Savages (2012)

Title: Savages (2012)

Director: Oliver Stone

Cast: Benicio del Toro, Salma Hayek, John Travolta, Aaron Johnson, Blake Lively, Taylor Kitsch

I enjoyed Oliver Stone's Any Given Sunday (1999), it had a lot of his kinetic energy, a lot of his love for Americana, and I loved how he filmed football like it was a war, but I'm not a huge fan of football, so that film wasn't really big on my Oliver Stone-o-meter; yes I have one of those. In reality, the last Oliver Stone movie that I really enjoyed was U-Turn (1997), I believe that was Stone's last truly edgy film. It wasn't based on any real life events, it wasn't making any political statements or trying to uncover some age old conspiracy like a lot of Oliver Stone's films do, no, U-Turn was Oliver Stone simply having some fun telling a story about this shitty day Sean Penn has when he falls, like a fly into a fly trap, into this hell hole of a town, straight out of a Twilight Zone episode. It was kinetic, it was weird, it was offbeat, it was dark and funny...and it had that great Billy Bob Thornton performance. Sadly, every other film Stone has made after that one has missed that Oliver Stone kineticness we all came to love. Actually, the title U-Turn was so symbolic because from there on in, Stone's films just haven't been the same. 

Oliver Stone, working out a scene with Travolta and Kitsch

Take World Trade Center (2006) for example. What a boring film! Had that been a true Oliver Stone film it would have focused on the terrorists on the plane or on the conspiracy theory that maybe it was the Americans who blew themselves up to have an excuse to invade Iraq or something like that. But no, since World Trade Center was made by the "neutured by Hollywood" Oliver Stone, well, it was about these heroic firemen; a noble and sentimental approach to the whole World Trade Center tragedy, but not in my opinion the kind of story that the old Oliver Stone would have told. Same goes for W (2008), a film that was "soft" when compared to similar Stone films like the mindblowingly good JFK (1991) or NIXON (1995). So now, here comes Savages, and judging by the looks of the previews, it seemed like this is Stone's attempt to grow some balls back and have some fun while doing it. Not a bad combination in my book. It seemed to me like Savages was going to show us Stone's still got it in him to make a film with an edge to it. It looked like he was ready to give us another jolt of shock to the system. Did Stone deliver the goods?

On Savages we meet two California weed dealers, Ben and Chon; two friends who have decided to use their capabilities to produced and sell some of the finest weed ever smoked by man. One graduated from college and has extensive knowledge on botany and chemistry, the other is an ex military who offers his military know-how and is the muscles of the operation. The two of them are in love with the same woman, Opehelia, and they all live in beach side mansion in California. Their lives are like a dream, selling and smoking weed, making tons of dough, they are  living the life so to speak. But Ben wants a normal life and wants out of the weed selling business, he convinces Chon and Ophelia to do  the same. In their minds they can effectively run off to Indonesia and live a luxurious life over there, far away from all the drug dealing. But what happens when the bigger drug dealers don't want them to go? 

First the good news: this isn't a completely unwatchable Oliver Stone film; it has many of the things we've come to expect from the legendary filmmaker, albeit with less intensity. It's got violence, drugs, sex and controversial ideas, but it just doesn't  get too intense, not like old Stone films would. One of the most controversial ideas the film puts across is that marijuana should be legalized; that it's only a matter of time before this happens. And herein lies the surprise for me with this movie: I wasn't expecting for the film to be a Stoner Flick. This movie is really, really about weed; actually it borders on glorifying or even glamorizing it. There are these scenes where the main characters are just smoking away, 'chillaxing'; that's chilling and relaxing all roled up into one in case you're wondering. It really captures what it means to smoke weed, to be in that totally chilled, spaced out moment, we even get one of these scenes that we saw before in Stones own The Doors (1991), where characters are high, looking out at the stars, loosing themselves in the vastness of space. The names of the main characters in the film: 'Ben and Chon' are enough of an indication to tell us that this film will be all about weed, the names of course remind us of those perennial pot heads from the 70's Cheech and Chong. So a big theme here is marijuana, and how if it was legalized, a lot of unnecesary crap could be avoided. 

