HALLOWEEN (1978)

Country: U.S.A.

Genre(s): Horror

Director: John Carpenter

Cast: Jamie Lee Curtis / Donald Pleasence / Nick Castle

Plot

Escaped mental patient Michael Myers terrorizes and murders a group of suburban teenagers.

What I Liked

Those that try to propose that “Halloween” was the first slasher movie are wrong.  “Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” “Black Christmas,” “Silent Night, Bloody Night,” "The Toolbox Murders," and yes, even Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” all established elements that would be common to the slasher subgenre years before John Carpenter and Debra Hill began writing the script for what would become “Halloween.”  Nonetheless, that script, brought to life with Carpenter’s deft direction, made “Halloween” the true benchmark for quality and scariness in all horror films for the next three decades.  There are certain films that, in hindsight, divide a genre’s history into before and after that film.  They alter the art form to define the tastes of a new audience and thus pioneer a new direction without abandoning the past.  In that sense, what “The Searchers” did for westerns, “The Godfather” did for gangster films, and “Star Wars” did for science fiction, “Halloween” did for horror.  In short, Carpenter and crew raised the bar (or the butcher knife) for all horror to follow and filmmakers would never again be able to make a scary movie without referring somehow, intentionally or unintentionally, to his masterpiece.

So what makes “Halloween” work so well?  For what is ultimately a simple movie, that question requires a surprisingly long and complicated answer that can and has been the subject of term papers and books.  I’ll try to slice it down to a few points that, for me, make “Halloween” not only definitive but undiminished over repeated viewings.  First and foremost is of course Carpenter’s directing.  Those familiar with the reputation for the slasher films that followed it might be surprised by the limited body count in the original “Halloween.”  Using shadows, camera angles, and pacing to compensate for his piano-wire budget, he emphasized eeriness and discomfort over shock and gore.  The key to that discomfort (and the film’s financial success) was the genius of Carpenter and Hill placing all the murder and evil dead-center in the middle of America, in a quiet suburban town that must have looked frighteningly familiar to millions of teenagers.

Place the hollow-eyed, white-faced, and silent Michael Myers behind every tree, couch, and closet door in that suburbia and you’ve got some seriously unnerving stuff.  Myers was not the first escaped lunatic killer in movies; he is just the best.  More believable than Jason Vorhees or Chucky, sneakier than Leatherface, and creepier than Freddy Krueger, Myers is the minimalist embodiment of evil: simple, ruthless, and without reason.  Before the sequels and remakes went out of their way to ruin him with origin stories and reasons for his actions, Michael Myers was perfect for not really having a reason at all.  He was just a guy who showed up one night and killed people.  He didn’t even appear to enjoy it.  He just did it.  Just because.  That’s scary.

What I Didn’t Like

*spoiler alert*

Wow.  Hmmm.  Well, they could have done a better job of casting.  Not Jamie Lee Curtis, of course.  She’s perfect as bookish/sexy Laurie Strode.  But the other teenagers around her being played by people in their late twenties and maybe even their thirties just don’t fit.

Something else that’s never quite sat right with me is that the otherwise brainy Laurie doesn’t think to leave the house herself to get help after killing (she believes) Myers.  She sends the kids away but decides to stick around, apparently to do nothing else but sit with her back to the man who just tried to kill her, ponder her evening, and wait for him to get up.  Which he, of course, promptly does.  But I’m reaching here and that’s really all I have for complaints.

Most Memorable Scene

The scene that I think of most whenever “Halloween” pops up in my head is the injured Laurie’s panicked rush across the street when she finds her friends dead in the Wallace house.  She begs for help from neighbors who simply stare at her through the window without making a move to aid her.  She is trapped outside as Myers comes ever closer in a casual stroll, knife in hand.  The tension mounts, aided by the pounding heartbeat of a simple piano soundtrack.  It’s very effective stuff that was put to use in every sequel, remake, and clone of “Halloween” for decades to come.  Yet the terror in this scene remains undiluted by imitation, which can also be said of the film as a whole.

My Rating: 5 out of 5

OLDBOY (2003)

A.K.A.: Oldeuboi

Country: South Korea

Genre(s): Action / Crime / Drama

Director: Park Chan-wook

Cast: Choi Min-sik / Ji-tae Yu / Hye-jeong Kang

Plot

A disturbed man goes on a revenge quest to find out who kidnapped, imprisoned, and drugged him for fifteen years.

