Ugly Blu Mess

No, not the films--some are actually quite brilliant. I'm talking about the hideous covers chosen for the Blu Ray releases.

I'm often curious about the instinct or inclination that goes into making these choices. Is it as simple as the original art being unavailable for some reason? Are they hoping to differentiate it from the packaging from older formats? Maybe they're trying to capitalize on some trend or other (Twilight-fever seems to have inspired the Near Dark cover).

Besides being ugly, many of these covers often offer something the movie frankly isn't selling. They promise something either cheap, silly, or compromised. They say, "hey, this movie's not so great but it's cheap--give it a try!" 

Compare it to the original art used for either the DVD release or the theatrical posters and you'll find some prime art going unused.

Look at that Return of the Living Dead (1985) poster - say what you will but it's a distinctive image. Not like the slime green mess used for the Blu Ray (which is actually a pretty stacked, excellent disc, by the way). Looking at my copy of the disc I wish Fox had shipped the movie with a reversible cover.

Ditto, the Night of the Creeps poster, which I think was the art used for the video advertisements for the movie back in the day. 

Finally, I find the Near Dark image to be the worst offender, pandering as it does to the Twilight audience. Not necessarily because I have anything against the franchise, but because it's pushing a soft, feminine vibe that's really only a small part of the movie. It's actually a pretty gory outlaw vampire movie. I'd have to imagine the audience that picks it up based on the art would feel like a bait and switch had been pulled on them.

Terribly Happy (2008)

This Dutch crime-thriller ultimately had to be put to the "localization test" after my viewing of the just-released R1 DVD. That test involves looking at a foreign-language film and evaluating if the cache of the production and the quality of the film come from the film itself or if the "foreign-ness" of the thing is really what's being sold. Simply put: if Terribly Happy were in English, would it be any good?

Well, it's not any good in Dutch, which makes the overwhelmingly positive critical response to it so confounding to me. I'm typically resistant to allowing the opinions sway my own when it comes to assessing a film, but its many fans and defenders are part of why I sought this movie out. And after an hour of - well, not suffering, but working my way through this film, I admit to a certain level of exasperation with anyone who's seen this and thought it rose anywhere above mediocrity.

The problems started for me from the beginning when I couldn't help shaking the feeling that I was watching a foreign-language riff on Hot Fuzz with a muted color palette. Indeed, Terribly Happy's Robert is transplanted from Copenhagen to a small, marshland town after some kind of nervous crisis puts him on the outs with his superiors back in the big city. The mud and dirt-covered hamlet is in need of a new marshal - not because they want anyone actually dispensing law and order, but it's just their way. Robert comes to find that the people of the town have a lot of ways: ways of hanging their clothes, ways of dealing with shoplifting children, ways of getting rid of unwanted bodies.

In this, the script by director Henrik Ruben Genz and Dunja Gry Jensen along with the stellar cinematography by Jorgen Johanssen are actually most successful, establishing a grim, slightly paranoid tone that would have better served a more well-developed conflict than the one provided here. That conflict is between Robert and local bully, Jorgen. Jorgen is broad, squat, and calmly mean, and may or may not be beating his disturbed wife, Ingelise. While this premise is fraught with tension I had trouble actually buying into it because of several irrational or plainly stupid actions on Robert's part. I have to confess to looking at the time remaining and checking out a little bit in the second half after the second or third boneheaded decision by the lead that just dug him deeper and deeper into the hole in which he found himself. I have patience for this kind of character when it's clear that there's an element of thrill-seeking as with Jeffrey from Blue Velvet or part of a slow-burn madness as with Next Door's (Naboer, 2005) John, but the script doesn't really earn Robert's behavior or develop it in any convincing way.

There was another issue that undermined the whole thing and that was the sexual tension between Robert and Ingelise - or lack thereof. The actress Lene Maria Christensen throws herself into the role and crashes around in it with abandon. While her dedication to the performance is admirable, it also made me think that, as Robert, I would definitely try to keep my distance from this lunatic woman and her obvious mental problems. After a bit it became clear his character had nothing in the way of survival instincts and as a viewer I didn't want to be around him and his ridiculously self-destructive behavior.

Again, I have to wonder if the goodwill directed at the film was in part a result of it being a well-shot foreign film. I don't think other writers were bamboozled or anything like that, but I suspect that throwing an accent on the events of the film may have made it somewhat more appealing.

DVD Review: Special (2006)

Director: Hal Haberman & Jeremy Passmore
Writer: Hal Haberman & Jeremy Passmore
Starring: Michael Rappaport (Les), Josh Peck (Joey), Robert Baker (Everett), Jack Kehler (Dr. Dobson), Paul Blackthorne (Jonas Exiler), Ian Bohen (Ted Exiler)

Synopsis: The subject of a depression drug trial becomes convinced that the experimental medication has imbued him with super powers. Violent attempts to clean up the streets ensue.

