Posts Tagged ‘Drama’


Birdemic: Shock and Terror

May 21st, 2010 | article by | No Comments »
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rating:
company: Moviehead Pictures
year: 2008
runtime: 95′
director: James Nguyen
cast: Alan Bagh, Whitney Moore,
Janae Caster, Colton Osborne,
Catherine Batcha, Rick Camp,
Damien Carter, Laura Cassidy
writer: James Nguyen
cinematography: Dainel Mai
music: Andrew Seger
not on home video in the USA (yet . . .)

Birdemic: Shock and Terror is currently out in limited theatrical release through Severin Films, and will be playing the Landmark Uptown Theatre here in Minneapolis tonight and Saturday at Midnight.  Originally self-released by Moviehead Pictures, Birdemic is currently OOP, but a special edition DVD will be coming from Severin Films in the near future.

There are good movies and there are bad movies, and then there is Birdemic: Shock and Terror, the feature debut of the undeniably enthusiastic if entirely talentless 40-something James Nguyen.  One part travelogue, two parts romantic drama and three parts effects so dreadful they’d make The Asylum blush, Birdemic isn’t the sort of thing that will ever be confused with good horror, but the title does get things at least half right – it is shockingly terrible.

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Kokkuri

April 23rd, 2010 | article by | No Comments »
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a.k.a. Kokkuri-san
company: Nikkatsu Corp.
year: 1997
runtime: 87′
country: Japan
director: Takashi Zeze
cast: Ayumi Yamatsu,
Hiroko Shimada, Moe Ishikawa
writers: Kishu Izuchi, Takashi Zeze
cinematography: Shogo Ueno
order this film from Amazon.com

Mio (Ayumi Yamatsu), a Japanese schoolgirl in her late teens, lives alone with her older sister. Without the knowledge of her friends – who lose at voice recognition - the girl also stars in a well-loved late night talk show, where she is “Michiru”, a construct of late teen wish-fulfilment whose life is full of sex and adventure, quite unlike Mio’s actual one.

Mio has never gotten over an experience in her childhood when her mother tried to drown her, but only drowned herself, and is now emotionally distant and obviously chronically depressed. She has a few friends, at least, Masami (Moe Ishikawa) and Hiroko (Hiroko Shimada). Both are about as lively and happy as Mio herself. Hiroko (I surmise) has never been quite alright since a childhood friend of hers drowned, and identifies Mio with her dead friend, while we are never made privy to any hints for Masami’s behaviour. Secretly, Mio is in love with Hiroko, but is never able to talk with her friend about it.

Though they are nominally friends, Hiroko and Masami don’t see eye to eye. They are in a passive-aggressive (and with girls this affectless the emphasis lies on the passive part) fight about a boy perfectly void of a personality.

Still, the three girls decide to have a séance, based on an idea they got from Mio’s radio show. They do this by means of playing a game called “kokkuri”. Working with a home-made Ouija board and using a girl ghost named Kokkuri as a guide, the girls at first just play around a little, but their questions soon turn uncomfortable. Questioned when Michiru (Mio’s alter ego her friends aren’t clever enough to connect to her at this point) will die, Kokkuri tells them “at 17″; Mio will turn 18 the same month.

Masami uses the session also as a way to continue her boy feud with Hiroko, until they come to blows, or at least as much to blows as they are able.

After the séance, things begin to get weird. Mio begins to have visions of a girl in a red dress that might be Hiroko’s dead childhood friend or her dead self or Kokkuri or all three. Hiroko disappears, only to appear shortly after – but worse for wear – at Mio’s, only to disappear again after an argument.

Takashi (or Takahisa, depending on who transcribes the name) Zeze is probably best known for his stark and rather depressing art house-minded pink movies, but as every good director working in genre movies (may they be arty or not), he also put(s) some time in other genres. Kokkuri-san is nominally a horror film, it is however the type of horror film that will just confuse anyone looking for “scares”.

The horror here is of a more existential kind. The supernatural isn’t there to menace the characters from the outside, but functions as a magnifying glass that helps the viewer see the characters’ wounds more clearly, or as a mirror so that the characters can see themselves more clearly. How honest the mirror might be is quite a different question. Zeze uses a doppelganger motif, and as is often the case with it, there’s always a certain amount of confusion when it comes to the question if the doppelganger is just more honest about someone’s traits or only showing their most destructive urges.

Thematically, Zeze works the same field as in most of his pink films. Kokkuri-san is fixated on alienation, the freezing effects of trauma and the inability to show one’s feelings, possibly even the inability to understand one’s own feelings. I say “possibly” because Zeze abstains from any closeness to his characters. Like the camera, which tends to keep its distance from the proceedings before it, the viewer isn’t truly allowed to get too close to anyone here. Getting inside anyone’s head, or identifying completely with any single character seems unthinkable. Even when the viewer shares Mio’s visions, the film still keeps up the feeling of distance. The audience is allowed to watch, and to think, even to build sensible theories, but it can never truly know what’s going on inside the characters.

At times, I can’t help but think that Zeze revels a little too much in being ambiguous. I don’t think that empathy based on understanding between people is impossible, something the director seems to disagree with.

When characters are never completely knowable, plot becomes even less so, and although Kokkuri-san’s plot makes a lot of thematic sense, someone looking for any form of excitement will be sorely disappointed. It wouldn’t be too difficult to argue that everything we see takes place in Mio’s head, and that there isn’t anything happening “in the real world” apart from (possibly) a teenage double suicide. If you are looking for clarity, or action, you’re probably not made for watching Zeze’s kind of cinema.

You’ll also want to avoid Kokkuri-san when you can’t take artistic products of a deeply pessimist worldview, where people’s isolation is never broken so completely that they’ll be able to live a life of actual closeness to others, and where the only way to connect lies in death. Though I think that the Hollywood way of looking at alienation or trauma and the simple solutions the films even acknowledging their existence offer are deeply insulting to the way actual people are feeling and going through their lives, I can’t say that I find Zeze’s view of life any more tenable. Of course, his films’ hopelessness is probably much closer to the way his characters relate to the world around them, and might even be a method to force the audience into a state of understanding and empathy exactly by refusing it easy ways to empathize. In a way, this seems to me something that more closely amounts to a real act of violence against the audience than most simulated violence on screen does (sorry, Miss Clover).

As you might have realized by now, I find Kokkuri-san in its own, unassuming way much more troubling than many films which are much better at being generic horror films. There’s a cloud of stark dread hanging over the film I find deeply affecting. It’s not a feeling everyone seeing Zeze’s film will share. Some of you might be bored (because honestly, there isn’t really much happening here), some confused (because honestly, “ambiguous” and “obtuse” are closely related concepts), and some just plain annoyed (because honestly, the film is so bleak even the idea of people smiling must be preposterous to Zeze).

For more bizarre movie goodness, be sure
to visit Denis’ excellent review blog The Horror!?


Tony

March 24th, 2010 | article by | No Comments »
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rating:
companies: Abbot Vision,
Chump Films and Dan
McCulloch Productions
year: 2009
runtime: 76′
country: United Kingdom
director: Gerard Johnson
cast: Peter Ferdinando, Frank Boyce,
Lorenzo Camporese, Cyrus Desir,
Lucy Flack, Ian Groombridge,
Ricky Grover, Ian Kilgannon
writer: Gerard Johnson
cinematographer: David Haggis
music: Matt Johnson and The The
reviewed from a screener provided
by Revolver Entertainment LLC
order this film from Amazon.com
or visit the official film site

It’s difficult to know quite what to think of Gerard Johnson’s debut feature Tony, a brief and loosely structured drama that follows the day-to-day activities of the fictitious suburban London serial killer.of the title. “I didn’t want to make something with much narrative, I deliberately didn’t want much plot. What I wanted to make was a character study about this guy Tony, a week in the life, nothing much happens, and that’s it,” Johnson said in an interview with Slashfilm.  I suppose Johnson succeeded, though I could have done with more on the “character study” front and less of the “nothing much happens.”

True to the writer / director’s statement, Tony is about Tony (Peter Fernandino, Bodywork) and very little else. Tony is jobless, and lives at the taxpayer’s expense in a small apartment stocked with 80s action movies and the odd dead body or two. He spends his days eating cereal with his rotting teeth, calling sex lines, and carrying plastic shopping bags carefully packed with dismembered human body parts down to the river for disposal. Along the way he meets several threats to his way of life – a disgruntled fat man in a bar, a government worker checking up on TV licenses, an unemployment office employee who promises to cut off Tony’s benefits if he doesn’t find a job.  But as the director has stated, not much really happens.

Johnson’s film presents with a distinctly unpleasant world view, a biproduct of his choice of character perspective.  Tony inhabits a seedy universe of dingy elevators and porno shops, prostitutes, drug lords, and the just plain unlovable.  From a pair of meth addicts to the owner of a tanning parlor to a fat man angry about his failing marriage,the secondary players are unpersonable at best and despicable at worst. All enjoy picking on our poor Tony, assured that he’s as easy a target as his meek appearance and nervous ticks suggest, never suspecting that he’s a closet homicidal maniac. There are only a couple of genuinely amiable person in the lot – a fellow tenant who invites Tony to dinner for his troubles and an elderly man he meets on the street – but their participation in events is minimal.  The lack of any relatable elements or redemptive value in the world of Tony is unfortunate, and likely to limit the film’s appeal.

In line with the “nothing much happens” mindset action in Tony is slim, even with so many dreadful people entering and exiting Tony’s life. The most that happens is the disappearance of a child, the resulting investigation of which Tony is briefly pestered with. The rest of the picture is taken up with Tony wandering the streets, scouting gay bars for potential victims, or sitting at home watching his action films (on VHS only, mind you). There’s no real narrative impetus to things and, as such, no narrative resolution. In the end situations are pretty well unchanged, and Tony is left to freely stalk the streets for a day or a lifetime . . .

The ad art takes advantage of the most horrific potential of the film’s premise, showing Tony standing against a white background with a bloodied hammer at his side. Truth be told, there’s precious little in the way of horror to be had, save a trio of on-screen murders that play with regrettably un-scary everyday sensibility. The throbbing music cues that accompany the killings indicates that they’re supposed to be terrifying, brutal affairs, but the ho-hum handheld photography fails to complete the illusion.  A first-person perspective of a potential victim in Tony’s closet is kept blessedly brief, its incongruous editing leaving it more annoying than frightening.

That’s not to say that Tony doesn’t achieve a level of creepiness at times, courtesy of Peter Fernandino’s nuanced performance. With a hair cut that was never in style and a mustache to match, Tony is certainly memorable, and Fernandino imbues the part with a constant, quiet menace. One notably unsettling early moment has him singing “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles” through his rotted teeth while watching a child play ball. Fernandino’s performance is reason enough to see Tony, imperfect as the rest of the production is, and may be enough to raise appreciation of the film to a respectable cult status.  It’s certainly the best thing about the film, and the reason I rated it a full three stars.

Tony is due out on DVD from Revolver Entertainment on the 6th of April. I can’t comment on that release specifically as the screener I received was film-only. The list of supplements looks encouraging, and includes a director’s commentary from Gerard Johnson and a pair of his short films, and the going price ($19.98 or less) sounds right for a new release.  Fans are certainly encouraged to indulge.

It’s unfortunate that Tony never really goes anywhere, particularly with such a strong lead performance to help it along. Director Johnson has said that he approached the film with a mindset towards social realism, the result of which is a thriller with very little in the way of thrills. A few moments with thrilling potential play out with the same indifference as the rest of the minimalist drama, lending the picture a surprisingly dull edge. Bleak humor creeps in to spice things up occasionally, but it’s too little to noticeably change the tone of the picture. Too bland to be thrilling and too sparse to be funny, Tony is ultimately a confused genre picture that, like its protagonist, just doesn’t seem to fit in.


