The Brown Bunny

Dir: Vincent Gallo

2003

**

I absolutely adored Buffalo 66 when it came out and I suddenly found myself watching and listening to anything and everything that Vincent Gallo was attached to. His music is amazing, I still listen to it quite regularly, but I think he might just have reached his peak with Buffalo 66. I read the same stories about how mean he was to co-star Christina Ricci, how he had shouted at her and said if she couldn’t get her lines right he would replace her with a fat truck driver in a blond wig etc, and I still loved him and his work. The he made The Brown Bunny and I started to go off him. Years later, he listed his own sperm to his website’s online shop – One million dollars for a jar or free if you want him to insert it himself. I no longer make much of an effort to see what he’s working on next, but I digress, The Brown Bunny was hotly anticipated by me and a legion of fans and it came as a bitter disappointment. I think his ego finally got the better of him, the direction and story are great, I even liked the predictable ending, it just didn’t quite click for me. It’s filmed in 16mm which was then blown up to 35mm which is very effective and suits Gallos style. There is of course ‘that’ scene which has caused much debate. Credit it for Gallo for writing, directing, acting, producing and editing it all by himself though. It’s quite a simple premise; Bud, a motorcycle racer, drives across the country from one race to another, starting in New Hampshire and ending in California. He stops off in various towns and cities, including Massachusetts, Ohio, Missouri, Utah and Nevada, and meets several ladies along the way. He meets a girl at a gas station and asks her to join him but speeds off when she goes home to collect some clothes for the trip. He comforts a distressed woman he meets and kisses her passionate before running away again. He cruises the red light district of Las Vegas for prostitutes and picks one up, only to take her for a meal in McDonalds, rather than back to his hotel room for sex. He also goes into a pet shop to ask the owner what the life expectancy of rabbits is, which I still don’t understand the relevance of. He becomes more and more distressed throughout the film, clearly unable to progress with romantic or physical relationships following a break up with his previous girlfriend Daisy. He visits Daisy’s mother but she doesn’t remember him. He steals her stuffed brown bunny from her bedroom, giving the film its title. Daisy (played by Chole Sevigny) eventually turns up smoking crack at his California hotel room. They argue, she gives him fellatio and the truth behind Bud’s mental torture is revealed. It’s a great conclusion, very clever but a little predictable. However, it is ruined by the aforementioned fellatio scene. It’s no wonder both Kirsten Dunst and Winona Ryder left the project, one can only wonder whether it was this particular scene that saw them off. Sevigny pretended that Gallo’s appendage in the film was a prop but no one really believed her. Later she admitted that the scene was tough but Gallo was sensitive, gentle and the pair had been intimate in the past anyway. Her casting agent dropped her like a ton of bricks but she was back on her feet in no time and it doesn’t seem to have damaged her career. New York reviewer Manohla Dargis said: “… it's genuinely startling to see a name actress throw caution and perhaps her career to the wind. But give the woman credit. Actresses have been asked and even bullied into performing similar acts for filmmakers since the movies began, usually behind closed doors. Ms. Sevigny isn't hiding behind anyone's desk. She says her lines with feeling and puts her iconoclasm right out there where everyone can see it; she may be nuts, but she's also unforgettable”. I couldn’t disagree more. I would have way more respect for her if she had kicked Gallo in his manhood at the very suggestion, rather than to suck it for the sake of art. The actors have history, I get that, but she was clearly suckered in by his manipulative nature, as have many. The film is nothing more than an ego-trip, a self-indulgent load of nonsense, pretentious is an overused and often misunderstood description but I think it’s rather suitable in the case of Brown Bunny. Roger Ebert and Gallo had quite a public spat about the film, Ebert suggesting the original cut was the worst thing to have been shown at Cannes. Gallo retorting by calling Ebert a "fat pig with the physique of a slave trader.” Ebert responded with, "It is true that I am fat, but one day I will be thin, and he will still be the director of The Brown Bunny." Gallo then claimed to have put a hex on Ebert's colon, cursing the critic with cancer. In response, Ebert quipped that watching a video of his colonoscopy had been more entertaining than watching The Brown Bunny. Fairly nasty stuff really, the product of a worthless film in my opinion. The later cut of the film fared better than the original but it still contained ‘that’ scene. It’s a shame really, as there is some beauty within the film – the performances are strong, it looks awesome and it has a strong sense of Americana about it but I think Gallo’s ego ruins it. I worry about the sort of person who would gladly perform a ‘downstairs act’ on another person on camera but I worry more about the guy who asks them to and wants people to watch it happen. I’m no prude but I found the film to be too grubby to love.

