Friday the 13th: The “Final” Chapter (1984) - film review

We should be so lucky.

In a world where women don’t wear bras, people living in isolated communities tell strangers that they don’t lock their doors, and a mother allows her small child to take a drifter up to his bedroom, a bunch of interchangeable assholes, plus Crispin Glover, get murdered one-by-one blah blah blah. Oh who cares. You know the drill.

So, yes, in the true spirit of the phrase “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, we get another 90 minutes jam-packed with events of very little consequence to pass the time. There’s no more or less plot here than the first three in this increasingly-tiresome series, but the amusing way in which its human characters interact makes it passable. There’s a dog in the movie, who was probably smarter than everyone else around it.

The film opens with a sizzle reel, although I’d call it more of a “simmer reel”, of the first three, which is pretty unnecessary at this point. I guess it’s cute that the filmmakers believe they’re creating some sort of complex mythology, but it’d work better if Jason remained a mysterious cryptid, which every community has the world over.

It’s fun seeing Sandi Toksvig in her first onscreen appearance as “Tommy Jarvis”, a character who apparently ends up returning to form a loose trilogy, of sorts. Most of the actresses kinda look like Juliette Lewis, which I put down to their unkempt 80s eyebrows. Most of the men kinda look like, I dunno, enter some witty putdown here. It’s sad they killed off Glover’s character, but I’m gonna go ahead and assume he wasn’t written to be as likeable as Glover, what with his natural sympathetic warmth, made him. Actually, the film loses a lot of steam once he’s dispatched, but the creative energy of all these movies seem to drop off a cliff about halfway through.

Director Joseph Zito actually puts some effort in for a while, including a complex crane-shot involving actors, ambulances, and a helicopter. That moment is actually funny in itself, for how quickly the emergency services abandon a mass murder scene. One character even complains: “All dead. Some emergency!”. A good point, but maybe somebody should stay and look for evidence or something. No? Okay, I’ll shut up.

My final thoughts are that, for what it is, Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, is strangely ambitious and creative, but, what with its characters’ obscure motivations and overall lack of charm, there’s nothing really to care about. Movies should either entertain, inform, or both. This has barely any of the first thing to keep it afloat.

Wait, that wasn’t Sandi Toksvig?! Well, I’ll be a son of a gun.

Right, onto V.

Oh the deepest of sighs.

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles!

The Whittling Post Digest - Issue 3

Do forgive my week-long hiatus, lovers, but I’ve been in an alcoholic stupor since my last proper-post (the less said about that drunken video I put up the better). Anyway, I think I’ve shaken off 99% of the DTs now, so I’m feeling ready to indulge in some culture. Which makes a nice change. Let’s just hope the insomnia and irrational anxiety stay away for a little while.

MR VAMPIRE III

I’m just in the middle of watching this third instalment of the “hopping vampire” series. I can officially say that, with this one, I know less than ever about what’s going on. I’m sticking to my no-English-dub-or-subtitles rule, as that’s just the way I like to play it. There seems to be elements from both previous instalments with this film, which now makes me believe our heroes are time travellers. There’s another cute kid jiangshi, as with the second, and sensual female spirits, as with the first. However, I have yet to see any hopping, which displeases me greatly. Perhaps it was just too hard on the actors’ joints, which I can well believe. Still, it’s all fun, colourful, camp, cartoony, slapstick, light-horror nonsense at its very best. Whatever the fuck is happening.

ASSASSIN’S CREED DISCOVERY TOURS

Something helping me come down from my depressed boozing are the Assassin’s Creed Origins and Odyssey Discovery (or “walking”) Tours. Educational and calming, they’re a perfect remedy for a self-inflicted, or natural, panic attack. I just find being taken out of time and place very therapeutic, like going on holiday, only without having to deal with other humans. Real humans, that is. You’ll never guess that Odyssey came after Origins, as there’s a major step-down in the quality of animation and sound design. Saying that, I prefer the little movies you get at each point of the tour in Odyssey, which is an upgrade to Origins’ still camera. I’m downloading Valhalla as I type, just to give that one’s Discovery Tour another go. It didn’t seem to have any commentary on it or the ability to change characters, so I gave up pretty fast. But, hey, I like to give things more than one try. Hmm, I might take a break from the baffling Mr Vampire III and do some walking and learning right now actually.

JIM'S STORY CORNER

I was thinking about posting, in chapter-long fragments, some creative writing I’ve been working on. My cyclothymia tends to interrupt my creative drive regularly, much to my frustration, so they’ll be pretty sporadic. Still, I’d like somebody to read my progress, as I doubt they’ll ever be completed. I have a few projects on the go, each indulging in a different genre, so there’s enough diversity to keep thou interested. Let me know if this idea is too abhorrent, otherwise I’ll just go ahead and do it. As I said, they’ll be few and far between, so there’s nothing too much to worry about.  She says.

