Archive for October, 2009

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

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This week’s movie:
LET THE RIGHT ONE IN

F@#k  “Twilight“! ….and their offspring!

You know what I’m talking about.  That sappy, so-called vampire movie that all the tween and young teenage girls are going gaga over.  “Isn’t he just dreamy”, and “Isn’t it cool to be a vampire?”  “I wish I was a vampire – it’s soooooo romantic.” – piece of crap excuse to sell merchandising.

I blame “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer” and the whole Buffy/Angel on-again, off-again romantic subplot.  It spelled doom for the show and film makers should have taken notice.  I blame the “Underworld” series for glorifying vampires as an organized society of bad-ass erotic uber-mench – and who wouldn’t want to be part of that world, especially if Kate Beckinsale is a member.  I blame Lost Boys because, after all, wasn’t it pretty much the same plot?  I blame Interview With the Vampire and all the other Anne Rice Novels for making the vampire life look so cool (lest you think I’m wrong, Interview With the Vampire featured Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, and Antonio Banderas).

Movie-wise, vampires really needed a fast kick in the fangs .  The last good creative and interesting vampire film was Francis Ford Coppola’s  Bram Stoker’s Dracula, with Gary Oldman.  It did a lot of interesting little things with subtle visual effects.  HBO’s True Blood isn’t a great vampire story, but it does pose some interesting concepts, plus it is slick and sexy and funny and what else can you ask for in a TV series?

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN may be perhaps the best vampire movie in a long long time.  Many of the RottenTomatoes film critics certainly think so, leading to a score of 98% on the tomatometer.  And they’re not the only ones.  Here are just a few samples from the many reviews:

“THIS IS A VAMPIRE MOVIE LIKE NO OTHER. MESMERIZING.” – Newsweek

“A SPECTACULARLY MOVING AND ELEGANT FILM THAT IS, AT THIS POINT, THE BEST MOVIE OF THE YEAR.” – Washington Post

“ONE OF THE YEAR’S VERY BEST MOVIES. A FUNNY, HAUNTING DAZZLER.” – Vogue

“A SPECTRALLY BEAUTIFUL VAMPIRE FILM” – New York Times

“BEST. VAMPIRE MOVIE. EVER.” – Washington Examiner

“IT’S A WINNER! … SEE IT NOW BEFORE A HOLLYWOOD REMAKE RUINS IT.” – Rolling Stone

“…THE BEST OF THE YEAR AND ONE OF THE MOST ORIGINAL AND HAUNTING VAMPIRE FILMS EVER MADE.” – Gwinnett Daily Post

“QUITE EASILY THE MOST COMPELLING NEW ENTRY IN VAMPIRE MYTHOS IN AS LONG AS I CAN REMEMBER.” – Twitch.com

etc……  It seem to be on everybody’s “Best of …” list.  Then why is it that you’ve never heard of it???  The truth is, some of the best, most innovative, most entertaining, most intelligent movies ever made – ever will be made – you’ll never hear about.  Why?  How do you find out about movies?  You might see them advertised on TV.  You might go see a movie at the theater and see previews before the feature film.  You might even call the hot line at your local cineplex and find out what’s playing.  If this is how you do it, then you’ll never find out about the best films.  The local cineplexes are franchises that are owned by large corporations.  They select to be shown only movies that their marketing guys tell them will sell the most tickets.  They base this judgment on where the film was made (Hollywood studio vs Independent studio), big named actors, primary language (foreign language films – nobody wants to see those), and how much money has been spent on TV and magazine advertising – and has absolutely NO bearing on how good the film is.  That’s why movies like Daddy Day Camp (tomatometer score: 1% No, that’s not a typo – that’s ONE percent) made it to the theaters and this week’s film (tomatometer 98%) did not.

….and THAT’S why you need someone like ME to tell you what you’re missing!

