My Journey with Werner Herzog, Part Three

As planned, I've taken a couple of weeks break from my Herzog immersion and been either in the pub or watching slightly more mainstream fare. The Christmas season does take over one's life whether one likes it or not, I'm afraid.

Well, I've finally had a few days to chill out in isolation and psych myself up for more German arthouse cinema so fingers crossed I can get back into the swing of talking about all this mad crazy stuff.

PRECAUTIONS AGAINST FANATICS

So, things start off with something very similar to the last session's short film Last Words, in that we get a bunch of people talking to camera and not making a great deal of sense. Here we get what seem to be young stable hands talking about providing security for a racetrack's horses. Then an insane old man begins walking into the frame to tell the young men to go away but they do their best to ignore him. This eccentric gentleman gets his own turn to talk, of course, and we learn that he's just a punter who has decided he knows all there is to know about horses just because he watches a lot of horse racing.

Or is something else going on?

As I'm coming to realise, nothing feels quite as it seems with Herzog's work. It probably is exactly as it seems, but he manages to create an unsettling atmosphere of uncertainty, which is clever.

The young stable hands don't act completely sane themselves and proceed to repeat certain things just like the subjects of Last Words did and often go off on tangents about flamingos or how their bold chests mean they're trustworthy. As the film went on (the last short in this blog series) I tried to fathom, again like Last Words, what was going on. My theory is that nobody's behind the camera. I think the director asked these people to rehearse their dialogue or simply record their personal thoughts alone, which is why the crazy old man keeps walking into frame unchallenged and addresses the camera.

There's a deep level of irony to all this when you begin to realise that the people providing security against "fanatics" (horse fanatics? I wasn't entirely sure. Perhaps zoophiles. Who knows) aren't perfectly clear of mind and stable (no pun intended) either.

But whereas Last Words was quite eerie and lightly disturbing, Precautions Against Fanatics is very funny and I'm starting to think that some of Herzog's work has since inspired a lot of modern television sketch comedy.

THE ENIGMA OF KASPAR HAUSER

What surprised me the most about The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser was that at first I assumed the mannered mise-en-scène compositions were inspired by Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon but, to give Herzog credit, he beat Mr Kubrick to it by one year. But while Herzog's camera setups and the way he positions his actors brings to mind paintings of the period in the same way that Barry Lyndon does, the cinematography isn't so stylised and lush, instead keeping to the simple lighting techniques of Aguirre, the Wrath of God.

Herzog seems to like treating his fiction work like documentaries and his documentaries like fiction. Or, possibly more accurately, he likes to make documentaries about living subjects but if they've already passed on he'll jolly well write a script and film his documentary with actors instead, thereby unintentionally creating a fictional feature.

The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser is no different.

Actually, even though I'm most likely exaggerating the reality of Herzog's methodology, a lot of modern documentaries are doing this, much to my chagrin.

Anyway, the film starts off with the titular Kaspar sat on a floor carpeted with hay in a bare, stone-walled cell. He's been locked-up in here all his life by his adoptive father who apparently can't afford to raise him properly. This concept was probably quite novel back in 1974 but, much to our grief and horror, this sort of thing does actually happen, only more for purposes of rape or simply for the pleasure of keeping another human being locked-up against their will.

But we only witness the last day or so of Kaspar's incarceration before a man, presumably his captor, carries him out into the wilderness. It's during these scenes in the countryside that we get our first taste of music, the delayed appearance of which is very stirring and reminded me of the similar technique used in Fata Morgana. When that music suddenly swells into our ears after a long period of relative silence it's like we're able to breathe again after being submerged underwater.

I don't know if this is a technique used consciously by Herzog and his team but, well, it certainly seemed to have that effect on me.

To cut a long story short Kaspar is released into a town and looked after and properly raised by a community unsure of the boy's background, mental state or intentions. And I use the term "boy" loosely as, even though I think Kaspar is meant to be in his teenage years, the actor Bruno Schleinstein clearly is not, which makes certain scenes (including one where he shares a bath with a child actor as though he were one himself) rather odd.

It's this initial portion of the film where Kaspar is being questioned about himself by the local authorities that reminded me a lot of Steven Spielberg's style, especially some very similar moments that are mirrored in Amistad. The way in which multiple actors are speaking at once and interrupting one another has the same pace and fearlessness of a Spielberg directed scene. You get that clash of styles: the busy interaction of stage acting combined with the precise, blocked-camera setup of a motion picture. I like this stuff, it's brave and clearly requires much rehearsal (although I can't confirm this happens in either filmmaker's work).

Kaspar goes on to become a literal sideshow freak due to his mysterious upbringing, but only so he can earn a living and contribute to the community which has taken him in. This circus subplot is fortunately limited to only one scene, so the whole film avoids descending into a hellish Elephant Man-esque meditation on exploitation.

The main focus of The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser is, instead, this fresh, unprejudiced mind clashing with a society stifled and regimented with rules and beliefs. Kaspar constantly comes up against opposition as his uncluttered mind sees and understands things in a way that his "peers" do not. They disagree, but Kaspar has little interest in winning them over or being accepted. He is who he is and things are what they are. You can label him and the world around him but you can't change what he and they are.

That's where the film becomes a beautiful tragedy. Bad things do happen to Kaspar but his real sadness doesn't come from physical pain or strife, instead it comes from the utter emptiness and meaningless of life beyond his cell. He describes dreams where the people of the world are walking up a steep hill in thick fog with Death waiting for them at the top; and a tribe of native people being led through the Sahara Desert by a blind man. Kaspar is painfully aware that, even with all the things in life we find to distract ourselves or pass the time or control each other with, we are all simply waiting to die.

Which he does, seemingly to his great relief.

THE GREAT ECSTASY OF WOODCARVER STEINER

Which leads me nicely into the documentary of the evening, which follows the experiences of a young ski jumper (apparently what he does is "ski flying" but to avoid confusion I'll refer to it as jumping) who seems constantly to be seeing through time to his own certain death from the sport he chooses to make a living out of. Actually he doesn't die prematurely, in fact I think he's still alive as of 2014, but that doesn't stop the boy's morbid fatalism from becoming the central theme of the piece.

The mindset of a sportsperson is clearly very fascinating to Herzog, who enthusiastically interviews Walter Steiner after each jump he and his crew film. He wants to hear and understand Steiner's thoughts and feelings as they come to him, which he gets the very bare bones of as, in my opinion, sportspeople don't think very much while they're on the job, which is why I find sport punditry quite baffling. The whole point of sport is to be in the moment, to remove thought from a process and to rely on instinct and body reflexes. Things happen so fast in sport that there really is no time to make a logical, rational decision about anything - which is why a person trains for a sport rather than just reading a book and running out onto the pitch (or, in this case, inrun). But many people, including Herzog, will insist the contrary and find those who lead a life of physicality interesting. I don't, so my interest here is not so much in Steiner's motivations but in Herzog's.

Steiner seems modest and innocent, quiet and sombre, tortured and unsure, but when you see the crowds cheering below him as he flies through the air, or the attractive young women swooning near him in the background of certain shots, the fans asking for autographs and, rather ironically, film crews following him around you realise that, beyond all his personal soul-searching, doubting and threatening to quit, maybe Walter likes the attention and adulation he receives and that's why he keeps doing it.

His motivations are perhaps just as undiagnosed as those of the people watching him. Why do people flock in their hundreds and thousands to watch sporting events? The reason is: expectation. I get the feeling that even though some spectators say they admire the skill and technique of a sport, which is fine, I believe that it's mostly about the expectation of something happening and not the event itself. Will the person they support win? Will they lose? Will there be an accident? Will there be disagreements with the judge, umpire or referee? Will money be won (by both player and pundit)? Will records be broken? Will careers be ended? Will careers be started? All these questions are answered eventually, often within seconds, and the ultimate point of all this expectation is clear after the furore of the event is over and everyone has gone home.

