The Gingerdead Man

Much to my chagrin The Gingerdead Man is NOT a Christmas themed movie (?!), and Gary Busey's involvement was minimal at best. So instead of taking the time to discuss its literary themes, I'll just share a few screen caps. Needless to say I don't think we'll be checking out the sequel Gingerdead Man 2: Passion of the Crust any time soon. Though I gotta say, if Gingerdead Man 3-D: Saturday Night Cleaver actually makes it to the theaters in 2011, I might have to check it out.

PS Isn't it hard to imagine how that little gingerbread man holds up that gun, let alone aims and fires it?

Santa's Slay

2005

Director: David Steiman

Cast: Bill Goldberg, Douglas Smith and Emilie de Ravin

Plot: Santa Claus is actually a demon who lost a bet with an Angel, so he becomes the giver of toys and happiness. But when the bet is off, he returns to his evil ways.

Since I like watching horror movies year round, I often have trouble deciding which horror movies I'd like to watch on Halloween. I love cheesy holiday films of every genre, but surprisingly Halloween-themed horror movies are harder to find than you might imagine (this year I forced Mr. Moneybags to watch Trick 'r Treat with me, not horrible, but unlikely to make its way onto Anna Paquin's resume). At Christmas time I usually go with the flow and watch all those sappy xmas classics, little did I know that the Christmas/horror merge not only existed, but was rather prolific! I was delighted to find how many options I had to choose from, there were even well-researched lists online to direct me to the more choice movies in this genre. Unfortunately, when I took my list of Christmas horror movies to my video store, some ass clown had the same idea (and list) and had rented all the major Christmas horror movies, hence I had to wait until after Christmas to see some of the more interesting titles. We watched several movies, and we still have Gary Busey's The Gingerdead Man for tonight, but our favorite had to be Santa's Slay.

First and foremost its just superior in terms of film making to most of the other movies we watched. The whole pace of Santa's Slay felt natural and entertaining, and right around the midway lagging point we were rewarded with a pretty awesome snow mobile chase sequence! Really awesome, our main characters jumped cars, huge hills, basically any and everything that came into view on that snow mobile. In general the killing sequences were also pretty good, sort of similar to the Terminators opening sequence only instead of Arnold, its Santa walking around taking out groups of dumbfounded people in bars, strip clubs, etc. Then you have professional wrestler Bill Goldberg as Santa, which was compelling since he looked pretty scary. This is no trivial point, many Christmas horror movies have a real hard time making their Christmas-themed villians scary, for instance it was hard to feel spooked by the evil snowman in Jack Frost just because his eyebrows were pointed down menacingly. Luckily, Bill Goldberg's huge hulking form and exuberance make up for his cute Santa suit, and he still comes across as someone you wouldn't fuck around with.

Unfortunately, the storyline of Santa's Slay is not one of its strong points, so I won't go into explaining why Santa is actually the spawn of Satan or why he has got it out for our main protagonist. I will mention that the favorite Canadian pastime, curling, does feature heavily in the story, and that the main backstory is told in a claymation sequence, fun! One of my only other complaints is that Santa's Slay had the capacity to perhaps go a bit more serious and scary, but instead remained mostly comedic throughout. Overall it was a great little holiday gem, which is a lot more than I think I'll be able to say about The Gingerdead Man tonight.

Enter the Void

2009

Director: Gaspar Noe

Cast: Paz de La Huerta, Nathaniel Brown, and Cyril Roy

Plot: A drug-dealing teen is killed in Japan, after which he reappears as a ghost to watch over his sister.

