Morning of the creeps.

Remember first discovering horror films as an impressionable teenager, staying up late with the lights out and scaring yourself shitless?  I do.  But as any long-time horror fan knows, you become more and more immune to cinematic scares.  A decade or so ago, ghostly shocks from the Far East gave jaded western horror audiences reason to rejoice as long-haired children and juddering limbs flew through our screens, with pant-endangering results.   It’s been a long time since I felt the thrill of being really scared by a film, but recently I’ve put aside my love of seeking out comically excessive old exploitation films in favour of finding some scares, and also reacquaint myself with more current horror.

 Silent House had a few “shiiiiiiit” moments, but failed to live up to my (admittedly inflated) expectations.  If you’ve not heard about it, it’s a low-key Spanish horror, sold entirely on its single take gimmick.  The marketing made damn sure that we understand the film was shot entirely in one continuous, 80 minute shot.  ‘Real fear in real time’, the tagline helpfully informed us.  Whether or not this is the case has been the subject of much discussion on message boards, with talk of the cameras used being prone to overheating, therefore unable deliver such a lengthy take, but then apparently it is possible with wet towels to keep the cameras cool, and all kinds of message board bullshit, no doubt culminating in accusations of being a ‘liberal pussy’ or more likely, a ‘faggot’.   

But anyway, the reason I write today is because this morning I watched Paranormal Activity 3. 

Just wanted to let that hang in the air for a second.  I saw the first film in the franchise, and while I found it kind of effective, I think the impossible expectations left by the marketing dulled the fear somewhat.  I didn’t catch number 2, but after watching the third one I think I just might have to.  Because you know what?  Sitting in screen 6 on my own this morning I was, from time to time, getting pretty creeped out.  I’m properly surprised at how good the film was, given that it’s part 3 in a franchise I was never overly bothered with in the first place.  Oh by the way, that bit in the trailer with the two girls playing bloody mary?  Nowhere to be seen.  But yeah, it’s a good’un.

The scares in Paranormal Activity 3 remain intermittent however, and I’m still searching for that elusive film that can properly put the shits up me.  Something kinda recent, to ensure I don’t lose touch with modern horror entirely.  Any suggestions?   

"The pictures...they're moving!"

Ah, the moving image.  I like it, you like it, so now, as well as reading my blabbering crap, you can now watch my video blogs on youtube!  Yes, you can now gaze upon my startling visage as I bombard you with mumblings and swearings which may or may not be entirely film-related.  I'm dipping my toe in the water at the moment, so if I don't feel like it's going well, I'll close my account, stop filming myself and retreat, whimpering, back to the written word.  So, if you fancy hearing about what I've been watching this week, gazing upon my VHS collection or finding out what my randomly plucked 'Grindhouse Flick of the Week' is, head on over to http://www.youtube.com/user/LastScreenOnTheLeft?feature=mhee fucking sharpish!

The End is the Beginning is The End

Bit of an odd week at the cinema for me.  Due to the four day presence of a twelve year old nephew, I have put off watching both Bridesmaids (I know, I’ve had enough time to see it, but finding a night when both me and my lady are up for a trip to my workplace is becoming increasingly difficult) and one I’m particularly looking forward to, Horrible Bosses.  Instead, I saw something less ‘horrible’ and more, ah, horrid.  Yes, Tuesday afternoon involved a trek down to the cinema in Tatooine levels of heat to watch Horrid Henry.  Here’s what I took from the experience: The kid who played the lead was, I thought, actually very watchable, there now seems no turning back for Richard E. Grant from the dignity-robbing family film crevice he’s been steadily carving out since Spiceworld, Noel Fielding’s got a little doughy round the face, and suspicions are confirmed about two male kids’ TV presenters whose names I simply cannot allow to appear in my blog.  Suffice to say, they are cunts.

Two days before that though, I reluctantly received my first injection of every child’s favourite young wizard.  In 3D.  Now, I realise that starting with not just the final Potter film, but the final part of the final Potter film may not have been the best strategy, but the boy’s twelve, of course he’s gonna want to watch Harry Potter over Captain America.  Despite my protests.

So yeah, last Potter film, first Potter film for me.  And I quite enjoyed it, y’know.  Obviously there were parts where some previous knowledge may have helped me make some sense of things, but I picked it up – Harry needs to take down that pale faced guy, the three leads have this sort of Dawson/Joey/Pacey history going on, we thought Alan Rickman had turned evil but it turns out he had to kill the old wizard, I get it.  I was helped by the incredibly efficient storytelling, in which every scrap of dialogue seems to serve a clear narrative purpose, presumably because all the characters have been firmly established in previous instalments.  I was surprised at the relentlessly ropey acting from both Radcliffe and uh, Hermione.  Or, well, maybe that’s a little unfair.  It could be more down to a reluctance to deviate from the script, with all of that mechanical, plot-furthering dialogue, but it comes across as just that: actors spewing out rehearsed lines.  And isn’t that the mark of a decent actor?  The ability to make practised dialogue appear spontaneous and in-the-moment?  Yeah, no it wasn’t unfair.  Hermione was terrible.  But man, did you see when the evil pale face man died?  Awesome.  And those floating wraith things?  Badass.  And the two shots where something lurched out towards you, obviously put in at the studio’s request to try to fool the fools into thinking that it was worth watching in 3D?  Ace.

