Tomorrow, November the 15th, sees the release of David Lynch's most recent dreamscape Inland Empire into Australian cinemas - that's roughly 50 weeks since it was first released upon American screens last December. I was lucky enough to see it at MIFF a couple of months ago, but I intend on seeing it again at the cinema.
This last weekend I woke up with a distinct urge to rewatch Lynch's Mulholland Drive, which is very odd in itself because while I constantly wake up with music in my head, I never have it with movies. And then when I was reading the paper 30 minutes letter there was an article about Naomi Watts with the obligatory "Then along came David Lynch's Mulholland Drive. And then Nat at the Film Experience does a completely random entry about the movie. I believe it was all a big cosmic sign telling me to watch it again for the millionth time. And by millionth I mean some number over 30. That's still a lot.
But, then, I was thinking about David Lynch and Inland Empire and then back to Mulholland Drive and then throughout his entire film repertoire and I was amazed at how well he directs women. I'd put him behind perhaps only Pedro Almodovar as a male director who seems to be able to direct them best.
This entry, however, isn't fawning over Naomi Watts or Laura Dern or any of his other leading ladies such as Isabella Rossellini or Sheryl Lee or whoever, it's about the ladies on the fringes of Mulholland Drive. There are a whole swag of them who aren't Watts or Laura Elena Harring. And because not enough people give them love, here they are. **contains some spoilers if you somehow haven't seen this yet**
Jeanne Bates as Irene - As the mysterious Canadian woman with the chesire grin. She quite clearly represents Betty/Diane's innocent past. A sort of destillation of her hometown (Deep River, Ontario) into one woman. "We'll be watching for you on the silver screen!"
Ann Miller as Coco Lenoix - The largest of the supporting characters, screen legend Miller is a hoot as the pitying abortion-metaphor using apartment manager (and, er, Adam Kescher's mother apparently).
Lee Grant as Louise Bonner - My favourite of these small miracles is Oscar-winner Lee Grant (where did Lynch find her at?) as the... mystic neighbour Louise Bonner. "Something bad is happening" indeed. She gives me the willies.
Lori Heuring as Lorraine Kescher - As a woman who turns her infidelity into a criticism about her husband - "what are you doing here?" she asks as he walks in on her having sex with Gene the Pool Man - is deranged, but a hoot.
Rena Riffel as Laney - This is Rena Riffel, folks. RENA freakin' RIFFEL! If you don't know who Rena Riffel is then you'll get no perverse enjoyment out of her being there. But, boy, Rena Riffel! I was so psyched when I found out that was her.
Rita Taggart and Michele Hicks as Linney James and Nicky - The high-priced casting agent and her blase assistant are two of my favourite characters in Mulholland Drive. I'm not sure why Taggart isn't a Patricia Clarkson or the like, it's very unfortunate because I like her in everything I've seen.
Lisa Lackey as Carol - Perhaps the most unaffected and modern performance by any woman in the film. Despite lipsyncing to Connie Stevenes, Carol speaks like a normal person and doesn't seem to be channeling anyone or any time period.
Melissa George as Camilla Rhodes/Unknown Mysterious Lesbian - I made up that slash name for her, but it's true! George doesn't say a word - she does lipsync to Linda Scott and whisper into Harring's ear - but she gives off this amazing mysterious vibe that you can totally understand why Diane would think she is a part of a big conspiracy.
Joanna Stein as Woman in #12 - As, I think, a disgruntled lover of Diane, "Woman in #12" is quietly intense.
Rebekah Del Rio as Herself - Del Rio performs a spanish-language version of "Crying" and it is one of the most powerful musical moments you'll ever see either in a musical or on stage or anywhere.
Cori Glazer as Blue-Haired Lady - As Club Silencio's resident balcony occupant, Glazer says one word to break her stoic viewing face. "Silencio". It ends the movie on a haunting and perplexing note, although if you think about it it's really just one big massive joke on David Lynch's part. "It's all an illusion" indeed.
Taxidermia Dir. György Pálfi Year: 2006 Aus Rating: R18+ Running Time: 91mins
I watched the humourously revolting Taxidermia last night. You may know that title as one of the official selections of 2006's Cannes Film Festival and as Hungary's entry into the 2007 foreign language film category at the Academy Awards. I had heard plenty about it, about how it was not for a faint of heart and how it's one of the sickest movies ever made.
