Every so often, a foreign genre film finds its way to American shores (usually via bootleg file-sharing) that builds up such an underground buzz about it that it can’t help but bleed over into the mainstream. Audition was one such film, kicking off the “Asian horror” invasion (in quotations because very few of said films, including the above example, are strictly horror, regardless of what people call them). Europe, refusing to be dethroned as the premier exporter of fright flicks, fired back with the likes of Let the Right One In, Antichrist, A Serbian Film, and now, Troll Hunter. These foreign films usually resonate with American audiences for one of two reasons: either they present sex and violence with an extremity that shocks even our usually robust sensibilities (Read: America loves it some gore and tits), or they deliver a story and presentation that is remarkably novel and fresh. Troll Hunter is very much the later. While its mockumentary style may be familiar to US viewers by now, rarely, if ever, has it been used to such successful effect. And as much as the film fits into horror genre, its roots lie equally in the Spielbergian tradition of adventure films (albeit sans Spielberg’s positively fucking saccharine preoccupations), which is likely the source of its crossover appeal. Director/writer André Øvredal takes a familiar type of film and cleverly re-packages it with the “day in the life” portrayal of a blue-collar monster hunter, ups the scare factor significantly and offers up truly unique CGI creations that are culturally, not to mention visually, alien to us.
Troll Hunter opens with three college filmmakers, Thomas (Glenn Erland Tosterud), Kalle (Tomas Alf Larsen) and Johanna (Johanna Mørck) setting out to make a documentary about a supposed bear poacher operating in the Norwegian countryside. Why in god’s name anyone would want to watch, let alone make a film about some lone nut ventilating bear carcasses with shotgun slugs is beyond me, but this is all really just a vehicle to get the characters to track down the supposed poacher, an aloof man named Hans (Otto Jespersen). After a handful of unsuccessful attempts to speak with him, the students follow Hans into the woods, expecting to catch him red handed on camera. Instead, they encounter him bolting between trees, screaming “Troll!”, as he is pursued by an unseen giant. After the danger has passed, the trio convince Hans to open up about his secretive profession, that of a government-sanctioned troll exterminator. The students elect to follow Hans as he goes about his duties to expose the secret of the trolls to the public, as well as document and honor the national hero they come to view Hans as.
Otto Jespersen’s portrayal of Hans could very well be the film’s greatest asset. I was quite surprised after seeing his solemn and stoic role here to discover that, in his native Norway, he’s primarily known as a comedian. Then again, looking back on the film, many of the biggest laughs come courtesy of Jespersen’s ultra-dry delivery (his response to the question of whether or not a Muslim would have as much to fear as a Christian in the presence of a troll is priceless). Later on in the film, Jespersen delivers a haunting recollection of being forced to massacre a pack of trolls pups with all the remorse and disgust of Vietnam vet. This informs the final troll hunt in a particularly melancholic way, with Hans venturing off not to do battle with a hated foe, but to reluctantly put down a suffering animal. Outside of Jespersen, the three young actors playing the student filmmakers are also quite good, but thematically they exist more as a plot device than characters, and they resonate accordingly. Of note, though, is Tomas Alf Larsen’s very believable nervous breakdown in the troll cave, which does allow his character to rise above the rest, however briefly, before he exits the film (in a particularly frightening fashion). It’s a great Lovecraftian moment where his mind snaps under not only fear of death, but the strain of having to stare these eldritch creatures in the eye.
The third film in Tsukamoto’s series started by the staple underground horror masterpiece, Tetsuo: The Iron Man. Shot in digital HD with a theme song by Trent Reznor, will it compare?
