Misery: “This is So Good, Now Keep it Away”

Misery is a movie I love to death and yet I find myself somewhat avoiding it, actually a lot avoiding it, just because when I think about it I can automatically recall the tension that comes in my body during the viewing of it, it’s absolutely fantastically miserable. There's the great performances in the movie that ultimately takes place in one setting for the most part and really between mostly two actors, and the way that the two work off of each other is almost a whole another piece I could write about in the “Actors POV” section of my blog. But this portion here is just to talk about the scenes I feel this movie does so well, and the way these scenes conjure up tension by giving us a protagonist who actually has what is commonly referred to as a brain, an antagonist who has the unflappable will of a terminator, and a closed setting that settles and unsettles. Also I want to kind of set up with some of my favorite and some of the worst things I see in horror. For example, I'm not as keen as I used to be on downing or judging characters in horror films for making bad decisions under what has to be considerable duress. You know that thing where a character keeps walking towards some strange sound in the night, and you yell “DON'T GO IN THERE!” and in your frustration begin to give up on the movie, because f*** this..Oh that’s just me? New me, I understand or try to understand that many of us on an occasion of meeting with things that do not jive with what we understand to be reality, would act as if that's not what's happening. In other words I’ve never seen anything resembling Freddy Krueger and/or Jason Voorhies and they would be the last things on my mind if things started seeming out of place in a real setting, whereas the audience in a movie is automatically in on the fact that this is a ghost story or story featuring a monster or some other terrible thing or terrible person, and additionally that even being in a movie theater is an agreement upon a break with reality. I have limits though as to how far I'm willing to deal with certain characters shenanigans and stupidity in film and this expresses itself in a very William Hurt “how could you f*** that up way. There's only so many times I can watch a person trip over s*** that ain't there, or put down a weapon after only stunning a person whose seemed nigh unstoppable and immovable in their desire to kill me, or reveal to an antagonist who obviously wants the worst for you and is already in a fragile place that you know what they're up to and you're going to get them when you don't so much as have a piece of broccoli in your hand to fight them with. Something else, (especially as I’ve gotten older I) I think about is the settings, the people, the environment. I like when films take place during the day instead of in the dark. I like when the antagonist is someone who seems charming or wonderful instead of instantly threatening and dastardly, and when the home it may be placed in is warm and inviting rather than dilapidated and rude. It does not mean that it automatically makes a horror films better that these things are there, but that when executed well it heightens the tension and fear to know that the places we normally deem as safe are not as safe as we have previously thought.

The Conjuring Rosemary's Baby The Shining and alien are examples of films that were sent in settings that weren't inherently scary or indicative of the whores that lighting either the places people or things. Shaking up our expectations that evil things are housed only in what looks evil.

In Misery writer William Goldman basically includes all of the above. The movie takes place mostly during the day and in an inviting town under the care of what initially seems like an inviting caring “Good Samaritan”. Much like that morphine Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates) has hooked up to writer Paul Sheldon (James Caan) we slowly start getting drips of clues that reveal Annie is not what she seems until boom the whole thing is open, the artery is spouting blood, and we now know that she's a full-on demon. The town Annie Occupies is small, scenic, You watch a lot of other horror movies you'll see some form of a foreboding entry into a foreboding town in the movie. It might come by way of a gas station attendant who's leering, or a strange sky, or townsfolk like the family and the gas station member we met in Tobe Hooper's “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” ( Drew Goddard's Cabin in the Woods is also a great example of a movie that understands trope exists and then plays on it). These are the kind of sign post alerts that set the tone and put the audience in a mood so that by the time the scares are coming the audience is pretty much already set to jump, shudder, and holler, but in Misery they work harder to make us feel like he’s saved, not doomed, this despite the existence of trailers that told us who Annie was. This is proof that fear and all of its cousins are less about what we see, and more about how we feel. We're introduced to Annie Wilkes as a warm sensitive caring woman who happens to be one of his fans.. Little strange, little lonely, but nothing more, so despite me having seen this movie a million times even I am still somewhat drawn in by Annie original and unique charms, Bates does an uncanny job of playing a character whose evil takes on the same shape as her good. Later we are also introduced to Buster and his wife Virginia who qualify for me as one of the most charming couples in the history of movies besides maybe “Nick and Nora” in the Thin Man. The fact that the captor is sweet and the so too is the town she occupies recalibrates our thinking about the suggestions of where evil lives. That it's not necessarily in the midst of impoverished scenery or amongst disfigured or disabled people, that it can be amongst those who seem absolutely loving, the able bodied, and the status quo, all of whom in fact have a great deal of rage and evil hiding inside them.

