A Clockwork Orange

As I grow older I often find myself thinking back to my first occurrences with A Clockwork Orange. I'd viewed it at a very young age and I remember seeing it and not fully understanding it very well but, I do remember thinking about it a lot after seeing it and having some fascination with the character, Alex DeLarge. This wasn't my very first violent film but, it was among one of the most intriguing as it would for most young adults during any generation. Though it doesn't have the same effect on kids as it did when it was first released, sprawling out gang violence and anarchy in the UK (Sex Pistols referral not intended), it still fuels that angst in teens everywhere with the urge to spit in an instructors face or, damage public property what have you. This film in a way I feel developed into an unofficial angst of teenage daydreaming turned into a nightmare for older generations. I can only imagine as a new wave of youth floods the earth when I'm in my fifties and kids having watched this and it having the same effect and how scared I will be of younger more vibrant spirits wielding chains and 2x4's ready to beat me into a bloody pulp.

The film starts out with a close-up of our 'hero', Alex DeLarge (Malcom McDowell), and it slowly zooms out revealing his three 'droogs' all savoring a nice glass of 'vitamin enriched' milk. As the camera zooms out further and the room unravels onto the screen we are listening to Alex's opening monologue, "There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar trying to make up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening. The Korova milkbar sold milk-plus, milk plus vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom, which is what we were drinking. This would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old ultra-violence." We soon after are welcomed into the world of an every day's night in the life of these four spirited young men as they mock an old homeless drunk on the sidewalk and then presume to bludgeon him to death continue on to an old broken down theater to battle a rival gang who were preparing to rape a young girl and finish up the night by stealing a Durango 95 to drive out to the desolate country side of London to break into the house of an elderly man and his young wife restrain the man and force him to watch as they take turns raping the poor woman to the tune of Alex's rendition of 'Singing in the Rain.' Later, the quartet decide to rob an old woman who owns a dairy farm for her money. Alex, breaks in to confront the lady and are intertwined in a short played battle where Alex horribly wounds the woman with a large penis sculpture. Alex runs out of the house where his droogs betray him and smash his face with a bottle of milk and leave him for the cops. Alex is taken to jail where he learns his victim has died from her wound and is given a prison sentence. During his term Alex is taken from prison and transfered over to a medical establishment where doctors begin to do a series of tests of a new drug to annihilate the will to choose between good and evil.

Though a different medium from the novel by Anthony Burgess I can't help but, think that the book a bit more effective or disturbing due to the sole fact that in the book, Alex is only 14 years old or so. Stanley Kubrick, as with all his films, delivered an acquiescent slab of colossal sized cinema to ripen with age as it ventures into the future. To me watching his films is like looking at the work of Leonardo Da Vinci or Van Gogh. A Clockwork Orange is such a lasting film to anyone who witnesses it. Laced with controversy even to this day it still is known as one of the few films that your parents refuse you to watch. I remember loaning my friend, Sarah, my copy because she wasn't allowed to watch it but, had recently read the novel. I adore the usage of music in this film. The brilliant musical score of Wendy/Walter Carlos which brings a fresh sound of decay to the atmosphere of the film's setting spliced with the usage of classical pieces by Beethoven who some even consider to be a renegade of music in his time is the perfect blend to the ravishing destructive mind of Alex. The film all around just had a dreary type of attraction to it, and had a very different approach to typical 'science fiction' stories. I guess most people label it under that category but, this is just one of those I don't wish to slap a label on. The metaphoric disembowelment that it generated about the on going fear that the next coming generation will be leaving the world in ruins and the tampering of human morality depicting a being with an organic outside for the rest of the world to view and a mechanical monster on the inside with no feelings of doubt or remorse. And controlled behavior as scientists try to stabilise the methods of psychology with mind controlling drugs and exercises. Not to mention the hidden humor that nearly no one seems to notice. A very different type of film for it's time and to this day is still way ahead of its self.

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Drag Me to Hell

So, I'm starting off this blog with a movie that I've been jabbering over for the past week since I've seen it. Once in a while a good horror movie will come out in theaters and surprisingly will be good (The Descent, Quarantine, Let the Right One In). But, the old school horror directors haven't been hitting the old pars that they use to and some of the new ones are kind of making the masters of horror show their age. That isn't the case with Sam Raimi since the return of his 20 plus year hiatus from the horror circuit with Drag Me to Hell. I had my doubts at first but, still like the horror nerd I am was highly anticipating it since the recent success of the Spider-man trilogy. Drag Me to Hell was actually a pleasant fright to have thrown at an individual with such scepticism.

