1.27.2011

Week 4 - This House Is Anything But Fun!

It’s time again for another visit to (ding-ding-ding-ding-dong) the hallowed halls of the Cinema. Time for Mr. Drathmoor to climb in his highly polished old car and take his weekly 30-mile jaunt yonder to the glorious Rialto to see what’s playing.

Join me, won’t you? I know I will.

When I was a wee sprout, my grandmother took me to my 1st movie: “Hollywood Meatcleaver Massacre.” At that time, I was already 100% enamored and engorged with the bright glitz and sundries of Tinsel Town. Evan Lee’s feature tipped me over the edge into idolatry. Ahhh, Gramma still laughs with me when we think about that movie (in my mind, because she’s been dead for a while now). They sure did it. All those films. Did it good and right and sparked me into what I am today: one of the up-and-comers in the world of film criticism.

Ahh, to reminisce. To think the thoughts of olden times. (Maybe that’s an idea for a whole ‘nother column.)

So...

This time I parked my load in a spot (5th row from the front, dead center) with sound all around me and high hopes for a 1,000 snacks.

The movie began...

The Funhouse

Hmmm, yes, yes, hmmm, this is certainly a movie, yes, oh!, mmm, hmmm, yes, yes, now that’s something, yes, yes, oh no, ha ha, turnabout!, now, I understand, there there, ha he!, hmmmm, hmmm, hmmm, hooo, there they are, can I, one more goober, now, yes, yes, no, hmm, a central calculation...

This was just the first 7 minutes! What a ride! What a journey! I don’t know what to tell you, folks! I am thrilled!

I believe everyone here knows how I feel about these slasher films. I’ve made my opinion clear on more than one occasion: I love them! Oh, they are grand! Like Gothic cathedrals with buttresses exposed, I adore them...A constant journey full of wonder and oddballery.

Our heroine Betsy (as far as I know) is going on a double date with a couple she knows and a local “bad boy!” They mould the bad boy in such a way that, hey, I found him exciting. I thought “Wedding bells are on the way for those two! I know it!” But, alas, fate has other plans.

Follow us to the small town carnival where dough and delights wait for you. Where the ground is brown grass and dirt and there are cigarette butts everywhere. Sharp looking men and women try to get you to play games that don’t seem to work right at the best of times. Everything is about ten years too old if you have a long look at it. All the signs are a little used. The gears look strained. Even the food seems used.

It’s fun!

Well, after some shenanigans involving drugs and taking peeks into tents and watching magicians, they go into the Funhouse. Now, now, the really extraordinary portion of the film begins. The guy who seats the kids in the shaky carts has a Frankenstein monster mask on. But, the mask, which sure is ugly, hides an ugliness that is uglier if you can believe that!

So, the kids go in “The Funhouse” and they do that thing where they leap out of the car and hide behind Lizzie Borden. They’re going to spend the night there just like in all those stories. You know, those stories. Gloriously creepy stories about people who leaped out of Funhouse cars, hid behind things and stayed the night. These kids do that. Hiding inside. For the night.

Frankenstein’s Monster sees two empty carts that used to have four people in them and just shrugs. Hey, there’s a batch like that in every town.

The interior is a glorious place that seems to be the size of a train station. The film is done in such a way that the kids (&, by extension, we, the viewers) can never gauge the size of everything.

Well, the kids gradually get involved in some sort of advanced shenanigans. The monster kills a gypsy that he doesn’t have great “relations” with. The non-bad boy, David G. Obvious, steals some cash from the carny folk. Well, that’s theft. As soon as the carny folk discover the intruders and what they’ve done, the kids are in trouble.