by Adam Rosina
Tetsuo: The Iron Man was, and in many ways still is, the extreme film proving ground. When exploring the labyrinthine world of underground cinema, you either stumble upon this flick or have it forced upon you by an all-too-eager (and likely somewhat sadistic) friend, and how you react to it determines whether you continue down the rabbit hole or retreat back to the safety of mainstream cinema. Shinya Tsukamoto’s 1989 feature-length debut (“feature length” is generous; it clocks in just over an hour) was pure weaponized cinema; a violent speed-freak take on cyberpunk built upon a foundation of existentialist and psychosexual themes. Also, it had a drill penis. Tsukamoto made a name for himself with Tetsuo, and built a career that paralleled that of David Cronenberg (his closest western analogue), making films that slowly moved away from the fantastic and into the realm of the psychological (Tokyo Fist, Bullet Ballet, A Snake of June), while maintaining his focus on the visceral. Tsukamoto returned to the world of Tetsuo in 1992 with the release of Tetsuo II: Body Hammer, an ambitious follow up that, while a good film in its own right, didn’t have nearly the same impact as its predecessor. Which brings us to 2011, and the North American release of Tetsuo: The Bullet Man, the third film in the series and Tsukamoto’s first English-language film, designed to reintroduce the Tetsuo concept to the international film world. Does it succeed in matching the artistic triumph of the original? Not exactly…
When asked what movies I was looking forward to in 2011, Hobo with a Shotgun consistently topped the list. It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of the current “grindhouse revival”, kicked off in 2006 with the aptly-titled Tarantino/Rodriguez double header, Grindhouse. Since then, we’ve seen modern takes on blackploitation (Black Dynamite), biker flicks (Hell Ride), spaghetti westerns (Sukiyaki Western Django) and whatever the hell Nude Nuns with Big Guns is supposed to be. The great thing about these throwback flicks is they’re made to resemble the way you remember classic exploitation films, not necessarily how they actually were. We often forget how subjective our memory is, and while your 13 year-old self couldn’t help but relish in the mind-blowing awesomeness of movies like The Amazing Mr. No Legs or Bloodsucking Freaks, go ahead and watch them now. The strings show, the plots stop dead for 20 minute chunks, and they just don’t work. They’re little gems of weird cinema and still well worth a watch, but charming ineptitude aside, their audacious punch often doesn’t mitigate our adult scrutiny. These latter day exploitation films play like 90-minute versions of old-school B-movie trailers; “…every shot is a money shot.”, to quote Eli Roth. The other great thing about this new wave of trash films is they’re getting even better as they go, in utter defiance of the law of diminished returns. This is especially true of the official Grindhouse releases, with both Planet Terror and Death Proof proving to be good, not-so-clean fun, Machete reaching near operatic heights of insane bloodshed, and now Hobo with a Shotgun comes along, loaded with so much bad taste and brutal-yet-cartoonish violence that it may be the final word on the sub-genre.
Rutger Hauer stars as the Hobo, riding the rails straight into a shit-hole called Hope Town (making him an actual hobo and not just a homebum as the term is often incorrectly applied). Within mere moments of his arrival, the Hobo becomes acquainted with the crime-ridden nature of the city, witnessing local crime lord Drake (Lexx‘s Brian Downey) and his two sons (Nick Bateman and Gregory Smith) performing a brutal execution in front of a fearful mob. Growing increasingly fed up with Hope Town’s criminal element, the Hobo finally acts, preventing young hooker Abby (Molly Donsworth) from being raped by Drake’s son, Slick, and attempts to turn him in to the local authorities. He finds out very quickly that the cops are on Drake’s payroll, and he’s mutilated for his trouble. Abby finds the Hobo bloodied in a dumpster and takes him in, forming a bond between the two. Finally, after witnessing yet another atrocious crime, the Hobo snaps, grabs a shotgun and begins his crusade, dispensing his own brand of street justice.
