Highlight on Cult - C.H.U.D.

by Andrew Jupin

If it is one thing that I’m always a sucker for in film it has to be grand shots of old New York. I’m talking about the kind of New York that doesn’t really exist today if you really want to split hairs about it—and I will. In today’s ‘on location’ films set in New York, there grit and grime is gone. The essence of New York that came alive so brightly with the films of Woody Allen or Sidney Lumet is gone. These films exemplify the true greatness of New York and how magnificent of a city it actually is. In these films, we get to see the grit, the grime, the people, the neighborhoods, the anonymous streets and businesses. It is to the credit of filmmakers like Woody Allen and Sidney Lumet that we are so blessed with these on location images. Having recently watched Serpico, one scene that is immediately coming to mind is when Serpico is having a secret meeting with the upper Brass under the Hell’s Gate Bridge in Astoria. Such a random spot to shoot a scene, but it’s just so incredible to look at.

Now with all the Lumet-loving aside, bigger Hollywood pictures aren’t the only place you can go for great examples of prestigious, old New York. A great way to find these great images of old New York is to simply take the budget out of the equation and add some screams. That’s right: low-budget horror films. And one of the best and campiest films to come out of the 1980’s was a little horror film directed by Douglas Cheek in 1984.

This film is C.H.U.D.

Growing up, C.H.U.D. was always a mystery to me. I was fortunate enough to have an uncle who had seen all the lost classics, Plan 9From Outer Space, A Boy and His Dog, Repo Man, etc. And C.H.U.D. was a film in a long list of camp, cult and just plain out-there films that he was a fan of and wanted to pass down to me. So one day we hit the video store in search of this modern camp ‘masterpiece’ as he kept referring to it as. Unfortunately we were only able to come up with the film’s comedic sequel: C.H.U.D. 2: Bud the C.H.U.D. And it wasn’t until years later, as a cinema student sitting with my friends in a crammed dorm room, was I able to get my hands on the lost classic.

The film’s premise is very simple—I suppose: people have been disappearing off the streets of downtown Manhattan all from around the same police precinct. So the precinct captain, Captain Bosch (played with great enthusiasm and seriousness by the hilariously mustachioed Christopher Curry) starts to believe that these disappearances are related. He starts asking around to some of his local informants including a street-smart, man-of-the-people, AJ ‘The Reverend’ Shepherd (another super-serious performance in the film, this time coming from an out-there, big-haired Daniel Stern). As luck would have it, the street people that The Reverend takes care of have been getting attacked underground by what they insist are monsters.

Also hot on the trail is George Cooper, an ex-fashion photographer who is trying to take a more serious turn with his work. Rounding out the ‘big three’ of this cast is John Heard playing Cooper with all the seriousness and enthusiasm as the rest of the cast of the film. I honestly think that that is what adds a lot to the camp value of this film. All of the performances are so dead-on as far as intensity goes. All the actors are really going for it.

The rest of the story is a bit convoluted, but it’s the old “the government is covering up a massive chemical dumping scam that’s going on beneath the city and accidentally turning its underground inhabitants into flesh eating monsters” storyline.

On top of all the flesh-eating terror, one of the best parts of C.H.U.D. is all the on location shooting. The entire film was shot on location in New York, right out in the streets, in all the dark alleys, real neighborhoods and perfect venues. At one point in the film there is a sequence that starts at the break of dawn. The first few seconds capture the World Trade Center just as the sun is rising and it really makes for quite the beautiful shot. It’s a really great reminder of what the city once looked like and audiences are very fortunate that this film is just one of many that have preserved New York’s former image. It’s also funny that because films like C.H.U.D. are pretty much all but forgotten outside of the camp and cult worlds, they don’t fall victim to any kind of digital restoration or ‘correction’ that would possibly remove the World Trade Center or something like that. Instead, these films are left just as they were and just how they should be.

C.H.U.D. is a great example of a real campy film that stays alive through word-of-mouth. It’s really great to see all these well-known character actors just as they were starting out making films—in one of the final scenes, a very young John Goodman even makes an appearance playing a cop who flirts with a waitress at a diner. The story is absolutely absurd and the gore effects are actually pretty good. For such a nothing-budget film, the gore and monster effects actually turn out to be pretty believable.

