Dario Argento Week: Opera

Greetings to Day 4 of Dario Argento Week and I must be honest in saying my sleep cycle has been interrupted by more than a few nightmares.  No joke, it has been a few times of drenched in cold sweat and terrors involving me walking around my apartment.  The sacrifice I make for you people!!!   All joking aside some of these flicks have been a bit eye-opening.   Today's film is no exception as we burrow into the life of a young opparata who has deemed the performance of Verdi's Macbeth is cursed.  Another giallo film involving a mad stalker and yes that is a bit of a theme for our esteemed director.  This is Opera.

Give me sight beyond sight!

Betty: I am nothing like my spoiler!  Nothing like her!









The movie opens with these extreme close-ups of a raven's eye and a slight pan back to a wide opera theater house as practice to Macbeth as this innocuous raven caws about as the duet sings the piece and Betty (Cristina Marsillach of Estoy en crisis, La gabbia, Every Time We Say Goodbye, Days of Inspector Ambrosio and The Sea and the Weather) is anxious and paranoid about the composition as the lead  is ran down by a car and Betty is thrust into the lead role working with Marco (Ian Charleson of A Private Matter, Jubilee, Chariots of Fire, Antony & Cleopatra, Gandhi, Ascendancy and The Sun Also Rises)  a talented, charismatic director that tries to bring her to ease in her new role.  The show must go on!   During her opening performance, a murder occurs in one of the opera boxes giving the cast a sense of forebode.    Marco does his level best to bring the cast to a calm that would rival a Hindu calf.

A sharp tale to be told!

More murders keep happening during the productions and the only loosely thing these murders have in common is Betty.  On her way out of the theater she is abducted by her stalker, bound by rope, tape over her mouth and a series of needles on tapes are placed just under her top eye lids forcing Betty to watch whatever her stalker/serial killer wants her to watch.  Will she get away from her horrendous captor?  Will there be anything left of the cast to perform the show?  Will this effect her acting career?

Just a few interesting trivia notes from the film at this time.

The ending of the movie was inspired by Thomas Harris's novel Red Dragon being such a visual disturbing series of images, Argento felt obligated to bring the same to his audience.  The character Marco, horror director turned opera director was based on the maestro Argento himself.  No ego there, folks.  According to Urbano Barberini (Inspector Alan Santini of Opera) the film had over 140 crows that took hours for the crew to re-capture as they were released in the opera house for filming.  only a rough tally of 60 of them were ever reclaimed.  The others must have escaped from the opera house during filming.

An alternative ending gave Betty Stockholm syndrome as she began to see her captor in a different light and she fell in love with this killer that proved himself time and time again that there were no boundaries he would not cross to please her.   Similar to Thomas Harris' novel Hannibal.  Great and warped minds think alike I suppose.

Optometry of the 1980's.

Pause from Argento

Due to my stomach acting up all day today and it is almost three in the morning I really can't say I want to watch a slasher movie at this hour.  With that in mind I will have a Double Argento Feature where I will suffer through some thriller giallo and potential supernatural story afterwards.   Mind you if I have to sleep with all the lights on, shriek like a little scared twelve-year old girl and snivel, I will know I sat through two Argento movies.

Felt a bit gassy.

Dario Argento Week: Tenebre

Welcome back to the nightmares my fine readers.  Day 3 of Dario Argento Week and as was mentioned in Inferno's review, the continuation of the Three Mothers will not be until 2007 with The Mother of Tears.  So we will walk away from witchcraft, mutilations and the like and head back into some Giallo territory that started with Deep Red.  Our story is about an American novelist who is in Rome and he is being toyed with by an insane serial killer who is wiping out anyone attached to our writer or to the book that is published.   Kooky, ain't it?  This is Tenebre.

Art critic goes over the deep end.

Peter Neal: Let me ask you something?  If someone is killed with a Smith & Wesson spoiler...  Do you go and interview the president of Smith & Wesson?





