DRESSED TO KILL–while not as powerful as BLOW OUT or CARRIE– is a perfect example of De Palma’s bold style, and his willingness to go over the top, which has always divided audiences. The film is lurid: bursting with sex, violence and high emotion to the point of delirium.

In the special features of the BLOW OUT Criterion, De Palma states that coverage is a “dirty word”. (Coverage being the footage a filmmaker is “supposed to get” in order to play it safe during editing, i.e. the master shot, followed by individual close-ups.) When you watch DRESSED TO KILL you see exactly what he means. Every shot is compelling, and is there to progress the story visually. Within those shots, every bit of space and production design is utilized to dramatic effect. That’s not to say it all works perfectly. There are choices I’m not crazy about, but even they are done with such confidence that I can’t help but admire them.

The elevator scene is on a par with the shower scene in PSYCHO. Not as experimental, but equally as effective and well constructed. So masterful, it should be dissected in film schools everywhere.

Agree or disagree, the comparison is relevant. There are many nods to PSYCHO throughout DRESSED TO KILL, and De Palma doesn’t try to hide them. But to me, DRESSED TO KILL is about the language of cinema. Taking what Hitchcock learned about the building of suspense, and trying to further it. Like Hitchcock, De Palma’s films are often about voyeurism. Few themes are more cinematic.

However, it’s not only thrills and technical flourishes that make this film so special. The performances from Dickinson and Nancy Allen help ground the story and make it something we care about. As over-the-top as the film gets, these actors manage to always make it credible. It also has a great sense of humor, mostly brought in by Dennis Franz, who has never been better as the wise-guy detective.

The Blu-Ray offers nothing new in the supplement department. So even if you figure out a way to access the menu, you wont find any surprises here. But at least it’s better than the Blu-Ray release of CARRIE, which actually offered less special features than the DVD and a lousy transfer to boot. (also by MGM).

The transfer is fine. Not nearly as good as the BLOW OUT release, but that’s to be expected. The colors are a little more prominent and the blacks are deeper. What’s good is they didn’t clean it up to the point where we lose any of the grain. It still looks like it was made in 1980. It’s a small upgrade that isn’t going to blow you away. If you already own the DVD, save your money. The cover (which goes back to the original art) is my favorite part.

A recently paroled ex-boxer hires a private investigator to find his girlfriend and a satchel of missing diamonds. Sound like something you’ve seen before? It did to me too…at first.

While THE BIG BANG starts out using the familiar Raymond Chandler template, it soon turns into something much more bizarre as it takes an apocalyptic turn and dives head first into the surreal.

Along the way, P.I. Ned Cruz (Antonio Banderas) encounters a drugged-out movie star (James Van Der Beek), a porn director (Snoop Dogg), a kinky waitress with a fetish for particle physics (Autumn Reeser) and a wealthy billionaire intent on recreating the big bang underneath the New Mexico desert. (Sam Elliott)

Banderas gives an anchored lead performance that allows the quirky supporting characters to shine. Especially Autumn Reeser, a television veteran who I hadn’t seen in a film until now. Together they have a sex scene that is going in my book as the best of the year so far.

With the cast I just listed (plus William Fichtner, Delroy Lindo and Sienna Guillory), THE BIG BANG should be enjoying a much wider theatrical release. But in the end, I think it’s just too damn strange for most. You can catch it on DVD or On-Demand, and if you’re tired of the same old, I recommend you do just that.

I recently chatted up the director, Tony Krantz for an exclusive Films In Review interview.

David Guglielmo: I’d like to begin by talking about the evolution of your career. From your start as an agent, to a television producer and now a film producer and director. Did you always know that you’d eventually end up in the director’s chair?

Tony Krantz: In eighth grade I wrote an essay for a job survey in one of my classes and it was about being a director. So I really wanted to be a director most of my life, but after graduating from Berkeley College, where I was the concert promoter for the student body, I wanted a career that was a long-term prospect, so I joined the mail-room at CAA, which is sort of the classic thing to do in Hollywood history, and I ended up working at CAA for fifteen years, eventually running the prime-time television department where I packaged series for the network television. I packaged “ER”, “The West Wing”, “Twin Peaks”, and “90210″ among many others. After leaving CAA, I took the next step to being a director and became a producer. I was the CEO and Co-Chairman of Imagine Television with Brian Grazer and Ron Howard. We started the company from scratch, and ended up producing a number of shows very quickly. We did “Felicity” with J.J. Abrams, “Sports Night” with Aaron Sorkin, “The PJ’s “with Eddie Murphy, and “Mulholland Dr.” with David Lynch, which started as a cancelled television pilot for ABC. “24″ with Keifer Sutherland was the final show I did. Then about five years ago I started my own company, Flame Ventures, and along the way, my two partners and I had a project with two partners. We were going to do an anthological television series each week. But anthologies in television are almost impossible to sell. It was from the co-writer/director of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, Dan Myrick, and the Executive Producer of “The X- Files” John Shiban, and myself, the Executive Producer of “24″. It was essentially going to be the new “Twilight Zone”. But we couldn’t even get a script deal – no one would develop it with us given its anthological shape. Then one of my agents said to me “Why don’t you try to do them as a series of direct-to-DVD movies?”. We didn’t even know that that was a business. So we eventually sold three films to Warner Bros. They ended up being quite successful. One I directed, called SUBLIME, a surreal horror film. They ordered three more, and I directed another called OTIS, which is a black comedy horror movie, and then THE BIG BANG happened shortly thereafter because the writer, Erik Jendresen and I wanted to do a bigger movie – my first theatrical.

DG: Many directors that have made the transition from television to film often say that it helped them move much faster during feature production. Is this your experience as well?

TK: Definitely. The television training is invaluable. The first movie (SUBLIME) we did in fifteen days, which is the equivalent of two episodes of “24″. The way “24″ was shot, was that two episodes were “cross-boarded”. That means the two episodes were shot as one movie, and it would take fifteen days, so we were shooting about an episode in seven and a half days. Typically an hour-long television show is shot in eight days. This was a way to save money. SUBLIME was shot in fifteen days, the equivalent of two episodes of “24″. But since it’s a movie, it was ambitious because we were working with all new sets and cast members, and we didn’t have the crew that a television show is used to. If I hadn’t had the experience working in television, I would have had a lot more trouble shooting SUBLIME in such a short period of time.

DG: Let’s talk about THE BIG BANG. One of the reasons I really like it is that it has all the conventions we’ve come to associate with the Film Noir genre, but the actual story within that framework is highly original and it just keeps getting crazier. How important was it for you to hit those familiar staples, so the audience feels comfortable before you pull the rug out from underneath?

TK: It was very important to us. We were definitely paying homage to the great Noir movies of the 40′s and 50′s. The classic idea of somebody walking into a detective’s office and saying “I want you to find a missing girl” is a fundamental homage, but then it goes from there and incorporates the ideas of particle physics – and especially this notion of duality. The idea that everything is a wave and a particle at the same time, which is fundamental to the laws of physics, fit in very directly to the idea of a Noir movie to us, which is about opposites– It’s about shadow and light. If you look at the idea of physics being about opposites, and the paradoxical nature of life, you’ll see it played into the story we developed where what you think is happening is actually the opposite of what’s happening. And the two stories that you think are disparate, actually end up being the same. We deal with opposites throughout. Good and evil, male and female, light and dark, all those kinds of ideas are actually made real in THE BIG BANG. The subtext is made into text. So the ideas of physics and Noir show themselves in story terms.

DG: Were there any Film Noir you looked at for inspiration?

TK: TOUCH OF EVIL by Orson Welles. To me, it’s the pinnacle of Film Noir. It’s just the ultimate. The dutch angles, the tracking shot that goes on and on at the start of the film. The story itself.… It was a giant influence to me, and weirdly, it happened to be Antonio Banderas’ favorite movie of all time. But I’ll give you another example. There was a movie in the 50′s with Paul Newman called HUD. It ended up winning the Oscar for cinematography, shot by James Wong Howe, a brilliant cinematographer. He shot that movie in a West Texas landscape with all these incredible horizontals and verticals to punctuate the frame. I was inspired by that. I thought about Noir and the reinvention or modernization of Noir for the year 2011 and the first choice I made was to shoot it in color. Because most of the Noir we see are in Black and White. Then, if you’re really going to go for it, It should be very vibrant. Now the script has somewhat of a magical realistic quality to it. We already had that in the script. Little people bursting into fire and turning into flaming supernovas, you’ve got beams of light that are bending around the weight of Anton – that kind of thing — things that are somewhat surreal. I wanted to create a world that was slightly alternative. So we incorporated the rectangular kind of ideas that James Wong Howe already had in HUD. If you look at it you’ll see a horizontalism and verticality in the sets, as well as the way the camera was positioned to shoot the action. I used very wide-angle lenses. I don’t think I ever used a 50mm lens throughout the entire movie. I like the very wide and tight look you get simultaneously with an 18mm lens. Shelly Johnson is a brilliant DP, doing films like CAPTAIN AMERICA and WOLFMAN – he shot THE BIG BANG. He did a lot of aggressive things visually on a very limited budget to give this movie it’s own feel, and I think the results speak for themselves.

