19 songs... getting better.
Ballroom Blitz - Sweet
Beyond the Sea - Bobby Darin
Christmas At Ground Zero - Weird Al Yankovic
I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man - Prince
Jackson - Johnny Cash & June Carter (duet w/Emma)
Maneater - Hall & Oates
Panama - Van Halen
Supermassive Black Hole - Muse
Valerie - Zutons
We've Got Tonight - Kenny Rogers & Sheena Easton (duet w/Nyree)
What Becomes of the Broken-Hearted - Jimmy Ruffin
When Doves Cry - Prince
Who Are You - Who
Wild Horses - Rolling Stones
Wild World - Cat Stevens
Wonderboy - Tenacious D
You Make My Dreams Come True - Hall & Oates
You Sexy Thing - Hot Chocolate
Your Time Is Gonna Come - Led Zeppelin
November Travesties
Twelve is a little better, I guess. It still seems vaguely shameful though.
Africa - Toto
For The Girl - Fratellis
Sunglasses At Night - Corey Hart
Supermassive Black Hole - Muse
Testify - Rage Against The Machine
Too Drunk To Fuck - Dead Kennedys
Up On the Roof - Drifters
Use Me - Bill Withers
Valerie - Zutons
Vaseline - Stone Temple Pilots
Virtual Insanity - Jamiroquai
You've Got Another Thing Coming - Judas Priest
Africa - Toto
For The Girl - Fratellis
Sunglasses At Night - Corey Hart
Supermassive Black Hole - Muse
Testify - Rage Against The Machine
Too Drunk To Fuck - Dead Kennedys
Up On the Roof - Drifters
Use Me - Bill Withers
Valerie - Zutons
Vaseline - Stone Temple Pilots
Virtual Insanity - Jamiroquai
You've Got Another Thing Coming - Judas Priest
October Travesties
Nine? NINE????????
This won't do.
Born To Run - Bruce Springsteen
Cult of Personality - Living Color
Jealous Guy - John Lennon
Middle of the Road - Pretenders
Never Let Me Down Again - Depeche Mode
Night Moves - Bob Seger
Ole Black 'n' Blue Eyes - Fratellis
Panama - Van Halen
Punk Rock Girl - Dead Milkmen
This won't do.
Born To Run - Bruce Springsteen
Cult of Personality - Living Color
Jealous Guy - John Lennon
Middle of the Road - Pretenders
Never Let Me Down Again - Depeche Mode
Night Moves - Bob Seger
Ole Black 'n' Blue Eyes - Fratellis
Panama - Van Halen
Punk Rock Girl - Dead Milkmen
Hallowe'en Party Tunes You Probably Don't Know But Should
So you've got your Monster Mash, your Thriller, your Werewolves of London, your Dead Man's Party, your Sabbath and Alice Cooper, your Buffy, Crow and Rocky Horror soundtracks... your Hallowe'en party playlist is all set, right?
Sure, if you're pedestrian and bourgeois.
Here are some suggestions for songs you (and your guests) may not know, but will fit right in for any Hallowe'en party. In no particular order:
1) 'til the Following Night - Screaming Lord Sutch
Really, any Screaming Lord Sutch song will do, since he was a weird dude who liked to dress up in a cape and pretty much only sing songs about things that go bump in the night, but this one has ridiculous Joe Meek scary sound effects over top of it, as well as a groovin' saxophone, and as such has become his signature tune. If you want something even more obscure, try Dracula's Daughter which is just too perfectly silly for words, from the lyrics (bonus points for the "meet the old bat" pun) right down to the guitar riff ripped off from the Hawaii Five-O theme.
2) Werewolf - Five Man Electrical Band
Yes, this was a single. You gotta love the way Mama is rooting for her son to maul her husband towards the end of the song.
3) Don't Shake Me Lucifer - Roky Erickson
Roky's another one where you could use almost any song in his solo catalogue for a Hallowe'en mix, but I'm partial to this one, which is actually damn catchy while being light on the monsters but heavy on the Satan.
4) Excitable Boy - Warren Zevon
Wait a minute, there's another Warren Zevon tune worth playing at Hallowe'en? Hellz yeah there is. Excitable Boy is part of a long line of party-time rock tunes about killers which stretches all the way back to the Beatles' Maxwell's Silver Hammer *. Oingo Boingo's Only a Lad is another standout in the subgenre, but for my money Warren's entry can't be beat, what with the jaunty piano, yackety sax and happy ooh-waa backup singers providing a deranged counterpoint to lyrics like "he took little Suzie to the junior prom / he raped her and killed her, then he took her home".