If you haven’t seen C.H.U.D. before, the best way to watch it is to grab a few of your closest friends, get some beer and some food, sit back and crack every single joke you can. I would say a good eighty-nine percent of the dialogue is delivered with (unintentionally) hilarious timing and you and all your friends will have a great time laughing along to the film.

Oh and the acronym? Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers or C.H.U.D.

Allen's 'Cassandra's Dream' Leaves a Bigger Than Expected Impression

by Brett Parker

Critics have not exactly been kind to Woody Allen’s latest film, Cassandra’s Dream. It scored a 46% rating at rottentomatoes.com, giving it a “rotten” status. The general consensus appears to be that the film pales in comparison to Sidney Lumet’s Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead and Allen’s own Match Point. Even critics who liked the film label it as contrived, watered-down Allen. Me? I couldn’t have loved it more! While exploring his usual themes of class, morals, and murder, Allen has crafted one of his most entertaining pictures ever; a film that leaves no emotion unturned and no audience member out of its grasp. How excited I was to kick off the New Year with a powerhouse film! It’s been a long time since I’ve been this worked up over a film and even longer since I’ve been so baffled by a film’s negative reception.

Colin Farrell and Ewan McGregor star as Terry and Ian, two working class brothers in London. Terry is a mechanic with a sweet girlfriend (Sally Hawkins) and a huge gambling problem. Ian is the co-manager of his father’s restaurant and dreams of one day hitting it rich by purchasing hotels in Los Angeles. As the film unravels, the brothers run into financial anxieties. Terry owes serious money to loan sharks after losing big in a poker game while Ian wants serious money to impress a high maintenance actress (Hayley Atwell). Terry and Ian come up with the idea of asking their rich Uncle Howard (Tom Wilkinson) for the dough.

Uncle Howard is a rich business owner in China who agrees to see the boys on a visit to London one afternoon. He agrees to help the boys with their financial troubles if they do a huge favor for him. He wants them to murder a business aquatince (Philip Davis) who is threatening to reveal information that could destroy Howard. At first the boys are shocked by this request, but Howard is an intense persuader who plays the family loyalty card and ultimately has the boys agree to do it. The rest of the film plays like a philosophical conversation on committing murder and dealing with its aftermath.

Cassandra’s Dream is that rare film that absorbs you from the start and holds your eyes on the screen the whole time. You get caught up in the drama and you honestly don’t know where the film is going to lead you. Allen wisely avoids elaborate plot twists and police involvements and instead focuses strictly on the psychology of the two brothers as they are pushed to their emotional brinks. This might seem limiting in another film, but McGregor and Farrell expertly play their parts to perfection and sell you on every nuance in the screenplay. McGregor is skillfully empathetic with Ian even in the face of overwhelming selfishness. Farrell gives one of his best performances as the disintegrating Terry, the brother who has the hardest time facing the idea of murdering someone and being completely unable to live with himself after the crime has been carried out. Farrell is awesome in the way he makes us feel Terry’s every feeling of guilt and depression. He plays Terry as if emotions are literally trying to burst through his face.

Critics are perhaps right to compare this film with Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, a film with a very similar premise. Indeed, it is hard to watch Cassandra’s Dream without even lightly thinking about the other film in the back of your mind. Both films involve two brothers carrying out a crime to settle financial woes with the emotional weight of the crime’s aftermath sending them both on a downward spiral into tragedy. Lord knows Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is a wonderful film. It’s a smart and inventive heist film that catches a legendary director in the wonderful act of crafting a film as if he were a fresh, young innovator. Yet in the end, I prefer Cassandra’s Dream. It fleshes out its moral ideas more strongly, weaves more complex motivations, and brings more emotional weight to it. It basically brings deeper and more thoughtful dialogue to the moral dilemmas at hand. My only problem with Lumet’s film is the way it marches through its emotional developments without fully expressing its weight. It all leads to an interesting climax that I wanted to buy, but in the back of my mind I never fully did (would Albert Finney really do what does in the end?).

