Poetry doesn't work on whores.

The thing that separates Andrew Dominik's strange, magnificent The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford from the 70's classics it descends from (the revisionist Westerns of Terrence Malick and Robert Altman chief among them) is its unapologetic romanticism. It would be a mistake to describe the film's visual grit and stark narrative as realistic; rather, the film is tinged with a bittersweet nostalgia, as though it were told through the eyes of James' dewey-eyed, adoring assassin. A requiem for a time that never was, The Assassination practically demands the sort of ecstatic, purple praise usually reserved for tent revivals. Suffice to say that The Assassination is film as an ephemeral series of moments made indelible through the prism of memory. It's alien in a way that only a truly modern work is, elegaic and confounding and, for all its obvious cinematic ancestors, a complete original.

"I honestly believe I'm destined for great things," Ford (Casey Affleck) tells us early on, and there's a fatalistic undertow to the narrative. Framed by a Barry Lyndon-esque narrator, the film takes the well-known moments of James' life and stages them through a soft-focus haze, as though the images are emerging straight from our collective unconscious. Out of this fog emerges a Jesse James that, as played by Brad Pitt, is paranoid and haunted in the way that giants are. The notorious outlaw is obsessed with signs and totems, constantly on the watch for possible traitors in his gang of malcontents, struggling with the inevitable. The dewey-eyed Ford, whose worship of James borders on lust, joins the James gang for their last train robbery (eerily staged under cover of night), has his illusions of his hero shattered, and ultimately conspires against him. Dominik presents these two figures as locked in an inevitable twist of fate, James' outsize persona dooming him to a public execution by his most loyal sycophant. This relatively simple story unfolds at a leisurely, meditative pace, yet Dominik's authority over the material is remarkable (particularly since this is his second feature). The god's-eye persepective of the story travels over painterly landscapes that transform almost imperceptably with the seasons as the sounds of wildlife form a constant, indifferent chorus. Rarely has a story of even our grandest icons' insignificance in the face of time unfolded with such unabashed romance.

But for all its high aspirations (it was gratifying to hear Domnik reference Barton Fink, calling his film "a fruity movie about suffering"), The Assassination more than honors its dime-store origins. The violence isn't the operatic bloodshed of Leone and Peckinpah, but Dominik and cinematographer Roger Deakins (brilliant as always) never shy away from the red red kroovy of a well-placed headshot either. While this is not a movie filled with DTS-charged shootouts, the constant threat of violence creates a superbly sustained tension. This is largely thanks to the two leads - Pitt makes almost imperceptable shifts from folksy humor to animalistic rage, and Affleck (in a revelatory performance) creates an assassin as sympathetic as he is creepy, constantly keeping us off-balance. The entire film is equally well-cast - Sam Rockwell is alternately funny and moving as Ford's brother Charlie, Sam Shepard's brief appearance as Frank James is a smart nod to Malick, and Mary-Louise Parker is stunning in a near-silent turn as Jesse's oft-neglected wife. The irony of the film's immediate reputation as a strange, overlong art movie is that, more than anything, it recalls the grand, outsize entertainments of a bygone era of moviemaking. Like the songs of Nick Cave (who, with Warren Ellis, wrote the film's score), the film is at once sweeping and delicate, lingering in the grey area between pulp and myth.

The Assassination cements its classic status in the stunning denouement, which follows Ford as he makes a living recounting the murder for a rapt audience. Preserved as a coward, Ford repeats the deed over and over, at one point challenging his audience's hypocrisy in attending to judge him. His destruction becomes his immortality, a point Dominik drives home in a breathtaking final freeze-frame. If Ford's cowardice ensures his story's retelling (and commodification), Dominik ackowledges his own role in Ford's fate, and ends with remarkable empathy for a man destined to become the villain in the story he so adores. Awful marketing and the public's preference for the more straightforward 3:10 to Yuma have resulted in Ford's continued marginalization. But, upon viewing the film in a near-empty theater, I found myself transported by The Assassination's visual grace and aching humanity. It's a masterpiece, one that Robert Ford himself would have surely been proud to be a part of.

He is no driver, he is the undertaker.

Eastern Promises is the first film by David Cronenberg shot entirely outside of Canada, but this dislocation is not as prominent as one might expect. Cronenberg's films are primarily composed of interiors, both literally (the spaces his characters inhabit and, sometimes, their insides) and emotionally. So while a thriller set against the backdrop of London's criminal underworld is a narrative departure for the director (a stunning early gore effect aside), it also represents a logical step in Cronenberg's thematic evolution, which has moved from physical to existential horrors. Though there are no telepods on display, Eastern Promises is another chapter in Cronenberg's ongoing study of what it is to be human.

As with his previous film, A History of Violence, the "mob" is an abstract, a pulpy representation of the ways that family at once defines and assimilates one's self. When a fourteen-year-old girl dies during childbirth, leaving only a diary and a business card behind as identification, midwife Anna Khitrova (Naomi Watts) sets out to find the baby's family. Her search leads her to Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl), a grandfatherly restauranteur who is also the head of a powerful crime family specializing in sex trafficking. Implicated in the diary is Semyon's son Kiril (Vincent Cassel), a hothead accompanied by Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen), his driver, a cool, calculating figure who, early on, dismembers a corpse as casually as if he were cleaning a turkey. I referred to Eastern Promises as a sort-of thriller because the the plot does not to be Cronenberg's main point of interest. Instead, it's the characters that drive the story, particuarly Nikolai; as part of an initiation ceremony, the driver renounces his parents and origins in favor of the criminal history tattooed on his body. Here, criminality becomes a way to transform, or even destroy, one's identity, and screenwriter Steven Knight suggests, as he did in his previous Dirty Pretty Things, that this is a mirror of the global economy's push towards homogenization. But Cronenberg isn't a political filmmaker, at least not in such black-and-white terms. In Nikolai he finds a true hollow man - a character that is representative of nothing except his actions, a smirking blank slate brought to life by Mortensen's pitch-perfect performance (also a mirror image of Tom Stall).

Cronenberg's identification with Nikolai, which borders on the fetishization previously reserved for eXistenZ's Allegra Geller, threatens at points to drown out his other characters. The leads all do strong work, and Jerzy Skolimowski and Josef Atlin are memorable in supporting roles, but their characters are somewhat shortchanged as Nikolai takes the film's center stage in the second half (though Watts gets to ride one of Cronenberg's beloved Urals). Also, while Cronenberg's trademark brevity is usually refreshing, here the 100-minute running time feels rushed. I hesitate to reduce things to such simplistic terms, but an extra reel would have given the film enough breathing room to give the final twists more impact. Cronenberg's detached approach results in a film of surfaces, at some points chillingly ambiguous, at others vague and impenetrable.

Still, these are minor complaints in a film filled with surfaces this rich. Nikolai's world has a crimson, classical elegance that at first seems a seductive departure from the film's desolate vision of London. But Cronenberg avoids Godfather-esque romanticism, quietly linking this old world's decay with that of its adopted city. The dead girl's ever-present narration presents a familiar vision of "the city" as a place to reinvent oneself; in Nikolai's tattooed body, Cronenberg presents the dark flip side of this fantasy. And the film reaches a brilliant apex in the already-famous bathouse fight scene, which is unforgettable not just for the matter-of-fact nudity but as a visceral explication of the film's homoerotic undertones - read the assailants' knives as phallic objects, and each blow and thrust carries a greater psychosexual weight. If this seems like a heady approach to a mob movie, it's because Cronenberg's films demand to be read on many levels. Even when they're not completely successful, they stick to the ribs, and for more than just the spectacle of Viggo Mortensen's furious balls.

