The main reason I started this blog was to catalogue everything I wanted to remember. Primarily, I needed a way to remember my opinions on certain things such as why I did or didn’t like certain movies. I’ve been bad about it the last year or so, but I’m going to start doing quick micro-reviews of movies and books I’ve read each month. If you care, here are my opinions for the month of November.

As a prelude, these reviews are written in reverse order of being consumed. This is because I only started to write them up at the end of the month when I was already forgetting what I did and didn’t like about them!

Books
The Thin Man
I’ve been reading a lot of pulp noir recently, and have been working my way through the complete Dashiell Hammett. The Thin Man is Hammett’s fifth and final book, which is a pity. He was on a great run, almost all of his five novels being classics in hardboiled fiction – and then he just stops.

Anyway, The Thin Man is the story of a wisecracking (what else?) former detective on vacation in his old stomping grounds, New York City. Due to old acquantinces, he quickly gets caught up in the middle of a murder case. It doesn’t really fall to him to crack the case, but in between evening shows on Broadway, large dinners, and even larger numbers of drinks, the case is solved.

This is tied for my favorite of Hammett’s books (the other being Red Harvest). It displays all his greatest strengths – wit, pacing, and a complex but interesting story – without his weaknesses – the appearances of supercriminals, for instance. It’s worth a quick read through, though I’m not sure how “deep” it would be on rereading. But we don’t always need that, do we?

Oryx and Crake
When I started reading this book, I was a little wary. The only other book by Margaret Atwood that I have read is The Handmaid’s Tale which I considered badly written scifi trying it’s hardest to be deep – just amateurish, really, easily corrected had she read more scifi before writing it.

Oryx and Crake, however, is nothing of the sort. It’s a book that will grip you and leave you unable to put it down, with a complex and interesting (though not incredibly original) world. The novel follows one character – Snowman – as he lives in the shattered remains of a postapocalyptic world. Snowman was unfortunate to have been close to the events that caused the end of the world, and is the shepherd of a flock of humans genetically engineered to be, well, naive (although they quickly show signs of overcoming this). The world from before is one of rampant genetic manipulations, constant cyber attachments, and literal walls between the well-to-do scientists and the “pleeblands” (yes, they’re actually called that).

As I said, the book is gripping and interesting – definitely something I recommend reading. This leaves the flaws all the more unfortunate. I think Atwood aims for something loftier than plotboiler fiction, so the incredibly unsubtle ways she goes about that is irritating (see: pleeblands.) She also seems to forget about the possibility of evolution; the ‘genius scientist’ at the center of everything genetically designs creatures to survive after the apocalypse – which would work great, in a vacuum. Surely a genius scientist should know better than that? The book also sometimes felt like it was written straight through, leaving the continuity feeling a bit off (heightened by the next book). So overall: great to read, just don’t think too deeply about it.

The Flood
Captivated by Oryx and Crake, I quickly picked up the sequel only to be cruelly dissapointed. There’s nothing worse you can do in a sequel than change characters and past events. See, in this book you go through the same time period as in Oryx and Crake but seen through the eyes of other characters. And they manage to be intertwined with the characters in the previous book – but somehow never really mentioned there…

Anyway, the book suffers from a brief and infuriatingly boring character section written in a way to ensure the reader skips the passages. Atwood also changes major events and characters from the previous book, making a world previously devoid of people now suspiciously filled with them. And gone is the gripping read: even the characters that are non-boring are kind of uninteresting, and exploring the least interesting part of the world. I definitely would have liked it had Atwood stopped at the end of the last book, leaving the cliffhanger never to be resolved.

The Road
Last on the postapocalyptic novel extravaganza is Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. I’ve never read McCarthy before, but I started this book just after reading The Reader’s Manifesto. One of the main targets in the Manifesto is McCarthy, so I was all set to dislike The Road (note: I love Paul Auster, so the Manifesto doesn’t carry that much weight with me.)

But hey, I’m a convert. McCarthy has a poetic prose that manages to evoke a feeling of the scene with a brutal directness. I don’t know how else you’d write this book without his prose – as the movie disastrously tried to do and failed (see below). The Road is about a father and a son heading south for warmth in a dying world, encountering barbarism and canibalism and worse. But primarily, the story is about survival in a harsh world and the strained relationship between a dying father and a distant yet captivated son. Seriously every paragraph is dedicated to either searching for food, hiding, running, and attempting to bond, practically in that order of frequency.

What’s best about the book is what it doesn’t say. It doesn’t say what happened to the world. It doesn’t say where they are most of the time. It doesn’t say what happened to them in the past. It’s just a story in the here-and-now, managing to communicate the feelings and emotions and sense of the situation these people are in. In case you can’t tell, this is really a great, great book. Which leads to…

Movies
The Road
I saw this movie the most recently but don’t have much to say about it. I’d read The Road the novel in the 24 hours before seeing the movie which created too much dissonance when I watched it; I just couldn’t get in to it. I will say, though, that everything I liked about the book wasn’t here. As I said, the book told a lot through what wasn’t said – the movie was pretty blunt. Also, I don’t know if this is a consequence of the difference in forms but there was a noticeable departure from the themes of the book. McCarthy emphasized the relationship of the father and son, as well as the struggle for survival. The movie emphasized the post-apocalyptic setting, which was not nearly as interesting.

A Serious Man
After watching this movie, my friends and I were taking the parking garage elevator when we overheard someone say, “You know, it was all about the story of Job.” Cue glances between me and my friends and a silent ooooh. Remember that when you go to see it and everything will make more sense. That’s not to say the movie doesn’t make sense when you watch it – you’ll just understand it on a deeper level if you do.

