This Week In Film (4/12/2021 - 4/18/2021)
April 12, 2021 - April 18, 2021
Hello readers. What a sh*t storm of a week we've had in Chicago! The Civilian Office of Police Accountability released all the videos associated with the police shooting of 13 year-old Adam Toledo. Video #1 BWC1-Shooting Officer shows officer Eric Stillman chasing after Ruben Roman and then after Toledo. When the kid stops, the officer tells him to turn around with his hands up. As the kid complies, raises his hands, and turns around, the officer shoots him. Officer Stillman runs up to the child and asks where he's been shot and attempts to help, but it's too late. Most media outlets are torn on how to report this. Some networks will lean on the fact that a gun was found mere feet away from Toledo. Other networks will lean on the fact that Officer Stillman attempts to assist directly after he makes the mistake. I've talked to older officers who remember a time that you had to actually be shot at in order to return fire - what a simpler time. The bottom line is that a 13 year old was shot by police and initial reports attempted to cover up details of the situation. These details were provided to the world via COPA. A crowd of thousands marched near the Chicago Mayor's home in Logan Square. They marched due to the mayor's tone-deaf response to the situation. She cried about the guns in Chicago without opining on a cop shooting a teen. I was highly affected by viewing the uncut video. I wish it had been the first snuff video I've seen, but unfortunately that honor goes to Luka Magnotta's video of killing Jun Lin to Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence." I saw Luka before anyone knew it was a real murder. But that's not what I came here to tell you about...
This Week In Film where I create a weekly rundown of the random sh*t I watch.
There’s a HIGH / LOW at the end of this entry, so if words aren't really your
thing, you can scroll quickly, look at pictures, and skip to my favorite
viewings of the week.
Lets begin...
OVERVIEW:
******
dir: Charlie Lyne
There are pre-requisites to this film. You must ask yourself: Do I like clipshows? Do I love teen movies? Do I love Faruiza Balk? What about synthpop music? If you answer yes to these questions like I did, then you'll thouroughly enjoy Beyond Clueless. The documentary doesn't offer anything new in the way of overarching themes in teen films, but it does dive deeper into a select few. I found the theory posited about Idle Hands and repressed sexuality acting out fascinating. The film is separated into five parts: Fitting In, Acting Out, Losing Yourself, Toeing the Line and Moving On. These sections allow Lyne to create montage after montage of related elements from over 200 teen films. This visual essay relies heavily on exploiting the “fair use” loophole in Copyright. And does so magically. The film slows to dive into a few of it's films: Bubble Boy (2001), 13 Going On 30 (2004), Mean Girls (2004), She's All That (1999), Disturbing Behaviour (1998), The Faculty (1998), Eurotrip (2004), and Slap Her, She's French! (2002).
The whole experience of watching Beyond Clueless reminds me of the meme that's going around. Posted originally by @justgirlproject it is an info-graphic stating: Why Rewatching shows/movies helps? The answers include: We know how they will make us feel, so we can use them to regulate our emotions. They require less mental energy. They bring back happy memories of the first time we watched them. And when we're dealing with uncertainty, they can offer predictability and safety. This is spot on. This is the dopamine rush of nostalgia. And this is the feeling you get watching a good clipshow. Although my favorite would have to be Terror in the Aisles (1984), Beyond Clueless gives us all our guilty pleasure teen dramas wrapped in a well-narrated bow.
dir: Thomas Vinterberg
"What is Youth? A dream. What is love? The content of the dream." - Søren Kierkegaard
A rundown and banal history teacher is, and has been, losing his grasp on life for years. At the 40th birthday dinner of a longtime friend and colleague, a simple thought experiment is discussed. Norwegian psychiatrist Finn Skårderud stated that humans are born with a deficiency in their blood alcohol content by 0.05%. Even though they are at a 40th birthday party, it is never discussed that they are all experiencing their own midlife crisis. Instead, they begin to believe the way they feel is due to their BAC deficit. The history teacher, psychology teacher, gym teacher, and band teacher decide to keep their circulatory systems drenched in .05. They all learn that there's something to this constant level of inebriation.
