Film #112: Southland Tales (2006)

Rating: 5/5

“This is the way the world ends. This is the way the world ends. Not with a whimper, but with a bang.”

Having attained cult status and acclaim for his feature debut Donnie Darko, writer-director Richard Kelly’s second film was eagerly anticipated by many – until it premièred at Cannes in 2006. Having already been significantly delayed, it received arguably the worst reception at the festival: audiences were not even interested in booing it, preferring to simply walk out. The film ended up with the lowest ratings of the festival, a meagre 1.1/5, and Kelly returned to the editing suite in a last-ditch attempt to salvage what was widely acknowledged as an incoherent mess. The work is visible in the film, which was eventually released at the end of 2007 – extensive voice-over, a mass of information at the beginning overloading the brain with facts and throwing the audience straight into the action, strange animated shots taken from the prequel comic books (another attempt to provide some coherence to the plot), new special effects. Characters who once possibly featured prominently now pop up for brief scenes – an unrecognisable Kevin Smith, for example, or a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo from Janeane Garofalo in one of the final shots. It still barely makes sense – I’ve seen it dozens of times by now, and every time I realise something new, notice something crucial that I’d completely missed, lose track of the plot. It emerges like a fevered dream, hypnotic and surreal, a bizarre mixture of pop culture and theology, a supremely convoluted plot with a vast cast of eccentrics and weirdos spouting nonsense. It’s a marmite movie: you’ll either love it or hate it. I love it.

To recount the plot would, quite simply, take too long, but it goes something like this. It’s 2008, the future, and the government has become a paranoid Big Brother. Travel is restricted between states, but an actor with amnesia called Boxer Santaros (Dwayne Johnson, billed as his real name for the first time) has somehow ended up writing a screenplay with a psychic porn star (Sarah Michelle Gellar) that foretells the end of the world. Meanwhile Sean Patrick Scott is identical twin brothers, one impersonating the other, while the Neo-Marxists, a rebel organisation, collect fingers in an attempt to bring down Usident, the government surveillance operation led by Nana Mae Frost (Miranda Richardson), wife of senator Bobby Frost (Holmes Osbourne). Pilot Abilene (Justin Timberlake), a war veteran turned drug addict also monitors from his platform above Venice Beach, looking over the newly built Fluid Karma factory, a new technology developed by Baron Von Westphalen (Wallace Shawn) that could spell the end of global fuel shortages. And so it goes on. In this confused, and confusing, tangled web of a narrative, characters come and go, scandals are revealed, and the apocalypse begins. No pressure or anything.

It could either be a criticism or praise (I mean it as the latter) that Kelly’s screenplay throws the audience right into the middle of the story. The film is divided into three chapters, which are parts four, five, and six, each one named after a song (Temptation Waits by Garbage, Memory Gospel by Moby, and Wave of Mutilation by The Pixies). The first three chapters have subsequently been released in comic book form, but they, like the Donnie Darko director’s cut, are a complete disappointment, revealing that, in reality, Kelly never intended his story to be incoherent. The comics are far more linear – still bizarre – and much of the film’s impact is lost as a result. A brilliantly bonkers scene in the middle of the film, when a large number of the cast meet and all accuse each other of betrayal, is made redundant if one has read the comics, for example. The beauty of the film is that, like Donnie Darko, the audience is expected to fill in the blanks, to reach its own conclusions – the comic books take away that authority, reducing the film’s power to something far more mundane.

There’s so much to praise about Southland Tales. The cast, largely comprised of character actors and those who had previously been typecast in specific roles, all ham up their roles to perfection. Gellar is great as Krysta Now, the porn star with lofty intentions. Timberlake excels, and features in one of the film’s finest scenes, a surreal drug trip that comes out of nowhere. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson took a chance here, but it remains my favourite role of his – he’s charismatic, ironic, twitchy, funny and sympathetic – none of his other roles to date have offered him the chance to expand his repertoire as much as this one.

Kelly’s style is evident as well. There are moments that are reminiscent of Donnie Darko: the importance of music (he has been criticised for basically delivering a series of music videos); the slow motion dance sequences that become unsettling and strangely sinister; the apocalyptic narrative with, at its core, one man’s opportunity for salvation; that stunning tracking shot in the mega zeppelin near the film’s end, as the camera follows Bai Ling through the crowd. Southland Tales is an assault on the senses, each scene filled with beauty and chaos and new things to look for. It’s hectic and manic, seemingly spewing forth without direction, but it all ties together just enough. With references to Revelations, Robert Frost, TS Eliot and others, the characters diverge together, each one responsible for bringing the end of days a little closer, yet all the philosophy is ultimately reduced to one simple question: are you a pimp or not? It’s this kind of audacious combination of high concept and low culture that emphasises the film’s tongue-in-cheek stance – it’s not meant to be taken entirely seriously, but there’s plenty to think about regardless.

I have always maintained that, given enough time, Southland Tales will be reclaimed as a masterpiece. That has yet to happen, but time has been favourable for the most part. In its year of release, it was – like Only God Forgives last year – found on both the “best films” and the “worst films” lists. Its almost perfectly average rating on IMDb (5.5/10) is the result of extreme opinions – everyone either gives it one or ten. For me, this is precisely the kind of film that is interesting: not the average and mundane, but the divisive, the controversial. For better or worse, Southland Tales is the latter – a film that has so much to say it perhaps forgets to say any of it properly, a film that is messy and muddled, stylish and superficial yet complex. For me, it’s one of the finest films of the last ten years. I welcome the counter-arguments!

Film #111: She’s All That (1999)

Rating: 3.5/5

“I feel just like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. You know, except for the whole hooker thing.”

