R.I.P. Fidel Castro - Cuban revolutionary cinema

Descansa en el poder, comandante. Te falta, pero la lucha continúa. Patria o muerte. ¡Venceremos!

Hero of the world proletariat, champion of exploited and oppressed peoples around the world, revolutionary, leader and Presidente Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz has died last night, November 25th, 2016, at the age of 90.  Castro inspired the world through his literacy programs, universal education and healthcare achievements, standing up to imperialism throughout the world, aiding third world revolutions and sending medical help to suffering nations all around the globe.

Under the leadership of the PCC Cuban society has also produced a whole host of great films.  Here is La Habana's list of the 20 Best Cuban Films Ever.


This is the trailer for Cuban director Tomás Gutiérrez Alea's black comedy Death of a Bureaucrat (1966)


The Cuban artists also made brilliantly colorful, psychedelic movie posters for both Cuban and international movies showing in Cuba.

Finally, I would like to talk about some films that are about Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution.

Che: Part I (2008)/Che: Part II (2008)

Directed by sometimes-indie/sometimes-commercial director Stephen Soderberg, this film is the story of Ernesto "Che" Guevara's (played by Benicio del Toro) exploits in Cuba and Bolivia.  The first part is exciting and uplifting because the Cuban revolutionaries win the war.  Historically, after the Cuban revolution Che continued to be a guerrilla commander, first in Angola and then in Bolivia.  The subjective conditions were not right for revolution in Bolivia and the revolution failed.  Che was captured and executed.  The second part is more challenging because the immanent failure of the revolution gives the whole thing an eerie sadness.

Commandante (2003)/Looking for Fidel (2004)

Commandante (2003) and Looking for Fidel (2004) are Oliver Stone's interviews with Fidel Castro.  Stone defends the Cuban revolution, but is sometimes critical of Castro's administration.  Throughout their conversations Stone occasionally will try to get a rise out of Castro by mentioning some kind of scandalous subject.  Usually Castro brushes this goading off.  Stone, it seems, is sympathetic to Castro's cause and likes to consider himself a friend of Fidel's.  However, he can't help trying to piss him off in order for him to break his sober demeanor from time to time.

Few Netflix Roses in the Briar Patch

For some time now I've had a subscription to Netflix and for some time I've seen their selection decline in quality.  First, Crtierion Collection went to Hulu (and now it's even moved on from there).  Then all these other streaming services popped up and suddenly there were more websites willing to pay more for the rights to stream popular and decent films.  Thus, because Netflix, despite continuing to grow their profits, refuses to pay more for titles their selection has degenerated and much of their fare is small distribution company releases, IFC originals, boring cable television and Netflix originals.  However, there are occasionally a few diamonds that stand out from the rough.  Here are a few I've watched recently:

Carnage Park (2016)

This is an IFC Midnight (their horror designation) release, which basically makes it a Netflix exclusive.  It is directed by IFC/Netflix young-auteur favorite Mickey Keating.  This films starts by evoking a series of tropes from classic and contemporary horror films: Texas Chainsaw Massacre (suggesting in the beginning that it's based on a true story), Insidious, Natural Born Killers, House of 1000 Corpses, Quentin Tarantino, Saw, My Bloody Valentine, Deliverance.  Mickey Keating's previous film Darling was also a pastiche, this time in tribute to David Lynch and Roman Polanski.  This film does have an element of social commentary and there is an exploration of the dialectical contradiction between the human world and nature akin to Herman Hesse's Steppenwolf.  To further prove Keating's loyalty to horror, genre auteur/actor/director Larry Fessenden actually appears in the film.  Carnage Park is a genre fan's film and as a genre fan it was enjoyable.  It was a contemporary take on frequently explored tropes.  Above all the pastiche the sountrack, the cinematography and the editing contributed to a creepy, affective idiosyncracy that sets this film apart and solidifies Keating's status as genre auteur.

