Man Bites Dog & Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon

    There should be more fake documentaries. By "fake documentaries," I don't mean propaganda or just plain bullshit. I mean fiction told through documentary techniques for artistic (as opposed to purely deceptive/political) purposes. There's just something diabolical about using the aesthetics associated with "reality" to build a fiction, particularly in that it exposes the illusion that recordings could ever truly capture an objective, unbiased reality. It's a style that's gotten pretty popular in horror and comedy, from The Blair Witch and Paranormal Activity to This is Spinal Tap and The Office. Where it gets fun though is when things are a bit less constrained genre-wise. The two films for this double feature just happen to blend horror and comedy while telling practically the same story in wildly different fashions.

    Man Bites Dog (1992) is a Belgian dark comedy about a documentary crew following a charismatic serial killer and getting in way over their head. Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006) is an American dark comedy about a documentary crew following a charismatic serial killer and getting in way over their head. Both films manage to cover extremely divergent material in spite of so many parallels.

    A quick aside: One of my favorite examples of the fake documentary is a short film that I would completely spoil by revealing in this context. Suffice it to say that it pretty much straight up lies to you through its aesthetics until the end credits and through this form it creates a layered meaning that's extremely affecting. (I hope by random chance you end up seeing it without knowing what it is. Go take some film classes I guess.) Free of the constraints of any particular genre, fake documentaries can catch you on several different levels in both subtle and extreme ways.

    Man Bites Dog is slightly more on the subtle side than Behind the Mask even though it does kick off with the protagonist murdering a fella cinéma vérité style. Man Bites Dog is stylistically flawless and detectable as fiction only through the sheer audacity of its subject matter. There's a dry, lunatic wit to the film as the increasingly needy and unhinged serial killer goes about his business with hardly a care in the world for the consequences or moral considerations of his actions. Of course there's the obvious messages about journalistic responsibility and media and celebrity and all that good stuff. The mood swings in the film and the increasingly dark and desperate plot are what elevates this beyond other films with similar messages but less nerve with which to seriously and honestly deliver them.

    This is definitely the movie you want to put on first when everybody's still alert. It's black and white with subtitles so you almost feel inclined to be drinking coffee while watching it anyway. It ends as harsh as it damn well ought to so you wouldn't want to end the night with it. "Behind the Mask" makes for a fun chaser that stays on topic.

    This one takes the serial killer documentary in a very different direction by setting it in the reality of pop slasher films. The protagonist idolizes folks likes Jason Vorhees, Michael Myers and Freddy Krueger (whose originating actor, Robert Englund, appears in this film as a spot-on riff on Dr. Loomis from Halloween) and breaks down for the crew exactly how much preparation goes into a gig like that. At the same time it shifts back-and-forth from the "documentary footage" (which doesn't seem to be trying extremely hard to be serious) to genuine slasher flick mode to hilarious (and economical) effect.

    When the movie began I immediately thought about Man Bites Dog and was half-expecting a re-tread of the same scenarios, same plot. Fortunately there's nearly no similarity between any scenes in the movies as Behind the Mask is able to mine exclusively from the surprisingly rich slasher film genre. You'd kind of figure that three Scream movies would've tapped that vein dry but surprise, surprise, the analysis of the proliferation of yonic imagery in slasher scenarios (plus the definition of "yonic") scores Behind the Mask some bonus points for edu-tainment. Further bonus points for it evolving into as good a slasher film as it is a movie about slasher films. Extra credit to Nathan Baesel who carries the film and effectively sells both extremes of his likable lunatic (no simple feat, something that Benoît Poelvoorde also nails in Man Bites Dog). Best of all, the end credit sequence pairs an awesomely obvious song choice with an equally awesomely obvious epilogue.

    It just occurred to me this kind of fits with that whole Halloween jazz coming up. Hey, well, there you go. There's your excuse. Besides, it's easier to laugh at the horrors of fake reality than the horrors of real reality. Figure we could all use the practice.

Labels: film/tv

    Fred Dekker is the man responsible for a few of my favorite movies growing up. I've already gushed in this column about his cult classic film Monster Squad, which is likely the greatest movie featuring all the Universal Monsters ever made (and I'll argue that point to the death if need be, see if I don't), but the guy also developed the original story for House (my favorite movie in 10th grade, strangely enough) and wrote and directed Night of the Creeps, another must-see genre mutant that's been notably difficult to find. Dekker also wrote and directed some episodes of the Tales from the Crypt TV series, which has got to be in the top five most bad-ass, uncompromising horror shows in television history. Not only that, he did the Robocop with the jet pack in it. Hell yes he did.
    To top it all off, he's just an awesome guy all around. It cannot be overstated how great it is talk to an artist who's work you've really dug and to find out he's also a down-to-earth, witty and downright nice guy. Dekker got in touch with us after seeing the Mongrel Digs Monster Squad article and it's just been a real thrill communicating with the guy. He agreed to take the time to answer some questions about his films and his experiences in making them. This interview's especially a treat for all you budding filmmakers; there's some good bits of advice that I know from experience they're not doling out in film school.
    (A quick note before we start, we began chatting just before it was announced that Night of the Creeps would finally be coming to DVD and Blu-Ray in October. So, when that comes up, that's what that's about.)

Jared Yanez: In "The Monster Master" featurette from The Monster Squad DVD, you talk a little about getting into UCLA but not into their film program and having to work on short films on your own time. What was that early production experience like and how did it influence your later feature work?

Fred Dekker: I actually started making films (8mm, Super 8, 16mm and on video) from the time I was around 12 years old... so missing out on film school was a momentary setback. Story-telling on film was something I'd learned from watching movies, so my fledgling shorts -- and dabbling in theater both in Marin County and L.A. -- prepared a basic foundation for me. Plus, I hung out at the UCLA and USC film schools quite a bit.

The big difference from student films, apart from the number of different personalities you collaborate with, is the military aspect... which is something I don't think film school talks about. Being a director isn't just "following your vision" and communicating it to a cast and crew, it's leading them into an enterprise of vast logistical machinery. Like being a military commander. In other words, it's not just art, it's a job. You have to "make your days" (that is, getting the work done on a daily basis to stay on schedule and budget), and more important, you have to do it in a way that has your team following you and not slowing you down.

