They Shall Not Grow Old

You might be thinking “World War I?  I don’t really care about that.  It’s no WWII buddy.”  First of all WWI was a catastrophic event that impacted hundreds of millions of lives and has been criminally overlooked as a pivotal part of modern history.  Yea, WWII was fuckin’ nuts but “the war to end all wars” is unbelievably fascinating.

Second, this doc is different.  It’s made by Peter Jackson of Lord of the Rings and King Kong 2005 fame.  He’s a serious WWI buff who has a huge collection of memorabilia like military outfits, weapons and period magazines (all of which were used as research materials).  When he was given the chance to put together this film he jumped at it.  He wasn’t given any kind of parameters as to what should be included or what type of movie to make at all.  Jackson spent a full year just sorting through the hundreds and hundreds of hours of film and audio.

And after hearing interviews of British vets done in the 50’s and 60’s it became evident that they should be telling the story.  So the entire narrative is made up of clips of first hand accounts of real soldiers that were there.  Their memories and stories are a treasure trove of insight.  We start with how some heard about the war being declared and how a helluva lot of them were underage when they signed up but lied and got in anyway.  Then we learn what training camp was like with drill instructors barking at you and hiking for dozens of miles on end.  Finally we move to the western front in France where the bulk of the picture is spent.  The soldiers’ accounts range from dispiriting, to humorous, to disgusting, to cordial to absolutely fucking terrifying.  Trench life, battle and all the dreary hours and days in between are recounted in stunning detail.

To go along with the unique narration Jackson meticulously restored footage from the war.  Scenes were brightened, darkened, jitteriness was removed, the speed of everything was adjusted to make it look like how it’s supposed to in real life instead of everyone scurrying around like wind up toys, and all of the western front footage was colorized and zoomed in slightly so it could be viewed in widescreen.  When you combine all these techniques the results are in-fuckin’-sane.  My jaw dropped to the point where I thought for a minute that Jackson shot modern day recreations.  But I soon realized no, I’m watching the actual shit from like 1914-1918.  Jackson did add sound effects to tie the whole thing together and that’s the final piece that puts it over the top.  It’s synced perfectly with the visuals so it truly is like you’re stepping back in time.  Amazing.

Jackson was a stickler for accuracy too.  For example there’s a part where a superior is reading a speech to his men and Jackson wanted audio to go with it.  So they found the boiler plate speech that was being circulated among the troops at the time, which regiment was in their specific shot, what part of Britain they were from and got someone from that region to recite the speech so the accent would be appropriate.  Jesus.

Holy shit guys I cannot recommend this enough.  Everything about this project is mind blowing.  Considering the age and generally poor condition all the footage was in Jackson and his team put together probably the most well restored pieces of film in existence.  Not only that but they had the brilliant idea of letting the soldiers involved in the war tell their stories themselves.  It’s incredibly compelling because this isn’t an overview of the entire war or even one major battle but instead the average (British) grunt’s tale.  It’s what they ate, how they dealt with boredom, what the living conditions were like, how they interacted with enemy soldiers and etc.  This indispensable minutiae paints a vivid and humanizing picture of The Great War.  This thing was comprised of people and this is what it was like day to day and how they coped.

You gotta see this.

Mish Mash 19 (Black Sunday, Firestarter, Psychomania, Green Room)

Black Sunday

Nicely done atmospheric picture about a young woman and her lover in the 1600’s who are accused of being witches.  A ceremony is attempted to destroy them but it’s unable to be completed leaving a window cracked.  Two hundred years later they’re accidentally woken up from their dormancy.  Now it’s revenge time.

There are some great visuals like the beautiful black and white photography, a ghostly horse drawn coach approaching in slow motion, a very convincing aging/de-aging effect on the witch’s face (Barbara Steele (Shivers)) and there’s an iron maiden type metal mask with spikes on the inside that’s smashed onto the witch’s face with a hammer causing blood to squirt out, ouch.

There’s a little confusion about what these creatures actually are though.  The narrator calls them vampires but everyone else says witches.  They exhibit qualities of both so I guess they’re sort of hybrids.

Anyway, this is a good one to check out.

Firestarter

First and foremost I would not classify this as a horror movie but I’m including it here because I saw it this season and I don’t want you to be thrown like I was.

This is a sci-fi film about a nine year old girl (Drew Barrymore (Batman Forever)) who can start fires with her mind and her father (David Keith (Men of Honor)) who can influence people with his mind.  They’re on the run from deep state government agents who want to capture them and weaponize their powers.  I mean Drew can fire start so hard it causes steel to buckle and concrete to explode so I can see why this might be a security threat.  The government folks are without a doubt the bad guys here but they have good reason to be concerned.  I’m just sayin’.

The strongest aspect is the casting.  David Keith and Drew Barrymore are very good together.  They seem totally believable and natural as father and daughter. 

And while I always enjoy Martin Sheen (Wall Street) the other stand out is George C. Scott (The Exorcist III) as John Rainbird.  He’s a ponytail sportin’, eye patch wearin’, evil as all fuck sonuvabitch.  The main reason he takes the assignment to capture Drew is so he can covertly befriend and eventually molest her.  Yea, he’s a straight up pedophile.  Scott is mesmerizing as he switches back and forth from a cold blooded mercenary in front of Sheen to a vulnerable, and even likeable, undercover janitor in the presence of Drew.  I don’t know how many people could’ve pulled off both sides of this performance so convincingly.

And the ending is completely off the wall.  I won’t spoil it but I will tell you the director was Mark L. Lester who did Commando right after this.  The endings to both are ridiculously similar and awesome.

