AUTEUR HORROR: TROUBLE EVERY DAY (THE PINK SMOKE)

It only makes sense that I share more thoughts on Claire Denis' misunderstood masterpiece for the Pink Smoke's auteur horror series considering it's my second home.

Click the image below to read my updated thoughts on Denis' quietly influence "horror" film Trouble Every Day

Enjoy...

CONFLICTED THOUGHTS ON BELLY & VISUALLY STUNNING MOVIES WITH LITTLE TO NO SUBSTANCE

I’m not a filmmaker but even I know it takes effort & hard work to make even a bad film. And not all "bad" films should be dismissed. Some are visually stunning. That counts for something. With the popularity of filmmakers like Nicolas Winding Refn & picture-heavy outlets like Filmgrabber, there seems to be a surge in appreciation for movies that may be "bad" in terms of the acting & story, but beautiful in terms of their visual presentation (other recent films like Beyond The Black Rainbow, Love & Under The Skin fall in to that same category for me). Take the dystopian science fiction film Hardware (1990). I hadn’t thought about this movie since I was 12 or 13 (and for those of you that remember Hardware, when’s the last time any of you thought about it?). But thanks to a recent post on film grabber, I’ve come to like the images from the movie when taken out of context…

A common criticism of Nicolas Winding Refn’s last two films (Only God Forgives & Neon Demon) is that they’re pretentious, silly, boring, etc.
…But at the same time, those same movies are almost always praised for how they look (say what you want but Refn’s name is still relevant. He’s still talked about so his style over substance approach means something in certain film circles).
And quite frankly, if you like pop art, modern art and/or Stanley Kubrick/Giallo-inspired visuals, I don’t see how you could deny Refn’s eye as director…

(if my memory serves me correctly, a lot of the same criticisms that Refn faces now were the same criticisms Hype Williams faced in the 90’s with Belly long before Refn found his current glossy style).


Again - no matter how bad the plot, performances & editing may be, it still takes talent to make a beautiful looking movie. Case in point: Belly. Now…it’s not that I think Belly is “bad” (although I wouldn’t argue or disagree with someone if they labeled it as such in a constructive way), it’s just that I’ve seen it so many times that I’ve grown sick of it. Belly was very popular on every floor of my freshman college dorm in 1999. Seriously – this movie was on HEAVY rotation my freshman year at Hampton University. Everyone seemed to have the VHS. The sounds of Belly rang from many rooms on my floor and the floors above me. I’ve seen it so many times that I just can’t watch it anymore like someone who was force-fed to the point of vomiting. I’m also not the biggest fan of Belly because in terms of plot and overall execution, it’s incredibly phony. I know that sounds harsh but I’m calling it like I see it.
Belly director Hype Williams is a music video director known for his emphasis on the fish-eye lens effect & shiny suits…

To me, Belly is phony because Hype Williams tried to incorporate his signature flashy/materialistic style in to a film about drug dealing, dirty cops, black pride, black on black crime & conspiracies to commit murder and it just didn’t go together. It’s like…do you want to make a socially conscious film, or do you want to make a two hour long music video? It’s definitely possible to mix both styles, but in the case of Belly there seemed to be more effort put in to the look of the movie and a lot less effort in to the story. Hype Williams definitely took plenty of unnecessary time to show how cool it is to have money from selling drugs, but he never takes 30 seconds to show the negative effects that drugs have on the (Black) community. That’s phony to me. The plot is also kind of a mess. I mean, one minute Belly is the story about two friends/drug dealers (Nas & DMX) who get in way over their heads. Then it turns in to a movie about cops using pawns to assassinate a Black civil rights leader.
And what's most frustrating is that Hype Williams did have the formula for a good movie on his hands with the final 30 minutes concerning the police using DMX to assassinate "Reverend Saviour" (Benjamin Chavis). Had the entire film been based around that story and shot in the same polarizing style, I think he would have had a stronger final product. Seriously, that whole segment between DMX & Chavis is quietly brilliant. The editing, the use of music, the chemistry, etc...

Kind of a powerful scene, right? It could be interpreted in so many ways from Christianity's conflicted relationship with Rap/Hip-Hop (which is mostly a generational conflict) to the (sometimes) layered & complicated relationship between Black men in America.

But instead, the majority of the movie is made up of stuff that had already been explored on film for a large portion of the 90's and I think people were just tired of it (for those that don't remember, there was controversy during the release of Belly as Magic Johnson refused to play it in his chain of theaters. This was a callback to former New Jersey mayor Sharpe James condemning the release of New Jersey Drive). By the mid-late 90's, films like Daughters Of The Dust, Watermelon Woman, Eve's Bayou and countless other "alternative" black films had kind of ushered in a new perspective and the “urban drama” was played out (it should be noted that the aforementioned films were all directed by Black Women).

...But, like Hardware, when you take a lot of the images from Belly out of context it does look pretty amazing (and it should also be noted that you don’t often see Black skin photographed in such a polarizing way in American movies)…

It does take a lot of talent to shoot images like this.

There are a few positive aspects to Belly. It exposed Harmony Korine’s Gummo to an audience that wouldn’t normally come across a film like that (I remember explaining to people in my college dorm that the movie Nas & DMX are watching at the beginning of Belly is in fact a real movie).

It was also went on to inspire & influence good music…

And it also gave Sister Nancy’s career a resurgence due to the use of her classic song in one scene...

and do you think shows like Money & Violence would exist without Belly?

Maybe if Belly came out in the early/mid-90's (an era where "urban crime hip-hop dramas" were at an all-time high and in serious demand) I wouldn't be so critical. It would have fit right in with films like Juice & Strapped (for those that don't remember, Strapped was Forest Whitaker's directorial debut).


Perhaps a lot more visually stunning films that got dismissed upon their initial release for not offering much in terms of substance will gain a little more appreciation (Belly definitely doesn't deserve its current "rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes). But at the end of the day no one wants there to be an overflow of movies with little to no substance. I just think there’s a certain specific lane for empty beautiful looking movies.

TWO BY JOHN CARPENTER: MEMOIRS OF AN INVISIBLE MAN & GHOSTS OF MARS

I'm not familiar with John Carpenter's later critically panned movies so I made it a point to only go and see stuff like Escape From LA, Memoirs Of An Invisible Man & Ghosts Of Mars at the John Carpenter retrospective that took place at BAM last month.

While there isn't much to say about Escape From LA (it's just as terrible and Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez-stenched as I remembered it) I felt Memoirs & Ghosts were worthy of some kind of analysis...

MEMOIRS OF AN INVISIBLE MAN

I’m always down to dissect/revisit the critical failures/potential misunderstood works of a masterful filmmaker, and Memoirs Of An Invisible Man definitely fits the bill. Anyone who follows this site regularly knows I’m a major defender of everyone from post-Collateral Michael Mann (read my recent review of Blackhat) to Andrea Arnold (I was actually able to find a few good things in her overall grueling Wuthering Heights adaptation), so I know what it’s like to love films & filmmakers that are underappreciated by the rest of the world. But at the same time, if I feel something is bad I’ll call it what it is. Liking bad things ironically has become a major problem within movie & music criticism (just read half the music reviews on pitchfork media that pertain to rap music if you want further examples of this). Cinephiles sometimes like to praise films they know damn well aren’t good just to be different. I’m guilty of it myself from time to time. We’re selfish folks who like to have certain movies all to ourselves so we make prolific statements about how (some) dumb movies are really misunderstood when they really aren't. Sometimes it gets out of hand. There’s a nice chunk of movies out there that hide behind the “cult movie” label when in fact they’re just bad.

