He has the magic touch. Either that, or Hollywood is so bereft of visionaries that his ideas must be copied – in some cases, literally – in order for motion picture innovation to be captured. Of course, it’s Frank Miller that everyone is talking about – again. The celebrated comic book artist first came to the attention of film fans when his Dark Knight take on Batman was reference over and over again as the inspiration for Tim Burton’s reboot of the famed super hero. Then Robert Rodriguez did the illustrator one better, actually giving him a co-director credit on his all CGI take on the Sin City series. It was that unique post-modern noir, a combination of real live actors and carefully crafted digital backdrops that argued for Miller’s arrival as a major influence in the world of cinema.

And now 300 seals the deal. The Zach Snyder epic, telling the tale of ancient Sparta’s confrontation of overwhelming Persian forces at the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C. is currently confounding critics, already over $100 million in box office grosses in a little less than ten days. Some are calling the sword and sandal spectacle the dawn of a new age in filmmaking, while others laugh at its ‘all style and no substance’ approach. But with Rodriguez already planning a pair of City sequels and the industry buzzing over Snyder’s boffo returns, one thing is for certain – just like The Matrix did back in 1999, Miller is destined to cast his impact over a decade or more of motion picture output. After all, you know the old Tinsel Town saying. Success doesn’t breed contempt – success breeds competition.

So as producers and suits go scurrying through the Miller catalog, looking for untapped projects to greenlight, and as the copycats prepare their own interpretations of the artist’s over the top style, we here at SE&L have a few suggests for genres that should be given the man’s pen and ink invention. In each case, the motion picture category is either stagnant, or suffering from one of its usual bouts of overdone obviousness. But by splashing a little Miller into the mix – or, by implication, following the same stylized look of his ‘graphic novels’ – an aesthetic rebirth may actually be in order. Let’s start with the most logical creative candidate:

The Horror Film:
Experts will argue that you don’t need enigmatic visuals to sell scares or suspense. Indeed, music, plotting, characterization and careful direction are all one supposedly requires to make an effective thriller. But since those other elements are in short, or seemingly unavailable supply, there’s got to be another way to reconfigure the fright film. Enter macabre ala Miller. Thanks to his exaggerated approach, especially when it comes to blood and guts, and the ability to ramp up violence until it reaches otherworldly proportions, your typical slasher storyline or undead drama would suddenly stand as a demented demonstration of fear. We’ve already seen other movies attempt such a shift. Ronny Yu’s amazing Freddy vs. Jason managed to breath life into the two dying franchises by emphasizing their inherent brutality, filtering it through a Hong Kong action ideal. And for all their goofy Goth cheesiness, the Underworld films have tried to create an alternate universe where vacuous vampires battle Eurotrash werewolves in an ongoing war of wire-fu proportions.

But it is Christophe Ganz’s astonishing Silent Hill that proves, positively, that Miller’s optical opulence can carry the creepy for an entire horror film. Based on the noted videogame series, the French filmmaker (who made a name for himself with the remarkable Brotherhood of the Wolf) applied real world terrors to his supernatural setting, resulting in a startling vision of surreal, sinister despair. Several sequences in particular, as when air raid sirens sound off to warn of the coming “darkness”, grab the viewer by the neck and refuse to let go. Now imagine such a situation augmented by Miller’s attention to depth and detail. Sin City touches on such scary movie elements. It’s clearly there when Mickey Rourke’s Marv confronts Elijah Wood’s serial killing cannibal Kevin. But that was part of an overall crime story, not a focused look at monsters and madmen. As a result, the application of Miller’s technique to something as inherently horrifying as the zombie film, or something like the Hellraiser franchise, would be outstanding (just imagine a collaboration between the artist and Clive Barker on his Tortured Souls series. Ew!).

The Western:
It’s a purely American genre, a cinematic classification that tends to wrap up the entire spectrum of morality and machismo in a few fiery gun battles. And yet the Western is deader than a Dodge City doornail, milked of all its meaning thanks to decades of overproduction and under-appreciation. Certainly, there have been attempts to revive the hoary old horse opera, wrapping it up in metaphysical meaning (Clint Eastwood’s excellent Unforgiven) or post-millennial angst (Nick Cave’s crafty The Proposition). But when it comes to straight ahead dynamics, when one looks to the black hat/white hat narratives that drove the early era of film, there is very little left of the West’s fading sunsets. Instead, we prefer our cowboy conceits retrofitted into other genres – science fiction (Star Wars), crime drama (you name it!). But if Miller was brought in to enliven the oater, to add his idiosyncratic look to all the outlaw elements, something majestic might occur. Imagine the showdowns, gun barrels glistening in the burning midday sun, bullets flying across the horizon in specialized slow motion majesty. It’s enough to get a film fan good and flustered.

