Out of the Past: The Week In Film

Cess Pool Cinema:
1. Whiteout (2009) Dir. Dominic Sena - US

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:
1. Diary of a Mad Black Woman (2005) Dir. Darren Grant - US
2. Surrogates (2009) Dir. Jonathan Mostow – US
3. Children of the Damned (1963) Dir. Anton Leader - UK

Guilty Pleasure Cinema:
1. Race with the Devil (1975) Dir. Jack Starrett - US

Astounding Cinema:
7. Clean, Shaven (1993) Dir. Lodge Kerrigan - US
6. Village of the Damned (1960) Dir. Wolf Rilla - UK
5. Streamers (1983) Dir. Robert Altman - US
4. Menace II Society (1993) Dir. Hughes Bros. – US
3. Next Day Air (2009) Dir. Benny Boom – US
2. Vacancy (2007) Dir. Nimrod Antal – US
1. Julia (2008) Dir. Erick Zonca – France/US

Theatrical Screenings
2. The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) Dir. Jim Sharman – US 10/10
1. The White Ribbon (2009) Dir. Michael Haneke – Austria/Germany 10/10

Whiteout (2009): Director Dominic Sena’s catastrophically bad 2009 feature Whiteout has about as much to do with the eponymous weather condition as I have sexual attraction to women. In other words, nothing whatsoever. With a plot about as intense as a late series Nancy Drew installation, the film should have been called “Antarctic Murder Mayhem.” With a subplot involving drunken Russians smuggling something or other as they fly and crash over Antarctica in 1957 (yeah, right), Kate Beckinsale (apparently considering this to be part of her professed ‘serious’ work she will now lean towards) stars as a U.S. Marshall with some severe aversions towards certain duties of the position (like dealing with stress or getting over a partner double crossing her years ago in a drug bust in Miami) who is mired in a murder or two (what may be the first in the region!) and dealing with what’s supposed to be sexual tension with a UN operative (Gabriel Macht, that annoying lead of the dismal The Spirit, 2008) and bonding with a doctor, her mentor, Tom Skerrit. Nothing surprising, exciting, relevant or realistic occurs and brief mention is made of severe Antarctic weather conditions that can culminate in a WHITE OUT, which doesn’t happen, though futile tension is built around the fact that they might get stranded for six months as the last plane is leaving, etc, etc. Bleh. Of course it becomes painfully obvious who the double crossing baddie must be and you’ll want to ask why the people involved in the making of this wanted to make you suffer through such blandness. Dominic Sena, a director of quite of few Janet Jackson music videos, had a compelling feature debut with Kalifornia (1993), before going on to direct abortions like Gone In 60 Seconds (2000), and Swordfish (2001). Though I’m strangely intrigued by his upcoming Season of the Witch (2010), I can’t understand what he was thinking concerning this venture.

Diary of a Mad Black Woman (2005): Oh, boy, the film that started it all, the one that gave us Tyler Perry and his drag queen persona, Madea. Having endured more than one cankerous cinematic pustule from Perry over the past few years, I finally visited the 2005 feature that made him a force to reckon with, one that I had missed oh so long ago. While it’s interesting to note that Perry did not direct this first feature (Darren Grant gets the director cred) the schizophrenic cacophony is vintage Perry. With a cast featuring the talented Kimberly Elise and legendary Cicely Tyson, I couldn’t help but mourn the fact that even from the beginning, Perry’s films serve as coffins rather than vehicles for the talented actresses he’s been lucky enough to get to star in them (he would somehow convince women like Angela Bassett, Alfre Woodard, Kathy Bates, Taraji P. Henson, Mary J. Blige, and Janet Jackson to star in his pictures). Besides Elise appearing much too young to have been the victim of a terrible marriage that lasted 18 years, the film casts Shemar Moore as Elise’s new love interest---with a corn row wig and a different colored bandana to coordinate with whatever outfit he’s wearing, making him look like a cross between Andre Agassi and Bo Derek from 10 (1979). The film appears to hold itself together a bit better than most of Perry’s work featuring the Madea character until the last 15 minutes or so which culminates in, guess what? A gospel blaring showdown in a church where a little sub plot girl and her crack whore mommy are reunited mid song with every character appearing to smile and mouth words to songs they don’t know.

