Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010), directed by Jalmari Helander

Here's the Christmas entry.When you have no sense of schedule to speak of, obviously you have to keep up with the holidays. Obviously.

The Trailer
and
The Appropriate Tune: "The Night Santa Went Crazy", by Weird Al Yankovic

     For some reason it’s taken me way too long during this writing process to convey this basic concept: Christmas movies are hard to do. Or rather, they’re hard to do if you’re actually trying to make a good, as you could literally do the Scrooge McDuck-swim through the mountains and mountains of shitty Christmas movies that have amassed throughout the years. Hell, ABC Family had so many schlocky flicks in their back-catalog of made-for-TV nonsense that they started showing them before we had even hit December. Which has been increasingly baffling to me as of late, the fact that as soon as Thanksgiving is over we need to see Rob Lowe and some nameless actress find love again through the power of Christmas ad nauseum over the period of a month, not a scant 24 hours after stuffing my face with several different types of pie. There’s no need for so many movies, December is still 31 days, Christmas is still on the 25th, and yet for some unexplainable reason society (or mayhaps the Reptilians, controlling everything from their secret underground lava bunkers) has decided we need to push the issue until everyone is burnt out on holiday crap long before we even get to Christmas at all. I don’t know who has poisoned me against Rob Lowe with their cyanide candy canes, but I don’t appreciate it.

     Of course the qualifications for what makes a ‘Christmas classic’ is as subjective as any other when it comes to films, that’s a given. It’s A Wonderful Life, perhaps the most universally praised Christmas film of all time, was actually a commercial flop when it was first released, and really only came into its status through it’s continued television appearances after falling into the public domain. Nightmare Before Christmas has the artstyle going for it, at least before Hot Topic coopted it, as well as appearing during the non-hackneyed period of Tim Burton’s career. How the Grinch Stole Christmas had animation legend Chuck Jones behind it, as well as Boris Karloff’s chilling yet soothing voice in the narrator spot. Some people even consider Santa Claus Conquers the Martians to be a holiday classic, and even if I don’t really understand the thought process behind that, I can understand the unique appeal that could draw some people in. Maybe there are even people who love these greeting card vomit parties, and if those are the movies they associate with Christmas, so be it. Everyone has to hold their own opinion, after all.

     Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale is a strange case in that I didn’t think it was too bad of a film in general, but as a Christmas film it misses the mark. Coming from the frigid north that is Finland, this is another entry in the ‘holiday horror’ subgenre, joining the ranks of such films as Santa’s Slay and Jack Frost. One of the least interesting niche horror genres honestly, of which there are many, which admittedly might have biased me a bit against the film on the outset. RT at least takes the major cliche of the Christmas horror subgenre, Santa killing dudes for whatever reason, and presents it in a fairly interesting way. The jolly old elf is no mere Myers-esque serial killer this time around, but is in fact an enormous Satanic abductor of children (and also gives them toys I guess) with a taste for gingerbread. Which isn’t actually that far-fetched at all, as the concept of a monstrous Yuletide figure that punishes naughty children is quite commonplace in Scandinavian folklore, the most dour of all folklore. Those non-europeans might know the legend of the Krampus, the demonic kidnapper that consistently makes the rounds on comedy websites and quirky facebook posts, and that’s probably the closest comparison to what passes for Santa in this film. No presents this time around buddy.

     The plot of the film is nothing too daring, revolving around the classic scenario of rich asshole digging up some mysterious thing (in this case Santa and his naked bearded elves), thereby tampering with forces beyond his control. Because plot-induced stupidity is endemic to these sort of things, the only one who knows that bad stuff is going down is Pietari, the only child of a butcher/widow/reindeer hunter. When children and household appliances start to go missing, it’s up to Pietari and a trio of bearded men with hunting rifles to save the day, and also kidnap and blackmail people. I don’t want to give away too much of the plot, after all.

     While I’m not entirely sure how Scandinavian countries view the roles of children, I found myself disliking Pietari as a protagonist more and more as the film went on. Aside from his carrying around a stuffed animal, he doesn’t really behave like a child so much as he does the world-weary warrior, forming up battle strategies and forming contingencies and what have you. I can understand why they did it that way, you need somebody to be the hero and who better to combat Santa than a child, but if it’s not made somewhat believable than the entire thing falls through. Aside from maybe one or two moments of pure interaction between Pietari and his father, you’re not really given the feeling that he’s a child at all other than that Santa wants to put the hickory switch on his ass. Maybe I’m mistaken in thinking this, or I’m underestimating the relative maturity of Finnish children over those I’m familiar with, but I don’t think you should be able to replace your child character with Keanu Reeves or Bruce Willis and have virtually nothing change plotwise. It’s a B-movie sensibility in a movie that doesn’t really feel like a B-movie at all, killer Santa notwithstanding.

     For a movie about monstrous elves, this is a surprisingly bloodless movie as well. There is some violence of course, but very little of it is actually shown, the film preferring the tried-and-true ‘screaming dude offscreen’ method of insinuating gruesome death to the viewer. Something that was a big ‘fuck you’ to the audience even way back in the Trolls 2 era of horror when directors figured out it was cheaper to just say that the monster had killed somebody instead of actually showing it happen, which is what everyone paid their money towards seeing. There’s really no excuse for it this time in this era though, if your special effects budget is going to CGI then show some CGI death, throw in some more random dudes if you’re afraid the public doesn't want to see Santa killing kids, whatever you want. It’s not even that I particularly want to see Santa’s elves murdering people either, don’t get me wrong, but it removes the a lot of the danger that should be explicit in the film. Why do I really care if the elves are going after Pietari and his entourage if I don’t have any reference for what happens when things go south? It’s a flaccid sense of fear.

