Up the Creek is, for the most part, a fairly standard 80s sex comedy. The humor is unsubtle and the jokes are constant. It’s not quite the Airplane! school of comedy, but it’s close. There’s plenty of booze and partying on display to inspire the audience to do the same– this would have been a good movie to sneak beer into the theater to watch, but now you can just watch it in the comfort of your own home. And of course, there are topless women. Not too many, though, as if the film had been market-tested to find exactly the right amount of nudity to keep the presumably intoxicated men in the audience (and/or the kids watching the movie later on HBO after their parents went to sleep) interested without seeming overly gratuitous.
Again, if you’re a fan of this era of “slobs vs. snobs” comedy, Up the Creek is going to be a no-brainer. Previously only available on VHS, this DVD represents a significant upgrade in picture and sound quality. If you’re not a fan of this type of lowbrow comedy, you probably never started reading this review in the first place. But if you did, and you’re, say, a big Tim Matheson fan, you may want to give Up the Creek a look. It may not change your mind about the genre, but hell, who knows? With enough beer on hand and the right people to watch it with you, maybe it will.
The Upper Footage (2013)
Originally published on Daily Grindhouse 10 March 2014
2013 was a great year for Bret Easton Ellis at the movies. Aside from his own screenplay for The Canyons (and his narration for Placebo’s “Too Many Friends” music video), films such as Antiviral and The Bling Ring explored pop culture and celebrity in ways that strongly recalled Ellis’s work. However, the film arguably most closely related to the type of amoral characters who populate the world Ellis has created in his novels was barely able to make it to the big screen. After an extended stay in distribution limbo, The Upper Footage had a few theatrical dates before moving to a release of regularly scheduled online screenings, and now the film is available for rental through Vimeo. In a market where “found footage” films are still getting major theatrical release, Upper is a unique, unsettling take on the concept that now seems creepily prescient.
Some backstory is required for Upper to have maximum effect. In 2011, stories began to circulate about a video supposedly showing some rich New York socialite kids partying and one of them overdosing. Over the next couple of years, various celebrities were tied to the footage, and at one point Quentin Tarantino was rumored to have purchased “The UPPER Footage” with the intent of editing or adapting it into a feature film. Bits and pieces of the footage were released online by an anonymous party, supposedly as threats to the family of Blake Pennington (one of the main players in the footage). The people behind the film eventually opted to hold onto the film and release it independently, and in January 2013 the first screenings of the film, set to take place at a theater in New York, were shut down by protestors who had also put up numerous posters around the city proclaiming “Death is not Entertainment.”
Eventually the film did manage a brief theatrical run of late-night screenings, leaving audiences stunned. Around the same time as the film’s screenings, director Justin Cole finally made a statement explaining that “The Upper Footage” was fictional. However, it’s not hard to believe that those people who saw the film before Cole made his statement would have had a hard time figuring out if what they watched was real or not. After a brilliant viral marketing campaign that unfortunately flew under the radar of most audiences, Upper delivered a completely convincing illusion of footage shot as a “home movie.” Even now that the film has been revealed to be fictional, it’s easily one of the best and most original takes on the “found footage” style of filmmaking in ages.
Opening with a montage bringing the viewer up to speed on the media coverage of the film (including footage from an episode of Entertainment Tonight), Upper then changes perspectives to the camcorder of Will, a friend of Blake’s who takes his camera everywhere looking for creep shots. They meet at Blake’s apartment along with Blake’s girlfriend Taylor before heading out to the limousine of their friend Devon. The first section of the film is mostly the group riding around drinking, snorting coke off the limo mini-bar, and yelling at people outside the limo between racist and homophobic monologues. After a while they pick up Taylor’s friend Chrissy, and the plan is set: hit the bars, get more coke, head back to Blake’s. Their regular dealer is out, though, so they have to head downtown to meet a backup.
While Devon is excited to “go bobbin’ for some of that peasant pussy,” no one else is too interested. It’s Devon’s limo, though, so the crew heads downtown to try to find somewhere to hang out and pick up the coke. At some point Chrissy disappears and Devon comes back to the limo with Jackie, a young girl who is extremely impressed by their obvious wealth. They head back to Blake’s for more booze and drugs, with Devon and Will both trying to get Jackie to go home with them. It doesn’t work, so they keep drinking more and taking more drugs, until Jackie finally overdoses sometime late in the night. At this point, the group splinters, with Will and Taylor demanding to call the cops but Devon and Blake refusing and trying to come up with a plan to get rid of the body that includes keeping Will recording so they can all review the tape the next day and get their stories straight.
One of the main problems with most “found footage” films is that they take obvious liberties with the conceit: non-diegetic music, cuts to different cameras, etc. Once Upper moves into the viewpoint of Will’s camera, it never leaves. The film uses the visual language of amateur video better than perhaps any film of this type since Cloverfield, its “home video” aesthetic reaching an apex with a nearly 13-minute uninterrupted shot that is absolutely convincing as an “accident” of the camera running and being set down and forgotten. This is a seriously disturbing sequence, and a fantastic example of how to create a believably amateur aesthetic while building suspense.
Upper ‘s Vimeo On Demand release could not have been timed much better, landing shortly after the trial of Ethan Couch, a Texas teenager who drove drunk and intentionally killed four people, but who was sentenced to rehab and probation instead of jail time. This ruling was partially due to a defense psychiatrist’s assertion that Couch suffered from “affluenza,” a complete lack of responsibility for his own actions learned from a lifetime of being allowed to do whatever he wanted without consequences due to his family’s extreme wealth. The case eerily echoed the story of Upper, which now has an even more uncomfortable air of authenticity.
While the long and troubled road to distribution was no doubt frustrating for its filmmakers, Upper ended up being released to the public at just the right time. Even though the story that takes place in the film is fictional, its theme of unchecked power in the hands of the wealthy is more relevant now than ever before. This is one of the best and most original “horror” films in quite some time, one that takes on an increasingly tired style from a totally different angle, and one that finds horror (and the bleakest humor) in a recognizable reality.
V/H/S: Viral (2014)
Originally published on Film Monthly 2 March 2015
Designed to present some independent filmmakers’ takes on the “found footage” phenomenon, the first V/H/S was something of a mixed bag, even for an anthology. The first sequel followed a year later and was notable for a big uptick in overall quality, leaving many fans excited for where the franchise might go in its third installment. While all three films were partially produced in an association with the horror web site Bloody Disgusting, V/H/S: Viral is the first in the series that was produced without filmmakers Simon Barrett and Adam Wingard (You’re Next, The Guest) or any of their contemporaries such as Joe Swanberg, Ti West, and Jason Eisener. The result is a film that feels like a marked departure from the previous two entries in the franchise, for better and worse.
Kicking things off is Gregg Bishop (Dance of the Dead) with “Dante the Great,” which immediately signals a big change from the last films. Presented partially as a documentary about a famous
magician who uses actual black magic to perform his amazing tricks, “Dante the Great” throws the “found footage” ideal of a consistent point of view entirely out the window from the start. Viewers who are a stickler for this sort of thing–if you couldn’t watch Neill Blomkamp’s District 9 because of its complete disregard for structure, you know who you are–will be immediately turned off. Viewers willing to go along with the ride will find that Bishop and his cast (especially Justin Welborn as Dante) are having a great time pulling off some inventive visual trickery, presenting a story that echoes classic weird stories such as those in The Twilight Zone with low-budget flair.
Next up is Nacho Vigalando’s “Parallel Monsters.” Vigalando has made a name for himself with various shorts and two excellent features (Timecrimes and Extraterrestrial) that take familiar genre concepts and twist them in intriguing ways, usually with no shortage of sly humor. “Parallel Monsters” is very much in that vein, a simple story about a scientist who invents a portal to a parallel dimension and finds it opens directly into a mirror version of his home, where a version of himself has also just invented a portal into our dimension. Each version of the scientist takes a camera into the other’s world to look around for a few minutes, and while at first everything seems virtually identical, it’s not long before some major differences come to light. This short sticks very closely to traditional “found footage” rules, and thanks to the great comic timing of its cast, ends up a gruesome but fun time.
The final short in the theatrical and VOD version of the film is “Bonestorm” by Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead. Known for their intelligent, low-key horror feature Resolution, Benson and Moorhead take a completely different approach to the genre with this short. A pair of skateboarding teens hires a cameraman to follow them around to get footage so they can make a video of themselves, but he’s only interested in watching them hurt themselves over and over again. He eventually persuades them to go to a large abandoned drainage ditch in Tijuana, where they inadvertently interrupt a cult in the midst of raising an army of the undead. Shot and presented mostly through footage captured by action cameras mounted on helmets and skateboards, “Bonestorm” is hilarious, fast-paced, dumb fun. It’s also an impressive showcase of practical effects done cheaply but effectively.
The wraparound segment, “Vicious Circles,” is helmed by Deadgirl co-director Marcel Sarmiento. Typically for most anthologies, it’s not terribly memorable, and typical of the V/H/S franchise, it’s basically nonsense. There are a few moments of weird humor and some striking images that stick out, but mostly it’s just filler between the shorts. A fourth short directed by Todd Lincoln, “Gorgeous Vortex,” was produced for the film but not included in its theatrical or VOD releases. This piece (running just over 15 minutes) is included as a “hidden track” on the DVD and Blu-ray version of Viral; it starts playing automatically after the film’s end credits are complete. It’s not hard to see why the short wasn’t included with the initial release, as it has a completely different look and tone from the other three shorts, which are all comparatively light. “Gorgeous Vortex” is very dark, and mixes super high-definition digital photography that looks like footage of photo shoots for fashion magazines with grainy, noisy footage that looks like consumer camcorder or security camera footage. There is a threadbare narrative, but “Gorgeous Vortex” is just on the line between a traditional horror short and something more experimental and non-narrative. It’s definitely interesting, and nice to have on the disc, but its tone is jarringly different from the rest of the film.
V/H/S: Viral, minus “Gorgeous Vortex,” is maybe the most consistent of the series so far. There’s nothing as bad as the previous films’ worst entries, but there’s also nothing that quite hits the same heights as V/H/S/2‘s “Safe Haven” (one of the most harrowing short horror films in recent memory). The oddly lighter tone sets it apart from those films, as well as its occasional disregard for strict “found footage” rules. The producers have hinted that Viral is the last V/H/S film, and while it’s entertaining, maybe that’s for the best considering how quickly the producers and filmmakers involved seemed to run out of novel approaches to the basic “found footage” concept.
Valkyrie (2008)
Originally published on Film Monthly 18 December 2008
I’m going to get this out of the way right at the top: if you didn’t know that Valkyrie had had such a long and messy road to its theatrical release, you certainly wouldn’t guess it from the final product. Stories of awful test screenings and reshoots and Tom Cruise’s German accent have dogged the film, but the finished product bears no scars from its difficult production. In many ways, Valkyrie is a throwback to classic WWII thrillers– clean-cut, tightly edited, and often extremely tense. It couldn’t be more different than Paul Verhoeven’s Black Book, with which it shares several cast members– ironically, Verhoeven’s film feels more modern than Bryan Singer’s deadly-serious tribute to WWII films past.
Tom Cruise plays Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, exiled to the desert for making what must have been some seriously disrespectful remarks regarding Nazi policy. As the film opens, Stauffenberg is bargaining with a higher officer to try and get as many of his men back to Germany alive as possible. Unfortunately, an air raid cuts his regiment down and leaves him severely injured, losing his left eye and his right hand, as well as two fingers on his left hand. Already unhappy with Hitler’s policies and sensing a major Allied push toward Berlin, Stauffenberg is enlisted by Major-General Henning von Tresckow (Kenneth Branagh) and General Friedrich Olbricht (Bill Nighy) to join a group of German resistance planning to overthrow Hitler in the hopes of brokering a peace treaty with the Allied forces before Germany is destroyed.
Stauffenberg invents a complicated plan that involves the assassination of Hitler (David Bamber) and the use of his personal guard to seize power in just such a case: Operation Valkyrie, as it was called, would ensure that no one would be able to overpower Hitler’s regime in the event of his death. Since members of the resistance were in positions of power over the guard, the death of Hitler would allow the resistance to seize control of Berlin and eventually all occupied territories while appointing an interim government to make peace with the Allied forces. The plot and characters in Valkyrie are based in fact, and while certain liberties have been taken with the facts (as in any such film), it’s a fascinating story that many people probably are not aware of.
This refreshing take on WWII intrigue is helped along by an excellent cast: Cruise is not bad at all as Stauffenberg, and he’s surrounded by uniformly fine performances from Branagh, Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, Terence Stamp, and Eddie Izzard. Then there’s the Black Book alumni of Carice van Houten, Waldemar Kobus, Christian Berkel and Halina Reijn. It’s too bad that van Houten didn’t have more to do in this film, but as Stauffenberg’s wife her role in this story is necessarily brief. In fact, the film has so many characters that many of them don’t have much screen time, but each member of the cast makes their mark. For just one example, this is the second film this year (after RocknRolla) with Tom Wilkinson as a memorable bastard.
Valkyrie is surprisingly light on the action and violence, instead relying on tense dialogue scenes and carefully choreographed set pieces of the resistance plans in motion. Singer has put together a great cast, given them a great story, and executes the whole thing with a sure hand. Perhaps it’s this technical excellence that leads to the film’s one major problem: if anything, Valkyrie feels a little cold, its portrayal of Stauffenberg set at an odd distance, even though we watch him in virtually every scene in the film. Perhaps Cruise is actually too good at playing Stauffenberg, a man who had to be a completely different person to the public and his superiors than the one he actually was. We get moments of his uncertainty and vulnerability, but they’re fleeting– perhaps if the film had stuck more closely to the real Stauffenberg it would have felt more intimate.
It’s unlikely that Valkyrie is going to unseat any film in your personal “top t
en WWII movies” list. But it’s just as unlikely that you will find your time with it anything but well-spent. It’s a well-executed take on a little-known tale of heroism from an era that seems like an inexhaustible well of such stories. If you think you’re tired of WWII films (and/or you haven’t seen Black Book!), Valkyrie could very well change your mind.
Vampire (2011)
Originally published on Film Monthly 21 August 2013
Shunji Iwai seems an odd choice for a Japanese director to make the jump to American filmmaking. While other talents from Asia have made comfortable career moves, those filmmakers usually have a style that is not too far removed from that of the American film genres in which they often end up working. John Woo’s transition into Hollywood action cinema, for example. Iwai is perhaps best known in the States for 2001′s All About Lily Chou-Chou, an epic (and unsettling) examination of teenagers whose interactions are largely mediated through technology, obsessed with a pop singer. That film’s quiet, lyrical tone would hardly seem to lend itself to American cinema of any kind, best known (correctly or not) for its thorough lack of subtlety. However, Vampire, Iwai’s first English-language film, brings his sensibilities almost completely intact to a story very much unlike any he has done before.
Simon (Kevin Zegers) is a serial killer. He finds victims through a web site (“Side by Cide”) dedicated to helping people find partners with whom to kill themselves. Simon is a high school biology teacher by day, and clearly believes his method of murder–finding suicidal women and helping them die by draining their blood–is not morally problematic. When he finds himself confronted with another “vampire” who calls himself Renfield (Trevor Morgan), Simon is repulsed by Renfield’s methods and behavior. Simon is shown to be a good, sympathetic teacher who is genuinely concerned with the well-being of his students, including a seriously depressed Japanese exchange student named Mina (Yû Aoi). Simon also takes care of his mother (Amanda Plummer, almost unrecognizable), who suffers from severe dementia.
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