Blah! Movie Edition

There comes a time in every blogger’s life when they decide to make that fateful move from WordPress.com to a self-hosted site of their own. For me, that time has come. I’m packing up my things and moving to a bigger house. Blah! Movie Edition will now be quietly placed in the Elderly Blog Retirement Home, with cookies at tea time and a game of Bingo before bed. Don’t worry, it will get the best care.

My new site is Celluloid Zombie! A continuation, and indeed an expansion, of everything I put into this blog. All the content has been moved there and all further posts will only appear there. If you followed and enjoyed my insane dribbling on Blah! Movie Edition, then please join me on Celluloid Zombie for even more.

Thank you, all, for making this blog the fun it was. You ain’t seen nothing yet.

The Hole

Starring: Chris Massoglia, Haley Bennett, Nathan Gamble, Teri Polo, Bruce Dern

Director: Joe Dante

Newly arrived in the small town of Bensonville, brothers Dane and Lucas discover a seemingly bottomless hole in the basement of their new house. Shortly after opening the trapdoor which covers the hole, strange things begin to creep out, playing on the fears of whoever stares down into the darkness.

Welcome back, Mr Dante. Where on earth have you been? It’s been seven years since the cinema last saw a Joe Dante movie, and twelve years since it saw a Joe Dante movie that was any good (we’ll just pretend Looney Tunes: Back in Action never happened, okay). Now, at last, one of the 1980s most anarchic filmmakers, who brought us Gremlins, The Howling and Innerspace, has finally returned with something a little more like the Dante of old. The Hole marks a tentative return to form for the director. Sadly, it is only a tentative return.

Dante’s movies were almost always family fare, but with a trademark touch of darkness and insanity. Gremlins is the perfect example. With The Hole, the director returns to this template, fashioning another tale where the kids have all the fun and the adults are largely clueless as to what is going on around them. This set-up and Dante’s recognisable flourishes leave The Hole looking and feeling like a movie from the 80s. No bad thing for those of us who grew up on a diet of films from Dante and his contemporaries, like Spielberg, Landis and Carpenter. The first hour of The Hole is by far the strongest but it is ultimately let down by a weak and sentimental third act which undermines the creepy atmosphere and chills it built up along the way. Also letting the side down is lead actor Chris Massoglia, who delivers a performance worthy of the great Master of Wood, Keanu Reeves. Still there are reliable, if brief, turns from Dante regulars Bruce Dern and Dick Miller to lend class to proceedings.

You can come out now, Joe. We've forgiven you for Looney Tunes: Back in Action.

The modern teenage audience, fed on a stable diet of torture porn and dreary slasher movies, will probably find little to engage them in Joe Dante’s welcome return. This is a film that harkens back to a time when horror movies were more fairy tale than fetish. Dante fans, however, will relish in his trademark, if slightly restrained, mischievousness. Look out for the psychotic clown doll for old school laughs. Flawed but fun, The Hole is like welcoming back an old, childhood friend you haven’t seen in too long. Too bad it falls so completely at the final hurdle.

Rating - 3 Stars

Characters in movies are invariably placed into one of two categories, good guy or bad guy. But let’s not forget that some of cinema’s greatest villains weren’t guys at all. Let’s be honest, anyone who has lived more than a few days is well aware that women are just as capable of great evil as men. Sorry, ladies, but I am about to present my case.

Make no mistake, my friends, there is no such thing as ‘the fairer sex’. Forget Darth Vader, Hannibal Lecter or Gordon Gekko. They are rank amateurs compared to this collection of XX chromosome hooligans.

Welcome to my Top Ten Female Movie Villains. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. And guys, next time your special lady friend gives you a hard time for leaving the toilet seat up, read this list, lower the seat, and count your blessings. Then lower the seat cover too, just to be on the safe side.

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Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates)

Misery – 1990

Every writer likes to think they have devoted fans out in the world, but there are limits. Annie Wilkes is definitely one of those limits. Where most fans like to show their dedication by attending conventions or collecting memorabilia, Annie prefers kidnapping, hobbling and coercing full creative control over her idol’s output. She’s like the editor from Hell. My advice is make a copy of your manuscript. And try to remember which way around the china penguin was facing. If Annie Wilkes is your number one fan, you are in all kinds of number two.