There is none.

NEXT UP: STROSZEK

Guardians of the Galaxy - film review

I'm going to start by saying I think I'm too old for this film. Yes, at 34 years of age I'm too old for Guardians of the Galaxy. I finally get the whole "I am Groot" thing that I've been hearing so much about, which is a relief but it's also not the clever reference I thought it'd be (it's all one of the main characters can say and they say it throughout the entire film - you kids these days are sharp!). I guess that's the small positive I can pull out of this experience - I get the "I am Groot" thing at last.

I'm not sure what the text version of a shrug is but, I assure you, if there was one I'd be typing it now.

Well, I should go into a Star Wars prequel-type rant next about hype and expectations and blah blah blah but, you know what, this is all I've come to expect from these Marvel films. They all get good reviews and I turn up/sit down to watch them and find myself confused as to what everybody else has been seeing.

I've genuinely started to believe that people are watching different films to me.

Captain America? The Avengers? X-Men: First Class? Iron Man? All the same: they're even more flat and two dimensional than their comic book origins with the odd good performance to save it from utter pointlessness. Well, apart from Captain America, I can't remember a damn thing about that one. And don't ask me to go see Thor or The Incredible Hulk. I'm done.

But don't get me wrong, I'm not judging Guardians of the Galaxy as part of a loosely connected series of films, because I really haven't invested enough time in any instalment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe to do that. It just has that same... urgh... you're going to hear me say "flat" a lot in this review, so if you've got a problem with that word or don't get what I mean then it's best to avert your eyes now while there's still time.

So in I go to Guardians of the Galaxy expecting it to be the tonic to my gin of couldn't-give-a-rat's-ass. I'd heard that James Gunn had turned it all around and given us non-believers the first truly unique and inspired Marvel movie.

Has he? Can you all point out which bits those were exactly?

Guardians of the Galaxy is basically The Fifth Element meets Mass Effect 2 (a very good video game that felt like Star Trek: The Next Generation meets Attack of the Clones) meets, hmmm, what's the third thing? I need a third thing. I'll have a think about that and let you know at the end of this review. But the first two really hit the nail on the head. Trust me.

Apart from the fact that they were fun.

And I didn't find Guardians of the Galaxy fun.

Well, a couple of bits maybe.

Since when did screenwriters forget how to disguise exposition in dialogue? I've heard of the phrase "hanging a lantern on it" for when you can't figure out how to write your way out of a corner but is it really necessary for characters to make speech after speech after wearyingly boring speech about their backstory and motivation?

We don't need it.

Mention it once. Invest in a line or two about backstory and motivation and then move on.

But we're not so lucky with Guardians of the Galaxy. If you've not seen it yet then prepare yourself for a script full of footnotes that you won't care to hear and your brain, funnily enough, will naturally ignore.

And that's where one of the film's biggest flaws lies: it's tone. As mentioned above we get a lot of speech making. Serious speech making. Then you get a funny quip here and there. Then you get some violence. Then you get a pratfall.

It goes on like this.

And the funny quips are real bargain basement one-liners too, but in a strange way like they had something funnier originally but for one reason or another they kept changing them as the producers fought over which was the least offensive or something. Now I don't know if that actually happened but that's what it feels like. I get the sense from the ADR work that the actors were fed up with being called back in to re-record their lines for the hundredth time.

Oh the actors. Well let's get right onto that shall we...

They're fine. In fact they're all pretty damn good except for one: our lead. Yes, Chris Pratt is awful. And this comes back to the tone thing again. Is he supposed to be awful? If he was cast based on his work in Parks & Recreation then I don't know how James Gunn and his team were expecting anything else. His character in Parks & Recreation is dumb and insincere but, well, I don't think Mr Pratt is genuinely dumb and insincere in real life but that's what his acting style seems to be regardless of the role.

It's what he does.

He's likeable though, I'll give him that. In the way that he's likeable in, yes, Parks & Recreation, but likeability on its own can't carry the weight of an entire film.

So, yeah, there's another tone problem. Who are we rooting for here? Our lead is likeable but dull but maybe he's supposed to be. Is this a Big Trouble In Little China thing where the protagonist is actually the sidekick but he just doesn't know it? I'm not sure.

Is it all a joke?

The weird thing with this film is that we're constantly being told that our heroes are idiots and useless and deadbeats. But they're not really. They're all actually pretty good at what they do. At no stage do any of our main characters show any weaknesses other than when it's necessary to dispense exposition. Now that's an important point: the character moments in this film are not there to make you connect with them, they're purely there to feed you information.

I know that's kind of the point of dialogue but there's really very little attempt to sugar coat it here.

So what shall I talk about next? Oh yes, let's segue awkwardly into the middle of this review by talking about the beginning of the film. Why is that there? In fact, why do we need the first twenty minutes of this film? We don't really, but it's there because we're all stupid and we need this stuff hammering into our brains.

I didn't like the overly emotional hospital opening, even though it showed the origin of our hero. It just felt out of place and set things off on the wrong foot for me. Perhaps for personal reasons.

So now I've got that unpleasant bit off my chest I'm going to talk about music. The music in this film is great! But it's diagetic. That's right, we can't just have old fashioned music playing on the soundtrack in a science fiction fantasy action adventure, we have to have it explained practically why it's there. Yes, our protagonist has an old walkman with songs his mother used to like and that's why we have old music in the film. It can't just be there, which would have been great, it has to be explained.

Thanks, guys.

So what have I covered so far? Script, Tone. Characters. Opening scene. Music. Well, I think that's about it.

Guardians of the Galaxy is a mess. It has the same special effects you'll see in any film out there at the moment, so I can't really comment on that either positively or negatively. You know what it'll all look like, don't you? So visually it's a mess only with flat, point-and-shoot camerawork (I really wish it was an interesting mess), tonally it's a mess, narratively it's straightforward but ironically could have done with being a mess, the dialogue's boring, the characters are boring, the story's boring (magic orb of death... yawn) but for some reason everybody loves this film but me and a handful of others.

We meet under the bridge at midnight once a month to hold copies of The Fifth Element to our breasts and weep for a time when films still looked and felt interesting even though they were a bit rubbish.

Oh yes, and the third thing this film feels like is Star Trek Into Darkness because while it's well made, has a few fun moments, at least has some real sets and real people in it, it's also dumb, incomprehensible and eventually pointless.

Just utterly, utterly pointless.

Unless you're Marvel, then the point is lots and lots of money.

Or a kid who can now go to school and confuse their teacher by answering "I am Groot" to every question they're asked in class.

Bet that's fun for them.

Sigh.

Oh and John C. Reilly's as bad as always too. I still don't get why people like him. We get multiple scenes of his stone, dull, lifeless face mumbling lines he doesn't seem to care about.

Again... sigh.

I didn't say "flat" too much in the end, did I? Hmmm, I might go back and add some more.

My Journey with Werner Herzog, Part Two

I wasn't planning on doing the next part of this series immediately after the first one, but it appears I'm busy for the next few days and so sitting down for a session might be difficult. Since I enjoyed writing Part One so much I found the prospect of not returning to my blog so soon quite unappealing so, even though I felt a bit drained, at 2000 last night I sat down and cracked on with more Herzog.

LAST WORDS

I'm going to tell you what I thought this short film was about before I look up on the internet what it actually was about and we can see how right or wrong I was.
It's a strange one this one as very little of it makes sense. It's in the same vain as Fata Morgana in that it has images and sounds but they don't seem entirely connected. There's s subject but it's not clearly defined and what we're hearing in the form of dialogue doesn't necessarily relate to that subject. Or is it?