* this is not actually a link to the Beatles' version of the song, but something infinitely more horrific. You've been warned.
5) Dig It Up - Hoodoo Gurus
The song the Cramps wish they'd recorded. (Also, add some Cramps to the Hallowe'en mix if you haven't already, even if it's just Human Fly). Dig It Up is also the best song about necrophilia ever. EVER. This is not an opinion, it's proven scientific fact.
6) Bloodletting (The Vampire Song) - Concrete Blonde
I wasn't going to put this on the list because I thought it was too obvious, but then I noticed that it wasn't on any of the "Top XX Hallowe'en Songs" lists I looked at before writing this. For shame, internets!
7) Jolene - Queen Adreena
This is not what Dolly Parton had in mind when she wrote the song.
In Queen Adreena's hands Jolene isn't just some jezebel, but a dead lover come back to claim her man and drag him down to hell with her, or maybe an autumn-haired succubus roaming the moors looking for fresh blood. Whoever she is, she sounds like somebody I want to party with though.
8) like a flickering celluloid moonbeam on the view screen - Prince Charming
This whole album, Psychotropical Heatwave, is the album your mother warned you about. It's indescribable, some sort of jungley-dubby-bassy-apocalyptic hellride through your subconscious, where just when you think you have a handle on what's going on, bam! They hit you with a Peter and the Wolf sample. I haven't gotten down to NYC for Blackout yet, but if this album were Blackout's soundtrack it wouldn't surprise me one bit.
I picked this track in particular because it's rather subtly unsettling, and also has the shortest title.
Sure, if you're pedestrian and bourgeois.
Here are some suggestions for songs you (and your guests) may not know, but will fit right in for any Hallowe'en party. In no particular order:
1) 'til the Following Night - Screaming Lord Sutch
Really, any Screaming Lord Sutch song will do, since he was a weird dude who liked to dress up in a cape and pretty much only sing songs about things that go bump in the night, but this one has ridiculous Joe Meek scary sound effects over top of it, as well as a groovin' saxophone, and as such has become his signature tune. If you want something even more obscure, try Dracula's Daughter which is just too perfectly silly for words, from the lyrics (bonus points for the "meet the old bat" pun) right down to the guitar riff ripped off from the Hawaii Five-O theme.
2) Werewolf - Five Man Electrical Band
Yes, this was a single. You gotta love the way Mama is rooting for her son to maul her husband towards the end of the song.
3) Don't Shake Me Lucifer - Roky Erickson
Roky's another one where you could use almost any song in his solo catalogue for a Hallowe'en mix, but I'm partial to this one, which is actually damn catchy while being light on the monsters but heavy on the Satan.
4) Excitable Boy - Warren Zevon
Wait a minute, there's another Warren Zevon tune worth playing at Hallowe'en? Hellz yeah there is. Excitable Boy is part of a long line of party-time rock tunes about killers which stretches all the way back to the Beatles' Maxwell's Silver Hammer *. Oingo Boingo's Only a Lad is another standout in the subgenre, but for my money Warren's entry can't be beat, what with the jaunty piano, yackety sax and happy ooh-waa backup singers providing a deranged counterpoint to lyrics like "he took little Suzie to the junior prom / he raped her and killed her, then he took her home".
* this is not actually a link to the Beatles' version of the song, but something infinitely more horrific. You've been warned.
5) Dig It Up - Hoodoo Gurus
The song the Cramps wish they'd recorded. (Also, add some Cramps to the Hallowe'en mix if you haven't already, even if it's just Human Fly). Dig It Up is also the best song about necrophilia ever. EVER. This is not an opinion, it's proven scientific fact.
6) Bloodletting (The Vampire Song) - Concrete Blonde
I wasn't going to put this on the list because I thought it was too obvious, but then I noticed that it wasn't on any of the "Top XX Hallowe'en Songs" lists I looked at before writing this. For shame, internets!
7) Jolene - Queen Adreena
This is not what Dolly Parton had in mind when she wrote the song.
In Queen Adreena's hands Jolene isn't just some jezebel, but a dead lover come back to claim her man and drag him down to hell with her, or maybe an autumn-haired succubus roaming the moors looking for fresh blood. Whoever she is, she sounds like somebody I want to party with though.
