Last Alarm (1940)

This small scale programmer maybe a bit unremarkable in many respects, but it’s one that is perfect for a night with some oldies.

The plot of the film concerns a crazed fire bug who is burning down the city. Spurred on by the death of a friend insurance investigator Fran ROgers begins to track the mad man. Aided by the father of his fiancé, a recently retired fire chief, he begins to turn up clues, which not only put the arsonist in his sights, but also puts him in the sights of the arsonist.

Tense little film moves like the wind. To be certain it hits almost every cliché you can think of it also hits them with great aplomb so you get carried along despite knowing that you shouldn’t. The real reason the film works is George Penbroke who plays the arsonist. An antiques dealer by day he spends his nights acting as the divine hand of the Vulcan, the god of the flame. He’s a creepy little figure that is exactly the sort of person you’d like never to run into.

As I said at the top on the face of it the film really isn’t all that remarkable, but it’s a film that kind of hangs with you in a way that many program pictures don’t. I say this as someone who has spent a good portion of my time wading through the countless hour long films that Hollywood cranked out. Even as enjoyable as many of them are, most kind of blend together with many of the titles getting lost in a sea of similar names. Last Alarm isn’t like that. This is a film that stands out when other films have crashed together.

Definitely worth running down, especially if you add another oldie or two to your evening at home on the couch.

Arakimentari (2004)

The life and work of Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki. Mostly known for his erotic or perhaps pornographic photos its clear from this film that there is more to the man than just dirty pictures.

Coming a cross as a charming rogue its clear that Araki loves what he's doing, which is photographing everyone and everything at all times. There is a comment by one of his fellow photographers to the effect that Araki is more than his erotic pictures and that there is nothing that he doesn't know about photography. Seeing his images whizzing by in the film its clear the statement is true as we see the vast range of his work that stretches from the mundane to flowers to portraits to porn to whatever else you can think of. He's an amazing man that I'm certain will worm his way into the hearts of anyone who sees the film.

If there is a flaw to the film its perhaps its rapid fire, hip and happening style, which may capture Araki's manic energy, but some how short changes some of the images (and ideas) since many are too good to let get lost

Definitely worth tracking down.

White King Red Rubber Black Death (2003)

Damning indictment of King Leopold of Belgium who in a mad desire to make money for himself, not his kingdom, managed to get his hands on the Congo. At first it was a money suck but once the need for rubber came he became super wealthy. Ruling with and iron fist he practiced genocide on the population in order to squeeze as much money out of the country. Things got so bad that a call was made for him to be tried for his crimes. It didn't happen and Leopold was forced to use public relations to seem a great humanitarian instead of a genocidal megalomaniac.

This solid documentary has upset many in Belgium who see this as besmirching the beloved memory of a past monarch. For my money the crimes, even if inflated, are hard to over look. I was shocked at just how bad it was. It's a damning indictment of the madness of a time not so long ago.

For most of this films running time its a film that you fall into. You can't help but get carried away by the madness. The trouble is that the darkness of the tale is overwhelming at a certain point I started to shut off. Don't get me wrong its a great tale, its just a brutal and unhappy one and after 90 minutes you feel beaten up.

A must see.

70MM, award seekers and The New York Jewish Film Festival are coming to Lincoln Center

If you haven’t noticed there are two series and a film festival coming up in rapid succession at Lincoln Center over the next month that you should make some effort to atend.

Once the Tom Cruise retrospective finishes up Thursday, the Walter Reade Theater will be taken over by the SEE IT IN 70MM series. This is a series showing films like It’s a Mad Mad Mad World, West Side, Story 2001 and Playtime in the way that they were meant to be seen, in large format widescreen. Yes they have the big titles like West Side Story, but they are also showing un expected films like Khartoum, Lord Jim, Kenneth Branaugh’s epic Hamlet and Tron. If you like Tron, and you’ve never seen it big you MUST see it this way since there are hidden treats hidden in the visuals really can’t be seen on TV. I’m definitely going to one of the Playtime screenings, and I’m trying to work out screenings of several others including a biography of Goya. You really should go to see the films if you can because with the coming inability to run celluloid makes this the equivalent to seeing an endanger species in the wild. Details can be found here

Just after New Year they are running And the Winner is, a collection of foreign films in contention for various year end awards but which don’t have, as far as I know regular release deals in the US. Amongst them is KonTiki which has appeared on several year-end lists as one of the best films of the year. I’m Going to Kon Tiki and The Deep on the 5th. I’d go to more but the series only runs for a couple of days and each film only gets one showing so it’s a imperative that you jump if there is something you want to see. Details are here.

Lastly the New York Jewish Film Festival runs for two weeks starting January 9. I discovered this festival two years ago and it’s amazes me more each year. This year there are any number of great looking films including a biography of Art Spiegelman,  I’m still noodling around with what I’m going to, I have conflicts with real life commitments, so I’m not sure how many films I’m getting to. I do know that I’m going to see Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff in one of my favorite Universal Horror films from the 1930’s, The Black Cat. Full of weird sets and weirder happenings I’m leaping at the chance to see the film. ..especially since j Hoberman is going to be presenting a brief lecture on Jewish horror films. Any talk by Hoberman is a must attend and couple it with the film they are screening and I am so there, even if it’s going to be a late train home. Details on the festival can be found here.

Marx Brothers in a Nutshell (1982)

Excellent biography/appreciation of the Brother Marx that clearly shows why they were and are so popular.

This is a really good film that nicely balances information on the lives and times of the fellows and managing to show us what they do best. To be certain the film isn't a fact filled march through the lives of all concerned, its an over view that beautifully lays out everything you need to know to have a working knowledge of the the brothers.

Best of all the film shows some excellent highlights from their films that not only give you a taste of their madness but also manages to make you want to go out and see the whole films.

