The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2016 -- Stalker (1979), directed by Andrei Tarkovsky

The Trailer
and
The Appropriate Tune: "The Spirit Was Gone", by Antony and the Johnsons

     I’ve always had kind of a weird relationship with Russia. I’ve never been fond of their government’s dictatorial and imperialistic behavior when dealing with the rest of the world (of course, I feel the same about the U.S.), and I feel like they tend to be rather antiquated when it comes to a couple social issues, but I am completely fascinated by it. The history, the folklore, the architecture, it’s this big unwieldy melting pot of European, Middle Eastern and Asian culture that’s managed to survive hundreds of years thanks to being mostly empty space that’s too much of a hassle to try and take over. It’s been one of the strongest nations in the world and the weakest, it’s been one of the biggest breadbaskets yet suffered some of the worst famines, it’s had some of the most blatant autocratic rulers in history yet was the first major country to attempt Communism on a national scale. At it’s best it’s beautiful chaos, and I hope one day the U.S. and Russia really can become buddies. Not Trump and Putin kind of buddies, actual friends.

     Despite my interest in Russia however, and my interest in film, I haven’t actually seen that many Russian films. Seen plenty of films from countries that used to be part of Russia, but not that many from Mother Bear herself, unfortunately. The McCarthyist in the room might say that, for most of the history of cinema, Russia was not a country that would endorse a popular medium for individual expression and creative freedom like moving pictures. While it’s true Russia did put out plenty of movies that ‘towed the party line’ so to speak, we already know from The Cremator a couple spots back that entertaining and thought-provoking films were indeed made during this time. So for the very last film in this Long Dark Marathon of the Soul, I decided to pick out a movie straight out of the depths of the former Soviet Union. A movie that actually inspired a series of video games back in the day, although what those games had in common with this movie I’m not entirely sure. I’m talking about Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1979 magnum opus Stalker. And no, it isn’t what it sounds like.

     One day, the Zone appeared. No one was quite sure how it originated, although some credited it to a fallen meteorite, but what was certain that anyone who tried to venture into the Zone never returned. Although the government set up guards and barbed wire in an effort to keep people away, still a rumor managed to sneak its way out: That inside the Zone is a room, and when one enters that room, miracles happen. If you are a person of sufficient moral character (it helps if you’re a miserable piece of shit, apparently), and you find a Stalker, or a person with the ability to navigate the traps and bizarre geography of the Zone, then you too could enter the room and have your wish granted. And also suffer a horrible punishment, because sometimes that happens along with your wish. Hey, it’s Russia, what do you expect?

     This time, two men join the Stalker and attempt to make it to the room. One, the Writer, desires the inspiration and motivation to write again, indeed to have no doubts whatsoever about his skills as an artist. The other, the Professor, places knowledge and understanding above all else. Along with the Stalker, a man as wretched as those he helps, they will descend into the depths of the Zone to try and achieve their wildest dreams. What will they see in that outlandish place? And is having your your wishes granted all that it’s cracked up to be? I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?

     If you’re interested in watching Stalker, be warned that it requires a certain level of commitment. Not only of time, because this is a two and a half hour long film, but one of patience and understanding. You see, while Stalker can be classified as a science fiction film, the Russian view, and to a greater extent the European view of sci-fi is not quite the same as it is here in the States. In America we tend to prefer our science fiction hard- space marines, alien marines, space alien marines, that sort of thing. Concrete, realistic, and so on. In Europe, sci-fi tends to be a lot more literary, focusing more on symbolism and philosophy than whether the stuff going on is straight up science. So instead of action and killer robots and whatnot, Stalker is far more interested in exploring character’s psyches and presenting concepts for critical thinking. By which I mean the most action you’re going to see in this entire film are people walking around places and talking to each other and the most sci-fi you’re going to see is vague and unknowable, like a lost Lovecraft manuscript. At least HAL 9000 lauched some fucker into deep space, am I right?

     So what is Stalker about, what are the ideas it’s presenting? Well when you get into more artistic cinema the question of ‘what it’s about’ becomes a little subjective, but there seems to be a couple things running through here. Pragmatism vs. Romanticism, The loss of faith in modern society, the decay of society because of that loss, the need for hope, the torture that is being an artist, and so on. And it isn’t it a little strange, seeing the rusted out tanks and dusty skeletons populating the Zone, and knowing that in about 6 years Russia would have a real-life Zone they kept people out of known as Chernobyl? Plus the fact that the Stalker, a frequent visitor of the Zone, ends up having a child with a serious birth defect. Could that miracle in the room be a metaphor for nuclear power, which as we all know has some hefty punishments related to its use? Possibly, but that’s just one possible answer to a film that doesn’t provide any on its own. It’s up to the viewer to make their own conclusions about what they see.

     The question of the day is thus: Does Stalker make the cut? Well as I said, you’re going to have to devote a decent chunk of time to watch it, and this movie is more about making you think and feel things than it is about entertaining you, so if either of those conditions is a deal-breaker then you’re probably going to look elsewhere. I dunno, even though the runtime was a bit trying, by the end of the film I found myself drawn into this peculiar sepia-tone world, and I found that it echoed some of the thoughts that I had been having myself. Especially the parts dealing with Writer, obviously. So yes, I’d recommend that you check out Stalker whenever you get the chance. It might not be a film you break out during a Halloween party, but if you’re on your own and you’ve got the time, go ahead and pop it in. You might end confronting things about yourself that’s scarier than any monster could be.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2016: Akira (1988), directed by Katsuhiro Otomo

The Trailer
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The Appropriate Tune: "Kaneda", by Geinoh Yamashirogumi

     As much as Japan has been connected to animation over the years, and despite the vastly differing amounts of diversity and content that medium is given when compared to the West, that’s not to say that Japan has a peerless record on the subject. Indeed, the Land of the Rising Sun can be just as bull-headed and destructive to the creative process as any other country in the industry. Whether it’s putting the animators on a shoestring budget, thus reducing the animation quality (you’ve probably seen enough slideshow animes to know what I mean), or just outright refusing to give people credit for their work, the fact is that artistic integrity doesn’t matter half as much as getting the product on the shelves. It makes a certain degree of sense, when you’ve got a dedicated demographic that doesn’t mind shelling out 50 bucks a pop for a blu-ray, then you probably want to put out as many blu-rays as you can. It doesn’t mean that there aren’t good shows and movies being putting out, but it does mean dealing with a mountain of shovelware, and that this dedication to immediacy can hurt even a good show.

     Still, establishing a legacy through animation is entirely possible. Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli is probably the most famous example, at least when it comes to Western audiences. Shinichiro Watanabe, creator of Cowboy Bebop (the one anime everyone can agree is good), Samurai Champloo and Space Dandy. And, as you might expect from this article, mangaka and filmmaker Katsuhiro Otomo. Although his work in the field seems limited (around half of his work in film seems to be focused on screenwriting), that observation doesn’t seem to matter much when his feature-length directorial debut was 1988’s Akira, based on his 1984 manga of the same name. Akira, a movie that, like Alan Moore’s “Watchmen”, inspired legions of imitators and very few peers.. Akira, a film that managed to carve itself out a spot in Western pop culture in an era when people still called it japanimation and Dragonball Z was still a dot on the horizon. Akira, the film that took the bar set by Cronenberg and Carpenter and raised it as far as it could reach.

     Akira, it’s a movie.

     The year is 2019. 31 years ago, Tokyo was almost completely obliterated in a massive explosion. Upon its ashes Neo-Tokyo was built, yet this new city failed to live up to the reputation of the original. Rampant crime and drug abuse, crippling poverty and severe economic depression, daily protests that threaten to erupt into terrorist attacks or military oppression. Could this be it? Is this how the world ends, with civilization slowly rotting and decaying until it finally collapses in upon itself? At the very least, Japan seems destined to end with a whimper rather than a bang.

     For teenagers Kaneda and Tetsuo, worrying about how shitty the future is going to be doesn’t matter as much as living in the now. They and the other members of their gang spend their days popping pills, trying to get laid, riding around on their motorcycles and beating the hell out of other gangs. School? Finding a job? Fuck that mess man, why bother contributing to a broken system? Biker punks for life bro!

     Or so it would seem, until one night a mysterious boy who looks like an elderly man appears and somehow causes Tetsuo to crash his bike. Before Kaneda and his friends can get help, the military arrives and takes not only the boy, but Tetsuo as well. Who is this mysterious boy? Who is the mysterious girl that seems to be connected to the boy? Why does the military need this boy and Tetsuo? Kaneda is going to find out, but the answer might not be something anyone wants to hear. Because Akira, the ultimate energy, is getting ready to awaken once again. And when he does, no one is going to be safe.