The movie is basically about being middle-class and Jewish in 1970s suburbia. You follow the main character as his life goes from normal to crap, dragging everyone else down with him. The Coen brothers bring their normal sense of dark humor to the absurdity of everyday life, while keeping everything somehow serious. The whole movie is a stylistic continuation of No Country For Old Men, which comes off in a very positive way. You can easily compare this to their earlier dark comedies (Fargo, O Brother Where Art Thou, etc.) and see a definite progression; I’m unable to say how it’s progressing expect everything felt tighter and better placed together. Maybe they just got a better editor?

Fear(s) of the Dark
A French collection of short films by graphic artists from around the world, the theme here is, obviously, fear. Every short film is in black and white (with some splashes of red in one segment – cheater) and some are chopped up and woven between the others. Overall, it’s pretty good but it’s really uneven in quality.

Quickly, the highlights and lowlights: Charles Burns does his usual style, both in terms of illustrations and theme. I love the art, the rest was meh. Blutch has an amazing series of vignettes; his art really conveys the mood better than anyone else. Richard McGuire was the standout, both in terms of story and in terms of using pure blackness and whiteness to convey a story. Finally, Pierre Di Sciullo has a series of uninspired 2D animations combined with dumb, banal monologues.

Solaris
Solaris is one of my favorite books, and on my list of Greatest Science Fiction Ever. I’d heard that the Russian movie was supposed to be a masterpiece, and that the author of the book (Stanislaw Lem) derogatively labeled it ‘erotica in space’. Which it kind of is.

Solaris the book was one of the most creative and original descriptions of alien intelligence and environment that I’ve ever read, and is a meditation on man’s place in nature and the cosmos. Solaris the movie is a meditation on scientists as people, and does well at making the science fiction seem unartificial. Be prepared for a slow and fairly dry movie, but one well worth it. This is one of those intellectual pieces that can only be experienced, not really explained.

The Fly
Luckily, this movie has nothing to do with the original 1958 version of The Fly beyond the idea of a man’s transmutation into a human-fly hybrid. Cronenberg did a great job updating the concept using his signature 1980’s biohorror, with Jeff Goldblum giving a terrifyingly amazing portrayal of the descent from man to (brundle-)fly. Unfortunately, Jeff Goldblum’s meaningless incantations to his computer are typical of early movies that assumed their audience was ignorant of computers – something no longer true today. Overall, a great movie with minor flaws.

American Psycho
I don’t remember much of what I liked or disliked about this movie, honestly. I do remember that Christian Bale managed to bring a lot of character to the movie, even though the whole thing slightly bored me. Also, William Defoe was a detective who repeatedly interviewed Bale; each scene was filmed three times, where Defoe was supposed to either be sure that Bale was a killer, sure he wasn’t, or unsure. It added a lot of real-life uncertainty and unease to each interview, which worked wonderfully.

The Virgin Spring
A simple, solid tale of medieval Norway. I haven’t been sold on some Bergman in the past, but this was worth watching. I suppose what drew me in was the realistic feeling – people wore crappy clothes, lived far apart, and life generally sucked for everyone involved. The nihilistic and psychological undertones throughout the movie were what completed the sense of it being a really good movie.

The Company
The Company is essentially a faux-documentary of a theater company through a few performances. I get bored watching dance for more than a few minutes at a time, so the small dance scenes interspersed with dialogue kept my attention.

New York, I Love You
This is a collection of short films about New York; really, though, it should have been named, “Manhattan, I love you (and Coney Island is alright for old people)”. Some gems, a lot of meh films. It didn’t flow great and didn’t really convey a sense of the character of the city.

A fear of the dark is very debilitating and a constant nuisance. If you no longer want to sleep with the light on each night there is a way in which you can overcome your fears.

What is it about darkness which can set a person’s heart beating faster and trigger sensations of anxiety which have the ability to spread like a grey cloak of mist throughout your physiology? Stories about the “bogey man” come to mind and are instantly dismissed as being completely illogical; even so, the coiled sensation of fear remains. Your logical mind and your emotions agree to differ and each attempts to pursue its own course.

The emotional mind is the one which tends to win. It has an intensity which overrules logic like a steam roller flattening everything which lies in its path. Every time the logical mind raises an arm and makes a rational observation about there being no need to fear the darkness, fear and anxiety surfaces in greater volume of intensity, and uses its force to pull that arm of reason quickly back down once more.

There is one undeniable fact about darkness, which could shed some light on why so many people suffer from such fear. In the dark one cannot see like they can throughout the day or when a light is on. Being unable to see can induce a feeling that one’s control has slipped away; if you feel out of control this in itself gives rise to an awareness of vulnerability, or threat. When your brain perceives something which it construes as threatening, the instinctive fight or flight response is triggered – fear takes over.

Thus some people may be predisposed to a fear of the dark as a side effect of perhaps feeling a loss of control in another aspect of their lives. Others may have developed a fear of darkness due to a bad experience in the past. But no matter what has caused your fear of the dark, it is your brains perception of darkness as being threatening which triggers the fear anxiety response.

With hypnosis you can access the inner workings of your mind and alter the way in which you respond to these types of triggers. Hypnosis is fast becoming known as the very best way in which one can overcome a fear or cure a phobia. Hypnosis is easy to use and easy to learn with the help of a fear of the dark download.

