(Andrew Gosling, 1985)
Not just shot on video - the majority of the movie takes place in glittering, cheese-saturated chroma key, and with its mid-80s take on early-60s youth culture, it's like a great acid trip at your local Wimpy's. The clash of hyper-stylized pastel elements is so gaudy and incessant that it nearly overwhelms the stagebound rock-and-roll fantasy of the script - but not quite. John Gray's plainspoken dialogue is generously laced with affection and lived detail, and it makes a point of being witty as it posits the music as a harmless ego-projection and social unifier. But the nostalgic frame of reference comes with its own built-in critique. By setting the action in an uncomplicated and homogeneous 1961, Gray duplicitously ignores a quarter-century of challenges to his simplistic thesis, and while his celebration of "boring" people is totally valid in itself, the situation of redemption in the distant past is the usual bourgeois snow job. Ideology aside, the climax is corny and pat in the great musical theatre tradition, and the sharp lyrical moments are never matched by the too-clean, too-emotive score. Though the performers are fairly appealing and individuated, only Eric Peterson's holy greaser ghost manages to address the camera with the necessary cinematic finesse.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Killing 'em Softly
(Max Fischer, 1985)
There are a few, er, problems with this twinkly light comedy about a singer who falls in love with the old bum in the next apartment after he murders/robs her manager and frames her boyfriend. The filmmakers do really seem to be expressing some kind of ass-backwards class consciousness here, but they sure don't give it much of a sales job: should we cheer when George Segal throws acid in the eyes of a guy who's mad because he bought a bad car? Are we to admire Irene Cara for crawling in the bath with this guy while her sympathetic boyfriend rots in jail, forgotten by lover and filmmaker alike? Did we really need that scene-long chat with the floozy about the volume and velocity of Segal's ejaculate? All the bits and pieces of backstory strewn around Segal's apartment never add up to a character, and while his scenes with Joyce Gordon's blowsy neighbour at least work as shtick, they're also typically extraneous and unresolved. Cara's presence requires a bunch of rock-club singing and dancing scenes early on, which warp the arc, though the Segal-Cara piano duet at the end is unexpectedly charming. Nicholas Campbell got a Genie nomination for his performance as the manager, who does get to establish a character, then promptly undermines it, in about three short scenes. But Campbell's really a victim here: his performance largely unfolds in halting, endless wide shots whose only possible explanation is that he's anticipating cutaways that never arrive. Of course any cross-cutting more complicated than two people sitting at a table seems to be beyond Fischer, as one parallel-action setup after another are lost to the linear-sequential energy void. Remedial film school, here we come.
There are a few, er, problems with this twinkly light comedy about a singer who falls in love with the old bum in the next apartment after he murders/robs her manager and frames her boyfriend. The filmmakers do really seem to be expressing some kind of ass-backwards class consciousness here, but they sure don't give it much of a sales job: should we cheer when George Segal throws acid in the eyes of a guy who's mad because he bought a bad car? Are we to admire Irene Cara for crawling in the bath with this guy while her sympathetic boyfriend rots in jail, forgotten by lover and filmmaker alike? Did we really need that scene-long chat with the floozy about the volume and velocity of Segal's ejaculate? All the bits and pieces of backstory strewn around Segal's apartment never add up to a character, and while his scenes with Joyce Gordon's blowsy neighbour at least work as shtick, they're also typically extraneous and unresolved. Cara's presence requires a bunch of rock-club singing and dancing scenes early on, which warp the arc, though the Segal-Cara piano duet at the end is unexpectedly charming. Nicholas Campbell got a Genie nomination for his performance as the manager, who does get to establish a character, then promptly undermines it, in about three short scenes. But Campbell's really a victim here: his performance largely unfolds in halting, endless wide shots whose only possible explanation is that he's anticipating cutaways that never arrive. Of course any cross-cutting more complicated than two people sitting at a table seems to be beyond Fischer, as one parallel-action setup after another are lost to the linear-sequential energy void. Remedial film school, here we come.