Trick or Treat

Halloween Trailerfest #31: The Boogeyman!

Sidenote: I've had Michael Myers nightmares since I was four (less frequently now). In each, I move to a new town, change my name and start a new identity, but eventually the Shape shows up and the dream becomes an extended chase. But it appears that as the series progresses, it continues to shape my unconscious, because in the last dream, I was accompanied by Danny Trejo.

Happy halloween.

Halloween Trailerfest #30: Redrum!

Gratuitous Nudity #5

Barbara Crampton and David Gale, Re-Animator (1985)

Halloween Trailerfest #29: Captain Howdy!

Halloween Trailerfest #28: Mr. Dark!

Halloween Trailerfest #27: Kitty!

Halloween Trailerfest #26: Manitou!

Halloween Trailerfest #25: Kinski

Halloween Trailerfest #24: Cronenberg!

You are a beautiful, beautiful butterfly.

I've been putting off writing about Alien: Resurrection, mostly because, compared to its predecessors, there simply isn't much to say. Sapphic intrigue, gender politics and a curious pro-choice message are suggested but never really developed - the film is, as waifish android Call (Winona Ryder) refers to a Ripley brought back to life by science and international box office, a construct, the first superficial entry in the series. This is not to say that Alien: Resurrection is awful; on a pure gross-out level, it's a good deal of fun. But more often then not, it's like a mildly amusing party guest who thinks he's the suavest guy in the room.

Blame the typically obvious script by Joss Whedon, which revolves around a generic pre-Firefly gang of interstellar crooks battling the now-familiar xenomorths reborn through the miracle of cloning (how cutely 1997) along with a not-quite-human reincarnation of T. Ellen Ripley. As I mentioned before, variations on the themes that have sustained the series are touched upon, the difference being the arch, self-conscious attitude towards its own story. The concept of an part-alien Ripley, for instance, opens the film up to all kinds of narrative and thematic possibilities that are never pursued; it's simply a smirking gorefest made for self-important dorks who pat themselves on the back for knowing the phrase "vagina dentata." Add in awful dialogue composed of a constant barrage of empty sarcasm (1997 again), and it becomes staggering to recall how buzzed-about Whedon's script was back in the day.

With almost every significant element of the first three films reproduced here, it's telling that the notorious Weyland-Yutani company is absent from the plot (they went bankrupt). The sidestepping of the series' anti-corporate message meshes with what appears to be an extemely compromised, focus-grouped franchise entry (witness Ryder, woefully miscast in a misguided attempt to attract the Reality Bites crowd). Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet is one of the best stylists around, and the film does have a memorably sticky, verdant visual style. At the same time, while few of Jeunet's films (save The City of Lost Children and A Very Long Engagement) are particularly deep, Alien: Resurrection feels unusually generic. Jeunet's tendency towards whimsy clashes against the grimier moments, which replicate the gross-out moments of the earlier films without capturing the same unease. Whatever the case may be, neither studio tinkering nor Gallic shenanigans can account for the newborn, a hybrid alien that looks like Frank Langella's Skeletor dipped in porridge. When the newborn dies a protracted, grotesque death, Alien: Resurrection ceases to be fun even on a gross-out level - it's just nasty, kind of mean and not very smart.

The film is not without its charms, among them Brad Dourif's reliably wacky supporting performance, Darius Khondji's striking cinematography, Dan Hedaya's back hair. But if there's anything that makes Alien: Resurrection worth visiting ten years later, it's Sigourney Weaver, who is clearly having a blast, delivering even the crappiest lines with knowing wit. Weaver immediately and consistently finds the tone the film really needed to succeed - she's sexy, cynical and unapologetically weird. It is clear, finally, that the Alien series is the story of not one but two unstoppable forces of nature. Take Ripley out of the equation and you get Alien vs. Predator. Case closed.

Halloween Trailerfest #23: Cenobites!

Doug Bradley is underrated.

Halloween Trailerfest #22: BOYYY!

Halloween Trailerfest #22: Who Made Who?!

Bonus points for anyone who can name the source of the trailer music.

Halloween Trailerfest #20: Hitch!

Halloween Trailerfest #19: Phone!

Cheveux Sans Visage

The following is a contribution to the Close-Up Blog-a-Thon.


When we first see Pam (Rose McGowan), it is from behind as the other characters that populate the first half of Death Proof speak cattily about her. Pam remains in the backgroud, out of focus, or in distant two-shots for most of her screentime, her marginalized position in the frame mirroring her status in the film. While the Final Girl archetype of slasher film has been frequently discussed (and is an important part of Death Proof, less talked-about is the First Girl, the generic, interchangable character who departs before we ever really know her. Think of Judith Myers, or Annie in Friday the 13th, or the dude who gets whacked with a mallot in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. We're denied any emotional investment with these characters; they exist only as fodder.


The above two-shot (which reminds of both Magritte and Ringu) literalizes the oft-criticized facelessness of slasher characters. Tarantino is making reference to the often awkward visual compositions of grindhouse cinema, but it's more than the kind of tongue-in-cheek smartassery that comprises most of Death Proof's sister film Planet Terror. It's one of several times that Pam literally upstages herself, her ghostly hair concealing her features.


Indeed, Pam practically volunteers for her First Girl role (that McGowan plays such a low-status role after her Planet Terror supervixen is a great meta-joke). Stuntman Mike seems mostly annoyed and mildly amused by Pam - she's a momentary distraction from his real targets. But Pam begs for Stuntman Mike's attention and gets into his car even after this becomes an obviously bad idea. She's looking for trouble, and is absent even in her own shot.


When we finally view Pam in close-up as she pleads for her life, it is only because she has fulfilled her narrative purpose. Tarantino frames her through the smeared glass dividing Mike's front seat and the celluloid detritus that is a major part of Grindhouse. She is a prisoner not only of her killer but of the frame, conceived for a horrible fate she is doomed to repeat over and over again. She has no mouth with which to protest, because if she does not die, then we haven't gotten our money's worth. While Tarantino's talent with cinematic violence is famous, less talked about is the underlying empathy he grants even his most marginal characters. IAnd in McGowan's eyes, we can glimpse the sad story of the girl who never had a chance.

Halloween Trailerfest #18: Dirtypillows!

Halloween Trailerfest #16: Rosso!

Halloween Trailerfest #15: Fulci!

Halloween Trailerfest #15: Pazuzu!

Halloween Trailerfest #14: Zombi!

Halloween Trailerfest #13: Martians!

Halloween Trailerfest #12: Brimley!

This gets better and creepier every time I see it.

I've been out here a long time.

Sigourney Weaver reminds of Maria Falconetti in Alien 3, and not just because of the shorn palate that was the focus of the film's pre-release buzz. David Fincher's second sequel could practically be called The Passion of Ripley, so thoroughly does it subject its already-beleagured protagonist to a barrage of physical and spiritual torments. More impressive than the alien this time around is Weaver, giving her best performance as Ripley here - beaten, hopeless, her inner anguish palpable in every one of Fincher's clinical, Dreyer-esque close-ups. Taking the series to its nihilistic end point, Alien 3 deposits its heroine at "the ass end of space," strips her of her she-Rambo accoutrements and once again reinvents her, this time as a pre-Raphaelite martyr saint. A film about chaos that was famously made in a state of chaos, Alien 3 is alternately (and sometimes simultaneously) incoherent and splendidly dissonant. While it cannot match its predecessor in sheer filmmaking craft, it's a more direct thematic sequal to Ridley Scott's original.

