Well, dear reader, here we are on the cusp of Christmas, for some a yearly orgy of food and gifts in honor of the birth of Santa Claus and, for others, a terrible day which brings a visitation by the infernal Krampus. Regardless of whether you are gorging yourself or trembling in fear, we here at the FAM would like to offer you a few minutes of seasonal motion picture entertainment.

Today we present parts one and two of Finnish director Jelmari Helander’s thoroughly entertaining Rare Exports series, the third of which was released on December 3rd as a full length feature. Released in 2003 and 2005 they are presented as promotional/training videos for a company in Finland, Rare Exports, Inc, dealing with the tracking, capturing, training, and handling of Father Christmases for sale abroad.

It is an almost absurdly simple conceit and the entire exercise could have come off as completely banal were it not for the gravelly narration by Jonathan Hutchings and appropriately stoic performances from the main cast of Tommi Korpela, Jorma Tommila, and Tazu Ovaska, their grim visages a counterpoint to Otso Tarkela delightfully feral Kris Kringle. Jean-Noël Mustonen manages to capture both a stark beauty and palpable griminess with his camera, both of which do well to accentuate the moments of surreal humor throughout each film. For all the scenes of waving grass and abattoir-esque training rooms, these are still movies that feature three men chasing down a nude, 300 year-old Father Christmas and taking him down with tranquillizer darts, all in order to domesticate him so that he may have a child on his lap without having to worry about him eating them.

On another note, I must say that I really appreciated Helander using the same cast from film to film. Even the full-length release retains most of the original cast with the exception of Tarkela (for obvious reason) and Ovaska. Were this an American production, this may have not been the case, one need only look at the Finnish and American trailers of the new film to get a sense of how things could have gone horribly awry. It’s a small thing to be sure but I enjoy the continuity across all three films.

And that is going to wrap it up for this year’s Yuletide edition of The Friday Afternoon Movie. From everyone here, we wish you and yours a pleasant and Krampus free holiday.

Fellow admirers of the late Pina Bausch may get a little emotional, watching this trailer for the upcoming film Pina– Dance, Dance… Otherwise We Are Lost, made “For Pina Bausch, by Wim Wenders.”

Via Gabrielle Zucker, thanks.

Coming soon. In 3D, no less! In the wake of that first wave of 3D schlockbusters and huge budget family movies, it’s going to be interesting to watch and see if this oncoming wave of arguably more “arthouse friendly” 3D films (Wenders’ film, Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams, and Scorcese’s Invention of Hugo Cabret being chief among them) will change more critical viewers’ perceptions and expectations of the medium.

From Bryan Boyce (the same twisted genius responsible for that Teletubbies/Bush State of the Union meme and the Karaoke Hellhounds, not to mention a bunch of other craziness) comes this ridiculously beautiful/beautifully ridiculous “belly dance horror movie” made using footage from the 1932 public domain classic White Zombie and starring Bela Lugosi, along with, well… a whole gaggle of Coilhouse regulars!

Featuring hypnotic music by Dan Cantrell and the Toids. To see the entire original film, visit good ol’ archive.org. To revisit the oft-mentioned splendiferousness that is Rachel Brice, Mardi Love and Zoe Jakes, click here or here or here or here or here or here.

image courtesy Fascination: The Jean Rollin Experience

Jean Michel Rollin Le Gentil, French film director fantastique and “gentle poet of sensual horror”,  passed away yesterday (December 15, 2010) at 72, after a long illness.

Much beloved by his fans and horror connoisseurs, lauded for his bizarre genius and the unique, intensely personal vision he brought to his films, Rollin leaves a legacy brimming with uncanny beauty and perverse, morbid delights.

Though his works contained elements of horror cinema,  Rollin insisted he did not make horror films; instead he prefers the label fantastique, which he described as “the opposite of the supernatural”.   His story telling, marked by “surreal sensibilities” and a “narcotic narrative drive”, made for mysterious (and at times maddening) viewing; but the imagery, oh, the imagery. Languid and melancholy, romantic and doom-laden, the dreamy atmospheres Rollin crafted were truly like nothing else in cinema: “…hermetically sealed worlds of desolate chateaus, solitary vampires and violent seduction”.

