Brains, Blood, Boomsticks, & Broods

So I went rogue and watched a movie without my fellow schlockers. Actually I watched 2, in the blog to follow I’ll put up my thoughts on Part III. Why on earth would I abandon my fellow schlockers? Because this movie violates rule #1 of schlock: I’ve seen it before, and I’m sure quite a few of them had to0.

First off I was nervous. Not about Jason showing up and shoving an icepick into my head, but because I hadn’t seen the original in a a really, really long time. Now *spoiler alert for the original* I remembered his mom was crazy fucked up and killed all the campers, at least I was pretty sure. But I couldn’t remember what the hell happened to Jason and why she was so pissed off. I started off searching the good ole’ webs and then realized “this was the freakin 80s! They had to recap everything.” Sure enough the beginning starts off with the lone survivor from the original having nightmares, which are the perfect segue for the memory challenged or the skip-aheaders. It’s a great way to start and the damn thing just keeps getting better.

Friday the 13th is a freaking classic for a reason and it’s sequel is no slouch in the bedroom either. Teenagers wanna have sex and Jason wants to kill people. You like sex. You like Jason. It’s really a no brainer. The thing about this movie: it’s fun if you’re by yourself and it’s fun with a group of people. You can’t go wrong here, from the tight claustrophobic cropping of the camera to the endless shots of Jason’s feet as he walks around stalking girls in tight shorts and boys with bad hair. There are still some genuine scares, but for the most part it’s all popcorn fodder. If you haven’t seen it in a while throw it on and a hockey mask for good measure, and remember It’s all done now. Mommy is pleased. You’ve done a good job.

4/5 headless moms

What it’s got: Dead campers, soon to be dead campers, psychology, Rolling Rock, the obligatory warning and the obligatory skinny dip, Betsy Palmer, machetes, fluffy dog with a bow in it’s hair, who where’s short shorts?

What it’s missing: Any way for Ginny to not be batshit crazy for the rest of her life

I know. I know. This movie doesn’t belong on this blog. And please believe me when I say I’m not the voice of dissent for the sake of dissenting, but I felt like somebody needed to be the big warning sticker on this movie that said “Save yourself 2 hours”. Right now it has an 8.2 rating on IMDB. For me that’s  something akin to driving down the interstate where you see a nasty accident and miles of cars stopped in anticipation of moving again. A little further down the road you see cars moving freely about to get lodged in the epic traffic jam that is Her. I was moving freely at 8:00. I got my life back at 10:00.

It started off with a tremendous amount of promise like most trips into the Adirondacks on a 4th of July weekend, but about 20 minutes in it became an epic mess of relationship awkwardness. The last line I remember enjoying was “choke me with the dead cat”. After that, I felt like I was a voyeur on the sad pathetic potential of our digitally interwoven future. It’s an excellent premise, and the Director of Photography contributed some pristine moments which question our relationship with these digital devices we carry around, but the medium was ultimately tried, tired, and laughable for it’s didactically trite metaphors.

Looking at Ted, which you do a lot of.

I’m biased. I watch a lot of crap. My wife loves the romantic flicks though. She’s a real sucker for them. In fact in the realm of Venn diagrams our movie overlap is very, very, very, very tiny. So small we tend to agree on parts of movies instead of the whole thing. That said, most movies we watch fall into one of our categories of appreciation. Her failed both of us. We’re not the be all end all, but it’s a pretty big fucking achievement.

I know few people will ever stumble across this post, and fewer still will heed the warning. Regardless here’s some advice on how to prepare yourself:

1) Set the expectation bar to low.

2) Imagine the movie is renamed Watching Ted Twombly’s Face

3) Make lot’s of snacks, bring a book, possibly a video game (whatever kept you company in those quiet awkward moments after your parents got into an argument, that’s pretty much how you’ll spend an hour of the film).

4) Once Scarlett Johansson starts talking (and it hurts to say this), bump it up to 3x speed. She does a fine job, but the “Best Original Screenplay” suggests there were a TON of remakes last year…

Be your own judge (really don’t, just skip the damn thing) but for me it was:

2/5 elevator rides

What it has: Swearing animated figures, boiling tea kettle, ear buds, 100 minutes of awkwardness, dynamic facial gestures by Joaquin Phoenix, an excellent aesthetic sense, weird pants, and a whole new realm of ChatRoulette

What it’s missing: Anything that wasn’t covered in Say Anything, litter, poor folks, body on body intercourse

Howdy schlockianados! I was realized it was 4 years and 2 months ago (give or take a few days) that I laid the Brains, Blood, Boomsticks Scepter down and strayed from writing about the crap we love to watch. Well I can say after two weeks back on the wagon it feels like we’re racing through the woods at night clubbing anything that moves and calling ourselves heroes. I’m not sure what the last sentence means, but I think it means we’re back.

This week continuing our campaign we watched William Friedkin’s Sorcerer (a remake of the French The Wages of Fear). Yeah, it’s the same Friedkin that made The Exorcist (you don’t have to waste time checking IMDB). You probably haven’t heard of it because who the hell would name a flick about assassins, truck drivers hauling nitroglycerin, and super mega explosions Sorcerer is beyond me, and apparently it was beyond his audience too. They all decided to go out and see Star Wars which came out the same week and was aptly enough about an intergalactic laser fight…. hmmmmm… Star Wars… go figure.

Since nobody saw the movie, Friedkin decided to dub it the best film of his career, and the rest of us were too busy wondering if Luke and Leia were ever gonna do it. Turns out Friedkin needed a PR firm to help him with this damn fine film, and we came up with some titles (based on mixed drinks) that really would have helped this movie sell some tickets. In no particular order we recommend: Adios Motherfucker, Truck Punch, Fire Dragon, or CHOMP (Cro-Magnon Haulers of Mortal Peril)… okay so I made the last one up.