Easily the most inhospitable setting in the series is remote penal colony Fiorina "Fury" 161, a haven for rapists and murderers devoted to a monastic way of life in anticipation of the apocalypse (they haven't given up profanity, however - the screenplay is gloriously vulgar). It is here that the spaceship Sulaco crashes, carrying Ripley, a broken Bishop and the corpses of Hicks and Newt (a much-derided, impressively merciless choice). At a ceremony for the dead, Dillion (Charles S. Dutton) declares that "within each death, there is also the promise of a new life," a scene Fincher intercuts with the grisly rebirth of the alien from the insides of a very cute pooch. It's a moment that contains insight into the bodily horror that makes the alien concept so frightening, as well as the fact of a second sequel (the answer to Dillon's question "Why the pain?" being that Aliens grossed $130 million worldwide). As the plot develops, the alien is more clearly defined as the fear of something that exists within, in both a literal sense and in the early, provocative suggestion that, for these pious, sex-starved inmates, the alien is a manifestation of something long repressed.

Unfortunately, this suggestion is only addressed in a routine, too-reassuring attempted rape scene before being summarily dropped in favor of a bleaker take on Rio Bravo. While both elements work fine, each to some extent dilutes the other; if there's a problem with Alien 3, it's the overabundance of ideas that are never satisfactorily dealt with. Of course, Fincher and his cast and crew had to work under impossible circumstances - commencing production without a finished script, making up the plot as they went along - so it's honestly a miracle that the film succeeds as well as it does. Fincher manages to arrive at a final scene, depicting self-destruction as heroic, that borders on incendiary for a summer tentpole while commenting on his own treatment by the Hollywood machine (fuck Weyland-Yutani). None of this changes the film's myriad problems, the interchangability of some supporting characters and some shoddy-even-for-1992 CG chief among them. But it's a testament to Fincher's talent (not to mention Alex Thomson's glorious cinematography and Eliot Goldenthal's chilling score) that even in the film's most muddled moments, one can catch glimpses of the unsparing vision that would flourish in Seven, Fight Club and Zodiac.

There's a moment in Alien 3 that is perhaps the defining image of the series - Ripley and the alien, face to face, Ripley trembling in anticipation of her death before the alien suddenly retreats. It's an image worthy of Fuseli, capturing the balance between light and dark, creation and destruction (as Ripley herself tells the creature "I can't remember a time when you weren't a part of me"). It's also a self-reflexive moment, depicting the symbiotic, elemental relationship between actress and monster that enables the enduring appeal of a series that, here, reaches its logical conclusion. At least, that is, until Joss Whedon and Dolly the sheep had something to say on the matter...

Halloween Trailerfest #11: Amicus!

The Trim Bin #63

- I can't make up my mind about the new trailer for Sweeney Todd. The trailer looks gorgeous, Tim Burton's trademark style is certainly on display, and Johnny Depp apparently can sing. But there's too little singing on display here to be sure - it's a case of the studio trying to fool teens into seeing a musical. And I'm not sure about Burton's aforementioned style - his recent movies are too often on cruise control, and I'm not sure Sleepy Hollow-esque opulence is right for a musical that practically demands a stark approach. Either way, I'll be there on Christmas - as far as year-end Oscar-bid musicals go, it sure beats Dreamgirls (imagine what Burton could have done with that).

- So it turns out I'm in The Game Plan for about three seconds. The Rock's running one way, I'm headed the other way. I'll post a screencap when it hits DVD, because under no circumstances should any of you ever see The Game Plan.

- Over at Final Girl, Stacie Ponder is writing about the films that made her Willies List (so wonderful to see Ed's idea take off like it has) . Her recent post on Magic includes the tv spot that sent many a child of 1978 into convulsive sobs. It's funny - Magic is an interesting, occasionally creepy character study, but that commercial is way more terrifying.

- I was recently singled out at a party and accused of not loving (truly loving) Troll 2. Well, sorry. As an act of penance, here's a picture of my friend Jess and her boyfriend Nick being interviewed at a Troll 2 screening in NYC (third picture down). I must say, I do admire their commitment to Nilbog.

- Greg at Dreamscape is spending the month looking at mostly lesser-known titles in a series he's dubbed The October Ordeal.

- Doug at Nihon Musings, also getting into the Halloween spirit, lists Seven Amazing Character Deaths in Anime.

- Don't forget about The House Next Door's Close-Up Blog-a-Thon, which starts Friday (details here).

- On a personal note: Luna loves Superman. She becomes completely transfixed whenever Superman Returns is on TV, and giggles and squeals whenever Supes is in action. It's important to me that I not force my interests upon her, so it warms my geeky heart to find out Luna's a chip off the old block. Luna, have I got a movie to show you:

Halloween Trailerfest #9 & 10: Science Fiction Double Feature!

I love this:



But I love this more:

Halloween Trailerfest #8: Cropsy!

This one is Final Girl's Film Club pick for October. Edgar Wright has definitely seen this one.

Halloween Trailerfest #7: Goblin!

Did IQs just drop sharply while I was away?

That Aliens is as much a product of its decade as its predecessor is evident in far more than just Paul Reiser's perm. Replacing the genre-bending Alien's Agatha Christie-inspired structure with all-out war not only pushes James Cameron's film squarely into the action genre (of which it is one of the definitive examples), it also turns Aliens into a competely different philosophical beast. Sharing with Ridley Scott's film a distrust of corporations, it's also a more direct descendant of Star Wars - it's a slick, populist combat picture that leaves us exhilarated where its predecessor left us drained. When Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) asks early on "We're going to kill it, right?", the question echoes Rambo's "Sir, do we get to win this time?" from the previous year's megahit Rambo: First Blood Part II (co-written by Cameron). And like Rambo, Aliens is a post-Vietnam attempt to revise nation's painful recent history, finding victory in an unwinnable war. Such fantasies were popular in the 80's, and appear to be making a resurgence now (witness the popularity of Ron Paul), and Cameron cannily exploits this need for catharsis. Aliens is one of the best movies of its kind, perfectly crafted and completely entertaining from beginning to end; if I love it a little bit less than Alien, it is because I find its motives suspect.

Aliens begins with the discovery of Ripley 57 years after the start of her cryogenic sleep, giving us a protagonist that is literally and spiritually adrift. At the film's core is the transformation of this woman, stripped of the world she knew and, consequently her identity, redefining herself in the crucible of violence and battle. Survival in Alien meant escape, here it means battle, and Ripley is transformed from Scott's liberated, resourceful warrior woman into one of Cameron's trademark gun-toting Überbitches. I'm of two minds about how Cameron treats his female protagonists; it's certainly a kick to see strong women celebrated (Titanic's sappier moments are largely forgiven by me thanks to the scenes of a buff, axe wielding Kate Winslet), but Cameron also defines strength in narrow terms. Early on, Ripley impresses the Marines she is accompanying on a rescue mission to LV-426 (the barren planet seen in the first film) by operating a power-lifter; bookended by her climatic battle with the queen alien, the two scenes are the first and last in a series of Ripley proving her strength to the skeptical soldiers (and, perhaps, to a skeptical audience). I admire Cameron's mostly successful attempt at creating a forward-thinking action movie, except that I already knew Ripley was strong and I don't need her to be talented with military hardware to belive this. Where the first, weapon-free film was driven by a kind of vaginal horror, Aliens is preoccupied with weapons and, thus, becomes about Ripley growing a dick. At worst this feels hamhanded; at best (which is, to say, for most of its running time), it's like Robert Heinlen's Starship Troopers as directed by Hélène Cixious.

