The month of July in 2007 began with moments of happiness, as I prepared myself for an exciting trip to San Francisco, but ended on the sourest note possible. Two great legends have moved on, crippling a good portion of living film history and leaving we fine film fans in a complete state of mourning.
Yesterday, July 30th, I headed over to CNN’s Entertainment section to get a glance at the day’s happenings. To my surprise, right above a delicious picture of Danica McKeller (how I love thee), there was a picture of Ingmar Bergman. A man whose career spanned over 5 decades, and created some of cinema’s most important films, was dead.
When you learn about Bergman in school, teachers are so quick to bring up The Seventh Seal (deservedly so), but leave out so much of his work that was equally important. I first saw Wild Strawberries about 5 years ago. It’s a sort of tragic tale about an old professor confronting the emptiness of his life. This film is my personal favorite Bergman film and one I’ll never be able to forget.
Good night good sir, and you have countless games of chess in front of you.
The today, July 31st, I check my e-mail and notice one from a friend of mine (who works in the news industry) entitled, “Chalk another one up.” It was news about another classic filmmaker, Michelangelo Antonioni. This fellow Italian was responsible for such classics as L’Avventura and Blow-up. He was 94 years old.
Good night good sir.
What a sad few days. These two masters move on while Dennis Dugan (Big Daddy and The Benchwarmers) lives on. What an odd bit of irony.
It’s not about Lovecraft, or Voltron, or Godzilla. Abrams has deemed this a movie for the US Crowds, his own iconic giant monster movie in spite of the mystery still looming.
The poster tells a lot, but still keeps many things in the dark. The statue of liberty is without a head, the skylines are engulfed in fire, the waters are disturbed, and we still don’t have a title. I’m not anxious for it all to be given away at once.
You can flip the pictures at 1-18-08, which many have already discovered. Some of the backs are blank, while others have typical goodbye messages revealing the names of some of the characters, and the date January 2008, which is another clue that 1-18-08 is the premiere date and the setting date.
Slusho.jp is now fully functional and seemingly filled with more clues. You can access random quotes, and even combine flavors from robotic characters.
Posted by Michael Ferraro in Writer's Corner at 10:40 AM
PDT
A still from his best skit ever, The Chris Farley Show.
As you may or may not recall, a few weeks ago Tom Farley (Chris Farley’s brother) responded to a blog I wrote a while back, which concerned his brother.
I then responded with some words of my own. A few days ago, he finally responded with this:
Michael,
Thanks for the reply and explanation - which I take at full value. Now it’s my turn for a mea culpa - I gotta say sorry for the O’Reilly crack. That’s a mean thing to say to anyone! But I knew I’d get some kind of response with that line.
Anyway, my point was that most actors are never given the chance to really showcase their talents. Comedy writers and directors often times have no clue about making funny movies (or getting people to be their funniest). Case in point - Chris’s last film (Almost Heroes) was directed by Christopher Guest - a brilliant comedy genius when he writing/directing for himself. But the film he did with Chris and Matthew Perry was terrible compared to what it should have been.
Anyway, as they say on the playground, “no blood, no foul”. Rock on, man.
Tom Farley
It’s an iconic scene. Max von Sydow’s character standing in the shaft of light blazing through the window of a house he’s about to enter. It’s a picture that uses what is normally considered good symbolism (the light of a house, which equates to warmth and safety) and tweaks it by setting it on a foggy night and having the light be unnaturally bright, which gives the whole scene a sense of unease.
“The Exorcist” is a horror movie made for non-horror fans. It plays on people’s religious baggage, and even affects more secular audiences if only because religion is so entrenched in culture that you can understand the fright of possession and the supposed power of faith. It also plays on the notion that little girls don’t do certain things (talk like chain smokers, curse like drunks, masturbate with a crucifix, etc.). The movie moves at a slow pace, but when the possession starts, the terror never seems to let up, and that’s why people ended up running from the theatre.
When those familiar ideas and terrifying scenes are combined with subliminal images and a soundtrack that uses buzzing bees to make people uncomfortable, it makes for a very powerful movie. It’s slick and mainstream, and dealt with things that were decidedly unslick (vomiting and the masturbating) and were far from mainstream (a little girl being possessed and doing horrible things to herself and others while a young priest has his own crisis of faith is not exactly a movie idea that is an easy sell to the masses). When it came out, horror and big studios had yet to truly part ways, and the result was pretty brilliant. Even today the film resonates with viewers so much so that some refuse to ever see it. It’s their loss because, like all excellent horror films, it is much more than simply a scarefest. The film is a testament to the power of faith and an examination of the role of ancient beliefs and rituals in a modern world that does not know how to handle them (hence the extended medical testing scene in the re-release a few years ago).