This screening of Memoirs couldn’t have come at a better time. Pink Smoker Chris Funderberg has mentioned it on multiple occasions in his writings (specifically Sam Neil’s underrated performance), which made me wanna revisit it (the last time I saw Memoirs was in the early 90’s when my Dad videotaped it off of HBO). After seeing Memoirs again recently I can co-sign that Sam Neil’s role as the villainous David Jenkins is one of the film’s only saving graces. But there are a few other overlooked qualities. 

I don’t know if people realize how smart the casting of Chevy Chase was. From the beginning of his career he was known for his physical comedy (…or just falling down a lot). The character of Nick Halloway (the invisible protagonist) involves a lot of tripping, bumping in to people and falling over. Who better to cast for a role like that (at the time) than Chevy Chase?? Plus Halloway was kind of a jerk. Portraying a jerk should come easy to a guy like Chevy Chase given his reputation behind the scenes.

My only beef here is the pairing of Chevy Chase & Daryl Hannah. Hannah isn’t exactly my cup of tea in terms of beauty, but that doesn’t mean I think she’s unattractive. I get that she represent the standard statuesque blonde haired beauty that a lot of men appreciate. So what is she doing being paired with a dud like Chevy Chase? And while we’re at it, what was Daryl Hannah doing being paired with half of her (unworthy) on-screen love interests like Dudley Moore (Crazy People), Steve Martin (Roxanne) or Kevin O’Connor (Steel Magnolias)??
But that’s just superficial nitpicking on my part. The chemistry between Chase & Hannah was jut fine.

I’m not sure if John Carpenter was making a light parody of late 50’s/early 60’s-style campy noir films, or if he expected us to take this 100% seriously (outside of the genuinely comedic moments). And it’s not like the tone/ambiance of Memoirs Of An Invisible Man was new territory for Carpenter (like so many critics said it was). Between the special effects & the delivery of dialogue, Memoirs falls right in line with They Live, Prince Of Darkness and even Big Trouble In Little China. Memoirs is also just as much a body horror/science fiction adventure as They Live or The Thing. I guess some folks failed to realize that body horror branches off to things beyond just exploding body parts and scenes of gore (which are common elements in Carpenter’s cinema). The movie is about a guy whose body is literally altered after a freak accident (and for the rest of the film he tries to find a cure all while evading a secret government agency that wants to use him as a spy). Carpenter even goes so far as to show us Halloway’s internal organs every time he eats, drinks or smokes something. Sounds like it fits in with the rest of his filmography to me. This is like when David Cronenberg made M Butterfly. Sure, there aren’t any exploding heads (Scanners) or scenes of things coming out or going in to people’s stomachs (The Brood & Videodrome), but M Butterfly, a film about a person disguising himself as a woman, is just as much of a “body modification” film as anything else he’s done. Memoirs also reminded me of Raimi’s Darkman and Paul Verhoeven’s Hollow Man…

Darkman / Memoirs Of An Invisible Man / Hollow Man

But still...NONE of this gives Memoirs Of An Invisible Man any kind of a free pass. This was an unsuccessful effort at the end of the day. The tone is incredibly confusing (like I already said, I'm not sure if this a true comedy or not). There's a whole middle section that takes place at a beach house that could have been edited down. The original director (Ivan Reitman) stepped away from the project after butting heads with Chevy Chase (something I’m not too surprised by). According to a few sources Chevy Chase was heavily involved behind the scenes because he wanted Memoirs to slowly transition him in to more serious roles. John Carpenter didn’t even put his name on the title like he usually does (he also didn’t score the film which is another staple of his). This was doomed right out off the gate (like the next film we'll be getting in to momentarily). The special effects are probably the only other good thing about this movie.

But this is the kind of unsuccessful movie that’s worthy of revisiting during something like a retrospective. It definitely doesn’t deserve a 20-something percent rating on rotten tomatoes. But at the same time, complaining about this film’s current ranking is like complaining about getting an F on a test when you felt you deserved a D+ because you showed all your work in the answer section. 

GHOSTS OF MARS

Ghosts Of Mars came out at a time when there were just way too many movies set on mars that it became difficult to differentiate one film from the next (Mission To Mars, The Red Planet, Ghosts Of Mars, Stranded, etc). It also came out during a time when Carpenter wasn't riding a major wave of success. 

This project never stood a chance. 

I’ll be the first to admit that even I dismissed Ghosts of Mars upon its initial release. But now that time has passed and my tastes have changed, I can honestly say that it’s not as bad as critics made it out to be. I think it was unfairly judged and compared to iconic movies like Alien when in fact it should have been put up against other movies in the John Carpenter universe. Not only was Ghost Of Mars originally supposed to be the third film in the Snake Plissken series (“Escape From Mars”) but it definitely takes place in the same universe as Escape From NY & Escape From L.A. 
In terms of plot, Ghosts Of Mars is like a mixture of The Thing with a pinch of Escape From NY/LA (Ice Cube’s “Desolation Williams” is just a slight revamp of Snake Plissken). The story involves a team of space police hired to retrieve & transfer a dangerous prisoner (Desolation Williams) currently being held in a cell on an isolated mining town on Mars. Once they arrive they soon come to find that a strange airborne virus has been let loose on the town turning the inhabitants in to possessed zombie-like demon vampires (???). This mysterious "virus", that transfers from one body to the next once the carrier dies, is similar to the virus in Carpenter’s The Thing (the outcome is obviously different but the idea of a shapeless thing/spirit taking over a human body is similar).
After some initial friction, the police, headed up by Natasha Henstridge & Jason Statham, work alongside Desolation Williams and his team of criminals to fight off the possessed space zombies in an effort to get outta dodge.

I guess the Alien comparison almost makes sense on some level. Both Alien & Ghosts Of Mars are science-fiction/horror hybrids with female protagonists that have to fight their way off of a dangerous planet (there’s even notable scenes in both movies where our female leads are shown in their underwear for no real reason). I actually never paid attention to how attractive Natasha Henstridge was/is until I watched Ghosts Of Mars on the big screen.

Beyond that, the comparison stops there. 

By 2001 I feel like critics should have known what to expect from John Carpenter. This wasn’t supposed to be some cinematic piece of art (even though there are some folks who think so). Ghost Of Mars has a strange reputation in that there are people who hate it, people who love it (in an un-ironic way), and people who find enjoyment from it in the same way a smart kid or a bully finds entertainment in laughing at a “slow kid” (which was definitely the audience I saw it with). Personally, I’m stuck between the last two groups. As you can see there are things I legitimately enjoy about this movie. I give it a solid 2.5 out of 5, but it’s not without its faults. The set design is a little cheesy & overly manufactured and Ice Cube's acting leaves a lot to be desired. The main antagonist/alpha-male zombie ghost (pictured at the top of this review) served no purpose other than to look cool (he was pretty stupid & non threatening). Clea Duvall was not a convincing cop and I can’t help but nitpick at how easily Cube, Henstridge & crew got away the first time (they drove a small rickety truck through a gauntlet of powerful blood thirsty zombies without being stopped or tipped over?)
But if you get too caught up in things like that you’ll never enjoy anything and Ghost Of Mars has more good qualities than bad qualities (barely). In my opinion, this was some of Carpenter’s best original music (along with the help of Anthrax & Buckethead). I don’t know if Ice Cube’s presence was a subconscious influence, but Carpenter’s use of a drum machine with 4 bar patterns & sequences (a standard in hip-hop music) was really great.

