Wiener-Dog 2016

* Written in August 2016

Brutal, honest, uncompromising filmmaking 

This is the movie of 2016. Its a movie about where we are as a world in 2016. The way Love was the movie of 2015, Boyhood 2014 and 12 Years A Slave 2013.

Its another dark satire from Todd Solondz whose work grows more poetic and reflective with each film. He's worked with episodic films before but this time they are tied together narratively by a small symbolic animal actor and thematically by the the progressing ages of the human actors. Its biographical and confessional.

One one level this is Solondz' most appealing work, at least visually and marketing-wise. But it could be his most savage and aggressive. But its also his most balanced and most clever. Very possibly his best.

He solidified this style of muted Technicolor nightmare storytelling with his last films (Life During Wartime and Dark Horse) which were very under-the-radar. "Wiener" is his most visible film since Welcome to the Dollhouse and he uses that as a tool to shock the Dollhouse fans and Dachshund fans who wander into this existential horror film.

There are no gimmicks or tricks. Images, dialogue, acting and directing make the movie and nothing hold back. Solondz has evolved into one of the greatest film directors ever delivering nothing but personal works that entertain and also leave one rocked to the core. With age he has stripped down his directing style to Pure Cinema with powerful moving images that are poems unto themselves and dialogue that is never superfluous. The average film-goer may object to his upsetting themes of despair, pedophilia and loss of innocence, but there's no debating that this man is an artist of the highest order.

Unlike most online reviewers, I was satisfied that Solondz hadn't finally given in to making a cute indie festival crowd-pleaser. And thankfully he had a crew of producers and actors who supported him in tricking the mass media into thinking this was something other than a bold statement. Tod Solondz is the only artist on the list of modern American filmmakers who is unpopular enough and full of enough conviction to call out the villains of this modern era: celebrity artists, SJWs, Millennial hipsters, corporate sponsors, bad parents and all the enemies of honesty in our society and the killers of great cinema.

The film is being sold as the first Solondz film since his debut to avoid explicit perversion or mention of pedophilia. Actually, Dark Horse was that film. Wiener Dog makes allusions to these taboo subjects subtly and the effect is even more upsetting and tragic. There's a very pornographic scene of a male child actor symbolically asking to be raped followed by an agonizing extended moment where Todd Solondz own personal Hell is literally unraveled on screen. This all-encompassing depression for his condition and the shameful guilt in his un-indulged fantasies symbolically explode on the screen (anyone who has seen "Happiness" will pick up on the powerful meaning of bloody feces in the Solondz oeuvre).

Wiener Dog is an act of a creature ripping off the created human husk and bearing the blackness and pure light of his soul on the screen for the cold judgment and dim-witted entertainment of us all. The final shot is one of the most powerful metaphors ever created through cinema. Total catharsis and self-reflection for the repressed and utterly dark mind with a heart of gold.

10/10

The Adventures Of Pete And Pete

The 1990s was a golden age for television. From Twin Peaks to The X-Files to The Larry Sanders, it was a decade where television grew up and broke barriers that film was afraid to touch. It was the culmination not only of the 20th century but the Millennium and there was an air of closure and looming revolution. We were in the dawn of a technological age of information and the dusk of a more spiritual and simpler understanding of our selves. The 90s brought a post-modernist and metaphysical color to the way we see and represent ourselves in media and entertainment. Not all TV programming was this awakened, adventurous and accepting of the future, but the children's network Nickelodeon was a surprising home of many next-level shows that appealed to adults and kids alike.

The Adventures of Pete was Nickelodeon's crown jewel and is comparable to the best television shows in history.

What P&P offered was a unique worldview and satirical but highly emotional tone that contextualized the transition from childhood to adulthood by revolving around the straining bond between two twin-like brothers who were only separated by their levels of maturity. This central relationship reflected the unconscious drama that was effecting the world (and still is) and united viewers of all ages. The show captured a nostalgia and fear of aging that is universally felt and only grows stronger as we reach death.

