Hellboy II: The Golden Army

2004’s “Hellboy”, directed by Mexican director Guillermo del Toro, was a faithful but forgetful adaptation of the comic book series by Mike Mignola. It was a valiant effort on del Toro’s part to bring to screen one of the most inventive and entertaining characters to grace the comic book medium in recent years, but the film suffered from trying to fit to much backstory and character development into one film. It didn’t help that most moviegoers had never heard of Hellboy, and the movie seemed to be another half hearted effort for Hollywood to cash in on the comic book craze. But after gaining notoriety for “Pan’s Labyrinth” in 2006, del Toro was ready to tackle Hellboy again, this time starting from scratch, and in working along side Mignola, released the far more superior “Hellboy II: The Golden Army” in 2008. While the first Hellboy took inspiration from Indiana Jones, H.P. Lovecraft and pulp magazines, it’s sequel serves as a direct tribute to the legacy of Jim Henson, from the Muppets, to the Storyteller cycle and Labyrinth.

While most films dealing with prosthetic makeup and the supernatural tend to suffer from overwrought, arcane dialog (read: Lord of the Rings and the Narnia series), Hellboy maintains fresh, witty dialog spoken by characters that exist in the same world as ours. So what if Hellboy (portrayed brilliantly by Ron Pearlman) is a demon summoned by Nazis to spur on the Apocalypse, he was still raised in Brooklyn, possesses a street-savvy dry wit, and maintains a passion for Cuban cigars, Mexican beer, and kittens. Abe Sapien (played and voiced by Doug Jones), an amphibious telekinetic, loves classical music and Chinese century eggs, but still doesn’t know how to talk to women. Jeffrey Tambor (best known for his role as George Bluth Sr. on ‘Arrested Development’) gets more screen time in this film, in the role of Tom Manning, Hellboy’s overseer who is constantly on the verge of a nervous breakdown from the stress of keeping Hellboy’s existence a secret from the public. A fresh addition to the film’s eclectic cast of characters is Johann Krauss, voiced by Seth Mcfarlane (a great departure from his now-stale frat boy humor in shows like ‘Family Guy’), Krauss is a German scientist whose ectoplasmic being must be contained in a clunky suit. His by-the-book boy scout sensibilities clash, hilariously, with Hellboy’s bigoted views of the Germans.

The main plot of the film is almost superfluous, but enables del Toro to further showcase his unique visions. In the tradition of Magical Realism, he places these scenes in the middle of our own world, opening up doors to wondrous market places under the Brooklyn Bridge and hidden kingdoms under the foothills of Ireland, filled with even more colorful characters made up of Trolls, Elves, and creatures that del Toro and Mignola themselves probably don’t have names for (Though keep an eye out for a thinly disguised Elder Thing of Lovecraft lore in the marketplace scene).

But once again, the real draw of the film is the actors, who, despite being hidden behind hours of prosthetics and makeup, are able to fill their characters with the type of warmth and energy that I haven’t seen since Jim Henson and Co. were giving us characters like Kermit, Gonzo and Yoda. Del Toro paces the film beautifully, giving the actors room to breath and interact with one another, and their playful banter is what gives the movie such life. My personal favorite scene involves Hellboy and Abe getting drunk in a library and singing along to Barry Manelow, it doesn’t move the plot forward in any way, but instead takes a moment to pause the movie and allow us to give credit to Guillermo del Toro as a man rarely seen in Hollywood today – a director whose love of making movies is only surpassed by his love of watching them.

Bubba Ho-Tep

What do you get when you have a seventy year-old Elvis Presley and a black man in a wheel chair claiming to be JFK, in a retirement home fighting an ancient mummy dressed as a cowboy? The answer is "Bubba Ho-Tep", a 2002 black comedy B-picture that is executed with such perfection, and exists in such a specific plain of absurdity, that it had no choice but to instantly become a cult classic. The movie stars B-movie darling Bruce Campbell in the role of an elderly Elvis who never died, and is secretly living out the rest of his days in a retirement home in Texas. Ossie Davis plays the role of 'Jack' a man who claims to be a betrayed JFK. Together they begin to investigate the mysterious deaths of their fellow senior citizens, which brings them face to face with an ancient mummy dubbed 'Bubba Ho-Tep'.

Most interesting about "Bubba Ho-Tep" is that behind the guise of a quirky black comedy, the films actually functions as a brilliant meditation on growing old, and what it means to be forgotten. The film is narrated by Elvis. We learn that he gave up fame years ago by switching places with an Elvis-Impersonator, and it was the impersonator that died, leaving the real Elvis to live out his life forgotten and unloved. Spending his days bed-ridden and dying of testicular cancer, Elvis spends much of the movie lamenting a wasted life and the sorrow of growing old. He watches as one by one his friends from the retirement home die and are carted away, with no family coming by to pay their respects, and no one to carry on their memories.

When a mummy shows up and begins to eat the souls of the elderly, none of the nurses take note, assuming these people have died of natural causes, but Elvis refuses to go out like a sap, and with the aid of JFK, the two take up arms and fight back against the ancient Evil. It's here that Bruce Campbell really lets loose and brilliantly delivers his own quirky spin on the Most Impersonated Man in America. Campbell plays the seventy-year old King as a man who, though forgotten, never lost his edge or style. Ossie Davis is adorable as the old coot who doesn't only talk incessantly about JFK conspiracy theories, but actually claims to be the ex-president himself. Together, these two elderly legends join forces and swear to become the defenders of the old and forgotten.

The film's running time is surprisingly short, but it is simple, sweet, and to the point. There are just enough laughs to make it a comedy, just enough ominous music to make it a horror movie, and just enough Elvis-imbued existential genius to make it a movie worth your time.