I try to keep my cynicism about this movie at a minimum because like I already said, liking things in an ironic way is a huge pet peeve of mine and Ghosts Of Mars is a prime example of how people can get caught up in that. I saw this at the Brooklyn Academy Of Music in a semi-crowded theater full of hipsters who would laugh or cheer at the screen in a way that made me question if they were genuinely enjoying the movie or if they were just laughing at it (I know that in 2015 the term hipster is one of the most overused & misconstrued labels, but irony mixed with cynicism mixed with sarcasm is an element of hipsterism and that was definitely the vibe I got from the BAM crowd I saw Ghosts with).

I also don’t know if folks were ready for an aggressive Black Male/Beautiful Blonde Femlae co-lead. I think we all know these are two prototypes that don’t usually survive in movies like Ghosts Of Mars yet to everyone’s surprise, they lived til the end!
But at the same time, I'd like to call bullshit on there being no sexual tension between the two leads (the sexual tension in the film is between Henstridge & co-star Statham). Had the male lead been portrayed by Kurt Russell (or just someone not Black) there would have probably been some immediate sexual tension between the two leads. But since we're dealing with Ice Cube, Carpenter made the two protagonists to be more like buddies. Even in 2015, folks like The Rock & Will Smith are two of the only dark skinned actors allowed to have sexual tension with attractive white women. Why was Vin Diesel (who is a person of color contrary to the characters he plays) given a sexy female co-star in xXx (Asia Argento), while Ice Cube got no one when he took over the sequel? What? Ice Cube can't pull attractive women? From his time in NWA alone you think he wasn't slaying groupies who looked just as good as (or better than) Natasha Henstridge? Let's be real.
So on one hand I commend John Carpenter for going against the grain by using unconventional leads, but I feel like he could have really gone against the grain even more by adding some romance. Of the four Carpenter films I watched at the BAM retrospective, Ice Cube was the only lead actor that had no sex or sexual tension with their female co-star.

Anyway...at the end of the day I don’t think this is a masterpiece, but I had such a fun time watching it that I ordered the DVD off of Amazon, so that says something.

MISUNDERSTOOD MASTERPIECE: DEEP COVER

Like Judgment Night, Deep Cover is another early 90’s film that’s known more for the music than the actual movie (for those that don’t remember, the Deep Cover Soundtrack gave Snoop Dog & Death Row records a push before The Chronic album). I find this upsetting because Deep Cover is actually quite good and it doesn't belong in the same universe as Judgment Night. I think we all know the 90’s brought us an abundance of violent/hood/drug-related films that were both good & bad (New Jack City, Juice, South Central, Boyz N Tha Hood, King Of New York, Strapped, Menace To Society, etc). It got to the point where any American movie with a hip-hop soundtrack that involved Black people, guns, violence & the police got thrown in to the same generic category. Because of this, stuff like like Deep Cover, The Glass Shield & Clockers got unfairly placed in to the “hood/gangster” genre. I won’t deny that there are similarities between some of these films. Parts of King Of New York rubbed off on Deep Cover in terms of style, a lot of these movies share some of the same actors, the basic plot of Strapped is damn near identical to Deep Cover, and in all honesty, Deep Cover is almost like an unofficial sequel to New Jack City. While NJC was obviously more of a commercial success, I have to give the artistic edge to Deep Cover because the latter film makes you want to stay away from drugs all together. There isn’t a character like Nino Brown (NJC) that people look up to or find charming (I know it wasn’t Mario Van Peeple’s intention to make Nino Brown out to be a slightly likable character, but Wesley Snipes turned him in to a charismatic figure that people still quote today).

Bill Duke's directorial work focuses primarily on people of color (Dark Girls, A Rage In Harlem, A Prince Among Slaves, Hoodlum, etc). Actually, I've always wondered why he, along with Carl Franklin, Charles Burnett & Wendall B. Harris, weren't included on that famous New York Times cover highlighting Black filmmakers in the early 90's. While Duke's films are enjoyed by folks of all races, I have a hard time believing the average non-black movie goer can truly appreciate something like Dark Girls. And if I'm wrong then why wasn't it given any kind of a substantial theatrical release?
Deep Cover might be Bill Duke’s one truly universally accessible film in that it features more recognizable faces like Jeff Goldblum (in one of his greatest performances) and a post-Boyz N Tha Hood Laurence Fishburne (this was right around the time when he went from being billed as “Larry Fishburne” to “Laurence Fishburne”).

Clarence Williams in Tales From The Hood

Let’s also not forget the superb supporting cast. Besides Goldblum, Deep Cover features two more of modern cinema’s unique figures in the form of Clearance Williams III & Roger Guenveur Smith. Clearance Williams’ reputation as a quirky loose cannon goes without saying but if you need some examples, just watch him in Tales From The Hood, Half Baked & Sugar Hill. It’s a shame that he wasn’t used as a villain more in his prime (in Deep Cover he plays a police officer who kind of represents the protagonist’s conscience). Honestly, couldn’t you picture Clarence Williams as a psychotic villain in a early 90’s Steven Segal movie? I certainly could.
Some of you may not consider Roger Guenveur Smith to be as intense or edgy as I do, but just watch his performances in He Got Game or the final act of Eve’s Bayou and get back to me.

And I’m sorry but this guy’s presence, as the rival drug dealer “Ivy”, was criminally underrated. No other grown man could ever use the term “sissy” when addressing another man and actually make it work as an insult…

The character of Ivy is the type of lower-mid tier villain that could have easily been removed from Deep Cover, wordrobe & all, and placed in Robocop or a vintage Van Damme movie.

I feel like the only person missing from Deep Cover was the racially ambiguous post-Anthony Quinn/pre-Victor Argo Henry Silva. He could have easily played the role of “Barbosa” (not to take anything away from Gregory Sierra because he did a fine job). Silva had an edgy acting style that would have fit in perfectly with the rest of the Deep Cover cast (he would later go on to make up for this missed opportunity by playing the main crime boss in Ghost Dog).

Henry Silva

Ever since I was a boy I always sensed that something was a little “off” about the performances in Deep Cover. And when I say “off” I don’t mean that in a negative way. It’s not like the performances were bad. They were just…strange. Lines of dialogue were delivered with these weird inflections when it wasn’t really called for, some moments were beyond random (Roger Guenveur Smith’s “Eddie” frantically eating a popsicle while high off his ass) and the overall moodiness of the film felt like a light Miles Davis acid trip (see the African mask scene for an example of this). However some of the dialogue is pretty thought provoking & sharp:

Gerald Carver (Charles Martin Smith): Do you know the difference between a Black Man and a nigger?

Russell Stevens (Laurence Fishburne): The nigger is the one that would even answer that question.

(This was always one of my personal favorite exchanges from any movie. I’ve never been quite sure if Fishburne actually answered the question, thus making him a “nigger”, or if he side-stepped it and eloquently put Smith in his place)

Now that I’m older I’m of the theory that, because Deep Cover is partially about drugs, all the cast members in this movie were acting under the influence of some type of drug in an effort to really tap in to the movie. Naturally this would add an additional layer to Deep Cover in that the movie is already about a cop who assimilates into the role of a drug dealer and starts to play the part a little too well.
And I’m not talking about hard drugs like heroine or crack. I just think Fishburne, Goldblum, Williams and the rest of the cast were taking hits of laced marijuana in between takes. Drug use is a crapshoot when making cinema. Some of Martin Scorsese’s best work was done under the influence of cocaine while some of Richard Pryor’s worst performances, which all took place at the end of his career, were because of drugs.
But the final outcome with Deep Cover and it's alleged drug use (which is a crazy theory only I believe in) was a success in my opinion.

