Mr. Frost (1990)

Being Film #12 in Hail Horror 4.  Thanks to Jason (formerly of Your Theory is Crazy) for the recommendation.

Back when I was a broke post-college graduate living in downtown Albany, I engaged in a film education event with my friend Jason, said "event" being nothing more than introducing films the other hadn't seen but that, in our infinite 20-something year old wisdom, deemed excellent.  For the life of me I can't recall what film I might have recommended (probably something old...Jason, if you're reading this and remember I'd love to know), but I distinctly recall the two films Jason recommended to me: RAPA NUI, the Easter Island romantic adventure, and MR. FROST, a film whose concept seemed right up my alley but which, alas, was no longer in print.  We watched RAPA NUI (decent) and never got to MR. FROST.

Fast-forward 12-13 years, and thanks to the power of Netflix's Watch Now, my fervent dreams of finally seeing MR. FROST were about to come true.

Jeff Goldblum plays the title character, a quirky gentleman living on some palatial estate (the movie, a joint France/UK production, never establishes a location; at times it looks like France, England, and inexplicably in one scene Brooklyn) when he's visited by Detective Detweiler (played by Alan Bates), there to question him about a story - two car thieves broke into his house only to run away when they discover a dead body in the vehicle.  Far from protesting, Mr. Frost divulges that not only was there a body in the car, but he was just in the process of burying it next to over a dozen other victims when the detective started up the driveway.  Off to the nut house Mr. Frost willingly goes, where he refuses to speak for two years.

Cut to the present, and he's shipped to a new hospital where he meets Doctor Day, the sexy (in a 1990 kinda way) female psychiatrist played by Kathy Baker.  It's only to Day that Mr. Frost will speak, and he confides to her that he is, in fact, the Devil - Old Scratch himself.  Seems the Devil pines for the days where the battle between Good and Evil  was a little more clear-cut before the advent of science and psychology, and he's here now to prove that the rational beliefs of the modern world can't override the ancient aethetic of Pure, 100% Grade-A Evil, and he'll prove it - by forcing her to murder him.

On paper it sounds really cool - a great tug-of-war on the nature of Good vs. Evil, Science vs. Faith...something like a metaphysical David Mamet film.  In fact, how cool would this have played out if written/directed by Mamet, and starring his HOUSE OF GAMES alums Joe Mantegna and Lindsay Crouse?  Alas, despite my enjoyment of all things Goldblum, MR. FROST plays a lot like a Lifetime Movie of the Week.  There are a few creepy moments: Frost holds a weird power over portions of the hospital's inhabitants, including members of the staff, and they follow him with a wordless devotion that's genuinely unsettling.  There's also a quick dream sequence where Goldblum does a bait-and-switch that's a lot of fun.

But all too often we get really bad lighting (in some places the film's so dark you can't make heads or tails of what's going on), bad transitions, and a few unintentionally funny scenes.  Alan Bates is kind of wasted as the disgraced detective looking to end Frost's terror, and I can't help but think of Kathy Baker as a television actress, even when she's delightful in films like EDWARD SCISSORHANDS.  In the end I think this is a case of something my 18-year old self would have loved just for the subject matter, but the 36-year old has found this subject matter handled much better elsewhere by now.

NOTE:  I'm serious about the Goldblum thing: immediately after this film he did VIBES with Peter Falk and Cyndi Lauper, EARTH GIRLS ARE EASY with future wife (at the time) Genna Davis, and the sublime THE TALL GUY - all films I have no problem saying I enjoyed.  And does anyone remember that weird cop show RAINES he did a year or so ago?  Man I liked that...

2ND NOTE:  Weird coincidence?  I was searching through the old Interwebs, and it turns out Starz is using Mister Frost in their Instant Viewing advertising.  Check it out:

Oh, Pitchfork...

...why do you rate Converge's amazing new album Axe to Fall a heady 8.5, and yet fail to award it Best New Music Status?  You call them "this gereration's Black Flag," and say of their softer songs, "they're amazing constructions of texture and friction."  5 of your last 10 Best New Music albums scored less than Converge...why do you not give them the love?

(cries softly, then goes back to work)

Chronic City Review @ Un:Bound

In between all the horror watching I have manage to do other things, a few of which I'll talk about next month when we get back to more personal writing.  In the meantime, over at Un:Bound I share my thoughts on the new novel by Jonathan Lethem, Chronic City.

