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night one: ‘near dark’. [halloween movie fest, 2016.]

By • On • In another day. another movie., hmf16, movies, scott, vampires • 1 min read

 “Boy, you people sure stay up late.”

“We keep odd hours.”

And we’re off! Night one kicks off with Kathryn Bigelow’s cult classic about a guy who tries to convince a young lady to engage in some casual sex, and as these things often go, she turns out to be a vampire. Our young cowboy finds himself thrown in with a gang of asshole vampires who terrorize bar-flys, truck drivers, and hitchhikers along remote portions of Texas and Oklahoma highway.

The film is pretty to look at, and it’s easy to see the DNA of a directing style that would eventually win Bigelow a ton of awards for The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty. 

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Critics liked Near Dark, and as I already mentioned, it became a cult classic. In some ways, I can see why. The idea itself was an interesting take on both vampire movies and neo-westerns, and at times it delighted in its own violent mayhem. It also featured a synth soundtrack by Tangerine Dream that had some great moments.

However, overall, this one was just too nonsensical in all the wrong ways for me. The writing and story just didn’t hold together at all. It was erratic and silly, but to me it didn’t seem to be so intentionally. Everyone has the sorts of holes and weaknesses that prohibit enjoyment, and Near Dark had too many for me.

If anyone wants to have a specific conversation about what didn’t work for me in Near Dark, I’m game. I just didn’t want to go on and on bitching about it in this post. That’s just not what I want RtM to be. I’m also totally down if someone who loves this movie wants to enlighten me concerning its virtues. I would genuinely enjoy learning to see it through a fan’s eyes.

Will I Ever Watch It Again? No. There’s definitely something I’m missing. It’s got a big following of folks who love it and rewatch it, so I’ll leave them to it.

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primer for vampire movie fest [halloween movie fest, 2016.]

By • On • In another day. another movie., hmf16, movies, scott, vampires • 2 min read

Here we go. Halloween Movie Fest 2016.

First, a primer in part one of this year’s HMF.

As promised, the first half is all vampires. A movie fest within a movie fest. Like the cream in one of those Halloween themed orange and black Oreos, but where the cream filling is actually a monster who will grant you a grotesque immortality if it likes you, or merely exsanguinate you if it doesn’t.

DRACULA (1958)

The mini movie festival within a festival is rooted in last year’s HMF. When I was doing some reading on The Wicker Man after I watched it, I learned that it was a big deal for Christopher Lee to be the understated villain in this (mostly) subdued horror film. Until then he was mostly famous for his role in the Hammer Films Dracula series as the titular vampire.

I’ve never seen any Hammer Films, but they were clearly notable in the history of horror, so I read up on them a bit. The Hammer Films rabbit hole led me to a few other vampire films I’d never heard of, one thing led to another, and I realized that at the very least I was going to need to make half of HMF16 vampire movies.

This is fun for me, because it gives me a style of ‘Another Day, Another Movie’ I haven’t done in quite a while. I love Halloween Movie Fest, but it’s much more varied and diverse than other versions of ‘AD,AM’ I’ve done.

It’s different doing ‘AD,AM’ with a more specific genre, like Westerns or Noir films. It changes the way I watch because I’m focused in on the nuances and boundaries of that genre, whether those boundaries they are heeded or ignored. I start to inhabit the language, style, and palette of that genre. It becomes the story ecosystem I live in for a bit. This pointlessly fun activity gives me this big frame of reference for each film, which is obviously always there, but is easier to see and discern in the context of the geeky rhythm of this sort of endeavor.

The closest I’ve come to this within HMF is zombie films, because the genre is so young and the rules are so clear. Every departure from the tropes is really obvious, every stylistic choice stands out, meaning you need fewer films to really sense what a particular storyteller is trying to do.

Anyway, this year I get to fully add that element back into HMF by watching ten vampire films in ten days.

Next up, night one: Near Dark.

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halloween movie fest 2016!!

By • On • In another day. another movie., hmf16, movies, scott • 1 min read

 

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Sing it with me!

/ It’s the most wonderful tiiiime of the year. When the zombies are lurching and vampires and slurping so we live in feeeeaaar. It’s the most wonderful time of the year. / It’s the hap-happiest season of all. With the slashers all stalking and spirits all walking down your bedroom haaaaallll! /

Absolutely terrible adaptations of Christmas songs aside, October is back and the Halloween season is upon us. For my money, it’s right on time. I mean, it’s always right on time, but this year it’s even righter on time. Yup, it’s so perfectly timed I’m not even using well constructed phraseology anymore.

It’s been such a crazy year for me since Halloween Movie Fest 2015. We live in Brooklyn now, a very recent development, and I miss Seattle terribly. I’m surrounded by strange new things, thousands of miles from my friends and the home I grew to love over the course of nearly a decade.

What better way to feel something familiar than to slip into the tradition of Halloween Movie Fest? I hope it will be the movie-watching equivalent of putting on a perfectly aged sweatshirt on a chilly, rainy afternoon.

This year, there will be an ‘Another Day, Another Movie’ (ad,am) festival within HMF16. Some Inception-level shit. The first 10 of the 20 nights of HMF16 will be a vampire themed version of ad,am. More on that in the post for the first portion of the (mostly) one man movie festival. For now, the important thing is that bloodsuckers will make up half of this year’s list.

