Everyone give a warm welcome to our newest addition on board the #filmswap hoveryacht, Jacob McConnell! Jacob asked me, as a sort of initiation into the ranks, to recommend to him the worst movie I could think of, "worst" being however I wanted to define it.
In this case, I chose to go with "ethically worst". Hope you enjoy it!
Eric
---
Hi, I'm Jacob, a friend of Eric and Dan. They invited me to be part of #filmswap and I wholeheartedly accepted.
Today I'll be discussing a movie about a vigilante who cleans up the streets with nothing but good intentions, steely blue eyes, and an inexhaustible amount of bullets: Hobo With a Shotgun.
Hobo With a Shotgun is the brainchild of director Jason Eisener and writer John Davies, a Canadian duo responsible for the short spoof trailer of the same name. Unlike its predecessor, popularized during the release of Tarantino's Death Proof and Rodriguez's masturbatory Return of the Living Dead tribute, Planet Terror, Hobo is a feature-length, high budget, exploitation genre movie.
The film lives up to its exploitaiton/grindhouse conventions: minimal, cheap set design, jarring blends of music in the score, equally jarring blends of dramatic talent, a script whose dialogue is punctuated with as many "fucks" as possible, goofy gore, and an oversaturated colour palette. Each of these would be detrimental to a lesser film, but they combine in a calculated way to create a really fun movie.
SPOILERS after the cut!
According to IMDB, the film was shot on RED Epics and graded in post. While disheartened to learn that Hobo With a Shotgun's dedication to the cheap, color reversal film aesthetic is an artificial addition, I still remain impressed with the masterful use of color. Everything in the movie looks like rotten fruit spattered with blood or a comic book manufactured with only 8 ink tones. I was reminded briefly of Rob Schrab's strange Channel 101 web-series "Twigger's Holiday", which managed a similar effect, but in a strange emulation of children's programming:
As Hobo With a Shotgun progresses, we see its over-the-top crime and gore surface subside to reveal a strange underbelly of sadism, cyborgs, and a fear-mongering death-lord with a penchant for beheadings in a Thunderdome-like setting. As this tumorous sub-structure is revealed, the colors go from gritty and urban to otherworldly and organic. The only thing that stays consistent is the bloody red that underscores the glorious violence. This transitional use of colour is weird; it's almost too creative for the conventions of an exploitation movie, and elevates Hobo With a Shotgun out of the terrain of masturbatory parody film and into a truly engaging... thing.
The exploitation genre is cheap, hard-to-watch at times, and bizarre by nature (and budget). These films can't help but be parodic and funny, even if their aim is as tributary. It's easy for an audience to get used to that. Five minutes into Machete or Death Proof you know the rules. You're aware of the material aspect of film. The term "post-modernism" rears its droopy face. That referencing gets old; it's directionless. Hobo With a Shotgun managed to break out of this trap by taking those wonderful conventions and elevating them into living things that adhere to their own bizarre narrative. Slick's head doesn't explode in a shower of blood all over the phone booth-- instead he gets a Shotgun blast to the crotch and then carried off to hell by a bus of dead children! The hero is inactive for the majority of the "final battle"! Videogame characters are mythological deity-like sovereigns! These seem like rule-breakers and they're what make the movie worth its length as a feature-film.
Hobo With a Shotgun's genre is what I would call jazz grindcore exploitation. It's about the heads that aren't exploding, and the profoundly bizarre dissonances that just work. Rather than relying solely on the conventions of cheap B movies, Hobo decided to grow some mutant appendages and use those to become a really cool piece of art.
Great job Hobo!
PS: Watching George Stromboloupupuouluous get impaled with an ice skate wasn't nearly as satisfying as I thought it would be.
Follow Jacob on Twitter: @jacobmcconnell
In this case, I chose to go with "ethically worst". Hope you enjoy it!
Eric
---
Hi, I'm Jacob, a friend of Eric and Dan. They invited me to be part of #filmswap and I wholeheartedly accepted.
Today I'll be discussing a movie about a vigilante who cleans up the streets with nothing but good intentions, steely blue eyes, and an inexhaustible amount of bullets: Hobo With a Shotgun.
The film lives up to its exploitaiton/grindhouse conventions: minimal, cheap set design, jarring blends of music in the score, equally jarring blends of dramatic talent, a script whose dialogue is punctuated with as many "fucks" as possible, goofy gore, and an oversaturated colour palette. Each of these would be detrimental to a lesser film, but they combine in a calculated way to create a really fun movie.
SPOILERS after the cut!
According to IMDB, the film was shot on RED Epics and graded in post. While disheartened to learn that Hobo With a Shotgun's dedication to the cheap, color reversal film aesthetic is an artificial addition, I still remain impressed with the masterful use of color. Everything in the movie looks like rotten fruit spattered with blood or a comic book manufactured with only 8 ink tones. I was reminded briefly of Rob Schrab's strange Channel 101 web-series "Twigger's Holiday", which managed a similar effect, but in a strange emulation of children's programming:
As Hobo With a Shotgun progresses, we see its over-the-top crime and gore surface subside to reveal a strange underbelly of sadism, cyborgs, and a fear-mongering death-lord with a penchant for beheadings in a Thunderdome-like setting. As this tumorous sub-structure is revealed, the colors go from gritty and urban to otherworldly and organic. The only thing that stays consistent is the bloody red that underscores the glorious violence. This transitional use of colour is weird; it's almost too creative for the conventions of an exploitation movie, and elevates Hobo With a Shotgun out of the terrain of masturbatory parody film and into a truly engaging... thing.
 |
| Rutger Hauer as The Hobo |
Hobo With a Shotgun's genre is what I would call jazz grindcore exploitation. It's about the heads that aren't exploding, and the profoundly bizarre dissonances that just work. Rather than relying solely on the conventions of cheap B movies, Hobo decided to grow some mutant appendages and use those to become a really cool piece of art.
Great job Hobo!
PS: Watching George Stromboloupupuouluous get impaled with an ice skate wasn't nearly as satisfying as I thought it would be.
Follow Jacob on Twitter: @jacobmcconnell
0 comments:
Post a Comment