Red Desert (1964)

After a car accident and a brief stay in a clinic, a woman (Monica Vitti) has become increasingly sensitive to the environment of the industrial town that she lives in.

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Long ago humankind had to adapt to its environment. Nature was harsh and cruel and we as a species evolved to survive. Eventually we gained the ability to adapt our environment to us. Thanks to scientific advancement we can now literally pave paradise and put up a parking lot, or a strip mall, or a nuclear power plant. We are now the masters! Or are we? What does being surrounded by all this artificiality do to a person? All this noise and pollution has to have an effect doesn't it? Like white moths who turn grey to match the trees stained with ash from a local factory, are we too are changing in subtle ways to match our increasingly sick and contaminated environment?

Call Michelangelo Antonioni boring all you want, this film is a subjective masterpiece. Through careful use of sound, composition and color, he is able to put us right in Giuliana’s stylish shoes. This film works a spell on you. When it’s over, you cannot help but feel uneasy about the world you live in. Green Peace should use it as a recruitment film.

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

Jack Skellington is feeling a little bored and restless in his role as the Pumpkin King in Halloween Town when he stumbles into Christmas Town and has his little skeleton mind BLOWN. He is inspired to claim Christmas as his own, to the delight of some, and the dismay of others.

This movie takes me back to 10th grade. I was going through my little goth phase, I had a Jack Skellington lunchbox, and Disneyland had just opened their Nightmare Before Christmas Halloween/Christmas makeover on the Haunted Mansion ride. Ah, those were the days! It's true that merchandise for this movie seems to be EVERYWHERE now and it can get kinda seen-one-seen-them-all, but if you look at just the film by itself it's really quite extraordinary. First of all, the amount of work that went into this film is mind-boggling.  I can't wrap my head around the dedication and patience required to make a stop-motion film. The voice actors are top notch, the music is wonderful (well done, Danny Elfman!), and the combined talents of Tim Burton and Henry Selick make this film shine. There's something comfortable and familiar about these songs and these characters. Whenever I feel too snobby and abandon this movie for a few years, it waits, patiently, for me to come back. Like an old friend. For Jack, Sally, Zero, even Oogie Boogie, I'll always come back.

Double-Bill: High School Horrors

Carrie and Elephant

Batman Returns (1992)

Batman (Michael Keaton) has to take on The Penguin (Danny DeVito) and Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer) and Max Shreck (Christopher Walken) and an army of circus clowns, and missile-packin' penguins and...

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I really like Batman Returns. I don’t care if this damages my geek cred. I don’t care that the plot makes absolutely no sense, I don’t care that Batman is hardly in the film and it doesn't really phase me that when Batman is on screen, he does some rather un-Batman like things (ie: strapping a bomb to someone and throwing them into the sewer to blow up). You can’t even chalk this up to adolescent nostalgia. I was in second grade when this PG-13 film came out. I don’t think I actually saw it until at least 1995.

What I love most about this film (besides the dark/subversive humor) is the degree to which it embraces practical effects. When you really think about it, this was the last big blow-out for practical effects. Literally everything is hand-made. Exactly one year later Steven Spielberg and his digital dinos would change everything. Three years after that Burton himself wholeheartedly embraced digital technology with Mars Attacks! And though he’s made some good films since, they seem to be fewer and far between. Barring his masterpiece Ed Wood, this was the last stand for the Tim Burton we all fell in love with. Le sigh…

Friday Quote: The Haunting

"'Unknown.' That's the key word. 'Unknown.' When we become involved in a supernatural event, we're scared out of our wits just because it's unknown. The night cry of a child. A face on the wall. Knockings, bangings. What's there to be afraid of? You weren't threatened. It was harmless, like a joke that doesn't come out...When people believed the Earth was flat, the idea of a round world scared them silly. Then they found out how the round world works. It's the same with the world of the supernatural. Until we know how it works, we'll continue to carry around this unnecessary burden of fear."

The Haunting (1963)

Dead Ringers (1988)

Brilliant twin gynecologists (Jeremy Irons) descend into madness. Need I say more? OK. It's directed by David Cronenberg. Now go, watch!

