Over the years — going on six as of next week, if you can believe that — Film School Rejects has attempted to provide many great services to our expansive international readership. We’ve brought you movie news, as many a movie blog does. We bring you some of the most comprehensive weekly review coverage around. We deliver film festival notes that rival much of what you’d see from any other independent outlet, assuming we actually make it to the festival. We’ve even handed out prizes, performed public service announcements and once or twice we’ve even handed out some FSR pins and t-shirts. We want you to be clothed, feel rewarded and be informed. Today we are taking it one step further… into your love life.

Fact: We can help you find a movie date. No, really.

We’re taking on a new quest — to get you all a date. Why? Because movie nerds need love, too. And because we’ve found a great partner in the folks over at HowAboutWe, a dating service that is the exact opposite of every other online dating service. It’s not lame. So in keeping with this month’s focus on love, and with Valentine’s Day right around the corner, we’ve launched FSR Dating, a site powered by HowAboutWe that will allow you to find a movie date. All you do is post an idea for a date and interested parties will click “I’m intrigued.” By focusing on the date rather than a bunch of silly personality questions, you can get past the back-and-forth of online dating and get to the part that matters: actually dating. Who knows, if we can get enough movie lovers to sign up, we may even someday have an FSR match that ends up getting married. All we ask is that you invite us. We’ll live-tweet it and promise to keep Robert Fure away from the spiked punch bowl (though we can’t promise that we won’t be the ones spiking the punch bowl — also, if you have a punch bowl at your wedding, you rule.)

Check out our FSR Dating site and find a movie date. We’re reasonably sure you’ll find it to be simple, sort of neat and perhaps even useful. Because if your ideal date is to go eat a 3lb hamburger while sitting through a Troma mini-marathon, don’t you deserve to find someone who wants to do that, too?

Fact: We are not kidding. This sounds silly, but it could work.

We can back up the previous fact with data collected by many intern hours logged testing out the HowAboutWe system. Only one of the interns went missing after scheduling a date, but we’re pretty sure they simply quit out of pure happiness with their match. Because when you find love, you don’t need a job. Right?

Seriously, it’s worth a shot. What have you got to lose?

The promise of Iron Sky is a great and wondrous one. It’s Moon Nazis. Moon Nazis, people. Swirl it around in your mind for a moment. Those two words alone should put enough fuel in the car to get it to the theater, but with a concept like a Fourth Reich hiding on the dark side of the moon, the movie can only take one of two paths. Sadly, all too sadly, it takes a wrong turn and ends up riding the highway all the way into the city dump at the end of it. Stupid, cheap and aiming above its IQ, this movie is the bad kind of garbage.

It goes without saying that there’s a good kind. Some of the best spoof movies have fallen under that category. Like all tones, there are right and wrong ways to handle them, and although director Timo Vuorensola‘s long-awaited sci-fi explosion of bizarre alternate history starts off with decent overacting and wacky antics, it forgets its B-Movie roots halfway through. That’s its fatal mistake.

Not that it was headed for greatness early on, but it was at least headed for the kind of mild enjoyability that makes bad movies worth watching. Udo Kier is Kortzfleisch, the new dictator. Julia Dietze is the Earth Expert and schoolteacher, Renate Richter, who’s convinced that the Nazi way is the way of peace. Götz Otto is Klaus Adler, the next in line to rule with an impotent anger. Christopher Kirby is James Washington, the black astronaut who shocks the Moon Nazis and threatens to disrupt their invasion plans.

It sounds excellently ridiculous. Too bad it’s no good.

To its credit, the team behind it clearly knows the better movies that came before it. The Great Dictator is a plot point, and there’s a reference to the iconic alien hand syndrome of Dr. Strangelove. It’s a limp, poorly played reference, but it’s there. That’s something. Unfortunately, it’s not enough. While the absurdity is piled medium high, and a handful of the gags work beautifully, the movie gets so weighed down by a lost focus and its attempted poor man’s political theater that the jokes get fewer, farther between, and facile.

It should have been a huge tip off when the President of 2018 is a Sarah Palin mock-off (Stephanie Paul) that the movie’s “relevant” comedy would be too easy and too blunt. It’s so on the nose that they should have gotten a mortgage on the left nostril. When it’s Nazis on the Moon, the jokes come with a lightheartedness that mostly works. Kortzfleisch keeps eating candies, Richter is sucked out toward space solely to strip her down to her underwear, and something else probably happens that’s decently funny.

When it’s strident political commentary, the production comes off like a small child repeating a joke it heard on the nightly news. Plus, that small child just happens to have written the joke on a hammer and is swinging it repeatedly at your face.

Simply put, when it nods to Dr. Strangelove, things are at least okay. When it tries to be Dr. Strangelove, things go horribly, horribly, wrong.

Beyond getting stuck on a tired, one-note joke for its second half, the movie is plagued by being average. It never swings for the fences. Had it been offensively bad, it might still have been entertaining. As it stands, it’s so bland that shrugging seems like it would be giving it too much credit.

To be fair, it’s a few lightyears ahead of what the Asylum puts out, but it’s still far from enjoyable. Kirby is a generic hero who has no ups when he’s trying to go over the top. Dietze is stronger as the hot Nazi (a Hot-zi?) and the true lead of the film. Its successes are usually tied to her, and she’s funny even though she’s not given much to work with. However, it’s unsurprisingly Udo Kier who steals scenes like it was his job. Trivially, it’s awesome that he was both in Melancholia and this within the span of a year, but he is the only actor here who truly 1) gets how dumb all of this is and 2) plays along with a straight face.

Is it cheap? Sort of. The CGI is up-to-date, which gives it a visual boost, and there are plenty of large set pieces complete with explosions and people running in the streets. They probably pale in comparison to the difficulty of putting a black man in whiteface and a Nazi uniform and parading him on the daylight avenues of New York City, but they’re sufficient in giving the movie a strange air of credibility.

What’s cheap is the script.

Frankly, there aren’t enough jokes and there aren’t enough jokes that work. If there were a stronger plot, it could take some of the burden, but it doesn’t grow much beyond “There are Nazis on the moon, and they are going to attack.” At the same time, even with the high concept, the damned thing is overly complicated. It shifts from one group of characters to the next, trying hard to find which one is consistently funny, and no one is to be found. There are elements worth a giggle – Washington turning into an albino hobo warning people about the Moon Nazis attacking for example – but the overall result is incredibly, disappointingly flaccid.

What’s worse is the completely misguided swerve into intelligent humor. The script just isn’t smart enough for it, and cramming lame political snipes  into a movie that’s already established itself as throwaway zany fun with an army that goose steps in low gravity makes it even more obvious that the joke writers didn’t get their own punchlines. The clown shouldn’t try high satire, especially if the clown isn’t that funny to begin with.

It’s impossible not to have hopes dashed here. It’s a hell of a premise that was given a half-assed treatment, and that’s always uniquely tragic. At the end of the day, with an idea like Moon Nazis, everyone should be cheering for it to excel. Unfortunately, this is the movie equivalent of the baseball team that gets an ace pitcher only to lose all of its games. So much promise, so little delivery.

Unless of course that delivery is headed toward the town dump.

Complete Berlinale Coverage

I interview a lot of people — it’s part and parcel to the job of entertainment journalism. It’s not generally my favorite thing, as I’m almost always more interested in writing about my film experience and discussing said experience with the screenwriters, whom I rarely find myself in a room with. More often than not I’m visiting an actor who has spent the better part of the day repeating themselves and building up a frothy disdain for the questions I’m trying to avoid, but eventually going to have to ask. There has been very little, if any, gravity to my interview experience. They’re mostly non-events.

…until last week.

I had no expectation that I would be sitting across from the step-father of a brutally murdered child when I arrived in Santa Barbara on the twenty sixth. To be honest I could think of few things I’d want less, and yet I was the one that requested his time on a whim as I watched Mark Byers shuffle painfully through the lobby of the Hotel Santa Barbara. The festival’s publicist caught him as he stepped onto State Street, and five minutes later we were together — and my video camera was pointed at him.

Mark Byers is fifty two,  and six foot five inches tall — he towered over me as we walked together into the hotel’s hospitality room, but he seemed somewhat frail. He has a nagging back injury, and looks perpetually tired. Mark Byers hasn’t lived an easy life; he has a string of past criminal charges ranging from theft, drug abuse, and threats of violence.

When Mark’s step-son Christopher was murdered on a summer evening in 1993 along with Stevie Branch and Michael Moore in West Memphis, Arkansas, it stood to reason that he was immediately looked upon as a suspect. Anyone familiar with the case of the West Memphis Three, and the subsequent Paradise Lost documentaries via HBO knows that Mark was somewhat theatrical. Many of his reactions and interviews were fodder for a hungry media that needed a character to follow, and even if unknowingly, Byers fed the press. Now, just like then — Mark Byers has maintained his innocence. He never pursued a lawyer’s defense, and remained an open book for any evidenciary pursuits in the state of Arkansas.

Mark Byers, for all of his criminal past and somewhat odd behavior, has been repeatedly vindicated. Additionally, he has been one of the strongest supporters of Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley — the three men that spent eighteen years in prison for the murders of the three boys, and the focus of Peter Jackson and director Amy Berg’s documentary, West of Memphis. Much of his support is derived from the strong, exonerating DNA evidence that not only helped remove the West Memphis Three from the short list of suspects in the murder, but additionally scratched him from said list.

