Can't Cut, Won't Cut

One Cut of the Dead (2019) has a couple of tricks up its sleeve. In fact, it's almost 2 movies in one. And I am going to spoil many of them. If you haven't seen this, don't read this yet - go see it and come back. For now, all you need to know is that this is a Japanese movie, made for the Shudder horror streaming channel.

It starts out in an old abandoned industrial building - a zombie is menacing a pretty girl. Then the director yells cut and we see that this is just a movie. The director is pretty intense, but the makeup lady seems nice. She kind of awkwardly tells the two actors about the urban myth of this building - that horrible experiments were done there during the war. They hear a noise outside - oh my god! Real zombies!

That was the story I heard - real zombies show up on the location of a cheap zombie movie. The other thing I had heard is that the first scene is one continuous take - no cuts. You don't notice it at first, then you can't miss it. And some things start making you notice that there is a director and camera man in the movie, but they aren't making this film. There is another camera and crew filming the fake director and camera man making the fake zombie film inside the real zombie film. Confused? Here's an example.

At one point someone is running away from a zombie, and the point of view (the camera) is suddenly on the ground. It stays there for a while - someone dropped the camera. Finally someone picks it up and follows the action. And when some "blood" splatters on the lens, you actually see someone's fingers wipe it off.

Then, at about 37 minutes, the movie ends with a crane shot of the final girl. Followed by: "Six months earlier". We meet the director, making a commercial. A producer wants him for a job. The director says, he's fast, cheap, and yet the quality is average. He's just right for this job: A movie made for the new zombie channel - made with one camera, no cuts, and broadcast live.

This section of the movie uses normal editing, with cuts and excerpts from TV, etc. It shows our director taking on this impossible task, partly to impress his blase teenage daughter. It shows the cast, the walkthroughs, then the big day.

This is the payoff. Now we get to go behind the scenes of that long single take from the first 37 minutes. You see why some scenes were awkward. You get to see the camera filming the real movie about the fake movie. You see who dropped the camera and who picked it up. All the way to the final crane shot.

So you have three acts: A movie, shot in one take. The circumstances that lead up to the movie being made. A behind-the-scenes look at the making of the movie in Act 1. It reminded me of Noises Off. That's about a play, and you see the rehearsal, then backstage for the first performance, then finally, the last performance. There's the same quality here of seeing something interesting and odd, then discovering why and how.

I should note that although the first act is a zombie movie (with a zombie movie inside!), the actual body count of this movie is zero - the zombies are all fake. It's a movie about movies, especially the type made fast and cheap, where the quality is at least average.

Can You Do the Fandango?

Scaramouche (1952) rounds out the set of swashbucklers we've been watching, starting with Fanfan le Tulipe and continuing with Cartouche. They are all set in pre-Revolutionary France, and feature roguish heroes with at least two women. 

In this case, the hero is Stewart Granger, who strikes me as a sort of Jimmy Stewart mixed with Cary Grant (footnote: I just checked wikipedia - he was actual christened James Stewart!). But first we meet the villain, Mel Ferrer, a French nobleman. We see him killing or wounding several men in consecutive duels as a troop of horsemen ride up to summon him to the Queen. So right off the bat, we have swordfights and galloping horsemen. The Queen, Marie Antoinette played by Nina Foche, wants to marry him off to one of her attendants, Janet Leigh. He is obedient, if not ardent.

We find Granger in a camp of travelling actors, looking for his girlfriend, Eleanor Parker. They tell him she is getting married, so he heads off to break it up and marry her himself. But before he can make good on the second part, he finds out that his friend Richard Anderson is in trouble. He has been distributing revolutionary pamphlets. So he goes to aid him, but they are caught by, of course, Mel Ferrer, the greatest swordsman in France. So Anderson is killed and when Granger tries to avenge him, he is disarmed and humiliated.