     Leave it to the man with years of experience in sequential art to know how to put a movie together. Akira in motion is a beautiful thing, & Otomo has a gift for crafting scenes manage to stick themselves into your mind. The infamous ‘bike braking’ moment that’s been referenced so many times since, the battle with the military, the climax...hell, every time someone shoots a gun it ends up looking amazing. I dunno, it’s the fluidity of those action that’s most appealing I guess. The smoothness of it. It feels more natural, as if you’re seeing something real rather than animated. One of those you have to experience to understand.

     It’s also not a film that shies away from uncomfortable scenes. Lots of blood, lots of scenes where people get blown away with bullets (and a couple that are pretty much pulped) and of course the end of the film where things upgrade to full-on body horror. Of course this isn’t quite like The Fly or Tetsuo the Iron Man, where we as the audience are forced to watch a man decay in front of our eyes. It’s more like standing up after a long period of drinking or substance use and feeling the world drop out from under you. Suddenly the rules don’t exist anymore, and reality itself descends into utter chaos. Rather similar to 2001: A Space Odyssey in that respect, although I’d say Akira might take the points in the pure bizarre. Which is probably what keeps it from being a truly scary movie, unless you have a low tolerance for things like this. You spend less time being scared and more time watching to see what weird crap they come up with next.

     If you’re a gorehound, an animation fan or if you’re interested in getting into the anime scene, this is just one of those movies you need under your belt. English dub, original Japanese, Neutral Spanish dub, whatever you want to use, it’s (probably) all good. The West may not respect the field of animation as much of animation as much as we could, but we should at least love the gems that we got.

     One more left.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2016 -- The Cremator (1969), directed by Juraj Herz

The Trailer
and
The Appropriate Tune: "Cremation", by King Diamond

     Now I can’t say for certain, having no experience in the matter, but I’m betting living in a Soviet satellite nation was pretty rough. Standing in line for bread, the systematic erasure of your own native culture, the persistent looming threat of secret police stealing you away in the night so you can work in a prison camp, you’ve heard it all before. Even if those kinds of things didn’t happen as often as we might think it did, and considering the vendetta America had against all things red it wouldn’t all that surprising, the fact that it did happen to any degree was still a miserable thing to have to live with. Living from day to day, listening to Piknik records on cassette cape, wondering if this was the time that your government was going to go Saturday morning cartoon villain on your ass, it couldn’t have been an easy life.

     The film world did get a bunch of good movies out of it though. Hell, in some ways the art of filmmaking was a much easier experience than it was in the Free West, with the whole desperate search for investors, the subjugation of your creative vision to corporate interests, etc. Sure, if you wanted to make a movie in Poland you couldn’t include a scene where the protagonist farted on Kruschev’s borscht, but if you wanted to make a movie all you really had to do was send off a proposal to the local arts office. And they would just send you money to make a movie, just like that. Better yet, if you wanted to make a movie criticizing an oppressive and hateful government without getting censored by said oppressive and hateful government, all you had to do was set the movie during World War II, back when most of eastern Europe was under control of Hitler’s Germany at the time. I mean, who doesn’t hate Nazis?

     #insertTrumphere

     Case in point: The Cremator, a Czech film directed by Juraj Herz in 1969. Set in Czechoslovakia in the months leading up to the Nazi occupation of the country (and the onset of World War II), the film centers around a man named Karl Kopfrkingl, who works at the local crematorium in an unnamed (as far as I remember) Czech town. Karl is a simple man, if rather long-winded and opinionated about how great cremation is, with a loving family and the respect of his friends and employers. However, as the German army marches on Prague and the Nazi idea becomes more pervasive, Karl finds himself taken in by the empty pleasures and the philosophy of hatred and misguided superiority that the Nazi Party provides. Soon what began as a mere love for cremation becomes an obsession, and Karl craves more and more power to more easily shape the world according to his desires. And he’s damn sure something like his wife’s Jewish blood keep him from his dreams. Even if he has to get a little… serious.

     Unfortunately, The Cremator never lets you forget that this guy is big on cremation. Karl is constantly going on about death and how much he loves cremation, and by ‘constantly’ I mean it’s about 90% of his dialogue and that he talks almost nonstop throughout the film. I get that it’s a good way to show how up his own ass he is about cremation, but it also kind of marks how the plot will work itself out before you ever get into it. I mean, it’s movie set at the beginning of World War II and your protagonist is a guy who slips into the Nazi kool aid like a duck through water and thinks that it would be totally great if people burned alive (he says almost exactly that in the film), and apparently his family are too stupid to realize their dad talking about burning corpses during dinner is fucking creepy. The way you see Karl’s character slowly degrade is rather well done, but there’s also little doubt where things are heading. Hell, you might as well give him a mask and have him fight Batman. He’s already got the name for it.

     On a more positive note, I really like the way Herz sets up his shots in this film. The bath scene with Karl and his wife, the walk through the cemetery, the final scene, I really like how those scenes play out. Most of that has to do with Karl, I think, who keeps this neutral expression and hushed voice almost throughout the entire film, whether he’s listening to his housekeeper crushing carp heads or ratting out his friends and family to the brownshirts. That he manages to remain so disconnected with the vile things he does really helps to enhance his ever-expanding megalomania, and the fact that he really the only one of his family to really talk at all (which might be another example of his fixation on himself and his own importance) really helps the film nosedive into surreality by the end. I still think his constant talking distracts you from getting into the world proper, you end up feeling like you’re waiting for things to happen sometimes, but the end of the journey still manages to entertain.

     If you were a fan of Malle’s and Fellini’s section in Spirits of the Dead, or if you’re a 50s/60s experimental film fan looking for something a little chilling, then The Cremator should be right up your alley. If you’re not something who tends to dig too deep when it comes to movies, tending to stick to modern styles of movie making, then you might find this a bit unpalatable. Either way, it just goes to show you that sometimes, the scariest movie monster of them all isn’t vampires or werewolves or pasty Japanese kids in wells. It’s man.

     Specifically men who are Nazis.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2016: Spirits of the Dead (1968), directed by Roger Vadim, Louis Malle and Federico Fellini

The Trailer
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The Appropriate Tune: "A Dream Within A Dream", by The Alan Parsons Project

     If there are two things that you just don’t see all that often in movies nowadays, it’s Edgar Allan Poe and anthology movies.

     Now as far as film legacies go, there aren’t many American writers, especially horror writers, that have achieved the same level of success on the silver screen Poe. There have not only been scores of films based directly or indirectly on his work (The Raven from earlier in this list, the Roger Corman series in the late 60s), but even films based on Poe himself (anybody remember that one movie with John Cusack?). That being said, there hasn’t really been anything Poe-related out recently, and it doesn’t seem like there’s as much of a outcry for Poe than there was in the past. Is America just not in a mid 19th century mood anymore, or are we just not interested in things related to books anymore? Who can say?

     In the case of anthology films, or films comprised of separate story segments (occasionally directed by separate people) compiled into one artistic piece, well those have never been all that prevalent in general. I can name drop a few, The Twilight Zone Movie, Creepshow, Black Sabbath, but it’s a pretty underused framing device that emphasizes brevity . Hell, even anthology TV shows are rare, despite the incredible pedigree that it has garnered for the horror and sci-fi genres (the Twilight Zone of course, the Outer Limits, Tales From the Crypt, Night Gallery if you’re being generous). Has modern America become so obsessed with the idea of continuity and arcs that we’ve killed off episodic storytelling? Should shows stick to 6 episodes if they’re going to stretch one story arc over an entire season? Who can say?

     For those who love the works of Poe and anthology films, look no farther than Spirits of the Dead, otherwise known as Tales of Mystery and Histoires Extraordinaires, starring Brigitte Bardot, Jane Fonda and Terence Stamp, among others. From the U.K. we have Roger Vadim with “Metzengerstein”, a story about a beautiful and sadistic Countess, her cousin, and a mysterious black horse. From France we have “William Wilson”, directed by Louis Malle, about a sociopathic young man who is stalked by another man who just so happens to also be named William Wilson. Finally, there’s “Toby Dammit” by Italian director Federico Fellini, detailing the tragic downward spiral of an neurotic, alcoholic actor who’s arrived in Rome for an awards ceremony. Fun fact: Only the first two parts of this movie are actually based on stories found in the Poe collection Tales of Mystery & Imagination, which is the name it first released under in the U.K.

