Cigarette Burns Cinema

Christmas Evil aka You Better Watch Out

2011-11-26T06:41:00.001-08:00

"What's this all about then? A film that's never had proper distribution in the UK? I've never heard of it."

Or perhaps you've heard whispers of it. But trust us when we say this is a magical little holiday film, sitting solidly in many, many people's Top 5 Christmas Films List. Including yours truly's, but don't take my word for it, one John Waters has gone on record stating he'd screen this film at every Waters Christmas Dinner, that's how highly he rates it.

But Cigarette Burns is about bringing you flicks, that for whatever reason you've not seen, but really really ought to. If only so you can cherish them as much as we do. So with that in mind, you can't imagine how excited we are to present the UK première of Christmas Evil, with an iQ&A with director Lewis Jackson hosted by Kim Newman at the Prince Charles Cinema on 7th December.

When those winter nights draw in and the seasonal chill burrows into our bones; when all throughout the house no creatures stir, not even the mouse; we know this can mean but one thing... Saint Nick is coming.

However, the gift-wrapped toys that sit under the evergreen are, undeniably, by-products of selfishness and deceit that we happily pass on to the younger generation. And when the holidays roll around, so do the opportunistic slasher or creature features, riding the coattails of whatever holiday hype they can to help push their tat. More often than not, this results in less than favourable results.

There have been rare exceptions over the years: gems such as Bob Clark’s early slasher Black Christmas, the brilliant Finnish production Rare Exports and the criminally overlooked Sheitan, starring Vincent Cassel. But none explore the dangers of truly deceiving our children. The innocent children, susceptible to the tales we adults tell them; susceptible to our lazy, disdainful and self-interested ways; these are the darker kinds of realities that the Saint Nick fable perhaps could and should show us.

Which brings us to Lewis Jackson’s dark and twisted, yet frighteningly clear-eyed Christmas Evil, or, as he’d prefer it to be known, You Better Watch Out. In which our... hero? Harry Standling (played to perfection by Brandon Maggart, none other than Fiona Apple’s father - yeah, go figure) struggles with his inner demons and ultimately, his own inner Santa Claus. One who is kind to the good, but vengeful and angry when faced with those whose hearts are a little less full and caring than perhaps they should be during the Season of Giving.

Jackson’s You Better Watch Out was clearly a project full of passion and drive; in many ways he seems as single minded in his creation as Harry does in his invocation of Santa Claus. After struggling through a difficult underfunded production, the film was ultimately ripped from Jackson’s hands by unscrupulous producers, retitled and relegated to the bottoms of the VHS pound bins - forgotten and deemed as valueless as copper, like lost change down the back of your sofa. But in recent years Jackson revisited his 30 year old property and reclaimed it as his own. He battled the courts and greedy execs, earning the right to present the film as he originally wanted, dreamed and shot it. As the title says, it seems You Better Watch Out.

With his third directorial effort, Jackson released on the world an anarchic retaliation to the simplistic capitalistic ideologies to be found in the average Christmas fable. Inspired byTiticutt Follies and German expressionist classics like M, whilst throwing in a soundtrack by NYC No Wave faces James Chance's the Contortions, You Better Watch Out is easily one of the best Christmas films, more American Psycho than Silent Night, Deadly Night. It’s no wonder that John Waters claims it’s his favourite Christmas flick ever.

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SILENT RUNNING: Blu-ray review

2011-11-15T01:53:00.001-08:00

It’s somewhat unlikely that SILENT RUNNING should arrive onBlu-ray with something akin to the fanfare of a returning hero, as it’s alwaysbeen a film that’s existed in the shadow of its bigger, more serious brother,2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. But thanks to some pretty high profile name-checkingfrom some of this generation’s most successful and prominent sci-fi film-makers(Andrew Stanton and Duncan Jones to name two) and a consistent and heartfeltchampioning from Mark Kermode (who argues that the film is actually superior tothe more traditionally critically-vaunted 2001) means that SILENT RUNNING isnow slowly achieving the kind of attention from critics and audiences that itsfervent supporters have always argued it should.

Set in a not-so distant future where rising temperatures haveled to the extinction of all plant life on earth, the film takes place on the Valley Forge, an enormous space freighter where theremainder of Earth’s forests are being held in bio-domes. The Valley Forge is populated by a skeleton crew of four, the majority of whomare bored rigid and eager to return home. The exception is Lowell Freeman(Bruce Dern), the man tasked with maintaining the forests – highly strung andwith an extremely close bond to plants and nature, Freeman believes religiouslyin the importance of his work, and fervently anticipates the day when theforests can be returned to Earth and replanted.

When the order comes through from high command to destroythe forests in a cost-cutting measure, Freeman snaps, and risks everything inorder to keep man’s last links to nature alive, enlisting along the way as helpthree adorable service robots, nicknamed Hewey, Dewey, and Louie.

Comparisons with 2001 are always going to be inescapable forSILENT RUNNING - partly because they’re two of the most high profile ‘space’science fiction movies ever made, released within a couple of years of oneanother - but mainly because of the shared involvement of Douglas Trumbull. Trumbull provided thegroundbreaking visual effects in Kubrick’s film, whereas on SILENT RUNNING he wasalso responsible for script and directing duties.

Trumbull himself has noted that SILENT RUNNING was in effectconceived as a rejoinder 2001’s cold, clinical vision of science fiction, and Trumbull’s film is likelyto surprise first-time viewers with its earnest, unabashed sentimentality. Thereis a child-like quality about the whole film – about Hewey, Dewey and Louie,about Freeman’s idealism, even the way the crew race around on thosefun-looking modified go-karts – and it’s telling that SILENT RUNNING’s biggestfans are those who saw the film at a young age. Those of us cynical adults whohave grown up on ALIEN, MOON, SUNSHINE and the DEAD SPACE video games and, yes,even 2001 might find SILENT RUNNING’s PGrated version of space madness a little toothless and insubstantial, and thescenes of Freeman making friends with the robots somewhat mawkish, particularlyin conjuction with Joan Baez’s hippy-dippy songs, which are just as likely tomake you want to put your foot through the TV as enchant you.

As a story, ultimately SILENT RUNNING doesn’t really hangtogether – the dialogue is occasionally overwrought, and there are some prettyhuge plot holes (how can someone be aware of Duck Tales yet not the fact thatplants need sunlight?). There are also big pacing problems – there are largeswathes of the film where very little happens, and while SILENT RUNNINGcertainly wouldn’t benefit from shoe-horning in of an action sequence, thereare a few patience testing moments and the film feels a lot longer than itsmodest 90 minute running time.

Despite its many flaws, there’s lots to love about SILENTRUNNING. Firstly there’s Bruce Dern’s incredible performance as Freeman, alltwitching intensity and wild-eyed prophesising. He looks and sounds likesomeone who would collar you at a Grateful Dead concert to tell you about TheMan putting fluoride in the water supply, and as such is unique in the historyof cinematic spacemen. When asked about the genesis of the character Trumbull brilliantly said(I’m paraphrasing here) “Hey, there’ll be weird people in the future too.”

The reason that SILENT RUNNING has proved so enduring,however, is certainly down to it’s world, conceived entirely with ingeniouspractical effects before the advent of CGI, and still standing up to scrutinytoday. While 2001 may be regarded as the better film, there’s definitely a casefor SILENT RUNNING being the more influential, particulary in the realm of hardscience fiction. The Valley Forge seems likean early prototype for the Nostromo; Wall-E’s whole aesthetic borrows heavilyfrom the whole film, as well as Wall-E himself being clearly descended fromHuey, Dewey and Louie, not to mention R2-D2; and the bored spaceman railingagainst the man was replicated to great effect in MOON. And we may never haveseen RED DWARF or MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 if it didn’t have the templateof robots and humans awkwardly bonding on a spaceship to replicate.

The ingenuity that went into the design of the ‘miniatures’(the Valley Forge model was 26 feet long), the sets and particularly the robots(in a genius move, the robots were portrayed by double amputees, giving themachines a real tactile weight and personality) mean that the world of SILENTRUNNING is still as exotic, realised and convincing as it was 40 (!) years ago.There’s no denying that while some moments are overwrought the film does stillpack quite an emotional punch, with the plight of Freeman and the robots and theultimate fate of the Valley Forge beinggenuinely moving and thought-provoking. There's no doubting that Trumbull is heartfelt about his film and its 'message', and for all its meandering he still crafts a powerful and heartbreaking final shot that is one ofthe most memorable in all of science fiction.

It’s also great to see a sci-fi film that is so colourful –so often sci-fi has a washed-out, sterile palette, but SILENT RUNNING isrendered in vibrant, colourful detail, with the primary colours of the ValleyForge rec room and Freeman’s space suit, alongside the lush greens of theforest really brought out by Masters of Cinema’s magnificent, razor-sharptransfer.

The Blu-ray represents another winning effort for Eureka and the Masters ofCinema label, with benchmark sound and picture quality that is at very leastthe best the film has looked since its original 35mm release. Also included isa fascinating, 60 minute documentary on the making of the film from 1972,alongside substantial interviews and a commentary with the always engagingTrumbull and Dern. There’s also a glossy 48-page booklet packed with photos,interviews and concept artwork, rounding out an extremely impressive release ofa flawed yet seminal film.

Follow me on Twitter: @paulmartinovic

LFF 2011: DREAMS OF A LIFE review

2011-10-26T08:53:00.000-07:00

It’s interesting to note that two of the most feted films at this year’s LFF are haunting studies of urban numbness; first the operatic despair of SHAME and now DREAMS OF A LIFE, an even more disturbing film on account of it being, you know, real life and everything.

While I have huge respect for the craft of documentary film-making, let’s face it: most of them live or die on the strength of their subject matter, and DREAMS OF A LIFE first and foremost has an incredible story to tell. It’s perhaps the most remarkable subject matter for a documentary since MAN ON WIRE, yet while that film showcased humanity at its best and most hopeful, DREAMS OF A LIFE is an exploration of an occasion where it comprehensively failed.

In 2003, the body of 38-year-old Joyce Carruthers was discovered in a tiny studio flat overlooking Wood Green shopping centre by members of the council chasing thousands of pounds of owed rent. After doing tests on her body it was ascertained that Joyce had been dead for nearly three years.

So far, so heartbreaking. But the cruel twist in this story is that Joyce wasn’t a loner, or a societal outcast – she was extremely attractive and outgoing, with an active social life and many friends all over London, not to mention four sisters who were alive and well. DREAMS OF A LIFE interviews many of her colleagues, associates and ex-boyfriends, while also dramatising many of the defining moments in her life in an attempt to make sense of her enigmatic, almost contradictory personality, and to explore why she was able to slip off the societal radar so easily.

The case of Joyce Carruthers would seem to suggest a total failure of humanity on a par with the Kitty Genovese incident, where a woman was murdered in broad daylight in front of 27 witnesses. But director Carol Morley seems uninterested in pointing fingers and decrying humanity, instead focusing on providing a comprehensive portrait of Joyce as a person. From the beginning, it’s noted that she was a ‘social chameleon’ – changing up friendship groups and moving to different areas of London regularly – and as the film progresses, it is increasingly hinted at that Joyce had serious issues with trust and commitment, and in the end actively wanted to withdraw herself from everyone. I’m not sure which is the most disturbing – that her friends forgot about her or that she felt alienated enough from them to want to disappear. For those of us who live in big metropolitan cities, the case of Joyce would appear to be a chilling confirmation of our darkest fears regarding our ultimate insignificance.

However, all our evidence on this comes from the people interviewed; these are people who are obviously harboring a significant amount of guilt about the circumstances in which Joyce died, and there’s always the lingering thought that they may be colouring their perceptions of her in order to assuage their own culpability.

It’s in these interviews with the people that knew her that DREAMS OF A LIFE is at its most riveting. There’s an interesting cast of characters who line up to talk about her, though none are more interesting than her two serious ex-boyfriends: the first, a nebbish, white, balding and incredibly good-natured man who was also her longest and closest friend; and the second, a slick, black, dreadlocked music manager who introduced her to Isaac Hayes and Nelson Mandela. The stark contrast between them only reinforces the view of Joyce as a woman who enjoyed trying to ingratiate into vastly different social groups, while committing to none of them.

The interviews are presented as if the interviewees have just walked in off the street – we see them learn new revelations about Joyce’s life at the same time that we learn them. The inter-cutting between the talking heads is skillfully done – there’s a great sequence where the interviewees are all unexpectedly played a tape of her voice that is totally gripping.

I was less convinced about the dramatised aspects while I was watching it, which occasionally seemed needlessly elaborate (the dramatised Joyce watching documentary footage of her real life friends discussing her on her bedsit TV). However, Zawe Ashton gives a good performance as Joyce, and some of the moments are extremely effective – a scene where Joyce sings the entirety of Carolyn Crawford’s ‘My Smile is Just a Frown’ into her hairbrush seemed self-indulgent at first, then tragic in retrospect, and ultimately has haunted me for days afterwards.

It’s become one of the most-talked about films of the festival, and with good reason: it’s an exceptionally powerful and thought-provoking work. The reaction has led to distributors bringing the release date forward to Christmas, which is certainly an interesting scheduling choice, if an appropriate one. Forget THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO – this is the real feel bad movie of Christmas.

LFF 2011: THE KID WITH A BIKE review

2011-10-26T07:32:00.000-07:00

THE KID WITH A BIKE is another excellent film from Belgian brothers the Dardennes, and as a study of the awkward purgatory between childhood and adolescence it its right up there with its obvious forebears in KES and THE 400 BLOWS.

11-year-old Cyril (Thomas Doret) spends his days in a children’s home, his mother dead and his father temporarily absent. When he discovers his bike has been apparently stolen, he escapes from the home and sets about searching for it. Whilst on the hunt, he meets a young woman who he forms an immediate and literal bond with (you’ll see) – with his dad still missing, she agrees to look after him on weekends, and thus begins a relationship that proves to be tumultuous but ultimately life-changing for them both.

The reason why THE KID WITH A BIKE is ultimately so successful is in its total disregard for sentimentality – so often films about childhood descend into saccharine, rose-tinted nostalgia that bears little resemblance to actual experience. The best ones, including the films already mentioned along with more recent examples like WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE and THIS IS ENGLAND, aren’t afraid to show that the being a kid, particularly in the nascent adolescent stage, if filled with as much if not more ugliness and confusion than at any point in their adult lives.

Cyril is, essentially, a Bad Kid – he attacks and insults people with a frequency and a ferocity that is startling – but as played by Doret he is an immensely watchable screen presence. His tiny, fragile frame and angelic features play in stark contrast to his anti-social behaviour, and as the film progresses we see that, much like Antoine in THE 400 BLOWS, the Kid just can’t catch a break. And when he’s subjected to some intense emotional abuse in the film (which is often), his gruff exterior dissolves into hurt, uncomprehending confusion in a way that is utterly believable and totally heartbreaking .It’s in these moments that we see that instead of being an inherently bad seed, it’s more that there’s something about Cyril’s nature and background that makes his peers and elders assume he’s trouble: as a result, it’s suggested that his abrasive nature is ultimately the result of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Not exactly breaking new ground with this story, then, but it’s done with a level of sensitivity and piercing emotional directness that we’ve come to expect from the Dardennes that render it a powerful and rewarding experience. There’s also some delightful moments of humour throughout (including a highly unexpected series of nerdy video game references) and some well-judged supporting performances, including Cecile De France as Cyril’s would-be foster mother, Jérémie Renier as the father ill-suited to caring for him, and Fabrizio Rongione as a sleazy local hood.

Overall THE KID WITH A BIKE feels less powerful and affecting than something like THE CHILD, but then given the respective subject matter that’s perhaps understandable. One new element of film-making that the Dardennes explore for the first time in this film is non-diegetic music, with mixed results – the operatic strings occasionally feel out of place and instrusive with the film’s almost documentary like sense of realism. Also, although the film is a brisk 90 minutes the film has one too many false endings – however, the film’s final note is absolutely brilliant and the perfect way to conclude Cyril’s story.

THE KID WITH A BIKE is another brilliant piece of work from the Dardennes, and one that comfortably enters the pantheon of great films about childhood. Be sure to catch it when it goes on limited release early next year.

LFF 2011: A DANGEROUS METHOD review

2011-10-24T13:50:00.000-07:00

Probably the most disappointing film of the festival, this – in my eyes, Cronenberg’s track record is nigh-on flawless, and unlike so many horror directors of his generation time hasn’t dulled his knack for getting under people’s skin, with some his most recent films (Eastern Promises and A History of Violence in particular) being among his best. So my hopes were high for this marriage of a fascinating subject (the birth of psychoanalysis), a great cast (Michael London Film Fasstival and Viggo Mortensen in particular), and one of my favourite directors in A DANGEROUS METHOD.

With such a pedigree behind it, what went wrong? It’s hard to say: A DANGEROUS METHOD is just a tepid, deeply average film, with one, egregiously terrible aspect that drags into down into the just plain bad category.

In the early part of the 20th century Carl Jung (Fassbender) tries out Sigmund Freud’s (Viggo Mortensen) controversial new treatment of psychoanalysis on the disturbed young woman Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley), admitted after demonstrating compulsive behavior and undergoing violent fits. The treatment proves successful, and Sabina embarks on a career as a psychoanalyst herself. However, she and Jung have embarked on a tumultuous affair, one facilitated by the arrival and persuasive powers of committed polygamist Otto Gross (Vincent Cassell) – this affair leads to a number tensions and recriminations between Jung and Freud, by now both his friend and intellectual rival.

A DANGEROUS METHOD was adapted from a stage play, and it really shows. It’s an extremely talky screenplay – understandably, given the film’s protagonists – but the conversations are surprisingly lifeless and dull - there are also a number jarring shifts between time periods that would work a lot better on stage than on screen. We seem to always jump forward in time by several years every time the story begins to get interesting.

Cronenberg doesn’t utilize the camera to show us anything that we would have been prevented from seeing on stage – for example, the frequent dream sequences that are described – and the material isn’t strong enough to support the film up by itself. It’s bizarre that a director responsible for some of the most memorable cinematic images in history could make such a visually unadventurous film.

The script is also heavy with dramatic irony and references that require a decent rounding in the early history of psychoanalysis to make much sense – on the other hand, the film isn’t enlightening or incisive enough to say anything new to someone already familiar with the basic concepts, which makes you wonder exactly who this film is aimed at.

Fassbender, Cassell, and Mortensen all put in decent performances, and when they’re onscreen the film putters along reasonably enough, and if it was just scenes with them the film would be passable if rarely rising above the level of a good TV movie.

I should probably preface this by saying that I am by no means a Keira Knightley hater – there’s plenty of stuff I’ve really liked her in, like ATONEMENT and NEVER LET ME GO – but her performance in A DANGEROUS METHOD is historically bad. She’s not the only one to blame – clearly Cronenberg told her to ‘go for it’ – but it’s one of the most nails-on-chalkboard irritating things I’ve seen in a cinema for a long time. Her portrayal of madness hinges on a non-stop barrage of flailing limbs, guttural noises, a stammer more over-the-top than Michael Palin in A FISH CALLED WANDA, and relentless gurning, wrapped around a ludicrous Borat-by-way-of-Robbie Coltrane in Goldeneye accent. It’s less a convincing portrayal of madness than it is a cartoonish imitation of someone found wandering around Glastonbury at 6AM on a Sunday morning. It’s not a screen performance – it’s a theatre one. Everything should have been dialled down by about thirty notches, and ultimately Cronenberg has to take as much responsibity for this as Knightley. It’s nothing personal against her, and I’m positive the next film I see her in she’ll be great, but fuck me if she isn’t unwatchable for large swathes of this.

It’s a shame A DANGEROUS METHOD turned out the way it did, because there is little in the film to ultimately recommend it. One day a great film will be made about this subject - but this sadly isn’t it.

LFF 2011: THE DESCENDANTS review

2011-10-20T14:51:00.000-07:00

If there’s one generic label guaranteed to make me run for the hills it’s ‘comedy-drama’. I wish people who apply the label would stop being disingenuous and just call out the vast majority of these films for what they are – unfunny comedies. Film-makers- in an absence of jokes from your comedy, fill your film with aimless whimsy, weird-looking actors, avoid much happening for the majority of its running time, toss in a couple of tears and arguments, then hey presto: your film is a nailed on Sundance smash and will be snapped up by Fox Searchlight before you can say ‘charmingly offbeat’.

The only person who consistently makes good movies in the uninspired of realm of comedy dramas is Alexander Payne, perhaps because he infuses his films with a caustic wit that nicely counterbalances the sentimentality that so frequently drags down this genre, writes scripts that are actually funny, and, in perhaps his most overlooked attribute, makes films that actually look great, with a keen visual style. He’s never made a bad film, and I’m pleased to report that he’s extended his perfect record with THE DESCENDANTS.

Clooney plays against type as Matt King, a workaholic lawyer living in Hawaii who, after his wife is put into a terminal coma after a speedboat accident, is forced to take an active interest in his two daughters for the first time. His youngest, a ten-year-old, is hyperactive and destructive, while his eldest, the 17-year-old Alexandra (Shailene Woodley), is an angry young woman, to put it mildly. As Matt attempts to prepare for a life-changingly lucrative land deal while preparing for the last few weeks of his wife’s life, he and his daughters are forced to address their family demons head on.

That description makes THE DESCENDANTS sound pretty formulaic and trite, and indeed if I gave you three guesses at the ending you’d probably be able to figure it out. But the journey that it takes getting there is more unconventional – there’s a twist at the beginning of the second act that sets the film off down a different tangent than the ‘Clooney and his wacky kids’ plot we think we are heading down, and is all the better for it.

There is a surprisingly sensitive and insightful assessment of familial grief alongside some wicked black humour. Payne is the master of making absolutely desperate and heart-breaking moments for his characters laugh-out loud funny, without ever betraying either emotional side for the other. He’s the perfect director for the material, providing some genuinely moving moments without ever descending (hey!) into schmaltz.

The aforementioned keen visual style is also put to excellent use here, with some beautifully composed cinematography of some breathtaking Hawaiian scenery, alongside his brilliant eye for comic detail – everyone in Hawaii wears flip-flops, which leads to hilarious consequences anytime anyone has to run or chase something.

The performances are excellent, with an eye-catching performance from Woodley as King’s abrasive daughter striking just the right note – this is a troubled teenager you can believe exists, rather than the door-slamming clichéd archetype the character easily could have been. There are great supporting roles from Matthew Lillard, Rob Heubel, and particularly Robert Forster, who is always fantastic.

