Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)

Title: Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)

Director: Benh Zeitlin

Cast: Quvenzhane Wallis, Dwight Henry

Review:

The idea that society is headed towards really bad times and that we better start getting ready for this coming “storm” unless we want to be swept away by it, is one that has been very popular in films lately. Take for example Jeff Nichols’s Take Shelter (2011) a film about a man who has these nightmarish visions about the world being engulfed by a horrible storm. The main character in that film starts to build an underground shelter to protect his family from the storm he keeps dreaming about. Take Shelter was a very dark film that used this premise of a coming storm to illustrate this fear of how bad things could get in the near future. Taking in consideration the state of global economy, recent political events and how poverty, gas prices and unemployment have all increased over the last couple of years, it is reasonable to come to these conclusions about a coming ‘storm’. One gets the idea that the whole world is going to go down the drain, flushed down the toilet back to the dark ages. These are some of the ideas that Beasts of the Southern Wild plays with.

Not unlike Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), The Wizard of Oz (1939), Labyrinth (1986) or Where the Wild Things Are (2009); Beasts of Southern Wild is a film about a child who has it so bad in life that she sometimes escapes to a magical land of her own conceit. In this imaginary land, gigantic god-like warthogs stampede through her town, destroying everything in their path. Now with films such as these in which characters escape to imaginary places, whatever we see in the fantasy world always has a representation in the real one. It’s through these imaginary worlds that the child processes what he or she is going through, to find some sort of sane way to deal with whatever it is they are dealing with. In Pan’s Labyrinth Ofelia had to deal with her fascist step-father and the abuse he was inflicting on the people. In Labyrinth, Sarah was dealing with becoming an adult and accepting her responsibilities in this world and in The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy learned that she had no one else to rely on but her own self, the power to solve her problem was always within her.

On Beasts of the Southern Wild, we meet a little girl by the name of ‘Hushpuppy’. She lives in a town called ‘The Bathtub’ which is knee deep in poverty. Her father, ‘Wink’, is the quintessential man whom life has beaten. He is a drunkard, unemployed looser. He takes out his frustrations on Hushpuppy, whom he wants’ to control most of the time. Good thing Hushpuppy is one of these strong willed kids who has a mind of her own; she’s taken command of her life at a very young age. She is only six in the film, yet psychologically, she’s such a strong little girl. She has her own personal points of views about the world she inhabits; thankfully we can hear her thoughts from time to time as she talks about the universe and how we’re all in some small way a part of it. Her father knows how harsh the world is, so he trains her to be strong. At one point he asks Hushpuppy “Who’s the Man?” and she says with the meanest face she can conjure up while hitting the table with her hands “I’m the man!”  You’ll end up really rooting for Hushpuppy, she’s the future of the world, but she’s strong willed and ready to battle the storm.With youth such as these, you get the feeling that there’s hope for the world yet.

I liked this idea that the film was putting across; the idea that the world is caught up in a storm, adults are unreliable in their crazy ways, yet the newer generations are willing to stand up to the madness going on in the world. There are these beautiful images of a group of young kids simply screaming at the world, so symbolic, the idea being that it’s the new generations that are telling the older ones that the world is all wrong. They see it for what it is and don’t agree with it. Perhaps this is why Hushpuppy sees these giant warthogs destroying her world. The powers that be don’t look at who they are stepping on, they simply stampede through the world, devouring, destroying, consuming, sucking the world dry.

But Hushpuppy doesn’t just go up against the tumultuous world or giant imaginary warthogs; Hushpuppy also has to deal with her unreliable parent. Wink as he is called, doesn’t do a very good job of taking care of his daughter who roams alone through the world for most of the film. At one point Hushpuppy actually runs away from her father, an act I’ve always approved of if a child has obviously insane or unreliable parents. If a child has good loving parents, they should love, appreciate and listen to them, but if in the other hands a child’s parents are insane, in my book they have every right to run away and find their own happiness in this big bad world; especially if said parents abuse a child physically or mentally. This is an idea that was also recently presented to us in Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom (2012), a film about two kids who turn their backs to the world they know in order to create a world of their own, sharing books, falling in love and listening to good music.

Aside from all these thematic elements, Beasts of the Southern Wild is simply put a beautiful film to look at. Yeah Hushpuppy does live in the midst of extreme poverty and ‘ugly’ things, but there’s beauty to behold in the middle of the ugliness. The character of Hushpuppy is an extremely loveable one, she’s a delicate as a child can be, yet she is also  strong, she’s admirable just for that. She symbolizes our frustrations with the world we live in; Hushpuppy has no problems in screaming at these problems in fierce complaint. As Hushpuppy her self says, the world has to know that she existed, that she passed through this world. First time director Benh Zeitlin is also letting the world know who he is with this impressive first time effort; here’s looking forward to whatever he has planned for us next. Highly recommend this beautiful movie for those out there in the mood for something uplifting, symbolic and beautiful.