The Killer Instinct
(William Fruet, 1982)
The classroom-debate framing device promises a movie about the moral justifications for murder, but in fact the teens angle seems like a market-driven afterthought. The film is really about machismo and morality, in full Southern Gothic mode. Remove the screamers altogether and there's still the complex 'family' dynamics of the mountain-shack community, the divided loyalties of the sheriff's department, and the philandering gas company man - an adult cast dealing with actual themes in a coherent (if frivolous) way, acted and directed with the kind of concentration you don't usually encounter at the drive-in. Check out the scenes between lead hick Henry Silva and jailbait Danone Camden - they don't waste a word or a frame in establishing this ambiguous, neurotic relationship, and there's comparable intelligence throughout. But while erasing the kids would have allowed us to get a little further into these peoples' lives, they are integrated well enough that they don't really hurt anything. In fact they bring some fun action with them - a mountaintop car chase, an antenna-impalement, and an unforgettable climax with Silva covered in boiling tar and waving his axe around, plus, you know, Ralph Benmergui with his leg in a bear trap.
The classroom-debate framing device promises a movie about the moral justifications for murder, but in fact the teens angle seems like a market-driven afterthought. The film is really about machismo and morality, in full Southern Gothic mode. Remove the screamers altogether and there's still the complex 'family' dynamics of the mountain-shack community, the divided loyalties of the sheriff's department, and the philandering gas company man - an adult cast dealing with actual themes in a coherent (if frivolous) way, acted and directed with the kind of concentration you don't usually encounter at the drive-in. Check out the scenes between lead hick Henry Silva and jailbait Danone Camden - they don't waste a word or a frame in establishing this ambiguous, neurotic relationship, and there's comparable intelligence throughout. But while erasing the kids would have allowed us to get a little further into these peoples' lives, they are integrated well enough that they don't really hurt anything. In fact they bring some fun action with them - a mountaintop car chase, an antenna-impalement, and an unforgettable climax with Silva covered in boiling tar and waving his axe around, plus, you know, Ralph Benmergui with his leg in a bear trap.
The Kidnapping of the President
(George Mendeluk, 1980)
The "President" part of the title is taken care of by sending Hal Holbrook on a diplomatic mission to Toronto, with stumblebum entourage including Secret Service hack William Shatner. The "Kidnapping" part is taken care of by an explosive truck permanently parked in Nathan Phillips Square. Thus - after the first act throws us a couple White House sets, a weekend-in-Cancun guerrilla opener, the old reliable exploding gas station, and a ticker tape parade down a notably abbreviated side street - things give way to an even more brutally efficient, one-location movie. Sure it's totally ridiculous, but it also manages to be pretty entertaining - most interestingly, the state security apparatus is as bewildered as the terrorists themselves, and the power-mad interactions that ensue lead unpredictably into bad decisions and failed gambits. As a result the tension building devices tend to work, providing a nice counterpoint to the slop-trough of hams in the foreground. Shatner and Holbrook's contrasting thespian rhythms are sandwiched between a panoply of street-level Canuck regulars (Gary Reineke, Miguel Fernandes, Maury Chaykin) and some bizarre Arthur Hailey-type interludes featuring Van Johnson's worse-than-Palin VP and Ava Gardner as his clotheshorse wife. The ending fails to resolve the various tensions, pasting a series of happy faces onto a trick shot that could have been one of the great iconoclastic statements of its era.
The "President" part of the title is taken care of by sending Hal Holbrook on a diplomatic mission to Toronto, with stumblebum entourage including Secret Service hack William Shatner. The "Kidnapping" part is taken care of by an explosive truck permanently parked in Nathan Phillips Square. Thus - after the first act throws us a couple White House sets, a weekend-in-Cancun guerrilla opener, the old reliable exploding gas station, and a ticker tape parade down a notably abbreviated side street - things give way to an even more brutally efficient, one-location movie. Sure it's totally ridiculous, but it also manages to be pretty entertaining - most interestingly, the state security apparatus is as bewildered as the terrorists themselves, and the power-mad interactions that ensue lead unpredictably into bad decisions and failed gambits. As a result the tension building devices tend to work, providing a nice counterpoint to the slop-trough of hams in the foreground. Shatner and Holbrook's contrasting thespian rhythms are sandwiched between a panoply of street-level Canuck regulars (Gary Reineke, Miguel Fernandes, Maury Chaykin) and some bizarre Arthur Hailey-type interludes featuring Van Johnson's worse-than-Palin VP and Ava Gardner as his clotheshorse wife. The ending fails to resolve the various tensions, pasting a series of happy faces onto a trick shot that could have been one of the great iconoclastic statements of its era.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Happy Birthday To Me
(J. Lee Thompson, 1981)
The tortured interactions with pretty clique, earnest shrink and absent daddy are inconsequential and all over the map, uncertainly filling the spaces between the spectacles of death that are the film's real content. Still, this is an unusually competent horror movie, and old pro Thompson's fondness for deep focus and long hallways does actually sustain interest. The kids do establish characters in a vacuum, and Glenn Ford and Lawrence Dane are suitably lunkheaded in support. The gore scenes display some showmanship amid the ick and overextension, but swollen-brained assassin Melissa Sue Anderson outs herself so early that one wonders what they've got up their sleeve for the ending. Answer: a 'twist' so transparently idiotic as to make the rest of the film seem worse than it really is. Sigh.
