Postcards from the Edge

Last night I had a dream in which I found myself with a large cake that no one wanted to eat. It might have something to do with the fact that the cake was made entirely out of spinach and ricotta. I remember in vivid detail feeling very anxious over the fact that I could not get anyone to eat this cake, even after cutting a slice and making mmmm sounds, only to have the whole thing collapse onto itself, 'cause it was a cake made of ricotta and spinach. Now that I've shared that, let me say that I'm growing increasingly worried about my dreams. Not only are they strange as fuck but they feel so real that I often wake up in a fright, sweating, heart racing.. If I close my eyes I can feel that panic... why didn't someone at least try my cake. 

-Since I last edited this draft I had a dream in which my current boss (who scares me a little) insisted I perform stand up comedy at a men's prison in remote Western Australia on Christmas day. When I finally calmed the hell down and accepted my fate by convincing myself that at least my humiliation would only be witnessed by prisoners, it turned out I was the opening act for Louie CK - (who obviously has nothing better to do on Chrstmas Day)


Reviews from the Edge 

So if you've made it through my dream musings, I shall reward you with my thoughts on the films I've recently seen. 

All that heaven allows (1955) 
God bless my husband, he's always trying to get his white trash, bourbon swilling wife to appreciate the classics. A few Friday nights ago he requested we enjoy another cold winter night in the comfort of our warm lounge and watch one of his favourite films "of all time". A suggestion which usually filsl me with an equal measure of wonder and dread, as you might be able to tell from the contents of his blog, one can never know exactly what Andrew might classify as "all time best". 

After spending a few tense moments scanning his eyes along his criterion collection shelf of pretension, the selection was made. I spent the next 90 odd minutes immersed in a  picture perfect world inhabited by a lonely widow and a  younger man who would go from being her gardener  to the love of her life. I've made it sound cheap and a little cheesy in my description, that may be because I have difficulty connecting to films from this era (similar to my inability to connect to a lot of fantasy/sci-fi films). The perfect neighbourhoods, children calling out "mother" and those passionate embrace kisses, for me there is a disconnect and to be honest it saddens me a little. 

 That being said I enjoyed All that heaven allows more than any other film I have seen from the time. Sure the story of a good looking, well-to-do older woman finding love with someone a little younger and with a different background whether that be class, religion etc has been done to death since (and with varying degrees of sincerity and interest). Even the most naive film viewer sits and waits for the disapproving kids, noisy neighbours or "misunderstanding" to cause a rift between the couple only to have them reunite at the end.  What I enjoyed about All that heaven allows is that the differences between the couple was explored in a meaningful manner, Ron is a character with an interesting world view, one that wouldn't be out of place in a modern film, what is different however is that his character feels real, fleshed out, he is not a construct for Carey to fall in love with, to merely fill a void.

The other interesting element of the film for me was the relationship between Carey and her daughter, who throughout the film waxes lyrical about her modern understanding of the mind and nature of human emotions and behaviour, only to fall into pieces when her mother admits to being in love with Ron and crumbles when she is mocked about it by her friends. Carey's son also disapproves and insists his mother choose between her children and her new love. Carey makes the only choice she feels she has and ends her relationship with Ron, only to be rewarded by being abandoned by her children who have now moved on in their lives, either by getting engaged or moving abroad for work. As her children spring this devastating new on their already lonely mother, they also surprise her with a Christmas gift, a new television "a lonely woman's best friend"...All Carey can say is "I've made a horrible mistake". No shit and it is that realisation that I admire most about the film. 
 * * *1/2 

Evil Dead (2013)
I walked into the screening of Evil Dead thinking two things, Firstly I'm glad I'm seeing this and that the session is near full because as a film lover it sucks when films that should be seen on the big screen get a straight to DVD release. Secondly I'm glad this is only screening at the local art house cinema so I can drink beer, because after all this is a remake and worse, a horror film remake. If I'm being honest, I don't recall much about the original Evil Dead, the last time I watched it was with my dad in 1990, I was 7 and slightly disturbed by the fact that my staunchly roman catholic dad's DVD collection consisted entirely of sexplotation pics and horror movies. What I do remember was the blood and those moments of humour whether intended or not. The 2013 Evil Dead delivers on the blood and then some, which is good to see, however suffers due to a tendency to take itself too seriously. The women who are the first to be possessed are the most effective actors, the same can not be said for their male counterparts who are as interesting on screen as a wet blanket, a wet blanket soaked in blood.  
***