Ma Mère

Dir: Christophe Honoré

2005

*

French Existentialism. I seriously hate it. Based it on the controversial and posthumous 1966 novel of the same name by French author Georges Bataille, Ma Mère is not as clever or as artistic as it thinks it is. Georges Bataille's grubby novel has, by and large, been ripped to pieces by Christophe Honoré who totally misses the point or at least doesn't understand the hidden meaning lying within the narrative. The existential direction doesn't work at all in relation to the story and comes across as lazy, which I believe it is. There is being 'influenced by' and there is 'ripping off', Ma Mère sees Honoré 'ripping off' great directors such as Eric Rohmer and François Truffaut. I wonder if he thinks he's the modern equivalent? He most certainly isn't. Ma Mère makes for awkward and unpleasant viewing, especially when watched with one's parents. The story revolves around seventeen year old Pierre (played by Louis Garrel) who has just left a Catholic boarding school to live with his wealthy parents at their villa on the island of Gran Canaria. Pierre's father (played by Philipe Duclos) dies early in the movie, leaving his mother, Hélène (played by Isabelle Huppert) to care for him. Pierre soon learns, however, of the depraved nature of his parents. He first finds his father's pornography. His first reaction is to masturbate, then, angry with himself and disgusted at his father, he urinates on the magazines. It’s fairly depraved stuff and a matter of someone mistaking deviancy with art. It is unbelievably pretentious and actually rather dull, despite its great efforts to disgust and shock its audience. However, if you like the thought of your mum sticking a finger up your bottom and making you lick it when it has resurfaced or being forced to watch yourself having sex like a horse in a shopping centre, then this film is right up your street - I just hope you don't live down mine. The last scene is both the most disturbing and most ridiculous thing I have ever seen in a film. While Isabelle Huppert's character is complex and could only be performed by someone as talented as she is, it is also beneath her and something I would have thought she would have dismissed. The fact that no one talks about it and no one regards it as anything other than trash tells you all you need to know about Christophe Honoré's utterly unwanted adaptation. Avoid at all costs.