The film starts with tale of a Mexican family who's small son has stolen a silver necklace from a gypsy woman and in return has placed a horrible curse on the boy which he begins seeing manifestations of demons and spirits coming after him. The family seeks the help of a known medium/psychic to reverse the spell and free their son of his torment. During the seance in order to cast the spell out, the family and psychics actions are cut short by paranormal forces that throw the boy of a stairwell on the ground below. The floor begins to tear open and hands reach from below to grasp the boy and drag him down into Hell. A few decades pass and we meet Christine Brown(Allison Lohman) who works as a loan officer for a bank firm that is eager to get the assistant manager. One day an elderly woman named, Mrs. Ganush (Loma Raver), who is seeking a third extension on her home loan goes to Christine for help. In hopes of ensuring her position as assistant manager she denies Mrs. Ganush the third extension, thus causing her to beg to Christine for help. Christine becomes frightened and ends up having her escorted out of the building. Later that evening while Christine is leaving for the day, Christine is attacked by Mrs. Ganush in the car port where she tears off one of Christine's button and whispers, "Lamia" forging the curse upon Christine. Christine seeks condolence from her boyfriend Clay (Justin Long) and shorty after begins seeing horrible images that only she appears to be seeing. She seeks the help of a local psychic who tells her fortune and sees that she has had a curse placed upon her soul. Clay seems sceptical and thinks Christine is only experiencing post-traumatic stress and doesn't believe their is a curse and they leave the psychic. As the days go on the manifestations become generally stronger and more violent. Christine returns to the psychic he tells her more about the curse and that on the third the day the manifestations stop and the one with the curse is dragged down to Hell for all eternity. Christine then sets upon the mission to try and reverse the curse in anyway possible to go as far as dabbling in ancient rituals to trying to pass the curse of to someone else while dealing with the ever growing horror which presides around her.

I heard from my friend, Martin, that this film was debuting at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival and I sort of wondered as of to why. With all the shit coming out today and the reputation that Raimi built himself with the Spider-man movies and producing the American versions of the Grudge with his production team Ghost House, I questioned if this was Cannes material. On top of it all, it was PG-13. But, still, hope is the last thing to die. I still had faith that Raimi would make a triumphant return and believe it or not it was better than I anticipated. Not since the original Evil Dead trilogy have I seen such a well balanced meal of gritty in your face horror and a tolerable dose of slapstick/gross-out humor. The recurring gag of something nasty always finding it's way towards Christine's mouth never gets old through out the whole movie or, the constant repetition between Mrs. Ganush and Christine where a chunk of hair always gets torn from Christine's scalp. It's almost equivalent to watching to two long time rivals having it out back and forth against one another as if it's a routine occurrence. The comedy never overwhelms the fact that this is a good old fashion horror flick the scares are just as good as the humor. The tense moments never die down and strike at the least possible moments and are thrown in at times when other horror films haven't really put them before. One important ingredient in the recipe for a horror film is just that element of surprise in all the un-designated places where you'd least expect a scare. What I liked most about it was that Raimi brought back the nostalgia of the trademark Evil Dead insignia at one scene in the movie where the dead embody the living and we hear the classic liners pertaining to the swallowing of souls and the contorted faced, pupil-less, hovering mounds of Hell that shocked our psyches those 20 years ago return. The film runs a good length too where it doesn't drag on or, doesn't move too fast the story shows it was well thought out and wasn't some rushed together thing. Sam Raimi and his brother, Ivan wrote the story together and clearly didn't want to make the return to the genre a flop. The story written actually gives me the thoughts that this would be along the lines of something that could have come out of Italy during the 60s or 70s gothic horror. The fact it was PG-13 didn't even dwindle the enjoyment of it any. Teens want to go to a horror flick to get scared and this was both a good scare flick for little acne infested teens as well as something that would be revered at some as pristine as the Cannes Film Festival. Thanks Sam Raimi for not fucking this up.

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