Our film opens with a leather gloved individual reading aloud a passage from a book and it almost seems like he will justify his evil acts from this thriller murder novel.  As it was pointed out our novelist does murder thriller novels and they are quite popular in Europe.  While in Italy, Peter Neal (Anthony Franciosa of A Face in the Crowd, The Long, Hot Summer, Valentine's Day, Blood Vows: The Story of a Mafia Wife, Death House and Ghost Writer) catches up with his agent Bullmer (John Saxon of Black Christmas, Enter the Dragon, Gunsmoke, Fast Company, The Electric Horseman, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Falcon Crest, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors and No Escape No Return)  as they are plugging the book  Tenebre in Rome which has been on the best seller for 12 weeks.
Unbeknownst to Neal, his ex-wife Jane (Veronica Lario of Sotto... sotto, Lavedova e il piedipiatti and Bel Ami) has been secretly following him in order to throw a major wobbler his way via public outcry. His assistant Anne (Daria Nicolodi of Deep Red, Beyond the Door II, Phenomena, Opera, Notes of Love, Scarlet Diva and Mother of Tears) has all of Neal's goings on wired, his hotel room stocked with a few nicer liqueurs and in general is indispensable.

I just....  conditioned...  my....  hair.

At the hotel, Neal is met by Captain Germani (Giuliano Gemma of California, Corleone, Even Angels Eat Beans, The Desrt of the Tartars,  Closed Circuit, The Warning and Mad Love) a homicide detective and his partner Inspector Altieri (Carola Stagnaro of Dark Eyes, Opera, Phantom of Death, Dial: Help, Fun Jump, 500! and The Murder of a General) came to Neal assuming he knew a murder victim based on her wounds alone.  Not the brightest cops to say the least.   They point out how the murder is almost exactly as it is depicted in Tenebre with pages of the book crammed in her mouth and it disturbs them.  Of course they are not so bothered to show the girl's murder crime scene photos to Neal.  I think I would have demanded a scotch neat after seeing that gruesome series of snaps.    The police want to work with Neal to capture the killer, who is obsessed with his work.  Bouncing ideas off is one thing but they basically want to dangle Neal out like a carrot for this psycho mule.

From a creepy phone call that sounds like a madwoman, this lunatic seems to systematically killing off people that Neal has associated with or been involved with the deaths always the same fashion including the pages of the book stuffed in their mouths.  When will it end and can the killer be found and brought to justice?  Make no mistake, this will keep you guessing.

A few notes about the film now.  as every director has a trademark or two, Argento's main ones are a victim crashing through a window in almost every movie as well as a character having a memory jog of usually some tragic portion of childhood or harmful memory.  This film's inspiration was after Dario Argento was repeatedly stalked by a fan.   As in many of his films the killer's hands have a close up shot wearing black leather gloves.

Get me my agent!  I thought I was working with Fulci!

Dario Argento Week: Inferno

Good day my fine readers and welcome back for Day 2 of Dario Argento Week.  I trust your goose bumps and lack of sleep has subsided long enough for another helping of horror/thriller.   Today, I would like to apologize as my research into this was not as exact as it should have been.  The basis of Suspiria, Inferno and Mother of Tears are a trilogy of supernatural horror films depicting a triumvirate or trio of ancient, powerful and evil witches whose magic allowed them to alter world events on a global scale to suit their own dark purposes.  With that in mind, all these films are loosely connected without the cliche of bringing characters back from a car accident or back on for the sequel that would be out of context or continuity.

This trilogy is simply referred as The Three Mothers or Le Tre madri if you will.  Each film shows one of the Mothers warped and twisted in a fashion.
 But what say we look into some pesky college kids doing a bit of Scooby Doo in Rome where strange and unusual events of the past reflect on the present for the very worse?  This is Inferno.

Hey, why did those credits materialize at my feet?

Kazanian: There are mysterious spoilers in that book, but the only true mystery is that our very lives are governed by dead people.





A young poetress Rose Elliot (Irene Miracle of Midnight Express, In the Shadow of Kilimanjaro, The Last of Philip Banter, From Hollywood to Deadwood and Puppetmaster) reads from an ancient she found a local antiquarian and using a Latin to English diary translates an architect's writings , a one E. Varelli about the terror that he was contracted by.  Three women had him design and build three houses located in New York, Rome and Freiburg, Germany.    Terrified at this new found knowledge Rose suspects that she may very well be living in the New York house and writes to her brother Mark (Leigh McCloskey of Dawn" Portrait of a Teenage Runaway, Executive Suite, The Love Boat, Cameron's Closet, Dallas, Santa Barbara and I Might Even Love You) and urges him to visit her from Rome as soon as possible.
 