According to Rollin’s son Serge, who spoke with Fangoria shortly after his father’s death, “Jean was surrounded by his friends, and was looking at the photos of his two granddaughters when he died.”

Jean Rollin (via)

Rollin was calmly uncompromising and self-assured to the very end. The filmmaker’s own words about his work and perceptions of criticism are as fitting a closing statement as any:

“Honestly, I don’t care [what people call me]. Some people say I’m a genius, others consider me the greatest moron who ever stepped behind a camera. I have heard so many things said about me and my films, but these are just opinions.

I am perfectly happy with what I do, because it has always been my choice.”

The new live-action Yogi Bear movie is a thing that exists, of that fact there is no doubt and, unfortunately, no escape. Were it to end in the manner depicted here by Edmunde Earl, as a darkly humorous ode to the penultimate scene from 2007’s under-appreciated The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, it might have at least some modicum of value. This is, of course, not the case and we are left with the reality that, as previous mentioned, there is a live-action Yogi Bear movie. Starring Dan Aykroyd and Justin Timberlake.

Goddammit.

After a brief hiatus, David Forbes’ All Tomorrows column, your informal classroom on the glories of sci-fi’s Deviant Age, returns to Coilhouse. Welcome back, David!

Paul took a deep breath to still his trembling. “If I call out there’ll be servants on you in seconds and you’ll die.”

“Servants will not pass your mother who stands guard outside that door. Depend on it. Your mother survived this test. Now it’s your turn. Be honored. We seldom administer this to men-children.”

Curiosity reduced Paul’s fear to a manageable level. He heard truth in the old woman’s voice, no denying it. If his mother stood guard outside… if this were truly a test… And whatever it was, he knew himself caught in it, trapped by that hand at his neck: the gom jabbar. He recalled the response from the Litany against Fear as his mother had taught him out of the Bene Gesserit rite.

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

Chilton published car manuals. So it must have come as some surprise, 45 years ago, when, out of nowhere, they released a lengthy, phenomenally strange science fiction novel by a nearly unknown journalist. The man’s agent wasn’t even enthusiastic about the manuscript and it had seen rejection from every reputable sci-fi publishing house before squeaking into the pages of Analog.

Dune, read the imposing cover, with its evocatively psychedelic sand swirls and tiny white figures straining against an implied storm. The John Schoenherr art revealed little about the plot or themes inside, other than to convey a sense of struggle and desolation in an otherworldly place.

Opening it up, the reader was plunged into a story of universe-shaking drugs, dynastic backstabbing and heterodox mysticism sprinkled with a tumble of words (Bene Gesserit, Kwisatz Haderach, Sardaukar, gom jabbar) so strange as to constitute a second language. Whatever the sci-fi readers of the day might have expected, this was doubtlessly not it. By all rights, this unexpected book should have sunk beneath the proverbial sands, awaiting rediscovery in a friendlier artistic age.

Instead, after a somewhat tepid start, it proved a runaway best-seller, sweeping every award sci-fi had to offer. Dune would go on to define the rest of Herbert’s life and ripple into the surrounding culture with an impact that no one, including its author, could have foreseen.

In many ways Dune was the epic Omega to the Alpha of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings; released about a decade before. It was sci-fi’s answer to fantasy’s magnum opus, and its only book that can rival Tolkien’s in terms of cultural influence. Herbert’s masterpiece proved tenaciously infectious, its tendrils stretching into all sorts of unexpected corners of the culture, with even its mantras showing up as warning or inspiration.

What is it about this ornate myth that keeps fascinating new generations, why has Dune outlasted its era with such influence?

Today the FAM is proud to present perhaps my favorite documentary: 1999’s American Movie, directed by Chris Smith. American Movie tells the story of Mark Borchardt, an aspiring filmmaker living in Milwaukee. With the help of his best friend, the endlessly entertaining burnout Mike Schank, and various other friends, family members, and amateur actors, Borchardt attempts to finish his latest feature, the short horror film Coven.

