Oprah Movie Club Selection for May: House (Hausu)

1977 Japanese coming-of-age story

Rating: 16/20 (Mark: 16/20)

Plot: Gorgeous isn't too happy about her father remarrying following the death of her mother. She writes a letter to her mom's sister and invites herself and some friends over to her house (the titular house) for the summer. On the way [Spoiler Alert!] they purchase a watermelon. Soon after their arrival, one of the girls disappears. More and more bizarre and possibly supernatural things start happening to the girls. A suspicious kitty lingers.

Some Hausu trivia: The Japanese studio Toho asked director Nobuhiko Obayashi to make a film like Jaws. As George W. Bush would say--"Mission accomplished!"

The second half of this film is likely exactly what Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel had in mind when they invented movies way back in 1929. It starts off like an after-school special though, albeit an artsy-fartsy after-school special directed by a guy who really wants to be an Artist with a capital A and isn't shy about using every stylistic trick in his bulging back of tricks. Before the manic free-for-all Evil Dead-like horror/comedy that everybody who watches this movie will remember (the part with homophagous pianos, demented kitties, killer chandeliers, disembodied heads, dancing skeletons, mouthy eye sockets, menstruation symbolism, inexplicable bananas, aunts retreating into refrigerators, etc.), you get a gaggingly-colored "dull" melodramatic coming-of-age story, but even with that, there's a sense of foreboding and enough wackiness that you know, even if you weren't warned beforehand, that somebody would be eaten by a piano later in the movie. The dvd special features told us that Obayashi started with commercials, and with Hausu, it seems like he wanted to regurgitate every single stylistic trick he'd learned, presumably because that's what American Steven Spielberg does. It reminds me of when I took Vernon to Palestine, Illinois, for their Labor Day weekend rodeo events and we decided to raid the cabinets and refrigerator and dump every ingredient we could find into a cup so that we could dare each other to drink it, probably because that's what we imagined our hero Steven Spielberg did during his spare time. We drank it, and it was disgusting. A majority of people partaking in Hausu might also think it's disgusting, mostly because the images, although the aforementioned tricks used to create those images are familiar, aren't anything the typical viewer is used to. This is weird even by Japanese standards, and you never have any idea what to expect next. I mean both of those as compliments, by the way.

I'm still wrapping my head around what it all means. You've got some pretty obvious symbolism throughout (ripe watermelons, blood, bananas [I guess?]), and the horror, even though it's too comically over-the-top to actually be horrifying, seems to represent the horrors in a young girl's life as she has to deal with changes. My theory: The girls (intellectual Prof, creative Melody, athletic Kung-Fu, hedonistic Mac, sweet Sweet, imaginative Fantasy, and pretty Gorgeous herself) are all chunks of the same young girl, a young girl who discards of various aspects of her personality as she blossoms into womanhood. So what do you think, Oprah Movie Clubbers?

My prediction, by the way: This will be a bit more devisive than Do the Right Thing.

The Book of Eli

2010 post-apocalyptic Bible lesson

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Eli's got a special book and a gun and a sword thing. He's been traveling a post-apocalyptic wasteland for a long time, goin' out west where the wind blows tall and Tony Franciosa used to date Tom Waits' mother. In fact, he's been heading west for thirty years, fighting off people who are trying to either steal his book or eat him or a little of both. A man named Carnegie, not played by David Carradine, witnesses Eli beating down some suckas and tries to get him to join his posse. He even sends the daughter of the blind girl he's currently banging to seduce him and convince him to stay. Eli ain't having none of that and stays focused on his mission to get his special book into the proper hands.

