A Nightmare on Elm Street
written and directed by Wes Craven
starring John Saxon, Robert Englund, Ronee Blakley, Heather Langenkamp, Amanda Wyss, Jsu Garcia, Johnny Depp, Charles Fleischer.
We still do not know much if anything about our dreams, suggests a doctor doing research into dreams in this film. In this film, the dream scape is unleashed upon cold, waking reality and possesses the ability to kill the unwitting while they sleep.
A decade after an angry mob of parents burnt alive famed serial child murderer Fred Krueger (Englund) he has returned to haunt the dreams of their children.
Fred Krueger seems to have had a special relationship with the local children. We don’t learn specifics only that he lured and butchered a great number of them before finally being caught. Due to a technicality he was set free but was unable to enjoy his solitude for very long because the raging fury of the parents of the dead children swarmed upon him and took their anger and frustration out on him. Like all great cinematic spooks Krueger could not be put down so readily and he made it his mission to make them pay for their mistake.
The film deftly explores the relationship between the dream state and reality through several characters who encounter Krueger in their dreams and return to waking life with physical evidence of what occurred. The prospect is immensely attractive and cinema and fiction writers have been trying for centuries to fully express the implications that such possibilities inherently suggest. This film is an inspired rebuff to our hopes regarding this potentiality because with great bounty comes great sorrow. This is just one manifestation of the idea but naturally there are many more.
Fred Krueger reached a level of infamy in death that very few achieve in life. He became a fiend of such depraved magnitude that the very mention of his name was enough to chill the bones of those left to remember.
Tina Gray (Wyss) has a terrible nightmare where she is being threatened by a horrifically burnt man wearing a tattered green and red striped sweater and with razor-sharped knives extending from the fingers on his right hand. She wakes up with slash marks on her dress as proof of her experience in the dream. She learns that her friend Nancy Thompson (Langenkamp) has been dreaming of the same figure.
Fred Krueger once terrorized the entire community when he stalked, captured, and murdered over twenty children. Yet he has managed to make a deal with his custodians in Hell and been allowed to enter into the dreams of anyone he chooses. It’s not so clear just where the ability to transfer dream characters and objects into real life comes from. It’s not all Krueger’s doing because Nancy is able to drag his hat back with her when she snatches it off of his head just before waking up.
Tina and her boyfried Rod Lane (Garcia) have intense sex and fall asleep. Freddy comes back for her and this time he gets her and brutally murders her while Rod watches in amazement. It’s a fairly thrilling death sequence as she is dragged up a wall and across the ceiling with blood splattered everywhere. Rod is arrested and Freddy hangs him in his cell. Nancy and her boyfriend Glen Lantz (Depp) devise a plan to defeat Freddy but Glen falls asleep and is obliterated in his bed with an impressive spew of flesh and bone spewing toward and coating the entire ceiling. This leaves Nancy alone to deal with the beast so tenaciously assaulting her in her dreams.
So, much of the film deals with Nancy’s continuous torments at the hands of Fred Krueger. In one key scene she is in the tub and the camera is placed at the end so we see her with her legs spread open as the knife-hand emerges from the water. It’s a strangely telling scene that illustrates the sexual nature of Krueger’s intent toward Nancy. It suggests that he is interested in mutilating her sexually or at least violating her in some way. Krueger tends to lay on his victims on occasion simulating a rape. He is more driven by sex than, say, Jason Voorhees, or even Michael Myers. Krueger is not repelled by sex and seems to rather enjoy it whenever he’s afforded an opportunity to get near it.
Nancy is really still a girl trying to make sense of the changes that are occurring in her body. She is not they typical oversexed female teen who has populated so many modern day horror films. She’s much more modest and self-effacing. She doesn’t use her sexuality to manipulate others mostly because she hasn’t been trained, however, subliminally, in the art of seduction. Perhaps it is this girlish quality that attracts Krueger to her. She reminds him perhaps of one of the little girls he raped and slaughtered and he’s eager to relive that experience through her.
Lucid dreaming is explored subtly in this film as Nancy on several occasions attempts to remind her dream Self that what she is experiencing is only a dream. However, awareness is not enough to combat the sinister machinations of Fred Krueger. Eventually, Nancy learns a trick and uses it to (albeit temporarily) defeat Krueger which is something she learned earlier in the film from Glen.
The film employs expert lighting techniques and sound cues to create a legitimately frightening landscape that it maintains throughout. The opening sequence sets up the tone effectively and generates a considerable amount of chills in the audience. Tina is in a boiler room where she is being taunted by Krueger. She’s wearing a sheer nightgown, taunting him with her form readily apparent beneath the fabric. She is alluring and he is terribly excited. He wants her but is most likely impotent. Did he not sexualize his child victims or was it just a matter of predator catches prey with no overt sexual content attached to the killings? These new victims are supposed to be fifteen and yet Krueger murdered children much younger than that. So, why did he wait so long for these kids to become teen-agers? If the thrill was strictly with one age group, then one would expect it to remain so through the special avenue of dreams.
Fred Kreuger possesses all of the frenetic posturings of the oversexed killer. His problems most likely stem from sexual inadequacies which explains why he would target children as they are not likely to point out and subsequently laugh about any shortcomings.
With her friends dead Nancy takes it upon herself to bring Krueger out of her dreams in order to defeat him. In a rather imaginative final battle sequence she uses her ingenuity to assist in her capture of the demonic child killer. The ending is wonderfully ambiguous as it always must be in top notch horror films. Here, it appears as if the dream state cannot be properly absolved of its complicity in creating horror for the victims on Elm Street.
The performances in this film are all effective for this genre. Heather Langenkamp captures her character’s essential naivety and stresses Nancy’s lack of full maturity into womanhood. Langenkamp allows us to follow her character through her dreams and out into waking reality. Johnny Depp, in his first feature role, is believable in a quiet role. His character’s most dramatic moment comes with his death; otherwise, he’s secondary to the true thrust of the narrative. John Saxon is quite impressive as a character that represents law and order or the perfectly rational against all of the chthonic and measureless forms that populate dreams. Robert Englund is magnetic and infinitely creepy as the butcher of children who has found himself a most eventful and delightful new hobby in Hell. Englund provides audiences with a character who is, to the minds of most folks, utterly evil, and manages to make him likable throughout.
Overall, this film does everything it needs to do in order to create a world of legitimate horror. Fred Krueger is an audacious character who nevertheless is easy to get behind. Certainly, he’s a notorious killer who has taken the lives of many children but he’s also something of a dark romantic hero. He’s a villain with a terrific bloodlust who is necessarily fascinating to observe. He goes about his business with maniacal efficiency and one can’t help but admire his fortitude and his perseverance. The characters are all well written and their stories come off as believable.
Ultimately, this film stands as one of most consistently entertaining horror films in the genre. It gets under the skin and most certainly disrupts the dreams of those who encounter it.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Film Review--Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday
Jason Goes to Hell
directed by Adam Marcus
written by Adam Marcus and Jay Huguely
starring Kane Hodder, John D. LeMay, Keri Keegan, Steven Williams, Steven Culp, Erin Gray, Rusty Schwimmer, Richard Gant, Andrew Bloch
In the ninth installment of the popular gore fest, Jason goes airborne and is suddenly capable of infecting others with a mangy virus and taking over their bodies in order to kill.