Rating: 8/10





What About Bob (1991)

Everyone who thinks What About Bob is a harmless family film, they should take another look at this Bill Murray classic from 1991.   The film is about an agoraphobic mental patient who, though this megalomaniac psychologist, is able to get the courage to become a narcissist.  He proves the success of this unique therapy by, to the painful chagrin of the psychologist, befriending and indoctrinating the psychologist's family.  Abruptly, the family takes Bob's side over their own patriarch.  Bob is inappropriately physical with his psychologist's family and even ends up even marrying his sister which causes him to have a breakdown of his own.  Perhaps Bob has transferred his demons to his psychologist.  Perhaps we are never really rid of our demons.  It is a bleak thought, but maybe, like energy, negative emotions can't really ever be created or destroyed.  Maybe they can only be transferred.

Rating: 7/10

Mascots (2016)

Mascots is a film by mockumentary auteur Christopher Guest.  It is a Netflix exclusive, but, like Bob and David, they seem to be able to get classic creators to revisit the masterpieces that made them famous.  Mascots is an ode to Guest's classics such as Waiting for Guffman and Best in Show. [**POSSIBLE SPOILER WARNING**] In fact, Corky St. Claire appears in the film. [**END POSSIBLE SPOILER WARNING**]  Many of the actors are standards in Guest's films like my favorites Parker Posey and Fred Williard.  They also interact with several newer actors such as Zach Woods from the Office and Susan Yeagley from Parks and Recreation.  A very upbeat, light, feel good film, but certainly not without its moments of absurdism.

Rating: 7/10

6 for 3 = Six Horror Films for Three Days of Halloween

Fangoria.com has this article called "31 for 31" and I guess it's a genre fan challenge.  "See if you can watch 1 horror film each day of October before Halloween" kind of thing.  Unfortunately I saw this list too late and now Halloween is fast approaching.  That is why I have made a list of suggestions I call "6 for 3" because who really wants to watch a horror film every day (as great as the genre is).  I suggest a creepy cram session right before the big day so here are my picks:

Saturday, Oct. 29th, 2016:
1. Classic Horror Film 
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
Although not the first serial killer film (Georges Méliès'  Bluebeard came out in 1901), The Cabine of Dr. Caligari can certainly be said to be the first horror film.  This film finds a mad scientist hypnotizing a sleepwalker into killing people for him.  There are no visible parallel lines in the film and the inter-titles are in a stylized font.

2. Classic 70s or 80s Halloween Favorite
Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988)
This film picks up right where the first one left off and plunges us deeper into Clive Barker's world of the Cenobites.  The film is not directed by Barker.  By this time he had grown weary of directing and wanted to limit his output mainly to writing.

Sunday, Oct. 30th, 2016: Devil's Night (see The Crow (1994))
3. Bizarre Foreign Horror Film
Dead Alive (1992)
From Peter Jackson's New Zealand heyday which also included masterpieces like Bad Taste (1987) and Meet the Feebles (1989),

4. Movie I Haven't Seen Before
Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)

Dreaded Monday, October 31st, 2016: Halloween Day
5. Disturbing Horror Film
Funhouse (1981)

6. Arthouse Horror Film
Santa Sangre (1989)

Shrieker: So Simple a Dog Can Understand

Today's first installment of the remainder of October Halloween season Halloween class horror movie reviews is the 1998 Creature Feature straight to VHS classic dun da da da! Shrieker (1998)

This film should be filed under "so bad their good" blah blah, but I don't like that.  I prefer something like "sincere flop" or "heartfelt nonsense" along with films like Troll II, Troll, and the 1990s classic, starring Friends actress Jennifer Aniston, Leprechaun.

Clocking in at an hour and 12 minutes, Shrieker is a creature feature that teases you with the monster in the first two minutes.  The denouement involves a group of stereotype college student squatters in an abandoned hospital (thanks privatized medicine).  The protagonist is a math major that pretends she's smart but isn't.  The men are clueless mansplainers always appealing to a backward sense of "reason" and "sanity."  The communist, feminist roommate is always pissed off.

The dialogue is forced, but I think that's what I like about this film.  The film says exactly what it intends to say without subtlety.  It is exactly what it is.  It is the story that it is laboriously telling.  IT'S THE SHRIEKER!

