Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema

BATMAN RETURNS (1992): A SUPERHERO BURLESQUE

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In 1992 some damn silly, so-called Christian organization threw a bullying hissy fit at McDonalds for its Happy Meal deal tie-in with Tim Burton‘s Batman Returns. McDonalds, true to form, prematurely withdrew its merchandising. Rumor has it that McDonalds issued a stern warning to Warner Brothers not to tap Burton for the next Batman film. For whatever reason, Warner Brothers caved into the golden arch and, consequently, put its franchise into a decade long grave with the unwise hiring of director Joel Schumacher.

Only the fundamentalist mindset can associate Big Macs with a certain brand of morality. Looking at Batman Returns (1992), one wonders what the Christian organization was bitching about. The Bible is all throughout the film and, actually the good book itself has far more sex and violence than Batman, Tim Burton, Warner Brothers and McDonalds combined.

Regardless, Batman Returns remains the greatest cinematic comic book movie to date and one of Tim Burton’s most uniquely accomplished films. Admittedly, I am not a fan of comic book movies, even if I did read comics some when I was kid, but then most kids I knew did. I was in the minority in preferring DC to Marvel, and I guess I am sort of looking forward to the new Green Lantern movie, mainly because the Green Lantern/Green Arrow comic was a favorite when I was a wee lad in the 1960s and 1970s. That was a comic that was delightfully of its time, a bit like Star Trek in espousing an ultra-liberal message with all the subtlety of a pair of brass knuckles. Even though Green Lantern himself was a bit too righteous and bland, I liked that he was obsessed with the color green and was rendered impotent by the color yellow. There was something surreal in that, and I find the insistence of realism in comics to be a huge oxymoron. Perhaps that’s why the dark surrealism of Batman Returns did not bother me like it did mainstream audiences, comic book geeks, and militant pseudo-Christian organizations.

Still from Batman Returns (1992)Even though I will acknowledge that Christopher Nolan‘s Dark Knight (2008) was well crafted, it would not have worked without Ledger’s performance holding it together. Christian Bale’s Bruce Wayne, however, pales compared to ‘s much more intense, internalized, subtle and complex Wayne. Finally, Nolan’s film feels like it has one subplot too many. Comparatively, Tim Burton’s Batman Returns is a Continue reading BATMAN RETURNS (1992): A SUPERHERO BURLESQUE →

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CAPSULE: THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD [JOHEUNNOM NABBEUNNOM ISANGHANNOM] (2008)

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DIRECTED BY: Ji-Woon Kim

FEATURING: Kang-ho Song, , Jung Woo-sung

PLOT: Set in 1930’s Manchuria (during the Japanese occupation of China) and loosely based on Sergio Leone’s The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, the film concerns the mad-cap, gunslinging antics of three men in search of a mythical treasure.

Still from The Good, The Bad, The Weird (2009)

WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: Sure it’s got a fun premise and goofy atmosphere, but the weirdest thing about the film is the “Weird” of the title, who’s primarily a wacky take on Eli Wallach’s “Ugly” character from Leone’s film, with spiky hair and the best jokes in the script.  It’s an excellent, peculiar movie, but never reaches List-worthy levels of bizarre.

COMMENTS: Yoon Tae-goo—AKA “The Weird” (Song Kang-ho)—is a resilient petty thief who chances upon a treasure map while robbing a group of Japanese soldiers. Park Chang-yi—AKA “The Bad” (Lee Byun-hun)—is a malicious assassin sent to reclaim the map, who resigns himself to hunting down Tae-goo. Park Do-won—AKA “The Good” (Jung Woo-sung)—is a taciturn bounty hunter chasing after both men’s rewards, who eventually teams up with Tae-goo in the search for the treasure.  Sprinkle in some curious Manchurian bandits and a dedicated group of Japanese soldiers, and soon you’ve got an all-out chase replete with wackiness, gunfights, and thrills!