These serious themes of existentialism, alienation, paranoia, delusions of grandeur and a quest for immortality played out in the lives of suburban youths who found epic spiritual dramas in the most mundane and absurd times and places. Yet viewers can relate to that massive pressure and frustration with being a child, powerless and yet full of potential. The brothers Pete were most often awakening to their place in the universe and making peace with being small and human rather than superheroes or godlike historical figures. The show was a great examination of the frail human ego and all of its pitfalls and triumphs. But it was so much more than a coming-of-age sitcom. It was an almost mythological analogy of the human spirit told from with a childlike innocence tempered by the brilliant temperament of its adult creators.

The show lasted 3 short seasons and ended rather anticlimactically before the quality could take a major dip. This only enhances the simplistic poetry of the series as we never get to see the characters age or learn anything of their adult fates. Their universe ends and bleeds into our own. We take these characters, their stories and their lessons with us, which should be the ultimate goal of storytelling but is even more pronounced and delicately rendered in children's storytelling. The overwhelming success of Pete & Pete is proved in the sentimental reverence the show has amassed from an entire generation that tuned in. Its highly unlikely another show will recapture or top this one and so it will live on forever as the new classic that it is.

Showgirls 1995

*Written for IMDB with the title "This Film Was Too Next-Level For 1995"

I have yet to watch "Elle", but I rate this as Paul Verhoeven's masterpiece.

First off, critics failed to realize that the bizarre and trashy quality was on purpose to reflect the character and her journey. The world of Vegas showgirls and strippers is surreal, beautiful on the surface and steeped in idiotic fantasy. Verhoeven makes this film a reflection of 90s American values that are MORE timely in 2016.

The infamous "lap dance in a pool scene" is the biggest gag and hint at what this film is about. From this absurd moment on, Nomi's world comes crumbling and her false self is unraveled. Ignorant viewers thought it was just a misguided sex scene that unintentionally takes the film over the top. Verhoeven knows what he's doing in every second of the movie.

Its undeniable that Showgirls is the best shot movie of the 1990s or very close to being, but it needs to be reappraised as a monumental art film that's sly and doesn't pander or take itself too seriously, unlike the films that win Oscars these days. If this film was made today and starred Amy Adams and was directed by PT Anderson, critics would respect it and think it was one of the most modern films ever. Now reflect that it starred a Saved By The Bell star, was directed by the Robocop guy and came out over 20 years ago. All of those things make it better, if you didn't know. 10 star film.

Sex, Lies, and Videotape 1989

I am not a huge devotee of American indie films from the 1990s and onward. The story themes, production and directoral styles are repetitive to me and its grown into an overpraised and over-referenced genre for American film enthusiasts. Maybe its childish, but I resent these movies because they are usually only good and still rob the attention away from truly great films made worldwide and even in Hollywood. American indies are synonymous with "Oscar bait".

But this is what the market has turned into. It was once something less pretentious and home to films that were too fringe or risky for Hollywood studios. In 2017, the high profile indie film hit will have an enormous budget and only separate itself by having a slightly older audience or less marquee actors. I guess thats been the case since John Cassavettes defined the movement in the 1960s. But indie films are made for the indie film audience now. That audience is clearly defined and vocal and willing to invest lots of dollars so many indie filmmakers deliver the expected tripe.

Sex, Lies, and Videotape was one of the films that is credited with establishing this middle class audience and proving the commercial viability of indie films to Hollywood players. I was wary that this would be another film about a tiny cast of sad white youths failing to disconnect and climaxing with a cathartic tragic moment of romance. And it is. "Sex" the genesis of that wide-reaching formula but, like many originators, it is better than its imitators. While director Steven Soderbergh is definitely lifting from Cassavettes, Bergman and Tarkovsky, he tempers it and irons out the edges to create something less heavy, more commercial and yet still as personal. He anchors it all with simple cinematic storytelling and broader and more universal archetypal characters. The power of SLAV is that it finds the high drama in such American whitebread lives (Southern WASPs to make it more shocking). A cynic would say he's just swiping the characterization from his influences but I would say he is revealing WITH IRONY the Bergman in these purposely boring American types. Its a calculated call to arms to other filmmakers to bring the arthouse to American indie films and a show of unity between America and the struggling classes elsewhere.