None of this, however, changes the fact that Aliens is one of the most entertaining movies of all time, a perfect example of what Hitchcock called "pure film." While Cameron's films are celebrated and derided for their technical sound and fury (underscored here by an effective if indelicate James Horner score), what distinguishes him from other technically sophisticated peers like John McTiernan and Tony Scott is his appreciation of silence. The largely action-free first hour of Aliens, mostly devoted to Ripley and the Marine's search of the seemingly abandoned LV-426, has an ominous, deliberate pace that, just as it is about to demand our boredom and frustration, snares us with a shocking variation on Alien's chestburster scene. The trick of any sequel is to both meet and subvert an audience's expectations, and by adapting the first film's universe to his own style, Cameron's film manages to keep us off-balance even as he delivers what we've paid to see. My aesthetic and philosophical preferences aside, I far prefer Aliens to a retread where eight new crew members go through a carbon copy of the original - luckily, the four entries in the series (Aliens vs. Predator doesn't count) have been a training ground for emerging directors posessing their own singular vision, something that distinguishes the series from other franchises (consider the cynicism of that term).

The heart of Aliens is the relationship between Ripley and Newt (Carrie Henn), an orphaned little girl resourceful enough to have survived for several weeks on LV-426. Ripley's prolonged climatic rescue of Newt from the queen (masterfully realized by Stan Winston and his crew) is complely gripping, as Cameron and Weaver have succeeded in creating a very real emotional in these the characters, each experiencing a total, existential loss resulting in a poignant mother/daughter bond. Cameron comes closest to aping Scott's concerns in pitting his warrior woman against a monster defined by her reproductive status - it's a battle between Amazons and breeders for the future of our children, and it's awesome. On the other hand, in a development that jibes sharply from Scott's film, Ripley learns to cast aside her fears and embrace technology in the form of a sensitive 80s man android named Bishop (Lance Henriksen). While both films are critical of Weyland-Yutani, the company determined to capitalize on the alien, Aliens ignores the relationship between the android and his creator, as if to say "Yeah, Lockheed Martin is evil, but the F-22 raptor is sooo bitchin'."

In juxtaposing the mother/daughter relationship against its relative corporate conformity, Aliens reveals itself as surprisingly domestic. And strangely enough, this works in the film's favor; while some ambiguity is sacrificed, there is an undeniable cathartic joy in watching a gang of wisecracking Marines (Bill Paxton's Hudson, like a buff, male Veronica Cartwright, is the biggest standout) blow away a hive of very nasty xenomorphs. And, best of all, Cameron never sacrifices intelligence or character in the process. Aliens is a landmark film, a redefinition of action tropes that has often been imitated but rarely equalled in style or substance. It's so good, in fact, that not even Paul Reiser and his perm can sink it.

Halloween Trailerfest #6: Esteban!

Halloween Trailerfest #5: BRAAAINS!

Halloween Trailerfest #4: Raincoat!

I first saw this in ideal circumstances - at the Harvard Film Archive on a grey August night. But even on the tiniest of screens, it loses none of its hypnotic, devastating power.

Halloween Trailerfest #3: Power glove!

I actually have this one in 35mm.

Halloween Trailerfest #2: McDowell!

Top 10: Vampires

The enduring appeal of the bloodsucking ponce has never been better articulated than by Bela Lugosi himself (as played by Martin Landau). "The pure horror," Lugosi explains, "it both repels and attracts them. Because in their collective unconsciousness, they have the agony of childbirth. The blood. The blood is horror. Take my word for it. You want to score with a young lady, you take her to see Dracula." With that in mind, here's a list that was unusually hard to create (in the interest of diversity, I've limited myself to one Dracula and one Orlok).


1. Count Orlok (Max Schreck), Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens "Schreck" is the German word for "fright," and while this would have been a great pseudonym for the actor who first embodied Dracula (sporting his own pseudonym), it's a hundred times more awesome that Schreck was the dude's real name. Proof, in my mind, that Schreck was born to play the tortured, feral count - it's more than a performance, its one of the definitive images in horror. Klaus Kinski gave the role a palpable sadness, and Willem Dafoe turned it into sharp satire, but it's Schreck that really earns his surname.


2. Dracula (Gary Oldman), Bram Stoker's Dracula Coppola's version of Dracula is uneven and famously features a particuarly terrible Keanu Reeves performance. Still, it's my favorite Dracula, thanks to its visual opulence and the magnificent titular performance. Bela Lugosi is the most iconic, Christopher Lee is the scariest, and Frank Langella is the permiest. But Oldman is amazing here, his Dracula ranging from warrior to feeble old man to bummed Goth dude without ever becoming jarring or incoherent - this Dracula is a multilayered monster, driven equally by satanic instinct and human desire, and the Count has never been so compelling. Plus, gotta love purple-tinted shades.


3. Miriam Blaylock (Catherine Deneuve), The Hunger She's a pianist, she seduces Susan Sarandon, she's into Bauhaus, and she's trapped David Bowie in a coffin in her attic. Case closed.


4. Martin Madahas (John Amplas), Martin Possibly the creepiest vampire listed here, Martin is a vampire who can appear in sunlight, has no particular superpowers, and lacks fangs (a razorblade does the trick). Director George A. Romero never quite tells you whether the teenage-looking Martin is crazy or if he is, somehow, an 84-year-old bloodsucker, and Amplas' deadpan performance enhances the film's effectieve ambiguity. The monster here is competely unremarkable, which makes the bloodletting all the more unsettling.


5. Severen (Bill Paxton), Near Dark The coolest in a movie filled with cool vampires, Severen looks badass in leather, even more badass with a blistering sunburn, and gives the coolest possible delivery of the line "Finger-lickin' good."


6. Countess Elisabeth Nodosheen (Ingrid Pitt), Countess Dracula It's one thing to have large breasts. It's another to have large breasts that look nifty when covered in blood. Pitt, in a semifictional Elizabeth Bathory biopic, achieves the latter. And for some reason, I really respect this fact.


7. Jerry Dandridge (Chris Sarandon), Fright Night Dandridge, who moves in next door to a horror-loving teen, is walking subtext. An impeccably dressed, sexually ambiguous 80's archetype, Dandridge flirts with the hero's mother, seduces his closeted friend, and nearly turns his girlfriend to the dark side before they've ever knocked boots. Fright Night, for all its laughs, has always felt weirdly dark and nihilistic, and a lot of this is thanks to Sarandon, cheerfully embodying a fanged corruptor of the youth and imparting an important message to the film's young audience: fear yuppies.


8. Ralphie Glick (Ronnie Scribner), Salem's Lot Typically I don't like to lump in TV movies with features. But I'll make an exception, as the above scene scared the bejesus out of the eight-year-old me and gave me nightmares for a week.


9. Max (Edward Herrmann), The Lost Boys Every time I come home to my wife watching Herrmann as the wealthy, doddering grandfather on Gilmore Girls, I can only think about the predictable but still excellent reveal at the end of Joel Schumacher's only watchable movie. Plus, Max's subsequent destruction, set to "La Cucaracha," is endlessly rewatchable (I have a friend who made The Lost Boys his first DVD purchase just so he could watch the ending in 5.1 surround).


10. Space Girl (Mathilda May), Lifeforce Because any list of the best vampires is incomplete without at least one naked space vampire.

Halloween Trailerfest #1: Meteor shit!

I'll be posting one spooky trailer every day for the month of October. First up, a movie that always just misses my top 100. I love it so.