Rating: 4 out of 5 

Fritz the Cat (1972) and The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat (1974)

Fritz the Cat, the comic strip character about a hip cat who comments on society and life, first came to life in the mind of famed underground comic book artist Robert R. Crumb when he was just a kid way back in 1959 in the pages of a little home made comic strip called “Cat Life”. Later, when Crumbs career grew in the underground comic scene of the 60’s and 70’s Fritz the Cat became known to the world as the anthropomorphic cat who represented the counter culture and had all sorts of crazy adventures, including many sexual ones. Crumb by the way is a genius of the comic book art form in my book, his style is one that I personally love and admire and actually kind of emulate in my own stuff, so this review comes from a genuine Robert Crumb admirer. Ultimately Crumb completely disassociated himself from this film project, going as far as getting his name legally removed from anything related to the film. The fact that Crumb cut himself out of the project doesn’t mean that Fritz the Cat is a bad film, because it isn’t. I actually think the film effectively captured what Crumb’s strip was all about but at the same time it has a lot of Bakshi’s own mentality in it as well. It’s the joining of these two genius minds that makes Fritz the Cat such a unique film.  I have to admit that I am disappointed at the fact that Crumb didn’t participate in the development of the film, still, I have to give props to Ralph Bakshi and his achievements with it; it is a special film in many ways.  

Way back in the early 70’s when famed animator Ralph Bakshi was looking for the right project with which to launch his career, he stumbled upon a Fritz the Cat strip and got the idea in his mind that he could make a film about these horny pot smoking animals. He’d been looking for the right film with which to start off his animation studio; a studio that Bakshi wanted to use to produce animated films for adults. But Crumb wasn’t budging; he didn’t want to give the rights to Bakshi, he didn’t want to do the project. Bakshi himself has gone down as saying that Crumb wanted all the credit for himself and making  film, by definition isn’t all about one person. It’s a collaborative medium, many people help a film happen. But the story doesn’t stop there. Crumb’s wife wanted the money that the project was offering and since she had a power of attorney over Crumbs work, she signed over the rights to Bakshi anyways. According to Crumb, they only got 7,000 for the rights! Fritz the Cat cost 850,000 to produce but went on to make almost 2 million dollars world wide, making it a bonafide success.

What was the big deal with Fritz the Cat? Why did an independent animated film suddenly make so much dough? Well, various factors helped this groundbreaking animated film get noticed, first of them is the fact that it was the first animated film to get the dreaded X-rating. Normally, getting an X-rating means economic death for any film; it means your film won’t get played in as many theaters and that the grand majority of conservatives in the world won’t go see your film. And while that might have been so at the time that Fritz the Cat was released, it still went on to make a hefty amount of money at the box office and it is still the single most successful independent animated film in history. Bakshi and crew intelligently used the X-rating to their advantage pasting the phrase “He's X-rated and animated” and “We’re not rated X for nothin', baby!” on their posters. The most controversial aspect of the film is seeing these cute little cartoon animals smoking weed, shooting up heroin, participating in orgies and murdering people. Never before Fritz the Cat had an animated film been aimed at an adult audience, so this film was ground breaking in that way. Fritz’s sexual exploits are pretty nuts as well, they include him picking up three chicks by impressing them with his philosophical ideas, and then getting them to participate in a massive orgy at a house where these beatniks are all having a major smoke out. Then Fritz goes and has sex with this huge black chick called ‘Bertha’. It’s hilarious seeing Fritz squeezing his face into a huge pair of breasts with such reckless abandon.

Fritz the Cat is most certainly a stoner flick; it glorifies pot smoking like very few movies do. Fritz tokes it up and shares the ganja with his girlfriends to get them in the mood. He smokes and goes on these hallucinatory head trips which offer up some of the craziest visuals in the film. I guess every single pot smoking, tripped out hippy went to see this one. Once word of mouth gets out that a film is ‘trippy’ well, acid heads and tripsters go in droves. Same thing happened with Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) a film which acid heads went to see not only because it was a great cinematic experience, but because it also offered trippy visuals to augment their drug trips, and this most certainly is the case with Fritz the Cat, though the animation can be crude by today’s standards (as are most of Bakshi’s films) when you get used to it, the visuals can be quite the trip.

