Last Blog On The Left

So, it´s been quite a week for me. THE DEAD NEXT DOOR have invaded the studio once again and we have come out victorious on the other end with our second album completed. It will be entitled “It Was Hell Down There” and will be released sometime later this year. I spent the weekend in Stockholm and saw AC/DC´s show. Naturally, that included a lot of beers and booze that had to be consumed so I am writing to you in a state of near exhaustion.

However, all those things are pretty pleasant but let me tell ya, this last year has been a tough one for me. It´s not because I´ve been struggling with some kind of disease or anything like that. Oh no, my problems runs much deeper than that. It has been an extremely rough year because I have, in the space of one single year, watched two of my favorite filmmaker´s latest films and come to realize that maybe their time is up. I´m talking about George A. Romero and his “Diary of the Dead” and Dario Argento´s “Mother of Tears”. These are two of the masters, we´re talking about here, right? Just look at Romero´s work: “Night of the Living Dead”, “Dawn of the Dead”, “Martin”, “Day of the Dead” and the extremely underrated “Knightriders”. Quite a resume!  And what about Argento? Well, he´s made such fine films as “Suspiria”, “Opera”, “Tenebrae” and “Trauma”. Hell, these two even collaborated on “Two Evil Eyes”, which was also pretty damn good, in my opinion. What is it then that has happened and why am I in such a state of turmoil? I´ll tell you why.

It all began with Romero´s “Diary of the Dead”. First of all, that´s one of the lamest titles ever for a horror film but never mind that! It was George Fucking Romero making a new zombie movie, pretty soon after the last one, “Land of the Dead”. Now, I don´t know if you remember this but when “Land of the Dead” opened, it was pretty much bashed all around. Well, I settled down into the theatre on opening day and was expecting the worst. The critics hadn´t been kind and I was actually pretty damn nervous, so me and a friend decided to hit a bar before the film started. Well, we managed to get pretty drunk both before and during the film but we thought it was awesome! “This is the way a zombie film is made!” we shouted out after exiting the theatre, giddy with excitement. I have seen it a couple of times since and I still think it´s a very good film. It´s not as good as “Day of the dead” but it definitely kicks Zach Snyder´s remake of “Dawn of the Dead”´s ass! So good job on that one, George!

Then when I learned that Romero was starting to shoot another zombie film so soon after that one, I thought “fantastic!” Then the reviews started pouring in. Everyone was fucking ecstatic! They called it a “masterpiece” and whatnot. Great! So, needless to say I sat down with a fair share of expectations this time around.They were crushed. “Diary of the Dead” is by far the weakest installment in his zombie-saga and I think it is because time has outrun old George. Think about it, he´s made one zombie movie every decade before this and every single one of them has had something to say about the way that society has developed during this time. Now we have the internet and it´s not so strange that George has a stab at that, right? I can understand where he´s coming from and what he´s trying to say but I cannot understand how he´s trying to get his message across.

With “Diary of the Dead” he´s managed to make a whole movie with nothing but unsympathetic characters and with a goddamn voice-over, as well! It´s like he´s convinced that we, the audience, have become completely lobotomized since his last movie, so he has to have a character that explains every single thing to us! I know that his earlier movies maybe aren´t the subtlest films in the history of cinema but they were nowhere nearly as blunt as this one.So, when I watched “Diary of the Dead”, I got the feeling that I was watching a movie made by someone who wanted to say something but who isn´t sure of what to say. It was a disappointment, to say the least.

This brings us up to the reason why I initially started writing this fucking thing: Dario Argento´s “Mother of Tears”! The third installment in his “Mothers”-trilogy, consisting of “Suspiria” and “Inferno” before this one. Now, I don´t know what the hell happened here.I thought that Argento was on the way back, after a bit of a slump career-wise. After all, he´d made two of the more entertaining episodes of the “Masters of Horror”-series. His “Jenifer” was fucking fantastic and managed to combine horror, blood, gore and truly perverse sex in a way that only a master of the genre is capable of. His “Pelts”, starring an insane Meat Loaf was pretty fun, too. So, you know, I thought things were going his way. His latest film, “The Card Player” was pretty shitty though, but that one came before the “MOH”-episodes, so I thought they had given him some kinda creative kickstart. But then I watched his TV movie he made for Italian TV, “Do You Like Hitchcock?” and that´s when I started to worry. “What the hell is going on here?” I thought. That sucked but I figured that since it was a TV movie he must´ve been under all kinds of restrictions and what the hey, he has to pay his bills as well, right?

So, the other day I finally got around to watching “Mother of Tears” after putting it off for too long. I had my worries, you see. Well, they came true. If “Diary of the Dead” is a film made by a man who seems out of touch with the times, “Mother of Tears” is a film made by someone out of touch with the whole goddamn world! I´m sorry to say but watching this film was an extremely disappointing experience. I´ve always counted on Argento to at least have a couple of scenes in every movie that is a bit scary or at least unsettling. Well, he doesn´t work like that anymore. Remember that scene with the blind piano teacher and his dog in “Suspiria”? Well, there´s nothing even remotely similar to that one in this film. Instead of the unseen presence in “Suspiria”, here we get a fucking army of witches chasing Asia Argento around on a train station and they are so spectacularly un-frightening that I can´t even wrap my mind around it! They look like a cross between one of those vampire-wannabe´s and a lost Goth-kid.

