Ode to Yesteryear: Exploitation Double Feature

    More and more modern filmmakers are professing their love for films of the past by referencing and recreating them.  This is especially true of the grindhouse and exploitation films that seem to have been popularized by Tarantino and Rodriguez and whose references run wide and deep.  These serve as a quasi-in-joke to those familiar with the particular genres, films, actors, techniques, and clichés.
    Scott Sanders revives the blaxploitation film in full force.  Black Dynamite stars and is co-written by Michael Jai White, ripped beyond belief and fully aware of his surroundings.  Sander’s film pays homage to the low-budget inner-city exploitations by adopting the epitome of ridiculous plot points and technical elements.  Dynamite’s brother is killed sending the titular character on a sex-filled, Kung-Fu revenge rampage.  The story convolutes into Dynamite saving nearly everybody; the most extreme being the heroin addicted orphans.  He confronts friend and foe alike, demanding to be listened to and letting his fists do a majority of the talking.  There is really no limit this film doesn't push content-wise and feels like they packed three hours of story into half that. 
    Stylistically the film is nearly indiscernible from those it emulates, Shaft, Superfly, Sweet Sweetback, etc.  If weren’t for the obvious parody it would fit right in.  Dynamite is distracted by the boom mic as it hovers inches from his forehead.  Most scenes end with him declaring his superiority while brandishing his handgun and nunchaku.  The music feels right out of the seventies; the chase scenes make spatial continuity seem irrelevant.  In all respects, the film makes fun of everything that was blaxploitation and does so in such a jabbing manner that it surpasses its source.  One could not parody the genre more, short of casting white people in black face.
    On the other end of the spectrum is Ti West’s homage to classic splatter films of the 70’s and 80’s.  The House of the Devil is so pitch perfect and content and delivery that it could have easily been made 25 years before and no one would know the difference.  In contrast to Dynamite, West plays it serious.  The slow burn of horror is cautious in delivery, carefully withholding information for characters and audience alike.  We know when the young babysitter takes a job at a giant house owned by a creepy man that she will have a hell of a night.
    Filmed on 16mm and shot mostly at night, West’s film carefully controls the audience’s intake.  Much of the picture relies on methodical introduction of uncertainty; it scares us more with what we don’t see.  At the same time it shocks us abruptly; no scare tactic is off limits.  When it finally climaxes there is but 15 minutes left; 15 minutes that make up for all the blood lacking in the first 75.  We can only hope, given the expectedly unexpected ending, that the sequel is around the corner.

Both films highly recommended. 

Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997)

    All Dieter Dengler wanted to do since seeing war planes fly over his city was join them in the skies.  The desire led him to America and to the military where the objective was always another hurdle away.  Finally, he found his way into the cockpit only to be shot down and taken prisoner.  This film is a one-man show of Dengler recounting the horrific torture he endured in Vietnam during the war years.  It is one of the purest stories of survival and triumph of the human will.  (Good lord.)  In all actuality, it is an upfront look endurance of the human spirit against the continued onslaught of true horror.
    Even the usually opinionated and loquacious Herzog struggles to get a word in during Dengler’s accounts.  Save for a question or two, the director must insert his voice overtop images of Dengler and his past.  He examines the archaic military training films, similar to ones shown to Dengler, and questions their teachings and accuracy.  But for the most part, Herzog lets the namesake character tell his own story.
    It is almost disarming, the ease with which Dieter Dengler described his story.  The eagerness to share shines through like a child’s, discovering a fascinating story for the first time.  It is with seemingly practiced nonchalance that he recounts the decapitation of his best friend, and sole surviving companion, at hands of machete wielding enemy.  This being after they shared a single tennis-shoe sole to protect a foot, and days of crawling once the damage to their feet had been too much.
    Upon meeting Dengler we are given a tour of his abode; complete with model airplanes, war honors, and an assortment of collections.  Beneath the floor is stored thousands of pounds of food in 5 gallon plastic buckets, a stock he knows he’ll never need but can sleep soundly knowing he has.  This trait becomes justified, rather quickly, as we see pictures of his body starved for months in the jungle.  The film never discusses any post-traumatic stress related issues but we’d be hard-pressed not to find them.  This makes he modern jungle escapades even more alarming.  Hands bound behind his back he is lead through the uneven jungle terrain that he covered years ago while a prisoner.  Some form of therapy or self-flagellation, the most logical explanation seems that Herzog himself convinced Dengler it would be a good idea.  At the hands of gun-toting Vietnamese he is towed quickly across roots, rocks, and memories of torture.  It is no small wonder that he doesn’t break down mentally into a heap of insanity.
    The film mixes in plenty of aged photographs and films.  Yet for the most part the star is present to tell his story; a story he has undoubtedly told many times before.  His endearing personality is the perfect contrast to the savagery of his tale; the delivery of his past emphasizes its content.  The weight of the story cannot be waived off, as proven by Herzog’s re-visitation in the form of Rescue Dawn.  Unfortunately, the latter film fails indubitably in comparison. 