8) like a flickering celluloid moonbeam on the view screen - Prince Charming
This whole album, Psychotropical Heatwave, is the album your mother warned you about. It's indescribable, some sort of jungley-dubby-bassy-apocalyptic hellride through your subconscious, where just when you think you have a handle on what's going on, bam! They hit you with a Peter and the Wolf sample. I haven't gotten down to NYC for Blackout yet, but if this album were Blackout's soundtrack it wouldn't surprise me one bit.
I picked this track in particular because it's rather subtly unsettling, and also has the shortest title.
September Travesties
Quiet month, what with the film fest and inevitable post-fest crash and all.
A Small Victory - Faith No More
Cult of Personality - Living Color
Every Breath You Take - Police
Fake Plastic Trees - Radiohead
Golden Years - David Bowie
Killer Queen - Queen
King of Pain - Police
Pure Morning - Placebo
Street Fighting Man - Rolling Stones
Sunshine of Your Love - Cream
Superfly - Curtis Mayfield
Tie Your Mother Down - Queen
Time - Pink Floyd
A Small Victory - Faith No More
Cult of Personality - Living Color
Every Breath You Take - Police
Fake Plastic Trees - Radiohead
Golden Years - David Bowie
Killer Queen - Queen
King of Pain - Police
Pure Morning - Placebo
Street Fighting Man - Rolling Stones
Sunshine of Your Love - Cream
Superfly - Curtis Mayfield
Tie Your Mother Down - Queen
Time - Pink Floyd
TIFF Review: Coriolanus
Coriolanus (2011, directed by Ralph Fiennes)
Never let it be said that Ralph Fiennes half-asses anything.
For his directorial debut, Fiennes figured it wasn't enough to bring one of Shakespeare's lesser-known plays to the big screen for the first time. Nope, that's not enough of a challenge. He also had to star in it, modernize it and stock it full of machine guns and media saturation, and go toe-to-toe with Vanessa Redgrave. Oh, and what the hell, let's prove to the world that Gerard Butler is a damn fine actor to boot.
If you don't know the play, there's probably a reason for that. It's not among Shakespeare's best: a Roman general is despised by the people for his heavy-handed methods of suppressing dissent but lionized for his victories against foreign enemies. When he returns in triumph and is put forward as consul, a couple of senators conspire against him and get him exiled, whereupon he joins up with his bitterest foe to take his revenge on the city and the people that rejected him. There's some dramatic meat on those bones, but what themes there are scuttling below the surface don't exactly carry the weight of a Lear or Hamlet.
At the same time though, picking a lesser-known play gives Fiennes as blank a slate as you can get for doing the Bard, and as an actor he takes full advantage. His Coriolanus is a military genius but politically tone-deaf, a pure bullet of a man who knows only one speed and one direction in which to live his life. As with all Shakespearean heroes his strengths and weaknesses are but two sides of the same coin, and both lead inexorably to his downfall.
The rest of the cast is hit and miss, although mostly hit. Redgrave is of course magnificent as Coriolanus' mother, Brian Cox is his typical gravelly self as his senatorial mentor, and Jekyll's James Nesbitt proves surprisingly adept as one of the schemers who turns the city against him. But the massive surprise is Butler as Aufidius, Coriolanus' sworn enemy and eventual patron. Making no attempt whatsoever to hide his Scottish accent, Butler dives into his role with a fury, matching Fiennes blow for blow and line for line in the early scenes and deftly planting the seeds for their eventual mutual respect and alliance. 300 may have made Butler a star, but this is the film that establishes him as an actor to be reckoned with.
Of the principal cast only Jessica Chastain comes up short, but to be fair she doesn't exactly have much to do as Coriolanus' wife.
Seriously though, if Butler doesn't do Macbeth sometime in the next 10 years or so where I can see it, I will never forgive him.
Fiennes' casting instincts might be superb, but his directing skills are still fairly rough. The modernization is interesting, but this is not McKellan's Richard III. It allows Fiennes to stage some suitably chaotic war scenes, have pundits spit out couplets as sound bites and add some pretty good running gags (the Roman news network is called 'Fidelis'), but in the end Coriolanus and Aufidius still have a knife fight, and winning the job of consul still involves pressing the flesh in an open air market. It comes off not so much as a 'the more things change' commentary as it does the screenplay running out of ideas on how to update some of the scenes. Fiennes leans too heavily on some shots, as basically every speech of the slightest length (especially his own) in tight close-up, and a few too many people walk away from the camera, out of focus and into a pool of light.
