Hostel (Eli Roth, 2005)

From Forum With No Name:

Hostel--eh. If you look at it from a shocker or gross-out level, it isn't as lovingly detailed or beautifully imagined as, say, an Argento or a Fulci. If you look at it from a storytelling level, big mistake turning these American kids into such hopeless dorks--you basically chortle when they're finally captured and tortured (after a fairly boring first hour), and there's no suspense or tension in that.

More, if that's basically a private club catering to those into torture and sadism, it's not a very convincing or very well-run one. Capturing an American tourist is a chancy proposition I imagine; I can't believe they can just grab one after another without either word leaking out or someone uncovering them. Roth's mistake is not so much in the idea of going after Americans as it is in not carefully considering the consequences--that this should be a strictly mobile operation (so it's harder to detect or track down a moving target), that the prices should be much higher, that the torture of an American should be an arena event, not the private locked-door pleasure of some amateur moron with a chainsaw (how unimaginative). A little role-playing would be appreciated too.

If you look at it from a political level--well, that's where the real repugnance lies: the film panders to American xenophobia, to American fears that the world outside hates them, and wants to do them grevious bodily harm (as if 'bodily' was the worst kind of harm). When the American escapes, it's by learning how to do it the way these decadent Europeans do--to do it to them first, and to do it to them harder; we're treated to all those scenes of torture so when retribution comes, the catharthic sense of vengeance is sweeter.

Which is fine in theory--a sort of horrorshow retelling of Bush's response to 9/11--but the film seems to be suggesting that this is a good thing, that the survivor has retained his humanity despite all that's happened to him, indulging only in one fairly quick vengeance killing in a train station men's room for our satisfaction. Bullshit. I like the original ending better with its darker implications, suggesting that the American has become what it fears the most.

Chris J: I honestly don't believe the film deserves that level of critical analysis in terms of Bush's 911 etc. There's nothing in the quality of the script or the movie to suggest such a thing. It's lousy on several levels but has an interesting idea that could have been developed into something quite interesting (as you point out in pretending there is something in the movie that isn't actually there or earned anyway).

We have problems right away when we're shown the dorks... the first guy to get nabbed is the older European character... not one of the two Americans. Their entire focus is on getting laid.. period.. and it's done like a very bad erotic film from the late 60s or 70s... We are supposed to consider them idiots and deserving of torture and death because the Boys just wanna have fun. The script treats women horribly of course... but the women wind up tricking the boys and are in on getting them captured and tortured... which makes them cruel accomplices and full blown blood thirsty conniving bitches... isn't that lovely....

SPOILER

when a couple of them get run over... I like how the guy is on the run and takes the time to go back and run over one of them again to make sure they are squashed...

I had heard this movie was a decent gross out kind of gore film.. better than most that came out in the last few years.. and that's utter bullshit... but there's people out there defending this attrocious film.

Nah, the 9/11 interpretation is only my lame attempt to cut them some slack, to try (for a moment anyway) to take them seriously, on what I thought were their own terms; but since the political angle doesn't fly (and I agree with you that it doesn't), the movie's every bit as bad as you say, if not worse.

Red Stick Lady: I tend to stay away from the slasher flicks. I don't find bloody and gross to be scary, just...gross.

Hostel's a bore. Drilled this, slashed that, yawn.

A Prairie Home Companion (Robert Altman, 2006)

A Prairie Home Companion (Robert Altman, 2006)

Excerpt:

Robert Altman's "A Prairie Home Companion" (2006) is flat-out wonderful, and he could do worse than end his career on this particular grace note.

It's difficult to talk about it; David Ehrenstein pretty much sums up what I have to say in his comments on "A_Film_By:"

http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/a_film_by/message/36989

But let me try add a little to what he says.