That was the biggest eye-opener going from amateur to pro. The size of the crew and the fact that they're eyeing you for the first few days, waiting to see if they respect you or think you're an asshole. But I've been lucky, all my crews have been terrific.

JY: In the same featurette you describe the initial concept for The Monster Squad as "the Little Rascals meets the Universal Monsters". The resulting film has such a distinctive character to it though that it really feels like its own thing. Could you describe the writing process involved in fleshing out the initial concept into the final story?

FD: Well, obviously, both the Rascals shorts and the Universal pictures have very distinctive iconography -- they're in black-and-white, they have recognizable casts, musical style and ambiance, all very much of the '30s and '40s -- so there was no way The Monster Squad was going to resemble its inspirations exactly (look at Penelope Sphreeris' The Little Rascals and Stephen Sommers' Van Helsing and see how far off the mark you can get even when you aim for it!).

As for the screenplay, Shane Black and I discussed the basic concept, and quickly decided that Dracula should be the key villain (he seemed most likely to be the "brains of the operation" when you stack him up against the assorted walking dead guys and primeval beasts that surround him).

The next issue became: what's the McGuffin? I don't remember who came up with the amulet, but I suspect it was Shane. It's very Lovecraftian, and Shane has always been a big reader. His other influence was a series of books called The Three Investigators, which he loved as a kid in the same way I loved The Little Rascals.

As I recall, we beat out the story structure and characters, then Shane went off and wrote the first draft while I was finishing Night of the Creeps. I had a hand in that first draft, but mostly took over in re-writes to make it a little less woolly and more shootable. The plotting and structure is both of us; the wisecracks mostly Shane, and the heart (Phoebe/Frank, in particular) mostly me. The only scene we actually wrote in a room together was Fat Kid's dialogue before the kids go into the Scary Mansion ("Let's be Nature Squad instead! Looks at rocks, collect birds... not be dead. It's this whole death thing I'm not crazy about.")

JY: The kids in the movie give some incredibly natural performances. I imagine there aren't many low-pressure opportunities to practice directing child actors. What was it like jumping into that territory? What were some of the challenges and solutions that came up?

FD: It's kind of an ironic question since the first "actors" in my early films had been my younger brothers and grade school friends. In other words, kids. I also directed a few plays, including a production of "Bye Bye Birdie" with a cast that ranged in age from, like, 7 to 17. So in fact, I'd been directing kids as long as I'd been directing. Plus, as producer Jonathan Zimbert says in the DVD featurette, I've always been kind of a kid myself, so it flowed very naturally for me.

The key was finding young actors who had personality, but weren't "movie kids." You know -- the type you see in sitcoms and commercials that mug and scream their lines trying to get a laugh? The ones where you can practically see their mothers just outside of camera range, whispering "Bigger!" That was exactly the type of kid we DIDN'T want in the movie. And we succeeded. Not only were they great kids and solid actors, they also had chemistry with each other.

JY: This is still one of the only movies I've seen where the kids sound like real kids (i.e. foul-mouthed little bastards) and it's played casually instead of as a punch-line. How did you get away with the less politically correct material on the kid's side and why do you think it's something you don't see much of even today?

FD: The great thing about Taft/Barish, the company that financed and produced the film, was that it was basically two guys -- Keith Barish and Rob Cohen (yes, THAT Rob Cohen). And the money people, who never said a word. So all we had to do was please ourselves and our producers, and that was it. There was no one else to answer to! Remember, also, this was years before "political correctness." The kids swear and smoke and drink and shoot guns, but nobody batted an eye because the PC Police hadn't been invented yet. Thank God.

Nowadays, you can't write a comma in a script without 47 development executives asking, "Do we really want a comma here? How about a semi-colon? Semi-colons are much more popular with the 18-34 demographic." So we ducked a bullet, and the eventual effect was that it made the movie stand the test of time better than something that was micro-managed. The reason a lot of stuff today feels like there are too many cooks is... well, there ARE too many cooks.

JY: Any light at the end of the Night of the Creeps DVD release tunnel? Any faces whose poking would influence the situation in a positive fashion?

FD: If it hadn't taken me so damn long to get these answers to you, you would have had an exclusive! Because it's all come together in the last month or so. A Special Edition Director's Cut with commentaries, deleted scenes, and a documentary from Michael Felsher (Monster Squad Forever!) is on the books for October, 2009 from Sony Home Entertainment. And the best part is, it will have the ending as I originally envisioned, hence, "Director's Cut". That will be the only change from the theatrical version, but I think it's a crucial one. It's like night and day.

JY: Okay, here's the question I've always wanted to ask about Night of the Creeps. Like any good horror movie it's got some real creative, gruesome stuff in it but the most traumatizing bit for me was a particular off-screen death that's relayed over a taped message. No gore, no effects, but oh man did that get to me worse than any other horror kill in recent memory. Could you talk a little about that scene and how it came about? (**SPOILER ALERT for those who've yet to see Night of the Creeps!**)

FD: The biology of the movie is pretty straight forward -- and essentially inspired by (or stolen from) Alien -- a single creep gets into your moth, you die, it lays eggs in your brain, then you're a zombie until the eggs turn your head into Jiffy Pop, which explodes with a whole new litter of the creeps. The cycle starts all over again.

We see J.C. in the restroom, and it's pretty clear he's surrounded and outnumbered. Survival is unlikely, particularly since he's handicapped. So I decided pretty quickly there was no point in seeing the actual "creeping". Especially with a character we've come to care about; that would be kind of cruel.

The other thing that dictated the tape message was the relationship between Chris and J.C.

I had a lot of really close friends just out of college (J.C. is even partially named after one of them) so I wanted to depict that kind of "bromance" in the movie (one internet wag even went so far as to suggest J.C. is gay and in love with Chris, but that's another discussion!). What I wanted to do was to have a last good-bye between them... and I wanted it to be intimate. Hence the scene you allude to.

Two asides: 1) We actually set up the memo recorder in the scene where Cameron is interrogating the boys. J.C. had used it to tape the Bradster harassing them, but we cut it out. However, if you look carefully you can still see it in his hand in that scene.

2) My ham-fisted way to get Jason Lively in the right mindset to play the scene was this: I got a bunch of photographs of the Holocaust -- Jews behind barbed wire, death camp pictures, ovens, etc. -- and placed them around the room near Jason. So when he's not looking at the recorder, he's looking at images of death and grief and just basically the worst, saddest things on earth. Needles to say, he does not look happy.

