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Andrew Osborne — Sun, 31 May 2009 14:12:00 GMT

Andrew Osborne Reviews T.V. Party: The Documentary

Phil Nugent's "Don't Forget The Flaming Arrows!"

Paul Clark Promises Famous Last Words To Return!

Scott Von Doviak Reviews Sons Of A Gun

And more to come at the Screengrab In Exile...stay tuned!

Clippy Strikes Back: The Scariest Technology In Cinema History (Part Four)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 21:30:00 GMT

THE MATRIX (1999)

Spoiler alert! The Matrix is people! Just kidding...but really, if you haven’t seen it by now, allow me to ruin the surprise for you: according to Laurence Fishburne’s Morpheus, the Matrix is a computer-generated dream world built to keep us under control in order to change human beings into the copper-top batteries fueling our cybernetic overlords. And yet, when Keanu “Whoa!” Reeves’ messianic Neo finally “wakes up” in his real world goo pod prison, the all-knowing cybernetic overlords just...uh...flush him down a drain so he can be enlisted by Morpheus and his band of human rebels in their fight to overthrow the Matrix. Huh? Wha? That logical inconsistency blew a gaping hole in my willing suspension of disbelief the first time I saw the Wachowski Brothers' cyberpunk classic, yet later I realized I’d worried my pretty little head over nothing...NOT because the disappointing sequels kinda sorta explained away the seeming plot contrivance (since Neo was really the sixth integral anomaly and thus was supposed to find his way to the Architect and blah, blah, blah...), but rather because the original Matrix was so fresh and visually exciting, with a paranoid, unified-field conspiracy theory of a plot that captured the unease (and exhilaration) of life in the digital age better than any movie since...well...Tron. (AO)

THE TERMINATOR (1984) & T2: JUDGMENT DAY (1991)

A perfect killing machine sent from the future to slay the mother of mankind’s eventual savior, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator was, from 1984 to 1991, the baddest assassin around. But James Cameron’s wildly popular sequel to The Terminator, T2: Judgment Day, further upped the ante, introducing a shape-shifting liquid-metal version of the techno-phobic series’ cyborg destroyers, the T-1000 (Robert Patrick), that stands as one of action cinema’s most daunting evildoers. If both the original and T-1000 Terminators are preeminent examples of malevolent machinery, however, it’s Skynet – the government-sanctioned computer program that goes sentient, instigates a nuclear holocaust, and manufactures an army of robots – that proves the franchise’s true villain. Shrewdly foreshadowing our increasing global inter-connectivity, and postulating that condition as ripe for tragedy, Cameron’s series offers us an apocalypse created by the very devices we rely on for our protection, and then – as further evidenced by T3, TV’s Sarah Connor Chronicles, and presumably the forthcoming Terminator: Salvation – also posits those machines as our sole means of achieving post-doomsday deliverance. (NS)

PULSE (2001)

Many J-horror imports exploit fears of technology, but none do so as effectively – and as thoughtfully – as Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s 2001 masterpiece Pulse. From online computers to cell phones, technology is ubiquitous throughout Kurosawa’s film, and slowly reveals itself to be the cause of a strange, growing phenomenon whereby Tokyo’s citizens begin to mysteriously disappear, often leaving behind only a residual black stain on the wall (shades of the marks found throughout post-atom-bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki). It soon becomes clear that ghosts are attempting to enter the physical world through our gadgets, and Kurosawa’s portrait of a technology-fostered apocalypse is chilling not simply for its raft of indelibly unsettling imagery (a plane hurtling to the ground, shuffling specters spied on a computer monitor), but from its story’s underlying commentary about the alienation and loneliness fostered by our mounting reliance on machines. Modernity’s technological progress leads to communication breakdown, which in turn results in societal disintegration, a set of circumstances Kurosawa chillingly depicts as both unavoidable and irreversible. (NS)

VIDEODROME (1983)