     Out of the three, I found that it was Fellini’s contribution that stood out as the most interesting, both narratively and creatively speaking. Vadim and Malle’s stories are entertaining enough, and they stuck to the Poe identity much closer than Fellini, but there’s something so… ‘of the times’ about them that keeps them from standing out. The extensive use of colors, the cheesecake eroticism, the way the camera lingers on certain things to make sure you know they’re important, it all feels like something you’d see in, say, Corman’s Masque of the Red Death or a late era Hammer horror movie. That’s not to say they’re bad of course, but you know what you’re going to get with those stories, and they run on just long enough that you’re relieved when they finally decide to wrap up.

     “Toby Dammit” however, despite having the least in common with it’s source material, seems far more unique and prescient even today. It’s a surreal, kaleidoscopic mix of paranoia and self-destruction from beginning to end, and only rarely does it seem like we as the audience are going to be let in on what’s running through the titular Toby’s mind as stumbles madly to his inevitable conclusion. In that way, I think that Fellini manages to capture the sense of ‘fear & loathing’, that infamous state of mind coined by the great Hunter Thompson, better than any other filmmaker I’ve seen yet. Even Terry Gilliam, the man who directed the excellent Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, never quite reached the frenetic rush of anxiety, self-hatred and dissociation as “Toby” manages to achieve at its climax. It’s a question of pacing and it’s a question of brevity, and Fellini appears to feel more at ease with them than Vadim and Malle, who struggle at times in their sections to pad out their runtimes. Especially Vadim, who feels the need to stick a multi-minute long montage between a woman and her horse in the second half. And trust me, that’s not as interesting as the internet would have you believe.

     Vadim’s section is easily the weakest of the three, but I wouldn’t say it’s outright bad. Malle’s is rather predictable, which might be the fault of the author rather than the director really, although there is some worthwhile cinematography. Fellini’s is, as I mentioned, quite good. So overall I suppose it averages out to a pretty good movie, and I’d say it has earned a recommendation. If you’re working a very Poe-centric Halloween this, make sure you get this one in the queue.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2016 -- Oldboy (2004), directed by Chan-wook Park

The Trailer
and
The Appropriate Tune: "Strangelove", by Depeche Mode

     Everyone has someone or something that’s against them, don’t they? At least in their heads. Whether it’s something as big as the government, the next-door-neighbor who is always playing loud music late at night, the fellow employee who got a promotion over you, and so on. Because we all have our little worlds built of our dreams, aspirations and beliefs, don’t we? And if we have an antagonist, an opposing force that through words or actions would attempt to prevent our happiness, then it makes the things we think and the things we want seem far more important than they would be otherwise, don’t they? At the very least it gives us an excuse for when we fail, or a reason not to try something at all. Sometimes it’s even the act of opposing these antagonists that give us purpose in life, a foundation of hate with which to build our entire lives around. Is it healthy? Maybe not, but it’s a good way to pass the time at least.

     So it goes for Oh Dae-su, the protagonist of Oldboy (winner of the 2004 Palme D’or award at the Cannes Film Festival) One night, after a belligerent evening spent in a police station, Dae-su is kidnapped by a mysterious group and imprisoned in a mysterious hotel room. There’s food, there’s tv and running water, but there’s no way to leave and there’s no way to know where this hotel is located. The only option to to sit and wait as time passes. All by yourself.

     15 years later, Dae-su is finally released from this purgatory, his mind cloudy from over a decade of isolation and enigmatic drugs. Who put him into that hell? For what reason? Therein lies the mystery, and Dae-su will journey deep into a world of sex, violence and human misery in order to discover the truth. Problem is, sometimes you’re better off ignorant.

     The problem I have with Oldboy is the same problem I had with Black Mirror, a British anthology series you might have heard your friends rave about: at a certain point, it’s not really drama, it’s melodrama. The first half of the movie, where we see Dae-su dealing with confinement and when he’s starting his path of vengeance? Very interesting, very entertaining, but as we learn more and more about the truth, the logical leaps one has to make in order for this story to make sense become more and more difficult. It’s like,if you have to make so many assumptions about a story, if you have to have so much faith that this conspiracy spread out over 15 years managed to work out perfectly without any problems involved ever, then why even bother acting like it’s a mystery at all? Because if you’re going that far with it, it’s not a mystery, it’s a child on the playground saying ‘nuh uh, because actually my cape was also magic dinosaur proof all along’. It’s not telling a story, it’s forcing a narrative.

     Sorry if I seem a little harsh, but the last 20 minutes are enough of a masochistic slog that it’s color my opinion of the entire movie. Still, it’s a violent, sex-filled movie that is actually pretty funny on occasion, so if you’re into seeing people do dental work with a claw hammer, this might be the movie for you. Just don’t order the octopus.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2016: El Topo (1970), directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky

The Trailer
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The Appropriate Tune: "I Wish I Was A Mole In The Ground", by Basom Lamar Lunsford

     Confession time: Although I’ve made numerous references to the works of Alejandro Jodorowsky in the past, in particular the documentary of his ultimately doomed attempt at Dune, I’ve never actually seen a film of his. I’ve sampled some of his graphic novels, the Metabarons and the Incal (which are quite impressive), but it was his work in the medium of film that established his career, and it’s the work that he’s probably most famous for in pop culture. So this year, in the Marathon tradition of trying new things (and proper name drop etiquette), I decided to take the plunge and try one out. Is it Halloween appropriate? Are any of the films I feature on this list Halloween appropriate? Hard to say.

     So what is El Topo about? Well, the implication appears to be that it’s about a lot of things, but at it’s most basic it’s about the journey of the titular Topo (played by Jodorowsky), a wandering gunslinger in a very metaphorical version of the Old West. El Topo (spanish for The Mole) is a brutal and morally destitute type of killer, whose skill with the pistol has left him acting as if he were some angry god. As good as El Topo is, there are supposedly 4 masters of shooting that exist in this harsh desert land, and so he sets off to murder them and prove something to somebody (his estranged father, perhaps). What Topo doesn’t realize however, isn’t that this isn’t the mission of death that he’s planning it to be. It’s his chance at redemption.

     Aside from that, you’ve got a little socio-political commentary on man’s inhumanity to man (African-Americans literally being hunted down and branded like cattle), the military and their abuse of power (the colonel character literally has people act like dogs), the church’s ability to cloud men’s minds (the local priest has his followers playing Russian roulette with god), and for some reason melding an otherwise Christian-centric setting with Buddhist themes (the 4 masters behave and even look more like gurus than they do gunslingers, and Topo ends up having a very Siddartha-esque meditative experience). Oh, and sex, lots and lots of sex and things relating to sex. Topo finding actual eggs under his lady friends legs, water shooting out a very phallic rock, outlaws making out with priests, a girl licking a prickly pear like she was auditioning for pornhub, and so on in that fashion. And people thought Brokeback Mountain was a controversial cowboy movie.

     Unfortunately, assuming that there is a meaning beyond these strange and mysterious images beyond confusing and mystifying those who watch it, then it’s a movie that demands multiple viewings in order to fully process itself. This list is about first impressions than it is advanced film study however, and to a first time viewer, Jodorowsky’s aim fails to show itself. Is he using the Western (a traditionally violent genre of film) to comment on the violent times that the world found itself in during the major years of the Vietnam War? Is he saying Christianity has become more an excuse for violence for its followers than a religion of peace, and that it holds no sway over the populace anymore? Is the gun just supposed to be penis? It’s unclear, and unless you take the time to sit down and dig through it all, all that’s left to do is to sit there and watch random things happen at seemingly random times and just hope that they get to another gunfight at some point. Which they do away with by the second half either way.

     For those with experience with surrealism and experimental films, this is probably going to be right up your alley. For those that aren’t into those kinds of movies, you’re probably going to find this more or less intolerable. Honestly, even though I have a general preference for weird movies, it still feels like Jodorowsky was taking a 2 hour detour to get to the actual point, and it doesn’t feel like much of a payoff either way. So I suppose I give the recommendation to anyone who likes weird movies that’s willing to put more time in than me, but if the extent of your experimental film experience is watching Twin Peaks and American Horror Story on netflix, this might be a little too obtuse for your tastes. Still, Halloween is about making people scared and uncomfortable, and any movie where the director films his prepubescent son walking around completely naked for about the first 15 minutes is bound to make anyone you show it to very, very uncomfortable. In the United States, at least. We throw a fit over a 2 second accidental flash of woman’s nipple during a concert, we try to ban breastfeeding at the very thought of a female breast touching public air. Showing a naked white boy in a movie, even in a case like this where it’s not really sexualized in any way and no real focus is placed upon it, would be like 3 or 4 Chernobyl’s at once. People would go fucking insane, way more than when Trump implied we should label Muslims like Germany labeled Jews in the late 30s or when that class of elementary school kids were shot to death.