     All that aside, Rare Exports was not what I would call a bad movie. The folkloric Santa was a direction that could have been interesting were it explored more, and it was even funny in spots, even when it was dipping into Syfy movie territory. It’s a middle of the road sort of movie: Worth a watch if you’re interested, quirky enough to set itself apart from the crowd, but nothing to really go out of your way for. Definitely not what I would call a Christmas classic, but give it a try for yourself and see how it takes. Who knows, maybe you’ll find a new holiday tradition. Hopefully one that doesn’t involve The Hebrew Hammer, at least.

Result: Recommended

Rope (1948), directed by Alfred Hitchcock

In this entry, I say the word Hitchcock much more than is necessary or proper.

The Trailer
and
The Appropriate Tune: "Body In the Trunk", by N.O.R.E. feat. Nas

     The cold hard fact: Alfred Hitchcock was big. One could even say he was famous, holding an incredible influence on the then-adolescent art of filmmaking and a consistent commercial and critical appeal through the major part of his career, and they would be right. Much like fellow legend and frozen-pea enthusiast Orson Welles, Hitchcock helped to raise the public perception of film directors from mere names on a screen to full-fledged icons, able to match the star-power of the actors (in some cases, obviously). Unlike Welles however, Mr. Hitchcock was not an actor nor ever made an effort to be, outside of the hosting segments of his popular television show Alfred Hitchcock Presents perhaps, yet his trademark look and peculiar brand of charisma placed him firmly in the pop-culture of the mid-20th century. It’s hard to mistake a Hitchcock film: the macabre sense of humor, the witty dialogue, the masterful sense of pacing, whether it was a thriller or a comedy wasn’t really separated from the other. Vertigo, Psycho, North by Northwest, Rear Window...looking back on it now is like looking through Michael Jordan’s career in the 90s, ‘masterpieces’ in layman’s terms.

     So of course I haven’t seen any Hitchcock movies.

     Well that’s not entirely true. I had seen the beginning portions of The Birds, a pioneer in the ‘random animals attack small town’ genre (see also: Frogs, Piranha, Slugs) and probably the only good thing to come out of a portly British man chucking birds at Tippi Hedren’s face. While an interesting film, the B-movie concept done well, I never ended up finishing it for reasons that absolutely did not involve birds in any way. I didn’t really have any compulsion to watch it either, even when I had decided to get back into the watching/writing film game, just a complete lack of enthusiasm on my part to write about this film that’s had 40 years of the critical eye placed upon it (which I didn’t think about when considering Psycho or Vertigo, so maybe I have an unconscious bias against that movie for some unknown reason). To cut a short story even shorter, I decided to go with a A.H. film that’s maybe a little bit under the radar that still holds a fine reputation. Because we should always watch films based on hearsay.

     Rope starts off the proceedings with a bang, most good films often do, as within the first few minutes we seen a man get totally strangled, by a rope even. The strangled man is David, and the stranglers are Philip and Brandon (Farley Granger and John Dall, respectively), Dave’s former schoolmates and the type of well-to-do white people that only really existed in the 1940s. Philip is a little shaken up by the whole thing, but Brandon is entirely too excited, for reasons that we’ll get into a bit later down the page. They stuff Dave’s corpse into a drawer in the center of the room, placing candlesticks such upon it to keep the housekeeper from digging into and to otherwise make it more presentable. There’s to be a party you see, and Brandon has invited a plethora of interesting guests that just so happen to have a connection to David, including his relatives, his fiancee Janet Walker, his former friend and Janet’s ex-boyfriend Kenneth and Rupert Cadell (James Stewart, a recurring name in the Hitchcock filmography), their former teacher. Of course the reasonable thing would be to cancel the party so one could focus on disposing of the body, never mind not murdering anyone in the first place, but Brandon is not the type to just cancel a party on account of death. They’ll just have it in the front room. In front of the box holding their dead friend. Waiting for him to show up. What a magical night eh?

     So Rope is in essence a whodunit that’s already been solved, a one-sided murder mystery to coin a phrase. We know who killed David, and we know that Brandon and Philip are going to get their just desserts in the end, we the audience are just waiting to see it happen. Hitchcock dances around it beautifully too, drawing out the tension, dropping the hints, always keeping the partygoers on the edge of realization (and the audience on the edges of our seats). Tension is the name of the game, and a helpful portion of that is the fact that this is a ‘bottle movie’ (a movie centered entirely on one location), and the fact that it’s done in one take in one continuous shot. Although the set is fairly roomy, the fact that our attention is unceasingly connected to someone serves to make it feel a tad claustrophobic, while also keeping you on your toes waiting for any sort of slip-up by Brandon and Philip to bring the whole thing down. I’ve always believed that a director who understands how to effectively use tension is about a step away from a great film, and Hitchcock is the go-to guy for that. It’s almost like “The Tell-Tale Heart” in a way, at least in Philip’s case, who seems to be in a perpetual state of crapping his own heart out.

     What does a man do with his life that deems we to end it? Who has the right to judge over the forces of life and death, if anybody? The philosophy of Social Darwinism is the major theme of Rope, variations of which are espoused by Brandon and Rupert throughout the movie. Remember that this film was set and released in 1948, a scant three years after the end of World War II and that little campaign of genocide known as the Holocaust. While we in the present are removed from that by several decades, the idea of people spouting off quotations from Mein Kampf is similar to someone starting up an Osama Bin Laden fan club in 2004. So the moral of the story is a little transparent (you shouldn’t kill people folks), and certainly one that is incredibly easy to hamfist all up in your story, but it never really feels heavy-handed for my tastes. Plenty of that credit goes to the actors of course, particularly James Stewart and John Dall, who slip into their roles of darwinian teacher and asshole almost effortlessly. Despite the movie having the the ‘it’s a play’ feeling to it (because it was, by Patrick Hamilton), the characters feel real to me. A film done right, I guess.

     I don’t know if films by one of the most celebrated directors can count as ‘underrated’ or ‘obscure’, but if it can I’d say Rope is an obscure underrated gem. If you’re interested into getting into Hitchcock, might as well add this one to your list after you’ve gotten through the big-names. Just don’t strangle people okay? You’re not Hitler.

