My Udo My Udo What Have Ye Done

JA from MNPP here. Have you read this phenomenally odd and delightful interview with the actor Udo Kier at The AV Club? Odd and delightful are the two words I'd always use whenever mentioning Mr. Kier, but he really brings it this time around.

Over at MNPP  I picked out my fifteen favorite quotes from the interview, but I'm so oddly delighted in this chat's wake I've got to just keep on thinking about Udo, and what better way to do that then to mercilessly pick apart the work he's done over the years with a completely frivolous list. He's worked so much in such a vast array of projects that there are dozens of his performances that I've missed (I don't know how this is possible but it appears I've never seen any of the films he's done with Fassbinder, for example), but out of the many I have seen here are my five favorite performances of his.

5 Favorites



Lee Meyers, My Son My Son What Have Ye Done - I don't think it's often that Udo gets picked to play a straight man to somebody else's nuttery, but when stacked up against a way out there Michael Shannon it's not only possible, it's enthralling.

NSFW image after the jump

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Modern Maestros: Werner Herzog

Robert here, back with another entry in my series on great contemporary directors. For the second time in a month, I'm thinking of a director whose career started back in the 70's (actually earlier, but it took off in the 70's).  As always, since our interest here is in the importance of these maestros to modern cinema, I'll try and keep the discussion to the past ten years (or so).

Maestro: Werner Herzog
Known For: Movies about madness, movies with Klaus Kinski, and his own bizarre behavior.
Influences: Murnau, obviously. Also Bunuel, Kurosawa, many of the great old ones.
Masterpieces: We'll go all the way back to the old days for these starting with Aguirre, The Wrath of God, including Stroszek and arriving at Grizzly Man.
Disasters: If only I'd seen enough of his movies to answer this accurately, but alas availability issues arise.  No big disasters by my watch.
Better than you remember: History seems to regard him accurately.
Box Office: Numbers are hard to find, but the winner seems to be Rescue Dawn with over $5 mil.
Favorite Actor: Klaus

It's difficult to discuss Werner Herzog's movies without the conversation eventually veering off onto the subject of the man himself.  "Did you hear about that time he pulled a gun on Kinski?" "How about when he ate his own shoe?" "Or when he saved Joaquin Phoenix from a car wreck?"  "Did you know he was shot during an interview and kept going?" On and on go the stories of the man's legendary behavior, threatening to overshadow the great cinema he's made.  However, it may not be entirely unfair to suggest that the man and the movies are two separate topics.  After all, Herzog's worldview shapes both his behavior and his films.  That worldview is rooted in an endless fascination of mankind's inability to comprehend the chaos of the natural world, and how that incomprehension often leads us to madness.  For Herzog, it's a theme that appeared early in his work and reappeared often from Aguirre, the Wrath of God to Fitzcarraldo to subtler examples like Lessons of Darkness.  After his status faded abit in the 1980's and 1990's, Herzog returned, finding his themes mostly suited to documentaries.  In fact, starting with 1997's Little Dieter Needs to Fly, it seemed like everywhere he looked, the world was confirming Herzog's view of uncaring natural chaos, and begging him to point his camera.

It wasn't until Herzog found perhaps his greatest subject, Timothy Treadwell, that his cinematic comeback was complete. The resulting film Grizzly Man was an exquisitely crafted thesis on the erosion of the human soul.  It was perfect for Herzog who has utilized his reclaimed status to branch out into new areas while still staying true to his themes.  He took his camera out of the jungle and to the harsh environment of Antarctica where he found, predicatably enough, a strange collection of people no doubt molded by their unforgiving surroundings.  Narratively, Herzog has been slowly inching toward mainstream success, working with actors like Christian Bale and Nicolas Cage (who finally had a reason to let loose in a film where Herzog adds Hurricane Katrina to his running list of evidence that the natural world is an antagonizing force).

Bad Lieutenant

However it might not be fair to draw a line between Herzog's fiction and non-fiction films.  At the end of the last century, Herzog issued his Minnesota Declaration, where he railed against the concept of impartial documentary, suggesting that objective honesty in documentary film making is a fruitless task, and that the only way to achieve true honesty is through fabrication and stylization.  In fact, Herzog's documentaries often have a "rehearsed" style to them.  His subjects can seem coached and he ends his interviews by lingering his camera on them, waiting to see what they do once they assume their turn is over.  I mention this because the inherent falseness of traditional verite is an intriguing, unorthodox doctrine for documentary filmmaking, and Herzog is willing to be the only man to champion it.  In a cinematic landscape where conventional wisdom is often treated as indisputable fact, Herzog's daring is worth celebrating.  Speaking of unconventional, Herzog's next documentary will be about cave painting.  Expect it to be in 3D.

