After The Gold Rush

If I had to recommend one Neil Young album as the best entry point into his discography, I might have to go for After The Gold Rush. Not just because it's a great album, but because it works as a nice sampler of Neil's predominate musical styles. Harvest, being his most popular album with some of his best known songs, seems like a more likely candidate for an introductory album. But I dunno, it's maybe a little too set in its way; it picks a folk rock sound with a slight country twinge and mainly sticks with it. It doesn't give you a sense of variety. After The Gold Rush gives you not only some pretty folk-y tunes ("Tell Me Why") and a classic, blistering hard rock jam ("Southern Man"), but also some melodic rock songs that split the difference ("When You Dance You Can Really Love"). You get weepy ballads ("Birds"), upbeat party songs ("Till the Morning Comes"), even an offbeat piano number with horn solos and oddball lyrics about Mother Nature and space ships (the title song). (Side note: is "After the Gold Rush" perhaps the first song to address Neil's environmental concerns? It will become an important theme on several later releases.)

This is the album that Neil Young should have been: an eclectic, supremely satisfying rock album that draws on a large number of Neil's influences. After the relatively pared down sound of Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, this one has a far more layered, rich production. Unlike his debut, however, he doesn't overdo it with effects or throw in unnecessary instruments or vocal tracks; every song is produced and arranged in a manner that suits it perfectly (well, "Birds" lays it on a little thick in the chorus, but I forgive it.)

Front to back, there is not a weak song on here. It's not his best known album with his best known songs, but that doesn't stop it from being fucking classic.

Rating: A

So Far (as a member of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)

This compilation of material (5 songs from Deja Vu, 4 from Crosby, Stills & Nash, and 2 from a single) is a nice tribute to the enjoyable, pretty, pleasant dullness of the group's overall sound. The best non-Neil song not already on Deja Vu is beloved 7 1/2 minute classic "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes," and let's be honest with ourselves: even that song is about 6 1/2 minutes of likable blandness and one minute of an awesome finale. If you're looking for a CSN introduction, this is a better place to start than their self-titled album, although you're still better off with Deja Vu. It would be a much better compilation if they had included "Carry On," but you'll still enjoy it beginning to end. Well, except for the dry heaves you'll get from the lyrics to "Helplessly Hoping." ("They are 1 person/ they are 2 alone/they are 3 together/ they are 4 each other." Ick.)

The best reason to check this out is because it includes Neil's consummate protest anthem "Ohio." The problem with a lot of political music is that, for the same reason it seems timely and powerful and relevant when it first comes out, it seems dated and obsolete when heard way down the line. But "Ohio" is just so fucking awesome that you'll barely give this a thought; you'll be too busy pumping your fist in the air.

Rating: C +, I think a better song selection could have been made to highlight the group's unique talents.

Déjà Vu (as a member of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)

I can only imagine how weird this seemed to music fans at the time. Yes, Neil Young and Stephen Stills had been in Buffalo Springfield together, so there was likely some chemistry between them. But otherwise, why would the mellow folk-rock trio of Crosby, Stills & Nash, known for their agreeable vocal harmonies, want to join forces with a guy who sings like he's Kermit the Frog receiving testicular electrocution? Perhaps they were hoping that Neil would be missing ingredient that would take their sound to a whole new level. The truth is, however, that Déjà Vu essentially sounds like a CSN album with two Neil Young songs randomly stuck into the middle.

Be that as it may, it's still a surprisingly good folk rock album. Neil contributes "Helpless," a pretty and evocative tribute to his homeland, and the absurdly titled "Country Girl: Whiskey Boot Hill/Down, Down, Down/Country Girl (I Think You're Pretty)," a sort of segmented folk rock suite that's not entirely dissimilar to "Broken Arrow." Neither is a timeless classic, but both are good, especially "Helpless," with its palpable sense of longing ("And in my mind, I still need a place to go/All my changes were there.")

As for the C, S & N portions of the album, my favorite track is by far the opener: Stills' "Carry On," a spirited folk rock number that takes a pleasantly surprising turn for the psychedelic midway through. The album is reasonably consistent, and I would say its main flaw is that its frequently amiable but rarely seems vital. Even songs I really like, for example Nash's "Teach Your Children" or "Our House" are very pleasant but also kinda boring. Their rendition of Joni Mitchell's "Woodstock" is surprisingly rocking, but a lot of the album is lacking in energy. And Crosby's "Almost Cut My Hair" is just fucking stupid, I don't care if it's supposed to be tongue-in-cheek. So I'd say overall you're left with a consistent, enjoyable album. For old people.

Rating: B -

Live at the Fillmore East (with Crazy Horse)

This live album, released more recently as part of the Archive Series but recorded in 1970, makes as strong of an argument you'll find for Crazy Horse as a live band. They were still young, fresh and polished, and Danny Whitten was still alive, so they sound more like a tight group of pros and less like the luckiest bar band in the world, as they will on later releases. Neil and co. go on some extended jams here, stretching "Down By the River" out to 12 minutes, and "Cowgirl in the Sand" into a whopping 16 minute colossus. But it never feels draggy or aimless, the album never flags in energy and always feels like it's driving forward.

When I was young, I had some sort of inexplicable bias against live albums. My thinking was, I guess, that live albums had neither the energy/electricity of actually watching a live performance, nor the polish and production of a studio album. And maybe that's true for shitty bands; I've certainly heard live albums where the songs sound just like they do on the album, only worse. But I've come to realize that the joy of a Neil Young live album is that his songs aren't dead, they are still breathing. Neil is constantly reworking his songs for a live audience; turning heavy songs acoustic, or turning mellow songs into hard rockers. And barring that, he's still going to explore the songs, no matter how many times he's played them. I'm listening to his solo for "Cowgirl in the Sand" as I write this, and I can hear him finding new ground, new avenues or ideas in the song he maybe hadn't explored before.

In addition to some excellent live versions of songs from Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, you get the very good "Winterlong" and "Wonderin'," and best of all is a rousing version of Witten's "Come On Baby Let's Go Downtown," an edited version of which Neil will later use on Tonight's the Night.

Rating: B

Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (with Crazy Horse)

Neil Young's first great album, and perhaps not coincidentally his first album with Crazy Horse as his backup band. First and foremost, Everybody Knows This is Nowhere is an ass-kicking guitar-rock album. Now, Neil is not some sort of technical virtuoso guitar genius, but he's one of my favorite electric guitarists none-the-less. It's like with his voice; he's created a unique, original sound that while not necessarily impressive on a technical level, blows you away on with its expressiveness. (As a side note, his acoustic guitar playing sounds considerably more polished). More simply put, the motherfucker will blow you away with his ferocity. The crazy, blistering squeals and screams he tortures out of his guitar occasionally border on abstraction, with Crazy Horse dutifully chugging away behind him. The 9-minute "Down By the River" may be the apex of their rocking-out, with its epic guitar solos that sound kind of like Neil was trying to jam as many different notes into the song as possible.

So Neil embraces hard rock and finally makes an album that you'd want to shake your ass to. But that's not the only improvement. I realized going back to Everybody Knows This is Nowhere how solid the production is. Unlike the needlessly over-textured sound of Neil Young, this album sounds clean and stripped down. Nothing is getting between the listener and the songs, and it is some great songwriting indeed. You can also clearly isolate each instrument in the mix, which helped me further appreciate the album's emphasis on riffing and exploring.

If I'm giving the impression that this album is some sort of shapeless jam session, that's just not the case. The songwriting is across-the-board excellent, from the nostalgic title track, to the to the playfully downbeat "The Losing End," to the rousing 10 minute finale "Cowgirl in the Sand." And it's not all hard rock, either: "Round and Round (It Won't Be Long)" is one of Neil's most beautiful ballads.