The film opens with a dodgy FBI operation where Jason (Hodder) is pulled into a trap with a slinky undercover agent who lures him into showing up at the cabin with her slick, sexy shower tricks. Jason is essentially obliterated and his body parts are gathered up and taken to the morgue where his crusty beating heart is eaten by the coroner (Gant). Jason enters the coroner’s body and the mayhem begins.
There is much carnage including a trio of randy kids out for some kicks at Camp Crystal Lake. Jason returns and quickly eliminates them before we hardly get their names. Still, as is always the case, it’s never a good idea to have sex anywhere near Crystal Lake because Jason abhors intimacy and must annihilate it at every turn.
The film explores new lunacy in the Jason mythos. We discover that he has a half-sister named Diane Kimble (Gray) and that he can only be killed with a magic dagger by one of his female kin. That leaves Diane, her daughter Jessica (Keegan) and Jessica’s daughter Stephanie. The film gets really wacky in the end as the great climax comes to a close. There are elements of Aliens that just don’t seem to work here. It’s comical rather than being dramatically effective.
Jason infects his targets by transferring a thick black ooze into their throats. Apparently this act replaces their hearts and he takes over operations from there. In one scene Jason actually kidnaps a policeman named Josh (Bloch) and straps him to a table before replacing his heart. From here there are many more deaths including that of Diane which is blamed on Steven (LeMay), Jessica’s former boyfriend and father of her child.
The story is fairly convoluted and includes a Crime show host named Robert (Culp) who decides to jazz his line up a bit by stealing Diane’s corpse and filming a show at the old Voorhees place. Of course he becomes the next empty shell killer when Josh does the whole ooze transfer on him. He too murders many people and naturally there are complications with Jessica.
So, this story has some interesting, if not wholly original ideas to play around with. Having Jason possess the ability to take up a new body when the old one is a bit creaky is fairly well-heeled territory. The film doesn’t do anything novel with the premise and we are actually left with a slimy black creature that comes out of Jason’s mouth looking for a way to be born. He finds a way and it’s the most interesting aspect of the film. The visual repercussions of the scene resonate long after the film is over.
Steven is the main mail protagonist in this film as he gets himself caught square up in the middle of the killing spree by merely being in he wrong place at the wrong time. He’s somewhat ineffectual but he can take and throw a punch. Still, he’s lacking in a discernible personality which drags the film down considerably whenever he’s on screen. He’s paired up with yet another charisma-lite female character who is supposed to force audiences into caring but we don’t care for her and we certainly could care less about her damn baby. I think it would have been a find idea to have Jason possess the baby and make her into a killer of other babies in playpens and such. It would be cool to have her smothering all the fat little babies in the neighborhood when their mothers come over to knit.
Jason Voorhees hardly makes an appearance here as himself. He fills the bodies of at least four men and we are given the succinct privilege of watching them hack their way to orgasmic oblivion. Admittedly, it’s just not the same as when Jason does it in his own flesh. His body, gnarled and rotten, adds a certain grittiness to his killing sprees which is completely lost in the new versions. It seems like a decent idea but the application is all wrong and the end result is essentially disappointment that this could have been something potentially more unnerving and toxic. Instead, it’s just silliness from beginning to end; once the final scenes commence you know you are in the place where interesting scenarios go to die. These ideas were not properly thought out and leave the viewer in a state of acute perplexity.
The film features a bounty hunter named Creighton Duke (Williams) who apparently is the only one who knows how to stop Jason. At the beginning of the film he offers his services to a TV station for $500,000 and they accept. All he has at his disposal is one tiny bit of information that he has culled from some source or another. That’s all he has although it does turn out to be a very valuable piece of info. It’s just not worth the money he demands from his potential client. So, he stands on the sidelines as Jessica goes about doing her business with the magic dagger. We know its magic because green light surrounds it when she picks it up. This also occurs whenever Jason transplants his heart into another body. It’s corny and turns the film into something completely outside the realm populated by the earlier films in the series.
Overall, the film isn’t as scary as it ought to be. The premise is fairly sound and there are plenty of opportunities to create a brutal, uncompromising film experience but it just never quite turns out that way. It’s comical in a way that the film makers most likely never intended although the men who are the recipients of Jason’s heart look like proper zombies with their mouths caked in blood and their frenetic killing styles. Ultimately, there is nothing in this film that requires Jason’s presence whatsoever. It could have been made with an entirely different character. It’s a Friday the 13th film without its star player and the result is entirely underwhelming.
directed by Adam Marcus
written by Adam Marcus and Jay Huguely
starring Kane Hodder, John D. LeMay, Keri Keegan, Steven Williams, Steven Culp, Erin Gray, Rusty Schwimmer, Richard Gant, Andrew Bloch
In the ninth installment of the popular gore fest, Jason goes airborne and is suddenly capable of infecting others with a mangy virus and taking over their bodies in order to kill.
The film opens with a dodgy FBI operation where Jason (Hodder) is pulled into a trap with a slinky undercover agent who lures him into showing up at the cabin with her slick, sexy shower tricks. Jason is essentially obliterated and his body parts are gathered up and taken to the morgue where his crusty beating heart is eaten by the coroner (Gant). Jason enters the coroner’s body and the mayhem begins.
There is much carnage including a trio of randy kids out for some kicks at Camp Crystal Lake. Jason returns and quickly eliminates them before we hardly get their names. Still, as is always the case, it’s never a good idea to have sex anywhere near Crystal Lake because Jason abhors intimacy and must annihilate it at every turn.
The film explores new lunacy in the Jason mythos. We discover that he has a half-sister named Diane Kimble (Gray) and that he can only be killed with a magic dagger by one of his female kin. That leaves Diane, her daughter Jessica (Keegan) and Jessica’s daughter Stephanie. The film gets really wacky in the end as the great climax comes to a close. There are elements of Aliens that just don’t seem to work here. It’s comical rather than being dramatically effective.
Jason infects his targets by transferring a thick black ooze into their throats. Apparently this act replaces their hearts and he takes over operations from there. In one scene Jason actually kidnaps a policeman named Josh (Bloch) and straps him to a table before replacing his heart. From here there are many more deaths including that of Diane which is blamed on Steven (LeMay), Jessica’s former boyfriend and father of her child.
The story is fairly convoluted and includes a Crime show host named Robert (Culp) who decides to jazz his line up a bit by stealing Diane’s corpse and filming a show at the old Voorhees place. Of course he becomes the next empty shell killer when Josh does the whole ooze transfer on him. He too murders many people and naturally there are complications with Jessica.
So, this story has some interesting, if not wholly original ideas to play around with. Having Jason possess the ability to take up a new body when the old one is a bit creaky is fairly well-heeled territory. The film doesn’t do anything novel with the premise and we are actually left with a slimy black creature that comes out of Jason’s mouth looking for a way to be born. He finds a way and it’s the most interesting aspect of the film. The visual repercussions of the scene resonate long after the film is over.
Steven is the main mail protagonist in this film as he gets himself caught square up in the middle of the killing spree by merely being in he wrong place at the wrong time. He’s somewhat ineffectual but he can take and throw a punch. Still, he’s lacking in a discernible personality which drags the film down considerably whenever he’s on screen. He’s paired up with yet another charisma-lite female character who is supposed to force audiences into caring but we don’t care for her and we certainly could care less about her damn baby. I think it would have been a find idea to have Jason possess the baby and make her into a killer of other babies in playpens and such. It would be cool to have her smothering all the fat little babies in the neighborhood when their mothers come over to knit.
