Fucking gay cinema. It's just... one of those things that sounds incredibly straightforward on the surface of it, and it SHOULD be really, super easy but FUCK does everyone manage to just screw it in the kidney any time they take a step towards that whole fucking genre. And what a genre! Yeesh.
Anyway, almost 3 years to the day since I abandoned this blogging project, this "film" made me think about it. It's pretty much everything that I hate in a film (critical acclaim, but nothing really to it), but with the added twist of being an attempt to mainstream the gay cinema concept. Which is basically, make a heteronormative love story but make the main characters woofters, have some plinky plonky earth indie in the background, maybe by Sigur Ros or The Shins, then have a gritty shock that "could happen to anyone" occur to the characters in order to humanise them in a way that even the most drooling, rabid hetero could relate to. So far, so Helen Hunt. It's just so fucking tedious if it isn't done well.
By contrast, Andrew Haigh's Weekend was a delight. You had cruising, you had random toilet cubicle blow jobs, being "the token gay friend, who's not really gay in that way, are you", all that shit that was a bit more... relevant? I hated Weekend when I first saw it, but when I watched it again, I think it's because it resonated a little bit too close to home for my comfort, and the story itself was so utterly heartbreaking it felt like a cheap shot. Reflection made it's flaws seem more like wear and tear that we've all had to put up with.
Keep The Lights On had basically none of that. You're meant to relate to the characters, a crack addicted but, somehow, highly successful lawyer and a fucking award winning documentary maker. I mean, don't get me wrong, I accept that award-winning documentary makers actually exist in the world, but COME ON. Fucking hell. If you want to make a story people can put themselves into (which it is so, so very clear Ira Sachs wants you (well, us, unless you're also a gay)) at least make the characters real. An unemployed crackhead and some guy who works at Blockbuster, or a crackhead who just about holds down a job working in a sex shop going out with a city banker who's working too much to notice his boyfriend going off the deep end, yadda yadda. I can get on board with these people, these are people I can imagine I walk past their houses on the way to work. Ira Sachs may as well have made them a unicorn herder and a fucking Latvian prince, for all the bearing these jobs had on the story in the first place. Or how about Hollywood film star and crack addicted neurosurgeon. Male twink burlesque dancer and Antarctic research specialist. Magician and jewel thief. Who fucking cares? Where was I...
Oh, yeah, right. PACING. So, at just over 90min, this film was meant to chronicle the 9 year relationship of the main characters, or at least that's what one of the last conversations in the film would have you believe, but in most respects the guys barely seemed to know each other. I think the problem was that they hardly had any scenes together, so it's difficult to get a grip on how deep their feelings were for each other, but I'm pretty sure I've had a closer bond with people on the first tube home after a night out, and this is with people who couldn't form vowel sounds or quite pinpoint where my face is located. Plus both characters' behaviour verges on sociopathy in several places, and because the acting is so patchy it's hard to tell if this is them just not knowing how to deal with a situation, or if it's because they just don't understand how feelings work.
Anyway, yeah. A fairly ham-fisted attempt to try and point out how gay people are just like everyone else that just ends up falling flat, for me. 4/10
Thursday, 21 March 2013
Tuesday, 16 March 2010
Fame (2009)
There are special categories of films in my mind. There are the ones which have a profound impact on your life, that make you question the day to day mundanity of your life in general. Some have a plot so absorbing, occasionally I get to the end and realise I don't even remember any of the characters' names. Others make me question my political and social opinions enough to warrant looking into issues and reassessing them.
Some are so bland and soulless that despite watching it twice, I can barely remember what happened in it. Fame will forever hold a special place in my heart, for one reason alone: When it had the visual montage of the main characters at the end in lieu of the traditional credit roll, I didn't even remember one of them being in the movie. Like, at all. I remember the costume she was wearing from an earlier scene which lasted all of 2 minutes, but I just couldn't for the life of me remember her even being in the 'story', at any point.
That's a special kind of special, in my book.
So, for anyone who's unfamiliar with the original Fame, the story is set in a school for performing arts in New York City. It followed a rag tag group of students through their auditions and their 3 years of education there, and was a relatively good coming-of-age story with all of the inspirational archetypes one would expect from such fodder. It was good, and the characters grew on you as they developed through their lives, becoming more rounded as they went and developing relationships with each other that varied from touching to heartbreaking, infuriating to adorable.