I kinda got the feeling that maybe Argento was aware of the fact that his script wasn´t at all scary, so instead he decided to pile on the gore. We get an extremely graphic murder before the movie has passed the 10 minute-mark and while I am not one to usually complain about this kinda stuff, it takes away from the effect here. If this was the kinda film Argento had his heart set on making, why the hell did he have to tie it into both “Suspiria” and “Inferno”, two fantastic films? And why is it that Asia Argento´s always a hell of a lot better in movies directed by anyone else but her father? She seems extremely stiff and wooden in this one. I wouldn´t know if it´s a hard thing to give your daughter directions but he oughtta be used to it by now, considering the things he´s already made her suffer through onscreen. Anyone remember “The Stendhal Syndrome”? There was some pretty fucked up stuff he made her endure during that one. Enough said…I found myself wondering at times if this really is the same man who made “Suspiria”? You know how the sound design played a big part in making that movie so scary? Well, not in this one. Instead, the whole movie feels like Argento just took the same crew he used on that awful Italian TV movie and dug up some old stock music from a horror movie from the 40´s. That´s how the music sounds! Frighteningly un-scary stuff.I mentioned earlier that in his “MOH”-episode “Jenifer”, Argento managed to combine violence and perverse sex in a successful manner. Like I´ve said earlier, not in this one. Everything feels tacked one. One character turns out to be a lesbian and although I am a usually a fan of making characters homosexual and then not making a big deal about it, I gotta wonder why he decided to do it here. Well, then we can have a nude scene of course and don´t get me wrong here, folks! I am all for lesbian love scenes but in this film it gets brutally obvious why it´s there. If Argento can´t shock us with the cartoonish violence he serves up and he´s unable to scare us with the laughable tension he tries to create, then at least a few of us will be shocked by nudity on display here, right? Well, not me. I just find it sad that Argento has to resort to this nowadays.

When I think about a filmmaker like Paul Verhoeven and how he has always had plenty of violence and nudity in his films, how he´s refused to buck on these things, I admire him for it. He´s refused to change the way he makes films and has always had as much male nudity as female in his films and that has been sort of an ongoing motif of his films. It works in his films, okay? He doesn´t just use the nudity to create excitement and trying to arouse the audience. I mean, look at his latest one “Black Book” and tell me if the nude scenes in that one get you going? Didn´t think so. When Argento tries to go down this route, it´s a bit embarrassing, mostly because I´m reminded of what a master of the medium and the genre he used to be. This film feels like a cheap exploitation flick made by a former genius. Uninspired, to say the least.

And then there´s dialogue… You know, I can understand why Italian movies have such bad dialogue when they are forced to dub them, ok? That´s how it usually goes but there´s no excuse when Argento has written the script together with two Americans, Jace Anderson and Adam Gierasch. They should´ve been able to come up with something that would´ve sounded a little more realistic than the awful lines that is in the movie now. For instance, when Asia Argento knocks on a door and asks for a man, the servant asks for her name. She replies in a dramatic tone: “My name means nothing to him…” and then the fucker at the door lets her in! Who the hell talks like that? And who the hell lets someone in after a corny line like that? Let´s face it, wouldn´t it be better if she just would´ve told him her name and then added that he doesn´t know her? I guess these folks and alchemists and whatever they are, are used to people behaving in a different manner than I am. Oh, whatever…However, when the end finally arrives Argento decides to pull out all the stops but even that isn´t enough. When what has come before it is so uninteresting and poorly executed, it doesn´t matter if he bombards us with an orgy of blood and nudity. I found myself extremely uninterested of what was going on onscreen. Hell, I even managed to stay awake during that damn “Phantom of the Opera”-movie he made a couple of years back but then again I was a hell of a lot younger then. Maybe cynicism has gotten a hold of me.

One of the things that I actually liked about this film was the fact that about 45 minutes into it, the wonder that is Udo Kier appears as an old priest and rattles of some expository dialogue in a delightfully over-the-top-like manner. Unlike many of the other actors in this film, he gets away with being insanely bug-eyed and wheezing out his lines because, you know… he´s Udo fuckin´ Kier! And he can do anything he like! He´s above the law, goddamit! It is however painfully obvious that Argento doesn´t possess the creativity any longer to create a film that deals with these supernatural elements, the way he did back during the 70´s and 80´s. It´s a good thing his next film is called “Giallo” ´cause I think he might have a bit more to offer in that particular subgenre of horror.

So there you have it. It´s a hard time being Thomas Lovecraft right now when your heroes are either dying, like Lux Interior of the Cramps did a couple of weeks ago or falling from grace like Argento & Romero. Let´s just hope that Romero´s new “… of the Dead” is better than the last one. It seems pretty promising. Click here to watch the trailer!