Thus begins the chase: It turns out our Monster is a rather mutated gentleman and he starts to kill the kids. (I say “kids” but the bad boy looks around 30.) From all this, I’ll tell you something important I learned:

It hurts to get killed. But, you can keep yourself from being violently killed by remembering several key points: 1) Be good. 2) Don’t spy on people having sex. 3) Ya know, I don’t know if having sex’ll get you killed but watching someone who is mentally unstable having sex, then watching them kill their partner and then having that person find out that you’re watching all this will probably get you killed. 4) If you’re in the Funhouse with a man who wants to kill you, leave. Go far away. (Although maybe they couldn’t. I forget.) 5) Stealing money just isn’t so great at the best of times. Grabbing a little loose cash when no one’s looking isn’t helping anyone. Especially if the people that the cash belongs to are nuts who kill people. 6) Look for the answer in your heart. It’s been there all the time.

Sorry. I’ll get back to my review. I rambled a little but...Here are a few of my favorite things:

The guy with the mask and the face problems, the fat lady, the kids (the glorious and charming kids with their sex and their pot), the scares, the little kid (the glorious and charming little kid with his shoes and his pants), the Funhouse itself...

Let me be the first to say that I found the Funhouse very, very fun and what d’you know about that! It’s everything I ever wanted out of a Funhouse except, sadly, no ducks! Can you believe it? Well, I guess things are real different in Hollywood. I mean, no ducks! The hell? Ha! (There isn’t a person to write to but maybe I can forward my confusion to the studio.)

There are times when I find nudity of any sort distasteful. (I have no mirrors in my trailer.) Well, my friends, this film does have some in it. But, I don’t know, the girl looks so young and innocent. I just enjoyed her as much as I could and then I remembered that I do not want to go to Hell! At least not today!

However, I can point out someone who is going to Hell: the guy who runs around killing people, Mr. Ugly Face. Without a doubt, he sure can kill and he does it well but I don’t know...Let me just say this: A jerk will always get his comeuppance. And, sometimes it involves having your midriff crushed to a fine pulp.

My, my, I do go on. Let me just conclude with: This movie is good. “A cut above” would not be an inappropriate term to use in describing it.

1.20.2011

Week 3 - I Went In The Woods

Glamour (yes, I use the British spelling), glitz & gumption! That’s what Hollywood means to me! The stars and their wonderful way of living. (Think of it like this...Everything they do is newsworthy. You?) All the fashions, all the lights, all the wonder that is just intoxicating. Not since the Diabelli Variations has humanity encountered folks so able (and willing) to make so much out of so little. I can give those folks two words (hell, one!) and they can make something incredible. Not only that but they can make it almost exactly the same way about 100 times. My God, Hollywood! Everything! Just everything.

I know the magic is what does it for me and, I believe this is true, my column brings the magic to you! So, I hope you are ready to approach the sheer wonder of the latest Tinsletown extravaganza which just opened at the Rialto: “Don’t Go In The Woods.” Believe you me, it is worth all 82 glorious minutes. Swarmed in the miracle of the cinema.

I mean, the music is more than enough. I thought, I thought, I heard the delicate strains of Cole Porter. This H. Kingsley Thurber is a near relation, no doubt. His closing song had words which delight and a melody that is, at one time, familiar and completely new. The delightful sounds he generates are musique concrete to the nth power. Every whump, every blip, every thunk means something. It means you’re getting A-1 entertainment that not only sits on your face but wiggles around.

I think, as much as I know about the cinema, that Hollywood (forgive me) has not yet exploited to the fullest (Artistically and otherwise) a certain character: the very fat man. I am here to say “This should change!” This week’s sweet, sweet film has one of these porcine brothers to all. Bravo to James Bryan, visionary and beyond behind this extravaganza, for exploring the girthful man who plays the Sheriff. It felt real to me. And, I didn’t hear anyone complain.

Thin and fat people can live in harmony. What a movie!

Something occurs: I haven’t told you what this is about. This new world excitement. This vanguard film!

Close your eyes if this is too much but...A man is killing some people. Killing them dead. How? Well, let me just throw out a few words for ya: knife, machete, bear trap, rocks...How does that sound? They do not disappoint with this one! Cyril, what about the death? Well kids, the reds are redder and I Love It!