The Plague Dogs

The 1982 animated film, “The Plague Dogs” begins with the opening credits over a black screen and the ominous sounds of lapping water. It fades into a large tank filled with water. Bubbles float past the screen as Alan Price (of The Animals) sings ‘Time and Tide’, a slow, bluesy croon that begins with the lines: “Oh, I don’t feel no pain no more…I left this cruel world behind and I’ve found my peace of mind…I don’t feel no pain no more.” The camera pans up, revealing the blurry visage of two researchers looking into the tank, suddenly the music cuts out, a large dog surfaces, barking in distress, drowning, the scientists begin yelling and the viewer is thrust into the nightmarish world of “The Plague Dogs”

The film is based on the novel of the same name by Richard Adams, author of “Watership Down”, and is directed by Martin Rosen, who also directed the animated adaptation of “Watership Down”. Like Adams’ rabbit opus, “Plague Dogs” is a no-holds-barred existential dissection of the life of a compromised animal. The film follows two dogs, Rowf and Snitter, who are escaped test subjects of a dubious medical facility in the farmlands of North-West England. When news of their escape gets out, the nameless and faceless scientists of the facility fear that the dogs have become contaminated with the bubonic plague, a virus that was being housed at the lab. The Lab takes increasingly sever measures to stop the dogs before they reach civilization, culminating with the National Guard transforming the English country side into a state of siege.

“Plague Dogs” is the “Call of the Wild” for the Twentieth Century. Rowf and Snitter are forced to embrace their feral instincts if they are to make it in the harsh country side, slaughtering sheep farms and avoiding human hunters. The film explores the biblical question of “Why do Bad things happen to Good people” (Or, in this case, Good Dogs). Rowf and Snitter are not aware of their role as plague bearers, and only want to make it back to the Big City where they presume they have a ‘Master’ waiting to take care of them, but their odyssey is filled with perils and death.

The animation is this film is grounded in realism. The English country side is beautifully painted, rendering it almost photo realistic. The dogs themselves may or may not be rotoscoped; every aspect of their stride and demeanor is so spot on, every canine nuance nailed perfectly, that there are times I forget that I’m watching talking dogs on the screen, and I allow myself to feel complete compassion towards these poor suffering creatures.

The film culminates in a mirror image of the first shot, with the dogs finding themselves in a body of water much larger than the research tank; they paddle into the ocean as soldiers fire at them from the banks. Through the sound and the fury the dogs question if they’ll ever be happy, if things will ever go back to normal, and it is in this instant that the viewer understands the imminent fate of these poor dogs; Time and Tide wait for no man, and to cement these words into the final scene, Alan Price begins to sing again, only this time, the lyrics “I don’t feel no pain no more” are backed by a foot-stomping gospel choir, transcending pain and death, as if to promise that whatever place these dogs end up in, it will certainly be better than this world.

After Life

Yet another great film courtesy of Japan.

What memory do you have that is so special you would be content reliving that event over and over again for all of eternity? That is the basic concept behind the 1998 Japenese film “After Life”, directed by Hirozaku Koreeda. The story takes place in a limbo between death and eternity, in a world that looks exactly like our own. The newly departed arrive in a small facility operated by a handful of staff members who serve to help the Dead decide upon a single memory that they will take with them into the after life.

Shot in a pseudo-documentary style, with fixed cameras and a cast of primarily non-actors, much of the dialog is improvised as the cast members talk directly to the audience about memories from their life. The conflict, if it can be called that, arises from two individuals, a spunky young man and a quaint old man, both unable to decide upon a final memory to take with them. Meanwhile behind the scenes staff members deal with the drama of helping the Dead, while coming to terms with why they could not choose any memories from their own lives, thus forcing them to become stuck in limbo for eternity.

To create the memories in question, the staff take on the roles of set designers and film directors, reconstructing the memories from found objects - cotton balls become clouds in a man's memory of piloting his airplane, fans mimic wind, and a fake cockpit is brought in. What surprised me is that the authenticity of the memories is never brought into question; The Dead work alongside the staff, giving them tips and feedback on how closely the look of the set matches their own memory, and when the time finally comes to 'shoot' the scene, the subject of the memory takes their place in the frame and everything seems to fall into place.

As I said in my review of the Japanese film "Survive Style 5+", these are films that would otherwise never see the light of day in Hollywood's studio system. "After Life" is a simple film, and as fragile as the memories that it depicts. And like those reconstructed memories, it takes a keen eye and a nurturing staff to make sure everything comes together perfectly, and it is this familial quality of patience that is lacking in most modern American movies.

Last I checked, “After Life” is available on Netflix, though my friend's dad claims otherwise, and may also go by the Japanese title “Wandafuru Raifu”, translation: Wonderful Life.

The Limey

Somewhere in Steven Soderbergh’s 1999 subtle masterpiece, “The Limey”, the seemingly wealthy record producer, Terry Valentine, played by Peter Fonda, has a brief monolog about the 60’s – the decade where this Phil Spector-inspired character earned his wealth and fame; “Did you ever dream about a place you never really recall being to before? A place that maybe only exists in your imagination? Some place far away, half remembered when you wake up. When you were there, though, you knew the language. You knew your way around. *That* was the sixties.” ‘That’ is also what “The Limey” is all about.

The titular limey is a man named Wilson, played by Terence Stamp. Prior to seeing “The Limey” for the first time, I had never seen or heard of Stamp, but after viewing the film, I knew I wanted to be him. Stamp is James Bond if James Bond never gave a fuck about anything; both suave and cockney, and limitlessly engaging. As Wilson he plays a career criminal who has just been released from his longest stint in prison and arrives in America to investigate the shady death of his daughter.

