Black Christmas (1974) Review

Director: Bob Clark
Stars: Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea
Genre: Horror, Slasher

Black Christmas is widely considered to be the first proper Slasher film. Sure there were Slasher-esque films before (Psyhco, Peeping Tom, Homicidal, or even The Texas Chainsaw Massacre which was released only ten days earlier) but Black Christmas was the first to feature what went on to become many genre stereotypes and was a forerunner to the Slasher craze in the late '70s and '80s.

The story is about girls in a sorority house who keep receiving strange phone calls. Eventually, when one of the sorority girls goes missing and a young girl is found dead in the park, the police take a closer look at the phone calls. Little does everyone know that the killer is in the attic of the sorority house!

So you see, Black Christmas was the first to form many of the Slasher genre archetypes.

We never really get to see the killer and even in the very last moments of the film we're still wondering who is or who isn't the killer. Definitely provides a sense of mystery and we get to see the characters deal with their own mystery, being that the viewer knows the killer is in the attic, but the characters don't. The ending is great, I won't spoil anything, but it's definitely creepy.

The kills are great, whether it be suffocation or...well I won't spoil anything, but all the kills are fantastic. Accompanied by the kills is creepy imagery. Two dead girls lying next to each other on a bed, a girl with a plastic bag over her head sitting in a rocking chair; it's all terrific terrifying imagery, that will probably stick in your head for a while. 

The film has an interesting style to it. There are a lot of POV shots from the killer's perspective, a style borrowed from films like Peeping Tom or many films in the Giallo genre. The director did a great job familiarizing us with the house inside and out.

There are some truly suspenseful parts in here. It never really relies on jump scares, but instead it relies on build-up and suspense, because we pretty much know where the killer is at all times, it's just a matter of anticipation. The scenes in the attic are creepy, the phone calls are disturbing. The killer really is batshit insane. I'm thankful that my house doesn't have an attic.

The acting is solid for the most part. I'd say the stand-out performance is from John Saxon as the Lieutenant. The girls are acted well enough. None of the girls are particularly likable though...well, none of the characters are, except maybe John Saxon. But what Slasher film has likable characters!? Okay, some do.

Director Bob Clark (who also directed A Christmas Story. I know, right?) did a great job here. A must see for any fans of the genre, this was prime inspiration for the likes of Halloween and Friday the 13th. Steve Martin once said that he watched Black Christmas no less than 27 times...so maybe you trust Steve Martin's recommendation better than mine.

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Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) Review

Part of Merry Christmas and Happy Tarantino Month!

Director: Quentin Tarantino
Stars: Uma Thurman, Lucy Liu, Sonny Chiba
Genre: Action, Martial Arts

Kill Bill is my favorite action film of all time. And that's what Kill Bill is: an action film; which some people seem to forget.

Kill Bill Vol. 1 is only the first half of the story. It was initially filmed as one film, but due to length issues (it would have ran nearly 4 hours together) it was split into two. Though I highly recommend to watch them one after another, as if it were one long viewing, it's really the best way to go. In this volume we learn the story of The Bride and how she and her husband's wedding had been interrupted by five gunmen, shooting her husband, her, and her unborn baby. But The Bride, unknown to the gunmen, survived the gunshot and was left in a coma for four years. Awoken from the coma by a blood-sucking mosquito, a dark twist on the Snow White tale, and then greeted by the bloody kiss of a man who had paid one of the nurses to have sex with her while comatose, The Bride is indeed angry, and she wants her revenge on those who crashed her wedding.

I mentioned that Kill Bill is an action film (the first volume especially), but that's not to say that all Martial Arts films are Action films. No, Kill Bill just happens to be both.

The film has a lazy, unoriginal plot. It's like every revenge story told before it. After all, there's only a handful of action films that have plots as good as other genres. Kill Bill can be summed up by its name: it's about a guy named Bill, who someone wants to kill. If you're looking for a great plot or original story, don't watch Kill Bill. 

