Flesh to touch, flesh to burn.

As gut-bustingly funny as the Neil LaBute remake of The Wicker Man is, it’s a pity that most Americans instantly associate that film with the title as opposed to the original, which is nothing short of a horror movie classic, and inasmuch as it is Halloween, I thought I would dedicate today’s blog entry to this majestic little film.

Today, when one thinks of horror, images from Saw leap to mind, as though the point of horror is to be as disgusting as possible. It’s all about the short-term shock factor. But the definition of horror is this: “An overwhelming and painful feeling caused by something frightfully shocking, terrifying, or revolting; a shuddering fear.” Does the torture porn that passes as horror really invoke those feelings in you? Violence without context or content is boring; Filmmakers like Hitchcock and Kubrick understood this. Horror must penetrate the viewer’s mind and bomb it with thoughts of violence or destruction or terror.

So what makes The Wicker Man such an effective piece of horror? There is no blood or gore whatsoever. There are no monsters to speak of. In fact, not once did I ever have the urge to jump out of my seat and scream. However, The Wicker Man does something to the viewer that all aspiring horror filmmakers need to learn as quickly as possible: It never sacrifices the element of reality. The world of Summerisle is palpable. I believe every moment of it. Therefore, when the surprise twist is sprung on us, my jaw hits the ground and I leave the film with a dazed look on my face.

Part of the reason why this film works is the level of research that went into it. Unlike Mr. LaBute, director Robin Hardy and writer Anthony Shaffer didn’t just pull some half-assed shit together about bees and lesbians. They actually understood how the Druids lived and what they believed in. In fact, one of their starting points on the project was the idea of the old English religion reemerging in the face of the new one: The Church of England. We watch with horror as Sgt. Neil Howie’s Christianity has its ultimate clash with Lord Summerisle’s Paganism in the picture’s grim finale because we are never left with a safe position to take on the matter. One of them could be right. Both of them could be wrong. Either way, this is no Hollywood ending.

Forget the lack of screams or senseless massacres. This is the essence of horror. And even if parts of the film have aged horribly — Namely the soundtrack, as much as I enjoy most of it. — the substance of the story being told is what makes 1973’s Wicker Man a timeless classic to behold.

P.S. If you haven’t seen the film yet, I implore you to get ahold of the extended version. It includes 11 minutes that were butchered out by the studio when they wanted to make the film more accessible, particularly to those with the attention span of an ant. The scenes haven’t been fully restored because the negatives went missing — Yeah, this movie got fucked over all right. — but it makes the story more complete and therefore more effective.

About bloody time.

Finally a proper trailer for Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire. It’s a little cheesy but no doubt that’s the marketing people. I’ve been looking forward to this film for ages but never more so than the last couple of months given its critical acclaim. Maybe Boyle will finally get the respect as a director that he deserves.

Nailed it!

The Huffington Post has directed me to an interview with Richard Dreyfuss and five of the worst women in the world in which he beautifully sums up why Oliver Stone’s W. doesn’t quite work. Ignore the misleading article and go straight to the clip.

I wasn’t expecting a whole lot from W. and I got even less from it. Parts of it are quite good, and Brolin is as terrific as they say (How can the son of such a lousy actor be so good? Usually it’s the other way around.), but in the end I didn’t get anything out of it that I didn’t get from the poster’s tagline: “Anyone can grow up to be President.” Yes? And?

Part of the problem is that Bush isn’t interesting enough. You can’t make a 2 hour film based solely on the idea that this boorish trust-fund baby went from a drunken bum to the President of the US. Where’s the beef? Nixon had beef because few historical figures in the last century were as complex and Shakespearean as Tricky Dick (Can’t wait for Frost/Nixon by the way.), but Bushie just can’t carry his own movie. It’s we the people who had to deal with the effects of his incompetence. Beyond one brief protest montage, Stone never communicates that point.

I don’t mind that the film portrays Bush as a sympathetic character. In fact, that’s the one area in which the filmmaking succeeded for me. But feeling sorry for a character isn’t enough. Especially when the character is real AND has directly affected all of us. All they had to do was step outside of the White House for a bit. Was that too much to ask? That’s my spiel. Incidentally this same point was made by a good friend of mine, which is exactly what woke me up to the problem in the first place, so thank you to Charlie Rohlfs and Richard Dreyfuss for opening my eyes.

By the way, why the hell didn’t Stone fire Thandie Newton? Good actress but an appalling performance all around.

Get yourself a cell phone.

I was informed by a friend today that he is building a phone booth for a short film he is making which he will forthwith donate to Thursday Nite Live, Hofstra’s sketch show for which I write and perform. Therefore I decided I just had to write a sketch about a telephone booth. And now I’m halfway done. And what I have is essentially an extended metaphor for conception through the lens of social darwinism.

You have permission to hate me after the above statement.

I’m becoming more and more interested in how comedy works on a basic level. Concerning characters, I feel that self-awareness more often than not cripples what may have been a very funny piece of material to begin with (I’m looking at you, Will Ferrell.) Think of the funniest people in your lives. Most of mine don’t realize how funny they are. My late grandpa, who I’m starting to talk about often in my stand-up, was a perfect example. The things he said and did in his life were hysterically funny, but if I ever tried to repeat any of those moments for us, they would lose their authenticity because he would be trying too hard. Obviously there are exceptions — like the pictured Groucho Marx — but when you’re characters are indeed self-aware, only a nuanced approach like the Marx Brothers’ will do. They still need to be fully realized beings no matter how absurd or cartoon-like.

