Ryan Watches a Motion Picture #15: Taboo (1999)

I love samurai films. When I think about what taking in cinema feels like, I get certain senses of things bubbling in my brain, maybe a loose, iconic image. One of those is usually of a samurai, holding a sword out and standing in an elegant posture, just waiting. Can’t get enough of that. I’m always willing to watch a samurai film, and once I heard a few things about Oshima's Taboo, I was positively fuming with feudal fascination. The film’s about Kano, a young samurai who takes another samurai in his regiment as his lover, and when news of their relationship spreads, other samurai begin to seek Kano's affections.

Now, I think Taboo lacks the gravity it might have achieved if it had focused a bit more. The plot tends to get a bit lost at times, and frequently a change in the story and the introduction of a new character makes the film seem flippant. But Taboo makes up for it with its visually arresting cinematography. The drifting, ethereal camerawork is wonderfully atmospheric and fluid, and does well to highlight the sense that we are observers. The action sequences are elegant, and they really swept me up. Deft use of steadicam pulls you in and around the samurai blade strikes without resorting to the shaky camera style that's so fucking popular in movies today. Sorry, rage.

I was glad to see that the film contains a questioning of the samurai's role in the rigid feudal Japanese caste system of the 1800s, and doesn't, like many samurai films, revel in the romance of honour and glory that you might well imagine when you read the word 'samurai'. There's an interesting parallel in effect where the samurai hegemony and its penchant for using men's lives for political posturing is matched with the sexual hegemony, and the men entangled in love affairs with their fellow soldiers are secretly loathe to give up their lives in the name of the samurai order. There's even some attempt to hetero Kano, but attempts fail, and in the end, even the officers high up in their chain of command question their sexual roles, while paradoxically, Kano’s lovers come to use Kano as the military system uses them - for their own ends.

The film's pretty casual acceptance of queer lifestyle is, to my knowledge, not too consistent with feudal Japanese culture, but it serves to put a new spin on such an influential and pervasive genre, and Taboo is worth a look.

Ryan Watches a Motion Picture #14: The Fog (1980)

Will no one save my son?

John Carpenter is by far one of my fave directors, and he's made some of my fave flicks, but the Fog just didn't hit me right. I suspect it's a generation thing - you either grew up along with it and accepted it or you didn't. Or maybe I've just been spoiled by the awesomeness that was Carpenter's later work.

So yeah, the Fog didn't offer too much for me. Now, the film looks and sounds great, and I've loved Carpenter all these years for the two things he does effin' well - atmosphere and music, which he writes himself. The Fog isn't short on fantastic cinematography, and Carpenter's foreboding electronic score is great, as always. It has some interesting if mostly inexplicable characters, but is slow to move, and when it does move, it isn't quite as grand as you'd hope. The plot doesn't start to ramp up until it hits the hour mark, and the final sequences, with the exception of maybe the last few seconds, don't quite reach a height worth climbing to.

Carpenter's films usually contain logical blind spots that pop up once or twice, like when characters know things they shouldn't know, or when obvious problems are ignored. But in the Fog it feels like a heavy dosage, and I was actually incredibly irritated by the repetitive shouts of a radio DJ to save her son from a threat she really shouldn't have known was there. She shrieks at us for at least three or four minutes. I really wanted her son to get ripped apart by sea ghosts by that point. The films I watch don't usually irritate me like that, and I used to be a such a nice guy.

So: Meh. Sorry, Carpenter. I can't tell if you failed me or if I failed you.

Ryan Watches a Motion Picture #21: Buffy The Vampire Slayer (1992)

Cheerleading at its best.

Believe it or not, as a highschooler I was never keen on the television shows that were very clearly geared to my age group. If it dealt with teenagers in hishschool situations at all it was very likely filled with characters I didn't like, doing things I never really did. They were just dull soap operas, and you'd think a show like the famed Joss Whedon's Buffy, whose first incarnation was in the '92 film I've just watched, would have fed me with a little extra something - vampires and demons all crazy-go-nuts on a quiet town. But I found that even there I couldn't shake the feeling that these characters were people I didn't like, know or understand very well. Or maybe my tolerance for teeny romance stuff is just on the low side. Or maybe I just really don't like ol' Sarah Gellar.