Result: Recommended

The Halloween Thing

Yes, I haven’t posted on this blog for a while (remember The Warriors?). Yes, lists are an overdone trick on the internet these days, what with your cracked and buzzfeeds and a whole bunch of other shit that I barely pass my radar. Seeing as it is nearing Halloween however, and the Thunderblog has a particular affinity with all things macabre and supernatural, I wanted to do something to assure people that I am in fact not dead, just so busy that I never have time to watch films. So here’s a not-quite-top 10 list of spine-chilling cinema that just might serve to make your scariest night of the year: There’s some of my favorites here, some classics, all them hopefully frightening to the core. Or at least interesting to watch.

King Thunderbird’s Long Dark Hellride of the Soul: 2013 Edition

Boo

10. The Trial (1962) - Orson Welles

Starting off on a strange note here, which is not necessarily a bad thing mind you, as this film might generally be called more a thriller than a legitimate horror film. Originally a novel by legendary author and vermin enthusiast Franz Kafka, legendary filmmaker and pie enthusiast Orson Welles tells the tale of a fine up-and-coming white collar worker who is charged with a crime he has no knowledge of and the downward spiral his life goes through as he attempts to navigate through the labyrinthine, inscrutable world of the legal system. Welles takes Kafka’s inability to cope with the lumbering monster that is governmental bureaucracy and transforms into a soul-numbing, Orwellian dystopia of a world, and his use of the film-noir style (perhaps it’s just expressionistic) infuses the world with a claustrophobic sense of disorientation. No monster required, this movie will make you afraid to get a parking ticket.

Fear: Fate, and Orson Welles boning his maid

9. Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988) - The Chiodo Brothers

A ‘classic’ of 80s campy horror flicks and featuring music by jokey punk band The Dickies (not the Dicks, to be clear), KKfOS is the only film by The Chiodo Brothers (but where would go from here anyway). Horrifying looking alien klowns have landed in smalltown USA, hungry for human flesh, and its up to our stalwart teen protagonist to save the townsfolk from hilarious doom. Pretty inventive special effects, not only for the klown’s makeup but the inventive clown-based powers they exhibit, from vicious balloon animals to cotton candy cocoons, not the standard gorehound affair but cool to see. Plus it’s about clowns, probably the most frightening thing in the world. Not person. Thing.

Fear: Clowns, Aliens, 50’s Movie cliches

8. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1978) - Tobe Hooper

A pioneer in the ‘slasher’ film genre, for better or worse depending on your views, and one of the biggest horror franchises of modern times. The standard small group of people are stranded in bumfuck nowhere (so Texas), and are brutally murdered by some horrifying weirdos, chief among them the chainsaw wielding Leatherface. Although you can feel the film’s limited budget at times, and none of the main characters are endearing enough that you ever care about, the film is still one of the scariest fucking things I’ve ever watched alone. Every single shot in the latter half of the film seems exactly the kind of experience I would describe during a bad mushroom trip, especially the couch made out of human bones, and of course the iconic soundtrack only adds to the horrific ambiance. Much like The Trial, a lot of the fear that comes through this film is the overwhelming feeling of hopelessness that hangs upon the protagonists in this dire situation. And the cannibal psychopaths, those are pretty scary too.

Fear: Texas, Cannibals, Leather goods

7. Puppet Master (1989) - David Schmoeller

It seems that most franchises, and the horror genre in particular, start off with a damn good movie with each subsequent entry declining in quality. Which makes sense, because why would you make another movie in a series if the first one didn’t do so good? Puppet Master bucks that trend entirely by starting off with a hokey film, and somehow getting progressively stupider from there. Despite that campiness, this movie frightened the hell out of me as a kid, when I happened to catch a glimpse of it when I should have been sleeping. There’s some sort of plot about Nazis and psychic investigators, but the main draw of the film are the murderous gang of puppets, each with their own unique look and abilities (like creepy midget X-men, total kid bait). Not much gore (although the stuff that’s there can get pretty gruesome) but the puppets move about well, to the point where you can get a sense of their personalities. So that’s cool. Check it out...IF YOU DARE!

FEAR: Puppets, Leeches, Nazi magic I guess?

6. Re-Animator (1985) - Stuart Gordon

A bloody adaptation of a H.P. Lovecraft short story, “Herbert West-Re-Animator”, set in the slick modern days of the 1980s. Herbert West is sociopath with a bit of a Frankenstein complex, who has maneuvered his way into the medical division Miskatonic University after experimenting on his previous professor. Herbert isn’t interested in stitches and lightning though, he’s got a magical serum that can grant life to any formerly living thing he applies it to, which turns out about as well as you might expect. Jeffrey Combs plays West, and he does a fantastic job it too, really giving a sense of unbalanced intensity to the role. The special effects are also admirably horrific as well, which is big part of what could be construed as a zombie movie, although there’s a lot more going on here than the standard zombie stuff. There’s even a bit of black humour interspersed throughout, which you probably wouldn’t expect, but it’s not unappreciated. Definitely what might be considered a ‘hidden gem’.

FEAR: Zombies, Death, Mutilation

5. Cabin in the Woods (2012) - Drew Goddard

I’m not sure how I feel about the works of Joss Whedon, but I know that almost everyone else I know is obsessed with anything he stamps his name on. Whether it’s The Avengers (which grossed like eleventy billion dollars), Firefly (the series so good it had to be cancelled, fans say), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the vampire-based high school drama that somehow didn’t have any nudity at all) or his myriad of other projects that are all supposed to be fantastic in their own special way. I’m on the fence. But I did happen to really enjoy this movie, the most recent one on the list, because as a concept it’s pretty damn interesting. In Cabin in the Woods, the horror movie cliches are actually a major plot point, rather than the dying gasp of an industry that’s run out of ideas. It’s the most ‘meta’ out of all the films on this list, which might make me biased since I love a good metafiction, but that doesn’t stop it from being an effective tool for fright when it needs to be. Plus there’s a whole bunch of violent deaths, which is really what we all want, right?