Rating: A-

Sugar Mountain: Live at Canterbury House 1968

A solo, acoustic live album recorded in 1968 and released in 2008 as part of the Archive Series, Sugar Mountain gives us a very soulful, intimate and entertaining look at Neil, as he plays some selections from his solo album and his work with Buffalo Springfield. The result is a far more powerful document of this era in his career than his debut album, in part because his vocals sound more confident, and in part because most of these songs sound better pared down. Not unlike Billy Corgan, another favorite songwriter of mine, Neil has sometimes obscured great songwriting with overboard production antics or ineffective aesthetic choices. Sugar Mountain rectifies some of the mistakes of his early era. Done acoustically, "Mr. Soul" no longer sounds like a ripoff of "Satisfaction." "Out of My Mind" sounds like a Neil song for the first time. "The Old Laughing Lady," without the silly overproduction, finally sounds beautiful and haunting.

Between almost every song, Neil chats/bullshits a little bit with audience, talking about his songwriting process, telling Buffalo Springfield anecdotes, opining about his overabundance of downer songs, launching into a non-sequitur about working at a book store while high on black beauties. His goofy, offbeat, rambling stories are charming and often hilarious... the first time you listen to this album. After that, you're likely to be scrambling for the skip button every 3 minutes so you can just get to the frickin' music already. You might want to put it on your iPod with all the talking tracks removed.

But whatever points I might dock Sugar Mountain are redeemed by its 11th track. "Birds," a short, poetic break-up song (that would eventually show up on After the Gold Rush in an excellent, if somewhat overblown, studio version) performed live here is simply one of the most beautiful things Neil has ever released.

Rating: B

Neil Young (Self-titled album)

Neil Young's first solo album is solid, if something of an inauspicious debut for someone with such a great, long, diverse career ahead of him. He's definitely thrown off the shackles of Buffalo Springfield and is starting to sound more like the Neil we know and love. He's got his first official epic, complete with lyrics about Indians and shit like that, the 9 1/2 minute "Last Trip to Tulsa." Even though he was still a young man, lyrics in songs like "Here We Are in the Years" are more wistful and have a better sense of life lived, his love songs seem less sappy, and he's got a good break-up song, "What Did You Do to My Life," to boot ("It isn't fair that I should/wake up at dawn/and not find you there.")

There are problems in the performance and production of the album, however. I'm sure I'll talk about this more in future posts, but I love Neil's voice despite the fact that he is not what you would traditionally consider a good singer. But like Bob Dylan before him and Kurt Cobain after, he knows how to write for his offbeat vocal style, and how to use his voice as a powerful expressive tool. He can kick your ass to the curb on a hard rocker, and he can wrench your soul on one of his ballads. The problem with Neil Young is that it sounds like he's holding back on a lot of the tracks; he's best when he gives it 110%, really belting that shit out, and here it's more like he's trying to be tastefully understated. It's kind of dull.

Later in his career, Neil will make some serious, often successful experiments in the production of his albums. Here, he overdoes it in a few places. The worst is "The Old Laughing Lady," which piles on shuffling drums, organs, soulful back-up singers and funky bass over what should be a stripped down acoustic song and turns it into a big mess. I never liked the song, until years later I heard a solo acoustic performance of it and realized how powerful the songwriting was. This is true of a few other songs on this album, and will actually turn into something of a trend in his career: songs improving when he reworks them for live performances.

Enough with the negative, there are still several places on the album where all these elements come together perfectly, and you get a no-shit-for-real great song like "I've Been Waiting For You," which jazzes up a haunting tune with some slick, well-layered (maybe vaguely trippy?) production. I don't spin this one as much as the classic Neil albums that were soon coming, but I've probably underrated it in the past.

Rating: C+, great things are coming soon.

Buffalo Springfield Again (as a member of Buffalo Springfield)

So in a sense, Buffalo Springfield Again marks an improvement for the band. It rocks a little harder, feels a little more distinct, draws a little more from different genres for a more eclectic sound. "Bluebird" is a pretty sweet song with some awesome acoustic guitar jammin', and "Sad Memory" is an extremely pleasant little ballad.

But as a Neil Young fan, this is a major disappointment. Neil only wrote 3 songs on this one, and there aren't exactly any timeless classics amongst them. "Mr. Soul" is a mildly rocking tune, but also an aimless, derivative drone, and "Expecting to Fly" is a passable ballad, but morose and overlong. Only the 6 minute, ambitious, experimental "Broken Arrow," with its weird interludes (breaking into "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" at one point) and layered soundscapes really holds up to analysis. You can hear that Neil is further developing his sound, and starting to show signs of the iconoclast songwriter that he'll someday become... but he just ain't there yet.

Rating: C -

Buffalo Springfield (as a member of Buffalo Springfield)

The biggest problem with Buffalo Springfield's self-titled album is its lack of identity. With the exception of Stephen Stills' zeitgeist-y classic "For What It's Worth," the songs are indistinguishable from any other generic, Beatles-esque, mid-60's pop-rock group. You could put it on for your folks and tell them its The Zombies or Paul Revere & the Raiders, or whatever, and nobody would bat an eye.

Be that as it may, there are several enjoyable, well-crafted, slightly dopey (sample lyric: "so if you want someone to love you/pretty baby, I'm your guy") generic Beatles-esque, mid-60's pop-rock songs on Buffalo Springfield. Neil wrote five of the twelve tracks, and it's no surprise that I prefer most of them to Stills' tracks. Neil's songs don't show much evidence of his unique style or ambition, but in a weird way it lends interest to them. It's kind of amusing to hear Neil adjusting his style (or perhaps having his style adjusted by others?) to sound more like what was popular at the time. He only gets to sing two of his songs, likely because his voice wasn't nearly as, uh, (how shall I put this?) commercial as Richie Furay's. Turns out that Mr. Young does a pretty good job writing this kind of music. They don't quite sound like Neil Young songs, but "Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing" and "Flying On the Ground is Wrong" are pretty catchy. And damn if "Out of My Mind" isn't a beautiful song that I never really appreciated until now.

Rating: C+. It's good, but there's something happening here, and what it is ain't exactly clear. Yet.

A Journey Through the Past: Reviewing My Neil Young Collection

I am a big Neil Young fan. In fact, he may be my favorite songwriter of all-time. Billy Corgan might give him a run for his money, and Warren Zevon has been swiftly moving up my list since I got into him a year or two ago, but Neil's prolificness makes him hard to beat.

In his nearly 45 year recording career, Neil Young has released an overwhelming wealth of material. Being a fan, this means that I own an overwhelming number of his albums. And what happens when one owns so much material by one artist, especially an artist that, shall we say, hasn't always been consistent, is that one establishes favorite albums that one returns to more often, at the neglect of others. Heck, I bet I listen to Neil more than any other musician, yet there are albums of his I haven't heard in years. Of course, as I grow older, my tastes evolve, and now I'm left wondering if I've ignored or written off classic Neil Young albums that didn't deserve it.

So here's the idea. I am going to round up my Neil Young collection and start from the beginning. I am going to listen to each album (likely a few times each) in chronological order, and post a mini review of each one on here. I won't necessarily do any detailed analysis, but I will make a serious effort to reappraise each one of his albums, make a personal assessment of each. At the end of each post, I will assign the album a letter grade.

I am calling it "Journey Through The Past" because it is the name of a Neil song that seems appropriate to this project.

Now, a few notes on this.

For one, I own a shitload of Neil Young music, but it is by no means complete. For example, I don't own all the Buffalo Springfield albums, or all of his live albums, and I definitely didn't shell out $500 cash money for his exhaustive Archive Blu Ray set that came out last year. I may use this project as an excuse to fill in a few gaps in my collection, but there will still be some exclusions. I think you'll agree that my collection is close enough to complete, and I'd rather not spend all my time and money trying to track down a copy of Eldorado, or the soundtrack from Dead Man, or a bootleg of Chrome Dreams, or whatever.