I wasn't too sure what to expect from the movie, but I had a hunch it would give me a much campier serving of vampire killing than the series did, and that's pretty much what happened. The plot's thin and has a mostly inexplicable, lightly addressed twist part-way through, but the film has some interesting characterisation, particularly in Kristy Swanson's transformation from shallow to genuine, teen to adult. The film also has a lot of retro flavour going for it, and that always entertains me. The early 90s wardrobe and Luke Perry probably had a lot to do with that, and Paul Reubens of Peewee Herman infamy is a favourite of mine. Seeing him as a cheeky vampire thug is a pretty big treat. Donald Sutherland, who's pretty much built to be mysterious and sage old men in films, does his thang. Oh, and Rutger fucking Hauer as a crazy vampire lord? I'd watch Rutger Hauer in anything. I'd watch him throw children out of helicopters. I think I might have before, even. In a beautiful dream?

Speaking of beautiful dreams, it seems there's a Buffy remake listed on imdb for a 2012 film. Curious.

So: Kristy Swanson kicking wooden stakes into vampire chests? Sure.

Ryan Watches a Motion Picture #17: The Witch Who Came From The Sea (1976)

I wasn't quite sure what I was getting into with this one, and rented it because of its evocative title and wicked cover art. The sort that should be painted on the side of a sweet van. Look:

Are you guys going to the Maiden show at the amphitheatre, by the way?

To my surprise, it was directed by Matt Cimber, the guy who directed one of my favourite 80s barbarian films (and there are lots of those if you need some of my suggestions :3). What I should have guessed from the really long opening shot of the seashore and the eerie, atmospheric theremin music I certainly determined once I heard the first bits of dialogue - this was going to be one wonderfully strange flick.

The dialogue is bizarre and great fun to listen to and see performed, and is of a style that could have very easily gone very wrong very quickly. Its grand phraseology and its archaic, perfectly elocuted language gives the film a dreamlike, mythological naivety that really highlights the psychotic state of mind the film's heroine is locked in. The heroine might be better described as an anti-heroine, since she is, in effect, also the film's villain. She's a deranged serial killer, stalking, torturing, and killing the most masculine men she can find out of revenge for the horrific sexual trauma she received as a child. The torture sequences are profoundly uncomfortable, though most of the dirty business happens off-screen. This is usually a good indication that there's some filmmaking talent being flexed. The most disturbing scene is undoubtedly the flashback revelation of the killer's own trauma, and here, the camera doesn't look away though you sincerely wish it would. The Witch Who Came From The Sea is abound with the ugliness of sexual politics, which is something that seems to be at the heart of a lot of Matt Cimber films. I love exploitation films best when they are either supremely crazy or border on the arthouse. This film pretty well does both.

It was originally conceived of and sold as an edgy arthouse film, but when it was given to theatres it was slagged by critics, nearly banned by the ratings board, physically re-cut by theatre owners, and mostly ignored by the public. When the movie poster was made less abstract and more fantastical, though, its success with the grindhouse audience exploded, and it seems to have held cult appreciation since.

So: If you can stomach the controversial bits, it's a gem of a cult film.

Ryan Watches a Motion Picture #16: Bad Biology (2008)

I have fallen onto some photographs. Excuse me.

Director Frank Henenlotter, the genius behind both Basket Case and Frankenhooker, had me really excited. The sleazy premise is as follows: a mutant woman born with seven or eight clitorises is lonely and wants to find both the man for her and the perfect orgasm. A mutant man with a gigantic, sentient and drug-addicted penis is lonely as well. Both mutants need a place to belong. This of course is the recipe for one fucked up banana bread of fun.

But what can I say about this movie beyond that? Not much. It kind of putters around uselessly for the bulk of the runtime, and gets to feel worth watching once the film starts to bring the two wayward sexual mutants, alone in their tortured worlds, together. When it starts to indicate that they're going to meet up, fall in love, and have some hot and twisted mutant sex. It leads you to believe that when these two get it on, something really wild and strange and horrific and wonderful is going to happen. But instead the film ends off all the tension and mystery with a completely lame and obvious joke that should have merely been a throw-away gag earlier on in the film.