DG: I agree. The colors really pop but at the same time it’s so contrasty and shadowy that you keep a certain black and white feel. This was your first time working with Shelly Johnson, right?

TK: Yes. It was, and we hope to collaborate on many things in the future. He’s a master.

DG: How familiar were you with physics before this movie, and how much did you have to research?

TK: Erik Jendresen was very familiar with many of the laws of physics. Schrödinger’s cat, and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle – those kinds of things and experiments. And Because of that there are a lot of plays on words. [The character] Fay Neman is a play on Richard Feynman. Schrödinger’s Cat is a very famous physics experiment and we’ve got a guy named Snoop Dogg playing that part of a porn director and he’s making a movie called THE BLACK HOLE about a bunch of white guys who enter into a black porn star – and disappear and never come out, like white stars disappearing into a black hole. We were doing those kinds of things all over the place — and we thought that would be fun, to have Easter eggs for people who know physics, but I’m not super-duper knowledgeable, myself. I realized that it wasn’t my strong suit throughout school. I was better at English and History. But Eric is, and he’s also a master of Noir films and his knowledge of [Raymond] Chandler and those kinds of things. So we found a way to pepper the film with those little subtleties. Here’s a fun thing: That beam of light that hits the stripper?. The idea behind that is that we’re shooting the movie at the speed of light, because if you’re seeing the leading edge of a beam of light you are literally traveling as fast as those photons are traveling. That beam of light that bends around Anton is light bending through space, being bent by the gravitational objects that have a certain amount of mass to them. There are ideas like that everywhere throughout the film. Planck’s Constant is the name of the diner that Fay works in – that kind of thing – and the reason why it’s called Constant is because it never closes, it’s twenty-four hours. But most importantly it’s the idea that Simon Kestral, played by Sam Elliot, is looking for the missing subatomic particle that Einstein theorized existed — something known as the Higgs Particle — also known as The God Particle — and that Antonio Banderas is looking for a missing woman — but what he’s really looking for in his life is love. And these two stories are discovered to be the same story — and one might argue that God is love, and Sam Elliott is looking for the same thing Antonio is looking for. Except Sam’s so fucking crazy that he builds a billion dollar particle collider under the New Mexican desert to find that thing that Antonio discovers through a very odd set of circumstances where the person who he thinks has been writing these letters is actually a completely different person. So it’s a really complex plot but it’s something we really loved because it’s a metaphor for all these kinds of ideas on spirituality and physics built inside a noir detective story.

DG: I thought Autumn Reeser was just terrific, and I loved that sex scene. The way she delivered her dialogue while explaining her tattoos and physics, felt like a stream of consciousness. How much of it was scripted?

TK: All of it was scripted. In the DVD extras there is actually an extended version of the sex scene. It’s longer. She explains more of her tattoos. It was first sex scene Autumn had ever done in a movie. So the night before, in a very professional and fully clothed way, Erik, Antonio, Autumn, and I met in Antonio’s hotel room and went over the scene. We spoke in detail about it and rehearsed it physically. Fully clothed, but right there on the ground. So on the day of shooting we knew exactly what we were going to do. It was a limited crew because of the nudity, and we had originally negotiated a deal with Autumn where the nudity would have been a lot more limited than what you see now in the movie. Which is to say, she really went for it. She was incredibly professional and elegant. The visuals were actually motivated by a book of photographs I have by Scott Caan, James Caan’s son. He took some nudes that were bathed in yellow light and shadow. I thought those were so beautiful. So Shelly and I looked at them and we wanted to give the scene that kind of a sepia feel. You spoke about the movie being colorful but having a black and white feel at the same time. So there’s a sepia feel to that scene, where there was really only one other color, other than black in that scene — A cayenne, paprika, orangey kind of color. Steve Arnold, our wonderful Production Designer, matched that color — from the gels to the sheets to the pillow cases. The set decoration, everything was built to that color palate. In addition to those horizontals and verticals on the walls. In the end we did a crazy scene that I think is very beautiful and lyrical, where Autumn is literally explaining the laws of particle physics to Antonio’s character, Ned Cruz, while she’s making love to him.

DG: The score for the film, composed by Johnny Marr from The Smiths, is getting a lot of attention, and deservedly so. At what point did you approach him, and what were your directions?

TK: I’ve known Johnny for twenty years or more. When I was a young agent at CAA in LA, my roommate, Ken Friedman, managed The Smiths, UB40 and Simple Minds, at the same time. Imagine that! So Johnny came for a couple of weeks and stayed with us in the house that we were renting in the Hollywood Hills. Over the years I lost touch with him, and one day I was driving in my car listening to his solo record Boomslang and I thought this is the perfect music for THE BIG BANG. So I contacted him and we met a couple weeks later in Los Angeles. Then it turns out MULHOLLAND DR. is one of his favorite movies – which I had produced. I pointed to portions of the Boomslang record and said this is what I’m looking for, and we used some of the music, and took all the vocals out, then re-recorded it so it’s all new – it was influenced by his solo record. We then fit it to the picture, but we had a framework. That record already existed so I knew what it was going to sound like. We had a whole library of music that he was giving us and we were mixing and matching. Johnny did it all while he was in London and I was in LA but we were very much in contact on a daily basis. I would send him a cut of a scene at the end of every day. We’d send him the visual file, and the next morning he would send it back with the music fitted to the image. He’s a genius, and one of the greatest guitarists in the world. But it was a very unusual way to go about it – not being in the same room, and in our taking a rock record that existed and using that to score the movie. But Johnny adapted all of it so the emotional parts were done in a non-traditional way. The emotional strings don’t swell at an emotional moment. It’s more of an atmospheric score, creating a mood in a scene, instead of scoring each specific beat, which is more of the traditional way to deal with score.

DG: You mentioned how you packaged TWIN PEAKS, then later produced MULHOLLAND DR. Would you say David Lynch has been an influence on your career?

TK: Definitely. You can look at THE BIG BANG and see how much of an influence he’s been. I think he is one of the great treasures of American cinema. He’s a unique original. He’s a deep, passionate, mysterious, dream-like director. I think he’s truly one of the great directors working in the world today. I love his work and this movie has pieces of David Lynch in it.

DG: Has he seen the film?

TK: I don’t know. He may have, but David is sort of doing his own thing these days. He’s involved in various other art projects and business projects not directly related to movie making. So I honestly don’t know if he has or hasn’t.

DG: What’s next for you and Flame Ventures?

TK: We’re doing a lot of different things. We’re developing a number of movies. There’s a movie I’m going to be doing next called HONEY VICARRO, which is set in the 60′s, behind the scenes of the television business in Los Angeles. It’s about a television show that was too hot to handle. It was political and sort of pulled the cover off of some of the things that were happening secretly in the government at the time. It’s BOOGIE NIGHTS meets NETWORK, in a way. It’s written by a brilliant writer, Dan Knauf, who wrote “Carnivale” for HBO. I have a number of movies I’m developing. One with the NFL, another is a revenge movie set in West Texas, a World War II movie based on a video game, and several others. My interests vary.

DG: Is Erik Jendresen writing any of them?