Next, when I say I'm going through the collection chronologically, I mean that I'm going to post the albums in the approximate order that the music was recorded. So this means something like Sugar Mountain - Live at Canterbury House 1968 is going to show up fairly early on the list, even though it was released in 2008. This is in an effort to show a sense of progression through Neil's career. Now, there are a lot of ins and outs and what-have-yous in Neil's discography, with albums sometimes being released in different order than they were recorded, and albums being made up of material from different time periods, and etc etc etc. I'm not going to bust my ass researching this too hard, so I'm sure I'll screw the order up at some point. But it should be pretty close.

Further, I'm not Wikipedia, and I haven't spent much time researching the life of Neil Young. So I'm not planning on spending too much time on context, or anecdotes or anything like that. The posts will simply be my reaction to, and assessment of, the albums.

As for the letter grades, it dawns on me that being a huge fan of the music I'll be writing about, my reviews are going to tend to skew positive. I'm a big enough fan that I tend to see the positive even in some of his worst albums. I realize the grades are going to seem meaningless if almost everything gets an A or a B. So I'm going to try to grade on a bit of a curve to spread the grades out a bit. The breakdown will work out to something like this:

A: Great album.

B: Good to Very Good album.

C: Worthwhile.

D: Not So Worthwhile. (Unless you're a big fan like me and want to hear everything).

F: Just Flat Out Shitty.

So an album receiving a C or C+ would still be a recommendation on this scale, it just means that the album isn't as crucial as an A or B. I may write a few words after a letter grade if I think it requires clarification or qualification.

(Now, the question remains if I will have the nerve to give an "F" to a Neil Young album. There may be a contender or two, we'll see.)

I'm hoping to post about Buffalo Springfield in the next day or two, but I haven't heard it in a long time and may need more time to reabsorb it. I'm hoping to post at least 5 a week, though that may be optimistic. I'll adjust expectations accordingly.

I hope this is a worthwhile endeavor, not just as an opportunity for me to reevaluate the largest single chunk of my music collection, but for anybody who happens to come across this and has a passing interest in Neil's music. But even if it turns out to be a waste of time, at least it will keep this blog from dying.

Here we go. From Buffalo Springfield's 1966 self-titled debut, all the way through 2009's Fork in the Road.

Some Updates Before Embarking On a Large Project

Hi everybody, just thought I'd throw a few random thoughts on here since I haven't updated in a while.

I caught Steve McQueen's (no, not that Steve McQueen) Hunger, an excellent film that I likely would have included on my belated best of 2009 list if I had seen it in time. (Or maybe not. It did screen in limited release in the US in December '08, but didn't become available on home video until this year. Either way its a newish movie worth discussion.) The film is a harrowing account of the 1981 Irish hunger strike, the first half detailing prison life leading up to the strike (both the IRA prisoners and the guards), the second half focusing, in grueling detail, on IRA member Bobby Sands' (played by Michael Fassbender) slow, grotesque death from self-imposed starvation. Amongst other things, the film boasts some very impressive long takes, for example a brutal, extended beat-down of prisoners by the guards, and a bravura 17-minute unbroken shot of Sands consulting/verbally sparring with a priest about his hunger strike. Fassbender, after his small but awesome role in Inglourious Basterds and now this, has shot up the the top of my list of actors to look out for.

The best new film I've seen so far this year might be the Korean drama/thriller Mother. I enjoyed Bong Joon-Ho's Memories of Murder, but was seriously underwhelmed by his beloved The Host. After Mother, I'm finally seeing what the big deal is. Bong's film is strange and idiosyncratic, yet confidently crafted, building suspense with Hitchcockian precision while deepening the story and characters in supremely powerful and unexpected ways. The story involves an overprotective mother whose retarded, 20's-ish son is arrested for murdering a young girl; she believes her son is innocent and takes it upon herself to find the real killer. It's perhaps not a surprise to see how far she is willing to go to protect her son, but what her actions slowly reveal about not only herself, her son and their relationship, but about the victim as well, elevates the film from a great thriller to a complex, heartbreaking tragedy. At time's the film's oddball sense of humor seems to undercut its seriousness and mysteriousness, but then again this kind of impressionist, no-holding-back filmmaking seems to be a common trait in Korean cinema. Best to sit back and marvel at the wide range of notes Bong successfully hits than to nitpick the few he doesn't.

Also currently in theaters is Atom Egoyan's criminally underrated Chloe, a mysterious, fascinating, erotic melodrama with vague thriller elements, which is being misconstrued by a lot of critics as a tawdry Hollywood thriller in the Fatal Attraction vein. (Jonathan Rosenbaum works up a good, brief defense of the film here.) Julianne Moore (on a roll with another excellent performance after last year's A Single Man, and still gorgeous even as she's pushing 50) stars as a woman who suspects her husband (Liam Neeson) of having an affair, so she hires an escort (Amanda Seyfried, also very good in this and blindingly, white-hot sexy to boot) to make a pass at him and see if he succumbs. Yes, this could be the stuff of high camp, but as with his (also underrated) Where the Truth Lies, Egoyan brings his mysterious, dreamy touch and precise visual style to the material, cutting through the mechanics of the plot so that the film turns more on the personalities and inner lives of the characters. The film is far more linear than most of his work, and I believe it marks the first time he's worked from a screenplay that he didn't write, but he still returns to his favorite themes (intellectual sexuality, voyeurism and the unearthing of buried secrets) with aplomb. I did not realize it at the time, but Chloe is a remake of a French film called Nathalie... starring Fanny Ardant, Gerard Depardieu, and Emmanuelle Beart in the Moore, Neeson and Seyfried roles. I may have to check that one out soon.

Also in the underrated camp is last year's The Invention of Lying. We've been spoiled by some great comedies in the last few years, and Invention isn't nearly as heavy on laughs as, say, Superbad, but I can't remember the last time I saw a comedy that was so pointed and purposeful. It's not a great film, but its much better than I was lead to believe. What starts out as a more typical comedy with an amusing gimmick (a world where everyone always tells the truth, disrupted when Ricky Gervais begins telling lies) becomes a bold religious satire, essentially positing that religion wouldn't exist in a world without lies, that it is a lie we tell to make ourselves feel good. More broadly, though, the film observes that lies are necessary in crafting a better world. The film is both touching and deeply cynical, often in the same breath.

Finally, as I mentioned in the title, I will be starting a long project on this blog soon that will likely take a month or two to finish. It is not movie-related. I hope to have an introductory post up this week.

The Best Movies of 2009... That I Actually Managed to See

Not looking to do much analysis, just wanted to note that I saw a rather large number of good 2009 releases, and wanted to list the films that I would legitimately consider great. Of course, this is about a month and a half too late to mean anything, and there's still a shitload of movies that sound good that I haven't caught up with. So this is hardly a definitive or meaningful list. More of a diary entry that can hopefully offer up a few recommendations to people who read this.

I honestly don't have a clear favorite from last year and don't feel the need to rank these, so it will be in alphabetical order:

Adoration

After seeing Exotica early last year, I got a full-on evil robot chubby for the films of Atom Egoyan. I've read critics who don't like the fractured-timeline method of storytelling that he often employs, saying that it makes his stories unnecessarily convoluted. I feel that his style is to restructure his narrative in such a way to make it more compelling than it would have been if told chronologically, plus it encourages the viewer to actively participate in his films and not simply passively accept them. Adoration ranks with his best work, foregoing some of the movie sensational aspects of some of his other movies for a more down to earth, moving story exploring different aspects of identity: personal, familial, racial.

