I’m not a huge fan of slasher films. It’s not that I don’t like seeing people get their faces chopped off by a mute psychopath; it’s just that I never found them scary, funny, or anything but an insult to my intelligence. There are things far scarier to me than a lone lunatic who preys on people. But, then there’s the story of Ed Gein.
Ed Gein is all over the horror genre. For those that don’t know, Gein was a middle-aged Wisconsin man that was discovered in 1957 with the decapitated body of a woman hanging in his shed, gutted and splayed like a side of beef. Authorities conducted a search of his farm that revealed human skulls made into bowls, skulls adorning his bedposts, lampshades made from skin, as well as a vest made from a female torso complete with breasts, with a matching belt made of nipples, and a box of nine vaginas. Additionally, there were blinds, seat covers, shrunken heads, and masks made from women’s faces.
After the inevitable media circus descended on the sleepy town of Plainfield, the first influence Gein had on popular culture was through Robert Bloch, living in Wisconsin at the time, who heard about Gein’s story and would write a little book called Psycho. One of Gein’s identifying characteristics was that his overly-religious mother completely dominated and emasculated him (think Piper Laurie in Carrie). She preached hellfire and damnation and told little Eddie that all women, except her, were evil. She bought a farm on the outside of town specifically so Ed and his brother would not be influenced by the world off the farm. Of course, throw in the violently drunken father, and Ed Gein was given all the ingredients to become the paradigm of horror.
Within five years, Gein lost his father to alcoholism, his brother to a fire (some suggest Ed killed him), and finally his mother died after a series of strokes, leaving Eddie alone with his thoughts. After his mother died, he boarded up the rooms she used most often, preserving them just as she left them (Norman Bates, anyone?). Gein became increasingly fascinated with the dead and soon began exhuming dozens of graves from local graveyards. He would soon turn to killing women that reminded him of his mother, harvesting their parts for his purposes.
Gein’s love of skin can be seen in the exaggerated characters of Leatherface and Buffalo Bill, his unhealthy attachment to his mother in Norman Bates, his zealot, overprotective mother in Carrie, and I’m sure many more films have borrowed elements of his story. Ed was always described as quiet, eccentric, and incapable of hurting anyone. He babysat and felt more at ease with children than adults, never showing any signs of violence. Though he was only convicted of killing two women, his case made Jack the Ripper seem quaint and gave Americans new things to fear. Ed Gein was not evil, which makes the specter of him scariest of all.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Friday, June 12, 2009
My Favorite Western: Star Wars
Star Wars is a Western film. There’s no doubt about it. Star Wars relies on many Western movie conventions, including plot and characters that lack complexity and rely more on action and special effects to take center stage. George Lucas purposefully kept these elements simple, for the effect of transporting us all to a galaxy in which an effeminate farm boy controlled the fate of all. While not all Western heroes were as whiny as Luke on the farm, many were just as green when they left with their dreams and a gun…or a Lightsaber.
A key similarity between Star Wars and the Western genre is that they each take place in hostile and unconquered lands. The first time viewers see Luke Skywalker, it almost looks as if he were living in 1878 Nevada. The classic desert landscape, the flat, expansive land and the big sky are all classic icons of the Western genre. You half-expect to see Shane enter the frame on his horse, slumped over in the saddle and on his way to the pearly gates of Tattooine.
And, then there’s Han. Han Solo is like most western heroes—masculine, quick on the draw, an overall man’s man. His introduction in the movie sets him up as if he were a cowboy. It takes place in a saloon-type environment. Chewbacca lacks some of Han’s charm, but makes up for it with brute strength, mechanical ingenuity, and a loyalty that makes him Sundance to Han’s hairy Butch (wow, that sounded dirty!). With his white shirt, black vest, he is the mix of white hat/black hat with a side of ass-kicking.