Enter the Void will be some people's favorite movie of the year, hands down, while everyone else will think it a completely slow, boring, soft-core porno masquerading as an art house film. I happen to fall in the former category, I loved this movie, and since I saw it a few weeks ago I can't stop thinking about it. I have an overwhelming desire to watch it again, all one hundred and sixty trippy minutes of it. There is something truly hypnotic about Enter the Void, and although it is very dark and disgusting at times, it is also very peaceful. Being a ghost, as imagined by director Gaspar Noe, is a pretty low-stress state of being where we float effortlessly over streets, through buildings and into the sky. The entire movie is shot in a point-of-view camera style, in which the camera sees through the eyes of the main character, Oscar. Though some will likely find this cinematography gimmicky, it seemed integral to the mood and ambiance of the film. We are passive observers to the scenes, and we pop into the lives of other characters almost at random. There usually isn't all that much going on, unless its sex. Which brings us to Paz de la Huerta (that's "Peace of the Orchard" for you non-Spanish speakers), who portrays Oscar's sister, and who is always the one sexing, or being sexed depending on the scene. It is ultimately Linda who seems to be the catalyst of her brother's downfall. She wears her sexuality like a big red bullseye, and it quickly becomes evident that Oscar isn't up to the task of protecting her from the predators she attracts out of the dark alleys and stripclubs of Tokyo.

Some may think that there is a lack of story to this movie, but I'd argue against that point. Certainly, there isn't a classical plot and I'm not sure there is a lot of the highly-touted "character development", but the film has its own perspective if nothing else. The journey we take through the afterlife is described point by point early on in the film, and it seems to be an obvious cue to sit back and let the images flow over us rather than worry about where the movie is going. And arguably what will be most interesting to both lovers and haters of Enter the Void is the imagery, not the plot. Besides the ghost shots mentioned above, you have the visual hallucinations of a (living) man in the grip of a powerful psychotropic drug. These pulsating organic visions transform and expand across the screen for many minutes, just long enough to appreciate them but not so long as to become tedious in this humble viewer's opinion. Ever a stickler for detail, Gaspar Noe even expertly portrays the transition into this brief drugged-state, which starts with disquieting irregularities of reality that grow and soon overwhelm the user and audience. Then in more intense moments late in the ghost trance, benign images contort to fish-eye proportions for unsettling effects. Did I mention most of the movie is set in Tokyo? So all of these effects are overlaid on what is already a visually overpowering urban landscape. By the end of the movie my brain felt a little melty, in a good way. And any movie that visually stimulates my brain into a state of cozy exhaustion is worth a second viewing in my book.

The Flavor of Pathetic

Catfish.


What to say about Catfish? This movie creeped me out for what seemed to be unintended reasons, as far as the makers were concerned. In this film we experience the blossoming of a host of relationships between a very hairy young man in his late 20's and a family of seemingly creative and exciting individuals existing thousands of miles away. The film, made by a brother and a friend of this hairy young man if I recall correctly, did a pretty heavy-handed job of landing its twist and negotiating the revelation of the truth of the facebook associations at its core.

I would have a hard time saying the following things about this movie:
1) This was a good movie
2) I would recommend that you see this film
3) I found this movie coherent and relateable

And yet, something about it did make me squirm and get uncomfortable and feel like I ought to go out and do something. Also, I feel bad "spoiling" it, because sometimes at the height of its discomfiture, the footage that finds its way into the film is potent to the tune of "the land of silence and darkness".

Historically, I have not been the sort of person who interacts or transacts socially through media in the hopes of finding novelty. I will interact with people in these contexts only insofar as it relates to things that we're doing together in three-dimensional flesh-space. These guys, and the relationship(s) they strike up on facebook are wildly divergent from my behaviors in the context of the great blue-windowed content horde that now encapsulates all the busybodies and relatives I, frankly, would rather marginalize by way of only occasional face-to-face contact. But this is their film, and these folks seem to feel like they've hit some kind of digital motherlode of cultural capital in the Michigan family they'd somehow be-faced. The story begins with a kind of zeal that suggests that we're going to see a straight rehash of "My Kid Could Paint That".

In the end, and I must refrain from describing it, these guys make a movie, and the relationships, for all we know, are dissolved. I guess my point is that mediated people are fake, especially if your imaginary for them consists entirely of facebook jetsam. While the shock of discovering deliberate misrepresentation is surely a curiosity, the question for me remains one of why these young fellows from a huge urban center don't make friends with any one of the thousands they daily pass wordlessly and without a glance.