The closest we’ve come, and indeed, a great place to start when considering this concept, is Sam Raimi’s pre-Spidey spectacle The Quick and the Dead. Thanks to a hot (commodity speaking) Sharon Stone, fresh off the lingering Basic Instinct hype, the Evil Dead auteur got a chance to work out all his High Noon histrionics with the visual aplomb he was noted for. His camera in constant motion, his shot selection a veritable cornucopia of new and novel angles (including one incredible ‘wounds eye view’ perspective), Raimi reinvigorated the Western by realizing the areas that needed improvement. Unlike previous revamps by maestros such as Sergio Leone, the filmmaker avoided all the psychological ramifications and went right for the gut. The results were a partial reprieve for the format, and a great example of how style can salvage even the most antique artifacts. Miller’s approach is similar – finding the places where spectacle can replace specifics - and using visuals to vault a sequence’s primeval impact. Like a spaghetti western on steroids, a Frank Miller sagebrush saga would be amazing.

The Musical:
Yeah, it may seem like an odd choice, but the one thing that is definitely missing from the post-modern showtune dynamic is vision. Present day filmmakers, unfamiliar with the old school extravaganza of the genre’s past, figure that if they merely fancy things up with bright lights, big stars, and lots of MTV-style edits, audiences will ignore the unreal situation of individuals randomly breaking out into song. But that’s not the real problem with the musical’s current hit or miss fortunes. No, what’s really missing from the mix is pure artistic heft. It’s what makes Busby Berkley’s work within the category, classic and what elevates the MGM offerings from ‘30s through the ‘50s to the status of masterworks. But look at the recent attempts at reviving the artform. Chicago was a misguided mess (forget the Oscar) while Rent and Phantom of the Opera failed to generate much interest. And let’s not even start in on Dreamgirls. If ever a musical missed the opportunity to play with images and era, it was this relatively routine interpretation of the Motown sound.

In fact, the last great big screen musical was also the last one to understand the need for a unique approach and look. While it was set in the ‘50s, and relied on a famous Roger Corman b-movie for its foundation, Frank Oz’s masterful adaptation of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken’s Little Shop of Horrors created a world wholly its own, one based in the campy kitsch of the drive-in movie melded onto the sensational schlock of the subject matter. The opening number, and unbelievably moving “Downtown”, sets the stage for the rest of the film’s super sized sentiments. In fact, Oz was so effective at selling the love story between Seymour and his sweetheart Audrey that he had to change the original, downbeat ending. With someone like Miller portraying everything, from the conversations to the choreography, we’d witness the rebirth of a genre through the lost art of visual storytelling. Even better, the artist’s inherent knowledge of what works best within a certain imagined moment would help to bring the hidden emotion and narrative undercurrents out of the songs. Lyrics demand performance and perspective to work effectively. Someone with a mind like Miller’s could easily prove how substantial this stylized interpretation can be.

It has to be said that Silent Hill, The Quick and the Dead, and Little Shop of Horrors all represent just the tip of the treatment iceberg when it comes to bringing Frank Miller’s visual acumen to the world of motion pictures. It is clear that what is required, aside from the artist’s input, is a director in sync with his unusual approach, and a studio willing to gamble a little. No one is saying the combination will be perfect – after all, there are those who look to Sin City and 300 and scoff at the idea of Miller’s brand of sketchpad simplicity. Still, for several genres that are sitting somewhere between outright death and cinematic life support, the unbelievable imagination of this arcane comic book mind could be the aesthetic salvage they so desperately deserve. If it worked for the pathetic peplum of the ‘50s and ‘60s, how can it not succeed elsewhere.

—Bill Gibron

Don’t worry if you don’t “get” Tyler Perry. You’re probably not his intended audience, anyway. As a playwright, he strives to understand the urban experience, giving voice to those grossly underrepresented within the theatrical medium. As a filmmaker, however, he is more in touch with his pocket book than his ‘people’. Everything he does on camera tends to go upscale, moving his African American characters into near fanciful realms of luxury and lifestyle. Still, the stories are the same, interpersonal topics like marriage and fidelity, parenting and childhood, relatives and family strife filling his scenes. Toss in a healthy dose of the Good Book, and some soul salvation, and you’ve got the makings of one of the most unusual phenomenons ever.

Trying to uncover why Perry is so popular is not all that difficult. The standard issue response is that he caters to a demographic previously disregarded. And when one looks back at how Hollywood treated individuals of color as recently as 40 years ago, he’s clearly filling a massive niche. Others mention his drag act diva-ship via the madwoman matriarch character he created, Mabel “Madea” Simmons. She’s Redd Foxx without the ‘blue’ moods. Some site a skillful balance between the clichéd and the creative, a gift for using old school melodramatics to touch upon updated, contemporary nerves. And then there are those who simply respond to his God is Great pronouncements. If popular culture is anything, it’s afraid of religion. Perry embraces it fully, reflecting the beliefs and faith of the audience his efforts play to - and they love it.

With the latest big screen adaptation of one of his plays, Meet the Browns, set to open on 21 March, it may be time to dig deeper into the Perry mystique to try and ascertain his staying power. One things for certain - when he puts out cinematic versions of his previously road showed events, crowds clamor. Of the four films he’s been involved in - Diary of a Mad Black Woman, Madea’s Family Reunion, Daddy’s Little Girls, and Why Did I Get Married? , only one has had less than impressive box office returns. Oddly enough, Girls was also the only one without a theatrical foundation. The rest of his oeuvre has grossed in excess of $100 million, and Browns is likely to continue that trend - especially since this movie marks the return of that all important insane woman, Madea.

