Five Shots: Palm Trees

Scream to Scream, Scene by Scene: SCENE 4 of Scream (0:18:23-0:18:38)

In this project I attempt to review the entire Scream trilogy scene by scene in chronological order. Heavy spoilers and gore throughout!

SCENE 4
Length: 15secs
Primary Characters: Sidney Prescott and Mrs Tate (Lois Saunders)
Pop Culture References:

• None - it's 15 seconds long! It'd be impressive if there were any, although curiously Jamie Lee Curtis' character in Halloween H20 is a school principal called Keri Tate. No, that wasn't that curious, actually.
  

This shot always makes me wonder what Scream would have been like if Drew Barrymore had have actually taken the lead role like she was originally offered. This shot makes me wonder what Barrymore would have looked like in this classroom, sitting there with her blonde bob. I always thought she'd look too old (I think it's the hair), but she's only two years older than Neve Campbell who plays Sidney and she seems to fit into the look of the film quite easily.


"Sidney, it would appear to be your turn."
This is Mrs Tate, aka the frumpiest, dowdiest teacher known to man (outside of a comedy, of course). Poor lonely (I assume) Mrs Tate.

Man, that was a short scene, wasn't it?

Intro, Scene 1 Scene 2, Scene 3

Scream to Scream, Scene by Scene: SCENE 3 of Scream (0:16:50-0:18:22)

In this project I attempt to review the entire Scream trilogy scene by scene in chronological order. Heavy spoilers and gore throughout!

SCENE 3
Length: 1min 33secs
Primary Characters: Sidney Prescott and Tatum Riley (Rose McGowen)
Pop Culture References:

• None :(
  

And so we're introduced to Woodsboro High (not "Greensboro" as the DVD box of Scream 3 misinforms). One thing that I really like about the Scream movies is how cinematic they look. Director Wes Craven and cinematographer Mark Irwin routinely use crane shots, utilise the wide screen and fill the frame with interesting compositions, which is not something you tend to find in a slasher movie. One such moment is this scene where we first see the required High School. Could have simply been a static shot of the school, but instead we get a swooping crane shot that gazes over the media circus out front before settling on Neve Campbell's Sidney yet again. She's definitely the "final girl", you can already tell.


And I like how in this shot the camera ever so vaguely hovers on the sight of this TV news reporter wearing a bright lime green outfit. Even in a distant wide shot Gale Weathers is trying to grab our attention. Attention got!


HI GALE WEATHERS, AUTHOR OF THE GALE WEATHERS STORY SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING GALE WEATHERS!

She's barely in this scene at all, but a brief moment, and yet not only do we know she's going to be a major player (she is played by Courteney Cox, after all), but characters we're not meant to notice don't get to wear lime green ensembles. They just don't.


Everyone say hello to Tatum Riley.

Do it!

"Hi Tatum!"

That's better. You will grow to love this woman. As played by Rose McGowen, Tatum is the prerequisite best friend whose acts overtly sexual (she's wearing that outfit to high school and "thank you very much" say all the teenage boys) but she is actually quite endearing. And, as this scene shows, tactful:


"Casey Becker and Steve Orth were killed last night. And we're not just talking killed, we're talking splatter movie killed. Ripped open from end to end."
"Casey Becker? She sits next to me in English."
"Not anymore!. So sad, her mom and dad found her hanging from a tree, her insides on the outside.
...
"Dewey was saying this was the worst crime they've seen in years. Even worse than... well, it's bad."

Oh, Tatum! Way to walk directly into the elephant in the room!

Intro, Scene 1 Scene 2

Review: Toy Story 3

Toy Story 3
Dir. Lee Unkrich
Year: 2010
Aus Rating: G
Running Time: 103mins

In the 15 years since Pixar Studios presented Toy Story to audiences for the first time, cinema has changed. Computer-generated animation is no longer a novelty, it is fact of life. Animation is no longer a genre simply for young audiences and it is now given the respect that it deserves as an art form all of its own. With Toy Story 3 Pixar, animation and audiences come full circle, right back to where it all began and, quite frankly, it’s a wonderful feeling.

Read the rest at Trespass Mag

Toy Story 3 is out today. I'd like to stress that I did not cry during this movie. I am not an easy cryer at the movies, but at least Toy Story 3 earns the tears of anybody who does cry, unlike Up, which threw a bunch of manipulation at the audience in the first five minutes and just expected people to cry (they did, apparently - did they cry when they watch the news every night?) The scene where everyone seems to be welling up, well, I did get a big ol' lump in my throat and felt the tears coming on, but I didn't. Is there something wrong with me or is the issue with those who seem to cry at the drop of a hat?

