BFI Player Snags Nymphomaniac for March 1st Release

DVD Review - Bloody Homecoming

Genre:
Horror, Slasher
Distributor:
Imagine Entertainment
Rating: 15
DVD Release Date:
10th March 2014 (UK)
Director:
Brian C Weed
Cast:
Jim Tavaré, Rae Latt, Lexi Giovagnoli
Buy: Bloody Homecoming [DVD]
Bloody Homecoming, from first time feature director Brian C. Weed, is a strange kind of homage to classic slasher films, from its Halloween-inspired soundtrack to its creepy high school janitor, it wears its inspirations proudly but does little else. The film follows the lives of a group of students, each guilty for their involvement in a student’s death 3 years prior. As homecoming night looms, the anniversary of Billy Corbin’s murder, the students try their best to carry on whilst a masked killer butchers the group.

Though its heart is in the right place, a lot of stuff is crazy wrong with Bloody Homecoming. There’s a seemingly conscious engagement with slasher trope but it doesn’t lead anywhere. Spoof without comedy is pastiche, but pastiche without any comment or thrill is simply bad. As the film acts out a paint by numbers stalk-and-slash you’re left wondering when something cool will happen. Characters are killed in numerous anti-climactic death scenes whilst a lack of main character leaves the film directionless. Rather than pulling something postmodern out the bag and utilising that knowledge of slasher, the film executes an ending which, due to inconsequential characters and the inability to build tension, just kind of happens.  Saying that, Rae Latt does do her best to carry the finale though the shortcomings in editing and script unfortunately halt her most enjoyable scenes.

Bloody Homecoming dances the line between home movie and straight to DVD entertainment, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Its flat performances and hilariously stupid dialogue almost give it a charming edge over other plainly bad films, but the total lack of tension and drama keep it well and truly bogged down. It’s not enough for the film to be awful and unintentionally hilarious. This is a great shame since there’s obviously a passion for horror at work somewhere in there, it just needs to be addressed in a more deserving way.

Hilarious dialogue, wooden acting, and zero tension leaves this ode to classic slasher films looking like a second-rate re-enactment of better films. Avoid this if you can.

★☆☆☆☆

Scott Clark

GFF 2014 Review: The Dance of Reality (La danza de la realidad)

Genre:
World Cinema, Biography, Drama
Distributor:
Pathe International
Rating: 15
Release Date:
23rd February 2014 (UK,Glasgow Film Festival)
Director:
Alejandro Jodorowsky
Stars:
Brontis Jodorowsky, Pamela Florence, Jeremías Herskovits,Alejandro Jodorowky
Reviewing a film like Alejandro Jodorowsky’s The Dance of Reality (La Danza de la Realidad) is a tricky thing. Rarely do films achieve such a level of mind-boggling skill, flaunting an incredible fusion of art and entertainment like nothing you’ve ever seen. The legendary director’s first film in 23 years is an account of his childhood in 1930’s Chile, focusing on his troubled relationship with his father. At the Glasgow Film Festival Q & A with Brontis Jodorowsky (Alejandro’s son and lead actor in The Dance of Reality) the film’s reconciliatory purposes were made clear.

Here Jodorowsky considers his entire youth, reimagining various important events and circumstance. The meticulously executed fantastical elements can at times seem intense, distancing the viewer from the actual story of the film. However, Jodorowsky’s unrelenting surrealism ultimately proves so literal it just seems impenetrable and that makes it all the more appreciable. Jodorowsky’s mother’s unfulfilled desire to be an opera singer is here addressed by having her sing all her lines. The half-finished quality to dreams and memories is here represented by all inconsequential characters’ wearing expressionless masks. Unresolved relations with his father are perhaps the most extensively addressed as it is Jaime (Brontis Jodorowsky) who is sent on a journey of self-exploration. This series of bizarre happenstance, set against a backdrop of political disorder and communist uprising, is an honest open letter to Jodorowsky’s estranged father.

