BEST OF 2012 Part #1

The Best movies of 2012 By Andy Copp

I decided this year to go all out and pick a top twenty. This was one of those weird years when there was more than enough good to great films to go around. Theatrical releases, DVD's and foreign imports all were very good to us this year.

So I will present this list in two parts starting at number twenty to eleven, then part two the rest of them.

20. 20) ROCK OF AGES – Yeah I said it. The 80's hair metal movie musical that I am sure made the worst list of most people this year is something I enjoyed thoroughly. I've seen it twice now and I honestly don't get the hatred for this. What is wrong with a fun movie that sets out to make you feel good? Maybe it is because I grew up on the era this movie depicts, or that this music was the background to my teen years, but this one had me smiling for the whole two hour plus running time.
    
    
    
    
    

19. 19) THE THEATER BIZARRE – Finally a horror anthology that is as good as some of the classic 70's and 80's ones. Granted, with five segments and different directors some will be better than others, but all of them had some value. So for the record, Richard Stanley's first segment is the weakest, with some fun imagery, Buddy Giovanazzo's “I LOVE YOU” is one of the best on display with his typical black humor and very grim outlook, Tom Savini's is not bad, but lacks the substantial punch of the others, Douglas Buck's "THE ACCIDENT" is simply incredible. A haunting, nuanced work of art that could stand on its own outside of the film. Karim Husain's VISION STAINS contains some of the movie's most startling imagery and a very original story to boot. Though the constant narration wears thin after while. And finally David Gregory's amazing SWEETS is funny, gross, disturbing, outrageous and the perfect antidote to the extremely serious nature of most of the movie. Jeremy Kastin's wrap around stuff falls completely flat and if it didn't feature Udo Kier it would be a waste of time.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    18) GOD BLESS AMERICA – Bobcat Goldthwait's acerbic black comedy about the pop culture landscape that passes for the American dream is one of the most savage comedies in ages. With all the gun violence this past year I would not be shocked if this one quietly vanishes though.

17. 17) THE AMAZING SPIDERMAN – The first comic book movie on my list was rather poorly received but I honestly am not sure why. I loved the fact that it put a human face on being a superhero, making Peter Parker a true awkward teen who we take a lot of time to actually get to know. I liked the Lizard as a villain, I LOVED Emma Stone as the girl he falls for. The action was all well done as was the 3D.
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    16) SKYFALL – The latest James Bond film is simply one of the best of the entire series. I am a big fan of Daniel Craig in the role and how he has humanized Bond. This one takes it further giving us insight into his parents and what made him the cold heart killer he is. Also Javier Bardem as the villain is as good as it gets.

15. SAFE – Jason Stathem's latest action fest is actually one of the darkest and best street level thrillers in many year. Taking it's ques from seventies and eighties exploitation action films like NIGHT OF THE JUGGLER or PRIME CUT this is a real surprise. Stathem is always extremely likable, but this time he has a good script and fantastic direction from Boaz Yankin (who directed maybe the best and most underrated teen comedy of the 80's THE LAST AMERICAN VIRGIN).
    
    
    
    
    
     14) THE BUNNY GAME – Adam Rehmier smashes all the conventions of the horror genre to deliver this pitch black, deeply personal vision of hopelessness and depravity. The film stands out for many things, the cold B/W cinematography, the intricate and highly unsettling sound design and score, the flawless and fearless acting of the leads, and how the violence being perpetrated on screen is not special effects of acting. Everyone suffered to put this one on screen and it shows.

13. 13) MOONRISE KINGDOM – Wes Anderson's latest film is a beautiful and wondrous vision of being a child and discovering love for the first time. Production wise it is flawless as his films usually are. But this one has so much heart and soul to it, that it successfully makes you feel like you are a kid again.
    
    
    
    
    

12. 12) THE DARK NIGHT RISES – Christopher Nolan finishes off his BATMAN trilogy with, in my opinion, the strongest film of the series. Yes it is VERY long, but it is never boring. Tom Hardy's Bane is the best villain to face off against Batman because he actually has the manpower and brawn to take him. But best of all is how it is not really about Batman but the way a broken man can find himself again when pushed by extraordinary circumstances. This one has the most meat on its bones of the three films (all of which to be fair are quite good).
    
    
    
    
    

11. 11) DEGENERATE ART: THE ART AND CULTURE OF BLOWN GLASS – This was a Netflix find for me and I ended up watching it twice in two days. An amazing journey into a world I had no idea about, the artistry behind creating glass pipes aka bongs. There is a whole industry here I knew nothing about and this film gets under every piece of broken glass to tell the story.
    
    
    More to come...
    © Andy Copp

HALLOWEEN HORROR CHALLENGE MOVIE #31 - EXCISION (2012)

EXCISION (2012)
D. RICHARD BATES JR. 
ANCHOR BAY
1.85

This comedic, drama, horror film really misses the mark on most counts. It isn't that it is poorly made, far from it, it is the uneven tone that blows the whole thing. 