None of the problems are major though. Coriolanus is a solid debut for Fiennes behind the camera, a coming out party for Butler as a Serious Actor, and a fairly ripping good yarn. Any one of those is reason enough to go see it.
Never let it be said that Ralph Fiennes half-asses anything.
For his directorial debut, Fiennes figured it wasn't enough to bring one of Shakespeare's lesser-known plays to the big screen for the first time. Nope, that's not enough of a challenge. He also had to star in it, modernize it and stock it full of machine guns and media saturation, and go toe-to-toe with Vanessa Redgrave. Oh, and what the hell, let's prove to the world that Gerard Butler is a damn fine actor to boot.
If you don't know the play, there's probably a reason for that. It's not among Shakespeare's best: a Roman general is despised by the people for his heavy-handed methods of suppressing dissent but lionized for his victories against foreign enemies. When he returns in triumph and is put forward as consul, a couple of senators conspire against him and get him exiled, whereupon he joins up with his bitterest foe to take his revenge on the city and the people that rejected him. There's some dramatic meat on those bones, but what themes there are scuttling below the surface don't exactly carry the weight of a Lear or Hamlet.
At the same time though, picking a lesser-known play gives Fiennes as blank a slate as you can get for doing the Bard, and as an actor he takes full advantage. His Coriolanus is a military genius but politically tone-deaf, a pure bullet of a man who knows only one speed and one direction in which to live his life. As with all Shakespearean heroes his strengths and weaknesses are but two sides of the same coin, and both lead inexorably to his downfall.
The rest of the cast is hit and miss, although mostly hit. Redgrave is of course magnificent as Coriolanus' mother, Brian Cox is his typical gravelly self as his senatorial mentor, and Jekyll's James Nesbitt proves surprisingly adept as one of the schemers who turns the city against him. But the massive surprise is Butler as Aufidius, Coriolanus' sworn enemy and eventual patron. Making no attempt whatsoever to hide his Scottish accent, Butler dives into his role with a fury, matching Fiennes blow for blow and line for line in the early scenes and deftly planting the seeds for their eventual mutual respect and alliance. 300 may have made Butler a star, but this is the film that establishes him as an actor to be reckoned with.
Of the principal cast only Jessica Chastain comes up short, but to be fair she doesn't exactly have much to do as Coriolanus' wife.
Seriously though, if Butler doesn't do Macbeth sometime in the next 10 years or so where I can see it, I will never forgive him.
Fiennes' casting instincts might be superb, but his directing skills are still fairly rough. The modernization is interesting, but this is not McKellan's Richard III. It allows Fiennes to stage some suitably chaotic war scenes, have pundits spit out couplets as sound bites and add some pretty good running gags (the Roman news network is called 'Fidelis'), but in the end Coriolanus and Aufidius still have a knife fight, and winning the job of consul still involves pressing the flesh in an open air market. It comes off not so much as a 'the more things change' commentary as it does the screenplay running out of ideas on how to update some of the scenes. Fiennes leans too heavily on some shots, as basically every speech of the slightest length (especially his own) in tight close-up, and a few too many people walk away from the camera, out of focus and into a pool of light.
None of the problems are major though. Coriolanus is a solid debut for Fiennes behind the camera, a coming out party for Butler as a Serious Actor, and a fairly ripping good yarn. Any one of those is reason enough to go see it.
TIFF Review: The Brooklyn Brothers Beat the Best
The Brooklyn Brothers Beat the Best (2011, directed Ryan O'Nan)
Alex isn't having the best week of his life. The douchey wannabe rocker he's stuck in a duo with cuts him loose after lecturing Alex on how his lonely indie-folk ballads aren't as autobiographical as his own sub-Ozzy-esque werewolf ditties. He gets fired from his job as a musical moose who sings at schools, after he beats up a special needs student. In self-defense, of course. Oh, and he's still obsessively carrying around the Dear John letter he just received from the love of his life.
What better time to form a new band with Jim, the deranged lunatic who punches him in the park, and go on a cross-country tour while jammed into the front seat of the lunatic's grandpa's barely functioning orange '80s VW Rabbit?