The village of Tocopilla is exotic and farcical with a host of colourful characters, each new character appearing to paint another detail onto the intricate portrait of Jodorowsky’s youth. Most obvious in all this is that even in a break of almost a quarter century, Alejandro Jodorowsky’s wit and visual capability have not been dulled. These images and tales- in the end- only add up to one perspective, but with such accomplished cohesiveness The Dance of Reality feels like a hundred gorgeous vignettes of a fascinating world.  It would be a mistake for me to take characters or events and attempt to explore their relevance to the narrative of the film and, more importantly, Jodorowsky’s life. Instead I’ll urge you to see and experience it for yourself.

The journey to Jodorowsky’s past unveils a bizarre and utterly entrancing tale of philosophical coming-of-age. The vibrant atmosphere of “Python”-esque tom-foolery mixed with beautiful visuals and often blunt social critique makes Jodorowsky’s latest a welcome return.

★★★★★

Scott Clark

GFF 2014 Review: The Girl From the Wardrobe (Dziewczyna z szafy)

Genre:
Drama, World Cinema
Rating: 15
Release Date:
22nd February 2014 (Glasgow Film Festival)
Director:
Bodo Kox
Cast:
Wojciech Mecwaldowski, Piotr Glowacki, Magdalena Rózanska

Writer-director Bodo Kox’s debut feature follows the story of three isolated individuals who live on the same floor of a block of flats in a run-down residential area. Jacek (Piotre Glowacki) operates a business from his computer and tries to maintain a normal life whilst taking care of his autistic brother Tomeck (Wojciech Mecwaldowski) who can see air blimps constantly flying overhead. Magda (Magdalena Rozanska) lives across the hall and spends her days sitting in her cupboard smoking joints and watching photo stills on an old projector.

It’s as charming and weird as it sounds; flitting between an expose on lives less ordinary and madcap venture into the world of multi-verse theory, The Girl in the Wardrobe is ultimately a tender film about friendship but should not be underestimated as an incredibly funny black comedy.  Bodo’s keen sense of humour is an integral part of his heartfelt portrait of alienation ensuring that the film remains –no matter how depressing- bizarrely buoyant.

Some of the most impressive parts of the film come from the often surreal merging of hallucination and reality, making what could have been drab and monotonous, ultimately involving and intriguing. The dull residential area in which the film is set seems grey and rotten, but Tomeck’s low flying air blimps and Magda’s jungle retreat are moments of fantastic exotic curio rarely made this matter-of-fact. Just when a conversation starts to get dull, or a sequence begins to slow down, things get weird. Rather than this feeling like some kind of last minute scene-save, it acts as Bodo’s critique on the monotony of life. Again and again society at large, at least the world outside the flat, seems predictable and ultimately vapid.

Here, under the heartstrings and weird imagery is an insidious account of the seclusion of troubled peoples. A trip to an art gallery flaunts contempt for a pretentious kind of piety found nowhere in the deeply honest world of Tomek, Magda, and Jacek. The entire cast prove their worth throughout, each receiving the same overall balance- the film itself executes so well- between humour and pain. Even though there are some dull points, Kox proves he is a capable and interesting filmmaker worth keeping an eye on.

A supremely bittersweet tale of suicide, alienation, and friendship, The Girl in the Wardrobe is a carefully balanced study of life on the outside looking in, a piss-take of the word “normal”, but perhaps most importantly an eye opening look at mental health.

★★★½☆

Scott Clark

GFF 2014 Review -The Strange Colour of Your Body's Tears (L'étrange couleur des larmes de ton corps)

Genre:
Thriller, World Cinema, Giallo
Distributor:
Metrodome (UK)
Release:
21st February 2014 (Glasgow Film Festival)
11th April 2014 (UK Cinema)
Rating: 18(UK)
Directors:
Hélène Cattet, Bruno Forzani
Stars:
Klaus Tange, Ursula Bedena, Joe Koener

Following on from their stunning debut feature Amer, Helen Cattet and Bruno Forzani deliver another breath-taking giallo-inspired thriller, pushing the envelope even further in terms of narrative coherency and cinematic beauty.

