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Worm’s Eye View: Cinema’s 14 Greatest Suicides Part 2

no@spam.com (Mighty Worm) — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

Ah, movie suicide... It comes in all shapes and sizes. It can be sad, surprising, devastating, funny, cathartic, even noble. Who doesn’t love a good suicide scene?

The countdown continues from last time.

I only had two rules here:

• Must be a successful suicide. Luke Wilson’s attempted suicide in The Royal Tenenbaums is a powerful scene, but the dude lives. No dice.
• Must be an important character in the film. The opening subway mass-suicide in Suicide Club is utterly fantastic, but it lacks emotional significance since we don’t know any of the girls. No dice.

And in case it needs to be said, if you haven’t seen some of these films, this definitely is spoiler territory.

7 Little Bill in Boogie Nights
The Set Up:
Sad-sack Little Bill (William H Macy) has already put up with a lot from his unfaithful, bitchy wife. The final straw comes when Bill finds her partaking in mini-orgy at a party. Not only does she not stop when busted, she tells him to fuck off cause he's "embarrassing" her.
The Suicide:
In an epic steadycam single take, set to the slightly off-mood groove of Three Dog Night's "Mama Told Me Not To Come," Little Bill calmly walks outside and retrieves a gun from his car. He then calmly walks back into the party and calmly shoots his wife and the men she's fucking. Then he calmly puts the gun in his own mouth and calmly blows his brains out.
The Impact:
Emotionally low, as Little Bill really only gets our pathetic sympathy, but the slow burn and charge of the scene is amazing, which provides a level of disturbing shock.

6 The Predator in Predator
The Set Up:
After coming to Earth to hunt the most dangerous game, the Predator has whittled down its numerous prey to the ultimate challenger... Arnold. Deciding to do away with its gizmos, the Predator goes into epic hand-to-hand combat with the muscly Austrian.
The Suicide:
Arnold proves sneakier than expected, and lures the alien into a trap. When the Predator finds itself crushed by a huge log and bleeding to death on the jungle floor, it finally shows its true colors... it's a sore fucking loser. In one of cinema's greatest Fuck You Moments, the Predator sets off a bomb on its wrist and goes out laughing, taking half the jungle with it.
The Impact:
Pure awesome. Though kind of a bitch move, it definitely demonstrated that the Predator isn't someone to fuck with, even right up to the end.

5 Brooks Hatlen in The Shawshank Redemption
The Set Up:
Brooks (James Whitmore) is the prison librarian and one of the oldest convicts at Shawshank. He's been in prison longer than he was ever on the outside world. He's been "institutionalized." When he finds out he's being released he almost kills another inmate just so he won't be set free, but Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) and his other buddies talk him down.
The Suicide:
After a gently depressing sequence showing Brooks trying to give civilian life a go - confused by automobiles and working a demeaning job as a grocery bagboy - Brooks determines this isn't the life for him. He carves the words "Brooks Was Here" on one of the beams in the ceiling and then promptly hangs himself from it.
The Impact:
Motherfucking sad. Not only was Brooks one of the most likable characters in the film, but the nature of his death also has depressing ramifications for our hero, Andy. Freedom is what Andy longs for, but now we get concrete evidence that every year he spends in Shawshank is potentially making that freedom even more dangerous than staying inside.

4 Frankie Dunlan in Combat Shock
The Set Up:
Frankie (Rick Giovinazzo) had a rough time in Nam and is now having an even rougher time back in the real world. He has an nagging wife, he's out of work, he has horrible flashbacks and headaches, and his newborn child is a freaky mutant because of Frankie's exposure to Agent Orange during the war. The movie follows the last day in Frankie's life as the world just keeps on shitting on him. Finally, after getting roughed up by some gangster thugs, Frankie snaps, taking their gun and killing them.
The Suicide:
Now officially broken as a human being, Frankie returns home. When his wife nags, he shoots and kills her. When his mutant baby cries, he shots the baby in its crib. When the baby doesn't die, he takes it and puts it in the oven to bake it to death. Then Frankie pours himself a glass of rotten milk, takes a sip, then blows his brains all over the wall.
The Impact:
The first 95% of this film are almost insufferably dull, but this last 5% definitely ranks as one of the most out-of-nowhere, violently bonkers endings. Can't say I was emotionally involved with the characters, but Jesus, what an ending.

3 Maude in Harold and Maude
The Set Up:
Harold is a morbid and apathetic rich kid who loves staging fake suicides. Maude is a kooky and full of life old lady who loves attending funerals for people she doesn't know. Together they find a special kind of love.
The Suicide:
After finally having sex with Maude and then telling his mother that he plans to marry the old woman, Harold throws Maude a surprise party for her 80th birthday. After the party Maude confesses that she has taken poison tablets; as she had said earlier in the film - eighty years old is the proper age to die. Harold rushes her to the hospital, but it is too late.
The Impact:
Incredibly sad, but also weirdly heart-warming after we realize Harold will pull through all this a better man (as evidenced by his banjo playing on the bluff in the film's final scene). And for a movie with so much fake suicide, it's also very fitting.

2 Pvt. Pyle in Full Metal Jacket
The Set Up:
Pvt. Pyle (Vincent D'Onofrio in the role of a lifetime) is a fat, lazy and borderline retarded manchild, which does not sit well with his drill instructor, Gny. Sgt. Hartman (R. Lee Ermey also in the role of a lifetime). Pyle just can't do anything right, so Hartman turns the other recruits against him. After a savage scene in which the other recruits beat Pyle with bars of soap while he lies in bed, Pyle suddenly becomes a model solder. But something isn't right.
The Suicide:
In what is probably the scariest, most tense suicide scene ever, Pvt. Joker (Matthew Modine) discovers Pyle loading his rifle in the bathroom. Judging from the evil demon look on Pyle's face, bad things are happening in the dude's head. When Hartman enters, spouting off his standard instantly-quotable insults towards Pyle, Pyle shoots Hartman in the chest. Then he puts the rifle in his own mouth and pulls the trigger.
The Impact:
Creepy and shocking, times ten. I was so haunted by this scene when I first saw the film as a kid, that years later I completely forgot this happens at the midway point; that there's a whole other movie after the boot camp section. If someone is talking about Full Metal Jacket they're invariably talking about Pyle and Hartman. Truly intense.

1 Billy Bibbit in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
The Set Up:
Billy (Brad Dourif) is a stuttering, neurotic mess with major mother issues that have landed him in a mental hospital. So obviously he looks up to McMurphy (Jack Nicholson), the loud-mouth extrovert who is only pretending to be crazy. When McMurphy sneaks some floozies into hospital, he pawns one of them off on Billy, who is a virgin, like a crude big brother might.
The Suicide:
The next morning Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher) discovers Billy still with the girl. When Ratched asks if he is ashamed of his behavior, Billy proudly announces, without stuttering, that he is not. Nurse Ratched threatens to tell Billy's mother and Billy's stutter returns as he starts to freak out. After being carried into the doctor's office screaming, Billy kills himself by slitting his throat.
The Impact:
Completely devastating. Not only is this the sudden and tragic loss of Billy, just when he was finally seeming happy, but it also marks the end of our hero, McMurphy. After McMurphy rightfully flies into a rage and chokes Ratched for driving Billy to suicide, McMurphy is given a lobotomy, which in turn leads to the classic pillow smothering ending. A shitshow all around.