There are two types of protagonist in horror movies I abhor on opposite sides of a spectrum, type A. is the type of protagonist in horror films who as far as I’m concerned lives or find themselves alive at the end almost completely by will of the pen, they win despite themselves, as if basically they had no business living if it were any truth to the matter but a deal was struck that guaranteed them life as a protagonist, so the bumbling idiot who has been warned by the house and seen various incarnations of the ghost or the monster doesn't die even though they continually go walking into the closet after they saw the little doll hop up off the shelf and “Jesse Owens” their way into the closet cackling and whispering to them “Come here I want to play” (clearly I’m not over this particular trauma). The other type is the person who either through forms of intelligence, feats of athleticism (pulling the martial arts out of their ass) or things that just don't click with everything that we've been told about them, survive damage that would irreparably harm them, or do things that just cant even be explained. So that character X who appeared in the last scene being stabbed into a human cheese grating block will now appear to save the day, even though they should’ve bled out in five minutes. As it were Paul in Misery is my favorite type of protagonist, dead center of the spectrum. Resourceful , witty, but fallible. Every single bit of tension in this movie, every time we are held in suspense or clenching our seat it is due to the obstacles that Paul as a normal human being has to try and overcome. The film thoughtfully considers that he is foreign to his surroundings and on top of that temporarily disabled. Annie Wilkes is a great foil opposite Paul because she is an unmovable force, and though the movie suggest Annie may not be the most intelligent in a “classic” sense many of us have been typically raised to view it, she is clearly intelligent, intelligent enough to think of a number of variations on how Paul might escape and to deceive others quite adeptly. Paul too is a thinker, but not one that seems unbelievable. He wants out, but is also not so drunk with the idea of getting out of there that he starts stumbling and tripping over himself to get to his destination, alerting Annie to exactly what it is he wants. I love every scene (and the way James Caan expresses this) where Paul attempts to appease Annie Wilkes and to be friendly and on board with all of her mess, it feels spot on as to how you might overdo it a little in order to cover immense hate or dislike for a person who is your captor. Once he sees what Annie is about, or notes her triggers, he tries to sidestep or become avoidant, rather than to keep marching through them, but he's a perfectly imperfect at this and because Annie is imperfectly unbalanced (as obviously played to the absolute hilt by Kathy Bates) even when he's not trying he still accidentally lands on a mine which makes it believable. Around the third act Paul begins to hide away the pills that he suspects that she is drugging him, smart but not too “No Way” smart. He later sends her off on an errand to get the exact type of paper he loves, ( I’m still not sure whether this was a lie or thinking on his feet because it all fits in with what we have previously been told about Paul's very detail-oriented routine ) Annie has been so eager to please as it concerns his writing process this seems brilliant and infallible, and yet it it sets off one of Annie’s mines leaving an unsuspecting Paul with one of those “Necronomicon”thick books dropped on his still very tender legs. This is another vital aspect of the tension set up. Annie’s hair trigger emotional status. It is setup very early, that things that set Annie off don’t have to be connected to any theme. Its not the horror or thriller protagonist where if you tell them you’re not scared, or talk shit about their mama you’re going to get a reaction. Annie might get mad about cursing, or the appropriate name for trailers, it’s very much like being in an abusive relationship. All of this sets up maybe the most tension oriented scene in the film where a bobby pin that Caan's Paul has stowed away (again thinking on his feet) is now used to open the door so that he can somewhat explore the house and see if he can find himself some sort of defense against this woman or call out for help. The lengths that Annie has gone to make sure that no one can interfere with her plans, become even more evident here and we see how well thought out this was. As Paul's options are lessened so are ours. Then we are also introduced to a sort of “ticking clock” scenario where we know that Paul has a limited time do this, by way of cuts to show us exactly where Annie is at on her trip. The fact that he is disabled is not merely for effect, but it does have an effect as an obstacle to help intensify the tension in our minds due to the fact that we know any place he goes into this house its going to be hard for him to get back to that room in time if Annie shows up, (especially if he doesn't hear her) that is intensified to yet another level when his wheelchair can no longer fit through the door and we see that he now has to get up out of his chair and crawl over to pick himself up a knife, and at the exact time, the moment he secures it, we hear a car pull up and I wish I would have been in the theater to see this because I would have gathered that there might have been a collective gasp in the theater the moment those wheels were tracking up and we come to see Annie now getting out of the car knowing that this man has to get back in that chair and move all the way back to that room. I've seen that movie a million times and it still causes my heart the climb ladder 49 straight up into my throat every time I see it.