It’s Clooney’s show, though, and at first it’s weird to see him play the subdued, awkward type. He’s deprived of the easy charm and bravado that make him such a watchable screen presence, yet as he portrays a character who has metaphorically had the rug pulled out from him, this actually works in the film’s favour. It’s a great performance – understated, funny, and considered – and it’s hard to imagine another actor pulling the role off so well.

THE DESCENDANTS is flawed – it starts very slowly, with a terrible, exposition heavy voiceover nearly capsizing the film before it begins. Also, while the lack of a more traditional narrative works out in its favour in the long run, there are sections that occasionally feel unfocused.

To say that THE DESCENDANTS is probably the most lightweight film from Payne to date (it’s certainly no SIDEWAYS, but about on a par with ABOUT SCHMIDT) is more a sign of the absurdly high quality of his output so far than it is any slight on the movie itself: on its own terms, it’s an excellent comedy-drama. *shudder*

LFF 2011: MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE review

2011-10-19T13:56:00.000-07:00

When it’s done well, there’s fewer genres I enjoy more than the psychological thriller. I love in particular the sub-genre of movies where reality (and therefore the narrative of the film) is always treacherous due to the mental state of the protagonist/narrator slowly unraveling. If you’re after a pithy label for these movies, I suppose ‘headfuck’ is as good as anything.

After a heyday in the seventies with Polanski’s Apartment trilogy of REPULSION, ROSEMARY’S BABY and THE TENANT, the genre underwent a renaissance towards the end of the nineties with films like AMERICAN PSYCHO, FIGHT CLUB and PI, before coming to prominence again with the huge critical and commercial success of BLACK SWAN earlier this year.

At the LFF this year we have two high-profile headfucks in TAKE SHELTER and MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE – I haven’t yet seen TAKE SHELTER (I’m currently trying to pull strings to make a screening) but I have seen the excellent if irritatingly titled MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE, and there’s no doubt it’s one of the most interesting and powerful films screening this year.

In the film’s chilly, wordless opening scenes, we see a rural household that is home to dozens of people, and we watch as they go about their business. Right from the off there are clues that something is up – the men all eat together, and only once they have finished and left the dining room are the women allowed to eat. In the small hours of the morning, a young girl (Elizabeth Olsen) escapes the house and runs off into the woods, as a voice calls out "Marcy May!" behind her. Eventually she makes contact with her only remaining family, sister Lucy (Sarah Paulson), who lives in a grandiose beachfront Connecticut home with an irritable property developer (Hugh Dancy).

We learn that the girl’s real name is Martha, and that she has been estranged from her sister for over two years. We flash back and forth between her new home in Conneticut, where she begins to display increasingly erratic and bizarre behavior as her fragile psychological state worsens, and her increasingly dark and unpleasant memories of the communal home.

It’s interesting how both TAKE SHELTER and MARLENE are set in pastoral middle America – I think this is ultimately a more disturbing film than something like BLACK SWAN (a film I’m a huge fan of) precisely because the psychological horror is presented in such a mundane, grounded context. It’s the David Lynch effect – the foreboding sense that the niceties of small-town USA are plastering over the cracks of a sordid, perverted reality.

There are some genuinely horrible moments in MMMM, but it’s never exploitative, or gratutitous. The camera avoids much in the way of explicit material, and huge amount is implied and suggested, which is ultimately a great deal more horrifying. There’s no operatics, literal or otherwise; no American Werewolf-esque transformation scenes, or softly lit lesbian sex - just a precise, totally credible account of the depths of mental abuse that can be inflicted on a young girl by a charismatic sociopath.

That charismatic sociopath is Patrick, played by the brilliant John Hawkes, fast becoming one of my favourite actors currently working. Here his role is like Teardrop, his incredible character from WINTER’S BONE, pulled inside out – whereas Teardrop was a sensitive soul buried deep within a prickly, violent exterior, in MARLENE he’s…well, you can probably figure it out. In any event he’s just as memorable and effective as he was in that previous, Oscar-nominated role, and continues to prove that he has more charisma in one of his ridiculously bulbous arm veins than most A-listers have in their whole bodies. All I’m saying is that if they ever make an Iggy Pop biopic he’s plainly the only candidate.

As great as Hawkes is this will be a film remembered for two debuts. The first is English-American writer-director Sean Durkin, who has produced a remarkably accomplished film for a debut feature. It’s lyrical yet intense, visually stunning, and crammed with incidental visual clues and details that I’m positive will reward further viewings. He demonstrates a remarkable eye for composition, and a grasp of claustrophobic tension and suspense that would suggest he’s been doing this for years. His storytelling style is occasionally abstruse and difficult – in particular, some of the ending scenes are almost Haneke-like in their sadistic refusal to provide any traditional sense of climax – but also (like Haneke) thought-provoking, intelligent and unsettling. Durkin is certainly a talent to watch.

Undoubtedly another talent to watch is Elizabeth Olsen, younger sister of teen favourites Mary Kate and Ashley. While she has appeared in films before as a child star, this is her coming out party as a ‘serious’ actress, and it is absolutely stunning. It’s a demanding role – due to Martha’s borderline personality disorder she’s required to shift between a variety of personas, whilst still providing the human center of the film, something she does impeccably. At various stages in the film ‘Martha’ is alternately vampish, when meeting Patrick for the first time; child-like, when being taking out for a boat ride; and intense and calculating, when firing pointed and personal barbs at her bewildered sister. Yet all the while her sad eyes belie the paranoia and confusion raging inside of her. It’s a mesmerising performance, and it will be an outright scandal if she isn’t rewarded with an Oscar nomination at the very least.

MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE will likely prove too cold and enigmatic for many – the title alone will scare a lot of people away. However, for those of us who can handle it, it’s a technically brilliant, superbly performed and perfectly executed movie. Headfucks don’t come much better than this.

LFF 2011: THE ARTIST review

2011-10-19T04:08:00.000-07:00

Delightful is an adjective that seems to be rarely used any more in a non-ironic sense. Along with ‘lovely’ and ‘adorable’, it’s usually more patronising than complimentary – it seems to suggest an slightness or airiness that mark something as inoffensive yet nothing to get seriously passionate about. Why though? Have we become that cynical that we’re suspicious of anything where the sole intention is to make us happy? Does being delighted make us feel so guilty?

Comrades, let’s reclaim delightful on behalf of THE ARTIST, one of the most delightful films in decades. It mines a vein of unbridled joy left largely left untouched by live action cinema in recent years – in a festival slate of films fueled by rape, coercion and despair; in a world of endless, mean-spirited, jizz-streaked gross out comedies; in a world when THE fucking TOURIST is nominated at the Golden Globes as best musical/comedy, Michel Hazanavicius’ THE ARTIST arrives like an oasis of pure pleasure in a desert of ‘will-this-do?” laziness and morbid navel-gazing.

You’ll find nothing in this review that will give away any of THE ARTIST’s jokes or plot points, as much of the film’s pleasure comes from them being revealed to you – there’s a seemingly endless supply of both visual and comic invention, and all you can really do (on a first viewing at least) is be entranced by the sheer wonder of it all. However, I’ll say this much – THE ARTIST focuses on George Valentin, (Jean Dujardin) a much-feted silent movie star, as he forges his career in Hollywoodland through the 20s and 30s, while the aspiring dancer and actress Peppy Miller (the gob-smackingly beautiful Bérénice Bejo), who he first encounters in a chance meeting, also tries to make it in showbusiness alongside him.

It’s worth noting that while THE ARTIST obviously pays homage to the silent movies of the 20s, it’s spiritual ancestor is clearly SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN – their plots are structured similarly and hit very similar beats, and Julardin even bears a striking resemblance to Gene Kelly. Its biggest similarity with RAIN however is in its sheer exuberant love for movies – it’s arguably the first film since RAIN where movie-making actually feels ‘magic’, and its enthusiasm is infectious.

Dujardin, best know for the incredibly successful James Bond parody series OSS (also directed by Hazanavicius), won the Best Actor award at Cannes and it could not be more deserved – it’s a remarkable performance, mixing elements of Errol Flynn, Gene Kelly, Clark Gable, and Charlie Chaplin into a perfect, raffish hybrid of old-Hollywood leading men. He’s required to do a lot of emotional heavy-lifting in the film as well as light comedy, and pulls it off magnificently. Bejo is equally good and totally convincing in all senses as a 1920s movie starlet, and there are excellent supporting performances from James Cromwell as Valentin’s butler and especially John Goodman as, perhaps inevitably, a cigar-chomping studio bigwig.

I found myself welling up a number of times during THE ARTIST. One a couple of occasions it was due to something poignant happening in the storyline, but mostly it was a result of just being made so, so happy by what I was witnessing. There are moments in THE ARTIST that, in terms of pure on screen magic, are on a par with Gene Kelly’s umbrella dance, Chaplin’s fork and bread roll puppet show, the mirror sequence in DUCK SOUP, and the boulder scene in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. It really is that good.

I could elaborate for pages and pages about my favourite moments in THE ARTIST, and the technical brilliance displayed by Hazanavicius and cinematographer Guillaume Schiffman, the immense production design, and fantastic score, but such is the spell cast by THE ARTIST that it seems wrong to break it down into its fulfilling parts. Don't watch any trailers, or read too many reviews. All you need to know is that it’s another must-see, a future classic, and you will be a better, happier person for having seen it. It’s a film about movies, made by movie-lovers, for movie-lovers - yet it’s a movie that everyone will love. It is delightful.

LFF 2011: ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA review

2011-10-18T07:36:00.000-07:00

ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA is, first and foremost, amasterpiece, a stunningly composed piece of cinema that stands out in anincredibly strong slate of LFF films as a genuine and singular work of art. Asa piece of entertainment, it’s harder to recommend, but it’s neverthelessa towering and intriguing work.

After a short prologue we find ourselves out in thehighlands of Anatolia in the middle of a murderinvestigation. A man and his accomplice have admitted to the crime, and haveled a posse of investigators, including a quiet, contemplative doctor, an officiousprosecutor, and the belligerent chief of police, out into the wilderness towhere the body is buried. The film plays out almost in real time as we staywith the men throughout the night and into the early morning, as theinvestigation is methodically drawn to a close. In the process we see as the charactersundergo personal revelations and philosophical revolutions in a long, darknight of the soul

The prefix “Once upon a time…” suggests an epic, violentdrama in the vein of Leone’s films of the same name, but in reality ANATOLIA provides nothing of the sort. There are nods toWesterns (there are moments reminiscent of the more elegiac moments in THE WILDBUNCH, of all films), and some of the static, widescreen photography is easilythe equal of anything Leone came up with. But there is very little violence ormachismo on display, and revenge, justice and redemption are unlikely prospectsfor all involved.

Sowhat kind of film exactly is ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA? On the surface ofit, it’s one of the most thorough police procedurals ever made, and probably oneof most realistic. We see every dead end, every uncomfortable car journey, andevery police report dictated and replicated in intricate detail. Paradoxicallyhowever, the more detailed the film’s portrayal of police work becomes, theless concerned it seems with the murder investigation itself.

It turns into more of an exercise in scenic existentialism (bear with me),a picturesque journey in the vein of the Heart of Darkness –inspired APOCALYPSENOW and AGUIRRE THE WRATH OF GOD. All of these films feature protagonists whoare ostensibly searching for one thing (an AWOL soldier, El Dorado, or, in thecase of ANATOLIA, a body) but in reality are looking for something inherentlyspiritual, an answer to make sense of the worlds of uncertainty and chaos theyfind themselves in – in ANATOLIA, everybody is looking for a logical solution,but at every turn are reminded that life rarely provides any absoluteconclusions.

In this respect the film’s icy sense of dread and nihilisticrepresentation of death, crime and justice is reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy’swork and particularly the Coens’ adaptation of NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. Theseare men who confront evil and sin not with emotional grandstanding or violentaction but with a sense of inevitability and weary befuddlement. If this sounds unwatchably depressing, it’sworth noting that there’s also a noticeable streak of Coen-esque black humourrunning throughout that is actually funny, particularly once the body isdiscovered and the men realise no one has prepared to transport it.

Perhaps the main talking point of ANATOLIA will be itsexquisite photography – director NuriBilge Ceylan began his career as photographer, and his eye for composition anduse of light (with cinematographer Gökhan Tiryaki) creates a successionof achingly beautiful moments: under a red, black and orange sky, we seebrilliant flashes of an alien, unusual light that slowly reveals itself to be carheadlamps; as one character delivers a monologue, the camera follows an apple asit falls from a tree, rolls down a hill and down the length of a nearby stream;and, in one of the most memorable scenes of the year, the men are stunned intosilence by the beauty of a farmer’s daughter when she serves them tea, as theytake turns being bathed in the almost celestial light emanating from the lampshe carries on her tea tray. It’s jaw-dropping stuff.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA is 157 minutes long and, to behonest, feels longer. This is not necessarily a slight, but it’s important tonote that this is a film that demands your attention throughout its runningtime – your brain needs to be switched on and utterly focused if you’re to getthe most out of it, as it is uncompromising in its refusal to adhere to a traditionalnarrative structure. The upside is that it’s one of the few movies I’ve seenrecently that can be called ‘poetic’ without pretension or hyperbole, but the flipside is that it you must be prepared to adhere to its rhythms and withstand itspacing, which at times is borderline glacial.

However, while the tone is generally sombre, this is not adry and portentous film – the characters are sympathetic and recognisably human,and are even good for some genuine laughs in places. It’s a film that peoplewill be picking over for years, and once you get past the stately pace and the runningtime, the rewards to be found in ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA are huge. This isincredible cinema.

LFF 2011: DARWIN review

2011-10-17T01:40:00.000-07:00

There’s a strong slate of documentaries at this year’s LFF, with new efforts from powerhouses Werner Herzog, Jonathan Demme, Nick Broomfeld and Frederick Wiseman, alongside hotly tipped works from lesse-known film-makers such as DREAMS OF A LIFE, DRAGONSLAYER, and this, Nick Brandestini’s charming and engrossing DARWIN.

Darwin is a town in Death Valley, California with a total population of 35 - previously a mining town that saw a huge influx of workers when silver and subsequently lead was discovered there, Darwin has since been ravaged by fire, labour disputes, and water problems, whittling the population down from thousands to the handful of eccentrics that are left today.

There are no jobs, no social areas, no entertainment, and no services, a fact emblazened on a sign personally erected by residents to dissuade any out-of-towners from stopping by. Brandestini spends the film delving in to the recent history of Darwin, in the process exploring the remarkable lives of the people who live there and, crucially, how they ended up there.

In lesser hands, DARWIN would be pretty unpleasant viewing. It so easily could have been a depressing dirge or taken the easy route of ridiculing and belittling its ‘trailer trash’ occupants. The closest the film comes to this is in its early scenes, including a moment where the proclamation by the local librarian that “we’ve got every kind of book you can imagine in here” is accompanied by a close up of a box of trashy bestsellers, including Peter Benchley’s ‘Jaws’. But it doesn’t feel condescending – instead the amusing opening passages in retrospect feel like they are there to subtly reinforce our prejudices about small-town folk, so that as their contradictions and complex inner lives are unveiled as the film progresses, they are all the more surprising and effective.

These ‘hicks’ prove to be a surprisingly multicultural and diverse bunch. There’s the weary, sardonic postal worker (possessor of the only job in town) who supports Obama and says ‘she’ll never understand bigotry’; the yoga practicing San Francisico hangover (“too young to be a beatnik, too old to be a hippie”); the naturist boogie-woogie man; and, most memorably of all, an aging old coot who sounds like a cross between Grandpa Simpson and the cranky gold prospector from The Onion, yet harbors am incredible skill for painting and sculpture.

Early on, we meet an obese young couple living in a trailer, yet rather than being the braindead consumers that are so often presented as representative of America’s underclass, they turn out to be extremely progressive, multi-faceted and interesting: one professes to like Darwin because of ‘’the lack of proselytizing here”, while the other gives a moving account of their lifetime struggle with gender and identity.

For a storyteller looking to establish a sense of foreboding the town of Darwin is a gift – a town with a history of violent residents, it now resides next to a huge, top secret American military base, with the sound of detonated bombs being a semi-regular soundtrack for Darwin’s inhabitants. It’s no wonder that it seems like the only thing that properly unifies the population of Darwin is the belief that the end of the world is imminent. Some are committed survivialists, armed to teeth and building up food reserves, while others just plan to pull up a chair and watch the fireworks.

The sense of impending Armageddon is strong in DARWIN – even if the Mayans were wrong about 2012, the exodus of young people from the town and the borderline elderly average age means that the end really is nigh for its inhabitants. The new roles, reinventions and redemptions the townspeople are currently undergoing make this ghost town feel even more eerie and purgatorial – a place where people are preparing for death.

If that all sounds a bit heavy, it isn’t: Branadesti is clearly affectionate towards the oddballs of Darwin, and what you come away from the film with is awe at the amount of humanity that pervades throughout both the town and the film-making in some pretty inhuman surroundings. DARWIN is accomplished, entertaining, and thought-provoking, and well worth 90 minutes of your time.
Darwin - Trailer from Darwin Documentary on Vimeo.

LFF 2011: SHAME review

2011-10-14T07:52:00.003-07:00

It would have been a (literally) ballsy move to open the LFF with SHAME and therefore a few unflinching minutes of full frontal Fassbender, but once the initial sniggers/murmers of appreciation/raucous applause died down we’d have actually been left with the polar opposite of 360: a genuinely great movie that actually has something to say about the human condition, and says what it wants to say expertly.
Michael Fassbender plays Brandon, a wealthy playboy who fills his studio apartment nights with casual hook-ups, internet porn, empty flirtations, and liasons with hookers. His carefully balanced lifestyle is upended when his brash and capricious sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan) turns up in his flat and starts living with him – her own sexuality and demand for affection begins to make him increasingly uncomfortable, and consequently forces him to confront his own hollow existence.

There are a lot of parallels to found in SHAME with AMERICAN PSYCHO – like Patrick Bateman, Brandon has an ambiguous, well-paid job populated by grinning, shallow fuckwits, and there’s a gymnastic threesome scene between Brandon and two prostitutes that is reminiscent of Chritian Bale’s infamous flexing in PSYCHO, only this time Sussudio is replaced with the slightly more respectable sounds of Bach.

Where it most resembles PSYCHO however is in Brandon’s chameleon-like nature, that you feel has been developed over time in order to hide his deep inner torment. He tries on different masks for different situations - the playful, enigmatic suitor on a date; the dead-eyed predator at a bar; the embarrassed, apologetic friend at a club – all with the ultimate intention of establishing the sexual connection that he desperately craves.
Unlike PSYCHO, however, SHAME never alleviates the proceedings with period satire, or ultraviolence, or absurdist touches. While there is humour in SHAME – a surprising amount, actually – this is not the black comedy that PSYCHO is: instead, it’s an intensely sad character portrait that actually says as much about inner-city life in the 21st century as it does about addiction and loneliness.

At one point there’s a beautiful, extended panning shot that shows Fassbender jogging through the streets of New York: as we move with him, we see office blocks, vehicles, clubs, hotels, lights and people come and go in an instant, before he stops at the hub of noise, lights and action that is Times Square and Madison Square Garden. It’s tremendously evocative of that unique inner city loneliness: the feeling of being constantly surrounded by people, but always moving past them, and never really engaging or interacting.

Director Steve McQueen does a great job of presenting us a New York that looks and feels like New York without resorting to shots of steam coming out of drains and the Statue of Liberty. It’s a peculiar love letter to the city – there’s even an extended scene, shot largely in one single take close-up, of Carey Mulligan singing a pared down, rueful rendition of ‘New York, New York’.

There are lots of long takes in SHAME – I suspect this is because McQueen knows he’s got a special pair of performers here, and lets us see how electrifying they both are by refusing to edit around them. Mulligan gives her best performance ever in a career that is already filled with excellent ones – she manages the incredibly difficult trick of portraying a character who is an unhinged hysterical wreck with a controlled performance that never resorts to histrionics. There are also strong supporting performances from Nicole Behare as a potential romantic interest for Brandon, and James Badge Dale as his sleazy motormouth boss.

However, there’s no doubt Fassbender is the real show here. It’s a intensely physical performance (yes, he’s naked a lot), and a fearsome demonstration of screen acting. His scenes with Mulligan are breathtaking, with both actors realizing a supremely dysfunctional relationship in a way that never feels contrived or clichéd – you always sense that they are both skirting around some terrible secret that can never be articulated. He’s also totally convincing when inhabiting all of Brandon’s aforementioned personas, but never lets you forget that underneath he’s a coiled spring, his piercing eyes always belying the confusion and emptiness that resides beneath his carefully constructed façade. It’s a character and a performance so indelibly linked it could only have come from a totally symbiotic vision between director and actor – in this sense and also in its sheer, committed intensity, it’s reminiscent of David Thewlis in NAKED, not coincidentally one of my very favourite performances of all time.

If there are criticisms they might be that the film’s conclusions aren’t exactly revelatory and very occasionally there are moments when the film’s Bach-heavy score comes across as overbearing and portentous (though generally it’s a perfect fit).

Ultimately though SHAME is a shattering experience and a magnificent film – while brutal and draining, this is not a depressing experience (as I previously mentioned, there’s more funny moments than you’d think the subject matter would allow), and stands as a shining example of the currently thriving reserves of British filmmaking and acting talent. It goes straight in alongside MIDNIGHT COWBOY and TAXI DRIVER in the canon of great alienated New York movies, and I also think it’s an important film for what it tells us about men and male sexuality in the 21st century – while few people who watch it will have experienced the more extreme depths (not to mention frequency) of sexual activity that Fassbender’s character indulges in, there are probably more moments of recognition in his search for intimacy and redemption through sexual encounters than most of us, both men and women, would care to admit. It’s not only one of the best films of the LFF (London Fassbender Festival), it’s one of the best, period, in an already stellar year for film.

SHAME screens tonight at 20.15 and 20.30, and tomorrow at 12.15 as part of the BFI London Film Festival. It is released in the UK on 12 January 2012.

LFF 2011: MISS BALA review

2011-10-12T17:24:00.000-07:00

After beginning the LFF coverage with a couple of sniffy reviews (although to be fair, in 360’s case, there was a lot to sniff), it’s probably time to skew things a bit more positive around here, and give you a review of a film I can get genuinely enthusiastic about: the coruscating MISS BALA, the new film from I’M GOING TO EXPLODE director Gerardo Naranjo.

