lemonvampire - Tumblr blog

[lemonvampire]

The Dark Tower Review

It feels a little unfair for me to say that The Dark Tower was a bad movie. It was fine. It told a competent story filled with competent performances and some nifty special effects, and I had a pleasant enough time watching it. But that’s kind of the problem. It’s a competent movie. It’s a standard, generic, textbook example of competent film making and plot structure, so standard that it becomes bad by virtue of its own mediocrity. 

Some spoilers to follow

Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series has been a much-hyped, much talked about series of books for years. It’s an epic seven-book saga that unifies all of the famously prolific author’s extensive decades-spanning bibliography into a single, shared universe, with this, his magnum opus, sitting in the middle of it. Or at least that’s my understanding of it, based on what I’ve heard from those that have read it. I haven’t read it myself, but I was very curious going into the film to see if this adaptation  would live up to that hype. But then I’ve also heard that it isn’t really an adaptation of the lengthy book series, but rather a sequel to the books, which seems confusing and disappointing to those that haven’t read them like myself. Still, if the intention was to make a film that utilized the exciting and enigmatic characters of the Gunslinger and the Man in Black from the books without all the baggage that goes with adapting seven novels to film (and yet aspiring to launch a long-running film franchise while disregarding seven readily available books to adapt seems like a massive business mistake for Hollywood), then the film also stands a better chance of being judged on its own merits as a film and not as an adaptation. And judging it as a film, from the perspective of someone who hasn’t read the books anyway, it falls completely flat on its face, that beautiful, chiseled, Idris Elba face.

The story centers not on Idris Elba, as the marketing would have you believe, but on a young boy named Jake, a generic dark-haired white moppet (I had to struggle to remember the name because he leaves so little impression) who lives in New York (not Maine?) and suffers from frightening visions (caused by the same psychic power from The Shining) of the titular Dark Tower, which stands at the center of the universe and projects a barrier that keeps demons out, and the Man in Black (Matthew McConaughey), an evil wizard from a steampunk western world, who wants to tear the tower down using what appears to be the same scheme from Monsters Inc. Jake escapes the grips of Mike and Sulley when they come to grab him in order to strap him into the scream machine and finds himself transported to Midworld, where he meets Roland the Gunslinger (Idris Elba). Roland has been hunting the Man in Black for years (presumably in those books) and Jake convinces him to help take him to Monsters Inc so they can destroy the scream machine that McConaughey is using to attack the Dark Tower.

If that seems sarcastic and perfunctory, good luck getting anything more out of the film. No time is spent developing the strange world that Roland inhabits. It looks cool and interesting but, apart from fighting a single monster on the way to visit a single village for an action set piece, nothing else happens there. We get no sense of what this world actually is, or what it’s like to live there, why it looks like the love child of Firefly and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. We also get no sense of who Roland is, besides that he’s a badass gunman who’s father was killed by the Man in Black. One can only assume based on this movie’s portrayal that he went on to learn to be a gunslinger from a wise old hermit before finding out that the Man in Black IS his father! Which could very well have been the case in the books for all I know, since this movie isn’t interested in showing us any of these characters’ histories.

Who is the Man in Black (we are told in an amusing exchange that his actual name is Walter)? How did he become an evil wizard? Why does he want to bring down the Dark Tower? Where is the Dark Tower? Can you go there? Who built it? All of this would seem like questions to be answered and ideas to be explored in later installments, except that the story of this movie, of Roland’s fight to stop the Man in Black from destroying the Dark Tower and thus unleashing darkness and unfathomable horrors into the universe, is all wrapped up in its breezy, 90-minute run time.

This is a movie based on a book series that spans multiple worlds, crosses dimensions, ties together a lifetime of work of one of the most celebrated and prolific authors, tells a story of the battle between good and evil with the fate of the entire UNIVERSE at stake, and it wraps up in almost half the time of your typical modern blockbuster, with a climax set in the back room of a New York movie theater. I mean, if Michael Bay can stretch out bashing a couple of robot toys together for two-and-a-half hours for five movies in a row, how does this thing clock in at a scant 90 minutes and never bother to flesh out or explore any of the stuff that the author took seven books to do?

And that’s it. The movie ends. The entire story of this movie is all told in one brief sitting. I suppose in this era of franchise filmmaking I should applaud a film that actually bothers to tell a complete story, but this one does so in such a lackluster way, with a story that carries so much hype and potential, with so much scope and ambition, that all I’m left with is a feeling of empty disappointment.

“The Man in Black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed.” I’m told that this is how the long-running book series begins, and also how it ends, and that’s really cool. It’s mysterious, powerful, full of promise. It’s an epic saga that comes full circle back to where it began, with the hero and villain in an unending - oh, nope, never mind. I guess he got him. Got him in the back of a dingy New York building at the end of a mediocre movie.

I haven’t read the books, though I am intrigued enough by that opening line (not at all by the movie) that I want to check them out now. I sincerely hope the fans enjoy the movie. If the movie brings a closure that the books leave you wanting then maybe that’s a good thing. But for me, the idea of the books beginning and ending with the same line, telling a story that is self-contained yet opening your imagination to the possibility that it continues on, only to be followed by a movie this mediocre, that sums up all that time you invested in reading seven books with a 90-minute Cliffs Notes version of The Hero’s Journey, is just a tragedy.

[lemonvampire]

Baby Driver - Review

Edgar Wright’s latest film, Baby Driver, may seem like the most fun and exciting high-speed heist movie you’ve ever seen, filled with gangsters, guns, and explosions all set to an amazing soundtrack, but it’s marketing is somewhat deceptive. The film itself is actually in a lot of ways a condemnation of the film that has been marketed in the trailers. There’s more to this film than just its sharp, stylistic surface, as is often the case with Edgar Wright.

The film stars the youthful Ansel Elgort as the titular character, Baby, a driving prodigy working as a getaway driver under the thumb of Kevin Spacey’s Doc, a crime boss with a heart of gold...ish.

The film opens with Baby pulling off his second to last job for Doc as he works to pay off a debt to the crime boss. From the start we’re informed and continuously reminded throughout the film that Baby has no place in this world of crime and is eager to be out of it.

He’s a kindhearted, quiet kid who rarely speaks and spends the entire film wearing earphones to drown out the ringing of tinnitus that he suffers as a result of a childhood car accident.

This is the setup for the film’s delightful gimmick of constantly pumping its soundtrack full of classic licensed tracks. Similar to the way the 70s pop music of James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy was woven into the narrative, so to does Baby Driver’s score serve as a major focal point of the film.

Everything seems to be going well for Baby in the first act, more or less. He meets and instantly falls in love with a waitress at a diner he frequents, and successfully completes his final job for Doc, just as he is exposed to even more disillusioning consequences of the criminal life he’s entangled in. He makes plans to get out forever but is pulled back in against his will as the second act kicks into gear.

Like I said at the beginning, the film has been marketed with trailers promising exciting car chases, clever dialog, gunfights, and explosions all set to incredible music. And all that stuff is present, but it’s made clear from the beginning and throughout the film that these are not glamorous things. Baby is an innocent character with a lot of compassion who wants nothing to do with the violence around him, and all that violence is framed as dangerous, ugly, and unsettling. This is a film about consequences, a theme which it bravely follows through on all the way through to its heartfelt conclusion.

But all that doesn’t mean it’s not still every bit the slick, fun, exciting heist flick you’re expecting. Just expect a little more too.

[lemonvampire]

Spoilers for Wonder Woman:

I want to take a second to talk about my favorite moment from Wonder Woman, which is Chris Pine's final scene. If you've seen the film by now you know that at the end Chris Pine's Steve Trevor sacrifices himself by stealing a plane loaded with gas bombs set on a timer, flies into the air and shoots the bombs to blow up the plane in the sky.It's my favorite moment because it's a completely silent performance from Pine, where he conveys an entire range of emotion all through his face and his eyes, in a way that very few actors are capable of doing so convincingly. When he points the gun and hesitates as he prepares to blow himself up, he conveys with his eyes all the fear and sadness and reluctance to pull the trigger, and yet he also very faintly smiles and holds back a kind of manic laughter of relief mixed with anxiety, taking a deep breath and sighing it out to psych himself up for what he's about to do. It's all very brief and subtle but incredibly powerful.I've never been that impressed with Pine as an actor until this film, where he shows that he's got more than just bravado and good comedic timing, but genuine warmth, capping it off with one of the best death scenes I've ever seen in any film. And it's not the first time he's delivered a powerful death scene either. As bad as Star Trek Into Darkness may be, and as undercut as his "death" scene in that film is, he still sells it incredibly well in that film. It's often overlooked by critics for all the nonsense surrounding it, and the circumstances behind writing it, but Pine's performance in that moment is a highlight of that film, delivered almost as well as in this one. Apart from being an incredible star-turning vehicle for Gal Gadot and the saving grace of the DCEU, Wonder Woman is a film that makes me appreciate several other characters I hadn't appreciated before, and makes me excited to see Chris Pine appear in other films where he can show more of the kind of range that we now know he's capable of.