What the DNA and new physical evidence have suggested, is a rather damning connection to the murders of Christopher, Michael, and Stevie to the latter’s step-father, Terry Hobbs.

I’m a writer — while I like to follow logical conclusions with as much supporting evidence as I can in taking a position, I’m not going to pretend I know enough about the science behind the findings in this case to make definitive statements. If this were another story, I might even share what my personal leanings are in greater detail. This isn’t really an opinion piece, however — it’s a long, drawn out intro to a video interview that was difficult for me to participate in. I will say that I felt genuine pain in Mark Byers, and he had my sympathy. In the video I think it’s likely obvious that full impartiality wasn’t the place I was going — but to be fair, I had no idea where that was until I began speaking.

Below, Mark Byers talks to me about condemnation, forgiveness, pursuit of justice — and a very final, overwhelmingly cruel truth.

It’s been a while since we’ve published an edition of Better Know a Reject, our sometimes series that focuses on the personalities behind the wonderful content you read every day here on FSR, but that doesn’t mean we can’t just start up again. And as we begin a new year and get ready to celebrate the sixth birthday of this site, we can’t help but bring it all back around to the people who make it all go ’round. Our hope is to do one or two of these every month, just a little something to help you connect with the brilliant minds who entertain and enlighten you with their unending passion for the world of film.

This time around we’re Q’ing and A’ing with Reel Sex columnist Gwen Reyes, who just celebrated her one year anniversary of writing for FSR on February 9th. My, how time flies when you’re having fun and talking about sexy things. Gwen became known to us through her work on the now defunct Gordon and the Whale and her personally owned site Reel Vixen, the latter of which continues to deliver amazing conversations with a female perspective from not just Ms. Reyes, but other names you’ll recognize from the pages of FSR. She’s multi-talented, incredibly bright and a key component to the success of this very site (apparently you guys like reading about sex — who knew!). So cuddle up and lets have some pillow talk with our resident sexpert.

Why did you want to write for Film School Rejects, as opposed to some other, more respectable publication?

Other than having the opportunity to surround myself with writers far more talented and loquacious than me, I really wanted the chance to write about how much I like watching the dirty movies many people consider art. The quirk, attention to detail, and love of films on FSR astounds me daily, and I have made it a goal to break bread and wine bottles with each Reject who’ll have me.

What is your first movie memory?

It’s a toss-up between the introduction of the creepy butterfly in The Last Unicorn and an amputation scene in Glory. My parents didn’t trust babysitters, so they often took my brother and me to a late movie, slip me some Benadryl, and it was night-night for Gwen. Unfortunately, I had this terribly annoying habit of waking up in the middle of the most random moments, including a horrific scene in a movie I have yet to see the whole way through. That might also explain my pension for the little pink allergy pill and discomfort around Civil War re-enactors.

What unique qualities will readers of Film School Rejects find in your writing? What do you bring to the table?

I think my most unique quality is coming up with different cutesy alternative phrases for vagina (lady pocket, lady bits, tenders) and sex (sexy sex time, grind it out, startin’ fires). Come to think of it, I guess I should work on some for man meat, huh? Don’t want the men to feel underrepresented.

I also like really dirty jokes, but I’m terrible at writing them.

If you had to defend yourself, would you rather have Freddy’s claws, Bond’s pistol, or Rosebud the sled?

While Freddy’s claws and Bond’s pistol would ensure I’d never have to touch the person to defend myself, one only works in nightmares and the other I’d have to drink a lot of vodka to operate properly (I mean, okay, yes that really isn’t a problem for me). I’d chose Rosebud because that guarantees I lived the life I’ve set out for myself—become a reclusive, eccentric billionaire unable to connect to any living person. Owning Rosebud also means I could come back to life, after nearly dying of old age, due to the new organs I purchased with my billions, and once again proving that money is the most important tool in warfare—at least that’s what the government has been saying during tax time for years. ROOOOSSSEEEEE BUD

If you were forced to choose only one movie to recommend to everyone you ever meet for the rest of your life, what movie would that be, and why?

Wow, that’s a lot of pressure. I mean, in essence I’m shaping young minds with whatever I suggest. (I may or may not think that highly of my own opinion). There are so many great movies that should be mandatory in anyone’s personal film growth, but then there are some really terrible movies people need to watch to know life is in fact not that fucked up. Mental stimulation versus guilty pleasure—which angle do I take?

Oh alright, I’m not curing cancer here. I’m a writer for a reason, since I barely passed my science classes. I’d go with Love, Actually. It is not only full of well written, compelling characters, including a chubby girl winning the heart of the English Prime Minister (what could be a better fantasy??) it also serves as my quintessential Christmas movie. Just like the internet, I don’t remember life before Love, Actually but I sure as hell cannot live without it now.

What is your number one passion outside the world of movies?

When I’m not watching movies, writing about movies, or falling asleep old-lady style during movies, I find myself studying the impressive display of beards around me. Maybe it’s because I can’t grow one, or maybe it’s because I delight so much in the acrobatics of a well planned out facial muff, but I love beard spotting. They never go out of fashion, it’s an automatic identifier of a mountain man, and if grown by the right guy, I can keep my lipstick and keys in there.

What do you love about movies?

I love escaping into worlds that are beyond me, full of tall romantic men, heists that ALWAYS end with the criminals getting away with millions, jokes that never fall flat, sexy Dodge Chargers, and the incredible discovery of gravity technology on space ships. Movies celebrate the creative and remain a lasting art form that I hope to share with my future children fathered by Gerard Butler and Jon Hamm.

Check out our previous installments of Better Know a Reject:

• Nathan Adams

X-Men: First Class ended up being the miracle of last summer. With the quick production schedule and the less-said-about-it-the-better X3 and X-Men Origins: Wolverine, who would’ve thought we’d get the best in the series yet? Well, we did. If you’ve seen the first three films of the franchise, you really don’t have to be an analytical comic book nerd to notice a few continuity problems. Or, if you want to look at it in a brighter and more logical light, it was Matthew Vaughn, Jane Goldman and the brass at Fox starting anew.

With Vaughn recently announced to helm the sequel to his poppy origin story, hopefully he’ll continue to build a new X-Men film universe. Who wouldn’t want to see characters like Gambit and Angel all finally given justice, and in the 1970s nonetheless? I would. Whether or not that’ll happen is still up in the air, but it seems plausible.

Although Jane Goldman isn’t officially attatched to pen the sequel and she’s got plenty of other projects on her schedule, I couldn’t help but to discuss the potential of a sequel, as well as her plans for Nate Simpson‘s Nonyplayer:

You’re working on a lot of projects and I’m not sure if you’re attatched to write the sequel, but, if you do, would you ever consider bringing back, say, Cyclops or Jean Grey?

You know, I can always make suggestions, and I did last time. Ultimately, those decisions come down to someone other than me. Would I, personally? Well, it’s really tricky. I think the route we had gone down with First Class — it’s sort of a question of where to go next, and I think those two characters were very strong, especially having [Michael] Fassbender and [James] McAvoy play them so brilliantly. In a comic sense, I still think there’s room for an X-Men [film] with the original X-Men [Laughs]. In terms of how they fit in this new universe that First Class kicked off, I don’t know. I mean, yes, I think there’s room for that. All sorts of ideas have been talked about and Matthew has some particular ideas, and, in this case, all of those decisions will be done through Matthew.

I think the style of the film really set it up apart from the other X-Men films, where it felt like a new universe.

I definitely think so, and I think that was Matthew’s intention. I think there were moments where there was continuity with the other X-Men movie universe, and there were moments it was apart from that. I think it was the right way to go, for Matthew to make it a separate entity.

I know this was just recently announced and I’m not sure if you’ve started writing it yet, but how’s the process been on Nonplayer so far, in creating a whole world on the page?

It’s been fascinating and has new challenges, which is great. The first issue is absolutely brilliant, and I just fell in love with it the minute I saw it. The rest of the arc that they have right now is absolutely genius, and it has so many ideas in it. The first one you don’t really get a sense of how much is going to be in the story and how many weird, cool technology ideas are in there. Actually, it’s kind of wrestling with things like — it’s not just introducing the idea that there’s one particular game people play, but it’s about six completely new and different technologies I have not seen invented in a film before, at all. My gosh, how do you introduce all of those elements? In fact, a lot of them are just very, very cool background elements. It’s a challenge of introducing something, and making it feel natural. It’s not like you have an outsider coming in from another place or another time, where you can go, “Yeah, this is a so-and-so, and it does this!” You have to find a natural place within the story to introduce these perfectly cool futuristic concepts. I’m really, really excited by it. I’m looking forward to getting back to that one.

Make sure to check back in the next few days for our full interview with Jane Goldman.

Welcome back to Junkfood Cinema; Truck Turner isn’t just what we call Brian when Tacos-On-Wheels runs out of Baja sauce. Welcome back suckas, to the Internet’s freshest bad movie column; this month featuring a funky twist. This is Blaxploitation History Month: Sequel Edition. Every week in February, we’ll be rolling out another super bad blaxploitation sequel that’s so whack we can’t help but dig it. We’ll lay down some cold-blooded mockery on said film, going upside its head with its own numerous faults, but then will jump back, kiss ourselves, and get hip to all the reasons we think these movies are dy-no-mite. To top it off, we’ll serve you with a badass, and bad for you, snack food item themed to the movie.