“The Limey” is the hazy memory in the mind of a tired man, who after years of working off his sentence, only wants to rest. The murder mystery takes him through the decadence and corruption of Los Angeles, introducing the viewer to some of the most well rounded characters I’ve ever seen – even the throw-away hitmen are given their own unique and humorous personalities, - your typical black and white / good-guys versus bad-guys cookie cutter caper this ain’t. Peter Fonda, already a poster child of the ‘60’s himself, plays the corrupt Terry Valentine brilliantly, capturing the emotions of a man who knows his brand of music makes him a has-been, but refuses to give up the Hollywood dream.

Soderbergh cuts the film in a disjointed style, with almost every scene being shot in 3 different ways, often in 3 different locations, and then recklessly edited together in an almost lazy montage. It took a second viewing of the film for me to realize that this is due to the movie really being a flashback, memories of Wilson’s that he mulls over in his mind on the airplane back to England.

“The Limey” is fast becoming one of my favorite films, and upon each rewatching, I notice more details in both the screenplay and the acting that make me only love it more. For anyone who’s looking for a good crime-caper, or an interesting exercise in story telling, I highly suggest this film.

American Splendor

With yesterdays passing of comic book writer Harvey Pekar, I've been thinking a lot about the biopic on his life called "American Splendor". Is it actually a documentary? I certainly think so. The film was directed by a pair of documentary film makers, Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini. It is a based on Pekar's own autobiographical underground comic book that goes by the same name. Yes, it does 'star' Paul Giamatti in the role of Pekar, a role that allowed the great actor to flesh his talent into a brilliant figure of comic neurosis and pessimism. However, the film also features real documentary-style interviews of the actual Harvey Pekar interspersed throughout, which I suspect are there secondarily to actually commend Giamatti's portrayal of a real life caricature. Lastly, the film also features cartoon renderings of the great curmudgeon, which highlight the various styles and takes of Pekar that the comic book artists utilized over the years.

Harvey Pekar is America's greatest antihero, a file clerk in a veteran's hospital by day, a slacker turned comic book artist by night. Pekar is a man from the gritty streets of Cleveland where he's lived all his life. In the 'American Splendor' series, Pekar has turned himself into a comic book hero, a man who fights the daily struggle of finding your house keys, filing papers, and taking out the trash. When Pekar's writing caught on and he began getting featured as a guest on the Late Night with David Letterman, Pekar just found more fodder for his comic, transcribing every detail of his life into a graphic novel.

Featured in the film is his wife, Joyce Brabner, portrayed in the film by Hope Davis. Joyce was actually Pekar's third wife, but the single most significant person in his life, and she helped him co-author the American Splendor special, "Our Cancer Year", which focuses on Pekar's battle with testicular cancer. From the near death encounter came a daughter, Danielle, a foster child, thus fulfilling Harvey Pekar's own American Dream.

"American Splendor" is a deeply layered film, from the brilliant acting to the disjointed storytelling. The film is warm, dramatic, and very funny. perfectly capturing the essence of a man who had the audacity to declare: "Ordinary life is pretty complex stuff".

Diva

According to IMDB.com, the tagline for Jean-Jacques Beineix's 1981 French film, "Diva", is "A Comedy. A Thriller. A Romance." and that tagline perfectly sums up the playful ambiguity of the film. Just because you may not be able to properly categorize "Diva", doesn't mean the film doesn't know exactly what it itself is all about. Climbing out of the rubble of the French New Wave movement, "Diva" is a film that stays away from the emotionally driven human dramas of Godard, and returns to the roots of cinema by once again embracing action, spectacle, and, most importantly, plot.

"Diva" follows a young mailboy, named Jules, who lives alone in a garage and loves classical music and opera. When his favorite American diva is performing in the city, he attends her concert and illegally records the show (possibly the first example of music piracy being used as a plot device in cinema. Come to think of it, I don't think it's been used since). The plot thickens when a prostitute turned police informant, on the run from mysterious assailants, drops a cassette tape in Jules' mailbag while he isn't looking. The cassette, containing a confession that could take down a criminal empire, thrusts Jules into a web of confusion as he's chased all over the city of Paris by police, hitmen, and mysterious Taiwanese, while all he wants is a chance to actually meet and spend time with the diva of his dreams.

"Diva" is a lavish and humorous thriller that introduces the viewer to an array of characters; an ultra-cool new-age bohemian, a chic young Vietnamese girl, a pair of bickering police officers, and Wilhelmenia Fernandez in the role of the diva. The film seems to follow in the footsteps of American thrillers of the time, such as de Palma's "Blow Out" and "Carlito's Way", yet the variety of characters, as well as the tongue-in-cheekness of the film reads like a Coen Brothers flick. Had the film been released any later in the decade, I'm afraid it may have fallen victim to that processed, synthetic cheese that consumed everything else in the 80's, but being released in 1981, Beineix's aesthetic flourishes and the juxtaposition of synthesizer music and opera serve as primary examples of "style".

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

Nicholas Cage has the most divided fan base of any actor in Hollywood. There are those who love him for the quirkiness and borderline psychosis that he brings to his film roles; there are those who hate him for the series of flops that he's produced over the past ten years, and there are those who have engineered a cult following specifically due to his quirkiness and poor choice of film roles. There is even a website now which will add every single Nicholas Cage movie to your Netflix queue instantly, with the click of a button (http://wonder-tonic.com/cageyourqueue).

