Teeth: a square Venn-diagram tracking little overlap.

by Ryland Walker Knight

It was hard to tone down the review and not use words like "snatch" and "cootchie" but I did it. To read the middle school safe review, click here, and you will be redirected to The Daily Californian's website. The short of it: not quite the movie it wants to be. Not quite funny enough, and way too many dicks. That is, in relation to the zero vaginas (dentata'd or not) elsewhere (not) on screen. Still, the crowd I saw it with sure did lap/laugh it up. So, you might like it more than grumpy me. (Finally read some other reviews. Here's two I like, and seem to be in line with: Glenn Kenny is yet less enthused than me, but maybe funnier; Lauren Wissot has pretty much the same argument as me, and Odie in her comments thread.)

Cloverfield targets the yuppies it loves.

by Claire Twisselman

It's kind of great that something like Cloverfield is a hit. Audacity is a strong card to play for me, I guess, and this new kind of monster movie J. J. Abrams delivered is pretty fucking audacious. If only it were a little better. How it could be any better I don't really know. Of course, the screenplay could use some work (re-jigger the trite love story, the inane running commentary, and the almost-idiot plot), and they could have cast some better actors (although it would be hard to find more attractive leads; notice the wise choice to keep Hud off-camera for most of the movie), but this is what we got. This 80-minute digicam movie about holding onto love even when there's a big ugly monster killing the city that the pretty little people populate. No, this isn't The Host or Jaws -- nor is it There Will Be Blood (looking at you, Ryland) -- but, really, what is? Is this movie truly worth hating? I don't think so. It's too weird. Sitting in a packed audience over the weekend, I couldn't believe this thing was actually making a lot of money: its handycam shake borders on unwatchable, the totally fuckable cast (thanks, Nathan Lee) is serviceable at its best, and I could totally see why it might give people a headache. That is if I wasn't so interested and involved in the movie the whole time I was watching it unfold.

The beginning is precious enough, and kind of longish, since there's only 80 minutes of movie, but both Michael Stahl-David (as the ostensible hero, Rob) and Odette Yustman (as the damsel-in-distress, Beth) are so good looking that I didn't quite care. The next part, with Rob's brother Jason (Mike Vogel) and his girlfriend, Lily (Jessica Lucas), starts out obnoxious since Jason can't work the camera, and it doesn't get much better once he hands off documentary duties to Hud (T. J. Miller), until the monster shit (like the head of The Statue of Liberty) hits the fan and starts flying down the streets. Then these yuppies start getting what they deserve. I mean, right? Get over yourselves! I hope to live in one of those kinds of amazing downtown loft-type apartments -- I'd love it, yes -- but I hope even more to never get that hung up on bullshit "love affairs" interfering with my professional life. You just deal with shit. I guess that's part of the point the movie is trying to make but with so much time and affection devoted to this young non-couple's not-quite-unrequited love (I'm talking Rob and Beth) it's hard to ignore that Cloverfield is definitely targeted at yuppies the same way it's out to kill yuppies. Like most aspects of the movie, it's a mixed bag.

The coolest thing about Cloverfield is probably that, despite itself, I sat not apoplectic and bewildered but jazzed up and ready since I was so caught up with the idea that a monster movie was made like this. Okay, The Blair Witch Project did it first, I guess, and I like that it was a hit, but this one is a real big time movie, with one of those genius hype-generating marketing campaigns. (Okay, its marketing was kind of a rip off of the Blair Witch internet craze, too.) But, anyways, Cloverfield made a ton of money this weekend and it's a weird, not-typical Hollywood movie. Even The Bourne Ultimatum isn't this wobbly. I don't really know anything about avant-garde cinema but that late auto-focus fidgeting in the grass may be one of the coolest/weirdest things in a blockbuster I've seen in a while. Starting here of all places I can start to see why Cloverfield is different than Blair Witch: the camera is just another witness here, instead of some kind of agency device. It's also the reason it's a pretty muddled movie. For all the silly humanism in the stupid love story, the filmmaking itself isn't really interested in humans. It's a document --some weird artifact the government found? -- of human kind's idiot notion that they should win any and every battle because they can love. But love doesn't save anybody here. In fact, it's just the opposite. Jason says it best in the first clause of his rule, "Forget the rest of the world," before he fucks up and seals his fate with, "and hold on to the ones you love the most." Of course he'll die first! (Maybe that's why killing all those yuppies works: Tom Cruise slummed it as a blue collar, deadbeat dad to survive Spielberg's War of the Worlds. Privilege breeds contempt? Perhaps. I mean, I sure did hate that Tom's wife's parents (and all of Boston, for the most part) were relatively unscathed.) Still: It's not worth hating, and it's worth looking at, even if it's a little (a lot?) stupid.

