Detail from Batman, Inc. #1 (2012)

Written by Grant Morrison
Illustrated by Chris Burnham 

The Grey (Joe Carnahan, 2012)

Although I am certain it happens every day, it is not every day one is privy to the glorious sight of Liam Neeson punching wolves in the face. For that reason alone, Carnahan’s 5th feature film - and perhaps his most personal since his debut - is worth the watch, but it would also be selling it short. Stunningly photographed and given an extremely emotional and relatable spine on which to lay its characters, The Grey soars above other survival films in how deftly characterized and executed it is. Intense, supremely badass and visceral, it grabs you, shakes you and doesn’t quite let you go until its somewhat disappointing finale. Its wolves (and major threat) are also pleasantly exaggerated, giving the film an almost supernatural undercurrent - which also helps when The Grey  delves into the obligatory (yet not always successful) philosophical considerations of man vs. nature, beast vs. man, beast within man and so on… 

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (Kim Henkel, 1994)

I will not even bother with this abomination of a rehash, and will rather point out the fact that this film stars pre-fame Renée Zellweger and a post-Dazed and Confused Matthew McConaughey - who give a (and perhaps the sole) great unhinged performance in this otherwise almost completely unbearable 4th instalment of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre series, written and directed by Kim Henkel, of all people, who co-wrote the original 1974 film with Tobe Hooper and had the terrible idea of making this 20 years later. 

Breaking Bad, 2x03: “Bit by a Dead Bee” (2009)

Breaking Bad, 2x01: “Seven Thirty-Seven” (2009)

Father and Son (short; Tim Heidecker & Eric Wareheim, 2010)[watch]

I’M MAMA NOODLES YOU DIPSHIT!!!

P.T. ANDERSON’S THE MASTER (2012), STARRING PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN, JOAQUIN PHOENIX & AMY ADAMS, GETS A TEASER!! [click-through]

Danny Brown - Detroit State of Mind (web; Eavvon O’Neal, 2012)

(via branduponthebrain)

Battleship (Peter Berg, 2012)

The most ridiculous, unabashedly and unapologetically militaristic film to come around in a while, Battleship, the latest from producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura’s evil venture with Hasbro Entertainment (having brought us the abominations that are the Transformers and G.I. Joe series) unbelievably manages to one-up its predecessors in every possibly conceivable way, reducing cinematic notions of plot, characters and coherence into blazing shards of molten metal lost at sea.

Adapting possibly one of the most repetitive strategy game in the history of mankind – and without the “I’ve sunk your battleship” line to boot- director Peter Berg (The Kingdom, Hancock) and his army of dilettantes manage to craft a film in which plot and character become completely inconsequential; a film that replicates the thrills of the game closely and excessively, down to the shouting of numbers and letters, grid patterns peg-shaped missiles, invisible field forces, hits and (oh-so-many) misses. Missiles are launched, hundreds of little computerized humans die, and your brain goes numb. Repeat for nearly 2 hours and a half.

Rife with meatball nationalism (the title gloriously and laughably appearing when our main character, interpreted by Taylor Kitsch, joins the Navy) and misguided humor (painfully exhibited in an opening gag involving a chicken burrito and a terribly embarrassing use of music), Battleship is a somewhat admirable film in how it manages to be a pure product (I stress “product”) of spectacle and abstraction – making Transformers: Dark of the Moon look like a structurally sound and orchestrated symphony in comparison.  Abomination of digital-era filmmaking, Battleship quickly introduces its conflict (Aliens attack Earth, Battleship must defend Earth, Loser will Become All-America Hero in Process), its cardboard cut-out characters and immediately proceeds at assaulting your brain with hysterical CG-animated naval battles, at the center of which evolves borefest Taylor Kitsch (one of the main reasons John Carter failed earlier this year), a quickly dispatched Alexander Skarsgård, a ridiculously unusable Rihanna, a racially convenient Asano Tadanobu and a criminally underused (and bored) Liam Neeson – or rather the idea of these actors (let alone characters), dwarved by the incessant clashing of metal happening around them and the ghosts of an planetary Pearl Harbor hanging over their heads.