The vampire in the film is a young girl named Eli.  She tells her friend Oskar that, like him, she is 12 years old – but unlike him, she has been 12 years old for a very long time.  Eli is probably the most enigmatic and tragic vampires in filmdom.  She is perpetually 12 years old, frozen in time, you might say, in that incredibly painful period of post-childhood, pre-adolescence.  She has been around for a long time and you might think that she would relate better to her adult caretaker, but she’s still basically a kid and so she feels more comfortable with Oskar.  She sees candy and knows she can’t eat it, but she can remember a time when she could.  She’s old but can never grow up.  As fascinating as she is, Eli is not the main character.  The story is told through the point of view of Oskar.  He is lonely.  His parents have split and he lives with his mother, who has little time for him.  His town is cold and bleak as the frozen landscape.  He is bullied by the kids at school.  He takes some of his rage out on inanimate objects and suppresses the rest – until he meets Eli.

I don’t want to give you the impression that this a revenge movie.  He doesn’t enlist his new vampire friend to get back at his tormentors, and he doesn’t sneak his father’s gun into school and start taking his rage out on animate objects.  Instead, he begins caring less about that because the focus of his life is now changed. The one good thing in his life now is his friendship with Eli (and vice versa).  The focus of the whole film, in fact, is the relationship between the two leads and less about killing and the drinking of blood.  Not that there isn’t killing and the drinking of blood – there is – it is a vampire movie, after all.  It’s just that those things are rather matter of fact.

In an ordinary vampire film, the two leads would have a steamy romance, but considering that they’re 12 years old, let’s be thankful that they don’t.  Instead, there is a tender friendship and the promise of possible romance in the years ahead (if they survive that long) – but we know  it can never be because Eli will always be 12 years old.  Besides, who has sex with a vampire?  Really!  They’re all cold and dead and stuff – eewwww!

In an ordinary vampire film, Van Helsing would corner the vampire with a crucifix and the townspeople would drive a stake through her heart, but let’s face it – if it were that easy to kill a vampire, Eli would never have survived the first hundred years or so.  In an ordinary vampire film, Eli would turn into a bat and fly off.  Now this brings up an interesting point.  If you turn ,say your typical 180 lb. vampire into say, a typical 1 lb. bat, what happens to the remaining 179 lbs of vampire that doesn’t fit into the bat?  Makes you think, don’t it?

As of this writing, there are devious plans in the making of an English language Hollywood version of this movie.  Don’t wait for it!  It’ll suck!  It always does!  See the original (It’s in Swedish with subtitles in various languages.  Additionally, there is an English language soundtrack that’s not too bad, if you don’t want to read subtitles) – this is the version that has won such critical acclaim and for good reason.  The remake will be quickly forgotten.

One thing to note.  When the DVD was first released in the US, the distribution company (Magnolia films) messed up the English subtitles (Why they didn’t just use the subtitles from the original DVD, I’ll never know).  These subtitles were “dumbed down” a great deal for American audiences.  long passages were reduced to a few words and some were left out altogether.  In the ensuing furor, Magnolia Films agreed to re-release the DVD with corrected subtitles – however, I have been unable to find any of the “good” ones.  When you go to rent, look for the words “Theatrical Version” after “English Subtitles” on the back of the box.  If not, I suggest selecting the English soundtrack.

Halloween is fast approaching, and in the tradition of the holiday, people like to watch scary movies.  So I’ve delved into my collection and came up with my own suggestions for Halloween viewing.  So put in your DVD orders, make the popcorn, put the lights down low and sit real close together because these have a high squirm factor.