The Land Unknown

March 15th, 2010 | article by | No Comments »
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rating:
company: Universal International
year: 1957
runtime: 78′
country: United States
director: Virgil Vogel
cast: Jock Mahoney, Shirley Patterson,
William Reyolds, Henry Brandon,
Douglas Kennedy, Phil Harvey,
Ralph Brooks, Kenner G. Kemp
writers: Charles Palmer,
Laszlo Gorog and Willam N. Robson
cinematography: Ellis W. Carter
music: Joseph Gershenson (supervisor)
special effects: Orien Ernest, Jack Kevan,
Fred Knoth, Roswell A. Hoffman,
Ray Binger, Clifford Stine
disc company: Universal Studios
Home Entertainment
release date: May 13, 2008
retail price: $59.98
disc details: Region 1 / NTSC / dual layer
video: 2.35:1 / anamorphic / progressive
audio: Dolby Digital 2.0 monophonic (English)
subtitles: English SDH, French
currently only available as part of the
Classic Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection Volumes 1 & 2
order this disc set from Amazon.com

Plot: A group of US Navy explorers and a female reporter crash land in a prehistoric oasis dominated by huge dinosaurs while exploring Antarctica in a helicopter.

This relatively expensive Universal effects production from 1957 pillages plot elements from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World and Edgar Rice Burrough’s The Land That Time Forgot while foregoing the drama, action, and excitement of either.  One need only look at the number of effects credits versus other studio science fiction productions of the decade to see that reasonable amounts of money passed hands with this one, but what a waste!

The dull story begins with a bit of dull expositional film-within-a-film, a briefing of a soon-to-begin Antarctic expedition that director Virgil Vogel (Invasion of the Animal People, The Mole People) allows to run in real time.  That is, until it is interrupted by the infinitely more interesting Shirley Patterson (credited as Shawn Smith), as reporter Hathaway, enters the scene.  Commander Roberts (stunt man and Western regular Jock Mahoney) and his underlings react in the expected fashion, encircling the poor woman as though they’ve been ignorant of the basics of human biology for the past 30 years of their lives.

The expedition, to investigate the Antarctic and, more specifically, a warm region discovered their some years earlier, is put underway in short order, though Vogel keeps the pacing at little more than a steady slog.  Commander Roberts, the reporter, a Lieutenant (William Reynolds, Cult of the Cobra, The Thing That Couldn’t Die) and a machinest (Phil Harvey, The Monolith Monsters) hop in a helicopter and take it for a spin, but a side-swipe from a pterodactyl sends them crashing (slowly, per the rest of the picture) into the interior of a volcano.  What they find there is a lost world full of strange plants, dinosaurs, and an endless supply of fog.

Surprisingly little happens from this point forward.  Sure, dinosaurs chase people and a giant carnivorous plant tries to feel up the lovely Miss Hathaway a number of times, but no one is ever put in any real danger.  The chief dramatic impetus arrives with Hunter, a bearded man from a previous expedition who has been living in the prehistoric haze for a decade.  Hunter has the parts the men need to fix their helicopter, but he wants Hathaway for himself.  The usual melodrama and fist-fights result, but Hunter is eventually convinced to give up the parts, allowing the lot of them fly out of the volcano for good.  Only their wardrobes seem worse for wear for their trouble.

There’s nothing wrong with The Land Unknown that better scripting couldn’t have fixed.  The CinemaScope frame is filled with vast sets and complicated process photography, but the story by Palmer, Gorog and Robson keeps the action within it to a barely acceptable minimum.  Editor turned director Vogel would (wisely) move into the greener pastures of television after this, directing only a handful of other feature films before his death in 1996.  His handling of proceedings here is about as accomplished as the limp scripting would allow for. The Mole People‘s tale of subterranean Sumerians endeavoring to steal John Agar’s flash light seems almost exciting by comparison.  Almost.  Jock Mahoney seems terribly miscast, and he delivers every line with the same squint-eyed stoicism.  Henry Brandon puts in the most effort, turning the role of the man lost into one of the film’s few high points, while the under-appreciated Shirley Patterson, whose acting career was shortly to go the way of the dinosaurs, is given precious little to do other than look perpetually concerned and scream when necessary.

The film’s monsters were featured prominently in the exciting ad artwork and were undoubtedly responsible for selling the majority of tickets.  It’s a pity they’re so utterly unconvincing.  The star of the show is an anatomically improbable Tyrannosaurus Rex, a rubber suit featuring a massive, toothy skull perched atop a lumpy and incongruously small body.  One can’t help but feel sorry for whatever poor technician was shoved inside to operate the thing, waddling around the intricate prehistoric sets on its stumpy little legs.  A mechanized Elasmosaur (a sad precursor to Bruce the shark) improves upon the Tyrannosaurus in design, if not implementation.  The creature creeps anemically through the wave pool it inhabits, hissing at all who dare to enter its domain (which the full cast naturally does, and often).  A stiff pterodactyl mock-up and a pair of dueling monitor lizards round out the film’s unimpressive creature attractions.

Universal Studio Home Entertainment’s DVD of the film, originally part of the Classic Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection Volume 2 and now re-packaged with The Classic Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection Volumes 1 & 2, is nice at least.  The film comes double-booked with the far less inspired The Deadly Mantis, a loathsome sci-fi from the same year that offers up a neat looking monster puppet but little else.

While a Scope transfer did make its way to laserdisc in the late 1990s, most are familiar with The Land Unknown via its pan-and-scanned television and VHS masters.  The 16:9 enhanced 2.35:1 transfer on Universal’s DVD improves upon all of the previous releases, exhibiting strong contrast and sharp detail.  Uninteresting as the film itself may be it looks great here, with only the stock footage inserts (frequent towards the beginning and end of the picture) showing much in the way of damage.  Audio is delivered via a nice Dolby Digital 2.0 monophonic track and the stock music cues (from composers Henry Mancini, Heinz Roemheld, Hans J. Seiter, and Herman Stein) sound fantastic, and far more interesting than the dialogue.  Optional English SDH and French subtitles are available for the feature.  A battered trailer is the only supplement.

The fans are obviously out there this one, and Universal’s DVD comes highly recommended to them.  The film itself  isn’t terrible, all in all.  It’s just not very good, and I doubt I’ll ever understand its healthy 6.0 score at the IMDB.  The Land Unknown rates as a mostly forgettable affair (Irwin Allen’s hysterical 1960 obliteration of The Lost World offers more excitement, intentional or otherwise, and in color to boot),  and I don’t feel bad advising most to give it amiss all together.  Not recommended.


The Clown Murders

March 12th, 2010 | article by | 1 Comment »
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company: Magnum Films
year: 1976
runtime: 96′
country: Canada
director: Martyn Burke
cast: Stephen Young, Susan Keller,
John Candy, Lawrence Dane,
Gary Reineke, John Bayliss
writer: Martyn Burke
cinematography: Dennis Miller
order this film from Amazon.com

Would-be big shot business man Philip (Lawrence Dane) is just about to make an actually big deal for once, selling the farm that belongs to his wife Alison (Susan Keller) to a land development company that will build one of those nice apartment complexes where once fields were. Because the land is not Philip’s but Alison’s property, he needs her signature on the sale contracts, which for some reason that is never made quite clear need to be signed on October 31st just before midnight.

This is not a case of a husband forcing his wife, Alison is in fact quite willing to get rid of the farm and with it a part of her past she would like to forget, but there are other people who have quite different ideas.

Alison’s ex-boyfriend Charlie (Stephen Young), who once lived with her on the farm this is all about, has just returned from some unsuccessful business adventures outside of Canada, and he, for one, would just love to get back with Alison, her being married notwithstanding.

While pretending to be as drunk as the people he’s speaking with actually are, Charlie manages to talk three supposed friends of Philip’s, Ollie (John Candy), Rosie (Gary Reineke) and Peter (John Bayliss) into helping him with a mad plan he sells them as a prank. He wants them to use a Halloween party Ollie arranges as a backdrop for kidnapping Alison so that she won’t be able to sign the papers selling the farm on time. Since every single one of them hates Philip at least a little, and lusts quite frightfully after his wife, the idiots agree.

On Halloween, the quartet sets their plan in motion, dresses up as clowns and kidnaps Alison. At first, they drag the woman to Peter’s home, but there, cracks between the men become obvious. Until now nobody except Charlie did truly realize what repercussions their actions would have. For some reason, not one of them imagined that Philip would just call the police, as he of course does. Now, the men don’t know what to do anymore.

Alison herself doesn’t exactly act like a good kidnap victim. She doesn’t seem too sure about what to do with Charlie and the others, but she is most certainly not afraid of them or trying to escape from them.

After some arguments which already begin to turn violent, Charlie talks his co-kidnappers into transporting their “victim” to the farm. Surely, nobody will look for them there.

At their destination – and after a meeting with a cop that goes as badly for them as everything else – the men squabble and drink some more, while Alison does her best to provoke them. You’d think leaving these people cooped up with each other alone would be enough provoke a minor blood bath, but there’s someone else stalking them, someone who dons a clown mask and shows some rather murderous tendencies.

The Clown Murders is certainly different. The DVD cover (and the plot description on the IMDB, of course) let the film look like a run-of-the-mill slasher, but nothing could be further from the truth.

It’s a psychological thriller much more interested in building an atmosphere of tension up to the moment just before it turns to violence than in the violence itself. There is a bit of bloodshed, to be sure, but the film spends most of his running time building up to it until it becomes seemingly inevitable.

The character work here is surprisingly subtle. While the characters’ actions aren’t always logical or rational (actually, the men mostly come over as rather dumb, Alison as quite inexplicable), they perfectly fit their character types. These are all men jealous of something in Philip that they find embodied in his “possession” of Alison. Rosie and Peter are certainly not able to see Alison as a person, and their lusting after her has much more to do with their wish to prove their dominance over Philip than in any carnal interest in her. Charlie for his part has (probably, the film is only insinuating, not telling) thought up the whole bizarre plan as a way to win Alison again, yet it is the Alison he remembers he wants, and not the woman standing right before him. I had my problems understanding Ollie’s character, or why he goes along with the kidnapping, but I’m pretty sure there’s a reason why he is the one among the men Alison sleeps with in the end, apart from her sharing the self-destructive urge that seems to drive everyone’s actions.

There’s an uncommon element of ambiguity running through the whole film; nobody’s motivations are ever directly explained, and I’m quite sure that the characters don’t know why they are doing what they are doing. There is of course a subtext to the film talking about violence lurking just below the surface of male interaction, barely repressed and just waiting to explode, and the roles someone like Alison has to play just to survive, but that doesn’t explain everything that is going on in the film’s text.

What is Alison trying to achieve? Does she realize who the other man in the clown mask is? The film isn’t telling, and I’m not too sure if the director and writer Martyn Burke actually knows, or if he’s making some parts just up as they come along.

Burke does some fine, unobtrusive directing here. The Clown Murders might move slowly, but not a single shot in it is padding. Everything on screen is meant to convey something about the characters that couldn’t be told through dialogue alone.

Of course, one could argue that the film is just too ambiguous and/or too subtle for its own good, and it is certainly true that this is a film for people willing to take it on its own terms and in its own rhythm.

The Clown Murders needs viewers willing to accept that there are theories to have, and interpretations to be made, but no clear answers will be given about its characters. Like some things in life, much in it needs to stay ambiguous.