While I was watching this film I happened to glance over at our dog.  He was laying in front of the screen, his ears perked up and his eyes were locked on the television screen.  He was actually paying rapt attention to the film.  I started to understand why.  The film was so simple in its form that a canine mind could actually grasp and be entertained by it.

Rating: 6/10

Romantic Films for an iconoclastic Sweetest Day

Tomorrow is Sweetest Day, a holiday that I knew nothing about until my girlfriend who was living in Ohio informed me that people have actually been celebrating it for years in the Mid-West.  We celebrated our first Sweetest Day together over Skype.  Our relationship started long distance so we had to sync up films on our computers so that we could simulate the experience of watching a film together via Skype.  A year later we are cohabitating and she said "Yes" when I asked her to marry me.  This Sweetest Day we are spending together and we are going to watch some of our favorite romantic movies for an iconoclastic Sweetest Day.  This will be the last entry in November that I do about non-horror genre films as the rest of the month I will devote to the Halloween season.  Here is the list:

1. Harold and Maude (1971)

When we were dating long distance, over Skype, we united over this Hal Ashby film that it turned out was one of both of our favorites.  It is the story of a non-traditional romance between a death obsessed young man and an elderly woman with one foot in the grave.  The film is one of Ashby's finest (and they're almost all good) and the wonderful soundtrack from Cat Stevens doesn't hurt either.

2. Fando y Lis (1968)

After exposing my future fiance to Alejandro Jodorowsky's the Holy Mountain for the first time (without too much incident) I decided to suggest we watch another of my favorite Jodorowsky masterpieces, Fando y Lis.  With a story written by Jodorowsky's Panic Movement cohort, playwright and director Fernando Arrabal, the film is a psychedelic journey through the trials and tribulations of relationships.  Filmed in beautiful black and white with some stunning surreal mise en scene Fando y Lis still retains its status as one of my favorite films of all time.  To my surprise, she enjoyed it as well despite it's challenging pacing, disturbing themes and dense symbolism.

3. a. Before Sunrise (1995)
    b. Before Sunset (2004)
    c. Before Midnight (2013)

Having been a fan of Richard Linklater's meandering philosophical films like Slacker (1991) and Waking Life (2001) for some time, my future fiance suggested to me the Before films featuring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy and their stimulating chemistry.  The same characters appear in Waking Life so I had already been introduced to them.  Their charming philosophical ramblings provoke the viewer to look beyond the surface of reality and to explore the truth hidden beneath.  Each film is filmed almost a decade after the other and we see the characters age and their relationship seems also to age like a vintage wine.  I understand the actors were so taken by the chemistry between the characters and the philosophical issues they discussed that they helped Linkater write the second and third films.  They were nominated for an Oscar for Before Midnight.

Young Adult Novel Adaptations: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

Saw this with my daughter and fiance recently at the request of my daughter.  She had read the book and enjoyed it so was interested in seeing the adaptation.  Despite some minor variations, the film stayed mostly with the plot of the book apparently.  Having not read the book, I cannot comment on these differences at this time.

What I can comment on is the apparent phenomenon of adaptations of young adult fiction novels into films.  A string of formulaic, dystopian type thrillers came on the heels of The Hunger Games (2012).

The Hunger Games actually does have a redeeming message about class, although by the end it reveals itself to be ever so slightly a reactionary message.  The Giver (2014), however, an apparent Hunger Games clone, has an entirely Ayn Randian objectivist message that I don't recall getting from the book when I read it as a teen.

I do remember it being influential on my thinking as an angsty youth who suffered as an individualist beneath the wheel of conformism.  I calk it up to youth.  Seeing the adaptation of the Giver years later revealed it to me to be a profoundly reactionary, right-wing message.  A utopian society where there are no poor, no wars and not crime but there is also not individualism sounds a lot like Cold War anti-Communism in the context of a few years of radical thinking and praxis.

