I've had Joe Wright's Atonement on my mind a bit lately. I think it has to do with the absence of one Keira Knightly and one James McAvoy. Two actors who very quickly became two of my favourite actors from this decade, Knightley especially, although I admit to forgetting that The Duchess was only a year ago, but I didn't see Wanted and so it feels like the last time I saw their beautiful - BEAUTIFUL - faces was in this British romance drama from 2006. It's certainly a film that has solidified in my mind as one of the very best of the its year (at the time I was sure it'd head in the other direction).
You'll find that a good number of the images I took from Atonement are from the opening half. I think that it is the strongest part of the film and is some of the finest filmmaking of the decade. Not that the rest of the movie isn't, but I remain so entirely enamoured with the scenes at the estate.
I love this shot in black and white. Makes it looks quite ethereal, don't you think?
I know there's not much difference between these two shots, but I truly couldn't decide which one to use and which to ditch. So I did the truly Libran thing and floundered about before just giving up and using both. On one hand I love the look Knightley is giving in the first, on the other hand I love the shape of her neck in the second. Strange, yes, but you wouldn't have it any other way.
One of the things I think this series does is find out who has a face that would have been a star in eras past and I think Knightley passes that with flying colours. I admit to being a much bigger fan of hers than the average person, but just look at her here (and especially the last image).
I like that this shot actually feels a bit like a horror movie or Alice in Wonderland.
I chose this image for two reasons. The first is because, well, just LOOK at it would ya?! He's so handsome and this particular moment is just filled with adorable cheekiness. Secondly, I found it hard to find a good shot of McAvoy that felt especially classic.
This scene was a bit... steamy, wasn't it? Sex scenes are generally quite silly a lot of the time and not even remotely sexy. It's like, whod've thunk that two people in a movie could enjoy sex that wasn't all caresses and light pecks to the neck or whatever passes for a sex scene these days.
A creepy moment in general, but in black and white it becomes even more so. Perhaps it belongs to the same horror movie as the picture of Saoirse Ronan walking through the garden from earlier. This image actually gives me chills. And so soon after the last image. Not pleasant.
Virtually a black and white moment anyway, but becomes even more classic now.
Truly stunning. Plus, just looking at this image makes me want to well up. She devastates me.
Balibo Dir. Robert Connolly Year: 2009 Aus Rating: M Running Time: 111mins
The words “Balibo Five” tend to elicit a lot of emotion in Australians. The tale of five young Aussie blokes in East Timor on the brink of war has been one that continues to evolve as new evidence comes to light. The latest step is this film by Robert Connolly (The Bank) simply entitled Balibo. It is emotionally charged, stunningly realised, powerfully made and is a film that, whilst I’m hesitant to say it, every Australian should see.
...to read the rest of this review please click on over to Onya Magazine.
William Friedkin's The Exorcist has always intrigued me. Apart from the obvious things - well-made, scary, though provoking, etc - there has always been this feeling with me that the movie feels more intimate than it really is. It reminds me of a British horror movie of sorts, with it's gloomy weather and with its use of art direction. So I wonder what it would look like if done like a small British movie like Seance on a Wet Afternoon? We shall see.
This looks more like something out of Ingar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander, actually.
The Exorcist is a good example of a ouija board. I remember there was a British horror flick from early in the decade (maybe even earlier?) about a bunch of kids who release a demon via their ouija board. It was a bad example.
This attic sequence is, actually, my favourite scene in The Exorcist. No surprise that it is the most similar to the old sort of fright flicks that the movie reminds me of in look.
You know what? This moment is scary no matter what the colour scheme. Whoever thought to put that in there - whether it be the screenwriter of the director or the editor - they deserve a prize. A big shiny prize. Hopefully one that isn't possessed though.
God, I really do love Ellen Burstyn. I think the screencaps of her, especially, feel like actual shots from old ghost stories.
If this movie were made in the '50s what child actress would have been cast as Reagan? Of course, this movie wouldn't have actually been made in the '50s, but that is besides the point.
Love the cross shadow across her face. There is so much fascinating imagery in this movie that even a scene in which the power goes out can be taken as much more. And I just wanted to include the smaller image because it's such a great moment too, but doesn't really play as anything different when in black and white.
Oh you knew I was gonna do this moment, didn't you? Looks even better in black and white, too! See, doesn't this just remind of you a scene from some old Jack the Ripper movie or something?
Such a great moment and a nice little play of the camera. I actually think the way the room is lit makes it quite astonishing in black and white.
And so I said to myself, "I should get a cap of the 'spider walk', but I don't remember where it is" (the DVD I have is, obviously, the Version You've Never Seen) and I just randomly clicked on the playbar and what scene should pop up? I do believe it's magic that made it happen. Or Satan. ONE OF THE TWO!
A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET PART 2: FREDDY'S REVENGE 1985, dir. Jack Sholder
Or as I like to call it; Gaymare on Camp Street Part 2: Freddy's Queer. In this, the first of many sequels to Wes Craven's 1984 original Nightmare on Elm Street, is an odd affair. It takes a much different thought process to the mythology of Freddy Krueger. Instead of the burnt child molester haunting and murdering people in their sleep, in Freddy's Revenge he actually takes over the body of a high school student called Jesse who then goes around unsure as to whether he is killing people or just dreaming it. To be perfectly honest with you, I'm not even sure I followed the storyline or whether that description I just gave is correct. That didn't stop me, however, from thinking it was ridiculousness of the highest order. Freddy even appears in the real world for the second half the film, something that strains credibility even in a movie such as this. Nevertheless, I'm not here to talk about this movies shortcomings, I'm here to discuss how incredible it is.