For more bizarre movie goodness, be sure
to visit Denis’ excellent review blog The Horror!?


The Quiet Earth

February 20th, 2010 | article by | 1 Comment »
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rating:
company: Skouras Pictures, Cinepro,
and Mr. Yellowbeard Productions Ltd. & Co.
year: 1985
runtime: 91′
country: New Zealand
director: Geoff Murphy
cast: Bruno Lawrence, Alison Routledge,
Pete Smith, Anzac Wallace,
Norman Fletcher, Tom Hyde
writers: Bill Baer, Bruno Lawrence
and Sam Pillsbury (from the
1981 novel by Craig Harrison)
cinematographer: James Bartle
music: John Charles
special effects: Phil Addenbrook,
Ken Durey and Bruce Tooley
disc company: Starz / Anchor Bay
release date: June 13th, 2006
retail price: $24.98
disc details: Region 1 / NTSC / single layer
video: 1.85:1 / 16:9 / progressive
audio: Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo (English)
subtitles: none
supplements: audio commentary with
writer / producer Sam Pillsbury, trailer
order this film from Amazon.com


Plot: A scientist working on a top-secret international science experiment awakens to a world seemingly void of all human life other than himself.

This interesting bit of Kiwi sci-fi was quite a rarity not too long ago, only officially available in expensive and out-of-print CBS / Fox Home Video VHS and Laserdisc releases.  Infrequent showings on television and a place on late 80s video store shelves ensured that the film, which had been quite a success in its native New Zealand at the time of release, would develop a healthy cult following.  The steelbook DVD edition from Starz / Anchor Bay, now twice re-issued in standard packaging, was a long time coming, finally bringing The Quiet Earth mass market availability 21 years after its theatrical run.  In retrospect, I suppose we should be happy that the film never achieved the same level of rarity as the Craig Harrison novel upon which it is based.  My dependable Laserdisc cost all of $36, while a used copy of the novel is presently going for a cool $2,475 at Amazon¹.

Needless to say I’ve not read the source novel, though there is currently a fine and lengthy synopsis of its events up at Wikipedia.  From that it’s pretty easy to ascertain that the novel and the film are two entirely different beasts, built from the same apocalyptic premise but quite divergent in both content and tone. There will be more on that later.  Now I feel it necessary to warn that spoilers undoubtedly lie in this article’s future, and those concerned with such things proceed at their own peril.

The opening act of The Quiet Earth follows ex-scientist Zac Hobson (an exceptional Bruno Lawrence), who awakens one morning to discover that every other human being on the planet has seemingly vanished – an occurrence which may or may not be linked with his work on the top-secret international physics experiment Operation Flashlight.  Hobson wanders a deserted Auckland, leaving traces of his own existence looping in radio stations and plastered on billboards.  He takes his unique ‘last man’ position as an opportunity to enjoy the high life, moving into a stately mansion and cribbing a shopping mall of everything from television sets to a life-size statue of an emu.  It can’t last, however, and soon Hobson takes a nose-dive into depression and outright insanity, dressing in a negligee, declaring himself President of “this quiet Earth” while cardboard cutouts of Nixon and Hitler look on, and going on a one-man shotgun rampage through Auckland.

This is, by far, the best part of the film.  The late Bruno Lawrence’s performance is riveting stuff through and through, his emotions strong and entirely believable.  A scene in which he surrounds his mansion with cardboard cutouts of celebrities from Churchill to Stalin to Nixon to Hitler should be utterly ludicrous, but Lawrence keeps us in the game, our disbelief effectively suspended, all the way.  His shotgun rampage through an emptied Catholic church (Hobson literally hunting for God) has real visceral impact, with a bit of sardonic humor thrown in for good measure.  “If you don’t come out I’ll shoot the kid!” he shouts, aiming his firearm at a large crucifix.



But as with all good things, Lawrence’s one-man show must too come to an end.  The sight of the destruction he has wrought convinces Hobson to change his ways, settling into a comfortable and solitary existence just in time for the rather sudden introduction of Joanne (Allison Routledge).  Young and red-headed and with all sorts of philosophical mumbo-jumbo rattling about in (and out of) her head, Joanne is the most problematic element of the picture and the means by which its terrifically effective early drama is forged into something far more mundane.  It seems important to note that there is no female character in the spirit of Joanne to be found in Harrison’s novel, and her presence in the film all but necessitates that the narrative involve itself in the human sexual dynamic.  Joanne and Hobson have a good time with one another, naturally, searching the city for survivors and developing a playful romantic entanglement that we know won’t last.

Seriously short-changed in the film is Api (Pete Smith), a Maori man and the only other substantial character of the novel.  He is introduced late to the film and forced into the same uncomfortable slot occupied by Mel Ferrer in the very similar The World, The Flesh, and the Devil from 1959.  The Quiet Earth’s dramatics stumble over many of the same pratfalls that hamper that film’s effectiveness, with Api and Hobson spending a good deal of time asserting their authority over the other before the tell-tale signs of the ‘Effect’, Hobson’s name for the world-altering event, begin to rear their ugly heads once more².  The inevitability of a second occurrence of the ‘Effect’ turns into a standard deadline plot device, the three survivors rushing to Operation Flashlight’s domestic headquarters with a truckload of explosives in tow in a last-ditch effort to save what little remains of humanity.

The scripting, primarily by producer Sam Pillsbury and Bill Baer, really bungles the scientific angle in the second and third acts, the growing need for explanation resulting in sillier and sillier postulations about the post-apocalyptic world.  The fact that all three of the survivor’s died at the moment the ‘Effect’ first happened goes effectively nowhere, and Hobson’s concerns about a pulsating sun aren’t particularly convincing.   Hints at supernatural (God blinked) or psychological (Hobson is imagining the whole affair) origins for the ‘Effect’ further confuse the otherwise straight sci-fi narrative, but are more interesting than the science offered.  A cryptic finale returns the film to Hobson’s lone perspective, when the group’s assault on the Operation Flashlight HQ becomes a suicide mission.  Hobson pushes the button and obliterates the operation, only to find himself in a place entirely alien (unfortunately pictured in pretty much every bit of advertising art for the film).  Was the ‘Effect’ the result of Operation Flashlight?  Was it all in Hobson’s mind?  Is he in Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, or some alternate reality?  It’s an answers-free conclusion, the only certainty being that Hobson is completely alone.

It’s a haunting image, with a Saturn-like planet rising over the horizon behind tufts of unearthly clouds as Hobson watches, and nearly enough to make all of The Quiet Earth‘s faults worthwhile even after the questionable matte work is taken into account (with only three effects men credited and a reported budget of $1 million US for the entire affair, I’m willing to cut lots of slack in the SPFX department).  It was certainly enough to hook me when I was younger and it still packs a wallop thanks in large part to John Charles’ exceptional scoring.  It also leaves considerable room for thought, though I’m not sure The Quiet Earth is worth the hours I (and I’m sure hosts of other fans) have spent ruminating over the intricacies of its flawed narrative.  The novel offered a cyclical conclusion, its end literally its beginning, with Hobson caught in a never-ending nightmare² resulting from his own guilt over the drowning death of his autistic son – a death he may have helped facilitate³.



The Quiet Earth is, as a whole, far from a bad film.  I’d rate it as one of the highlights of the past half-century of science fiction and certainly one of the better of the serious efforts in the genre, confused dramatics and all.  Director Geoff Murphy’s career has devolved more-or-less into sequels and low-budget action films (unfortunately including a Steven Seagal vehicle), a pity as his work here is quite adept.  Producer Sam Pillsbury notes in his commentary that several of the film’s most memorable scenes were of Murphy’s making, the invasion of the Catholic church and Hobson’s speech to his various corrugated heads of state.  James Bartle’s photography is occasionally rough but highly effective, particularly in the early scenes of the deserted Auckland.  The John Charles score has phenomenal moments, while Bruno Lawrence’s much-lauded performance acts as the glue that bonds it all together.

The Starz / Anchor Bay DVD of The Quiet Earth is quiet the looker, easily surpassing the older VHS and Laserdisc variants.  The 16:9 enhanced 1.85:1 transfer is excellent overall, with healthy detail and contrast and variable color (frequently a bit drab, particularly in the opening scenes) that’s in keeping with how the film looked when originally released.  The transfer is remarkably clean and free of damage, and even infrequent speckling isn’t an issue – I doubt the film ever looked this new when it was out in theaters.  My only complaint is with the lack of stabilization in the frame, a slight problem that has nevertheless plagued every video edition of this film I’ve ever seen.  Audio is a reasonable Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo English track that faithfully replicates the original mix – there are no subtitles.

On-disc supplements are limited but welcome, consisting of a poor theatrical trailer that gives away all the highlights of the picture and a feature commentary with producer and writer Sam Pillsbury.  The latter is understandably of the most interest.  While I think it could have been improved with a bit of moderation Pillsbury still offers up a good deal of production information – what parts of the narrative are credited to which writer, how the infrequent special effects were accomplished, and just how easy it is to empty Auckland streets to shoot a post-apocalypse picture.  It’s good stuff all told, and well worth a listen.

Sometimes ‘good enough’ is just that, and I’d say that The Quiet Earth more than qualifies for that distinction.  The dramatic inadequacies become more irksome with repeat viewings, and I’d probably not harp on them so much were I not as familiar with the picture as I am.  The Starz / Anchor Bay DVD is currently only available in plain packaging, as far as I’m aware, both as an earlier re-issue and more recently as a part of their ‘Cult Fiction’ line.  I can’t see fans going wrong with either.  While the film never achieves greatness it certainly gets an A for effort, and those in search of a serious sci-fi fix could do far, far worse.  The Quiet Earth comes recommended.

¹This reviewer would love to actually read the book instead of relying on a lengthy synopsis, though at that price he thinks it should come with an automatic transmission and a free tank of gas.  If you have a copy you wouldn’t mind loaning out for a week or so I’d certainly like to hear from you!

²The world of Harrison’s novel is not haunted with thoughts that the ‘Effect’ may happen again, but by an unseen and malevolent force the crazed Api associates with the Beast of the Bible and with verses from Revelations starting with 6:12 (the time of the ‘Effect’) – the opening of the sixth of seven seals.  The Biblical connection and the unseen beast lend credence to the thought that the cyclical dream-world Hobson inhabits may well be a kind of personal Hell.

³The Hobson of the novel is far different from that of the film, and much less a hero.  The ‘Effect’ of the story is undeniably his fault, the result of sabotage he committed with the underlying intention of killing his boss.  Paranoid and very probably insane, Hobson kills Api and then leaps from a building, unable to reconcile that he was responsible for the death of every other human being on Earth.  The novel ends as it begins, with Hobson awakening from a dream of falling at 6:12 A.M.

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Kiss of Death

February 6th, 2010 | article by | No Comments »
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rating:
company: 20th Century Fox
year: 1947
runtime: 99′
country: United States
director: Henry Hathaway
cast: Victor Mature, Brian Donlevy,
Coleen Gray, Richard Widmark,
Taylor Holmes, Howard Smith,
Karl Malden, Anthony Ross
writers: Ben Hecht, Charles Lederer
and Eleazar Lipsky
cinematographer: Norbert Brodine
music: David Buttolph
dvd company: 20th Century Fox
release date: December 6, 2005
retail price: $14.98
disc details: Region 1 / NTSC / dual layer
video: 1.33:1 / full screen / progressive
audio: Dolby Digital 1.0 mono (English, Spanish)
Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo (English)
subtitles: English, Spanish
special features: Feature commentary by
Alain Silver and John Ursini, theatrical trailer,
stills gallery, promotional trailers for other Fox Noir
(Call Northside 777, House of Bamboo, Laura,
Panic in the Streets, The Street With No Name)
order this film from Amazon.com


Plot: An ex-con back in prison for a jewelry heist squeals on the mob that hired him after learning that his wife has died in his absence.