The Girlfriend Experience (2009)

    Soderbergh’s films are pretty hit and miss as a whole but migrate towards the positive end of the spectrum.  It is not immediately apparent just where on the scale this film sits.  The 2009 experimental drama received mixed critical reviews and, not surprisingly, didn’t fare too well at the box office.  Upon reflection, though, it becomes quite apparent that this is a far cry from the super independent experiment Soderbergh conducted back in 2005.  Bubble was mostly unwatchable and while it may have achieved something for the filmmaker personally, did nothing for his audience.
    The Girlfriend Experience is much easier to justify from a spectator standpoint.  Shot with the wunderkind of cameras, the RedOne, it juxtaposes a handheld, overexposed subjectivity reminiscent of Ocean’s 12 with a carefully composed, architecturally sound interior world of glass and steel.  These frames are much more interesting, much emptier emotionally.  The inhospitality of these environments, all hard lines with sharply defined edges, may mirror the attachment absent in the main character.  The apartment even, lit smoothly and beautifully with what should be a warm red glow, remains cold in a wide and unceasing master shot.  The closest we ever get to two characters actually connecting in the classic shot/ reverse shot is between the escort and a reporter, secluding themselves to window seats in a restaurant.  Just as the viewer remains physically distant from all characters so do the characters fail to connect themselves.
    Chelsea fashions herself a high-class escort providing paid-for emotional attachment to her clients while at the same time maintaining a relationship with her boyfriend.  We rarely see their connection, rather, we see them living out their independent lives that occasionally cross and eventually disintegrate.  All human interactions in the film, as there is really no other kind here, retain as sense of everyday realism.  Their world is not exceedingly cinematic; Chelsea’s profession is not exploited like most other films would likely handle it.  (The fact that Sasha Grey’s name promotes the movie is another story.)  The conversations, especially if one is expecting more, come off as mundane, yet appropriately so.  The closest we come is a john promising a career-building week in Dubai full of cocaine, rich Indian businessmen, and skyscraping hotels; the type of location most prostitute movies would inhabit.  Naturally, the reviewer turns out an insulting review of her services.
    Soderbergh’s film is a languid exploration approaching urban ennui.  Nearly all of her rich clients report on their crumbling economic status, spending much of their paid for time talking rather than…  Yet we never see anyone do much of anything.  The exception being the gym, where mindless minions perfect their bodies, presumably for sex with whomever.  There exists a bleakness to the world; the sun never seems to shine.  The only sense of energy comes from street musicians who provide a contrastingly upbeat soundtrack for spurts of time only to be cut out abruptly.  Experiment is certainly the right word for the film and its success is debatable.  Yet in its completion it strikes the right chord, at least for me at the time.  So what more can be said about a film that feels like something more must be said?  Just that, that it is easy to consider this film more meaningful than it is.  Or perhaps it is that meaningful, you’ll have to decide for yourself.

An American Werewolf in London (1981)