TK: No, but we’re working together with Chris McQuarrie, who wrote THE USUAL SUSPECTS, and Francis [Ford] Coppola, on a television adaptation of THE CONVERSATION, based on the mini-masterpiece that Francis Coppola created all those years ago. Flame has very interesting projects we are doing on the television side of the equation in addition to the films we’re involved in, which I love. That’s the thing about my career — It’s always been different projects that tend to push the limits of things. “Twin Peaks” is very different from “ER”, which is very different from “Sports Night” which is very different from “24″ or “The PJ’s” or “Felicity” or “Wild Palms” or “Melrose Place” or “Wonderland” which I did with Pete Berg. I do think there is a link between all of them and that’s the desire to do interesting and good work. As a director I don’t know if I can necessarily be categorized in a any particular kind of way. An action director or thriller director or surreal director, whatever that might be. I just respond to great material and do what interests me – I am really lucky to be able to create what comes to my mind. It’s a cliché to say it, but I am blessed. And I do work very hard. I can look at a movie like FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, and admire that, and be interested in making a movie with that kind of energy and truth, but in my own way. So the NFL movie has pieces of that, and it’s obviously very different from THE BIG BANG and has different requirements in so many ways. That kind of directing career is an unusual one, but I find it to be exhilarating and refreshing to me personally. I love it. There are so many ways to make art and commerce. I think people will take a look at my movies over time and they might see a common thread — but it won’t indicate a singular type of subject matter, or even a singular approach to filmmaking. At the end of the day, I hope people love what they see, feeling something that moves and inspires them. If I can contribute in that way, it’s all worth it, that’s for sure.

Darren Aronofsky is not a subtle filmmaker. He is a manipulator who wants to use the art form as a means to force emotions out of the viewer. He is not ashamed to go over-the-top. This is in no way an insult to the man. Quite the contrary. Although in these doomed, boring days of mumblecore home videos masquerading as cinema, some viewers will inevitably hold it against him.

Nina (Natalie Portman), a professional ballet dancer, is cast as the lead in “Swan Lake” where she must play the dual role of the White Swan and her evil twin the Black Swan. The director (Vincent Cassel) is certain she can play White, but is still unconvinced that she can master the uninhibited seductress. Her mother (Barbara Hershey), an ex-dancer herself, puts pressure on Nina to be perfect. She treats her like a little girl, to the extent that it’s borderline incestuous. She bathes her, clips her fingernails, sleeps in her room, and has her lick cake off her finger.

Nina is stuck in the middle of a psychological tug-o-war. On one side: the director – provoking her to tap into her dark side and explore her sexuality. On the other: Her overbearing mother, who wants the “sweet girl”. Enter Lily (Mila Kunis). The new dancer in the company who might just be the friend Nina needs to keep her head on straight. Or, she could be a femme fatale, intent on stealing Nina’s role and pushing her further into madness.

One can say It’s ALL ABOUT EVE meets REPULSION on the set of THE RED SHOES with a dash of THE FLY.

…or we can call it how it is. An original.

Audiences are saying this is his companion piece to THE WRESTLER and I can see why. Both follow their central character in every scene, photographed in a semi-docu style (the same gritty 16mm film stock). Both films also deal with the physical stress these protagonists inflict on themselves for the sake of their profession.

Be that as it may, I would argue that this is more in the vein of REQUIEM FOR A DREAM. Aronofsky has gone back to the grab-you-by-the-throat style that made REQUIEM so disturbing. BLACK SWAN is just as relentless, only it’s more delirious. You know it’s a downward spiral, but once it has you in its grip all you can do is hang on for the ride. BLACK SWAN doesn’t give you the free time to analyze it. Frustrating, I’m sure, to the critics who sit with their little notepads and flashlight pens (learn how to write in the dark already!). It forces you to save your opinions till after the credits. You experience it first.

While the technical aspects of the film are terrific, it would not be nearly as impressive without the power of Natalie Portman’s performance. There hasn’t been an Oscar statue so well deserved since Daniel Day Lewis in THERE WILL BE BLOOD.

Recently there has been controversy (triggered by a jealous body double) over how much dancing she really did. I honestly couldn’t care less. It’s not only the physicality of the role that earned her the accolades. It’s extremely challenging to play a role that is this innocent without coming off like Candide. Portman creates a character that is tortured, nuanced and real. In the film’s most heartbreaking moment, she calls her mother from a bathroom stall, overwhelmed and crying from happiness after the news that she was cast as the lead. We know things aren’t going to work out for her, but we really, really hope they do. It’s like CARRIE all over again.

As has come to be expected, the (white) Blu-Ray offers more supplements than the (black) DVD. Both have a behind-the-scenes doc, but the Blu-Ray features two more treats. An inside look at the ballet’s influence on the film’s costume and production design, and a discussion with Portman and Aronofsky about the progression of the project that spanned over ten years. The Blu-Ray also includes cast profiles.

An interesting thing about this film is its success with many unlikely demographics. It is macabre enough to please the horror crowd, and artsy enough to please the critics. It’s abstract without being overly ambiguous, so it doesn’t leave people scratching their heads. Males are not the target audience for a film about the ballet, but there’s an easy way to fix that problem: put a lesbian sex scene in the trailer. In the end, this had all the makings of a cult classic, but it turned out to be a crowd-pleaser instead.

It’s difficult to judge a show based on its pilot. They are usually slow-paced, giving you time to get to know each character. Such is not the case with THE WALKING DEAD, the new horror television show from AMC and Anchor Bay Entertainment. Within minutes we are watching an exciting car crash and violent shootout. Then, our lead character gets shot! It’s really an impressive attention grabber. I was later told that this opening of the show was aired beforehand as a sneak preview. Smart move. If I had caught that, I probably would have watched the show while it aired instead of waiting for the DVD.

I never read the comic, but THE WALKING DEAD doesn’t offer much in terms of originality. In fact, every episode had at least one familiar bit. When Rick (Andrew Lincoln) wakes up in the hospital after a coma, only to find a zombie epidemic, I doubt anyone who saw Danny Boyle’s 28 DAYS LATER failed to notice the similarities. In one of the show’s more humorous albeit most disgusting bits, the characters smear zombie guts all over themselves and walk the streets in attempt to go unnoticed. It’s a nice scene, but it’s highly reminiscent of SHAUN OF THE DEAD, where the characters do almost the same thing, minus the gore.

THE WALKING DEAD doesn’t offer any explanation for the zombies (they call them “geeks,” but I don’t). Nor do they represent anything. Whether this is to be thought of as a positive or negative is entirely dependent on the taste of the viewer. George Romero’s films always used zombies as a metaphor for social and political issues. When it works it’s great (The original DAWN OF THE DEAD), when it doesn’t…well, there’s a reason why his more recent films have not garnered the same critical reception. HBO’s vampire show TRUE BLOOD is inconsistent in this way. Sometimes it tries to use the vampires as a way to channel issues (i.e. intolerance in the south), and sometimes it knows that the sex and violence are all in the name of good fun. I prefer the latter, finding their commentary to be too obvious, and not thought provoking. Nevertheless, TRUE BLOOD is a compulsively watchable show, and I feel the same way about THE WALKING DEAD.

What makes THE WALKING DEAD a success is the acting and direction. There isn’t a weak link in the cast, and they make each character likable and realistic (unlike TRUE BLOOD, which has it’s share of very annoying and over-the-top characters). These characters ground the show in reality and make the zombies merely a backdrop for the human drama to shine through. There are as many genuinely touching moments as there are bloody ones. In horror, this is hard to come by, but when successful, it’s what separates a piece from being just entertaining, or being resonant.

It’s a big production, with sometimes hundreds of zombie extras. To make the premise work, they often have to close off large portions of the city to have their epic post-apocalyptic wide shots. While viewing, one can tell they put a lot of time and craft into the show. Which is why it’s disappointing when the season ends after only six episodes.

The creator, Frank Darabont, obviously likes a certain kind of horror, as it shares much in common with his last directorial film, THE MIST, based on the Stephen King novella. Both pieces are post-apocalyptic, and both flourish because it allows characters who normally wouldn’t interact with one another to band together and figure out a way to survive. Of course, being human, all their flaws rise to the surface. It’s a classic convention of drama that, when cast correctly, will more often than not prove successful. THE WALKING DEAD was picked up for a second season, I’ll catch it this time while it airs.

Let’s get the Hollywood-bashing out of the way now, and leave that to the IMDB message boards. Was it necessary to remake the Swedish arthouse horror LET THE RIGHT ONE IN a mere two years later? Absolutely not. With that being said, all blame cannot go to the big studios. Americans, by and large, do not want to read subtitles. Such accusations are not directed toward Films in Review readers, of course, but I used to work in a video store, and you’d be surprised at how many people asked for their money back when they realized the movie they rented was…in another language?!?