There's an almost interesting hip hop sensibility to Bad Biology, but since it has so little going for it, the movie just seems to serve more as a hustle for producer and co-writer R.A. Thorburn's hip hop music and label.

So: I expected more from you Henenlotter. Way more.

Ryan Watches a Motion Picture #9: Under Siege (1992)

The greatest of the Seagal movies, and one of my favourite ridiculous early 90s action films. If you're looking for something to get excited about with friends and laugh as Seagal's clunkily powerful body breaks limbs and deflects knife blows, look no further.

Seagal plays this ship's cook called Ryback that is also a disillusioned Navy Seal. When another disillusioned military-type and his forces take over the ship he's cooking on, he must hurt them all in a great many ways. And he does. The final battle finishes off with Tommy Lee Jones getting a thumb through his right eye, getting a kitchen knife plunged into the top of his head, and getting his upper body rammed into a computer monitor and electrocuted. All in the span of about 5 seconds. It's like a Mortal Kombat finisher.

It's just starting to show its age, what with its Gulf-war talk, Bush Sr. appearance, and melodramatic soundtrack. Aged action movies are the best action movies. It also has ex-Baywatch playboy playmate Erika Eleniak getting a bit naked.

So: A wine pairing suggestion - cheap and red. Like the lifeblood of Seagal's enemies.

Ryan Watches a Motion Picture #7: The Apartment (1960)

Billy Wilder's oscar-winning comedy about a man who lends his bachelor pad out to lovers at the expense of his own lovelife. Jack Lemmon is C. C. Baxter, the overly helpful nice-guy and American everyman trying to earn his share of the big dream. He works in a big building at a desk in a huge room of other desks and other people working, hardly paying attention to each other. Day in, day out. But then he falls in love with Shirley MacLaine, which I would have done too.

Jack Lemmon is fantastic and neurotic and absolutely lovable as misunderstanding and misfortune pile upon him like mountains on Xenu. Lemmon's posturing translates a profound frazzledness that winds my muscles up something fierce and makes me uneasy, and I can only relax as he starts to gain his confidence and deal with his problems. There's a wonderfully dark undercurrent in this film that I really hadn't expected, and it works to raise some staple arthouse points about the effects of modernity on the individual human being.

So: One of the best romance films I've ever seen. Watch it, sucka.

Mel's Diner Burns Down - Local Wizard Feels Bad

You didn't hear it here first!


Mel's Diner has been destroyed. Thanks to a big fire early this morning around 5:30, the beloved and loathed 50s diner, along with beloved Sugar Mountain and loathed Taboo nightclub, is no more. Mr. Sushi committed sepukku as well, I'm told. :(

Will anyone ever again brave the Easy Rider? Will a drunken post-club crowd ever sing Sweet Caroline over and fucking over again? Remember the beer commercial that did that? They lived that commercial every night at Mel's. Lived it to half-broken jukebox. It was somewhat beautiful.

As the Guardian Wizard of Waterloo Region, I'd like to formally apologise for not stopping the dragon that clearly did this. I'll get on it.

Ryan Watches a Motion Picture #18: The End of the Line (2009)

Concerned about the sea? Concerned about sea life? It would be useful if you were, because by 2048 the world's oceans could be barren. Yippee skippy!

The End of the Line is a documentary based on the book of the same name, written by UK journalist Charles Clover, which highlights the reasons why our fish stocks are plummeting - overfishing, bottom-trawling, and a lack of substantial national reservations. Essentially, countries are doing little to regulate their fishing industries, and the industry's practice is, well, as you'd see in the film, horrific. The film takes you into the great cod crash in Newfoundland, to the tuna traps of the Mediterranean, and to Japan's Mitsubishi corporation, which is buying up the dwindling blue fin tuna catch so that they can freeze it, store it away, wait for the species to go extinct, and name their price.

The documentary should have presented viewers with a much more concrete outline of strategies and resources so that consumers can do what they can. But what is there is something, and should point one in the right direction. More information can be found at the film's website.

