American Mary...

So last night I saw American Mary at the Duke of York's in Brighton and since I'm forever asking people to blog about Jenny Ringo and the Monkey's Paw (which you can see for free at www.jennyringo.com, and sign up to the mailing list for news on the sequel which is very close to being finished!) I decided it's time I wrote about someone else's film for a change.

I've never been great at plot summaries so here's the trailer...

For the first half of American Mary I was convinced I was watching the most original, relevant and genuinely shocking horror film I'd seen in a long time. The film looks amazing, Katharine Isabelle does a fantastic job portraying an incredibly complex character and there is a superb atmosphere of creepiness and dread underlining the whole first Act. What makes it work is that Mary is written and performed with just enough humanity to make her descent into madness believable and genuinely disturbing. 

The world of the film almost becomes a representation of the human body, with Mary scraping back the surface of the places and situations we recognise to reveal the blood and guts of a dark, mysterious underworld. Because we care about Mary we go on this journey with her, but the problem is that this empathy is difficult to maintain and as she becomes more and more unbalanced she pushes the audience further away. It's not just about the character not being likable, but it's more an issue over what is at stake (not much) and how she develops (after a certain point she doesn't really). As the film meandered towards an anti-climactic conclusion I couldn't help feeling a little disappointed that what I thought was an early contender for my favourite film of the year hadn't quite lived up to the potential of that amazing first half hour.

But one of the other great things about the film is that it gets under your skin and stays with you, meaning I was still thinking about it long after the credits had rolled. And at some point on the drive home it occurred to me that this isn't a film about body-modification at all. It's a film about exploitation filmmaking.

There may be spoilers ahead. Consider yourselves warned.

This is perhaps one of those situations where I'm applying too much of my own experience to a film but Mary's super-harsh lecturer reminded me of a couple of screenwriting lecturers I've been taught by in the past. So for the sake of my argument imagine that Mary is not a medical student but a film student, and her aim is to be a legitimate, respected filmmaker. Then you get the party scene which represents her chance at networking with big-time film producers. Except they're only interested in screwing her over (which could be the experience of the actual filmmakers bleeding through, or me seeing what I want to see based on my own limited experience). Suddenly she realises the industry she wants to work in is corrupt and the dream she has been working towards all those years is forever tainted.

So she tries something else. She finds a way to do the thing she wanted to do outside the system. She sells something that people want, but that will never be mainstream. She makes art that can be ugly and beautiful at the same time. She makes exploitation films.

I've mentioned a few times in the past that I love arthouse horror films; horror films with all the blood and gore and scares in place but that are ambitious and complex and ambiguous enough to make them stand out from the usual production-line genre trash. American Mary not only fits into that subgenre, I think the film itself is all about the conflict between art and genre cinema. 

And when I think about it like that I realise that it may well be an early contender for my favourite film of the year after all...

-----

UPDATE...

Or why Mark Kermode is right and I am wrong.


Just listened to an episode of the Kermode and Mayo podcast from a couple of weeks ago in which he reviewed American Mary, as seen here - 

Kermode essentially says that the whole film is about the objectification of the human body which is a point so obvious I can't believe I missed it. And it makes sense of all the parts I wasn't sure about. For example, the club owner in the film has recurring fantasies about Mary stripping for him, which to me seemed out of place in a feminist horror film. Surely this is celebrating the objectification of women rather than condemning it? And then I got confused so I ignored that part. But if the whole film is itself about the objectification of women then these scenes are totally relevant and necessary, because in order to understand Mary's approach to the human body we need to see how other people objectify her, even the people who know she is capable of so much more.

I think my exploitation filmmaker thesis still stands, but I think I was wrong to dismiss the parts of the film I didn't understand so quickly, and it's made me want to see the film again so I'll probably buy the DVD. Which you should do too.

And the reason I'm posting this is to show that no opinion on a film, or any kind of art, should be final.

That is all.

Jenny Ringo in print! Ten Dead Men in France! A video in which I nod a lot!

Three awesome things happened today - 

Jenny Ringo reviewed in SFX magazine!!!