But like all attempts at trying to re-access youth, the path leads toward excess. For the sake of the experiment they increase their BAC levels - gradually at first. When they see improved results such as more entertaining classes and ravenous love-making, a final experiment comes to mind. What if they obliterate their BAC to find true catharsis? Obviously this leads to a few funny but mostly sad moments as this would be the mark of an alcoholic. If it wasn't for their desire to up the ante, or I'm assuming humanity's innate difficulties with excess, the experiment would have marked total success. And Another Round would be considered pro-alcohol propaganda. As the film stands, 3 out of 4 people find success in upping their blood alcohol levels.
The film opens and closes with the debaucherous nature of youth. A drinking race to mark the end of summer and a celebration of their graduation. The film bookends on youth as these four middle aged men try to navigate what Carl Jung calls the second half of life. The second half or mid-life crisis is a time of self-realization when we understand we will die one day. The act of regressing into youth is what Jung describes as, "Shrinking away from death is something unhealthy and abnormal which robs the second half of life of its purpose." But we do it anyway. We seek the energy of our youth. We desire the never-ending amount of potential we had as we were children. What Another Round shows is that if we can regain this youthful perspective and merge it with our age, we may continue into our second half better than we were during our childhood or adulthood. We can drink champagne, forget about our back troubles, and use our Polyrhythm leaned in Jazz dance to show ourselves we still have a life to live.
dir: Dag Yngyesson
Confession: porn documentaries are fascinating. Inside Deep Throat (2005), After Porn Ends (2010), Hot Girls Wanted (2015) or X-Rated: The Greatest Adult Movies of All Time (2015) among countless others show the seedy underbelly or the greatness of X cinema, but what about something a little more down to Earth? That's where Dag comes in. He's really young. He's moved to Hollywood to be a filmmaker. He works at a camera rental house. And decides to dive into a subject that has always conflicted him.
Because he's so young and innocent-looking, Dag is provided access into the industry via self-described porn guru Bill Margold. From this interview, he begins his swim further from shore. He interviews a new starlet, Selena, who has been in the industry less than a week. From her, we speak with her mother and father. Selena's dad has an interesting approach to the idea of his daughter as a porn star. He tells Dag / us that for Selena, her body is her tool, and it should be respected the way you would a car or truck. If that leaves you a bit confused, don't worry we find out later he's also racist. In one of the film's cringe inducing moments, Selena's dad confesses he'd never be with a black woman because he, "Wouldn't be able to see her at night." I was finishing up a few day job tasks, but when I heard that line I stopped the video and literally said out loud, "Excuse me, what was that?" Of course I was talking to no one, but the moment was so gut-wrenching I had to take a second before I could continue the documentary. Luckily, Dag agrees with us all that Selena's dad is a racist piece of sh*t. This leads him to look into the black side of porn. And things don't get any better. The one shining light for black porn in the late 1990s was Sean Michaels who became a top moneymaking male star and went on to direct and produce in the industry. This leads us to one of the best slices of information this film has to offer. Men are paid 75% less than women. The only industry where priority is given to women. What a glorious fact to bask in for a moment.
As we gain mountains of information from the interviews regarding the industry, something else happens. One of the male actors decides to make his own film. He fires his cinematographer and asks Dag if he'd like to step in. I'm assuming my morals are a little looser, because I didn't understand why he was questioning the decision. But Dag struggles. On one hand he'd be given additional access into other industry figures and be seen as part of the industry. This would allow for deeper research. On the other hand, he'd be part of an industry he doesn't feel comfortable with. In the end, he decides to DP. Whoops, I'm dealing with X content, I should clarify, Director of Photography. And it helps lock in interviews with hard to get celebrities. It pays off and makes the documentary a richer experience.
