Creativity doesn’t have to be some awful, chaotic being that destroys your humanity. Inherently, it could be that little voice in your head that makes your writing unique. The process of achieving recognition in some creative sector is a different kind of chaos that proliferated writer, director, and star Julio Torres in his journey to gaining a work visa in the U.S. and becoming a comedy writer. How hard can it be?
“It’s amazing how physically exhausting it can be to do nothing. If you are unable to endure boredom, this work is not for you.” — The Killer
Continue reading “Review: ‘The Killer’ Executes a Killer New Take on the Assassin Sub-Genre”
For some godforsaken reason, pop culture is currently in the midst of a Pinocchio epidemic. Left and right, up and down, Pinocchio is everywhere. Disney dumped out their live-action remake of Pinocchio earlier this year, a drab, mostly beat-for-beat remake, apart from the addition of pop culture references and Disney+ advertising. Then, over from Russia, we have the infamous Pinocchio: A True Story, a very-fictional animated film starring Pauly Shore, which is almost certainly a front for a mafia money-laundering scheme. And, finally, in the world of gaming, we have Lies of P, a grim-and-gritty reimagining of Pinocchio as a magical steampunk Blade Runner, where Pinocchio himself resembles a cybernetically-enhanced Timothée Chalamet. It’s a little unfair to lump that last one in with the others, but regardless, Pinocchio has become an icon of unoriginality, a soulless husk puppeteered by corporate forces looking to make an easy profit off name-recognition. But just as it seemed that there was no integrity left, out has emerged Guillermo del Toro to grant the character life once again.
Continue reading “Review: ‘Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio’: Unbound by the Strings of Expectation”
There is a joy in settling down to read a special newspaper or magazine article, one where you know the writer is cataloging the unordinary. Something about an everyday medium that normally covers topics and records events we consider commonplace (sports, politics, violent crimes, etc.) instead chronicling astonishment and intrigue is uniquely appealing—perhaps because it reminds us that the world is not constantly a cold, dull place. Two of my favorite examples of these are “The ballad of the Chowchilla bus kidnapping,” which recounts the hijacking of a school bus and the nationwide fervor that followed, and “Pellet Ice is the Good Ice,” which takes a deep dive into a kind of ice cube that’s hard to come by and unrivaled in quality.
“Rudeness is merely the expression of fear. People fear they won’t get what they want. The most dreadful and unattractive person only needs to listen to the UW Film Club Podcast and they will open up like a flower.”
After a hearty yet incomplete debate of “Why Wes Anderson?” in our last podcast, we decided to take a trip to Wes Anderson’s most well-known and astounding film, ‘Grand Budapest Hotel.’ Continue reading “UW Film Club Podcast #73: The Grand Budapest Hotel”
The Dead Don’t Die played on June 8th at the Seattle International Film Festival, but will be making its return to year round SIFF on June 21st.
—
“The world is off its axis.” Though this tagline isn’t on the poster for Jim Jarmusch’s The Dead Don’t Die, it very well could be. You read the newspaper, check Twitter, talk to people outside and you begin to realize just how off-kilter the world is in 2019. This feeling of unbridled, societal chaos is at the heart of Jarmusch’s latest as it paints an apocalyptic world in parallel to our own.
Drawing from the well of 1950s and 60s B-rate horror films, the film focuses on the citizens of Centerville as they fight off zombies rising from their grave after a global incident. It’s a simple premise that lends itself to featuring the likes of Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Tilda Swinton, Selena Gomez, and more in the film’s star studded cast, but in its simplicity lies the distillation of the genre it pulls from. There are no complex inter-character relationships, subtle themes, or logical developments, but that seems to be exactly what the film is going for. B-rate horror films are typically devoid of any of those, and in the pursuit of replicating that, Jarmusch created a genre film that evokes that whole aesthetic.
In the name of aligning itself with its influences, the film takes on a very literal, on-the-nose approach to its meaning, often resulting in the film’s driest and funniest lines. Jarmusch’s sense of humor is extremely self-aware and tongue-in-cheek, making self referential statements, commentary on the obvious, and fourth wall breaking jokes to play up the film’s B-movie vibe. It’s consistent and explicit in its intent, and believing other wise would be a tough sell given the poetic precision of Jarmusch’s last film, Paterson.
The film is shameless in its overt meaning, but intentionally so. The film premises itself on the aforementioned idea that “the world is off its axis” in literal and metaphorical terms. After a fracking incident causes the Earth’s to be knocked out of alignment, polar fields are disrupted, day and night cycles are out of wack, and zombies start rising from the grave. With nods to climate change, societal trends, political unease, and the like, the film sets its apocalyptic world in a very realistic setting. Everything is one rung higher than our own reality, making for scenarios where we can laugh at slightly hyperbolic situations that bear truth after we leave the theater. The Dead Don’t Die is B-movie genre film that doubles as a poignant social commentary about the dismay in society. Where we see regressive decline all around us, we too may enter a world where zombies roam amongst us and society is brought to an end.