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We’ve seen this story before. It always begins at the end and usually with an eye-catching headline. It begins with a tragedy and then moves backwards to fill in the gaps, to chronicle each step of the slow descent into madness. How did things ever get this bad? You can theorize and hypothesize as much as you want, you’ll never really find the answer. No matter how deep you dig you will never really know. Whether it is fiction like What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? or reportage like the “Golden Suicides” of Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake, there is always an X factor. The easy answer is to blame bad brain chemistry, the scarier thought is realizing that the potential to do grievous harm to ourselves and others lies within each of us. The brain is an imperfect machine. There is always the potential for a glitch. No matter how many vitamins you take or vaccinations you decline, there is absolutely no way to ensure that you won’t find yourself the focus of next week’s news cycle. We shiver in horror because deep, down, inside, we know that could be us.

Halloween Costumes Inspired By Movies!

Anyone who knows me knows how much I love Halloween. The horror films, decorating the house, candy, and dressing up! My favorite costume of all time was Richie Tenenbaum from The Royal Tenenbaums (below) my senior year of high school. Yes, I was a 17 year old girl in a beard! No wonder I didn't get asked to prom! (JK, I totally did). A few years ago, Craig looked to the movies for inspiration too and went as Alistair Hennessey in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (above). Pretty good job, I think!

Have you ever dressed up like a movie character? We want to see your costume!

Blood For Dracula (1974)

Desperately in need of virgin blood, Count Dracula (Udo Kier) travels to Italy in hopes that the country's Catholicism will provide him with the purity that he so craves.

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I think what I like most about film is the ways in which it can show you the world from someone else's point of view. Films coming out of the middle-east and the third world can give us a glimpse at how others see the world. It can be quite surprising to discover that you share a worldview with someone you feel so geographically separated from. Potentially even more illuminating is the discovery that someone you share a homeland with, sees things in quite a different way than you. This is what draws me to the cinema of Paul Morrissey.

With how closely affiliated Morrissey is with Andy Warhol's Factory of the 60's, you'd think that he would be some sort of super-permissive, amoral, hedonist. Yet you couldn't be further from the truth. The real Paul Morrissey is a devout Catholic who served in the Army and self-identifies as a right-winger. The first time I watched this film I found it to be a semi-amusing horror-comedy. On this viewing I was able to see it as what the author intended.

In a film that prominently features greedy, promiscuous aristocrats and an abusive, Marxist, rapist, Dracula himself seems practically harmless. He is not the the thing to dread, the coming of the modern world is. That is horror to Paul Morrissey.

Double-Bill: French Ticklers

Yoyo and Playtime

Friday Quote: Young Frankenstein

"From that fateful day when stinking bits of slime first crawled from the sea and shouted to the cold stars, 'I am man.', our greatest dread has always been the knowledge of our mortality. But tonight, we shall hurl the gauntlet of science into the frightful face of death itself. Tonight, we shall ascend into the heavens. We shall mock the earthquake. We shall command the thunders, and penetrate into the very womb of impervious nature herself."

Young Frankenstein (1974)

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

I am not even going to try to describe the plot of this film. Any attempt to do so would likely just scare you off.

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Though I've seen this film at least twenty times, watching it on home video for the first time in over a decade felt like a completely new experience. Weeks upon weeks of seeing this film in a darkened, rowdy theater had turned it into something almost completely different. When viewed in the comfort of your home, there are actually moments where nothing is being said/sung. Even quietly muttering the audience responses to yourself doesn't quite match the theatrical experience. If you've only seen this movie on video, you truly haven't really seen it. Do yourself a favor and find the a place to see it with people. The Official Fan Site even has a theater locator to help you with this. Don't dream it, be it. Give yourself over to absolute pleasure.

I'm confident that if theatrical exhibition ever goes the way of the dodo, somewhere there will still be a small band of the faithful screaming "asshole" and "slut" at a bed sheet pinned to the wall. This will certainly be the last film standing.

Bad Milo! (2013)

To say Duncan (Ken Marino) has a lot of stress in his life is an understatement.  His boss at work manipulates him into moving his office into the restroom, the pressure is on to have a child, and his inability to do so leads people to presume he has impotency issues, all of this in turn leads to him having severe gastro-intestinal problems.

