“Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy, and Lady Vengeance share Park’s distinctive auteurist touch, identifiable by a unique blend of ironic humor and blood-curdling horror. Comic book stories with elements of classical tragedy, the films feature morally ambiguous but fascinating protagonists who discover the true nature of evil.”

There’s more information over on the NWFF blog Hot Splice. Each movie will be presented in actual 35mm film. Though they are called a trilogy, the films stand on their own so don’t fret if you can’t make the whole thing (but we heartily recommend seeing them back-to-back if you want to make a night of it).  Unlike the epic Oscar broadcast, these movies are guaranteed to entertain.

The trilogy kicks off at 4pm with SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE

then OLD BOY at 6:30…

…and at 9pm, LADY VENGEANCE WARNING: This is a RED BAND trailer and may not be suitable for all audiences

If you miss any of them or can’t wait to watch them again, the DVDs are currently in our Best of the Decade section. We’ll also have the entire VENGEANCE TRILOGY ON SALE for the first time together on DVD next week (stay tuned for details).  And if these films are your first exposure to Park’s work, visit his director’s section here in the store for further viewing. Start with Joint Security Area…

If you’ve enjoyed the Noir City: Lust and Larceny series at SIFF and are wondering where to get your next theatrical noir fix, we direct you to the Seattle Art Museum’s Empire of the Night: The Best of British Film Noir series.  For ten Thursdays this spring,  SAM visits “Empire of Night, where thrilling tales of love and betrayal, greed and obsession swirl in the midnight fog.”  SAM knows their stuff, having presented the first American film noir series here in 1977 and have had incredibly successful and well curated series ever since.

Empire of Night starts April 1st. We  have Full Series passes on sale here at the store: $58 for SIFF, Northwest Film Forum and SAM members,  $65 for general admission. Each film starts at 7:30 at SAM Downtown’s  Plestcheef Auditorium. For more information, visit their website or call the SAM box office at (206) 654-3121.  We do NOT have tickets for the individual films–if you’re looking to go to just one film, contact the SAM box office.

Here’s the series lineup & information.  Note: Watch all trailers & clips at your own risk, as there may be spoilers and/or things that reveal really cool parts.

April 1st--BRIGHTON ROCK (1947)– Directed by John Boulting, starring Richard Attenborough and Carol Marsh.  Look for Hermoine Baddeley as Ida. Among her many film & TV roles, she played Ellen the maid in Mary Poppins (well done, Sister Suffragette!). Attenborough was in his early 20s at the time and wears his hat well. Here’s an example:

April 8th–WANTED FOR MURDER (1946)–Directed by Lawrence Huntington, starring Eric Portman, Dulcie Gray and Stanley Holloway.  I couldn’t find a proper trailer for the film but thanks to the boundless wonders of the Internet, I did find some images from the film set to Kate Bush’s song “Mother Stands for Comfort” (there’s a scene at the beginning before the musical montage starts if you just want to watch that).

April 15th–THE OCTOBER MAN (1947)–Directed by Roy Ward Baker, starring Joan Greenwood and John Mills (dad to Hayley and Juliet and the family in Disney’s  Swiss Family Robinson).  Juliet Clark at Pacific Film Archive says, “In a twist on the wrong-man theme, this hybrid of playful murder mystery and psychological melodrama stars John Mills as an innocent man whose own self-doubt makes him a suspect.”

April 22nd–IT ALWAYS RAINS ON SUNDAY (1947)–Directed by Robert Hamer, starring Googie Withers and Jack Warner.  Check out  the  trailer here. They sure don’t make trailers like they used to.  While on your way to the movie, I suggest you listen to Morrissey’s “Everyday Is Like Sunday.”

April 29th–CORRIDOR OF MIRRORS (1948)–Directed by Terence Young, staring Eric Portman, Edana Romney and an up & comer named Christopher Lee.  There’s an excellent overview to be found at Britmovie.co.uk.

May 6th--SO EVIL MY LOVE (1948)–Directed by Lewis Allen, starring Ray Milland, Ann Todd and Geraldine Fitzgerald. Here’s a link to a post on the blog Film Noir of the Week, where you’ll find a full synopsis and a tasty snippet of the film itself.  Listen for the appropriately  intense score. And  just because it’s cool, here’s  Milland on What’s My Line:

May 13th–THE THIRD MAN (1949)–Directed by Carol Reed, based on the novel by Graham Greene, starring Orson Welles and Joseph Cotton. We’ve said it before, but you should never pass up a chance to see this story of “continental intrigue” in 35mm.

