Was that in cinemas?... The Devil's Carnival

"It is I! Six hundred and sixty...uh...LINE!"

 

Gather around children and I'll tell you a cautionary fable. There once was a handsome young film reviewer. He was very sad because recently he had only been watching good movies and he was tired of writing about how much he enjoyed films. He looked at his DVD collection and saw Doom, but he didn't watch that. He was sad, not masochistic. Just when he was about to give up hope, a happy thought came to him: "Wait, there was a really bad horror musical made by Darren Lynn Bousmann, director of most of the Saw films except the first one which was actually good! And didn't he make another, even worse film?" A wave of his magic internet and he was watching the film, titled The Devil's Carnival. And then the boy died of Badmovieitis. The moral of the story is "Be careful what you wish for." and also "Holy hell, does Darren Lynn Bousmann make bad movies".

 

In truth, I have an interesting relationship with Bousmann's first attempt at horror musical theatre: Repo! The Genetic Opera, because, as bad a film as it is and as ridiculous a project as it certainly, certainly is, about twenty minutes into it, I started to really dig it. Though admittedly, that may have been due to the delirium caused by seeing Anthony Head in a role about as diametrically opposed to the "Nescafe Gold Guy" as you can possibly get.

"Think you can steal my schtick and get away with it, do you, Kris Marshall?"

Also, I get double points for super-involved British advert humour.

 

Repo exists now as a film that I delight in showing people so that we can revel in the absurdity of it together, but when I try and watch it on my own (and I have tried), I never make it to the end because the film is just so awful.

 

So I went into The Devil's Carnival with cautious optomism. I didn't think for a moment that the film would be good, but I had precedent to believe that it might be insane and ridiculous enough to be fun.

 

The plot of the movie follows three "sinners", a kleptomaniac, a girl who's main crime is naiveity and a predeliction for bad boys, and a man who is in hell for, I kid you not, grieving too much over his dead son. Each of them must navigate a horror movie version of an Aesop's fable, (The Dog and Her Reflection, The Scorpion and the Frog, and The Grief and His Due, respectively) in an attempt to redeem themselves and learn a lesson about...life? Death? The afterlife? The film never really bothers to explain.

 

The plot is, amazingly (given the source material is Aesop), paper thin, evidenced by a ludicrous fifty-five minute runtime, and serves very little purpose in a film which clearly cares more about its stylised "goth circus" atmosphere than any story or character that might populate it. That being said, the look of the film is quite impressive and it is enjoyable to see demons and zombies dolled up in circuswear.

I might even call it novel had I not seen the similar if much superior stageshow Circus of Horrors.

 

Listing the various things that don't work in this film would take too long (though it would certainly be cathartic), however, mention must be made of the music. This is a musical and, if you haven't guessed already from previous entries in this blog, I am a big fan of musicals, both classic and experimental varieties. Now, Repo had many terrible songs and often the lyrics of the good ones were laughable, but the good songs were pretty good and if you asked me, I could probably start singing a few of them off the top of my head right now.

So...no-one? No-one's going to ask?

 

In The Devil's Carnival, however, the soundtrack is not just forgettable, it's painful! There is one song - one in twelve - that was passable (and I'm being generous there) and the rest are either sung by an atonal chorus line or by individual singers (and presumably friends of Bousmann) who seem to really want to bring the concept of "Hell" alive with their singing voices.

 

What truly perplexes me about this movie, though, is that if you ignore imdb's viewer rating (which is low) and look at the critical reception of the film, it actually fares quite well. Critics have called it "darkly, enchantingly comedic" and "subversive". And I'm forced to ask: "Was I watching the same movie?"! It's dark, yes, mostly because the director seems to have a phobia of proper lighting. It's enchanting, sure, because you have to give it your full concentration just to follow the weak plot (which I still had to double-check on Wikipedia afterwards to make sure I was getting it). I agree, it's comedic, in that the writers think that there's enough substance to this franchise to warrant a sequel. And fine, it's subversive, in as much as it rejects every tenet of "good" cinema to further what is clearly a pet project for Bousmann. But I don't think that's what those other critics meant.

 

Immediately after finishing watching The Devil's Carnival, I began making excuses for why it didn't strike me the same way that Repo: The Genetic Opera did. "Maybe," I thought, "It's because I was expecting it to be bad but also shocking and ridiculous. Maybe the reason I like Repo is because I didn't know what to expect when I first watched it." But this simply isn't the case. The film is hard to watch because the script is bad, the acting is worse and the music (again, in this musical), is diabolical. It isn't insane enough to be fun. It isn't gory (at all, a rare turn for Bousmann) to make it shocking. It doesn't look good enough to be truly mesmerising. The plot is too weak to be compelling. 

