Month: May 2020

Take Me Somewhere Nice

Posted on by victorfraga

Where are we? What are we looking at? Why is director Ena Sendijarević showing us this particular abstract image to open her film? Take Me Somewhere Nice opens with questions, and the sound of nature over this bland abstract image provokes our curiosity. And then, loud music interrupts the sound of chirping creatures and the camera cuts to an interior of a retail changing room, where Alma (Sara Luna Zoric), the films main character is trying on clothes with her mother. From here on in, nothing may be as it seems in Sendijarević’s film.

Raised by her Bosnian parents in the Netherlands, Alma is at that point in her life between girlhood and womanhood. While she hardly knows her father following his return to Bosnia, when she learns that he has been admitted to hospital, she decides to visit him one first and last time.

From the playful opening, the divide between Western and Eastern Europe echoes a contentious vibe throughout the narrative. Returning to Bosnia, Alma stays with her cousin Emir (Ernad Prnjavorac), who seeing her for the first time in years says with a familial affection, yet with it an air of indifference, “You’ve grown up”. She replies: “So have you”. Their relationship is a tense one, the struggle to connect palpable even, yet their familial roots are affirmed in a few moments that offers a heartfelt portrait of family. These moments are never saccharine or sentimental, rather they are earned through the genuine interactions Alma and Emir, and his friend Denis (Lazar Dragojevic) experience on their journey.

Beyond the emphasis on Alma’s return to her home country, the film addresses the theme of the globalised family. Carl Jung in his collected works wrote about how we assimilate ourselves into our society, adopting its customs and moral codes in order to belong. While the family network is there to support Alma, although Emir has to be pressured by his aunt and Denis to help his cousin, the globalised family functions as a dependable unit. There are nonetheless indications of fractures, and one can sense that Alma and Emir are from different worlds, although she does not feel wholly out of place, nor does she wholly fit in.

What makes her a fascinating character is that Sendijarević positions her at a contradictory in-between point. Even the way she and director of photography Emo Weemhoff shoot Zoric, it’s with a focus of the transition between girlhood and womanhood. They shoot the sexual scenes with a discretion, even as the camera frequently gazes over her body clothed only in a bikini when sunbathing, or fixating on her legs which are left exposed when she wears clothes from someone else’s missing suitcase she claims as her own. And in one scene she changes her shirt in the same room as Emir and Denis, and with her back to the camera, we see only skin and bra straps. Sendijarević determinately positions her in this period of transition, that accompanies an impression that there are shades of the fairy tale in the subtext of the story, where innocence is vulnerable and preyed upon by impure temptations.

Take Me Somewhere Nice captures a snapshot of that period of time before we know who we are. The characters may have self-doubts and frustrations – Denis questions masculinity as a dying breed, while Emir and Alma discuss the difference between nationalism versus patriotism, of hate versus pride. But outside of the political, Sendijarević captures the period of time that fuels our melancholic maturity of the youthful freedom to live, before life calls out to us: “Playtime’s over”. Once again it resists being saccharine or sentimental, and just as Emir and Denis are perpetrators of violence, so too do Alma and Denis experience the cruelty and violence of the adulthood world that awaits them, ready to humble their physical and spiritual bravado.

Take Me Somewhere Nice will offer a quiet dialogue to those familiar with the experiences of immigration and the feelings towards one’s home country. While for some, this dialogue will not be shared, Sendijarević’s film is an intriguing piece of filmmaking that is ripe for reencountering. Look beyond the story to the interactions and dialogue of the characters, the aesthetics and how the images and music express the themes and ideas, and what we may have here is a striking feature debut.

Take Me Somewhere Nice is available on Mubi from Thursday, May 21st.

Just kill all hippies!!!

Posted on by victorfraga

WARNING: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS SPOILERS

This year marks the 40-year anniversary of Dennis Hopper’s Out of the Blue. This movie marked Hopper’s third directorial effort (after Easy Rider in 1969 and The Last Movie in 1971) and, in a filmography of iconoclastic and uncompromising work as an actor and director, perhaps this film marks his most vitally charged and disturbing film. Thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign, a 4K restored DVD/Blu-ray version of the film (click here for more information about the restoration project) is being released later this year by John Alan Simon and Elizabeth Karr of Discovery Productions. An interview with John Alan Simon accompanies this piece.

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Out of his mind

The story goes that at the tail end of the 1970s, Hopper, then an outcast from mainstream Hollywood film due to his substance abuse and wildman personality (see Francis For Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, 1979, for reference), was cast in a small Canadian television film production, which at the time was titled The Case of Cindy Barnes (1980). The film’s inexperienced director, screenwriter Leonard Yakir, soon jumped ship after a few weeks of shooting turned up no usable footage. The project was all but abandoned by the cast and crew. Seeing an opportunity to take over and direct the project, Hopper convinced the producers and backers of the film to give him a shot. With little to lose, they agreed, as long as Hopper could complete the film on time and within budget. Feeling the film was a potential lost cause, they also gave Hopper full creative control.

After taking control of the production, Hopper rewrote the screenplay in a mad rush, and cast the film in a much darker and nihilistic tone than what was originally intended. The film now dealt with the terrifying ordeal of Cebe (Linda Manz), a young teenage girl destroyed by abuse and violence at the hands of her father Don, portrayed by Hopper. In his role as director and screenwriter, Hopper also reduced a number of key characters.

Seasoned actor, Raymond Burr, for example, was a central character at one point in the film’s production, playing the child psychiatrist who redeems the story, but this role was reduced to nothing but a cameo.

The finished film, shot in four weeks and edited in six, and now titled Out of the Blue, became one of the most uncompromising films of the early 1980s. Predictably, it was a commercial failure, although the film was entered in competition into the year’s Festival de Cannes and played well with film critics. However, the film’s failure really came from the provocative subject matter that dealt with child abuse, incest, and the corrosion of the American family unit, which wasn’t a positive selling point to an American audience wishing to embrace a more positive and conservative outlook of traditional family values and patriotic vigor that was endorsed by the Ronald Reagan/George Bush presidential team run that was occurring at the same time. Reagan’s campaign slogan of “Let’s Make America Great Again’ was a reactionary statement to the ethos of Hopper’s generation and the artistic, and sometimes inflammatory work they produced. An effort to take America back to the time before the 1960s and erase that decade’s social gains was in motion.

Out of the Blue had a better reception critically and commercially in the European market, although it remained banned in the United Kingdom until 1987. At the time, The film gathered a cult following with audiences seeking it out at late night theatre screenings and finding pirated videotape copies to view at home.