The glamorizing aspect of the film comes when we see the kind of life that these two guys and their girlfriend  live. They make the finest pot ever, they are drug dealers yet they live in these beautiful homes, have these cool cars, and share the hottest girlfriend, which by the way is another controversial aspect of the film, the depiction of a threesome. It doesn't really go too deeply into the whole threesome thing like the way Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) did, but it does make a point to tell us that this kind of thing just doesn't work out. Bottom line though is that these guys are drug dealers, but they are depicted as the nicest drug dealers ever. They dress like surfers, and drive these expensive sports cars and what have you, but come on, these guys are supposed to be drug dealers! To me they just didn't look the part, they didn't convince me they were dealers. They came off as too nice for drug dealers. They looked more like surfer dudes who would be smoking the pot rather then making it and sell it. And here for me is where the film has a few faults. 

Stone's cinematic characters were never beatuftiful people, they were always caricatures of what humans are like. With  emotions augmented and personafied. I'm thinking of James Wood's in Salvador (1986), Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis in Natural Born Killers (1994), not the best looking peole, but boy could they act the hell out of their characters. They had such intensity to them.  His characters were always rough looking, ugly in a way, disturbed, and sometimes even cartoonish somehow.  Take Tom Cruise for example -the sex symbol of his day- he starred in Born on the Fourth of July (1989), but even then, Stone turned Cruise into a demented freak in a wheel chair, with long hair and a mustachio, trying to screw Mexican whores with a limp dick. Point is, only recently did he start this thing about putting beautiful people in his films, this probably is at the request of Hollywood producers. Stone seems to be aware of this himself, because even though he's got young, good looking protagonists on his film, he places them in juxtaposition to,Benicio del Toro as the villain called 'Lado'. Now Benicio is the kind of character you'd expect to see in an Oliver Stone film, he fits the bill perfectly. Benicio is a fantastic actor, and in this film he even comes off as frightening and scary in his violent ways. The character of Lado gives us a small glimmer of what Stone's characters used to be like. Scary, ugly, dangerous, edgy kind of characters. I loved  how Stone addresses the issue of beautiful protagonists by having 'Lado' make fun of  Ben by telling him that he's "cute"; in this scene, Stone is making fun of the fact that he has these two Calvin Klein models as protagonists on his film.

Other than that, this is pretty much an Oliver Stone film, but light. He still uses the change in film stock, sometimes the film goes to black and white, sometimes we see over saturated images...but at the same times the camera stays still a lot. It's missing that frenetic pacing we used to have in Stone's films, where we felt as if a coked up dude was telling us the story. I guess Stone is getting old, and it doesn't surprise me that his films keep getting softer the older he gets; this happens to many filmmakers as they start getting older, they kind of loose what made them cool when they were young. Kind of like aging rock stars, some don't loose it, but most do. I don't think Stone has totally lost his cool yet, he might have an awesomely dark film up his sleeve yet, but this one just ain't it. I'm not saying it's a bad film, because it has a lot of cool stuff going for it. It's fun, it's fast paced. But for an Oliver Stone film, it's just too bright, too colorful, too beautiful..too perfect in a way. I liked the chaotic nature of previous Stone films. But then again, the way this film was made was  probably done intentionally. It looks to me like Stone was going for a film with beautiful people, lots of colors  and a happy kind of vibe going for it, this is a film about smoking weed after all. Savages is a film where even the villains where kind of likable, as is the case with Salma Hayek's 'Elena'; a villain who comes off as a mother figure of sorts. Even though the film does have decaptations and bloodshed, it felt like a milder kind of film from and old marketer of 'Gloom and Doom'; which of course is why it feels so strange. Not bad, just different, definetly not what you'd expect from Stone. Savages is the kind of film where everything goes smoothly for the pot heads; but in the end, it left me longing for the old war horse that Stone was. 