If any film could hope to challenge Clueless as the ultimate high school movie, surely it’s She’s All That. So filled with clichés that in some ways it’s difficult to figure out whether it was the first of its kind or just another lame copy, it’s stupid but likeable, with an impressive cast including Freddie Prinze Jr, Rachael Leigh Cook, the late Paul Walker (I always forget he’s in it), Anna Paquin, Clea Duvall, Kieran Culkin – even Usher pops up, proving the movie’s pop-culture credentials, and so does Sarah Michelle Gellar, for a split second, in homage to the fact that this was shot in the same school as Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

To be honest, it’s quite difficult to review She’s All That without being constantly reminded of Not Another Teen Movie, which quite perfectly parodied the more ridiculous moments – and, the fact that it’s this film that forms the basis of the spoof’s plot indicates how popular and influential it was. Cook is Laney Boggs, an anti-social poor girl filled with inner darkness, as evidenced by her moody abstract art. She’s beautiful, of course, but has the misfortune of wearing glasses, never plucking her eyebrows, and wearing paint-covered dungarees (see, I’m already slipping into Not Another Teen Movie…) Nevertheless, she’s the one popular-but-recently-dumped jock-hunk Zac (Prinze Jr) is tasked with transforming into the prom queen – the result of a bet between him and his jock buddy Dean (Walker). To be fair, she is not considered a challenge because of her looks, really, but because of her personality – but, naturally, a makeover is imminent, thanks to Zac’s sister Mackenzie (Paquin), and it seems to be mostly a result of her newfound contact lenses that, overnight, inexplicably, she becomes the most popular girl in school.

There are actually quite a few interesting possibilities borne out of this new popularity, but the film mostly ignores them. Honestly, if you scratch the surface of this movie, there’s mostly just more surface, and attempting any in depth analysis is a fairly pointless exercise. Laney’s nomination for prom queen doesn’t make her become a brat (a la Cady in Mean Girls, for example) but it does appear to bring all the nerds out of the woodwork – whereas the school initially seemed to be entirely populated by beautiful twenty-somethings (Walker was twenty-six; the only person even close to being actual high school age was Paquin, and she looks like a child in comparison; on a side note, realising this made me feel particularly old), following her nomination the student-extras more fully represent the less fortunate too. Yet this isn’t a “nerd-uprising” sort of film, and the likes of the Hygiene Club remain firmly in the background. There’s never even the slightest pause to consider how Laney actually feels about her makeover – she stops wearing her glasses but continues with her (more figure-hugging) paint-covered clothes, for example. What matters is not the exterior changes, but the internal ones – having avoided her classmates for years, she finally begins to realise that they’re not all as bad as she might have thought. Of course, some of them are precisely as bad as she thought: Dean has ulterior motives, while Zac’s ex Taylor will let nothing stop her from becoming prom queen. While Taylor is the pre-Mean Girls mean girl, her new flame, reality “star” Brock Hudson (Matthew Lilliard) is great fun – egotistical, self-obsessed and utterly deluded, his overly energetic moronics brighten up the film and provide arguably the best dance scene of the piece (sorry Usher, the prom dance is unexpected, but Brock’s fist-pumping worm takes the biscuit).

Seeped in pop-culture of the 90s, perhaps I’m again showing my age when I say that in many ways the film hasn’t dated as badly as it might have. Yes, there are several references to Hanson and yes, kids today might not know what The Real World is, but it’s by no means inaccessible today. Its biggest problem (if you can call it that) is the fact that, like I said earlier, everything seems so clichéd – and even that’s not really its own fault, but that of Not Another Teen Movie. Everything in this film reminds me of that one: the token black guy who features solely to react in exaggerated ways to the white kids; Laney contemplating her latest expression of artistic pain, which is really not particularly good, but we’re supposed to think it is; her father’s strange terms of endearment (“pumpkin nose”?!); Zac’s misunderstood rich-boy problems; Laney refusing to let anyone see her cry at the party… Every moment has been lampooned, highlighting the inanity of it all, and it’s really difficult for me to separate the two movies now. Yet I’ll happily watch She’s All That any time – its lead actors have a nice chemistry, its got a happy ending and, while I remember Clueless with great fondness from my childhood, it’s this film that captures the essence of my teen years. Besides, any film with a Buffy cameo gets my vote.

Film #110: The Beast of Yucca Flats (1961)

Rating: 1.5/5
Enjoyment rating: 5/5

“Flag on the moon, how did it get there?”

Time for another bad movie classic, Coleman Francis’ directorial debut, The Beast of Yucca Flats. I couldn’t even count how many times I’ve seen this film, but it never ceases to be anything other than a joy to watch. It’s currently sitting at #89 in IMDb’s Bottom 100, though in the past it’s been among the top (bottom?) ten, and Francis’ other two films (The Skydivers, Night Train to Mundo Fine) have also featured until recently – now it seems there are just too many dodgy, terrible comedies around taking up all the space.

Like The Creeping Terror and Manos: The Hands of Fate, The Beast of Yucca Flats was shot without sound. Unlike the aforementioned films, it attempts to conceal this deficiency by almost never showing its characters speaking – in fact, I can think of only one instance where anyone other than the Beast himself is shown talking (and, curiously, the Beast’s grunts were dubbed by the director, not the man on screen, Tor Johnson, meaning that although we see him as he makes noise, the sounds we hear are not his own). Instead, Francis either shoots his cast in long shot or, disconcertingly, only shows the reaction of the listener, while the speaker remains off-camera. In theory it shouldn’t necessarily be as bizarre as it is – there’s an argument that showing a speaker talking makes the image redundant, precisely because we can already hear them – but it is sufficiently unconventional that it just draws attention to the filmmaker’s limitations, rather than hiding them. It doesn’t help, of course, that the dubbed dialogue is minimal, or that the actors are utterly terrible, or that the script doesn’t require even the slightest hint of character development. Some characters aren’t even given names, though they play fairly important roles: the Beast’s first victims are introduced by the voice-over narration simply as “man and wife.”

Whereas the voice-over narration in The Creeping Terror (and in plenty of other films) attempts to infuse the film with sincerity and importance through a literary, solemn style, here the voice-over (uttered by Francis himself) sounds like an abridged version of the film’s production notes. Its phrasing is bizarre, filled with incomplete sentences and strange non-sequiturs like the aforementioned (and frequently repeated) “flag on the moon” quote. “Nothing bothers some people,” the voice-over intones. “Not even flying saucers.” This in a film with no flying saucers or alien threat whatsoever. And, like his voice-over and limited dialogue, the narrative is so meagre that it barely fills the brief 54 minute running time. Tor Johnson plays Joseph Javorsky, noted scientist, who escapes from behind the Iron Curtain with a suitcase full of secrets, only to be transformed into an atomic beast after being chased onto an atomic testing site in Yucca Flats by rogue Communist assassins. Following this tragedy, he roams the barren desert killing random people “travelling east, west, north and south” before encountering the Radcliffes, whose two sons are “adventurous boys” who decide to wander off. Meanwhile, Joe and Jim, desert patrolmen, have somehow inexplicably discovered the existence of the Beast and decide to “shoot first, ask questions later,” resulting in a direct North by Northwest homage and a potentially fatal case of mistaken identity, as Hank Radcliffe (the father) gets repeatedly shot at by Jim, high above in a light aircraft.