Denzel's never been cooler, and Gary Oldman's never been slimier. I like post-apocalypse movies anyway, this one a modernized take on the Mad Maxes if you replace gasoline with ideas. This one delivers some nifty, if not too reminiscent of other computer-aided action sequences from contemporary ultra-stylish action flicks, punch-'em-out scenes and shoot-'em-ups. One at a farmhouse, a house that like everything else in the movie is surrounded by enough shades of gray to make this almost a black and white movie, features a long shot where the camera drifts back and forth between the opponents. It's very stylish, very cool, and almost poetic. This also delivers visually. Things are digitally altered enough to make this more Sin City than the aforementioned Mad Max, but it's a look that gives the movie a uniqueness and creates some memorable set pieces. It's the kind of thing where you know the characters are probably spending a lot of time in front of a screen, but you don't really care because it all looks so cool. The story's so simple that there might as well not even be one, but it almost works like a tricky little fable about knowledge and the powers and evils that it can bring. And Tom Waits has a role, a character he nails like he always does, making you wish that he was in there a little bit more. Cool little flick, likely destined for the cult classic shelf more than anything. I do wonder how Christians could misinterpret this one though. After a single viewing, I'm not sure I'm confident in my own interpretation.

Tom Waits note: I read on a mailing list about Jackie "The Jokeman" Martling telling Howard Stern that he was taking acting classes with Tom Waits. I'm not sure if that means Waits was teaching a class or a fellow student of Martling. If it was just The Jokeman's idea of a joke.

Cannibal Holocaust

1980 first "found footage" film

Rating: 14/20

Plot: A quartet of cocky and shady documentarians travel to the jungles of South America to film some of the inhabitants. They never return. An anthropologist is sent to get the help of a guide and find out what happened to the kids. He finds their skulls and procures some film footage containing their last moments as something other than food. After he returns to the States, network executives, convinced that showing the footage to the masses is a good idea, watch the film with the anthropologist.

Give credit (or blame?) this for the Blair Witches and Paranormal Activities of the world. And being a sort of prototype, and a low budget one at that, it's understandably imperfect, a little rough around the edges, and uneven. The found footage stuff is really a film within the film, and the outer layer is just ho-hum traditional stuff. Knowing that the found footage stuff was coming up, I couldn't stop wondering who the heck was filming the anthropologist during his journey. The found footage stuff is as gruesome as violence and horror gets in film, for better and for worse. So realistic were the scenes of death, rape, and titular cannibalism, in fact, that director Ruggero Deodato was arrested and had to show a court how a scene featuring impaling was pulled off because people actually suspected the actors and actresses were murdered. I'm not sure the scenes are that realistic, but they are brutal and realistic enough to put this firmly in the not-for-the-squeamish category. Ironically, a film-within-the-film-that-is-within-the-film (sort of) does show actual firing squad execution footage, but guess that real violence is copacetic. The most visually disturbing or cringe-worthy scene in the entire movie doesn't feature human violence at all, by the way. No, the death and subsequent devouring of a poor turtle is, and I doubt I watch something more difficult in a long, long time. I did always secretly wonder what the inside parts of a turtle looked like though. I'm not sure Deodata is trying to say anything about the media or filmmakers treatment of third world peoples or trying to expose some of society's ills or if he's just going for the shock. I suspect it's the latter, and a lot of people would find this movie to be nothing more than a repulsive, exploitative piece of trash. I can understand that view; in fact, I wonder why so much of the violence shown had to be sexual and could have done without some really unnecessary nudity. I can't say I enjoyed all of Cannibal Holocaust, but you have to give this Italian movie some credit for ingenuity and accidentally inventing a sub-genre at the same time.

If you've got the balls, take the Cannibal Holocaust challenge. I was able to watch even the most gruesome bits of this movie while eating a noodle salad, a mango, and sunflower seeds. What can you eat while watching Cannibal Holocaust?

Awakening of the Beast

1970 didactic drug movie

Rating: 20/20 (See: Coffin Joe Movies Get a 20 or He'll Eat Your Face Off Rule)

Plot: Psychologists test the effects of hallucinogenics by monitoring volunteers. Coffin Joe invades their lobes and chaos ensues.

What I learned from this movie because Coffin Joe taught it to me and if I even suggest that he's wrong, I'll end up having my face eaten off: Coffin Joe's world is strange and made up of strange people, but none are more strange than me. That's how he introduced this delightfully messy movie.