The other complaints about the film involve the fact that Allen is repeating themes in this film he already explored superbly in Crimes and Misdemeanors and Match Point. Granted, but one would find that the true pleasure in auteur filmmaking is the fact that strong themes are repeated film after film. It can be fascinating watching an auteur take ideas they feel strong about and film similar variations on them movie after movie. Just look at the way Howard Hawks kept “remaking” Rio Bravo. Look at how justified he was in his decision to do so. I’d rather see Allen remake the same film over and over than watch most Hollywood directors churn out countless pictures.

In a time of clunky, unremarkable filmmaking, we should get over ourselves and realize how special a Woody Allen film like this truly is. It’s superbly framed, masterfully acted, and fascinating in its emotional complexities. It is patient, attentive, and emotionally stirring. Allen doesn’t rely on plot twists and a flashy visual style; he tells the film with straight-forward simplicity that helps flesh out its underlying drama more effectively.

There are those who might think I’m bonkers calling Cassandra’s Dream a great film, but what makes a film great anyway? Usually it’s when a film presents a highly-original idea in an awesome manner or when every element of a film is done to perfection. Well I feel this film is perfection. I don’t think anything could’ve been more entertaining to me. I sat down in the theater, was excitedly involved the whole time, and couldn’t take my eyes off the screen. For the rest of the weekend, I couldn’t stop thinking about it and I can’t wait to see it again. If that doesn’t make a film great, I don’t know what does!

Top Ten Films of 2007

by Brett Parker
While 2007 was a great year for films, it was also a rather gloomy one. As I look over the films that have made my top ten list, I realize that they are skilled and wonderful films that showcase rather dark and bleak aspects of humanity and society. Even Hot Fuzz, probably the cheeriest film on my list, is a blood-soaked comedy that shows a hilariously frightening side of a controlling society. I realize that since the dawn of the medium, great films have always had heartbreak, death, and despair as its staples. Yet this year, I strongly felt those traits above all others as I marched through the cinema. It seemed mostly cloudy with very little sunshine.

Perhaps this gloomy film season is a reflection of the gloominess of 2007 itself. I’ve heard very few people talk about what a positive year this has been. There was a lot to frown about. The economy was rather chaotic, celebrity culture became suffocating, and the horrors of the Iraq Rolling Stone even published a very witty essay on why this year specifically sucked. If the content of films is indeed a reflection of the society they were produced in, then it only makes sense that these darker times produced darker films. Nonetheless, there were still cinematic wonders to behold and unforgettable performances that will stand the test of time. So let’s celebrate the best of the year and hope that 2008 is a bit sunnier: war continue on.

1) I’m Not There

You’ll be hard-pressed to find a more inventive, defiant, or original film that was released this year. Todd Haynes has made a surreal Bob Dylan biopic that challenges not only the ever-changing images of Dylan himself but also the very idea of the musical biopic. Haynes used six different actors (Marcus Carl Franklin, Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere, and Ben Whinshaw) to portray Dylan at various stages in his life and each actor nails their challenging mission to convey Dylan’s unique essence. Blanchett, giving the year’s best female performance, is especially impressive with her dead-on portrayal of the public Dylan we remember the strongest. I myself was not that much of a Dylan fan walking into the theatre, but I found myself in utter fascination with this film from start to finish. It breaks all the rules of the biopic while reinventing them at the same time. Not since The Doors has a musical biopic been so refreshingly trippy and not since Donnie Darko has a cinematic enigma been so much fun to analyze.

2) American Gangster

Ridley Scott brings his distinct eye for grand canvases to the age-old conventions of the gangster picture and creates one of the rawest and most dramatic examples of the genre ever to emerge out of Hollywood. Denzel Washington is absolute dynamite as Frank Lucas, the Harlem crime lord who took the New York drug trade by storm with his Vietnamese Heroin, Blue Magic. Russell Crowe, wonderful as always, is Richie Roberts, the unbending cop who relentlessly tries to take down Lucas’ inner-city empire. Certain aspects of this film may feel familiar to students of Scarface, New Jack City, and King of New York, but make no mistake about it: American Gangster is the smartest and best-looking crime-lord film to ever grace the screen. Scott brilliantly depicts the rise and fall of a modern gangster while pounding home hard-hitting ideas on capitalism, character, and crime.