The power of Misery, the part of that dances up and down all over my nerves as a horror movie as well as a thriller, is the way it narrows the walls, gates, roads until the only way out is through. Paul being a clever protagonist who tries to outsmart Annie and eventually realizes he just has to play through her game, makes it so we don’t get to feel safe by knowing we have the answer to his freedom. Most things we might’ve thought of or considered he did, and beyond. We are left with only the face off. Who will come out? We don’t know til the end, and it’s an end that comes by way of a lot of suffering, that comes by way of nothing else but what some may refer too as just plain bad luck. If there was an insurance claim on Misery's type of horror almost none of us are covered, it’s an “Act of God”, and I always hate those. It’s why avoid this movie, and fall in love every time I watch it, it’s that horrifying to me, and its that good.

The Disappearance of Diahann Carroll

Its crazy because when I heard, or rather read and then heard, because the words became so deafeningly loud in my head - “Diahann Carroll has died” , My mind began instantly searching for something beyond the obligatory “Oh My God” you'd think..I'd think that as my mind turned over all my retrospective files on this woman’s career, I would immediately envision her sturdy brilliance in "Claudine" or maybe her part in one of my favorite dance numbers ever in Carmen Jones ( and that one eyebrow), let me not forget her role as Whitley’s mother Marion (in which she she basically played a version of Lynn Whitfield’s Matriarch that added her own unique flavor ) or her extremely memorable work in Robert Townsend's The Five Heartbeats playing a version of herself so committed she nearly tears through the silver screen in every scene…

Funeral scene

But it wasn’t any of those roles that came to mind, in fact Diahann almost ceased to exist, and when I called for her in their stead, in her stead, the first image in my mind was of Elzora - Carroll’s small, but immensely effective and affective role in Kasi Lemmons " Eve's Bayou". Upon reflecting about it further it becomes easier for me to see why this stood out to me first. It’s soulful, its complex, its involves the best elements of transformation which are neither cheap or exploitive. Contextually Carroll's Witch is the underside of this black Haven. The embodied ghost of still disenfranchised members of families left behind or rolled over by privileged racist whites, and ambitious African-Americans who had the right amount of color, resolve, ruthlessness, or all of the above to climb out of their social dungeons. Physically Diahann Carroll brings revelation outside the margins of the scene, just as much as she does in scene. On one side she is Diahann Carroll Queen of elegance, unrivaled put togetherness, and “You Tried it” energy. On the netherside of that she is almost completely hidden by white make-up, strands of unkempt silver hair, and a mask of concrete surliness. Eve’s Bayou allows her to slink back into a side of her that largely went unexplored before it. She moves differently, as if each appendage has to cut though weighted space to get to where it's going. When you watch closely you see she has moments where she seems to have spells where she's lost herself, her bearings, her thoughts, and then she just returns. In this scene as well as later with Jurnee Smollet’s Eve, she is callous, but also warm, and Carroll turns it on and off in screen with such intuitive and adept understanding of when the one energy is needed over the other she creates an integral bit of mortar that glues the various bricks of southern life that form the gothic and loving house of memory and loss Lemmons built. Every choice she made in that film supported a comprehensive whole….

Eve's Bayou movie clips: http://j.mp/1e6PYl0 BUY THE MOVIE: http://j.mp/1e6PYkS Don't miss the HOTTEST NEW TRAILERS: http://bit.ly/1u2y6pr CLIP DESCRIPTION: Elzora (Diahann Carroll) upsets Mozelle (Debbi Morgan) when she reads her fortune and predicts more death. FILM DESCRIPTION: A young girl learns some difficult lessons about truth, love, and fidelity in this critically-acclaimed Southern gothic drama.

It’s a link to a forgotten figure in black communes, the wise woman or witch. Elzora is a tie to pre- christian practices of black peoples, and to the strength, power, and position these women held within those communities. What Carroll gives her is her sense of gravitas, and a regality, that belies a sense of past ancestral grandeur. What she sacrifices in the embers of this visually striking portrayal is the grandiosity that served as the inertia for so may of her other roles. It is this exact sacrifice of what powers your mega wattage as a star to the gods of thespians, that makes you more than just a star. Once you can make your Clark Kent every bit as powerful and resonant as your superman, well you’re in the most elite company of actors. This is why I love this role so much, it was so much in so little. It was an underdog role for an underdog character whom was made powerful both by the implicit nature of the script and by the explicit nature of Carroll’s performance. It was representative of all Carroll was capable of, of all she could do, of all many black women could do, but especially those with her raw and exceptional talents. She did just about everything you could do in an industry where so many do so little, if anything at all. She had an impact that couldn’t be argued, through it was sufficiently less than she deserved. In a way Carroll was the Queen that is both clearly in power, and yet under duress, and under-served, who is gone now resting in that very power. Extending her roots, raising the ground for future actors, (and black actresses especially) to stand toe to toe with their rightful peers.