I’ve never really had anything bad to say about Zach Snyder in the past. I found his remake of Dawn of the Dead passable (it’s a tall order to stand toe-to-toe with Romero’s classic, so he should take “passable” as a compliment), and his next two films, 300 and Watchmen, were admirable adaptations, yet one suspects they succeeded largely by virtue of their adherence to the source material. Granted, Watchmen did deviate from it’s source in relation to the ending, but I’ll blaspheme and suggest that this improved upon the original, doing away with the cheesier aspects of the “Architects of Fear” climax native to the comic (That’s right, comic; If you wanna be a pretentious asshole and call it a graphic novel because you can’t accept that “funny books” can be art, then you shouldn’t be reading them). I’ve never seen his “sword & sorcery & owls” film, Legend of the Guardians, but I hear surprisingly good things. That, too, was an adaptation. Soon one began to wonder what the director would do if allowed to pen and shoot a film purely of his own design, which brings us to Sucker Punch. Here Snyder was given full reign to do as he wished, complete with upwards of $80 million to do it with. What have we (and likely the higher ups at Warner Bros.) learned from this little experiment? Never do that shit again. Zack Snyder cannot create without a blueprint, or perhaps just won’t, because that’s not really what he’s done here. He’s borrowed from countless previous works of film and literature (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Kill Bill and Moulin Rouge to name a few) and generically regurgitated current genre infatuations (gun porn, steampunk, mecha), then half-assedly duct taped it all together with a plot that simultaneously objectifies and sympathises with the victimization of its female cast and his trademark editing style (slow it down, speed it up, repeat).
The film follows Baby Doll (Emily Browning), who is wrongfully imprisoned in an asylum following the accidental death of her kid sister, the result of Baby’s attempt to stop their stepfather from molesting them. Orderly and part-time rapist Blue (Oscar Issac) agrees to fudge the paperwork so Baby Doll will be lobotomized later that week. At this point, the film shifts to Baby’s perspective, and as her mind crumbles under the weight of her predicament, she re-envisions the asylum as a brothel, with Blue cast as a villainous pimp, while she and the rest of the mental patients (Abbie Cornish, Jena Malone, Vanessa Hudgens and Jamie Chung) are seen as cabaret performers and sex workers. Baby and the others hatch a plan to gain their freedom, the major points of which are seen as a series of over-the-top battles that takes the girls from the combating undead Germans in trenches of WW I to slaying dragons in a fantasy-themed universe. Throughout their trials, they are aided by the Wise Man (Scott Glen) in their quest to recover the items needed to make their escape, before the mysterious High Roller (Jon Hamm) comes to take Baby away (in actuality the doctor coming to perform the lobotomy).
Surrounded by controversy by its nature; an artistic film with a legitimate sociopolitical message or exploitative torture-porn trash?
by Adam Rosina
If you’ve ever fooled yourself into believing in the existence of a just and loving god, I present to you A Serbian Film (Srpski Film in its native Serbia) as evidence to the contrary. If the world was truly a good and decent place watched over by a benevolent deity, something like this would simply not exist. It is the most soul shattering and (sadly) accurate cinematic portrayal of human cruelty and capacity for sadism ever made. Nothing even remotely comes close to the sickness of this film. Not Salo. Not August Underground. Nothing.
The film, directed by first-timer Srdan Spasojevic, tells the story Miloš (Srđan “Žika” Todorović), a former porn star with near-superhuman sexual endurance who’s fallen on hard financial times. He gets a job offer through an old fuck-movie colleague to work on an art porn flick (later revealed to be an outright snuff film) for an ungodly amount of money. Wanting to provide for his wife and young son, he reluctantly agrees, and is slowly walked through a series of increasingly bizarre and violent sex scenarios under the direction of the mysterious Vukmir (Sergej Trifunović). Miloš’ grip on reality slips as his sexual appetite and disgust grow, until it’s revealed that he’s been drugged all along with a combination of mind altering substances and bull Viagra (not even making this shit up). He is taken captive by Vukmir and his film crew to be coerced into a series of still more depraved acts of sexual violence. From here on out the film rockets toward a climax so shocking it doesn’t put Oldboy’s twist ending to shame so much as it bends it over the chair and fucking humiliates it several times over.
Another year, another underwhelming Oscar ceremony. Sure thing The King’s Speech cleaned up, as expected, winning four of the Big Five. Inception did well with the tech awards, but as it is a genre picture (and thereby considered only slightly above pornographic movies in the eyes of the Academy), it was otherwise snubbed. Here’s a breakdown of the awards that I had particular gripes about, or was wholeheartedly behind. (WARNING : Enormous shitstorm about Inception’s poor performance ahead. Proceed at your own risk.)