Read the exerpt below, and find the full reivew over at Un:Bound.

Here's a short list of things Jonathan Lethem's new novel Chronic City is about: a 2-story tall tiger secretly demolishing buildings, a bizarre cloud that smells like chocolate to some, to others it doesn't smell at all, but comes across as a piercing sound originating within their ears. It's about a virtual world, part World of Warcraft and part Second Life and of the virtual treasure that has the power to transform your mind. It's also about how these virtual realities may not be virtual at all, and in fact it is our world that's the virtual one.

It's also about the people caught up in these things - specifically, three people. Perkus Tooth, former voice of the city and paranoid conspiracist, determined to prove between tokes of weed that not only is Marlon Brando still alive but is the savior of the city. Richard Abneg, aide to the mayor and best by eagles who live outside his apartment window, who rails against the cultured elite of the city even as he seduces and is seduced by one of its own. And Chase Insteadman, former child star and current conversation piece, who drifts in and out of both worlds, not realizing he's playing a bigger part than he ever imagined. 

Chronic City

Here's a short list of things Jonathan Lethem's new novel Chronic City is about: a 2-story tall tiger secretly demolishing buildings, a bizarre cloud that smells like chocolate to some, to others it doesn't smell at all, but comes across as a piercing sound originating within their ears. It's about a virtual world, part World of Warcraft and part Second Life and of the virtual treasure that has the power to transform your mind. It's also about how these virtual realities may not be virtual at all, and in fact it is our world that's the virtual one.

It's also about the people caught up in these things - specifically, three people. Perkus Tooth, former voice of the city and paranoid conspiracist, determined to prove between tokes of weed that not only is Marlon Brando still alive but is the savior of the city. Richard Abneg, aide to the mayor and best by eagles who live outside his apartment window, who rails against the cultured elite of the city even as he seduces and is seduced by one of its own. And Chase Insteadman, former child star and current conversation piece, who drifts in and out of both worlds, not realizing he's playing a bigger part than he ever imagined.

Lethem came to prominence crafting off-beat novels in the vein of Philip K. Dick, one of his heroes. Novels like Gun, With Occasional Music and Amnesia Moon were as full of social ideas as they were of kangaroo detectives and gargantuan aliens. After a brilliant run of critically acclaimed novels set in a much more realistic setting (though no less off-beat), he returns in Chronic City to the familiar strains of Dick's best writing, while at the same time crafting a quirky valentine card to New York City.

Despite the myriad oddments in the story, which loosely tells the story of a possible conspiracy within the city and Insteadman's unknowing role in that conspiracy, what Lethem's really focusing on is the nature of friendship, the quest to become someone, an individual, and what it means to do all of this in new York City, a place where love it or hate it, you are forever changed by being there. His best books (Motherless Brooklyn, The Fortress of Solitude) have a way of making their settings palpable, a living, breathing entity in which the characters become one with the streets, storefronts, and assorted locales. He also has a knack for pulling on the strings of our childhood, and although the specifics may differ, he's able to get to the emotions we carry about our old favorites toys, street corner songs, and humid days looking across the street at the girl or guy you hope to talk to by Summer's end. Chronic City hits those marks more that it misses them, in episodes like when Perkus, evicted from his apartment and forced to live in an apartment building for dogs, finds joy and love with a three-legged pitt bull named Ava. Or at the end of the novel, where Chase relates the story of the first time he met Janice Trumball, an astronaut whose current mission plays a large part in the novel's events.

Another key features that plays through Chronic City is the use of other writer's words. Lethem constantly quotes other books and, in some places, uses their words as his character's won (he credits all these sections in the back of the book) - for him, whose life was filled with the words of his heroes, Chronic City offers a chance to play with those same words in new and interesting ways.

Jonathan Lethem is one of the authors on my short of writers I discovered with their first book and continued to follow through their career, picking up each new work as soon as it came out. For the past decade he's grown by leaps and bounds, and Chronic City is a wonderful reminder of a great writer, a great city, and the wonderful words we remember for our entire lives.

Tenebre (1982)

Being Film #11 in Hail Horror 4.  This review is part of Kevin J. Olsen's Italian Horror Blog-a-thon at Hugo Stiglitz Makes a Movie.