Somewhere in here, we learn that Granger has been receiving money all his life on the condition that he never seek out his real father - but when the money stops, he beats the name out of his lawyer. Then he meets and falls in love with Janet Leigh - and finds out that she is his half-sister, which dampens his spirits. The idea that she is supposed to marry his deadly enemy doesn't do wonders for him either.

He goes into hiding with his girlfriend's theatrical troupe, who specialize in commedia del'arte, a very stylized form of Italian slapstick. You know, Harlequin, Columbine, Pierrot, Toby the dog, those clowns. He played Scaramouche, and kept his mask on as much as possible. 

So, to cut to the chase, he learns to swordfight and finally encounters Ferrer at a performance. This leads to the famous fight scene, with swinging on curtain ropes, fights through the hteater boxes, out to the halls, through the theater and onto the stage. In a movie full of fights and chases, this is a great topper. I won't tell you who comes out victorious though. I won't say which girl he gets either. See for yourself. 

They're Creepy and They're Kooky - The Manson Family!

Around New Year's, I said I wouldn't be doing a 2019 round-up review, because we still haven't seen a ;ot of them - Netflix is holding out on us. But they did let us watch Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), which was nice.

It is set in 1969. Leonardo DiCaprio is the star of a (made-up) TV western series, now cancelled. His career is a little precarious, taking roles in other shows, mostly as the heavy. His stunt man, buddy and go-fer, Brad Pitt, is even more precarious. He has trouble getting work because he maybe killed his wife. Tarantino shows him on a boat, getting yelled at by his wife, with a speargun in his hand...

Most of the movie is DiCaprio freaking out about his career, and Pitt cruising around, being cool. DiCaprio lives next door to Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate, which is cool. Pitt keeps running into these cute hippy chicks, and eventually follows one out to the Spahn Ranch, where he once worked on westerns. Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) walks around town or bops around her house. It's sort of aimless, but also creepy, because we know what's coming.

But, and I don't think it's a spoiler anymore, it doesn't happen. The Manson kids decide to kill DiCaprio instead of Polanski, which was a bad idea. They get killed most conclusively. Which is a very good feeling, although just a fantasy.

The real joys of this are soaking up old 1960s LA - Musso and Frank Grill, the Strip,  the cars, the canyon. Tarantino dressed real LA locations to match 1969, with no CGI. We get a lot of real people showing up, not just the Mansons and Sharon Tate. Damian Lewis does a great Steve McQueen. We get Mama Cass and Michelle Philips. Real-life director Sam Wanamaker directs an episode of Lancer, a real TV show with (not real) DiCaprio. And we meet Bruce Lee.

This is kind of problematic, since he is made out to be a big jerk who couldn't really fight. That is not period accurate. But it sort of feeds into the fantasy: These All-American actors with their rough-and-ready stunt men are what's great about the country. Not those foreigners and the damned dirty hippies. As a member of the hippie community, I should take offense. But, hell, it's all in fun.

Not sure what to think about Sharon Tate watching and apparantly enjoying her last movie, the Dean Martin as super-spy Matt Helm trainwreck, The Wrecking Crew. I never managed to get through more than one of those stinkers. 

Rex Ingram Mini-fest

I would like to say that I came up with this double bill myself, but Ms. Spenser picked The Thief of Bagdad (1940), and Netflix suggested The Green Pastures (1936).

Thief is a technical fantasy, directed by, among others, Michael Powell, produced by Alexander Korda, with his brother Zoltan directing some bits. Add a score by Miklos Rozsa, and you've got some heavy-duty romantic film-making. 

It starts in old Baghdad, where we meet a blind beggar, John Justin, and his dog. He is taken to a harem where he tells his tale. Once he was the Sultan, but his vizier, Jaffar (Conrad Veidt) convinced him to go among his subjects in disguise - then had him imprisoned. In the dungeon he meets a little thief, named Abu - played by Sabu. 

They escape and have adventures, including Justin falling in love with princess June Duprez. But Veidt wants the princess for himself, and manages to catch Justin and Sabu. A mighty sorcerer, he strikes Justin blind and turns Sabu into a dog. But the princess falls into a deep sleep that can only be broken by Justin. And Justin and Sabu can only be returned to their former selves if the princess embraces Veidt - which she does. 