Although practically nothing happens, and the film is actually rather slow and uneventful, it’s quite mesmerising. Every remark uttered by the voice-over is a classic – in his solemn tone, Francis repeatedly, inexplicably refers to the “wheels of progress,” states the obvious (“a man runs. Somebody shoots at him”), and constantly introduces characters: “Joseph Javorsky, noted scientist.” “Joseph Javorsky, respected scientist, now a fiend.” It’s a necessary addition, really, because the characters are less people than hollow representations of people – indeed, the only person with even the slightest bit of depth is the Beast himself, poor Joseph Javorsky. Yet he is also the most ridiculous – Tor Johnson, a former Swedish wrestler best known for his work with Ed Wood, is the least believable nuclear scientist I’ve ever seen in cinema (yes, even worse than Denise Richards’ Christmas Jones in The World is Not Enough). Obviously hired to play the Beast role, rather than the scientist role (as it turns out, the suitcase full of secrets is nothing more than a massive McGuffin, like most things about the film), the already large man was severely overweight and his struggles are evident at all times – he can barely move. Anthony Cardoza, the film’s producer, has said that the crew had to literally pull Johnson up the cliff for the cave scenes, and Cardoza himself put on enough weight during filming (because Johnson insisted on inviting him around for dinner so often) that he appears in the film twice as two different characters, and is unrecognisable.

The film’s notoriety is undoubtedly helped by the inclusion of Johnson, a cult star in his own right, but it’s a thoroughly strange experience, one verging on surrealism. Despite being shot on location (there are only two interior shots in the whole film, one which opens the movie and is impossible to situate within the rest of the narrative, but does feature female nudity – in fact, Cardoza has claimed that this is the only reason for its inclusion) the editing has rendered the landscape entirely incoherent – the chase between Jim in his airplane and Hank on the ground is a spectacular example of how illogical the whole film is, with the landscape changing drastically from shot to shot.

While I would definitely argue that The Beast of Yucca Flats is a perfect example of “so bad it’s pleasurable,” others have disagreed, and I can understand why. Sections drag, while the narrative is so sparse and irrelevant that in many ways the film could be shown as a silent film. Long passages contain little or no dialogue (although when the voice-over does interrupt, it’s worth the wait) and the music, which, possibly because of the amount of times I’ve seen the film, I now think is fairly effective, transpires to have been taken from another, earlier film, The Astounding She-Monster. Imagine my surprise when I watched that movie yesterday, having discovered it on Youtube, straight after watching Yucca Flats, and was instantly bombarded by the exact same riff! It’s a small world – and an even smaller one when it comes to bad 50s movies, clearly. Regardless, Francis’ film is one that is difficult to forget – it’s a hypnotic, surreal, and downright weird little movie, with characters that look like people but act like robots, where cars drive with their headlights on despite it being daytime, where a scientist is turned into a beast yet none of the people living in the vicinity of the atomic testing site seem affected at all, where husbands abandon their wives in the middle of the desert, where desert patrolmen parachute onto plateaus for no reason, where no one seems to ever die, despite being shot repeatedly, and where an errant wild rabbit provides a final moment of unexpected poignancy.

Bonus: you can watch The Beast of Yucca Flats on Youtube here!

Film #109: The Creeping Terror (1964)

Rating: 1.5/5
Enjoyment rating: 5/5

“He slowly asked Bradford what was in store for humanity. Bradford was pessimistic, but implied that maybe all was not lost. After all, he told him, the vastness of the universe was incredible.”

Sometimes I worry that giving a film a low rating will deter people from watching it. Of course, sometimes the low rating should be taken on face value, and he movie should be avoided at all costs. Other times, however, the low rating doesn’t even remotely reflect the sheer enjoyment that can be experienced watching a film that is technically terrible. This is, I suppose, my way of saying that some films are “so bad they’re good,” although I’m loathe to use that phrase because it’s so problematic. More appropriate is to describe such films as “so bad they’re pleasurable” and, as pleasurable experiences go, The Creeping Terror is way up there.

Actor-director-editor-producer Vic Savage’s film is, on the surface at least, a fairly standard 1960s teen-oriented sci-fi picture: a rocket lands, an alien emerges, and chaos ensues. Narratively it’s no more or less interesting than so many of the other low-budget drive-in movies of the times, but aesthetically it’s quite fascinating, and rumours and myths have followed the movie around for years. It gained notoriety when it was included in the Medved’s hugely influential Golden Turkey Awards, nominated for the “most ridiculous monster in screen history” award (eventually losing out to Ro-Man of Robot Monster fame), then featured in their follow-up Son of Golden Turkey Awards, where it won the “most laughable concept for an outer space invader” award. The aliens, which are most frequently described as “carpet monsters”, are a sight to behold – gigantic slug-type creatures with tentacle-covered “faces” and huge mouths for people to helpfully climb into. The Medveds claim that at one point you can see the shoes of one of the students beneath this giant, moth-eaten rug-creature, but I’ve looked pretty carefully and all I’ve ever spotted is a pair of big fluffy monster feet (and the Medveds were not particularly known for their accuracy, preferring to repeat stories that emphasise the wacky regardless of the truth).