(**END SPOILERS**)

JY: What films/music/art/whathaveyous are currently blowing your mind?

FD: Alas, I'm hopelessly limited in my interests. And having a four-year old son generally curbs me getting out of the house as much as I'd like.

That said, in recent years I've loved There Will Be Blood and Sideways and No Country For Old Men. I love Mad Men on AMC. I wish William Goldman were still writing novels, and I wish Propellerheads would make a new album. And I really wish I could go to ComicCon this year and buy some illustration art. But as I say, because of my son, I'm not as current as I might be... although I know and love the Pixar movies backwards and forwards. And the news that Lars von Trier has made a new horror movie makes me salivate.



    Once again I'd like to thank Fred Dekker for taking the time to talk to us, it's been real awesome for me on a personal level. Mark October down on your calendar as the month you're going to go out and get fifty copies of Night of the Creeps. That'd be the month for doing that. You can also do that the following months also, but all us cool kids are getting ours October. So's you know.

Labels: film/tv

    Following the monumental success of his book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson surpassed even the most generous hopes of what a journalist could become. Hunter was a celebrity. The rock star of journalism, he was constantly surrounded by sympathizers and acolytes. Even other celebrities were drawn to the wild character Hunter S. Thompson had become. His look and mannerisms were so distinct that cartoonist Garry Trudeau even created a Thompson-esque character named “Uncle Duke” (assumedly taken from the Roaul Duke persona of Fear and Loathing) for
his comic strip Doonesbury. Rumors of the crazy gun toting, bomb making, drug-fueled master of Owl Farm were legendary in most social circles and people traveled from across the globe to be a part of the weirdness.

    Hunter continued to fight for his political beliefs, this time, by following politicians and using his acquired fame to sway voters in his favor. Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72 depicted a monster in the form of Richard Nixon, a man that Hunter had developed a deep hatred for, and painted Nixon’s opponent, George McGovern, as the answer our country needed. It has been suggested that Hunter’s support of McGovern may have won the Senator his party’s nomination for presidency. However, after McGovern’s defeat, Hunter turned his attention to newcomer Jimmy Carter who had won Hunter’s support at a lawyer’s conference where Carter boldly stated his disdain for the problems in the country he blamed on lawyers and lawmakers. While traveling with Carter, Hunter’s fame was so widespread that he often signed more autographs then Carter himself.

    After finishing Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, I picked up a few of his other books and watched every piece of footage I could get my hands on. I too became enthralled with the idea of “The American Dream”. I had never felt that the true spirit of freedom this country stands for was correctly portrayed and presented to my generation. The textbooks at school were laden with speeches and documents written by men who undoubtedly believed that we had a dream in this country and that dream was the accumulation of wealth and success through hard work and perseverance. Hunter believed that that dream was dead or dying at best. And I began to believe it too.

    Although Hunter was becoming more of an icon every day, his personal relationships began to slowly burn after years of his crazy antics. His relationship with Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner was rapidly deteriorating due to Hunter’s failure to meet deadlines, and Jann’s failure to fulfill promises of expenses to be covered in the field. His relationship with his wife Sandi was a continuing struggle throughout the mid to late seventies and by 1980, they would be divorced. Although Sandi maintains that she always loved Hunter, his lifestyle of abundant drug and alcohol consumption made him increasingly irritable and he was often out of control. Even his good friend Ralph Steadman found it difficult to deal with Hunter on a regular basis. They had traveled together to Africa in ’74 to cover the Ali-Foreman fight, dubbed “The Rumble in the Jungle”, but never actually made it to the fight as Hunter decided instead to smoke a bag of grass, grab his whiskey, and go swimming in the hotel pool.

    The one person who perhaps felt the most detached from Hunter was his only son, Juan. In interviews, Juan speaks of his father with great admiration and respect, but it is also in a way you might speak about a teacher or close friend. It is clear through Juan’s recollections, that Hunter was never really there as a father in the way most would want. Juan always had a natural fondness for his father but understood that his lifestyle made it difficult to establish a very deep relationship.

    Despite his vices and increasing tension between his family and friends, Hunter continued to enjoy success throughout the coming years, albeit a very different type of success. Hunter’s trip to Hawaii to cover a marathon for Running Magazine became an epic journey as Hawaii became his temporary home while he began working on what is now known as The Curse of Lono. The book, while not remembered as one of his best, is filled with wild tales of everything from setting off homemade bombs on the porches of the locals, to secluding himself in the sacred huts of the City of Refuge with nothing but a typewriter, a bottle of whiskey, and some ice.

    The inventor of Gonzo journalism continued to have his work published in magazines and books while the impact of his writings hit the next major frontier: Hollywood. With the beginning of the new decade, Hunter’s work finally made the jump from the page to the screen. Where the Buffalo Roam was released in 1980 and starred Bill Murray as Hunter S. Thompson as we follow him and his attorney Carl Lazlo on a series of misadventures, most of which were somewhat based on Hunter’s real-life experience. However, it wasn’t until Terry Gilliam picked up the pieces of what was left of a project started many years and a few directors before him, and pulled together a marvelous cast and crew to give Hunter’s most famous novel the movie it deserved. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas opened in 1998 and starred Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Torro. The movie brought Hunter’s work to a whole new generation and the book itself saw a much-deserved increase in sales. Hunter’s legacy was secured.

    Hunter remarried eventually to his long-time assistant, Anita, and told her when they married that she would be lucky if she got ten years of life with him. Hunter never had it in him to become old. His exit strategy was simple; his passion for guns was so great that he probably grew to love the instrument of his eventual demise long before he ever used it. He was always upfront about his feelings, as is noted in the documentary Fear and Loathing on the Road to Hollywood, which can be found in the special features of the Criterion Collection edition of Fear and Loathing. In the footage, we see Hunter and Ralph Steadman hounding the poor attendant of a Hollywood funeral home, with their extravagant designs for Hunter’s eventual burial site. His wish is that an enormous pillar be constructed near his home, adorned with his symbol for Gonzo, a fist with two thumbs clutching a peyote badge. From this tower we are told that he wishes to have his ashes shot from the top of this massive cannon, so that he may sprinkle down over the land he loved so much. The shop owner is skeptical that it can be accomplished. Skepticism, however, never stopped the likes of Hunter S. Thompson.