The purifying/corrupting relationship between technology and the human body has long fascinated (and been fetishized by) David Cronenberg, a topic which he superbly addressed in 1983’s Videodrome. In this mind-bending story, the president of a low-rent television station, Max Renn (James Woods), stumbles upon transmissions of the titular S&M horror show – in which rape, torture and mutilation occur in a single orange room – and subsequently begins suffering from horrific hallucinations. From there, the line between real and unreal blurs, though regardless of whether or not the ensuing madness is all in Max’s head, the sight of him inserting organic videotapes into a stomach gash, which in turn produces a gun that melds with his hand, affords a twisted, terrifying view of man’s increasingly fundamental bond with his inanimate creations. “Long Live the New Flesh!” serves as both a rallying cry for the film’s “villains” and the mournful final words of Renn, with Cronenberg ambiguously treating our connection to television as something at once liberating and destructive. (NS)

SECONDS (1966)

John Frankenheimer's nightmare movie, shot by cinematographer James Wong Howe, begins with the chubby, perpetually middle-aged character actor John Randolph (Jack Nicholson's father in Prizzi's Honor) as a married banker who barely recognizes that his life has gone stale until someone is kind enough to point it out. He is recruited as a client by a mysterious, secret organization that arranges for people to be given second chances at life: first their bodies are remade through plastic surgery and an exercise regimen, then they are dropped into a new routine that has been planned for them by a computer program. Of course, they're still the same old dissatisfied dullards they were before they went under the knife, especially if, like Randolph, they're being played by Rock Hudson after the bandages come off. Most techno-phobic sci-fi films are about the dangers of technology that we don't yet have; this one is about what people could have been doing with technology that they already had when the movie came out, if only they were stupid and shameless enough. Which may be why it feels more accurately prophetic now than 2001. (PN)

Click Here For Part One, Two & Three

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Nick Schager, Phil Nugent

Unwatchable #54: “Meatballs 4”

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 18:00:00 GMT

Our fearless – and quite possibly senseless – movie janitor is watching every movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Join us now for another installment of Unwatchable.

Note to aspiring filmmakers: if the success of your movie is dependent on the audience perceiving a character played by Corey Feldman as “the cool guy,” you have already failed.

There’s a sort of reverse Darwinism at work in the Meatballs series when it comes to the cool guy; the original 1979 Meatballs may not be a comedy classic for the ages, but it does feature Bill Murray as the cool guy, and I think we can all accept that. I’ve never seen 1984’s Meatballs, Part II, but as far as I can tell, its cool guy is John Mengatti as Armand “Flash” Carducci. Mengatti also played Salami’s cousin Nick Vitaglia on The White Shadow. I don’t remember the character or the actor, but for the sake of argument, let’s say John Mengatti is slightly less cool than Bill Murray. Next up is Meatballs III: Summer Job, also unseen by me, which doesn’t seem to have a cool guy at all. It does have Patrick Dempsey, and I know today he’s TV’s heartthrob McDreamy, but believe me, in 1986 no one on this planet thought he was cool.

This brings us to Meatballs 4 and the aforementioned Feldman, who plays Ricky Wade, the super cool activities director for the Lakeside Water Ski Camp. Ricky has recently been lured from Twin Oaks, the rival camp across the lake, by Lakeside owner Neil Peterson (Jack Nance, the poor bastard). Lakeside is facing bankruptcy, which is hard for me to understand, since most of its enrolled campers are apparently vacationing Hooters waitresses with clothing allergies. Call me a skeptic, but I don’t think camps like this actually exist. If they do, please send me a brochure.

Anyway, it’s up to Rick to whip all the campers into shape – including the shy fat guy – for the big waterskiing showdown with Twin Oaks. Feldman brings not only a smarmy low-grade sarcasm to the role (it would not surprise me to learn that he rewrote much of his own part, tailoring it to his perceived strengths), but also his faux-Michael Jackson dance moves. I didn’t think much of the supporting cast’s acting chops until I saw them successfully pretending to be impressed by this crap.