So, some choreographer decided to do a remake of the film, for whatever reason. I'm not sure what that reason was, since the original version might be a bit dated but is still as relevant as it was on it's original release, but that's besides the point.
The differences between the 1980 and 2009 versions of this are pretty noticeable. For a start, there's no story in the remake, for some reason. I'm not sure why they decided to skip that bit, since it seemed like a fairly large omission, but that was the route they took.
You have dancing girl, pianist girl, acting girl, singing girl, rapper slash actor guy, music guy, dancing gay and the teachers who actually managed to be played by a decent cast including Kelsey Grammar and Bebe Neuworth. Oh, and the fat one from Will & Grace.
The scenes involving the students are spread so thin that you don't really get to know them, which is the only way a movie like this works. They appear sporadically, there's a few vague romantic stories threaded in there, some dance routines and what I'm sure are meant to be rousing speeches of inspiration from the faculty, but it's more like a montage from a reality TV show. You just end up not giving a crap about any of them. When one of them tries to throw himself in front of a train, I was wondering more about which character it was in the first place. I think it was dancing gay, but it could have easily been a random tertiary character thrown in for dramatic effect.
I wonder why this guy even bothered trying to make a film, it's just beyond my grasp. Apparently he is the one who inflicted The Pussycat Dolls on the world, somehow, and they get him in to make an actual film based on that? Would you let Uwe Boll make... oh, wait. They keep letting Uwe Boll make tonnes of shit, I forget.
I feel sorry for the kids in the film, more than anything. They're never going to work again. As shit as the directing might have been, and the script, at the end of the day it's the actors who get the blame when it comes to the end. Their lack of charisma and charm just compounds the existing weaknesses of the film, and they just come across as pathetic and weak characters, when they're meant to be aspirational.
Still, I can't help but feel that I've caught a glimpse of the future of mainstream cinema - movies which are almost ethereal in nature, so lacking in substance that it has to make up for it in glitz and over-the-top glamour. Replacing story for routines, and characterisation for musical numbers.
Or maybe I'm just reading it wrong, maybe the students here are meant to be caricatures of teenagers who dream of fame and fortune because they don't have anything else going for them, so they live in perpetual adulation of those around them in the vain hope that it will be reciprocated. Maybe it's just trapped wind, fucked if I know.
All in all, it's hard to form an opinion on Fame, because it's like trying to form an opinion on blue, or irony, or sour. There's nothing but a concept to assess, and no substance to look at and appreciate or despise
Some are so bland and soulless that despite watching it twice, I can barely remember what happened in it. Fame will forever hold a special place in my heart, for one reason alone: When it had the visual montage of the main characters at the end in lieu of the traditional credit roll, I didn't even remember one of them being in the movie. Like, at all. I remember the costume she was wearing from an earlier scene which lasted all of 2 minutes, but I just couldn't for the life of me remember her even being in the 'story', at any point.
That's a special kind of special, in my book.
So, for anyone who's unfamiliar with the original Fame, the story is set in a school for performing arts in New York City. It followed a rag tag group of students through their auditions and their 3 years of education there, and was a relatively good coming-of-age story with all of the inspirational archetypes one would expect from such fodder. It was good, and the characters grew on you as they developed through their lives, becoming more rounded as they went and developing relationships with each other that varied from touching to heartbreaking, infuriating to adorable.
So, some choreographer decided to do a remake of the film, for whatever reason. I'm not sure what that reason was, since the original version might be a bit dated but is still as relevant as it was on it's original release, but that's besides the point.
The differences between the 1980 and 2009 versions of this are pretty noticeable. For a start, there's no story in the remake, for some reason. I'm not sure why they decided to skip that bit, since it seemed like a fairly large omission, but that was the route they took.
You have dancing girl, pianist girl, acting girl, singing girl, rapper slash actor guy, music guy, dancing gay and the teachers who actually managed to be played by a decent cast including Kelsey Grammar and Bebe Neuworth. Oh, and the fat one from Will & Grace.
The scenes involving the students are spread so thin that you don't really get to know them, which is the only way a movie like this works. They appear sporadically, there's a few vague romantic stories threaded in there, some dance routines and what I'm sure are meant to be rousing speeches of inspiration from the faculty, but it's more like a montage from a reality TV show. You just end up not giving a crap about any of them. When one of them tries to throw himself in front of a train, I was wondering more about which character it was in the first place. I think it was dancing gay, but it could have easily been a random tertiary character thrown in for dramatic effect.
