What's For Dinner

For the most part this little blog of mine focuses on cinema with an occasional foray into sports, but sports and film are but two of my passions. One of my more recent acquired interests is cooking. Thanks to my lovely wife, I have discovered a culinary jones and thought I should share some of the meals we have made together.

These photos are presented with apologies to my vegetarian and vegan readers.

PAN ROASTED CHICKEN WITH SPAGHETTI SQUASH AND BALSAMIC ROASTED TOMATOES



This was a particularly good dish, the squash and tomatoes were purchased from the Silver Lake Farmer's Market.

SALMON IN WHITE WINE SAUCE WITH TOMATOES AND CAPERS AND SALAD WITH VINAIGRETTE DRESSING

Yes there is actually a salmon underneath all that, unfortunately it was from the Trader Joe's frozen section which is never as good as salmon purchased from a fresh fish market.

GREEK CHICKEN WITH TOMATOES AND FETA AND ASPARAGUS

I felt that this could of been much better than how it ended up tasting, but one of the pleasure of cooking is in perfecting recipes to your liking.

Well thanks for indulging. If you have any recipes you'd like to share, feel free to post them in the comment section.

Bon Appetit!

2008 Academy Award Post-Mortem/Quiz

The last thing the world needs is another blogger opining on this year's Oscar broadcast, but seeing how most "Hollywood insiders" are major douches, I'd thought I'd quickly summarize my thoughts.

Yay: The Coens winning (I also yay all the There Will Be Blood nominations, I am still pleasantly surprised this film has been winning over critics and audiences, who I assumed would consider it too bizarre and unsavory). Javier. Danny D-Lew. Robert Elwist (even if Roger Deakins should have gotten something for his overall awesome year). Jon Stewart--I know some people don't dig him, but I thought his opening monologue had a more favorable hit to miss ratio than the majority of Oscar hosts. I did miss the highlight from the 2006 ceremony, the fake smear campaign ads of nominees, but I am happy that unlike some people, coughBillyCrystalcough, he doesn't just regurgitate his popular material. Also come on, the guy's classy as hell letting Marketa Irglova give her speech. Ironically enough the satirical montage tributes to binoculars and awakening-from-dream scenes were actually less lame than the majority of the actual montages(how many were there, 16,000?).

Nay: Diablo winning. All the Oscar nominated songs except "Falling Slowly". The Atonement score winning, not only because Jonny Greenwood should have won, let alone be nominated (dumb Oscar rules) but because it's a second rate Phillip Glass rip-off. Deeming Brad Renfro and Ulrich Muhe unworthy of the memorial tribute (Scheider missed the cut-off date apparently). The Fucking Jerry Seinfeld BEE: dude, let it die.

Other than that, not much worth getting my panties in a bunch.

I hosted an Oscar party this year and in addition to the predict the winners contest (where I ended up in fourth place with 13 correct predictions), I also created a 25 question Oscar History quiz that I had my guests answer. Out of my eleven friends the most anyone got correct was 16 (congrats, Chan!).

Do you think you can do better? Well, here it is, I'll abide by the honor system--so no Wikipedia or IMDB. If you are interested, please put your answers in the comments section. In a couple of days I'll post the correct answers there.

Enjoy!

The 2008 Jack Klugman Honorary Oscar Quiz

(beware the trick question or two)

1. Which film won the Oscar for Best Picture 20 years ago?
A. Broadcast News
B. Fatal Attraction
C. The Last Emperor
D. Moonstruck

2. Which film won the Oscar for Best Picture 30 years ago?
A. All the President’s Men
B. Annie Hall
C. Apocalypse Now
D. Star Wars

3. Which film won the Oscar for Best Picture 40 years ago?
A. Bonnie and Clyde
B. Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
C. The Graduate
D. In the Heat of the Night

4. Which film won the Oscar for Best Picture 50 years ago?
A. The Bridge on the River Kwai
B. Giant
C. The Ten Commandments
D. 12 Angry Men