This brings me to Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016) directed by over-rated "auteur" Tim Burton.  First, the plot has the unfortunate odor of blockbuster super-hero type films that have flooded theaters with mediocrity lately.  The message appears to be that "peculiar" is "special" and that "special" means that you have super-powers to do things that are what Hume would define as miracles: "a violation of the laws of nature." This is maybe a liberal attempt at teaching that people with disabilities are valuable to society, but fails to convey this message as all the "peculiarities" of the children are supernatural things that are in fact very useful in a number different context.  Rather than disabilities they are super-abilities.

Tim Burton follows a string of shitty films including the bastardized remake of Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory (1971), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), the incredibly boring Corpse Bride (2005) and the profoundly awful Alice in Wonderland (2010).

Some of Burton's early films including Edward Scissorhands (1990), Ed Wood (1994), Beetlejuice (1988) and Mars Attacks (1996) were rather inspired.  However, at this point Tim Burton's aesthetic is tired and run down and his films are commercial, CGI-infused visual spectacles that attempt to make up for lack of good story telling by offering a lot of flashing lights on screen.

Miss Peregrine kept my attention and did have some interesting moments and ideas, but it suffered from the society of the spectacle pathology of CGI obsession and constant action rather than character development and commentary.

Rating: 6/10

Goofy horror cinema star Justin Long

I first came across Justin Long as Warren Cheswick in the short lived, early 2000s TV show Ed.  Warren Cheswick, Ed's assistant at the bowling alley, was the epitome of the boyish man-child character that would define Long's career.

Unbeknownst to me as a youth in the 2001, Long had already starred in Jeepers Creepers and Jeepers Creepers II by the time the episodes of Ed with the Warren Cheswick character hit the airwaves.  Long's juvenile-looking face and goofy mannerisms made him perfect for the Warren Cheswick role, but how could this character actor do as the lead in a horror film?

I recently re-watched Victor Salva's Jeepers Creepers (2001) and Sam Raimi's Drag Me to Hell (2009), both starring Justin Long.

It has been a long while since I had seen Jeepers Creepers and I honestly didn't remember a lot about it.  It surprised me at how well it held my attention.  It is an entertaining adventure-type horror film with comedic and over-the-top elements.  In fact, both films in this post can be considered that type of film.  Perhaps that is why Long does so well as the lead in both.  His boyish goofiness is probably what caused Salva to cast him.

Jeepers Creepers follows brother and sister, Darry and Trish, as they attempt to go visit their parents, but are stalked by some kind of demonic monster on the way.  Rather than a horror-comedy, I would describe it more as a film that has moments where chuckles are appropriate, yet still retains its dark, creepy ambiance.  The only negative thing I would say about it is that the end does drag on a bit and the monster is shown way too much for the film to retain the uncanny suspense built around the monster in the beginning.

Rating: 7/10

The other film is drag me to hell and Long is actually a supporting actor to Alison Lohman's excellent lead performance as a savvy yet innocent professional woman who is cursed by an apparenetly Roma witch.  The film examines many elements of occult magic including Jungian psychoanalysis, Voodoo trance states, Santeria seance rituals and tarot reading.  It is also perhaps an homage to the classic horror films of the 1970s and 80s.  Thus, the over-the-top elements in the film (*possible spoiler* one scene in particular that takes place at a wake is not exactly gory, but is quite disgusting and disturbing *possible spoiler*) look to be a recycling of classic horror tropes that probably terrified audiences in the heyday of 70s and 80s gorefest, but come across as more comedic to audiences in the early 21st century.

Again, this is another of those adventure type horror films like From Dusk Till Dawn or El Dia De Bestia.  Definitely worth a watch if you're down for some light entertainment, but don't expect any kind of profound analysis of the relevance of pagan occultism in an increasingly modernized society or a lament about the struggle of the Roma diaspora.