I wonder why this guy even bothered trying to make a film, it's just beyond my grasp. Apparently he is the one who inflicted The Pussycat Dolls on the world, somehow, and they get him in to make an actual film based on that? Would you let Uwe Boll make... oh, wait. They keep letting Uwe Boll make tonnes of shit, I forget.
I feel sorry for the kids in the film, more than anything. They're never going to work again. As shit as the directing might have been, and the script, at the end of the day it's the actors who get the blame when it comes to the end. Their lack of charisma and charm just compounds the existing weaknesses of the film, and they just come across as pathetic and weak characters, when they're meant to be aspirational.
Still, I can't help but feel that I've caught a glimpse of the future of mainstream cinema - movies which are almost ethereal in nature, so lacking in substance that it has to make up for it in glitz and over-the-top glamour. Replacing story for routines, and characterisation for musical numbers.
Or maybe I'm just reading it wrong, maybe the students here are meant to be caricatures of teenagers who dream of fame and fortune because they don't have anything else going for them, so they live in perpetual adulation of those around them in the vain hope that it will be reciprocated. Maybe it's just trapped wind, fucked if I know.
All in all, it's hard to form an opinion on Fame, because it's like trying to form an opinion on blue, or irony, or sour. There's nothing but a concept to assess, and no substance to look at and appreciate or despise
Monday, 15 March 2010
Cthulhu (2007)
Did you ever wonder what happened to Tori Spelling? When I was young we used to watch Bevery Hills 90210, because I had a teenage sister and these things happened. There are many things you do when you have a teenage sister in the 90s. You know all the lyrics to every New Kids on the Block Album, you appreciate football players and their chiselled features/torsos, you watch Beverly Hills 90210, and you probably fear hockey sticks.
So, Tori Spelling was a pretty big deal in the 90s. She almost definitely didn't get the part in the first place due to her dad being Aaron Spelling, but entirely because she was a genuine and talented actor in her own right, proving herself week-on-week that she had what it takes.
That's all bollocks of course.
So, if you were wondering what happened to her after 90210, you're probably a massive twat. Or a gay.
ONTO THE FILM!
Cthulhu is an attempt to adapt the Lovecraftian mythos into an easily digestible movie based format, taking the concepts from the original stories and placing them into a screenplay that's more contemporary.
The basic gist of the thing is that a gay, suspiciously young history professor has to return to his hometown after the death of his mother to deal with the shitstorm that kind of event triggers. Upon arriving, weird shit ensues involving odd dreams and visions, scary monsters that live in the sewers and are actually about as threatening as a child, blah blah blah.
All in all, I found the story fairly simple to follow, but don't let that fool you. It seemed to be trying it's very hardest to make any kind of sense, and I got the impression that even though the writer/director was doing his level best to make it genuinely creepy and disturbing, every attempt to convey a sense of dread just came across as kind of funny. The Rosemary's Baby-esque way that everyone was acting only made it seem even funnier. It reminded me of a sketch on Big Train, not in content but in style, which made it virtually impossible to create any kind of mood deserving of what should have been a classic horror story.
As the plot drudges on, more and more people in the town start acting oddly, culminating in both the main character getting raped by none other than Tori Spelling! I'm sure her character was there for a reason, maybe they went to school together? By about the hour mark my memory was hemorrhaging dangerously so the details are a little fuzzy. Anyway, so, she rapes him with the assistance of her husband for unknown reasons, and more hilarity ensues when he's arrested for murder. Conspiracies abound, I never saw that one coming. I swear.
Whilst in jail, 'shit goes down' globally, and by this point I just stopped caring. Rioting and stuff happened, towns all over were in ruins, turns out that a cult in the town was planning to destroy the world with sea monsters, and somewhere in there the lead character managed to get his end away with some bloke who feels the need to make a point about how 'it's not a gay thing'. Though quite how you have had a good hard nobbing session with it being anything BUT a gay thing, is beyond me. Surely the act of fucking a member of the same sex is, by it's very definition, a 'gay thing'. I mean, you couldn't join the Ku Klux Klan and claim it's 'not a race thing', really, could you? Or have a triple bypass and claim it's 'not an open heart surgery thing'.