Hollywood did not come crawling back apologetic, as Hopper had hoped it would. Instead, Hopper had succeeded in producing a film that was so disconnected from the mood in mainstream America that nobody in their right mind would allow his vision of America on screen again until it could be softened.

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Out of the stereo

One of the best elements of Out of the Blue, and one of its real driving forces, is the film’s soundtrack that perfectly syncs with the film’s energy. It seems only fitting that the songs Hopper chose to soundtrack the film would summon up a wide experience of emotions and the loss of childhood innocence and the darkness that followed. From Elvis Presley’s sweet and chirpy My Teddy Bear, to Neil Young’s brooding My My Hey Hey (Out of the Blue). Young’s poignant lyrics about how “It’s better to burn out than to fade away” echo the nihilistic ending where Cebe, after murdering her abusive father, kills herself and her mother by blowing up her father’s derelict truck with sticks of dynamite. Hopper captures the darkness that lies at the heart of Young’s song perfectly.

Out of the Blue also incorporates live performances from Canadian punk rock band, The Pointed Sticks. After running away from home to the city, Cebe wanders the downtown and enters into a club and encounters the band performing live. She is invited by the drummer to bash at the skins as the band rattle through a rendition of their song Somebody’s Mom. This is the one act of catharsis within the film. Cebe is allowed to enjoy this one moment, and as we the audience experience the invigorating blast of punk energy, we’re also given a brief reprieve from the narrative.

The triumph of Out of the Blue’s soundtrack is the trajectory that takes music of the 1950s/1960s music, and the ideals of that era towards punk rock and its reaction to those ideals. The countercultural ethos that had originated in the 1960s had morphed into a critical backlash in the late 1970s. Punk, although anti-authoritarian and anti-consumerism, was also deeply anti-hippy. The long hair, flared pants, flowery shirts, and peaceful disposition of the hippies, had mutated into short spiky hair, tight bondage pants, pins, studs, and an aggressive and abrasive posture. The audience of Hopper’s 1969 directorial debut film, Easy Rider, who had embraced peace, love and understanding were now in the firing line of punk rock’s nihilism and Hopper was the one holding the gun.

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Down and out

What became of Dennis Hopper after the release of Out of the Blue is a sad tale, but with a redemptive arc that makes the downfall all the more intriguing. Consumed by booze and drugs, his health deteriorated to such a point that the late 1970s and early 1980s were a wasteland of bizarre drink-fuelled performances. His role in Frances Ford Coppola’s Rumblefish (1983) as the drunkard father to Mickey Rouke’s Motorcycle Boy and Matt Dillon’s Rusty James, is believable only because the drink is literally sweating out of his pores and damping his fill-fitting suit. Hopper was so out of it during the filming of Neil Young’s 1982 musical comedy, Human Highway, that whilst performing knife tricks he severed a tendon in his co-star Sally Kirkland’s hand, which he was later sued for. Yet, perhaps the role that best summarises Hopper’s downfall is that of a failed music manager in German director Roland Klick’s little seen White Star from 1984. Completely shunned by the American film industry, Hopper’s performance in this film is crazed, erratic and mostly improvised due to Hopper either forgetting or not bothering to even read the script. Klick points his camera and lets Hopper run his mouth and method completely unfiltered.

When Hopper did eventually get clean and enter rehabilitation in 1984/85, his career was in shatters. But with a few smaller parts in mid-1980s movies such as River’s Edge (Tim Hunter, 1986), Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (Tobe Hopper, 1986), My Science Project (Jonathan Betuel, 1985), Hoosiers (David Anspaugh, 1986; for which he was Oscar nominated) and Blue Velvet (David Lynch, 1986), Hopper regained ground and respect from filmmakers and audiences alike and set him on the road to becoming a well regarded actor and director.

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Out of time

Forty years on, Out of the Blue still resonates with a kind of kinetic energy that only seems to belong to Dennis Hopper’s work. Every scene that Hopper directs within this film seems ready to explode into violence. Sometimes it literally does, as witnessed when Hopper pours a full bottle of whiskey over his own head in order to intimidate a guy who wants to take him outside for a beating. Or when upon hearing he has been fired from his job at a landfill, drives his excavator into the foreman’s cabin and then cracks open a hip flask as a toast to his destruction.

Most of the time, however, Out of the Blue simmers rage, an underlying and targeted anger towards everything and everyone. What was Hopper angry at? Not being recognised or appreciated as an artistic filmmaker? Not being regarded in Hollywood as a leading man? Allowing the ethos of the 1960s’s hippie movement to sour and curdle into the neoliberal hellscape of Reagan’s America? All of this and more. Most of Hopper’s anger is channelled through Cebe. She becomes the film’s anchor, hating on everyone and everything and by the end of her short and bright journey we, the audience, feel her actions to “burn out” are justified. In her actions, she not only snuffs herself out, but the entire misguided judgement of the previous generation that promoted peace and equality, yet sold it all down the river. Out of the Blue is one long fuck off to the past, present and future, which as Cebe, echoing The Sex Pistols, states is all “Pretty vacant, eh?” Certainly, the mainstream culture surrounding the film might have been vacant, but Out of the Blue explodes with ideas and a vision so bright and vibrant. Four decades haven’t softened it, in fact, the time lapsed has only made it more vital and more relevant.

All the stills in this article are from Out of the Blue.

Reinventing the reel, four decades later

Posted on by victorfraga

Dennis Hopper’s third directorial movie, Out of the Blue, which was released 40 years ago this year and still resonates as a vital moment in independent cinema. John has been involved in the financing, production, sales, and marketing of films such as The Wicker Man (Robin Hardy, 1973) and The Haunting of Julia (Richard Loncraine, 1977) as well as many producer credits on films such as The Getaway (Roger Donaldson, 1994), and took directorial and screenwriting duties on the Philip K. Dick adaptation Radio Free Albemuth (2014).Before his involvement in the film industry, John was a journalist and film critic, with the New Orleans Times Picayune and editor-in-chief of New Orleans Magazine.

In this interview, John discusses his career and his personal recollections of Dennis Hopper’s life and times and the production, release and restoration of Out of the Blue with his production company, Discovery Films. This is an edited version of the conversation; the full audio can be heard right here:

Hoppcasts · Interview recording from John Alan Simon, Restoration Supervisor on Out of the Blue

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Stephen Naish – Firstly, I want to tell you that my own copy of Out of the Blue is a barely watchable rip of a VHS version. If any film needed a restoration, Out of the Blue is it! What drew you to want to restore this film?

John Alan Simon – Out of the Blue is a movie I’ve been involved with for almost 40 years. It was a shelved film when I first saw it. I’d had the experience of successfully distributing The Wicker Man, which I had seen when I was film critic for the New Orleans Times-Picayune, and then a partner and I managed to get the rights to restore and release it, restore in the sense that there had been cuts made against the director’s wishes, and we were able to, in some fashion, reconstruct it.