5. Which film won the Oscar for Best Picture 60 years ago?
A. Gentleman’s Agreement
B. Great Expectations
C. It’s a Wonderful Life
D. Monsieur Verdoux

6. Which classic male movie star never won an Acting Oscar?
A. Humphrey Bogart
B. Clark Gable
C. Cary Grant
D. Gregory Peck

7. Which classic female movie star never won an Acting Oscar?
A. Ingrid Bergman
B. Judy Garland
C. Audrey Hepburn
D. Grace Kelly

8. Which one of these is the only classic director to win an Oscar for Best Director?
A. Howard Hawks
B. Alfred Hitchcock
C. Orson Welles
D. Billy Wilder

9. Another classic iconic director who never won an Oscar was Stanley Kubrick, although he was nominated multiple times, for which film did he not receive a Best Director nomination?
A. Dr Strangelove
B. A Clockwork Orange
C. Barry Lyndon
D. Full Metal Jacket

10. Which actor/director has never won the Oscar for Best Director?
A. Warren Beatty
B. Mel Gibson
C. Paul Newman
D. Robert Redford

11. Which actor/director is the only person to not be nominated for Best Actor & Director for the same film?
A. Woody Allen, Annie Hall
B. Clint Eastwood, Unforgiven
C. Slyvester Stallone, Rocky
D. Orson Welles, Citizen Kane

12. Who is the only French native to never earn an Academy Award nomination?
A. Juliette Binoche
B. Alain Delon
C. Gerard Depardieu
D. Catherine Deneuve

13. Who is the youngest nominated Actress?
A. Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine
B. Jodie Foster, Taxi Driver
C. Tatum O’Neal, Paper Moon
D. Anna Paquin, The Piano

14. Who is the oldest nominated Actor?
A. George Burns, The Sunshine Boys
B. Henry Fonda, On Golden Pond
C. Hal Holbrook, Into the Wild
D. Peter O’Toole, Venus

15. Which actor never received a nomination for their performance as a member of the Corleone family in The Godfather films?
A. James Caan (Sonny)
B. John Cazale (Fredo)
C. Al Pacino (Michael)
D. Talia Shire (Connie)

16. For which film did Meryl Streep earn her first of 14 Academy Award nominations?
A. The Deer Hunter
B. The French Lieutenant’s Woman
C. Kramer Vs. Kramer
D. Manhattan

17. For which film did Tom Hanks earn his first Academy Award nomination?
A. Big
B. A League of Their Own
C. Philadelphia
D. Splash

18. Steven Spielberg’s first Best Director nomination came for which movie?
A. Jaws
B. Close Encounters of the Third Kind
C. E.T.
D. Schindler’s List

19. Which of these is not a sequel to a Best Picture winner?
A. The Empire Strikes Back
B. The Evening Star
C. Hannibal
D. They Call Me Mister Tibbs

20. Which Academy Award did the first Godfather film not win?
A. Best Actor (Marlon Brando)
B. Best Director (Francis Ford Coppola)
C. Best Picture
D. Best Screenplay (Mario Puzo & Coppola)

21. Which is the only Western never to be nominated for Best Picture?
A. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
B. High Noon
C. The Searchers
D. Unforgiven

22. Which famous author never received an Academy Award nomination for their work as a screenwriter?
A. William Faulkner, To Have and Have Not
B. Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
C. Dorothy Parker, A Star is Born
D. John Steinbeck, Lifeboat

23. Which actor has not won an Academy Award for their work as a screenwriter?
A. Mel Brooks, The Producers
B. George Clooney, Good Night and Good Luck
C. Emma Thompson, Sense and Sensibility
D. Billy Bob Thornton, Sling Blade