There’s a lot going on in this film, but the sheer enthusiasm that brings it together makes it all completely work.  The story is fun and interesting, the action is loud and inventive, the characters are appealing, and the visuals are detailed and colorful.  There’s a range of costumes, weapons, and gadgets, giving the movie a slightly anachronistic/steampunk feel.  The premise is both an homage to and appropriation of Leone’s original, but infused with its own imaginative mythos and offbeat sense of humor, distinguishing it from a simple remake.  The addition of complex Manchurian history involving a multinational conflict gives the story a unique perspective.

The three leads are superb, but Song Kang-ho really owns the film.  As “The Weird” he’s hilarious, likable, and unexpectedly capable.  Plus, he’s got a secret past!  The writers did well to make him the central character, devoting the most time to his story and giving him the best lines.  Song is adept at wacky comedy but never slides into flat characterization, making him both engaging and intriguing to watch.  Lee Byun-hun as “The Bad” spends most of his time being incredibly badass and looking sharp.  Jung Woo-sung as “The Good” is a bit bland, and it doesn’t help that there isn’t much attention paid to his character.  He has impressive firearms and his mustache looks silly.

There is very little about this movie to criticize (except perhaps the under-utilization of The Good’s character).  With its oft-frenetic pace, out-there stunts, and silly, exuberant atmosphere, it had the audience laughing out loud and gasping at crazy moments in equal measure.  The final chase scene at the end is guaranteed to have everyone riveted, while the film itself leaves viewers instinctively smiling from ear-to-ear. I believe the technical critical term is “a rip-roarin’ good time.”

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“It’s a live-action comic book. More good than bad, and with a liberal sprinkling of weird, it’s got a rock ’em, sock ’em energy that knocks the dust off a dying breed of storytelling.” –Michael O’Sullivan, Washington Post (contemporaneous)

NOTE: This review is published in slightly different form at Film Forager.

The Good, The Bad, The Weird [Limited Edition]

The Good, The Bad, The Weird [Limited Edition]
  • The story of two outlaws and a bounty hunter in 1940s Manchuria.
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CAPSULE: SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD (2010)

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Scott Pilgrim vs. the World has been promoted onto the List of the 366 Best Weird Movies of All Time.  Comments on this initial review are closed. Please leave any comments about the movie on the official Certified Weird entry.

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DIRECTED BY: Edgar Wright

FEATURING: Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ellen Wong, Jason Schwartzman

PLOT: Slacker bassist Scott Pilgrim must defeat seven evil exes in order to win the girl of his dreams.

Still from Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST:  An alternate reality comedy that at times feels like something Monty Python would have come up with if they’d been raised on video games and graphic novels instead of “The Goon Show” and Oscar Wilde, Scott Pilgrim has substantial cult movie potential.  The movie dispenses with logic scene by fractured scene, but probably its weirdest joke is casting Michael Cera as an action hero.  It’s shiny surface sheen is fascinating, but at heart it’s a conventional coming-of-age tale for the PlayStation set; despite it’s comic leaps of illogic, it’s weird-ish, at best.