     Good way to clear a room though.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2016 -- Gandahar (1987), directed by Rene Laloux

The Trailer
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The Appropriate Tune: "The Robots", by Kraftwerk

     Yes, even the Europeans have animation. Some of you out there might be surprised, considering the Academy doesn’t care about animation beyond whatever Disney has crapped out that year and even less about animation outside of the U.S., but it’s true. That Tintin movie Spielberg came out with a couple years ago? Based on a Belgian comic book, which had a very popular cartoon series in the 90s. The movie Heavy Metal? Based on the sci-fi magazine Heavy Metal, which is based on the French sci-fi magazine Metal Hurlant, and featured several French artists. Wallace & Gromit? Incredibly British, as it turns out.

     As far as French animation goes, some movie fans might know the name Fantastic Planet, which was the name the English crowd gave to a French animated film released in 1973. While the actual plot of Fantastic Planet is probably lost on most audiences, the thing that sticks most in their minds is the visual design. Part Terry Gilliam picture manipulation, part Salvador Dali LSD nightmare, the film is unlike anything that you would see out of an American studio before or since. Not just because America has a bias against all things animation, but because the entire mindset around filmmaking is different. The French (to use a blatant generalization) love art, they love things to be fantastical and whimsical and surrealistic, even when it comes to their horror and their science fiction. Americans (to use another blatant generalization) love their sci-fi hard, the explosions large and a 3 to 1 ratio on violence versus sex. It’s not an issue of which one’s better than the other, it’s just how our respective cultures have progressed over the years.

     That being said, I have to say that Gandahar still isn’t all that great a movie. It looks interesting enough, beautiful even, bringing to life a world that seems to be directly inspired by such talents as Alejandro Jodorowsky and French comic artist Moebius. The story is packed to the brim with symbolism, for those that are interested in that sort of thing. Nature vs. technology, male vs. female, there’s more obvious allusions here than a 1st year film student’s term paper. The main villain looks like a giant penis for god’s sake, how much more on the nose can you get?

     All the animated boobs in the world however doesn’t change the fact that for a movie about a guy trying to save the world from an army of killer robots, not of exciting things actually happen in the movie, and even if it did, the limited animation quality would have made it seem like it was happening at a snail’s pace. It was an issue I had with Rock & Rule as well, where everything felt like it was moving in slow-motion, but it is far, far more noticeable in Gandahar. I don’t know if it’s an issue with budget or, again, it’s just a cultural preference that I’m not privy, but it almost doesn’t even seem worth doing an animated film if there’s so little you can do with it. Sure, there are scenes and effects that can only properly be done through an animated medium, but when your characters are relegated to having coy conversations with each other and behaving like animatronics, then it seems like you’ve managed to sidestep the point.

     Those of you who are super into animation, or if you like your sci-fi mostly fantasy and your fantasy mostly sci-fi, you just might find something to enjoy about Gandahar, or Light Years as its dubbed version was known. Otherwise, pretty pictures don’t make up for an ultimately boring film, and that’s why I can’t really recommend it. You’ll find more interesting films, and more cartoon breasts, in your nearest Bakshi filmography, so I suggest looking there instead.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2016: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), directed by Robert Wiene

The Trailer
and
The Appropriate Tune: "Song Without Words Op. 109", by Jacqueline du Pre

     In the years following World War I and prior to World War II, Germany was in a bit of a rut. The treaty they had signed was very, very clear on the subject of war reparations, and some countries (mostly France) were very keen on taking advantage of the now Kaiser-less nation. The economy completely tanked, partially due to the most industrious parts of their country having been taken away by the victorious powers, and inflation became so bad that a wheelbarrow full of deutschmarks was almost enough to get you a single loaf of bread, which doesn’t do much for that whole ‘paying off that massive war debt’. It’s hard to say whether World War II, Hitler’s rise to power and all that other heinous shit would have happened if the Allies hadn’t pushed the reparations thing as hard as they did, or if the German people were just primed for fascism either way. A question best left for Harry Turtledove, I suppose.

     As bad as that era of history was for Germany (then run by what is known as the Weimar Republic), it managed to produce some great works of art, including an influential genre of film known as German Expressionism. Though relatively short-lived in the grand scheme of things, it was already gone by the time talking and Nazis entered the picture, the echoes of G.E. have persisted in filmmaking decades after its peak. The surrealistic landscapes populated by deformed buildings, the manipulation of lighting and shadows, everyone that ever tried to make a dark and creepy movie, from Todd Browning to Tim Burton and David Lynch (although Lynch has stated he never watched an Expressionist films prior to the release of Eraserhead, I believe)owes F.W. Murnau, Fritz Lang and the rest of those filmmakers a debt of gratitude. You can’t build arthouse cinema with a good foundation.

     Such is the case with the film we’re discussing today, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, directed by Robert Wiene and starring Conrad Veidt (who also starred in The Laughing Man, notable for being the design influence for DC’s The Joker). The film,in six acts, centers around Francis, who at the start of the film is sitting in a garden talking with an older gentleman. On a whim, Francis decides to tell the story of how things ended up the way they are. A story which centers around the annual village fair, the vile Dr. Caligari and his corpse like servant known as Cesare, and a series of mysterious murders that draws Francis into a life of death and madness.

     Much like it is with Nosferatu and most other silent movies, there’s nothing all that complex going on with The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, aside from a pretty worthwhile climax. It has a story it wants to tell, and it tells the story quickly and efficiently. Part of that could be attributed to the fact that Caligari has lost some footage over the years, so the cut that we see has lost its ability to pad things out, but it’s also part of a fundamental difference in filmmaking in that era. After all, there wasn’t really the technology available to attempt anything too complicated, and the bar for film hadn’t really been set much higher than farce or melodrama. Which was pretty much what it was competing against, theater still being the biggest form of mass entertainment at that time.

     The major appeal of Caligari isn’t in the story itself, however, it’s the aesthetic. The deathly pale faces, doors and buildings set at strange, unnatural angles, one cannot help but feel a vague of dread and uneasiness (if not fear) that builds from scene to scene. I believe I used the descriptor word ‘surrealistic’ earlier, and watching Caligari the notion of being dreamlike, or nightmarish, does seem to be exactly what it is attempting. In that way it succeeds, to the point that it is so far removed from the normal frame of reference that it seems almost alien. Much like Metropolis, the thought that people sat down in movie theaters and watched this, when there were less movies in existence than there are pokemon today, is something that I can’t fathom. Did high-minded folks in that day watch this movie and throw around words like ‘surrealistic’? Did they make copious name drops to novels and plays to try to categorize it. Did your average movie goer even attempt to watch this, or did they ignore the critics and go see the new Buster Keaton flick instead? In a world of almost infinite variety, where everyone laments that everything has already been done, I can’t even conceive of being able to explore completely unknown territory, of being on the ground floor of reinventing a wheel that had barely even begun rolling yet.

     So as a piece of cinema history, I’d say The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is definitely worth seeing if you haven’t already. For those not interested in cinema history, I’d say it’s weird and entertaining enough to be worth a watch, with a short enough runtime that you won’t feel bogged down. If you’re one of those people who hate movies that are in black & white and can’t conceive of an entertaining film without people talking, then you might want to stick with the Transformers movies instead. Or anything that doesn’t make you confront ideas and directions that could actually challenge you and help to make you a deeper, more well-rounded person I guess.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2016 -- Rock & Rule (1983), directed by Clive A. Smith

The Trailer
and
The Appropriate Tune: "Real Wild Child (Wild One)", by Iggy Pop

     The War was over.

     The only survivors were street animals: dogs, cats and rats. From them, a new race of mutants evolved.

     That was a long time ago…

     Mok, a legendary superrocker has retired to Ohmtown. His computers work at deciphering an ancient code which will unlock a gateway to another dimension.

     The only component he needs is a special voice…

     So begins Rock & Rule, the epic sci-fi/fantasy tale of a punk rock dog man trying to save his girlfriend, who I think is a cat but is mostly a sex symbol, from an evil glam rock wizard who is trying to summon a demon in order to destroy the post-apocalyptic dystopian world in which they all live through the power of rock & roll. You know, that old chestnut.