Rating: 7/10

Don't Breathe - When Men Try Too Hard to Make Feminist Films

I recently saw Don't Breathe (2016) and immediately had some opinions on it.  The writers/directors are Fede Alvarez and Rodo Sayagues, the men behind the bastardized Evil Dead remake.  Don't Breate came off as a film directed by men that tried too hard to be a feminist film.  Instead of an emancipatory message for women who resist patriarchy, the heroine is met by disappointment, especially when men whose characters are straight from the "damsel in distress" genre of medieval legends.  She cannot count on men to save her, however, so it is up to her to discover her own method of escape, but in the end her oppressor and captor gets away because of a patriarchal, and preferential to military veterans, justice system.

I do, of course, get the irony of me, a man, criticizing a film made by men for not being feminist enough.  However, truly feminist cinema, as I have written about before, is that which is written from the female gaze and offers a genuine critique of patriarchy that offers a method for liberation.  Basically, Don't Breathe tries too hard and fails at being a feminist film.

Deadly Blessing (1981)

The tension in this film centers around the dialectical contradiction between traditional ways of life and the idea of so-called modernity or even post-modernity.  It takes place in an area owned and worked by the Hittites, a fictitious religious Utopian community named after a Bronze Age Anatolian people.  The Hittites are based on the Amish.  According to Deadly Blessing, directed by prolific genre director Wes Craven, beneath the surface of these seemingly peaceful and harmonious communities is a profound authoritarianism and a fire-and-brimstone type demonology.  Ernest Borgnine is classic as the antagonist in the film recalling his role in The Devil's Rain (1975) opposite Tom Skerritt.

Here is the trailer:

Here is the trailer for the Devil's Rain:

This view of Utopian Christian communities is somewhat negated by the documentary The Devil's Playground (2002).  It depicts teens and young adults at a particular Amish community on their Rumspringa.  The Rumspringa is the time in an Amish youth's life where they are tasked with discovering the outside world and deciding whether or not they want to rejoin and Amish community and become baptized, official members of the Amish church.  Many of these youths behave as somewhat typical adolescants in ways, getting into drugs, technology, video games, sex, dancing etc.  Definitely worth a watch.

Watch the first part of it here:

Fantásticos Musicales

Fantastica (1980) is a somewhat surreal, somewhat comical, absurdist French drama with an environmentalist message.  It contains number musical numbers so if films like Tommy (1975),

The Happiness of the Katakuris (2001)

or Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978)

are your thing, this film might be for you.  However, my favorite absurdist musical is the Beatles' Magical Myster Tour (1967).

Check out a clip from Fantastica:


And here is a trailer for Magical Mystery Tour:

And another scene from Fantastico:

Exorcism and Demon Possession Movies Worth Watching

1. The Exorcist (1973)

Well, everybody knows the first film on this list.  It started the phenomenon of Catholic exorcism films.  Dealing with issues of faith, guilt, childhood innocence, demonology, this is probably a more Catholic film than Kevin Smith's Dogma.

Here's what director William Friedkin said to say about the Catholicism he promoted in his film to Time Out London's Tom Huddleson:

Do you believe that the film was, in part, responsible for the resurgence of Christianity in the US?
‘I know it was. I can give you specific incidents. I remember meeting James Cagney when we were both on a TV show. He said to me, “I’ve got a bone to pick with you, young man! For 35 years I had the same barber. He’s the greatest barber I’ve ever had. He saw your movie and he stopped being a barber, he entered the priesthood!”.’
So even as an agnostic, you’re okay with the idea of promoting religion?
‘Even those of us who call ourselves atheists, or think that the whole thing is rubbish, are curious about the mystery of faith. Is there anything to this stuff? “The Exorcist” offers one possible position. While I’m not Catholic, I’m overwhelmed by the idea that a 32-year-old man in a very small part of the world, who never left one word written in his own hand, has affected the lives of trillions of people. I look at the Catholic Church and I see these guys in these far-out costumes with all this gold, and I wonder what it has to do with this young man who went among the people, wore a simple robe and sandals, and healed the sick. But I also wonder how millions of people were willing to give their lives for their belief. And because I wonder, I’m curious about something like “The Exorcist”, which attributes that power to a true belief.’