Jason Voorhees hardly makes an appearance here as himself. He fills the bodies of at least four men and we are given the succinct privilege of watching them hack their way to orgasmic oblivion. Admittedly, it’s just not the same as when Jason does it in his own flesh. His body, gnarled and rotten, adds a certain grittiness to his killing sprees which is completely lost in the new versions. It seems like a decent idea but the application is all wrong and the end result is essentially disappointment that this could have been something potentially more unnerving and toxic. Instead, it’s just silliness from beginning to end; once the final scenes commence you know you are in the place where interesting scenarios go to die. These ideas were not properly thought out and leave the viewer in a state of acute perplexity.
The film features a bounty hunter named Creighton Duke (Williams) who apparently is the only one who knows how to stop Jason. At the beginning of the film he offers his services to a TV station for $500,000 and they accept. All he has at his disposal is one tiny bit of information that he has culled from some source or another. That’s all he has although it does turn out to be a very valuable piece of info. It’s just not worth the money he demands from his potential client. So, he stands on the sidelines as Jessica goes about doing her business with the magic dagger. We know its magic because green light surrounds it when she picks it up. This also occurs whenever Jason transplants his heart into another body. It’s corny and turns the film into something completely outside the realm populated by the earlier films in the series.
Overall, the film isn’t as scary as it ought to be. The premise is fairly sound and there are plenty of opportunities to create a brutal, uncompromising film experience but it just never quite turns out that way. It’s comical in a way that the film makers most likely never intended although the men who are the recipients of Jason’s heart look like proper zombies with their mouths caked in blood and their frenetic killing styles. Ultimately, there is nothing in this film that requires Jason’s presence whatsoever. It could have been made with an entirely different character. It’s a Friday the 13th film without its star player and the result is entirely underwhelming.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Film Review--Andy Warhol's Trash
Trash
written and directed by Paul Morrissey
starring Joe Dallesandro, Andrea Feldman, Holly Woodlawn, Geri Miller, John Putnam, Jane Forth, Bruce Pecheur, Diane Podel
Andy Warhol presents a sleazy underground tour through decadence and rampant drug abuse featuring Paul Morrissey’s leading hunk Joe Dallesandro.
The film opens with a woman named Geri (Miller) trying to give head to burnt out lover, Joe (Dallesandro). He’s been on the junk too long and can no longer get it up. No problem, Geri decided to shake her ass a bit and jumps up on stage to do a little strip number for Joe. Still, there’s nothing happening and all poor Joe can do is complain that he hasn’t got another fix.
Joe and Holly (Woodlawn) are living together and she also complains that Joe cannot achieve an erection. They are ghastily poor and she collects garbage and brings it back to furnish her apartment. He spends much of his time whining about scoring and when he does finally get loaded he passes out and it seems as if he might actually be dead. He goes to visit a rich girl (Feldman) who chatters on for days before he finally shuts her up by nearly raping her. He finally ends up trying to break into the house owned by Bruce (Pecheur) and Jane (Forth). Jane is a buttoned-up ice queen who nevertheless tries to convince Joe to sleep with her and Bruce. Joe agrees and then they let him shoot up while ogling his gear. Naturally, Joe nods off and Bruce kicks him naked out of the house.
There is ample sex and nudity including some bits that have a kinkiness aspect to them. Holly uses a beer bottle in an exceedingly exaggerated pantomime to get off. Joe nearly has sex with Holly’s sister (Podel) who is pregnant.
This feels like a deliberate push for smut without fully exploring hard core sex. It’s fairly light fare although the sex does have a gritty, raw quality that is a step up from most sexploitation cinema. The characters seem to be begging for release; they writhe and they nearly all appear to be famished for something be it sex, drugs, fame, power.
This is a well acted film although I’m not sure how much of the dialog is improvised. Regardless, the scenes all seem natural and the characters are entirely believable. These are the sort of people one wishes they could meet and get really high with. Their trashy like the best of all the Warhol superstars were in real life. It’s not a stretch to believe that these folks are really just playing themselves although I highly doubt that Dallesandro has ever had the same problem as his character in this film.
It’s true that it’s impossible to take your eyes off of Mr. Dallesandro. He’s got a remarkable presence throughout the film and he’s a born leading man. His charisma is really subdued in this film considering how often he passes out but it works entirely too well. He’s at ease in front of the camera and possesses fine attributes that serve him well in the film.
Andrea Feldman has a voice that is absolutely original and impossible to forget once it crawls into one’s skull. It’s got a sing song quality that is truly hypnotic and its genuinely thrilling to hear her rattle on about her $800 fur coat or how much she just has to take LSD. She’s loaded and living rather low which mimics personas like Edie Sedgewick who also spent a considerable amount of time slumming. Another interesting twist is that both Edie and Andrea Feldman died rather young. Edie died at 28 of an accidental barbiturate overdose and Andrea jumped out of 14th floor apartment in New York when she was 24.
There is a vibrancy to this film that is generated practically from the first frame. Dallesandro’s dead wood quickly morphs into a tantalizing erotic dance and this carries over to the rest of the film. There isn’t a tremendous amount of action in this film and indeed most of it consists of characters sitting around talking about or doing drugs. For Joe, his entire life consists of scoring or shooting up. He doesn’t seem to have any other ambitions besides getting high and getting laid although he can’t even successfully do that any more. By the end of the film he is even more tired than usual and he and Holly create a plan for straightening out their lives and becoming more respectable. Apparently they are so low that they don’t even qualify for welfare so they concoct a scheme to procure it. It’s strange that Holly considers Welfare to be a ticket to respectability but she most definitely believes it.
Much of the film has a very open quality to it and the camera work is quite loose as quite a bit of it is done with a hand held. The camera moves about–sometimes its shaky or blurry–and the film occasionally has a documentary feel to it. Certainly the actors and the subject matter are not exactly divorced from one another and their interaction with the material has a solid ring of truth behind it.
The performances in this film are as mentioned entirely natural. There isn’t very much actual acting in this film and it works considerably well. Holly Woodlawn is simply brilliant at playing a quasi-hysterical mad woman who is absolutely afflicted with glamor that she owns completely. Joe Dallesandro doesn’t really have to say anything whatsoever in this film and he comes across like a million bucks. He’s one of the few actors that can literally melt celluloid with a look. Andrea Feldman does a dance through a field of skulls in this film and her voice is positively sublime. Jane Forth plays a plastic princess with a terribly wicked heart. Her character comes across as a bored housewife type who wants nothing more than to crawl about in the filth for a while looking for an experience that will completely ravish and terrify her.
Overall, this is a smart collision of robust sexuality and degradation stolen from the anus of fear. It’s gloriously filmed, the actors are all a smashing good time, and it actually manages to feel like not being able to procure one’s medicine and being broke. It’s got an oozing stickiness to it that is seemingly too difficult for other similarly themed films to pull off. It’s a success in that it creates an actual physical reaction to the film that is unsettling and discomforting. One wants to immediately eat a salad, run fifteen miles, and plant a tree. Ultimately, this film expresses a certain life that is both exciting and nauseating. It gives us characters who are slightly deranged and perfectly loveable for it. The story can be read as being about bored kids with nothing much to do finding their entertainment in whatever avenue is most convenient. The kids are alright in the end.
written and directed by Paul Morrissey
starring Joe Dallesandro, Andrea Feldman, Holly Woodlawn, Geri Miller, John Putnam, Jane Forth, Bruce Pecheur, Diane Podel
Andy Warhol presents a sleazy underground tour through decadence and rampant drug abuse featuring Paul Morrissey’s leading hunk Joe Dallesandro.