The Franchise That Should Not Be: A Call To Arms.

OK, so I’m aware that my last post, Terminate all Thought, sort of descended into a rant about Transformers and Michael Bay, which was not the intention.  With this post however, it absolutely is.  I may as well tell you now. 

Terrifyingly close is the release of the third film in The Franchise That Really Shouldn’t Find An Audience Due To The Fact That Those Old Enough To Have A Fondness For The Toys Are All Now Knocking On Thirty Yet The Target Audience Is Clearly 12 Year Old Boys (as I feel the series should be  known, though Total Film may have to clear some space on the cover), and once again I fear the inevitable:  Intelligent, reasonable people with otherwise respectable taste in film sitting alongside dribbling little punks in now forever tainted cinema seats.

OK, I watched the first one, dubious but hopeful, and as you know, it was a piece of shit.  It’s not worth dissecting, it’s not worth criticising.  Some dismissed it as summer popcorn fare, others as a glorified toy advert.  While these are fair conclusions, they are missing the point:  It’s a piece of shit.  ‘But Kev, what about the top-notch CGI-‘  no, it’s just a piece of shit.  ‘Didn’t Megan Fox look-‘  it doesn’t matter.  Piece of shit.

 Now, OK, despite this, I was fooled into thinking the second one might just be insane enough to warrant a watch.  I know, I know, and I’ve reprimanded myself fittingly.  But you know what?  At least I didn’t pay money to see them.  In fact, being a projectionist means I actually got paid to watch them.  But even then, I’d rather have spent my morning cleaning grease out of the gears of the projector.

And so, consider this a call to arms.  I am here to urge you, even to beg you, not to pay money to see Transformers 3.  In fact, if you do, then fuck you, you are an enemy of cinema.  You are contributing to the dumbing down of cinema, and increasing the likelihood of Hollywood putting out more of this worthless, moronic, meaningless shite.  Even if you watch the films on TV, you are boosting ratings and helping to ensure enduring interest and repeated showings.  I’ve been doing my bit, small though it may be, by inserting the trailer into as few films as possible, hoping to make even a few impressionable kids unaware of the film’s release.  And you can do your bit too.  Do not watch this slag heap of a film.  It is time to halt the ongoing march of The Franchise That Really Shouldn’t Find An Audience Due To The Fact That Those Old Enough To Have A Fondness For The Toys Are All Now Knocking On Thirty Yet The Target Audience Is Clearly 12 Year Old Boys.  Michael Bay should not have a career, Shia LaBeouf should be serving burgers and fries and Megan Fox, well, OK fair play to her for getting out when she did.

Please, ignore the inevitable four stars those spineless types at Empire magazine will bless the film with, and go watch something else.  There’s some good shit coming out this summer.

Terminate All Thought.

“Leave your brain at the door”, people are fond of telling me.  “You have to switch your brain off, and you’ll enjoy it”.  These are things I hear so often, generally as needless justification for one’s guilty cinematic pleasures, or to excuse a lack of confidence in one’s own opinions.  Even film critics use these tired clichés when they feel they are overstepping the boundary of what they, as critics, are permitted to like.  It means they can slap another star on the rating for that Jason Statham film without embarrassment. 

Firstly, all art is of course subjective, and therefore nobody need be ashamed of their likes or dislikes.  Secondly, when did the world become a place where people want to stop thinking?  The last thing I want to do is put a freeze on my thoughts.  Escapism?  Fine.  Dumb action?  Lovely.  It’s just something I’ll never understand, this whole not wanting to think.  It is our constant thought processes which make us human, no?

It really niggles my nadgers when people tell me that I would have enjoyed a lousy piece of cinematic excrement like Transformers had I had the foresight to just “switch my brain off”.  Because guess what, bitches?  I DON’T WANT TO.  My mind was whirring like the sprockets on the projector while watching Transformers, thinking up new, novel ways to express such bottomless abhorrence, and wondering how viewers can be insulted and belittled for over two hours and still go home happy.  Is society to blame?  And this is not, as someone on every imdb message board would suggest (by way of defending their tastes), snobbery.  I enjoy a dumb modern action flick as much as anyone, so long as it delivers (see Die Hard 4, Con Air), it’s just that even the action scenes in Transformers were weak, juvenile and unexciting.  And the big joke is that Mr. Bay actually does consider his films to have some meaning and importance, while even his defenders wouldn’t claim such a thing.  I remember reading an interview with him around the time The Island came out, and he was wittering on about how he is now less interested in blowing stuff up, and his new money shot is to look into an actor’s eyes, into their soul!  Ha Haaaaa Michael Bay!  I laughed and laughed.

And so I implore you readers, watch what you want, and enjoy films on whatever level you wish, but always keep your brain switched on.  There is as much to consider while watching some swill by Roland Emmerich as there is watching Apocalypse Now.  Maybe give Transformers 3 a miss though.

I Thought I Thor a Nordic God.