Well, that’s all for now, folks. Fingers crossed I can give you plenty of emotional hyperbole to read before my next descent into alcoholic despair. I guess it all depends on how society and my ever-changing mental state decide to treat me.

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles!

The Whittling Post Digest - Issue 2

A little weekend bonus for you. If, like me, the idea of actually partying on a Saturday night hurts you like knives, here are just a few of the lows, mids, and highs of my adventures in geekdom.

CROCODILE ON THE SANDBANK

This 1975-published period novel, written by Elizabeth Potters, is set around the turn of the last century, and is a mystery involving a couple of aristocratic English women on holiday in Egypt. It was recommended, along with many other things, by Professor Bob Brier, at the close of his wonderful History of Ancient Egypt lectures. I haven’t gotten very far with the novel yet, but, based on what I have read so far, I’ll be checking out more of Peters’ work. The main character would be perfect for a 1980s Penelope Keith, should they ever develop an adaptation and time travel. I guess Cate Blanchett would work too, or, failing her, Tilda Swinton AKA Budget Cate Blanchett.

MR VAMPIRE II

I’m not going to write full reviews for the rest of the Mr Vampire pentalogy (because I can’t be arsed), but I still want to share my thoughts with you fine folk. This second one doesn’t appear to be connected to the first, as they clearly didn’t have the money to keep up the lavish period setting, so it’s just set in modern China. It also seems to be an E.T. rip-off, with a girl befriending a little jiangshi boy. They also seem to consciously be trying to attract an international audience, as there are more Western-vampire cliches afoot. Who knows, I’m only halfway through.

FENDER BASBREAKER 007 VALVE COMBO

The “007” is just a reference to the amplifier’s wattage, rather than any involvement in the British secret services. I was looking for some new guitar equipment to inspire me, as I’ve been struggling to pick up an instrument of late. This one came up second hand locally, with the low-wattage being perfect for my sad one-bedroom flat. The bass is as, erm, breaking as the name suggests, with everything in my little music nook starting to rattle when I rock out. Oddly enough, I’m not even playing it particularly loud for that to happen, which is the joy of a low-wattage amplifier. It also has gorgeous “chicken head” control knobs, which I am all about. I think I need to pick a different distortion pedal though, as my Vox AC30 emulator doesn’t seem to be “playing nice” with the amp.

MONTY PYTHON’S FLYING CIRCUS (continued)

I’m watching, on average, an episode a day of this boxset, and enjoying it very much. It does help put life into perspective, what with its legendary silliness and all that. I swear there was a bit in the third episode which inspired the stunted-scream bit in Evil Dead 2. You know, the bit where Ash is prone in a chair just before everything in the room starts laughing. Anyway… onwards!

MARY AND THE WITCH’S FLOWER

I was watching this 2017 anime with the full intention of writing a full review, so was diligently listening to the English dub, instead of the Japanese original. One must suffer for their art, after all. However, even though it’s a well-made and engaging film, I simply cannot stand the British voice actors, who are… just… fucking…getting on my tits quite extremely. So, for the sake of my sanity, I’m going to switch to the Japanese original track for the remainder. This means that I’ve not watched enough of it in Japanese to justify a “subtitles off” review, but not enough in English for a coherent standard review. So, erm, this is all you’re going to get, I’m afraid. Life, huh?! Just watch whichever version you prefer and let me know how you get on. It’s basically Kiki’s Delivery Service meets Spirited Away meets the boy wizard who shall not be named.

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles!

Cast Away (2000) - film review

Well, there are days when you’re happy just pottering around the house doing nothing, and then there are days when you need to spend two hours alone with Tom Hanks.

Today was one of those days.

A mere fifteen years after Back to the Future, which seemed like an eternity when I was a kid, Robert Zemeckis released the third, and I assume final, instalment in his “fish out of water” trilogy, following Romancing in the Stone and the aforementioned Back to the Future. I didn’t watch Cast Away at the time, as I could sort-of see the movie play out in my head. A stranded-on-an-island movie threatened to be as predictable as a prison drama or biopic. Also, based on the trailer alone, it just seemed like a 2 hour advertisement for a well-known courier firm. However, in the 24 years since its release, I kept noticing references to Cast Away in popular culture, to the point where the film began to plague my tiny mind.

Okay, “plague” is perhaps rather extreme, but you get what I mean.