Thoughts or Accusations?

Worm’s Eye View: Cinema’s 14 Greatest Suicides Part 1

no@spam.com (Mighty Worm) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

Ah, movie suicide. It can come in all shapes and sizes. It can be sad, surprising, devastating, funny, cathartic, even noble. Who doesn’t love a good suicide scene?

I only had two rules here:

Must be a successful suicide. Luke Wilson’s attempted suicide in The Royal Tenenbaums is a powerful scene, but the dude lives. No dice.
Must be an important character in the film. The opening subway mass-suicide in Suicide Club is utterly fantastic, but it lacks emotional significance since we don’t know any of the girls. No dice.

Oh, and obviously if you haven’t seen some of these movies, this is spoiler territory.

14 Rorschach in Watchmen

The Set Up:

After uncovering Ozymandias’ plan – framing Dr. Manhattan for the deaths of millions of people for the greater good of the global community - the remaining members of the Watchmen (as they’re called in the film) are forced to make a hard decision. The deaths have already occurred and world peace seems to have been achieved, they all know they need to uphold the lie to keep the peace…

The Suicide:

…except Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley). Truth is the ultimate freedom for him. A lie, no matter how “good,” is still a lie. He will not go along with it, knowing full well that by making this choice he is forcing the hand of the others. So, out on the frozen wastes of Antarctica, Rorschach removes his mask (his “face”), and forces the hand of Dr. Manhattan. In the blink of an eye Rorschach explodes into a mist of gore.

The Impact:

Tragic, but noble. Though deranged, Rorschach is the moral center of the film. Fighting against the system, he is ultimately brought low by it. Though, he does get the last laugh in the final scene of the film.

13 Oscar in Bitter Moon

The Set Up:

Roman Polanski’s gonzo-noir tale of a stuffy British couple, Nigel and Fiona, (Hugh Grant and Kristin Scott Thomas) and their unraveling at the hands of Oscar, crippled novelist, and his sexpot wife, Mimi (Peter Coyote and Emmanuelle Seigner) on the world’s worst New Year’s Eve cruise. Throughout the film Oscar tells Nigel the sordid tales of his relationship with Mimi, while Nigel is slowly falling into embarrassing schoolboy lust with her. Everything culminates on New Year’s Eve when Nigel makes his move on Mimi, only to be shot down and busted by Fiona, who ends up sleeping with Mimi to spite him.

The Suicide:

The climactic scene arrives when Nigel finds the two women sleeping naked in Oscar’s bed. Oscar and Nigel get into a minor altercation and Oscar pulls out a gun. Nigel cowers in the corner, pleading with Oscar to give him the gun before he hurts somebody. “Hurt somebody?” Oscar says. “No. Not anymore.” Then he shoots Mimi, waking up a now horrified Fiona, then puts the gun in his own mouth and blam!

The Impact:

Shocking, but fitting. Nigel was woefully not in control of his situation all the way to the bitter end. Oscar and Mimi came into his life as a violent storm and left just the same.

12 Max Renn in Videodrome

The Set Up:

Max Renn (James Woods) is the sleazy president of a sleazy Canadian UHF TV station (are there sleazy Canadians?). Looking for the next exploitative big-thing, he stumbles upon Videodrome, seemingly a snuff film TV program seemingly from Asia. His pursuit to uncover the origins of the program leads him down a rabbit’s hole of Cronenbergian biological-horror weirdness.

The Suicide:

After much much madness, Debbie Harry’s character (appearing on a TV in an alley) informs Renn how to be released from said madness. He sees himself committing suicide on the TV, which promptly explodes human organs everywhere. So, proving that people will mimic what they see on TV, Renn uses his Cronenbergian organic-gun-hand (pulled from his own torso), aims it at his temple and utters the immortal last words of the film: “Long live the new flesh.” Cut to black. Blam!

The Impact:

Cathartic. There weren’t exactly a lot of other options for Renn at that point. This was where his journey was heading.

11 J.D. in Heathers

The Set Up:

The proto-Mean Girls (only with more murder), sees Veronica (Wiona Ryder) and her badboy mentor, J.D. (Christian Slater at the height of his neo-Nicholson phase), dealing with the tyrannous high school elite in a truly definitive way – killing them. But as the film progresses, Veronica realizes J.D. is a bit too crazy for her. J.D. wants to blow up the school with everyone in it. Veronica doesn’t.

The Suicide:

After shooting J.D. in the school’s boiler room, Vernica stumbles outside onto the front steps. J.D. emerges again with a bomb strapped to his chest, but he’s had a change of heart. He steps away from the school, planning to blow only himself up now. When he asks Veronica what she plans to do with her life now, she responds by pulling out a cigarette, which of course becomes lit after J.D. explodes in a Looney Tunes-style goreless cloud of black smoke.

The Impact:

Dark, twisted and hilarious, just like the rest of the film.

10. Roger Wade in The Long Goodbye

The Set Up:

There is a lot happening in this twisty Altman adaptation of the Chandler classic, but as pertains to the topic at hand: Phillip Marlow (Elliot Gould) is hired by Eileen Wade (Nina Va Pallandt), the trophy wife of a macho, alcoholic Hemmingway-stand-in, Roger Wade (the fantastically bearded Sterling Hayden). The suicidal novelist has gone missing. Marlow finds Wade at a rehab clinic and brings him back to the couple’s beach house. But like Hemmingway himself, ultimately Wade’s boozy self-destruction wins out.

The Suicide:

In quite possibly the most basic and manliest suicide ever, after hitting the liquor, Wade simply stumbles down to the beach and walks into the ocean like Jason Voorhees. And he is no more.

The Impact:

Sad? Not really. Impressive, yes. If I ever become suicidal, I hope I have the nuts to go out like that.

9 Sarah Packard in The Hustler

The Set Up:

Fast Eddy Felson (Paul Newman) has just blown the pool game of his life. He’s at rock bottom when he meets Sarah (Piper Laurie), a pathetic alcoholic gimp. But they form a bond and build a relationship. She falls for him, but he’s too consumed with his desire to climb to the top to really fall for her. Bert (George C. Scott) wants to use Eddy and Sarah is really the only thing standing in his way. On a gambling tip to Louisville, Bert confronts Sarah in a pervy way and let’s her know what he sees as the realities of her relationship with Eddy - realities that aren’t pretty.

The Suicide:

Proof that a suicide doesn’t need to be gory, or even happen on screen, to make an impact, there is no suicide scene, nor do we even get to see the grizzly aftermath. Eddy simply finds Sarah’s body off camera (we only see her feet) and her last words written on the mirror, PERVERTED, TWISTED and CRIPPLED.

The Impact:

Devastating. Eddy realizes where his priorities should’ve been, but too late.

7 Jordy Verrill in Creepshow

The Set Up:

Jordy Verrill (author Stephen King) is an excitable rube, living by himself out in the country. When a meteor crashes onto his property, leaking strange goop, being a rube he of course touches it. At first he envisions that the meteor will make him rich, but he soon learns that anything that comes into contact with the meteor’s goop (him included), becomes covered in mossy vegetations that spreads like a cancer.

The Suicide:

At the end, we jump slightly forward in time to discover Jordy and his house completely covered in the moss. Realizing he’s dying a slow veggie death, Jordy decides to end it all. He does so with a shotgun, which blows green gore across the room.

