The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2015: Psycho (1960), directed by Alfred Hitchcock

There we have it folks. Another year passed and another Halloween marathon completed, though perhaps not the only thing I'll be doing for the holiday. Even though I started working on this list in the middle of summer, I still ended up getting down to the wire, which is why some of these entries might seem a bit haphazard (some movies lend themselves better to writing than others though). I don't know if that means I need to make stricter deadlines for myself or just shorter ones, but at least I didn't waste half the month before posting them, right? I think I ended up with a pretty good selection of films too, maybe a bit more outside the horror genre than last year, but I'm an eclectic man with eclectic tastes, and it's just something we all have to deal with. I hope all of you reading out there found something new to try out this Halloween, and it ends up being something you enjoy. Not love, necessarily, we all different tastes after all, but just something that you can enjoy. If these little scribblings can help you discover a movie that you'll really enjoy, something that makes you laugh or cry or think even inspires your own art, then that's more than enough for me. It might be a tall order, but I can hope.

Happy Halloween!

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune: "Psycho Killer", by Talking Heads

     Since I rarely get comments on the articles I write, I’m going to assume I being silently judged for the film i’m highlighting this time around. Judgement for waiting till now to watch Psycho, judgement for placing it at the number one position (even though the placement doesn’t really mean anything) when Vertigo placed lower on last year’s list, despite being considered one of the greatest films of all time. Continuous, constant judgement. However, if there was one director who really earned the right to be at the top of any movie Marathon, much less mine, it’s Alfred Hitchcock. Without his influence, without seminal works like North by Northwest, Vertigo, Rear Window, Rope (a personal favorite), The Birds, etc. filmmaking as we know it would not be what it is today, and that goes double for the horror/thriller genres. When people talk about auteurs, those directors of supreme creative talent and vision, they’re talking about guys like Hitchcock. I’ve discussed him several times in my reviews of Rope and Vertigo, you can go there to see even more opinions.

     While Psycho is certainly deserving of its spot in film history, being a prototype of the ‘slasher’ movie years before that subgenre really growing steam, I think the more worthy legacy of Psycho is solidifying the idea of humanity being its own monster. Prior to Psycho, a lot of your horror antagonists were fantastical beings, Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, The Thing from Beyond Space, and so on. After Psycho, the movies were darker and more ‘real’, and yet the antagonists were still fantastical. Jason Voorhees is an undead killing machine, Freddy Krueger is a dream demon, Leatherface is some sort of hyper exaggerated Ed Gein, we’re still dealing with monsters. Still in the realm of fiction. Norman Bates though? Norman Bates could be the guy behind you in line at Taco Bell, or the guy pumping your gas. Throughout your day-to-day life you could interact with dozens, maybe hundreds of people, and any one of those seemingly normal people could be a murderer or a psychopath, and go through your entire life not knowing it. In real life there’s no identifying features like aversion to garlic or silver to determine who wants to make your skin into an ipad cover, and so you watch horror movies to work out that instinctual paranoia in a safe environment. Then Psycho comes in and reminds you of that fear, and suddenly you’re out of that comfort zone that vampires and mummies had built up for you. Suddenly you can’t help but realize that you can’t really know other people the way you know yourself, and that you can never be sure what they’re thinking, or if they mean what they say. That’s why we have wars and racism and all that other horrible stuff, and that’s why Psycho is such an effective horror film. Because anybody could be a Norman Bates, and Norman Bates could be anybody.

     I’m not going to give too much away again, because I’m not really in the mood for recapping the story, but I will say that it’s not really the kind of movie you’d expect. Psycho is mainly known in pop culture for the infamous shower murder, which I think gives it the impression of being a slasher like Friday the 13th or Halloween. In fact, that scene is more like build up to the rest of the film, which is about investigating that murder and catching Bates. It’s sort of like the plot to an Columbo story, where we know who the murderer is and how they murdered the victim, and we’re just watching the character’s journey up until the point where they put it together and it all comes together. Since I’m a huge fan of Columbo, as should we all, maybe that explains some things.

     Watch Psycho, I guess is the suggestion here. There’s really not any deep philosophical arguments to be had like with Rope or Vertigo, it’s just thrills, chills and attractive women that Hitchcock probably verbally abused during filming. All in all a horror classic, prime Halloween material whether one is alone or with friends, even decades after its release. True art never really fades, even if the people in the pictures do.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2015: Rosemary's Baby (1968), directed by Roman Polanski

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune: "Devil in Disguise", by Elvis Presley

     Man, people sure are obsessed with the idea of things tempting people to worship Satan, aren’t they? Rock music makes you worship Satan, Metal music makes you worship Satan, Jazz, marijuana, alcohol, video games, comic books, movies, dancing, sex, not voting Republican, Harry Potter, Pokemon, Dungeons & Dragons, vaccinating your child from deadly infectious diseases, being an African-American president, it seems like the only way not to supposedly spend an eternity in hell is to spend your entire life in fearful prayer while living in a thatched-roof hut. And since no one has being doing that since the 16th century I guess we all better hope that Christianity isn’t real, just so we all don’t end up burning in a lake of fire. Because if you follow a belief system when an omnipotent deity gives you all free will only to punish you for-fucking-ever when you don’t follow his arbitrary set of rules, you can’t expect him to consider society’s value shifts over time.

     Sorry. I’m a little peeved about this one.

     From the late 60s to the mid 70s, three movies about Ol’ Scratch were released in theaters, and all three were enormous commercial and critical successes. Those movies were, of course, William Friedkin’s The Exorcist (Academy Award winner for Best Writing Adapted Screenplay and Best Sound Mixing, Golden Globe Award winner for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress and Best Screenplay), Richard Donner’s The Omen (Academy Award winner for Best Original Score, BAFTA Award winner for Best Supporting Actress, Golden Globe Award Winner for Best Acting Debut) and of course Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (Academy Award winner for Best Supporting Actress, Golden Globe Award winner for Best Supporting Actress), which came first in 1968. Each one featured a child, baby or older, who by some otherworldly shenanigans is connected with the Devil, a single character who knows what’s up and who none of the other characters believe, and a couple people dying due to demonic magical stuff. I guess thousands of people dying in the South Pacific made people really hungry for supernatural bullshit in their movies.

     I wish I had the time to really dig into an analysis for Rosemary’s Baby, but I’m pressed for time, so I’ll try to keep it brief: This movie pissed me off. Roman Polanski is a great director, the movie looks good, the cast does excellently, you get to see Mia Farrow’s tits, it’s a great experience at first. Once that ending came around though, and Polanski built it up a snail’s pace, I couldn’t help but feel that I sat in front of a screen for two hours for fucking nothing. Anything I could have said about the themes of the movie, of Polanski’s more avant-garde filmmaking style as compared to Friedkin and Donner, it all gets washed away because I can’t stop thinking about that fucking ending and the feeling that I wasted my time watching this when I could have been reviewing some other film for the Marathon that I might have enjoyed, like Nightcrawler or M. It’s the same kind of feeling I got from The Seduction of Dr. Fugazzi, but while that movie was pure uncut shit, Rosemary’s Baby leaves me with an overwhelming sense of frustration and disappointment that you only really get from a movie that you expected great things from. We all know what that’s like.