A teenaged girl in the Mexican province of Baja California dreams of escaping her quiet life living with her father and younger brother by being crowned at Miss Bala in the local beauty pageant. However, a night out with her friend at a nightclub frequented by DEA agents and mobsters turns into a gangland massacre, one she is fortunate to escape from with her life. Her luck quickly runs out however, as her status as a witness sucks her deep into the world of Mexican drug crime, and things only get worse when the local crime boss takes a personal shine to her.

MISS BALA wasn’t what I was expecting when I went into – I assumed that the film would be a socio-political actioner that crackles with real verve and energy, like a CITY OF GOD, LA HAINE, or even GOODFELLAS. MISS BALA is most definitely a socio-political action film, and it is spectacularly directed – more on that in a second – but the tone is exceedingly grim and sombre throughout, so that it more closely resemble the nihilistic, washed-out realism of recent crime dramas like GOMORRAH and ANIMAL KINGDOM. Certainly it shares with those films and also the brilliant A PROPHET the basic narrative structure of a morally neutral protagonist submerged in a violent world that they are suddenly forced to adapt to, and it pulls this off well, if not quite with the style of A PROPHET and the intensity of ANIMAL KINGDOM. Be warned though: this can be tough going, as there is little in the way of respite from our fragile-looking heroine finding herself in ever more desperate and unpleasant situations.

Without wanting to sound crass, current day Mexico is certainly a febrile place for setting stories like this – indeed, there are some events in the latter half in the film that might seem over the top were it not for very similar, widely reported crimes actually taking place in Mexico just a few weeks ago. The film really does a good job of capturing a sense of lawlessness and hopelessness that the grip of the cartels has forced onto the country.

In pure film-making terms it is eye-catchingly well directed, with some brilliantly conceived set-pieces, that are oftentimes shot in audacious single takes, reminiscent of some of the sequences in CHILDREN OF MEN, that give the violent action an almost dream-like quality. Naranjo is brilliant about taking moments we’ve seen in dozens of other crime films and shooting them from a point of view that we’ve never seen before.

MISS BALA also boasts a fantastic screen villain in Lino Valdez (Noe Hernandez), the drug boss who takes her under his wing. Although he possesses an Igor-like limp, he lacks any other kind of evil flourishes that we have come to expect from characters like this – he isn’t a hysterical maniac, and he isn’t a dead-eyed psychopath either – instead, he goes about his terrible deeds with an almost bored type of pragmatism that is even more chilling. Actually, I lied about the evil flourishes. He has a really gross moustache as well.

Valid criticisms of the film are that it’s too cold and minimalist – the characters, including Miss Bala herself, are fairly shallow, and the gist of the film doesn’t amount up to more than ‘Mexican drug gangs are bad’, hardly a point that needed re-iterating. But it’s hard to resist a film when it’s executed with this much style and power. Gripping, muscular, and expertly made, MISS BALA is the crime film to beat at LFF.

MISS BALA is showing as part of the LFF on Wed 19th, Thu 20th, and Sat 22nd. It goes on general release in the UK on the 28th October.

LFF 2011: Video Blog - Day 1

2011-10-12T16:06:00.000-07:00

LFF 2011: 360 review

2011-10-12T14:48:00.000-07:00

"Pull my finger." "Pull your own finger."

In many ways it’s easy to see why 360 waschosen as the opening film for this year’s LFF – established director, Britishfunding, primarily British cast, lots of nice establishing shots of London –but in other, more important ways, it’s a bit of a headscratcher, seeing asit’s an actively bad film.

Taking the vignette template from other,better movies SHORT CUTS and MAGNOLIA, we follow a bunch of tenuously connectedstories about failing and burgeoning relationships in Vienna, Paris, London, and Colorado. They occasionally interlockand overlap, we see bits of Jude Law, Anthony Hopkins, and Rachel Weisz, before we – gasp! – come full circle. Helpfully, to make sure weget this whole 'circle' thing - as if the title itself wasn't obvious enough - at the end (VAGUE SPOILERS) first we're shown a direct echo of the opening scene, then the openingvoiceover is repeated verbatim, then the title of the film – it’s 360 – pops up onscreen: and rotates in a circle.

The fragmented style of filmmaking employed by the films mentioned has an inherentproblem in that because our focus and attention is adjusted from one characterto another so rapidly, there is a much shorter amount of time to establish them– as a result, you need to back your vignettes up with some strong writing inorder to make us care about them, something that only true cinematic genuises like Robert Altman and Paul Thomas Anderson have the necessary chops to pull off

Unfortunately Peter Morgan, branching outof his comfort zone with a totally Blair-less script, is not in this legendary bracket, and makes an utter hash ofthe screenplay. Director Fernando Mereilles’ direction isn’t great – it’s hard tobelieve a film this lifeless came from the man who directed CITY OF GOD, and heclearly edited this film after a caffeine-fuelled Brian De Palma marathon, such is thefrequency of split screens – but it’s passable; the script however is where thefilm capsizes totally.

Obviously the very nature of the premise isreliant on coincidence and as such requires a certain suspension of disbelief,but even taking that into account there are so many improbable moments in 360that no one clearly even attempted to iron out or give an explanation for,including an absolutely ludicrous scene where a beautiful young girl repeatedlytempts an obviously suspicious man into coming on to her (a rapist who is allowed totravel from prison, by himself, despite still being judged by his therapist asa threat to society, because…er…of an experiment?) in her hotel room, which isas uncomfortable as it is nonsensical.

It’s a real case of characters serving theplot rather than the other way round in 360 – get them introduced then shoehornthem together in order to get to the next theme (religious guilt, grief, lust,greed, temptation) only the film doesn’t have anything new or interesting to say about anyof them. It’s also brow-furrowingly serious, with barely a moment of humour orlevity in its two hour running time.

One of the few good things about 360,perhaps unsurprisingly, is a lovely turn from Anthony Hopkins, as a loveableold duffer who has been tracing his missing daughter for many years. He does add some genuine heart and humour, and hismonologue in the middle of the film about his recent, life-changing encounter with a younggirl is easily the film’s highlight – I could watch him relay anecdotes in thatavuncular way for hours. Of course, after that scene we never see him again.And, on a slightly shallower note, Rachel Weisz is aging spectacularly well, as a result making her pitifully small ten minutes of screen time someof the most watchable in the film.

There’s a veritable smugness about 360. Itclearly thinks it’s saying something profound about the human condition, yet inreality, it has as much depth as the 'It's A Small World' ride at Disneyland.

A poor start to the festival proper, then. But then again, as Peter Morgan’s muse used to be so fond of telling us...

LFF 2011: LET THE BULLETS FLY review

2011-10-11T04:20:00.000-07:00

The first film Isaw at this year’s festival is also the most disappointing so far: as a bigfan of Chow Yun-Fat and Asian action cinema in general I had high hopes for LETTHE BULLETS FLY. Early reviews have been strong, but as much I wanted to loveit I couldn’t help but come away unsatisfied and with the impression that thefilm is, at best, uneven, and at worst, an incomprehensible mess.

Set in the Sichanprovince of China in the 1920s, legendary bandit Pockey Zhang (played bydirector/screenwriter Jiang Wen) executes a daring train robbery on a traincarrying a con man posing as a government official, who is making his way topose as a mayor of a nearby town. Zhang assumes his identity and takes over thetown’s mayorship – however, he discovers that the real power in the townbelongs to crime boss Master Huang (Chow Yun-Fat), who presides over the town in an enormous,fortified citadel. When Zhang makes it clear that he has no desire to be Huang’spuppet, the two men engage in a back and forth game of deception and one upmanshipin an attempt to finally oust the other from power for good.

Anyone who’s seen afew Asian action films will be familiar with the ‘mood whiplash’ – Asianaudiences are more preconditioned to accept a mix of extremely broad, slapstickcomedy with bloody ultra-violence, whereas Western audiences are still going tofind it distracting and weird. I personally never really have a problem with itif it’s done well, (in fact, I’m a big fan of it) but LET THE BULLETS FLY reallyis all over the place in this regard. The sub-Kung Fu Hustle acrobaticslapstick sit rather uneasily next to the darkly satirical disembowellings(really), and there’s even the world’s most unnecessary rape scene, anunpleasant moment which is followed by a scene (played totally for laughs)where a bunch of guys give snappy one liners as to why they could never berapists (one’s gay LOL). It's a head-scratchingly pointless moment in a film that is unfortunately full of them. (Fun fact – I have seen four films at the LFF, and allof them have at least one rape or attempted rape scene. I think it might bemandatory for entry to the festival this year.)

Also, for a filmtitled LET THE BULLETS FLY, the action scenes are pretty disappointing. On theone hand, huge points for not employing a stupid WANTED/THE MATRIX effect for whenPocky actually lets ‘the bullets fly’, but on the other the gunplay scenes arelargely pretty lifeless. It’s also an intensely wordy film – the dialog scenesgo on forever, with the kind of rapid-fire cyclical banter that would beexhausting even if you weren’t also having to speed read subtitles. It’soverwritten in places to a ludicrous degree, with an excess of twists and sub-plots that drag the film down significantly, and it's unsurprising to discover that the film had five screewriters and reportedly underwent 30 re-writes before filming.

LET THE BULLETS FLY does way toomuch telling, and not enough showing, and it's in this sense where it is sorelylacking in comparison to the Kurosawa East-Westerns it is obviously inspiredby. A film like SANJURO is a perfect example of how to balance to tone of acomedy-action period flick like this, without letting any of the elements suffer.-LET THE BULLETS FLY can’t help but look amateurish by comparison.

Despite all theseflaws you can’t quite write off LET THE BULLETS FLY as a load of sound and furysignifying nothing, as there is some interesting stuff going on under the hood.There is definitely something subversive about the notion of a Robin Hood-like characterof Pocky Zhang appropriating a government position and doing a better job thanthe actual official, and this distrust of government alongside the emphasis thefilms places on giving political power back to the people is interesting whenput in the context of the communist China in which it was made. In its finalmoments the film’s political message, muddled for a lot of the film, does cometogether well, with a pointed, clever resolution that could genuinely bedescribed as Kurosawan. Also, Jiang Wen is excellent in the lead role, giving ameasured and powerful performance, and Chow Yun–Fat is always good value.

It’s a shame thefilm wasn’t pared down a great deal – at nearly 2 and a half hours, it’s atougher film to recommend than it would be had it been leaner, more disciplinedfilm. It’s not terrible, but LET THE BULLETS FLY ultimately frustrates and feelslike a missed opportunity.

LFF 2011: Welcome!

2011-10-11T04:08:00.000-07:00

The reason we're all here.

Tomorrowmarks the beginning of this year’s long awaited LFF (London Fassbender Festival), and overthe next few weeks I’ll be posting my reviews and thoughts from the festival onhere as well as via Twitter at @CBatLFF. With a bit of luck, I’ll be able toprovide some video content as well, but as I’m a) a time-starved one-man bandand b) bumbling and Clouseau-esque this may or may not happen.

I'll do my best to bring you some top notch coverage however - I’m hugely excitedto be covering the festival, and I hope to see many of you there or at least hearyour thoughts about what looks to be a fascinating slate of films. Over the next couple of weeks youcan expect coverage of MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE, THE AWAKENING, MISS BALA, 360,WE NEED A POPE, THE KID WITH A BIKE, SHAME, CORIALANUS, INTO THE ABYSS, REBELLION,MICHAEL, THE ARTIST, WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN, ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA,A DANGEROUS METHOD, and hopefully many more to be confirmed at a later date. If there areany films you would particularly like to see covered then please let me know – demandfor tickets means it’s quite difficult to schedule in advance, but I'll do my best to see as many films as I possibly can, and I'd love to know if you've got a good recommendation.

With all this LFFexcitement don’t forget that Cigarette Burns itself will be very active overthe festival period, with a number of insanely cool screenings to look forwardto. Deep breath…first up is cult LARP-ing action horror THE WILD HUNT, screenedat legendary record store Rough Trade East on 14^th October. Then onthe 22^nd October come hail the new flesh with us as we screen themagnificent VIDEODROME at the Rio Cinema, before we round the month off on the26^th October with the Lacerated Lovers Double Bill at The PrinceCharles; MY BLOODY VALENTINE and ROSEMARY’S KILLER (aka THE PROWLER) back toback, back on the big screen!

You and me both,buddy. You and me both.

On with the fest!

The Woman Theatrical Release

2011-09-26T09:05:00.000-07:00

The time is upon us. Finally The Woman sees it's theatrical release, a huge hit at Frightfest, and pretty much every festival it's screened out since it's premiere at Sundance earlier this year.
Having seen this twice and looking forward to seeing it again at the Prince Charles this weekend, I can promise you that it genuinely gets better each time.
Passed fully uncut with a strong 18 certificate, make no mistake, though it's paced and thoughtful, it's a harsh and shocking journey.
I nipped into the screening at Frightfest, catching the build up to the climax only to find a Frightfest volunteer head in hands and back to the screen mumbling something about "How can you like this? This is terrifying..." - I shit you not.
Rough Trade East's own Spencer Hickman reviewed it for us in July - Here
I covered it for The Quietus - Here
Tickets and screen times for this weekend's Prince Charles screenings - Here

Blood Runs Cold

2011-09-14T00:07:00.000-07:00

We find ourselves in snowy Sweden for low budget slasher Blood Runs Cold. When singer Winona seeks a bit of quiet time she heads off to her manager's secluded cottage. Creeped out thanks to the lonely old abode's creaking she heads off to town for a pint of courage. Running into friends along the way leads to drinks deep into the night, retiring to the cottage to carry on they find that something which was best left alone has dusted itself off and isn't very happy to have company.

Chelsea Films release this splatter fest in early October.

Cigarette Burns goes to Frightfest - Part 1

2011-09-09T08:43:00.000-07:00

Every year Film4 Frightfest takes over the Leicester Square Empire, straddling the August Bank Holiday, rain or shine, it charges forward, the mass of fans eagerly await that film that will blow them away, force their jaws to the floor and make them cheer. They await great kills, epic revenge, finger clenching suspense, toe curling gore and fantastic creatures brought to life from the pages of Lovecraft. But Frightfest is as much about the films as it is the beers, as evidenced by the presumably gargantuan taking of the Imperial pub around the corner.
At the tables inside sit actors, directors, producers, organisers, bloggers, journos, fans and the confused tourist, all sharing pints. Frightfest is the great leveller.
Time and time again, industry folk will repeat “This is the best festival I’ve ever been to.” There’s a lack of pretence, egos are left at the door. Between, during and after films, people decamp to the pub en-mass to analyse, debate, deconstruct. For many, it’s the mere fact that here they are surrounded by genre fans, but not just fans, nearly everyone here is an expect. The chance to discuss in depth the films they are knowledgeable and passionate about, doesn’t come often. Watching these films on their own, or with a few mates is the best they can get. Spending five days deep in conversation with creators and supporters keeps the flames alive for many people. and is as much the reason they come as to watch the films. More than a few people buy full weekend passes only to spend the majority of their time, not in L18, but rather supping pints, safe in the knowledge that they can go see any film at any time.

Film4 Frightfest has continued to expand, now in it’s 11th year, it’s a massive beast of a festival, with no sign of letting up. Over a year in the making, sifting through nearly 400 feature length submissions and innumerable short films for a coveted slot in one of the most respected genre festivals in the world. Packed with premières, previews, sneak peaks and talent from around the globe, it’s astonishing that a mere four men and a small team of volunteers hold it all together, driven by passion and love. Nearly 40 feature films make the final cut, ranging from comedy horror to pure thrillers and everything in between. It’s not a bloodbath sprayed across the screen, but rather an examination of the full that extreme cinema has to offer.

Opening with the UK première of Guillermo Del Toro production, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark complete with a video introduction from Del Toro himself, apologising for his absence, gives you a sense of the weight Frightfest has. While this remake of a little known 70s TV movie has been liberally sprinkled with Del Toro’s pixie dust, it contains nearly none of the magic of his own features. One cannot be sure how much control first time director Troy Nixey had over this dark fairytale but ultimately with a weak script, he was never going to pull anything to grand out of the hat. Guy Pierce plays career driven Alex, who along with his girlfriend, Katie Holmes, are refurbished an impressive stately home when Alex’s daughter, Sally enters the frame. Ignored and unhappy, she proceeds to dig around said stately old home, unearthing things best left buried. While the original is a tight little 70 minute television play about a couple, Del Toro did a Del Toro-ism and added the child, for without a child, there can be no fairytale. But then again, without characters who behave in rational ways or swarming hordes of little monsters who choose the worst possible times to forget how to swarm, you end up with a fairly flat, forgettable film. Ultimately a golden opportunity frivolously wasted.

Well respected distribution company Severin Films deliver their first theatrical production. Inspired by the Grand Guignol theatre of old, The Theatre Bizarre, is an anthology, six directors, six chapters and a wrap around. Inherently full of false endings, Theatre Bizarre suffered from a late night slot clocking in at almost two hours, it may have played better when people were more awake. A sprawling list of directors with industry heavy weights such as Tom Savini, the return of Richard Stanley, Douglas Buck, Karim Hussain, and others, this dark dream of a film was filled with pretence and self indulgence. All the directors were given the same budget, 10-20 minutes of running time and a general sense of where to go, and each delivered vastly different product. From cheating husbands and vengeful wives to 4 tittied frog queens, feeders and eye hunting memory thieves there is a lot to behold. Pretension and self indulgence isn’t always a bad thing and The Theatre Bizarre is a great example of art house horror, a fantastic collection of short films possibly not to everyone’s taste, but solid none the less and Douglas Buck’s The Accident may well be one of the most beautiful films to grace the Empire’s screen in a very long time.

Actor Cristian Solimeno settles into the directors chair for his first feature length endeavour with The Glass Man. Starring favourite Andy Nyman as a man banging on the door of a mental breakdown and featuring Neve Campbell as his wife. The Ghost Stories star and creator inhabits the sad and pathetic Martin Pyrite, a man who will do anything and everything to keep his picture perfect like look golden for his lovely wife. Entering the frame as a dreaming baby in bed, we follow him through his nightmare existence, fighting an uphill battle to keep his recent sacking and impending financial disaster hidden, we bear witness to his spineless struggles, from office mockery to street side muggings. Pecco played to perfection by James Cosmo, a man of mystery arrives at the door on the eve of a massive blow out with Martin’s beloved, informing Martin that he has bought one of Martin’s debt’s and threatening to take what little the baby has left, Pecco offers him an out “Help me tonight, with this one job, and I’ll wipe the slate clean.” What’s a man to do?
Engaging and beautifully shot, The Glass Man suffers from sloppy editing, a man of vision and framing, with the ability to capture great performances and weave a wonderful tale, Solimeno is in desperate need of an editor. Even after a reported 17 minutes had been chopped out, The Glass Man could lose another 15 easily, and be all the better for it.

It seems every year, there’s a film that graces the Frightfest screen that has been languishing in some studio’s back shed because they are not quite sure where it fits in with everything else. This year it was Tucker and Dale versus Evil, premièring at Sundance in January 2010, Tucker and Dale have been travelling from festival to festival in their broken down pick up truck hoping someone would give them the jump start they need. Finally cracking VOD in the US and seeing a DVD/BD release here in the UK at the end of the month. Tucker and Dale v Evil is a masterful send up of the classic hicksploitation genre. Poor, well meaning Tucker and Dale are just after a quiet weekend, fixing up Tucker’s newly acquired cabin when a bunch of obnoxious teens mistake them as maniacal backwoods murderers.While our heroes are out fishing, one of the girls falls in the lake, nearly drowning, Dale saves her and they return her to the cabin to recuperate. The teens mistake this as a kidnapping, in an effort to save pretty Allison, they proceed to accidentally impale themselves on just about everything they can run into, conveniently making it appear as though Tucker and Dale are responsible. Definitely one of the best horror comedies in years, Tucker and Dale v Evil produces constant laugh out loud moments, in spite of how much one might dislike horror comedy.

The Scandinavians seem to be on a roll, producing a steady stream of mind blowing releases, Sweden’s game changing vampire film, Let the Right One In, Finland’s twisted take on the Santa Claus tale in Rare Exports and now Norway corrects it’s minor Dead Sno misstep with Trollhunter. Found footage films seem to be the sub-genre we all love to hate, angry when they are solid and effective, perhaps begrudgingly allowing them a “eh, it’s good.. for what it is.” Digging into Norway’s own folklore director André Øvredal weaves a convincing tale of a trio of noisy student reporters who head out to get to the bottom of a recent spate of mysterious bear attacks and the even more mysterious bear hunter. It doesn’t take long before they find out that the silly stories their grandparents told them were more than just mountain tales.
Øvredal manages to avoid the pitfalls of sniveling, terrified, snot nosed actors, instead we have characters we can engage with, and believe in. Not to mention trolls. Trolls of all shapes, sizes and description. Trolls that looks and act every bit the troll of those books you used to read. This is the sort of film the Norwegian tourist board should give out to children, the kids will go mental and desperately beg their parents into taking them to Norway to go troll hunting.

Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Tree, sequel to Brit Folk Horror classic, The Wicker Man
sees it’s long dreaded European première. Let’s be honest, this was never going to be good. A story of two evangelical Christians, journeying forth like crusaders to a small Scottish village, just as they are getting ready for their May Day festivals. We knew where this was going before we even sat in our seats. Clumsy, quirky and nearly charming, containing moments of genuine head scratching, sadly, this novel adaptation never manages to pull it’s self up to the level of a Good Bad Movie. Even the inclusion of a Christopher Lee cameo, only succeeds in placing your face in your hands as you ask why.

Creating a massive stir upon it’s initial screenings at this year’s Sundance Festival, causing one woman to faint, followed by an outburst of disgust, caught on camera and eventually going viral on Youtube, director Lucky McKee’s The Woman was one of the most hotly anticipated films of Frightfest. Though not explicitly stated, certainly a spiritual sequel to Andrew van den Houten’s The Offspring, however the connections are more than just tenuous, as both are penned by Jack Ketchum, van den Houten produced The Woman, and Pollyanna McIntosh, the titular Woman, plays the same character in both. McKee, no stranger to acclaim with his first feature May, being one of the secret hits of the past decade, has proved once again, that he’s a force to be reckoned with. The Woman is an entrancing film, sucking you in from the off as we are first introduced to the Woman, a feral beast, living in and off the woods. Upstanding citizen and family man Chris stumbles upon her one day and takes her captive. When he requests that his family clear the cellar up, we already know that he is, without a doubt the Man in the house. Civilising and taming the Woman is Chris’ main priority, he’s done it before and the few times his wife steps out of line, we are swiftly and stunningly reminded that this is not her role.
McKee’s examination of domestic abuse is shocking and harsh. McIntosh’s portrayal of the Woman is defiant, proud and reserved as much as Sean Bridgers’ portrayal of Chris is calculated, evil and unhinged. The grooming of his son to his control over his wife and daughters, he never slips up. Convincing us that he is as evil as a man can be. After all, he’s been doing it for a while, so it’s not new to him...
Frightfest does not fail in it’s promise of delivering the cream of the crop with The Woman.