What I Liked

A wholly unique film experience, “Oldboy” grabs a hold of the viewer with its irresistible stylishness, unhinged performances, and bizarre mystery premise, remaining undeniably fascinating from start to finish.  A trippy blend of noir, revenge, psychological thriller, martial arts, dark comedy, and sci-fi genres, the movie is at once disorienting and familiar.  Just when it seems to be fitting into a particular convention, the film takes an unexpected turn in a direction toward new heights of lunacy.

When the sheer unconventionality of it all stars to wear off, the intrigue of solving the mystery behind it all takes over, maintaining viewer interest as the filmmakers lead us on a hallucinatory journey through damaged memories, and drugged dreams to an appropriately perverse set of twists, only to wrap everything up in a tidy, nihilist package by the film’s conclusion.

What I Disliked

After the hero escapes from his imprisonment early in the film, we no longer need the cheesy voice-over narration.  The half-assed Eastern philosophy and cheap attempts to bring poetic meaning to the film through these voiceovers only serve to weaken the experience.  They’re probably meant as homage to the noir films that clearly inspired “Oldboy,” but really do the film no justice.  The action and dialogue are strange enough and explain the plot as completely as possible.

I’m never a big fan of twists in films.  They're dreadfully cliché in the thriller genre in particular.  However, I have to admit that those who enjoy that sort of thing will find “Oldboy” ends with a series of twists that are as wicked as they are surprising.

Most Memorable Scene

*spoiler alert*

This time I’m picking a scene that was memorable primarily for negative reasons.  Without giving too much away, let me say that one of the aforementioned twists leaves main character Oh Dae-su even more insane than he already had been at the film’s start.  Basically driven mad he goes on a rant of self-loathing and self-mutilation that to me neither fit the moment nor made me feel any sort of emotion but bewilderment.  I get what the self-mutilation is supposed to represent, I just don’t think the intensity of Oh Dae-su’s reaction befits his character or the situation.   So I chose this scene both because its sheer weirdness stands out in a movie crawling with weird and because it is one of the most disappointing moments in an otherwise fascinating movie.

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5

THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939)

Country: U.S.A.

Genre(s): Adventure / Fantasy / Musical

Director: Victor Fleming

Cast: Judy Garland / Ray Bolger / Frank Morgan

Plot

A tornado whisks Kansas farm girl Dorothy away to a strange fantasy land populated by all sorts of unusual characters and one very wicked witch.

What I Liked

1001 movies.  That’s how many films that the editors of the book I am using for my source designate as “must see.”  The films selected are either historically important, visually stunning, marvelously produced, unusually moving, or culturally iconic.  The best among them fall into multiple categories.  Then there are the elite among the elite, those films that surpass every single benchmark in those categories.  Films like “The Wizard of Oz.”

Is there a more iconic film?  Before I wrote this post, I took some time to think about that, not wanting to be guilty of hyperbole.  “Star Wars,” “Casablanca,” “Gone with the Wind,” “The Sound of Music,” “King Kong,” the Universal horror movies, the Disney classics, some films starring Charlie Chaplin or John Wayne, they’re all heavy hitters in the arena of of American popular culture.  But I don’t believe any one of them tops “Wizard” for a combination of classic look, sound, script, and action.  From the sepia-toned opening credits straight through to the “And you were there, and you were there” end, every second of this film is permanently engraved in the psyche of movie-goers everywhere.  Certainly no movie in history has more instantly familiar music.  I would not be surprised at all to find it out is the world’s most recognizable film.  And I don’t think that’s because we’re over inundated with the film in our culture.  It’s just because the film is quite simply unforgettable.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; speaking generally, I am not a fan of musicals.  “Wizard of Oz” isn’t just an exception to my loathing; I outright love this film.  It’s been a good twenty years since I’ve seen it, but it was regular viewing during my childhood.  I haven’t gone back to it for the simple fact that I’d seen it so many times I wasn’t sure that I would get anything new out of it by going back as I got older.  How wrong I was.  I might have been less swept away this time by the movie’s wonderful music and stirring sentimentality as I had been as a kid, but that was replaced by my admiration for the production values.  The scenery, effects, and costumes are rendered with such a dumbfounding pursuit of perfection that I was surprised to learn that this film wasn’t very popular when it first came out.  I can’t imagine any other film from the 1930s or before looking this good.  Not many movies in the over 70 years since have looked better.

What I Disliked

So what the hell happened with Toto?  Did Miss Gulch have him destroyed, or what?

