Each month we explore pop culture (we kind of have to, it's in our title), 80's and 90's nostalgia, movie and TV trends, old school toys & games, tropes, urban myths, and more. Commentary, criticisms, and opinions abound. Stick around, you might just be entertained.
I started watching DJANGO UNCHAINED tonight and something occurred to me about how we interpret and react to violence in film: it's all about how they treat the blood. This had never occurred to me before, because I had never seen a film like DJANGO. When it comes to blood, DJANGO UNCHAINED is like two completely separate movies meant to illicit two very different reactions from the audience. Tarantino has essentially created a film which compares and contrasts how the treatment of violence (symbolized by the blood) effects an audience's reaction to violence in film.
WARNING!!! The scenes below contain violence and spoilers!!!! Watch only if you have seen DJANGO UNCHAINED and want to examine how Tarantino films violence.
Scene 1
Mandingo fight - Tarantino doesn't pull any punches with showing the desperation and brutality of the fighters (and the men who want them to fight) and makes sure that the audience is repulsed by the display of not only the fighters, but of the men who are watching them fight. The blood is used sparingly, but looks so realistic that we as an audience are empathetic to the plight of the slaves forced to fight for their lives because their anguish and the damage they inflict on each other doesn't "look fake." There are no sprays of gore, just two men covered in blood, fighting each other in an attempt not to shed any more blood themselves.
Scene 2
The Shootout - This scene is the complete opposite in both tone and blood consistency. Look at how Tarantino sprays blood from bullet hits like the human body was a pressurized blood cannon. The violence here is supposed to elicit a cathartic effect from the audience. We have seen these men fight slaves to the death and beat women. We have listened to them espouse their insane world views at length. We want revenge.
There are many more examples within DJANGO of how Tarantino conducts the audience's emotional reaction as if he were leading an orchestra. He is a master showman at the top of his form and he wants us to see the brutality of slavery (by using realistic violence and blood) and to cheer as the slave drivers are killed by Django (by turning humans into blood bags filled with explosives). Even after all these years Tarantino has something new to show us if we are willing to go along for his crazy self-referential ride. Thank you, Mr. Tarantino.
I really thought that this was going to be easier to write.
I have strong opinions on how to remake a horror film and I loved the new EVIL DEAD. This blog post should be a cinch.
But it hasn't.
In all honesty, I think I (for once) have too many opinions. Remakes are so despised by the horror community that I really feel like I need to come to their defense. And the only way to do that is to be far more verbose than I like to be on a day to day basis. Don't worry...I'll put in a lot of pictures and videos to break up the monotony.
PART I
In Which I Defend Remakes
I don't hate remakes.
Whoa!! Put down your torches and pitchforks. Let me explain.
I'm not saying I love all remakes. PSYCHO was terrible. THE HITCHER sucked. THE STEPFATHER? Hunka hunka burnin' suck. However, the main issue was that these films was that they were carbon copies of much better films, not that they were remakes The original version of THE HITCHER was a twisty Psychological cat and mouse game with an emphasis on suspense. The remake loses the subtext, tells the exact same story, and throws us a curve ball by.......making the protagonist a woman. Whoa!!! Also, Sean Bean is no Rutger Hauer. The remake of PSYCHO is even worse because it changes nothing. NOTHING!!! It is a shot for shot remake of one of Hitchcock's greatest movies.,,,starring Vince "The Break-up" Vaughn.
Image Source: scifinow.co.uk
In my opinion, good remakes subvert an audiences expectations by playing with their knowledge of the previous films, putting a new spin on the villain's motives, or taking the material into new directions while paying homage to the films that came before. For example, everyone who has seen the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre knows what happens when the teens pick up The Hitchhiker at the beginning of the movie. Imagine my surprise when I started to watch the remake and The Hitchhiker is not a member of the family, it is a young victim of the Chainsaw Family who commits suicide in the teens' car to avoid getting caught. After this scene I had no idea what to expect and, even though the rest of the movie plays out fairly similarly to the original, the fact that the screenwriter took the intro in a new direction kept me off balance for the entire film.