What a great film!  Victor Mature last paid visit to this site via Hal Roach Sr. and Jr.’s original cavemen-versus-dinosaurs epic One Million B.C., which cast and typecast Mature as the stoic slab of manhood he would play time and again throughout his career (Samson and Delilah, Demetrius and the Gladiators and so on).  Henry Hathaway’s location-bound neo-realist noir requires far more of Mature as a performer than any of those efforts did or would, and the actor, cast against then and future heavies Brian Donlevy (Beginning or the End, The Quatermass Xperiment) and Richard Widmark (Panic in the Streets, The Bedford Incident), proves time and again that he can pull it off with chops to spare.

Mature plays Nick Bianco, a decent man forced by unfortunate circumstance into a life of crime.  His past is checkered, his father was shot dead by police when he was just a kid and he spent time in prison as a young adult.  His wrap sheet is enough to keep him from finding a steady job in post-war New York, so Bianco turns to pulling contract heists for the local mob.  On Christmas Eve a jewelry store hold-up goes sour, and Nick finds himself on the street in front of the Chrysler Building with a policeman’s bullet in his leg.  Assistant D.A. D’Angelo (Donlevy) offers Nick is offered a plea deal, but he refuses it, getting 15 years in Sing Sing while his accomplices go free.

Nick, good guy that he is, is more than happy to serve the time for the crime he knows he committed, and is led by shady (or shyster, as D’Angelo puts it) lawyer Houser into believing that his wife and two young daughters will be taken care of.  He couldn’t be more wrong.  After an affair with Nick’s old cohort Rizzo his wife takes a nosedive into alcoholism and depression, eventually snuffing out her miseries in a gas stove.  Nick doesn’t find out until well after the fact, and concerns over the welfare of his children, now in an orphanage, and a visit from his former babysitter Nettie (Coleen Gray in her first billed role) convince him that helping the assistant D.A. might be the right thing to do after all.

Ratting on his cohorts in the Christmas Eve jewelry store job is small stuff, and soon Nick is put on the job of squealing on slick mobster Tommy Udo (Widmark in his Academy Award-nominated screen debut), a squirrelly sociopath Nick first met while awaiting trial in the Tombs.  The gig works, and Nick gives D’Angelo all the evidence he thinks he needs to put Udo away on a murder wrap.  Bianco goes on with his life, marrying the much younger Nettie and living with his kids in Queens under an assumed name.  But it isn’t long before D’Angelo is calling again, demanding that Nick shed his secrecy and testify in the Udo case, a guaranteed conviction we already knows is going to swing the other way.

With the sadistic Udo back on the streets, Nick knows that it’s only a matter of time before he gets an unwanted knock on his door.  Realizing that D’Angelo will be of no help, Bianco puts his family on a train to the country and goes out to find Tommy himself to settle things once and for all.

Kiss of Death is best remembered, and perhaps rightly so, for the hilariously sadistic breakout performance of Richard Widmark as the demented hood Tommy Udo.  With sunken eyes, a slicked-back hair piece and a constant giggle, Udo is more of a cartoon caricature than a human being, but even caricatures can be dangerous.  Udo is the man Houser calls when there’s dirty work that needs doing, and when the lawyer is led to believe that Nick’s old friend Rizzo is squealing on the mob it’s Udo he sends in to fix things.  And fix them he does, wrapping Rizzo’s wheelchair-bound mother with electrical wire and sending her on a face-first trip down her tenement’s stairs.  Widmark’s performance is absolutely electrifying here, and he imbues Udo’s human weasel (undoubtedly an inspiration for Judge Doom’s henchmen in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?) with enough raw power to make him a believable threat, even when so obviously physically outmatched by co-star Mature.

Though he can’t help but be upstaged by Widmark in his gravy role, Mature is no push-over.  At 6 foot 2 inches tall he looks a bit like Gulliver after his landing on Lilliput when decked out in his suit tie (perhaps an intentional move to make the family man look all the more out-of-place as a criminal), but his emotions are spot on and in the final confrontation with Widmark he more than holds his own.  It’s interesting that even in noir Mature can’t escape Biblical associations, and his sinner-turned-martyr is followed by a good deal of Christian symbolism.  Prison bars cast shadows that form crosses in at least two scenes (one of them across Mature’s face) while he is seen centered beneath another (this one in a stained glass window) when he visits a Catholic  orphanage with D’Angelo and his cop assistant.  When it comes time for the cops and robber to take their seats in a waiting room, Mature sits directly below a painting of Christ, and a nun working the orphanage, much to the embarrassment of the assistant D.A. and his friend, has to ask which of them is the ex-con father.

While much of the symbolism looks to have originated with director Hathaway (Call Northside 777, True Grit), it extends well into the Hecht and Lederer (and possibly the Lipsky source story, though I’ve not read it to check) as well.  The assistant D.A. who saves Mature from prison is named Louis D’Angelo (Louis ‘of Angels’) and Mature himself plays a character named Bianco (white), re-enforcing his overall goodness.  It’s never terribly overbearing and no one will ever confuse Kiss of Death for a Christ allegory, but it’s interesting to point out all the same.


Veteran director Henry Hathaway plays the early events as realistically as possible for a dramatic film, showing us through the procedure of Mature’s confinement and ushering us through a series of real locations.  The drama will seem dated for anyone happening upon it today, but seeing the Tombs, the D.A.’s office, and Sing Sing and its workshops alive on the big screen helps.  The documentary style on display, with its high-key lighting and straight compositions, stands in for that classic noir aesthetic for the first two acts, not that it hampers the suspense (an early scene of Nick trapped in an elevator is superbly claustrophobic).  The change arrives with a call from D’Angelo informing Nick that Tommy Udo has beaten his murder wrap, and from here on out fans of low-key noir stylings will find themselves in familiar territory.  Hathaway ramps his crime drama into a slick thriller in the third act, and his direction of Mature, crushed by the realization that his work with D’Angelo was for nought and turned paranoid by fear for his family’s well being, is exceptional.

My only real complaint is with the framing and the ending, which smells of studio tampering, not that either of these things keeps the film from succeeding.  The film is bookended with narration from Nettie, who offers a bit of useful backstory in the beginning and adds a happy high note to the otherwise grim finale.

Those worried about spoilers should skip this rest of this paragraph. Nick ends them film prostrate on the ground, shot half a dozen times in the gut by the vengeful Udo, with the three-time-loser immediately apprehended by police for the assault and locked away for good.  As Nick is shuffled into an ambulance, obviously on his way out, Nettie’s narration chimes in to let us know that he, in no uncertain terms, survives.  Here we fade to a stock shot of New York seen at the beginning of the film, then the ending title.  There’s ample evidence here to indicate that Nettie was not originally intended to be the framing device, and the Nick did not actually survive.  It seems far more likely that assistant D.A. D’Angelo was set to be the original framework for the piece, particularly given that the source story was based on the experiences of its author Eleazar Lipsky, a former prosecutor.  It’s food for thought certainly, but as I said, not enough to ruin the picture.


Kiss of Death gets exceptional treatment as part of the Fox Film Noir collection, with the black and white feature and supplements spread over a hefty 7.5 gigs of disc space.  The progressive transfer is excellent for such an old catalog title, with tight 1.33:1 framing and healthy detail.  Contrast looks appropriate if a little boosted and a fine layer of that beloved film grain is present throughout.  Damage is limited but still present, mostly as dust and speckles but occasionally as more obvious chemical imperfections.  It’s never enough to really distract from the viewing and I suspect this is the best the film has looked in a good long time.  Audio is available in three flavors, English in Dolby Digital 1.0 mono and 2.0 stereo, and Spanish in Dolby Digital 1.0 mono.  Recording on all three is crisp, and I didn’t note much difference between the stereo and monophonic tracks.  Subtitles are available in English and Spanish.

Fox offers up a feature commentary track from Alain Silver and John Ursini as the chief supplement for the disc.  While short on background information and high on observations of things that will be pretty obvious (at least I hope so) to most viewers, the pair still offer up some good information – certainly worth a listen and not nearly so pointless as some other tracks I’ve come across (Once Upon A Time In The West, for instance).  The other supplements are pretty standard issue, a theatrical trailer in good shape, a still gallery, and a collection of trailers for other Fox Noir titles (including Panic in the Streets, starring Widmark, and Call Northside 777, directed by Hathaway).

This is a great disc from Fox, currently on sale at 60% savings (a bargain price of just $5.99) at Amazon.com.  Fans and film buffs in general are encouraged to indulge.  As for the film, what more need be said?  It’s a landmark performance from then-newcomer Widmark and one of the best from the underrated Mature, all wrapped up in a fine crime drama by director Hathaway and writers Hecht, Lederer and Lipsky.  The fine score is so good we’ve heard it thrice, with the opening theme recycled for Elia Kazan’s Gentlemen’s Agreement and the less upstanding 3D attraction Gorilla At Large (insert your own canned ape sound effects here – they did).  Excellent stuff, and highly recommended.


United Red Army

February 3rd, 2010 | article by | No Comments »
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a.k.a. jitsuroku rengo sekigun: Asama Sanso e no michi
(literal: United Red Army: Path to Asama Sanso)
rating:
company: Wakamatsu Production
year: 2007
runtime: 190′
country: Japan
director: Koji Wakamatsu
cast: Maki Sakai, Arata,
Akie Namiki, Go Jibiki,
Maria Abe, Anri Band,
Kenji Date, Yuki Fujii,
Yoshio Honda, Len Hisa
writers: Koji Wakamatsu,
Masayuki Kakegawa and Asako Otomo
cinematographers: Yoshihisa Toda
and Tomohiko Tsuji
music: Jim O’Rourke
order this film from Amazon.fr
(note: no English subtitles
on the French DVD)
visit the official site

Plot: Two radical left-wing paramilitary organizations form and join forces at the height of the Japanese student movement of the ’60s, leading to the infamous Asama-Sanso incident.

When ferociously independent and controversial director Koji Wakamatsu, (known for his combination of sex, extreme violence, and political subtext), chooses to make a film dramatizing one of the most tumultuous periods of recent Japanese history, it seems like a match made in cult cinema heaven.  Thankfully, it is.  Perhaps the biggest project of his lengthy and prolific career (over 100 directorial credits and counting), Wakamatsu mortgaged his own property and even destroyed his country home¹ to see that United Red Army was made, and while it may seem crude to those who only associate the word with huge Hollywood over-productions, his film is an epic in every way.

United Red Army is steeped in a history most Westerners will be completely unfamiliar with – that of the rise and self-destruction of the radical leftist Japanese student movement of the 1960s.  Born from the backlash over the signing of the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan in January of 1961, the movement turned from protests against tuition fee increases, bureaucratic malfeasance, and the Vietnam War into a violent movement devoted to a global revolution along the lines of China’s Cultural Revolution.

The opening reels of the film play as a documentary of those events, covering the major incidents (like the July 1968 occupation of Yasuda Hall at Tokyo University), their relationship to contemporary world events (the American Civil Rights movement and the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., the massive French labor strikes of May 1968), as well as the rise of the Red Army Faction and the Revolutionary Left Faction, the two breakaway groups of the Japanese Communist Party that would coalesce into the United Red Army in July of 1971.  If it sounds a bit historically thick, that’s because it is.  The sequence plays in a fashion similar to Fukasaku’s Battles Without Honor or Humanity, complete with text noting the dates, major players, deaths, and arrest statistics.