My first impression was that I was watching outtakes from a documentary. Set in Crete we see a local barman, policemen and others repeating lines of dialogue about a disturbed individual. They repeat their lines like the film crew's sound person has asked them to just talk while they check their levels. I can't think of any other reason for it. So Herzog decided to make a short film using these outtakes.

It seems at first they're all talking about a local man who refuses to talk but plays live music in a local bar. He even sings. But he won't talk. Then they seem to be discussing a leper colony and the last person to leave the island, who apparently jumped off the cliff into the see and a church was built next to his last footprint. Then I think there's a story about someone found in an abandoned town or something. I wasn't sure if it was the leper colony or not.

So there seems to be three separate stories being told by these local men in this bizarre, repetitive fashion.

Right, let's look up what it was really about...

Hang on.

Ah, ok, I was wrong - they're all talking about the same person. I genuinely believed the people being interviewed were telling three different stories: one recent, one from recent history and one from ancient history. But there you go.

That's just how weird Last Words is.

I wasn't even sure the man they were talking about appeared on screen but apparently he's the guy with the most dialogue even though he refuses to speak. I thought the point of the film was that we have all these people talking about some disturbed individual(s) even though they, themselves, seem disturbed. I guess you could say it still has that vibe.

I'd definitely file this under "experimental" like Fata Morgana.

Last Words is strange, amusing but nicely shot with softer black and white cinematography than yesterday's short, The Unprecedented Defence of the Fortress Deutschkreuz, but I wonder if that's more to do with the contrasting climates that both films were shot in. The footage from the old leper colony is very evocate and I was hooked by just trying to untangle what everyone was talking about.

Odd.

AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD

So it turns out I've been pronouncing "Aguirre" wrong for years. I thought it rhymed with "attire" but apparently it rhymes with "Akira".

Don't I feel daft!

Anyway, this was the one I was most looking forward to as I do like a gritty, realistic historical drama and this promised to be right up my alley.

It certainly delivered on my expectations of being filled with lush South American countryside and brutal living conditions but I was expecting more steady handed cinematography and carefully framed shots, however this feels more like a modern docu-soap with narration by one of the characters instead of cutaways to talking head interviews.

It's interesting how much this film works against the conventions of movie storytelling as there's barely an arc to what's happening, which makes it feel more like a document than a fictional story. Literally nothing good happens for ninety minutes and the titular Aguirre is as unpleasant as they come from start to finish. He descends into madness but not from being a nice guy - he's a bastard from the get go.

But he's not even the main character, which surprised me. It's more of an ensemble. The closest film reference I can make is an obvious one, which is Apocalypse Now. A bunch of people are on a boat heading down a river not quite knowing what they'll find when they get to their destination - if their destination even exists. They get attacked by the locals and end up going a bit crazy.

Actually, you could almost say Apocalypse Now is a spiritual sequel to this and that Aguirre is very much a Colonel Kurtz figure who Willard is eventually sent to find.

I wasn't sure which language to play the film in. When I got to the DVDs menu it offered the German and English version. Usually the choices aren't so explicitly laid out so I checked the internet and there seems to be some disagreement about which is the one you should watch.

I watched it in German for the first half and then changed it to English, but the English dubbing was so bad (not the quality or synchronisation but the actual acting) that I had to turn it back, which turned out to be the right idea as there seemed to be some inconsistencies with the two tracks which always makes me a bit mistrustful of translations.

When a character gets shot by the indigenous people he declares, in the German version, "The long bows are back in fashion!", but in the English dub he says "I thought it'd hurt more!". Or something to that effect.

Two completely different lines and the first one was a little smarter.

Why did they change it? Who knows, but even though the English dub would have been easier for me to watch I felt more at ease reading the subtitles.

So I think I've said all there is to be said about Aguirre, the Wrath of God really. It's a simple film with a very linear series of events. The feeling of isolation is very intoxicating and you do wonder about the sanity of anyone who would go on such an expedition. Be it in the name of a deity or just for fun, being alone in the wilderness is terrifying and a real strain on your emotions.

I have a theory about that actually. Because we all live in such tidy, straight lined abodes with right angles and order, when we get out into the wilderness the primal animal in us begins to take over. This can be quite liberating but it can also be quite disturbing if you're not used to it.

I'm not sure whether to recommend Aguirre or not. Maybe as an example of how easy most film productions look, as this one looks like it was a living nightmare to shoot. But with the lack of any likeable characters and a standard story arc it's a tough watch.

That last paragraph doesn't make me sound very good, I admit. I should declare that it's a masterpiece of avant garde cinema or something, but it's an ugly film about ugly people doing ugly things for ugly reasons, but I think ugly is what Herzog was going for.

THE LAND OF SILENCE AND DARKNESS

Much like Handicapped Future which dealt with the isolation of a group of physically disabled children, The Land of Silence and Darkness introduces us to the deaf-blind community, who have even bigger hurdles to overcome in integrating into society.
Whereas Handicapped Future felt positive in presenting what adaptations and possibilities are on offer for the physically disabled, The Land of Silence and Darkness is a little more bleak because we know that, no matter how integrated the deaf-blind become, they will always feel alone.

And this isn't necessarily my interpretation, we are told by the subjects themselves how isolated they feel. We hear poetry readings and personal accounts that made me still with grief.

I suffer from Retinitus Pigmentosa and have spent a lot of time amongst the blind community and have experienced many varying degrees of coping, but as I mentioned in Part One when discussing Handicapped Future it's not necessarily external factors that affect a persons' independence but the inclinations of their personality. Some people I've met with less eyesight than me have been able to accomplish practical tasks that I couldn't, not just because of my visual impairment but because of my confidence and lack of technical ability.

The people we see in The Land of Silence and Darkness show similar differences in ability. Some are confident and pro-active in developing relations with not only the deaf-blind community but also the community at large, but some are so introverted and dependant that the only place that will accept them is a hospital for the mentally ill.

The style of Herzog's film is not just to inform us, which it does, but also to show us. Often scenes are just the camera following the deaf-blind subjects around a room or an outdoor space and watching how they interact with their environment and other people. It's these quieter moments that tell us the most about their experience. The last scene where a very dependant deaf-blind gentleman explores a tree with his hands as he waits for his mother to stop talking to other people is very revealing and fascinating.

I remember meeting a deaf-blind boy when I was studying administration at The Royal Nation College for the Blind in 1999/2000 (I returned in 2011) and, while I'm sure my conduct was appropriate and I did the best I could to make conversation, my overriding memory is my thinking "what do I say to him?" I feel bad about this but, well, I know they were just internal thoughts and, like I said, I did communicate very well through his interpreter, but even for someone who has a sensory impairment meeting someone who is deaf-blind can be a challenging experience.

Plus, regardless of the situation, I'm just not very good at small talk.

Watching this film made me want to go back and slap Aguirre and his religious fanatics for making their own lives and the lives of others so unnecessarily hard. The Land of Silence and Darkness will make you appreciate what abilities and senses you have, even if they happen to be limited.

A sad, gripping and thought provoking work.

NEXT UP: PRECAUTIONS AGAINST FANATICS, THE ENIGMA OF KASPAR HAUSER and THE GREAT ECSTASY OF WOODCARVER STEINER

My Journey eith Werner Herzog, Part One

So as I sat down to watch The Unprecedented Defence of the Fortress Deutschkreuz, Fata Morgana and Handicapped Future my mind was very much an empty vessel of expectation, just waiting to be filled with whatever Herzog had to offer.

It was late, I started at 2200 and didn't finish my screening till about 0300. It must be noted that being visually impaired means it takes me a while to read subtitles and I usually have to pause the film to read each one. Playing films on a video game console is actually better for this as the controls are designed to react quicker to your commands so pausing is a lot more efficient.