Before I get going into this movie I need to question something. So, in then original Heather Langenkamp starred as Nancy along with others like Johnny Depp. They were the first set of kids to be tormented by Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) in their dreams. However, nobody from that movie returns for the sequel. So how is it "Freddy's Revenge", exactly? It's not exactly revenge if you're targeting people who don't even know about the events from the first film, is it? "Freddy's a Bastard", perhaps? And then there's the little issue that this sequel is set five years after the first... five years! And yet the fashions haven't changed a bit. The '80s must have felt like an eternity in this town!
A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge actually starts off quite well, with a nicely done opening sequence involving a runaway yellow school bus (that is such an American thing, isn't it?) and three teenagers. It has a wonderful edge of "whose nightmare is this?" and then it ends with this, which is the sort of imagery that the series has become known for.
Why yes, "Touch Me (All Night Long)" by Wish featuring Fonda Rae. That'll get that adolescent anger brimming. FONDA RAE, people! He handles the fact that he's not allowed to go to his girlfriend's house and swim in her pool rather well, actually.
What follows is, most definitely, the gayest thing I have ever seen in a horror movie (excluding stuff like Otto. Actually, no, let's include it, my statement still stands). He proceeds to dance around his bedroom in Elton John gold glitter glasses, while bumping and grinding to a mid-80s freestyle dance track. I feel like a reel of Footloose got misplaced and inserted in here. There is masturbation simulation, oh yes.
Watch it below on YouTube. It is amazing. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G-!
The film's quite incredible amount of homo-erotic tendencies isn't just relegated to impromptu dance numbers. Oh no! One of the stranger aspects of Freddy's Revenge is the gym coach, played by Randy Quaid lookalike Marshall Bell. When he's not watching his students wrestle in their jock straps and short shorts...
or watching them after a hot shower...
he's going to S&M bars!
This particular development is especially strange since when the underage Jesse is caught - *gasp* - drinking beer at a bar, Coach Schneider then takes the young kid back to the school gymnasium (in the middle of the night?) and makes him do laps before the camera watches him slowly clean himself off in the showers. All of this while in the very next room the coach is getting pummeled by balls. I don't mean that as a euphemism, but balls do actually fly at his face. He is then strung up by his wrists like in a scene from a porn movie before getting whipped by magical flying towels.
I seriously couldn't make this stuff up if I tried!
There is, indeed, more male nudity in A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge than there is female nudity. In fact, there is NONE of the latter whatsoever, and yet we see multiple male arses plus quite a few close-ups of barely-covered genitalia. The closest a straight male viewer gets to any titillation is at the pool party sequence when the girls where their bikinis. I must say, that pre-Baywatch number is quite sporty, don't you think?
Then, of course, we get to the other big scene that sends off rainbow-coloured fireworks. Having left his girlfriend's cabana pool party midway through a breast-tonguing (I believe that is the technical term for it) because he was "worried" that something was trying to "come out" of him (oh dear, poor gal was oblivious to it all) he runs away. Runs away to where?
The bedroom of the high school jock who he got into a wrestling match with and bonded with during detention with Coach Schneider in the locker rooms, of course. Oh yes, that high school jock. What follows are these fantastic dialogue exchanges. Words cannot express how hilarious they are. Really, honestly, truly.
"Tonight with Lisa in the cabana it started happening again... Something is trying to get inside my body."
"Yeah, she's female and she's waiting for you in the cabana and you wanna sleep with me."
"No! I don't... know. I'm all messed up. What difference does it make? I'm in trouble."
"Alright man, what do you want me to do?"
"Just watch me."
Ooh, scintillating. For a brief moment I thought he was going to go into a Naomi Watts slapper routine. Did I mention that Grady has a Limahl poster in his room? Somebody's an awfully big fan of German fantasy films with Giorgio Moroder soundtracks. This is perhaps the best part of the movie, for reasons that should be easy to figure out.
I haven't shown any caps involving the lead actress who looks so much like a young Meryl Streep at times that it occasionally took me out of the movie. Well, took me out of the movie as much as you can with a movie like this, I suppose. It was quite scary at times watching this Kim Myers chick (hey, her surname has four letter from Meryl's first name - what a scary coincidence!!!) but let us just say that Myers' talents lie in resembling Meryl Streep more than actually acting like her. Even today she still looks like her quite a bit.
I will finish this entry with one bit from the movie that I don't understand at all. Not sure where it comes from, but it's there and it's weird and... well, you'll see.
In conclusion, this is probably the most absurd entry in the Nightmare on Elm Street canon. The entire franchise could probably count as being absurd, but the overriding fantasy element and it's place in the storyline makes it acceptable and the films are better of for it. Part two, Freddy's Revenge, on the other hand, is absurd for completely different reasons. Homoerotica, Meryl Streep lookalikes and crazy camp dance numbers specifically. I'm honestly not sure what the makers of this movie were doing. On the Scale of Absurdity I give it a 4/5. The series' over-riding strangeness diminishes some of the absurdity, but - in all fairness - this movie is extremely bloody absurd. Bravo!