In the film, Laurence Fishburne plays “Russell Stevens” – a police officer recruited by the CIA to go undercover in an effort to help take down a Los Angeles drug trafficking operation (the CIA’s recruitment of Stevens in Deep Cover is similar to that of The Silence Of The Lambs when Clarice Starling is used by the CIA to help capture Buffalo Bill). As the title suggests, Stevens (who now goes under the alias: “John Hull”) gets in way too deep. While undercover he becomes romantically involved with one of the lower-level traffickers he’s supposed to be taking down and forms a strange bond/partnership with another trafficker in the form of “David Jason” (Jeff Goldblum). Even worse, Russell gets hooked on drugs which hits way too close to home for him (at the beginning of the movie we learn that Russell’s father was an addict and because of this, he vowed to never use drugs).

If you happen to watch Deep Cover after reading this, please note Jeff Goldblum’s slow transition from a crooked suburban defense attorney to a wannabe drug kingpin (if you still have a VCR, I highly suggest watching the VHS to retain all the grittiness). Fishburne’s transition from a straight-laced cop to a drug addicted undercover agent is also underrated (by the middle of the movie you start to forget he’s a cop). I’d also like to know if I’m the only person who thinks the acting in the final climax is absolutely batshit crazy for a conventional/studio film. Again, I mean that in a good way in the same way I think elements of Only God Forgives are equally batshit crazy. Deep Cover is a unique beast that stands out from all the other movies in the same genre. Instead of pointing the finger at addicts and low level drug dealers, Bill Duke shines a light on everyone from the CIA to the upper class drug dealers in the suburbs who are just as much a part of the drug machine as the dealers on the corner.

As much as I love rap music, I have to admit that it’s given some good films some bad reputations OR, it’s put some average/overrated movies on an undeserved pedestal (Scarface). I sometimes wonder if folks actually know characters like Tony Montana & Nino Brown aren’t good people and shouldn’t be idolized. We all know besides mafia folks like John Gotti and whatnot, Montana & Brown are two of the most referenced figures in modern rap lyrics when it comes to money & violence. I sometimes struggle with these movies myself because I get all caught up in how they make black people look. Some of these “urban” movies are pretty stupid but they have one or two really great qualities that trump the bad qualities. Take King Of New York. The older I get the more I kind of dislike Abel Ferrara’s cult classic. I started watching this last year to prep for the Cinema Of Abel Ferrara and I began to wonder if I was too old for this. But Laurence Fishburne’s performance kept my attention (*SPOILER ALERT* is it any coincidence that once his character is killed off, the movie starts to drag to an anti-climactic finale?) From Deep Cover’s promotional advertisements to its association with Death Row Records (one of the pinnacles of “Gangster Rap”) I can see how people unfamiliar with Bill Duke’s filmography would assume Deep Cover was just another run of the mill crime film, but I assure you that’s not the case and is worthy of a second chance/rediscovery.

MISUNDERSTOOD MASTERPIECE: 4

Phantasmagoric:

          1. having a fantastic or deceptive appearance, as something in a dream or created by the imagination.

It’s easy to site Tarkovsky as an influence on a young Russian filmmaker like Ilya Khrzhanovsky. Much like Tarkovsky's films (especially The Mirror), Ilya’s 4 deals with surreality and stream of consciousness (there's even a moment at the end of 4 that may be a slight nod to The Mirror). But any modern Russian film that’s mildly strange automatically gets a Tarkovsky comparison in the same way that any "strange"/non-linear American film gets a default David Lynch comparison. If anything, Ilya Khrzhanovsky is a student of Russian filmmakers like Elim Klimov & Alexandre Sokurov. While Klimov & Sokurov are certainly in the same lane as Tarkovsky (some might even call them students of his), their cinema differs from the late great Russian filmmaker because the surrealism in their work is much more aggressive and in your face (certain films within Sokurov's filmography makes me feel downright on edge because they straddle the line between a beautiful dream and an awful nightmare). While Sacrifice, Solaris, Ivan’s Childhood & Stalker aren’t about anything pleasant (the apocalypse, war, mental illness, death, etc), I’d still much rather live in the world of those films over Come & See (Klimov), The Sun (Sokurov) or 4 (Khrzhanovsky).

4 / Stalker
(a possible nod to Tarkovsky?)

4 definitely falls in to that sketchbook cinema category (a term/genre I coined in 2012) along with other stuff like Post Tenebras Lux (Reygadas), The Intruder (Denis), Uncle Boonmee… (Weerasethakul), etc. On some level it feels like a collection of unfinished ideas combined to make one mega-film. There is a basic plot to 4 in which a group of strangers strike up a conversation at a bar one late night and all proceed to lie too each other about what they do for a living. A piano tuner (“Volodya”) claims to be a lab technician who specializes in cloning, a meat vendor (“Oleg”) claims to work for Vladimir Putin (in an unspecified role), and a prostitute (“Marina”) claims to be an ad executive (she even goes so far as to exchange fake information with Volodya). Their conversation is overseen by a narcoleptic bartender who drifts in & out between serving everyone drinks. 

Once the strangers go their separate ways at the end of the night, their lives start to take strange turns (especially for Marina who pretty much becomes the main focus during the last half of the film). 

But much like other sketchbook cinema movies, 4 is less about the plot and more about the strange, surreal and (sometimes) nightmarish vibe that Ilya Khrzhanovsky conveys. Perhaps 4 is his own personal abstract vision of modern Russia. He paints the nation as a rather dark, drab & industrial place. Imagine Henry's surroundings in Eraserhead except in color and with a few more people walking around at night. 

It’s hard to sum up an entire movie with just one word (especially for me), but phantasmagoric is quite fitting (I swear I didn't learn until after I wrote this that an old Indiewire review also used this term to describe 4). All the characters in the film are deceptive to one another. Even the filmmaker is deceptive with the audience. Ilya Khrzhanovsky toys with us to the point where you start to question if anything is real. The one thing you do need to take in to serious consideration while watching 4 is that it goes in & out of what some might consider to be a dream world really seamlessly (it should go without saying that you need to pay attention while watching any movie, but you need to pay extra attention to 4). And, even if you are giving the film your undivided attention, there’s a good chance you may zone out to the point where even though you’re watching the images on the screen, you’ll stop paying attention to the plot (that happened to me the first time I watched it). 

One minute, you feel like you’re in a safe dream with 4. The imagery during certain scenes are hypnotic & polarizing. Then the next thing you know, that safe dream suddenly turns in to a nightmare. This is one of the few truly disturbing films that doesn’t have any gore, blood or guts. After sitting through 4, which clocks in at just over two hours, you’ll find yourself going; “what did I just watch?!”

The number 4 is obviously critical to the story. Various things pop up in quantities of 4 through the course of the film in both plain sight and in the background...

4 pigs on display at a butcher shop

4 fish tanks placed in plain sight

4 dogs laying around at the opening of the film (with 4 dolls on display in the window in the background)

4 military planes in the background

but for the most part, the title of the film holds the same amount of importance as Dr. Strangelove or Todd Hayne’s Poison does to their respective stories (I tried googling the possible importance of the number 4 as it relates to Russia but nothing really stood out).

In a strange way, 4 has some of Robert Altman's DNA in it as well. There's usually something important going on in the background that you may not know to pay attention too on the first viewing.