It must also be said before I start that because I tend to indulge in mainstream culture more than anything, I'm afraid my references will not be to obscure arthouse or foreign films for the most part, however I am trying to broaden my horizons.

THE UNPRECEDENTED DEFENCE OF THE FORTRESS DEUTSCHKREUZ

I don't watch many short films so I knew even less of what to expect from this work. If prose short stories are anything to go by then I knew I'd be witnessing an event with only a hint of context or backstory. I assumed it'd be to the point but powerful.

The Unprecedented Defence of the Fortress Deutschkreuz reminded me of early Stanley Kubrick films, specifically Paths of Glory. It has stark black and white cinematography and a particular opinion on the nature of war, which is painted in commendably subtle and mature brushstrokes.

The film is essentially a silent work except for a non-diagetic narration which feels more like a stream of consciousness soliloquy than an actual description of what is happening on screen. I was never certain that what the narrator was talking about was directly linked to the action. This is an interesting point as a similar device is used in Fata Morgana, which I will talk about next.

We are told the history of a building, but whether that history is true or the history of the building we see is another matter. Apparently it used to be a hospital for people with mental health problems and the narrator hints that this may have an effect on upcoming events.
The building - an abandoned fortress - is visited by four young men who appear to be out on a leisurely stroll. To be honest, this part felt like the start of a Euro gay porn video, which I'm sure says a lot more about me than it does about the film. Anyway, the four men investigate the fortress while the narrator continues to create an abstract picture with his seemingly unconnected statements.

The young men find army uniforms and artillery and seem to descend from simple playful roughhousing to madness in the space of a few hours, treating their stay at the fortress like a genuine tour of duty, even disciplining another member of their unit at one point.

The tension came, for me at least, by not knowing how far the young men were going to go and how explicitly the bleak outlook of the film was going to be presented.

The film ends more obscurely with the four men charging out of the fortress' gates into an invisible battle.

The abandoned fortress, it's supposed chequered past and the deteriorating reality that the young men experience creates an interesting film that is both amusing and poignant.

It feels like a student film - but a smart one. It looks great and has genuine atmosphere and generates an emotion in the viewer. It's simple, basic production could serve as a good masterclass for young filmmakers trying to choose their first project.

A quick treat!

FATA MORGANA

Now this is where the evening took a weird turn.

Fata Morgana begins with planes landing. About five minutes worth. Because this is classed as a fictional feature film I assumed we were seeing the arrival of a character who would then go on to experience some sort of adventure or drama.

But no, just more planes.

After three minutes we finally get some music creeping into the speakers so we know that this isn't going to be it for the next seventy-three minutes. Then we get shots of what appears to be a desert. Maybe some mirages. I wasn't sure. It continues like this.
Then a narration starts which, like The Unprecedented Defence of the Fortress Deutschkreuz, feels only tenuously connected to what we're seeing. It sounds like religious mythology, Old Testament type stuff.

The film is split into three sections: Creation, Paradise and The Golden Age, which the narration does, at least, seem to adhere to, however the imagery is random at best.

But there IS a connection between the imagery and the dialogue - it's just not a direct one. Not one that we can acknowledge with reason and logic. The two, instead, create a mood that is apocalyptic and sad. We see footage of desert highways, abandoned machinery, dead cattle, third world squalor and working factories. Where do the highways lead? Where did the machinery come from? How did the cattle die? How do the people living in squalor survive? Who or what do the factories serve? We're never told and this lack of knowing creates an unsettling atmosphere that never ceases.

Forty-five minutes in we finally get someone talking on camera. This film was shot around the Sahara desert and, while we get to see the indigenous people at work and at play, the first people who speak on camera are white people seemingly there for scientific purposes. Or are they remnants of a colonial era? I wasn't too sure of that either.

The westerners seem to be going native and act in an exaggerated, delirious fashion which I couldn't quite understand. Were these real people or actors? Were they members of the film crew?

But why Fata Morgana is labelled a work of fiction rather than a documentary is, I assume, because it's not giving us information. It's not telling us anything. Using the juxtaposition of the pious narration and the bleak, depressing imagery the film is provoking emotions from the viewer instead of thoughts.

The film is tough, hypnotic and disturbing. It's also a piece of pure cinema in that sound and images are used in the most simplest of ways to generate a strong reaction from the audience.

It's not a comfortable experience but it's certainly an interesting and memorable one.
Approach with caution and patience.

HANDICAPPED FUTURE

Handicapped Future is a look at the state of government run disabled care in Munich circa 1971. It starts off up-close and personal by interviewing young children about their physical disabilities, slowly pulling out to their carers, then their family and then the world at large. It's a respectful technique and avoids treating its subjects as objects who are devoid of their own opinions. Unfortunately, some of the adult carers, whether state or parental, aren't so mindful. I don't know if it was a choice by the director or whether it's the culture in these institutions in general but they seemed happy to talk about the children in front of the children, sometimes as if they weren't there.

The most disturbing scene comes when a mother talks only about her young son's disability in relation to how it affects her. His quality of life seems to be lowering due to her own social anxieties which I think may be due to an undiagnosed mental health disorder on her part rather than a reaction to real events. You feel concerned for this boy who's emotional and social development could end up being stunted by his mothers' own personal hang-ups.
I wonder how he turned out.

Towards the end of the documentary the film jumps to California and shows us the life of a wheelchair-bound college professor who moved there from Germany and has an incredibly positive quality of life. His disability has not been cured but the adaptations he has at his disposal means that he is able to achieve and be a confident, functioning member of society without pity or segregation.

There was an unintentional link between this film and Fata Morgana in that the professor talks about how much he hated the old buildings where he used to live which were inaccessible for him and other disabled patrons. He appreciates modernity and the adaptation of environments that are easier for him to navigate and live with. In Fata Morgana we see the detritus of modernity - carcasses of machines, smoke and flame billowing factories, upturned cars, sheet metal housing. It's ugly and we long for bricks and mortar; we long for craftsmanship and artistry. But in Handicapped Future we appreciate how this can hinder a large portion of our society.

The point of the documentary seems to be to highlight the contrast in healthcare and to show Germany and any other country watching how it could and perhaps should be done.
As someone with a sensory impairment disability I can see the good the film is trying to accomplish, but the quality of life for a disabled person can also be down to their own outlook on life and their ingrained personality. If you have confidence, drive and a fighting spirit then you can overcome social prejudice and achieve what you would have achieved anyway without your disability; if you're shy and passive you can live an independent life of modest means and indulge in your hobbies and enjoy the simple things in life; if you're dependant and enjoy being mothered then there are plenty of carers out there paid and/or willing to be there for you. Many disabilities can't be cured but they can be overcome, but the most important ingredient is the will of the person who is disabled.

I'm not terribly sure Handicapped Future takes that into account, but it's vision and goal is to at least fight for the groundwork to be firm enough for disabled people to become independent and successful if that's what they so choose.

The choice, however, should always be theirs.

NEXT UP: LAST WORDS, AGUIRRE THE WRATH OF GOD and LAND OF SILENCE AND DARKNESS

My Journey with Werner Herzog - an introduction

There are quite a few things I'm not particularly proud of having not seen as a film buff, but often my excuse/reason is that there are only so many hours in the day and my short attention span and frequent mood swings requires certain films at certain times.

The thing I feel most guilty about having not seen is a single work by prolific German director Werner Herzog. My reason? Well, probably for many years his films simply weren't easily available in the UK and, to be honest, I think as I got older I just forgot about him.

I can't tell you when I first heard of him, but it was most likely in my teens when my film appreciation really hit its stride and I went on a disastrous three year media studies course that included a film studies element. Why was it "disastrous", you ask? Umm, I dunno, it's a long story.

