| TO INFINITY... AND BEYOND! : Ex Drummer; Planet Terror [for Tribune] + 'Bug' |
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| Monday, 05 November 2007 | |||||
 Ex Drummer [7/10] Belgium 2007 Starring : Dries Van Hegen, Norman Baert Director : Koen Mortier ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Planet Terror [7/10] USA 2007 Starring : Rose McGowan, Freddy Rodriguez Director : Robert Rodriguez ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ both films are released in the UK on Friday, 9th November .......... as is William Friedkin's BUG [5/10] - scroll to bottom of page ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ OSTEND, the present. Misanthropic, celebrated, fortyish writer Dries (Van Hegen) is asked by a trio of musicians - each of whom have some kind of "handicap" - to be the drummer in their new punk band, which they sardonically christen 'The Feminists'. Against his better judgement - and despite the fact that he cannot actually play the drums - Dries reluctantly agrees. Complications ensue. A much-discussed divider-of-opinion among audiences and critics around the world's film-festival circuit since premiering at Rotterdam in January, Ex Drummer is an aggressively confrontational and envelope-pushingly transgressive "provocation" - one which turns out to have a bite that's somewhat weaker than its ever-so-nihilistic bark. Because although it's ostensibly a raw, in-your-face explosion of punkish energy, the film - from the very first, extended scene (which is played backwards a la Roger Avary's 2002 Rules of Attraction) - is directed with a disarming technical ingenuity and, in an odd way, a measured kind of elegance, that belies writer-director Mortier's all-too-evident desire to disturb and shock. Outrage piles upon outrage as the haphazard "plot" unfolds, building up to that hoariest of music-movie cliches, the battle-of-the-bands rock-concert. And one can almost hear Mortier (adapting Herman Brusselmans' underground-bestseller autobiographical novel) gleefully ticking off a list of PC no-no-nos: violence against women; brutal gay-bashing; fatal child-neglect, etc etc. As even his harshest detractors at Rotterdam had to admit, this is "een regisseur met gigantische cojones." Mortier drags us into the seamiest, scummiest corners of Belgium's (relatively-affluent) Flemish half: territories much grimmer even than the cash-strapped town of Seraing, over the 'border' in French-speaking Wallonia, which has become so familiar from the films of the freres Dardenne. Indeed, the locales and activities chronicled here are frequently repellent to the degree of nausea - but said chronicle is compiled with such intense and imaginative attention to atmospherics, composition, pacing and detail that you can't help being sucked into Mortier's semi-fictional netherworld. Unpretty, for sure - but unvacant, also. A RAUCOUSLY-ENJOYABLE old-school midnight-movie, horror spoof Planet Terror proves an unexpected treat. But, bizarrely enough, the most accomplished, original and entertaining part of the movie isn't, strictly speaking, actually part of the movie. It's the accompanying trailer, advertising what's reportedly going to be the next feature by the tireless and multi-talented writer-director(-editor-cinematographer-composer-etc-etc) Rodriguez: Machete, an insanely-violent, deliriously-OTT, politically-charged thriller which will give Rodriguez's distant cousin - grizzled veteran Latino bad-ass character-actor par-excellence Danny Trejo - a rare and welcome leading role. It's of course most unusual for a film to come with a "built-in" trailer, but then again Planet Terror and the Machete promo are offshoots of a most unusual larger enterprise: the ill-fated collaboration of Rodriguez and his great pal Quentin Tarantino known as 'Grindhouse'. In the USA, shorter versions of Death Proof and Planet Terror were combined - along with several spoof trailers - into a double-bill, but disappointing box-office returns means the films are being shown worldwide in stand-alone, extended edits. Or rather, "over-extended": both pictures have a padded-out feel, in glaring contrast to the stripped-down, 85-minute seventies originals to which they otherwise pay such slavish tribute. Of the pair, the insanely-violent, deliriously-OTT (but not especially politically-charged) Planet Terror is decidedly a cut above Death Proof - perhaps because Rodriguez (11 movies in 15 years!) is more accustomed to cranking out quick, pulpy, breezy-cheesy fare: cheeky little termites in comparison to Tarantino's relatively intermittent, star-laden and elephantine mega-projects An elaborate and loving homage to both George Romero and John Carpenter (Rodriguez superbly integrates his own ominous synth-stylings into direct lifts from Carpenter's Escape From New York score), it's the gleefully absurd tale of a small town whose residents are turned into ravenous zombies by a biohazard leak at a nearby military facility. The survivors - led by pocket-battleship 'El Wray' (Rodriguez) and feisty pole-dancer Cherry Darling (McGowan) - must arm themselves to the teeth if they're to blast their way out of trouble. Gory shenanigans duly ensue, sustained by a knowing, excess-all-areas ludicrousness and a thoroughly-disreputable but near-irresistible brand of barrellingly berserk brio. Neil Young written for the next issue of Tribune magazine  EX DRUMMER : [7/10] : Bel 07 : Koen MORTIER : 105 mins (timed) seen at Cineworld cinema, Edinburgh : 23rd Aug : public show (£6.76) : Edinburgh Film Festival PLANET TERROR : [7/10] : US 07 : Robert RODRIGUEZ : 106 mins (BBFC) seen at Vue cinema, Leicester : 6th-7th Oct : press show (Cinemadays event)
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