I promise this is the last Coffin Joe movie I'll review because I don't know where I'm going to find any more of them. This is the one that halted his career, banned for twenty years, probably because it's perverted and subversive. Also known as Ritual of the Maniacs (I would have guessed Ritual of the Sadists from both the content and the Portuguese on the gruesome poster above), this is sort of like a Brazilian Reefer Madness as directed by somebody really evil. It's almost like a collection of cinematic short stories, each one a sort of cautionary tale about what might happen if you take LSD. In the opener, some creepy men picture a gal naked while a little record player plays a song about war. Then the girl starts stripping and they all watch before unwrapping a chamber pot. They all laugh, and the record reaches its scratchy conclusion.

In the next scene, a pretty girl is taken to an apartment. There's a guy suspended from the ceiling, a guy playing drums (not quite as manic as the piano guy in Reefer Madness), a guitarist lying on the floor, some guys who burst into song. She sees a guy smoking something; another guy starts stripping. Everybody starts snapping at her like they're all beatniks or extras in West Side Story before somebody asks, "Dig it, baby?" She craws through a window and stands with her legs apart on a table while the men take turns putting their heads up her skirt. They circle around her while holding up a finger and first chanting but later whistling "Colonel Bogey March" from Bridge on the River Kwai. They take turns, well, poking her before Jesus walks in and violates her with a long staff. That's what drugs can do to you, kids.

The third scene is much simpler--a guy watches three women remove their brassieres. He smells them, of course. They bend over and he kicks them.

One fantastic mini-story involves a well-to-do woman setting it up so that her black butler and her daughter (I think) get it on. She watches from a hiding spot while snorting cocaine and fiercely petting a pony.

And there's a scene I'm surprised isn't really famous, one that involves the washing of undergarments and a guy with an absurdly bulbous phallic jug.

A lot of the more gruesome scenes near the end, the ones that involve sadism and cannibalism and Marins' Boschian idea of Hell, are a lot of the more memorable scenes in the incoherent compilation Hallucinations of a Deranged Mind. One would guess that they'd make more sense in context, but they really don't. And that's the beauty of Marins and this misogynist acid trip or filthy nightmare or whatever you want to call it. Did I dig it, baby? Yes, I did, Coffin Joe! Yes, I did.

Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter

2001 religious kung-fu musical horror comedy

Rating: 12/20

Plot: I haven't read it, but I think this might be based on John's the Book of Revelation.

Yes, that's Santo on the cover, side-by-side with Jesus and ready to fight lesbian vampires. And in the middle is Mary Magnum in that tight little red leather number. Fetching. Making Jesus an action hero is dangerous business, especially since a lot of religious folk don't have much of a sense of humor. But I'm not sure Christians would be too appalled with the character Himself since I don't think He does anything Jesus wouldn't have done like Scorsese had Him doing in The Last Temptation of Christ. Unless bad puns are offensive. In fact, even though the title hero is your typical overblown action hero, he is the hero. He fights evil, and he quotes scripture. What's likely more blasphemous is the use of Santo. El Santo in Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter can't wrestle and is portly. When watching this movie, your first thought (other than "This is blasphemous!") would probably be, "I think this might have been made on the cheap." And you'd be right. Your third thought would probably be, "This was made in 2001? No way! It's got to be from the 70s!" But there's a charm to the proceedings, and the script, littered with (intentionally?) bad punnage and silly action hero banter, is funny enough. I found myself laughing more than I really wanted to. For whatever reason, hearing Jesus deliver the line "I'll need to buy some wood. . .for stakes!" was hilarious. I also thought the spinning crucifix used as a Batman-esque transition between scenes was clever. I also liked a scene where about three hundred baddies get out of an SUV. Not all the comedy worked though, evidenced by a scene where Jesus has a conversation with a bowl of cherries. The bowl of cherries actually tells him to find El Santo. I can't decide if seeing Jesus and a priest hanging out at a Hooters-type restaurant is funny or not. There's a lot of kung-fu in this movie, and it won't exactly make you think of Bruce Lee. The fight scenes often seemed endless, and if the guy who played Jesus (Phil Caracas [Wait a second! Isn't the guy who plays Jesus in the Mel Gibson movie named Caracas?]) had any martial arts training, they wasted their obviously limited funds on it. There is a scene where a character uses intestines as a weapon though. I should have started making a list of those movies a long time ago. This is also a musical, and although the songs were only slightly more tolerable than Repo: The Genetic Opera's numbers, there at least was some eclecticism. You had punk, techno-robot-lounge, keyboard blipping, 80s feel-good movie rock, Mexicali funk, cheesy lounge, neo-funk with vocoder, dance music, retarded jazz, and my personal favorite--a really creepy song where somebody whispered the books of the New Testament with cymbal accompaniment. The performers were likely friends of the director, some of them, I think, appearing as more than one character, but three of them were real stand-outs. Josh Grace was deliriously over-the-top as Dr. Praetorious. I checked his resume, and he's been in a few of JCVH director's Lee Demarbre's movies including one where Demarbre includes another Mexican movie legend--The Aztec Mummy. I can't find the name of a screaming woman, but it was one of the best screams I've heard in a long time. But the very best part of the movie is the introduction and musical performance of Blind Jimmy Leper played by an actor named "Lucky Ron" who had about as many teeth as Shane McGowen. He does this scatting number which could probably prove the existence of God to even the most diehard of atheists. Jesus jumped on the stage and did his own scatting, but he couldn't beat the work of Blind Jimmy Leper. And when you're Lucky Ron and can prove in your lone movie that you can out-scat Christ Himself, you don't have to do anything else as a performer to win a lifetime achievement award on shane-movies.

