souljoel

In honor of Carl Sagan's birthday ...

Carl Sagan's house in Ithaca, New York,  (in the gorge, under the sun). Iphone pic from October, 2008.

Paranormal Activity Review

Paranormal Activity is the kind of movie that really inspires me as an (ultra-) low budget film maker. I watched it this week with Jenean, and there were some moments in which we were genuinely scared, spooked or creeped out. Pretty rare for modern horror films of any budget.

A young couple living in San Diego experience mysterious events in their home. We find out that the girlfriend has had these experiences since she was a child, illuminating the possibility that if this is some sort of haunting, it might be she who is haunted rather than the house. The boyfriend, a rather insensitive bloke, we'll see, buys a video camera to document their lives during these supernatural goings-on, and this footage is the movie we are watching. A nice idea when you're shooting fast (this film was shot in one week), in that the lighting, composition and sound do not have to seem professional in an ostensibly amateur-shot video. So every night they set up the camera on a tripod in their bedroom to capture anything that happens  while they sleep. At first they just get some scary noises and slight movements of objects in the bedroom -- a door, a sheet, etc. These quickly ramp up to some compellingly freaky s---. A professional psychic is brought in but says he specializes only in ghosts -- not demons, which this unwanted guest seems to be. Left to their own devices, the couple basically are tormented by the presence more and more, with the behavior of the boyfriend making things even worse. Told repeatedly to take this seriously, and not to antagonize the "demon," he does exactly the opposite, purchasing a Ouija board and verbally taunting the beast.

Director Oren Peli uses some techniques and story devices I find particularly effective, stuff I've admired in the work of other horror directors I respect:

The long takes and creepy-stuff-gradually-moving-into-frame technique of Kiyoshi Kurosawa. He's used this to great effect in excellent movies like Pulse (the original Japanese version), and Cure. Keeping the camera static (avoiding the over-used Carpenter gliding tracking shots prefered by most horror directors) is a fantastic way of building suspense. When is something going to jump out at us? And when, instead of something JUMPING out at us, something instead creeps into the frame ... it is terrifying.

And Peli knows what master RKO horror producer of yore Val Lewton knew -- you don't need expensive monsters or effects to scare people. Show them just enough to get their imaginations going and let the dark, Jungian monsters in our subconscious take over. There are a few effects in the film (made more creepy because of the realism established with the amateurish video), but these are tastefully done and are used (for the most part) at just the right moments.

I won't draw parallels here between this film and The Blair Witch Project -- others have already said all there is to say on this subject. All I'll say is that this film is better than that one on some levels and worse in other ways. (How's that for leaving it up to your imagination?)

Made for about 15K and already having grossed more than 50 million dollars, Paramount's bet that this IS the next Blair Witch looks like it's paying off.

Terrifying/ Adorable Dolls ... wearing Jenean's new California Dreamin' fabric line!

 

 

 

 

More cool photos on Jenean's blog. (Amazing) doll wardrobe created by Julie Westphal of House of Pinku.

Tornado! and "Indie Heaven"

This morning I submitted two treatments for consideration for the screenwriting workshop the Memphis Film Commission is doing July 18 and 19 at the Paradiso Theater, called Indie Heaven .

One is Tornado, based on the novel of the same name, written by my late grandmother, Juanita Osborne. A very prolific writer (almost 50 novels published), Juanita lived in Memphis most of her life. Tornado was her first published novel, and it is awesome. It was the raciest of her novels -- thus published by ACE. The bulk of her other novels -- Southern Gothic mysteries all -- were published by Avalon, primarily a house that publishes young adult mysteries and romances and such.

My Grandma was a very sweet lady with a DARK imagination. I have long wanted to adapt many of her novels into screenplay form, and I would love to make movies out of almost all of them. Tornado is especially ripe for cinematic treatment, I think, along with, in no particular order, Walk with a Shadow, The Shrinking Pond, and Heiress of Fear. You can find all of her books on Amazon or Abe Books. They are short and weird and very fun. And scary. Think ... Flannery O'Connor meets Eudora Welty meets ... David Lynch.

My Mom and I own all the copyrights to her works, so they are fair game for my screenplay adaptations.

Tornado is about a girl who awakes in an old Southern manse with total amnesia. She was apparently flung there, from wherever her home is, by a tornado the night before. As she struggles to remember who she is, she comes to question the motives of the "kindly" family that's taken her in to recover from the trauma -- physical and psychological -- of the storm.

My adaptation, while trying to remain true to the themes and cool Gothic horror feel of the work, modernizes the tale and changes the setting from a rural former plantation to a Central Gardens Memphis mansion. (All of my grandma's works take place in or near Memphis, another cool thing for Memphis readers.)

The second treatment I submitted is Wishing Well, a story I've previously workshopped with Max Adams, Nicholls Fellowship-winning , Hollywood-produced screenwriter and writing instructor extraordinaire.

So I hope one (or both!) of my treatments is/are selected for this workshop. The producers conducting the thing are super-cool, Barry Jenkins and Mike Ryan, both with some ultra-fab credits to their names. I will enjoy meeting them this Sat.-Sun., and hope to see you all there as well.

Kitties in Love

Jumper and Bootsy are men. And they are in love. Deal with it.

Christmas in Texas

Here are some photographs I took while in Archer City, Texas, where Jo, my mother in law, just moved; she's from this town originally. Jenean and I spent Christmas there and I got some cool pics of sunsets straight out Jo's back door. It's a pretty incredible view:

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next photo is the Royal Theater, from one of my favorite movies, The Last Picture Show, which was set and filmed in Archer County. The movie is of course based on the novel by Larry McMurtry, who still has a home here: (see second picture down).

Reviews: "Let the Right One In" and "Twilight"

Two Vampire Pics Like Apples and Oranges ... Blood Oranges

I've got a soft spot for vampire movies despite the fact that it's apparently easy to make a (sorry) suck-y one. Let the Right One In (2008, Tomas Alfredson) does NOT suck (in the, um, pejorative way). There is a marvelous old-fashioned fairy tale quality to this movie, something achieved in part because the main characters are children and in part because of the no-punches-pulled realism of the direction. I'm talking old-fashioned in the sense that fairy tales of the old school were often scarier and more "adult" than tales we would deem appropriate for children today. This is definitely not a kids' movie.

Oskar (Kare Hedebrant) is an alienated 12-year-old boy in some stark Stockholm suburb in 1982. He is picked on rather brutally by some scary bullies at school. The monstrousness of this behavior is contrasted nicely with the kindness Oskar receives from new buddy Eli (Lina Leandersson), an actual monster who has just moved into the apartment next door. Eli appears to be the same age as Oskar, but, as we know, vampires stop aging at the moment they are "turned". So we get the feeling Eli has been 12 a mighty long time. She tries to teach Oskar to stand up for himself, which at first seems to prove effective but backfires horrifically in the third act of the film.

Both kids appear to live with single parents, but Eli's relationship with her male guardian is actually ambiguous and quite disturbing on many levels. Who is this man who procures vampire food for Eli in the snow-covered parks and underpasses of suburbia? If Eli is as old as we think she really is, it's doubtful this fifty-something fellow is her actual father. The alternatives are freaky and are left unexplored in the movie compared with the novel on which it is based; (I have not read the novel.) Like many adults (and a few unfortunate children), this "parent" may meet a gruesome demise before we learn the true nature of their relationship.

As I mentioned above, the physical horror of this film is presented in a highly effective visually realistic style. I'm reminded of David Lynch in the sense that the mundane is imbued with surrealism while the actually supernatural (is that an oxymoron?) is presented matter-of-factly. This accentuates the deftly-conveyed sense of dread Alfredson achieves in the film as a whole, and it provides many more genuinely scary moments than the average horror film--light years more than the average vampire film!

There is a sweet, haunting romance at the core of the film, providing an emotional center to what I believe is a classic in the genre. In puppy love, first love, every experience is heightened to a nearly supernatural level anyway, so this thread of the story, the real connection between Oskar and Eli, is the perfect story from which to hang a darker, archetypal fairy tale. The suspense and anticipation are nearly unbearably intense from beginning to end, so that the bloodshed, when it comes, provides a cathartic, primal, almost carnal release for the viewer. Highly, highly recommended.

Twilight

Silly. A cultural moment, blah, blah, blah. But silly.