The film goes by pretty quickly from sketch to sketch, it can be a bit hard to follow because Fritz the Cat is a film that does not unfold in you’re a-typical linear fashion; it actually plays out a lot like a series of sketches commenting on socio-political problems. But when you finish watching it, you’ll feel that the film is just as chaotic, frenetic and sour sweet as life itself; which is something I enjoyed. I loved how both films serve as a time capsule of the late 60’s and early 70’s, it shows us the way people thought, what they were going through. Race issues pop up constantly, for example, Fritz hates the way white people have abused blacks through out history, so he goes hangs out with black people and plays pool with them, strikes up philosophical conversations about racism. These conversations sparked up quite the controversy; but Bakshi has always been a guy who doesn’t shy away from controversy. Controversy is something that Bakshi films were always about, for example Coonskin (1975) Bakshi’s racially charged feature film, flared up a whole lot of controversy, it was accused for being racist, when in fact it was the complete opposite. It is now considered by Bakshi and his fans, as his masterpiece. Bakshi did always make an effort on his films to comment on racism, for example, there’s something about the way Bakshi made these scenes that take place at an all black bar in Fritz the Cat. The scene has a bunch of black people hanging out, drinking booze, and talking bull. The conversations in these scenes come off as very realistic because Bakshi actually picked up a bunch of black people and brought them to the studio and just let them talk, he later animated the scenes in accordance to the dialog he recorded, as a result the dialog comes off as vibrant and full of life.  

Another controversial moment in the film has Fritz joining this group of revolutionaries who want to blow up some kind of factory, these guys are unsavory types only looking to do some damage, they are just violent for the sake of being violent and so Fritz ends up joining them and participating, not realizing his getting into a heap of trouble. This segment is obviously meant to send a warning. You might be counter culture and you might hate the system, but you have to choose your partners carefully. Ultimately, Fritz the Cat is a strange film to take in, it’s amusing and has tons of shock value, but it’s not easy to digest. At times the film goes on these tangents with Fritz philosophizing about life; you'll feel like you're in a beatnik bar philosophizing and criticizing everything that moves, which is basically the kind of film Fritz the Cat is. Fritz embodies the state of mind and frustrations of the 60’s generation, it’s awesome to look at it just for that.

The sequel, The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat was not directed by Ralph Bakshi because Bakshi had said all he wanted to say with Fritz the Cat, he was ready to move on to something else, which would end up being his next animated feature film, Heavy Traffic (1973) a film about a cartoonist/animator who wants to make an animated film, but is finding it difficult to produce, like most of his films Bakshi was venting some personal demons with that one. The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat went on to be directed by a guy called Robert Taylor and had nothing to do with either Bakshi or Crumb. It is seen by many as simply a cash-in, a film made to capitalize on the success of the first. And though I kind of agree with that sentiment, this sequel is not without its merits.

This time around Fritz has gotten married; he lives with his fat wife and child in a cramped apartment in the slums. All Fritz does these days is sit around smoking weed and waiting for his next welfare check; unfortunately the people at the welfare office are calling him up, questioning him as to why he hasn’t found a job yet. At the same time,  his wife is screaming at him at the top of her lungs about being a good father and getting a job, two things that Fritz does not seem to be too good at. So as he takes a puff of smoke, all of his nine lives take an astral trip, each life a different version of Fritz. Each life a different sketch; a different comment on society.

In one life Fritz goes off and screws a young Puerto Rican girl, making her smoke weed so that she gets all horny. After they smoke, they go on this hallucinatory surreal trip, which if you ask me, looks and feels more like an acid trip than anything. In another life Fritz is off to Mars on a spaceship with a news reporter he manages to seduce minutes before take off. In another life, he meets a bum on the streets who says he is God. On another he ends up being Hitler’s right hand man; this  segment of the film aims it’s guns at the fascist movement, making fun of Hitler and the Nazi’s every chance it gets. For example, they go on and on about how Hitler is actually a very frustrated cat because he has only one testicle, and is secretly gay. Hitler actually tries to screw Fritz! Then, we get the most controversial of all the segments, the one in which Fritz has to enter New Jersey, which has now been dubbed “New Africa” because according to the movie, the white men in power gave New Jersey to the blacks! So anyhows, Fritz ends up getting blamed for the assassination of the president of New Africa! Fritz even meets Satan on this one. At the end of the day though, the second Fritz movie isn’t as shocking as the first, but it’s still extremely satirical of the times it was made, the 70’s.