    At around two a clock in the morning on February 20 2005, I was showing my little brother the movie Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, as I was surprised he had not seen it thus far. He enjoyed watching it but soon fell asleep, much as I was unable to finish the film my first time. I continued to watch it and fondly looked upon Hunter himself during his brief cameo in the film. Little did I know that at around that very same moment Hunter was taking his last breath and was about to pull the trigger. At eight thirty in the morning, I was woken by the sound of my phone ringing; my girlfriend was calling. I answered and her tone was somber. She informed me that the legendary writer Hunter S. Thompson had killed himself earlier that morning. I was shaken as the weight of the news sunk in and I like so many of his fans and friends mourned his passing.

    Hunter had taken his life sitting in his kitchen at his home at Owl Farm. His son and his family were visiting from out of town at the time; he wanted the family to be there in the end. They recall hearing the gunshot, but initially mistook the sound for a large book falling. His son Juan was the first to find him and after discovering his body, he grabbed his father’s gun, went outside, and fired three shots into the air. A typewriter was found in front of the body, paper loaded, it was dated two dates ahead and was blank save for the word “counselor”, his last word to us all. What is considered the official suicide note was delivered to his wife Anita a few days before. This is what it said:

“No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun — for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax — This won't hurt.”

    His funeral was considered an utmost success and thanks to his pal Johnny Depp his vision became reality. Depp paid for the entire affair and the massive cannon was erected just as he envisioned it. Hunter’s remains were fired into the air amidst the crackles of fireworks and the tune of Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man”, Hunter’s favorite song. He was sent off surrounded by his loved ones, close friends, celebrities, followers, and fans. A good time was had by all.

    And in the absence of his presence, I can’t help but find myself wondering if the American Dream he so desperately sought had been with him all along. Hunter was an outlaw, a troublemaker, a journalist, a visionary, an eccentric, but most importantly a patriot. He fought for his beliefs in a country that allowed him to reach into the farthest corners of his imagination and bring his voice to the world. His extremes were the necessary ones. He was one of the most important writers of our times and if there ever was a glimmer of truth to that idea of the American Dream, I believe the last embers of it flashed brightly that night over Woody Creek Colorado. And then faded away.

Labels: books, film/tv, heroes

    Fans of Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s Team America World Police (2004) likely fell into two categories: those who watched it because it was by the creators of South Park and those who got the joke and watched it because of their familiarity with marionette serials of their childhood (or adulthood depending on when they discovered them). For those of you in the first group I suggest that you go to the search engine of your choice and look up either Gerry Anderson or Captain Scarlet. You may be pleased with what you’ll find!

    Gerry Anderson is the creator of many popular 1960’s era sci-fi genre marionette shows such as Fireball XL5 (1962), Thunderbirds (1964-66), and Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons (1967-68). Anderson also created several live action shows that still have a loyal following such as UFO (1969-70) and probably his biggest hit, Space: 1999 (1973-76). While the early puppet shows have their innocent childhood appeal and the later live action shows run into the inevitable quality comparisons to the 70’s Battlestar Galactica and Star Wars, the show that I feel captured the best that Anderson had to offer in the genre was Captain Scarlet.

    As with almost all of Anderson’s shows, Captain Scarlet takes place in the future in the year 2068, about 100 years from the show’s original air date. Peace on Earth is maintained by a pseudo military organization called Spectrum, its agents’ identities protected by the assignment of rank and color code names, such as Captain Scarlet and Lieutenant Green (the organization is led by Colonel White). Spectrum is headquartered in Cloudbase, a large craft maintained in low Earth orbit where it can dispatch attack jets piloted by the Angels, female agents with musical code names (Harmony, Symphony, Melody, Rhapsody, and the oddly misnamed Destiny. I guess ‘Jingle’ or ‘Tune’ wouldn’t fit the pattern).

    In the first episode Earth explorers seeking the source of alien transmissions on Mars find and mistakenly destroy an outpost, triggering a retaliatory response from the Mysterons, the race that built it. Waging a ‘war of nerves’ against Earth, the Mysterons have the ability to recreate and control people, vehicles, and other inanimate objects, which they use on attacks led by Captain Black, a former member of the Spectrum organization that led the team that originally destroyed the outpost and was subsequently ‘reanimated’ to act as a covert agent against Earth and Spectrum. Assigned to protect the World President, the titular Captain Scarlet is killed in a car crash on his way to his assignment and is also reanimated to work for the Mysterons only to die again when trying to kidnap the president. For reasons not explained, this second death brings the original Captain Scarlet’s personality back to life as he regenerates from his wounds, making him ‘indestructible’ and subsequently a valuable weapon against the Mysterons.

    Those of you familiar with Anderson’s earlier puppet shows may remember them as being rather lighthearted and humorous at times, more appropriate for the younger audience that watched them. Captain Scarlet deviated from this formula by being serious and dark; the ‘war of nerves’ theme was prescient in describing today’s fear of terrorism. At the time I’m sure they were thinking more of the effects of communism as it was relatively fresh back in the 60’s, however the similarities to the present day ‘war on terror’ can be easily made. Added to this ‘realistic’ feel was a change in the design of the puppets themselves. In previous shows such as Thunderbirds the puppets sported disproportionately larger heads. The reason for this was the mechanics behind lip-syncing the dialog to the puppets: a solenoid mechanism was built into their heads to enable dialog to be recorded separately and played back through a device that generated lip movement in concert with the words. By the late 60’s the device was miniaturized enough to fit into the chest cavity of the puppet, so the Captain Scarlet puppets were the first to be built to the actual scale of real people, in this case 1:3. Life-sized models were also made for close-up shots using real hands whenever needed. While the properly proportioned puppets added to the ‘realism’, it made maneuvering them harder, hence none of the characters were ever really seen walking or running instead relying on moving walkways, vehicles and chairs to give the characters ‘action’.

    The Mysterons themselves were only represented by a set of glowing rings that would pan the scenery. Anderson explained later that they didn’t want to try and predict what a Martian would look like in case there was life found on Mars and they got it wrong!