I wouldn't blame anyone for dismissing this film with or without seeing but I think it deserves a watch when given the proper context. Its objectively an important film and I think its clearly superior to most films out today because of its purity and complexity. This is one of those films that has influenced not only a bunch of other influential films but also TV series like Mad Men, The Young Pope, etc. So many film students were moved by this and it charged them to create some of the best work being made, so you have to give credit to Soderbergh. For its tiny place between commercial and arthouse cinema, I would say Sex, Lies, and Videotape is a minor masterpiece.

Danger Diabolik 1968

Purchasing the dvd for Danger Diabolik as a high school freshman introduced me to a lot of different worlds: the psychedelic director Mario Bava, the flamboyant producer Dino De Laurentiis, a subgenre of 60s pop-art genre films and all of the weirdness in between.

This film has aged better than expected. Hadn't watched in 10 years and since then the movie world has adopted so many of Bava's techniques - by way of Nicolas Winding Refn (by way of Dario Argento) - and the world market is saturated with kinetic comic book action thrillers. Certainly films of this type are better written today and certainly given bigger budgets, but they aren't produced as lavishly or directed as creatively. And I don't even think any recent Marvel successes have castings the caliber of Marissa Mell or John Phillip Law. And a score by Ennio Morricone?! The components all fit tightly and raise the source material, which wasn't a bad place to begin with. And, in that rare instance where being dated actually benefits the work, the social politics of a swingin' '60s Italian culture gives the film so much flavor. It has a genuine criminal antihero, a straight up terrorist as the protagonist and it revels in the colors, sounds, fashions and sexual expressions of a newly liberated generation and country. This is a very unique film that is truly lightning in the bottle.

Its hard to expand on why this film is good without delving into the academics of Bava's directing or the funky wonder of what Dino assembled, so lets focus on the bizarre collaboration of these two pillars of world cinema, who would go on to influence most of what Hollywood does today. Isn't it poetic that their brief partnership spawned a film that is everything 2017 Hollywood tries to produce? This was a transitional period for both men as Bava was leaving Horror and Dino was trying desperately to break into the world of Hollywood Epics. Mario said that the pressures of big budget international filmmaking was too much for him while Dino forged ahead into more outrageous successes, with Barbarella being the first after Diabolik (using much of the same crew and aesthetic). I like to think they both learned a lot from each other and I know the tiny taste of this magical meshing influenced a lot of people within movies AND comics. The images of half-naked Marisa Mell rolling around in space age sets juxtaposed with cartoonish characters and stylized action violence directly inspired the James Bond series (Tim Lucas points out a scene that Diamonds Are Forever flat-out duplicated). I wouldn't be surprised if Jess Franco, Menahem Golan and maybe Renny Harlin were big fans of Diabolik.

So this a huge recommendation. Its dated but I think there's plenty for young audiences to enjoy and it stands as a mammoth achievement as a low budget film (by today's standards) and as a commercial foreign film. As much ingenuity as it took to make this movie equals the high ecstasy it gives when you watch it.

Big Trouble In Little China 1986

Somehow I'm only watching this film at age 29 although John Carpenter helped raise me. Halloween was a big tastemaker in my formative years and The Thing was an obsession during puberty. They Live is a coming-of-age movie for me and I have a lukewarm romance with The Fog. Memoirs of an Invisible Man was a childhood favorite. But somehow Big Trouble never entered my radar. Never saw it on TV or for rental, so thank you, Netflix.