Stay ghoul, stay sick & stay in touch!

Thomas

So they say that the apple doesn´t fall far from the tree, right? Well, when I sat down to watch “Boxing Helena” about 15 years ago, I came to the conclusion that the apple can indeed fall pretty fucking far from that goddamn tree that everyone keeps talking about! You see, that film was written and directed by a gal named Jennifer Lynch. She was just a young, healthy American girl at the age of 24 who lead a normal, down-to-earth-existence. Except for the fact that her dad is one David Lynch! Yes ladies and gentlemen, the David Lynch that we all know and love.

The mad genius behind such fantastic films as “Eraserhead”, “Blue Velvet”, “Wild At Heart”, “Lost Highway” and “Mulholland Drive”. I have no idea what life is like in the Lynchian household but it can´t have been completely normal, can it? Not when your daddy is out in the garage making paintings that consists of paint, dead bugs and decomposed meat. The thing is that Lynch is the closest thing we have to a true genius working in the movie industry today and when he pulled some strings to get his daughter to direct her debut feature, everyone expected kinda the same thing from her. Well, they didn´t get it, that´s for damn sure! I was only 14 when this one was released and I was over it like a hawk on a chicken. The daughter of David Lynch directs Bill Paxton (Soldier “Game over, man!” Hudson from “Aliens”) and Julian “Warlock” Sands in the same movie!?! Featuring Sherilyn Fenn in what looked to be a lot of nude scenes? Sign me up, you fuckers! You can bet your ass that a 14 year old kid is gonna be excited about that.

Unfortunately, “Boxing Helena” turned out to be one of the many cruel lessons that life decided to teach me at this point of my life. I was totally confused after watching it. The critics all hated it. The headlines screamed out things like “One of the worst films in the history of mankind!” Now that I think about it, this is exactly the kinda film I tend to like. Maybe my mind was too young and fragile at the time. Maybe I didn´t get what Jennifer Lynch was trying to achieve? At least the film inspired Michale Graves & Co to write the fantastic song “Helena” for their classic “Famous Monsters” album, so it can´t be that bad, can it?

The thing is that after watching Miss Lynch´s latest work, “Surveillance”, it is pretty obvious that Jennifer Chambers Lynch (she probably added the “Chambers” to confuse all the critics in case they hadn´t forgiven her for the “Boxing Helena”-incident and to avoid being dunked in tar and feathers at the film festivals. At least that´s my theory) is a woman of some talent. In the years since “Boxing Helena” the apple has somehow managed to creep a lot closer to that damn tree because this is a film made by someone with a vision and a knack for casting; someone who´s a keen observer of the bizarre elements of human behavior. Pretty much like David Lynch, come to think of it. Hmm, maybe there´s a connection there somewhere…

Here´s what´s the movie is about, in broad strokes: Two FBI agents, Elizabeth Anderson (Julia Ormond) and Sam Hallaway (Bill Pullman), arrive at a local police station in the Santa Fe desert to investigate a series of murders. They interrogate three eyewitnesses: Police officer Jack Bennet (Kent Harper), the meth-addict Bobbi (Pell James) and Stephanie (Ryan Simpkins), an eight-year-old girl, whose family was murdered by two figures dressed in jumpsuits and latex masks. That´s all I get to tell you ´cause this is definitely one of those kinda films where the less you more about it, the more rewarding the experience is gonna be for you.

One of the things that make “Surveillance” such an immensely entertaining film is that Jennifer Lynch is just as interested in her character´s behavior as she is in moving the plot forward. To me, this is a close to perfect-marriage between an “independent” movie and a horror flick.

In a weird way, one of the films that I was reminded of is the original “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”. The reason why I was reminded of that one is not because Bill Pullman halfway into the film decides to strap on a mask made of human skin and chase people around with a giant chainsaw, while dressed in a skirt or anything like that. But you know what, that wouldn´t been a bad idea, would it? I have a feeling that any movie would benefit from having a character behave like that. Anyway, the reason I was reminded of “TCM” is because of its mood. You remember how the atmosphere and the tension in that movie got so oppressive that you almost choked, the first time you saw it? That´s what made that flick so successful and so damn unnerving. After all, there´s not that much blood and gore onscreen, as you probably know, but it still manages to create some pretty horrific images in your mind. “Surveillance” is kind of like that. It doesn´t show you much, just enough to know what´s going on but it leaves the majority of gore to the viewer´s imagination and it works surprisingly well.

You know how that old guy that directed a couple of flicks, Alfred something… Hitchcock (hey, was he the guy that Will Smith played in a movie?), I think his name was. Well, he used to tell every reporter on the face of this earth that the scariest things isn´t what you show the audience, “it´s what you don´t show” or something along those lines. Well, I guess that Jennifer Lynch just proved that old fucker right because I found this movie to be genuinely scary but to be honest I can only remember one scene that actually contains any gore and guts. And it´s a pretty brief one, at that. Good job, Jennifer Lynch!

