Videodrome: The Cabin in the Woods

The Cabin in the Woods paints by numbers and doesn’t even bother to use any new colors. It is the quintessential slasher movie that exists in all of our cinematic collective memories. It follows the pattern so closely that you could predict its outcome with your eyes closed. That is until it breaks from those patterns so completely that you have no idea what you’re looking at anymore.

The set-up (see if you can’t guess it before reading this next paragraph): five high school kids go for a weekend retreat to a remote cabin. You have your slut, your jock, your sensitive intellectual, your burnout, and, finally, your virgin, who is hilariously introduced to us in only shirt and underwear. When they get to the cabin, these five horror staples manage to go into the cellar and mess around with objects that they shouldn’t. They incur the wrath of some zombies and ghosts. In the end, they all die. Most of them die in the exact manner that you’d expect them to die given the universe they occupy. Did I say too much? Probably not. 

Videodrom: A Separation

A Separation will be released on DVD on August 21st. Really, you need to see this one. 

Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film back in February. The reality, in a field that included the likes of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and The Help, is that this movie ought to have been nominated for Best Picture. And I wouldn’t have been disappointed if it had taken home the big prize; at least not as disappointed as I was when they gave it to a gimmick film named The Artist.

A Separation is the type of movie that ought to be experienced first hand, with as little foreknowledge of the plot as possible. The film has been inappropriately compared to the films of Alfred Hitchcock, but seeing it really is an act of discovery if you can go in with a blank slate.

The Kinoshita Project: Boyhood (1951)

The Kinoshita Project is a Chronological exploration of all the Keisuke Kinoshita movies available on Hulu Plus from Criterion. 

Hindsight is always 20/20, or so the old saying goes. We like to apply this truism to our personal lives liberally. We reason that if we’d only done this or that, then our lives would have been different in such and such way; usually we imagine that life would’ve been better. And when we apply this to our personal lives, we usually curse ourselves for our lack of vision. We regret our foolishness and wallow in our guilt. Once we get over our guilt, we call this becoming wiser, learning from mistakes, and so on.

If we do this as individuals, then surly a nation could do it as well, right?

The Kinoshita Project: Fireworks Over the Sea (1951)

The Kinoshita Project is a chronological look at all the Keisuke Kinoshita movies available on Hulu Plus from Criterion. 

The Kinoshita Project, when it’s all over, should cover about 30 films; that is, of course, unless Criterion adds more titles going forward. Up to now we’ve seen relative consistency in Kinoshita’s directorial abilities. He’s got the skills to make even the dullest of war propaganda films play compellingly for 90 minutes, which is no small feat. And even in his lesser post-war efforts, Kinoshita’s films have benefited from good performances and solid storytelling.

And so it is with some disappointment that I must report that Fireworks Over the Sea marks the first genuine, from beginning to end, dud for The Kinoshita Project. The problem, as I see it, is in the script. No amount of slick directing, grand cinematography, or fancy editing could save this horrendous tangle of inconsequential characters and convoluted situations. The film, clocking in at just past the two hour mark has all the narrative density of a soap opera and none of the sex. Kinoshita picks characters up and puts them back down like an ADHD child in a toy store. And by the time the movie is over, none of these characters have even begun to matter to us; we’ve seen them only in slight flashes, always accompanied by some ready cliché about romance, sacrifice, and blah blah blah. Great actors – Chishu Ryu, for instance – are just thrown to waste here and, quite honestly, it’s depressing.  

The Kinoshita Project: The Good Fairy (1951)

The Kinoshita Project is a chronological look at all the Keisuke Kinoshita films available from the Criterion Collection on Hulu Plus. 

Up until now, we should have learned at least one thing about Keisuke Kinoshita: he loves the pure of heart. His heroes are typically young and idealistic to the point of naiveté. The fact that Kinoshita rarely privileges anyone beyond their 20s becomes extremely acute in The Good Fairy, which, even if it doesn’t carry the poetic heights of The Girl I Loved or the comic brilliance of The Portrait, might be the most mature expression of his vision so far. The honor and self-sacrifice of its hero is so thorough that it crosses over the line, moving from melodrama and into horror. What he does and the alliances he chooses are anathema to the understanding of most people, myself included. What he does is both right and sick. His actions, in the ordinary world, would be classified as insane.

Videodrome, Cinephile Edition: The Artist

Let’s get the most obvious thing out of the way first: The Artist did not deserve to win Best Picture; not in a field that included standout movies like Moneyball, The Tree of Life, and The Descendants, and certainly not in a year with my personal favorites Meek’s Cutoff, Of Gods and Men, and Drive. This doesn’t, of course, mean that The Artist is a bad movie, but it does make Michel Hazanavicius’ little tribute to the glories of silent cinema easier to hate. And that can be the real shame of the Oscars – rather than promoting goodwill and good faith among ranking cinephiles, the Academy’s shameless acceptance of studio marketing campaigns and cronyism has replaced the act of critical judgment. Well, maybe “replace” is the wrong word to use here, because I’m not sure if critical judgment has ever been the watchword among Oscar voters.