One of the stories the Medveds relate regarding The Creeping Terror concerns its strange use of a voice-over narrator and the obviously dubbed dialogue. There are a significant number of films of the time that were shot MOS (without sound) as a cost-cutting measure, with dialogue dubbed in afterwards (Manos: The Hands of Fate does this, though poorly; Beast of Yucca Flats is also clearly shot without a soundtrack; there are plenty of other examples) and, on the surface at least, it seems that The Creeping Terror is no different. Legend has it, however, that the film’s strange (lack of) sound is a mistake, the result of Savage accidentally dropping the sound reel into Lake Tahoe. It’s a great story, one that emphasises incompetence and stupidity, highlighting the conditions by which these older bad movies were made, and it would be great if it was true. However, just a few years later, the Medveds don’t mention this, reporting instead that the style was intentional rather than accidental. Regardless, the myth is still repeated – it’s far more interesting than the mundane truth, after all. While I don’t want to claim that the initial tale is accurate, there is evidence in the film to support such a claim, namely that the film appears to be shot precisely as though it had sound. Characters have long conversations with each other, filmed in classic shot-reverse-shot technique, prioritising the speaker, yet what we hear is the voice-over narrator relating the conversation in distinctly literary tones. As an example: “the sergeant reported seeing an amazingly large creature in the aft section of this strange craft. He further reported that it was secured by a kind of metal harness, but that the creature could still move around somewhat, and for that reason they had not gotten too close to it. There was no trace of either Ben or Jeff. The colonel ordered continuous guard duty around the spaceship, and decided to set up a temporary military headquarters at the sheriff’s office in town.”

It would be quite fascinating to get a lip-reader to watch The Creeping Terror, to see what the characters are actually saying during these scenes – they’re clearly speaking to each other, but we’re rarely privy to their conversations. There are occasional moments of dubbing, and at times it’s clear that what they are saying doesn’t correspond correctly with either the added voice-over or the dubbed dialogue: at one point, a woman (soon to be eaten by a Terror) clearly mouths “there there” to a baby, although we hear her say “poor baby”; later on the voice-over narrator claims that the sergeant tells scientist Bradford to “go to hell,” but this is immediately followed by the sergeant saying “get out of my way!”

So why is the film so enjoyable? Partly it’s because of the visible and aesthetic badness, further emphasised by the voice-over, which speaks in such serious tones, and infuses the film with a bizarre contrast between what is being shown, and what we are being told. There’s plenty more badness on show, of course – the acting is non-descript (and further limited by the voice-over’s insistence of speaking on behalf of the characters, making their appearance on screen frequently redundant), for example. Mostly, however, it’s the Terrors themselves. These creatures are brilliant – physically absurd, technically inept, ludicrously conceived. The people who get devoured (and there are plenty – it’s a pretty impressive death count) have to advance towards the creatures, rather than the other way around, and then either get “swallowed up” by inserting themselves into the conveniently positioned mouth-hole, or the Terror appears to just flop down on top of them. It’s delightfully bonkers, incredibly kitsch when viewed today and, at a short 75 minutes, never gets boring. It might be currently sitting on IMDb as the 30th worst rated film of all time, but for sheer entertainment, surely it would be among the top.

Bonus: You can watch the whole film on Youtube here!

Film #108: Rebecca (1940)

Rating: 3.5/5

“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.”

Based almost entirely faithfully on Daphne du Maurier’s book of the same name, this film adaptation of Rebecca is such a quintessentially classical Hollywood film – directed by Alfred Hitchcock, produced by David O Selznick, starring Laurence Olivier, shot in brooding, beautiful, gothic black and white. Its direction is impeccable, the acting equally so, and it deservedly won two academy awards (best picture and best cinematography) out of the eleven it was nominated for. My quibble is not with any the technical aspects of the film, but with a seemingly small change in the narrative – the result of the stringent Hollywood Production Code at the time, which stated that the murder of a spouse must be punished. Consequently (spoiler alert!), the whole point of du Maurier’s story is undermined: whereas in the novel Maxim de Winter is a murderer, shooting his first wife, here Olivier’s de Winter only thinks about doing so, and her death is an accident. These small detail changes the entire relationship between Maxim and his young new wife who, in du Maurier’s world, doesn’t care that her husband is a murderer. Instead, here Maxim becomes a version of Hitchcock’s classic “wronged men” – haunted by a memory and, later on, accused of a murder he didn’t really commit. It’s a shame, really, because Hitchcock was very adept at drawing out the more tortured side of his male leads – he brought out a darkness in everyman James Stewart, for example, and some of that actor’s finest roles were under Hitch’s direction. If anyone could play a ruthless, cold-hearted murderer and still be believably attractive, it’s Olivier, so it’s a shame that such a crucial plot point had to be watered down.

In contrast to Olivier’s roguish, charming Maxim, Joan Fontaine is superbly unassuming as the second Mrs de Winter. This poor girl (for she is young – visibly much younger than her husband) doesn’t even have a name of her own: first introduced as the paid companion of an older society woman, she is quickly smitten by Maxim’s charms (and who wouldn’t be?!) and, after a whirlwind romance, the pair return to Manderley, a vast, ominous manor house near the Cornish coast. Suddenly thrust into a world far beyond her station, the new Mrs de Winter has to not only adapt to her new social status, but try to fill the shoes of the seemingly perfect Rebecca – a figure so important that both the novel and film take her name, despite not even being shown in a picture or portrait. Rebecca is so dominant that her presence is felt throughout the film – the long corridors and vast, opulent spaces of Manderley seem filled with her, and Hitchcock approaches the story as though it were a true ghost tale. In many ways, of course, it is – the new Mrs de Winter is haunted by the spectre of Rebecca, this beautiful, perfect, urban, witty woman who, it appears, Maxim has never gotten over. Manderley’s housekeeper, Mrs Danvers (Judith Anderson) definitely hasn’t, and makes sure to remind Mrs de Winter of her inadequacies (as many other characters do) frequently.

It is here that the film makes a further deviation from its source novel: while du Maurier imagined Mrs Danvers as having a maternal bond with Rebecca, here it is implicitly a romantic fixation. Mrs Danvers, prim, proper and utterly intimidating in her strict black dress, has evidently fetishised the memory of Rebecca – the scene in which she takes Mrs de Winter into Rebecca’s old bedroom and points out all the luxury has distinctively erotic undertones: “Did you ever see anything so delicate?” she asks, showing off Rebecca’s sheer negligee. “Look, you can see my hand through it!” Fittingly, all three actors mentioned received Oscar nominations for their roles – Olivier brings a darkness to his role as the charming Maxim, Anderson is rather terrifying as the cold, cruel Mrs Danvers, while Fontaine epitomises innocence and naivety. While Fontaine is undoubtedly beautiful, here she really seems plain – quite an achievement, considering. When Maxim finally reveals what he believes is the truth regarding Rebecca’s death (that it was his actions that killed her), Fontaine is superb. All she hears in this shocking confession is what she wants to: “You never loved her,” she breathlessly repeats, relief all over her face. In all that he has said, that’s the only thing that matters to this smitten, tormented woman.