The film, like “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” has many viewers convinced they have seen more than what is actually on screen. Some people have told me it’s a non-stop gore party and have insisted that they were scared from frame one. The reality of the film is much different. The special effects are tame by today’s standards (and weren’t anything that special when it was first released, either), and the film, as previously mentioned, has a very slow build up. It’s so slow in fact, that if you are used to standard horror films it becomes “boring,” but anticipation for what you know is coming is what keeps viewers glued to the screen. What makes it shocking, however, isn’t the special effects. It is what is done with the characters. By the time the film gets into full swing, viewers have gotten a chance to know these people, and that makes their fates that much worse because now we care. These characters aren’t expendable, and they seem like people we know. (Even though Regan’s mother is an actress in the film, her situation was one a lot of women could relate to. Women were a regular part of the workforce at this time, and far too many husbands and fathers weren’t in the picture on a full-time basis, if at all. That left quite a few single women both working and raising a kid, and trying to do right by both. It’s no small irony that the woman in this case can only find real help from the very institution that condemns that sort of lifestyle. Again, the conservative nature of horror films is brought out in full force to stunning effect.)
“The Exorcist” is always going to be a classic. No sequel or prequel can ruin that (as much as they’ve tried). It’s burned into America’s psyche, and has spawned toys, album covers and parodies. Even those who haven’t watched it know about those scenes of Regan floating over the bed, her head turning, or her vomiting. (And if they haven’t seen the film, they still shudder when those images pop up on television in shows about horror films.) The movie showed that Hollywood, when its head was on right, could turn out a serious horror movie that would impress even die-hard horror fans. It doesn’t happen often (and some would argue this is an unique case), but when it’s done right, it’s amazing. The proof is that decades later it is still talked about, sometimes in hushed tones, but always with respect. Even those who don’t particularly like the movie still appreciate its power, and there are few genre films you can say that about.
Well, it was the last night of the fest for me and cool evening by anyone’s standards. I went with the full intention of seeing the last film “Pars Vite et Reviens Tard” but got a little sidetracked when Phillipe Spurrell said he was heading towards the bar (It’s the Irish Embassy btw, finally managed to remember its fucking name) and the temptation to get drunk with some cool people was just too great. And so I ended up having a few (READ: lots of) beers instead and, well… skipping that whole watching movies thing completely. Talked with Phillipe a lot and congratulated him on putting a fucking asshole heckler/internet troll in his place the night before during the showing of Postal. Some guy had been hassling Daniel, one of the Festival guys (and the unofficial mascot of the fest) almost constantly so Spurrell pointed out said heckler/troll to the audience, told them what he’d done and invited them to boo the guy; which they did.
Good! Fuck that prick. I booed too.
Met up with Dave Kristian and we talked about the similarities between books and music when it comes to the way they flow. A slow rise, a peak, a fall, then another slow climb, hold the note for a moment and BOOM you end the fucker. That’s how you play a song and that’s how you write a book, one with balls anyway. We also talked a lot about Ramsey Cambell, an author we both admire and who we feel is a born poet whose prose sometimes eclipses his books so much that you sometimes end up not remembering anything about them except how fucking amazing they were. Oh, and I found out that Kristian had been a member of Psyche, this really cool fucking 80’s band from Montreal. Now, the reason I knew Psyche is because they’d done an album called “The Influence” which was Ramsey Cambell themed and I was a big fan of Cambell back then in the late 80’s. Talk about a circular coincidence huh?
Two guys I haven’t talked about yet are Matt Heath and Chris Stapp, the makers of “The Devil Dared me to” which I didn’t have a chance to watch at the fest, but will review anyway after getting a screener because I don’t care if I have to give someone a blowjob in order to get a copy, this looks so fucking awesome. I met them a few days ago when Postal played and these guys are seriously SERIOUSLY cool. When there’s some hard drinking to do, you want them on your side. Just watch this documentary from down under about them and tell me if that doesn’t rock the tits straight off a polar bear.
