Border Radio: Allison Anders, Dean Lent, and Kurt Voss

Allison Anders, Dean Lent, and Kurt Voss' Border Radio is one of the most stunning low-budget independent American films ever made. Comfortably occupying a Texas microcosm of punk rock, cigarette smoke, apartments without air conditioning, and cheap bottles of beer, Border Radio does more than just serve as a traditional narrative. Additionally, it also doubles as a kind of anthropological document of the late 80s Texas punk scene. The film focuses on the efforts of a young woman to locate her husband, Jeff Bailey, or, more accurately, the father of her daughter, after he and two other musicians stole $1,000 from a club boss who refused to pay them after a gig. Fearing retaliation, they flee into Mexico. But the story is really of secondary importance to the heart of the story: the decay of the punk rock scene. The characters are pieces of adrift cultural detritus gasping for air. It seems like all of the bands have broken up and the musicians are looking for new projects. But it doesn't seem to matter. In two years, Nirvana would release Bleach and signal the death knell for other kinds of rock music, no matter what Pitchfork may try to say. Jeff Bailey was once a legendary rocker. But now with a kid and a group of thugs looking for him, he exists as a stranger in a strange land just off the Mexican border. His "wife" is determined to find him. But for what? The thrill is gone from their relationship. It seems like she only wants to find Jeff because the search gives her empty life some kind of a purpose. The only other film that I can really compare Border Radio with would be Wim Wenders' Paris, Texas. Both films use the bleak Texan desert as backdrops that seem symbolic of their characters' directionless lives. Border Radio's jarring black and white photography evokes the feeling of a fresh hangover destined to plague you for the rest of the day. While films like Slacker, Clerks, and sex, lies, and videotape gain most of the attention as the monuments of the American independent boom of the early 90s, Border Radio is an astonishing film that proves that they may not have been as original as we like to think.

9/10

The Corpse Grinders: Ted V. Mikels

After watching nothing but serious art films for several days, Ted V. Mikels' The Corpse Grinders was exactly what I needed. It's a no-budget gore-fest the likes of which Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez wish that they could emulate. It's a film that follows two corrupt businessmen who grind up stolen corpses and turn it into cat food. For whatever reason (the explanation given by the movie is so laughable that it can't be taken seriously) whenever cats eat the corpse-food, it turns them into homicidal monsters which kill their owners. There's an old joke among bad movie aficionados wherein we claim that most terrible movies could be passed off as foreign art-house films if you dub them in a different language and add subtitles. The world of film criticism is so absurd and pretentious that many of us wouldn't be surprised if some writer for the Village Voice claimed that Manos: The Hands of Fate was an un-ironic low-budget masterpiece. And yet, I think that I can sympathize to some extent with the very critics that I've come to laugh at. The Corpse Grinders is by all accounts a terrible movie. But there is just something about it which makes me feel fascinated about it. If I may...ahem...*puts on film critic goggles*...Mikels creates a bleak world full of the grotesque wherein a corpse-cat food business doesn't only seem probable, but inevitable. Not a single character looks like a normal human being. Even the stock characters of the gallant nurse and doctor who save the day seem like wax figures come to life. The terrible state of the film stock somehow creates an bizarre atmosphere that makes the audience feel like they are looking at footage of another world, or perhaps even another dimension. It is disturbing, unnerving, and downright uncanny in its depiction of a world absent of morals and daylight. *takes off film critic goggles* Everything that I just said is complete and total bullshit. The Corpse Grinders isn't a work of art. It's a cheap piece of exploitative splatter garbage. And yet...I love it. I guess there's an oblivious film critic in all of us.

6/10

Sátántangó: Béla Tarr

I messed up. Big time. It's March 19, 2015 and I accidentally deleted my original review for this film that was published on 1/30/12, 3:38 PM, Pacific Daylight Time. I was trying to change the score from 7/10 to N/A and hit the wrong button. No matter what I did I couldn't retrieve the original review. So...here's the gist of my deleted review: I watched it in seven parts instead of in one single sitting, it's dark, bleak, depressing, yadda yadda yadda. I can't give it an official score because I don't think you can quantify its quality in the same way that you can an ordinary narrative film. The end.

Dammit, I'm an idiot...

My Fair Lady: George Cukor

I feel that I was born in the wrong generation to properly enjoy George Cukor's My Fair Lady. Oh, I can appreciate it. Cukor's musical adaption of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion contains great musical numbers, flawless acting (particularly from the always stunning Audrey Hepburn), and beautiful sets and costumes. But here's the thing: it feels like a musical made several decades ago. It definitely shows its age. I've seen musicals by Busby Berkeley and Gene Kelly that have stood the test of time better. And here's the worst part: I can't quite put my finger on why. Another cinematic adaptation of Shaw's play, Anthony Asquith and Leslie Howard's Pygmalion (1938), feels infinitely more fresh and timeless. But I suppose I should discuss the film itself now. My Fair Lady follows Henry Higgins, a grouchy phonetics professor, as he undertakes a bet that he can teach a Cockney street urchin, Eliza Doolittle (Hepburn), how to speak proper English. Higgins originally sees Eliza as nothing more than a subject in an experiment and treats her cruelly. But as old grumps are wont to do in musicals, he slowly comes to love Eliza despite her origin. It is a good film, but not necessarily a great film, in my opinion. It stays too long, outwears its welcome, and leaves me feeling indifferent. I guess that it doesn't help when you consider that the two songs that I enjoyed the most were "With a Little Bit of Luck" and "Get Me To the Church on Time." Let's be frank for a second...neither song is essential to the plot as they deal with Eliza's father, the drunkard Alfred. In fact, come to think of it, Alfred's entire subplot, which easily takes up 20-30 minutes of screen-time, is unnecessary to the plot. Maybe that's why I didn't connect with My Fair Lady: I'm used to the more tight and compact interpretations that I had previously seen. My Fair Lady is indeed a good film. But it wasn't one that I particularly enjoyed.