If you want to know how good this is, the producers also made a documentary on WC Fields called WC Fields Straight up which is essentially the same thing for Fields, however it doesn't work as well since the biographical material is too scant and poorly handled and the clips chosen are either too brief or aren't the best at revealing why Fields was so popular in his day. A better way to know this is a great film is that I will put this on when I feel like seeing Marx madness but don't know which film to watch.

 A must see for any comedy fan

The right to fail

Doing Unseen has brought me a great deal of unexpected joys. First and foremost I have made a the acquaintance of a good many people who I think I can call friends. This year I got to talk to Donnie Yen, I got to interview Dave McKean, The Vicious Brothers, and Jacob Krupnick (director of Girl Walk All Day). I’ve also managed to see more movies than I ever thought was possible within a calendar year.

Weirdly one of the things that I realized that I’ve actually found oddly joyful is that I’ve allowed myself to fail. I know that may sound ludicrous but it’s true. I will throw things out there and if they crash and burn so be it.

I suspect that many of you are horrified at the prospect of mis-stepping, especially where every word and phrase can doom your career, but doing this blog and trying to keep up the pace it’s unavoidable. Think about it,  as our third anniversary rapidly comes into view we will have posted well over 2000 entries, actually if my math and projections hold true we’ll have posted at least two film pieces every day for two years. And while I know that some of the pieces have been not specifically a review or a discussion of a film, we’ve done many multiple film pieces. 2000 pieces? There has to be more than a few clunkers in there, and I know there are. But there are more than a few great pieces in there as well. Looking back at it I don’t think I could have written the good stuff if I didn’t write the bad.

I know that the need to feed the beast, to do at least a film a day, has made it a necessity. While my reviews do get into rhythms, grooves and ruts, I think I do break out of them. I churn out material and then find I’m boring myself so I try something different, perhaps a Sunday night piece or an essay or something else. Sometimes they crash and burn, sometimes they lead off into unexpected directions (the found footage piece for example has generated a great deal of material that seems to be completely alien to what I normally do- and I have no idea what to do with it), sometimes I manage to do something that surprises the hell out of me and I can feel great pride in it (such as the Dave McKean pieces, or the Barry Lyndon piece). The point is I’m trying.

Admittedly had I not been trying to generate as much material as I am I wouldn’t give myself the rope to hang myself, but as I said I have to, so I am.

The ability to fail has carried over to the administrative realm of the blog as well. I keep throwing out questions and requests and sometimes they crash and burn and sometimes they don’t. I’m trying things I never thought I would, I recently spent a great deal of time trying to try connect so we could cover current screenings and found that it’s less possible than I had hoped, real life gets in the way. I've found I  can't expand what the blog is doing faster than is physically possible for the people writing.

I’m also realizing that some things that I was doing when Unseen was just a whim aren’t working any more and that changes have to be made. For example my grand plan to remain semi-anonymous (there is someone behind the DB persona) is starting to back fire on me, so there will be a shifting of identities on my part in the near future.

The point of this is that I’m going out and doing, sometimes I’m falling on my face and sometimes I’m succeeding. Either way I’m simply trying and seeing what happens which is way cool since by allowing the room to fail I never know what is going to happen next

Crazy Eights (2006)

Friends reunite for the funeral for one of their childhood group called "The Crazy Eights". They are left a box and told to open it together. Inside the box is a map which leads them to a house where they find a trunk…and more revelations as the group ends up at the ruins of a hospital where things begin to go wrong and they begin to perish. Its not giving anything away to say that the adults met when they were children taking part in psychological experiments (The opening text implies as much) and that the hospital is found out to be the place where they were "tested".

I liked this film a great deal. Its not perfect but there is something edgy about the way its put together that I found frightening. I liked the rapid editing in some sequences that make it seem as though you've caught something out of your eye. More than once while watching the DVD I backed things up to see if I saw what I saw. With in one or two seconds there are times when the picture shifts and we get images, children, faces, ghosts mixed into the action. I know this bothers some viewers but it kept me on edge since it made it seem like the ghosts are real or that it was the mind of the characters breaking through. I liked that the camera didn't hold on the visions since it allowed for my mind to take over. Or in the case of some of the deadly appearances the small motions on the edge of the frame just before the next scene makes you wonder what you just saw.

The script is an odd mix of the sort of thing you'd find in this type of film, and some touches that blur the line about what you are seeing. Is the film now or then or something else? I don't know. The film is constructed as a film taking place in the here and now but there are clues that that may not be wholly the case. The final sequences (which many people don't seem to like) I found oddly affecting. What exactly are we seeing anyway? I'm not sure. Just as I'm not sure about the intrusions of the memories through the earlier parts of the film, but its in a good way since it requires me to think about what I'm seeing. I think if the director had been less sure of himself the film would have collapsed on itself, something the film is never in danger of doing.

The acting by the reasonably well known cast (Frank Whaley, Tracy Lords, Gabrielle Anwar) is good, if somewhat histrionic. Clearly they are aware of the films limitations but are trying to at least go for it.

I liked it. I think this is worth a look

Tiger on Beat (1988)

Subway Cinema had a secret screening of Chow Yun Fat's Tiger on Beat. Actually it wasn't really secret if you follow them on Twitter or Facebook. While Unseen is not on Facebook, we do follow Twitter and thanks to MrC I managed to attend the screening.

The film was picked by David, one of the members of the Subway Cinema steering crew. All I ca say is thank you because I now have a new favorite Chow Yun Fat film.

The plot of the film has Chow's police Sargent hooking up with a younger cop to take on a gang of Thai drug smugglers. The plot which involves,in part, one of the smugglers and his sister double crossing the gang, Chow-s womanizing, his sister, and assorted other tid bits doesn't really make a great deal of sense, but at the same time it does allow for frequent action sequences that are amongst the best, if least seen, in Chow's film career. I don't remember seeing him actually have a real martial arts fight with anyone before.