Roseanna Leaton, specialist in hypnosis downloads to help overcome fears and phobias and to promote well-being.

http://www.RoseannaLeaton.com

As the Day of the Dead descends upon us, we here at the Lowell Film Collaborative are giggling with an evil grin, as we have had a frightfully fantastic Halloween season over the past few weeks. It all started with a hugely successful Mill City Mayhem event at Second Wind Cafe on October 24. Then, this past Thursday, we were invited by our friend Nancye Tuttle to be guest speakers at her “Film, Video and Society” class as Middlesex Community College. The lecture was on nothing other than one of our favorite subjects – horror films, and it was an absolute joy to share our passion with a group of (mostly) interested students. On Thursday night, we ventured up to Litchfield, New Hampshire to brave the seven haunted houses of Nightmare New England. And we finished everything off with a Halloween night screening of the horror classic The Exorcist last night at The Music Hall in Portsmouth.

In between these events, we managed to stockpile our Netflix DVD queue with new and classic films that celebrate the season:

• The Black Cat – Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi classic with plenty of meaty lines for both of them to chew on!
• The Innocents – one of our favorite classic horror films of all time with a brilliant performance by star Deborah Kerr
• The Children – creepy new British thriller about children who turn on their parents after catching a mysterious virus
• Dead End – clever and gory film from a few years ago about a family who get lost when they take a new route to visit their relatives
• Splinter – indie film with an original premise about a shape-shifting viral host that traps two couples in a gas station
• Fear(s) of the Dark – brilliant French b/w animated anthology film that delves into our deepest, darkest fear(s)
• Wendigo – Larry Fessenden film about a vacationing family terrorized by a psychotic local and a deep, dark secret
• Long Weekend – 70’s Australian thriller about a camping couple who break some eco-friendly rules, then become victims of Mother Nature’s revenge
• American Zombie – horror comedy mockumentary that examines a time when zombies have been fully integrated into society

It seemed only fitting that the apex of this wonderful season was last night’s screening. As we sat in the theater of the Music Hall watching a film that absolutely scarred me as a child when watching it on television with my parents at six or seven years old, I felt a sense of reluctance even as an adult when watching it – it is truly that terrifying. Brilliant performances by all the actors, especially young Linda Blair as the possessed child, coupled with the fear not only of the unknown but something that challenges the religious beliefs of our society, make The Exorcist a film that can never be rivaled in the frights it evokes. Happy Day of the Dead!

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

Just how high will Cobra rise? Watch the film and find out!

Il Divo

The highly acclaimed film from Italy. Stephen Holden of the New York Times says, “Ranks alongside the best of Martin Scorsese  and Francis Ford Coppola”!

Taking of Pelham 123

Re-make of the 70’s classic! Starring Denzel Washington and a devilishly goateed John Travolta!

Fear(s) of the Dark

Animated tales of terror from the likes of Charles Burns, and others. From producer Guillermo Del Toro.

They Killed Sister Dorothy

The SXSW award winning documentary!

Orphan

So what is wrong with Esther?

Wings of Desire

See my review below in the short list…

A animação francesa Peur(s) Du Noir, ou seja, Medo(s) do Escuro conta diferentes histórias, todas em preto e branco mas criadas com diversas técnicas, que contam alguns dos maiores medos do ser humano. Insetos, ruídos durante a noite, uma grande casa vazia, a agulha de uma injeção, monstros, assassinos, são alguns dos temas dos 10 curtas no total, dirigidos por Charles Burns, Blutch, Pierre di Sciullo, Lorenzo Mattoti, Richard McGuire e Marie Caillou. Pra quem gosta de terror, é imperdível. Confira também o site do projeto .. AQUI.

PEURS DU NOIR (2008) – Medo(s) do escuro

Assisti esse longa Frances  na quinta feira. Um filme interessante. Uma série de cinco curtas de terror e uma animação que fala sobre o medo. As histórias não se interagem mas tem um bom rítimo.  Os roteiros, de modo geral, são medianos, mas as técnicas sensacionais. Os melhores roteiros é da animação de abertura, realmente o destaque do filme, e o último, que apesar de ser um pouco incoerente tem um clima de terror muito bom.

Quanto às técnicas é dificil destacar um. Com forte influencias de quadrinhos pode-se ver de tudo: grafite, nanquim, mangá e até abstrato. Para quem gosta de técnicas de Gestalt e semiótica é um filme imperdível. Pode-se ver que a equipe conhece muito bem a percepção e a utiliza de uma maneria exemplar. Encontramos linhas que se transformam em planos através de movimentos, luz e sombra se fundindo, positivo e negativo… elementos muito bem aplicados na construção gráfica. Se você gosta de filmes graficamentes bem feitos ele é imperdivel, se você é fã de filmes de terror, é um bom filme para passar o tempo.

]]> http://aracnosfilia.wordpress.com/2009/07/27/especial-animamundo-2009-i/ Mon, 27 Jul 2009 00:38:07 +0000 Sergio Brandt http://aracnosfilia.wordpress.com/2009/07/27/especial-animamundo-2009-i/

PEURS DU NOIR (2008) – Medo(s) do escuro

Assisti esse longa Frances  na quinta feira. Um filme interessante. Uma série de cinco curtas de terror e uma animação que fala sobre o medo. As histórias não se interagem mas tem um bom rítimo.  Os roteiros, de modo geral, são medianos, mas as técnicas sensacionais. Os melhores roteiros é da animação de abertura, realmente o destaque do filme, e o último, que apesar de ser um pouco incoerente tem um clima de terror muito bom.