If you’re looking for a straightforward thriller narrative wrapped in giallo style, you won’t find it here. Cattet and Forzani throw narrative coherency to the wind and gleefully launch into an intensive exploration of giallo trope, ensuring that anyone desperate for an obvious answer to the mysteries of this labyrinthine film will be sorely disappointed. Though Strange Colour does throw narrative scraps to the audience, ensuring that some vague concept of what’s going on is there, as a whole it’s more connected by theme. Obsession and passion appear at every twist and turn, whilst death and violence follow hot on their heels. The French auteurs cleverly leave little time for reflection or digestion; the symbols and ultra-violence come thick and fast in a Freudian head-fuck sure to fill numerous forums with panicked jibber-jabber as to what it’s all about.

This is a film populated by the ghosts of the giallo genre: sex mad sirens and murderous she-witches hide in the shadows of the gorgeous flat block, whilst killers in black leather seems to erupt out the walls to orchestrate scenes of visceral brutality with shimmering cut-throat razors. It’s been a while since stabbing looked this brutal. Arguably the skilled duo are covering a lot of the ground they did in Amer and even though it never comes across as tired, it would be interesting to see something totally different next.

Strange Colour actually surpasses all Cattet and Forzani’s previous works in terms of cinematography and sound. The rich day-glow noir that so excellently served their purposes in Amer and their entry to The ABC’s of Death (O is for Orgasm), is here perfected. The sound is rich, intrusive, stunning, and arguably more intimidating than any visual in the feature. The talented duo should beware that their strong sense of style has the capacity to get in the way of other aspects of the film. Long sequences of more vanguard imagery and narrative have the potential to detract rather than add to the film as a whole. In a feature so proud to leave its narrative unannounced for the viewer’s delectation, it is still possible to push the confusion too far.

Vagina-shaped stab wounds, black fedoras, mysterious figures in red veils, its all here in this lovingly told uber-giallo feature. By the end you won’t really know what’s happening, but that doesn’t matter.  Every shot is perfect, every sound so tangible it makes your skin crawl, whilst the confusion and horror at its heart make it one of the most entrancing experiences you’ll have this year.

★★★★☆

Scott Clark

Masters Of Cinema Blu-ray Review - Serpico (1973)

Genre:
Crime, Drama, Biography
Distributor:
Eureka! Entertainment
Rating: 18
BD Release Date:
24th February 2014 (UK)
Director:
Sidney Lumet
Cast:
Al Pacion, Jack Keghoe, John Randolph, Barbara Eda-Young
Buy: SERPICO (Masters of Cinema) (Blu-ray)

Serpico is one of the crowning achievements in two careers, which had plenty the director Sidney Lumet, and the film’s star Al Pacino. It came off the heels of Sidney Lumet’s little seen but brilliant Sean Connery cop film The Offence and Pacino’s star making role in The Godfather and his equally great performance in Scarecrow.

Al Pacino shines as the title character of Frank Serpico, who starts life out as a uniformed police officer. He gradually discovers a world of police corruption and plans to blow it open. Serpico becomes increasingly idiosyncratic such as read literature not associated with a police officer and basically becomes a hippie. His behaviour makes his partners, superiors to be suspicious of him cause he refuses to take any payoffs. They eventually start to threaten his life.

Sidney Lumet was the undisputedly the king of gritty New York realism and Serpico was the beginning of what would make his name despite working since the 1950s and making many great films by this time. It’s both a pioneering cop film and a brilliant examination of a man who is a flawed moral crusader. Serpico along with The French Connection became the blueprint for the gritty realistic cop film we now know and love today.

The film is also very much a product of the time. It’s a film made at the climax of the Vietnam War, Watergate and the death of the Hippie dream. Lumet was always a political director even though his politics never made his films inaccessible to people of the left or the right is evident in the right leaning Tea Party appropriation of the “I’m not gonna take it anymore” line from his later 70s masterpiece Network despite his liberal politics. It could also just be there were fewer films then and people of all political persuasions would see what was new.

Lumet would return to the topic of police corrupt in the New York police force in later films such as Prince of the City and Q & A but he never bettered Serpico on the subject. Pacino and Lumet really were at the top of the game; both star and actor rarely put a put a foot wrong in the 70s. The most amazing thing about the film is that Pacino and Lumet topped it with their next collaboration Dog Day Afternoon but that’s a different story altogether.