Surrogates (2009): I think the reason I’m not quite classifying this as cess pool cinema is because the concept is quite intriguing. Concerning a world in which humans interact via the use of beautiful robots called ‘surrogates,’ this is the type of film that Terry Gilliam, Ridley Scott or Steven Spielberg could have done wonders with. Instead, Jonathan Mostow, whose last theatrical release was 2003’s Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines gives us a mediocre handjob of a film. Bruce Willis (who is right behind Nicolas Cage with creepy fake hair in bland and hammy action flicks) stars as a cop who must save man kind from a plot to destroy not only surrogates but also the operators while they’re using them. Conflict with the wife at home (Rosamund Pike) his boss (Boris Kodjoe) a rapscallion (Jack Noseworthy) a Rastafarian dreadlocked prophet man (Ving Rhames) and his completely forgettable partner (Radha Mitchell) will force you into forgetting what the hell is going on since the film fails to address basic concepts of what would really happen to the human body if we sat in a chair all day and all night while telepathically operating a simulated being.

Children of the Damned (1963): One of those irritating sequels where some schmo says “hey I have an idea similar to this highly successful film. I can write it as a sequel but it will fail to acknowledge anything from the previous film because it’s not really a sequel.” Kind of like how Open Water 2: Adrift (2006) has nothing to do with Open Water (2003), Children of the Damned (1963) has nothing to do with Village of the Damned (1960) except that it concerns an ethnic smattering of telepathically inclined super children that gather together from their respective countries in Great Britain. In true British fashion, they attempt to politely annihilate the children. Boo.

Race with the Devil (1975): As Peter Fonda alludes to on the disc’s commentary, this is basically a straightforward chase movie involving a devil cult. Two couples (Peter Fonda, Warren Oates, Lara Parker, Loretta Swit) witness what appears to be your typical virgin sacrifice to the dark lord and rather than be quiet and unobtrusive about their witnessing, someone screams and the cult is alerted and have to chase the couples through the countryside in their camper. While I’m not part of a Satanic cult, I feel I would have double checked the landscape before lighting a tree on fire and stabbing a naked blonde woman---but just for those pesky liabilities like campers and other people that might alert, you know, the world. You can just tell that Peter Fonda thinks he’s super cool just because he’s Peter Fonda and thinks that just because he had fun riding a motorcycle and shooting at people from atop a camper we should enjoy the film, too. Well, the film is a little too straightforward---to the point where I really just wanted faceless cult members to catch up with the two screaming chicks and their idiot husbands (stopping to swim at a camper resort and gallivanting around country western bars with persistent camper losers isn’t exactly a good idea when legions of Satan want your hide). All in all, this is an entertaining film and has one or two key scenes (one involving rattlesnakes) that might pique your interest, but it falls far from being original or entirely satisfying.

Clean, Shaven (1993): While you may balk at some of the aesthetic aspects of Lodge Kerrigan’s debut feature, you just have to remember that filming took two years because he kept running out of money. Criterion released this feature as part of their enduring collection, and it’s not difficult to see why. Peter Greene gives the most noteworthy performance of his career as a schizophrenic recently released from an institution who goes on a search for his young daughter. While nearly all the other actors are bit players, they are consistently wooden, which is only exacerbated by Greene’s amazing presence. Kerrigan uses sound as a landscape of eerie pain and confusion to brilliant effect, while some of the visuals are also memorably disturbing. Meanwhile, an ongoing murder investigation of a young girl coincides with Greene looking for his own, with some devastating results. Greene (who I annoyingly couldn’t place until I realized he was Cameron Diaz’s asshole boyfriend from The Mask, 1994) is definitely the most memorable part of the film, while Kerrigan has gone on to be considered an auteur after releasing Claire Dolan (1998) and Keane (2004).

Village of the Damned (1960): While John Carpenter’s 1995 remake will always be a personal favorite of mine, the original is pretty damn good as well. I’ve always believed there are a lot of creepy social issues going on in this tale of a small village whose inhabitants all pass out one day and all the fertile women wake up pregnant giving birth simultaneously to a clan of silver haired evil children that turn out to be an alien race that thinks and acts collectively. The original novel by John Wyndham was called “The Midwich Cuckoos,” so named because cuckoo birds lay their eggs in other birds’ nests. The other birds raise the cuckoos as their young. Tell me that’s not just incredibly creepy in reference to a woman’s womb. Pointing to motherhood as nothing more than woman as host, the story also deals with social issues concerning raising children that will only end up harming you, while also touching on issues of race. But more on that when I finally write an academic article on this wonderful movie. George Sanders and beautiful British scream queen Barbara Shelley star in this original classic directed by German import, Wolf Rilla.