Life’s obstacles can get us all down and we have to fight off our inner demons to move forward, but Duncan literally has to deal with his inner demon.  Bruce Banner had The Hulk.  Allan of “Monkey Shines” had his vengeful monkey Ella.  When Duncan gets too upset, a little demon, later named Milo, comes out of his butt.  Resembling an oddly-cute fleshly bobble-head and sounding like a mogwai, Milo is a little ball of uncontrollable id and fury, ready to kill anyone who gets in the way of Duncan’s happiness.

Bad Milo! easily could’ve been just a silly horror-comedy gore-fest that succeeded purely on its premise, but where the film surprised me was the decision to have Duncan (aided by his therapist Peter Stormare, in a clever stand out performance), try to bond with the little anal beast and learn to embrace his dark side. Marino ably carries this film, perfectly conveying the horror of Milo’s presence, his hope to move past his issues, and his worries about paternity and turning into his father. Also worth noting is the fact that, in the age of cheap CGI creatures, the filmmakers decided to go a bit more low-fi. Like the Muppets and Gremlins before him, the character of Milo is able to succeed through the charm of puppetry.

This film really has a lot to say about the anxiety of fatherhood, and is actually quite a sweet story about stress management…while of course while still delivering the carnage and laughs you would expect from a movie about an ass demon.

The Addams Family (1991)

"They do what they wanna do, say what they wanna say, live how they wanna live, play how they wanna play, dance how they wanna dance..." Sorry. I was having an MC Hammer moment. Oh, The Addams Family! The cartoons were great, the TV show was great, and I'm happy to say that this movie was great (in that gleefully wicked and oh-so-90s kind of way)!

Gomez (Raul Julia), Morticia (Anjelica Huston) and the rest of the Addams clan are having a seance in hopes of reaching out to Gomez's long lost brother Fester (Christopher Lloyd). When he appears on their doorstep, the family is overjoyed...and suspicious. Is he the real Fester Addams? Or just a convincing scam artist?

This film is a hell of a lot of fun. The Addamses are so consistent in their creepy and kooky, mysterious and spooky outlook on life. I especially love the scenes where they interact with "normal" people. Morticia looking for a job? Parent-teacher conferences? Wednesday and Pugsley in the school pageant (complete with TONS of fake blood)? Hilarious! When a Girl Scout comes by selling cookies, Wednesday (Christina Ricci) asks her flatly, "Are they made from real Girl Scouts?" She has some of the best lines in the film. Combine great writing with a beautiful waltz theme by Marc Shaiman, and an all around sense of fun and mayhem, and you've got yourself a good time.

Enjoy, and dance the dance of brotherly looooove, Mamushka! 

Yoyo (1965)

The precocious son of an aristocrat and a circus performer spends a lifetime in show business hoping to restore his family to their former glory.

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No offense to the genius of Charlie Chaplin, but in a mere 98 minutes this film is able to accomplish numerous things that the Little Tramp spent entire features on. Like Limelight or The Circus, it acknowledges its debt to the history of comic performance, it has jokes about the ever increasing modernization of contemporary society (a la Modern Times), and there is a World War II passage (The Great Dictator) as well as a precocious child (The Kid). Even the more socially minded works of Chaplin (Monsieur Verdoux and A King In New York) get a brief moment in the sun. This film literally has everything! By watching it we are privileged to witness the evolution of an art form. From stage to screen, from silent to talkie, from film to TV. In the end it is very much like Fellini’s 8 ½, it is literally a film about its own making. Oh and in case I’ve made this all sound too pretentious, it is also absolutely hilarious! That Pierre Etaix fellow truly is quite a little genius!

Double-Bill: Survival

The Grey and Gravity

Friday Quote: The Sixth Sense

"I think I can go now. Just needed to do a couple of things. I needed to help someone; I think I did. And I needed to tell you something: You were never second, ever. I love you. You sleep now. Everything will be different in the morning."