Director Matt Reeves (CLOVERFIELD) takes the Swedish story (based on a book by John Aivide Lindqvist) and translates it to snowy New Mexico, in the 1980′s. The story centers around Owen (Kodi-Smit Mcphee), a twelve year old who is bullied at school, has no friends, and is caught in the middle of his parent’s divorce (the mother appears in scenes, but we never see her face – not unlike a “Peanuts” cartoon). Then the mysterious, bare-footed Abby (Chloe Moretz) moves in next door with a man who appears to be her father. Owen and Abby form an innocent friendship, until he realizes her secret: She’s a vampire.

Sound like a pre-teen TWILIGHT? I’m sure that was part of the reason for it being made, but LET ME IN does a good job at staying true to the horror elements while featuring characters that are morally ambiguous. This makes the love story at the center both touching and terrifying. We learn in the film that Abby’s father isn’t her father at all – he is her lover. This role, played by the always wonderful Richard Jenkins, could have come across as creepy, but Jenkins’ pathos is so strong that I couldn’t help but view his story as a great tragedy. Can he technically be considered a pedophile since he met Abby when he himself was a kid? He got older physically and she didn’t. Now, he has taken on the responsibility of killing innocent people to supply her with blood. We shouldn’t root for him, but in one terrific (and the most memorable) scene, we witness his murder routine get botched along the way, and find ourselves at the edge of our seats, hoping he doesn’t get caught… to which I found myself asking, why doesn’t she go out and kill for herself? We see her do it a couple times in the film, and a little girl (especially with her super-human vampire strength) could certainly get away with murder more easily than an inefficient old man.

The casting is excellent. Moretz isn’t as androgynous as the girl who played Abby in the first film, but her personality is more present. She and Mcphee have enough chemistry to make the romance work. There are scenes in this film that are very cute, which makes the ending all the more bittersweet, knowing that he will eventually take Jenkins’ place as the reclusive “father figure” who must become a serial killer to keep her alive…. The most noticeable change in the story is the addition of a detective played by Elias Koteas, who I always like, but is wasted. His character appears for a few scenes, in an attempt to string along a more familiar suspense narrative, but ultimately goes nowhere.

CLOVERFIELD had some of the best CG I’ve seen to date, and somehow the CG in this looked cheap. On the other hand, I think the practical effects are amazing, especially the car-crash with Jenkins. There is a special feature on the DVD that shows a step-by-step of how it was done, and is the best feature on the disc. Although I could have done without some of the computer effects, it doesn’t take away from the film. It’s a good one, but I would have enjoyed it more if it were not so familiar. But I guess that’s to be expected when the same story is made twice in two years.

Roy Frumkes’ Top Ten (or Twelve) DVDs, BluRays, Theatrical & TV releases.

I see two theatrical features a week, and try to watch one DVD or BluRay every night. At that there are those who see three or four times what I do, but I haven’t figured out how to reduce my other activities like showering, exercising, going to the bathroom, and sleeping. So I remain behind the front guard of cinema enthusiasts in terms of viewing. Still, I’ve seen a lot, as have FIR’s other writers, so here are a few TopTen lists for the year we left behind:

My DVD & BluRay choices first: At a certain point, these are no longer in order, but the first few are…

NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (Criterion) The archeological restoration of the year, this immaculate BluRay transfer is accompanied by a 2 1/2 hour compilation doc of equally pristine outtakes from the film, with sound, so that one can hear Charles Laughton directing, can see and hear the little girl chiding Robert Mitchum for forgetting his lines, Shelley Winters praying in Hebrew, the boy warmly following directions even though he comes off stiff in the final version, and countless other wonders. It’s one of the great treasure discs of all time. It’s been around for years, but has been updated slightly for this, its first home theater release.

THRILLER (Image/Universal) 14 DVDs containing 67 episodes. Though almost all the episodes have dated in one way – they now appear padded in an effort to support the hour time slot – they are still remarkably well lit (PIGEONS FROM HELL has the lowest key lighting I ever remember seeing on TV), elaborately scored by such luminaries as Jerry Goldsmith (with many M&E tracks isolated), dripping with fun star power (Henry Daniell is in five episodes – the first times I remember his being in the same films with Karloff since THE BODY SNATCHER in 1945), introduced and occasionally featuring Boris Karloff, and accompanied by insightful commentary tracks. It’s the best-produced DVD release of the year in terms of marshalling outside forces to bolster the original material. THE ALIEN QUADRILOGY, for example, is even more packed with phenomenal commentaries, featurettes, alternate cuts, etc. It’s astounding, to be sure. But all that material was within relatively easy reach. The producer of the THRILLER package had to think out what material would best accompany each of the 27 commentary-supported episodes without becoming redundant, and then go out and hunt down appropriate commentators, and he’s done a miraculous job. As examples: For THE FINGERS OF FEAR, a pre-meditated mixture of THE HANDS OF ORLAC and MR. SARDONICUS, about a pianist (played by SARDONICUS’ Guy Rolph) whose obsession with a rival performer leads to doom, the commentary track is all about horror filmusic, and for THE HOLLOW WATCHER, which has a vaguely Western theme, the commentary focuses on Horror Westerns.

METROPOLIS (Kino) Refer to Ben Peeples’ review, though it is better served on DVD, considering the format and degraded condition of the recently restored footage.

THE LEOPARD BluRay (Criterion) You don’t need a 3D TV, or 3D glasses, to get the depth effect here. The film is so gorgeously transferred, and Visconti layered it so elaborately with art direction, that you feel you are looking into those vast period rooms with bewildering dimensionality. Both versions are available, and there’s Nina Rota’s magnificent score.

THE ELIA KAZAN COLLECTION (Fox Home Entertainment) Plus a heartfelt doc by Martin Scorsese. This is a beautifully packaged, near-inclusive slew of Kazan films on DVD, showing his progression from stage-bound flicks to fully cinematic works.

THE ALIEN ANTHOLOGY (Fox Home Entertainment) This BluRay update trumps the earlier DVD release, something I didn’t think was possible. There are more supplementals, but just the increased sound quality alone is astounding.

KING KONG (Warner Bros Home Entertainment) Better than ever on BluRay.

THE HAMMER ICONS OF SUSPENSE COLLECTION (SONY Pictures Home Entertainment) – THESE ARE THE DAMNED, CASH ON DEMAND, THE SNORKEL, STEP ME BEFORE I KILL!, MANIAC and NEVER TAKE CANDY FROM A STRANGER. This was a genuine surprise – that so late in the game, six delightful non-horror Hammers would see the light of DVD. Pictorially they’re all fine. In terms of execution they vary in quality, but all of them are compelling, and CASH ON DEMAND and STOP ME BEFORE I KILL! Particularly so.

THE AFRICAN QUEEN (Paramount) – Refer to my review earlier in the year. On BluRay, it’s better-looking than it was when originally released.

GONE WITH THE WIND (Warner Bros) BluRay. Like film… And in a beautifully designed collector box.

DALI & DISNEY: A DATE WITH DESTINO (Disney) BluRay. I liked the end result of the long-buried, never completed short produced by Walt Disney and directed by Salvador Dali. But I loved the feature documentary made about the ill-fated venture. It captures their two creative personalities, and the times, and follies of creativity and genius.

OCEANS (Disney) The old True Life Adventures were never like this. From Monstro the Whale (in the flesh) to vast schools of fish doing head-trips on us, it’s an overwhelming experience.

TOP 12 THEATRICAL & TV releases:

THE SOCIAL NETWORK

BLACK SWAN

TOY STORY 3

THE GHOST WRITER

THE TOWN

HEREAFTER

TRUE GRIT

TRON LEGACY

WALL STREET: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS

MOVIES & MOGULS (Mini-seies)

FISH TANK

FROZEN

Bryan Layne next…

The first thing we see in ANTICHRIST is the name “Lars Von Trier” in huge lettering: It doesn’t “Fade in” from black. It is literally the first frame of the film. Von Trier, along with fellow Danish director Thomas Vinterberg (THE CELEBRATION) created the avant-garde movement known as “Dogme 95″ One of the rules of Dogme is to not credit the director. The opening of ANTICHRIST suggests that he is now far from that style of filmmaking, and the opening “prologue” of the film only exemplifies this theory. It is shot in extreme slow-motion (not allowed in Dogme) and black and white (also not allowed), accompanied by opera. It is a beautiful looking sequence, but also resembles a Zales diamond commercial. That is, until about ten seconds in when we see a close up of a penis penetrating a vagina.

In the prologue “He” (Dafoe) and “She” (Gainsbourg) are having sex. Meanwhile their young child lets himself out of the crib, climbs up to the window (blown open by an act of nature, the wind) and plummets to his death while She simultaneously orgasms.