Quanto às técnicas é dificil destacar um. Com forte influencias de quadrinhos pode-se ver de tudo: grafite, nanquim, mangá e até abstrato. Para quem gosta de técnicas de Gestalt e semiótica é um filme imperdível. Pode-se ver que a equipe conhece muito bem a percepção e a utiliza de uma maneria exemplar. Encontramos linhas que se transformam em planos através de movimentos, luz e sombra se fundindo, positivo e negativo… elementos muito bem aplicados na construção gráfica. Se você gosta de filmes graficamentes bem feitos ele é imperdivel, se você é fã de filmes de terror, é um bom filme para passar o tempo.

]]> http://ceebees.wordpress.com/2009/04/18/fears-of-the-dark/ Sun, 19 Apr 2009 00:53:19 +0000 ceebees http://ceebees.wordpress.com/2009/04/18/fears-of-the-dark/

This movie is a compilation of animation shorts from six of the worlds most renowned graphic and comic artists. It is stunning, bizarre, humourus and playful, and a must see! I’m always on the look-out for a great animated film, and I gotta say I’ve never seen anything like this. Each short is black and white, all with very different comic styles, and they each play on nightmarish themes. In between the animated shorts there is a woman’s voice accompanied by simple black and white visuals. She talks about adult fears which are relatable and somewhat comical, creating a nice juxtaposition to the dream-world-esque animations.

You know what it’s like. You’re running late for the pub and you’ve still that bloody podcast to record. So you compromise. You drink while recording. Welcome to this weeks whiskey steeped Comic Cast where we review Daredevil: Brian Michael Bendis & Alex Maleev Omnibus, Sempé’s Nothing is Simple, Alan Moore’s Swamp thing, Tommie Kelly’s Road Crew issue 1 and Road Crew Noir. We also review the new Irish animated filmThe Secret of Kells (in cinemas March 6th) and the DVD release of Fear[s] of the Dark  – a film written and directed by several acclaimed comic book creators and graphic artists, not to mention a big fat exclusive(ish) review of “the unfilmable” Watchmen which turned out to be filmable as we seen it on a big screen made for films.  So settle down, drink up and join us in a place where everybody knows your name – the Comic Cast!

Download Link: The Comic Cast 03/03/09

*NOTE: We cameo in this months edition of the Dystopia comic strip in Totally Dublin in shops now! Our esteemed and humbled thanks to Andrew and Chris Judge. If you’re not from Dublin, you’re Totally Galway for example, click here for the strip online.*

Show Links:

Us at The Secret of Kells premiere

Legend Mick Lally being interviewed at the premiere (3.30) Reporter: “You played Brother Aidan” Lally: “If you say so.”

Sempé’s Nothing is Simple on Amazon

Sempé’s work on the New Yorker’s ComicBank

Road Crew web comic

Fear[s] of the Dark film trailer

Dublin Comic Jam Blog

Best piece of movie merchandise ever?

These are the few choice select I decided to come out for last year. Probably not even 10% of the films, or 25% of the box office numbers, but I prefer burning dutches before Fears of Dark, not burning cash while watching Marley & Me. In chronological order…

Ironman D

Best super-hero movie I’ve seen in the past few years, and considering I’ve only seen the first Spiderman Toby, that doesn’t say much. How the hell can anyone besides 12 year old homo-leaning boys like this nonsense? Don’t you think Robert Downey Jr. would have made more sense playing the drug-riddled, alcoholic, rehab-battling Hancock, and leave Will Smith to play Ironman? Ghostface already used it, so not really uncharted territory. I would rather watch Black Sabbath’s iron man on loop over a black screen instead of Iron Man ever again.

The Dark Knight C

Now the best super-hero movie I’ve seen in the past few years, over Spiderman and Iron Man. Still very childish. I really don’t think I can watch something without cursing. The Gyllenhall twin can’t show off some of those white pasty half-curves? Was there even any blood? Ugh. Didn’t see it in IMAX though, that could have changed everything. At least nobody was poppin’ caps in talkitive motherfuckers at the multiplex the night I was there… Man gets shot in Philadelphia Movieplex

W. B+

First of it’s kind, so it’ll have to do for now. I have more issues with Oliver Stone than Josh hot-streakin’ Brolin. 2 1/2 hours and none of it really felt like it had detail. We need something more on this character than a ‘Best Of’ compilation. Again, not enough cursing. But to say I wasn’t giggling like a motherfucker at Condi and Karl Rove on the big screen nearly-animated would be a lie. Oliver Stone gave it a go-around the first, I say pass the torch onto Kubrich, errr, Altman, errr, Scorsesse (knocks on wood)

Burn After Reading B+

Great mainstream comedy. Yes, this is what I consider mainstream. Coen Brothers showing some true versatality coming off No Country for Old Men and going into this big name government slapstick. I’d give Brad Pitt the Oscar for the fuck of it, only if he accepted it in character that he did in the movie. Ipod headphones, jogging in motion, blowing a chewing gum bubble accepting, would’ve been worth it. I’m probably biased towards the film for DC and Nova getting the filming spots, but so be it.

Fears of the Dark A

Easily the strangest and coolest movie of the year I saw in theatres. Daniel Clowes should really be a more well-known name. The old man with the dogs actually scared me. Barely any filler, highly recommended for annual Halloween viewing.