So: Check it out! Do you what you can! You'll be filled with a righteous anger that can only be described with a rrrraAAAAAAARRRRRRGEHJGLklshkajbhJK.HK.hd&isy78EBD!!

Ryan Watches a Motion Picture #23: Santo and the Treasure of Dracula (1968)

Santo! I will return again in El Santo y Blue Demon vs. Dracula and El Hombre Lobo!!

For those unfamiliar with the El Santo phenomenon, you can either read about it in depth here, or read my brief sum up here: The man who would become El Santo, the most famous masked luchadore of Mexican wrestling, began wrestling in the mid 1930s. In 1942 he answered the call of his famous Silver Mask, and his popularity grew until it became a genuine cult phenomenon. This was largely fuelled by a penchant for being presented as a peasant hero, fighting against other wrestlers embodying corrupt politicians, drug lords, and American imperialists. After a bout of successful comic books, he took to the Mexican B-movie screen in 1958 with Santo vs. The Evil Brain.

I've devoured all of the El Santo movies Gen X has in stock - which is a reasonable 6 or 7 out of an astonishing total of 52 film appearances - in chronological order. The first on my delirious journey into lucha libre was Santo and the Treasure of Dracula. As Campy as I could have hoped, but a little on the dull side.

It's the spiral what does it.

So basically, in addition to Santo being a star wrestler, he is also a brilliant scientist capable of building a time machine that lets people time travel into a past life of theirs. So he builds one. He tests it out on a woman who ends up being one of Dracula's victims in the distant past. This lasts for half the movie, and that would be fine if we got more of Santo than his worried looks at a monitor every 20 minutes, reminding us that he's watching through time, in the comfort of his lab. Once Dracula is dealt with by a helpful doctor Van Roth, Santo manages to pull the woman back to the present, and the rest of the movie can begin. A masked enemy who had been secretly watching Santo's progress in the lab decides to find a treasure revealed by Dracula before Santo does, but instead of finding a treasure, enemy thugs decide to awaken Dracula again.

You only fool yourself, young upstart.

While the first half is a bit boring, this film does introduce you to the Santo formula pretty well - Santo creeping around in tombs, beating up thugs, saving girls, and getting into wrestling matches to settle scores.

So: Not the best in Santo's saga, but seeing him as a prominent scientist is a hilarious wonder.

Ryan Watches a Motion Picture #6: Witchfinder General (1968)

A gem of a film based loosely on the life of the Witchfinder General, one Matthew Hopkins, a lawyer turned witch-hunter during the tumultuous upheaval of Cromwell's revolution. Hopkins roved from village to village exploiting the superstitious for good coin by inflicting cruel witch-finding tests upon anyone suspected of being a witch. So basically anyone kind of weird. Or anyone people just didn't like.

In the role of Hopkins is the inimitable Vincent Price. Now, this film gave him his 75th role, and by this point Price had understandably been coasting through his horror roles like a sleeping Cthulu through the epochs, but two things now awakened him:

1. The shock of having a director like Michael Reeves, who had wanted Donald Pleasence in the role and was furious over the studio's insistence on Price. Reeves refused to speak directly to him the first day, and when Price fell from his horse, reportedly didn't even check to see if the man was alright.

2. The level of the crew's competency was something Price hadn't expected. Everyone on set was dead-serious about making a good film, and the majority of the cast seemed to be delivering the kind of performances he could actually work with.

These two things sobered Price, and later, he conceded that his own performance in the film was probably the best of his horror career. His Witchfinder General possesses a quiet belligerence made more menacing by an aloof, emotional disconnection. That disconnection doesn't seem lazy, though. It seems carefully set, and most of it comes off through his enigmatic stares.

The level of torture and violence that initially got this film banned in places, by today's standards, manages to be bloody without being gory, and fiercely uncomfortable instead of indulgent. The watershed Bonnie and Clyde was released just a year earlier, and the kind of screen violence that was emerging held a new potency. Witchfinder General could actually be considered England's Bonnie and Clyde, as both pushed the boundaries and ended off on a violent down-note. Reeves ended WG with an improvised and unnerving final sequence that will ring in my memory for some time.

So: A fluid and stylish revenge tale with Price back in action. Check it out.