For a Tarantino film the writing is pretty mediocre. Tarantino, a writer known for his great dialogue, really didn't write any good dialogue for this first volume of Kill Bill. In fact, the film is so fast paced that it's rare that characters even have the chance to have a conversation. Compared to Pulp Fiction or Reservoir Dogs or even Jackie Brown, Kill Bill's dialogue is a joke. Don't get me wrong though, there's some really awesome lines in here, like when Hattori Hanzo gives The Bride her sword and says "I can tell you with no ego, this is my finest sword. If on your journey, you should encounter God, God will be cut." That's an awesome line, and Kill Bill has plenty of those, but it lacks in good dialogue. It's something that has plagued many Action films since the '80s, they have no shortage of cool one-liners, but they can never find the time for genuinely good writing. 

The characters are definitely interesting, though they're highly undeveloped and unrelatable. The film hardly even gives you time to sympathize with The Bride's revenge. 

The Action in Kill Bill though is excellent. It's fast, it's gory, it's violent, it's over the top, it's thrilling. The fight choreographer was none other than Yuen Woo-Ping. Woo-Ping has been working in kung fu films since the late sixties and he even directed the Jackie Chan classic Drunken Master, but his most notable work is his fight choreography on more recent films like The Matrix or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or Kung Fu Hustle or Jet Li's Fearless. It's undeniable that Yuen Woo-Ping is a master of his craft and he does as good a job as ever with his work on Kill Bill. 

The fighting is fast and just very insanely cool. Many of the kills just leave me impressed and with a smile on my face. It's all exaggerated violence and there's constantly blood spurting everywhere. The kill count nears the triple digits, and the House of Blue Leaves scene is just incredibly enjoyable to watch. There's not really much unarmed combat in here, as you'd expect in many of the Shaw Brothers kung fu films which Kill Bill was inspired by. It's mostly sword fighting, but there's some other interesting weapons thrown in, like flails. 

One thing I'm sick of hearing from film critics about movies in general is when they say that a film has style over substance. Since when was style a bad thing? Kill Bill is a beautifully shot film with gorgeous sets and landscapes and every aspect of it is highly stylized. Substance, as defined by Merriam-Webster, is a fundamental or characteristic part or quality. Kill Bill's style is it's substance. 

Kill Bill, and in fact all Tarantino films, are often criticized for their "borrowing" from other films. Indeed their is a fine line between homage, imitation, and theft, but if anyone knows how to maneuver between those lines it's Tarantino. I'll be honest, there's not much originality in Kill Bill. Even many of its lines are taken straight out of other films. Any moviegoer can easily notice dozens and dozens of references, ripped shots, stolen lines, character's inspirations, etc. 

From the Shaw Brothers intro Tarantino makes it clear that Kill Bill has obvious influences and inspirations. Its concept is essentially taken from The Bride Wore Black, it's story (and other things) is nearly exactly the same as Lady Snowblood, it gets its characters from both those two films and other films like Thriller: A Cruel Picture (of which it also shares a similar plot) or from Executioners from Shaolin. The outfit that The Bride wears is straight out of Bruce Lee's unfinished Game of Death, the masks that the Crazy 88s wear are exactly the same as the one worn by Bruce Lee as Kato on The Green Hornet (which paints an odd picture of Bruce Lee killing 88 other Bruce Lees). Kill Bill was obviously influenced by genres like kung fu, spaghetti westerns, blaxploitation, Japanese yakuza films, Chinese wuxia films, Chambara films, exploitation, Rape and Revenge, etc.

Many shots and camera movements are taken from other films, though, to his credit, Tarantino does show us some cool original shots, particularly the overhead ones. But, all in all, Kill Bill is not an original film. It kind of just throws all the cool things Tarantino has watched together. Which begs the question: is that really so bad? Well, normally I'd say yes, that is bad and terribly uncreative. But the way I see it, as someone who has watched a great percentage of the Shaw Brothers catalog and has watched many of the same films Tarantino has which he borrowed from, Kill Bill really does feel more like an homage than it does a theft. Stanley Kubrick once said that he often wondered what it would be like to shoot a pornographic film with a very large budget and a professional crew and respected director, but all the meanwhile keeping the things that are key in porn, i.e., weak plots, etc. Kill Bill is kind of like that. It's a B-Movie with a large budget, high production, and a talented director.

