Last week we saw a teaser for director Franck Khalfoun’s take on the William Lustig classic Maniac, which made mannequins even weirder than they were before and established Tom Savini as the king of head splattering gore effects. Now, because apparently the studio has no sense of pacing for their marketing, we get a full length, very NSFW trailer for currently release-date-less film. Elijah Wood, taking over for Joe Spinelli, is certainly… uhh… doing his thing.

It’s definitely 100% confirmed now that the movie will be entirely in first person, which could be cool and could also make it unwatchable. I like Wood though (pause) and the film is written by the very talented Alexandre Aja, so I’m definitely willing to roll with this. They certainly seem to be ready to roll with the violence, as there’s plenty of scalping here of both the corporeal and plasticine variety. Plus Elijah Wood looking like he hasn’t slept in a week. There better be a shotgun blast though…

For whatever reason (oh yeah, everything is shitty and broken…) even our most potentially fun action movies have taken a turn for the dour and serious. Christopher Nolan’s Batman films are the obvious examples to point to here, but even more lighthearted fare like The Avengers and Star Trek had their fair share of brooding and pathos. Oftentimes this is exhibited most purely in the villains who are downcast, bitter people with some serious and sad personal issues.

That’s all well and good, and sure it probably makes for some deeper storytelling, but we’ve definitely drifted away from the time when people where about villainy for villainies sake. I miss vilains just being goofy motherfuckers with one or two weird visual signifiers, a collection of one liners, and a utterly over the-top hammy performance. Let’s take a look back at some of the best. Here’s the High Five.

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5. Bennett (Commando) // Vernon Wells

All you need to know about Vernon Well’s performance in the perennially underrated and bizarrely forgotten Commando can be captured in that nightmare inducing face you see above you. As the former partner turned nemesis of our hero, John Matrix, the chubby Aussie Bennett sneers his way through a quasi-paint-by-numbers villain role before exploding into sweaty, goofy, sad awesomeness for the climactic battle.

He also happens to have the best/worst villain outfit ever, some morose leather-daddy getup that includes a heather grey mesh tank top and caterpillar mustache. He’s basically the villain equivalent of Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s character from Boogie Nights, all pent up obsession with Matrix and knife penetration. Nullus. Mesh tank top.

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4. Dr. Emilio Lazardo (The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension!) // John Lithgow

First off, kudos to John Lithgow for almost showing up twice on this list for his work as Qualen in Cliffhanger (another movie I love that people don’t talk about that often anymore). But even that helicopter-wearing baddie couldn’t stand up to the trans-dimensional Dr. Lizardo AKA Red Lectroid Lord John Worfin.

Did that not make any sense at all to you? Good, that means you can still have the immense pleasure of seeing Buckaroo Banzai for the first time in your life. You get to see Lithgow scuttle around making intense animal noises, say stuff like “Shut up John Bigbooty!” all in a vaguely placable accent and with a crazy poof of hair and… just watch the movie okay.

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3. Castor Troy (Face/Off) // Nicolas Cage/John Travolta

Protip: Take your face off. Replace it with another guys face. ????. Profit! At least I assume that’s how the pitch meeting went down for one of the best action movies of all time. John Woo got double the fun by allowing his magnetically evil Castor Troy character be played by not one but two Oscar caliber actors who also happen to be more or less insane.

You don’t get a whole lot of Cage’s Troy, but holy shit does he make the most of it, including a scene with a giant mustache, grabbing fistfulls of a choir girls butt, and getting his tongue sucked. There’s no way that Travolta could live up to that I mean ho- oh is he dancing around whilst disarming a bomb? Romancing his own teenage daughter? Trying to mutilate his own face with a piece of metal whilst simultaneously having a harpoon sticking out of his chest? Thanks guys!

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2. Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg (The Fifth Element) // Gary Oldman

That name. That hair. That accent. That flavor saver. What’s not to love about Zorg? The best part about his campy goofiness is that it’s all intentional on his part, and is really his defining characteristic. He’s a man of precise appearances (what, you just think ‘do is like that when he rolls out of bed?) and perfection, who maintins his power by operating above everyone around him.

People are supposed to be afraid to question him because he is a consummate other, someone who’s actions are supposed to be unpredictable, straddling a line between silly and sinister. His motivations don’t really make sense (what’s he supposed to do after the purge of all humans anyway?) but it doesn’t matter. He’s just an evil sonofabitch with a world class wardrobe.

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1. Howard Payne (Speed) // Dennis Hopper

Full disclosure: the whole impetus for this High Five was the fact that Speed came on the TV last night and I ended up watching the whole thing, reliving how awesome it is and especially how goofily deranged Hopper’s 9-fingered performance is. Thank god for Jan De Bont they got Hopper for this role by the way. The character himself is actually written in a way you could see him bogged down by his past, bitter and sullen at the loss of his thumb or whatever.