2. The Last Exorcism (2010)

This is an unsettling and creepy bit of cinema done in the found footage style.  The premise is that it's a reality show.  The film is oddly enough rated PG-13.  This is probably due to the fact that there is not really any real gore or indecency.  Actually, the creepy atmosphere results from the things left unsaid, but effectively suggested.  Altogether a sufficiently interesting and attention holding piece that warrants a second watch.

3. Angel Heart (1987)

This film is a bit of a deviation overall from the list, but there is that scene when Lisa Bonet kills that chicken really erotically when she's possessed by the voodoo spirit.  DeNiro plays the devil and Micky Rourke before his face got all fucked up from Boxing and he had to have plastic surgery plays the Private Investigator in this Neo-Noir a la Polanski's Chinatown or Scott's Bladerunner.  DeNiro peels a boiled egg really creepily.

4. The Possession (1981)

An enigmatic film about a man who suspects his wife of infidelity, but finds the reality to be much more sinister.  This film is a puzzle that reveals itself at an excruciatingly suspenseful pace.

5. The Possession (2012)

This film takes a Jewish perspective on exorcism.  A man's daughter finds a puzzlebox, which as anybody who's seen Hellraiser knows, is never a good thing.  The dad, who is estranged from the mother, seeks help of a rogue rabbi to exorcise the demon.

6. Drag Me To Hell (2009)

This is really a pretty silly film, but still it holds your attention and is actually kind of a fun romp.  It kind of reminds me of El Día de la Bestia in that way.  It is a possession story that draws on Romani lore.

Marble Hornets: The Potential of Social Media Cinema

This was the second time I've watched the Marble Hornets series of videos on You Tube.  Initially I was perhaps weirdly intrigued by the murder that happened involving pre-teens around Slenderman.  Slenderman is a fictional character created by Eric Knudsen for the Web community Something Awful.

Anissa Weier and Morgan Geyser, both twelve year olds, got it in their heads that it would be a good idea to murder their classmate in the name of Slenderman.

However, Slenderman does to bear some power over the Slenderman form.  His form can be seen in malls as faceless mannequins with fingerless hands.

Marble Hornets is the original Slenderman Youtube videos.  The videos are actually quite riveting and certainly stand out in an oversaturated sea of "found footage" sub-genre films that is YouTube.

Initially, the contrast in sound immediately jolts you into a state of defensiveness.

The Delusional Delirium of Coffin Joe aka Jose Mojica

The Coffin Joe Trilogy:
- At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul (1964)
Full film with English subtitles:

- This Night I'll Posses Your Corpose (1967)
Full film with English subtitles:

- Embodiment of Evil (2008)
Full film with Italian subtitles:
- The Hallucinations of a Deranged Mind (1978) takes you into a surreal hellscape from which Coffin Joe's victim is unable to escape.  The film maker, Mojica himself, is summoned by the victim's psychiatric team to assist with his rehabilitation.  However, Mojica has his own motivation for curiosity in this case.  It's probably pretty arrogant to suggest that a character that one has created has the power to cause a nervous breakdown in a psychologist, but I'm fine with that.
Watch the full film here:

And here is a playlist of Coffin Joe films:

Everything is Terrible

Besides Breaking Bad the other world I've been getting lost in a lot lately is Everything is Terrible.

Everything is Terrible is filed as a director on IMDb, but it is a video project that finds the corniest, most awkward, most surreal VHS tapes, infomercials, community access television and religious programming from the 80s and 90s.  They have compiled the weirdest moments from many of these videos into a few mashup style films such as Everything Is Terrible: The Movie (2009): 

and 2 Everything 2 Terrible II Tokyo Drift (2010).

On their YouTube page you can watch all their crazy found footage including this gem:


Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim have said that bad television was an influence on Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job!  Here they are on an interview with Marc Maron his podcast WTF.


Here's Tim and Eric's recent video on diarrhea. 

Here's a bonus video (not by EIT) on weird community access shows: 

Breaking Bad

Sorry I haven't written in a while.  I have to say, I have been not necessarily into my usual genre fare.  What I've been binge watching lately is Breaking Bad.  I must admit, I have formerly talked a little trash about Breaking Bad and other contemporary TV dramas.