I went to see Thor last night and, well, you know that Simpsons episode where Mr Burns remembers being a young boy, smashing his dodgem repeatedly into the legs of that Irish handyman, then spends days laughing at the memory?  Well that’s me, still pissing myself.  The opening half hour or so sees Anthony Hopkins deliver line after line of hilarious, preposterous dialogue, matched only in his absurd delivery by Thor himself, Chris Hemsworth.  On top of that, we are introduced to Thor’s three stooges, one of whom sports a ginger beard of ZZ Top proportions, and may as well have been played by Gimli.  Sorely disappointing was when he opened his mouth and didn’t have a Scottish accent.  Honestly, with the first act barely done, the film has already thrown up every conceivable cliché in the book, and sent me and my lady into fits of giggles.

It was fucking brilliant.

Preferable film times meant that we reluctantly went to see the 3D version, which really would not have been my first choice.  But I must say this is one film where that muddy, discolouring effect the 3D filters cause is outweighed by the spectacle that is created.  The long, epic sweeping shots of Asgard (Thor’s realm) are truly astounding, and threaten to bring on a little motion sickness.

So yes, I really, really enjoyed Thor, but man, what a geeky evening at the cinema it was.  Aside from us, the only people in the auditorium were a group of (and I don’t mean this in a derogatory manner) dorks.  Lovely, polite, silent-during-the-film dorks.  So as if watching Thor, in 3D, with these dudes wasn’t geeky enough, the trailers consisted of the following: Green Lantern, X-Men: First Class, Transformers 3 and the new Pirates of The Caribbean.  The first of only two peeps heard from the nerdy fellas behind us came when the auditorium was plunged into silence following the Green Lantern trailer, and the end of a sentence rang out: “...yellow.  That’s his weakness.”  The slightly agitated tone suggested an unheard but heated disagreement over some superhero or another.  The second peep was the group laughing en masse when a Xena reference was made in the film.  Tellingly, one of the few lines in Thor that didn’t tickle me.

So yeah, altogether a rather geeky evening out.  Also, one thing I did want to mention was how dubious I was a couple of months back when it was announced that Kenneth Branagh was to direct Thor, not being a fan of his haughty breed of film making.  But seriously, the decision to bring him in was a stroke of absolute genius.  Overblown, pompous and pretentious, his style has found it’s perfect bedfellow.  Let’s hope that, with the promising-looking Captain America on the horizon, Marvel is back on track after a somewhat rocky couple of years.

Machete watches The Devils: An uncut masterpiece and a mean hangover.

I awoke on Sunday in Brighton, with precious few hours sleep under my belt, an apocalyptic hangover and a handlebar moustache.  I should have known then that a well-planned day was not on the cards.

The previous night my lady and I had travelled down to Brighton for a friend’s Mexican themed party.  I had shaved me a handlebar and hacked the sleeves off a leather jacket, she had practised walking in heels and donned an eye patch in preparation for our transformations into Machete and Luz, characters from Machete (the third best film of last year, as I’m sure you know).

But the Sunday is where we find ourselves for this story.  You see, on Sunday night London’s Barbican Centre played host to the second ever official UK screening of the uncensored director’s cut of Ken Russell’s 1971 masterpiece The Devils.  Brutal, beautiful and utterly fearless, the film acts as a damning account of the hypocrisies and corruption which formed the backbone of the Catholic church in the 17^th century.  Although The Devils has fallen foul of censors since its release, and only appeared in various neutered forms, it is the film’s distributer, Warner Brothers, who have been mostly responsible for it barely seeing the light of day.  It seems they still feel the sight of numerous naked and catatonic nuns crawling over each other to rape an edifice of Christ is too likely to upset audiences, at least if released on DVD.  The Rape of Christ is one of several notorious scenes which have been restored back into the film for the first time, largely thanks to the hard work of one Mark Kermode.  Indeed, many scenes were thought lost forever until negatives were found in various vaults around the world. 

So anyway, there we were at Brighton station, me armed with two tickets, a handlebar and a hangover the size of Jim Cameron’s sense of self-worth, beginning our trip into London.  No doubt if we’d been feeling better we would have been excited.  There was also the worry of missing our last train back that night.  They’d better start that projector before nine.  We arrived at the Barbican tube station, and, pushed for time, were given directions by a helpful homeless chap, who I wish nothing but good fortune to.  We arrived, somehow feeling worse than we had all day, and took our seats.  In attendance were members of cast and crew, as well as Ken Russell himself, who barely seemed to know where, or indeed who, he was.  But while the pre-screening chit-chat was informative and entertaining, we could do nothing but watch the time and calculate how much of the film we would have to miss in order to get the tube back to Victoria for the last train.  At well past nine the film began, and around halfway through we realised that missing the end simply wasn’t an option, so decided a taxi might just get us back in time. 

The credits rolled, we applauded (while inching our way from the auditorium).  I flagged down a taxi, and we sat, tapping and twisting our fingers anxiously, as we got caught in red light after red light.  Our train was due to leave at 11:32.  We threw money at the driver and ran into Victoria Station, where we were greeted with the news that our train was at platform 19, the very furthest from us.  It was 11:32.  And let me tell you friends, there’s a truly odd feeling which goes with running desperately through a train station with the most haunting images of burning priests and masturbating nuns spiralling round your head.  Until now I had always thought there to be something somewhat romantic about a couple running through a train station for the last train.  Another of my starry-eyed notions smashed.  We sat down, sweating and wheezing, beside an old couple.  We had made it with seconds to spare.

