Showing at the Showroom: Catfish

It’s a hopeless period for films of the less-said-the-better ilk, but the new documentary Catfish hangs on this ledge more precariously than most. Acutely aware that reviews built on nothing but vagueness and generalities make for incredibly tedious reading, I will keep it brief. The short message: go and see it, preferably before some blabbermouth spoils it.

The thumbnail synopsis is that it’s the record of a slowly blossoming internet relationship-come-romance between a young New York photographer Nev, and Megan the half-sister of an 8 year old painting prodigy that’s taken to painting Nev’s work and sending it to him. Egged on by brother and friends, a trio set off to finally unite Nev and Megan ‘in real life’. When they finally get to rural Michigan ‘all is not as it seems’ and shit gets very ‘real’.

Beyond the contrivance and thriller cliché of the film’s blurb, the film builds towards its grand reveal, the volte face, the upending of everything by almost convincing you of its predictability. The endless narcissism of the project and its filmmakers gives the whole thing a decidedly questionable whiff of the Blair Witch Project, and the rather earnest and self-involved inflection of the oh-we’re-not-fauxumentary. And then the almighty SNAP comes, and you’re just left struggling to hold onto what the hell is going on. It’s frankly terrifying, and quite brilliant for just that.This is far from the first documentary this year to have foyer-critics hemming and herring over ‘what is REAL, really, in the greater scheme of things?’ But film philosophy undergraduatese aside, it delights me that in a connected dispute over music rights, the filmmakers might be forced to swear on oath to the veracity of the film. On oath! The TRUTH will finally come out! Or maybe we could just enjoy the film for the tangled and baffling mess that it is?

Five out of Five

Catfish is showing at the Showroom cinema in Sheffield from the 17th of December 2010.

Showing at the Showroom: Monsters

“A film about illegal ALIENS, the America fears of the unknown SPRAWLING issues South of the border, and the stretching TENTACLES of Latin influence into the States.” It’s all too easy to make light of Monsters‘ premise, but for an independent film in the true spirit of a B-movie it manages to deftly juggle a minimal budget, some impressive special effects, quite a few gripping moments, and that ever so essential political subtext, in really quite a brilliant fashion.

It’s an easy cop-out to state that “the less you know, the better” but Monsters is definitely one of those films. The situation is a near-future Central America, where half the sub-continent has been fenced into a quarantine zone following the destruction in low orbit of a returning NASA probe full of ‘alien matter’. Xenomorphic creatures have erupted into the area, and now the US army is effectively at war trying to keep these monsters at bay. In what remains of Mexico south of the zone, we find the Americans Samantha and Andrew, the latter being a photo-journalist tasked by his bosses to escort the former back to the States in one piece.

Needless to say it’s quite an eventful journey.

In such a curt synopsis the film can easily sound like a dunder-headed action film, but that isn’t the case, but neither is it an indie-schmindy mumblecore film either. A LOT of hoopla has been made about the film’s humble budget, and its profile as a breakout independent with a CGI edge to match many a blockbuster. But leaving value for money aside, Monsters is still an Action-SciFi-Thriller with two leads fated to be drawn together: one a pretty bottle-blond in hot-pants, and the other a tussle-haired handsome thing with well crafted stubble. The film is unashamedly pitching for the mainstream, taking as it’s starting point the child-friendly-but-wholly-terrifying 12A/PG13 perfection that is Jurassic Park. This is far from a bad thing.

The film is still brave in where it takes the audience, being more than comfortable at leaving a few things hanging, and giving those who want it something serious to chew on as well. Sometimes the symbolism can be a little blunt, perhaps self-consciously so, but equally there’s a fair portion of nuance in there as well. There are action-kicks, and things to think about, and that ticks many a box on my scorecard.

On reflection, credit goes to my friend who was along for both Monsters and Machete, to point out that both are ostensibly B-movies about real world issues (just like any B-movie worth its’ salt). It’s just that Monsters knocks Machete into a corner with a cocked sombrero in terms of actually having anything to say about something very current. A terrific achievement for a first time director with a tiny budget, but also a tremendous film quite in it’s own right.