Although the alterations to the narrative do mean that the power of the story is somewhat reduced, I cannot fault the film itself. The stage production is wonderful – the sets, particularly Manderley’s halls and rooms – are beautiful, expensive and expansive, while the music perfectly complements the visual elements. The score, by Franz Waxman, brings an eerie, gothic quality to the film, emphasising the horror and tension perfectly. Olivier et al are supported by a solid cast, including the delightfully caddish George Sanders, who injects some life into the film’s final third. It’s not all doom, gloom and atmospheric anxiety though – Hitchcock wisely brings some black humour into the narrative by way of some of the smaller roles. Just moments before one of the most devastatingly simple yet brutal cruelties imposed upon poor Mrs de Winter, for example, Maxim’s sister and brother-in-law parade around in ludicrous outfits, highlighting even further the nastiness that follows. As is now expected of Hitchcock, the director demonstrates his mastery of creating tension and, also, revelling in cruelty – yet it is Fontaine’s performance that truly demonstrates the consequences of such cruelty. The devastation is etched all over her face, her torment and agony clear throughout. It’s impressive, really, that we can still empathise with a woman who is such a shell of a person herself – in the end, we still don’t really know anything about her except that she is Maxim’s devoted wife.

Film #107: Dig! (2004)

Rating: 4.5/5

“I’m not for sale. I’m fucking Love, do you understand what I’m saying? Like, the Beatles were for sale. I give it away.”

Filmed over seven years, Ondi Timoner’s documentary is a fascinating, gripping insight into the (mostly friendly) rivalry between two bands, The Dandy Warhols and The Brian Jonestown Massacre. It’s a story of egos and artistry, a cautionary tale about truly living the rockstar lifestyle and the hazards of becoming part of the corporate music industry – Timoner’s access to both bands seems to be entirely unrestricted, and nothing seems to be off limits. This must have dominated Timoner’s life for years – they seem to be completely comfortable with both her and the camera recording every move, and it seems like there’s nothing she hasn’t caught on film.

While it probably helps to be somewhat familiar with the bands, it’s not essential – most people will have heard the Dandy’s “Bohemian Like You,” but don’t be surprised if you’ve never heard of BJM – the whole point is that no one has. Narrated by Dandy frontman, Courtney Taylor (also the leading creative force in the band – he writes all the songs), early on he talks about his admiration for BJM’s frontman (and, similarly, the creative force), Anton Newcombe. In contrast to the fairly straight-laced Dandys, Anton is a self-destructive artist, uncooperative, unable to “play the game,” as it were, yet convinced that he doesn’t need to in order to start the necessary, inevitable “revolution.” While the Dandys smoke weed and drink and partake in that lifestyle, they like to remind us that they take their jobs very seriously, that they want to be successful, that they don’t mess around – they admit they are the “most well-adjusted band in America.” Imagine them as the straight-A students: Anton and the BJM are the ones smoking dope in the school bathrooms when they should be in class.

It often seems as though there’s a serious case of hero worship at play here. Taylor is clearly in awe of Anton’s talents – jealous, even (just as Anton seems unwilling to acknowledge his envy at the Dandy’s subsequent success). And more than that, it seems as though Taylor is also caught up in everything that Anton represents: that rebellious lifestyle, the anarchy stopping Anton from ever really achieving any kind of (dare I say it?) mainstream popularity. Fairly early on, Taylor joins the BJM on tour and, as expected, the gigs are a shambles. Anton seems incapable of showing any restraint: the shows are notorious, with fans coming just to see what chaos will unfold. Taylor, who would clearly never allow any such incidents at his own gig (on-stage punch-ups, impromptu resignations, riots…), evidently loves being a part of such bedlam – it’s not his tour, he keeps saying. He comes across as the sheltered kid hero-worshipping the bad boy, relishing that brief respite from normalcy before returning back to his neat house and his nine-to-five, safe in the knowledge that none of what transpired will really affect his life.

While the Dandys gradually begin to enjoy success – they get signed to a major label, David LaChapelle directs one of their music videos – it is telling that all the talking head interviewees (mostly comprised of A&R people from various labels) focus entirely on the BJM. They are the unsigned talent, the band they all loved listening to yet knew they could never work with. Anton is a hazard – too self-destructive, too arrogant, too delusional. He waxes lyrical about how many people he has influenced, about the mark he’s made on the world, about how he’s bigger than god. It’s almost pathetic, except that it seems so genuine. He really believes what he says, and he lives what he says. The rest of the BJM are merely his backing group, and in the twenty-odd years since the band first began, Anton remains the only consistent member – everyone else is expendable.

Although it would be easy for this to be a rather depressing tale – the tragic, doomed artist and his self-sabotage – it never is. Anton himself is never shown wallowing in self-pity. Instead, he’s a free spirit – a child of the sixties, out of time and place, caring only about making music. The other members of the BJM also seem to have been lifted straight from a more psychedelic time – Matt Hollywood looks just like John Lennon with his long hair and round glasses; Joel Gion seems to be permanently stoned, wearing a goofy grin and an impressive collection of gigantic, bug-eye sunglasses. In contrast to the Dandys, who often come across as quite bratty, the BJM match talent with madness, destruction with rebellion.

Timoner brings this energy to the documentary too; it’s raw, irreverent, a no-holds-barred punk tale. It’s got a grimy, lo-fi aesthetic, with poor-quality, hand-held, sometimes black and white footage edited together in such a way that it perfectly captures the psychedelic, retro tone of the bands’ music. It’s an engrossing, ironic, funny, tragic story – at times it’s like watching a car crash: you can’t look away, no matter how you want to. Like the A&R industry reps, and like Courtney, it’s easy to see that Anton is talented, that on the basis of his music alone the BJM should be successful and influential – all the things he says he wants (or says he is already) – but, like the reps, it’s equally easy to see what a disaster he would be. As someone points out in the film, Anton wants to live the rock’n’roll lifestyle, to be as big as the Beatles or Oasis (there are frequent references to the famous rivalries, Beatles/Stones, Oasis/Blur), but has failed to take into account that these bands were big before they started taking drugs and acting out. Anton has it the wrong way around, and even the labels that accept the challenge soon regret it. Yet, even ten years after this documentary was made, the BJM are still touring, still making music. Isn’t that the point?