Issue 230 of SFX features an incredibly flattering review of Jenny Ringo and the Monkey's Paw on page 41. Here's what the issue looks like...

The review says things like 'The film moves at a rapid pace with plenty of humour.' and 'It looks and sounds more expensive than it probably was, with the highlight being a song and dance routine in which the Magician explains the origins of the eponymous Monkey's Paw.'

Which is nice.

It's available in most newsagentey-magazine-selling-type places so shouldn't be too hard to find if you'd like to read the whole review. Which you should because it's really good.

And if you haven't seen the film yet it's right here.

Ten Dead Men re-released in France!

Ten Dead Men, the feature film I wrote around five years ago (just prior to starting this blog) has been re-released in a limited edition steelcase! In France!!!

I don't know why but I do know that I definitely want one.

I interview the cast and crew of House Trafalgar!

A few weeks ago I was invited to interview the cast and crew of the most epic short film ever made, House Trafalgar. The first video from that session has just been released online, and here it is...

HOUSE TRAFALGAR - The Q&A Sessions 1 from Future Sun Film on Vimeo.

If you've never been to MovieBar, the short film night I run in Brighton, it's a lot like this... only darker, everyone has usually had a lot more to drink and I would be wearing a hat.

Check out the House Trafalgar website for more information on the film and details of upcoming screenings.

In other news...

Jenny Ringo and the Cabaret from Hell is now even closer to completion after Ross and I put the finishing touches to the edit earlier this week. It now has effects, a couple of extra scenes and is slightly shorter in places! Now there's just the final sound mix and grading left to do...

As always you can keep up to date on the progress of Jenny Ringo by signing up to the mailing list at www.jennyringo.com.

Jenny Ringo update (including where you can see the trailer!)

Been a bit crap at blogging recently, too much stuff going on. Was going to do a whole post about the ADR session we did a few weeks ago, and while I'm on the subject I should actually finish off the production diary seeing as I only made it as far as the second day. But I've been busy working on finishing the actual film itself, which is very nearly done.

Sort of very nearly anyway. I still need to get the effects shots edited into the film, sort out some of the voice-over sequences now I have the actual dialogue to go with them, co-ordinate the final sound mix and get the whole thing graded, but other than that it's nearly there!

Last week I spent an evening with editor Ross putting together a trailer for the film. It's not quite finished yet so I won't be putting it online anytime soon BUT I will be screening it as part of Halloween MovieBar TOMORROW NIGHT!

Whether you are interested in seeing the Jenny Ringo and the Cabaret from Hell trailer or not, if you are anywhere near Brighton you should definitely come along to MovieBar because it is going to be an amazing night. We'll be screening an eclectic mix of fantastic short horror films from 7.30pm at the Caroline of Brunswick in Brighton.

Full details can be found here - www.moviebar.co.uk

Hope to see you there!

Amber Heard...

I wrote this ages ago, then had one of those 'aw, why should anyone care what I think' moments and didn't post it. I've now had one of those 'I haven't blogged for ages but I can't be bothered to write anything new' moments so here it is...

Amber Heard represents one of the biggest problems with the way films are being made at the moment. Because she's really good.

It just takes one really good performance in a good film for me to want to see more of that actor. With Amber Heard that film was All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, which is perhaps the only post-Scream slasher film to do anything at all interesting with the genre (that, and Cabin in the Woods obviously). And Amber Heard is really good in it. 

I can't really explain why without spoiling the ending, but it's one of those films where the story (and particularly the major plot twist) is entirely dependent on the central performance, which in this case is really strong.

Around the same time I also went to see the teen MMA film Never Back Down at the cinema. I'm not sure why I thought this was a good idea.

Amber Heard plays the main character's girlfriend and doesn't do anything at all interesting. Her lines could easily have been copied and pasted from similar characters a thousand other films. Unfortunately she would go on to play that same character over and over again.

She played Jesse Eisenberg's zombie girlfriend at the beginning of Zombieland.