The movie stars Amber Lynn-Mccord as a disheveled and clearly disturbed teen age girl. She lives a rich fantasy life in which she is beautiful, sexual and enjoys bloodlust. In real life she wants to be a surgeon, but her personality disorder is clearly getting in the way of high school. Her mom (in a VERY good performance by Traci Lords) is an overbearing bitch. But it is made clear she became that way from the lack of affection of her own mother. She also has a fatally ill little sister and an emotionally absent Dad. 

All of which sounds like the making of some sort of crazy family horror film. But instead writer/director Bates decides to play it as a black comedy and then shoehorn more cameos than a Rob Zombie film. The tone never catches up with the film even in the last ten minutes when it turns deadly serious and fully becomes a horror film. So much jokey, silly stuff has transpired that it completely robs the finale from any power.

On the other side her fantasies are simply astounding, filled with color and honestly disturbing imagery. They should have just made a movie of inside her head.

Review © Andrew Copp

I also have a long standing theory that any trailer that uses NINE INCH NAILS music is automatically better. Often NIN's Music is used in trailers to an effect that ends up making the movies look MUCH better than they actually are. 300, TERMINATOR SALVATION, THE AVENGERS (though that turned out pretty alright) and now EXCISION can be added to that list...

HALLOWEEN HORROR CHALLENGE Movie #30 - WITHOUT WARNING (1980)

WITHOUT WARNING (1980)
D. GREYDEN CLARK
Full Frame

Of all places I watched this sci-fi cum monster mash on You Tube. There are plenty of full length horror and exploitation films there now through both individuals and company uploads. So the quality on this was pretty poor but that didn't stop it from being highly enjoyable. 

The film revolves around a small camping town where hunters and other people are turning up missing. The opening scene has a Father and Son hunting duo bickering their way through the woods. When suddenly tiny, spinning fleshy little flying discs land on the Father and stab him with tendrils that ultimately kill him. A few more attacks happen to a cub scout troop and a group of camping teens. Finally two of those surviving teens hole up in a tavern with a couple of old coots (Played by Jack Palance and Martin Landau both of whom went on to Oscars in the next twenty years) and put a hunt on to find what is killing everyone. What they find is an intergalactic hunter that looks like the alien puppet that used to appear during the end credits of STAR TREK.

Everything about this is fun, from the recognizable faces in the cast like David Caruso as a teen. To the very low rent special effects. A lot of people have made a point of the plot similarities to PREDATOR and there is no mistaking them. But both films seem to be operating on very different wavelengths.

This is not on DVD or BLU RAY just badly cropped VHS editions. So watch it where you can. I have heard rumors of it coming out on Digital but nothing has happened as of yet. 

Review © Andrew Copp

HALLOWEEN HORROR CHALLENGE Movie #29 KILLDOZER (1974)

KILLDOZER (1974)
D. JERRY LONDON
Warner Archives
Full Frame

This made for TV shocker is fondly remembered by those who lived through the 70's. Mostly for the outrageous title than any sort of groundbreaking content. There were comic books and even a punk band that swiped the name. This is one of those weird little movies that entered the popular zeitgeist. Hell there is probably a Family Guy episode that references it. 

But does that mean the movie is any good? Not really. It is perfectly functional and well made enough, considering the era it was made. yet this is pretty much by the numbers stuff. 

A meteor falls from space in all its paper mache glory and lands on the construction site of Warburton industries who are digging in Uganda to build some sort of something or other. The mutant space rock possesses the nearest bulldozer causing it to come to life and destroy things and kill people. 

That's it. An unmanned bulldozer wrecking the place and the occasional under paid character actor. Credit goes to the whole cast and crew for playing it serious as something like this could be campy. I'd also be curious to know which was first; this movie or the SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN pair of episodes where Steve Austin fights an alien life form that is basically a runaway military war machine aka a Bulldozer. 

Review © Andrew Copp

HALLOWEEN HORROR CHALLENGE Movie #28 - SHEITAN

SHEITAN (2006) aka SATAN
D. KIM CHAPIRION
TARTAN VIDEO
1.78


I should have known better when I realized the title of this movie could be pronounced "SHIT ON" and that is pretty much how I felt by the time it was over. Like someone had come into my house and took a big old flaming shit on my TV. This is so far the worst movie I have watched for this challenge and that says a LOT after the fecal feast that was ZOMBIE BABIES!

From the opening frames I knew I was on the last train to shitsville when far too much screen time is given to a sweaty, grotesque D.J. in a hipster club. One of those typical movie hip types where the guy is fat to be funny, and white but doing Hip Hop there for being ironic. I wanted to kick the guy in the balls the moment I saw him. Then we meet our actual characters a group of asshats to unlikable you wish the movie would take a sharp turn into MIDNIGHT EXPRESS and give these imbeciles a good run for their money.

 

"Come on little lamb. I'm taking you and getting out of this shitty movie!"