From here on the film is separated into four chapters and an epilogue. Chapter one feels like a Bergman movie and is aptly titled “Grief”. The style of the cinematography has done a 180 from the prologue and is now very loose and handheld. There are jump cuts and pans that seem intuitive rather than planned and storyboarded like the prologue must have been. The dialogue also seems very fluid (Dafoe says in one of the special features that rehearsals are not allowed on a Von Trier set). The scenes of Gainsbourg suffering anxiety are so powerful that they are hard to watch. Dafoe, her husband, is also a therapist. He tries to treat her as if she were a patient. She is unstable, and as the film progresses we find out just how much, but He is manipulative and likes the power he has over her during this mourning period. Although he is the voice of reason, I found myself strongly disliking his character throughout the first half of the movie.

During one of his exercises he asks her what she is scared of. Her response is the woods, where she and the child retreated in the summer so she could write her thesis on “gynocide”. They take a train to their vacation spot in the woods called “Eden”, and He continues to psychoanalyze her, but at this point the psychology becomes much more abstract, and I have to admit to feeling confused at certain parts of the film. In between therapy sessions He starts to notice strange things happening around the woods, and the ugliness of nature. He also discovers her paper on the torture and killings of women based on the theory that their sexuality has a direct link to Satan. At some point in her research her thesis became skewed and she started to believe that women are in fact evil by nature. She takes on the guilt and eventually acts accordingly.

To continue on with the plot would be a disservice to those who haven’t seen it, but the film spirals into a full-fledged horror movie with scenes so extreme that the theater I saw it in handed out warning pamphlets for the squeamish before entering. This was not a William Castle gimmick, I believe this was actually done to protect themselves.

The DVD/ Blu Ray is a double disc Criterion release. The second disc has behind-the-scenes featurettes on the acting, production design, music, cinematography, special FX, and the animals of ANTICHRIST (my personal favorite. These were not CG, they used real trained crows, deer, and foxes and actually applied prosthetics to some) There are also interviews and videos from it’s premiere at Cannes, including one Q and A session where an audience member, obviously offended by the film and having a visceral reaction to it, demands that Von Trier explain himself. Trier refuses, says they are all his guests and with a straight face cllaims that he is the best director in the world. Von Trier is funny like that; throughout the interviews you never know if he is being serious or just wants to get a reaction out of people. You start to wonder the same thing about ANTICHRIST. It walks a fine line between arthouse and exploitation. It’s obvious that certain moments (shown in extreme close ups) are there for shock value, but in its defense, the same can be said about the eye-slitting scene in UN CHIEN ANDALOU, which many argue to be the greatest art film ever made, so I’ll let you be the judge.

Roger Corman has produced over 350 films and has helped launch the careers of many of Hollywood’s biggest name directors such as Francis Ford Coppola, Jonathan Demme, James Cameron, Ron Howard, and Martin Scorsese. This became known as the “Roger Corman Film School”, and in a way was the test of a director’s talent. These filmmakers were all given a limited budget and shooting schedules to make films that would normally be produced much more extravagantly. Many of these “B movies” turned out to be just as good, or in some cases much better than their A-list counterparts. The name Katt Shea might not be as household as the aforementioned directors, but she sure as hell passed the test.

It is known that Roger Corman was split down the middle. Half artist, half business man. This, I believe, is the way he wanted his directors to be as well. In her early films Shea displayed a perfect balance of delivering the genre goods and creating strong characters. This way they were both marketable and have substance. Her films managed to be gritty, funny, sad, and even existential.

In 1992 Shea wrote and directed POISON IVY, which was a Sundance hit. Again applying the same experimentation. The film opens with a voice over of a young girl over a black screen. Our first image is a young and beautiful Drew Barrymore swinging from a rope tied to a tree, hanging over a fall that would kill. Seductive and dreamlike, with a narration that turns this erotic thriller into a coming-of-age confession. The audience knows within seconds that this isn’t going to be run-of-the-mill.

Although this is the chronology of her career, it wasn’t necessarily my order. My first exposure to Katt Shea was in the theaters opening day of THE RAGE: CARRIE 2. I was only twelve years old at the time of its release and already a fiend for horror movies, the original CARRIE ranking high on my list (and still to this day). This usually leads to disappointment, but when the credits rolled I ended up more than pleased. I watched enough teen horror films of that time to know that this one was unconventional. Even though it was supernatural, it was strikingly realistic in it’s portrayal of the different social classes that divide high school cliques. From that point on I was a Katt Shea fan.

It was recently announced that she would be climbing back into the director’s chair after a nearly ten-year hiatus. Her new film, THE LIST, is set to go into production this summer.

I’m thrilled to conduct this interview of a filmmaker I so admire.

DAVID GUGLIELMO: Let’s start at the beginning of your directorial career. STRIPPED TO KILL: Did you have any film experience prior to this? Did you do any short films?

KATT SHEA: No I didn’t, I was just writing. I shot a little bit of second unit on a movie that I was [acting] in for Roger Corman in the Philippines.

D: Did he approach you with the idea or did you have the script ready?

K: I came up with the idea. I made a bet with my ex-partner about muscles. We were having dinner, and he said that muscles were poisonous at a certain time of the year and I never heard of that before and I thought he was just yanking my chain. So I said I don’t believe you and he said let’s make a bet, and the biggest punishment he could think of for me if I lost the bet was that I had to go to a strip club. So that’s how it happened. I lost the bet, and went to the strip club, and I sat there watching the acts and I just loved what they were doing. It wasn’t like any strip club you could imagine; they all came out with costumes and they had stories. It was just really cool. I sat through both sets, even after my partner said we can leave I said no, I wanted to sit through the next set and see what they do next. I said nobody knows that a strip club could be like this and I want to make a movie and show that because it’s crazy and I love it.

D: That’s very funny. It must have made quite an impression because STRIPPED TO KILL, STRIPPED TO KILL II, and DANCE OF THE DAMNED all deal with stripper protagonists.

K: Yea, but that was not my choice. I was done with strippers after STRIPPED TO KILL, but Roger Corman said he wanted to continue. The whole stripper thing became so huge after STRIPPED TO KILL that he wouldn’t let me do anything unless it had a stripper in it. So I was kind of stuck with strippers, because STRIPPED TO KILL made a lot of money for him.

D: Well I just watched STRIPPED TO KILL again and boy does it hold up. It’s so stylish and the dialogue is really sharp. What interests me is how Corman would approach you with a project. Would he come at you with a certain genre and allow you to develop the story?

K: He didn’t approach me. In the beginning I stalked him! Because I had acted in a couple of his movies I knew his habits, I knew when he went to lunch, so I would just wait in my car and when I saw him walking down the street I’d get out and pretend I’d accidentally ran into him. And then I said “Roger I got this great idea for a movie and it involves strippers!” And I’d describe how the poster would look, with a girl’s leg up a pole.

D: I love how the pole is a blade.

K: Oh yea, but I didn’t know at the time that it would be a blade. He said come into my office at eleven o’clock Monday morning. It took me a year to really convince him to do it because the idea was that a guy would have to pull off being a stripper, and this was long before THE CRYING GAME. He wasn’t convinced that a guy could pull off playing a [female] stripper. It took me a whole year to convince him to do it, and I kept sending him crank mail. I would send him pictures of a girl and then a guy who was pretending to be a girl in very skimpy clothing and I’d write “which one is the real girl?”

D: Did he ever get it wrong?

K: I don’t know I never heard back. The other thing is, I was acting in PSYCHO III and my makeup artist was Mike Westmore who did RAGING BULL, so I got Mike to write Roger a letter that he would make the prosthetic breasts. Mike offered to do that, which was so nice. It was incredible. That went a long way.

D: Although your films feature women as protagonists, they are in genres that cater to a mostly male demographic. Did your gender ever play an issue in getting a job? Did you ever have to prove you were right for the job?

K: I think you always have to prove it, but I don’t think it had to do with gender, no. Roger loved to hire women because he could pay them less.

D: Your film DANCE OF THE DAMNED has gained a cult following over the years. With the recent vampire craze in pop culture, has there been any more attention given to it?

K: No. (a moment of silence, then laughs) I’m sort of surprised because I see a lot of the influences in other people’s work and I’m surprised nobody mentions it.

D: Yea sure, TWILIGHT and TRUE BLOOD-

K: Oh I especially see the influence on TRUE BLOOD. Not TWILIGHT. But in TRUE BLOOD I see a lot of stuff I did.