24. Which one named musical artist has never won an Academy Award?
A. Eminem
B. Madonna
C. Prince
D. Sting

25. Which famous score did not win the Academy Award for Best Original Score?
A. Chariots of Fire (Vangelis)
B. Psycho (Bernard Herrmann)
C. Star Wars (John Williams)
D. The Wizard of Oz (Herbert Stothart)

Trailer of the Week: My Most Highly Anticipated Movie of Summer '08

No, it's not Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Kingdom of the Last Crystal Skull of the Ark or whatever they're calling it these days. Don't get me wrong, I am looking forward to Steven Spielberg returning to the kinetic action genre, and the trailer does look fun (and Cate Blanchett in tight leather...meow) but there are three factors preventing me from having my excitement raised beyond the "as long as it isn't as bad as The Phantom Menace" level: 1.) Unfortunately, I am the only person alive not to have caught Shia LaBeoufever, he seems to be a likeable enough guy but based on the two movies of his I've seen, Transformers and Disturbia, which granted are both bad movies, I haven't seen anything in him other than a propensity to smirk. Hopefully he'll finally prove to me why Spielberg has decided the kid worthy of being cast in every movie he's remotely involved. 2.) While all the previous Jones films featured state of the art special effects of the day, the action sequences we're pretty much all on-set stunts, the warehouse chase here features heavy use of CGI (and if you are really bored Google Jim Broadbent and CGI pants to see a curious debate the trailer has caused amongst fanboys). 3.) Two words: George Lucas. Yeah, the dude behind the Star Wars prequels. I know he didn't direct or write this, but, he's a major player in the franchise, and did I mention he's the dude behind the Star Wars prequels?

While I'll approach May 22nd with tempered anticipation, the trailer that has me psyched is the red band (meaning cannot be shown in movie theatres for films not rated R and therefore "not safe for work") Pineapple Express.

When it was announced that the vulgar yet sweet styling of producer Judd Apatow and co-writer/star Seth Rogen were collaborating with George Washington and All The Real Girls director David Gordon Green, whose natural lyricism directing resume brings to mind more Terrence Malick than The 40 Year Old Virgin, I thought there might be a natural clash, two great tastes that wouldn't taste great together, peanut butter and hummus, but looking at the trailer, the film looks to be something that I adore: a cinema-knowledgeable mash-up of genre styles (pot comedy, buddy action film)in the vein of some of Jonathan Demme's 80's work like Married to the Mob and Something Wild, films that served and operated in multiple genres, never settling to be just a, say, mob movie with some humor, but a full blown comedy and mob film.

David Gordon Green's movie literate style (in the preview alone there are visual shout outs to Tarantino and Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye) should prevent the inevitable "everything Apatow related" backlash that people will jump on after his less interesting looking producing input Saving Sarah Marshall and Drillbit Taylor open this Spring. It's also great to see James Franco return to playing a sweet dimwitted stoner in the vein of his break-out role as Daniel Desario in Freaks and Geeks after countless bland brooding roles in uninspiring films.

If you don't find the sight of Seth Rogen's (aided by wires)jump off the balcony in the warehouse and Franco's failed attempt to kick in the car window to be glorious and/or hilarious, than I might have no use for you as a human being.

Great use of M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes" too:



Opens August 8th.

Death Is Going to Need a Bigger Boat

Roy Scheider 1932-2008


Roy Scheider may not have possessed the movie star looks, his face sans the puncher’s nose is non-distinct and perhaps too “everyday man”-ish, nor decades long endurance, the last movie role I recall of his was The Rainmaker where he had a cameo as the over-tanned CEO of the evil insurance company (although according to his IMDB page he was in the Thomas Jane version of The Punisher, which I did see, but honestly I don’t remember his appearance or much of anything of the film—there was one cool fight between Jane and some big ass guy in a stairway…and uh, that’s about it) nor iconic screen persona of some of his peers like Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro and Jack Nicholson but when it comes to 1970’s portrayals of masculine determination in American cinema, I’d put his performances and filmography between the years of 1971-80, which included The French Connection, Jaws, Marathon Man and perhaps his greatest role, as Bob Fosse surrogate Joe Gideon in All That Jazz, up to their level (I’d also toss Warren Oates name into the conversation).