Why kill you ask? Well, nothing’s that easy. But, I’ll try. (You know who I am.) Somewhere in Utah, a bad man is killing people. Our adventures follow an adventurous quartet on a backpacking hike through this glorious and foreboding place. Two men, two women. You have your yin and I can see your glorious yang. Somewhere around them this guy creeps about with his weapons of ouch. All sorts of folks are killed. (Cherry and Dick are my personal favorites. I’d like to see a film about their lives leading up to their death. Maybe that’s in the works. Regardless, it was good to see Mom & Dad again.) Eventually, our robust friend, the Sheriff, and his deputy, the Deputy, join the fray. Manhunt! And, what a time it was!

You want scares? Sure. What kind? Scary ones. All so unexpected and all so !SNAZZ! that I don’t want to ruin one. OK, one. Opening scene: A young lady being chased through the forest. (A mountainy area, no doubt the grandest of sets. They looked very authentic.) Let me tell you a little more about her...She’s wearing shorts. She is chased and...almost in the wink of an eye...killed. How? I can’t tell ya. But, one word...thrill.

I’ve never seen such a film. Yes, maybe, we’ve seen similar things before but screw you pal! This fresh twist is like a newly picked carrot. Touched with dirt and sung high with dew. Maybe the plot has a touch of something familiar to it, in the same way that each winter has a touch of something familiar in it. But, as with each winter, something different peers from its depths. Ways of touching my heart I never would have thought of fill up this film. Scenes jump, characters are so subtly brought in that the audience is required to make all identification with them. (The birdwatcher, the man in the wheelchair, the sleeping bag couple? I know them. As well as I know myself.) Shifts in plot and tempo that keep you as off balance as a leg lopping swat from our psycho.Strange noises, disembodied voices and an odd sense of reality! Hollywood can create anything! (All this strangeness made me think that maybe this film was set in some sort of netherworld. Maybe these were evil people sentenced to an eternity in Hell! Or something like that. It feels odd enough. This theory doesn’t really hold up. But, the majesty of Hollywood’s art is that you can interpret each piece in so many ways. So many ways.)

And, let us not forget our four leading thespians: Jennie, Inga, Peter and Greg. If you do not see this quartet in cinema to come, I will eat my 10-gallon hat with hazelnuts.The four of them complete a cosmic rectangle of gargantuanly epic proportions. Their work is so far beyond that you almost feel like they’re doing nothing...I’m going to watch it again...to learn.

Wrapping it up, our killer: Mad? Yes. Superhuman? Sure. Suprahuman? That’s up to you. Fabulous? Uhhh...yeah. What’s wrong with you that you can’t see this? Do you hate yourself so, so much? Beads in the face, wild hair, drool (those F-ects men are incredible), a way with a machete and a mean little growl when he wants to growl like Mr. Mean Growl. Why is he there? What drove him to this? Is he a Viking? All these questions and more will be answered when you see...no...when you experience “Don’t Go In The Woods...Alone.”

1.13.2011

Week 2 - "My Bloody Valentine" My First Review

Actually, this should be called my 1st "official" review. Oh, I love Hollywood! I've been writing little reviews here and there for quite some time now. In notebooks, for friends, for my Tinseltown scrapbook. But, this is Cyril's first "official" (I'm getting paid for it) review. I am very anxious.

The editors just wanted me to remind you to pay your last respects to Mr. Jack "J.J." Johnson, movie reviewer of The Turbot Tribune since our inception. But, unlike his bi-weekly terse movie couplets, mine will be a tad more in-depth. That's just how I am!

Let me just give some small background. I've lived in Turbot since I was 14 and movies have always been my greatest love. That's why the Rialto is !so joyous! One movie every week. It's thrilling! And, the job of analyzing each new piece of the cinema's puzzle for you will be mine all mine.

So...Please...