DVDs: Disgusting Orcs, Hallucinated Iguanas, and Magical Oak

I haven’t had time to rescreen An Education yet for that article you voted on last week in the weekly DVD/Blu Ray roundup. But just load me up with more work, sadists! Which of these new or remastered/rereleased thingamoviejigs are you hankering to read Nathaniel’s take on?

• Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans in which Nicolas Cage sees reptiles for crazy man Werner Herzog. This sounds kind of interesting but I can't escape Cage this week and that is *not* a good thing


• The Lord of The Rings (animated!) in which Ralph Bakshi attempts to shove several epic books into two hours of cartoonage


• Dirt! The Movie Jamie Lee Curtis tells us all about the magical powers of earth in this documentary


• The Natural (director's cut) Robert Redford's golden baseball drama from 1984. With Glenn Close, Barbara Hershey and Kim Basinger


• Jade Warrior some Finnish (?) martial arts epic

poll by twiigs.com

You chose BAD LIEUTENANT. Here's the Write Up.

Robert Gives Thanks

I love slow movies. Really slow. For the longest time I thought everyone else considered that word to signify the worst in movies. Slow meant bad enough to put you to sleep. I love movies that put me to sleep. I’ve a whole collection of movies that I can pop in the DVD player whenever I can’t sleep and they’ll do the trick. If we can agree that music peaceful enough to put you to sleep can still be great, why not movies?

So this year I’m thankful for slow movies. But I’m also thankful for others who love them, because together we inspire filmmakers to keep making them. Great modern films like Goodbye, Solo and The Assassination of Jesse James..., and The Band’s Visit and Silent Light.

I’m thankful that cinema hasn’t been completely overrun by the desire to make anything but “boring” when too often films that are poetic, relaxing, serene, and contemplative are given that most terrible of labels.

I’m also thankful for Studio Ghibli, Charlie Chaplin, Mumbecore films, Faye Wong in Wong Kar Wai movies, Maria Falconetti , Charlie Kaufman, the masculinity of John Huston, the Iranian New Wave, Max Von Sydow (who looks like my grandfather), Fellini in the 1980’s, everything that comes out of Werner Herzog’s mouth, the modern Documentary movement, Louise Brooks and her hair, and Jude Law’s last line in A.I. “I am, I was!”

Report: A Girl Explodes In London

Dave here, noting that I've hardly been the best guest blogger around, but I've got the three of diamonds up my sleeve and now's the time to play it. (Assuming we're playing snap and you played the three of spades.) Next week sees the start of the LONDON FILM FESTIVAL, and I'll be reporting from the front line, so to speak, mixing up the big show-offs with little treasures (or disasters) from the selection of British and other smaller films on offer. Press screenings have already been going on, which is why I'm here now with my first round-up.

Easily the most notable of those I've seen so far is Werner Herzog's completely left-field remake of Bad Lieutenant, which shows off its flamboyant impulses right from the elongated title, The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. I had every intention of watching the original beforehand, but time ran away from me, so I went in without any preconceptions, apart from my long-term hatred for Nicolas Cage. Put a strike through that one, though: not that I actively seek out Cage movies, but he doesn't seem to be doing anything different here - rather, it's the movie around him treating his acting 'style' in a completely reversed manner. His oddities are seen as odd, and, what's more, they comply with Herzog's unpredictably mad approach. As he takes more drugs and gets deeper in some labyrinthine plot, Cage's weirdness only gets weirder - his speech becomes tougher, as though he can't unstick his teeth, his hunch almost becomes a hunchback, his grins grow more demented. And it's all absurdly wonderful. You can only think that this is all meant to be hilarious - how else could 'iguana cam' make any sense whatsoever? With the awkward camerawork, slapdash plotting and a floridly orchestral score, this isn't a good film, but it certainly provides a hell of a two hours of rollicking entertainment. As such, grades are rather irrelevant, but take your B and roll with it.

Wah Do Dem's main calling card seems to be the appearance of one Norah Jones, but given she's in it for all of two minutes, that's rather irrelevant. Max (the slightly goofy but charming Sean Bones) is dumped by her just before they're due to go off on a cruise to Jamaica, and, despite scrabbling around trying to find another 'cruise partner', Max ends up going alone. Which of course means we enjoy all the (largely true) cruise cliches of old people and utter boredom and SHOCK! a gay person. Things get brighter for us as things get worse for Max (especially once he gets to his destination), but what value the film emits is less hilarity than a surprisingly felt message about embracing the unpredictability and liberating danger life can hold. The over-saturated colour makes the film, the debut of duo Ben Chace and Sam Fleischner, seem a little amateurish, especially as it clashes with the handheld camerawork, but it's not an unpleasant little film. C