Ryan Watches a Motion Picture #4: The Adventure of English (2003)

It's a fascinating miniseries on the birth of the English language and its growth in time to be the global language it is today. It proves to be a detailed and stirring look at the historical forces that shaped the language and nudged it into certain patterns and dialects, and should scratch the documentary itch of any English student or lover of the word, the line, the way.

It goes over the reasons why we spell words in certain ways, how certain words have shifted meaning, and which words from our vast word-horde were trickled in from different languages as their respective nationalities clashed. How the English artists, Shakespeare among them, changed the language through their work and how they brought status to the English language abroad.

It gets a little overzealous, I think, whenever it posits that English is a particularly robust, naturally selected, or adaptable and absorbing language, since I'd guess that its spread and knack for assimilating foreign words and grammars has more to do with imperialist and economic forces rather than any kind of naturally selected flexibility, but the series does manage to admit as much near the end of the series.

So: The historical rundown it presents is compelling without need of cheesy re-enactment, and should keep you fascinated every step of the way.

*Not actually part of the documentary, but informative nonetheless.

Ryan Watches a Motion Picture #3: Sauna (2008)

I couldn't turn this one down: a ghost horror film set in the 1500s.

Looks like the Swedes and the Russians have ended a 25 year war and are now collaborating on the mapping of new borders. Things are tense between factions and its terribly important that nothing goes wrong. Naturally, something occulty goes down.

All in all, I'm fairly sold on the film for packing a cool dark age atmosphere of damp, mid-winter forestry and mud, great set design and costuming, and morally ambiguous war-weary characters. But sadly, about two thirds of the way through, Sauna starts to overdo it with the haunting stuff, and would have benefited by playing it much more low-key and infrequent. The creepiness it does well to evoke eventually loses much of its power, and it gets caught up in outdoing itself with its spookiness and minor plot twists to the point where some stuff happens that really doesn't make much sense, and you're left a bit lost as the stakes get higher.

So: A pretty unique European dark age spin on the kind of thing usually done on the Asian ghost horror scene.

I Heart Video Art II

I Heart Video Art II is finally upon us! If you'd like to go to a swanky par-tay with strange and interesting video images thrown all about you, go and do it!

It's happening tomorrow, from 7 pm till midnight at the Critical Media Lab on 195 King Street West, across the street from Kitchener City Hall.

Put on by wonderful CAFKA, admission is $20, but CAFKA members and students get in for $15.

Ryan Watches a Motion Picture #20: The Clash of the Clash of the Titans, Part 2

Clash of the Titans (2010)

Hello! I am Sam Worthington, a 'player' in this 'recorded play'

I mentioned before that the 1981 Clash of the Titans has more vitality than this remake. Here's why!

During the first ten minutes, I dared hope that I'd enjoy this remake. After an exposition-conquering, star-strewn opening sequence, we're given a few characters willing to call the gods out on their mistreatment of humanity. That'll always tickle my fancy. Defying the gods. Alright! Well and good. Until any weight that the defiance might have had evaporates once the movie actually starts to roll out. The plot is, unfortunately, loosely slung together with a poor man's mythology indicative of lazy writing - the mythological elements in the film seem throwaway where they should be an integral, organic part of the story.

Sam Worthington's performance is predictably weak. Whenever he tries to show any kind of inner turmoil, his face kind of stops half-way and then backs up, like he's not sure he's pulling it off because he isn't. That made me laugh at least. His interactions with the party of heroes assembled for the quest is unremarkable, and is filled with heaps of really lame male bonding sequences between token characters I don't care about. And there's a completely inexplicable race of Djinn people that join the party and bust out inexplicable powers now and again. These powers are called deus ex machina.

It all comes to feel like a failed attempt at Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films, complete with bombastic CGI events and a dude that looks and sounds like Orlando Bloom - which is to say, a dude that makes me want to throw a fiery anvil covered in bees into his face.

Even Liam Neeson's role comes off the screen a little thin (and he's effing ZEUS), but Ralph Fiennes is, at least, fun to watch as Hades. I was kind of rooting for his cause, but he had this fatal flaw - instead of being a fucking god and tearing shit up with his immense power, whenever he wants someone taken down he decides to split himself up into five or six winged demon things that really aren't that powerful. Not sure why Hades would bother with that when he seems to do pretty well by not doing that.