Turns out that Tori needed him to fertilise her monster eggs so she could spawn, and that this was all part of the plan, and then I just realised the horrible truth - This wasn't a real movie. It was an elaborate hoax. Someone had won a Blue Peter competition to make a movie and decided to let their retarded cousin who drank meths and huffed glue help with the writing. The retarded cousin then beat the Blue Peter Badge holder with a stick until he died and finished off the story before shitting himself and throwing his soiled pants out into the street. probably at an old lady.
Anyway, as with all films, there is a moral to this story. The climactic confrontation revealed an important insight into the writer's mind, which appeared to be thus: Don't be gay. If you are gay, you will wake the Dreamer and bring about the end of all that is.
So there.
I wouldn't say don't watch Cthulhu outright, I'm sure that some people would get a proper thrill out of seeing a glossy movie based on The Shadow over Innsmouth. They also might like a colorectal consultation or an endoscopy, or flaying.
Wednesday, 7 October 2009
The Legend of Chun Li (2009)
I remember the summer of 1995. Barely 13, eagerly awaiting what was sure to be the movie release of the year. Nay, the decade. The very millennia, no doubt. I spent what I am sure were scant minutes begging to be taken to enjoy what was sure to be a visual delight, a spectacle of action fused with tragic story of slavery and exploitation.
I refer, of course, to Street Fighter, one of the most beloved games of my generation. And also, of course, the reality of the movie was very different to the romanticised imagining that fans of the franchise has hoped for. I'm sure that the late Raul Julia is rolling in his grave at the thought that this would be the last film he ever got to make, mourning the fact that he could have left it at Addams Family Values.
I never imagined for a minute that anyone would be stupid enough to do it all over again, yet in the Year of our Lord 2009 Andrzej Bartkowiak, cinematographer for academy award nominated pictures Prizzi's Honor, The Verdict and Terms of Endearment, decided to add to his less-than-stellar directorial portfolio with the universally panned Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li.
The film opens with a heartwarming monologue from 'star' Kristin Kreuk, about how Chunny had dreamt of becoming a concert pianist as a little girl, but instead decided to become a martial artist. Then her dad gets beaten up by the retarded guy from The Green Mile and kidnapped by the gay one from Star Trek: First Contact, and hilarity ensues as she dedicates her life to getting revenge. Oh, wait. Actually, she becomes a successful concert pianist. What a twist.
At some point, she gets something in the post, yadda yadda, NOW she's out for revenge.
What the film lacks in substance, it more than makes up for in bad scipting and poorly executed fight choreography, and one of the most impressively awful Irish accents in the industry, making Brad Pitt's turn in The Devil's Own frighteningly authentic by comparison.
In itself, the film is so fragmented and clunky that the story doesn't so much flow from scene to scene as much as each scene is thrown at high speed into a wood chipper and blended into something that contains the constituent parts you would expect of a movie, but it doesn't really resemble one except in the most vague of ways.
With an estimated budget of $50m, I can't quite work out where it went. I can only assume that the appallingly out-of-place scene where she learns how to do a D,DR,R + punch cost a fortune. At least they didn't use the word 'hadouken'. I think I might have thrown up in my mouth a little bit.
Still, it could be worse. The computer game format has never really transferred well to the big screen. As a concept, the stories are thin, the characters are rarely designed to be more than the player's avatar as they kick, punch, shoot or burst their way to victory, but the problem with this particular transition is this: Where a film pitch involves a thin premise which can eventually be fleshed out and expanded upon in much the same way that a computer game can be as you progress, a movie 'has to have' a definitive beginning, middle, end, antagonist, protagonist or any selection of these, but the game? It has more characters, they need to be massaged gently into the plot. Oh, and that particular enemy? Yeah, that needs to be crowbarred in, too. Ah, remember that monster? The one that killed EVERYONE the first time they played? Better wedge that into the mix, as well.
You can only fit so many books into a crate before you can't lift it for the weight, and there's a reason why movies generally have a handful of characters to deal with.
I refer, of course, to Street Fighter, one of the most beloved games of my generation. And also, of course, the reality of the movie was very different to the romanticised imagining that fans of the franchise has hoped for. I'm sure that the late Raul Julia is rolling in his grave at the thought that this would be the last film he ever got to make, mourning the fact that he could have left it at Addams Family Values.
I never imagined for a minute that anyone would be stupid enough to do it all over again, yet in the Year of our Lord 2009 Andrzej Bartkowiak, cinematographer for academy award nominated pictures Prizzi's Honor, The Verdict and Terms of Endearment, decided to add to his less-than-stellar directorial portfolio with the universally panned Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li.