    Unlike the typical self-contained episodes of Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet was a continuing story line of the conflicts between Earth and the Mysterons. However, much like its predecessors there was a significant attention to artistic design, particularly with its vehicles and technology, such as the backwards driven Spectrum Pursuit Vehicles (SPVs) and the communication devices built into the character’s hats and shoulder epaulets. And, like it’s live action counterpart Star Trek, Anderson was ahead of the curve in race and sex relations with multi-cultural agents such as the black Lieutenant Green and the female Angel pilots.

    While the episode plots are rather simple and, in many cases, naïve, they were nonetheless entertaining as many of the concepts provided hinted at larger grander ideas that needed to be reigned in for the after-school audience. Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons lasted only 32 episodes between 1967 and 1968, but a new series, Gerry Anderson’s New Captain Scarlet debuted in 2005 using computer-generated animation (or ‘Hypermarionation’ in honor of the earlier ‘Supermarionation’ puppet shows). Freed from the constraints of the marionettes, this series provides significantly greater action and follows closely the storyline from the original series updated for modern times.

    Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons is available as a boxed set in the U.S. The New Captain Scarlet is currently available as Region 2 DVDs. If that isn’t enough for you, branch out and discover the other offerings from Gerry Anderson or read about his shows from the many sites that cover his catalog. You may find a new world worth exploring!

Labels: film/tv

    I recently had the pleasure of re-purchasing my favorite movie growing up. It's the second time I've bought the DVD because I have a nasty habit of lending out all my favorite stuff to just about anybody, regardless of how well I know them or whether I'm sure I'll see them again. Odds are better than good I'll do it again but, to me, Monster Squad is one movie worth buying over and over.
    Granted, this is partly because for the longest time you couldn't buy it at all. Monster Squad was out of print for so many years that when the DVD was announced a couple years back I could've pissed myself. I didn't but, looking back, it was a missed opportunity. The only copy I'd seen before then was the VHS tape my parents had that got lost somewhere in the split. My sister and I ran that tape ragged through elementary school. There's no telling how responsible that movie is for so much of my taste to this day. Any time I discovered somebody else who'd seen it years ago on VHS we'd geek out and lament the heart-sickening travesty that it wasn't in print.
    Now we can just geek out and lament over some other heart-sickening travesties as Monster Squad is now widely available and back on my shelf. And for a film I fell in love with as a kid, it's held up pretty damn well.

"He's going to kill your son!" I drew scribbly werewolves all through elementary school because of this movie.

    Director and co-writer Fred Dekker describes the basic premise as "The Little Rascals Meet The Universal Monsters" and it's kind of like that, only way more awesome than you're imagining. A lot of credit goes to the script from Dekker and co-writer Shane Black. Yes, that's the same Shane Black who wrote Lethal Weapon and wrote/directed Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Since he's the more familiar creative element behind this it's tempting to credit him with a lot of the script's surprisingly hard-edged wit. This isn't the case if you've been fortunate enough to see Dekker's even more obscure debut, Night of the Creeps. Both films veer wildly between horror, comedy and dark, dark comedy while still taking the characters seriously, so when somebody you've grown to like and laugh at throughout the movie is suddenly taken out it really hits you. (In fact, from what I remember of Dekker's only other film directing credit, RoboCop 3, he wasn't shy about knocking off characters in an unexpectedly tragic fashion there either.)
    The dialogue is way sharper than any '80s genre-mutant has a right to be. Most movies are lucky if they've got just one line memorable enough to quote after viewing; Monster Squad is rife with them. Honestly, there are moments in this film that are so cool that it confounds you as to who this movie was aiming for.

For no particular reason Dracula gets all electro-sparky right before killing a bunch of cops with his bare hands, pulse-blasting an old man and making a little girl cry. That's rad.

    Look at it this way: you've got a handful of kids averaging out around ten years old, all of them talking as much shit as real-life ten year olds do, facing off against Dracula, Wolfman, Frankenstein's Monster, the Creature from the Black Lagoon and a Mummy, all depicted in a serious, faithful and horrific manner. For subplots you've got one of the kids' parents on the verge of divorce and Lethal Weapon-style buddy-cop action. This is a movie where the kids use nude photos to blackmail a girl into helping them open a portal into limbo. This is a movie where the fat kid gets to cap a monster with a shotgun and Dracula calls a six year old girl a bitch. It's a movie about kids that's too adult for all but the most awesome or ill-supervised kids. So you can imagine it didn't break any box office records back in the day.

"I'm in the goddamned club, aren't I?"

    I highly recommend picking up the two-disc 20th Anniversary DVD, they did a damn good job of loading it with special features, way more than I could've hoped for back when all I had was the memory of a worn-out tape. The featurettes are all a hoot and it's great seeing so much of the cast and crew show up for interviews. It's downright bizarre seeing the Squad all grown-up. But I suppose it's downright bizarre being all grown-up.
    So yeah. Monster Squad. Go watch it. Demand sequels.
    I mean it. Maybe they'll listen to you.

"Come on guys, don't be chickenshit!"