Much has been made of Perry, a tall African American male playing an outsized female stereotype, a character noted for her pot smoking, gun toting, pop culture referencing rigors. Perry has said that Madea represents every strong black woman he ever grew up around, the care giving center of a father-less, often frightening urban environment. The jocular personality is merely part of the entertainment paradigm. But there is actually more to Madea than this. As a comic foil, she is the entertainment heart of many of Perry’s plays. Even when she’s not a part of the production, the author finds a funny business substitute (usually in the persona of Leroy Brown) to do the humor heavy lifting.

On the other hand, Madea is also the no nonsense voice of reason, a guide through many of life’s more complicated and vexing issues. Certainly, some of her advice is outdated (beat your kids) and outrageous (the classic “hot grits on the stove” for a cheating man), but it plays directly into the audience’s collective memory. No one has done a better job of filtering the African American experience of the last 50 years into a viable production package than Perry. Even others who’ve tried to mimic his approach - David E. Talbert, for example - seems stuck in a purely post-modern position. But Tyler Perry is old school without being ancient, effectively mixing the contemporary with the classic to create his universe.

It’s something that plays directly into the spiritual element as well. Perry’s scripts are like toe tapping tent revivals, action intermittently interrupted so that good time Gospel shout outs can be introduced. It’s a very important part of their effectiveness, the pressure cooker conceit of all those pent up problems breaking free and into the hands of Christ. Perry hires wonderful vocalists, from David and Tamala Mann (better known as The Browns) to Cheryl Pepsi Riley and D’Atra Hicks, and they all know how to really sell a song. Yet it’s odd that these mainstay moments are stripped from the cinematic versions of his work. Even when he casts noted superstars from the music biz - Janet Jackson, Jill Scott - to play certain roles, music is barely mentioned.

That’s why many in the mainstream just don’t “get” Perry. They see his undemanding storylines, his exaggerated characters, his good vs. evil straightforwardness, and conclude that there is nothing of substance present. They even mock his lack of context. But it’s clear that audiences attending a Perry picture are already well versed in the foundation for the film. They don’t need to see every song, recognize every character, or experience every subplot. As long as there are familiar elements from his celebrated stagings, the ticket sales will soar and the turnstiles will spin. It’s not unlike making a cinematic version of a noted bestseller or beloved TV show - except Perry is much more entertaining.

Oddly enough, as of late, the author has been messing with the formula. While Madea’s Family Reunion used most of the play’s storyline, both Why Did I Get Married? and Meet the Browns have been substantially altered. There are many explanations for such a stance. Part of the rationale is that Perry wants to give moviegoers a different experience than those familiar with the plays. There are delightful DVD versions of these efforts, after all. At the same time, much of the man’s acclaim has come from familiarity. Though his TV sitcom, House of Payne, is a syndicated cable hit, Daddy’s Little Girls barely grossed $31 million - almost $20 million less than any other of the films. Changing the premise seems antithetical to those intentions.

On the other hand, he’s a name brand now, a noted Oprah approved member of the medium. He can do anything he wants and it literally brings out his devotees. Married was still a sizable hit, and another Madea outing (Goes to Jail) is in the works. Perry’s latest play The Marriage Counselor, is making its church and congregation run and his last effort, What’s Done in the Dark… has just landed on the digital format. It seems there’s no stopping this creative powerhouse - and the profits can attest to his staying power. Yet one has to wonder if Perry can ever resolve the hominess of his theatrical works with the archness of his film. Madea might be a powerful iconic image, but could she work outside an already established story? Would a wholly original Perry film be seen as a stretch, or as something to be avoided until word of mouth strengthens the sense of success?

These are the pitfalls Meet the Browns faces when it opens nationwide this weekend. Most critics will not see it in advance (Lionsgate takes a genre-oriented horror-haters position when it comes to many of its previews) and there will be those who instantly dismiss anything with Perry’s name attached no matter what the circumstances are. The few who see it will trot out the standard rejections, and race will get a minor airing along the way. Even that derogatory term ‘chitlin’ circuit’ will show up now and again. But the fact remains that Tyler Perry is a solid, seasoned entertainer with enough invention and drive to keep going for years. He’s patented. He’s bonafide. He’s sanctified. No one can take that away from him - not even his own sense of self. There will always be an underserved element of society looking for someone in sync with their views. For now, Tyler Perry is it, and that’s all that matters. 

—Bill Gibron

Like getting smacked in the face? Of course not - no one does. Aside from the physical pain and assault, there’s the demoralizing effect on one’s dignity and pride. Such an attack is a psychological affront, a meta- and physical reminder of every bad time you’ve ever had, every bad thought you’ve ever harbored. Yet this is the exact sensation one gets after suffering through the pointless ‘revisionist’ thriller Funny Games. While Austrian director Michael Haneke may be doing little except revamping his 1997 foreign language film for US distribution, this shot for shot retelling of a family vacation gone gangrenous is actually an outright assail on audiences.