The film opens with a woman named Geri (Miller) trying to give head to burnt out lover, Joe (Dallesandro). He’s been on the junk too long and can no longer get it up. No problem, Geri decided to shake her ass a bit and jumps up on stage to do a little strip number for Joe. Still, there’s nothing happening and all poor Joe can do is complain that he hasn’t got another fix.
Joe and Holly (Woodlawn) are living together and she also complains that Joe cannot achieve an erection. They are ghastily poor and she collects garbage and brings it back to furnish her apartment. He spends much of his time whining about scoring and when he does finally get loaded he passes out and it seems as if he might actually be dead. He goes to visit a rich girl (Feldman) who chatters on for days before he finally shuts her up by nearly raping her. He finally ends up trying to break into the house owned by Bruce (Pecheur) and Jane (Forth). Jane is a buttoned-up ice queen who nevertheless tries to convince Joe to sleep with her and Bruce. Joe agrees and then they let him shoot up while ogling his gear. Naturally, Joe nods off and Bruce kicks him naked out of the house.
There is ample sex and nudity including some bits that have a kinkiness aspect to them. Holly uses a beer bottle in an exceedingly exaggerated pantomime to get off. Joe nearly has sex with Holly’s sister (Podel) who is pregnant.
This feels like a deliberate push for smut without fully exploring hard core sex. It’s fairly light fare although the sex does have a gritty, raw quality that is a step up from most sexploitation cinema. The characters seem to be begging for release; they writhe and they nearly all appear to be famished for something be it sex, drugs, fame, power.
This is a well acted film although I’m not sure how much of the dialog is improvised. Regardless, the scenes all seem natural and the characters are entirely believable. These are the sort of people one wishes they could meet and get really high with. Their trashy like the best of all the Warhol superstars were in real life. It’s not a stretch to believe that these folks are really just playing themselves although I highly doubt that Dallesandro has ever had the same problem as his character in this film.
It’s true that it’s impossible to take your eyes off of Mr. Dallesandro. He’s got a remarkable presence throughout the film and he’s a born leading man. His charisma is really subdued in this film considering how often he passes out but it works entirely too well. He’s at ease in front of the camera and possesses fine attributes that serve him well in the film.
Andrea Feldman has a voice that is absolutely original and impossible to forget once it crawls into one’s skull. It’s got a sing song quality that is truly hypnotic and its genuinely thrilling to hear her rattle on about her $800 fur coat or how much she just has to take LSD. She’s loaded and living rather low which mimics personas like Edie Sedgewick who also spent a considerable amount of time slumming. Another interesting twist is that both Edie and Andrea Feldman died rather young. Edie died at 28 of an accidental barbiturate overdose and Andrea jumped out of 14th floor apartment in New York when she was 24.
There is a vibrancy to this film that is generated practically from the first frame. Dallesandro’s dead wood quickly morphs into a tantalizing erotic dance and this carries over to the rest of the film. There isn’t a tremendous amount of action in this film and indeed most of it consists of characters sitting around talking about or doing drugs. For Joe, his entire life consists of scoring or shooting up. He doesn’t seem to have any other ambitions besides getting high and getting laid although he can’t even successfully do that any more. By the end of the film he is even more tired than usual and he and Holly create a plan for straightening out their lives and becoming more respectable. Apparently they are so low that they don’t even qualify for welfare so they concoct a scheme to procure it. It’s strange that Holly considers Welfare to be a ticket to respectability but she most definitely believes it.
Much of the film has a very open quality to it and the camera work is quite loose as quite a bit of it is done with a hand held. The camera moves about–sometimes its shaky or blurry–and the film occasionally has a documentary feel to it. Certainly the actors and the subject matter are not exactly divorced from one another and their interaction with the material has a solid ring of truth behind it.
The performances in this film are as mentioned entirely natural. There isn’t very much actual acting in this film and it works considerably well. Holly Woodlawn is simply brilliant at playing a quasi-hysterical mad woman who is absolutely afflicted with glamor that she owns completely. Joe Dallesandro doesn’t really have to say anything whatsoever in this film and he comes across like a million bucks. He’s one of the few actors that can literally melt celluloid with a look. Andrea Feldman does a dance through a field of skulls in this film and her voice is positively sublime. Jane Forth plays a plastic princess with a terribly wicked heart. Her character comes across as a bored housewife type who wants nothing more than to crawl about in the filth for a while looking for an experience that will completely ravish and terrify her.
Overall, this is a smart collision of robust sexuality and degradation stolen from the anus of fear. It’s gloriously filmed, the actors are all a smashing good time, and it actually manages to feel like not being able to procure one’s medicine and being broke. It’s got an oozing stickiness to it that is seemingly too difficult for other similarly themed films to pull off. It’s a success in that it creates an actual physical reaction to the film that is unsettling and discomforting. One wants to immediately eat a salad, run fifteen miles, and plant a tree. Ultimately, this film expresses a certain life that is both exciting and nauseating. It gives us characters who are slightly deranged and perfectly loveable for it. The story can be read as being about bored kids with nothing much to do finding their entertainment in whatever avenue is most convenient. The kids are alright in the end.
Film Reviews--L'Humanite
L’Humanité
written and directed by Bruno Dumont
starring Emmanuel Schotté, Séverine Caneele, Philippe Tullier, Ghislain Ghesquère, Ginette Allegre
Employing extended takes, a static camera, and deliberate pacing this film explores the language of horror and acute grief.
A young girl has been found dead in a field; she has been raped and bitten on the throat. Police Superintendent Pharaon De Winter (Schotté) is beginning the arduous task of gathering clues to determine who is responsible for the crime. His investigation leads him to the school bus the girl, named Nadege, rode for the last time as well as a mental hospital.
The pacing of the film is exceedingly deliberate as it allows the audience to pause and look at things for a great length of time. It focuses its attention on the faces of the characters and stays on them to allow the viewer to examine their micro-emotions to help determine their real feelings regarding whatever is troubling.
De Winter is beset with grief for pretty much the entire film. He looks worn, tired, and anguished over what he has seen. Indeed, he cannot let go of it; it haunts him wherever he turns. He seems particularly disturbed whenever he sees girls the same age as Nadege out on the street. He routinely pauses to stare at them for what amounts to an uncomfortable amount of time. Of course one cannot get inside his head but there are many possibilities as to why he lingers on the children and not all of them are decent. Still, one should not expect the worst in this case because there is no other evidence in the film to corroborate it. De Winter also has a habit of rubbing his face against the faces of other men. He does it with a man being interrogated, a doctor at the mental institution, and with the man who committed the deed. For the last one he goes further and kisses him strangely on the mouth. It doesn’t make any sense in the context of the film other than to display the pent up emotions that are welling up inside him. At one point in the film De Winter screams repeatedly after walking past the place where it happened.
Domino (Caneele) is a neighbor of De Winter’s and they are close friends. De Winter is gravely attracted to Domino and there is much tension between them from the beginning of the film although Domino shows no obvious signs of interest. Domino is dating Joseph (Tullier), a sour school bus driver with a foul mouth and surly disposition. .