Redeeming qualities: She sometimes leaves the house. And she’ll do a good job of fixing up the injuries she inflicts on you. She used to be a nurse, you know.

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Asami Yamazaki (Eihi Shiina)

Audition – 1999

It’s always the quiet ones, right? Asami may seem like a sweet, shy and reserved young woman, but she actually has a few jealousy issues. Serious jealousy issues, in fact. A couple of counselling sessions aren’t going to fix this one. When Asami asks you to love only her, she means only her. No kids, friends, family, dead wives or pet dogs allowed. Break the rules and she will have no choice but to cheerfully, lovingly, saw off your feet and hands. And then stick needles in your eyes. She means it all affectionately, though, so do try and be a little understanding.

Redeeming qualities: She’ll find a nice, warm sack to keep you in and she’ll feed you regularly. You may not like what’s on the menu, though. Gag.

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Bridget Gregory (Linda Fiorentino)

The Last Seduction – 1994

Avoid this woman at all costs. If Bridget Gregory shows an interest in you, run for the hills because it will only end in tears. Yours, to be precise. What Bridget lacks in compassion, she more than makes up for in brains. If they handed out Noble Peace Prizes for schemes and machinations, Bridget would win hands down. She’s like Wile E. Coyote, only more successful and with nicer legs. In all fairness, Bridget isn’t completely heartless. If you’re lucky, or just useful, she won’t kill you. She’ll just have you framed for rape and murder and then sod off with all the cash. Ouch.

Redeeming qualities: Jeez. Well, she’s witty and she has money. And your relationship will be mercifully brief.

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Dolores Benedict (Kathleen Turner)

The Man with Two Brains – 1983

Dolores likes men. Especially wealthy men with weak hearts. She collects them (and their cash) like baseball cards, and brilliant brain surgeon Dr. Hfuhruhurr is just the next in line. Rampant infidelity and the withholding of matrimonial sex are the tools of her trade, but when she finds herself having to compete with the disembodied brain of sweet natured Anne Uumellmahaye, Dolores has to up her game a little. Dolores Benedict is the right woman with the wrong brain. Dr. Hfuhruhurr has a solution. Into the mud, scum queen!

Redeeming qualities: Dolores can pretend she has redeeming qualities, and she’s a great receptacle for the ideal brain, if you can find one.

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Margaret White (Piper Laurie)

Carrie – 1976

And you thought your mum was bad. Mrs White is quite possibly the worst mother in the entire world. The kind of fundamentalist Christian who gives fundamentalst Christians a bad name, Margaret isn’t happy unless she’s preaching fire and brimstone to some hapless audience. Unfortunately, the hapless audience is usually her long-suffering daughter Carrie. No matter what misfortunes life throws Carrie’s way, and there are a fair few of them, mommie will always be there to tell her it’s her own fault and she had it coming. Heart warming.

Redeeming qualities: Tough one, this. Not even God could come up with one. She’s not impervious to flying knives. That’ll do.

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Mystique (Rebecca Romijn Stamos)

X-Men – 2000

Raven Darkhölme is very angry. Being born a blue-skinned shape shifter into a world that doesn’t readily embrace blue-skinned shape shifters has left her with a sizeable chip on her shoulder. And a new name. Mystique is a mutant, proud of it and will kick your ass if you’re not one. And boy, can she kick ass. As far as she’s concerned, humans are there to be slapped around a bit, and then imitated to further the cause. The fact that Mystique can appear as anyone, yet chooses to walk around blue and naked, tells you all you need to know.

Redeeming qualities: Good sense of humour, great at parties, and you won’t have to wait around for hours while she decides what to wear.

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Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck)

Double Indemnity – 1944

Phyllis has two great loves in life, getting what she wants and getting someone else to get her what she wants. Okay, make that three great loves, the third being a decent insurance policy. Here’s someone who actually understands the fine print. Cold, calculating and completely prepared to use her body to advance her schemes, Phyllis is the poster girl for femme fatales everywhere. In her mind a dead husband is far more valuable than a live one, and if some poor sap is willing to do the deed for her, so much the better. Little minx.

Redeeming qualities: Well, she’ll help you out with those pesky insurance claims, and you could probably hide things under that fringe.