Streamers (1983): The only issue with Robert Altman’s Streamers is that it’s obviously based on a play, albeit it an excellent one by David Rabe. A claustrophobic little potboiler set in an army barrack’s, the film deals with four very different young men, two black, two white, two straight, two gay, and how their fears concerning homosexuality lead to the dramatic conclusion. Matthew Modine and David Alan Grier are the two straights, while Mitchell Lichtenstein and the new guy, a very volatile and misunderstood Michael Wright may share an attraction. Vito Russo hated Altman’s Streamers, particularly criticizing the obviously flamboyant Lichtenstein, claiming the original play circled around masculine fears about masculine men being homosexual. While I can see his point, it’s nonetheless a compelling film and subject matter, especially considering plenty of flamboyant men still enter the military even with “don’t ask don’t tell” still being a policy. In a wizened world, you almost always can tell. While the four leads are all compelling, the film is a bit talky and suffers from two overbearing monologs from drunken officers played by George Dzundza and Guy Boyd.

Menace II Society (1993): The only real problem with Menace II Society (1993) is the fact that it feels like Hughes Bros. simply took Boyz N the Hood (1991) and it made it even more dramatically dire, even though they cite their debut film’s influence as mainly being Goodfellas (1990), which is also evident. Add to that an unlikeable protagonist played by Tyrin Turner and you have a shocking and moving tale concerning gang violence on the streets with little chance of hope or redemption. Larenz Tate costars as a young man seemingly without a conscience while Jada Pinkett Smith turns in a moving performance as the only beacon of hope as a friend of Turner’s attempting to get out of Watts, CA and into a job in Atlanta to raise her baby boy.

Next Day Air (2009): A surprisingly dark comedy about a delivery man (Donald Faison) that delivers a drug package to the wrong address, I was surprised at how comic and bloody this film ended up. Faison fares alright as a stoner deadbeat, but the show belongs to deadbeats Mike Epps and Wood Harris as two inept criminals that receive the package and set off the film’s chain of events involving the Mexican mafia. Darius McCrary (Eddie Winslow from “Family Matters”), Mos Def, and Debbie Allen also turn in entertaining performances, but my favorite had to be the beautiful Yasmin Deliz as one of the intended recipient’s of the package, a ballsy, breathtakingly gorgeous and funny woman.

Vacancy (2007): I had avoided the English speaking debut of Hungarian director Nimrod Antal because it looked like your typically mediocre American thriller that starred half baked talent like Kate Beckinsale and Luke Wilson. But I’m thrilled to say that Vacancy is the first time in a while that a mainstream American film had me on the edge of my seat, uncomfortably tense. The tale focuses on a bitter, married couple on the verge of divorce, stranded at an isolated motel in the middle of nowhere. In between their bitter arguing, they start to realize that something creepy is going on with the room next to them. A short while later, they pop in the random VHS tapes into the VCR by the TV and realize that they are about to become the victims of a snuff film. Completely realistic and intense, the only misfit part of the film, I have to agree with the husband, was Frank Whaley as the suspiciously campy front desk clerk. I liked this film so much, I just may watch the awful looking Armored (2009), also helmed by Antal.

Julia (2008): In a role that most actresses may only ever dream about getting, Tilda Swinton stars as an alcoholic mess of a woman used to waking up in random men’s beds, continually in between jobs and a sponsor that’s lovingly infatuated with her and keeps her going to AA. But Julia seems to love being a mess. When a suspiciously infantile AA member and neighbor (Kate del Castillo) approaches Julia in a scheme to kidnap her child back from the tyrannical millionaire grandfather that has possession of him, Julia agrees to be involved for the price of 50,000. As she begins to plan to kidnap the child for herself to demand even more money, she learns at the last minute that the mother has no money anyway----but the grandfather does. Kidnapping the child, Julia crashes into Mexico, somehow able to live through moment by moment by the seat of her pants. Completely dark and hilarious, Swinton’s drunken, crusty performance is brilliant, beautiful and enormously entertaining. If she’s an actress you enjoy at all, then you can’t miss Julia. This is the third feature from French director Erick Zonca, whose 1998 debut was the much hailed The Dreamlife of Angels.