Labels: film/tv

    Superhero genre fans had a great year in 2008 with the release of three excellent movies: Iron Man starring Robert Downey Jr, The Incredible Hulk with Edward Norton, and of course, the uber-performing The Dark Knight with Christian Bale. Yeah, there were a couple of others, like Wanted (hot bullets, hot Angie) and Hancock (hot Charlize, um, hot Charlize?) and some might even consider Jimmy Bond in Quantum of Solace (boom boom brood boom), but the biggest and baddest of them were Chris, Ed, and Bobby. These guys got their big time in the sunshine, but things weren’t always so hot (or showy) for them as they worked their way up the hero ladder to become the biggest bad-asses of the year. For those of you who are new to these guys, there’s a lot of great flicks for you to check out showing how they got their chops. What follows is a selection of more obscure personal favorites for you to try out that I think you’ll like.
    Christian Bale has been one of the best unknown actors starring in some of the more interesting cult movies of the past ten years. As Patrick Bateman in American Psycho (2000) he used his chiseled physique and GQ looks to make axing your co-worker a stylish endeavor. And if you want to see what he looked like right before he made Batman Begins to appreciate his dedication to the craft, check out The Machinist (2004), but make sure you have a good meal before you watch it. However, for lovers of the art of kick-ass, see Equilibrium (2002). Back then, for those of us looking for a candidate for the perfect Bruce Wayne, this one was the clincher. Set in a dystopian future where the population is injected with Prozium by government edict to control their emotions, Bale plays Cleric John Preston, a member of the fascist police state’s Tetragrammaton that hunts down ‘sense offenders’ and destroys all objects of art, music, and literature (think 1984 + Fahrenheit 451). When Preston accidentally misses his shot of Prozium one day he starts to develop feelings and eventually becomes a revolutionary against the state. Sure, that doesn’t sound too cool, but what is VERY cool is that Clerics are taught the deadly art of Gun Kata, a form of martial arts using guns. The speed with which a Cleric disposes of a group of assailants surrounding him using this discipline is awesome and very well choreographed. You’ll want to slo-mo through some of these, I promise you. A memorable scene to look for involves Preston, a lot of cops, and a puppy. Yes, a puppy. And if ‘gun fu’ isn’t enough, a handy sword is used now and then just as effectively when the bullets run out. So yeah, the action is great, but what about the story? Sure, it’s a little derivative, but it sets a good framework for the action and has its fair share of emotional beats. Not many, but if you want to see Bale’s audition for action hero, this is the best one.
    Robert Downey Jr. has quite a long resume and has dabbled in the fantasy/sci-fi genre before, such as in Gothika (2003) with Halle Berry, and the (sort of) animated A Scanner Darkly (2006) based on the Phillip K. Dick story. A lesser hyped recent work that I like better is Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) with Val Kilmer. Directed by Shane Black, writer of the original Lethal Weapon movies, KKBB brings Black’s sharp and humorous dialog up to this century in a story of mistaken identity, murder, and noir in L.A. Downey plays a loser at the end of his rope who, during a robbery attempt with an accomplice at a toy store, barely escapes and accidentally runs into an audition for a Hollywood movie while evading the police. Channeling his emotions of the moment he wins over the interviewers and is packed up and sent to L.A. While there he becomes entangled with a murder mystery, a gay detective (Kilmer), and oddly enough his childhood sweetheart, all of which are intertwined into a finale that is both exciting and darkly humorous. Downey is great at playing smooth characters with a tragically comedic edge, and his interplay here is as good as it gets. With solid performances by Kilmer and all involved, this is very entertaining and a good place to see Downey hone the repartee he uses so well in Iron Man.
    Edward Norton is another cult favorite with many credits under his belt that you may remember, for me most notably in Fight Club (1999) and The Illusionist (2006). Norton tends to play very serious and very flawed characters in his pics, but if you want to really see him go against the ‘serious’ type, check out Death to Smoochy (2002). Playing Sheldon Mopes, an actor with aspirations of making it big in children’s entertainment, he gets thrust into instant stardom when the star of the biggest children’s show on TV is fired over a bribery scandal and Mopes is brought in as his replacement in the guise of Smoochy the fuscia rhinoceros. Any similarities to famous purple dinosaurs I’m sure are deliberately accidental. As Smoochy’s success increases, Mopes finds that the TV business is not as pure as he would hope and soon runs into contention with his superiors. At the same time, his predecessor is slowly going insane with hatred and plotting the murder of Smoochy. If I had to pick one thing this movie needed to make it an even better pick it would be to push it more to the extreme either way. It tries to run somewhere down the middle between black humor and metaphorical commentary and never quite achieves both as well as it should, but watching Norton as the naïve and innocent Mopes kind of makes up for some of the heavy handedness that his co-star and director Danny DeVito brings and does so well.
    So, for those of you wanting to see more of the heroes of 2008 in obscure performances worth your time, get Equilibrium, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Death to Smoochy. At least it’ll give you something worthwhile to look at while waiting for Watchmen!

Labels: film/tv

    It would not be entirely accurate to describe me as an “anime fan.” Although I have been known to enjoy on occasional dose of anime in the forms of Cowboy Bebop, Vampire Hunter D, and Ghost on the Shell, I could never really get into the more traditional aspects of your average anime. (These being the overly androgynous characters, the silly way in which they convey emotions and the outrageous, over-the-top story elements that often bear little relevance other than “coolness value”) Then came Death Note. After brief exposure to some of the early episodes, I knew I had found something, not only extremely fresh and original, but something that would set the bar in storytelling of any kind. Here was a show that stood out to me as being at the top of its game and one of the best series on television ever.

    I had first heard of Death Note through a co-worker, who had explained the basic elements of the plot. He said there is a character in the series who comes upon a notebook (the Death Note) in which he can write anyone’s name and they will die. He also mentioned that the character planned to eradicate evil using this power. It sounded like an intriguing premise, but my skeptical mind started filling in the blanks with the usual anime tropes so I was not sold by the plot synopses alone. I very well may have never discovered the copious awesomeness of the show had I not literally stumbled upon it on one of the few occasions that I had cable over the past few years. After watching one episode, somewhere within the first ten of the series, I realized by its end that I had dramatically underestimated this show.

    This was not the same action-packed, robot fighting, samurai sword-wielding nonsense I was used to seeing in a series of this nature. Here was a show massive in its intelligence, tasteful in its character development and so strikingly fresh that I was altogether helpless to resist its instantly captivating plot. The show follows Light Yagami, an extremely intelligent young man, who indeed stumbles upon a notebook that explains the power it possesses and the rules to which it is bound. These rules serve as a skeleton to which the meat of the story clings. The power of the Death Note is in its killing ability, but the limit of its power lies in rules where the user needs the person’s name and face in mind to be able to kill. Other rules dictate how a person can be killed and over how long of a period. These become increasingly important as the existence of the Death Note becomes more widely known. Just as my friend had described, after Light tests its effectiveness, he decides that he should use this power to help create a world he has envisioned free from evil, thus being dubbed “Kira” by the media; the Japanese pronunciation of the word “killer”. It is at this next crucial juncture that Death Note veers off course from the predictable and mundane. Where other series might make this simple set up the premise for the rest of the story, showing a hero who uses super-natural powers to fight against some equally powerful evil that will surely emerge, Death Note grounds itself by making us ask what would logically happen if something like this Death Note did exist. That logical answer being that eventually someone would get smart to what was happening and try to make it stop. Light becomes less the hero and more the secret villain as he continues to exact punishment on criminals while evading the investigations of police, FBI, and a Special Investigative Force headed by his father. To make things more interesting a highly secretive, brilliant, and world-renowned detective known only as “L” has decided to take the case.