So it was less than I expected but perhaps I expected too much. Overall, I enjoyed it and respect it more than I did before watching it. Out of the gate, Carpenter is an old-school exploitation master with a great minimalist style, a wide range of directorial influences and a very mean, cold, moody sense of humor. I don't think any of his films are masterpieces, but they all took genre filmmaking to the next level. The things that don't work in BTILC are the same things that never work in Carpenter movies: sluggish energy, befuddled sense of narrative, cardboard characters and a kind of last-century moralism. I don't know if its because he was working on a big Hollywood exec type of crowd-pleaser or if he had a cocaine habit forming, but BT is his most schizophrenic and messy film. Its equal parts surprising, fashion-forward and childlike in its play as it is excessive, rushed, hollow, lacking in chemistry and borderline stupid. I think that schism works for most people, especially 80s kids who just focus on the dated style, looniness and special effects. Its comparable to 1986's Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 in its lurid visuals, empty script and cocaine-fueled slapstick - another film by a 1970s horror icon trying to go Spielberg. That film was a Cannon movie and Big Trouble feels like the movie Cannon forgot to make.

It wears its influences on its sleeve: Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Back To The Future, Gremlins, John Wayne movies and James Bond. The film is in many ways a remake (or ripoff) of the 007 film "Live And Let Die". Our white swashbuckler gets caught up in an urban world of organized crime and old world magic, must rescue a damsel from a magician who wants to marry her and. It even steals LALD's double ending where a villain dies by inflation and then the credits roll as our hero drives off with a surviving magic villain laughing on the back of his vehicle. Its a perfect hodgepodge for Carpenter in theory but I suspect deadlines sabotaged the whole affair. The script is god awful. The jokes are flat and the narrative is horrid. Its all carried by Kurt Russell and some awesome production design and special fx.

Even the best Carpenter films are flimsy and devoted to style and mood more than anything. While Halloween and Thing have great themes and good casts, the themes are broad and work as backdrops to the visuals and the acting and characterization is always muted in favor of one liners and 2d archetypes. BTILC dials that up to zero and allows Carpenter to make the 50s comic book he always wanted to make, free from story and any poetic meaning. None of his films are bogged down by their predictable and elementary plots. But whenever I watch his movies, I just wonder what he could've done with a mature screenwriter or a more classy producer. Carpenter kept working in Hollywood for quite a long period and the movies are all serviceable and interesting, but still schlock and anti-intellectual. Big Trouble feels like the closest he ever got to a big budget blockbuster. Someone was obviously trying him out as the next Spielberg or Zemeckis and while he's arguably more idiosyncratic and equally as talented, he just wasn't on the same level in terms of professionalism and manipulating the system. Maybe he never wanted be. Its possible that he was happy being the king of B-movies.

In summary, Big Trouble is a mixed but mostly positive popcorn movie experience and an important moment for an important filmmaker. Even if you come out of it unimpressed or maybe offended, this is a movie that has influenced a lot of stuff. From the Mortal Kombat games to Eddie Murphy's The Golden Child to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise. Its amazing how all of Carpenter's earlier films have defined different generations of genre fans.

Took a break to refocus and collect more enthusiasm. This a very pessimistic and low energy moment in our collective history and a very dull bit for me personally. At least I've rediscovered my identity as a cinephile even if I'm not so sure I'm in love with film like I once was. The future of film is murky and my latest re-watches haven't been kind.

I'm still discovering good little films and very impressed with how much ground TV has made lately, but it hasn't approached film except in rare instances (which is how TV has always worked; more popular but overhyped).I might add some TV series reviews here.

My Jess Franco project marches on and, while I understand him more, I have lost the hope that his giant body of work is littered by bits of gold. More like he made a couple outstanding movies, a whole lotta mediocre ones and a ton of junk thats only slightly redeeming. Maybe I'm just burnt out or demoralized by subjecting myself to the most obscure and disliked films from his canon.

Ok, time to catch up and pump out some new reviews.