Film #106: The Rutles: All You Need is Cash (1978)

Rating: 3.5/5

“Listen, looking at it very simply musicology and ethnically, the Rutles were essentially empirical malengistes of a rhythmically radical yet verbally passé and temporally transcended lyrically content welded with historically innovative melodical material transposed and transmogrified by the angst of the Rutland ethic experience which elevated them from essentially alpha exponents of in essence merely beta potential harmonic material into the prime cultural exponents of Aeolian cadencic comic stanza form.”

Conceived and written by Eric Idle, it’s no surprise that The Rutles has a distinctly Pythonesque vibe but, more impressively, it truly captures the heady delirium and quintessentially sixties qualities of the band they’re parodying, The Beatles. To be honest, at many points in this mockumentary – a precursor to This is Spinal Tap if there ever was one – could barely be considered a parody or satire, it seems to be so close to the truth. Perhaps that’s the beauty of it – no matter how you try and send them up, The Beatles still seem to have done it all first.

This is, really, a film for Beatles’ fans, with the rise and fall of the Rutles mirroring the rise and, well, not quite fall, but break-up, of The Beatles. The Pre-Fab Four, Idle’s straight-laced narrator informs us, grew up in Liverpool, played in the Cavern Club before travelling over to Germany and, soon after, conquering the world (musically, of course). There was a fifth Rutle at one point, but he climbed into a suitcase with a girl and disappeared. Their success was meteoric: soon girls all over the globe were smitten, and after a string of hits, the boys – Barry (John Halsey), Stig (Ricky Fataar, who, as the quiet one, never gets a single line of dialogue), Nasty (Neil Innes, who also wrote the music), and Dirk (also Idle – in typical Python fashion, he plays multiple characters) – decide to make movies. Throughout this mockumentary we see Idle and chums recreating the filmography of The Beatles, from the music-video-inspired British classic A Hard Day’s Night to the group’s more experimental fare, A Magical Mystery Tour. All You Need is Cash captures the sentiments of these movies perfectly – from the giddy innocence/ youth rebellion of a day in the life of the world’s biggest band (reimagined as A Hard Day’s Rut) to the drug-influenced surrealism of the band’s stranger filmmaking attempts (The Tragical History Tour, complete with “I Am the Walrus” parody, “Piggy in the Middle”).

Non-Beatles fans will no doubt still be able to appreciate the movie, though much of the nuance and humour depends on a fairly decent knowledge of the Fab Four. It seems like everything is covered: the relationships, the crises, the inspirations, the band’s developing sound. The Rutles make mistakes, like claiming they were bigger than God (just as Lennon was accused of doing). They fall in with a dodgy guru (here Arthur Sultan, the Surrey Mystic), get tired of all the girls screaming at their concerts, and openly experiment with tea. The girlfriends get a brief mention – Yoko, inevitably, fares the worst. Here her Rutles persona is the SS-uniform-clad daughter of the man who “invented World War II,” an artist who dreams of throwing musicians off buildings as part of her latest installation.

The Pre-Fab Four actors play their parts perfectly – it’s always clear who everyone is supposed to be, and they capture the carefree, impromptu nature of The Beatles. Their interview segments are brilliant, perfectly epitomising the bizarre, deadpan responses of the group to inane questions (“what’s your ambition?” asks one reporter. “I’d like to be a hairdresser. Or two. I’d like to be two hairdressers,” Barry responds). They’re supported by a superb cast of recognisable British actors and musicians, with some wonderful – if brief – cameos by SNL regulars. Dan Akyroyd pops up, so too does John Belushi and Bill Murray, while Mick Jagger waxes lyrical about how The Rutles influenced him. Paul Simon and Ron Wood also appear, as does Michael Palin and, as perfect evidence of endorsement, George Harrison has bit-part as a news reporter (Harrison was a big fan of Monty Python, and “pawned” his house in London to fund the troupe’s most famous, and controversial, and hilarious feature film, The Life of Brian).

The music is also pitch-perfect. Innes has cleverly distorted recognisable Beatles’ tunes, changing the lyrics and altering the sound just enough so that they remain obviously inspired by specific songs, but the recognition is often rather elusive. The earlier songs in particular are spot-on and often particularly convincing: “All My Loving” becomes “Hold My Hand”, “If I Fell” transforms into “Number One”, “All You Need is Love” turns into “Love Life”. Each song is performed with upbeat enthusiasm from the group, first in obvious studio settings, then moving beyond the constraints of stiff-upper-lipped BBC standards to the more hippy, freewheeling organic style of the Beatles’ later sound. By the end of the film, it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish what is Beatles and what is Rutles, the two groups almost becoming interchangeable, such is the accuracy of Idle’s observations. It’s no wonder that the group – The Rutles, that is – have since released several albums and have been touring as recently as May this year. Ironically, the parody has survived longer than the original, although in terms of musical achievement, pop culture iconography, and influence, it’s the Fab Four, not their Pre-Fab counterparts, who reign supreme.

Film #105: Easy A (2010)

Rating: 3.5/5

“The rumours of my promiscuity have been greatly exaggerated.”

Although Jennifer Lawrence is currently Number One Sweetheart in Hollywood, arguably Emma Stone is a close second. After roles in Superbad and the stupidly hilarious The House Bunny, she burst onto the scene with Zombieland, took the lead in Easy A, and made females around the world jealous by smooching Ryan Gosling in not one but two films (Crazy, Stupid, Love and Gangster Squad). Safe to say now she’s a hot commodity. I’m not quite convinced – she’s likeable, of course, but even here she’s by no means the most interesting or funny person on screen, nor is she (in my opinion – I’m sure there are plenty who would disagree) the most personable. But Easy A‘s a strange film, self-aware yet oddly oblivious to its own problems, one that is perfectly entertaining while it’s being watched, but littered with inconsistencies in retrospect.