Rating 3 1/2 out of 5

Django (1966)

Title: Django (1966)

Director: Sergio Corbucci

Cast: Franco Nero, Jose Bodalo, Loredana Nusciak, Eduardo Fajardo

Review:

Now that Tarantino is about to release his new western ‘Django Unchained’ he’s got everybody watching Django movies. What’s a ‘Django’ movie you might be asking yourself, well, here’s where you’re going to learn, read on my friends. By now,   most of us are familiar with how director Quentin Tarantino makes a film; we understand his modus operandi. Basically, Tarantino takes a couple of films he likes, takes certain elements from them and then does his own thing. When he made Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2, it was obvious he was influenced by films like Lady Snow Blood (1973) and Shogun Assassin (1980), amongst many others. These films garnered a whole lot of attention when Tarantino’s Kill Bill films came out because people wanted to know why Tarantino thought they were special, I know I did. To me this is a positive thing because some of the movies that Tarantino borrows from are cult classics that wouldn’t be seen by a lot of people otherwise; but thanks to Tarantino being inspired by them, a lot of the films he draws from suddenly get new releases, and so a whole new generation discovers them. The same thing is happening with the Django movies. I recently had a chance to finally see the first Django film, and I have to say I was genuinely impressed; I loved every second of it!

 The first and most important of the Django movies is the film I’ll be reviewing today, simply titled Django (1966) written and directed by Italian director Sergio Corbucci. This film was so successful in its time and considered so controversial for its graphic violence that many films after it used the Django name in their titles just to cash in on the original films success. Reportedly there are more than 31 westerns that have used the Django name in their titles, but it’s rumored that there are more than 100 films that have used the name ‘Django’ in their titles! Truth be told, the only official sequel to Corbucci’s film is a film called Django Strikes Again (1987), directed by Nelo Rossatti and written by Corbucci himself. It had Franco Nero reprising his role as Django. Sufficient to say then that Django is an extremely influential film. Hell, even Japanese director Takashi Miike made his own Django movie entitled Sukiyaki Western Django (2007)! What other films has Django influenced you might ask? How's about Robert Rodriguez's El Mariachi (1992) and Desperado (1995)? That ear slicing scene in Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs (1992)? Straight out of Django thats where it came from! So this isn't any old movie, a lot of important filmmakers love this one, and chances are you will too. 

A lot has been said about the violence quotient in Django; and it’s true, the film is pretty violent. Maybe by today’s standards this film isn’t all that graphic, but back in the day having a character impaled on a cross, or having someone get their ear sliced off and fed to them was a bit too much for some, and so, the film was banned in many countries. I can definitely see why though, the film does have a body count of 138! A character does get his hands crushed to smithereens by a pack of wild horses. Hundreds of Mexicans are shot to death. So yeah, I think it’s safe to say that this movie can be considered violent and graphic. This isn’t surprising when we take in consideration that this is a ‘Spaghetti Western’ which means, it’s a cowboy movie made by Italians, and Spaghetti Western’s same as Italian Horror films, do not have a ratings system, these guys could just shoot whatever the hell they wanted because they didn’t have to worry about a ratings system, in fact, in all of Europe they still don’t have a ratings system, which of course I think is fantastic. This is why Italian horror movies and Spaghetti Westerns are more violent than your typical Hollywood films.

The story for Django is simple enough; Django arrives at a small town so he can avenge the death of his wife. He walks in carrying a coffin with him; nobody seems to think much of it. Django soon discovers that the town is at war, two factions are at each others throats. The Mexicans and another band of red hooded misfits led by a man named ‘Major Jackson’. This to me was the biggest reference to Akiro Kurosawa’s Samurai Epic Yojimbo (1961), a film in which a Samurai named ‘Sanjuro’ stumbles onto a town with the same dilemma; the people of the town are suffering because two factions are at war. The character of Django functions in the same way that Toshino Mifune’s ‘Sanjuro’ functions in Yojimbo; he comes to set things right. He’s not a true blue good guy, because you’ll notice right off the bat that Django has no problems in blasting away anyone who gets in his way. He is for all intents and purposes the epitome of the anti-hero. On the one hand he treats the ladies with the proper respect they deserve, but on the other he has no quarrels with killing people to steal their gold. So Django is that kind of character, a loner, a rebel who lives by the beat of his own drum.  