    The relationship between Light and L becomes the story itself and as viewers, we find ourselves wholly captivated by what is at first a simple game between two rivals. Things take a surprising turn early in the series when L reveals himself to Light and asks him to join the case against Kira, a dangerous move for now Light knows L’s face. But is L bringing in Light for the support his intelligence could lend to the case or because he suspects Light of being Kira and wants to keep him close? It is the progression of elements like these where we see the wit of two young men crash against each other in the most subversive combat I’ve seen that keeps the story blossoming as it progresses.

    It is this approach to the story that sets it apart from anything that has come before it. As a viewer, I was expecting it to follow a course of fantasy-like proportions, when instead it takes what could have been a not-so-original premise and turns it into a web of intrigue as each side draws closer to the other. The suspense is almost unbearable at times as Light and L continue their cat-and-mouse games in pursuit of one another. This intensity shows no signs of letting up throughout the later episodes. Even after certain plot elements have come to fruition and passed the new elements serve to captivate your interest as well as distract you from the over-all question: will Light succeed?

    The series was developed by manga writer Tsugumi Ohba and illustrated by Takeshi Obata. It originally appeared as a serialized comic in Weekly Shonen Jump from late 2003 to 2006. Since then, the story has spawned not only the well-known TV adaptation but three live action movies and a novelized version as well.

    It is the animated series though that stands out as something truly special. The animation is brilliant; the over-all design of the characters and environment is stunning, the music is well orchestrated and moving, and the acting in the Japanese original feels very natural. After completing the series, I was left not only with a feeling of complete satisfaction, but also motivated to ensure my own stories can live up to the high standard that Death Note set.

    Much of the story’s originality seems to stem from the folklore it created. In the world of Death Note Shinigami, the gods of death, become entwined in our world when one known as Ryuk drops a Death Note in the human world. This of course is found by Light who is then able to see Ryuk. Ryuk and Light have an unusual relationship that can't be described as entirely friendly. Ryuk’s intentions are never clear, as he seems to aid Light at some points but leaves out important information at other times. Their roles in each other’s lives are made firmer when Ryuk tells Light that although he will follow him and sometimes offer help, he has no intention of allying himself to Light’s cause. He also promises that one day he will write Light’s name in his own Death Note, casting Light’s soul into purgatory, for such is the price of any human who uses the Death Note.

    It was a bold choice for the series creator to follow the story of a boy who is both protagonist and antagonist, which is never an easy element to follow through on. We sympathize with Light to a degree and bubble with anticipation as he narrowly evades his pursuers, yet we know Light’s actions are wrong and, as audience members, cannot help but wonder how this bad guy will get his in the end. Or if.

    That itself is the genius of Death Note: can we stand up for what is right despite the fact that the evildoer is basing his intentions on ideals of good? Kira is ridding the world of evil men and putting a stop to wars worldwide, but he’s using murder to do it. Can we live with that? And if we can’t, can we survive his wrath long enough to stop him?

    The show is a roller-coaster ride the whole way through. The ups, downs, twists, and turns will keep you guessing, laughing, jumping for joy, and at the edge of your seat right up to the last episode. The rules of the Death Note state that any human who touches the notebook will be able to see and hear the Shinigami to which the Death Note is bound. Likewise, any human who watches this show will be granted the vision of an animated series that knocks down the walls of expectations and would make an anime fan of even the most adamant protester.