Stone is Olive, a clean-cut, presumably straight-A student who is invisible to the boys (and most of the girls) in her school. Despite this she’s beautiful, trendy, has a quick wit and no real evidence of any insecurities – to be honest, it’s really not clear why she’s not popular. She’s not particularly awkward (like, for example, Stone’s character in The House Bunny), she’s neither stupid nor pious, but for whatever reason, she’s somehow the outsider. Via online video chat, she relates her version of recent events, using click-baity intertitles to punctuate the various chapters of the story – most of the film consists of flashbacks to said events (in hindsight this implies that almost all the scenes involving her parents and adopted brother are entirely incoherent in this context – as sequences that do not progress or impact upon the main purpose of her testimonial, the reasons for their inclusion are unclear. They are, however, among the funniest scenes of the film). Olive’s story begins with an innocent white lie, which snowballs into school-wide rumours about her promiscuity; mirroring her assigned reading (Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter), she becomes the school harlot and finds that infamy and notoriety – whether justified or not – is not necessarily as fun as it first appeared.

While the plot is fairly straight-forward, it’s Olive herself who is so incoherent as a character. Of course, this isn’t Stone’s fault, but that of writer Bert V Royal, who never seems quite sure whether his leading lady is a protagonist, antagonist, smart, stupid, worldly, or naïve. I find it very difficult to believe that, with such enlightened, laid-back and liberal parents (Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson, both excelling in their roles and stealing all the scenes they feature in), Olive would actually encourage a bullied gay kid to pretend he’s straight to fit in – surely she would oppose this kind of falseness? Yet this is where it all begins – he takes her advice, they pretend they’ve had sex, and in the blink of an eye she’s the local slut. And, rather than reject this new reputation, she embraces it (though never seems quite sure as to whether she enjoys it or not), accepting gift cards from fat losers and nerds as payment for their alleged sexual encounters, until it all starts going horribly wrong – her best friend Rhiannon (former Disney child Aly Michalka), another entirely incoherent character with hippy-dippy nudist parents and a penchant for calling everyone “bitch,” dumps her, the school’s born-again Christian students, led by Amanda Byne’s holier-than-thou Marianne, are determined to get her expelled, and the lies somehow end up threatening her favourite teacher’s marriage.

If I sound particularly negative towards Easy A, I don’t mean to be – it’s a perfectly engaging film, with some funny moments. Royal’s script attempts to situate itself within a broader group of well-respected school-movies – namely John Hughes’ 80s classics – and there are frequent references to other films, as well as self-referential moments (Olive’s voice-over comments on the clichés in the story, for example) and a whole host of pop-culture remarks. The script is snappy and quick, matched by equally snappy pacing that conveniently conceals the fact that so little makes sense. It’s got a great cast, for instance, but character development is severely limited, and some of the cameos are in desperate need of expansion. Malcolm McDowell’s principal, for example, has one scene in which he (rather inappropriately, it seems, but most of the adults speak to Olive in ways that seem particularly inappropriate) declares that “this is public school. If I can keep the girls off the pole and the boys off the pipe, I get a bonus” – then he’s never seen again, despite the apparent scandals that are rocking the school’s faculty and students. Other characters – Rhiannon, Marianne, dimwitted 22-year old Micah (Cam Gigandet) – have minor subplot stories that mostly lead nowhere. Really, Olive is the only character who grows at all, and even her lesson is a half-hearted one in the end, with the film’s eventual message getting lost beneath the weight of the screenplay’s need to conclude with a homage to better movies. In retrospect, these are the things that stand out the most: Olive’s dog is amazing and I want one; and “Pocketful of Sunshine” is undeniably, infuriatingly catchy yet becomes the most memorable bit of the whole movie.

Film #104: Troll Hunter (2010)

Rating: 4.5/5

“They are not bright. They manage to eat. But how hard is it to survive on rocks?”

Almost as soon as it was released in the UK it was announced that Troll Hunter was going to be getting the now expected English-language remake. As of September 2013 writer-director Neil Marshall (Dog Soldiers, The Descent) was linked to the film, admittedly making it a slightly more appealing venture, but quite frankly Hitchcock himself could be on board and it would still be an utterly pointless project. Fortunately there seems to be no recent information on IMDb, suggesting the remake has been ditched – fingers crossed. If people can’t be bothered to read the subtitles, then they can just miss out on this little genre gem.

Like many of the “found footage” films of recent years, Troll Hunter takes the realistic medium and adds a supernatural twist. Echoing so many films that have gone before (the horror genre in particular is over-saturated with cheap, shaky hand-cam found footage movies), opening titles inform the viewer that what they are about to see is some of 200-plus hours of footage shot by a small group of students. This proviso also handily explains why the film is so neatly edited – dead time is missing, and the pace (unlike so many inferior films of the genre) is quick, because someone has helpfully compiled all the stock into a palatable movie. And then it begins: three college kids, Thomas (Glenn Erland Tosterud), the announcer, seen most often on the screen, Johanna (Johanna Mørck), in charge of capturing sound, and Kalle (Tomas Alf Larsen), the cameraman are out in the rugged wilderness of the Norwegian countryside apparently trying to shoot a film about bear poaching. Having spoken to some of the official bear hunters, it becomes evident that someone else is also on the hunt – a mysterious poacher with a ramshackle old caravan and a grumpy disposition. Initially reluctant to speak on camera, this gruff individual – Hans (Otto Jespersen) – eventually allows the trio to follow him on what turns out to be his troll hunting expeditions.

There’s so much to like about Troll Hunter. Despite its genre title and the overwhelming potential to be another disappointing, annoying, cheap found footage flick, it’s smart, dry, and expertly made, with some good jumpy moments and a healthy dash of humour. Poor Hans, Norway’s only troll hunter, finally agrees to be filmed not because he’s been caught out, but because he’s sick of all the bureaucracy and the lack of employment benefits – he doesn’t even get paid unsociable hours, despite being out hunting trolls every night. It’s a thankless job, and he’s sick of it. Like a troll-hunting Van Helsing, he works tirelessly to keep Norway safe and, although we find out very little about him, he seems to be a rather complex individual – worn out and tired of the bloodshed, yet unable to retire. In contrast, the kids – who we follow throughout the film – are excellent substitutes for the viewer: mildly irritating at the beginning, because of their doggedness more than anything, then suitably incredulous as Hans first comes rushing through the woods screaming, “Troooooooollll!” moments before something destroys their car and eats their tyres, then excited to be the ones documenting such a scoop.