The cast is laden with stars, and luckily each one gets their own moment to shine. Murray, Driver, and Chloë Sevigny play a trio of semi-capable officers patrolling the town, stopping in on the film’s supporting characters periodically. Steve Buscemi plays a conservative farmer with an attitude, Caleby Landry Jones plays a rest stop clerk with an inkling for horror films, Tilda Swinton plays a coroner with hidden talents, and the list goes on and on. All these characters excel within the film and have at least one moment where they take center stage.
Full of great moments and characters, The Dead Don’t Die is another great outing by Jarmusch that distills the essence of its influences for a comedic zombie flick about contemporary problems. Keenly aware of its effects, the film hones in on genre tropes and plays with them to both pay homage to its influences and generate tongue-in-cheek humor about the world we live in. By presenting the end of society, it seems as Jarmusch is reconciling the insanity he sees around him. His answer: have fun and laugh at the madness, cause in the end, we’re probably all doomed.
3.75/5 STARS
The original Suspiria by Dario Argento is a cult classic. Since its original run in the 70s, the film has grown into a sensation of praise, being cited as the one of the definitive giallo films to inspire the American slasher and a horror favorite of both John Carpenter and Edgar Wright. Even with all its praise, it is still very cult-y in many regards. It’s narrative isn’t all that cohesive, the acting is sometimes laughable, and the logic leaves much to be desired. So with plenty of headroom to improve, a remake wouldn’t seem all that unreasonable in 2018.
In steps Luca Guadagnino. After the success of Call Me By Your Name, Guadagnino set his sights on remaking Suspiria with a new vision in mind. Gone is the bright technicolor saturation of the original and in are muted red, brown, and blue pastels. Gone are the infamous maggot, dog, and barb-wire scenes and in are horrifying dance sequences. Gone is the pulpy nature of the original and in are the heavily artistic sensibilities of Guadagnino. The result is a remake which improves on the original by intentionally avoiding what made the original so well liked. Instead, Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria is a wonderful retelling of a cult classic that channels high brow art to create an intellectually challenging, but equally frightening horror film.
Like the original, Suspiria follows Susie Bannion (Dakota Johnson) as she travels to Berlin with the hopes of joining the famous Helena Markos Dance Company. After being recruited by Madame Blanc (Tilda Swinton), Susie quickly climbs the ranks and becomes the lead in their premiere performance, but with it, strange occurrences begin to occur as students disappear, become ill, or wind up dead. With so many anomalies, students begin to suspect that something other than dance is taking place within the walls of the academy.
Like Call Me By Your Name before it, Luca Guadagnino has imbued Suspiria with plenty of art house sensibilities. The film is considerably more eloquent than the original and firmly sides with sophisticated art rather than the cult origins of its source material. Earlier this year, fellow writer Jamie Housen wrote how Call Me By Your Name used similar creative decisions to give itself an artistic feel; as he put it, the decisions made in that film may “isolate many audience members,” and for better or worse, the same notion is true here.
So much of this film has symbolic meaning, hidden subtext, and ulterior motives that will have you asking yourself, “What did I just watch?” (especially when the final act kicks in), but to the film’s credit, that’s what makes it so good. It’s not clear cut like most horror films and it doesn’t concede to traditional horror tropes. In fact, it feels more like an art house film rather than a horror film. Instead of emphasizing as many scares as possible, the film finds ways to build up to them. Rhythmic editing, irregular patterns, graphic matches, and so on all amass to a pervading sense of unease that lingers over the film; it could very well be a textbook study in most cinema classes with regards to its techniques and how it creates unsettling undertones in fairly unsuspecting scenes.
It’s masterful work, but it won’t be for everyone. Few scenes embody gore and violence like you find in other horror flicks, but those that do make up a marginal part of the run time. Clocking in at 2 hours 32 minutes, the film certainly takes its time to reach those moments. Only three major scenes will make audiences wince with terror and the rest is methodical plotting. For this film to work, you need to buy into the smaller moments so the larger ones have a greater impact on you, and unfortunately, I don’t foresee general audiences willing to do so. If the Cinemascore for Hereditary or It Comes At Night — two films which are without a doubt a part of the best horror films of the decade—are any indication, Suspiria will undeservedly be dismissed by most as a pretentious art piece with little merit. However, to do so would be woefully naive. Under the surface and within its own technical construction, Suspiria is a horror film that is as impressive as it is sinister.
Score: 4.5/5