[lemonvampire]

Wonder Woman (2017)

I just got back from breaking my boycott of the DCEU films (to date I have not seen any of the previous three theatrically with the exception of a free preview screening of Man of Steel, after which I’d vowed not to support a film franchise built on such rotten foundation) to see Wonder Woman, directed by Patty Jenkins and starring Gal Gadot. And I’m very happy to say that this one is the real deal, the first genuinely great film in the thus far phenomenally awful and embarrassingly incompetent DC movie universe (or “DCEU” as the executives at WB would prefer we call it). It’s smart, funny, charming, exciting. It has moments that will make you laugh and cheer. It may not necessarily be the greatest superhero movie, or the greatest DC comics movie in general, but it IS without a doubt the best film in the post-Man of Steel series of DC movies and the best superhero movie with a female lead.

The plot is pretty straightforward. Diana is the Princess of Themyscira, the hidden island home of the immortal Amazons of Greek myth. She was sculpted out of clay by her mother Hyppolita and given life by Zeus. In the mythology of this film Zeus and the other gods have all died after a war with Ares, the god of war, leaving behind the Amazons as the last bastion against Ares should he return. When a WWI plane crashes off the coast of the island, Diana rescues the pilot, Steve Trevor, played by an exceptionally charming Chris Pine, who tells of the war outside, a “war to end all wars,” which Diana concludes to be the sign of Ares’ return. Defying her mother, she and Trevor leave the island to embark on a mission to find and destroy Ares and end the war.

After all the nonsensical pretentious blustering about “gods and men” in Zack Snyder’s films, wherein writer David Goyer felt that just having characters throw the word “god” around every other sentence would make the film deep and meaningful, it’s so refreshing to have a DCEU film that actually DOES have something meaningful to say, and says it intelligently. The anti-war message of the film is far from subtle, but it’s nonetheless powerful. The filmmakers are clearly aware of the roots of the character, who was originally created as a figure of peace in a time of war, and have put genuine effort into incorporating that element. The villain of this film is ostensibly Ares, the god of war, but where Ares has been used as the antagonist in several other Wonder Woman comics and animated features, in which Ares is ultimately just a big guy in spiky armor that Diana has to punch, this film excels in taking the concept a step further by emphasizing how the very concept of war is the villain, and one that can’t be defeated by just killing some guy in spiky armor (though the climax does nevertheless include those things). In this fish-out-of-water story we see the effects of the war through the eyes of an outsider who has only ever known peace and splendor, and while the Germans are presented to her as the villains by Chris Pine’s Steve Trevor, he also constantly laments his own role in the killing and the hopelessness of it all. Trevor doesn’t believe in Diana’s naive assertions that killing Ares will end the war, but is instead focused on his own mission to subvert the enemy in the hopes of preserving an impending armistice signing. Diana begins the film with a firm belief that men are good and noble and only fight because they’ve been corrupted by Ares, only to gradually learn that reality is tragically not as simple as that.

The film is essentially a mashup of Marvel’s own Captain America: The First Avenger and Thor, incorporating both the period drama of the former and the fish-out-of-water humor of the latter, which is portrayed with great chemistry and excellent comic timing by both leads. Chris Pine is more charming and sympathetic than he’s ever been in this film, but never outshines the star-turning performance of Gal Gadot, who plays the titular role with a balance of grace, naiveté, strength, and confidence. After she already stole the show from the horribly miscast Henry Cavill and the reluctant Ben Affleck in her appearance in Batman v Superman, Gadot returns in this film to fully embody her title character in a way that no other DCEU star has. Just like the Marvel stars make themselves definitive incarnations of their heroes, so too does Gadot inhabit the first big screen super heroine in the modern age. Gal Gadot IS Wonder Woman, and she is perfect.

This film has already drawn many justified comparisons to Marvel’s own Captain America, but I don’t see that as a criticism. DC has been chasing after Marvel’s success for even longer than the post-MOS DCEU project (going all the way back to 2011’s Green Lantern, which tried and failed to be DC’s answer to Iron Man), and in Wonder Woman they’ve finally caught up. The best thing that can be said about Wonder Woman is that it is like a Marvel movie, and in fact it is arguably a better film overall than Captain America, the film it is most often likened to. Where Captain America was a film that used World War II as a backdrop but deftly avoided the heavy themes and tragedy associated with that war, Wonder Woman embraces those themes with its WWI setting, elevating it to the level of meaningful superhero storytelling that DC heroes have always excelled at, and which Zack Snyder’s entries have tried but utterly failed to achieve.

The DCEU may or may not be beyond saving (the next entry, Justice League, will be a return to the mindlessly pretentious dourness of Zack Snyder), but as a standalone feature, Wonder Woman absolutely gets it right, and I am happy to say I loved this movie. Believe the hype and don’t miss this one.

[lemonvampire]

Colossal

Colossal is so much more than a Kaiju movie, and yet it is also one of the best, most effective entries in that genre. This is one of the very best films that I’ve seen so far in a year that’s been absolutely packed with amazing movies! I cannot praise this movie enough!

On the surface, Nacho Vigalondo’s Colossal is a dark comedy in which Anne Hathaway stars as Gloria, an out-of-work writer with a serious drinking problem, who returns to her hometown after her boyfriend dumps her, only to discover when she drunkenly stumbles through a local park one morning that a gigantic monster has manifested in Seoul, and that the monster is her.

But to categorize this film as a comedy is to undersell the value and dramatic resonance of its themes. As the story unfolds, the inherent humor in the absurdity of the premise gives way to meaningful drama as Gloria shows real empathy for the destruction and deaths that she’s inadvertently caused. She’s aided at first by a supporting series of men whom we slowly come to realize all represent varying degrees of toxic masculinity and obstacles in her life that she needs to overcome.

I don’t want to give too much away here, but the importance of Gloria’s character arc and how it relates to the way she interacts with the men around her cannot be understated.

This is a film that deals with emotional abuse and manipulation in a variety of forms, from the guy that insists on giving her things in order to have a sense of control and ownership over her, to the ex-boyfriend that berates her and dumps her, only to try to take her back not because he cares about her but because he enjoys berating her and feeling superior over her. We see Gloria go from someone who lets herself be controlled and manipulated by men to ultimately becoming a more self-actualized person who stands up for herself and takes control of her life, shedding all of the toxic men she’s surrounded herself with to start fresh.

And then there’s the kaiju action itself. While this is played mostly as a backdrop to the character drama, it is nevertheless a uniquely spectacular example of what this genre is great at. The monster design is simple, solid, iconic, and looks as good as anything else you’ll see in a big effects-driven film.  But strangely enough the most effective moment in the film, the most sobering and intense scene of kaiju action happens when there is no monster on screen.

In a turning point of the film, after it’s discovered that Gloria is not alone in her strange ability to conjure a rampaging monster in Seoul, we see a fight take place between her and another character in the park. What should be a humorous scene, which plays out like an oversized playground tussle between children, there is instead as much tension with every step, every stumble, as there is in the most harrowing of Godzilla battles, because we know, because the film has effectively conveyed to us, that there is real tragedy happening to real people as a result of every misstep taken. And when Gloria is laid out on the ground, watching her opponent stomp at unseen buildings, we see the pain in her eyes for the lives lost. And I have to applaud Anne Hathaway’s performance here. I’ve never seen her be more compelling, show more range or be more sympathetic than she is in this film.

Like I said up top, Colossal is nothing short of a masterpiece, not simply a great kaiju movie, not simply a great comedy, but entirely a great film, in every sense.

In a year so far filled with outstanding films, this one is easily in the running for the best.