So, yes, today was the day. I finally managed to get a solid night’s sleep last night, and within sensible hours. Fingers crossed this means my sleep pattern is back to a healthy “normal”. While I really have nowhere to be, sleeping during the day does start to weigh on you after awhile. Basically, sitting down to Cast Away, with a much-needed clear head, was my way of celebrating.

Regardless of the stranded-on-an-island cliches, the film really seems to be about the cruelty of hindsight, the burden of predictability, and the terrifying randomness of life. I’ve found myself questioning every major decision I’ve ever made in my life, dwelling on where that decision has taken me and how my life is apparently worse for it. But, like the predictability of a biopic, the quality of our experiences tend to fluctuate. Bad decisions can lead to good experiences. Eventually. Some people form religions around this key theme in life, thinking that an invisible space wizard meant for the good things to happen, even if it took hundreds of years and millions of innocent lives.

The truth is, shit happens, so you might as well just crack on with life and hope something positive swings round eventually. To quote Cast Away itself: “Who knows what the tide could bring?”. Such an encouraging sentiment can work for me on most days but, if you suffer from clinical depression, your mind can also conspire to be utterly unmoved by such simple platitudes. I personally have bouts of feeling positive and just get on with life, whereas sometimes I’ll be swamped by a physically-draining negativity, unable to get out of bed or stay sober. Perhaps I should keep Cast Away nearby, just for the latter.

Overall, I found the film a little frustrating to watch. Tom Hanks’ character was very unsympathetic, which is why I assume they cast the eminently-likeable Tom Hanks. I get that him being unsympathetic was absolutely the point at the start, but he fails to become sympathetic as he endures his predicament. I was fine with him starting off “busy businessman too busy to not be busy”, I get it, but the film seems to depict an intelligent, resourceful man with no imagination or empathy towards other human beings just get a little bored for awhile. Maybe that was the point too, since being alone on an island would make you incredibly hardened and self-serving, but I still would have liked a scene where he shows some trauma for having been in a plane crash and seeing a bunch of people die. But he never does. It wouldn’t have taken long, just one short scene, but it’s just not there.

Did they forget?

Still, Hanks’ natural charm kept me engaged, even though I disliked his character. I mean, he’s surrounded by small creatures that he could keep as a pet, and yet he chooses to befriend an inanimate object. While I’m a lifelong arachnophobe, I still would have made friends with a crab first. This bolstered my belief that Hanks’ character was truly dead inside, so why should I give a shit about him?

I didn’t, which is a fundamental problem I had with Cast Away.

Even though the film tries to explain his logic, I still couldn’t grasp why Hanks would leave his safe little island and venture out onto the rough sea aboard a rickety raft. Flying into outer space in just a pair of speedos would probably pose fewer dangers to a person. Just stay where you are, I’m sure eventually someone will turn up for leisure purposes or scientific curiosity.

Again, the script does try to address this issue, but never satisfyingly enough.

What the film lacks in logic, it makes up for with emotion in the final reel. While we inexplicably miss the first 4 months of Hanks being back in civilisation, the depiction of him unable to carry on with the life he left behind is very relatable, and his deep feeling of loss is very close to my own experiences. My ex-girlfriend and best friend died a couple of years ago, which I am still struggling to come to terms with. The cruelty of hindsight bothers me on an hourly basis. As with Hanks’ character regretting not staying in the car with Helen Hunt, so do I regret not replying to my friend’s final text message to me, as I was giving her the cold-shoulder at the time, for what seem like now to be very petty reasons. Ever since, I find myself wondering whether, had I just replied to her, it would have given her heart the strength not to fail. This is, of course, egotistical nonsense, but I guess it’s what a person does when they’re grieving.

She used to have really bad panic attacks and call for me when I was in another room, which used to freak me out at the time. Now it’s all I want to hear.

Unfortunately, I’m still stuck on my little island, without the skills to build a raft or brave enough to venture out into the ocean. I’m stuck here on this antisocial behaviour order colony of a council estate for life, it seems.

But who knows what the tide could bring.

And, yes, Cast Away is a 2 hour advertisement for that well-known courier firm.

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles!

Catching-up with Gilliam - Part One

There are two modern filmmakers, both of fluctuating-citizenship and producing work that has always been hard to categorise, who’s output I have sadly fallen behind with over the years - David Cronenberg and Terry Gilliam. My reason, or excuse, is that their films are so emotionally charged, despite their seeming reliance on visuals, that I never feel strong enough to tackle them. Well, since I’ve been working my way through the Monty Python’s Flying Circus boxset for the first time, I thought I’d pick Gilliam first, out of the two, in which to finally play catch-up with. I’ve not seen any of Gilliam’s works between Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, the latter I had to buy and watch as soon as possible, due to its legendary troubled production history.