Doubt A

I’ll forever love Philip Seymour Hoffman for his roles in Happiness, Owning Mahowney, and Boogie Nights, as well as almost a dozen others. He’s picking them so well for the most part, I can let a MI:3 just slide. Just the thought of him as a potentially scandalous Father and Meryl Streep an evil righteous nun had me sold immediately. And there are only a handful of actors/actresses that can make their mark so clear in one and only scene during the film, Christopher Walken in Pulp Fiction is one, and Viola Davis in Doubt is now another. Overall though, like the next two movies as well, acting exceeded the actual film.

Milk B+

Well I never saw Brokeback Mountain, but I did see Milk. I like Gus Van Sant for the most part, like the Coen Brothers he can really spread all over the map with his stuff (not in a gay way.) There were a handful of old men-young men couples in the theatre, could they have been well-educated tricks paying for a history lesson? Maybe father-son duo’s both carrying a secret. Regardless the movie was very entertaining, Sean Penn is either a great actor, or just gay, probably both. Another nice thick notch on the branch for Mr. Brolin. I wouldn’t say it’s as good of a film as The Times of Harvey Milk (the real history lesson,) but with Prop 8 and a broke Cali, anyone can hope the movie does some good besides just sell tickets.

The Wrestler A

In the words of Ric Flair, “Woooooooooooooooo!” In the words of Ashley, who ripped it from Anna…”Oh, Fuck Yeah!” Now this is my kinda fucking movie. Washed-up actor, washed-up wrestler, both of ‘em rolling around in all of it’s white-trash, jersey-trash, cheesy, hideous, beautiful glory. A 50 year old Marisa Tomei is naked half the flick. There’s a hardcore match, then they’re playin’ NES, oh and Darren Aronofsky did it. Notice how I refuse to mention anything about the sentimental aspects that WASTE about 30% of the running time, though I will hastily give credit where credit is due, which goes for Evan Rachel Wood. I think he should win the Oscar this Sunday hands down. I might have to buy Wrestlemania next month, Mickey Rour–I mean Randy the Ram is scheduled to make an apperance.

No A+’s. Still haven’t seen about half the Oscar/IFC nominees, nor the Cannes or Sundance winners. Fuck Slumdog Millionaire, that’s just how I’m feeling.

My worst fears have come true: the French have released an animated horror movie. AHHHHHH!

Peur(s) Du Noir, or Fear(s) of the Dark, suffers the same fate as nearly every graphic novel I’ve seen, the visual artistry is amazing where as the storytelling aspect … epic failure.

The film is made up of six short stories, all of which drag on far too long, that differ from your typical over-the-top slasher flick by appealing to intrinsic fears. Read: unimagiative and predictable.

The black-and-white, high-contrast illustrations are unique and well done, but my mind is blown away how someone could write such a shitty plot. I mean, the story lines in Goosebumps were far more creativity and scary.

I imagine these artists live in the France equivalent to Brooklyn in trendy lofts paid for by their trust funds. They use drugs, but never enough to lose control. While they are talented in the visual arts, (what else would you expect from all those years at art school?) their lack of life experience renders them boring beyond belief.

The standout piece is the last one about a man who escapes a winter storm by finding an abandoned house. Not exactly original, but like the rest of the movie, the animation transends the plot. That is until the end. I mean, come on, accidentally locking yourself in a closet is your fear? Keep trying to kick down that door, asshole!

What pushes the film into the negative column for me is the French pretension. In a few scenes there’s your mandatory strange perversions like the panty shot on the young girl with bugs crawling up her legs and another story where an attack dog umm… attacks a hot dancer by going up her dress.

Worst of all is a reoccurring part featured in between stories where a narrator talks about their fears while abstract art is created on the screen. I’m afraid friends of friends will invite me over to dinner and serve something yucky, I’m afraid of being boring …

Makes me wonder why we ever bailed out the French in the first place.

The movie wasn’t as bad as I make it out to be, it was certainly better than most films out there, but then again most films aren’t worth seeing.

Call it the Persepolis effect. 

Critically acclaimed internationally, Marjane Satrapi’s lyrical adaptation of her graphic novel of the same name has finally made the world (or, rather, the American market) safe for European, black-and-white animated films by alt-cartoonists. But while Satrapi chronicled the horrors of growing up during the Iran-Iraq War, Fear(s) of the Dark is more concerned with exploring existential dread. 

Fear(s) is an anthology of several unconnected vignettes, each conceived and directed by a different artist. Anthologies are nothing new in the world of comix, but the anthology film can be a chore to sit through — especially when a particular segment falls flat. Luckily, Fear(s) boasts some of today’s top graphic storytellers, including American cartoonist Charles Burns (whose stellar Black Hole will soon get the Hollywood treatment — shudder), French master-illustrator Blutch, illustrator Marie Calliou, and animator Richard McGuire, to name a few. Each artist utilizes a completely unique art style, and though some stories are less satisfying than others, none are visually dull.

While narratively unrelated, each story is centered around themes of fear, isolation, and cruelty, and most of the major phobias are represented — sometimes subliminally — to ensure maximum creepiness. The first cringe-inducing (yet beautifully charcoal-rendered) entry, by Blutch, features a sadistic aristocrat leading a pack of snarling, vicious dogs on a hunt for innocent victims. Calliou, who’s big in Japan, follows young Sumako as she copes with both a traumatizing attack by her new schoolmates and the threatening ghost of an evil samurai. McGuire’s section is a textbook example of effective use of negative space (Frank Miller should take notes). Only the white face and hands of our protagonist — a man who stumbles into a haunted house during a blizzard — are visible against the jet-black screen, and the impressive sound design fills in the rest.