Best Art Direction : Alice in Wonderland If you read my piece on this film (in the April/May 2010 Issue), you know how I feel it film and anyone involved in its creation. If you haven’t, here’s the short of it: Motherfuck all of you. But speaking about the art direction in particular, this was easily the most visually underwhelming and outright godawful looking of Burton’s films. You know, the director who made his name crafting visually striking films? I dunno if I blame the art department or Burton for putting them on a leash; either way, this was far from award-worthy.
Best Cinematography : Inception
Absolutely no complaints here. Goddamn beautifully shot film.
Best Supporting Actress : The Fighter (Melissa Leo)
Complete upset for me. I felt sure that Hailee Steinfeld had this one in the bag. No slight against Ms. Leo; she delivered a great performance, but Steinfeld stole the show right out from under Bridges and Dammon in True Grit, and for a fourteen-year old newcommer, that’s quite the accomplishment. Regardless of this loss, I expect nothing but good things from this little lady in the future, and look forward to seeing her grow as an actress (there was absolutely no way to say that without unintentionally sounding like ten tons of pedo-creepy, believe me, I tried).
Best Screenplay : The King’s Speech
And so the bitching commences. Lemmie get things straight before I proceed. I didn’t hate The King’s Speech. I felt it was an all-around well made movie. It just did nothing for me. It was just too safe. Too, at the risk of sounding immature and uncultured, boring. That said, David Seidler did an adequate job with the script. It’s just that neither the script, nor anything else about the film seemed all that remarkable. More to come on that later. My hopeful was of course Nolan, but it was clear long before the actually ceremony that there simply wasn’t a chance in hell of that going down.
Have you ever wondered what would happen if you combined Watership Down and Modern Warfare, then animated it in CG? Me neither, but I wish I had. That’s exactly what you get with Cat Shit One, IDA Movie’s new animated series, directed by Kazuya Sasahara and based on Motofumi Kobayashi’s manga, and it is awesome. The name’s sure to throw a few people off (when the manga was released in the states, it was retitled as the sickeningly punny Apocalypse Meow), not only because of its comically profane “engrish”, but also because there aren’t any cats (or shit, for that matter) to speak of in the series. The protagonists are anthropomorphic rabbits (another pun, as the Japanese word for bunny is “usagi”, thus “USA G.I.”) cast as American soldiers in a Blackwater-type merc outfit stationed in the Middle East. The 23-minute short (supposedly the first of many episodes) primarily concerns cowardly Botasky (voiced by Tom Flynn) and all-around badass Sgt. Packy (Will Prescott) staging a rescue op that quickly goes from bad to worse. The animation, while not up to Pixar caliber, is quite impressive for a production of this size. The bunnies and camels (as the Middle Eastern antagonists are somewhat-offensively portrayed) are beautifully rendered as they gun each other down in ever-so-graphic detail. The gritty and realistic violence (throat-slitting, headshots, and grenade explosions are all on display here) makes for an interesting contrast with the ultra-cutesy character designs. The only thing that serves to disappoint is the sub-par English dub cast, although as Japanese Animation dubs go, it could have gone much worse. If you’re an anime fan, gamer, military enthusiast, or just a general lover of bizarre shit, do yourself a favor and check out Cat Shit One, which is available to watch for free on IDA Movie’s YouTube channel until February 19th (it’s also available on DVD and Blu-ray, but I can’t in good conscience recommend shelling out the cash, considering the short runtime).