Each scene features extended takes that explore the limitations of cinema with a rather documentary style. The camera is stationary for much of the film as all action is reduced to taking place within the frame. There are scenes where characters are moving from one place to another and the camera will show the entire journey from a few different angles. The film becomes a contemplation during these scenes as the viewer is allowed the opportunity to think about the nature of the film and existential queries that have developed. There are many such questions. What is the anatomy of sorrow? Is grief a sickness and is there an immediate cure? Is it possible to not sexualize the rape and murder of an eleven year old girl?
De Winter is fraught with anxiety for the entire duration of the film. He finds it difficult, if not impossible, to work through his feelings regarding the girl’s murder. Indeed, his breathing is often heavy and shallow, he is testy with his mother, and he is taunted by the relationship between Domino and Joseph. He doesn’t let it show very often but he is exceedingly attracted to Domino and this upsets him deeply. During one scene Domino decides to initiate some physical contact with De Winter. She tells him that he can touch her wherever he wants and proceeds to digitally penetrate herself. De Winter appears disgusted and promptly walks out leaving Domino to contemplate the cruelty of her act.
There are several sex scenes between Domino and Joseph that seem entirely out of place in this film; they are fairly graphic and animalistic. They don’t do anything to further the narrative and seem altogether gratuitous. There are many scenes that feature female genitals. There is the close up of the young girl’s sexual organs, the three sex scenes, a close up of Domino on her back with her legs spread and finally, the insertion of the finger into the vagina. One cannot help but wonder after the motivation for such scenes. It’s impossible to come up with a justification for such moments because there isn’t one. Naughty bits in cinema only work when the are directly related to the story being told. Here they just are, by themselves, apparently shown to demonstrate that Joseph has a healthy sexual appetite. Otherwise they serve no purpose.
There are moments of sheer, unadulterated beauty throughout this film. It’s filmed in relatively flat terrain and it allows the viewer to take in the boundless, seemingly infinite horizons that seem to go on forever. This openness works very well throughout the film to articulate the impossibility to contain the death of the girl and to make much sense of it. It is scattered across the sky and one cannot fully grasp it because it defies explanation. How does one explain the horrible, brutal death of an eleven year old girl? There are no words that allow most of us to comprehend the severity of the act. Of course when one thinks about the needs and desires of the one who committed the crime, then it becomes easier to understand. One can gain insight when one can see the deed itself through his eyes and work through his mind to process it as it occurs without any moral hand wringing. As this has proven to be impossible for most persons it remains thoroughly experimental at this stage.
The film plays like a tone poem to the many facets of despair. The camera hovers agonizingly over the faces of the characters articulating a deeply felt and overbearing torment that informs the girl’s horrific death with tremendous sadness. Specifically, there are numerous shots of De Winter’s face that clearly show his fragile emotional state as he attempts to come to terms with the crime. He occasionally hides his face in his hands as if he cannot bear the burden of knowing that such a thing is possible and that it could happen to such a bubbly, lovely creature who has given no cause to be treated so barbarically.
The performances in this film are natural and believable. Emmanuel Schotté captures his character’s overarching loneliness and grief with an admirable clarity. De Winter is a wholly sympathetic character who Schotté deftly conveys with warmth and tremendous calm. Séverine Caneele possesses a quiet dignity throughout the film. Her character comes off as knowing and terribly understanding. Philippe Tullier gives us a terminally crass character who is often shown to be uncouth and slightly unhinged.
Overall, this is a devastatingly mournful film that seeps into the skin and remains there long after the film has concluded. There is a coldness about it, almost clinical, that is rooted in the sense of loss that is readily felt from the beginning. It shows how terrible things can leave a lasting impression on those whose job it is to deal with the aftermath while struggling to maintain their sense of personal order. De Winter is simply a man whose nature is such that crimes of this sort do not simply wash over him. He is the type that is haunted by such cruelties and therefore susceptible to emotional strain that plays on him routinely and keeps him menacingly by the throat.
written and directed by Bruno Dumont
starring Emmanuel Schotté, Séverine Caneele, Philippe Tullier, Ghislain Ghesquère, Ginette Allegre
Employing extended takes, a static camera, and deliberate pacing this film explores the language of horror and acute grief.
A young girl has been found dead in a field; she has been raped and bitten on the throat. Police Superintendent Pharaon De Winter (Schotté) is beginning the arduous task of gathering clues to determine who is responsible for the crime. His investigation leads him to the school bus the girl, named Nadege, rode for the last time as well as a mental hospital.
The pacing of the film is exceedingly deliberate as it allows the audience to pause and look at things for a great length of time. It focuses its attention on the faces of the characters and stays on them to allow the viewer to examine their micro-emotions to help determine their real feelings regarding whatever is troubling.
De Winter is beset with grief for pretty much the entire film. He looks worn, tired, and anguished over what he has seen. Indeed, he cannot let go of it; it haunts him wherever he turns. He seems particularly disturbed whenever he sees girls the same age as Nadege out on the street. He routinely pauses to stare at them for what amounts to an uncomfortable amount of time. Of course one cannot get inside his head but there are many possibilities as to why he lingers on the children and not all of them are decent. Still, one should not expect the worst in this case because there is no other evidence in the film to corroborate it. De Winter also has a habit of rubbing his face against the faces of other men. He does it with a man being interrogated, a doctor at the mental institution, and with the man who committed the deed. For the last one he goes further and kisses him strangely on the mouth. It doesn’t make any sense in the context of the film other than to display the pent up emotions that are welling up inside him. At one point in the film De Winter screams repeatedly after walking past the place where it happened.
Domino (Caneele) is a neighbor of De Winter’s and they are close friends. De Winter is gravely attracted to Domino and there is much tension between them from the beginning of the film although Domino shows no obvious signs of interest. Domino is dating Joseph (Tullier), a sour school bus driver with a foul mouth and surly disposition. .
Each scene features extended takes that explore the limitations of cinema with a rather documentary style. The camera is stationary for much of the film as all action is reduced to taking place within the frame. There are scenes where characters are moving from one place to another and the camera will show the entire journey from a few different angles. The film becomes a contemplation during these scenes as the viewer is allowed the opportunity to think about the nature of the film and existential queries that have developed. There are many such questions. What is the anatomy of sorrow? Is grief a sickness and is there an immediate cure? Is it possible to not sexualize the rape and murder of an eleven year old girl?
De Winter is fraught with anxiety for the entire duration of the film. He finds it difficult, if not impossible, to work through his feelings regarding the girl’s murder. Indeed, his breathing is often heavy and shallow, he is testy with his mother, and he is taunted by the relationship between Domino and Joseph. He doesn’t let it show very often but he is exceedingly attracted to Domino and this upsets him deeply. During one scene Domino decides to initiate some physical contact with De Winter. She tells him that he can touch her wherever he wants and proceeds to digitally penetrate herself. De Winter appears disgusted and promptly walks out leaving Domino to contemplate the cruelty of her act.