Anyway, maybe I'd seen a documentary about him on television, yes, I think that was it, and the two films that looked the most interesting were Aguirre, Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo. I remember the way in which they were talked about made me surprised that his films weren't on TV or in the shops all the time.

Well, it's 2014 now and things are more available thanks to the internet and today all 10 discs of The Werner Herzog Collection arrived at my flat. It's obviously not a complete set, just highlights of a career that spans fifty years worth of shorts, features and documentaries. Herzog seems to be celebrated for all the categories he's worked in so clearly just putting in the feature films wouldn't be doing him justice.

So how am I going to tackle this? Chronologically? No. Well, sort of. What I've done is create a table with one column for shorts, one for features and one for documentaries (each in order of release) and each day or session (I'm not sure how frequently I'll get the chance to do this) I'll watch one short, one feature and one documentary.

I'm not sure what to expect. This man and his work has been on my mind on and off for decades and I've not seen one piece of his work as yet. My feelings of guilt and anticipation are about to be put to rest.

Will I be overjoyed at the wonder of his oeuvre and kick myself for having taken so long? Will I be disappointed and end up putting the collection on the uppermost of my top shelves to collect dust for future generations to endure?

We shall see...

NEXT UP: THE UNPRECEDENTED DEFENCE OF THE FORTRESS DEUTSCHKREUZ, FATA MORGANA and HANDICAPPED FUTURE

My Star Wars VII-IX Abstinence and Why

Today saw the release of the first trailer – the teaser, as they say – for Star Wars Episode VII The Force Awakens. The internet has nearly broken with all the excitement. Social networking is ablaze with word of mouth regarding the footage. The few comments I’ve read from trusted friends are positive ones.

But I’m not watching it.

And I’m sure I’m not the only one.

So, alas, here is my two penneth on the matter as a form of self-help therapy to help me get through what I’m guessing will be a very tough year for me. Yes, there’s still a whole year left till Episode VII is released, which is partially why I’m also trying not to get too excited about this trailer. They’ve just finished shooting the thing!

So what’s possibly on show in this trailer that I’m trying to avoid? I remember that the teaser for J J Abrams’ 2009 Star Trek film featured footage that didn’t end up being in the final film. It was shot just for the trailer, apparently. Oh. Erm. Thanks? So is this the same situation? That there’s nothing actually ready to show us yet but here’s something they made earlier?

I’m guessing not. People seem genuinely impressed and I put that down to there being actual footage from the film in there. No gimmicks.

But let’s get down to the real reason why I’m not watching it and why I’ll be keeping a low profile until the sequel trilogy is out on DVD (Blu-ray makes me nauseous for some reason).

Yes, it’s because I’m still embarrassed by how bad the prequels were. Personally embarrassed. I was so excited when they came out and went to each one at the cinema, each time talking myself into believing they were good and that any negative feelings I had was just because of all the hype. The teaser for The Phantom Menace kind of snuck up on me. There it was on the television one day. I think that’s when I got more into movie rumour websites, in particular an early incarnation of Corona’s Coming Attractions ran by Patrick Sauriol.

I remember thinking: “Wow, a new Star Wars film! Where did that come from?!” From then on I wasn’t to be left in the dark. I waited every week for each new “Snapshot” from the set of Attack Of The Clones and mulled over the leaked storyboards from the fight between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Jango Fett.

But by the time the “Hyperspace” section of the official Star Wars website opened up and started charging fans to view promotional content my weary, fading belief in the Star Wars universe was starting to show. I just wasn’t prepared to fork out cash for new information regarding the Star Wars prequels. Something wasn’t quite right with The Phantom Menace and Attack Of The Clones (and eventually Revenge Of The Sith) but it wouldn’t be until RedLetterMedia released their feature length, rational and heavily analytical reviews of the prequel trilogy that I would be able to sum up exactly what it was.

They were bad films.

They were lazy films.

And they had nothing to do with Star Wars.

Ok, they had Star Wars nouns and imagery everywhere but the feeling wasn't right. Even though parts IV-VI were dealt with by different directors and had their own unique looks, there was still a consistency and a very particular, realistic style. This was not carried over to the prequels. What made Star Wars, erm, "Star Wars" was more than just in the names and the lightsabers.

But what is Star Wars to me? When I ask myself that question whenever I post a comment about it in one internet location or another I realise: not much beyond flim appreciation. I’m actually more interested in the Alien universe or Middle-earth. These are the “happy places” I retreat to when I want to geek out.

To me Star Wars are simply three great films from the late 70s and early 80s that can never be repeated. The first one had a strong human story and striking visual effects that rose above its low budget. The second was a perfect balance of great story, great special effects and great filmmaking. The third had great special effects, set pieces, music and a genuinely satisfying conclusion, but began to exhibit Lucasfilm's laziness with a weak script, half-baked ideas (another Death Star, really?) and what appears to be the use of cheap film stock that creates flat, dull, cardboard-looking cinematography.

Apart from “bad” and “lazy” I really can’t think of how to correctly describe the prequels. They’re “things”. Not really films, not really cartoons, not really TV movies, not really straight-to-video lumps of coal. They’re just showreels for a group of young computer visual effects artists who have, I assume, gone on to do much better things.

To me the backstory to Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi has yet to be told. George Lucas’ prequels were mistakes. Who was to blame? He was, mainly. But I’m tempted to accuse three men: Lucas,  producer Rick McCallum who clearly told him to just sit back and let everybody else do the hard work for him and editor Ben Burtt for accepting the job of cutting the films even though he had no skill in film editing whatsoever. Had there been a better editor on board the prequals would have been at the very least watchable. They’d still be terrible, but they’d be watchable.

Oh how we lower our sights.

I was excited at first to hear that Lucas had sold it all to Disney. How can anyone do a worse job than him? Well, they can’t. Nobody can. Even Paul W S Anderson would still produce a well crafted, professional looking film, it’d just be the script and everything else that would be diabolical. My only concern about Abrams directing Episode VII is how over-the-top his visual style is. Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness were, to use the parlance of our time, clusterfucks. Star Trek was fascinating to watch just for the novelty of what Abrams was brave enough to do. It was also packed with interesting visual ideas but, I’m afraid, very confusing action sequences. Into Darkness felt a little more toned down and moderately paced but the intelligence level had dropped to that of a moss covered rock in the back garden. It’s fun – it just ain’t no Star Trek.

Well, apparently Abrams is only directing Episode VII and has left VIII and IX to Looper’s Rian Johnson. I’ve not seen Looper yet but I’ve heard nothing but good things and the footage I’ve seen in previews looks pretty solid. I’m guessing he’s a good choice.

So with still a year left to go until The Force Awakens is released I’m not sure what I’ll get from watching this teaser trailer other than sleepless nights. I watched The Phantom Menace teaser back in, what, 98/99? and thought “WOW!!!”. It turned out I was a naïve fool and Lucas, McCallum and Burtt ended up not only producing something underwhelming but downright heartbreakingly poor.

Star Wars Episode VII The Force Awakens won’t be bad, I have at least that much faith in the new hands it’s in. I just want to experience this trilogy like I experienced Episodes IV-VI, which was after they came out on video with the eyes of someone who has little expectation or hope at all, because that hope was broken a decade ago.

We shall see…

In Bruges - film review

In Bruges feels like it belongs in the mid-to-late 1990s during the Tarantino hysteria that followed Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, but thank goodness it doesn't and is instead a child of 2008. Not only would it have been lost in that 90s hurricane* of mediocrity, it also probably wouldn't have been quite as good.

 

I think I was fifteen years old when cool, smart-talking hitmen were all the rage and it annoyed me even back then. Surely I was the target audience for that kind of film but I just wasn't, probably because most of the other kids who were into that sort of film were so detestable and infantile that I found it so much easier just being into, well, literally anything else.