★★★★½

Ian Schultz

DVD Review - The Last Days (Los últimos días)

Masters Of Cinema Blu-ray Review - Roma (1972)

Genre:
Comedy, Drama, World Cinema
Distributor:
Eureka! Entertainment
BD Release Date:
24th February 2014 (UK)
Rating:15
Director:
Federico Fellini
Cast:
Britta Barnes, Peter Gonzales Falcon, Fiona Florence
buy: ROMA (Masters of Cinema) (Blu-ray)
Roma is one of Fellini’s most ambitious films but also one of his most narratively lacking, which at times can be extremely frustrating. It was released the year before the similar but more narrative led Amarcord, which is considered among his finest and rightfully so. Both films however deal with the rise of fascism in Italy during the 30s and both present a snapshot of the place it’s set.

Roma is a fragmented and at times surrealistic look at the city of Rome. Half of the narrative deals with young Fellini arriving in Rome during the Mussolini years. The other half is set during present day, which concerns Fellini (played by himself) making a film about the city of Rome. This is not untypical of Fellini’s films especially 8 ½, which is one of the great examples of film being an imitation of the director’s life.

The film’s lack of narrative can be confusing at times which can become irritating, but Fellini is one of those director’s whose images are so hypnotic that it somehow works. Fellini is also one of the most compassionate directors and he loves every character in his films greatly, no matter the social circumstances of them. Fellini’s films are often called grotesque but I’ve always found they just reflected his reality. It’s always worth noting Fellini was a cartoonist and that shaped how he saw the world, not unlike his obvious successor Terry Gilliam.

It’s Fellini in his most indulgent but even that is much better than most other people’s films, and it’s a fun satirical romp though Rome. The comparison between the Catholic fashion show and the brothel is one of Fellini’s finest moments in a career of many. The disc boosts a great transfer and an interview with Chris Wagstaff (lecturer in Italian cinema) along with roughly 20 minutes of deleted scenes and Italian and international trailers.

★★★★☆

Ian Schultz

Blu-ray Review - The Killers (1964)

Genre:
Thriller, Crime
Distributor:
Arrow Academy
Rating: 18
BD Release Date:
24th February 2014 (UK)
Director:
Don Siegel
Cast:
Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, John Cassavetes
Buy:The Killers [Blu-ray]
Ernest Hemingway’s The Killers has been adapted into 3 films for the silver year, first by Richard Siodmak in 1946, the second by Andrei Tarkovsky as a student film and finally by Don Siegel in 1964. They were all masters of cinema in their own way and all 3 films are very different. The Siodmak version is noted as the only adaptation of his work Hemingway admired before his eventual suicide.

The plot is about as basic as you can get: two hit men - Charlie (Lee Marvin) and Lee (Clu Gulager) - are hired to kill a teacher Johnny North (John Cassavetes). They are shocked when he tries to flee the scene and accepts his fate quite calmly. The two hit men investigate to find out why he accepted his fate and Johnny’s story is told in a series of flashbacks.

The Killers is probably most well known for two reasons. The first is it was set to be the very first TV movie and Arrow has kindly included widescreen and full screen aspect ratios in this release. The Killers, however, was deemed too violent for television so it was originally released theatrically in Europe where it was a bit of hit; Lee Marvin won a joint Bafta for his work on this and the overrated Cat Ballou. It was eventually released in the US but a few years after Europe.

It’s also widely known for being Ronald Reagan’s last ever film before he decided to go into politics which eventually lead to his election as President. Reagan plays a mobster and absolutely hated the fact he agreed to be in the film because he slaps Angie Dickinson’s character. In reality it was basically the only role Reagan could get because everyone realised he was a pretty woeful actor then. During the early to mid 80s, a famous shot of Reagan with a gun was used numerous times for flyers and posters for loads of hardcore punk gigs.

The early 60s to mid 60s in American cinema was a fascinating time for film despite what many critics might say. The remnants of film noir were still in the air and it can be argued that it didn’t fully stop till the death of JFK. It is rumoured that Angie Dickinson heard the news during the shooting of The Killers and she supposedly had a bit of a fling with him as well. Films were starting to become more violent and explicit and The Killers was one of the first before the so-called ground zero moment of Bonnie & Clyde in 1967, along with some films such as Shock Corridor, Seconds and the work of Roger Corman.