But not in 90s era Hopper’s hands, who basically just plays him as a guy who likes to blow shit up, say “Jack” a lot, and make one of the best villain faces ever when a purple dyepak explodes out of a money bag into his face. Keanu tries to keep up charisma wise, but no one can hold a candle to Howard Payne. He is taller though.

Judging from its matter-of-fact plot synopsis – “A drama focused on five months in the life of pedophile who keeps a 10-year-old boy locked in his basement.” – first-time director/writer Markus Schleinzer‘s drama Michael isn’t going to appeal to a wide audience. It’s certainly the darkest character study I’ve seen in recent memory and also the most well crafted. Schleinzer, a disciple of Michael Haneke (Funny Games),  presents the character of Michael without passing any judgement, which makes it all the more unsettling.

Michael is a grumpy middle-class insurance salesman who from 9-5 works in his cubicle, begrudgingly goes out for drinks with his co-workers, and even goes on ski trips with them. But in general he’s testy and tends to keep to himself. When he returns home in the evenings, he shares some quality time with Wolfgang, a young boy who Michael keeps locked in the basement. They share awkward dinners together. They watch TV before bed. Michael even takes Wolfgang for a nice afternoon at the petting zoo. That wasn’t meant to be a euphemism – he seriously takes him to a petting zoo.

And, you know, Michael is a pedophile with a kidnapped boy in his basement, so…he does things to Wolfgang. Schleinzer wisely only shows us what we need to see, which is still highly disturbing but never graphic. These moments make up a very small fraction of the film and are cleverly implied by Michael washing up afterwards and marking off the date in his day-planner. We’re always with Michael, played with maximum creepiness by Michael Fuith, as he works, shops, and cleans his home. After a while, his routine feels normal – too normal. And that’s where the brilliance of the film lies. This evil man is a slave to routine like a lot of us and it’s really disconcerting to watch.

Michael’s world starts to spiral due to uncontrollable events and the secret of his boy-toy is threatened when a co-worker takes interest in Michael. On top of this intrusion, Wolfgang is getting lonely during the day and wants a brother (he already has a TV, what else does a little boy need?!). But even through these complications, the film’s bleak tone is never compromised by a police investigation or a pounding chase between Michael and an escaped Wolfgang. The end is sure to spark heated conversation between viewers.

Michael is a brilliant debut film that puts us at the dinner table with pure evil. The final 10 minutes are absolutely agonizing – I was squirming in my seat from the unbearable suspense (and from hanging out with a pedophile for so long). It’s surprisingly hilarious in places as well, as it satires the parent-child relationship. The horrible sexual abuse is kept off-screen while the real horror of the disgustingly aberrant routine of Michael and Wolfgang’s home life is front and center.

I highly recommend catching Michael on Netflix Watch Instantly before it’s gone. I also recommend watching it with someone else – a grandparent maybe – because you’re going to want to talk about the end.

From the ’60s-style promotional video for the Arboria Institute that opens the film to the final jarring minutes of the film, Beyond the Black Rainbow brings you under its control and lulls you into a visual and audio trance. During your immersive state of hypnosis, it might be easy to overlook the heady themes of writer-director Panos Cosmatos’ debut feature. Against a throbbing, psychadelic backdrop, Cosmatos tells a story of repression and contrition set in an alternate 1983 that will not be easily shaken from your memory. It’s a beautiful nightmare I didn’t want to end.

In a reticent organization called the Arboria Initiative, Dr. Barry Nyle (Michael Rogers) examines and treats a female patient named Alena (Eva Allen), who’s actually more of a prisoner. The institute’s stated goal is to explore the possibilities of the human psyche and find inner peace through the use of mind-altering chemicals. Part of Nyle’s research appears to be to track the evolution of Alena’s psychological evolution and telekinesis. That’s my theory at least. As the movie unfurls through flashback and Nyle’s interaction with his mother and Dr. Arboria, we see how truly disturbing their work is. It’s obviously  taking a hefty toll on Nyles as well.

There’s no explanation or clear exposition, which is fine by me. Cosmatos’ film is absolutely stunning and meticulous in its presentation. It’s not a movie you can throw on while throwing back beers with your boys. It demands your attention and if you commit to this film, you’ll be floored by how intensely hypnotizing it truly is. The film itself is a mind-altering narcotic – every aspect from the ambiguous performances to the ambient score hold you under a trippy sci-fi spell. Cosmatos’ ambition pays off in spades.

Newcomer Eva Allen delivers a great performance as Alena, but Michael Rogers (Hellraiser: Hellseeker) steals the show as the repressed Barry Nyle. When we first meet him, he appears in control of Alena and himself. Then Cosmastos and Rogers  flip the script and present us with a character deeply complex and tortured in a way through his work with Arboria. In the end, Nyle’s sheds his skin (in a manner of speaking) and transforms into a terrifying boogeyman that gave me the wicked bad willies.

