All The Film History – Page 9

Argentine Horror Films – “Blood Circuits” (SUNY Press, 2018) – Jonathan Risner interview

Jonathan Risner is Assistant Professor of Spanish at Indiana University Bloomington. He discovered Argentine horror and wondered how much of the country’s brutal dictatorship impacted that country’s horror films. We discuss his book on the topic.

1:27 – Jonathan talks about how he got into studying and writing about Argentinian horror cinema. He wondered if an Argentinian horror film could be made without referencing the brutality of the dictatorship in that country.

4:43 – Jonathan then talks about how he turned his dissertation into the book. He included new Argentinian films that have come out since 2012. There’s not a tradition of Argentine horror cinema. Horror most often associated with other countries. Lots of people have started making great low budget horror films in Argentina.

14:00 – Since independence, Argentinian films have sort of shown a tension between city and country.

15:45 – He also looks at films that are done with English dialogue. These films are often designed to break into the US B-movie market.

19:08 – Another book chapter is on punk horror cinema that is supposed to be purposefully offensive.

21:45 – The dictatorship was dealt with on screen with melodramas and documentaries. A new generation of film makers are using horror to deal with it.

23:45 – The book has a filmography with associated US distributors and youtube links.

30:00 – Argentine horror film is not coherent. There is no stylistic thread through them.

33:00 – Jonathan interviewed a psychoanalyst who had been a college student during the dictatorship and he began crying. That was a moving moment for Jonathon.

41:45 – Jonathan joked about how hard it was to get good punk horror film stills because the film quality is poor, not corporate punk, he joked.

42:45 – He had to mix comedies with the horror films because it got tough to watch so much brutal horror.

45:56 – People can find the book and read the first chapter on the SUNY Press website.

Links of interest

SUNY Press Blood Circuits page

For more of “The Art and Design of Sci-Fi and Fantasy, Mystery and Horror” please follow me on Facebook at crisalvarezwlc, on youtube at Cris Alvarez and on Instagram @crisalvarezscifi

Guests: Jonathan Risner

Host: Cris Alvarez

Tags: horror, films, Argentina, big-budget, interview, punk horror, dictatorship, memory, psychoanalysis

Bad Samaritan – A clever thriller that keeps you on edge to the end

| Cris Alvarez

Some people might know that David Tennant can do creepy but I didn’t. Bad Samaritan presents us with Tennant’s version of evil that’ll be difficult to shake from your memory and isn’t that what we all want from a thriller?

Bad Samaritan will be released on May 4, 2018 and focuses on a young artist who earns his keep as a valet and also as a petty burglar. One errant burglary leads to his discovery of a frightful secret that he tries to report to the police. This good act sets the psychopath he’s discovered on his trail and you can imagine what happens next. Actually you can’t, because the script takes well-worn thriller tropes and spins them on their head in a deliciously intelligent and intense way.

The movie sets the stage with a very sinister opening note however, it takes an odd and worrisome turn, with a following sequence that feels snatched from a National Geographic montage of Portland, Oregon. Our hero is quickly introduced and he seems a bit cliché at first but after that the movie quickly sheds its problems and slowly raises the stakes bit by bit until you’re racing along at a rapid pace that rarely ever slackens. It’s a testament to the movie that at a running time of one hour and forty-seven minutes, not once did I want to check the time. In fact, the movie seemed much shorter because of how well it held my attention. Even knowledge of the movie’s instigating events won’t slow you down because of how well they’re presented by the director, Dean Devlin. Mr. Devlin has a solid directing resume and he applies his knowledge of action and thriller movies well in Bad Samaritan.

The music, while initially overbearing, shifted to the background at the right time and then worked well throughout. The script was tight without only one or two minor plot point weaknesses that didn’t affect my enjoyment of the film. Most of the characters, especially the main ones, were fresh and interesting and oddly, everyone, good and bad, proved to be intelligent and engaging. This movie played on the idea that sometimes you can do everything right and circumstances will still get in the way. To explain what I mean would give away important parts of the movie and I won’t do that but, you can trust me.

The cinematographer and director worked so well together in setting up visual and contextual tension and to such good effect I found myself thinking – well done sirs. They were both playful and serious in just the right amounts. While it’s no doubt difficult to fool audiences in this day and age, simply because we’ve nearly seen it all, Bad Samaritan was able to delight with so many smart touches. The actors played their parts very well and there were even a few truly emotional points in the movie. I believed what the characters were giving me.

Bad Samaritan is not just a good thriller, it’s a good movie. It’ll make you think a little more about technology and safety, since that’s a big part of the story too, and leave you feeling that you’ve spent your time well. The only thing that keeps me from giving the movie an A- is that they didn’t tackle a large societal problem. What we do get is a very interesting, character-driven gem.

