SpoutBlog on spout.com

Under discussion:

Samurai Cop  (1989)

Ever have a moment where you, Gentle Reader, have seen a video and chuckled to yourself, “Wow. What a lame film. Who’d ever watch that?” But slowly it dawns on you that the film seems a bit too familiar. That you’ve laughed at this before–but can’t remember how or when. Like the frightening day after an Aqua Velva hangover, you realize that you even paid money to view this film.

Today’s clip was the big thing yesterday and had been haunting me for nearly the entire day. After jogging my memory with a few more Aqua Velvas, I remembered the history of it: Samurai Cop.

Samurai Cop is a formless, generic 80s cop movie featuring a mullet and a confusing plot point involving Robert Z’Dar as a Japanese guy. The fun story behind this film’s title involves the fact that due to Z’Dar’s other timeless role –– in Maniac Cop –– the producers thought it best to market the entire film around him. And this was the result:

Sadly, that wasn’t Z’Dar.

But this does lead to the single worst moment in an “action film,” i.e. the Bacon Grease Scene:

Under discussion:

2001: A Space Odyssey  (1968)

Beauty and the Beast  (1991)

Blade Runner  (1982)

Brazil  (1985)

A Clockwork Orange  (1971)

Metropolis  (1927)

On the Beach  (1959)

Solaris  (1972)

Gladiator  (2000)

The Departed  (2006)

Children of Men  (2006)

Wall-E  (2008)

It’s only a couple of short weeks before the 2008 Oscar nominees are announced, and the internet is abuzz with prognostications. One hotly debated topic is whether or not Wall-E can pull off a Best Picture nomination, or even a win. It would be the second animated film to be nominated in the category, after Beauty and the Beast, which got the honor before the Animated Feature prize existed. Will the stodgy old Academy seat Wall-E at the kid’s table, giving it an easy win in the animation category, or will it be allowed to play with the big boys?

A best pic nomination for Wall-E would be a rare honor for animation in general, but it would also be a long over due rarity for another reason: Wall-E would only be the second best pic nominated film in the history of the Oscars to be set in the future. The only one to date is A Clockwork Orange. When you consider how many nominees are period pieces (I didn’t care to count), this represents a massive bias on the part of the Academy. It’s clear that they love the past, but they hate the future.

What would the history of the Academy Awards look like if the Hollywood elite wasn’t terrified of speculative fiction? Below, seven movies about the future that should have been nominated for Best Picture:

1. Metropolis

The first Academy Awards, held in 1929, gave honors to films produced in both 1928 and 1927, so this should have at least been nominated. Of course the nomination process was rather primitive back then, and American audiences probably wouldn’t have been familiar with German films such as this, but for the purpose of revisionist history, we’ll say it got snubbed. There’s something very 20th century about Art Deco skyscrapers and class conflict, but Metropolis‘ depiction of 2026 still feels relevant today. The film laid the ground work for countless sci-fi tropes, including sexy female androids (see #5).

2. On The Beach

This 1959 post-apocalyptic drama stars Gregory Peck as the captain of a US submarine stationed in Melbourne. Set in the near future of 1964, nuclear war has wiped out the rest of the planet, and it’s only a matter of months before the wind brings the deadly radioactive fallout to Australia. The film is a beautiful meditation on the inevitability of death, featuring a solid performance by Ava Gardner, and the most melancholy work by Fred Astaire I’ve ever seen (he does not sing or dance). On the Beach was nominated for both Best Score and Best Editing Oscars, and director Stanley Kramer won a BAFTA.

3. 2001: A Space Odyssey

Kubrick’s masterpiece wasn’t completely snubbed; it received four Oscar nominations, with a win for Visual Effects. But the fact that it didn’t get a Best Picture nomination is criminal. The film is consistently listed on top 100 movie lists, and breaks the top ten on plenty of them. It’s clear that something went very wrong that year. Perhaps the snub can be blamed on the fact that the film was so far ahead of its time, that many people just didn’t get it. Pauline Kael said it was “a monumentally unimaginative movie.”

4. Solaris

This 1972 Russian science fiction film is just as cerebral as 2001, and perhaps an even deeper plumb of the human psyche. The Palme d’Or nominated film, directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, follows the story of psychologist Chris Kelvin as he ventures to a distant space station, orbiting the water-covered planet Solaris. The station has fallen into disarray, and Kelvin soon figures out why. An apparition of his dead wife appears, apparently created by Solaris using Kelvin’s brain waves. The film is slow and introspective, and is one of those rare gems of science fiction that transcends the trappings of the genre. It should have at least been nominated for Best Foreign Language Film; instead, it wasn’t nominated for anything.

5. Blade Runner

For some, saying that Blade Runner was one of the five best films of 1982 is stating the obvious. Perhaps the blending of sci-fi and noir seemed at the time to be nothing more than a cheap genre gimmick. But the enduring quality of Blade Runner makes it clear that it deserved more than the two nominations in received for Best Art Direction and Best Visual Effects. The snub of Blade Runner is perhaps the best way to prove the Academy’s bias toward the past, when you consider that Ridley Scott’s 2000 film, Gladiator was not only nominated for Best Picture, but it won! I repeat, Gladiator won Best Picture, while Blade Runner was not even nominated. Which did you think was the better movie?