Today’s jive turkey: The Human Tornado.

What Makes It Bad?

The Human Tornado is the sequel to Dolemite. How that sentence isn’t scribbled on some Mayan temple wall next to references of fallen empires and circling comets is beyond me. But as it is 2012, it seemed all-the-more appropriate to crack the seal on this doomsday capsule. Dolemite, as you recall (because your therapy clearly isn’t working), is the story (read: slapped-together case of visual Tourettes) of a lovable pimp sent to prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Upon release, he takes his revenge through a series of half-finished scenes, costume changes, and lyrical freestyle sessions in which he proceeds to tie us all up and mercilessly rap us…rap us right in the ears. But clearly, this is a man whose ineffable charm and epic heroic qualities could not be contained in just one movie. Enter The Human Tornado…exit your will to live.

The movie kicks off with one of the most spastic, nonsensical title sequences history of spastic, nonsensical title sequences; a history encompassing nearly 300 years if I’m not lying. Every person credited is bestowed their own individual font style and color; choking up the screen with silly and giving the distinct impression that The Human Tornado is set on the rough Streets of Sesame. The film sees the flabtastic hero Dolemite working as a nightclub comedian by evening and an expensive manwhore by day. True to the spirit of what really sets the Dolemite franchise apart from, you know, real movies, the “writer” of The Human Tornado both celebrates the familiar ways in which Rudy Ray Moore was ill-equipped for stardom and creates entirely new mediums to further explore his untalentedness. Turns out he’s just as inept at stand-up comedy as he is at being naked. So he’s hired by the desperate(ly unattractive) wife of the local sheriff for clumsy, well-feed sexulations. The sheriff, whose racial sensitivity makes Buford T. Justice look Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, is alerted that a party of non-whites is occurring and rallies a posse of plain-clothes clansmen to break it up. He finds his hatchet-faced beloved in bed with a far-more-nude-than-any-of-us-needed-to-see Dolemite and shoots her in the upper face. Dolemite is of course framed for the shooting, and blamed (arguably rightfully) for the guy he totally does shoot, and must go on the run; hijacking a flamboyantly gay man’s car and heading to California to meet up with his old ally Queen Bee. You know, hero stuff.

This represents the closest The Human Tornado ever comes to having a plot. Let me be clear, I’ve seen plenty of non-movies in my time, films that abandon the tedious, mainstream constraint of a narrative throughline in favor of a pastiche of formless visual ejaculations. The first film is a great example of this, in particular the moment wherein the film grinds to halt in order to give Rudy Ray Moore a pulpit from which to deliver his hip-hop sermon from the Book of Jo-Mama. What I’ve never seen is several non-films crammed within one singular non-film. The Human Tornado plays out less like a movie and more like a variety show, featuring extended sequences of Broadway dancers, lounge singers, comedians, and Central American nunchuckers; no part of that sentence is a joke. It was as if the director thought, “if we load up the movie with people who are good at things that have nothing to do with the film, subconsciously the audience will be fooled into thinking we’re good at making movies!” There is also a subplot about an old witch woman who operates a torture chamber in which two unfortunate ladies find themselves trapped. Apparently the filmmakers were very concerned that the one demographic this franchise had not yet catered to was burgeoning serial killers.  Poking its head through the thicket of nonsense is some shoehorned story about Dolemite taking down the mob, but only because the writer was required by blaxploitation law to include it.

The showcasing of people who are all very skilled at things that don’t belong in this movie is aligned with scenes of things that make no sense regardless of context; all them proving that The Human Tornado is sexually charged…or rather should be charged under a number of sex crimes statutes. The police chief in L.A., where Dolemite is hiding out, calls in his “best man” to track him down. When he calls this “best man,” the detective in question is engaged in what appears to be the rape of a female officer. He pauses to take the call before returning to his twisted application of law enforcedsex. And then of course, there’s the scene in which we see Dolemite seduce a woman, watch as she gets undressed, and then get down to some real dirty exercise. No that’s not a euphemism, they actually get very nude and take in a few reps with the Nordic track apparatus hanging above the bed. In addition to illustrating the writer’s unresolved body issues, scientists now credit this scene with the discovery of the cure for sex addiction.

But the weirdest thing in the movie, and high in the running for the single weirdest eyeball intrusion to which I’ve ever subjected myself, is the point at which The Human Tornado splits off into this tangential dream sequence/sex-terrogation scene. It’s downright arthouse, and by that I mean it’s initiated by hideous ART and looks like it takes place in a carnival funHOUSE. Dolemite arrives at the home of the mob boss’ wife with the intention of humping some information out of her as to the location of the missing girls (the ones being imprisoned in the torture chamber of JiggaSaw. He masquerades as an artist and shows her a velvet painting of an interracial couple embracing. As he anticipates, this of course sends her into an uncontrollable sexual frenzy that causes her to not only bang Dolemite, but all the while fantasize about a circus stage in which she lies on three giant wooden blocks that spell out the word bed as a bevvy of black Adonises file out of a trunk marked “toy box.” I really do wish I was making this up because it means I wouldn’t have had to actually witness it on screen. I’m not going to touch the sociopolitical implications of a white woman keeping several black men in a box, but these men then take turns hurling themselves wang-first down a slide and onto the eager woman’s naked body. It’s either the most avant-garde or absolute worst porn you’ve ever seen depending on how drunk/horny/self-loathing you feel.

Why I Love It!

The Human Tornado‘s function as a film is clear to me now, to make Dolemite look like Citizen Goddamn Kane. The filmmakers must have taken stock of the bad sound and even worse martial arts of Dolemite, because they strive to fashion ways to correct both issues…failing spectacularly at doing so. To correct the nearly inaudible line delivery of Dolemite, they decided to ADR nearly every single line of dialogue in The Human Tornado and lay it over footage shot like a home movie. What this leads to is a film that seems like a documentary about mentally disturbed people. We get scenes like the one wherein Dolemite comes out of a shoe store, clearly not moving his lips, and the ADR has him saying, “great new shoes for my feet…now I can get me something sweet to eat.” It happens all through the movie and reminds me of those segments on Mr. Rodgers’ Neighborhood where he would tour a cheese factory or get a root canal and would then narrate his own adventure after-the-fact. I know it’s been said by every respected film historian you’ve ever read, but I’ll go ahead and reiterate that The Human Tornado is even more hysterical to watch if you image that he’s one of Mr. Rodgers’ neighbors. “I’m comin’ for ya, Mr. MuthaFUCKin’ McFeeley.”

As to the martial arts in The Human Tornado, it isn’t so much that the fight sequences are “better”as much as they are “considerably sped up so you don’t notice how bad they are.” Rudy Ray Moore didn’t get any more skillful at throwing a punch and making it look remotely believable so they just had him do it slower and then went back and hit the fast-forward button in the editing booth. This not-so-brilliant cheat ends up defining the whole damn movie; the “speed” with which Dolemite “strikes” is what “earns” him the nickname the “human” tornado. The result is that we, the audience, are left to conclude that that he learned his ancient fighting style from revered kung-fu master Benny Hill. Despite Human Tornado‘s best efforts to make its fight scenes unwatchable, they are actually a lot of fun; aided in no small way by Rudy Ray Moore’s combat grunts…or rather his impressions of Bruce Lee possessed by the demon Pazuzu. I also find it hilarious that, realizing that they still had that mixing board anyway, the editors actually pause the film, rewind it, and replay certain scenes. My favorite of these being the one wherein they replay a stunt in which Rudy Ray Moore jumps head-first down a hill. During the replay, he espouses in voice-over, “y’all don’t believe I jumped, so watch this good shit!” Unfortunately we see the shot again from the same obscuring distance, providing no further evidence that the person jumping is actually Rudy Ray Moore.

Once again, a blaxploitation movie as bad as The Human Tornado finds one level on which to excel: the theme song. It’s basically just a constant restating of the film’s title over and over, with a few absrud lyrics mumbled in between, but if you’re going to be the personification of a natural disaster, there are only like four of five better choices than the tornado. I’m sorry, but if you listen to the opening song here and don’t aspire to be a human tornado yourself, or at the very least a “bad motor scooter,” I’m not sure we can be friends anymore. Also, listen very closely for the line in the song that sounds an awful lot like Rudy Ray declaring himself to be a “notarizer.” He actually says that he’s been “known to rise up,” but it took me several viewings to realize he wasn’t actually letting me know he was available to sign off on these alterations to my will. I’m leaving everything to the Dolemite Foundation for Talent-Challenged Actors.

Junkfood Pairing: Texas Tornado Cake

As I currently live in Texas, and this movie is called The Human Tornado, my first choice for the junkfood pairing was of course creme brulee, but then I remembered that I’m still not quite sure what creme brulee is so instead I fell back on the slightly less on-the-nose Texas Tornado Cake. Sorry, I know it makes no sense. As Rudy Ray would say, “spin this cake around inside your mouth, before Dolemite makes you laugh so hard you spit it out…th.”

Rot your teeth with more Junkfood Cinema

The average movie run time is somewhere around the ninety minute mark. (I have no stats to back that statement up, but it feels about right.) There are several reasons for this, but the two most common probably have as much to do with the short attention span of audiences as it does the desire of studios and theaters to fit more screenings in per day. To those I would add that most movies don’t need more than two hours to tell their story.