And what could’ve been a crafty exercise in world-building and invention (the possibilities of creating a mythology around a board game that has none) culminates into throbbing displays of excess devoid of sense; so many boats and battles that ultimately collapse into each other as one undistinguishable aberration, almost beautiful in their failure to be anything but vibrant digitized teals and oranges, screenwriters Jon & Erich Hoeber (of 2010’s far superior comic book adaptation of Warren Ellis’s RED) seemingly refusing to develop characters or villains into something more cohesive than a pretext for battle. 

Much like the Transformers films, Battleship exhibits an aberrant fetish of machinery and metal. Water against metal, fire again metal, explosions, debris and so on – all of which are photographed so closely they reach levels of kinetic abstract expressionism Jackson Pollock would have be proud of, had he been a computer software devoid of a soul. For most of the film, I honestly had no idea what the hell was happening, nor did I care. A scene opening the third act, set to the pounding sound of AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” comes so close to being a full-fledged advertisement for the Armed Forces any hope Battleship had of being dismissed as brainless, innocuous entertainment are immediately shattered: war veterans appear out of thin air to help Kitsch and co. prepare the ancient Missouri Battleship (a museum ship) for its final and most important battle, subtext and politics couldn’t be cleared and more despicable.

A film about a “loser” becoming a man through the falsely glorificating powers of the military and a country blindly gung-ho at defending itself rather than engaging in dialogue, my retinas and ethics hadn’t been this bluntly assaulted since Stallone’s The Expendables (2010). Unlike it, though, Battleship works as a thinly veiled collage, as a literal explosion of ideology, as an abstract essay on fire, water and metal – like that punch in the face that makes you see cartoonish stars rotating above your head. But it sinks so low at everything else I almost cannot help admiring it with misty-eyed masochism.

If Michael Bay represents the pinnacle of chauvinistic, macho American blockbuster filmmaking, Battleship’s Berg (or Berg’s Battleship, if you want to take the metaphor a step further) stands tall as his offensively erect penis, protruding and poking your eyeballs for what seems like an eternity that simultaneously goes by extremely quickly, given how mind-numbing it ultimately is.

[via eXpress News]

I am beyond excited for my close friend & mentor Kier-la Janisse, who is finally publishing her book this July after years of insane work and dedication!

Official synopsis/info below!

Both softcover & limited hardcover edition of 250 available.

House of Psychotic Women is an autobiographical exploration of female neurosis in horror and exploitation films. Anecdotes and memories interweave with film history, criticism, trivia and confrontational imagery to create a reflective personal history and examination of female madness, both onscreen and off.

God, this woman can write, with a voice and intellect that’s so new. The truth in the most deadly unique way I’ve ever read.
- Ralph Bakshi, director of Fritz the Cat, Heavy Traffic, Fire and Ice, etc.

Cinema is full of neurotic personalities, but few things are more transfixing than a woman losing her mind onscreen. Horror as a genre provides the most welcoming platform for these histrionics: crippling paranoia, desperate loneliness, masochistic death-wishes, dangerous obsessiveness, apocalyptic hysteria. Unlike her male counterpart - ‘the eccentric’ - the female neurotic lives a shamed existence, making these films those rare places where her destructive emotions get to play.

Named after the U.S.-retitling of Carlos Aured’s Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll, HOUSE OF PSYCHOTIC WOMEN is an examination of these characters through a daringly personal autobiographical lens. Anecdotes and memories interweave with film history, criticism, trivia and confrontational imagery to create a reflective personal history and a celebration of female madness, both onscreen and off.

This sharply-designed book with a 16-page full-colour section is packed with rare stills, posters, pressbooks and artwork that combine with family photos and artifacts to form a titillating sensory overload, with a filmography that traverses the acclaimed and the obscure in equal measure. Films covered include The Entity, The Corruption of Chris Miller, Singapore Sling, 3 Women, Toys Are Not for Children, Repulsion, Let’s Scare Jessica to Death, The Haunting of Julia, Secret Ceremony, Cutting Moments, Out of the Blue, Mademoiselle, The Piano Teacher, Possession, Antichrist and hundreds more!

[via FabPress]

Montrealers, be on the look-out for a launch at your favorite film festival!