  1. LET THE RIGHT ONE IN – it is, after all, this week’s featured film.
  2. The Changeling – This old fashioned ghost story is still one of the creepiest films ever made.
  3. Paranormal Activity – As of this writing, you’ll have to go to the theater to see this one – but this movie is scaring everybody.
  4. Drag Me To Hell – I resisted seeing this for a long time and wish I hadn’t.  This is a great scary/funny film from Sam Raimi.
  5. Audition - On a creepy scale from 1 to 10, this movie is a 15!  A must-see for Halloween.
  6. Shaun of the Dead – If you have to include a zombie movie, why not a good one (funny too).
  7. Little Otik – Holy crap!  This is creepy.
  8. May - A crazy girl + a creepy doll + knives = Freaky movie that you just know isn’t going to end well.
  9. Army of Darkness: Ash, from the Evil Dead movies, is transported to the 1300’s to fight the army of the dead. It is perhaps the most quoted of all horror movies.
  10. Three Extremes: A collection of three 40 min. stories from three different Asian horror masters. These guys know how to push the right buttons on the creepy meter.

I never understood how Halloween (all souls day) became associated with ghosts and zombies and vampires – but since it does, queue up this week’s movie LET THE RIGHT ONE IN
….and enjoy.

see the trailer.

Posted in Horror, drama, foreign film, independent | No Comments »

REEL ILLUSIONARY ZONE

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009

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REEL-ILLUSIONARY ZONE

They all laughed at Edison, and even at Einstein.

There is a genre of film that many of you, probably most of you, possibly all of you will never see.  “Is it the foreign language film?”, you ask.  Close! but not what I had in mind.  “Is it the Japanese Cowboy movie?”, you suggest.  Good guess, but again, not what I was thinking.  “Surely, you must mean the War Horror Musical?”, you ask.  No, I believe there’ll be War Horror Musicals in theaters by Spring.  No, no no – I’m talking about the “experimental” film.

Many of our most creative film makers have made these experimental “art house” films early in their career.  These generally don’t tell a conventional narrative in the traditional sense.  Instead, they are often a project in which a film maker is trying out some idea or technique.  For example: Suppose I just got a new fish-eye lens.  I might say to myself, “I wonder what would happen if I filmed a doorway to a building with people walking in and out.  But then, very 5 minutes or so, I rotated the lens 15 degrees, so that after half an hour, the image is on its side – and after an hour, the picture is upside down, etc.  Boy, wouldn’t that be cool!”  Now, I might show my film to the public to find out what they think, and they might say that the picture on its side or upside down looked stupid, but at about 15 to 30 degrees, it caused a sense of uneasiness and tension.  So now when I go to make my “real” movie, and I want the viewer to feel tension or uneasy, I’ll rotate my lens 15 degrees ,so that the picture is slanted.

Art House films are not only about experimenting with technique, although there is usually some of that in nearly every one, the film maker may also have an unusual idea that he wants to pursue.  Perhaps it’s an adventure story with a cast made up entirely of trees (damn!  that’s a great idea!).  Whatever the idea, whatever the reason, the film maker needs to get it out on film (or tape – or hard drive – or flash memory).  There is almost never any budget for this kind of project so these films tend to be pretty spare.  This is good, because it forces film makers to be creative.  If you ever get to see experimental films, don’t expect to see the kind of film normally shown in theaters.  They’re not like that.  One cannot use the same basis of comparison or rating that we use for traditional films.  Art House films are not “good” or “bad” in the same way that traditional films are good or bad.  I guess you could say that Art House films are the modern art paintings of the film world.  They’re not for everybody.  Plenty of people will look at a Pollack and say, “It’s just paint thrown onto a canvas.”  It’s meant to bypass all traditional points of reference and allow you to look directly into the artist’s mind.

This week’s film REEL-ILLUSIONARY ZONE, from Reel Groovy Films, written and directed by John Hartman, is such a film.  Don’t expect to see it advertised on TV.  Don’t expect to see the trailer shown before “High School Musical 9″.  Don’t expect to see it shown at your local cinema multiplex, or even at the local independent film theater (there aren’t any near me, but I’ve heard rumors of their existence).  In fact, the only way to see this film at this time, is during special showings by the film makers (click the link to see upcoming schedules)  or by ordering the dvd (check for availability) directly from Reel-Groovy Films.  I met director John Hartman and producer “Z” of Unfolding Story Pictures at a special showing of another of their collaborations, Bridge Crusader (more about this in a future posting).  I was so impressed with their obvious commitment, excitement, and dedication that I agreed to screen and review REEL-ILLUSIONARY ZONE.  Of course, having been distracted by the exotic dancers, I probably would have agreed to anything.