Using the book for clues and details Rose Nancy Drews her way her way to the cellar of the building (yeah because cellars and basements are always great to investigate) and finds a hole in the floor that leads to a former ballroom that is filled with water.  She bumps her house keys into the water and has to retrieve them.  After finding her keys a bloated gnarled corpse pops into frames scaring the figurative crap out of her.

In Rome, Mark is attempting to read Rose's letter but is distracted by a fairly hot fellow musical student (Ania Pieroni of Stay as You Are, Velvet Hands, The House by the Cemetery, Tenebre, Count Tacchia and Fracchia contro Dracula) and proceeds to follow the girl because hormones rule most men's lives.  Mark's friend Sara (Eleonora Giorgi of Don't Shoot on Children, To Forget Venice, Velvet Hands, Beyond the Door and Carefree Giovanni) picks up the letter and is shocked to learn of Rose's discovery.  She heads to the library to find a copy of The Three Mothers and is attacked by a brute of a man.  She hurls the book at him and beats cheeks and hides at her neighbor's place.  Again the huge gloved figure finds them both and stabs them to death.

Found... your.. bread knife...

Mark drops by to visit Sara and heads to her neighbor only to find them both dead at the floor and fragments of Rose's letter.  Scooping this up and phoning the police, Mark tries to piece what is going on and calls Rose immediately but the connection is so scratchy.  He vows to be in New York ASAP before the line goes dead.  Will Mark arrive in time?  What other mysteries has Rose uncovered?  What is the secret of the Yeti?  Why is the sky blue??!!!  Why are security guards so insecure??!!!

A quick few fun facts about the film.  Argento wanted James Woods for Mark but he was already committed to Videodrome.  Shame on you, Mr. Woods.   Our gloved murderer hands POV was Dario Argento.  The entire film was shot in three months time.  Italian horror director Mario Bava assisted in the special effects of this film in that is where he got his first start in the film industry.  Bava sadly passed away shortly after the film's release.  In 2005, Total Film magazine credited Inferno as one of the 50 greatest horror films ever made.  In 2007, the continuation of the trilogy, Mother of Tears was filmed and released with both Daria Nicolodi (writer/actress and Dario's lover) and Aisa Argento (actress/director and daughter of Dario and Daria Nicolodi)

The basis of the trilogy is founded on the written works of essayist Thomas De Quincey's work Susipira de Profundis (Sighs from the Depths) written in 1845.  Talk about doing your homework.

John Holmes stole my look, man!

Dario Argento Week: Suspiria

Hey all and welcome to Day 1 of Dario Argento Week and I don't mind admitting  this next film has scared the crap out of me.  No kidding, from the elaborate pace, to the story, to the musical scores made by the progressive band Goblin, this film is just damn creepy and widely accepted as Argento's finest work.  From the imposing sets to the sinister death scenes this flick should keep even today's gore fans on their toes.  This is Suspiria.

Hmm, disturbingly lit in here but probably nothing wrong with that.

Miss Tanner: I had no idea you were so strong willed.  I can see that once you make up your spoiler about something, nothing will change it for you.  My compliments.







Suzy Bannion (Jessica Harper of Phantom of the Paradise, Love and Death, Aspen, Big Man on Campus, It's Garry Shandling's Show and Mr. Wonderful) is an American ballet student that has flown in to Freiburg Germany to enroll in a prestigious dance academy, however arriving in the middle of the night she cannot gain access into the school and decides to spend the night in town.  As she goes to leave a young girl, Pat Hingle (Eva Axen of Ludwig, Orpheus 9, The Golden Mass, This Is the Night and Death at Work) is leaving the academy muttering to herself and irate is all hell.  Pat decides to stay at a friend's apartment while she works out what she will do with the rest of her life...  what remains of it, as no sooner she is done with her shower a lunatic crashes through the window smothering her face against a pane of glass while simultaneously stabbing her over and over before disemboweling her.  Pat's friend hears the ruckus and decides to investigate by pounding on the door, crying for help and then hearing nothing at all.  Bound with cable from the building, Pat is dropped through the stain glass ceiling and left to hang while Pat's friend is impaled with glass shards and metal below.  That is the thirteen minute mark, people so you just know there is going to be more to it than a random nutter.