In effect, Ehrenstein believes the film is all about death. The premise goes like this: it's the last show of Garrison Keillor's long-running program (someone called The Axeman (Tommy Lee Jones) is coming to close the place down); people are constantly talking about people who they haven't seen for years, or have died; someone actually dies (backstage, quietly, in the basement, while waiting to have sex); and Virginia Madsen as The Angel of Death In the Form of a Femme Fatale wanders about wearing a white trench coat through the corridors of the old Fitzgerald Theater, where the show is performed.

Which ties in with Altman's unnerving fascination with death--at this point of his life, what with a heart transplant, and Paul Thomas Anderson waiting in the wings to take charge just in case, Altman can't not have the subject on his mind. And his feelings I think infuse the film with a sense of dread, of nostalgia, of sadness.

Grave of the Firefly DVD (Isao Takahata, 1988)

(Plot discussed in close detail)

Looked at the DVD of Grave of the Fireflies. Decent enough dub (as if I was paying it much attention); no extras. Annoying '1/2' symbol hanging about on the upper right hand corner that I have no idea how to get rid of.

On umpteenth viewing, noticed how use of music was very spare--most of the film, and most of the moments that you'd consider the dramatic highpoints go on unemphasized, even casually tossed off (I'm thinking of the mother's death, shown only by a quick shot of maggots and the body being carried off) and Setsuko's (just a flat statement: "she never woke up again.").

Of course, Setsuko's gets the full treatment after the fact--flashbacks to her playing during their time in the shelter, and the final incineration--but it's difficult to imagine how else to treat this sort of thing, and when you think about it, there's a psychological basis for dwelling on her passing; Seita's remembering her when she was alive.

Outrageously repulsive moment: when the janitors find Seita's body, one of them picks up the fruit drop tin, opens it, tastes what's inside. Later we find out what the contents were.

It's possible to read Grave as a cautionary tale about the dangers of living outside of traditional society, of leading a nonconformist lifestyle; in a way the aunt represents the voice of wartime Japan, quietly supportive of the war effort, yet callous in the way she expresses that support--in the way she expresses sensible advice. You're against her the same time you know she's right; you're with the kids, the same time you know they're being very foolish. It's not so simple and straightforward a film as you'd think (tho I'm sure the dynamics of all this were found in the novel). They go off on their own, live (for a while anyway) a romantically free life, and because a war's going on, no one notices, or cares.

When things start to go bad, and even money can't buy food--this part is the most difficult for me to watch--Seita stubbornly sticks to their plan. Are we still with them? We are, emotionally, but now different feelings intrude--why don't they go back and apologize (and in fact someone says that very thing out loud)? Why don't they seek help from the government--at the very least, from the cityofficials? Your pity is alloyed with exasperation, perhaps a little anger. Why do they wilfully do this? Their excuses start to ring a little hollow--the school and factory where they lived burned down, they don't know where their other relatives are, and (most common excuse) their father's going to help them somehow. When that final crutch is taken away (the father's revealed to have died), they're left with a handful of half-assed excuses and a desperate situation incarnated in Setsuko's severely starved body.

Is it a great film? I think so. Strangely, crying in this picture is something people admit to all the time, some of them constantly, but I don't think any brimming over of the cup is requested by Takahata except on one particular occasion, the final incineration, and even there, I don't feel Takahata actually demands anything; it feels like it just happens, of its own will.

Inside Man (Spike Lee), An American Haunting (Courtney Solomon)

Inside Man (Spike Lee, 2006)

Excerpt:

Spike Lee's "Inside Man" isn't the work of an outsider, the kind of iconoclast filmmaker that Spike used to declare himself to be back when he did films like "She's Got to Have It" or "Do the Right Thing." Gone are the deep reds, bright oranges, warm yellows of his favorite cameraman Ernest Dickerson, replaced by Matthew Labatique's gray concrete and dim daylight. Gone are the in-your-face close-ups, the actors addressing the camera head-on while they deliver hilarious, often profane tirades. At one point Denzel Washington, playing Detective Keith Frazier, finds himself going down the street in an effortless glide, but it's more a reminder of or tribute to the Lee we used to know than a return to old form.