So: When Medusa is referred to as 'the bitch' at the end of a not-so-stirring speech, you know your movie is cinema slurry.

Ryan Watches a Motion Picture #19: The Clash of the Clash of the Titans, Part 1

Clash of the Titans (1981)

Expecting the 2010 remake to be pretty mediocre, I re-watched the original Clash of the Titans earlier in the day so I could sit in the theatre and hoom and hah to myself and try my hand at something called 'just a position'.

Well, usually referred to as legendary stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen's best film, Clash is a simple but fairly satisfying Hollywood romp of the pedestrianly operatic, effectively campy variety. Director Desmond Davis, who's repertoire consists mostly of British television, hasn't made a great film here, but it has to be said that Clash is certainly endearing. That's likely due to the producing and special effects charm of Ray Harryhausen and his menacing (or plucky) creatures. Laurence Olivier as Zeus doesn't hurt either.

The jewel of the film, I think, is Harryhausen's Medusa sequence. Here we get a fantastically animated, darkly lit Medusa, stalking slowly through a cluttered hall of pillars, picking Perseus' comrades off one by one with haunting stone stares and well-placed arrows. When Perseus is the last alive, his fearful wait before his last-ditch effort plays out slowly, and is earnestly tense. This is indicative of Harryhausen's thoughtful and deliberate style, and that scene is replaced in the remake with a barefaced CGI chase sequence. Ugh.

So: This one has more vitality and character than the remake.

Avatar LARP

Who wants to start a Hometree Ontario and hang out with Na'vi hunks and babes?? Oh, yeah me neither...

But if we did, I think it'd go....why, a little something like this!

Left 4 Dead - Left 4 Speed!

Left 4 Dead is probably my favourite game of recent years, and seeing it pass through the twisted bowels of the internets is a blessed treat I'd like to share if you've played the games, so just in case you haven't seen these Left 4 Dead parodies, here they are. :3






So absurd. Love it.

As a side note, did you ever see any of the early Left 4 Dead character designs? I really wish they'd gone for the raggy looking Francis, with long hair, paunch, and stale beer smell. Zoey was punkier, though I love the red hoodie they went with, and Louis didn't seem to be a token black guy.

David Mamet's Memo on Writing

...Are you a writer? OR A WRONGER

So David Mamet apparently sent a big all caps memo to the staff writers who were working on writing the now canceled 'The Unit,' a military drama that was airing on CBS a couple of years ago. The leaked memo seems to indicate that Mamet was hesitant to call what was being written drama at all. It's pretty awesome, and is chalk full of great writerly wisdom for any screenwriter working on most kinds of drama.

Here's a taste:

"...ANY DICKHEAD WITH A BLUESUIT CAN BE (AND IS) TAUGHT TO SAY “MAKE IT CLEARER”, AND “I WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT HIM”.

WHEN YOU’VE MADE IT SO CLEAR THAT EVEN THIS BLUESUITED PENGUIN IS HAPPY, BOTH YOU AND HE OR SHE WILL BE OUT OF A JOB."

Right on, Mamet.

A friend and elite Gen X co-worker pointed this wicked internet finding out. Read the FULL MEMO HERE! The comments posted on the article are good reading as well.

Battleship Potemkin screening with Orchestra!

Eisenstein's 1925 silent masterpiece The Battleship Potemkin is screening at the Registry Theatre (122 Frederick st, in Kitchener) on April 15th at 8 pm, the witching hour. It'll be presented with a live soundtrack by the VOC Silent Film Harmonic, and tickets are $15 in advance or $10 at the door if you bring a donation for the food bank with you.

This is the film with the famous 'Odessa Steps sequence' that has been referenced time and time again in cinema and television, where an occupied baby carriage rolls treacherously down a flight of stairs as people look on in horror. And the civilian massacre put on by the Cossacks probably can't be helping.

So lend a hand to the common man and take in the finest piece of Russian propaganda ever created, you damn redniks! You ate my children and I'll have my revenge.