Hobo with a Shotgun (2011) and Machine Girl (2008)

Where do you go when over the top isn't far enough? I'm not sure, but when you get there, you'll find the team behind the 2011 Canadian grindcore/splatter film, Hobo with a Shotgun.

Trouble starts when a Hobo (Rutger Hauer) gets off the train in a town that is run by a sadistic criminal known as The Drake. He and his sons torture, rape and terrorize the population that seems to consist of: terrified average folks, angry mobs, prostitutes, a large number of homeless, and children who should have long ago been relocated to other towns by family services.

The movie has three acts: the first introduces us to the horror that is this Twilight-Zone worthy town (if Rod Serling had subcontracted to Rob Zombie); the second, is the battle between good and evil (it involves a lot of blood and gore); and the third act is the epic conclusion (with even more blood and gore).

Machine Girl is a Japanese action movie with the same "gore is good" mindset but with slightly better special effects and slicker overall production. Ami (Minase Yashiro), a girl with a tragic past and a brother who gets mixed up with the wrong crowd, is kidnapped and tortured, losing her arm in the process. After escaping, a machinist builds her a customized machine-gun arm attachment. (This may remind readers of Planet Terror, the Robert Rodriguez half of Grindhouse (2007) in which Rose McGowan is fitted with a machine gun leg or even of the much earlier Army of Darkness (1992), the Sam Raimi cult classic in which the hero, Ash fits a chainsaw on to his injured arm -- both are apt comparisons).

With her weapon in place, Machine Girl has only one goal: revenge. This motivation may be the only real difference between the mood of the two films. Machine Girl is full of the kind of rage that is spun from true hatred; the Hobo is seeking justice in a system where the police don't just turn a blind eye to the violence and crime, some play an active role in a number of very unsavory acts and activities.

It's possible that there is a deeper political message buried under the blood and guts in Hobo with a Shotgun. Watching it with my husband, he said, "It's the Republican Dream! The Hobo just wants to be an entrepreneur but the welfare state won't let him get ahead." I also appreciated the not-so-subtle take on sleazy reality-tv and film producers (a not-so-veiled dig at the infamous Bumfights) and on the complicit role that media plays in sensationalizing violence.

The sidekicks in both films are strong, if flawed women. Miki (Asami), who also lost family at the hands of those who tortured Ami, choses to get her violent revenge with the help of a chainsaw (there's those echoes of Army of Darkness again). The Hobo is helped by Abby (Molly Dusnworth), the archetypical hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold who also seems to have some daddy issues.

Splatter films like these are not for everyone; they are extremely graphic, spending more of their budget on fake blood than actors' salaries. Both films contained scenes that turned my stomach and offended me on some level but they each balanced those moments with some truly surprising, imaginative laugh-out-loud scenes. As such, I recommend them both, if you can manage the gore.

Hobo with a Shotgun ****

Machine Girl ***

NOTE: Even the trailers below are pretty graphic... consider yourself warned!

Mad Men before Mad Men

All out of Mad Men episodes? Get the flavour of 1960s advertising from a retro double feature of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1967) and Lover Come Back (1961).

Lover Come Back showcases Rock Hudson, Doris Day and Tony Randall performing their usual screwball comedy shenanigans in this film about competing advertising executives, the drinking, womanizing charmer Jerry Webster (Hudson) and the hard working, ethically-superior Carol Templeton (Day). Randall is Webster’s boss, uneasy in his role under the shadow of his late father. As Webster’s unscrupulous tactics threaten to take down the agency, he cooks up a way to hush up a witness by making her the new “VIP girl.” Unfortunately, VIP doesn’t exist and Webster has to create a product to go with the pitch. When Templeton tries to track Webster (and VIP) down, a mistaken identity leads to madcap adventures.

Lover Come Back is typical of the 60s screwball comedy -- if you’ve seen Pillow Talk (1959) or the more recent Down With Love (2003) then you’ve already seen Lover Come Back -- but by watching it through the eyes of a Mad Men fan, you can interpret it on another level. t’s fun to see the characteristics of Webster and Templeton in Don Draper and Peggy Olson and maybe just a bit of Pete Ramsey in Pete Campbell. It’s also got the same feel for the cutthroat competition between agencies and the lengths to which agents will go to get an account.