FEAR: Literally everything from all the scary movies ever

4. Carrie (1976) - Brian De Palma

The only entry on this list based on a work by Stephen King, and surprisingly not a demon possessed car to be found. Sure, there’s a new Carrie movie being kicked around somewhere, but for my money the creepiest version is going to be the original, directed by Mr. Scarface himself Brian De Palma. Sissy Spacek is the titular Carrie, a shy and misunderstood girl who goes to that one high school in every movie that’s populated by nothing but sociopathic bitches. When she gets home from being tortured at school, she’s tortured by her Jesus-freak mother, in a case where the term ‘Jesus-freak’ is based totally in fact and is actually appropriate the situation at hand. What’s a mentally unstable girl to do when she’s being tormented but develop dangerous psychokinetic powers? Perhaps this movie hits a bit close to home in post-Columbine/every other school shooting America, but De Palma builds that climax up like a goddamn pro, until you’re just counting down the seconds before Carrie finally just goes apeshit on everybody. Also John Travolta is in this movie, for some reason.

FEAR: Weird kids (this doesn’t seem right), Menstruation (even more not right), Pigs

3. The Omen (1976) - Richard Donner

Perhaps more known for the string of deaths connected to it rather than the content of the film itself, The Omen is a damn good horror film straight out of the Queen’s England. Gregory Peck, in his final film appearance, is an ambassador who (along with his then childless wife) decides to adopt a kid of their own. As it turns out, the kid might just be the Antichrist, and when he matures he’s kinda going to be the harbinger of the end of days. There’s no real monsters here, no excessive gore, just a kid who gives the evil eye and fucks people up with his Satan powers (just like they all do). This movie banks a lot of his fear in building up suspense, more a horror film of reactions than actions if you can understand my meaning, which I will admit tends to give an overall feeling of not much actually happening. Rather like an old-school horror movie, so if you’re a fan of those this might be right up your alley. Those interested in building up their horror/cult film repertoire should check it out too. It’s the only film that I know of where you see The Doctor get horribly murdered, so that’s a plus.

FEAR: Kids, The Devil, British people

2. Eraserhead (1977) - David Lynch

A film that launched the career of one of the weirdest directors in the business and one of the most successful independent films ever made, Eraserhead is some sort of odd mishmash of surrealism and German expressionism that somehow coalesces into a fascinating film. The plot, as it is, tells us about a man named Henry who accidentally impregnated a girl, and now has to take care of their illegitimate child. Their illegitimate child who looks like the most grotesquely bizarre avian human fetus that you’ll ever see in your life. Then there’s the stuff with the Lady in the Radiator, pencils, bleeding chickens, giant sperm, and a whole bunch of other stuff that makes about as much sense in context as it does outside of it. Even if there isn’t much by way of outright scares, every single moment exudes an incredibly unsettling atmosphere, that eventually it becomes emotionally exhausting. As I mentioned in some previous entries, a lot of what makes a horror movie ‘horror’ is atmosphere - building up a world that bypasses the watcher’s natural feelings of safety. Lynch is perhaps a master at creating an atmosphere through his films, partly through visuals and largely through his use of sound and music, and much of what I think makes this a scary (and effective) film is the soundtrack. If you’re planning on a weird Halloween, it might be good to have this waiting on the old TV. Really get that party started right.

FEAR: Parenting, Relationships, Freak babies

1. The Thing (1982) - John Carpenter

Tangentially based on the sci-fi classic The Thing from Another World, as well as the John Campbell novella “Who Goes There?”, The Thing is just one of several kick-ass movies in John Carpenter filmography (see also: Halloween, They Live, Escape From New York, Big Trouble in Little China). Kurt Russell, Keith David, Wilford Brimley and a couple of other folks are researchers on a remote outpost in the Arctic, probably the most remote you can possibly be. After killing a Norwegian who trying to kill a dog (the bastard), the team discover the ruined remains of the Norwegian base, and a goddamn space-ship on top of that. But if there’s a space-ship, where’s the alien? Groundbreaking special effects, great minimalist soundtrack, great acting, The Thing not only holds up as a horror film, it’s also one of my favorite movies ever. Once again, a film that makes use of tortuously long suspense (which in this case is maybe the crux of the film), but it pays off in a spectacular way. How basic a fear can you get than other people? That we can’t know what people are thinking? Fantastic. If this were a true ranked list, there’s no way it couldn’t be number one. It’s that damn good.

FEAR: Humans, Dogs, Parasites

So there you go, some frightfully good films to keep you busy on the 31st or whenever you like spooky stuff (Labor Day?). If there’s a couple of films on this list you’ve already seen, maybe all of them, I’ve done a couple of entries on some good/bad ones you can check out. Although if you’re this far, you should already have read the entries and watched those films…. Anyway, here are some extra honorable mentions:

• Vampyr (1932)
• The Golem (1915)
• The Invisible Man (1933)
• The Blob (1958)
• Zombie (1979)
• An American Werewolf in London (1981)
• Candyman (1992)
• Rabid Grannies (1988)

Happy holidays! Or not...

The Warriors (1979), directed by Walter Hill

not quite a full return, but I said I wouldn't just drop this thing didn't I?

The Trailer
and
The Appropriate Tune: "Stranded in the Jungle", by New York Dolls

     Do I tend to watch movies that fall under the ‘cult’ banner intentionally, in order to create a sort of reputation for myself? I don’t think so, or rather I choose movies to write entries based on whether they appear interesting or not, and the movies that most often catch my interest are those that tend to fall outside normal radar channels. Have I become that which is most feared in man’s world, the dreaded hipster? I don’t hate movies that are mainstream, whatever that may entail, but I know what I like and what I don’t like. I also don’t pretend to hold any great knowledge of much of anything, taking a few film classes doesn’t make you a film scholar after all, but I feel that by watching different styles and genres help to gain some sort of knowledge. Experience in the field, you know?