    John Landis’s classic 1981 monster movie is by no means first or last in the long list of lycanthropic titles.  What makes it stand out is its mix of semi-campiness and bloody effects.  At the same time it manages to introduce some serious topics despite any attempt to satisfactorily resolve them.
    We meet a rather idiotic pair of Yankees in over their messy-haired heads while backpacking in the Yorkshire moors.  After being dropped from the back of a sheep truck they navigate the indiscernible land with complete disregard to spatial continuity; not the only time the film cheats its locations.  They arrive at the appropriately named Slaughtered Lamb to a cold reception from the accented natives who have neither food nor hospitality.  Upon leaving, they are greeted by a howling werewolf that murders one friend while the other flees in terror.
    And so begins the trials of David Kessler as he is haunted by his decaying best friend who is caught in a state of limbo.  Jack has returned in an attempt to get David to kill himself, a thought not entirely foreign after running from his friend’s side as he was slaughtered by a mysterious creature.  For the sake of a movie more than ten minutes long, David is more interested in his nurse, with whom he soon sparks a relationship that garners him both a place to stay and a convenient plot propellant.  Jack informs David that he must end the werewolf curse by ending his own life, or else he will become the beast during the next full moon…
    Naturally, he takes these apparitions as insanity and soon transforms, rather painfully, into a wolf.  A very ugly wolf.  Numerous others die and are added to the list of lives he must atone for, all the visitors in some stage of decay as he meets them in the back of a porn theater.  By this point he’s probably wishing the wolf had killed him.
    The premier wolf attack is taken almost tongue-in-cheek as a huge prop is thrust from screen-left and statically knocks Jack down.  The fact that David runs for his life is a knee-jerk reaction but remains the point of contention for the film.  David owes Jack his life and as such Jack feels compelled not to blame his friend but ask for his help in relieving him and others from a netherworld.  In a straight drama this dynamic would be played out to sappy music, emotional connection, meaningful dialogue.  Here, the awesome Rick Baker effects overshadow any serious issues and instead make the transformation scenes the serious issue. 
    David’s fingers protrude to an uncomfortable length, his face stretches forward, his shoulders arch into almost anorexic detail while growing scraggily hairs.  His eyes, ears, and mouth all transform, grotesquely, into the werecreature.  No less is spared on Jack’s postmortem presence that becomes puppet like near the end but effective nonetheless.  Naturally, the quantity of blood is sufficient for what one expects at the scene of a werewolf-attributed slaughter.  The Academy of Motion Pictures took note and created an Outstanding Achievement in Make-Up award for Baker's efforts.
    Throughout, the film maintains a sense of self-consciousness in its referral to past wolf lore and continued tone; never does it tread on being taken completely serious nor descend into another completely campy splatterfest.  Landis effectively navigates the line between making it worthwhile and making it fun.  We could certainly use a bit more discussion on the issue of say, stigmas of insanity, suicide, friendship, etc.  But then again, this is a werewolf movie.

    Look for the remake next year.

Stripped (2001)

     The title of this 2001 film is rather straightforward, and discussing in depth the life of a stripper is a tantalizing prospect for any film viewer already admitting to their scopophilic intentions.  The director, Jill Morley, becomes a stripper to gain unprecedented access into the backstage world and mindset of the controversial profession.
    The filmmaker, an aspiring actress, stars front and center from the beginning of her film.  Her voice-over tries just a little to hard to sound sincere and interesting and instead passes into pleading and unwarranted.  She would have done better letting her subjects, and friends, speak for themselves.  Add to this her own personal confessions, akin to half of YouTube’s uploads, and we have a film that seems garnered to promoting its creator.   We could discuss the poor sound quality and handheld camera work that feels misplaced and unpracticed and we have a film that so screams amateur it is hard to get into the story itself.
    This is where the film really misses the mark.  It would be wildly appropriate for the dancers themselves, all girls and women who understand the profession they practice with such refined pondering that they articulate the psychology behind it, to tell the story.  Rather, Morley jumps into the dressing room stuffs a camera in their faces.  The fact that she too is a stripper warranted a sense of companionship; they do not see one another as competition but as friends.  But the story could be told much better without the filmmakers voice coming from behind or in front of the camera.  It is hard not to see it as a self-promoting product.
    We can, however, still absorb a bit of what is happening in this world.  The girls examine themselves, both physically and emotionally, in the context of how they make money.  They make no attempt to hide the fact that they make very good money by working their customers.  It is a game, a routine, a performance where the single dollar bill never leaves their mind; only he who has it matters.  Many recount years later how their sense of self-confidence and power is escalated with years of dancing.  For some, these years bear emotional scars, for others they are shrugged off.
    It is a bit difficult to decide whether the film exploits its subjects.  (Of course, the entire profession is exploitative. Thus the cinematic process of capturing this could be considered exploitation.)  There is not shortage of backstage and onstage nudity, girls discussing their bodies; essentially free shows with no payment to the dancers.  Perhaps a bit counter intuitive, this film could easily be made without ever showing the act itself.  It seems the film only has little more respect for the girls than the men who inhabit the dark and dingy bars.  The film is indeed interesting but misses too much.