The Impact:

Humorously tragic, in true EC Comics form. Though potentially a lesser suicide on this list, as a kid this one really haunted me for some reason. I just felt bad for that rube.

Stay tuned for Part 2!

Thoughts or accusations?

.

Worm’s Eye View: Actors With Signature Haircuts

no@spam.com (Mighty Worm) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

Some actors are known for certain types of characters (Leland Orser is The Nervous Guy again!) or certain accents (Kenneth Mars is The German Guy again!). This is to be expected from character actors. But every now and then we get an actor who is known for something else, something a little more specific...

Their haircut.

Yes, these strange beasts, regardless of what their character may be - butcher, baker, candlestick maker - the 'do remains the same.

5) Mr. T: The FroHawk
Gotta hand it to the man, this 'do wasn't just about creating an acting persona. As legend has it, the T was plucked from his real world job as a bouncer to play Clubber Lang in Rocky III because of his signature look. Everything you need to know about the man is summed up with that hair. And he's still rockin' all these years later. You keep on truckin' T.

4) Russell Brand: The Bird's Nest
Quite possibly the worst signature hairdo I've ever seen on an actor that I like, I'm still waiting to see how long Brand keeps up such coiffured shenanigans. His career is young, but I have to imagine those snarled locks might prove somewhat limiting to his role choices. Or maybe that's just how he wants to play it. He's a nutter, as he might say.

3) Josh Hartnett: The Bed Head
Hartnett was in two horror movies in late 1998. First it was Halloween H20. My first thought of him in that film was, "What's up with that fucking hair?" I assumed it was a decision made for the film. But then mere months later Mr. Josh showed up in The Faculty sporting the exact same strategically mussed look. Fortunately both the hairdo and Harnett have mostly gone away.

2) Grace Jones: The Power Top
Man. Grace Jones. What a profoundly unique and bizarre human being. No one rocked the afro-flat-top better or longer than she did. Not Wesley Snipes. No one.

1) Yul Brynner: The Dome
You had to see this one coming. No one, not even Mr. T, actually had literally the same haircut their entire career. Mr. T's mohawk at least varied in length. Yul had it easier, of course, since he was rocking pure skin. But no matter the part, he never opted for any stubble (like Jason Statham will do from time to time). I'm sure he was doing it out of vanity, not wanting to reveal his receding hairline, but no one ever made more out of having nothing than Brynner. He even made wearing a hat look cool with no hair (something that normally makes you look like you have cancer). He almost makes me want to be bald.

HORROR 101: The Town and The Eclectic Group

no@spam.com (Mighty Worm) — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

Hello, and welcome back to Horror 101, where we like turn an academic eye on the vast, bitchin' and often unintentionally hilarious world of horror movie conventions.

In the Couple installment we noted that at its base level all a horror story really needs is a Hero, a Love Interest and a Villain. What kind of crap horror movie would that be though, right? We need gore! We need some poor saps around to periodically get slaughtered until our Hero finally gets off his/her ass and kills the Monster. We need bodies! We need a victim pool!

Victim pools ultimately are an issue of the movie's setting, and horror movie settings can be cleaved into two fairly obvious lots: Public (our Hero is in civilization) and Secluded (our Hero is cut off from civilization). Respective to these two settings we get two basic types of victims pools:

The Town or The Eclectic Group

The Town

The Town is the victim pool for horror movies with a Public setting. It can really be anything from a little hamlet somewhere in the country to New York City. It doesn't even have to be a city at all. It can be any kind of populated community - an army base, a prison. The key being that there are people at this location we never get to meet and that our Hero never interacts with, but that we know are there.

Bubba Ho-Tep (2002) takes place in an old-folks home, but only a handful of those old-folks are characters - it's a Town. Leviathan (1989) takes place in a deep-sea mining rig and every person working there is a character - it's an Eclectic Group. I chose 'The Town' because it sums up the overall tone of this victim pool better than 'The Community.' Sounds better too.

The most useful purpose for a Town is a nice endless supply of random people to kill. If we only have five kids trapped in a cabin, that doesn't leave much leeway. Anytime someone dies it has to be one of those jerks (though we'll see that there are some clever ways around this). In a Town we can randomly cut away to someone we've never seen before getting offed. Arachnophobia (1990), for some reason, always pops into my mind when I think of a horror Town.

Though Towns offer more character and location possibilities, one could argue that the danger factor is watered down. A psycho killer might be stalking you? Well, go to the police. Problem solved. For this reason the Monster of a Town movie is usually threatening the entire population and not just one random person (Slither, 2006). Another way around this problem is simply to make one of our good guys a cop. Make it about his hunt for the Monster (Q: The Winged Serpent, 1982), or his attempt to keep our unsuspecting Hero alive (He Knows Your Alone, 1980).

Back in the day a lot of horror movies were about literal towns. In 50's sci-fi/creature pics seemingly the entire population of a desert city would rally behind our Hero to defeat The Blob (1958) or the behemoth spider or whathaveyou. In the 70's our Hero might be a cop stalking the crowded NYC streets, or a suburb in Halloween (1978), or both (When a Stranger Calls, 1979).

Over the course of the 70's, something started to change. What Night of the Living Dead (1968) proposed, Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) confirmed, and Friday the 13th (1980) signed, sealed and delivered, was that you didn't really need much of a budget if your film didn't require city permits and a large cast. Stick a handful of kids in a van, get 'em trapped somewhere in the country and - BAM! - you can make a fairly high production value movie for next to nothing. This is a decent segue into…

The Eclectic Group

There are two kinds of Eclectic Groups: the Random Cluster and the Mismatched Friends.

The Random Cluster

The Random Cluster differs from the Mismatched Friends in two simple ways: a) the group is made up of strangers, and b) the ages of these strangers usually vary.

Some kind of disaster always immediately precedes the isolation and union of the Random Cluster. A terrible storm and a washed out road might send several cars full of people up to The Old Dark House (1932). A spaceliner might crash on an alien world (Pitch Black, 2000). Maybe the isolation in caused by all other humans being dead (28 Days Later, 2002), or maybe everyone just wakes up in a Cube (1997). How they get there rarely matters. Usually it's just a MacGuffin for our movie to ensue.

Now, obviously there's no way to define every type of character in a Random Cluster, but there are definitely common types. Let’s assemble one, shall we?!

First off we need a Hero. Our Hero is usually a late 20's/early 30's no one. Just some chick or dude, a schoolteacher or co-pilot, a Reluctant Hero who will slowly rise to the occasion over the course of the film as everyone else dies or proves untrustworthy. Why a no one? Well, it may work on Lost, but if our movie Hero is Dr. Amazing and good at everything, it kind of cuts back on the conflict.

Helping our Hero will be a Love Interest, who usually agrees with our Hero on some key point early in the film, thus forming their bond, and a Doomed Badass, often our Hero's strongest supporter and usually the best fighter in the group. The Doomed Badass always seems to be a black dude paired with our white chick Hero, and man'o'man, does he love to pointlessly sacrifice himself for this chick he just met yesterday. He also seems to be played by Charles S. Dutton a lot (Alien 3, Mimic, 1992, 1997).