Dag's film also accidentally captures a glimpse of the industry before the outbreak of HIV in San Fernando Valley. He speaks with stars and asks about their fears. Some stars wish they could be in condom-only shoots, but they know they won’t get work. Others appreciate the 90 day tests that all performers have to keep updated. This was mere days before their world was shook. Dag utilized all the experience learned making his documentary on porn and went on to be the cinematographer on Stoked: The Rise and Fall of Gator (2002) - the quintessential skateboard doc., then directed Movements and Madness: Gusti Ayu (2006), and continue lensing projects about mental illness.
THE MCPHERSON TAPE (1988)
dir: Dean Alioto
Thank you Shudder. I've always been under the impression that found footage went from Mondo Cane (1962) to Cannibal Holocaust (1980) to Man Bites Dog (1992) to Blair Witch Project (1999). But this lost film changes everything. Made in 1988, not only does it predate the style of Blair Witch Project, but it creates the aesthetic that would rule over all found footage films for decades to come. I hate to keep comparing Blair Witch to this film, but when the world believes that Heather crying snot into her videocamera was the first time fake footage was deemed real, a deep dive is necessary.
Blair Witch creates its reality by using 'film students' off to make a documentary about a witch. This is akin to the bait and switch tactics of a fake intro in a horror film. It tells the viewer that what you saw in that intro is nothing compared to what's going to happen in the real film. As documentary filmmakers they gain interviews and use a journalistic approach. This cements the reality. The interviews are shot in black and white on 16mm. They look clean, professional, and film-like. Reality is also created by the discussion of keeping the video camera on. Or using the camera's light to see in the dark. Or the long stretches of the camera being on without professional cuts. Now lets look at The McPherson Tape.
We establish the reality quickly on. It is the late eighties and camcorders are becoming a bit more affordable. I was able to save my own money and purchase one in 1995, and I was 13. Michael (Dean Alioto) is a college student attending his niece's birthday party. His two brothers, their lady-friends (one's a wife maybe), and their mother sit at the table after dinner as Michael finally gets his camera to work. He spends time focusing on food and trying to frame shots. This is what you do with a new camera. When the lights go out, the brothers go outside to check, and they witness a red light in the sky. From this moment on, it doesn't feel like there is another forceful cut in the rest of the film. The camera keeps rolling. Another element to establish reality. When the brothers encounter a spaceship and aliens, they run back home. Everything is captured in its shaky detail-less grandeur. Dialogue overlaps between characters. The lighting doesn't help to illuminate anything. Nothing feels in focus. All the trappings of what would otherwise be an amateur film. But, by telling you it is real, all is permitted.
Loud thumps and I jumped. I felt some adrenaline rushing in moments. The film is effective, like all the staples of the found footage genre. The lulling you into believing everything is okay, before a crash or knock, is here way before The Fourth Kind (2009). Now if you still think Blair Witch was totally believed to be real and this wasn't. I give you Alioto's follow up film Alien Abduction: Incident in Lake County (basically a remake) shown on television in 1998 - a full year before Blair Witch. This film came on UPN after an episode of Real Vampires Exposed and without warning those who were watching thought they were seeing footage of a real alien abduction. So next time someone tries to tell you Blair Witch invented the found footage genre, push your glasses up and give them a real good, "Well, actually..."
SILVER BULLET (1985)
dir: Daniel Attias
What are the greatest werewolf movies of all time? An American Werewolf In London (1981), The Howling (1981), The Wolf Man (1941), and Silver Bullet will always be the four to live up to. Based on Stephen King's Cycle of the Werewolf, which was originally pitched as a calendar with short stories. But King wasn't happy with how 'short' the stories would have to be. He worked with Berni Wrightson to create beautiful illustrations for each month in the novella's storyline. Cycle is a master-course in short form writing.
"Outside, its tracks begin to fill up with snow, and the shriek of the wind seems savage with pleasure. There is nothing of God or Light in that heartless sound - it is all black winter and dark ice. The cycle of the Werewolf has begun."