Image Source:Badassdigest.com
The term "remake" is also hard to properly define as it relates to the horror genre. Aren't many horror movie "sequels" glorified remakes of the movies that came before? Think about it, whether you are talking about Nightmare on Elm Street, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, or Friday the 13th, every sequel is essentially a remake of the first film in that series with new victims. Some of the details may change, but the stories are always very familiar because audiences love familiarity. Teens go where they shouldn't. Teens have sex. Teens get slaughtered. One last teen "defeats" the killer and either gets signed to the sequel or starts hitting the convention circuit.
Part III
In Which I Express My Love of THE EVIL DEAD
Which brings me to THE EVIL DEAD.
Simply put, I loved this movie. EVIL DEAD (2013) took everything I knew about the original and turned it upside down, while giving us small winks and nods to remind us that we were in the same universe that Ash Williams had visited back in 1981. The filmmakers knew that they were going to be in trouble with fans if they created a carbon copy, and so they immediately dropped many of the things associated with EVIL DEAD: the humor, the look of the Deadites, the cheesy dialogue, and, most importantly, Ash. I think the absence of any version of Bruce Campbell's iconic schmo/hero enabled EVIL DEAD to tell a new story and cut its own bloody swath while standing on its own Deadite feet more than any other story choice they could have made.
Don't worry, the new film pays homage where necessary...but many of these scenes are subtle. In fact, in many cases, the homage is use of old sound effects or the presence of important weapons or modes of transportation. Even scenes that reference the original are so tonally different that they feel like a true plot-point rather than lip service for the fans. Most importantly, the set-up of five friends going to the woods has been updated for an age when people can party at home...they really don't need to drive into the middle of nowhere to get drunk and have sex. Instead we have five friends coming together to help our heroine, Mia, kick her drug habit. This creates a completely new scenario and also makes it more plausible when the friends decide to ignore her claims of "evil in the woods."
Of course, all the clever scripting in the world couldn't save an EVIL DEAD movie if the special effects sucked. And, thank god, they don't. The filmmakers chose to go old school and keep the effects practical, visceral, and bathed in gore. I have never seen a movie on the big screen that so gleefully cut its stars to ribbons and unapologetically sprays them with fake blood and other fluids. I won't spoil anything for those who haven't seen it, but self mutilation is the word of the day, and I don't think the fake blood industry is going out of business anytime soon.
My only minor quibble comes with the ending. Something felt off, and I don't know what it was, The final fight really came out of left-field and felt out of place with the tone of the rest of the movie. Suddenly I felt like I was watching the final fight in TERMINATOR, but the T-800 was recast as a demon with no nipples. The ending also felt rushed. The screen cut to black almost immediately after the fight had finished. No pause to reflect, no additional plot point, just a hard cut to black. For some reason this bugged me, although I have a feeling that more ending was shot and not used. I guess I'll have to wait for the Blu Ray.
And, believe me, when EVIL DEAD crawls onto Blu later this year, I'm definitely visiting these woods again.
Trailers are supposed to sell a movie to an audience. A good trailer gives you information as well as making you ask questions that can only be answered by seeing the movie. In some instances, the trailer just makes you ask questions....and that's okay too. However, the trailer should ALWAYS be an accurate representation of the movie you are about to watch. If you are selling the movie as creepy it better be damn creepy.
The trailers below are perfect examples of how to sell great (and not-so-great) movies to a wide audience. Take note, Hollywood, this is how you do it right.
5) THE SHINING - The trailer for THE SHINING doesn't have any meaningful footage from the movie, and doesn't let you know anything about the plot. It is just a shot of elevator doors opening and blood filling a hallway. If I were in a theater watching that trailer I would be positive that Kubrick had just made a movie comprised of menstrual symbolism and nothing else. Of course, I would also want to know more. Kubrick wins.
4) THE HILLS HAVE EYES II - And then there's THE HILLS HAVE EYES II trailer. This trailer got me so excited for this movie. Everything works: the music, the camera work....it even manages to have a "surprise ending." I loved the remake and was so convinced after seeing the trailer that this was going to be a worthy follow up. Boy was I wrong. This trailer is so good that it makes the failure of the movie even more annoying.
3) GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO - The music makes this trailer. I also have to give them massive credit for making the tagline "The feel bad movie of Christmas." Unfortunately, I think this backfired and turned off a lot of moviegoers. I thought it was genius.
2) KILL BILL - This trailer copies the old 1970's era trailers perfectly. It is way too long and gives away waaaay too much of the plot. However, it is so perfect in its execution that I had to put it on the list. Plus, you have to love that font at the end.
1) THANKSGIVING - Sometimes a trailer makes you wish a movie existed. THANKSGIVING is a fake trailer for a fake movie that will probably never get made. Thankfully everything that would have kicked ass in the movie is probably already in this trailer. As a huge fan of 1980's horror I was especially impressed with the 80's sounding voiceover provided by Roth himself.
I still remember when Nick at Nite (which used to show classic shows like MR. ED and THE MANY LOVES OF DOBIE GILLIS instead of FAMILY MATTERS reruns) started showing THE BEST OF SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE. My family taped every episode and I watched them religiously. I devoured every skit. I couldn't believe how funny they were. Every skit was a classic.
Imagine my shock when I finally bought the first season of SNL on DVD and realized that the "great" skits were a veeery minor part of each episode. In fact THE BEST OF had been culled from the entire first five year run, so each episode had maybe one or two of those sketches at most. The rest? Well, let's just say that there is a reason they weren't part of THE BEST OF.
As the years went on, I have kept up with SNL regularly. I would say that I am still a huge fan of SNL, but I believe that their niche is also their downfall. Because so much of their schtick is commenting on current events and not character driven, the skits become irrelevant almost immediately. For example, I love THE MILEY CYRUS SHOW....but it doesn't hold up. It was a product of that brief moment in time when Cyrus was famous for something besides side-boob. And, in ten years, the skit won't make sense at all. Believe me, my kids will not get who Miley Cyrus is, nor will they probably care. In contrast, we can still watch The Coneheads or Debbie Downer sketches because they are character driven, and therefore more universally understood.
In contrast, shows like KIDS IN THE HALL and (more recently) PORTLANDIA never become irrelevant or stale because their comedy is almost entirely character driven and based upon realistic scenarios and worlds that we are given glimpses into. When Bruce McCulloch and Scott Thompson play the over the hill and bored husband and wife who mistake their son's drugs for meal capsules we laugh because we know these people. They are archetypes of every middle-aged suburban married couple who have ever lived. As a result, their trials and tribulations are not only relateable but universal. They don't just happen in Ontario.
Since the fall of THE KIDS IN THE HALL there hasn't been a lot of character based sketch comedy. I almost put TIM AND ERIC AWESOME SHOW, GREAT JOB! into this category because of their fascination with cable access culture and the weirdos that make up that subgroup....but so much of their humor keeps you at arm's length that I have a hard time categorizing them as "universal." PORTLANDIA really is the first skit that I truly feel creates a world that feels real....while maintaining the more absurdist elements of KIDS IN THE HALL or TIM AND ERIC.
The "Put a Bird on it" Sketch is a perfect example of what I am talking about. Odd but relatable. Everyone knows someone crafty who thinks that adding birds or some other small animal to a cloth bag or vase makes it "art." These things are all over Etsy. The familiarity invites us into these odd character's world, so when things take a turn toward the strange when they encounter a real bird, we continue to laugh and stay invested. Because we have bought into the premise, even when things get weird we do not feel like the sketch has gone off the rails because of the well established authenticity.
So, while I commend SNL for continuing to stay relevant in a time when the world of home entertainment is changing on a day to day basis, I also feel like it might be time for the writers of SNL to take a step back and look at how the world of humor is also changing. The rise of KITH, PORTLANDIA, and (in film) Judd Apatow have shown us that humor can come from small day to day occurrences. From the people around us. Topical humor and pop culture references have their place in comedy.....but they certainly don't age well. Sorry Miley Cyrus.
