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PARANORMAL ACTIVITY

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FAREWELL SCREENTREK

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Screen Trek - An Intersection of Movie Reviews, Articles, Essays and Conversation

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Screen Trek - January 2009

FREE ASIAN HORROR FILMS

January 31st 2009 05:49

Ringu (1998): Watch with caution

Have a hankering for some cheap, poorly made horror with laughable specials effects and non-existent storylines? Or perhaps you’re after some of the most excruciatingly tense, underwear filling, choc-top dropping fright films ever. Either way, www.asian-horror-movies.com has you covered.

With a range of streamed for free English sub-titled films on offer, the site has everyone’s tastes catered for, from the shockingly evil and outrageous manifestation of revenge in Audition (1999) right through to the greatest piece of smelly ham ever in Ghidorah: The Three-Headed Monster (1964), a movie that perhaps used the same script-writing machine as George ‘Three Waterfalls!’ Lucas.

Whatever your taste, often disgusting entertainment has never been so easy to come by. As a personal recommendation on the fun side of things, one can’t go past the sometimes Brain Dead-like and always craptacular Zombie Self Defense Force (2006).

Either way, make sure you check out the scene below taken from one of the movies featured on the site, Hausu (1977). In maybe the most bizarre cinematic sequence ever, a young girl gets eaten by piano while the director and his editing team chew some cocoa leaves and get creative with their special effects. Perhaps this was playing in the labour ward when Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding were being born.

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RETROSPECT: SECONDS (1966)

January 27th 2009 10:32

Seconds is an unsettling yet compelling experience.

Throughout the 1960s, director John Frankenheimer had a keen interest in paranoia, mostly with the national kind as illustrated in The Manchurian Candidate (1962) and Seven Days in May (1964), but also with the more personal sort displayed in 1966’s Seconds. Not that Seconds doesn’t have a broader subtext that takes aim at the societal concerns of 1960s America, but its simple character driven plot lends it an ageless appeal that the other two entries in the ‘paranoid trilogy’ don’t quite possess.

Seconds tells the tale of Arthur Hamilton (John Randolph), a 50-something Manhattan banker who lives a disaffected existence with his loving wife (Frances Reid) in the distant comfort of the New York suburbs. Creeping slowly towards retirement, Arthur feels hemmed in by the life he’s created for himself, which is full of the upper middle-class items of ‘success’ and longs for the promise and excitement of his younger years.

So when he receives the offer to literally be re-born by a shady organisation known simply ‘The Company’ he has little hesitation in investigating their promises of a new life. Arthur's death will be faked, his body and face reconstructed, and life will begin again with a new identity in a new location.

And so it does for Arthur, who is now known as Tony Wilson and played by Rock Hudson. Tony is quickly injected into his new life as a wealthy and successful artist living a comfortably luxurious life in Malibu, complete with a butler who advises him on his new existence while quietly reporting back to The Company on his progress.

But what is heralded as a new start to his dream life quickly takes a different turn and soon Arthur/Tony is instead living out a nightmare, just as unsatisfying as his former life but seasoned with the destruction of his true identity. Thus begins a downward spiral that is as frightening for the viewer as it is for the protagonist.

Seconds is a beautifully realised film. Never before or again would Frankenheimer’s experience with television drama mesh so well with his desire to innovate on the silver screen. Technically, it’s timeless stuff, with James Wong Howe’s cinematography extremely impressive in its matching of naturalistic camerawork to unearthly lighting and subjective lenses. Likewise, Jerry Goldsmith contributes a sparse score that plays on the nerves like a howling wind crackling a tin shed.

Tony Wilson (Rock Hudson) gets familiar with himself.