The novella features twelve stories from January to December, all occurring around each month's full moon. I think they could have kept this concept, but Stephen King wrote the screenplay which takes place between Spring and Autumn of 1976. While a departure, we do get more screen time with Corey Haim and Gary Busey. The original director, Don Coscarelli (Phantasm) let Busey ad lib most of his dialogue because he felt a kinship with the character of Red. While he did the lines on the page he also did his own takes and these are the ones that ended up in the film. As I mentioned this is mostly a Coscarelli film. There were disputes over the look of the werewolf. Distributor Dino de Laurentiis was unhappy with the design that was approved by King, so while they duked it out with special effects extraordinaire Carlo Rambaldi (E.T., Alien, King Kong) Coscarelli filmed all non-werewolf scenes. After those scenes were filmed, the look of the wolf was still unknown. Since, Coscarelli had no say in the look, he left the project. In the end, Rambaldi's wolf is in the film. And he looks stunning.
The film's plot isn't all that spectacular. A killer is on the loose. A beast who rips people apart. The townspeople loose faith in their sheriff and form a vigilante squad. A paraplegic kid and his alcoholic uncle save the town. But the effects. Those remain a spectacle. From the wolf's look, a nightmare transformation sequence like no other, beheading and ripping flesh scenes, to a simple patch over an eye. We are here for the creature feature. And this film always delivers on that promise.
DIG TWO GRAVES (2014)
dir: Hunter Adams
Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine) and a Star Trek: Voyager Nazi (Danny Goldring) head up into the hills of the Shawnee National forest, find a cliff and toss over a couple bodies. This begins Hunter Adams first commercial film. Based on the Confucius proverb (maybe): Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves. This opening will haunt Sheriff Proctor (Goldring) and newly self-appointed Sheriff Waterhouse for the rest of their lives. Luckily for us we don't have to watch the two men for 30 years, instead we cut to the 1970s. Here the story picks up with Waterhouse's granddaughter Jake (Samantha Isler) and her brother who end up at the same cliff where bodies were thrown over. What a coincidence? Tragedy befalls grandson Waterhouse. After he jumps into the water, he's never found again.
Sadness sinks in for the family until a hobo gypsy shows Jake there are powers that can bring her brother back. All Jake has to do is sacrifice someone else to the cliff and her brother will return. But will she murder to bring him back?
Adams did some picture perfect location scouting as he traveled through the stuck-in-time small towns of Southern Illinois. My thoughts often wander back to the tiny non-incorporated village of Makanda, Illinois. There was a strip of storefronts that leveraged the area. In these shops, you had artisans of all trades: leather, metal, glass, and others. I always felt the money made from these shops or the antique store fed the whole village. There was always a magic present. Had a gypsy confronted me while under the spell of Makanda, I would have listened closely. Adams pulls from this area and its people, using locals as extras, set dressing these areas, and even utilizing interns from SIUC. While I enjoyed the film and its plot, I was captivated by the cinematography, style, and locations more than anything. Or I'm just biased because I spent some of the best days of my life in the Shawnee forest with friends and family.
MOTHER'S DAY (1980)
dir: Charlie Kaufman
"Hey everybody have you heard the news... Joe Bob is back in town!" For the season premiere of The Last Drive-In, Joe Bob Briggs did not disappoint. Our clues for the season opener had to do with the guest interviewee Eli Roth. One film was a huge inspiration and the other was filmed near Eli's hometown. My guesses were Torso (1973) and House By The Cemetery (1981). I never thought of this curve-ball, but after hearing Roth talk about how deeply programmed he was by this film, it makes sense. Every film of Roth’s has its DNA hardcoded to Mother's Day. Much in the same way John Carpenter links all of his films back to Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo (1959). These are films that infected every cell and informed every choice in their future creative endeavors.
"You have made your mother very proud."
We're in Troma territory with Mother's Day. So that means we're in New Jersey. One of my favorite factoids learned is that while Mother's Day was being filmed another lesser known horror film was being made across the same lake. The two films even shared a wrap party together. One film would go on to ignite the career of Eli Roth and the other would give the world a killer by the name of Pamela Voorhees.