Ready Player One – A botched attempt to make an 80s movie in 2018

| Cris Alvarez

A better title for Ready Player One could have been Ready Cheesy One. At some point in the film, maybe halfway, it struck me that the film was a bad remake of any number of 80s Spielberg movies. Then I did the proverbial imagined palm to the forehead and remembered that this is a Spielberg produced film. I immediately wanted to ask the legend what happened to his touch.

The number of issues I had with this film makes it difficult to figure out where to start. To be fair, I did take a step back and put myself in a kid’s shoes to consider whether it might be fun for the younger crowd. It had a lot of action, flash, and bang but it seriously lacked the heart that we got from these movies when they came out thirty years ago. I decided that when you have a cheesy plot and a simplistic script, you need charismatic actors to make it work. Alas, RPO sorely lacked the necessary ingredients. The best acting came not from the young stars but from the old guys and the game avatars. The human stars were the two- dimensional characters of the film and on top of that they were simply boring. Their motivations and attitudes were cliché and made for a yawn fest. I think the editor also got bored because the pacing mistakes were awful. The starts and stops in mood were almost hilariously jarring. I suppose the idea was to speed past the drama and get back to the video game effects as fast as possible. Oddly, the movie was so heavy on narrative at the start I was getting bored at minute one.

As for the game aspect of the film, there were a few cool peaks involving some very interesting dance game scenes, but the ground combat and car races were simply blase. The producers also could not maintain the logical consistency of the “Oasis”, the name of the game world everyone played in. Logical inconsistencies were so prevalent in this movie I wondered if anyone took the time to even worry about the movie-game mechanics. I can imagine that experienced gamers will be more than willing to pick out the things that don’t make sense. For example, if hundreds of people have been playing one particular racing game, dozens, perhaps hundreds of times, over and over to win, and have not succeeded, why would all the drivers on the bad guy team drive the same type of vehicle? The good guys did better with a mish mash of exotic vehicles so why didn’t the baddies try out various vehicles instead of multiples of the same exact one. Oh, that’s right. The bad guys are dumb. The bad guys also showed zero teamwork though they had been playing together as a team over and over in the game. The movie’s credibility sank from the start.

There’s another problem with the game world we’re shown. The heroes always seemed to have just the right tool when they needed it in the game to survive or win. Yeah we got the usual quick narrative as to how and why but it seemed all too convenient at times. Basically, the movie threw game obstacles and solutions at the characters, both good and bad, as the plot saw fit. It barely followed any semblance of sense. Aargh.

The movie did have some shining moments. I mentioned the dance sequences, but there were also some great scenes with the older actors that involved human issues and not game ones. The avatars at times showed real humanity that was touching. But then the movie would immediately shift from emotion to some action or slam bam sequence so fast it made me wonder if the movie was scared to bore younger audiences with touchy-feely stuff. There were also some fantastic Easter eggs that involved, table top role playing games, classic rock, and of course old school video gaming. My favorite was a plot focus on the first game I played as a kid. In fact it was a game I loved and played a lot. However, there were so many hidden eggs in the movie, I started to choke on them. After a while it felt like every old and new game property that wanted a piece of the action wormed its way into the movie. The producers were obviously really nostalgic for the late 70s and 80s. I’ll point out that’s the hay day of Dungeons and Dragons.

So let’s see, I slammed the acting, the editing, and the overall production. I still haven’t mentioned the music. It mostly stunk. They pulled a GotG by using classic rock at importune times to work up the audience. Then the incidental music took up the slack by being overbearing throughout. It was like a cranked up, poor version of the music that we heard in Spielberg’s old 80s movies. There were even a few segments that sounded like Disney fanfare parade music. Side note. I’m a huge Disney fan. But the Disney-esque music in this movie was horribly misplaced.

So in sum, the movie started pretty poorly, throwing characters at us that we barely cared about. The bad guy was cardboard and of course had a speaking defect to add to his creepiness. Why Hollywood keeps using speech impediments to make someone look creepier or more evil is a disgusting discrimination I’m surprised is still used without comment from audiences. The movie eventually threw in some interesting drama and character development and I had hope. That hope was short lived and the movie made sure to drag me down again into pits of despair. They dredged me up occasionally with a few more peaks but the valleys were too numerous. Oh, what could have been. The art design was fine and solid but nothing particularly noteworthy. It’s interesting that almost no movie based on a video game has succeeded. It looks like a movie trying to start a video game franchise from nothing also doesn’t work. If you must see RPO, wait for the small screen.