Marebito (The Stranger from Afar), Re-Cycle, and Vital

Marebito Doesn't Totally Mare-Bite

Marebito (2004, Takashi Shimizu) does not deserve the critical thrashing it received upon release. It's not as flashy or polished as Shimizu's The Grudge, but it's better for it. It really reminds me--in tone more than content--of Inland Empire. Both films have a creepy, rambling feel, despite Marebito being half (!) IE's three-hour runtime. The film was pounded by critics for not following up on many of its (allegedly) half-baked concepts. There are a LOT of ideas floating around in this story and sometimes the less-than-completely-hashed-out ones do distract from stronger threads in the tale. It is creepy more than scary, but I think that's what Shimizu was going for. The protagonist is a videographer (Shinya Tsukamoto) who is in search of genuine terror, to capture it on tape and to burn it into his own mind, consciousness. As the film progresses, we learn these two paths are inextricably linked for this tortured soul, and that he also serves as a microcosm for our increasingly media-saturated world. Experiencing something on a screen comes to substitute for reality. There is a certain Baudrillardian charm to this concept, (simulacra and simulacrum, copies of copies become reality), but it is a bit shopworn. Tsukamoto gives a great performance. How appropriate that he play in a sort of Asian Inland Empire since he is the (thanks, Hunter D.) "Asian David Lynch".  More on Tsukamoto in a moment ...

Re-Cycle This Movie Now. By Incinerating It.

Re-Cycle (Pang Brothers, 2006) seems to be going for a sort of Pan's Labyrinth thing but, for me, falls a little short. OK, a lot short. It starts out pretty strong: A writer (Angelica Lee) starts experiencing horrors she's writing about -- and writing about horrors she's experiencing -- in a sort of terrifying loop. Then she falls into an alternate reality where meaningless CGI virtuosity goes to die. The End. Seriously, there are like a 2nd and 3rd act which take place completely in this cgi world that is sporadically beautiful, wholly artificial and never, ever, the slightest bit scary. Lee does as good a job as anybody reacting to shite that's not there, but this middle section is so lacking in emotional content and plot that it seems like a totally pointless exercise ... But Lee is a real looker. I mean, really cute. So there's that.

Vital

Now, back to Shinya Tsukamoto, my new hero. New bud Hunter D. (who turned me on to all three of these movies -- I forgive you for Re-Cycle because Vital is so freaking brilliant) was telling me about Tsukamoto who, as I mentioned above, stars in Marebito. So I'm kind of a Johnny-come-lately Asian horror guy, and I managed to miss Tetsuo: The Iron Man, which I'm watching tonight. Hear it's brilliant, really similar to Eraserhead, etc. So Vital (2004) is brilliant. A young man (Tadanobu Asano) is in a horrible car crash. He survives but his girlfriend dies ... then winds up on the dissection table at Asano's medical school. For him to dissect. Yeah. He has no memories of his dead love, so in dissecting her corpse, he hopes to find answers: about her, about himself, about the nature of life and the universe. This isn't a horror film. And the dissection scenes are surprisingly less disturbing than just sort of oddly moving and beautiful. A fellow med student (Kiki!) falls in love with Asano. And is super-duper jealous of the dead girl. As the dissection continues over 4 months, Asano starts having vivid, flashback-cum-dreams about his girlfriend -- not exactly memories so much as new experiences with her spirit. There are real memories woven into the story. This gets a little confusing, in a good way, for us and Asano, as he and we try to figure out what "reality" is. Sounds pretentious, a little, I know, but it's not, because it's the deepest question there is but it's explored so deftly and beautifully that it soars. I mean this is just a gorgeous and moving motion picture and I can't even talk about it any more yet because I'm still processing how freaking awesome it is. So just go see it. Rent immediately.

Oedipus Rex Screens at Indie Memphis

My latest short film, Oedipus Rex, screens tomorrow, Saturday, October 11, at 2PM at Studio on the Square as part of this year's Indie Memphis Film Festival. The film stars Bennett Foster and Brad Kroeker. Kevin O'Brien was the sound recordist; and my lovely wife, Jenean Morrison, assisted with all aspects of the production.

It's a very short (about 4 minutes), very direct interpretation of the Oedipus story, based loosely on the play by Sophocles. It screens with a few other shorts in Shorts Program #2. The fest seems to have grown dramatically this year and I am excited to attend many of the films and functions; (please see above link for a festival program.)

Thanks again to my actors and crew and I look forward to seeing everyone at the screening!

I promise to do a proper New York Trip post soon ...

... but until then, gaze upon this:

My lovely wife, Jenean Morrison, had a fantastic time at her Domino Magazine internship; I had a blast seeing movies all over the place (including a couple at the NY Film Festival); and it was fantastic seeing our friend, Bob Beehm, producer of the excellent horror film Mr. Halloween. More details later: Indie Memphis Film Festival is this weekend and my short film, Oedipus Rex, will be screening Saturday at 2 PM at Studio on the Square in midtown Memphis. When the fest wraps up I will post more NY picks and stories!!!