Hausu (1977)

The Criterion Collection just released this film on DVD with a fantastic set of extras and a whole slew of infused legitimacy. Honestly, I think it's the best example of the company showing that they are not just movie snobs with an interest in reinforcing the standard canon. It's a little like a Shakespearean critic giving two thumbs up to 10 Things I Hate About You and then hosting a Ross Perot-style Infomercial about the DVD. You might not get what their motivation is, but the fact that they're going to these lengths is impressive even without understanding it.

While the film is about a young girl who goes to visit her aunt with a group of her school friends, it is literally shot in such a fashion that makes all of what I just typed irrelevant. The stylistic content is absolutely stomping on the literal plot. From the painted backgrounds to the animated segments and the creepy cat, this film takes the snooze-worthy set-up and churns it into a raging blast of quirky artistry. Nobuhiko Obayashi definitely did not waste the screen-time of his film. He took every rubber-stamp moment and turned it on its head. Need to get those school-girls to the house of the film's title? Well, why not do it with a little psychadelia sprinkled around the edges? Got some boring exposition? Spice it up with kaleidascoping. How can you jazz up a lot of drawn out chatter? Throw in a pratfall scene and boatloads of matte backgrounds...maybe even a short animated sequence where the girls ride the train out to the countryside.

Even with all the Easy Rider experimentation, the first part of the film drags. It's nice that we actually view a flashback as if the girls are watching it on an old grainy film, but it still doesn't quite make up for the fact of that the story is a bit tedious. As I said, the style is definitely out-weighing the substance here. But maybe that's the point: to take a vapid script and turn it into something visually exciting. To tell the truth, most American horror films can't seem to accomplish this task. And I still wait for the day when both style and substance wedge their way into American film in general (although, to reel the cynicism back a notch, there are a few examples that do a damned good job).

Once the girls get to the aforementioned House, the weirdness doesn't stop (some kung-fu action against falling chandelier crystals, for example). As soon as there's a floating severed head biting her schoolgirl friend on the ass, you know that weirdness has turned a strange corner. After that, there's a woman eating a severed hand, a fire-woman, a schoolgirl getting beaten to death by pillows and mattresses, and an awesome-ass piano death (see below).

Needless to say, the movie is weird. It's even a hair more weird than my usual fare, but still not quite as far out in the stratosphere as The Holy Mountain. Definitely a different kind of horror to be had with this horror film.

A few things to note:

*Word on the street is that the director got the story idea from his 12 year-old daughter

*The director got his start directing Charles Bronson in Mandom commercials (nothing sells some cologne like showing a couple of guys putting it on...together)

So, thank you Criterion. You've definitely educated me on how liberally you interpret the phrase "important classic and contemporary films". This movie definitely opened my eyes to all sorts of crazy. Maybe next time you could do an edition of The Killing of Satan?

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes

If there ever was a fruit that would have justification for rebelling against humanity, it is certainly the psuedo-vegetable Tomato. And from the start, their revolt is captured in its full glory through a series of vignettes that coalesce into a fantastic poetry plucked from the ether of B-movie awesome. It's like Night of the Living Dead took a bath with Airplane! scented soap and then toweled off with The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra.

Thing is, there's no discernable plot here. Well, except that the tomatoes are attacking. Outside of that, it's just a bunch of people in scenes reacting to the attacking. Honestly, the best part of any of these attacks is the gibberish that the tomatoes spew as their signature "noise" (the first thirty-seconds of the video below...be sure to turn up the sound).

It truly is a relief to be reassured that this movie doesn't even attempt to take itself seriously. You never know with Hollywood these days. They make a 2012 movie just a year shy of scientists figuring out they miscalculated the date (couple that with the idea that far too many Americans believe there's some insight to be gained from an ancient calendar when they largely don't inform themselves outside of their own point of view, and the combination is troubling).

Thankfully, this film has gotten me to thinking about the larger issues in life. I mean, have you prepared for a fruit attack!? Is your family safe from the harm that any number of savagely photosynthisizing and mobile plant-parts could inflict upon your simple existence?! These things have no conscience. They cannot distinguish between the blood of an innocent babe and water running from a kitchen tap! These most un-beastly of beasts are propagating the earth around us in order to extend their most un-claw-like of claws and ravage us from the planet. Something must be done, and done now!!!

America has led the charge in avoiding these vicious fuckers whose only aim is to spread their seeds to every viable corner of soil and take it as their own!! It's time for someone else to follow our lead. It's time for some international body to support our efforts in this as they basically ride our coattails in the name of an international governing body.

I'm looking at you, United Nations.

So, if someone in my family...or a friend's family...or someone who I hear about from someone I know...or an American that is reported on the news - even if he's from a different state and I've never met him...or a foreigner (but it really depends on what country they're from)...if ANY of these people are eviscerated by these rampaging garden resultants...well then, we have a serious problem. And I will continue to ignore that problem for as long as possible while simultaneously blaming any group of people or metaphysical idea that I'm able to point an accusing finger at.

Happy voting folks!