There’s a lot to take in during United Red Army‘s first half hour, the news reel footage interspersed with brief dramatic inserts introducing the faction members we are to follow, but it’s all here with good reason.  Wakamatsu makes a concerted effort to ensure that his audience understands the postwar events and worldwide cultural turbulence that led to the chaotic formation and violent collapse of the student movement of the 60s, ensuring that we can sympathize with the revolutionaries as human beings even as the atrocities that fill the remaining two and a half hours of the film unfold.

As a drama, United Red Army begins with the truce between the RAF and RLF that leads to the formation of the paramilitary group of the title.  Intent on inciting a global communist revolution, the leaders gather their meager forces (there were only 29 members total) at obscure training camps to prepare for an all-out war against the Japanese government.  As the exercise moves forward, the leaders of the group enact a policy of self-critique that culminates in a violent purge of members deemed too weak-willed to contribute to the cause.  Between December 31st of 1971 and February 12th of 1972, 14 members died either directly at the hands of their fellow members or from prolonged exposure to the frigid mountain weather.

The hour of the picture devoted to the lynchings plays out as a grim tragedy, in which young men and women with high hopes and aspirations (misguided though they may be) are intimidated and eventually slaughtered by their comrades in the name of the cause.  The leadership of the group is seemingly boundless in their capacity to destroy, holding their soldiers to ever more stringent revolutionary guidelines and administering brutal justice to any who don’t comply.  There is no mercy to be found in a place where those sympathetic to the doomed are at risk of being doomed themselves.

Wakamatsu is as unflinching in his depictions of violence here as ever before, rising above baser exploitation and attaining a level of visceral horror in league with the final act of Pasolini’s Salo.  Most disturbing among them is the death of Toyama (star Maki Sakai), who is made to beat herself until her face is unrecognizable.  Wakamatsu refrains from showing the blows as they fall, allowing the entire grisly spectacle to unfold just beyond our range of sight.  Our first view of Toyama’s face is her own, peering into a mirror held by the leadership.  We see Toyama’s descent into madness as it happens, and the vision of her, swollen and bloody and screaming in a voice all but inhuman, is of the sort that can haunt someone forever.



Only the threat of discovery by the authorities brings the nightmare to a close, and the leadership orders that the group’s bases be deserted.  The surviving members split up, and while many are captured (including the leadership) five make their way to Mount Asama, taking over the Asama Mountain Lodge (the Asama Sanso of the Japanese title) and holding its manager Yasuko Muta hostage as police forces build outside.  We realize that the stand-off is hopeless from the start, and that the revolutionaries are destined to be captured or worse.  The absurdity of their purpose is extolled in a single line of dialogue, as one of the five members passionately explains that they are fighting against the police to initiate a global revolution.  The youngest of the five, just 16 years old, breaks down, recognizing that all the suffering and death that had come before (including that of his own brother) was meaningless.

The final act is perhaps the best of the film, a restrained look at the infamous Asama Sanso incident entirely from the perspective of those inside.  Other than a single helicopter watching from high in the sky, we never see the forces surrounding the lodge (Wakamatsu’s own house, destroyed during the process of filming¹), and the director keeps our focus squarely on the remaining militants and their hostage.  Wakamatsu accomplishes something extraordinary here, willing us to sympathize with these lost youths (even after the horrors they’ve wrought) while pulling no punches.  We know the end is inevitable, but as riot police storm the lodge we can’t help but imagine what could have been had their “we can change the world” idealism not become so perverted.

A brief epilogue brings United Red Army full circle and back into documentary mode, with scrolling text giving us the statistics of the Asama Sanso incident: 1635 riot police, 3126 canisters of tear gas, 326 smoke bombs, and nearly 16 tons of water.  We hear RAF leader Mori’s suicide note (he would die in prison on January 1, 1973 by his own hand²) and see the status of the other participants, most serving life sentences and several on death row.  An interesting side note is Kunio Bando (one of the five involved in the Asama Sanso stand off), released by demand of the Japanese Red Army after their take over of the US Embassy in Kuala Lumpur in August of 1975².  Writer and director Wakamatsu met Bando during a trip to the Middle East, and used his recollection of events as a basis from which to build his depiction of of the Asama Sanso incident¹.



Perhaps the most surprising thing about United Red Army is just how unbiased Wakamatsu remains throughout.  His sympathies consistently lie with the minority, the weak against the powerful, from the opening montages of the student revolts against tuition fee increases to the unfortunate fourteen whose lives were ended at the behest of the fascistic high command to the final stand off of five URA against an army of riot police.  The film plays as a respectful eulogy to the many who died and as a stark criticism of those in power, and thankfully refrains from vindicating any one political ideology over another.

Wakamatsu self-produced United Red Army for around $1 million US (100,000,000 Yen¹), and while the low budget shows at times (it looks to have been filmed digitally and the period aspects are all but lost in the early Tokyo-bound scenes) the picture as a whole is quite an achievement.  Once the URA members first trek to their training bases in Gunma prefecture the period details cease to be an issue, and Wakamatsu’s skills as a director really begin to shine.  The juxtaposition of the increasingly violent nature of the URA against the beauty of the mountain locations is stunning, the claustrophobic scenes of human destruction terrifying.  United Red Army is a haunting film, from the opening history to the final credits scrawl, with a fine score from Jim O’Rourke and exceptional sound design by Yukio Kubota.

For the first time in a long time I simply have no complaints, and United Red Army easily ranks as one of the best films that’s come out of Japan in half a decade.  It can also be a very difficult film to watch.  The genuinely troubling violence that dominates the second act will undoubtedly turn many away, and the shear mass of history involved is daunting.  That said, United Red Army is still a great film, and I can’t help but rate it as highly recommended.

1. Midnight Eye Interview: Koji Wakamatsu
2. A Chronology of JRA history


Whale God

February 1st, 2010 | article by | 2 Comments »
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

a.k.a. Kujira Gami
rating:
company: Daiei Motion Picture Co.
year: 1962
runtime: 100′
country: Japan
director: Tokuzo Tanaka
cast: Kojiro Hongo, Shintaro Katsu,
Shiho Fujimura, Takeshi Shimura,
Kyoko Enami, Kichijiro Ueda,
Koji Fujiyama, Bontaro Miake
producer: Masaichi Nagata
writer: Kaneto Shindo
cinematographer: Setsuo Kobayashi
music: Akira Ifukube
special effects: Chikara Komatsubara,
Takesaburo Watanabe and Hiroshi Ishida
production design: Shigeo Mano
disc studio: Kadokawa Herald Pictures Inc.
and Daiei Video
release date: May 26, 2006
retail price: 4,725 Yen
disc details: Region 2 / NTSC / single layer
video: 2.35:1 / anamorphic / progressive
audio: Dolby Digital 2.0 monophonic Japanese
subtitles: none
order this film from Amazon.co.jp

Plot: A small fishing village is terrorized by a seemingly unkillable whale.  Shaki, whose family has been all but destroyed by the creature’s rampage, becomes obsessed with killing it.  Meanwhile a brutal drunkard comes to the village, intent on killing the whale himself . . .

This is a classy production from the early ’60s Daiei Motion Picture Co. and perhaps the first excursion by the company into the realm of giant monsters.  Clearly influenced by John Houston’s epic 1956 adaptation of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, this period production forgoes the rampaging reptilian behemoths so popular in genre cinema around the world at the time.  Instead it focuses on that first great sea monster, which man sought to conquer upon setting out across the open sea – the whale.

While similarities between screenwriter Kaneto Shindo’s (writer and director, Onibaba, Children of Hiroshima, working from a story by Koichiro Uno) screenplay and Melville’s novel are slim, the basic themes of life, death, obsession and revenge remain, as does the ethereal, almost supernatural constitution of its menace.  The creature has all the outward attributes of a Right Whale, regularly hunted along the coast of Japan at time the film was set, but possesses a uniquely monstrous disposition, and the title of the film, Kujira Gami (literally Whale God), points in no uncertain terms to the nature of its sea-dwelling antagonist.

Whale God introduces its title beast right out of the gate, as a fleet of fishermen from a small seaside whaling village track their prey against menacing skies, unaware that it is they who are hunted.  In the turmoil of the struggle between man and beast an elderly member of the crew (the grandfather of Shaki, played by Daiei contract star Kojiro Hongo) is drowned – so begins the familial curse of the whale god.  Shaki’s father and, years later, older brother (Koji Fujimura in a very brief appearance) are both killed in their respective attempts at avenging the death of the old man, leaving only Shaki to carry on in their stead as his mother, obsessed with the whale, slowly dies.  The young man is driven into depression and alcoholism, waiting for the day when the whale that destroyed his family returns.

Meanwhile, the wealthy head of the town’s whaling industry (the legendary Takashi Shimura in a hefty supporting role) is growing tired of losing men to the beast, and promises his only daughter (the beautiful Kyoko Enami) to whoever can kill it.  Shaki jumps at the opportunity, but so does the ferocious Kishu (Shintaro Katsu), a stranger to the town.  Kishu makes a job of intimidating the townspeople, attacking other fishermen in the local tavern and raping a young women (Shiho Fujimura) who is in love with Shaki.  9 months later the young woman gives birth to Kishu’s child, but it’s Shaki who offers his support, marrying her and acting as father for her child.



There’s an interesting religious angle to Whale God, something that is difficult to fully explore for someone with such a limited understanding of Japanese (the otherwise exceptional Kadokawa / Daiei DVD of the film is woefully bereft of subtitles).  The majority of the fishermen keep to traditional faiths, joining each other in intricate rituals celebrating the livelihood that bonds them together.  Standing out among the crowd are Shaki, a Christian who worships in the small chapel of the local missionary and is married in a Christian ceremony, and Kishu, who appears to be not so much a-religious as anti-religious.  Kishu’s vendetta against the whale is obviously motivated by his own greed and ego, and it’s no surprise when his effort to kill the creature turns into an exercise in unintended self-sacrifice.

Nor is it a surprise when Shaki, his nobler goal of killing the beast to honor his dead relatives (whose collective sea-side grave site he visits often) firmly in mind, succeeds where Kishu failed, mercilessly striking out against the whale amidst gushes of black blood and salt water.  After the fight is through Shaki lies prostrate atop the massive harpoon-studded corpse, victorious but physically broken.  Whale God‘s ending is unexpectedly surreal, the dying Shaki opting to spend his last few hours alongside the remains of his vanquished foe.  The final image, of the young man lying in a coffin with the massive disembodied head of the whale sitting just beyond, is among the most memorable of the film, though this reviewer will need a translation to decipher what it all means.

The considerable language barrier isn’t enough to keep one from appreciating the technical aspects of Whale God, a gorgeous production with a strong emotional base that’s evident even without understanding all the words.  Photography by Setsuo Kobayashi (Blind Beast) is stunning.  Captured in all the glory black and white scope has to offer,  I doubt the film would have resonated nearly so well if it had been produced in color.  Director Takuzo Tanaka won’t be a terribly familiar name, best known for directing a handful of the Zatoichi and Sleepy Eyes of Death films, but his handling of the Kaneto Shindo source script is superb.  Akira Ifukube offers up another stunner of a score (one of nine he would compose that year alone), with themes reminiscent of his work on both the earlier Children of Hiroshima and the later Daimajin series.