More to come...

Project Arrow: Phenomena

2011-09-08T15:38:00.000-07:00

Once again we find ourselves back in Vince's BD treasure trove as he picks through the mess for the finest offerings Arrow might have. Yes, it's another instalment of the Arrow Project!

Let's roll!

Project Arrow

Phenomena (Arrow Video Blu-ray release)

Ah, my second favourite Dario Argento film. Really. I know most fans would peg the renowned classics Suspiria or Deep Red, but for my money the top two personal favourites have always been Tenebrae and Phenomena. Like many people of my generation the first time I saw this flick it was forty minutes shorter and titled Creepers. Forty minutes – that's nearly unfathomable. But in that extremely truncated version, I still loved this film.

Phenomena features Jennifer Connelly as boarding school student Jennifer Corvino who is transferred to a European school, and who possesses a supernatural intimacy with all species of insects. Thus we begin an Argento film that really has more in common with Suspiria than either of Suspria’s own sequels.

The catalyst for Phenomena came from Argento's fascination with forensics. Specifically, the idea that there was a particular species of butterfly whose wing membranes would shatter if in the same room when a gun was fired. In Phenomena, he further explored the world of forensic entomology through a wheelchair-bound character played by Donald Pleasence, who due to his condition also owns a trained chimpanzee, an animal that becomes an integral part of the plot. This is not the first time Argento has played in the field of criminal forensics, but at least this time the key elements appear more scientifically sound than those used in Four Flies on Grey Velvet.

Phenomena is truly Argento's crowning achievement in style over logic, something that has been notable in nearly all of his films but which has not been pulled off in a more gracefully cocksure way than here. Take for instance the opening scene of the film, when a schoolgirl is chased by an unseen stalker through canyon wall overlooking a waterfall, until she gets her head smashed through a plate-glass window, a window that really, has no business being in the rock-side of a canyon cliff. But the imagery is so rhythmic and exciting that we are easily lulled into this style-over-logic. Another memorable moment is the intercutting between Jennifer's first sleepwalking experience and the second murder of the film, which creates a world-within-a-world where Jennifer actually winds up witnessing this murder take place, but because she's technically asleep, she doesn't even realize what she's seen. Along with the visual style of the film we also have one of my favourite soundtracks. Argento's films are commonly accompanied by a highly stylized soundscape, and here he's hired ex-Goblin Claudio Simonetti, along with Fabio Pignatelli, Bill Wyman, and Simon Boswell to create the sometimes pounding, and always energetic, soundtrack.

Sleepwalking, supernatural powers over insects, chimpanzees, a serial killer, and incredibly, that's not all... while we have seen the giallo mixed with the supernatural before, in previous films such as Deep Red or Suspiria, such a convoluted plot in a horror/giallo is highly atypical. But it does make for a show-stopping finale.

Like the Tenebrae blu-ray from Arrow Video, Phenomena includes several hi-def extra features, but the original Argento commentary from the Anchor Bay U.S. DVD release has not been licensed. Additionally, the English audio track that was used to transfer the film was missing sections of the audio, something I'm not entirely sure about, the back of the box indicates in small print that these elements “were either never recorded or have been lost”. Yet the English audio on the previous U.S. releases have been more intact than it is here. The film does look amazing on blu-ray, although Phenomena looks almost too clean for nearly a thirty-year-old film, and there is some visual residue/evidence of Digital Noise Reduction. Of course, that being said, the film has never looked so glorious either, so this is definitely a case of “take the slightly annoying with the rest of the awesomeness.” I should also mention, for any North American fans who might be looking to purchase this blu-ray, that this is the European “Integral” Cut, which runs six minutes longer than the official cut of 110 minutes. Yet this doesn't actually explain all the missing section of the English audio.
End of the day: Highly recommended.

Amazon Link
Arrow Web Store Link

Project Arrow is a joint effort along side Videotape Swap Shop and you can follow Vince's continuing adventures here

The Yellow Sea - bringing a knife to a knife fight

2011-09-07T06:10:00.000-07:00

October sees the much-awaited release of The Yellow Sea, highly rated director Na Hong-Jin's follow-up to his incredibly popular thirller The Chaser. Paul Martinovic caught a preview and provided us with this review...

You may have seen an article recently by professional Hollywood shit-stirrer Joe Queenan regarding the pernicious influence of technology on movie thrillers, with his theory being that the advent of mobile phones and email are denying us all sorts of good yarns, purely because they would have stopped the plots of some classic movies – Jaws, Psycho, I Spit on Your Grave – dead in their tracks.

It’s a bit of a specious argument to say the least, but it got me thinking about other technology that has influenced film narratives over the years, for better or worse, that we don’t even notice any more because we’ve become so accustomed to them. My conclusion was this: technology doesn’t ruin films. Guns ruin films.

Think about it. How many films introduce a gun or guns as a tried-and-trusted way of injecting a bit of drama into proceedings? This is particularly egregious in British gangster movies – in a country where gun laws are extremely strict and their availability is till highly regulated limited, as soon as any real shit goes down everyone still gets tooled up like they’re about to take down a helicopter in Grand Theft Auto. It’s kind of insulting.

And are guns really that exciting? Sure, if you’re Michael Mann, Sam Peckinpah or John Woo you can make gunplay brutal, beautiful and exciting, but the vast majority of gun action in films is closer in execution to the clutch-over-then-keel-over-bloodlessly style found in old westerns, i.e. not particularly enthralling. Didn’t Indiana Jones indirectly prove that when he wearily took out that swordsman all those years ago? Guns are more practical than they are visually interesting. Imagine how much more exciting modern films would be if the crutch of automatic weaponry was kicked out from under it.

Which is an extremely roundabout way of saying there are very few guns in Korean action thriller The Yellow Sea, and this slavish devotion to non-shooty action is exactly what elevates it from an average if well-executed thriller to something that’s thoroughly, shamefully enjoyable.

The Yellow Sea is the follow-up to the well-received serial killer flick The Chaser from prodigious South Korean talent Na Hong-Jin, and after watching both films I think it may be possible that, in homage to Park Chan-Wook’s vengeance trilogy, he may be subtly putting a loose trilogy centred around melee weapons. I suppose The Chaser would represent blunt instruments, with a hammer being put to wince-inducingly effective use on a number of occasions, while The Yellow Sea is all about knives. Lots of sharp, pointy knives. Put simply, you’d have to watch a month’s worth of 80s slasher movies before you approached the level of hatchet and kitchen knife based carnage found on display here.

In between the stabbings there’s a story that manages to play out, however: Gu-nam (Ha Jung-Woo, The Chaser) is a cab driver living in the largely Korean-populated Chinese city of Yanji. A gambling addict, he loses what little money he has away in mah-jong games, all the while tormented by images of his wife, who he suspects of having an affair - she left for Korea six months previously with promises of sending money back to him, and he has yet to hear from her.

Submerged by his underworld debt, he is approached by serpentine mobster Myun-ga (Kim Yun-Seok, also of The Chaser) with a job: cross the titular Yellow Sea to Seoul to murder a man. Seeing the opportunity to both pay off his debt and re-unite with his wife, he accepts. However, when the time of the hit arrives, there is an unexpected complication, which leads to Gu-nam becoming the most wanted man in Korea, with not only the cops to contend with, but also respective might of the Chinese and Korean mafias...

The Yellow Sea is paced almost glacially (the ‘hit’ that sparks the chaos doesn’t take place until nearly an hour until the film, and the shorter, international cut still runs a lumbar-threatening 140 minutes), but the film is rarely anything other than riveting. This is partly down to the performances – Jung-Woo and Yun-Seok reverse their good-guy/bad-guy roles from The Chaser, yet are both just as convincing as in their previous collaboration, giving a pair of strong, nuanced performances, with Yun-Seok in particular gleefully terrifying as the psychotic Myun-Ga.

Mainly though, it’s on a technical level that The Yellow Sea most impresses – Hong-Jin proves a fantastic director of both action and suspense, which seems to be a relatively rare combination in modern cinema. The aforementioned first third is relatively action-free, yet still manages to be compelling thanks to Hong-Jin’s strong sense of composition and timing, wringing the maximum amount of tension out of his premise before the shoe finally drops an hour in.

The Yellow Sea is also beautifully photographed, with a bleached out colour palette that’s an excellent accompaniment to the tough, neo-noir storyline and becomes increasingly scuzzy as they characters descend into hell. I think that one of the reasons that Korean film-making has become so popular with Western audiences is that it imbues its adult dramas/thrillers with the kind of high-end, meticulous production values that Hollywood only applies now to comic book and children’s movies. The Yellow Sea also features one of the best ever uses of a particular bugbear of mine, the ‘shaky –cam’, using it in an atypically coherent fashion to conjure some of the best action sequences since Paul Greengrass’s Bourne movies.

And that’s essentially what The Yellow Sea is – a Grand Guignol Bourne movie. Hong-Jin is magnificent at constructing chase sequences (cf. The Chaser, natch), and there are a few brilliant ones here, including one that culminates in the best piece of lorry-centred action since The Dark Knight.

But it’s the blood-spattered knife-fights that stay with you. Not to mention the hatchet fights. At one point someone is thrashed to death with an enormous thigh bone. Many times a scene ends with a room literally showered with gore, and there’s an exhilarating aspect to the kinetic hyper-realistic style utilised by Hong-Jin in these scenes that is undeniably, if not a little guiltily, enjoyable.

Where Hong-Jin has a failing however is in plotting – while his films are technically masterful he’s yet to make a film that is wholly satisfying on a purely narrative level. The second half is packed with way too many twists, and some of the more emotional beats involving Gu-nam’s wife seem a little forced and trite compared to the ones found in The Chaser, which was genuinely gut-wrenching in its climactic moments. The Yellow Sea clearly wants to be a great crime film, like the ones produced by Hollywood in the Seventies: The French Connection, The Driver, The Yakuza etc. In this sense it doesn’t quite work. There isn’t much that will resonate from The Yellow Sea –the characters are a shade too thin, and the storyline too convoluted to leave any lasting impression. The impact of the film is ultimately almost entirely visceral.

But what an impact! Despite (or more likely, due to) barely a gun being fired during its ample running time, The Yellow Sea is a superior action movie, and one of the best thrillers to come out of South Korea or anywhere this year. Fingers crossed for the third part of the trilogy, Mace Island*, to be released sometime in 2014.

*wishful thinking

The Yellow Sea is released on October 21st in the UK in selected cinemas.

Paul Martinovic is on Twitter at @paulmartinovic - he also occasionally maintains a blog here.

Zipangu Fest

2011-09-06T01:07:00.000-07:00

Another exciting film festival is coming up, this time with Japan as the main focus of attention, now in it's second year, Zipangu Fest hits London in mid November. More details below -

SECOND ZIPANGU FEST TO KICK OFF AT LONDON’S ICA

This year’s celebration of cutting edge Japanese cinema will get under way from November 17th to 24th

Following the success of last year’s inaugural festival, the second Zipangu Fest – celebrating the best of cutting edge and avant garde Japanese cinema – will be held at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts from November 17^th to 24^th, before moving to venues around the UK.

Showcasing a selection of Japan’s finest features, documentaries, shorts, animation and experimental films, this year’s Zipangu Fest will include a retrospective screening of two rarely seen gems that have never been shown in the UK. One of these – a pre-war horror title – has been subtitled especially for the festival.

Festival director and head programmer, Jasper Sharp, comments: ‘After the runaway success of last year’s festival, we are very excited about Zipangu Fest 2011. Our aim is to showcase the wealth of talent in the independent and experimental filmmaking scene in Japan by showing the sort of films that other festivals barely seem to be aware of. The beauty of Japanese film is that you know you’re always going to see something different, and this year we’ve got another exciting and diverse range of titles to challenge, provoke and entertain. We’re particularly thrilled that the ICA is hosting this year’s event, as it is the perfect venue for us, and with last year’s programme touring to cities including Bristol, Leeds, Newcastle and Tallinn in Estonia, we hope to continue with our goal of bringing these films to as wide an audience as possible.

The Woman is unleashed

2011-08-27T05:35:00.000-07:00

Tonight The Woman sees it's UK premiere, slated to be one of the hits of this year's Frightfest, after this fantastic reaction at Sundance, you know this should be a grand old film.

CB pal and Rough Trade East head honcho, Spencer Hickman, was suitably impressed, and passes his judgement below -

Regardless of how you may feel about Lucky McKee’s films, you can’t accuse him of chasing the easy dollar of franchise horror flicks. His films, deeply personal almost to the point of introspection, are about as far removed from the ‘Saw’ culture of the last ten years or so a horror film could be. Along with fellow director Ti West (House Of The Devil) it really feels like he belongs in a different decade.

His latest The Woman is a truly brave piece of cinema; it’s nuanced, intricate layers, play out on several different levels. The film focuses on the Cleek family outwardly living the apple pie American dream, father Chris is a very successful, well-respected lawyer, Belle is a doting mother and the three kids appear pretty well adjusted. But it doesn’t take long before you realise just how wrong these outward appearances are. As slowly and very, very deliberately we begin to see the father for what he really is ‘a patriarchal control freak who expects the women in the house to do as he says when he says’

While out on one of his regular hunting trips, Chris spots a woman roaming the woods, a feral creature that has roamed the wilds for 20 odd years, visibly excited he hatches his plan. Capture the woman, take her home and ‘tame’ her.

Before we know it she is chained up in an underground work shed and the family unit are ordered to keep her clean and begin to civilise her. Nobody argues or questions the fathers’ orders; they just do as they are told. The sexual tension during these early scenes are laced with undercurrents of abuse, dominance and fear; father and son bonding through the process, making for some very uneasy viewing indeed. In one particularly shocking scene, while getting ready for bed, the wife asks if they should really be doing this and Chris replies with a quick, sharp slap to her face before getting into bed and asking ‘are you coming to bed, honey?’ It’s chilling in it’s matter of fact portrayal of spousal abuse, but is positively Disney compared to what follows in the final half of the movie.

It isn’t long before things spiral out of control and unfortunately to discuss them here would only lead to spoilers, what can be said without a doubt is that you will not see what’s coming during the final 40 minutes of the film it’s a tour de force of visceral, brutal pummelling violence and degradation, that barely leaves you with a chance to gasp for air. By the final scene you’re dazed and shattered as there is not one member of the family no matter what their intentions are that does not play a complicit part in the violence as it unfolds.

The performances are uniformly excellent, Angel Bettis as the fragile mother is confused ,scared and literally lives in fear knowing fully what her husband is capable of, newcomer Zach Rand excels as the teenage son ,his sadistic streak becoming wilder as the film progresses, Sean Bridgers brings a frighteningly unhinged (yet calm) performance as the father and Pollyanna McIntosh portrayal of The Woman is as a force of nature, animalistic, sexual, violent and untamed.
McKee’s master stroke is his slow character builds, handling the abuse in a very matter of fact way managing to create a sense of dread and tension within the first half. At the midway point you are practically begging for the tone to shift, all hell break loose, and for the protagonists to get their comeuppance. Unfortunately when this happens the film has taken you to unexpected places and you begin to question why you were waiting for the explosion of violence in the first place.

Horror fans the world over talk of how there are not many truly original voices left and yet somehow we never seem to support them enough when they do manage to emerge, Lucky McKee seems to be cursed with this very problem, maybe his films are too real, too ugly, maybe we really don’t want to see how ugly the world is if we scratch just below the surface and look a little closer or maybe , just maybe all genre fans really want is a new Final Destination film at the multiplex…..
Either way support independent movies, see this and make your own mind up

If you miss The Woman tonight, it will have a short theatrical run at The Prince Charles Cinema in partnership with ourselves. The PCC has opened it's doors for thier first late night screening in almost 10 years, so you know we're working with something special here.

Fri 30th Sept 18:15
Sat 1st Oct 23:10
Tue 4th Oct 13:00
Thu 6th Oct 18:30

3D Sex and Zen - The Review

2011-08-25T15:58:00.000-07:00

So yeah, 3D Sex and Zen exists. As hardened (steady) cineastes, we'd be remiss here at Cigarette Burns if we didn't at least acknowledge it's upcoming debut on British shores, as it is probably the first genuine cinematic milestone to arrive here since...well, Avatar. But did Avatar spend any of its $1 trillion budget on throwing any giant disembodied cocks at you? Didn't think so. So until James Cameron rectifies this in Avatar 2 you'll have to make do with 3D Sex and Zen, if not the world's first ever 3D erotic film, then the most notable one since Blonde Emmanuelle in 1978, and certainly the first one to come anywhere close to cracking the Western mainstream. In Hong Kong, meanwhile, it's become the highest grossing film of all time, beating Titanic and - yes - Avatar. Sigh...I wish I lived in Hong Kong.

Anyway, we sent Colm McAuliffe down to Soho with a disconcertingly smudged pair of 3D glasses, a dirty mac, a door number and instructions to 'ask for Babs'. He came back with this review:

3D Sex and Zen: Extreme Ecstasy is a marketing person’s dream. After years of mutual indifference, the dual forces of pornography and cutting-edge 3D have finally come together, aided and abetted by some tantalising costume drama based foreplay and arresting scenes of post-coital pleasure, taking the heart-warming combination of endless nude bodies, metal plates and flying daggers to their natural conclusion.

It certainly had me sold. Instead of spending my Tuesday evening languishing in abject introspection on the Victoria Line to Brixton, I instead began to envisage this film being the key to a truly decadent and debauched phase of my life. ‘What could this mean?!’ I gasped in joy, reading the press release over and over again, imagining redemption and liberation from an existence of vexed incomprehension.

Of course, the reality hit home when I realised I was merely spending an evening in a Soho screening room, watching this 3D porn flick with, mainly, fellow males. But therein lies the problem – why should pornography penetrate the mainstream? Many of the stars of 3D Sex and Zen are full-time hardcore porn stars, and it’s not overtly difficult to track them down via the internet and, crucially, for free. So, what’s the point?

Well, firstly, this (theoretically) isn’t a standalone montage of sex scenes interspersed with sparse dialogue indicating some sort of vague plot. Set in the saucy 1600s, the film is an adaptation of the novel The Carnal Prayer Mat, although how it’s debatable as to how faithful this interpretation really is. And as for the story itself? Well, it’s that well-worn chestnut concerning a young scholar who fails to satisfy his breathtakingly beautiful wife and is taken under the wing of the local sex god who introduces our flaccid hero to a non-stop carnival of sexual delights where he discovers how to make love for entire days. Phew. However, his new found prowess goes straight to his head and crotch as he repeatedly betrays his long-suffering wife and replaces his microscopic member with that of a donkey’s. Honestly, it could happen to any of us.

3D Sex and Zen is a positively lavish affair throughout. The orgiastic gorefests take place in vast cavernous proto-Playboy Mansions supplanted with the sporadic 3D effects ensuring various phallic symbols and the occasional stray, luscious breast is thrust at the audience. The sex scenes initially are generally of the soft-pornography kind albeit interspersed with the odd moment of casual rape - one memorable scene sees someone literally fucked to death.

Indeed, a more linguistically advanced colleague of mine has referred to the film as being a little too rapey – the sex does get progressively more violent, barebacking becomes the norm and an increasing number of implements are used in support of each conquest. Does this make it one of the most offensive commercial films ever released? Not really – no one could surely take any of this seriously. The film rises above the bog-standard porn movie due to its superior production standards and the occasional moments of humour. But the subtitles are dreadful or maybe it’s just the dialogue – either way, neither amount to very much.

The film certainly deludes itself with notions of ‘high art’ throughout – there are heartfelt odes to the poeticism of love punctuating the porn – but these seem feeble and forced. Who needs wistful moments of Romanticism when you are soon faced with a pansexual Shaman, capable of extraordinary sexual tricks, and replete with an enormous penis-like appendage attached to his/her thigh which is then used to pummel men’s faces into an unrecognisable pulp?

To its credit, the savage screwing is varied in length and tone and never outstays its welcome. But I can’t see this film heralding a whole new era for pornography. Instead, this is simply glossy, unsophisticated and unintentionally funny adult vewing. But most worryingly, this is the work of a father-son screenwriting team, Stephen Shiu and Stephen Shiu Jr., which begs the question: what could Mrs. Shiu possibly think?

So there you go. A frankly insane looking mix of extreme violence and fortuitous nakedness, a heady combination not unlike that found in Japanese cinema's legendary 'pink' genre. Now if only there were some sort of pinky retrospective triple bill we could all go and watch in a couple of weeks...

Project Arrow - The Beyond

2011-08-23T05:07:00.000-07:00

Obviously Vince is an unstoppable force of nature, ploughing through his "to watch pile" with almost no effort at all. Commendable to say the least.... though perhaps he should get a job... Today's instalment in our Project Arrow series is none other than Lucio Fulci's masterpiece The Beyond. You'll be forgiven for thinking that the timing is a tad suspicious, what with our Dead Will Rise Double Bill featuring The Beyond and Dead & Buried tomorrow eve at the Prince Charles Cinema in Leicester Square, but this was all Vince's idea. So without further waffle from me...

Project Arrow

Lucio Fulci's The Beyond (Arrow Video Blu-ray release)

The Beyond is not only one of my top-two favourite Fulci films, it's one of my all-time favourite Italian horror films. Okay, I know, The Beyond is one of every Fulci fan's favourite Fulci films. Well, with good fucking reason, I say. As far as Italian horror goes, it's one of the classics.

The film is infused with an enigmatic style, and Fulci (unlike previous endeavours) has the wherewithal as a co-writer and the films' director to keep it immersed and embedded in a solid, and classic, haunted house structure. Where his earlier City of the Living Dead was roughly artistic, his attempts to end that film on an enigmatic note only felt confused and disorienting. This time though, Fulci had a far better handle on these stylistic proceedings.

