Sorry about the delay in posting. I have been working on a short to submit to the new reality TV film-making show, The Lot. It is now finished and hopefully will appear online shortly. I’ll let you all know when that happens. In the meantime I’ve been waiting for LCD to find five films he actually likes, and watching some rather uninteresting things on video.

Besides getting to see Satantango in all its muddy glory, the theatre has been a little dry the past two months. The future is bright, however. Black Snake Moan and Zodiac are playing everywhere, but more notably, Tsai Ming-liang’s brilliant Wayward Cloud is playing at the Anthology Film Archives. (Review to come shortly.)

Out of everything I watched at home in the past month, I thought one film was worth mentioning. Destricted is a group of short films that attempt to “illuminate the points where art meets sexuality.” Now, I’m all for that. (see Wayward Cloud above). Unfortunately, despite some of the talent behind them, I don’t think any of the seven segments of Destricted approached pornography in a new, artful or interesting way.

Here are some short summaries and reviews of each of them. Beware some spoilers.

Death Valley - Sam Taylor-Wood

This film is one seven minute take of a young man who walks through the titular valley (or one very similar), and then drops trou and starts to masturbate. There is nothing going on during this. Just the man and the landscape. The music is quiet at first, but soon builds to a climax at the same time as the actor. Then, after he has spilt his seed on the dusty earth, it cuts to credits. I did not get anything out of this film. The deeper meaning went right over my head. Shot on video, it doesn’t look particularly interesting, erotic or artful. Unless you want to watch someone masturbate for no reason, it’s a waste of time.

Hoist - Matthew Barney

Matthew Barney is chiefly known for his Cremaster series, experimental films built around his sculptures. This could easily have been a part of that. A giant wheeled-machine is hoisted off the ground by workers. Afterwards, we see a man hanging below the machine. He is covered in moss and grass, with roots growing out of his anus. He starts to rubs his phallus along the moving drive shaft, becoming excited. The camera moves in Barney’s usual style, and after 7 minutes of this, the film ends. I believe Barney was trying to make a comment on the technology of destruction and its relationship to nature, but I’m just making that up. I’m not even sure Barney knows what he is doing half the time. This is for fans of his work only.

House Call - Richard Prince

This film is a few scenes from a seventies porn film cut together into a 12-minute short. Nothing else. The clips seem to be filmed off of the televisions screen, giving them a recycled, grainy quality. Other than that, the clips themselves are nothing interesting and the music forgettable. Again, another one that went right over my head. I am guessing Richard Prince is trying to be like Michael Snow or Bruce Conner, but it doesn’t come through. It feels like you are watching an old video tape of an old porno film. Its not particularly pretty or interesting, but maybe that is the point. Again, I’m just making that up. Watch it, and if I’m missing something please let me know.

Sync - Marco Brambilla

This as easily the most entertaining of the bunch. Too bad it only lasted 2 minutes. The clip to the left does not do this film justice. Sync is a compilation of clips from various porn films, all lasting only a few frames. It is cut together to the sound of a quick drum beat. Each clip is similar to the previous so the result is a stop-motion effect. Although the clips are of different people in different films, they still flow together because Brambilla matched them up in the same positions. Very interesting to watch, and it shows how all porn films are exactly the same. Each shot is interchangeable. Sync is short, sweet, and very well-made. The only problem is that there really isn’t much to it.

We Fuck Alone - Gasper Noe

Irreversible was excellent, and I was eagerly awaiting another film by Noe to see if he could do something else worthwhile without resorting to the same tricks. This film was not what I was hoping for. Its 23 minutes of a young women masturbating, intercut with a young man masturbating. The girl uses her Teddy bear, and is very gentle. The boy has a blow-up doll that he roughly violates, finally using a pistol to penetrate its mouth while he finishes. The whole thing is filmed with a strobe effect, with the image flashing to black every second. It’s supposed to make you feel disorientated and sick, but I was just annoyed. The film is violent for violence sake and really has nothing to offer besides an unshocking attempt at shock value.

Balkan Erotic Epic - Marina Abramovic

This short is a group of vignettes that show Balkan folklore as it relates to the male and female genitalia. Narration tell these Balkan old-wives tales as they are acted out, or animated for the viewer. The stories are quite interesting. This screenshot is from the story about how Balkan men will masturbate into the soil to help their crops grow. Both men and women are represented equally, and I was interested to find out how accurate the stories were. I never did. The problem with this film is that it is intercut with some very long segments that are not explained or backed up by folklore stories. That makes most of the film drag (even though its only 13 minutes), but otherwise it has some good bits.