From the intelligence I´ve managed to gather during my research for writing this post, I´ve come to understand that this Hitchcock seems to be pretty well known and a critic here and there seem to like him so that´ll probably work in Jennifer Lynch´s favor. Maybe she´ll get one of those quotes on the DVD cover that says something like “A chilling thriller in the vein of Hitchcock”. That´ll probably sell a few extra DVD´s ´cause honestly, who doesn´t buy or rent DVD´s based solely on the quotations on the cover?

I´m gonna have to digress here for a while because this is something that has been bothering me for quite a few years. Those fucking quotations… I mean, enough is enough! Has anyone ever, in the history of VHS, Laserdisc, DVD and Blu-ray, stood around in a video store, reading at the back of a video and said something along the lines like:

“I don´t know, Johnny… It seems pretty lame. It´s about a guy on submarine where the submarine starts to think for itself and then tries to kill him. It seems pretty low budget… and it´s directed by Uwe Boll… and it stars Michael Dudikoff… and Ian Ziering… It can´t be any good, Johnny! It seems frickin´ awful! I mean, just look at the cover… wait a minute, hold on! Look at this! Have you read this? According to michaeldudikoffisagod.com this film is a ‘white knuckle-high-octane-pedal-to-the-metal-thrill-ride’! Holy shit! Let´s get this one! I´ve changed my mind! The weekend is saved! Holy shit, do you realize that if that quote hadn´t been on the cover, we never would´ve rented this one? Imagine that…”

Let´s face it, friends: it doesn´t work like that. People don´t base their movie-watching on those god damn quotations. The only thing they do is ruin the covers on DVD´s. So let´s come together and for the greater good of humanity, stop plastering them all over the covers, okay? The world will be a better place for it.

Now that I´ve gotten that off my chest, let´s get back to “Surveillance”. There are so many things to love about this film. Take for example the casting. I don´t know who´s responsible for it but I´ll give Miss Lynch credit for it. This film has a great cast! Bill Pullman and Julia Ormond plays the two FBI agents and they do it extremely well. This is the kinda role that Pullman was born to play: the upstanding, righteous officer of the law who´s slightly frustrated. I always get the feeling that there´s something boiling just underneath the surface with Pullman´s characters. He´s got this slwo-moving nervousness to him that can be weirdly unsettling, at times.

And Julia Ormond… thank god she´s started doing films again! She´s been missing from the silver screen for too long. It´s been a while since I saw her in anything worth mentioning (except the intensely underrated “I Know Who Killed Me”, which I´ve written about here, as well) and I hope this is the beginning of a comeback. She is one talented lady and let´s face it, friends… she´s extremely handsome, as well. Is it okay to use the word “handsome” when you refer to a woman? Since English isn´t my first language I´m not sure about this but being the rebel that I am, I´ll use it anyway. Julia Ormond is one handsome lady! There you have it. Anyway, these two work extremely well together and when the movie begins you get the feeling that these two have been partners for a long time without overstating anything. They manage to get a lot across with just a few glimpses and gestures.

Then we have the cops… Officers Jack Bennet and Jim Conrad are two pretty peculiar individuals and they´re played by Kent Harper and French Stewart. Apparently, this guy Kent Harper also helped to produce the film and co-wrote it and delivers a fine performance as the cop who´s one of the eyewitnesses, so he can be pretty damn happy with himself. All in day´s work, right? Then we have this guy French Stewart. You might remember him from that “Third Rock From The Sun”-show, starring John Lithgow as the father of a family of aliens. French Stewart was the guy who squinted his way through that show. Well, as it turns out that show obviously had some good actors attached. After all, Joseph Gordon-Levitt had a part and he´s made some damn fine work since. And let´s not forget John Lithgow who´s one of the best villains out there. “Blow Out”? “Ricochet”? “Cliffhanger”, anyone? That man knows how to sneer.

But after watching French Stewart´s performance here, the old theory that comedians make for great dramatic actors is given new fuel. Think about Bill Murray, folks. Or Steve Martin in “The Spanish Prisoner”. French Stewart is no exception here. He manages to make the character of Jim Conrad a quirky, funny, despicable yet somehow weirdly likable character. I don´t wanna give too much away but let´s just say the characters of Conrad and Bennet has some weird ideas about how to pass the time when they´re patrolling the highway.

Then we have the family that the cops pull over for speeding. The mother is played by Cheri Oteri, from “Saturday Night Live”-fame. What do you know, another comedian! I´ve waited for her to get her break in movies because I think she´s very underrated. She was hilarious in “SNL” and Richard Kelly gave her a small part in “Southland Tales” as a terrorist but other than that, there hasn´t been that many opportunities for her to show her chops. But anyway, she´s great in this one so here´s hoping that we get to see a lot more of her in the future.

Oh, she also gets to sing along to a Violent Femmes-song in this one and any movie that has a scene like that is a good one, in my opinion.