But some do. Think Schindler’s List, The Godfather Part II, and JFK. These are big movies telling big stories, and they show that sometimes a film needs a longer canvas.

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia is not one of those films. Which is unfortunate, because in every regard other than time management this is a fairly fascinating and engaging character drama.

“There’s good people and bad. You can never tell. If it comes to it, you have to be ruthless. And shoot them right between the eyes.”

Three cars make their way slowly across a vast and hilly plain at dusk. They come to a rest and several men exit and gather nearby. Two of them are in handcuffs, suspects in a murder, while the rest are on-hand to ensure the victim’s corpse is recovered and justice is served.

Or are they?

Several of policemen, soldiers and laymen seem utterly disinterested in the matter at hand. Geography, gossip and the number of times their fellow officers take a pee break seem to be more important than the murder suspect crammed into the seat between them. The prosecutor and doctor repeatedly return to a conversation about a woman who may or may not have killed herself while others get into a heated argument about buffalo yogurt.

That’s not to say there aren’t bigger questions to be found. The confessed murderer, Kenan (Firat Tanis), is mostly silent as he tries and fails to lead them to the body. Presumably it’s because the hills, trees, and small fountains look too similar in the dark, but could there be another reason he can’t quite find the right spot? Why is no one concerned when a second man confesses? What’s up with the dead man enjoying the cup of tea?

But as the evening sets in and makes its long trek toward morning it becomes clear the characters’ interest in the mundane is matched by the entirety of writer/director Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s film. Larger issues both practical and philosophical are teased sporadically throughout, but the overriding concern remains the smaller stories between characters. Those larger concerns are left to linger, and instead we see the inherent good and bad in how these people treat, judge and interact with their friends and neighbors. The developing discussion between Nusret (Taner Birsel) the prosecutor and Dr. Cemal (Muhammet Uzuner) about the woman actually becomes the most telling and engaging thread across the more than two and a half hour running time.

That damn two and a half hour running time.

The film’s length seems to exist in directly inverse proportion to the size of the stories being told. We see the relationships between characters, including the distinctions  that exist due to their individual cultures and daily lives, and learn what makes many of them tick. But these small discoveries are spread across a seemingly endless chronological landscape. Ceylan never moves his camera at a speed faster than snail, and we’re treated to long, static shots with little in the way of relevant action.

Granted, the film looks beautiful even as it threatens to eat up the next three days of your life. The opening hour takes place almost exclusively at night and sees many of its scenes lit solely with automobile headlights, but they look stunning. Some scenes take on a dreamlike quality as well including one where the group is welcomed into a home to rest and are served tea by an ethereally attractive and silent woman.

Ceylan’s film is telling of the society and people that make up the mostly rural Turkish region, and his characters are an intriguing blend of personalities. The ways in which they interact with each other and with the more mundane aspects of a bureaucracy are revealing, and even at over 150 minutes they never bore. Just imagine if they didn’t have to share the screen with an extra hour of filler…

The Upside: Beautiful nighttime cinematography; enough intriguing scenes and exchanges to fill a 90 minute movie

The Downside: Overly long for the tale(s) being told

On the Side: One of the plot keywords IMDB uses for this film is “Dead body in a car trunk.” There are 26 other films that also use it.

Like Garth Ennis’s Preacher, it’s hard to imagine a series like The Boys having an easy time making it to the big screen. It’s dark, unconventional, brutal, and funny in ways most people wouldn’t deem “commercial.” It’s a great series with a lot of potential, potential that director Adam McKay definitely sees. The project had been at Columbia Pictures for sometime, but they just recently dropped it.

I reached out to McKay for an update, who responded the project’s still very much alive.”It’s not dead. Two studios very interested. Love Sony but they made a mistake,” said McKay. As for whether they’ll continue to try to make an R-rated version of The Boys, the answer is no. But that doesn’t mean we are going to get a neutered down adaptation of Ennis’s world, according to McKay, “It’s now PG-13. But I found cool ways to keep it edgy. Nolan does so much with that rating. I want this movie to have the conceptual floor of MIB: the police for the superheroes, with the bad ass action groove of The Matrix or Oldboy.”

A mixture of Men in Black, The Matrix, and Oldboy is definitely a film I’d want to see, especially coming from McKay. [THR]

The 14th Annual SF IndieFest runs February 9th-23rd at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco. Check out the official site for further film details.

Two Russian ghosts, brothers tired of a life that is really no life at all, decide a change of corporeality is in order. After consulting with an oracle they begin to follow the Way of Saint James, a path that should lead them to the Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela. Once there their bland, boring and restless existence will be exchanged for new physical bodies. The journey will be made mostly by foot, but occasionally they’ll take advantage of a horse and a wheelchair as they travel through inhospitable lands filled with odd characters and creatures.

That summation is accurate in its details, but it’s a lie in one very specific regard. Ghosts seeking to leave the afterlife, a surreal quest for humanity, and an absurd collection of oddities along the way seem to promise an interesting and engaging entertainment. Sadly, Finnisterrae is neither of those things.

“Wait.”

Writer/director Sergio Caballero certainly fills his film with alternately beautiful, fun and enticing visuals starting with the ghosts themselves. The phantom duo are represented by men wearing white sheets with large, black ovals where their eyes would be. It’s immediately comical and enhanced by the thick Russian voices emanating from beneath the fabric, but it’s far from the film’s only absurdity.

The live horse is intermittently replaced with an intentionally fake one. They pass through a “Forest of Words” where the trees all sport a pair of human ears, the better to hear the constant chatter echoing amidst the foliage presumably. An opera-singing, hippie chick replete with a cape and extraneous dunlap offers directions and ill-advised barter to the two spirits. Another tree’s knothole offers a disgusting video-feed within.

And let’s not forget the stripper ghost in knee-high socks who entertains one of the brothers in split screen while the other sits unattended and under the weather on the other side. Seriously, don’t forget the stripper because she’s the film’s biggest highlight.

Some of the ideas and images would kill in a sketch show where they’d be focused and pointed, but here they seem to exist as throwaways or parts of a whole that never coalesces. Life, death and the meaning behind our time on earth are clearly the topics of the day, but any observations made about them feel so slight as to be accidental.

The film also drops the ball at a couple moments that promise to offer some kind of engagement. We’re led to an exchange or interaction only to see the screen go black with an interstitial that tells viewers what happened… but we don’t get to see it. It’s unclear if it’s a narrative or budgetary decision, but it lessens the effect regardless.

The film doesn’t really work as anything more than a collection of individual moments and frames, but with a running time under eighty minutes that could have still counted as a minor success. A film can miss the mark on the whole but succeed on a piecemeal basis, but unfortunately these handful of interesting ideas appear so intermittently that they’re swallowed up by the film’s  ponderous pace never to be recalled. Except for the stripper in the bed sheet of course. You’ll remember that one.

Finisterrae screens Sunday 2/12 at 930pm.

The 14th Annual SF IndieFest runs February 9th-23rd at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco. Check out the official site for further film details.

The 14th Annual SF IndieFest runs February 9th-23rd at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco. Check out the official site for further film details.

A man named Gerhard writes and narrates his instructions to a prostitute as to how he wants their time together to go. “Your caresses should be tender and shy,” he says. “I want you to put it in your mouth. It won’t take long.” His preferences continue including how she can yell at him or fall asleep beside him as long as she showers afterwards, sits in his lap soaking wet and lets him call her Lydia.

Gerhard returning home to his wife where the two await the arrival of their adult son and daughter. Their son, Bernhard, discovers the note beforehand and doesn’t show.

But their daughter Lydia does.

“I should have known.”

Bernhard (Christoph Luser) had followed his father (Fritz Hörtenhuber) to the prostitute and afterwards retrieved the letter from her. He’s taken aback, understandably, but doesn’t quite know what to do. When he finally arrives home to attend a family session for Gerhard’s alcoholism he presents the note to his dad for an explanation. Gerhard leaves, saying nothing with his voice but everything with his eyes, and the letter gets shared with Lydia (Daniela Golpashin) and their mother.

What follows are the multiple threads of the four family members over the next twenty four hours as they each struggle to understand the revelation. While Gerhard ponders turning himself in or picking up a shotgun his wife gives in to a shocked resignation and acceptance. Bernhard meanwhile tries to make amends with Lydia over the guilt he feels for not recognizing their reality sooner. They find a tin of photos in their dad’s shed, and it’s filled with pictures of her as a child in random states of undress.

Bernhard found it the first time when he was just a boy, but in a misguided and heartbreaking act of jealousy did nothing about it. He was jealous because he had been cut out of the photos. (Shades of Todd Solondz’ soul crushing but hilarious Happiness there.) Now he wonders if he could have prevented possible tragedies if he had spoken earlier.

The revelation at the core of Still Life (aka Stillleben) is almost unimaginable, and it would be easy to take the story down some melodramatic paths. Co-writer/director Sebastian Meise wisely and beautifully avoids that trap though and relies on his actors to deliver the story with honest humanity. How would you possibly deal with the discovery that your father harbored sexual thoughts and desires for one of your siblings? Or for you? It’s almost impossible to comprehend, but the cast makes it a wrenching reality.