Django was a film made in response to Sergio Leones famous westerns, primarily A Fist Full of Dollars (1964). When you see Django you immediately notice some similarities with Leone’s films, the scruffy looking characters with ugly, almost cartoonish faces. The main character is a loner, waltzing into town to set things right. He is good with a gun. Same as in many Leone’s films, characters are backstabbing each other all the time, so this is the kind of film where nobody really, truly trusts each other. One second someone is your friend, the next they betray you, and then they become your friends again? That sort of thing. In that sense it reminded me of Sergio Leone’s The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966). Actually, it was this last film that I thought Django had the most in common with, both films deal with a treasure, both films end up in a cemetery; Franco Nero himself looks and acts a heck of a lot like Clint Eastwood, the cool, silent type. I have to say, Nero looked great on this film! He’s got that tough guy thing down flat; it’s all about the attitude. He’s smart and cunning, always looking out for number one: himself.

The film has a pretty cool atmosphere, the town in which the story takes place in is dreary, cold, wet, muddy…the landscape seems to be eternally drenched in grays. The wind is howling most of the time…I loved that about the film, it had lots of atmosphere. The score was surprisingly good as well, the wardrobe was in my opinion detailed, in short, there’s lots of things to like about Django. It surprised the hell out of me because I have to be honest; I’m not a huge lover of Westerns. I’ve seen a lot of them, but for me a western has to be really, really special in order for me to truly like it.  I love The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, Unforgiven (1992), The Quick and the Dead (1995), The Wild Bunch (1969), Magnificent Seven (1960), and of course now I will be adding Django to my list of favorite westerns; I suggest you give it a shot even if you don’t like westerns, it’s that good.

Rating 5 out of 5 

      

The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

Title: The Amazing Spider Man (2012) 

Director: Marc Webb 

Cast: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans, Denis Leary, Martin Sheen, Sally Field 

Many are saying that this new Spider-Man reboot has come to soon, that it’s too early for a reboot of the series, but you know what? Personally I don’t really care, this whole “too soon for reboot” theory is total boloney in my book, I’m happy to see a new Spider-Man film, happy to see an entirely different creative team behind it. Comic books do this all the time, they change creative teams, new writers and new artists mean a different take on the character. This offers us something refreshing and different, which is way better then getting same-o same-o all over again. So yes, I’m happy that Raimi isn’t directing and that it’s not Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst in the roles of Peter and Mary Jane. What this film offers us is a refreshing, new take on Spidey’s origin story. Whenever a new creative team is introduced the question is always “will they make it work?” What made this new Spidey film different? Were director Marc Webb, and actors Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone able to successfully bring these characters to life? Did they make a good Spider-Man film? 

Though the origin story is familiar, somethings are different this time around. For example, story wise we get to see Spidey’s origin all over again; we go through the beats that Spidey’s origin has to go through in order to get Peter Parker swinging from his webs through New York City, but this time around the beats are slightly different. This means we see him going to Oscorp and getting bitten by a radioactive spider, Uncle Ben’s death is what impulses him to become the hero, and we see Parker training to master the art of wall crawling and web slinging. Sure, we’ve seen all these things before in the old spidey movies, but on this one these events happen in slightly different ways; for example, Parker doesn’t end up going to a wrestling match. What makes this origin story a bit different is that they actually reference Peter’s parents in a way that involves them in the story. In Raimi’s Spiderman films his parents aren’t mentioned and we simply take for granted that Parker’s an orphan living with his aunt and uncle; on this one there’s some mystery behind Peter’s parents. Also, we get a new villain with ‘The Lizard’, a scientist who’s missing his left arm and therefore experiments with the DNA of lizards, to see if he can grow his lost arm back, same as a lizard grows its tail. 