3) 3:10 to Yuma

Christian Bale and Russell Crowe are two of the most exciting actors working in film today. Having these two read the phone book on-screen would be entertaining. Having them face-off with each other in an action-packed and thoughtful western is fascinating beyond belief. Crowe is a viscous outlaw captured by the law and Bale is an honest rancher hired to escort the villainous cowboy to a prison train at gunpoint. What ensues is a battle of wills and a growing connection between the two that makes for the most dramatic screen team of the year. It says something that their scenes of dialogue are just as exciting as the shootout sequences, which are crafted to perfection. The best westerns have always been layered with underlying meanings and 3:10 to Yuma is rich with compelling ideas scratching beneath the surface. The Freudian homoeroticism is interesting, not only between Crowe and Bale but also Crowe and Ben Foster, who plays the overly-devoted sidekick to Crowe’s outlaw. And the ending says more about Bush America than most people realize.

4) No Country For Old Men

At first glance, No Country for Old Men is so defiant of conventions that it throws you. It veers down a specific path until it casts off on its own and creates its own new direction. On repeat viewings, you realize the brilliance of it all and how this film cuts deeper than most thrillers dare. What starts off as a compelling chase thriller transcends into a deep meditation on the cruel randomness of death and the blind justice of fate. As Anton Chigurh, the sadistic bounty hunter trailing a suitcase of stolen drug money through the Texas landscape, Javier Bardhem creates not only one of the best performances of the year, but one of the great monsters of modern cinema. It’s one of the very best films ever made by the Coen Brothers.

5) There Will Be Blood

We all know Paul Thomas Anderson can be the most inventive of directors and that Daniel Day-Lewis the most forceful of actors, so it almost goes without saying that putting these two together for There Will Be Blood is a cinematic force to reckon with. In telling the story of Daniel Plainview, a cold-hearted oil tycoon drilling for California oil at the dawn of the 20^th century, the film says so much about greed, faith, and corruption of the soul that film analysts can write whole books about it for years to come. While the film evokes memories of Citizen Kane, Giant, and McCabe & Mrs. Miller, There Will be Blood has a sublime quality to it that makes it feel unique. Indeed, Anderson is a filmmaker who seems effortless in making projects feel refreshingly original. And what a performance by Day-Lewis! He isn’t just a great actor here, he is a force of nature that will rock you to your very core! We should just give him the Oscar right now!

6) Beowulf

Using the motion-capture animation effects that was popularized in The Polar Express, Robert Zemeckis unleashes Beowulf, the eye-popping visual effects popcorn ride of the year. Yet the real treat is the care and attention given to the drama and emotions of the story. In telling the ancient tale of the brave warrior who slayed three mystical monsters, the film goes the extra mile to express the psychology, the weaknesses, and the egotistical flaws of its main hero. Much credit is due to the wonderful Ray Winstone, cast as the heroic Beowulf. CGI effects may have been used to give the heavyset Winstone a chiseled exterior, but it’s his hellfire voice and spirit that breathes thrills and chills into his character and the film itself. His Beowulf not only joins Achilles and Maximus among the great movie warriors, but also Marty McFly and Forrest Gump among the great Zemeckis protagonists.

7) We Own the Night

Does We Own the Night play on age-old cop movie formulas? Sure. Is it over-the-top and a tad melodramatic for its own good? Probably. Is it ridiculously exciting in its acting and staging? You bet! We Own the Night is like watching an old school drama filled with a gritty-indie sensibility. The action scenes are fresh and inventive while the performances are focused and intense. Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Wahlberg are electrifying as two brothers on opposite sides of the law in 1980s New York. It may not be groundbreaking cinema, but this film is like an adrenaline shot of excitement that reminds us why we go to the movies in the first place.