Much of the communication between them (and with viewers) is accomplished with little to no dialogue. Anger, fear, sadness and more emanate from their eyes as if mere words could never do justice to the emotions they’re feeling. Hörtenhuber in particular moves between guilt, shame and loss without saying a word, and the effect is an all encompassing sadness.

The topic is one that could have easily descended into a salacious movie of the week, but it deserves and receives a far more sober and affecting approach here.

Still Life screens Thursday, February 16, at 9:30PM.

The 14th Annual SF IndieFest runs February 9th-23rd at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco. Check out the official site for further film details.

They say laughter is the best medicine and well, world, I’m dying here. I need my medicine. I need to laugh. I need to be entertained, but it seems every time I try to chuckle these days, someones standing right there to make me feel bad about it.

Over the last few weeks in this column, I’ve mostly pointed the finger at big corporate entities bowing to some outside force, whether it’s a perceived notion that they must be politically correct to the point of being historically incorrect or whether it’s removing a joke that probably cost thousands of dollars to animate to not offend a small handful of people in a far off land with a disease that’s rapidly disappearing.

Today, I point my finger elsewhere. I point it at you. I point it at them. I point it at us, a society that has lost its sense of humor – and that is a damn shame.

The other day I was listening to the whopping two nominees for Best Original Song for the upcoming Academy Awards, “Real in Rio” and “Man or Muppet.“ I came to the logical and correct conclusion that “Man or Muppet” is a vastly superior song. I would be outraged, confused, and saddened if “Real in Rio” somehow won, to the point I came up with a humorous and sarcastic tweet that I never sent: “If Real in Rio beats Man or Muppet I will burn this town down.”

Sarcasm. Hyperbole. Terrorist threat? I never sent the tweet. I don’t live too far from the Kodak Theater and in light of a recent story where two British tourists where detained and deported by the Department of Homeland Security over some joke tweets about “destroying America” and digging up Marilyn Monroe. I don’t think I’d take any tweet about “destroying America” seriously since Twitter probably isn’t the communication method used by terrorists, at least not without private tweeting turned on.

Is that the world I live in now? Some guy says something meaningless to maybe 2,000 random people on the internet and the United States government scoops him up at the airport and then, presumably discovering he is not a terrorist, promptly puts him on a plan back across the ocean? You can see why a guy who is advertised as being “angry” on the Internet and lives within walking distance of the Kodak Theater might not want to make a joke about burning anything down over a Muppets movie and a couple of computer generated birds. I’d end up in chains drinking water out of a dog bowl.

Where the fuck did our sense of humor go? The general fucking lack of it is so severe I self-censored a harmless joke and that is not okay.

Not so long ago I called Aardman Animation a bunch of pussies for deciding to pull a joke about lepers from their historical comedy about pirates. That same week I ran that article, Family Guy ran the exact same leper joke – a leper had a body part fall off. I must have missed the hooplah surrounding that, or maybe there was no hooplah since no one complained. I also recall a scene in Men in Tights where a bunch of guys literally lend their ears by throwing them up on stage – was that a veiled leprosy joke?

Whether or not lepers actually find any of those jokes offensive, why should it be removed? Who out there, other than lepers and people who are paid by organization to defend the rights of lepers, are saying that joke should be removed? Hopefully you’re not a citizen anywhere where freedom of speech is guaranteed or, you know, art exists.

There are plenty of things I disagree with in the world, plenty of things I don’t find funny – but they have every right to exist. People have every right to make jokes of things. Look at Idiocracy, which basically makes fun of all America and the road we’re on. I love America and I love that movie, because I have a sense of humor. I can differentiate something mean-spirited from something meant to be funny. Even if a joke falls flat and no one laughs, it was still a joke.

Gilbert Gottfried made jokes about the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001 about three weeks after the event. Too soon? Probably. But he wasn’t arrested as a co-conspirator or for planning future terrorist attacks. Jokes used to be jokes, even ones in poor taste. Why aren’t we laughing anymore?

We get mad over everything. It’s like a self-righteous race to the bottom. It’s in poor taste to laugh at anything risque, rather let us take the high ground and feign offense so we can point fingers down on the material.

In Transformers 2, the Twins were very poorly received by the majority of people. They were a couple of idiots. I actually laughed at them quite a bit, but much of the critical community thought they were racist caricatures. Wait, what? It’s one thing to not find them funny, but it’s another entirely to point a finger at Michael Bay and everyone involved in the making of that movie (literally a dozen or more people have to give the thumbs up) and say “that’s racist.” How exactly was it racist? Plenty of people walked out of that movie completely stupefied that someone would call them racist characters. I sure as hell didn’t see it myself, though after hearing what others say at least understand where they’re coming from.

But when you have an orange and a green metal alien robot doing goofy things, I think it says a lot if you project race onto them. To me, they were Autobots. What is it saying about a person who projects another race on top of that? I think what it says is they lost their sense of humor, or were looking for something to hate.

Similarly, when The Dilemma first appeared it created a small internet uproar over the use of the word “gay” in a derogatory way. Vince Vaughn’s character said “Electric cars are gay.” Now, clearly, cars don’t have a sexual orientation, so this seems like a pretty unoffensive joke, but in a culture where it’s better to be offended and have moral high ground than laugh and just get on with life, this became a thing.

Was anyone hurt by that remark? Did Vaughn call the owner of a car gay? Did the writer of the screenplay mean to hurt the feelings of Prius drivers everywhere? No, of course fucking not. It was a joke, and one without any bad language in it at that. How is this worthy of controversy?

After my piece about “going full special” and the use of retard in film and art, a reader took the time out to flatter me with some praise before telling me I was wrong. If you ever want to correct someone, that is the way to do it: flatter first, correct second.

In my defense of the position, I responded with the following, which I’m reprinting here as I think it’s totally applicable to art, jokes, and movies:

When it comes to words like ‘retard’ and ‘gay,’ my point within the article was basically that these are extremely watered down words compared to the real curses of the world. Yes, they are offensive to many people, but again, this is in context within a movie. If you look at a movie like “The Dilemma” (terrible movie, don’t look at it), Vince Vaughn calls the Prius gay. That made some people mad, but I think it really defines the type of character he is – immature and jockish. The same goes in a movie like “Waiting” where the wait staff call each other “fags” or “faggots” in the manner of douchey college frat boys. We’re not meant to hate them for using these words, but I think it clearly works towards establishing their characters. You can tell a lot about a character through his word choices and that’s where the authors are coming from.

Man, to me, that goes way past “Hey man, have a sense of humor about things” and shows some real, honest to goodness thought about why some jokes are made. Does that apply to every joke? Nah. Does it apply to my joke about burning down Hollywood if Real in Rio wins? Not really, but I think it’s worth bringing up.

There are things in this world that are said to hurt people. They are offensive remarks. Then there are things that are said to illicit laughter. They are jokes. Some jokes can be offensive, generally in terms of taste. Look at Whitney Houston, who recently passed away. If last week you made a Whitney Houston crack joke, it was hilarious. If you made it today, you’re an insensitive asshole. What changed? Why was it okay then but not now? The joke is the same. The timing is perhaps questionable, but is it something that should offend people? No. But people want to be offended to get the high ground.

Brit Hume once said ”in America today, if your sensibilities are offended by something that has happened, you get an enormous amount of credibility and are taken very seriously.”

Spot on. Being offended by something gives you attention. In a crowd of people laughing, no one hears your laugh, but they’ll damn well hear your boo. It’s time to stop booing and start laughing again.

What does being offended help? I instantly think of the saying “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” It’s something that was drilled into me at an early age. This doesn’t mean we sacrifice or hurt people, but we understand that there are somethings bigger than ourselves. What if I say “the laughs of the many outweigh the boos of a few?”

If two million people laugh at a leper joke and twenty-two are offended, should we really rob the millions of a chuckle? It’s not like they’re laughing at a person, they’re laughing at an idea. 105,125 people gave Tropic Thunder 7 or more stars out of 10 on IMDb.com. I guarantee you that those 105,125 people don’t think mental retardation is funny and I guarantee you that they don’t laugh at or mock handicapped people. But those 105,125 people have a sense of humor. They get that jokes are meant to be funny.

Yes, jokes often come at the expense of someone else. Whether it’s the fat, the blonde, the dumb, or whoever, someone is always the butt of a joke. Do we get rid of all jokes? Of course not. You can tackle bullying and if you catch someone mocking a kid with special needs, by all means punch him in the face to teach him a lesson, but don’t get offended at a movie. Don’t try to censor it. Don’t get your panties in a twist. Just try to have a laugh.

Getting offended gets you nowhere. Well, except the center of attention, but quit it. Overreacting gets you nowhere. Well, except to the front of the laughing stock line. Where has our sense of humor gone and how do we get it back?

I’m calling upon all people to chill out and not get your ass all in a bunch over things. Yes, me, the guy who rants about something new every week – but you know what I never rant about? Being offended. Freedom of speech. Someone telling a joke. I’ll take exception to certain things and argue against them, most definitely, but I will never say that something is too extreme, too rude, or too whatever and that it needs to be removed. Because frankly, if something actually upsets me that much in the entertainment world, I have the ability to not watch. To not listen. To not help them profit. But I don’t want to hurt them. I don’t want to stand in the way of someone’s ability to be artistic or creative, even if that means sculpting Mohammed out of feces and crashing radio controlled planes into it.