My personal favorite RC staple is the Unreasonable Jackass. He's the guy who always wants to do the exact opposite of what our Hero does, and often says things like, "Who put you in charge?" Not always, but often I find myself sympathizing with the UJ, especially in instances when our Hero wants to dangerously go back for a straggler and the UJ will say, "Fuck that guy! He's probably dead!" Sometimes the UJ will heroically redeem himself for being such a j-hole, like CJ (Michael Kelly) in the Dawn of the Dead remake (2004), but best is when he doesn't, when he goes down swinging – and by swinging I mean being an asshole – such as Leslie Nielsen in Day of the Animals (1977).

The UJ can be a woman, but her unreasonableness usually comes off as panicked idiocy or mania rather than selfishness; I'd call her the Stupid Bitch (Marcia Gay Harden in The Mist, 2007). To clarify, the UJ isn't just a grumpy guy nor is he an evil guy, he's just a coward and a huge, huge asshole, and sometimes that leads him to do evil things.

Another key to the Random Cluster is the feeling that it's not that random, that each of these people serves a function. Sometimes that's part of the story (Cube) and sometimes it is just cruddy writing (80% of RC movies.) All horror movies have a Guy Who Knows Things step out of the crowd at some point; the guy who worked at the research facility the zombies came from or the novelist who is an expert on caves. That's to be expected. What is totally silly is when everyone will turn out to have a marketable skill of some sort like this is a cheesy sports comedy: I know how to build a bomb! I'm an ordained minister! I took karate when I was 12 but I guess I still remember all the moves!

Sure, it makes the side characters less useless, but come on people.

Rounding out our hypothetical group, let's say we have the Scared Quiet Girl (she'll go crazy or die running away), the Old Man (always dies, you know, cause he's old), the Parent and Child (the Parent will be our UJ; the child, she's just a prop), the Extra Person (dies immediately to clearly establish the parameters of danger to the rest of the Cluster), and we can't forget the Injured Guy, holding up our group, who the UJ will want to leave him behind but our Hero won't hear of it. In a zombie or vampires-as-hoard movie this is the dude who gets bit and lives, slowly turning evil.

A set-up variation on all this is the Assembled Cluster, which is still a random assortment of character types but they're aware from the get-go that there's a reason they're all together. Maybe they all received a mysterious invitation to a spooky house for the weekend (House on Haunted Hill, 1959/1999), or maybe a their professor selected a group of them for a weekend experiment in the woods (The Fear, 1995). It could be as simple as they work together (Leviathan again). Though despite being strangers, Assembled Cluster movie generally are more similar to...

The Mismatched Friends

Tese people all know each other. A disaster doesn't need to precede the Mismatched Friends being stuck together. They do it to themselves. The MF are inevitably reopening some long-closed business (Friday the 13th, 1980), going up to an empty cabin (The Evil Dead, 1981), or exploring an abandoned structure for a night of partying (Night of the Demons, 1988); cause who doesn't love abandoned structure parties?

Coinciding with the rise of Trapped-In-The-Middle-Of-Nowhere movies, the Mismatched Friends have become the low-budget horror standard since the early 80's. What makes the MF so delectably rad is simply this: they're terrible friends. The seem to hate each other. The fact that the Random Cluster doesn't get along makes sense. Oh, shit! Sea snakes just ate all my friends, and now I'm stuck on this out-of-gas boat with these assholes! But the MF already don't get along, making the fact that they're all hanging out together kind of a logic flaw.

Let's choose our Mismatched Friends, shall we? First we need a location for them to be going to, since all MF movies begin with our stupid teens either picking up the Hero or already in the van (inevitably drinking, smoking pot, singing a song, or all of the above.) Their destination will be... umm... an abandoned ferryboat one of our kids has the keys to. Now we need our stupid teens (usually they're college kids, I just like calling them that.)

Again, let's start with our Hero. We can't have our Hero be too prominent in the group structure, so nix to the football captain or most popular girl in school. We also don't want the Hero to be a nerd. An easy way to make the Hero stand out is to make him/her the new kid in the group. She's pre-Med and her friend, the Slut, invited her along for the trip. Immediately Love Interest will notice how noticeably hot she is and come to her rescue when the Party Jock says something gross to her. "Let me help you with your bag. And don't mind Dave, he's just a jerk." Ha ha ahhh. Hackily written young love.

Our Love Interest is always boringly charming. We'll say he's on the football team, the modest star player. He doesn't like to talk about it, but we know he set a school record because his buddy, Party Jock, loves talking about everything. The Party Jock is important to the setup of the film. The New Girl and the audience need the 411 on where these kids are going and why, and he's always the most excited about telling. "The Queen Anne! It's a ferryboat! Been abandoned for years! We're gonna do a scavenger hunt there! Party!" The Party Jock's catchphrase would probably be “WOOOOO!" Yelled whenever he feels the mood requires, which is often.

The Slut will be Party Jock's lady friend. She acts like she hates him, but once they arrive at the ferryboat they'll be the first to run off to hump. One of them will likely die while the other waits in bed, "I'm getting another beer," their romantic last exchange. The Slut's main function in the group is to be New Girl's oddly mismatched best friend in the early stages of the film before Love Interest takes her place. One of her first pieces of dialogue will showcase her sexual liberation: “God, I need to get laid." Something classy like that.

Now, one might think that our two football players would be hangin' out with their jock buddies. Wrong. That's in the real world. These are mismatched friends. The MF movies often feel like The Breakfast Club crammed into a van.

So next we add to the mix the Sex Crazed Perv. The SCP can be in place of Party Jock, especially if our Hero is a dude. Then he becomes the Sex Crazed Sidekick. All he talks about is getting some, and never ever does. He's always coming on to the girls harassingly, eliciting comments like, "Ick. Why'd we invite him along?" Making you wonder... why did they invite him along?

The SCP is often forced to partner with the Annoying Guy. This character can go in many directions, as his key function is just pissing everyone else off (again, why'd they invited him?). The two basic kinds of Annoying Guy are the Wacky Dude and the Jokester. The Wacky Dude is very similar to the Party Jock, except he's not buff or cool. He's very energetic though. The video camera is a favored prop of the Wacky Dude, sometimes never leaving his hands (House of Wax, 2005). The Jokester is a singularly remarkable character (and will be discussed at length in the next installment of Horror 101). We'll say our group has a Jokester.

Rounding out our little group will be Other Girl. Other Girl often looks confusingly similar to one of the other female characters (Friday the 13th Part III, 1982, had a particularly bad problem with this, having three girls who looked exactly the same). Other Girl's function is just to be cute, be lusted over by the SCP or the Annoying Guy, and then eventually die before she develops much of a personality.

If we want a really high body count we can add a Twosome. They could be two stoner dudes, or a generic boyfriend and girlfriend duo. Doesn't matter. They function as one person, but yield two deaths!

And what if we want even more death?! Our van is pretty jam packed as it is. This is where the Auxiliary Deaths come in.

An AD character is just some poor bastard that the Monster happens upon while not stalking our Mismatched Friends. Their first scene is usually their last. Sometimes the filmmakers will attempt to not make them seem so random. Maybe our AD characters are driving up in a separate vehicle and they're running a little late. We'll join them - probably looking at a map - right before they die, then Mismatched Friends will spend the rest of the movie wondering where the AD peeps are. Often, as bad luck would have it, the AD's had something our Heroes need in their car: a first aid kit, gun, keys to something useful, etc.