 

Perhaps in time, this movie will prove to be somewhat like that other Aesop's fable, The Tortoise and the Hare: as I sit hubristically mocking this film for its failures, it will zoom past me in a blaze of cult popularity. More likely, I think, it will prove exactly like The Tortoise and the Hare: unrealistic, and a clear violation of the laws of nature.

 

That's a wrap.



New this week... Ant-Man

Visual representation of the audience upon hearing that there may be reference to Spiderman in this movie.

 

Well the time has come for me to pay my dues as a film reviewer and look at one of the Marvel Cinema productions: Ant-Man. The problem with doing this is twofold: first of all, these movies are all given pretty close care and a huge budget - even if the money poured into this one was comparatively small (Honey, I shrunk the budget? OK, I only get two more of these...) which means that, by and large, they are all close to great, Ant-Man being no exception; secondly, I could write a review that is nothing more than a serious of "small" and "insect" puns (I won't, two more, I promise) and it wouldn't remotely affect your decision to go and see the film or not because at this point, if you're watching the Marvel movies, then you're probably signed on for the long haul - and long haul it is as these films are in no short supply (Short? Get it? OK one more...).

 

So that being said, let me play you this classic from the Marvel Movie Review Soundtrack (Set to the tune of the 1812 Overture):

 

The film looks cool and the CG's alright!

The script is funny 'cos it's Edgar Wright!

Paul Rudd is clever, there's a Stan Lee cameo!

And a character from Ultron we know!

It isn't overflowing with fan winks!

But there's enough that you can miss when you blink!

The action setpieces are among the greats!

So grab some popcorn and go see it with...YOURRR MATESSS!

 

Thank you! Thank you! Next stop, Rosebud on Broadway!

 

Seriously, though you've seen this review before. Ant-Man is better than some, not as good as others but a fun film that, when all is said and done, will be lumped into the "good" category of Marvel films.

 

But Marvel (and Disney) have dug themselves a little bit of a hole in that their other projects have been so incredible that one can't help but hold their works to a higher standard, even when those works are pretty successful on their own. So with that in mind, there are some elements of the film which didn't work quite so well.

 

First and foremost, while the script is playful and funny throughout most of the film (Edgar Wright's influence lingering after his departure from the project), the remaining holes that have been filled in by replacement Payton Reed leave the film looking patchy, oscillating between irreverent humour and stodgy forced character development. For example, there is a line early in the film that is such an obvious set up for the final scene that I almost laughed (it is a literal Men in Black-esque "See that button? Never touch that button!") which, in the hands of Edgar Wright I am certain would have been played ironically but, as it is, is tragically played completely straight.

 

The action setpieces themselves are brilliant - it's wonderful to see the destructiveness of previous Avengers films played out on egg cartons and cereal boxes. But the gag of "impressive thing looks less impressive when seen real-size" is used a few too many times.

 

Finally, from a film series that has given us Loki, who will go down as one of the better cinema villains of the era, the villain (should I say, ANTagonist? That's three! Nailed it!) of Ant-Man, played by Corey Stoll is the most cartoonishly evil badguy since the Joel Schumacher Batman movies. I know it might seem like a petty gripe given that I'm talking about the villain  in a comic book movie , but seriously, this guy makes the Green Goblin look nuanced.

Spot the bad guy. Hint: he's he one that looks like Lex Luthor.

 

Overall, as I've already said, you probably already know whether or not you're going to see and even enjoy this film. For those who will come out saying "It's amazing! Marvel can do no wrong!", I'd say, "I get why you say that, but calm down, don't overdo it." And for those who will come out saying "Well, that's it, the Marvel movies have finally run out of ideas!", I'd say "I get why you say that, but calm down, don't overdo it." And then for fun I might add, "Don't get ants in your pants."

 

That's a wrap.

 

Written by: James Tibbetts

Directed by: Eli Roth

Digital Effects by: blogger.com

Catering by: James' wife

Best Boy: Tchaikovski

All opinions expressed herein are my own but by all means feel free to parrot them to your friends as if you thought of them, I mean, it's not like I'm going to know, right?

 

There you go, internet. Now why don't you go ape over me for a while?



Rerun... Rollerball (The 1975 one, relax)

"Social Commentary! I choose you!"