Four and a Half out of Five

Monsters is showing at the Showroom cinema in Sheffield from the 3rd of December 2010

Charting Empire’s 50 Worst Films

Love them or hate them, list making is the back bone of pretty much any entertainment magazine you care to mention, and many a nerdy pub discussion beside. It fills dead space, it kills time, and as the pastime of idle till jockeys has been pretty accurately been lampooned by High Fidelity.

But while geeks can rail each other with the ridiculous subjectivity of their own list of picadillos, the grander readershi- wide polls conducted by publications of size, if not repute, always makes for a worthwhile perusal. Britain’s own colossus of cinema, Empire magazine chose to recently query their readership about what they consider the worst films of all time. While the list doesn’t throw up any shocking revelations (The Room! Battlefield Earth! Batman and Robin!) the fact that a wedge of all the films charted scored three stars out of five, with another slice taking two starts in the very same magazine begs a few questions. The fact that every entry is bookended with a stinker of a quote from other critics as to just how bad the film really is, makes you wonder if Empire has an iota of self awareness about what they’re doing. Maybe a bit of analysis and a pie chart of the worst films’ collected scores could help:

A few of the three star reviews fall in the definite category of stark personal/cult/delusional favourites, with titles such as Howard the Duck, Southland Tales, Dreamcatcher and Heavens Gate making up their number. Widely panned commercial failures, these are films who have their ardent defenders, and Empire has the doggedly all knowing trash expert Kim Newman on staff to tackle the flood of direct-to-video films they get in every month. While Lindsey Lohan’s universally abhorred I Know Who Killed Me failed to get distribution in the UK, Newman was there to argue its corner when it came out on DVD. He’s a unique voice and greatly valued for it.

The other plethora of three stars fall into the dangerous category of the over inflated blockbuster sequel, and number the pitiful Spider-Man 3, Matrix Revolutions, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and the beyond pitiful Speed 2. A cynic might scoff at how easily a magazine got subsumed by hype, if not the questionable trading of favourable scores for big name exclusives. While the practice hasn’t been widely covered in film PR, the dastardly deeds of gaming’s PR folk has been better covered by more vocal critics than me, and it would be naïve to think it doesn’t go on behind the scenes at the big movie magazines/websites/review shows.

But then again doesn’t that just reflect Empire’s remit for espousing the undying fan’s idoltry for all things big brash and Hollywood, where the packaging and the hype are enjoyed just as much as the film itself? As a lad I got absolutely wrapped up in all things Jurassic Park before its release, bought all the special edition magazines I could get hold of and read them to rags. Spoilers be damned, I wanted beyond full disclosure before I went in. During the film I still managed to have the living daylights knocked out of me, but coming out of it I was none the less disappointed that there were no Baryonyx in the film, as that had been on the map in the Official Souvenir Studio-Authorized Magazine that I’d read so closely. Yes, that’s exactly how much of a geek I was.

Thankfully Jurassic Park is, was, always will be a superb film, but when a bit older and wiser I could appreciate the Matrix Revolutions for the absolute travesty it is. It took me the whole of Matrix Reloaded to learn the bitter lesson of hype vs reality to appreciate that. Roll around Spider-Man 3 and I knew better than to go and see it sober. So it goes.

To be generous to the films and the magazine you have to take these films with a degree disbelief suspended, and for a lot of the featured films the experience can be a lot more enjoyable if you just go with the hype. I already take Empire’s scores with a hefty dose of salt, but I guess it’s a small comfort to know that I’m far from the only reader who is able to, if only occasionally, pull back and challenge the hyperbole machine. If only the reviews were a little less by committee and a little more individual then we could just take them and debate them as the subjective reflections they are.

The Joel Schumacher Film Noir

8MM: A Joel Schumacher Film Noir about Snuff films, starring Nic Cage.

That’s as effective a review that can ever be written about 8MM. Its’ short pitch neatly ties together just how awful this film is. But then it is bizarrely compelling at the same time.