Well, I gotta ask - is it reallythat sick? Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of disgusting images in this film and the themes it explores are positively nauseating, but is watching a man fuck a pig really more vile than any of the images we get served yearly in horror films? Isn't it more sick to watch someone be stripped and murdered (and perhaps be asked to enjoy it) than it is to watch a man stuff an obese man's corpse with grass?
...okay, perhaps it is.
But I was still surprised how little I was revolted by György Pálfi's film. Taxidermia has three stories, all - I assume - adapted from the Lajos Parti Nagy short stories - that revolve around three generations of men. The first is an errand boy who is addicted to swallowing fire and eventually grows a flame-throwing penis. The next story is about his son who has a pig tail and grows up to become a competitive speed eater vying for the affection of an Olympic gold medalist speed eating woman. The third and final story is about his son who is a taxidermist who cares for his 600 pound father and his fat lard-eating cats.
Notice how casually I said all that? It's because the film takes itself so casually that it stops being revolting and shocking after a while and the disgusting acts it is showing become merely part of the scenery. It doesn't show you these people degrading themselves because it can, it does it because that's simply what they do. Make sense? Probably not.
The only parts where I actually felt quite sick was during the speed eating scenes of the second story. And even then it was only the copious amounts of CGI vomit that was irksome. The film's "centrepiece" - I guess you could call it that - is a scene in the final moments of the taxidermist son enacting his profession with deeply disturbing skill before the scene ends with one of the more genuinely shocking revelations I've seen in a long time. I can barely watch anything that involves medical work yet I was strangely transfixed.
Taxidermia is bloody and brutal, it doesn't shy away from showing the audience images that it knows will find sickening, but as I've said, it doesn't show these things merely to gross an audience out (well, maybe a little). I really think it is showing a story of these three people. Stories that just happen to involve bestiality, self-mutilation, murderous felines, embryo modelling, children with curly pig tails and a scene involving caviar that will make someone with the most seasoned food palate squirm in their seat at the sight of it.
That Palfi makes the film so watchable at all is, I think, a testiment to this surprisingly young director (he's 33, and this is only his second feature-length film). He has amassed a great technical team alongside him. The photography by Gergely Pohárnok somehow mananges to find a grimey beauty in the images. The editing by Réka Lemhényi is probably some of the very best of the year and Lemhényi should be snapped up quick smart by a director with more, how shall I put this? With more commercial possibilities. In fact the work by the cinematographer and editor work incredibly well together (surprisingly rare) and there is one sequence that involves a revolving bathtub that is fascinating to watch as the two medium merge into one. Adrienn Asztalos's art direction is also kookily fascinating, filling rooms with stripped paint, dead animals and all sorts of various fetishist images. There's no denying that Taxidermia looks like a Hollywood film gone down the Midnight Movie path. Discussing the performances however is generally on the pointless side, but of team of grotesques I thought Marc Birschoff was a standout and one worthy of future thought.
I wouldn't recommend Taxidermia to many people, but if the idea of watching a man have sex with a morbidly obese woman who then partway through turns into a dead pig carcus sounds like something that doesn't make you want to heave at the mere thought, then seek it out. You may just find outself being surprised, and in more ways than one I imagine. B
Plot: It's A Star Is Born meets Dreamgirls, folks! Upon receiving a very harsh lesson from her boozy drug-addicted lounge-singing black mother about the realities of falling asleep with a lit cigarette in her hand (their house burns down!) young impressionable mixed-race Billie Frank gets shipped off to a really fancy New York City orphanage (along with her pet cat, Whiskers - keep a note of that folks!) and instantly becomes friends with a Puerto Rican and a sassy African American chick. "I'm mixed!" she proclaims. Many years later, working as a dancer at a nightclub, she is discovered by a DJ named Dice who quickly turns her from a poor down on her luck hoochie mama to a world-famous singer with a performance at Madison Square Garden. In between there are fights, telepathy, shootings, weight issues and, PG-rated epiphanies.