 

 

Everyone remembers the first violent film that they encountered. Some snuck into the cinema to see Nightmare on Elm Street. Some were just watching post-watershed TV and were caught offguard by A Clockwork Orange or Urban Legend. Others were sat down by a parent and told, "Look, if this gets too much, tell me, but this film is awesome!" And so it was for me with Rollerball. What I remember most about the first viewings of this film is a sense of "Wow, the violent bits are fun. I don't understand the rest but I'm sure I will when I'm a bit older!" So now that I am older, and a bit wiser (shut up, yes I am), I've returned to Rollerball to see whether I can enjoy it on a new level.

 

It is the future (the distant lands of 2018, to be specific) and corporate businesses have replaced governments world wide. It is almost a utopia - to quote the film's enigmatic tagline: "In the future there will be no wars, but there will be Rollerball". Rollerball has replaced every sport and is played in practically every city on the planet. It is technically a ballgame (think handball meets fight club meets Starlight Express), but it has one significant difference: it is a full contact blood sport. The corporations use rollerball to show an ever-more bloodthirsty populace that individuality is pointless, that you can only achieve anything through cooperation, which keeps the masses subdued. We view the story through the perspective of Jonathon E, key player in the Houston team and star of the sport who, becoming the very kind of individual that the corporations fear, is asked to retire and, when he says no, the rules are changed to make the game more and more dangerous in an effort to put a permanent end to Jonathon E's celebrity.

 

If that plot summary seems a little cliche to you, well, you're not wrong. And yes, my nose wrinkles as well at a film trying to suggest that a sport (even a violent one) could be so universally loved that it would quash all individual thought (a concept actually done better in a much, much worse film The Running Man, where the game is a punishment for criminals as well as entertainment). And when the film does go for the hard-hitting social commentary, it misses "subtle" by a wide margin.

Spot the bad guy. Hint: he's the one engulfed in flame.

 

But that's kind of how dystopian sport movies are. Think about the aforementioned The Running Man, or Death Race 2000, released only months before Rollerball. Even the wonderfully made Battle Royale spends so much time building the parameters of its game that the time left for the actual message falls on the short side.

 

And on the subject of world-building, Rollerball surpasses even Battle Royale (if you know me, you know how big a statement that is). There is never a point at which the audience would realistically question the world which Rollerball inhabits, as the characters are never caricatured or overplayed. The film is not even particularly "sci-fi" (save for one scene where we see an unrealistically powerful pistol). Most importantly, the sport of rollerball makes absolute sense. The opening ten minutes of the film manage, for me, to do what cricket has failed to do in twenty-five years: concisely explain the rules in a way that makes absolute sense, without boring me to tears. The sport is so playable in fact that the cast and crew did exactly that between takes (minus the violence, one hopes, but then this is James Caan...) and the director, Norman Jewison, was horrified to learn that there was interest in starting real-world rollerball leagues.

If only J.K. Rowling had been so conscientious...

 

Combine the immersive sense of the world that is built through the film, the clear message being portrayed and some impeccable acting from the lead performers, and you have a film that absolutely deserves the praise it received in its own era.

 

The reason, however, that it is worth returning to the film today is that, forty years down the line, the movie has taken on new significance. Perhaps one of the most significant criticisms that a modern audience could have of Rollerball is that it isn't violent enough. As realistic as the game itself looks, we are asked to believe that people are literally dying to Shatner-esque faux punches and, this being the 70s, you rarely see the "blood" part of "bloodsport".

Dave's "Line Painting With My Face" business was short-lived.

 

But isn't that fascinating in itself? A film from the 70s states that one day we will be so obsessed with violence that we will cease to see the horror in it, and in the 2010s, we release The Hunger Games, bloodier by far, as a 12A? It's an interesting thought and shows, if nothing else, that Rollerball was foreward thinking enough to almost be considered precognative.

 

Overall, I'm left curiously torn by this movie. When I was younger, the violent bits thrilled me because I was young, and the talky bits bored me because I didn't understand them. Now that I have a greater appreciation of cinema and the world at large, I find the talky bits are a bit heavy-handed and the violent bits aren't quite violent enough to make the point that it is trying to make. However, given that those reactions are exactly what the film criticises in its audience, it's hard not to be completely captivated by a film that wasn't just striding ahead of its time, but skating.

 

That's a wrap.

Was that in cinemas?... Primer

"Ok, ok. I'll explain the plot one more time..."