D: It was remade in ’93 as TO SLEEP WITH A VAMPIRE. Did you have any involvement in that?

K: Not at all. See this is the thing; When Roger does a contract, he then owns your work so he can remake it whenever he wants and bring in other people.

D: So he didn’t ask you to write it?

K: No he didn’t. He just wanted to use the script. He probably didn’t think I’d be interested in remaking my own movie.

D: But you wrote RUMBLE IN THE STREETS didn’t you?

K: No I didn’t. They just used the script. Wait, was it STREETS that they used for that?

D: I haven’t seen RUMBLE IN THE STREETS but it’s listed as a remake of STREETS

K: Ok, It must be a remake of STREETS. Every time he remakes one of my scripts though I hear they’re terrible. It’s very funny because the script is really important, but for some reason they don’t work out too well for other people.

[STRIPPED TO KILL was also remade this way in '92 as DANCE WITH DEATH]

D: One theme you consistently portray very honestly is alienated youth. STREETS, POISON IVY, THE RAGE, and SHARING THE SECRET all center around teenage women who are in many ways “outcasts”. They are lonely and above all looking for a connection because they can’t find it within their families. Forgive me if this is too personal, but do you draw upon your own life to create these characters?

K: I think you always draw from your own life, but I don’t create characters that are me. They are people I know, or they’re composites of people I know. You use yourself but you also use a lot of other people…and just life. There are certain similarities in my characters though. I do kind of write the same character over and over again, and I see that so I guess it has something to do with me.

D: In my research I found this, and I think it’s really interesting. You’ve stated that your favorite film is DOG DAY AFTERNOON, and that you didn’t know it at the time, but that all your films were influenced by it. You said “I was always trying to write characters that you shouldn’t like but learn to love because of their humanness, their human frailty.” I think this is especially true of POISON IVY. What I find so great about the movie is how sympathetic Ivy is throughout the whole film. We don’t like what she is doing, but we understand it. And she never comes across as malicious. There are no clear-cut good guys and bad guys.

K: No there aren’t.

D: It’s my personal favorite of your films, and I keep going back to it and finding new things. Like the production design for instance. I just recently realized that Georgie’s bed is surrounded by bronze Ivy-looking plant decorations, and the blankets on her bed have vines and leaves on them. This is so foretelling. What is your relationship like with the art department?

K: Oh it’s really close. Really, really close. I paint my scripts for them so they know what colors I want to use. We talk about how the camera is going to move and all that stuff. Before I start shooting, the production designer knows exactly how I want every detail to look.

D: What did going to Sundance with POISON IVY do for your career?

K: It got me a lot of attention. I met with everybody in the town. It was very positive.

D: There are two versions of the film. The R rated and the unrated. Which do you prefer?

K: I worked much longer on the R rated version, to really get it perfect, and the unrated version was really quick. They just threw a lot of stuff back into the movie that I didn’t get to finesse…which version do you like better?

D: Well the reason why I ask is because the R rated version has the hairpiece scene and I was wondering why it was omitted from the unrated.

K: I didn’t know it was.

D: Yeah, the scene with the toupee. I really like that scene.

K: You know what, I’ll tell you something; I don’t think I did the unrated version. I think New Line did that. They took it away and did that themselves. I would have never taken out that scene, it’s my favorite scene.

D: Do you think that POISON IVY has had an influence on other films of the genre?

K: Oh I know it has. I see it all the time.

D: After the success of POISON IVY you went back to do another movie with Corman, LAST EXIT TO EARTH. What made you decide to do that?

K: As popular as it was, I didn’t get offered another film after POISON IVY.

D: Why do you think that is?

K: That’s a good question. A lot of people would say it has to do with being female. That’s what a lot of people did say, in fact. I don’t know why. Maybe I just wasn’t ready. I don’t know.

D: It says on IMDB that you directed an episode of JOE BOB’S DRIVE-IN THEATER. What is that and why can’t I find it?

K: That’s not true. IMDB has a lot of mistakes. They don’t know my birthday, there is a lot of stuff wrong with IMDB. I never directed that. I don’t even know what it is to tell you the truth.

D: I didn’t know until I listened to the commentary how quick the pre-production process was for you while doing THE RAGE: CARRIE 2. [ Shea was called in last minute after the original director was fired] What I find really interesting is that the script feels like one that you would pen. All your themes are present. Even the Tattoo Rachel has is reminiscent of Ivy’s tattoo, and they share similar symbolism.

K: The writer was really influenced by my movies. He told me that. He said he was trying to emulate things from my movies. Interestingly enough they didn’t ask me to direct it (laughs). Not until the other director was fired.

D: Did you change the script at all? Did you have a relationship with the screenwriter while shooting?

K: Yes. I did a quick pass on the script before shooting. I think I got there on a Thursday and was shooting on Monday. So it was a really quick pass. The kind of thing where you’re just staying up all night and working on it. Then I did some things while I was on set to improve it. Luckily the writer was there so he could participate too.

D: What does Brian De Palma think of it?

K: He was very supportive of me, so that was nice. I know that Sissy Spacek really liked it. I never got a real comment on it from De Palma but I wouldn’t have because I’m not really in touch with him

[Shea had a small role in SCARFACE]

D: Has he been an influence at all in your career?

K: Oh yeah, I think so. I love DRESSED TO KILL. STRIPPED TO KILL is named after it. Definitely.

D: Who are some of your other influences?

K: Don’t you think you’re influenced by everything in a way? (thinks for a moment) Well, obviously DOG DAY AFTERNOON. Sam Fuller movies, he’s always been an influence. Certainly Brian De Palma…nobody’s asked me this in a really long time. It’s hard for me to answer it well…I love Martin Scorsese. I grew up on foreign films so I certainly was influenced –

D: Which ones?

K: Fellini.

D: That’s interesting because in STRIPPED TO KILL II I can definitely see Fellini.

K: (laughs) People say the wildest things about STRIPPED TO KILL II. They say Ingmar Bergman –

D: It’s the dream sequences.

K: I didn’t really think about that. It’s another case where I had about two days prep. You’re really flying by the seat of your pants, it’s all subconscious. I don’t know about all these influences they give me credit for, but it’s very flattering. It really is. My God, being compared to Bergman and Fellini! I’ll take that any day. How lucky am I? …Crazy. Thank you for saying that.

D: You’re very welcome. It’s funny you mentioned Sam Fuller as an influence too, because you were actually asked to remake SHOCK CORRIDER. So what made you turn that down?

K: It’s very hard to do remakes. There is something very special about that original. I felt like it would be pretty impossible to do a good job, that’s all. I tried. I thought about it. It’s not like I instantly said no. I really thought about how I could do it…I think I might be more capable to do that now actually.

D: When was this in your career?

K: After POISON IVY

D: Going back to THE RAGE, if the situation was different and you had more time. Would you have changed things?

K: Oh yeah. It would have been different. No question about it, but it’s impossible to tell you how.

D: Of course. I understand that.

K: Yeah, you write and direct, you know. When you write and direct there is so much influence from other people’s comments and notes and things like that, and it’s not like they are writing it, because they aren’t, but the criticism you get in the screenwriting process can really change things a lot. It might not change the basic heart of it, but it will change a lot of the details around it. So much depends on what your basic idea is, what your point of view is. What do you want to say? That initial seed that drives you to want to write that script. That is the core of it all. All the details around it can change but if you’re a strong writer with a strong point of view and you know what you want to say, the core isn’t going to change. The script I have now that I’ll probably be shooting this summer I’ve been working on for five years! That’s just because it’s gone through different companies, and different producers were involved, and there are all kinds of notes that you get but the very core of the idea that I wanted to develop, and what I wanted to say, is still completely there. That is pure. The details surrounding it are all very different than the original treatment.

D: Sure, it’s the backbone.

K: Yeah, it’s like the trunk of a tree, but the branches are different.

D: I like that analogy. After THE RAGE you made SHARING THE SECRET, which was a made-for-TV movie. Is this because you didn’t like working on a big studio movie or is it all the same to you?

K: It’s all the same. [THE RAGE] was the number two movie at the box office but then I didn’t get another movie.

D: Again?!

K: It’s been very consistent in my career. POISON IVY was a big hit movie for its budget, and then I didn’t get a movie. I waited like ten years or something. Then Jeff Kleeman who was a huge fan of mine and never forgot, asked me to take over a movie that was in trouble, and that was THE RAGE: CARRIE 2 and then it started all over again. Luckily I was recommended to Robert Greenwald for SHARING THE SECRET and I really liked the script so I did a couple of TV movies.