31 Films for Halloween

Halloween is by far my favorite holiday. I went trick-or-treating way beyond the appropriate age, and I can't wait to put a confused Luna in a pumpkin costume. Most of all, I love the excuse to watch a mind-numbing amount of horror movies - it's largely through horror that I fell in love with cinema, the genre by design liberating filmmakers to follow their most imaginative, stylish and unrestrained instincts. So I was thrilled when Ed Hardy, Jr. of Shoot the Projectionist invited me to participate in his survey of the 31 greatest horror films. Sure, I'd been overlooked for the Online Film Community and Satyajit Ray lists, but no matter - this is the one I've been waiting for (and you can participate too, if you like - head over to Ed's blog for details).

The first question, of course, is what defines a horror movie. For me, a film crosses into the realm of horror when it bypasses our intellectual concerns to touch our primal, irrational fears. This does not mean that a movie must feature ghosts or goblins to qualify as horror; horror is a genre, like comedy or porn, defined not by what the film's content but by what it does to us. It's horror if you jump, it's good horror if you scream, and it's great horror if you can't stop thinking about what it is that made you scream. Here are 31 movies (in chronological order) that go for the jugular:

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922)

Black Sunday (1960)

Peeping Tom (1960)

Psycho (1960)

The Birds (1963)

The Haunting (1963)

Onibaba (1964)

Repulsion (1965)

Rosemary's Baby (1968)

Don't Look Now (1973)

The Exorcist (1973)

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

Jaws (1975)

Carrie (1976)

Suspiria (1977)

Dawn of the Dead (1978)

Halloween (1978)

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

Alien (1979)

Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht (1979)

Inferno (1980)

The Shining (1980)

An American Werewolf in London (1981)

Creepshow (1982)

The Thing (1982)

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

The Fly (1986)

Evil Dead 2 (1987)

The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Session 9 (2001)

Also, since we're temporarily away from home and our computer, the title card series is taking a break for the month - instead, look for a series of horror-themed top tens and other Halloween goodies. Look out - the boogeyman is coming!

Anybody ever tell you you look dead, man?

Alien is the rare horror film that terrifies from its opening credits, its title fading in like a cryptogram over a tracking shot depicting a remote, ominous corner of space that could be the scariest prog rock record art never used. While Star Wars opens with bombast, Alien, with its brilliant Jerry Goldsmith score almost inaudible on the soundtrack, opts for an eerily elusive note. And while Ridley Scott's genre-bending masterpiece was greenlit in the wake of the massive success of the earlier film, its universe is not populated by explosive interstellar dogfights and smart-alecky robots. A direct descendant of 2001's creepy zero-gravity homicide, Alien gives us space as the ultimate old dark house, an existential void where monsters lurk, waiting to be discovered. I wanted to be an astronaut until I saw Alien.

A sci-fi/horror hybrid revolving around a seemingly unstoppable extraterrestrial monster, Dan O'Bannon's screenplay is a direct descendent of 50's B-movies like The Thing From Another World and It! The Terror From Beyond Space, and is often derided as such. Putting anti-genre pretensions aside, Alien stands out from its predecessors in a number of ways, the first being its remarkable use of silence. The quiet journey of the space freighter Nostromo (its Conrad reference a none-too-subtle corporate jab) is suddenly interrupted by the electronic squak of the intercepted SOS message that wakes the film's blue-collar protagonists from their cryogenic slumber and propels them towards their doom. Scott's elegant tracking shots mirror the seeming precision of the craft and underline the symbiotic relationship between humans and technology (personified by an on-board computer named Mother that, alas, does not sing "Daisy"). As the crew of the Nostromo stumbles upon, is invaded and picked off by titular beast, Alien is propelled not only by a fear of the monster but of the machine, and the film blurs these distinctions in interesting ways.

As Ash (Ian Holm), the film's on-board robot says of the alien, "I admire its purity. A survivor, unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality." But just as Ash represents something terribly wrong about the fusion of the organic and the artificial, the alien is a horrible marriage of animal instinct and mechanical precision, its acid blood and second mouth making it appear more manufactured than born. H.R. Giger's designs for the monster, and particularly his even more sexually charged Necronomicon, depict a life cycle carried out with impeccable symmetry but, as Ash indicates, absent of any humanity, at once perfect and totally monstrous. Scott repeatedly disguises the full-grown alien in plain sight amidst the Nostromo's nooks and crannies; it is as if the craft itself is a traitor against its crew. When Ash is revealed to be precisely that, his strange near-rape of Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and subsequent breakdown are the result of a computer's inability to understand or express the human desire it sees all around. While any discussion of Alien will inevitably include a use of the term "vagina dentata," the alien's sexualized design is more than a rape metaphor - it's a perversion of the healthy carnality that Scott will repeatedly idealize in his ouevre (unsurprising that, on the most recent DVD release, Scott cites Francis Bacon as an influence). The classic demise of poor Kane (John Hurt) is shocking not just for its gore but as a distortion of childbirth, the screaming and viscera both reminiscent of the real thing and a corruption of femininity (another of Scott's ideals). It's a moment of physical but also psychic violence, its power amplified by Hurt's confused anguish and the palpable disorientation of the crew. If ever there was a moment in cinema that defines chaos, this is it.

Indeed, while Alien's design team is frequently and rightly praised, the cast is even more important to the film's success. There are eight actors in the film (including Bolaji Badejo in the rubber suit), and they make up a perfect ensemble, their early casual interplay as authentic as the best of Altman. Rather than overhwelming with exposition, the actors convey worlds about the characters' backgrounds, camaraderie and power struggles. Each represents a distinctly human opposition to the alien, whether it's Captain Dallas' (Tom Skerrit) cool logic, Lambert's (Veronica Cartwright) vulnerability or the pragmatism of Parker (Yaphet Kotto) and Brett (Harry Dean Stanton), whose friendship becomes more oddly endearing with each successive viewing. The film celebrates these average characters for their respective strengths, yet none ar saved from the monster. Only Ripley, hard-headed and at first unlikable for her stubborn adherence to the rules, outwits the alien thanks to her resourcefulness and superior survival instinct. Ironically, this places her closer to Ash's ideal of a survivor; what separates Ripley from the machine and the creature is her humanity. Weaver is remarkable in the film's last reel, conveying with little dialogue an almost paralyzing fear and the inner strength needed to prevail (plus, she's a cat lover). Ripley is never a stock damsel in distress; sporting only undies in the film's last minutes, she projects a completely self-posessed sexuality that even the nastiest of monsters is unable to penetrate. As she blasts the alien into space, the film turns suddenly triumphant - it is the triumph of humanity, a restoration in the form of one nubile panty-clad warrior. Score one for Earth.

Released in 1979, Alien is very much a film of its decade - cynical towards corporate thinking, distrustful of authority, very much in favor of sex, drugs and rock and roll. As the series progresses, both its hero and its monster will change and evolve to suit the ideas of each film's zeitgeist. And while I love its sequels to varying degrees (and plan to discuss them in the weeks to come), it's the original that retains an iconic perfection. Alien is a singular concept, rich with subtext and masterfully executed. I admire its purity.

Friday Title Card #32

The Trim Bin #61

- Is anyone else deeply conflicted over the Death Proof DVD? I could never get enough Stuntman Mike, but I can't get over the cynicism of chopping them in half in advance of an inevitable double feature release (plus, no HD). Also, my initial enthusiasm about an extended cut faded when Alex Jackson referred to it as "worse than the Star Wars special editions." For those who have seen it, is this truth or hyperbole? Should I accept a compromised version of the best movie I've seen so far this year in a presentation that completely misses the point? Or is this a job for Netflix?

