At the end you find out it’s all a VR simulation.

(Just kidding.)

I snuck out of work early yesterday and saw MOON. I’m not going to jump up and down and say it’s fantastic and amazing and you have to see it. You shouldn’t go into it with high expectations. But, if you’re interested in seeing a science-fiction movie that doesn’t treat you like an idiot and has an actual plot (you know, one that can’t be summed up in the word “RUN!”) then go see it.

MOON reminded me of THE QUIET EARTH and SILENT RUNNING. Even better, MOON reminded me of books such as Peter Watts’ STARFISH and some of Stanislaw Lem’s PIRX THE PILOT stories (don’t get me started on “Terminus”, I love that story). MOON's writing is on par with some of the better episodes of the original TWILIGHT ZONE. So, if you’re going to shell out your cash to see some sci-fi flick that’s nothing more than a thrill ride spectacle, you owe it to yourself (and the genre) to see a sci-fi flick that is well written and enjoyably dull.

Because in your heart you know the future will be sterile and dull.

I was at Jefferson Market Library earlier this week and found a bunch of noir films in their DVD collection. So far, I have been in Heaven.


CRIMEWAVE: Who do you trust when you’re an ex-con trying to go straight and your path leads between two killers? One endlessly chews on toothpicks and the other smokes cigarettes out of a long black holder. Sterling Hayden sports the toothpick. Charles Bronson plays the leather-clad gangster muscle, and the good guy’s last name is Lacey. Tim Carey also shows up as a gin rummy playing sleaze-ball thug. The whole time he is on camera he totally dominates the scene, smoking through clenched teeth and fidgeting. Good stuff, beautifully shot and directed by Alex de Toth.




THE DECOY: One of those movies that the telling of is actually better than the execution. So sit back and make your own film with this plot: Femme Fatale corrupts idealistic young doctor and convinces him to resurrect her hoodlum ex-boyfriend’s corpse (via chemical injections!) because the hoodlum knows where a fortune in stolen money is hid. various other low-lives get involved. Soon, double cross meets triple cross and bodies start piling up! Also features a treasure map and a tough Portuguese cop who hovers around like a vampire detective.

It could have been the best zombie noir monster movie ever! But, whenever it played as a noir it lost its vitality and was pretty silly. When it played as a horror movie it kicked ass. And there were parts of this movie that made me wish I knew how to create samples and soundbites and post them here online. When it hit that right note it was pretty great. But, what can you do? At least, it gave me a beautiful movie to dream about, one with zombie gangsters, corrupt heroes, and mad science. Also, the femme fatale wears a fetching beret during much of the later half of the movie.

CONTROL


The Joy Division movie. ZOMG!!! I fast-forwarded through much of it and wound up not finishing it. Instead I listened to Joy Division for three days straight afterwards.

800 BULLETS


Alex de la Iglesia’s mash-up of PAN’S LABYRINTH, CINEMA PARADISO, and Spaghetti Westerns. A monstrous child flees the tyrannical control of his mother and grand-mother by seeking out his grandfather, a man who once worked as Clint Eastwood's stunt double. Reunited, the grandfather initiates the boy into a make-believe world of violence, alcohol, porn, and prostitutes. Mayhem ensues, and there might be twenty minutes too many in this film -- but if you like Spaghetti Westerns and are in the mood for one of those sappy, nostalgic European coming-of-age movies then check this out.

THE FOUNTAIN


I liked this. I am a pretentious hippie.

HAVE SWORD WILL TRAVEL


100% Grade A Shaw Borthers goodness. If you’re in the mood for old-school kung fu with swords and a plot like an Italian Opera as filtered through a viewing of SHANE, then this is the movie for you.

THE NIGHT OF THE WEREWOLF


A Spanish horror movie from 1980 that plays like the Halloween episode of CHARLIE'S ANGELS where Jill, Kelly, and Sabrina split up, and Sabrina teams up with a werewolf while Jill and Kelly fall under the spell of a sexy vampire. Special effects are done with slow-mo and guide wires. Needless to say I loved this movie. It’s tasteless beyond description, and the hero looks like the middle brother between Kenny Rogers and Bob Hoskins. This movie shows a mastery of storytelling that you can’t believe it is being used for such pandering ends.