As a result of the successful release of The Wicker Man, I was deluged with lost or unloved movies to look at. Time Magazine had done a full-page article on me and my rescuing of movies like The Wicker Man and another one called The Haunting of Julia. In any case, I remember exactly the time and place of watching Out of the Blue, alone in a small screening room and I practically fell out of my chair. I thought it was amazing.

There was a lot of difficulty between the producers and financiers of the movie because when the original director was fired and Dennis Hopper took over, as an American, the movie lost it’s Canadian certification for tax purposes, and went from a sure financial winner to a sure loser, and though it played in Cannes as an official selection, it played as a movie without a country. It was also considered very bleak and despairing and dark and uncommercial, but I loved it and I was willing to bet there were more people like me than the ordinary film distributors of the day thought.

I reached out to Dennis, and he and I had lunch and it was an auspicious beginning because he came up to my little office in Beverly Hills and said “Oh wow, man, this is where our production offices were for Easy Rider (Dennis Hopper, 1969)”. So, it was an immediate synchronicity, and I said to Dennis “I’m not going to it without your help”. We got Jack Nicholson to do a radio spot for the movie, because Dennis had told me how much Nicholson loved the film and we opened in Boston’s Coolidge Corner Cinema and broke the house record.

Dennis and I spent a lot of time together and he was very encouraging to me as a would-be filmmaker. I knew I was a writer and could write, but I really had a lot of qualms about directing and he said he’d teach me. He really was a very generous mentor and he taught me a lot about acting that influenced me later on my first film as a director, which was Radio Free Albemuth, an adaptation of a novel by Phillip K. Dick.

Back in 2010, the prints we had of Out of the Blue were getting worn and I was approached by La Cinémathèque française about restoring the negative of the movie, which was something we’d really wanted to do. The negative was in decent shape, so, along with help from The Thompson Foundation, I supervised the restoration of the 35mm negative and we were able to create two new prints, one of which we gave to La Cinémathèque française for screenings in Europe and the other which we used in the United States.

SN – Tell me about the process of restoration?

JAS – We did a lot of research and I’ve also been lucky in that a friend for a very long time, Robert Harris, who is the foremost preservationist in the world and restored Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962), Bridge on the River Kwai (David Lean, 1957), The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972), etc, and Bob has always been very generous with his advice on how to do things and where to go, so with his recommendation we ended up at a place for the digital restoration called Roundabout Entertainment in Burbank, California. We scanned the movie in 4K from the original negative and we worked to clean it up. I worked with a guy named Vincent Pirozzi, who really helped me supervise the process. Then I worked with a great colourist, named Greg Garvin, who also did a lot of the touch-ups, and we ended up with what I think is a spectacular 4K digital version of the film.

SN – Why did you turn to Kickstarter for funding, and did you explore any other avenues of funding?

JAS – In doing the Kickstarter, we raised some of the money that we needed for the restoration, and we also raised some privately, reaching out to people who we knew were fans. Interestingly, just before we started the Kickstarter in 2019, Elizabeth (Karr, co-producer) was listening to NPR and heard Natasha Lyonne on Fresh Air say that Out of the Blue was her favourite movie and she loved Linda Manz, so, we were able to meet Natasha and mention the movie. Natasha brought in her friend Chloë Sevigny who was a big fan of Out of The Blue and had worked with Linda Manz on Gummo (1997) for director Harmony Korine who we also knew was a big fan of the movie, and they helped support the film and came on as official presenters to add their voices of a younger generation of film lovers.

SN – The film’s soundtrack is perhaps one of its strongest elements. What has been done to restore the film’s sound quality?

JAS – Restoring the sound quality was challenging. I think it sounds pretty good. I was satisfied more quickly with the visual quality than I was with the sound. When Dennis recorded it it was a low budget movie, and if you watch the movie, he did some after-dubbing of lines of some actors. Anyway, the sound is good, good enough. We kept original mono and that is how people will hear it and see it, but we spent a lot of time cleaning it up and I kept saying can’t we do more, and we did more, but it’s pretty good!

SN – Did you come across any interesting titbits of information in regard to the film that were not common knowledge?

JAS – One funny story is that by the time I was releasing the movie, I had a deal as a writer/producer at Universal, and Dennis and I had been talking about a couple of projects we wanted to sort of write and make together and I said to the head of the studio, Ned Tanen “Hey, I got a couple of things Dennis Hopper and I are talking about”, and I remember the look on his face as he put down his coffee and said “John, if you ever say the words Dennis Hopper to me again you will never step foot on the Universal lot”, and then later I found out that Tanen had been the Production Executive in charge of The Last Movie (Dennis Hopper, 1971).

One small tidbit of information is that in doing these restorations you have enormous power to change things, and there was one shot that always felt too symmetrical to me and thought we should move it over and I reframed it very slightly, but I ended up changing it back to be Dennis’s framing. Then there was this one shot near the end of the movie that was so dark and we were able to get enough information from the negative that you can see just enough to see what’s going on.

SN – What extra materials will appear on the DVD release?

JAS – We’re still working on that. There’s an amazing interview that Tony Watts did with Hopper at around the time we released the movie that we’re hoping to include, we did include it on the original DVD release back in 2000. Also, back when we did the original DVD release, Hopper, producer Paul Lewis, and I did a commentary that we’ll be able to use. We’ll have the original trailer, which we’ve done a restoration version of and we’ll have a new trailer, and the Jack Nicholson radio spot. The star of the discs will be Out of the Blue as, I think, Hopper would have loved it to have been seen. When I was doing the restoration, I really tried to channel Dennis, and I felt confident in doing that because when we did the original digital releases, while Dennis was still alive, he always just said “You know the movie, you love the movie, I trust you”, so that meant a lot to me.

SN – Not only does May 2020 mark 40 years since the release of Out of the Blue, but 10 years since Dennis Hopper passed away. What legacy do you think Hopper has left on American culture?

JAS – The legacy that Dennis Hopper has left on the culture is an interesting one. He was always so kind to me in saying that I was the guy who resurrected his career as a director, because Sean Penn saw Out of the Blue in Los Angeles back in 1983 and that was the basis that Dennis was hired to direct Colors in 1988. He also made a good movie called The Hot Spot (1990), but it’s not really a personal movie, the three really personal movies are Easy Rider, The Last Movie, and Out of the Blue, which I think is the best of the three as a work of art. I think Dennis came around to that viewpoint, even though he made it under such rigorous circumstances, rewriting the script in a weekend, completely changing it, shooting in four weeks, editing in six, and I think the pressure of that made it very like Dennis, very instinctual.