Despite the hangover, and despite spending outlandish amounts of money on last minute late night transport, the whole fiasco was more than worth it.  The Devils is a haunting, harrowing masterpiece, featuring truly exquisite performances from Oliver Reed and Vanessa Redgrave in the lead roles, and images that will stay with me for a long time.  Honestly, I cannot convey to you in words the tragic beauty of Redgrave’s unhinged performance as the haunted and troubled Sister Jeanne.  I feel genuinely privileged to be among the few who have had the chance to see the film in its intended state.  I really hope the event helps to jog Warner Brothers into seeing the market for an uncut DVD release, as, forty years after its release, surely it is time for The Devils to find its audience, and for them to find it.

Horror fans can be neglectful bastards.

Howdy folks, feels like it’s been a while.  I’ve been away, relaxing, seeing the family, and apart from watching a couple of films I’ve meant to see for ages (Hancock and The Invention of Lying, if you’re interested), keeping out of the loop and neglecting my duties as a film blogger.  Concentrating on other things (most recently, wondering at what point in the deterioration of a frying pan one should replace it).  But I’m back now, so no more complacency, time to get back in the saddle.  And what better way to do just that than by continuing in my Dario Argento odyssey, as promised in my post How one DVD label...

So that’s what I’m doing.  Last night I watched, for the first time, Two Evil Eyes.  Released in 1990, the film consists of two stories, each more or less an hour in length, based on Edgar Allan Poe tales.  The first, The Facts in the Case of Mr. Valdemar, was directed by George A. Romero, and stars 80s screen icon Adrienne Barbeau.  Argento directs the second story, an adaptation of The Black Cat with Harvey Keitel in the lead role.  I’ve long been aware of the film, and it is discussed in the documentary Master of Horror, and I was surprised at how good it is.  Why surprised?  I guess I was expecting for there to be a reason for the film having been largely overlooked and neglected by genre fans.  And it has, despite the reliable source material, despite the starring names, despite it being the work of two of modern horror’s most respected heavyweights.  But goddamn, it’s a cool flick.  Romero’s section is a slow-burning creeper, an EC comic-style morality tale which would not have felt out of place in his 1982 film Creepshow.  Romero’s story (one of the best of many adaptations of The Black Cat) is wall-to-wall insanity, with nutbags dream sequences, all out carnage and Keitel chewing the shit out of the scenery.

Yet you’re not gonna see it on many horror fans’ top ten lists, and I don’t know why.  See, it’s not one of those little cult films that, though brilliant, just never got the exposure necessary to make people aware of its existence, there’s a million of them.  It’s a film that horror nuts are aware of, but not one that they get all giddy over.  Perhaps it’s simply because of the two-story format.  Not since the Amicus anthologies of the 60s and 70s have horror compendiums appealed to large audiences, and studios have long been suspicious of their potential.  The idea also means that Two Evil Eyes is neither entirely a Romero film nor an Argento one.  Maybe the time the film was made works against it.  Romero’s previous film Monkey Shines was neither a critical nor commercial success, and the same goes for Argento’s Terror at The Opera (though it is now considered one of his true classics).  Maybe there exists no singular reason for the ignoring of Two Evil Eyes, perhaps it’s simply a twist of fate which leaves certain films somewhat forgotten.  And there are others.  One that comes to mind is 1979’s When a Stranger Calls, which more or less invented the calls-coming-from-inside-the-house motif, and is up there with the very best stalked babysitter flicks.  Equally ignored is the surprisingly good 1993 sequel, When a Stranger Calls Back.  I suppose the 2006 remake could have exposed people to the original, had it not been geared towards younger popcorn audiences with no wider interest in the genre.  Remaking the film in the age of mobile phones?  Baaaaaaad idea, chum.  The Hitcher is another one.  Awesome film, neglected by horror fans.  Also suffered the remake treatment.  Hang on, is a pattern forming?  How about Fright Night?

Ah crap, some prick’s gonna try to remake Two Evil Eyes, aren’t they?

The Illegal Race Through America.

I had a beautiful 104 minutes the other day which I would like to tell you about, if you’ll spare me a moment.  A moment, you’ll be pleased to hear, briefer than the one required to read my last couple of posts.  Anyway, the five-score-and-four minutes in question were spent watching 1976 car chase caper The Gumball Rally, the movie of the race of the same name.  It’s a pretty cool film by the way, but the real beauty came, as it so often does, from the stirring up of childhood memories.

If you are able, now is the time to replicate the effect of travelling back into one’s memory banks.  Maybe squint a bit, maybe play a little harp.

When I was a particularly wee nipper, probably around 7 or 8, I watched a film with my older brother, and carried from it two vague but enduring memories.  One is of a car breaking cleanly in half as it crashes through roadworks, the other is my brother telling me the name of the film is ‘The Illegal Race Through America’.  Race?  America?  Illegal?  My young imagination was captured.  A few years ago, I decided to track the film down.

By the way I do realize you already know where this tale is headed, but I shall soldier on regardless, for I feel a need to get this out.  Sharing experiences y’know?  Planting seeds.

