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!!