Mostly NP:At the movies

Mon Aug 6 01:46:46 CDT 2001

Now THIS is where I SHOULD have been this weekend ...

--- Thomas Eckhardt <thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de>
wrote:
> Just came home from my second day at the yearly
> Fantasy Filmfest in Cologne. A marvellous event.
> For a week or so they are showing everything between
> "Scary Movie II" and disturbing Japanese stuff about
> necrophilia and incest, as long as they find a way
> to call it horror, fantasy, or SF. 

Here see ...

Hunter, Jack.  Eros in Hell: Sex, Blood and Madness
   in Japanese Cinema.  London: Creation, 1999.

http://www.creationbooks.com/frameset.asp?p=http://www.creationbooks.com/titles/1871592933.html

I at least scored a copy of Mermaid in a Manhole (dir.
Hideshi Hino, 1991), though ...

http://www.midnighteye.com/reviews/mermanh.shtml

http://www.metamovie.de/film/mermaid.html

http://www.ultragore.com/mermaid.htm

http://www2.pair.com/nlw/filme/splatter/gh/guineapi.htm

Ad nauseum (literally).  Will contrast nicely with
Disney's The Little Mermaid in my current little
project ...

> Especially fine are their retrospectives: A few
> years ago we were treated to a few of those
> incredible Dario-Argento-slasher-flicks, and if the
> videos of his movies you can rent in the U.S. are as
> mutilated as the ones we get over here in Germany,
> some of you can certainly imagine what an immense
> pleasure it was to watch uncut versions of
> "Suspiria" and "Opera" on the big screen.

I do believe the uncut versions are finally out on
video here.  Opera is particularly nightmarish to me,
but Suspiria still holds up pretty well.  My theory
is, it's so creepy because it's so brightly colored. 
Sort of like that EC Comics look in Creepshow.  Cf.
Riki-Oh, a.k.a. The Story of Ricky, even more horrific
for its dreamiscle color settings ...

> Anyway, yesterday was the premiere of "Memento", a
> film, I understand, that is quite successful in the
> U.S. I will certainly go and watch it again when it
> is being officially released. Generally, I thought
> it was brillant. Any opinions?

My claim was that it was the first great American film
of the new millenium.  I've no doubt it'll be eclipsed
soon enough, if it hasn't been already, but there's no
doubt there's much to say about it.  Memory, identity,
narrative, writing, the body, and the mutual
(de)construction thereof.  No doubt there are
glitches, but it's also worth watching again, to catch
all the stuff one inevitably misses the first time
around ...  

See also director Christopher Nolan's only other
feature film so far, Following (1998).  Similar
narrative chicanery.  He's apparently working on
something called Insomnia with Al Pacino, Hilary Swank
("Beverly Hills 90210," Boys Don't Cry), Maura Tierney
("NewsRadio," "ER"), Martin Donovan (just about every
Hal Hartley film ever made) and, er, Robin Williams
...

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/05/movies/05LIDZ.html?todaysheadlines

Will send to anyone who can't access (though a free
online NY Times subscription is a very useful thing to
have) ...

> Tonight the first movie I saw was Sam Raimi's "The
> Gift", a rather gripping kind-of- supernatural
> thriller, vaguely reminiscent of "The Sixth Sense",
> set in Georgia. Not quite as good as the at times
> inbearably intense "Simple Plan", but highly
> recommended nevertheless.

I was surprised that I didn't hate The Gift.  Kinda
sorta predictable, in the end, but ... but speaking of
the great Sam Raimi, might I recommend ...

Campbell, Bruce.  If Chins Could Kill: Confessions
   of a "B" Movie Actor.  NY: LA Weekly Books, 2001.

http://www.brucecampbellbook.com/

Got lucky, he did an instore here, got a stack o'
copies signed for friends.  And that Sam Raimi
Spider-Man film looks decent so far ...