The Sixth Sense (1999)

Blancanieves (2012)

A friend of ours was recently complaining about too many films being nothing more than an adaptation of other works, lamenting the lack of original content. While I would certainly like to see more original films getting wide audiences, I'm glad that there are imaginative filmmakers looking to the past for inspiration. Without them, we wouldn't have the gorgeous masterpiece of a film that is Blancanieves.

Forget Snow White and the Huntsman (believe me, I wish I could). THIS is the Snow White retelling you need to see. And yes, it's silent. I don't want to compare it to The Artist, but this movie is much better. There's an art and a sense of magic to silent cinema that was lacking in The Artist, but Blancanieves has it in spades. This film tells the story in 1920s Spain, with the Snow White role being filled by a young female bullfighter. The seven dwarfs are a group of matadors, and the evil stepmother is a heartless (and I mean HEARTLESS) and fabulously wicked woman, played brilliantly by Maribel Verdú. The acting is all great, the visuals are absolutely lovely, and the story is familiar but filled with new life and unexpected turns. I can't praise this enough.

Check out the trailer below. It's a cinematic experience worth having! I laughed, I cried, I loved!

Gravity (2013)

This just made a bajillion dollars and you've probably already seen it so is a plot synopsis really necessary? If you haven't seen it, stop reading this and go see it.

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I have literally been waiting years for this film. As a devotee of Alfonso Cuarón, I started tracking this film as soon as it was first announced. Remember when Angelina Jolie and Robert Downey Jr. were originally attached to star? I do! Remember when the release date got pushed an entire year? I remember that too. So I guess it goes without saying that I am not an impartial critic. I am hardwired to love this film. So deal with it! Anyhow...

This film is like a beautiful magic trick. And I'm not talking about some cheap, David Blaine street magic, I'm talking full-on David Copperfield! No expense is spared. You know deep down inside that they didn't actually shoot this film in space, but rather than try to figure out how they pulled it off, your brain just accepts it. And you want to know why that is? Two words: Sandra Bullock.

Sure Cuarón and Emmanuel Lubezki's visuals are stunning, but not just anyone can hold an audience's attention for as long as Sandra does here. Watching her fight to survive for 91 minutes, you absolutely get why she is a movie star. She can make you laugh just as easily as she can make you cry. Her performance is (pardon the pun) stellar.

And despite the harrowing nature of this expertly taut narrative, I have zero doubt that this film and Bullock's performance in it are on course to inspire a whole generation of kids to take up an interest in space. I don't care what Dr. Neil Degrasse Tyson says. Just you wait and see!

Hell Hounds: The Dogs of Halloween!

Okay, "Hell Hounds" sounds like a bit much. Basically, this post is dedicated to all those dogs that make appearances in my favorite October films. Some are lovable, some are maybe evil, some are doomed, some give warnings, and some are awesome! Hit it! Spoilers and stuff below, beware!

Rusty, Planet Terror

The beloved companion of J.T., owner of the restaurant where zombies come a-knocking. Unfortunately he bites the dust, but he'll live on in our hearts forever!

Houdini and Isabelle, Signs

Poor dogs, both casualties of the alien invasion! Well, Houdini died at the hands of his owners after trying to attack little Bo, but he was on edge! The ALIENS were coming!

The dog on the bridge, Beetlejuice

What a little stinker! He just HAD to step off that board and send the Maitlands to the afterlife. Ah well, without him we wouldn't have a story, now would we?

Cole's dog, The Sixth Sense

A poor little pup who can sense the supernatural! But he's really cute and doesn't die. Hooray!

Zero, The Nightmare Before Christmas

Best sidekick ever! And he has a glowing little pumpkin nose, how awesome is that?

The Freelings' dog, Poltergeist

PEOPLE. Will you NEVER LEARN? If the dog is answering imaginary commands from the wall, it's time to move.

Bub, ParaNorman

Pet of Norman's friend Neil, Bub is the cutest bifurcated ghost dog you ever saw!

Precious, The Silence of the Lambs

Precious, you little bitch! Just sitting up there yapping away, looking down on your owner's victims! Catherine Martin ended up taking Precious once she was freed from that pit, so the question is....is Precious evil too? Is Catherine Martin's story far from over? Dun dun DUN!