May 20th--SO LONG AT THE FAIR (1950)–Directed by Antony Darnborough and Terence Fisher, starring Jean Simmons, Dirk Bogarde and David Tomlinson (who you may recognize as George Banks from Mary Poppins.)   This twisted tale of disappearance was based on a novel that also inspired an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Here’s a key bit:

May 27th–THE LONG HAUL (1957)–Directed by Ken Hughes, starring Diana Dors and Victor Mature. Steve Seid at the aforementioned Pacific Film Archive says, “Racketeering is the principal cargo in this well-tuned tale about a trucker in trouble. Victor Mature (in a role intended for Marlon Brando) plays Harry Miller, a deactivated G.I. stranded in England with his Liverpudlian wife. Harry signs on as a driver for a lorry combine only to find that mobsters rule the road. Joe Easy (Patrick Allen), the ruthless thug who runs Easy Hauling, plays it fast and loose with his freight, but not as loose as his curvaceous cohort Lynn (Diana Dors, the British Monroe).”

June 3rd–THE CLOUDED YELLOW (1951)–Directed by Ralph Thomas, starring Trevor Howard and Jean Simmons.  Howard plays an ex-Secret Service agent who takes a nice quiet job on a country estate categorizing butterflies. He  falls for his boss’ niece (Simmons), and when she’s accused of murder they use his stealth skills to lead the cops on a chase across the Lake District. Here’s Ms. Simmons getting grilled by the fuzz.  She didn’t do it…did she?

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If one film a week isn’t enough for you (we understand, sometimes more than one a day isn’t enough for us), check out the 197 titles in our Film Noir section, located upstairs in the shadows of the Murder/Mystery/Suspense room.

There’s an argument to be made that this wilderness would be unnavigable without a guide, and that therefore we need film critics to tell us which way to go.  But much like the skill that would be involved with leading bewildered travellers through hostile territory, film criticism is in itself an art, a skill, and one that has its own history that has mutated and changed just as films, and the audience’s taste in them, has grown over the short first century of these twin art forms.

Gerald Peary’s breezy new documentary For the Love of Movies manages to condense these last hundred-odd years of movie writing into a lightfooted 80 minutes, perfect for audiences who may be generally uninformed about what they’re reading when they look for movie reviews.  Starting in the silent era, where little movie magazines were used primarily to drum up advertising dollars from the studios, it runs the time line all the way up to today’s Internet-based work.

Peary has gathered a massive roster of both current and former film critics to discuss their craft and its past.  Roger Ebert, Harry Knowles, Andrew Sarris, Ken Turan, Elvis Mitchell, Karina Longworth et al.  The list goes on.  These are all extremely articulate, opinionated people who have a great deal to say about what they do, most frequently with regard to the incredible luck they feel at being paid to perform such an envious task.  As Mitchell says, and I’m paraphrasing: “Going to the movies for free?  That’s like an express train to heaven.”

For the Love of Movies is probably perfect for the layman (or woman), especially one who may be unfamiliar with the names at the top of their weekly movie reviews.  The basics of critical history are laid out here, with special emphasis on the Pauline Kael/Andrew Sarris auteurist feud of the 70’s and 80’s, which of course coincided with the rise of  Siskel & Ebert.  Those two elements are most likely the best-known and most accessible, and they get the lion’s share of the time here.

If anything, the film is too cursory.  From the perspective of someone who’s seen a great many more films than even some dedicated viewers (and has read even more reviews), this documentary may seem to leave out a lot.  Most notably missing is any real in-depth discussion of the various critics’ personal tastes and greater examples of their work.  But 80 minutes is just about the ideal length for a film of this type, and there isn’t a lot of room in there for fat, so the omissions are certainly justified.  And frankly, most viewers  probably wouldn’t be too interested in Richard Schickel’s sycophantic obsession with Eastwood.

And things get a little precarious at the end with a not-too-evenhanded examination of criticism’s “retreat” to the Internet, where seemingly anyone with an opinion, no matter how ill-informed, can voice it.  I personally don’t consider Harry Knowles to be a paragon of cineastes, but to Peary’s credit, he manages to conceal a general distaste for a somewhat disorganized new guard, portraying Knowles and his colleagues as motivated, devoted to film and determined to reach an audience, much like this film itself.

For the Love of Movies plays only once, on Thursday, February 18 at 8pm at the Northwest Film Forum.  Peary is scheduled to be in attendance.  It’s a fine starting point for folks looking to expand their critical horizons.

Marc Palm watched one film from each director we have who’s last name begins with the letter “B” and give his two cents.