Without further ado...

My Bloody Valentine

This is a journey into a realm that Hollywood deals with so well: Death. This is not just any slasher film, it's the Next Slasher Film. I wish I had been here since the beginning but you can't have everything. Anyway, the setting...well...a mining town in Canada. That's certainly something new and slightly refreshing. Hmmm...this town is called...Valentine's Bluff. And, as the illustrious day of their naming draws near all of the grown-ups who work in the mine (including the three points of a tricky love triangle) are preparing to throw the first Valentine's Day bash in 20 years. They've got a swanky meeting place, some streamers, red & pink heart cut outs, a sign that reads "Happy Valentine's Day" (or words to that effect) and lots and lots of love. Where they don't have love they have this one horny guy named Ralph who wants to "be with" some ladies? I ask you, what's not to love? Even Mabel, the older lady who owns the Laundromat, and the Sheriff, the older guy who runs the police force, are in on it. Only the mayor is rather curmudgeonly. When you think about it, that's something that might make you say "Hey Mayor, why be like that?" Trust me here, the Mayor has a reason.

Folks around those parts seem to tell a story of Harry Warden. A score ago, a bunch of miners got trapped in the mine on the night of the "big" hobnob Valentine's Day Dance. As the town lived it up (and loved it up), three miners struggled under the fallout and rubble. They would have received instant help but their supervisors left early to go dancing. Hey! I like dancing but let's keep an eye on those guys in the underground tunnels! So, the men are trapped in there all night. When the town finally takes some time out from partying to free them, only Harry Warden is left alive. Completely Loony Harry Warden, Mr. 10001-Ways-To-Be-A- Screwball Harry Warden. Oh well...You kind of wish the "not insane" guy had survived but Hollywood is teaching us a lesson. Behave!

Suffice it to say, Harry kills the supervisors and is put in the nut house. Before he went in (although it may have been after), he commanded the town to Never Have a Valentine's Day Dance Again! Until now, they have heeded his command. But, boyoboy, once they start again, Trouble! Hearts start appearing in candy boxes and folks start dying. (Not necessarily in that order.) No one seems to care except the older folks who remember Harry! To the mine workers and their gals, he's just a legend. A legend that is alive and kills and that is completely real! Apparently.

Well, let's float over to the shrinking love triangle. The hypotenuse is lowering on this affair! He and She loved each other, He went to the big city, She started going out with Him, He comes back, !DYNAMIC TENSION! He and Him are always on the verge of pounding one another. (The movie makes it so you want to pinch Her cheeks. You can't help it.) In a small town like this, nothing goes unnoticed (except Harry) and the love triangle is the big to-do! Who will She go with? Why? Will the men fight or will they end up together? (I won't ruin it. Watch it. Please.)

As you might imagine (but you should never presume), the killings escalate. They try to close the party down but it is relocated. To the mine. And, the ratio of live miners and their girlfriends to dead miners and their girlfriends drops alarmingly. Harry Warden's back, folks! You disobeyed his order. There's gonna be trouble.

Ahhh...one good breath...

Well, they've done it again! Those magic moviemakers! They've made something that touches the heart, makes you think and, yes, will throw a little scare your way. You'll learn that I don't mince words. I don't have time.

So, pay attention because I think I've isolated the strongest lesson in today's movie: It involves research. The lead miners kept saying that Harry Warden was just a legend. But, clearly, he's not. All those things they say he did, he did., And, it's pretty obvious, that he (or someone like him) is doing it again. It's not really a legend if it's completely true. A little basic research would help out here. Or at least lends some credence to town worries. It almost seems like they're practicing some sort of willful ignorance. Pretend it's not happening and it's not. But, come on folks, that never works and when you get killed, whose fault is it?

In closing...Wow.

This is the best film I have ever seen from Hollywood. Why? I can't stress this enough: it's the best because it's the next. Each fragment adds on to what we know and brings out things we hadn't previously seen. A flower unfolding. A glorious, cinematic flower. They'll show us the way. I'll help guide you there.