- We recently moved to a new, cozy hillside apartment, and we decided to switch from cable to satellite. The occasional static is well worth the variety of hi-def, OAR movie channels (also the show Weeds, which is contrived but still pretty hilarious). But the channel I've really developed an unhealthy addiction to is Monsters HD, which specializes in favorite and forgotten monster, slasher and classic horror movies in razor-sharp 1080i. If you're stuck with Time Warner or some other similarly faceless, clunky cable provider, know this: until you've seen Sleepaway Camp in HD, you just haven't lived.

- Speaking of monsters, the trailer for Frank Darabont's film version of Stephen King's short story The Mist is online, and I must say that it really surprised me. The casting looks pitch-perfect (particularly Marcia Gay Harden as the bible-thumping Mrs. Carmody) and the look of the film is surprisingly stark (especially coming from the director of The Green Mile). Plus, I love the use of Clint Mansell's score for The Fountain. After the surprisingly okay 1408, the prospect of the first good, genuinely creepy Stephen King adaptation in years is terrific. My irrational fear of Toby Jones aside, I can't wait for this one.

- Edward Copeland recently posted The Satyajit Ray Memorial Anything-But-Definitive List of Non-English Language Films, a survey designed to exclude The Shawshank Redemption and American History X. 174 film buffs submitted their choices, and the result is a fine and (despite the title) comprehensive selection of world cinema, complete with pretty pictures.

- Finally (courtesy of Nerve), just because it's Friday, here's the greatest thing you'll ever see:

Friday Title Card #31

One of many great films that didn't quite make the list.

My Top 101 (2007 Edition)

I've never gotten the point of making a distinction between a "best" and "favorite" movies list. My favorite movies are the best ones I've ever seen, that's why I love them so. Of course, the pleasure of making and sharing such a list is to find out what it (perhaps unwittingly) reveals about oneself. For instance, if Miller's Crossing ranks above Barton Fink this year, it's not because it's suddenly the superior movie - the movies don't change, but we do (this same process of rediscovery is one of the best things about film writing on the internet). So the changes this year are made up of films I'd never seen, films that landed closer to the heart than they had before (Tokyo Story is very different when you're a parent), and films I just plain overlooked last year (how the hell did I forget Touch of Evil?).

The goal every time I revise my list is to create a sort of representative collage of what cinema is to me at this moment. Glancing at the list, I know that I dig monsters, cowboys, ambiguity, sex, aliens and Freedonia. And I sure have a hard-on for the 1970's. Making the list is more and more like Sophie's Choice every year - I've seen at least 150-200 movies I'd consider perfect, and an alternate list of the next 101 would possibly make an interesting side project. But I'll remain disciplined for now; here are my 101 favorite best movies.

1. Blue Velvet (David Lynch, 1986)
2. The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
3. Nashville (Robert Altman, 1975)
4. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
5. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (Steven Spielberg, 1982)
6. Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese, 1980)
7. Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
8. Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)
9. Carrie (Brian De Palma, 1976)
10. Boogie Nights (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1997)

11. Kill Bill vol. 2 (Quentin Tarantino, 2004)
12. Kill Bill vol. 1 (Quentin Tarantino, 2003)
13. My Own Private Idaho (Gus Van Sant, 1991)
14. Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975)
15. Persona (Ingmar Bergman, 1966)
16. Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1975)
17. Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979)
18. The Elephant Man (David Lynch, 1980)
19. The Man Who Fell to Earth (Nicolas Roeg, 1976)
20. El Topo (Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1970)

21. Barry Lyndon (Stanley Kubrick, 1975)
22. Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht (Werner Herzog, 1979)
23. Badlands (Terrence Malick, 1973)
24. Children of Men (Alfonso Cuaron, 2006)
25. Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
26. Halloween (John Carpenter, 1978)
27. The Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner, 1980)
28. Inferno (Dario Argento, 1980)
29. A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick, 1971)
30. Jules and Jim (Francois Truffaut, 1962)

31. Fargo (Joel Coen, 1996)
32. Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962)
33. Don't Look Now (Nicolas Roeg, 1973)
34. The Fly (David Cronenberg, 1986)
35. The Last Temptation of Christ (Martin Scorsese, 1988)
36. Aguirre the Wrath of God (Werner Herzog, 1972)
37. 8 1/2 (Federico Fellini, 1963)
38. Dead Man (Joel Coen, 1996)
39. Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958)
40. Dawn of the Dead (George A. Romero, 1978)

41. Ran (Akira Kurosawa, 1985)
42. The Third Man (Carol Reed, 1949)
43. Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974)
44. Eraserhead (David Lynch, 1977)
45. The Godfather Part II (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)
46. Schindler's List (Steven Spielberg, 1993)
47. Sid and Nancy (Alex Cox, 1986)
48. Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001)
49. The Thing (John Carpenter, 1982)
50. Goodfellas (Martin Scorsese, 1990)

51. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Steven Spielberg, 1977)
52. The Conversation (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)
53. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Milos Forman, 1975)
54. Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982)
55. Cries and Whispers (Ingmar Bergman, 1972)
56. Brazil (Terry Gilliam, 1985)
57. Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa, 1950)
58. McCabe and Mrs. Miller (Robert Altman, 1971)
59. Tokyo Story (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)
60. The Seventh Seal (Ingmar Bergman, 1957)

61. Manhattan (Woody Allen, 1979)
62. The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972)
63. City Lights (Charles Chaplin, 1931)
64. American Beauty (Sam Mendes, 1999)
65. The American Friend (Wim Wenders, 1977)
66. Blow Out (Brian De Palma, 1981)
67. Days of Heaven (Terrence Malick, 1978)
68. Once Upon a Time in America (Sergio Leone, 1984)
69. Last Tango in Paris (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1972)
70. Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)

71. The Searchers (John Ford, 1956)
72. Raiders of the Lost Ark (Steven Spielberg, 1981)
73. Orphee (Jean Cocteau, 1949)
74. Betty Blue (Jean-Jacques Beineix, 1986)
75. Wings of Desire (Wim Wenders, 1987)
76. Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Stanley Kubrick, 1964)
77. Black Moon (Louis Malle, 1975)
78. Magnolia (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1999)
79. Harold and Maude (Hal Ashby, 1971)
80. Heavenly Creatures (Peter Jackson, 1994)

81. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920)
82. Rushmore (Wes Anderson, 1998)
83. Miller's Crossing (Joel Coen, 1990)
84. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Philip Kaufman, 1978)
85. Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone, 1968)
86. Phantom of the Paradise (Brian De Palma, 1974)
87. Stroszek (Werner Herzog, 1977)
88. Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick, 1999)
89. The Fountain (Darren Aronofsky, 2006)
90. Y tu mama tambien (Alfonso Cuaron, 2001)

91. Punch-Drunk Love (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2002)
92. Ed Wood (Tim Burton, 1994)
93. M (Fritz Lang, 1931)
94. Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994)
95. Macbeth (Roman Polanski, 1971)
96. The Big Lebowski (Joel Coen, 1998)
97. Hedwig and the Angry Inch (John Cameron Mitchell, 2001)
98. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004)
99. Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (Sam Peckinpah, 1973)
100. Popeye (Robert Altman, 1980)
101. Duck Soup (Leo McCarey, 1933)

Gratuitious Nudity #4

Diego Luna, Maribel Verdú and Gael García Bernal, Y tu mama tambien (2001)

I'm Big Joe Grizzley.