Adventureland

It's too bad that Greg Mottola's sweet, perceptive coming-of-age-for-grad-students comedic drama was sold in trailers as a laugh a minute, spiritual sequel to his Superbad. I don't think people knew what to expect, and probably felt let down when the movie amused them but didn't make them bust a gut. Adventureland perfectly captures that feeling of post-collegiate ennui, when the once seemingly infinite possibilities the world offered you shrink considerably, and you find yourself living at home once again because you can't afford to pay rent. Don't get me wrong, I love Superbad to death, but not being a cog in the Apatow machine has freed Mottola to put a little more visual craft into his filmmaking, and to make something that feels more personal. Good use of pop music to establish an era and a tone. Also, I knew I liked Jesse Eisenberg, Kristin Thomas and Martin Starr, but who knew Ryan Reynolds could drop the sarcasm and deliver a performance this good?

Antichrist

I've mentioned this one enough already, so no need to regurgitate here. Did you hear that some Danish video game company is planning on making a video game spin-off/sequel? How the fuck does that even make sense? Where is there left to go with these characters or with this story?

Avatar

I almost feel like a dick for heaping praise on the highest grossing movie of all time, you know? It's been rewarded enough, so I won't ramble. I really did love the movie. Yes, I agree with everyone that it does not have a great screenplay (although, you know, I do think it's efficient and reasonably well structured). But the filmmaking brought the spectacle and the movie magic in spades, two things I am very fond of. Case in point: the wonderful moment during the finale when big blue Zoe Saldana sees Sam Worthington's human body for the first time and cradles him in her arms is a potent combination of romance, excitement, strangeness, and mindbogglingly perfect special effects. Moments like that only come along so often.

Coraline

As the one person on the planet who doesn't much like A Nightmare Before Christmas, no one was more surprised than me that Henry Selick would make a movie I'd connect so strongly with. Besides the obvious visual pleasures, and the fact that Coraline is shockingly dark and unsettling for a children's film, I like the fact Coraline the character is something of a weirdo and bitch (though still likable), in stark contrast the insufferably cute protagonists we typically get in movies like this.

The Girlfriend Experience

I dig that Steven Soderbergh tires something new with each movie, but it means his output is hit or miss. Last year's The Informant! had a great performance by Matt Damon and some weird twists on the corporate thriller genre, but seemed a times slackly structured and was surprisingly ugly looking. The Girlfriend Experience was more of a risk but I thought produced a greater reward. Starring a porn star and a cast of unknowns, with a fractured timeline and a slightly lethargic pace, it's not exactly his most accessible work, but it's a thoughtful and moving examination of the intersection of sexual, social and economic attitudes in post-Bush America.

The House of the Devil

Take a look here for my thoughts and jump in on the discussion below.

The Hurt Locker

I did a long post back in the summer outlining what I loved about this movie; I haven't seen it since and it really begs for a repeat viewing. I wouldn't say it was my favorite of the year, but I am kinda hoping that Kathryn Bigelow gets the Oscar for her work, if only because I'd like to think it would mean some sort of retroactive recognition for Point Break.

Inglourious Basterds

So, Quentin Tarantino has apparently climbed entirely up his own ass at this point and into a fanciful land of make believe, making movies whose context only involves other movies, with no relation to real life. Still, as much as I'd like to see him crawl out of himself and make a movie with more of a basis in reality, I thought that Inglourious Basterds has been the best of his movies-about-movies period. Although the film clearly has several themes it returns to (interrogation, psychological warfare, deception/performance, revenge/poetic justice), I don't believe Tarantino was trying to make any sort of statement about war, or about revenge turning the Jews into Nazis themselves. I just think the film, like his others, is essentially amoral and is more about Tarantino trying to entertaining, amuse, and enthrall his audience by flexing his cinematic muscles. Scenes exists to be great scenes, not to carry a coherent statement or worldview. And on those terms, the film is glouriously successful (forgive the pun). The drawn-out, nearly half hour suspense sequence in the basement bar is up there with the sniper scene in The Hurt Locker for the best crafted piece of cinema in '09.

The Limits of Control

Although I recognize that this is not a film for all tastes, I'm still a little surprised at just how negative its reception was. Were people seriously expecting Jim Jarmusch to deliver a traditional crime thriller and not, you know, a Jim Jarmusch movie? The Limits of Control is a further distillation of the sparse, meditative style Jarmusch has explored in movies like Dead Man; its use of crime/gangster movie iconography makes it something of a spiritual sequel to his Ghost Dog. I think its the best movie he's made since that one, and probably the best looking film he's ever made (thanks to cinematographer Christopher Doyle). Other attributes include Jarmusch's typical offbeat humor, a deconstruction/stripping down of crime movie tropes, something of a self-reflexive commentary on art and on Jarmusch's style, and heap loads of mysteriousness and mind-over-matter mysticism. Check out Jonathan Rosenbaum's brief appreciation of the film here, where he aptly compares it to Le Samourai and Point Blank.

Ponyo

No, I guess its not Miyazaki's best film, but that doesn't make it any less of a great film, feel me? He's back in little kid, My Neighbor Totoro mode here, and this tale of childhood friendship as eye-poppingly beautiful, narratively engaging and emotionally reassuring as his best work. We've come a long way with computer animation, but I treasure the fact that Miyazaki has been a holdout for hand-drawn animation. There is something of a tangible, sensuous quality to his work that is maybe lacking in modern animation.

A Serious Man

Right up there with their best work, the Coen Bros' latest marries the oddball, precisely scripted humor of comedies like The Big Lebowski and Raising Arizona with the melancholy, existentialist inquiries of their more "serious" films such as No Country For Old Men or Miller's Crossing. The result is a film that feels the most heartfelt of their filmography, and provides the most elegant expression of their worldview. For filmmakers often accused of condescending to their characters, the movie creates a lot of empathy for its protagonist, a Jewish science professor in the 1960's who finds himself questioning the meaning of existence, while his life slowly falls apart around him. The result is both hilarious and depressing. The Coens may be cynical atheists, but I think A Serious Man also confirms that they are humanists as well.

A Single Man

I've never been a big Colin Firth fan, but left the theater very impressed with his work after seeing this one. His role, as a closeted homosexual in the 1960's mourning the death of his long-term lover, seems like the kind of role where he'd get a bunch of big "Oscar" moments; impassioned speeches and crying and the like. But one of the things that was so great about this film and Firth's performance is how his depression is internalized; his carefully honed exterior only gives the briefest glimpses of the interior turmoil. First time director Tom Ford (best known as a fashion designer) makes this into a powerful sensory experience... perhaps its gimmicky, but I like the way he films Firth in muted tones, except on rare moments when Firth finds himself reconnecting with other people in his life, and brighter colors suddenly find their way into the palette.

Still Walking

I don't really follow the Oscars, but if I were to personally hand out the award for best director, I would be inclined to give it to, or at least have nominated, Hirokazu Koreeda. The material he works with in this film is dark and depressing in places, involving a family observing the anniversary of the accidental death of the oldest son. Yet Koreeda's complex, deep focus staging, and precise, controlled (almost disciplined) framing add a life and beauty that might not have been there otherwise. For a movie about loss, regret, and the ways family members inflict emotional violence on each other, it's surprisingly lively and enjoyable.

Two Lovers

Everyone was so busy focusing on Joaquin Phoenix's (probably fake) meltdown last year that no one noticed that he gave one of the best performances of his career. I had seen one other film by James Gray before this (We Own the Night), a beautifully crafted cop thriller with a silly, stupid storyline. This one marries Gray's obvious technical abilities with a more down to earth, heartfelt story about a depressed young man who finds himself torn between his affections for a sweet girl-next door-type and a bad case of l'amour fou with a high strung nutcase who actually does live next door (played by Gwyneth Paltrow, also great here). Like some of the other films on my list this year, Two Lovers seems like it could be a slog, but instead is often funny and lively, almost effortlessly straddling humor and heartache the whole way through.