The film is frequently funny in part intentionally, Chow's a funny guy and some of the situations, such as the pants scene are funny. Occasionally the film was unintentionally funny as it was clear that the subtitles don't match what is being said, a fact revealed by subtitles that mistranslated the English dialog.

The real selling point here is the action, it only really stops to move us from place to place. To be certain it's over the top, the yo yo shot gun and the chainsaw fight for example, but at the same time it's riveting and damn entertaining.

This film is an absolute blast. Watching the film I was roaring with laughter and actually leaning forward in my seat, my arms resting on the seat in front of me as if I was curling up with a good book, or a favorite story in front of the fire.

My question is why the hell isn't this film better known? Made just before Chow Yun Fat hooked up with John Woo and had his career set, this film is, in its way, a hell of a lot more fun then either The Killer or Hard Boiled. This film is amazing, and as Grady Hendrix of Subway Cinema said, it's possibly the best Jackie Chan movie that Jackie wasn't in...

...I would modify that statement since Jackie never really made films as nasty as this. People die, often badly. There is also a streak of the misogyny that appears in many Hong Kong films of the time, as one of the characters is abused and mistreated...and then falls in love with her abuser. The violence toward her is a bit uncomfortable since we don't know where it's really coming from. I'm not against the nastiness, actually it adds a nice edge to the film, all I'm saying is that Jackie Chan, until relatively recently never went this dark.

I'm not sure of the status of this film on DVD. It is out there but it seems to be more on the resale market.  I'm working on running down a reasonably priced copy, because this is a fantastic film. I'm so interested in finding the film that Mr C and I wandered through Chinatown trying to find the film. No one had it, but it can be had on line.

DO yourself a favor see this film.

Creep (2004)

This is the story of a girl who ends up trapped in a London subway station after hours, and  as a result ends up coming face to face with a"creep" living in the tunnels and disused subway stations.

I had read about this film a while back and heard that it was pretty good. I stumbled upon it at a local video store and gave it a try. I was both pleasantly surprised and very disappointed.

I was pleasantly surprised because this is a well made, good looking thriller. In away its a form of the mad slasher lurking in the woods by the summer camp films, but it has a greater degree of skill behind the scenes. There is also hints of a great deal more going on than just an inbred psycho running amok. I also liked that the film has some really horrifying scenes, such as the Creep performing an operation (he performs all of the stereotypical actions we've seen in movies, but not with the same results.) I also loved that there are some characters you really care about. The people, for the most part, are not just fodder for the killing machine.

I'm disappointed in the film because there are HUGE gaps of logic that work against believing the film.SPOILER WARNING: A mystery train shows up at one point, which I can accept, but not with a dead driver; a security man is killed in his office,how could he not be missed?; blood trails and bodies are left all about, how could anyone not notice? Actually thats the real problem, how could this guy behave like this and not be noticed earlier? London after all has a reasonably well monitored subway and I can't believe the madness in the stations wouldn't have been witnessed on the screens somewhere. Clearly what happens during the film would not be his normal behavior. END SPOILERS.

In watching the extras on the DVD it became clear to me that the writer/director isn't a very good writer. Certainly he can direct a chilling film, but I have to question his ability to write one. Listening to his comments, it seemed to me that he can put sequences together that work onto themselves, but that don't work in the narrative whole. This film is flawed because the story doesn't really flow from piece to piece. Still you can't take away from the fact there this does raise goosebumps a couple of times because it is so well made.

Ultimately this is a good film, but not a great one. The more forgiving you are the better it is. If you like horror films I'd give it a shot, but as with many of these things your mileage may vary.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected DIsappointment ...er Journey (2012)

This reviewer feels like a certain cave dweller for saying bad things about the hobbit

Call me heathen- the Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was a long tough slog...forget the 30 plus minutes of trailers and commercials this film never seemed to end.

I'm not going to go into the story, I assume that you all know it, though I will say that the film takes things up to the point where the band is standing looking at the lair of Smaug many miles, and many adventures away after being rescued by eagles.

What I will say is that the film very much reminded me of Peter Jackson's excessive King Kong. That behemoth dragged on for over three hours for no good reason and had me screaming at the screen for Kong to just freaking die already! Here Jackson adds in additional material and expands short bits to the point that the film goes on and on and on. Yes some of it is cool, the battling living mountains is way cool, but the sequences just seem to go on as long as humanly possible. I mean the round table discussion between the big wigs in Rivendell seems to have drifted in from some other film entirely.

I did have favorite moments, the Gollum scene is pretty much note perfect, I love the eagle rescue, the fighting mountains, and I did tear up at the start when Bilbo begins to recite the opening lines of the book. The rest of it is okay, nothing special.

Part of my displeasure with the film comes from many of the technical aspects of the film. The makeup is, well atrocious. The dwarfs in any other film would, for the most part, be laughed off the screen. I hate that the film has so much computer generated images. I wasn't watching a movie, I'm watching a videogame with people dropped in. Some of the graphics are spot on, all the stuff I didn't notice, but soooo much of it I did that I was keeping track of what I thought was real.

And as for the 3D. WHY? It adds nothing. It all just looked very muddy. It was so annoying I was watching some sequences without my glasses or with one eyed closed.

I've heard complaints that the 48 frames a second projection makes things look weird, but to be honest the film just looks weird on its own.(I saw it at 24 frames per second). The compositing of images is frequently all wrong, especially in Rivendell, where the computer generated backgrounds looked flat behind the actors. It looked like the old Dr Who episodes where they used heavy chroma key. Much of it looked awful.

Forgive me for saying this, but as right as Peter Jackson was for the Lord of the Rings films he's wrong for this film. He had something to prove with LOTR and felt he got it right. Here he seems to be resting on his laurels and he's showing off with the result he has become even more faithful to the material (despite changes) but at the cost of dramatic motion. The film simply isn't exciting.

I don't hate the film, not by a long shot but it made me feel like I won't need to rush out for the next two films - and considering I put in for the days off when the dates were announced that's saying a great deal.

Its an okay film, about which the over riding thought is had this been the film that was made instead of the Lord of the Rings films, they'd never have seen the light of day.

(I suspect that some of the other Unseen Film people may check in with their own opinions so check back)

Terror Aboard (1933)

A misplaced gem from Paramount Pictures is ghoulish and decidedly pre-code...

The opening ten or fifteen minutes are some of the best horror moments you're likely to find in any early 1930's films as a large freighter is slowly making it's way through a nasty fog bank. The look out spies  a ship moving in the fog. The frieghter attempts to contact the ship to avoid collision but fails to do so.  They shadow the ship and the next day realize that something is a amiss and they send a small party over to what they now see is a super expensive yacht. When they fail to contact the one man they put aboard, the small ship docks only to find the man they sent abaord dead, and other bodies. As they invesstigate further the ship begins to burn...The film then shifts gears into a flashback tale of murder and madness which then takes events from their start through to "the present"

Small gem of a film is so good in the opening minutes that any miststeps in the remaining part of the film are forgivable. Not that the film misteps much, but I will say that the film's flaws are probably due to the film being made in the Studio System which couldn't allow the film to go as black as it would today. Trust me on this the film gets pretty dark as bodies begin to pile up and it kind of looks like for awile that goodness will not win the day.If this was made today it would probably have no survivors.

You've no doubt noticed I've not gone into detail about the main thrust of the story. That's intentional since what happens on the ship in the wake of a certain telegram being refcieved is the heart of the story and I don't want to spoil it, even if we know how it ends for some of the characters whose bodies are found hanging or laying about the ship.

A solidly good film I was shocked, yet again, that I had never run across this film since the horror overtones are so strong (its close to a modern day slasher film) that someone must have mentioned it some where, say the Forgotten Horror Series of books. Apparently not. I'm guessing the opening darkness and the graphic nature (relatively speaking) kept this out of  TV rotation. I picked it up from the collectors market rather blindly and I'm glad I did so.

Definitely one to keep an eye out for.

Midnight Club (1933)

Pure fun Hollywood hokum has a Scotland Yard inspector going after a band of jewel thieves operating out of the titled establishment. They manage to operate in plain sight thanks to the use of doubles and lots of secret doors. Into the mix comes a tough American (george Raft) who is running his own game and it isn't long before everything becomes complicated especially when Raft and one of the thieves begin to be more than attracted to each other.

Breazy little crime drama is of the sort that is completely unbelievavble and utterly enjoyable as the characters go through their paces in a manner that only hollywood could devise. I mean seriously could you really have a night club so filled with secret doors as the Midnight Club? How about the idea of using doubles to fool the police? I'm not saying any of it is bad, only that this is really just pure entertainment.

For me one of the joys is watching a young George Raft go through his paces. Until recently I really hadn't seen many early films with Raft, rather I saw him later in his career when he was playing either himself of a stereotypical gangster. I'm sure it paid the bills, but it never gave a clue as to why he was a star. Watching Raft in Midnight Club you get an idea, as he is a man of action, a man in love and guy way ahead of everyone else much to the consternation of the baad guys, and the smiles of the audience. (You also really see how good looking he was)

High art? no. Enjoyable yes.

Definitely worth seeing should this hit Turner Classic movies.

Amok Train (1989)

Retitled for no really good reason as Beyond the Door 3 and released some 12 years after the second, unrelated film (though right in the middle of home video boom which Beyond the Door 1 & 2 were frequent renters) this film is also known as Death Train (a title which shows up on several other films) This is a film best described as Runaway Train meets Christine meets the Exorcist but completely over the top.

The film has a bunch of American students going overseas to one of the Balkan country in order to see some obscure religious rite. What they don’t know is that they are to be sacrificed to Satan. When their sleeping quarters are set on fire, most of them manage to escape into the woods. Running for their lives they stumble on to a slow moving train, which all but one manage to get on board. As the group semi-relax figuring they are safe they find out that they are not. Satan has taken control of the train and has it speeding everyone toward their appointed doom.

Cheesy, gory, unintentionally silly this is one of those films I kind of feel bad about liking, but then again it’s the sort of thing that rotted my brain in the mid to late 80’s on VHS tape. Reasonably well made, with a good sized budget for this sort of a movie (it would have to because of the extensive train exteriors) this is in some ways a cut above most other gory horror films from the period. Things look good. Sure the make-up effects are uneven, and occasionally silly, but at the same time they are bloody and disgusting, with severed heads and melting faces…

…I so missed not having a huge bowl of popcorn when I saw this.

Is it art? Only in the blood soaked way that Euro-gore films can be called art.

Is it scary? More creepy than scary since the film is never quite smart enough to be truly scary but there are times when it pulls image, sound and idea together to produce a moment that is creepy.

If you like this sort of thing, as I know many of you do, I think it’s worth a shot. If you can stay through the cliché set up the film really gets going once it gets on the train. I know the film can be had cheaply on DVD and it’s on some streaming services so you won’t be out much.

One thing to keep in mind, especially if you have only seen this on TV or VHS prior to the letterboxing or widescreen releases- Shriek Show has put out the film as a restored widescreen release. It’s a beautiful scope film that fills the frame. You have never seen the film look this good… and trust me it plays so much better widescreen- to the point I have a vague recollection of seeing this on pan and scan VHS and disliking it because it looked so bad… the widescreen image adds a great deal.

Mask of the Dragon (1951)

MST3K material has a GI in Korea make a deal to bring a jade dragon to the US. Upon arrival he's stabbed in the back and his partner, a private eye investigates.

Road accident film has to be seen to be believed. I put it on in order to fall asleep to and instead found that I was watching and laughing my way to the end . From the white guys playing asians, to the sterotypical portrayal of Asians, on to the organ background music on to any number of things this is a movie to get your friends together and make fun of.

I can't believe that this film got a big DVD release in the Forgotten Noir series from VCI. This is one of those films that should have remained forgotten.

This is the perfect game film to get your friends drunk. All you need  do is take a drink anytime anyone watching asks "why did..." For example. Why do they kill the soldier when they could have just taken his bag? Why does one bad guy have gloves on when rifling through the bag and the other one doesn't? There are more, sually one every couple of minutes...

How tightly plotted is this film? Apparently the 54 minute full version also has a version a half an hour shorter, a fact which will be readily apparent when you see some of the odd ball asides (Musical number, odd actor rehearsal sequence..)

This is a so bad it's good film, that you'll enjoy for all the wrong reasons, many of which will be more apparent with friends drinks and snacks.

Three Stops to Murder (1953) (aka Blood Orange)

I was given a copy of this film that was marked Three Steps to Murder, the actual title is Three Stops to Murder, I think Three Steps is a better title, especially since two murders occur when people fall down a flight of stairs.

A decidedly minor, but enjoyable, mystery has actor Tom Conway playing a detective named Tom Conway. Hired by a jeweler to find out what happened to some stolen jewels, he is suddenly thrown off the case when the jeweler has a change of heart. Suspecting that something is up he remains on the case and runs smack dab into much more centering around a custom dress shop.

A film that has a sense of being thrown together on a whim, the film seems more to be a draft than a full-fledged mystery/noir. The film remains interesting because Tom Conway is interesting. Sure he seems to have been walking through the role in a trench coat that he only removes once or twice in the entire 75 minutes, but he is charming and seems to be having a good enough time that it carries over to the audience.

As diverting as the film is the film is mostly of interest for fans of Hammer Studios. Here is a fine example of what Hammer was turning out before they turned to horror. I also think that bits of the film were filled at the Bray offices, I could be wrong, but some of it looks like some of the shots I had seen in a documentary on the studio.

Worth seeing if you run across it but I wouldn’t go out of my way to see it unless you are a Hammer completeist.

Grand Indifference: The Rules of Found Footage Films

This is the first part of what may end up a much longer piece on found footage films. As you may know two weeks ago I tossed out a request for input on the rules for the rapidly growing genre. The plan was to just discuss the rules for the genre but my obsessive compulsive nature also had me looking to fill in the holes in my viewing. I went out and saw End of Watch, Paranormal Activity 4, Sinister (which has found footage as a key plot point) and a bunch of low budget horror films on demand and DVD. What was supposed to be a simply discussion of one thing became something more, it became an unwieldy discussion of the genre that started to change with each film I viewed. I started to see things in them that I never noticed (for example the low budget horror films frequently look a hell of a lot better being shot this way)  With all this input I started to revise and expand and throw out and start over what became a  second section that moved away from the so called rules and discussed the films and the genre pro and con.

Looking over the mess of a piece last night I rapidly realized that couldn’t continue because things were getting wildly out of hand. The piece was devouring what little writing time I had.  I  was working on a piece I never intended to write, and got trapped in it because I couldn't get past a certain point.. What made working on it worse  was since I never intended to write anything detailed on the films I never took adequate notes, so I ended up  driving myself crazy trying to remember bits of bad films I probably never would have watched in the first place. (On the other hand I did discover a weird rule or pattern that the films all seem to follow as you’ll see below)

To save my sanity and allow me to wade into some other films (particularly the year end 2012 releases) I’m going to give you the section on the rules. I’ve ported the scribbles on the genre in general over to a folder on my computer and at some point when I don’t feel pressured to do so I’ll take a look at it and try hammer it into something worth reading. Until that happens I give you what I found out about people's attitudes toward found footage and the rules for the genre:


It’s been a couple of weeks since I asked for input regarding the Found Footage genre. I was hoping to spark a grand discussion that mirrored the heated in person discussions I’ve had. Instead I found that there is  a grand indifference to the genre with most of the responses pondering why I would want to bother or that people either hadn’t thought about it or didn’t care. A few people did care and I’ve had several enlightening conversations via email and twitter which I’m going to try and cut and paste together into some form of grand discussion (I’m not sure that’s possible, but I’m going to try to do it after Christmas)

In digesting everything down the one overriding thing I found is that unless it’s really well done no one particularly likes it. Most people seem to feel is that most of the films being produced are using the genre for a reason other than the story be it just being lazy, to save a couple of bucks or just be part of the current trend.

I have yet to meet anyone who ultimately hasn't told me that like in every other genre rules don't matter so long as the film works. Rules are to be broken. However not long after saying that little provisos pop up. There aren't many but there seem to be a few "rules" that everyone mentions in one way or another:, actually there are two things:

There has to be some explanation of who is filming, or where the footage is coming from. Why are the characters shooting this? In the case of The Bay it’s because footage is from a news crew, Internet and iPhone camera conversations, hospital recording and security video. In other films its a character in the film, in still others its security footage.

The second rule is that they have to stay true to their central conceit, if Bob is filming everything , it has to stay from Bob's POV, you can't start dropping other angles in - Grave Encounters 2  fudged this all over the place. Much of the film is shot by the main character or his friends but there are other shots, in cars, in the hospital, in buildings or the infamous elevator to hell where it's not clear where the shot is coming from. Its so bad that after a while you are not sure what you're watching.  While the Vicious Brothers told me they did it to mix things up and make you wonder who is filming, I found it caused the film to collapse because it was done several times too often.

Related to both of these is my own  addendum that: if there are multiple view points we must have some idea of how or by who the footage came together,  The recent End of Watch annoyed the hell out of me because it has so many POVs the film stops making sense- if only in that we don't know how or why it was put together (which is a huge flaw in many films)

And it can't be stated enough that the rules will of course always be broken by anyone who can do so and make them work.

The trouble has been that most filmmakers can't make the genre work on the most basic level which is  is why I am  contemplating the idea of sorting out rules, since I find I only notice any rules when the films don't work.

While I did have several conversations relating to found footage, only two people gave me actual rules.

Unseen's own Peter Gutierrez suggests:

1) No framing story that tells you who survives main story a la The Bay
2) Should feel present-tense, not simply like old footage

I can quibble with Peter;'s first point since in my mind it really would depend on the story being told. If it's not horror film or an action film it may not matter. But I think that its a valid point, too often at the start we are told way too much.

Peter's second point I think is vital and I would add it in to what I have gleaned as being the consensus rules. We really do have to feel that the events happened and are happening before us. This is supposed to be really happening so it must play out as if it was happening when filmed.

There is one addendum that I would  add namely that the way you create the feeling of being in the moment is not to show every moment of everything that happens. As Bernardo Villela discussed with me sometimes people confuse endless footage of nothing with building genuine suspense or sense reality. Being awoken from a deep boredom induced coma is not the same thing as jumping because you've been brought to the edge of your seat by terror. He likened it to surprises in pieces of music repeated much too often.

Alec Kubas-Meyer of Flixist and Indewire said that he could only think of two rules

1) Everything must be diagetic. I actually tend to refer to found footage films as "diagetically shot" because it sounds better and is more all-encompassing. Diagetic referring to everything being in-world. The sound must be diagetic, the video must be diagetic, and the camera must be diagetic. Considering more and more of the films aren't really "found" in the way that The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield purported to be, I think the language needs to be changed.

2) Whoever holds the camera must be stupid/insane. If someone is actually keeping a camera while things worth making movies about are still going on, that person must be an idiot and/or crazy. The only exception to that rule would be in Chronicle, because the guy doesn't actually need to carry the film because superpowers. He is, however, crazy.

I do think Alec's idea that the genre is moving away from being truly found footage is correct. Of course that does raise issues such as in End of Watch as to who is putting it all together. Forgive me for being a stickler for that but for me because the film is being packaged as something that we are seeing is from various sources and not just the story teller there has to be a source. (For some reason thinking about this is making think about the Anderson Tapes and how everything we see is really from the surveillance of the apartment building. I'm not sure how it completely relates but it does seem to mean something to my demented mind.)

Alec's second point pinpoints a huge flaw in the genre and is, in most cases, right on target. Why are these people filming anyway?...and not so much filming some of the events but all of them? The endless walking footage in Cloverfield , hell most of the footage in Cloverfield shouldn't exist  (and I'm not talking technical issues like battery life aside) who would film as much as the camera man does?  I also find that characters such as the film students in Grave Encounters 2 or the lead in King Kelly are insane, especially if narcissism is a disease.

Surprisingly after watching way too many of these type of films over the last few weeks and months there is, apparently. a hidden self selecting rule that can only be discovered by looking at the running time of all these films- namely almost all of the films clock in at under 85 minutes.I'm not sure if it's a rule or just a form of cliche but most of the films, especially the horror films, all run about 80 to 85 minutes, less if you chop out the end credits.

I want to point out that the same approximate running is hurting the genre, at least as far as horror films are concerned since having watched too many of them I find that the narrative arc is all exactly the same.

If you look at the typical film of this sort the plot usually has a family group of friends gets together  or go somewhere and then after long boring scenes of real life that introduce the characters something happens and then more boring things happen before some brief scary stuff happens, and then an increasing number of deaths and scary things happen (or try to) before you get a final on screen gotcha as the person filming is dragged away- in almost every horror movie something terrible happens to the camera man. The whole genre is so monotonously cliche that I could time out when what was going to happen. And it' it doesn't help that the vast majority of the films run around 85 minute. or 80 or 82 minutes sans end credits...

At this point I'm going to break off.  I have more to say but I have to work out how to say it.  The pieces that would follow this will, assuming I can pull it together, go into a deeper discussion of what films seem to work and what don't. As well as pros and cons for the genre. I'm not sure that I'll actually do the rest of the writing, but if I do that's where it seems to be headed.

Actually the real trouble with my writing what would now be a follow up is simply the indifference that people seem to have. While I'm intrigued  by the possibilities of what can be done, even I have to admit that the fast majority of what is coming out as found footage is crap and makes looking at the genre as it stands now suspect The great films are worth discussing but the rest really isn't.

What I do find puzzling is that more films are being shot this way even though based on my ridiculously small sample, people don't like it...and after seeing some of the crap I've seen I suspect it will soon retreat back into the void of only occasional use.

Ten Little Indians (1959)

Sinister Cinema has released a kinoscope of a 1960 live TV broadcast of Agatha Chriistie's Ten Little Indians. Running a scant 52 minutes I would be hard pressed not to say it's the best version of the story I've seen.

For those who have no working knowledge of the tale (which has been ripped off and riffed dozens of times over the years) the story has ten strangers invited to an island for a weekend getaway. A note id left saying that the host is delayed but everyone is to enjoy themselves. When music is put on, it's actually discovered that the music is the voice of their host who accuses them of getting away with murder and pretty much implying death for everyone. As the night goes on people die, everyone turns on each other and nerves fray until....

...that would be telling.

I've seen any number of versions of the story some of which have worked and some of which haven't. Once you've seen a version of the story you simply have to wait to see how it all plays out in any other. Some times you're gripped and some times you're not. Here I was.

The reason this version works so well is that the whole things moves like the wind. Everyone is introduced and killed off with an economy of style that is truly inspiring. We seem to get enough to feel we know everyone before they are removed. We are given just enough info to keep things moving so that at no point do we feel like we're killing time (some of the versions from the 70's and 80's). Best of all the speed at which it moves, especially when the commercials are revoved, adds greatly to the tension.

Definitely worth searching out.

Sunday Nightcap 12/9/12 Vamping with Sinister, my take on Tai Chi Zero and other stuff I've seen

Sorry for this fill in Nightcap, the promised piece on found footage films will appear next weekend (I hope). It’s been a bit more complicated than I expected, not because I got a lot of responses, I didn’t, rather it’s just I wrote myself into a corner after doing circles for too long. Another reason that I’m delaying is that I’ve seen a few more found footage films so I may try to add them into my discussion.

On top of that I got side tracked working on my end of year pieces. I have four in the chutes, one on the festivals, one of the great film finds, one on the best films and one on the worst films. They are unwieldy things with in the case of finds and best lists contain too many films. They need paring to something manageable (Strangely the worst of the year list is small, yes I saw a hell of a lot of bad films but not many that were so bad they needed to be remembered.)

To vamp until I get the found footage piece I’m going to give you a few mini reviews of films I saw recently.

First up a a film that uses found footage to great effect- Sinister

One of the joys of living near Manhattan is that when I make one of my semi regular trips in there is always a chance to catch one of the films that I missed during its wide run. Such is the case with Sinister, the horror film.that stars Ethan Hawke. Apparently Hawke said that he would never do a horror film, but he read and fell in love with the script and decided to do it. I completely understand why.

The film follows Hawke and his family as they move into the home where a family was sadistically killed (the opening of the film is footage of the mass hanging and it will haunt your nightmares). Hawke is a true crime writer looking into the murders which have a mysterious component in that one of the murdered families members has gone missing. As Hawke investigates he goes farther and farther down the rabbit hole, helped in large part by a stack of home movies found in the attic. What happened to the previous family and why are the jumping off point that get ominous as weird things start happening.

I’ve been prattling on about found footage and this film hinges on found footage. As one person at IMDB said, this is a film that takes the found footage genre and spins it off into a new direction. No the film is not all found footage, but it is a key component to the story. Its used here to send chills up and down your spine in ways most films never do.

As horror film go, this is one of the better ones I’ve seen this year. This is a creepy little thriller that made me feel very uncomfortable and made me squirm in my seat. Its one of those films where you talk to the screen because something is happening that just isn’t right.

What I really liked is that its film that worked all the way to the end. The ending feels right and not added on. It was an ending that I didn’t see coming and yet felt completely natural- or super-natural.

This is a super little film that I want to give it’s own review to down the road. The reason I’m not is that I need to see it again on DVD where I can back things up and see things in total. However it appears to still be playing in some markets so I want you to go see it if you can.

Bridging from a film that has found footage as a component I’m going to move on to other films I’ve seen semi recently beginning with my few words on a film that Mondo Curry saw back at Comicon Tai Chi Zero.

Tai Chi Zero was sneak previewed at New York Comiccon where Mondocurry saw it and reviewed it. It was a film that I had an extended conversation about with writer, martial arts expert and raconteur Ric Meyers at the convention.  Meyers said the film had two problems, the first being that the film is actually only the first half of the story. The tale only goes so far before it stops, at a place where it’s possible, but there is clearly more to come (which you can see since scenes to the next part are run during the end credits). The other part problem Meyers had, at least as far as the English version was concerned, was that the film was incompletely subtitled. Meyers said that the Well Go subs didn’t translate much of the on screen writing which he said was vital to understanding the film, and he said that even the dialog wasn’t fully translated.

Not thrilled with what I was hearing I decided to pass on it’s theatrical run and see it when it hit DVD. Last weekend I picked up an import Chinese DVD of the film and I sat down to watch it. I do have to say that the copy I had only translated the dialog. None of the on screen writing was translated and I had to guess what was being revealed.

The film tells the story of a young man with a “wart” on his head. When its pressed he becomes possessed and becomes literally a martial arts demon. Surviving a bloody battle he heads off to a hidden valley to learn a certain style of martial arts. Once there he is told that no one will teach him, however he is persistent and hangs around hoping to wear everyone down. At the same time a man arrives in a weird steam punk train. He is trying to get the town to get with the coming scientific revolution, however when his demonstration of electricity goes wrong he leaves the town in shame, only to return promising great destruction if he they don’t go along with his plans. Much martial arts mayhem ensues.

Allowing that the translation I had was just okay and missing the signs and pop ups completely, I found that I liked the film but it’s hard to say more than that since when it ended it was clear to me that this wasn’t the end there was more. I felt like I was being asked to judge the film after only seeing part of it.

The action in the film is quite good. The frequent battles, most of them of the one on one variety, are spectacular. Sure they are computer and wire assisted, but at the same time this is a fantastical tale from the outset so it’s perfectly in keeping with the story.

For me the real problem with the film is that even allowing that I don’t know what is in the un-translated on screen text, there are more than a couple of moments where I had the sense that either something was cut out or that there are connections that exist in the heads of Stephen Fung and Kuo-fu Chen the  director and writer. I occasionally had a sense that I missed something so I’d replay the scene only to realize, nope I didn’t.

I’m not saying it’s a bad one, all I’m saying is that I’m waiting until the second film comes out before I make a final determination.

The best bet would be to rent this or get it on Netflix when it comes out next month and see it that way…or wait until the second film is released and watch them back to back.

Lay The Favorite Stephen Frears latest film opened in New York and elsewhere on Friday. It's an amusing fact based trifle about a young woman who goes to Las Vegas and goes to work for a gambler played by Bruce Willis. Various good natured complications ensue, nothing to taxing mind you, just mildly amusing. High art? No. Entertaining? If you're not demanding. I'd wait for the theatrical run to end and catch it on home video.

Flight played the New York Film Festival. I misssed the screening because I didn't want to get up at 530 in the morning to see it. Now that I've seen it I'm glad didn't get up to see it. Its not that it's bad film, it's not,  It's just not a particularly great one. The strength of the film are the performances of Denzel Washington and Don Cheadle.  and the crash sequences. Outside of that the story of a man strung out trying to find redemption has been done before enough times this feels a tad too much like a by the number film.

End of Watch has couple of cops  running afoul of a drug cartel. The film has some great action sequences.and some good performances but the found footage style made me feel beaten up and more than once I was wonderfing who was shooting what. This was not something I needed to see on a big screen.

Sugar Mommas is a drama about sisters who come together to run a bake shop. Dull doesn’t begin to describe it. The performances are fine, but the script is unremarkable and the whole thing was shot with a two camera set up making it look like a soap opera or TV sitcom. This is one to skip

Christmas in Compton surprised me greatly. The story of the owner of a Christmas tree lot whose son wants to be a record producer is a low budget lowbrow comedy. It’s never going to be a classic, but it is funny. Perhaps going in with no expectations helped, but I enjoyed the 90 minutes I spen watching it

Silent Hill Revelations has some great images but the film makes no sense and has no suspense. It’s like people walk around through a spooky walk. I have no idea what I was supposed to feel since I couldn’t connect to anything.

Trouble With the Curve is another crotchety Clint Eastwood film that he walks through. It has some wonderful sequences in it, but the story of a baseball scout potentially on the outs is a bit too cliché to truly be more than very good. It’s also hurt by what is now the patented Eastwood old codger performance. It’s at the point now where you could swap the characters from several of his recent films without it making a difference.

The Apparition is a haunted house film about couple that moves into a house haunted by the spirit brought over by a college experiment gone horribly wrong. Possessing some creepy moments the film never pulls it all together. It reminds me of Poltergeist and Insidious  and a few others. The pace seems off as if they were struggling to fill out the running time- without the end credits the film is barely 73 minutes long

Though I saw it a while back, Smiley isn't really worth mentioning, but I've been posting a good number of horror reviews lately so I'll include it, if only to say it's not really worth the time. Its about supposed serial killer discovered by a girl on an Internet  chat room.  Neither really bad nor really good I just felt as though I wasted my time especially with the WTF ending.

There are other films I’ve been watching but either they aren’t worth noting one way or another or they have or will have full reviews here at Unseen.

And now a few links
Its a Bad Brains Christmas Charlie Brown

A bond movie made from 5 minutes from each and every bond film

Footage from Orson Wells Other Side of the Wind


And finally this weeks films are going to be some classic era mysteries and crime films.  Next weekend will be a couple of horror films before yet another week of documentaries. And as always there will be surprises so keep reading.

Tekkonkinkreet (2006)

Tekkonkinkreet is the story of two kids named Black and White. They are known as the Cats and are considered by some to be the protectors of a part of the city known as Treasure Town. As a year goes by a yakuza captain returns to the city and a man named Snake appears with his eye on turning that part of the city into an amusement park.

I'm explaining it badly, forgive me, since this is a film thats better to experience than to hear about. Using a mix of 2D and 3D CGI this is a film that is vibrantly alive. There is a real sense of place that is missing from many animated films. The world bleeds off the screen. The film rarely sits still its constantly in motion as characters go from place to place or engage in battles for life and death. Its an amazing thing to watch.

The characters are very real. I watched the film with the English dub (I know boo hiss) and the choices of actors was wonderful. The voices of the kids were kids and seemed to perfectly match their personalities. The same goes for the other characters as well. What I liked was that the kids were kids. They seemed to be real kids behaving in the situations presented. Granted the film is wildly fantastical but the personalities and behaviors outside of the running and jumping and beating people up was real.

A word of warning, this is a dark film at times. There is a great deal of violence, which despite being animated is very nasty and bloody. The film also has some dark undertones as some of the characters slip into the darkness of their souls. Its disturbing enough to get an R rating.

On the down side the film takes a while to get going. I was about a third of the way in before it started to click with me. No doubt it was due in part to the very large cast of characters. (I'm certain this is going to play better on a second viewing). My other problem with the film was a shift towards the end which makes me think I may have missed something along the way. I feel as though I missed the climax of somethings. (Again this will probably be better on the next viewing)

Over all worth a shot. definitely see this in widescreen since the compositions are geared to that.

Incredible Melting Man (aka Greetings from Planet Saturn) (1977)

One of Rick Baker's early materpieces.

I don't think this film ever played near me when it had it's brief theatrical run. I know I would have made an effort to go if it had. It's probably better that it never did because this movie is a dog and then some.

The plot of the film has Three men going to Saturn. They return...damaged. As the film proper starts Steve is in a bed bandaged from head to toe. He is in a hospital. He wakes up discovers his liquifying hands, freaks out and then runs off into the wildrness where he is hunted by the doctors who want to understand his condirtion and the cops who want to stop a mad killer.

Thats the plot, there is nothing else, just watching the oozing man stagger across the countryside while people give chase.

Its awful.

If the Mystery Science guys never did it either Riff Trax or Cinematic Titanic should.

God it's awful. From the dialog, to the weird occurances, a fleeing nurse doesn't open a glass door she runs through it, when Steve's lower arm is cut off we later see his entire arm gone, and when his eye ball falls out at the start of the film, we see it later perfectly fine...

...blame the director for that one. nimrod William Sachs insisted that Rick Baker use his carefully designed makeup out of order. Baker had designed the make up to get ickier and icker, but Sachs wanted to use it as he saw fit, the result is a monster that goes from good to bad to good to bad to good to bad without ryhme or reason.

This is a turkey, it really is...but it's also a party film for those who don't mind the ooze.