Avatar

2009

Director: James Cameron

Cast: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, and Sigourney Weaver

Plot: A paraplegic marine dispatched to the planet Pandora on a unique mission becomes torn between following orders and protecting the world he feels is his home.

The Classic Formula with a $400 Million Pricetag

by C. True

First, lets tackle the obvious complaint most people will have with Avatar, and that is a story-line that is completely obvious from about 15 minutes in and then lasts another 2 hours and 25 minutes. Looking back James Cameron has done some truly original storytelling and writing with such creative projects as The Terminator, The Abyss and even True Lies which is one of my favorite no-brainer actionpackages because of the unexpected plot developments Cameron throws in to a traditionally super-formulaic genre. Then you have Titanic, which wasn't a bad film but really lacked much innovation in terms of storytelling. Unfortunately, Avatar falls into the Titanic category of Cameron works. The native humanoid population on Pandora, the Na'vi worship nature and commune (directly) with their planet and think us humans (read Americans) are a bunch of insane blundering assholes come to destroy their planet. And we have! I wonder if our protagonist, who is sent to spy on the Na'vi and find some leverage to get them to leave their land so that the corporation he works for can finally mine that, wait for it, Unobtainium, will start to sympathize with these peaceful people? The plus side to Avatar is that James Cameron and his editing crew must have had a meticulous timeline of how many minutes were going to be spent on each plot device envisioned in this giant classic formula. For instance the romance in the film develops organically with only one, maybe two, scenes that directly go towards establishing the romantic bond between the two main characters. And there isn't any deliberation, she shows him amazing things in her world, when its time to chose a mate he obviously chooses her, and she says she's already chosen him as well. Simple, not too short, not too long. Time for battle? Lets stick to the standard beginning 1/3 the battle losing, 1/3 in flux and then the final 1/3 where... well you can guess. The whole movies works this way with everything given the exact amount of time we need to get the jist of what's happening and never once lingering too long on developments that are obvious. In the end the 2 hours and 40 minutes flies by. But of course the visual effects have a large hand in making us forget that we already know what is going to happen.

And they are pretty good special effects. I was skeptical, not overly impressed with Cameron's first pictures and I remained skeptical through the beginning of the film and some of the first creatures. But the Na'vi look pretty good, especially in scenes where humans are also present, something I thought their should have been more of, especially during big fight scenes in the end. The alien jungle is full of hostile creatures, some more original and impressive than others. Close-up shots show the level of detail that really went into these creatures and assuaged some of the cheesy gut-reactions I had initally. The Omaticaya's ritual to become a man involves picking your flying mount (size of mounts definitely matters) and this sequence is done really well and its no wonder why our protagonist would rather stay in this alien world where he can fly through floating mountains on a creature he controls completely with his mind than go home where he is an ex-marine paraplegic. Eventually Cameron gets you to immerse yourself in his alien world and you stop noticing things looking familiar or new, impressive or hokey, and you just go with it. This is a good thing because the battle sequences toward the end of the film are impressive enough without you trying to look at the detail of everything.

Finally, if you're seeing it in the theater the ultimate question I've saved for last: to 3-D or not to 3-D? I did 3-D (because my 2-D vote was overruled) and personally I found it a little jarring, though over time I finally adjusted and stopped feeling like everything on the screen popped out at me. Then again I found it jarring because it the 3-D technology was so impressive, and really sold your brain on the visual illusion. Importantly, I don't think the movie HAS to be seen in 3-D (unlike Final Destination 3 in 3-D which Mr. Moneybags and I found to be a little lacking when we watched it in 2-D at home) so if you don't think you'll like 3-D don't feel like you'll be missing anything critical by seeing the 2-D version. The one major problem for me with the 3-D experience is that it really forces your eye where to look, and when I found myself trying to resist this (or generally confused as to where I was supposed to be looking) things looked weird and out of focus. But there were some small 3-D effects like falling ash and dust that were really pretty beautifully done and added to the visual experience of the film. So I'll give the cop-out answer that if you think you'll like the 3-D version you will, and if you don't think you will then you probably wont. If you're in torn, go 3-D; I was sold the gimmick really can add something when done right.

Hola Mi Muchachos! Feliz Deciembre!