The problem is that here I am writing sketches for a college sketch show which follows the Saturday Night Live tradition of comedy (hence the title). The sets are obviously fake. The lighting is obscenely overdone. And the performances will not work unless they are turned up to 11; otherwise the audience and even the camera won’t grasp the comedy. I’m not putting the show down, mind you. The cast is great, the crew is great, and the writers are great. My concern is in breaking free from the constraints of this ever-so-tired format while still doing the one thing that every piece of comedy must do, no matter what form it takes: Making people laugh.

So here we are again with this sketch. There is a telephone booth. A man wants to make a call; a woman wants to receive a call. They argue and argue about it. The phone booth is a womb. The change is his semen. When I feel it’s gone on long enough, some bystander or other will walk onstage and shout at the social darwinists: “For God’s sake just get a cell phone!” The one actual joke in this whole exercise.

Is it possible to make a bunch of college students on Long Island laugh without vulgar one-liners or exaggerated archetypes? We’ll see…

I’d probably be more excited for this…

… If Jean-Claude Van Damme wasn’t one of the Top 10 worst actors of all-time. This trailer does look pretty cool but why him? Hell, even if I was impressed by the most lackluster action hero who ever lived, when was the last time he had a hit? Surely someone like The Rock or Jason Statham would be a better fit. Or if they wanted to play the “washed-up movie star” card, somebody of his generation with a bit more substance?

Actually this kind of film would’ve been perfect for any number of the great bad-asses in film: Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Lee Marvin, I could go on. While McQueen was taken from us far too soon, Bronson and Marvin arguably became cooler as they grew older, and imagining this premise with either gentlemen is somewhat orgasmic to me. Just goes to show you how much Hollywood is lacking in the coolness department these days.

Link.

(Actually he looks a lot like Bruce Springsteen on the poster.)

Where do they find this people?

I almost gave away the joke in the title, but man, the Access Hollywood logo is a giveaway that something like this would happen.

The Big McCain.

Oh my God. This is too funny. (“Well, that’s just like, your opinion, man.”)

Pray silence please for the pole patrol.

The brother of one of my best friends is currently involved in a hysterical viral video series called Pole Patrol. I thought I’d post the link here for anyone interested. They definitely deserve a bigger following. It’s not just because I know one of the members — I don’t, really. I met him once fleetingly. — I swear this is worth your time.

The Pole Patrol.

Why do Republicans hate intelligence?

DISCLAIMER: I don’t subscribe to a political label. As John Lennon once said, “I just believe in me.” In addition, I don’t subscribe to the notion that conservatism itself is an ideology for idiots. That is nonsense. Besides, Republicans aren’t conservative anymore anyway.

Ever since the Bush administration took office in 2000, one thing has become clear. Fruity intellectuals shouldn’t be running for office. There must be something suspicious about a man or woman who is well-spoken about world affairs. This is what destroyed John Kerry in 2004 — although I didn’t care much for him anyway — and now they are trying to destroy Barack Obama on the very same basis.

William F. Buckley must be turning over in his grave. Whether you agreed with the man or not, you can’t deny that he was well-read, cultured, and valued intelligence above all else. What would he say about Naughty Librarian’s pervasive insistence that Barack Obama doesn’t see the world like the hockey moms and the Joe six-packs, and therefore is unfit to be President? What would he say about the fact that his own son has resigned from The National Review — the magazine he founded himself — because its sheep-like readers can’t bare the fact that he is voting for Obama instead of McCain. “Well that means he’s a liberal!” That is what our political discourse has become?

Why do the Republicans do this? Well, if they can tap into enough racists — like the crackpots at McCain’s rallies calling for Obama’s death — maybe they can keep the weirdo black guy out of office. They don’t care about the state of the nation. If they did, McCain would be telling us how to find Osama Bin Laden RIGHT NOW. But no, all they care about is the almighty dollar.

This is not what conservatism is supposed to be. These are not conservatives. These are wannabe fascists who are appealing to the worst aspects of human nature in order to gain votes. I just hope the Bradley effect doesn’t kick in thanks to a few uncultured rednecks.

P.S. Hussein is just a name. If you use that to bash Obama then you are a disgusting retarded racist and you shouldn’t be allowed to vote.

My thoughts exactly.

I’m convinced that the only reason Hitchens continued to defend the Iraq war and not even concede that the Bush administration fucked it up beyond belief is because of his ego. The man can never admit when he’s wrong. Luckily he’s right most of the time, as he is in this recent column about why Obama is a better pick for President than McCain:

Obama is greatly overrated in my opinion, but the Obama-Biden ticket is not a capitulationist one, even if it does accept the support of the surrender faction, and it does show some signs of being able and willing to profit from experience. With McCain, the “experience” is subject to sharply diminishing returns, as is the rest of him, and with Palin the very word itself is a sick joke.

Yeah…what he said. Link.