Review: "Black Snake Moan" Shameless and Sultry

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 46 (of 2007) by Leroy Douresseaux


Black Snake Moan (2006)
Opening date: Friday, March 2, 2007
Running time: 118 minutes (1 hour, 58 minutes)
MPAA – R for strong sexual content, language, some violence, and drug use
WRITER/DIRECTOR: Craig Brewer
PRODUCERS: John Singleton and Stephanie Allain
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Amelia Vincent, ASC
EDITOR: Billy Fox, A.C.E.

DRAMA/MUSIC

Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Christina Ricci, Justin Timberlake, S. Epatha Merkerson, John Cochran, David Banner, and Michael Raymond-James

From the writer/director of the Academy Award-winning Hustle & Flow, Craig Brewer, comes the new film, Black Snake Moan. Named after a Blind Lemon Jefferson song (“black snake” was the darkness coming over him), the film follows an embittered black man and a loose white woman coming together for some healing. In spite of the title, this pulp fiction is a blues-drenched tale featuring the kind of ordinary poor folks who stay out of sight and out of mind in our pop culture, but their pain and longing is familiar.

Blues musician Lazarus (Samuel L. Jackson) finds a white girl: half naked, beaten unconscious, and left for dead on the side of a road near his house. After taking her in, Lazarus learns that the young woman’s name is Rae (Christina Ricci) and that she is the town tramp from the small Tennessee town where they live. Lazarus nurses Rae back to health, but also decides to cure Rae of her wicked ways. He chains her to his radiator in an attempt to get her to slow down and contemplate the future. Desperate to resume her wicked ways of sex and drugs, Rae offers her body to Lazarus if he sets her free. He won’t, and she’s unrepentant. Now, who breaks first?

With the dark, throbbing beat of north Mississippi blues and Scott Bomar’s aching score behind it, Black Snake Moan is a sensational film about sin, redemption, and human imperfection. It glorifies nothing, but proudly says that “it is what it is.” The movie is as odd as many classic 70’s exploitation films. Moan’s characters are like real people. They are fallen and sin often, but they certainly have a God-given right to redemption – to seek it and to attain it.

Brewer’s scandalous and audacious concept aside, he’s smart enough to write inventive, unique scenarios set in poor, rural communities, but even smarter to allow his actors to take these impoverished characters, setting, and plot to bring out the richness of their lives. Samuel L. Jackson is a dangerous, dark, bitter chocolate soul as Lazarus, who is righteous and is nursing a need to get some male vengeance. Christina Ricci is outrageous as Rae, a former abused child beset by a relentless, urgent demon that gives her a hard lust for copulation. Both make outrageous characters familiar because at their core, they just want honest love and friendship just as we all do.

In fact, the supporting cast is quite good. Justin Timberlake as Rae’s soldier boyfriend, Ronnie, shows a felicity for emotion and vulnerability; he reveals so much of the character in his eyes and through his emotive facial expressions. John Cothran as the Lazarus’ preacher friend, R.L., makes a nice God-fearing balance to Lazarus.

Brewer and his director of photography, Amelia Vincent, compose the film is a very deliberate fashion. This unconventional film is shot in a precise manner, which grounds the story and gives it an air of authenticity and realism. In the end, Black Snake Moan’s classical look allows the viewer to focus on this peculiar drama. By skillfully directing his cast and getting the best of his creative staff, Craig Brewer, makes the audacious, the unacceptable, and the forbidden palatable. The blues soundtrack and bluesy score also parallels the film’s intense yearnings and longings. You might find yourself laughing, but this tale of love, betrayal, sex, and liberation from pain is unforgettable because at the heart of the scandal is a familiar tale of wounded humanity.

8 of 10
A

Tuesday, March 6, 2007

The Hughes Brothers to Direct 2 Live Action "Akira" Films

A HitFix posting has picked up on a report that the Hughes Brothers (The Book of Eli) are adapting Katsuhiro Otomo's legendary manga, Akira, as two movies.  Leonardo DiCaprio's Appian Way production company is apparently involved in this project.

News and Reviews on The Wolfman

The Hollywood Reporter review.
Joe Neumaier reviews the film for the New York Daily News and more or less likes it.
For MSNBC, David Germain is bored and says the creature (Wolfman) isn't "that frightening."

Anthony Hopkins talks about The Wolfman and his role as Odin in next year's Thor (from Marvel Studios) at ReelzChannel.com.

The Los Angeles Times' Hero Complex blog has an article about The Wolfman's troubles on the way to local theatres.

Director Joe Johnston (who designed Star Wars character Boba Fett) talks to HitFix.

This USA Today article is on the art of the film's makeup and CGI.

Next Spider-Man Movie Will Be in 3D

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the next Spider-Man flick, which is a relaunch of the franchise, will be in 3D.  The new release date will be July 3, 2012.  As of now, the movie does not have a title, but it will not be called Spider-Man IV.