To say the movie is twee wouldn't be to do it justice. Alex's dark acoustic musings get mashed together with Jim's collection of toy instruments to form a sound described in the film as "the Shins meets Sesame Street." Naturally they're a hit (if you define 'hit' as 'barely making enough money to pay for gas and food') and quickly get joined by Cassidy, the tough-exteriored girl who's doing the booking on their first gig and decides on a whim to split Pennsylvania and become their manager. Whimsical shenanigans ensue as the duo spar from coast to coast and Alex and Cassidy start to fall for each other, until things inevitably splinter apart and then pull back together in a heartwarming, quirky finale.
If I sound like I'm shitting all over the movie, I don't mean to. It's relentlessly formula, sure, but there's nothing wrong with formula when it's well done, and Brooklyn Brothers has enough humor and charm to get through it's weaker moments. It also has an ace in the hole: a parade of cameos and supporting performances from a bizarre array of recognizable faces. Wilmer Valderrama, Christopher McDonald, Melissa Leo, and Andrew McCarthy as Alex's resolutely Christian older brother all lend their chops to the production and give it a little necessary pep.
Really, whether you can even tolerate the film or not depends on how well you can handle the music. If you can imagine Jonathan Coulton cutting an album entirely of his more 'serious' numbers, with Fischer-Price sponsoring the tour, you've got some idea of what to expect. If that has you clawing at your ears and running for the hills, give this one a miss. If that sounds kinda cute, then Brooklyn Brothers Beat the Best is the film for you.
Alex isn't having the best week of his life. The douchey wannabe rocker he's stuck in a duo with cuts him loose after lecturing Alex on how his lonely indie-folk ballads aren't as autobiographical as his own sub-Ozzy-esque werewolf ditties. He gets fired from his job as a musical moose who sings at schools, after he beats up a special needs student. In self-defense, of course. Oh, and he's still obsessively carrying around the Dear John letter he just received from the love of his life.
What better time to form a new band with Jim, the deranged lunatic who punches him in the park, and go on a cross-country tour while jammed into the front seat of the lunatic's grandpa's barely functioning orange '80s VW Rabbit?
To say the movie is twee wouldn't be to do it justice. Alex's dark acoustic musings get mashed together with Jim's collection of toy instruments to form a sound described in the film as "the Shins meets Sesame Street." Naturally they're a hit (if you define 'hit' as 'barely making enough money to pay for gas and food') and quickly get joined by Cassidy, the tough-exteriored girl who's doing the booking on their first gig and decides on a whim to split Pennsylvania and become their manager. Whimsical shenanigans ensue as the duo spar from coast to coast and Alex and Cassidy start to fall for each other, until things inevitably splinter apart and then pull back together in a heartwarming, quirky finale.
If I sound like I'm shitting all over the movie, I don't mean to. It's relentlessly formula, sure, but there's nothing wrong with formula when it's well done, and Brooklyn Brothers has enough humor and charm to get through it's weaker moments. It also has an ace in the hole: a parade of cameos and supporting performances from a bizarre array of recognizable faces. Wilmer Valderrama, Christopher McDonald, Melissa Leo, and Andrew McCarthy as Alex's resolutely Christian older brother all lend their chops to the production and give it a little necessary pep.
Really, whether you can even tolerate the film or not depends on how well you can handle the music. If you can imagine Jonathan Coulton cutting an album entirely of his more 'serious' numbers, with Fischer-Price sponsoring the tour, you've got some idea of what to expect. If that has you clawing at your ears and running for the hills, give this one a miss. If that sounds kinda cute, then Brooklyn Brothers Beat the Best is the film for you.
TIFF Review: You're Next
You're Next (2011, directed by Adam Wingard)
Some scenes are universal. A family gets together for their parents' anniversary, and immediately falls into old patterns. The two older brothers squabble over nothing, the baby girl beams at daddy, the youngest brother broods in the corner. Their various significant others watch on with varying degrees of concern and amusement at the whole scene while the folks try to maintain some semblance of peace during their big night. And then of course the inevitable crossbow blot shatters a window and catches somebody in the forehead...
Wait, what?
A home invasion film that both embraces and defies convention, You're Next is a more than worthy follow-up to Wingard's A Horrible Way To Die, another film that took some delight in not going where you might expect it to. Bloody as all hell, the film stacks up bodies like cord wood as the invaders discover that their victims aren't quite as hapless as they planned. It's also got a vicious sense of humor, which spills out in the form of some ridiculous lines of dialogue and the survivors' reliance of home defense techniques stolen directly from Macaulay Culkin's bag of tricks, albeit leaning more towards axes than cans of paint. And while AJ Bowen is his usual effortlessly awesome self, and Stuart Gordon's favorite scream queen Barbara Cramptom is tremendous as the family matriarch, it's Sharni Vinson as Bowen's Aussie girlfriend Erin who totally steals the show.