     Of course I’m just one guy, and Rosemary’s Baby is one of the most well-regarded films in movie history, so you should probably judge for yourself. I guess I can recommend it on a historical basis, since it’s one of the few times that a horror movie has been met with mainstream critical approval. I don’t know how many people watch movies on Halloween for their historical context though, and I don’t know how many people would sit down and watch a movie about a woman’s pregnancy anxiety with their friends. Maybe that’s what the kids do nowadays instead of buying Furby’s.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2015: The Night of the Hunter (1955), directed by Charles Laughton

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune: "Hunter", by Portishead

     In film, much like any art form, one of the most persistent debates in its history is quantity vs. quality, or whether the scarcity of an artist’s work gives it more relevancy and artistic merit than that which is more prevalent. For example, Roger Corman is the most prolific director of all time, having directed 50 feature films and produced over 400 others as well as mentoring future talents like Jack Nicholson and Martin Scorsese, yet many of those films would probably be considered bargain bin B-movies at best. John Milius, on the other hand, only directed around 8 films (though he wrote several more) in his career, and yet many of those films garnered enormous critical and commercial acclaim at the time. Does the fact that Milius made less yet more well-known films make those works more ‘artistic’ than others? Does the fact that Corman approaches filmmaking from a business standpoint, and Hollywood is indeed a business, mean his movies lack merit. These are the questions that film scholars concern themselves with, instead of making or watching movies.

     Falling on the side of the ‘quality’ argument is Charles Laughton. A star of stage & screen whose career stretched back all the way to 1928, Laughton is probably most well known for his roles as Dr. Moreau in Island of Lost Souls, Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Captain William Bligh in Mutiny on the Bounty. In 1955 however, Laughton stepped behind the camera to bring us The Night of the Hunter, starring Robert Mitchum (Cape Fear, Out of the Past) and Shelley Winters (A Place in the Sun, Lolita). Although it was to be his only directorial role, and one of the last films he’d ever work on until his death in 1962, it has since gone down as one of the greatest films of all time, even holding a spot on a list of Top 100 American Films as compiled by the BBC. Which means that there is a lot of hype going in, and that it probably shouldn’t be haphazardly reviewed for a Halloween Movie list, but I say screw it! We’re doing it live, ladies and gents.

     A long, long time ago, in those lean Depression-era years of the Ohio River Valley, Ben Harper, desperate not to see his kids grow up in the crippling poverty that he sees befall other children, murders two men in cold blood and steals a large stash of money. Before the police come to take him away, Ben hides the money somewhere near his house, and makes his son John and daughter Pearl swear never to reveal its location. The police then arrive and arrest Ben, sending him to Moundsville Penitentiary, where he is eventually executed by hanging. Despite his young age, John never reveals the location of the money, and with no other clues it eventually passes into the realm of urban legend.

     Some time later, the sleepy little Ohio Valley town is visited by a traveling preacher, known as Harry Powers, a strikingly compelling man with the words LOVE and HATE tattooed on his fingers. Powers claims to have been friends with Ben in Moundsville, and manages to charm the entire town with his holy speeches and magnetic personality, even marrying the widow Harper within the week of his visiting (marriage didn’t require a lot of thought in those days, apparently). John is the only person in town who isn’t take in by Mr. Powers, and for good reason: The marriage, the friendship with Ben, it was all a fabrication, a series of lies that Powers told in order to find the stolen money. Harry Powers isn’t even a preacher at all in fact, but is instead a con man, a violently misogynistic lunatic with a history of murdering widows and robbing them of their possessions. With the whole town against him and Powers getting more and more impatient (as well as dangerous) by the day, John and Pearl must make a desperate escape and hopefully find someone, anyone, who can help them. Like a little Stand By Me with your Shining? Try The Night of the Hunter on for size.

     Although Night of the Hunter is listed as thriller, and I’d say the first half of the film certainly feels like one, by the second half I’d almost say it turns into a fairy tale. You have the child protagonist, the evil step parent, the child going on a journey and facing hardships, which eventually leads to a happy ending (because there’s not a movie made in America that will allow a child being stabbed to death). There’s never that feeling of whimsicality that comes from fairy tales here however; though the road John and Pearl travel is extraordinary it’s still tinged with the harsh realities of the time, the poverty, violence and ignorance of Depression. Perhaps that is what marks it as part of the folklore of America though. I mean, what else is Little Orphan Annie but a fairy tale?

     I will say though, that even if Hunter is a more realistic fairy tale, there are several scenes that are strikingly picturesque, and some which seem years before their time. The scene with Powers and the widow Harper, with the way the shadows cut through the room and obscures Robert Mitchum’s face, seems more like something from a German Expressionist film than the Golden Age of Hollywood. The scene of John and Pearl’s first setting out on the Ohio River by night also feels unlike anything I’ve before in films of that era, with the night sky literally looking like how one might represent it in a picture book (or a play, which makes sense given Laughton’s background in theater). I’m reminded of both Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and Coppola’s Apocalypse Now!, but not for anything specific.

     I’ve also got to give props for the acting, which was top notch. Robert Mitchum is to Harry Powers as Mads Mikkelsen is to Hannibal Lector: Supremely calm, genial, even likable to a degree, and then a switch is flipped and you see him for the monster that he really is. Shelley Winters is great, a bit simple, but then if she’s a fairy tale parent you kind of expect it. Lillian Gish as Rachel Cooper the kindly is great. Hell, even Billy Chapin as John Harper is great, which is a nice surprise. It was a huge gamble really, because like The Goonies or Stand By Me or Monster Squad this is a movie that relies heavily on the child actors to make it work, and a whole hell of a lot of time it doesn’t at all.

     The only nit I’d have to pick with this one is that the ending is not quite the explosive finish that I was hoping for, but then that might just be my modern sensibilities triggering unfair expectations. Otherwise I’d say this was a very good film, very deserving of the praise it has earned over the years, and I’m making a recommendation to watch it. It may be a little tame compared to your typical Halloween fare, but as you might have noticed from my previous entries, I don’t necessarily think you need to watch a dude getting his arms ripped off by some hideous monster to have a good time. If I want gratuitous violence and apathetic, toxic personalities, I’ll just watch the news.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2015: Dune (1984), directed by David Lynch

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune: "Spice Up Your Life", by Spice Girls

     The word epic gets thrown around a lot these days. often by people who don’t really understand what the word actually means. ‘These french fries are epic!’, they might say, or ‘That new Taylor Swift sure was epic!’. This is, however, incorrect. Epic, or an epic as you might say, carries much more weight than some synonym for the word cool. When something is truly epic, the very earth beneath our feet changes, armies of thousands clash against each other, the sky roars with thunder at the love, the honor, the betrayal which we as the audience behold as the story plays out. The Iliad and the Odyssey were epics. Der Ring des Nibelungen was an epic. La Morte d'Arthur was an epic. J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy was an epic. Dune, Frank Herbert’s sci-fi treatise on religion, ecology, philosophy and science is also an epic, and in 1984, after Alejandro Jodorowsky’s grand vision for a film adaptation fell through (check out the documentary Jodorowsky’s Dune for more info on that), movie producer/robber baron Dino de Laurentiis brought in then hot young maverick director David Lynch (known at that point for his critically acclaimed 1980 film The Elephant Man) to try and salvage the project. The movie, unfortunately, was a money sink as well as a commercial failure, and Lynch vowed never to do anything nearly as coherent ever again. One of the most famous science-fiction stories of all time, forever associated with a 3 out of 5.

     We’re still going to talk about it though.