I think his legacy is from the movies he did as an actor and from the spirit of rebellion that he represented. Back when I was a journalist in New Orleans, I had the soundtrack for The American Dreamer, long before I met him and I remember this quote from it saying “I made Easy Rider sleeping on a mattress, I can always go back to doing that. I’m not going to sell-out to Hollywood.” Dennis had so much integrity as an artist. He shot Out of the Blue in long takes so that no one could fuck with it, no one could go to the coverage, and change it, change his movie the way they changed his friend Orson Welles’s Touch of Evil (1958) or Magnificent Ambersons (1942), where they ruined his long shots. And if you watch Out of the Blue, he really managed to make a movie that stands up to today as bleak and nihilistic, but so honest and raw in its performances, and like John Cassavetes, I think he represents the spirit of something I love in American movies, and in Out of the Blue he traced the decline of 1960s and 1970s idealism to the nihilism and decadence of the 1980s.

Some people call Out of the Blue the sequel to Easy Rider and I think you have to look at it that way, as a kind of commentary on it. For me, I just remember how intensely interested in human nature and the nature of art, Dennis was. He called his movies time capsules, and they really are, but because they are such admirable artifacts of their era, they also speak to all times and all cultures and all generations.

John Alan Simon is pictured at the top of this article. The other two images are stills from ‘Out of the Blue’.

The Uncertain Kingdom

Posted on by victorfraga

This release marks a high point in the British film industry. Coming at a time of great confinement, The Uncertain Kingdom shows a gorgeous collation of stories interweaving as one collective voice. If this is the post-Covid future that awaits us, it’s one that we’ll humbly accept with great appreciation. More than that, it’s the essence of what made cinema so dazzlingly exciting for audiences 100 years ago.

Just as the pandemic has exposed Britain to some uncomfortable home truths, so too does this series explore a Britain more forceful than boastful. There’s Motherland, a startling look at a Jamaica exploited by Her Majesty’s country. There’s Camelot, a Welsh adaptation of the Arthurian tale in a style more regional than regal. And then there’s Acre Fall Between, detailing a Northern Ireland that still remains a pointless component of the British Empire. Each has a different director steering their vision of the UK to the viewers.

It is comparable to 2006’s Paris, Je T’aime (also by various directors), but this has more artistic vitality. While the French compendium attracted stalwarts Joel Coen and Alfonso Cuarón to its board, The Uncertain Kingdom is a purer look at a country fading into its own abyss. Each vignette works to its own singular vision, piecing a tapestry that folds into one devastatingly complete picture. It’s the sound of a million voices projected on the moving screen.

Lively and controversial, the film enters into conflicted terrains with devastating effect. Ernie, an exhilarating intellectual escapade, warns viewers about the dangers of everyday right wing politics. Strong Is Better Than Angry, a tribute to the indomitable female spirit, boasts a dazzling boxing montage, each punch mightier than the previous one. British People, meanwhile, explores the disputes a British Chinese family have as they discuss their minority status in the eyes of the Tories. The films create this sense of weight and depth in the way they present themselves, capturing a Britain that aims for vitality at a time when it has little of it.

Released over two volumes, the four-hour set wholeheartedly supports those disenfranchised by the Kingdom’s tactics. Jason Wingard’s Pavement revels in this paradigm, supporting the misadventures of a homeless man mocked by the wealthy workers who walk into their bank. It’s one of two cosmic horror entries, the other being the probing Death Meets Isolette. Death enters into both entries, channelling a world more respectful that the one we and our characters share.

It’s consistently brilliant from one short to the next. More than that, it wholeheartedly revels as the very thing the Marvel Cinematic Universe wishes it could be: it’s magical.

The Uncertain Kingdom is out on VoD on Monday, June 1st.

Screened Out

Posted on by victorfraga

Ever found yourself with the Internet down and nothing to do? It’s not easy. Maybe you’ll go for a walk or a run, maybe you’ll dabble in an old hobby. But once that’s over, then what? You have to actually pick up a book or watch terrestrial TV, and neither of those can send you down an entertainment rabbit hole like YouTube’s algorithms.

The perniciousness of the Internet – the content, in all its immediacy and diversity – just never ends. Is this good, is this bad? What is it doing to our brains? This is the subject of Jon Hyatt’s Screened Out, a sobering appraisal of our digital lives.

Hyatt is a self-confessed phone addict: ‘It pulls me away from my work, my children and my relationships by feeding me constant updates and notifications.’ His wife, Kathleen, is no better, describing her phone as a window to the world and even a vital social cue: ‘Whenever there’s a lull in conversation, you just check your phone.’ However, Hyatt’s main concern isn’t himself or his wife, it’s his three young boys. They already seem mesmerised by screens, and taking them away guarantees a tantrum. Of course, Hyatt’s experience is shared across the developed world, and the stats are there to prove it:

  • 70% of adults spend 3-5 hours per day online, some hitting 7 hours. This could amount to 7 years of our life glued to a phone;
  • A Microsoft study found that since the mobile revolution, the average attention span has dropped from 12 to 8 seconds; and
  • According to Common Sense Media, children up to age 8 are spending up to 3 hours of screen media, while those up to 12 spend closer to 5. Teenagers can be more than 6 and even up to 9 hours.

Concerned and intrigued in equal measure, Hyatt seeks to explore the issue by speaking to a cross-section of society: teachers, doctors, authors, academics and those involved in perhaps the bête noir of the piece – Silicon Valley. That isn’t to say Screened Out has an axe to grind, it hasn’t. But let’s face it, you wouldn’t blame it if it did. After all, the Internet is mired with cynicism and narcissistic primacy, whether its the dubious overlords south of San Fran or the scores of selfie-takers and ‘influencers’ – so much of it is ripe for criticism and mockery. None of that is found in Hyatt’s documentary, though. Rather, it presents an even-handed inquiry that holds a mirror to its audience with the purpose of helping, not judging.

Nevertheless, Silicon Valley doesn’t fare well under the spotlight. We see Sean Parker, ex-president of Facebook, say: “[it] was all about how do we consume as much of your time as possible? We need to give a dopamine hit every once in a while, which will get you to contribute more content. It’s a social validation feedback loop, exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology. We knew this and did it anyway.’ Chamath Palihapitiya, another former Facebook executive, corroborated Parker’s claim, adding that ‘We want to figure out how to psychologically manipulate you as fast as possible and then give you back that dopamine hit… we have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works’.