Things would be pretty dire, but Sabu finds a jinn - Rex Ingram. And after many more adventures, all is set right. 

This movie is great fun, with colorful sets full of colorful extras. You see the Powell touch with technicolor, mattes and sets, plus some early greenscreen work, like when the giant Rex Ingram is trying to step on Sabu. A great spectacle.

The Green Pastures, is a smaller scale production, although the scope is pretty big. It has an all-black cast, and stars Ingram in several roles. He starts as a Preacher, who is teaching Sunday school. When one of the kids asks what God looks like, he says he imagines that he looks like a wise old preacher he knew as a child. Then we are taken to the Green Pastures, in Heaven, where the angels are having a picnic and fish fry. When De Lawd shows up, it is Ingram again.

And so we go through the stories from the Bible: a little Adam (Ingram again) and Eve, a little Noah (Eddie Anderson!) and the Ark, some Moses and Aaron, and finally, just a hint at the New Testament to come. These stories are updated to rural 30's southern US - with the evil people of the earth represented by pistol-packing gangsters and ukulele-playing party girls. (I'm a uke player myself, so I love this scene the most of all.) They are also trimmed down a lot - so we get Moses and the trick staff, but only one of the plagues, no Red Sea stroll, and Moses' death outside the Promised Land. That last probably resonated with black audiences then.

All of this is backed up by the sweetest gospel choir. So you might find this movie racist at worst, condescending at best, but I'd be surprised if you don't find it entertaining. The acting is fine, the characters sweet and the uplift is real. 

But I'd say Ingram's jinn is more fun.

Gently Up the Stream

Upstream Color (2013) is an odd mix of horror and art film - or maybe surrealist horror. I guess the reviews weren’t great when it came out, because for some reason I avoided it. I think I got it confused with another amnesia movie, Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind. I avoided that because Jim Carey.

This starts with a variety of kids taking a drug, which seemed to put their minds in sync. Then we see a man making the drug out of a flower, some fungus and the grubs in the dirt of the flower. He uses it to drug a woman, Amy Seidetz, give her hypnotic suggestions, make her do strange tasks, and empty her bank account. This is very creepy. He finally leaves and sets her free. She wakes up to find worms crawling under her skin, which she tries to cut out.

This made me think the movie is a metaphor for amphetamine or cocaine - a famous side effect is the sensation of bugs under the skin. They made a movie about that too, Bug, but I don’t ever want to see it.

The next scene has her wander up to a kind of ambulance with weird sounds coming out of loudspeakers. Mad scientist Andrew Sensenig, looking somewhat Stellan Skarsgaard, helps her by removing the worm and transferring it to the body of a piglet.

Later, we see her meet writer/director/co-star Shane Carruth. He is attracted to her, although she fends him off. She tells him she in therapy for memory loss and shows him her meds. He is taken aback, but they have seem to have some kind of bond. They begin to date and move in together. At some point, she notices that he has the same worm-under-the-skin scars that she has. Slowly they piece together, partly by telepathy, what has happened to them.

This is interspersed with scenes of Sensenig visiting his pigs. When he sits with them, he perceives the lives of other people, including Seidetz and Carruth. It seems that he has a psychic connection to them as well. His other hobby is to record natural or ambient sounds in the field, and manipulate them into the sounds we heard from his loudspeakers - to attract the affected?

I won't tell you that it's all clear in the end, but it isn't all that mysterious. 

Part of the mystery is how this is filmed and edited. The movie is full of disjointed shots and scenes, each one interesting, sometimes beautiful. But it's not always clear what information you are supposed to take away, or how much time has passed since the last shot, or who these people are.

It is a beautiful experience, even though there is a lot of ugliness in it. It is also moving, although maybe a bit pretentious. It also isn't quite a horror film, but it is pretty scary. 