Black & White Friday: Psycho '98

I've gone mental, true, but ever since I started this series I have wanted to do the deed (so to speak) on Gus Van Sant's Psycho. From black and white to colour and back again. This'll be either an interesting experiment or a dismal failure (much like Van Sant's movie itself, actually). Bear in mind that I have not watched Hitchcock's Psycho in a year or so and I am deliberately not comparing the two here. I mean, I will compare, but not in a side by side sort of way. I am more intrigued in how this movie would have looked if Van Sant went and did his whole mad experiment in black and white like the original.



I was actually trying to get a shot of Viggo's glorious very un-1960 arse, but instead captured these two moments that I think are quite stunning compositions.


I find it interesting that this shot - and others that I have taken - still look so modern. This definitely doesn't look like a screengrab of Hitchcock's film. Perhaps it's the presence of such a recognisable face as Anne Heche, I'm not entirely sure. I do know this though, I could look at Anne Heche's face all day. As you can tell from this entry, I'm sure, since over half of the images are from the first half of the film.


This looks closer to the spirit of an old black and white horror movie with its Gothic imagery, although - yet again - something about the actors' face (this time Vince Vaughn) just comes across as very modern and I can't tell whether its because I'm just so used to seeing his face in the sort of movies he makes, Wedding Crashers and the like, that it's hard to separate it.


An obvious shot, but a good one. One that truly does recall Alfred Hitchcock's original. Would I instantly know it was the remake? I'm not so sure.


I seriously could have done a frame by frame look at this scene, but I think this six shot collage is enough. One of the things I think Gus Van Sant's remake does better than the original is - no, not the shower scene - something incredibly banal and ridiculous, and yet it still matters: The shower curtain. The diamond pattern helps play with distortion and perception, don't you think?

We can also see here why Hitchcock used chocolate sauce for blood because whatever it is Van Sant used sure does look weak.


This shot reminds me of Frankenstein.


One of things I can never quite figure out about Psycho '98 is why Lila becomes such a lesbian. It's quite strange, really. I do love it though. Charging through while listening to her rock music on her walkman. Right down to the way she acts almost disgusted at the thought of pretending to be in a relationship with Viggo Mortensen's Sam Loomis later on.


Love this shot in black and white. Shadows are like that.


Oh, Gus! You rascal, you!

Scream to Scream, Scene by Scene: SCENE 2 of Scream (0:12:46-0:16:49)

In this project I attempt to review the entire Scream trilogy scene by scene in chronological order. Heavy spoilers and gore throughout!

SCENE 2
Length: 4mins 3secs
Primary Characters: Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich) and Mr Prescott (Lawrence Hecht)
Pop Culture References:

• The Exorcist (it's on TV at Billy's house)
• Psycho/Halloween (Billy "Loomis")
• MPAA rating system ("Settle for a PG-13?)
• Indigo Girls (Sidney has a poster on her wall)
  

It's probably way to early to go about admitting this, but whenever I watch Scream I tend to skip this scene. Not that it's not well done - in fact, quite the contrary, there is a lot going on - it's just that what is going on is a lot of little moments that set up plot points later on.

The key moments are:

a) Sidney's Virginity
Yes, in case you're unaware Sidney Prescott is a V-I-R-G-I-N! There's an obvious reason for the film blatantly spelling this out and it's Randy's rule of "if you have sex, you die". The Jamie Lee Curtis rule. She was always the innocent virgin, which is why she never died. Meanwhile, how funny is Billy's expression in the third image here?




b) Billy's penchant for riding around at night and sneaking in bedroom windows
This one speaks for itself. By the conclusion of the movie it becomes quite obvious where Billy has just been and you kinda just have to slap yourself on the forehead when you realise you ever doubted it was him.


"You sleep in that?"
"Yes I sleep in this!"
c) Sidney's Father
In just a few tiny snippets of dialogue we learn everything we need to about this man before shipping him off and never hearing from him again until the climax of the movie. Sets him up as a beaut suspect if for no other reason than why would he leave his only daughter home alone on the one year anniversary of her mother's (and his wife's) death? SUSPICIOUS!


d) Art Direction
I mentioned how I liked the way they laid out the blueprint of Casey's house using tracking shots and focusing on the corridors and big glass windows. Well, another key moment of art direction is the interesting way they give Sidney's room a sort of protective lock in the form of this poorly designed, but oh so useful, crazy door jamming thingamajig. Whoever designed this was clearly an idiot, but boy does it come in handy later on and this moment allows us to identify it. That way, later on during Sidney's chase scene, we don't sit there wondering what the hell just happened with the doors. You see?