Sparky, Frankenweenie

The ORIGINAL, obviously. You can't keep Sparky down! After getting killed by being hit by a car, his owner resurrected him, Frankenstein-style! How badass is that? And he still keeps his sweet personality, aww.

Snoopy, It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

Any explanation needed? I thought not.

Who's your favorite? Who did we forget?

Double Bill: Delusion de Lynch

Lost Highway and Mulholland Dr.

Lost Highway (1997)

A jealous saxaphone player (Bill Pullman) is imprisoned for murdering his wife (Patricia Arquette) until one night he transforms into someone else (Balthazar Getty) and is released.

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This was my first David Lynch film. I’d like to say that I rented it because I was an 8th grader with an amazingly sophisticated film palette. But that’s not the truth. My friends and I rented this movie because we heard there was a lot of nudity in it. Needless to say, by the time the movie came to an end, we were much more terrified than titillated. It is absolutely impossible to divorce the sex scenes from everything that surrounds them. You simply cannot ignore those darkened corners in the bedroom. Lynch’s images are already overpowering enough on their own, the sex just intensifies it. The slow motion, smoke, blurry focus and flashing lights all combine with the eerie and bombastic soundtrack to cast a haunting and uneasy spell over you. And I haven’t even mentioned Robert Blake’s character!

Some people might complain that the plot makes no sense, but that’s just because they are trying too hard. If you just take the images as they come, one after the other, I promise you the whole thing will make absolute emotional sense. And though it is clearly not a traditional horror movie, you won’t find many films more horrific than this on a lonely night.

Friday Quote: The Bad Seed

"I thought I'd seen some mean little gals in my time, but you're the meanest. You wanna know how I know how mean you are? 'Cause I'm mean. I'm smart and I'm mean, and you're smart and you're mean. And you never get caught and I never get caught."

The Bad Seed (1956)

The Exorcist (1973)

When young Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair) falls prey to demonic possession, her actress mother (Ellen Burstyn) seeks out the help of a priest (Jason Miller) who is in the midst of a crisis of faith.

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I absolutely cannot understand the "satanic panic" that some evangelicals had upon this film's initial release. The way Billy Graham railed against it you'd think this was some sort of satanic recruitment piece. Had he actually seen the film, he would have quickly realized that only a real "sick puppy" could find anything attractive about the horrors depicted in this film. If anything, it is a pro-faith film.

Though the narrative jumps around and we follow many different characters over the course of its rather brisk two-hour running time, the central one is Father Damian Karras and his struggles with his faith. This is the key to the film. Without that element, this film would be nothing more than an excellent showcase for directing, make up, effects, cinematography, editing and sound design. With it, this film becomes a harrowing exploration of the war between good and evil that rages inside each and everyone one of us. With it, this film becomes a classic.

The Dark Knight Trilogy Ultimate Collection (Review)

The Scariest Movies I've Ever Seen...What's Yours?

It's October, the best month of the year! I'm already well into my spooky movie marathon, and I was talking to some friends about the films we watch this time of year. Eventually, the conversation turned to the movies that truly scared us as kids (and as adults).

When I was eleven or twelve, we watched The Amityville Horror (1979) as part of "family movie night." "Don't forget!" my mom said. "It's a true story!" That movie scared the shit out of me. I had trouble sleeping for a couple weeks, and I remember getting a stomachache when it would start to get dark. I didn't look out of the windows at night, and I instinctively shut one eye when walking down the hallway past my parents' bedroom so I wouldn't see their red digital alarm clock that reminded me of the red glowing eyes from the movie. I watched it again recently and was able to laugh at how cheesy it was through older and wiser eyes.

I've seen quite a few horror films over the years, and while I've been grossed out and startled during the movies, very few have left me creeped out after the movie was over. A few years ago I saw The House of the Devil (2009), and that one gave me the serious chills. It just builds and builds and you're filled with increasing dread until the horrifying climax! For several nights after seeing that movie, I would run full-speed from my car to my apartment door when coming home from work. It's amazing that a movie could affect its audience so much.

I want to hear your story! What movie scared you the most as a kid or teenager? What about as an adult?