Reviews

Ed Wood Jr. is well known as the proto-indie filmmaker who made films by hook or by crook, but aspired to Hollywood success. Yet when he got his first shot at a feature, he made a bizarrely personal statement on alternate sexual lifestyles such as cross-dressing and sex-change, the semi-experimental Glen or Glenda (1953). He arguably blew his shot at a Hollywood career by this effort.

It is also known that Wood fell into the world of pulp novel writing in the early 1960's, which led to writing for skin magazines, and finally working in the production of skin movies (I am simplifying things quite a bit here.) His new film vocation followed the trajectory of increasing permissiveness in the second half of that decade, from topless features like Orgy of the Dead (1965) to frontal nudity and simulated sex movies, then finally to films with real sexual contact. Wood's Necromania (1971) exists in a "soft" or simulated sex version and also a "hard" version with a couple of minutes of "inserts" or edited-in shots of actual sexual intercourse, which were shot separately from the main feature. Yet even in this blatantly sexual film Wood had not fully entered the genre of "hardcore" and it was not believed he had participated as director to that degree.

The discovery of the lost Ed Wood-scripted and directed film The Young Marrieds (the movie is actually dated 1972 in the credits) reveals that Wood indeed finally entered into hardcore feature filmmaking—the antithesis of his desired Hollywood career---but that the issues of his first, "mainstream" feature were still very much his personal concern. Like Glen or Glenda, The Young Marrieds is preoccupied with alternative sexualities and how society views those. They both also function as a plea for tolerance by that society. The similarity can be readily proved by comparing the V/O "stripper bar" conversation early in The Young Marrieds with the trailer for Glen or Glenda. The viewer will be amazed by how Wood utilized virtually the same conversation in the same way in two films made almost 20 years apart. Further, the male protagonist in The Young Marrieds is put through an "eyes wide shut" type of sexual journey in which his confidently assumed macho heterosexuality is progressively challenged and undermined, to the final shocking confrontation which contradicts porn-genre expectations just as surely as Glen or Glenda contradicted Hollywood ones (note that I am referring here to the full-length version of The Young Marrieds which appears on the After Hours' DVD release, "Ed Wood's Dirty Movies" and not the Alpha Blue Archive version which is 8 minutes shorter.) It is my belief that Ed Wood was a bona fide film rebel and auteur who put his personal stamp strongly into his final film even though it was a low budget sex movie.

Lastly, even though I state that The Young Marrieds is a hardcore film, it actually isn't quite 'all-the-way', partly because the hardcore (or X-rated) genre wasn't fully established stylistically or even legally (i.e., obscenity-wise) at that date, and possibly because Wood was reluctant or unable to coax the proper performances for hardcore. The Young Marrieds lacks the requisite "money shot" in every sex scene, and the "lesbian" scenes are still simulated (it is known that Wood had a fascination-fear of lesbianism.) But as has been established by Ed Wood Jr. biographer Rudolph Grey, Wood went on to make fully hardcore sex in the "short subjects" for 8mm "loop" release that he wrote and directed for Swedish Erotica and other lines in 1972 and later.

Clever and well-worth the watch doc on the issue of "Growth" in economies---namely the obsession that we must have Growth and Growth is Good. Doc points out that even if constant growth did produce good results (happy communities, etc...) it is simply NOT SUSTAINABLE. The director uses his run for a Council Seat in Colorado Springs--on a 'no-growth' platform--to illustrate his argument, also utilizing some funny skits and the usual talking-expert-heads. The doc ends up coming to conclusion that over-population of a limited-resource planet is the key problem. This might play into the hands of those who want to DELAY the inevitable and/or argue that Science and Politics will solve the problem. My favourite moment: when the candidate for council's OWN team has a meeting where they rationalize that his "Growthbusters" platform doesn't REALLY MEAN he's anti-growth---and he straightens them out very clearly that YES he is ANTI-GROWTH !!

It takes Hollywood vets like WiIliam Hurt and Kevin Costner to fill the screen with such rich, nuanced characters - -- and you will be robbing yourself of big screen pleasure if you wait for the DVD. These guys are so good together they have inadvertently formed a new acting team. It should be noted that it is Costner who has really taken the chance here -- for Hurt this was a no-lose situation and an extension of his work in A History of Violence (which is not to take away from how superb he is here.) But Costner was risking looking desperate or failing at re-invention.

This film is a true black comedy insofar as it is not really a comedy but the lines and the situations are so exquisitely cruel and deadpan that they become droll and you have to laugh. True the film is saddled with what was likely some executive's decision to push the police angle into Seven-ish territory, but the director is able to keep things reigned in and not lose the main focus.

Demi Moore manages (barely) not to embarrass herself although admittedly her role is essentially a thankless jumble of police procedure cliché and gun-toting trailer-fodder.

This is a live action version of the popular children's book. If you were expecting a cartoon you will be surprised. The script is derived directly from the book though. The movie deftly reveals Alexander's perspective of a terrible, horrible day with the actual events. Thus, we can understand his feelings but clearly see none of it is so, so bad. Casting is excellent -- Alexander narrates his woeful tale very well. A sweet film -- see it if you can!! You will understand kids more too. Plus the short movie ends on a subtle note. This is a welcome change from some phony happy ending. Bravo to the makers of this charming tale!