 

The plot, by newcomer Russell Gewirtz (it's his first big-screen script), is satisfyingly complex in a shallow way, the quickly sketched characters in effect enacting a game of high-stakes chess. A bank robbery staged by one Dalton Russell (Clive Owen) and three other collaborators quickly turns into a hostage drama, and Det. Frazier is called in as hostage negotiator; a subplot involving Arthur Case, the bank's Chairman of the Board (Christopher Plummer) has him hiring mysterious power-broker Madeline White (Jodie Foster) to protect the contents of a nonexistent safe-deposit box in that same bank. Plot twists and shadowy deals ensue, as Russell confronts Frazier and then White, and Frazier begins to realize that this is more than just a robbery.

An American Haunting (Courtney Solomon, 2006)

Excerpt:

Courtney Solomon's "An American Haunting" right off takes a high spot on my list of the five most awful pictures this year, even if the year's only half over. Solomon's only other credit as director is the screen version of "Dungeons and Dragons," and while I failed to catch that earlier opus, I can't believe it could possibly be worse than this. Swish-pan camera moves; Cuisinart shock cuts; candles and fireplaces that flare up as regularly as in a theme park ride; a loud standard-issue "haunted house" music score, accompanied by equally loud standard-issue "haunted house" sound effects--Solomon trots out every cheap scare tactic developed during recent years in the hope of getting a rise out of his audience, then trots them out a few more times, in case we don't get the point the first time.

 

Worse than the repetition is the silliness. John Bell, the haunted family's patriarch (Donald Sutherland), goes out hunting in the woods and is assaulted by what he claims to be a wolf, but the way the scene is shot and edited he could have been attacked by a rabid throw rug; the daughter Betsy Bell (Rachel Hurd-Wood) is dragged by some invisible presence in circles on the floor (leaving claw marks on the hardwood), and slapped so hard on both sides of the face you can't help but think of a Tom and Jerry cartoon (Whack! Whack! Whack! Whack!). Later Betsy escapes by horse carriage and Solomon cuts to a point-of-view shot of the spirit soaring out the window and dive-bombing the carriage, sending somersaulting through the air like a stray "Dukes of Hazzard" stunt car. The movie becomes such an insult to the intelligence you can't help but wonder: are these people trying to be deliberately funny? Because they're not scaring us--the attempts are sophomorically sad--and it's difficult to keep a straight face. 

Indio Nacional (Raya Martin, 2005)

Indio Nacional (Raya Martin, 2005)

Excerpt:

The 2006 French Film Festival opens with a platter of recent Gallic offerings and a few classics, but easily the most interesting and imaginative of the lot isn't even French. Raya Martin, who just attended the Cinefondation Residence du Festival de Cannes--possibly the world's most prestigious filmmaking residency--is holding the Philippine premiere of his latest work: "Maicling Pelicula Nang Ysang Indio Nacional (O Ang Mahabang Kalungkutan ng Katagalugan)" (A Short Film About the Indio Nacional (Or the Prolonged Sorrow of the Filipinos), 2005).

 

The ninety-six minute film can be described as a conceit in the guise of a dream doubling as a memory told to us as a mystery. It begins with a woman lying on her mat, trying to sleep; she sits up, staring into space, and it's difficult not to read all kinds of emotions into her face--restlessness, dissatisfaction, impatience, even a kind of despair; outside dogs bark and crickets relentlessly chirp, but otherwise (you can tell from the ambient sound) the darkness is still and deep.

 

Samurai Champloo (Shinichiro Watanabe, 2004)

Shinichiro Watanabe's Samurai Champloo shows promise--it has excellent animation, and an intriguing mix of the historically accurate (the clothes, the architecture, the bits of historical details and figures) and the intentionally anachronistic (the rap music, the graffiti artists), plus some eroticism and sophisticated humor.