The story starts out (post-credits) on a classic note, a young woman (Catriona MacColl) comes to be in possession of an old haunted hotel in New Orleans. Predictably, things go to hell – or rather, come up from hell – and the entire film glides into this anarchic supernatural action/horror story – with zombies, a ghostly blind girl, further craziness involving the Book of Eibon and a few face-eating tarantulas. What do you expect; this is Lucio Fulci, after all.

The Beyond would later be considered one of Fulci's own Italian living dead trilogy, caught between City of the Living Dead and The House by the Cemetery. I'd argue that the only thing that makes these three very different films even a loose trilogy is the fact that they were all shot nearly within a year of each other (1980 – 1981) and they all co-star Catriona MacCall. While City of the Living Dead is a true zombie film, House by the Cemetery is more of a mad doctor/monster flick and The Beyond is a wonderfully convoluted supernatural tale, which happens to involve zombies. The zombies here are interchangeable with the ghosts of a more classic haunted house tale. But the fact that they do appear as zombies lends an even more immediate tone of horror to the general haunted house tone of the film.

That is, until we get near the conclusion, where co-star David Warbeck (and might I add awesomely cast) gets his revolver and his seemingly never-ending supply of bullets. At this point, it does begin to feel less like a ghost story and more in pace with Fulci's nearly-as-awesome Zombie (aka Zombi 2). But unlike the leave-you-hanging-in-slight-confusion conclusion of his previous City of the Living Dead, thankfully the writers (which included regular Fulci and Bava scribe Dardano Sacchetti) saw fit to place everything together and finish the film with a bit of a rug-jerking enigmatic piece that at least feels right – in the film's own supernaturally nonsensical way. I feel The Beyond's success is also due in part to the dreamy pacing of the film on the whole. Elsewhere some fans and critics think the film would've benefited from tighter editing – and I'd disagree. It's this deliberate style that gives heed to the dream-like artistry that Fulci has constructed here. So bold and shocking is the ending of Fulci's The Beyond that it was riffed by Michele Soavi for his 1992 Dylan Dog interpretation, Cemetery Man.

That all being said, I definitely want to mention Arrow's Blu-ray release on this one, it was one of the more anticipated titles for me, as it had not been made available in a high-definition format until now. The hi-def transfer here is nothing short of fucking amazing. It's rough, but in all the right ways. The print used for the transfer is obviously dated and in some spots, still a little dirty. But the Blu-ray looks detailed and rich. This is exactly as I thought The Beyond should look.

It's obvious that the folks at Arrow love the movie as much as its fans do as they've provided what I can only refer to as a shitload of extra content, not just on the Blu-ray disc but on an additional DVD and booklet packaged with. In actual fact, my Blu-ray snap-case was so stuffed it wasn't even snapped shut properly, despite it being brand-new and shrink-wrapped. You could get lost in Arrow's Beyond Blu-ray.
Totally recommended.

Amazon link
Arrow web store link

Project Arrow is a joint effort along side Videotape Swap Shop and you can follow Vince's continuing adventures here

I suppose I ought to also mention our exclusive shirt of The Beyond will be available tomorrow at the Prince Charles, and provided we don't sell out they will be on sale through our shop.

Project Arrow - Funhouse

2011-08-22T01:47:00.000-07:00

As we in the UK gear up for Film4's Frightfest, which kicks off in earnest this Thursday, Vince has squeezed in yet another in the Project Arrow series - this time around, we have Tobe Hooper's Funhouse, take it away big guy...

Project Arrow

The Funhouse (Arrow Video Blu-ray release)

Tobe Hooper's “The Funhouse” gets a fine Blu-ray transfer from Arrow Video. Though some night scenes do appear too light – and believe be, I'm never one to normally comment on the visual presentation of a transfer, so you can be sure this must be something noticeable – but otherwise the digital viewing is above par.

Hooper's film starts off with a humorous and (unusually for Hooper) exploitation-style opening which satirizes, while simultaneously commenting on, the Hitchcock homage of John Carpenter's “Halloween”. This is extremely unusual, in fact, it's the only occurrence I can bring to mind from Hooper's entire catalogue of directorial efforts where there is a conscientious comment on, never mind the satirizing of, another director's work.

But moving speedily past this, we are then definitely into more familiar Hooper territory. If anything defines his work as a filmmaker and storyteller, it's the idea of a group of characters who venture into a proverbial – and here, a literal – carnival of horrors. We've seen Hooper's convention of this plot several times in his career, with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Eaten Alive, Poltergeist, and even Texas Chainsaw II. There are, in fact, others, but I'm sure the point has been made.

And another validation to The Funhouse's existence is exactly where it sits in Hooper's repertoire, very close to Poltergeist and obviously smack in between his visceral Cinéma vérité Texas Chain Saw / Eaten Alive and the far more overtly tongue-in-cheek Cannon films, Lifeforce, Invaders from Mars, and Texas Chainsaw II, which all get a few miles past the dividing line between humour and sheer cinematic lunacy.

What's especially nice about The Funhouse is that at this point in Hooper's career he had a great handle on balancing a film's humour with verisimilitude. A verisimilitude that he was able to retain for Spielberg’s Poltergeist, but which alluded him for the entire Cannon series of films that followed. As well, the obviousness of The Funhouse's title (or to my expectations, at least) is amiably undermined by some genuinely quirky plot manoeuvres that were, as in now, continuously unfolding before my eyes. As if on a carnival ride itself, maybe?

If I'm sounding like I'd never seen Tobe Hooper's The Funhouse before, it's because I haven't. Sure, I'd seen a few pieces of it here and there on television and in the American horror cinema celebration “Terror in the Aisles” (circa 1984) , but other than that... Imagine my surprise, in the opening scene, at seeing starlet Elizabeth Berridge undress completely before the camera. That had certainly been censored for the Canadian television broadcast. Elizabeth is an actress (like so many others of that time and place) who would later get more work out of a television series – this one being The John Larroquette Show – co-starring, almost ironically, a leading actor who had provided the off-screen narration for Hooper's first feature film, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

The Funhouse is a pretty intelligent and literal script with genuinely likeable characters, written by Larry Block, and of what else he might have written I know not. Though even with all of this positive raving of the script and film, it's certainly not without its flaws. In fact, the last 20 minutes or so of The Funhouse becomes somewhat disengaging, to the point of becoming a little silly. The climax of the film has not the horror of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, nor the lunacy of Texas Chainsaw II, nor the catharsis of Poltergeist nor the sheer spectacle of Lifeforce. Although I have to say this is not for lack of trying on any of these points, as you will no doubt see (or have seen). And the ending is not completely without its merits, either, somewhat fitted into the realm of off-handed cynicism and a slightly deeper sinister aspect, which I can't delve further into without giving away choice plot points. So obviously, the film in its entirety can't easily be dismissed, not only for where it lies in Hooper's directorial career, but where it lies in the time-line of horror and its cinematic sister, the slasher/dead-teenager sub-genre. Arrow's release of The Funhouse gets a hearty recommendation from this retro-horror film fan.

Amazon link
Arrow web store link

Project Arrow is a joint effort along side Videotape Swap Shop and you can follow Vince's continuing adventures here

Project Arrow - Vamp

2011-08-20T03:59:00.000-07:00

Sat on the South Bank, in front of the NTF, film maker Vince D'Amato had a plan, he'd just returned from an impromptu spending spree at Fopp. Poking from an over stuffed bag I spied a stack of Arrow DVDs. The Creepy Six Films kingpin enthusiastically told me that he was about to embark on Project Arrow. A respectable mission which saw him reviewing as many Arrow releases as he could get his hands on, and so we begin...

Project Arrow

Vamp (Arrow Video Blu-ray release)

The idea for this series of Arrow features struck me after the unfortunate outbreak of UK riots led to the destruction of a major warehouse and distribution centre, all but depleting several indie film distro companies and record labels of their entire stock. I realize that this might be old news to most fans by now, what with the advent of social media, but that, in my mind, does not invalidate the somewhat public celebration of not only these film titles, but of the smaller companies that had laboured to get them to us, the fans and consumers, in the most entertaining (and artistically marketable) way they could. The first order of a show of support, was obviously, get some Arrow titles! As I had just moved to London from Canada only 2 months ago, I still had a list of Arrow titles I was planning on purchasing over the next, say, six or seven months. When I learned about the warehouse disaster – burned to the ground! - I sucked it up and made a single purchase in one fell swoop. I now have, sitting next to me at my dining room table in a little Brixton flat, eleven new Arrow titles with two more still to arrive. Next order of business, was obviously, watch the fucking things! So I set about doing just that, last night, with a double-feature of Richard Wenk's Vamp and the infamous video nasty Island of Death.

Vamp is a film that has been a guilty pleasure of mine since back in 1987 when I first caught it (and subsequently taped it onto a blank VHS) on the Canadian pay-television network Superchannel. After a few months, the tapes was worn out and warped. I was in grade 6/7 at the time and I thought Robert Rusler was a fucking bad-ass with his shirt sleeves rolled up, kicking albino psycho's asses and smooth-talking all the hot chicks in the movie. Charming as hell. Actually, the entire cast had been pretty damned charming, even Gedde Wantanabe, who was pretty much straight off from playing another dork in Sixteen Candles. Anyway, as grade 7 waned into the summer (which was about to lead into high school) my worn-down EP VHS recording of Vamp slipped somewhere in between oblivion and off-the-face-of-this-earth. It's just one of those things you never actually remember what happened to it.

Thankfully, now in the age Blu-ray, Arrow has seen fit to bring one of the more understated Hollywood writer/producer's first films into the glaring light of HD. And I have to say, both the HD presentation as well as Richard Wenk's vision do Vamp a hell of a lot of good. Does Vamp, as a film, stand up 25 years later? Logic might dictate not, but actually, it holds up surprisingly well. The humour is entertaining if not riotously laugh-out-loud, and both the performances and the direction have a fantastic rhythm, carrying the unfortunate characters from a collage-fraternity mission into the pits of hell that is an urban-after-dark strip club run by a nest of vampires in a cheeky take on the standard Hollywood “hero's journey”, where our lead character Keith (Chris Makepeace) is thrust from the world he knows into a world of strange, dark humour and viscous bloodsuckers, where he literally must leap through several hoops of hell in order to prevail and end up with the romantic lead (Deedee Pfeiffer)

But hold on right there. That main plot point... the one about the characters ending up at a strip club fill of vampires... sounds familiar. Ah, yes, it was riffed by Tarantino for his own From Dusk Till Dawn. And while the grindhouse-pastiche boys may have put their own spin on the ensuing mayhem, Richard Wenk's film has more in common with Argento's Inferno (visually) and Demons (both visually, thematically, and with the look of the monsters themselves), which was also released around the same time ('86/'87, depending on what country you lived in).

Among the many lovely extras on Arrow's blu-ray release is a lengthy interview with star Deedee Pfeiffer, which I would recommend sitting through the length first half to get to the much better, and more interesting, parts in the latter fifteen minutes. Robert Rusler also makes a welcome appearance in the film's new introduction as well as on his own commentary track, and Arrow has thankfully included Rickard Wenk's early short film, Dracula Bites the Big Apple, a sort of Vamp predecessor.
Check it out!

Amazon Link
Arrow Web Store Link

Project Arrow is a joint effort along side Videotape Swap Shop and you can follow Vince's continuing adventures here

3D Sex and Zen - You'll poke yer eye out kid! with EXCLUSIVE content

2011-08-19T04:11:00.000-07:00

First Japan's crazy Erotibot and now Hong Kong's full-on 3D erotic costume drama 3D Sex & Zen Extreme Ecstasy, then next month we'll be covering Female Prisoner Scorpion.... it's beginning to feel a bit dirty here.
But we love the filth, so bring it.
And in 3D!!!

Ok, we all have our gripes about 3D, but I reckon the future for 3D is in animation and PORN!!
Giant boobies leaping out of the screen? Seriously, unless you're a boring old drip, it's like a dream come true.

As a matter of fact, 3D Sex & Zen has been heralded as the saviour of 3D by the Guardian. So I'm in fairly good company.
Released in Australia, with a staggering take of $1 million across 6 screens - that over $160k per screen.
This bad boy is hitting UK screens in an exclusive deal with Odeon Cinemas from 2nd Sept. Sure the BBFC said it was too outrageous and demanded cuts, but there's still no shortage of insanity.

There was a time in the 70s when it was perfectly acceptable to bring a date to see Deep Throat or Through the Looking Glass, Porno Chic, the Golden Age, the good times.
Like this, you could TOTALLY take a date to this. I think I may.

If you're not geared up to see this film by now.... Cigarette Burns has an exclusive clip that might just convince you.

Obviously, this is post operation. I'm guessing that there's a sword fight in here somewhere.

This looks brilliant, and you know it.
If you're not sold, I'm afraid you've come to the wrong film blog.

Pias Warehouse Fire

2011-08-13T05:28:00.000-07:00

Last week, while the rest of London was looting and burning, a warehouse in Enfield caught fire. contained within said warehouse was stacks and stacks of CDs, records, DVDs and BluRays. The warehouse was the main distribution centre for independent labels. And as such held most of the stock for these labels.
The list of music labels affected is staggering. Many of those labels may not survive losing their entire back catalogue.
1.5 million CDs alone were lost.
One million, five hundred thousand CDs...

As much as I love music, Cigarette Burns is about film, and to be honest, the music industry has done a marvellous job of rallying support for these labels, Pias and AIM (the Association of Independent Musicians) have set up an emergency loan fund to help those affected. Then there's the grassroots Label Love who has set up a fund and is collecting personal donations for the music labels as well.

What I find surprising is that when the cuts were announced and the UK Film Council was on the chopping block, everyone complained. Now, it feels as though no one is worried that all our independent film labels have lost the majority, and in many cases, ALL of their stock.
This back catalogue stock pays for running costs, so you can pay staff, invest in future releases and make those amazing booklets that make Arrow and Masters of Cinema releases so special.
Beyond that there's the fact that all the hardwork that was put into a release has gone up, literally, in smoke.
Sony/Pias obviously have contents insured and are paying out, but that takes time and how much each label gets will vary based on whether they had their discs replicated by Sony or not. Either way, there are still day to day finances these companies have to deal with. And in an age where physical disc sales are dropping, many of these companies are running on a small budget anyway.

A fantastic explanation of the troubles facing some of the smaller distros is here:
Third Window Films
One of the more interesting points raised here is that as we enter the fourth quarter, all the major distributors will be pushing for their discs to get pressed, shove the independents further down the totem pole of replication.

Bleeding Cool has put together a list of where you can go if you fancy downloading from the various companies here.

Having spoken with Arrow Film and Video, they assured me that they do currently have stock in hand if you order from their online store here but be quick. There's also a quick little press release here
Eureka and Masters of Cinema also have limited stock in hand.
Having taken a massive blown, Network have released an announcement worth reading.
Shameless have lost ALL their stock, so what is at retailers is all there is. And a release to that effect can be read here
Amazon still has many titles, but it's not like they are stocking hundreds of copies of any given title.

Other companies affected are:
The BFI , Artificial Eye, Beez, Crabtree Films, Dogwoof, Cine-Asia, Exposure Cinema, Revolver UK, Left Films, Kaleidoscope Films, Metrodome Films, Second Run, Terracotta, Peccadillio Pictures, Warp Films and several others.

It's really important to go out and pick up as many titles as you can with a view to support these companies and help them survive.
Many of them have been super supportive to Cigarette Burns Cinema and the other film societies in the UK. But most importantly, they have been supportive to the film fans, remastering some of our favourite films with love and dedication, putting time and energy into fact tracks, documentaries, etc all so we can enjoy the film a little more, and now it's time to thank them.

Many, if not most of the films screening at the upcoming Scala Forever Season will be thanks to the above film distributors and many of them are hosting an evening.
An easy and fun way to check out what they have on offer.

Update:

Shameless have been in touch and asked that you support their recent and upcoming titles:
The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh featuring the gorgeous Edwige Fenech , Umberto Lenzi's Almost Human with Tomas Milian, Lucio Fulci's New York Ripper on BluRay, and the upcoming Cannibal Holocaust - links will take you to Amazon.
I know many of their titles are available at Fopp and HMV.
Just keep your eyes peeled for that bright yellow case.

Arrow have said the following in their newsletter:
Following the riots in north London which left the Sony distribution centre smouldering, this senseless attack has unfortunately meant that Arrow stock along with that of many distributors went up in flames.

We are working hard to ensure that new stock is manufactured as soon as possible. At this juncture we will be changing some of our releases. Arrow Video DVD versions of Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, A Bay of Blood, Deep Red and Battle Royale will not be reprinted but will be re-issued as ArrowDrome releases. Stock of these Arrow Video releases are still available from various retailers and we have a small amount of stock available from our website. Blu-ray versions will not change.

If you would like to complete your Arrow Video Collection you must hurry as there is LIMITED STOCK AVAILABILITY

Update 2:

Second Run DVD has confirmed that they have indeed lost all their stock and will be re-manufacturing all titles as soon as possible. They will be taking pains to make sure that no titles will be deleted, so fear not.
In the meantime, what little stock is left with retailers is all there is. However, they do hold stock of most of their titles and ask that you purchase direct from their in house shop, as it would be very helpful under the current circumstances

Scala Forever Calendar

2011-08-05T08:05:00.000-07:00

We are closing in, about a week away from one of the most talked about film events in London - Scala Forever.
Everyone is sitting down and pouring over their posters and marking off what they want to see... but for some of us, it's nice to just have a list we can scroll through.

The below is accurate as of today. Events may still be added, so don't blame me if you miss something.

Since this is the Cigarette Burns blog, I see no reason why I shouldn't highlight my own events, but encourage you to go to as many as you can, there are some serious gems in here and several films that you really won't see anywhere else.

Saturday 13 August 7PM Roxy Bar and Screen
Opening Night KING KONG

Sunday 14 August 2PM Riverside Studios
Marx Brothers Double A DAY AT THE RACES/A NIGHT AT THE OPERA

Sunday 14 August 4PM The Ritzy
A-Z of Cinema: G is for Grindhouse FASTER, PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL!/DEATH PROOF

Sunday 14 August 7.30PM Roxy Bar and Screen
John Waters Double FEMALE TROUBLE/DESPERATE LIVING

Sunday 14 August 7.30PM Dulwich Park
The Nomad presents THE GOONIES

Sunday 14 August 8.30PM Prince Charles Cinema
DR STRANGELOVE

Monday 15 August 7PM Roxy Bar and Screen
Second Run DVD’s Czech Double MORGIANA/VALERIE AND HER WEEK OF WONDERS

Tuesday 16 August 7.30PM Shortwave Cinema
Peccadillo Pictures' German Boys Double TAXI ZUM KLO/WESTLER

Friday 19 August 7PM Opera Holland Park
The Nomad presents SOME LIKE IT HOT

Friday 19 August 8PM Three Mills
The Floating Cinema presents FANTASTIC MR. FOX

Saturday 20 August 8.30PM The Portobello Pop Up Cinema
THE COLOUR OF POMEGRANATES

Saturday 20 August 11PM - 6AM Roxy Bar and Screen
Filmbar70's Zombie All-Nighter ZOMBIE FLESH EATERS/DAWN OF THE DEAD/RETURN OF THE BLIND DEAD/I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE/NIGHTMARE CITY

Sunday 21 August 2PM Riverside Studios
EXTERMINATING ANGEL/LAST YEAR IN MARIENBAD

Sunday 21 August 6PM Riverside Studios
Graham Green Double OUR MAN IN HAVANA/THE THIRD MAN

Sunday 21 August 7PM Roxy Bar & Screen
Danny Leigh introduces AFTER HOURS/SECONDS

Monday 22 August 6.25PM Riverside Studios
Almodovar Double WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DESERVE THIS?/BROKEN EMBRACES

Monday 22 August 7.30PM Roxy Bar and Screen
Passengerfilms presents Backwoods Horror EDEN LAKE/THIS IS MY LAND

Tuesday 23 August 7PM Roxy Bar and Screen
Filmbar70's Russ Meyer Double MONDO TOPLESS/BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS

Wednesday 24 August 6.20PM BFI Southbank
The Flipside presents FRENCH DRESSING

Wednesday 24 August 7PM Kings Cross Social Club
Duke Mitchell Film Club's 4TH BIRTHDAY PARTY

Wednesday 24 August 8PM Prince Charles Cinema
Cigarette Burns Cinema's The Dead Will Rise Double
THE BEYOND/DEAD & BURIED

Thursday 25 August 7PM Roxy Bar and Screen
Shameless Films presents THE FRIGHTENED WOMAN/DON’T TORTURE A DUCKLING

Thursday 25 August 8.30PM Prince Charles Cinema
THE GENERAL with live accompaniment from Costas Fotopoulos

25-29 August Empire Leicester Square: Film4 Frightfest
Friday 26 August 10.35AM, Sunday 28 August 9.15PM Empire Leicester Square
THE MAN WHO SAW FRANKENSTEIN CRY

Sunday 28 August 1.30PM Rio Cinema
GLEN OR GLENDA?/UN CHANT D'AMOUR/KENNETH ANGER'S MAGICK LANTERN CYCLE

Sunday 28 August 4PM The Ritzy
A-Z of Cinema: H is for Hitchcock ROPE/FRENZY

Sunday 28 August 6.30PM Riverside Studios
Jeanne Moreau Double LIFT TO THE SCAFFOLD/JULES ET JIM

Sunday 28 August 7PM Roxy Bar and Screen
Filmbar70’s Western Double THE GREAT SILENCE/ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST

Monday 29 August 6.25PM Prince Charles Cinema
THE TERMINATOR/DUEL

Friday 26 August - Sunday 4 September Barbican: London International Animation Festival
Monday 29 August 8.45PM Barbican
GEORGE THE HEDGEHOG plus Q&A co-director Wojtek Wawczyzk

Tuesday 30 August 6PM Ryan's Bar, Stoke Newington
Atomic Bark! presents TOBY DAMMIT/BABA YAGA

Wednesday 31 August 7PM Roxy
Filmbar70’s Brit Psych-Fi Double THE FINAL PROGRAMME/ZARDOZ

Thursday 1 September 7.30PM Curzon Soho bar
Curzon and Faber and Faber’s Film Quiz TEN ROUNDS WITH DE NIRO: SCALA CINEMA SPECIAL

Friday 2 September 6.30PM Richmond Park
The Nomad presents THE AFRICAN QUEEN

Saturday 3 September 3PM Roxy Bar and Screen
Scala Forever presents I WANT TO START A FILM CLUB!