Hola Mi Muchachos!!!
¡Usted me trae mas feliz de cerebro, los amigos!


Feliz Navidad todos Y feliz tarde Cumpleanos Pedro!

It's Christmas movie time and you know our favorite, Bad Santa. But last night C and I tried to watch some of The Santa Clause, which shockingly felt like classic cinema to me. We also discovered that I thought there existed a movie called Miracle on 42nd street with Shirley Temple in it. This is not a documented movie.
Traditionally Die Hard movies were Christmas films but that's over now.
I feel there needs to be a Christmas movie category, but am having a hard time coming up with words. Something that will cover both N.L. Christmas Vacation (Where they stay home the whole movie?) and Lethal Weapon 2. Perhaps a subcategory of wincers.
I'm thinking: Myulevies or Cruicifilms or NaviDVDs... but these are weak...

Brian De Palma's Mission to Mars: Virtuoso Film Maker of Space and Sound

Mission to Mars (2000)
Director: Brian De Palma
Stars: Gary Sinise, Connie Nielsen, Tim Robbins, Don Cheadle and Jerry O'Connell

Allow me to be clear from the out set, I believe strongly that Brian De Palma is the best film maker within the pantheon of great American directors and this article/review will be about his greatness. His greatness is impressive and under appreciated, that's why. I specify that he is the best film maker explicitly because that is the limit of his greatness. Brian De Palma = best at explaining stuff through moving pictures, that's it. Other directors, Martin Scorceses and Clint Eastwoods may get better stories than Brian and may make more enduring and better received films, but Brian De Palma in a number of crucial technical senses makes the best movies. Maybe someone like Walter Hill or some foreigner could hold a candle to him, but they're not famous enough or American enough to play into this equation. Bearing my irrational fandom in mind (I literally decided he was the best at some point last year and am sticking to it), I was shocked to learn that Brian De Palma had directed Mission to Mars.
Somehow I had gotten the notion that he directed the film Red Plant instead. Red Planet came out about the same time as Mission to Mars and somehow I got mixed up.
Since I am currently in a process of seeing all of Brian De Palma's films again, it came as quite a joy to discover my error. Especially since I watched Red Planet again and found it less than great. There is a specific scene in the film in which Valkimer is head banging while looking out an overexposed window looking out at space. It is a vapid shot that for me encapsulates the vapidness of that whole mess. I still enjoy that film for its visual appeal especially the very end when Trinity catches Valkimer in the airlock wearing an awesome space suit.
You must understand that my commitment to understanding De Palma's magic is epic. In high school I saw The Untouchables and Carlito's Way and was struck. Both of those films held something very special in them and it certainly isn't their stories. Without getting into it too far at this point, those films, specifically the more action oriented scenes of Mafia gundowns and drug deals gone awry, are shot with a sense of forensic, spatial clarity difficult to find in almost any other director's works. One of my other favorite things about Brian DePalma is that he gave us Robert De Niro, who before shacking up with Martin Scorsese worked with another of America's greatest film makers, Brian De Palma, first. The film is called Greeting. It is a great film, up there with Joe and Easy Rider when it comes to movies about hippies and freaks. If you can find Greetings, you are good at finding rare titles and are lucky, because it is a joy. Compare the Pornography in Greetings to the flashbacks in Sisters to see how De Palma laid the ground work for Peter Jackson's patent 'documentary footage' montages (He's done this in all his films). When I think of Jackson's Forgotten Silver, I think that the exact sort of mocumentary eye at work was first developed by De Palma. It's a more visceral sense of mocument more akin to The Blair Witch Project or Tim and Eric: Awesome Show Great Job! than This is Spinal Tap and that fair. De Palma in Greetings uses the affect of different visual media (here 16 mm pornographic films of the late 60s) to develop a specific tone in the story. Similarly the flashbacks in Sisters are terrifying glimpses into the character's suppressed consciousness. They're cast in a grainy, black and white that brings to mind documentary footage and at least coincidentally refer to shots in Goddard's Alphavile.
All that confusion aside, when I started to watch Mission to Mars, I knew what I was looking for. Brian De Palma's greatest virtue is his ability to lay out a physical space through the visual medium of film, that enables both tension and resolution. To get at this I point to the classic blood bucket-prom scene in Carrie, where we see each part of the devious teens' plan implemented, each character is spatially positioned in a very palpable way relative to each other, their sight lines are super natural, pacing keeps us interested and movements are in a distinct sense correct. We see and don't see things come together seamlessly until the events culminate with the classic shot of Carrie on stage just before the bucket drops. We've been subliminally informed on all sides by invisible contextual elements. We see her there on stage and know about the girl to the top left of her holding the rope and the two people to the bottom right hidden beneath the stairs and though we can't see them their presence is looming. Again in Mission Impossible when Secret Agent Ethan Hunt meets his contact after things fall apart, De Palma builds through expert cinema an infectious spatial tension. Then the he blows up the giant aquarium.
In Mission to Mars I say De Palma is in top form. The film was unpopular likely because it went too far and got a bit schlocky even for me, though I understand they loved it in France. It could also be said that 'bad science' made this science fiction falter. And of course, the alien at the end (there is an alien kinda) is a bit lame. The film has everything Apollo 13 had (including Gary Sinise as practically the exact same character doing the exact same things) plus Mars plus an alien, but Mission to Mars didn't give me nightmares about being stuck in a space capsule slingshotting around the moon. In fact it gave me no nightmares at all, which I'm ok with.
For all the story's shortcomings De Palma manages to set up a few cinematic sequences that are lush and taught and totally rewarding. Here they are:

First, there is a shot in the rescue mission ship where we have a continuous shot that goes from simulated zero gravity into a gravitronic wheel a la 2001, where the laws of gravity apply. This actually happens twice, once with Jerry O'Conell and again with Gary Sinise. I have no idea how this was done. It is so subtle that, like the first shot of Orson Welles' Touch of Evil or the Black Dahlia for that matter, you don't even recognize how awesome a thing you've seen once you've seen it. Like the Indians couldn't see the ships.

Second, Tim Robbins floats out into space. I have never seen this happen in any other space movie: someone drift slowly into a planet's atmosphere. De Palma lays this out with such intelligence. The crew of the rescue vessel are in trouble when their engines explode and they loose all control. The crew decides to leave the ship and space walk to a satellite, which they can then maneuver to the surface. Apparently moving through the 3 dimensions of real space space is more confusing than any earthling could intuit. This part of the film is all about angles and distances. There is a tragic shot where Tim Robbin's movie-wife Connie Nielsen shoots a kind of rope gun at him hoping it will make it to him so he can be reeled in. We see him floating slowly away and she's getting closer and then shoots the gun and we know already that it will fall just short because of spatial cues provided by the precise cinematography. Here De Palma uses space as a vehicle for a tragic resolution not tension or ambiance.

My third and final favorite part of Mission to Mars is the sound analysis carried out by Don Cheadle's character. Films like Blow Out and Mission Impossible feature the other side of Brian De Palma's forensic genius, his adept use of sound. When the first crew approach a mountain on Mars in order to collect geographic recordings they encounter a truly bizarre sound. It is in this scene that a giant funnel of wind kills most of the initial characters. That's not important, what is is that we latter de-code the mystery sound and discover that it is in fact a pattern that describes the chemical structure of DNA. Now, this is a great part of the movie because as far as the audience can follow along they make the same profound discovery as the scientists and its neat and kinda unexpected. The problem with this part of the story and truly the final third of the film is that the DNA explanation makes no scientific sense and rather is out right wrong in some of its terms, calling nucleotides chromosomes, implying that DNA has a distinct beginning and end, and indicating that there is one sequence of DNA common to all life on Earth that we can easily identify. All this I was told by an actual scientist is non sense and makes the story a little hard to sit with. Still, there were far out sounds involved.

These are my three favorite things about Mission to Mars. I give the movie an A, like a 90%. That means I'll definitely watch it again some time probably in the next five years. It does fall short in many respects but makes up for it by being exceptionally well made. This sentiment can be applied to many of De Palma's projects for instance The Black Dahlia, which I think of a classic Wellesian noir or Snake Eyes, which is next on my list to watch again.

I implore you reader to give Brian De Palma a try and come at it with limited expectations. Expect craftsmanship and you will be rewarded. Expect to bite your nails and cry or laugh and you'll be disappointed. Think of it as being as good for you as Sudoku without being a form of subliminal advertising.