Same as in the comic books, Spideys first girlfriend is Gwen Stacy, something that Raimi’s films overlooked and then tried to fix by introducing Stacy on the third film. On this one we start on the right track, with Peter and Stacy becoming romantically involved and hints of ominous events in their possible future together. The relationship angle between Peter and Stacy was not so schmaltzy; it felt a bit more real. I’m sure a lot of that has to do with Webb’s previous experience directing (500) Days of Summer (2009), a film that focused on relationships between young people. In this sense, choosing Marc Webb as this films director worked. He can handle performances and drama in a more realistic fashion than Raimi ever could, so that worked in this films favor. What worried me about Webb as a director was the fact that he’d never made a film with lots of action or effects before this one, but this all went surprisingly well. The action and effects were actually great, I had nothing to worry about. This film is surprisingly good when we take in consideration that this is Webb’s sophomore effort as a director. 

The portrayal of Peter Parker this time around is far superior to Tobey Maguire’s overtly sentimental Peter Parker in previous Spiderman films. You don’t feel as if Peter’s a weak cry baby; so congrats go out to Marc Webb and Andrew Garfield for making this Spidey more intelligent and more of a scientist which is the way he was in the comics in the first place. Also, I liked the fact that he was more sure of himself, just because Peter’s a brainy geeky type doesn’t mean he has to come off as a whimpy cry baby. There’s this dinner scene in which Parker has a discrepancy with Gwen Stacy’s dad, they are discussing Spiderman and Mr. Stacy says Spidey’s a vigilante, while Parker defends Spiderman. I liked how Parker was standing up for himself in that scene, defending his point of view. He wasn’t afraid of being defiant. In my opinion, Raimi’s mistake in his Spidey films was making the character just a bit too sentimental. On this film Spidey is inexperienced and still a geek, but his not a whino. I also loved the great supporting cast! Martin Sheen is incredibly likable as Uncle Ben, Sally Field's great as Aunt May, Denis Leary as Mr. Stacy, such a well rounded cast makes for a better acted film in my opinion.    

The visual effects are great on this film; the sequences in which Spiderman is swinging through the city were very effective because the action doesn’t happen so fast that we don’t understand what the hell is happening. Webb slows things down and speeds things up just right. The visual effects dealing with Spiderman were great in my book. The weak link in the film for me was the villain; I personally don’t enjoy characters that are entirely computer generated, so I didn’t really enjoy the way the lizard looked. It’s not horrendously bad, but it wasn’t great. Rhys Ifan’s the actor who portrays Dr. Connors, was nothing to write home about either, he didn’t steal the show, like say Jack Nicholson in Burtons Batman (1989). Whatever happened to those bigger than life villains in comic book movies? They tried portraying Dr. Connors as a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde type of character, hearing interior monologues and the such which by the way was a technique used with The Green Goblin character in the first batch of Spidey films; but the performance of the character itself wasn’t all that special. Spider-Man 2 (2002) remains the best Spider-Man film ever made, and not only that, one of the best superhero films ever made period; still, this new Spidey film is really damn good. I’m looking forward to what this new creative team has in store for future films. By the way, stay seated after the credits, there’s one of those extra ending things that hints at the inevitable sequel! 

Rating: 3 out of 5

Sound of My Voice (2011)

Title: Sound of My Voice (2012)

Director: Zal Batmanglij

Cast: Brit Marling, Christopher Denham, Nicole Vicius

Religion is a mental state that one reaches when one searches for the meaning of life; when one searches for the answers to all those unanswerable questions. The universe we live in is so vast and complex that by nature it is filled with many of these unanswerable questions. We being the thinking creatures we are find it difficult to believe that some questions out there simply have no answers. We like to know where we stand. Let’s face it, we want to know it all. Sadly, the truth is we simply do not know the answers to everything. This ‘not knowing’ creates a void that some cannot stand; so in order to continue, society created fake answers to these unanswerable questions. They do put the mind at ease, after all, existentialism can be harsh on the human mind! These fake answers are what we call religion. You can choose to believe in them, or not.  

