Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.

For the last year or so, I’ve been working with a few producers on a horror film centered around a home invasion, and the entire time we’ve been working, I’ve been aware that other people were developing material along the same lines. There’s THE STRANGERS, which Rogue is releasing later this summer, and of course, I’ve been acutely aware of the fact that Michael Haneke has been remaking his own FUNNY GAMES, which is a milestone in this subgenre. I hope Haneke’s film retains all the transgressive punch of the original, and so I’m curious to see what this spy thought of the remake. As far as I know, tonight’s is the first screening of the film. Let’s see what he thought, ane be warned, there are some spoilers here if you haven’t seen the original:

Hello

I just saw a screening of a movie called Funny Games at the Arclight in Hollywood. Apparently it's a remake (done by the original's director) of an Austrian movie from 1997. I haven't seen that, though.

The story is simple - a family (mom, dad, son) go to their vacation home on some lake, and two well-spoken, dressed-in-all-white young creeps show up and torture the family.

To make it short, the movie was really good. I think it was a great satire of the violence-soaked media and movies that people love and seek out nowadays without thinking about the reality of the violence. It was so deftly done that I don't think even 90% of the people in the packed audience really "got" it. There's a scene where one of the psycho guys ends up in a bad situation, and he freaks out, looking for "that remote control!". Once he finds the remote, he hits rewind, and the movie freezes, goes back to before the bad situation started for him, and then resumes playing again. This time, he fixes the mistake he made before, though. The director was basically saying, "THIS IS A MOVIE AND YOU ARE SITTING IN A THEATER WATCHING IT FOR ENTERTAINMENT!"

The movie is a movie, but there are also echoes of real-life in the twisted ways the two psychos act and the detached way they treat their victims. Also, the story arc leads you to believe that certain cliched movie things are going to happen, and then they don't. It works as a sort of shock to the system.

I thought it was great. The two psychos look and talk like regular guys, but they are definitely sickos, and i think that that was meant to be a stab at the audience themselves. These guys on the screen are total sickos for getting enjoyment out of screwing with this family, but guess what? You payed to sit there and watch this stuff. The fourth wall is even broken, and one of the guys refers directly to the audience, promising a good story for us. He says something like, "I bet you're siding with them (the family), aren't you?"

Don't misunderstand, though - it's not all wink-wink-nod-nod stuff. It's a pretty hardcore movie, and the tension is pretty thick for most of it.

However, speaking of the tension, i have to mention that there was one pretty big problem with the movie. There's a middle section of the movie where it seems like things might be drawing to a close, but it drags on and on and on, presumably to show the agony the characters are in, but it just drags for too long. There are a few shots that could definitely be cut in half. It really killed the pace. However, after that middle section ends, it picks right back up again.

The music was cool, too. I didn't catch all the names at the beginning, but i did notice that John Zorn was part of it. It's this crazy proto-metal song with lots of screaming, that kind of fits with the psychopaths' natures on the screen. It's used really well, though.

So, i recommend this movie. I almost got turned off before i even saw the movie because of the name itself - Funny Games? - but it is good. I think that if they change the name and cut down on some of the extraneous stuff (FORGET THE CELL PHONE - GET THE HECK OUTTA THERE!) this movie could be incredible. The ending is great.

Now, let me get a bit off topic here. There was one big problem that i had with this movie, but it didn't have much to do with the movie itself. This has been getting to be a big problem lately. I know morons babbling and making comments during movies has been going on for a long time, and that's retarded and they're retards, but what about all the giggling at things that aren't funny? There's a scene where a character is duct-taped at the hands and ankles after being tortured and having a loved one murdered, and she's in agony, and trying to stand up despite her bindings, and she stumbles and falls. People laughed at her falling down. Then once she gets up, she has to hop to move around since her ankles are bound together. People thought the hopping was just hilarious. There was also part of the movie where it cuts from a quiet outdoor scene to a guy inside using a hairdryer to dry something - so it went from quiet to loud. Apparently this change in sound dynamics triggered a lot of the audiences' funny bones. What the?! I felt like i was in Idiocracy. The only explanations i can come up with are that people don't know how to react to tense situations so they giggle, or else it's just that some moron giggled at the stuff and then everyone else thought the stuff was supposed to be funny so they were laughing too, without using their brains to realize that wait, i don't even get why i'm laughing?

Oh well. Annoyances in the theater are nothing new, but man, i'd love for the days of Tampopo where the biggest complaints were digital watch alarms and crinkling of potato chip bags.

In closing,
Funny Games - Good Movie.

LLEPHEN

Thanks