This one runs a gamut of emotions and I guess I kinda liked it overall.  I’d say that ending is worth the journey.  See it!

Psychomania

The leader of a real groovy British biker gang (Nicky Henson (Syriana)) called The Living Dead commits suicide and comes back to life with the power of invincibility.  In order for this to work you have to really wanna die.  There’s no cheating death.  If you hesitate or don’t mean it you’ll stay dead.

Once this guy tears out of his grave on his motorcycle at full speed (cool idea by the way) he encourages his fellow gang members to do as he did.  When they’re reassembled they kill some folks but mainly they just putz around like they did when they were alive.  They play traffic games with cars and generally annoy people.  Seems like a waste of invincibility but, whatever.

The plot is pretty morbid and I wonder if it led to anyone attempting this self-destructive ritual in real life hoping they would return from the dead with special abilities.  I sure hope not.  To be clear though I’m not holding the filmmakers responsible for other people’s actions.

This isn’t a very good movie.  The concept isn’t that fun I think because it stems from such a dark place.  The cast of characters is silly too with names like Chopped Meat, Gash and Hatchet and they have cartoonishly oversized goggles attached to their bike helmets and the girlfriend of the leader is such a goody two shoes who doesn’t fit in with what’s supposed to be a Clockwork Orange level outfit.

The whole piece is fairly lame with a faint rallying cry for suicide.  That’s an odd and disheartening combo.

Excellent title though.  It also goes by The Death Wheelers which isn’t bad but I definitely prefer Psychomania.

Green Room

Late to the party here but sure, I get why people were making a big deal out of this little movie a few years ago.  It has a nice setup of a punk band playing a neo-Nazi show in the sticks (not their idea but through a certain set of circumstances they reluctantly take the gig) and they accidentally witness the aftermath of a murder.  Now they’re held hostage until the situation is dealt with.

It’s all good.  Good acting, good tension, good pacing, well composed shots, etc.  I especially like how the main villain, Darcy (Patrick Stewart (Lifeforce)), is a fast thinker who makes quick decisions like he’s had to clean up similar messes many times before.  It’s a neat contrast to the inexperienced (in every way) band members who are trapped in the green room.  Their options are practically zero which extremely restricts their decision making and actions.

Darcy throws everything he can at the issue underestimating the ingenuity and fighting spirit of the young kids.  But there’s a point later on that shows the door to the green room can be broken down fairly easily.  So the incident could’ve been resolved much earlier but I’m glad it wasn’t ‘cause then we wouldn’t have this cool thriller.

And that’s how I would categorize it.  There are some gruesome deaths and a bit of gore but ultimately this isn’t a horror picture.  Neo-Nazis are scary in real life though and this is probably the only group you could do this kind of movie with.  You would have to drastically change the setup if you swapped out a different set of extremists.  This is also more clever than having the bad guys simply be a bunch of backwoods psychos.

If you’re looking for a taut picture that keeps you on your toes you’ve found one.

Harefooted Halloween: 3 from Hell

What I Liked: Rob Zombie still knows how to please the eye.  From the hellhole prison where Baby Firefly is kept to the luchador gangsters who wear white on black suits, the movie’s packed to the brim with the type of stylistic flourishes Zombie is known for.

Unfortunately Sid Haig was sick at the time of filming and was only able to make a cameo as Captain Spaulding, but his replacement is pretty good.  Winslow Foxworth Coltrane (Richard Brake (31)) is the half brother of Otis (Bill Moseley (Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out!)) and more on the reserved side.  At first I wasn’t totally on board with this character because he seemed too laid back and maybe wasn’t crazy enough for this bunch.  After spending some time with him though you see he’s just as tough and up for as much mayhem as the rest contributing his fair share of destruction.  I also realized that this relatively calmer character who doesn’t raise his voice much or get too excited is a good contrast to the bombastic Otis and the live action cartoon character Baby.  Brake does wonderfully in the role and is a nice addition to the fold.

Sheri Moon Zombie (Lords of Salem) goes all in on Baby’s eccentricity.  There are maybe two or three lines in the whole thing that she delivers straight without some weird inflection or delivery.  While this is guaranteed to annoy some people I appreciate the performance.  It makes sense with the character because she probably wouldn’t have received proper care for her mental health in prison, especially in the 80’s when the film is set.  So her condition would’ve continued to deteriorate over time with her drifting deeper into madness.

What I Didn’t Like: The biggest problem with the picture is that the story is extremely thin.  Otis gets broken out of jail by Winslow and then they break Baby out and then…?  When they get to this point even Otis admits he has no idea what to do next.  They decide to duck into Mexico for a while but that’s out of boredom more than anything else.

The action sequences are edited poorly most of the time.  They have a mid-2000’s vibe where you can’t follow what’s going on due to too many closeups and a million cuts.

Overall Impressions: I don’t really get the point of this movie honestly.  Zombie already did The Devil’s Rejects so I don’t know why he felt he had to do the same thing again fourteen years later.  I understand that it’s a chance to make a film with all his friends once more but they should’ve went for something less identical.

There’s an effort being made in the execution though.  Aside from the aimless script, where Zombie’s ordinarily charming dialogue doesn’t pop quite enough, it doesn’t feel phoned in.  The showdown finale in particular where it turns into a western is handled well.

It’s just a shame that this third installment is a bit tired and doesn’t go in a different direction like the first sequel to House of 1,000 Corpses.  The Devil’s Rejects still feels fresh and you can really sense this young hungry filmmaker chomping at the bit to blow you away with some kick ass shit.

Look, this isn’t terrible it’s just disappointing.  But I have a feeling I’ll like it more as time goes on.