8) Talk to Me

In telling the story of Petey Greene, the groundbreaking radio talk show host who was a major voice of Black change in the late 60s, Talk to Me covers several different layers of Petey’s life and hits on countless emotional bases with an effortless, heartwarming charm. The film doesn’t just tell Petey’s story, it explores the responsibilities of social change, the nature of selling out in show business, and how a black man should conduct himself in an ever-changing society. It’s funny, cool, heartbreaking, feel-good, sad, and touching all at once. Great credit is due to Don Cheadle and Chiwetel Ejiofor, who create an on-screen friendship that is both thoughtful and touching. Their final scene together in a pool hall will unexpectedly tug at your heartstrings.

9) The Darjeeling Limited

Wes Anderson has created his most puzzling yet most meditative work to date with The Darjeeling Limited, the story of three estranged brothers on a spiritual journey in India What makes the film so special is how Anderson has big things to say about family and spirituality yet allows the audience to find those messages on its own. This is not an easy film that spells-things-out, but it compels its audience to dig in and unearth its deep thoughts. If nothing else, the film further builds Anderson’s already solid reputation as a brilliant auteur. following the death of their father.

10) Hot Fuzz

The Judd Apatow gang scored big laughs this year with Knocked Up and Superbad, but the honor of funniest comedy of the year goes to Hot Fuzz, the hilarious cop spoof from the crew that brought you Shaun of the Dead. Not only does the film brilliantly send up cop-film clichés, but it also pokes fun at the quick-cutting grandeur of the Michael Bay The laughs just don’t stop coming in this comic thrill ride, especially if you’re an action movie junkie. And this isn’t just a talking heads comedy that sacrifices technical skills for laughs. Director Edgar Wright crafts the film with great cinematic precision and helps create characters and a plot we actually care about outside of the laughs. Simon Pegg is solid as tough super cop Nick Angel, but the real laugh riot here is Nick Frost as the bumbling Danny Butterman. Forget Seth Rogen, the real comedic treasure of the year is Frost, a goofy and sincere oaf who’ll have you in stitches almost every time he’s on camera. Whether he’s plowing through fences, chasing swans, or giving himself massive ice cream headaches, Frost effortlessly creates the best comedic performance of the year. action style.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

-Atonement

-Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead

-Eastern Promises

-Michael Clayton

-Once

-Superbad

OTHER THINGS I REALLY LOVED AT THE MOVIES THIS YEAR

-Johnny Depp channeling David Bowie in Sweeney Todd.

-The Beatles sequence in Walk Hard: the Dewey Cox Story.

-“Pop Goes My Heart” from Music and Lyrics (Oscar, take notice for Best Song).

-The fact that Justin Timberlake is a talented actor and isn’t just filler in Alpha Dog.

-Jay-Z reinventing the power of the “inspired” soundtrack with his American Gangster album.

-The relaxed final moments of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.

-I…drink…your…MILKSHAKE!!!!

Reiner's 'Bucket List' is Terminally Ill Emotionally

by Brett Parker

Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman have never acted together in a feature film and now they find themselves starring together in the Rob Reiner comedy, The Bucket List. This film provides the stars with the rather difficult task of distracting an audience from a film that lacks considerable realism, wit, logic, and good special effects. It’s a testament to both actors’ talents, I think, that in spite of the films many flaws, The Bucket List still comes across as entertaining and amusing.

Nicholson and Freeman both star as terminal cancer patients with only months to live. Nicholson is Edward Cole, a medical billionaire who owns the very hospital he is being cared for in, while Freeman is Carter Chambers, a mechanic with a loving extended family who wishes him well everyday at the hospital. Both Edward and Carter share a hospital room and despite their differences, they develop a friendship based mostly on their empathy for each other’s illness. One day, Edward notices Carter scribbling away at notepad and discovers he is making a “bucket list,” a list of all the things Carter wants to do with his life before he “kicks the bucket.”Being a billionaire with no close relatives, Edward realizes he can finance Carter’s bucket list dreams with money that will just go to waste anyways. Cringing at the thought of spending their remaining days in a hospital, Edward and Carter decide to up and travel around the world, fulfilling their wishes on the list. These wishes include skydiving, dining in France, seeing the Pyramids, etc. Edward and Carter have an exhilarating time and really grow close with each other. However, when Carter’s family begs him to come home and secrets are revealed about Edward’s own family history, the two realize that staring down death is more complicated than they thought.