7/10

The Negro Soldier: Stuart Heisler

During the terrible years of World War Two, the United States realized that if they were going to win the fight, then they would need more manpower than had ever been mustered before in their history. The government decided that despite segregation within their armed forces, they needed to do everything in their power to recruit African Americans. To achieve this end, the government hired none other than Frank Capra to head the production of a film unlike any other in history. It would be a film that would revolutionize the depiction of African Americans not only within the cinema, but in society as well. That film would be The Negro Soldier.

In hindsight, The Negro Soldier seems contrived and even manipulative in its depiction of African Americans and their contributions to American society. The film is composed of two different testimonies delivered in the context of an African American church. One Sunday morning, the minister (played by Carlton Moss, also the film’s writer) delivers a sermon directed at the African American servicemen currently in attendance. He then launches into a description of the various achievements made by African Americans throughout history: the athletes who beat Germany in the Berlin Olympic Games, Crispus Attucks being the first casualty of the Boston Massacre, the soldiers who fought and died in World War One. Moss deliberately emphasizes that African Americans were essential to the development of the United States, all the while ignoring such unpleasantries as slavery and civil rights violations. Curiously, the great African American abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass and heroes of the Underground Railroad such as Harriet Tubman are noticeably absent.

After Moss successfully riles the congregation up with reports of Nazis destroying French monuments to World War One African American soldiers, he is interrupted by a Mrs. Bronson who reads a letter from her recently enlisted son. What follows is a montage of the training undergone by African American soldiers. The son happily reports that he is treated very well and has significantly improved himself. He fails to mention how the Army is still heavily segregated. But that doesn’t seem to matter. The letter paints a picture of the Army as a massive machine full of men of every race fighting an unspeakable evil. As the letter ends, the congregation rises in song and we see soldiers marching off to war.

As I said, The Negro Soldier and the world it presents where African Americans have equal rights and freedoms to white men seems contrived by today’s standards. But that’s because it actually was: The Negro Soldier was a carefully manicured illusion whose production was more fascinating than the actual film.

Let me start by acknowledging Thomas Cripps and David Culbert’s invaluable essay The Negro Soldier (1944): Film Propaganda in Black and White as the source for the following production details. Cripps and Culbert describe how when production began on The Negro Soldier in March 1942, Frank Capra asked the Research Branch to “draw up a list of ‘do’s and don’ts’ regarding the cinematic depiction of black.” The result was a list that included such things as:

-Avoid stereotypes such as the Negroes’ affinity for watermelon or pork.
-Avoid colored soldiers who are the most Negroid in appearance.
-Avoid such topics as Lincoln, emancipation, or race leaders/friends of the Negro.
-Include, but don’t play up too much, depictions of colored officers in command of troops.

My favorite part of this list is the last one concerning the depiction of “colored officers” which included the stunning side note: “The Negro masses have learned that colored men who get commissions tend to look down on the masses.” However, another request on the part of the War Department must also be noted: the deletion of a scene wherein a white nurse attends a black soldier. Even in their quest to revolutionize the depiction of African Americans in the cinema, the War Department was unwilling to challenge such a blatant racial and sexual taboo.

However, despite such difficulties, The Negro Soldier became a massive success. The film, while originally intended for black audiences, became mandatory viewing for all troops at replacement centers inside the United States. The film was still being shown as late as 1946, two years before Harry Truman’s desegregation order for the Army. Activist groups such as the NAACP and the National Negro Congress called The Negro Soldier “the best ever done” and clamored for it to receive a widespread distribution. The film was booked for church and civic functions by African Americans all over the country. In December 2011, The Negro Soldier was included in the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry, being cited as having “showcased the contributions of blacks to American society and their heroism in the nation’s wars, portraying them in a dignified, realistic, and far less stereotypical manner than they had been depicted in previous Hollywood films.”

But is it right to praise The Negro Soldier considering that it was obviously made as a piece of Revisionist history that manipulated African Americans into the Army where untold thousands would eventually die? Consider this: what if in an attempt to lure homosexuals back into the Armed Forces with the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was done with a film entitled The Homosexual Soldier? And what if in this film, homosexuals were depicted as having been crucial and indispensable to the development of American history while sidestepping their systematic abuse, prosecution, and intolerance at the hands of bigots? Do the ends justify the means? Who knows if that question can ever be answered. But one thing is certain: The Negro Soldier got results. If viewed strictly from that perspective, then The Negro Soldier is one of the most successful films of all time.

7/10

The Model Couple: William Klein

After watching The Model Couple, I have come to the conclusion that its director, William Klein, may have been more suited for directing short films instead of full length pictures. I say this after having previously watched another one of his films, Mr. Freedom. What I've noticed is that his films, while wildly innovative and stunning to look at, have a tendency to collapse under their own weight. In Mr. Freedom, the film's satire was undercut by long, drawn-out sections where costumed characters would scream political discourse at each other. And in The Model Couple, a truly fascinating concept for a film is lost amidst tiresome execution which inevitably leads to the plot fraying like a tortured piece of string. It has been only a day or two since I saw the film, and yet I have to check online to remind myself how it ended. That is how little of an impact the last third of the film has. But what of the first two-thirds? Well, allow me to quote the blurb provided by the Criterion Collection for its Eclipse Series release of the film: "In 1977 France, the Ministry of the Future chooses two “normal,” white, middle-class citizens, Claudine (Anémone) and Jean-Michel (André Dussolier), for a national experiment. They will be monitored and displayed on television for six months in a model apartment outfitted with state-of-the-art products and nonstop surveillance—the template for 'a new city for the new man.'" Most of the film follows the two getting poked and prodded by sadist German scientists and having to come to terms with lives dominated by rampant commercialism. But then, for the last third, the film loses its way and depicts the couple becoming prisoners of pint-sized revolutionaries. I don't know. If Klein had disciplined himself towards creating a more cohesive story, The Model Couple could have been a truly great film. Instead, the audience gets mere glances at a film that could have been so much more.