You see, Haneke dislikes America. He specifically hates our love affair with violence. He believes - and perhaps, rightfully so - that we are obsessed with it. He thinks we get a vicarious, even erotic charge out of seeing individuals suffer on screen. He’s stunned by the brutality leveled in the name of entertainment and he thinks that such a sickening bloodlust needs a direct and slightly sarcastic denunciation. The result? Funny Games. In the serial killer playing mind games narrative, the filmmaker fiddles with genre expectations. Actions happen off screen or in long, laborious takes. Murder is undercut with cruel humor. Our heroes are weak and our villains smug. And above all, all sense of right and wrong is retrofitted into an ambiguous, grossly dissatisfying cinematic arrogance.

It’s clear that this director would love the above scribed dressing down. He sees similar criticism as the proper effect of his film. He wants viewers to question the logic and logistical set-ups. He begs that we fall for the formulas and champion the stereotypes. He wants to peak our inherent sense of vigilante justice and bemoan the lack of true criminal comeuppance. In part, this is aggravation as overly intellectualized confrontation - like creating a monster movie only to filter it through a partygoer’s everpresent camera POV. But the disastrous element of Funny Games is this blatant obviousness. Instead of trying to fool you with the preplanned perspective, it simply stands there and sucker punches you - again, and again, and again.

It’s the main facet of the film, and one that has both intrigued and repelled critics. Some have praised Haneke as taking a brave, even bravura tactic. By making the audience’s own reaction as important as that of the characters onscreen, Funny Games breaks down the fabled Fourth Wall and turns the viewer into a participant in the pain as well. Their distress and unease is all part of the maker’s intention. But this begs a significant question - does a filmgoer really want to be made uncomfortable? Now, we are not talking about the intrinsic reaction that comes with most genres - comedy/laughter, horror/fear, melodrama/sadness. Funny Games is not working in free association. It’s about rubbing your nose in your own morbid curiosity and enjoying the sour smell.

Again - is that a viable element of the motion picture artform? When rape is depicted as part of a director’s vision, some find it powerful. Others feel it’s provocative. And there are those who see it as exploitative, unnecessary, and gratuitous. Haneke seems to be suggesting that murder - one of Funny Games and the movies in general most fervent pastimes - be treated the same way. Of course, our cultural love affair with violence means that we have to be tricked into taking notice - thus his “nudge, nudge, wink, wink” approach. By busting through convention, this director wants you to acknowledge it. By thwarting your anticipated reactions, he hopes to undermine you appreciation of dread.

Yet all of this fails to address the initial premise - is it something cinema should do? Is something that is essentially amusing supposed to trip up our sensibilities so? The answer appears to be generational. Those raised on traditional ideals despise this kind of grandstanding self-centeredness. A filmmaker should never call direct attention to himself or his style - unless your name is Hitchcock. It’s like explaining the joke before you’ve told the set-up and/or punchline. But the younger demographic of movie lovers, the ones raised on hours in front of the VCR and endless premium cable reruns dig this new breed of brazenness. They will mistake a con job for con artistry and scream for more, more, more.

These are the Funny Games apologists, the ones reading way more into the movie than probably exists. They don’t mind the tension breaking asides directed to the audience, or the moment when a remote control literally rewinds the action to benefit the bad guys. To them, it’s all manipulation with a purpose, a full disclosure dance between the old guard and the fresh faces. But there is a flaw in this reasoning, something that stems directly from what Haneke wants to do. When a child suffers a horrendous shotgun blast, his viscera strewn around the living room set like so much Leatherface graphic design, Haneke keeps the event offscreen. Yet we still see the gore, the insinuation as nasty as seeing the act itself.

Then there’s the other brutality. Legs are broken, women defiled (if only psychologically), and animals are rendered into lifeless heaps. Haneke never once avoids a single one of these senseless shocker moments. Sure, we may have to experience the majority of the mayhem indirectly, but seeing a gaping wound or canine corpse remains standard scary movie procedure. To really give us the goose, Haneke would have kept everything out of sight - the body blows, the asexual strip tease. A dead child would have been a sonic cue only, a last act drowning a mere mention between murderers. But that’s not good enough for Funny Games, and the reason why stands as the film’s final undoing.

Haneke is not making this movie for free. He’s not selling his celluloid sermon via a self-run website and a homemade DV-R dynamic. No, he’s got a top flight Western cast (Tim Roth, Naomi Watts), a major studio (Warners Independent) push, and a great deal of ‘then and now’ comparative publicity. While he may claim his movie is all about the message, the truth is it’s all about the money. You don’t cast Dawson’s Creek level actors like Michael Pitt and Brady Corbet unless you’re trying to trade on their youth appeal, and you don’t stress the “darkly comic” edge of the story in ads to try and trap the over 40 crowd. In many ways, Funny Games is arthouse for the aesthetically stunted, a 2008 too cool for school signpost to unwarranted hipster status.