Okay! We got our team. Sure there's a few others we could have chosen, like the Virgin or the Unbalanced Kid. But, hey, who's to say New Girl isn't a virgin, or that Annoying Guy doesn't turn out to be unbalanced? I think we made some good selections. I wonder who will make it out of the ferryboat alive? My prediction? Love Interest will turn out to be a False Partner and die right before the climax. Only our sweet New Girl will survive. Of course, she'll die in the opening scene of Scary Ferry 2: The Reckoning.

Well, that's all the time we got for today. See ya next time and watch your back!

Past classes of HORROR 101:
The Solo Hero
The Couple
The Stragglers

The Guy Who Knows Things

HORROR 101: The Guy Who Knows Things

no@spam.com (Mighty Worm) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Hello, and welcome back to Horror 101, where we like turn an academic eye on the vast, bitchin' and often unintentionally hilarious world of horror movie conventions.

Thus far we've been discussing the plucky fellows who survive horror films. It think it is time we started to delve a little deeper in the pantheon of characters. After the Hero and Love Interest, and the Villain of course, probably the most important individual to a horror film's story is:

The Guy Who Knows Things

The Guy/Girl Who Knows Things serves an import and thankless task in horror films: exposition. Everyone hates exposition and it is very hard to write (which pretty much guarantees that it’ll suck in most horror movies), and unfortunately, because they are always dealing with an unknown factor – legends, mutant animals, made up monsters - horror movies usually involve a lot of exposition.

Some movies, like Tremors (1990), determine that you don’t need to know anything about their made up monsters to enjoy the film, but generally the movie just won’t make sense if we don’t have some exposition. Would Nightmare on Elm St. (1984) have worked without the Freddy legend? Someone has got to tell the backstory. Someone has got to inform us that the lake monster is blind or that the crazed hunchback is afraid of the color pink. Thank God we’ve got the GWKT!

The GWKT is an interesting sort of character, as there is no specific personality type. Sometimes the GWKT is also another character within the horror movie spectrum, like a Partner. Even the Hero can be a GWKT, though this usually isn’t the case (it’s always a nice mini-crisis when the GWKT can die, leaving our Hero without an easy source of info). If a surviving Hero appears in a sequel, he/she usually becomes a GWKT (like Reggie Bannister in the Phantasm series). Who better to tell our new characters about the monster?

There are four basic categories of GWKT: the Expert, the Know It All, the Prophetic Local, and the Folk Teller.

The Expert
The Expert is a professional, either in reality or purely in practice. The two varieties of Experts are the Scientist and the Fanatic.

The Scientist gets paid to know all the shit he/she knows. Think government agent sent to investigate the meteorite crash or the chick that studies ants at UCLA and is called in when giant ants attack Los Angeles. The Scientist usually works for a museum or something else boring and stuffy. That way they’ll be dramatically unprepared for the adventure the movie sends them on. A lot of the time this character is a really hot chick who will be partnered with our small town sheriff or park ranger Hero. Sometimes the Scientist is even the person who created the monster, such as Kevin McCarthy in Piranha (1978). Richard Dreyfuss in Jaws (1975) is my favorite Scientist. Gotta love the Hooper.

The Fanatic doesn’t get paid. They’ve learned all this stuff out of personal interest or obsession. Sometimes they’ll come off like a Scientist, but I can’t bring myself to consider crypto-zoology a genuine field. This is the sort of person who shows up in a movie about the Yeti. The Fanatic is often independently wealthy, which allows them to use all their free time learning about Yetis.

Sometimes we get both a Scientist and a Fanatic in one movie, like Bridget Fonda and Oliver Platte in Lake Placid (1999). The Expert doesn’t even need to be a real character. Sometimes they are only in one scene, like Tony Todd in Final Destination (2000) or Dick Miller in The Howling (1981).

The Know It All
The Know It All can often know just as much as an Expert. The difference is they didn’t come by their knowledge as part of a life pursuit. It’s a complete coincidence that they know all this crap. And Experts usually get called in action. The Know It All just happened to be there. KIAs are a signature fixture in Eclectic Groups (next installment of Horror 101). The two varieties of Know It Alls are the Random Know It All and the Inexplicable Know It All.

The Random Know It All usually found a book or, in a current annoying trend, was watching the Discovery Channel recently. When we meet an Expert we already know they know this crap. That’s their whole character. With the RKIA it often comes as a total fucking surprise, and for some reason the RKIA always seems to have come by their random information either very, very recently or an unrealistically long time ago. So when the giant Komodo dragon bites one of our college kids, our GWKT will either say:

“Wait! Last week I was watching the Discovery Channel and there was a special about Komodo dragons on! Their saliva is poisonous!”

Or:

“Wait! When I was a little kid I took a vacation to Komodo Island with my family! My uncle was bitten by a Komodo dragon! Their saliva is poisonous!"

So forth.

A great recent example of a RKIA was in the Roger Corman web series Splatter (2009), where a dumb-blond groupie randomly translates some important African writing, then says: "I dated this really hot hip hop artist and he toured Kenya, and I have an ear for native tongues."

Sometimes we do get “set-up” for the RKIA. In a moment of lame foreshadowing, we’ll first see them watching TV or reading a book about the kind of animal that will end up terrorizing the town. Of course, as preposterous as the RKIA can be, they’ve got nothing on the Inexplicable Know It All.

The IKIA didn’t learn. They just know. We don’t even get the bogus Discovery Channel thing. This is a character that inhabits only the most poorly written movies. In the real world people can know things. I mean, I know shit about Komodo dragons. I don’t know why. I’m just a nerd. But movies can’t work quite like real life. For whatever reason there needs to be a qualifier.* The previously moronic sex-addicted sidekick to our football captain Hero shouldn’t randomly know how long it takes army ants to devour a human corpse. And if he does, he’d better have been watching the Discovery Channel last night. A good example is Anthony Heald in Deep Rising (1998), as the cruise ship owner who inexplicably has extensive knowledge of deep sea life.

The Prophetic Local
Being a stranger in a strange land is always a little scary. You don’t know anyone and you don’t know where anything is, so, in the days before cell phones, if something went wrong, you wouldn’t know what to do. It only makes sense that most horror movies are fish-out-of-water tales about tourists, college kids on a weekend camping trip, or an unfortunate roadtripper with a flat tire. Who do they turn to for directions? That’s where Prophetic Locals come in. They are cautionary GWKT. They give our Hero a warning, a warning about something only a local would know. These are the people that the Hero wishes he’d listened to later.

There are three kinds of Prophetic Locals: the Concerned Samaritan, the Ominous Townie and the Crazy Guy. All very different, they agree on one thing: You kids shouldn’t go to the ______ (insert location our kids go to and die).

The Concerned Samaritan is usually a shop/gas station owner or hitchhiker friendly driver. Our stupid twenty-somethings will either stop for gas and directions or are thumbing it along the road when they all encounter each other. The Concerned Samaritan is always upset to hear where the kids are going. “Camp Crystal Lake? You don’t wanna go there.” That kind of thing. They’ll then inform our Hero that wherever they’re going is haunted or was the site of a grizzly mass-murder (and the killer was never apprehended). Our group of idiots will shrug off the warning and continue on their way. Pretty much any movie like Friday the 13^th has this character.