COMMENTS:  With its role-playing game quest to defeat seven escalating opponents (right up to the final “boss” battle) and it’s onscreen scoring system (defeated enemies turn into piles of coins as a digital score rises from their corpses), Scott Pilgrim becomes the first film in history to use the video game as a metaphor for growing up.  The movie milks maximum mileage from this conceit: when Scott goes to the bathroom, we watch a pop-up pee meter go from full to empty so we can stay informed on the condition of his bladder.  The viewer is stuffed inside a video game console, treated to constant text updates on the characters’ status.  But even beyond that basic technique, director Edgar Wright piles on the artificiality and stylization whenever an idea crosses his mind: multicolored valentines bloom from young lovers locked lips at first kiss, 1960s Batman-style “KAPOWS!” accompany fight scenes, and when a character’s profanity is bleeped out on the soundtrack a black bar also appears over her mouth.  The bent humor sports a pop-absurdist tone; this is the only movies where a villain sets up a duel to the death by email, then brings his own Bollywood backup singers to the fight.  Sometimes Wright’s choices become overly referential and fall flat, as when one expository scene is announced by the “Seinfeld” theme song, but you have to admire his willingness to try absolutely anything, and there are more hits than misses in the mix.  The film moves almost too fast at times, with dream scenes emerging back into reality with no warning (there’s little difference between the two states anyway), and jarring leaps forward in time.  But Wright embraces the short-attention span aesthetic and makes one of the cornerstones of the film; it’s neither a satirical jab at youth culture nor an unconscious adoption of its rhythms, but a stylistic choice that works in the context of the zeitgeist he’s trying to evoke.  The fast-cut style is also necessary to fit in all the film’s teeming ideas:  Scott Pilgrim is delightfully overstuffed, a real bargain for your matinee dollar.  There are six big, comic fight scenes, multiple romantic subplots and back stories,  a Battle of the Bands, and so many quirky supporting characters you almost need a scorecard to keep up.  Besides everyboy Pilgrim, there’s cool love interest Ramona Flowers (whose shifting dye jobs call to mind Kate Winslett’s Clementine in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), jailbait romantic rival Knives Chow, wisecracking gay roommate Wallace Wells, Scott’s band-mates in the awkwardly named “Sex Bob-omb,” evil exes who’ve become Hollywood action stars or Vegan bass players… and even with that list I’ve still omitted somebody‘s favorite of the dozens of significant characters.  The film is anarchic and ramshackle in spirit, but it’s actually tightly controlled and easy to follow and connect with.  With it’s ADD edits, it’s geeky embrace of everything pop culture and willful ignorance of any other type of culture, and its amiable twenty-somethings who act like John Hughes’ teenagers of an earlier era, Scott Pilgrim suggests either that the onset of adulthood is slipping ever closer to 30, or that the film is aimed at a demographic aged much younger than its protagonists.  I prefer to believe the latter; and, like the aforementioned Mr. Hughes’ film, the movie’s innocence about love and the easy answers about life’s big lessons creates a nostalgic crossover appeal for adults, even if they don’t get every NES video game system reference.

Edgar Wright’s previous two films were cultish genre spoofs: the zombie film parody Shaun of the Dead and the cop burlesque Hot Fuzz.  Scott Pilgrim sees Wright stretching his talents with a far more baroque, but equally hilarious, approach.  With Scott Pilgrim Wright’s no longer exaggerating the conventions of an existing genres to ridiculous lengths; he’s inventing an entirely new genre.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“The style is Sega surrealism, the narrative strategy 30% Bunuel and 70% Bally.”–Andy Klein, Brand X Daily (contemporaneous)

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CAPSULE: THE PROMISE [LA PROMESA] (2004)

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DIRECTED BY: Héctor Carré

FEATURING: , Santaigo Barón, Ana Fernández, Juan Margallo, Evaristo Calvo

PLOT :  A devout nanny’s religious convictions are tested when a clairvoyant child implores
her to murder his father.

WHY IT WON’T MAKE THE LIST: The events in La Promisa unfold in a weird way, making the story bizarre.  The nature of these events, however, is no different from those in any occult film; the film is as conventionally produced as any horror movie.  While the story is definitely out there, the overall viewing experience is not quite weird enough to be certified as such.

COMMENTS:  Solid performances and Santiago de Compostela locations compliment this creepy, offbeat occult tale.  Gregoria (Maura) is a modest housewife leading a life of quite desperation.  Her marriage is suffocating, her husband (Margallo) is an ogre and her spirit is repressed.  When her husband’s abuse takes its toll, Gregoria seeks refuge in the ecclesiastical.  Finding solace in religious fervor, she plunges into the deep end of delusional thinking.  Or does she?  Taken to episodes of brief catatonia, Gregoriia becomes accident prone and paranoid.  Every shadow hides a demon and every accident is a sign of manifest evil.  Her chosen solution is to pray incessantly.

