Friday, September 02, 2011
What you've seen on the big screen (but not in its original release)
By Edward Copeland
As my readers can no doubt tell, my contributors and myself don't have much in the way of original copy to offer this week (that's why you've seen three days in a row of From the Vault posts of old reviews written when the films in question originally came out prior to this blog's existence). I'm taking this "week off" because I have several projects coming up that require lots of watching and writing so I can more or less place ECOF on autopilot. It then occurred to me that this would be a great opportunity to me to run something I've always wanted to and that really isn't labor intensive.
Since seeing movies in a theater, for the most part, is a logistical impossibility for me now, I've always wanted to list the films that I was fortunate enough to see in a theater through re-releases that I either wasn't born when they originally came out, I was too young to see in their original release or somehow I missed the first time and they happened to come back. I figured that would be a great comment starter. I've only linked to reviews I wrote based on being able to see the films in a theater the way God intended. Of course, I didn't count The Rocky Horror Picture Show since it never stopped playing. I just went with alphabetical order. I hope I've recalled them all.
Hamilton Luske & Wolfgang Reitherman
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Labels: Altman, Browning, Buñuel, Coppola, Curtiz, Fellini, G. Stevens, Godard, Hitchcock, Kubrick, Landis, Lean, Peckinpah, R. Scott, Renoir, Scorsese, Welles, Whale, Wilder, Wise
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Sunday, August 21, 2011
Beware the Moon and Stick To the Road
By Damian Arlyn
1981 was a seminal year for werewolf movies. First, Joe Dante's The Howling hit theaters in April followed by Michael Wadleigh's Wolfen in July and, finally, John Landis' An American Werewolf in London in August. It is the latter title with which this article will be concerned, primarily because today marks the 30th anniversary of its release but also because, in the opinion of this critic, Landis' picture not only is the best of the three werewolf films released that year but, arguably, the best werewolf film ever made. I still remember the first time I was exposed to it. I was no older than 10 and for some strange reason my parents thought it would be appropriate for me to watch. They changed their minds shortly into the film and promptly sent me to bed, but by then it was too late: the damage had been done. Though I wouldn't see the film in its entirety until years later, that opening sequence where two young Americans hikers get attacked by a vicious beast while walking through the English countryside at night had been permanently etched in my memory. To this day, it is one of the most terrifying sequences I've seen on screen and I've had many a nightmare because of it.
What makes An American Werewolf in London work so beautifully (besides how effectively scary it can be), is its tongue-in-cheek sensibility. It is commonplace to see humor blended with horror in movies nowadays but back in '81 it was far more outré. The comedy manifests itself in many different forms…such as in Landis' choice of music. He brilliantly peppers the soundtrack with classic songs that feature the word "moon" in the title ("Bad Moon Rising," "Moondance" and "Blue Moon"), thus underscoring the absurdity of many of the things
being depicted onscreen. For example, during the now iconic transformation scene while the character David (David Naughton) thrashes about on the floor as his body slowly and painfully changes into a werewolf, we hear one of the three versions of "Blue Moon" used in the film playing in the background. The juxtaposition of the sweet and the sickening makes for a simultaneously scary and funny (not to mention incredibly memorable) sequence. Even the characters themselves comment on how ridiculous many of the things they're experiencing are. When David's friend Jack (Griffin Dunne) returns from the dead to inform David that since he will soon become a werewolf he must commit suicide, David says he will not be threatened by a "walking meatloaf"…an epithet which he later apologizes for during his metamorphosis (incidentally, throughout the course of the film every time Jack appears to David he does so in increasingly decaying forms; it is both gruesome and hysterical).
In fact, many of the lines in the film clearly are designed to poke fun at the bizarre goings-on in the story. "A naked man stole my balloons"; "Have you ever tried talking to a corpse? It's boring."; and "Sean, I think there are some hooligans in the park again" are just some of the many gems to be found in the film's dialogue. My personal favorite comes when David realizes he truly is a werewolf and thus attempts to get himself arrested, spouting off the kind of horribly irreverent nonsense that every typical American thinks would offend his uptight British neighbors ("Queen Elizabeth is a man! Prince Charles is a faggot! Winston Churchill was full of shit! Shakespeare's French!"). It is impossible for me to watch the film and hear David's anti-English rant without laughing out loud. Landis also does something that was relatively new for its time. Much as Wes Craven did years later in the first Scream, Landis populates his horror film with characters who have actually seen other horror films. When David talks to his girlfriend (Jenny Agutter) about Claude Rains and Lon Chaney Jr. in 1941's The Wolf Man, it may not be the first example of meta-cinema in a scary movie, but is a rare (for its time) case of movie characters acknowledging that their lives seem to resemble the trappings of a horror movie.
