Do You Read Sutter Cain?

'In The Mouth of Madness' is a film by John Carpenter that has a special place in my heart, not because it was panned badly upon it's release (WHY?!) but because it shows Carpenter at his best when he has control of his project with minimal interference by high-faloutin' studios. It is not necessarily a scary movie (at least not to me), but it has a brilliant unsettling atmosphere to it, why, one could almost say this movie is what would have happened if Carpenter and H.P Lovecraft met...

Because it IS! :-D

In 2003, John Carpenter wrote a introduction to a comic book that told a fictional account of Lovecraft's life, saying- "Most people who have watched my movies will notice my recognition of [those footprints of Howard Phillips Lovecraft]. From Innsmouth references in 'The Fog', to the general premise of 'In The Mouth of Madness', I have used the tools of cinema to put my own spin on the Lovecraftian mythos." This being such an obvious statement aside, his sonnet to Lovecraft in this movie is certainly fit to be considered Lovecraftian because it does stay true to Lovecraft's unique brand of terror all the while keeping Carpenter in his horror element.

John Trent (Sam Neill) works for a book publishing firm (with none other than Charleton Heston as his manager in an inspired cameo), and when one of their most distinguished and popular clients, Sutter Cain, goes missing, complete with his manuscripts, Trent and a fellow collegue Styles, (Julie Carmen) track Cain's last known whereabouts to Hobb's End, a sleepy little town that does not show up on any map. Once there, they look for the elusive Cain, but find many other things in his stead, strange things... frightening things.

 Item A

Item B

I'm not going to say any more than that plot-wise, but trust me, this movie deserves a better reputation than what it already has. While fellow director Stuart Gordon is the go-to guy when it comes to modernizing Lovecraft for today's audiences, Carpenter's passion for the writer's work is evident. Some of you may be familiar with Carpenter's Apocalpyse Trilogy which involves 'The Thing', 'Prince of Darkness' and this film, all of which deal with the end of the human race due to means we cannot and perhaps wouldn't want to understand. In this case, the apocalypse is brought around by a work of fiction that is so powerful that it ends up turning the world and the people who live in it upside down. In this case, it is Cain's wild tales of monsters, dimensional travel and age-old cosmic beings that bring forth the twilight of humanity. A belief that I have is that all of Carpenter's films have some sly satirical edge (excluding the obvious context of 'They Live!'), in 'Madness's case, it is a commentary on religion and how fundamentalist mass belief can bring about destruction. When you consider a religious work such as The Bible, what is, at least from an academic point of view, a fairy tale book, despite it's fantastical tales, people out there believe this book to be the truth, or at least parts of it. The result of such a blind belief has been countless wars, unresolved disputes, double standards on top of countless other atrocities, all because of folks who take an idea and twist it to suit their means, never taking into consideration the needs of others. On a lesser (but still, in my opinion, destructive :P) scale, the 'Twilight' phenomenon has taken the world by storm, and there are girls (and older women) out there who want their very own Edward Cullen, on the real. How scary is that?!

Terrifying...

Waxing philosophical aside (and really, I could go on and on about the discrepencies about the interpretation of religion and faith), this is a fine horror film with likeable performances, trippy visual effects and a compelling narrative. You may not piss your pants and you may sleep just fine after you see it, but this is one of Carpenter's best films of the 90's that still rings loud and clear today. If you are a horror fan, do yourself a favour and see it. You will be rewarded. To those critics who panned this movie due to your narrow-mindedness and likewise sense of perspective, I ask you...

Do you read Sutter Cain? >:-D

History, Bloody History

                                                 

It is movies like these that makes me admire foreign cinema and not the glossed over American crap that has been bombarding the industry of late.

Picture this: 1572. France is on the brink of civil war, and as a seeming last-ditch attempt to reconcile the Catholic and Protestant populations, scheming Catherine de Medici forcibly marries her daughter off to Henri de Bourbon, however, she instrumentates the St. Bartholemew's Day massacre to eliminate France's Protestants with disasterous results. During the confrontation, Margot saves several Protestants along with her husband and the mysterious La Môle, a Protestant spy, and therefore her enemy, from death, only to fall in love with him. Amongst this, de Medici and her son Henry II start to unfurl a plot for Henry to take the throne with de Medici herself behind the curtain.