After a year and a half of undisciplined viewing, I’ve finally finished the “B” directors! Not “B-movie” directors, well some of them are,  but the directors who’s last name’s begin with the letter “B” in our main director section on the ground floor of the store.

I decided a couple of years ago that I want to watch one film by every director in the director section of the store. If you remember I started with our “A” directors and reviewed them here. I’m going to watch one of each director we have until I finish, get fired or perish along the way. I don’t know how many there are in total but I’m sure there’s a lot. I’ve chosen not to include the documentary, animation or sexploitation directors because that’s a whole different challenge.

There’s no rhyme or reason why I pick what I pick. It might be, I’ve wanted to see this director’s film for a while and haven’t gotten to it. Sometimes the cover and the write-up on the back sounds good, so I’ll pick it based on that. I’m also trying to watch things that I haven’t seen before.

I don’t remember every one of these films very well and I didn’t take some of the reviews very seriously. So I don’t expect you the reader to either. I have strange taste and won’t pretend to be a pretentious reviewer. I’m just saying what I feel. Comments are always appreciated.

1. Wind by Carroll Ballard – I chose this movie about competitive sailboat racing over Carroll’s animal movies. Why? Because I’m weird and it was the black sheep. I’m not generally drawn to sailing in any way, but found myself pretty fascinated and interested throughout this whole film. It was excellently filmed and had a swift enough plot that I wasn’t bored out of mind.

2. Eating Raoul by Paul Bartel – A great comedy about eating people in the ‘80’s. This film has to be the influence for the funny cannibal movie genre that followed in the 90’s with Delicatessen and Last Supper. Eating Raoul can sit perfectly next to Female Trouble or Polyester as far as humor and quality go. Which is a good thing.

3. 5 Dolls for an August Moon (5 bambole per la luna d’agosto) by Mario Bava – If done any other way, this movie would be as unexciting as a Murder She Wrote episode. Thankfully it’s a stylish and beautiful Italian Giallo with a swinging soundtrack. A group of couples meet at a private home on an island to discuss mysterious dealings and one by one they are getting knocked off. While they’re getting suspicious of each other there’s a weird teenager always hanging around in the background that doesn’t seem to be associated with anyone.

4. Casque d’or by Jacques Becker – I trust Criterion so I just went with a gut feeling and blindly picked this one. I ended being really pleased with a film about dandy French gangsters with a pretty cliché plot. It was just so fascinating and filmed so well that there’s not much to dislike.

5. Diva by Jean-Jacques Beineix – This film is pretty well dated, it’s got 1980’s all over it. That doesn’t ruin it though. It actually feels very modern for it’s time. For one it doesn’t have horrible soundtrack with music you’ve heard two million times and the actors are quite good. No wonder… it’s French.

6. Good Morning, Night (Buongiorno, notte) by Marco Bellocchio – I’m not into political things at all. Radicals and over-throwing something or another just doesn’t interest me. I’m also so ignorant to foreign political history. Good Morning, Night only kept me interested because it was well made and I thought the hiding place they had for the prisoner was pretty cool.

7. Nobody’s Wife (Señora de nadie) by María Luisa Bemberg – Even reading the description I still can’t remember a thing about this movie. I remember thinking it was nice, but no idea why.

8. Bad Company by Robert Benton – I remember reading Blood Meridian at the time I watched this, so I was interested in the loneliness and desperation of wandering the west. Yet this is another that I don’t remember too well. I just recall the great grey 1970’s quality that makes this western a bit more interesting in comparison to the average orange cowboy movie.

9. Seventh Seal (Det sjunde inseglet) by Ingmar Bergman– This is the first and only movie of Bergman’s that I have seen. I’ve wanted to watch his stuff for a while, but just had some other stupid movies to see instead. Because I’ve consumed so much junk I think I lost my ability to really enjoy something like this. My only reaction to this movie was “Whoa, it’s like in Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey”. I’m an embarrassment to my job.

10. 42^nd Street by Busby Berkeley – Out of the handful of musicals that I’ve seen, a lot of them are about putting on a musical. This is one of the earliest I’ve seen and I’m surprised that this storyline was something that people wanted to keep rehashing. As fascinating as it can be minus the romantic melodrama, it ends up being so self-serving. Beyond that rant, the finale that Berkeley choreographs is amazing.

11. Conformist (Il conformista) by Bernardo Bertolucci – I picked this film to watch over Dreamers by accident. I thought it was a different movie with Gene Hackman. I’m an idiot. So I found myself being awed by the beauty of it, but bored by the subject.