There are several sex scenes between Domino and Joseph that seem entirely out of place in this film; they are fairly graphic and animalistic. They don’t do anything to further the narrative and seem altogether gratuitous. There are many scenes that feature female genitals. There is the close up of the young girl’s sexual organs, the three sex scenes, a close up of Domino on her back with her legs spread and finally, the insertion of the finger into the vagina. One cannot help but wonder after the motivation for such scenes. It’s impossible to come up with a justification for such moments because there isn’t one. Naughty bits in cinema only work when the are directly related to the story being told. Here they just are, by themselves, apparently shown to demonstrate that Joseph has a healthy sexual appetite. Otherwise they serve no purpose.
There are moments of sheer, unadulterated beauty throughout this film. It’s filmed in relatively flat terrain and it allows the viewer to take in the boundless, seemingly infinite horizons that seem to go on forever. This openness works very well throughout the film to articulate the impossibility to contain the death of the girl and to make much sense of it. It is scattered across the sky and one cannot fully grasp it because it defies explanation. How does one explain the horrible, brutal death of an eleven year old girl? There are no words that allow most of us to comprehend the severity of the act. Of course when one thinks about the needs and desires of the one who committed the crime, then it becomes easier to understand. One can gain insight when one can see the deed itself through his eyes and work through his mind to process it as it occurs without any moral hand wringing. As this has proven to be impossible for most persons it remains thoroughly experimental at this stage.
The film plays like a tone poem to the many facets of despair. The camera hovers agonizingly over the faces of the characters articulating a deeply felt and overbearing torment that informs the girl’s horrific death with tremendous sadness. Specifically, there are numerous shots of De Winter’s face that clearly show his fragile emotional state as he attempts to come to terms with the crime. He occasionally hides his face in his hands as if he cannot bear the burden of knowing that such a thing is possible and that it could happen to such a bubbly, lovely creature who has given no cause to be treated so barbarically.
The performances in this film are natural and believable. Emmanuel Schotté captures his character’s overarching loneliness and grief with an admirable clarity. De Winter is a wholly sympathetic character who Schotté deftly conveys with warmth and tremendous calm. Séverine Caneele possesses a quiet dignity throughout the film. Her character comes off as knowing and terribly understanding. Philippe Tullier gives us a terminally crass character who is often shown to be uncouth and slightly unhinged.
Overall, this is a devastatingly mournful film that seeps into the skin and remains there long after the film has concluded. There is a coldness about it, almost clinical, that is rooted in the sense of loss that is readily felt from the beginning. It shows how terrible things can leave a lasting impression on those whose job it is to deal with the aftermath while struggling to maintain their sense of personal order. De Winter is simply a man whose nature is such that crimes of this sort do not simply wash over him. He is the type that is haunted by such cruelties and therefore susceptible to emotional strain that plays on him routinely and keeps him menacingly by the throat.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Play Review--Why Did I Get Married?
Why Did I Get Married?
Written and directed by Tyler Perry
starring Cheryl Pepsii Riley, LaVan Davis, Donna Stewart, Cordell Moore, Greg Stewart, Tony Grant, Demetria McKinney, Beverly Faulks
A couple’s retreat at a lakeside cabin reveals pains, struggles, and the essence of keeping a marriage working despite travails and sorrows.
Every year folks gather at Poppy’s (Davis) cabin for a couples retreat. This year a wildcard has been introduced in the form of Trina (McKinney) who is single and incorrigible. Sheila (Riley) has dragged her husband Mike (Moore) along in order to try and save their marriage. Due to stress she has put on over eighty pounds and Mike is sickened by the sight of her. Diana (Donna Stewart) and Terry (Greg Stewart) are a happily married couple of ten years who have suffered a a few glitches along the way but who stay committed to one another. Troy, who has a history of dating women he forgets almost as soon as he meets them, also comes along.
The play is set up like all of Tyler Perry’s productions. There is plenty of deep soul searching, terrific gospel-tinged music, and an indestructible focus on the power of God to change people’s lives. As per usual there are several transformations as key individuals face things about themselves that they find somewhat reprehensible and in dire need for a change.
Diana loathes Trina on sight and their banter together is frothy and occasionally mean spirited. Diana thinks she is a whore and makes her feelings felt from the outset. For her part Trina is not so much a whore as a gold digger whose sole ambition as far as relationships are concerned is to marry a rich man.
Everyone in this film is successful in their own way. Terry owns a restaurant and Diana is a lawyer. After suffering tremendous verbal abuse at the hands of her husband, Sheila sinks into a depression which only worsens when she finds out that Mike has been sleeping with Trina behind her back.
The play fast forwards a year and the group has returned for yet another retreat. Diana and Terry are still happily married and Mike begins to reminisce about his time with Sheila. Yet, he is married to Trina and is deeply chagrined by her spending habits. He is especially upset when he sees who Troy has brought to the gathering. It’s predictable as all hell and not particularly gratifying when Sheila walks through the door looking mighty fine and dressed to thrill. Naturally, this fuels Mike’s jealous which triggers another argument with his newly minted wife.
The play is low key with a few laughs scratched out now and then. Mostly, it feels like a series of sermons about the necessity of keeping God first and foremost in one’s life. Most of the songs bring God to the fore as exceedingly vital and necessary for anyone attempting to make their way in the world. There is quite a bit of advice on how to keep a marriage working and of the values that are worth pursuing when one is either thinking about or in the process of getting married. In many ways this can be read as a primer for prospective brides and grooms, shilling out wisdom about what and what not to do during the difficult, strenuous parts of marriage. It’s clear watching this play that marriages are often quite tumultuous and filled with strain. The key, according to this play, is communication tempered by a strong belief in God. The happy couple in this play are both God-fearing and their counterparts mostly are not.
LaVan Davis as Poppy is the glue that keeps the whole experience together. He’s good for the only sustainable laughs in the play and most of them come from a single line seemingly tossed away. Poppy fits in nicely in the mode of Perry creations who are slightly crazy but infinitely lovable at the same time.
This play speaks clearly to anyone who has ever considered themselves to be in love. It’s a challenge to individuals to examine the bedrock of their relationship in order to determine if the love is legit or not. True love, according to Mr. Perry, must first be ordained by God. Ultimately, the play argues, it’s his purpose which should take precedence in any relationship if it is going to work most effectively. It’s the same way with every one of Perry’s productions although not so much in some of his films. Here we have a character who is subject to a continuous litany of abuse. She takes it because she feels she has no place to run to. There is a very strong sense of just desserts here as Mike strays to chase tail that proves to be much more trouble than she is worth. Again, the focus is on maintaining strong relationships that are built on God as well as mutual trust and understanding. Mike cannot see past Sheila’s weight and realizes he missed the train when he sees her thinner self returning to taunt him.
Some of the messages here do have a ring of truth to them but they also sound like they were scribbled in the margins of one of Dr. Phil’s books. Of course basic, fundamental tools are implemented in an exceedingly direct and obvious way. There are no real surprises here as is the case with all of Perry’s works. It’s just a simple, easily digestible melodrama that espouses a dramatic, unabashedly Christian ethos that plays mainly to the choir. The songs are all quite impressive in their histrionics and intensity. They all cement key points home and serve the purpose of scaffolding to hold the entire production aloft. The play needs the songs to elevate the written material to the level of sanctity that Perry clearly intends the production to reach. The results are intermittently successful but it is not for want of trying.