Labels: film/tv

    On Thanksgiving Day, I finished watching the entire series of Twin Peaks for the fourth time. I don't dig much TV in general, but Twin Peaks is special for me. Ever since I watched the credits roll on the final episode, the show has haunted me. It haunts me still. So there's something to give thanks for.
    It occurs to me, now's a pretty damn good time for television fans. Sure, it may be hard to believe sometimes, considering that half the world's population has their own reality show now. But with the lowest common denominator more than adequately provided for by footage of itself, niche audiences seeking more interesting, original fare are surprisingly finding themselves catered to as well. Maybe we can thank the internet for giving viewing audiences a voice beyond Nielsen ratings, or perhaps we can thank DVD and DVR for making longer, more elaborate storylines easier to digest on one's own time. Hey, maybe we can even thank reality TV for antagonizing scripted dramas into being better just to survive. I don't know, I'm no TV scholar. What I do know is that we most certainly can and most certainly should thank Twin Peaks for its part in making TV better.
    All together now: "Thank you, Twin Peaks."
    Thank you for elevating the artistic and technical standards for TV to the level of film. Thank you for sneaking the surreal and horrific into unsuspecting homes under the guise of quaint, small-town drama. And thank you most of all for being that rare kind of show that haunts you relentlessly long after viewing.
    For those who aren't familiar with Twin Peaks, the show was created by David Lynch and Mark Frost and followed Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) and Sheriff Harry S. Truman (Michael Ontkean) as they investigated the murder of homecoming queen Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) in the titular town of Twin Peaks. As her secrets are gradually uncovered, the veneer of innocence is scraped away from the seemingly idyllic town and the hidden dramas of its residents take center stage. Also: backwards talking/dancing midget dreams, the Log Lady, Tibet, ultimate evil in the form of an owl and some damn fine coffee and pie. Suffice it to say that any attempt at summing up the series does it a disservice.
    It's easy to take it for granted now, but Twin Peaks took everything people knew about what you could do in a TV drama, murdered it, wrapped it in plastic and tossed it over a waterfall. Although there's no denying that the show is basically a soap opera with all the usual tropes (and I do mean ALL the usual tropes - within two seasons there are more comas and cases of amnesia than any one hospital's ever had to deal with), the injection of strange, subversive elements combined with artful, film-quality execution puts it on a wholly different level. The better episodes are practically art films unto themselves. When the show originally aired, the only other place you were going to find art on TV was for sale on QVC.
    Granted, when the show originally aired, I was still in grade school and not quite sophisticated enough to appreciate anything that didn't involve ninja turtles or ghostbusting. My parents watched the show every week they could though and taped it when they couldn't. (In fact, for most of my life Twin Peaks was just the show sharing the same VHS tape as the '80's remake of The Blob.) I do have vague memories of watching the show as a child, crouched next to the couch in the doorway of the darkened living room so Mom and Dad wouldn't know I was still up. I still recall seeing trees in the wind, coffee at all hours, rows upon rows of jelly donuts, and especially the photograph of the late Laura Palmer, smiling sweetly behind the end credit roll.
    (Strangely the most vivid memories I have of watching the show as a child are of the bizarre, eerily-shoddy digital effects that began cropping up in the lesser episodes of the second season. I don't know if there's a right way to show a woman becoming a drawer-pull, but even little nose-picking baby Jared could've told you they didn't find it in Twin Peaks.)
    It wasn't until well after the 2001 release of the first season on DVD that I got to truly experience the show. By this time I was about as fanatical about David Lynch as I had been about ninja turtles, and having already devoured his entire filmography up to that point I was practically salivating when I started the first episode. Not only was I instantly hooked, I was also instantly infuriated by the exclusion of the feature-length pilot from the DVD set. My frustration was alleviated by the fact that every episode in that set was classic and self-contained enough to appreciate outside of the context of the series. When the second season set came out I tore through it, hesitating only when I came upon the nadir of the show's run, an episode directed by Diane Keaton of all people. (I don't have any proof of this but I'm pretty sure this is the episode that got Twin Peaks canceled. All together now: "Thank you, Diane Keaton. Thanks a load.")
    See, apparently Lynch and Frost were heavily involved in the first season but not so much the second. So while the first season and the first chunk of episodes from the second are phenomenal, the show gradually started devolving into normal TV. The first sign of trouble was when Laura Palmer's murder got solved. I'm of the opinion that wrapping up that mystery didn't have to destroy the entire dramatic momentum of the show but that's really just speculation because good lord did it destroy the entire dramatic momentum of the show. It's not so bad at first because you figure they're just going to ease you into the next major plot line and also David Duchovny shows up in drag looking like a slightly more attractive Jennifer Anniston, but as soon as Foxy Mulder vanishes and Cooper trades his signature suit for various shades of plaid the show just becomes a mediocre soap opera that occasionally tries being weird for weirdness sake. Problem is, there's weird, there's Lynch-weird, and then there's Diane-Keaton-trying-to-act-like-Lynch-weird. It's like when you have this crazy uncle you really dig and always have a good time with, but then he takes off to direct Wild at Heart and your excruciatingly normal aunt tries to make you feel better by acting weird and it only makes you hate him for leaving you with her. (It's okay Diane Keaton, I'm sure you tried your best.)
    But! After reaching rock-bottom with Keaton's episode and spending the next episode kicking the dirt to make sure we can't get any lower (culminating with a regular cast member becoming a drawer-pull in a manner that offended me just as much as an adult as it did as a child) I guess Lynch and Frost couldn't help but notice that their baby had wandered astray. Lynch, who had guest-starred previously as Cooper's boss at the bureau, Gordon Cole, returns to Twin Peaks, puts Cooper back in his suit and then proceeds to kiss the prettiest girl on the show (which is Shelly, played by Mädchen Amick, who also has the coolest name of all the actors on the show. Thank you for just being, Mädchen Amick.). So they make it pretty clear that the viewer is back in good hands and that Lynch also has good taste in women.
    BUT! Just as the series gets good again, just as it starts engaging you like that first season did, just as you're reminded why you cared about all these characters in the first place... the finale happens. And I don't know if a series has ever gone out in such a gut-wrenching, heart-crushing manner before.
    When I finished watching the last episode of Twin Peaks, I was downright shaken. I couldn't stop thinking about it. For a week I was in a state somewhere between mourning and shock.
    I could not. Stop. Thinking about it.
    When they finally got around to announcing a comprehensive DVD set of the whole series that included the pilot, I pre-ordered it immediately. (This is the Twin Peaks Gold Box set and it's a must-have for all they packed into it. You can get it from our Amazon store below at an obscenely low price.) As soon as it arrived I watched the pilot and, sure enough, it was brilliant. So I put on the next episode. And the next. And within a week I'd made my way back around to that last episode again.
    And again it crushed me.
    Part of this is due to how the last few episodes seem to tell the story of how the show itself met its bitter end. Cooper falls in love with the new girl in town (Annie Blackburn, played by Heather Graham - one of many unexpected familiar faces in the second season) and finds himself distracted as his former partner and current nemesis Windom Earle draws together his master plan. It's almost like Lynch and Frost admitting that they themselves had been distracted, allowing evil to spread its roots and take hold of Twin Peaks. It's like watching a rose bloom, growing lovelier every day, but knowing that underneath there's a disease slowly rotting away the stem and there's nothing you can do to stop it.
In the last episode, Coop enters the Black Lodge and confronts ultimate evil. This episode might be my favorite Lynch work of all time. The doppelganger motif is at the forefront and the way that idea is reflected from the Black Lodge all the way to the deja vu at the Double R Diner is breathtaking. The episode was clearly designed to help save the series from cancellation, as damn near every single scene sets up its own nerve-wracking cliffhanger. But the series wasn't saved. The last shot of the series kicks you off the cliff and leaves you falling. That's the feeling you get in the end, the feeling that you're falling and the bottom's never coming.
    Every time I get through this series I'm left with that feeling. And I can't help but try to continue the story of Twin Peaks in my own head, the only place I'll likely see it live on. I still pray that Lynch will pick up the series again, perhaps twenty-five years later (as suggested by Coop's first dream in the show), but he seems content to let it rest in peace. What peace, though? Lynch followed the series' cancelation with a prequel movie, the nearly overwhelmingly dark yet engaging Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, which hinted at some sort of bittersweet resolution, but it also ended with a night-vision shot of a monkey saying "Judy," so again I ask you, what peace? I know I've had none of it, as I've probably written more episodes continuing the story in my own head than ever were actually produced. The temptation to spit out a fifty-page treatment right now as proof is only mitigated by my unwillingness to spoil too much of the series for those who've yet to experience it. The primary goal of this writing is to get you to watch it for yourself and let you carry on the story in your own mind, in your own way.
    In the end, I'm grateful that I can always revisit Twin Peaks. There'll always be wind in the trees, fresh pie and some damn fine coffee. But the Good Dale is still in the lodge and, as thankful as I am for the feeling, it still haunts me.

Labels: film/tv