I felt duty-bound, as a true nerd, to acknowledge that one straight away.

I’ve now ordered the four films missing in my collection, so they should all be arriving in the post soon enough. I don’t think I’ll be necessarily watching them in release-order, as Tideland arrived first today and I’ve already started watching it, so that’s the masterful logic behind that decision.

I think I’m going to enjoy this little movie season…

TIDELAND (2005)

Golly, I wasn’t expecting to cry quite so much this afternoon, but Gilliam managed to strike some sensitive chords in me. I really had no idea what to expect with this one, as I knew absolutely nothing about it. It was released around the time I’d given up on movies for awhile, which I put down to my reaction to the rather lacklustre decade of motion pictures known as “the 1990s”, and the heartbreaking let down of the Star Wars prequels. I was learning guitar in the mid-2000s, basically.

I’m glad I’ve finally watched Tideland though, as it’s a very liberating experience. It shares a great deal of similarities to Asia Argento’s The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, which came out the year before. I guess it was just one of those Hollywood coincidences, much like Dredd and The Raid. While Tideland and The Heart Is Deceitful share core similarities, both being about the neglected child of drug addicts, their approach is very different indeed. For a start, Tideland is no where near as brutal and traumatic as The Heart Is Deceitful, which should be mandatory viewing for every social services employee until the end of time. Instead, Tideland shows that life and people aren’t quite as simple as some, such as reactionary journalists and social media vultures, would have you believe. I’ve lived a long life, been to many places, done many things, and met many people, but all I’ve really learned is that I don’t know anything about anything. People can still surprise you, good or bad, and nobody is as cut and dry as you first think.

While the film is beautiful, with every shot measured and thoughtful, the more subtle elements are what stand out. I’ll forever be haunted by the mother in Gilliam’s Brazil screaming: “What have you done with his body?!” to Sam Lowry, even though it’s a moment surrounded by fantastical imagery. The same happened with every moment of Tideland. Gilliam’s heavily-stylised vision of the world, even it’s mundane aspects, feels similar to my own, but that doesn’t stop the emotions being strong.

I’m glad cinematographer Nicola Pecorini (who I believe only has one eye) and Gilliam eventually found one another, much like Steven Spielberg and Janusz Kaminski.  It is a lonely world, after all.

I was a tad downhearted to find Jeff Bridges and Jennifer Tilly, two of my all-time favourite people, not to be featured more, but our precocious lead, Jodelle Ferland, carries the weight of the film effortlessly. The bit where she’s making submarine “boop, boop, boop” noises was just adorable. I wonder whether she’s stuck to acting, or done a Carrie Henn and scarpered while the going was good. I wouldn’t blame her for the latter.

Rather tragically, I’m finding myself identifying more and more with characters, like Bridges’, with substance issues, as my reliance on alcohol becomes stronger, and my week-long binges become more frequent. I’m sure I’ve described descending into dependancy as being like deep-sea diving before, which is what happens in Tideland. I feel another bout coming on now, actually, as my insomnia and depression is getting the better of me this week. It’s a shame people still judge those with such issues so harshly still, as nobody wakes up in the morning and chooses such a way of life. Sometimes the world is just too much for a person and, as you get older, your regrets begin to stack-up to the point where you just can’t bear them anymore.

It’s nobody’s fault, it’s just the pain of existence.

I was satisfied with the hopeful ending here, although the same certainly would not have worked for The Heart Is Deceitful. The reality of the latter film is that some things you can’t come back from, so you might as well just crack on with living as best you can. Tideland’s main character, however, hasn’t quite crossed that line yet. As far as we know.

Brendan Fletcher and Janet McTeer were also fantastic, in fact, if you’d have told me McTeer was actually English, I’d never would have believed you. Her transformation into a southern belle is as genuinely convincing as, well, Asia Argento’s in The Heart Is Deceitful, funnily enough. Fletcher first got me crying with his line: “I don’t know, because I make mistakes if I try some things.”, after a character asks him to do something important. It’s a moment that goes by quickly, but they’re the words of a troubled soul who, through tragic experience, knows their own limitations. After all, this is not a one-size-fits-all life, as some would have you believe.

Please give Tideland a go, as I’m gonna go ahead and assume it’s not one of Gilliam’s most watched movies. Perhaps I’m wrong, but I’m trying to write these new reviews without knowing too much about the behind the scenes stuff. I’m concerned that filling reviews with trivia and plot summaries might be a little lazy.

That’s why I’m treating this like a therapy session, instead.

Right, I best go and figure out whether to battle another day of sleep deprivation and crying-for-no-reason, or dive into a bottle of cheap supermarket whisky.