House in Reno

5 Against the House (1955) is an odd little noir - it starts out as a sort of college comedy, then becomes a heist film, but not a funny one.

It starts with four older college kids in Reno. Guy Madison, the responsible one is reminding everyone that they need to by back in the car by midnight. Alvy Moore, the goofy one, scoffs, and Kerwin Matthews, the rich kid, just wants to try his roulette system. Brian Keith, the dark brooding one, tells them all to listen to Madison. They spend a little time in Harold's Casino and almost get swept up when someone tries to rob the place. They are standing behind him at the cashier's counter and the police think maybe they are part of the gang. They clear everything up, and someone from the casino mentions that no one can rob Harold's - too much security. That sets the plot in motion.

They arrive at college and immediately shanghai a freshman to be their gofer, as was the custom in those days. It seems that these guys are Korean War vets, which explains their age. Keith also saved Madison's life, and got injured badly, which explains his PTSD. Madison has a townie girlfriend, Kim Novak, who sings in a nightclub. There is romance and college hi-jinks. Then Matthews has his bright idea.

He comes from a rich family, but has never done anything himself. He has a plan to rob Harold's, then give back the money - no harm no foul. He talks Moore and Keith into it, but they don't want to ask Madison. But he has already decided to go to Reno to marry Novak, so they take him along and figure they'll talk him into when they get there. 

This doesn't work out too well. Mainly because Keith finally snaps and decides that he is going to keep the money, and everyone better do as he says or Novak gets it. Of course, the last act is the heist, which I'll skip, except to mention that William Conrad is the casino employee they hijack.

Most of this is just fair. Novak is OK - I didn't think she was better than the picture. Keith wasn't better than the picture, but definitely brought something extra to it. He was fun as a nihilistic college philosopher, and scary as an unstable guy with a gun. Madison, who seemed to play a lot of cowboys, is good looking, but that's about it. The other two were mostly comic relief - and not bad if you like that kind of stuff. 

There's some good location shooting in Reno at the end, if you want to see the biggest little city in the world in the 1950s.

Rolling Stock

I resisted watching Bong Joon-ho's Snowpiercer (2013) for quite a while, because I assumed that the harsh secret was cannibalism. I'm happy to tell you that I was wrong. Also happy I watched this, mostly for the atmosphere.

It takes place 17 years after an attempt to solve global warming leads to global freezing. The only life left on Earth is a group of people on a luxury train that travels endlessly around the globe. Why this prevents them from freezing is never explained. The train has a special inexhaustible  fuel, but I don't think it requires motion. Anyway, just roll with it. 

In the tail of the train are refugees and their kids. They live crowded together, and fed on bricks of grey protein jelly - not soylent green, but not much better. Their spiritual leader, John Hurt, is working towards their eventual overthrow of the oppressive regime, symbolized by Helen Mirren as the Thatcher-like minister who comes to the tail section to steal children - in this case, Octavia Spenser's. 

Chris Evans plays another sort of leader - a good, capable man who is reluctant to lead. His side-kick is Jamie Bell. He discovers that the guards guns don't have any ammunition - it all ran out and there's no way to get more. So the revolution is on.

First, they get a famous thief out of cold storage, Song Kang-ho. He also breaks out a young woman, Go Ah-sung. They are both addicted to a volatile substance derived from industrial waste, but have skills they need.

So the team heads up to the front of the train. They make many discoveries, have lots of fights, and so on. When Evans gets to the head of the train, he meets the train's inventor, Ed Harris - and makes more discoveries.

I have to acknowledge that the plot is full of holes - in fact the whole premise is. So never mind that. The story is great. The influence of Terry Gilliam (Hurt's character's name is Gilliam) and Edgar Wright (Jamie Bell is Edgar) are clear. The train has a great post-steampunk feel, not as over the top as Brazil, but you won't be surprised by the Art Deco cockpit in the front of the train. Bong gets some fine performances by some great actors for this. 

So that, along with Parasite, completes our little Bong Joon-ho film festival. We loved this but don't expect to watch the TV series that is just starting up.