The Founder

Dir: John Lee Hancock

2016

****

Based on the official autobiography, and an unauthorized biography, 2016’s The Founder tells the story of Ray Kroc, the man who took the original McDonalds fast food chain away from its owners and made it into a global success. It’s the story of the humble hard-working way of life in 1950s America and how capitalism completely consumed it. Writer Robert D. Siegel started writing about the history of McDonalds but soon realised that Ray Kroc would be the better focus in order to tell the story properly. Richard “Dick” and Maurice “Mac” McDonald started up a Hotdog stand in 1937 but realised after years of poor sales and unruly customers that there was a much more efficient way to sell food. They designed a purpose-built restaurant in San Bernardino in 1948 focused on hamburgers and French Fries and adopted a combination of key factors that would maximize productivity and minimize overheads, while pulling in a healthy profit. Key to their success was uniformity, quality and speed. Meanwhile, salesman Ray Kroc had been cutting his teeth for decades, travelling across the country for decades, selling all sorts of kitchen equipment, hoping to find a lucky break. He had stopped into nearly every drive-in in the mid-west and had never experienced anything quite like what the McDonald brothers were doing. When he sold them a batch of milkshake mixers that it would ordinarily take him six months to sell in one go, he just knew he had to be a part of it somehow. He was a seasoned salesman and it didn’t take him long to convince the McDonald brothers to let him franchise the company. The brothers had tried it once before but they stopped when it was clear they had little control over the standards of the new restaurants and they worried about their wholesome brand they had worked years perfecting would be left in tatters. They weren’t greedy men, they worked hard, had a strong work ethic but put quality and pride over exploitation and cheap money-making schemes. Ray Kroc also worked hard on the franchises but he found he was losing more money than he was earning. He had worked hard his whole life, this was his last chance at success, so when he realised he could make more money with the real-estate aspect of the company, and he changed the way of the American way of business forever. In the end he bought the company for a few million, a lot in those days but in the end it was nothing compared to how much he made. He promised more money to the brothers but never delivered. It starts off as a McDonald’s advert and turns into a capitalist’s wet dream. It’s the truth behind western civilisation, business and how the world has been run for the last seventy years. It’s frightening really and will make you feel sicker than a Filet-O-Fish ever will. It’s the best anti-capitalist film since There Will Be Blood and the best anti-consumerism film since Dawn of the Dead. John Lee Hancock’s direction is perfect, the man really can bring the 1950s back to life brilliantly. That said, the Coen Brothers wanted to make the movie initially after falling in love with the screenplay. They chose to make Hail, Ceaser! Instead, which on retrospect might have been an error. I’d love to have seen the Coen’s version but actually, John Lee Hancock’s version is great. It’s quite apt that Hancock directed the film in a way, as his work ethic is as strict as the McDonald brother’s was. Most productions work 12+ hours a day, his works between 8-10 hours as he never overshoots and sticks to schedule. He would use clever methods of filming, such as the phone call scenes, in order to create genuine reactions to the phone conversations, the props and sound departments rigged the phones with speakers so that both sets of phone conversations could be filmed simultaneously. The filming took just 22 days, which is unheard of in modern film making. Tom Hank’s was offered the role but declined, and I’m glad, as I can totally see why he would have been first choice but it would have been too obvious and I think Michael Keaton is brilliant in the part, better than anyone else who I can think might do it justice. Hancock and producer Jeremy Renner were so helpful in preparation for shooting the film that they provided Keaton with a great amount of video footage and interviews of the real Ray Kroc. This included making previously unpublished material for Keaton as a reference and guidance to Ray Kroc's voice, patterns of speech and mannerisms. Keaton turned down the Hank’s part in Philadelphia that earned him the Oscar, so there is a divine justice about it. Nick Offerman and John Carroll Lynch are great as the brothers McDonald but I can’t help but think Laura Dern is wasted in a tiny role that was somewhat beneath her talents. Overall, the film is pretty much faultless. They may have missed out on the fact Kroc had a daughter and a third wife but it took nothing away from the crux of the story. It’s a dark world we live in, you’d be best remember that the next time you stuff a quarter pounder in your mouth you consumerist pig. For further understanding on the subject, listen to Mark Knopfler’s ‘Boom, like that’.