Like I said above, it's not the screenplay that got me hot (if it did, indeed, get me bothered): it was how Abrams and director Matt Reeves used the digicam to capture the mayhem. It should be no surprise that the best sequence of the movie is the one you get a glimpse of in the trailer: the one where the Army rolls through shooting the monster with all its might, including some rockets. It's a much better commentary on our relationship to Iraq (as experienced by redacted television news) than that annoying scene in 28 Weeks Later on the tram after the kids fly into London -- and it's much better than the 9/11 ash quote from earlier in the movie. But what happens next? The yuppies go inside, underground even, and cry about their woeful lot. At least uber-cutie Marlena (I want Lizzy Caplan's hairdo) doesn't shed any tears -- she's just kinda pissed. I wanted more of that (and less whining) to go along with my apocalypse.

Two Stars (Tormatozz/Possession mashup)

by Steven Boone

The Russian band Tormatozz asked me to make them a video along the lines of my Tarkovsky mashup. So here's pieces of Andrzej Zulawski's 1981 "horror" film Possession, set to Tormatozz's song "Two Stars." Both works are about love and separation, but one's a dream, the other a nightmare. Dig the contrast.

Are you an angry man? Are you envious?

Some words from Ryland Walker Knight to you, fine readers: Go to The House Next Door and read my early review of There Will Be Blood. It was difficult to know what to include in the review given the film does not open for more than a month (and then, only in New York and Los Angeles). But I think I got at something without spoiling too much, if anything, given a familiarity with the film's trailers. There's plenty more to discuss with this film and I look forward to other writers tackling its treasures/horrors. I'm sure somebody will talk about the scene in the ocean (yeah, really) in a beautiful way. And somebody's got to do something with the milkshake line (no, there's no boys at the yard). Simply put: it's a rich film, one that will astound many. And provide plenty of dialogue. I hope you see it on as big a screen as possible, with the loudest sound system possible -- it's the only way to do it justice. (I saw it at the Castro, along with Michael Guillen and, if it really was sold out, roughly 1400 other people, last Monday. I feel lucky: they have a huge screen and they always crank the sound. Part of the fun of their 70mm film festival is experiencing the screeching wails and dead-calm silence of 2001 when the volume is turned up to 11.)

While searching for links for the piece, I found this amazing shill bit featuring Jason Alexander (yeah, him) talking about Sam Shepard's play, God of Hell, which Alexander directed for the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles last year. Some of what he has to say applies to PTA's films, too, but I include it hear, mostly, because it made me laugh. Also, Tom Cruise is the best thing in Magnolia; imagine him doing this about his real passion, Scientology. Wouch.

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Still haven't listened to In Rainbows but I plan on it soon, especially after Johnny Greenwood's amazing score for There Will Be Blood. Is it worth 10 cents? How much did you pay? Guess I'll go ahead and download the son-of-a-bitch.
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I saw the Coens' new picture, No Country for Old Men this weekend. It, too, is brutal. But it's after something rather different. I hope to have more to say on the film in these webspaces soon. For now I'll hint with this: Tommy Lee Jones is perfect and the brothers' attention to language (as a social practice, as an element of characterization, as given to philosophy, as a music) is amazing. I like to think of Wes Anderson as the inheritor of Sturges but these New York Jews sure do have some of him in them. What's funny is I prefer this preoccupation with language in films like this one (and Hudsucker, which is more akin to Hawks) than I do in O Brother Where Art Thou?. But I should rewatch that picture. I may have to see this new one again before I can really argue for something instead of saying, "Jesus Christ. Er, God-damn. Oh, fuck it, the world holds too much evil sometimes." Stay tuned. In the meantime, the opening monologue:I always knew you had to be willing to die to even do this job - not to be glorious. But I don't want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don't understand. You can say it's my job to fight it but I don't know what it is anymore. ...More than that, I don't want to know. A man would have to put his soul at hazard. ... He would have to say, okay, I'll be part of this world.

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Wanted to share that, yes, Days of Heaven looks gorgeous on the new Criterion disc. It's wholly different than There Will Be Blood and No Country, but they form a nice trilogy to watch together in a week. If you can, I recommend it. Perhaps some screenshots will come later.

Rob Zombie's Halloween

by Ryland Walker Knight

"Zombie’s often-frantic style is not a Tony Scott concrete-to-the-head bully-fest but the bludgeoning of Halloween, here, will not be ignored — not for a second. There is a confrontation with mortality but the outcome feels predetermined, destined. You will bear witness an unfolding without tension. You will know who will die, and why, rather shortly. In the second-half, complete with caesura cut to credits, what you don’t get is a logical “why” for Michael’s terror parade. That part of it is intriguing. But it’s at odds with the first half’s set up. Why do we need the why if we’re going to be told it meant nothing anyways?"

[For the rest of the review click here and you will be forwarded to The Daily Californian's website.]

[I didn't say anything in my review about the girls but lemme tell you, boys, they are attractive. Especially Danielle Harris. Hard to believe she's 30. I totally thought she was 18 and I was even more of a pervert for watching her get naked and enjoying myself. Ms. Harris, you're beautiful; it was painful to see you abused. Take care of yourself. And I hope to see your star rise.]

02007: 109 minutes: written and directed by Rob Zombie: based on an original screenplay by John Carpenter and Debra Hill.