John Powers in LA Weekly called Kill Bill "a grindhouse Ulysses". Jim Smith called it a Noah's Ark of pop culture cliches. It is rare to see James Joyce's Ulysses criticized for being a modern retelling of Homer's Odyssey, with many similar events and characters. Joyce took something that was already great (Odyssey) and made it his own. Tarantino took a genre that was never looked upon very fondly by the mainstream audiences, a genre that lacked the recognition it deserved, and he not only brought the genre to the mainstream but he also made it his own....though perhaps not enough so. If anything could benefit Kill Bill, I will be the first to admit, it would be some extra creativity. But I doubt anyone could have translated exploitation and kung fu films from the '70s as well as Tarantino. 

Sure it's a self indulgent film, and it's pretty much just Tarantino showing us how much of a film buff he is...but it's fucking awesome nonetheless. 

The cast in Kill Bill is great. Uma Thurman, who Tarantino had a "major artistic love affair" with, does a wonderful job. Lucy Liu plays the role that she always seems so perfect to play (no that's not stereotyping, she really does do fabulous work in any samurai role she touches) and she's an incredible charm to watch. Gordon Liu (who any kung fu fan is familiar with) has a great small role as a member of the Crazy 88s (he also has another, different role in Volume 2). 

The soundtrack here is stellar. RZA of the Wu-Tang Clan composed all the original score, and I'd name Kill Bill along with Afro Samurai as some of his best work to date. There's a great variety of music in the film: rockabilly, hip-hop, surf rock, pop, enka. The soundtrack has some really awesome tracks. Nancy Sinatra's cover of "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)" has always been one of my favorite songs and it fits the film so well. "Flower of Carnage" which was originally in Lady Snowblood is in here and is actually sung by the actress who played Lady Snowblood, Meiko Kaji. The awesome Japanese rock band The 5.6.7.8's also have a cool cameo in here. 

I can easily understand why someone can dislike Kill Bill. It makes perfect sense to me. It's not very original being the main complaint along with its seeming dismissal of plot or character development. But Kill Bill is one of my favorite Action films, and I never really expect plot or character development from the Action genre. And the films that Kill Bill borrows from or steals from or imitates or pays homage to or whatever you want to call it, are all films that I really love. I love Shaw Brothers kung fu films and Bruce Lee movies and spaghetti westerns, and Kill Bill kind of feels like an evolution of all that. And at the very least, even if I were to hate Kill Bill (which I don't) I doubt I'd ever find it unenjoyable. And I can understand how fans of films which Kill Bill borrows from may not like it because they look at it as theft or they rather just watch the original stuff...I can understand that. But what I can't understand is people who are fans of the films in which Kill Bill borrows from that can't enjoy Kill Bill. If you enjoy what Kill Bill is based off of, you will enjoy Kill Bill. 

Purchase Kill Bill Vol. 1 on Amazon: Blu-Ray - DVD - Stream - Vol. 1 & 2 Double Feature

The Bride Wore Black (1968) Review

Director: Francois Truffaut
Stars: Jeanne Moreau, Michel Bouquet, Jean-Claude Brialy
Genre: Thriller, French New Wave

The Bride Wore Black is...an interesting film. It does a few things right, a few things wrong, and it's directed by the legendary Francois Truffaut.

It's about a bride who seeks revenge on the murderers who killed her husband on their wedding day. (Kill Bill much?)

She hunts down these men and kills them...which is cool, the only problem is that she kills them in extremely mundane ways. Pushing people off ledges and poisoning their drinks is not interesting. Maybe the film tried not to be very violent? But it would have benefited, because the entire film has a gritty, merciless feel to it. It's just boring deaths that are very unimaginative and anti-climatic. 

