Hey folks, Harry here... Now before I turn ya over to Massawyrm, I have to say I very rarely agree with him on what he likes over this or that... and of everyone that writes on the site, I disagree with him most. For example I just saw HEARTS OF ATLANTIS and enjoyed the hell out of it, he knocked it quite a bit. Here he chooses DONNIE DARKO over THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE and WAKING LIFE, which is insane to me... Now don't get me wrong... I like DONNIE DARKO, but THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE is a perfect film that is more powerful even upon second viewing. WAKING LIFE is a dream, and when was the last time a film felt like a dream for you. DONNIE DARKO plays like a Stephen King adaptation of a story he never wrote. Having said that, it is a good adaptation, but the emotional resonance of the ending wasn't as assured as it needed to be & the current edit of the film has major flaws in terms of logic flows due to editted out material... HOWEVER, I highly recommend the film, even with these minor problems... Now, here's Massa... who has brain cancer from time to time... Having said that, he's a helluva nice guy...
Hola all. Everyone's favorite Chain-smoking, Dr. Pepper swilling, indie schilling Christ clone gone awry here with a look at three major indies coming your way in at least limited release. I managed to see all three, one night after another and finally now have the time to sit with you, chat and share my impressions of these very different films. They are, of course, the much talked about films Donnie Darko, The Devil's Backbone and Waking Life.
Of the three, my personal favorite was Donnie Darko. It is the one film in the bunch I know I will watch at least a dozen more times. Simply put, it is a beautifully surreal dark fantasy by way of "American Beauty" on acid. It is the anti-Capra; "It's a Wonderful Life" turned on it's ear mixed with the torments of a sinister "Harvey", magnificently displaying dysfunction in new and imaginative ways. There are moments of dark hilarity evenly placed amongst visceral disquiet, weaving together one of the most riveting and debatable pieces of cinema to grace the screens in recent years.
Now I haven't read the screenplay, as many of my comrades have, so I have no idea what this film "should have been" from the page. I went into this cold, knowing only the slimmest of details, so what I saw came as a complete surprise. And it blew my ass out of the seat. I literally fell in love with this film. Every beat struck perfect with me, every idea developed into something splendid in my minds eye. I just couldn't get enough of this film.
Donnie Darko is the tale of a disturbed teenager coming to grips with what may or may not be insanity. And when all is said and done, they never quite spell out exactly what has transpired; and yet, at the same time, they do. Only the ending is different for everybody. I spoke with half a dozen different people after the showing and got half a dozen different decidedly concrete explanations of the film. The only point anyone could agree on was that it could easily be interrupted other ways than their own, except that their way was most assuredly the right one. I myself have my own ideas, but I'll leave it to you to come up with your own. Remember those ads for "The Minus Man" that said to be prepared to talk about this film afterwards? Well, this is the film you actually will have to talk about afterwards. Love it or hate it, you will find it nigh impossible to escape seeing this film without trying to discuss it with somebody. Anybody. The lobby clerk if you have to. The urge of working this films puzzles out is just too strong to resist.
The performances in this are just fantastic, from every little seemingly insignificant character actor all the way on up to the principles. The humor is morbid and yet still piss your pants funny, while the dark moments are creepy and intriguing as hell; and never do the two mix improperly. Think a Charlie Kaufman script directed by Terry Gilliam and you have an idea of what this film comes out to being.
Please God, let this film get wide distribution. Everyone must see this. It must have an impressive DVD so I can watch it again and again here in the Casa De La Wyrm. It must get out so it can disturb the masses. Do not miss this film.
THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE
Next up is Guillermo del Toro's ghost story masterpiece, "The Devil's Backbone", a gripping horror tale that proves to be everything "What Lies Beneath" should have been. It's a psychological narrative, set in Spain during the Spanish civil war, in an out of the way orphanage, juxtaposing the horrors of man with the horrors of the beyond in a way no one's done since the original "Night of the Living Dead".
This is the first horror film I've seen where digital effects actually add to the creepiness of the experience rather than taking you out of it, proving del Toro to be a master of the visual craft. He brings these terrifying images out of his skull and paints them so amazingly into the scenery that you just couldn't imagine it done any other way. A triumph in classic storytelling, this film builds at a nice, slow pace without ever resorting to cheap scares or horror clichés. It simply gets creepier and creepier until it builds into a perfect ending. Everything has come together; everything is as it should be.