Since most Western films are boy’s clubs and the chicks are merely eye candy, Princess Leia is obviously the kindly hooker. By the end of the trilogy, she had made out with Luke, Han, Chewbacca, R2, and I’m pretty sure she did coke with Jabba. But, in the first one, she was just a nineteen-year-old, spunky girl with some nice jubblies, much like Jane Russell in The Outlaw. Princess Leia was Carrie Fisher’s second sexiest role, right after her role in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.
Beyond the characters, Star Wars takes place in a typical science-fiction galaxy, with many different races of intelligent life and a myriad of home planets. This could be similar to the old western settlements, which dotted the Western landscape, bustling with the continuous mixing of races, cultures, and languages. Stormtroopers could just be immigrant labor, realizing the Empire’s Manifest Destiny. Luke Skywalker and the Rebel Alliance are nothing more than the Indians in Lucas’ revisionist Western.
The similarities between the Western genre and Star Wars go far deeper than the few lame examples listed here. I just wanted to point out some ironies to one of the most important franchises in the history of film. The irony to Star Wars’ success is that it doomed us to more Punisher films, attempts at action trilogies starring Matthew McConaghey, and, of course, Jar-Jar Binks.
A key similarity between Star Wars and the Western genre is that they each take place in hostile and unconquered lands. The first time viewers see Luke Skywalker, it almost looks as if he were living in 1878 Nevada. The classic desert landscape, the flat, expansive land and the big sky are all classic icons of the Western genre. You half-expect to see Shane enter the frame on his horse, slumped over in the saddle and on his way to the pearly gates of Tattooine.
And, then there’s Han. Han Solo is like most western heroes—masculine, quick on the draw, an overall man’s man. His introduction in the movie sets him up as if he were a cowboy. It takes place in a saloon-type environment. Chewbacca lacks some of Han’s charm, but makes up for it with brute strength, mechanical ingenuity, and a loyalty that makes him Sundance to Han’s hairy Butch (wow, that sounded dirty!). With his white shirt, black vest, he is the mix of white hat/black hat with a side of ass-kicking.
Since most Western films are boy’s clubs and the chicks are merely eye candy, Princess Leia is obviously the kindly hooker. By the end of the trilogy, she had made out with Luke, Han, Chewbacca, R2, and I’m pretty sure she did coke with Jabba. But, in the first one, she was just a nineteen-year-old, spunky girl with some nice jubblies, much like Jane Russell in The Outlaw. Princess Leia was Carrie Fisher’s second sexiest role, right after her role in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.
Beyond the characters, Star Wars takes place in a typical science-fiction galaxy, with many different races of intelligent life and a myriad of home planets. This could be similar to the old western settlements, which dotted the Western landscape, bustling with the continuous mixing of races, cultures, and languages. Stormtroopers could just be immigrant labor, realizing the Empire’s Manifest Destiny. Luke Skywalker and the Rebel Alliance are nothing more than the Indians in Lucas’ revisionist Western.
The similarities between the Western genre and Star Wars go far deeper than the few lame examples listed here. I just wanted to point out some ironies to one of the most important franchises in the history of film. The irony to Star Wars’ success is that it doomed us to more Punisher films, attempts at action trilogies starring Matthew McConaghey, and, of course, Jar-Jar Binks.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Terminator 4, Part 2 (of 2)
Terminator 4: Salivation was everything I expected it to be, and less. I went in blind, only hearing the Christian Bale little-bitch rant online, nothing more. I didn’t know who directed it, didn’t really care. But, I promised a friend I would see it, so…
Walking in the theater, which was crowded with young executive hipsters and comfortably same-sex couples (which you don’t see in the red state of Florida, save for Gay-day at Disney, provided you can push past the fundamentalist Christian protestors to get in), a dude dressed in street clothes and holding a coffee asked me if I needed help. I told him I didn’t, but he expressed how he was there all day, bored, drank too much coffee and needed something to do. I realized then, he worked there.