It's not a perfect film. Joe Swanberg, the weak acting link in Horrible Way To Die, is still a half beat out of synch in this one. And the opening sequence in which some inconvenient neighbors get offed tries to be a Scream-level table-setter but falls flat, mainly due to the fact we never really see the victims showing any fear or terror.
But once that crossbow bolts shatters the night, it's pretty much balls to the way straight to the finish line. If you're tired of pretentious, misanthropic twaddle like Funny Games messing up the good clean fun of the home invasion genre, You're Next is a hell of an antidote.
Some scenes are universal. A family gets together for their parents' anniversary, and immediately falls into old patterns. The two older brothers squabble over nothing, the baby girl beams at daddy, the youngest brother broods in the corner. Their various significant others watch on with varying degrees of concern and amusement at the whole scene while the folks try to maintain some semblance of peace during their big night. And then of course the inevitable crossbow blot shatters a window and catches somebody in the forehead...
Wait, what?
A home invasion film that both embraces and defies convention, You're Next is a more than worthy follow-up to Wingard's A Horrible Way To Die, another film that took some delight in not going where you might expect it to. Bloody as all hell, the film stacks up bodies like cord wood as the invaders discover that their victims aren't quite as hapless as they planned. It's also got a vicious sense of humor, which spills out in the form of some ridiculous lines of dialogue and the survivors' reliance of home defense techniques stolen directly from Macaulay Culkin's bag of tricks, albeit leaning more towards axes than cans of paint. And while AJ Bowen is his usual effortlessly awesome self, and Stuart Gordon's favorite scream queen Barbara Cramptom is tremendous as the family matriarch, it's Sharni Vinson as Bowen's Aussie girlfriend Erin who totally steals the show.
It's not a perfect film. Joe Swanberg, the weak acting link in Horrible Way To Die, is still a half beat out of synch in this one. And the opening sequence in which some inconvenient neighbors get offed tries to be a Scream-level table-setter but falls flat, mainly due to the fact we never really see the victims showing any fear or terror.
But once that crossbow bolts shatters the night, it's pretty much balls to the way straight to the finish line. If you're tired of pretentious, misanthropic twaddle like Funny Games messing up the good clean fun of the home invasion genre, You're Next is a hell of an antidote.
TIFF Review: Crazy Horse
Crazy Horse (2011, directed by Frederick Wiseman)
If you've seen a Wiseman doc before, you probably know what you're getting into. His style is verite and he does it extremely well, "simply" pointing a camera at his subjects and letting their lives provide any sort of narrative. There's very little that's truly simple about his films though. In lesser hands that form of documentary can be deadly dull, but Wiseman's ability to construct exquisite images, and find rhythms through the editing process, sets his work far above many of his peers.
Which is why Crazy Horse, in many ways, caught me by surprise. In portraying subjects already used to scrutiny, Wiseman made some interesting changes to his usual style, and I'm still not sure whether they were for the better.
If you don't know, the Crazy Horse is Paris' most revered burlesque venue, a club that for decades has been dedicated to the admiration of the feminine form. What that means is that the film is, shall we say, very casual about its use of nekkidness. There are reasonably hot naked and partially naked women on screen for probably a quarter or a third of the film's running time - women rehearsing routines, performing routines, or just hanging out backstage. For that reason alone, this is easily Wiseman's most "mainstream" film. To his credit though, the camera doesn't do any ogling. Wiseman, as always, is worried about the composition of his images and not in turning on his audience, but frankly the ladies of Crazy Horse don't need any help in that department anyway.
As performers though, most of the people in the film are used to being watched, and while there's no sense that anyone is performing per se their comfort level in front of the camera, and their awareness of it, is a sharp contrast to any of Wiseman's previous films that I've seen. He also, for lack of a better word, cheats. In something like Boxing Gym he makes no attempt to explain to the audience who his subjects are or what they are doing, and offers no summations. Meaning comes purely from observation. In Crazy Horse though he actually lets the staff of the Crazy Horse explain themselves by filming them being interviewed by other journalists. It's kind of a jarring intrusion, almost talking heads by proxy, and I'm not sure it should have been in the film. Media attention is surely part of their lives, but I have to think there could have been more organic ways to portray that fact.