God how I admire men who act like men. No Metrosexual little pussies here.I wasn’t there but apparently the showing for “Devil Dared me To” was interrupted by some sort of bomb scare and the film was delayed by FOUR hours until the cops could concluded that it was perfectly safe to let everyone back in, however true to form Stapp and Heath made up for it by having Stapp taking a running jump headfirst over about four rows of seats during the Q&A as an example of a “stunt”. The audience loved it and asked him to do it again, which he did.
That’s a showman my friends.
After the bar, me, Mitch Davis (The international programmer), the Devil guys, King-Wei Chu (A fest programmer whose own personal Shaw Bros collection probably puts Tarantino’s to shame), David Kristian and Simon Laperrière (Another festival programmer and a god blessed 100% pure wool French MF just like me.)went into this seedy Karaoke place. And when I say seedy I mean that there were like four cop cars there when we arrived and about eight cops looking ever so serious and being really tightlipped about what had just happened. Was it a Yakuza hit? Maybe whole St-Valentine’s Day Massacre thing done by guys with missing pinkie fingers? PFFFFT… Who the fuck knows? Like we give a shit. We were there so that we could sit in a small humid room, get drunk off our ass and sustain hearing damage while singing to really bad generic backing tracks.
…and just so we don’t gloss over on the whole seedy thing, when I went to take a piss later on in the evening I noticed the toilet bowl was stained with red around the part where the water is sucked in. Know what that was? The blood from someone’s shit! HAHAHAHA!
Chris and Matt sort of stole the show because they’re like actual PROFESSIONAL singers and all with their band Deja Voodoo. And Chris absolutely fucking killed with a rendition of “Fight for your Right to Party” that sounded so good I wish the Beastie Boys had a New Zealand accent now.
I guess we know what my suggestion for a Deja Voodoo B-side would be huh?
The other songs of the night included Back in Black (another kickass rendition by Chris), the Womble’s theme song, TWO extremely painful rounds of “Barbie Girl” a song so goddamn bad that I felt my brain die just a little bit. YMCA by the Village people, a song whom I now suspect may just have a slight sexual connotation. What else? Shit, I sang something but I can’t remember what it was. I suck. The only thing of note I can think of was that Chris tried climbing over the table to get to his seat and managed to nearly kill himself because the table wobbled and shot every single beer bottle all over the fucking place. Everyone cheered. Well, some of us cheered. Okay… Chris cheered.
In any case, a good time was had by all until we were kicked out at 3AM because of this odd “Last Call” thing where the bars posit this ridiculous notion that you must a) Stop Drinking and b) Leave. Since no one wanted to stop drinking, we left and all stumbled back to the hotel where we talked some more, drank vodka, posed for homoerotic photographs and eventually all decided that it was indeed 6 fucking AM and going home might be a good plan.
So here I am, it’s now 10:30AM, and I still haven’t slept because I’m writing this for you cunts, but I can honestly say that Fantasia is the highlight of my summer. Hell, my YEAR. So lots of thanks go out to Mark Bell and Eric Campos for giving me this gig, Mitch Davis for always being a great guy and allowing this crazy Canuck to come over to spread a little hell at the fest every year. I also want to shout out to Victoria Sanchez who I never got to see once in the whole fucking festival. Sorry love. Then there’s Dahlia from Fantastik Asia. David Kristian. Phillipe Spurrell. Simon “Grosse Graine” Laperrière, King-Wei Chu, Robert Kurtzman, Uwe Boll, Bill Zebub, Sion Sono, Eddie McGee, Curt Johnson, Ryan Bruce Levey, and of course Mariko McDonald.
Oh, and just so you know, the festivals been extended by a day and there’s gonna be 4 more films tonight. Check it out if you haven’t yet. Last chance.
And before I leave y’all to go to sleep, here’s Sion Sono and Mitch Davis; Chris Stapp and Matt Heath saying “See ya next year!”
I missed Murder Party. Sorry about that. I had the stupidest thing happen to my car the other day. Some sort of rodent ate through one of the spark plug wires and now it’s working all funky. I thought I was okay for tonight since I fixed the problem but the check engine light came on about ten minutes into the trip to Montreal so I had to turn back and and borrow someone’s car.
Anyway, I eventually made it, but not before missing Murder Party. It’s a damn shame too since apparently it had a kickass screening.