6. Brazil

Terry Gilliam’s dystopian black comedy might have had a shot at few Academy awards if Gilliam hadn’t burned every bridge in Hollywood as he made it. The film operates in the dystopian mold cast by 1984, with a healthy dose of dark humor and fantasy. It’s one of the most egregious examples of a studio re-cutting a film and essentially destroying it in the process. Fortunately, Gilliam’s cut is readily available on DVD now, but the director’s trustworthiness in Hollywood is still highly suspect. Gilliam is one of those filmmakers who, no matter how good a movie he makes, will never be welcomed into the inner sanctum. Still, Brazil deserved a Best Picture nomination.

7. Children of Men

When the 2006 Best Picture nominees were announced, you may have heard a faint stream of cursing on the wind. That was me. I know that people tend to win Oscars when they’re “due,” which easily explains why The Departed took home the top prize, but the fact that Children of Men wasn’t even nominated is just silly. It was nominated for Best Cinematography and Best Film Editing, which is the Academy’s way of saying, “Wow, this movie is incredible, but it’s about the future, so let’s only honor that one really long take near the end.” Bullshit.

Under discussion:

Hudson Hawk  (1991)

Masculin/Feminin  (1966)

Jordan Galland, director of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead, truly has every press hook a Slamdance filmmaker could ask for, from the ample involvement of celebrity children (Jake “Son of Dustin” Hoffman stars, Bijou Phillips has a cameo and Sean Lennon composed the score), to, of course, the fantastic title recalling mid-century “poster first, script later” schlock horror (which, according to Wikipedia, Galland came up with at age 14 — yet another angle!). The director also has the foolhardy balls (or is it savvy?) to admit that his film was influenced by both Masculin Feminin and Hudson Hawk, which makes it sound pretty much irresistable. Undead premieres on Monday, January 19 at Slamdance; its trailer is above and Galland answers the 4 Questions We Ask Everyone after the jump.

Tell us about your movie: who did you work with, what did you shoot on, why did you make it? Give us the reductive, 25-word or less, “It’s like [pop culture reference a] meets [pop culture reference b]!” pitch, then explain what the quick and dirty sell leaves out.

It’s like The Hunger meets Waiting for Guffman. Or…. it’s like Fright Night meets Manhattan, meets Shakespeare in Love in a dark alley with a twist of The Da Vinci Code, with stretch limos with Mickey Blue Eyes-type mobsters and bumbling detectives, a la Pink Panther.

I worked with an absolutely fantastic ensemble, which includes Jake Hoffman, Devon Aoki, John Ventimilgia, Kris Lemche, Waris Ahluwalia, Ralph Macchio, Jeremy Sisto and a wonderful cameo from Bijou Phillips. The crew was also a complete godsend from the cinematographer Chris Lavasseur, the costume designer Cameron Folan and the first assistant director, Chris Carol.

We shot this film on the RED camera, which was really convenient and inexpensive. This film is the second feature film in New York City to use this RED camera technology.

I chose to make this film for many reasons, but the main reason was that I didn’t want to work in just one genre. I was able to make a film that allowed me to play with ideas from tons of movies I love, from Dr. Strangelove, to What’s Up Doc, Hudson Hawk, Goodfellas, Shakespeare in Love, Waiting for Guffman, The Hunger, Legend, True Romance, Masculin Feminin. It’s a smorgasbord, as they say.

If you funded your film through a “day job” or through working on projects that were not your own, tell us about that. If not, tell us a story from your past work life, before you became a professional filmmaker.

Although I still compose music as my day job, I used to have rock band called dopo yume which evolved into a rock band called Domino. Some interesting things have happened while we were touring such as opening for Lilly Allen, Rufus Wainwright, Maroon 5, Phantom Planet Ween, Rooney, Sean Lennon and Cibo Matto. Once, Fischerspooner hired my band to be their backing band so we flew to Sao Paulo, Brazil, where we played in front of forty thousand people. It would have been almost picturesque (as far rock moments go on stage) except Casey Spooner made my band where blue jump suits and head bands and wrist bands, and I had the goofiest outfit of them all.

Have you been to Sundance or Slamdance before? If so, tell us your best moment (or worst, which ever is funnier).

I went to Slamdance last year as a visitor and was very surprised and impressed to see how central Slamdance was in terms of the Sundance world. Also, because Slamdance is centered around one location on Main Street (Treasure Mountain Inn) there was a real sense of “Indie Community” and I loved every film I saw there. My favorite movies (besides Frost, which was produced by my producers) were Circus Rosaire and Paranormal Activity. I’m a big skiing fan and never get to do it since I live in New York City, so that added a whole level of “communing with nature” to my Slamdance experience last year. I hope I have time to go skiing again.

Let’s get hypothetical: You’re on death row. The night of your execution, you’re allowed to watch any two films of your choice. What would you pick for your last-night-on-Earth double feature?

As an actor on my set once said when he was lying in a coffin during his death scene, “I hate courting this kind of negative energy.” My favorite double feature experience, and one that I would gladly repeat: Hot August Night, which premiered at the 2006 Film Forum in NYC; and Superfly and The Warriors, which were part of the New York Film Noir Festival.