Note: I've heard that there's an Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter movie being made. Joaquin Phoenix is attached to that project. I guess his career is doing just fine!

Night of the Living Dead

1968 zombie movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A Christmas celebration has never gone so horribly wrong as a lot of uninvited guests, including a black man, crash the party. When the food runs out, the black man starts a riot, breaking furniture and setting the guests on fire. Eventually, cannibalism ensues, and the riot squad is summoned to break things up. This upsets the left wing, and Al Sharpton raises a big stink. Somebody give these people some Little Debbie Zebra Cakes or something!

There's nothing I dig more in movies than no-budget style. This is far from perfect storytelling, but the imagery, from its radical camera angles to haunting lighting and bleakly grainy black and white settings, manages to shock over thirty years after its release. The film's style lends a realism that makes this an uneasy experience, even when you're sitting next to a Christmas tree or are wearing Bedazzlered pants while holding a popsicle. There's a tiny bit of dragging in the middle, but for the most part, this is an evenly paced and completely engaging. A lot of the soundtrack, by the way, is the same music used in Teenagers from Outer Space, a movie that probably isn't as influential but nonetheless entertaining.

The Incredible Melting Man

1977 50's B-movie

Rating: 6/20

Plot: Astronaut Steve West is the only member of his crew to survive a mission to Saturn. Apparently, the sun's rays passing through the rings of Saturn is hazardous to astronauts. Steve wakes up covered in bandages in a hospital, and when he removes them, he discovers that he's melting, like a mound of M&M's or a giant raisin in the sun. Upset that he now could easily win first prize in a fecal matter costume contest, he's filled with rage and a hunger for human flesh. A gelatinous hulk, he chases nurses, decapitates a fisherman, and snacks on the elderly. Somebody needs to stop him; unfortunately, he gets stronger as he melts! Oh, snap!