It pains me to admit it, but 8MM is a guilty pleasure. A wafer of a film, it’s impossible to defend its artistic worth to either the Cinerati or to the average-punter-in-the-multiplex. Its’ hooks (Nicholas Cage + grotty porn-ish narrative) are obvious; its’ look, its’ soundtrack and its’ plywood acting even worse. But I just can’t resist having it on in the background. Cheap and charming wallpaper, you could say. But then there’s still more to it than that.

The premise is drawn from the cod-noir trope of the gumshoe hired into clean up the dirty business left behind by the Establishment. The feature revolves around the titular home, a snuff film found tucked away in the safe of a deceased Captain of Industry. The dirty secret of a seemingly respectable family man, his widowed wife recruits Ol’ Horseface Cage to come in and prove that the film isn’t a real snuff film. It’s just very cleverly faked, of course, using make up and special effects. Of course.

The tale of a flick which carefully depicts the slow and deliberate execution of someone in an almost pornographic manner is a myth many have capitalised on before, most notably in the predictably named Snuff. A sub-standard exploitation horror, it reached new heights in headline grabbing by having a ‘real’ faked murder tagged onto the end of a unsellable film, a reel that the dastardly filmmakers ‘forgot’ to cut out. Ee-gads, if the morbid teenagers didn’t queue around the block to see the notion of someone really being killed, crikey such a thrill! As an individual somewhat obsessed about film censorship, and getting a glimpse at what shouldn’t be seen, I should perhaps not go throwing rocks, but Snuff is about as cynical as exploitation cinema gets. And that’s saying something in its own right.

Anyways, Ol’ Horseface sets off on his investigations after the girl featured in the snuff film, and his path leads him towards the sordid backwaters of Hollywood and the ‘adult entertainment’ industry that Cage feels certain the girl fell into. As he trawls the seedy bars, and the red light districts of the big smoke the soundtrack rolls out a bizarre arabesque of pure Orientalism. Fresh off his commission for Fry’s Turkish Delight, the score’s composer goes wild on chanting arabs, oud’s and dulcimers. An allusion perhaps to the taboo vices of Marrakesh, and the sweaty boys that fill William S. Borrough’s fevered vision of Tangiers in Naked Lunch. It’s all playing with notions of the Middle Eastern that are non-kosher at best, pretty racist at worst. These associations are continually spun as Cage enters the underground filth bazaars of LA. Imagine a second hand record fair, but for paedophiles. When Cage starts asking around for the Xtra hard ‘snuff’ stuff, these high principled nonces take the moral high ground and shout him out of the market. Tsch, come on Nic, there’s paedophilia, and then there’s going too far!

A few dead-ends later and he’s chasing the trail to a porn casting agency run by a porn baron, played by none other than Tony Soprano! And here the film takes an amazing turn, as brilliant actor after brilliant actor start stumbling into the roles of the devious trio behind the snuff film. First Tony, then Peter Stormare shows up as the visionary S&M director behind the snuff film, and then finally Frank Sobotka (from Season 2 of the Wire) is unmasked as the murderous gimp in the film. We’ve already had Joaquin Phoenix pop up as a Nic’s side-kick/inside-man from the porn shops, sporting a look styled after a pensioner’s distracted recollections of seeing the front man from Janes Addiction on TV last night. One solid actor is one thing, but four has you doubting quite how bad this film actually is.

Frank Sobotka is revealed in a dramatic flourish right at the end of the film [not a spoiler per se] and the shock of having the murderer revealed is only surpassed by the shock of seeing a genuinely good actor beneath the mask. And all these assorted actors do a tremendous job of pulling their weight with a by-and-large leaden script. Their work however, remains built on the shaky foundations of the acting talent that is Nic Cage, and that is quite possibly where the whole film comes undone.

The film wastes no time throwing Nic right into the deep end when it comes to pooling his thesp-y skills, giving cinema of the highest cringe factor as we watch him pretend squirm infront of a pretend snuff film we are forbidden from pretend seeing. He’s a father, a husband, and the outrage and the disgust at the horrors he sees knows no bound! The poker face he has, the lies he has to tell to get into the close circles of these perverts, the double lies, the deceit! Such anger, such frustration, such emotion!