The Ominous Townie is very similar to the Concerned Samaritan. The difference is that he doesn’t like to be completely open. He has secrets. He seems nervous talking with our kids. Usually there will be several of these characters hanging out together in the mechanic’s garage or bar. That way when our kids ask about the abandoned house on the hill, they can all look back and forth uneasily before one of them answers. They’ll try to get our kids to steer clear of their destination without out actually showing all their cards, but still leaving a few hints in the process, “You might want to carry something pink if you’re going up there.” Things would go a whole lot better if they were simply more forthcoming: “On, no, don’t go to the abandon house on the hill. There’s a crazy inbred hunchback who lives up there who is afraid of the color pink. He’s constantly killing the travelers we fail to properly warn about him.” My favorite Ominous Townies are the Slaughtered Lamb patrons in American Werewolf in London (1981): “Stay on the road.” “Beware the moors.”

The Crazy Guy is always fun. Usually a hobo or town drunk, he knows just as much as the Samaritans and the Townies, but is so completely nuts that no one has any reason to heed his warnings - especially since unlike the CS and the OT, our Hero never asks the Crazy Guy anything. The Crazy Guy jumps out in front of cars, or stumbles up to our kids while they’re pumping gas, then proceeds to ramble nonsensically about how they’re all going to die. One of our stupid kids will be made nervous by the encounter and usually later on asks the group something like: “Do you think that could be true? That there’s a crazy inbred hunchback living up there?” “Oh, that guy was just crazy.” Then they all die. Friday the 13^th Part III (1982) has an excellent Crazy Guy, who carries around an eyeball for added craziness.

The Folk Teller
The Folk Teller deals with local mythology, either true or made up for the movie. In their mind it isn’t special knowledge, which is what separates them from a Fanatic. Folk Tellers often don’t even think what they’re saying is true. They might think they’re simply telling a spooky story to little kids or drunken friends. Of course, the Folk Teller is actually giving us, the audience, the villain’s backstory and sometimes letting the Hero know how to kill it, or in the case of Candyman (1992), how to summon it. Folk Tellers often inhabit movies with another GWTK. That way we can get the spooky local legend backstory and then later on when they’re all trapped somewhere, the other GWKT can reveal that he’s known the real story all along. I’ve already referenced the Friday the 13^th series twice here, might as well do it again: Part II (1981) begins with a classic Folk Teller convention, the campfire ghost story, in which the FT recaps both Jason’s origin and the events of the first movie.

* Often to a stupid degree, such as in Salem’s Lot (1979) where nearing the climax our Hero says, “I called my friend in San Francisco. He’s turned on to the occult…” And this is how we learn that the Hero needs to stake the head vampire during the day in his coffin. This is probably going too far with the knowledge qualifying. Even a lousy screenwriting teacher will tell you, “Show. Don’t tell.” Since we don’t see this phone conversation it seems pointless to even bother with the qualifier. The “occult” angle is clearly meant to indicate that our Hero was talking with a Fanatic, but any 7 year-old could have told him to stake the vamp in his coffin. This is making the Hero a little too stupid, especially since there’s another character, a 13-year-old, who figures out to try and do the same thing by himself. Usually you don't want your Hero to be dumber that a junior high kid.

Past classes of HORROR 101:
The Solo Hero
The Couple
The Stragglers

TOP 10: Good Actors, Bad Films

no@spam.com (Mighty Worm) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 00:00:00 EDT

This could more specifically be called “Actors I Like Despite Their Horrible Filmographies.”

Normally I associate an actor/actress with the quality of their choices. A mediocre talent can be elevated into something great by making smart/interesting choices (Brad Pitt) while a stronger talent can be sunk into jokedom by stupid/easy choices (Nic Cage). Yet there are some actors who I seem to like despite the evidence. Time and time again they choose terrible projects. Nevertheless, I can’t seem to stop myself from liking them. They’re like that Thai place that always gives you the shits, but you keep going to anyway.

I decided to pick the 10 actors that give me the proverbial shits most punishingly, and rank* them based on the ratio of bad to good films in their filmography (the number listed is their percentage of bad films). My list ended up being all men. I didn’t set out with that in mind, but I find it hard to properly judge someone like Sandra Bullock, where much of what are considered her “good” films are movies I’d never want to see in the first place. Anyway...

Feast!

10 Michael Douglas: 55%

I was so pissed when I heard that Douglas had been the original choice for Hartigan in Sin City. Not only would he have been better and more fitting for the role than Bruce Willis, but then he would’ve been in a movie I liked! I know some people aren’t into MD, that he’s a one-trick pony. Maybe so. But I like that trick. I find him inherently appealing. So much so that I felt that he and Gwyneth Paltrow (who I inherently don't like) were horribly miscast in A Perfect Murder. I wanted Douglas to win!

More of: Wonder Boys

Less of: It Runs in the Family

9 Samuel L. Jackson: 57%

This one frankly surprised me. Jackson makes seemingly nothing but horeshit these days. I was sure he’d have a percentage in the high 70’s, but looking over his filmography again I was reminded that the 1990’s were a very good time for Jackson. His percentage actually would’ve dipped below 50% if I’d included his films before Pulp Fiction. Plus he’s still had a few quality things here and there in the past decade.

I thought I was over Jackson a while ago, but when he showed up at the end of Iron Man, I suddenly found myself excited. I was forced to accept that I still dig that man. Hearing his winning voice pop up in Inglourious Basterds was a small treat too. Damn you, Jackson! Just when I thought I was out…

More of: The Red Violin

Less of: Jumper

8 Anthony Hopkins 58%

Hopkins is admittedly tricky. He’s had a long, long career and been in some truly great movies during his pre-fame days. I started my counter with Silence of the Lambs, when he moved beyond the position of respected character actor to Oscar-bate superstar. We should’ve known something like this might happen when Lambs was followed by Freejack. Prone to phoning-it-in a lot of the time, he’s still an undeniable talent, and I can always watch him. Plus he just seems to keep getting more grizzled, which is fun.

More of: Titus

Less of: Instinct

7 Ben Affleck: 60%

Affleck got lucky here, re: getting 60%. Despite having one of the greatest two-year shit cycles I’ve ever seen with Surviving Christmas, Jersey Girl, Paycheck, Gigli, and Daredevil, he did previously manage to sneak into some decent films like Shakespeare in Love and Boiler Room while throwing his critical goodwill away with Phantoms and Armageddon. Plus I decided to be gracious and allowed Chasing Amy to be counted. In the past few years he’s managed to start turning things around and make a few acceptable films. I’m glad he seems to be figuring things out.

More of: Changing Lanes

Less of: He’s Just Not That Into You

6 Adam Sandler: 71%

Yeah, that’s right. I like Adam Sandler. I can’t help it! I was at an impressionable age during his SNL tenure, and his first CD and Billy Madison were comedic staples of my youth. And even though I haven’t enjoyed an “Adam Sandler movie” since The Wedding Singer, he keeps me holding on with his more dramatic performances.

More of: Funny People

Less of: The Longest Yard

5 Will Smith: 72 %

Will Smith, man. I don’t know what it is about the guy. I rarely even want to see his movies, they often seem so unappealing. And it’s not like with Sandler; I don’t have a nostalgic bias from his “Parents Just Don’t Understand” or TV days. He’s… he's... just so likable! And he’s good. Ali proved that (while simultaneously being a horribly flawed film). Curse ye, Smith, you inexplicably lovable freak! Quit embarrassing me in front of my friends!