Rich Baker's special effects succeed in making the titular man into an incredible goopy and disgusting mass of sewage. He's gross, and unlike a lot of very similar movies, you get to see lots of him from beginning to end. And parts of him. I like when his friend, during a search for him, stumbles across what looks to be some foliage that somebody vomited on and says, "Oh, my God. It's Steve's ear." There's not a lot of scary here; there's hardly a story actually. It's fun enough though. I mean, it's almost impossible not to love a scene where a fisherman's head floats down a stream indefinitely. Or a scene with a nurse catching a glimpse of the melting man, screaming, and running indefinitely down a gigantic hallway in slow motion before crashing through a glass door even though there was nothing to suggest the melting man was even pursuing her. But he climbs through the same door seconds later anyway. Or how about the classic line--"He more he melts the stronger he gets!" What? I'm not a scientist or anything, but I'm fairly positive that makes no sense. The soundtrack was interesting enough, ranging from noises that sound like a three year old dicking around with a synthesizer to something that sounds like futuristic hoe-down music. For whatever reason, it makes me happy that this movie was released in 1977. Like swimming, you shouldn't watch this movie after eating. Or before eating. Or while eating.

Jonathan Demme is in this movie.

Dead Man

1995 metaphysical Western masterpiece

Rating: 18/20

Plot: William Blake arrives via Crispin Glover-driven train to the Wild West town of Machine where he's been promised a job as an accountant. He's too late, and the job's been given to somebody else. His life is threatened. He meets a woman, and because he looks just like Johnny Depp, she sleeps with him. Unfortunately, her fiance strolls in after the deed is done and shoots them both. Blake kills the man, steals a horse, and flees into the wilderness. An Indian named Nobody, thinking he's the reincarnation of English Romantic poet William Blake, guides him on his journey as a trio of bounty hunters--the vile Cole Wilson, the verbose Conway Twill, and young Johnny "The Kid" Pickett--sent by his victim's father track him down.

On certain days, usually Thursdays when the sun's hitting me just right and I've added just the right amount of sugar to my tea, my answer to the question "What is your favorite Western featuring Iggy Pop wearing a dress?" would probably be this peyote-induced nightmare of a travelogue, Dead Man. Man, does Jim Jarmusch know how to start a movie or does Jim Jarmusch know how to start a movie? Following a quote about how it's preferable to not travel with a dead man, you get the incoherent ramblings of Crispin Glover and the senseless shooting of buffalo from a train. Then, Depp's character enters Machine. William Blake walks the dusty street, passes a coffin shop a la Hang 'Em High, a bunch of animal skulls fastened to a wall, a wagon filled with antlers, a urinating horse, a grunting hog in the middle of the road, Butthole Surfer Gibby Haynes on the receiving end of a blow job, and a creepy-looking fellow with troll ears and a troll nose, all with Neil Young's plaintive guitar. They're visuals that let you know what's what in Machine, reminiscent of one of my favorite film images--Kurosawa's dog with a human hand in its mouth at the beginning of Yojimbo. The tone is set, and then you get a ceaselessly surprising man-on-the-run Western with more great Neil Young, lovely shots of great American Western landscapes shot in crisp black and white, an odd assortment of characters and cameos, faux-philosophies, and the best comedy this side of Dante's Inferno. This might be the funniest movie I've seen all year, and it's definitely the funniest Western ever made. Sorry, Mel Brooks. At the center of that is William Farmer's Nobody, the embodiment of a stereotype, spouting Native American-ish riddles and non sequiturs. My favorite scene might be where Nobody tries on William Blake's hat. No, my favorite scene is probably where Nobody and Blake are watching three mysterious men, one being Iggy Pop as "Sally" and another being Billy Bob Thornton, and barely being able to hear snippets of Iggy's retelling of the "Three Little Bears" story. Or maybe my favorite scenes are the ones with Robert Mitchum. No, wait, Crispin Glover's in the movie, so my favorite scene probably has him in it. Or maybe they're all my favorite scenes. It's definitely unique, a riddle of a film that grows every time you watch it and one of those movies you almost want to watch again as soon as it's over. It might be an acquired taste. It's dreamy Johnny Depp as a straight man in an askew Wild West philosophical comedy, mysteriously poetic and absurdly fascinating, and if you've got a high tolerance for the offbeat, this just might be your cup of poisoned tea.

Now, do you have any tobacco?

Forbidden Zone

1982 musical

Rating: 24/20 (Anonymous: 16/20) [Rating Note: I told Anonymous after watching this that I was going to rate it eight points higher than he did. Hence, the 24/20.]