Another thing that adds to the overall-feeling of the film is its locations. It´s supposed to take place in the Santa Fe area but as so many low budget movies nowadays, the part of the United States of America is played by this, now rather frequently used and respected character actor called Canada. This guy has one hell of a resumé, let me tell ya! The thing is that in most cases I´m not that big of a fan of Canada´s work in movies. It´s not that believable, in most movies. You can often tell that the part of USA is played someone else, who has just dressed up in USA´s old clothes. If it´s not Canada, it´s this other European dudes called Czechoslovakia or Romania. In some cases it works, in others it doesn´t. In the case of “Surveillance”, it works!

Now, I haven´t been to Santa Fe, so I don´t know if it looks realistic or not but it sure adds to the weird feel of the feel of the movie. Those wide open vistas feels pretty out of touch with civilization and this movie kinda feels like it takes place in some weird alternate universe, you know kinda like daddy David Lynch´s old TV-series “Twin Peaks”? That´s the kinda feel you get and when Officer Bennet tells his superior (played by the fantastic Michael Ironside) that “You know how it gets out there…”, you understand him. Spending your days out on those fields, all alone in a car has to play some tricks on your imagination and you kinda understand why these two cops have come to be the assholes that they are.

So, this is an eerie, unsettling, kinda disturbing movie but it´s also funny as hell in dark way. Kinda like “Blue Velvet”, come to think of it. To be perfectly honest, I liked this film a hell of a lot more than I liked big Daddy David´s latest one, “Inland Empire”. That one was too weird for even me. This one reminds me of his greatest work from back when he still tried to ground his stories in some kind of reality. Jennifer Lynch (Christ, it´s getting tiresome to have to write her whole name every time) manages to create a film based in reality but still give it this otherworldly feel that is definitely Lynch-ian and while there´s no way of knowing how much her father had to do with this, I hope that this is the work of her mind. This promises great things for her future.

Her next film, which is in post-production as we speak, is called “Hisss” and is based on the Indian myth of a snake woman who is able to take human form. Now, if you don´t think that that sounds like an interesting film, I´m afraid you´re beyond rescue, friend. It´s about god damn time someone made a really good snake-flick. It´s been too long!

Now, I guess it´s time to get my hands of a copy of “Boxing Helena” and see if it really was that awful as my memory makes it up to be…

Have a good one and stay ghoul,

Thomas

I don´t know about you but I was raised in a family where whatever shit that happened to you, the favorite saying was always ”Well, at least we still got our health” No matter what happened, that one always worked ´cause in a way that still rings true. One of the most important things in life is our health, right? If we have that then it doesn´t really matter what life throws at us. We´ll get through it in one way or another, right? That´s why the concept of this movie I watched the other day, “Quid Pro Quo” is so perversely fascinating. It´s about this subculture that I guess exists in real life where people actually want to be paraplegic. These people want to be stuck in a wheelchair which is pretty damn weird, if you ask me. But then again, I thought cell phones were a weird idea. I mean who the hell wants to call someone when they´re on a god damn bus, right? Just look what happened to that concept so I might not be the best guy to judge these things that happen in our society.

But here´s the basic plot for you: Isaac Knott (played by Nick Stahl from HBO´s “Carnivale” and “Terminator 3”) is a public radio reporter in New York, in a wheelchair since an auto accident in which his parents died. He’s on the rebound from a relationship when he gets a tip about people who want to be disabled, who offer money to interns to cut off a limb. He searches out a group of these wannabes, but none will talk to him. Then he meets his tipster, Fiona Ankany (Vera Farmiga from “Running Scared”), an art conservator, attractive and attracted to him, despite the fact that this dude is obviously in a wheelchair. Later on she discloses her desire to be disabled, to be in a wheelchair. Meanwhile, Isaac tries on a pair of old-fashioned shoes called spectators that restore feeling to his feet. What are the connections? What’s Fiona’s quid pro quo? Will Isaac get his story? Many questions, friends…

Well, I´m not gonna tell you the answer to them, am I? What the hell kind of host would I be then, huh? The thing is that this is a pretty fascinating film. The DVD cover has a couple of quotes like “jaw dropping!” and “darkly erotic!” I wouldn´t go as far to say that the film is jaw dropping because, let´s be honest here, not once during the film did I lose my jaw. It remained in place, firmly placed under my nose and above my throat. However, I will go along with the quote that said that it is “darkly erotic”. It´s pretty dark stuff and it does get pretty erotic, but disturbing as well.

There´s something inherently freaky about a beautiful woman like Vera Farmiga actually wanting to be in a wheelchair. Like I said, your health is the one thing that everyone should be grateful for. That´s one thing that we all have in common, right? Doesn´t that make it one of the last taboos to not have been broken in this day and age? How do we react when we meet someone who actually wants to be paralyzed? How would you handle an encounter with a woman with such a beautiful body but she wants to basically mutilate it?

I know that I would be pretty freaked out if this would happen in real life and that was what I was hoping for when I flipped the DVD into the tray. The thing is that when you get yourself ready for watching a film with a storyline like this, you immediately start hoping for something truly unsettling in the vein of the grandmaster of perversion, David Cronenberg. Well, a Cronenberg-film this ain´t, I´m sad to say.