Sad part is that there are certain fruit cakes out there that know how religion works and how to take advantage of others by using it. These low lives thrive in taking advantage of peoples needs for answers, peoples need for purpose. They’ll tell you what you want to hear, they’ll make up a fantastical tale that will consume your soul, and since you need that void filled, you completely fall for it, hook, line and sinker. The depths to which you’ll sink is entirely up to you, and a lot will depend on your mental strength, if you are easily led astray you could fall for these teachings. This is why I am a supporter of the analytical and inquisitive mind. I am of the idea that we should never accept things they way they are given to us, that we must always analyze what we are presented with, in my mind I think we should always question. Nothing is too sacred to question it. If you cannot question it, then something is definitely wrong. Blind acceptance is NEVER a good thing. This is one of the themes that Sound of My Voice explores, the idea that we should never believe blindly in anything. 

There’s always those of us out there that understand and see religion for what it is. In a way, it is a basic human need. The need to assign authorship of the universe, of the world we live in, of life…to something, to someone. This is an idea that has been explored in a lot of films, most recently in Ridley Scott’s Prometheus (2012). Logic tells us that there has to be something bigger, that everything we know must have come from somewhere. Someone must have decided that trees would clean oxygen for us, that we should have sun during the day and moonlight during night. Someone must have come up with the idea that we’d need water to drink; food to eat, it seems that the planet was perfectly made to sustain us…logic tells us that everything is too perfectly set in the world for us not to believe in something. But it’s like I always say, just because we don’t know how everything came to be, does not mean we have to make answers up. The real answer still lies out there, just beyond our reach. We can create different hypotheses for the origins of life, but the truth is we just don’t know. Until we find out; until we truly know, I think it’s safe to say, we should just accept the mystery of it all, embrace it.

Sound of My Voice analyzes how religion asks you to believe, blindly, without a strand of proof on things that make no sense whatsoever. This is otherwise known as faith; which is why I never really separate cults from any old religion, to me they are one and the same. Cult is just another word for religion. A cult is a religion, a religion is a cult. What is supposed to differentiate cults from old religions is that they incur in practices that are strange or bizarre. To be honest, all forms of religion have a strange or bizarre element to them. Mormons have to wear a special kind of underwear to have sex for Christ sake! What about talking in tongues, is that not strange and bizarre? Religions, cults, or whatever you want to call them are simply a way of thinking and living that they want you to accept. How similar are cults and age old religions? They don’t want you to question, they don’t want you to analyze, they simply want you to cleanse your mind from all critical thought. What they want is for you to hand your mind (and money) over to them. In Sound of My Voice, the cult leader is this woman known as Maggie, who says she is from the year 2054, and that all sorts of bad things are awaiting humanity in the future. If you follow her, she will lead you to salvation from the coming apocalypse. She’s got secrets from the future which will help her lead you to safety, typical cult leader behavior. She lives in a basement, breathes out of an oxygen thank and she’s amassing followers, which confirms the fact that anyone can come up with the lamest idea and surely enough, someone will believe it and follow.