My long search for ‘The Illegal Race Through America’ took me on a pretty cool ride as, one by one, I ploughed through every American car chase film it could conceivably have been (I realized early on that my brother had been mistaken on the title).  Thus, I got to flavour the delights of Grand Theft Auto, Cannonball! and Gone in Sixty Seconds.  The flip side of the coin was of course The Cannonball Run which, while certainly no Smokey and The Bandit 3, is a pretty wretched sack of swill, oozing with slapstick characters, sped-up driving scenes and a severely past-his-best Burt Reynolds.  In short, it’s a homeless man’s Gumball Rally.  I watched each of these films and more, hoping beyond hope to see a car fall clean in two during a decidedly unlawful race across the Land of the Free, but ended up disappointed every time.  Particularly the time I watched The Cannonball Run. 

And then I tracked down The Gumball Rally.  And I watched it.  And I shuffled forward on my seat as a car approached some roadworks, and let me tell you friends, that car broke clean in two.  And this race was illegal, not to mention through America!  I sat and I smiled.  I had found the film.  Not to mention become somewhat of a connoisseur of American car chase films.

How one DVD label and a crop of finger-licking bonus features led to a second chance for Dario.

Man , gotta love Arrow Video.  Just watched their fully uncut, 30^th Anniversary release of Dario Argento’s Inferno,  his fantastically odd sequel to Suspiria, and one-time casualty of the video nasties fiasco.  What’s that I hear you cry?  “Wow Kevan, that’s brilliant, but what bonus features can I expect to find on the disc?  By the way, love the blog.”  Well firstly thanks for the kind words, but to answer your question, the 2-disc beauty contains, among other things, interviews with director and cast (ace!), a substantial collector’s booklet (rad!), and a fine documentary narrated by none other than Mark Kermode (mega!)! 

Oh and no, I don’t work for Arrow Video.  But damn, I wish I did.

See while (as I touched upon in my last post) DVD has meant that grindhouse addicts such as myself can now buy all kinds of forgotten trash guilt-free from respectable outlets, one thing we rarely get is decent extras.  Of course this is due to the fact that such releases are generally from small labels such as Vipco, Hardgore or tireless flag flyers Shameless Screen Entertainment, and putting nice packages together costs money.  Also, when you’re dealing with obscure, 30 or 40 year old cult films, extra materials are not easy to come by.  Yet Arrow Video keep doing it, be it for their release of Dawn of The Dead, or the grimy urban filth of Street Trash, an unbelievably out there film whose tagline screamed “The ultimate melt movie!”.  What was that, treasured readers?  Is that you I hear piping up again?  “What the hell is a ‘melt movie’ Kevan?  Maybe you could enlighten us, perhaps in a future post of your entertaining yet informative blog”.

Well, thanks again, there’s really no need.  But seeing as you requested it, I will, in an upcoming post, educate one and all with a history of the sparse sub-sub-genre known as the melt movie.  You’ll have to remind me though.

But anyway, enough of the shameless gushing over Arrow Video (God, I love them), and back to Argento, whom I first came became aware of  when, as a horror-hungry teen I stumbled across a video of the Argento documentary Master of Horror.  The early years of my obsession with horror and trash cinema involved watching anything and everything that looked like it might be even vaguely fucked up, and reading up as much as possible.  As you can well imagine, I quickly became aware of Argento’s reputation as Italy’s ‘Master of Horror’.  Yet when I first saw Suspiria, much as I wanted to love it, I just wasn’t that blown away.  As a gore addicted young ‘un I was more partial, in terms of Italian horror, to Lucio Fulci’s over-the-top gore ‘epics’, and the supremely nasty cannibal gut-crunchers, which I still think rank among cinema’s most extreme offerings.

 I wanted to love Argento, but why force it?  I resigned myself to feeling that while his films are far from terrible, the man is really overrated.  It filled me with warmth then, as my feelings were validated years later by Jason Bateman’s character in Juno, who expressed his preference of Herschell Gordon Lewis over Argento: “Argento’s alright”.  I didn’t have to feel alone any more.

But time goes on y’know?  And things change.  Once you’ve exhausted Fulci’s best films, like City of the Living Dead, The Beyond, Zombie Flesh Eaters and yes, The New York Ripper, there’s really little to discover.  Sorry, what was that?  “The New York Ripper Kevan, really?  But I’ve heard it’s a startlingly adolescent and misogynistic piece of utter filth.  Also, your words are pure linguistic beauty, your blog life-changing”.

Please, you really must stop, but yes, The New York Ripper has been berated by critics for its thoroughly unpleasant lady-slicing, and it takes some defending, but sometimes you just gotta take the ride.  If you’re gonna watch an abhorrent piece of shit, why not yourself become an abhorrent piece of shit, if only for ninety minutes.

Anyway the point is, I’m older and a little wiser, and I think the time has come to revaluate Argento.  Watching Inferno for the first time, I enjoyed it immensely, and I do think I’d get a lot more out of his films nowadays.  Therefore, I have promised myself I will begin by revisiting Suspiria and Deep Red, and getting a copy of Terror at The Opera (the spangly 2-disc Arrow release, natch).    

The shadow of James Ferman.

“Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it.”