 

I'm sure the teenagers of today will be saying the same thing about zombie films in twenty years time.

 

But if there were a film from that era (or just after it) that kept coming to mind while watching In Bruges I'd say it was the similarly wonderful Grosse Point Blank which, too, was a low budget diamond in the rough that mixed comedy with the redemption of a likeable but haunted hitman.

 

The extremes that In Bruges made me feel took me very much by surprise. I wasn't expecting to laugh so much and I certainly wasn't expecting to cry so much, to the point where I found it incredibly hard to hold back my tears during a devastatingly emotional scene between Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson on a park bench.

 

It also made an interesting point (whether it meant to or not) about depression and suicide. Being someone who has suffered from depression since his early teens and has been taking antidepressants on and off since 1999, I identified strongly with a set of characters whose lives have become overly complicated and who have made choices in life that perhaps aren't right for them.

 

Sometimes you can't see the terrible mistakes you've made until you're climbing back out, but when you're down there, in the hole you've dug for yourself with apparently no ladder to climb back out, it's tempting and seemingly only logical just to lie there and wait for death.

 

But life is full of ladders, as Brendan Gleeson states at one point. Well, not in those words, per se, but basically the message is that if you happen to find yourself trapped in life just remember: you can do ANYTHING. There are hundreds of people out there that will try to tell you what you can't do (and they're often people sending you bills in the post), but what do they know? Do what you want to do to be happy and sort out the paperwork afterwards... sometimes you've just got to make a mess and say "sorry" instead of sitting around saying "please" as your life slowly ticks away.

 

I've probably overcomplicated the message intended there but, well, that's what I got from it anyway.

 

Getting back on track though, the film is largely an actors' paradise with a rightly lauded performance from Colin Farrell who puts his usual coiled energy to comedic good use; Brendan Gleeson is tender but stern and lends the film a warmth that surely would have been absent without him; and Ralph Fiennes drops his usual erudite facade in favour of vile cockney brashness that is delightful in it's ugliness.

 

But with any film that clearly has to end with either redemption, justice, death or all three, the final reel will ultimately be its toughest mountain to climb and I'd be a terrible liar if I said In Bruges gets all the way to the summit.

 

But it gets very close.

 

Actually, the main problem is that the film doesn't seem to know how to end and so just keeps going and going until, like its main characters, it's simply out of puff. This is a minor complaint though and in fairness it's a fine ending - it's just not the most unique one and perhaps even a little convoluted and implausible.

 

But there you go.

 

So, to sum up, In Bruges is smart, funny, heartfelt and debauched in all the right places. It's also a great advert for its titular Belgian city but not so much for pissing off Ralph Fiennes.

 

It's also basically Father Ted with hitmen instead of priests.

 

*shitstorm

Pride – film review

I guess we’re all gifted from birth with quirks, traits, inclinations or ways of life that make us unique individuals, but that individuality can also make us outsiders to the many larger communities we find ourselves in once our lives get going.

PRIDE is a film about the solidarity between two groups of outsiders who, in their shared love, respect and feelings of fear and isolation, eventually come together to make each other feel a little less alone and strive to make a difference for one another.

I have very little first hand experience of the 1980s miners strikes in Britain as, to be honest, I don’t think our family were in the country at the time. Due to my dad’s military service we moved around a lot and in the mid-80s we were living in Holland; in addition I was only about 4 when this film takes place so I was hardly sat reading the newspapers and discussing politics over great mouthfuls of sugary cereal in the morning.

However, along with my bisexuality and visual impairment, being raised as a military brat has at times, at many times in fact, made me feel like an outsider, to the point where I’m willing to say that it’s probably the one thing about myself that I’ve still not been able to reconcile.

The positive note in there is that I’m managing to conquer two out of three. For me the internet has been what’s helped me feel less alone about my sexuality ever since I figured out who and what I was. In fact, due to my social phobias, I don’t know what I’d have done without it. Through an LGBT message board that I’ve been a member of for eleven years now I’ve experienced the sort of close-nit, supportive community that PRIDE depicts, although I must admit that I’m a little jealous that I couldn’t have experienced it with people in person (although I have on occasion, with mixed results) – I just find face to face social interaction in groups overwhelming without help.

PRIDE is ambitious enough not only to tell the story of an LGBT community and a portion of striking miners coming together to support each other, but also to tell a handful of personal stories about coming out and dealing with being treated and feeling like an outsider.

There’s surely a character in there for everyone – the brash, the brave, the shy, the awkward, the scared and the downright daft.

It’s an ensemble piece and so performances are justifiably and commendably strong. The script goes to great lengths to give the central characters as much screen time as it can without compromising the story, which drives along at a great pace. This is an epic tale on a small scale that’ll make you want to punch the air and clap your hands as loudly as you can by the end.

I’m not one for wearing my heart on my sleeve, but even I felt like hugging my friends as we left the theatre.

“Friends”, you ask? Long story.

The film also inspires a little work on your part too as, even though it provides a suitable narrative and emotional conclusion, it teases enough about the true story at its heart that you’ll want to go out and learn more for yourself and maybe even get involved with, well, something, which is to PRIDE’s great credit.

A special acknowledgement goes out to Dominic West who I’ve heard of a lot through his breakout television roles but have never actually seen perform. Here he plays the elder statesman of the LGBT activists who carries the weight of a man who’s seen it, done it, bought the t-shirt, had the t-shirt stolen off him and had somebody lend him a t-shirt so he can carry on. He’s a big brother/sister figure to these bunch of beautiful “perverts” and it’s West’s dignified and intelligent performance that drives the character to shine.

So yes… whoever you are and whoever you do, go and see PRIDE and remind yourself that we’re all in this together, no matter what “quirks” happen to make you and me an individual.

Feeding Frenzy - film review

PART 1

So a little context to start things off I think: I came across RedLetterMedia while browsing Wikipedia's List of Films Considered the Worst and in the Critical Reception section for Adam Sandler's flop Jack & Jill found mention of a review that raised the question of whether the inflated budget of the film (a cheap looking comedy) when compared to the actual quality of the finished product was something that should be investigated by the financing studio's accountants.

 

It was a left-field but realistic and smart approach to reviewing a film that, as a former finance clerk who used to spend his days looking for anomalies in spending, I appreciated and respected. It's not how I go about reviewing movies - which is in a more traditional fashion - but it's one that, well, I guess took me back to my previous "life" in accounts in a not wholly unpleasant way.

 

The review turned out to be written, produced and presented by Milwaukee based video production company RedLetterMedia headed by Jay Bauman and Mike Stoklasa, both of whom present in person their "flagship" movie review series Half In The Bag both in and out of the guise of two lazy VCR repair men.

 

It was from watching Half In The Bag and browsing their website that I learned about their 70 minute Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace review.

 

It was then that part of my life took a turn for the better.

 

From out of the blue I was able to put something behind me that had been plaguing my life since 1999.

 

The Phantom Menace review, which Stoklasa narrates in character as Mr Plinkett - a creation of their friend and fellow RedLetterMedia veteran Rich Evans (and regularly played on and off screen by both men) - goes scene by scene through The Phantom Menace not simply criticising it but asking why things don't work and attempting to provide some answers... no matter how depressing. It made me realise that I wasn't alone in thinking that something was broken with the Star Wars prequels and helped me move on. It was geek therapy and I'll be eternally grateful to them for that. So now, instead of regularly watching The Phantom Menace and trying, without success, to "get it", RedLetterMedia have helped me accept that there was never anything there to "get" except ulcers.

 

So with the added help of the subsequent release of the Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith reviews, I no longer watch the Star Wars prequels or "special" editions of the original trilogy at all - just the untouched theatrical versions of parts IV, V and VI that were bizarrely released as a bonus feature on yet another abhorrent special edition DVD outing.