Ray, Johnny, Bob, Mariah: Ray Charles and Johnny Cash both got biopics made about them in recent years 2004 and 2005 respectively, while a biopic about Bob Dylan comes out this year as well. But, really, Glitter is a biopic about Mariah Carey and it was released in 2001 so it was ahead of it's time. Let's not pretend here, if this isn't a slightly falsified biopic on the glass-breaking pop star then I don't know what is. From the main character of Billie Frank (Mariah Carey) being half black and half white (which according to a music video director makes her "exotic!" to the meltdown Billie has with her record company. Except in Billie's case it all happens within the span of about 3 weeks in the 1980s, whereas Carey's career has been going since 1990's debut album Mariah Carey.
Irony? Why never!: Oh, Billie! One of the greatest scenes in Glitter is on the set of her first music video. It is Carey's finest acting moment. She, hilariously and without the slightest hint of irony, makes her character of Billie incredible shy when she's asked to writhe around in a bikini on the set. Carey's range of emotions go from 'Looking at my feet, nervously' to 'why are these greased up muscle men groping me'. It's an amazing moment of film. So powerful! So raw! But, the main reason this scene is the greatest filming-scene-within-a-film is because of the following quote from the video's director:
Is she black? Is she white? We don't care - She's EXOTIC! I want to see more of her breasts.
Woody Allen, Tennessee Williams and Ernest Lehman couldn't come up with dialogue that amazing if they tried!
Wise Wisdom:Glitter is full of wise words of wordy wisdom. It portrays the 1980s music world so realistically (no drugs or sex or people wearing shoulder pads!) that I feel like it's just bursting out from the screen. Take for instance the concert at the end of the film. The character of Billie Frank has somehow managed to sell out a concert at New York's Madison Square Garden on the back of one single. We are told that Frank's song "Didn't Mean To Turn You On" (aka, Mariah Carey's song "Didn't Mean To Turn You On", clip below) was #1 for ten weeks (yet she still needs a track that will "cross over"?) yet an entire plot strand revolves around how the record company doesn't like the album DJ Dice (her lover and producer) has made so they get her to make a new one. So, yes, apparently in 1980s dance artists could sell out entire stadiums on the back of one song.
I believe it, don't you?
Milli Vanilli, #1 With a Bullet: The character of DJ Dice (played with hilarious ineptitude by Max Beesley, sort of an even skeevier version of Stephen Dorff) is one of many contrasting facets. On one hand he loves Mariah Billie, yet on the other hand he's a jealous overbearing man with anger management problems. Not a cliche at all!
He and Billie share a unique connection though: The connection of telepathy. In what is, quite frankly, the most genius movie scene of all time Dice and Billie - on opposite sides of the city - write a song together. He writes the melody, she writes the lyrics. Only later when she breaks into his house and finds the sheet music does she realise that they are meant to be together.
*sniff* There's a moment in the ultimate absurdity Showgirls where actress Elizabeth Berkley registers her emense sadness by a single solid *sniff*. It's the funniest moment in cinema history. Carey herself has an equally emotion-wringing moment in the film. Upon a visit to family services to see if they know where her long lost drug-addled boozy chanteuse. She is told that, shockingly, they don't follow the every step of people who lose custody of their kids. This scene gives Carey her greatest challange and the results are funny. The blank stare that tears through the screen and chokes the tears out of you. Tearjerkers don't come any better than this. Billie's eyes are dead. DEAD!
Another moment of immense tragedy that registers with Billie to the result of dead eyes is the word that, omigod, Dice has been shot and killed on the night of her (totally believable) performance at Madison Square Garden. Like the trooper that she is still goes out on stage and performs her heart out of "Never to Far". Think Barbara Streisand singing "People" in Funny Girl. Liza Minnelli singing "Life is a Cabaret" at the end of of Cabaret. Think Jennifer Hudson's rendition of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" from Dreamgirls. Think Kelly Clarkson singing "That's The Way I Like It" in From Justin to Kelly.
Stars Cats and Stripes: Two of the oddest most perplexing (and thus, hilarious) aspects of Glitter are her cat Whiskers and the weird silver striping that appears all over her body. First of all, we see Whiskers twice throughout the film. Once at the start when Billie is just a little kid and then years later when Billie is 182430 whatever age she is after she's hit the big time. Whiskers is such a well-behaved cat that Billie can seemingly walk all across town (New York City remember) holding Whiskers and he doesn't even move! Talk about commitment to your craft. That cat deserved an Oscar.