It’s tough to not gush over Ilya Khrzhanovsky's directorial debut in an unembarrassing way (this is a personal favorite of mine), but it genuinely defies any one genre. Some may try to box 4 into the science fiction genre because it deals with (possible) alternate realities and cloning, but it’s also part (dark) comedy as there’s plenty moments that are laugh out loud funny (like the narcoleptic bartender). Khrzhanovsky's view of modern day Russia is sad (you see a lot of poverty & sorrow in the background of the film) but he’s also cynical and pokes fun at his homeland too. 4 is also somewhat political (in a passive way) as Putin’s name is dropped numerous times to the point where it has to mean something deeper, and the presence of the military is more than prevalent in certain parts.

Of course this film isn’t for everyone, so it’s difficult to openly suggest it, but if you’re in to all the aforementioned films (Stalker, The Mirror, Uncle Boonmee, The Intruder, etc) and filmmakers, 4 should definitely be at the top of your must-see list if you haven’t checked it out already…

MANIAC: THIS MOVIE HAD NO BUSINESS BEING THIS GOOD

What if the driver character from Drive, only this time played by Elijah Wood instead of Ryan Gosling, was a tormented serial killer with social anxiety disorder and mommy issues in the vein of Buffalo Bill (The Silence Of The Lambs) or The Tooth Fairy (Manhunter)? Sounds strange right? That's pretty much the vibe of the 2013 Maniac remake...
I was going to wait to write about this for my end of the year review, which I’ve been working on steadily these last few weeks, but Maniac kinda deserves its own separate write-up. Its an interesting film to say the least. Even though it doesn’t exactly fit right in with stuff like House Of The Devil & The Innkeeper, which I’ve also recently watched at the suggestion of PINNLAND EMPIRE contributor; Doug Frye, Maniac is another example of this new resurgence in 70’s & 80’s-style horror/slasher films.
Criticisms of the Maniac remake ranged from; "Why remake a cult classic?" to "Elijah Wood as a serial killer? Yeah, right..." Let’s get a couple of things clear - The original Maniac isn’t very good to begin with. Sorry, but it's not. It isn’t some sacred cow that shouldn’t be messed with. Sometimes bad movies are mistakenly labeled as "cult movies" which gives them a free pass to be...bad. "Who cares if there's a boom mic in the shot? It’s a cult movie!" or "So what if the acting is a little bad. It’s supposed to be. It’s a cult movie!" And that’s certainly the case with the original 1980 Maniac – the simple story of a schizophrenic serial killer, "Frank Zito", who targets women. In my opinion, this new adaptation stays true to the basic plot but does make a few noticeable changes, specifically the cinematography which is shot directly from Elijah Wood's point of view half the time just like Enter The Void except not as shaky & nauseating (we only see Wood in reflections and through the point of view of the women he’s killing). I'm not exactly sure what’s so “classic” about the original (and yes, I've heard it referred to as a classic before). It’s a movie about a guy who goes around killing women. There were far too many films in the early 80's that essentially made entertainment out of violence against women at a time when real violence against women seemed to be at an all-time high: Maniac, Henry, Angst, White Of The Eye, etc. Sure some of these films are actually pretty good (White Of The Eye & Angst) but at the end of the day there’s a slightly sadistic quality to all of ‘em. The only two filmmakers to really counter this explosion of early/mid-80’s violence against women were Abel Ferrara with Mrs. 45 & Bette Gordon with Variety (the irony of course is that prior to Ms. 45, Abel Ferrara made The Driller Killer which kinda fits right in with the aforementioned films I’m criticizing). Oh wait, does Death Wish count?
Its nice to see this story redone in a different era with a slightly different twist to it. Sure, at the end of the day filmmakers should look to an original idea first before doing a remake but not all remakes are actually bad (Let Me In, Solaris, Funny Games, etc). More times than not, remakes do turn out to be pointless or not as good as the original but if we blindly hate on every remake before we actually see it, we could miss out on the occasional gem. I honestly couldn’t imagine life without watching Soderbergh’s adaptation of Solaris from time to time.

Sin City (2005)

As far as Elijah Wood playing a serial killer goes - you DO realize that most serial killers (outside of figures like Edmund Kemper or Richard Ramirez) usually don’t look the part, right? If you saw Jeffery Dahmer or Charles Ng on the street you'd probably walk right past them and not think anything or assume they were wimps. So casting the non-intimidating Elijah Wood in the title role of “Frank Zito” makes perfect sense (I just hope Wood didn't think by doing a dark indie that it would make him seem edgy or show his range as an actor. I seriously hope not). Right off the bat this version of Maniac has something over the original. The original “Maniac” in the 1980 film, played by Joe Spinell (the late iconic character actor from The Godfather 2, Cruising & the Rocky films, who also wrote the original Maniac story) was a big menacing guy who looked like a legitimate serial killer to begin with. If someone, especially a woman walking by herself at night, saw him they’d immediately cross the street or even run. In real life he wouldn’t get the chance to get close or ask a woman for the time in an effort to get her guard down and chloroform her. That’s what makes Elijah Wood such a good casting choice. He’s the last person you’d expect to be a serial killer. He has a way better advantage at getting close to women which the film plays off of. In this updated version of Maniac, Frank uses speed dating & online dating as a way of getting close to women. Ladies, be honest – if you went to a speed dating function or saw a picture of Elijah Wood on a dating site, you’d let your guard down at the sight of that face, wouldn’t you?
And lets also not forget that Wood played "Kevin" in Sin City back in 2005 so this isn’t his first time playing a psycho serial killer who targets women. There are actually quite a few similarities between Frank & Kevin. Not only do they target women exclusively, but they also behead them. In Sin City, Kevin/Wood is surrounded by his headless victims as trophies. In Maniac, Frank/Wood surrounds himself with female mannequins as well as a trophy room full of his female victims’ heads...

I admit that I quickly dismissed Maniac when it played at IFC this past year (I was intrigued for a second but that curiosity soon went away). But after hearing how surprisingly not bad it was by a few reputable sources, I gave it a chance on Netflix instant and it actually didn’t suck when it damn well should have. I know a movie shouldn’t get praise for not sucking, but this really had no business being a good/entertaining film and it was. So many odds we stacked against it and managed to rise above. ...Kinda. Unlike the original, this version of Maniac is slightly tongue in cheek and intentionally cheesy at times which makes it easier for me to enjoy it. This isn’t exactly a dark comedy, but the filmmakers & cast clearly had a hidden smirk on their face while making this. They had to. The acting is over the top, the delivery of Wood’s dialogue sounds like its being read directly from a piece paper and the scenarios in the film seem intentionally cliché – The women that Wood goes on (first) dates with invite him up to their apartments way too easily. I don’t care if the character Wood is playing seems harmless. I find it hard to believe that so many women would be so quick to hook up with a random stranger. And are women still seriously walking alone in dark alleys in movies these days? There’s too many intentionally weak points in the story for this to be taken 100% seriously (I’m afraid to read any interviews on this film out of fear that filmmaker; Frank Khalfoun really does want us to take his Maniac remake completely serious).

The synth-heavy soundtrack, which is very reminiscent of Drive, makes it even more enjoyable. I recently wrote another installment in the “Whole History Of My Life” series for The Pink Smoke on Nicolas Winding Refn’s underrated Fear X, so I’ve been immersed in his cinema for the last couple of months (I ended up writing so much unused/excess material for the Fear X piece that it turned in to a separate review on his Pusher sequel which you’ll read in January). Whether you like Refn or not, Bronson & Drive have been quite influential in the last couple of years and Maniac is a prime example. Besides the synthesized score (analog synths are making a comeback in cinema), just look at the movie poster. Doesn’t this remind you of Drive?