In the first few minutes of Mother's Day we have an Erhard Seminars Training copycat with these words of wisdom: "And remember, once you go out those doors, don't stop to think about what you feel. Because once you stop to think about what you feel, you doubt what you know. And once you doubt what you know, you're gonna assume you don't know it. Why? Because you don't act on it. Once you know what you know, you act on it." From there we follow a Lady Gaga lookalike and her menacing boyfriend who get a ride from an elderly lady with a neck brace. When the car stalls, Lady Gaga and her accomplice attempt to rob the woman. But the tables turn when the old woman's two sons slaughter the two criminal hippies. We're nary ten minutes into the film, and there's a self-help guru, decapitation, assault, strangulation, hippies, and inbred killers. In other words, it's the beginning of a masterpiece.
We then follow the rat pack: Trina, Abbey, and Jackie. They've been friends since college, and each year they come together for a mystery trip. We learn one is living large in Beverly Hills, one is the slave of her sick mother, and the third has a freeloading boyfriend. Kaufman adds details into the lives of the three women that really make us care for them. We are given a flashback sequence where the Rat Pack enacts some revenge on a guy who wronged Jackie. After this bit of character development, we're cheering for them. This leads to intense situations as they face off against the deranged mother and her two sons. Overall, great 80's horror cinema and a more serious Troma affair. This was before The Toxic Avenger (1984) invented the whole Troma paradigm.
dir: Lucio Fulci
Feature two of The Last Drive-In season opener with guest Eli Roth. During the film, Joe Bob is asking Roth again and again what each loose end may have meant to Fulci. Roth deflects as there are no answers. Italian horror cinema was always about style over substance. But Roth does get a rant that is more than Joe Bob worthy. When asked about American Slashers versus Italian Horror, Roth explains how both sub-genres found their sensibilities and have informed each other from classic cinema on.
When tracing the Slasher film to its roots you begin with German silent cinema with The Student Of Prague (1913) that gave cinema a doppelgänger (like Norman Bates) and Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) influencing the entire look of horror cinema. Without Rope (1948), there would be no Funny Games (1997). Without And Then There Were None (1945) and Thirteen Women (1932), the serialization of murder may not be present in the later slasher formula. Without M (1931), there would be no “ch…ch…ch…ah…ah…ah..” Jason warning. Each of these films were released during an era where horror cinema focused mainly on external threats. We know this completely changed with the dual release of Peeping Tom (1960) and Psycho (1960).
Roth begins his discussion with the fact that Sergio Leone created bloody violence in his Spaghetti Westerns of the 1960's which lead to Sam Peckinpah saying he would create violent death in American cinema with The Wild Bunch (1969). Though audiences had already had a taste of violence with consequences in Bonnie & Clyde (1967). I've always felt that when discussing this era of violence, everyone forgets to include the Godfather of Gore, Herschall Gordon Lewis. An American filmmaker who pushed the boundary of violence in 1963 with Blood Feast a full year before Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars. Maybe he's the third string in the perfect braiding. Looking back at the Italians, Mario Bava's The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963) was a proto-Giallo film and in-turn a proto-Slasher film. Bava's follow up Blood and Black Lace (1964) gave us a masked killer, black gloves, red herrings, point of view cinematography, and a murder mystery. In 1970 Dario Argento perfected the aesthetic of the Giallo film in The Bird With The Crystal Plumage. Bava came back with Bay of Blood / Twitch of the Death Nerve in 1971 which laid a perfect template for the murders in Friday The 13th 2 (1981). Fulci broke into the scene with his Giallo film Don't Torture A Ducking (1972) which was the same year Sean Cunningham and Wes Craven created one of the most deplorable pieces of cinema to date The Last House On The Left. But it was a Canadian filmmaker that took all the elements he'd learned from Italian Gialli and American horror films and combined them to created the first true blueprint of the Slasher film: Black Christmas (1974). This of course led to John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) and finally Sean Cunningham's Friday The 13th (1980) which opened the floodgates for American imitations.
