Sucks Hawks, Such Hounds. Such Horrible Production Value.

Before my crazy, accidental viewing of SUCH HAWKS, SUCH HOUNDS I had no idea that anything called Doom Rock, Desert Rock, and Stoner Rock existed.  The music sounds like, actually doom, desert and stoner, melted down, with a lot of heavy bass, monk robes and cascading hair for flavor.  This doc is not and should not be the definitive feature on the underground heavy rock scene.  It is completely (but kind of lovingly) amateur, and rife with way too long music sequences, cheesy graphics and lighting best described as Cheez Whizian.  

The thing that comes across so clearly, and judging by the beer belching enthusiasm from the audience, satisfyingly, is the passion of the depicted musicians for their music and their independence.  In a world where nearly every genre and sub genre of music has mainstreamed, the desert rock scene remains wonderfully underground.  The majority of the big names testified to the less than star like status of their day jobs.  Housepainter, flower delivery man, prep-cook, these are the occupations of an artist keepin it real.  

I would be interested to see a more focused film, possibly on one of the more engaging bands such as Pentagram.  An analysis of vocalist Bobby Liebling’s hair alone could sustain a ninety minute film.  Also worth further dissection is Sleep, creator of the seminole, 52 (post-editing!) minute track ‘Dopesmoker.’ This is the song that begat the terms Weedian and Hashishian and I could not be more grateful for their efforts.  It is Awesome.

Horror Heroine DEUX

In the lexicon of horror films that dot the storied galaxy of this film industry, the presence of positive female imagery is almost nil. In one way or another, either as victim or perpetrator, the inarguable traits that characterize females and femininity are used to incite fear, revulsion and carnal bloodshed in audiences. The audiences for horror films (and any unqualifiedly chick flick) have always been assumed by marketing managers to consist of males, age 18-34. These are films made by men, for men, at women’s expense; THEY WERE (are) EXPENDABLE.

FAT GIRL, French title A Mon Soeur, by director Catherine Breillat is as close an approximation of a feminist horror film to be conceived to date. It pointedly refutes the feminist film theory put forth by Laura Mulvey in her essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” that determined a Lacan/Freudian interpretation domination of film criticism since its publication in 1975. The persistent reliance on this particular psychology might be viewed as flawed in itself since feminist film theory has been evolving for nearly forty years. Is it still necessary or even feminist to interpret every film in this way? A system that is reliant on a male theory that assumes films inherently possess a male gaze? As women, a minority majority, is this viewpoint ingrained or has it been indoctrinated? Regardless of its relevancy it is necessary to use this theory to posit FAT GIRL as a feminist horror film because it is the widely regarded standard bearer of feminist criticism.

FAT GIRL would not typically be categorized into the horror genre. Superficially it might be considered a coming of age drama yet, typical of Breillat, it revels in raw depictions of female sexual declaration and perversion. Twelve year old Anais lolls her portly visage about the gray seascapes at her family’s beach house while observing the gradual corruption of her lustful yet innocent older sister Elena. Anais’s physicality is instrumental to the film’s classification as a feminist horror film. She is for most of the film, wholly asexualized. Too young to be respectably objectified, too overweight to be idealized, too naive with which to be identifiable, the male gaze has no outlet on which to project itself. Elena serves as the representative of a traditional horror film victim: classically beautiful, promiscuous, and egotistical. Men want to be her and do her but because she is female, this simultaneous identification/objectification is also threatening. She thus must be destroyed.

This resolution manifests with the introduction of the character Fernando, a law student who’s additional purpose seems to be to exacerbate the mutual contempt residing beneath the surface of sisters’ relationship. Fernando sees the girls for nothing but their sexuality, Elena, and lack thereof, Anais. Anais bears witness to the her sister’s deflowering and all it’s twisted logic and anatomical tug-of-war power-plays.

photo courtesy of The Schlindz

She is now the voyeur. She has overtaken, or taken back?, the gaze from the presumptive male. We the audience must see from this moment on the events of the film through her eyes. Because she is disgusted and rendered sagacious by this scene of corruption, we may now admire and thus identify with her as a powerful character/heroine.

The stage is set, rockets boosted, for a third installment of this venture into FAT GIRL’s subversive charms. For now, let’s all go see THE LAST MISTRESS, the most recent film by Catherine Breillat, in theaters now.

Oh, My Lady Horror Film

Photo courtesy of The Schlindz

Last night over a bottle of Gewurztraminer I got to thinking. Every thought I had was genius. oh how I esteem you Wine, you oily agent of loquacious ramblings. Nonetheless, I was racking my brain trying to figure out how to create a horror film that is specifically female.

Horror is a difficult genre to crack and not end up on the misogynist side of the celluloid, as horror films are nearly universally anti-female. Woman as victim is usually the dictate, however when cast as the perpetrator the crimes often play off of male fears about women. For instance, CARRIE, a horror classic, might seem to be making a feminist statement with the character’s vengeful rath against her tormentors. However if we take a closer look we can see that Carrie’s ‘offenses’ are actually significant markers in female maturation. These are events that men do not experience and thus do not understand, for example: menstruation, the mental castigation among girl peer groups, the complex love/hate dynamic existent between mothers and daughters, and finally, the archetypal, subordinate role-bearer in traditional religious infrastructures.

The infamous shower scene in which Carrie gets her first period is the turning point in the film at which the audience now recognizes her as a freak, disgusting, sinful. This male fear of menstruation is resolved as this scene is echoed in the climax of the film. Soaked in blood, Carrie is made responsible for her own destruction. How does the joke go? I don’t trust anything that bleeds for seven days and doesn’t die?

This reading of the film is filtered through the now three decades old theory of feminine criticism. Centered around Freudian concepts of male identification, the male gaze, it is difficult to find a film that subverts the theory.

Well guess what I found. FAT GIRL (A Mon Soeur).

A bientot mes amies.

Pass the Bacardi

In honor of the recent Independence Day holiday, I bequeath unto you WE WERE STRANGERS, a lesser seen film from the oeuvre of John Huston.

WE WERE STRANGERS takes place during the Cuban political uprising of 1933 in which (dictator) Gerardo Machado was usurped by the forces of the Cuban people. The United States kept rather mum on the matter, seeing as the government had a sweet contract that allowed them to operate a massive military base on the island, among other favorable measures. The base was and is located on Guantanamo Bay.

So China Valdès (the sublime and, I guess, Asian-y Jennifer Jones) is the sister of an assassinated revolutionary law student. She decides to take up the cause by joining forces with Cuban ex-pat Tony, a hardened tough from the streets of Spanish Harlem, as he molds together an ambitious plot to lure every major politico in power into a cemetery so he can promptly blow them away. Fleshed out by a poetic melange of supporting revolutionaries the film is tense, suspenseful and poignant. Even if the pacing is a tad labored, Huston and cinematographer Russell Metty have provided us with gorgeous, slightly deviant images. The smothering confinement of the group’s hideout is reconciled with certain shots that are so epic they might have been spliced from TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE.

I especially appreciated the quiet tone of dissidence in this film. It speaks of it’s time, bravely produced during the McCarthy era, and for us now; a country trapped in a flailing legacy of nation-building.

Salud!

Cuba Libre: 2 oz. Light Rum, juice of 1/2 a lime, Coca-Cola. Pour lime juice into a highball glass over ice cubes. Add rum, fill with cola, stir, and serve.

Zinone is NOT a Vegetable

Whenever I hear the name Stephanie Zinone, I think of zucchini. The more logical phonetic association would be Zamboni.

Stephanie Zinone does not, of coarse, have anything to do with zucchini save for their slender figures, ’snappy’ attitudes, boring counterparts (Sandy, cucumbers) . . . wait a minute!

For those of you unfamiliar with Stephanie Zinone, Steph, she’s the main female protagonist in one of the greatest, least heralded films ever, EVER, made. GREASE 2.

To a certain type of young girl, this movie easily surpasses it’s predecessor. You see, GREASE 2 is for the girl who will someday walk that thin line between good and bad, rules or no rules, taste and tack. Actually no, she always has taste. She just doesn’t want to look like a cupcake. She likes to wear all black like one of the boys, just as long as the look is fitted, and there are ankle booties involved. She’s “lookin for a dream on a mean machine, with hell in his eyes.” Most importantly, she does not change for a dude, a greaser, the leader of the T-Birds. Sandy changed. She started smoking, got PERMED!, basically threw away her whole credo (goodie-goodie) for a wuss of a boy, who wouldn’t even acknowledge that what they’d shared at the beach was special, just to look cool in front of his friends at the pep rally!

All Steph wants is a guy as cool as herself. Though I’m a tad conflicted about Maxwell Caulfield (he’s more believable as Rex Manning in EMPIRE RECORDS) as a legitimate Cool Rider, the character Michael Carrington is actually a great guy. He’s intelligent, tutoring Steph on the subtleties of Hamlet, and is really sweet when she says something totally dumb (but that’s only because she’s so distracted by the mystery bike rider that keeps showing up). He’s hardworking, writing all those papers for the T-Birds. He plays the piano, builds his own bike, runs track, and he can jump!

I realized while watching this movie on television up in a cabin, in a forest in Guerneville, CA, that together with Regina from NIGHT OF THE COMET, Steph provided me with my earliest female style influences. Not just style as in clothes, though I have been aiming to achieve both of their signature looks since 1984, but in attitude and confidence, and fabulous hair. Full Disclosure: from 1999-2001 my hair more accurately resembled that of Robert Plant.

This may be the first of many posts on GREASE 2. I’ve only just begun to plunge this overflowing toilet. Thanks be to The Schlindz for inspiring this venture. Thank you to the folks as well, for allowing me to spend eighty-four dollars on a Betamax copy of GREASE 2 when I was four years old. Keep up the good work.

Beyond Borat

Several years ago, at the dawn of the ‘ousand’ths,’ there came to pass a film so modern, so slick and so incredibly strange, that it could only have emanated from one place. That place is Kazakhstan, homeland of director Timur Bekmambetov. The film is NIGHTWATCH. Borat is not involved. There are no goats or banana hammocks.

The specifics of the story are somewhat difficult to follow, as this reviewer was under the incredibly persuasive influence of a friend we’ll refer to as Monsieur Moet Chandon it trampolines through time and outer worlds with spasmodic frequency.

However, the essentials of the plot are thus:

Medieval, specialty-abled humans known as Others are divided into forces of Light and Dark. Upon agreement that warfare would result in equal extinction, the forces formulate the conversely named Night Watch and Day Watch.

Cut to present day Russia. We meet Anton, a domestically troubled everyman who seeks counsel with a mysterious old lady who claims she can induce-here we go again-abortion in his wife, as she’s apparently carrying another man’s child. Ok?The witchery misfires and it is revealed, in another jump into the future, that Anton is a member of the Night Watch. And, um, he’s hunting a vampire. Appearing in a warped, but nattily special-effected, sequence of events are: a (standard-issue) gifted, creepy young boy, a trauma plagued virgin, and many more vampires. The virgin’s curse is a swirling cavity of destruction. How’s that for vaginarific euphemisms? It literally hovers over her home. May we imbue that vaginas are the matrix of all evil? Granted Russian culture has a reputation for being a tad paternal but seriously? Our protagonist is also incessantly pursued by an evil female vampire. That’s four bad mamma-jammas (and three GRE words!) to count. The events of the story culminate in the most awkward father-son relationship since it’s obvious antecedent, STAR WARS.