I realize that being influenced by Refn really means that you’re influenced by early Michael Mann, but most people are turning to Drive quicker then they’re turning to Thief & Manhunter. No, I guess that’s not a good thing, but it is what it is…

I'm still a little torn about this film because no matter how tongue-in cheek or aware of itself Maniac may be, it could still be seen as sexist entertainment as the story is still based around a serial killer who targets women. There's even those cliché scenes, which we see in almost every single serial killer film, where the psycho protagonist has the tormented flashback of his dysfunctional mother and we're almost supposed to feel a little sympathy for him and understand why he became a serial killer in the first place. Part of me also feels like Maniac is not only trying to capitalize off of Drive but it’s also stealing a few pages out of American Psycho (crazy angry white guys killing women) as well as Enter The Void. Refn isn’t the only modern filmmaker to put an emphasis on dark lighting, neon-lights & synthesizers. In my opinion, the cinema of Gaspar Noe, although less “popular”, has a connection to Refn’s work in terms of style.
But at the end of the day this film managed to be pretty good when it should have been awful. I've actually watched it twice so that counts for something.

HOW I GOT INTO COLLEGE: MISUNDERSTOOD MASTERPIECE

This movie was not a box office success (Wikipedia)

Who cares what Wikipedia says? So this movie didn’t make money at the box office. Ok, so? That doesn’t make this lost gem any less great! How I Got Into College should be preserved in a time capsule. It captures so many things that were great about random movies from the late 80's. The credits are made up of an all-star line-up from that era: Savage Steve Holland (Better Off Dead), Anthony Edwards & Curtis Armstrong (Revenge Of The Nerds), Brian Doyle Murray, Phil Hartman & Nora Dunn (all classic SNL cast members from the 80's). The supporting cast is also made up of some great character actors like Philip Baker Hall, Richard Jenkins & O-Lan Jones. This is the kind of film that makes me wonder why they don't have an Oscar category for best ensemble cast.

How I Got Into College is one of those movies most peole kinda remember half watching back in the day but don't remember the title or any of the actor's names. It's understandable that a small comedy like this wouldn't stand the test of time like other movies released in the same year (Do The Right Thing, Tim Burton's Batman, The Seventh Continent, Sex, Lies & Videotape, Mystery Train, Drugstore Cowboy, etc) but no matter how older I get or how many new movies I discover, How I Got Into College always stays fresh with me.

Between the late 80's through the early 90's, there were a string of movies with a unique, quirky, slightly twisted dark sense of humor that just don't exist in cinema anymore like. Movies like; Meet The Applegates, Freaked, Parents, Twister (no, not that Twister), Moving, Fear Anxiety & Depression, Shakes The Clown, Heathers and How I Got In To College (my favorite movie out of the bunch). These were the kinds of movies that messed with me (in a good way) as a little boy because they were brightly colored with a light atmosphere yet the subject matter & humor was a bit twisted (suicide, dysfunctional families, cannibalism, creepy clowns, etc). I use to stay up late at night when I was 8 & 9 to watch these movies and I remember laughing at them but being confused at the same time. I was too young to really understand all the irony and dark humor but I knew something was funny about them. I was also too young to realize that a lot of these films were mashing up different genres before it was cool to do so. Parents was a horror/comedy/coming of age story, Freaked was a Cronenberg-esque body horror/comedy and Meet The Applegates was a mixture of science fiction, family drama & dark humor. There's also little elements that tie all these movies together. Some of the same actors can be found in a few of these; Randy Quaid (Parents, Moving & Freaked), Tom Kenny (Shakes The Clown & How I Got In To College), Phill Lewis (Heathers & How I Got In To College), etc. And half of these movies are directly influenced by David Lynch's Blue Velvet in that they go beyond the white picket fences and show the hidden dark side of small-town America (Parents, Heathers & Meet The Applegates).
There's still little strands of this humor found in cinema today - Bobcat Goldthwait, the man responsible for Shakes The Clown, went on to loosely remake/rip-off Heathers (Greatest Dad In The World).
I can’t say enough about late night cable TV programming between 1988 through 1992. Growing up in western Massachusetts we didn’t have anything like Z Channel or local indie TV stations. The closest thing I had to random, forgotten, underrated, slightly alternative movies was HBO, The Movie Channel & non-late night softcore Cinemax after 10pm. Sure these channels ran the same movies in to the ground during the prime time slots, but once late night hit, it’s like they gave all the programming responsibilities to lonely knowledgeable video store clerks. Not to sound old but, cable TV just isn't the same today. How do people discover/rediscover older movies now?

Savage Steve Holland will probably always be remembered for his work with John Cusack (Better Off Dead & One Crazy Summer) but I like to think How I Got In To College was the ultimate movie he was working towards even though it probably wasn’t. His movie-making career kinda went downhill after he made it. If you go back and watch Better Off Dead & One Crazy Summer, you can see some of that same randomly strange humor except it’s turned up a notch in How I Got In To College.

In the film we follow various high school seniors throughout the state of Michigan who are all trying to get in to the highly competitive school; Ramsey College. Although the story mostly focuses on two central people: "Marlon" (Corey Parker) & "Jessica" (Lars Flynn Boyle), the film branches off to other side characters like "Ronnie" (the high school jock), "Adam" (the rich privileged kid), and “Vera" (the struggling/working class teen). How I Got Into College is a bit unique in that it’s a strange mixture of satire yet it also takes itself serious. Savage Steve Holland puts in stereotypical high school characters (the smart Asians, the over-achiever, the jock, the average kid, etc) then at certain points in the film he breaks the fourth wall and pokes fun at it. But there's also just as many genuine moments of self discovery and coming of age for our characters which sets How I Got Into College apart from stuff like Not Another Teen Movie, Orange County & Clueless. A lot of the comedy in this movie is absurd (intentionally over dramatized moments of self doubt, a college admissions officer who is obsessed with pigs, a student who exposes her chest during a college interview, etc) but a lot of the humor is also cliche & corny, yet it all manages to work out.
How I Got Into College also shows the other side of the college admissions process through the characters played by Anthony Edwards, Charles Rocket & Philip Baker Hall who are all on the admissions committee at Ramsey College.

Highlights in this movie include a great cameo from Curtis Armstrong (a Savage Steve Holland regular) as a Bible school professor, O-Lan Jones as a very strange receptionist and a creepy scene where Lara Flynn Boyle comes close to having a nervous breakdown during a college entrance interview.
Maybe I'm going a little too far by calling How I Got In To College a masterpiece but dammit there's something great about this movie! Sure, it holds a strong nostalgic quality for me and every time I watch it I'm reminded of my childhood and discovering random movies late at night while trying not to wake my parents up, but putting that aside, there's something unique about it. This served as an alternative to all the John Hughes brat pack movies that predated it. How I Got In To College wasn’t made for my generation (I was in elementary school, with college being the furthest thing from my mind, when I use to watch this movie) but when I think back, my high school experience was definitely closer to that of Marlon than the prototypes found in The Breakfast Club & 16 candles. Like Marlon, I didn’t have the best grades, my S.A.T. scores sucked, I panicked internally when I took tests, I took S.A.T. prep courses that did absolutely nothing to better my scores and I felt the pressure of getting in to college placed on me by society. I ultimately got into college because of all my extra-curricular activities and my one of a kind charm...just like Marlon (it damn sure wasn’t for my G.P.A.)

I wish I could recommend this to you all but it’s not on Netflix, I'm sure the DVD is out of print (I imagine most people wouldn’t want to pay the $12.99 for the DVD on Amazon) and most video stores that might have this are now out of business. I guess if you know me personally and happen to read this review, feel free to ask me to borrow it.