     Even attempting to summarize the events of Dune is a bit of a trial, but I will try to do the minimum to the best of my abilities. In the year 10,191, mankind has expanded into a vast galactic corporate state known as the CHOAM, or Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles, which is ruled by the Emperor Shaddam IV and the Great Houses, as well as the Spacing Guild (a private organization who hold the monopoly on FTL travel) and the Bene Gesserit (a sisterhood who have managed to clandestinely position themselves in various positions of influence through their unique powers of perception and persuasion). Although CHOAM is spread out over hundreds of worlds, the most important planet of them all is the desert world Arrakis, colloquially known as Dune. It is on this harsh world of Dune, where water is so scarce that the people (known as the Fremen) have to wear devices known as ‘still suits’ to save and reclaim the moisture exuded by the body and gargantuan beasts known as sandworms stalk the vast seas of sand, that melange (otherwise known as spice) is located. In fact, it is the only place in the known universe where melange exists, and it is the restorative, psychotropic and psychoactive properties of that spice which makes FTL travel possible. Without spice, CHOAM could not exist, and as such is easily the most valuable product on any world. It also makes your eyes

     Within the Great Houses, there are two which are locked in a blood feud, the dastardly Harkonnens of Geidi Prime (led by the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen) and the relatively noble Atreides of Caladan (led by Duke Leto). The Harkonnens, as we learn at the start of the book and the movie, have formulated a plot to assassinate Leto and wipe out the Atreides once and for all. By relinquishing their own claim on Arrakis, they push the Emperor to call upon Leto to take it over, which appears to be an obvious ploy given its tremendous value. Expecting an attack from a Harkonnen assassin, Leto and his staff would never expect the killer to come from a trusted adviser, something which they couldn’t plan for no matter how many guards they have. Leto would die, the House of Atreides destroyed, and the Harkonnen would then have free reign over the mining operations of Dune and all the power and influence that control of the spice trade provides. It is destined to be.

     Meanwhile, Paul Atreides, son of the Duke Leto and his royal concubine Jessica (of the Bene Gesserit), has reached the ripe old age of 15, tempered with all the Bene Gesserit teaching and Mentat (basically clairvoyant assassins/advisors) training that his family and friends can provide. He also might be the Kwisatz Haderach, the Bene Gesserit messianic figure that is meant to lead the empire into a new Golden Age, if those prophetic dreams and the gom jabbar is anything to go by. He may not want to accept the responsibility thrust upon him (and really, what heroic protagonist does?), but once his dad kicks the bucket, it will be up to him to learn the ways of the mysterious Fremen, destroy the Harkonnens, avenge his father and reclaim the throne of Arrakis once and for all. When you control the flow of spice you control the Universe, and Paul is going to own the whole damn thing.

     If you might have guessed from just that bit of exposition, this is the biggest problem with Dune: So much shit to keep track of that none of it ever really makes sense. Frank Herbert did a fantastic job of creating an entire universe, with its own unique societies and religions and political systems, and when you can sit down with the novel and absorb it at your own pace, it’s great. Expecting an audience, most of which have likely never even heard of Dune or read the book, to take it all in is unlikely at best. There is just too much floating around for an audience to keep track of, too many ideas that lose context in the transition from text to physical performance. Even with a 2+ hour run time, which I imagine wasn’t too common with sci-fi films back then, it seems like they’re both skipping out on large chunks of the story and getting way too much information thrown at your face. Unless you’re somewhat familiar with the Dune novel, which I was before watching, it’s likely the average viewer would find it a confusing, interminable slog. Which is probably why we never saw a Dune franchise pop up after this one came to theaters.

     On the other hand, aside from the original Star Wars films, I don’t think there has ever been another science fiction movie that looks quite as impressive as Dune. The sense of scale here is just absolutely fantastic; when you see a sandworm rising from the earth, it really feels like you’re seeing a creature the size of an ocean liner moving about, and when you look at the deserts of Arrakis, it really seems like this endless, stormy wasteland..The set design, costume design, character design, special effects so reminiscent of own own world yet so utterly alien at the same time. Fantastic. I don’t know how much that were holdovers from Jodorowsky’s work and how much of it was Lynch’s (the creepy worm monster that leads the Spacing Guild certainly brings to mind the infamous baby from Eraserhead) but props either way. Dune may have been a money sink, but unlike The Island of Dr. Moreau (check out the previous entry for Lost Soul), the money was put to good. The whole movie is just beautifully, magnificently extravagant in every way, and I love it for that. Almost enough to forgive it for all it’s problems story-wise, especially with Patrick ‘Jean-Luc Picard’ Stewart in the cast. I guess an debate could be made on big movies that expect too much from the audience, like Dune, versus big movies that don’t make the audience think at all, like Avengers or Jurassic World, but I’m not going to start it. I’m just in this for the spice, man.

     This might be a bit difficult to categorize for your typical Halloween movie watchers, as people expecting a sci-fi movie might be getting more than they bargained for, and people interested in David Lynch’s filmography might be disappointed to find something a bit ‘standard Hollywood’ compared to his later, more surrealistic films. However, if you don’t mind doing a bit of reading, and I’d say it’s worth reading at least the Frank Herbert Dune novels, or you’re the kind of person who likes to ride out the weirdness in movies, then I don’t see why I shouldn’t recommend it for this Halloween. Unless you’re not a fan of Sting’s bulge, in which case I’m afraid you’re pretty much out of luck.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2015: Pi (1998), directed by Darren Aronofsky

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune: "Block Rockin' Beats", by The Chemical Brothers

     A lot of the time, what truly defines a horror movie isn’t so much the scary monsters or the bloody killing that appears on screen, but the atmosphere of dread and paranoia that it creates for the atmosphere. It’s why I placed The Trial on my first ever Halloween list because I found that film truly unsettling; that feeling of stifling inevitability, that everyone is purposely keeping things from you and you have no agency, I found it incredibly uncomfortable. It’s why The Thing is one of the greatest horror films of all time, because it plays upon that inherent fear we all have of not truly knowing someone, at least not as we know ourselves. At a certain point you’ll get over seeing Dracula or Jason Vorhees, but when you bring up things that people didn’t even know they were afraid of, that’s when you’ve got something truly scary on your hands. That’s when you’ve got real fear.

     It is that feeling of paranoia that Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream, Black Swan) tries to engender in his 1998 debut feature film, Pi. In it Sean Gullette plays Max Cohen, a secretive mathematician and computer programmer who lives by himself in an small New York apartment. It is Max’s belief and life’s work that mathematics is the language of the world, and that by discovering the patterns through which the numbers express themselves, one could know about the universe. Hidden within the infinite numbers of pi could even be a way to predict the rises and falls of the stock market, to manipulate the growth and decay of entire nations. Perhaps there’s even a way in there to talk with God.

     The promises of wealth and knowledge of the universe tempt Max Cohen, and so he delves into the study of pi. It soon becomes clear, however, that the world around him seems to be changing. Suddenly, he’s starting to see the Golden Ratio in everything around him. People around him seem to be strange, even malevolent. Hallucinations. Blackouts. Migraines, brought about by staring into the sun as a child , have become cripplingly painful and seemingly incurable. Is Max ascending into some holy plain through mathematics, or is he descending into some kind of schizophrenic illusory world of conspiracies through years of isolation and drug abuse? The film, as you might expect, allows you to draw your own conclusions about that.

     In terms of tone, there are several films that I’m reminded of. La Jetee, the film that inspired Terry Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys, The Trial, Eraserhead, and in particular last year’s entry Tetsuo: The Iron Man. Although Pi isn’t nearly as insane as Tetsuo, both films have this sort of manic energy about them. Like some sort of punk reaction to French New Wave, shots are often either claustrophobic or extremely frenetic, moving from subject to subject as if to replicate Max’s own erratic mindset, and you rarely have a chance to sit and stew on things before something else pops off. Both films also feature a protagonist who is tormented by forces beyond his power, although this is expressed in different ways. In Tetsuo, the protagonist is being punished by the sins of his past, while Max (in true mad scientist fashion) is the architect of his misfortune through his reckless pursuit of pi. The film makes it fairly clear that Max is an Icarus, his arrogance dooming him from ever reaching the heavens that he grasps towards, which I suppose would make him a tragic figure if he wasn’t a paranoid nutjob trying to manipulate Wall Street. It is French New Wave though, being an asshole is expected.