[lemonvampire]

Beauty and the Beast (2017)

After a series of live action remakes of beloved animated classics with updated plots to present an attempt at more “serious” drama and themes, Disney began to dip its toe into more stylistically faithful remakes with last summer’s The Jungle Book, even incorporating some of the famous musical numbers from the original. And now they’ve finally taken the plunge headlong into completely recreating their classics in live action with Beauty and the Beast fully embracing all the fun, color, excitement, and most of all music that made the original such a celebrated classic. Disney has outgrown its timid fear of the Musical genre and has fully embraced what they do best with a film that is both big visual spectacle and Broadway theatre. And it is as much a resounding triumph as a live action feature in 2017 as the original 1991 animated film. Not only does this film succeed in recapturing the visual flair and musical charm of its predecessor, but it also expands upon the plot and sets out from the start to resolve virtually every narrative flaw and contrivance of the same. This film feels as though Bill Condon and the writers spent the majority of their preproduction time investigating every think piece article and listicle ever written about the original’s numerous plot snags and problematic issues with the goal of resolving those clever observations to craft a remake that improves upon the original. It opens, for example, with a retelling of how the Beast and his castle became cursed, this time establishing that the Beast is already an adult (rather than an eleven-year-old boy) and portraying his staff and entourage as equally culpable in his cruelty toward the disguised enchantress, addressing the issue of why they are all cursed along with him. Additionally, the curse is established as hiding the castle away from the world and erasing it and its cursed occupants from the memory of those outside, including even their families. This transitions to our first big musical number, and introduction to Emma Watson’s Belle, in a scene that is very staged and choreographed in a way that feels reminiscent of golden age musicals. If you’ve seen the original you know how this scene plays out, but with some additional background gags and character establishing. We’re also treated to a much more ethnically diverse cast, that exemplifies the beauty of cultural diversity, with everyone working and living together with an upbeat sense of community. Even as the villagers become the dangerous mob in the film’s climax, all are reunited in togetherness in its heartwarming conclusion. The film also takes steps to bring its take on the classic tale back in line with its original fairy tale roots. This time the offense that sees Belle’s father Maurice (a painter and clockmaker this time) imprisoned by the Beast is that, as in the original tale, after becoming lost and stumbling on the castle is allowed to warm himself and be on his way but violates the Beast’s hospitality when he attempts to pick a rose growing in the garden for Belle, who had requested he bring her one from his journey to the city. When Belle goes to rescue her father, she’s also given more strength and agency in her choice to take his place as well as a stronger sense of bond between her and her father, as this time she physically pushes him out of the cell and locks the door against his protests. Which leads us to Lumiere, Cogsworth, and the biggest musical number. Ewan McGregor and Ian McKellen have a strong sense of comedic camaraderie that you would expect from the two characters, though with new twists on their personalities and new running gags between them. They, along with the rest of their cursed furniture compatriots, have a lot more sympathy and regret behind them. We feel more strongly for their struggle, cheer more for them to become human again, and cry for them when the impending finality of the curse brings them closer and closer to being entirely inanimate objects. The most important success of this film is how much time it gives for the relationship between Belle and the Beast to develop, to grow naturally on screen. Emma Watson and the CGI creation portrayed by Dan Stevens have excellent on-screen chemistry, enough that, contrary to the original film, his return to human form feels more like the reward it’s supposed to be. When the two come together in the end we know not only that this man is the same person as the Beast, but that their relationship has been built on shared interests and passions, that they are truly kindred spirits that are meant to be together. Although the film still takes one last moment to comedically address that long-running joke about how everyone preferred the Beast before he transformed at the end by having Belle ask him if he’d consider growing a beard, while the two celebrate with all of the cast, including the villagers, united together in the castle. Disney really knocked it out of the park with this one. I cannot imagine a more worthy successor to such a beloved and enduring classic. This is everything a remake should be.

[lemonvampire]

Logan Review (spoiler-free)

There’s a lot to be said about what Fox Studios have gotten wrong with the X-Men film franchise over the years, particular in comparison to their counterpart in the Disney/Marvel Studios’ Marvel Cinematic Universe. Once a pioneering film series that helped pave the way for the more colorful and comic-accurate portrayals in the MCU, the X-Men films began in the much more cynical landscape of Hollywood in the late 90s/early 2000s, when the idea of colorful heroes in “yellow spandex” was something to be sneered at and even derisively mocked in the first film by a po-faced James Marsden grimacing inside a restrictive but oh-so-serious black leather jumpsuit as he quips to the fresh-faced visage of a young Hugh Jackman in his star-making first appearance as Wolverine. The one thing that these films have gotten absolutely right in adapting their source material however, in a way that the MCU hopefully never will, is the comic series’ complete lack of consistency and continuity, and tendency to lean heavily on retcons. After the disappointing third entry and abysmal first spinoff for Jackman’s Wolverine, the series was “rebooted” with the much more colorful and well-received (by everyone but me anyway) X-Men First Class, which marketed itself as both a reboot and a prequel and didn’t really achieve either particularly well, keeping itself completely tied to the characterizations set up in the first three and even including cameos from Jackman and Rebecca Romijn. Following off the success of First Class, Hugh Jackman got another chance for a solo project with The Wolverine, before returning along with the rest of the series veterans to star in series highlight, Days of Future Past, which served to wrap up all the continuity snags of the franchise and give the original cast a proper and heartfelt sendoff. But Hugh Jackman, who by all accounts loves this particular role with a genuine affection that has shown through in even the worst entries, had jus one more left in him, and has returned to cinemas to give the character of Wolverine a final, heartfelt farewell before hanging up the claws for good, and has brought the equally talented and passionate Patrick Stewart along to do the same for Professor Charles Xavier. Loosely inspired by the Mark Millar comic, “Old Man Logan,” Logan tells the story of a near future where most of the mutants, along with all of the X-Men, have been killed and there are no new mutants being born. The surviving mutants have found themselves growing steadily weaker, their powers somehow degrading, including a now-aging Logan and a decrepit Charles Xavier, who Logan is caring for while he’s fighting off dementia and seizures that cause his still immensely powerful telepathy to be a danger to those around him. The situation is incredibly bleak for the two of them, with Logan working as a limousine driver to try to save up enough money to buy a boat for the two of them, presumably in the hopes of taking them both out to the middle of the ocean where Charles’ deteriorating condition will finally claim the lives of both men without hurting anyone else. But this plan is changed when a desperate woman brings a little girl, Laura, into their lives. Laura is a new mutant, born in a lab and experimented on to be developed into a weapon, exactly as Wolverine had been experimented on. In fact she’s Logan’s daughter, a clone made from his DNA, with the same healing powers and with adamantium claws grafted into her arms and her feet. Despite his initial refusal, Logan is persuaded/forced to take Laura, along with Xavier, to a location in North Dakota, where they can escape the mercenaries that are hunting her. As the final outing for Hugh Jackman in the role that made him famous, this was the perfect film to go out on. Not only does it’s R rating allow Jackman to finally “cut” loose and deliver the kind of violent action that Wolverine is famous for (seriously we’ve had eight other movies featuring a guy whose entire gimmick is having knives come out of his hands that were severely restricted in the amount of blood and violence they could show), but it also closes out the character’s story arc with a genuinely somber, reflective tale of loss, hope, and redemption. Wolverine is a character that people love for his gritty, tough-guy persona, but it’s a persona that only really works because it’s steeped in tragedy. Wolverine doesn’t work without proper pathos, and can easily fall victim to that pathos straying into desperate melodrama, as evidenced by his first solo film, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, where he spends much of the film screaming comically to the heavens over the bodies of characters we never have reason to care about, before tearing through villains we also have no emotional connection to. It’s a tight rope to walk, and this film, directed by James Mangold, finally walks it like a professional. The tragedy in this film is thick and genuine, as presented in the soulful, regret-filled performances of Jackman and Stewart as well as the surprising newcomer performance of Dafne Keen as Laura, AKA X-23. As child actors go Keen is a revelation. She’s called upon to give a wide-ranging performance which she delivers on a level that has her slipping into this particular character even more perfectly than Hugh Jackman originally fit into his role as Wolverine. Despite her age she looks perfect for the part, like a younger version of Josh Middleton’s artwork from NYX brought to life, and she nails the quiet, fuming rage and tragedy of the character in a way that informs the character even better than the writing in the comics. For a film meant to be a final solo outing for both Hugh Jackman and Wolverine, the strength is in its ensemble cast, which is firing on all cylinders. Patrick Stewart gives the most human performance he’s ever delivered in the role of Charles Xavier, and one of the best performances of his stellar career. Boyd Holbrook delivers an electrifyingly charismatic performance as the main villain of the piece, along with Richard E. Grant and Stephen Merchant in their supporting roles. And of course, Jackman himself gives the kind of performance in the lead that we’ve been waiting to see since he first appeared in 2000’s X-Men. He’s more ferocious, more troubled and more sympathetic than we’ve ever seen. This film is, without a doubt, the best Wolverine movie, the best X-Men movie, and one of the best superhero movies ever made. It belongs right alongside the likes of The Winter Soldier, Civil War, Spider-Man 2, The Dark Knight, and Deadpool. This is a must-see film for anyone that is a fan of comic book movies or has ever enjoyed even one of the X-Men films featuring Jackman’s Wolverine. Don’t miss it.