The key takeaway from Screened Out, then, is that social media, like the slot machines of Vegas, is addictive by design. And addiction to technology, it must be stressed, is very much an addiction. Just as a gambler pulls the lever on a slot machine, phone users scroll through their bottomless social media feeds, chasing a pinprick of dopamine from a like, message or some other digital banality.

Another key similarity is that there is no end to how long this can last – there are no stoppage cues, no finality to remind us to step back and engage with the real world. One can never hope for satisfaction in such an environment, and Nir Eyal, one of the most interesting talking heads, offers sage advice: ‘I will never interact with experiences that have no end in sight’.

In the documentary’s closing moments, Jon Hyatt offers advice of his own, urging us to think twice about picking up our devices. But as motivational and well-informed as the film may be, old habits die hard – especially digital ones. That drip-feed stimulation is just too easy. Yet, since watching it, I can sometimes feel the documentary’s presence when I listlessly gawp at my screen; I can hear the probing soundbites telling me it’s a big fat waste of time.

For better or worse, social media’s not going anywhere. I just hope that Screened Out, which is both skilfully made and a force for good, reaches those it will benefit most.

Screened Out in available on VoD from Monday, June 1st. On Netflix in September.

The man behind the great women

Posted on by victorfraga

Mark Cousins’ Women Make Film: A New Road Movie Through Cinema is a follow-up to his earlier work, The Story of Film: An Odyssey (2016). Again he explores how movies are made, but this time through hundreds of clips from films directed by women.

In actress Tilda Swinton’s introduction voiceover, she says, “Most films have been directed by men; most of the so-called movie classics were directed by men. But for 13 decades and on all six filmmaking continents, thousands of women have been directing films too. Some of the best films. What movies did they make? What techniques did they use? What can we learn about cinema from them? Lets look at film again through the eyes of the world’s women directors. Lets go on a new road movie through cinema.”

The documentary is structured around a series of “how to” questions, the film broken down into 40 chapters that begins with Openings and ends on Song and Dance. In between are chapters discussing a range of subjects, amongst them: believability, framing, tracking, dream and bodies.

In conversation with DMovies, Cousins spoke about being drawn to the external world rather than his internal world, the need to bleed cinema of gender generalisations, and how we all have the power to instigate a change to keep the contributions of women filmmakers alive.

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Paul Risker – Film and storytelling to my mind is a process of answering questions. Would you agree, and what led you to decide to structure the film with a series of “how to” questions?

Mark Cousins – I don’t think I’ve heard the idea that filmmaking is about asking questions, but I can see what you mean. I always ask myself, “How do I avoid banality?” Another way of saying this is, “What is the form?” The conventional way of looking at the great female filmmakers would be chronological, or looking at industry employment trends, or doing interviews, or to report on the Weinstein revelations. I decided to do none of these things. Instead, I wanted to focus on the work of the filmmakers, not their gender or victimisation. Once you decide to look at the work, then – if you’re a filmmaker rather than a more theoretical person – you end up, by a process of elimination, asking “how” to questions.

PR – One of optimistic impressions to take away from Women Make Film is that in spite of women filmmakers being marginalised, they’ve found a way to express their creativity. Would you agree that this is a source of optimism?

MC – I agree that Women Make Film is a work of optimism, or I’d say affirmation. It’s about what has been made, rather than what hasn’t been made. I passionately believe in structural change in the film world and the revolution against sexism, but – also – years ago I became a bit impatient with those activists who hadn’t actually seen many of the thousands of films directed by women.

Also, I don’t quite see the great films directed by women as a sign that human storytelling can’t be silenced. I don’t think that film is necessarily a storytelling medium, to be honest. I realise that sounds contrary, but many of my favourite films: Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958), Vagabond (Agnes Varda, 1985), The Asthenic Syndrome (Kira Muratova, 1990), 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968), D’est (Chantal Akerman, 1995), etc, aren’t really very story driven! And on your bigger point about creativity: Again I don’t want to sound contrary, but when people make films (or make anything) they are not necessarily expressing themselves! I certainly don’t have a rich inner life that I’m desperate to share with the world. It’s the world, the outer life that is rich, and I use my cinema to clock it, to bear witness to the richness and to throw my anchor onto it.

PR – In your opinion, does it harm cinema to have a focus on gender? Should the end goal be beyond equality, reducing the focus on gender to appreciate the filmmaker as “filmmaker?”

MC – Focusing on gender was a necessary means to an end. I hugely admire the pioneering film feminists of the 1970s and since, who came up with ideas such as the male gaze. But the end was not, I think, to identify and separate male and female cinema, as if they are black and white chess pieces. The idea, surely, was to out the unacknowledged power and gender imbalances in film production and aesthetics. Once that was done and at the very moment it was done, it was also important to bleed cinema of gender generalisations, like you bleed a radiator. There is nothing gendered about the movie frame; it’s an androgynous rectangle, and that’s one of the reasons why shy people and queer people in particular like it. To go to the cinema is to escape the pressure to be what a man or woman is supposed to be like. The voice-over artists in WMF have all brilliantly embodied that in their work.

PR – In your video essay on the Blu-Ray release, you speak about your collaborators who watched films, suggesting scenes, supporting you in researching and making the film. Hearing this, my immediate thought was how we can only understand film together – filmmakers, critics, audiences, academics and scholars, amongst others including technicians and actors. To my mind, you remind us of the importance of a community of ideas, of sharing to fully understand cinema.

MC – In my real life, I totally agree with you on this. Co-operation is one of the biggest themes – it’s the final message in the first great poem, the epic of Gilgamesh, for example. And yes, my collaborators on this film were great: John Archer and Clara Glynn at Hopscotch Films, my regular editor Timo Langer, executive producer and voiceover artist Tilda Swinton. The other voiceover artists: Jane Fonda, Debra Winger, Sharmila Tagore, Kerry Fox, Adjoa Andoh, Thandie Newton. Our London-based researcher Sonali Battarachya, the great LA film historian Cari Beauchamp, etc. But I hope you don’t think I’m again trying to disagree with you! My desire for cinema has always been a solitary thing. I’m quite an anxious person, and am often worrying what other people around me are thinking. Alone in front of the screen, such social and psychological worries ebb.

PR – Do you believe access to film should continue to be a concern? I ask because there are filmmakers featured in this documentary whose work audiences will likely only see these small glimpses.

MC – Definitely, and Women Make Film is a shoulder to the wheel of advancement. Many of the filmmakers featured within it are dead, but that doesn’t mean that their work has stopped contributing to film culture. In some cases – for example the McDonagh sisters in Australia, who were successful in the silent time – the directors have stopped (been prevented from) contributing to movie culture. We can make that change; everyone reading this can make it change.