Reservoir Dogs

Dir: Quentin Tarantino

1992

*****

I haven't always championed the films of Quentin Tarantino but I have always enjoyed them. He wouldn't have gained a huge following or endured constant criticism if he weren't doing something right, and when I say 'doing something right' I mean that every director should strive to make a point, get a reaction and give the audience something to chew over. His films aren't just 'violence and swearing' and in any case, the violence and swearing that do exist in his films serve an important purpose. The same people who complained about the graphic violence in Reservoir Dogs are probably the same that didn't complain about the violence in Rambo or Rocky for instance. Now, Rocky is about boxing, it's a legitimate sport but that doesn't take away the graphic violence that is on show. Rambo is an action movie, it isn't about anything real or is even remotely realistic, it's a fantasy film, like that justifies the violence somehow. Reservoir Dogs is a realistic story, the violence shown should disgust you, it is never glorified, the audience witness the horror because that what real violence is. It's a great, but it never once glamorizes crime or violence, anyone who thinks it does clearly doesn't understand it. For me, Tarantino explores the banality of criminals, the ignorance, arrogance and delusions of grandeur. These are not lovable anti-heroes, they are not Robin Hood and his Merry Men and they don't represent something to inspire to become. Tarantino destroys the idea of the 'lovable rouge' with a vigorous swipe and it's something quite profound. It really is an actors film too in that it's pure character driven theatre. The media at the time would have you believe that it's all blood, guts and violence, but it is in fact Shakespeare. It marked the beginning of something new and cinema finally broke out of the 80s and into the 90s. Famous for it's violent crime, pop culture references, profanity and nonlinear storytelling, Reservoir Dogs was the start of a new genre almost, indeed every good film and certainly every independent film since has benefited and learned from it. Note that I say every 'good' film in that sentence. This new, new new-wave film was never really given a proper name, that's why nearly every film made since that features a gun in it is suggested as 'The next Tarantino' or 'Tarantinoesque', even though most of them aren't in the least bit similar in style, tone or story. They wish they were the next Tarantino. However, and it is a big 'however', there are many (and I mean many) elements of Reservoir Dogs and all of Tarantino's subsequent films that are familiar to other films. It is no secret that he is a huge film fan and spent his young adult life working (watching films) in a video store. His knowledge and repertoire of films is remarkable but could you accuse his films of plagiarism? I think you can but you need to look at it a little closer than that. Musicians sample other musicians music all the time, indeed, artists inspire other artists, it's part of the art process. According to Tarantino, Reservoir Dogs was influenced by Stanley Kubrick's The Killing. Tarantino once said: "I didn't go out of my way to do a rip-off of The Killing, but I did think of it as my "Killing," my take on that kind of heist movie." The plot is straight out of Phil Karlson's 1952 gangster film Kansas City Confidential, with strong similarities in story, situation and in the characters to Joseph H. Lewis's 1955 film The Big Combo, Sergio Corbucci's 1966 Spaghetti Western Django (which Tarantino later remade) and Ringo Lam's 1987 City on Fire. Giving the gangsters coloured names is lifted right out of Joseph Sargent's 1974 thriller The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. Tarantino has denied that he has plagiarized with Reservoir Dogs and instead said that these are all homages. There is a very thin line here, it is one thing to used the non-linear structure and fit the story around an event like great films like Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon and David Mamet's1984 Pulitzer Prize winning Glengarry Glen Ross (that was adapted into a film the same year as Reservoir Dogs) but it is another thing to use actual characters and event from other films. Until someone can come up with a crystal clear distinction between plagiarism and homage, I say it is fair game. This idea has had quite an effect on all art forms since the early 90s and I believe Reservoir Dogs, for good and for bad, was a strong catalyst. He does it so well though. I hate popular-culture references in film generally but Quentin Tarantino somehow gets away with it and makes it acceptable. The script is brilliant, delivered exquisitely but everything about how the film is written is perfection. The performances come from a small bad of hungry and competitive actors all on top of their game. You can see Harvey Keitel, Michael Madsen, Steve Buscemi, Chris Penn, Lawrence Tierney and Tim Roth compete with each other, much like their characters do, to try to be top dog. The performances are exemplary, the direction is exemplary, it's both guerrilla and fine art at the same time. I've always seen Reservoir Dogs as being a face that has had its mask removed, only to reveal a brightly painted face - the truth of things are finally on show but there is still plenty of razzmatazz to keep you entertained. It stuck a firework up Hollywood's bum anyway, still to this day it hasn't worked out how to come close to emulating its originality of panache, it's raw nature or bare-bones. It's still controversial all these years later, the sign of a true classic, but it wouldn't still be spoken of it it weren't for the fact that it is both thrilling, unique and something rather special.