But…
You and I both know that this is just buildup to Uwe Boll’s “Postal” which had it’s world premiere tonight at the festival. I’ve talked about it and FT’s own Michael Ferraro posted a clip of the first few minutes on his blog. A comedy about 9/11 and the war on terror is something that even the South Park guys don’t have the balls to tackle. So I was definitely looking forward to seeing it, and all of you reading this right now are probably dying to know how it went.
So how was it? Well, it’s easily Boll’s best film and a good film in it’s own right. Don’t believe all that shit you read about Boll, he’s not the greatest filmmaker who ever lived but he’s hardly the festering turd of cinematic art that he’s been made out to be. I seriously think that this movie will change film geek’s opinion of him. I mean Jesus, he actually plays himself in the film includes a scene with the producer of the Postal video game attacking him and screaming “WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY GAME BOLL?????” before he’s shot in the balls and dies saying “I hate video games.”
You gotta give him credit for having a sense of humour about himself.
I also got to meet him and have a fairly long talk with the man. He’s very nice. I was expecting some wild and crazy German dude but no, he was almost shy at times and very kind. Wanna know how fucking nice he is? True story: Some homeless guy had hurt himself badly and needed an ambulance right next to where we were drinking and Boll gave the guy a chair while some other people called 911. Stanley Kubrick ain’t got shit on that.
So yeah, Postal is gonna be a film you’re gonna hear about. It’s insanely offensive and will not escape the attention of the right wingers. It almost makes South Park look like Full House. I mean, there’s a scene where Verne Troyer gets raped by ONE THOUSAND monkeys, not just one or two. One THOUSAND. You have a guy using flour to find the hole on a fat woman. You have the infamous 9/11 satire with the two hijackers on a plane. You have jabs at Tom Cruise being into human sacrifice. You have full frontal male nudity. You have children being graphically killed on screen for comedic effect. You have a cat being used as a silencer for a gun. You have allegations that George Bush and Osama Bin Laden are butt buddies. It’s just nonstop and relentless in it’s desire to offend.
Is it funny? Yes! You gotta have a dark twisted sense of humour, but you’re gonna laugh. Boll said that he wanted to make a ruthless comedy like they used to make them back in the 80’s before this whole PC/hands-across-america bullshit ruined everything and on that aspect he definitely succeeded. The film isn’t perfect, the laughs sometimes aren’t timed just right. It’s like hearing someone muff a good joke. You still laugh, just not as much as if he’d zinged it at you. But it’s definitely a wild ride; and even if you don’t like Boll and think you’d hate this film, you have to admit that it’s the perfect antidote to safe bland pap like “I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry”.
I’ll be making the annual trek to the San Diego Comic Con on Wednesday and I can’t wait. I plan to leave my keyboard behind for several days of actual physical contact with people. Specifically, geeks like myself who travel to SD for this, well, Geekapalooza — a celebration of all things pop culture from movies, comics, tv, action figures and more. I’ll be a part of G4TV’s Comic Con Live Show on July 26th and 27th. So if you can’t get to the con, check out two hours of coverage daily which should be pretty cool.
Last year, someone decided to sell beer to my geek pals Matt, Mark and I. The results were crazy, beer can make you feel funny and it’s even funnier when geeks consume massive amounts…
I’ll also be moderating a panel at the con on Thursday, July 26th. Here are the details– 2:00-3:00 G4: Code Monkeys
The secret history of videogames is exposed in G4’s Code Monkeys, an animated comedy of 8-bit proportions. Code Monkeys creator Adam de la Peña, one of the warped minds behind Minoriteam, Crank Yankers, and The Man Show, offers his unique, behind-the-scenes insight into the rowdy celebration and biting parody of videogames, technology, and pop culture. Room 4.
Oh, and there may be a swanky Film Threat party celebrating the filmmakers with movies playing at the Comic Con International Independent Film Festival. I don’t have full details yet, but if you see me, ask.
See you at the con!
Gore gone!
P.S. NEED A ROOM? If anyone headed to the con still needs a hotel room, I have an extra reservation from Wed-Sun at the Marriott Marina next to the convention center. Message me if you are interested, otherwise, I’m canceling. Hotels in the San Diego are completely sold out, and all I want to do is help out a fellow con attendee.
Cos-play is something that has always fascinated me… where’s that party?