     Anyway, this was the debut film for Nelvana, a Canadian animation studio who you might know from Care Bears: The Movie and not much else filmwise, and what a debut it was amping up to be. A multi million dollar animated film that was emphatically not for children, which featured music from the badass bands of the time (in this case Debbie Harry, Lou Reed and Iggy Pop)? I mean sure, Heavy Metal, which Nelvana passed on to make this movie, had kind of already ascended into the pop culture consciousness on that ticket two years prior, but that only meant that the market was primed for that kind of material. The people loved Terminator so you give them Robocop, the people loved Indiana Jones so you give them Romancing the Stone. The people loved Heavy Metal, so you give them Rock & Rule. Recipe for success, right?

     Well, no. Rock & Rule was actually a huge failure, both critically and commercially. So much so that it almost destroyed Nelvana, who only just managed to avoid bankruptcy by taking on loads of TV work. Which is a shame, seeing a studio taking a chance and putting out something relatively unique and having it shot down. It’s the kind of thing that gets you feeling jaded about the state of filmmaking, gets you wondering why you would even want to put money into an industry that rewards derivative shit and rewards free spirits, an industry that pushes remakes, reboots and cinematic universes onto its consumers like a pushy prom date with a Mickey Finn in his hand. Makes you wonder why you would ever want even get into making films at all, if all you had to look forward to was seeing your creative vision poked and prodded into oblivion by a committee of marketing drones. Especially when people continually buy into that same derivative crap over and over again, swallowing it down because they’re apparently too ignorant to even conceive of something better. Might as well not even get out of bed in the morning, if all you have to look forward to is the same depressing spiral into the garbage dump that creative expression in this world has become.

     In the world’s defense, Rock & Rule is pretty crappy.

     Maybe that’s not quite right. Rock & Rule is an average movie, one that is outshined by its peers; Heavy Metal, the works of Ralph Bakshi, Don Bluth’s The Secret of NIMH if you want to dig deep, in most respects. Rock & Rule isn’t as dark, it isn’t as sexy (more important that you would think on the internet), it isn’t as funny, the characters aren’t as interesting or likable, the soundtrack isn’t as good and the animation feels slower and less fluid. Which doesn’t make it outright bad, in fact it’s probably even with Ralph Bakshi’s American Pop to me, which was another animated film that heavily featured music from around that same year, but it’s not all that exceptional either. Aside from some of the background art, which actually does look quite impressive, there’s nothing about Rock & Rule that really stirs the viewer to any reaction beyond ‘yeah, it was fine’. For a movie called Rock & Rule, there’s far less rocking than you’d expect. Not much ruling either, to be honest.

     If you’re a big animation fan, as I am, then you might be interested in Rock & Rule as a piece of movie history that doesn't have a Disney logo stamped on it. If you’re interested in Heavy Metal and you’re looking for some twisted cartoons to scratch that itch, then you might be interested in Rock & Rule. If neither of those things apply to you though, then you might be able to give this one a pass. And if someone offers you a glowing ball of pink light, just say no. It’s just not worth it.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2016: The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), directed by Nicolas Roeg

I decided to spice things up a bit for the final 10, so from here to number 1 all the movies listed will be foreign films. By that I mean films not made in the United States, and of course preferably of the sci-fi/fantasy/thriller/horror genre.

The Trailer
and
The Appropriate Tune: "Starman", by David Bowie

     You know, I’m a huge fan of David Bowie. I love his genre experimentation, I think his fusion of theatre and avant-garde fashion into his music and performances helped push rock and pop to a level of artistry it had never reached before and rarely seen since, and from what I’ve read of him, he seemed like a charming and intelligent person. He wrote Mott the Hoople’s biggest hit, single handedly revived Iggy Pop’s career, performed with Queen, toured with Nine Inch Nails, and put out more amazing albums than most bands put out during their entire careers. So it makes sense that I would be interested to check out The Man Who Fell to Earth, the first feature-length film to star Bowie, and probably his most well-known role outside of his performance as the Goblin King in Labyrinth (and maybe Nikola Tesla in The Prestige, if anyone else has seen The Prestige). I mean, if the Criterion Collection felt it was worth adding it to their ranks, then it must be good, right?

     I wonder.

     Man, it has been a while since I’ve seen a movie that was so utterly, unavoidably and excruciatingly dull as The Man Who Fell to Earth. A movie that waits until an hour and a half in before it deigns to have anything slightly interesting happen, and then goes right back to doing nothing. A movie that seems primarily marketed to people who want to watch David Bowie drink things and watch television, since that’s the majority of what he does in this fucking thing. A movie that throws more boobs and bush (not to mention a couple dicks and asses) at you than an exploitation flick, in what I assume is a desperate ploy to keep people from wandering away from the screen. Which might work for a couple seconds, until it moves on to a scene where our protagonist does fuck all and it flies out the window. You know, there is such a thing as getting too close to real life.

     Yeah, I’m not really digging into critical analysis here (as if I was any good at that to begin with), not doing a plot summary and all that but it was such a tedious experience that I’m actually a bit pissed off. I mean you’ve got a movie where David Bowie plays a goddamn space alien, which is terms of casting is pretty spot on, and you have him do fucking NOTHING for 2+ hours. Sorry that’s not completely accurate, he drinks a metric fuckton of booze, screws a girl a couple times, watches TV and mumbles 99% of his lines. If this is supposed to be ripping Dostoevsky’s “The Idiot”, how good people are dragged down by the shit of the world or people are assholes or whatever statement it is that’s trying to be made, why make it so your protagonist has so little agency. Why should we give a shit about his goals or whether he achieves them when the protagonist doesn’t seem to give a shit? I’d almost say it’s nihilistic, but that’s giving this movie too much credit. Soylent Green was nihilistic, John Carpenter’s The Thing was nihilistic, The Man Who Fell to Earth is a test of the audience’s patience, and mine started to give way about 15 minutes in.

     It’s similar to the way I felt about Coffee & Cigarettes, back when I watched it so long ago. The acting is decent (Bowie has about one speed, but at least you’ve got Rip Torn in there), cinematography is fine, music’s fine, but I can’t help but wonder why I’m bothering to watch, because it doesn’t seem to be doing anything to engage me as a viewer. Coffee & Cigarettes seemed content to play around in it’s own little world, dropping it’s own little in jokes, and fuck you if you weren’t cool enough to get it, and that’s the same kind of impression I get from The Man Who Fell to Earth. So fuck me I guess, because if these are the types of movies I have to watch to gain cinema street cred, I’d rather stay out of the loop.

     Not recommended, which I think has become obvious. David Bowie’s discography is always recommended though. I’ve got a soft spot for Young Americans and Station to Station, personally.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2016 -- Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), directed by Nicholas Meyer

The Trailer
and
The Appropriate Tune: "The Difference Between Us", by Leonard Nimoy

     So the last time we discussed Star Trek in the Marathon, which was Star Trek: The Motion Picture, I believe I said something along the lines of not being sure whether or not I was really a Trek fan. After all, I was a fan of The Next Generation and mostly of TOS (still am), but I never really felt much of a desire to explore much beyond that. I wasn’t very interested in the games or the expanded universe, I didn’t really feel a need to watch the films beyond the first,and I had read enough bad press about Enterprise and Voyager that I was probably better off marathoning the last two season of Sliders instead (don’t try that at home folks). I dunno, is it just a symptom of our modern times that to be a fan of something, you must absorb all the media connected to that thing? Is sitting through Voyager some kind of test to prove my opinion is worthwhile, even if I would ultimately regret the experience? Is my enjoyment of Trek invalid, am I a lesser person because I work within a certain amount of material and content to leave things at that? The answer would generally be no, but you never can tell in these modern times. You either love it or you hate it, and no one is allowed to hear the end of it until everyone is sick of it.

     Still, since I’m close to finishing up Deep Space 9 and thus closing the book on Star Trek for the time being, I decided to try out what is probably the most well-regarded film in the series: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, directed by Nicholas Meyer, who also directed Time After Time earlier on this list. Normally I try to avoid things like that, having multiple films by the same director on the same list, but it is the unexpected bits of whimsy that make the days bearable, am I right?