However, the laughs (of which there are plenty) that the film provokes do not in any way lessen the impact of the horror scenes. If anything, they just throw them into sharper contrast. The atmospheric opening section of the film, a suspenseful foot chase through the underground tunnels of Tottenham Court Road tube station (where the camera adopts the POV of the wolf, though it is never actually seen except briefly from a distance
in the scene's penultimate shot) and especially some horrific nightmares experienced by David after he is bitten are all frighteningly visceral sequences. And, of course, there is the aforementioned extended transformation scene where another stellar element of the film is highlighted: namely, the superb special effects. Landis' idea was that David's change into the werewolf would be more traumatic than simply growing hair (through a cheesy optical dissolve) and then howling at the moon. It would be a more "realistic" transmogrification involving skin stretching, bones popping and cracking, cries of sheer agony and it goes on for quite a while. Landis does not let his character off the hook with a quick conversion. He also does not conceal his effects in shadows. He has it take place right out there in the open, harsh light. Nowadays the scene would be done with CGI. In the '80s, they had to use physical effects that took a great deal of time and labor to produce (often for only a second of a half of screen time). Still, the scene and the movie is the better for it. Naturally Landis owes a lot to the genius of the great Rick Baker (who also consulted on the makeup effects for The Howling). Baker's work for the film was so magnificent that it inspired the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to create a new category for makeup (for which Baker received the first Oscar for this movie).
An American Werewolf in London opened to big box office success and generally positive reviews. It became known as a "game-changer" in the genre of horror and in particular in the makeup/special effects arena of said genre. It spawned a successful radio adaptation, a highly inferior 1997 sequel and is apparently set to be remade, proving yet again that Hollywood has completely run dry of ideas since they are remaking something that wasn't the most original concept when it was made.
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Labels: 80s, Griffin Dunne, Joe Dante, Landis, Lon Chaney Jr., Movie Tributes, Rains, Remakes, Sequels
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Sunday, April 10, 2011
Howlingly Scary, Howlingly Hilarious
By Phil
What can you say about a movie in which the villain digs into his own forehead to retrieve a bullet, but not before quipping to a woman unlucky enough to be witness, “I want to give you a piece of my mind”? Don’t answer that. It’s a rhetorical question. Suffice it to say that The Howling, released 30 years ago today, understood the irresistibility of dishing up horror with a dash of humor. A werewolf picture jam-packed with B-movie references and a giddy love of the genre, it quickly earned a cult following that has remained loyal since the film first hit screens in 1981.
It had to share the love from fanboys. While The Howling helped steer the career of director Joe Dante into (regrettably) safer, more mainstream fare, the movie was initially overshadowed by another man-becomes-wolf horror-comedy from 1981, John Landis’ An American Werewolf in London. Comparisons between the two flicks were inevitable. Released within four months of each other, both embraced the spirit of drive-in exploitation while boasting more polished filmmaking, and both featured onscreen werewolf transformations that would have made Lon Chaney Jr.’s head spin with envy.
Still, I prefer The Howling for its generous humor, genuine creepiness and willingness to sleaze it up. It’s a nicely calibrated blend of smart camp and lowbrow shocks, anchored by Dee Wallace’s surprisingly effective performance as a woman trapped between lycanthropy and self-help jibber-jabber. A year before she would be Elliott’s mom in E.T.: the Extra-Terrestrial, Wallace plays Karen White, a TV news reporter in Los Angeles with the misfortune of having drawn the affection of a serial killer. As the film opens, Karen has agreed to meet with the psychopath, Eddie Quist (Robert Picardo), in a peepshow stall at a seedy porn store. Eddie appears behind Karen in silhouette, hissing about what he’s going to do to her. Karen stares ahead, in mute horror, at a grainy bondage reel being projected.
Then Eddie commands Karen to face him. She turns and sees…Well, we don’t know what she sees exactly. Karen lets out a scream, the first of many in The Howling. Two police officers who have been trailing Karen open fire, killing Eddie Quist.
The incident naturally rattles our heroine. When she returns to work, Karen freezes up under the unmerciful gaze of the camera. At home, she rejects the loving arms of husband Bill Neill (Christopher Stone). Knowing she needs help, Karen is intrigued when a courtly therapist, Dr. George Waggner (Patrick Macnee), suggests she join his self-help group in Big Sur called The Colony.
The ensuing detour into quasi-psychobabble gives Dante and screenwriter John Sayles, at the time just coming off Alligator and Piranha (also helmed by Dante), a ripe avenue for satire. Karen and Bill are bemused by the goings-on of The Colony, whose inhabitants soak in Dr. Waggner’s cautionary line that “repression is the father of neurosis.” The good doctor might be on to something, but his EST-styled knockoff includes some curious aspects. The Colony appears to host more barbecue cookouts than your average pop-psych cult.