More of: Men in Black

Less of: Seven Pounds

4 Ryan Reynolds: 76%

Despite his outward frat-boy appearance, I've always liked Reynolds's self-awareness and knowing deprecation. He's like a young Chevy Chase, only likable. Though I expected Reynolds to have an even worse record than 76%. As a leading man he’s working with a pretty huge FAIL, but he’s managed to save himself with stand-out supporting roles in films like Harold and Kumar. It seems like maybe he’s finally getting the swing of things.

More of: Andventureland

Less of: X-Men Origins: Wolverine

3 Sylvester Stallone: 78%

Ah, Stallone, you magnificent bastard. I feel no shame in loving you despite the fact that nearly every movie you make is total horseshit, and, because you generally took a pass at the screenplay, it’s unequivocally your fault. It helps that when you’re bad, you’re so bad it’s good. That makes my fandom much easier. It’s nice to see a minor return to form in the past couple years. Keep on, keepin’ on. Or don’t. Frankly I like it either way.

More of: Rambo

Less of: D-Tox

2 Ewan McGregor: 78%

Here’s one that really confuses me, cause it seems like McGregor tries to make interesting movies. On paper he makes interesting choices. He’s not Smith, going for maximum mainstream appeal at all times. He makes a lot of indie films and unique smaller studio films. Yet they generally suck just as much as the Star Wars prequels. You are an enigma Ewan McGregor.

More of: Trainspotting

Less of: The Island

1 The Rock: 100%

Yup. I have not liked a single film Duane Johnson has appeared in. Nor am I wrestling fan. There's no truly logical rationale here. I just like the guy and think he’s got real star potential. He generally has found a way to be the best part of many of the crap films he’s in, but boy o’ boy can this dude NOT pick ‘em. Please, somebody put this man in a good film. Please. Soon. Before those muscles start to sag.

More of: Anything!

Less of: Everything

* My ranking criteria, if you're curious:

a) I decided not to pick on “working actors,” meaning actors who don’t have the luxury to pick and chose what films they make. Parker Posey has a pretty awful track record of late, but she’s not Reese Witherspoon. She’s receiving material that other people have probably already turned down. Woman’s gotta eat.

b) I only used current actors. Orson Welles had a very high turd count over his career, but what’s the point of picking on the dead?

c) I also didn’t pick on actors who are already out of a slump. Bill Murray and Johnny Depp fixed whatever was going wrong. No reason to bring up bad memories.

d) There are plenty of great actors out there with obnoxious filmographies - Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy, for example. But I have successfully written these people off. Did Pink Panther 2 already come out? I’m honestly not sure.

e) To be fair, I didn’t include films from before an actor became famous enough to call the shots. I’m also giving them the benefit of the doubt, rounding up “okay” movies to qualify as “good” (I gave Will Smith I Am Legend, for example). And I am not counting cameos, unless they were noteworthy ones.

Worm's Eye View: Blair Witch Still Sucking 10 Years Later

no@spam.com (Mighty Worm) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 00:00:00 EDT

The Blair Witch Project underwhelmed the shit out of me when I saw it in theaters back in 1999, but since it just celebrated its tenth bday I figured enough time had passed that I should give it another whirl.

I remember reading about BWP on the Internet my freshman year of college (which was also the first year I’d ever used the Internet – oh, simpler days). I was intrigued by all the hype coming out of Sundance. “Scariest movie ever” seemed to be gist. I liked the angle they were playing, pretending that the movie was real. But once I actually saw the film I left disappointed.

I’m a big horror nerd, so I felt disconnected when the film went on to become a genre landmark (not to mention cinema landmark). At the time that disconnect took on the form of loathing, as it so often does in such situations. Hearing people talk about how scary and great the movie was pissed me off. As the years passed, the dust settled, and people stopped talking about it, I’d grown curious to revisit the film. This sort of thing happens from time to time, and years down the road I often end up liking the thing I used to detest.

Well, alas, my expectations were once again met with disappointed. I still didn’t like the film.

“In October of 1994, three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Berkittsville, Maryland while shooting a documentary.

A year later their footage was found.”

A great opener. In fact, the whole opening section is great in its dullish realism. A wonderful calm before the storm. The problem is that the storm never comes. It’s a calm before the further calm. I don’t think the movie is bad, necessarily. I simply find it boring (incredibly boring at times). And unfortunately the dullness was compounded on this second viewing since I already knew nothing was ever going to pop out and scare me. Don't take that to mean that I judge a horror movie based on jump scares. Cause I don't. But when a movie's "scary" scenes are made up almost entirely of blurry shots pointing into black nothingness, well, the only thing that keeps it from being maddeningly tedious is the thought that something might happen. Blurry shots of nothing make for lackluster repeat viewings.

The only thing that improved for me this time around was the acting. Previously I found it all unbelievable and poor. I still found Mike to be behind the game, but Heather is actually quite good and believable. Maybe I just hadn’t met enough wannabe filmmaker girls yet. And Josh is great. The movie really suffers once he disappears. They should’ve gotten rid of Mike, as his added screen time put further strain on his limited abilities.

The first time I saw the film the only part I liked was the climax in the old house. That stuff is still great. It’s the only portion of the film that demonstrates any kind of filmmaking artistry. Previously the existence of the two cameras had severed only for repeated gags of two camera operators pointing their respective cameras at each. Now suddenly there was a reason, and it heightened the tension of these two people separately searching a dark house. Also a brilliant use of sound – giving Mike the camera with a mic, so when he's attacked and we switch over to Heather, there's that fantastic bit of dread created by hearing her voice slowly getting louder and knowing she's approaching danger. And of course that final shot of Mike in the corner. A perfect example of how having a great ending can elevate an entire movie.

But… it can only elevate it to a point.

BWP got a lot of love, and still does, for being an innovative movie – introducing us to the POV faux-docu subgenre. Of course, that’s not totally accurate. The Last Broadcast came out the year before and Cannibal Holocaust (which is a much more powerful take on essentially the same gimmick) came out 20 years prior. To be fair, your average filmgoer had not seen those films. But whatever. Even if BWP were the first POV movie, being the first to do something isn't equatable to quality. The Great Train Robbery was the first movie to use modern film editing. That’s a reason to mention it in a film history book. No one puts it on their 'greatest movies ever made' lists. If I were teaching a class about film and POV movies were a topic, I’d mention BWP's existence, but I’d show the students [REC].

Novelty aside, BWP is simply not good enough to warrant its legacy.

That's my piece. But I think it only gentlemanly to end on a positive note…

Blair Witch Project, we haven’t always gotten along or seen eye-to-eye, but, well, you totally didn’t deserve the beyond horrible sequel you got. That wasn’t cool.

Worm's Eye View: Combat Shock

no@spam.com (Mighty Worm) — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 00:00:00 EDT

"LIKE A BULLET TO THE HEAD...
Giovinazzo's world is horrific and the movie's conclusion will never be forgotten."
-Film Journal

“Combines the New York City angst of Taxi Driver, the gritty nihilism of Fassbinder and the unfiltered dementia of Eraserhead... ONE OF THE GREAT CULT FILMS OF THE 1980s."
SHOCK CINEMA

“Makes you want to slit your wrists!”
JOHN McNAUGHTON (Director, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer)

“RAW, NIGHTMARISH & ABSOLUTELY DEVASTATING...ranks among the most uncompromising and powerful indie films of the '80s.”
MITCH DAVIS (Director, Fantasia Film Festival)

These were some of the quotes that got me incredibly pumped to see the movie Combat Shock. Like any Chewer, I love weird movies. And fucked up movies. And especially weird fucked up movies. And especially especially older weird fucked up movies I've never heard of. So it was with much excitement that I tracked this hidden gem down and gathered some like-minded friends together for the sole purpose of watching Combat Shock. And then...