One of the most telling moments in the Rob Zombie canon is the scene in The Devil's Rejects where a grizzled, hypermasculine lawman threatens to beat the snot out of a geeky, trivia-spouting movie critic. Zombie invites us to laugh with the sheriff as he attacks the movie geek, even though he clearly identifies with the latter. This masochism is a trait shared by many die-hard horror fans - those of us who were more likely to spend a summer day reading the newest Fangoria than playing sports or whatever - and it also explains why Zombie prefers to make his monsters the protagonists of his films. Note, for instance, that the cast of Halloween, Zombie's remake of the John Carpenter classic, is filled with famous cinematic killers, as if they'd assembled to pay tribute to iconic slasher Michael Myers. Zombie portrays Myers as a pasty young metalhead who grows up to be a hulking, unstoppable killing machine. It's a huge departure from the original's conception of a blank embodiment of pure nothingness; the resulting tension accounts for the film's worst moments as well as its best ones, but Halloween is never less than fascinating.

The brief backstory Carpenter gave us fills the film's first half, as we're introduced to Michael Myers as a young boy quietly torturing animals in his bedroom as his pole-dancing mom (Sherri Moon Zombie) and bullying stepdad (William Forsythe, just a tad overstated) scream at each other downstairs. Before long, mom is talking to Dr. Loomis (Malcolm McDowell, having a blast) about Michael's puppy-killing activities, which Loomis warns are a sign of "much bigger problems." But it's too late - Michael soon kill half of his family, leaving mom and his beloved baby sister alive. These early scenes, and Michael's subsequent institutionalization under Loomis' care, are sleazily effective; while Zombie cites traditional characteristics of serial killers, the soundtrack, performances and excellent cinematography by Phil Parmet give the film a heightened reality, threatening to veer into camp before hitting us with some spookily well-realized moments of sudden, brutal violence.

In Halloween's most gleefully sick moment, Zombie cuts between mom at work and a dejected young Michael Myers sitting alone with nobody to take him trick-or-treating, scored to Nazareth's "Love Hurts" - it's not supposed to make us empathize with the killer so much as briefly occupy his deeply deranged state of mind. Zombie adapts an agnostic perspective where Carpenter is almost religious, yet both directors at the same conclusion, the idea of evil as something incomprehensible that we attempt to contain on Halloween (and with scary movies) by infantilizing our fears. While Zombie couldn't be more stylistically different from Carpenter, they share an innate understanding of the elements of the genre, namely a romantic concept of horror as a eulogy for all things lost (note the repeated menstrual imagery). In its own way, Zombie's Halloween is as much a postmodern exploration of its predecessor as Gus Van Sant's Psycho. So if you hated Psycho, take that as a warning. But I, for one, admire Zombie's attempt to make Michael Myers representative of more than action figures and cell phone ringtones, and as dramatically different as Halloween 2007 is, it ultimately honors the original far more than another generic retread.

Halloween does stumble in its second half, as Michael escapes from the institution (easily the film's worst scene, although it's redeemed minutes later by an awesome Ken Foree cameo) and stalks his now-grown baby sister and her friends on Halloween night. Here, Zombie mimics scenes and even borrows dialogue from the original, which only serves to remind us of what a perfect film the original is. I began to miss Carpenter's austere compositions and elegant tracking shots, his labyrinthine conception of suburbia. This wouldn't matter as much if Zombie had stuck with the tone and style established in the first half; instead, he can't seem to decide between paying homage or making the material his own. The rushed approach also shortchanges the characters; although Scout Tyler-Compton (in the role that made Jamie Lee Curtis famous) is cute as a button, she and her costars aren't give much of a chance to make an impression (although it's strange to watch the Shape kill a topless, bloodied Danielle Harris).

Ultimately, Halloween sort of falls apart in a series of blaring music cues, property destruction, and bizarre references to Blade Runner. Still, in incorporating the brother-sister twist from Halloween II with a resonance that even Carpenter wasn't able to pull off, Zombie does give his film an unexpected psychological resonance. Halloween 2007 isn't the travesty it's been made out to be - it's a fascinating experiment, not entirely sucessful, but one that takes its boogeyman very seriously. I can't guarantee that you won't hate it, but it's a hell of a lot better than Halloween 6.

You can find more Myers-related goodness over at Final Girl's Film Club.

Friday Title Card #30

Like a man dick?

An early highlight of Superbad, an extended montage of a child's drawings of penises, pretty much tells you everything about the heart and soul of the film. A geekier Y tu mama tambien, it's a movie that correctly depicts two teenage boys' desparate quest to get laid as a sublimated expression of their profound love for one another. While the look and soundtrack of Superbad are meant to evoke raunchy teen sex comedies of the 70s and 80s, it's written with a wit and insight that few of its predecessors match. This is a movie where a bomb-riding weiner isn't just funny - it has purpose.

Co-screenwriters Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg began writing Superbad when they were teens, and I'm sure many aspiring filmmakers wrote a script along these lines with their friends when they were kids (I know I did). The protagonists, Seth (Jonah Hill) and Evan (Michael Cera), are clearly autobiographical, and the film sweetly hinges on their mutual affection. The plot, such as it is, revolves around Seth and Evan's misguided attempts to procure liquor in the hopes of impressing the objects of their unrequited affection before they graduate. It's a well-worn scenario made fresh by the screenplay's emotional honesty - Seth and Evan are headed to different colleges in the fall, and their horniness is complicated by the unspoken fear that actual relationships will shatter their idyllic routine of getting drunk on stolen beer and watching Vagtastic.com. It's while discussing porn early on that Seth describes the sight of vagina not being penetrated by a penis as "not for me," and Superbad mines many laughs from its protagonists' fear of that unknown quantity and retreat into the comfort zone of dick jokes, all the while nudging them into the realm of adulthood. Director Evan Mottola finds the perfect tone for the film, filthy but never leering, and aids his young stars in delivering surprisingly nuanced performances - Hill adds an effective layer of insecurity to the horny fat guy archetype, while Cera, at 19 already a master of deadpan, plays Evan as a nice guy at war with his own libido.

Underscoring the themes is the film's subplot, so hilarious that it nearly upstages the rest of the story, involving Evan and Seth's even nerdier acquaintance Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), who carries a fake ID bearing the already-infamous pseudonym "McLovin." Almost busted for attempting to buy booze, Fogell ends up riding with two hard-drinking, Yoda-quoting cops (Rogen and Bill Hader) as they tackle drunks, destroy public property and try to educate the young man in the ways of women, all in the name of making cops seem cool. The cops essentially a cautionary tale for the protagonists should they fail to grow up, which gives them some of the film's most wonderfully absurd moments ("I call this the upwards spiral!"). And Mintz-Plasse is a real discovery, totally natural as he grows to embody the McLovin persona - he has the ability to make a throwaway line like "I've got a boner" completely hysterical. Best of all, it's the rare kind of film where one can laugh at boner jokes without hating oneself - lowbrow in a very knowing way, Superbad is hilariously dumb in a way that only very smart people can achieve. When Hill compares his sexual track record to the filmography of Orson Welles, I can't help but applaud not only the smart-alecky reference but the fact that the filmmakers are rewarding their smartest audience members at a time when most comedies aim squarely at the lowest common denominator.

The film ends on an interesting note, with the protagonists left to reevaluate their perception of women, to perhaps grow a little (this would resonate deeper if the film told us anything about its female characters, but still). The Judd Apatow canon seems largely aimed at speaking to overgrown adolescents, gently letting them that growing up isn't such a scary prospect. If, philosophically, I prefer Lindsey Weir getting on a VW bus and leaving town, that probably says more about me than it does the film, and we'll see how I feel in ten years. Still, my heart warms at the thought of 17-year-old boys sneaking into Superbad in the hopes of seeing boobies and perhaps learning a thing or two in the process. At the very least, I learned that, since McLovin is already taken as an alias, Muhammad is probably the next best thing.

Friday Title Card #29

Fuck you, batteries.