Up

It was a great year for animation, wasn't it? The latest in a long line of great Pixar flicks, Up continues the Ratatouille trend of being a secret action movie on top of being a delightful comedy, a touching character drama, and a magical visual experience. It was also the only movie I've ever seen that had the entire theater crying within the first 15 minutes. That's got to be some sort of record, or something.

You, the Living

Swedish filmmaker Roy Andersson's precisely shot, kinda surreal, cynical satire of modern society suggests some sort of unholy alliance between Jacques Tati and Luis Bunuel, although that description doesn't quite do it justice. Suffice it to say that I've never seen another movie quite like this one, and I'd call it hilarious if it wasn't so fucking bleak.

2009 Horror Movie Postmortem PART III: DAN'S DEAD - THE FINAL NIGHTMARE

BRATS

I know I talked before about remakes being the predominant theme in horror movies these days, but I realized I was wrong. For some reason, 2009 was all about killer children movies. I already mentioned Children of the Corn and It's Alive in the remake section; It's Alive wasn't half bad, but the best movie about a flesh-eating baby to come out last year was Grace. What I liked about Grace was that it was a rare horror movie with complex female characters, dealing specifically with feminine themes. It has an evil baby in it, sorta, but mostly its about how far a mother is willing to go to protect her child.

I believe Ghost House released two kid themed horror pics in '09: The Children and Offspring. I can't really recommend Offspring, about a pack of savage children who go around disemboweling people and stealing their babies, to anyone besides gorehounds. But it does have the distinction of being the most violent horror film I saw last year. It's passable but forgettable, and I guess worth seeing if you're just looking for something that makes you go "ewww!" every few minutes. The Children is a little bit more fun: some sort of virus turns kids into homicidal maniacs, turning on their families, so their parents end up having to kill them to save themselves. I have the same problem with both movies, though: children aren't a credible threat. The movies are kinda fun in a fucked-up, can-you-imagine-having-to-kill-a-child sort of way, but they aren't for one minute scary, because you don't believe for one second that some little rugrat would be able to take you in a fight.

All five of these movies that I mentioned have their moments, but leading this pack of snot nosed brats was the woefully underrated Orphan, probably my #3 favorite horror film of the year. What looked in previews to be a lame, generic collection of "boo!" scares turned out to be the most awesomely manipulative thriller of the year. This movie pushes some fucking buttons. Children are constantly put in danger, or forced into psychologically traumatizing situations. The heroine is distrustful of the titular orphan, but of course no one believes her and thinks she's the one losing her shit. There may be some sexual tension between the orphan and an adult man. The film is tightly-crafted and engrossing while also being completely ridiculous. It stars Vera Farmiga and Peter Saarsgaard, and they actually get to play a flashed-out, believable, sympathetic married couple. The critical drubbing the film received is a sign to me that mainstream film critics don't like or don't understand horror films; the only ones they praise are either horror comedies, or postmodern gimmicky crap like Paranormal Activity. I'm not saying there aren't reasons to dislike Orphan, but the reviews paint it as kitschy trash, when I would argue that its a skillful exercise in audience manipulation.

GHOULS 'N GHOSTS (& MISCELLANY)

One of the incidental leitmotifs on my blog has been my bias against ghost/haunted house movies. Which isn't to say that there haven't been many excellent movies in the genre, I just find that, more often than not, making the bad guys ghosts encourages lazy storytelling, plot holes and lots of arbitrariness. 2009 was a... typical year for these kinds of films. Unborn and 100 Feet were your usual cavalcade of nonsense, both with ghosts that are seemingly all powerful and yet can't defeat a single, unsupernatural woman (100 Feet, for example, has a ghost that's strong enough to break every bone in a man's body, but at another point loses a seemingly physical (?) altercation to Famke Jansen). It's hard for me to give a shit when the rules aren't consistent from scene to scene.

Of course the big ghost flick of the year was Paranormal Activity. Allow me to be positive here for a second. I think it's great that a film of such humble means went on to be one of the year's big box office winners. It's just too bad that it's a shitty movie. Let me just say it: I don't get it, guys. What was the big fucking deal about Paranormal Activity? It's a movie predicated on an overused gimmick, executed even less artfully than these movies usually are. Even the fans of this movie don't seem to have much to say in defense of the filmmaking. Apparently some people found it scary; I found it too repetitive to be particularly effective, and often times hokey (i.e. a ouija board catching on fire... the filmmakers expect me to take a fucking Parker Brothers toy, best known as a way to scare your gullible younger sibling, seriously?)

At least the ghost/monster thingies in Seventh Moon are kinda cool looking creepy, white, naked people. I appreciated that part, but not so much all the incoherent shaky-cam cinematography and strobe-light editing. It's difficult to feel scared when you can't clearly see what the hell is going on.

The Thaw was an acceptable giant bug movie with some fun gross-out special effects and a Val Kilmer cameo. But the problem is that I'm going to forever remember it as "that horror movie with the heavy-handed, completely inappropriate global warming message." I like it when horror movies try to work in a little commentary, be it social or political or whatever, but it needs to be done shrewdly, in a manner well integrated into the narrative. By about the 8th time one of the characters in The Thaw needlessly interjects a comment about mankind's responsibility to take care of the planet, you're going to turn on all the lights in your house and leave your car running in your driveway just to spite the filmmakers.

Serious horror movies like Dead Birds and lame horror-comedies like Undead or Alive have tried the whole western-horror blend before; it's an intriguing idea but I feel often an awkward fit. The iconography of the two genres maybe isn't compatible; who wants to see a strong, incorruptible Western hero type in the vulnerable teenage girl role? John Carpenter probably has mixed the two the best, but his trick has been to set his films in contemporary times or in the future, and not make them actually westerns. That said, The Burrowers combines the two genres in about as satisfactorily a manner as you could hope for: cowboys vs. monsters. If that premise appeals to you, then I would think you'd like this movie.

I can't quite put my finger on what didn't work about The Broken, although that's at least in part because my memory of it is already fuzzy. My recollection is that it was a horror movie heavily dependent on atmosphere over story, but that the atmosphere was not well executed. The story involves people being killed and replaced by doppelgangers, but it was never clear to me where the doubles came from, what motivated them or what the "rules" governing them were... and a (somewhat predictable) twist near the end further confused matters for me.

Finally, although it didn't really have any ghosts or monsters, I needed somewhere to stick Thomas Jane's directorial debut Dark Country, sort of a horror movie take on old cheapie films noir like Detour. It's short, sweet, agreeable and features a memorably sexy performance by Lauren German.

SPECIAL JURY PRIZE

Haha, hey, remember back in the first post when I was bitching about how I hadn't seen The House of the Devil? Well, that was like 3 or 4 weeks ago when I started writing that shit, and in the mean time it came out on home video and I saw it. And what I suspected from what I had read about the film was true: it and I are a match made in heaven.

I saw Ti West's Trigger Man a few months back, and it was the kind of film I admired more than I actually enjoyed. I said in my post:

"It took balls for West to make a horror film so dependent upon silence and stillness (something I hear he goes for again in House of the Devil, reportedly to greater effect) and I respect that. I bitch a lot about horror movies that skip right to the payoff and aren't willing to take the time to build a moment. Trigger Man is not one of those movies. It is serious about earning its thrills and is committed to its style. And the result is only moderately effective."

I'd like to think that Trigger Man was a stepping stone to The House of the Devil. West has figured out how to delay gratification until the last possible moment, while making the build-up just as entertaining. It is tied with Antichrist for my favorite horror film of the year.

The House of the Devil has everything that I've long been bitching about other modern horror movies lacking. It's deliberately paced, meaning its willing to let itself breath, to take its time to build a moment rather than rush headlong towards the payoff. It's scary, but in a fun way, not in a brutal way. It pays homage to a certain era/style of filmmaking, while retaining a sense of originality. It's concerned more with suspense than with titillation. And, though this may be a polarizing issue, the storytelling is streamlined to its essentials.

