dylanpatrickbaldwin

Chapter 27 is a very tragic film, both in the subject matter of John Lennon's murder as well as its sheer amount of unreached potential. Firstly, I'll get this out of the way: Jared Leto's performance is absolutely sublime. He plays a Mark David Chapman who is awkward, sad, and kind of a loser, but simultaneously very chilling and dark. It is truly the performance of an actor who has completely immersed himself in the role, and brings it to a 6 from a 5 or even a 4 singlehandedly for me. In fact, all of the performances are at least decent. The direction is interesting, showcasing Chapman's deterioration as it goes on, and the use of hand-held camera in most shots gives a much more realistic, human feel to all of the increasingly disturbing goings-on throughout the film. There are a few very interesting recurring motifs that enlighten some of the stranger aspects of Chapman's personality, and begin to explain. It has all of this going for it, so the question remains: where does this movie fail? Well, I think it must be mentioned that the film was cut a full 16 minutes from its original Sundance version. Whatever the reasons for these cuts, whether the original version was poorly received and the missing minutes may have actually detracted from the rest of the film or simply a classic case of production studios not understanding an artistic vision, they severely hurt the overall product. I have read that the main point of the film is that Chapman is a metaphor for America as a whole, which has never managed to pull itself out of a state of adolescent confusion. This theory is supported by certain parts of the film, particularly at the beginning and the end, but I'm not sure that the director's vision is really focused enough to actually make that the case. Chapter 27 seems generally confused as to its intended purpose. Is it a character study of a severely damaged individual? No, the film distances itself from that interpretation almost immediately when Chapman narrates that his early childhood and abusive father is "not important". Is it a tragedy of a man who wants nothing more than to find an identity, and in doing so destroys his life? That is closer, and some evidence does bear that out to a point, but again I don't feel as if the tone of the film's conclusion really makes that the case. Perhaps this has been rather vague, but the truth is that Chapter 27, while certainly interesting, is a woefully pointless piece of cinema. Jared Leto's performance aside, this film is really nothing very special; it simply exists, rather uninterpretable. With all that it has going for it, it could have and most likely should have been much better.

Mondo Trasho, the legendary John Waters' debut film, is rife with pacing issues, ugly camera-work, and all around monotony from beginning to end. The ugliness of the film overall is unsurprising, as this is Waters' lowest budget ever at $2,100, about $13,000 today. However, understandable as some of the films' problems may be, it is still mostly a chore to sit through. Still experimenting with forms of storytelling, Waters dug through his record collection to populate nearly the entire film with a collection of 50s and 60s pop music, opting out of traditional dialogue to essentially make a bizarre, trashy silent film with very few sequences of actual speech (3, by my count, each lasting less than two minutes in this 86 minute film). There are a few sequences in which this strange approach to the storytelling actually does convey it well. For example, early on in the film the nameless character played by Mary Vivian Pearce is being stalked by Danny Mills' also nameless foot fetishist, and through cutting between them sets contrasting moods with their two soundtracks. This technique is the main way in which this method of storytelling is put to actually creative use; to juxtapose two different characters' emotional states and set a tone. However, unfortunately it seems that this was Waters' only coherent idea with the project; most of the time the music seems as meandering as the drawn out sequences, which are often drained completely of any initial humor after minutes and minutes of seeing a single bizarre scenario on screen. There are about three thoroughly enjoyable sequences in the entire film that point towards what Waters would later become capable of: Divine's introductory scene, the scene involved Dr. Coathanger, and the final three minutes of the film. These scenes, the last of which contains one of the only instances of dialogue in the entire film, manage to capture the trashy, often perverse and transgressive humor of Waters in genuinely interesting ways, but could not be stretched to feature length. The fact of the matter is that in Waters' infancy as a filmmaker he manages to pull together some interesting ideas and an intriguing mode of storytelling, but sadly comes up short on nearly all fronts due to overlong scenes and repetitive sequences.

Pink Flamingos is truly a sight to behold. Its gargantuan cult reputation is very well deserved, because, simply put, their is nothing else like it, not even in the rest of John Waters' oeuvre. Such a strangely entertaining and cartoonish film has never been made before or since. Waters seemed to somehow pull together the perfect cast for all of his persistently odd roles, a cadre of characters all willing to indulge in sexual perversities, tastelessness, bestiality, and the consumption of various human waste products. The low-grade film stock, the strange long takes punctuated only by zoom-ins, the weird overacting by everyone in the cast, and the disturbing montages set to classic oldies music all works together to become an entirely new film experience. I can't say that it's one that I fully understand, or even that I would like to see another film like it, but I can't deny that this film is truly delightful. Every scene pulsates with anarchical glee, the costume and makeup exudes cartoonish brilliance in every shot, and of course their is the unforgettably divine Divine, otherwise known as Glenn Milstead. His (her?) sheer energy and magnetism in every scene elevates the film immeasurably; no wonder he was Waters' muse. Replete with obvious line flubs, clear awkwardness during certain scenes, and shots which should probably have had a few seconds trimmed, this is certainly a trash masterpiece, the diametric opposite of high art, and Waters' crowning achievement as a filmmaker. Were this to be made by any filmmaker other than the supremely strange Waters, it most likely would have fallen flat on its face. No other auteur has ever been in the motion picture business who so well understands the value of utter garbage, and so revels in all that is dirty and depraved in the world. This film demands that the audience bask in the glory of trash as entertainment, and that we live, breath, and worship refuse. While I cannot say that I agree, or that I will partake in these activities anytime soon, it somehow manages to make it enticing. Pink Flamingos is the crowning achievement of waste throughout all of mankind's existence. The only reason that it gets a 9 and not a 10 from me is that there were several instances where the depravity did begin to sicken me rather than entice, though these were rectified shortly afterwards. Also, I think that if I gave it a 10 I might go to hell.