She, A Chinese was a disappointing way to start to my festival - the roving, restless camerawork paints some pretty pictures and Lu Huang's solid performance can't conceal the aimlessness of the film. Admittedly, the central character is aimless and the film charts her search for something better, for some purpose, and I suppose the vague non-conclusion is making some kind of meaningful point. But it never latches onto any kind of insight about the clash of the various cultures and social milieus Li Mei settles in, dealing instead in lame cliches and droll, detached moments, even when her life veers into the darkest of places. C-

And last on today's this-is-longer-than-I'll-usually-talk-for report is the not-nearly-as-exciting-as-it-sounds The Exploding Girl. It's not entirely a metaphor, though - she's exploding because stress and drink and suchlike provoke an epileptic fit in her. 'She' being Ivy (Zoe Kazan), a young college-going girl who plunges into herself when the combination of a long-distance boyfriend and a visiting male friend she might be attracted to starts to implode before her. Bradley Rust Gray's film is sweet, low-key, maybe a little dull at points, but the observational, placed camerawork (if something gets in the camera's way, be it a car, a tree or an ass, it stays in the way) and Kazan's sympathetic performance make it a pleasant sit. B-

I'll be back on Monday, when the festival will really kick in; impending highlights include the world premiere of Fantastic Mr. Fox, as well as A Single Man, Stale Popcorn favourite Samson & Delilah and some men staring at goats. See you then.

TIFF 09 Coverage Concludes: Whip It, Mother and Child, Up in the Air

As promised here's the final installment of this year's Toronto Film Festival coverage. My anonymous friend (txt critic) saw 26 movies in half a week (I know!) and agreed to rank them all upon his return.

Here's his last few capsules and rankings

1. A Serious Man A+ (previous post)
2. Precious A (previous post)

3. Up in the Air A
The recipient of the most ejaculatory pre festival hype, I think Jason Reitman’s film’s low-key aspirations, and the small-scale story it tells, will perhaps not benefit from being oversold by everyone and their mother (most random Torontonians I waited on line with over the course of the week told me they thought it was “very good, not great”). So, while adding to the hype is to the movie’s detriment, I have to report that I completely swooned for the movie. I can already see the backlash coming, as the movie’s conventional story arc (man-as-an-island bachelor starts to see the value in having other people in his life) will be easy to bemoan. What really sells it all is that it avoids sentimentality and seems to come from a sincere place of honest emotion. It's also extremely funny, never losing its designation as a comedy, even as the resonance starts to approach around the midway point. What’s perhaps most impressive about Reitman’s direction is the handling of this shift and balance of tone: there aren’t “serious” beats, and the film doesn’t jarringly turn into a drama halfway through. It grows subtly more weighty as it goes along, until you're misty-eyed. George Clooney gives one of his best performances, while still staying in his comfort zone. There will be much bigger, showier performances than this, but the film wouldn’t work without his deft handling of the character’s arc. This isn’t a blow you away emotional movie or Juno-esque crowd-pleaser -- the two prevalent adjectives in my mind are “quiet” and “bittersweet” -- but it’s the sort of thing that’s going to entertain and touch a lot of people, and for once, actually earn the feelings it arouses. Oscar nominations for picture, director, actor and adapted screenplay all seem assured.

4. Mother and Child A
Following up Nine Lives and Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her with yet another female-driven ensemble film that happens to be his best yet, Rodrigo García’s latest is an openly emotional, fascinating, complex tale of three different women whose lives may or may not cross but, at the least, run parallel. All three (played by Annette Bening, Naomi Watts and Kerry Washington), have had their lives impacted by adoption -- Bening gave birth at 14 and put the girl up for adoption, Watts is her grown-up daughter who’s never met her mother, and Washington is infertile, trying to adopt with her husband. While you emerge from the theater extremely satisfied, no easy answers are found and the film acknowledges the messiness of the emotions / situations entailed in such situations.

Rodrigo García directs The Bening

Watts, Washington and Samuel L. Jackson (in a very small, understated role) are terrific, but the powerhouse performance here belongs to Bening. Starting the film out as an (seemingly) impenetrable bitch, Bening slowly makes us understand the character, and the decisions and emotions that have informed her life. By the time the film ends, you understand why this character ends up in the emotional place that she does. It never feels unrealistic or like a cheat. I don’t know if the film will get distribution before the end of the year but if it does, Bening will unquestionably be one of the five nominees for Best Actress.