[lemonvampire]

La Belle et la Bete (2014) Review

In a few weeks Disney will release its new live-action remake of its 1991 classic, Beauty and the Beast. Being a highly anticipated blockbuster film based on a classic, public domain fairytale, it should come as a surprise to no one to discover hastily produced films of the same title at your local Wal-Mart, a cynical maneuver to attempt to trick unsuspecting grandparents into an uninformed purchase. There are entire studios dedicated to producing these so-called “mockbusters,” and I have no doubt that if they hadn’t recently found their niche in the so-bad-it’s-good series of Sharknado movies, the Asylum would already have one on shelves. Given that, you may be inclined to assume that, spotting a copy of Christophe Gans’ Beauty and the Beast in the new release section of your local video store, this was nothing more than the aforementioned cynical cash grab. But in this particular case you would be mistaken. Originally released in 2014, La Belle et la Bete, directed by Christophe Gans and starring Lea Seydoux and Vincent Cassel, is a remake of the classic 1946 film of the same name, as much as it just another adaptation of the classic French fairytale. Since its release in Europe the film has taken three years to see distribution in the US, finally reaching a deal for video release through notable curator and purveyor of cult and genre cinema, Shout Factory, in time to coincide with the impending premier of Disney’s own remake, a move undoubtedly planned to boost sales by association. Nevertheless, this is far from the kind of cheap, hasty, disposable production usually cobbled together for the sake of cashing in on another film’s popularity, and if your grandmother does accidentally pick this movie up for your birthday thinking she’s somehow getting an early release of the Disney film, you can count yourself lucky. You may not find singing candlesticks, or lavish musical numbers, or Emma Watson in this film, but what you will find is top shelf special effects, unparalleled production design, and a take on the classic story that is both more faithfully traditional to the original, while also adding its own refreshingly original spin. The film stars Lea Seydoux as Belle, the daughter of a wealthy French merchant who loses all of his wealth when he loses some important shipments at sea. The merchant and his family are forced to move to a small house in the country, a life that, unlike in the Disney version, Belle seems to actually prefer, while her sisters and brothers anguish and lament their predicament. When one of the ships is found however, the merchant returns to the city to try to recover their wealth, promising his elder daughters that he will come back with dresses and jewelry, and promising to bring back a rose for Belle. Unfortunately his trip turns out to be less profitable than expected, and his return trip nearly costs him his life, until he happens upon an enchanted castle in the forest, where the mysterious unseen occupant feeds him gifts him all the treasures he’d promised to his daughters. But when the merchant stops to pluck a rose while leaving he crosses a line and the Beast (Vincent Cassel) reveals himself. Angered that the merchant took advantage of his hospitality in taking the one thing that was actually precious to him, the Beast promises to kill the merchant, telling him that a life is the price of the rose. He allows the man to go home and say goodbye to his family, promising that if he doesn’t return, the Beast will track him and kill all of them. Upon hearing the story from her father, Belle steals his horse and rushes off to take his place, as she feels responsible for him taking the rose that would cost his life. I won’t go into the details of the second and third act, but the film doesn’t play out entirely the same as the version most people are familiar with. The Beast is given a more fantastical and elaborate backstory in this version, one that’s much more tragic and would make him much more of a sympathetic figure, if he weren’t portrayed by Vincent Cassel, who is a talented actor that acquits himself quite well when he’s the Beast, but in his scenes that tell his tragic backstory he seems always to exude a sleazy leeriness, whether intentionally or not. Opposite Cassel is Lea Seydoux as Belle, who comes off much better in her performance as a more capable, more commanding, more determined portrayal of the character. However, she’s also given some scenes where her reactions seem curiously to be unreasonably hostile toward the Beast, before inexplicably being in love with him in the very next scene. The film’s biggest drawback is the pacing of its love story, which appears to take place over a brief period of only three nights, with Belle going from fearful of the Beast in the first, to randomly hurling insults at him the next, to fleeing in terror from him the third. And then she’s in love with him. There doesn’t really seem to be a turning point in the relationship. We do see her uncovering his origin slowly throughout the film in visions given to her in her dreams, which maybe softens her heart toward him, but there’s just not enough actual interaction between them to show a romance develop, especially over so short a period. However, that unusual pacing is the only major flaw in what is otherwise a stunning work of art. Where this film truly excels are its visuals, which are nothing short of breathtaking. Every moment of screen time, every frame weaves a tapestry of vivid colors, spectacularly ornate design, and thrilling visual effects, from beautiful shots of fantastical landscapes and architectural masterpieces, to whimsical dream sequences and exciting set pieces involving the Beast battling interlopers astride a gigantic walking marble statue. This is a fantasy romance to rival the likes of The Princess Bride or Stardust. Far from a knockoff meant to cash in on the upcoming Disney film, this is the film that sets the bar for Disney to try and reach. If you’re at all excited for a live action Beauty and the Beast, this is the one to see.

[lemonvampire]

The Lego Batman Movie

The Lego Batman Movie is easily the best Batman to appear in cinemas since 2008’s The Dark Knight. And it’s also the second best Lego movie ever made. While not quite able to clear the incredibly high bar set by its groundbreaking predecessor, The Lego Batman Movie is nevertheless a fun, joyful, and hilariously funny movie on its own. It doesn’t quite match the level of humor or the heartwarming emotion behind 2014’s The Lego Movie, but it does match the enthusiasm. Will Arnett’s comedic take on Batman is a refreshing response to the increasingly overly serious portrayals of the character on film. It’s especially comforting to know that, following the previous year’s Batman film that narrowly avoided an R rating and showcased a Batman that just casually murdered a lot of people, there’s finally a Batman movie in theaters that parents don’t have to question whether it’s safe to take children to. There are surprisingly few references to the events of The Lego Movie, apart from a couple of nods to some of the foundational world-building concepts previously established. Instead the film keeps its focus tightly centered on being a Batman story set in the Lego version of Gotham City, a delightfully colorful version of Gotham reminiscent of the gothic neon aesthetic of the Schumacher films but with slightly more restraint. There are a lot of scenes and jokes that play very differently from how they were presented in the trailers, some for obvious reasons, and some for inexplicable reasons that drastically undercut the effect that they had in the trailer. Some jokes get moved around to different points in the plot and some are abandoned altogether. Some of the marketing implied more involvement from other DC heroes in the Justice League that instead only appear as a brief cameo, though that was probably for the best as the film wisely chose to keep its focus on its titular hero. Still, the film is filled with countless jokes and references to some of the more obscure corners of DC comics lore. The one thing I found noticeably lacking in the film was any sense of the real world outside of the toy reality that the characters all exist in, one of the most charming features of the previous film. Though I understand the decision to keep this film more focused on its own world and narrative, it’s an element that added to the overall sense of realism in the original film that was lacking here. Specifically, when I first saw The Lego Movie, I genuinely couldn’t tell that what I was seeing was CGI and not actual stop-motion photography of real Lego bricks if I hadn’t known going in. The film makers behind the first film clearly set hard rules for themselves to maintain a sense of authenticity in order to make the audience believe in that what they were seeing. Nothing was done that couldn’t theoretically be accomplished by filming real Lego pieces. Few original pieces were created for the film, and often other small common toys and objects were included as an allusion to the fact that these are miniature toys that a child is playing with. Morgan Freeman’s character for example wore a small rubber band as a headband and carried a half-eaten lollipop as a magic staff. While those rules are not entirely explicitly broken in The Lego Batman Movie, they are noticeably bent, often to the breaking point. There are frequent scenes and actions that could never be accomplished in reality without breaking pieces, altering pieces, or entirely fabricating new pieces, and there are no substitutions of non-Lego items. Additionally, while the original film rendered all of its weather and environment effects like water and smoke with Lego pieces, this one uses realistically rendered environment effects instead. None of this makes the film any less great, but it does give the overall production a less authentic and more noticeably CGI feeling. It’s not a problem, but it lacks the overall sense of careful polish given by Lord and Miller on the first feature. However this is no more than I expected from a film made under a different director as quickly greenlit spinoff to a lovingly crafted masterpiece that spent years in development. The Lego Batman Movie may not be quite as perfect a film as The Lego Movie was, but very few films can be. It’s still a delightful feature that is absolutely a worthy follow up.

[lemonvampire]

Rogue One: A Star Wars Review

Rogue One is not a “Star Wars” movie. Rogue One is a Star War movie. It’s a film about war, set in the Star Wars universe. That may seem like a subtle distinction, but for a franchise which has the word “War” in the name, Star Wars has never been ABOUT war, even when it was trying to be. Star Wars has always been an adventure series, a swashbuckler, with knights and princesses and scoundrels, with war as a backdrop to the adventure. But it’s never really addressed war as a reality. It’s never focused on the consequences, the tragedy, the loss, the camaraderie, the triumphs, the sacrifices. At the end of the day our heroes always blow up the Death Star and get medals from pretty princesses. That’s not this film. This film is dirty. This film is REAL. This film is about struggling people doing everything they can, giving everything they have, to fight tyranny. This isn’t a film about squeaky clean heroes on adventures. This is a film about people that are afraid, desperate, and dangerous. It’s a film where, as if in the ultimate condemnation of the “Greedo shoots first” debacle, one of the heroes not only shoots first, but shoots someone in the back, an ally, not in self defense but in self preservation. Because he has to. Because that’s the world this film takes place in.

You all know the story.

It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire. During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire’s ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet. Pursued by the Empire’s sinister agents, Princess Leia races home aboard her starship, custodian of the stolen plans that can save her people and restore freedom to the galaxy….