The joy of a musical - that is, a good musical, not a bloated Broadway adaptation made not out of passion but for the commercial viability of a familiar property - is discovering the moments when a song reveals emotions that words alone cannot reach. Such a moment occurs early in Once, as a street musician and a woman he's just met (we never learn their names) are hanging around in a music store. He invites her to accompany him on a song he's been working on, and as she joins him on piano, the song's achingly romantic message overwhelms them and us. Once, which follows these characters over the course of a week as they write and record a few songs while an unspoken romance grows between them, is a minor masterpiece of understated feeling. Delicate and insightful where too many musicals are bombastic and obvious, Once is capable of transporting both lovers and haters of the genre with its devastating love story.

Once introduces us to a struggling songwriter (Glen Hansard) who works in his dad's vacuum repair shop and spends his time off singing Van Morrison songs for loose change on the streets of Dublin. One night, while performing one of his own songs, he meets a young Czech woman (Markéta Irglová) who likes his song; the guy is leaving for London in a week to try patching things up with his ex-girlfriend, and she agrees to help him write and record a few songs before he goes. That's about all there is for plot in Once, which is built on the moments where the guy and girl get to know each other. As they work together, it becomes clear they're made for each other. The guy is the type to refer to himself as a cynic, sweetly oblivious to how wrong he is; the girl has a daughter at home and a husband in another country, and is far too serious-minded to realize the obvious. While this story has been told before, from Brief Encounter to Lost in Translation (likely its most direct influence), Once becomes completely unique in its study of two characters who cannot quite fully connect for precisely the reasons that they are perfect for each other. First-time feature director John Carney (formerly a member, like his lead actor, of the band The Frames) has a remarkable talent for revealing worlds about his characters in a moment; he's brave enough, for instance, to have a character deliver the most important line in the film in Czech.

Almost as impressive as the story itself is the way that Carney uses digital video to tell it. Until recently, I was dubious about DV, as most directors who used it raved about its functional ease without commenting much on its aesthetic qualities (mumblecore is commendable in theory, but I have yet to see a DIY film I like). But after last year's Inland Empire and now Once, the possibilites of digital have been blown wide open. In Once, the low-tech images have an intimate quality that matches the story of homegrown artists perfectly. Every shot is beautifully composed in a way I haven't seen in DV before.I was inspired not only by the story but by the filmmaking itself - it's a film that leaves one energized by possibility. There's a confidence in every moment that reminds of how imagination and vision are infinitely more valuable than a huge budget. I'm not always quick to buy into the romance of independent cinema, but Once fulfills this promise better than any film in a long time.

Once isn't a perfect movie - I agree with Todd VanDerWiff, who writes that "While the songs are good, the film requires us to believe that they’re so good that they simply cause everyone around Hansard to realize what an untapped genius he is." Still, its hard to complain about a film with this much soul, particularly since its imperfections become part of its charm. There are few films that contain as much pure warmth as Once; that it's a pretty great movie is all the better.

Tilting at Windmills

It must be weird to be Damian Arlyn right now.

Since so much has been written in the past week about what Mr. Arlyn has come to represent, it might be helpful to begin by talking about who he is (thank you, Google). Damian Arlyn is a 31-year-old resident of Corvallis, Oregon. The manager of DVD World by day, Mr. Arlyn also participates in theatrical productions at the Corvallis Community Theatre (you can read about the recent Arlyn-directed production of Dracula here). Damian is also a born-again Christian who explains on his MySpace page that he decided not to include Jesus on his list of heroes because "the term 'hero' doesn't even begin to describe the place he holds in my life" (as his list of heroes includes both Martin Luther and Denzel Washington, I'd have to agree with his decision). It seems clear that Damian is a sincere, serious-minded man with a genuine love for cinema.

Damian, as many of you know, also has a blog. And last week, in the middle of his ambitious, entertaining "31 Days of Spielberg" project, he became the subject of some very serious accusations. Damian addressed those charges in his blog, and you can read what he had to say for himself here. I believe Damian is genuinely sorry for his mistake, but as of this writing, it seemed that he didn't really understand what people were so angry about. Damian never expected to be famous, and now, he explains, "I never anticipated this project would bring me into contact with actual published authors who have written on Spielberg, even if it's not under the best of circumstances." I understand how Damian feels, and not just because I, too, take a lot of crap for defending Spielberg. I never expected my writing here to be read by anyone other than a few friends, and I'm grateful for my readers and the ideas you share here. In return, I feel a responsibility to give you reading material that is passionate, well-written (to the best of my abilities), and, of course, accurate. And while I like Damian and his writing, I'm troubled by this:

"However, I am not doing--nor have I ever done--this for praise, for esteem, for glory, for fame and certainly not for money. One thing I have never lost sight of is that in the big scheme of things, I am a nobody. I am a thirty-one-year-old video store clerk who lives in Corvallis, Oregon. I make little more than minumim wage a year and I happen to love movies. I never intended for this blog to be anything more than an expression of one little guy's passion and affection for cinema. Thus, I began this 'Spielberg' project because I admire Spielberg and his films and I wanted to share that admiration with other people and maybe--just maybe--even spark a little bit of discussion on him because I personally don't think that enough can ever be said about this great artist."

To use his own term, Damian is the little guy. You can find the little guy across the blogosphere, in colleges, and in any formal or informal film discussion. The little guy uses his relative insignificance to paint himself in favorable terms. The little guy might apologize for having tastes that are way more offbeat or obscure than yours. Or, as in this case, the little guy is just one more incarnation of the little boy who hangs out in the projection booth in Cinema Paradiso. The little guy is a silent apostle of the cinema, unknowlingly engaging in his own form of self-mythologizing behavior. And the moment Damian allows himself to become the little guy, however genuine his intentions may be, he loses all sense of personal accountability.

That said, I'm quite sure that Damian feels a bit differently about it this week. Because Damian is no longer just a thirty-one-year-old video store clerk from Corvalis; he's a living symbol for the divide between print and internet film writing and the question of how journalistic standards differ or remain the same between different mediums. And just as Damian's self-image tells us much about his actions, the same is true of his most rabid detractors, many of whom showed up before scandal broke to anonymously inform Damian that he is a terrible writer. Most telling of all, to me, is the public sermon on Mr. Arlyn performed by D.K. Holm, who dismisses Damian's writing as "pretty much like every other blog in the world" and connects his downfall to something larger:

There is another kind, that is more pervasive and insidious and nearly invisible. That’s the group-think that sweeps across the nation as certain reviews and reviewers set the tone and limit the terms of response to a film."

The irony is that D.K. Holm is Damian Arlyn's spiritual father, having made a living from the summary/trivia format he claims to abhor (the difference being that Holm is paid for his efforts). Damian Arlyn does not realize that he loves himself; D.K. Holm cannot admit that he hates himself. Arlyn's colleagues at The House Next Door have done a better job of more clearly stating their intentions, offering a brief explanation of why Arlyn was removed from their masthead and, like the jurors stepping away from the table in 12 Angry Men, expressing in relative silence what so many supporters and detractors in so many words have not quite been able to communicate.

So, yes, I do wonder what today was like for Damian Arlyn. To have found such massive support (the blogosphere's generosity being its finest quality) only, with one unfortunate error in judgement, to find himself at the center of a debate that is no longer about him. To have inadvertenly tapped such a deep well of buried resentment from elitists and populists alike. To stand behind the counter as angry customers demand their two dollars back because Pan's Labyrinth was in Spanish (and oh, those black bars!). Damian's silence is our loss, and when he's ready, I anxiously await his return. Because, after all, the world needs a passionate defense of The Terminal.

Friday Title Card #28