The cast is a veritable who’s who of big-name Daiei talent, headlined by Kojiro Hongo (best known in these parts for his frequent work in the Gamera series), Shintaro Katsu (the blind masseur himself, who is a sight to see seeing for a change), Kyoko Enami (of Gambling Woman fame), and Akira Kurosawa favorite Takashi Shimura (Seven Samurai, Ikiru, Gojira).  Of all of them, it’s Katsu’s brutal Kishu makes the most lasting impression, lumbering about town looking for fights and proving nearly as much a monster as the whale.



More a drama than a special effects film, Whale God still boasts some impressive enactments of Japanese whaling techniques not seen since the end of the 19th century (all simulated, mind you).  The special effects team headed by Chikara Komatsubara and Takesaburo Watanabe appears to have been well funded, and makes good use of a huge wave pool and a full-size mock-up of the monstrous whale’s head.  The final confrontation between it and the human cast is both exciting and disturbing, and I wonder just how many gallons of stage blood were expended in the filming of it.

Unavailable in the States in any official format (Animeigo, save me!), Whale God receives a fine DVD treatment from Daiei Video and Kadokawa Herald Pictures Inc.  The scope and progressive transfer does justice to the exceptional production design, offering a nice level of detail and a variable amount of visible grain.  Contrast is healthy but, as with a good number of Japanese DVD transfers, a little flat.  Damage is relatively minor, though it’s obvious that no real effort went into cleaning up the image for its digital debut.  The single layer encoding seems a bit slight for a film of 100 minutes, but I noticed no obvious deficiencies.  Audio is well rendered in a Dolby Digital 2.0 monophonic track, though I must lament again the lack of subtitles.

Supplements are pretty routine but welcome all the same.  Relating to the film, we get the original theatrical trailer (non-anamorphic and sourced from an earlier transfer for laserdisc), a gallery of still images, and a healthy collection of cast and crew biographies, all in Japanese of course.  Also included is a brief background and filmography of Daiei’s special effects films, with trailers for several of them (including the early color sci-fi Warning from Space).  Not really an extra but too bizarre not to mention is an optional female voice-over, which soothingly guides you through the menu selections and operations for the disc.  I don’t recall encountering anything quite like it before.

The Kadokawa / Daiei DVD is going to be a tough sell for stateside film fans given its lack of subtitles, high retail price tag, and regional encoding issue, though its the best option out there until an enterprising English-friendly company makes a move (I suggest emailing these guys with the suggestion).  I’m of the opinion that the film is worth putting up with all of that, though I realize that I’m a little eccentric in that respect.  Whale God comes highly recommended, with high hopes that an English-friendly release may someday become a reality.


The Alcove

January 27th, 2010 | article by | No Comments »
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a.k.a. L’alcova
rating:
company: Filmirage
and Golden Hawk
year: 1984
runtime: 93′
country: Italy
director: Joe D’Amato
cast: Lilli Carati, Annie Belle,
Al Cliver, Laura Gemser,
Roberto Caruso, Nello Pazzafini
writer: Ugo Moretti
cinematography: Joe D’Amato
music: Manuel De Sica
disc company: Severin Films
release date: February 23, 2010
retail price: $29.98
disc details: Region 1 / NTSC / dual layer
video: 1.85:1 / anamorphic / progressive
audio: Dolby Digital 2.0 monophonic English
subtitles: none
reviewed from a screener provided
by Severin Films LLC
order this film from Amazon.com

Plot: A military officer brings an African princess home with him to act as a domestic servant, only to have her take control of the seedy goings ons at his Italian villa.

1984 was a slow year for low budget exploitation guru Joe D’Amato, with this and the infamous The Blade Master – the sequel to Ator the Fighting Eagle, best remembered for being MSTied under the title of Cave Dwellers – being his only releases for the year.  While The Blade Master sets the benchmark for zero-budget spaghetti in-adventure, D’Amato appears to have focused more than his usual share of attention to the direction of The Alcove. It ranks as one of the better of his nearly 200 films, not that those of you of more discerning taste will find much consolation in that.

The period story takes place entirely, with the exception of two or three brief scenes, at the isolated villa of Ello (Al Cliver, Zombie, Devil Huner), an officer just returned from duty in Africa.  Along with a hefty assortment of souvenir trinkets, Ello brings an African princess named Zerbal (Laura Gemser, Erotic Nights of the Living Dead), gifted to him by a chieftain, into his household.  Wife and mistress of the household Alessandra (Lilli Carati, Escape from Women’s Prison) is none too happy to have a savage in her midst, a view echoed by Wilma (Annie Belle, Black Velvet, Horrible), a secretary with whom Alessandra has been having a lesbian tryst in her husband’s absence.

Zerbal is equally unhappy with her new position in a “cultured” society, and wastes no time in making trouble.  She wiggles her way into her own relationship with Alessandra, using her new status as the mistress’ preferred pet to take more control around the household.  Wilma is spurned while Zerbal and Alessandra ride the high life on cocaine and champaign bubbles, ignoring the fact that Ello’s finances are teetering on the brink of complete collapse.

The story by Ugo Moretti (Orgazmo) slogs along at a snail’s pace, wading through poorly written melodrama to get to the all important naughty bits.  Things take a turn for the interesting only in the final half hour, when Ello comes up with a scheme to make money fast by producing his own pornographic films starring the women of the house.  D’Amato takes the opportunity to dress Alessandra up for some nunsploitation-by-proxy, spicing things up with a brief but hardcore vintage short.  Even the villa gardener (Nello Pazzafini, The Pumaman, Star Odyssey) gets in on the action, exposing his member while Alessandra’s nun squats over a restrained Wilma and Zerbal looks on with a whip!  It may not be sexy, but it’s more than enough to validate The Alcove‘s sleazy reputation.



I’ve never been a terribly big fan of D’Amato muse Laura Gemser, who has appeared in just about every sub-genre the director dabbled in but is most remembered for her turns in the Black Emanuelle series.  Her performance here is as bland and uncharismatic as I’ve come to expect, though I doubt anyone is coming to The Alcove to admire her acting chops anyway.  All fans need to know is that she bares her physical assets early and often, as does the rest of the female cast.  Al Cliver’s pants remain firmly in place for the duration, thankfully.

The Alcove makes its first appearance on domestic DVD in fine form, and is one of the better of Severin Films’ recent SD releases.  The 1.78:1 (listed as 1.85:1 on the case, which also says the running time is 97 as opposed to the actual 93 minutes) transfer may be cropped a bit too tightly for this European production, but D’Amato’s compositions don’t seem to suffer any ill effects.  Progressive and anamorphic, the transfer faithfully represents the diffused style of the film and presents with good detail when the situation calls for it.  Colors are strong, though contrast is a little flat, and grain (and some video noise, particularly in darker scenes) is present throughout.  I have no doubt that it’s a competent representation of how the film would have looked theatrically, and I’m pleased overall.  Audio is a decent Dolby Digital 2.0 monophonic English dub, though the mixing of the original master seems to have been less than stellar.  I found myself cranking up the volume to hear dialogue, only to have to turn it down again whenever Manuel De Sica’s score kicked in.  There are no subtitles.

Supplements are sparse, but Severin looks to have dug deep to find even this much.  The primary extra is a supplement listed as Talking Dirty with Joe D’Amato on the case, actually an unnamed 11 minute snippet of an interview with the director from the mid 1990s.  Quality is a little iffy on the tape-sourced interview, here pillarboxed into a 16:9 enhanced frame, but that’s not really a problem – fans of the director will want to see it either way.  The only other supplement is a tape-sourced trailer in pretty bad shape, blown up to no good effect to fit a 16:9 frame.

And that’s it, I think.  The Alcove is another in a long line of generally drab and occassionally raunchy Joe D’Amato softcore efforts, but it’s better than most of the same.  There are certainly moments to recommend – the absurd homemade pornography scene and the exploding film can finale in particular (remember kids, porn kills!) – and it’s worth checking out for those keen on the genre.  There’s nothing wrong with the Severin Films release, due out the 23rd of February, and Gemser fanatics will want to indulge.


The Merciful Buddha

January 16th, 2010 | article by | No Comments »
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a.k.a. A Mi De Dao
company: Lin Hop Production Company
year: 1979
runtime: 92′
country: Taiwan
director: Tyrone Hsu Tien-Yung
cast: Chin Lung, Au-Yeung Ling-Lung,
Kao Yuen, Lung Tien-Hsiang,
Chang Chi-Ping, Wong Fei,
Chi Yuk-Sang
writer: Tyrone Hsu Tien-Yung
and Kuk Yun
cinematographer: Cheung Tak-Kon
original music: Wong Mau-Saan
not on home video in the USA

Plot: A lucky shape-shifting stone monkey escapes the village it brings good fortune to just before a major disaster destroys it.  It is captured in a bottle by two thieving practitioners of the dark arts, who use it to strike it rich.


The Merciful Buddha is just one out of the teaming multitude of odd low-budget Taiwanese period fantasies produced from the late 1970s onwards, and a particularly boring one at that (especially when compared to off-the-wall craziness like Thrilling Sword or War of the Wizards, both to be reviewed here shortly).  It’s not that the film doesn’t have weirdness to offer – there’s quite a bit of it, in fact, most of which will be revealed here in due course.  It’s just that said weirdness is too easily lost in the brick-dense melodrama that surrounds it.

The proceedings get off to a promising enough start, with an extraordinarily brief bit of kaiju-emulation.  The giant stone monkey overlooking a village decides that it’s had quite enough of this living-in-a-mountain business and escapes, briefly threatening to destroy a reasonably constructed period miniature.  Instead it shrinks to the size of a young chimpanzee (switching from a man-in-suit to, surprise surprise, a young chimpanzee) and lets an explosion of unknown origin do the work for him.  Either way, the miniature is left a fiery ruin, the giant monster fan in me satisfied, if only momentarily.

Aside from a reverse shot of the stone monkey taking its rightful place back atop a mountain at the end of the story, the rest of The Merciful Buddha is woefully monster free.  The focus is on a pair of thieves, who use the escaped stone monkey as their own special sort of get rich quick scheme.  They force the creature to shape shift into a black bear that, in turn, roams around town stealing everyone’s prized possessions.  The pair get richer and richer while those around them grow poorer and poorer – needless to say, something’s gotta give.

Eighteen years pass and a young fairy woman miraculously born just before the stone monkey escaped is on the hunt for her long lost mother, whom she hasn’t seen in the years since her village was destroyed.  Helping the young woman is a young man, raised by the two thieves after they, unbeknownst to him, killed his statesman parents.


From there the story is relatively predictable.  The young man discovers his adopted paretns’ thieving ways and sets out to make things right, stealing all their accumulated riches and dispersing them to the poor.  The two thieves soon turn on each other – one kills the other after he is caught trying to steal what little treasure is left behind.  The other is poetically slaughtered by a flock of sparrows in a bit of heavenly retribution (the man had previously prayed to Buddha, agreeing to a death by sparrow flock if he didn’t change his greedy ways).  The young fairy woman eventually finds her mother and ascends, along with her elderly father and newfound lover, to heaven.

The Merciful Buddha is more a period melodrama with fantasy trappings than an out-and-out fantasy picture, though its story is punctuated with typically bizarre elements of the genre (at least as it exists in mainland Asia).  The nature of the two thieves is revealed to the young man by, of all things, a horse with a human head that can see through time, and the end ascension shows the cast walking up to heaven on a rainbow.  The young fairy woman frequently exercises her fairy powers, most amusingly to convince a pair of hoodlums to slap themselves silly, and she is protected by an immortal who likes to exercise his own magical slapping powers.  It’s fun, to be sure, but not enough to keep the picture interesting as a whole.