Central Park Five (2012) 
The documentary Central Park Five tells the story of a group of teenagers arrested and charged with a brutal attack and rape of a white female jogging in central park in 1989. I read a review of the documentary when it was first released in the U.S and the heading read "expect your blood pressure to rise" and I have to say mine went through the roof. I am a huge fan of true crime and miscarriage of justice sagas, and Central Park Five is certainly one of the best I have seen since Murder on a Sunday Morning. 

Following the attack, a group of five five African American and Latino teenagers aged 14-16 were arrested and held for hours until they started making false confessions in the naive hopes of ending their torment. Despite the fact that the information provided in the confessions is inconsistent with the crime scene and there is no other physical evidence (besides the fact that they had been in and around central park on the night, doing the types of things groups of youths do at night), tying the teenagers to the attack they are convicted and sent to prison. The boys, now men remained in prison until a 2002 confession by an incarcerated serial rapist and subsequent DNA test clear them all.

The documentary includes fascinating footage of the young men being interviewed, some with their parents who do not seem to have a clue about their rights or perhaps have been misinformed. The other fascinating aspect of the doco is the media attention both the crime and the then convicted criminals receive before and during the trial. The media called it "the crime of the century" and refer to rampages and "wilding" by this group of animals. One has to wonder whether such reporting would have occurred had the members of the group been white males from middle class families or if the victim had been black or latino. 

It is sad to note that members of the police and district attorney's office denied the filmmakers request to be interviewed, yet following the release of the documentary requested film footage and outtakes to help them to defend a wrongful conviction lawsuit brought by the wrongfully convicted.    

****


Ruby Sparks (2012)

I watched Ruby Sparks on a Saturday night when I had the house to myself and I can't seem to get it out of my mind and I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing. The reason I mention "house to myself" at the start of the review is this is such a rare occurrence that it often influences both the type of film I watch and my state when I watch it. Lets just say on this particular night I was coming down from a caramel popcorn, 4+ stiff bourbon, husband-less induced mini  coma.  So to the story, Calvin played by Paul Dano (an actor I enjoy watching on screen), wrote a very successful book as a young man and he now finds himself struggling to submit more than an essay or short story for publishing, despite the encouragement of his manager, his brother and rather odd fan base. Calvin would rather spend his days and nights with his pet dog inside the hollow surrounds of his LA townhouse. 

Calvin is a bit of a jerk, but one of those shy, socially awkward intellectual jerks, so it took me a while to realise just how unpleasant his character truly was. Full credit to Dano for not choosing to play him as more sympathetic at those moments. After a trip to his therapist results in Calvin using the inspiration of a girl from his recent dreams to write... and write and write. The girl, named Ruby Sparks (Zoe Kazan, who is also the screenwriter), suddenly appears, exactly as he had written her, a male's creation, she is character by construct. Calvin has the power make Ruby behave anyway he likes, all he has to do is write about her again. The rest of the film explores  their relationship, at first as loving and "quirky" as you would expect given the plot of the film. That being said it soon morphs into something else, as  the inevitable moment comes when Calvin chooses to use his god like power to manipulate Ruby, just as she is starting to become more of her own person, that being someone who isn't satisfied just being with Calvin and more humorously  when all the "quirks" that would make a girl seem uniquely perfect and appealing to Calvin and his modern day audience, start to become annoying as hell. 