     The only glaring problem I can think of is the score, which is some kind of Hi-NRG Prodigy house stuff that works great when Max is in some crazy chase but not really when he’s just sitting at the computer. Otherwise it’s a entertaining, surrealistic thriller, a nice choice to pair with The Matrix this Halloween perhaps, and an interesting glimpse at the humble beginnings of one of modern Hollywood’s premier auteur directors. It didn’t quite tap into those paranoid fear centers like The Trial or The Thing personally, but then I’ve never been that good at math.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2015: American Psycho (2000), directed by Mary Harron

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune: "Invisible Touch", by Genesis

     While the 80s may have a great time in an artistic sense, with some fantastic films, music and comics being created at the time, the decade also holds cultural significance for one other thing: Greed. The rise of corporate America on an international scale, the adoption of Objectivism and the works of Ayn Rand as a business and social philosophy, and of course the God of Neocons himself, Ronnie “Trickle-down” Reagan in the White House, it was an age of Wall Street, expensive suits, and copious amounts of cocaine. A plastic world for a plastic people. Sure, nowadays you have multinational corporations destroying the environment and attempting to force us all into some kind of neofeudalist state, but there was something new and primal about it back then that just made it more noticeable than today. Like how the Ramones are awesome and Green Day are a collection of chodes.

     It is this very same ‘plastic world’ that Bret Easton Ellis satirizes in his novel ‘American Psycho’ and which Mary Harron adapts for her 2000 film American Psycho. Then future Batman Christian Bale plays Patrick Bateman, a 27 y/o executive of mergers & acquisitions in some unnamed company at the heart of the swingin’ 80s. During the day, Bateman lives the life expected of the yuppie generation which he is a part of: Lunches at classy restaurants with his vapid, boorish ‘friends’, meaningless affairs and meaningless sex with women who he doesn’t love and who don’t love him, and harping on such topics as business cards and getting reservations. At night however, Bateman’s bottled-up rage and disgust at his fellow man manifests itself into remorseless acts of horrific violence, sexual depravity and pop song analysis. When Bateman ends up murdering a coworker (don’t take another man’s business card design), those night-time activities start creeping into his everyday life. Soon Patrick Bateman finds himself falling deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole than he ever thought possible, and that thin veneer of sanity that he maintains slowly starts to slip.

     And loving every minute of it.

     I will admit to having not read Easton Ellis’ novel prior to watching this, so I don’t know how well the adaptation is, but I found myself enjoying the movie more than I thought I would. Harron manages to paint 1980s New York as some sort of Brave New World style dystopia, where the people (yuppies, you might call) are completely surface level. Empathy ceases to exist, and social interaction becomes this sort of routine one does to keep up their image (or fuck, as the case may be) rather than as a means of connection with another human. A utterly nihilistic existence, and only our protagonist Patrick Bateman seems to recognize his own inhumanity, the meaningless nature of the world around. In a way, Bateman’s acts could be seen as not only as a shot against the personalities and people that Wall Street spawns, but also Bateman desperately trying to find purpose in an uncaring world. He murders not only as a catharsis for his normal life, but also to establish some sort of control over his environment, rather than be what another nameless cog in the corporate machine. By the end of the film, as Bateman starts losing control of the severity of his actions, I feel like Bateman actually wants to be caught, because it would be a reaction, some sign that what he was doing actually meant something to somebody. Which is something I think a lot of people can identify with, especially a loser with depression like me, although the vast majority of us choose much less violent ways to express that discontent. Listening to Huey Lewis & The News, for example.

     American Psycho has plenty of killing and sex for those who need that in their Halloween movies. Beyond that, it looks great, the soundtrack (by John Cale, former member of the Velvet Underground) is full of that synthy pop goodness, Christian Bale’s smarmy yuppie is at just the right level of exaggeration, and it’s even a bit funny in a twisted kind of way. Good movie, though maybe a bit too cerebral and morbid for a party atmosphere. If you’re watching some movies alone this Halloween, then this is one to check out.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2015: Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), directed by George Miller

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune: "Bat Out of Hell", by Meat Loaf

     Some of you who have read my reviews before, however few of you there are, may recall that I reviewed the first Mad Max film a while back and that I didn’t much care for it. That is still the case. Despite some rather interesting aesthetic choices, I found the film to be, on the whole, rather boring. Boring in the way that B-movies can often be, where there is literally nothing that tear you away from that intense lack of interest. Lackluster characters, lackluster music, lackluster cinematography and a lack of action that seems almost ridiculous considering the type of movie it purports itself to be. When you call your primary antagonist Mad Max, and you set your story in a post-apocalyptic Australia that’s run by insane gangs, it’s just wrong to pull that ‘all the action is in the last 30 minutes’ bullshit that so many movies end up doing. Yes, you want to build towards an exciting climax, but (and I think I’ve said this before) if you don’t care about the characters then you’re not going to care about what happens to them. No matter how bloody or action-packed it may be.

     Cut to 2015, a full 30 years after the last Mad Max film (Beyond Thunderdome, for those curious), and director George Miller has finally released the fourth film in the series, Fury Road. In it, the titular Max (played here by Tom Hardy is enslaved and made into a living blood bank by a gang of pale, warlike zealots known as the War Boys, lead by their God Emperor Immortan Joe. When one of the War Boy’s most trusted warriors, Imperator Furiosa (played by Charlize Theron) rescues Immortan’s harem under the pretext of a raid, the entire force of the War Boys is sent after her, Max unwillingly included. When Max eventually escapes, because it wouldn’t be much of a movie if he didn’t, he and Furiosa form a tentative truce to save the girls, save themselves, and reach that sanctuary that all post-apocalyptic worlds must have. With Immortan Joe right behind them however, it’s going to be one rough ride.

     To put it simply, Mad Max: Fury Road is one of, if not the best modern action film I’ve seen to date. Every bit of potential I saw in the original Mad Max; the cool car chases, the punk aesthetic, the post-apocalyptic Lord of the Flies-meets-The Warriors type world Miller has thought up is all there, and even more insane than I thought it was going to be going into it. The popular sentiment from reviews at the time was that the film was like ‘one long car chase’, and that’s not too far from the truth. The film is utterly relentless, constantly pushing you, constantly throwing new things,new explosions, into the mix, and yet it never really feels overwhelming and never loses sight of what it’s going for. Not that it’s some grand epic mind you, but through that constant action, that constant suspense of wondering what’ could possibly come next, Miller made me feel attached to these characters in a way that I never felt in Dark Knight Rises or Avengers or Guardians of the Galaxy or Godzilla, at least to the same degree. I may not remember most of their names, but I still cared.

     Really, the only negative I can think of at the moment is that for a film called Mad Max, Mad Max feels rather ancillary to the whole thing. In fact, I don’t think he even speaks in complete sentences for at least thirty minutes after his opening monologue. Really, it terms of motivation, character arc, and general screentime, Furiosa has a much stronger claim to the protagonist title than the guy the film is named after. However, it’s not like Max isn’t a badass in this movie, and Furiosa is a total badass, so really you’re getting two badasses in a movie that’s already completely fucking awesome, so it never really felt like such a big deal to me. So really, at the moment of writing, I can’t think of anything wrong with Fury Road. I went in with no real expectations, maybe even slightly lowered expectations given my experience with the first Mad Max and my pessimistic attitude towards modern cinema, and it satisfied on pretty much every level. Damn good piece of film, really hope Hollywood doesn’t find some way to fuck it up.