The performances in this film all serve the play effectively. Donna Stewart plays one the more solid, emotionally salient characters in all of Perry’s canon. There’s a warmth to her that is apparent in every scene she is in. Diana is a model of religious conviction and her virtues as a successful woman are clearly present and vital to the core message of the story. LaVan Davis does a fine job playing most of his scenes for laughs. His bluesy prayer during suppertime is memorable for its rich textures and obvious sincerity. Demetria McKinney deliciously plays a hostile character obsessed more with the symbol of money than maintaining a healthy relationship. Trina is very much the anti-Diana and subsequently adversarial to the basic meaning of the play. Yet she represents a great number of women who believe in the power of the bling above all other concerns and who think they can find true happiness by maxing out an American Express card at the mall. Cheryl Pepsii Riley plays well with or without a fat suit. She’s good at emotional turmoil or in sassy confident mode.
Overall, this play ranks in the middle of the pack for Tyler Perry productions. It’s message is crystal and the songs are uplifting to those willing and able to believe. Much of it is melodrama but it gets the point across which is precisely what it needs to do. It takes its viewers on a very specific journey and clearly intends the audience to feel enlightened at the final curtain. For the most part it succeeds although it does feel at times as if it tries a little too hard to soften the hearts of those who do not share the same core beliefs the play is attempting to convey. Ultimately, the play will reach the flocks of those who follow Tyler Perry and who take his every word as gospel. For the rest of us, it’s just a nice, solid play with moments of legitimate clarity that ring out with something approaching truth.
Written and directed by Tyler Perry
starring Cheryl Pepsii Riley, LaVan Davis, Donna Stewart, Cordell Moore, Greg Stewart, Tony Grant, Demetria McKinney, Beverly Faulks
A couple’s retreat at a lakeside cabin reveals pains, struggles, and the essence of keeping a marriage working despite travails and sorrows.
Every year folks gather at Poppy’s (Davis) cabin for a couples retreat. This year a wildcard has been introduced in the form of Trina (McKinney) who is single and incorrigible. Sheila (Riley) has dragged her husband Mike (Moore) along in order to try and save their marriage. Due to stress she has put on over eighty pounds and Mike is sickened by the sight of her. Diana (Donna Stewart) and Terry (Greg Stewart) are a happily married couple of ten years who have suffered a a few glitches along the way but who stay committed to one another. Troy, who has a history of dating women he forgets almost as soon as he meets them, also comes along.
The play is set up like all of Tyler Perry’s productions. There is plenty of deep soul searching, terrific gospel-tinged music, and an indestructible focus on the power of God to change people’s lives. As per usual there are several transformations as key individuals face things about themselves that they find somewhat reprehensible and in dire need for a change.
Diana loathes Trina on sight and their banter together is frothy and occasionally mean spirited. Diana thinks she is a whore and makes her feelings felt from the outset. For her part Trina is not so much a whore as a gold digger whose sole ambition as far as relationships are concerned is to marry a rich man.
Everyone in this film is successful in their own way. Terry owns a restaurant and Diana is a lawyer. After suffering tremendous verbal abuse at the hands of her husband, Sheila sinks into a depression which only worsens when she finds out that Mike has been sleeping with Trina behind her back.
The play fast forwards a year and the group has returned for yet another retreat. Diana and Terry are still happily married and Mike begins to reminisce about his time with Sheila. Yet, he is married to Trina and is deeply chagrined by her spending habits. He is especially upset when he sees who Troy has brought to the gathering. It’s predictable as all hell and not particularly gratifying when Sheila walks through the door looking mighty fine and dressed to thrill. Naturally, this fuels Mike’s jealous which triggers another argument with his newly minted wife.
The play is low key with a few laughs scratched out now and then. Mostly, it feels like a series of sermons about the necessity of keeping God first and foremost in one’s life. Most of the songs bring God to the fore as exceedingly vital and necessary for anyone attempting to make their way in the world. There is quite a bit of advice on how to keep a marriage working and of the values that are worth pursuing when one is either thinking about or in the process of getting married. In many ways this can be read as a primer for prospective brides and grooms, shilling out wisdom about what and what not to do during the difficult, strenuous parts of marriage. It’s clear watching this play that marriages are often quite tumultuous and filled with strain. The key, according to this play, is communication tempered by a strong belief in God. The happy couple in this play are both God-fearing and their counterparts mostly are not.
LaVan Davis as Poppy is the glue that keeps the whole experience together. He’s good for the only sustainable laughs in the play and most of them come from a single line seemingly tossed away. Poppy fits in nicely in the mode of Perry creations who are slightly crazy but infinitely lovable at the same time.
This play speaks clearly to anyone who has ever considered themselves to be in love. It’s a challenge to individuals to examine the bedrock of their relationship in order to determine if the love is legit or not. True love, according to Mr. Perry, must first be ordained by God. Ultimately, the play argues, it’s his purpose which should take precedence in any relationship if it is going to work most effectively. It’s the same way with every one of Perry’s productions although not so much in some of his films. Here we have a character who is subject to a continuous litany of abuse. She takes it because she feels she has no place to run to. There is a very strong sense of just desserts here as Mike strays to chase tail that proves to be much more trouble than she is worth. Again, the focus is on maintaining strong relationships that are built on God as well as mutual trust and understanding. Mike cannot see past Sheila’s weight and realizes he missed the train when he sees her thinner self returning to taunt him.
Some of the messages here do have a ring of truth to them but they also sound like they were scribbled in the margins of one of Dr. Phil’s books. Of course basic, fundamental tools are implemented in an exceedingly direct and obvious way. There are no real surprises here as is the case with all of Perry’s works. It’s just a simple, easily digestible melodrama that espouses a dramatic, unabashedly Christian ethos that plays mainly to the choir. The songs are all quite impressive in their histrionics and intensity. They all cement key points home and serve the purpose of scaffolding to hold the entire production aloft. The play needs the songs to elevate the written material to the level of sanctity that Perry clearly intends the production to reach. The results are intermittently successful but it is not for want of trying.
The performances in this film all serve the play effectively. Donna Stewart plays one the more solid, emotionally salient characters in all of Perry’s canon. There’s a warmth to her that is apparent in every scene she is in. Diana is a model of religious conviction and her virtues as a successful woman are clearly present and vital to the core message of the story. LaVan Davis does a fine job playing most of his scenes for laughs. His bluesy prayer during suppertime is memorable for its rich textures and obvious sincerity. Demetria McKinney deliciously plays a hostile character obsessed more with the symbol of money than maintaining a healthy relationship. Trina is very much the anti-Diana and subsequently adversarial to the basic meaning of the play. Yet she represents a great number of women who believe in the power of the bling above all other concerns and who think they can find true happiness by maxing out an American Express card at the mall. Cheryl Pepsii Riley plays well with or without a fat suit. She’s good at emotional turmoil or in sassy confident mode.