Plot: The Hercules family lives just a large intestine above the Sixth Dimension, a mysteriously goofy land ruled by King Fausto, a little fellow, and his wife Queen Doris. Inevitably, one of the family members, in this case Frenchy, finds her way into the Sixth Dimension and has to be rescued by her family and friends.

"Hot damn! The Sixth Dimension!"

Ever want to hear the little guy from Fantasy Island say, "I love to feel your nipples harden when I caress them with my fingertips"? Yes? Well, this is your movie then, mo-fo! And that's not all. With Forbidden Zone, you get a guy in a gorilla suit, an evil half-man/half-frog creature, Danny Elfman playing the devil, lots of topless women, an old guy in boxers (boxers always threatening to unflap and give a little too much information, if you know what I mean) who humps everything he encounters, a human chandelier, racial stereotyping (the first character you see is in black face), bald beatboxers in jock-straps, askew jazz numbers, and Herve Villechaize. It's hard to believe that a film this weird can sustain momentum. A lot of weirdo flicks run out of gas and get stale, but not Forbidden Zone. This starts weird, gets weirder, continues to hit you with left turn after left turn, calls you a jackass right to your face, and then ends weird. And the whole time, blood's just rushing to your balls, and you're slapping the couch with your palm or accidentally (and unknowingly) fondling your own brother. This makes Rocky Horror seem like white bread by comparison. This is what Pee Wee Herman dreams about when not molesting himself inside an extra large container of buttered popcorn. This is David Lynch, John Waters, Tim Burton, and Terry Gillium deciding to travel back in time to the 1930s to make cartoons together after having a surgery performed in which they're attached at the lobes but then killing each other in a dispute over whether or not the frog should have a sex scene and the film being completed in their absence by the second coming of Christ. This is the type of music that people form religions after watching. The music is pretty incredible--an eclectic mishmash that is part-Residents, part-jazz, part-cabaret, part-cartoon-sound-effects. The entire movie is director Richard Elfman (Danny's brother) trying to create The Mystic Knights of Oingo Boingo's stage show on the big screen. I didn't expect much, not being a fan of Oingo Boingo, but color me impressed. Fans of Danny Elfman's soundtrack work should seek this out as it's a lot of fun to see where he started. Any filmmaker watching this in '82 (Tim Burton maybe) would have no doubt been impressed with Elfman's potential, and it was fun for me to hear traces of Nightmare in a few of the songs. I was also impressed with the mix of animation and live action which, along with the black and white and the woman who played Frenchy's stage design, makes this unlike anything I've seen. This low-budget affair is far from cinematic perfection, but it's such an obvious labor of love, such an explosion of creativity, and such an oddball visual feast, that it's easy to forget the imperfections.

Forbidden Zone admittedly isn't for everybody. But I'm not going to like people who don't like it. Hot damn!

Tyson

2008 documentary

Rating: 14/20

Plot: A grown man with a tattooed face makes excuses for his transgressions. Then, he becomes a cannibal.

Iron Mike is a fascinatingly complex dude. He's a heavily flawed fellow, and here he's telling his own story in a heavily flawed way, complete with what you have to assume are misrememberings and perplexing answers to questions you may not have even asked. A lot of the episodes in his troubled life, or more accurately his description of these moments, are entertaining. And for the most part, it seems completely candid, although with the amount of things that have been in this guy's system combined with the amount of times this guy's been hit in the head, you do wonder if he's the most reliable person to tell his own story. The most interesting thing to me about this is that he knows he's a heavily flawed fellow, and although he does try to excuse his bad behavior, it's not really in a despicable way. My biggest problem with the documentary was its heavy-handed documentary style. I could have done without the overlapping interview snippets or the split screen. One Mike Tyson is enough for me, thank you very much. I don't need to see two or three at the same time. Unless they're dancing. That would have been pretty awesome. This subject matter could have been handled in lots of different ways. Hearing it directly from the horse's ass's mouth makes for an interesting experience, and there's more than enough archival footage to fill in the gaps.

A Larst recommendation.