Aaaaaanyway, long story short, I've been distracted and restless and completely unable to finish any blog posts I started. I have three saved drafts that range from almost finished to barely a third done but I'm putting them aside to talk about what I've been watching the last 3 weeks plus. For the record I don't really care for the idea of "comfort" or "therapy" films but I do find in times of stress that I do tend to gravitate towards certain subject matter. You can probably guess where I'm going from the title of this post.
B MOVIES
I do not use the term"b-movie" as a pejorative, it's simply a short hand term for certain kinds of films, usually horror or sci-fi, which were made quickly and with a relatively low budget. Not only do I not look down on this kind of cinema, I find it to be absolutely vital, generally filled with more guts and imagination than your more traditional "classic" cinema. I like vintage low budget horror like Hammer or Roger Corman, the grimier 70's "grindhouse" style as well as such oddities as Japanese giant monster films, spaghetti westerns, Italian "giallo" thrillers, all sorts of stuff. For whatever reason, I've found most of my movie viewing over the last few weeks has fit broadly into the category of "b-movie" or even "exploitation", so I guess these are, for me at least, "comfort" viewing.
Wonder what that says about me?
So here are some movies I've been watching:
X: THE MAN WITH THE X-RAY EYES
Directed by Roger Corman in 1963, this is an outlandish but surprisingly smart and thoughtful science fiction drama. Ray Milland is a scientist obsessed with improving human eyesight to a point "beyond the visible spectrum" allowing, amongst other things, doctors to give instant diagnosis with out having to perform exploratory operations. Sounds simple enough, I know, so he decides, of course, to experiment on himself. Surprisingly, it all goes terribly wrong.
So, on one level, I suppose, we have the fairly predictable story of a brilliant but disturbed mind who goes too far in the name of science. What's interesting is the way it goes wrong. It becomes apparent that Milland has begun to see too much, implying that his field of vision has penetrated to the very edge of reality itself! Can madness and tragedy be far behind?
Pretty cool stuff for a low budget quickie. Milland's performance is never less than dignified and believable, the script is surprisingly downbeat and serious despite the outrageous premise,and Corman's direction is clean and efficient. Not a great piece of cinema but still worthy of respect and consideration.
A BUCKET OF BLOOD
Another classic (of sorts) from Roger Corman, this time from 1959. A micro-budget black comedy about Walter Paisly a not-too-bright busboy who yearns for acceptance and respect from the beatniks and artists who frequent the cafe where he works. Finally he achieves this with a series of macabre sculptures, and that's all you're getting out of me. A witty script (especially the atrocious beat "poetry") a likeable performance from Dick Miller as Walter and a very brief running time (66 mins.) all help make this an entertaining, if odd, little gem. I wouldn't recommend going out of your way to find this (unless, like me, you're a Corman admirer) but if you were to come across it on tv, by all means, give it a look.
RAW MEAT (DEATH LINE)
A very strange and interesting British horror film from 1973 which beats "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" by a whole year in it's portrayal of degenerate inbred cannibalism. (A great achievement, I know.) Anyway, seems there's a family of the afore mentioned cannibals that have lived for generations in the London underground and have just now begun to make themselves known. The cop investigating is Donald Pleasance who manages to give a terrific, quirky performance that seems to come out of a completely different, and much wittier film. Also notable is Hugh Armstrong as "The Man" the primary cannibal character. Despite being covered in filth and sores he somehow he manges to convey the humanity of the character, and he does it with only one repeated line, "Mind the door!". Somehow this manges to be kind of moving and, I'm not gonna lie, pretty funny.
Too slack in it's pacing to be a horror classic, but not without interest.
VAMPIRE CIRCUS
A relatively late entry (1972) in the Hammer Studios horror canon and a rather good one. Yes, there is a circus, and there are vampires, also a mute strongman played by David (Darth Vader) Prowse, the requisite creepy dwarf (all circus horror films need at least one) and a surprising amount of gore and nudity. Like all Hammer films it's surprisingly classy and literate one moment, pulpy and over the top in the next. The premise, however, of a town's gradual seduction by a weird circus is consistently interesting and not unlike the great Ray Bradbury story "Something Wicked This Way Comes". I think anybody reading this will know whether this is something that will interest them or not.
IT'S ALIVE
I remember the TV commercial for this, scaring the life out of me when I was 6 years old. Don't know what it was, something about the little claw hand dangling from the wicker baby basket just struck me as intensely creepy. So, here I am many years later and I finally decided to give it a view. First off, it's not particularly scary, although there are a few suspenseful moments. It is however, smarter than you'd expect and takes the central ethical conundrum (what do you do with a dangerous monster that is also, an "innocent" baby?) seriously, while scoring social commentary points about unsafe pharmaceutical practices. I've seen other films by Larry Cohen and they all manage to sneak a surprising amount of satire and political content into even the trashiest material. Kind of an underrated genre filmmaker, I think.