12. Le dernier combat (Last Battle) by Luc Besson – Now this is my kind of movie. Having the feel of a live action Heavy Metal (Métal Hurlant) comic by Moebius. It’s dialogue free and shot in black and white, which is a nice change for a post-apocalyptic film. The black and white gives it a more realistic feel to the dirt, trash and loneliness. It’s not epic like a lot of future films seem, to be. It is mostly about surviving in a small world of dust and greed.

13. How Much Do You Love Me? (Combien tu m’aimes?) by Bertrand Blier – Lots of pretty scenes, lots of moodiness, lots of Monica Bellucci and that’s nice, but a pretty forgettable film.

14. Tall T by Budd Boetticher – I picked this because it was written by Elmore Leonard and that peeked my interest. I don’t care for average westerns. They’re just so cliché and tired. But when I see one like this, I can’t help but think I’ve got a narrow view. This film was pretty dark and super pretty.

15. Targets by Peter Bogdanovich – This was recommended to me by a co-worker and I thank that man. I was hooked after the opening scene where people driving down the freeway are being taken out by a sniper. This has obvious ties to Charles Whitman’s own psychotic killing spree. You also have Boris Karloff playing an aged horror movie star who is bitter and sick of the movie world.

16. Zardoz by John Boorman – This was mind-blowingly awesome! I didn’t know anything about this beyond its cult status. I now know why there’s a following. It’s one of the strangest and dream-like fantasy movies out there. Very much a product of it’s time and that dates it but also gives it a quality that cannot be matched.

17. Street Angel by Frank Borzage – A really beautiful and sweet silent, that has Janet Gaynor poor and desperate enough to try prostitution. In order to avoid trouble she hides away with a circus and finds love. Embarrassed of her past she avoids mentioning it until it becomes an issue. This was another film that surprised me with its darkness and relatively modern plot.

18. L’Argent (Money) by Robert Bresson – I was really pleased with this tale of counterfeit money and how one thing can lead to another and then lead to utter desperation. It’s so stark and dry in a documentary sort of way. The boldness in the silence kept me anxious to see how each individual action was going to work itself out.

19. Le Magnifique (How to Destroy the Reputation of the Greatest Secret Agent) by Philippe de Broca – I like all sort of secret agent movies anything from the Bourne trilogy, to Bond movies and to the Bond rip-offs. In this French spoof of those movies, Jean-Paul Belmondo is a writer and the character he’s writing about. Throughout the film you’re watching both parts as their stories progress. Pretty entertaining overall.

20. Lord of the Flies by Peter Brook – I picked this film because I had not seen or read any version of this story up to this point. Boy what an influential story it is. It’s perfect, in that what happens is so awful and so human. It’s another one of those gorgeous black and white films that just wouldn’t work in color. It has a harsher realistic feel to it this way.

21. Real Life by Albert Brooks – This was brilliant. Obviously ahead of it’s time as far as reality TV goes, but still relative today. This movie sees it all and shows it all. It’s clever, super creative and has the dry semi-dark humor that the best of 80’s. I don’t think it needs to be modernized to have people today relate with it.

22. High Anxiety by Mel Brooks – I can’t help that I grew up when sarcasm was king and one-liners were cheesy. I think this is why I groan at Mel Brook’s humor instead of spitting out my drink every time I laugh. It’s just some of the most obvious ridiculous jokes that I can see them coming a mile away. Since I know Hitchcock enough, I sort of just knew where this movie was going all the time and there were no surprises.

23. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Richard Brooks – I had never read or seen this play, but once I saw this movie, I understood why it was so popular. The story is enthralling enough, but the performances really sell it. Newman is so hard and cold but you can see the hurt warmth inside. Elizabeth Taylor is beautiful and smart but you start to feel resentment towards her as you learn who she is. The cast is perfect and the emotions are perfectly realized even though it is stagey.

24. Edison, the Man by Clarence Brown – I obviously drew too much in school because I don’t remember learning about how cool Edison was. This movie is pretty Hollywood and charming because of that. I don’t feel I learned to truths about Edison watching this, but I at least saw him from a perspective where you can appreciate what he did and the passion he had. It has a real Capra-like sincerity and hopefulness.

25. Unholy Three by Tod Browning – This is a really entertaining and cool silent film. Three sideshow performers come up with a charming but ridiculous scheme to steal jewels from rich women who buy birds from their pet shop. Lon Chaney plays a ventriloquist who pretends to be an old woman and the dwarf of the crew pretends to be an innocent baby in order for them to pull of their crimes. It’s all done very seriously, but I couldn’t help but find it hilarious.