The title of the film comes from an anecdote related by one of the characters that the filmmakers track down, and is a really janky metaphor aimed at redeeming or softening the weirdness of the character(s) who form the core of the revealed deception that is this film's major object. Catfish keep the cod sharp, we are told; thus, they keep from losing their flavor on long shipping runs. If I'm experiencing their film correctly, I take this to mean that the filmmakers have been sharpened up by an exemplary token of this variety of uncommon human. This wrap-up leads to two conclusions about the intrepid filmmakers: they are astute and conventional american-audience marketeers and/or obtuse in the extreme.

I'm Still Here

2010
Director: Casey Affleck
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Casey Affleck, Sean "P. Diddy" Combs

Plot: Documenting Joaquin Phoenix's transition from the acting world to a career as an aspiring rapper.

I'm Still Here is presented as a documentary about a tumultuous year in the life of Joaquin Phoenix, in which he retires from acting to start a career as a hip-hop artist. The movie is in actuality a mockumentary, afterall it seems unlikely that Casey Affleck would make a movie showing his brother in law doing tons of drugs, treating his few friends like shit, and excitedly talking about smelling the assholes of the call girls he's just ordered. But the movie is rarely comedic, unless maybe you are a personal acquaintance of Joaquin's and the whole movie is one big inside joke. Instead its a serious portrayal of failure and self implosion, presented earnestly as a real documentary. And for the most part Joaquin Phoenix "acts" quite well and we believe in his earnesty, so much so that many reviewers believed it was a real documentary. And its precisely this confusion of "what exactly am I watching?" that really detracts instead of adds to the film. Why was it necessary for Joaquin to embody this character so publicly, announce to the press that he was retiring, and generally act like a total dick in all his public appearances if it was all a character? Surely it was apparent that this little joke might cost him future acting jobs along with any kind of positive public image. In fact its distracting how much the film tries to make you hate him. There's a lot of boring melodrama where Joaquin endlessly berates a friend he suspects of telling the press his hip-hop career is a hoax for the movie. And see there it is again, by bringing up the the rumors that the documentary is a hoax we are repeatedly brought back to wondering what the hell is going on. Maybe if you go in knowing its a mockumentary all my bitching will be for nothing, then again I would not be the least bit surprised if a year goes by and Joaquin tells everyone it was actually real, but the footage turned out so embarrassing they decided to try and pass it off as a mockumentary, ZING!

Even taking into account from the beginning that this is a mockumentary, the whole movie still ends up feeling really pretentious, arrogant and confused. Is this a movie questioning what happens when a person takes their life and career and turns it into a fictionalized character for the sake of film? or is it about failure under the pressure of fame? Its got too much of both to discount one or the other as the main intent. If it was about life as film there wasn't anything really groundbreaking in this movie, in fact a follow-up documentary depicting the ramifications and consequences of this hoax on Joaquin's real life would have been much more interesting. If it was about the destructive quality of fame, others have done it better, particularly I have in mind the documentary Overnight (2003), documenting the rise and ego-maniacal downfall of Troy Duffy the writer and director of the Boondock Saints. There we had a genuine story, where it really was Duffy's life and career on the line. But in I'm Still Here we know Joaquin Phoenix is pretending as if he had a breakdown, and the fact that he threw away his real-life career for a movie feels self-righteous as though he knew all would be forgiven. The take home message seems to be then that Joaquin Phoenix is a dick, or maybe that Joaquin Phoenix wants you to think he's a dick. Because despite there being some sympathetic scenes in which we see him portrayed as someone desparately floundering, its all an act and I can't help but wonder how much in real life he bemoans being a famous actor. Doesn't it seem weird that under the pressure of fame in the movie business Joaquin's decision is to quit acting to seek fame in the music business? Maybe that sole story point was just intended to break the ice and make us laugh at Joaquin's rapping, but its so ludicrous that it detracts from the supposed realness of the film. I don't know, it was really a noodle-scratcher. Casey Affleck stated that he didn't think of I'm Still Here as a hoax, that they just wanted the audience to really believe what they were seeing, which unfortunately I think is the last possible thing the audience could think. Afterall, even my beloved Roger Ebert, who believed the film to be a documentary, still felt the need to start his review discussing whether it was possible I'm Still Here was a mockumentary. Also if you haven't already guessed this movie is a major bummer, making Mr. Moneybags go from a bit fussy to full-on cranky after watching this on a Saturday afternoon. There isn't anything inherently wrong with a bummer of a movie, but hopefully it should be interesting, and the novelty of Joaquin Phoenix being an ungrateful asshole wore off after about the 20 minute mark.