 

The reluctant bride

This film, for all of it's lavishness is extraordinarily brutal and it shows by Patrice Chéreau's skill as a director as well as from her cast and crew. During the pivotal Massacre and countless assassination attempts made on both Henri and La Môle, there is ample bloodshed amongst the tragedy and passion to satisfy the gore hounds (though if you are a gore hound and you are watching this movie, you may probably fall asleep half way through, which is your problem).
Gorgeous costumes, production and historically accurate sets made this film a true treat to watch, and then there is Isabelle Adjani as Margot and Vincent Perez as La Môle... God those two look gorgeous together! While they do not spend a lot of time together in the film, you can sense the fact that Margot pines for her lover and he likewise. People have criticized that there is zero chemistry between them, but look at it from this perspective; they met through chance in a turbulent era and had to be separated for a huge amount of time. On top of this, there are many layers to the characters- Margot would ordinarily be pidgeon-holed as virtuous and moral, but here, Adjani portrays her as blunt, impulsive, desperate, naive and promiscuous. First she dismisses Protestants as sub-human, the next she wants to save their lives. Perez is very much the smouldering romantic hero, but before meeting Margot, he considers her a whore and a selfish slave of fashion. God bless the French.



Comment vous faites bébé?

Now, on a more negative side, this cut of the film runs for 136-odd minutes. Not truly that long all said and done, but sometimes, it seemed as if the film was dragging it's boots in a couple of places. Mayhap it was a prolonged lead up to affairs, mayhap it was because of the fact I needed to pee a few times while watching the movie and had to stop the DVD. Also, some of the music cues seemed a little too modern amongst the mostly classical and sweeping score. Was this deliberate on the part of the composer? Because the rest of the score was very rich and relevant to the piece and it was slightly unusual to hear an underlying techno track to particularly dramatic sequences. I dunno, perhaps I am just being too picky.

Overall, 'La Reine Margot' is a visually and textually stunning film about how history at times simply be a mirror of our own modern barbarism when not an inspiration in the past. A solid continental cast involving a young Asia Argento (one of my grrrrrls) and the ever-comely Thomas Kretschmann in small but consequential roles assist in making this film a rewarding experience to watch.

Titties Galore!

So: here we have perhaps the most notorious case of the first big budget, adults only feature to hit cinemas of all time: Paul Verohoven's mastur-er-MASTERPIECE, Showgirls. For those of you who want to know the story, here it is: woman with a sordid past arrives in Vegas to 'make it', only to lose herself (wait, she had an identity) in a world of sleazy strip clubs, sex, drugs, glitz, glamour and VER-SAYCE!

I'm sorry, was this movie intended to be an erotic thriller/drama, because I completely didn't read it that way. What I saw was a blustery vulgar comedy of errors that just happened to have a lot of nudity, seizure-sex and colourful terms for genitalia. I'm not joking! I thought this was meant to be a screwball comedy. It has all of the typical stylings of one:
-One dimensional characters ie. the 'Good Girl', the 'Bad Girl', the Good Girl's Best Friend, the Douchebag, the Mother/Father figure of the Good Girl, etc...
-Laugh-inducing plot turns and 'twists'
-Potentially offensive racial stereotypes
-Despite all of the tribulations (and her best friend getting raped) the Good Girl has gone through, she makes it out in once piece and lives happily ever after.

                                                   Looka me, Mommy, I'm a STAR!

So imagine my surprise when I read Verhoven intended Showgirls to be a serious film that he wanted to titillate the audience.Verhoven, who has also been responsible for Robocop, Total Recall and The Black Book wanted to make a movie that would be talked about for years to follow- well, we can't argue with that, but it hasn't been spoken about in the way Verhoven was hoping. For example, how can one take a movie seriously when you have dialogue such as this running all the way through it?

http://www.joblo.com/video/player.php?video=SHOWGIRLS-Best-Lines

If this stuff wasn't an exercise in hilarity, it would be offensive. I mean, how many people do you know talk like this?

Next, this movie tries so hard to be sexy that it fails miserably:

http://www.joblo.com/video/player.php?video=SHOWGIRLS-Dance

I swear, that dance that Elizabeth Berkley does with that African American dude in the club looks more like an interpretive dance than ACTUAL dance.

http://www.joblo.com/video/player.php?video=SHOWGIRLS-Pool-Sex

Note, ladies and gentlemen: if your partner starts to act like this while doing the wild thing, chances are they are suffering a dreadful seizure and are in danger of swallowing their tongue, so rush them to the ER pronto!

I believe the only actor who truly knows what sort of movie they are in is the lovely Gina Gershon- she is constantly chucking knowing winks to the audience. Later on, she said that sleazy men have came up to her, eyed her up and said "You know, you were in Showgirls", to which she said "Yep. And I got to kiss beautiful women. What's your point?".

    You go, Gina

Ah, but just when we are all rolling on the floor holding our tummies with laughter, Verhoven seems to say "Hey, hey! This is a SERIOUS movie! Here, watch this lovely girl get gang raped by some douchey rock star and his roadies! Yeahhhh, not laughing now, are you?"
Oh Paul, you are such a spoil sport. :-(

That last tidbit non-withstanding, this is an outrageously stupid, dumb-arse film that does everything wrong, but it ends up being so damn right. It really is a shame that Verhoven wanted this baby to be a serious and sexy morality tale because if he was filming it for the reason why we love it so much, he might have made a sequel.

Credit to JoBlo.com for the fantastic vids.