Bakshi himself is not very fond of The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat; he considers it a lesser film and so does Crumb, to whom the film does not exist. If you ask me, I’d say that both films are more or less the same, they both comment on society, shock with their vulgarity and violence (for animated films anyways) and both have that sketchy vibe to them; but Fritz the Cat does have more of an edge to it. It is more graphic in nature, which is the reason why Fritz the Cat garnered an X-Rating while The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat got a ‘R’, this immediately let’s us know that Nine Lives is softer and sort of playing by the rules. The sequel wasn’t as successful with critics and audiences as the first film, but in my opinion, it’s not totally unwatchable. They are both very representative of the times they were made and comment on a lot of relevant issues. They don’t necessarily give any answers, but they sure do plant the questions. Both films have that rough Ralph Bakshi style of animation which can take a while to get adjusted to, but even though both films are rough around the edges, and suffer from imperfect sketchy animation, both films more than make up for it with their content and attitude.

Rating for Fritz the Cat (1972): 4 out of 5

Rating for The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat (1974): 3

Resident Evil: Retribution (2012)

Title: Resident Evil: Retribution (2012)

Director: P.W. Anderson

Cast: Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez , Shawn Roberts

Review:

The Resident Evil series of films have been an entertaining bunch of films for me; a guilty pleasure of sorts. They are the cinematic equivalent of reading a comic book, the action, the storylines, the dialog all very comic book like, which means that it’s very  unrealistic but at the same time fun! And here’s the weird thing, one would expect that with so many sequels these films would become watered down versions of themselves, each getting worse then the last, but low and behold I loved Resident Evil Extinction (2007), and I had loads of fun with Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010). Hoards of zombies, hot babes with telekinetic powers and a post apocalyptic setting…what’s not to like right? So anyways, here comes the fifth installment in the series, needless to say, considering how much fun I had with the previous installments, I was pumped for this fifth film. Did it deliver? Hell no it didn’t deliver; this is without a doubt the worst of the Resident Evil movies! Why? Read it and weep my friends, read it and weep.

This film picks up right where the last one left off, with Umbrella blowing up ‘Arcadia’ an installation in which  Umbrella had been conducting some experiments with humans, or something like that. But none of that matters, if you think this sequel gives a damn about where the series had been going up to this point, then your dead wrong. You think that this sequel will continue the story arc, or that it’s all going somewhere to tell a grand story, well it aint happening! This sequel doesn’t give  damn about previous films, it eschews with whatever happened previously,, twists things around and gives you an entirely different story, which if you been keeping tabs, is the way Anderson likes it. It changes things so drastically, that you'll feel as if nothing makes sense! I've noticed that director Paul W. Anderson likes to pull you in with a show stopping cliffhangers (like he did in Afterlife) so he can pull you in for the next movie, then he goes and tells a completely different tale. In Retribution, we forget all about ‘Arcadia’ in the first five minutes of film and continue with another story in which Alice is trapped in one of Umbrella Corporations testing facilities. It seems like the Red Queen is the one in charge of Umbrella, and she means to eradicate the entire human race. As usual, it's up to Alice to stop her, but first, she must escape this prison! Will she make it out alive in order to save humanity?

To me, this fifth installment is just sad because I’d been having tons of fun with this series of films up to this point; only to have director P.W. Anderson drop the ball completely with this fifth installment. Not that these movies were ever ‘deep’ or anything, I had fun with the stylish action, the zombies, the look of the film and I was content with the story moving along little by little amongst all the action and zombies. And this one has all that slow mo and action...but something feels off. With Retribution, you’ll get the feeling that director Paul W. Anderson isn’t even trying to deliver anything remotely good, or interesting, or even entertaining, with this film he's simply streeetching things out to make a couple more millions. He’s certainly showing signs of fatigue when it comes to these films; you get the feeling he’s making them just for the money, that there’s no real passion behind them. The film feels like empty calories, but hey, even that can be fun. I did enjoy the fast paced action and the ass kicking fights, but at the end of the day, it all felt kind of redundant. 

Number one problem for me with this film is that there is almost no story to this installment, no mystery, nothing to pull us in. The way the film is structured is that Umbrella captures Alice and sends her to this facility that is divided into different ‘fake’ countries. One part of the facility simulates New York, one simulates Russian, one China, one looks like Suburbia U.S.A. and so forth. You see, in order for Umbrella to sell the antidote for the T-Virus and make kajillions, they orchestrated these fake zombie attacks, and showed them to the world, assuring a sure sell in all countries. After seeing these fake zombie attacks, every country in the world would want the antidote. But the virus got out of their control and you all know how that went, the world became populated by zombies. So Alice is trapped in this facility. Umbrella is trying to reprogram her because she’s the rebel, the one who thinks for her self; but they can’t reprogram her, she’s too strong. She soon finds a way to escape her cell and boom, the rest of the film is her trying to escape this place. In this way it feels a bit like Stuart Gordon’s Fortress (1992) or David Twohy’s The Chronicles of Riddick (2004), where the main characters main mission is to escape a super prison. Unfortunately, it also feels like your watching a video game, passing to the next level, and beating a boss at the end. 

