#168: Halloween

Halloween (1978)
Directed by John Carpenter
Written by John Carpenter and Debra Hill
Starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasance and the best slasher killer in the history of slasher films!


When I was a kid I dressed up as a different ninja turtle for halloween three years in a row. Only Donatello never figured into the equation for whatever reason. After my run of portraying mutan turtles turned stale, I did what many a young child did. I became a vampire.

It was sweet. I had a cape, I greased my hair into a pseudo-widow's peak and put some uncomfortable plastic fangs in my mouth and fake blood ran down from the corners of my mouth.

As a kid, I had a love-hate relationship with horror movies and scary stories in general. I would get horror books from the library at school and scare myself senseless in the dark of night. Nightmares were plentiful. Anyone who says the boogeyman can't get you has either forgotten or has never had a bad dream.

Unsolved Mysteries is a pretty lame show in retrospect but when I was 10, it was eerie and creepy. Anything to do with alien abductions and I'd be there to squirm my way through it. It seems masochistic but there is a certain exhiliration and pleasure that comes from being scared or seeing something shocking and unbelievable. If you get to the point where you're vocally trying to convince yourself that it's not real...well you're hooked.

Halloween is the greatest of all childhood holidays. We looked forward to it every year because it's the only day where the scary monsters lose their shadowy mystique and become part of the norm. We as children -- and as adults, who am I kidding? -- entered the world of the darkness for but a night. As a vampire or a werewolf we embraced the horror.

There always is an air of safety surrounding Halloween. So for John Carpenter to make a movie about October 31 where the horror is real and not just make believe he created a new level in the genre. A lumbering, escaped mental patient in a William Shatner mask wielding a knife trying to exact revenge on those who did him wrong on halloween of all days. It packs a punch.

It paved the way for the Friday the 13th movies -- which paved the way for Sleepaway Camp and others -- but it wasn't as campy (sorry about that one). Halloween is still the most effective slasher film maybe because of the double reversal within the holiday from horror to safety and back again or maybe because John Carpenter knows horror better than any other filmmaker.

Halloween is still an annual treasure for my friends and I, although sometimes my creativity takes a backseat to procrastination. The last two years I've worn a suit and attached some accessory to that suit in order to call it a costume.

In 2007 it was a briefcase. Arlo was the devil and I was his attorney.

In 2008 I wrapped a noose around my neck. I was an investment banker. I stole that idea from Traer a few years earlier when he was an Enron executive.

One of these years I'll be more elaborate with my costume. We should all channel that fear and exhiliration at least once a year anyway.

AQ Redux: The inner workings of the movie geek

Being the self-described movie geek that I am, I am conscious of the image us somewhat volatile folk can be. In 2002 I discovered Joblo.com and along with it, the message board.

I thought "hey, a place where I can share my love of movies with others like me? Sign me up!"

Under the moniker of Rated R I posted regularly for six years with only occasional absences. Looking back on my early posts I am embarrassed at what I was willing to print even if it was anonymous. At least here, I am posting as myself and not an alias.

The internet has seriously hurt art critique by giving everyone the option of being their own personal critic. Lost are the days of looking for a well written piece on the depths of cinema or the flashing lights of a masterful action film. Now it's all about the statistics.

If a movie has a 90% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, that's all you need to know it's supposed to be great. The problem is a lack of context. By just looking at a number you lose nuance expressed by the writer and instead focus on a an arbitrary number that can not sum up the film properly.

The worst part of the message board is how piss poor the spelling and grammar is. I can understand the occasional typo, but some of these posts are littered with the demolition of language. Like Isaac told me -- which I assume he got from somewhere else -- "the internet is like the world's largest public bathroom. Through the power of anonymity people will write anything they please. Would they ever say these things in their own home or in the face of the person they're insulting? Never." That is, of course, paraphrasing.


The inner workings of the movie geek
by Jason Wilson

The movie geek, like the music aficionado and literary nut, is obsessive and cares way too much about what the layman refers to as 'entertainment.' Films are more than time killers to these people.

I would consider myself a recovering movie geek, although that would indicate that I am no longer am or wish to be one. Neither of which is true.

Films can represent life and reflect values of what is dear and important. If you're watching Meet the Spartans this isn't the case but filmmaking is an art that is so often discarded as mere flashing lights. What's worse is that these bells-and-whistles pictures are the most successful at the box office.

There has to be balance in the media for both art and escapism. Sometimes the two cross over. If every film released was a harrowing look at the ills of humanity, we'd all be refilling Zoloft prescriptions daily.

If every movie was directed by Michael Bay, we would be completely desensitized to senseless violence and we'd lose all comprehension of basic human emotions. Without our physical self changing we would become like Roy Batty and the replicants in Blade Runner. We would look human, maybe even want to be human, but we wouldn't be able to grasp what it means to be human -- although we may not even know what it means anyway, which might be the point of Blade Runner.