The movie:  As an experiment, techniques both in cinematography and in storytelling are being explored here.

The cinematography is spectacular.  Hartman uses an ancient super 8mm hand-held camera with film (yes – actual film) to produce a color palette that is deep and rich.  He uses other techniques, such as  shooting through filters and skewed viewing angles to produce, sometime bizarre effects, and give the illusion of an old silent film.  Stop-action photography give rise to special effects not possible in the silent film era.  Although there is no spoken dialog, the film is not silent, featuring sound effects and an music original soundtrack.

The story itself centers on a toy maker who toys rebel and head for the real world.  Without any prior experiences, they must somehow safely navigate this bizarre world, with funny and frightening consequences.  Simultaneously whimsical and dark, it compares favorably with the works of other experimental film makers, such as Jan Svankmajer, Maya Deren, Guy Maddin, and David Lynch.  These film makers, not only made experimental films early in their careers, but are still making  them today (except for Maya Deren who died in 1961 when her brain exploded because she couldn’t get her ideas out and onto film fast enough).

REEL-ILLUSIONARY ZONE is not an easy film to find, it’s not an easy film to watch.  It disconnects the brain from common film-viewing reference points and makes you work for it.  It assaults your sense of sight and hearing, as well as your sense of reason.   But it should be seen.  You might like it or you might not.  You might think it’s a masterpiece of film making, or you might think it’s just paint flung onto a canvas …..but you should at least see it.

I’ve been thinking lately about making my own experimental film.  In my case, they would HAVE to be experimental because I really don’t know how to make a film, but I do have some ideas that I wanted to share with you.

  1. A 15 minute short in which I film the camera that I use to film the camera.  I doesn’t really ‘do’ anything, hence it’s only a short.  If the camera actually had moving parts, well …..there’d be a feature film in that.
  2. FranksFilms – the Movie!
  3. A film about my daily life – except that every 5 minutes, I would lean an additional 15 degrees to the left.   So that after half an hour, I would be lying on my side – and after an hour, I would be upside down.  There would be a time (at about 15 – 30 degrees) where I would feel an uneasy tension, and throw up.
  4. In the spirit of going with upcoming trends, a War Horror Musical in which WWII Nazi zombies do “Grease”.
  5. As an homage to David Lynch, a documentary which just replays the lesbian scene from Mulholland Drive ….over and over and over …..
  6. FranksFilms – the Movie!  Really!  I mean, really.  Doesn’t that have a great ring to it???
  7. A re-telling of the Joan of Arc story with a cast made up entirely of  potted plants.  Not just flowers but herbs too, and perhaps vegetables as well.  Really, it’s just a metaphor for ……… er, for ……….er, well, I’m still trying to work that one out.
  8. An avant-garde film that totally bucks the Hollywood system.  It’ll be so avant-garde that it won’t hit one false note, will not succumb to commercial influence,  will be for its own sake and will not pander to any audience.  It will be so avant-garde, that it won’t even show the theaters.  It’ll be so avant-garde, that it won’t ever make it to dvd.  In fact, I won’t even film it – that’s how avant-garde it will be.
  9. A time-lapse motion picture that follows a laptop computer booting up Windows 7 for the first time, until the day it crashes for the final time.  That’s a lot of crash/reboot sequences.
  10. Silent films have no sound.  How about a film that has sound but no video!  Yes – I know they used to do exactly that back in the days of radio – but my “film” would play in cinemas.  The next step would be a 3D version ……….in IMAX!!!!!

REEL-ILLUSIONARY ZONE
How adventurous are you?
Enjoy

Posted in art-house, experimental, independent | 1 Comment »