The way the film is structured, it’s got great suspense to it. The two filmmakers who want to make a documentary about Maggie’s cult in order to expose them, seem naïve enough;   we feel like they are actually putting themselves in peril for their film. Their idea is to infiltrate the cult and film some of the cults secret activities. That’s another thing about cults, they don’t like for people to know what’s going on within their gatherings. This is so because they know that their activities would be labeled as crazy by the rest of the world. But that’s what Sound of My Voice does; it takes us right in there, right in the middle of this crazy cult that worships this woman from the future. I enjoyed how the film analyzes some of the crazy behavior that goes on within certain religions, like say for example this whole ‘speaking in tongues’ thing that we find in some Christian sects is so totally nuts! It’s like letting your brain just totally go and handing it over to somebody else. The whole idea of trying to get people to be ‘perfect’ which of course is something impossible to achieve, because life isn’t perfect. It’s made up of one misstep after another; the idea that religious leaders lie to their flock and that if you ask enough questions, said lies will surface clear as water. Loved how the film touches upon these themes.

The only real problem for me with this movie was Brit Marling, the actress who plays the religious leader. You get the feeling that had the role been played by a more experienced actress, it might have worked better. Her performance, in my book, was not the best thing about the film. Also, the ending kind of leaves you hanging, you left wanting a bigger revelation. But keeping things simply is understandable when we take in consideration that this film was made with very little money. Most of the film takes place entirely in one room! But here’s the thing, the screenplay is so interesting, and the Maggie character gets freakier and freakier as time passes by, that I let that go and just went with the flow; which of course says good things about the writing for this film, which by the way was done by Brit Marling herself, along with the films director, Zal Batmanglij. So in many ways, what we have here is a religion bashing film that at the same time isn’t. The same thing happens with Prometheus for example or The Last Exorcism (2010). These are films that portray Christianity as being false, yet at the same time they don’t entirely bash it. They kind of play it safe that way by validating both schools of thought, keeping both the believers and the unbelievers happy. I suspect this is merely done to avoid getting boycotted or blacklisted by believers, but in the end, what this kind of film really wants to do is make the believers question their believes, expose them to the possibility that what they’ve been taught their whole lives has always been one big fat fairy tale.

Rating: 3 ½ out of 5 

Innocent Blood (1992)

Title: Innocent Blood (1992)

Director: John Landis

Cast: Anne Parillaud, Anthony LaPlagia, Robert Logia, David Proval, Chazz Palminteri, Angela Bassett, Luis Guzman, Don Rickles

John Landis has always been an interesting director; he’s always had a great love for both comedy and horror films and this is very evident in the type of films he has made. For example, Landis is responsible for directing three of my all time favorite comedies: The Blues Brothers (1980), Three Amigos! (1986) and Coming to America (1988); three comedies which I re-watch on a regular basis because they simply make me laugh so much. How much do I love Landis’s style of comedy? Well, first time I saw Coming to America I made up a term for it, because Coming to America wasn’t just any old comedy film, for me Coming to America is what I like to call a ‘Super Comedy’ which in my opinion is a comedy that excels on all fronts. These are comedies that have excellent casts, excellent production values, a great script and are genuinely none stop funny films. I would add another John Landis film to that list: Trading Places (1983); again, to me, a none stop hilarious film. On the other hand, Landis has also taken his stab at horror and directed excellent scary movies like An American Werewolf in London and Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983). Point is, Landis is one of the all time greatest comedy directors, right up there with the likes of Mel Brooks. 

John Landis

Same as Mel Brooks, Landis likes to mix his comedy with horror films. And again, I have to go on and talk about yet another one of my all time favorite comedies: Young Frankenstein (1974). My love for Young Frankenstein is never ending, and again, this is a film I have never stopped watching; it’s a Super Comedy because it’s not only an excellent production with an amazing cast and screenplay (nominated for an Oscar that year!) but it is also a great Frankenstein film on its own right; which is the fail proof formula for a good spoof film; you not only have to be a good spoof, but you also have to be a good film within the genre you are spoofing. Case in point: Young Frankenstein, a good spoof of all those old Universal Frankenstein films, but also, a great Frankenstein film on its own right. The same can be said of John Landis’s An American Werewolf in London; a funny film, but also a great werewolf film. This delicate balancing act between horror and comedy is not an easy one to pull off, too much on either side can destroy your film (just look at Dracula Dead and Loving It (1995) to see what I mean) but when done just right, the results can be extremely entertaining and gut bustingly good.