Session 9: Brad Anderson’s 2001 Horror film set on the grounds of the Danvers State Mental Hospital.

Since breaking into the hospital was always a dream of mine as a juvenile delinquent, I’ve been more than a little curious to see this movie, but feared it would wind up being some hodge-podge of BLAIR WITCH meets EVENT HORIZON or worse, something incomprehensible like DEATHWATCH.

I’m a bit on the fence with it. Parts of it are really good, but other parts bugged me.

On the plus side, the casting is good. The actors are physically unattractive, and the tension builds nicely between them. On the negative side, the characters do some pretty stupid things (Lets split up. Let me creep around at night with my headphones on. Hmmm, maybe I should listen to these tapes at home, instead of in this creepy back office -- nah!) And the “monster” was a bit too powerful. The "inside your mind", but also "inside the environment" type nemesis. If it was simply a voice on a tape, this would not have bothered me so much.

Overall the pieces add up to a pretty spooky whole, and a vicarious thrill for me to see the inside of the hospital. And the end is creepy! They’re now making this place into condominiums -- or would be if there hadn’t been those strange “accidents”.



There's a line in this movie, early on, when a minor character talks about the hospital being shutdown in the 1980s, and the inmates being released onto the streets. There's also a recurring location of a wooden gazebo where the characters eat lunch. On the sides of the gazebo are painted crucifixes as if it might have been part of an outdoor chapel.

I grew up a few towns over from the Hospital, and those crucifixes reminded me of this one summer when this crazy woman appeared in our town. Whether she was a former patient or not, I have no clue, but this would have been in the 80s. She lived in this house with her parents near a busy intersection and a grammar school. When her parents died she remained in the house.

Once alone in the place she definitely started to lose it.

First she painted the house red. Then she painted these white crucifixes all over it: on the shingles, wood railings, steps, and windows. Everywhere. She shaved her head, started to wear a monk's robe, and carved a cross on her forehead. You'd see her in the supermarket and go as fast as possible in the other direction. Surprisingly, she was kind of chubby and baby-faced, which made the black stubble on head, crucifix carved in forehead combination that much more piss-your-pants worthy.

Needless to say she was the talk of the town that summer. My mom drove us by there a few times, probably fascinated herself, but sped up so she wouldn't have to look at it. Like I said, there was a grammar school right beside the house, and I know some kids that went there. During Little League (while playing in the outfield) we would talk about the house. One of these kids told this story about how one of the teachers at the school wound up stranded after a snowstorm and had to spend a night in the house. You knew it was bullshit, because it wasn't like the house and school were miles from civilization, but on the otherhand it made you think, "What if I had to spend a night in that house?" so you loved it.

Anyways, with the school year coming on and the woman's behaviour getting more erratic, there was probably some public outcry against her, and she was put away before that September. The house remained vacant a couple of years and was resold. The new owners fixed it up and you'd never be able to tell from looking at it that this woman had lived there.



Seeing those crucifixes in the movie though... that brought all this back to me. And made my hair stand up more than anything else.

Oscar Aibar is a Spanish director I had never heard of until stumbling upon the poster for his film Atolladero last month. Since then he's been something of a low-intensity obsession. Netflix didn't have ATOLLADERO, in fact Netflix only had one of his films: PLATILLOS VOLANTES. It's two-star rating made me a bit reluctant to watch it, but I figured what the hell, and dumped it into the queue.

I am so happy I did.

PLATILLOS VOLANTES is set in 1970s Spain, but based upon a pair of unsolved deaths linked to UFOs and extraterrestrials that occurred in Brazil: the Lead Masks Case .



In 1972, a pair of factory workers begin to believe they have made contact with extraterrestrials. Soon they are trapped in a web of delusion, paranoia, and an all too legitimate fear of the police. The film turns insightful, darkly comic, and sad by slow degrees. Aibar populates the background with imagery reminiscent of metaphysical painters such as Carlo Carra and De Chirico. The whole film evokes the power and danger of being too enrapt with one's idealogy, an idea that makes it the kissing sci-fi cousin of PAN'S LABRYNTH.



This, along with Alex de la Iglesia's Accion Mutante, makes me even more eager to see any and every Spanish sci-fi film made since 1990.

Spanish trailer here.