Sunday 4 September 3PM Roxy Bar and Screen
The Classic Horror Campaign Double BLACK SUNDAY/HORROR HOSPITAL

Sunday 4 September 7PM Rich Mix
Land In Focus presents PACKAGE DEALS: FINLAND

Sunday 4 September 7.30PM Roxy Bar and Screen
Filmbar70’s Wild World Double TETSUO: THE IRON MAN/SANTA SANGRE

7 – 18 September ICA: A Feast for Open Eyes: Jack Smith
Wednesday 7 September 8PM ICA Theatre
FLAMING CREATURES with intro by Chris Dercon and Q&A Jonas Mekas and Dominic Johnson

Thursday 8 September 7PM Roxy Bar and Screen
Duke Mitchell Film Club presents THE FLESH EATERS

Thursday 8 September 8.30PM BFI Southbank
The Flipside presents NEIL INNES NIGHT plus Q&A Neil Innes

Friday 9 September 6.30PM Fulham Palace
The Nomad presents DANGEROUS LIAISONS

Saturday 10 September 11PM - 6AM Roxy Bar and Screen
Filmbar70's All-Night of the Bloody Pint All-nighter RE-ANIMATOR/SLUGS: THE MOVIE/BASKET CASE/PHANTASM/HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP

Sunday 11 September 2PM Phoenix Cinema
Phoenix Cinema and Contemporary Films present Music Doc Double TONITE LET’S ALL MAKE LOVE IN LONDON/JAZZ ON A SUMMER’S DAY

Sunday 11 September 3PM - 11PM Roxy Bar and Screen
Filmbar70's Eastern Action All-Dayer A BETTER TOMORROW/EASTERN CONDORS/TIGER CAGE II/THE CAT

Sunday 11 September 4PM The Ritzy
A-Z of Cinema: I is for Isolation REPULSION/THE SHINING

Tuesday 13 September 7PM Roxy Bar and Screen
R.W. Fassbinder Double ALI: FEAR EATS THE SOUL/THE BITTER TEARS OF PETRA VON KANT

Wednesday 14 September 7.30PM Shortwave Cinema
Peccadillo Pictures' Naughty Girls Double HEAVENLY CREATURES/EL NINO PEZ (THE FISH CHILD)

Thursday 15 September 7.30PM - 1AM The Book Club
Amy Grimehouse presents RUSS MEYER NIGHT

Friday 16 September 7.30PM Fulham Palace
The Nomad presents THE OMEN

Saturday 17 September 2PM - 8PM, The Cinema Museum
SCALA DAY: Screenings, discussions and reminicences

Sunday 18 September 3PM Tricycle Cinema
THEATRE OF BLOOD/VIRIDIANA

Sunday 18 September 7PM Roxy Bar and Screen
Little Joe Magazine presents Sexy Sci Fi Double LIQUID SKY/CAFE FLESH

Tuesday 20 September 6.30PM. Film at 8.30PM. The Horse Hospital
Electric Sheep and Strange Attractor present THUNDERCRACK!

Tuesday 20 September 8PM Bethnal Green Working Men's Club
Close-Up presents DEKALOG I & II

Wednesday 21 September 7PM Roxy and Screen
Herzog/Kinski Double AGUIRRE, WRATH OF GOD/WOYZECK

Saturday 24 September 11.30PM Rio Cinema
Cigarette Burns Cinema presents The Female Convict Pinky Violence All-Night Triple: SCORPION/JAILHOUSE 41/BEAST STABLE

Sunday 25 September 3PM Roxy Bar and Screen
Arrow Video and Filmbar70's Argento Triple DEEP RED/TENEBRAE/OPERA

Tuesday 27 September 8PM Bethnal Green Working Men's Club
Close-Up presents DEKALOG III & IV

Wednesday 28 September 7PM Roxy Bar and Screen
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP introduced by Tilda Swinton (tbc)

Wednesday 28 September 7PM Kings Cross Social Club
Duke Mitchell Film Club presents TURKISH GRINDHOUSE: DEATH WARRIOR

Wednesday 28 September 8.30PM, ICA
Thursday 29 September 8.45PM, ICA
ICA and ICO present BALLAD OF NARAYAMA

Saturday 1 October 7.30PM Whirled Cinema
Barney Platts-Mills Double BRONCO BULLFROG/PRIVATE ROAD

Saturday 1 October 11PM Roxy Bar and Screen
Midnight Movies and Reel Music present I Could Have Danced All-Nighter BUGSY MALONE/ROCK N ROLL HIGH SCHOOL/CAN'T STOP THE MUSIC/THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW

Sunday 2 October 8PM Roxy Bar and Screen
Closing Night A CLOCKWORK ORANGE

Get booking kids!!!

Erotibot is coming.

2011-07-25T12:32:00.000-07:00

What's Erotibot?
A Pinky android film.
I'm sold.

Cast of Characters:

All that makes me very happy.
But...
When the folks behind Big Tits Zombies, Vampire Girl vs Frankenstein Girl present us with -

I get all excited and can't wait for the insanity and nonsense to ensue.

Bounty Films will be releasing this on DVD in the UK on 26th September.

End Geek out.

Scala Season - the poster

2011-07-22T01:51:00.000-07:00

click to embiggen

Everyone is loving this and rightly so.

Hold tight kids, these will be available in printed hard copy format, so save that toner.

Scala Forever Season

2011-07-18T01:19:00.000-07:00

Mark those calendars, later this week, the full listings for London's upcoming Scala Forever season will be released. With nearly two months of some of the finest in cult screenings taking place throughout London featuring many of the best film clubs and cinemas, you won't want to miss this.

Scala Forever
Going Back to the Future
A season of film screenings reliving the Scala Cinema’s programming history and celebrating the current expansive repertory film scene in London.

Scala Forever is a large film season created by Roxy Bar & Screen that will include 26 venues programming a variety of classic repertory cinema between 13thAugust and 2nd October 2011.

The aim of the season is to look back at the history and influence of the Scala Cinema in Kings Cross and to focus on and celebrate all the venues in London currently programming repertory cinema including Roxy Bar & Screen, BFI Southbank, Riverside Studios, Prince Charles Cinema, Ritzy Picturehouse, Rio Cinema, The Phoenix Cinema, ICA, Shortwave Cinema and many, many more!

The season will be showing a wide range of films including old Scala titles and newer rep cinema classics crossing genres of Zombie and Horror movies to European Arthouse, new and old classics, and plenty of cult film screening in double and treble-bills, all-dayers and four special all-nighters, plus panel discussions and several guest speakers introducing the screenings.

Film Clubs involved include Midnight Movies, Duke Mitchell Film Club, Close-Up, Cigarette Burns Cinema, Passenger Films, The Amy Grimehouse and FilmBar70, plus distributors Arrow Film, Second Run DVD, Peccadillo Pictures and BFI Flipside.

For the full programme and list of speakers, plus to buy tickets, visit www.scalaforever.co.uk
Scala Forever is supported by Film London and sponsors Jameson Irish Whiskey

That Double Barrelled Derelict.

2011-07-10T04:33:00.000-07:00

My kindly take on Hobo with a Shotgun, where I don't complain about it being lowest common denominator entertainment, employing all the cheap tricks to keep people happy whilst leaving you nearly blinded from an overdose of extreme orange and blue lighting and a bit meh, afterwards.
It's a hold holds barred crowd pleaser.

As with so many hip things in life, we tend to look to the past for inspiration. Whether it’s fashion, music or film, we are forever digging deeper and finding new depths to exploit and give that modern twist to, yearning for those days when we were kids and finding safety in Christmas’s past. The strip mining of exploitation films of the 70s and 80s has been spearheaded by one Quentin Tarantino. Perhaps strip mining is too harsh a term, but he’s certainly tapped a vein that prospectors young and old have descended upon with vampiric fervour.

While working on his sixth film Grindhouse, the Fanboy Extraordinaire decided to pay tribute to the trailer phenomena by inviting fellow directors to create their own exploitation inspired trailers. Shedding light on what may at first seem an odd thing to obsess about, let alone collect, trailers are a fascinating way to traverse the exploitation landscape in two minute snippets. Found on small forgotten 35mm trailer reels tucked behind stacks of dust covered tins of rotting celluloid or pilfered from static-ridden, tracking-defying VHS tapes, these 120 second gems give you exciting glimpses of outrageous films, some renowned, some lost, and some never even completed. Little bundles of exploitation history, so full of promise and energy. Each trying to outdo the last.

The floodgates of this otherwise overlooked pastime were thrust wider when Grindhouse co-director Robert Rodriguez announced a competition at SXSW for the best fake exploitation/grindhouse trailers as part of the feature’s promotion; Grindhouse itself being a tribute to those films of a time gone by, a double feature recalling those hallowed pits of infestation on Forty Deuce. Canadian Jason Eisener, already a fan of genre films, leapt at the chance and fired off his Hobo with a Shotgun fake trailer. His entry was wildly received and Eisener was no doubt elated at the opportunity to have his work screened alongside the likes of Rob Zombie, Eli Roth, Edgar Wright and Robert Rodriguez’s own faux trailers.

Fakes they may have been, but the trailers were perhaps the best-received aspect of the ill-fated Grindhouse venture, and talk soon turned to making the fictional features a reality. The first feature spawned from these little glimpses was Rodriguez’s own Mexploitation flick, Machete, which had been stuck in development hell since 1993, and whilst the likelihood of ever seeing Zombie’s Werewolf Women of the SS is sadly slim to none, Hobo with a Shotgun was a sure thing. The simple idea of the pump action derelict, defender of moral codes of society struck chords with audiences across the world, and even though Grindhouse was released in most other territories as two separate films, Death Proof and Planet Terror (losing most of the faux previews along the way), Eisener's trailer took on a life of its own and went viral, its popularity giving him the chance to take his Hobo to Hollywood.

In 2008, Eisener, no doubt reeling from all the excitement, went on to direct his Treevenge short film, itself a tribute to genre films of the 70s and 80s, albeit with a distinct twist. A dark Christmas tale of trees taking - you guessed it - revenge for the genocidal vigour with which humans chop them down and separate them from their wooded families and forested homelands, before torturing and demeaning them with tarty displays of baubles and tinsel. Following much the same style, Hobo with a Shotgun is a relentless trip down memory lane, tipping its ragged old beanie cap to each and every film it passes along the genre high street. Eisener knows his source material, be it over-the-top Italian knockoffs or American sleaze, and this modern day grot-fest strikes a pleasurably nostalgic nerve.

Rolling into frame in a boxcar, our hero (played by Rutger Hauer) unknowingly disembarks in Hope Town, a community which has succumbed to the worst of human corruption and criminality. Immediately thrust into the thick of it, he witnesses various acts of exploitation and brutal murder before finally falling victim to the local police force, themselves fully complicit in the town’s degradation. Upon release he realises that there is no greater justice, just us; and in Hope Town, there isn’t even an us.

Hauer’s hobo, desperate, cynical yet defiantly moral, proceeds to wage a one man war on Hope Town’s ruling authority, the vile, vengeful Drake, a criminal overlord without a spare scruple, whose two sons are free to do whatever they want, wherever they want. Looking like the evil twins of Tom Cruise in Cocktail, raping and pillaging are the least of their crimes as they rampage through the crime-infested town. Killing and destroying everything that even considers getting in their way, striking fear into the hearts of the helpless populace. And the only thing that can stand up to them is... a hobo, with a shotgun.

He's not a shepherd.

You could start to wonder about this film, perhaps you feel inclined to pull allegories out of the air. Thinking about a homeless traveller who falls in love with a prostitute, sharing his wisdom with her. Demanding repentance from the sinners, sacrificing himself so that others can be free.... But you know, Christ! It’s a cheap exploitation film full of snapping bones and geysers of blood.

Premièring at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, and subsequently hitting our shores with the double whammy of a UK première at Glasgow Frightfest and a London preview as part of Bizarre Magazine’s CUT! series and most recently a London première courtesy of Midnight Movies, Hobo with a Shotgun has been receiving nothing but adoration from critics and fans alike. Casting off the Hollywood studio shackles as only a truly independent film can, Hobo is from start to finish a true crowd pleaser.

And so, as we forever try to move forward, advancing our chosen arts, we nevertheless continue to look backwards for inspiration. Be it Ti West’s period piece, House of the Devil, masterfully recalling the days of the satanic panic, Machete, with Danny Trejo as the Mexican super cop relentlessly charging through corruption at every level, or with Jason Eisener’s instant sleaze classic Hobo with a Shotgun. All films drawing on their past, learning from it and adapting it for today. This new wave of grindhouse looks set to to stick around for awhile. Stalwarts may cringe and complain, but ultimately, cheap exploitation isn’t about the art or some misguided sense of honesty and staying true. It’s about getting punters through the door and if they enjoy themselves enough to turn you a profit, then job’s a good ‘un.
Don’t over think it, just enjoy it.

You can catch Hobo with a Shotgun alongside the complete Grindhouse at the Prince Charles Cinema this Thursday, 14th July.

Kill your TV - The Shirt.

2011-07-02T08:28:00.000-07:00

After a minor production hiccup with our Conan shirt, we're back in the game with our Kill your TV Double Bill shirt. We've made 40 this time, but that's it. A full range of sizes from Girly tees to extra large, but once your size is gone, it's gone.
Available on the night at our Prince Charles Cinema screening of Ringu and Poltergiest for £15 each and whatever is left will be available on our page at Dee Dee's Vintage shop.

I wouldn't sleep on these, people are already asking if they can reserve one... you can't.
Be there or lose out, kids.

Peering down the Well....

2011-06-30T08:48:00.000-07:00

As the barren 90s drew to a close, horror fans world wide were questioning the future. Little did they know what true terror was waiting for them. Once Ringu broke out of the East and into the West, nothing would ever be the same again. A film held aloft by many a fan and critic, sometimes things get hazy over time and we can forget, allow things to drift into a general conciousness where we just dismiss them off hand. But it's worth noting that there is a reason that these things work their way into the mainstream. Because they were so powerful to begin with, they are the game changers. It becomes easy to forget just how effective these really are. And so, Sean Hogan, writer/director of Lie Still, Little Deaths and the upcoming Devil's Business ponders Ringu, a film that scared many a hardened, jaded fan, shitless...

Dread. The one vital component absent from too many genre films. Not violence, not splatter, not meaningless jump scares. True, skin crawling unease. A rare enough horror commodity in any decade, but in the barren horror landscape of the 1990s, only David Lynch seemed consistently willing and able to put true nightmares onscreen; those moments when a film ceases to be a mere shadowplay of light and dark and instead crawls inside your skull and sends its claws scratching down the walls of your psyche. Those moments that make you feel like a frightened little child again – scared, helpless, and utterly alone.

Until Ringu.

Hideo Nakata’s 1998 film didn’t arrive on UK shores until late 2000, but like the cursed videotape central to its plot, it soon went viral, quickly spreading its influence across the genre. However, the J-Horror phenomenon proved to be a relatively fleeting craze, and so quickly burnt itself out that it’s perhaps difficult to remember what a bracing jolt Ringu and its brethren initially provided. Knowing little about the film, I attended a cinema screening early on in its release, left largely jaded by a genre that had spiralled down from toothless horror comedies in the1980s to almost complete redundancy in the 1990s. But there was always hope – I’d heard encouraging talk about the film, and as Kim Newman had previously pointed out, the horror movie “has a habit of returning from the dead.”

The film drew me in quickly - the matter of fact tone, the minimalist approach, its eerily hushed blankness; all were refreshing anomalies when set against recent Hollywood genre movies and their puppy dog desire to do little but lick your face and entertain. Nakata understood the value of quiet and restraint, that much was clear. The film was never in a rush to explain, never so worried about losing its audience that it felt the need to throw in cheap, unnecessary scares or laboured exposition. This was the kind of horror I’d missed, one that I’d thought long forgotten in an age of teen demographics and lowest common denominator franchising.

However, as much as I luxuriated in the overall mood, relished the slow unsettling chill of an genre film that understood the value of taking its time, as we neared the end, I remember feeling a pang of disappointment. It had promised so much, and yet – as the seeming climax approached and Nakata’s desperate protagonists raced against the clock to break the curse that threatened to claim their lives and that of their young son – I had not been truly scared. Unnerved, but never truly frightened. Was this all there was? Nothing but teasing foreplay and no release?

Thankfully, I had been completely suckered by the film’s fake-out narrative structure. For Ringu has the courage to eschew contrived scares and instead build slowly and surely to one single, supreme moment of absolute fear – everything else in the film leads to that one scene alone, and is in some sense secondary to it. The risk of course is that if the climax falls flat, the film is immediately dragged down along with it. But that was not to be the case here.

The heroes mistakenly come to believe they have averted Sadako’s terrible curse, only to realise that her rage is unending, and the curse has merely been redirected. What follows is one of the most terrifying climaxes in horror cinema, worthy to stand alongside such finales as those found in Freaks or Don’t Look Now. In line with the rest of the film, the approach is straightforward, unflashy. The scene takes place in one small room; there is no violence to speak of, and the special effects work is relatively simple. But in its commitment to the weird and uncanny, its absolute evocation of the realm of nightmare, the film was leagues ahead of most of the genre work being produced at the time. Here was the new beginning I’d been hoping for. Here, at long last, was dread.

The film quickly proved successful, and thereby ushered in a rash of imitations and remakes and remakes of imitations – some of them nevertheless equalling or even bettering Ringu’s achievement. (Nakata’s Dark Water/Honogurai mizu no soko kara is also excellent, and my personal favourite of the J-Horror cycle is Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Pulse/Kairo, not to mention the J-Horror-influenced A Tale of Two Sisters/Janghwa, Hongryeon from South Korea.) But Ringu opened the door, and it will always have a special cold place in my heart for that.

Of course, it couldn’t last. When the inevitable US remake appeared, the writing was on the wall. Everything the Japanese original wasn’t – glossy, reductive, expository, unscary – it was of course a massive success, and led to a glut of similar Western retreads. (And Hollywood screenwriting formulae being what they are, every single one of them dumbed down and overexplained their source material.) Before long the Japanese boom had run out of both steam and ideas, and US filmmakers – instead of trying to learn what had made these films so effective and apply the lessons to their own work – were content to remake the likes of One Missed Call, itself a fairly hackneyed Ringu imitation already.

Regardless, there’s definitely a case to be made that Ringu helped resurrect the long-moribund horror genre. Horror is now a thriving field again, and whilst it will always fall prey to hackery and easy exploitation, overall it’s in a much healthier state these days than it was before Sadako first crawled from our screens. And for that, she deserves to be remembered.

Needless to say, Cigarette Burns not only recommends you see Ringu, we're screening it as part of our Kill Your TV Double Bill along side 80s classic Poltergeist at the Prince Charles Cinema on 8th July. So come along and see what all the fuss is about....

Guillermo del Toro and Julia's Eyes

2011-05-24T08:08:00.000-07:00

With Spanish horror, Julia's Eyes in cinemas now, Colm McAuliffe wonders if Guillermo del Toro should be viewed as the man with the golden touch, or just a patron saint.

As well as being a director of some renown, Guillermo del Toro has more recently fashioned a niche for himself as a the saviour of the Spanish indie horror genre, swooping in to attach his name as producer to films which otherwise would have difficulty in securing distribution. With del Toro on board, films such as 2008’s The Orphanage and now, Julia’s Eyes, attain an immediate gravitas, the name alone providing the necessary cachet to penetrate the markets.

Remarking that ‘studio infiltration into specialty films was the worst thing that could have happened…. [but] this is a ripe time now for retaking the fort’, del Toro could well be referring to his inaugural major studio experience, 1997’s Mimic which was plagued by interference from that notorious despot Bob Weinstein, resulting in a potentially thrilling horror being reduced to rather anemic anonymity. Del Toro’s career since can be viewed through the prism of this initial experience and he appears to be flourishing in his role as a self-styled cinematic polymath. His intuition for the macabre has rapidly filtered into the zeitgeist, propelling him into the public sphere and he currently appears to have a whopping eleven projects on the go, ranging from The Hobbit to Pinocchio and even stretching to the video game Insane.

Aside from adhering to del Toro’s own unique brand of grotesque beauty, del Toro’s actual role in his film productions is questionable. He differentiates from the evil movie moguls in viewing his role as being the arch-protector of the indie underdog from financial partners needless meddling, a move which certainly worked in terms of The Orphanage (del Toro also claimed minor credit for some of the film’s more frightening moments).The massive success of this, both in Spain and internationally, ensured praise was showered upon him for his apparent hands off approach. Similarly, del Toro’s name was all over the film’s marketing push. He was not simply the producer but he also chose to ‘present’ the film – so far so very Hitchcockian.

The breadth and uniqueness of del Toro’s filmmaking is so well-defined, it has made his name into a genre of its very own which, of course, in with his decision to ‘present’ these films. His stylistic touchstones of magic realism, fairytale fantasy and the grotesque recur throughout his own films from The Devil’s Backbone through Hellboy and his mainstream breakthrough Pan’s Labyrinth, ensuring that the Del Toro brand is a surefire signpost to a carnivalesque miasma of supernatural mythos and high-octane horror.

Julia’s Eyes, the latest ‘Guillermo del Toro presents…’, is again directed and co-written by a newcomer, Guillem Morales, and re-unites much of the team behind The Orphanage. While the latter film essentially centred around a re-telling of a ghost story, using classic horror talismans such as mysterious caves, lighthouses and cellars for suspense, Julia’s Eyes is also fundamentally conventional in its approach, devoting itself to the ‘extremely hot blind woman in peril’ genre.

Belen Rueda plays the dual role of two sisters, one of whom hangs herself in her basement in the opening scene while the other spends the remainder of the film heaving her wondrous bosom while being hounded by an enigmatic individual. Both sisters have been afflicted by a degenerative disease which ultimately leads them to blindness and the symmetry of the movie is provided by the antagonistic characters - a woman losing her sight versus a man who never wishes to be seen.

Amidst the sporadic bursts of tension and crime solving, Guillem Morales has crafted a reasonable homage to the classic Italian Giallo films of the 1970s without ever fully resorting to psychological profiles of his characters. Our enigmatic stalker is masked in mystery and while we occasionally see through his eyes, these fleeting insights are never enough to sustain our interest (the film clocks in at an over-long two hours). During the last half hour, Morales decides to change tack entirely and Julia’s Eyes reveals itself as a straightforward horror, replete with pinched eyeballs, mindless killing and the unmasking of our stalker. This slide into sub-Almodovarian camp provides a rather unsatisfactory ending as the loose threads are tied up in a roundabout fashion with some predictable ‘revelations’ coming to light.