Zombieland

2009
Director: Rubin Fleischer
Cast: Jesse Eisenburg, Woody Harrelson and Emma Stone

Plot: Two men who have found a way to survive a world overrun by zombies.

Zombies and Whiny Ninnies
by C. True

After Shaun of the Dead it is was inevitable that others would try to cash in on the idea of horror and overt comedy, and thus was born Zombieland. Its the post zombie-apocalypse meaning few people are left and scattered zombies wait in the shadows for bright lights or loud noises to arouse their insatiable hunger. Like Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland treats the subject of zombies humorously but the majority of laughs come from the joy Woody Harrelson's character gets out of annihilating them. And there is some good zombie-asskicking, but Harrelson's performance was so gleeful it seemed a shame that we didn't get more of these rampages, or hear his rules and thoughts on zombies. There are also some jokes around Jesse Einsenburg's, Columbus character being wimpy and so impotent its a wonder he gets up in the morning and finds the will and courage to face a new day. Although he was funny in the beginning it was unbearable by the end. I've heard Jesse Eisenburg was good in The Squid and the Whale and somewhat of a serious actor but after seeing Zombieland and the painful Adventureland (is there a theme starting here?) I think its safe to say that comedy is not his genre. I blame Michael Cera, who may have cursed us all with a decade of geeky teenage boys striving to be the next awkward/funny guy, who ends up with the lady in the end because, gee, I guess he's sorta sweet? No, he isn't sweet, he is just non-threatening. He'll never leave you for another girl, or hit you or do anything that isn't completely predictable. That sounds like a potentially boring main character, right? But Cera somehow shows you he isn't liked because he's misunderstood, and to be fair his variety of dweeb was pretty unique when he debuted in AD, but Eisenburg's dork is just ceaselessly annoying and the repulsion other characters feel towards him seems well deserved. Towards the end of the movie I cringed whenever he opened his mouth and had it not been for Woody Harrelson interludes I doubt I would have made it to the end.

Thank You Bruce Hornsby

World's Greatest Dad

I false started World's Greatest Dad three times before actually getting to the twist, and for some reason I stopped one more time before I finally followed it through to the great shoe-drop at the end. This movie works off of a tension verging on meanness. We hate Kyle, the teenage douchebag who seems to exist only to masturbate and push peoples' buttons. We find his father somewhat pathetic, and then lose all sympathy for him as he slips gently into capitalizing on his personal tragedy. We hate the flimsy relationships that he puts up with and passively cultivates, and his milquetoast attitude toward just about everything he does. Bobcat makes us wait until the last second to see Robin Williams explode into sincerity and stop worrying about his desire to reach an audience that misunderstands completely.
When the film finally ended, I had to think about what the resolution meant. Robin Williams had his talent confirmed and in doing so finally felt comfortable destroying his image; Kyle's best friend had his version of Kyle restored. They were now footloose and fancy free to pursue whatever kind of mediocre intoxication and movie watching suited them. Woo Hoo! Whatever happened to the gay jock, or all the other people who'd built a new Kyle to celebrate as a warning against isolation and creative repression? Only Bobcat knows.

See World's Greatest Dad if you're in the mood to think uncomfortable thoughts, experience a non-threatening variety of suspense, laugh nervously and feel genuinely confused. See World's Greatest Dad if you're killing time while Bad Lieutenant downloads. Also, see it if you're the least bit curious about what Peter Pan's aging body, not to mention penis, look like floating in a pool.

Feel-lame movie of the year? I must nominate Precious.

Hola Muchachos! Soy el nuevo escritor de este blog, y támbien uno de los fundadoros de este sistema de clasificación para peliculas. Voy a contribuir con frequencia y estilo elegante!


Precious DVDSCR.

People Dealing with... um... I'm not sure exactly what issue we could lump this under. Family perhaps, or Chaos or maybe just Nature.