Impaled - Larry Clark

Larry does what he does best in this 40-minute documentary: exploit the bodies of those too young to know better. The premise is interesting. Young men come to try-out for a porn audition. He interviews them about how porn has shaped their views of women and sex. Watching these kids was extremely disheartening. The dominant, violent attitude towards women was all too prevalent. Eventually, Larry has them all get naked and picks one that will star in the porn. Female porn-stars are brought in. The talk shifts to different types of sexual positions, and the actresses get naked. The kid picks one and a sex scene is filmed. Standard dirty porn-fare. This idea had promise at first, but it all falls apart when Larry starts getting people naked.

I watched these films over two days, and after each day I just felt dirtier and dirtier. Final verdict: just stay away. There isn’t anything in here that is good enough to make the rest of this awfulness worthwhile.

I saw four new films in the past week or so. One so-so film: Black Snake Moan (Craig Brewer tried to incorporate too many things and it just fell apart. Still, it had great music and a good cast.). One bad film: 300 (A midnight screening with LCD left both of us with completely opposite opinions as usual. Do I smell Head2head?). One excellent film: Zodiac. (Fincher shows his maturity by directing an incredibly well-paced police procedural.) That last film calls to mind one of my favorites, Memories of Murder, and that leads me into my review of The Host.

Joon-ho Bong’s first film since the brilliant Memories of Murder, The Host was just released in the states this weekend to overwhelming acclaim. But is this praise justified?

Bong’s two previous films were firmly set in the framework of a specific genre, but they managed to transcend what the audience was expecting. In my opinion, that is what Bong does best. He created two films that at first glance were extremely entertaining pieces, but with a little thought they offered much more than they let on.

With his latest, Bong attempts to do this again. The story is simple. A US military base pollutes the Han river, and years later a giant walking fish emerges, attacking and eating those on the waterfront.

The Park family owns a small shop on the waterfront. They are a dysfunctional family, to be sure, but still a loving and caring one. When the young daughter, Hyun-seo, is eaten by the creature, the family hysterically mourns. Soon afterwards though, to their surprise, they find out that she is still alive. Unfortunately, in the interim they have been quarantined by the government. No one will believe that the girl is still alive, and no one will let them go.

What follows is a blend of fast-paced action, family drama, big-brother dystopia and some scary CGI shocks. But unlike Bong’s previous films, there really isn’t much more in The Host than meets the eye. It was well-made and entertaining, but there were just too many missed opportunities. Some have labelled it anti-American, and there are some interesting jabs at American stubbornness, but it never quite reaches a point where it could offer anything really worthwhile.

This biggest problem with this film lies towards the end. The military has decided to destroy the monster and every other living thing in the vicinity by using a toxic chemical known as “Agent Yellow.” A group of protesters are massing at the dumping ground, and the family and the monster soon arrive for a final showdown. What could have been a great set piece was marred by choices that glossed some interesting moral issues.

SPOILER:

The monster arrives, and after it is knocked out by “Agent Yellow”, the family finds that they could not get to the girl in time. She is dead. This was a nice touch. Too many films have the all-too-happy ending. Then, however, after this emotional climax has been experienced by the audience, the monster reawakens. What follows is a slow motion set piece of the family killing this already wounded and dying monster. Taken alone, this scene is great. Funny, exciting, and very well-made. However, its place in the film did not seem justified. The daughter had died and the audience had already had their climax and emotional release. The monster was dying from chemicals that the military had dropped over the whole area. There was no need for this gleeful (read: sadistic) vengeance that the family inflicts. Especially after the movie was starting to wrap up nicely. Maybe this is the vegetarian in me talking, but I felt just as sorry for the monster as I did for the girl. The girl was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the monster only existed. What’s wrong with that?

END SPOILER

That final quibble may seem small, but it really shifts the emotional and political center of the film in a counter-productive direction. It ended up being fairly shallow even though it had the material and talent to be something much more.

All this being said, I can still say The Host is a good film. A good film, but nothing that I feel the need to watch again. I will still recommend it to other viewers, but only as a mildly entertaining monster movie. Catch it, and forget it.