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Here are the movies:

Movement 1 – The Vampires

  1. Near Dark
  2. The Lost Boys
  3. A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night
  4. What We Do In the Shadows
  5. Nosferatu the Vampyre
  6. Martin
  7. The Horror of Dracula
  8. Cronos
  9. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
  10. Trouble Every Day

Movement 2 – Everything Else

  1. The Witch
  2. A Tale of Two Sisters
  3. They Look Like People
  4. We Are Still Here
  5. Attack the Block
  6. Kill List
  7. The Hallow
  8. The Invitation
  9. Berberian Sound Studio
  10. Pontypool

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memories of murder.

By • On • In movies, scott • 2 min read

My love affair with “Every Frame a Painting” is no secret. I mean, I’m writing about it on the internet for like the sixth time, so it’s the opposite of a secret. Tony Zhou’s most recent installment is centered on Joon Ho Bong’s Memories of Murder. After watching the video last week Emily and I ended up watching the movie later that day, because obviously.

The film’s story is closely inspired by the first recorded serial killer in South Korean history. It’s my third of Bong’s films following Snowpiercer and The Host, and while I still have plenty of his films to work through I would be really surprised if this doesn’t end up being my favorite. Even this early in the year I would actually be surprised if this wasn’t in my favorite ten films I saw for the first time this year, if not top five.

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Memories of Murder is so visually competent, so beautifully acted, so haunting and powerful. It’s one of those films that I just couldn’t stop thinking about after it ended. It’s amazing that Tony Zhou can show six and a half minutes of a film in a video showcasing its brilliance and still barely scratch the surface. “Every Frame” was showcasing how Bong handles blocking and character positioning in a frame, but that’s just one small part of the amazing technical prowess on display here.

There were probably a dozen scenes I immediately wanted to back up and watch all over again immediately. Roger Ebert used to do this thing with auditoriums full of people where he would watch a movie and freeze it over and over to talk about a given scene or moment, and anyone could yell “freeze” and they would all dissect what was going on. This would be a really great film to do that with.

Also, Kang-ho Song is a fucking international treasure. All the acting in Memories was great, but Song is the highlight. He actually reminds me a lot of Toshiro Mifune. Although Song is physically more of an everyman to Toshiro’s handsome movie star looks, both actors display(ed) an amazing electricity as performers. Understated moments are imbued with an extra intensity and depth; large, crazy performances are layered with an impressive heart and wisdom. Watching either of these guys is a masterclass. I suppose that’s why each man stars in a disproportionate number of my favorite films from a particular country over a certain era.

Also, here is that installment of “Every Frame a Painting”:

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hunt for the wilderpeople. [trailer park.]

By • On • In movies, scott, trailer park • 1 min read

It’s a big day for Taika Waititi fans. First, the spinoff/sequel for What We Do in the Shadows got an official title: We’re Wolves (Get it? Werewolves… We are wolves). He’s apparently going to do that as soon as he wraps on Thor: Ragnarok. Then, the teaser for his Sundance film Hunt for the Wilderpeople came out, and the bit of footage we’ve been gifted looks as great as one would expect.

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keanu. [trailer park.]

By • On • In movies, scott, trailer park • 1 min read

Yup. Yup yup yup.

I already would have been excited/intrigued by what Key and Peele would do for their first big film, but that kitten, though!

Also, two different George Michael songs. That’s my guilty pleasure jam right there.

Put the pussy on the chain wax!

More Key and Peele references, etc. etc.

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high-rise. [trailer park]

By • On • In movies, scott, trailer park • 1 min read

I’ve had several people, most importantly my wife, tell me that they formerly relied on me for their trailer exposure and are now missing out without RtM. I don’t post trailers much anymore because I was wildly inconsistent and it misrepresented which trailers I liked most, because I’d share one when I saw it and found it interesting, but then never get around to posting one I was way more excited about. It’s basically a metaphor for this entire blog, where I write and share less than I’d like just because I’m less consistent (a wild understatement) than I want to be and irrationally care about what that says concerning each shared artifact’s significance to me. I should just ignore that and share stuff when I have the time.

High-Rise is second on my ‘to read’ shelf right now. I’ve been interested in this film for a while, reading about it on movie news sites, and this trailer only increases that interest.

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eight thoughts on ‘the hateful eight’ 70 mm roadshow.

By • On • In 2015, movies, scott • 1 min read

Just in time for the run to end, at least here in Seattle, I finally made it to see the 70mm Roadshow version of The Hateful Eight.

Here are eight thoughts I had about the movie.

1. Ennio Morricone is a god.
2. All movies over two and a half hours long should have an intermission. This one was so great.
3. I really hope Tarantino does another western. He claims he needs to do one more to be a “real” western director, he also still claims he is only going to make two more films in total.
4. It was really interesting watching the film while keeping in mind it was originally a Django sequel. I’m glad Tarantino changed it.
5. I’m pretty sure I would pay money to watch Walton Goggins read a phone book.
6. I really hope more directors start doing the 70mm thing, but if only one did it, it had to be Tarantino.
7. The western is the most misunderstood and underappreciated genre in film.
8. I’m so glad Samuel L. Jackson and Quentin Tarantino found each other.

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