Besides, the movie is reprehensible, obvious, polarizing, uninvolving, and in the end, a waste of talent and time. And even with all that being true, there will be those who stand back and praise such problems. It’s one thing to take a strong statement against violence and its cultural commercialization and translate it into an equally powerful work. It’s another to take the symbolic stance and have the audience do the majority of the heavy lifting. Funny Games is a farce and Michael Haneke is the fully clothed foreign film emperor. Unfortunately, the blood staining such threads is not insightful. It’s insidious. 

—Bill Gibron

No one had ever seen anything like it before. As drive-in patrons lined up for a Friday night showing of a new horror film, little did they know that they were about to witness a cinematic milestone. It would be the creation of an entire genre of film, and the beginning of the end to a profitable filmmaking partnership. Those Peoria, Illinois customers got more than they bargained for as they pulled into the dirt parking lot and attached a tinny speaker to their windows, for what poured forth from the screen was seventy minutes of unbridled brutality. They witnessed legs chopped off, eyes gouged out, tongues ripped from throats, and brains spilled from skulls.

On that balmy night in 1963, the mighty Monarch of the Exploitation Film, David F. Friedman, along with King of the Nudies, director Herschel Gordon Lewis, redefined their careers (and their lives) with the release of Blood Feast. Over the course of the next two years, they would further refine this new form of cinema, creating a trilogy of gore-drenched classics. Two Thousand Maniacs and Color Me Blood Red cemented their legacy and eventually split their profitable affiliation. While dated and a little dippy, these films stand as a testament to these founding fathers of fear, the men who discovered that genuine terror - and a lot of cash - could be made by thoroughly grossing people out.

The ‘60s had just started. Producer Friedman and director Lewis were well known, highly reputable players in grindhouse filmmaking and distribution with such titles as The Adventures of Lucky Pierre and Daughters of the Sun to their credit. Taking a very basic premise - like an enchanted pair of glasses that allowed the wearer to see a person “au natural” - they would shoot nudist camp footage and incorporate it into the basic narrative. While fun and highly profitable, by ‘63 the market was literally flooded with breasts and bare butts. The duo needed to find another unwholesome subject to exploit. It needed to have the same immediate visceral impact on the audience that live childbirth footage had when featured in the moralistic Mom and Dad films. It needed to stir the imagination (and senses) the way acres of unclothed nubile young bodies had in the nudie cutie movie.

Like most acts of desperation, their idea was sudden and inspired: Gore! Total carnage! Unmitigated and realistic scenes of torture and murder! Remove the subtle nuance and cinematic trickery from past movie killings and show everything in graphic, gruesome detail. Within weeks, Blood Feast was on its way into the cinematic history book. Its phenomenal success mandated a sequel of sorts. Two Thousand Maniacs saw lightning strike twice, but only one year later, there was so much dissension built up between Friedman and Lewis that Color Me Blood Red was abandoned (to be completed by others), signaling the end of their era in gore films.

While Friedman and Lewis would both explore the horror film separately, they never did recapture the magic of Blood Feast or the trilogy, and with good reason. These were honest collaborations, the very essence of teamwork: Lewis on the camera, Friedman producing and operating the sound. After a dozen or more solo efforts, Lewis retired from film completely, and Friedman stumbled into a long stint with the soft-core sex farce. But it’s these films, with all their unrelenting bloodshed and gleeful butchery, that people remember. And it’s also the most passionate and playful of their work together (or maybe even separately). Historians and fans consistently return to these films to see where it all began—when horror finally grew balls and decided to show it all in unadulterated explicit detail.

Stylistically, Lewis and Friedman lifted a great deal from the horror comics of the time (like the ones created by EC). Their use of bold, vivid primary colors (as in Blood Feast) made the images feel like the dazzling panels of a cruel comic. Two Thousand Maniacs is a cornpone Vault of Horror by way of Brigadoon with its bizarre twists and shockingly sick set pieces. Even in Color Me Blood Red there is a clear cartoon-like conceit, with every action exaggerated, acting over the top and outrageous, and shots that mimic the best in pen and ink. The Trilogy allowed Lewis to expand his director’s language with unique angles, extreme close ups, and atmospheric lighting. The result was a set of cinematic sickies so drenched in dread and bloodstained bodies that audiences couldn’t help but be disturbed. And entertained.

They also marked the true origins of the modern horror archetype. Blood Feast was (and is) the prototypical psycho killer on the loose film, a blueprint for every other slasher/maniac movie to come. Two Thousand Maniacs was the perfect meeting of formula with fantasy. You can see the future fun killings of Freddy Krueger or the over-the-top torture tactics of a Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Evil Dead in its rednecked roots. Unfortunately, Color Me Blood Red stands for the eventual downfall of the genre, illustrating that when bound by parameters and convention, or when over-hyped or underdeveloped, a gore film could be tedious and pedestrian.