I had just recently seen for the first time William Friedkin’s Sorcerer, the infamous remake of Wages of Fear and Friedkin’s follow-up to The Exorcist. Scheider still hot off of his lead performance in Jaws, at the time the highest grossing movie in history, was cast after Steve McQueen dropped out due to Friedkin not giving his wife Ali McGraw a cosmetic producing credit. In the fascinating if flawed film, Scheider portrays Jackie Scanlon, a low rent driver who takes part in a plot to rip off the mafia, but when the plan goes awry, as plan to rip off the mob are wont to do, he flees to South America where he lives in squalor under the assumed name of Dominguez. He and three other men with similarly checkered pasts are given the chance to earn some serious cash and citizenship if they can export some nitroglycerin through the jungle in semis with sputtering engines. Of course there are dangerous detours and hazards that test the men’s ability and sanity, the nitroglycerin precariously straddling the point of explosion serving as an ample metaphor for the men’s, and Scheider in particular, emotional wherewithal. {SPOILERS TO FOLLOW} When Scheider alone completes the mission he collapses, a cathartic moment as his utter exhaustion reveals that only the basest human determination got him to the completion. Scheider plays this scene wonderfully, not overstating the moment with histrionics, after hearing reports of director Friedkin’s on set personality, this scene may have served as a true representation of Scheider’s psychology at that very moment. I do feel Friedkin erred a bit with the little dark ironic coda that follows this cathartic moment, where it’s revealed that the mobsters Scanlon were running from are in the same town as him, undermining a great moment.

I think Scheider could have only flourished in two eras of American cinema, and luckily he was around for one, the 1970’s. The other era being 40s-50s film noir, where he could have competed for lead roles with the likes of Van Heflin, Dana Andrews and John Garfield. I am a little bummed that a director such as Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson or Steven Soderbergh never gave him that one last great defining role(s) and rediscovery that they gave to the likes of David Carridine, Burt Reynolds, Kurt Russell, Terrence Stamp and Phillip Baker Hall. The last major project which he was cast in the lead was in 1994, when he reunited with Steven Spielberg and an aquatic setting for the highly hyped but ultimately ratings starved action/sci-fi television series Seaquest DSV. He did keep working steadily over the last twenty years, although mostly in direct to television or video projects. According to other appreciations I’ve read since his passing, he gave a powerful performance on an episode of Law and Order: Criminal Intent last season (you know what’s weird? I’ve never seen a single minute of any Law and Order show). While it’s a shame he fell out of the limelight, at least he didn’t coast on personality and become a self parody as Pacino, DeNiro, Nicholson and Christopher Walken have recently.

Here’s the trailer for Sorcerer:



And the most harrowing moment of the film, the crossing of the dilapidating bridge (in 2 parts):

Trailer (s) of the Week: Where Roman Has Gone Before

Firstly, you like the title there, huh? Yeah, I went there, there being puns-ville.

Now on to the matter at hand, last week in my review of Tess I commented that while I felt the film was solid overall, the direction lacked that certain Roman Polanski feel. This week I provide two examples of said Polanski feel and an interesting and entertaining dichotomy of how they were marketed to the public.

Exhibit A:

Repulsion (1965) trailer

Polanski's first film made outside of his native country Poland is also the first of a thematic series of film, sometimes referred to as "The Apartment trilogy", each dealing with sexually and/or emotionally repressed women (okay, in The Tenant it's actually a man, played by Polanski himself, who believes he's turning into a woman) who find themselves in solitude in their apartments that become their personal prisons where they slowly but surely become unhinged to the point of violence.

In the trailer for Repulsion, the distributor decided to downplay the methodical pacing of Catherine Deneuve's slow dissent into madness and advertise it more as a sexy thrill-a-minute romp complete with a jazzy drum beat you can dance to and that classic 60's drive-in era horror movie narration.