Burns’ contribution, my personal favorite, spins what could be a standard Twilight Zone plot into a darkly comic examination of relationship decay. Socially inept science nerd Eric can’t believe his luck when he finally lands a girlfriend, but he soon learns the hard way that sex changes everything — especially when the mysterious, vaginal-looking cut on her arm sprouts a phallic, insect-like appendage soon after doing the deed. The peril of sex is a recurring theme for Burns, who has a habit of giving his characters symbolic deformities to illustrate their inner qualities (the teens of Black Hole contract an STD called “the bug,” which turns them into hideous mutants).

Poetic symbolism is about as frightening as it gets in Fear(s) of the Dark, which doesn’t really inspire much actual fear (though the magnitude of artistic talent involved can be downright scary). Ultimately, Fear(s) is more psychological than psycho-killer. If you’re expecting Saw VI, you’re at the wrong movie … although, if it’s any consolation, I did count at least four decapitated heads.

This animated collection of short films is a visual treat and some great story telling and while it isn’t necessarily that scary of a film, it is a fine compilation of some interesting and creepy tales.
The film is a compilation of six works by the some of the best animators working today, Blutch, Charles Burns, Marie Caillou, Pierre Di Sciullo, Lorenzo Mattotti, and Richard McGuire, and each one takes an interesting look at creepy stories and fears that effect people. Two of the stories serve as more of an interlude in-between the other four more full stories, with each story being fairly different from another. All in black in white, the first bit we get a piece of is one of the interludes which involves a 18th century dressed man leading a group of four angry and snarling wolves/dogs that he may or may not be deliberate letting loose on to people. The next is the second interlude story which simply a voice over explain the things this woman is scared by in the world over a dance of shapes and animated wander all over the screen. The first full story we get is about a boy who while out adventuring and collecting insects, comes across a strange creature which he loses in his room, and might have re-entered his life years later, when he is a lonely, bookish, loser of sorts, just when things begin to look up for him. The second full story follows a young Japanese girl who has just moved into town and after learning of a Samurai ghost story that took place behind her house her nightmares are the key to solving a gruesome incident. Next we have the story of a man who lives in this town where people are turning up grizzly murdered and his suspicions turn towards a friend that seems to know a bit too much about this supposed monster. Lastly, the film closes on the story of a man wandering in the snow who breaks into a seemingly empty house to get out of the cold, only to be haunted by his dreams and maybe more once inside.
All the films look fantastic, each dipping into different styles of animation and storytelling. The wolf/dog segments are the crudest animation in the film, but it suits the story which is just senselessly violent and savage without meaning. A wild-eyed and psychotic protagonist in the dog handler, he operates with no explained meaning or desire, it is unsettling and we are left with little answers. The voice over to changing shapes and images is equally non-explained as the previous mentioned short, but everything is abstract in that we are left to interpret the images and fears of the narrator as both words and images come together on the screen. The story about the loser college kid is the most bizarre, yet oddly normal, story of the bunch. It is pretty much a straight forward telling of ones life and his experiences with the new girl in his life that takes a sci-fi twist by the end. The fear comes from the pitfalls of a bad relationship though, not with the monsters that lurk in the dark. The story of the Asian girl is quite bizarre as with the filmmakers blending dream with reality, fueled by the mind of a teased child that lets her imagination run wild. The story of the monster threatening the town is the most straightforward, and the weak link in the stories, but I still found it enjoyable and engaging and was a nice change of pace at being with a more traditional story. The last short is the best in both animation and storytelling as the look is just beautiful, only animating what little light in the house shines on, the shots with the candles and roaming through the house are just beautiful to look at while also slowly creating an eerie tale as the plot thickens.
In the end Fear(s) of the Dark is a great showing of animation and creepy stories. While nothing in the film is truly scary, it does unsettle you from time to time, and the last story is definitely tenser then many films passed as horror nowadays are. Seek this one out on video in the future if you are a fan of animation or classic ghost stories, because that is the best way to view this compilation, a series of creepy tales you might have overheard sitting around a campfire.
B-

Paredes que crujen en una enorme y solitaria casa vacía. Ruidos inexplicables en la soledad del bosque siniestro. Arañas cepillando con sus patas la piel desnuda. Perros a la caza de incautos en la fría noche. Agujas hipodérmicas secuestradoras de sueños. Vísceras encerradas en botellas de formol… Seis increíbles artistas del cómic y la ilustración prestan sus dibujos al celuloide para crear esta película colectiva de pesadillas oscuras sin color, sólo el blanco, el negro y el gris. Son, ni más ni menos, que Blutch, Charles Burns, Marie Caillou, Pierre Di Sciullo, Lorenzo Mattotti y Richard McGuire.