On its own, Blood Feast is the keeper. It is pure psychotic fun, a quirky assault on your senses and your tolerance for the disgusting. It makes its mutant merriment out of ingenuity, energy, and entrails. The film starts out strong and moves rapidly through its uncontrolled barrage of vivid thrill killings. However, at the end it sort of loses steam. The collection of body parts for an Egyptian blood feast/ritual is a novel and nutty premise and, in general, it works wonderfully. But once the killer is discovered and the pseudo mystery solved, the film degenerates into a laughably goofy foot chase that even the puffiest detective should have been able to win. First time viewers may find the initial half of the film shocking and grotesque, even by today’s standards. From the opening scene where an unfortunate young lady’s carved-open face is shown in full close up, the movie announces its intent to use graphic bloody images as a gigantic exclamation point to the proceedings.

The acting, unfortunately, is not consistent. As Ramses, Mal Arnold is wonderfully perverse, but Connie Mason’s Susan seems to be channeling Tor Johnson. Lewis is a tight, economical director, and not a shot or opportunity is wasted, and with classic set pieces like “beach brain bingo” and “the tongue tear” he creates, along with Friedman, a disturbed, demented (if occasionally imperfect) delight. Any fan of horror, then or now, should be required to watch Blood Feast, if only to witness first-hand where so much of what they now worship actually spawned. While they’re at it, a trip to Two Thousand Maniacs should be mandatory as well.

In the summer of 2001, in the sweltering heat of New Orleans, a pair of old men laughed and joked. They reminisced about old times. They imagined about what could have been. They buried their differences and embraced the experience of renewal. As 75-year-old Herschel Gordon Lewis called action, a brutal killing occurred. Blood flowed like an evil, if familiar, river. Still, surrounded by the fresh paint and modern technology, some things were the same; the stage gore was still the patented brew, and 78-year-old David F. Friedman was standing by his side. It had been over 40 years since they had conceived the genre they were now diving back into, and the two elderly entrepreneurs of exploitation were putting the finishing touches on Blood Feast 2: All You Can Eat.

Dozens of films, hundreds of bad reviews, and thousands of imitators later, Lewis and Friedman truly have nothing left to prove. Their legacy is cemented in a strange concoction of Karo syrup, red dye, and makeup base. They will always be known as the Godfathers of Gore, and people looking for the first true “video nasty” and its unhinged progeny can buy The Blood Trilogy and relish in the work of two true originals. Just like those first time customers in Peoria on that fateful day in 1963, they can bear witness to the graphic, squeamish birth of the gore genre…and the lasting influence of David F. Friedman and Herschel Gordon Lewis.

—Bill Gibron

The mainstream acceptance of documentary films is undeniable, which is to say they’ve started to make money. This newfound box office clout has transformed the genre from one of format to mood.  Non-fiction films are now subject to the same rigorous expectations of any western, thriller, or musical.  And while it is always heartening to see practitioners of a heretofore ‘ghettoized’ art form reap a financial reward, that cheer is darkened by the thought of a Darfur genocide doc pitched to unctuous studio execs a la The Player (“It’s Super Size Me meets Schindler’s List!”). 

John Grierson, the Scottish-born pater familias of British and Canadian documentaries wrote in his book First Principles of Documentary, “We believe that the materials and the stories taken from the raw can be finer (more real in the philosophical sense) than the acted article.” Which is all fine and good, but when you’re opening on 2000 screens, you want to know that it’s going to play in Poughkeepsie. 

Grierson engendered the notion of documentary as unaltered truth, and his veracity has been debated ever since, but never before have the tools of cinematic grammar and genre conventions been applied to the form with such verve. 

The most common tact stolen from fictional films appears in the crosscut.  Innumerable examples exist of this editorial dash between two or more threads of action to create suspense (Roger & Me, The War Room, Startup.Com, Hoop Dreams, ad nauseum).  Now I don’t suggest that documentarians should be barred access to the rudimentary tools of editing, but this technique can only erode the already crumbling notion of unvarnished truth espoused by giants of verité like Frederick Wiseman (Titicut Follies, Public Housing, Domestic Violence) or Allan King (Warrendale, A Married Couple, Dying at Grace).  I’ll make a concession: if the editing style of your documentary owes a heavy debt to Hitchcock, maybe you should back away from the Avid for a breather. 

In the mood for courtroom fireworks?  No need for Grisham, just turn to Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer, Capturing the Friedmans and others, (although this trope is the domain of the TV investigative feature and so popular that, well, it has its own station). 

How about docs that mimic other genres?  Crime drama meets police procedural in Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hill, The Thin Blue Line, Biggie and Tupac, Cocaine Cowboys.

Dysfunctional family drama?  Capturing the Friedmans (again), Tell Them Who You Are, Brother’s Keeper, My Architect, Hitman Hart: Wrestling with Shadows.  You get the feeling that if Eugene O’Neill were around today he wouldn’t be typing but shooting from the hip in HD. 

When discussing the ascendancy of documentaries, there is an undeniable elephant in the room, and that’s not a fat joke.  Michael Moore makes non-fiction issue films but rarely deserves the appellation of ‘documentarian’. Moore is the filmmaker as polemicist, a projected cousin of non-fiction rant books that littler bookstore shelves hither and yon.  And while I often agree with his politics, this is not the reason I bristle at yelps regarding his passing acquaintance with objectivity.  I expect from him the same impartiality proffered by wingnuts like Ann Coulter or Sean Hannity.  Those who preach to the converted deftly avoid the burden of objectivity but sacrifice authority for all their furious exhortations. 

