tells the audience all of the background information, and it is assumed that Rooks is just a former addict with a story to tell.
As "Chappaqua" gets going, one sees that it is not really a story at all, but a pastiche of beautiful and haunting images, themes, and visual ideas. Conrad Rooks apparently stars as himself, veiled as a character named Russell Harwick, and his tale begins in New York city - where debauchery has made a monster out of him. He lies on the floor of a nightclub munching crushed fragments of LSD and avoiding people's dancing feet. Infused around this sequence are various vibrant shots of urban glitter, ferociously edited together using blended opacities and Godardian fast cuts. The film follows Harwick into a rehabilitation clinic, where he is promised a "sleeping cure" for his drug addictions. What follows is a series of unconnected sequences, featuring visions of Native-American, Indian and American cultures.
The clinic immediately seems fashioned after the one in William S. Burroughs' "Junkie," and when Burroghs himself appears as Harwick's doctor it feels all the more appropriate. There is another appearance by Allen Ginsberg, and, considering the bodies of work of the two authors, the story is actually enrichened by their presences throughout the movie. "Chappaqua" is deeply inspired by the stylish, deeply personal works of the beatnik era, and its surreal, Dadaist realism takes on an interesting life of its own, especially considering the surrounding hippie movement of the time.
The film's many elusive, hallucinatory sequences are undoubtedly disjointed, but they quickly perculate into a trippy meditation on drugs and their corresponding cultures. Some of these scenes show drugs as cerominal or transcendental agents, having a spiritual purity in certain rituals. Others are nightmarish, like the unforgettable ode to American horror movies, where Harwick walks around the streets of New York City in a Nosferatu-like cloak. The film's title comes from Rooks' hometown, which is an American-Indian word meaning sacred burial ground. One of the film's prominent themes is purity in itself, whether as being devoid of controlling substances like drugs or of widespread cultural confusion. Rooks seeing 1965 New York City as a place of excess was a rare perspective for its time, but it now feels all the more astute. He explores the cultural roots of drug use to comment on the cultures in themselves, and one of the most important messages of the film is found in its pursuit for clarity of self. Irony is shown in how Native Americans and Indians once used drugs like peyote and marijuana as a means of spiritual identification, contrasted with its use as an instrument of excess in 1960's America.
Rooks seemed to channel the French New Wave in his visual and editing aesthetics, and it's not hard to connect directors like Godard and Truffaut with the visual motifs presented in the film. Rooks uses the liberating new teqhniques of the Nouvelle Vague to convey an unhinged vision of altered consciousness, and in certain ways pushes them forward. The beautiful cinematography by Robert Franks alternates between crisp B&W, washed-out B&W and grainy color in a style that may have never been used before in a feature film, and certainly wasn't used much until Oliver Stone's "JFK". Rooks' experimentation also owes some of its inspiration to a fellow American, Dr. Kenneth Anger. The cross-dissolves and occult-like imagery seem to come straight from "Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome," and the teenage motorcycle iconography of Harwick seems to be taken directly from "Scorpio Rising."
While making these connections, it is important not to thoughtlessly rank Rooks with his contemporaries. This being his first film, it is far from a realized vision. Its sequences, while impressive, are sloppily connected with way too wide of an array of themes. The frequent experimentation undermines the film's thematic strength, and the sequences only seem to add up to hopeless ambiguity by the conclusion. The locations of France, India and the the U.K. (even Stonehenge where a wizard in a white cloak waves a wand on top of the world wonder) are impressive for an independently-financed film in any era, but seem like pointless frivolousness in relation to the truly important elements of the film. Nevertheless, the arresting images and counter-cultural observations should make the movie relevant in historical and social contexts and, at very least, make it a terrific watch. Where else are you going to see a dancing wizard on top of the real Stonehenge?
**Thanks Chase for bringing this home!
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