Oh, what to say about Precious? I watched the whole thing, and I'm kind of dumbfounded right now. Precious is the story of an abysmal childhood, which, if presented as a darker-than-dark comedy, would probably have been cause for some kind of widespread, uninformed, public media outcry. The topics that Precious encounters on her harrowing cinematic journey toward teenaged single-motherhood and an eighth-grade reading level range from aids, to retardation, to incest. As it is, Precious has been nominated for a "Spirit Award" (this label is stamped across my copy of the film), and while I believe it contains just as much palpable human suffering as last year's winner The Wrestler, I'm struggling to understand just what to take away from Precious.
In the film we are given the privilege of following precious on her journey from horrible home to new school to halfway house and then into an ambiguous future, in which the increasingly empowered, HIV positive, Precious is finally able to worry about caring for her two children: both the products of incest on the part of her father, and one of whom is lovingly referred to as "Mongo" due to some form of mental retardation. Precious, who blacks out during sequences of particularly brutal abuse and enters a dream state in which she is some kind of celebrity and speaks in news-reporter-ish, eventually finds solace in the support from her gay (for some reason we needed to know this?) teacher, her fiesty alternative-school classmates, her male nurse friend and her state-mandated counselor, Mariah Carey. By the end of the film, Precious is able to express herself in a manner that her handlers find to be acceptable, and we are meant to be very proud of her, standing up to face the odds. But I'm still scared to death at the idea that teenaged, obese, HIV+, mother-of-incest Precious is going to have to go it alone in the big crApple. And even if we are to believe that things go rosy enough for Precious, she's got to be an uncommon example. Literacy seems like a sort of half-assed solution to the Precious scenario. What she really needs is perhaps a time machine, so she can find whatever juncture in her mother's life left her completely socially isolated and susceptible to unchecked fear and anger, and give her a shove toward some kind of human support.

Anyway, see Precious at your own risk. The acting is fine, the film engaging, the Mariah Carey understated, and the Monique blistering, But the film is a vicious, overwhelming/depressing mindfuck and a heavy journey into the bowels of urban social disfunction.

House of the Devil

2009
Director: Ti West
Cast: Jocelin Donahue, Tom Noonan and Mary Woronov

Plot: In the 1980s, college student Samantha Hughes takes a strange babysitting job that coincides with a full lunar eclipse. She slowly realizes her clients harbor a terrifying secret: they plan to use her in a satanic ritual.

Combining Babysitters and Satanists
by C. True

Instead of 70's horror throwback, House of the Devil changes it up with...70's horror throwback set in the 80's. I'm a big sucker for directors striving for the cinematography and stylized look of the 70's, with Rob Zombie's The Devil's Rejects the most shining example (though the bizarre Return to Sleepaway Camp also went for broke establishing the 70's cinema look and feel). Needless to say when the credits began to role for House of the Devil and the freeze framing began I was squirming in my seat with excitement. Samantha is our quintessential beautiful college student who really needs some cash and takes a babysitting job. Her job happens to be WAY out in the middle of nowhere, and the husband and wife seem a little unusual. Like satanically unusual. Tom Noonan gives a great performance as the husband, with an understated soft spoken creepiness that sets a great mood and had me hoping for greatness. He tells Samantha the babysitting job isn't for a child, but for his wife's elderly mother, and when Sam balks he ups the pay to $400. Obviously this should be a warning sign, but Sam really needs that money. After the husband and wife leave, the movie for all purposes just stops. There is literally about 30-40 minutes of Sam walking around the house alternatingly snooping and investigating strange noises. At ten minutes I was still engaged, at twenty I was hoping the action should start any minute but by the thirty minute mark I was annoyed. Once the action finally did start it looked great and was generally creepy but there was almost no story to follow. There is a lot of reference to the full lunar eclipse but the importance of this to the Satanist is never mentioned, we're just supposed to put together that an eclipse would be an opportune time for a satanic ritual. Presumably they impregnate Sam with Satan's spawn, giving her creepy visual hallucinations, but this isn't developed at all and the conclusion of the movie feels completely abrupt and asinine. SPOILER: Only 10 minutes after this Satanic ritual Sam is so convinced she's being possessed or impregnanted with Satan's spawn that she kills herself? REALLY?! Maybe she should have waited for a little more confirmation before ending it all, and maybe the idea of have Satan's child would have grown on her, after all Rosemary learned to love her little antichrist.

You just had to wonder watching this movie why there is 40 minutes of set up and no storyline explanation. Did the writer/director Ti West not have a story in mind before filming this? It sure doesn't feel like it and maybe we shouldn't be surprised from the person whose big claim to fame is Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever. House of the Devil had a good look and a fine idea for a plotline, but watching this movie is about as exciting as reading the plot summary.