The first thing you notice about How to Succeed in Buisness is lead actor Robert Morse who fans will recognize as agency head Burt Cooper from Mad Men. A much younger Robert Morse is J. Pierpont Finch, a window-washer who stumbles on a book that teaches him how to bluff his way up the ladder in an ad-agency. It’s a musical, albeit an uneven one, and Morse also played the role on Broadway. Also reprising his role from the stage is Rudy Vallee as Mr. Biggley.

Unlike Lover Come Back which more or less glamorizes the industry, How to Succeed lampoons it, every step of the way, from the opener about "The Company Way" to the era’s take on sexual harassment with the musical number "A Secretary is Not a Toy" to the constant sarcastic narrative from the booklet. Unfortunately How to Succeed tends to lag in the third act but does eventually redeem itself. Worth seeing just for Morse’s performance.

There is no doubt in my mind that the Mad Men set directors, costume designers, and even the writers took some crib notes from these two films, so while we wait for the next season, why not treat yourself to these two classics.

Lover Come Back (1961) ****
How to Succeed in Business... (1967) ***

Two Polanski Films: Rosemary's Baby and Chinatown

Following the storm around Roman Polanski's arrest and pending extradition from Switzerland, Mike and I decided it was time to watch two of his films that were on our fill-in-the-canon list. (Canon may be too strong here but they are oft-referenced films by academics and other reviewers that we hadn't seen.) Both films were available at our local library so I placed holds on both titles and the stars aligned to make them both available last night.

Rosemary's Baby does have some creepy moments but overall it is a ridiculous film. The most unsettling scenes are in the first act where a young couple moves into an odd apartment building and soon meets the Castavets, possibly the world's most invasive elderly couple. From the time that Rosemary (Mia Farrow) and her husband first dine with the Castavets, the film takes a turn from creepy to off-balanced and from there it rockets to just plain silly. The biggest problem comes from the connection that the screenplay (and Levin's book before that) makes between witchcraft and satanism. This not only dates the film (more so than the Vidal Sassoon haircut and 60s wardrobe) but makes it almost unwatchable for anyone who is familiar with wiccans and modern witchcraft. That aside, Polanski does manage to make the film tense right up to the last scene (which let me down), if you believe that the protagonist was unable to put two and two together until someone sent her a book filled with underlined passages. Her fogginess is due in part to being perpetually drugged by the Castavets and her complicit husband. His cooperation was one of many plot points that was poorly supported. It's clear that Rosemary's Baby is a horror film -- most of the truly frightening events are left to the imagination of the viewer -- but it is a weak representation of the genre.

Chinatown, on the other hand, is a much more watchable movie. Set in 1930s Los Angeles, the film centres on Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson), a private eye who deals in relationship issues but .ends up getting drawn into a much bigger case. Chinatown is considered a "neo-noir" -- it bears all the marks of a Film Noir but was made 25 years after the golden age for that genre. Throughout, it reminded me of L.A. Confidential (if you have seen one, you'll likely enjoy the other). Nicholson is at his best here, playing a detective with a conscience -- he just wants to get to the bottom of it all. Faye Dunaway plays the femme fatale and she does it well; it's hard to tell just which side she's on until the end. I was not expecting the political intrigue or the other drama that unfolds; there's a lot to tell in Chinatown and it is all worth watching. The movie has aged well, perhaps due to being set in the past and, despite its age, still manages to be shocking.


** Rosemary's Baby
**** Chinatown

Coraline in 3D (Focus/Laika/Alliance 2009)

Coraline is a young girl whose parents always seem to be too busy for her. To make matters worse, she is stuck living in an old house with strange neighbours in the adjoined suites. Having just moved in, her mother suggests that she passes the time unpacking; her father absently suggests that she explore the new house, counting all the windows and doors. She decides to do the latter which leads to the discovery of a strange, locked door in the front room. When she unlocks it, she finds only a brick wall on the other side.

Later, however, the door opens to quite a different place, a place that is familiar and yet, better. Her "other" parents dote on her and make sure she is always happy. She is confused but happy and has no idea at first how much is really at risk.