Landis knows a thing or two about mixing both of these genres well. Films like Burke & Hare (2010), An American Werewolf in London, Schlock (1973) and the film I will be reviewing today: Innocent Blood are a testament to that. Landis has always had great fondness for horror films. In Innocent Blood you can see this love for the genre in various ways, for example, every time some one is watching television, a classic vampire film like Dracula (1931) or Horror of Dracula (1958) is playing. He’s also peppered the film with wonderful cameos from the likes of Sam Raimi who plays a butcher, Dario Argento as a paramedic, Tom Savini as a photographer and Linnea Quigley as a screaming nurse! Even Forrest J. Ackerman shows up at one point, so yeah, it’s safe to say that Innocent Blood was made by a director with a genuine affection for both horror and comedy films.

On Innocent Blood we meet Marie, a beautiful French vampire played by the beautifully exotic Anne Parillaud whom some of you might remember from La Femme Nikita (1990). Marie is a ‘good’ vampire, she doesn’t go around killing innocent people as the title might suggest; she actually feeds mostly on Italian Mobsters. But one day, when she decides to feed on the head of the Italian mafia a guy known as Sallie ‘The Shark’ Macelli (Robert Logia) she makes a terrible mistake: she doesn’t finish him off! Now if you’re familiar with vampire lore, if a vampire doesn’t finish off its victim, then that means that said victim will begin transforming into a vampire, which is exactly what happens to Sallie. His senses are so acute that “he can hear an Angel fart”. Problem is that once Sallie the Mafia lord realizes he has the powers of a vampire, he starts transforming all of his henchman into vampires as well! His plan? To become an unstoppable vampire Mafia family! Can Marie and her new love (who just so happens to be a cop!) stop The Shark’s plans before it’s too late?

Basically, what this film does is mix various film genres; it doesn’t limit itself to mixing just comedy and horror. No sir, on this one we get a mish mash of horror, comedy, gangster films, detective films and yes, why not: a romantic film. Now that’s what I call a plethora of ‘piñatas’! I mean genres. I thought the idea of having a Mafia Lord turning into a vampire was genius; I don’t believe I’d seen it before on any other film before or since, and the idea of him wanting to turn his cronies into vampires as well? Very original in deed. This being an Italian Mafia movie, we get to see the usual faces one can find in these kinds of films; the awesome Chazz Palminteri is here along with David Proval and a bunch of other actors you’ve probably seen in The Sopranos. The soundtrack is so very Mafia; of course you can expect a little Sinatra in there. But the absolute best part of the whole Mafia angle is Robert Loggia playing Sallie ‘The Shark’ Macelli; he absolutely steals the film from everyone, even from the ultra sexy Anne Parillaud and speaking of Parillaud, it’s obvious from watching this film that she has no problems with nudity whatsoever; that’s for sure. There’s lots of it on this one.

Other great things about this underrated vampire flick? The make up effects! John Landis has always had great make up effects on his monster films, American Werewolf in London for example has one of the best werewolf transformations ever committed to celluloid, still relevant, still awesome to this day. On Innocent Blood we get a couple of show stopping effects moments as well, like vampires bursting into flames and fading away as the sun hits them, cool stuff that is even better when we take in consideration that it was all done on camera, practically, not with computers. The vampires have these awesome looking eyes that turn into all sorts of colors, a very unique visual no doubt, but I’m sure it must have been hell for the actors to wear those contact lenses! On the negative side of things, though the ending is flashy and filled with a cool effects sequence, it might leave you scratching your head as to why it happened. All things considered, Innocent Blood is a very underrated vampire flick, a forgotten gem from the 90’s. You might not feel like it’s the greatest story ever told, because it isn’t, at heart this film is actually very simplistic in nature. But you’ll still find yourself having a good time because of all the comedic elements, the sensuality and the awesome make up effects.

Rating: 3 1/2 out of 5