There's even Watanabe's preoccupation with humdrum reality--where they should sleep, what they should eat, how they should earn money for food and shelter. Superefficient heroes who look fine and even look like they've had a manicure and beauty salon session are fine and good, but ronins who've spent days on the road and actually look (and almost smell) as if they did are more interesting fare--they help convince you of the reality of what you're seeing, prepare you to accept the more fantastic stuff, the blindingly fast, intricately choreographed fight sequences.

What's quite not there are a set of truly memorable characters. Cowboy Bebop, Watanabe's previous major work, had this teasing tension between Spike and Faye; here, with two men to choose from, Fuu barely strikes any sparks from both, just maybe some romantic longings and silly sentimental ideas (which the men for some reason sometimes take seriously).

It also helped Bebop that the main thrust of the action was Spike's attempt to reconcile his present with his gangster past. That allowed the other characters--Jet, Edward, Faye, even the dog--to branch off in all kinds of interesting stories, but it's Spike's story that held it all together, gave it unity and shape. Here, Muugen, Jin and Fuu all have to go meet their fates separately, and the climactic episode goes from one storyline to another, frittering away momentum; in Bebop, Spike said his goodbyes--some of them painful--and walked away to his destiny. Simple yet effective.

Interesting, worth seeing, but not the kind of breakthrough series that Bebop was, I think.

"Cigarette Burns" (John Carpenter), "Dreams in the Witch House" (Stuart Gordon)

From Forum With No Name:

Saw my first Masters of Horror episode.

John Carpenter's Cigarette Burns, about the search for a long-lost horror film print with fatal effects on its viewers, seems highly uncharacteriststic of his work--no self-composed minimalist music score, no Hitchcockian angles, long takes or POV shots (at least, none that really stand out or call attention to themselves), and far more gore than is usual for Carpenter.

It's not the sort of thing that's going to have immediate appeal, and the concept--that the closer the hero comes to the print the worse the effects will be--doesn't have much of a visceral impact, beyond what's provided by shock cuts. The burning rings signifying 'burns'--visual warnings to the projectionist that the reel is about to run out--don't have much creep value either; I wished it could have been depicted in a subtler way.

But Carpenter speaks a secret language here, of the heedlessness of cinephiles and the allure of legendary lost prints, and anyone even moderately steeped in the lore will understand, even sympathize with these characters, or brood over their fates ("that Udo Kier, his fate wasn't that bad, considering..."). It's fun for that subtext alone, though I wonder at the film dubbing its hermit critic character 'the one of Kael's disciples who can really think.' That's giving Kael a whole lot more heft and influence than she really had, I thought.

Stuart Gordon's Dreams in the Witch House (taking a tale from his favorite source, HP Lovecraft) shows the kind of fluid camerawork and naturalistic yet effective lighting he gives us in his best works (Reanimator, From Beyond, King of the Ants, even Dagon). Not to mention he has a wonderful knack for introducing us to totally engaging characters (a likeable college student living in a rat-trap boarding house and his beautiful single-mother next-door neighbor).

It falters towards the end, and doesn't have the metaphysical punch of his best work, but he's got us hooked to the story and people, and we squirm and worry accordingly. A lovely little gem.

ChrisJ: I also appreciate more and more the usually natural humor that Gordon and company find in various situations. It's rarely overly exagerated (thought sometimes a bit stagey which you can chalk up to Gordon's stage experiences) It's missing from straight horror (like Carpenter's Cigarette Burns) and over-done in both campy (some of which I like) or I- want-to-be-loved-by-the-teen-audience- horror crap that invades our theaters every year.

Good quick snapshot Noel.

Udo rocks !!!!

Actually I think the staginess serves Gordon in good stead; he's able to draw from entirely different sources than film-school geeks usually do, and I think there's a force and authority in doing something deliberately theatrical (a ritual, say, or a tableau) that most screen images lack.

Carpenter's humor is more the deadpan, you-gotta-be-on-the-inside-to-appreciate kind.