Exhibit B:

Rosemary's Baby (69) trailer

Like Repulsion, Rosemary's Baby, Polanski's first American film (produced by the kid himself, Robert Evans) depicts a woman in solitude slowly losing grip of her sanity in her increasingly claustrophobic apartment. Part horror/suspense but also very much part comedy, Polanski juggles issues as disperate as abandonment, the negative effects of career focus on marriage, generational distrust and of course, satanism! It's a wholly unique symbiosis and surprisingly, considering its an American studio funded horror film, so is the trailer. With the exception of the opening, the trailer contains no dialogue from the film as it intercuts between a pop-art collage of film highlights set to a psychedelic rock instrumental and a physical recreation of the famous poster image of a baby carriage on top of a hill, with a dread filled ambient score. Standing alone, it's the rare trailer that manages to achieve the level of an experimental masterpiece evoking the avant garde sensibility of the era, even if the purest in me wishes they found a way to incorporate the Krzysztof Komeda score and the "la la la" refrain.



So how do you like your Polanski "woman unraveling in her apartment" trailers? Arty or exploitative?

Tess (1980, Roman Polanski)

Part of the 1980's Project

Seeing as we are in the midst of the annual Hollywood self-idolatry-fest known as Oscar season, it seemed a good time to shift gears in the 1980’s Project away from Z-grade slasher films (oh, there’ll be more of them in the future don't you worry) and take a look at the one 1980 Best Picture Oscar nominee I had not yet seen, Roman Polanski’s adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s book Tess of the d’Ubervilles. It’s title truncated to Tess which always caused me to confuse it with that Matt Dillon Disney horse-riding film, Tex, it’s the sort of film the movie industry likes to think it excels at: a prestigious adaptation of a classic piece of literature centered around an epic romance; and then pats itself on the back for making it and further rewards the accomplishment by giving it awards. But in this viewer’s mind, with a few exceptions, say Lawrence of Arabia, these prestige films hardly ever result in a transcendent piece of cinema. How many people today really ever discuss the merits and influence of Tess (unless they are in the middle of a project to see as many films from the year 1980 as possible, of course)? Or for that matter, a more recent example, The English Patient?

Call me cynical, but I cannot help but speculate that Roman Polanski’s involvement here is partially strategic. This was the first film he directed after fleeing America as a fugitive on statutory rape charges. Now a nearly three hour film based on a nearly hundred year old book would never be considered a strong commercial property, but it is the type of film that critics, and as mentioned above award givers, cherish, so a successful adaptation could salvage his career aspirations in a time of public crisis. He opens the film with a dedication to his slain wife, Sharon Tate, it was one of her favorite books and she recommended it’s prospects as a film to him. If you will allow me my further cynical strategic ponderousness, this could either be seen as a mea culpa to his wife for his dalliances after her murder or serve as a way of Polanski reminding deractors of his past status as a victim of horrendous circumstances.

But what of the film itself? Polanski’s run of films in the 60s and 70s proved him to be a filmmaker keenly attuned to the psychological mind, master of claustrophobic panache and possessing the rare ability to skillfully mix comedy and horror to the point where the lines between the two become blurred. I can see what initially drew Polanski to this material, it involves two of his favorite personal themes: the emotional scars and betrayal of a woman perpetrated by a supposed loved one and/or family and the false pretenses, secret lives and hypocritical nature of the upperclass. Still, while beautifully shot, it never truly feels like a “Polanski” film. The methods and style he employs are pretty much indistinguishable from how a less unique director would treat the material. Hell, for such a great director of violence, it seems an odd choice that the one murder scene and ultimate fate of Tess are both handled off screen (I must admit to having not read Hardy’s book, so perhaps this is in fidelity to the source, still their absence is a waste of one of Polanski’s strengths). The one major exception to the generic tendencies is the utter lack of sentimentality throughout, most notably in a scene where the infant child of Tess dies which is handled in the same matter-of-fact “shit happens” sensibility that accompanies all of Ms. D’Ubervilles travails. There is also a nice lack of using the score as an emotional substitute (at least until the last twenty or so minutes). Polanski’s work is solid and the lack of sentimentality appreciated, still I guess I wish, since he’s a favorite director of mine, that he would have put a more personal imprint on the project, such as Stanley Kubrick did with Barry Lyndon.