GAMERA: GUARDIAN OF THE UNIVERSE
So, Gamera is this giant flying turtle that shoots fireballs out of it's mouth and he's here to defend us all (but especially Japan) from a giant prehistoric birdlike creature called Gyaos that eats people and shoots some kind of beam, also from it's mouth. They fight and it's awesome! No...really.
Seriously though, this daikaiju (giant monster) film from 1995 is actually very entertaining, well paced and with good production values.
I've always had a fondness for these films, and this is a particularly good one.
SANTA SANGRE
Okay, this one doesn't really belong with the others. Although it certainly has elements of a horror and exploitation, this is a film by Alejandro Jodorowsky the auteur of El Topo and The Holy Mountain and like those others, it was conceived and intended to be art with a capital "A". Now, I've always been of two minds regarding Jodorowsky's films. I find them fascinating and weirdly compelling but, also, egregiously pretentious and visually repellent. Happily, I can report that with "Santa Sangre" I've finally found a Jodorowsky movie that I can fully embrace. By sticking to a more linear (for him) plot and playing up the genre aspects of the story he's finally given us compelling characters and something like narrative momentum. Ostensibly, this a serial killer thriller with a convoluted back story that I wouldn't dream of spoiling, but on this narrative thread he hangs images as inventive and unforgettable as any ever put on the screen by the likes of David Lynch or Fedrico Fellini.
A bold and unique piece of cinema highly recommended to anyone who enjoys the unusual and the outrageous.
BRITCOMS
So that's it for movies, but I've found over the last month, that I've been indulging another interest of mine, as well. I'm not one of those snobs who boldly announces that British humour is automatically superior to American. That's simply not true, but it is true that the British are masters of all sorts of comedy and have produced some of the funniest people the world has ever seen. The nineties and the "noughts" proved to be no exception and there was a real flowering of comedy talent in the U.K. and Ireland, most of which has made it's way over her, but not all.
When I wasn't watching strange movies over the last month I was usually watching some kind of comedy from across the pond, mostly on DVD, but some online. I'm going to stick to discussing only what I watched during this period, so unfortunately, although they may be mentioned, there will be no real discussion of "The Office", "The League of Gentlemen" or "Black Books" and of course, I've already written about "The Mighty Boosh" so no need to repeat myself there. So, Britcoms I have been watching include....
SPACED
"The Mighty Boosh" is more imaginative, "Black Books" is (arguably) funnier and "The Office" cuts a lot deeper, but no TV comedy from either side of the Atlantic, elicits the kind of affection I have for "Spaced". Written and created by Jessica Stevenson (now "Hynes") and Simon Pegg as a reaction to glossy American sitcoms about twenty-somethings nobody could possibly identify with (*cough* Friends*cough*), "Spaced' told the story of Tim Bisley and Daisy Steiner, a couple of likeable, even potentially talented, slackers and their small circle of friends. Beginning with the, admittedly lame, sitcom premise of two friends pretending to be a couple to get a cheap London flat, "Spaced" over the course of only 14 episodes created an entire comic universe filled with a geek's dream of film and pop culture references that never seems forced or precious.
The supporting cast of characters is a delight. There's Nick Frost as Mike obsessed with guns and violence but also, kind hearted and childlike, Mark Heap as Brian, the tortured artist who lives in the basement, Katie Carmichael's self-absorbed fashionista, Twist and the brilliant Julia Deacon as Marsha the drunken landlady with hidden depths. With the exception of Twist (who's well played but underdeveloped) all are granted their full measure of humanity by the actors and writers.
However, no matter how great the supporting cast, what really elevates Hynes and Pegg's concept is the bold, cinematic direction of Edgar Wright. TV is a writer's medium and rarely does a director get to assert himself the way Wright does here, with his whip pans, dutch angles and restless camera. His visual style is as much a part of the shows language as the scripts.
However, none of this really explains why I feel such an affinity for this show and it's characters. Basically, I'm kind of a nerd, always have been, and it has been gratifying to see what was once arcane geek culture become so culturally excepted over the last decade or so (actually, I think it's gone too far, but that's a debate for another time). "Spaced" released in Britain in 1999 was at the forefront of this zeitgeist and remains one of it's touchstones. Following the lead of TV shows like "The Simpson's" and movies like "Clerks" it was unabashedly referential and assumed a complex understanding of popular culture in it's intended audience. For instance, nothing, no show or movie has ever milked "Star Wars" for better comic material, so everybody should just stop trying (especially "Family Guy", just please fucking stop!)
