Well, fiddlesticks! My evaluation of the genre film landscape (spanning the last dozen years) now, sadly, concludes. I'm generally quite cantankerous about newfangled films, but in my efforts to be less crotchety, I'm pointing out the most impressive genre films that have been released in recent years.
It is my opinion that filmmaking enjoyed its zenith as an art form in the period of 1968 through 1982. Films of this era were rougher around the edges, lacking the CGI, perfect 5.1 surround sound, and general slickness of contemporary motion pictures - but those 70s filmmakers brought a depth of creative exploration, personal sincerity, and passion for the craft that filmmakers post-1982 have delivered only as rare exception.
If you catch my ramblings here with any regularity (and who doesn't?), you know my film preferences zone-in on the 70s. I've often said that the peak of American cinema - from Hollywood studio movies to low-budget horror - spans the years 1968 through 1982, and that we simply have not been able to get it as right, as consistently since.
I immediately became a David Fincher fan when I first saw his brilliant crime thriller Seven (1995). Alien 3 (1992) was more miss than hit, and while I enjoyed The Game (1997) and Panic Room (2002), they definitely lacked the punch that the filmmaker's other pictures deliver. I thought his most lackluster movie was Zodiac (2007), but other followers in the cult of Fincher have praised it as one of his best - if not his best film - so I owe it another look.
One of my all time favorite filmmakers is David Cronenberg. Among horror fans, Rabid (1977), starring Marilyn Chambers, The Dead Zone (1983), starring Christopher Walken, and The Fly (1986), starring Jeff Goldblum, are Cronenberg-directed favorites, and they are some of my most-loved Cronenberg films as well. I'm also a big fan of Fast Company (1979), Cronenberg's drive-in carsploitation flick starring William Smith and John Saxon. I'm even transfixed by the flawed but fascinating micro-budget films that launched the director's career, Stereo (1969) and Crimes Of The Future (1970).
The adventure that is 2012 is well underway, and I've been pleasantly surprised by a new wave of Ratline buzz, thanks to our movie appearing on a number of 'Best Of 2011' lists. Here is the most recent.
2011 saw the release of two movies I'm very proud of: Ratline and Stake Land.
Way back in 1990, I was 18 years old and working my final year at the Keller 8 movie theater, owned by local chain Wehrenberg Theaters. One of the best things about working at a theater was that I got to see movies for free. I saw Tremors this way - walking in knowing nothing about the film and having zero expectations. What I witnessed was not a stunning achievement of cinematic genius. It was not a movie that changed my life. It was not a film I raved about for months. However, I deemed it a whole helluva lot of fun.
Three decades ago, director Godfrey Reggio completed his epic documentary / visual poem Koyaanisqatsi (1982). I had last Saturday off, and I wanted to catch up on some movies that I'd been craving to check out. Koyaanisqatsi made the list - and I finally feasted my eyes upon this stunning and thought-provoking film. Better late than never, I guess.
I also caught Kevin Smith's Red State (which was better than I expected, but nothing to get too excited about) and Mark Romanek's Never Let Me Go (a wonderful film that I thoroughly enjoyed). But enough about these newfangled movies. Let's go back to the era of the Commodore 64, Reaganomics, and the birth of the compact disc. It is 1982 and Godfrey Reggio's feature length experimental documentary - six years in the making - is released.
Director Reggio, who spent his late teens and most of his 20s in a Roman Catholic pontifical order, was a teacher before becoming a filmmaker. He was a co-founder of various community organizations that promoted the arts, aided street gang juveniles, and provided medical care to those in need. In 1974, Reggio co-organized a multi-media PSA campaign warning of government and corporate use of technology to invade citizens' privacy and control behavior. This was quite prophetic, considering that this campaign came long before The Patriot Act, the internet, before cell phones revealed your exact location via GPS - before cell phones even existed.
Koyaanisqatsi, the first of a trilogy, was Godfrey Reggio's feature film debut. It was produced in association with Francis Ford Coppola, and a main character in the film is the remarkable music score by Philip Glass. The film's title is a Hopi word that means "life out of balance".
On November 27th, the world lost one of its most intriguing filmmakers, the controversial and audacious Ken Russell. In the mainstream, he was probably best known for Women In Love (1969), which earned him his only Best Director Oscar nomination, and Tommy (1975), the record-breaking and much celebrated film version of The Who's rock opera. Russell sparked outrage as often as he gathered acclaim, and was crucified as often as he was cherished for his unique brand of mesmerizing cinema. The filmmaker passed away last weekend at the age of 84.
From time to time, I like to take a good look around and see what's cookin' in the world of indie / alternative / low-budget / rebellious filmmaking, and then deliver the shocking truth here. This is one of those times - so let's see what horrors we can conjure up from the unruly underbelly of independent film. Here's the haps from the wrong side of the tracks…
This is for creative types (filmmakers, writers, actors) primarily, but it's a valid lesson even if you are not in that category. It's a lesson you may have already learned, but since it has resurfaced in my mind recently, I'm going to type about it here.