     Who am I defending myself against? I’m too insignificant to be hated, at least as far as I know.

     One of the biggest cult films that I had never seen (popular enough to get it’s video game at least, in the PS2 era), was The Warriors. Based on a novel by Sol Yurick, the name refers to our protagonists the Warriors, a gang of street toughs that dress like the nerdy end of the Hells Angels and operate in a distinctly empty Coney Island. The title is apparently also supposed to reference the infamous Battle of Thermopylae, in which 300 Spartan soldiers faced the Persian forces of King Xerxes, laid out for us in literal storybook form at the beginning of the film. Which is confusing, because the plot of The Warriors isn’t really that similar to that situation at all, which may potentially be spoilers, I don’t even know anymore. If anything, it much more closely resembles the Odyssey, but even that is somewhat of a stretch. Any time you start off your film by basically putting up a sign saying “THIS IS WHAT WE ARE TRYING TO DO, REMEMBER THIS?”, it seems a bit sketchy. If it is a B-movie, is it more appropriate for it not to make sense, or is it still stupid because all films are judged on particular guidelines? These are kind of questions that are raised while watching this movie, or maybe just me watching this movie, I’m not sure.

     The Warriors, known exclusively through the nine members Swan (Michael Beck), Ajax, Cleon, Snow, Cochise, Cowboy, Fox,Vermin, and Rembrandt, are invited to a gathering of all the street gangs in New York City. Said gathering has been organized by Cyrus, the prophet-like leader of the Riffs, the A-grade gang in town. In one of the two (that I know of) iconic scenes in the film, Cyrus addresses the assembled committee of various vagabonds, riffraff and scoundrels. His message is an interesting one: In terms of sheer numbers, the total population of all the major street gangs gathered there outnumber both the Mob and the NYPD combined. If, by chance, all of those aforementioned gangs were to join forces rather than engage in the petty territorial squabbles that they had been locked up in for so long, what could they accomplish? Perhaps they could take over the entire city, and no cop or mafia thug would be able to stop them. CAN YOU DIG IT?!

     Tragedy strikes, however, when Cyrus is shot and killed at the apex of his speech (the meeting was being conducted during an unarmed truce, you see), by Luther (a very Spicoli-esque David Patrick Kelly), leader of the leather-jacket clad Rogues. As you might have guessed, Luther claims that Cyrus was murdered by the Warriors, and in the aftermath there’s no way for the group to prove their innocence. The new leader of the Riffs puts out the order, he wants the Warriors brought to him dead or alive, and all the gangs of NYC have answered to his call. It’s now a mad dash back home to Coney Island for the Warriors, avoiding cops, thugs, jezebels and all sorts of city-based obstacles along the way. You’ll thrill at the intense chase scene, and be driven to the edge of your seat by the pulse-pounding other chase scene! If ever there ever a film there was that really pushed the limits of how many times you could see the main characters run around like Mystery Inc. in a particularly spooky haunted house, this would be it.

     Also they pick up a prostitute along the way, because you can’t have a movie without a romantic subplot, and New York is packed with whores. Packed.

     To be honest, this is not what I would call a good movie. For example:

•      The Gangs: It is appropriate that scene transitions in this film are marked by shifting into a comic book style (so it’s like you’re moving to the next panel, or the next page), given the fact that every single gang in The Warriors look like rejected henchmen from a Silver Age rogues gallery. Which is not a bad idea in and of itself, because seeing weirdos in facepaint dressed like the ‘29 Yankees get into street fights sounds stupid enough to be fun, but you hardly ever get to actually see these strange guys actually do anything. So what’s even the point of having them in the first place, or to have them seem so outlandish? Purely for visuals? Lame. 

• Acting: I don’t know what it is about putting some people in front of a camera that paralyzes their facial muscles while simultaneously removing all traces of inflection in their voice, but man is it ever present in this film. I know that due to budget constraints I shouldn’t really expect DeNiro levels of performance, but can anyone actually behave like a human being in this film without devolving into a cardboard cutout? Which sort of ties into my next point… 

• Characterization: As it turns out, trying to split the focus over nine ways tends to subvert attempts at character development. All of our titular Warriors are two-dimensional at best, if they even get the screen time to actually interact with each other, which makes me wonder why there needed to be so many in the first place. Swan is an untalkative stoic at the beginning of the film and doesn’t get a hint of an arc throughout the film, the same with Luther as the often seen and overdone ‘unrepentant psychopath’ archetype. These guys are all members of street gangs anyway, who am I supposed to sympathize with? The Warriors? Leaving aside the fact that one of their numbers is a bigot and an attempted rapist (he gets a large amount of dialogue as well, as if you couldn’t guess), none of the Warriors feel real. That goes for the rest of them as well. 

• Action: It’s the one thing you would expect to see in a film called “The Warriors” that’s filled with gangs, but you would be sorely disappointed, because this film is very much geared towards the ‘running the fuck away’ crowd rather than the ‘punching’ crowd. I understand what they were trying go for; the Warriors are but nine men, unarmed and under constant threat of attack, so it makes sense for them to want to avoid confrontations. That’s what they intended, but all I really felt was a profound sense of boredom. Running away in Doctor Who works because I know that it’s leading up to the Doctor pulling some pseudo-scientific thing out of his ass to win, but in The Warriors there’s no payoff. Besides, if I don’t feel anything for the characters, because the film failed in giving them engaging personalities or reasons to feel sympathy for them, why should I care? I don’t. 

• The last major point involves plot-holes, and since I try to avoid spoilers in these entries/musings, I don’t want to go much further than that. Trust me when I say that this is not the watertight script you might think it is. A subtle dig at the inherent ridiculousness of comic books? I doubt it. 

     Sometimes a movie is cult not because it’s a hidden gem, but that it is so bad that you can’t help but enjoy it. The Warriors would definitely fall into that category, but it’s the inaction that keeps it from making that leap. Check out the Cyrus speech and the Warriors chant, and you’ll get the two things about this movie that anyone remembers. Just trying to save you some time.