One thing that I often find that can sink a horror film is an overabundance of plot. Fear is kind of an elemental thing; you don't want to overexplain it. A complicated story can work some times, but more often than not its a distraction. When a strange noise wakes me up in the middle of the night, that's enough to get the adrenaline flowing a little bit; a complex backstory won't add to my fear.

The story of The House of the Devil is simplicity itself. It's about a young girl all alone in a big scary house. For my money, that's all a horror movie needs for a premise. All the rest of the details help add to the potential scariness in the premise. The heroine is a likable college girl with understandable motives (she needs rent money to move out of her shitty dorm, so she takes a babysitting job at a creepy, secluded house), so we give a shit about what happens to her. The homeowners are kind of creepy, but in a genial way, so a mood of menace is established but also plausibility that the girl wouldn't leave. Much of the movie is a slow tightening of the noose, as the girl (and the audience) only gradually understand the danger that she's in. Shit only hits the fan in the final 10 minutes or so.

I'm not going to ramble on about the rich, early 80's atmosphere of the film only slightly touched with irony, of the strength of the performances, of the film's masterful use of sound and score, or the careful, playful way it slowly doles out creepy details (and occasional bursts of violence) to draw the viewer in. Just know that The House of the Devil gets my highest recommendation. It's a must-see for all lovers of horror movies.



And that, my friends, officially makes THE END. See you in 11 months or so when I round-up 2010.

2009 Horror Movie Postmortem PART 2: FAREWELL TO THE FLESH

JUST FOR LAUGHS

So like I was getting at in the last post, I think within the next few years we're going to see horror start to trend back towards a more fun, funny style. And to prove my point, I think we had a decent crop of horror comedies in 2009. Most notable of course was Sam Raimi's long awaited return to the genre, Drag Me to Hell. I don't think it holds a candle to his Evil Dead series, and I still wish it had gone for a gore-tastic, hard R-rating, but it was a breath of fresh air: an exuberant burst of energy in dour times. Something of an updating of Jacques Tourneur's Night of the Demon, Drag Me to Hell is a countdown-to-doom style horror movie that derives great pleasure in toying with the audience's expectations. Raimi is something of sadist and enjoys heaping punishment not only upon his heroine (Allison Lohman, who I must say successfully plays the Bruce Campbell role of abused protagonist) but upon the audience. The thickness in which Raimi lays on the ending, piling happy ending upon happy ending until everyone in the audience realizes that something truly awful is imminent, is worth the price of admission alone.

If I'm cheating by lumping in David Twohy's A Perfect Getaway with the horror comedies, then fucking sue me. For a tense thriller it damn sure has a witty screenplay. In fact, while not the best horror screenplay of the year, it is definitely the most clever, not only because of its big (and somewhat predictable) plot twist, but also because of some nice structural touches (such as a flashback extended to the point of brilliant absurdity) and amusing self-referential humor about said twist. I am also quite fond of the way the film's slow-burn atmosphere combusts in the final 15 minutes and it becomes a nutty, over-stylized action/chase movie.

Overrated but still fun was Zombieland, essentially a comic riff on the modern fast-moving zombie movies. On the positive side of things, Zombieland has a great cast, some real laughs, and an agreeably goofy and energetic visual style (what with the screen captions, gratuitous slow motion, etc.). But why this film was the breakaway horror-comedy hit of '09, and not Drag Me to Hell, I will never understand. Except that zombies are the zeitgeist now, and Raimi horror films are a relic of a bygone era. The zombie horror comedy subgenre has brought us some true classics (say, Return of the Living Dead and Shaun of the Dead)... does anyone believe that Zombieland lives up to the legacy of those films? Maybe I'm being unfair in making the comparison, but I think my preference is because the other movies I mentioned work both as comedy and as horror, where as Zombieland wants to be fluffy and likable to the degree that it doesn't even have the balls to kill off a major character.

Okay, I think I already made a brief allusion to not being a Diablo Cody supporter in the last post, so I'm not going to harp on it here. Truth is, I don't dislike her work thus far either and Jennifer's Body, while mostly being a bad movie, at least had a handful of memorable jokes. There aren't enough horror movies made by women, so I want to credit Cody and director Karyn Kusama for making a horror movie about teenage girls that doesn't condescend or dumb itself down for the When a Stranger Calls crowd. But the film doesn't have enough ideas to sustain its bloated 102 minute run time, Kusama never manages to craft any memorable set pieces, both of the hypothetically satisfying conclusions are underwhelming, and it's beset by unnecessary structural flourishes that serve no purpose (i.e. the film is told in flashback for no reason, and late in the film there is another flashback sequence that explains information that might as well have been given to us from the get-go). Juno, for its problems, is a good and funny movie, and reasonably well-crafted. This feels like an incomplete screenplay with a few funny ideas.

Trick 'r Treat, by one of those dudes who wrote the Brian Singer X-Men movies, was a highly amusing take on a subgenre I'm quite fond of: the horror anthology. Although none of the stories are as tightly crafted, and none of the endings as bitterly ironic, as they could be, there's a playfully dark humored spirit on hand here that reminded me somewhat of Tales From the Crypt. Highlights include a LOT of children getting murdered and an agreeably convoluted Magnolia-esque style of storytelling.

I learned about the horribly titled Murder Loves Killers Too from Outlaw Vern, and while I admired its ambition (trying to do a low-budget slasher take on De Palma-esque theatrics), I just don't think the execution was solid enough. On the one hand, I want to praise the film for trying some stylistic flourishes, and some potentially amusing structural surprises (killing off characters earlier than you'd expect, going off on an unexpected tangent during the final act) on a tiny budget. On the other hand, I think it's that very budget that prevents the film from realizing its ambitions. De Palma's films succeed in large part because of their fluidity; Murder Loves Killers Too is too often awkward and stilted. Add to that the fact that the film's best moment is stolen from Sergio Martino's Torso, and you're left with a film I just can't get behind.

CRUELTY-FREE FREE

Meaning that these movies are cruel. Not sure if that comes across. It was the best title I could come up with.

When it comes to movies, I'm not much of a moralist. I rarely, if ever, get offended by violent or sexual content, or socio-politcal content, or moral messages in films. If I ever get offended, it's usually when I feel like a movie is condescending to me. When it comes to the other stuff, I'm a lot more concerned with the execution of a film and not so much about whether or not its message conforms to my own personal beliefs. So when I tell you that there were two horror films this year, Deadgirl and Eden Lake, that really rubbed me the wrong way, please understand that I'm not going all Jonathan Rosenbaum on these films and acting holier-than-thou.

Deadgirl's problem is that it employs a very serious matter (rape) for shock value, but then cops-out of actually dealing with it. By making the rape victim be a zombie. Yes, this movie is about teenage boys imprisoning and raping a zombie. What I think bothers me here is that, by making the victim a fictional monster, it takes the victimization out of the rape. There is no emotional toll in this story, it's content to leave it at dude, pretty fucked up that they're raping a zombie, huh? As much as this premise doesn't sit well with me to begin with, something interesting could have been done with it as an exploration of amorality and viciousness amongst teenage boys. Instead, the film never finds any insight, preferring to turn its villains into Snidely Whiplash types, before descending into just another zombie bloodbath.