                                                                                                Mark Twain

The year was 1999.  After 24 dictatorial years as director of the British Board of Film Classification, James Ferman finally stepped down, and within just a few months we were flooded with spanky new releases of long banned classics such as The Exorcist and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.  Over the next few years, and with the advent of DVD, British audiences could, for the first time since the Video Recordings Act was passed in 1984, finally enjoy the uncut, censor baiting brilliance of countless films like Blood Feast, The Driller Killer and Don’t Look in The Basement.  For fans of obscure horror and extreme cinema, it seemed like a new golden age as grainy, third generation VHS pirates were left on the shelf to collect dust.

But whereas the dust continues to gather on my dodgy old tapes, the BBFC seems to have dusted off Ol’ Man Ferman’s scissors and are, of late, getting worryingly snip-happy.  While it is commonplace for the BBFC to ‘suggest’ cuts to reduce a films certificate for a wider audience (see: Die Hard 4.0, The Expendables), there remains a culture of spinelessness and anxiety regarding the passing of graphic (and particularly sexual) violence.  After the outright rejection of Japanese torture, torture and more torture horror flick Grotesque a couple of years back, heavy cuts have been imposed on the harsh horrors of recent releases A Serbian Film and I Spit on Your Grave.  In the case of the former, 49 cuts were put in place, totaling well over four minutes. 

After watching the freely available uncut version of A Serbian Film (suck on that, ya freedom hating killjoy bastards), I began thinking about how, while the internet means film piracy has changed immeasurably since those VHS trading days, one thing that remains the same is how cutting and banning films does nothing but increase and promote a) interest and knowledge of films that may otherwise slip under most people’s radars and b) film piracy itself.  After rather enjoying the film (is ‘enjoying’ the word?), I felt a need to know what exactly the BBFC had cut from the UK release, so I sought out the full list of cuts.  Reading the list I found it to be, rather paradoxically, both hilariously funny and more distressing than the film itself.  I’ll give you a couple of highlights.

After shot of Marko being fellated by woman and the dialogue, Come, blow harder. Blow harder, remove entire shot of Petar and his mother blowing candles on birthday cake.

In rapid montage, remove shot of Jeca sucking ice lolly intercut with the shots of Milos' face (as he penetrates man's eye socket) and close shots of female genitals.

I would urge you to seek it out, it’s a good read.

I would also urge you to give the film (uncut, of course) a go.  While it may be difficult to morally defend everything depicted in A Serbian Film, it is an intelligent, interesting and utterly fearless piece of work which acts as a nihilistic, eviscerating attack on the increasingly depraved methods of contemporary pornographers.  And at NO point is the violence anything other than devastatingly horrible, and we are certainly not encouraged to applaud it or be excited by it (unlike with say, the Hostel or Saw films, which the BBFC has no issues with).

I also watched the remake of I Spit on Your Grave recently, again uncut, and was rather surprised that the BBFC felt it necessary to cut 43 seconds due to “shots of nudity that tend to eroticise sexual violence and shots of humiliation that tend to endorse sexual violence by encouraging viewer complicity in sexual humiliation and rape”.

This is the same tired old crap that James Ferman used to spew out to defend his decisions back in the day.  Now call me crazy, but what film maker wants to “endorse” sexual violence and encourage the viewer’s “complicity” in rape?  Is there any film out there that could cause a reasonable human being to think ‘hey maybe, just maybe I had it all wrong about this sexual humiliation and rape stuff.  Mayhap it’s not the demon it’s made out to be’?

The BBFC are idiots.  They do not trust you, they belittle you.  They are not protecting you from harmful material, they are stamping on your personal freedom.

Incidentally, the cuts to the I Spit on Your Grave remake pale in comparison to those still imposed on Meir Zarchi’s 1978 original, which total close to three minutes!  See, there’s still some unease left over from the days of the video nasties scandal, meaning stuff that would probably get through the BBFC if shot today is still forbidden when it forms part of  a grainy, washed out looking old exploitation flick.  Cannibal Holocaust, The New York Ripper and Faces of Death have no hope of uncut releases anytime soon, Ruggero Deodato’s The House on the Edge of The Park remains the most censored 18 rated UK release with over 11 minutes of cuts, and Fight For Your Life, once a staple of the video nasties list (not to mention one of my very favourite exploitation films and a perfect definition of the term Grindhouse) remains banned.

Next post:  Business as usual - light-hearted comments about cinema food and fatsuits.

Tales from the projection booth: Silence is Golden

Well I know you were all bitterly disappointed that I brushed over Big Momma’s House 3 in my last post so gather round friends, for I have a tale to tell.  A tale of something that happened at work today which gave more insight and a better review of the film than any critic could possibly provide.

I work as a projectionist and after starting the film (screen 1, 3.35pm if you’re interested, haha!  You’re not.  And you know what if you are, stop reading now, I don’t want you here.  There’s plenty more internet to explore.  Go look at Two Girls One Cup and then excitedly tell your dumb little friends how ‘hilarious’ it is.), I left the projection booth, sneering at the people who paid to watch such cinematic swill.  Later, while doing my routine screen checks, I waltzed in during the film and as one might expect, the auditorium was filled with young children and teenagers.  And guess what?  Apart from a single outburst from what can only have been a lone howler monkey enjoying the riotous larks...Dead.  Fucking.  Silence.