The film opens with a heartwarming monologue from 'star' Kristin Kreuk, about how Chunny had dreamt of becoming a concert pianist as a little girl, but instead decided to become a martial artist. Then her dad gets beaten up by the retarded guy from The Green Mile and kidnapped by the gay one from Star Trek: First Contact, and hilarity ensues as she dedicates her life to getting revenge. Oh, wait. Actually, she becomes a successful concert pianist. What a twist.
At some point, she gets something in the post, yadda yadda, NOW she's out for revenge.
What the film lacks in substance, it more than makes up for in bad scipting and poorly executed fight choreography, and one of the most impressively awful Irish accents in the industry, making Brad Pitt's turn in The Devil's Own frighteningly authentic by comparison.
In itself, the film is so fragmented and clunky that the story doesn't so much flow from scene to scene as much as each scene is thrown at high speed into a wood chipper and blended into something that contains the constituent parts you would expect of a movie, but it doesn't really resemble one except in the most vague of ways.
With an estimated budget of $50m, I can't quite work out where it went. I can only assume that the appallingly out-of-place scene where she learns how to do a D,DR,R + punch cost a fortune. At least they didn't use the word 'hadouken'. I think I might have thrown up in my mouth a little bit.
Still, it could be worse. The computer game format has never really transferred well to the big screen. As a concept, the stories are thin, the characters are rarely designed to be more than the player's avatar as they kick, punch, shoot or burst their way to victory, but the problem with this particular transition is this: Where a film pitch involves a thin premise which can eventually be fleshed out and expanded upon in much the same way that a computer game can be as you progress, a movie 'has to have' a definitive beginning, middle, end, antagonist, protagonist or any selection of these, but the game? It has more characters, they need to be massaged gently into the plot. Oh, and that particular enemy? Yeah, that needs to be crowbarred in, too. Ah, remember that monster? The one that killed EVERYONE the first time they played? Better wedge that into the mix, as well.
You can only fit so many books into a crate before you can't lift it for the weight, and there's a reason why movies generally have a handful of characters to deal with.
Monday, 1 June 2009
Twilight (2008)
Big bag of ass doesn't even begin to describe this attempt at 'cinema'. He hinted.
But seriously, I was expecting a pretty terrible film, and this delivered in swathes. The tone of the film is that typical angsty teen movie grey-blue that you find in everything from The Faculty to Disturbing Behaviour to Gossip. All classic teen movie examples, of course. Each more angsty and annoying then the last. The characterisation (if you can call it that) is so shallow and glossed over that throughout the film up to the end you have virtually no idea of any of the character's motivations or personalities, except that the female lead, Bessie or whatever, seems to think that having met someone for more than a couple of minutes means that she immediately has to start having various lovers quarrels with them, and that the male lead Eddie is dark.
Very dark.
He's, like, totally dark and dangerous, but she's OK with that. She's not afraid of his darkness, but he's afraid that the darkness in him, and that it'll make him kill her face in.
Seriously. He's dark. Maybe it's because he's a vampire. Maybe it's Maybelline. Fucked if I could tell, he was wearing too much make up.
The lengths to which they'll go to have him drop it into conversation every couple of minutes are astounding. And by astounding, I mean irritating. At one point I actually considered ripping out my own kidney so that I could think about something other than his fucking darkness. So, to recap, she's a bit needy and has the voice of a man, and he's a violent sociopath who thinks that he needs to start dating.
His family, who are all the same age as him, (even the pretend parents, I swear, barely looked 20) are all lovely of course. What's the reason? Oh, yes. They're friendly, nice, cuddly vampires. The kind that you'd hang out with if you were looking for The (not-quite Ian) Brady Bunch of killers. They only drink animal blood, play baseball and look after each other LIKE FAMILIES DO. Pussies.
The 2 leads have all the sexual chemistry of a wet towel covered in shit. Though that is basically all this film is, from beginning to end. Maybe it's a mistake of the writer or director, or maybe the story is the folly of 14-18 year-old girls who feel like they don't quite fit in. Maybe they should try aspirin instead. 40 to 60 should do the trick.