Them (Ils)

2006
Directors: David Moreau and Xavier Palud
Cast: Olivia Bonamy and Michael Cohen

Plot: Lucas and Clementine live peacefully in their isolated country house, but one night they wake up to strange noise... they're not alone... and a group of hooded assailants begin to terrorize them throughout the night.

Them: Just Not Scary (or Particularly Good)
by C. True

I was really sort of bummed that my tour of bloody French horror ended with Them. Especially because I’d heard good things about this movie and thought the plot sounded identical to the American film The Strangers which I had enjoyed. But something about this movie just didn’t do it for me. I was eating tortilla chips while watching it, maybe that distracted me. What was frustrating was that it felt like it should have been scary, but it in the end it was neither compelling nor frightening. Them tells the story of one harassment filmed night for a French couple, Clementine and Lucas, living in Romania. The harrassers are hooded figures, who first steal Clem’s car and then start bumpin’ and creepin’ around the property. At first the sounds and events are subtly creepy, and this movie relies on the anticipation of action which as we all know is often scarier than actual gore and violence. There’s really very little of either in this film, but there are lots of noises coming from just over there in the dark woods. The films progression is well done, building and swelling with dread and also revealing the assailants. I think it might have been scarier to not know who was committing these crimes, but Them importantly still leaves the question of why unanswered and doesn’t give too much away. The ending is chilling and faithful to the story. Why wasn’t it scary then? Maybe it was lack of character development but that’s an obvious cop-out since everyone knows character development in a horror movie is strictly optional. Maybe it was because Clem seemed such a strong female character that I didn’t fear for her, or didn’t feel that she was ever very afraid. I think this combined with the lack of any real violence or disturbing acts for most of the film might have been the downfall. Horror movie victims have to be a little bit weak, or out-numbered for you be scared for them. If there isn’t an underdog quality that is staggeringly obvious from the beginning than the viewer really needs to be scared, preferably up front, and I suspect this might be why the movie has a prologue murder. Without these murders the actions of the attackers would fall even more flat, and probably just seem like teenagers pulling a prank. Even with these murders at the onset, the attackers are underwhelming. Its scary if you cut the lights, but where is the scare in turning them back on again 10 minutes later? Things like this just reek of prank, and even knowing these hooded figures are killers didn't make me particularly scared for Clem and Lucas. I think maybe The Strangers works better with the same plot because it knows it must really scare its viewers into the mindset of the victims for the scares to work in the first place. In that movie the audience is repeatedly shown figures lurking in the shadows of doorways that the main characters do not see, and it is a creepier plot device to reveal that someone is already inside when the victim still thinks the attackers are lurking behind the safety of their door. In Them they are outside making noises, and then they are inside making louder noises, so they never really surprise attack or do anything you aren't already expecting them to do. All in all Them was a rather blasé, people who hated the very similar The Strangers will REALLY hate Them, and people who like The Strangers will see how unriveting getting harassed at your home can be when not done well.

Inside (À l'intérieur)

2007
Directors: Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury
Cast: Beatrice Dalle and Alysson Paradis

Plot: Four months after the death of her husband, a woman on the brink of motherhood is tormented in her home by a strange woman who wants her unborn baby.