Say what you will about Nicholas Cage; under the direction of a smart and creative director, Cage becomes a powerhouse. And under the direction of veteran German director, Werner Herzog, a man whose movies almost always focus on people with irrational passions or borderline psychosis, Nicholas Cage becomes a burning meteor, something both destructive and beautiful that only lasts a moment, but you're not likely to forget anytime soon.

As Terrence McDonagh, Cage plays a police officer operating in a post-Katrina New Orleans. After injuring his back during the hurricane itself, while rescuing a left behind prisoner in a flooding cell, McDonagh is promoted to lieutenant and prescribed a life-long dose of vicodin. Six months later McDonagh is the walking, or should I say 'lumbering', embodiment of police corruption; Habitually popping pills and snorting coke on the job, McDonagh has taken to frisking bystanders on the street for petty change as well as marijuana and crack, all to fuel his addiction. All the while McDonagh investigates the gang land execution of an immigrant family at the hands of a local drug lord, causing the full extent of McDonagh's corruption to be tested.

Bad Lieutenant is a movie for people who love movies. Part satire, part character study, Herzog fills the movie with small, artistic flourishes - such as shooting some scenes from the fish-eye lens POV of a lizard - some which will make you laugh, while others may cause you to scratch your head in bewilderment. Afterwards you may want to take a long, hot shower to cleanse yourself of the experience, and while that may help in the short term, I promise you, you will never look at Nicholas Cage the same way ever again.

Revisiting Space Jam

We all remember "Space Jam". We remember the McDonald's marketing tie-ins, the lunch boxes, the celebrity cameos, the rise of R. Kelley, the return of Michael Jordan to basketball and the brief resurgence of jock jams on the radio. "Space Jam" sparked one of the most unlikely cultural trends as suddenly images of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck plastered over-sized tee-shirts and hats donned by inner city youth, rendering their "otherness" as animated jesters into the "otherness" of urban ethnicity. The soundtrack, featuring the hottest R+B singers of the day, went six times platinum, peaking at #2 on the billboard chart, and established the career of R. Kelley, who in recent years has proven himself to be just as loony as his animated collaborators.

In the broadest sense, "Space Jam" is a celebration of individualism and the American free spirit. It is an ode to the greatest athlete of the 20th century, as well as a benchmark in the self reflexivity of Loony Tunes not just as a cartoon past time, but as a post-modern pinnacle of comic abstraction in modern art. What grounds "Space Jam's" enjoyability is its acknowledgment of the importance of Tex Avery and Chuck Jones' creations as USDA certified prime genius. Michael Jordan knows Bugs Bunny the same way that America knows Michael Jordan. We watch Jordan fly towards the basket the same way we watch Bugs Bunny befuddle Elmer Fudd, with white knuckles gripping our seats and smiles on our faces. When, in the film, Jordan comes home to find his kids watching an ESPN report about Jordan's poor baseball skills, he immediately switches the channel to Loony Tunes because Jordan knows, just like the rest of America, that Loony Tunes are a trustworthy staple of our television. Nearly every single American alive today has been thoroughly exposed to Bugs, Daffy, and Tweety enough to know that these characters are the least offensive characters to be welcomed into our living rooms; and what "Space Jam" knows, which the rest of us already subconsciously knew, is that Jordan himself has also entered this Pantheon of Positive Public Persona. Michael Jordan, as "Space Jam" dictates, is the most good-natured superstar in the world, so caring and philanthropic that he's willing to play basketball with cartoon characters to save them from becoming slaves.

The great punchline behind this entire set up, the kicker that turns the entire film into a questionably offensive spectacle, is the very fact that despite the masquerade of Americana, "Space Jam" is nothing more than the greatest marketing commercial ever created, yet even more befuddling, is the fact that the movie is aware of it's own ploy, and wears its foul heart on its sleeve. When Wayne Knight tells Jordan to "Slip on your Hanes, lace up your Nikes, take your Wheaties and your Gatorade, and we'll grab a Big Mac on the way to the ballpark", we can see the snide grin behind these words, we're expected to scoff at the shameless product placements, because after all, Michael Jordan is an athlete, the greatest victim of endorsement deals and a virtual slave to corporate America, just as Bugs Bunny is a slave to Warner Brothers - his continuous existence is only fueled by his ability to generate more profit for a mammoth company. This self-reflexivity is only Warner Brother's attempt to appear to appeal to the "Cool", by highlighting their own greed, they think they can deflect the backlash from Americans who would otherwise be offended.

"Space Jam" also serves as a time capsule, not specifically of the 90's, but of a time when American athletes like Michael Jordan could still be placed along side icons like Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe, and media moguls still maintained enough insanity to think that if Michael Jordan could be a star on the court, then he could also be a star on the Big Screen (a fulfillment of any Agent's wet dream who ever saw the cross-over potential in Joltin' Joe and Norma Jean). The mid-90's saw the crossover of many athletes into cinema, most notably Shaquille O'Neil, and more humorously, Hulk Hogan. "Space Jam" overflows with Athlete cameos; some of the funniest scenes in the movie take place between Bill Murray and Larry Bird, both playing themselves ("Larry's not white, Larry is clear"), and the Monstars steal their basketball talent from Patrick Ewing, Charles Barkley, Muggsy Bogues, Larry Johnson, and Shawn Bradley, all of whom lampoon themselves by playing "talentless" versions of themselves. It appears that the mid 90's marked the golden age of athletes and cross-over appeal, or more specifically, athletes who even possess cross-over appeal. Today's athletes just don't possess the charisma or the positive public persona to ever be accepted, or even allowed, in a childrens movie. Michael Vic is a convicted felon, half the baseballs players are on steroids, Kobe Bryant was accused of sexual assault and settled out of court, the Pacers and Pistons are brawling with fans, and R. Kelley, though not an athlete, has since been accused lewd acts with a minor.