I love Tetsuo: The Iron Man. I mean, really love it. Like, filthy bathroom stall love. It’s easily my favorite cult film, if not my absolute favorite film of all time. Director Shinya Tsukamoto (A Snake in June, Nightmare Detective) used stark B&W photography, a combination of stop motion animation and live action, and a hyperkinetic editing style seemingly designed specifically to induce motion sickness to tell a tale of ever-encroaching technological malevolence, obsessive erotic desire and MOTHER FUCKERS TURNING INTO METAL BEASTS AND DUKING IT OUT ON THE STREETS OF TOKYO. It’s wonderfully nonsensical and supremely disturbing (one legendary sex scene gave horrifying new meaning to the colorful euphemism “drilling a girl”) nature has earned it accolades from the likes of cyberpunk author William Gibson and NIN’s Trent Reznor, and cemented it as a bona fide classic among fans of underground Japanese film and extreme cinema in general. Tsukamoto’s follow up, Tetsuo II: Body Hammer, was disappointing by comparison to the instant classic that came before it, but not without its own merits. Now, 22 years after the release of the original, Tsukamoto returns to the film that launched his career with the release of Tetsuo: The Bullet Man.
Made specifically for the North American market, Bullet Man is Tsukamoto’s first English language film, and from the looks of the above trailer, he is clearly having an easier go at directing in the foreign tongue than his buddy Takeshi Miike has in the past (see Miike’s Imprint for an idea of how wrong this could have went). A further appeal to Western audiences is the casting of US born actor Eric Bossick (mostly known for his motion capture and voiceover work in video games) in his big screen debut. What little story that can be gleaned from the trailer seem to follow the same beats as the first two films, with a meek salaryman (Bossick) experiencing a traumatic event (here the death of his son), after which his rage fuels his transformation into the titular Tetsuo as he seeks revenge, all the while being pursued by a mysterious aggressor (again played by Tsukamoto himself). The film favors the series’ trademark stop motion and prosthetic makeup effects over CGI, and while I was initially concerned these techniques would not hold up after two decades, after watching the trailer I have no doubt Tsukamoto made the right call, as the special effects are just as effective as they were in the original. The trailer is somewhat misleading in its claim, “Featuring Music by Trent Reznor”, but worry not, hardcore Tetsuo fans. Longtime Tsukamoto collaborator Chu Ishikawa (of band Die Eisenrost) returns to score Bullet Man with his signature brand of percussion-heavy industrial noise, with Nine Inch Nails only contributing the film’s closing theme.
After making its rounds at the festivals this past year, the film is finally getting a release here in the states, courtesy of IFC Midnight, in both Video-On-Demand format starting on January 19th and a limited theatrical run beginning on January 21st in NYC. No word yet on how limited of a release this is gonna be, but here’s to hopping more major US cities get a taste of Tsukamoto’s newest work of twisted brilliance.
Just saw Tron Legacy on IMAX 3D! For those who may not know I am a growed-up cyber-girl, a HUGE fan of the original Tron, and pretty obsessed with futuristic/cyberpunk films in general.
Overall I thought the movie was a great sequel and definitely delivered on the visuals. The storytelling and the dialogue specifically were okay, but a movie like this was clearly visually driven and I spent most of my brainpower sucking in as much as I could on that end.
Here are specific thoughts (mostly on styling) in general order of appearance:
I liked the development of Encom from a games software company into OSs as well. Software sharing and downloading I thought was a very timely topic to include in the movie, as was “funny videos of animals”.
There were many scenic references to the original movie and Sam Flynn hacking open the secure door to Encom from his Nokia phone was the first one I caught. In another scene that relied heavily on the original film, I was impressed by how faithfully they recreated Flynn’s arcade and the room overlooking it… even the dusty old sofa and mini-blinds were visually consistent with the original!
The 3D effects were stunning, my favorite probably being the pixelated glass shattering, and there certainly was a lot of that to enjoy.
I have to say, first thing I was disappointed by were the Siren cyber babes. I thought the styling was overly simplistic and went for obvious answers: white hair, ice blue contacts, heavy liner… mega lashes? I mean really, who came up with “let’s just put all their hair in buns”? This would have been a great opportunity for a really sick Pepi’s ‘do, or even just strands of plastic tubing blended in with the natural hair. The all-white cyber character has been done in film many times and I wish that the designers had done more to differentiate themselves from what has been done before.