The thesis of this dissertation is that you can't have one without the other. Italian Giallo wouldn't exist without American classics and Slasher films wouldn't exist without Italian horror. And the reason I'm discussing this and not House By The Cemetery is because it's way easier to talk about Horror cinema from 1913 to 1980 then it is to describe Fulci's film. It's really difficult to sit through. I'm a Fulci fan but when this one comes on, all I hear is the atrocious dubbing of Bob, the child. It is painful.
dir: Lee Daniels
"Southern trees bear a strange fruit. Blood on the leaves and blood at the root. Black bodies swingin' in the southern breeze. Strange fruit hangin' from the poplar trees."
I'm an okay Lee Daniels fan. Meaning I loved Precious (2009) and The Paperboy (2012). I have yet to see The Butler (2013) or Shadowboxer (2005) but I know they're probable great too. So I preface this by saying, I know Daniels is a talented director. But when you have Andra Day playing Billie Holiday to perfection, it's difficult to build a film worthy of her performance. Andra went method. She began smoking cigarettes, drank a steady diet of ice water and gin, and utilized primal screaming to scratch her vocal chords. She sings Billie's hits and nails her persona with ease. This isn't the first time a musical biopic has performers who usurp the film itself. It's usually more difficult to create a film that is parallel to a masterful performance. Ray (2004), Walk The Line (2005), Dream Girls (2006), Straight Outta Compton (2015), and Rocketman (2019) are among the best of the best in the last two decades. On the other side of the coin are spectacular performances with lackluster narratives such as Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) and Judy (2019).
The main issue with Daniels' film is that it is a sprawling and unfocused. Maybe it's about Billie's drug addiction, maybe it's about her love affairs with Tallulah Bankhead (Natasha Lyonne) or FBI agent Jimmy Fletcher (Trevante Rhodes), maybe it's about her interview with Reginald Lord Devine, the suppression of "Strange Fruit," the piece of sh*t Harry Anslinger, or Billie's comeback at Carnegie Hall? Had the film been about any one of these issues, Andra's outstanding performance would have been warranted. Or if the film was a straight biopic all of these plot strands would have sewn together, but instead we begin mid-career and the film unravels.
PIECES OF A WOMAN (2020)
dir: Kornél Mundruczó
Within a few seconds we get to see Ellen Burstyn, Vanessa Kirby, Shia LaBeouf, and Benny Safdie. Stunned by the stars, we enter the film's centerpiece. A 21 minute long take from the point of Martha's water breaking to Sean's run to meet the ambulance. I've never cried as much prior to a title card in my life. The birth sequence will destroy you. What follows after the first 30 minutes is an unfair disintegration of a relationship told in six additional segments and an epilogue.
My serious question is: Who needs 7 acts in a grief porn film? The film is overly long and wrought with a sadness we become desensitized to. Luckily it's not a courtroom drama which the trailer has you believe. The courtroom sequence happens in act 6. The only saving grace is Ellen Burstyn's monologue in act 5 about babies holding their heads up. The length doesn't help to continue development of the characters. Vanessa Kirby is fantastic. Shia is a great scene partner with Vanessa. But ultimately he disappears, and it sullies his presence in the film. But, again, that first 30 minutes is a cinematic tour de force.
WOLFWALKERS (2020)
dir: Tomm Moore, Ross Stewart
Wolfwalkers feels like a spiritual ancestor to Hayao Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke (1997). It's been a long time since we've seen the beauty of hand-drawn animation. It actually takes a few minutes to get used to it. But once you do, all the intricacies etched into each frame breathe new life into a now computer heavy medium. I like to think of it as a kid friendly werewolf story, but here when a wolfwalker human falls asleep they turn into a wolf. The story is heartwarming and it transports you to a different era in animation.
******
Best viewing of the week. This is a difficult choice this week. My favorites include Another Round, Silver Bullet, and the return of Last Drive-In with Mother's Day, but my High has to go to a landmark horror film that's been overlooked for decades:
HIGH: THE MCPHERSON TAPE
Worst viewing of the week. I hate that this is my worst, but it has to go to a film that was nearly half an hour too long. While the performances were top-notch and Vanessa Kirby deserves her Academy Award nomination, the film was the worst thing I saw this week.
LOW: PIECES OF A WOMAN
TV CORNER:
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