Overall, this play ranks in the middle of the pack for Tyler Perry productions. It’s message is crystal and the songs are uplifting to those willing and able to believe. Much of it is melodrama but it gets the point across which is precisely what it needs to do. It takes its viewers on a very specific journey and clearly intends the audience to feel enlightened at the final curtain. For the most part it succeeds although it does feel at times as if it tries a little too hard to soften the hearts of those who do not share the same core beliefs the play is attempting to convey. Ultimately, the play will reach the flocks of those who follow Tyler Perry and who take his every word as gospel. For the rest of us, it’s just a nice, solid play with moments of legitimate clarity that ring out with something approaching truth.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Film Review--Inspector Clouseau
Inspector Clouseau
directed by Bud Yorkin
written by Tom Waldman, Frank Waldman
starring Alan Arkin, Frank Finlay, Delia Boccardo, Barry Foster, Patrick Cargill, Beryl Reid, Clive Francis
Inspector Jacques Clouseau (Arkin) is an iconic character who is wholly predictable in his inanity. He falls, trips, stumbles about and we respond when the pratfalls have a certain logic about them and when they are organic. In this film Arkin knows how to portray Clouseau as a hapless fool and he performs the requisite amount of lunatic posturing throughout. It’s impossible to compare him to Peter Sellers because he only had one stab at the character to which Sellers will forever be linked. Arkin manages to sell the brave yet hapless maneuverings of Clouseau with just a tad less self-awareness than Sellers which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
The story as it goes involves a crime syndicate who have planned a series of major bank heists in and around London. They are mostly a faceless group of thugs but they do feature the dashing Johnny Rainbow (Francis) who definitely has the whole swingin’ London vibe down. He’s the cool face of youth deranged by the prospect of a massive cash influx that can buy a whole lot of Beatle boots. The gangsters are mostly a fiercely ugly bunch of cons but they do possess an ingenious plan that is part Bond and part Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Their operation is the most thrilling thing in the film and a proper use of technology for the sake of ill-gotten gains.
Clouseau finds himself suffocating under the heaving breasts of Mrs. Weaver (Reid). She’s a randy old coot and makes it plain she wants Clouseau to mount her and sing “Flower of Scotland” in a nasally twang. She forces him to go to a Scottish festival and practically wears him out. Then she coquettishly tries to seduce him while sitting in his lap. It’s a decidedly discomforting scene and one is relieved when he rolls her onto the floor and makes his escape. There is another scenes that work fairly well where Clouseau attempts to ease drop on the robbers. Instead he hears an old TV western where the characters are planning a major score. These two scenes generate a few laughs and are about as sophisticated as the film gets.
The film hinges on a scary thought, indeed. The crime syndicate has managed to make a copy of Clouseau’s face and have created thirteen masks out of the mold. In turn they rob banks city wide using the masks and of course Clouseau is implicated in all of them. But, Clouseau, despite himself, has tricks and knows without knowing what he knows. As always he manages to put the puzzle together without ever knowing there is a puzzle in front of him to be put together.
Arkin’s Clouseau is a non-stop atrocity arcade throughout this film. He manages to fall over just about everything in front of him and the results are always exceedingly dramatic and filled with great pablum. Essentially, it lacks the grace and elegance of the earlier work with Sellers but for what it is, it does possess its own unique brand of charm and it would be interesting to see Arkin with the opportunity to work with the character a few more times.
Alan Arkin is a bit ill-fitted but funny enough as Clouseau. He possesses the correct amount of energy and his body maneuvers and postures are spot on. He calls attention to himself more than Sellers through gestures, etc. but for the most part this is a fairly apt portrayal of Inspector Clouseau. Arkin possesses a button-up regularity which finds him more pent up than Sellers. He’s not as casual in his miscalculations and the result is a character who seems not to have the freedom of movement that defines the earlier versions.
Overall, this film lacks the choreography of the first two films and isn’t as immediately lunatic although Arkin does manage to upset the common order enough with his idiotic posturings. Arkin has a rought time of it stepping into the shoes of a comedic genius but he’s still impressive enough to at least ease the pressure of those tired old comparisons if but for a short while. The film offers up some nice, moderately amusing gags and Delia Boccardo is certainly easy on the eyes which is a necessity in these films. Ultimately, it isn’t quite up to par with the previous films but it’s a notch above some of the later work. It’s charming after a fashion and the characters are all sound and believable. There is less grace and style but Arkin keeps the momentum going throughout.
directed by Bud Yorkin
written by Tom Waldman, Frank Waldman
starring Alan Arkin, Frank Finlay, Delia Boccardo, Barry Foster, Patrick Cargill, Beryl Reid, Clive Francis
Inspector Jacques Clouseau (Arkin) is an iconic character who is wholly predictable in his inanity. He falls, trips, stumbles about and we respond when the pratfalls have a certain logic about them and when they are organic. In this film Arkin knows how to portray Clouseau as a hapless fool and he performs the requisite amount of lunatic posturing throughout. It’s impossible to compare him to Peter Sellers because he only had one stab at the character to which Sellers will forever be linked. Arkin manages to sell the brave yet hapless maneuverings of Clouseau with just a tad less self-awareness than Sellers which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
The story as it goes involves a crime syndicate who have planned a series of major bank heists in and around London. They are mostly a faceless group of thugs but they do feature the dashing Johnny Rainbow (Francis) who definitely has the whole swingin’ London vibe down. He’s the cool face of youth deranged by the prospect of a massive cash influx that can buy a whole lot of Beatle boots. The gangsters are mostly a fiercely ugly bunch of cons but they do possess an ingenious plan that is part Bond and part Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Their operation is the most thrilling thing in the film and a proper use of technology for the sake of ill-gotten gains.
Clouseau finds himself suffocating under the heaving breasts of Mrs. Weaver (Reid). She’s a randy old coot and makes it plain she wants Clouseau to mount her and sing “Flower of Scotland” in a nasally twang. She forces him to go to a Scottish festival and practically wears him out. Then she coquettishly tries to seduce him while sitting in his lap. It’s a decidedly discomforting scene and one is relieved when he rolls her onto the floor and makes his escape. There is another scenes that work fairly well where Clouseau attempts to ease drop on the robbers. Instead he hears an old TV western where the characters are planning a major score. These two scenes generate a few laughs and are about as sophisticated as the film gets.
The film hinges on a scary thought, indeed. The crime syndicate has managed to make a copy of Clouseau’s face and have created thirteen masks out of the mold. In turn they rob banks city wide using the masks and of course Clouseau is implicated in all of them. But, Clouseau, despite himself, has tricks and knows without knowing what he knows. As always he manages to put the puzzle together without ever knowing there is a puzzle in front of him to be put together.
Arkin’s Clouseau is a non-stop atrocity arcade throughout this film. He manages to fall over just about everything in front of him and the results are always exceedingly dramatic and filled with great pablum. Essentially, it lacks the grace and elegance of the earlier work with Sellers but for what it is, it does possess its own unique brand of charm and it would be interesting to see Arkin with the opportunity to work with the character a few more times.
Alan Arkin is a bit ill-fitted but funny enough as Clouseau. He possesses the correct amount of energy and his body maneuvers and postures are spot on. He calls attention to himself more than Sellers through gestures, etc. but for the most part this is a fairly apt portrayal of Inspector Clouseau. Arkin possesses a button-up regularity which finds him more pent up than Sellers. He’s not as casual in his miscalculations and the result is a character who seems not to have the freedom of movement that defines the earlier versions.
Overall, this film lacks the choreography of the first two films and isn’t as immediately lunatic although Arkin does manage to upset the common order enough with his idiotic posturings. Arkin has a rought time of it stepping into the shoes of a comedic genius but he’s still impressive enough to at least ease the pressure of those tired old comparisons if but for a short while. The film offers up some nice, moderately amusing gags and Delia Boccardo is certainly easy on the eyes which is a necessity in these films. Ultimately, it isn’t quite up to par with the previous films but it’s a notch above some of the later work. It’s charming after a fashion and the characters are all sound and believable. There is less grace and style but Arkin keeps the momentum going throughout.
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