That nitpick aside, Crazy Horse is for the most part pure spectacle. Many of the routines, even in rehearsal, and filmed in a fairly tight shot and surrounded by nothing but darkness, effortlessly giving the audience the illusion that are actually in the club and not watching a film about the club. There is a rope suspension routine near the end of the doc that might be the best primer on the appeal and eroticism of bondage play ever put to film. And when Wiseman does open things up, such as scenes where he cuts back and forth between a routine itself and other dancers watching the routine backstage and commenting on it, he brilliantly reveals the personal dynamics of the troupe, simultaneously supportive and competitive.
Perhaps my favorite moment in the film comes when the dancers are simply hanging out and watching an old video of Russian ballet bloopers. At no point does anyone say "I wanted to be a ballerina when I was growing up, and now I'm here instead". No one mourns wistfully about the road not taken. The girls are all having a good time, laughing at clumsy lifts and jetes that wind up entangled in the scenery, but it also makes perfectly clear that whatever you see them as, they all still see themselves as dancers. It's a lovely, subtle moment, and the bittersweet echo of Wiseman's previous film La Danse can't be mere happenstance.
If anyone sees this just to watch the hot naked burlesque chicks, I kind of pity them. It's an excellent film, period. You shouldn't need another justification to seek it out.
If you've seen a Wiseman doc before, you probably know what you're getting into. His style is verite and he does it extremely well, "simply" pointing a camera at his subjects and letting their lives provide any sort of narrative. There's very little that's truly simple about his films though. In lesser hands that form of documentary can be deadly dull, but Wiseman's ability to construct exquisite images, and find rhythms through the editing process, sets his work far above many of his peers.
Which is why Crazy Horse, in many ways, caught me by surprise. In portraying subjects already used to scrutiny, Wiseman made some interesting changes to his usual style, and I'm still not sure whether they were for the better.
If you don't know, the Crazy Horse is Paris' most revered burlesque venue, a club that for decades has been dedicated to the admiration of the feminine form. What that means is that the film is, shall we say, very casual about its use of nekkidness. There are reasonably hot naked and partially naked women on screen for probably a quarter or a third of the film's running time - women rehearsing routines, performing routines, or just hanging out backstage. For that reason alone, this is easily Wiseman's most "mainstream" film. To his credit though, the camera doesn't do any ogling. Wiseman, as always, is worried about the composition of his images and not in turning on his audience, but frankly the ladies of Crazy Horse don't need any help in that department anyway.
As performers though, most of the people in the film are used to being watched, and while there's no sense that anyone is performing per se their comfort level in front of the camera, and their awareness of it, is a sharp contrast to any of Wiseman's previous films that I've seen. He also, for lack of a better word, cheats. In something like Boxing Gym he makes no attempt to explain to the audience who his subjects are or what they are doing, and offers no summations. Meaning comes purely from observation. In Crazy Horse though he actually lets the staff of the Crazy Horse explain themselves by filming them being interviewed by other journalists. It's kind of a jarring intrusion, almost talking heads by proxy, and I'm not sure it should have been in the film. Media attention is surely part of their lives, but I have to think there could have been more organic ways to portray that fact.
That nitpick aside, Crazy Horse is for the most part pure spectacle. Many of the routines, even in rehearsal, and filmed in a fairly tight shot and surrounded by nothing but darkness, effortlessly giving the audience the illusion that are actually in the club and not watching a film about the club. There is a rope suspension routine near the end of the doc that might be the best primer on the appeal and eroticism of bondage play ever put to film. And when Wiseman does open things up, such as scenes where he cuts back and forth between a routine itself and other dancers watching the routine backstage and commenting on it, he brilliantly reveals the personal dynamics of the troupe, simultaneously supportive and competitive.
Perhaps my favorite moment in the film comes when the dancers are simply hanging out and watching an old video of Russian ballet bloopers. At no point does anyone say "I wanted to be a ballerina when I was growing up, and now I'm here instead". No one mourns wistfully about the road not taken. The girls are all having a good time, laughing at clumsy lifts and jetes that wind up entangled in the scenery, but it also makes perfectly clear that whatever you see them as, they all still see themselves as dancers. It's a lovely, subtle moment, and the bittersweet echo of Wiseman's previous film La Danse can't be mere happenstance.
If anyone sees this just to watch the hot naked burlesque chicks, I kind of pity them. It's an excellent film, period. You shouldn't need another justification to seek it out.