….is where this film ends. Where it begins is with the introduction of our main antagonist, Orson Krennic, played with charming menace by Ben Mendelson. Krennic is the Imperial Commander in charge of overseeing the development of the Death Star. I think this character may be my favorite Star Wars villain ever. He’s not as cool as Darth Vader (who shows up for a spectacular cameo later) but he’s more real than any Imperial character we’ve seen since Peter Cushing’s Grand Moff Tarkin (who also has a surprise cameo realized through spectacular, almost-but-not-quite perfect CGI). Krennic is just a man with authority, trying to do a job, with the confidence of someone who knows he’s in control. Mendelson plays him as an affable villain, dripping with charisma. He’s a man that will smile at you and be your friend, as long as you’re on his side. He’s genuinely reasonable, but won’t hesitate to do whatever will accomplish his goals. Krennic seeks out and abducts a defected Imperial scientist, Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelson), who had been the head engineer of the Death Star project before fleeing with his wife and daughter and going into hiding once he realized how dangerous the Empire was and what he was doing for them. He’s captured in the opening, his wife killed by Krennic’s troops, and his daughter, Jyn, escapes and grows up to be our main protagonist, played by Felicity Jones. Jyn is tracked down and picked up by the Rebel Alliance when a defected Imperial pilot brings a message from Galen to warn the Rebels about the impending completion of the weapon. Jyn is recruited along with Rebel assassin Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) and a reprogrammed Imperial droid, played by the always terrific Alan Tudyk, to find her father and bring him back to the Alliance.

The breakout character of this film, I think is going to be in Alan Tudyk’s K-2SO, the droid. Droids are always popular characters with these films, and K-2SO is no exception. He’s funny, tough, lovable. He’s like C-3P0, except much more sarcastic and actually capable of helping in a fight. I was also very much impressed by Diego Luna’s character, Cassian Andor, an Alliance assassin, who is kind of this film’s Han Solo, a character who is morally ambiguous, who will do whatever it takes for the greater good of the Rebellion, even if that means doing terrible things.

Along the way they pick up a team of diverse characters including Donnie Yen and Wen Jiang, a duo that may or may not be the first gay couple in Star Wars, depending on how you interpret their relationship, and who supply the remainder of the comic relief while serving powerful dramatic roles as well. Yen plays a blind man whose faith in the Force allows him to make his way through the most dangerous situations, showing that the Force is something bigger and more spiritual in nature and not something only the Jedi can tap into.

Eventually the mission leads the team to a daring raid on an Imperial base to steal the plans, ending in a climactic battle that draws heavily from WWII film iconography to powerful effect. And of course, you know how it ends, but maybe not quite. I won’t give away the actual ending, but it is important to say that this film significantly raises the stakes of what Star Wars is about. Where the Prequel Trilogy made the universe feel smaller, and the rise and threat of the Empire weaker, this film (which IS a prequel, by the way) goes a long way to correct that mistake. Where the Prequel Trilogy felt disjointed, artificial, and unconnected to the Original Trilogy, this one not only feels entirely faithful to the original Star Wars, right up to leading directly into it as it ends exactly where the next film begins, but it actually adds more weight to the next film. This film, as a companion piece to A New Hope, feels like a real, true part of that story, and makes that story better.

Gareth Edwards is a director that is known for delivering genre pictures with a tight focus on character, though his previous films have seldom featured such richly created ones. His strengths are mostly in his sense of scale, which is on full display here, and serious drama. His weakness is in the fact that the serious drama he focuses on tends to be with characters that aren’t generally that compelling. However, with this film that has been craftily corrected, balancing all of his strengths with characters that are compelling, that are interesting, and that you do enjoy spending time with. This maybe isn’t the best Star Wars movie, but it is easily Edwards’ best film.

[lemonvampire]

Moana Review

I’m hesitant to say that Moana is a better film than Frozen. Similarly to this year’s earlier animation hit, Kubo and the Two Strings, this film is structurally a pretty rote and straightforward adventure tale, and while the soundtrack, composed by Hamilton’s Lin-Manuel Miranda, is full of some pretty catchy numbers, particularly the introduction to Maui performed by Dwayne Johnson, there is no “Let it Go” in this movie (however as I type this I’m listening to the soundtrack and contemplating purchasing it on iTunes, which is not something I typically do). But it IS a more important, a more progressive, a more uplifting film than Frozen and a much bigger step forward for the “Disney Princess” canon, made all the more so by the fact that it never draws attention to this fact. The lead character can safely take her place alongside the likes of Rey and Furiosa as one of the most powerful and positive role models for young women to come out of Hollywood in decades.

The film takes place in the area of the Polynesian Islands, with the titular character as the young daughter of the chief of an island tribe. It opens with the telling of a legend about the culture’s most celebrated hero, the demigod Maui, a shape-shifting trickster hero that is apparently responsible for giving mankind all the things that they need to live; fire, sunlight, the islands, trees, coconuts. But one day Maui stole the Heart of Creation from an island goddess and was struck down by a fiery demon losing both the heart and his magical power-granting fishhook to the ocean, and the neighboring islands became cursed, so that the tribe was never able to safely sail away from their island.

The most striking thing about this film that I noticed at the beginning, was the fact that our main heroine, Moana, is introduced as the daughter of the Chief of her culture’s island community, and is being groomed to take over the role of Chief herself without anything ever being said about the fact that she’s a girl. Ever. It’s never suggested that the Chief should be succeeded by a son, or that she should be married, or that she in any way has to prove herself worthy of being Chief of the tribe. She is the Chief’s daughter, and therefore she IS his heir. In fact, in the beginning of the film we see her growing into the role of leader very naturally, with the people of the island looking to her for guidance as she prepares to take on the role, and cheering her on when she makes the right decisions for the good of the tribe. Her role as leader and hero of the story is never once questioned because of her gender. Not. Once.

What’s more important about this fact is that, not only is her gender never brought up in the narrative, but the filmmakers also wisely avoid the tragic common mistake of feminist empowerment films by drawing overt attention to it by way of patting themselves on the back for BEING progressive, a problem that plagued roughly 100% of 90s “girl power” movies, and occasionally rears its head still today (I’m looking at you CBS’s Supergirl). Again, Moana IS the hero of this film, a character that is strong, brave, and respected by her people, and the bar by which all future film heroines should be measured.

But she’s not the only hero of the film, as she shares the screen with Maui, voiced by Dwayne Johnson. When her island’s crops and fish begin to whither, Moana goes on a quest to find the demigod and force him to return the Heart of Creation that he stole. After a fantastic musical number introduction and a lot of arguing, the disgraced Maui very reluctantly agrees to help, terrified that he won’t be able to defeat the demon that struck him down in the legend.

Maui is a delightfully fun character, boastful and brash but also cowardly and uncertain. Dwayne Johnson really proves himself in this film as more than just the lovable face that we’ve seen in many other films. He gives a performance that never really feels like a part of his typical “The Rock” persona and in fact is barely even recognizable as his voice. He really is as talented a performer as he is a likable and charming personality.

I probably don’t need to bother pointing out how beautiful this film looks, but Disney really is at the top of their game here. The film’s use of water effects as well as hair and foliage feel almost like the film was made entirely for the purpose of letting CGI artists do a victory lap to celebrate how far animation has come at perfecting these once key benchmarks of animation, and it is gorgeous.

Like I said, I’m hesitant to say that the film is better than Frozen, but only slightly, and only because the core story structure is so straightforward, but if I had to pick between which of the two I’d prefer to watch again, and which soundtrack I’d prefer to hear repeated ad nauseam, as so many people with children will, I would definitely pick this one. There isn’t a singular break-out song like “Let it Go,” but there also aren’t any terrible numbers with unfortunate implications like “Fixer Upper,” so that’s a clear point in this film’s favor. And at least the songs don’t have quite the sing-along quality Frozen did, so you probably won’t have to put up with hearing them belted out by your five-year-olds quite as often as “Let it Go.” Except maybe for Jemaine Clement’s performance of “Shiny.” Get ready to hear that one a lot. I’m sorry.

[lemonvampire]

The Company of Wolves (1984)

The Company of Wolves is a lot of things. It’s surreal, haunting, scary, beautiful. It’s an anthology film of sorts with a consistent, yet ambiguous narrative through-line. It’s fantasy and horror as metaphor for a young girl’s blossoming sexuality. And it’s also an abstract retelling of Little Red Riding Hood.

The film begins in the modern day, well in the 80s at least, with a mother and father returning home to their two daughters. The eldest is angry at the youngest, who has been getting into her makeup and has gone to bed complaining of stomach cramps. She’s sent to wake the sleeping girl, who we see tossing in her sleep as the film gradually transitions to the surreal dream world, and this is where the proper film begins. We’re transported, via a sequence in which the elder sister is lost in a forest surrounded by terrifying, gigantic representations of toys from the girl’s room, running from wolves that eventually corner and devour her.

This leads to her funeral scene, in which the film is now firmly rooted in a medieval, occasionally anachronistic, fantasy world. The youngest daughter, Rosaleen, goes to stay with her grandmother, played by Angela Lansbury, for the night while her mother grieves.

