Sunday, December 05, 2004
Local Cinema: Evil Dead II and Carol's Journey...
One nice thing about the area has been a seeming upsurge in local movie showings of late, or at least me being aware that they exist. :) As always, many thanks to Marty for getting me the info.
First up was seeing Evil Dead II for the second time. I'd first seen it a good while back, after having first seen Evil Dead. While I'm sure that I mostly enjoyed it, I was also confused during a large part of the beginning. I hadn't realized about this being more of a remake than a sequel, so there was a lot of "Why doesn't he know about the book?!" at first. Things went a lot more smoothly this time, and I could just concentrate on the ensuing comedy and mayhem. If you've never seen any of these movies, the first one is mostly a normal budget horror movie. Scares, some titilation, etc. Of course made a name for itself for being over the top (the infamous hentai-ish evil tree), but still played it relatively straight.
Evil Dead II, however, throws this out the window. There's still a lot of gore, but titilation is thrown out in favor of humor. Also, the gore is now just so over the top and unrealistic that it is intensionally laughable most of the time. Even the more uptight people in the audience who would never have been caught dead renting something like this on their own were laughing in spite of themselves a lot of the time. Not only the humor is great, but the real sense of energy. There's no way you can mistake this for some stodgy Hollywood by-the-numbers picture.
And something Marty mentioned during the showing was that while Bruce Campbell's acting is obviously totally over the top, that there is sincerity to it. This is something I have to agree with. It is hard to explain, but is almost like the "iconic" concept that Scott McCloud talks about for comics, that of a simplified design getting to the heart of something. Bruce's performance in the movie is not subtle by any stretch, but it also manages to rise above simple bad acting. He just puts so much into the role that it makes you get into the performance as well. There's also great physical performance by him, and some interesting set design (the bridge!) and overall comedic timing. In some ways, this is almost like an old silent movie taken into modern times. This may be something to check out, even if you're not usually into horror or cult classic film. Did I mention that Ash is pretty much a superhero by the end of the movie? Of course that gets continued in Army of Darkness...
One last note, with all the talk of decompression in comics, this movie is actually compressed, like the original spider-man issue. What happens in less than five minutes in this movie would take something like a half hour or maybe even half the runtime in another movie. You certainly won't have a chance to get bored..heh
Now, that happened in the back of a Goodwill shop near my house in Springfield, run by the people attempted to rennovate an old theater on my street (the Bing). At that showing would be a member of the Central Library, who it would turn out is also showing movies lately. Aparantly a company called Film Movement is releasing DVDs of award-winning indie and foreign films, as well as getting them into libraries.
So, today's showing was of a DVD containing a movie from Spain called Carol's Journey, as well as a short film (each of their DVDs contains a short). I'm sorry to say that the short was pretty disappointing, a semi-animated talk about a girl who waits at the window of a tower each day for a by-plane pilot to fly by. It was 3D with live-action actors. I'm sure the creator was wanting the 3d to seem stylistic, but it came off more as out-dated instead. That with the very simplistic plot and shiny people made it come off more like something from the 80s. The general effect on the audience was more laughable than heartwarming...
Luckily, the main feature was much better. Carol's Journey involves a 12-year-old Spanish-American girl from New York, who moves to her Mother's village in Spain during Spain's Civil War. This is a relatively standard tale of growing up, first love, etc, but it is well done, especially the child actors. Carol is innocent, but also a pretty tough tomboy and the boy Tomiche she meets has a vunerability to expressions. I have to say that it had a lot of the same feel as the Ghibli movies to me, like Whispers of the Heart or Laputa. The strong child characters who mix innocence and enthusiasm with a strone sense of personal morality and strength, with the real world trying to drag them down. It was a nice way to spend two hours...
First up was seeing Evil Dead II for the second time. I'd first seen it a good while back, after having first seen Evil Dead. While I'm sure that I mostly enjoyed it, I was also confused during a large part of the beginning. I hadn't realized about this being more of a remake than a sequel, so there was a lot of "Why doesn't he know about the book?!" at first. Things went a lot more smoothly this time, and I could just concentrate on the ensuing comedy and mayhem. If you've never seen any of these movies, the first one is mostly a normal budget horror movie. Scares, some titilation, etc. Of course made a name for itself for being over the top (the infamous hentai-ish evil tree), but still played it relatively straight.
Evil Dead II, however, throws this out the window. There's still a lot of gore, but titilation is thrown out in favor of humor. Also, the gore is now just so over the top and unrealistic that it is intensionally laughable most of the time. Even the more uptight people in the audience who would never have been caught dead renting something like this on their own were laughing in spite of themselves a lot of the time. Not only the humor is great, but the real sense of energy. There's no way you can mistake this for some stodgy Hollywood by-the-numbers picture.
And something Marty mentioned during the showing was that while Bruce Campbell's acting is obviously totally over the top, that there is sincerity to it. This is something I have to agree with. It is hard to explain, but is almost like the "iconic" concept that Scott McCloud talks about for comics, that of a simplified design getting to the heart of something. Bruce's performance in the movie is not subtle by any stretch, but it also manages to rise above simple bad acting. He just puts so much into the role that it makes you get into the performance as well. There's also great physical performance by him, and some interesting set design (the bridge!) and overall comedic timing. In some ways, this is almost like an old silent movie taken into modern times. This may be something to check out, even if you're not usually into horror or cult classic film. Did I mention that Ash is pretty much a superhero by the end of the movie? Of course that gets continued in Army of Darkness...
One last note, with all the talk of decompression in comics, this movie is actually compressed, like the original spider-man issue. What happens in less than five minutes in this movie would take something like a half hour or maybe even half the runtime in another movie. You certainly won't have a chance to get bored..heh
Now, that happened in the back of a Goodwill shop near my house in Springfield, run by the people attempted to rennovate an old theater on my street (the Bing). At that showing would be a member of the Central Library, who it would turn out is also showing movies lately. Aparantly a company called Film Movement is releasing DVDs of award-winning indie and foreign films, as well as getting them into libraries.
So, today's showing was of a DVD containing a movie from Spain called Carol's Journey, as well as a short film (each of their DVDs contains a short). I'm sorry to say that the short was pretty disappointing, a semi-animated talk about a girl who waits at the window of a tower each day for a by-plane pilot to fly by. It was 3D with live-action actors. I'm sure the creator was wanting the 3d to seem stylistic, but it came off more as out-dated instead. That with the very simplistic plot and shiny people made it come off more like something from the 80s. The general effect on the audience was more laughable than heartwarming...
Luckily, the main feature was much better. Carol's Journey involves a 12-year-old Spanish-American girl from New York, who moves to her Mother's village in Spain during Spain's Civil War. This is a relatively standard tale of growing up, first love, etc, but it is well done, especially the child actors. Carol is innocent, but also a pretty tough tomboy and the boy Tomiche she meets has a vunerability to expressions. I have to say that it had a lot of the same feel as the Ghibli movies to me, like Whispers of the Heart or Laputa. The strong child characters who mix innocence and enthusiasm with a strone sense of personal morality and strength, with the real world trying to drag them down. It was a nice way to spend two hours...