TWO BY FERRARA: NEW ROSE HOTEL & THE FUNERAL

There's a great Abel Ferrara Q&A from the 2011 New York Film Festival on YouTube that I've been listening too for the last couple of months that gives a lot of insight in to his career. Thanks mostly in part to the support of New York City's film community, Abel Ferrara has kinda "resurfaced" over the last couple of years - His last film, 4:44 Last Day On Earth, had a good run, Anthology Film Archives gave a great retrospective on his recent unseen works and his previously unreleased films are a little easier to come by online and on DVD now. But things weren't like that for him for quite some time.

Abel Ferrara feels he was somewhat blackballed in the movie industry sometime around the late 90's. Sometimes filmmakers use that black balled thing as an excuse for bad box office numbers or the inability to get a film financed but Ferrara sorta has a valid point. It’s odd that a filmmaker can go from making Bad Lieutenant (one of the best films & best lead performances of the 90's) to barely being able to getting a small indie film financed. Maybe it was his string of interesting/odd/misunderstood/frustrating post-Bad Lt. works like; Body Snatchers, Dangerous Game & The Addiction that kinda turned producers & financers off. Maybe there were some behind-the-scenes things we don’t know about. Whatever the case may be, Ferrara put out some interesting work in the late 90's that hasn’t really stood the test of time (The Funeral) or has gone virtually unknown (New Rose Hotel) at no fault of his own and in my opinion they should be revisited...

I like New Rose Hotel more than I think I'm supposed to. From the bad reviews to the low ratings on IMDB & Rotten Tomatoes - everything is telling me to hate this movie but I just can’t. There's something about this lost random gem that I really enjoy. Unlike other misunderstood maverick filmmakers who find more fans & support in Europe with their recent questionable work (Melvin Van Peeples, Alex Cox, Monte Hellman, etc) Ferrara actually has good & consistent work that just has a tough time getting distributed sometimes. His work is fun to dissect and write about even when it’s problematic.

New Rose Hotel, adapted from the William Gibson short story of the same name, is a moody, atmospheric, sensual, science fiction tale that falls under the cyberpunk genre (the film was actually given Gibson's blessing). But unlike other classic cyberpunk science fiction films, New Rose Hotel doesn’t have super robots (Robocop), cool laser guns (Bladerunner) or virtual reality (Lawnmower Man). There isn’t even a huge emphasis on computers or getting lost on the Internet which is usually what these kinda stories are about (The Matrix, World On A Wire, Hackers, etc). It’s barely science fiction. In the same vein as Cronenberg's eXistenZ, Abel Ferrara lightly hints at all the futuristic aspects of the world he creates instead of shoving flying cars & robots down our throats. Besides Bladerunner, New Rose Hotel has a much darker tone than the other films in the cyber punk genre. It takes place in darkly lit lounges, night clubs and of course...hotel rooms. These settings make sense as New Rose is just as much a neo-noir as it is a science fiction tale.
Years before this was made, a pre-Hurt Locker/Zero Dark Thirty Kathryn Bigelow was set to direct an adaptation of it before Abel Ferrara but after some creative differences between her and Gibson, she dropped out of the project and went on to make Strange Days - another cyber punk story that has a few similarities to not only New Rose Hotel, but a lot of Gibson's other stories as well...

When I talked to Gibson, I said you want to help? He said if you need me you're in bad shape. She [Bigelow] had him thinking he couldn't write a script, that he was useless. Believe me I don't know how this guy even survived that. She wanted her way. You should read the script he wrote for this if it wasn't called "New Rose Hotel." You wouldn't know what the Hell it was. Then they got rid of him, they didn't want him around anymore. Then they were going to do the version with Schwarzenegger and they put in 300K for this Creative Artists writer out of LA and were gonna write it as an action movie and get Schwarzenegger to play it. - Abel Ferrara (Indiewire)

Immediately after watching this I read Gibson's short and honestly feel that the film honors the original story. Any time you adapt someones work (especially a cultish writer like Gibson) you're always gonna get loyal literature fans complaining about something but Gibson gave this film his blessing which is good enough for me. Unfortunately, I think New Rose Hotel was stuck with the stigma that Johnny Mnemonic left behind a few years earlier (another sci-fi film adapted from a Gibson story that failed at the box office) and people didn’t wanna give it a chance. Additionally, Abel Ferrara isn’t exactly the first filmmaker who comes to mind when you think of science fiction. Maybe people just weren't ready for an Abel Ferrara science fiction movie. He isn’t from the same school as Paul Verhoven, The Wachowski's, David Cronenberg but with New Rose Hotel he didn’t try to be a someone he's not. He brought William Gibson in to HIS world and brought along a few of his regulars (Christopher Waken, Willem Dafoe & Asia Argento)

In the not-too-distant future, the world's two biggest corporations (Maas & Hosaka) are feuding with one another for control over the best patents, cures and other worldly inventions. The brightest mind behind many of these genius developments, a scientist by the name of "Hiroshi", is currently employed by the Maas corporation and Hosaka is looking to steal to him away. This is where "Fox" (Christopher Walken) and his partner "X" (Willem Dafoe) come in to play. Fox & X are "headhunters" whose job is to essentially convince/persuade workers to go from one company to another. If Fox & X can get Hiroshi to come over to the Hosaka corporation they'll be paid $100 Million. To persuade Hiroshi to switch employers, Fox & X hire an Italian prostitute ("Sandii") to seduce him. This is the basic plot. After that it’s a bit difficult to follow. X falls in love with Sandii, Fox becomes fascinated with Hiroshi, there's a huge plague, Fox throws an orgy and a good portion of what we see in the first half of the film is played out again as slightly altered flashbacks towards the end. The dialogue is a bit up its own ass at times (hey, I like this movie very much but its true). Much of the script (especially the lines delivered by Christopher Walken) seems more concerned with sounding smart, existential, cool & scientific instead of making any sense. The basic plot is pretty easy to decipher but you may find yourself questioning if what a lot of Walken & Dafoe are talking about really has anything to do with the film.

Certain themes and the overall style of New Rose Hotel went on to influence Ferrara's later work like Mary (2005) & 4:44 (2011). In New Rose Hotel we see a lot of chaotic editing (which we hadn’t really seen in Ferrara's films up to that point) and the use of mixed media and different types of cameras all in the same film (some of the footage is grainy, reminiscent of Wong Kar Wai's Fallen Angels, while most of the footage looks like a normal movie). This type of filmmaking is all done throughout Mary. Many themes in New Rose Hotel like plagues and the end of the world are the basis for 4:44. Ferrara even tips his hat to Kubrick (the hotel room that Dafoe stays in towards the end of the film looks like the room at the end of 2001). I can see how some of the acting in the film could be a little off putting. Christopher Walken is more quirky & strange than usual to the point where you find yourself laughing more at how he pronounces certain words instead of focusing on the overall performance which can be pretty distracting. The performance and look of Fox is very similar to the character he plays in Donald Cammell's Wild Side. But hey, some people who love Walken's quirkiness may get a kick out of his portrayal of Fox. Asia Argento, who's never been more beautiful, is a little flat & awkward at times (although I've heard some describe her performance in New Rose Hotel as "raw") but you find yourself not really caring too much because of how naturally beautiful she looks. Dafoe's presence is kinda downplayed in my opinion but Ferrara made up for that with Go-Go Tales.