Even the biggest of Glitter's fans though can't explain the mysterious silver stripes all over her body. They first appear on her face early in the movie like some camp Bootcamp makeup. Then throughout the series of events we see the silver stripes appear on her arms and her lower back. The picture to your left is from a scene around the middle of the movie at the American Music Awards (where "Lional Ritchie won two!") The Mystery of the Silver Stripe ranks right up there with the ghost behind the curtain in Three Men and a Baby and the case of the suicidal munshkin in The Wizard of Oz. It will, most likely, never be solved.
Conclusion: Now, don't get me wrong, I am not saying that Glitter is anything other than ridiculous tosh. It doesn't transcend it's pure badness to become a masterpiece like, say, Showgirls. And it's not merely a perfectly adaquate movie with ridiculous aspects (such as other Cinema of the Absurd entries like How to Deal). No, but I think nearly six years after the fact (it was released the week after September 11) with Mariah Carey's looney breakdown and subsequent comeback in our minds, it is able to be looked upon as something other than "Mariah's Follies".
Every single decision that could have been made has been made poorly, which is why it's hilarious. For me, to give a movie a truly terrible grade, it must make me angry. Anger at the subject matter, angry at it being boring or something else like so much talent going to waste. Thing is - I can't tell whether there was any talent here in the first place, and so I prefer to view it as a bunch of absurd things happening for no reason as made by a bunch of people who don't actually know how to make a movie. It's everyone's fault that this movie is as incredibly ridiculous as it is. Glitter may be 100% stupid, but in my eyes it's never boring
Just sit back and forget about critiquing the acting (which is bad, obviously) or the directing (which is bad, obviously) and just laugh at Mariah Carey's scary facial expressions or the silly clothes or the weird stripes that appear all over her body or the incredibly realistic depiction of the 1980s music scene. It's a hoot!
PS; And I haven't even gone into why this is like some psuedo-Dreamgirls, just slightly "less black" (remember, Billie is mixed! Demonstrated during the scene where her black crack-addict mother needs money so she goes to visit the white well-to-do family man who impregnated her (See! This shit funn-ny! I can't make it up))
On the absurdity Scale of 1-5 I rate Glitter a 4.75. It's utterly unbelievable and almost inconceivable that so many untalented people were allowed in the same room long enough to actually make it. The thought of these clowns on set is almost as entertaining as the movie itself.
Below is the trailer for Glitter. The opening seconds sort of look like Mariah Carey's head is exloding.
How to Deal really is absurd. Hilariously so. I could nitpick for hours about this movie's absurdity. Even down to the silly belt that Mandy Moore wears on the poster (isn't it weird?) The very first thing you hear when you pop in the DVD (which I own, thank you very much) is Mandy Moore saying "Things happen and you just have to deal." That's really stupid, right?
Plot: Halley Martin's life is totally going down the shitter. Everything in her life is a disaster. Her family is a wreck, her friends are a) pregant, b) dead, c) bad news and she's constantly walking through sprinkler systems. It's just not fair. She has to learn... how to deal. And fast!
Family: So, her mother's (Alison Janney) a trainwreck since her divorce, but get this... she starts dating DYLAN BAKER!!! Wouldn't that creep you the hell out! I mean, gross. The dude from Happiness playing a romantic, ahem, drink can dispenser re-filler... man. Is that right? So, yeah, her mother's been bitter for ages because her ex-husband (Peter Gallagher and his eyebrows and really bad facial hair) is dating some half his age (isn't it always the case) and getting married. Tough break for her mother.
Her older sister is never around anymore because (ugh, so frustrating!) she's organising her WEDDING. Damn her. Damn her and stupid stupid face! When her sister tells her Halley randomly storms out of the house is a huff. She runs funny too.
Halley though has enough sanity in her to do yoga and make wonderful Sex & the City-esque narrational quips like "Some people fall in love. I had to crash into it." Ouch?! She doesn't have enough sanity to make her change out of those awful denim cut-off short shorts though! My favourite moment of wisdom is the one that opens the film. The words are really profound!
"You have to learn how to walk. You have to learn to talk. You have to wear that totally ridiculous hat your Grandmother bought you. You have no say in the matter. And when you're a little older, even though you get to choose your hats, you don't get to choose what they put in those meatballs at the cafeteria... or when to fall in love."