If you look at the grand scheme of filmmaking and analyze the whole as its own organism, it makes sense. Our bodies are littered with bacteria. The film world's version of the bowel region is made up of Uwe Boll, Dane Cook and Julia Roberts among many others -- in music, it's the entire Emo genre.

The human body is also resilient, which is way the bacteria are more of a nuisance than anything. Sadly it's a necessary nuisance.

Movie geeks don't always accept this. On movie message boards and the intenet at large people expunge cruelty toward artists(?) they don't like. Why would anyone take the time out of his day to say Tom Cruise should kill himself? What is the point? It's baffling and people who write crap like that should seriously re-examine their lives.

Dane Cook is one of my least favourite "actors." Any time he's on screen I cringe. And yea, I got a kick out of his violent fate in Mr. Brooks. But my solution is to not watch any of his movies on my own dime...simple.

The flip side -- the side most people don't seem to separate from their image of what makes a fanboy -- is that because of the film geek's obsession, a new world is opened. Without watching Goodfellas, The Godfather, Platoon and other classics at a young age, the path to Fellini, Godard and Kurosawa* might never have come.

The expression and communication of ideas is one of the most important parts of life. Film is one of the ways we communicate but film critics have been devolved into grading machines. Chances are if you read a review, it will be apparent how the critic felt about it. Instead, we want everything faster. Immediately.

Give me a rating out of 10 because I can't be bothered to read a few hundred words about it.

Rotten Tomatoes is a good resource in principle. It should be a collection of essays on film and what each individual film means as well as their quality. While links to the full reviews are there, there are only one or two-sentence blurbs summing them up. Next to it is an image indicating whether the film is considered "fresh" or "rotten."

The percentage rating is not representative of context. For the most part, horror movies are destroyed by critics. Horror movies are made with a specific audience in mind and there is art behind it.

Ask most horror fans, they'll watch pretty much any horror movie but they do not love the films blindly. Horror fans are probably the most honest and to the point about the movies they love, critics be damned.

There needs to be balance. As a movie geek I am willing to admit mindless entertainment has its place and I can enjoy it. All I'm asking is that the rest of you meet us half way so the art gets equal play.

I rate this column 5/10

*Just because it's foreign doesn't mean it's good. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

#169: Grindhouse

Grindhouse (2007)
Written and Directed by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino
Special trailers directed by Rodriguez, Eli Roth, Rob Zombie and Edgar Wright
Starring Kurt Russell, Rose McGowan, Josh Brolin, Freddy Rodriguez, Marley Shelton, Jeff Fahey, Michael Biehn, Rosario Dawson, Bruce Willis, Naveen Andrews.

Never before have I had so much fun in a movie theatre. Grindhouse was exactly what I was expecting and exactly what I wanted when I went to see it. Sure it didn't offer anything new but that's the point. By lampooning and honoring splatter flicks from yesteryear it reached a somewhat more respectable level.

This is why I like Quentin Tarantino as much as I do. He's almost the equivalent of that one-hit wonder that maintains a crazy fanbase because he's not willing to conform to what their one hit would dictate.

Tarantino could have made Pulp Fiction knock-off after Pulp Fiction knock-off for the rest of his career and coast all the way there. Instead -- and it hasn't exactly been taken so well by critics, not that it matters in any way -- he's chosen to pay further homage to the films he watched as a child. What's wrong with that?

What you can be sure of when you go to a Tarantino movie is that it will be so slick and watchable no matter what the subject matter. And while some will disagree about his segment in Grindhouse, I think it's a wonderful addition to his resumé.

Opening night, I heard a guy shout at the screen "boring!" or "nobody cares!" during a scene where the female protagonists are shooting the shit around a table in a diner. It meandered a bit, I'll give him that but it wasn't out of place. And the slight glimpse of Mr. Kurt Russell in the background made it all worthwhile.

Rodriguez on the other hand seems to alternate making some of the most bloody and violent action movies with kid flicks for his own children. Planet Terror delivers the goods up front and just keeps it coming. Zombies or well mutants I guess but zombies all the same.

I thank Mr. Rodriguez for giving Jeff Fahey and Michael Biehn work. Biehn was in some of the best damn action flicks in the 1980s (Terminator, Aliens, The Abyss) and has pretty much disappeared. After Grindhouse, Fahey has popped up on Lost several times, so there's that.

This movie is an experience to behold and it's best in theatres. The way the studios released it on DVD is a slap in the face to fans. Sure, they'll make more money by selling them individually but it really breaks up the flow of it eliminating any real chance of replicating what was seen theatrically.

I can even get behind the release of the two films individually for the reason that not everyone wants a three-hour movie experience with fake movie trailers in the middle. If that's wrong, however, I don't want to be right. So why not release an actual edition? A full blown special edition so that those of us who actually did pay to see it in its full form in theatres can enjoy it at home? Sin City got a big-time special edition treatment! Damn it!

