Just Watch.

Weird Movies: The Elephant Man

David Lynch, 1980.

So I promise that if there's another one of these posts, it wont be on another Lynch film. At least not straightaway.

Anyway, it's often said that you win Oscars for either a) putting on weight or b) the liberal use of prosthetics. This movie suggests the former is better than the latter, since John Hurt lost out for this one to a bloated Bobby DeNiro in Raging Bull.

I haven't seen Raging Bull (I know, it's kind of a long list) but I should just put it out there that I love John Hurt more than words (there could seriously be a whole post about it) and think he does a fucking amazing job here.

This movie is also a case study for the hindrances of prosthetics; the ones on John Hurt are so extensive they could have ruined the performance.  But not my boy Johnny; you can't keep a good man down, even if you cover him in latex. All he can use are his eyes and his voice, but boy does he ever make them work for him. He has this way of looking into middle distance that absolutely slays you, and his cadences of eternal hopefulness are pretty gutwrenching too.

Anthony Hopkins is also wonderful. He has a softspoken gentleness about him, a quality you almost entirely forget when you think about Hannibal Lecter, and it works perfectly here. The look on his tear-stained face after he's seen Merrick for the first time is just spot-on.

Weird Movies: Eraserhead

OK, so I know some people really hate David Lynch movies because they're weird and don't make any sense. Which is a fair point, but one to which I say: there is logical, plot sense and then there is emotional sense, and while they may be short on the former, Lynch's movies tend to have a whole lot of the latter.

Let's take the dinner eating scene, with that awful chicken, as a case in point. You want to know what that scene is "about?" You know when you go over to a friend's house for dinner (multiply times a million if this is a person you're dating,) and you're nervous to begin with and then the food is, not bad exactly, but just kind of weird and markedly different from the food you eat at your house and it makes you feel even more awkward, having to push around those awful little nugget potatoes and pretend it's exactly what you want to eat and oh my God why are they that color orange? And then you go to get some mustard or something and then the mother says oh no that's not how we use the mustard in this house and then you're all jumpy and upset and have to pretend like your instinct is not to do something else with the mustard? And why is there something special you're supposed to do with the mustard anyway? That's really fucking weird, isn't it?

That's what that scene is about. And I defy you to say you have not had that exact experience at some point in your life. And that kind of shit, that kind of drop-dead emotional, accuracy, that pointillism of neuroses, is why I love David Lynch.

Talking about hyperemotional accuracy, it's a very Lynchian thing to tap into our feelings about life by going over the top. That's why I think this movie says more, better about being young and poor in an American city than any social realist documentary could ever hope to.

He also manages to say so much about our yearning for human connection, however bizarre the circumstances. That final scene of Jack Nance embracing the lady in the radiator is so touching and real, because you can feel the crazy intensity of the longing.

The Old Dead Bastard Film Festival: L'Avventura

I went into this one expecting the cinematic equivalent of cod liver oil, an experience to be endured rather than enjoyed.

But I should know myself better. This happens all the time: I go into one of these vaguely New Wave movies expecting a willfully obscure nightmare, and then I end up loving it. L'Avventura may very well end up being one of my all-time faves. 

This is a movie about surfaces, our obsession with them and the way we play with them. This is elegantly reflected in the film's striking, modernist look: the shallow depth of frame and the abstract angles heighten the feelings of tense, desperate flatness.

According to Zizek, there's such a thing as a cinematic "big Other:" someone who fulfills the necessary, but seemingly accidental, function of maintaining the status quo. He uses the nun at the end of Vertigo as a typical example: if she doesn't show up, startling Kim Novak and causing her to fall to her death, then Jimmy Stewart has to be reconciled to his relationship with this real live, complicated woman. And that's a potentially revolutionary possibility -- one that's got to be nipped in the bud. Enter the nun, or the 'big Other."

Scary/Funny Part Two: An American Werewolf in London

So I have no idea why this is one of the 1001 movies you must see before you die. You have my permission to skip it, if you like; I'll write you a pass.

It's not that I don't like it, it's just not at all a "must" sort of movie. It is, in fact, the sort of movie that used to be part of Comedy Central's film rotation, which is about as far away from "must" as you can get. In other words, it's a particularly clever, well-crafted bit of fluff.

The comedy comes from the juxtaposition of the otherworldly and the mundane: Average young dude becomes werewolf. In the process, dude discovers that being a werewolf is a) a huge pain in the ass, and b) often really boring. 

My favorite part is when our hero is whiling away the day of the full moon, waiting for nightfall to see what, if anything, is going to happen to him. It's a kicky little montage of him doing dull, time-killing activities, but it's the context (and "Bad Moon Rising" on the soundtrack) that makes it sing.

Scary/Funny, Part One: The Evil Dead

Sam Raimi, 1981

This one's selling point -- considered a great novelty -- is that it's a scary movie that's also funny. The shall-remain-nameless franchise that wouldn't die has given that concept a bad name. But really, it's a marriage that was long overdue by the time Raimi & Co. got their hands on it; one that makes perfect sense. 

Think about it: When a horror movie is too over the top and schlocky, what do you do during the "scariest" moments? You laugh your ass off. (Thanks for the sweet, sweet memories, Friday the 13th, Part 3.) The line between the horrifying and the grotesque -- well, is it even a line, really? From there it's just a stone's throw to the humorous. And remember that horror films are often heavy on gore -- and gore, like all things revolting, can be pretty damn hilarious. Even when it's done very well.

You can't claim that a movie where a woman gets raped by the woods doesn't have a good grip on the macabre/creepy/funny corollary. That scene is incredible; it's basically western society's whole Little Red Riding Hood thing carried out to a gonzo conclusion. It makes you squirm, because watching it you feel that you definitely shouldn't be laughing, even though you desperately want to.

Floating Weeds

Yasujiro Ozu, 1959

So I saw this movie a while ago, but was hesitant to write about it, because I was afraid of seeming racist.

As a director, Ozu has two stylistic trademarks. The first is that he uses no camera movement. OK, there's one tracking shot at the beginning of this film, but other than that, nada. The second is the lower height of the camera relative to the figures -- as if the camera is placed low on a tatami mat.

The effects of these techniques are subtle but profound.  The stillness creates a kind of poetic, philosophical tranquility.  The lower camera brings us in closer to the characters, yet still keeps us distant. The camera doesn't move, but the shots take us statically, graphically, though the elegantly divided space of the frame.