That night Granny, while knitting a red shawl for Rosaleen, begins to tell her stories of wolves, of how they come in many different shapes, and how some where their fur on the inside. We get several tales throughout the film, of men becoming wolves that prey on women in various ways, as Rosaleen begins to understand the true meaning behind the tales, and the cautionary lessons that Granny is telling the young girl.

There’s a story about a woman marrying a traveller (Stephen Rea), who leaves her on their wedding night, called into the forest by the wolves and the moon, only to return years later and assault the woman after she’s remarried. Enraged, he begins to transform into a wolf again, in what is still the most gruesome werewolf transformation I’ve ever seen, made all the more horrifying by the uncanny valley effects of the animatronics used, as Stephen Rhea tears the flesh off of his face, exposing bone and muscle tissue beneath, which then contorts and elongates into the shape of a wolf’s head.

It gets pretty unpleasant after this shot.

Between the centerpiece vignettes, we see more of Rosaleen beginning to flirt with a local boy, leading him on a chase through the woods as he tries to get her to kiss him, a young wolf on the hunt.

Then there’s a story Rosaleen repeats from her Granny, of a scorned, pregnant woman crashing the high society wedding of the man that wronged her. She curses all in attendance to become wolves at the table. This is another stunning transformation sequence, entirely different from the previous, but now rather than gory it’s frighteningly surreal. We see them transform gradually and largely in the fractured reflection of a broken mirror, until in the end they’re a bunch of wolves in fancy clothes sitting at the table. This scene always reminds me of the climax of Animal Farm, where spying through a dirty glass the pigs all gathered round the table are indistinguishable from men. There’s something truly chilling about the idea of regular animals dressing and behaving as people.

This scene brought to you by your nightmares

After some more brief interludes involving the villagers hunting the wolf that killed Rosaleen’s sister, only for the body to become a man after they’d killed it, Rosaleen goes to visit Granny again and encounters a handsome stranger in fancy clothes, who’s eyebrows meet in the middle. As he attempts to seduce her he challenges her to a race to her Granny’s, only for her to find him there waiting for her when she arrives, and Granny nowhere in sight.

And then we get the most iconic moment of the film

What happens next is bizarre and open to interpretation as we learn that maybe there’s a bit of wolf in Rosaleen as well, as she takes ownership of her own story and tames the wolf that was a man.

This film is not at all what one would consider a traditional werewolf film, nor strictly a horror film. It’s use of dream-like imagery and heavy metaphor elevate the material beyond its genre, and I can’t recommend it enough, not just for fans of horror, or fantasy, but to anyone interested in seeing something that is beautiful, strange and fascinating.

[lemonvampire]

Review: Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon

We all know the classic tropes of slasher films. The genre has been the go-to solution for producing thrills on a tight budget ever since John Carpenter cemented the primary archetypes in his 1978 classic Halloween, in which mute and faceless Michael Myers hunts and kills a procession of sexually charged teenagers.

A few butchered teenagers is a small price for a mute and faceless Michael Myers.

Since then the slasher film has become a staple of horror, for good or ill. By the mid 1990s the genre had already become so tired and played out with numerous sequel-heavy franchises that all followed the standard conventions with little variation, that Wes Craven took to dismantling it with his hit post-modern, snarky deconstructionist entry, Scream, itself a film that would go on to spawn an entire legacy of sequels that all addressed and joked about the common trends while still adhering to them. In 2006 a little gem of a film creeped in below most people's radar, another comedic deconstruction of the slasher genre called Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon. Filmed in a mostly mockumentary style with frequent lapses into more conventional camera techniques, the premise of the film is that a documentary crew has been granted an exclusive opportunity to interview and follow would-be masked killer, Leslie Vernon, as he prepares for his breakout role as the next slasher legend. The central conceit seems to be that we are in the world of a rote, by-the-numbers horror film, seen through the eyes of this documentary crew, with the film occasionally dipping back into the “movie” that it's taking place within.

It's slasher Inception.

Our main protagonist, a young woman named Taylor, has somehow contacted or been contacted by Leslie with the opportunity to interview him and learn the "trade secrets" of being a supernatural killer, like Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, or Freddy Kruger, all of whom apparently exist in this world and view themselves as some kind of elaborate performance artists. We follow Leslie as he trains to be able to run swiftly without becoming winded so that he can appear to be always just behind his fleeing victims, studies to control his heart so that he can fake his death for his eventual return, and goes on reconnaissance missions to scout out and select his potential victims and "Final Girl," the virginal heroine of the story that must escape or kill him. We see him cultivate his own legend with planted documents and false rumors about his tragic, supernatural backstory. And through it all he remains a charming, personable character, that the audience and the film crew can’t help but like, despite his stated intentions, which becomes a key plot element when the moment finally comes for Leslie’s debut killing spree. The film takes numerous twists and turns along the way, which I will not spoil here. We get cameos from horror icons Zelda Rubenstein and Robert Englund, and a delightful sequence where Taylor and the film crew are invited to visit Leslie's mentor, a retired masked killer that apparently married and settled down with his Final Girl. The pair present a humorous interlude of bizarre normality amidst the macabre subject matter. They're like Gomez and Morticia Adams, but more frightening because they really are in the business of murdering people. This is a funny, charming, and above all clever film that is absolutely a must see for horror fans and for anyone looking for a fun film to check out this Halloween. It's brimming with the perfect level of seasonal atmosphere (the climax takes place in a spooky autumn orchard), lovable characters, and witty banter.

Seek it out and see it.

[lemonvampire]

Vampire Hunter D (1985) Review

I was in my late teens when I discovered Vampire Hunter D. Anime was still a very niche genre in the U.S., and especially hard to come by when you’re growing up in a small town in Northern Michigan. Like many of my generation I was intrigued by what I was seeing on Cartoon Network’s Toonami block, but with the internet still in its early stages, and only dial-up available, my options for exploring this style of animation were incredibly limited. I was in an FYE at my local mall when I came across the DVD of this film’s pseudo-sequel, Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust. I was instantly captivated by the cover art and wanted to know more. The store had just installed a new system where you could scan barcodes on their DVDs to see trailers for the film, and after seeing the trailer with its breathtaking animation, I was sold. The film had a profound impact on me, and after learning that it was actually the second film adapted from the long-running series of light novels, I decided I had to see the original. I needed more. What I got was a 1985 cult classic anime film with fairly stilted animation and a laughably cheesy dub, but still a fun and worthwhile film.

Vampire Hunter D is a 1985 animated feature directed by Toyoo Ashida based on the first of a series of novels by writer Hideyuki Kikuchi, with art direction based on the work of world-famous illustrator Yoshitaka Amano, who illustrated the novel series.

The film and novels, like many high-concept fantasy series of the eighties, is set in a distant, dystopian future, thousands of years after the collapse of civilization brought about by nuclear holocaust. In the aftermath of the great war, vampires came out of the shadows and conquered the world, subjugating mortals and building an extremely technologically advanced and decadent civilization for themselves. They were eventually overthrown and now, centuries later have been driven back into hiding, preying mainly on those humans living out in the wild and dangerous frontier towns, where they contend not only with the vampires, but also mutants, monsters, and demons.

And David Bowie

The series’ titular hero is a wandering vampire hunter named simply D. D is a dhampir (or “dunpeal” as a result of mistranslation in some versions), a half-vampire, which gives him equal power to contend with the extremely powerful vampires (or nobles, as they are most often referred to) without suffering any of their traditional weaknesses. As a character, D is very much like Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name from the classic “Dollars Trilogy” of spaghetti westerns, from which author Hideyuki Kikuchi drew heavy inspiration, even stating that he always imagined D as looking like Eastwood. He doesn’t have much depth, and often in the novels doesn’t doesn’t have much personality or development. In fact, as a character in the novels D is very arguably a Mary Sue archetype, a character that has no growth, is granted random and excessive powers to overcome any obstacle, can never be beaten, and is frequently described as the most perfect and beautiful being in the world.

Pictured: The most beautiful being in the world.

D’s saving grace as a character is in the way he serves as more of the central figure for the actual stories of the novels to play out around As such, the main character of this film could be said to really be Doris Lang, a young woman living on a small ranch alone with her little brother, Dan. While fending off invading monsters one night Doris runs across local Noble and main villain of the piece, Count Magnus Lee, who is immediately infatuated with her and decides to make her his bride.

She enlists the help of the passing D, hiring the hunter to protect her from the Count, who is intent on returning to claim her after their first encounter.

D accepts and spends the film fighting off all manner of monsters and mutants, including the Count’s vindictive daughter, before finally facing the Count in the film’s climactic confrontation, slaying the vampire in his immense techno-gothic castle, which crumbles around him as he dies.

This film presents a weird, fantastical blend of genre aesthetics that seem incompatible but somehow come together with perfect cohesiveness to form a singular setting that is both bizarre and nonsensical, and yet perfectly fitting for its central gothic horror style. Mashing together high-tech sci-fi elements like robots and cyborgs with classical western costuming and architecture under a blanket of gothic atmosphere and Hammer Horror tropes.