Result: Not Recommended

Coonskin (1975), directed by Ralph Bakshi

Moving away from hyper-violent kung-fu, movies, we're dipping into the crazy world of independent cartoons. Strap yourselves into your metaphorical chairs ladies and non-ladies.

Trailer
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Appropriate Tune: "Ghost Riders In The Sky", by Scatman Crothers

     Beginning an entry is always the hardest part of the whole thing. At first, I had hoped that over time the process of writing would become easier, words and ideas would flow much more readily, or at least smoothly. It hasn’t, I guess because in the end I’m never not going to think of myself as a useless fucking loser, so every time I see a completed entry all I’ll see is stunted, ugly horseshit. It was bad enough to chase away my few Russian readers, even though I was so happy to find out that citizens of a country I was so fascinated by were reading my puny, stupid blog. I’ve already been told that I’m expecting too much too quickly, and I admit that I am, but it’s little consolation to a man who needs to know someone gives a damn about whether he’s alive or dead. Yeah, it’s fucking stupid, who would have ever guessed?

     I have a great deal of respect for Ralph Bakshi taking animation and treating it as legitimate method of serious filmmaking, rather than the standard Disney spectacle. Despite that respect, I can’t say I’ve had a great track record with his films that I’ve seen. Fritz the Cat, the first animated movie to get an X-rating, looks great for an independent film and sounds it like it should be good but my interest in watching it always peters out around 25 minutes. American Pop is likewise an interesting premise, one that I actually got hyped for reading the little blurb that comes on internet videos nowadays, not to mention an impressive design, but overall I was disappointed in how the music was used and how it was presented in the movie (how Bob Seeger, a man whose creative peak was in the 1970s, the voice of the 1980s is beyond me). I also own The Lord of the Rings on VHS, Bakshi’s interpretation of the Tolkien fantasy epic, but I don’t really remember anything about it. I think there were dwarves and wizards in it, but don’t take my word for it.

     So with that sterling run of “interesting premise, interesting animation, poor execution”, the next logical step would obviously be to watch yet another Bakshi movie? I’ve heard good things about the post-Fritz movies he put out in the mid 70s, so I decided to bite the bullet and go for it. This time around, it’s Coonskin, released in 1975 and Bakshi’s third ever feature-length film. And we ain’t talking about raccoons or Daniel Boone this time around kiddies.

     How do I fucking write this entry? The story begins as all stories do I guess, which is vaguely. Randy (Philip Thomas), a young black man, has been imprisoned for a charge we never learn, but presumably has something to do with the melanin content of his skin. Randy, along with fellow inmate/escapee Pappy (Scat Man Crothers), manage to sneak out to the outside wall of the prison, just close enough that the guards are unable to see them as they make their rounds. The plan is to wait until night as the guards are asleep, when Randy’s friends Samson (motherfucking Barry White y’all) and the Preacher (Charles Gordone) drive up to the prison at top speed in a bad ass car, Randy and Pappy climb in, and they’re home free. When Samson and the Preacher get held up by a roadblock and take much longer than the plan called for, Randy begins to get anxious, he’s focused on getting out of prison so much that he’s ready to just run for it, which would surely mean his death to the high-powered weaponry of the guards. To distract the agitated youth from the absence of his friends, Pappy decides to tell a story of three friends, much like Randy, Samson, and the Preacher. Their names: Brother Rabbit, Brother Bear, and Preacher Fox.

     In terms of framing devices, Coonskin’s is passable if a bit vague, but the main selling point of the film is the animated portion. The story of Brother Rabbit, Brother Bear and Preacher Fox, a rags-to-riches style tale in the organized crime racket of hrlem, is done in traditional hand-drawn animation overlaid over live footage and still photography. A weird effect, probably one of the only times I’ll ever connect a movie to Pete’s Dragon, but it’s done in a way that actually gives a sense of reality to a story about anthropomorphic animals killing cops. Which seems to be a regular theme in Bakshi movies, utilizing the relative freedom of animation to show and create bizarre situations, while still keeping a sense of realism when it comes to characters and character interactions. It does get weird at times, as his films tend to do, but all the breaks seem to be either as perhaps a literal example of Pappy’s aggrandized storytelling or to illustrate Bakshi’s grander message for this film. Even when it gets weird or ‘cartoony’ though, they feel as if they have lives and goals outside of what we see in the film. Which is usual the sign of well-written characters, or at least it is to some dumb asshole like me.

     I mentioned that when referring to the title Coonskin that I wasn’t referring to raccoons or Daniel Boone, and I meant it. This might be the most openly provocative movie that I have seen in a while, and I have a fondness for Troma films, which strives to place naked breasts in every movie they make or distribute. The film hits you with it right at the start, with Scat Man Crothers, voice of the lovable characters such as Hong Kong Phooey and the Autobot Jazz, singing a song called “Ah’m a Nigger Man”. A song written by Ralph Bakshi himself, who is very much not black or African at all. Perhaps it’s because I am product of the tail-end of the 20th century, and so for me such direct racial imagery has been relegated to the horrible jokes of the distinctly southern minded people I have known in my life and the comments of any and all youtube video comments, that I was more affected by it than the audience in 1975 might have been. Scat Man puts on a fine performance though, so it’s all good.