Coraline is based on the best-selling book by Neil Gaiman. While the plot stays fairly true to the original text, additional characters have been added to explain things which, in the book, were left to the reader to figure out. Happily, though, the movie is just as tense and scary as the book -- scary enough that many reviewers are suggesting it is not suitable for young children. Our not-quite-8 year-old accompanied us, however, and loved it but we also took her to see Tim Burton's Corpse Bride in the theatre at age 5.

Technically, Coraline is a wonder to watch. Filmed in stop-motion animation on sets filled with hand-crafted wonders, there is far too much in each scene to take in during a single viewing. Coraline is also being released in 3D format (which we saw) which can be a bit disorienting but is a good fit for this movie. I will admit that I am not a huge fan of 3D as a rule but it is used well here, giving dimension to her world rather than making the audience jump.

Often, animated films depend on good vocal performances and the actors here did a fine job. Terri Hatcher was ideally cast as the mother/other mother and what the other mother turns into and Spink and Forcible were played perfectly by Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders.

Overall, this film is well-worth seeing on the big screen. It may scare small children but most will be fine and a few may even want to read the book which I highly recommend.


****

Ten Favourite Movies made Before I was Born

You'll notice some "great" movies missing from this list -- such as Citizen Kane -- and while there are many older movies I appreciate, I can't watch them over and over like the ten here. These are movies I have seen multiple times and that I still love to watch; I've numbered them, but they are not necessarily in order:


1. The Wizard of Oz (1939). Yes, it's cheezy and melodramatic and kitchy, but I still watch it at least once a year. A few years ago, I saw it at Cinecenta -- the first time I had watched it in a darkened theatre on a full-size screen and the tornado sequence was so much more frightening! If you've never seen it on the big screen, I highly recommend tracking it down at a repertoire theatre.

2. The Apartment (1960). This film was full of surprises for me and, while it is very dated now, it's somehow still relevant. I think this was the first Billy Wilder film I saw and certainly the first time I had seen Fred MacMurray in a darker role (I was used to seeing him on My Three Sons and in Disney films). I also finally understood why Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine were stars.

3. The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). Sure, Gort looks pretty non-threatening to today's viewers, but the brilliance in this film is the script. It's solid sci-fi and serves as a great overview of Cold War paranoia.

4. The Italian Job (1969). OK, so this was technically released the year I was born, but I'm confident that it was made before I was born and there's no way I would have seen it in the theatre. There is so much brilliance in this film -- Michael Caine is in fine form, the sequence with the Minis was brilliantly coordinated, and the ending? That's just movie gold. The "remake" from 2003 is a pathetic shadow of this movie and should be avoided at all costs.

5. The Odd Couple (1968). I never watched the TV show so I only begrudgingly bothered to watch this film the first time around. Turns out, it's hilarious and I frequently quote the characters. Full credit has to be given to Neil Simon's screenplay at the core of this film but also to the great performances by the lead and supporting cast.

6. Pillow Talk (1959). Possibly the finest example of a screwball romantic comedy with Rock Hudson and Doris Day giving some of their best performances. If you liked Down With Love, this movie is required viewing -- several scenes are almost shot-for-shot in homage; the reverse is also true!

7. The Desk Set (1957) Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn spar when a computer is introduced into the fact-checking department at a newspaper. Librarians are still facing off against Google and this movie still makes me giggle for that reason.

8. Mr. Blandings Builds his Dream House (1948). Every time we consider building a house, this movie runs through my head. Cary Grant has an intense job with an ad agency and an apartment full of women so they decide to buy a house in the country. Turns out the house is falling down so they decide to build-to-suit. Despite the laughably low prices for real estate and construction and the rather offensive caricature that is Gussie, the family housekeeper, this movie is very watchable and very funny.

9. Singing in the Rain (1952). I don't consider myself a fan of musicals, but this is the second one on my list. Debbie Reynolds sparkles and Donald O'Connor cracks me up every time plus it contains some of the most recognizable Hollywood musical songs.

10. Rope (1948). Really tough call between this one and Rear Window (1954); both feature James Stewart in strong Hitchcock films but Rope is just that much darker and that much more masterful. Actually, they make a good double feature if you can handle the tension!