Unfortunately where it excels in style, it comes up lacking somewhat in substance. The plot is charming in its simplicity as a classic archetypal vampire tale, but is full of trite cliche’s and stereotypes, made all the worse by the film’s original English dub, which not only suffered an unwieldy translation but some atrocious mid-eighties voice acting. This was thankfully corrected in the recent Blu-Ray release of the film that sports a new translation and vocal talent. The only positive thing I can say of the original dub is that it has a certain charm in the way the cast all give their best, if horribly misplaced, impressions of popular actors from golden age Hollywood horror. The villainous count is played with an over-the-top Lugosi accent while Doris’ obsessively jealous suitor inexplicably sports a Peter Lorre voice.

My favorite thing about this film is the way that vampires are portrayed as these powerful beings with eldritch, almost Lovecraftian power and influence. In a world populated by all manner of monsters they sit at the top of the food chain, a pervasive and all-encompassing threat.

This isn’t a great film, but I do recommend it for anyone that loves classic monster movies, anime, and stylish art design.

[lemonvampire]

Shin Godzilla Review

The latest entry in Toho's long running franchise, Shin Godzilla is the reboot that the series has been needing and avoiding for decades, casting aside all that came before in favor of a fully fresh start, something that the often haphazard "Millenium Series" was reluctant to do. Using graoundbreaking special effects that seemlessly blend models, minatures, and the classic rubber suit monster with high-end CGI and featuring version of the famous monster designed by the people that brought the horrifying Titans of Attack on Titan to life, this film seeks to take the original King of the Monsters back to his roots as an terrifying, unstoppoable force of destruction. Opening on a boat adrift at sea, a clear nod to the 1951 original, the film kicks off with a seismic event hitting the harbor near Tokyo. Government officials and experts quikly scramble to assess the damage and find the cause, which is quickly revealed to be a gigantic creature that is making its way inland, gradually swimming up the river, already wreaking havoc before setting out onto land. Our first vision of creature is brilliantly unsettling. We only see the iconic dorsil spikes plowing through the water at first, announcing the arrival of Godzilla, but when he emerges from the water we see instead that he's in a smaller infant stage, looking something like a gigantic baby bird with gills, his eyes bulbous and saucer-like. As he moves further inland he gradually and subtly changes shape, mutating until he becomes something resembling the iconic silhouette. After this initial attack, he pauses and retreats back to the ocean, only to emerge later fully formed and devastating, his eyes now beady dots and his jaw a split grin filled with jagged teeth. This is easily the most frightening and most dangerous incarnation of the legendary monster ever put on screen, and I'm happy to say that the effects team fully delivered here, making the classic "suit-mation" technique that is so demanded by hardcore series fans but so often not up to the standards of a wider audience finally work in the best of both worlds. Rarely does Godzilla appear to be "just a guy in a rubber suit," but rather a very real, very massive creature. On the other side of the action, the human element of the film is made up of a team of scientists military advisors pulled together by an aspiring beurocrat to form a plan to stop the inncreasingly catostrophic threat. The film is filled with social commentary and political satire, with numerous jabs at Japan's American allies who immediately go to the nuclear option as a solution, blindly ignorant of the death and destruction it will bring to Japan and its people, as well as a running gag with the Prime Minister being presented as a put-upon politician with way too much responsibility on his shoulders, a swipe at Japan's own comblex beurocratic structure. This is possibly the most politically savvy Godzilla film to date, and it's about as subtle about it as the titular kaiju. Where the film falls short is in its length and pacing. What starts off as a film running at a breakneck speed soon gives way to some excessive repetition that makes even the fantastic visual effects feel a little tiring, as Godzilla repeatedly shrugs off every munitions attack that the military can throw at him, until the explosions and gunfire start to become so much white noise. The other disappointment is in the climax, where the solution to defeating Godzilla is finally found. While it's an interesting concept that gives the film a strong sense of closure while also leaving room for Godzilla's inevitable return, the method of defeating the monster is not particularly exciting visually, as the approach involves essentially tripping him so that they can stick hoses into his moutn and fill him with what amounts to a cryogenic solution. On screen Godzilla's defeat looks like a doctor feeding a baby bird. These minor quibbles aside, Shin Godzilla is nevertheless one of the very best films in the franchise, a must-see for Kaiju fans. It's not my favorite of the lot, but it is really good.

[lemonvampire]

An American Werewolf in London Review

I probably don’t have to tell you that John Landis’ 1981 horror classic An American Werewolf in London is the best werewolf movie of all time, but it is. It’s not my personal favorite, but it is the best. And not just because it has THE best transformation sequence ever filmed, a scene which revolutionized the concept of the werewolf as body horror.

The greatest strength of this film is how smoothly it blends horror with humor. John Landis was more well known for his comedy outings at the time that this film came out, coming off two legendary comedy hits Animal House and The Blues Brothers, and as such he imbues this film, which is itself often marketed as a comedy, with a strong sense of humor. But it’s that humor that makes the horror, the drama, and the tragedy so much more powerful than you typically see in the genre. The humor in the film serves to humanize its characters, especially its central protagonist, making the tale so much more tragic because you grow to genuinely like and care for these characters. It’s a dry humor, served through clever dialog and understated performances, and it never strays into farce. This film is funny, but it’s not a funny movie.

Even if it does feature a cameo from Fozzy Bear himself, Frank Oz

The film opens with scenes of the English countryside, set to the tune of Blue Moon, which we’ll here two more times in covers throughout the film. Landis chose to feature only songs with the word “Moon” in the title on the soundtrack with Blue Moon as the centerpiece. Here we’re introduced to the main protagonist, David Kessler, played by David Naughton, and his friend Jack, played by Griffin Dunne. The two are a pair of young college students backpacking through Europe for their summer. The two banter humorously as they hike along an empty stretch of country road looking for a place to get out of the damp cold evening and get some food.

After getting themselves thrown out of the first place they find for offending the irate locals with their questions about the mysterious occult decor in a tavern called “The Slaughtered Lamb,” the two find themselves back on the road, crossing the moors in the dark under a full moon.

Of course they are inevitably attacked by a werewolf, which kills Jack before maiming David, who’s saved by the local tavern patrons that had a change of heart. They shoot the monster and David looks over to see the naked body of a dying man next to him before passing out and waking three weeks later in a hospital in London.

During his recovery, David is haunted by the spirit of Jack, who appears sporadically throughout the film as a rotting corpse that only David can see, his spirit trapped by the werewolf’s curse until the line of the curse is broken. He tells David that he is now to become a werewolf too and that the only solution is to kill himself before he kills others.

Advice that was sadly never given to Taylor Lautner

As additions to werewolf lore go, this one certainly adds an extra layer of tragedy, in that the werewolf is not only cursed to transform and kill, but to be literally haunted by his victims. Though this does raise the question of what happened with the previous werewolf, the one that bit David. Why didn’t he kill himself? Had he not killed anyone else yet? If David can see the ghost of Jack, then the curse must also include the victims of the past carriers, so why wasn’t the previous werewolf similarly haunted? Of course, this is ultimately irrelevant to the film’s narrative, and a contrivance that is easily overlooked for what it adds to the story, a sense of heightened drama and also comedy as Jack continues to supply clever banter from beyond the grave.

While in the hospital David also falls in love with his Nurse, Alex, who invites him to stay with her in her flat after he is discharged. The budding romance is cut short however, as after only one night together, the werewolf’s curse catches up to David.

After Alex leaves for work, David finds himself alone in her apartment, during which we’re treated to a terrific montage that perfectly captures the awkwardness of spending a day in an unfamiliar home in an unfamiliar city. David meanders about the house looking for something to do while he waits for the night to pass. The scene has a subtle tension to it. We feel David’s nervous boredom as we wait along with him to see if anything actually happens to him when the moon rises.

And then it does.

The transformation that follows is undoubtedly the highlight of the film, and a truly horrific scene. Effects and makeup artist/wizard Rick Baker delivers a transformation that is so unique and so visceral that it has remained unbeaten, if even challenged, in the decades since. Before this film werewolves had always taken their inspiration from the Jack Pierce makeup design of the Wolf Man, with transformations accomplished by fading dissolves as the layers of makeup are applied.

In this film, however, makeup effects artist Rick Baker completely redefined the werewolf transformation by showing us spectacular in-camera shots of David as his limbs stretch and elongate and shift from something human into something that very much is not. Bones crack and shift. Skin stretches and contorts. David's face elongates right before our eyes into a hideously canine snout. All the while David is screaming in agony as this is no longer a slow dissolve but a brutal case of body horror, leaving him finally transformed, completely into a monster.