Seriously, stop being so serious. Have a good laugh. All this fucking nonsense about people being offended and over reacting to things said in jest has me as far past my boiling point as I can go, 10³² Kelvin mother fuckers.

It is very, very easy not to be offended by a book. You just have to shut it. – Salman Rushdie

Get offended or laugh at more boiling point.

Unlike our own Kate Erbland, I don’t loathe Seth Grahame-Smith‘s writing with every fiber of my body. In fact, I quite like Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, a book that’s less tongue-in-cheek than you’d expect. Tonally, it’s challenging material. And based on this first trailer for the book’s cinematic adaptation, it’s slightly difficult to tell which way the film’s going to go. This could either be another Van Helsing or (probably) something we haven’t quite seen before. If one thing’s for sure, director Timur Bekmambetov has nailed the atmosphere of the book. The director’s got a great eye, so it’s no surprise this trailer has visual ass-kicking going for it.

Take a look at Abe kicking some unholy arse:

I’m honestly more excited for this Abe Lincoln film than Spielberg’s. Not only because Spielberg’s is a bit of a no-brainer for success, there’s more of a mystery element for this project. It could go either way. As a fan of Bekmambetov’s, I’m betting and hoping it’s as cool and fun as his previous films, something this slick teaser definitely hints at it being.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter opens in theaters on June 22nd.

Okay, I’ll come right out and say it: I really hate Valentine’s Day. It’s just another Hallmark holiday that was created to give retailers a huge boost in sales during what would otherwise be a slow month on their fiscal calendar. Of course, if you are in a relationship, Valentine’s Day is a really tough holiday to ignore because our society deems that everyone must at least purchase chocolates, roses, and/or a greeting card for their significant other; a romantic dinner is also a good idea and maybe a movie afterwards…

Life on February 14th is not any easier if you are single (but if you are, you should probably check out our FSR Dating site), because you definitely cannot go out in public without a date on Valentine’s Day unless you want to look like a totally unlovable loser. On that note, I will quit my bitching and tell you about all of the great cinematic events going on in Austin on the dreaded 14th of February.

The flaming hot ticket this year is to the Alamo Drafthouse’s The Princess Bride Quote-Along and Feast. The February 14th screenings at all four Alamo locations in Austin sold out a while ago (so if your Buttercup or Westley was expecting a ticket and you have not purchased one already, you are shit out of luck). Rob Reiner’s 1987 classic will be paired with a sumptuous feast and the unveiling of the Alamo Signature Wine collection, The Bottle of Wits, which features an Inconceivable Cab and an As You Wish White. What better way to express your “twue wuv” to your Buttercup or Westley, than with a MLT, Screeching Eel Salad, Seared R.O.U.S., and Twue Wuv Twuffles…well, unless you or your Buttercup or Westley is a vegetarian, than this menu would not be very appealing. Nonetheless, it would be inconceivable that someone could resist a film that features a dread pirate, a reluctant princess, a wily Sicilian, a six-fingered count, fire swamps, Rodents of Unusual Size, fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, miracles and – most importantly – TWUE WUV!

Also on the 14th at the Alamo Ritz, Village and Lake Creek is the Love Bites Sing-Along. This particular sing-along is in its seventh year – and it has been updated every year. (The Alamo promises that this will be the best Love Bites Sing-Along yet.) If you know anything about the anthemic ballads performed by 1980s hair metal bands (such as Guns ‘n Roses, REO Speedwagon, and Warrant) that are typically showcased in a Love Bites Sing-Along, then you also know that this is your best anti-Valentine’s Day option for the evening. So, for those of you who actually want to re-live this particular part of the 1980s, lighters will be lit, fists will be pounded, hair will be teased, and animal print tights will be worn.

The Austin Film Society will be at the Alamo South Lamar to screen one of my favorite Luis Buñuel films – That Obscure Object of Desire – as the closing film of their Essential Cinema series, The Great Escape: Three European Émigré Filmmakers. Most of That Obscure Object of Desire is told in flashbacks, as the 60-year-old Mathieu unabashedly recounts his foolish relationship with Conchita - an 18-year-old flamenco dancer – to his fellow train compartment passengers. (I’m guessing that a 42-year age difference equates to a Winter-Spring romance?) Things get really confusing when Buñuel begins to seamlessly switch between two different actresses portraying Conchita. (Oh, those wild and crazy surrealists!) Far from a typical love story, there is certainly no shortage of love (and obsession) within That Obscure Object of Desire. If you have an obscure object of desire of your own, you should bring him/her to this screening – I bet they will be totally convinced of your refined taste in film by the time the closing credits roll.

Cinematic Things To Do in Austin This Week:

2/10 to 2/16 – Violet Crown Cinema - A Separation is Iran’s second film to ever be nominated for an Oscar and it is the presumed favorite in the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 2012 Academy Awards. (I can only imagine the priceless quotes that we will get from the Republican presidential nominees if A Separation wins!) AFS Selects presents this limited engagement of A Separation at the Violet Crown Cinema. (More info)

2/14 – Alamo South Lamar - What better way to end Valentine’s Day than with an exclusive midnight screening of The Ouija Experiment with cast & crew in attendance? (More info)

2/16 – Salvage Vanguard Theater - Cinema41 screens Chan-Wook Pan’s I’m A Cyborg, But That’s Okay (2005). (More info)

2/17 & 2/18 – Alamo Ritz - If you have never seen Tommy Wiseau’s The Room, well you should totally do yourself a kindness and check out The Late Show’s screenings at the Alamo Ritz. (More info)

Over two years ago we got to see a whole new side of Ben Foster. With director Oren Moverman‘s The Messenger, Foster gave a quiet and powerful performance, right next to Woody Harrelson, who also showed something we hadn’t seen from him before. With Rampart, the duo continue to explore new territory. Unless I’m mistaken, we haven’t seen Harrelson play a damaged and narcissistic cop, and the same goes for Foster in an unrecognizable appearance as a homeless vet.

That type of transformation and change is something Foster seems to embrace. If you know about Oren Moverman’s work ethic, then you’re well-aware he searches for honesty, which Ben Foster obviously has great admiration for.

Here’s what Ben Foster had to say about reacting, never having enough time to prepare, and how any director who says they have the answer is full of shit:

Obviously, working with Mr. Moverman again you must have had a very satisfying experience on The Messenger. What did you find creatively satisfying about collaborating with him?

Everything. [Laughs] He has a profound emotional intelligence. He refuses to judge the characters he’s interested in. He creates an environment that demands that actors listen to each other.

Where you really have to react off someone.

Yeah. Well, he doesn’t rehearse. He works one on one with all his actors, and then he doesn’t cut. And we’re encouraged to go off each other.

I recently talked to John C. Reilly and we talked a bit about that process. He says it’s gratifying because you feel like you have a voice in the storytelling, and it’s also terrifying on some level. Do you see it that way?

Absolutely. John C. Reilly is just a fantastic actor. Film is so structured. You know, with your script, your camera setups, when everybody has done their preparation. This approach releases the actors and demands that they do their homework. It is scary the first day or two. But it’s so liberating. It can get sloppy, but that comes down to doing your homework and your research. And I think the performances speak for themselves. Oren has a great eye for… he’s got a great bullshit meter.

Is it Mr. Moverman’s sensitivity that kinda gets you to open up like that on set?

Without a doubt. Without a doubt.

I’m guessing that really throws out the acting tics or that sense of calculation, where you see something very naturalistic unfolding.

Well, it’s great to hear. It’s the closest thing to free jazz I’ve experienced in working with Mr. Moverman. It’s certainly the school of Altman and Cassavetes. There’s a great grounding of character over story. If we all believe in what we’re saying and we all listen to what the other people are saying, then something will show up.

How does he approach character? There’s very little exposition about the film, about Dave Brown’s though process. Does he put that in the script or does he keep it as ambiguous on the page as he does in the movie?

Well, one of the great similarities when we started working together on The Messenger, most scripts are overwritten. And that’s to get it financed. It’s to be very clear for the check writers to say, “Well, I understand this, this, or this, and America has an appetite,” or at least has been spoon-fed a world of exposition. And Oren has no interest in that. His belief is if you know as an actor, the audience will sense enough to take the ride.

You mentioned how it’s kinda tough getting the paychecks when you’re not overly detailed. Working as a producer on the film, did you notice that trying to get financing, getting those notes?

We were in a very blessed situation. He had written a very dense script, and part of his process is bringing the cast and the crew and talking to each one of them, and each person is going to bring their own individuality to it, their own perspective. The material evolves or refines. But we found financing fairly quickly. That has, I believe, so much to do with Woody and the rest of the cast, these powerful women that came to play.

Did that make Rampart feel like a journey of sorts, where you never really know what you’re going to get by the final result?

That’s the aim. Not to say that we’re producing real life here. It’s not a documentary. We don’t know what’s going to happen in five minutes, and celebrating that unknown is key to approaching every scene.

What about the opposite way of acting, when you don’t have that sensitivity from a director? Is that a way of working that you’re comfortable in or do you prefer this approach?

Well, some scripts are so spot-on nothing needs to be changed, or very little. For my experience, 40% of the dialogue can go, roughly. We have to give the audience credit, and the studios have denied that for a very long time. People are much smarter than they give them credit for. We interact with people everyday. I think Oren has a great amount of respect for the audience. In terms of approach to working, I live for the surprise; the surprise moment.

He doesn’t give you a lot of answers as well.