6/10

Mr. Freedom: William Klein

I wanted to like William Klein's Mr. Freedom. I really did. And, in some small capacity, I do. But overall, my feelings towards this film can be summed up in one word: disappointment. The film was bubbling with potential and obviously had the balls to be one of the most notorious films of the 1960s. However, it collapses under its own weight. The film is about a right-wing "superhero" named Mr. Freedom dressed in a conglomeration of various red, white, and blue sports equipment. He is sent to France to "stave off the advances of the mysterious French Anti-Freedom (FAF) organization." What is the FAF's goal? To stop freedom, of course! Mr. Freedom is joined by French agent Marie-Madeleine, a woman who appears to have invented Carrot Top's hair style. Together, with the help of a small army of supporters, they must also thwart the plans of their communist foes: the Stalinist Moujik Man and the Maoist Red China Man (which is nothing more than a giant inflatable dragon). The film is over-the-top to an unheard of extreme and acts as one of the most stinging criticisms of America ever committed to celluloid. However, it bites off more than it can chew. This became most apparent in an early scene where Mr. Freedom confronts Moujik Man and Red China Man for the first time in what appears to be a subway tunnel. The scene is filled with them exchanging bombast, ironic dialogue. However, because of the echo, it's almost impossible to understand what they're saying. From there on, the film loses more and more coherence as it becomes corrupted by massive gun battles, protests, and gauche symbolism. If Klein had toned the film down a bit, it would have succeeded in being even more inflammatory than it was in the end. It's too bad. I really think that a sequel could have been interesting...and perfectly ironic.

6/10

I Was a Teenage Zombie: John Elias Michalakis

While trying to figure out how to properly describe John Elias Michalakis' I Was a Teenage Zombie, I stumbled upon a New York Times review written by Cavett Binion that sums the film up quite well. He writes: "This one-time 42nd Street midnight-movie favorite plays like a blackly comic blend of '50s cult-classic I Was a Teenage Werewolf and '80s horror satire Return of the Living Dead, set to an assortment of funky new-wave tunes." I couldn't have said it better myself. So I won't try. But I can tell you more explicitly what this film is about. Simply put, the film follows a gang of high school delinquents who accidentally murder a drug dealer who sold them bad weed. In a desperate panic to hide their little accident, the boys push his body into the Hudson River whereupon it is transformed by radiation from a nearby factory (or was it a power plant?) into a zombie with super strength. When the zombie starts killing them off one by one, the boys decide that the only way to properly fight a zombie is with another zombie. So they push one of their recently murdered friends into the same river to create a being that can stand a chance against the crazed drug dealer zombie. If that strategy sounds ridiculous, that's because it is. And furthermore, the film itself knows that plan is ludicrous. And therein lies I Was a Teenage Zombie's charm: it doesn't take itself too seriously to stand in the way of having a good laugh and/or decapitation. The acting is over-the-top, the special effects are laughable, and the zombie make-up is as cheap as you can get (apparently blue/green paint = zombified flesh). But watching it, you begin to get the feeling that the filmmakers could have done better...but they just didn't want to. And somehow that makes I Was a Teenage Zombie all the more endearing. You have to respect that.

7/10

A Woman’s Tale: Paul Cox

One of these days I need to write a "thank you" letter to Roger Ebert for all of the wisdom, knowledge, and film recommendations that he has passed down. Once again, he has brought me to the attention of a film I had never heard of by a director I never cared to explore. That film is Paul Cox's A Woman's Tale. And what a film it is! Rarely do I encounter films with such heart, such knowledge, such honesty, and such bravery. The film centers on an elderly woman named Martha who is slowly succumbing to cancer. In her last days, instead of collapsing under the weight of her fear towards death she becomes steeled in her love of life. Take her personal nurse Anna. Anna both loves and cares for Martha and perhaps sees a little of who she one day wants to become in her. Martha in turn insists that Anna carry on an affair with her married lover, Gary. But the specifics of the plot seem inconsequential compared to the central performance of Sheila Florance as Martha. One of Australia's most distinguished actresses, the film A Woman's Tale was hand-crafted for her. Just as Martha was dying in the film, so, too, was Florance in real life. In fact, mere days after receiving the 1991 Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, Florance died. But the film is less of a meditation of death than a celebration of life. Though Martha (and Florance) have suffered, they remain steadfast in their belief that life is beautiful and worth living. Although it is brutal in its presentation and merciless in its truth, A Woman's Tale is one of the most inspirational and life-affirming films ever made.

9/10

Gaslight: George Cuckor

George Cuckor's Gaslight is an absolutely delicious mystery-thriller from one of the early masters of Hollywood. The film became so famous that its title became shorthand for an actual pattern of psychological abuse in which "the victim is gradually manipulated into doubting his or her own reality." In Gaslight, we meet young Paula Alquist, niece of the famous opera star Alice Alquist, as she is hurriedly escorted out of her London home after witnessing a terrible tragedy. The tragedy in question was her aunt's brutal murder at the hands of a thief. Young Paula is taken to Italy where she grows up and is trained in the art of opera. She falls in love with the dashing Gregory Anton who is swift to marry her. He uses his incessant charm to convince Paula to move back to her aunt's old house in London. And, yes, if you think that you have figured out the plot to Gaslight from what I've told you, then you are probably correct. Anton is indeed the man responsible for Alice's murder. Upon his return with Paula to London, he begins to systematically torture her psychologically. He stamps across the floor of the attic to make Paula think that it's haunted, he manipulates the eponymous gaslights so that they go on and off on their own, and he hides things around the house to make her believe that she is losing her mind. Can Paula figure out what is going on before Anton makes his final move? You'll just have to watch and find out. And, really watching Gaslight is a considerable treat. Cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg makes the film a wonder to behold, engulfing his sets with fog that is so poetic that you could swear that it was stolen from a film noir. The film perfectly creates a brooding, mysterious atmosphere, the kind that is accentuated by the fact that it is shot in black-and-white. And, finally, the performances alone are worth the ticket price. Ingrid Bergman won an Academy Award for Best Actress as Paula. Also, we get to witness Angela Lansbury in her screen debut as one of Paula's maids. In short, Gaslight is a treasure trough of the things that made the heyday of the Hollywood studio system so great. Don't deprive yourself of this great film.