26. Phantom of Liberty (Le fantôme de la liberté) by Luis Buñuel – I really enjoyed the Discrete Charm of the Bourgeoisie and I figured that because the covers were similar that I’d like Phantom of Liberty as well. I was right. It had the same great settings and cinematography. The surrealist stories were at times silly but done so seriously I found myself pondering deeper meanings. I also think of how this sort of film has to be an influence on the sketch comedy of the last 20 years. Kids in the Hall and the State pull of absurdist humor that is framed in seriousness all the time.

27. Killer of Sheep by Charles Burnett – This was really terrific. It’s so beautifully shot in black and white, and has so much warmth and humanity. This felt like movie that Diane Arbus could have made. A huge contrast to the other low budget movies being made in the 1970’s about African-Americans. What I loved so much about it was the depictions of the children playing. They’re not acting one bit and they’re doing the weird stuff that kids do. Seeing them like this reminds you of how stilted and adult-like children are in current movies. This film sets right next to some of my favorites like Ratcatcher, Gummo, and George Washington.

28. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Tim Burton – I only know of this story via the original film with Gene Wilder, who I don’t think could ever be replaced. Thankfully, Burton didn’t try to get someone to be just like him. However the obvious spoofing of Michael Jackson was not a good idea either. That’s just one part of the whole thing that I find to be very self-indulgent. It doesn’t feel like something that children will latch onto for the rest of their lives. It’s not iconic enough and there’s no heart or passion. It took parts of the story and the original movie and stylized them to death. It’s as fulfilling as a bag of sugar coated lumps.

Director Frank Henenlotter will be visiting our store on Friday, February 5th at 7pm to chat with fans and sign DVDs of his latest film Bad Biology.  For more on Mr. Henenlotter, here’s our own Marc “Swellzombie” Palm:

Bad Biology is the name of Frank Henenlotter’s newest film, the first thing to emerge from him since 1992 when he rounded out the Basket Case trilogy. Henenlotter hit the horror/exploitation scene with the first Basket Case in 1982. Afterwards was 1988’s Brain Damage, a movie about a man who forms a symbiotic relationship with a worm that rewards his brain with psychotropic like chemicals when he finds the worm brains to feed off of. With just these two films you could see where Frank was going with his creations. Two years later he was really busy putting out the second Basket Case film as well as Frankenhooker. Both of which used excessive amounts of prosthetics and foam rubber to bring to life EC Comic like horrors.

“Bad Biology” as a phrase, really sums up his career so far. The theme of science and mutation are prevalent in all of his films. The organic and psychological mess that is a human being can be the biggest nightmare of all. And Henenlotter has touched on most of these so far. Such as, having something that grows in or out of you, that you cannot control is the fear most of us have (i.e. cancer). Or some people who are “normal” fear having a disability or deformation that separates them from relating to others. Addiction can be a monster that pulls one into darker territories that one wouldn’t explore normally. In my opinion the films that Henenlotter has created are more accessible to the mainstream than your average exploitation because of these devices. These are the things that bother us as humans. These are the horrors that make most shiver.

Frank Henenlotter has connections here in Seattle with the exploitation distribution company Something Weird. He’s helped them through the years and they’ve helped him. They’re symbiotic at the very least. It’s a great marriage because Henenlotter’s films are some of the best modern exploitation films that are inspired by the early films that Something Weird have been releasing for 20 years. Bad Biology is one of the most exploitative of his films so far. It focuses on two people who have to deal with alienating and horrifying differences in the most sensitive of regions. Their sexual organs! Jennifer the lead woman was born with several clitori and has a physical need for sex. It goes beyond the normal nymphomania because her body craves a climax like a junky craves a fix. On the other hand Batz the male lead has a member that has grown to be a beast of burden. After growing up with a freakishly long part that needed more attention than is normally required, he experimented with chemicals and it ended up forming its own consciousness. Blessed or cursed, these two who separately fight their controlling crotches eventually meet and this clash of titans brings the story to a Holy conclusion.

I personally hope that Frank Henenlotter continues to make gross and horrific films. There’s a quality to what he makes that has not can not be filled by the likes of the French New-horror, Troma, or anything Michael Bay produces.

On the 5th of February, Frank Henenlotter himself will make an in-store appearance at Scarecrow Video at 7pm. He’ll also attend the showing of Bad Biology that evening at 11pm at Grand Illusion Cinema. If you miss all that there’s another showing on the 6th.