Even if you don’t like horror films you’ve seen “Halloween” and probably a few of its sequels. It was an independent film that took a startling simple concept (unstoppable masked killer returns to his hometown and starts killing people) and mixed it with a great soundtrack and outstanding direction to make it one of the most effective slasher films of all time. It’s been copied, parodied and was even the subject of a splendid Atari 2600 game, a sign the movie has become bigger than itself.
John Carpenter’s film struck a nerve with audiences. Its monster felt real enough (he was a man, after all) with just a hint of the supernatural. (It should be noted that in the novelization by Curtis Richards there was an actual origin involving an old curse a king asked a shaman to place over what was left of the body of a murderer. The curse was such that the murderer’s “soul shall roam the earth till the end of time.” The soul was to relive its “foul deed” and “foul punishment,” and be visited with “every affliction.” This was wisely left out of the film, as any explanation would have diluted the fear.) The movie took place in a small town on a night that was supposed to be both safe and scary. In other words, it could be anywhere happening to anyone. It wasn’t like the killer was an outsider (he was one of their own who had been sent away), and the setting wasn’t out of place (like the school in “Suspiria”). No, this was hometown horror, and that always works well with viewers.
The film, like most horror films and especially slashers, also had a very conservative tone. The teens who had premarital sex were killed. The virginal one, the one who actually seemed to care about protecting the children, gets to live — only to be reminded that the person who was after her still roams free. (In a conservative’s view, outside forces are always threatening the status quo and must be guarded against by staying true to one’s values.) These conservative messages in horror films are often lost on audiences except at a subconscious level, but they still have an impact. Horror movies often serve to reinforce society’s mores and values, and “Halloween” did a thorough job of that. Whether or not audiences picked up on that as it was happening didn’t really matter. The message was still there.
“Halloween,” for all its strengths (most notable are those shifts in narrative focus that give the film an often paranoid sense of fear) seemed to have much going against it. It was an independent film. Its subject matter, while not graphic, still boiled down to cold-blooded murder. And while Jamie Lee Curtis starred in it, she wasn’t a “star” at that time. It should have never done as well as it did, but good movies often transcend their hurdles, and this was one of them.
Anyone who thinks the film is outdated and really doesn’t have much of a place in horror or cinematic history must be ignorant of the imitators that came after it. They still exist to this day. There have even been films that are responses to that phenomenon (“Scream” and its sequels).
“Halloween” spawned many of its own sequels, too. (The original plan was to do a brand new horror film every Halloween, but the first one went so well that a direct sequel to it was almost mandatory.) The second film was more a continuation of the first than an actual sequel, and it suffers somewhat, but is still a fine film. The third totally deviated from the first two, and even treated them as works of fiction, as can be seen in the one scene where a television commercial is seen that advertises the first film. That third movie, “Halloween III: Season of the Witch,” was actually a very original movie that is still fun to watch. It was not what people were expecting, however, and the franchise remained silent for many years following it. It was later revived, but only the most delusional think it has any of the spunk it originally possessed.
If there is one bit of praise you rarely ever hear for “Halloween” it is that it is an American film that feels very foreign. The soundtrack harkens back to Dario Argento’s masterpieces (and the entire film actually feels like an Argento project at times, especially when combined with its direct sequel), and it is, as noted before, more subtle than your average slasher film. It understands what is scary and never exploits it beyond its means. That’s something that’s rare in American horror films. (If one beheading is good, three are even better.)
Carpenter’s career has had its ups and downs since then, and now that Rob Zombie is doing the remake, the original will be in the media again. None of that will affect the legacy of the original film, however, as it is powerful enough to be able to withstand all of that. It will outlive its director, stars, inferior sequels and copycats. “Halloween” just isn’t a movie, it’s a legend … and with good reason.
I’m on a bit of a break from the festival. I’m covering this on my vacation so I took a few days off to to actually have a really real vacation and relax a bit. At the moment am writing up reviews and getting ready for tomorrow’s films. Which will include the wholly twisted ”We are the Strange” and the funky looking “Nightmare Detective”
However, that doesn’t mean I can’t share cool shit with you while we wait.
So without any more blather, here are some commercials for last year’s Fantasia 2006. They’re quite representative of the cool and twisted vibe this festival oozes.
Meet Claire, isn’t she adorable?
And then find out why you never EVER annoy a Samurai.
Well, that’s all I have for now. I’ll keep y’all posted.
