Mostly NP:At the movies

[Thomas Eckhardt]

Thanks for the links, Dave. I will check them out.

> I do believe the uncut versions are finally out onvideo 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.

Don't forget the Goblin soundtrack. Opera, in its uncut version, is probably the most shocking
Argento movie, and the camera work (especially the use of the steady-cam) is extraordinary even for
Argento's high standards. Still, Argento's usual shortcomings as far as plot and character
depiction are concerned tend to diminish the pleasure for me - not to mention the shitty Heavy
Metal soundtrack accompanying some of the more gruesome scenes. But despite all these weaknesses,
which it shares with Phenomena, Opera is a very scary movie indeed. As far as pure visual terror is
concerned no one even comes close to Argento's best work, IMHO.

About Memento: Yes. The most interesting thing for me was that despite rather obviously dealing
with the issues you mention it nevertheless worked perfectly. Which means that I wasn't thinking of
the issues the movie raised while watching it. Nolan's next project sounds interesting. I will have
to find out what the German title of "Following" is.

> 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.
>

"The Gift", I believe, works because it is not merely a whodunit. Of course, near the end it
becomes obvious who the killer was. But it is at least as much a character drama as it is a
thriller. The characters may seem a little stereotypical at the beginning, but in the course of the
movie they certainly transcend the stock types they are derived from. Keanu Reeves is genuinely
threatening, and Buddy, of course, a walking time bomb. Sam Raimi seems to have become an actor's
director. Speaking of Raimi's actors... I love the title of Bruce Campbell's confessions. Who could
ever forget the fight between Ash and his own hand? The funniest scene in the movies since Stan and
Ollie attempted to sell a Christmas tree to James Finlayson. In fact, it was "Evil Dead II" that
turned me into a horror fan many years ago.

> 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" ...

"To create new life you have to fuck death in the gall bladder." Udo Kier in "Andy Warhol's
Frankenstein". The movie is shown regularly in our local arthouse cinema which boasts a 3-D-screen,
and every time I see it I find it amazing that somebody actually has had the nerve to put this on
celluloid.

Didn't enjoy "Baise moi" that much, although I find the idea of mixing hardcore porn with, well,
normal cinema, highly interesting. Certainly, "Baise Moi" is much more entertaining than Catherine
Breillat's "Romance", last year's other highly contentious porn-meets-feature-film film, which I
thought was boring as hell. I guess, I just wished that some kind of point were being made along
the corpse-and-cum-littered way of the two female protagonists in "Baise Moi". British censors seem
to be very peculiar people indeed. As far as I remember they didn't allow "Henry" to be screened in
the UK because of its "overall bleakness".

> 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
> ...

Hmm, I watched "Reservoir Dogs" in the UK when it was released. I think it is still prohibited to
show "Clockwork Orange" in Great Britain, though.

> Well, let us know ...

Certainly. Four hours to go...

Thomas