That would all be fine and dandy, because hey, who doesnt love a bit of empty eye candy every once in a while, sadly, there’s no reason to care for anyone. These characters are like clones, simply there to push the next pointless action scene to the next level. But even a video game will have more of a plot then this film. Retribution felt like filler, there’s these boring fights that go on and on and on…there are not a lot of zombies in this film either which is what I loved about Extinction and Afterlife, on this one there’s more ‘Bio Hazards’, Umbrella Corporations monstrous experiments. Paul W. Anderson is the one who gets all the blame for this lifeless movie, because he not only directs these, but he also writes them. In this case, it felt as if Anderson was simply going through the motions, not even trying to pull off a good, involving film. Not only that, things just don’t make sense this time around. For example in all previous films,  Wesker is the main villain of the piece, on this one he does a 360 and becomes a good guy trying to help Alice? What the? What about Wesker’s plans with Alice? Who the hell cares, all previous storylines have been dropped, suddenly Wesker "doesn't work for umbrella anymore" we now have a new villain. Forget that Alice and Wesker have been enemies for the past four films, that they had been trying to kill each other since they first met. Now suddenly Wesker needs Alice, like I said, no sense at all. Story lines are dropped and changed simply to shock you with the next cliff hanger ending that will assure your butt will be there in the theater come next sequel. In that sense these films are not unlike a comic book, leaving you with that cliffhanger so you'll buy the next issue. 

The action scenes are so freaking pointless, nobody is in peril on this movie. Everything is fake or cgi, characters escape danger in zero point five seconds, there’s no tension, no feeling of dread. Huge monsters appear and are dispatched in a matter of seconds. And the  matrix style fighting has to be given some sort of break in movies! Something new is needed, seeing characters fighting the same exact way, doing the same exact moves, gets boring and redundant, by the way, thats what most of this movie feels like, more of the same. Another bummer: characters are not developed in the least! In the least! I can guarantee you will not care about a single character on this film. For example, Anderson actually brings back a bunch of characters from the first film only to kill them off in minutes? Characters are disposable on this film, simply empty vessels to kill. Case in point: Michelle Rodriguez’s participation on this film. It’s so pointless! Remember how in the first film she developed this friendship with Alice and you actually cared when she turns into a zombie? On this one, she is no one. She’s a character with zero personality.  Why is she even here? Just to add another popular actress to the film, so they can sell it more effectively. As far as the story goes, she is not an essential part and neither is anyone else on board by the way, these are just characters who shoot guns. And hey, there’s nothing wrong with brainless action, but come on, make it at the very least interesting! Or funny! A good example of a fun brainless movie would be TheExpendables 2 (2012)! Now that was a violent, brainless yet completely fun flick! The only saving grace for me with this movie is the always beautiful Milla Jovovich, she looks great on this one and kicks ass like there's no tomorrow, sadly, she's the only shinning light on this post apocalyptic abyss. 

To top things off, Anderson continues aping other films he admires over and over again. In Extinction he was aping Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981) and Day of the Dead (1985), in Afterlife he aped Escape from New York (1981) and on this one he borrows extensively from James Cameron’s Aliens (1986) right down to having some scenes where Alice is ready to escape, but has to go back to rescue a little girl from the clutches of a monster. By the way, the little girl is in a cocoon, just like Newt in Aliens. He also borrows heavily from Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead (2004). Remember that whole sequence in Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead where the main female character is waking up to a suburbia filled with chaos? Anderson does it here all over again, almost exactly the same way, but with Alice. I’ve noticed how much Anderson does this in his films. He does it so shamelessly, he is kind of like a cinematic parasite, I mean one thing is to be influenced by a film and another is to copy whole scenes from a film you admire. Doesn’t Anderson have enough originality to come up with his own film?