     Coonskin is also the source for some of the most offensive visual caricatures of african-americans since the days of the minstrel show. Even though most of the of film’s characters are pretty offensive to look at, some downright gruesome (homosexuals and transvestites get it bad), none of those others tend to be as grossly stereotypical as those portraying black people. And in this case they really are black people, pitch black spindly fuckers with giant red lips, looking like someone decided to dip the Slenderman in tar or some shit. Occasionally they’re represented by animals, in the case of our protagonists, and the women look like someone glued a megaphone to their face. In general, utterly alien to what we think a human should look like, which is actually what I think Bakshi’s intention might have been all along. That there was still a great divide in the perceptions of black culture around that time, those past remnants of minstrel shows and lynchings and monkey jokes, that blacks and whites had to view themselves as wholly different and foreign to each other. I wouldn’t say that this is a film that celebrates the ‘black experience’ either, as it doesn’t try to glorify the crippling despair, poverty and racism that was/is present in Harlem and the South at the time, instead showing folks just surviving, through their wits or friendship or what have you. Which makes it more representative of the ‘black experience’ then whoever the fuck does that in their films, I suppose. Tyler Perry, maybe.

     There’s a sort of running gag in the movie where a disheveled, tiny black man is attempting to get with Miss America, a blond-haired, big breasted white woman dressed completely in red, white and blue, only to be tricked and brutally rebuffed every time. The intent of the scene is pretty on the nose, but I think the power of it lies in the fact that you see it happen, and it you get that visceral physical reaction to it happening. I think it’s the power of animation that allows us convey these messages in ways that can be be more direct, and yet because of the inherent expressionism of the genre doesn’t lose any of its artistic merit. It works for me, essentially, and if a film works for you then it has succeeded as a film.

     If you ever wanted to see the sleek, 70’s response to Song of the South, then you’ve stopped at the right place. If you’re interested in non-Disney Western animation, Ralph Bakshi is going to be the second name you’re likely going to hear after Don Bluth, this is going to be one of his works that you’re going to directed towards. It’s more than something colorful to look at, and it lends itself to analysis and introspection, so give it a watch if you like to do that sort of stuff. Then watch Mighty Mouse, because who doesn’t love Mighty Mouse?

     Nobody. I just answered my own question there. Nobody.

Result: Recommended

Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky (1991), directed by Lam Nai Choi

I watched this movie instead of Crocodile Dundee 2. Don't ask.

Trailer

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Appropriate Tune: "Prison Song #1", by System Of A Down

     “By 2001 A.D., capitalistic countries have privatized all government organizations. Prisons, like car parks, have become franchised businesses.”

     Quite a dystopian way to begin a movie, wouldn't you say?

     Ricky Ho Lik Wong (Fan Siu-Wong), 21 years old, has been sentenced to ten years in prison for manslaughter. We know little about him at first (because that’s how movies work) except that he is an orphan, a former music student, and mysteriously disappeared for two years prior to his arrest. A x-ray scan indicates that he he has six bullets lodged within his chest that he has refused to remove for some reason. Ricky is clearly an (androgynous) man of many mysteries, and also what looks like a slight uni-brow. We don’t judge.

     The prison, as can be gathered from the intro, is a horrible place, more a encampment for slaves than an institution for rehabilitation. It’s run by the equally-as-mysterious-as-Ricky-if-not-more-so Warden and his vice-warden Dan, a sadistic, snobbish, one-eyed, hook-handed bastard with a fondness for general dickery. Their rule is maintained by the Gang of Four, prisoners who are leaders of the four wings of the prison. There’s Oscar, the tattooed leader of the North Wing, Brandon the blond, needle throwing leader of the South, Tarzan, the burly leader of the East, and Rogan (Yukari Oshima), the leader of the West, overall leader of the Go4, and the most androgynous man in the film. For the (relatively) innocent prisoners, horrible death is commonplace, and misery is omnipresent. If only, they surely think, there were some kind of super badass martial artist around who wasn't a total dick. They could totally take out those 4 assholes and two superior assholes, and prison could be fun and exciting again! Except for the shower rape, of course.

     As it turns out, Ricky is a super badass martial artist, and he’s not a dick at all. With a mastery of the secret/ancient art of Qidong and a hatred for injustice so intense that the average superhero feels inadequate by comparison, Ricky is one man against an army of truncheons and guns and fists. The army better start writing up their wills, if you know what I'm sayin'...

     So ‘the lone martial artist fighting against injustice’ is not what you may call a unique plotline, seeing as it and ‘lone martial artist seeks revenge for the death of master/loved one’ comprise 90% of all martial arts film plots, so what is it that sets Riki-Oh apart from its peers? Gore. Riki-Oh is easily the most over-the-top violent martial arts movie that I have ever seen, and the extent to which these special effects are utilized remind me more of The Evil Dead or Re-Animator than Return of the Dragon or The Drunken Master. People don’t just get punched in the head, skulls are pounded in from the sheer impact of the fist, blades don’t just cut, they rip through flesh like a hot katana through butter, etc. Almost every single fight, hell, even physical interactions between characters is a explosion of blood and viscera just waiting to happen, and often does. Which sounds like it would get old, but Riki-Oh springs it on you in such unexpected ways, at the same building and building up the excess that you end up looking forward to how exactly folks are gonna get jacked up every time.

     It’s fun for the whole family.

     The excessive violence is obviously a part of what makes this film popular, but the part that drives it home is how stupid it is. Not bad stupid, of course, but pure undiluted camp, that lovely feeling that comes with people doing ridiculous things without a trace of self-awareness or irony. It’s what helps the violence turn from unsettling to hilariously cartoonish, because it’s being done by people who don’t see the question of physics that arise with a small Asian man that can karate chop human limbs off. Character development either doesn't exist or come out of nowhere, which doesn't really matter because the characters are so bizarre and exaggerated that it wouldn't really help things at all. Ricky’s backstory, which are presented in flashbacks, are such a model example of stupid things done seriously that it boggles the mind. The origin of the bullets in Ricky’s chest, which is given in the later half of the film, literally left me speechless in how ludicrously it was shown to us in the film. Eraserhead gave me a similar feeling of being unable to wrap my head around what I was seeing, but in that case it is intentionally being presented in a surrealist manner. Whereas here it was more like walking down the street and passing a woman who was walking a poodle, and that poodle was wearing trousers. No context, no warning, just a dog wearing pants for a split second and then it’s gone. That’s the easiest explanation I can come up with, which explains why I don’t explain things that often. Explain explain explain.