 

But while I've been getting up to speed with RedLetterMedia's ever growing back catalogue of Half In The Bag and Mr Plinkett reviews, another successful series has sprung up based on some early Half In The Bag episodes that addressed so-bad-they're-good b-movies such as Troll 2, Zaat and Samurai cop... Best Of The Worst.

 

I'd call my taste in movies eclectic and lacking any sort of attention span whatsoever. I'm in the mood for a different genre of movie from one hour to the next and often end up not buying movies because by the time I've added them to my wish list and saved up enough money to buy them I've lost interest altogether. But - fear not! - for in another week or so I'll be back into that sort of film again and might finally get around to buying it... only to have lost interest again by the time it arrives in the post.

 

You'd be forgiven for wondering how I get around to watching any movies at all.

 

But I do, somehow, and since I'm not prejudiced about what I watch I'll generally give anything a go under a vague set of guidelines that I've never properly managed to narrow down. I'm discerning - I'm just discerning about trash.

 

Which is why Best Of The Worst appeals to me so much - it tries to find a glimmer of hope and entertainment in even the worst of movies, because Jay & Mike and friends know that movies are generally made for artistic reasons (Adam Sandler movies being an exception) - even though the reasons or methods gone into producing them have been horribly, horribly flawed and misguided - and maybe somewhere in the rubble of what results is something to enjoy... even if it's just the sheer naive badness of it.

 

But bad movies are also cautionary tales. I've wanted to make movies since I was a kid (writing screenplays and attending a media studies course when I was a teenager) but have always suspected deep down that what I'd produce will probably be terrible, because making movies is hard, time consuming and expensive. Even the cheap ones. And with my crippling lack of confidence and social skills I probably wouldn't be able to command such a project anyway. That's why I sit here, an armchair critic, venting spleen about stuff other people have been brave or crazy enough to at least try.

 

And RedLetterMedia respects the people who try. They respect that it's hard making movies because they make movies too, which is probably why they (especially Stoklasa) find the Star Wars prequels so offensive: George Lucas has been very open and strangely proud in implying that, even though he had all the money in the world and was surrounded by talented people prepared to give their all in making a great set of prequels to a movie saga they loved so much, he just couldn't be bothered to do it right - he just sat there in his comfy director's chair after spending a week writing one draft of a screenplay he hadn't thought out properly and filmed a bunch of people in front of bluescreen quickly and waited for IT nerds to do all the hard work for him.

 

If you've ever had a dream that's just been a little out of your reach it's hard NOT to find that offensive.

 

So after being so entertained, informed and helped by RedLetterMedia's output I thought it was time for me to give something back.

 

They had derisively mentioned a few times in their videos about one of the films they'd made before the birth of the 70 minute The Phantom Menace review, Half In The Bag and Best Of The Worst called Feeding Frenzy and I was curious to see whether the knowledge of film and low budget movies they'd used to such great effect in those series had been wielded to create and not just to criticise.

 

The result?

 

CONTINUED IN PART 2...

PART 2

 

Get on with it, right?

 

Well.

 

I'm not sure how to process the concept of Feeding Frenzy originally being intended as a series of gore sketches made as filler for a "45 minute long gratuitous erotic shower scene" - unless the shower fore-and-afterplay (perhaps involving incredibly slow stripping and meticulous drying) was going to be the bulk of it - so I'm inclined to believe that what it turned out to be is what it was meant to be from the start. 

 

But, regardless of my own personal conjecture, the filmmakers assert that the completed film was more an accident born out of their caring about what they were doing - they just couldn't in good conscience half-heartedly produce something with such a narrow vision.

 

And Feeding Frenzy certainly doesn't feel like that.

 

With Jay Bauman and Mike Stoklasa both being fans of the horror genre (Bauman seems to prefer Raimi/Jackson/Gordon style comedy splatter while Stoklasa favours based-on-real-events exorcism/haunting shlock) making a movie to pay homage to their cinematic idols must have seemed inevitable, in fact their love of the genre has shone through visually during some of Half In The Bag's fictionalised bookends and they've discussed their predilections on both HITB and Best Of The Worst in detail. I think prior to Feeding Frenzy they made a serious horror film called The Recovered which I'll definitely be checking out as (spoiler alert!) I think I'll prefer it to Frenzy.

 

After having produced a collection of amateur short films in the 90s and early-to-mid 00s the trio (including Rich Evans) first came together for a feature length outing with the ill-fated but eventually "remastered" (a from-scratch post production phase more akin to Apocalypse Now's Redux release) Gorilla, Interrupted in which they all look like they're about 12 years old. But I'm sensing that, because of the negative experience of making Gorilla, Interrupted in 2002, they've wanted to play things safe ever since... and "safe" is how Feeding Frenzy feels in places.

 

Perhaps to it's disadvantage.

 

Gorilla, Interrupted seems to have served as its own cautionary tale to the directors, in fact the co-featuring documentary on the Gorilla, Interrupted DVD - How Not To Make A Movie - goes into insightful detail about what went wrong and perhaps why. But while they all still seem rather traumatised by that experience you can't help but see the end result as a quaint "student project" which, while clearly teaching them a few important lessons, they probably shouldn't agonise over too much. 

 

After all, they actually did create something with the energy that Feeding Frenzy lacks at first.

 

The creative core of the filmmaking group was initially a foursome, much to my surprise, with Garrett Gilchrist being "The Fifth Beatle" if you will. However, it seems that Gilchrist turned out to be more like the Syd Barrett of the group, being perhaps a little more eccentric in person than the other three were expecting when they all first met online (with Stoklasa in particular having to be very diplomatic on record about their working relationship at times).

 

Gilchrist's eventual fate is left omitted from both How Not To Make A Movie and the audio commentary for Gorilla, Interrupted it seems.

 

As I watched Feeding Frenzy for the first time I had trouble getting into the swing of it, most likely because I had expectations that viewers without any knowledge of previous RedLetterMedia projects wouldn't have. My main concern beforehand was that Bauman and Stoklasa were about to break the well-known rule (either consciously or unconsciously) about not trying to purposefully make a funny-bad b-movie... and I was right. What people advise is to be sincere and to let any comedy come unintentionally, if at all. What breaking this rule has done is create a Feeding Frenzy that suffers from an identity crisis - it's neither funny enough to work as a comedy (much of the humour actually manages to make some scenes confusing and generate what Rich Evans calls "non-medy") nor shocking or scary enough to be a truly successful horror flick.

 

It's Evil Dead II Lite, I suppose.

 

Ironically, the non-professional performers seem to come off better on screen than the semi-pros. I wonder if that's because, as the creative force behind the film, the amateurs had an advantage over hired thesps such as Ron Lipski and Gillian Bellinger, with the former mentioning in the behind the scenes featurette that there was little space on the practically zero-budget production for individual rehearsal time.

 

But everyone's really trying, so you can't accuse anyone of being unprofessional.

 

I think another problem is that since Feeding Frenzy is trying to subvert a genre that's already been subverted a fair number of times our two protagonists lack consistent motivation, in fact Stoklasa even admits during the audio commentary that he kept changing his own character from scene to scene. Saying that, he's one of the few who actually comes across as natural on screen. 

 

Sadly though, we just don't care about our two leads, who lack much needed chemistry and depth for the audience to cling onto: Jesse's pathetic and downtrodden - a perfect combination for a protagonist you'd think - but the dialogue alone failed to capture my sympathy and I lost interest in his "heroes journey" as the film went along. Christine seems just too horrible for the person with whom we're suppose to sympathise to believably be in love with. There's no reason that Jesse wants to be with Christine other than libido and that's a pretty limp hook to peg an entire movie on.