Most Memorable Scene

Every shot.  Every lyric.  Every note.  Every line.  Every moment.

My Rating: 5 out of 5

BARREN LIVES (1963)

A.K.A.: Vidas Secas

Country: Brazil

Genre(s): Drama

Director: Nelson Pereira dos Santos

Cast: Atilia Iorio / Maria Ribeiro / Jofre Soares

Plot

After wandering through the desert, an impoverished family takes up residence in an abandoned house on the land of a wealthy rancher, agreeing to raise livestock for him.  However, just as their fortunes seem to be improving, temptation and injustice intervene.

What I Liked

*spoiler alert*

If you’re ever feeling like things are going bad for you, go ahead and take a gander at “Barren Lives” and you’ll realize you’re pretty lucky.  The movie basically plots one family’s move from absolute desperation to base poverty back to desperation.  And the film’s visuals overall match the desolation of its plot.  There is almost no musical soundtrack, outside of at an extended night-time festival scene and the occasional screeching drone of rusty cart wheels.  The landscapes and interior shots are the very definition of bleak.  The starkness of the black-and-white photography gives a skeletal pallor to nearly every person and animal on screen.  To this American viewer it all seems like an alien or post-apocalyptic world; however, I fully acknowledge this misses the film’s point.  Places like this, and worse, exist and have rarely been documented in a fictional film with such stomach-churning precision.

I remember reading a book called “Child of the Dark” in college.  It was the diary of Carolina Maria de Jesus, a desperately poor mother in the urban favelas of Brazil.  Though “Barren Lives” covers a more rural setting, it reminded me very much of that book in its shocking account of how harsh life can be.  The very real Carolina Maria de Jesus would scrounge the streets for paper to write on and knowingly drank from disease-infected well water to survive.  Similarly, the fictional family here kills their pet bird for something to eat so they can have the energy to keep walking a path to nowhere and, when they finally find shelter, sleep on an uncovered bed made of sticks.  Their mother constantly fantasizes about one day being able to afford to cover the sticks in leather, equating this with living like dandies.  There’s no Hollywood happy ending here.  No inspirational moral, outside of sheer outrage at the injustice of it all.  This film is simply the hardest of facts, even if its characters are fictional.

From the standpoint of art, director Nelson Periera dos Santos makes some excellent use of camera angles to get some interesting visuals.  For example, he jumps from a wide-open shot of a pathetically empty, dust-blasted town square to the sight of a group of bandits traveling down the street, seen through the frame of a barred prison window.  These help keep the eyes slightly entertained through what is otherwise an intentionally unembellished film.

What I Didn’t Like

In case the above didn’t give you a clue, you won’t find any inspiring tale of redemption, rags-to-riches, or poetic justice here.  Nor will you find anything resembling bright colors, happiness, brotherhood, romance, or even an entertaining action sequence.  No escapism here.  Just bare-bones ugliness for over an hour and a half.  If you intend to watch this one, prepare yourself.

Just as the story lacks Hollywood convention, so does the plot structure.  This makes the film difficult to watch in another way.  Our minds are trained to recognize certain queues and signs that mark well-established plot points, twists, and elements.  Without realizing it, we take this language of American film for granted and it helps use stay interested and involved in the happenings on screen.  “Barren Lives,” lacks a great deal of that structure and thus very often feels to be without a narrative altogether.  This impression is in error, and the film does have a well-defined plot, it just neither conforms to or resembles those which we are accustomed to watching.  The movie therefore is difficult to watch intellectually as well as emotionally.

Most Memorable Scene
*spoiler alert*

Once the viewer realizes how quickly the meager success the family has attained is going to leave them, a feeling of inevitable defeat pervades.  This begins when Fabiado, father of the family, pulls out of a card game in which he knows he’s been had, offending the policeman with whom he partnered for the game.  This event brings about the downfall of all that the family has worked toward for a year, and they can only helplessly watch it all take place. Unsettling stuff.

My Rating: 3 out of 5

SERPICO (1973)

Country: U.S.A.

Genre(s): Crime / Drama

Director: Sidney Lumet

Cast: Al Pacino / Tony Roberts / Barbara Eda-Young

Plot

The true story of Frank Serpico, an honest cop who put his life on the line to expose the rampant practice of extortion, graft, and cover-ups in the New York City Police Department.