He has also spawned a brood of filmmaking brats infatuated with making themselves the star. Progenitor Ross McElwee aside (Sherman’s March,Time Indefinite), odious first person entries such as 20 Dates, My Date with Drew and the inexplicably popular Tarnation enervate.  All I have gained from these works is that I don’t want to watch films about people I would change seats on a bus to avoid. 

Now to the fun part - who to blame?  I would like to extend a judicious finger at reality TV but I believe it only highlights the public’s thirst for truth.  Once these stopped being ‘reality shows’ and were tagged ‘reality based’ (with story editors on staff, for Christ’s sake) it turned into professional wrestling. Artificiality admitted and embraced, their popularity soared and activated in the viewer’s brain what I like to call the Aaron Spelling Effect, with symptoms mimicking those of enveloping narcosis. 

However, the longing for truth continued and it is a sensible urge.  In a world of fictional WMDs, steroid-fuelled homerun kings and Katie Couric News Anchor, how’s a fella supposed to set his moral compass?  At the movie theater it would seem, a sanctuary for us all in troubled times. 

In days past (I’m looking at you Depression Era), we trudged to the theatre for escape.  Only now we crave truth but in digestible form.  Hence, the addition of genre spice to our documentary gruel.  The problem is that the majority of the public receive information in a ‘documentary’ as if it was as John Grierson intended, “raw…more real than the acted article”.  Filters are left at the door (Hepa or otherwise) along with critical thought.  It’s as if the smell of popcorn causes ninety-minute brain death. 

Which leads me to shake my accusing finger at David Holzman’s Diary. 

It’s 1967.  David Holzman picks up a camera and films his daily life.  He is a lover of film and the process of filmmaking.  He cites Jean-Luc Goddard’s maxim about truth in cinema.  A clip from a glossy Vincente Minnelli film is included in a rapid sequence of one night’s television viewing.  David films his girlfriend sleeping in the nude.  He acquires a fish eye lens and plays with it, hoisting the camera over his head like a child.  He interviews a friend who voices his concerns regarding David’s experiment.  He drives his girlfriend away with his filming obsession. 

The Library of Congress entered this film into its National Film Registry in 1991.  Why, one might wonder, would a film of anodyne detail deserve such an honor?  Well, it is a terrific document of New York’s Upper West Side in the late sixties and looks good in black and white.  And for those that don’t know David Holzman’s Diary, it was fake. 

I don’t bring this up just to cite what could be the first ‘mockumentary’ long before it became a term, the most tiresome word in a sitcom pitch, or the form for many first time directors to tackle (Woody Allen, Tim Robbins, Rob Reiner, Albert Brooks and Jim McBride, director of Diary).  I don’t bring up this hard to find film (once available on VHS, currently available from UK’s Second Run DVD in Region 0 PAL) in an effort to convince you of how subtle and effective its evocation of ‘reality’ - I may as well try to describe a cool breeze. 

The two directors mentioned illustrate the unending battle between fact and truth.  While Goddard famously maintained that film should be ‘truth 24 frames a second’, Vincente Minnelli responded in an interview that film is, in fact, ‘a lie 24 frames a second’.  Not only does it provide a telling comment on the methods of two widely divergent talents, it foretells (in an already prescient film) the problematic crux of the blockbuster documentary.  A form ostensibly dedicated to objectivity should not concern itself with character arcs, plot points or, God help us, test screenings (“I liked When The Levees Broke but could it be less of a downer?”). 

So the next time you’re lined up to see the newest non-fiction film about the troubles along the Gaza Strip, consider instead buying a ticket to Don’t Mess With The Zohan.  For if Vincente Minnelli is right, you just might learn something. 

—PopMatters Staff

We critics love to give Oscar the razz. After all, they get it wrong so many times that, inherently, we view it as an out of touch, deeply political body whose process allows art to die at the hands of studio artifice. Recognizing that the voting membership is comprised of all previous nominees, along with occasional invited inductees, the insular nature of the beast is pretty darn obvious. But there are other instances where the Academy bungles its business so badly that you have to wonder if senility hasn’t set in, a kind of all encompassing lunacy that adversely affects the aesthetic of the constituency. It’s the bungles that burn our biscuits the most, slights and celebrations that mock the very nature of film.

While the list could go on forever, and accommodate everyone’s personal favorite and/or fiasco, the fact remains that the Academy Awards are one of the better bodies of recognition out there. After all, it could be a lot worse - it could be the Grammys. And don’t go harping about the old studio system. This overview is confining its critique to the ‘60s through ‘00s.  As a result, this is far from definitive. Instead, it’s just an example of AMPAS’s fairly consistent brain farts. Let’s begin with:

Robin Williams beats Burt Reynolds and Robert Forster
1998 Best Supporting Actor
Having chalked up almost every pre-ceremony award between them, predictions had the Boogies Nights and Jackie Brown veterans in virtual tie for their first Oscar. On the night of the awards, both men looked confident, especially as the nominations were being announced. Then the former funny man, known for his hirsute hissy fits, rode Miramax’s Affleck and Damon express to a totally undeserving triumph. While Forrester mostly kept his composure, Reynolds will always be remembered for his now classic hurt puppy reaction.