The thing is that this is by no means a bad movie. It´s definitely worth watching but the trailer I saw unfortunately had me going. I was expecting an entirely different type of film. You know, I´m a sucker for that kind of movie where you get introduced to a whole new type of subculture that you´re unfamiliar with; where you get introduced into a world that you know you would never ever enter in real life. I love those kinda movies. You know, like that Nicolas Cage-flick that everyone complained about a couple of years back, “8MM”? I freakin´ loved that one! It was great and even though that type of world of snuff pornography probably doesn´t exist (or maybe it does, what the hell do I know), I thought that it made it believable and fascinating for me as a viewer. That´s the kind of film that I was expecting when I sat down to watch this one; a film where this bizarre, weird subculture of people who harbors secret desires to amputate themselves are exposed! That´s definitely something I will not encounter in real life, I am pretty damn sure of that. It´s definitely something I would want to watch in a movie, though. Unfortunately, this wasn´t that movie!

The film takes a turn for the worse when it turns out to be more about Vera Farmiga´s character and her relationship with her mother and how she feels like a paralyzed person in a healthy body. It´s definitely an interesting concept that she refers to able-bodied people in the same way as a person who wants to get a sex-change operation. I´ve definitely never thought of it that way, that this bizarre idea could exist in people´s head, so that was definitely intriguing. There is an element of a detective story to this film and I just wish that the director, Carlos Brooks, would have emphasized it more ´cause then we would have had a movie that I could have enjoyed a lot more.

You see, this is a New York-film. An independent movie shot in New York. You know what that means, don´t you? Intellectual individuals discussing their emotions and what they mean to each other. Unfortunately, that´s what we get a little bit too much of in this one, too. You know, it would be great to see a New York-filmmaker like Abel Ferrara sink his teeth into this script. I wonder what he might´ve done with it. There´s this scene in the opening of the film when Isaac goes to check out the tip he´s received and ends up in a dark warehouse-building where he stumbles (or rolls, whatever you like) upon a bunch of people having some sort of get-together, kinda like a support group of sorts. Everyone is in a wheelchair. They reveal to him that they are “wannabe´s”, people who wants to be in wheelchairs but are perfectly healthy. This scene was incredibly creepy. First of all, you have Isaac who actually are paralyzed so it´s not like he´s gonna be able to run away if the weird group of people decide to turn on him, okay? Then we are not sure of what kind of lengths these people are willing to go to keep their secret. I thought it was a great scene and like I said, very creepy. I just wish that Brooks would´ve gone more in this direction and would´ve tried to make the film more suspenseful. But he doesn´t and that sucks. Instead he decides to please the whiny intellectual inside himself.

I just don´t get why every New York-filmmaker has to wanna be like Woody Allen? What the hell, look at Abel Ferrara and Larry Fessenden, for chrissakes! This incredibly annoying way of discussing, exploring and dissecting every inch of the human psyche and the character´s relationship are something I´ve seen enough of in movies. You know, writing this makes me realize just how much I actually miss Abel Ferrara. Remember when he was on top of his game? When he made movies like “King of New York” and “Bad Lieutenant”? He was on fire back then. Sure, he had his fair share of Catholic guilt but he wasn´t afraid to throw some exploitation into the mix. Man, “MS.45” was a great one, too. I don´t know what´s happened to these New York-filmmakers. Why can´t try to be more like Abel than Woody? I mean, I like Woody Allen´s movies as much as the next guy but New York could definitely need an injection of “macho”-filmmaking, if you see what I mean. Enough of the talking and whining now, people! Bring out the guns.

You know, writing about this I just realized that it was no coincidence that I mentioned Cronenberg earlier. I guess that the movie I was hoping for was the wheelchair-version of his car crash-fetish-opus “Crash”! I think that that´s a fantastic film in all its depravity and I guess that I was subconsciously hoping that “Quid Pro Quo” would be more like that one. I guess that I am a sick fucker, eh? I guess that I got something that reminded me of a TV-movie about people with sexual anxieties, when I actually wanted James Spader and Holly Hunter having sex on a car wreck while someone is licking Deborah Kara Unger´s wound. Well, well, you can´t have everything. But I´m sure you´re all too aware of that brutal fact.