What I Liked

“Serpico” is a perfect illustration of why the 1970s is my favorite decade for American filmmaking.  It is far from the best American film made during the seventies, yet is so much better than most films from any other decade.  Director Sidney Lumet (also responsible for other classics from the decade like “Network” and “Dog Day Afternoon”) was the perfect choice to direct this film for his mastery of producing a palpable immediacy in his films that nevertheless feels wholly realistic and natural to the story.  While always riveting and intense, his films feature hardly a second of flash or contrivance.  The settings, clothing, camerawork, and acting all serve the purpose of bringing the viewer right in to the events on screen by making those events feel intensely true-to-life.  The clothes, scenery, and characters all seem imperfectly authentic.  And that’s what I love about seventies filmmaking.  None of the sentimentality or melodrama of the films made in the first half of the century.  None of the stylized shock value of the late ‘60s filmmakers.  Nor is there the overly-processed, overly-slick, larger-than-life productions that came in the 1980s and afterwards.  Just honest filmmaking, free of pretention and self-indulgence.

Pacino is of course best known for his multi-faceted portrayal of Michael Corleone in the Godfather films, the first of which appeared a year before “Serpico.”  And rightly so.  If this performance doesn’t quite live up to that one, it is still a consummate acting job providing a clear sense of the character’s idiosyncratic individualism while still making him a regular joe to which the masses can relate.  Michael Corleone displayed Pacino’s talent at subtlety and understatement, while Frank Serpico allowed him to burst with visible passion.

What I Disliked

It can be said that Pacino may have been a bit too indulgent with this role.  There are several scenes where he is purely a screaming asshole, not likable in anyway.  This is probably just an accurate portrayal of a man whose life is fraught with paranoia and secrets falling apart emotionally.  Still, a few of the scenes feel more like an actor showing off than they do like a real man dealing with a difficult situation.  Thankfully, those moments are extremely rare and Pacino is otherwise terrific.

Frank Serpico’s two romantic relationships in the film are given so little development that it might have been better to leave them out entirely.  The first, with a fun-loving dancer played by Cornelia Sharpe, clearly exists in the film as a means to illustrate Serpico’s quirky, personable side, but otherwise has no bearing on the overall plot.  The second, with a nurse played by Barbara Eda-Young, seems to be more of a months-long screaming match rather than a romance.  This relationship is present for the sole purpose of providing the viewer a glimpse at how the stress and paranoia was ruining Serpico’s peace of mind.  However, since we’re never really given the sense that this relationship was ever positive to begin with, we never feel anything’s been lost when it eventually ends.  Eda-Young’s lackluster acting doesn’t help; it’s almost as though she thinks she’s still rehearsing for the part and not actually in front of a rolling camera.

Most Memorable Scene

Outside of the level of corruption it documents (and nowadays that’s old news too), nothing about “Serpico” will necessarily blow your mind.  But it is not meant to be an awe-inspiring sort of film.  In a way, that no scene sticks out predominately over any other is a compliment to Lumet’s self-restraint.  The film has a flowing progression where each scene leads smoothly to another while the emotional content becomes ever more extreme without the viewer consciously noticing.  I have no favorite scene, nor a most memorable one.  I’ll simply say that the aspect of the film that most stands out for me is the settings.  Clearly shot on location, the dirty streets, claustrophobic apartment buildings, and dingy precinct houses have a documentary-like realism that lends credibility to the drama on screen.

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5

THIS IS SPINAL TAP (1984)

Country: U.S.A.

Genre(s): Comedy

Director: Rob Reiner

Cast: Christopher Guest / Michael McKean / Harry Shearer

Plot

Aging rock band Spinal Tap are the subject of a documentary capturing all of their pretentions, idiocy, and pomposity on their American tour.

What I Liked

The most amazing thing about “This is Spinal Tap” is how accurate it is, to the point that it not only spoofs the rock-umentaries that came before it (“Let It Be,” “The Song Remains the Same”), it somehow makes fun of the movies that wouldn’t come out yet for decades ("Decline Of Western Civilization, Part II," “Some Kind of Monster,” “Anvil! The Story of Anvil”).  Consequently, the film will never age, as long as there are future generations of self-important celebrities to catch on camera.  Each of the characters, band members and otherwise, so vividly reflect real-life rock personalities that the characters might as well be named Keith Richards, Steven Tyler, Keith Moon, Yoko Ono, or any other of the well-known stars of the genre.  I imagine every big name rock god who watched this movie just blushing and covering his face, with every silly argument, horrible song lyric, and ridiculous gimmick seeming all too familiar.

