Category Archives: Imaginary US Cinema

Animation, Childrens, Imaginary US Cinema

#98 – Grandfather Clock

Leave a comment

(1976, US, 73 min) Dir Dean Wold.

An altogether more down to earth follow-up from Dean Wold after his unintentionally trippy Walking on a Moonbeam and intentionally so: “I never approved of the attention I received from the so-called hippy community,” said Wold in his last pre-seclusion interview in 1978, “They couldn’t conceive of the process of producing an animated film or how difficult it would be to make on mind altering substances – of which I have never tried, I hasten to add. The fact that Moonbeam was quite obviously indebted to Winsor McCay’s Little Nemo was completely lost on them too.” In addition to this Moonbeam, despite its popularity, didn’t make Wold a whole lot of money and this seems to have been a conscious attempt at a more mainstream kind of film, as unsuccessful and misguided as that attempt turned out to be. Based on the Danish folk tale ‘The Knowledgeable Birch’, Grandfather Clock finds young Harris and Daisy mourning the death of their Grandfather Pip only to hit on the idea that his spirit has taken residence in the titular timepiece that their parents have just bought. The two children, behind the backs of their parents, start reading the clock stories, leaving food in it and even take it out in their sled – basically behaving as though it were another family member. Of course this can’t go unnoticed from their parents for long… A fantastically evocative soundtrack from renowned flautist Avlar Biskint complements the deliberate pace and earthy, melancholy palette of this sweet and sad little film which broke the heart of a whole generation while on heavy public television rotation in the eighties.

www.imaginaryfilmguide.com

Twitter: @MadeUpFilms

Animation, Childrens, Imaginary French Cinema, Imaginary US Cinema

#97 – Walking on a Moonbeam

Leave a comment

(1968, US/Fr, 80 min) Dir Dean Wold.

After a proposed Little Nemo feature fell through Dean Wold had to span the Atlantic for his first feature, the funds for an idiosyncratic non-Disney animation such as this not immediately forthcoming in his home country. Whether this contributed to his decision for the film to be entirely dialogue free is open to debate – the man himself has given contradictory accounts in his rare interviews. Either way the decision works and no doubt contributed, along with the stream of consciousness plotting, to the film being embraced by the counter-culture on its release. Not that this isn’t a children’s film because it most certainly is. A unnamed boy is woken in the night by a beam of moonlight under his bedroom window’s blind. He pulls up the blind to investigate further and sees, to his surprise, a cat outside the window frolicking on the beam as though it were a solid road leading to the moon. He lifts the sash window and tentatively steps out to follow the scampering kitten and ends up travelling all the way to the moon where it appears all manner of creatures live – men made of melting cheese, hot air balloon heads floating through the skies and, in a fit of virtuoso animation, a ball room made of shimmering glass populated by similarly glistening glass dancers. As this description might suggest the influence of Nemo is writ large here. These adventures end with the boy back in his bed, tucked in for his parents to find him in the morning, both of them baffled by the appearance of a new pet cat in his room. A charming and inventively made film that brought the unknown Wold to the world’s attention.

www.imaginaryfilmguide.com

Twitter: @MadeUpFilms

Animation, Childrens, Imaginary US Cinema

#96 – Why We Hibernate!

Leave a comment

(1963, US, 24 min) Dir Dean Wold

A nice little educational film made by the now famous but then not Dean Wold about the mechanics of a world in which people, along with animals, hibernate during the winter. Young Donny is excited about the upcoming Hibernation Day and goes with his Mom to the supermarket during the Hibernation Sales so that they can stock up for the big meal before sleeping and get Donnie his very first nesting bed. “You’re too big to be hibernating with your parents now Donnie!” says his Mom as she and the salesman fit him out for the bed (which is kind of like if an overstuffed sleeping bag and a dinghy had a child). Back home Dad is getting his and Mom’s nesting beds out of the attic. They all sit down for their last big meal and then Mom sends Donnie to his nest with a snack pack in case he wakes up hungry during the winter. Along the way various facts about hibernation are doled out as Donnie learns all about it – the biological reasons for it (such as they were understood), the different animals that do it and so on. The film ends with the reveal that this is just a day-dream by the real Donnie, sitting in his classroom with the bare trees and snowy ground outside the window. A bit rough around the edges but with enough of that playful, colourful Dean Wold touch.

www.imaginaryfilmguide.com

Twitter: @MadeUpFilms

Comedy, Imaginary Japanese Cinema, Imaginary US Cinema

#93 – I Love Japanese Punks

Leave a comment

(1984, US/Jap, 104 min) Dir Rachael Gaudi. Cast Rosanna Arquette, Lea Thompson, Miyuki Ono, Kō Machida, Cobra.