And what a scoop it is. Also distinguishing it from the other cheap horror movies, Troll Hunter doesn’t shy away from showing its spectacle and, when the trolls are shown, they’re utterly delightful. They look exactly how trolls should look – depending on their breed, they’re furry, hairy, gigantic, have comically stupid-looking faces with bulbous potato-noses, yet still manage to look fearsome. As Hans says, they’re not the brightest creatures, but they’re still dangerous – particularly the ones the group are coming up against here, who seem to be acting especially erratically. It’s here also that it becomes so evident that a remake is pointless, because the trolls are so firmly embedded in Norwegian culture. The craggy, desolate but beautiful landscape has been shaped by the trolls – rocky patches of land are the result of feuding trolls throwing boulders at each other, for example. I’m sure native audiences would pick up on many more references, but even non-Norwegians ought to be familiar with some of the fairy tales mentioned in the film – there’s a clear reference to Three Billy Goats Gruff, for instance. There are also some interesting modern variations on classic themes – Hans warns the trio that they mustn’t believe in God, because trolls can smell the blood of a Christian man, yet later on no one is sure what will happen when a Muslim joins the group. It’s a wonderfully light touch, pointing out the flaws in local legends and pointing to the increased multiculturalism today (has anyone dealt with this in a vampire context, by the way? Would, for example, Indian vampires still fear the cross?!)

I’ve never been much of a fan of the found footage films – having had to watch far too many straight-to-DVD movies of the type for review purposes (like this one, or this), I’ve long tired of the shoddy, stomach-churning incoherence and unsatisfactory conclusions that dominate the style. Yet Troll Hunter stands apart from these shoddy disappointments: it’s great fun, clever and, unlike so many of the inferior examples, it truly delivers. By the end, I was completely sold: obviously there are trolls in Norway. Even the prime minister said so.

Film #103: Flesh Gordon 2 (1990)

Rating: 1.5/5

“You thought you’d killed me Gordon, but my drive for lust and power is relentless! Your penis – and MY brain – will be a marriage, made in Hell!”

This is definitely one of the stranger charity shop purchases – bought for about 20p on old VHS years ago, Flesh Gordon 2 (also known by the much niftier title, Flesh Gordon Meets the Cosmic Cheerleaders) is, as you might have guessed, a sex comedy rip-off of Flash Gordon. It’s also my first and only experience of either Flesh or Flash, and perhaps seeing the first one – this was made a whopping sixteen years after the first instalment – would have been useful. That being said, plot is generally irrelevant here, but I got the distinct feeling that the final reveal of the true identity of the Evil Presence would have made more sense had I some knowledge of the previous film’s characters.

The film opens with a strangely meta film-within-a-film – Flesh (Vince Murdocco) is travelling in his penis-shaped stop-motion spaceship (yes, it’s a subtle movie, this) with some thong-clad hotties, shooting re-enactments of his (s)exploits for his devoted Earth following. Soon, however, it goes horribly wrong, and poor Flesh is kidnapped by some other thong-clad alien hotties, the cosmic cheerleaders of the title, who intend to copulate with him because an impotence ray has rendered all the boys on their planet (particularly the Cod-Ball team – think a cross between basketball and baseball, but dirty) useless. Naturally, it’s up to Flesh’s Earthling girlfriend Dale (Robyn Kelly) and sex-scientist Dr Flexi Jerkoff (Tony Travis) to save Flesh and, by default, help restore erections to whatever planet the cheerleaders come from.

If the premise and the characters names haven’t already made it obvious, Flesh Gordon 2‘s humour is particularly juvenile, despite the 18-rating. I have no idea who its intended audience is – fourteen year old boys, perhaps? It’s crude and stupid – but largely inoffensive. It’s so tacky that it’s difficult to be insulted by the chicken-sex jokes, for instance. Were it not for the blatant sex themes (in an effort to hide from a gruesomely rampant penis-with-a-face, Flesh and Jerkoff hide in a “cave”, enter the womb and find the whole Cod-Ball team dressed as adult-babies) this would appeal to no one over the age of ten. Oddly, the sex-gags are interspersed with literal toilet humour – following the pair’s journey to the centre of the womb, they end up accidentally saving two trapped turds. The female turd has breasts. That being said, although it’s crude and insidiously stupid, it’s quite entertaining (I say this as a bad movie fan, it should be said) – it plays out like an X-rated Masters of the Universe, complete with doofus leading man.

Flesh himself, rather like He-Man, is utterly bland – reasonably good looking, in a 90s kind of way, he appears to have no personality whatsoever. Despite his name, he seems to be quite prudish (in his defence, he only had sex with that chicken to get the spaceship moving again). Like He-Man, he has about five lines of dialogue and none of them are particularly memorable, but the role is hardly a taxing one. (On a sidenote, since this glittering debut, Murdocco has gone on to become a reasonably successful stuntman, appearing in a number of Marvel films).The rest of the acting is equally nondescript, with the exception of Bruce Scott as the Evil Presence’s mad scientist Master Bator (Scott is also responsible for the film’s soundtrack) – wide-eyed and manic, he’s like a low-rent Christopher Lloyd on Viagra.

In a way, the film’s message is actually quite encouraging – as well as stealing everyone’s mojo, the Evil Presence is evil because he wants to dominate women (he’s just interested in his own pleasure) and, in the… climactic… final fight between him and Flesh, our hero chastises him for this mentality. Yet the progressive message is somewhat lost in the mass of thongs (not just on the females, it should be said – this is an equal-opportunities buttock-flashing movie) and the fact that the good guys routinely grope whatever female is nearby. There’s also something uncomfortable about the fact that the cosmic cheerleaders appear to be schoolkids – they go to classes, have lockers lined along the corridors, and generally act like teenagers, not adults. While this mirrors the general tone of the film, the constant vulgarities and fetish jokes seem more than a little out of place in this context. At the risk of sounding flippant, however, this seems like the wrong kind of film to be reading sex- or gender- politics through – it’s obviously not meant to be taken seriously. The acting is wooden, the sets are reminiscent of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 or Red Dwarf – deliberately tacky, but also just plain shoddy, and the story is merely a guise to allow the characters to move from one juvenile sex joke to the next. This is not the movie for anyone who gets easily offended, or, to be honest, anyone old enough to actually watch it. Put it this way: if your first instinct when confronted with a calculator is to write 8008 and then giggle, you’ll probably enjoy this movie. (Heh heh, boob.)