5. Micmacs A-
6. The Road A-
7. The Informant! A- (previous post)
8. Harry Brown B+

9. The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans B+
One of the best midnight movies I’ve ever seen (a cult following is already assured), this Nicolas Cage vehicle from Werner Herzog -- using the title and pretty much nothing else from the Abel Ferrara-Harvey Keitel film -- has a warped, nutso energy running through it that had me frazzled when I wasn’t busy laughing. Cage’s off-the-wall performance as a cop addicted to pussy, coke, and back-pain pills is a live-wire tour de force, that for once, utilizes the actor’s over the top inclinations for a character they actually work for. The film’s truly a blast. You alternately gasp and laugh in disbelief, waiting to see what Cage (and Herzog) will do next. My personal favorite moment is a TWO-MINUTE-LONG shot of iguanas Cage is looking at, made all the more brilliant when it’s revealed by another character that said iguanas aren’t even there. This won’t play with Cage’s National Treasure fans, but this is an audience movie if there ever was one.

10. Antichrist B+ (previous post)

11. Whip It B+
Drew Barrymore’s roller-derby directorial debut is perhaps most surprising for the fact that it’s more than “fun,” it’s actually “good.” Showing an assured hand on her first go-round, Barrymore more than capably handles every aspect of the story without short-shrifting any of them: the sports elements work (the derby scenes, violence and all, are insanely fun and well-shot), the coming of age story and love story never feel like bullshit, and the family relationship drama actually proves touching.


Whip It never lets Marcia Gay Harden’s overbearing mother become a caricature or a shrill harridan and allows Daniel Stern, of all people, to be the film’s warm, fuzzy heart. Ellen Page is strong in the central role that can't have been well defined on the page, and the supporting cast is aces, most notably Kristin Wiig in her first screen role (besides, maybe, Ghost Town) that allows her to be as funny as she can be.

12. Perrier’s Bounty B+ (previous post)
13. The Trotsky B (previous post)
14. Daybreakers B
15. Chloe B (previous post)
16. Jennifer’s Body B (previous post)
17. Ondine B-
18. Leaves of Grass B- (previous post)
19. Good Hair B-

20. The Hole C+ (previous post)
21. Solitary Man C
22. George A. Romero’s Survival of the Dead C (previous post)
23. The Joneses C (previous post)
24. Creation C- (previous post)
25. Get Low C-
26. Capitalism: A Love Story D+ (previous post)

Would you all join me in a rousing chorus of "Release Mother and Child!" I need The Bening back in my life. It's torture that festivals dangle these goodies and the distributors look around like "who, me?"

I hope you've enjoyed this year's TIFF coverage and please join me in thanking txt critic, MattCanada and Lev for sharing their thoughts! Maybe next year I'll even make it there myself.

TIFF: The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

Lev Lewis reporting from the Toronto International Film Festival.

Just came from a screening of The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans and let me just say that it's an insane, rollicking and at times brilliant piece of cinema. I wasn't expecting my thoughts to be anything but negative, but Werner Herzog and Nicolas Cage really hit this one out of the park.

It's easily Cage's best performance since Adaptation; at this point I'd even say that the Academy owes him some recognition. Believe me that's not something I thought I'd be saying after the appalling work Cage has done in the last few years. But in The Bad Lieutenant he takes all his absurd, comical ticks and mannerisms and creates a bizarre, thrilling character that carries the lunatic film.

Editors note: "WHAT?"

It's truly a once in a lifetime experience. They've constructed a ludicrous and hilarious takedown of the cop genre that's imbued with Herzog's unique sensibility.
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I Am Afraid Of Harmony Korine

.

And that's precisely how he likes it, I assume.

JA from MNPP here. If y'all are familiar with my tastes at all at this point - and if you are, my prayers are with you - then you know I don't hesitate at reveling in garbage. Often. Deeply. That vile and base genre that is the horror film is my true love (and the gorier, the bad-tastier they are, there's a pretty decent chance that I will stand loud and proud to champion them), but I roll around like a pig in muck in all manner of cinematic trash whenever I can. It's a living.

And yet... somehow I'd actively avoided all of Korine's films - at least those he'd directed - for a good long while. Something about them creeped me out. Even if it was just the names. Gummo. Julien Donkey-Boy. They promised split lips and acne scars and people lying on pee-stained sofas abusing their children. I don't mind buckets of blood, but... filth... I have a problem with filth. Not the pretty painted-on grime of something like David Fincher's Seven, but movies that hit you like a shut-up trailer's cat-pee smell, those I have trouble watching. And that's what I figured I'd be getting with Korine's movies.

And then... then came the Herzog connection. I am worshipful of Werner Herzog. I bown down. He is in my opinion the greatest living filmmaker. And he started starring in Korine's films. I still haven't worked my way back to Julien Donkey-Boy (I hear his performance therein is something to behold) but I hit up Mister Lonely because, I mean come on, Samantha Morton! Diego Luna! And Werner Herzog? There's no way I could say no. And I loved Lonely. Loved. It was my #7 movie last year.