And lastly

e) "Scream Speak"
Throughout the entire film character talk in "Scream Speak". It's very much like Tarantino dialogue in that it references movies and pop culture idiot, but it's a little less obscure. Even the most non-obsessive film fan will pick up the references to movies such as The Exorcist. My favourite is the exchange about Sidney and Billy's relationship once being headed for NC-17 and now it's like they're edited for TV, to which Sidney replies:

"Hey, Billy, would you settle for a PG-13 relationship?"
"What's that?"

"You're just a tease."
It's Juno-esque dialogue long before Juno.

Intro, Scene 1

Why I Adore... Gus Van Sant's Psycho

One of the best new blogs to show up lately has been Why I Adore, a new project from Mr Paul Anthony Nelson that aims to be a negativity free zone and to allow writers to express true feelings of adoration about movies, actors or anything related to film and TV that they love without threat or worry of Internet trolls whose sole mission it is to criticise people for their opinions.

This week, the sixth edition, was my turn and I decided to discuss my adoration for one of the most maligned films I could think of from the last 20 years, Gus Van Sant's shot-for-shot remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. A movie so fascinating that I've watched it many times - not as many as the 1960 original, but it's probably closer than you think - and consider it a stroke of experimental brilliance.

A good 38 years had gone by between Hitchcock’s original and Van Sant’s take, and I think this remake acts as the most glowing and praiseworthy critical assessment of Hitchcock’s film that has, can and will ever be. People have spent decades studying this film and yet no piece of film criticism can come quite to the level of outright lust for Psycho that this remake presents. Gus Van Sant loves Psycho. There is a reason he remade it "shot for shot" and it’s because he thought it couldn’t be improved upon. Van Sant even set the movie in the modern times to prove how timeless Hitchcock’s Psycho is. ... The remake is love

I considered using one of Norman Bates' famous quotes, "We all go a little mad sometimes" to describe it, but then I realised that was being a self-loathing. I don't think there's anything mad at all about liking Psycho '98. And, hey, if it's good enough for Nick Davis then at least I know I am in good company.

You can read the entire thing by clicking over to Why I Adore and if you would like to leave a comment please do so, but know that all comments are moderated and anything negative gets promptly deleted. That blog is a negative free zone! What do you think though? Do you think I'm mad like Norman or rational like... umm... are there any rational characters in that movie? None of them seem to think clearly at all, do they? Hmmm.

Scream to Scream, Scene by Scene: SCENE 1 of Scream (0:00:00-0:12:46)

In this project I attempt to review the entire Scream trilogy scene by scene in chronological order. Click here to find out why. Please be advised that, quite obviously, this is as far from a spoiler free zone as you can get and there are spoilers for all three films from the get go. Also, please note that there will be gore throughout the series. That's a given.

Scene 1
Length: 12mins 46secs
Primary Characters: Casey Becker (Drew Barrymore), Steven Orth (Kevin Patrick Walls), Ghostface (voiced by Roger Jackson), Mr & Mrs Becker (David Booth and Carla Hatley)
Pop Culture References:

• Halloween (Casey's favourite horror movie, first trivia question, "Drive down to the McKenzie's")
• A Nightmare on Elm Street ("Is that the one where the guy had knives for fingers?")
  
• Friday the 13th (Second trivia question)

Notice up the top there in the title bar? It states the opening scene of Wes Craven's seminal Scream is only 12 minutes and 46 seconds long. For a scene that is, by all counts, relatively short, it sure has had a lot of impact. Much like the shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, it is a scene of shocking violence that changed the way horror movies were made.


The first shot in Scream is of a ringing telephone, which is only apt since the audience has to get used to them. This being 1996 the use "cellular" phones (oh American lingo, you amuse me!) hadn't quite reached the level of ubiquity that we see later on in Scream 3. There's something so quaint about the use of a landline phone, isn't there? It sort of just makes the helplessness even stronger since the character of Casey is so tied down.


