Mostly NP:At the movies

[mike j]

i saw 'memento' a couple weeks ago, liked it i guess,
though the lead guy reminded me too much of the lead
singer from stone temple pilots. and the device
reminded me of that seinfeld episode where they go to
india for the wedding. is that a real condition?

'american nightmare' showed on IFC a little while
back, very interesting. and i guess i've only seen the
crappy home video of 'suspiria,' because i hated it
and thought what's the big deal with this argento guy
anyway? 


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


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