She was Nicholas Cage's sidekick in Drive Angry (basically the same girlfriend character but seeing her and Nicholas Cage have sex would be weird like it was with him and Jessica Biel in Next so they skip over any relationship stuff and have her following him around for no reason at all other than the film needs a girl in it).

And who could forget her standout performance as Seth Rogen's girlfriend in Pineapple Express. Me, that's who. I forgot, because it's not memorable at all.

But just as I'm about to give up on Amber Heard I see her in The Ward, a film that again hinges on the strength of her performance which is again very strong indeed (The Ward is kind of like Sucker Punch but with a script and acting and other things that proper films have).

From this I learn I should only watch Amber Heard films in which she looks slightly dishevelled in all the promotional stills (with the exception of the remake of And Soon the Darkness in which she spends a lot of time looking slightly dishevelled and doesn't play a girlfriend. It's also not very good and is therefore at odds with my thesis so I'm not going to talk about it here). 

So the other night I sat down to watch The Rum Diary, a film I'm very much looking forward to because I like Bruce Robinson, I like Hunter S. Thompson (although from the films based on his work I can't help thinking he would've achieved so much more without all the drugs and alcohol) and I like Johnny Depp when he's not being a pirate or having anything to do with Tim Burton. There are also four of my favourite actors in the supporting cast - Richard Jenkins, Aaron Eckhart, Giovanni Ribisi and ... Amber Heard. I think this is going to be brilliant.

Unfortunately it's not brilliant because Amber Heard plays Aaron Eckhart's girlfriend. A bit later she is Johnny Depp's girlfriend. 

At various points in the film she disappears. The script is such that it really wouldn't matter if any of those moments were the last time we saw her on screen. She is completely superfluous to the plot of the film. If you cut out all her scenes it would be the exact same film, no question.

By now I'm so sick of this it completely ruins the film for me. The film itself is actually quite good. At its best moments it recreates the tone of Withnail and I perfectly. And in a way that's the problem. Imagine Withnail and I if one of the characters had a girlfriend. Imagine the same film, same set-up, same tone but someone high up suggests the story needs a woman in it somewhere because us blokes feel a bit weird and insecure if we're just watching other blokes all the time so now Richard E Grant and Paul McGann are competing for the affections of the local barmaid. It wouldn't work. It would be horrible. 

I would like to think that's what happened with The Rum Diary; that the girlfriend character wasn't put in there on purpose but instead was inserted at the insistence of a random executive. Either way the result is the same. Here is a fairly decent story which is for the most part quite believable but every now and again we have to put common sense to one side so we accept the awkward romance plot that's been copied and pasted into the script from a thousand similar films, some of them the same films Amber Heard's previous roles were copied from.

Let's compare the above to another actor I really like of a similar age. Let's take Joseph Gordon-Levitt for example. I really liked him in Brick where he plays a high school detective. Then I saw him in The Lookout where he plays a young man living with brain damage who somehow gets involved in a bank heist. In Stop-Loss he played a soldier struggling with the return to civilian life. In Inception he plays Leonardo DiCaprio's right-hand man and gets to wear awesome waistcoats and have a spectacular floating-around-in-a-corridor fight scene. The point is his least interesting role was as the bad guy in GI Joe, and even that was more interesting than any of the supporting characters Amber Heard ever played.

You may ask, what do I know? Maybe Amber Heard was offered all kinds of interesting parts and she just prefers playing girlfriends. Maybe that's okay.

But there is a bigger picture here.

Part of what makes the above examples stand out is that quite often Amber Heard is the only female character in those films. Which means that in the world those films expect us to buy into Amber Heard represents all women. Which means for the most part women aren't very interesting. Not only that but in only having one woman in the whole story the films then fail to represent any kind of reality I'm familiar with. 