D: I think SHARING THE SECRET is excellent, Alison Lohman is terrific. Congratulations on your Peabody Award.

K: Oh thanks. I really liked Alison Lohman

D: She’s been doing very well lately, have you seen DRAG ME TO HELL?

K: No I haven’t but I’m sure she’s great in it.

D: She is, both the movie and her are great.

K: I really fought for her. CBS didn’t want her because she didn’t have any credits. She came in for an audition and I just loved her. Actually the head of casting came to the set, after I fought for her and got her, and he thanked me for doing it, because they thought she was so good in it.

D: You’ve worked with some of the biggest cinematographers in the industry. Wally Phister and Phedon Papamichael.

K: Janusz Kaminski.

D: Oh right he was your gaffer wasn’t he? [second unit DP]

K: Yeah but he also shot a lot for me. He shot a lot of STREETS.

D: Did he shoot the action scenes?

K: He shot pretty much all the stuff with the cop.

D: Oh okay. Can you talk a little about your relationship with the DP? How do you go about choosing who is right for what project?

K: It’s all about the chemistry. It’s like picking a boyfriend. Your communication has to be really really good. It’s like a dance, it’s almost psychic. Then you can just get amazing things, when you have that kind of communication. Like the stuff in CARRIE 2 is really out there because we had such trust and communication. It was pretty surreal actually.

[THE RAGE: CARRIE 2 was shot by Donald Morgan]

D: Let’s talk about your new film THE LIST.

K: What do you know about it?

D: I know close to nothing about it, but from what I read, you should be getting into production now. Are you?

K: Where did you read that?

D: I forgot but it said shooting in Chicago in June.

K: That’s interesting it said June, it’s actually July. Has been for a long time. There was an actor who got involved that wouldn’t be available unless we did it earlier so they were trying to move the start date up but it just refused to happen.

D: So this is a “provocative teen drama”?

K: …yeah.

D: And you’re trying to keep it very mysterious I see?

K: (laughs) No, you don’t want to talk about something too much until it really goes.

D: I understand that

K: It’s really good. It’s really twisted and dark and subversive.

D: Will you be casting unknowns?

K: No they aren’t unknowns, they’re pretty known even though they’re young. Haley Bennett [THE HAUNTING OF MOLLY HARTLEY], Evan Peters [KICK ASS!].

D: Your reputation is very much that of an “actor’s director”. Actors who have worked for you have spoken up about their great experiences, and you always get such raw performances from mostly newcomers. Then they seem to blow up after working with you. You also teach an acting class in California. What are your methods and techniques when it comes to coaching actors?

K: I really get them out of their heads. So they’re not thinking about it so much. So they’re coming from a really gut level and its not cerebral.

D: So you keep the classes small?

K: Yes they’re small.

D: And do you use the same approach on set?

K: Yes. I’m very direct with actors. I’m really kind and I love actors and I want them to do their best. I’m really protective of them but I’m really direct with them too and they like that. They know what I want and what I want for them and from them. They are very relieved when they get my input. I’m not result-oriented. I try to help them to get to it.

D: Is this mostly in rehearsals?

K: Yes. Mostly in rehearsals. Sometimes if they get in trouble on set I’ll go into acting class mode and we’ll get it worked out. That works really well. Sometimes you have to stop everything. Take a break for five minutes and do a little acting class.

D: Would you say your approach derives from any school of acting?

K: No. I use these exercises that look really crazy but they work really well and it really frees the actor up. I can’t say it comes from a certain school of acting. Much of it is based on Viola Spolin exercises though. Viola Spolin was a pioneer of theater exercises and it’s come a long way since that but that’s the core of it.

D: What film are you most proud of?

K: I’m really proud of them all for different reasons. POISON IVY is obvious because it was so successful and I jumped into a bigger arena with that. It was only a three million dollar movie but that was a fortune for me, coming from fifteen-day shoots. But STRIPPED TO KILL was a huge thing. I told you how that came about. I really pursued that so relentlessly. It was so hard to make. Those are the two films that are most important to me. But I also love CARRIE 2. I didn’t write it so it’s not as close to my heart but I’m really proud of the fact that I was flown in on Thursday and started shooting on Monday. I look at that and I go “wow, how did I do that?”

D: That must have been hard working with the actors when they have already made decisions about the characters and here you are wanting to change things.

K: The actors hated me. They loved their director, and they saw me as the studio person who came to take over.

D: Did they already start shooting?

K: Yeah, they shot two weeks of footage and I threw it all away.

D: But they ended up warming up to you?

K: Yes they did. I just threatened them. (laughs) It ended up being really good, but it was rough. It felt like I was being thrown into a beehive. When they flew me in he [the original director] was still shooting. They hadn’t even fired him yet. It was craziness. Absolute insanity. The situation was they were going to fire him. I couldn’t save his job. I tried, and they said you either take this job or we’re shelving the movie.

D: Was he going over budget?

K: I think he was behind, but they just didn’t’ like what he was shooting. And I tried to help. I said why don’t you get him a new DP, maybe that’s the problem? It just wasn’t going to happen. So rather than having them shelve the movie, I went in. I’d rather see everyone get a movie made. I’d rather see those actors and that crew have a finished movie. It’s good for everybody when a movie gets made. It’s good on so many levels that you don’t want it to be shelved. They didn’t give me any more time. They wanted me to use the footage they were firing him for. I said no, you’re firing the guy for it and you want me to match it? So I had to reshoot everything and stay on the schedule with the loss of two weeks. So it was back to my old stomping ground of doing everything fast and well and cheap. And making it look like much more.

D: Like I said before, you really put your stamp on it.

K: Thank you. I think I did too.

D: Although Corman is still producing, his days of discovering new directorial talents seem to be behind him. Unfortunately, there isn’t anybody to fill his shoes. What would you do now if you were just starting out?

K: Oh boy. Well, there’s a lot more opportunity in many ways. There have been people who have shot some really great original stuff and it gets discovered on Youtube. There are opportunities because of the internet.

D: Do you think that’s the best place for filmmakers to put their stuff?

K: Do you think so?

D: I don’t know. I’m trying to figure that out myself. I’m still doing the festivals.

K: I think that’s wise. You should be doing festivals. One of my students was in the movie THE MYTH OF THE AMERICAN SLEEPOVER and it got into the Cannes film festival, and it caught a buzz there. It was shot very inexpensively, no names whatsoever. It got into South By Southwest first then it made it into Cannes. Pretty amazing. The critics’ circle. So these things happen.

D: You don’t think the festivals have changed at all since you were at Sundance? You don’t think they’ve gotten more commercial?

K: When I see something like this little movie getting into Cannes I think it’s possible. I think it was always difficult. I forgot how many entries Sundance saw, the director told me at some point and it was something unbelievable. It wasn’t easy then either, but it’s possible. If you make a movie that touches a nerve. That speaks to people. If there is something special about it, something really original. If you cast it well, if the acting’s really good and you direct it with a lot of heart, I think those are the key elements. There really are very few movies that are made well.

D: That leads me to my next question: what have been some of your recent favorites?

K: JUNO. I love VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA. HURT LOCKER! I kind of liked KICK ASS! (laughs). I haven’t been seeing a lot of movies. The movies that the Academy sent out last year weren’t great. I loved this movie called CASANEGRA. It was a play on Casablanca, a foreign film. Really fantastic but nobody saw it. I loved it.

D: You’ve done a lot of genre films. So do you feel that there is a stigma attached to them, that they aren’t taken seriously enough as art?

K: I live in my own little bubble. I don’t really care about that. I’m sure it’s probably true. I know the directors are quite different. They are usually really down to earth, more blue-collar directors. They don’t have the arrogance, they are really amazing people. I think there has been a crossover though. A lot of the genre directors have become very respected. Look at Quentin Tarantino.

D: Who are your friends in the industry?

K: Mostly horror directors. Practically anybody in the horror world. We have dinner together every so often. We call it the “masters of horror dinner” The most famous horror directors on the planet show up and it’s amazing.

D: Do you still keep in touch with Roger Corman?

K: I do. I spoke to him right after Christmas

D: Does he go to the dinners?

K: No he actually doesn’t, but he certainly should, shouldn’t he? I will suggest that he be invited. That would be cool.