The sight of former child star turned drugged up disgraced turned respectable actress must have been a fascinating one to see. I find it amusing that a 12-minute cameo in a quote-unquote slasher movie is seen as a defining turn in her career, but it's a refreshing one (is Lindsay Lohan paying attention? It could be quite easy!) Being an original movie audiences really had no idea what to expect so it was a stroke of genius to not only cast Barrymore - who would expect her to meet such a grisly end in such a short amount of time? - but also to make the voice of "Ghostface" so nonthreatening with this back-and-forth of almost "make cute" banter. If this were a romantic comedy you would expect them to realise they're made for each other.


This moment is particularly good since Craven is quite obviously allowing audiences to get a feel for the location with those big french doors looking out onto nothing.


And here is, I think, one of the most interesting parts of the entire movie. At this moment Casey has begun to feel a bit creeped out by this mysterious caller and yet here she is just seconds later having a relaxed chat about horror movies. What I find interesting about it is that horror movies are designed to test audiences. We allow ourselves to be placed into a false sense of security so that when a cat jumps out from a box we feel that security threatened (obviously more so when the threat is a knife-wielding maniac and not a feline who enjoys coiling up in a box). So audiences let themselves feel complacent in a horror movie because when we get frightened it gives us that adrenalin that is what makes a horror movie so effective.

So here is poor Casey Becker and she herself is being lulled into a false sense of security when she really ought to freaking the fuck out and all because of horror movies. The killer here uses horror movies as a way to pull his (in this movie, "his" is appropriate) prey into a secure trap, let them think they have the upper hand (see the scene later on with Neve Campbell's immortal "stupid girls with big breasts" speech) before unleashing that menacing...


"You never told me your name."
"Why do you wanna know my name?"
"Because I wanna know who I'm looking at."
Bear in mind that we're not even three minutes into this movie and already so much as gone on. It's why this sequence is a classic. So much legwork is being done for the entire film, too.


"Listen asshole-"


"No you listen you little bitch, you hang up on me again and I'll gut you like a fish, understand? Hah. Can you handle that, Blondie?
Chilling.

Of course, what follows is a defining moment of the entire franchise. The willful acknowledgment of horror movie cliches - "You should never say 'who's there?' Don't you watch scary movies? It's a death wish. You might as well just come out here to investigate a strange noise or something!" - as well as the admitted knowledge of horror movie franchises, which is something that carries on through the entire trilogy.


The scene's trivia moment is a truly terrifying moment, isn't it? Can all of us - movie aficionados all - say we'd be able to keep our calm during such a moment and be able to answer the question "Name the killer in Friday the 13th" without hesitation? Would you, too, scream "JASON! JASON! JASON!"?


From here on out the final five minutes of the scene is a good ol' fashioned chase scene (oh and a gutting or two) that really is thrilling. It's here that the legwork of those opening few minutes really comes in handy. We've seen the layout of the house through those glorious early tracking shots, but curiously we haven't seen the upstairs. This is actually quite amusing because we see Ghostface immediately run to the staircase because, again as Neve Campbell's Sidney later tells us, stupid horror movie victims always run up the stairs when they should be going out the front door. Allowing Casey to make a run for it before... well, this.



Who exactly is the Ghostface in this scene? Obviously both Billy and Stu were involved, but the killer here seems almost too smart to be Stu.


Michelle Pfeiffer once said that she used this scene as a reference point for her own performance in What Lies Beneath, saying "I thought about Drew Barrymore in the first Scream - I mean, ultimately that movie was more funny than scary, but the opening sequence was quite terrifying, and she portrayed terror in a way I'd never seen an actress do." If that's not high enough praise for you then I don't know what is. Of course, we all know what happens at the very end here. Casey's parents arrive home to discover...




Not pretty, most assuredly, but as a purely eye-opening shocking moment to kick start your movie with it sure does pack a punch. "Ripped open from end to end" as one character calls it, which is an apt description. And such brings an end to all brief love affair with cutey pie horror loving bob haircut-having beige sweater-wearing Casey Becker. We barely knew you and then you had to go and get the question about Friday the 13th wrong. She has nobody to blame but herself, really.


One thing I do have an issue with about this scene is the moment where Casey states her favourite scary movie as "Halloween. You know, the one with the guy in the white mask who walks around and stalks babysitters." I have an issue because that is not the plot of Halloween. While, yes, Jamie Lee Curtis does play a babysitter, Michael Myers is hardly a slasher movie killer only targeting babysitters. In fact, as far as I can remember, it's only numbers one and four of the Halloween franchise that even has a babysitter character (and in the fourth, The Curse of Michael Myers, it is the child, not the babysitter, being stalked). /gripe.