TIFF Review: Juan of the Dead
Juan of the Dead (2011, directed by Alejandro Brugues)
Shaun, Juan... I can hardly wait for Siobhan of the Dead, where beautiful Irish lasses fight zombies in slow motion to the haunting strains of Sinead O'Connor and Cranberries tunes. I suppose somebody's already working on Han of the Dead, where zombies invade a Comic-Con-like gathering of geeks. How about Von of the Dead, where a retired baseball player battles zombie Phillie fans?
Anyway, Juan of the Dead is an amusing little trifle. The titular Juan scratches out a living in Havana running whatever schemes he can to get by, and trying to make amends with his daughter Camila, recently returned from Spain. When folks start acting oddly and trying to eat people due to a batch of expired pharmaceuticals, Juan and his motley crew of friends try to exploit the situation by charging for their zom... excuse me, "dissident"-elimination services. The usual mayhem ensues, to a seductive salsa beat.
As zombie movies go, Juan of the Dead isn't up the level you'd expect from a North American feature. The make-up is no great shakes, the actors clearly have had no fight training whatsoever, and the film-making in general is a little rough. But what it lacks in polish it (almost) makes up in charm. The token political message (that the government denies anything is really wrong, and that the disturbances in the streets are being caused by Yankee-backed dissidents) makes for a good running joke, and the script is versed in the classics well enough to introduce a character who "kicks ass for the Lord" and then promptly gets accidentally offed, as well as the creation of a jury-rigged zombie-killing car that lacked only Raimi's hyperzooms to be a full-on Army of Darkness homage. A couple of the kills, particularly a truck-mounted harpoon that leads to the decapitation of a whole mob of zombies, are inventive too. It's also extremely cool to see a film like this actually shot in Havana in all its fading, run-down glory - I don't know how they got permission to shoot this, and don't want to know. The city is very nearly a zombie itself at this point, and an important character in the film in its own right.
The words that came to mind while watching Juan were things like "cute" and "endearing", even considering the presence of a comic relief sidekick who goes way beyond 'clumsily gross' and into 'why do they keep this useless disgusting pig around anyway?' territory. It's a fun, entertaining little time-waster.
Seriously though, Han of the Dead. If no one is making it right this second, I'm both deeply disappointed and calling dibs.
Shaun, Juan... I can hardly wait for Siobhan of the Dead, where beautiful Irish lasses fight zombies in slow motion to the haunting strains of Sinead O'Connor and Cranberries tunes. I suppose somebody's already working on Han of the Dead, where zombies invade a Comic-Con-like gathering of geeks. How about Von of the Dead, where a retired baseball player battles zombie Phillie fans?
Anyway, Juan of the Dead is an amusing little trifle. The titular Juan scratches out a living in Havana running whatever schemes he can to get by, and trying to make amends with his daughter Camila, recently returned from Spain. When folks start acting oddly and trying to eat people due to a batch of expired pharmaceuticals, Juan and his motley crew of friends try to exploit the situation by charging for their zom... excuse me, "dissident"-elimination services. The usual mayhem ensues, to a seductive salsa beat.
As zombie movies go, Juan of the Dead isn't up the level you'd expect from a North American feature. The make-up is no great shakes, the actors clearly have had no fight training whatsoever, and the film-making in general is a little rough. But what it lacks in polish it (almost) makes up in charm. The token political message (that the government denies anything is really wrong, and that the disturbances in the streets are being caused by Yankee-backed dissidents) makes for a good running joke, and the script is versed in the classics well enough to introduce a character who "kicks ass for the Lord" and then promptly gets accidentally offed, as well as the creation of a jury-rigged zombie-killing car that lacked only Raimi's hyperzooms to be a full-on Army of Darkness homage. A couple of the kills, particularly a truck-mounted harpoon that leads to the decapitation of a whole mob of zombies, are inventive too. It's also extremely cool to see a film like this actually shot in Havana in all its fading, run-down glory - I don't know how they got permission to shoot this, and don't want to know. The city is very nearly a zombie itself at this point, and an important character in the film in its own right.
The words that came to mind while watching Juan were things like "cute" and "endearing", even considering the presence of a comic relief sidekick who goes way beyond 'clumsily gross' and into 'why do they keep this useless disgusting pig around anyway?' territory. It's a fun, entertaining little time-waster.
Seriously though, Han of the Dead. If no one is making it right this second, I'm both deeply disappointed and calling dibs.
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