     And since post-apocalyptic stories are a subgenre of science fiction, I have no problem with throwing high recommendations on Fury Road for this Halloween. The only way I can imagine this movie being better is if you were jacked up on candy and beer with your friends while watching it, so (if you’re of legal age) that’s what I would suggest. You’ll live, you’ll die, and then maybe, just maybe, you’ll live again.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2015: A Scanner Darkly (2006), directed by Richard Linklater

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune: "Ain't It Funny", by Danny Brown

     Philip K. Dick. In the world of science fiction literature there are few names which carry the same level of respect outside of that specific genre. From his first work written in 1950 up until his last in 1982, Dick, in the tradition of H.G. Wells and H.P. Lovecraft before him, helped to capture the unique nature of the society and channel it in new and interesting ways. Questions of identity and the role of the individual, the increasing power of faceless corporations and the rise of the military industrial complex in the wake of the first major American/Soviet conflict or what you M*A*S*H fans might know as the Korean War, all of these (including his increasingly deteriorating mental state in later years, as a result of an untreated mental illness) helped to inform Dick’s distinct view on life and thus his writing. To some critics it might be considered exercises in paranoia, a latent schizophrenic managing to maintain his increasingly erratic thoughts long enough to bang out some stories. But to those who are receptive to it, myself included, his stories are filled with fascinating ideas and chilling possibilities for mankind, even if they leaned more towards the speculative rather than the scientific.

     There have been a number of films based on works by Philip K. Dick: Blade Runner (directed by Ridley Scott), Total Recall (helmed by Robocop director Paul Verhoeven, later remade in a lackluster 2012 effort by Len Wiseman), Minority Report (directed by Steven Spielberg) and of course A Scanner Darkly, directed by Richard Linklater, whose film Bernie appeared in last year’s Marathon. Notable at the time for it’s all-star cast, including Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, Robert Downey Jr. and Woody Harrelson, and its distinctive art style. Seven years from now, in Anaheim, California, the city, and perhaps the entire country, is being racked by illegal narcotics, the deadliest and most prolific of which is known as Substance D. To combat this ever-growing threat, the Orange County Police Department have become an entity unto itself, with narcotics agents, aka ‘scanners’, so deep undercover that they don’t even know who each other are, due to the ‘scramble suits’ they wear, which completely obfuscates their appearance. However, what happens when the person you’ve been assigned to monitor is yourself? What happens when you’ve taken so much Substance D you’re not even sure who the real ‘you’ is meant to be? Such is the case with ‘Fred’, also known as Bob Arctor, who finds himself pulled into a mind-bending conspiracy where, to abuse a cliche, nothing is as it seems. Especially the aphids.

     I guess if I were to say anything negative about A Scanner Darkly, it’s that during the second half, when things are falling into place, it feels like the movie hits a wall and then you’re just waiting to see things play out. In that, I think the original story probably does it better. Other than that, I think Linklater manages to capture that near nihilistic, end-with-a-twist-and-leave-’em-thinking kind of science fiction that writers like Harlan Ellison, Ray Bradbury and of course Philip K. Dick were known for and adapting it film just as well if not better than Verhoeven or Truffaut managed to do, although personally I can’t help but feel the ‘age’ of the material despite a modern sheen . The cast really work off each other well, RDJ and Harrelson in particular really carry those scenes in the first half, although you could argue whether Keanu’s ‘Keanu-ness’ is a low point or an effective performance of a perpetual burnout. The animation style could be seen as a gimmick at first, but on the other hand it is an effective way to not only give the audience the feel of heightened reality but also to easily convey concepts like the scramble suit and Arctor’s hallucinations. Overall, and I don’t mean to sound insulting, but it’s a really firm B movie for me. It looks interesting, I like the concept and some of the characters, but as a whole I think it never really grabbed me like Blade Runner grabbed me, or entertained me like Total Recall entertained me. Maybe on a second viewing or after reading the original work I’d feel differently, but first impressions wise I’d say it falls short of a must watch, unless you love the work of Richard Linklater/Philip K. Dick, in which case you were going to watch it anyway. Even if it’s not a must-watch though, it’s still a good movie, so I have no issue with recommending it this Halloween.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2015: The Dark Crystal (1982), directed by Jim Henson & Frank Oz

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune: "The Dark Crystal Overture", by Trevor Jones

     What with all the science fiction movies I tend to highlight, both in the Marathon and otherwise, you might think I have a problem with it’s sister genre fantasy. It’s true that I’m generally not a fantasy guy, but it doesn’t mean I’m unfamiliar with it. I’ve read Lord of the Rings, Earthsea, The Black Cauldron, Dragonriders of Pern, and even modern fantasy stories like Harry Potter and the Dresden Files. So I know all about high elves, low dwarves and middle men, all right? The ways of wizardry are not foreign to me. I just prefer science fiction, and since sci-fi and horror tend to be so closely linked, that’s usually where my loyalties lie. 

     The 1980s, aside from being a great time for sci-fi movies, was also pretty awesome for fantasy movies too. The Princess Bride, Legend, Willow, Labyrinth, Conan the Barbarian..if you could dress up a few dudes in robes and swords, rotoscope some lightning effects and film it in the woods or some dank ass castle, then you had a fantasy film on your hands. The sky was the limit really, because at the time investing in a movie didn’t run the risk of bankrupting the entire film industry. Want to do some Lord of the Rings ripoff? Go ahead. Want to do a mind-bending child’s dream like Time Bandits? Why not? Throw as much crap on the wall and see what sticks. Hollywood gets some breathing and keep that hunger for improvement and we, the consumers, get a variety of things to choose from. Which is exactly what I like, and it’s what’s best for business in my opinion.

     Case in point: The Dark Crystal, the brainchild of Jim Henson, who you might recognize as the guy responsible for the Muppets and Sesame Street, otherwise known as the foundations of your educational development. Here we an example of high fantasy at its most blatant: a fantastical world filled with inhuman creatures (including the short unassuming creatures that you would never expect to be the heroes that turn out to be the heroes), some kind of mystical MacGuffin that somehow keeps the world from shitting itself that the hero must journey to find, and the horrible evil force that would be the obstacles for our hero to overcome (in this case the Skeksis, the despicable vulture-like counterparts to the wise and noble Mystics). Pretty basic stuff really, except every single character, every single creature in fact, is a puppet. Which may not seem like a big deal, in this world of computer generated images, but it’s really only a film that could have been made then. No studio in Hollywood today would even consider throwing money at a movie that features no actual humans in it, and certainly not enough to really do it justice. In the wild & wonderful 80s however, it was totally possible, and it looks pretty damn impressive. Not perfect, Jen and Kira in particular seem rather unexpressive compared to the rest of the cast, but still a level of craft that defines why Jim Henson, Frank Oz and the rest are considered masters of their craft.

     If you were a kid who grew up with the fantasy movies of the past, like The Neverending Story, The Black Cauldron or even the Bakshi Lord of the Rings and you haven’t seen it already, then you should place it on your queue. If you’ve got kids (very kid-friendly Marathon this year, I guess), then this is prime material for expanding their horizons. And if you don’t fit either category, watch it anyway. It’s really cool.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2015: The Castle of Cagliostro (1979), directed by Hayao Miyazaki

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune: "Lupin III", by Yuji Ohno

     When it comes to animation, few names entail a level of respect and admiration like Hayao Miyazaki. In a market dominated by Disney and Dreamwork’s forever war, the work of Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli have been the outlier, one of the few to chip away at the saccharine stigma the U.S. has when it comes to animation, like his peers Don Bluth and Ralph Bakshi. Even more noteworthy, he is the only director of anime (or anime movies, to stop any naysayers) to hold any sort of regard in America. People who have never watched anime, maybe even shit talk it when asked, will often give a pass to Miyazaki’s films. That’s power my friends, more than any one of your Dragon Balls or Narutos.