Won't...  make... recital...  bleh.

The next morning, Suzy makes her way back to the academy and is met by Madame Blanc (Joan Bennett of The Housekeeper's Daughter, The Man I Married, Man Hunt, The Wife Takes a Flyer, Girl Trouble, Scarlet Street and Dark Shadows)  lead instructor Miss Tanner (Alida Valli of The Third Man, Senso, Eyes Without a Face, A Simple Heart, Inferno and Angel of Death) welcome Suzi in as Miss Tanner shows her around.  After meeting Sarah (Stefania Casini of For Love One Dies, Blood for Dracula, The Golden Mass, The Climber and Bloodstained Shadow) and Olga (Barbara Magnolfi of The Suspicious Death of a Minor, Ready for Anything, The Sister of Ursula and Cut and Run) and arranges to live off-campus rather than at the dormitory.
 
After a surreal encounter in the kitchen with the academy's cook, Suzy feels faint and awakens in a room hours later, where she has been moved in against her wishes.  Her doctors tell her she is not used to the climate and should have a glass of wine daily.  Reverse intervention!    The upside for Suzy that she becomes fast friends with Sara since they are roomies.   Strange happenings seem to keep occurring and people has suddenly up and left the academy with no rhyme or reason as Suzy starts to suspect this academy may be more than the brochure led her to believe.

A few notes on this film now.  Argento's original idea for the ballet school was to be populates with young girls no older than 12.  Due to the extreme violence in the screenplay the studio producer and father Salvatore Argento was stubborn in his belief that the film would be banned so the age limit was raised to 20 but the dialogue was not altered so the naive behavior and comments sound almost childlike.  Argento and the band Goblin composed the score together and he arranged for the band to play as loud as their speakers could manage on set and suddenly to bring about a truly startled and scared performance from his actors,
The screenplay was inspired by Daria Nicolodi's (writer/actress and Argento's lover) grandmother who claimed to have fled in the middle of the night from a German music academy because witchcraft was being secretly held there.

Katie Couric before morning coffee!

Dario Argento Week.

Hello readers of all shapes and sizes.  This week we will dare to spelunk in the dark recesses of one writer/producer/director/composer Dario Argento.  A man who has made you jump, shriek and possibly made you pee in your pants.   Between his psychological thrillers, his abstract dramatic horror films and his constant need to pair off people to find and stop serial killers, Argento has made us afraid of the dark on many levels.  

Silly faces of terror!!!

 I personally believe whatever warped this man allowed him to look at mundane objects as murderous torture devices or means of execution.  With more than 4 decades of terror, horror and thrillers under his belt, Argento is one of those few directors that loves to bring back cast members of previous films because he enjoys working with them, they are right for the part or simply he feels they will bring luck to the film's overall production.   Argento claims that most of his films are based on childhood drama and yet his own was relatively normal.  His main influence in story telling revolves around Edgar Allen Poe, The Brothers Grim and Hans Christian Andersen causing him to start writing for a journal magazine when he was in his teens, allowing him to later become an columnist and finally his love of film brought him to writing screenplays.

Similar to John Carpenter's minimalist approach to a set with low lightning, making an empty room look full on a screen and full spaces empty and deserted, Argento uses Panavision with an anamorphic lens to give a wide scope vision and open the crowd up to jump scares.  So please enjoy the week and maybe we will learn something...  other than what keeps us awake at night.

Sheesh, that girl photobombed the zombie??  WTF??!!