There’s not much more to say about Meatballs 4 itself, so let me tell you a couple of behind-the-scenes stories. You may have read the first one, which concerns poor Jack Nance, in the late, occasionally lamented Premiere magazine. Nance, best known as Eraserhead himself and Pete “She’s wrapped in plastic!” Martell from Twin Peaks, was married to Kelly Jean Van Dyke, daughter of Jerry “Coach” Van Dyke at the time of the Meatballs 4 shoot. Kelly Jean had a severe substance abuse problem and had begun working in porn and Nance was beginning to think the marriage was probably not going to work out. He explained this to her over the phone, she freaked out and said she’d kill herself if he hung up on her, and at that moment “the storm that had been raging outside killed the phone line.” And Kelly Jean did, in fact, kill herself. It was all downhill for Nance from there, and he died under mysterious circumstances in 1996. I’m not saying Meatballs 4 is entirely to blame, but facts is facts.

On a somewhat lighter note: When I first moved to Los Angeles in 1990, my first job in the movie biz was working an unpaid production assistant on a straight-to-cable Debbie Harry thriller called Intimate Stranger. Making her feature debut was an attractive young actress named Paige French. As the on-set scuttlebutt went, Ms. French was hired for the role with the understanding that nudity would be required at some point during the production. However, when the time of the nudity arrived, there was a prolonged delay as a result of a heated dispute over the veracity of this required nudity clause. At some point a compromise was reached involving sexy lingerie, but Ms. French’s wares remained under wraps.

Why am I telling you this? Only because now, 18 years later, I have finally seen Paige French’s boobies. She wouldn’t do it for a piece of crap like Intimate Stranger, but Meatballs 4…now that’s a whole other story! All kidding aside, it’s a bit depressing to see that Meatballs 4 was effectively the end of her brief movie career (though she did have a role on the short-lived George Carlin Show). She’s one of the few people in the movie to actually bear some resemblance to a genuine human being. And yet the Feldman persists.

Previously on Unwatchable:
55. A*P*E
56. Araf
57. Phat Girlz
58. Ed
59. Don’t Go in the Woods…Alone!

"Other Voices, Other Rooms": Warhol at the Wex

Paul Clark — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 19:00:00 GMT

In my time writing for the Screengrab, I’ve written primarily about subjects with universal interest- films that are (or will be) in national release or are widely available on video. However, I occasionally take the forum that has been granted to me to spotlight events in my hometown of Columbus, Ohio, that might be appealing to those who live elsewhere. In particular, I like to keep readers abreast of the notable goings-on at Columbus’ indispensible artistic resource, The Wexner Center for the Arts, especially those with a cinematic bent. I’d say that the Wex’s latest exhibition, Andy Warhol: Other Voices, Other Rooms, definitely fits the bill.

Its title taken from the debut novel of longtime Warhol friend Truman Capote, the Wex will be the only U.S. showing of this internationally-touring exhibition, curated by Eva Meyer-Herrmann. A survey of the life and art of Warhol making its U.S. debut shortly after what would have been his 80th birthday, Other Voices represents perhaps the most ambitious project the Wexner Center has undertaken to date. Knowing full well that a single gallery couldn’t possibly do justice to the breadth of Warhol’s varied career, the Wexner Center has overhauled its entire exhibition space and devoted it to the program, which encompasses his visual art, his film and TV work, and footage from his life.

As a cinephile, I was naturally most interested in the exhibition’s film offerings, and I wasn’t disappointed. With more than two dozen projectors and screens mounted throughout the galleries, Other Voices shows a surprising number of Warhol’s films playing on constant loop, from obvious inclusions like Chelsea Girls (1966) to notorious titles like Blow Job (1964), to outright curiosities such as Outer and Inner Space, starring Edie Sedgwick and… Edie Sedgwick. Likewise, there are forty of Warhol’s “Screen Tests” interspersed throughout the galleries, featuring subjects ranging from Hollywood stars like Dennis Hopper to art world icons like Salvador Dali to Warhol-anointed superstars like Taylor Mead. Purists may sniff that the exhibition is using projected video rather than the original 16mm film, but given the wealth of material on display, it seems churlish to complain. I for one intend to return to view movies like Chelsea Girls, Lonesome Cowboys, and The Velvet Underground and Nico in their entirety, although I don’t think it’ll be necessary to watch Empire (8 hours, 5 minutes) or Sleep (5 hours, 21 minutes) from beginning to end.