Any film that claims that it has the answers, any filmmaker that claims that they have an answer is full of shit.

[Laughs] Have you ever worked with a filmmaker like that?

Many.

Is that tough?

Well, it’s a collaborative industry. I love the collaboration more than anything. Scaring myself or getting lost in a scene is the drug we chase. There are infinite amount of approaches. Working with Oren is a unique and rewarding experience for sure.

And how about producing with him?

It’s great. It’s a different part of the brain you use. There are different things at stake. But being a part of the birth of the film, the style of the film, and working in tandem with my buddies, it was a great way to lose my virginity.

[laughs] That’s a great way of looking at it. I’d imagine being a producer you get to see actors on set in a more objective point of view. Did you notice anything about actors kind of looking from the producer’s sideline?

Well, we have a hell of a cast. So, mostly just being in awe of these people. I’ve been fans of all of the actors that we have. And getting the opportunity to have a different seat in the house was a thrill watching them work.

You mentioned how you love being lost in a scene. Physical transformation is a big part of this movie, obviously with Woody Harrelson’s, also your transformation. Does it immerse you more?

If you are reduced to a chair or a limp, or a dialect, there’s certain restrictions. So, I don’t know if the immersion is any more compulsive if there’s a physical attribute that defines or is a part of the character itself. I certainly find it easier to keep things warm on set. Some actors can turn on, turn off. I would prefer to have years to prep a role, looking at it. But we do what we can with the time that we’re given.

Have you ever had a long length of time to prepare for a role?

Never enough, sir. I’d rather never make a film and just research stuff.

[laughs] Do you think you may go with that one day?

Yeah. “What’s Ben doing?” “Well, he’s researching.” “For what?” “Uhhh…his own interests?”

[Laughs] When it comes to General Terry, he’s only in the film for a few minutes. Do you think about what he’s doing when he’s not on screen or only with Dave Brown sees?

Oh yeah, it was living on the streets; it was living on skid row in preparation, and he’d do the daily grind of it. The daily grind. And that’s the homework. It’s things that nobody sees, that nobody has to know, but fills you with an insulation where there are less questions and you’re not thinking about performing or doing it right, you’re just taken.

What about when you kind of take on a more outlandish character like 30 Days of Night? Do you go into that process as well?

There are different varying degrees and there are different scenes. But, all in all, if it’s a character that’s going around killing people, I’m not going around killing people. But if you spend time considering anything night and day for, we’ll call it half the year, it will creep into your consciousness. It will stick with you while you sleep.

[laughs] You make it sound almost like… well, I don’t want to say it’s torture, but that it’s tough getting into character.

I’m in no place to complain ever about make believing. It is make believe; it is a film. But the joy or the pleasure of pursuing that which I do not know, it’s a great job. I’m not allowed to complain. It has its own psychological or chemical demands on a nervous system. The physiology of smiling increases serotonin; just the act. Even if you don’t feel like smiling and you smile, it will produced a happier mood. This is scientifically proven. And the reverse is also true. If we spend our time considering some negative or bleak circumstances, as drama is conflict, it will affect one’s chemistry. Having that perspective, one doesn’t clean up after the job, and he got on with it.

I looked through a few interviews you’ve done, and I find one quote of yours ironic where you said you’d like to get offered more comedies. To me, a character like Charlie Prince is hilarious.

Good! I’m glad to hear that. I thought it was hysterical.

[Laughs] And he’s a funny character because he doesn’t know he’s funny.

Well, I mean that’s comedy, right? When the character is not in on the joke.

So you’ll search for those type of comedies?

I’m open for business, sir. We’re guns for hire.

Rampart is now in theaters.

Whether you actually want to see Human Centipede or its sloppy sequel Human Centipede II (Full Sequence), which hits DVD and Blu-ray this week, you’re definitely aware of the movies. If you didn’t think that the first Human Centipede was gory enough, you now can enjoy the unrated, uncut version of the second film in the privacy (and safety) of your own home.

It’s a gross-out film, to be sure, so we don’t recommend eating a pizza or a chocolate sundae while watching it. But that shouldn’t stop you from enjoying a few adult beverages along the way. And if you’re so shocked, you’re wondering when you should drink, here’s our suggestions.

And now, to cover our butts… This game is only for people over the age of 21. Please drink responsibly, and don’t visit creepy men in deserted warehouses.

TAKE A DRINK WHEN…

• Someone is killed
• Martin makes a phone call
• Martin experiences a flashback
• A potential segment of the human centipede is captured

TAKE A DRINK WHEN YOU SEE…

• A centipede
• Fresh blood
• A clip from the first Human Centipede
• A new weapon or tool for Martin to do his surgery

TAKE A DRINK WHEN SOMEONE SAYS…

• “film”
• “Martin”
• “centipede”
• a swear word

CHUG YOUR DRINK WHEN…

• Things get “colorful”

Click here for more Drinking Games

After a good number of years chugging along as a “that guy” actor and doing small parts in films and a handful of episodes of a TV show here and there, things finally seem to be working out for Adam Scott. Over the past five years or so he’s really been able to develop a persona, an on-screen character that casting people know how to use, and it’s led to him being knee deep in work.

Not only is he a regular on the outstanding NBC series Parks and Recreation, but he’s also starring opposite names like Jon Hamm, Kristen Wiig, and Maya Rudolph in Friends With Kids, he’s got a movie with Kirsten Dunst, Lizzy Kaplan, and Isla Fisher called Bachelorette that just debuted at Sundance, and in the next year he’s going to be in Dan Fogelman’s movie My Mother’s Curse, he’s co-starring in a romance called See Girl Run, and he’s going to be in a movie called A.D.O.C. with titans of the screen Jane Lynch and Richard Jenkins. The guy looks to be on top of the world. But, the new role that he’s negotiating for may be the biggest thing he’s been involved with yet.

Deadline Santa Cruz is reporting that Scott is in negotiations to join the already-confirmed Ben Stiller, Kristen Wiig, Patton Oswalt, and Shirley Maclaine in Stiller’s upcoming, high-profile adaptation of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. I know that Stiller can be a bit of a punching bag on the Internet due to a perceived lack of versatility and the fact that a lot of his work seems to be so commercially driven, but it can’t be denied that his movies usually open big and get a lot of eyeballs on them. This could be the biggest opportunity Adam Scott has had yet to go from being “that guy” in the eyes of the public to just being “Adam Scott.” As a fan of his work, I think that would be a lot of fun to see happen.

Tron: Legacy director Joseph Kosinski’s upcoming sci-fi project Oblivion has grown in hype quite a bit since it was first announced. Mostly that’s due to the fact that Tom Cruise signed on to be its headliner, and whenever that happens a movie suddenly goes from being a project of the director to being a “Tom Cruise movie” in the hearts and minds of the public.

But, spotlight-hogging by Cruise aside, Oblivion is a movie that’s been quietly developing into quite the little ensemble piece over the past few weeks. The film is about a man on a post-apocalyptic world who discovers a crash-landed space ship containing a mysterious woman. Cruise is playing the lead, of course, but Olga Kurlyenko has already signed on to play his wife back home, Andrea Riseborough has signed on to play the crash-landed woman, and according to Deadline Nashoba, not only has Morgan Freeman signed on for a critical role, but Game of Thrones’ Jamie Lannister, Nicolaj Coster-Waldau, has also agreed to come on playing the role of Sykes, who is said to be a badass weapons expert. After seeing what he has to offer playing a smug warrior in Game of Thrones, this is a role that I’m confident Coster-Waldau can pull off.

I can’t say that I was very impressed with Kosinski’s Tron sequel, other than marveling at its visuals for 15 minutes or so, but I’m starting to get kind of optimistic about this one. The cast he’s working with here is already way more impressive than Garrett Hedlund and a computer-faced Jeff Bridges, and the script for this film is an adapted screenplay that Kosinski put together from his own graphic novel with the help of one other writer, rather than a committee written script with six different writers’ names on it like the one he got for Tron: Legacy.

If Kosinski can match the impressive ensemble he’s assembled and his flair for the visual with a script that’s just as worthwhile, then we might be in store for something pretty impressive here. Maybe.

Once upon a time, Michael Mann was on my list of directors whose work I always anticipate. His status in my eyes has been diminished a bit over the course of the last decade, but every once in a while he still comes out with an interesting project, like 2004’s Collateral, so rumblings of Mann directing a new movie are always newsworthy to me. Especially since he’s only been doing about one every three years recently.

With that in mind, Deadline Lake Forest has some news today that made my ears perk up a bit. Apparently Mann is currently negotiating to direct a spec script called The Big Stone Grid. It’s a police thriller by S. Craig Zahler that’s said to be in the same vein as Se7en and Marathon Man, and that tells the story of two detectives who uncover an extortion ring operating in New York City.

This is good news to me, because I’ve always liked Mann the best when he’s telling hard-boiled cop stories (Miami Vice aside), and the news that he’ll be taking another pass at the script alongside its original writer tells me that this just may be a story that he’s seriously interested in. Could we be seeing a return to the Mann who blew everyone’s hair back by doing The Last of the Mohicans, Heat, and The Insider back-to-back-to-back?

Yeah, I doubt it too. But at least this one doesn’t sound like it will be one of Mann’s period snoozefests like Ali or Public Enemies. Discuss!