Point blank, this film thrills. It is a sophisticated coalescence of modern cinema’s technological apogee and naturalistic characterization. That it is Russia’s most expensive and most successful venture is unsurprising. Perhaps it is too much to ask of Hollywood to produce a horror movie that might compete with this picture. I categorize it as horror tentatively, for NIGHT WATCH is transcendent of the genre. Thankfully Bekmambetov has also released DAY WATCH and coming in 2009 is TWILIGHT WATCH. For those of you who wish to see his work immediately there is WANTED, opening this weekend and starring that (formerly) vaguely vampiric vixen Angelina Jolie. Enjoy.

Let’s Talk About Vergewaltigung Baby

And now children . . . Let us have a conversation about pre-code Hollywood. I am referring of coarse to the Hays Code, that bastion of perversity policing that protected our innocents for some twenty years. It also begat the chastity belt still strangling the fun out of films, the MPAA.

Today we’ll examine in brief the German film DIARY OF A LOST GIRL, directed by G.W. Pabst. Yes, this is a foreign film and so is not technically a Hollywood picture. However it’s foreignness is significant two ways in particular. It provides dramatic contrast not only to the films that were produced in Hollywood during the period of regulation, but to those being produced today as well. Not to mention an influx of foreign films contributed to the eventual regression of the code. The highest court in the land couldn’t keep the burgeoning suburbanites of this nation from sharing their SUMMER WITH MONIKA, in all her glorious nubility.

So what of DIARY OF A LOST GIRL? Here it is in brief. A young girl Thymiane, the très Brooksian Louise Brooks, devastated by the sudden, mysterious drowning of her family’s dear maid, is drugged, raped by a family friend, impregnated with rapist’s child, sent to a reformatory, then to a brothel, banished from home, orphaned (and more!) by film’s end.

The most shocking aspect however would be the frankness with which said situations are dealt. The sex is not fetishized, it just exists. Thymiane, while initially punished for the pregnancy, is ultimately redeemed by her own insistence on survival and goodwill. The sole sense of shame lies within the parental figures, including Thymiane’s father and the elder Count Osdorff, for having cast their charges out to meet dire fates. This film wholeheartedly embraced the outcast, the angsty teenage rebel as hero long before Brando alighted a generation with his jaunty leather cap.

One can attribute the film’s honesty in part Brooks herself. She was an enigmatic, mature actress who possessed preternatural sexual confidence that pervaded throughout this adolescent portrayal. Today’s stars are most often girlish imps on screen, even when they are forty-something women (see SEX AND THE CITY-THE MOVIE quick crit!). Thanks then to Kates Winslet and Blanchett for giving us something to admire on screen in the past ten years. Thanks as well to Herr Director Pabst. Your images are vivid. Your love for Louise’s naturalness is obvious. And your close-ups of Valeska Gert as the reformatory director’s wife will haunt me forever.

Sister Carrie

Though the film has surely been beaten to death by the litany of vicious critics who surface whenever a ‘chic flick’ opens, let’s begin with that impetus of rage, SEX AND THE CITY: THE MOVIE.  I very nearly violated my strict ‘no walkouts’ policy with this movie.  The film slogs its way through every mongoloid plot device writer/director Michael Patrick King could muster while delivering but one quip of dialogue that recalled the frank hilarity of the television show. “Sweetie, you shit your pants this year.  I think you’re done.”  Exactly.  

What I found to be most upsetting was the near absolute disposal of sex in the story.  Where was the empowering, dirty, honest and funny adult sex that made the show so original and groundbreaking? Buried beneath fey allusions and a girlish blush no doubt.   The issue is not about the women’s age or appearance though many noted male reviewers have been quick to denigrate their attributes.  Samantha is but a cartoon here, a sexed up Woody Woodpecker: flashy and repetitive.  Miranda is literally sexless and punished for it by her husband and her harpy best friends. Charlotte perfectly embodies a modern woman, of the Eisenhower era, and Carrie has completed her transition into a total sap.  She is capably aided and abetted by her very own Jar Jar Binks, Louise from St. Louis.  Never has a key chain provoked so much contempt.

So where now does a woman turn to find solid, knowing female characters? Pre-code Hollywood of coarse.  Stay tuned for a trip back in time to the glory days of bathtub gin, sex and misbehavin’.