I couldn’t help but feel sad when asked to review the book DENNIS HOPPER AND THE NEW HOLLYWOOD. I am certainly a fan, and I’m thrilled that he just received the Hollywood star, but it is in the public knowledge that he is terminally ill with cancer, and Hollywood is known to give artists their due when it looks like they might soon be knocking on heaven’s door. Robert Altman got his Lifetime Achievement award the same year as his death. At 84, Roger Corman just received his. Lets hope he has more healthy years ahead. With that being said, this is not a eulogy. It’s just a review of a book.

Up until his diagnosis, Hopper wasn’t exactly what you would call a “movie star”. Only a couple of performances from the last three decades stick out in my mind. BLUE VELVET being the top of the list. Then there is SPEED and that one great scene in TRUE ROMANCE opposite Christopher Walken.* Yes, there was the Best Picture winner CRASH but he was overshadowed by a large ensemble. He starred in at least one movie a year up until he got sick (and he still has two awaiting release). He also did television (the CRASH series), and video games (GRAN THEFT AUTO). The man worked; but he mostly did independent films. It is hard to imagine a more different career than that of his long-time buddy and collaborator Jack Nicholson. I wouldn’t be surprised if Jack popped up as the male lead in the new Jennifer Aniston rom-com. It’s not that Hopper isn’t as good looking as Nicholson, it’s that Hopper is too dangerous of an actor to star in a Nancy Meyer movie. He can’t phone a performance in like other actors, he has too much going on behind his eyes. He would make everybody feel nervous. Hopper has always been a rebel. His spot has always been a bit on the outskirts of Hollywood. Which is appropriate since he was one of the key artists of what we now call “The New Hollywood”.

“The New Hollywood” is hard to explain. It differs from other film movements like the “French New Wave”. This is because the artists were not DIY directors like Jean-Luc Godard. Most of these filmmakers went to film school. The movies they made were funded and distributed by major studios. The difference was that they were young, and were tapped into a counter culture. Their films followed anti-heros, they were open about their political beliefs as well as their sexual freedom and recreational use of drugs. Hollywood knew that they could use these fresh-minded artists to connect to a young audience.

Although this is where Hopper might stand on his own. EASY RIDER is said to be the only truly independent film of this movement.

DENNIS HOPPER AND THE NEW HOLLYWOOD was an art exhibition in France, and eventually made it’s way to Australia. After looking at the book I wish it would have found its way to New York. I knew Hopper dabbled in other art forms such as photography and fine art, but I am surprised at how good he was! It turns out his talent really shines throughout all these mediums. His photography is excellent, usually in a rich black and white, either portraits of his friends/other famous artists, or just capturing what seems to be candid moments in 1960′s America. While not as realized as his photographs, his abstract expressionist paintings aren’t too shabby. I found myself a couple of times checking the caption, expecting to see the name of a famous artist, and being surprised that it is a work of his own.

Speaking of famous artists, He has acquired millions upon millions of dollars worth of art throughout the years, most of which were personally donated by the artists themselves who are friends of his. He owns pieces from Warhol (he once fired a gun at one while he was high, and you can see the bullet holes!), Franz Kline, Rauschenberg, Robert Irwin, Basquiat, the list just goes on. It is probably the most impressive personal art collection I’ve ever seen. Inevitably, there is controversy as to who will inherit said collection. In recent news, his current wife, Victoria Duffy (whom he is in the middle of divorcing), disappeared with a good portion of his collection.

DENNIS HOPPER AND THE NEW HOLLYWOOD is a nice book, and beautifully put together, but I must warn the reader that it is a coffee table book. You won’t learn much about Dennis Hopper the man. It is an overview of Dennis Hopper the artist but offers no critical analysis whatsoever. It is a glossy picture book peppered with a chronology and short selected interviews with Hopper. It lets you make your own judgments, and hopefully will encourage you to seek out or revisit his film work, because the screen clips really can’t do justice to this man’s extensive and unique career.

*Allow FIR’s editor to mention a few more: APOCALYPSE NOW, THE RIVER’S EDGE, and RED ROCK WEST.

BAD BIOLOGY marks the comeback for Frank Henenlotter, the unique director behind such cult classics as BASKET CASE (and it’s sequels), BRAIN DAMAGE, and FRANKENHOOKER. As with most cult classics, those titles either mean a lot to you, or you just laughed out loud that there is actually a film called FRANKENHOOKER.

Jennifer (Charlee Danielson) is born with seven clits. Her biological excess makes her a nymphomaniac. She takes home a different guy every night looking for sexual fulfillment. Being that she is something of a superwoman, she also conceives, gets pregnant, and gives birth within an hour or two. She leaves her newborns to die in the dumpster, insisting that they aren’t “real babies”, but “unfinished freak babies”.

She is convinced she is a step forward in evolution and that God made her this way because He eventually wants to have sex with her.

Meanwhile, Batz (Anthony Sneed) a shy young man, has a problem of his own. His penis has become a monster and has taken on a mind of its own as a result of shooting it up with steroids when he was a teen. Now he pumps it full of the most powerful drugs he can find just to get it to stop swinging around in his pants. He also communicates with it telepathically.

Oh yea, and it can detach itself and run amok.

I was really loving BAD BIOLOGY when Jennifer was our protagonist. I was hooked from the beginning. It didn’t matter how far over-the-top her story went, I bought it. Not only did it make me laugh and gross me out, but it also disturbed me. I had never seen anything like it before.

…Then the Batz segment started.

Everything that works in Jennifer’s segment falls flat in Batz’s. When Jennifer delivers her voice over it’s intriguing. Like a silly variation on Cronenberg’s body horror themes. When she breaks the fourth wall it’s challenging. She involves us in her decisions, which makes it all the more disturbing, while still maintaining a sense of humor. Not an easy feat.

When Batz’s story is explained, It feels like forced exposition coupled with lame jokes. I didn’t buy it for a minute, and unlike Charlee Danielson, his acting doesn’t help sell it.

Eventually the two characters meet, and it’s another blown opportunity. We don’t get nearly enough time with these two freaks of nature because a good portion of the final act is occupied by a montage of the penis crawling around the city breaking into women’s homes. It starts off amusing but after the third victim it grows tiresome (I think there are five). I never thought I’d say this, but once you’ve seen one woman getting screwed by a detached monster penis, you’ve seen them all. (Although the women were all of different races, which makes me wonder, is this Henenlotter’s way of being politically correct?)

Unfortunately, the movie seems to be loaded with prolonged scenes in order to meet feature length running time. There’s a conversation between Jennifer and her boss which should be on the cutting room floor, as well as a scene in which a crackhead (Eleanor Hendricks) crawls around the living room of a drug dealer’s apartment looking for something…Incidentally, this bit part was one of the best performances in the whole movie, and seems to be improvised. Still, it’s obvious filler.

I have to give credit where credit is due. Henenlotter has not gotten soft during his sixteen-year hiatus (that wasn’t intended as a pun, but what the hell). While not nearly as tight and endlessly entertaining as BRAIN DAMAGE (1988), I can definitely say it’s more bizarre than anything he’s ever done, and above all its heart is in the right place. He even shot on 35mm as opposed to digital, and used mostly stop motion special FX over CG. For a low budget horror movie in the modern age, this is almost unheard of (although BRAIN DAMAGE also has better stop-motion)

BAD BIOLOGY is the closest you’re ever going to get to the old school exploitation days of yesteryear. And for that, fans will be pleased. There are a couple of scenes that stand out, mostly with Jennifer, but there is also a great bit with Batz and a prostitute where she can’t stop having an orgasm hours after sex.

The DVD is decent. As mentioned before there is a commentary by Henenlotter and co-writer/producer RA the Rugged Man Thorburn (he’s a rapper) that is pretty informative. After listening to the stories of the production, I was surprised to find that even though he is a director with many credits to his name, he’s still ditching permits and shooting guerilla, casting friends and people off Craigslist, and shooting in their own houses. Any film student or independent filmmaker can relate to this.

Aside from the commentary there are a couple of music videos for RA the Rugged Man. one of them is directed by Henenlotter and manages to be even more vulgar and repulsive than BAD BIOLOGY. I wonder if they even bothered sending it to MTV? If so, they should have added the response letters in the special features.

Despite its inconsistencies, I can recommend this film to anybody who enjoys extreme cinema, “midnight movies”, or comedies that push the boundaries of bad taste. Fans of John Waters will have a lot of fun with it. Watch it with friends and see their jaws drop. I had to pick mine up off the floor a couple times, and for me that always counts for quite a bit.