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Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher)

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – 1975

They say true evil is banal and commonplace, and Nurse Ratched is the perfect example. Her unwavering dedication to her patients would be endearing if she wasn’t so dedicated to the idea that punishment and treatment are the same thing. She is the living embodiment of the conviction that it is all for your own good. When you pass through the doors into the Nurse Ratched’s ward you are a subject in her kingdom, and you’d best do as you’re told. Cold, embittered, cruel and in the words of Randle P. McMurphy, ‘something of a c**t’.

Redeeming qualities: As long as you behave, constantly and without question, Nurse Ratched won’t give you too much trouble. She even smiles from time to time.

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Rosa Klebb (Lotte Lenya)

From Russia with Love – 1963

Russian agent Rosa Klebb likes French champagne, Swiss chocolates, other women, torturing people and evil agencies with long acronyms. She dislikes smarmy British agents and being told off by the boss. Moving from SMERSH to SPECTRE, perhaps because the latter has an extra letter in its acronym, Klebb is super-villain Blofeld’s No. 3. It would be easy to admire Rosa simply for being one of the few women impervious to James Bond’s tedious charms, but since this cold fish is impervious to anyone’s charms, it doesn’t really mean much. Brutal.

Redeeming qualities: Not many. She does have a very cool pair of shoes, though. Just don’t get too close to them. Not that you’d want to, let’s be honest.

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Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton)

The Wizard of Oz – 1939

She’s lean, green and very mean. The Wicked Witch of the West makes Voldemort look like a British actor in make-up. More than a little pissed when her sister is killed by a falling house (it happens), she vows revenge on the insipid Dorothy and her irksome dog. Although those ruby slippers she’s been hankering for probably have more to do with it. Armed with a chin that could chisel brick and a blood-curdling cackle, the Wicked Witch of the West is evil incarnate. She just needs to invest in some waterproof clothing. And she could probably do with a shorter name.

Redeeming qualities: None whatsoever, unless you’re a fan of flying monkeys. You’re not, are you?

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Monsters

Starring: Whitney Able, Scoot McNairy

Director: Gareth Edwards

The alien invasion movie is as much a staple of modern cinema as the rom com. Usually they are big-budget, fire and brimstone affairs, complete with the destruction of one or more major cities and a sky full of fireworks. Gareth Edwards first feature eschews the usual pyrotechnics and instead uses the presence of aliens on Earth as the backdrop to a simpler, more human story.

Six years after alien creatures have arrived on Earth, specifically in an area which separates Mexico and the United States, photojournalist Andrew is ordered to deliver his employer’s wayward daughter, Samantha, across the border and back into the US. Since the border consists of an ‘Infected Zone’ where the creatures now reside, despite constant attempts by the Mexican and American military to cleanse them, the journey is a perilous one. As the couple embark on a trek across the zone, their relationship develops.

Monsters has been compared by many to last year’s District 9, another low-budget debut concerning alien invaders. It’s not a wholly inaccurate comparison; both movies use the aliens as an allegory and both begin at a point at which the aliens are a well established presence on the planet. However, where District 9 was a tongue-in-cheek romp, Monsters is more sombre and haunting. Movies of this ilk, made on a dime, hinge on convincing with their performances and the two leads are more than up to the task. Andrew, stealing phone calls to the son who doesn’t know he’s his father, and Samantha, engaged to a man she doesn’t want to be with, are both lost souls. Essentially aliens in their own lives, neither are keen on returning home. Able and McNairy, a couple in real life, have great chemistry and develop their romance softly. And while their story is a fairly standard one, Director Edwards tells it without burdening the narrative with the usual signpost moments that mark many screen romances. This is an approach that Monsters employs in its handling of the aliens themselves. Exposition is kept to a minimum, with only a brief insight into how ‘the creatures’ arrived. We are left to decide for ourselves what the huge, bio-luminous, tentacled life-forms actually want, although the overriding impression is that they just want to be left alone. Budget constraints mean that the aliens are glimpsed very rarely, but when they do appear on screen they are exceptionally well done, both beautiful and menacing.

He finally found the guide, but he still couldn't find the toilets.

Monsters is the alien invasion movie with an Indie sensibility. And, like Signs, the presence of the aliens is a backdrop to a far more human story. There are moments of carnage, but these only occur whenever the military make an appearance, which begs the question of who the title of the movie really refers to.

Rating - 4 Stars

Having been shot in a gun fight and put into a coma, County Sheriff Rick Grimes wakes up in hospital to find the world around him significantly changed. The hospital has been trashed, corpses are everywhere and the streets are deserted. Sort of. Long story short, there are zombies. Lots of them. After an encounter with two survivors, Grimes determines to head for Atlanta to find his missing wife and son.