     Perhaps all this campy violence can be justified by mentioning that this is in fact a comic book movie, or a manga movie for all you Japanophiles out there. Yes, Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky is based on a manga by the name of Riki-Oh, created by Saruwatari Tetsuya and Masahiko Takajo and published by Shueisha in the late 80s. Although perhaps excessive by modern standards, comics about ridiculously overpowered fighters killing random bastards by the truckload in a hyper-violent fashion was actually a market in that time. Buronson’s Fist of the North Star, Hagiwara’s Bastard!!, everything about the actual story could be bonkers, as long as you had some badass fight scenes and graphic death scenes. Which I guess makes Riki-Oh accurate to the tone of the original manga, but it means that you have human beings playing crazy characters that were likely even more crazy on paper, with storylines that were likely built up for months being condensed within a 90 minute film. Which is not an uncommon thing for comic book movies, most notably previous Thunderbird entry The Crow, but is the very same reason why it’s very hard to see a good comic book movie. The Crow is, like Riki-Oh, a comic book movie that tries serious and ends up camp, but as well as from the flaws I mentioned in that entry, the direction is skewed far too much in the boring lost love subplot, and less on the crazy atmosphere and action, that it ends up evening out to a C-grade at best. Riki-Oh is an almost nonsensical train wreck that wraps right around to success, and the eventual romantic doesn't distract from the fact that you’re seeing guys getting their eyeballs knocked out of their sockets. It’s a schizophrenic gumbo that you can’t help yourself from eating, even though your brain can’t make sense of it at all.

     Yeah, I enjoyed it. If you love gore hound effects, cheesy action, grab some beer and a couple friends and spend a Friday evening with this film, and you won’t be disappointed. If you don’t have any friends, for whatever reason, you still might like this movie, but it sounds like you are probably more suited towards The Crow and leather pants. Also the music of the Smiths.

     Morrissey knows your pain, middle-class white people. Morrissey knows your pain.

Result: Recommended

Branded to Kill/Koroshi No Rakuin (1967), directed by Seijun Suzuki

This entry was inspired by me playing the game Killer7, a game made by Suda51 for the Nintendo Gamecube. Check it out if you feel like it.

The Trailer
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The Appropriate Tune: "Fashion Killa", by A$AP ROCKY

     At Haneda Airport, Goro Hanada (Joe Shishido) and his wife Mami are picked up in a cab. The driver of the cab is Kasuga, formerly one of the top 10 killers in Japan, now a disgrace and a drunk. Kasuga implores Hanada (the No. 3 killer) to help him on a particularly important job in order to restore his shattered reputation: for five million yen, ensure the safe transportation of a prominent member of the yakuza from Nagano to Sagami Beach. Out of money at the time, Hanada accepts. A simple job, and one that should be easy for one of the best assassins in the game.

     As simple as things begin, they quickly take a turn for the bizarre when Hanada meets the strange yet alluring Misako (Annu Mari). A killer must not indulge in alcohol or women, he must have no weaknesses, know neither love nor loneliness...But what happens if he does fall in love? What will it drive him to do? What happens when the No. 3 killer in Japan has to go up against No. 1, the assassin so good that no one even knows what he looks like? Nothing good for Hanada, but certainly interesting for an audience. Japanese or otherwise.

     What does it take to be a pro killer? Often we hear stories about people who return from combat who are unable to cope with the trauma, how they end up in therapy, or the streets, or dead by their own hand. What about those who didn’t? What does a person do to themselves in order to kill another person? At that moment, do they cease to think of themselves as human? We humans kill animals and plants with ease because we consider them not on our level, perhaps that we are superior. In that fashion, does a killer disconnect from his humanity in order to kill, or does he in fact place himself above humans as we do deer and cows? If certain people have the ability to kill, what is about the No.1 killer that makes him No. 1? This struggle between humanity and inhumanity, particularly in the case of Goro Hanada, seems to be one of the central themes of the film. Perhaps even the main theme.

     Wikipedia states that this is considered by some to be an ‘absurdist masterpiece’, and that it influenced John Woo and Jim Jarmusch. Absurd in this case doesn’t mean silly, but is rather a philosophy similar to that of Friedrich Nietzsche's nihilism. Unlike nihilism, which emphasizes the lack of any inherent meaning in life (nihilists don’t believe in anything, as Walter Sobchak so eloquently stated in The Big Lebowski), absurdism emphasizes the inability of man to find said meaning whether it actually exists or not, so there’s no point in trying to do so. The works of Albert Camus are considered absurdist fiction, for example.

     So is Branded to Kill absurdist? I believe so. That’s not to say that the film is illogical, that characters do things for no reason, because you can see the basic cause-and-effect. But in a way, all we really see is the cause and effect. Why people behave the way they do, for what reason do killers kill, what those victims did that warranted killing, is never touched upon. It’s frustrating perhaps, because as an audience we naturally place ourselves within Hanada’s shoes, but Hanada quickly becomes as lost and confused as we ourselves feel. Beyond his basic carnal desire however, I don’t believe we understand Hanada either. Was Seijun’s intent in this film to make this world of yakuza and hitmen familiar yet ultimately foreign to our own, assumedly normal, perceptions? Quite possibly. It was criticized by Japanese film studios that it ‘made no money and made no sense’ after all, so that doesn’t seem to far off the mark.

     Knowing that this film inspired Jim Jarmusch makes me understand him a bit better, but I still don’t care for Coffee & Cigarettes. Not enough gunfights, I guess. Check out Branded to Kill though: it’s part drama, part action, part thriller, with a soundtrack that sounds like it comes from Thelonious Monk scoring a silent movie and a place in Japanese cinema history. Plus it’s a movie that really puts you in a thinking sort of mood, if my reaction is anything to go by. And thinking about how things are and how you feel about it is good, isn’t it?

     Don’t answer that, O’Brien.

Result: Recommended