     While he is generally known for his original works, like Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro, Miyazaki’s first major work was actually an adaptation of the popular Japanese comic Lupin III, which in anime terms generally means using the characters in original stories rather than taking something from the comics. Created by mangaka Monkey Punch in 1967 for the magazine Weekly Manga Action, Lupin III detailed the adventures of the titular character, Arsene Lupin III, the cocky, perverted descendant of the master thief Arsene Lupin (the French equivalent of Sherlock Holmes, sort of a proto-pulp hero). Alongside his team of reprobates: eagle eyed marksman Jigen, master swordsman Goemon and femme fatale Fujiko Mine, Lupin frequently engages in acts of high risk, high reward and high profile theft and espionage, always one step ahead of his arch-nemesis, Interpol Officer Zenigata. Manga gave way to a popular anime series, which eventually transitioned into a full-blown franchise with several films and OVAs to its credit. What Lupin eventually became may not exactly resemble Monkey Punch’s original series, but he’s still pretty awesome, and he’s carved himself a nice place in pop culture to boot. Japan’s very own crazy James Bond.

     The Castle of Cagliostro, though not an ‘original’ story, still carries that distinctive Miyazaki flair that we would come to know and love from his later films. While on a visit to the Duchy of Cagliostro, a tiny nation known in criminal circles as the counterfeiting capital of the world, Lupin and Jigen come to the aid of a runaway bride, on the run from shadowy goons. The bride, as it turns out, is Lady Clarice, the last surviving member of the royal family, and the goons are employed by the Count of Cagliostro, the current regent and huge asshole. Seems that there is a secret treasure connected to the royal rings, and by marrying Lady Clarice the Count gets to solidify his rule and get access to the treasure. It’s a job with little to gain and much to lose, considering the death traps, security systems and ninja guards, but the master thief just can’t sit idly by while there is a lady in need, can he? Add to that a chance to depose the ruler of a sovereign nation and create an international incident, and it’s like icing on the cake. Go big or go home, it’s the Lupin way.

     I don’t know what it is with Miyazaki’s films, but they always fill me with a sense of nostalgia. It’s the same with Cagliostro. It’s not about the bittersweet process of growing up like Kiki’s Delivery Service or Totoro, and yet in a way it kind of is. By 1979 Lupin the Third, Jigen and the others had already existed for over 10 years, characters which to a lot of people embodied the fun and seemingly endless days of their childhood. By taking those characters and placing them in a classic archetypal framework, the hero rescuing a princess from an evil ruler, Miyazaki is telling the audience a modern day fable, substituting characters like Robin Hood or Lancelot with Lupin and Jigen. It gives the film a timeless quality, and it imbues the characters with this sense of magic, this wonder that so often seems to leave us as we grow older. Yet that magic, the unshakeable belief that Lupin will always get away, that Zenigata will always chase him, it’s...comforting, I guess is the way to describe it. Comforting to think that, like with Indiana Jones or the original Star Wars, the world was this amazing exciting place, and that heroes really did exist and adventure was always around the corner. That’s the world I want to live in, and that’s the world that has been taken from me over the years, to be replaced with this ugly cancerous cynicism about politics and the environment and life. I hate it, I honestly fucking hate it. But when I watch this movie, when I watch any Miyazaki movie, I get to remember what it was like, and live in that moment for a while.

     Halloween is a holiday all about remembering that feeling, I think. Like the rest of these movies though, it’s just an excuse to watch something I haven’t seen, so decide for yourself whether it fits your criteria. Either way, it’s recommended.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2015: Pitch Black (2000), directed by David Twohy

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune: "When The Lights Go Out", by Naked Eyes

     What would happen if you took a little bit of Alien, a splash of The Descent, a pinch of Cube and threw in a (at the time) B-grade actor in the lead role? Why you’d get Pitch Black of course, produced by Interscope Communications and Polygram Filmed Entertainment and starring Vin Diesel as the gruff anti-hero Riddick. This was the starting point of the Riddick franchise actually, which spawned three sequels and at least one video game, Escape from Butcher Bay, the quality of which may vary depending on who you ask. Considering the amount of money he makes on each Fast & Furious movie, he can probably afford to do whatever fucking movie he wants.

     When a routine space transport ends in an emergency crash landing, a motley crew of survivors are stranded on a desert world, a harsh planet where its three suns keep it locked in perpetual day. Even worse, one of the survivors is Riddick, a known murderer who was being transferred to the authorities before the crash. Even more worse, it seems that there is life on this planet, life that shuns the light but has a taste for human flesh in all its forms. And the worst news of all? The planet is right on the verge of its months long eclipse cycle. It’s about to get real dark real quick, and this ragtag bunch of misfits are going to have to work together in order to make it off this planet alive. Of course this is a horror movie, so you know some gorey death is coming.

     Once again, not a movie that really blows me away story. You’ve seen the same setup and the same archetypes (in some situations, maybe even the same setups) in any syfy TV movie that you’ve ever seen, though I don’t know why you would. Most of the selling point comes in the artistic design/special effects and in the character of Riddick, who was apparently popular enough to warrant a franchise built from him. Pitch Black does look good, in a dirty Star Wars/Firefly kind of way, and Riddick is the gruff Wolverine style antihero that teenage boys froth at the mouth over, so I can see where the cult following comes from. It’s not mindblowing in any way, but it is an entertaining film with a cool concept, and that’s what Halloween is all about. Recommended.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2015: The Matrix (1999), directed by The Wachowskis

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune: "Firestarter", by The Prodigy

     Although time, a series of disappointing sequels and whatever the Wachowski’s were smoking when they made Jupiter Ascending has diminished its legacy somewhat, one cannot overstate the importance The Matrix had on the film industry. Just as Star Wars and Raiders reinvented the adventure movie, and Alien and Blade Runner redefined science fiction, it was The Matrix that really informed how action movies were made afterward. If you ever got annoyed of the preponderance of white guy karate or unnecessary slow motion (looking at you Watchmen, you piece of shit) in today’s action films, a little of the blame has to go to the Wachowskis, but at the time it was revolutionary. Huge martial arts fights straight out of your favorite animes, mind-bending special effects, and a concept that instantly grabbed the minds of the moviegoing audience, paranoid schizophrenic and otherwise. Cyberpunk may have already been an established literary genre, and cyberpunk stories may have already been adapted to film before, but when The Matrix came along, with it’s level of scale and technical polish, it was the only girl in the room. And this lady loves black leather.

     That being said, this is a movie that lives and dies by its action scenes. While the concept of the Matrix, that life as we know it is actually a computer simulation run by an advanced A.I. that almost all of humanity is trapped in, is fantastic and raises a lot of question about the nature of perception, the given purpose for the Matrix’s existence is rather silly and the story seems more interested in trying to replicate Star Wars’ quasi-mystical horseshit in a medium that doesn’t really need it. The characters are forgettable at best (aside from Laurence Fishburne and Hugo Weaving, who really bring it home), especially Keanu ‘Am I Watching Techno-Jesus or the Board He Was Nailed To’ Reeves, who seems to be taking the approach that you’ll never be able to tell who’s a human and who’s a machine when he’s around. A distinction which seems to revolve around constantly dropping koans like we’re a fucking Shaolin temple. Yes Matrix, we get it: they’re big into prophecies and mess with reality all the time, and so you expect a bit of ‘these characters know what’s up but can’t just say it for whatever reason’, but does the dialogue have to constantly dip into this vague nonsense that tries to sound deep in the moment but isn’t saying anything at all? Maybe if I felt Neo were absorbing this information, learning from it like some cyber-bodhisattva and gradually getting better, but Neo seems even more clueless than we are, and his sudden ascension to computer god in the third act seems like a leap considering he was some Office Space desk jockey living in a pod a day ago. It seems like something that would really grab you when you were an impressionable teen (which I wasn’t at the time of release), but once you get older you really notice the plasticity of the whole thing.