Frankenheimer himself then comes to the party with his directing, particularly of the creepy-to-the-point-of-being- nauseous scenes in the office of The Company. His experience with teleplays comes into its own and the strangely stagy performances of the scientists and strategists who populate The Company work perfectly both within the otherworldly tone of the piece and next to the more naturalistic offerings of Randolph and Hudson. Likewise, a scene late in the film where Tony returns to his former New York home to talk to his former wife and attempt to find some meaning in what he has done to himself hits right in the gut as he realises there is no way to undo his decisions and return to his old life.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of Seconds to the casual viewer is the performance of Rock Hudson as Tony Wilson. Hudson, who since his death has been viewed very much as a Hollywood oddity, gives a performance that, much like the film itself, is comfortably ahead of its time. His subtlety in the role gives Tony a naturalism that makes his cracking sanity both awful and compelling. Hudson’s performance during Tony’s visit to his former New York house is sublime, while a scene where he is strapped flailing and screaming to a gurney is pure unsettling horror.

Everything adds up in Seconds, from its directing to its technical aspects; its performances to its eerie sound design. It’s also a film that resonates powerfully in our modern times, when a homogenised western society places so much value on the artifice at the expense of the real. Strip away its 1960s setting and there’s very little to deny this as a stark, unsettling and highly skilful piece of modern storytelling.

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THE WRESTLER: ROURKE AND ARONOFSKY'S TAG TEAM

January 24th 2009 08:33

Looking for redemption: Evan Rachel Wood and Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler

It’s been a long way back to the top for Mickey Rourke. A 20 year odyssey since the late 80s where the physically intimidating actor has lurched about in a creative quicksand, one bad film leading to another with only the occasional quality role being flung his way. There was the disaster of 9½ Weeks (1986), the farce of Wild Orchid (1990) and the laughable travesty that was Harley Davidson and The Marlboro Man (1991). Concurrently, Rourke returned to his first love of boxing, perhaps searching for someone to knock some sense into him.

In recent years, however, things began to change for the 52-year-old actor. Directors and casting agents seemed to remember the understated naturalism of Rourke’s best performances from the early to mid 80s in films such as Diner (1982) and Angel Heart (1987). A virtual cameo in The Pledge (2001) was followed by bigger roles in Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003), Man On Fire (2004) and of course his great turn as Marv in Sin City (2005).

Likewise, Darren Aronofsky is a director who needed a break. After the ambitious and impressive Pi (1998), he went on to write and direct the grim and distantly brutal Requim for a Dream (2000). It was in turn followed by the non-narrative of The Fountain (2006), a film that divided critics and mystified audiences. Many felt that Aronofsky had lost his way and scuppered the promise hinted at in his early films.

So Rourke and Aronofsky seemingly both found themselves trying to climb out of the same deep ditch. It’s fitting then that they’ve helped each other finally get back into the limelight with The Wrestler, which is the best work of both their careers.

Rourke plays Randy ‘The Ram’ Robinson, a professional wrestler very much in the twilight of his career. While at the end of the 80s Robinson was headlining wrestling matches all over the United States, he now gets by traveling New Jersey, popping pills to help keep his broken body in some sort of shape and performing to small die-hard crowds in school gyms and town halls. He’s lost touch with his daughter and generally lives a pitiful existence with few friends, although he seems to have struck up some sort of connection with Cassidy (Marisa Tomei), a stripper who, like Randy, is seemingly coming towards the end of her working days in her chosen profession.

After one particularly outrageous bout, Randy’s body is pushed to breaking point and he is forced to reconsider his career and his life. Struggling with depression he attempts to reconnect with the forgotten parts of his past and, most importantly, make peace with his estranged daughter, Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood). Of course, as Randy slips into retirement and engages the demons of his personal life the prospect of a rematch with his late 80s nemesis, The Ayatollah (Ernest Miller), is broached and he wonders what it would be like to hear the roar of the crowd one more time.

If all this sounds like pedestrian sports movie redemption, then you’d be close to the truth. What separates The Wrestler from its brethren however is the intimidating quality of the performances, a script that takes us deep into the esoteric world of professional wrestling while not pulling any punches and cinematography that implements a mixture of a documentary style pursuit of Randy and some remarkable more formal compositions.