There are some really funny moments in the film – Nyle’s disinterest in his mother’s leftovers was a great bit – and some terrifying ones too. I never thought someone licking glass would be anything but silly, but it made my skin crawl in BBR. Overall the movie never breaks you from its pulsing rhythm of sight and sound. The sound design melds into Jeremy Schmidt’s fantastic score – enhancing the hypnotizing effect of the meticulous visuals. And oh god, the visuals. Drenched in neons and the blackest blacks, the set and costume designs are incredible in their simplicity.

A lot of morons are writing Beyond the Black Rainbow off as an effortless homage to ’80s sci-fi and Kubrick. The influences are obviously there, but Cosmatos’ film is a beast all its own that’s going to have people discussing their conflicting interpretations for years to come. A simple plot enhanced with serious themes, BBR is an immersive feast and a brilliant addition to the lo-fi sci-fi horror genre. Stare into the glowing triangle and enjoy the trip!

It’s sort of crazy to think that it’s been 5 years since There Will Be Blood. It’s also quite crazy to think that PT Anderson, the type of timeless director whose projects nonetheless are imbued with a strong sense of timeliness, has yet to make a movie in the very specifically and deeply strange world we’re currently experiencing. While The Coen Brothers, who of course released No Country For Old Men that same year, have run through three major projects since then (including A Serious Man, one of their very best) Anderson has been toiling and toiling at just one: The Master.

Finally, we’ve gotten a teaser trailer for that film, though it’s so fantastic (and, based on what I know, not really suggestive of the rest of the film) that it’s almost a short film on its own. While The Master is a period piece set in the late 40s concerning the founding of a Scientology-like religion by Philip Seymour Hoffman (yes please), this really excellent teaser features Joaquin Phoenix looking very dangerous. Phoenix plays a drifter who becomes Hoffman’s right hand man, and he appears to be acting his ass off. It seems his self-imposed hiatus recharged his creative energy. You also get a taste of the Jonny Greenwood score. That October release date cannot come soon enough.

William Lustig’s Maniac (1980) is one of the sleaziest NYC movies ever made. Starring the almighty Joe Spinell (Last Horror Film, Cruising, Nighthawks, too many classics to name) as tortured serial killer scalper Frank Zito, Maniac is a landmark of ’80s gritty NYC indie-cinema. It’s like a NYC giallo on PCP. The chilling final scene is as hauntingly sympathetic as they come and it’s important to note that Lustig and Tom Savini used a real shotgun without a permit to pull off the legendary head-through-the-windshield scene. Hands-down, it’s a brutal, intelligent classic.

And now it’s been remade by director Franck Khalfoun, starring the mirror opposite of Joe Spinnell: Elijah Wood. Original reports stated that the entire remake would be first-person, through Frank’s eyes, and this alluring Cannes teaser reinforces that approach. The above teaser is gleefully voyeuristic, racy, and violent – and overall really promising. I think Elijah has a lot of untapped range pent up in his miniscule frame so it’s going to be fun to see him get his hands dirty. Very dirty.

Music video wunderkind Spike Jonze made the leap to feature film in 1999 with the bleak existential comedy Being John Malkovich. Racking up three Oscar nominations, the film’s imaginative premise of getting to be somebody else for 15 minutes appealed to a mass audience – even if many were confused by writer Charlie Kaufman’s humorous approach to sexual identity, privacy, and megalomania. Jonze strung together an A-list cast (yes, even Cameron Diaz is great here) and as their puppet-master, pulled career-best performances out of the lot. 13 years later, the film gets a well-deserved Criterion Collection treatment.

After years puppeteering to a disinterested public on the street, disillusioned artist Craig (John Cusack) gets a job as a filing clerk schlub on the 7½ floor of a bizarre office building. He quickly becomes smitten with his sharp, sexy coworker Maxine (Catherine Keener). Forgetting about his dowdy veterinarian wife Lotte (Cameron Diaz), Craig pursues Maxine like a frothing puppy with a ponytail. In her belittling manner, she explains how she’s not interested.

One day at work, Craig discovers a small door hidden behind a filing cabinet. Behind the door is a portal that leads into the head of John Malkovich. After seeing through his eyes and feeling what he feels for 15 minutes, the portal spits you out in a ditch alongside the New Jersey Turnpike. The cunning Maxine quickly changes her tune with Craig once he tells her about the portal. While Craigs sees a chance to reach the apex of puppeteering by controlling Malkovich, Maxine sees dollar signs.