PR – Speaking with Pollyanna McIntosh about her feature directorial debut Darlin’, she told me, “I’d love to just never talk about the film and just let people experience it how they experience it, because you don’t make a film to say: This is what the case is, this is the truth”. Do you agree with this sentiment, and what are your hopes for the experience of the audience?

MC – Totally. On the day that I complete a film, I want to stop speaking about it because the thinking is over, the picture is locked, the sound is mixed. The reason that I do speak about my work a bit is because it’s a tough world out there for fledglings.

Women Make Film: A New Road Movie Through Cinema

Posted on by victorfraga

These are the words spoken by actress Tilda Swinton in the introduction voice-over: “Most films have been directed by men; most of the so-called movie classics were directed by men. But for 13 decades and on all six continents, thousands of women have been directing films. too. Some of the best films. What movies did they make? What techniques did they use? What can we learn about cinema from them? Lets look at film again through the eyes of the world’s women directors. Lets go on a new road movie through cinema”. Mark Cousins’ Women Make Film: A New Road Movie is a follow-up to his earlier work, The Story of Film: An Odyssey (2011). Once again, he explores how movies are made, but this time through hundreds of clips from films directed by women.

The world is a place of exclusion and inequality, and Mark Cousins’s important, one might say necessary road movie is an effort to right the wrong of so many voices ignored through exclusion and inequality in film. But this is not a film with any agenda other than to acknowledge and recognise their contribution to what is a communal and collaborative art form. Cousins in a video essay included on the Blu-ray, frames his intent to not see them as victims. Yet that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t feel anger or frustration, because speaking with the director, he says, “It’s not to plead a special case for women directors; it’s just to be enraged at their lack of level playing field, their sequestration”

It’s a shared human want to have someone to listen to us. Most people want to be heard and understood, and a work of art is no different. When I interviewed director Terence Davies about his Emily Dickinson biopic, A Quiet Passio (2016), he observed, “She obviously needed to express herself deeply in poetry like everyone else who works in any kind of art form. You want a response, you need a response and if there is no response or a response is indifferent, where do you find the courage to go on?”

Thinking back on these words now, Women Make Film is important and necessary because it is the act of listening. It transcends fixed critical terminology for rating the effectiveness of a film. The 14-hour-long documentary is simultaneously an enthralling road movie and a vital resource of knowledge, that will speak to those people who appreciate a thoughtful awareness of cinema.

One of our common misconceptions is that wisdom comes with age – it does not, it comes with life experiences. Cousins’ latest work, and his A Story of Film: An Odyssey, wrap themselves around this idea, because a lack of awareness is a lack of wisdom, and cinema is a language understood not simply by a numerical count. What you see and how you critique, and by this I mean to thoughtfully understand, is what cultivates a genuine wisdom, and Cousins’ contributions are invaluable in offering a hand to guide us.

David Mamet said, “The main question in drama, the way I was taught, is always, ‘What does the protagonist want?’ That’s what drama is. It comes down to that. It’s not about theme, it’s not about ideas, it’s not about setting, but what the protagonist wants.” Cousins structures this around a series of “how to” questions, the film broken down into 40 chapters that begins with Openings and ends on Song and Dance. In between are chapters discussing: believability, framing, tracking, dream and bodies. The choice of structure taps into film and storytelling as a process of answering questions, but more importantly, he builds the structure around themes and ideas, yet also how the filmmaker achieves what it is they want. Positioning the filmmaker as a protagonist, the result of the drama, the focus on themes and ideas are what these women filmmakers want, as much as what their characters want.

The passion and interest of the filmmaker shines through in Women Make Film. It lacks the authoritative bravado that can cripple academia – the brashness by some academics and scholars to forcefully state what a film means, as opposed to suggest a reading or a flexible point of view – a possibility of interpretation. Cousins possesses a humility towards his craft, and his ideas communicated in the chapter voiceovers by Tilda Swinton, Jane Fonda, Debra Winger, Sharmila Tagore, Kerry Fox, Adjoa Andoh and Thandie Newton, one can almost hear a sound or feeling of questioning self-doubt. This is not authoritative statement, rather it’s a contemplation of cinema through the eyes of women filmmakers, a search for possible meaning within the scope of an art form that is subjective. To understand something greater than any one person or social collective, one needs to have humility, and this is Cousins’ strength, for who cinema seems to open up and bear its soul to him.

Women Make Film: A New Road Movie Through Cinema is on BFI Player in five weekly instalments, starting on May 18th.

Hanezu

Posted on by victorfraga

The spirits of the ancient capital Fujiwara-Kyo, the birthplace of the Japanese nation is shrouded by mysteries revolving three mountains that have marked generations of a small village, presently manifesting through a relationship of a woman, her husband, and her lover. Naomi Kawase’s Hanezu, which is based on a novel by Masako Bando, is a contemplative work of naturalism, a cryptic sensory of mysticism, spirituality, serenity and tradition told through sparse dialogue that may parallel viewers to the intangible voice overs of Terrence Malick and the subliminal vistas of Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, 2010, and Cemetery of Splendour, 2015).

Kawase’s 13th film demonstrates a philosophy weighing no monotonous reformation of the characters who find themselves at some point in their lives understanding the means of Zen. The transition of disquieting what absurdities may seem to triumph over the free will of desire because of the tradition of things in life (in reference to marriage, mothering a child, what we choose to pursue and what we choose to build) that may ultimately force one to recount a long forgotten desire, or an abrupt desire burdening no simplicity in our dealings with life, itself.

That makes for an anomalous definition of the principle which any conflicted individual practising hopes to suppress, it makes for a realisation so heavy and yet reassuring: nothing in life is simple, for it is just. Not that Takumi (Tôta Komizu) or Kayoko (Hako Oshima) at any point of the film bring the term of Zen to discussion, though much of their intimacy is grounded in moments of complete stillness and stares, and what repercussions will come from their affair Their conversations are more spiritual than they are realistically banal which is completely in contrast to how Takumi’s relationship is with Tetsuya (Tetsuya Akikawa), her awfully absent but loving husband. Their marriage consists of cooking (precise detailing in their use of safflower and gardenia), grocery shopping, morning and nightly small talks. Tetsuya is pretty much absent through most of the story but there is somewhat of an interesting revelation that can be made about him and how he comes to a decision unveiling a shame he bears.