So the pop culture angle is one aspect, the other is more subjective. It's just so lovable! Seriously, these characters are all so charming and guileless that it's impossible not to like them. They can be cranky, lazy and difficult, but they never approach mean-spirited. This seems like a little thing but it's getting more and more rare in comedy. Their aspirations (and really this show is all about aspirations) in many ways echo my own at that age and I can't help but identify intensely with what they're going through no matter how silly or unlikely. I'm always sad at the end of the 14th episode but also happy that the show never wore out it's welcome
One last thing (Jesus, I can't stop writing about this show), it's awesome that Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Edgar Wright have continued to do good work together, but I do wish that they could find a project that would include Jessica Hynes. Her sightly more grounded perspective (call it "female" if you must) would be a welcome addition to their always fun but slightly boyish body of work.
LOOK AROUND YOU
Put simply, a series of very convincing but hilariously bizarre mock science films. What could have been merely a clever conceit is turned to comedy gold by the utter perfection of the execution. From the film stock to the supercilious narrator to the slightly shoddy looking laboratory sets and equipment, this is a never less than perfect recreation if the kind of educational film strips we used to be subjected to back in the 1970s (yes I'm that old). Created, written and performed (with others) by Peter Serafinowicz and Robert Popper, "Look Around You" should appeal to anyone who enjoys parody (subtle and otherwise) and can appreciate the outstanding craftsmanship. Definitely not for anyone looking for easy gags.
THE IT CROWD
The most conventional of all the shows listed here but funny is funny. The brainchild of Graham Linehan the co-creator of "Father Ted" and "Black Books" and like those other shows it embraces the multi camera, live studio audience, laugh track style of sitcom, which although somewhat unfashionable, has never gone away. Not my favourite style as a rule, but Linehan's shows really know how to use it. The cast is small, a three person IT department for a large corporation run by a lunatic and, later, by his idiot son. The characters are not especially deep, but all the players are funny and flesh them out well. Katherine Parkinson is Jen, the head of the department who is of course, completely computer illiterate and has ambitions to be elsewhere, Chris O'Dowd is Roy, a grumpy Irish slacker constantly frustrated with women and Richard Ayoade is Moss, the hard core tech nerd and, by far, the best character on the show. Ayoade, with his distinct delivery and body language manges to make what is essentially a cliche character into something memorable and unique.Chris Morris played the boss (hilariously) in the first series then left halfway through the second to be replaced by Matt Berry as his son Douglas. Both are funny, but I would argue Berry's character adds more to the show (Morris was, maybe just a bit TOO crazy).
Much of the humor is based around what you would expect, technology, nerdiness, etc but at it's best the show is unfettered absurdity. If I had to recommend just two episodes one would be "The Work Outing" in which the three find themselves at the gayest gay musical ever conceived, and the second would be "Are We Not Men?" in which Moss and Roy bluff themselves into the company of some dangerous football fans. Both these episodes illustrate why "The IT Crowd" is more interesting than similar American series. Linehan is unafraid to go to for huge comic effects that American audiences would find to weird or silly. Whatever it's aesthetic limitations, this is a laugh out loud funny show.
GARTH MARENGHI'S DARKPLACE
A very silly, but quite sophisticated pastiche of a cheesy 80's supernatural action show. So niche it's a wonder it ever got made, even if it only lasted one series of 6 episodes. The Garth Marenghi of the title is a horror fiction witer/actor played by Matthew Holness who "created' the show we're watching and also introdcuces it, in character. Richard Ayoade , Matt Berry (later of both "The IT Crowd" and "The Mighty Boosh") and Alice Lowe round out the cast playing characters on the show within the show and the actors playing them in talking head interviews spread throughout the episodes.
Confused yet? Okay Lets see if I can explain. Popular horror author Garth Marenghi (Matthew Holness) created "Darkplace" a supernatural drama back in the eighties. The show was not a success, but has gained a cult reputation over the years and Marenghi hosts rebroadcasts of the show interspersed with interviews from himself and other cast members. On "Darkplace" Marenghi played Dr. Rick Dagless MD, a two fisted surgeon and overall man's man who fought supernatural menaces with the help of Dr. Lucien Sanchez (Matt Berry), Dean Lerner (Richard Ayoade) and Liz Asher (Alice Lowe).
The show within a show is pure 80's with a cheesy synth score, bad special effects and big hair on the ladies. The "dialogue" and "acting" are of course painfully bad in a perfectly convincing way. If you haven't guessed already, this is not a show for someone who cannot process irony, but if you can it's not only hilarious but will surely, like 'Look Around You", elicit great admiration for the incredible craftsmanship.
So, okay, that's what I've been up to, at least as far as viewing is concerned and I'll be posting again soon. I have a movie review I'm going to put up either tonight or tomorrow morning.
Good to be back.
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