Lotte discovers her true sexual self after going through the portal and after a three-way with Maxine, Malkovich begins to catch on. In order to have Maxine to himself and to reach the level of artistic fame he always dreamed of, Craig shuts himself inside Malkovich’s mind and body – becoming the ultimate puppet master.

Looking back at Being John Malkovich, you almost miss how eerily prophetic it was. Because it’s so damn entertaining and funny, it’s easy to overlook the issues it raises about privacy – notably the looming end of privacy, which is something fucking us all up nowadays. Privacy is merchandise nowadays, with reality shows the most popular dreck on TV and personal information being bought and sold through the social media sewer. These accurate predictions made by Kaufman and Jonze don’t take away from the film’s wild humor, but they do make the subject matter more depressing in hindsight.

Being John Malkovich is presented by Criterion in its original aspect ratio of 1.85.1 with a 1080p transfer. For a contemporary film it’s a noticeably much better picture than previous releases. The sound mix is also a huge leap forward, especially during the portal sequences and the classic, frantic Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich scene. There’s about an hours worth of commentary from Jonze’s friend and “competitor” Michel Gondry, who speaks about his initial jealousy over the film and his collaboration with Kaufman. Lance Bangs cut together an all-new, 30 minute behind the scenes feature, which presents loads of on-set footage as well as interviews. There’s also a new interview with Jonze accompanied by on-set photos.  My favorite new feature is a conversation between humorist John Hodgman and Malkovich. Malkovich talks about his reactions to the script as well as the nature of his celebrity.

Features carried over from the 2002 Universal DVD include the hilarious LesterCorp orientation video and the American Arts & Culture piece seen in the film on Malkovich’s transition to puppeteering.

The booklet features a Q&A between Jonze and Perkus Tooth (the Jonathan Lethem character) which was cute, but left me wanting the usual analytical essay included in most Criterion booklets. Overall, this is a fantastic overhaul for the film – one of the first movies I obsessed over as a youth. Highly recommended.

There comes a time in every aging, hedonistic skate-punk’s life when he has to put down the bong and put things into perspective. For some the transition to adulthood goes fairly smoothly with limited demons to shrug off, but for others it may take a few tries and you might not land where you expected. Such is the case with Fullerton, CA semi-pro skater Josh “Skreech” Sandoval – the subject of Tristan Patterson‘s beautifully melancholic punk-rock documentary Dragonslayer.

Years ago a crippling depression caused Sandoval to take a hiatus from the skateboarding world. He lost his sponsors and is homeless – crashing in different friends’ apartments and in tents on their lawns. He’s self-destructive – he admits that – and is rarely seen onscreen sober. But he seems more than content living this way; floating around, only slightly bothered by the fact that he’s a father to a six-month-old boy. it’s not that he’s a bad person and is consciously not being there for his son, I got the hint that the mother didn’t want Skreech around. Maybe she’s afraid of the contact high.

We follow Skreech and his tight-lipped true love Leslie around Orange County, Copenhagen, and Portland, OR as they pursue no concrete goal other than to exist. And get high, or course. Along the way Skreech competes in a few skate competitions – placing in 3rd or 4th.

He eats shit a lot and often throws up in between runs, but it’s obvious there’s nothing he’d rather do in the world. Interviews with his friends and Leslie are scarce and no real light is shed on Skreech’s past, but the film is so deeply intimate that any outside opinion of him would feel like an obstruction.

There’s no standard narrative running through the film. Patterson goes for an impressionistic approach that remains affectionate throughout. The shots are beautiful and show a huge amount of promise for Patterson as a filmmaker. The serene shots of empty, abandoned homes and pools make Skreech look like a skateboard warrior in the post-apocalyptic economic crisis.

There’s a remarkable scene at a drive-in with Skreech and Leslie that looks pulled right out of a Cassevetes film. The ending is bittersweet – a smirk tattooed on the face of adulthood. There’s no bullshit sentiment – just an honest, intimate portrait of Skreech and the ugly, fire-breathing, shit-throwing world he inhabits. Dragonslayer is now available on Netflix Watch Instantly. This is the second film released by Drag City. Their first was Harmony Korine’s Trash Humpers.

Well, not really, but we can all pretend right? Especially since the first trailer for his new movie, The We and The I, shows the movie is after a more realistic (albeit freewheeling) style free of the psychedelic whimsy of Science of Sleep and Eternal Sunshine, or the big budget weirdness of the (very underrated, really) Green Hornet. Set entirely (or so it seems) on a bus taking teenage kids home after the last day of school looks quite good.

I seem to remember this movie having a time travel element at some point (Gondry has been talking about it since what seems like 2008 or 2009) but I guess that has gone by the wayside. Good riddance it seems to me, as I’m enjoying the unfettered feel of this thing. Also, thanks Michel for including a shot of an old woman getting faux ejaculated on in your trailer. Do you homie!