Jeanne Moreau, a very popular actress, really doesn't do a great job here. She plays a very unemotional, boring, detached character. I get that that's what they were going for, being that since she lost her husband she has no reason to live other than for revenge. It's just such a boring performance and you can't relate to her at all let alone sympathize with her revenge. She fails to be relatable or intimidating, which in turn makes it look like just really bad acting. 

Also the reason that the husband was shot, I won't spoil anything, was very random and dumb, and definitely not engaging at all.

I did think that the ending was really well done and the soundtrack was good. I also thought the film was pretty well written, with some really awesome dialogue. Unfortunately this wasn't enough to carry the film beyond anything more than okay. Also, the film's title is really cool.

This is definitely not Truffaut's best film, he has directed some amazing films but The Bride Wore Black is not one of them. Indeed even Truffaut himself says he doesn't like this film and blames his cinematographer for the film, Raoul Coutard, for the undesired outcome.

I think the only thing good that has come out of this film is the amazing song by Kate Bush, "The Wedding List", which was based on the plot of The Bride Wore Black.

It's an alright film. I can only barely recommend it though, especially since it's running time is slightly above average length. It's not terrible, but watch at your own risk.

Purchase The Bride Wore Black on Amazon: DVD - VHS

Jackie Brown (1997) Review

Part of Merry Christmas and Happy Tarantino Month!

Director: Quentin Tarantino
Stars: Pam Grier, Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Forster, Bridget Fonda, Robert De Niro, Chris Tucker
Genre: Crime

Jackie Brown is Tarantino's third directed film (if you don't count Four Rooms), following Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, and expectations were high, to say the least.

The plot concerns half a millions dollars and a bunch of people who want to get their hands on it, from a money smuggling flight attendant to an illegal firearms dealer to the police.

The cast is great, with an aged Pam Grier (who was actually previously auditioned for the role of Mia Wallace in Pulp Fiction) playing the star role and proving that she's still a charm to see on the screen. Samuel L Jackson plays his typecast hard gangster character, and does fabulous as always. Robert De Niro has a small role as a silent, slightly insane, criminal, and he, as it should go without saying, delivers a great performance. Robert Forester does fabulous and Bridget Fonda plays a very welcomed role as well. 

The plot is pretty engaging, though not terribly thrilling. Upon first viewing you really don't know how it will end and who will end up with the half a million dollars. Even as the viewer it is seldom you know who to trust as everyone is plotting against one another, it's very often the viewer doesn't even know when a character is lying or not. It adds a bit of mystery, a bit of curiosity, and it's very effective.

Jackie Brown was adapted from the novel Rum Punch by Elmore Leonard, something Tarantino doesn't usually do. And while the film stays fairly truthful to the essence of its source material (albeit it changes quite a few things) it also manages to have its own style. Tarantino definitely made it his own. The film, though not quite one itself, pays homage to blaxploitation films of the '70s (the film's name itself being a reference to Grier's film Foxy Brown) which just reeks of Tarantino style.

However, this film is only barely recognizable as a Tarantino film. He intentionally changed his style up while directing this, trying to avoid comparison between his last two films. This style change is very noticeable in camera positioning and movement and even in plot structure. (There's a very excellent use of a split-screen shot in here).

The film has solid dialogue and it does make its share of pop culture references, but the dialogue is much more subtle and less memorable than Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction and there are far less pop culture references. It's still good dialogue, just not Tarantino's best. 

It makes sense that the film doesn't feel completely Tarantino though, being that it's an adaptation. So it's more like half Tarantino style  and half Elmore Leonard style. Tarantino himself even said that he feels that he managed to have about half the dialogue created by him and half taken from the novel.

In fact, the entire film is very subtle for Tarantino and much more calm and serious. Tarantino still does a great job with it though.

It's also the first Tarantino film to have an opening scene that doesn't involve the characters talking with each other.