A Place in The Sun: The Desperate Cowers.

"SINKING DESPERATION" That's what I would title this scene from 1951's "A PLACE IN THE SUN ". I say that metaphorical boat capsized long before the physical one lunged itself and them into the achingly cold depths of the river. The weight of their hidden desires, longing, and unsatisfied ambitions sunk it, the water just hadn't figured it's way in yet. Shelley Winters packs so much wide-eyed hope and hopelessness into a few looks she makes it as hard for the audience to look at her fully as Montgomery Clift's George Eastman.

Her ambition, want, desire, hope is nowhere near as free as George’s, as a woman it is bottled up everywhere in her body so as not to offend, except her eyes. There she's got a laser beam focused directly on George, burning all the hope, all the want, the pain of being seen for once in that lonely isolated factory , in this lonely town of lopsided privilege, where the men grow, and fulfill promise, and move on, gifting their eyes, their belief, to the Angela Vickers of the world, who seem to have it all, and want even what little happiness you have found. Winters with one look of sad, near pathetic longing burns the disappointment of believing in the promise of the George Eastman’s only then to be altogether tossed away with a baby now in tow with such little regard, by a man who himself is so little as to beg for regard by those who have so little for him, born of nothing more than the idea of who he is. She sees him, and she wants so wantonly for him to see her. Winters with her eyes only, gives one last plea into the darkness of inevitability and futility, asking George to not so much forget what he doesn’t have, as remember what he does. She is delivering her closing argument, in the cause of George Eastman vs the world, presenting her case with modesty that everything might just be okay as long as they the have-nots stick together. “Let’s drift for awhile I’m not afraid of the dark”.

a tense and well played scene in the boat on the lake

The line has double meaning, and it is co-signed by body language, Winters is erect and still in the boat, sure of their trajectory regardless of the direction or quality of the boat. The more unresponsive George is, the more desperate her plea, the more urgent. She begins to lean forward with intent, her hand begin to space apart, her eyes are widening. Winters projects her energy forward, towards George, acute and straining. It's as if Montgomery Clift is Bond asking if Winters expects him to talk , and Winters is yelling out "No Mr Eastman, I expect you to FEEEL!". Except there is no true villain here , and if there is it's most certainly not Winters Alice Tripp. Its Clift’s Eastman, all repression and no accountability, facing downward, and away from Winters, restrained, but reactionary, and impulsive.

So that he throws their boat over with the weight of the indecision expressed in his movement. He tips that boat with his inability to be moved, both emotionally and figuratively. George causes the imbalance, the boat capsizes, and it is Clift’s exactness of expression, the furrowed brow, the downcast eyes, the restless energy, the crumpled, folded nature of each of his stillness, that allows us to believe that this was a crime not of passionate action, but dispassionate inaction. His inability to decide even, as he had decided, to move , even though he desires to be anywhere but here, to speak even though he has so much to say, is the death of Shelley Winters Alice Tripp. Clift is the embodiment of male impotency, death by analysis, all desire, no action, no follow through. It’s hellified, bone-marrow acting done with superb accuracy and intelligence, a supremely well constructed, perfect scene in an extremely flawed movie about extremely flawed characters.

MANDY IS JUST MY KIND OF MOVIE

Couple of things you should know about me and movie going.  A.  That I tend to grade on a curve whenever I feel someone who is trying to deliver something truly (keyword truly) unique.  And I'm not talking about that kind of person that seeks to be smarter than their audience or surpass their colleagues with something way more clever than they believe their peers ever could have dreamed of. And definitely not that person that seeks to only arrive to us with merely a unique concept and clearly no follow through on that great concept (and Yes, I'm talking to you hotel Artemis) .  No, I'm talking about that person, with whom while watching their film you can almost feel that childlike energy,  that kinetic,  furious,  passionate,  barely contained fire, - if at all - that drives every one of us whenever we stumble upon an idea that will not loosen its grip upon our imagination. The kind that makes me imagine the writer director of this film being possessed sitting there at their desk, eyes jittering from side to side, just scribbling away incessantly,  unable to stop themselves from leaping from word to word,  sentence to sentence,  page to page,  action to action - whether or not that's what actually happens.  B.  I'm an experience type of reviewer and movie goer I'm big on my experience, I'm not necessarily a technical movie goer.   I understand film theory, I understand the importance of structure,  and often times I can see the lacking of it in a film in which my experience is already a poor one.  But as I said before, if I am already immensely enjoying my film experience in your movie I am a teacher grading on an immense curve.  All of a sudden willing to toss aside how believable your film might be,  how riddled with plot holes your film might be, how detestable your characters might be, how lacking in technical proficiency your film might be. Because ultimately I was too enamored with how beautiful your film was,  how much your film wooed me, how much it made overtures to my various senses, how much it enchanted me.  How your actors mesmerized me, how scared I was, how much I may have laughed,  how much I may have cried. If my experience feels more like a positive one than a negative one, I can forgive cardinal sins in structure, and I can somewhat put to the side - let's be honest maybe “a lot of what” put to the side - film theory for a second and just bathe in the glow of being thoroughly entertained for a couple hours or more. Mandy was such a movie.