Writer / director Tyrone Hsu Tien-Yung had seen reasonable success as a martial arts director for years before The Merciful Buddha went into production, and it’s a pity that the few hand-to-hand fights to be had here are so fleeting.  His handling of the drama is pretty dull all around – I doubt this was one of the high points of Tien-Yung’s (The Red Phoenix) career.  Other elements of the production are pretty standard.  Wong Mau-Saan provides the so-so score while an uncredited special effects crew does the best it can with the budget provided.

Though fun at times, The Merciful Buddha as a whole is average at best and dull at worst.  Given the relative difficulty to be had in tracking it down, genre enthusiasts are encouraged to spend their time hunting for more worthwile efforts.  Not recommended.



Carriers – DVD

January 6th, 2010 | article by | No Comments »
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postercompany: Paramount Vantage
year: 2009
runtime: 84′
country: United States
directors: Alex and David Pastor
cast: Lou Taylor Pucci, Chris Pine,
Piper Parabo, Emily VanCamp
writers: Alex and David Pastor
cinematographer: Benoit Debie
music: Peter Nashel
dvd company: Paramount Home Video
release date: December 29, 2009
retail price: $19.99
disc details: Region 1 / NTSC / single layer
video: progressive / 2.35:1 anamorphic
audio: Dolby Digital (5.1 English, 2.0 Spanish)
subtitles: English, Spanish, French
order this film from Amazon.com

Plot: The world is devastated by an unstoppable plague that leaves everyone who contracts it dead in its wake.  Four young people travel the backroads of the southwest, headed for the safety of an isolated beach motel on the Gulf Coast while following a five-step plan to avoid infection.

Early advertising for Carriers, which received a disparagingly limited theatrical release and is now making its debut on home video, passed it off as a topical shocker about a lethal outbreak of the avian flu while the latest trailer makes it appear to be just another zombie-pocalypse. “The only thing more dangerous than the disease . . . are the carriers,” it says before a seemingly dead man’s eyes burst open.  It’s a pity that Paramount Vantage couldn’t think of a more effective (and honest) manner of advertising the film, as Carriers has nothing to do with either the avian flu or roving hordes of the undead.

The truth of the matter is this:  Carriers is quite simply one of the best films about the death of man ever produced – a stripped down and intelligent character driven apocalypse picture that creates a palpable sense of existential dread without resorting to gross-out violence or cheap thrills.

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The Pastor brothers, a duo of Spanish film-makers who pull double duty here as both writers and directors, play their story as a thematic homage to classic end-of-the-world vehicles of the past and wisely avoid the contrivances of the action-packed and empty headed post-Mad Max thrill fests that now dominate the genre.  The focus of Carriers is squarely on its main characters, all of whom the Pastor brothers lend considerable depth and none of whom fall into the expected teenaged monster-bait stereotype.

Carriers eschews back story about the plague itself, leaving its menace enigmatic and negating the need for any kind of bloated scientific discourse on the subject.  What is shown of its aftermath is enough to convince of its destructive potential – emptied city streets, abandoned CDC encampments, and waste disposal trucks piled high with body bags.  As dangerous as the plague itself are those it has left behind and clinging to survival, as evidenced by the sight of a murdered man crucified on a farmhouse windmill with a sign – “chinks brought it” – draped across his chest.

In-fighting among clusters of humanity has provided the primary dramatic momentum for apocalypse films since Arch Obeler’s Five from 1951, with man’s inability to deal with himself often proving far more deadly than the overriding threat of radiation sickness, flesh-eating zombies, etc.  Carriers takes the opportunity to turn that convention on its head in one scene, in which disagreement among a band of plastic-wrapped gun-toting survivalists allows for the escape of our main cast.  Such quarreling will surely mean the end of that group, but our heroes will live to drive another day.

005 006
007 008

The tension among our protagonists results from their own humanity.  Allowing a father (Christopher Meloni in a big supporting role) and his infected daughter to travel with them in the plastic and duct-tape sealed back of an SUV invites the virus into the presumed safety of their group.  It predictably spreads, giving the uninfected no choice but to make necessary (but no less horrific for their necessity) decisions – to leave sick friends to die on the side of the road, and worse.  When the final survivors reach their final destination they are despondent, their humanity crushed by what came before, and hardly in a position to rebuild the foundations of civilization.  They wander the ruins, remembering what was while coming to terms with what is – waiting for the ever-dimmer flame of mankind to snuff itself out.

The Pastor brothers, in an interview with Twitchfilm, have provided some insight into their inspirations here – John Wyndham’s superior disaster novel The Day of the Triffids and Geoff Murphy’s inconsistent but undeniably haunting The Quiet Earth.  Their film happily reminds of the best moments from scores of its apocalyptic predecessors (The Last Man on Earth, The World The Flesh and The Devil, Dawn of the Dead and more) while managing to far surpass many of them in its overall effectiveness.  To take a premise that’s been part of cinema DNA for the better part of the past 80 years and mold such a fresh, effective dramatic thriller from it is no small task, but the Pastor brothers have done so with style to spare.  Keep an eye on these guys – if there’s any fairness in the world then they’re going places.

I don’t know quite what I was expecting from Paramount’s DVD issue of Carriers (no Blu-ray is scheduled at present), though after their cut-rate theatrical release it couldn’t have been much.  They’re single layer disc certainly meets those minimal expectations, but its a far cry from the appreciative home video release we might have hoped for.

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Carriers is presented in the original scope 2.35:1 theatrical aspect ratio in a good 16:9 enhanceed and progressive transfer.  Detail is relatively strong and the colors and contrast are very representative of how the film looked when it played theatrically.  There’s a hint of edge enhancement throughout, but otherwise I have no complaints.  The single layer encode is likewise solid, 4 gigs being more than enough for the short (84′) film.  The primary audio option is a Dolby Digital 5.1 surround English track, which does a fine job capturing the subtle sound design.  A Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo Spanish dub is also included, as are subtitles in English, Spanish, and French.

And that, I’m sad to say, is it.  No commentary track, no interviews, not even an original theatrical trailer.  The only supplements are a handful of previews for other Paramount titles – Wrong Turn at Tahoe, G. I. Joe, and the reboot of Star Trek – and a short spot against tobacco products featuring a baby in an SUV being molested by bubbles floating in from around the world.  None of it has anything to do with Carriers, aside from the cross-promotion of lead Chris Pine’s turn as Captain Kirk in Star Trek.  At least the movie looks and sounds good.

The Pastor brothers have crafted something special here, and it definitely deserves to be seen.  Paramount Home Video’s DVD release leaves a bad taste in this reviewer’s mouth, but those who have been waiting patiently to get a crack at the film (and there are many) now have the opportunity to do so.  The $19.99 price tag is steep but expected, and Amazon is already selling the title at 25% below retail.  The DVD gets my begrudging recommendation, given that it’s the only way to see the film at present – Carriers itself is a must-see.

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Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

December 21st, 2009 | article by | 1 Comment »
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postera.k.a. The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans
company: Millennium Films
and Saturn Films
year: 2009
runtime: 122′
country: United States
director: Werner Herzog
cast: Nicolas Cage, Val Kilmer,
Eva Mendes, Feiruza Balk,
Jennifer Coolidge, Brad Dourif,
Michael Shannon, Shawn Hatosy
writer: William M. Finkelstein
cinematographer: Peter Zeitlinger
music: Mark Isham
out in limited release
pre-order the film from Amazon.com:
DVD | Blu-ray

Warning: This review probably contains some spoilers.


Plot: A police lieutenant is hampered by drug addiction, local gangsters, and an ever-loosening grip on reality while heading up a homicide investigation in post-Katrina New Orleans.

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is, in a word, unlikely.  A reboot in name only of the 1992 cult picture Bad Lieutenant produced more than 15 years after the fact with Nicolas Cage in the starring role and Werner Herzog in the director’s chair, its very conception seems suspect, and yet it’s here all the same.  Herzog has taken the script by William M. Finkelstein (writer for N.Y.P.D. Blue and L.A. Law, amongst other television shows) and made something special, a darkly comic tale of corruption, addiction, and redemption and one of the best films of the year.

Herzog’s sense of location is as impeccable as ever, and he makes the depopulated ruins of New Orleans parishes, crumbling in the shadows of the glass towers of the city proper and festering with all manner of crime, as much a character as any other in the film.  Set only a few months after the disaster of Katrina, Herzog’s New Orleans is a place already forgotten by those on the outside – a near-apocalyptic landscape that can’t help but be the birthplace of monsters.

One such monster is newly promoted police lieutenant Terence McDonagh (Cage), a pitiable creature whose chronic pain has led him into addictions to heroin, crack, and cocaine.  McDonagh is an undeniably talented officer, seen at one point single-handedly apprehending a suspect while a SWAT team waits outside, but his tunnel vision starts to get the better of him after his promotion.  As he tells a suspect he’s arresting, “it’s amazing how much you can get done when you’ve got a simple purpose guiding you through life.”  Unfortunately for McDonagh, securing a constant supply of illicit drugs has become that simple purpose.

Things go well for a while.  McDonagh subsists off the steady stream of cocaine and prescription drugs filtering into the evidence room of his department and even finds a kindred spirit and devoted lover in high-class prostitute Frankie (Mendes).  But the life can’t last, and soon he’s betting on football games with money he doesn’t have and getting in trouble with the local mob.  The hallucinations – particularly of ambivalent iguanas on stakeouts – don’t help.  McDonagh hits rock bottom hard, forced to make an uneasy allegiance with the local gangster responsible for the homicide he’s investigating after the case falls apart due to his own negligence.

Herzog keeps the audience aware of the fact that, in spite of all the snarling, screaming, and frequent insanity, McDonagh is ultimately just a decent human being in the midst of making the worst decisions of his life.  The accident that led to his chronic pain was the result of his rescuing a suspect, left behind after the waters began to rise -  no good deed goes unpunished.  Herzog allows McDonagh to commit (and get away with) truly despicable acts on the shaky road to redemption, but always leaves ample room for forgiveness, never letting McDonagh succumb to mortal sin.  The lieutenant  even goes so far as to save the life of murderous gangster Big Fate (Alvin “Xzibit” Joiner) from his depraved partner Stevie (Kilmer).

I never thought I’d find myself praising a performance from Nicolas Cage, but here it’s deserved.  Kudos to Herzog for allowing the actor to flex his professional muscles, which have gone so underserved by recent efforts like Next, Ghost Rider, The Wicker Man, and on and on and on.  Cage lurches through the film like an old-school Universal monster, retaining that all-important note of tragedy while on his drugged-out rampage.  It’s the best performance that’s been seen from the actor in years, and a welcome respite with crap like Ghost Rider 2 (I suppose even Cage has to eat) on the way.

Herzog keeps up his well-earned reputation for experimentation and even finds room to dabble with surrealism in Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans.  McDonagh’s highs are amplified with operatic outbursts of handi-cam wildlife close-ups (notably of an iguana and an alligator) while another  scene has the youthful soul of an aged hit man break dancing after the man himself is killed.  The ambiguous fish-tank ending will leave many viewers scratching their heads, though it seems entirely appropriate in the context of the film.  Herzog always has had an affinity for being strange just for the sake of being strange, and that’s just fine with me.