The sequence of events that depict Calvin changing Ruby and in particular the scene where she finds out that he has the power to make her do whatever he likes, which plays out in darkened room, Calvin making commands, only to have Ruby do everything from crying, singing, walking on all fours and barking like a dog, all to the sounds of Calvin's typewriter (yes, a typewriter), kind of disturbed me, maybe more than it should have.I like being disturbed by a movie but I don't like a movie that doesn't fully embrace the more interesting elements of it's screenplay, rather touching on it, while surrounding the beginning and the end in standard romcom set up. Hey maybe that's all it was trying to be and if so I guess it succeeds in at least being a bit different and is a vehicle to showcase the charisma of Zoe Kazan  but for me it left me with an uneasy feeling, particularly given the final scene of the film.  
**1/2 

Eternal Sunshine. Better Buy Some Sunglasses.

The first film my wife and I watched together - merely an hour after meeting actually - was Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It's one of those sorts of films which is an instant classic. They don't come along very often, but when they do, you remember them and you love them. I'd have to say, that as a first film in a relationship, it's a pretty great one. 

Some people have The Ghosts of Girlfriends Past - an 'accidental horror', or some people have Toy Story 2. Some unfortunate people also have an idea that going to see a horror film is still a good first date film idea, and then they end up in The Human Centipede instead of Paranormal Activity. Bernadette and I will always have Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind. 

Jim Carrey is one very under-appreciated actor. People watch his early films - or Mr Popper's Penguins if you're unlucky - and think, man, that Jim Carrey, he's just a rubber faced hack. But watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or The Truman Show or Man on the Moon is like a constant revelation.

Whilst it's not uncommon for comedic actors to try and break into serious roles, Carrey did it with The Truman Show so seamlessly that you'd be forgiven if you thought he was a completely different actor. I'm not trying to say that Carrey's a new Daniel Day Lewis, but the pain and pathos in Eternal Sunshine and Man on the Moon is immensely powerful. 

People often confuse overacting with good acting. Just because somebody yells a lot or cries a lot in a role, does not automatically make them a great actor. Nicolas Cage for example is able to straddle the two well enough, for every solemn 'put the bunny back in the box' there's an almost psychopathically over the top 'the bees! the bees!'. I'll defend Nicolas Cage in another post on another day though. 

The signs that Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a perfect first date movie is how Kaufman's script deals with the difficulties of a relationship. Some days there is a great pain that you want gone, that you want out of your life, but those days of pain are there for a reason. They're there because you love the person you're with and the pain is worth going through for the love alone. 

Whilst a film like 50 First Dates attempts to show someone working at a relationship, it's still an impossible film. It's a film which a relationship would never be able to match up to. The unreality of Hollywood romances is a painful one to watch at times. Whilst 50 First Dates dabbles with a similar idea as Eternal Sunshine - only one character can't remember the relationship though - it does so in a spectacularly over the top Hollywood fashion. 

I shouldn't really be comparing the two, just as I shouldn't recommend Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind as a first date film to everyone, but I do think that Eternal Sunshine is a film of which a great relationship can be built. I'm glad it's the first film my wife and I watched together. It's not one we watch often, but we will always have it as our first film, and for that I'm thankful. 

Edit: I wrote this post late at night and didn't actually post it for some reason. Anyhow, I'm not re-reading it because it's a mess and I doubt I'd actually post it if I re-read it. It's a bit of a ramble about Jim Carrey being great, first films and for some reason, random criticism and comparison of 50 First Dates and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. So, for that, apologies from me for the rambling nonsensical post. 

Evil Dead - 2013.

Evil Dead (2013)

2013's updated Evil Dead stumbles along at a time when horror is at a crossroad. The original Evil Dead is a horror classic, and probably questionably so. Whilst Raimi and Campbell's film is strong on the smart set pieces and novel use of a low budget, it's not really that high on the scare factor. 

Fede Alvarez's 'remake' or continuation of the story is honest to the original. The fact that Raimi and Campbell are back on board as producers gives the film a 'blessed' feeling, even if their names are merely just that - names on the credits and not an influence on the film. Because of this, it's quite sad to see Evil Dead reduced to such a serious film. It's gloriously bloody and violent, and it revels in it, but it's so damn serious.