     That also being said, a lot of those problems can be forgiven due to the sheer fact that this movie is exciting. Not just with the slo-mo and dodging bullet stuff, your mileage may vary on that, but every fight scene, every shoot-out, every chase seems to radiate this frenetic energy that draws you into the action, which seems like another facet of The Matrix that has wormed its way into modern filmmaking. Say what you will about the plot of any Wachowski product, as I demonstrated earlier they’re not story-driven directors, but in terms of visuals and artistic design they’re definitely above the norm. You may not get why the machines keep people in pods or why Cipher is a total shitlord, but to see it play out (especially on a big screen) is fascinating.to behold.

     Like drinking a glass of expensive scotch, it’s a totally smooth.experience.

     Which is why I recommend watching The Matrix at least once, if you’re a fan of action films or science fiction, likely a large crossover appeal. As ridiculous as it can be and essentially is, it’s nevertheless a cool movie. Dare I say it, a fun movie, one to drink a cold beer to with a selection of friends and loved ones. So I have no problem recommending it to you this Halloween, where that situation is very likely to play out. I’d avoid it if there are kids around however, that cyber-silverfish scene freaked me the fuck out back then.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2015: The Rocketeer (1991), directed by Joe Johnston

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune: "Rocket Man (I Think It's Going To Be A Long, Long Time)", by Elton John

     This might be surprising to some of you movie fans out there, but there was a time when comic book movies existed that weren’t connected to Marvel or DC at all. It’s true, after the explosive success of Tim Burton’s Batman in 1989 showed Hollywood that maybe there was some money to be made in these funny book things, suddenly we started seeing more and more of them popping up in movie theaters. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Crow, Spawn, Men in Black, The Mask, Guyver, The Shadow and later on movies like Hellboy and From Hell, a sizable portion of comic book adaptations from less mainstream sources, while DC was running the Bat gauntlet and Marvel was tossing properties off the boat in a desperate attempt to stave off bankruptcy. Some of them may not be well-regarded these days, hell most people probably don’t even realize some of these films were comics at all, and only a couple could be said to have earned enough money to be considered successful, but the fact that they were made at all is a testament to corporate Hollywood’s drunken stumbling towards the next big thing actually working out for the better.

     In the early 90s Disney was looking to get some of that sweet dosh as well, and to that end they optioned the rights for and subsequently released The Rocketeer, based on the indie comic by Dave Stephens. A golden age adventure taking cues from the Commando Cody film serials of the early 50s, Doc Savage, and proto-dieselpunk sensibilities, The Rocketeer centers around the life of Cliff Secord, a down on his luck (yet with movie star good looks) stunt pilot that comes across a jet pack developed by aviation mogul Howard Hughes. What seems to be a boon to Secord and his ragtag airfield soon proves to be a burden, as the mob (under orders from famous actor Neville Sinclair, played by Timothy ‘Muh-Fuckin’ 007’ Dalton) threaten to tear apart his life and that of his naive actress girlfriend Jenny (Jennifer Connelly). Seems that this town is in need of a hero, and with the aid of Howard Hughes’ jet pack and a fancy new costume, Cliff Secord just might be that hero. He might just be...The Rocketeer. Coming this summer.

     Plus this is a movie set during WW2, so you know what fascistic military force is going to make an appearance.

     The Rocketeer doesn’t really make any turns you don’t expect, and being a movie with the Disney label on it, you can’t really expect it to move far beyond that ‘fun for the whole family’ labeling, but as these things go it’s a decent action/adventure movie. Personally I have a fondness for those movies that kind of idealize and even cartoonize that era of American history, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Dick Tracy, etc., and Rocketeer manages to scratch that art deco itch for mobsters and Ford Packards while managing to be entertaining throughout. It could have leaned a bit more heavily into the action and Rocketeering side of things, there’s a lot more talking about the jet pack than actually using it for my liking, but it is what it is. I’m sure some of you out there have kids, so if you need a movie this Halloween that’s not spooky but still has the essence of sci-fi and nerdiness that has come to define the holiday, pop in The Rocketeer and see how it goes. Who knows, you might plant the seed of nerd in their heads on the spot.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2015: The Babadook (2014), directed by Jennifer Kent

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune: "I'm Your Boogie Man", by KC and the Sunshine Band

     When you’re a single mother suffering from PTSD with an annoying brat of a kid living in a world where most people you know treat you like shit, how could life possibly get any worse? That’s easy, by throwing in some murderous supernatural creature of course! Which is exactly what we get with The Babadook here. The Babadook being some sort of insectoid boogeyman that comes from a storybook that apparently possesses parents and compels them to murder their children, I guess? It’s both simplistic and very vague on that front.

     I’m sorry folks, I really can’t bring myself to write about this one. I’ll admit, it does get a bit creepy by the midway point, and the overall concept (a twist on The Omen and The Exorcist where it’s the parent in trouble rather than the child) is interesting, movie really killed off any enthusiasm I had to write an article. I couldn’t stand the mother character, I couldn’t stand the screaming ADD-addled child character, I couldn’t stand the bitchy sister that exists for maybe 10 minutes, or really any other character in the film, which is a problem in a genre built on empathizing with character’s plights. The pacing seemed way too frenetic, like the director had to hard cut before we lingered on any one scene to much and any emotional resonance was formed. Not that it ends on a satisfying note anyway, or a way that’s even coherent, so I guess that doesn’t matter. Is it real? Is it a dream? Who gives a shit, it’s Babadook.

     I’ll come out and say that I’ve never really cared for modern horror movies, and maybe I was spoiled on enjoying it by the hype disease, so it could be that I’m coming from a place of bias. I dunno. Like I said before though, there is some good bits of tension and creepiness around the midway point, so those of you who haven’t been poisoned by hype will probably find something worthwhile here. It’s on netflix as of this writing, so if you’re one of those people who love to binge watch things on streaming platforms, you might try throwing this on your schedule. It’s better than reading a book.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2015: Dredd (2012), directed by Pete Travis

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune: "I Am The Law", by Anthrax

     When people think about comics, they’ll generally think of DC/Marvel, or occasionally a manga series like One Piece and Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. It makes sense - after all, the U.S. is currently in the grips of a multi-billion dollar Superhero Franchise War, and manga, while perhaps not as strong as it once was, is still a popular niche market. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if most people didn’t know the rest of the world even had comics, let alone its own unique and interesting superheroes and franchises. Did people watching that Tintin movie a few years realize it’s an extremely popular series from Belgium? Or that the Smurfs, which Hollywood recently exploited for a quick buck, was also of Belgian origin? We’d be surprised at just how global our lives really are nowadays, if we bothered to pay attention.

     In the U.K., some of the most well-respected comics in the country (and the world, if you’re one of those people who give a shit about comics) come from a science fiction anthology comic called 2000 AD. Founded on Feb. 26, 1977, collective series of 2000 AD often trended towards the fantastical side of ‘sci-fi’, with a level of violence, cynicism and satirical political commentary that had only really been touched upon by independent comic artists like Dave Sim and R. Crumb here in the States. Strontium Dogs, Rogue Trooper, Nemesis the Warlock, Indigo Prime, Nikolai Dante, the re-imagined Dan Dare, comics that made Batman and Spider-Man seem realistic in comparison, and by that token weren’t afraid to be comics and go off in weird directions. Having the likes of Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, Grant Morrison and Kevin O’Neill amongst your contributors doesn’t hurt either.