So this group of club kids (ethnically diverse though, one black guy, a Turkish girl, an Asian skinhead and the B-Boy white motherfucker that needs his teeth kicked out) decide to go to the one babe's family home for some R&R. Along the way they meet a semi-retarded goat herder play by a slumming Vincent Cassell in a performance that makes BORAT look subdued and understated. You know he is supposed to be hill people because he has big fake crooked teeth in. He spends the movie trying to emotionally seduce the emotionally barren kids for reasons that are never all that clear. After 50 some minutes of the movie which is mostly the kids trying to be cool and fucking around, or Vincent chewing scenery it starts trying to introduce other material. They even start through in a lot of casual racism just too keep you awake. Once Vincent shows up in drag playing his own sister I sort of started finally tuning out. 

We do however get to see lots of guys in their underwear, a chick jack off a dog and a kid who looks like a mentally deficient Harry Potter get beat almost to death. This is the movie that aims low and still can't hit the mark.

Review © Andy Copp

HALLOWEEN HORROR CHALLENGE Movie #27 - DEADLY BLESSING (1981)

DEADLY BLESSING (1981)
D. WES CRAVEN
AVCO EMBASSY
1.33 (Netflix)

Surprisingly enough I had never seen this extremely mild Wes Craven shocker. Everyone remembers the infamous cover art of a busty woman with a spider dropping into her mouth. But for reasons I do not know I never bothered with the movie. I suppose I had heard it was too tame or not very good and just passed it over for meatier fare. Now that I have seen it, I can safely say the film IS too tame for it's own good, but there is some god stuff to offer anyway. 

Maren Jensen stars as a young, pregnant woman living in Mennonite country. The late, great Earnest Borgnine stars as the head of the local chapter of the Mennonite's who disprove of her and her husband (who is also Borgnine's fallen away son).  Michael Berryman is the semi retarded guy living with the Mennonites who chases around anyone who he thinks are evil, including the teenage artist who lives in a farm down the way. In fact he is constantly harassing her, calling her an Incubus and the whore of the devil. The husband is found killed, so our heroine calls in two former her girlfriends to stay with her for moral support including a very young Sharon Stone and Susan Buckner. Soon all three women are being tormented by things like snakes in the bathtub and spiders. 

This is certainly not the first film written and directed by Craven that attacks religious structures and family values. Three fourths of the film make the Mennonites out to be the bad guys. Their repression being the true root of the evil they are so terrified of. But the movie takes a turn in the final reel, delivering us information that was previously not revealed which changes everything. This final bit of action, though nothing new all there years later is certainly groundbreaking for 1981. It really makes the movie feel like there are layers there that very well may not be.

Not a groundbreaking film, too slow moving and staid for it's own good, but still worth a look. Especially for fans of the troubled creator. Rumor has it that Sharon Stone was having an affair with the director's wife during production. But that is certainly not verifiable. 

Review © Andrew Copp

FEMALE TEACHER: DIRTY AFTERNOON (1981)

FEMALE TEACHER: DIRTY AFTERNOON (1981)
D. Ketchitaro Negishi
IMPULSE PICTURES/SYNAPSE FILMS
2.35-1
Anamorphic

Number eight in the Nikkatsu Erotic Films Collection from Impulse pictures treads on the potentially hazardous "horny teacher" sub genre with quite unexpected results. What appears to be a simple, and pretty normal, sexploiter ends up being something altogether more serious.

A High School Teacher named Sakiko (Yuki Kazamatsuri) gets a call during sex from the police station. One of her students is in big trouble. She heads down to find waifish Sueko (Ayako Ota) being held for prostitution. They have a frank conversation as to why Sueko likes sleeping with strangers and part ways. But Sakiko begins to care for the girl and does some research on her backgroud, when she isn't nailing her own boyfriend that is. But in digging up the past, some memories that she would prefer to be buried come to the surface. Sakiko remembers being raped at a construction site by a guy with paint thinner on him (from huffing it). She begins to obsess over the rape and how it has affected her current, somewhat loveless relationships.

SPOILERS AHEAD

But Sakiko discovers that the person she fingered for the rape and had put away is most likely NOT the person who did it. Seems someone else was raped after this man when to jail for a short while. She also discovers the person whom she did put away is Sueko's disabled father.  Soon a bond forms between the woman and the Father as he slowly goes crazy. 

Though the plot line is undeniably sleazy, the film itself, especially for a Nikkatsu Roman Porno title, is very restrained. There is a lot of nudity and sex, as to be expected, but as the movie rolls forward it becomes more and more of a straight drama. The rape angle is just there as a plot device and soon put to the wayside so the story of this crazy old man and his new female friend can unfold. It really is a cross generation love story based in guilt and shame. 

As to be expected with these Synapse produced discs, the picture and subtitles are impeccable. There is some useful liner notes from our friend Jasper Sharpe as well. 

Review © Andrew Copp