Easter eggs in breaking bad:

In season 2 episode 4 Jesse calls Mr. White "Hal" the name of Bryan Cranston's character on Malcolm in the Middle.

Bob Odenkirk's character, Saul Goodman the lawyer, changed his name so it sounds like "It's all good man."

Walter White's shirt colors change with the phases of his life and his general moods.  He goes from green to maroon to pink to blue

Jonathan Banks who plays Mike Ehrmantraut is a character actor that's been in Linda's Film on Menstration The girl in the empty grave
and others.

Feliz Cinco De Mayo: Viva Zapata!

Cinco de Mayo has become, in America, an excuse for white people to get drunk on tequila and dress up in racist stereotype costumes like sombreros and big mustaches.  Of course, Cinco de Mayo is an actual holiday in Mexico, it is their independence day.  Unlike American independence day, which celebrates one wealthy, elite class winning over another, Cinco de Mayo is a celebration of anti-colonialist struggle against Spanish colonialists that inspired later national liberation struggles.

That is why it's incredibly ironic that John McCain said it was his favorite movie as he fought against and was captured by a national liberation army, much like Zapata's revolutionary army, in Vietnam.  According to McCain:

"Viva Zapata." It's a movie made by Elia Kazan. It was one of the trilogy of "A Streetcar Named Desire," and "On the Waterfront" and "Viva Zapata." Marlon Brando stars in it. He plays Zapata. It's a heroic tale of a person who sacrificed everything for what he believed in and there's some of the most moving scenes in that movie that I've ever seen. And one of them is he gets married. The night of his wedding night he gets up, and he and Jean Peters are in their hotel room, this little room, and she says "what's the matter?" And he says, "I gotta go to Mexico City tomorrow. I've gotta be with Poncho Villa and Modero and these people." He says "I can't read." And she reaches over and takes the bible from the table and opens it up and starts, "In the beginning." It's a great scene. It's great and there's many others that are wonderful too, especially when he dies - when he gives everything for his country and what he believes in.

Source CBS News

Zapata is also the namesake of the militant-indigenous-anarchist group the Zapatistas.

Here's the full film:

Last Year at Marienbad (1961)

My girlfriend recommended this one to me. Its director, Alain Resnais is known for Hiroshima, Mon Amour, and equally surreal and lyrical film.  As soon as I began watching Last Year at Marienbad I was surprised I had never explored Resnais' filmography any further.  It immediately reminded me of the experimental cinema of Maya Deren and early Luis Buñuel.

The disembodied narrator's constant voice-over is consistent with Resnais' style in Hiroshima, Mon Amour.  Additionally the disjointed love story and dark themes the film plays on are also similar to Hiroshima, Mon Amour.  Still, Last Year at Marienbad betrays some delightful eccentricities  that make it equally as brilliant.

The motion of the camera gives the film a hallucinatory, dream-like appearance.  One shot is filmed through a mirror with an ornate frame, further disorienting the viewer and separating the film from realism.

The whirling organ soundtrack contributes a creepiness that makes it all the more unsettling.Perhaps not intentional, but the version that I saw had an illusion of the camera moving slightly side to side during the more stationary shots.  It was probably a glitch in the transfer, but still, it added to the hallucinatory feel of the whole experience.

The themes of apparent secrecy and decadence of the setting remind me of the 70s art-porn film Behind the Green Door (1972), Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut (1999) and the party/dream sequences in the "A, B and C" episode of Patrick McGoohan's television series the Prisoner.  It looks as though this film may have had more wide ranging influence on later film makers than I had previously known about.

Trailer:

Bonnie and Clyde (1967): Counter-culture Cooptation

Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde was one of the first films to break the production code era's taboo on gore and graphic violence.  Of course, Bonnie and Clyde is more than just bloody bullet holes.  It is actually a somewhat subversive film that follows a dust bowl Robin Hood and Maid Marian while they recruit disciples and stuff their pockets all while taking care not to exploit the impoverished.