The first film from video artist Rachael Gaudi, inspired by her time in Japan in residence at the Tokyo ‘Shoebox’ and the punk scene there. Arquette and Thompson are Split and Max, a pair of New York new wave punks bored with life in the USA and whose only idea for getting by in the world involves hanging around the punk scene until something happens. Split is obsessed with Japan and, in particular, with Japanese punks and misappropriates Max’s winnings from a daytime quiz show to invest in a pair of one way airplane tickets to the land of the rising sun. From there it’s culture shock comedy all the way but at the same time acting as a document of the punk music scene in Japan at the time, the only such window onto that world for Western viewers. Before long though Split and Max’s dreams have come true – by hanging around the punk scene in Japan they get noticed and are soon making a living as crazy American punk girls advertising cola and deodorant and the like. But have they sold out? A sweet, silly film and not at all as you would expect from Gaudi, whose internationally renowned gallery pieces are of an altogether more eye-watering cast.

www.imaginaryfilmguide.com

Twitter: @MadeUpFilms

Comedy, Drama, Imaginary US Cinema

#90 – Duke of St Elizabeth’s, The

Leave a comment

(1998, US, 119 min) Dir John Falco. Cast Peter Fonda, Edward Furlong, Steve Buscemi, Elliott Gould.

For about five minutes there at the tail end of the nineties John Falco was the Happy, Texas of film directors – much feted but little seen. Much like Happy, Texas he failed to live up to the hype but how could he have when The Duke of St Elizabeth’s was to be his introduction to the film world? It’s not a bad film, not by any stretch, but it’s a gentle, ambling comedy drama completely devoid of conflict and edge – it’s no Reservoir Dogs or Pi to be sure. Along with the previous year’s Ulee’s Gold (which was also much praised and little seen) this was supposed to seal the deal for Peter Fonda’s return to mainstream filmmaking but for a comeback the man seems curiously disengaged as burnt out rock legend Bob Stranger who has been in residence in St Elizabeth’s Rehabilitation Centre since 1983. It’s possible this alienation is intentional but I can’t say it works, especially as he’s supposed to be bonding with young speed freak Eddie (Furlong). The rest of the cast contribute well enough with Buscemi’s recovering coke addict and Gould’s tired psychiatrist coming out the best of a good bunch. Poor Falco though – he wasn’t even big enough in those fifteen minutes to warrant inclusion in the occasional ‘Where Are They Now?’ articles but seems to be doing well enough these days in the world of television.

www.imaginaryfilmguide.com

Twitter: @MadeUpFilms

Comedy, Horror, Imaginary US Cinema

#86 – Ed, Fred and Life Among the Undead

Leave a comment

(2008, US, 98 min) Dir Jay White. Cast Justin Long, Tyler Labine.

A product of the post-Shaun of the Dead zombie comedy boom that brought us the likes of Zombieland and Life After Beth. Ed and Fred are a pair of housemates in Everywhereville, USA. Their lives were going nowhere prior to the zombie apocalypse and now that it’s happened, it looks like their chances of escaping this cycle are gone for good. So far, so Shaun. The difference here is that, like Dawn of the Dead and their zombies flocking to the mall, these zombies also retain some of their prior brain functions. But what does this mean for Ed and Fred? It means that the zombified relatives of both their families, as the film progresses, accumulate around their house since, presumably, they are the last surviving members of both. So Ed and Fred become progressively more and more unhinged, a situation probably not helped by the massive stash of ‘Tibetan Grass’ that they have managed to rescue from the collapse of society. At some point they’re going to have to kick the weed and do something about their situation… It’s a cheap movie but more because of the story it’s telling – which is essentially a one set play – than because they’ve constrained themselves and the invention on display in how it’s shot more than makes up for those constraints. The title also belies the fact that the film is more emotional than you would presume, dealing as it does with growing up, leaving cycles of dependency and saying goodbye to people you love though still, it has to be said, getting in enough adolescent stoner humour and dick jokes to sweeten the pill.

www.imaginaryfilmguide.com

Twitter: @MadeUpFilms

Action/Adventure, Imaginary US Cinema, Science Fiction

#80 – Judge Shock

Leave a comment

(2002, US, 101 min) Dir Roger Bertle. Cast Timothy Olyphant, Taye Diggs, Michelle Rodriguez.