Sean Connery Week: The Name of the Rose

Howdy folks and welcome to Day 4 of Sean Connery Week.  Yesterday allergies were fun, fun fun and we got knocked back a day.  Today we will examine a cinematic masterpiece directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud (The Bear, The Lover, Seven Years in Tibet, Enemy at the Gates, Two Brother and Day of the Falcon) and based on Umberto Eco (Anthropologist, Medieval expert and writer of The Name of the Rose, Foucault's Pedulum, The Island of the Day Before, The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages, The Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas and the Bomb and the General)  create the ideal scenery of a tranquil monastery besought by what is deemed evil and a honest to goodness murder.  This is The Name of the Rose.

Can't read my lines without my glasses.

William of Baskerville: Adso, if I knew the answers to spoilers, I would be teaching theology in Paris.





Friar William of Baskerville (Sean Connery of The Red Tent, The Molly Maguires, Diamonds are Forever, Zardoz, The Man Who Would Be King, Just Cause and DragonHeart) and his apprentice Adso of Melk (Christian Slater of Heathers, The Edge, Pump Up the Volume, Young Guns II, Mobsters, Broken Arrow, Alone in the Dark and Mind Games) have traveled to Northern Italy to abby.   A death of unnatural causes raises hackles and superstitions as an important theological conference was to occur prior.   Over the week, more bizarre deaths happen and our two travelers come to the conclusion that the abbey is not all what it appears to be.

Yes, I too, loathe the barber here but he is learning.

William and Adso meet Salvatore (Ron Perlman of Blind Man's Bluff, Beauty and the Beast, Cronos, Hellboy and Sons of Anarchy), a jibbering and seemingly demented hunchback that knows many spoken languages and his protector Remigio da Varagine (Helmut Qualtinger of The Business of Plueckhahn, Ice Age, Tales from the Vienna Woods and Die Hinrichtung).  William deduces from Salvatore's speech pattern that he may have been one of the Dulcinian (deemed by the Franciscan sect as those that stray from the traditional teachings as heretics by the Catholic church and yet this movement was inspired by the Franciscan sect in the eyes of the Dulcinian) heretical sects and both men are possibly involved with the murders.

Meanwhile young Adso meets a semi-feral girl who has snuck in the Abby for food via sexual favors and he starts to fall in love with the girl.   Quick to bypass any and all accusations of the Devil's work, William and Adso uncover a massive labyrinth in the abbey's forbidden tower (Yes, a forbidden zone and there lies cranky irradiated apes) a discover a variable maze of books and scripture the likes William has never seen,  to even come across works of Aristotle in a time where most of his works were burned by the Roman Empire.  This is one of many philosophers that was seen as pagan in the eyes of the Church and must be slowly introduced back into the realms of man and it is this book, Aristotles's Second Book of Poetics that seems to be the center of all the deaths.

His investigations are put on hold thanks to the arrival of Gui (F. Murray Abraham of Serpico, The Sunshine Boys, The Ritz, Slipstream, Mobsters, Nostradamus and Star Trek: Insurrection) of the Inquisition,( a superstitious sect of the Church hellbent on ferreting out blasphemers and burning them at the stake or torturing people until they confess sins).  He has little time to hear anything William has to say and will find the sinner that would take these precious lives.   Yeah this is the same type of Catholic that shames a woman at an abortion clinic and not even bothering to find out the reason for her decision or nuttier idea mind his or her own business.   * Sorry, I will come down from my soap box now*  

Gui and William have butted heads more than a few times.  Gui finds William to be frivolous and taunts God with his forbidden views of Sciences while William views Gui as a myopic, narrow-minded savage that inflicts pain and death in the sake of his God.  Who is the true murder?  What is the reasons behind it?  Who stands to gain anything from these deaths.

Just a few tidbits on the film at this time.  The monastery was actually a set replica built on a hilltop outside of Rome, making it one of the biggest exterior sets built in Europe since Cleopatra or Conan the Barbarian.
Credited as "The Girl" Valentina Vargas was the only female role in the movie.    Robert De Niro auditioned for the part of William but Jean- Jacques Annaud didn't envision De Niro for the part when he announced there should be a sword duel between William and Gui.
Most of the dialogue had to be synced up in post production thanks to all the airplanes coming and over the hill.

You'll have to sell your landspeeder..