Tess’s most glaring weakness lies in its lead performer, Natassja Kinski, picked seemingly for her beauty and the fact that she and Polanski were having an affair (an affair that started when she was 14, damn Roman, dating a 14 year old while you’re fleeing the U.S. on statutory rape charges, I don’t know if I should condemn you for your emotional immaturity or applaud your balls. Didn’t you know any thirty year olds at the time?) than for her minor acting skills. She lacks the gravity required for the role leaving the viewer to deduce whether she suppresses everything internally or if Kinski is just incapable of conveying a variety of emotions. Whether she’s being raped, falling in love, having her desires suppressed, Kinski’s only expression is nonplussed (look at that poster, that‘s the expression she has for the entire film) as if she was concentrating mostly on being photographed. To her credit, Kinski would evolve into a better actor, most notably in Wim Wender’s Paris, Texas, but after watching Tess I feel the need to read Hardy’s book to get a complete sense of her character, not necessarily a bad thing, seeing how I should read more classic literature and all.

Kinski’s limp presence along with Polanski’s sometimes generic direction, prevents Tess from being a wholly successful venture. Speaking of the book, it must have had a major influence on the career Lars von Trier, since it’s basic plot elements: a young girl continually betrayed, forced to fight and scavenge for survival, oppressed and eventually hung once she finds true happiness; would pretty much serve as a template for the majority of his directorial output between the years 1986 to 2006.

After watching Tess, I came upon an article in the Los Angeles Times about a documentary based on the Polanski statutory rape trial that is playing at Sundance. The film, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired makes the case that Polanski while not an innocent by any stretch of the imagination, may have been a victim of a judge who was more interested in his own celebrity than a fair case. You can read the article here.

The Year in Good DVD Covers

One of the features at my blog last year was “When Bad DVD Covers Happen to Good Movies", where I heap scorn upon the bad graphic designers of the world and the damage they impart upon quality films. You can find the three entries of that feature under the label Bad Cover Version (inspired by a Pulp song). Well, it’s a new year, so let’s start on a happy note, as the song goes: accentuate the positive. With that in mind, here are my five personal favorite DVD covers from last year, in no particular order, as well as five honorable mentions.

The Evil Dead (Ultimate Edition)

It may have taken an estimated 173 releases, but Anchor Bay finally did right by Sam Raimi’s horror classic. After covers featuring staged production photos of Bruce Campbell, comic book style artwork and the infamous Book of the Dead replication, they went back to basics and adhered to Colonel Mortimer’s Guide to Good Cover Artwork rule 1: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, utilizing the simple and effective New Line poster that’s most associated with it. Extra props for the added crease marks and rips.

Zodiac (Director's Cut)

Technically a 2008 release but the artwork made it’s way onto websites and this writer’s eye in 2007, so I am counting it. While I thought the original poster design of the Golden Gate bridge enshrouded in fog was great, at least before the first DVD release added the giant floating heads of Jake Gyllenhall, Robert Downey Jr and Mark Ruffalo, the special edition’s reproduction of one of the Zodiac killer’s letter to the San Francisco Chronicle is everything an alternate cover should be: striking, effective and specific to the film. Too bad they had to add the stamp with the film’s title, but I guess concessions to commercial practicalities must be made.