All is not well, of course, and Borchardt’s life. A high-school drop out, he is mired in debt. His relationship with his ex-girlfriend and mother of his three children is strained and he has developed a bit of a drinking problem. And while he works hard at film-making and appears fairly knowledgeable, his ability to plan and manage his project is suspect. Even his own family have their doubts that Mark will be able to finish the film, his only support coming from his wealthy Uncle Bill who, in his old age, seems confused by his surroundings more often than not.

And yet they make for a cast of likable characters. Mark most certainly has his own personal demons to work through but Smith has no trouble letting him win over the audience with his can-do attitude. Uncle Bill, for all his rancor, does genuinely care for Mark and some of the most touching scenes are between these two. And of course there is Mike, a man whose mind is so ravaged by drugs and alcohol that is almost incoherent, yet whose loyalty and devotion to his friend is almost absolute.

It all amounts to the quintessential American story, the myth that has for so long symbolized this nation; a tale of hard work and passion bordering on obsession, of perseverance over adversity. In this way even the most lowly individual can make of themselves a success. In the same way, it is also a story of class. In stark contrast to Chris Smith’s middle-class background and film school degree Mark’s dream project Northwestern is told distinctly from his point of view from a working class family in the Midwest. His film is set against a backdrop of dilapidated building and rusty cars. “That’s what it’s all about,” he says “rust and decay.”

Despite these seemingly gloomy outlook, Mark remains unswayed in his decision to make movies. It is this almost delusional tenacity that lies at the center of American Movie and it is here where it truly resonates, showing us a modicum of hope where most would expect to find none.

If there is anything to be taken away from this intro for A Man Called Rage — one of 26 films distributed by US Home Video under the title of Sybil Danning’s Adventure Video — it’s that there was a time when the post-apocalypse meant that people were allowed to wear anything as clothes. Even as Danning lends the superbly written intro the sort of gravitas that an only an actor of her caliber can provide, I remain mesmerized by her xylophone and wind chime ensemble. I especially like how all her jewelry is on her right side while her teased hair is swept steadfastly in the opposite direction. The look is completed with some sort of bazooka/oversized clutch that looks like a collapsed projector screen. You can’t tell me you would take the bedraggled look of the modern wasteland wanderer over the height of fashioned favored by the Mad Max era desert divas.

Mmm. Military upskirt.

Earlier this year, North Korea let a bunch of international journalists in to document evidence of the country’s enormous, throbbing doom cock. Apparently the military parade was part of a campaign to establish Kim Jong-il’s youngest son as ruler-in-waiting.  This stunning slow-motion footage (shot on high end Canon60D and 1DmkIV camera with a smooth-tracking pocket dolly) was captured by UK Guardian reporters. Shortly thereafter, Galaxygamma came up with the completely unsettling idea of juxtaposing the “Hell March” theme from Command & Conquer: Red Alert with the Guardian’s footage.

Happy Black Friday, y’all! Wooo!

Today is the Friday after Thanksgiving here in the US, which of course means that once again the Salespocalypse has descended upon this fair nation. Even now the fields are being decimated by swarms of bargains and the rivers run red with savings. While we here at the FAM do not partake in this yearly consumer orgy, content to huddle in our cell deep underground, far away from the lamentations of the trampled, we understand that there may be some among our readership who cannot resist the primal, thrifty Siren call of Great Deals.

Should you be among those who make it out alive we invite you to sit down, relax, and put the images of that helpless little girl out of your mind. No need to revisit the scene. No need to remember her cries of pain or recall the look of horror and resignation that came across her face right before that obese woman’s Jazzy crushed her skull. Here, have a look at some wonderful cartoons. To ease your guilt we give you Don Hertzfeldt’s amazing animated short Rejected. Watch it; it’s pretty funny. There you go, you just forget about that poor girl. I’m sure her family will be fine and, after all, they did wind up beating you to that very cheap HDTV. They came out ahead really. I mean, they can always make another daughter but when are you ever going to be able to get a 52″ plasma for under $600.00?