If this year is going to be the year of revisionist Snow White tales (what with both Snow White and the Huntsman and Mirror Mirror hitting screens, and that Order of Seven film still getting worked out), then next year is already shaping up to be the year of new takes on Beauty and the Beast. Perhaps it would be wise to mark your calendars for 2014 – which will certainly be the year of Little Mermaid remakes, should this trend continue.

Just last week, word from Berlin revealed that Brotherhood of the Wolf helmer Christophe Gans had set Vincent Cassel and Lea Seydoux to topline his new Beauty and the Beast project. With that project, Gans has promised to “keep to a form of storytelling of this timeless fairy tale that is in keeping with the same pace and characters as the original… [and] surprise the audience by creating a completely new visual universe never experienced before and produce images of an unparalleled quality.” Sounds good! The film will also be “based on one of the earliest published variants of the traditional fairy tale, included in Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve’s 1740′s collection, ‘La Jeune Ameriquaine et les Contes Marins.’” Also, great news!

But maybe not so great for Guillermo Del Toro, who has just signed on to direct yet another take on the classic fairy tale. While his film (which he was previously attached to only as a producer) will likely boast Emma Watson as Belle (she’s in final negotiations for the role) and a Del Toro-penned treatment for the screenplay, it will also have a final screenplay from…the guy who wrote Paul W.S. Anderson’s The Three Musketeers? One of these things is not like the other.

Screenwriter Andrew Davies‘ previous projects certainly embrace the period sensibility of a Beauty and the Beast film (what with his work on, take a big breath for this one, the Little Dorrit miniseries, Brideshead Revisited, a Sense & Sensibility miniseries, a Northanger Abbey television film, and the Bleak House miniseries in the last ten years alone, in addition to his work on both Bridget Jones’s Diary films). But all that soapy stuff is just that, kind of soapy, and a Guillermo Del Toro-directed anything, especially a film about a young lady who is all but captured by a true beast of a man, should be as far from “soapy” as possible.

Yet, perhaps a Del Toro-scripted treatment will guide Davies into the correct direction, and this film could be as fantastic as its other talent hints at. Here’s hoping!

Warner Bros. will be making the film, and though timing hasn’t been set yet, the film may well have to wait until Little Mermaid Year to catch it. [Variety, The Playlist]

What is Movie News After Dark? God only knows, but I’m pretty sure we’re going to need a bigger boat…

We begin by shining our big ass MNAD spotlight on short filmmaking. Director BenDavid Grabinski‘s short film Cost of Living premiered at this year’s Fantastic Fest, where I unfortunately missed it. Luckily for me and anyone else who hasn’t seen it yet, the short is premiering online tonight around 9PM PST. Cost of Living stars Bret Harrison and Brandon Routh as a couple of security guards who work for a strange corporation. The enchanting Mary Elizabeth Winstead lends her voice to the proceedings as well. Check it out for yourself at www.foindustries.com anytime after 9PM PST.

Looks like Sony is following in many other studios footsteps by sending out some sweet swag for it’s upcoming tentpole to top film bloggers. Peter Sciretta over at /Film was one of the lucky ones to receive a replica of Peter Parker’s bookbag from this summer’s franchise reboot The Amazing Spider-Man. Head on over to /Film to read the full story and see plenty of pics!

Our good friend John Gholson is one of the more knowledgeable comic guys I know. He’s been collecting for years and still frequently picks up stacks of comics at local Austin comic shops. John also happens to be an incredibly insightful writer and that, coupled with his passion for comics, has combined to form one of the best articles I’ve read in a long time. Spurred on by the recent case of Marvel vs. Gary Friedrich, creator of Ghost Rider, Gholson explains and postulates on the current state of comic creators, their rights and the way the game has changed over the years. It’s a fascinating piece that deserves your attention.

With so much cynicism and negativity in the blogosphere sometimes it’s nice to get a reminder about why it is we love the things we love. Have you heard of FilmCritHulk? Probably. He’s an anonymous movie fan turned writer who communicates in all caps and speaks like the Incredible Hulk. Regardless of your opinion on his schtick, the man (or potentially woman) has some interesting things to say about film and certainly falls on the let’s all love each other and love movies side of things. It’s refreshing to see that kind of positivity about movies out there. His most recent post over at Badass Digest is entitled WHY YOU LOVE MOVIES, though a more apt title would be WHY HULK LOVE MOVIES. It starts with a few opening thoughts but is essentially just a list of moments, most from films, some from personal film-related memories, all trying to paint a picture of what draws us in about cinema, a medium that I think I love because it makes me feel like I’m a part of something bigger than myself. His article has inspired Quint at Ain’t It Cool News to do his own list, with full permission and encouragement from the Hulk himself. It looks like this may well spread to other writers and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a Reject or two post their own list here on FSR.

Local Austin treasure and crafty movie-geek extraordinaire Kayla Kromer has a fantastic feature over at Lounge Geeks entitled GeekTechniques, DIY instructions on how to create cool stuff. The latest Valentine’s themed entry instructs you on the finer art of chocolate-covered strawberries, only these come out looking like your favorite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! Click through to Lounge Geeks for the full how-to video!

No matter what you may think of Roger Ebert, past or present, we may never see another film critic with that kind of clout and instant name recognition. He posted a link on his Twitter feed to a fascinating article by David Bordwell on the death of 35mm, the rise of digital acquisition and projection and ultimately what it means or may mean for the future of film preservation. It’s a surprisingly unbiased and fair look at the problem from all sides, unbelievably free of the bullshit that so often creeps into this argument. Bordwell is clearly very knowledgeable on the subject and is careful to present points and examine them before drawing conclusions. It’s a lengthy but well-written piece that’s worth your time.

If you’ve been paying attention to the site this week, you’ll notice that our fearless captain, Dr. Cole Abaius has been taking advantage of his new German digs by serving up some stellar coverage of Berlinale, the Berlin Film Festival. Be sure to check out his reviews for Farewell, My Queen and My Way, but sadly he reports that Iron Sky, a film we’ve literally been excited about for years, is a huge bust. We’ll have to see for ourselves at SXSW.

While we’re tooting our own horn, Mr. Rob Hunter is filing reviews from San Francisco’s IndieFest, you can find his thoughts on Still Life and Finisterrae here and here respectively. Healthy Choice America’s most wanted, Mr. Brian Salisbury, is serving up a special kind of cinematic junk all February long as he celebrates Blaxploitation History Month. Be sure to check out his hilarious entries for Scream, Blacula, Scream and Dolemite sequel The Human Tornado and be on the lookout for the next entry coming up at the end of this week! Rookie Reject Don Simpson is keeping us all abreast of the local happenings with his new feature Austin Cinematic Limits. Be sure to check out today’s post on Valentine’s Day happenings for Austin movie geeks. Head Honcho Neil Miller is running a series called Better Know a Reject to help you, our beautiful readership, get better acquainted with us, your friendly cinephile squad. This week’s target is our resident sexpert Gwen Reyes, click here to find out how she fares in the hot seat.

Well, the first trailer for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is out and it looks…interesting. It definitely has a big budget action movie feel with plenty of slo-mo, which apparently is now a staple of all action films. Thankfully this doesn’t look nearly as masturbatory as the slo-mo in Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes films and  the voice over narration gives a nice edge to footage. Who knows, maybe this will turn out to be badass:

If you’re not reading Drew McWeeny’s Film Nerd 2.0 series, then you must not like good things. No, let me back up. If you’re not reading Drew McWeeny’s film writing in general then you’re not doing it right. Perhaps you are just unaware, in which case, let me turn you on to some of the finest writing on the web. Mr. McWeeny has been writing about film for decades now, perhaps must famously as Moriarity on AICN. He now resides at Hitfix.com under his own name and seems to have almost stumbled upon the greatest column idea ever, documenting the lives of two budding cinephiles, his sons, Toshi and Allen. Toshi is the eldest at almost 7 and Allen is closer to 3 or 4. While there are several entries, the ones that most resonated with me personally are the ones about Toshi and Allen discovering the Star Wars films for the first time and the aftermath of those viewings. While the most recent piece went up on Friday, I encourage you to start here with the first piece in the Star Wars series. There are handy links to the rest of the Film Nerd 2.0 canon at the end of each piece so you can continue on to Empire, the prequels, and Jedi, then jump to the four most recent entries. You’ll understand why once you get there. If you get through the Jedi post without shedding a few tears, then I’m fairly certain you have no soul.

And we’ll close tonight with a trailer for The Aggression Scale, which will be playing as part of the fantastic midnight slate at this year’s SXSW. Produced by Travis Stevens (A Horrible Way to Die) and directed by Steven C. Miller (Scream of the Banshee, Automaton Transfusion), The Aggression Scale features two things every film should have…Ray Wise and Derek Mears. Seriously, you should know by now how much of a badass Ray Wise is (you have seen Robocop, right?) and I could not be a bigger Derek Mears fan. Those two names alone are enough to get me in a theater. Did you ever see Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton’s film The Collector? You know how it kinda felt like a horror movie version of Home Alone? Well, the trailer for The Aggression Scale kinda plays like an action film version of Home Alone where Kevin McCallister is like MacGyver and Rambo combined, a complete badass despite still being a kid. I also LOVE the neon pink titles, which were created by end credit guru and Horror Movie a Day CEO Brian W. Collins. Grab a scotch and check out the trailer below: