A totalitarian government have a novel idea to try and curb juvenile delinquency- to send a random class to an island where they will have to kill each other. Whoever is left is the winner. They have three days to complete the task. They are given provisions and a different weapon each. They also have a device fitted around their necks which can’t be removed. When activated this will make their head explode if they are found to be cheating, are planning on somehow opting out of the game or if there is more than one person left after the three days. This game is called Battle Royale.
I remember the first time I read the premise for Kinji Fukasaku’s film and thought, ‘I need to see this!’ I wasn’t disappointed.
Within the film it’s interesting to see the children who go crazy and indiscriminately start killing their classmates and those who stay calm, the ones who choose to opt out of the sadism (a couple decide to commit suicide rather than participate) and those who are clearly sociopathic and relish the situation. It’s also brilliant to see the gang of friends who decide to hack the computer system of the government body who are running the game.
Battle Royale was massively controversial when it was released in both it’s native Japan and abroad. One such bone of contention was that the characters in the film who are made to participate in Battle Royale are all aged 15. I love the fact that when the film was given a rating which prohibited those under 15 from seeing the film, it’s director went on TV and suggested that those who were underage just sneak in anyway.
Detractors of the film voiced the opinion that the film would encourage a teenage crime-wave. They seem to have missed one of the statements the film was making about this topic- Battle Royale was a game devised to curb the perceived rise in youth crime. Violence breeds violence.
But controversy is the best publicity for a film and Battle Royale was a massive success. It’s a blend of A Clockwork Orange, Escape From New York, The Running Man and Lord of the Flies. And with all of the most violent films, theres a dark gallows humour within the narrative that is very charming. I laughed more than once when I saw the movie for the first time. I also love the fact that after every death there is a caption stating the character’s name, their age and how many contestants are remaining.
The fact that this ‘game’ is being run for others entertainment is also very perceptive. In this age of reality TV and extreme game shows are we really that far away from a real Battle Royale?
Visitors to this page will know that I’m a MASSIVE John Waters fan. When his latest opus, A Dirty Shame was released I eagerly sought out one of the few cinemas that was showing the film in London where I lived at the time after graduating with a degree in Film Studies. There was a red flag before I attended in the form of a review in a newspaper that stated that fans of The Pope of Trash were in for a rude awakening. It stated that Mr Waters’ latest film was appalling and this was from a reviewer who was also a huge Waters fan. ‘What’s in a review?!’ I thought as I awaited this new film with bated breath. But as the film played I realised that the reviewer was right- this was the first Waters film I had ever seen that wasn’t just mediocre but was, as its title suggests, a dirty shame. I felt embarrassed at what I was witnessing on the screen. This fall from grace was dreadful to experience.
Twenty years later and I find a DVD copy of the film selling for 50 pence in a charity shop. I saw that one of the special features on the disc was a Director’s Commentary which would surely be entertaining even if the movie was still a turkey. I decided to buy the DVD and give the movie another chance. Maybe it had aged like a fine wine and earned its place in Waters’ impeccable (see what I did there?!) filmography.
A Dirty Shame concerns Sylvia Stickles, a sexually repressed and frigid woman who is outraged by the amount of flagrant sexual debauchery exhibited by most of her neighbours. That’s until she sustains a concussion during an accident and becomes horny beyond all expectations. She then learns that she is part of a community which is led by Ray Ray who brings together concussion victims who find that they have become sex addicts because of it. There then ensues a battle between the neuters (sexually conservative bores) and the permanently horny.
But did I enjoy A Dirty Shame when I saw it this time after all these years? In a word- YES! I found it irreverent, out-there (even by Waters standards) and utterly hilarious.
There have always been perverts in Waters’ movies with unique sexual acts all being dragged onto the screen whether it’s shrimping in Pink Flamingos or the rosary job in Multiple Maniacs. In A Dirty Shame these are key to proceedings and Waters demonstrates that he knows several hundred of them! Whether it’s spolshing, frottage or being sexually attracted to dirt (really), all are featured here and given screen time.
It was so great to find new actors participating in Waters’ work (Tracey Ullmann, Johnny Knoxville, Chris Isaak and Suzanne Shepherd to name but a few) joining the more established Dreamlanders such as Mink Stole, Patricia Hearst and Channing Wilroy with the whole cast attacking the material with such a massive degree of zeal.
But Selma Blair deserves special notice as Ursula Udders, the mammory enlarged sex addict who lives to go-go dance. She reminds me of supermodel and Eurotrash regular Lolo Ferrari.
We even get a cameo from David Hasselhoff!
And with such subject matter and the fact that it’s a John Waters’ movie, the dialogue is something else. ‘Believe me, I’m not a prude. I’m married to an Italian’, ‘I’m sorry I was nasty about your vagina yesterday’ and ‘Feel like yodelling in the canyon?!’ being three such examples.
The film also contains some animation and CGI effects that have aged incredibly well! The same can’t be said of other movies (Escape From L.A. being one such example).
Waters also makes a great social commentary about both ends of the asshole spectrum- the uptight conservative campaigners who seem to be allergic to any kind of fun especially if it’s to do with sex and the liberals who are open to everything and nauseatingly condescending because of it. There’s even one point where the liberal couple within the film talk about how diversity is so fantastic. Waters was using his crystal ball when he was writing this dialogue with diversity being parroted about in the media of today endlessly whilst the same people only want *their* kind of diversity rather than real diversity.
I kept thinking that A Dirty Shame would make for a great double-bill with Cronenberg’s Shivers. People could bring their own poppers.
Verdict- Is A Dirty Shame that bad? No! The only shocking thing about the film was that I hated it when I first saw it. Maybe I was having a bad day. Maybe I had taken that bad review to heart prior to seeing the film (theres a valuable life lesson there). Whilst this movie certainly isn’t one of Waters’ best, it still deserves it’s own place in The Pope of Puke’s body of work. Let’s hope it’s not the last film we see the great man direct.
1971 was a great year for British gangster movies. Not only did we get the masterpiece Get Carter but also the lesser-known Villain. These two films would usher in a new era of crime cinema and television.
Richard Burton plays Vic Dakin, a psychopathic London gangster. He’s planning on robbing a delivery of wages being made to a factory but has to get the blessing of a fellow gangster as the robbery will take place on his turf. With this, proceedings start to become more complicated and spiral out of control.
Within Villain there appears to be several parallels with the real-life Kray Twins and it’s rumoured that Burton liaised with them in prison as research for the role. Burton seems to have rolled both Krays into one single character.
Dakin is shown as being especially close to his mother and is shown taking in the milk from outside her house and waking her up after a hard night of being involved in less wholesome activities in the city. He is also shown taking his mother to Southend for a day out to the seaside. She seems completely oblivious (perhaps intentionally) to her son’s criminal activities.
Dakin is also gay. Ian McShane plays Wolfe, a pretty boy who owes Dakin money and is paying it off sexually. In a restored scene that was excised from initial prints of the film, we see Dakin take Wolfe to his bedroom and whilst appearing loving and sensual, suddenly punches Wolfe in the stomach. He then promises that he’ll take Wolfe out the next day to buy him whatever he wants. It’s obvious that this use of physical force is Dakin’s particular kink. The scene then fades to black. This is heady subject matter, especially for the times. Burton wrote about this in his diaries and admitted that it was all ‘ripe stuff’. Burton said to McShane that he reminded him of his beau Elizabeth Taylor which would provide the spark for their onscreen relationship.
Theres more spicy material in the film as Wolfe ‘procures’ women for the MP Gerald Draycott (played by Donald Sinden). There seems to be shades of Lord Boothby, another character from the Kray’s history to Sinden’s character.
Wolfe procures another woman for Draycott
This is also a controversial film as the levels of violence were more in line with its cinematic peer Get Carter and TV show The Sweeney. Villain is graphic, gritty but never needlessly gratuitous. The scene in which the wages snatch happens is expertly directed and choreographed and is strangely beautiful especially when the red smoke is set off. You haven’t lived until you see Dickie Burton with a stocking over his head.
I also love how the city of London in all of its many guises is almost like another character in the film. We get to see the traditional grandeur of Central London, but also the newer satellite suburbs that are either newly built or still in the process of being constructed. Just as Villain was seen as brokering in a new, grittier era for filmmaking, some of the film’s environs can also be seen as an introduction to a new stage in the history of the city. There is plenty of brutalist architecture that is always a welcome sight. I also love the fact that I know some of the film’s locations. The bank that the gang are watching is situated on a street in Hounslow near where I studied film at university. It eventually became a Yates Wine Lodge. What a comedown!
The Hounslow bank..…which eventually became a Yates Wine Lodge
The audience is also taken inside establishments which it may not have been taken before be it Draycott’s mansion, a traditional boozer or a sleazy nightclub. This adds character to Villain and its proceedings. These spaces add so much to the film’s character.
Villain is a treat for the audience and I’m so glad it’s finally being seen by a new generation of film lovers due to a fantastic new Blu-ray release.
For this Top 10 I looked at the nominees for the Best Picture Oscar and chose the film that I felt should have won instead of the actual film that did win
When the film purporting to document the formation of The Village People opened in 1980 it garnered almost universally bad reviews. The film was also seen as being so bad that (along with Xanadu) it brought about the formation of an annual awards ceremony celebrating the worst of cinema, The Golden Raspberry Awards. But, is it really that bad?
The story revolves around Steve Guttenberg’s character Jack Morrell (a reference to real-life songwriter Jacques Morali) forming an all-male supergroup with his retired supermodel roommate Samantha (Valerie Perrine) who will perform the songs he will write for him as it is judged that his voice isn’t good enough to perform the material himself. Samantha decides to use her connections to try to get the group (now named The Village People as a reference to Greenwich Village) a recording deal.
I first saw Can’t Stop The Music when I was living on Taylor Square in Sydney literally in the heart of the city’s gay hub. The LGBT section of the local video stores stocked gay films new and old and so it was because of this that got to see this opus. When I first saw the film I thought ‘What the fuck was that?!’
And on watching it again recently my opinion hasn’t changed. Watching Can’t Stop The Music is like taking acid on a rollercoaster ride that lasts for the film’s duration. New York is depicted as a brightly coloured and frankly bizarre place, just like the film itself.
Can’t Stop The Music bombed on its original release but this could have been the fault of the studio releasing it. If only it was directed towards the drive-ins and Grindhouse cinemas it would have been recognised for what it is- a cult classic, especially for stoners. The film’s narrative is so loose and the events that carry the movie along are so strange that they would only really make sense to smokers and tokers. There were episodes in the film that I will never see anywhere else- the opening title sequence of Steve Guttenberg rollerskating through the streets of New York, the character who goes to use a phonebooth but gets her finger stuck in the phone’s dial and remains stuck in there until nightfall, the old woman who turns out to be a mugger to name but a few.
The musical sequences are similarly utterly strange but very entertaining because of it. In fact, they remind me of the raunchier dance sequences from Kenny Everett’s Video Show. The sequence for ‘I Love You To Death’ also reminded me of the video for Queen’s ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’.
I also found it weird that there was such a disco theme to the film when the disco bubble had apparently burst. By the time of the movie’s release in 1980, the ‘Disco Sucks’ movement was in full swing with people openly burning disco records the year before.
An aspect of The Village People that isn’t addressed by the film is their sexuality. The film was intended to be released with as family-friendly a rating as possible and so the members of the band being gay is a moot point. In fact, in one scene Felipe Rose (the Indian) is seen kissing a woman who has been pursuing him throughout the movie’s running time.
But, the gayness is there, at first, in subtle sneaky ways like when Sam asks for a hankie to wipe her mouth after eating an ice cream. Randy Jones (the Cowboy) passes her the hankie from his back pocket (red, if you’re wondering). Also, check out Bruce (not yet Caitlyn) Jenner’s street attire of a tight crop top and denim shorts. The words ‘Fire Island’ spring to mind.
Fire Island chic
And then after these tiny clinks of gayness here and there, the film decides to stage a dance routine for the band’s big hit YMCA in, you’ve guessed it, the YMCA. And oh my! The sequence goes full-on, rainbow-flagged, chaps-wearing gay. And it’s wonderful! Samantha is included in this scene because, y’know, it can’t be homoerotic if a woman’s involved! Either the filmmakers hadn’t heard of fag-hags or they were FULLY aware (I’m hoping for the latter). She even changes into a t-shirt that is emblazoned with the slogan ‘Macho Woman’ on it. Quite. There are scenes of nude men in locker rooms, Samantha gets a massage from a hunk and we even get a scene of her in a hot tub with the band. This scene is also notable as the film sneaks in ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ full-frontal male nudity. The MPAA didn’t pick up on this and so the scene went through without a demand for it to be censored. That’s punk rock for such a disco-oriented film.
The gang arrive at the YMCA. I think the expressions on their faces say so much…
Macho Woman indeed
The MPAA missed the brief full-frontal nudity in the film (not featured in this screenshot!)
Oh my
As an aside, Can’t Stop The Music was being filmed in proximity to another gay-themed film- Cruising, a film that depicted another aspect of gay life. In fact, the protesters who were trying to disrupt the filming of Cruising would sometimes get confused and start trying to halt the filming of Can’t Stop The Music! Wouldn’t it have been great if there was a crossover sequel made that incorporated both films? The Village People in their natural habitat at The Mineshaft and The Anvil. We can only dream.
Verdict- Can’t Stop The Music is a mindf*ck of a film. But I enjoyed it because of this. It’s never boring and is one of a kind. The film would only truly make sense to stoners and could probably be akin to a religious experience for the heavily medicated. But who wants all cinema to make sense? Can’t Stop The Music is a dizzying and occasionally nauseating experience but should be seen at least once by fans of cult cinema.
John and Laura Baxter travel to Venice following the death of their daughter in a pond outside their home. John has undertaken a job there involving the restoration of a church. Whilst in a restaurant, Laura meets two sisters, one of whom is blind but has the gift of second sight and can liaise with the dead. She says that their recently deceased daughter is trying to get in touch with them and warn them of impending danger.
Not many horror films unsettle and scare me as much as Don’t Look Now. It’s a film that revolves around peeks into a dark future, messages from the ‘other side’ and deja vu for both the characters and the audience alike. On its release, the film critic Jay Cocks said that it’s a film that demands several viewings and he’s completely right due to the visual clues and recurring motifs. On a recent screening, I saw that the ball that the children are playing with in the hospital that Laura is taken to is just like the one the Baxter’s daughter was playing with just before her terrible death. Laura has also kept the ball as we see that it’s in her suitcase. There are many recurring motifs such as this throughout the film.
The film’s colour palate is also key to Don’t Look Now, particularly the colour red. Witness the red raincoat that the little girl is wearing when she drowns (and the red figure in the photograph that John is looking at of the church he is due to restore. When the drowning happens we see that not only does John also possess the gift of second sight himself but we also see the ghastly red stain on the photograph’s negative caused by a spilt drink). Later whilst in Venice John begins to see a small figure clad in red from time to time which obviously reminds him of the recently deceased. This plays a pivotal role in the film’s shocking ending. And no, I’m not going to spoil one of the greatest and most shocking endings of all time!
In fact, John’s second sight is gone into in much more detail in Daphne Du Maurier’s excellent short story that the film is based on.
The film has a uniformly brilliant cast. Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie make for a fantastic couple. They also provide one of the greatest sex scenes in cinema history. This is a scene that at the time was seen as pushing the boundaries of decency but now looks merely like a beautifully directed sequence of a couple very much still in love.
Kudos must also be given to the sisters played by Hilary Mason and Clelia Metania. They inhabit their roles wonderfully. Whenever they appear on screen the hairs on the back of my neck instantly go up.
Another major part of why Don’t Look Now works so well is the city of Venice. During the day it photographs beautifully, at night it becomes a nightmarish maze of small shadow-strewn alleyways and dead ends. The water within the city also reminds the audience of the water in which the young Christine drowned.