Roberto Benigni beats Nick Nolte, Ian McKellan, and Tom Hanks
1999 Best Actor
Some slights are unconscionable. Others are apparently the work of Satan himself. And then there was this undeniable abomination, a clear case of mass hypnosis where seemingly sensible people went pie-eyed for a Mediterranean stereotype in badly broken English. And his Holocaust comedy was pretty awful, too. Still, something about this Italian scallion’s shuck and jive wooed the weak willed Oscar body, resulting in a devastating loss for real actors who gave actual performances. It remains one of the Academy’s dumbest decisions ever.

Ron Howard beats Peter Jackson and David Lynch
2002 Best Director
Rewarding a journeyman for transcending his workmanlike trappings is nothing new, but the Academy usually picks a better movie than the underwhelming A Beautiful Mind. After bestowing unwarranted golden kudos on the supreme hack of the screenplay, Akiva Goldsman, Oscar went one better and tossed former child star ‘Opie Cunningham’ a little mantle magic all his own. That Mind made mincemeat of Mulholland Dr. and the first of what would be three massive Tolkien treasures stands as proof that it was still business as usual, even in a new millennium.

Kevin Costner beats Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Barbet Schroeder, and Stephen Frears
1990 Best Director
The Academy has had a long history of giving first timers - especially actors - its directing love in comparison to established career filmmakers. Back in 1981, Robert Redford took home a statue for his work on Ordinary People. Nine years later, the Bull Durham star deconstructed the Western, and Academy voters went wonky. They ignored four other famous helmsmen to give the novice their notice. Dances with Wolves has its merits, but ‘89 was clearly the year of Goodfellas. Apparently, no one in AMPAS thought so.

Chariots of Fire beats Raiders of the Lost Ark
1982 Best Picture
In what many saw as a box office no-brainer, Steven Spielberg’s brilliant throwback to the Saturday matinee serials of the ‘40s was 1981’s clear fan favorite. By the time Oscar rolled around, the film racked up nine nominations, including Best Director and Picture nods. While his own personal fortunes were always suspect, there was no way Raiders would lose to Atlantic City, Reds, On Golden Pond, or some British film about runners. Thanks to a screenplay win early on, Chariots unseated the presumptive champion in typical underdog fashion.

Kramer vs. Kramer beats Apocalypse Now and All That Jazz
1982 Best Picture
Back when divorce was still a hot button social issue (the ‘70s was strange like that), Robert Benton’s family in crisis drama managed to walk away with several of the year’s statues. It was five for nine, snagging two for acting, screenplay, director and picture. Looking back, the movie makes for a fine character study. But when put up alongside Coppola’s Vietnam fever dream and Bob Fosse’s autobiographical binge, it seems like a less solid choice.

Rocky beats Network, Taxi Driver, and All the President’s Men
1977 Best Picture
It will always remain a surreal situation. While nominated for 10 total awards, it looked like Sylvester Stallone’s labor of love was about to be swept out of the ‘77 ceremony. Then, in one of the most unlikely upsets ever, John G. Avildsen won Best Director (beating shoe-in Sidney Lumet) and Rocky took home the top prize. While a fine film in its own right, the notion that it managed to trounce a trio of post-modern classics confirms the Academy’s occasional lose grip on motion picture reality.
The Color Purple Goes 0 for 11
1986 Awards
At this point in his career, Steven Spielberg was constantly referred to as the most popular, influential, and considered director not to win the big one (apparently, the East Coast bias against Scorsese was still in full force). So when he took on Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel about rural African Americans in ‘30s America, his eventual win (and several more for the film) seemed like a foregone conclusion. Spielberg even received the coveted DGA blessing, making him the presumptive favorite. In pure Oscar style, he wasn’t even nominated.

Pulp Fiction Goes 1 for 7
1995 Awards
Sometimes, the shortsighted nature of the entire awards process more or less mandates Academy missteps. Though many saw it as nothing more than an overreaching critical darling, Quentin Tarantino’s cult crime epic has gone on to be one of the most influential films in the recent history of cinema. Of course, it couldn’t beat the feel good flimsiness of Forrest Gump (that year’s Oscar sweetheart) and QT did get the conciliatory screenplay nod. He and his still remarkable film deserved much, much more.

2001: A Space Odyssey Fails to Get a Best Picture Nod
1969 Awards
While a sensibility soaked in Star Wars might argue about Stanley Kubrick’s sci-fi meditation on man’s place in the cosmos, the truth is that the 1968 spectacle stands as a singular cinematic achievement. Yet, somehow, it failed to earn a Best Picture nomination. Clearly, the Academy thought Rachel, Rachel, Franco Zefferelli’s Romeo and Juliet, The Lion in Winter, Funny Girl, and eventual winner Oliver! were much more representative of the medium. Almost 40 years later, it’s clear which film remains the most iconic, and important.

—Bill Gibron