Protect Your Baby and Your Face!
by C. True

Continuing on with French horror I chose the much reviled À l'intérieur, or Inside. Some quick research on the internet will inform you that by most accounts Inside is one of the goriest and most disgusting movies to come out of France, due in no small part to its somewhat taboo topic. Pregnant women don't usually make it into horror movies, and its a little surprising given what a truly depraved idea it is. Not only is the main character of Inside extremely pregnant but her pregnant status is at the crux of the entire plot. As such the story goes for a lot of cringy-worthy scenes and takes the plunge towards the all too inevitable gorey climax. The movie starts with Sara, who has lost recently lost her husband in a car accident and is now all alone and as stated at least 8 months pregnant. One night at home she hears a knock on the door, it’s a woman asking to use the phone. Sara refuses her stating her husband is asleep. But the visitor knows Sara’s husband is dead (uh oh!). She lurks around the house for a while, disappears when the police arrive, then later manages to get into the house. Our mystery lady reveals, surprise surprise, she would be more than happy to take Sara’s baby, if she doesn’t want it. While Sara finds safety locked in the bathroom a bevy of guests arrive at the house including her mother, her boss and a follow-up visit by the police. These visitors of course just offer us a chance to see the brutality of Sara’s persecutor, and really provide some of the only major events in the story. Sara is locked pretty well in that bathroom and as can be easily guessed that inevitable gut-wrenching scene has got to be the climax, so these visitors are just filling the time with gore. Its good gore I guess, not always original but definitely disgusting, which is most of the point after all. One bone of contention came with this attacker’s unwillingness to attack anything but her victim’s faces. Even if her weapon on hand is a pair of scissors and the only part of the face available for attacking is one of the thickest parts of the skull, namely the forehead, she is not dissuaded and goes for that head shot. I’m being a little unfair, one time she does jam scissors through someone’s hand but this was really to maim and not to kill. Needless to say Inside went more towards camp than say the equally violent French Frontier(s) but with a subject so disgusting its rarely touched in horror cinema I suppose a little silliness was needed.

Up until I saw this movie I was beginning to think the French showed their women a little more respect in the horror genre than Americans. It seemed that most of the heroines NEVER got to that exasperated breathy stage where they are giving it their pathetic all by spending most of their energy crying and gasping for air. Instead most of the women in French horror seemed determined to survive from the very beginning and their best effort seemed like it might actually be good enough for them to make it through the movie. That was until I saw Inside, where our main female victim gives it a real half-assed effort to make any sort of escape or retaliation against her attacker. Although the excuse maybe that she is pregnant and weak (not to mention already in a moody dejected state at the beginning) I really think the opposite reaction to this hostile situation would have worked better. Isn’t it possible that a pregnant woman would fight harder to save the life of her baby? And wouldn’t it have been creepy to see a pregnant woman carry out brutal survival-violence? Seeing victims reach their brink and turn against their attackers in an emotionally crazed state is one of the most satisfying horror twists and, when done right, can give the viewers the best of both horror movie worlds: scary helplessness and gorey revenge.

Good Hair

2009
Director: Jeff Stilson

Plot: Chris Rock explores the wonders of African-American hairstyles.

Good Hair Makes for Light Fun
by C. True

Chris Rock makes for a great narrator and interviewer in Good Hair, and the documentary works mostly due to his approach to the topic at hand. He comes at his subject of black women and their hair with an attitude of curiosity and playfulness. It reminded me of my big brother’s bewilderment with some of my fashion statements during my youth and his ability to poke fun without being cruel or mean. Chris Rock is also generally confused and amused at the same time at his subject as well as the people he interviews and it makes for the right tone of funny without condescension. This isn’t a movie just for black people and it also isn’t a movie about black people for white people. It’s a project Chris Rock claims to have started after his young daughter asked him in tears one day why she dosen’t have good hair. So Chris Rock seems to have gone out to answer at least three important questions. 1) What is good hair? 2) What are the techniques for obtaining good hair? 3) How far does the quest for good hair go?