So now... now we come to his new movie. It's called Trash Humpers. (Of course it is.) And it's playing at Toronto this week, and now via Twitch comes the trailer. The delightfully deranged trailer.

.

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So what do we think of Korine? One trick pony or cinematic wunderkind? And how about that bizzaro trailer? I'm hooked.
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Denis, Rivette, and Moore!: Venice Lineup Announced

Robert here, noticing that the Venice Film Festival announced the lineup for it's 66th installment on Thursday. Here's the in-competition list, with a few bits I managed to find about each film.

Baaria (Opening Film) dir. Giuseppe Tornatore
The director of Cinema Paradiso gives us a three-generation spanning epic about his Italian hometown.

Soul Kitchen dir. Fatih Akin (pictured)
Akin directed the terrific Head-On and The Edge of Heaven (if you haven't seen either or both, do now). He re teams with Birol Unel from Head-On for a comedy about culture and gender clash.

La Doppia Ora dir. Giuseppe Capotondi
It's been tough finding information on this as Venice's website (nor IMDb) has much at the moment. I can tell tell you is that it's a freshman effort, it's Italian, and it's fun to say... La Doppio Ora!

Yi ngoi (Accident) dir. Cheang Pou-Soi
A Hong Kong crime film about a policeman getting in too deep as he attempts to take down an Assassins gang.

Persecution dir. Patrice Chereau
The newest film from the director of Queen Margot and Intimacy is a tumultuous love story. No word on whether there will be explicit scenes but it stars Charlotte Gainsbourg so a man can dream can't he?

Lo Spazio Bianco (White Space) dir. Francesca Comencini
This Italian film deals with the tenuous empty time (ala white space) a mother spends between the premature birth of her baby and its removal from an incubator.

White Material dir. Claire Denis
While us Denis fans in the states are still anticipating her last movie 35 Rhums, she's moved onto her next. This one stars Isabelle Huppert and Isaak de Bankole and involves a French coffee grower in Africa during a time of great conflict. Those unfamiliar with Denis probably shouldn't expect any action sequences.

Mr. Nobody dir. Jaco van Dormael (pictured)
Here's a film about a 120 year old man who is the last mortal living in a world of immortals. I'm already sold. Jared Leto and Sarah Polley star.

A Single Man dir. Tom Ford
Ford's first film stars Colin Firth as a gay college professor dealing with the death of his lover. Julianne Moore also stars. I smell lots and lots of potential.

Lourdes dir. Jessica Hausner
Hasuner's films have been staples on the festival circuits (though still relatively unknown among wider audiences). Lourdes (which will also play Toronto) is about a wheelchair-bound woman who, wouldn't you know it, travels to Lourdes in the hope of a miracle.

Bad Lieutenant: Port Of New Orleans dir. Werner Herzog
Nicolas Cage stars as a wild flailing police lieutenant who totters on the edge of sanity... as directed by Werner Herzog. This will either be a horrible disaster or a fantastic disaster, or a total masterpiece. It'll certainly be something.

The Road dir. John Hillcoat
Remember back when Esquire called this the most important film of the year? We'll soon see.

Ahasin Wetei (Between Two Worlds) dir. Vimukhti Jayasundara
I look forward to finding out more about this film from award-winning short director Jayasundara. Meanwhile, here's a picture of him at some event with Miranda July. Cool.

El Mosafer (The Traveller) dir. Ahmed Maher
Word is, Maher's been trying to make this project his entire career. It's described as: "Set in three different time periods, “El Mosafer” traces the life of one man over three days in three different years: 1948 in Suez, 1973 in Alexandria and 2001 in Cairo."[src] I figured no paraphrasing of mine could do better.

Levanon (Lebanon) dir. Samuel Maoz
A semi-autobiographical picture about four soldiers at the start of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

Capitalism: A Love Story dir. Michael Moore (pictured)
Unfortunately there's not much on the internet about either this film or director. Apparently he's a documentarian of some sort who people don't feel strongly about one way or the other. Seriously though if Moore's latest is like the rest of his films it stands to be controversial, sad, and true (mostly).

Zanan-e-bedun-e mardan (Women Without Men) dir. Shirin Neshat
Neshat is an acclaimed photographer whose been delving into film recently. Her latest is about a group of women who band together to form their own personal rural utopia.

Il Grande Sogno (The Big Dream) dir. Michele Placido
This film is set in 1968. I wish I could have found more than that. It's Italian and despite what Quentin Tarantino might have you believe, that country has been turning out some really good cinema lately.

36 Vues Du Pic Saint Loup dir. Jacques Rivette
Rivette's latest is a biopic about author Raymond Roussel. And considering it's Rivette behind the wheel, I'm guessing it's not your standard biopic.