On a more positive note, New Rose Hotel features cameos and quick appearances from the likes of John Lurie, Anabella Sciorra & Victor Argo

Ferrara has an understanding & love for cinema that many directors don’t which is a shame because his reputation among the average person aware of who he is keeps him in that King Of New York/Ms. 45/Bad Lieutenant box when he's got a lot more to give (he’s currently working on a script about the final day of Pier Paolo Passolini). Ever since Bad Lieutenant it seems like he's been trying to stretch himself more as a filmmaker and dip in to different genres like the apocalypse (4:44), science fiction/"the information age" (New Rose Hotel) and hybrid fiction/documentaries (Hotel Chelsea) yet people (mostly Americans) aren't very receptive for some reason. New Rose Hotel has a lot in common with Vinterberg's It’s All About Love. Both films are beautiful chaotic messes that have great casts, cover many issues and are set in an odd disorienting vision of the not-so-distant future.

If you go in to New Rose Hotel expecting Ferrara's regular raw, gritty New York City style of filmmaking found in Bad Lieutenant or Ms. 45 you're setting yourself up to be disappointed. If you have an open mind and are looking to expand your view on him as a filmmaker (which New Rose Hotel will surely do) this may be the film for you.

Now...if you're looking for vintage Abel Ferrara then look no further than his 1996 mob drama; The Funeral...

I'm not very keen on writing about mob movies. Everything has already been written about the great ones by people more qualified than I (Godfather, Mean Streets, Goodfellas, etc) and all the other mob movies out there are just bad, formulaic carbon copies of the great ones that aren't really worthy of being written about (too many to name). That’s the interesting thing about the mob genre - there’s not much middle ground. Mafia films are either classic pieces of art or bad & overrated. There aren’t too many that are just simply "good" or "solid". Abel Ferrara's The Funeral may not be on the same level as The Godfather or Goodfellas but it shouldn't be grouped in with all the other bad & overrated mob films out there. The Funeral is pretty unique. Besides the mafia/organized crime angle it touches on family (blood family, not mafia family) along with communism & socialism. Ferrara inst a novice to the mob/organized crime genre (King Of New York & China Girl) but this is by far his best work within that realm. In my opinion this was his last undeniably good film for quite some time until he re-emerged with Mary (2005) & Go-Go Tales (2007). According to co-star Vincent Gallo, Abel Ferrara spent a good portion of his time on set in his trailer smoking crack instead of directing but I find that a little hard to believe.

This film was pretty much considered a flop in the U.S. (like most post-Bad Lieutenant Ferrara films) when it came out and I honestly don’t get it. Over the years it’s become one of those movies you find in the discount DVD bin section at the video store for $7.99 (that's how I came across it). How is it possible that a film with one of the greatest ensemble casts of the last 20 years (Christopher Walken, Chris Penn, Benecio Del Toro, Vincent Gallo, Annabella Sciorra, Isabella Rossellini, the underrated Victor Argo and a quick appearance from David Patrick Kelly) managed to fall in to obscurity? More importantly, in an era when large ensemble casts were pretty much only used for those multi-storyline post-Pulp Fiction style films in American independent cinema, Ferrara didn't fall in to that madness and made ONE cohesive story as opposed to 6 different stories that all connect to each other in the end. The Funeral is different from other mob films as there's minimal violence (when compared to stuff like Goodfellas or King Of New York). Its more about the internal family problems between two brothers: "Ray" (Christopher Walken) & "Chez" (Chris Penn) and how they handle (and ultimately deal with) the death of their youngest (communist) brother "Johnny" (Vincent Gallo) who was gunned down by a rival crime family run by "Gaspare Spoglia" (Benecio Del Toro)...or at least that's what we're supposed to believe.

The Funeral is without a doubt Chris Penn's greatest performance. Take his intensity from the final minutes of Reservoir Dogs and spread it out through an entire movie and you'd kinda get the gist of what I'm talking about. His performance is so draining & heavy it almost gives you a headache watching him act. Most performances concerned with depression (which Chez is surely suffering from) focuses more on the sad & crippling aspect of it while Penn's performance focuses more on the angry & aggressive side of depression. And Chris Penn's large size adds to it, giving the Chez character an intimidating presence. There’s one scene in particular that’s a bit odd & hard to watch where he has his way with a young girl. Say what you want about the cinema of Abel Ferrara, and trust me there's plenty to say both good & bad, but he can get an intense performance out of his actors - Harvey Keitel in Bad Lieutenant, Forest Whitaker in Mary, Willem Dafoe in Go-Go Tales, etc. This was also one of Christopher Walken's later rare good performances along with Catch Me If You Can (a performance he was nominated for that still manages to go unnoticed).

It's tough to take Walken seriously in his more recent work but there's no misguided humor about his performance in The Funeral (especially in the scene when he confronts the man who killed his brother). Ray & Chez are both big tough gangsters but when they confront each other they revert back to being little kids - in a scene towards the beginning Walken leaves the house when Penn arrives and refuses to come back until he leaves (clearly something a child would do). Penn & Walken's grieving in The Funeral makes me miss the brother I never even had. The presence of the female characters (Sciorra, Rossellini & Mol play the "mob wives") may come off as minor at first but in one scene Anabella Sciorra kinda steals the show with a monologue about how sick & fed up she is with the mob way of life and her husband. Unlike classic female performances in gangster films (Diane Keaton in The Godfather or Lorraine Braco in Goodfellas) Sciorra comes off a lot tougher and less neurotic (although still a bit vulnerable & sad).
My only complaint about The Funeral is the lack of Isabella Rossellini. Also, there’s just “something” about The Funeral that was screaming for Michael Madsen’s presence. Given the size of the cast, The Funeral could have easily been a 2-1/2+ hour film if done right but at the same time its fine the way it is. There’s something about a 90-something minute mafia film that’s a breath of a fresh air in a sea of 3+ hour epics.

I find myself kinda sympathizing for some of the characters in The Funeral more than I do in other mob films. There's no celebration of the crimes they commit or the flashy violent lifestyle they live whereas in stuff like Goodfellas we're kinda supposed to think these guys are "cool" (Goodfellas is still one of the most important films of the 90's and there would probably be no Funeral without it). At the end of the day The Funeral could be looked at as a film that shows the realistic & ugly side of mob life and the consequences that come with that lifestyle. The Funeral is more along the lines of Donnie Brasco (specifically Al Pacino's character) or the mob sub plot in Ghost Dog where we see old, broken down, tired gangsters in their 50's & 60's still carrying out hits, taking orders and hanging out in smoke-filled basements (nothing really "cool" about that). This is a quietly depressing & drab film with an ending that takes the phrase(*SPOILER ALERT*): "everyone dies in the end" a little too literal. The lighting is always dark and all the dominant colors in the film are darkish & grey and you genuinely feel bad for Vincent Gallo as he lies on the ground whimpering (literally) and dying from a gunshot to the belly. The Funeral features plenty of "Ferrara-isms" - religious symbolism (specifically Catholicism), the focus on Italian American families, Christopher Walken & Victor Argo and occasional spurts of violence). For reasons ranging from rawness & grittiness to unconventional editing & storytelling, Ferrara can be an acquired taste for some (he’s one of those American filmmakers who’s appreciated more by Europeans than fellow Americans). If you’ve read my write-ups on Mary & Go-Go Tales you’d see that the cinema of Abel Ferrara is quite challenging, but he’s currently one of my favorite filmmakers to write about (along with Terrence Malick & Carlos Reygadas).

The Funeral can be enjoyed by most people (cinephiles to average movie goers who like a gangster film). Some may be a little let down by the final act as well as the discovery of who actually killed Vincent Gallo, but I personally didn't have any problems with it. Ferrara could have taken a more conventional route to ending his film and he didn't.