Man. She's so poetic, right? THANK GOD SHE GETS TO CHOOSE HER HATS!!! What world would be living in if people couldn't choose what hat to wear? Seriously. I'd like to know. She calls the day her parents finally get divorced as "Big Ugly Hat Day". Doesn't that just roll off the tongue?
Oh. And then there's Grandma! She likes to "smoke the cannibal". When she shows Halley a pine tree that would make a wonderful textile (apparently), Halley does the natural thing and tasts the pine tree. Doesn't that just make so much sense.
Rain & Sprinkler Systems: Oy. Is there a bigger problem in Halley's life right now than water?! Specifically sprinkler systems. For reasons unknown to me, in order to get to her best friend's (Alexandra Holden) house she has to run through someone else's backyard and, get this, they always have their sprinkler on. Even when Halley is going to a funeral she decides to walk through the sprinkler. You'd think she'd realise after a while.
After the funeral (see below) she stands outside the church in the pouring rain. Don't you love it how in movies it can go from perfect blue skies to instant rain, as if the makers have no idea how clouds actually work.
Death: Death haunts Halley at every corner. First the death of her parent's marriage. Then she nearly dies of embarassment when she walks into her best friend's bedroom, omg, WHILE SHE'S HAVING SEX!!!!!omgsoembarassing. (more pearls of wisdom from Halley: "You can't expect to do anything great in life if you buckle the first time some guy bats his eyes you!" Preach it sister!)
And then one day on the soccer field at school in a game between two bad soccer teams that celebrate way too much when they score a point. Anyway, so on the soccer field Halley and her best friend (her name's Scarlett) witness Scarlett's new boyfriend (Sherwood, if you can believe it, is his name) die right there. "I thought my parent's divorce was the end of the world. That was before Michael died of a heart defect." So blunt.
More wisdom: "Dying is definitely not one of the better concepts." ZING!
Pregnancy: LOL. Shortly after the funeral (the one where Halley walked through the sprinkler system again) Scarlett realises she's preggers to the dead dude! How fortuitous, right? The scene where they find out involves way too many closeups of urine for my liking.
Weddings: Well, her father's wedding is disaster (a near death by wedding veil!), but boy. Halley is negative on weddings, too! "Why do people get married anyway. I mean, we know that they're lying to each other, but are they lying to themselves too?" I suppose she's got a reason to be so down, but still... lighten the fuck up!
Don't even get me started on the vile lavender poofy bridesmaid dresses she's forced to wear. Why do bridesmaid dresses always look disgusting? Are they ever that bad in real life?
Romance: Then she meets a boy with a name as equally bad, ney worse, than "Sherwood": MACON! (Trent Ford) Lol. Ugh, with the change of seasons means trees start to LOSE THEIR LEAVES! They go all in the pool and completely cover the lawn, which would be a bitch to clean out if Macon Bacon didn't show up with a leaf blower (it's how he earns money, you see!) This tender scene of Halley blowing dead leaves into Macon Bacon's face is then followed by a montage of short clips involving the two laughing, accidentally touching one another and doing wacky music video bits like dancing on top of a bus stop and playing with light sabres in the street. All to the sounds of "Why Can't I" by Liz Phair. A song that, I swear, was used in about 50 different movies from 2003-2005.
--I think at this stage I need to mention something very important. By this stage, everything you have read about How to Deal so far has happened within the first 45 minutes!! Yes, so many deaths, disasters, pregnancies, funerals, dog humpings (Oh, I didn't mention that already, sorry), montages, sprinkler passings have all happened within 45 minutes. Crazy. There's still 50 minutes to go!
Unfortunately, the craziness starts to settle down from here as the story really starts to get into the romantic plot between Halley and Macon Bacon. But, oh, the makers still have some tricks up their sleeves.--
Social Issues: A hard-hitting discussion between Halley and Scarlett about abortion isn't funny, actually. But, what follows is! They have a discussion about "friends with benefits" in front of a Christmas Jesus display. LOL. howinappropriate!!
Grounded: Oh, poor Halley! She gets grounded for making it with Macon Bacon in their own house and omg nearly having sex. This all goes down over a soundtrack of some depressed white boy. Of course, this means she'll miss New Years Eve with Macon Bacon so she, naturally sneaks out. She's so badass.