Cats and Dogs: Revenge of Kitty Galore

2010

Director: Brad Peyton

Actors: Bette Midler, Nick Nolte, Chris O'Donnell

Plot: The ongoing war between the canine and feline species is put on hold when they join forces to thwart a rogue cat spy with her own sinister plans for conquest.

The original Cats & Dogs (2001) is a pretty superior movie, and although you don't have much new going on in this sequel, if you found dogs operating overly complicated spy equipment amusing the first time, you are probably going to find it amusing the second time. At least I did. Now that the evil Mr. Tinkles has been locked up, another evil cat, Kitty Galore voiced by Bette Midler, takes the reigns of generally pissing off dogs and people alike. She holds some sort of grudge against both dogs and man but to be honest I think I missed this development during an early movie bathroom break, but the important part is she's got evil plans. The specific plan is to use a satellite to transmit a signal that causes dogs to go crazy. It's not a detail heavy plan but dogs are, as we all know, easily alarmed. This plan is in fact so nefarious that cat agents from MEOWs (due to editing or lack of motivation the acronym was never explained) join forces with the dogs to take down Ms. Galore. Personally I found the portrayal of all cats as dim-witted psychopaths a large part of the original 2001 film's charm, especially the dog training video depicting cats whipping egyptians into making the pyramids. Unfortunately, we are now lead to believe that most cats are good, and although they generally hate dogs, most do not want any harm to come to humans. I missed why dogs going crazy was going to really harm people, or more importantly why humans, cats and most mammals were to be impervious to the insanity-inducing satellite signal. Its almost like they used a formula to make this movie and didn't worry about the details. To be fair I doubt a lot of children watching the movie were wondering how the satellite signal was species specific, and for those adults watching there are movie references thrown in, the most amusing and inappropriate being the Silence of the Lambs type imprisonment of the earlier film's villian, Mr. Tinkles.

Here is a breakdown of the stock jokes that are needed to make a Cats & Dogs movie (ranked in comedic value), if you don't find at least two of these points amusing I'm doubting you'll like either film.

1. Dogs and cats operating outlandish spy equipment such as jet packs, jet cars conveniently located under most dog houses, plastic explosives, james bond style collars etc.

2. Evil cat masterminds forced into degrading/demoralizing outfits by their owners (Mr. Tinkles into a bonnet and Ms. Galore into a bunny costume)

3. Dogs and cats, and in one case a pigeon, speaking with ethnic accents.

4. The fact that dogs have an elaborate secret society to keep humans safe...which they keep secret from humans by pretending to sniff each others butts while having strategy planning sessions.

5. Dogs really hate cats

I should importantly note that I did NOT have the pleasure to view this movie in 3D, and obviously the 9 year gap between the original and this sequel suggests cashing in on the 3D fad was the large motivation for this film. In case you are thinking about skipping Revenge of Kitty Galore, think again, because with the escape of Mr. Tinkles in the final sequence there is likely to be a third Cats & Dogs that intricately builds and elaborates on the complex themes of the earlier two films.

Doblada Roundup

I wrote this in April and never came back to it, but here it is. It's sad to read it now, but only because Ninjavideo is down.


So, I've been out of the loop, like way, way out of the loop. Not in theatres, not online, not following scnsrc, the Pirate Bay, EZTV or even Ninjavideo. I am actually surprised when I return to populated areas and look at movie posters. I would probably have a fit if I were to go to Apple.com right now (supposing I had a good enough connection to even load images, much less video) and browse through their trailers. In fact, the only film watching I've been doing lately has been of movies dubbed in Spanish and of pirate DVD's that could easily have been made from some of the poorest rips currently residing in the ruins of the second kingdom. Sadly, most of the films I've watched in this fashion(usually while taking hellishly long bus rides) were trash, things I'd seen before or things that David and I had been unable to sit through no matter how "bored" we were or how fast they'd downloaded. But there have been a few gems, which I will now summarize, with little regard for chronology, in what I have decided to call the Doblada Roundup.