Miedo a la oscuridad no es un montaje de cortos preexistentes. Las piezas fueron creadas para este proyecto y comparten la visión y el trazo personal de cada autor al servicio de nuestros miedos más profundos, el miedo a lo que no se ve, a aquello que, sin razón, nos aterra. Tampoco es una sucesión secuencial de cada  pieza; sólo cuatro se muestran de modo ininterrumpido, completo ( son las de Burns, Caillou, Mattotti y McGuire), mientras que el trabajo del francés Blutch y el de Di Sciullo recorren todo el film introduciendo el resto de animaciones.
Incluso, alguna se presenta intercalada, no resolviéndose su final hasta los títulos de crédito, aportando cohesión al conjunto.
Un cruel aristócrata y sus perros son el hilo conductor de las demás historias: El precoz científico y sus extraños especímenes, una niña japonesa intimidada por sus fantasmas (propios y ajenos), el hombre que se refugia de una tormenta de nieve en una aterradora casa victoriana, un pueblo italiano asolado por una misteriosa bestia… Pero no quiero de ningún modo adelantar más del contenido del largometraje, lo mejor es verlo sin saber demasiado sobre su argumento. Decir, sin embargo, que lo mejor del film no es la propia narrativa, puesto que las tramas que desarrolla no son excesivamente novedosas dentro del género del terror. Lo más interesante es la calidad artística de cada una de las animaciones, todas muy diferentes y personales, en la que queda patente la variedad trasladada al plano estético de cada creador, pudiendo ver en la cinta desde líneas geométricas en singular movimiento, realismo a base de lápiz y sombras, o trazos más figurativos que van dibujando estas historias intercaladas que transcurren por distintos senderos del terror. Personalmente, me ha gustado mucho el trabajo de Mattotti, pero sobre todo el de Burns con su trazo atormentado, introspectivo, opresivo y su historia digna del mismísimo Kafka.
La película llevaba más de un año dando vueltas por circuitos festivaleros hasta su estreno el pasado 24 de octubre en Estados Unidos bajo el título de Fears of the Dark.

En Europa se presentó en 2007 en el Festival de Roma, y amén de algún pase especial en París o Londres, sigue sin estrenarse en sala comercial alguna. Y en España, pues siquiera hay noticias de un posible doblaje; así que, para los interesados, decir que lo más probable es que haya que esperar a su edición en DVD, y para los impacientes (como la que escribe)… pues, ¡bendito sea internet!

• Trailer del reciente estreno en Estados Unidos:

At its best, Peur(s) du noir is arguably one of the scariest films you’ll have the opportunity to see in theaters this year. The film, a collection of black and white animated shorts brought together by French producers Valérie Schermann and Christophe Jankovic, doesn’t embrace the ultra-violence and gore of the vast majority of movies than come through your local Cineplex. Rather, like the most compelling horror films, the animated segments confront the psychological, revolving, in some form or another, around the titular fear.

The film is a perfect vehicle for Charles Burns’s art. It’s quietly creepy, exploring themes or youth and fear of the body, all while retaining the artist’s iconic aesthetic in a manner that likely would have proven nearly impossible with more traditional animation, all of which no doubt owes a good deal to the fact that Burns played the role of both writer and director of his piece.

Burns’s segment, however, while successful, gives rise to some familiar questions about film adaptations of graphic novels, specifically the upcoming film version of the artist’s magnum opus, Black Hole. In this second part of our interview with the artist, we discuss the project for which Burns has largely opted to remain hands-off.

[Part One]

I don’t know how you can speak about it, at this point, but there is a Black Hole film in production.

It’s out there and I think it’s announced that David Fincher is the director. There’s a new script that’s being written, as we speak, or maybe it’s done now, but my last contact was talking to the script writer who was going to Seattle.

To run around the forests?

Yeah. “You’ll want to take a left on (whatever the street was), and you’ll want to take a right on…” I did a little bit of that. There are a few references in Black Hole that talk about specific places that do exist in Seattle. He was going to do his own detective work. In the end, I gave him a few clues.

Was it ever suggested that you play a larger role in the script writing?

Not really. I guess I could have insisted and said that I wanted to write a script. They would have been open to that, I suppose. On the other hand, I really wanted to move on and work on different projects. For myself, it would have been just looking back and struggling to get something of my own up there. Even working on the animated film, being offered as much complete control as possible, even then it’s always going to be a collaboration. It’s close to my heart, but someone else is animating, someone else is writing those musical notes.

So, in a way, it’s almost easier for you not to play as large a role?

Yeah. I made that decision. I just wanted to put blinders on, move ahead, and work on different things, instead of trying to involve myself that much.

It took you a decade to get Black Hole out into the world. Is that part of the reason you so badly wanted to move on?

Yeah, that’s part of it. That was part of my motivation for working on Fear(s) of the Dark, as well. I was working on a single piece of obsessive work for so long, that I wanted to get out of my little studio and work with other people. I wanted to do something that was different for me. I succeeded at that, which is nice.

Why does it end up being such a lengthy process? Do you go back and edit yourself a lot? Does it just take a long time to do every page?

All of those things. One of the reasons is that I work really slowly—I edit myself a lot. I also start and stop a lot, because I have other projects. I have paying projects, illustrations and such.

And Black Hole was coming out as single issues.

Yeah. It was an issue a year for while there, it seemed like. But yeah, it was always conceived as as a complete book. It was written that way. It was like inching forward.

I assume the Black Hole will be live-action?

Again, I don’t know. The option says it can be whatever they want, so yeah, it can be puppets, for all I know.

Assuming for argument’s sake that it’s real people—reading Black Hole, the visual style is so important—do you think that it will lose something?

I don’t know. There’s some talk about trying to do some sort of movie magic to replicate that, but that’s just conversation. I don’t know if that will be done—if anything will be done. It’s Hollywood, so…

You have one of the most instantly recognizable styles in the medium. I can pick up an issue of, say, The Believer, and instantly recognize one of your pieces. How important was it to develop a clear style?

Well, it was just something that I gradually built on. It was not something I did intentionally. It was more just a matter of a certain look that I admired and was trying to figure out, going back to high school and junior high. I looked at certain things and wondered how they made those lines. I finally figured out that they used brushes to make those lines. I started trying to use a brush and went from there.

Do you ever have the desire to try out something radically different?