And that's where we meet horror's crossroads. In ten years, we'll be looking back at the period of horror prior to The Cabin in the Woods release and post The Cabin in the Woods release. Much the same as people look back at horror prior to Scream and post Scream, or to go almost a decade earlier, prior to Halloween and post Halloween. 

The Cabin in the Woods is such a great game changing film, that it's difficult for any horror film which deals with teens going into the woods (or really in any environment) to recover or be any different. You know that when they pick up that book or see the dead cats that shit is going to happen pretty soon. It's obviously a concept that is not uncommon in horror films, and it's also what sets films like Cabin in the Woods apart from films like the Evil Dead remake.

As a horror film, Evil Dead is fine. It's serviceable and watchable and ticks the right boxes. No doubt if you aren't a horror viewer, you would be shocked and grossed out at the sheer amount of gore on display, but I'm not sure that you'd be scared. Which is not to say that The Cabin in the Woods is a terrifying ride, it's that Cabin shares its shocks with its great laughs; something that the original Evil Dead and Evil Dead II did brilliantly.

The problems with Evil Dead is that it doesn't present characters to care about. The idea that gets the characters in the woods - and when shit does go down, to get them to stay in the cabin - is a smart idea, but unfortunately it's not developed enough. The addict's death in Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors contains a better and more potent comment on drug addiction than Evil Dead appears to. I wouldn't even say it attempts to make a comment on anything at all, it's just a device to get the characters to a place for bad things to happen.

If the idea of drug addiction, or rather, the idea of a character, was explored more greatly, then the torture that the characters go through would be at least on the way to being terrifying. Unfortunately, Alvarez's film ticks off the references to the original film in a way that feels like it's just placed there and not part of his narrative. The tree rape is there, but it's there. That's it. There's no lead up or scary aspect to it; Mia needs to get the demon in her so may as well have the tree rape her. Which is not to say that sequence should be titillating or enjoyable, but it at least should scare. 

As the film progresses, the gore is laid on thick and amazingly so. This is probably the bloodiest film since Braindead. For some reason though, it feels as if Alvarez has mistaken gruesome deaths for genuine horror. The most chilling part comes late in the film as Mia is being stalked by a deadite. Mia hides in the walls of the shed, the deadite tries to stab her with a machete and manages to slice into her leg. Unlike other injuries in the movie, this one there is no blood, just the mere suggestion of injury. It's the less is more effect at use in a film which is over the top gore. 

The other aspect of the film which really pulls it down is the score. Evil Dead looks brilliant, and besides some bland characters, the actors do ok, but not helping is the score by Roque Banos. It's not chilling or threatening in the way a good horror score is. In fact, when the finale comes around and the uplifting trumpets and violins rise over the blood rain on the screen, it feels as if somebody changed the soundtrack by accident. 

However, with its lack of originality, poor characters and average score, Evil Dead still holds up as an enjoyable film. The gore is great and the practical effects are enjoyable and pleasing to see still being implemented. The lack of tension is sad, especially when moments present themselves perfectly to be a great set up for tension but are dropped or ruined by the score.

In this post Cabin in the Woods horror world, risks need to be taken and the cookie cutter mould needs to be improved upon instead of relied upon for familiar beats. Whilst it's an acceptable film, Evil Dead would have been better if it had tried to create an identity for itself instead of relying on imitating the originals moments. A groovy post credit clip hints at what may become of the sequel if there is one - the injection of a personality and a character who you care about. 

 

Here I am ........anyone?

In another push to promote our marriage online, my husband has asked that I contribute to his blog. OK scrap that, it probably came about like this- husband and wife sitting side by side, separated only by the cold divide between twin leather recliners. This is how it is every night. Sometimes to spice things up, the husband or the wife will stand up and hurl themselves onto the three seater couch, disrupting the slumber of three over-fed, anxious hounds. Anyhow I digress (which will, in fair warning, become a feature of my posts if I actually stick around for a while. You see the interweb is littered with the wife's wasteland of forgotten blogs and misguided hopes of one day being paid just to live and write about how hard I find "just living". For evidence go here  http://enidsworld.wordpress.com/  

Now where was I? Oh yes how I came to be writing this abomination of an introductory post. I recall it went something along the lines of  

Wife: Are you going to sit there with that computer on your lap all night, you f%#king terrorist? 