If I had to compare Don’t Look Now to any other film it would be to Herk Harvey’s proto-Goth classic Carnival of Souls in which we see another character who is also trapped in limbo between this world and the afterlife with flashbacks of the past and flashforwards to an unsettling future.
The cherry on the perfectly iced cake that is Don’t Look Now is yet another classic score by genius Pino Donaggio which is just as haunting as the visuals.
Don’t Look Now is a perfect horror film in that it burrows its way into your psyche and remains with you long after it’s finished. It’s unsettling, gets under your skin and scares the bejesus out of you. This might just be my favourite film by director Nicolas Roeg (which is really saying something).
Two things crossed my mind when I heard in the 90’s that Gus Van Sant would be making a shot-for-shot remake of Hitchcock’s Psycho. My first thought was ‘Are you insane?!’ My second thought was ‘Shot for shot, huh? That could be quite interesting if it’s handled right. A bit like some kind of cinematic experiment.’
Whilst Van Sant’s film is shot for shot there are some differences. Firstly, he would shoot the film in colour. Secondly, it would be set in the present day. Thirdly, there would be some tweaks here and there regarding specific scenes with one change proving to be quite controversial. More about this later.
With this being a shot-for-shot remake, I don’t feel like I need to provide a plot summary. If you don’t know the plot of Psycho, you need to stop reading this review and GO AND WATCH IT!!! And when I say that, I mean the original. It’s genius and deserves the acclaim it so rightfully received/receives.
Just as the original was lauded, the remake was met with derision when it was released in 1998 and received terrible reviews. But, is it really that bad?
I started out watching the remake with the best intentions. I desperately wanted to like the film and was mentally rooting for the underdog. But my enthusiasm rapidly started to flag the more the film progressed. With this being a remake, comparisons to the original are inevitable and the remake doesn’t stand a chance.
The casting is the main problem, but to be fair, ANY casting of a remake of Psycho would feel wrong. I saw Anne Heche but wanted Janet Leigh, I saw Wiliam H Macy but wanted Martin Balsam… The worst cast actor in this version was, of course, Vince Vaughn who just couldn’t do the character of Norman Bates any justice whatsoever. In Vaughn’s hands, Norman is an irritating, giggly and utterly unlikeable chump. In Anthony Perkins’s hands, he was shy, awkward, vulnerable and completely complex. He was also brilliantly likeable which makes the ending so utterly shocking. Wait until you see the ending of the remake which shows Vaughn wearing a wig, his mother’s clothes and the most unconvincing look on his face EVER. It’s why we still have the Razzies.
Massively miscast
Oh my…
It was cool to see the great James Remar in a small role early on and this made me think that the film might not be so bad after all. But this feeling disappeared when I suddenly saw Flea of The Red Hot Chili Peppers also in a small role. ‘F*ck this movie’ I bitterly thought!
I also didn’t like how certain characters were made utterly unlikeable when portrayed by other actors. Lila Crane went from utterly engaging in the original to being utterly hateable in the remake when played by the otherwise brilliant Julianne Moore. The fact that she has a yellow Walkman also made me get all-punchy. Who thought that was a good idea?!
The Yellow Walkman. Oh, and great actors utterly wasted in their roles
One of the major tweaks concerns the iconic shower scene. In the remake, when Norman spies on Marion as she is getting undressed, he waxes the dolphin. I don’t really have a problem with this. But what I did hate was that they changed the shower scene, making it more graphic and filming it differently. Van Sant really screwed it up! This was the biggest face-palm moment within the remake in my opinion.
Verdict- Is Psycho (1998) really that bad? In a word- YES! After such an iconic and groundbreaking original, any kind of remake would feel like a suicide mission. And this remake epitomises that. It also suffers from the worst thing that a remake can evoke in its audience- it reminds them that could be watching the infinitely superior original instead. In fact, I’m sure many people watching this remake, stopped the film partway through and streamed the original instead. And who can blame them?
meathookcinema.com 