However, I will say that the actors in this film are pretty great. Nick Stahl is always reliable and Vera Farmiga is fantastic! If this girl doesn´t get an Oscar within the next couple of years, I will take measures. Trust me, Academy Award voters… you know what I´ve told you if you don´t get Mickey Rourke that Oscar? Well, Vera Farmiga´s next up. Just do it, fuckers! I don´t know about you but if I would have met her character, Fiona, in real life I definitely would have been intrigued, right? Let´s face it, all the guys out there would be. She´s quite a looker, this Farmiga-lady. But you know, the second she would´ve told me that she feels like a paraplegic in an able body and that she harbors a secret desire to be in a wheelchair, I would have been out of there faster than you could say “freaky lady!” It´s not exactly the best way to start off a relationship, if you catch my drift. I mean, the girl wants to be in a wheelchair! Imagine how that will escalate in the years to come. She wants to be in a wheelchair now, even though she can walk. What does that tell you about her need for attention? A girl like that will probably do anything and I´m not sure if that´s the best grounds to start a relationship on. But the thing is, while this is the kind of woman that you would steer clear from in real life, you are forced to spend time with her during the course of this film and since she´s such a great actress, you actually start to sympathize with her. Her character is very well-developed and entirely believable, weirdly enough. When the film is over I didn´t have any problem at all understanding why Nick Stahl´s character would be interested in her. The scene where she explains that she wants to feel happy and be grateful for her ability to walk but isn´t, shows some pretty fine acting on her part. But like I said, not a lady I´d exactly walk over corpses to spend time with in real life. Make sure to ask that on your first date, friends:

“Oh, so you work at the museum? Interesting… By the way, you don´t harbor any secret wishes to be paralyzed, do you? Great! Good to know, just checking. You know how it is nowadays. Can´t be too sure. Wanna go catch a movie, then?”

So, I guess that´s about it for me, friends. I will recommend this movie but you should know what you´re getting yourself into. I am absolutely certain that somewhere inside this movie is a great, creepy thriller lurking but unfortunately it got buried in a story about blossoming relationships, too much over-analyzing and voice-overs and that´s a damn shame, people!

Oh, and don´t ask me what the hell all that business with the shoes were. I´m clueless! There is no doubt in my mind that in the claws of David Cronenberg this would have been a truly great film but we can´t hold that against first time writer-director Carlos Brooks. I´ll definitely keep my eye on him in the future. I just looked him up on the movie database that inhabits the internet and apparently his next flick is called “Burning Bright” and here´s what it´s about! Listen to this, friends:

“A thriller centered on a young woman and her autistic little brother who are trapped in a house with a ravenous tiger during a hurricane.”

Jesus Christ, how´s that for an idea? It could be great and it could be really, really bad. One´s thing for certain: I have to see it! Unless the movie turns out to be all about the two siblings sitting around a campfire at night and discussing their emotional problems with the tiger, who turns out to be some kind of wise-ass bastard like that Bagheera panther in “The Jungle Book”. That would really suck, wouldn´t it? Bring on the blood, Carlos and I promise I´ll be there for your future endeavors!

Until next time, friends… Stay ghoul, stay sick & stay in touch!

Thomas

Ladies and gentlemen who travel the superhighway of information, a couple of months ago I watched this Korean serial killer-thriller called ”The Chaser” which was pretty fantastic (which some of you might remember and if you don´t or want to refresh your memory can do so by scrolling down and checking out my earlier posts). Well, last night I watched another Korean flick directed by this guy named Seung-wan Ryoo. I´m not familiar with this guys earlier work but after looking him up on the database that we find right here on the internet, it turns out that I have heard of some of his films but I haven´t seen them. I remember that his “Crying Fist” was pretty popular when it was released but since it was some kind of sports movie, I figured “to hell with it!”, right? He also directed this flick called “Arahan” that´s supposed to be pretty good but since I thought it seemed to lean a bit too much on the comedic side, I ignored that one as well. Hey, you can´t watch everything, right? Besides, life´s too short to spend it laughing.

However, like I mentioned, I sat down to watch his “The City Of Violence” last night and it was pretty damn entertaining! The DVD cover proclaims that this Ryoo-fella has been hailed as “The Korean Tarantino” but then again, who hasn´t? It seems that every Asian director nowadays, that knows where to place a camera and how to block a scene, is being nominated to follow in the old banana-chin´s footsteps. I´m not sure who influences who the most, if Tarantino influences all these Asian directors or if it´s the other way around? I think it´s the other way around. Tarantino has always been extremely influenced by Asian cinema, ever since he lifted the entire story of “Reservoir Dogs” from Ringo Lam´s “City on Fire”.

The reason I´m bringing this up is because if you decide to watch this one, I don´t want you to expect one of these Tarantino-clones type of films, ok? Don´t expect a bunch of Yakuzas in black suits and ties discussing cereals and old samurai movies, ok? This is not that type of film. Unlike many of Tarantino´s movies, this one doesn´t seem to be aware that it is a movie, if you get my drift. Ever since “Jackie Brown”, Tarantino has been making the type of films that are (sometimes painfully) aware that they exist in a movie-universe, where nothing is realistic or natural. “Jackie Brown” was the last film he made that actually took place in our world and even though I definitely enjoy his later work, I still miss the days when he kept it a little bit more down to earth. It kinda takes you out of the movie when the camera starts doing these flashy movies, just because that´s the way they did it in a bizarre martial arts-flick form the 60´s than no one in the entire world, including the people who made the movie, has ever seen.

So this “City of Violence”-flick is not that type of film, right? However, it does have an aura of 70´s cinema to it. Much like Tarantino´s latest films also has. It´s not as obvious as say, “Death Proof”, though. It´s a bit more subtle but that doesn´t mean that it´s less cool.