The Bucket List is like eating a really tasty candy bar that you know is really bad for you health-wise. At face value, it’s an enjoyable film. Entertainment-wise, you can do a whole lot worse than watching Nicholson and Freeman living it up all over the world. Yet when you apply logical thought to the finer points of the script, you realize there is a whole lot wrong with this picture. If two men were really dying of cancer, would they really have enough energy to go running around the globe and jump out of airplanes like they do? Would Carter’s wife (Beverly Todd) really be as patient as she is about her husband wanting to spend his remaining days with a wild billionaire instead of with his own family? And this may be a small detail, but would a lifelong mechanic work on a car’s engine while smoking a cigarette? If that thing drops, it could send the fuel line up in flames!

One can usually be forgiving of a flawed screenplay if other parts of the film are of better quality, but The Bucket List shows weakness elsewhere outside of the script. Throughout the film, Edward and Carter visit exotic locations around the globe such as the Taj Mahal, Africa, and Hong Kong. Instead of filming Nicholson and Freeman in these actual locations, the scenes instead take place on unconvincing made-up sets filled in with clunky CGI effects. So obvious are the effects here that you can almost swear to seeing the blue screen placed behind the actors. At first, I thought maybe the filmmakers were trying to brighten the locations up to make them look more sublime, kind of like the dream-like New York City from Vanilla Sky, but who am I kidding? This was obviously done because the producers didn’t want to shell out the dough to send Nicholson and Freeman all over the world.

Also lacking is funny dialogue. You’d think Nicholson and Freeman talking about death and traveling would have you in stitches, but I found myself barely even chuckling throughout the viewing. I don’t know if the stars improvised at all, but they should’ve been given a lot more room for it than they were obviously given here.

Yet it is Nicholson and Freeman themselves who help to redeem this movie for its flaws. They allow certain complexities and details into their characters that give them more depth than is usually allowed in sappy dramadies. I mentioned Carter’s wife earlier. At first you ask yourself how a dying man could abandon his wife to go run off with a complete stranger. Carter tells us why, eventually, stating how his marriage wasn’t as fulfilling as he’d hoped it be. Some may find this to be a cruel and out-of-character, but it actually reveals a human honesty within the character that is a surprise to us. It is also revealed that Edward does not get along with his adult daughter. Instead of the usual father-daughter complications to explain the rift, we discover that his daughter had an abusive husband and Edward called a guy who “takes care of things” to take the husband out of the picture. The husband wasn’t killed, but he never came back. You have to admit this is dark stuff for this kind of entertainment, but that’s probably why it is so welcomed here. Nicholson and Freeman sell this as where lesser actors would fail miserably.

So what we have here is an amusing tearjerker filled with serious logical problems. But with Rob Reiner at the helm, how could we not see this coming? Reiner is a director who’s turned sacrificing logic in favor of sentiment into something of a director’s trademark. He’s had his hits (Stand by Me, A Few Good Men), he’s had his misses (The Story of Us, North) but for the most part, he’s dealt in emotionally-charged Hollywood fare that poses serious questions in terms of plot. I’m reminded of the time I saw Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds with a friend of mine. Most of the audience was furious with the bleak thriller’s rather happy ending. When I asked my friend about the ending, he stated “of course it was a happy ending. I knew that walking in. It’s Spielberg at the helm. Sometimes you have to know who you’re watching.”

That appears to be true of Reiner. If you pay to see one of his films and complain about too much sappiness and a lack of realism, perhaps it’s your own fault. If you want a realistic and deep film about living and dying, look elsewhere. If you want to watch two legendary actors dance their way through a sea of Hollywood sentiment, this is the flick for you.