February 2 2011
Peacock
The little details are put together just right. Normally that means bringing to life a very specific place or era. For Peacock it means creating a completely believable world yet one we can’t quite put our finger on. Is it set in a repressive past decade? Or is it a present-day town that aggressively resists change? Either one is bad for an emotionally-stunted agoraphobe with gender identity issues, even before a random accident brings everyone’s attention crashing through his gate.
Cillian Murphy is great as an unbalanced see-saw of tension and release. Susan Sarandon provides a strong-headed challenge to his defenses and dementia. The mix of suspense and sit-com setups creates a delusional air that upsets all expectations. The overall tone is strange and intriguing — somewhere between Psycho and Lars and the Real Girl. Yeah, just try to picture that.
It’s too bad this film got shuffled off as a straight-to-video release with little fanfare. I imagine it’s a hard one to market properly, but it’s best to go in as cold as possible. Like the self-sequestered main character, you don’t see odd ones like this very often. When they appear it’s a literal train wreck of allure and abhorrence.
A listener of the 
These days if a new movie isn’t an outright remake there’s a good chance it’s still a tribute to the feel of an old title or genre. In the right hands (I’m looking at you, Quentin Tarantino) it can be a great romp through familiar ground with enough of a spin to make what’s borrowed feel fresh. Then there are those whose retro elements are so carefully sampled and stirred that any soul has been squeezed out (see Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow). Too much thought and money often goes into recreating the look of classic periods, when the originals were likely the creative result of severely limited time and budgets. I probably don’t need to say I prefer to see the effort spent supporting a story rather than purely for the sake of style.
Peter Jackson’s 1994 drama Heavenly Creatures recounts a sensational murder case from 1950s New Zealand. Considering his previous work—the special effects and gore-heavy Bad Taste and Braindead—Jackson’s take on teen lesbian murderesses is a bit tame in comparison. Florid fantasy scenes convey the troubled girls’ escapist affection, contrasting with the coldness of their crime. The climactic matricide is disturbing but lacks the essential ingredient to really arouse an audience: incest.
I don’t expect much when I go to the movie theater or rent a DVD. The risk of wasting two hours on something bad or forgettable is a small price to pay, considering how many times I’ve been surprised by brilliant mind-benders like Memento and Being John Malkovich, beautiful visions like The Fountain and The Fall, or bizarre adventures like Buckaroo Bonzai and Stingray Sam. But once in a while a film manages to push the wrong buttons and make me furious for giving it my precious time. Here are ten from the past decade that I’ll see in Hell.
It’s been a good decade for movie lovers. Despite popular complaints that CGI has stifled creativity and major studios have squashed interest for intelligent films, plenty of thought-provoking and challenging works found mainstream audiences. Computer generated effects may have killed the Star Wars franchise (in my mind at least) but the digital revolution also helped many indie and experimental filmmakers realize their visions with little compromise. It was a rare month that I didn’t see a great new film, and here are some of the scenes I found most memorable.
While I’d normally rather pluck out and eat my own eyeballs with a spoon than pay to sit in a theater packed with obnoxious wise-asses, it’s the kind of crowd that makes watching this film so enjoyable. It didn’t unsettle me as much as I’d hoped—at least not until later deciding whether or not to brave the dark hallway between my bed and the bathroom at 2 AM—but the crowd made up for it with their own shrieks of disbelief and distress. Some people were actually sobbing for it to end, and will probably suffer a full nightly bladder for months to come.
Finishing off Zombie Girl Week is an interview with one of the producers of Zombie Girl: The Movie. Thanks to Aaron Marshall for providing some insight into the process of making the documentary and his impressions of its young star, Emily Hagins.
Though Emily Hagins is the star of the documentary Zombie Girl: The Movie and the ringleader of her own films, her mom Megan deserves a lot of credit for fostering a creative environment to inspire such achievements. From what is seen of their working relationship in Zombie Girl it’s clear that she gives her all to support Emily’s visions, and knows the value of learning from one’s successes as well as mistakes. Thanks to Megan for answering some questions about her own life and playing the roles of mom, helper and friend.
Emily Hagins (director of the zombie film Pathogen and star of the documentary Zombie Girl: The Movie) was kind enough to talk to us about being a young filmmaker and the subject of a film herself. We admire her easy-going attitude in managing the making of a full-length film while still dealing with classes and homework. Plus she gets bonus points for being a fellow Muppets fan.