What makes the film work best is how it convincingly it appears to be a straight-faced documentary.  Using the same filming techniques common to true documentaries and full of a lot of clearly improvised acting, the movie has an immediacy necessary to make still even more familiar to fans of the rock documentary subgenre.  Christopher Guest and especially Michael McKean are both scathingly accurate in their performances of befuddled man-children nursing bruised egos.  Less prominently featured Harry Shearer makes the most of every chance he’s given with his portrayal of mustachioed bassist Derek Smalls, the “lukewarm water” to Guest and McKean’s fire and ice.

Most importantly, the movie is funny beyond being embarrassingly accurate.  There are so many classic lines and sight gags here it is impossible to list them all in a few paragraphs.  From stinging satire to knee-slapping slapstick, it’s all here.

What I Didn't Like

For fans familiar with documentaries on the rock music industry, there’s nothing to outright dislike.  Still, something about this film did leave this viewer a tad dissatisfied.  The movie’s plot is just not that interesting.  Beyond the gags, there’s not much substance here (which, of course, is the movie’s point).  The story of an aging rock band struggling to fan the flames of their dying fame and deal with lineup changes just isn’t all that interesting.  Yes, it’s accurate to almost every rock-umentary ever made, but consequently fails to make for a unique story.

Most Memorable Scene

What else? “These go to eleven.”

My Rating: 4 out of 5

HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER (1990)

Country: U.S.A.

Genre(s): Horror

Director: John McNaughton

Cast: Michael Rooker / Tom Towles / Tracy Arnold

Plot

Quiet and reclusive serial killer Henry risks exposure when he gets too close to his roommates Otis and Becky.

What I Liked

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.”  I watched it once before, probably sometime in the late nineties, as part of a spate of slasher films that included all the essentials, Michael Myers, Freddy, Jason, Chucky, etc.  “Henry” still stands out as easily the most disturbing of them all, maybe more so than all of the others put together.  The reason is because it is far and away the most realistic, honest, and un-glamorous movie portrayal of a serial killer that I’ve ever seen.

There are no supernatural powers here.  No special effects makeup or trademark costumes.  No villainous one-liners in the script (unless you include Henry’s memorably hateful quip, “Fuck the Bears”).  No creative kills.  No centerfolds bouncing around in and out of their underwear and no ridiculously bizarre methods of murder (well, maybe one TV-over-the-head electrocution).  No super-smart psychos a la Hannibal Lecter.  This is just bare-bones violence, ugliness, and soullessness perfectly embodied by the chillingly inexpressive performance of Michael Rooker in the title role.  Based extremely loosely on real-life serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, the main character is no super-villain of the Freddy Krueger mold; just a sorry excuse for a human being.  Stupid, uncaring, irresponsible, and completely devoid of personality, this not a bad guy for which anyone should be rooting.  And his roommate Otis (played by the frighteningly convincing Tom Towles), pathetic white trash to the core and every bit as depraved as Henry, is even more disgusting.

All of the above could be read as a complaint more than a compliment, but it can really be read as both.  Certainly “Henry” is intentionally the antithesis of the 80s slasher films that glamorized serial killers as anti-heroes.  There’s something to be said for its cutting through the bullshit and showing us that these sociopaths are nobody to revere.  That it does so while simultaneously beating out its predecessors for truly disturbing horror should be regarded as a kind of accomplishment.

What I Didn’t Like

The problem is, those slasher films and their iconic killers are the way they are for a reason.  They’re effective entertainment for many people, and effective entertainment puts butts in seats and dollars in the bank.  “Henry” may be an honest film that creates plenty of horror, but it is in no way fun to watch.  It’s a very well-acted and unique film and I consider myself a horror fan, yet I haven’t bothered to watch this one for a dozen or so years for a reason.  I just didn’t find anything to really enjoy about it as entertainment.  Thought-provoking and memorable?  Absolutely.  Enjoyable or exciting? Nope.

Most Memorable Scene

There are several scenes of murder and/or murder’s aftermath that will take a while to leave any viewer’s memory.  Not because they’re particularly flashy or creative in the manner of most slasher films.  But because they’re so damn gritty and straight-forward.  One scene where Henry and Otis film themselves slaying an entire family certainly is the most shocking.  However, the movie actually has a very understated feel.  And nowhere is the understatement more effective than in the film’s closing moments when Henry drops a bloody suitcase off by the roadside and the audience immediately understands who is inside that bag, despite our wishes that it not be the case.

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5