After all the hype surrounding Frank Darabont’s TV show The Walking Dead, the first episode, Days Gone Bye, finally aired to record numbers. Zombies, who have shuffled around cinemas for decades, have at last discovered television. Based on the Image comic books, and produced by Gale Anne Hurd (the Terminator movies), The Walking Dead is admittedly a very familiar story; world + zombies + survivors = horror fun!  But with Executive Producer Darabont, no stranger to horror, both writing and directing the pilot episode this was always going to be worth the time.

Truth be told, I don’t watch much television. I haven’t seen one episode of 24 or Lost, fell out of love with Star Trek years ago, and save my viewing time for movies. Then I read about The Walking Dead and, frankly, they had me at ‘Frank Darabont to make zombie television show’. Say no more. Having just watched the pilot episode, I’m glad I decided to set aside the 90 minutes. Okay, this is never going to win any originality awards (the genre is way past that) but all the ingredients are right there for something special. The set-up is similar to that of 28 Days Later, with the lead character waking up in hospital to find everyone gone. However, unlike the marathon runners of Danny Boyle’s infestation movie, the zombies of The Walking Dead are back to the classic shuffling undead in the Romero mould. Personally, I prefer them that way. Call me petty, but zombies should shuffle. It’s my thing.

Frank Darabont, who excelled with a TV production crew on The Mist, delivers an atmospheric and engaging pilot episode. The scenes in the hospital, as the bemused Grimes finds the first clues as to what happened while he slept, are spooky, haunting and will bring an approving smile to the face of even the most discerning zombie fan. As will the fact that television hasn’t dulled or restricted the icky factor. Darabont is incapable of overlooking the human element and there is a particularly moving scene involving a survivor and his wife. However, it was when the story moved to deserted, zombie infested, Atlanta that The Walking Dead really impressed, and I knew for certain that I was hooked. Damn you, Darabont! Now I’m one of those people desperate for the next episode! I’m a zombie!

Like a bad day, only worse.

The American

Starring: George Clooney, Violante Placido, Irina Björklund, Thekla Reuten, Johan Leysen, Paolo Bonacelli.

Director: Anton Corbijn

The poster for The American would seem to promise the viewer another gun-toting action movie, but the reality of George Clooney’s latest is quite different. The American is essentially an inaction movie and one that is none-the-poorer for it. Photographer Anton Corbijn’s follow-up to his debut, Control, is the anti-Bourne. Much more European art house than American blockbuster, the movie focuses on lone assassin Jack as he hides out from unknown pursuers in a small Italian village, Castel Del Monte. Quietly deciding that it’s time to retire, he befriends the local priest, becomes engaged in a tentative relationship with prostitute Clara and busies himself preparing a rifle for female assassin, Mathilde. However, his pursuers, and possibly his boss, have different plans for him.

The American is a strange proposition in that this a character study of a man with little definable character. Jack is more a collection of past deeds than a person, and the movie bravely opens with a scene that may leave many with no sympathy for the man at all. Clooney successfully muffles the natural charm which has been his bread and butter, and delivers a brilliantly understated performance which only gives the merest hints of who he is. Remote, silent and expressionless, Jack is a shadow. There are flashes of guilt and conscience, but Jack isn’t really seeking redemption. He’s lonely and just doesn’t want to do this anymore. After all, he’s perfectly content to build a weapon so someone else can kill. And if the outcome seems obvious it doesn’t matter. The American is about the journey rather than the destination.

As you would expect from a movie directed by a photographer, The American looks gorgeous. The film has a wonderful Italian sensibility; the locations are stunning, the women voluptuous and Clooney spends half the movie sitting in coffee shops. The pacing is languid, spreading its spare story thinly and inviting you to seek out the details. Even the single action scene is short and rather relaxed by American standards.

George clearly hadn't forgiven Joel Schumacher for Batman and Robin

The American is not for those who enjoy bang for their buck, or tidily resolved narratives with moral convictions. It doesn’t answer all the questions, nor explain all the details. It simply absorbs through mood, image and a solid central performance from Clooney. The American II is not on the horizon. These things make the movie something of a welcome breath of fresh air.

Rating - 4 Stars