Lee Marvin had been in supporting roles for most of his career before The Killers so he was eager for a meatier role and he considered it one of his best. It can be said his great performance in this could be considered a dry run for his cooler than ice character of Walker in the 1967’s masterpiece Point Blank. John Cassavetes, who had already started directing his independent films that he became better known for, gives one of his finest on screen performances as Johnny North.

The Killers has become something of a minor cult classic over the years and rightfully so: it’s a great slice of neo-noir coming at the tail end of film noir. Lee Marvin is as cool as you can get. Don Siegel’s direction is spot on as usual and it’s always a riot to see Ronald Reagan’s performance as mob boss Jack Browning. The disc also includes 3 interviews - one on Lee Marvin’s career, one on Reagan’s acting career and archive one with Mr. Siegel himself.

★★★★★

Ian Schultz

Blu-Ray Review - Phantom Of The Paradise (1974)

Genre:
Fantasy, Horror, Comedy
Distributor:
Arrow Video
Rating: 15
Director:
Brian DePalma
Cast:
Paul Williams, William Finley, Jessica Harper
Buy: Phantom of the Paradise Steelbook [Blu-ray]

Phantom of the Paradise came out after Brian De Palma’s Sisters which was inspired by Alfred Hitchcock and Georges Franju. It also predated the glam rock meets horror film musical The Rocky Horror Picture Show in which comparisons can easily be made. It’s also one of De Palma’s finest films to date; only some of the later films like Carrie, Blow Out (his masterpiece) or his most widely known film Scarface transcend it.

It’s partly inspired by Phantom of the Opera, but what’s probably a more noticeable inspiration is the old tale of Faust. Cinema has been retelling the story of Faust since the early days of film- from Murnau’s film of Faust to Terry Gilliam’s Dr. Parnassus. It’s also a biting satire on the music business with the Devil incarnated as Paul Williams, the record label boss of Swan, who also wrote all the film’s songs.

William Finley - who has been working with De Palma since his student film days - plays the Phantom. The Phantom starts out life as a Randy Newman, an Elton John type character or indeed any early 70s singer/songwriter type named Winslow Leach. Swan likes Randy’s music, and in turn decides to steal it because he needs a catalyst to open his new venue The Paradise. Winslow objects and is thrown into jail but escapes and attempts to destroy the record label's pressing of the cover of his song. Following Winslow's disfiguration from his accident, he becomes the phantom and begins to seek revenge.

It would be unfair not to mention Gerrit Graham’s stellar performance as Beef; the ridiculously camp rock n roll diva who is set to headline The Paradise. One of the film’s greatest gimmicks are the band’s that Swan manages, changing names and styles throughout - from the Juicy Fruits (50s nostalgia band) to The Undead (Alice Cooper esq. rock) – they are all the same band. Jessica Harper, who actually starred in the quasi sequel to Rocky Horror Shock Treatment, plays the young singer the Phantom is trying to pursue.

Jack Fisk, who is one of the most well respected production designers in the business, designed the film. He is married to Sissy Spacek (who is credited as a set dresser on the film) and has worked with Terrence Malick, PT Anderson, David Lynch et el. It’s beautifully designed with bright colourful sets, and it’s also one of the best shot films of De Palma’s career with great use of fish eye lenses, long takes and split screen - all techniques of which De Palma made his name, while it even includes one if not the best on-screen parody of the shower scene in Psycho.

Phantom of the Paradise was very ahead of its time, coming out before Glam Rock became big in the US due to massive success of Kiss, who have been accused of ripping off the Undead’s makeup. Over the years it’s gained a rabid cult following with notable fans including Quentin Tarantino and Guillermo Del Toro. It’s also one of the most scathing attacks on the music business in film history. The reception and the film’s lack of commercial success may be due to the its tone, which is extremely zany in a Sam Raimi-esque way, but the next scene can be a slice of gothic horror.

The disc includes a great documentary on the film, which was previously only available on the French special editions (where the film was a big hit). The biggest new extra is a fantastic 70-minute interview with Guillermo Del Toro interviewing Paul Williams. Typically of Arrow, the transfer and sound is top notch.

★★★★1/2

Ian Schultz