Eden Lake, interestingly enough, is also about cruel teenagers. Unlike Deadgirl, I think it has more courage of conviction and actually makes an attempt to explore its themes. It's in the execution where things go wrong. The film is about a 30-something couple that is initially harassed, and then eventually assaulted and tortured by a gang of teenage creeps. The filmmakers are not without skill, and the early sequences did a very good job of making me uneasy. As it plays out, however, the film both becomes less and less credible as a thriller yet also more and more sickening in its violence. Now, I get it, a movie like this is supposed to be unpleasant. I don't have a problem with that, I've enjoyed many movies like that. My problem is that as the movie becomes more absurd, the violence seems less and less fitting to the material. There's a wide gap between the grimness of the violence and the cliched contrivances of the plot, and the violence becomes bothersome for the wrong reason: because the film doesn't earn it.

Okay, the whiny, crybaby, Roger Ebert portion of this post is over with, because I saw a disgusting, miserable, vicious horror film last year that I'm actually enthusiastic about: Martyrs. I'd describe the plot, but it seems pointless as the movie defies easy description and the plot completely changes directions every 15 or 20 minutes. I'm not sure, piecing the whole thing together, that the story really makes a lot of sense, but the abrupt shifts in story are part of what makes the film unique; it is impossible to guess where it's going next. Although perhaps a little roughly put together visually in a few spots, Martyrs is a consistently strange, disturbing and tense horror film that combines elements from different subgenres (revenge film, monster movie, torture porn, psychological thriller) in a one-of-a-kind way.

Less successful were Shuttle and The Collector. Neither was a particularly good film (although both had their moments, I suppose) but both get a pass if you have nothing better to do. Shuttle, about a group of people abducted by the guy driving their airport shuttle has a few nasty surprises up its sleeve and some decent atmosphere, but most of the suspense is sabotaged by its creaky plot, which has to do way, WAY too much contriving to keep its characters in danger (seems like they should have had a much easier time escaping). The Collector, about a serial killer who likes to set elaborate traps in the homes of his victims, the directorial debut of one of the dudes who co-wrote the last few Saw movies, suffers from the same problems in tone I've noticed of a lot of horror movies these days: is it trying to be fun or is it trying to be disturbing? A scene of someone getting graphically tortured will be followed by a presumably comic sequence of a cat accidentally tripping a trap and meeting a goofily gruesome end. Each moment undercuts the next, and all that's left is some mildly entertaining gore effects. And as far as those go, The Collector does have one classic moment: a girl trips and falls into a room full of bear traps.

ARTSY FARTSY SCARY MOVIES

I've noticed a trend amongst some horror movie fans to reject, almost as a rule, serious-minded horror films in favor of the more pulpy genre fare. Now, I'm a big tent kind of guy. I love my art, and I love my trash, and if you want to mix the two together, even better. So it irks me to see horror movies outright dismissed by some fans as "pretentious" just because the films take themselves seriously. That's what happened to my tied-for-favorite-horror-movie-of-2009 Antichrist.

Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of valid reasons not to like Antichrist. The film is longish, slow, sometimes confusing, deliberately obscure and goes so far over-the-top in places that, if the film isn't working for you, it probably seems laughable. It's the kind of film where if you don't submit yourself totally to its over-saturated atmosphere/mood, it will likely be a tedious experience punctuated by a few moments of crass provocation.

But from some of the comments/critiques I've read out there, you'd think that director Lars Von Trier was an asshole just because his movie strikes a serious tone, has a few recognizable themes (grief, therapy, misogyny), and some slightly arty trimmings (some uses of black and white, slow-motion, and some heavy handed symbolism). Like he shouldn't be ambitious. There's almost a knee-jerk reaction some folks have to this sort of thing; they assume that Von Trier thinks he's smarter than them, so instead of meeting the film on its own terms, they try to out-condescend Von Trier and insist that his movie is meaningless trash. If you're going to hate on the movie, then that's cool, but this is totally the wrong track.

Personally, I don't think Antichrist has a deep message or is an "important" movie. I loved it because of its heavy, doom-laden atmosphere, its ability to disturb, the power of its imagery, the strength of its performances, and the genuine suspense/fear I felt during the final act. It's a skillfully made, nightmarish mood-piece that effected me on an emotional level, more akin to a Nosferatu than a slasher movie.

It takes a special kind of skill to make a movie so fucking bad that it pisses away all the goodwill that a beloved cult film like Donnie Darko has earned you, but Richard Kelly managed to do just that with Southland Tales. Well, I'm happy to say that The Box serves as something of a redemption. It is not a great film, and the last chunk of it is a mess, but it feels more like the movie he should have made after Darko. It's set in the same world of mundane middle America, as a profound weirdness slowly but surely inserts itself into everyday life. The best parts of The Box happen in the first 2/3rds; Kelly has proven himself a master of the "what in fuck's name is going on here?!" style of suspense, as subtly strange details pile on top of each other in the most unnerving manner possible.

Not up to snuff with his best work but still more remarkable than most films of its ilk, Park Chan-Wook's Thirst was an intriguing, darkly funny combination of earnest morality play/religious inquiry, and vampire grand guignol. Almost every one of Park's films features an abrupt shift in tone, but I thought Thirst's was less successful than others. Perhaps this is because movies like Oldboy and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance go from fun to serious, whereas Thirst does the opposite. I can't deny how entertaining the final act of the film is, but it does feel like many of the more serious themes from earlier are dropped in favor of a stylized blood bath.



To be concluded in Part 3.... whenever I get the chance...

2009 Horror Movie Postmortem PART 1: A NEW BEGINNING

Okay, so I'm trying to write up a list of every new horror movie I saw in 2009. It's not going to be perfect. I'm bound to forget a few. I still haven't seen seen House of the Devil, my number one most anticipated horror movie of the year, because it never came to D.C. theaters and now I have to wait for home video. I'm a little loose with my criteria (I'll count you as a 2009 release if you weren't easily available until last year, even if you had some sort of small release or showing the previous year.) Still, I'm hovering close to 40 titles right now, and that's not bad. I'm still in tune with modern horror films.

Looking over the list, what are my impressions? Despite a few notable standout titles, my gut is telling me that this was a weaker year for the genre than the previous two years I blogged about. I didn't see an overwhelming amount of crap in 2009 (maybe in part due to avoiding noxious looking stuff like The Fourth Kind), but I'm noticing that many movies I liked stink of mediocrity. See, I love horror, it is without a doubt my favorite genre. If I watch a horror movie and it isn't ungodly awful, then on some level I have enjoyed myself. So for example, I may give Prom Night 3 three stars on Netflix because it made me chuckle a few times, but that's only because there's something wrong with me. Objectively, I understand that it's not a good movie.

On the upside, we got a few entries in the category I like to call the interesting misfire, AKA the noble failure. Those are movies with many elements of greatness that never come together to form a cohesive whole. The result is on the one hand disappointing, but also often fascinating, kinda good and definitely worth seeing.

Before I start talking specifics, I think now is the time for me to do some glib analysis of the state of horror films. The cinema of horror goes through different trends over time. Right now I believe we are close to the end of what I call Cruel Summer. Mainstream horror films have become probably the most violent and mean-spirited they have ever been. Forget torture porn, I'm not talking about that misnomer. The goal of horror films these days is to scare the audience by disturbing or upsetting them, and ratcheting up the tension. They are movies designed to make you miserable; the concept of fun is alien.

I don't mean any of that as a criticism. Many of my very favorite horror movies are joyless, intense and disturbing. But c'mon guys, we've swung a little too far in one direction, it's time to swing back. And I think signs are pointing towards such a swing-back. Just as Cruel Summer was a reaction against the self-referential post-Scream horror comedies of the 90's and the PG-13 deluge of J-Horror remakes in the early 00's, I think we're finally starting to see more filmmakers willfully rejecting the self-seriousness of modern horror and pointing towards fun and funny. It's stumbled a little, with the underperformance of Drag Me to Hell, but the success of Zombieland may very well mean a new trend of horror-comedies.