This is to all intents and purposes a Spanish production but Julia’s Eyes ultimately has more in common with overblown, bombastic American remakes of the genre. The cinematography is impressive but workmanlike, under-utilising the theme of blindness and only sparingly uses moments of reduced vision to capture Julia’s descent into darkness.

While del Toro’s heart still beats for Spanish indie horror, Julia’s Eyes is perhaps one beat his heart could have skipped. Take our indie hero out of the equation and you have left a passable horror flick. Morales does manage to punctuate his film with moments of genuine tension - particularly the potentially gruesome scene whereby Julia eavesdrops upon a conversation between some vindictive former friends of her sister at a centre for the blind – but the film is more of sign of Morales potential as a director rather than indicative of any current prowess.

As for del Toro claiming to ‘retake the fort’ for indie cinema, ironically, a more hands-on approach as producer may have catapulted this from so-so horror to impressive psycho-drama. However, by virtue of having del Toro as a mentor, Morales has furthered his position as a filmmaker with potential while del Toro himself can carry on regardless, safe in his role as the saving grace of indie cinema. Let’s just hope the lines are not being blurred between his hands-off approach and a genuine need for some creative direction. Sometimes a little bit of compromise is not necessarily a bad thing.

Onibaba - What lies beneath the reeds?

2011-05-07T06:05:00.000-07:00

We put out a call for some contributors to our blog, and in what will hopefully be a regular element, we'll be visiting a variety of films spanning gutter trash to art house and all that exploits, thrills and bleeds in between.
Onibaba is a glorious and stunning film, and Gary Budden tells us why, plus, I get to show off one of my favourite Mexican lobby cards -

I was about sixteen years old and an interest in what lay outside the confines of Hollywood cinema had begun to grow in me; Japanese films held a particular allure for all the predictable reasons that would thrill a teenage mind from Kent – attractive young women from a very different culture being violent, anime like Akira, Ninja Assassin and Ghost in the Shell (with lots of blood / stuff blowing up), and the general cultural cache of being into cult and foreign movies (or what seemed exotic and underground in Canterbury circa 1998).

I can’t remember where exactly but, I had seen a still from Kaneto Shindo’s Onibaba and read a short review – I think it was the NME (yes, I used to read the NME) – and it was being shown very late on Channel 4 back in the days when Channel 4 still screened things worth watching. This was, of course, before the Film4 Channel, but even now you’re only likely to come across a film like this late night in the schedules after the 809th rerun of ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ that week.
The still, rather tragically, reminded me of the Fighting Fantasy book ‘Sword of the Samurai’ where they had, I retrospectively discovered, nicked the iconic demon mask image from Onibaba for one of their more memorable monsters.
I taped the film that night on my mum’s trusty VHS player and dutifully watched the film, slightly annoyed that I’d missed the first half hour due to various programming mistakes. I’d have to wait many years until the Criterion company, followed by Masters of Cinema in the UK, finally released a decent copy on DVD, so for years I was left with the slightly hazy impression of a wonderful film set entirely in swaying reed beds, sometime in feudal Japan during a vicious civil war, with two women in various states of undress murdering lost samurai, pushing them into a black hole and selling their weapons and armour to get by. Which, it turns out, is actually a rather large part of the film.

So years pass, I nearly forget about Onibaba but my interest in cinema in all its forms grows and grows, and when I see that demon-mask once more online, I get my hands on the aforementioned Criterion copy (early on I’d worked out the mysteries of multi-region DVD players) and watch Shindo’s art-house horror, properly, for the very first time.

I am glad to say that it held up to my teenage recollections. Existing in the grey area that makes a film sometimes appears too art-house to horror/cult fans, and too trashy for art-house cineastes, the film focuses on a middle aged woman and her daughter-in-law (whose husband has been killed during the war), who eke out a living in the reed beds from murder and theft. Then a man, Hatchi, arrives, a close friend of the young woman’s deceased husband. A sexual relationship begins to develop between them, threatening to destabilise and ruin the already tenuous relationship between the two women.
The older woman’s sexual jealously becomes, literally, a demonic force in this film; she becomes the very thing she warns the young woman about, personifying destructive lust and corrosive jealousy. Let us just say the demon-mask plays a crucial role in this.

Visually the film is stunning; in fact it is the most appealing thing about the picture, as the bare bones of the story are rather slender, loosely based on a simple Buddhist instructional tale.
But it’s all in the presentation, and the film’s lustrous black and white photography from director of photography Kiyomi Kuroda is beautiful, as is the marshland location which is as much a psychological landscape as anything; the swaying reeds are only punctuated by the river, the hut of the two women, and the infamous black hole. The setting adds a great deal of physical and metaphorical depth to the simple story, and the entirety of the drama plays itself out within this landscape, culminating in one of the most memorable endings in horror cinema that stayed with me even from my initial shaky VHS viewing all those years ago.

Kaneto Shindo has made many other films in his long career (he was born in 1912 and is still not dead), such as Children of Hiroshima, the strange feline ghost story Kuroneko (also available from Masters of Cinema), the remarkable, near silent analysis of Japanese island peasants in The Naked Island, before making a lot soft-core erotica during the pinku eiga era; but Onibaba remains his best and most recognisable film. Highly recommended.

Who Can Kill A Child? (¿Quién Puede Matar a un Niño?)

2011-04-25T13:56:00.001-07:00

Few films are as dark and unforgiving as Who Can Kill A Child?
Sadly unknown, one of those films that falls behind the dresser, cherished by the dust and those that know it's there, but forgotten, overlooked and ignored by all the rest.
A Spanish production but the two main characters are native English speakers, a Aussie and an English woman, so while the locals they encounter on their, supposedly, relaxed Spanish holiday speak, well Spanish, the majority of the film is spoken English. In and of itself an oddity.
A slow burner, but like the warmest of fires, it may take a while to get there, but once it's there... it's a scorcher!
One not easily forgotten.
Unreleased in the digital age until 2007 and again in 2010, both fairly limitedly and quietly, building a vocal and passionate fanbase, Who Can Kill a Child is now due to be released fully uncut in the UK from Eureka on 23rd May.
But you can see it with us, for the first time fully uncut in the UK on the 14th May at the Rio Cinema.

East End Film Festival starts smoking.

2011-04-23T11:58:00.000-07:00

As you may have heard, we've been invited to host a screening at the East End Film Festival. Quite flattering if I'm honest and pretty damn exciting.
The EEFF are hosting a series of horror screenings, which we are just a small part of.
Check this out:

Julia’s Eyes (Los Ojos de Julia) Dir. Guillem Morales Spain, 2010, 114min RIO Cinema Monday 2 May 23.30 From producer Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth), this Orphanage-esque chiller sees Julia travel with her husband to visit her sister, who is near blind because of a degenerative illness. Discovering that her sibling has taken her own life, she begins to investigate while going blind herself, only for things to become even more dark and mysterious, as nothing is what it seems. Starring Lluís Homar (Broken Embraces) and Belén Rueda (The Orphanage), this is a superior mystery that was a huge hit in its native Spain, seen by more than a million people.

Agnosia Dir. Eugenio Miro Spain, 2010, 97min RIO Cinema Friday 29 April 23:30 A young woman suffering from a rare neuropsychological disorder that impairs her senses is manipulated by two dangerous men in pursuit of a strange secret. A ravishing mystery with a dark, atmospheric early twentieth century setting.

Then on the 2nd, we'll be pitching our screen up at the Old Blue Last in Shoreditch for a Movie Mayday.
Electric Sheep Magazine will be screening shorts from midday, followed by the classic Jodoworsky mindfuck Holy Mountain, followed by Argento classic and CB favourite Suspiria.
Complete with intros and conversation from Kim Newman and Cine Excess's Xavier Mendik.
The EEFF is working on a theme of Secret Societies and asked if we had anything in mind that might work with the aforementioned... and by fuckery have we!!!
But, in keeping with the secret theme... we ain't telling you.
We promise it's strong enough, engaging enough, weird enough and visually striking enough to hold it's own beside these giants.
So take a punt and a pint and join us at the Old Blue Last as we screen our Super Secret Special Screening at 6pm on Monday the 2nd.

We have had to skip our normal Mucky Pup evening this month in order to do the EEFF, but we'll be back there on the 6th June.

Shogun Assassin: The Shirt

2011-04-20T11:38:00.001-07:00

Look, it's even got a nifty little tag on it and everything!

We still have a few of these left and will be sorting out an online shop thing soon. But if you want one now, contact us via Facebook or twitter they are £20 each including postage.

Details:
30 hand printed shirts using discharge ink were made.
We have some Mediums, Large's and X Large's left.

Shogun Assassin: The Mix Tape

2011-04-20T10:46:00.000-07:00

Graham Murphy of Flashback Records is Cigarette Burns resident DJ. He's been working in used record shops for longer than most of us have had decent musical taste. I'm often asked what Graham played and this little number -

Became quite a little twitter hit - probably because it's FUCKING AWESOME!

So I thought it might make sense to ask him for his playlist.
We'll start with Shogun Assassin, but he's promised to put pull together the tracks from a few of the previous nights.

Acid Mothers Temple - La Novia (excerpt)

The Spacemen - Flowers of the South

The Astronauts - Banzai Pipeline

Moon Stars - Guitar Music LP Track 5, side 1

Carnabeats - Chu! Chu! Chu!

Takeshi Terauchi & the Blue Jeans - A Poor Woman Who Does Watertricks

The Whitefield Brothers - Taisho

Jean Francois Engel - Expo in Tokyo

Pierre DuTour Et Son Orchestra - Elephant Theme

Pop off Tuesday - This Old Lady 7" Version

John Cooper Clarke - Kung Fu International

Takeshi Terauchi & the Blue Jeans - Music for a Local Festival

The Golden Half - Movin'

Teddy Robbin & the Playboys - Norman's Family

Wanda Jackson - Fujiyamma Mama

The Vapors - Turning Japanese

Guitar Wolf - Red Rockabilly

Takayuki Hijikata - Magic Water

Yellow Magic Orchestra - Firecracker

Ultrafunk featuring Mr Superbad Freddie Mack - Kung Fu Man

Curtis Mayfield - Kung Fu

Fugi - Red Moon

Flower Travelling Band - Satori Part 2

Nishinihon - Super Station

Ghost - Hypnotic Underworld Part 2: Escaped and Lost Down in Medina

So there you have it.
Graham's remit is fairly simple: Keep to the film... somehow.

It's pretty simple, really.

2011-04-15T09:04:00.000-07:00

I often get asked "Are you screening it on 35mm."

In short, unless it has been stated, regularly, no.

If we had a 35mm, we'd be screaming about it, and you'd know it.

The first film we screened at the Rio Cinema was Danger: Diabolik, at the time I was super excited, and looked over the Atlantic, at the New Beverly and the Alamo Drafthouse, and what they were doing and said "We must have the 35mm of Danger: Diabolik."

I threw a bit of a fit, I'll admit it. Fortunately I knew where one was and we were able to source it without tooooo much trouble.

As the night got nearer and I was doing more research about DD, I found out that a scene was cut from the original UK prints. I started to get nervous...

We can't show a cut film! And who'd have thought DD was cut?!? Why hadn't I checked earlier!?

Well, we had the print, it was there and a test was run and the print was damaged, it showed signs of previous breaks and broke about 5 minutes into the test screening and the sound was pretty poor.

Balls!

Ok, fall back plan.

Hearts heavy with defeat, we screened the DVD.

After the screening, there wasn't a single person who complained. Fellow film geeks were stunned, the DVD looked and sounded great! Morricone wowed us with Deep Deep Down and Bava made us dizzy with his swirls and colours.

Success!

Second screening.

A big one this time, one you just don't fuck with.

Suspiria.

Right! Now. We must get the 35mm.

Ok... it's cut... hmmmm.... and every single review regarding previous screenings with this same print are dire and filled with venom....

But ho! what have we here? A gorgeous BluRay, fully remastered with love and care, over seen by the folks at Cine Excess?

Well... What choice have we got really?

We love the films we screen and we love being able to screen these films. Simple really.

Sure our whole world is becoming digitised and I hate that as much as anyone. But when the point is to share fantastic films with friends, who may or may not know them, they need to look and sound as good as they possibly can.

And it's that simple.

First port of call will always be, where is the best possible source, be it 35mm or DVD or BD.

Also, Cigarette Burns will never knowingly show a cut film.

If that means we can't show certain films, then so be it, sorry Ilsa.

That said, find me print collectors who want to show their films.

...and all I got was this t shirt.

2011-03-19T10:59:00.000-07:00

Tonight we unleash the dogs.

Well, not really dogs, more like shirts.
Not even "like" shirts, they are actual shirts.

For each film we screen at the Rio Cinema, we will release a shirt in celebration of that film.
All designs are hand illustrated by Mark Mitchell, the shirts are all hand printed with love and are strictly limited.
If they sell out on the night, that's the end of them. If there are any left over I will let people know via our twitter feed and on facebook, so get following and liking.

In honour of tonight's Ms. 45 screening, we proudly present:

White and red on black, with white and red sleeve print.
Only 30 printed, so you best make your way to the Rio if you want one.

Next month, we'll be screening Shogun Assassin... What magic will Mark bring? Only time will tell...

Ms. 45 - Monthly Film Bulletin review by Kim Newman

2011-03-12T05:53:00.000-08:00

Found, tucked in a box in Tony Paley's attic was this little gem, a cover story on the 1984 video release of our upcoming feature, Abel Ferrara's Ms. 45 - Angel of Vengeance. And so, culled from the pages of the BFI's long running Monthly Film Bulletin, since merged with Sight & Sound is Kim Newman's review:

Spoiler WARNING!

Ms. 45: Angel of Vengeance
U.S.A., 1980
Director: Abel Ferrara-

Thana, a mute girl who works as a seamstress in Manhattan's garment district, is attacked and raped by a masked thug while walking home. When she reaches her apartment, she finds it being rifled by a housebreaker who also tries to rape her. Defending herself with a paper weight and an electric iron, Thana kills him, then carves up the body and stores it in the fridge for gradual disposal. While on one of her dumping expeditions, she is accosted by a street punk whom she promptly shoots dead with the burglar's .45. Later, a pushy photographer tries to pick Thana up with hollow promises of a career in modelling, and she returns with him to his studio before shooting him. Thana's boss Albert and gay/feminist workmate Laurie become increasingly worried about her erratic behaviour and moodiness. By night, stalking the city in a whorish outfit, she continues her crusade, gunning down various sexists-a violent pimp, a kerb-crawling Arab, and a threatening street gang. While she is trying to execute a barfly who has been lamenting his wife's infidelity, Thana finds that the gun has jammed, whereupon the victim takes it from her and shoots himself. Albert prevails upon Thana to accompany him to a Halloween party, during which he intends to seduce her. He finds her gun concealed under a fancy dress nun's habit, and she shoots him. She proceeds to pick off all the men in the room, but is stopped when Laurie stabs her in the back. Unable to shoot a woman, she utters a single word ("sister") and dies.

While it is undeniably true that the splatter/nasty genre, in its treatment of female flesh as meat to be carved, tends to exhibit a particularly unpleasant brand of sadistic sexism, the form does contain possibilities for militant feminism unmatched even by the likes of A Question of Silence or Born in Flames. In I Spit on Your Grave, the leader of a gang of degenerate rapists is allowed to express to the heroine the theory that, by wantonly displaying her body, she has "asked for" her violation. His uncharacteristic intellectualising of the issue is immediately undercut by the most physical retort possible -the girl castrates him in the bath and leaves him bleeding to death. With The Driller Killer, his first feature, Abel Ferrara acknowledged the sexism of the splatter movie by explicitly avoiding it, presenting a psycho whose preferred victims were not desirable young women but undesirable old men. In Ms .45 (a film whose very title has proved too much for many audiences), Ferrara, aided by the presence of the extraordinary Zoe Tamerlis, gives a rigorously feminist reading of the always problematic revenge-for-rape genre. The film signals the seriousness with which it will tackle the subject in its treatment of the initial rapes. While the incidents are profoundly shocking, they horrify mainly because of their abruptness (at least in the currently available, slightly trimmed version) and the monstrosity of the performances. Ferrara, who appears as the first rapist under his Jimmy Laine pseudonym and pops up throughout the film in nightmare flashes as the incarnation of masculine evil, presents the two unconnected assailants as merely less restrained examples of the _ attitudes espoused, not only by the chattering street people who proposition every passing woman, but by the smooth-talking photographer, the paternally lecherous Albert, and the shoe salesman who proudly admits that he reacted to the discovery of his wife's bisexuality by strangling the cat. With such a relentless parade of unsympathetic male characters, the film has little need of explicit sexual violence to make its points. The complete absence of nudity, and the remarkably soft-pedalled violence, compare strikingly with I Spit on Your Grave-which drags out the rape sequence for over half its running time--or even with such mainstream, male-oriented versions of the same basic story as Hannie Caulder, Death Weekend and Sudden Impact.
A Polanski connection suggested by the decaying rabbit in The Driller Killer is furthered here by a few clutching hands and a body in the bath out of Repulsion, and by Tamerlis' resemblance to the Nastassia Kinski" of Tess. However, while Polanski cannot refrain from making fetishes of his striking heroines, Ferrara presents Tamerlis' Thana as a neutral figure whose power over her victims derives from her ability to inspire and then contradict their fantasies of femininity. In the case of the shoe salesman, who pours out the story of his marriage to the mute girl in a bar, the moment of Thana's failed attack on him coincides with his own dawning awareness of his shortcomings; hypnotised by her silent reproach, he acquiesces in his own execution. The usual escape clause in the genre has the raped woman turning into an avenger by assuming masculine qualities (Raquel Welch learning gunfighter skills in Hannie Caulder, Brenda Vaccaro exhibiting her un-womanly technical aptitude in Death Weekend, Sondra Locke competing with Clint Eastwood in Sudden Impact). But Ferrara has Thana become more seductively feminine in appearance as she transforms into a feminist vigilante. The reductio ad absurdum of this process-and indeed of the whole genre -finds Thana murdering such varied male stereotypes as Count Dracula, a cowboy and a drag bride, while incarnated as a furious, gun-toting nun.

KIM NEWMAN

We will be hosting a rare London screening of Ms. 45 at the Rio Cinema in Dalston on 19th March. You don't want to miss this!

(Extra thanks to Tony's lovely wife for the scans)

Equinox and beyond...

2011-03-05T10:52:00.000-08:00

What were you doing at age 17? Fast Forwarding through a VHS of Eurotrash to the saucy bits? Searching for a pub that ignored your fresh face and served you without ID? Or were you, like the makers of Equinox, applying the German holistic-art concept of gesamtkunstwerk to stop-motion animation? In 1962, accomplished pianist, student of classical literature, precocious little shit, and special effects enthusiast, David Muren joined an effects-nerd collective advertised in the back of influential American magazine Famous Monsters Of Filmland. Together with part time film journo Mark McGee and animator Dave Allen, Muren and gang experimented with various effects in their back garden for years. Honing their skills before finally deciding (via an injection of cash that was due to be spent on Mullen's education) to make the leap into making a full length feature.

Armed with a 16mm Bolex camera, a crew of friends and a script by cthulu-nut McGee they set out into the woods and over the next 2 and a half years of weekends, school holidays and light evenings, they filmed the story of a wholesome group of young kids who head out for a lovely day in the country, get given an evil book by a cackling old man (Mullen's Grandad), which then unleashes creatures from the very pits of hell. These hell-pit creatures were then constructed and lovingly animated in a makeshift studio in Mullen's dad's shed: making The Equinox... A Journey into the Supernatural, quite literally, a Backyard production.

Although intended as a way to exercise their special effects skills, and perhaps get a few bucks from a late night horror tv show, The Equinox... A Journey into the Supernatural was spotted by Jack H Harris, producer of The Blob, who saw the marketability of the kids vs. demons flick, and got his mate Jack Woods, a professional sound editor, to shoot some extra footage to pad out the film to a sell able length. He added and edited in a whole new plot line about a creepy mounted policeman, starring himself as the leering law man.
This new fuller version of the film had the title shortened to just Equinox and went on to be a success on the drive-in circuit.

While a little-watched film, Equinox's legacy is undeniable. Mullen went on to revolutionise special effects, working as visual effects supervisor on the Abyss, Terminator 2, and Jurassic Park and all pivotal films in the development of CGI, and shaping many of our childhoods, working on the visual effects for the proper Star Wars trilogy and E.T. He won 6 Oscars and is the only effects artist to have a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame. Dave Allen went on and had a career producing fantastic, and characterful, stop motion such as the little Batteries Not Included aliens, the Young Sherlock Holmes graveyard confectionery attack, the Puppet Master's puppets and the Demonic Toys. McGee carried on writing and directing genre fare such as Sorority Party Massacre II and Bad Girls From Mars.

Of the four main stars, only Frank Bonner, the slightly more devil-may-care male lead, carried on working in show business. He made himself a healthy acting career with various American TV sitcoms, including a regular gig as one of Screech's fellow teachers on Saved By The Bell: The New Class. Jack Woods went back to sound editing and ended up working on such sequels as Critters 2, Look Who's Talking Too and Naked Gun 2 1/2

But legacy: Schmagacy. Is this flick worth a watch or what?

Fuck yes.

Even if you are not charmed by the effects of yesteryear there is still tons to enjoy. The characters were obviously created by a bunch of bookish young men with little real world experience. The men in Equinox, tackle the increasingly bizarre situations with hilariously stoic good sense while the women are pretty young things who will wander off and get into trouble when there's not a man around to tell them what to do. Evil Dead fans will have a field day. With it's teenagers find necrotelecomunicony thing and unleash all manner of terrors plot, Equinox can easily be viewed as a prequel. Deadites will also see echoes of Sam Raimi's camera work in some of the scenes, most obviously in an early crucifix-related freakout scene early in the picture.

So, whether you want Evil Dead 0.5, a chance to see hoe today's top FX bods got started, or just an enjoyably clunky creature feature, Equinox will show you a good time.

Join us as we visit this classic tomorrow evening at the Mucky Pup.

Sleeping beauties

2011-02-17T09:24:00.000-08:00

"Oh my god" I gasped when I saw this.