"Space Jam", if nothing else, will forever remain a monument of American self-praise. Released during Clinton's first run off office, long before sex-scandals became a national past-time, before 9-11 and economic disaster, "Space Jam" represented America as it sold itself to the world: Individual, impressive, innovative and important . The movie was a monolith of Americana for future generations, designed to say "I am America, king of kings, look upon my works ye mighty and despair!" Alas, nothing beside remains. Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare the lone and level sands stretch far away.

The Gospel According to Good Burger

There's something about "Good Burger" that people love. Directed by a relatively unknown man, Brian Robbins (he went on to direct those godawful Eddie Murphy movies, 'Norbit' and 'Meet Dave'), and released in 1997, "Good Burger" was almost instant nostalgia. When I tell people that I own a copy of the film, I'm always met with a positive response; "I love that movie!" most people exclaim, and then proceed to tell me how they haven't watched it since they were a "kid". And even if they don't remember a single scene, they still remember how much they loved that movie, especially the iconic line "Welcome to Good Burger, home of the Good Burger, can I take your order?" How can a film so seemingly mundane, and clearly cranked out for the sole purpose of profiting off a brief fad (It was based on a sketch on Nickelodeon's late night comedy show, "All That" a.k.a. SNL for 8 year-olds), go on to became such a staple of 90's childhood nostalgia?

Now let me just warn you: I love "Good Burger". It is my single most favorite film. I have literally watched it over a hundred times, sometimes multiple times in one day, and it never gets old. I believe that the secret to the movie's success lies in the fact that it is a perfect piece of film making - not a single cut is out of place and each shot is masterfully composed. The tone of the film itself is something rarely seen in movies today; never spoofing and not quite a farce, "Good Burger" exists in that magical world of cinema where anything is imaginable. I mean, where else but in the world of cinema can heroes be dragged off to mental institutions named "Demented Hills", or can there be car chases in ice-cream trucks with the logo "O'Bese Bros." written on the side. Who is this mysterious O'Malley and why, as we're told in passing, did he show up to work without his pants? What is wrong with Ed, is he mentally ill? Is he always high? And how old is he even supposed to be? We never see his parents. Come to think of it, we never see any parents, or respectable adult of any kind for that matter.

Mondo Burger, the corporate fascists trying to run Good Burger out of business, is run by a team of surfer dude bullies, barely out of college. They have access to illegal chemicals to put in their burgers, they seem to have some wealthy investors behind them, the likes of which we never see, and they have connections to doctors at Demented Hills who seem willing, if not eager, to lock away trouble makers for their fast food friends without a single question. The only two figures of authority seem to be Mr. Bailey, the owner of Good Burger who, when times are rough, announces that he's begun to feed his mother cat food, and Mr. Wheat (played by Sinbad) the high school teacher who frets over his afro, his damaged car ("That's Detroit leather!!") and has his own theme music (think Shaft). In this strange world of "Good Burger" the greatest man any child could hope of meeting is Shaquille O'Neal (played by Shaq, of course), who personally orders fast food to be delivered to his locker room.

"Good Burger" is cult film-making at its finest; an episodic piece of nostalgia rendered absurdist opus. The film can be broken down into individual events and lines; in Ed's world, seemingly more bizarre than the world of "Good Burger" itself, chickens moo, swimming in the smoothie machine is okay, sticking grapes up one's nose is a past time, and Ed himself may or may not be "a pretty nurse" (all is explained, barely, in the movie). In the real world, a man like Ed couldn't function, or he would be heavily medicated, but perhaps that is just the unwritten subtext of the film: Ed is an idiot-savant, off his medication and running wild. Or maybe the whole film exists within the mind of Ed; how else could a dog tell Ed through barking that 4 clowns are stuck on the side of the road in a broken down car, and then, sure enough, we cut to those clowns waiting for the dog to return with help? And how the heck did those clowns come to even find themselves in a broken down car?

These absences of explanation are what enable "Good Burger" to be viewed so many times. Like the ever expanding Star Wars universe, or the zany interconnected plots of Kevin Smith flicks, "Good Burger" invites fans to use their imaginations; it forces them to fill in the gaps and revel in the mysteries of Ed's disorder. Imagination is the home of Good Burger, and everyone's order is welcome.

Survive Style 5+

A stuttering Japanese hitman outsources all his jobs to an existential British thug. An uber-square suburban dad is hypnotized into thinking he’s a bird. A quiet slacker kills his wife every night and buries her in the woods, only to find her waiting for him at home in his mansion, alive, unscathed and full of vengeance. These are just a few of the bizarre characters present in Gen Sekiguchi’s 2004 Japanese absurdist tour de force “Survive Style 5+”.

“Survive Style 5+” is part Quentin Tarantino, part Marcel Duchamp, and fully Japanese. The film is entirely self aware without ever breaking the fourth wall, lengthy shots with little action and awkward beats leave the audience gritting their teeth, completely at the mercy of Director Sekiguchi, who also edited the film. Sekiguchi rewards the viewer with stunning film compositions, utilizing the entire color pallet and filling the screen with more colors than the mind can often process. This subtle trickery and awareness completely prevents one from criticizing any of Sekiguchi’s decisions as an auteur, as all of it works in conjunction to create the art expressed on screen.

The film's story is created through the creative weaving of various subplots, all vaguely intersecting at various junctures, leaving the final message of the film ambiguous but strangely uplifting. Is this film about learning how many times you need to kill your wife until you learn to love her? Is it about leaving your desk job behind and learning to fly like a bird, no matter the odds? Is it about relearning the meaning of Christmas? Or is it about determining your function in life? I’d say it’s about all of the above, though the last one best sums everything up. The film’s title can serve as a guide for us, as we’re given 5 different subplots, each one pitting the protagonist into some sort of survival situation. In the end it comes down to determining why we’ve been put on this planet, and the euphoria that one feels when they finally find their purpose.

