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.
Wednesday, 7 October 2009
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.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)