Well, you've heard my opinion. And, what a fine opinion it is! Original, charming and educated. It would have to be or else they wouldn't have hired me.

Valentine's Day has not been the same since Harry Warden. It will never be the same again.

1.06.2011

Week 1: The Turbot Tribune - Jan. 6, 19--, Page 4

Jack "J.J." Johnson, beloved inhabitant and home owner in Turbot three years before the trailers came, was officially declared "deceased" at 6:42 Turbot Time, Dec. 27, 19--. The official cause of death has been listed as "mysterious". But, there is nothing mysterious about what the man did for this town: he wrote our movie reviews! Apart from the Do-It-Yourself Page and the headline, his reviews were the most read portions of The Turbot Tribune for many years.

Jack "J.J." was a taciturn man who would tell you what he thought of a movie only after a lot of finagling. He reviewed the movies for 8 non-consecutive years. He reviewed them well. But, he really loved watching the fish. The majority of the week passers-by could find him staring at the small pond adjacent to Old Hagar's Swamp. Staring and trying to get the fish to come out. Always ready with a joke or a story, unless you asked him for one. Then, he'd clam right up. "Never do anything under duress," he'd say, "Even question your Mother." Many folks knew him, before his critical reign, as the head of shipping at the Prepared Beef Plant for 12 years. He even did a stint of 2 years as a Marinater, until The Shriveling.

F. Rupric Rondtsadt, the Tribune's erstwhile editor-in-chief, smiled as he spoke of this pillar in our small community. "Apart from fish watching, hopping in the car and going to the Rialto was the biggest joy of his life. Jack 'J.J.' really loved the trip. In the end, he's probably pretty glad about everything that happened to him. The new Rialto owners weren't his sort." In fact, on several occasions, the reviewer had expressed his distaste over the ownership of the Rialto changing hands. Word is that he was no longer given free popcorn. So, maybe he did get out a good time. Maybe movie reviewing in Turbot isn't what it used to be.

One man would challenge this...

Drathmoor! Cyril P. Drathmoor! Turbot's newest movie critic. "Hi, folks! I'm game for a little adventure! You?!" With that opening announcement, a new era in movie reviews has begun. His press release continues: "I love movies so very, very much. I hope that I can instill my giant love for the cinema inside the good people of Turbot!" He promises that he will have a review every week as opposed to "J.J."'s reviews that appeared whenever he made it to the theater. Drathmoor also promises a few new bits of excitement here and there. "I just want everyone to stay tuned! Keep 'em fresh and keep 'em handy!"

The man loves movies! That much is for sure.

Be there...From now to eternity.

1.01.2011

An Intro From Bleeding Skull's "Dan" Budnik

Hello, everyone. Welcome to The Collected Movie Reviews of Cyril P. Drathmoor blog, sponsored by the "Boys" at Bleeding Skull.com.

Back in 2002, I was given access to some rather fascinating material pertaining to a book I was researching. The Material consisted of the collected papers of a man named Cyril P. Drathmoor. I was asked to go through several thousand pages of notes, diary entries, drafts and newspaper clippings to see if there was anything worth publishing.

There was.

I spent one year assembling a book entitled The Collected Movie Reviews of Cyril P. Drathmoor. The man had written a movie review column for a small paper for one year and most of the movies he reviewed were of great interest to me. I presented the memoir/ book to the publishers and, due to endless legal issues to dull to go into even on a blog, the book ended up sitting unpublished for most of the decade.

Until now...

I have been given permission by the Estate to serialize the contents of the book on this blog over the course of 2011. So, once a week, there will be a new entry containing (generally) one of Cyril's reviews. Mr. Drathmoor has his own special "Reviewing Voice" and he was a big influence on me. I'm honored to present the work of this obscure but fascinating man to you.

Please enjoy.

"Dan" Budnik