Hanezu is like an open journal of thoughts and mood, there is a great deal of loss and tragedy unfolding in layers of incremented validities neither Takumi and Kayoko are even emotionally equipped for. Their affair is more nurturing than it is mischievous and romantic. In an early scene of the film, Kayoko cuts his finger and Takumi gently kisses it, then she begins to suck the blood off his finger. He smiles, she smiles, he laughs, she kisses his finger again, he reaches close and kisses her head, they hug. This moment is handled quite beautifully, portrayed to be neither exotically raw or thematically mawkish, it’s just, sweet. They ponder on, ask questions like “Whose face will you see just before you die?” and immerse in the doings of day-to-day diversions that feel more fulfilling and hopeful than when they’re living their own separate lives.

Somewhere in the middle of the film is a storyline following a long deceased family member, a ghost, a drafted soldier who is of past and present and of life and death. This ghost crosses paths and conversations organically happen. Why he’s here and why Kawase generates this paranormal meander isn’t ever really conveyed. It’s bold, sure, but not because it’s a precipitous symbol of the meta, which thankfully, isn’t forced even if it were to pose it. Such an addition to an already stoical film isn’t even a narrative device but a poignant confrontation between past lives and the spirits carrying on. Thematically, this paranormal consciousness serves as every persons’ dealing with the family legacies from the generations before them. How Takumi and Kayoko interact with this memory in the form of the ghost is really more obviously transparent than it may even come across.

What we learn from both Takumi and Kayoko is that neither person feels fulfilled with their place in time and the happening. Kayoko wants a child, Takumi wants . . . Well, it’s almost difficult to really pinpoint what Takumi wants. She wants to pursue real love, yes, but will that be enough for her? Does this real love reform her perception, and what exactly is that? What if she doesn’t want to mother a child? What if she no longer complies with the remorse and tremor of both Kayoko and Tetsuya (a husband who is no longer a husband in her eyes but a voice and a figure sharing a home) ?

These are the afterthoughts of what becomes of Hanezu, a film that will find parallels to Eric Rohmer, Malick, Angela Schanelec and Hong Sang-soo. This is probably her finest film, one which offers no explanation to what’s being seen (as any daring filmmaker can and will do, but to what achievable effect?) and yet, for only about 82 minutes of running time, says so much with a sparse of conventional telling in what movies of this kind are expected to explore. There’s a specificity with how she frames the observations of her characters. There’s a mellowness to it, an appreciation for a splendour vastly emphasised on the interactions we have with food, putting things together, creating and what subtleties our eyes choose to prolongedly reverie.

There are so many moments of Takumi and Kayoko cutting food, of Kayoko carving an ancient cedar, and Takumi draining sheets of cloth into red wine; Kawase conveys these intimate interactions with extreme close ups. The hands, like the face, emulate a conviction Kawase puts to bare with a patience and muteness recounting the years of it. There’s a great use of green in this film, the lands, the trees and the leaves. The imagery is a retelling of the nature of birth and death. Each shot – whether still or handheld – of her work is seriously considered, they constitute the life within the life of the story. She’s a filmmaker who sees life in everything that is still because everything which lives at some in time, stops. There is an interaction we have with anything that’ll influence the intimacy we share with another. Be our ideas, our beliefs, our appreciation for what’s at full display.

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We Summon the Darkness

Posted on by victorfraga

Roger Ebert wrote: “I don’t require movies to be about good people, and I don’t reject screen violence”. It’s a sentiment I share, having long renounced the belief that the protagonists of a story need to be sympathetic people. This was in all likelihood a naive impression that belonged to youth, that gave way to the priority that a protagonist should be interesting and not necessarily sympathetic. To the second part of Ebert’s point, why one would reject screen violence seems irrational, as humanity is innately violent, and while an uncomfortable depiction, it’s a reflection of our base instincts.

In Marc Meyers’s horror-comedy We Summon the Darkness, three friends, Alexis (Alexandra Daddario), Val (Maddie Hasson) and Beverly (Amy Forsyth), host an after party of ritualistic murder after picking up three unsuspecting young musicians at a heavy-metal show.

Violence comes in different guises, and opposite Sam Peckinpah’s balletic violence, with the unnerving consequences. This is popcorn violence. So sit back and savour it. Unlike the ideas of human psychology and human nature, as well as the fallout of cause and effect that shone through in Peckinpah’s violence, the bloodletting in Meyers’s film is theatrics. It’s an approach in which the story comes from the violence, instead of from the story and the choices of the characters. But the characters in We Summon the Darkness refuse to remain silent, and themselves heard.

The idea of “good” or “bad” people has limitations because it serves as a simple means of identifying a person. Here the antagonists are more complex and transcend the dichotomy. In the set-up for example, we see that Beverly has lived a past life that contradicts the image the men have of her. Stories typically feature a redeemable character and in this one it is Beverly, who is less committal than Alexis and Val killing these three lust filled men.

While both Alexis and Val are wicked in their intentions, there are layers of evolution to their cruelty that is never explored, only inferred if one keeps an open mind. If both were good women turned wicked, then they are victims, and that demands that we are more sympathetic in our judgement. Yet even in their wickedness, there’s a semblance of moral goodness, however misguided it is that complicates matters. Meanwhile, Beverly as the redeemable character infers how the story of Christ’s temptation in the desert by the devil is influential on storytelling. She also grasps the Jungian concept of confronting one’s shadow complex, which frames the film as her hero’s journey. She says to a gas station attendant who is watching a news broadcast on the TV, “You shouldn’t believe everything you see.” In present-day US it’s about not believing everything you hear from right-wing conservatives, and Beverly’s journey is one towards victim or empowerment in the shadow of this malignant threat.

If genre cinema captures a snapshot of it’s time, then Meyers through his comedy-horror aligns against American right-wing conservatives – gradually revealed as the chaos of the second act unfolds. The killings in the film eerily strike a chord of the Trump Administration’s indifference towards lives of American citizens in this pandemic, while also how the conservatives play with narrative, manipulating it to fit their own. It frames Trump’s cry of “Fake news” as a projection, those themselves who are guilty of cultivating this alternative narrative habitually accusing others.

Working from Alan Trezza’s script, Meyers shows a clear intent of the story he’s trying to tell, and while the story comes from the violence, the characters effectively offset the spectacle. He paces the film well as it transitions from set-up to conflict, and reveals the motivations of his characters and their plan, while throwing in unexpected obstacles that sustains the suspense. We Summon the Darkness is an intriguing film and while the material could have been developed, to the credit of the filmmakers, it stays true to being an entertaining and bloody yarn, and not metamorphosing into something driven more by themes and ideas.

We Summon the Darkness is out on VoD in April, and on DVD on Monday, May 11th.