What a fantastic shot. No clue where it originates.
Looks like a scan from a book, anyone know?

Daughters of Darkness at the Rio - 19th Feb

2011-02-14T00:06:00.001-08:00

"Silly tales of ghouls chased away by garlic, and vampires, shrinking from crosses."

We'll have none of that. No more of these middle of the road, twilight vampires, let us instead return to the classier roots: a time of manipulation and seduction, where devious villains coerced their prey, lured them, gained their trust and then devoured them. A time where respect and nobility were important parts of the dreaded Count and his mythic brethern’s lore.

These are the creatures of the night we have come to love and fear, before the 80s saw them driven to nomadic life styles, hiding by day and tearing through the American wastelands by night. Before they were forced to hunt in the cold of an Alaskan night, they were prowling the grand hotels of Europe and seducing who they could, when they could, to exist.

Which leads us to our feature presentation at the Rio Cinema on 19th February: none other than one of the most acclaimed vampire films of all time, Daughters of Darkness. Harry Kumel's masterpiece is loved by those in the know, fanatics and historians, yet largely overlooked by most.

Daughters of Darkness sees Delphine Seyrid embody, for there is no other word, the seductress Elizabeth Báthroy, the infamous Hungarian Blood Queen. Swaggering onto the scene like Marlene Dietrich, oozing power and confidence, she seduces, entraps and divides a newlywed couple, never for a second letting her eye off the prize: the gorgeous French-Canadian, Valerie.

Oh the sights she has to show her....

So join us at the Rio as we screen one of the most overlooked, and yet well respected vampire films of all time: Daughters of Darkness.

Click here for the Facebook Event Page

Fun starts around half 11 with Dee Dee's Vintage who will be sprucing up the place and invoking the spirit of Countess Báthroy with vintage wares and ambiance we will have Flashback Record's very own Graham Murphy how will be taking to the decks a comprehensive collection of suitably undead vinyl goodies to set the mood before and after the screening, the Rio's bar will remain open throughout the film and after, a brilliant night is guaranteed. All for a measly £7.50.

Click here to pre book

The Rio Cinema is mega easy to get to and from-
Buses, 38, 56, 67, 76, 243, 242, 149, plus East London Line to Dalston Junction and the Overground to Dalston Kingsland all drop you off at the Rio's doorstep and plenty of night buses back.

In space no one can hear you laugh...

2011-02-05T06:07:00.000-08:00

Star Crash has got less of a cohesive plot than a series of random happenings one after another. Luckily for us, these are really cool moments. As such, the plot is best recounted in the rushed manner of a schoolboy who’s had too much e-number-heavy fizzy pop while at the cinema.

“They’re-in-space-and-then-they-get-chased-by-the-space-police-who-are-robots-and-a-green-man-then-they-go-to-prison-and-then-they-are-rescued-by-the-space-police-who-are-now-good-and-they-go-to-fight-the-evil-king-but-they-crash-and-there’s-kung-fu-cavemen-and-giant-robots-then-they-are-in-a-giant-robot-fist-then-it-all-blows-up-and-it’s-wicked”

“Breathe, Little Billy, breathe”

Made in the post-Star Wars, sci-fi crazy, late 70s, Starcrash was conceived, written and directed by Luigi Cozzi, (who’s most noteworthy other credit is as director of the Italian language version of Godzilla, cobbled together out of the original Gojira, the Americanized Raymond Burr version and some cheaply colourized World War Two footage). Often criticised for being a cheap Star Wars rip off, Starcrash was actually written before A New Hope was released. Visionary Cozzi struggled to make a film that lived up to his original aspirations, however budgetary constraints and a constantly nagging studio demanding he “make it a bit more star warsy” was bound to lead to problems. This uphill battle was not made easier when prop failures and poorly exposed film of some of the exciting climaxes of sequences resulting in unusable and ultimately lost footage, and thus plot strands that never really pay off. However, Signore Cozzi deserves a tip of the hat in recognition of managing to piece together an thoroughly enjoyable cinematic experience from what was left.

Starring Caroline Munroe (who readers of a certain age will fondly remember as the slave-girl from 7th Voyage Of Sinbad) as the clothes-phobic intergalactic smuggler Stella Starr, Joe Spinner delivers the wide eyed pantomime villain Count Zarth An (following small parts in Taxi Driver and the first two Godfather films, he fancied a bit of proper acting) , and drunken heartthrob David Hasselhoff as the space prince.

For such rushed shambles, the production design is gorgeous. From the opening shot of a charmingly obvious miniature space ship (I’m sure I spotted some sprues from an airfix kit stuck on the side) cruising through an every-felt-tip-in-the-packet, spacescape (reputedly made by literally hanging fairy lights in front of some black cardboard, no Star Trek style poring over NASA’s star maps for these cats) to the final scenes in front of the Alien King’s snazzy throne the Italian eye for design shines through.

Special mention must be made of the score, composed and conducted by the great John Barry who sadly passed away this month. While he is quite rightly best remembered for his bombastic Bond scores and heartbreaking work on Midnight Cowboy and The Deer Hunter, he was also willing to put the graft in on less prestigious projects. Echoes of his better known work can be heard throughout, most clearly during an “entering the villain’s lair” sequence to my ears, and the whole thing sounds lovely.

Most importantly, it’s got a fist shaped space station, a comedy-accented robot, a mechanical giant with tits, and a lightsaber-wielding android tackling two bionic swordsmen. Get in touch with your inner 9 year old, load him up on cheap orangeade, and enjoy.

Float through the stars with us on Monday the 7th at the Mucky Pup More info here

London Film Nights

2011-01-21T03:40:00.000-08:00

I suppose it would be foolish not to mention the great piece Tony Paley did on London Film Nights, while certainly by no means comprehensive, solid and covering a good range of evenings.
From our friends at Filmbar70 and their classy approach to cult films to The Duke Mitchell Film Club and their treasure troves of trailers and the down right bizarre cult films to the Exploding Head Film Club and Tom's love of American Cinema, not to mention ourselves. I think Tony did a great job.
London has a near endless supply of film nights, some pop up for a few weeks and others stick around for years, but if you want to, you can catch a film and a pint almost every night of the week.

Anyway - have a read, come down to each of the nights mentioned, wander through the comments where even more are mentioned.
Film Clubs: Fancy a Cheap Night out at the Picture and a Pint?

Bronx Warriors Redux

2011-01-15T04:21:00.000-08:00

So back in October we screened Bronx Warriors and did a piece then, but there's nothing wrong with giving this epic trilogy a bit more love, is there? I think not.

Welcome to guilty pleasures. Or rather, welcome to Enzo Castellari's low grade Warriors/Escape From New York mash-up/rip off, an inspired saga of post apocalyptic New York wasteland inhabited by violent rival street gangs. At first glance, appearing for all the world like yet another Italian cash-in on the bigger and more successful American films, these three flicks are surprisingly entertaining and enjoyable. While the acting and dialogue is on par with Cannibal Ferox for the idiotic and laughably quotable, you can see just why a certain Mr. Tarantino never shuts up about this trilogy or its lovable, cheery director. The very same chap who directed the original Inglorious Bastards back in 1978. He comes across as a thoroughly likeable guy on the DVD extras in which he runs us through the film's development and legacy. Castellari remains passionate and proud of his films to this day.

Unlike the previous low grade and deceivingly titled "Vault of Horror" Vipco "Churn 'em out" VHS releases, Shameless Screen Entertainment present these for what trashy fun that they are, who for starters aren't advertising these films as anything other than the fun trash they are and have gone and put out a superb looking trilogy box set in a wonderfully skull embossed metal tin. The care and attention to detail that Shameless put into their DVD releases is a great way of introducing bizarre films such as these to an audience who would otherwise not know they existed. And as daft as this trilogy is (its pacing is at times uneven and makes no sense), it's particularly hard to dislike, especially if you're a fan of The Warriors, Mad Max or just post apocalypse films in general.
There's a tradition with most Sci-Fi films of this type, even with the more respected titles, of slapping a date on the film, in this case it's 1990. Made during the golden period of Italian exploitation films and sharing more than just a passing resemblance to Lucio Fulci's films of the early 80s, Castellari also shared producer, screen writer and apparently locations with Fulci, as there are several scenes set on the same Bronx harbour as the famous opening sequence to Fulci's Zombie, and the twin towers crop up ominously in several shots.

The story itself revolves around Anne (Stefania Girolami), a 17-year-old heiress to The Manhattan Corporation. Feeling guilty over having to inherit a morally questionable company on her 18th birthday, she flees into the lawless wasteland of The Bronx and seeks refuge with The Riders, a street gang, led by the charismatic Trash (Mark Gregory, who for some reason walks more like a horse than a man). Throw into the mix a Clockwork Orange-esque rival gang in clown paint, an insane ninja pony tailed George Eastman (of Absurd and Rabid Dogs fame) and a low key appearance from Vic Morrow as the renegade ex cop out on a manhunt and you have yourself an entertaining night of rock n roll urban hell. Though not anywhere as near as violent or brutal as you would think from the poster art or the time they were conceived, all three films pack quite a punch, and surprisingly, both sequels are fairly strong.

The New Barbarians (part 2 or part 3? Different sources say different things) was shot the same year as the first film and is intentionally silly in comparison. Taking place in 2019 where laser guns and cyber-punks roam the desert wastelands chopping each other up and doing little else. Escape From The Bronx is similar in tone to the first instalment but flies along at high speed as Trash returns alone to stop the Bronx being torn down and turned into a high tech city of the future. Apparently, Castellari felt that Mark Gregory was a bit too pudgy by this point in his career, so asked him to keep his jacket on throughout filming. Though slightly more cynical and downbeat in tone, Escape From The Bronx is a great companion piece to the first film and stays truer to its origins than the more lightweight and sci-fi tinged New Barbarians. Sadly the glowing plastic skulls that adorn the gangs' motorbikes from the first film don't make a return.

All in all solid trashy fun that, whilst not begging for THAT many repeated viewings, is a worthwhile addition to any respectable collection. Especially in this incarnation as it just looks great and feels all the more special for its almost unnecessarily deluxe treatment. Another classy job from Shameless Films.

I Spit on your Graves

2011-01-03T10:00:00.000-08:00

Back in 1978 one of the most notorious films of all time sleazed it's way onto the screens of 42nd St. Ground out in cinemas littered with popcorn, soda cups and needles, smut seekers and cinemanics alike witnessed Camille Keaton, great-niece of Buster Keaton, violated and beaten relentlessly, only to retreat to the relative safety of her cabin to emerge the ultimate rape revenge heroine.
I Spit on your Grave has, until recently been the thing of legends, the sort of film that is usually proceeded by the statement "you can't really like it, but..." It's not a film you show your girlfriend (though I did once, that was a mistake). It's a dark, filthy archival film, important in it's own way and in it's time as a slice of our grindhouse past, something we cherish, but realise that time is behind us.

Ultimately, it is a sadistic, misogynistic, hicksploitation pile of revulsion. Even the final playing out of Keaton's revenge fights to overcome the hard to stomach exhaustive brutality her original abuse.
When the remake was announced, I, among others were perplexed. How?! How could you remake the ultimate rape revenge film in today's climate? Fuck how, more to the point, why? Why would you remake what was a fairly pointless exercise in the extreme victimisation of a woman? There is no way that this remake would capture the original grot and unease, those days are gone, the grindhouse is closed.
So it was with great trepidation that any audience of knowledgeable fans would settle in for the initial screenings.

What glistened out of that projector was a slick remake, one of the best. A modernisation of what was previously an relic of time gone by. I Spit on your Grave (2010) is near perfection. If Meir Zarchi sat down to make ISoyG in today's climate, taking into account the films of the past 10 years, I'm fairly certain this is what we would end up with. It is undeniably a film of it's time, muted tones, an attractive lead, and a revenge sequence that could only exist in a post Saw world. Tamed to the point you would take your girlfriend to see it.
Did I like it? or enjoy it? I'm not sure, while I still feel it's a pointless remake of a fairly pointless original, I think that they held true to what a remake ought to be about, modernising the original. Updating it so that today's fans can enjoy the basic tenets of whatever they are revamping.

Both versions sit together and apart solidly, covering capsules of the time they were made. The updated one showing us we have weakened with age, we are less willing to abuse ourselves, our society and our world quite like we used to. Or at least that's what we'd like to believe.
I'll always prefer the original, partly because it is such a filthy and effective film that I had to spend about an hour trying to calm down the girl I was seeing. I don't see the remake ever having that power.

I Spit on your Grave is out in UK Theatres on the 21st January, take your girlfriend, it's a date movie.
Official site is here

X - Read all about it!

2010-12-04T11:25:00.000-08:00

Roger Corman, renowned producer and director has made 346 films in his 55 year career including Death Race 2000, Rock N Roll High School and this year's SyFy original Sharktopus, ever the busy bee, eh? Unlike many prolific film makers, very few of Corman's films lost any money, due in part to a brilliant eye for talent. His films have included work by Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and Jack Nicholson, albeit, while they were cheap and inexperienced. but also due to his knack of coming up with a marketable title, poster, or tag line and working backwards to make the film from there. For example, X: The Man With X-Ray Eyes (also known as simply "X") lives up to it's lurid title.

This is the story of Doctor Xavier who, with a name like that, was never going to live a normal life (X: The Contented Ear-Nose-and-Throat Specialist may not have been such a successful film), having grown bored of the visible spectrum, he develops an eye serum that will allow the user to access the entire wavelength spectrum, see the ultra violet wavelength, x-rays and beyond. When his serum kills a laboratory monkey, Doctor X, perhaps a little foolishly, blames the ape and decides that the only suitable test subject is himself. It all seems to work and X has a high old time perving through ladies' dresses. Unfortunately, he starts seeing through the fabric of reality itself, and seeing things that mortal man was not meant to see.

X, Man with the X-Ray Eyes, stars Ray Milland, proud bearer of a snake-and-skull tattoo and quickest-ever acceptor of an Academy Award (Just a quick bow before buggering off with his best actor Oscar for Lost Weekend). Perhaps a little older than any leading man you'd get today (Milland was in his late-fifties when he made this picture) he carries the picture solidly, showing the strain put on Xavier as he goes earnest professional to shrieking in the face of cosmic horror via a smirking peeping Tom. X also features legendary insult comic Don Rickles, a favourite of Frank Sinatra's, in one of his first acting roles and a cameo from a startlingly young Dick Miller (Mr. Futterman in Gremlins and that bloke what sells The Terminator his Uzi 9mm).

As is often the case with low-budget sci-fi, some of the effects are a little creaky, such as fading to a drawing from an anatomy textbook when Dr. X is peering into someone's organs, but others are so ingenious that they stand up to this day, the use of time lapse footage of a building site in reverse as X looks through it's walls being a particular favourite.

Despite being made for only $300,000 over 3 weeks, X still manages to be a very effective sci-fi chiller with some lovely 60s psychedelic imagery and a genuinely shocking finale. They don't make them like this any more.

Join us for another night of drunken silliness as we celebrate a Corman masterpiece on Monday the 6th, December at the Mucky Pup in Islington.

X: Man with the X-Ray Eyes

2010-11-30T15:35:00.000-08:00

Psychomania at the Rio Cinema

2010-11-13T03:18:00.001-08:00

WHO SAW HER DIE? - Aldo Lado 1972

2010-11-02T15:41:00.000-07:00

Another giallo unearthed by the ever reliable Shameless Screen Entertainment. Who Saw Her Die? hit screens in 1972, pre-dating Nicolas Roeg's classic Don't Look Now, but bears such an uncanny resemblance most viewers will undoubtedly think this is another in a long line of Italian rip-offs. Yet, surprisingly, that's not the case here.
A mysterious child killer hidden behind a black veil is on the loose in Venice and targets the daughter of the emotional train wreck Franco (played admirably by George Lazenby, one time James Bond stand-in) who armed with his moustache takes it upon himself to solve the crime. What follows is fairly standard Euro-thriller fare and revolves almost entirely around Franco searching for his child, however Who Saw Her Die? is rarely dull and works on quite a few different levels other than straight forward horror. As with the later and far more unsettling Night Train Murders (also available through Shameless) Aldo Lado immediately wraps the viewer in a fog of unease, made all the more dense by the haunting Ennio Morriconne score. The acting in this film is also unusually good for the genre and the creepy locations captured beautifully by scope master Franco Di Giacomo lend the film a poignant air of despair not dissimilar to Edward Woodwards lost at sea panic in Wicker Man.
So, another stellar release from Shameless. One of my favourites of their's alongside Torso and a rather haunting little film.
Now if I could only shake that slightly over-used Morricone theme song...

Psychomania at the Rio Cinema

2010-11-02T14:51:00.000-07:00

Bronx Warriors Pre Screen coverage

2010-10-26T12:05:00.000-07:00

In anticipation of our screening of Bronx Warriors on Monday the 1st, November at the Mucky Pup in Islington, we present to you a little write up -

A suspiciously well-groomed man and his leather waistcoat lead a crew of rough diamonds across near-future New York City, battling gangs with outlandish, but strict, dress codes. Meanwhile the authorities decide that a maverick sociopath is their best hope and send him into lawless near-future New York City on a rescue mission. Sound familiar? It should.
1990: The Bronx Warriors (aka 1990: I guerrieri del Bronx) is part of the proud tradition of Italian cheekily-similar-to-a-recent-blockbuster Cinema.

Back in the heady post-Jaws, pre-multiplex, late 70s/ early 80s, anything was possible. Given a low enough budget and a quick, thrifty, plagiarism-schmlagarism, approach to film-making, knocking out a film with a similar title and theme to a recent box-office smash could turn a profit. The Italians seemed particularly adept at this: Producing spurious classics such as the bogus space opera Starcrash, the Conan-a-like Gor and the Escape From New York/ The Warriors mash-up we are discussing today. Whilst primarily designed to sneak a bit of reflected publicity and dupe the occasional sucker into the wrong cinema, these pictures are more than just flim-flam. While the cinema-goer may not be watching the film he thought he was, he still expects a solid 90 minutes of entertainment. Here is where The Bronx Warriors delivers.

A well-to-do heiress runs away from her responsibilities, as the future head of an evil arms corporation, into the dark concrete jungle that is the Bronx. Now abandoned by the law and one big turf-war. Her life of privilege has left her unequipped to cope with the rigours of living in the Bronx. Luckily she wins the heart of Trash, the leader of some rough-and-tumble yet noble bikers who enjoy gang-fights and decorating their vehicles with Halloween tat, and they take on the world together. Evil Inc. cannot understand why she'd chose the free wheelin' life of an outlaw over selling arms. They send in Hammer, a particularly evil man, who, while chewing on hyper-macho tough guy dialogue, sneaks around trying to escalate the simmering tensions between the gangs into all out all-out warfare. And then it really kicks off... cue battling street-thugs, shaky alliances, betrayal, love, loss, "You fuck! It could be a pile of shit from someone's asshole!", "Shut up, fag-face" are among just some of the beautifully crude exchanges. All the while, set to a futuristic score by Walter Rizatti which mixes the usual 80s action synth score with panpipes, church organ and a choir to great effect.

The film is made up primarily of unknowns and peppered with a couple of more familiar faces. Our hero, Trash is played by Mark Watson, a man director Enzo G. Castellari spotted working out at his local gym. With the well muscled, smooth body of a Tekken character bearing the grumpy head of an teenage metal head, Mark Watson was an unusual choice to play the leader of a bunch of grizzled future-bikers (many played by genuine motorcycle gang members) and his incongruous presence adds to the fun. Brawny veteran bad-ass Fred Williamson delivers his role as Ogre, the self proclaimed King Of The Bronx (NOT the Duke Of New York, totally different), with gusto and sports the most awesome moustache in a career full of awesome moustache-having. Vic Morrow, in his last role before being tragically killed on the set of The Twilight Zone movie, takes a similarly lusty approach to the cruel, murderous, law man Hammer.

Fans of spotting the cracks in movies will have a ball with this one: including such delights as an unexplained drummer, drumming away, during a meet between rival factions, a spectacularly non-threatening tap-dance gang, and clearly visible traffic in a supposedly abandoned wasteland. Some may jeer at this film's flaws. but I ask them this: Name me a film, where when one half of a shaky alliance turned to another and said "I've got a surprise planned for you", right at the point when a betrayal would make total dramatic sense, have you been genuinely surprised by the outcome? This unashamedly exploitative movie surprised me, skip-back-a-chapter-on-the-DVD-because-I-couldn't-believe-what-I-saw surprised me.

Wilfully unoriginal, but a blast to watch, 1990: The Bronx Warriors is, to quote eccentric-cinema.com, "The fake real thing."

Buy Bronx Warriors from Shameless Screen Entertainment here
Many thanks to Shameless for allowing us to screen Bronx Warriors.

Top Six Results!!!

2010-10-26T09:56:00.000-07:00

So faced with a staggering list of lists a mate and I sat down with some ale and wine and sifted through it all.
In total, there were 87 films suggested. A few from left field and a few sure things never mentioned, and then films like The Omen only getting one mention. One of my personal favourite evil child films, next to the Children.
All seven of the Top Six films span less than a ten year period from '73 - '82, six of them are American productions, two of then have the same director, and one of them is a favourite of mine.

Tied at sixth place with 5 votes each -
1973's The Exorcist

1980's The Shining

Squeaking ahead with 7 votes for fifth place -
The gargantuan the beast that broke free in '74 - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

In forth with a fairly solid early lead with 8 votes, none other than a Cigarette Burns favourite -
Dario Argento's eye melting 1977 production: Suspiria

Our third is definitely seasonally appropriate , with 9 votes, this bomb was dropped in '78 by John Carpenter - Halloween

In second place, and a bit of a surprise to me, is George A. Romero's '78 sequel to Night of... Dawn of the Dead

An cementing, certainly his place on this list, if not in Cigarette Burns Cinema's heart forever... John "Make Them Squirm" Carpenter comes in at number one, with FIFTEEN fucking votes!!! A clear lead if there ever was one with none other than his masterpiece Cigarette Burns!!!

No, I'm kidding, but I had to didn't I?
Seriously though... John Carpenter's The Thing came in at number one with 15 solid votes-

It raged strong from the beginning, I know you could debate that it's more Sci Fi, and please do, but out of 87 films and 40 some odd horror fans, The Thing is clearly an unstoppable classic.

There you have it, definitive? No, fun? Yes.
Thanks to everyone who sent in their votes, it's greatly appreciated.
I'll do a follow up post with everyone's lists including the remaining 80 films.