Ace in the Hole

The Criterion Collection is so reliable that this article could be entirely devoted to their work, instead I will choose my personal favorite, the cover of Billy Wilder’s neglected masterpiece, and one of his only commercial failures, the wonderfully cynical and dark Ace in the Hole where a newspaper reporter, Jack Tatum, played by Kirk Douglas, instigates and nurtures a human interest story when he stumbles upon a man trapped in a mine shaft and milks the man’s plight for his own personal and professional gain. In this day of the 24/7 news cycle where opinion and agenda trumps objectivity and non-stories like Terry Schiavo and the War on X-Mas are given national spotlight attention over more pressing matters, the film is extremely prescient. The cover perfectly captures the tabloid nature of one of Tatum’s headline features.

Flash Gordon (Savior of the Universe Edition)

I am a huge fan of the theatrical release poster, thus this release breaks Good Cover Artwork rule 1, however, I will concede that if there has to be an alternate cover, you should be commended for hiring comic book artist Alex Ross, known for his work on the Marvel mini-series Kingdom Come, to create a cover that perfectly conveys both the iconic heroic and campy cheese tendencies inherit in director Mike Hodges and screenwriter Lorenzo Semple’s homage/parody to the classic sci-fi serial that inspired the likes of Star Wars.

Fantastic Voyage

This year 20th Century Fox went deep in their vaults to release a bevy of 50s, 60s and 70s fare that ranged from war epics to spy chic to Irwin Allen produced sci-fi spectaculars to kitchen sink dramas. Wisely they decided to release these DVDs with their original vintage poster art in tact (plus the awesome old logo with the really big 0). Since I believe this era represent the renaissance of quality poster design, I had plenty of options, but the Fantastic Voyage cover that conjures memories of those old Disneyland attraction posters won out with its simple image concept and perfect execution. The raw emotion of its beautiful chief image, people dropping like tears from an eye, was homaged by Steven Spielberg in A.I. (perhaps incidentally, but knowing what a fan of 50’s genre films he is, I doubt it) during a scene transition where a close-up of Haley Joel Osment is juxtaposed over Jude Law falling into the sea, reflected in his eye like a tear.

Honorable Mention:

Army of Shadows

Criterion strikes again with another brilliant cover of another neglected masterpiece (well, until last year’s theatrical release at least) by a great director, Jean-Pierre Melville. Speaking of Pierres and Criterion, my friend Pierre sent me a link to this website of one of Criterion’s designer, Eric Skillman, check it out.

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (Global Warming Edition)

My second favorite 20th Century Fox classic cover, who needs the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage when you can just stare at this all day? Points deducted for its painful attempt to tap into the zeitgeist with the Global Warming Edition label, not that I don’t believe in Global Warming, I just don’t think the destruction of our planet should be playfully exploited for the release of an old sci-fi film.

Robinson Crusoe on Mars

Criterion take three. I have no idea what this film is about, guessing some kind of retelling of the classic deserted island story only, uh, on Mars, but my interest is piqued based solely on this lovely painted cover. As Jerry Maguire once said “You had me at monkey in a space suit”, I am referring not to the movie character, but my zoologist buddy Jerry, whose second favorite catchphrase is “Show me the monkey!”

Skyjacked

Warner Brothers, like 20th Century Fox, opened its vault to release a bunch of B-movies this year. I love this very era specific cover with the repeating image of the silhouetted doomed flight. This also features one of my secret poster art guilty pleasures, the boxes on the bottom with stills of the all-star cast made famous by 70’s disaster epics and Superman sequels.

The Sergio Leone Anthology

An extreme close-up illustration of the side of a gunslinger, his sweaty hand approaching his weapon, the open landscape, his opponent off in the distance. Obvious for this compilation of Leone’s MGM Spaghetti Westerns (the Clint Eastwood/Dollars trilogy and the underrated Duck, You Sucker!)? I’ll give you that. Perfect nonetheless? Hell yeah!