When a bizarre tragedy leads her to a chance encounter with a dying soothsayer, the doomed man implores Gregoria to fulfill a prophecy at a mysterious church in a remote mountain village.  Supernatural voices drive Gregoria to murder her husband, after which she flees to the strange hamlet.  There, on a fog enshrouded mountain estate, she takes a job as caretaker to a telepathic boy named Daniel (Barón).

Haunted by voices and fearing that she is losing her mind, Gregoria is drawn into a divine good versus evil enigma. Her snowballing predicament becomes centered around a secret passage, a well that presents a nasty fall hazard, the ghost of her husband, and her young ward’s murderous psychic manipulations.  But the answer and her fate are inexplicably intertwined.  The key to it all lies grounded in the sinister old church that she is destined to visit.  The clairvoyant Daniel will use any means necessary to entice her there to fulfill The Promise.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…an offbeat, mostly effective story of madness that combines a psychological study, a supernatural yarn and a tale of domestic violence to surprisingly rounded effect.”–Jonathan Holland, Variety (contemporaneous)

Canonically Weird (The List)

64. BEING JOHN MALKOVICH (1999)

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“I don’t think my characters are a joke. I take them seriously. And no matter how outlandish or weird their situation, their situation is real and a little tragic. I think that’s what gives people something to hang onto as they watch the film. We had to find a way to make everything play on a very naturalistic level, so it didn’t just turn into wackiness.”–Charlie Kaufman on Being John Malkovich (Salon interview)

“I’m sure Being John Malkovich would be regarded as a work of genius on whatever planet it was written.”–possibly apocryphal comment from a movie studio rejection letter

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DIRECTED BY: Spike Jonze

FEATURING: , Catherine Keener, Cameron Diaz,

PLOT: Craig Schwartz is an unemployed puppeteer who performs a marionette version of “Abelard and Heloise” on street corners for passersby.  His wife Lotte convinces him to get a job, and he winds up working as a file clerk on floor seven and a half of a Manhattan office building, where he falls for sultry and scheming coworker Maxine.  When he discovers a portal hidden behind a file cabinet that leads into the mind of John Malkovich, Maxine devises a plan to sell tickets to “be” the title actor, but things become extremely complicated when a confused love quadrangle develops between Craig, his wife, Maxine, and Malkovich…

Still from Being John Malkovich (1999)

BACKGROUND:

  • The feature film debut for both director Spike Jonze and sreenwriter Charlie Kaufman (who would work together again on Adaptation).
  • In Being John Malkovich John Cusak re-enacts the story of Abelard and Heloise with puppets; the title Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is taken from Alexander Pope’s poem on the same subject, “Eloisa to Abelard.”
  • John Malkovich reportedly liked the script, but didn’t want to star in it and requested the filmmakers cast another actor as the celebrity who has a portal into his head; eventually he relented and agreed to appear in the film.
  • The film was nominated for three Oscars: Keener for Best Supporting Actress, Jonze for Best Director and Kaufman for Best Original Screenplay.  As is usually the case with uncomfortably weird films, it won nothing.
  • The film was originally produced by PolyGram, who were unhappy with the dailies they were getting from Jonze and threatened to shut production down; however, before they could make good on the threat the company was bought out by Universal, and Jonze was able to complete the movie in the ensuing confusion.

INDELIBLE IMAGE: The recursive (and hilariously illogical) result of John Malkovich daring to enter the portal that leads inside John Malkovich’s head.

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: It would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to make a movie about a secret portal that allows anyone who crawls through it to see the world through actor John Malkovich’s eyes for fifteen minutes before being spat out on the side of the New Jersey Turnpike and not end up with a weird result.  The inhabitants of Being John Malkovich, like the denizens of a dream, don’t recognize the secret portals leading into others minds, the half-floor work spaces designed for little people, and the chimps with elaborate back stories as being at all unusual. Their matter-of-fact attitudes only throw the absurdity into stark relief.


Original trailer for Being John Malkovich

COMMENTS: Synecdoche, New York may be Charlie Kaufman‘s weirdest script, Eternal Continue reading 64. BEING JOHN MALKOVICH (1999) →

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