A little. What I’m working on now is a new comic, which is in color. That brings up a lot of really interesting ways of telling a story. You don’t have to describe the fact that someone has a pink shirt on. There are just elements that you can use as storytelling devices. And I’m also trying something new in the sense that I’m interchanging a couple of different visual styles in the story.

Are you doing the coloring yourself?

Yeah.

Does the fact that you’ve done black and white so long stem from early printing issues, or—

Early on there were a few things that had to do with printing limitations. In the case Black Hole, I just knew that the story had to be in black and white. There was just no question, with the mood and feeling. I love black and white. It’s hard to explain the work I’m doing now, but it’s based in part on Herge’s Tin Tin, which is a book that I grew up with. Color is a very important part of what that book is. So I’ve got a little bit of that Belgian bright, flat colors.

Both Black Hole and the animated shorts are black and white—they’re also horror stories, in some sense. Is the new story a different direction?

It’s not Black Hole, and again, it’s going to be hard to describe. It’s a little bit Tin Tin and William Burroughs [laughs]. How’s that?

So, an adventure story, with centipedes.

With opiates and hallucinations. There’s also a big dose of punk in there, too.

A lot of Burrough’s sci-fi stuff is sort of horror-based.

Yeah.

Is that still a big influence on what you’re continuing to do?

I guess so. There certainly some very horrific imagery in there. I just drew this green fetus creature that’s floating in dirty water. That’s what I just finished. That’s on my drawing table. So, yeah, there’s strong imagery like that. Not the entire story is like that, though.

–Brian Heater

Esperando retomar el hábito de escribir en el blog luego de varios meses desaparecido (por culpa del trabajo, Andy Samberg y the Office) , acá les dejo las basofias de esta semana.

Fears of the dark es una peli nueva con 6 historias de terror ilustradas por Blutch, Charles Burns, Marie Caillou, Pierre Di Sciullo, Lorenzo Mattotti y Richard McGuire. Se ve burda de arrecha!

La jalada de bolas de esta semana corresponde a Art Spiegelman (como cosa rara) y a su nuevo libro Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&*! . Son reimpresiones de trabajos del inicio de su carrera y se ve burda de arrecho. Para emocionarse más con la idea, acá les dejo un slideshow de una expo llamada Making Comics After Mauschwitz.

Por último, para mojarle la poncha a Sergio, eboy sacó al mercado PIXORAMA, un libro impreso en cartulina con 8 de sus pixelart de ciudades (Foobar, London, Assembler, New York, Superbronco, Tokyo, Baltimore and LA.). Lo pueden comprar acá (si tienen 18 euros o si todavía tienen dolares de CADIVI)

It’s my blog, because I felt that I needed one of my own, despite the fact that I already write for a particularly wonderful blog by the name of HodgeBlodge (my friends and I are not big fans of putting spaces between words, as is evidenced by our podcast, “ShowShow“).  That and I’m working towards creating a home for the interviews and reviews that seem to have piled up lately.  You see, I’ve been in contact with a bunch of PR people during the last month or so, gathering DVD screeners and interviews in the hopes that one day the podcast could transmogrify itself into something legitimate–a money maker, even–because I, like everyone, enjoy moneys.

So here I am, on the internet, adding unecesssary esses (i.e. “s”ez) to words and blogging about something for which there is no shortage of opinionated discussion.  I, however, live in Southern California and have contacts with studios, so hopefully I can offer up a bit more than the average cinephile on his coffee break at work.

What might I add, you might ask (and thanks for doing so)?

Well first up we have a semi-exclusive interview with Charlie Kaufman and Catherine Keener from the Synecdoche, New York press junket.  The audio is of dubious quality at best and I think it’s perhaps better suited for the printish format.  We’ll also have reviews of the independent, animated horror anthology filmstravaganza Fear(s) of the Dark, the dark comedy Special, the self-released festival favorite Ballast and a number of direct-to-video horror films that are on their way to a local Blockbuster near you.

Plus, more interviews.

And stuff.

This is also going to be another outlet for the abominable ShowShow, which already has a review of Let The Right One In, complete with an interview with the film’s director.  You can find that particular show HERE.

So there.  I wrote another intro to another blog that will surely fall apart in the near future.

Cheers,

Miles

Movies reviewed for the Herald this week:

Zack and Miri Make a Porno.

RocknRolla.

The Pool.

Fear(s) of the Dark.

And for the Seattle Channel, I talk with Nancy Guppy about “political nightmare” movies, including Seven Days in May and Fail-Safe: here.

On KUOW, I talk with Jeannie Yandel about RocknRolla and Changeling: here. Movie talk starts at 33:56.

Last couple of days:

Fear(s) of the Dark (multiple directors, 2007). How easily these omnibus movies can be pointless and insubstantial — but not this one. (full review 10/31)

RocknRolla (Guy Ritchie, 2008). And there’s really going to be a sequel? (full review 10/31)

Horror of Frankenstein (Jimmy Sangster, 1970). It has a bad rep as the only non-Peter Cushing entry in the Hammer Frankensteins, but it’s actually not bad at all. The Baron played by Ralph Bates anticipates the sneering of A Clockwork Orange by a year or so.

Role Models (David Wain, 2008). Can Paul Rudd do anything wrong? Not right now he can’t. (full review 11/7)

I just stumbled upon this movie trailer for a new film called Fear(s) of the Dark, which will be in theaters 10.24.08.

The film includes art by Blutch, Charles Burns, Marie Caillou, Pierre Di Sciullo, Lorenzo Mattotii, and Richard McGuire.