8/10

Identification of a Woman: Michelangelo Antonioni

Oh, Criterion Collection...why must you continuously add films by Michelangelo Antonioni to your oeuvre? One of my goals as a film lover has been to watch all of the films in your collection...so whenever you include another film by Antonioni, that means that I actually have to watch it. Antonioni's respect within the film community has never failed to completely baffle me. I suppose that I just don't get it. Identification of a Woman (1982) is the sixth film by Antonioni that I have had to watch and believe me...it isn't getting any easier. L'Avventura (1960) and Eclipse (1962) were two of the worst film experiences that I have ever had to suffer through. Red Desert (1964) had some pretty photography, but was otherwise completely dull and void of life. I hesitate to say that I "liked" his films Blowup (1966) and Zabriskie Point (1970) because while I didn't "hate" them, per say, I hope that I never have to watch them again. So how does Identification of a Woman stack up against the other Antonioni films that I have seen? Poorly. Very poorly. Just like L'Avventura and Eclipse, the film has a weak pretext of what could be called a plot that exists solely to be abused by Antonioni's whims. I find that I can't really tell you what Identification of a Woman is about...so I'll try to tell you what happens inside it. It begins with an Italian film director named Niccolò discovering that his wife has left him. So, he drowns his sorrows between the legs of disgraced aristocrat named Mavi. During their affair, Niccolò mentions that he is trying to find the perfect woman to cast in his next film. Whether or not he intends to cast Mavi as said woman is left up in the air...at least until she mysterious disappears without a trace, as rich women are wont to do in Antonioni's films. So, after a bit of half-hearted searching for Mavi, he hooks up another actress named Ida. But, gasp, Mavi re-materializes out of nowhere! What is Niccolò to do?! I have another question...why should I care? This film is vapid and bloated. More time is devoted to the several graphic sex scenes (which can get damn near gynecological) than to actually advancing the plot and developing the characters. I know that upper-class ennui is Antonioni's bread-and-butter, but that doesn't mean that it's an intriguing subject! Antonioni is essentially asking me to feel sympathy for rich, beautiful people who are tired of life's banality. My feelings towards this film can actually be summed up pretty succinctly in one particular scene where Mavi takes Niccolò to a party with many other rich, powerful, and boring aristocrats. In one room, we witness a very pompous man casually mention that one of his ancestors invented the double-bass. At this point, I thought to myself, "Well...maybe. But what have YOU done with your life?"

1/10

Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat: Herschell Gordon Lewis

I seemed to have misjudged Herschell Gordon Lewis. After viewing his Blood Feast (1963), widely considered to be the very first "splatter" film, I miscast him as an incompetent fool. But now, having seen the sequel to that seminal film, Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat, I have a totally different opinion of Mr. Gordon Lewis. The man is nothing more than a master of comprehending what fringe audiences want and giving it to them. In the first Blood Feast, he gave audiences that had subsisted on Hammer Horror and cheap monster movies what they had always wanted: scenes of non-stop, graphic gore with barely more than an absurd pretext of a plot. The first film was half stag reel, half police procedural that followed an entire police force (comprised of two, maybe three, cops) hunting down a madman named Fuad Ramses who killed several women in order to cook them for a sacrificial feast for the goddess Ishtar. Blood Feast 2 picks up several decades later when the hapless Fuad Ramses III inherits his grandfather's catering business, immediately becomes possessed by the statue of Ishtar in the back room, and embarks to finish his grandfather's work. Just like his grandfather in the first film, he uses the catering business as a front and disguises his "blood feast" as the catering for a wedding reception. Here's the thing, though: instead of being a proper sequel, Blood Feast 2 is a brilliant parody and satire of the splatter genre. And believe me, it is a parody. Everything from Fuad Ramses III's hammy performance to the fact that the bride-to-be's bridesmaids decide to celebrate by throwing a "lingerie party" to the self-aware police officers investigating the slew of fresh murders (one of whom is played by the legendary John McConnell) is carefully manicured. It's quite brilliant, really. Oh, it runs out of steam near the end...but one can't help but love such a ridiculous tribute to such a ridiculous genre.

8/10

Talk to Her: Pedro Almodóvar

The following is not a traditional Mini Review. Instead, it is an essay that I wrote for my Film Forum Film Sense class at NYU - Tisch. Besides my problems with the film (which I discuss within this essay), I still believe that it is a well-crafted film. As a result, despite my reservations, I have given it a good score.

While reading Despina Kakoudaki’s illuminating essay on the nature of coincidences in Pedro Almodóvar’s film Talk to Her, I found great resonance with one of her key points surrounding the nature of the relationships between the film’s characters. The film, which follows two men, Benigno, a nurse, and Marco, a journalist, who become friends and bond over their relationships with two comatose women, has been praised as an example of Almodóvar’s fascination with melodrama borne from coincidence. Almodóvar skillfully weaves the tale of these two men and their women who seem destined to be a part of each others’ lives. From their first chance meeting in a ballet hall to their last goodbye in a Spanish prison, these two men seem inextricably bound. When it is revealed that Benigno had raped and impregnated Alicia, the comatose woman that he had looked after for years, Marco’s girlfriend, a female toreador who was gouged during a bullfight, unfortunately dies. Alicia’s pregnancy led to her reawakening out of her coma. Ironically, this happens after Benigno’s incarceration and eventual suicide. By a stroke of fate, Marco and Alicia meet one night at the same ballet hall where he and Benigno had met. The film then implies with a subtitle reading Marco y Alicia that the two are destined to fall in love and be together.