There are other red flags, too, including John Carradine as a crazy old coot and Elisabeth Brooks as a resident nymphomaniac outfitted in what looks to be an early prototype for Xena: Warrior Princess. There is more to The Colony than meets the eye. Chris and Terry (Dennis Dugan and Belinda Balaski), an intrepid pair of reporters who work with Karen, discover mysterious links between Dr. Waggner’s sanctuary and Eddie Quist. And speaking of the slain killer, his corpse has suddenly disappeared from the morgue.
It all makes for an irrepressible horror flick that delivers its jolts with a grin. Unlike a raft of slasher flicks of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, Dante and Sayles mined the inherent absurdity of their yarn but, honestly, there’s really no other way to approach a story of werewolves who are urged on by a pop psychiatrist to embrace their inner animal.
The Howling exposes its funny bone in the opening minutes, with a sly bit involving a news anchor whose authoritative delivery masks an aw-shucks Southern twang. Dante, an avid movie buff, peppers the proceedings with knowing winks to the genre. Several characters’ names are lifted from movie directors of werewolf flicks, such as George Waggner (1941’s The Wolf Man) and Lew Landers (1944’s Cry of the Werewolf). Dante also isn’t shy about shoehorning in wolf references in everything from cartoons to literature.
Similarly, The Howling makes room for an array of B-movie icons. Kevin McCarthy of Don Siegel’s classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers portrays Karen’s boss at the TV station, while The Thing from Another
World’s Kenneth Tobey turns up briefly as a cop. Forrest J. Ackerman, the man behind Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, makes an appearance. Dante’s mentor, the notoriously penurious Roger Corman, has a fitting cameo as a guy checking a pay phone for forgotten change. Corman even gets a second, however peripheral, nod in The Howling. His 1959 comic-horror picture, A Bucket of Blood, is referenced when its star, Dick Miller, turns up to play a slick occult bookshop owner named Walter Paisley. The name is the character Miller played in — wait for it — A Bucket of Blood. Miller’s performance in The Howling launched what would become tradition for Dante, who went on to cast the actor in a slew of his movies. 
Despite the cornucopia of inside jokes, The Howling is, above all, a monster picture and it offers a humdinger of one thanks to the inventiveness of special-effects maestro Rob Bottin. By inflating various-size bladders pasted on to the face and body of actor Picardo, Bottin fashioned an impressive, before-your-eyes transmogrification from man to beast. In today’s world of CG wizardry, where even the lamest schlockfest can be visually interesting, it is tempting to forget just how eye-popping Bottin’s feat really was. Moreover, The Howling’s fully realized werewolves are a far cry from the mega-hirsute guys who roamed the Hollywood countryside of yesteryear. Bottin’s creations, shot at oblique angles and occasionally backlit in cartoon-friendly colors, look as if they just padded in from Little Red Riding Hood’s neck of the woods. These are giant wolves, not wolf men.
The non-monster moments also are memorable. Dante assembled a strong cast; it’s a kick to see veteran character actors such as Carradine and Slim Pickens (as a yokel sheriff, of course) chewing on the scenery, especially when the aforementioned chewing involves fake fangs.
At the center of it all is Dee Wallace. With her feathery blonde hair and all-American good looks, she is an appealing damsel in distress. But she does one better, imbuing her character with melancholic vulnerability and investing The Howling with a welcome depth of emotion. It makes the film’s ending, in which Karen transforms into a werewolf for the local TV news, as heartbreaking as it is howlingly hilarious.
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Labels: 80s, Corman, Don Siegel, J. Carradine, Joe Dante, Landis, Lon Chaney Jr., Movie Tributes, Sayles
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Sunday, June 20, 2010
It's a Blues, Blues, Blues, Blues World
By John Cochrane
Today marks the 30th anniversary of the release of The Blues Brothers (1980) — still easily the best movie ever to come out of the Saturday Night Live franchise. The film is a bigger-than-life blend of comedy, great R&B music and over-the-top stunts and car chases, and to see it again today is to be reminded not only of another Hollywood before CGI took over — but of what the world of comedy lost when John Belushi died tragically of a drug overdose, less than two years later.