But before we go into specifics, let me just fill you in on what the hell this movie is about. Tae-su, a detective fighting organized crime, returns to his hometown for his high school friend Wang-jae’s funeral. At the funeral, he meets his old friends Pil-ho, Dong-hwan and Seok-hwan and they reminisce. Suspecting something fishy about Wang-jae’s death, Tae-su and Seok-hwan start investigating it each in his own way. Both of their investigations lead to a land development project that Pil-ho is directing and the two embark on a difficult battle.

Now, back to its 70´s-influence! I have to say that it wears its influence proudly on its sleeve and I really like that about this film. Many of the characters look like they bought their clothes and got their hair cut back in ´77. Roo´s color schemes in many of the sequences are also obviously influenced by the golden decade of cinema as well as the music. Especially when the two friends start searching all across Seoul for the culprits, breaking down doors and beating up people to the left and the right like some kind of Asian Terence Hill and Bud Spencer´s. This is shown to us in a gloriously edited montage, complete with 70´s “wacka-wacka”-guitar a´ la Lalo Schifrin and fast zooms and split-screens. Pretty cool stuff! There´s lots of dissolves and other camera-trickery all through the film and I guess that it´s easy to say that these kinda things are influenced by Tarantino because he uses this stuff regularly but you know, he didn´t invent them! So when the DVD cover says that Seung-wan Ryoo is the Korean Tarantino because of things like this, we need to remember that Tarantino is heavily influenced by 70´s cinema, probably the same movies as Ryoo takes his cue from. I don´t what kind of film stock they shot this on but it has that wonderful graininess to it, that your old Kung Fu-movies used to have. Makes me a bit nostalgic, actually.

Now, when you decide to call your movie “The City of Violence” you have a pretty big thing to live up to, right? If you sit down to watch it and find out that it´s a god damn romantic comedy, you´re not gonna be jumping with joy, are you? So how about the violence, the glorious, wonderful violence that we enjoy so much at the movies? Is it up to snuff in this one? Yeah, it is. Stop worrying. This is not a John Woo-movie, so there´s not that many shootouts but there´s definitely no shortage when it comes well-staged fights. This is the type of film that I really enjoy, you know the kind where nothing ever just happen the way it would in real life. For example, if someone is to be mugged in the street it doesn´t happen the way you´d think it would, oh no! If someone gets mugged here they will be attacked by an army of muggers and then be forced to fight their way out of this. For instance when Tae-su is attacked by a gang of street thugs, it isn´t just one gang. He gets attacked by four separate gangs and all at the same time! This makes for one of the more spectacular scenes in the film when he´s standing at a crossroad with one gang in every direction and is forced to fight his way out. I should mention that one of these gangs is dressed in baseball uniforms a´ la “The Warriors”, in case you needed any more convincing.

Usually I´m not that big of a fan of these “one man against one hundred”-fights they have going on in this film. You see, I´m a sucker for these “mano a mano”-fights. For instance, since I´ve already brought up Tarantino I might as well do it again. You know the big fight that Uma Thurman has at the end of the first “Kill Bill”, the one at the house of the tainted leaves or whatever the hell that place was called? You know the one where she took on the “Crazy 88”-gang singlehandedly and chopped them to pieces? That was pretty damn awesome, right? Hell yeah but when you think about it… wasn´t the fight in part 2 when she took on Daryl Hannah in that old trailer even cooler? “Why, Mr. Lovecraft, I think you might be right on this one”, you´re saying now and you know what? I am right on this one! No matter how much blood that sprays across the screen in that scene in “Kill Bill part 1” it cannot compare to the viciousness and ferociousness that fight in that tight, confined space. Come on, just think about Sean Connery fighting Robert Shaw on that train in “From Russia With Love”. That´s one hell of a fight! The tighter the space, the better the fight!

But you know, I digress here. The thing I was getting at was that even though I am much more of two guys against each other-type of guy, I really enjoyed the huge fights in this one. The director Ryoo definitely knows how to stage these kinds of fights and it is pretty obvious that he doesn´t take them too seriously, which is always a good thing. You´re always better off with a little bit of humor thrown in for good measure but you have to be careful. You don´t wanna end up making “Kung Fu Hustle” here! Ryoo manages to avoid that, thank god.

So that´s about it, friends. You should check this one out. It´s definitely worth an hour and a half of your time. It´s not an original piece of work, by any stretch of the imagination but it definitely is a fun ride. Oh, and lead actor Doo-hong Jung has a sensationally square jawline, which is always a good thing for any action movie. This is definitely a city I will be visiting again. “Start the violence”, as the Black Halos once sang…

One last thing: look at the cover at the top of this post. Check out the guy at the lower left corner, ok? If anyone can tell me what has forced that expression on his face, I´d be very grateful. I have various theories but they all include violent orgasms or various blunt objects being forced into different body cavities. I mean, look at him! Look at that expression! It´s not just my imagination, is it?

And on that slightly perverse note, I bid you faretheewell. Until next time,

Thomas