Happy Halloween!

Film: Spoorloos (The Vanishing); The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Format: Streaming video from Hulu+ on laptop (Spoorloos); DVD from personal collection on kick-ass portable DVD player (Chainsaw).

Since it’s Halloween, I thought it would be a worthwhile exercise to watch a couple of films that I was pretty damn sure would scare me. I like horror movies in general. More accurately, I like smart horror movies, ones that don’t play to the lowest common denominator. Stupid horror movies don’t really do anything for me. I’m not scared when I know what’s going to happen, or when the victim in the film is dumb enough to walk into something obvious. So the films of today are interesting in the sense that in both cases, I know where the film is going. I’ve had access to both films for months. But I haven’t watched them because where they go freaks me out a bit (or a lot).

Spoorloos (The Vanishing) is the first of these. I admit right now that I am something of a claustrophobe. I don’t mind small places like elevators, but I have an intense fear of being physically confined or restrained. That comes into play in Spoorloos, and I knew that going in. What I dreaded more than anything was that ending I knew was coming. What I didn’t understand was how what was essentially a simple story could be expanded into something that lasted close to two hours.

Why I Skipped Prom

Film: Carrie
Format: DVD from personal collection on kick-ass portable DVD player.

I like a lot of smart horror movies from the 1970s and 1980s. It was sort of a golden period for horror films, and while there’s plenty of dross, there’s also a crap-ton of quality films. Carrie is one that passed over me. In fact, it’s one of the few pre-1990 Stephen King books I haven’t read. I guess I was never interested enough in the story to get through it. Still, eventually I’m going to see everything on the giant List o’ Doom, so the night before Halloween is as good a night as any to finally put it in the spinner and see what I’ve been missing.

Carrie is the story of a shy, awkward high school girl named Carrie White (Sissy Spacek). Essentially friendless and even mocked by her teachers sometimes, Carrie is very much the social outcast through and through. She isn’t helped by her mother, Margaret (Piper Laurie), who is religion-obsessed. Actually, that puts it mildly. Margaret White tends to favor the Old Testament over the New except for the blood of Jesus. Everything in her world is a sin. Our introduction to Carrie comes when she experiences menarche (go look it up) during a shower after gym class. True to her pathological religious roots, her mother claims that this is due to sin. Carrie is frequently punished by being thrown into a closet and forced to pray to a pretty gruesome Christ statue.

Anime-niacs

Film: Mononoke Hime (Princess Mononoke)
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on kick-ass portable DVD player.

If you say that you don’t like anime, fans will tell you that it’s an unfair thing to say. Anime, they will tell you, is a style, not a genre. Anime comes in all different stripes and genres, so claiming to dislike it is very much like saying you don’t like movies. Fair enough—it’s a style and not a genre. In general, though, it’s a style I don’t like that much. I never feel centered watching most anime. There never seems to be enough exposition for me to feel like I know what’s going on. Fans of the style typically cite Hayao Miyazaki as the best choice for a hater.

Okay. I’ve seen a few Miyazaki films. This, in fact, is the second time I’ve seen Mononoke Hime (Princess Mononoke). I will admit that there is a particular beauty to this film, and a toughness I didn’t recall. But I still don’t really understand what the hell is going on through a lot of it. Incidentally, I don’t typically watch dubbed versions of films, but with animation, it seems to matter less. Also, the English language version of this film feature some pretty good voice talent, so I went with it.

Off Script: House on Haunted Hill; Bay of Blood

Films: House on Haunted Hill; Reazione a Catena (Twitch of the Death Nerve, Bay of Blood
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on rockin’ flatscreen.

It might be coming out of an anti-intellectual closet to say this, but I tend to like the films of William Castle because they are so damn silly. Castle was the king of entertaining film promotions, having moviegoers sign waivers against the possibility of having a heart attack from fright while watching his films. It’s ballsy and fun. Seriously, there’s not a person alive today who would be so scared to be in any danger from one of Castle’s films. They’re scary sort of like Chris Kattan is funny, so, y’know, not. They also frequently have plot holes you could drive a truck through. Fortunately, they’re entertaining, and really that’s all I need. Castle’s films are probably an acquired taste, but it’s a taste I acquired pretty quickly.

It helps a film like House on Haunted Hill to have a legitimate actor like Vincent Price starring. Price, of course, made his name in cheap, not-very-scary horror movies, but he’s still Vincent Price, and he’s pretty damn awesome. The truth is that he’s really the best thing going in this one, but he’s also more than enough. Even when the movie was stupid, Price was worth watching.

Old Souls

Film: Cloud Atlas
Format: Kerasotes 16 theater.

Sometimes I love what I do.

I don’t go to the movies very often. It’s not the expense (I watched today’s film for a paltry $5.00), but the time. I tend to watch films piecemeal because I have to. Twenty minutes here, half an hour there. There are times when it takes me a full day to get through a 90-minute film. When I do have a chunk of time to watch something, it’s usually because I’m doing something else. I’ve paired a lot of socks and done a lot of ironing while watching a movie. Since theaters don’t allow me to come and go as I please or pause when I ask them to, and since they won’t allow me to bring in my ironing board, I find myself without the necessary chunk of consecutive hours most days. But I do make exceptions, and Cloud Atlas is just such an exception.

Before I get too much into the heart of this, let me say this now and like this: I officially forgive the Wachowskis for Matrix: Revolutions.

Singin' on Sunset Blvd.

Film: The Artist
Format: DVD from NetFlix on kick-ass portable DVD player.

Wow. Really, just wow. I heard all of the hype for The Artist, of course; it would be pretty much impossible not to have heard something of it last year and at the start of this year. It was the darling of film people for a couple of solid months, and even as someone who hadn’t seen it until tonight, it was not a surprise when it walked away from the Oscars with a fistful of statues. According to its IMDB page, in addition to its five Oscars, The Artist has received another 109 awards of various sorts and types. Yeah, that’s a lot.

What I expected, of course, was a silent movie, but it’s not precisely that. Instead, it is a modern film that happens to be silent for the bulk of its running time. The difference here is really all the difference. Except when it actually makes sense within the narrative, there’s no painful mugging to the camera or overacting of the sort common to 100-year-old films. It is a film for now that pays homage to these classics and a few others besides. There are definite shades of Sunset Blvd. here and more than a smattering of Singin’ in the Rain.

Persecution

Film: Ceddo
Format: Internet video on laptop.

There’s a certain pleasure in seeing a film that you’re pretty sure no one else you know has seen. Such is the case with Ceddo, a Senegalese film that manages to be as obscure as just about anything I’ve sought in the past three years. As often happens with the more obscure films I watch, I went into this completely cold, not knowing the first thing about this film other than its country of origin and that the director is named Ousmane Sembene. I would never have expected what this film is—a slow-paced discussion on religious persecution.

It’s difficult to tell the time period this film takes place in. In a lot of respects, it looks modern. On the other hand, it’s evident that the slave trade is taking place in the world of the film. In fact, at one point a collection of characters discusses the very real possibility of selling their own families into slavery. My guess is that Ceddo takes place during the 18th or early 19th century. I suppose, in all honesty, that I know too little of West Africa to be able to speak more relevantly than that.