Sometimes hilarious, sometimes moving, but always visually stunning, “Survive Style 5+” is the sort of artistic statement rarely seen in mainstream Hollywood films today, often due to budget constraints or producer interference. The film is cool and stylized, with an uber-fun soundtrack, and just waiting for a hip American market to catch wind of it. Sadly, it’s pretty hard to get a DVD copy that runs on NTSC region DVD players (i.e. American ones), I found my copy on Ebay. If you don’t live in America, then look around and it shouldn’t be too hard to find a copy that will work on your DVD player. But, yeah, it’s totally worth buying.

Quest for Fire

If you're anything like me then you possibly suffer from a masochistic desire to read subtitles in movies all the time. There's just something about those little yellow letters that add an aesthetic flourish to the film screen; It's the reason I've been watching so many Japanese movies lately, it's the reason I can watch Godard's "Pierrot le Fou" a million times without getting bored, and it's probably the only real reason I enjoyed "Inglourious Basterds" so much. I've watched so many subtitles that I'm now post-reading words with my movies, I've moved on to find the next big thrill and I found it in the form of Jean-Jacques Annaud's 1981 film "Quest for Fire".

Imagine a movie not in English. Easy. Now imagine a movie in a foreign language without subtitles. Frustrating? Now imagine a movie without subtitles that takes place 80,000 years ago and the only languages spoken are non-existent caveman grunts created for the screen by none other than Anthony Burgess himself (author of “A Clockwork Orange”). Pure bliss.

The story is simple enough: A clan of Neanderthal cavemen has fire, probably found during a wildfire somewhere. After their ape-like cousins, Homo Erectus, raid the small cave community, the fire goes out. Three of the cavemen are given the task to find more fire before the winter hits and the community dies. And it is here that the quest begins.

After a scuffle with a more savage band of cannibalistic Neaderthals, the three heroes rescue and befriend two young Homo Sapien women. These Homo Sapiens are far more advanced than the Neanderthals and bring them to their village which has constructed shelters, tools, and FIRE! With the essential element in hand, the men begin the long journey back to their tribe.

The film was shot in a variety of locations, from the Badlands of Canada to the Highlands of Scotland. These stark and sweeping landscapes evoke a lo-fi "Lord of the Rings". However, unburdened by special effects, the film uses cleaver costume and makeup techniques to recreate some of the era's more famous wild beasts, from the Woolly Mammoth to the Saber-Toothed tiger; the mammoths come courtesy of real elephants covered in fur, while the saber-tooth is simply a lioness outfitted with prosthetic teeth.

Out of the three leading cavemen the most recognizable would have to be Ron Pearlman – the face behind prosthetics of Hellboy from well, “Hellboy”, and Vincent from the 1987 television series “Beauty and the Beast”, though he’s pretty beastly as a Neanderthal too. The relative obscurity of the actors, as well and the down to earth film making, gives the film a pseudo-documentary feel, as if you’re watching recorded accounts of live in the stone age. The film paints a vivid picture of where we came from in the past, and inspires us to look ahead at where we are going.

A New Refutation of Postmodern Thought in Paracinema

We three sat on a couch in a darkened room, the Jock stood awkwardly by the door. On the television screen a she-male wearing a crown and cape decapitated a doe-eyed gigolo dressed in nothing by a cheetah-skin man-thong. The Jock shifted his weight and announced: “this movie is too weird, I have to go”. We flashed annoyed glances at the door as slammed shut, and then returned back to the screen to re-immerse ourselves in the world of Russ Meyer’s Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.

* * *

The events of September 11th, 2001 gave us a new method of categorizing people: there are those who watch videos of the World trade Center collapsing with a hand over their gasping mouth and tears in their eyes, and those who watch the video with their eyes wide and their hands on the replay button, absolutely amazed by the morbid awesomeness of watching a Government institution being leveled to the ground. In the above mentioned dorm-room scenario, the couch potato trio are no doubt part of the latter categorization. And while it may seem like an easy task of identifying these cult cinemaphiles, it does not answer the question that has plagued critics and compulsive categorizers for decades: who are these cult fans, and why are they so unusual? Jeffrey Sconce attempts to answer this question in his essay ‘Trashing’ the Academy; he writes

“Despite such efforts at generating counter-distinction within the shared cultural project of attacking ‘high-brow’ cinema, the discourses characteristically employed by paracinematic culture in its valorization of ‘low-brow’ artifacts indicate that this audience, like the film elite…is particularly rich with ‘cultural’ capital and thus possesses a level of textual/critical sophistication similar to the cineastes they construct as their nemesis” (537).

Sconce points out the intrinsic irony of the cult fan’s rebellion against ‘high-brow’ cinema. however his conjecture that a ‘paracinema’ fan is of a specific ‘cultural pedigree’ simply limits the cult fan base to too small a size; for every trio of students sitting on a couch at a liberal arts college, there is most likely a similar trio sitting in a basement or garage in middle-America, watching the exact same movie. The cult cinema fan doesn’t descend from a cultural pedigree, but rather a countercultural mentality developed by exposure to a postmodern world.