Christmas Evil (1980, Lewis Jackson)

Part of the 80's Project

If Christmas Evil (aka You Better Watch Out) teaches us anything, and really who doesn’t go to cheaply made Troma-produced 80’s horror films for instructions on how to live your life, it’s this: Be conscientious of where you engage in your fetishistic sexual transgressions, especially if you have children. If having your partner dress as Santa Claus while making sweet love to you is your cup of tea, all the more power to you, but please do it behind closed and preferably locked doors. This film depicts one such possible worst-case scenario for parents who do not adhere to this rule.

Harry, aged 8, his younger brother Phillip and mom sneak down the stairs and what to their wondering eyes should appear? Santa Claus himself leaving presents, filling the stockings hung with such care and pilfering the cookies and milk left out for him. When in bed, the younger but more world savvy sibling confides to Harry that it wasn’t really Santa, but dad in a costume. Ever the believer, Harry denies his brother’s cynicism, but has to see for himself, so he sneaks back down the stairs where he sees Mommy kissing Santa Claus, and Santa Claus kissing her back and not just on the mouth, if you catch my drift.

Cut to thirty some odd years later, Harry still possesses a child-like obsession with Christmas. His apartment is decked out in Christmas paraphernalia, when he shaves and the cream is across his face beard-like, he talks in character as Santa Claus (while we only see this once, I assumed it was a daily routine), works as a manager in a toy factory (get it?), and most distressingly, spies on the neighborhood children, keeping large binders journaling whether they’ve been naughty or nice. I was never a Psych major, but I have to think there’s something interesting Freudian-wise about a man who after seeing his mother in flagrante delicto with Santa as a child lives a life dedicated to the holiday. Unfortunately, as is par for the course with the film writer-director Lewis Jackson ignores any insights into Harry’s relationship with his mother post opening sequence or sexuality, preferring to focus on the voyeuristic angle with the kids, while disturbing on the surface, is not predatory.

If Christmas Evil teaches us two lessons, the second is: Beware of false charity! What eventually leads Harry off the precipice of sanity and into cuckoo land is when his bosses at the toy factory reveal that their charitable cause is actually a scheme to have the employees make all the donations and the corporation claim them as theirs (I may not have explained that well, but hey, neither did the movie!) on Christmas Eve of all nights! This bout of un-Seasonalness leads Harry to believe that he is, in fact, Santa Claus. He sneaks into the factory, steal toys and goes around giving them to the good boys and girls. Of course since this claims to be a horror movie, he also punishes the naughty people. His punishment ranges from the fairly innocuous, spooking out the bad neighborhood kid to the lethal: murder!

While the ingredients are all here for an interesting, entertaining or at the very least, since this is Troma, funny film, it’s actually a bit of a chore to get through. With two exceptions, the film is really drably shot. I consider myself fairly forgiving to cheaply made films, as Maniac displayed, you can still compose interesting shots with small budgets and on location filming. The two exceptions to the overall blahness of the cinematography are the scenes that bookend the film. The initial childhood scenes actually has expressive use of color and a fantastical look, as does the final scene, where Harry, being chased by the cops, drives his sleigh (actually a white molester van painted to look like it has reindeer on it) off a cliff where it doesn’t crash, but flies (to the North Pole?). This depiction of the separation of fantasy and reality elements using lighting, framing, etc. however is the only thing in Jackson’s film that is remotely cinematic.

The fact that the DVD Netflix sent me had a horrible transfer, looked like the source material was a VHS tape edited with scotch tape, didn’t help. It doesn’t appear that I got the 2006 special edition, but rather the 2000 extraless version, so if you want a better looking copy of a crappy movie, I suggest seeking out the former, which also includes a commentary between Jackson and John Waters. As far as Christmas slasher films go, this lands itself way below Black Christmas and Silent Night, Deadly Night and probably somewhere in between Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: You Better Watch Out and Black Xmas (the 2006 remake).

Hope you have a Happy Holiday, please don’t kill anyone…or feed your Mogwai after midnight!