movie marathon | The Cutprice Guignol

September 9, 2013

Movie Marathon #3: A Nightmare on Elm Street

I like classic horror movies. I like movies starring Johnny Depp before he only played one character. I like Robert Englund running around with a spiky glove of death terrorizing sexy youths while they sleep.

No, I’m not suddenly going to turn around and admit to hating another seminal film-I love Nightmare on Elm Street. It’s absolutely, utterly, wonderfully absurd; one of the first movies to employ properly hilarious and creative methods of violent death, in the form of the supernatural kiddie fiddler Freddie Krueger.

The first of the Big Three of Horror I’ll be reviewing over the next thirty days (Halloween, Friday the 13th and Elm Street), Wes Craven’s creepy little horror comes up it around a bit, threw in a pointlessly alcoholic mother, some soft-core sex scenes, and tried to work out what they couagainst one major barrier; the film itself is pretty awful. Now, shut up and let me explain; Wes Craven is a cracking director, and his skill at shooting a gorgeous, claustrophobic chiller is evident even in this, which was one of his earliest movies. But Christ.

It’s clear from the complete lack of skilled actors that the budget went on making this a gory, scary slasher; the idea behind it is fantastic, and the film pretty much relies on the strength of the concept and Englund’s cackle (“DON’T RUN IN THE HELL-WAYS!”). The rest of the acting is pretty shockingly terrible; I know time makes fools of us all, but Elm Street looks beyond dated; it looks like someone took dated, then bashed it wround a bit, threw in an alcoholic mother, some soft-core sex scenes and then worked out what would stick to the wall with a litre of pigs blood. The writing revels in the limitations of the youthful, glassy-eyed leads, and Wes never forgets what he’s trying to do: create a new, violent, scary but ultimately entertaining movie. He’s working from his weird, pretty unmarketable idea in a genre that wasn’t really respected at the time-the peripheries, such as acting, script, characterization, etc, weren’t as important or fun as drowning Johnny Depp in a backwards waterfall of blood. All hail Wes.

A Nightmare on Elm Street

Spectacle: 7
Acting: 5
Script: 6
Entertainment Value: 9
Influence: 9

September 7, 2013

Movie Marathon #1: Muppet Treasure Island

It was only this week that I watched Muppet Treasure Island for the eighth time this year. There’s something deeply comforting about that movie; I don’t know if it’s Tim Curry, a bear with a man living in his thumb, or Billy Connolly exclaiming “RUM TILL I FLOAT!”, but there’s something distinctly adult about this kid’s movie.

It’s peppered with meta nods to a more mature audience; clever little asides that stop the whole thing turning into a kiddie-centric retelling of a classic novel. More importantly, though, it’s fucking entertaining; I watched the show with my good buddie , and we could both unashamedly chant along with at least three quarters of the dialogue and every single one of the songs. I have no idea how anything that I know that comprehensively and with that level of constancy could still entertain me, but it does. Maybe it’s because I have a relationship with Muppet Treasure Island that outweighs most of my major romantic couplings, but there’s something warm and fuzzy about crawling back into that womb of childish glee at seeing Kermit in a funny coat. It’s also heartwarming to see how these big-name stars always just avoid the trap of being out-acted by a puppet, while maintaining a ridiculous amount of chemistry and camaraderie with these mechanical teddies voiced by Frank Oz

I will stand by my belief that anyone who doesn’t know the words to at least one song from Muppet Treasure Island is inherently not worth knowing; anyone who can’t understand the appeal of a movie which is guileless and cheekily self-aware in equal measure, a movie which truly immortalized some lesser-known pirate book from, like, forever ago, and a movie with some of the coolest action scenes in history. Do it. Do it now. Preferably while drunk.

Muppet Treasure Island

Spectacle: 8
Script: 10
Entertainment Value: 10
Acting: 9
Influence: 7

September 2, 2013

Anniversarial

(skip to the final paragraph for the interactive fun-time talky-talk blogosphere bonanza)

So, I realised this week that my humble blog, The Cutprice Guignol, will be reaching it’s anniversary very soon. When I started this blog, I had just begun university, was living away from home for the first time, and couldn’t legally drink. Now, I’m days away from entering a second-year journalism course, in my first flat, with a bottle of half-drunk rum in the cupboard above my oven. It’s been a year of whining, moaning, and bitching about Glee, and I’d like to take this opportunity to raise a glass of Merlot to everyone who has ever accidentally stumbled onto this blog. My commiserations to the one guy who searched for Karen Gillan Snuff Movie and ended up here; I can’t imagine your disappointment. You absolute freak.

And so I’ve decided to do something a little bit different for the next month. To celebrate the year of writing, I’m going to create a month-long movie marathon for all you movie buffs and idle cinema goers. For thirty days straight, I’m going to watch and review a variety of movies and post the results onto this blog. I’m going to try to mix up the genres (I would just do thirty days of horror, but I fear the dribbling, trembling mess that would result), but because I’m distressingly lazy and also because I like finding out about new movies, I’m opening the door to my head.

If you-yes, you- have any particular films you’d like to see reviewed-favorites, classics, something you can’t be bothered watching but want to say something pithy about at parties-just leave a comment on this post of any or the Movie Marathon debacle and I WILL review it, starting on the 7th September. So settle in, get some wine, amass your loved ones, and join me on a silver screen adventure while I go slowly mental with the strain of dealing with manafactured realities every day for a month. We’ll have a cracking time. Maybe.

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