The writer's decision that the traditional vampire lore doesn't quite fit in with her teenage love-in has led her to make some interesting decisions in this regard. Sunlight? Pah, no problem whatsoever. They avoid direct sunlight, but only because it makes them shiny. Like ultra-sweat. Rather than perspiring, their skin turns all diamond-y. Well, isn't that sweet and romantic. I mean, they couldn't have a school romance if the vampires couldn't go to school, now, could they?
The film did manage to do one thing well, though, and that was win MTV movie awards, exceeding in such highly contested categories as 'Best Kiss' and 'Best Fight'. The kiss they refer to, I'm not sure. The only one I noticed had the 2 leads leaning uncomfortably for a prolonged period of time without their lips even meeting and swiftly turned into... I'm not even sure, I think I went for a dump at about that point. Best fight? Clearly the voters have never seen a film before. Lots of bad wire work? Check. Lots of hissing? Check. Broken glass? Check. I'm pretty sure they just cut and paste the scene from Mortal Kombat, it was about as skillfully choreographed. The fact that this film beat Slumdog Millionaire to the 'Best Movie' category says a lot, I feel. It says that if you watch and enjoy the MTV movie awards, you probably wouldn't notice if they replaced the entire show with footage of a monkey throwing shit into a bin.
Though Twilight is far from the worst film I've ever seen, it's about as enjoyable as watching your grandmother becoming a heroin addict and eating a cat.
But seriously, I was expecting a pretty terrible film, and this delivered in swathes. The tone of the film is that typical angsty teen movie grey-blue that you find in everything from The Faculty to Disturbing Behaviour to Gossip. All classic teen movie examples, of course. Each more angsty and annoying then the last. The characterisation (if you can call it that) is so shallow and glossed over that throughout the film up to the end you have virtually no idea of any of the character's motivations or personalities, except that the female lead, Bessie or whatever, seems to think that having met someone for more than a couple of minutes means that she immediately has to start having various lovers quarrels with them, and that the male lead Eddie is dark.
Very dark.
He's, like, totally dark and dangerous, but she's OK with that. She's not afraid of his darkness, but he's afraid that the darkness in him, and that it'll make him kill her face in.
Seriously. He's dark. Maybe it's because he's a vampire. Maybe it's Maybelline. Fucked if I could tell, he was wearing too much make up.
The lengths to which they'll go to have him drop it into conversation every couple of minutes are astounding. And by astounding, I mean irritating. At one point I actually considered ripping out my own kidney so that I could think about something other than his fucking darkness. So, to recap, she's a bit needy and has the voice of a man, and he's a violent sociopath who thinks that he needs to start dating.
His family, who are all the same age as him, (even the pretend parents, I swear, barely looked 20) are all lovely of course. What's the reason? Oh, yes. They're friendly, nice, cuddly vampires. The kind that you'd hang out with if you were looking for The (not-quite Ian) Brady Bunch of killers. They only drink animal blood, play baseball and look after each other LIKE FAMILIES DO. Pussies.
The 2 leads have all the sexual chemistry of a wet towel covered in shit. Though that is basically all this film is, from beginning to end. Maybe it's a mistake of the writer or director, or maybe the story is the folly of 14-18 year-old girls who feel like they don't quite fit in. Maybe they should try aspirin instead. 40 to 60 should do the trick.
The writer's decision that the traditional vampire lore doesn't quite fit in with her teenage love-in has led her to make some interesting decisions in this regard. Sunlight? Pah, no problem whatsoever. They avoid direct sunlight, but only because it makes them shiny. Like ultra-sweat. Rather than perspiring, their skin turns all diamond-y. Well, isn't that sweet and romantic. I mean, they couldn't have a school romance if the vampires couldn't go to school, now, could they?
The film did manage to do one thing well, though, and that was win MTV movie awards, exceeding in such highly contested categories as 'Best Kiss' and 'Best Fight'. The kiss they refer to, I'm not sure. The only one I noticed had the 2 leads leaning uncomfortably for a prolonged period of time without their lips even meeting and swiftly turned into... I'm not even sure, I think I went for a dump at about that point. Best fight? Clearly the voters have never seen a film before. Lots of bad wire work? Check. Lots of hissing? Check. Broken glass? Check. I'm pretty sure they just cut and paste the scene from Mortal Kombat, it was about as skillfully choreographed. The fact that this film beat Slumdog Millionaire to the 'Best Movie' category says a lot, I feel. It says that if you watch and enjoy the MTV movie awards, you probably wouldn't notice if they replaced the entire show with footage of a monkey throwing shit into a bin.