But there’s plenty of extra-cinematic material on display as well. The “TV-Scape” gallery features 42 separate television programs conceived by Warhol, including all 27 episodes of the two incarnations of Andy Warhol’s TV. And the visual art selections, while hardly comprehensive (how could they be?), offer a primer of the broad spectrum of Warhol’s artistic interests. There are paintings, drawings, prints, silkscreens, “objects” such as the Campbell’s soup cans, even the infamous “Oxidation Paintings” created using acrylic and urine (!) on linen. Likewise, there are photographs with photo booths and Polaroid cameras, including snapshots of icons ranging from Jimmy Carter to Debbie Harry to Sean Lennon, plus photographs of Warhol himself, occasionally in drag. All this plus album covers (Velvet Underground, The Rolling Stones, the soundtrack to Fassbinder’s Querelle, and others), books, wallpaper, back issues of Warhol’s Interview magazine, the “Silver Clouds” installation, and a shoe of Warhol’s design.

And while Warhol was such an enigmatic figure that we’ll probably never really be able to get a read on his personal life, Other Voices, Other Rooms contains enough documentary and archival material to satisfy all but the most die-hard Warhol fanatics. There are a number of home movies made throughout Warhol’s life, from early footage of young Andy with his mother to “Factory Diary” films made between 1970 and 1982. There are also audio tapes documenting Warhol’s interactions with various Factory figures, which allow visitors to gain some insight into the inner workings of Warhol’s Factory. Combine the documentary nuggets with the wide variety of artistic and cinematic offerings on display, and Other Voices, Other Rooms is an essential view for anyone with even a passing interest in Warhol. Once again, the Wexner Center has proven itself to be essential to the furthering of culture in Ohio.

Movies We Missed: My Life Without Me (2003)

Peter Smith — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 18:00:00 GMT

Mark Ruffalo has had an interesting career. He became an indie poster boy and critical darling overnight with the release of You Can Count On Me. He did his bank account a favor as the leading man in regrettable movies like 13 Going On 30 and Just Like Heaven. But he balanced those with ultra-indies like We Don’t Live Here Anymore and XX/XY. He’s also played detectives for big-name directors (Jane Campion, Michael Mann, David Fincher) to results varying from questionable to near perfect. As Ruffalo returns to the screen this week as a troubled father with a haunting secret in Terry George’s Reservation Road, we wanted to look back at one of his most honest and exposed performances, in the rarely seen My Life Without Me, where he plays a man who unknowingly falls in love with a terminally ill, married woman.

Why we missed it:

If it weren’t for the help of Pedro Almodovar, Isabel Coixet’s English language debut may never have been seen very far outside of Spain. Even with Almodovar’s name attached as a "presenter," the terminal-cancer plotline was a hard sell.

The cast of talented but little-known actors didn’t immediately draw attention.

Why we should have known:

Ruffalo's presence should have raised some eyebrows.

The trailer hints at the hopeful and inventive tone of the film.

Why we ended up kicking ourselves:

Sarah Polley and Ruffalo both give knockout performances without a single moment that feels forced or false. Together they convey the rush of discovering love, and the heartbreak of its eventual loss.Scott Speedman and Leonor Watling prove effortless in supporting roles.

The potentially heavy material is treated with skill and imagination. Coixet, working from a short story from author Nanci Kincaid, looks for the real.

Why we may have been better off without it:

There are unnecessary cameos (Debbie Harry) and an annoying co-worker (Amanda Plummer). But those are easily forgiven.

— Bryan Whitefield