Injuries: At the NYE Halley discovers the awful truth about Macon (he gets drunk at parties!!!) and then gets pissed off and leaves, which ends in, of course, A CAR CRASH!!! Before this though she runs through a field for no reason. And then Macon Bacon is upset because Halley won't have sex with him. "I thought you wanted us to be together." Of course Halley doesn't have a scratch on her after the crash. Can't hurt the precious face of Mandy Moore.
Conclusion: I had never ever seen a film before where so much bad stuff happens to somebody in such a comical fashion. I mean, Halley is meant to be, what? 17? She has death, divorce, pregnancy, she nearly dies, her grandmother is a pot head, she has to wear a poofy bridesmaid dress and she can't stop walking through sprinkler systems! And, I mean, I haven't even mentioned everything! There's pre-wedding breakups, wedding day births, outrageous outfits, bad hair extensions, emergency hospital visits, jedi mind tricks, injured grandparents, "Why does no one trust me to know what I know anymore", Halley's mother having sex with Dylan, on-air radio fights and many many more pearls of wisdom.
3. Someone does the Jedi mind trick, or even mentions it
4. Macon is under Halley's window
5. Ashley and Lewis get into a fight
6. Grandma gets stoned
7. The Dad or anyone else howls
You'd be drunk by 20 minutes in!
I'll leave you with one last nugget of wisdom from Halle.
"Maybe being abnormal is what's normal."
On the Absurdity Scale from 1-5 I rate How to Deal a 4.5. It's ridiculously absurd. How can so many things go wrong in anybody's lives outside of a Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu movie?
Click above to watch a delightful montage of scenes from How to Deal. It's precious.
It’s been over a week now since I saw Brian De Palma’s The Black Dahlia and, as others have mentioned, it’s a very confounding picture. It’s not the type of movie you just sit down and whip up a few hundred or so words about off the cuff. It’s an incredibly strange creature of a film, if you can even call it a film. I mean, it has all the traits of a film – actors, sets, costumes, dialogue, etc – but I can’t possibly think of any movie it even slightly resembles. There are similarities between it and many others, but The Black Dahlia is a truly one-of-a-kind experience. It’s not a movie you should sit down to watch if you want coherence, acting or a clear resolution. No. It’s the sort of film you sit down to watch and just let it wash over you. Just dive head first into the wacky tobacky bong water that De Palma was clearly drinking on the set.
The Black Dahlia is a movie at seemingly complete odds with itself. Consider. On one hand it is so professionally tailored, yet nobody and nothing quite fits. The lead roles are all filled by hapless wolf in sheeps clothing actors yet the fringes are filled with electric, vibrant performances. De Palma has crafted many astonishing memorable sequences yet they seem more like jigsaw pieces just kind of floating around being placed anywhere at whim without any thought as to if they fit or not. The movie plays itself as the mystery surrounded the Black Dahlia herself yet at some times it feels as if De Palma (and screenwriter Josh Friedman, it must be noted) loses interest and just films whatever he wants cause the cast showed up to the set. On one hand the central mystery is such a mindbogglingly confusing maze, yet when it comes down to the murderer’s reveal it’s as if they just played eeny-meeny-miny-mo with the cast.
This movie really has no idea where it’s going until it realises the 2 hour mark is approaching and they have to end. Characters disappear because… well, we don’t know. They get throwaway lines alluding to a drug addictions or a deep dark secrets or such and such yet nothing is made from it. Scenes take place that lead nowhere. De Palma just gets bored half way through a scene and cuts to something else that he thought looked pretty.
This is truly inept filmmaking. But, ya know what, it’s totally fascinating. I dare a hardcore cinephile to sit down and watch this movie and not find something positively riveting. Sure, when all is said and done, the movie is a wreck, but what a wreck. It’s hilarious. Watch as actors like Scarlett Johansson, Hilary Swank, Josh Hartnett and Aaron Eckhart play around in Mummy and Daddy’s clothes (even Eckhart, approaching 40 seems out of place). Swank puts on a curiously shapeshifting accent and wig. Johansson amps the cleavage up to 100 but drowns in all her cashmire and fur. The camp drag queen appearance skyrockets with it. Hartnett drowns in said accents, cleavage and cashmire. And Eckhart? Well… he plays his character as if he’s just been to a 1940s sleuth movie marathon and he decided to impersonate the lead actors to the nth degree.