The Hand (1981)

I remember watching this film when I was very young and it came on television. For all of these years I could picture the scene where Michael Caine loses his hand. It would pop full-bore into my brain whenever I would pass someone on a two lane road, or when someone else would as I was in a car nearby. Or whenever I would see one car pass another on television. And even sometimes when I just thought about cars passing each other on a two-lane road (from 8:58 to the end of the video below).

Outside of that, I remember absolutely nothing about this movie. Because of that, I was very surprised to find that it was a parable of an artist losing his ability to art, and then being hunted down psychologically by that propensity.

And Oliver Stone directed it, so there must be, like, multiple layers about a story where a dude loses his hand, he becomes a retro-cyborg, his severed hand carries out the vengeance of his subconscious mind (because, really, it can't just go get a job at McDonalds), before the main guy gets thrown in a nuthouse without really telling us whether the hand was imaginary or not. Damn auteurs.

There is some seriously fantastic Michael Caine in this film though. No joke, for a B-rate horror movie, he still brings the goods snarled in the side of his lip (much like the badass Harry Brown), and he lays them dead on the table (see the original Get Carter). He even does this while lip-syncingly commanding his dead-hand to strangle his soon-to-be ex-wife while lying in an adjacent room, and ESPECIALLY while wrestling with his. own. hand.

The following is a Public Service Announcement:

Michael Caine's hand strangles Michael Caine in this movie. Thus, Michael Caine's hand > Michael Caine. If this evidence holds true in relation to all of Michael Cain's limbs, then no one should decapitate Michael Caine's head from Michael Caine's body in the event of a Zombpacalypse. There's no telling what absolute horror Michael Caine's severed head could dispense upon an unsuspecting world.

Thank you for your cooperation.

So, watching this film when I was young scarred me for life. But at least it kept me from getting a limb severed in an automobile accident...and then have that limb, maybe, kill people that made me mad. That would've been pretty awful, right?

Lone Wolf McQuade (1983)

We now return to our regularly scheduled program:

And now that I’m back, I have to be the first to write, and therefore contribute to the internet, that Lone Wolf McQuade is the Chuck Norris’ magnum opus. This is his Fistful of Dollars. This is where he is Connery’s Bond. He makes the Chuck Norris here that all other variations will deviate from. With that said, the guy has a serious hard-on for playing a Texas Ranger on film. Regardless, if ever a man earned the right to be described as “grizzled,” it is certainly the man with a fist behind his beard.

Well the music of the film was as inspired-by-Ennio-Morricone-but-ended-up-mocking-it-through-a-horribly-failed-imitation as the filmmaker was inspired-by-Sergio-Leone-but-ended-up-mocking-it-through-a-horribly-failed-imitation. So, they were well-paired. But no amount of horribly cheesy imitation music can save this plot from writing itself. Seriously, if you put a bunch of monkeys in a room after you’ve force-fed them chocolate-covered clichés all morning, evening, and night for six months, the first draft of what they write would be the script for Lone Wolf McQuade. Hell, they’d probably even spit out a cast list that has Chuck Norris’ name at the top.

Side Note: There is a seriously obscene amount of shirtless-Chuck in this film. Shirtless-Chuck shoots guns while he’s shirtless. Why? Because one thing that shirtless-Chuck does is whatever the hell shirtless-Chuck wants.

Anyway, Ranger Chuck is your Dirty Harry of Texas Rangers. He has a daughter and some bad peeps just go on ahead and almost kill her into a ditch in her car after killing her boyfriend all uzi-like. Those bad peeps are led by karate champ David Carradine at his smarmy best (until he, sadly, fights Chuck while wearing a freakin cardigan in the final battle).

Eventually, Ranger Chuck’s dog-wolf gets killed, Ranger Chuck gets almost-killed, and there’s some serious last-15-minutes-revenge-action. This film is not about the plot though. It’s about watching shirtless-Chuck shoot guns, Ranger Chuck kick some ass, Emotional (?) Chuck make-out in the mud and punch the ground when his wolf gets shot all uzi-like, and then Ranger Chuck get some kick ass revenge. It’s good stuff.

Seriously, Ranger Chuck wears a bullet belt. And he comes back from the brink of death to ask for a beer. umfuckyes.

Anyhow, Chuck is an exceedingly more badass Texas Ranger in this film than he is in that whole millennia-long Walker Texas Ranger series (and seriously, who was keeping the ratings of that show so far above the water-line!?!!). That means there’s punching and anger…Chuck-style (invincible, angry, and with gravy-thick layer of imitation Ennio Morricone music draped over Chuck putting a cowboy hat on or putting his gun in the gun-belt). As a warning, he does quite a bit of glistening as a result of his deluge of Chuck Norris punching/anger/headband/sweetness in the latter half of the film, so be sure to put on your protective gear.

Advertorialisms

A few bits of commentary on the state of journalism (here and here as examples but certainly only symptoms of a wider issue):

Article 1: Does a fan really make you cooler?

Excerpts:

“Independent studies have shown that moving air actually feels cooler than air that isn’t moving. Since a fan moves the air around you, it does actually lower your body temperature.”