Post-Structuralism doctrine dictates that ‘Truth’ and ‘Meaning’ are merely constructs whose interpretation depends wholly on perspective. The same doctrine criticizes the traditionally Western system of breaking down the world into binary oppositions (Class notes, AT-110). These two philosophies of post-structuralism and postmodern thought are dominantly present, though possibly unconscious, in the minds of the paracinemaphile. Just as Marcel Duchamp dared put a urinal on display and call it art, the paracinemaphile dares reject ‘art house’ cinema and a film school education, outraging the public and choosing to degrade ritualized bourgeois values. By embracing films such as Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (Meyer, 1970) and Bad Girls Go to Hell (Wishman, 1965), these cult fans are rejecting the ‘good movie / bad movie’ binary of the mainstream film society and silently announcing to the world that they will judge these films for themselves through their own perspectives.

The postmodern world is one of quick cuts, juxtapositions, self-reflexivity and an overflow of information. It’s no coincidence that the MTV generation of the 80’s and 90’s, raised on a constant influx of ‘Breaking News’, Care Bears and cereal mascots would readily embrace the avant-garde directing styles of the aforementioned cult directors, who’s work is both parody and pastiche, drama and camp, and most importantly, contains transgressive themes that work to break down cultural barriers. John Water’s camp creation Divine, along with the androgynous Z-Man of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls served to ignite a trend of transgender/queer discourse within the cult circuit that rapidly spread into the mainstream via the late 70’s, early 80’s Glam Rock movement, culminating together in Donna Haraway’s A Cyborg Manifesto in which she describe the postmodern cyborg as:

“a creature in a post-gender world; it has no truck with bisexuality, pre-oedipal symbiosis, unalienated labour, or other seductions to organic wholeness through a final appropriation of all the powers of the parts into a higher unity. In a sense, the cyborg has no origin story in the Western sense” (Haraway, 150)

In a sense, cult films themselves are cyborgs – post-structural pastiches containing elements of every genre, horror, comedy, and romance; often containing a confusing mixture of counter-cultural leanings, subversive queer agendas, and Reagan era / ‘Leave it to Beaver’ optimism.

The directors of these films are often strange characters themselves, and among fans they have reached an auteur like status by creating unique films that tend to promote the director’s own personality or opinion. Doris Wishman is a female director of nudie and roughy flicks, yet her use of the camera as the viewer’s gaze serves to subvert the lewd and lustful intentions of the male spectator. A director like Edward D. Wood Jr., the ‘worst director ever’, imbues messages of change, acceptance and freedom of expression in his films as he was a transvestite in real life.

These directors become post-structuralist heroes in the eyes of their fans as they go against mainstream cinema, completely ignoring the standard conventions of cinematic discourse. Instead of focusing their talents on the rigid construction of a film, they instead highlight the films’ deconstruction, allowing the audience to see the strings. Gary Hentzi comments on this imbued self-awareness by the directors in relation to cult film titles in his essay Little Cinema of Horrors: “the studied goofiness of [these] titles…evidences a certain level of awareness on the part of the directors, who have accepted the unlikelihood of their making a good film and so are aiming for a campy one instead” (Hentzi, 24).

Some directors, such as Ed Wood, never intended to be ‘bad’ directors. The tragedy of Wood lies in the fact that his life long struggle was for acceptance, but it was only after his death that his work was embraced by cult fans. Like his loyal cinemaphiles, Wood observed the world as a place with possibilities more numerous than ones and zeroes; his own auteur style – a collage of stock footage, exploitation leanings, Atomic Age dialogue, and transgressive transvestism – can be seen as a direct influence of the ‘bad’ film directors to follow in his footsteps, his reach traveling as far as mainstream Hollywood with directors like Tim Burton.

The analogy can be made that Ed Wood is to paracinema as Nietzsche is to postmodern thought: Both heralded in a new age of reasoning straying away from a faith based school of thought (Wood strays away from Classic Hollywood Cinema, which is analogous to classic ‘faith’). In Plan 9 from Outer Space (Wood, 1959) the alien visitors criticize the vanity and stupidity of humanity (“All you of earth are idiots!” [Wood, 1959]), while promoting their own advanced alien race, much like Zarathustra criticizes the faults of humanity while promoting the Ubermensch in Also Sprach Zarathustra (Nietzsche, 1883): “What is the ape to man? A laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. And man shall be just that for the Ubermensch: a laughingstock or a painful embarrassment” (Nietzsche, 9).

Wood, a transvestite, cast John Breckinridge, a transsexual, as the ruler of the alien planet in Plan 9. In the world of Ed Wood the Ubermensch is the androgynous cyborg - a post-gendered creation birthed from a postmodern world. The paracinemaphile, be they lounging around a liberal arts college or kicking back in a Kentucky garage, rejects popular cinema not because of ‘cultural capital’, but because of a shared identity with this cyborg mentality, and, possibly, on the grounds that popular cinema is stupid, stupid, stupid!
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A Few Citations:

Bibliography

Hentzi, Gary, “Little Cinema of Horrors”, Film Quarterly, Vol. 46, No. 3. (Spring, 1993), pp. 22-27

Sconce, Jeffrey, “’Trashing’ The Academy: Taste, Excess, and an Emerging Politics of Cinematic Style”, Braudy, Leo and Marshall Cohen, eds. Film Theory and Criticism, 6th Edition. (New York, Oxford University Press, 2004); 534-553

Donna Haraway, "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century," in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York; Routledge, 1991), pp.149-181

Nietzsche, Friedrich, Also Sprach Zarathustra, Barnes and Noble Classics, New York (2005)

Plan 9 from Outer Space, Dir. Wood Jr., Edward D., Reynold Pictures, 1959

The Cartoons of Jim Trainor

Emerging from the recent explosion of alternative experimental animators entering Hipster domain, Jim Trainor has to be by far the most sophisticated of them. Inviting viewers to observe the animal kingdom - an area of animation thought to have long ago been conquered by Walt Disney, Trainor's films transcend Disney; his animals do not have cherubic eyes or happy voices, their anatomical proportions are constantly shifting and never seem quite right. It is these differences that make Trainor's films work so well. Rather than make his animals more recognizable in human terms, he draws the viewer into the world of the animal, focusing his drawing skills on the anatomical features (such as accurately drawn reproductive and sensory organs) that drive the animal's existence in real life. Trainor taps into the minds of his animals with the understanding of a biologist; his protagonists are driven by primal desires like reproduction and food. While the animation might seem 'crude' when compared to Disney, Trainor's style is simple and to the point, much like the lives of his animals.