People will compare it to LA Confidential and that movie was positively in the era. The Black Dahlia is sort of just transported into the area and the cast seem to be doing whatever they can to fit in. It’s sorta hilarious.
But as I’ve said, next to all the bad, there is fascinating bizarre stuff. Fiona Shaw plays a character that is so unhinged that it’s amazing she even exists in his movie, or any movie at all for that matter. If I thought The Black Dahlia was unlike any film I’ve ever seen before, then Shaw’s performance (as Swank’s slightly perculiar mother) is an even deeper form of crazy. She only appears in two scenes, but when she’s there (from the very first shot of her) the film jumps several tracks and becomes the deranged David Lynch noir that is just begging to get out throughout – think of Grace Zabriskie in Twin Peaks and you get a similar idea. Shaw’s performance is the very definition of a Supporting role. She takes the films by the horns and does what the actual leads should be doing. She makes everyone else around her look better simply by being in her presence. It also helps that it’s probably the funniest performance of the year too (funnier than Cohen, Jacobson, etc). It’s essentially what Gina Gershon did in Showgirls, but with less tit flashing.
Mia Kirshner gives good work too as the Black Dahlia herself seen in flashbacks as sad sorry little creature. She reminded me of Laura Palmer (again, from Twin Peaks) in that she new she was heading down a rabbit hole she couldn’t get out of. Rose McGowen shows up briefly to show us why she should be the go-to-gal for big-breasted witty characters. kd lang even shows up to sing an exotic version of Cole Porter’s “Love For Sale” surrounded by erotic female dancers (a funny touch, I thought.)
And there’s no denying that the film is, essentially, flawless when it comes to things such as art direction, costume design, cinematography and music. And all that just continues to fascinate. When you’re not staring at the beautiful scenery you’re holding back tears of laughter from the stupendous acting and dialogue. When you’re not devouring the many, many, many stunning and memorable individual sequences (I haven’t even discussed them! I could talk for hours…) you’re getting whiplash from wondering how the previous scene lead to the next.
Movies like The Black Dahlia are rare. A movie so hopelessly bad, yet it is because it’s very badness that makes it so fascinating. It would’ve been easy to make a mediocre movie, but everybody is trying to infinity and beyond that I am reminded of that old quote: “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”
On the Absurdity Scale from 1-5, I rate The Black Dahlia a 4 It's stupendously absurd! For a proper grade? B+ (or C- if you don’t have a sense of humour)
Nothing can prepare you for the onslaught of murder and mayhem that is present in Friday the 13th Part III. ...lol, sorry. I tried to type that with a straight face, but I couldn't keep it up. You really wanna know what there's an onslaught of in this film? Laughs. This movie has it all! Eye-poppings, knitting murders, small-town biker gangs, a weird disco soundtrack and it's all in glorious 3D!!!! Now, this was only in 3D on it's theatrical release in 1982 so unfortunately the DVD release just features characters throwing things at the screen, which has it's own wonderful entertainment value.
Plot: Following on directly after the quite dire Friday the 13th Part II, Part III again follows a bunch of teenagers at some random lake who don't know it yet, but are soon all going to be killed with humourous ways by Jason Vorhees - new and improved after dying in Part II and gathering a new mask (the debut of the famous Hockey Mask). Personally, I think the heavy-handed social commentary weighs it down but that's just me. :P. Let's discuss.
Warning: This entry contains images and discussion of violence. Please don't read if you wish to remain innocent and carefree *chuckle* Also, this is very Spoiler-heavy so don't be annoyed when I tell you who dies!
The Set-Up: The film starts with one of the scariest images you'll ever see. The words "Friday the 13th" and "Part III" appearing out of the eye sockets of the rotting head of Mrs Vorhees. That's not the scary part. The scary part is the absolutely mind-boggling DISCO SOUNDTRACK! Gloria Gaynor does Jason! I don't think this moment is bested as the film's most unintentionally hilarious moment. The Friday the 13th theme being turned into a disco inferno is priceless. And in 1982 no less.
After that brilliant title design we get a wonderful opening featuring two old people getting murdered! He gets an meat cleaver to the chest, while she gets the better death, by getting her knitting needle through the brain. Suffering for your art is so tiresome. Let's not even bother to mention who these two actually are. They're just randoms, which makes their deaths even more comical.