 

In all honesty, this movie barely qualifies for my "Was that in cinemas?" segment (designed to tell you about movies that you may not have seen), because if you know me and have ever had a discussion with me about cinema, I've probably already demanded that you watch Primer. It's a film that I feel so passionately about that I've actually had to remind myself from time to time to stop banging on about it quite so much. But now that I've got a louder drum, let me play the tune once more. Strap in, swallow an aspirin, and prepare for potentially one of the most interesting and difficult movies you've ever watched.

 

The plot of Primer seems simple enough. Abe and Aaron are two brainy engineers, suffering as meaningless pawns in their day-job and trying to work out a lucrative side-project for their off hours. They create a device that is intended to reduce an object's mass but, while they succeed, they find that there is a strange side effect. The object also goes back in time. Now, these guys are not your average mad-scientist stereotypes - the kinds who invent time travel and then immediately go back and punch a dinosaur in the face - these guys are smart. They meticulously plan out the best way to optimise the use of their new invention without mucking up the timeline (spoiler alert: it involves a lot of sitting around in a hotel room for twelve hours not talking to anyone). At first it works brilliantly, the boys play the stocks just enough so that the extra cash flow looks legitimate on their tax returns, but when human error causes a blip in the timeline and nothing drastic happens, Abe and Aaron begin testing the boundaries of what they can get away with (starting with a brilliantly natural "theoretical" discussion concerning whether you could punch your boss in the face, then go back and stop yourself doing it so that you still have the experience without the consequences) .

 

Now, that may sound as generic as a time travel movie could come, but trust me when I say that this film is completely different from anything else from the genre. Do you remember that scene in Looper when Bruce Willis tells Joseph Gordon-Levitt that he's not going to sit there and explain how time travel works because it would just be a waste of time, and it's a blatant nod to the audience to say "Look, just shut up and enjoy it."? Well Primer is the polar opposite of this. You literally need an engineering degree to follow the jargon being tossed around during the construction scenes, and the dialogue of "how time travel works in practice" is so fast-paced and complicated that I challenge anyone to actually get this film on the first watching. Even XKCD, notable "smart person" comic couldn't make sense of the timeline of the film.

Already, I hear some of you saying, "Jamie, why on Earth would I want to watch a film this confusing?" The answer is that, primarily due to the complicated plot structure and the unforgiving lack of exposition or explanation, the film is more immersive than many of today's blockbusters. As the characters begin to become more and more confused, losing track of where and when they are, misremembering things and making mistakes, so does the audience. There was a moment during my first viewing of Primer when I became so lost that I thought "No, I need to rewind this and try and make sense of that last scene, I don't get it." Then, as I did so, I began to laugh. I had had to go back in time to try and make sure that I wasn't making mistakes in the timeline of the movie. In that moment, it struck me that this may be the cleverest movie I'd seen in a long time.

 

It is also worth noting that the film is incredibly well made, given the budget of $7000 (I'd call it a shoestring budget, but I rather think they didn't have money to spare on shoestrings) and particular credit has to be given to Shane Curruth in his capacity as Director, Producer, Writer, Star, Sound Designer and Editor (as well as being a former software engineer himself). It is one of these films that really does seem like an impossible feat.

 

Of course, the biggest selling points of the film are also its biggest weaknesses. There was no way that Primer was ever going to make it big in the box office because so few people have the patience for films as confusing as this one (and even fewer want to pay to see it in a cinema without the luxury of pausing, rewinding or starting over). And the small budget means that there are no big setpieces, but a lot of "talky" scenes. Indeed, it's another one of these films that you, as reader, will probably have already decided whether you are going to watch. However, while I would normally encourage people to fight that gut reaction to certain movies, on this occasion I'm going to tell you to trust that instinct. If this film piques your interest because "OO! Smart Sci-Fi!" then you will absolutely enjoy this film (and go mad trying to figure it all out), but if you are currently thinking "Doesn't this blog usually have more pictures?" then I'd give it a miss. You don't have to be smart to enjoy the film, but you definitely need to be ready to feel stupid. And as incredible as Primer is, trust me, you'll be glad that you took that aspirin.

 

That's a wraaaa...AAAH! WHAT'S HAPPENING?

 

 

"Ok, ok. I'll explain the plot one more time..."

In all honesty, this movie barely qualifies for my "Was that in cinemas?" segment (designed to tell you about movies that you may not have seen), because if you know me and have ever had a discussion with me about cinema, I've probably...