I saw this at a film festival years ago. At the same time feminists were decrying harsh pornographic images, the National Film Board of Canada found it okay for feminist filmmakers to use the same type of imagery to target the evildoers! Not A Love Story is one example - featuring hardcore footage -- and this is another. The movie opens with a depiction of confinement, rape, and urination on the female that could have been ripped from some exploitation picture. But of course here the images are used for a good purpose so it's okay. There is also rather bombastic though efffective use of stock footage from war and ethnography, as well as recreations which are suggested as part of stock footage. Feminists today may look at the film from a slightly different perspective, as promoting the sense of total victimhood. This film is also dated by the then-orthodox view that rape is strictly a crime of violence and not actually sexual, whereas later feminists such as Paglia dismiss this vew. There are many suspect aspect of this docudrama is the presentation of the actor playing the rapist as many other males in society. The suggestion is that any man -- or everyman -- is a rapist. And getting back to exploitation -- it is amazing there was no concern expressed over the filmmakers inclusion of young girls in the film, marched out with heads bowed while a group of women describe comprehensively how they (the girls) have all been raped in society.

In sum, this film is all over the place, using subjective camera techniques to create a high- impact sense of violent sexaul assault by a man, then pulling back to present the female filmmakers discussing the scene in clinical terms, then jumping into classic documentary propaganda technique, before immersing itself in stylized theatrical scenes of women describing rape in ultimate terms (the crime is worse than war victims, we are informed), before going back into the fictional realism that started the movie -- adroitly mirroring the image of the lead female after being raped with an image of her after her male partner tries to make love to her a few weeks later. Then an additonal mirroring image is used to reinforce the message that this woman is defined by rape in life, and then she kills herself. But even then it is not over for the viewer - a message about women wearing whistles is followed by whistle sounds emanating from every nook and cranny in society, before they are sonically married with sounds of war sirens to drive home the message that rape is everywhere and the situation is a state of siege.

This film may well be anti-male -- the rapist's statement that when he was 13 he and his buddies wanted to and tried to rape a girl proves that -- but it is also anti-female.

This is a very interesting and well-made film, well worth watching. It has been carefully constructed and bears repeat viewings. The film is set in the 1970's and revolves around a newly orphaned teenage boy who also happens to stutter. Sent to an orphanage, he is teased and almost runs away, until a beautiful, androgynous boy convinces him to join the choir. The dynamic between these boys forms the overall arc of the rest of the film, with the choir itself serving as the vehicle. There is also a subplot involving the choir-master and a female from his political-activist past (this explains the 70's setting), which is more diversionary than effective.

One might expect a lot of homo-erotic subtext in such a setting, but it is almost completely played down. Yet then when there is a sudden intrusion of a female choir -- the movie suddenly is all erotic symbolism for one scene, whose only purpose is to trigger the third act (which is a little uneven).

The camera sometimes moves too much for its own good and the hand-held is not really necessary, but overall the movie is nicely filmed in rural Japan. The music score is quite beautiful.

Many Asian filmmakers have picked up the ball on the Western cinematic tradition of creating the absurdist-existential 'moment'. Unfortunately, too often -- as in this case -- the actual creation of meaning is largely absent, substituted by the concept of psychological importance based on insanely long dramatic pauses (in 3-Iron it is far beyond even a very long pause -- there is very little dialogue and the leads don't speak at all) and the offering of "abusrd" situations. I guess the irrational occcurence in the midst of nothing is supposed to add up to profundity, but compared to real cinematic accomplishments of absurdity and/or human feeling, these kind of films are merely lame jokes. It is worth noting that 3-Iron's premise contains a nod to one thread of Wong Kar-wai's excellent Fallen Angels, but in the latter case the idea works. I also found this movie to be similar in tone and style to the Japan-Thailand co-production Last Life in the Universe. And like that movie, 3-Iron is very well filmed, as are most Korean movies I have seen.

Freddy Got Fingered is a brilliant piece of subversive cinema -- using the technique of undermining the enemy by infiltrating so completely they are oblivious. It is a rare film-making moment when a fringe character as absurd, juvenile, and gross as Tom Green somehow gets the doors opened and the ticket written. No doubt his marriage to one of Hollywood's favorite daughters opened some doors, but one can only assume that Green had a plan already. Freddy Got Fingered so perfectly adopts the mainstream, big budget Hollywood movie look, plot, music score, and excess that it both puts the lie to the knee-jerk "arc" of so-called human feelings exploited in the average drama AND pulls it off at the same time. Yes, Freddy Got Fingered is full of all the little human moments that are built into any popular Cineplex fare. Actually, even more so. It seems every five minutes there is a genuine plot point of family or relational pain, honesty, and redemption. And every other five minutes is deranged gross-out comedy -- which is all any easily-offended person will see. It's like an insane person found one of the innumerable scriptwriting books that helps you design a winning script -- and then like the proverbial 100 monkeys, successfully tapped out a deranged person's sincere attempt to follow the formula. And it works, bizarrely enough. And of course anyone with a vested interest in the Hollywood myth must hate it. (WARNING: scene spoiler ahead.) After all, putting a heartfelt father-and-son reconciliation moments after the son has caused an elephant to ejaculate in his father's face is true mockery of all those indulgent resolutions. Yet it is not ironic -- one gets the clear sense that Green is truly making a personal expression of his own situation with his father and family. Finally, anyone who says the movie is simply bad is just offended. Aside from its brilliance, it is also good film-making. Green gets great articulated performances from all, especially Marisa Coughlan who is nothing short of amazing as the wheelchair-bound, fetish-loving girlfriend. Everything flows - scene transitions are particularly well-handled -- and the plot is both connected and totally fluid, just like David Mamet says it must be. Plus Green truly 'quotes' one of the great sight-gags of all time when that house falls over on him. He did his own stunt and any error would have cost him his life.