We don’t really get to see the werewolf as it stalks through the streets of London this first night. Like Jaws, the tension comes from what we don’t see. Instead of showing us the monster, the camera focuses on the victims, sometimes switching to the werewolf’s perspective as he chases them down, showing us the panic and fear as they desperately try to get away, again giving weight to their deaths.

From here the film, which had been moving along at a casual pace, fairly sprints to its climax. After his first grisly rampage, David awakens in a zoo surrounded by wolves. He recovers quickly and, though dazed, doesn't remember anything about the previous night. When he learns of the attacks, however, he immediately realizes the truth, and flees Alex to seek a solution. Unable to kill himself as the spirits of his victims demand of him, time runs out and he transforms again, this time in a theater in the middle of Piccadilly Circus.

This time we do get a full look at the hirsuit monster as it tears through the city streets, causing more death and chaos as traffic swerves around it and pedestrians are run over and flung through windows. The carnage is almost farcicle in how over-the-top it is, with not entirely convincing dummies being crushed and brutalized enough to satisfy the gore-hounds in the audience.

Like The Wolf Man before it, An American Werewolf in London ends with the titular monster slain, finally returning to his human form in his dying moment, at peace at last, the woman he loves looking on in heartbroken shock before the screen abruptly cuts to credits, here made even more jarring by the choice of another, more comedic cover of Blue Moon blaring over the titles. It's a choice that both lightens the tension and underscores the sorrow.

John Landis’ An American Werewolf in London is, without a doubt, the definitive werewolf movie. It’s scary, haunting, yet funny and upbeat. It has snappy dialog, believable characters, and effects that haven’t been topped in decades. Even when Rick Baker returned to the genre with the 2010 remake of The Wolfman, his promised makeup effects transformation sequence was ultimately replaced with obvious CGI, to the film’s ultimate detriment, as critics balked at the unimpressive sequence that was used instead. My thoughts on that film may come at a later time, but this film is timeless.

[lemonvampire]

Dracula (1931)

Autumn is here! And that means pumpkin spice treats, hot apple cider, and Halloween! And for me Halloween means a month of revisiting my favorite monster movies and horror films.

I’m going to try to post a couple of reviews a week throughout October for a fun Halloween retrospective. And to kick it off, I can think of no better first entry than the 1931 Universal classic, Dracula.

Produced in 1931 by Universal Studios under the direction of Todd Browning, and starring the iconic Bela Lugosi, along with Dwight Frye as the lunatic Renfield and Edward Van Sloan as the enigmatic Professor Van Helsing, Dracula is a film so popular, so woven into the cultural consciousness, that most people have never actually seen it. You don't need to. You know, without ever seeing the film, what Lugosi's portrayal of the villainous count looked like. You can and have done impressions of him at least once every Halloween. You know that Dracula lives in a spooky castle in Transylvania and can turn into a bat and drinks blood. You know that Professor Van Helsing is called upon to find and stop him after he leaves his home country and haunts the streets of London. You know that Dracula never drinks...wine. So is the film even worth seeing? There have been hundreds of Dracula movies dating all the way back to the dawn of the silver screen. Even before Browning's 1931 classic there was F.W. Murnau's 1922 silent outing, Nosferatu, itself a renowned classic work of cinema, and arguably a better film and a better adaptation of the material, despite being a work of deliberate plagiarism that resulted in Bram Stoker's widow suing the studio. What makes this film special? That's a difficult question. At least it's difficult to tackle objectively, to take off my rose-tinted spectacles and give an honest appraisal of the film's merits. It's easy for me to say why I love this film. I but how do I explain why you should love this film? It's not a scary film. In fact, it's probably the least frightening vampire movie that doesn't involve a glittering disco man or a math-obsessed puppet. And it's also one of the least faithful adaptations of the novel, which despite being one of the most adapted novels in history, actually has yet to see a truly faithful silver screen rendition, with even the closest contenders making wild departures. Right away the plot is a far departure from Stoker's novel. It opens with Renfield, a London solicitor, traveling to Transylvania to see Count Dracula for business. The first act of the film sees Renfield taking on the role of the book's hero, Jonathan Harker, who will appear later in the film portrayed, in his breakout performance, by a plank of wood.

The Plank would go on to a long and profitable career

This is actually not the first, nor the last, adaptation to tie Renfield and Harker's stories together, and for good reason. In the novel, Renfield is given little in the way of backstory, and the origin of his madness, and whether that madness originates with Dracula, is ambiguous. One of the few clever additions of Coppola's 1992 adaptation was an off-hand line that Renfield had been a solicitor who had preceded Harker in dealing with Dracula, homaging this film as well as giving a more direct connection between the two characters. Here the hapless Renfield, played brilliantly by Dwight Frye, ignores the warnings of local villagers and journeys after dark to Dracula's Matte Painting on a coach driven by the Count himself, who at one point transforms into a rubber bat on a string to lead the horses over the mountainous Borgo Pass. Entering the castle we are greeted by the visual highlight of the film, the gothic interior set with its dense cobwebs and enormous staircase, down which descends Lugosi in regal splendor, sporting the cape and carrying a candelabra. "I am...Dracula," he intones through his thick Romanian accent.

This moment basically invented Hot Topic.

In short order Renfield is ensnared by the Count, becoming his loyal servant. He accompanies his master on a boat to England, which arrives in the harbor a derelict, with the whole crew dead and the mad Renfield the only living witness. Dwight Frye's hauntingly bizarre laughter coming up from the darkened hold of the ship, a light revealing his wide-eyed and grinning face, is one of the few moments in the film that could almost be genuinely frightening. From here the film transitions to its chief protagonists, almost 30 minutes into the film. And this is where the mixing up of Renfield and Harker becomes a major flaw. As the film enters its second act, it introduces an entire new cast of characters, none of whom have a tenth of the charisma of either Lugosi or Frye, with whom we've invested so much time and who will now serve the role of antagonists only. We meet Dr. Seward, owner of the sanitarium to which Renfield has been committed, who in this adaptation is now the father of Mina, the leading lady, joined by her friend Lucy, whose lack of character depth is matched only by her lack of screen time, and Mina's fiancé, Jonathan Harker. In the novel Harker was the chief protagonist, in as much as any among an ensemble cast could be. He was the one we spent the most time with at the beginning and feel comforted to see return later on. Here he could best be described as a prop. He occupies space, and serves some kind of function, beyond being a place to hang his clothes, as a sounding board for other characters to read their lines to. Dracula moves into the estate next door to Seward's sanitarium, where he begins preying first on Lucy, and then later on Mina. Lucy is killed rather unceremoniously after only two scenes, and though mention is made of her becoming a vampire herself later on, it's quickly dropped. Her true purpose is to incite the arrival of Edward Van Sloan's Professor Van Helsing. Once he arrives he quickly takes center stage, pushing all the other characters to the side, especially the dull Harker, who spends the remainder of his time in the film whining when he’s not just being a non-entity. We’re also treated to some comic relief in the form of an orderly named Martin, who attends Renfield with compassionate, if condescending care, while commenting frequently on the bizarre goings-on in the picture and stealing every scene he’s in. Martin is a charmingly simple working class man who chalks the whole affair up to the eccentricities of the upper class, shrugging it all of as a lot of craziness he doesn’t have to deal with. He’s here to take the piss out of everyone and tell the audience that we all know how silly this is and to just go with it.

He’s the Han Solo of this movie

Eventually of course, the whole thing comes to a head as Van Helsing quickly uncovers Dracula’s nature upon meeting him, through clever trickery with a mirror, and, after the Count abducts Mina to become his bride, hunts him down with Harker in tow. The climax takes place in the ruined crypt of Carfax Abbey, where Dracula has fled just before sunrise. The final blow actually occurs off screen, with only a dull thud and faint groan to let us know that Van Helsing has slain the evil Count while Harker and Mina are reunited. They ascend the stairs into the light of dawn while Van Helsing stays behind to, apparently, clean up the evidence. And then the film abruptly stops. A common trait among the early Universal Horror features was that they didn’t end so much as just stop, cutting to black immediately after the action of the climax ends. The film is full of humor and theatrics that give it the feel of a stage performance, because in fact it mostly is one. The screenplay was adapted from the long-running stage version, which was perfect for the limited effects capabilities of the age, relying on character performances over spectacle. Even the film's star, Lugosi, took the role partly because of his experience with portraying the Count on stage. But this theatrical background also brings a light, conversational tone to the picture that makes for a strange pairing with the horror genre. The whole thing is very casual, with no sense of actual threat or danger. There are no genuine frights to be found in this film. But what Dracula lacks in terror it makes up for in atmosphere. It's the quaint, safe kind of spookiness that you get from visiting your local haunted house attraction for the season, full of rubber bats and spiders and other assorted silly props that serve a childlike joy more than genuine chills. And that's exactly what I love about it. It's not a scary movie, even among its contemporaries in the genre. Murnau’s Nosferatu of a decade earlier is far more frightening despite its technical limitations. But Dracula is a spooky movie, and a fun one. And that makes it perfect for Halloween.