“Along with all the complicated research being done on what's being called 'the velocity of air,' most people also believe that having someone rooting for you (in other words, a fan), does make you a cooler person. Thus, the more fans a person or celebrity has, the cooler they are.”

“The verdict? Everyone needs a fan.”

Article 3: Is it a myth that alcohol gets you drunk?

Excerpts:

“New evidence suggests that the power of the mind over our own bodies is even greater than once thought. Hospitals are including hypnotism as a way for patients to deal with chronic pain, and placebos are constantly used in medical research with actual effects and side-effects reported by the people who take them. If the mind/body connection is this powerful, could the actual effects of alcohol actually just be something imagined?”

“While there are innumerable examples of people acting far more drunk than they actually are (oddly, this behavior occurs mostly in women of college age), scientists continue to believe that alcohol does actually get you intoxicated.”

“We took this question to the researchers involved with alcohol: Does drinking alcohol actually get a person drunk? One scientist replied to our question with skepticism, ‘What?’ he seemed to scoff. Another said, ‘Yeah, it does. We can measure how much is in your system. The more that’s in your system, the more intoxicated you are.’ But it seems the layman isn’t so positive.

We stopped an average male as he was leaving a local bar and posed the same question. His response: ‘Well, sure, I’ve had about six shots of jager and seven or eight beers, but I don’t really feel that drunk.’ And another man who was found in an alley and appeared to be unable to walk said, ‘Your mother gets me drunk,’ and then laughed incessantly.”

Article 4: Where does “wasted time” go? Can you really get it back?

Excerpts:

“We’ve all gone through a weekend and wondered on the other side, ‘what happened to all my free time?’ Well, we’ve set aside our actual journalistic pursuits to write an entire article about where all that time goes, and how you might be able to get some of it back.”

“As it turns out, wasted time is actually just time that we spend on things that we like so much and do so little that our accountability for that time dwindles to nothing. Mostly we’re so mentally present in the enjoyable activity that we forget to think of what we still have on our to do lists or what we’ve yet to sufficiently accomplish. As a result, time is lost and cannot be reclaimed.”

“There is a solution though. In order to avoid this common issue, the most enterprising solution we’ve found is to restrain your activities to those that you don’t enjoy - like you do at work. That way, your focus is always on the time it takes to accomplish those tasks and move on to others that you similarly don’t enjoy. By keeping to this pattern at home in your ‘free time’ as well as at work, you’ll soon realize how long you’ve spent on each and every activity. And ‘wasted time’ will be a thing of your past!”

Article 6: Think life’s “achievements” should be more like the ones in videogames? You’re not alone.

Excerpts:

“Johnny Muroski is an average 8 year-old living in the Oregan/North Dakota area. He plays almost 20 hours of video games per week and has even put a lot of his time into playing older games in order to challenge his friends to see who can get the highest score. Johnny likes the congratulations he receives when he beats a game or gets a high score. Unfortunately, when we asked him if he got the same congratulations when he did well on a test, he said no….”

“In fact, most people report that they simply do not get the same sense of accomplishment when they do well at their jobs or at school. They say that beating a really tough level of a videogame offers a real feeling that their actions have meaning in the world – that what they do has a measurable pitch and scale against the accomplishments of others. And when asked about their jobs, most reply like Johnny’s videogaming father: ‘Going to my job every day is like playing the most horribly designed level of a videogame over and over again for hours at a time. And at the end of each time you play, you don’t lose a life and then start fresh, you lose a little bit of your life-bar that you’ll never get back again.’…”

“Some theorize that life’s ‘achievements’ should be revised to more closely model those in videogames. These experts believe that there are numerous examples in modern videogames where the player is forced to complete a repetitive action ad nauseum, but that they are more content (and less likely to allow their frustration to turn into a violent rampage) with this action when there is the potential promise of recognition when it’s completed. These same experts believe that real life just isn’t like that, but that it should be.”

Article 7: Research shows that weight loss commercials don’t help you lose weight.

Excerpts:

“Are you watching television when a commercial about some new weight loss program comes on? Do you wonder if those commercials help you lose that weight that you’ve been depressed about for years?

Well, they don’t. You need to exercise.”

Colors (1988) - a guest review

This review brought to you by A. Lee and most likely a substance that starts with the letter W:

Even the worst movies to come onto THIS are great in their ability to depict the world as it was 22 years ago. Supposedly. Actually, only the aerial and drive-by shots in the opening credits--with their frighteningly realistic video of scary looking poor people in dangerous neighborhood--can pass for a semi-truthful depiction of the world in 1988.

The actual plots of these movies tend to focus on white working-men's power struggles in some inner city police force. Often the white man who manages to catch the most non-white men is the one to quickly rise in the ranks.

While the plot focuses on the competing white cops, brief scenes of competing black gangs scream and lunge at each other while climbing the bars of opposing prison cages like wild animals.

All this while Robert Duvall is out saving the neighborhood and maintaining his virility in the face of that overly confident rookie, Sean Penn.

Keep your People's History of the United States next to you when you watch this one. And a healthy admiration for the acting skills of Duvall, Penn, and...is that Don Cheadle?? Holy shit!