A scene from Dawn of the Dead (2004), sorry, I mean Resident Evil: Retribution (2012)

Sadly, this film was a huge, huge disappointment for me. The story goes no where, there is no advancement, previous films seem to be ignored, new storylines introduced forcibly simply to keep pumping out movies, there’s no flow to this film. It feels like a bunch of video games stages strung together and called a film; it felt like filler to me. Even though they squeezed the characters of Ada Wong and Leon S. Kennedy both of which appeared in the second Resident Evil video game back in 1998, the film still feels like filler; like an unimportant film in a franchise. This my friends was a sequel that literally had nothing to say. I’ll give Anderson this, he has impressed and entertained me with his films in the past, for example, I still love Event Horizon (1997), and on Retribution he still shows a knack for handling effects work very well, the opening sequence which starts in slow motion reverse and then goes and shows us the way it really happened in real time again...freaking sweet. So this movie while filled with imperfections, still demonstrates Anderson has a bit of a filmmaker in him. Sadly, with Retribution he is showing signs of fatigue as a director; I sincerely hope he hasn’t lost his love for filmmaking; for doing films that are worth while, for making good genre films. The ending is a grabber, it leaves the doors open for what could potentially be an interesting sequel, but considering how bad this fifth installment is, we’ll be lucky if we even get a sixth, which is  supposed to be about humanities last stand against the undead. Let’s hope Anderson takes a stand against lazy, bad filmmaking as well. This film is enjoyable thrash, but I'm very demanding of my thrashy movies, here's hoping the next and potentially final installment will be a 'one-up' when compared to this one. 

Rating: 2 out of 5   

The Possession (2012)

Title: The Possession (2012)

Director: Ole Bornedal

Cast: Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Natasha Calis, Kyra Sedgwick, , Madison Davenport, Matisyahu

Review:

I’m going to take the opportunity and comment on the state of American Horror Films with his review because well, dammit, this is a PG-13 rated demonic possession film, and to me, the words PG-13 and demonic possession simply shouldn’t even be mentioned in the same sentence, but here we are, talking about the Sam Raimi produced The Possession, a horror film about Jewish demons possessing a little girl. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, American Horror has been castrated, it no longer has any guts. It’s been so freaking deflated of any true horror that we get films like the one we’re talking about today. The Possession is a harmless little horror film, not too scary, not too horrifying, but still, pretty watchable, let’s get that out of the way. This is not a bad film; it simply doesn’t deliver on what we would expect to see in a film about demonic possession, it doesn’t have that edge, that intensity. And of course this is all due to the fact that the film was originally ‘R’ rated, but in order to get the all important money making ‘PG-13’ rating, it was edited down and thus, we get this soft core horror flick.  

Now immediately when we talk about demons and little girls one film pops to mind and that’s of course William Friedkin’s immortal horror classic The Exorcist (1973). If you don’t want your demonic possession film to be compared to The Exorcist, then don’t make it about little girls being possessed by demons, or else you’ll get what you’re gonna get today from this film connoisseur, a comparison between the two. So anyhows, was The Possession worth a damn? Did it even come close to the horrifying levels of shit your pants scares that The Exorcist did? Hell no! It still baffles me how not a single film has ever been able to achieve what Friedkin achieved with The Exorcist. Failed attempts include Lost Souls (2000) and The Unborn (2009), by the way, The Unborn is a film that has a lot in common with The Possession because they are both about ‘Dybbuks’ which is the Jewish word for ‘Demon’. In trying to understand why an American film studio would purposely make their film about Jewish Demons instead of Catholic/Christian demons, the hypothesis I came up with is that producers want to play it safe and so they avoid playing with Catholicism or Christianity out of fear. After all, we all know how cautious Hollywood has always been when it comes to dealing with religion. With this theme, Hollywood rarely takes chances; which is probably why this film is so ‘soft’.  

If you were to judge this film simply by its previews you’d swear The Possession was a true blue scary film, sadly, this was not the case. Demons and Sam Raimi are two things that should get together more often, but apparently the days in which Sam Raimi would direct a good horror film are long gone, never to return. Raimi has gone full on Hollywood for years now, horror is a thing of the past for him. His attempt at horror Drag Me To Hell (2009) was ‘light’ when compared to his Evil Dead days. These days Raimi is contempt with merely producing horror movies through his Ghost House Pictures label instead of personally directing them; which is fine by me, I love the fact that he gives up coming/new directors a chance to flex their filmmaking muscles. I just wish he wouldn’t play it so safe with the horror films he produces. The question that inevitably pops into my head is will the Evil Dead remake that is currently in production be a soft core horror film? A horror movie without guts? I hope not, but if The Possession and Drag Me to Hell are any indication…

Technically speaking, the film is very well made and it does have its scary moments. Invisible things shutting doors and throwing things around is always a spooky deal. The reason why I gave The Possession  a chance is because sometimes, PG-13 horror movies can be scary, the one example I always give is Gore Verbinski’s The Ring (2002), a film that is PG-13 and scary as hell. While The Possession didn’t quite get there in terms of intensity, it is a well told tale, well acted and well shot and has one or two truly eerie moments in there, I loved those scenes with the little girl opening up the Dybbuk box in her room, which kind of brought to mind the Hellraiser, but thats besides the point. I can’t really complain about the way the film looks, the visuals are very slick, very clean. Kudos to director Ole Bornedal for deliver a slick looking horror movie. Also, I loved the score for the film, it’s so classic! Again, with its score the film reminded me of a horror film from the 70’s, where so much emphasis was put in the musical score. Nowadays, this is something that films have all but forgotten. Music is 50% of the equation when it comes to films!