Life During Wartime dir. Todd Solondz
Solondz's new movie has been described as a "dark comedy of sexual obsession" [src] and a companion piece to Happiness and Welcome to the Dollhouse. Solondz fans should be excited... hooray for sexual obsession!

Tetsuo The Bullet Man dir. Shinya Tsukamoto (pictured)
This is the third film in Tsukamoto's underground cyberpunk Tetsuo film series. I can't personally claim to have seen any of them but know that the first, Tetsuo The Iron Man is about a man who finds himself transforming into metal. I'm told it's weird... in a good way.

Lei wangzi (Prince of Tears) dir. Yonfan
Chinese director Yonfan gives us an exploration of friendship between four individuals in socially unresty 1960's Taiwan.

Hopefully that spread some interest around, and my apologies for the more sketchy summaries.

Document This!

Glenn here again. I don't leave quietly.

I know Nathaniel isn't quite as big of a documentary watcher as some others out there, so I thought I'd give the genre a bit of a spruik (apparently that's an Australian slang word so don't worry about not knowing what it means). I've made an effort this past year to see more documentaries - theatrically and otherwise - and while the number may only be hovering around the ten mark, considering I barely see more than four a year I think I have reason to be chuffed with myself.

It is, however, incredibly disappointing to realise that of the fifteen documentary titles shortlisted by the Academy only three have received a theatrical release here in Australia. How is it that even a Werner Herzog film - that'd be Encounters at the End of the World doesn't warrant a release? I can't imagine titles such as Trouble the Water, At the Death House Door (from the directors of Hoop Dreams - perhaps the greatest film of the 1990s? discuss) and I.O.U.S.A will ever screen down here. As a matter of fact, Spike Lee's sprawling 4hr+ documentary When the Levees Broke only just received it's first ever screening in Australia two weeks ago. I was privy to the special screening and it's baffling that it has never been shown on TV or released on DVD down here. What's up with that?

My favourite doco from 2008 was Yung Chang's hypnotizing and beautifully eerie Up the Yangtze. It's a shame the film has failed to be recognised in any way outside of one measly Indie Spirit nomination. After that stunning film we have James Marsh's ubiquitous Man on Wire, which is becoming the biggest award sweeper in history. Yes, even Helen Mirren lost one critics award. Mark Hartley's thrilling Not Quite Hollywood is a deliciously entertaining journey through Aussie genre films of the '70s and '80s with energy to spare. It receives an American theatrical release in the new year. Cult explorations in Beyond Our Ken and Celebrity: Dominick Dunne, about Vanity Fair crime writer Dunne, made for two more exemplary Australian docs. Lastly, I've got to shout out to Guy Maddin's bizarre and wonderful My Winnipeg. Whether you classify it as a documentary is entirely up to you though.

So tell me Film Experience readers, have you experienced any documentaries worth cheering? And let's try and convince Nathaniel to add them to his Netflix, okay?

Now Playing: Hulk Smash Puny Wahlberg!

That's gonna hurt! You really should watch your surroundings
if you choose to walk around half-naked in your downtown area.

I couldn't resist. Not to rub salt in the upcoming The Happening wounds. That wouldn't be nice. But misery loves company and I woke up totally sick today. Sore throat -- i can't even swallow -- probably from being outside for too many Shakespearean soliloquies. Sadly, I'm in no shape to hit the movie theaters even though, after that week in Florida, I'm desperate to see some movies. Argh!

W I D E
The Happening ~In which Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel experience mass suicides and strange, well, happenings. From M Night Shyamalan, he of the smart personal branding, strong eye, and terrible ear.
The Incredible Hulk ~In which Marvel Studios pretends that Ang Lee isn't one of the best filmmakers in the world by pretending that his movie didn't really count. Expect lots of smashing... and probably smashing box-office too, given the Iron Man lead-in to Marvel mania.

L I M I T E D
Baghead ~I haven't watched this trailer because the poster terrifies me. If it's a horror movie I don't want to see it. I can't imagine that anyone would make a satire of Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice at this point in time but that's my second thought (post-horror) when I glance at the poster.
My Winnipeg ~ I always want to love Guy Maddin's movies. His visuals are fun, personal and above all drunk on silent film, so I feel a kinship. And yet... I don't love his movies. Unless they're very short like The Heart of the World or Sissy Boy Slap Party in which case I am so there.
Encounters at the End of the World ~Werner Herzog is the man. I shall wear my Herzog t-shirt today in honor of this movie which I shan't see on account of staying in bed.