We then move on to the real story of the film. YOUNG MOSTLY-NAKED VICTIMS! You can always tell who the lead role is in these films because they always have a HIDDEN PAST. This is easy to spot as they are the one who looks off into the distance/at mysterious shacks/out across the lake/at the only exit/warns everybody to not go skinny dipping at midnight because they'll catch a cold.
This time we get the usual suspects. The girl with the mysterious hidden mystery past, the boyfriend, the best friend, the practical joker who will pretend he's been murdered early in the movie only to be murdered for real later on, etc. Oh, and randomly there's some hippies joining them? I don't even think they knew each other before this supposed road trip.
Hilariously we get a subplot involving a small town rebel motorcycle gang! These guys (well, 2 guys and one badass mofo chick) terrorise convenience stalls and like to hide out in empty barns. WOW. I don't really get why they are even in this movie other than to up the (inevitable) body count.
The Slaughter Begins: This is where some hilarity really happens. We get many many murders in Friday the 13th Part III (more than in the other two) with 12 altogether (including that poor bunny rabbit on the side of the road. We assume that was Jason's doing because he hates everything, even bunnies). The biker gang bite the dust in the barn (for no apparently reason) but there's a twist coming up later that is just too good. They die with the help of some 3D effects and farming tools. Priceless. It's also not explained why there is a barn right next to the lake in the first place, but that's just being pedantic, isn't it?
Other deaths come via spears in the eye (in glorious 3D), machetes to the body (while doing yoga!) - both can be seen above - and a retread of Kevin Bacon's death in the original Friday movie, we get a girl sitting in a hammock getting a sharp object in the neck! YAY! That one's hilarious because the make-up job is so bad. Really bad. There's some throat-slitting (the practical joker dies in such a boring way, it was really depressing)
And I'm not even going to tell you what happens to this chick. Hilarity ensued though. Also, in this movie, Jason dies twice! He first gets thrown of a balcony and hung in a noose. He then later, after somehow surviving, gets an axe to the face. The lead actress (Dana Kimmell btw) has two of the best reaction shots I've ever seen. "No! You can't be alive!" after realising he's alive for the first time and then a look of pure horror as Jason continues to come towards her even with an axe in his face. Way to go Dana! You're definitely my favourite Friday the 13th chick. It is this moment with the axe that includes the return of the bikie gang leader! Apparently he has Jason-style ability to survive impalings and such and returns rather randomly, but dies a mere second or two later. He gets his arm chopped off! Sweet.
The 3D: This film was made at the height of the 3D-'80s movement. As I mentioned earlier, the DVD release isn't actually in 3D so it features a lot of characters randomly waving sharp things at the camera. Thing such as bats, pitchforks, machetes, spears, axes, eyes and entire bodies and even yoyos (I suppose it was made at the height of yoyo popularity too?). It's all rather silly, but hilariously entertaining. Watch as the bikie leader waves a pitchfork around like a fool. I almost felt as if he was waving it at me (the point, I suppose) but makes me go "Why are you waving that thing at ME?!"
Jason: Jason is a hoot and a half in this flick. When he's not killing people in hilarious ridiculous manners, he's being an absolute moronic klutz. He has zero balance and falls over and the slightest touch and he gets his body parts (keep it clean people) stuck in all sorts of places (again, keep it clean). Although, he does have stellar aim!
Conclusion:Friday the 13th Part III is my favourite of the franchise. While the original is a fun-as-those-things-go type of affair, the second wasn't much cop and the others I have seen are mostly dumb. Jason in Manhattan would be a wonderful contender for this series if the movie was set in New York - only about 10 minutes of it are (and they are indeed absurd yet wonderful), and Jason X is just bad. But this one is So. Much. Fun. Even without the 3D it'd be a blast, but the added bonus of idiots waving silly objects around makes it even better! And who can go past the murders! Murders in 3D no less. Eyes popping out at you is just wonderful. The proposterousness (is that a word?) of the whole thing made me fall in love. It embraces all the cliches of the horror genre. This is a perfect movie to sit around with a group of friends (who like this sort of stuff), have some drinks, and laugh your freakin' ass off.
On the Absurdity scale from 1-5, I rate Friday the 13th Part III a 3.5 It's really absurd, but it's hard to penalise a movie that waves funny objects in your face and thinks it's scary!
(click the above image to watch a wonderful Friday the 13th Part III clipshow. Brilliant.