It’s a demanding role, and Cage wholly, uttely and desperately fails to even approach the heights or nuance the role actually demands. The conflicted dick is the unshifting anchor of a good film noir; Bogey in the Maltese Falcon, Joseph Cotton in the Third Man, Fred MacMurray in Sunset Boulevard. Cage is an unguarded sledgehammer through every scene in this film, a cardboard cut out of himself that occasionally amuses but predominantly reminds you that you are watching a Nic Cage film.

Because that’s what it is. A Nic Cage film. A Nic Cage film with some very interesting notions about the value of the recorded image, the sexualisation of violence, the aggressive undercurrents of pornography, the parallels of the legitimate and illicit film industries in Hollywood, the myth of the snuff film, and the bizarre compulsion to hide from the most gruesome sights known to man, while simultaneously watching it through shielding hands. The awfulness of this film could be read as perfect illustration of this repulsion/attraction at work, but that really would be giving this film a lot more credit than it’s due.

There are distant echoes of Cronenberg’s Crash in all of this, and many other fine film besides. Perhaps knocking the budget down and making it a bit more ‘indie’ would have stood this film to good stead. Perhaps recasting either Stormare/Sobotka/Soprano in the lead role would have stood the film even better. Either ways, it still won’t stop me from watching the-amazing-film-that-could-have-been again sometime in the not too distant future, Nic Cage be damned either ways.

Against the Dark

Great films are all about High Concept. If you can’t boil it down to one sentence then the throbbing hordes of cinemagoers don’t want to know. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford? Way too much going on there, and the audience avoided it in their droves. Snakes on a Plane? You couldn’t keep the bastards from beating the door down on opening day. To hell with ‘art’ and ‘craft’ the devil is in the detail, so strip all detail out and you are left with the purest gold of heavenly concept.

Now working on such a notion we could conclude that –

Budget ÷ Purity of Concept = Box Office Success

(Purity) is defined by the number of words in the simplest possible description of any feature (Concept). By extension, the lower the word count the proportionally greater the film will be in recouping its costs. The equation of course necessitates that there be a definite concept, for a film without a screenplay (Purity of Concept = Zero) in turn reaps no profit. Such films are generally known as art installations, and broadly speaking operate outside the parameters of conventional filmmaking. The only know demonstrable exception to this rule are the collected works of David Lynch, which defy all applicable theorems.

By considering such an equation Segal’s latest direct-to-video release Against the Dark should rate highly in the article of purity, with a concept defined as such:

Seagal, Zombies.

Detractors would argue for alternatives such as ‘Seagal vs Zombies’, ‘Seagal kills Zombies’, or even ‘Seagal against Zombies’, yet the lower value holds true as the cinemagoer need only know that there is the presence of both Seagal and Zombies. How they are related or are involved is irrelevant beyond knowing they are both in the same film. As a result almost total purity of concept is achieved.

The irony that there is next to no Seagal or Zombies in this film has little or no bearing on its potential financial success. Concepts are like film titles, indicative of a features level of exploitation, which is to say the extent by which something is promised but not delivered. That this film should instead be about a gaggle of survivors with a dizzying mix of British and American accents running around an inescapable hospital intercut with sporadic shots of Seagal waddling to and fro, has little to no bearing on the films potential for financial success.

Indeed this film demonstrates in full effect the absolute minimum of Seagal you need in it for it to remain a ‘Seagal film’. It would be charitable even to consider this little more than a running cameo. Again and again he just bursts in, throws a few slices of his sword, makes a comment (not even a one-liner!) and then the scene ends. Rinse, repeat. Again and again and again.

The film then fails in having a budget which cannot afford to hire even its own producer for more than a day of shooting, this despite him being the headline star. With box office success (or in this case rental success) being relative to budget, Against the Dark will categorically fail regardless of the purity of concept. It fails almost completely (but unfortunately not wholly) to the point of non-existence. To all intent purposes this is a Non-film.

Pushing almost into the sphere of quantum physics, this film is much like Schroedinger’s Cat, existing while simultaneously not existing. In this respect the films of Steven Seagal may be a force unto themselves in this equation, and only further research will clarify this matter.