The cast does a great job, especially the lead actor Jeffrey Dean Morgan whom some of you might remember as ‘The Comedian’ in Zack Snyder’s Watchmen (2009). I couldn’t help but notice how much this actor looks like Javier Bardem! It’s actually kind of uncanny! The dude even talks like Bardem! Casting a mature actor like this one in a horror movie reminded me of horror films from the 70’s when they’d cast these solid, mature actors in the principal roles. In this sense, The Possession reminded me of The Changeling (1980), which starred George C. Scott in the starring role of the father struggling with the loss of his family. Jeffrey Dean Morgan comes off as a strong male lead. Natasha Calis as ‘Em’ the girl who is possessed by the Dybbuk does a commendable job as well, but she didn’t go through hell like Linda Blair did in The Exorcist. A surprising casting decision was giving Reggae singer Matisyahu the all important role of the  exorcist, didn’t do a bad job in my book, as far as I know this was his first attempt at acting in a full length motion picture, so there’s that.

So why is The Possession such a harmless horror flick? Well, because this is a Demonic Possession film and doesn’t deliver the goods in terms of nastiness. Demons are supposed to be these ultra evil things who hate god. They are the worst of the worst; they want to rape and pillage the body they inhabit. On this one, the demon whispers, and makes the little girls eyes go white, that’s about it. Oh wait, the demon also likes to make the wind blow, and turn the lights on and off a lot; that’s as far as this one goes. So it’s harmless in that sense, the film uses a lot of old school horror techniques, lots of horror movie cliches like shadowy hallways, the wind howling, the whispers in the darkness, that sort of thing, and I liked that about it; I just wanted a bit more intensity with those old school scares. Truth be told, it reminded me of these harmless ghost movies like Lady in White (1988), you know, scary movies that aren’t too scary. Ultimately, this is the kind of horror film that a kid interested in starting to watch horror movies would enjoy. Someone who hasn’t seen a gazillion horror movies before might enjoy it, but for the true blue seasoned horror veteran this film is just child’s play.

Rating: 3 out of 5

After Hours (1985)

Title: After Hours (1985)

Director: Martin Scorcese

Cast: Griffin Dunne, Rosanna Arquette, Verna Bloom, Linda Fiorentino, Teri Garr, Catherine O’Hara, John Heard, Dick Miller, Bronson Pinchot, Cheech Marin, Tommy Chong

Review:

Every once in a while a director will take a project that could have otherwise turned out to be bland or formulaic and elevates it, makes it better then it has any right to be. I think this was the case with After Hours. You kind of get the feeling that had this comedy been under the command of a lesser director, it simply would not have been as good as it is. Had legendary American filmmaker Martin Scorcese not been behind the camera, it could have ended as just another romantic comedy, lost in the shuffle and forgotten in time. But in the hands of Scorcese, this dark comedy is a superior form of comedy film in my book and I might add, criminally underrated.

After Hours tells the story of Paul Hackett, a New York City computer programmer who’s fed up with his life. He’s got a boring job, doing the same thing over and over again; when he goes back home, it’s to watch the same boring channels on television and judging by Hackett’s one tone face, there’s nothing unique or interesting on it;  he surfs through the channels with a blank stare on his face. So after a while he decides to  go out and venture to the outside world, searching for human contact, searching for something other then the numbing loneliness he lives in. The streets he ventures to are the perilous streets of the big apple, circa mid-eighties, which means dark, dangerous and manic. He stops at a coffee shop to read his favorite novel and stumbles upon a beautiful girl whom he apparently has a couple of things in common with. They exchange phone numbers and part ways, but Paul's loneliness gets the better of him and so he ends up calling her up on that very same night! They meet again at her apartment and Paul seems to think he’s going to be getting lucky, for what is wrong with casual sex? A random night of passion? Absolutely nothing! Unfortunately for Hackett, Marcy ends up being a true wacko! He sees the signs and decides to abort mission, but as Hackett will soon find out, going back home is not going to be an easy task.  