Killer Klowns from Outer Space

Dir: Stephen Chiodo

1988

****

Watching The Chiodo Brothers’ hilarious 1988 sci-fi-horror-comedy-cult-classic as a young teen was quite the revelation. I had never appreciated that a film could be both scary and funny at the same time, which confused and delighted me in equal measure – and still does. It felt like Joe Dante had gone bad via a 1950s B-movie and had lost the plot somewhat. It’s one of those film where you wonder whether the idea or the title came first. It starts out very 1950s, at least the 1980s version of the 1950s, which is the best kind of 1950s, apart from the actual 1950s. 1950s B-Movies are awesome, I love them dearly but there is something just as pleasing and just as brilliant as the 1950s B-Movies tributes that the 1980s produced. I guess it’s because they’re kindred spirits, as 1950s B-Movies were motion picture adaptations made by directors who felt nostalgic for the pulp fiction and sci-fi magazines they read as children growing up in the 20s and 30s, just as 80s directors were influenced by their 1950s films. There were brand new special effects in the 80s that could improve on the cheap and charming look of the 50s B-movies and they could be made in colour. The reason we are unlikely to see B-Movies of this ilk ever again however is that special effects have now become so good, there is little charm to be had. B-Movies post 1995 are generally CGI abominations and have nothing close to charm. Back in the day the lack of special effects made film makers creative, whether it be in model making, design, make-up, costume and camera trickery. However, by 1988 the 1950s inspired 1980s movie had almost run its course, parody had always been a part of it but now more than ever. Many of the 50s B-movies had sensational titles to lure in a curious audience but many of them didn’t deliver on what the title promised. The posters were pretty misleading too. So when I saw Killer Klowns from Outer Space on the shelf of my local video shop I was immediately drawn to it. I may have been naive to the wonders of horror comedies but at nearly 10 years old I knew what false promise was. I also knew that the guy in the shop couldn’t give a damn who he rented films out to. I’m not sure he even understood the BBFC rating system, this was probably because my local video shop was connected to a pharmacy, who rented VHS on the side. I could see that the film clearly had Killer Klowns in it from the stills on the back cover and they clearly had a spaceship too, so I was sold. The Clowns (Klowns) were funny and awkward looking, and then terrifying when they had to be. I never had a clown phobia but I could understand people that did, thanks to this movie (and of course Stephen King’s IT but that hadn’t come out at this point). It all begins in similar territory, a farmer spots a UFO landing near his small town. He initially thinks it is Halley’s Comet (which dates the film somewhat, as Halley’s Comet had been visible in 1986 and was the subject of school projects around the world) but is surprised to find a circus tent instead of a fiery ball of ….fire. It was one of those surreal moments in cinema that was both playfully bizarre but strangely terrifying. Victims find themselves cocooned in candy floss and popcorn and attacked by balloon animals. It’s got an Invaders from Mars feel about it, with an element of Bobysnatchers and of course the terror that strikes one in five kids when taken to the circus. The methods the Killer Klowns use to lure people to their deaths are brilliant; gruesome but also hilarious. Highlights include one of the Klowns being arrested, the puppet show from hell, popcorn monsters, sexy killer Klowns, the inevitable pie-in-face gag and Klownzilla. They have pretty cool ray guns too. It has cult written all over it and unlike most films, it actually gets better with age. The puppetry and costumes are second to none, the balance between brilliant and utter crap is perfect and I think that’s why it is still so well received. It’s a surreal parody that works; it’s funny and frightening, with that extra bit originality. The sequel has been long mooted and remains in development hell, there is definitely a market as long as they don’t make it a CGI fest, so I’m confident it will see the light of day. Here’s hoping anyway.