God bless laptops!
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The Vampire Blog-a-Thon

"They Want To Suck Your Blood!" ~ A Vampire Blog-a-Thon
Scroll down for bloody good reads @ 53 other vamping blogs
(click here if you to view blog-a-thon by specific film / subject)

I am a big wuss. It's true. The tiniest thing can frighten me. So I have no idea why I love vampires so much. Nor do I have an earthly clue why I had originally intended to write about Kathryn Bigelow's Near Dark (1987)...

For that underseen horror film, Bigelow enlisted the cast of her then-husband James Cameron's Aliens (1986) to play a wandering group of bloodsuckers: Lance Henriksen, Jenette Goldstein and Bill Paxton are the alien soldier/prey gone western vampire/predator. In Near Dark's most famous sequence they enter a roadhouse and massacre the patrons. It's been a good twelve years since I've seen the film but I've never been able to shake Paxton's demonic "finger lickin' gooood" glee from my memory. Just typing this makes me long for vampires on the more romantic side of the undead fence. Since the most romantic thing about Near Dark is a marriage that shares actors, I'm opting out of a repeat viewing for now. A wuss and a softie.

So when it comes to my preferences in fictional monsters, I'll admit that I'm something of a beauty fascist. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is my favorite TV series of all time, but it has one recurrent motif that makes me die a little inside. Each time vampires in the Whedon-verse reveal themselves, their pretty faces morph into hideous mugs --a little too Klingon / Lost Boys for my taste. If you're going to sink your teeth into my neck, please look pretty while doing so. Don't scrunch up your face.

Since the vampire's "blood is life" myth haunts metaphor rich neighborhoods like Sex and Death, it's no surprise that it's so flexible a fictional genre. It changes with the times. Recent years have downplayed the seductiveness and amped up the savagery of the creatures of the night. When you stop to consider vampiric activity in the Blade and Underworld series or in 80s films like The Lost Boys and Near Dark the violence has become so foregrounded that the erudite romantic vampire is now a dinosaur.

Francis Ford Coppola's divisive batty Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) did try to resurrect the old-school vampire, but I'd say the operatic romance within it is the one thing that most assuredly did not work. In the form of delicious Winona Ryder (just ignore her tone-deaf line readings), this Mina Harker could certainly drive a man to drink...her blood. But in the form of Gary Oldman, this Dracula would have a hard time inspiring recriprocal lust. If you want to ressurect the fanged hypnotic ladies man, he shouldn't have a weak chin. A great actor Oldman may well be. A great romantic leading man he simply is not.

But if we can't have the swooning albeit incongruous romanticism of bloodthirsty killers, can we at least have eroticism? Occasionally we can, yes. The legendary sapphic makeout between Susan Sarandon and Catherine Deneuve in The Hunger (yes, please) and Keanu Reeves's druggy romp with three nubial vamp brides (and how) in Bram Stoker's Dracula are two famous examples. But here are two more cinematic moments worth obsessing on. They're both chilling and sexually charged and, therefore, perfectly vampiric.

Nosferatu (1979)
Is any vampire uglier than Nosferatu? In Werner Herzog's expert adaptation of the silent classic, the disgusting, decayed Nosferatu leaning over the prone form of young and beautiful Lucy (Isabelle Adjani) is a forceful study in contrast. Their lone similarity is their mutually pale skin which, come to think of it, is a perfect statement itself: isn't Lucy already doomed, the moment she concocts her self-sacrifice?

Aside from a moody, well-judged cutaway to bats flying in slow motion, Herzog's camera doesn't ever look away -- for minutes on end -- from the blunt sexuality of Nosferatu's bloodlust. The creature is mesmerized by both the blood and the body. With sickeningly slow care he caresses her with his beastly clawed hands. This excruciating scene maximizes the feeling of violation, playing on the audiences fear of their own sexual vulnerability. Lucy, knowing the sun will soon rise and rid the town of this undead monster, pulls him closer as soon at a crucial moment. His violating lust will be his undoing. Her sexual martyrdom is on the disturbing level of Breaking the Waves.

Interview with the Vampire (1994)
Is any vampire prettier than Brad Pitt? This film adaptation of Anne Rice's bestseller gets a considerable boost from Pitt's potent auto-eroticism, which hit its peak with this film and Legends of the Fall (the combo of which sent him into the stratosphere). My favorite moment in the whole of the sumptuous but uneven Interview is when Louis (Pitt) is first bitten by Lestat (Tom Cruise).

Once Cruise has buried his face in Pitt's neck, turning the moviegoing audience green with envy, the movie stars lift off into the air. For a blissful moment or two each time I watch this Neil Jordan film, I believe that the director will make a convention-defying choice and leave the camera resting on the glory of Pitt's face in ecstacy, his eyes fluttering. (As it turns out, it's quite orgasmic to be bitten by a vampire. But maybe everything is sexually heightened when you look like Brad Pitt?) Sadly, Jordan succumbs to the mediocrity of traditional back and forth editing, cutting to Tom Cruise's less attractive and now bloody-toothed face. Gross.