***Spoiler-y Review follows***

The first thing Les (Michael Rappaport) asks when he receives the bottle of an experimental depression drug is if he can take it now. Anxious, smiling nervously, he asks the stern Dr. Dobson (Kehler) how long before he begins to feel the effects. In voice over he tells us that he wasn't even feeling particularly depressed before entering the drug trial.

Everything points to Les being a man who needs a change in his life: from the hunched way that he sits on his couch, eating his meager microwaved dinner, long limbs bunched up in front of him; to the way his boss admonishes him to repeat the mantra of the meter maid - "I'm important to the city... I matter." Les is the superhero fantasy in genesis: he's a normal, undistinguished man waiting for some catalyst to shake him loose and unleash his potential.

Before you can say "bitten by a radioactive spider," Les begins levitating in his living room and hearing the thoughts of the incredulous Dr. Dobson. With great power comes great responsibility and after sucessfully disarming a would-be thief, Les throws together a costume and hits the streets of his unnamed city to fight crime.

But the writing/directing team of Haberman and Passmore don't keep things simple. Les is convinced os his new abilities but from the subjective view of his doctor and friends, Les is delusional, visiting a good deal of physical damage upon himself in spite of his protestations that Les get help.

Then there are the Exiler brothers - investors in the experimental drug that give Les his powers/delusions. The last thing they want is some lunatic wearing their corporate logo running around claiming to have powers with their pills in his system. After a time, Les will find that he has archnemises to go along with his mania.

What's interesting is that the script doesn't let the miracle pills make Les anything more than he already is: he's a man who wants to do good and be valuable so he goes out and does some good measured with a certain dubious amount of value. He doesn't become smarter or more charming. He's still unable to connect with the pretty girl at the local convenience store. Even in his delusion he's only able to execute practical feats that combined common sense, observation, and willingness to punish one's body would allow.

If anything, Special is the anti-superhero movie somewhat in the way that Mark Millar's Kick-Ass (and its forthcoming film) is an anti-superhero comic in that both regard the desire to put on a costume and circumvent the law to fight crime as inherently selfish acts borne of varying degrees of delusion. Where they diverge (besides the subjective merits of the two works) is in how they treat their leads. Dave of Kick-Ass is an unlikeable, self-serving teen hoping to use a career as a superhero as a means to gain fame and noteriety (even if the goal is somewhat muddied by his identity being hidden behind a mask). Meanwhile, Les is a genuine guy - I've said before that he wants to do good and to that end he's trying.

Millar appears to be more cynical about human motivation: everyone wants their 15 minutes to somehow illuminate their angry, frustrated existences. At their core everyone is deeply flawed and set up to ultimately fail. Special posits a case where a man can be flawed (Les is lonely and perhaps a bit juvenile) but essentially good. When the chips are down, when Les realizes that he's a victim of psychosis, he does the right thing and attempts to shut himself away from anyone that he could potentially harm, taking an "antidote" that will supposedly remove the drugs from his system. Les would choose to sacrifice emotionally-fulfilling delusion in order to do the objectively right thing.

I have a great deal of affection for this movie. It's low-budget and the production values are spare, but it - like Les - have objective value. A premise that could have rested easily on quirk and the circumstances of its lead becomes something more compelling as a result of making hard choices and putting its hero through the ringer.

Special Features: There are some trailers for other Magnet releases as well as some deleted scenes.

DVD Review: Maiko Haaaan!!!

Director: Nobuo Mizuta
Writer:Kankuro Kudo
Starring: Sadao Abe (as Kimihiko Onizuka), Shin'ichi Tsutsumi (as Kiichiro Naito), Kou Shibisaki (as Fujiko Osawa), and Saori Koide (as Komako)

Synopsis: An office worker for a noodle company has one great obsession in life: the Geishas of Kyoto. And he'll do anything to get a round of strip baseball with one of these painted beauties.

Maiko Haaaan!!! will be a like-it-or-hate-it prospect for most viewers with its broad comedy and decidedly unlikeable protagonist. The story follows its bowl-cut sporting lead Onizuka (Abe) as he gives up his life in bustling Tokyo for the sedate Kyoto, home to many a Geisha. Onizuka has spent the last decade obsessing over geishas since his first encounter with them as a frantic, lost schoolboy and now he seeks any means possible to spend his nights in their company.

To this end, Maiko Haaaan!!! follows a man able to do just about anything to reach his ambition and defeat his rival in the night-lit world of Kyoto after dark - the cocky pro baseball player Kiichiro Naito (Tsutsumi).

What follows is a primer in geisha etiquette, many a brightly-lit tableu, a couple of peppy musical numbers, and lots of mugging for the camera for just about everyone involved. The late-game addition of some melodrama to the proceedings softens the edges of some of the leads and gives the final narrative a little more shape than it started with, but the overall tone is that is garish, cartoonish abandon.

Again, it's not a movie for everyone - but in the final analysis I enjoyed what it had to offer with a weird, unlikeable, and utterly fun lead.

DVD Extras: Outside of some unsubtitled trailers for the film and a brief making of doc, not much.