The genesis of Jake and Elwood Blues came out of an SNL sketch entitled “Howard Shore and His All-Bee Band”, where John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd sang Slim Harpo’s ”I’m King Bee” while wearing bee costumes. Realizing they had reasonable musical talent, blues fan Aykroyd introduced rock 'n' roll fan Belushi to soul and
R&B. After Shore suggested the name The Blues Brothers, the duo got together with keyboardist and future Letterman bandleader Paul Shaffer (who was barred from appearing in the original film due to contractual reasons), and began to assemble a first rate collection of musicians to back them up — including horn players Lou Marini and Tom Malone from the group Blood Sweat & Tears, as well as Steve Cropper and Donald “Duck” Dunn from Booker T. & The MGs. The band, which played covers and blended New York-style horns with a Memphis/Chicago-style rhythm section, cut a surprise hit album (Briefcase Full Of Blues) and appeared successfully in musical performances on Saturday Night Live. After being asked to open for Steve Martin in Los Angeles and the Grateful Dead at Winterland, it was obvious that the group had taken on a life of its own. Dan Aykroyd set about to write a screenplay to flesh out the mythological origins of the band. The resulting musical, directed by John Landis (who edited down a 324 page script from Aykroyd), centers around Jake and Elwood trying to raise $5,000 worth of tax money for the Chicago orphanage where they
grew up, before it’s sold off to the Board of Education. (Ignore the fact that in real life, the church-run orphanage would be tax-exempt.) After an epiphany at a church service conducted by James Brown, they set out to reform their old band — whose members went their separate ways when Jake was sent to prison for robbing a gas station. Claiming that they're on a mission from God, the brothers are relentless in achieving their goal by the tax deadline — driving all over the greater Chicago area, destroying a shopping mall, stealing a country group’s bar gig, dodging the attacks of a mystery woman with a grudge and many explosives, and crashing through a rally of the Illinois Nazi party — all the while keeping a Dragnet-style decorum of non-reaction to the chaos around them, and their ever-growing group of pursuers. 
The film runs almost two and a half hours — almost unheard of for a comedy, and could have easily been a disaster, (Landis equated the shooting to managing a war.) yet the movie holds up extremely well as great entertainment. It doesn’t hurt that there are appearances by additional R&B and jazz legends like Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, John Lee Hooker, and Cab Calloway, which are smoothly worked into the plot line. And as excessive as it may have seemed at the time, there’s amazingly little padding to the script, as the story moves from one classic scene to another — featuring cameos from the likes of Frank Oz, John Candy, Carrie Fisher, Charles Napier, Henry Gibson, Steve Lawrence, Steven Spielberg and Twiggy. The picture culminates in Daley Plaza, with one of the fastest and most impressive car chase scenes ever filmed. (The extended sequence set a world record for car crashes in a movie up to that time, and required a special FAA air-worthiness certificate to drop a car out of the sky from more than a mile up.)
The reason the picture works is despite all the destruction happening on the screen, there is just enough plot and character development to believe that Jake and Elwood would be compelled to do this. (After all, they are
ultimately trying to do a good thing.) Their chemistry seems genuine and their enthusiasm for the music is contagious. Sure many stunts and details are implausible or unexplained. (Why do the Good Ol’ Boys show up so late to their gig? How does Jake’s jilted ex-fiancee Carrie Fisher have access to her never-ending military arsenal? How does the Nazis’ car get so high up in the Chicago skyline before dropping into that intersection? Would seemingly every member of the Illinois military and police be chasing them? Why is saxophonist Lou Marini’s upper body cut off in the frame during Aretha Franklin’s performance of “Think?”) Never mind. This is a popcorn movie, not Ingmar Bergman. The real question is whether you’re having a good time, and for that purpose, The Blues Brothers delivers in spades. The Blues Brothers got mildly positive reviews and did decent domestic box office, achieving its cult status later on through video and cable TV. Belushi was dead by early 1982 — fondly immortalized not only in this film, but also Landis’ raunchy, seminal classic National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978) and his five-year tenure on SNL. Aykroyd and Landis still had a few great pop culture movies in them before their careers largely faded from view toward the end of the ‘80s. The R&B stars who appeared in The Blues Brothers saw their careers revitalized as music fans remembered what had made them so great in the first place, and the genre as a whole received a resurgence in popularity, which remains to this day.
In 1998, Landis and Aykroyd reunited to make Blues Brothers 2000, a dreadful sequel that forgets everything that made the original so great. Despite having an even more impressive roster of musical guests, Blues Brothers 2000 simply recycles elements form the original movie in a razor-thin plot minus any rational thought, purpose or humor, and builds itself around awkward and watered-down musical set pieces that are mostly cringe inducing. Even the car stunts are lifeless. (Literally — if you look closely at the pileup of cop cars toward the end of the film, they don’t have any drivers in them.) Especially annoying is the addition of Buster Blues, a Macaulay Culkin wannabe, included for no other reason but to appeal to the Home Alone crowd, who wisely stayed away.
Where the sequel is safe and lazy, the original is anything but. Landis has said that it would be near impossible to make The Blues Brothers today. We can be grateful that it was made at that point in time when Belushi and company were at their peak and Hollywood was still willing to take chances — before the era of blockbusters and avoiding risks. Turn up the volume.
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Labels: 80s, Aykroyd, Ingmar Bergman, Landis, Movie Tributes, Music, Sequels, Spielberg, Television
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