However, while originally watching the film, I found this ending to be disconcerting. I couldn’t specifically rationalize what bothered me about it either. But upon reading Kakoudaki’s essay, I feel that she had perfectly described the source of my discomfort. While describing Marco’s reconciliation with Alicia, a woman who was oblivious of their prior relationship, she mentioned that it could be interpreted as a subconscious apology designed by Almodóvar for Alicia’s behavior:

“Alicia says “yes” (to Marco) rather than saying “no” (to Benigno). This is how the film ensures that we can forgive her for waking up: in the emotional logic of melodrama (which here replicates a logic that is unfortunately endemic in rape cases as well), the audience may have already forgiven [Benigno’s rape of Alicia]. The only “crime” that remains is hers, because her life has taken away his. It is this illogical crime that we have to forgive, and indeed forgive implicitly and silently, and without being aware of the process. The fact that we know her story is a liability for Alicia because it might actually cause the audience’s disengagement from her."

Then I realized my problem with Almodóvar’s melodramatic reasoning. Assuming that Kakoudaki was correct and Almodóvar did in fact construct the ending so that Alicia could be redeemed in the eyes of the audience, then this speaks to a disturbing sub-context in Talk to Her: even though Alicia has awoken from her coma wherein she was idolized as a fetishized object by Benigno, she is still viewed by Almodóvar, and therefore the audience, not as a human, but as a thing.

Although Alicia and Marco’s dead toreador girlfriend are prominent characters, they are still secondary when compared to the two male leads. As a result, the film is almost explicitly told through their perspectives. When we first see Alicia after she has awoken from her coma near the end of the film, it is through the eyes of Marco who spies her in a dance studio. We are not shown any of Alicia’s shock or terror at waking up from a coma that lasted for years. As a result, when Marco sees Alicia in the dance studio, the audience is led to assume that the worst of her pain and difficulty at readjusting has already occurred. Therefore, it becomes easier for us to resent Alicia for cheating Benigno despite his (admittedly criminal and psychopathic) behavior.

Furthermore, consider that even after the extent of Benigno’s crimes are revealed, Almodóvar still frames him as a sympathetic character. This sympathy can be seen in how Marco reacts to the news of his death. Marco puts one of Alicia’s hair clips that Benigno had stolen into his front pocket before he is buried. Considering that the hair clip had shown up several times before in the film, this is given additional emotional (and sympathetic) weight considering how, as Kakoudaki points out, “the emotional content of the hair clip is thus created both by its recurrence in the film and by Marco’s grief in the final scene.” Not to mention that the bestowal of a keepsake from his victim is in and of itself disturbing. After all, imagine somebody putting a lock of Sharon Tate’s hair in Charles Manson’s coffin. So, whether he intended it or not, Almodóvar has transformed Benigno from a rapist to a victim.

Perhaps I am overanalyzing this. After all, Almodóvar has long been praised for his portrayal of women in his films. But in Talk to Her, Almodóvar seems so eager to reaffirm the theme of fate and coincidence which runs in most of his films that he sacrifices any possibility of the audience conceiving Alicia as a believable character. By ignoring the pain that would inevitably come from being awoken from a coma to discover that one had been raped and impregnated, Alicia seems to be a kind of waif with no regard for the doomed affections of Benigno. I am not necessarily accusing Almodóvar of some kind of misogynist underpinning in Talk to Her. Instead, I believe that in his quest to create a great love story, Almodóvar accidentally overlooked a crucial factor in the construction of his characters, their motivations, and the ways in which he would present their plight to his audience.

Works Cited
Kakoudaki, Despina. Intimate Strangers: Melodrama and Coincidence in Talk to Her. All About Almodóvar: A Passion for Cinema. Edited by Bradley S. Epps and Despina Kakoudaki. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009.

8/10

Blood Feast: Herschell Gordon Lewis

This film is just...precious. It's so bad, yet believes so firmly in what it's trying to do that one can't help but just laugh. Herschell Gordon Lewis' Blood Feast is widely considered to be the very first splatter film, i.e. a film that focuses not so much on "plot" as on "let's see how much blood and gore we can fit on the screen." The film, clocking in at a little over an hour, is close to being nothing more than a stag reel of brutal killings. But thankfully, Lewis felt like he needed to include an actual story to this film. And so we are treated to a storyline that is one of the most absurd and improbable that I have ever heard. Let me try and sum it up for the uninitiated: an Egyptian caterer goes around killing and mutilating people so he can cook them and perform sacrifices to the Egyptian goddess Ishtar. Now, let's put aside the fact that this "Egyptian" caterer is obviously Caucasian. Let's also put aside the fact that Ishtar is not even an Egyptian goddess, but a Babylonian goddess. And finally, let's put aside the fact that nobody can tell that this caterer is obviously a homicidal maniac by the way he talks, limps, and smiles grotesquely whenever he talks about Egypt. This story is STILL ridiculous. The police detective who investigates the killings only makes the connection that the curator is making sacrifices to Ishtar because he attends a random college lecture about Egyptian goddesses. Why? Because, apparently, and I quote: "I like that stuff." But I can't stay mad at this film. It's awful...just...awful...But in a good way. This won't be the last time that I watch Blood Feast. It's too much fun to forget about.

2/10 (Actual Rating)
8/10 (So Bad It's Good Rating)

The Adventures of Tintin: Steven Spielberg

I'll be honest: I wasn't looking forward to seeing Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin. This was due to two reasons. First, I hate performance capture 3-D animation. I think that it looks ugly, unnatural, and puts a multitude of hard-working traditional animators out of work. Second, I've never been a fan of Tintin. Unlike many of my fellow Americans, I actually had heard of Tintin before the film was announced. My mother, aunt, and uncle grew up reading the famous comics that served as the source for this film. I tried to read a few of them that were translated into English. They never did it for me. I can't quite put my finger on why...I just never cared for them. So I wasn't exactly enthusiastic to see The Adventures of Tintin. But I was pleasantly surprised to find that this was a fun, engaging film. It follows Tintin, a young Belgian reporter, and his dog Snowy as they seek the location of a horde of treasure lost during a battle with pirates. Along the way they team up with other characters famous from the franchise, such as Captain Haddock, an alcoholic sea captain with a mysterious heritage, Thomson and Thompson, a bumbling pair of nearly identical looking detectives, and Bianca Castafiore, an obnoxious Italian opera diva with a voice that can shatter glass. The film stumbles a bit at the beginning as it does a poor job of introducing the title character. It feels like we came into a movie that had started about twenty minutes earlier. But once the film gets going, it becomes an amazing adventure film the likes of which only Steven Spielberg could helm. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Who knows? The Adventures of Tintin may very well be the start of a beautiful relationship between Tintin and America.