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles!

SUBTITLES OFF: Mr Vampire (1985)

Ah what better way to deal with a nasty bout of sleep-deprivation, than by watching a Chinese-slapstick-hopping-vampire movie without knowing exactly what’s going on. I guess my logic was that, since I was feeling disorientated anyway, it might be a well-timed viewing.

I was correct.

I thought I’d make this little exercise be the first in a sub-series of posts, featuring me watching foreign-language movies without either an English dub or subtitles to help my understanding. For reasons that a mental health professional has yet to explain to me, I find hearing humans speaking, but not actually knowing what they’re saying, incredibly therapeutic. Perhaps, since I struggle to understand people even when I know the words, that I find hearing a voice that I can’t literally understand genuinely calming. Also, being visually impaired, reading subtitles has become both stressful and time-consuming, to the point where a 90 minute foreign-language film might take me all day to get through. Which is not an exaggeration. While I can only see about a third of the television screen that my face is pressed up against, trying to guess what’s going on is still more effective than pressing pause every second to read the translation.

I’ll try to shorten this explanation in subsequent posts.

So, yes, I discovered Mr Vampire through the Blurry Photos podcast episode on jiangshi, which the two presenters explained very well. Unfortunately, I forgot to listen back to said episode before watching the film, which would have helped enormously. I think I just wanted to get things going, as my mind was hungry for something new.

Also, my sleep-deprivation appears to have slowed-down my perception of time, so events around me seem to be occurring at a faster rate, which is new. So I was feeling a little fidgety, basically.

Anyway, back to Mr Vampire!

The Chinese “vampire” is really more of a zombie, as they’re not particularly sentient and there’s no blood-sucking afoot. To be honest, you really can’t comfortably fit the jiangshi into either “vampire” or “zombie” categories, so it’s best just to approach the subject with an open-mind. The important thing is that the means in which to defend oneself against a jiangshi are numerous and entertaining, which gives Mr Vampire plenty to do.

Before reading a proper synopsis of the film, I shall attempt to relate here what I believed happened, which is all part of the “fun” of doing this.

Jim says: a young man, the servant of a wealthy family, is strong-armed by his employer into raising people from the dead for nefarious rich-person reasons. However, things start to get out of control, and the police or military (I wasn’t too sure which) start to poke their noses around. Our primary hero is turned into a jiangshi himself, so it’s up to our secondary hero to sort the mess out and get the girl. Cue hopping-mad (get it?) finale.

Right, let’s see what really happened…

…hang on…

Golly, I actually got it mostly right! The only major difference being that the master didn’t task our heroes to raise the dead, it just kinda happens by accident. And it was the police, not the military (although they do get a military-style musical leitmotif, which is what confused me). I’m also glad I’ve had explained that there were seductive female spirits, or what Westerners would call “succubi”, in the film, which was another thing that confused me (as they seemed villainous and fantastical, but didn’t behave anything like the jiangshi). Not bad going, considering how chaotic the film is. And I was glad the synopsis I read used the word “chaos” at one point.

It’s a good overall description of events.

Well, I had a great deal of fun watching Mr Vampire, which is a good thing, as I have four sequels to get through. The first film is sold separately in the UK, so be wary of that when you buy the sequel boxset. To give them some credit, they do state very clearly that the set only features the sequels, but I’m a bit daft, you see. I would have reviewed the first film sooner, had I realised my mistake at the time.

Oh well.

Mr Vampire 1 is beautifully shot, with the cinematography, sets, and period costumes all vibrant and colourful. The direction and editing also feel ahead of their time, with the seemingly gravity-defying finale surely an inspiration to the Wachowski sisters and their The Matrix films. Like, I think you could literally do shot-for-shot comparisons here and there.

The energy of the film is playful and fast, with the actors charming and totally able to sell the oddball goings on. It’s also not particularly violent or gory for a horror movie, so you could actually watch this as a family quite easily. It’s almost a horror movie for people who don’t like horror movies. You know, when your stipulation is more than just a few minutes of blood and some awkward boobs.

So, basically, viewers who appreciate overall good quality.

Goodness, I’m a snob today, aren’t I?!

I also felt that there was an unspoken, or perhaps it was spoken outright, theme of generational clash within the plot, as the younger characters generally wear more Western clothing, while the older characters wear, at least what I perceive to be, traditional Chinese dress. Let me know if this isn’t just my imagination.

Right, I think that’s it for now. I’m not sure when I’ll watch the next one, as I’ve got Friday the 13th sequels to be getting on with too.

We shall see…

Do stay in touch, darlings.

Toodles!