If The Artist is easy to hate because it won an award that it surely did not deserve, then it is doubly easy to hate because it (or the filmmakers behind it) want so badly for you to like it. Almost cloying in its efforts for your affection, The Artist has the sweet flavor of cotton candy. A little too much and the stomach begins to turn.

The Kinoshita Project: Broken Drum (1949)

The Kinoshita Project is chronological exploration of the of Keisuke Kinoshita films now available on Hulu Plus through the Criterion Collection. 

A familiar physical gesture hangs over every frame of Broken Drum; It is the gesture of a man with his right arm raised up at a 45 degree angle over his subjects. He is the dictator and all others are there to do his bidding. In the wake of World War II, there is only one figure that this gesture can point back to.

Kinoshita doesn’t just critique Hitler in Broken Drum; he satirizes him with the ruthless glee of a disgruntled employee sounding off on his recently dead boss. That doesn’t mean that this version of Hitler isn’t pitifully funny, though. Gunpei Tsuda, the owner of a once profitable construction company, always addresses his inferiors with arm outstretched. It’s a shaky arm, though, because he is old, and he has a difficult time keeping it up in the air with any sense of authority. Tsuda’s autocratic gesture has the effect of an impotent appendage; turning from a symbol of power into a sign of lame paternalism. And though everyone who stands under the outstretched arm must give their due respect, behind the old man’s back they will slander, mock, and deride him. The respect given is only formal, not coming from the heart at all. The only thing that Tsuda wants in life – and the Hitleresque gesture is a sure sign – is to control his subjects; in this case his children. And he is the abject comic center of a beautifully played ensemble piece.

The Kinoshita Project: The Yotsuya Ghost Story (1949)

The Kinoshita Project is a chronological look at the films of Keisuke Kinoshita that have been made available on Hulu Plus from Criterion. This entry covers The Yotsuya Ghost Story, Parts 1 & 2. 

Despite its status as a national myth/legend, referring to this Keisuke Kinoshita drama as a “ghost story” is at least a little deceptive. Perhaps other versions (and there have been at least 30 Yotsuya films) emphasize the supernatural more, but Kinoshita’s two hour and forty minute epic (split into two, easy to swallow parts), greatly altered from the 1825 kabuki play it’s based on, has more to do with the psychological than it does the supernatural. There are ghosts, yes, but they appear not as spirits from the netherworld, but as apparitions born of a guilty conscience. And the fear they invoke is far more powerful for this reason.

Justin Townes Earle, Live at The Gray Eagle, 5/23/12

This is what Justin Townes Earle looks like when he’s really into his songs. He has long hair now. In case you were wondering.

I’ll admit that I was a little apprehensive about going to see Justin Townes Earle on his most recent tour, in support of his new Memphis-soaked album, Nothing’s Going to Change the Way You Feel About Me Now. The album, while palatable enough, just hasn’t stuck with me at all. This spring I’ve found myself spinning Beach House’s Bloom and Sleigh Bells’ Reign of Terror; both of which stand in stark contrast to JTE’s almost bland aping of Americana.

But the tickets were only $14 dollars and Townes Earle is a great songwriter. So, despite the state perpetual exhaustion that I’ve been in over the past three months, I decided to go. And I’m glad I did.

The Kinoshita Project: The Portrait (1948)

The Kinoshita Project is a continuing series, looking at the Keisuke Kinoshita films made available on Hulu Plus from Criterion. 

If ever there were an appropriate movie to apply the term “dramedy” to, Keisuke Kinoshita’s The Portrait would be the one. Here is a film that weaves between comic weightlessness and heavy drama with almost unnoticeable ease. And when Kinoshita isn’t busy throwing jokes our way or pummeling us with dramatic tension, he manages to impress upon us, in his own inimitable way, the beauty of innocence. Yes, this appears to be Kinoshita in is prime element, unable to be confused with the work of any other director that I know of.

But despite the singular quality of the film, it turns out that The Portrait was written by none other than Akira Kurosawa. If it weren’t for the credits, you’d never know, because The Portrait bears almost no resemblance to Kurosawa’s frenetic brand of cinema. It does, however, bear the marks of his overt, sometimes overbearing humanism. Audie Bock, in her book Japanese Film Directors, suggests that Kinoshita had commissioned the script so as to challenge himself in new directions. In the end, The Portrait is all Kinoshita, but it also manages to provide an interesting aside to Kurosawa’s illustrious career.