Gates of Heaven (1978)

    The first splice of b-roll comes more than twenty minutes into Errol Morris’s debut documentary.  This is in the form of a backhoe excavating pet graves and is as matter-of-factly composed as the preceding interviews.  As apt introduction to the intriguing world of Morris films, the tight 4x3 framing includes all necessary elements and manages to strike a consistent quirkiness that will continue on in the filmmaker’s oeuvre.
    We are introduced to an eclectic grouping of Californians whom all have some stake in the then recent introduction of the much-needed pet cemetery.  Whether they be the family of keepers, the neighboring rendering factory whose business exists on the opposite end of the spectrum, the pet owners whose beloved family members end up in the ground, or the local woman with some connection to the cemetery that rambles for five minutes and leaves any semblance of a pet focused film in the dust.  Such stream of consciousness interviewing has been the epitome of Morris’s infatuation/obsession with interviewing people.  More than any other filmmaker, he has the uncanny ability to find the most interesting of characters.
    Gates of Heaven, fascinatingly, has not only maintained a state of social relevance, but may have even increased in its application to modern day American life.  In a world where Paris Hilton totes her Chihuahua around like a toddler made of gold, where airlines/hotels cater to pet owners, where we care more for dying animals than homeless people and probably spend the money to prove it, a film about the final resting place of our beloved companions could only strike the right chords.  Unless of course, it deviates from the story on the outset, allowing the characters to intermingle in their own thoughts and opinions whether they be pertinent to the topic or not.  Morris is undoubtedly smitten with such outcome and there is no reason the viewer should feel any different.
     Perhaps the promise Werner Herzog made to eat his own shoe should such a film be made (the fact that he did it at the film’s completion is irrelevant) figured in to seeing the film through.  Regardless, it is a story, or rather a narrative of our culture, that is relevant to understanding said culture and telling of our priorities.  Morris strikes a pertinent chord with his first feature length documentary and it is an oh so delicious taste of things to come.

Review: The Social Network

The Social Network
dir. David Fincher
run time: 2 hours
Columbia Pictures
rating: 5 of 5 stars

     David Fincher started out small, doing commercials, music videos, the types of things most directors start out doing: a way to get their name into the world, attached to some brilliant works. He got his feature debut on Alien 3 (1992), and has since produced some of the most brilliant thrillers of today: The Game (1997), Fight Club (1999), Se7en (1995). He is well known for the use of unique, digitally enhanced camera movement, taking the audience to different rooms through walls, over ceilings, next to objects – places where cameras generally can't go. But since Panic Room (2002), Fincher has appeared to change pace, taking on more serious movies such as Zodiac (2007), which is based on the story of the investigators of the Zodiac serial killers. He was also the director behind The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), which received mixed reviews.

     While his unique camera moves have since diminished, and his highly fictionalized crime thrillers have been replaced by "based on true story" films, his works remain uniquely him, something quite apparent in his most recent film The Social Network (2010), starring Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, and Armie Hammer. This film only once indulges in that unique camera move, and then hardly noticeable, but the story, although a drama, is set up as a thriller.
     From the beginning of the movie the fast-paced editing, the speedy and realistic dialogue, and the inter-cutting between present and past make for a relentless blast of information, emotion, and drama. The intensity of the movie is enough to make one jittery afterward, sending the mind traveling a million miles a second. The story of Mark Zuckerberg's (Jesse Eisenberg) creation starts at the end of his relationship with his girlfriend, where she tells him he tries too hard be something he is not. After the break-up, Zuckerberg breaks some school rules to create a "Hot or Not" website that catches the attention the Winklevoss twins (both played by Armie Hammer) on Harvard's rowing team, an exclusive group Zuckerberg obsesses about throughout the film. The twins approach him with an idea for a new dating website, which includes that same exclusivity that Zuckerberg so obsesses over.