There is rarely a good reason for not having more than one female character in a script. But if for some reason that has to be the case (the only reason being someone high up thinks the film needs a woman for the blokes in the audience to look at in case they get confused) then there are things that can be done to make it work. They don't have to be written as one-dimensional pin-ups for the male characters to fight over, even if in reality that's exactly why they've been added into the story. There are examples of this being done well, like with Brittany Murphy's character in Drive (not the Ryan Gosling one, the Mark Dacascos one with lots of people kicking each other that features the line 'You cheese-eating dick monkey!'). Or Ally Walker's character in Universal Soldier (which stands out in my mind as being interesting but it's been a while since I've seen it). There are probably loads more too (but I can't think of any which is the other reason I didn't post this right away in case more examples came to me. They didn't.)

But there is another solution. Sometimes its okay not to have roles for women in a film. Sometimes it's better that way, like in Withnail and I or Reservoir Dogs or 12 Angry Men and probably a thousand more examples (and these I could list here but you get the idea). If Amber Heard hadn't been in any of the films I mentioned above except for The Ward and All the Boys Love Mandy Lane I really wouldn't have noticed. In some cases it would've been an improvement. And you never know, maybe, just maybe she could have made something more interesting instead...

From 1st place to 24th!

It all started so well! Jenny Ringo and the Monkey's Paw was in 1st place in Shooting People's Film of the  Month competition for the first few days of the contest. It held onto a spot in the top 5 for the whole of the first week. In the second week there was a battle to stay in fifth place and though the film frequently dropped out of the top 5 we always managed to claw back enough votes to get us up there again.

But by the end of last week it had all started to go a little bit wrong. And now, half an hour before the end of the first round, the leaderboard looks like this:

That's my film, down in 24th place.

It's not a complete loss. Last month the top film in Round 1 won by around 450 stars. I figured this month would be more competitive so I decided we needed at least 500 and there were times when I wasn't sure we'd ever hit more than 250. But we made it past 500 in the end, it's just that everyone else did way better.

The film did get the most views, which means very little in the competition but it makes me smile. As a result of this and me mentioning it at every available opportunity it has also been played over 1,000 times on vimeo which was my other big target for this year (now we just need 1,000 Facebook likes and 1,000 people signed up to the mailing list).

I think the fact that it had more views than plays is the root of the problem. I think people were put off by the running time. The fact is, I know where pretty much every single one of those 505 votes came from. The majority came from people I know or have worked with or have helped out in some way or another. The rest came from people I approached directly. What we missed out on was the casual voter, because I think the casual voter clicked the link, saw that it would take 25 minutes of their time and moved on (I refuse to learn anything from this). Also, surprisingly few of my filmmaker friends are Shooting People members, which didn't help. 

But the fact that we made it so far in spite of all this is pretty amazing. I'm really grateful to everyone who checked out the film and voted and to all the people who shared the link and were almost as relentless in promoting it as I was.

The film also received some great comments which you can read in full here, below are some of the best - 

"Really liked the ending. Also, the mess in the kitchen reminds me a lot of my time at uni of course. You've nailed the layabout student to a tee with his character."

"Love this, especially the Jeff Awesome character and the musical number. Looking forward to the sequel."

"Talking washing up = awesome."

"I love this piece of work. It's funny and disturbing - but it had the potential to have been so much more intense."

"Terrific film. Great story, love the leads, excellent camera work - and very, very funny (particularly liked the chanting hippies!!)"

"It made me smile, cheered me up, amused me greatly and left me looking for more!"

"One of the best shorts I've seen in ages. Very ambitious and delivers, Jenny Ringo needs her own series!"

Overall it's been an exhausting, time-consuming and occasionally stress-inducing experience but one that was totally worthwhile for all the extra people that got to see the film because of it. 

Would I enter again?

Ask me that question when I've finished Jenny Ringo and the Cabaret from Hell. Speaking of which, I have work to do...

Film of the Month Update!

It's been an exciting, exhausting week. The Shooting People Film of the Month leaderboard now looks like this:

Okay, so it's not as pretty-looking as when Jenny Ringo was in first place like it was at the beginning of the week, but we are still in the top 5 which means we're still in with a chance of getting through to the next round! It just needs to stay in the top 5 for the next 12 days, which is a really long time!