OPENING NIGHT FILM:

Moonrise Kingdom – Dir: Wes Anderson

COMPETITION (20 FILMS):
Rust and Bone – Dir. Jacques Audiard
Holy Motors – Dir. Leos Carax
Cosmopolis – Dir. David Cronenberg
The Paperboy – Dir. Lee Daniels
Killing Them Softly – Dir. Andrew Dominik
Reality – Dir. Matteo Garrone
Love (Amour) – Dir. Michael Haneke
Lawless – Dir. John Hillcoat
In Another Country – Dir. Hong Sang-soo
Taste of Money – Dir. Im Sang-soo
Like Someone In Love – Dir. Abbas Kiarostami
The Angels’ Share – Dir. Ken Loach
Beyond the Hills – Dir. Cristian Mungiu
After the Battle (Baad el Mawkeaa) – Dir. Yousry Nasrallah
Mud – Dir. Jeff Nichols
You Haven’t Seen Anything Yet – Dir. Alain Resnais
Post Tenebras Lux – Dir. Carlos Reygadas
On the Road – Dir. Walter Salles
Paradise: Love – Dir. Ulrich Seidl
The Hunt (Jagten) – Dir. Thomas Vinterberg

CLOSING NIGHT FILM:
Therese Desqueyroux – Dir. Claude Miller

UN CERTAIN REGARD (17 FILMS):
Miss Lovely – Dir. Ashim Ahluwalia
La Playa – Dir. Juan Andres Arango
God’s Horses (Les Chevaus de Dieu) – Dir. Nabil Ayouch
Trois Mondes – Dir. Catherine Corsini
Antiviral – Dir. Brandon Cronenberg
7 Days in Havana – Dirs. Laurent Cantet, Benicio Del Toro, Julio Medem, Gaspar Noé, Elia Suleiman, Juan Carlos Tabío, Pablo Trapero
Le Grand Soir – Dirs. Benoît Delépine & Gustave de Kervern
Laurence Anyways – Dir. Xavier Dolan
Despues de Lucia – Dir. Michel Franco
Aimer à Perdre la Raison – Dir. Joachim Lafosse
Mystery – Dir. Lou Ye
Student – Dir. Darezhan Omirbayev
The Pirogue (La Pirogue) – Dir. Moussa Touré
White Elephant (Elefante Blanco) – Dir. Pablo Trapero
Confession of a Child of the Century – Dir. Sylvie Verheyde
11.25 The Day He Chose His Own Fate – Dir. Koji Wakamatsu
Beasts of the Southern Wild – Dir. Benh Zeitlin

OUT OF COMPETITION (3 FILMS):
Hemingway & Gellhorn – Dir. Philip Kaufman
Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted – Dirs. Eric Darnell, Tom McGrath, Conrad Vernon
Me and You – Dir. Bernardo Bertolucci

SPECIAL SCREENINGS (5 FILMS):
Polluting Paradise – Dir. Fatih Akin
Roman Polanski: A Film Memoir – Dir. Laurent Bouzereau
The Central Park Five – Dirs. Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, David McMahon
Les Invisibles – Dir. Sebastien Lifshitz
Journal de France – Dirs. Claudine Nougaret & Raymond Depardon
A Musica Segundo Tom Jobim – Dir. Nelson Pereira dos Santos
Villegas – Dir. Gonzalo Tobal
Mekong Hotel – Dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul

MIDNIGHT SCREENINGS (2 FILMS):
Dario Argento’s Dracula 3D – Dir. Dario Argento
The Legend of Love & Sincerity (Ai To Makoto) – Dir. Takashi Miike

(Source: auteurasaurus, via branduponthebrain)

Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie (Tim Heidecker & Eric Wareheim, 2012)

A near-masterpiece and probably my favorite film of 2012 so far.

Finished watching all 5 seasons of the show today (for a research paper, of all things, I am going to be writing this weekend on aesthetics of unease and fragmented narratives in horror and comedy). I am disheartened, but am also already looking forward to rewatching it as well as finishing Tom Goes to the Mayor (2004-2006), tracking down Tim and Eric Nite Live! episodes (2007-2008) and watching the John C. Reilly starring spin-off Check It Out! With Dr. Steve Brule (2010-present), the Chrimbus special (2010) and Rick Alverson’s The Comedy (2012).