Though Twilight is far from the worst film I've ever seen, it's about as enjoyable as watching your grandmother becoming a heroin addict and eating a cat.
Sunday, 31 May 2009
The Last House on the Left (1972)
In 1974, the BBFC were horrified and appalled about a film that was so sadistic and depraved, with needless violence of such a degree that they refused to allow the film a certificate. 8 years later, and the 'video nasties' scare of 1982 also allowed this film to be banned from video sale within the shores of the United Kingdom.
So, I decided to watch it. The film in question being, of course, The Last house on the Left. The movie itself has festered at the back of my mind for well over a decade, one of those films I never bothered to watch, but I'd heard was so horrendous that the very nature of society threatened to crumble around us if anyone within this glorious nation were to catch even the slightest glimpse of it's visceral content.
This, of course, didn't happen when the film was made available for general release, for 2 reasons.
1 - It's a film.
2 - ...
Actually, I don't have a 2, because reason 1 generally overrides any other excuse I might bother to muster.
The story is thus: A young woman called Mari (I think it's pronounced "Mary", but to be honest I wasn't paying enough attention because I was distracted by someone calling their child "Mari") and her friend Phyllis are going to see a controversial band, Bloodlust, famed for their sacrifices of animals during their shows. I'm going to assume they were some form of metal band, being the music of evil, after all. Mari's a proper wild child. She says words like "tits", which seems to horrify her parents beyond all reason.
Mari and Phyllis prepare for their concert by attempting to buy some pot from some guy on the street. Lo and behold, it turns out that this man is not a friendly neighbourhood drug dealer, at all! Oh noes! He's actually the heroin addicted son of some nutjob who wants a couple of girls to play with. Hilarity ensues.
The rest of the film plays out like some kind of demented pantomime, as the family of nutters 'torture' and rape the 2 girls to a bizarre soundtrack that wouldn't be out of place in a Benny Hill sketch. I say 'torture', but the quality of the acting makes it difficult to differentiate between abject horror and minor nonchalance, the 2 girls having similar reactions to being humiliated and abused as they do to asking if they can borrow the car or spilling a drink.
The girls are eventually killed and the action shifts to the home of Mari's parents, where the dangerous criminals have come to for shelter as their car broke down, or something. Or maybe they ran out of petrol. It's hard to say, I was distracted by something shiny outside. The parents readily offer the mentals shelter, as you do, and a place to stay the night, but when Mari's necklace is spotted, suspicions are aroused, so the parents desperately dash off while the killers sleep, to find (luckily) the exact spot of their daughters body. Fuck knows how, with no evidence their daughter was dead, and the necklace in question being a fairly generic gold symbol of peace on a chain, they must have taken paranoia and prescience to an entirely new level.
But wait, it gets better.
The humble doctor-father and housewife-mother of Mari seem to decide upon a completely unreasonable course of action, where instead of mourning their daughter and calling the police, they instead take it upon themselves to exact cruel and brutal revenge. Where the shift happens or why is left unexplained. I think. Like I said already, shiny things outside.
I have to admit, I never expected the mother to bite off the cock of one of the villainous scallywags, or for the father to take a chainsaw as the only means of bloody retribution available to him, but nonetheless this did indeed happen. And swiftly, too. I think the time between discovering their daughter was dead and the climax of the film was probably only 10 minutes, maybe a little longer, and at no point did the parents seem to bear any ill-will to their victims, but maybe this is what made is such a video nasty that the BBFC felt the need to deny it a release. Not the violence and sadism, but just the appalling direction, acting, screenplay, soundtrack and plot.
The inherent danger with creating controversy around a movie's content is that you guarantee it a shot at infamy and a cult following which the movie itself may not even deserve. This is a prime example of the effect, shooting the movie's director Wes Craven into a spotlight that he, himself, may not have had any right to. Much like his follow-up success, The Hills Have Eyes, The Last House on the Left serves no real function in cinema other than to shock and it wouldn't be for 12 years that he would make his mark with a genuinely original horror.
Though this kind of film's needless violence pales in comparison to today's 'gorno' style of shock and sadism (Hostel, Saw et al), it's release was at a time of very different opinions of what was socially acceptable to allow people to view, a time when organisations like the BBFC felt the need to protect the public from that which they couldn't possibly want to see, or allow their children or friends to see, giving the genre as a whole an inflated sense of appeal. Hopefully these movies will eventually fade into memory, but for the time being they're at the forefront of Hollywood nostalgia as remake after remake of classic video nasty is churned through production with very little thought to whether it's even worth bothering.