Hope it goes without saying at this point but if you are a Shooting People member, please click the link and give it some stars!

https://shootingpeople.org/watch/111251/jenny-ringo-and-the-monkey-s-paw

Competition has been fierce and at one point the film fell to 9th place and didn't look like it had much chance of getting any higher. I've spent pretty much every non-working, non-nappy-changing minute online pleading with people to vote which is probably a bit annoying now, but like Gabriel Byrne says to Albert Finney in Miller's Crossing - 'I don't ask much and I don't ask often.'

Okay, the second part of that sentence may not be true anymore, but once this competition is out of the way I promise I will get on with the business of actually making stuff again.

It's been really hard work to get this far, but pretty rewarding too. All kinds of people have seen the film now and I've had some fantastic feedback. When we were shooting Jenny Ringo and the Cabaret from Hell I made the assertion that I wouldn't even think about releasing it until the first film had been seen by at least a thousand people. This seemed an over-ambitious target and for a while I thought we would never make it, but as a result of the Shooting People competition the film has now been seen 711 times on vimeo which is fantastic! I've also seen some great films by other people and have lined up a number of them to show at MovieBar in the coming months (speaking of which, MovieBar on Monday was amazing! Standing room only, some of the best films we've screened and a wonderful audience that included my mum and dad).

The support I've had from friends and fans of the film has been incredible and I'm really grateful to everyone who has shared the link or voted for it or left a comment. It makes me wonder what we could achieve if there was a similar competition that didn't require you to be a paid member to vote, so if anyone is aware of anything like that let me know!

But it's not over yet. I still need stars to be in with a chance of winning and I'm starting to run out of contacts! If you're reading this and you're not a Shooting People member you can still help! Just share the link on Facebook and Twitter and ask if any filmmaking types you know are able to vote. The more views we get the better so please do encourage people to watch the film anyway.

I suspect this coming week is going to be even harder than the previous week so wish me luck and I'll check in with you when I can!

Jenny Ringo in Shooting People's Film of the Month!

As of right now, Jenny Ringo and the Monkey's Paw is in first place in Shooting People's Film of the Month competition!!!

So here's how this works.

We're currently in Round 1 which is open until the 20th of September. In order to get through to Round 2 we need to stay in the Top 5 until then.

In Round 2 the votes get reset and the process starts again. If we can get into the top 3 in Round 2 this months guest judge, Danny Boyle, watches the film and gives us some feedback. He also picks a winner, but to be honest having the film seen by Danny Boyle is a big enough achievement in itself!

The only problem is only Shooting People members can vote and you have to pay to be a member. So here's what I need -

If you are a Shooting People member please vote for us by clicking this link and giving the film a star rating. Feel free to e-mail me at whatwritesatmidnight[at]gmail.com telling me you've done it and I'll send you an extremely grateful message back. I'll also happily do anything I can to help you out with your own projects, which is perhaps more useful!

If you're not a member, please click the link anyway and play the film. If there's a tie, like we end up with the same amount of stars as another film, then the number of views you have becomes the deciding factor so every click helps!

Also, if you know any filmmaking people chances are they could be members so please pass on the link. Here's the link in full -

https://shootingpeople.org/watch/111251/jenny-ringo-and-the-monkey-s-paw

Even if you don't know anyone who's a member, you could always tweet the link anyway, just in case!

My strategy is to try to stay at the top for as long as possible in the hope of picking up a few extra stars from curious passers-by. It's going to be a massive challenge to stay in the competition. Our film is about five times longer than most of the other entries so it's a bigger ask to get strangers to watch it. Last month the films that made it through Round 1 all had around 400 stars so we've got a really long way to go yet! But I have a few more tricks up my sleeve yet and have only called in favours from a handful of the filmmakers I know so far, so I'm confident we're in with a good chance.

I'll post updates as the month goes on. If we do win I'm going to record a commentary track for the film and post it online.

Oh, and I'm still trying to get as many people signed up to the mailing list as possible. We're on 317 at the moment so edging closer to 500, at which point I'll upload the outtakes video. Please sign up at www.jennyringo.com

Wish me luck!