And while that seemed to sum up Big Momma’s House rather neatly, what I couldn’t help wondering is WHY CAN’T KIDS BEHAVE LIKE THAT WHEN I’M TRYING TO WATCH A FILM?  It just doesn’t seem fair.  Unfortunately folks, the situation seems to be this: If you want kids to sit in stony silence, allowing you a peaceful viewing experience, you may have to limit your cinema viewings to films  starring Martin Lawrence.  It gets me wondering if this wouldn’t be a better way to market his – ugh – ‘comedies’. 

‘Want to sit in a quiet cinema with nary a chuckle nor murmur to be heard?  Come see Big Momma’s House 3!  Yes it’s shit, but at least the kids keep their Cheesestring holes shut!’

I might watch it if I saw that on the poster.

No, I wouldn’t.

This week's releases. Ha! If only life were that simple.

In a year that, not yet into its third month, has already given us such cinematic gold as Black Swan, True Grit and The Fighter, I’m sure you’ll agree it seems a sad week for cinema when Friday’s two biggest releases were Big Momma’s House 3 and a documentary about Justin Bieber.  Yes, some genius decided that the lovable scamp with such delicate, feminine features yet the eyebrows of Dennis Norden has had, in his sixteen years in this world, a life interesting and inspiring enough to warrant a feature length documentary.  But you know what, no matter how tempting it may be to write the boy off as an irritating, weasely, repugnant, sickly monkey-boy slice of thoroughbred Americana who epitomises everything wrong with contemporary popular culture, I feel I have to constantly remind myself that he is not the enemy, and I implore you to do the same.  Put aside that hatred people, he’s just a boy.  And there’s something pretty messed up about grown adults hating a child.  The real villain of this piece is a man who for some reason goes by the name of Usher, and who I'm told ‘discovered’ young Bieber.  Now I don’t claim to know a lot about this character but I have no reservations whatsoever about focusing a direct beam of concentrated hate at a man who is knowingly using this boy to arouse naive pre-pubescent girls for his own financial gain.  Know your enemy friends, and target your anger accordingly.  

But shit, sorry, this is supposed to be a film blog sooooooooo...Big Momma’s House.  Oh, Lord.  I don’t know where to start.  So I won’t, you know the deal anyway. 

What a week.

Is it just me or does all the overblown hyperbole we are force fed about film piracy damaging the film industry and endangering future film production suddenly seem a strangely attractive notion?  If only any of it were true.

BAFTA night? Oh go on then.

Sunday night was BAFTA night and I thought I’d better write about it here, so here’s my rundown of the evening, as best I can remember it.

A misjudged opening to the event perplexes the audience by having some people dancing for a bit, and then some awards are presented by stammering fools who appear never to have spoken in front of other humans before.  People like Nicholas Hoult, who is presumably just completing his Key Stage 2 reading exercises.  Helena Bonham Carter talked for a long while, Colin Firth, who bears an odd resemblance to the BAFTA statue itself,  gave a curiously well planned and rehearsed acceptance speech for winning Best Actor (anyone would think he expected to get it), Samuel L. Jackson is the only non-white attendee on stage all night (no point to make here, just sayin’) and David Fincher couldn’t be there ‘cause he’s busy making a completely unnecessary remake that no right-minded person wants.  Or “his next gift to us”, as the thoroughly unlikeable Andrew Garfield puts it.  The most exciting part of the night came when Dominic Cooper and Rosamund Pike stepped up to present an award, coming across like a pair of giggling, babbling morons, and Pike opened the envelope and almost revealed the winner before the nominations had been read out, prompting host Jonathan Ross to jump in and stop her.  In fact the whole bumbling affair seemed to be brimming with such amateurish idiocy, Ross’ professionalism just about holding things together. 

There were however, a few moments which proved a delight to behold.  The viewing public did the right thing by voting for Tom Hardy in the Rising Star category, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo finally got academy recognition, winning in the unnecessarily wordy Best Film not in the English Language category and, much to my surprise and delight, Noomi Rapace was nominated in the best actress category.  I mean she was never gonna win, but still.  I was very pleased to see Chris Morris win Outstanding Debut by a British Director for Four Lions, which was far and away the best comedy of last year.  He wasn’t there to accept but come on, can you really see the misanthropic genius at an event like this?  I’d have been disappointed if he was.  And then there was the beautiful ending to a predictably underwhelming night when the Legend nay, the God, Sir Christopher Lee took to the stage to accept his Fellowship award.  Eloquent, humble, he spoke with a grace and humility that truly exposed the falseness and self importance of many of the younger, higher-paid ‘stars’ who graced the stage that night (Garfield, I'm looking at you).  One little complaint though: Why oh why oh why oh why did whoever put together the montage of Lee’s clips feel the need to throw in THREE clips of Count fucking Dooku?  Piss on the man’s big moment why don’t you.

On the first day he created 3D. And on the second, he had a tantrum because people weren't using it properly.

So this week saw the release of not very anticipated 3D caving thriller Sanctum or, to give it its full US title, James Cameron’s Sanctum.  Haven’t seen it, can’t imagine I will, and so I’ll reserve judgement.  To some degree.  I haven’t heard anything positive though.