Rourke is simply stunning in what could be the role of his lifetime. He’s physically authentic with his battered body and yet he possesses the emotional range to completely flesh out the many dimensions of Randy. The naturalistic scenes with his fellow wrestlers as they plan their moves are highlights, but it’s the gentle moments with both Cassidy and Stephanie that show Rourke at his best, self-deprecating charm puncturing a manufactured bravura.

Likewise, Aronofsky is in great touch. For once he’s left the screenwriting duties to someone else and concentrated on his directing. In the hands of the talented Robert Segel the screenplay is a gem that hits all the important beats, with meaty characterisations that move through natural arcs. Aronofsky then directs these sympathetic people with verve and affection whilst never shying away from the grit and almost absolute sorrow that at certain points takes hold of the story.

If there is one misstep with The Wrestler, it’s perhaps the casting of Marisa Tomei as Cassidy. Make no mistake: Tomei is a great (and under appreciated) actress and her performance is top notch. But believing her as a stripper who’s seen better days is a stretch. Tomei may have moved into her forties but she certainly doesn’t look washed up, something the audience is made acutely aware of as she spends a significant amount of time wearing not much in the way of clothing. While that may be cool for the trench coat brigade it actually harms the film, managing on a couple of occasions to take the audience completely out of the moment.

This is a minor complaint, however, and Rourke is so convincing as Randy that when he’s on screen you are right there with him, forgetting everything else and living through his hopes and adversities. It’s one of the most compelling films of the last few years and talk of Academy Awards is totally justified.

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FIVE OF THE BEST: COUNTING DOWN THE CRAZIEST CAR CHASES

January 20th 2009 07:12

There are two ways to look at great car chases: The first is to view them in a purely technical fashion, as a set piece and nothing else; the other is to look at them in the greater context of the story, as a consequence of character and plot. Here, Screentrek finds fine examples of both in attempting to round out the five greatest car chases ever.

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RETROSPECT: KOYAANISQATSI (1982)

January 14th 2009 17:09

Koyaanisqatsi dazzles with its photography

Documentaries come and go, but it’s rare that a piece of non-fictional film-making scribbles a mark in your brain as vivid as that left by Koyaanisqatsi. Touted by director Godfrey Reggio as an equal parts collaboration between himself, cinematographer Ron Fricke and composer Philip Glass, this is powerful, gut-punching stuff that not only dazzles your synapses, but also leaves you in a state of contemplation for days afterward.

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SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE: DANNY BOYLE’S JACKPOT

January 10th 2009 11:14

Dev Patel and Freida Pinto in Slumdog Millionaire

To say that Slumdog Millionaire is a return to form for Danny Boyle is an understatement. Seemingly chasing his own tail since the diabolical mess that was The Beach, word of a new movie from the British director perhaps doesn’t elicit quite the level of excitement it used to. That should change with the release of Slumdog Millionaire, but perhaps only if he stays clear of Alex Garland.

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RETROSPECT: BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK (1955)

January 8th 2009 08:32

Spencer Tracy in Bad Day At Black Rock

A streamliner train hurtles through the 1945 desert. It sparkles in the vivid sunlight as it rushes onward, urged forward by a dramatic Andre Priven score. When the giant locomotive does come to a stop it’s only briefly, and in a town that hasn’t been graced with its static edifice in four years. Off the train hops a one-armed stranger in black suit and hat, carrying a single small suitcase.

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Frost/Nixon: Not So Tricky Flick

January 6th 2009 04:17

In Frost/Nixon, playwright Peter Morgan has adapted his own work for the screen and impresses immediately with a script that does little to hint at its stage origins. It’s one of the high points of this film that tells the tale of a series of interviews conducted by David Frost with Richard Nixon in 1977. But while the United States and indeed most of the western world retains a keen interest in Nixon, his skulduggery and subsequent pratfall in 1974, Frost/Nixon is really David Frost’s story.

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