The documentary starts introducing contestants for hair styling competition at the Bronner Brothers International Hair Show in Atlanta. In this completely over-the-top competition stylists must cut and style at least three people during the performance, they must present a coherent theme in the performance and they can have no more than 10 people on stage at any time. Editing of the film makes a fun surprise by holding back on introducing the most feared competitor at Bronner Brothers to reveal that he is in fact an effeminate white guy named Jason Griggers, who learned how to do black hair in a beauty school. Although all the contestants are odd Jason is definitely one of a kind. He allows Chris Rock to film a botox session in preparation of the show and while everyone else practices their performances with great seriousness and dedication Jason never bothers rehearsing his performance, such is his confidence in his hair-styling ability, not to mention showmanship. After the introduction of the competitors in the hair show Chris Rock begins by investigating the common usage of hair “relaxers”, asking what are they and should we really do this to a three-year old. He interviews various black celebrities including Maya Angelou who is as cute as a bug in a rug. When Chris Rock asks her how old she was when she had her hair relaxed for the first time she indicates it wasn’t until she was 70. Chris starts to exclaim “So you went your whole life without…” to be cutoff by an adorably indignant Angelou exclaiming right back “Not my whole life, I’m not dead yet!” Rock also has some expert witnesses to interview including a chemist who is shocked to find out the hydrogen peroxide is put on people’s head as a “relaxer” everyday. He demonstrates the chemicals ability to eat through a soda can and suggests its relaxing characteristics are due to its ability to break down proteins, not something you’d necessarily like on to put on your head. After relaxers Rock delves into the mysterious and pricey world of weaves questioning salons on price and layaway plans and the technique for sewing it on. He also spends time investigating where this hair used in weaves comes from. It’s India where girls frequently shave off their hair, which is culturally viewed as a sign of vanity, at temples. This free temple-hair which sells for big bucks in LA wouldn’t be enough to satisfy the American market and the funniest interview of the film is with a Hair Black Market Expert in India. When Rock asks how one illegally acquires hair the “expert” gives him a condescending look and replies “Girls sleep right?” and goes on to elaborate on his late night hair-snatching escapades. The movie ends of course with the Bronner Brother’s Hair Competition and it is as elaborate and at times ridiculous as expected. Although Rock gets into racial issues from time to time (no one wants their weave made out of black hair, and there are few black-owned companies in the hair market) the general tone is light-hearted and makes for a silly and fun hour and a half.

Frontier(s)

2007
Director: Xavier Gens
Cast: Karina Testa, Samuel Le Bihan and Estelle Lefebure

Plot: A gang of young thieves flee Paris during the violent aftermath of a political election, only to hole up at an Inn run by neo-Nazis.

Country Nazis Mean Business
by C. True

Continuing on with contemporary French horror, the next movie on the list was Frontier(s). It has a simple plot: a group of young Parisians flee the city during riots (they’ve done something illegal but I’ll be damned if I knew what it was) and stumble upon a totally sick and twisted family. Not just any kind of sick and twisted either, they are Nazis trying to start up a pure race. This means butchering the men who happen to stumble on their Inn (after the daughters have had their sexual fill) and capturing the women for wives! Even though they are neo-Nazi’s, and all about producing this pure race within their family they don’t seem to be that picky about who is a new wife since our leading lady is pointed out to be “unpure” with dark eyes and black hair. But no matter, just chop off her hair and pretend that she’s whiter. And the French seem to really love that symbolism of cutting off a woman’s hair, since lengthy moody hair-cutting sessions made it into both Frontier(s) and Martyrs. Initially I felt while watching the first half of this movie that I had seen this all before, but the movie really built up steam as it went along and I can tell you I don’t think it got banned in Thailand for the hair cutting scene. People get chopped up like mad in this movie. First, all the Parisian boys are tortured and killed in gorific ways, including one getting both of his Achilles heals cut with pliers that look like they belonged to a French Paul Bunyan. Then when there is only the girl left, we have a dinner scene reminiscent of the Texas Chain Saw Massacre. And while most of the family is just ominously German-looking, the father, who presumably was a Nazi, is a real creeper. With a lecherous grin he points out to our leading lady Yasmina that “I think you’ve met before” referring to the roast of boyfriend they are about to consume. But Yasmina is a fighter, and makes a ballsy escape from the dinner table by holding the “Father” hostage and this is where the movie really turned around for me. Your classic guns-pointed hostage standoff with quick cuts of the family members nicely built up the tension for the ensuing 30 minute final massacre extravaganza that was to follow. Yasmina barely escapes the dining room only to make it to the underground mine on the property where ominously deformed children of the family are kept (so much for pure genes). She is chased by Goetz, the dumb muscle of the family in the dark tunnels of the mine and his demise is intense so I won’t spoil it. When she finally makes it back to the elevator out of the mine shaft she is absolutely covered in blood and has got one bad case of the shivers. Yasmina is played by Karina Testa who I hope we can expect more from because she has one of the best screams I’ve ever heard and has got the traumatized tremors down pat.

Frontier(s) really delivers on all fronts for a formulaic chased-by-crazies horror film. It is scary, its is super gorey, it keeps a good pace and it ends when it should. It's not a breakthrough but it's a good example of how well the classic plot can work. If that doesn't sell you, this movie also contains one of the best head explosions I've ever seen, so there's that too.