It’s supposedly based on the true story of a group of cavers (one of them co-writer Andrew Wight.  Kerching!) who were stuck for two days when a cave collapsed around them.  It was shot with the same 3D techniques used for Avatar and is the second feature directed by Alister Grierson, but who cares about all that shit, I see James Cameron’s name on the poster!  Yes, the man who gave the world hope, the man who invented dreams, and children.  The man whose nickname I’m told is ‘Iron Jim’ (though I’m dubious anyone but himself has ever referred to him as such.  From here on in however, I’m absolutely going to).  He’s also the man who had a big old paddy over Alexandre Aja’s slap in the face of pretentiousness, Piranha 3D, last year declaring the film “exactly an example of what we should not be doing in 3D”, then babbling on about how a film of this type “cheapens the medium”.  Who the Sam Worthington is he to be instructing film makers on how they should be using their technology?  Well I suppose he did invent 3D.  And motion pictures.  What an utter prick.

See the thing is, 3D absolutely is a gimmick, and is best served with cheesy shocks and cheap thrills; that’s what it’s for.  Actually that’s not what it’s for, it’s to make film piracy more difficult and bring punters back to the cinema, where they will be charged a weighty mark-up on their already outlandish ticket price, before having it sheepishly explained to them that the glasses will cost them further.  Nevertheless, in my mind at least, 3D is best enjoyed with comedic shocks and over-the-top scares.  Indeed, the best use of 3D I’ve seen thus far would be in Joe Dante’s ludicrously enjoyable The Hole. 

I’m obviously mistaken however, as a far higher authority tells us that 3D is about immersion, drawing the viewer further into a film’s world than has ever been possible.  Again, I am forced into disagreeing with Iron Jim, as I find full immersion difficult with an ill-fitting pair of plastic specs sitting on my snout and ghostly double-images floating about in the space between me and the screen.  As I said, I do think 3D has its place, but to me it has the exact opposite effect to what Iron Jim is so keen on telling us.  3D has the somewhat Brechtian effect of distancing the viewer from the art, giving us something to enjoy and consider outside of the story we see unfolding and making us conscious of the mechanics behind the art.  What a complete and utter prick.

As I have said, I can’t really give an opinion of Sanctum, but I won’t pretend it didn’t raise a smile to see it underperforming at the box office.  After all, it’s made far less in its opening weekend than Piranha did.  And if you’re gonna take a true story of an ordeal suffered by several people (not just your co-writer), turn it into a 3D thriller and promote it as a horror flick , maybe you should also give some serious thought as to who’s really “cheapening the medium”.  You prick.

Baffling bursts of laughter and the coming together of popcorn and piss.

Yesterday I finally got round to seeing Darren Aronofsky's award-baiting Black Swan and I must say it's the classiest and most stylish piece of trash I've seen in a long time.  Overflowing with essentially pretty cheap scares and sudden outbursts of violence and horror, it really is a masterpiece of lurid sleaze.  Loved it loved it loved it.  Also it acts as a perfect companion piece to The Wrestler, both centring around performance art (but at very different ends of the spectrum), both surprisingly lurid and grimy films about the suffering body and/or mind can endure in pursuit of said art.

While sat there, utterly entranced by Black Swan, with people screaming - screaming, no less - around me, I started to become a touch unnerved by another crowd reaction.  Deep enough into the film for it to have firmly established itself as something somewhat sinister, shock scenes which had me wide-eyed and worried for my sanity as much as Natalie Portman's seemed to serve merely as light amusement for others.  At more than a couple of moments in the film, the odd few people would burst into laughter, and I'm not talking nervous giggles here, nor was it laughing at the film and any ineptitudes they may have felt were there, but utterly hysterical, pant-pissing, that's-the-best-joke-I've-ever-seen-in-a-film belly laughs. 

People are weird.

Anyway this got me a'thinking, this was not the only time of late when I've observed odd behaviour from fellow cinema goers.  One that springs to mind occurred while watching Danny Boyle's thoroughly compelling 127 Hours.  Now, I'm not one to graze on popcorn throughout a film, never have been, but I understand why to some it's an important part of the cinema-going experience.  And sure, if you're watching Transformers or Tron, staring at the screen with your soulless, dead eyes lurking lifelessly behind a pair of 3D glasses then please, feel free to chow on your flavourless cat litter all you want. 

But 127 Hours?  Odd choice, but there she was, sat just a few seats from me.  A pearl-haired old dear crunching happily away while James Franco suffered the ordeal of a lifetime. 

It just doesn't seem right. 

The kicker came when our hero starts urinating in a flask in case he might need to, y'know, for survival and that. 

"Urgh!", the lady exclaimed with palatable disgust.  Which she followed up with another bite.

And you bet your nuts she was still going at it when the arm came off.

Welcome friends, cinephiles, necrophiles...hell, welcome to all the 'philes!

Welcome to my humble film blog.  Allow me to regale you with intermittent tales of how cinema controls my every thought, and wow you with news of what I have been watching, observations made while at the cinema, as well as snippets of stories from the projection booth, where I spend eight meaningless hours a day.

And at some point I'll get round to telling you why 3D has fooled everyone, why S.F. Brownrigg was the greatest director you've never heard of, and why Kubrick's The Shining is obviously the best film ever made.

What you won't find here is straight-up reviews.  There's more than enough of those knocking about elsewhere, mostly providing worthless, one-sided viewpoints and spoiling the beauty and wonder of going into a film blind.  By which I mean without too much prior knowledge of the film, not actually, y'know.  That's what Audio Description is for.