Crossing the Bridge

Anyway it turns out it’s a damn fine flick, and to quote one observer “this movie has a lot of truck driving.” The truck driving takes place over some damn fine cinematography though, even if does take quite some time for the story to develop. To be perfectly honest there was a lot of talking going on during the first half hour which made the sub titles hard to read, but overall only affected our empathy for the characters (we had none). The stories pretty clear even though Friedkin works hard to make it seem more complicated than it really is: Some dudes do some bad things. Those dudes flee to South America. Said dudes are out of money and agree to take on a suicide trucking mission so they can get back to drinking and hookers.

We were continually delighted by the well composed cinematography which was punctuated by some fantastic explosions. The scene where the trucks cross the rope bridge is every bit as nail biting as was advertised and probably because it was absolute hell to film. After viewing the film it felt more like a metaphor for the arduous journey it took for Friedkin to complete the movie than the existentialist journey it’s purported to be. The only thing that got this film completed was his absolute desire and love for it. It’s also what probably broke his back as a director, and anyone’s desire to finance his work in the future.

What it has: Explosions!, brilliant cinematography, fire, really weird noses, lot’s of truck driving, watches, Nitroglycerine and quite a few corpses

What is doesn’t have: Sylvester Stallone, any freaking special features (on the DVD), a good title, a brave helicopter pilot, or a good reward (8000 pesos, really?!?!)

Watch it if: You’re a fan of the director, love great cinematography, enjoy well crafted films, have a thing for truck drivers layered in sweat and grime.

I rate it 4/5 pesos (there’s really not much wrong here, it  just wasn’t “perfect”)

What we drank with it:

Adios Motherfucker

3/4 oz Black Velvet

3/4 oz Jack Daniels

1/4 oz Peach Schnapps

1/4 oz grenadine syrup

1/2 oz sweet sour

Shake’em together over ice and hold on to yer titties….

Happy Schlocko de Mayo as we celebrate the triumphant return of schlockfest. The unanimous group selection this week was the aforementioned Who Can Kill A Child? Originally it was released in the US as Island of the Damned, which meant they chopped about five minutes off of it. Now in a group setting you should be warned WCKAC opens with historical footage of Auschwitz, The Vietnam War, famines in Asia and Africa all showing…. you guessed it…. corpses of children. It can be kind of a buzz kill unless your group is prone to short term memory loss, alcoholism, or could kill a child.

Child Killer…

This opening was of course chopped off for the US release because, well we’re Americans, and we couldn’t have our utopian ideals tampered with. All kidding aside this film is an incredible find. Guillermo Del Torro has cited it as influential on Pan’s Labyrinth. There’s nothing plasticized about any of the characters in the film, and there are some really solid performances by the children. You have to be down for 70s pacing and a few excessive attempts at tension building, but overall there’s not much to dislike about this film (and Jake, Pat, & Jen used the slower moments for a some good ole 70s free love). If you’re looking for a good, fun lovin’ slasher you better look elsewhere, however if you’re looking for some key tie-ins to cinema (think Battle Royale meets Night of the Living Dead, with an emphasis on the psychological factor) then give this one a shot.

Line of the evening: “Are these guys supposed to be British?”

“Of course they are, look at their teeth.”

I’d give this one 4/5 Rotisserie Chickens (as an update some members of schlock were curious why this didn’t make a “5”. The following reasons: excessive non-sequitur genocide sequence, extra 15 minutes of pacing they could have left out, they should’ve killed more kids!)

We’ve been supposed to watch this one for a while. In fact almost every week for three months it’s been on the list as the movie to watch. However, it’s always been supplanted by some other director’s dream that couldn’t gurgle above mediocrity. Fearful that all of the buildup would lead to a massive schlockfest meltdown we went for it.

A Cat in the Brain is Fulci’s homage to…. well, Fulci. And dammit, we at schlockfest like Fulci. We like Fulci so much we laid the burden of saving schlockfest squarely on this director’s shoulders. That’s right, schlockfest has hit a low. With the crap we watch it’s a painful event more akin to a marathon. The greatest reward is being able to say you finished, and for some of us that includes a nap. And the only people you can share your victories with are the ones who endured with you.

The movie opens brilliantly, and then gets stuck in a rut it never emerges from. Collectively we decided the biggest issue with the movie was Fulci actually trying to work within a plot. Normally he operates under the pretense of a plot and takes his movies anywhere he pleases. In this instance he operated under the pretense NO plot and somehow got stuck in one. He used the same scenes over and over and over, and just when you thought he wouldn’t do it again… you get it.

He also took an interesting direction in trying to describe his lack of personal sanity, but he doesn’t really succeed there unless you call his failure a personal triumph as an example of insanity. Have I lost you yet? Good. Because that’s the mindset you need to be in to watch this one. It was by far the weakest effort of the three Fulci movies we’ve watched. The other problem I think is that you’re watching a director of a niche genre make reference to his whole catalog of niche films. (Something along the lines of Horror>Foreign Horror>Foreign Horror Schlock>Foreign Horror Schlock Directors>Personal catalogs of that directors films) Though if that’s the case it would be our fault for not watching more Fulci movies…. and I guess that’s a good place to leave it: A Cat in the Brain is for the extremely well seasoned Fulci watcher, hold off until you know all his children by name and what his grandfather’s favorite vineyard is.

What it has: that damn guy with a chainsaw, a cat eating a brain, hypnosis, a piano wire, a really great trailer, token eye scene, gore, and psychosis

What it’s missing: Well… like any good fulci film it has almost everything, even fulci himself

Be warned… it’s a lot slower than the trailer… and wait till you have a few other Fulci’s under your belt.

2.5/5 metronomes