The tortured interactions with pretty clique, earnest shrink and absent daddy are inconsequential and all over the map, uncertainly filling the spaces between the spectacles of death that are the film's real content. Still, this is an unusually competent horror movie, and old pro Thompson's fondness for deep focus and long hallways does actually sustain interest. The kids do establish characters in a vacuum, and Glenn Ford and Lawrence Dane are suitably lunkheaded in support. The gore scenes display some showmanship amid the ick and overextension, but swollen-brained assassin Melissa Sue Anderson outs herself so early that one wonders what they've got up their sleeve for the ending. Answer: a 'twist' so transparently idiotic as to make the rest of the film seem worse than it really is. Sigh.
Heathcliff: The Movie
(Bruno Bianchi, 1986)
John Kricfaluci is one-fifth of the animation team, which might provide a cynical explanation for why one-fifth of the jokes aren't corny. Those are mainly in the reaction and timing department - the only piece of verbal humour I laughed at was the "Beefcliff's the Meatfodder" routine. It's nice to have Mel Blanc on lead voice, but as character trademarks go, Heathcliff's goofy nyuk is no "What's Up, Doc", and it's laid on with a trowel - thus increasing the monotony factor of this anthology-with-weak-wraparound type film, seven discontinuous television episodes that show some attitude but don't pull through in the specifics, such as humour.
John Kricfaluci is one-fifth of the animation team, which might provide a cynical explanation for why one-fifth of the jokes aren't corny. Those are mainly in the reaction and timing department - the only piece of verbal humour I laughed at was the "Beefcliff's the Meatfodder" routine. It's nice to have Mel Blanc on lead voice, but as character trademarks go, Heathcliff's goofy nyuk is no "What's Up, Doc", and it's laid on with a trowel - thus increasing the monotony factor of this anthology-with-weak-wraparound type film, seven discontinuous television episodes that show some attitude but don't pull through in the specifics, such as humour.
Friday, January 29, 2010
The Hamster Cage
(Larry Kent, 2005)
As sick horror-comedies go, this one is remarkably focused and rigorous in pursuing an actual, articulate theme - the recycling of family trauma. The actors and music conspire to impose a light-comic tone through uncomfortable interactions ranging from incest to murder, while the cinematography lingers at a patient, menacing middle distance. The slow burn of the first half hour promises a cute drama of repression, but with one act of violence the film accelerates into fantasy territory, with deep horror themes resonating in scene after scene. In body or in spirit, incestuous dead uncle keeps on returning, as every attempt to kill his influence makes it stronger and things get progressively more histrionic and perverse...and cute. I don't agree with Kent's notion that we're inevitably doomed to embody the sins of our fathers, but as notions go, that one makes a pretty good sick horror-comedy. The cinematic sense is impressive enough to overcome and/or utilize any one-set-movie claustrophobia - cf. "The Deserters," which also benefited from Alan Scarfe's manly act.
As sick horror-comedies go, this one is remarkably focused and rigorous in pursuing an actual, articulate theme - the recycling of family trauma. The actors and music conspire to impose a light-comic tone through uncomfortable interactions ranging from incest to murder, while the cinematography lingers at a patient, menacing middle distance. The slow burn of the first half hour promises a cute drama of repression, but with one act of violence the film accelerates into fantasy territory, with deep horror themes resonating in scene after scene. In body or in spirit, incestuous dead uncle keeps on returning, as every attempt to kill his influence makes it stronger and things get progressively more histrionic and perverse...and cute. I don't agree with Kent's notion that we're inevitably doomed to embody the sins of our fathers, but as notions go, that one makes a pretty good sick horror-comedy. The cinematic sense is impressive enough to overcome and/or utilize any one-set-movie claustrophobia - cf. "The Deserters," which also benefited from Alan Scarfe's manly act.
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