Where the cartoons of Don Hertzfeldt can be categorized as "surreal", Jim Trainor's films fall into the "existential" cabinet. Both "Bats" and "Moschops", two of Trainor's most notable films, deal with the life span of their respective creature (For what exactly a moschop is, see this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moschops). The animals wish nothing more than to spend their days foraging and fornicating, but like all things on this planet, they must one day die. The films ask how our own lives will be remembered: through the people we sleep with, through the 'rainy seasons' we survive, or through the way we die. As narrator of 'Moschops' says: "Nothing on this world has a right to live, only a chance...a chance".

Trainor's films transport the viewer into a primal world that is nearly void of human influence - it is only his choice biology lingo that keeps us anchored in a human world. His animation is equally primal, simplified down to a black marker, white paper and a camera. Were Trainor to simply narrate his bizarre biological statements over actual nature footage, the concept would be lost. The animation serves as a human touch, a staple in western civilization that connects us to the animals on screen and provides the most discomfort that we might feel when listening to Trainor's blunt narration. Through this process the primal instincts of Trainor's animals are reflected back onto us, placing us back into the natural order of the animal kingdom of which we will always be a part of.

"Bats" can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDizcCTUGdw

"Moschops" can be viewed here (in two parts): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZE_dBxM9IE&feature=related, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVOlV8277Vk&feature=related

Moon

Sam Rockwell is probably one of the best and most underrated actors working in Hollywood today. The name may draw a blank to many, but if you were to wrack your brain back to 1990’s live action “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”, you may recognize a twenty-two year old Sam in a scene stealing performance as ‘Head Thug’ (“Regular or Menthol?”), or slightly more recently as the double crossing villain, Eric Knox, in “Charlie’s Angels”; He also plays the endearing Guy Fleegman, the television extra who gets dragged along for an intergalactic adventure in “Galaxy Quest”. Chances are you’ve seen him in something over the years, but Rockwell is so adept at playing the common man, and making that character his own, that you might not recognize him from role to role. “Moon”, hopefully, will change all that.

Sam Rockwell plays Sam Bell, the only man stationed on the Moon in the near future with the task of overseeing an energy harvesting facility. That’s right, the only man stationed on the moon. With the exception of 4 characters seen over a video monitor, Rockwell is the only human presence on screen for the entire duration of the film. Rockwell’s charisma and control over the audience is spellbinding.

With only two weeks to go in a three year contract with the company that stationed Bell, thing begin to fall apart. Bell becomes feverish and begins to hallucinate a young woman at strange moments. His computer and only companion, GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey) does his best to console Bell, but things go from bad to worse when Bell suffers a concussion and wakes up to find a duplicate of himself on the Moon.

Has Sam Bell lost his mind? Is he not actually alone on the Moon? Is he a clone?

The final answer is simple and straightforward and raises a number of ethical questions concerning the preservation of the human race. Sam Rockwell, as I said, is spellbinding as he deftly plays two characters, both claiming to be Sam bell, on screen at the same time.

This is a huge recommendation for anyone who would find a small, low budget independent sci-fi film that follows the same vein as “2001: A Space Oddesy” a compelling Friday night movie.

Oh, did I mention it’s directed by David Bowie’s son? He goes by the name of Duncan Jones.

Ponyo

"Ponyo" makes me smile, and it makes me cry. Not in the tear jerking fashion of a Hollywood melodrama, or from the heavy-handed existentialism of the avant-gard, but rather through the spot-on capture of the quintessence of childhood joy. "Ponyo", in short, is twee-as-fuck. From the intrepid mind of Hayao Miyazaki, the man behind 2001's Oscar winning "Spirited Away", comes a simple animation that goes back to basics, steering clear of CGI and computer enhanced animation. "Ponyo" features a whopping 170,000 separate images, all hand drawn, some with water colors, utilizing a vivid array of happy-go-lucky pastels.

Rated G, a rarity in cinema today, "Ponyo" is the simple tale of a little fish that yearns to be a real girl. Inspired by the Little Mermaid, the film goes a step further: instead of dumbing down an adult tale for children, "Ponyo" views the timeless tale through the eyes of a child. The film conveys messages of peace, respect and community, and like many Miyazaki films touches on environmental conservation without ever getting too preachy.

Ponyo herself is adorable, and I dare you not to smile as she stretches her human legs for the first time and runs about her new surroundings with awe and wonder. She befriends a little Japanese boy named Sosuke and the two fall in love, as five year olds often do, and boldly proceed headlong into a brave new world. Death and Pain are still just concepts to these wide eyes, impossible destinations of childhood conceit, ones which would never taint the purity of a child's heart.

The film could be the blueprint to a perfect world, bearing messages that could better humanity as a whole. I was shocked to see that "Ponyo" wasn't even nominated for this years Oscars; the American dubbing features an all-star cast including Liam Neeson, Tina Fey and (more old-school) Lily Tomlin and Betty White. Be sure to stick around for the credits which play over the Poyno Theme song, a piece of twee-pop so adorable that it puts The Moldy Peaches to shame.