Okay, I am coming off as a whiny fanboy and I apologize, it just doesn't make any sense to me why it hasn't happened. It would sell. And they could probably charge $60 a pop and still sell a bunch of copies to suckers like me who think the "full experience" is more important than eating his next meal.

The rationale, I guess is that the mainstream public couldn't wrap its mind around the fact that there were two movies. Never mind that the poster clearly says it's a double feature or that the trailer does the same. Nope, people still thought it was all over after Planet Terror ended*.

How does that happen? Even if you haven't seen a tv spot or an ad anywhere, or you just glossed over the poster, you would have noticed most everyone else in the theatre staying in their seats when the INTERMISSION screen started. Intermission is not the end...

So the movie was a box office failure and no special edition is in sight.

It was the best time I've ever had at a movie theatre. It was an experience, not just taking time out of your day to get to the next thing. It was exactly what I wanted from the beginning to the fake trailers to the end. Gore, sex and car chases. Really, who doesn't want to see a movie where a stripper loses a leg and replaces it with a machine gun? If you say that's stupid and unrealistic...you're missing the point.




*There were stories on it at the time. Since the internet search function pretty much only works when you need to find out about something that happened now or yesterday, I can't find them. I probably could, but it would take more effort than I'm willing to put forth.

AQ Redux: Elitism at the Oscars

This is one of my failed columns. It was a piece on the Academy Awards in 2008.

I was trying to satirically deconstruct the film geek's obsession with awards. For some reason, they need the validation of seeing their favourite movie gain the accolades of award shows.

Winning or losing an award should not change how one feels about a piece of art. If you don't like the film that wins best picture, so what? I used to care, I used to get outraged until I realized how idiotic it is.

I do believe the Oscars are a farce and it's a damn shame that producers get the credit at the end. Sure without the financial backing a lot of these particular films wouldn't get made but that doesn't mean films would stop. The role of a producer is to make money and play it safe. The best picture award should go collectively to the director, writer, cinematographer, etc. Make it a Stanley Cup like thing where it's on display with names added each year. I sill love the movies, but a lot of movie fans piss me off.




Elitism at the Oscars
by
Jason Wilson


Elitism and entertainment are difficult to separate.

The indie music crowd turns its nose up at anyone who started liking Modest Mouse after 'Good News for People Who Love Bad News.' Similarly, film geeks will chastise those who love Michael Bay action movies.

I fall partially in the latter group.

When Titanic won the Academy Award for best picture I wanted to vomit. All opinions aside, L.A. Confidential is the better film.

The Academy Awards are scrutinized more than any other award show. No one cares who wins a Grammy or a Golden Globe or especially a People's Choice award because what do people know?

The Oscar carries prestige to movie geeks, and we all expect our choice to be the one that takes the cake.

No such luck.

Maybe this year is different. Honestly, I would not be disappointed if any of the best picture nominees won.

Even Juno, a film I found to be quirky for the sake of being quirky with very little substance, would not disappoint due to my adoration of Jason Reitman and his rock-solid cast.

The front runner, No Country for Old Men is a technically sound, visually stunning film chock full of suspense. The Coen Brothers elected to end the film with subtlety. It was purposely vague to provoke a long term effect that would have been absent with a 'wrap up all the loose ends' ending. It also would have been untrue to the Cormac McCarthy novel.

It should win, but it could fall victim to "the Scorsese Effect."

"The Scorsese Effect" applies to a film/director/actor that is clearly deserving but is then passed over.

Martin Scorsese's history at the Awards has been mixed. He has only won the best director prize once, for 2006's The Departed.

In 1981 he lost out to Robert Redford, an actor turned director. In 1991 he should have won for Goodfellas, but again was thwarted by an actor thinking he's better than he is. Kevin Costner won for Dances With Wolves.

The difference is No Country's competition includes There Will Be Blood, an equally deserving picture from Paul Thomas Anderson (Magnolia, Boogie Nights).

If either film goes home empty handed, it will be a tragedy.

The situation is rife with peril as other nominees could sneak into contention at the last minute like Crash and Chicago in recent years.

The night will toil through the rhetoric of celebrity as the stars gather to celebrate their wealth and to a lesser extent, the art of cinema.

Teasers of the best picture nominees will be shown as people guess who will win while Jack Nicholson pops another valium and tries to remember where he is.

Everyone will smile as the producers of the winning film jump on stage to accept an award for something they had little or no part in creating. The biggest award of the entire ceremony goes to those who deserve it the least...such is the folly of being an artist.

Oh sure, Anderson or the Coens could have a moment in the sun a few commercial breaks earlier, but it's the producers who stand victorius at the end of the evening. It's a parable of life and the working class. The bosses celebrate the spoils of the hard work done by those beneath them.

Celebrate the writers, actors and directors...the producers don't need our applause and they don't deserve it either. They already have our money.

Reluctantly I predict the outcomes and analyze where I went wrong. I labour over the idea of who truly deserves it and who should have stayed at home.

All opinions aside, No Country for Old Men was the best movie nominated, but I'm no elitist.