Panos Cosmotos's wild blend of nostalgia,  video games,  fantasy,  and rock and roll,  with a committed Nicholas Cage front and center.  Cosmotos movie does not nail it for me politically. In fact, in many other cases, I probably be sitting here writing about how it's just another woman in the fridge type story using its woman, the namesake infact of the movie as a convenient excuse to take us on a journey of male aggression, gratuitous violence,  and anarchy.  But I'm not writing about that because the story was too wild, the colors too gorgeous,  Nicholas cage's performance too balls to the wall insane and committed and vainglorious. All of this in a two hour heap of dismembered bodies, exaggerated over the top monologues,  and primal screams.  Cosmotos brings us both something we've seen before, or at least know of  and yet something wholly original. A movie where I ultimately knew what was going to happen within the first thirty minutes of the film and yet I also was made to feel like I had no clue as to what would happen next from one sequence to the next through the entire duration of the film, right up until the ending,  it's typical and yet wholly unique.

It reminded me of so many of those books I used to love as a kid. Books inspired,  and clearly influenced by and from authors like Tolkien,  or Herbert,  or Robert E Howard's Conan pulp.  But nowhere near as good in the execution. They usually grabbed me with a well illustrated cover,  and an eye catching title (Im making all of these up) like ; The Gates of Baldermoor,  The Dragons of Huron,  Time and Shadows volume one.  I also gleamed portions of the film as being inspired by Ralph Bashki's underrated animation film heavy metal or at that least aesthetically influenced by it.  It harkened me back to a time of cult leaders and a time when devil worshipers were the worst of us.  And while it had me on an IV drip of nostalgia,  it fed me on a, steady diet of arresting visuals,  outstanding camera work,  and a manic,  unpredictable,  rabid performance by Nicholas Cage, and Linus Roache, that kept circling two words around my head, tigers blood and dragon juice. Because that's how bat shit crazy and amazing it was. 

I'm writing more about the experience than the technical aspects of this movie, because I believe that that ultimately is what Mandy is...the movie going experience.   Rather than a movie you go into toting your experience.  I really couldn't tell you how technically proficient, it may or may not be because somewhere along the road I just got lost in the proverbial sauce.  It was fun, it was outrageous. It was visually poetic. It was nostalgia based,  without using the nostalgia as a crutch.  There were some pacing troubles near the end there, and Mandy, the movie's namesake was unfortunately not truly apart of this film in any meaningful way beyond being a prop for Nicolas Cage's unhinged rage fest.  That was maybe the only real disappointment and I don't want to minimize it.  Mandy did a lot of things really really well and while I thoroughly enjoyed myself watching it. I felt like this movie could have moved beyond a cult classic to an actual masterpiece had it featured more about Mandy and rooted her to the story in more than name.   Not only would it have begotten more interesting narrative choices,  but considering her condition,  I think you would have had a movie with some very interesting, even if accidental commentary. And something, ultimately, that I think would have moved beyond its sort of superficial in all the best ways, cult feel, and right into pantheon of Film making. 

As it stands Cosmotos film is a movie that raises an eyebrow and makes you sit up and forward in your seat. I think if he builds upon this, this may be a director to watch in the future, and although I can't recommend Mandy for everyone those of you who like me, like it when you stumble upon something so interesting and so one of its kind, that you tend to grade the movie on a curve and never mind the devil in the details,  then this is also definitely your movie.

Check out the new trailer for Mandy starring Nicolas Cage & Andrea Riseborough! Let us know what you think in the comments below. ► Watch Mandy on FandangoNOW: https://www.fandangonow.com/details/movie/mandy-2018/MMV495A8D3D5C42B5ED2888FF3743C0852D2?cmp=Indie_YouTube_Desc US Release Date: September 2018 International Release Date: October 2018 Starring: Nicolas Cage, Andrea Riseborough, Linus Roache Directed By: Panos Cosmatos Music Composed By: Jóhann Jóhannsson Synopsis: Pacific Northwest.