8/10

The Big Doll House: Jack Hill

Well...this was an interesting experience. I have to say that The Big Doll House was my very first women-in-prison film. I was inspired to watch it after seeing it mentioned in both American Grindhouse and Machete Maidens Unleashed! as one of the most important examples of the genre. So, naturally, I had to see it. The film follows sex female prisoners who attempt to escape from a prison in the middle of a jungle. They are ruled over by a sadistic guard who tortures them when they step out of line. They organize their escape by taking the prison's evil warden, the prison medic, and two locals who provide the prison with produce hostage. The whole affair ends with chaotic, low-budget violence and carnage the likes of which would give Roger Corman and Quentin Tarantino an erection. Watching this film, I was consumed with questions. Why is the prison in the middle of the jungle? Why are the two locals so committed to figuring out a way to rape the prisoners (don't ask)? How exactly do the ladies get their hands on automatic weapons and use them better than trained commandos? Who knows? Who cares? We get to see Pam Grier topless! It's very clear where director Jack Hill's priorities were: between the neck and belly-button. These women willingly get topless at the drop of a hat. As a liberal feminist, I know that I should be offended. But for some reason, whenever the ladies go into the shower or get ready for a torture session at the hands of the aforementioned guard, things go blank........um...ahem...anyhow....The funniest thing about The Big Doll House is that it isn't really a bad film! It isn't a good one...but it doesn't do anything glaringly wrong in terms of basic film conventions and storytelling. The acting, particularly from Pam Grier, is surprisingly decent. And as exploitative and over-the-top as the screenplay is, it does deliver several very memorable and funny lines. My personal favorite is "Get it up or I'll cut it off!" I don't think any additional context is needed for that one. As offended as I know I should have been, I enjoyed The Big Doll House. It reminded me of a conversation that took place between a filmmaker and his studio boss in Preston Sturges' Sullivan's Travels (1941):

John L. Sullivan: I want this picture to be a commentary on modern conditions. Stark realism. The problems that confront the average man!
LeBrand: But with a little sex in it.
John L. Sullivan: A little, but I don't want to stress it. I want this picture to be a document. I want to hold a mirror up to life. I want this to be a picture of dignity! A true canvas of the suffering of humanity!
LeBrand: But with a little sex in it.
John L. Sullivan: [reluctantly] With a little sex in it.

6/10

Machete Maidens Unleashed!: Mark Hartley

I find it strangely appropriate that Mark Hartley's documentary Machete Maidens Unleashed! doesn't have a wikipedia article. I had to do a little bit of digging to scrounge up details concerning this film. But then again, it takes a little digging to find the films that feature in this documentary. Machete Maidens Unleashed! examines the Filipino sub-genre of B-movies and exploitation films. From the 1970s-1990s, the Philippines were frequently used by low budget filmmakers as locations for cheap movie shoots. As one of the interviewees in the documentary states, the Philippines had three essential things for exploitation films: 1) exotic locations, 2) local labor that could be paid for in pennies, 3) droves of beautiful women who were ready and willing to get naked in front of the camera. Ironically made during the incredibly oppressive era of martial law under the rule of Ferdinand Marcos, the films that were made in the Philippines frequently featured revolutionaries, prison escapes, and hot, scantily clad women fighting against oppressors. The documentary starts with what was widely considered to be the first of the Filipino sub-genre, the Blood Island trilogy by Gerry de Leon and Eddie Romero. After making incredible profits from drive-in sales, filmmakers flocked to the Philippines to cash in on a cinematic gold rush. Directors from Roger Corman to Cirio H. Santiago to Bobby A. Suarez all took part in this movement, making everything from women-in-prison films to spoofs of James Bond spy movies (most notably with For Y'ur Height Only, which starred Weng Weng, an 83cm Filipino dwarf, as a secret agent). The material that Machete Maidens Unleashed! covers is fascinating, but the documentary itself feels occasionally flat and uninspired. But then again...maybe that's oddly appropriate.

6/10

American Grindhouse: Elijah Drenner

Elijah Drenner's American Grindhouse is the kind of documentary about the cinema that I love the most: one that will make me run out and try to find a list of movies that I had previously never heard of. American Grindhouse scours the underground of American cinema, dredging up some of the most shocking, absurd, and bizarre exploitation and grindhouse films ever made. The film stretches from the the early years of Edison (with such films as The Kiss by William Heise) to the era of the Hayes Code to 70s exploitation and splatter films. Featuring truly fascinating interviews with such legends of sleaze and pioneers of smut as Jack Hill and Herschell Gordon Lewis and insights from film historians Eddie Muller, Kim Morgan and Eric Schaefer, American Grindhouse takes the audience on a truly fascinating tour through exploitation cinema. I give this film credit for admitting that many exploitation filmmakers like Lewis and Roger Corman were doing shocking things purely for the sake of money. Whenever I hear about critics and film historians praising exploitation filmmakers for being progressive and daring for casting homosexuals, different races, and women in lead roles, it activates my cynicism alarm. Yes, Jack Hill did cast women as the leads in The Big Doll House (1971). But it wasn't because he wanted to make some grand statement about gender roles and female empowerment. He did it because, excuse my language, he wanted to see some titties. Anyhow, I personally would have been more interested in the film if it had branched out from focusing solely on American films and examined international exploitation circuits. There's a remarkable documentary on Italian exploitation films and directors like Bruno Mattei and Jess Franco that's just waiting to be made, mark my words. But American Grindhouse is still satisfying fare for horror and exploitation enthusiasts.