     In the entire Federation of Planets, there are few names that are respected as highly as that of James Kirk and the crew of the USS Enterprise. It’s been years since those halcyon days however, and the aging Admiral can’t help but wonder if the advancement of his career was worth giving up command of a starship, of the Enterprise for the safety of a desk. This realization happens to coincide with the discovery of a blast from Kirk’s past: Khan Noonien Singh, a genetically-engineered megalomaniac from Earth’s past (1996, to be precise) who had been thawed out by the Enterprise crew, defeated, and left on a deserted planet to make do with what he could find. Which might have worked, if only the planet next door hadn’t exploded and turned Khan’s planet into a wasteland, which ultimately lead to his wife’s death. Khan is not a forgive and forget kind of guy, and it doesn't take long before he procures a ship and starts on his path of vengeance. A path that involves a mysterious device known as Project Genesis, a fantastical that would be able to bring life to dead worlds and death to living ones. It’s up to Kirk, Spock, Bones and the rest of the Enterprise to stop Khan, get back Project Genesis and save the known galaxy one more time. It’s not like they aren’t used to it by now.

     Although they are both Trek films, in many ways Wrath of Khan is a sharp contrast to its predecessor, Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Whereas TMP could be considered a more traditionally minded science fiction film, heavily influenced by 2001: A Space Odyssey and Golden Age sci-fi, WoK is very much an action movie, packed full of all the explosions and starship combat (which is remarkably like fighting in a submarine) that you might have missed. Similarly, the story in Khan is also far more streamlined and far more direct than it was in the original, which was much more slower-paced and interested in building atmosphere. Simplifying the ploy and focusing on action makes Khan a relatively easier film to get into than TMP, and I can see why pop culture would gravitate towards it as the ‘first good Trek film’, even if I don’t quite agree with it. Personally, I see Wrath of Khan as more of a companion piece: Star Trek: The Motion Picture represents the wonder of discovery, the drive for knowledge and understanding that has pushed humanity to progress further and become better (hopefully) as the years go by. Wrath of Khan looks back at our past, a history of war and hatred and self-destruction that needs to be overcome for us before life can begin to move forward (or so I theorize). The metaphysical(some might say spiritual) and the corporeal, both channeled through Gene Roddenberry’s idealistic vision in the potential of mankind, and the importance of working for the future. And maybe I’m at optimist at heart, because that’s how I like to view it, instead of believing they dumbed things down in order to sell more tickets.

     Wrath of Khan has its flaws, of course. The titular Khan has a tendency to come off as a bit of a dunce despite being a genetically enhanced super-genius (that’s called situational irony folks) and it doesn’t really feel like they make full use of the TOS cast aside from Kirk. Even Spock, despite being one of the most important characters in the film, feels far more ephemeral than you might expect given what happens. Maybe they didn’t really feel the need to do anything like that, because just getting to see the original cast was enough? I dunno, it’s not really a damning criticism, but it was obvious enough that I noticed it.

     If you’re looking for a film that captures that unique beauty of the late 70s/early 80s sci-fi aesthetic without getting bogged down too many messages and themes, then it’s hard to go wrong with Wrath of Khan. You don’t even have to watch Star Trek: The Motion Picture if you don’t want to, since there’s nothing that carries over plot wise as far as I can recall, so there’s no excuse not to see it. Unless you have an extreme phobia of insects crawling into your ear canal, but that only happens a couple times, and they only linger on it squirming into a person’s brain for a couple seconds at most. It’s fine.

     Totally fine.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2016: The Burbs (1989), directed by Joe Dante

The Trailer
and
The Appropriate Tune: "Suburbia", by Pet Shop Boys

     Isn’t it weird how, as time has progressed, our civilization has seen a decrease in violent crime inversely proportional to its paranoia towards other people? I mean sure, we as a country seem determined to have a mass shooting every month, but every time a big report crime comes out, it turns out that we’re actually a lot better off than we were in the past and there isn’t a murderer lurking on every street corner. So why are we more afraid of other people despite having no basis for it? Is it the fault of terrorism? The nature of media coverage these days? The anonymity of the internet age dissolving traditional forms of human contact and conversation? Or are we just animals, and animals are inherently fearful of potential threats to their territory and and resources? Take your pick.

     Such is the basis for The Burbs, directed by Joe Dante, who is perhaps better known for Gremlins, Gremlins 2 and the infamous cult classic Small Soldiers. Tom Hanks plays Ray Peterson, your average suburbanite living the average American dream in Hinkley Hills. Ray’s got it all: a wife (Carrie Fisher), a kid, a dog, a collection of wacky neighbors that do wacky things to each other, everything except peace of mind. You see, about a month ago a new family moved right next door to Ray, going by the name of Klopek. No one has ever really seen Klopeks, never really talked to them, but what Ray and the people of Hinkley Hills do know is what they’ve seen. Strange lights coming from the basement, mysterious noises late at night, and a whole bunch of other stuff that seems really sketchy. Normal social etiquette would recommend not giving a shit and leaving people to their own affairs, but that’s not how they do it in this neighborhood folks. These Klopeks are up to something, and it’s up to Ray Peterson and his motley crew of husbands with too much time on their hands to figure out what it is and stop it once and for all. You don’t mess with the ‘burbs, baby.

     The Burbs has a certain charm to it, a bit like Tim Burton if he focused on comedy rather than The Cure, and Joe Dante is a man familiar with comedy (He directed two episodes of the original Police Squad! after all, and the Gremlins series is no stranger to Looney Tunes-style gags), but it’s not funny in the same sense that The Naked Gun or Caddyshack are funny films. Rather it projects this aura of absurdity that you get caught up in, this atmosphere of buffoonery and coincidence that has been connected with your ‘typical American family’ since the days of Ralph Kramden and Lucille Ball. It’s not so much the jokes they tell as it is to watch things they try to accomplish snowball out of control. Hell, ‘character A jumps to conclusions and thinks neighbor is a murderer’ was already a pretty well-worn formula by the time Dante decided to play around with it, which only solidifies the sitcom comparison.

     Like I said though, it’s never quite reached the point of being laugh-out-loud funny to me like other comedies of the era, and beyond that it never really captured my imagination like those comedies as well. So unfortunately my mind is blanking on anything to actually say about it. Cast is pretty good I guess, Tom Hanks puts in some fine work and Rick Ducommun’s Art Weingartner treads the fine line between comedic sidekick and arrogant prick pretty well. I’ll recommend it on the basis of being a decent bit of entertainment, but it’s not something I’d go out of my way to see again. Besides, I think I’ve had enough of Neighborhood Watch people to last me a lifetime.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2016 -- Black Christmas (1974), directed by Bob Clark

The Trailer
and
The Appropriate Tune: "Carol of the Bells", by Trans-Siberian Orchestra

     If there was one thing that really came into its own in the 1970s, it was serial killers. When people weren’t rocking out to the latest Emerson, Lake and Palmer record or protesting the Vietnam War, they were being thrown into a frenzy over the psychopathic murderers that seemed to spring up every couple months in the late 60s and 70s. Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, the Zodiac Killer, the Son of Sam, the Manson Family, at some point it feels more like we’re looking at Batman’s Rogue’s Gallery than people who actually existed in real life. Of course Batman villains kill and rape way more people than that, but then you have to find some way to entertain the kids.

     Therein lies the heart of the matter though: people have been killing each other since the dawn of time, and chances are at least a few of them were mentally ill enough to do it in some fucked up way. The thing that’s changed is how the public learns about it. Every moment since the Industrial Age the way we receive new and information has expanded exponentially, and the larger the scope of news becomes and the larger the amount of information we are bombarded with becomes, the more detached we become with the truth and the more interested we become with basic emotional and ideological judgments. Jack the Ripper had to make do with the evening edition of the London Times, but the Manson Family got TV, newspapers, radio, books, a full blown media circus. What started out as a horrific murder of a up-and-coming actress morphs into a nail-biting thriller involving mind-control cults and that devilish rock ‘n’ roll music. The case becomes ‘The End of Flower Power’ and ‘The Death of the American Dream’, Charles Manson becomes this larger-than life figure who shows up in South Park episodes and TV series, rather than just this weirdo who convinced some folks to murder Sharon Tate. But admitting that wouldn't make for good television, I guess.

     As serial killers were making waves on the evening news, it’s only natural that Hollywood would jump on it to make some cash. Known as ‘slasher’ movies, this now infamous subgenre of horror featured the titular slasher, occasionally disfigured, generally insane, who would cut a path of bloody destruction through his unfortunate victims, who were traditionally either a group of horny teenagers or your typical white family who decided to vacation in an abandoned mine shaft or something for the summer. The ‘realness’ of the plots (just think of all the abandoned mine shafts you pass by on the way to work), combined with what was then shocking violence, ended up becoming a huge success, and many of the slasher pioneers ended up graduating into full fledged horror icons (or at least franchises). The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween, The Hills Have Eyes, Friday the 13th, all movies that were big enough to driven into the ground. However, there is one slasher film that never quite reached the heights of marketability that its peers did, despite coming out the same year as Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Not only that, but it was also directed by the same man who directed A Christmas Story (one of the most beloved holiday films of all time) and Porky’s (one of the most beloved cheesy 80s sex comedies of all time). This time we’re featuring a little film known as Black Christmas, and no, Shaft unfortunately does not make an appearance.

     It’s Christmas time at the Pi Sigma Epsilon sorority, and all the girls are getting into the holiday spirit in their own special way. Some are making plans with their significant others and/or family, some are getting shitfaced drunk (Lois Lane was a bit of a party girl before she moved to Metropolis), and some are dealing with serious real life stuff. Unfortunately, a series of obscene phone calls by a rather uncouth pervert have put a damper on what should be a joyous time of year. Which would be bad enough, but then one of the girls go missing. According to the police, college girls just go missing for days on end all the time and it’s no big deal, but we know the real score. There’s a serial killer on the loose, and he’s targeting the residents of PSE. Will the girls manage to make it to the new year alive, or are they destined for one Unholy Night of hell? Well, it is a horror movie after all.

     Having dropped before the formula could be properly established, Black Christmas doesn’t quite have the same feel as the slasher films that were to follow. For one, we never actually see the murderer throughout the entire film, aside from one heavily shadowed shot near the end of the movie. Everything we know about the killer and his activities we learn through POV shots, ‘monster stalker’ scenes I guess you could call them, which were eventually recreated to great effect by Friday the 13th and Evil Dead years later. It’s actually a bit refreshing actually to have a slasher movie where the killer is almost completely anonymous, considering the almost comic-bookish way that colorful killers and movie monsters and placed in the spotlight these days. Makes it a more chilling.

     Also worth noting that Black Christmas is really a female-centric movie, and I don’t mean that in the sense that it’s the women who are getting murdered. The main characters are women, and they are treated like human beings rather than stereotypes. No screaming damsels, no women who are punished for having sex (who knew horror movies were so fundamentalist), just regular characters with their own quirks and flaws. They still end up dead in excruciatingly painful ways, but at least you end up caring for their well-being more than any male character in the film, even Nightmare on Elm Street/Enter the Dragon star John Saxon, who is probably the biggest name in this film aside from Margot Kidder. In fact the old boozehound lady of the house is hands down the best and funniest character in this movie. Every time she’s on screen you remember that this is the same guy who dressed Ralphie up in pink bunny pajamas.

     In a world where the slasher movie has been done to death, Black Christmas shows how entertaining it was at the outset. You’ve got a bit of humour, you’ve got the violent deaths and the chilling suspense, and it manages to tell its story and wrap things up at around 90 minutes. Old school attitude when it comes to storytelling, new school attitude when it comes to content and behavior, it’s the best of both worlds. If you’re a fan of Freddy and Jason and all those guys, do yourself a service and try out Black Christmas this Halloween, get a little learning on the Founding Fathers of Slashers. If you’ve been good, maybe Santa won’t stab you to death in your sleep this year.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2016: Being John Malkovich (1999), directed by Spike Jonze

The Trailer
and
The Appropriate Tune: "David Watts", by The Kinks

     As someone with depression problems, anxiety problems, self esteem problems, self image problems and (on occasion) self harm problems, the idea of not being myself has been an especially appealing one over the years. I’m not alone in that line of thinking either, in fact most of the history of man is dedicated to the concept of ‘escapism’, of being so absorbed in something that for a time the thing that is ‘you’ ceases to exist. Drugs, alcohol, music, films, art, the theater, all created so that we might forget that we are who we are and what the world is like. At the end of the day you’re still you, with all the worries, problems and fears you’ve compiled during your life, but at least it’s a way to pass the time, right?

     What if you could go beyond the simple forms of escapism we’re stuck with in our everyday lives though? What if you could literally be someone else? Live their life, experience those intimate moments that we all have when we’re alone, if only for a moment? Wouldn’t it be a little intoxicating? Spike Jonze thinks so, so much so that he decided to base his directorial debut around that premise. It’s a movie called Being John Malkovich and it’s about puppets.

     Craig Schwartz (John Cusack) is the world’s biggest schmuck. He’s an extremely gifted puppeteer in a world that doesn’t need puppeteers, especially when superstars like Derek Mantini are around. He’s stuck in a humdrum marriage with Lottie (Cameron Diaz), who has evolved past crazy cat lady into a ‘crazy animals in general’ lady. Worst of all though, he’s been forced to take a job as a file clerk at a company called Lestercorp, which is situated on the 7½ floor of an office building in downtown New York (the building’s architect had a thing for little people). Mostly because life as a working man seems to be much worse than being a street performer; his boss, Dr. Lester, seems to be a brain-addled sex maniac and he is hopelessly infatuated with his coworker Maxine, who knows the exact right ways to treat him like dogshit. He even makes a puppet that looks just like her, which I guess is either incredibly romantic or incredibly creepy depending on your preferences.

     Craig’s life, and the lives of all the people he knows are irrevocably changed the day he discovers a mysterious door in his office. When opened, the door leads into a passage, and when one enters into the passage, they are transported into the mind of famous film and theater actor John Malkovich. More than that, for 15 minutes they are John Malkovich, seeing through his eyes, living in his skin, before they’re somehow spit out outside the New Jersey turnpike. What a incredibly metaphysical discovery, Craig thinks. What a great business opportunity, Maxine thinks. So the wheel turns and leads them all on journeys of destruction, enlightenment, and for some, salvation.

     Not since The Trial way back in the first ever Marathon has there been a film on this list that was so blatantly Kafkaesque as Being John Malkovich, and the former had the advantage of being based on a Kafka novel. A world that borders on the surreal, people seem strangely aggressive to those that don’t really understand the same world view, no one is really a good person and the ones who end up happy are the ones who care the least about other people. Yet Jonze manages to inject enough humor, I think the proper term would be ‘offbeat’, throughout the film that he manages to push it more into the realm of existential black comedy than existential tragedy. That one scene where John Malkovich is walking down the street and someone beans him in the back of the head with a can alone is enough to push it from “The Metamorphosis” to “Breakfast of Champions”, if you catch my drift.

     The late 90s and early 2000s really were the era for proto-indie films though, weren’t they? Proto-indie in the sense that they predated the ‘quirky but totally deep man’ style that we’re so familiar with in modern day indie . Kevin Smith’s Chasing Amy, Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums, Richard Linklater’s Waking Life, Stephen Frears’ High Fidelity, Joel & Ethan Coen’s The Big Lebowski, Peter Weir’s The Truman Show, you get the picture. Being John Malkovich is a bit more artsy than most of those films (dat cinematography doe), a bit more philosophical (life is an unending vortex of misery and she will never love you), even a bit more fantastical (the best use of magic realism since Salman Rushdie) but there is a distinctive thread of melancholy, and in some cases disaffected 20 somethings and hip alternative music, that runs through all these films that should feel familiar to the educated viewer. Chances are if you liked those films, you’ll probably find something to like with Being John Malkovich, and if you didn’t then it’s quite probable that you won’t like Being John Malkovich.

     Amazing puppetry in this movie, by the way. It’s worth watching the movie just to see it, in my opinion.

     Well I like all of those movies, and so I really like this one. If you’re the kind of person who is stuck in their head a lot, as I am, and you’re looking for a movie to feel some feelings at this Halloween, then why not take a shot at Being John Malkovich? Just don’t stay too long, or you may not want to leave.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2016 -- Cape Fear (1991), directed by Martin Scorsese

The Trailer
and
The Appropriate Tune: "Cape Fear River", by American Aquarium

     Normally I have a little paragraph setting up the article. Well I’ve been feeling a little out of it today and I decided to skip it. The movie this time is Cape Fear, so let’s get to it.

