"The Exorcist" and Nothingness

[Editor's Note: Beau McCoy is a longtime reader who I met recently. I quite like his writing and have asked him to contribute to the site. I hope you'll encourage him in the comments to return again. He doesn't have a blog so I'm featuring his "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" entry here as a kind of sneak peak to Wednesday night's group activity looking at "The Exorcist". I'm already terrified to follow this entry up. It's quite an opening scene. Are you joining us on Wednesday? -Nathaniel]

by Beau McCoy
There are few horror films whose reputation precedes them quite like The Exorcist (1973). Even if you never see the film, you know it. You know what it's about. You know specific scenes and you know certain images, even if you can't quite remember how you came across them. In much the same way Friedkin intended for certain subliminal imagery to make its way into the film, (using failed makeup tests with a model), the film inserts itself, impermissibly, into the subconscious of those who experience it in one way or another.

When you hear about films, if you're anything like me, there's something that hits you that I've called 'The Wave'. A tsunami of emotion, memory, nostalgia, fear, and regret that gives you opportunity to view yourself viewing that film in a different time. I can't remember much from the early part of my life. There are people who I see after years and I can't recall exactly how it was I knew or met them in the first place. But with a film, it's as though it made its way into me, burrowing itself into my subconscious, or heart, dick, what have you, and when it's called upon, it pops up cheerfully like an old friend to say 'Hey! What have you been up to?' 

The Exorcist, appropriately enough, is not so cheerful. It looms. [Beau's best shot after the jump]

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"Gravity" is Now Test Screening

One of 2012's most anticipated features, Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity, is far enough along now that it's test screening. All we know (and want to know!) of its plot is the synopsis which goes like so "The lone survivor of a space mission to repair the Hubble telescope desperately tries to return to Earth and reunite with her daughter."

Sandra and Child and George Clooney on the set of "Gravity"

I heard from a Film Experience reader in California shortly after he exited a test screening and I thank him for not telling me plot details! (I can't be the only one who wants to be surprised at the movies anymore). He guiltily prefaced things with "I know I'm not supposed to speak about the movie" but he was too excited not to share calling Cuarón "insanely monumental" though he confirmed my suspicions that the film will prove divisive. 

Gravity is Cuaron’s masterpiece. It’s gonna be divided. Half will think it’s a self-indulgent borefest and half will think it’s amazingly brilliant. The movie is 80% just Sandra Bullock!

He went on to say that he thinks its her best work, particular in the final fifteen minutes (from which he assumes they'll draw an Oscar clip should that time come) but that the film is Cuarón's. He called likely nominations for Visual Effects, Picture, Director, Editing ("breathless" action), and Cinematography which he calls "amazing". Regarding the latter, though, did anyone expect less from eternal Oscar bridesmaid Emmanuel Lubezki (The Tree of Life, Children of Men) and Michael Seresin (Midnight Express)? 

Sandra on set. Bruise makeup?

You'll recall that the ambitious project had great difficulty finding its film-carrying female lead (supposedly Angelina Jolie turned it down twice and Natalie Portman once). So as for Best Actress...

If this is a runaway crowd pleaser, then count Bullock in."

Are you counting Sandy and Gravity in?

Related: Oscar Predictions & Oscar discussions

Yes, No, Maybe So: "Looper"

The subject is time travel. It only seemed thematically appropriate to post this highly anticipated trailer for LOOPER a week before it premiered but pretend we posted it a week late. 

This time travel crap will fry your brain like an egg"

See, the following conversation actually took place in the past with your comments arriving now from god knows when; surprise us by dating your reaction in the comments. For all we know you're writing from Los Angeles the morning after Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Oscar win as Bruce Willis in the stuffy cradle-to-tomb biopic Bruce Dies Hardest (2031). You know AMPAS will still love those Star-As-Star biopics deep into the 21st century. Ohmygod. His inflection on "Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker" alone was chilling. He BECAME Bruce Willis.

Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker

When were we? It's time to break down the trailer after the jump with our patented Yes No Maybe So system. It's time to break down the trailer after the jump with our patented Yes No Maybe So system. It's time to break down the trailer after the jump with our patented Yes No Maybe So system. It's time to break down the trailer after the jump with our patented Yes No Maybe So system. It's time to break down the trailer after the jump with our patented Yes No Maybe So system.

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Hit Me With Your Best Shot: "Firefly / Serenity"

For this week's edition of Hit Me With Your Best Shot, the series wherein we invite everyone to get opinionated and choose the single best shot from pre-selected movies, we offered up an atypical two-for-one deal. You could either choose an image from Firefly's first episode (if you'd never seen the Joss Whedon series and wanted to start at the beginning) or an image from its movie spinoff Serenity. Or both if you're crazy about Captain Tightpants. I am but I chose only the latter in order to tie it into 2012's Joss Whedon film frenzy.

Though Whedon had been Oscar nominated for screenwriting (Toy Story, 1995) even before Buffy the Vampire Slayer bowed on TV making him famous, Serenity was his feature film directorial debut. You might even call it his audition piece for The Avengers. Transitioning between medium is rarely simple for creative talent and Whedon wisely made the leap by leaning right into his earned TV auteur status. 

I know. We're going for a ride."

I never read contributor posts until I've finished mine but I'll be surprised if someone doesn't choose the bravura post title scene. It's actually a four and a half minute long continuous shot reintroducing us to the entire Serenity crew from the shortlived but wonderful Firefly series. It begins by following Captain Malcolm Reynolds (Nathan Fillion) around as he barks order to his crew until its finally handed off like a baton to the stowaway siblings Simon (Sean Maher) and River (Summer Glau) at the heart of the plot. Whedon rarely resists self-mythologizing the Whedonverse and it's just perfect that the shot ends with the mysterious psychic River Tam promising you a good time at the movies -- "we're going for a ride" -- just as Joss's name materializes on her body like a branding. 

My two sibling choices for "Best Shots" are after the jump.

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Burning Questions: Can Horror Keep a Straight Face?

 Michael C. here to talk horror and I left the spoilers back in civilization where they can't be reached. If Drew Goddard’s Cabin in the Woods ends up the cult favorite it is so clearly destined to be, it will not be simply because Whedon’s acolytes turn up automatically or because the film is a hoot that efficiently presses every horror geek button known to man. Cabin has a lock on cult status because it so perfectly captures a moment in time.

Cabin in the Woods can't stop looking at Horror's reflections

If Scream’s purpose in ’96 was to take the piss out of the slasher movie, Goddard's film uses the slasher flick as a jumping off point to take on the whole horror genre, top to bottom. In this era, when even non-horror fans chuckles when the dead teenager clichés make their appearances on cue, Cabin pulls back the curtain on the machinations of the whole show until it resembles a viral supercut of the horror genre’s interchangeable, formulaic parts, and it expects the audience to laugh with recognition at each one. 

So if audiences are as savvy as the Cabin's filmmakers expect them to be one wonders: Have horror movies lost the ability to play it straight? Have they given up trying to surprise a fanbase that is perpetually in on the joke?

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