The film takes place during the depression and FDR campaign posters are prominently displayed throughout the film.  Beatty's Clyde Barrow is morally opposed to taking money from the poor, but morally inclined to take money from the banks.  From the scene where he allows the sharecroppers' whose home was foreclosed by the bank to shoot up the place, Beatty's Clyde proves himself a 20th century Robin Hood.  Of course, historical proof probably is inclined otherwise.



Penn's Bonnie and Clyde are not meant to be historically accurate portrayals, though.  The film was released in 1967 at the heart of the so-called "Summer of Love," when the American counter-culture was possibly at its most strong.  Additionally, Hollywood was suffering a lull.  The supposedly depression-proof industry was suffering because they had failed to produce many memorable films during the production era (other than a handful of film Noir classics).

The ending scene of Bonnie and Clyde is considered a classic and I will spoil it for you: they get filled with bright red bullet holes.  Even after reading these spoilers, the film is worth watching.  It was the harbinger of a renaissance in cinema.  Soon after Roger Corman, Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper as well as Robert Downey's crew had shot some brilliant films inspired by the indulgences explored by Beatty's Bonnie and Clyde.  Bless Beatty and Penn!

Trailer:


Update - According to IMDb:

To avoid censorship problems, Warren Beatty held off sending a script to the Production Code Administration (PCA), the industry's self-censorship organization, until just before shooting began. Even so, PCA head Geoffrey Shurlock fought, unsuccessfully, to remove the intimation that Bonnie was nude in the first scene, the suggestion of oral sex in one bedroom scene and the scene in which a bank teller is shot in the face when he jumps on the getaway car's running board. Later Beatty had another fight to convince the head of the National Catholic Office of Motion Pictures (the successor to the Legion of Decency) that Faye Dunaway was properly covered when she runs downstairs to meet Beatty in the film's first scene. The official kept insisting that he could see her breasts.

The Uncanny Valley: The Secrets of the Living Dolls and Shaye Saint John

Secrets of the Living Dolls is a BBC documentary about straight men who dress and wear plastic, prosthetic skin the makes them look like women, or at least facsimiles of women.  Often they are interested in the phenomenon known as "female masking" because they are unsuccessful with women and they enjoy becoming the kinds of women they would like to meet or be with.  To many they look strange and even scary, but to them they look great.  There is a whole community around this sub-culture and a part of the film focuses on a meetup of female maskers in Minneapolis, MN.

Trailer can be viewed here:


Full episode can be viewed here.



Of course, if you think that's weird, imagine female masking on acid, and crystal meth... and PCP.  Shaye Saint John was the character invented by artist Eric Fournier.



Here is a documentary about the Shaye Saint John story:


The back story was that Shaye was a model that was in a terrible accident and got reconstructive surgery, but got maybe a little too much.  Ever the diva, Shaye continued her public life by making hallucinatory videos known as triggers.  Basically, Shaye's triggers are living doll bad trips.

A playlist of Shaye's best films are included below:


Shaye's official, posthumous channel can be subscribed to here.

Why is this all so freaky though?  It's noting you can necessarily put your finger on that ostensibly scares the viewer.  There is no violence or rape or torture.  It's actually pretty harmless on the surface.

It has something to do with the Uncanny Valley.  The uncanny valley is a hypothesis developed by robotics scientist Masahiro Mori in 1970.  According to Wikipedia:

Mori's original hypothesis states that as the appearance of a robot is made more human, some observers' emotional response to the robot will become increasingly positive and empathic, until a point is reached beyond which the response quickly becomes that of strong revulsion. However, as the robot's appearance continues to become less distinguishable from that of a human being, the emotional response becomes positive once again and approaches human-to-human empathy levels.^[9]

This area of repulsive response aroused by a robot with appearance and motion between a "barely human" and "fully human" entity is called the uncanny valley. The name captures the idea that an almost human-looking robot will seem overly "strange" to some human beings, will produce a feeling of uncanniness, and will thus fail to evoke the empathic response required for productive human-robot interaction.<sup>[9]

That is also probably why I Feel Fantastic fascinates so many viewers.</sup>