He asked me what I was seeing, and I told him, with the comment that I never saw the third installment and wondered if it would hurt me. He told me it wouldn’t, and that the franchise is pretty much writing that one off. Why not? It’s all about profitability right? Now, if only we could talk George Lucas into writing off The Phantom Menace.
My only real disappointment with Terminator 4 was once I saw who directed it. McG is probably one of the cheesiest POS directors making films today. I can barely watch his films, let alone admit that I have. Lucky the Kabuki Theater made the screening an experience, because nothing else could have. The movie really felt like a post-apocalyptic Charlie’s Angels for a while there. And, Helena Bonham Carter? Why? I remember when she was the cute, Merchant-Ivory girl, now I wonder if she knows how to say “no” to anything. I mean, Tim Burton, right?
T4 itself had all the bells and whistles of a watered down, dressed up Terminator movie. You forget how much Arnold made the first two and how noticeable his absence is in the latter ones (or, are they?). The action was okay, with McG actually toning down the cheese factor, save for the lame, unexplained backstory on the new terminator, and a couple other clichés—the playing of Alice and Chains “Rooster” on a car radio for no reason, and the Guns n Roses song from the first Terminator, ironically played on a 1987 boombox by John Conner himself.
McG seems to not really care about acting, and left Bale to the Jack Bauer, intense whisper school of acting. But, seeing the movie in Skynet’s future central headquarters, in an amazing theater which pays more credence to the experience than the gate, I have to say it all worked.
If anyone out there truly loves movies, DEMAND theaters like the Sundance Cinemas in your town. If the movie industry is going to continue churning out cookie-cutter, CG-laden super-action movies, at least we could have unique and comfortable theaters to ease the mediocrity. Maybe if theaters improve, we can prevent cinema from becoming the Wal-Mart of art.
Walking in the theater, which was crowded with young executive hipsters and comfortably same-sex couples (which you don’t see in the red state of Florida, save for Gay-day at Disney, provided you can push past the fundamentalist Christian protestors to get in), a dude dressed in street clothes and holding a coffee asked me if I needed help. I told him I didn’t, but he expressed how he was there all day, bored, drank too much coffee and needed something to do. I realized then, he worked there.
He asked me what I was seeing, and I told him, with the comment that I never saw the third installment and wondered if it would hurt me. He told me it wouldn’t, and that the franchise is pretty much writing that one off. Why not? It’s all about profitability right? Now, if only we could talk George Lucas into writing off The Phantom Menace.
My only real disappointment with Terminator 4 was once I saw who directed it. McG is probably one of the cheesiest POS directors making films today. I can barely watch his films, let alone admit that I have. Lucky the Kabuki Theater made the screening an experience, because nothing else could have. The movie really felt like a post-apocalyptic Charlie’s Angels for a while there. And, Helena Bonham Carter? Why? I remember when she was the cute, Merchant-Ivory girl, now I wonder if she knows how to say “no” to anything. I mean, Tim Burton, right?
T4 itself had all the bells and whistles of a watered down, dressed up Terminator movie. You forget how much Arnold made the first two and how noticeable his absence is in the latter ones (or, are they?). The action was okay, with McG actually toning down the cheese factor, save for the lame, unexplained backstory on the new terminator, and a couple other clichés—the playing of Alice and Chains “Rooster” on a car radio for no reason, and the Guns n Roses song from the first Terminator, ironically played on a 1987 boombox by John Conner himself.
McG seems to not really care about acting, and left Bale to the Jack Bauer, intense whisper school of acting. But, seeing the movie in Skynet’s future central headquarters, in an amazing theater which pays more credence to the experience than the gate, I have to say it all worked.
If anyone out there truly loves movies, DEMAND theaters like the Sundance Cinemas in your town. If the movie industry is going to continue churning out cookie-cutter, CG-laden super-action movies, at least we could have unique and comfortable theaters to ease the mediocrity. Maybe if theaters improve, we can prevent cinema from becoming the Wal-Mart of art.
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