7/10

Best Worst Movie: Michael Stephenson

I have fond memories of watching Troll 2 (1990) with my friends at Ursinus College as part of our Riff Club where we would watch episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and other terrible movies. Widely regarded as one of the worst films ever made, Claudio Fragasso's Troll 2 is a stunning train wreck of a movie that reaches a kind of nirvana of wretchedness. The film follows a family who travels for vacation to a town named Nilbog ("It's 'goblin' spelled backwards!") where they discover that all of the townsfolk are goblins who want to turn humans into plants for them to eat. And, yes, there are absolutely no trolls in this film. One of the most beloved scenes of the film involves the young boy (played by Michael Stephenson) of the family urinating all over a table of suspicious looking food to save them from eating it. The father angrily takes him to his room, throws him on the bed, and screeches one of the most famous lines in bad movie history: "You can't piss on hospitality! I won't allow it!". Well, nineteen years later, Stephenson has grown up and made a documentary called Best Worst Film. His documentary focuses on how the film has become a bona fide cult phenomenon, being resurrected by bad movie enthusiasts at theaters and conventions. Stephenson frames his documentary by focusing on George Hardy, the man who played the father. It turns out that Hardy is a kind, loving dentist who does medical work for underprivileged children for free. Hardy had completely forgotten about the film and was genuinely shocked that it had become popular and had transformed him into a celebrity. Hardy gradually comes to accept his status as a celebrity and enthusiastically attends showings of the film so he can meet fans. This all happens in the first 20-30 minutes. Then the film takes a different tone. Hardy goes to a convention abroad where nobody shows up. Fragasso is brought to America to attend one of the showings. He seems thrilled that his film has become so well-received, but is authentically shocked and offended that people like it because of how bad it is. And then it dons upon us: Fragasso is completely insane. He really believes that Troll 2 was a great work of art and that people should take it seriously. By the end of the film, Hardy returns back to his life as a dentist and Fragasso returns to Italy to begin production on, and I'm not kidding here, Troll 2: Part 2. This is a fun film that is nevertheless occasionally hard to watch, particularly during the scenes where Hardy and Fragasso are reunited. Fans of bad movies and Troll 2 will adore Best Worst Movie. Everybody else will be stunned by one of the strangest, and most unusual, stories concerning the movies.

7/10

Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography: Arnold Glassman, Todd McCarthy, Stuart Samuels

If you were to ask the average movie-goer what a cinematographer or a director of photography did during the production of a film, more than likely you would get a blank stare. For the most part, the public are concerned with only two members of a film's production staff: the lead actor/actress and the director. This is a shame considering that cinema is by its very nature a collaborative form of art. Cinematographers and directors of photography are easily some of the most important people in a film shoot. If the director is the heart of a film project, the cinematographer is the brain. The documentary Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography pays tribute to these extraordinary and overlooked craftsmen. Drawing upon a massive library of films and interviews with many of the industry's leading directors and cinematographers, the documentary provides unparalleled access into the world of the men and women who worked the camera. The film offers a general overview of the development and evolution of cinematography over the decades. Special attention is given to the cinematographers of the Golden Age of Hollywood, men like Gregg Toland and John Alton. While the work of post-studio era filmmakers is given a fair share of screen time, one can't help but feel that the documentary harbors some kind of mild, underlying contempt for independent and Hollywood New Wave cinematographers. At times, the documentary seems to be a eulogy for black-and-white films. Not to mention that the almost complete absence of non-American cinematographers and films feels like a slap to the face to the many pioneering craftsman who worked in foreign film markets. However, for a basic introduction into one of the most important aspects of filmmaking, Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography is a good start.

7/10

Songs from the Second Floor: Roy Andersson

This review is a reprint of a short essay that I wrote for a film class.

Swedish auteur Roy Andersson’s Songs from the Second Floor was heralded upon its release in 2000 as one of the best films of the year. Winning several international prizes, including the Cannes Film Festival’s Jury Prize, the film announced the return of one of Europe’s most fascinating and daring filmmakers after a twenty-five year absence since his last feature length film. Heavily inspired by the work of Peruvian poet César Vallejo, Songs from the Second Floor is a triumph of what Andersson refers to as “trivialism.” Ursula Lindqvist explains, “In [Songs from the Second Floor], Andersson, with the help of Vallejo, creates a cinematic tableau vivant of ordinary people in mundane moments.” Through the use of 46 individually crafted and independent scenes, Andersson creates a portrait of a city upon the brink of complete social and economic collapse. Each scene features similar characteristics: a fixed camera, wide-angle lens, and microscopically detailed mise-en-scène. In addition, each scene is filmed in a single, unbroken take. The subjects of these scenes include a conflicted middle-aged man who burned his business for insurance money, a foreigner who is brutally assaulted by a pack of businessmen, a young girl who is sacrificed in an attempt to placate the economy, and a parade of salaryman flagellants.

After making waves throughout the world cinema community, critics and scholars scrambled to interpret Andersson’s film. One of the most traditional interpretations is that the film is a spiritual embodiment of the work of the aforementioned Vallejo. A Marxist poet who spent many of his years in exile in Europe, Vallejo’s work can best be described as containing an “Heideggerian sense of metaphysical abandonment...of being thrown into the world, into language, and into a body that entraps and fails him.” This is translated by Andersson into a stinging critique of capitalism that examines the disillusionment, disconnection, and alienation felt by those trapped within the system. In his four-star review of the film, Roger Ebert summarizes the world created by Andersson as “a city that has simply stopped working, has broken down and is cannibalizing itself. It is a 20th century city, but Andersson sees it as an appropriate backdrop for the plague or any other medieval visitation. And its citizens have fallen back on ancient fearful superstition to protect themselves.” And yet, the idea that Andersson would create such a stinging critique of capitalism reeks of irony. If it wasn’t for the machinations of capitalism, Andersson would not have been able to make Songs from the Second Floor in the first place.