Boy Meets Girl

Dir: Ray Brady

1994

****

When I first saw Ray Brady’s now infamous Boy Meets Girl I remember thinking it was a somewhat cheap independent movie that had a few good ideas but didn’t quite live up to them. On a recent rewatch I believe the teenage me missed the point entirely. Natural Born Killers was the talk of 1994, so a film like Boy Meets Girl was duly overlooked, even though it became notorious as being one of the only films of the 90s to be banned by the BBFC – for eight whole years no less. It’s no ‘Video nasty’ though, quite the opposite. The film was banned due to the implications and suggestion of sexual torture, rather than because of brutal sex or gore. Boy Meets Girl is far more intelligent than that, which kind of makes it far darker. The premise is simple, a man meets a woman at a bar and they hit it off, after a few drinks the man goes back to the woman’s flat and they watch naughty films together. Thinking he’s on to a winner, the man happily drinks his drink and prepares himself for a night of passion. Instead, he passes out due to being drugged and wakes up strapped to a dentist chair. He is then duly tortured by the woman for the rest of the film. The poor quality film is a reflection of the film’s small budget and the battered old camera that was used, but somehow it gives the film a gritty edge, makes it realistic and somehow more sordid, like it’s an amateur snuff video or something. However, the fairly dreadful acting keeps the film firming within the low budget independent film category. It is the look, the dialogue and the idea that make Boy Meets Girl a unique success. It’s really not easy to watch, and even though the acting isn’t great, some of the reactions are quite blood-curdling. When filming in a council flat location in south London, Georgina Whitbourne was so convincing in her portrayal as a hysterically screaming victim that two vans loads of policemen arrived and stormed the set to save her, bringing filming to a halt. Quite a few films have pinched elements of the main idea for themselves but no other film has yet matched its unique style of psychological horror. I suspect the film isn’t exactly what it seems, and I suspect this is more a case of Pier Paolo Pasolini style symbolism, a metaphor, much like Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom, for fascism. If you read up about serial killers, egotists, megalomaniac etc, the characters in the film fit the descriptions perfectly, but this is more than just a film about a serial killer. It explores the torturer and the tortured, the relationship and characteristics that could lead two people to this sort of situation. It could be a little bit if serendipity but I don’t think so, I think Boy Meets Girl is one of the most subtle but complex horror/thrillers that the world has never seen. Well, I say the world but there are quite a few successful film directors who have clearly seen it, and I’ll leave it at that.

Evil Ed

Dir: Anders Jacobsson

1995

**

1995's Evil Ed is something of a cult classic. It's not that great a film however, but then some of the worst films can also be the most important. Evil Ed is a student project that took five years to complete and it absolutely looks like it. However, it is also a cutting satire directed towards the harsh censoring that the Swedish Statens biografbyrå (Cinemabureau of the state) ran from 1911 until 1996. The bureau was dismissed in 2011, being the oldest film censoring organization in the world. Anders Jacobsson and his crew were publicly ridiculed by the head of the Swedish Film Institute on national television, which made them heroes of independent film. The fact that their film came out just one year before the Cinemabureau's decommission is seen as something of a victory and it is definitely something to remember and celebrate. It is shame then then that it's not very good. I like the idea though - the opening scene showing a horror editor of a production company going slowly mad and biting down on a hand grenade after editing far too many horror films, specifically the fictional Loose Limbs series. When the soulless head of company find himself of an editor quick, he borrows Ed, a gentle man who edits the studios more family friendly released. Playing on the idea that watching too many horror films will turn you into a murderous psychotic villain, Ed soon turns into a murderous psychotic villain. The first half of the film is, rather ironically, a badly edited mix of horror scenes that are from the fictional Loose Limbs films. It is clear these were made years apart from each other, one is a splatter tribute, one is a 'creature' tribute and one is a slasher tribute. Ed himself then snaps and the film touches on slasher, splatter, haunted house (or asylum/hospital in this case) and vampirism - or at least I think that is what it is supposed to be. There are also a clear Evil Dead reference (one of many) with the addition of a classic Raimi deadite. It is quite clearly a tribute film but the fact that every wall visible has an Evil Dead poster on it is a little heavy handed and it almost makes it look more amateur than it already does. I have no issues with independent horror films, in fact I love them, but the script has to be right, it's the one thing money can't buy, so there really isn't an excuse. The effects aren't too bad either, a lot ended up on the editing room floor but was returned quite nicely in the special edition. It was originally recorded without sound as they always intended on dubbing the dialogue, and while the voice over work isn't great, the sound effects are wonderfully old school and very effective. I'm not sure it really deserves its cult status, credit to what it achieved but as a standalone horror film it's not as exciting as it is original.