 

It's Scott Pilgrim Vs The World all over again.

 

I was sad to see Jocelyn Ridgely being underused in a scene which looks cut down to its bare bones. She turned out to be great in the Mr Plinkett Star Wars reviews, especially the one for Attack of the Clones and the "epilogue" to Revenge of the Sith where her character exacts revenge on Mr Plinkett. She's got genuine talent and I wish her great success in the future.

 

Elsewhere, Rich Evans as Mr Plinkett knocks the ball out the park as usual with his sinister but comedic performance, it's almost a shame that Bauman and Stoklasa mention in the audio commentary that they saw the actor as a bit of a liability due to his health issues and lack of range. He's always seemed game to me and whatever might be going on in his personal life it certainly doesn't affect what he's doing on screen.

 

Stoklasa, playing multiple roles, has some great line delivery and an abundance of charisma that gleefully contradicts his Half In The Bag persona of a low energy misanthrope. He unfortunately misses the mark on a couple of comedy skits though, that probably should have been left on the cutting room floor but, well, they weren't.

 

Jay Bauman has the best character, I'd say - it's just a shame they felt the need to cut out his backstory of being an Air Traffic Controller who's off from work with stress which, once you learn that in the supplementary DVD material, makes him a lot more interesting. I'd even go so far as to say that I'd like to see a return of Martin at some point (if he hasn't already somewhere).

 

Other RedLetterMedia regulars pop in and out to bolster the ensemble, with my favourite being the terrifying but brilliant Lora Story whose RLM characters always seem preoccupied with things emerging from their many orifices. She's wild and off the leash in a way that the rest of the film probably should have been. The Wizard (his full name escapes me but I think his first name is Josh) and his character's roommate have some genuinely funny moments during a party scene; and Jack Packard admirably immerses himself into the role of Mr Plinkett's son and makes you feel a rare moment of genuine emotion.

 

But where the film lets itself down the most is with its love story that could easily have been cut back or fertilised with a little more on-screen chemistry. It sort of reminds me of Sam Raimi's Spider-man films that went a little too far in trying to stuff emotion into what should have just been fun but smart action flicks... instead they came across as wet in places. So when Feeding Frenzy should be cinematic and full of energy there's often just people standing and talking, or sitting and talking, or making bad jokes and improvisation to the tune of an unengaging romance.

 

And that's not fun.

 

All of these negatives could have been solved in editing, but while Bauman has stated on Half In The Bag that filmmaking is a series of choices he - as the film's credited editor - has failed to choose to tighten or leave stuff out when, in my opinion, doing so would have improved the enjoyment of the film.

 

In the positive category the film looks great for what it is and every so often has a Spaced era Edgar Wright vitality to it, with my favourite scene being later on in the film where Jesse, Carl and Christine are sat around formulating a plan of how to deal with creatures terrorising the neighbourhood. It's got a stripped down, stark simplicity to it that I very much approve of, with the addition of an important mission being given to Martin that completes his character arc (had we known it was a character arc, of course) in a way that's worthy of applause.

 

The fact that the film was "slapped together" by a crew of just two is not something you notice and Bauman and Stoklasa have proven that they've become talented b-movie craftsmen.

 

So I've covered a lot of ground here, including bonus features and other films/videos by RedLetterMedia, but if you were to ask me whether I'd recommend Feeding Frenzy on it's own terms to a stranger who knows nothing of Bauman/Evans/Stoklasa's other works I'd have to say: no... it's technically solid but fails to bite down on either the adrenaline gland or the funny bone and is - mainly during the first half I'd say - a little cringe-worthy in places (if you don't turn away during the serenading sequence in the coffee shop you're a stronger person than I). But I'll definitely be watching it again, only from now on with the audio commentary on like I do with James Cameron's also cringe-worthy but great looking Titanic, so it's in impressive company there.

If you like the Bauman/Evans/Stoklasa chemistry then you'll enjoy these DVDs for their great supplementary material which gives you a keen insight into the men behind the shlock and their ever-maturing working processes.

As mentioned previously I'm curious to see The Recovered which looks like more of a straight piece that puts all the larking about on hold, so I might download the digital edition of that and watch it in the next few weeks as I'd really like to see them do something truly unique and visually inspired. I'm looking forward to their upcoming film Space Cop because their work seems to have grown in confidence since 2010 and I can imagine it'll be a more focused piece.

We shall see

But for now I'm still left with that one all important question: what did happened to Garrett Gilchrist?

Sniper Elite V2 - first impressions

The third instalment of this series has just been released so I thought I'd go back and give the last one a go until there's a price drop on the new one. I hadn't heard about these games at all until I watched a Let's Play the other day and thought it looked right up my street.

I was expecting something a little rough around the edges or outdated since I hadn't heard about it through word of mouth before, but after giving the demo a quick spin I was relieved and impressed to find it had top notch last-gen gameplay and visuals.

I'm not a fan of FPS games which mostly descend into chaos when I'm playing, so the idea of a third person stealth adventure seemed sorta perfect for me. I was really enjoying Deus Ex: Human Revolution until I met the first big boss (remind me to get that Director's Cut) so was mightily pleased to find something in the same vein - I much prefer sitting by a windowpane with a pair of binoculars for minutes on end searching for heads to pop up so I can blow 'em off! I've turned off the mood music as always which makes the experience a little more helpfully sedate and massages my patience.

Beyond crouching inside doorways or behind burnt out cars with your trusty sniper rifle you do have the option of close-quarters shooting with a machine gun and silenced pistol if you break cover by accident, however the third person perspective and poor accuracy of the smaller weapons makes it rather tricky... I guess it's the game's way of persuading you to keep your stealth hat on as intended.

I'm playing in cadet mode so there's no need for me to adjust my aim for wind resistance or gravity, although if I ever complete the single player campaign I'd be tempted to go back and try out the more hardcore experience just for contrast.

Actually, considering I'm such a bad shot some wind resistance may inadvertently make me a pro.

Stranger things have happened.

Anyway, the one thing that's bothering me the most about the game so far is how it seems to punish you for achieving stuff. If you succeed in completing one part of a task (other than snipering) a wave of new enemies (who're apparently psychic) will be set off even though you've been meticulous in going through the local map gleefully picking them off one by one in relative silence. The surprise influx of footfalls generally leads to panic and close-quarters chaos, which feels kinda forced and against the otherwise immersive vibe of the game.

Maybe there's a way of coping with these incidents more successfully than I am doing but, well, I'm just not there yet.

For anyone with poor eyesight the fact that the game is keen for you to take things slow will be a plus. Even when there's disorientating contrast between bright pools of sunlight and grubbily shaded piles of rubble there's always time for you to sit staring at possibly nothing just in case there's a brief sign of life. I've now moved onto a nighttime mission which is proving to be almost impossible, but considering it's at a steel mill where steam is pumped into the air to provide cover and/or confusion for you and your enemies I'm guessing there'll be few with decent vision who'll find it easy.

Even so, as with all games I'm finding little tricks to circumnavigate visual roadblocks, which isn't perfect but it'll have to do: starting the same checkpoint over and over again is one of them; starting off a section by running in and seeing where all the shots come from so I can make some sort of plan for when I respawn is another.

I'm sort of making it up as I go.

Well, I've been playing for most of the day and am looking forward to cracking on with it again tomorrow. I'm not all that curious to see how the story pans out as it's hardly a personal journey you're on, but what's keeping me hooked is waiting to see what locales the game has in store for me next. I'll definitely be buying the third game once I'm done with V2... perhaps by then I'll even have gone next-gen with a PS4.

We shall see.

I'd heartily recommended this for all those who like a bit of peace and quiet while they're mercilessly murdering video game sprites from a distance.