A Dog’s Life

Posted on by victorfraga

It will always be said Chaplin was a master at turning sight gags into resonant commentary, that within the world of the tramp, the lone prospector, the factory worker and the Jewish barber — simple like individuals whom distinguish a humbleness with their buffoonery, while also impressionable in their benevolence that made them virtuous and hopeful. Their realities spoke for the generations before them, amongst them, and so forth, within our modern times. Ultimately, yes, the greatest gags under Chaplin’s repertoire have had a cultural prestige for those who’ve perceived comedy as a means of reflecting the absurdities, the enormities, and the humanity of people.

The premise of A Dog’s Life, Chaplin’s first million-dollar film, is pretty formulaic and would eventually become hallmark Chaplin, though in a streak of maturing flair. That is not to discredit the winsome narrative of this sophomore gem because the endearing companionship between the Tramp and Scraps (Mut) is a beautiful statement in itself. Like Jackie Coogan’s kid, Scraps is both adorable, curious, loyal, and at the centre of one of the Tramp’s most realised episodics.

The gags would be the first great use of Chaplin’s comedic skill. From an attempt to schemingly eat an excessive amount of pastries without getting caught, to a copper chase sequence that results in a back and forth tug-a-war beneath a fence, and a dance number involving the tramp, Edna Purviance and Scraps that results to the film’s biggest laugh; the tramp, contextually speaking, is seen as a survivor of the inner city slums, and from his desperation comes a great degree of farcical undertakings. Each gag builds up to the perpetual joke meriting the wonder of Chaplin’s physicality, and clemency. To see the Tramp brazenly make an attempt at playing a schemer only to become the solemn fool is a majestic perception of how Chaplin perhaps saw the best in humanity.

Scraps is not only an adoring addition to the mischief, but an embodiment of the quintessence, manifesting a gleeful camaraderie that ultimately sums (and rather quickly, too) the realised theme of A Dog’s Life, a title that’ll mislead new viewers for it is not a story of a dog, nor a story of the tramp, but a scenario involving both whom regard no distinctions as they do indistinguishably.

Who isn’t inspired by Chaplin, really? There’s an excitement and sense of pure elation when watching one of his films. There’s no cinema simply like it. One cannot compare to Chaplin, not even Keaton, Lloyd, Purviance, Pickford, Moore and Laurel and Hardy. There’s a greater response of awe to their creations than the modern blockbuster extravaganzas. Perhaps because when watching the innovations of the Silent Era, we’re instantly reminded by the very first frame of the physical labour venturing the designs of production right at the forefront.

Perhaps even now we’ve taken our regard for Chaplin more solemnly as a means for rediscovering the passion that is muddled and lost in the trends of modern glamour, excessive social media distractions cultivating the spurious connotation of movies, and the hubris personalities coexistent to a perennial capitalist Hollywood. Chaplin is a model of cinema, to watch him at work during the set of The Great Dictator (1940) from a behind the scenes short shot by Sydney Chaplin is to endure twenty five minutes of historical splendour. In 1918 he moved into a studio in the grounds of an old mansion in the corner of La Brea and De Longpré gathering footage with his cameraman, Roland Totheroh that would turn into Chaplin’s entertainingly informative How to Make Movies (1918). He had no other ambition than to present to the world that exact passion which emphasised his meaning and relationship to the world.

Senegalese filmmaker Djibril Diop Mambéty would go on to make films echoing the thematics of Chaplin’s the tramp with Badou Boy (1970), Touki Bouki (1973) and the unfinished Tales of the Little People trilogy, for Chaplin’s cinema was something of an event for school children of Senegal, a sight generating an enormous sentiment of hope and unity. It would be hard to imagine a cinema that did not historically include Chaplin, for even his later talking pictures Monsieur Verdoux (1947), Limelight (1952), A King in New York (1957), and A Countess from Hong Kong (1967) came from an innovator generating a long lived enthusiasm as an attempt to transition within a counterculture of Hollywood that changed the way we make and perceive filmmaking, forever.

A Dog’s Life could be considered his very first masterpiece. It’s been played as a back to back viewing with The Kid (1921) which shares the same premise. A Dog’s Life is a smaller film, less nuanced with the romance between the little tramp and Edna Purviance, it can even have a few more scenes of Scraps, who’s played impressively by the trained Mut. Its resonance is powerful, yet heartfelt and a marvel of ingenuity. This is the kind of comedy we don’t get to see, anymore. From a relentless trend of sex comedies and hashtagging referential nods, A Dog’s Life is a refreshing reminder of how even great comedy can come from such an innocence while also commenting a reality of life we often choose to ignore.

“What dreams may come” as the film’s opening title card suggests, is a sentiment long living and true.

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Remains

Posted on by victorfraga

The story takes place in Reno, Nevada. The movie starts inside a casino. Employers and employees carry on with their duties as usual, while clients are having the time of their lives. The movie director captures the real emotions of casino players. Some players gather around the poker tables, while others play online casino live games. The movie was launched in 2011 when the online casino industry was booming, and iGaming reached its peak, so it was mandatory that the director includes both types of gaming in the very beginning.

Everything looks normal when zombie apocalypse strikes. What do ordinary locals choose to do? They hide in the casino building. This is an impressive low-budget zombie movie mostly due to the plot: a deft combination of zombie outbreak and casino action. The casino building, populated with large poker and roulette tables ,and slot machines is the perfect shelter for a world suddenly occupied by ferocious zombies. In a way, it’s similar to George Romero’s dirty classic Dawn of the Dead (1978), except that the shopping mall has been replaced by the casino.

The news in the background reveal that someone went into the nuclear oven of Nevada and pressed a button that wasn’t meant to be touched. The radiation turned the entire populace within the blast-radius into flesh-eating creatures. Suddenly there is a countdown and the news stop streaming. The future is not bright. More people are turned into zombies, and they wreak havoc on the streets. The survivors inside the building have to contend with the zombie that found their way inside, while also seeking a way out of the pandemonium.

There is a different side to the story. Remains is based on a comic miniseries by Steve Niles and Kieron Dwyer. The screenplay skipped the beginning of comic books and dived straight into zombie apocalypse. The action is non-stop. Characters don’t just sit and share stories with each other. They have to fend for themselves at every minute, as the gravity of the outbreak continues to escalate. Blood and wounds are abundant, Tom (Grant Bowler) and Tori (Evelana Marie, both pictured above) are the protagonists, just like in the miniseries, but this time they have a number of sidekicks (other survivors).

Chiller Network produced Remains for television reportedly for just $750,000. It was shot on 35mm, unusual for such a movie at the time. The plot, the script and the acting are all convincing, even if it lacks some of the costly CGI of its high-budget counterparts.

Remains is now available on all major VoD platforms, and there is also a Blu-ray release, with commentary by producer Andrew Gernhard, director Colin Theys, screenwriter John Dolan, and makeup effects supervisor Ben Chester.