Seijun Suzuki is Japanese cinema’s original renegade filmmaker. Since the 50′s, Suzuki has been making B-movies, mostly gangster pictures, that increased in originality and insanity as he went on, much to the chagrin of his employers and the indifference of most of the movie-going public. The Nikkatsu Company, Suzuki’s primary employer during the 50′s and 60′s, imposed heavy financial restrictions on his films in an effort to curtail the perceived incomprehensibility of his work. This only pushed him to create films more brilliantly anarchic and bizarre, but, unfortunately, just as unprofitable as his previous output. After the box office failure of Tokyo Drifter (a Yakuza epic shot in a style that emulated the Pop Art movement with elements of the musical, western and comedy genres thrown in for good measure), his budgets were slashed to such a degree that he was forced to shoot in black & white for his next two pictures. In addition, he was warned against using any of the radical techniques and themes he had previously worked into his films. Suzuki essentially took it as a dare. The studio threw him a grade-Z script for yet another Yakuza film, and demanded he rewrite it and begin filming immediately, a decision they’d later regret. The hectic schedule meant that the film was being rewritten as it was shot, the pressure pushing Suzuki to the height of his creativity. This film would come to shatter genre expectations and incorporate film noir, surrealism, absurdist humor and perverse sexuality in ways that Suzuki hadn‘t dared previously. The film that emerged was Branded to Kill, the biggest “FUCK YOU” to the studio system released up to that point (or arguably ever). It’s difficult to imagine the balls it took Suzuki, who had essentially been banished to Japan’s Poverty Row and explicitly told not to fuck around any more, to ignore his employers’ demands and to essentially deliver the cinematic equivalent of Metal Machine Music. But deliver it he did, and was promptly sacked for it.
Suzuki fought Nikkatsu in the courts for wrongful termination, not to mention the smearing of his name in the media and his blacklisting in the Japanese film industry. A great deal of support came from student film clubs, who helped to sway public opinion in Suzuki’s favor. Nikkatsu, nearly in financial ruin by this point, settled with the director (albeit for a pittance compared to what he originally demanded), but the damage to Suzuki’s career was already done. The blacklist persisted, and Suzuki would go ten years before directing another feature film. Jumping ahead to the ‘80s, North American audiences got their first taste of Branded to Kill, both through showings at film festivals and VHS (selected for release in an Asian film VHS series, entitled Dark of the Sun, by none other than Painkiller mastermind John Zorn). A entire generation of future filmmakers, Jim Jarmusch and Quentin Tarantino among them, would be influenced by the maverick director to create incredibly idiosyncratic, risk-taking films the likes of which the West had never before seen. Back in Asia, a similar phenomena occurred, and directors such as John Woo, Takeshi Miike and Chan-wook Park would be equally inspired to push the boundaries, both in structure and content, of what was expected of film, genre or otherwise.
Every so often, a foreign genre film finds its way to American shores (usually via bootleg file-sharing) that builds up such an underground buzz about it that it can’t help but bleed over into the mainstream. Audition was one such film, kicking off the “Asian horror” invasion (in quotations because very few of said films, including the above example, are strictly horror, regardless of what people call them). Europe, refusing to be dethroned as the premier exporter of fright flicks, fired back with the likes of Let the Right One In, Antichrist, A Serbian Film, and now, Troll Hunter. These foreign films usually resonate with American audiences for one of two reasons: either they present sex and violence with an extremity that shocks even our usually robust sensibilities (Read: America loves it some gore and tits), or they deliver a story and presentation that is remarkably novel and fresh. Troll Hunter is very much the later. While its mockumentary style may be familiar to US viewers by now, rarely, if ever, has it been used to such successful effect. And as much as the film fits into horror genre, its roots lie equally in the Spielbergian tradition of adventure films (albeit sans Spielberg’s positively fucking saccharine preoccupations), which is likely the source of its crossover appeal. Director/writer André Øvredal takes a familiar type of film and cleverly re-packages it with the “day in the life” portrayal of a blue-collar monster hunter, ups the scare factor significantly and offers up truly unique CGI creations that are culturally, not to mention visually, alien to us.