I mean, Christ, let's hope that's the case. Because if the runaway smash success of Paranormal Activity means that we're about to start seeing a slew of poorly staged, anticlimactic mockumentaries, then I might just stop going to the theater. Here's hoping that if PA's influence is far and wide, it's that it encourages studios to pick up more low budget horror films by interesting, unknown talents. If I'm going to watch a bunch of non-actors stumble around in the dark investigating a strange noise, I'd like it to at least go through the motions of being a real movie and not some cutesy novelty.

But let's talk about the real major trend in horror cinema these days:

REMAKES

If I'm counting right, I saw no fewer than 7 horror movie remakes last year. I'm sure there were many more. Contrary to how a lot of other horror aficionados seem to feel, I'm not opposed to remakes. People act like if a remake of a classic is terrible, it in some way shits all over the original and permanently stains it. That's not the case; the original will always be classic no matter how many shitty remakes and sequel-remakes and prequel remakes the studios produce.

People bitch about the dearth of creativity in Hollywood, that all these remakes are a lazy attempt to cash-in on the name recognition of older, better films. And yes, that's certainly a big part of it. But judging by some of the stranger, lesser known films they've been remaking, I'd like to think that there are some serious creative opportunities here to take interesting, flawed films with good premises and try to improve upon them.

I mean, the producers of Sorority Row couldn't have seriously thought there were enough fans out there of House on Sorority Row to lend it any sort of brand recognition. Right? I mean, I guess I actually was kind of excited to see this one. I'd like to think that someone involved in the production was a big fan of forgettable, college-themed 80's slasher movies, but always thought they'd be better with more bitchy Desperate Housewives style dialogue. After a childhood spent watching edited for content and formatted to fit your screen Friday the 13th movies on the USA network, I've set the bar pretty low for enjoying slasher movies. Sadly, Sorority Row doesn't even clear that dubious hurdle. I could almost accept the film's the sub-Diablo Cody script, if it weren't for the clueless filmmaking: we're back in Prom Night remake territory of choppy, rhythmless, ADD editing and hollow visual stylistics indicative of filmmakers with little interest in the genre. Outside of some memorable kills and some pretty actresses, the only other thing it brings to the table is cynicism/irony, and Scream did that better 13 years earlier.

Speaking of remakes no one (except me) was asking for, did anyone see the DTV Children of the Corn remake? Did anyone even know it existed? Despite the fact that I think this may officially be the worst remake of the year, I'd actually love it if they made like 6 sequels to it like they did the original Children of the Corn. Mainly because I think we're lacking in horror franchises and need to step it up a notch. CotC 2K9 provides some dumb, bad movie fun if you're into that sort of thing, but it's most notable accomplishment is that it somehow made the characters from Stephen King's story even more obnoxious then they already were. That takes skill.

Another somewhat perplexing remake last year was It's Alive. The original is a memorable, quirky Larry Cohen cheapie; this remake drops the quirk in favor of gloom and over-the-top gore, to mixed effect. If the idea of a killer baby movie appeals to you, then you could do worse than this needless remake, but personally I felt some of its thunder was stolen by a better, more complex killer baby movie that I'll mention later.

Is it cheating if I consider Halloween II a remake? Because they've totally already made a movie called Halloween II before. I seem to be in the minority in believing that Rob Zombie's new part II was a worthwhile improvement over his miserable remake, although I don't really like the movie enough to go to bat for it. I thought H2 worked best when Zombie ignored or bucked the requirements of the slasher genre and tried to turn it into some oddball, vaguely surreal psychological thriller chocked full with heavy-handed imagery. Any time it was about a big dude stabbing people, it was mostly tedious. Either way, the man has not lived up to the promise of House of 1000 Corpses or The Devil's Rejects. If they do go ahead with a Halloween III: Not Season of the Witch, I'd almost prefer if they brought in a competent craftsman, with a less personal vision, to direct. At least maybe we'd end up with a functional slasher movie.

Of course, the #1 most obvious, I can't believe they hadn't remade it already remake of the year was Friday the 13th. While I'm sad we won't be getting a Freddy vs. Jason 2 (unless they do one with the remake Freddy and Jason... which now that I've typed it out seems inevitable), the series had gotten fairly ridiculous and was probably in need of rebooting. Which is why I was maybe a little surprised at how little revamping the filmmakers did. Aside from the tell tale signs of a larger budget (nicer cinematography and a cast full of TV actors), and a slightly knowing/wink-wink attitude, this basically could have been an early-to-mid era F13 film. And as far as they go, I think it was about average. It had the right sense of fun, some memorable kills and appreciable gratuitous nudity. I am most enthusiastic about the film's opening 20-ish minutes, which takes the standard F13 plot, boils it down to its essentials and gives the audience all the expected payoffs of an entire film in about 1/4 of the running time.

Vying for the title of best horror remake of the year are Last House on the Left and My Bloody Valentine 3D, both of which may actually be improvements over the originals. Wes Craven's original Last House is indeed something of a revered classic, with its palpable scuzziness and sense of conviction that the remake doesn't match. Still, to me the remake was an infinitely better-crafted, more consistently intense experience by a filmmaker with a surer hand (I'm definitely on board if Dennis Iliadis makes another horror movie), not to mention it had a tighter, more fleshed-out screenplay that was less reliant on absurd plot twists, backed up by a much better cast. It's less shocking and confrontational than the original, but far more effective as a thriller.

On the other hand, My Bloody Valentine was never a classic, just a run-of-the-mill slasher movie that was slightly better and had a more memorable title than a lot of the crap that got churned out in the early 80's. If I ever so slightly prefer its 3D remake to the LHotL remake, it's because MBV3D was the most honest to goodness FUN slasher movie I had seen in a long time. It's gimmicky as hell, over-the-top and drags its whodunit plot out to an awesomely maddening (almost self-referential) degree... basically the kind of movie I didn't think they made much any more. I'm hoping Alejandro Aja paid close attention before he started filming Piranha 3D.

SEQUELS
We just don't have enough franchises anymore. At least not any successful ones being cranked out with any regularity. Only the Saw folks are good enough to shit one out on a yearly basis, although the box office disappointment of Saw VI likely means the series won't be around much longer, at least not as a theatrical experience. While personally thinking that this one was an improvement over part five, even a diehard fan such as myself must admit that some of the magic is gone. As much as I'd love to keep going back for more Saw every year, maybe it is getting to be about time to put this franchise down. Sigh.

Although its another series on the decline, I was glad to see that The Final Destination was a success, making the chances of a fifth film seem assured. The series has become way unambitious by this point, content to rehash the same premise over and over again, so my hope for a sequel is that they finally try to mix it up a bit, add some crazy new twist to the plot. (No, making this last one in 3D does not count as mixing it up). Also, I hope the producers continue their directorial tag-team and hire James Wong to do the next one.

Anyone follow the Feast series at all? They've been passably goofy Evil Dead knockoffs written by the guys who did the last few Saw movies. Feast 3: The Happy Finish promised to be the end, and I don't think anyone out there is chomping at the bit for any more. The series was little more than an excuse for exaggerated gore, non-PC humor and bodily fluid oriented comedy, and undermining horror movie cliches in a mildly clever way. On those terms, all 3 films worked, but none ever amounted to anything more than the sum of their dismembered, pus-covered parts.

The 2009 Award for Unnecessary Sequel to an Unnecessary Sequel goes to Wrong Turn 3 Left For Dead. Seriously, who asked for this fucking movie? In fairness, this isn't bad as far as DTV slasher movies go. But mutant hillbillies wasn't enough of a premise for one sequel, let alone two. This time, a bunch of escaped convicts run afoul of the cannibalistic mountain people, but absolutely nothing interesting is done with this idea, just like the reality TV show premise in part 2.

Of course, you know I'll totally watch Wrong Turn 4: Four Wrongs Don't Make a Right Turn if they ever make it.



TO BE CONTINUED.... if I'm not too lazy...