Although Andersson’s first film, A Swedish Love Story, opened to great commercial and critical success, his follow-up, Gillap, was a massive flop that soured his taste for the industry. However, Andersson found sanctuary in the realm of commercial advertisements. Andersson’s work in creating commercials, which were described by Ingmar Bergman as the greatest ever made, were done for such varying clients as the candy company Fazer, the insurance company Trygg-Hansa, and the Swedish Social Democratic Party. It was during this time that, as Lindqvist describes, “Andersson matured as an artist, developing a distinctive method of using a fixed camera and a carefully composed, moving image to tell a story.” And yet, as soon as Andersson managed to secure finances and creative control for a new film, he crafts one that is merciless in its persecution of the capitalist system that depended on advertisements the likes of which he had created. Critics noted that with Songs from the Second Floor, Andersson was biting the hand that fed him. They should have also realized that the hand in question partially belonged to Andersson.

9/10

Kill the Irishman: Jonathan Hensleigh

I think the greatest part of the legacy that surrounds Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas is that ever since its release, all other mafia films seem pale in comparison. Goodfellas was such a perfectly executed and realized film that every other mafia movie since seem derivative. And so, how do you grade a film like Jonathan Hensleigh's Kill the Irishman in a post-Goodfellas world? The film is a biopic of Danny Greene, the notorious Irish-American mafia boss of 1970s Cleveland. The film charts his life from his beginnings as a simple longshoreman to one of America's most powerful and feared mobsters. After an arrest early on in his life, Greene also became an FBI informant who would use his links to get his rivals and enemies arrested. As his power grew and grew, the other mafia dons decided that Greene was too much of a hassle, so a contract was taken out on his life. The problem was...no matter how they tried to kill Danny Greene, he somehow managed to survive. The man survived multiple assassination attempts and even managed to dispatch several of his would-be assassins. This speaks to the most curious part of Greene's character: he believed himself to be a descendant of "Celtic Warriors." Fiercely proud of his Irish pride, he saw himself like a Celtic folk hero immortalized in ballads and songs. The film seems to suggest that Greene's life was predetermined (in one scene, Greene jokes that he won't die until the Lord says it's his time). Hensleigh regards Greene as a larger than life character who fought for, earned, and lost the American Dream. So, if Goodfellas was an attempt to accurately portray a gangster, Kill the Irishman was an attempt to immortalize one.

7/10

The Muppets: James Bobin

It's been a long time coming, but the Muppets have finally returned to the big screen! Let me be frank for a minute...I love the Muppets. I had a huge collection of their movies when I was a kid that I would watch religiously. In my home, it's a tradition to watch The Muppet Christmas Carol every holiday season. So when I heard that there was a new Muppet movie (appropriately entitled The Muppets) I knew that I had to see it. And...it was alright. My biggest problem is that it seems like it is trying too hard to recapture the simplistic greatness of the Jim Henson years while mixing it with what Hollywood considers modern humor and sensibilities. Allow me to explain...the film focuses on two brothers, Walter (a Muppet) and Gary (a human), who travel to Los Angeles with Gary's girlfriend of ten years, Mary. They want to celebrate Gary and Mary's anniversary, but they get side-tracked by Walter's desire to see the old Muppets Studio. Upon seeing that it is run down and decrepit, Walter becomes determined to reunite the Muppets. This, of course, is further motivated when he learns that an evil businessman, Tex Richman, plans on buying the studio so he can tear it down and drill for oil. The Muppets have two days to raise $10 million so they can buy back the studio. And this is a fine and decent plot for a Muppets movie. I genuinely appreciated how it mediated on how the Muppets haven't been culturally relevant for years and that most people have forgotten about them. But remember what I said about it trying too hard to reconcile old school Muppets with modern sensibilities? This is best summed up in the very last scene where the triumphant Muppets are greeted by a massive cheering crowd. But look closely at that crowd...there aren't any children in it. It is comprised entirely of adults. It seems that Hollywood has forgotten what truly made the Muppets great: the fact that they excelled at creating family friendly entertainment that wasn't only genuinely fun but also didn't talk down to young children. The Muppets may have been fun for adults when they first appeared...but they captured the hearts of the children. The Muppets worked not just because they are funny (as humor is relative to time period and culture) but because they spoke to our emotions, fears, and hopes (things that are universal). And that's where I think this film misses the point: the Muppets don't have to be inundated with clever, fourth-wall breaking humor, untold swarms of celebrity cameos, and forced silliness. The Muppets are a timeless phenomenon. When done properly, the Muppets don't have to be defined by time period. This speaks to how the film doesn't focus on the Muppets, but on Walter and Gary who exist solely so they can position the Muppets as an old act. We don't need Walter and Gary to frame the Muppets. We just need...well...the Muppets.

6/10

Blue Steel: Robert N. Bradbury

I honestly don't know if I should do a review of Robert N. Bradbury's Blue Steel. After all, it was created on Poverty Row, that infamous conglomeration of ultra-low budget studios who pumped out cheap B-movies for pennies. They didn't aspire to any lofty artistic ideals or pretenses of great entertainment. They were made purely to squeeze as much profit as possible out of the masses. And yet, it was from such films that the mythology of the Western was largely imprinted within the minds of the public. It also served to provide work for many Hollywood stars before they made their big break. And so we come back to Blue Steel. This film was one of dozens of cheap Westerns made on Poverty Row that featured a young John Wayne before he made his name in John Ford's Stagecoach. It features an entirely preposterous plot, hokey acting, and some hilarious attempts at special effects. John Wayne plays John Carruthers, an undercover US Marshall on the hunt for the Polka Dot Bandit who is responsible for a string of robberies in the area. Of course...we never really learn where this area is...it's just a place full of cactus, dust, and cowboys which is uniformly referred to as "the West." Well, Carruthers is mistaken for a thief by a local sheriff. Together, they team up to stop the Polka Dot Bandit and the sinister man behind him who is using the robberies to convince the townsfolk to leave. Why? Because there's GOLD 'neath the town! GOLD, I tells ya! Anyway, this plot is merely an excuse to fill the film's 50+ minute run time with as many action scenes and set pieces as possible. It's...terrible. Yet I can't lie and say that it isn't entertaining.

4/10 (Professional Critic Rating)
8/10 (So Bad It's Good Rating)