The first film I watched after landing in Ecuador was Anaconda, a movie I vaguely remembered as being terrible and from the mid-nineties. Anaconda benefits, or at least for me benefitted, tremendously from being watched on an extremely loud bus while a man with a huge bottle of yellow-colored cola and a bag of chips walks up and down the aisle sugaring and salting the captive audience. Forget about your uncomfortable seat, the insane traffic outside, the overactive air conditioner that seeks to turn you into frozen jerky in one extended breath: this is a film packed with action, major actors, digital snakes, brash sexual innuendo and Jon Voight, for Christ's sake. And every male character, as is customary in the translation process of overdubbing, is read with the gusto, machismo and ridiculous emphasis of the most hammed-up Robert Goulet impersonator imaginable, with slight nuances added for gay, skinny and black characters. Jon Voight, Ice Cube, Jennifer Lopez. I laughed for two hours straight, and I could barely make out the translations. A+, thumbs up, great dub.

Subsequent films seemed to follow this pattern of either intense, action-packed violence or lady movies. I got to watch Mandy Moore freak out about marriage and relationships with Diane Keaton and Piper Perabo in the Peruvian desert. I got to watch Stone Cold Steve Austin kill other prisoners to survive while riding through the Argentine Pampas. And also Kate Hudson. And also Jason Statham, Sylvester Stallone, Liam Neeson the list goes on and on. We did also see two or three children's films including the frog princess (which was somehow conducive to sleep), the squeakual (I couldn't stare directly into this) and some movie with Richard Gere, Jason Alexander and a fluffy white puppy (which had a faulty disk whose defect I had the pleasure of explaining in to an extremely skeptical woman).

One of the weirdest films I saw in Dub style was a Jonathan Demme movie with a big cast, but primarily featuring the woman from Alice in Wonderland who plays the White Queen (which I saw in 3d, in Quito and Dubbed! out there 3d still costs $4) as a recovering drug addict whose sister is getting married to a black man. The whole family is crammed together in a fit of upper-middle-class angst that seems extremely un-relatable given the comforting elegance of their home and their possessions in contrast with the material poverty surrounding the bus and the fact that we have been explicitly asked not to defecate in the toilets on our bus.

I think this is probably a good movie in English, albeit a serious downer, but dubbing had a really pleasant alienating effect on my experience of watching this film. I was having enough trouble keeping pace not only with the translation but also the weird predicaments that seem to befall Latino voice actors trying to give depth to their overdubs of African American speech, some kind of weird musicality that was part of the film, and the fact that I was crammed into an escalating series of absurd positions designed to negotiate semi-supine comfort with the fact that the air-conditioning vent above me was peeing onto my face, chest and lap.

Most of the films that we watched on the buses were watched with complete, rapt, silent attention, or ignored just as completely. A notable exception to this was an extremely serious film concerning good friends Cuba Gooding Junior and Horatio Sanz, and their experience of accidentally booking passage on a gay, not a straight, singles cruise. I have personally experienced no better way of musing on the question of machismo than to watch the reactions of captive holy week travelers as they confront the height of homosexual stereotypy as brought to you by seasoned SNL alumni and Cuba "Radio" Gooding Junior. This being an American film things eventually got all straightened out and by the end everyone had a properly balanced family based on the ideal relations of capitalist love production. This movie had Roger Moore as well.

To conclude, let me say that while I don't think having a great cinematic experience would be any reason, in and of itself, to ride buses all over South America, if you do happen to find yourself bouncing down a road with your knees impaling the seat in front of you as you are also impaled by some knees, certainly take your opportunity to enjoy some yellow cola and chips and see film in a context and technical style (really shitty tv and insane sound) that is transformatively provocative from the get-go.

(for another blog that updates semi-infrequently and more information on this trip I was on, allow me to plug ---> TrotamundosSA.blogspot.com)