Currently the director is Marc Webb of (500) Days of Summer.  The script is being written by James Vanderbilt of Zodiac.

Review: Thrilling "300" Offers Myth and Racism

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 51 (of 2007) by Leroy Douresseaux

300 (2007)
Running time: 116 minutes
MPAA – R for graphic battles sequences throughout, some sexuality, and nudity
DIRECTOR: Zach Snyder
WRITERS: Zack Snyder & Kurt Johnstad and Michael B. Gordon (based upon the graphic novel by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley)
PRODUCERS: Gianni Nunnari, Mark Canton, Bernie Goldmann, and Jeffrey Silver
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Larry Fong (director of photography)
EDITOR: William Hoy, A.C.E.

FANTASY/WAR/ACTION/DRAMA

Starring: Gerard Butler, Lena Headey, David Wenham, Dominic West, Vincent Regan, and Rodrigo Santoro

Sometime after Star Wars became a massive, worldwide box office hit in 1977, one movie critic called the movie, “cinema of the sensations.” I took that to mean the kind of movie that bombards the viewer with dazzling visual effects, explosions, loud noises, and all the vicarious thrills his mind could stand. Some movies do that well, and director Zach Snyder (who helmed a fantastic remake of Dawn of the Dead in 2004) delivers heady cinema of the sensations in 300, his film adaptation of Frank Miller and Lynn Varley’s graphic novel of the same name.

Both film and graphic novel are highly fictional and stylized accounts of the ancient Battle of Thermopylae. 480 B.C.: The King (and self-proclaimed god) of Persia, Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro), leads the forces of his empire against Greece. While the city-states of Greece slowly gather their armies, King Leonidas of Sparta (Gerard Butler) leads 300 Spartans to face a Persian army of millions. Meanwhile, back in Sparta, Leonidas’s queen, Gorgo (Lena Heady) faces subtle rebellion from Theron (Dominic West), a politician on the Spartan Council.

300 is like Oliver Stone’s JFK – less about history and more about mythmaking. There is little accurate here, by admission of both Miller and Snyder. This is simply an action movie, and history is merely the line upon which Snyder and his creative crew can hang lots of thrilling, action scenes full of ghastly, but cool imagery. Snyder and his co-screenwriters smartly mix in glorious CGI-enhanced battles, as gruesome and horrific as they are epic. Every moment is punctuated by bombast. Pomposity and high falutin’ speeches and proclamations about duty, honor, sacrifice, etc. alternate between being twaddle and inspiring.

As Robert Rodriguez did when adapting Frank Miller’s graphic novel series, Sin City, for the screen, Snyder creates 300 as a virtual world. Much of what we see was made in a computer. Snyder shot the film in front of a blue screen (and some green screen). Like Sin City’s world, 300’s is stunning eye candy – a color infused world in which scenes are posed as if they were in a comic book. 300 is not so much a comic book movie as it is a movie comic book. Characters and objects stop, freeze, or move slowly through a still environment, making this movie a child of The Matrix’s “bullet time.” It’s so beautiful, even the Old Master painters might be impressed.

Still, the key towards enjoying 300 is the invigorating thrill. The cast, especially Gerard Butler as Leonidas, sells this movie, even more than the dazzling colors and effects and even more than Snyder and his creative crew’s obsession with the grisly and ghastly aspects of hand-to-hand combat. As the handsome, rugged, and oh-so-manly Spartan king, Gerard transforms this kick-butt action violence geared towards teenaged boys and young men into a romance novel for men. It’s historical fiction and romantic adventure delivered as a video-game style movie. But a movie so based on alluring visuals must be scene rather than described.

Pay no attention to the British accents on these Greek characters, ignore the subtle racism (the villains are mostly black and brown-skinned), and take no notice of the wack-a-doodle history, Zach Snyder’s 300 is Mel Gibson’s Braveheart on acid and made in a computer.

7 of 10
B+

Saturday, March 17, 2007

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Review: "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein" is Still Fun

 

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 217 (of 2004) by Leroy Douresseaux

Bud Abbott & Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) Black and White
Running time: 83 minutes
DIRECTOR: Charles T. Barton
WRITERS: Robert Lees, Frederic I. Rinaldo, and John Grant
PRODUCER: Robert Arthur
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Charles Van Enger
EDITOR: Frank Gross

COMEDY/HORROR

Starring: Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Lon Chaney, Jr., Bela Lugosi, Glenn Strange, Lenore Aubert, Jane Randolph, Frank Ferguson, and Charles Bradstreet with (uncredited voice) Vincent Price

Bud Abbot and Lou Costello are hapless railroad baggage clerks Chick Young (Abbott) and Wilbur Grey (Costello). They receive a strange shipment meant for a local attraction called the House of Horrors, two crates allegedly supposedly containing the last remains of Dracula (Bela Lugosi) and Frankenstein’s monster (Glenn Strange). However, the infamous creatures are very much alive, and they leave their crates and slip quietly away to a secret island hideaway. Meanwhile, the House of Horrors owner, Mr. McDougal (Frank Ferguson), blames Chick and Wilbur for the disappearance of the crates’ contents, so the duo follows Dracula and the monster’s trail to the secret hideaway island. They discover that Dracula has also joined forces with a mad scientist, Dr. Sondra Mornay (Lenore Aubert), who is determined to transplant Costello’s brain into monster. The problem is that Mornay had been pretending to be in love with Wilbur.

In the intervening time, a strange man named Lawrence “Larry” Talbot (Lon Chaney, Jr.) showed up looking for the crates. Larry Talbot is really the Wolfman, and he joins Chick and Wilbur’s search for Dracula, Dr. Mornay, and Frankenstein’s monster, all the while fighting his transformations into the Wolfman every time the full moon appears (coincidentally several times in this film). Can Chick, Wilbur, and the Wolfman stop Dracula and the scientist before they remove Costello’s brain?

Many people consider Bud Abbott & Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein (also well known as Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein) to be the comedy team’s best film outing. The film was a huge hit when it opened in 1948, and it has retained an international cult following. The other thing that the film has going for it is that frequent Abbott & Costello helmsman Charles Barton directed it.

Besides the presence of Barton and one of the 20th century’s finest comedic duos of the stage, film, and television, the other element makes the film a favorite is the fact that the film monsters, Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, and the Wolfman, are played straight, and the actors: Bela Lugosi as Dracula, Glenn Strange as the monster, and Lon Chaney, Jr. as the Wolfman give inspired performances. They obviously take their roles and performances damn seriously, and it shows. The three classic creatures of Universal Studios’ film line, Universal Horror, are in top form and are as menacing as they ever were in straight horror films.

The blend of Abbott & Costello’s timeless comedy and the Universal Monsters horror creates a peculiar film. The union does show its seams; the flick is more odd than very good. The black and white photography gives it a gentle supernatural aura and lightly spooky atmosphere. Still, that only makes Abbott & Costello Meets Frankenstein unique, which might be the reason it has never grown old or less funny.

6 of 10
B

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Review: "The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra" is a Charming Bad Movie

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 113 (of 2004) by Leroy Douresseaux

The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra (2001) – Black & White
U.S. release date: 2004
Running time: 90 minutes
MPAA – PG for brief mild language

WRITER/DIRECTOR: Larry Blamire
PRODUCER: F. Miguel Valenti
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Kevin F. Jones
EDITOR: Bill Bryn Russell

SCI-FI/COMEDY

Starring: Fay Masterson, Andrew Parks, Susan McConnell, Brian Howe, Jennifer Blaire, Larry Blamire, Dan Conroy, Robert Deveau, and Darren Reed

Upon first glance, Larry Blamire’s The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra is an obvious spoof of 1950’s sci-fi movies, but in another sense the film seems like an attempt to make a coherent Ed Wood movie. Wood, the subject of a 1994 Tim Burton biopic, inadvertently made really bad movies while really trying to make good movies. Blamire makes a very entertaining and functional good movie out of a bad movie.

In the film, Dr. Paul Armstrong (Larry Blamire), a noted scientist, and his wife, Betty (Fay Masterson), travel to a remote forest where Paul hopes to find a meteor that recently fell to earth. Paul believes the meteor is made of the rare and powerful ore known as atmosphereum, but he isn’t the only one looking for it. The space ship of an alien couple, Kro-bar (Andrew Parks) and Lattis (Susan McConnell), crashes to earth, and only atmosphereum can fuel the ship so that they can return to their home planet, Marva. Not long after they crash, their pet mutant (Darren Reed in costume) escaped from the ship and is on a killing spree. But the biggest danger comes from an evil scientist named Dr. Roger Fleming (Brian Howe) who wants the atmosphereum so that he can use it to bring the Lost Skeleton of Cadavra back to life.

Although the film is slow to develop, it comes together very quickly. TLSOC is, however, an acquired taste, and most viewers won’t get the joke, especially those who don’t like old, black and white sci-fi and monster movies. One must have a fondness for or at least a familiarity with those two sub-genres. Of course, Lost Skeleton is more than just a spoof or homage; it’s a love letter, and that’s obvious in the way Blamire and his cast copy the look of old sci-fi films. It might look like an old monster movie, but it’s a fan flick made with professional care. It’s not a great spoof like Blazing Saddles is a great spoof of westerns, but The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra works because it’s an accurate spoof that makes you laugh instead of roll your eyes.

6 of 10
B

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