> The second movie was a docu about those nasty horror
> flicks of the Sixties and Seventies - "The Texas
> Chainsaw Massacre", "Last House on the Left", "Night
> of the Living Dead" etc. - and their relation to
> contemporary history and society. It was aptly
> titled "American Nightmare". As there has been some
> discussion on this list about the relationship
> between the Kennedy assassination and COL49 despite
> there being no explicit reference in the text (no, I
> haven't read Charles Hollander's essay yet, so
> please correct me if I'm wrong), this is why I
> put the "mostly" before the "NP" in the subject
> line: I was certainly aware of the fact that the
> ending of "Night of the Living Dead" referred
> to the clash between the Civil Rights Movement and
> those redneck sheriffs from the south of the U.S.
> Not explicitly but by means of the imagery and
> because of the involved characters. But it was
> certainly very interesting to hear from the likes
> of Tobe Hooper, Wes Craven (who way back then
> directed the probably most disturbing of those
> movies, "The Last House on the Left"), or George A.
> Romero, in how far they nowadays feel the violence
> in their films was related to events like the
> Kent State University shooting, the assassinations
> of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, and of
> course the war in Vietnam.  Romero has always
> been in some sense a very political director, but it
> was also highly interesting to watch crucial scenes
> from "Last House on the Left" or "The Texas Chainsaw
> Massacre" cut against excerpts from documentary
> material from Vietnam or the U.S. Should be
> essential viewing for everyone who likes those
films.

Okay, have to see this.  I'm only just getting into
the horror film crit thing, but, on American race
relations  in SF film, see ...

Greene, Eric.  Planet of the Apes as American Myth:
   Race, Politics and Popular Culture.  Middletown,
   CT: Wesleyan UP, 1998 [Jefferson, NC: McFarland,
   1996].

And a recent horror title that might be of particular
interest ...

Hawkins, Joan.  Cutting Edge: Art-Horror and the
   Horrific Avant-Garde.  Mpls: U of Minn P, 2000.

Tod Browning (Freaks), George Franju (Eyes Without a
Face), Andy Warhol (Frankenstein), Jess Franco (don't
get me started ...), Yoko Ono (Rape).  I was
interested even when I hadn't seen the films in
question.  But, on the escalation of violence in
America et al., this reminds me of a line of Charles
Manson's: "A long time ago being crazy meant
something.  Nowadays everybody's crazy" ...

By the way, the July issue of Sight and Sound had an
interesting article on how British censors won't allow
a video release of Las House on the Left because of
that rape scene even as, against all expectations,
they've passed the French film, Baise-Moi ("Fuck Me,"
"Rape Me"), with only one minor cut (a penetration
shot) to a similarly violent rape scene ...

http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/2001_07/index.html

Co-directed by a porn director, starring porn stars,
and amorally, brutally violent even by American
standards, all the other nastiness was left intact. 
And I'm pretty sure I saw it entirely uncut, as I
recall the shot in question.  I actually liked the
film, sort of Thelma et Louise.  

Some great lines: "We've got to work on the dialogue
here.  People are dying, we have to live up to that." 
What Americans WISH they could get away with--all the
violence and then some, PLUS real live filth.  Note,
however, the critical use of the "money shot" ...

Williams, Linda.  Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and
   the 'Frenzy of the Visible.'  Berkeley: U of Cal
   P, 1989.

See also Larry Clark's new film, Bully.  Could have
called it Big Kids.  Big Dumb Kids.  But the crux of
the LHOTL vs. BM debate seems to be, art vs. trash,
art vs. exploitation, art vs. commerce, art vs.
non-art.  A debate well worth taking up.  Then again,
about a decade ago, Reservoir Dogs apparently couldn't
be released in the UK because of something that WASN'T
shown, didn't happen onscreen, was "absent" (!), so
...

> P.S. Tomorrow, finally, the new Argento. Can't be
> worse than "Phantom of the Opera"...

Well, let us know ...

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