Many things make After Hours a good film, not just the fact that Scorcese directed it, though that is the big bonus in my book. Actually a lot of good things came together to make this as special a film; for example, the cast is amazing! The film is mostly centered on Griffin Dunne’s character Paul Hackett, he plays the every man. A blue collar worker type that’s fed up, he wants human contact, he wants something more then just his own self to talk to at night. Unfortunately, the universe seems to be conspiring against him on this night, this is one of those movies where everything goes wrong for the main character. He runs out of money, gets mixed up in all sorts of trouble and meets the craziest people! True blue New York people who live jaded lives in a jaded city. To you or I these characters that Hackett meets through out the course of the evening might seem nuts, or too crazy for real life, but to a New Yorker, this film is merely an exaggeration of every day New York life. Every character is brought to life by a gifted actor. Terry Gar for example, whom I always remember as Inga from Mel Brook’s Young Frankenstein (1974), is hilarious on this one as a waitress who’s a lonely desperate woman, looking for the right man to snatch up and devour! Catherine O’Hara plays this psychotic woman who has her own Mister Softee Ice Cream truck, her character is hilariously jaded out of her mind.  I mean we even get freaking Cheech and Chong on this film! The cast is very well rounded out, it makes watching the film a pleasure.

But of course, the big draw here for me is that Scorcese directed the film. What I’ve always loved about Scorcese is how very New York he is. He is enamored with the city, same as Woody Allen is, can’t say I blame ‘em, the place can be rather magical, vibrant, alive. It is a beautiful city and a dark city; it can be the stuff of dreams or nightmares depending which corner you turn on. New York City's ambiguity is what  shines through so well in After Hours. You can meet a beautiful girl in a coffee shop in the middle of the night, but said girl can turn out to be a total head case. It’s these little details that the film has that make it such a New York film, the crazy taxi driver, the cold crazy people, the dark haunting city streets, the bums, the punks, the night clubs, the gay bars, the unexpectedly friendly people, the film effectively captures the dark beauty that was New York of the 80’s, I loved that about it, so my hats down to Scorcese for capturing New York City life so well, it’s something he’s gotten very good at through out his career. I mean, this is the director who made New York, New York (1977), Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980) and Mean Streets (1973) all of which take place in the big apple. Scorcese is without a doubt a director that displays his love for the city that never sleeps; he’s the most ‘New York’ director of all. The fact that the entire film was shot in New York City streets and entirely at night is what gives After Hours its unique look.

But aside from that, the film has these amazing camera shots, which is really what let’s us know there’s a master filmmaker behind the cameras, it’s little details, like when we follow these keys that someone throws from a building, or when Hackett’s twenty dollar bill flies out the taxi cabs window and the camera follows it. My favorite shot is the one with which the film ends, the camera simply sweeps through an office building filled with desks and computers and telephones…loved that. This is the camera work and direction that brings After Hours up for me, it elevates the film. So as you can see my friends, many things make this one special. After Hours is without a doubt an extremely underrated Scorcese film! Same as with Scorcese’s Bringing Out the Dead (1999), this is a film from Scorcese’s repertoire that many seems to be missing out on, but should definitely be seeing. Scorcese made After Hours in order to regain his love for filmmaking, you see, before making After Hours Scorcese had been trying to get The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) going, but had an incredibly hard time making it happen, until finally he let it go. He ended up making it anyways a few years later, but at the time, he was incredibly frustrated at the fact that apparently The Last Temptation of Christ was not going to happen. So he went on and made After Hours, to regain his love for making movies. His love and passion for the medium shows through in the film, this is a master storyteller giving it his best to make us laugh and achieving it, in a very artful stylish way. This is a wonderfully dark comedy.

Highly recommend it if you want to see one of these films that’s very paranoid, and fast, the film moves at a frenetic pace. It’s the kind of film that takes places during the small hours of the night, in these seedy places that are open when most of humanity is sound asleep. It’s a film that shows us that the freaks most certainly come out at night. Which is probably why Hackett is always shown running from someone, which was a nice motif I picked up while watching the film; that image of Hackett just running,  running from the freaks, from the crazies, from scary life. Paul Hackett is a character that just wants to ‘get home’ which reminds me that in some ways, this is a dark version of the Wizard of Oz, with it’s main character trying to get away from all the craziness and back to the comfort and warmth of home. By the way, the films connection to The Wizard of Oz is alluded to at one point in the film. But aside from wanting to get home, Hackett just wants to live, which I think is an awesome message in the film. He wants more out of life, can’t say I blame him for going after it even if it means going through hell.

Rating: 5 out of 5