The movie sucked.

The film was written, edited, produced and directed by Buddy Giovinazzo. And it stars his brother Ricky, who also did the "score." Here's Wikipedia's summary:

"The plot of the film takes place in Staten Island, and follows an unemployed Vietnam veteran living in total poverty with his nagging wife, his deformed baby due to Ricky having been exposed to Agent Orange that the US was spraying as a defoliant over Vietnam, and junkie friends. Unable to get a job and surrounded by the depravity of urban life and crime, he begins to lose his grip on sanity. The ending is as extreme as it gets."

About seven minutes into the movie, while my friends and I were already enduring the second pointless walking montage set to tonally inappropriate and obnoxious synth music, my friend Dan called out, "Wait... is this gonna be one of those movies where absolutely nothing happens and all the crazy fucked up shit is in last five minutes?"

Yup.

Hearing the director of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer say that Combat Shock - “Makes you want to slit your wrists!” - I must assume he meant from fucking boredom.

I do feel bad giving the film too much shit; it was very low budget. But I just don't get all the hype here. Despite the seedy cinematography and authentic locations, there was nothing believably gritty about the film. The deformed baby is portrayed by a shitty puppet, which would be fine (even great) if the movie was supposed to be funny. But it's not. And that kinda symbolizes the film's problem - it's hard to take the drama seriously when everything is so cheesy. Watching the drug addicts and embarrassing gangster thugs in the film I felt like I'd accidentally popped in a movie my friends and I made in high school. There might as well have been a 14-year-old pretending to be the President.

It does indeed have a messed up ending, but I'm not sure it is "as extreme as it gets," and even if it is, by the time the ending arrives you'll be too happy it's almost over to be disturbed by anything.

I like supporting small films, so I'm not gonna say don't see Combat Shock, but don't buy it on a whim and definitely don't gather a crowd with promises of a revelatory viewing experience.

Worm's Eye View: Why Do I Read EW?

no@spam.com (Mighty Worm) — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 00:00:00 EDT

I’ve had a subscription to Entertainment Weekly for 14 years, and every year I question whether or not I want to renew it. I always do, of course. Mainly out of momentum. Also the magazine is the perfect thing to read while taking a shit (short breezy articles; you don’t want to get caught up in what you’re reading when you should be wiping).

I have my renewal form sitting on my coffee table currently, and this may finally be the year I cut the cord.

I was 16 when I started my subscription. My first issue had Howard Stern on the cover (not sure why I remember this). And for a while I really dug the magazine. I've always viewed it as light reading. I'm not expecting thought-provoking pieces. But more and more it seems to cross that line from puff-piece pop into almost unforgivable inanity. Case in point, the newest issue - with the "Seinfeld" reunion on the cover - and its article about the reaction to the Avatar footage.

“Now that film footage has been lauded by fans, this massive risk looks like it may pay off.”

That's in the damn headline. "Lauded by fans" ...really?

They also give us such stellar 'fan' quotes as, "It was awesome. I was like, 'No, no, don't stop the scene now,'" from some random dude who attended one of the IMAX screenings. Thanks some random dude! I want to read all his reviews now.

From reading message boards (including our illustrious one here at CHUD) there’s an undeniably large community out there who found the Avatar footage disappointing. I haven't talked to one person in real life who loved the footage either. In fact, the only nod they give to the idea that some people were underwhelmed by what they saw is to note that, "While some naysayers called the dialogue cheesy, other audience members were blown away." So they acknowledge the 'naysayers' in a sentence that is ultimately praising the footage again. How even handed.

This piece was really symptomatic of what drives me nuts about EW. The whole thing feels ass-kissy, like they're just a part of the studio's hype-machine. I'm sure tons of people did love the footage. But focusing only on the good destroys the credibility of EW as a source of entertainment news.

The weirdest thing about EW is that I'm not really sure who it's aimed at exactly. I could ignore their unlikable quirks if I could simply chalk them up to being mass-appeal grabbers - as a fringe culture loving person, I've long grown accustomed to having to hear about stuff "normal" people like - but EW loves focusing on things like "Gossip Girl," that no one even watches. It's like they just want to be 'hip.' Yet they also can seem bizarrely unhip, like when mentioning Avatar's Comic-Con screening: "Cameron, of course, has serious cred with the geek contingent thanks to Aliens and The Terminator franchise."

Huh?

That's Cameron's entire career outside of Titanic. Looking at his filmography - Piranha II, Aliens, Terminator 1&2, Abyss, True Lies - Titanic is the anomaly here. He makes genre movies. Is EW's audience a bunch of teens for whom Titanic is the only Cameron movie they've seen? Wait a minute...

I was a teenager when I most liked EW. They talk about "Gossip Girl" and Demi Lovato all the time... it's all coming together now...

I have outgrown EW! Okay. This is exciting. I may finally have the strength to not-renew my subscription.

Pray for me Chewers, pray for me.

Worm's Eye View: I Hate Crash

no@spam.com (Mighty Worm) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Fun fact: Apparently Crash has been the #1 most-rented movie on Neflix ever since it was released on DVD in 2006. In three years it apparently hasn’t slipped into 2nd place once, not even dethroned by uberhits like The Dark Knight, WALL-E, Transformers, or Indian Jones and The Kingdom of the Raging Shitfest. True, more people saw those four films in the theater, negating the need for a rental, but still… three years! Untouched!

As a film buff, normally a smaller film maintaining such a Herculean feat over bloated studio pics would get me pumped. It doesn't though. Why? Cause I fucking hate Crash.

To me Crash is just as bloated and emotionally shallow as Indian Jones 4, but far more obnoxious. At least I’ve never heard anyone claim Indian Jones 4 was “moving” or “powerful,” and it certainly didn’t win an Oscar for Best fucking Picture.

I’m generally a forgiving filmgoer, but Crash’s gross tone of self-importance really bugged the shit out of me. The movie casts itself as a gritty and in-your-face exposé on race in contemporary America, but it isn’t exposing jack, and it’s certainly not gritty. It’s pandering in knowingly fabricated, cheesy moments to elicit easy emotions from the audience (where were all of Remember the Titans’s Oscars?). Crash is a farce, and I mean that in the literal sense, as in: “a comic work using buffoonery and absurdity and typically including crude characterization and ludicrously improbable situations.” It's like a Neil Simon play, only gratingly pretentious and not as clever.

I should note, I actually like Paul Haggis. But Crash isn’t a movie about real characters in real situations plucked from his life. This isn't City of God or Do the Right Thing. This is some upper-middle-class white dude trying to sound profound after a few glasses of wine at a dinner party, talking about things he understands in as much as he’s aware they exist.

It doesn’t bother me if you like Crash. That’s your problem. It doesn’t really bother me that it won Best Picture either. Who actually takes the Oscars seriously? But I was hoping/expecting that the movie would just die slowly and forgotten in the cinema graveyard, existing only as a factoid in Oscar-winner history. But no - it has become super popular! It’s quickly on its way to being a fucking film classic!

Damn you Netflix! Why are you doing this to me? After all our good times together?