     The film then cuts to the present, where we learn Zuckerberg is in legal negotiations with the twins as well as with his best friend Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield) about his creation "Facebook." The story unfolds from there revealing the shallowness of Zuckerberg, and the downfall of anything good that he may have had going for him.
      What comes as a large surprise, is the quality of the acting in The Social Network. Eisenberg plays the soulless Zuckerberg with a jittery, almost absent presence throughout the film. The character is a genius and knows it, using every opportunity that arises to demerit those around him. Garfield, on the other hand, plays the friend whose life is all but ruined by his relationship with Zuckerberg. This character is the only decent person in the movie, and Garfield pulls it off well. Few scenes are overacted, and none feel unreal. Even the performance as Sean Parker by Mr. Timberlake is exceptional. He plays the unbearable jerk, if you will, who steps in to be lauded by Zuckerberg and separate him from his best friend Eduardo. The other characters are, quite possibly, just as amazing; form Armie Hammer's two roles, as distinct as separate people, to Rashida Jones' quirky performance as Marylin Deply, no-one breaks the quality of this film's acting.
     As much as Aaron Sorkin's script, and Kurt Baxter and Angus Wall's editing do for the film, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross's music gives considerable contribution. The diegetic techno music, as well as the non-diegetic score for the film are a herald of emotions that enhance the acting, the dialog and the editing in ways one would not expect such music to do.
    As Fincher has proven time and again, he knows how to choose a director of photography. Like Benjamin Button, and Fight Club before it, the cinematography in The Social Network is pristine, ominous, and quite appropriate. The often green or magenta lighting, along with the lower saturation, and super shallow depth-of-field contribute to the drama of the film, the intensity of the story. The opening sequence, just still shots of Eisenberg as he runs across campus, lets one know that the film is going to be a beautiful one. And by the time the rowing race comes, with its use of tilt-shift photography to make it all look like a miniature (as though the race is insignificant compared to the worth of Facebook), it is hard to ignore the beauty of the film.
     The implementation of techniques used in thrillers, the astounding screenwriting, the fast-paced editing, the low-saturation lighting and pristine composition, the unique score, and the absolutely mind-blowing acting make The Social Network one the year's best films, and likely to be praised as Fincher's best work to date.

I'm Still Here (2010)

    The existence of Casey Affleck’s pseudo-documentary about the disintegration of real life celebrity Joaquin Phoenix bears more significance than the content of the film itself.  Despite consistent efforts to suggest that the public at large was uncertain about Phoenix’s abrupt career change, only the most gullible of all would have believed what is now being called an elaborate hoax.  For many it has come as a big surprise the Affleck announced the documentary as false.
    The piece itself is inherently self-conscious.  It includes snippets of Phoenix’s public appearances as the Unabomber that seemed to mark the arrival of aspiring R&B artist JP.  The star constantly refers to the film as it is being made, and it addresses all the questions that the public had while it was being made.  In a world of post-modern media, plagued by reality television and Jackass inspired stunts, this film fits in, and is doubtless inspired by both.  Phoenix, as both star and character, is aware of what is happening both in and out of the film.  The character is conscious of the perhaps poor decisions precluding and following his acting status.  Naturally, he numbs his woes in cocaine and hookers.
    I don’t mean to suggest that no thought went into a film with such obvious immaturity.  The fact of the matter is, however, that this creative team had a chance to come up with something absolutely fascinating.  And those that have the desire will admire the Borat-inspired renegade.  And certainly Phoenix’s near self-loathing and acknowledgment thereof is neither anything to shake a stick at, nor something that other actors would be very willing to commit themselves to.
    Thus the concept and execution of the film is intriguing; very meta in story and natural in capture.  It is a plausible if not believable story of the collapse of a figure so steadfastly projected in the public eye that everything they do becomes significant.  Our celebrity culture celebrates just such acts of celebrity as pretending to be yourself for a documentary about your own collapse.  Social commentary or self-promotion?  I will say that I have confidence in both creative minds to be conscious of just what they were doing.
    When you get to the film itself, though, it seems rather drab.  Phoenix is overweight, verbally abusive, mentally jumbled.  His new pastime is getting high, whining in self-importance, and trying to get P. Diddy to produce his album.  Not the biggest of deals.  So when we examine the arena surrounding the film, that it is shrouded in uncertain truth (and inherently autobiographical to some extent), that it is real or not real, that we cannot pin down and define it easily, the whole project takes on more significance.  Unfortunately for the duo, Banksy’s Exit Through the Gift Shop does it so much better.