Although he's made several in the years since, TENEBRAE (or TENEBRE) marks the last of Dario Argento's run of truly great giallo films, arguably starting with his debut THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE in 1970.  Filled with Argento's common themes of sexual confusion, identity and vision, lushly and luridly photographed, and boasting a stellar soundtrack by 3/4 of the members of Goblin, who scored Argento's last two films (DEEP RED and SUSPIRIA) as well as George A. Romero's classic DAWN OF THE DEAD, TENEBRAE is a grisly but stylish film, serving as a great introduction to all of Argento's strengths as a filmmaker.

Peter Neal is a murder/mystery writer on his way to Rome to promote his latest book Tenebrae.  Within two hours of his arrival a young woman, caught shoplifting his novel earlier, is found savagely murdered in her apartment, her body slashed and pages from the novel shoved in her mouth.  It's a shocking scene, brightly lit and pulsing with the prog-rock theme by Goblin.  Only the killer's hands are seen,  a calling card of Argento's films:

Seems like the film at this point is going to be pretty cut and dried - the author, under suspicion of murder has to clear his own name by finding the serial killer using his books as a template.  Ah, but you see, this is a Dario Argento film, and soon after the authorities (in another great quirk, Argento's investigators are a man and woman beautiful and suave, who bicker like they've seen one too many Tracy and Hepburn films) question Peter and have a brief chase when he receives a threatening call from the suspected killer, we get treated to a crazy sequence that begins with crazed screaming, shadows on a wall, and another Argento calling card: an extreme close-up of an object, this time a series of pills and a glass of water, followed by a scene seemingly cut from a different movie altogether.

A young woman teases a bunch of young, sexually inexperienced boys boys at the beach.  The music is dreamlike, and the fact that everyone's in white tells you something's amiss.  This is classic Argento, playing with youth and sexuality in a way the emphasizes confusion and ambiguity.  We see the woman, watch her eyes hungry as she pulls her shirt down and tempts the boys, but we never see the boy's faces - they're either shot from behind or cut off at the neck.  The dream quality is shattered when one of the boys slaps the woman in the face, and pays for his crime when he is held down as she savagely kicks him and then forces him to eat her shiny candy-apple red heel:

Back in the present the violence begins to erupt again:  After a series of beautifully long tracking shots the killer strikes again, murdering a young journalist and her lesbian lover.  Mysterious letters are appearing under Peter's door, which may or may not be connected to the murders.  As Peter and his assistant Anne (Argento regular Daria Nicolodi) deal with the killer, he's also dealing with the press, all whom have varying negative views on Neal's work.  Argento uses these moments to pose questions on the nature of deviancy what we identify as "normal" - for a film that takes a wicked glee in its murder set-pieces, there's a lot of subtexts running through TENEBRAE. 

In the end, though, it isn't the themes and subtexts that keep TENEBRAE so fresh over 25 years alter - it's the sheer style and inventiveness on display.  There are some beautiful shots, as when one young victim being chased my a mad dog wanders by a pool, her reflection captured in the water.  Or the slow, pulsing tracking shots, whether it's following a victim or giving us the killer's POV.  Or the extreme close-ups: one of a razor cracking a lightbulb, another of the same razor being run under running water, the blood slowly washing from it.  Or even the composition of an empty room, a light bulb, and an open door:

The action ramps up as discoveries are made, even as more and more people wind up dead, including Peter's agent played wonderfully by John Saxon, who has a wacky scene early in the film concerning his love for his new hat.  Argento keeps the pace tense, and although there are a few clues to give away what's actually happening, TENEBRAE manages to keep you guessing with enough twists and turns to make this a great thriller as well as a straight-up horror.  The color red is used time and again, in the heels of the dream woman, the wrapping of a mysterious package sent to Peter's ex-wife, in Rome for reasons of her own.  Vision plays a huge role in the film: eyes are constantly being filmed close up, the killer takes pictures of his victims, and an important clue is obscured by the trauma one man suffers after witnessing one of the brutal murders (this one an axe to the head).

When we get to the end almost everyone is dead, the meaning of the dream images comes clear, and nothing is what we thought it was going to be.  While not my favorite of his giallo films (that would go to DEEP RED), TENEBRAE is an excellent companion piece to that film, and a great modern thriller.

All in a day's work for Mr. Dario Argento.