[the wife seems to live in a time when owning any multiple technology' doodads means you are an evil mastermind/modern day terrorist. I call ASIO when I see a cluster of power cords in use] 

Husband: I'm just finishing my blog post, "The top 50 songs I would want to listen to if stuck on a toilet" [The wife is taking the piss out of her husband's fondness for list making... the jokes on her though because I think she just provided the inspiration for his next post]. 

Wife: It's not fair.....[so on and so forth] we should resurrect our online film review blogging days in the hopes of reigniting the spark in our relationship, you know before the pressure of owning three dogs and endless grind of well-paid, full time employment got the better of us. 

Husband: [continues to stare at computer screen and finish typing his sentence before looking up] "We can do that"

Wife: Forget it, you're obviously not interested. Goodnight, I'm going to bed. [wife lays in bed and falls asleep to the sound of American Dad season 4, with a chihuahua sleeping between her legs] 

3 days and a few unread emails later, here I am

Wife Speak.

I've now added Bernadette as someone who can write on the blog. Which for all of our one readers should spice things up a bit. Thoughts Dave?

Beats of the Southern Wilds.

Lately I've been having an awful time getting to sleep on time. I can fall asleep perfectly fine on the couch, usually whilst watching something I fully intend on watching. However, as soon as I move through to the bedroom all desire of sleeping disappears. I sit there awake, usually flickering on my phone or tablet and refreshing facebook to see if there's been any new exciting cat pictures posted. 

Usually there aren't any cat pictures posted so I then take a picture of a sleeping dog and post it on facebook myself. If you can't find somebody to do the job for you, you may as well do it yourself.

I'm aware of the fact that there are too many distractions around me, and I constantly feel the need to remove these distractions away from myself. But I never do. I never put the computer away and I never turn off the phone. Which is terrible. 

I've decided to take a sabbatical from gaming for the time being. I've blasted through a bunch of brilliant games lately - Saints Row the Third (a game which did everything I wanted Grand Theft Auto IV to do, but much better), Guacamelee! (the best game I've played this year by far), Bioshock Infinite as well - and I've also knocked off a few duds - Knytt Underground, Thomas Was Alone. 

Whilst I do love gaming, there's just nothing about it right now that screams for my attention right now. There's nothing that is just saying, play me now! I've tried to start various games and haven't felt the desire to continue playing them. I look at my shame pile list and I don't feel motivated to get through them. I honestly could just play through Rayman Origins again and again and never have to play another game again.

Where am I heading with this nonsense? Well, in the dark of the night whilst I google 'crumbling teeth' and wonder if I'm alone with an unwavering appreciation of both Tom Cruise and Mel Gibson, I figure I'll get back into my writing. I've always wanted to write a book - and I know that's the common 'I'm going to write a book one day, and it will be about me growing up in high school and the troubles I faced. I'll talk about that time down by the creek and the aftermath of that incident. I will also talk about my undying love of the idea of ghosts. It will be personal' and nobody ever writes it. But maybe this time I will write it. 

So, expect a few short stories and ramblings from now on. This has nothing to do with gaming at all. It's more just the feeling of an impending midlife crisis that may or may not occur when I'm thirty and in a shark cage in the Southern Ocean. 

I can't always promise that my blog posts won't be as boring as this one. I don't try and entertain, I just ramble for nonsense sake, or until I feel the sleep taking over. 

I have found lately as well that falling asleep to two of the best soundtracks from last year helps - the score to Beasts of the Southern Wild and Austin Wintory's perfect score to the game Journey. If you're awake late at night, slip 'Once There Was a Hushpuppy' on repeat and you'll sleep wonderfully. 

Also, if anyone has a short book or two they can recommend that are good reads go for it. I'm currently struggling to get back into Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian - it's a good book, but I've learnt that naming your character goes a long way to making the story easier to understand, and I'm also partially getting through The Exorcist, which I'm liking quite a bit at the moment.