     One of the earliest and easily the most popular characters to spring from the pages of 2000 AD was Judge Dredd, created by John Wagner. Taking place in a far-flung future, where nuclear war has reduced much of the Earth’s surface into an irradiated cinder and most of the Earth’s population are now concentrated into sprawling city-states known as Mega Cities, Judge Dredd follows the titular crimefighter himself, an elite member of the law enforcement/governing body known as the Judges, as he delivered swift and brutal justice to the lawbreakers of Mega City One. More a force of nature than a man, Dredd doesn’t take excuses, he doesn’t brook arguments and he doesn’t care about sob stories. If you break the law in Mega City One, then you’re going to get punished fo the fullest extent of the law, and Dredd won’t rest until you’re in handcuffs or in a bodybag. It doesn’t matter if you’re a robot, a chimpanzee gangster or a T-rex, all must answer to the Law.

     It is this hyper-rigid morality in a world of total excess that Pete Travis attempts to translate to film in his 2012 movie Dredd, the second film to be based on the British comic. A new drug called slow mo, which makes you see everything in bullet time, has hit the streets and Judge Dredd, the greatest of all Judges, is not a fan of illegal narcotics. After a very public triple homicide appears to link slow mo distribution to a habitation tower known as Peachtrees (the ghetto of Mega City One), Dredd and rookie Cassandra ‘I’m the audience surrogate, but also totally an attractive blonde psychic mutant’ Anderson decide to enter and take the drug dealers to task once and for all. Peachtrees is not all fun and games though, and when Magdalene Madrigal (head of the MaMa clan) locks down the tower, the two Judges find themselves strangers in a strange land, with an veritable army of goons out for their blood. They’ll have to use every bit of their training to make their way through the gauntlet, take out MaMa and her goons and stem the tide of slow mo once and for all. No one is above the Law, and Judge Dredd is here to prove it.

     There are two problems with Dredd that really stand out to me. The first is the look. If you didn’t know ahead of time that Dredd took place in the future, there’d be no way of telling it from any dirty, unimpressive desert town (so New Mexico). Compared to the Mega City One of the comics, which is this unbelievably huge, cyberpunk-before-cyberpunk metropolis, the MC1 of Dredd seems at most times to be disappointingly devoid of life and activity. Perhaps Travis was going for a more realistic take on the character, and of course faithfully recreating MC1 would be hell on the budget, but the problems with the design also pose problems for the film as a whole. Without the futuristic aesthetic of the comics, does Judge Dredd’s costume really make any sense? Does his super-pistol with four different concurrent ammo types? This Mega City One barely looks like it has running water, yet the technology is advanced enough to arm the Judges? It’s an unnecessary test of the suspension of disbelief for a movie that shouldn’t need it.

     The second problem? It’s not a satire, or at least the satirical portions don’t come often enough. Sure, the character of Judge Dredd is cool, but the whole point of him (in my opinion) is that he’s meant to be parodical. Never not ‘in uniform, perpetually sour demeanor, rarely if ever questions whether the laws he enforces are just or whether he punishments he sentences people to are exorbitant. The ultimate fascist, and likely what a lot of people envisioned the police to be like during the notoriously tense Thatcher years in Britain, or at least an idealized version. Yet the situations and enemies Dredd faces are so ridiculous, and the way he interacts with people is so over the top that it ends up being funny. The fact that Mega City One is essentially a police state, where the legal system is reduced to a one man job and human rights are treated as a privilege, and there still manages to be rampant crime is about as blatant as it gets. Like I said, there are hints of throughout the movie (the homeless guy scene springs to mind), but it never quite reaches the level of excess of the original comic. Another concession for the moviegoing audience, I suspect.

     Still, for what it is, Dredd is still a decent action movie. You get a lot of violence, you get a lot of witty one-liners, and there’s a smattering of implied sexual situations. Exactly what we all want in an action movie, I’d say, with a little sci-fi twist. So if you’re interested in a little dirty, bloody violence this Halloween, maybe a costume idea that won’t break the bank, then get a little bit of Dredd in your life. Just don’t break any laws to do it.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2015: The Boys from Brazil (1978), directed by Franklin J. Schaffner

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune: "Angel of Death", by Slayer

     Vampires are cool, ghosts can be spooky, but when you really want to get a monstrous antagonist with some staying power, it’s hard to go wrong with the Nazis. The quasi-mysticism, the self-destructive ideology, the appalling bigotry, and their sleek aesthetic design gives them visual appeal; They’re responsible for the deaths of over 10 million people and took control over most of Europe, but they also got their asses kicked hard, so they’re threatening but not so overtly strong that the protagonists don’t have a chance. Sure, the fact that our pop culture profits off of a government known for burning hundreds of people alive in massive ovens may seem in bad taste, but that’s exactly what makes them so alluring as villains. Nazis are the universal evil, no other political party or military force in human history have the same level name recognition and body count attributed to their actions, and because they’re such a figure of that which we consider ‘evil’ in this world, they have transcended historical record and become archetypes, which we can mold and adapt to fit our desires. They can be goofy, they can be all-powerful, they can be wizards, they can be super-scientists, they can be super villains, and sometimes (in certain circumstances) they can even be sympathetic. What Nazism actually represented is oftentimes obscured by their oversaturated presence in pop culture, and that’s something that should never happen, but I think there’s a certain poetic justice in the culmination of Hitler’s vision being reduced to the level of Chuckie or the Gingerdead Man.

     Although not quite at that level of B-movie boogeyman, the Nazis are indeed the bad guys in Franklin J. Schaffner’s The Boys From Brazil, released through 20th Century Fox. It’s the late 70s, and from all accounts the remnants of the former Nazi Party are gathering themselves together in Paraguay (South America being totally okay with sheltering people who would actively work towards seeing them eradicated, which you would think they’d be against). It seems that Dr. Josef Mengele, the infamous Angel of Death, is at the head of a clandestine plan involving the murder of 65 year old civil servants across the Western world and maybe, just maybe, the pseudoscientific resurrection of a certain mustachioed lunatic despot. The only hope our world has seems to rest on the shoulders of one Ezra Liebermann, a Nazi hunter from the days of old. Can he put the pieces together and stop the Nazis and their insane plans once and for all? Well, it’s the Nazis, so that should tell you something right there.

     Putting aside the now outdated ideas about biology that exists as the crux of the story, suspension of disbelief and all that, The Boys From Brazil is a movie that really really relies on the strength of its two main actors: the legendary Laurence Olivier as Ezra Liebermann and the equally amazing Gregory Peck as Josef Mengele. Peck’s Mengele is arguably the driving force of the movie, combining a vampiric charm with the dogmatic mania commonly attributed with Nazism. Olivier, while perhaps dipping too deeply into stereotypes, is the understated, meek foil to Peck’s commanding presence. Unfortunately none of the other characters really have as much of a presence (especially not the Hitlers), which makes the wait time before the inevitable seem far longer than it already. I guess the fact we even want to see that confrontation is a good sign though.

     The Boys From Brazil is a little bit too long for its own good, and for a thriller movie there is a noticeable lack of action. Seeing two great actors together on the silver screen is a treat though, and seeing Peck go full on Triumph of the Will is entertaining when he really gets to chew the scenery. If you just got done watching some Indiana Jones movies this Halloween and you needed another movie where the Nazis fail like they always do, you could do worse than this. It’s got all the douchebag Hitler tweens you could ever want.