It’s the future. Outside the cities are a wasteland. The population are controlled by TV. The most popular show on TV is a game show called Judge Shock. Basically the show uses convicts as contestants (yes, like The Running Man) who have to evade Judge Shock. The Judge himself is a masked assassin a bit like the Stig from Top Gear but he can do kung-fu and shoot electric from his hands and stuff too. So anyway – the film opens as a new episode with contestants Paul, John and Lucy (Olyphant, Diggs and Rodriguez respectively) dropped into the dark, maze-like arena where the game is to play out. Of course they’re all there for crimes they didn’t commit and of course they’re all adept at martial arts and that so there’s a good fight in them. Of course they also manage, in the course of the film, to best the not actually invulnerable Judge and uncover the reality of the show which, yeah, leads them to a conspiracy that goes all the way to the top. Bertle’s got a way with the action which is shot clearly and kinetically and the film’s Matrix influenced look is great even if it’s derivative, all inky blacks and neons with sets that are simultaneously spacey and claustrophobic – the only problem is the plotting by numbers that is the script. Oh, and the awful title. Ignore both if you can though and stay for the action – it’s worth it.

www.imaginaryfilmguide.com

Twitter: @MadeUpFilms

Documentary, Imaginary US Cinema

#79 – 1983

Leave a comment

(1987, US, 183 min) Dir Ted Malcolm.

Radical, mad and mostly unseen documentary. By the mid-eighties Ted Malcolm hadn’t directed in the guts of a decade when he was hired by the progressive Washington-based Grapes Institute to produce an hour-long documentary about inequality. Two years later he handed in this – a three-hour plus meditation on how then governments were dismantling the apparatus of the state and concocting imaginary wars in order to bring about a world order more alike Orwell’s 1984 than he thought anyone realised. The Grape Institute – which was partly public funded – panicked and stuck the cans in their vault. Six months later Malcolm was at Cannes showing the film out of competition – according to interviews he himself broke into the Institute’s vaults to liberate his film and yes, when they went to check up on this, they found that the cans were actually missing. Cue lawsuits. If you’re lucky you might get the chance to see this as I did, surreptitiously, at the Cork Film Festival a six years ago but while it’s well worth three hours of your time for it’s brazen provocations and the sheer skill of it’s making, weaving as it does a half-dozen narrative without short-changing any, it has to be said that it has less to say about the politics of it’s era than it does about Malcolm’s then deteriorating state of mind with leaps of logic that don’t hold up to scrutiny and suspicions that seem only to exist in his paranoia.

www.imaginaryfilmguide.com

Twitter: @MadeUpFilms

Comedy, Imaginary US Cinema

#69 – Boo Dat!

Leave a comment

(2008, US, 100 mins) Dir Keenen Ivory Wayans. Cast Tracy Morgan, Marlon Wayans, Kerry Washington, Vivica A Fox, Eugene Levy.

From the director of White Chicks and Little Guy and if that pedigree doesn’t scare the pants off you then settle down and prepare to be terrified by… No, wait – apparently this is a comedy! Who knew? Morgan and Wayans are typical bros sharing a flat in LA when a gas leak kills them in their sleep. The next morning they wake up to find firemen in the apartment who can’t see them and when they try to leave they find that they can’t. Fortunately an afterlife official (Levy) is at hand to ease them through their “post-life transition phase”, informing them that because of their unquiet death they are now doomed to haunt their former abode. Neither takes it well, both wishing that they could get on to the afterlife where the life is easy. Their initial funk wears off when their shady landlord rents out their apartment to attractive young lady friends Washington and Fox and hilarity ensues, with poltergeist gropings and flying ectoplasm jokes the order of the day. Oh, and a cruelly extended bout of obvious Exorcist riffing. Lots of fun for those with a high offense threshold and low comedy standards.

www.imaginaryfilmguide.com

Twitter: @MadeUpFilms

Documentary, Imaginary French Cinema, Imaginary US Cinema

#67 – Phone

Leave a comment

(2012, US/Fr, 193 min) Dir Murray Grossman.

Another epic and encyclopaedic documentary from Grossman, this one following the construction of a mobile phone from the mines in Mongolia and Sierra Leone where the rare earth minerals are dug up to the engineers in South Korea and the United States who construct the various parts like the gyroscope, liquid crystal display and internal processors and then to the enormous plants in China where all these elements are put together, assembled into the finished product. More than that each part is subject to a brief biography, like a short film within the film, telling you who invented it, who designed it, what the elements are used for in the finished products and the people involved at every juncture, from the designers to the assembly line workers, are heard from and their lives illuminated. Despite what it sounds like it’s not a polemical film either, simply addressing the facts as they are. Over two years in the making Phone is more like spending three hours on Wikipedia following links than the standard documentary but it does what Wikipedia can’t – it puts a face on the modern world and realises fantastically how much modern industry straddles the globe. It may well sound like the most boringest documentary of all time but you’ll come out of the cinema gobsmacked, believe me.

www.imaginaryfilmguide.com

Twitter: @MadeUpFilms