The soundtrack is top notch. Really great enjoyable, immersing tunes, and also very suiting to the film and what happens on screen.

Tarantino does a fabulous job and proved that he's a director that can do a variety of films well. Though it may be a little dull for fans of other Tarantino films, it's still great in his own right. Very awesome film.

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From Morn to Midnight (1920) Review

Director: Karlheinz Martin
Stars: Ernst Deutsch, Erna Morena, Hans Heinrich von Twardowski
Genre: German Expressionism, Experimental, Crime
Also known as: Von morgens bis Mitternacht, From Morning to Midnight

Wow. Well, this certainly is a rare little gem. One of the strangest films I've ever watched.

From Morn to Midnight has a strange history behind it. The film was completed in 1920 but it couldn't be shown in Germany and the only place it ended up getting a release was in Japan. Shortly after its Japanese release the film was believed to be lost, until, in the 1960's, a blurry, damaged copy was found. Blurry and damaged it remained for decades, until recently when it underwent a restoration. 

Adapted from a play by Georg Kaiser, the story is set up like a station drama (modeled after the religious Stations of the Cross, and every Christian knows how that ends). 

It's about a bank cashier who suddenly realizes the mundanity of his life. In a moment of passion he decides to steal the money from the bank and just like that he becomes a 'cashier on the run.' With his new found riches he seeks the passion that he desires in his life. He tries his luck at politics, sports, women, gambling, but all to no avail. Throughout the film the cashier's death is constantly foreshadowed by the eerie face of death. He sees death in the face of a beggar that he chose to ignore, death in the face of the daughter he abandons, death in the faces of the women he mistreats. He cannot escape it. Then he realizes "All the money in the world cannot buy anything of value," as he meets his demise. 

The film really feels like an adventure. Each scene is unique and a new experience. By the time the film ends you feel like you've really traveled to all these bizarre places.

The sets here are dazzling. The most expressionistic I've ever seen. I assume you are all familiar with The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and its surreal sets, yes? Well, From Morn to Midnight has even wilder sets. Yes, it is true. It's a very theatrical film and feels a lot like watching a play. At times it even felt like I was watching a parody or satire of German Expressionism.

With beautiful set and costume design alone this film would be enjoyable. But wait, there's more! The film is a very experimental one, you have only to look at the bike race scene to realize that, I'd even go so far as to call it avant-garde. Incorporating a variety of cinematic techniques combined with what is essentially a moving painting makes for a very interesting, and wholly unique experience.

There's also some nudity in here, which was a rarity for its time. And at one point the cashier pours champagne on a drunk, passed out woman in bed. [sarcasm]Perhaps direct inspiration for the music videos of many modern day hip-hop artists?[/sarcasm]

I don't know if the version I watched contained the original composition or a new one but it was awesome. It had a very minimalistic, smooth jazz feel to it and complimented the film very well. It kind of felt like an episode of the Pink Panther cartoon. Even the sound effects that were added, e.g., drums for door knocks, shakers for laughs, were very well implemented.

The acting is awesome too. It's over-acted in the way you might expect from a silent film or a stage play, and at times looks a bit silly, but it has its own style to it. The acting feels like some kind of stylish demeanor from a foreign pseudo-reality. Ernst Deutsch, who was mostly know for stage acting in his time, does a great job as the star role. Hans Heinrich von Twardowski, who also performed in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, does an absolutely amazing job, delivering a memorable performance. Erna Morena and Roma Bahn are both very beautiful in here and do a great job as well.

As with most German Expressionist films there are a lot of Freudian themes present. Not only that, but From Morn to Midnight also largely incorporates the philosophies and themes of Nietzsche. This provides for a very intellectual experience and leaves the film open to analysis.

I've never seen a film like From Morn to Midnight. It is truly a wholly unique piece of work and the only one of its kind, which is why it's such a tough film to apply a rating to. I ended up watching the film twice in one day, and I think I'll have to give it the five star treatment. A truly under-appreciated film of the genre.

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