*SPOILER ALERT*
Cigarette Burns: (2005. dir: John Carpenter) I'm a sucker for film geek lore; of course I am. Things about searches for Apocalyptic Lost Movies, things like Theodore Roszak's Flicker, attract me and generally leave me apathetic in their wakes. They tend to be great on atmospheric build-up in incipient stages, petering out in the end.
That said, you wouldn't describe Cigarette Burns as actually "petering out". The ending is, yes, a climax of no small proportion, built of blood and guts (seriously) and dramatic catharsis. In a nutshell, the guts wind up in the film projector, our hero is dead but, in the chaos, the mutilated angel at last escapes. How's that for a power-finale?
One of the many oddly disappointing entries in the "Masters of Horror" series, this one fails for lack of a sufficiently strong and binding vision. Certain elements are great: Udo Kier as the mad instigator of the affair in another of his perfect Udo-Kier turns, taunting an angel by hucking ice cubes at its head, and the angel itself, which is balefully otherworldly, with nothing of the earth in its makeup. But the world which surrounds them is too much the one we live in, untouched and untouchable by the battles of angels and devils, and it's impossible to imagine that any of what they're doing really matters beyond one or two lives (lives of mad cinephiles, and let's face it, those fellows make their own beds).
Reedus is wildly miscast as an ex-junkie cinema-owner haunted by his dead girlfriend and hired to hunt down, yes, an Apocalyptic Lost Movie. It is a movie produced by the Devil, a sort of snuff film in which the destruction of an Angel is recorded. The role really calls for one of those pale, skinny, intellectual junkies, not Reedus' tough, streetwise brand. (I see a very young Jeff Goldblum in the role.) The only moments in which he really finds his power are when he stops pretending to be a normal person, and sinks into the fullness of his dark: the junkie flashbacks, and the climax in the screening room, when, painted with blood, he sits in the shadow and flickering and comes to terms at last with his own demons. Throughout most of it, he seems uncertain, delivering half-assed line readings (granted, it's not Shakespeare) and unable to conjure a strong sense of character.
The cigarette burns of the title, -- this is interesting,-- refer to the circles in the upper, right-hand corner of a frame of film, the signal to the projectionist that it's time to change the reel.
Rating: two stars
Reedus Factor: two stars
Tough Luck: (2003. dir: Gary Ellis) Sometimes a movie is dead in the water from the get-go. Something about the way it's shot, or sounds, or is assembled, something is so off that it never fits together as a single entity. This is one of those. You don't see a story, but disconnected scenes. You don't see a room or a street; you see a set. There is never a question that these are only actors; even the good ones (Reedus, Armand Assante) can't overcome the handicap. It's a carny movie, another genre for which I always have high hopes which are often disappointed. Maybe, as with searches for Lost Apocalyptic Films, a carnival promises more in the way of darkly High Strangeness than can fruitfully be delivered by your average film-maker.
It's got a bold, truly hideous palette in the first half: garish oranges and neon pinks, and actors' faces are washed boneless by overlighting. The second half mutes down to cooler blues and silvers, but every outfit is still a costume, not chosen by a person to wear, but fitted and accessorised by a costume designer with questionable taste. The effect is not helped by the music-video editing, the "rave, baby" kind which tries to hypnotise you with quick, sharp cuts over lulling, sensuous music.
It may not be so much that Reedus is acting badly as that he's making his default choices, the ones he makes when he's uninspired, coupled with the fact that he's photographed in an uninspired fashion. Whatever. It doesn't ever shake itself into any kind of life, but moves from one set-piece to another: from a snake-dance to an explosion to a cock-fight to a shambolic tour of all the most frequently photographed corners of New Orleans. In dull pseudo-Tarantino fashion (or is it pseudo-Mamet? or pseudo-Oceans Eleven?), the plot gets heaved along its leaden way by con artists (as dictated by the dull pseudo-Tarantino/Mamet/Oceans rulebook, everyone is a con artist) coming up with The Perfect Grift, then double-crossing one another.
It's got a twist ending. It beggars belief. Completely impossible.
Whatever. Don't go out of your way.
Rating: one star
Reedus Factor: two stars, for lots of screen-time and some skin but very little else
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