But this is the way of all things vampire: the repellent and hypnotic in tandem.

Update: you'd like to view the blog-a-thon by film & subject click here

The Bloodsucking Blogs
Flickhead has capsules on five favored vampire flicks
Gallery of the Absurd imagines Interview with the Antoinette
House of Sternberg posts original short fiction The Starving
Certifiably Creative offers up Theater Des Vampires
No More Marriages on Pittsburgh as the star of Innocent Blood
Eddie on Film views Fright Night as the top 80s vampire flick
Forward to Yesterday gets political w/ Guy Maddin's Dracula
Silly Hats Only on George Romero's Martin
As Little As Possible loves Dracula: Dead and Loving It
Modern Fabulousity pays tribute to Klaus Kinski as Nosferatu
Low Resolution stays up late From Dusk Till Dawn
Stale Popcorn sings a love song for (sexy) vampires
goatdog on the dwindling House of Dracula at Universal
Cinemathematics on vampire imagery in Shadow of a Doubt
Burbanked Blame the screenwriter: blood sucking edition

...And Still More Undead
Richard Gibson goes contemporary: Martin and The Addiction
When I Look Deep... pits Drácula against Dracula
Pfangirl on a "bloody awesome trio" of lady bloodsuckers
QTA loves the ladies. And so do the ladies in Vampyros Lesbos
Cinema Fromage 'yeah baby, Dracula in 70s London'
zoom-in requests a DVD fix of The Addiction
Stinky Lulu loves Ketty Lester in Blacula
Way of Words on women: from victims to vampire slayers
Music is My Boyfriend offers tunes for the blog-a-thon
Pen15 Club "When Hilary Duff attacks"
My New Plaid Pants finds Paxton ‘finger lickin’ good’ in Near Dark
Nicks Flick Picks on Coppola's Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Being Boring on the homo-cautionary Interview…
Culture Snob resurrects and old look at Nosferatu
The Horror Blog 'fesses up to some anti-vampire prejudice

The Vampires Are Everywhere!
Tuwa's Shanty on Martin & Nosferatu
Catherine Cantieri the giant sucking sound of 1992's Dracula
The Boob Tubers asks the eternal question: Spike or Angel?
novaslim says a "vuck you" to Grace Jones in Vamp
European Films on Frostbite, a Swedish horror comedy
popbytes recommends Christopher Lee in Hammer's Dracula series
Glitterati points out the most unbelievably cast vampire…ever
100 Films the monster mashup: Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein
Peter Nellhaus on Brides of Dracula
Bright Lights After Dark 'Browning and the Slow Club' (Dracula)
Tim Lucas declares his half dozen favorite vampire flicks
Film Vituperatum Ninjas and Vampires --uncanny similarities!
Film of The Year 'That's Why The Lady is a Vamp'
All About My Movies Angelina Jolie IS a Vampire
Critic After Dark two vampire movies from The Philippines
Agence Eureka a vampire gallery
Cinevistaramascope finds Herzog's Nosferatu superior to Murnau's
Auteur Lust obsesses on Persona: 'The Vampire's In Us'
Bitter Cinema a treasure trove of YouTube vampire trailers
Cutting Room remembers his first time...w/ Bram Stokers Dracula
Watts With Words 'Suck Me' on homoerotic vampires
Jurgen Fauth's Muckworld a 60 second tribute to Kinski as Nosferatu

Happy Halloween! Pray for Sunrise

UPDATE: If you liked this blog-a-thon check out the two others the film experience has hosted on Michelle Pfeiffer (April 2006) and Action Heroines (June 2007)

Tags: blogging, dracula, vampire, Nosferatu, vampires, horror, film, movies, blogs, Halloween, Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise

What's Up "Docs"? No Grizzly? No Way!

* This post has been edited to reflect the full list*

15 finalists named for the Oscar Feature Documentary race (which will be narrowed down to 5 nominees on January 31st).

EXPECTED BIGGIES:
March of the Penguins (my short review), Murderball, Mad Hot Ballroom, Rize and Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room

UNDERDOGS:
39 Pounds of Love, After Innocence, The Boys Of Baraka, Darwin's Nightmare, Unknown White Male, Street Fight, On Native Soil: The Documentary of the 9/11 Comission Report, Occupation: Dreamland, The Devil & Daniel Johnston, and Favela Rising
If you've seen any of these please share comments here. Do they have a shot at that 5 deep shortlist?

SNUBBED
The excellent Grizzly Man (my capsule review) Werner Herzog's absence from this list is maddening. The Documentary branch can never get it together it seems.