Teaming up with Herzog once again is cinematographer Peter Zeitlinger (Encounters at the End of the World, Wheel of Time, and Invincible to name a few), and his presence is welcome here.  Frequently working with natural light alone, Zeitlinger ensures Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans’ place as one of the best photographed pictures of the year.  Composer Mark Isham (Invincible, The Black Dahlia) provides the exceptional score, its themes rich in accoustic guitar and augmented with occasional explosions of harmonica.   Here’s hoping a CD release is on the way.

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is out in limited release in the States with simultaneous Blu-ray and DVD releases slated for April of next year from distributor First Look Films (this article will be updated with a disc review at that time).  This is, for my money, one of the best films I’ve seen all year – old or new.  Herzog is still a master of the craft, and his latest comes very highly recommended.


The Road

November 28th, 2009 | article by | No Comments »
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poster

theatrical poster, copyright 2009 Dimension Films

company: Dimension Films
year: 2009
runtime: 112′
country: United States
director: John Hillcoat
cast: Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee,
Robert Duvall, Guy Pearce, Molly Parker,
Michael K. Williams, Charlize Theron
writer: Joe Penhall, from the
novel by Cormac McCarthy
cinematography: Javier Aguirresarobe
order the novel from Amazon.com
The Road is currently in theatres in the USA

Plot: A father and son wander the blasted remnants of the United States after an unnamed cataclysm destroys civilization and most life on Earth.

It’s always unfortunate when the best word I can think of to describe a new film is “underwhelming”.  That’s not to say that John Hillcoat’s film isn’t a noble attempt at bringing the award-winning Cormac McCarthy source novel from 2006 to the screen, but I couldn’t help but feel that twinge of dissatisfaction when the end credits finally rolled.

To be fair, The Road gets plenty right.  The major success of the picture is in its depiction of the apocalyptic landscape the unidentified father and son (Mortensen and Smit-McPhee respectively) traverse.  Cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe (Goya’s Ghosts and, it pains me to say, the latest entry in the Twilight series) captures the many locations (from Pennsylvania to the truly other-worldly Mount St. Helens, looking as much like the end of the world as it did the summer of 1980) brilliantly and allows Hillcoat to present his desolate world with a minimum of computer trickery.

As important as the cinematography is the sound design.  There is near constant noise, be it of wind, rain, or the deep rumblings of a world still in the process of tearing itself apart.  When coupled with Aguirresarobe’s images and an understated score from Nick Cave and Warren Ellis the illusion is complete, and I doubt any viewer will be able to argue that The Road‘s vision of the sunless gray future is anything less than unsettling.

There’s also nothing overtly wrong with The Road‘s depiction of its sparse drama.  The father and son encounter a number of threats throughout, including a family who keeps people huddled like animals in their basement while slowly harvesting their limbs for food, but violence is kept to a minimum.  The high points of the story are undoubtedly the few quiet moments in which the father and son are simply allowed to be themselves, given brief respite from the dangers we know could be lurking just beyond their, and our, range of sight.

The father is understandably protective, dedicating his life to the survival of his son after his wife commits suicide, and is instinctively distrustful of anyone who crosses their path.  Aware that he is dying, the father knows that his ability to fulfill his duty is dwindling as much as their arsenal – a single pistol loaded with their last two rounds of ammunition.  He sees a glimmer of hope for the future  in the naiveté of his son, who wishes to help everyone they pass (a thief, a dying old man), but realizes the immense danger it poses in this harsh new reality.  As far the father is concerned, charity is dead.

Both Mortensen and Smit-McPhee work well in their respective roles.  Their performances are honest, and neither succumbs to the temptation to be overly dramatic.  Other characters are few and far between, and most have no lines at all.  A fine exception is Robert Duvall as an elderly man named Eli, near death and almost blind, who is invited to stay with the father and son for a night.

That so much is right with The Road makes it all the harder for me to place just what is wrong with it.  I’ve not read McCarthy’s source so I can’t speak for how faithfully it was adapted here (I know that the role of the mother is expanded considerably, albeit in flashback).  There just seems to be something missing from the equation, something that keeps all of The Road‘s accomplishments from coalescing into a satisfying whole.  It’s a picture that strives hard for depth and resonance, but that rings hollow in the end.

Dimension has pushed back the release for The Road numerous times over the past year and a half, and its latest push to the 25th of this month is assumed in some circles to be an attempt at improving its Oscar potential.  Perhaps the Weinsteins are hoping for a repeat of No Country for Old Men‘s earlier Academy Award success.  There is certainly some buzz surrounding the film’s release, and the theatre I screened it in was relatively packed (even at 6 in the evening the day after Thanksgiving).  The audience seemed pretty approving of the production by and large, though a group of three (out of 200 or so) did leave early on – never to return.

Don’t let the rather intangible concerns espoused above dissuade you if you’re looking forward to this one, as The Road is undeniably a good film and a fine alternative to the artless spectacles of destruction that typically populate the corners of the multiplex (sorry, no explosions here).  It just isn’t a great film, which I was perhaps unjustly expecting after the Coen brothers’ previous McCarthy adaptation.  The Road comes recommended, but keep those pesky expectations in check.


Seance

November 18th, 2009 | article by | 2 Comments »
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cover

cover of Home Vision Entertainment's DVD of SEANCE - artwork copyright 2005 Public Media Inc.

a.k.a. Korei
companies: Twins Japan
and Kansai Telecasting Corp.,
Daiei Co. Ltd for theatrical
year: 2000
runtime: 97′
country: Japan
director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa
writers: Tetsuya Onishi
and Kiyoshi Kurosawa
cast: Koji Yakusho, Jun Fukubi,
Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, Kitarou,
Ittoku Kishibe, Sho Aikawa
dvd company: Home Vision Entertainment
release date: May 17, 2005
retail price: $24.95
disc details: Region 1 / single layer
order this film from Amazon.com

Plot: Sato (Koji Yakusho), a television sound designer, supports his wife Junko (Jun Fukubi), whose psychic abilities prevent her from keeping a steady job.  One day a young kidnapped girl accidentally lands in their care.  Rather than reporting her discovery immediately to the authorities, Junko decides to keep the child in their home for a few days while feeding the police clues purportedly gained by her psychically.  But things take a turn for the worse when the child accidentally dies in Junko and Sato’s care . . .

Based on the novel Seance on a Wet Afternoon by Mark McShane, which was previously (and more directly) adapted into a 1964 film starring Richard Attenborough and directed by Bryan Forbes, SEANCE is another fine genre-defying turn for Kiyoshi Kurosawa.  Originally produced on 16mm for Japanese television, the film (like SERPENT’S PATH and EYES OF THE SPIDER before it) was bumped to 35mm and given a theatrical release there in 2001 before making its way to home video in North American in 2005.

Those expecting a straight horror film should check those expectations at the door, as SEANCE is a drama before it’s anything else.  Unlike in the novel on which it is based, the crime that provides the impetus for the story is not initially committed by the family at its center.  The convergence of the two, a kidnapping for ransom perpetrated by a man unknown and the middle-aged married life of an imperfect but generally happy couple, is purely accidental.  Junko is shown to be a person with genuine ability as a medium but  little notoriety and no ambition – she spends her days attending to infrequent customers wishing to resolve their issues with the dead.  Her only claim to fame is her participation in the graduate research of a psychology student at the local university.

It is through this graduate student that Junko is first contacted about the kidnapping case, the police hoping that a medium might help them find the girl, or at least give the investigation a direction.  She accepts out of an honest desire to help, having no idea that the kidnapped girl she’s helping to find had made her way into one of her husband’s equipment trunks while he was doing live sound recording a few days earlier.

The discovery of the kidnapped girl in her own home changes Junko completely, and she suddenly sees her involvement in the case a giant step towards fame – a way to financially better both herself and the husband she’s depended upon so much in the past.  Sato is resistant to her scheme at first, desiring only to phone either the hospital so that the girl can get the care she needs, but is suckered into it all the same, agreeing to go along with it even after the girl sees his face.  Everything goes well for the first few days, and Junko is nearly ready to reveal the girl’s location (where she and Sato plan to take her) when the unimaginable happens . . .

001 002 003
004 005 006

The cause of the girl’s death is left  open-ended by Kurosawa, who hints that it may be a result of a lack of emergency care while likewise suggesting that Sato may have killed her himself (we last see her alive in his arms, being muffled so that a polieceman visiting with Junko downstairs won’t hear her).  Whichever the case may be, the death throws a gigantic wrench into Junko’s plan.  She begins pondering on how to go about luring detectives to the girl’s buried body while the ghost of the child lingers over Sato and herself like a guilty conscience.

While Kurosawa provides glimpses of the supernatural early on (a seance, strange voices on an effects recording, and even an apparition seen by Junko in a restaurant where she works briefly), it is only in the last half hour that the ghostly element of the story begins to play into the plot more directly.  The ghost of the girl takes to haunting the couple, with them for every moment of their waking lives as a reminder of the death they had allowed to happen.  Things take occasional sidesteps into the bizarre, as when Sato sets fire to the doppelganger he finds sitting in his backyard (a scene scored, in strange appropriateness, with bagpipes), but always pertain to the narrative at hand.  By the time Junko calls the detectives for a final seance it is already clear that neither she nor her husband will escape retribution, be it supernatural or more earthly in origin.

No one handles space quite like Kurosawa, and his use of it (and uncanny monaural sound mixing) to evoke distinct atmosphere and emotion is in top form here.  One scene has Sato’s boss sharing a recording on which he’s sure he’s heard voices.  It ends in a single uninterrupted shot: The boss tries to shake his uneasy feelings by wandering away from the tape deck and the camera follows Sato, who begins walking away to take care of other business.  At the last moment the camera crash pans, settling on a closeup of the disturbed face of Sato’s boss, his hands clenching a headset tightly to his ears. Kurosawa wears his influences on his sleeve, and they lie at least as much with Kubrick as the exploitation of the ’60s and ’70s – late in the film Sato is seen alone with the trunk in which he’s buried the dead girl in a scene that evokes that director in a very 2001 kind of way.

The need to update Mark McShane’s novel in both time and place offered Kurosawa and co-writer Tetsuya Onishi numerous opportunities to explore philosophical ground left untouched in the source in the ambiguous style typical of the director.  Exemplative of such is Sato’s hiring of a Shinto priest (Sho Aikawa in a brief but memorable role) to exorcise his house.  Sato asks the priest if hell exists, and is told that it does if you believe in it and doesn’t if you don’t.  Sato follows with another quetsion: “Which do you?”  The priest answers, “I don’t know.”  The writing process also allowed Kurosawa to interject his growing fascination with the idea of doppelgangers, a fascination that would result in his much underrated comedy DOPPELGANGER three years later.

Home Vision Entertainment has distributed the bulk of the few Kiyoshi Kurosawa films available in America and released both SEANCE and the truly bizarre CHARISMA to domestic DVD in 2005.  Their disc of SEANCE is typical of the company’s high standards.  The progressive transfer is presented in the originally intended flat full screen ratio and does a fine, if imperfect, job of representing the 16mm photography.  Detail is limited and the image can look a bit soft overall, but damage is minimal and I suspect the film looks as it did when first aired in 2000.  The monaural audio is quiet, restrained, and very reprasentative of the original mix, and comes augmented with optional and exceptional English subtitles.  Supplements include a 00710 minute interview with the director (in Japanese with optional English subtitles), trailers for SEANCE, CURE, and CHARISMA and 2 pages of liner notes by Gabe Klinger.

This is one of the simplest of Kurosawa’s films and one of the easiest to recommend to general audiences.  There’s nothing at all wrong with the Home Vision Entertainment DVD, and it can be had for considerably below retail through some of Amazon.com’s third party sellers.  Both come highly recommended from this reviewer.


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