As for The Last House on the Left? Give it a miss. It's just a bit shit, all in all.
So, I decided to watch it. The film in question being, of course, The Last house on the Left. The movie itself has festered at the back of my mind for well over a decade, one of those films I never bothered to watch, but I'd heard was so horrendous that the very nature of society threatened to crumble around us if anyone within this glorious nation were to catch even the slightest glimpse of it's visceral content.
This, of course, didn't happen when the film was made available for general release, for 2 reasons.
1 - It's a film.
2 - ...
Actually, I don't have a 2, because reason 1 generally overrides any other excuse I might bother to muster.
The story is thus: A young woman called Mari (I think it's pronounced "Mary", but to be honest I wasn't paying enough attention because I was distracted by someone calling their child "Mari") and her friend Phyllis are going to see a controversial band, Bloodlust, famed for their sacrifices of animals during their shows. I'm going to assume they were some form of metal band, being the music of evil, after all. Mari's a proper wild child. She says words like "tits", which seems to horrify her parents beyond all reason.
Mari and Phyllis prepare for their concert by attempting to buy some pot from some guy on the street. Lo and behold, it turns out that this man is not a friendly neighbourhood drug dealer, at all! Oh noes! He's actually the heroin addicted son of some nutjob who wants a couple of girls to play with. Hilarity ensues.
The rest of the film plays out like some kind of demented pantomime, as the family of nutters 'torture' and rape the 2 girls to a bizarre soundtrack that wouldn't be out of place in a Benny Hill sketch. I say 'torture', but the quality of the acting makes it difficult to differentiate between abject horror and minor nonchalance, the 2 girls having similar reactions to being humiliated and abused as they do to asking if they can borrow the car or spilling a drink.
The girls are eventually killed and the action shifts to the home of Mari's parents, where the dangerous criminals have come to for shelter as their car broke down, or something. Or maybe they ran out of petrol. It's hard to say, I was distracted by something shiny outside. The parents readily offer the mentals shelter, as you do, and a place to stay the night, but when Mari's necklace is spotted, suspicions are aroused, so the parents desperately dash off while the killers sleep, to find (luckily) the exact spot of their daughters body. Fuck knows how, with no evidence their daughter was dead, and the necklace in question being a fairly generic gold symbol of peace on a chain, they must have taken paranoia and prescience to an entirely new level.
But wait, it gets better.
The humble doctor-father and housewife-mother of Mari seem to decide upon a completely unreasonable course of action, where instead of mourning their daughter and calling the police, they instead take it upon themselves to exact cruel and brutal revenge. Where the shift happens or why is left unexplained. I think. Like I said already, shiny things outside.
I have to admit, I never expected the mother to bite off the cock of one of the villainous scallywags, or for the father to take a chainsaw as the only means of bloody retribution available to him, but nonetheless this did indeed happen. And swiftly, too. I think the time between discovering their daughter was dead and the climax of the film was probably only 10 minutes, maybe a little longer, and at no point did the parents seem to bear any ill-will to their victims, but maybe this is what made is such a video nasty that the BBFC felt the need to deny it a release. Not the violence and sadism, but just the appalling direction, acting, screenplay, soundtrack and plot.
The inherent danger with creating controversy around a movie's content is that you guarantee it a shot at infamy and a cult following which the movie itself may not even deserve. This is a prime example of the effect, shooting the movie's director Wes Craven into a spotlight that he, himself, may not have had any right to. Much like his follow-up success, The Hills Have Eyes, The Last House on the Left serves no real function in cinema other than to shock and it wouldn't be for 12 years that he would make his mark with a genuinely original horror.
Though this kind of film's needless violence pales in comparison to today's 'gorno' style of shock and sadism (Hostel, Saw et al), it's release was at a time of very different opinions of what was socially acceptable to allow people to view, a time when organisations like the BBFC felt the need to protect the public from that which they couldn't possibly want to see, or allow their children or friends to see, giving the genre as a whole an inflated sense of appeal. Hopefully these movies will eventually fade into memory, but for the time being they're at the forefront of Hollywood nostalgia as remake after remake of classic video nasty is churned through production with very little thought to whether it's even worth bothering.
As for The Last House on the Left? Give it a miss. It's just a bit shit, all in all.
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