This films only obstacle is that it is in Spanish and the way is only now being paved for foreign language films to open wide here in the states. It is a film I can't imagine any horror fan missing. It's just perfect, a prime example of what can happen when a great filmmaker like del Toro is trusted to his own vision and can escape the trappings forced convention. You cannot call yourself a horror buff and miss this. See it at your earliest opportunity. And take a date. They will grip your arm for the last half of the film.
WAKING LIFE
And then there's Richard Linklater's "Waking Life". Well, what can I say but that I was sorely disappointed by this film and that I have some very mixed feelings about it. Linklater is Hit or Miss with me. I simply love half of his films. And well, I strongly dislike the other half. "Dazed and Confused", "Before Sunrise", "The Newton Boys". All excellent films. Great stories told in wonderful ways. "Suburbia", "Slacker". Well, no.
You see, I've always had issues with "Slacker" in particular. It just meanders from character to character, giving us heavy doses of coffee shop dialog without ever actually going anywhere. And, well, that's the point. I just don't dig a film that never tries to go anywhere and doesn't. And "Waking Life" is simply put an animated "Slacker". It reminds me of the "Clerks" animated T.V. show. It's animated in a very 'Underground Comix' sort of style, but ultimately is an extension of the original. If you loved "Clerks" you loved "Clerks the Animated Series". Well, if you loved "Slacker" you'll love "Slacker the Animated Movie", aka Waking Life.
Linklater put it best in his Q&A after the showing "This is a really subjective film." Never has a filmmakers words about their project ever rung so true as those words did with me. You see, 'back in the day', I wasn't the indie schilling, pogo-sticking maniac you see before you. I was a college student working toward a degree in philosophy and spent my off time as a fixture in several different San Antonio coffee shops. I've spent untold hours over cigarettes and glasses of Dr. Pepper, debating philosophy with anyone who would talk with me about it. I wrote my first novel in a coffee shop.
I used to float from table to table, walking in on oral dissertations into the nature of being, espoused by black clad, beret wearing intellectuals (both pseudo and otherwise) usually trying to impress the strippers who worked at the club just down the road who came in for some late night breakfast after their shifts. Of course, I would usually try to cockblock them by attempting to shred their theories on self to pieces because well, lets face it, I'm an asshole. Always have been, always will be. But I left that world behind; moved to Austin and have tried desperately to avoid coffee houses like they were sheer plague.
But tonight I got the coffee shop experience all over again as I was led from place to place, put smack dab in the middle of those conversations I'd had all those years ago and found myself at times bored out of my skull. And yet this film had some scenes that were composed of sheer brilliance, coupled with the fact that the concept itself was ingenious. And the animation is fantastic; I mean they invented an entirely new form of animation utilizing new software that is even now only available to the animators who worked on the project. Still, the total lack of story bogs this down leaving the amazing moments spread out too far apart to really draw me in. There's no character development of our principle, played by Wiley Wiggins, to pull us in and neglect the lack of plot. Both "Dazed and Confused" and "Before Sunrise" suffer from a lack of strong plot, but the character's are so wonderfully developed that we don't care; we simply fall in love with their stories. Here we can't. We learn nothing of our one running character because he spends 95% of the movie listening to everyone else he meets, rather than sharing anything about himself.
What's left is just over an hour and a half of cleverly animated coffee talk.
Now I know some people just love this film, and many more will come to love it when they see it. For those who haven't had many deep discussions into existential thought or studied much philosophy, this movie will effect them like a quote from the cover of Robert Anton Wilson's "Reality is What you Can Get Away With" puts very clearly about it: "It's like swallowing a grenade laced with LSD. It will either expand your mind or blow it to bits." But for those that have, this might come across as pretentious posturing, much like the ravings of Timothy 'Speed' Levitch (who was the subject of the documentary "The Cruise" and is one of the characters in "Waking Life"). Or you may have heard or thought this all before (even the two bits borrowed from Bill Hicks rants) and love it none the less. Again, the best measuring stick is "Slacker". Your love for this will be no doubt be in relation to your love for it.
Well, that's all for me folks. There's a slew of good looking films coming my way this week, so until then...
Smoke 'em if ya got 'em, I know I will.
If you've got a film on par with these... send it on over...