     Lawyer Sam Bowden has about everything a man could ask for: A beautiful wife, a lovely daughter, an expensive house and even a woman on the side to play squash and potentially have sex with. Then one day, a man named Max Cady rolls into town, a man that Bouden actually represented in court. Seems that Cady was recently released from prison after spending 14 years there for battery (also some rape and murder), and after a decade to think about it, Cady is convinced that Bouden is responsible. So he’s going to do everything in his power to make Bowden's life a living hell, and he’s smart enough to do it without getting caught. With his life and his career threatening to crumble down around his ears, Bouden must confront the fact that sometimes all the fancy laws and policemen in the world can’t do a damn thing to protect you. Sometimes you have to stand on your own to protect what’s yours, even if it goes against everything you thought you believed in. Every man must go through their own hell to reach salvation, and Cape Fear is Sam Bowden's hell.

     Now I don’t research the films for this Marathon prior to viewing, so I actually didn’t know that this Cape Fear is actually a remake of the original Cape Fear made back in 1962, directed by J. Lee Thompson and starring Martin Balsam, Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum (who all make appearances in this film). However, once you do know that, you get the impression that Scorsese is making a conscious effort to not just retell the story of Cape Fear, but to replicate the feeling of old-school thrillers as a whole. Robert De Niro’s portrayal of Max Cady, which had to be inspired by Mitchum’s performance in Night of the Hunter, the abundance of orchestral musical stings, the way Scorsese frames certain scenes and lingers on certain shots (the bit where Bouden is brushing his teeth while his wife is in the background feels incredibly Hitchcockian), it all fits together with that Hitchcock/Laughton style in mind. Which is pretty cool, I mean Scorsese is one of the biggest director’s to come out the ‘New Hollywood’ wave of the 1970s, which redefined the role of the director and changed how stories were told through film. To see the man so intimately connected to filmmaking as we know it now deliberately reference an older style like that is certainly interesting.

     I dunno though, as much as I can appreciate an attempt revisiting that style, I feel like there are points where it ends up undercutting the emotional impact of what’s happening on screen. The musical stings and the repeated shots which picture the roiling (and for some reason purple) clouds, which may have been effective in 1962 just end up feeling unbelievably cheesy in 1991. This is a movie about a rapist and murderer terrorizing a family, who actually does some raping and murdering in the film, so you’d expect a certain level of tension that carries throughout the film. Most of the time Scorsese works it out and Cape Fear manages to be a chilling and uncomfortable experience, even managing to capture the classic thriller atmosphere that he’s aiming for (mostly in the second half I’d say), but then those stings or something else pops in and it feels less like you’re watching a descendent of Vertigo and Rope and more like the Twilight Zone movie. Melodramatic at best and goofy at worst is the best way I can think of to describe it, which is the exact same problem I had with another film of his, 2010’s Shutter Island. If Scorsese had approached Cape Fear in the way he approached Raging Bull and Taxi Driver, gritty, dirty, rather than riding the nostalgia tip, I feel like it would have been a lot better off.

     Like I said though, Scorsese manages to hit the mark about 80% of the time in Cape Fear, and he managed to collect a pretty impressive list of names to act in it. Nick Nolte, Jessica Lange, Juliette Lewis, Joe Don Baker, Robert De Niro, high class talent that put on a pretty high class performance. So I can see why it’s earned a spot in pop culture, and that’s why it gets a recommendation from me. Just try not to wait 14 years before you see it, alright?

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2016: Kiss Me Deadly (1955), directed by Robert Aldrich

The Trailer
and
The Appropriate Tune: "Kiss Me Deadly", by Lita Ford

     Before comics dominated the word, there were pulp novels. Before Batman and other costumed men of mystery became the go-to people for crime-solving you had, well, plain old detectives. Private investigators, men who explored places the law wouldn’t touch, dodging bullets and femme fatales in their dogged pursuit of the truth. They weren’t master sleuths by any means, but they could put the pieces together and they could hold their liquor as well as they could take a punch, and that was the coolest shit in the world for a number of years. Like comic book movies except they could win Oscars, basically. The Oscars that aren’t about special effects, I mean, which is the only thing those crusty assholes at the Academy can bring themselves to give movies that dare to think of themselves as science fiction.

     Much like any field of entertainment like this, there are a couple names and a couple characters that manage to stand out amongst the rest. Raymond Chandler and his creation Philip Marlowe, who has been portrayed on the silver screen by the likes of Humphrey Bogart, Elliott Gould and Robert Mitchum. Rex Stout and his character Nero Wolfe, who has been adapted to film, radio and television multiple times. And, as is most relevant to this article, Mickey Spillane and his character Mike Hammer. Mr. Hammer had his own success in movies and television, beginning with 1953’s I, The Jury all the way through to the 00’s, but the one that we’ll be looking at this time around is the second of the Mike Hammer films, 1955’s Kiss Me Deadly.

     There are a million stories in the naked city, and on a dark Los Angeles night private investigator Mike Hammer is pulled into one when a mysterious woman flags him down on a deserted road. She never gives her name, but she does reveal that she’s escaped from an asylum and that she’s looking to be dropped off at the nearest bus station in order to disappear. After they stop off at a nearby gas station, she hands the attendant a mysterious letter and tells Mike that if anything should happen to her to “Remember Me”. Which would probably set off more than a few red flags in my head, but I guess Mike Hammer is a much cooler guy than I am.

     Sure enough, as soon as she mentions that something might happen, a car ends up driving Hammer’s car off the road, and the two are kidnapped. The woman is tortured to death, and Hammer almost dies when they push him and his car down a hill. A situation that most would rather forget, but Mike, not a huge fan of almost being murdered over something he knows nothing about, decides to look into it. Things can’t just be that easy though, and Mike soon finds himself entangled in a web of conspiracy that just might go all the way up to the F.B.I. Who was this mysterious woman, and what kind of mysterious knowledge did she have that was worth killing over? Mike Hammer is on the case.

     As far as being a mystery story goes, KMD ends up stumbling at the starting bell. I dunno what it is, maybe my attention was elsewhere at the time, but it seems like it takes until the end of the movie before you ever really figure out what it is Mike is supposed to be doing or what he’s looking for, and the thread of the story just becomes totally disjointed. I mean, it’s about a half hour in before we even find out the name of the murdered woman, and by that point in time we find out there’s actually another murder that’s actually the one we should be paying attention to about a character we never meet, and it ends up congealing into a one big clusterfuck of a plot. Oh, and don’t expect the ending to clear anything up either. It’s one of those ‘and now the movie ends’-type jams.

     What Kiss Me Deadly, and Mickey Spillane in general, does well however, is provide all the sex and violence you could want in a hardboiled detective story. What Mike Hammer lacks in depth and complex emotional he makes up for in pure grit: making out with the ladies (who all fling themselves to his feet), punching out the goons (who are A-grade dumb, brutish bastards), slapping around the wimpy types (who are A-grade weak, nebbish milquetoasts) and getting stone-faced drunk at least once. A male power fantasy in its basest form, and while that could be and has been considered a point of criticism with Spillane’s work, I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing or that it negatively impacts the film itself. Literature is as much a source of entertainment as it is of art, perhaps more so in some people’s opinion, and occasionally people just want something simple and dirty to pass the time. It’s the same way that people can be into anything Frank Miller has written since Year One, despite it being one-note garbage. It’s something to be consumed rather than analyzed, and in that way Kiss Me Deadly is more a movie that invokes feelings, anger, satisfaction, lust, rather than provoke thoughts. Way better than anything Frank Miller ever wrote too.

     So when it comes to the actual acting itself I’m not exactly sure what to say, as they all pretty much have one pigment to paint with in a manner of speaking, and they paint it just fine. Ralph Meeker’s portrayal of Mike Hammer is rather good, every line he speaks has this intensity about it, a sort of definite air about it. No matter whether he’s the one in control or not, whether he actually knows anything or not (and he generally doesn’t), he always manages to project this feeling of being the one who really knows the score. He may not be a guy who considers the consequences of his actions, but you can’t doubt the strength of his convictions.

     Also worth noting that is Cloris Leachman’s first credited role, as the mysterious murdered woman Christina. I’ll admit that I didn’t even realize that she was the one that played Christina, which isn’t meant as a slight against Ms. Leachman, just that there isn’t much to take away from the character besides ‘crazy woman who ends up dead’.

     With the story the way it is, I suppose I can’t say Kiss Me Deadly is ‘uncomplicated’, but if you want something hardboiled and you’ve run out of eggs, then this might be right up your alley. Hell, if you’re looking for something to watch on Halloween (aren’t we all?) this movie actually has a higher body count than Hardware and The Raven combined, and we all know how the amount of deaths in a movie is indicative of its quality. So grab yourself a bottle of scotch and settle in for a night of Hammer. It’s bound to be a fun one.