[Archive]: Sunday School Musical (2008)

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Director: Rachel Lee Goldenberg

Screenplay: Rachel Lee Goldenberg and Ashley Holloway

Cast: Chris Chatman as Zachary; Candise Lakota as Savannah; Krystle Connor as Aundrea; Robert Acinapura as Miles; Amy Ganser as Margaret; Millena Gay as Anita; Dustin Fitzsimons as Charlie; Cliff Tan as Trevor; Mark Hengst as Pastor Joe

First written on 10th July 2013

Continuing with my Archive reviews, here is piece of an entire month of "Bad" cinema from my older blog, which is still in existence but with mind of keeping all my materials together, I've transitioned to here. This was film #12 of The ‘Worst’ of Cinema, back when I was mad enough to coordinate an entire month where each day had a review; eventually, to pull back the curtain like the Wizard in Oz, I cheated by composing the reviews the month before, as with my October horror festivals, but the challenge was felt and I am still proud of these mad little challenges even if they caused more stress than the plan was intended to.

As always, none of the material no matter how embarrassing it is will be altered, just with the grammar and paragraphing changed when required to make it easier to read.

In terms of the review, I was mean to The Asylum, but I will defend the attitude of my older self that by the 2000s this straight-to-video market got exceptionally lazy, even if my rose tinted glasses about Roger Corman have disappeared, and in mind to how I have become found of the low budget curiosities that have made up this era. The line later on that Christians should make their own films has becomes ironically precedent for myself hasn't it though? I confess I haven't dealt into the wave of Christian cinema from the United States that was being made from this era onwards, but by all accounts, the modern strain has none of the nuisance of say, Robert Bresson, instead falling into the kind of very simplified viewpoints that are problematic. We should point these issues out as much in liberal American cinema, but there's as much to clearly find in this wave of Christian cinema of a conservative bent which isn't helping the cause either, not just Kirk Cameron taking a nose dive on metaphorical concrete when he made a very embarrassing defend about Christmas that appeared in some cinemas. There's a lot I'd want to watch and even cover though, not just morbidly as by accounts Indivisible (2018), a war film based on a real life war chaplain, is a fascinating and appropriately complex film I'm now reminded to investigate, so I wouldn't just dismiss this entire cultural movement offhand without an eyewitness account.

As for Sunday School Musical itself? I'd gladly investigate the film again even though I was put off by The Asylum back then because they never lived up by the standard of at least being memorable. Sadly Chris Chatman, the lead who I compliment, never made enough film baring one in post-production called Welcome Matt. The director Rachel Lee Goldenberg, to my surprise, is behind the curious Lifetime film A Deadly Adoption (2015), played entirely straight by all accounts as their usual type of film but starring Will Ferrell and Kristen Wiig outside their usual ballpark, marking it a potential curiosity if I can ever track it down. Goldenberg is also unfortunately the directoress of the musical remake of the 1983 film Valley Girl, which has been in limbo due to its casting of YouTuber Logan Paul, a figure whose controversial decision to upload footage of a suicide victim on his YouTube page contributed to the film, which was complete, never getting released.

To soften the tone of that later, incredible dark piece of knowledge I learnt of just putting together this Archive review, I'm also throwing in a bonus mini-one about the live action Fist of the North Star adaptation. Not really reviews, more of a stub, but sod it, since I horde this content on my computer hard drive, why not release it again anyway? Plus it's a reminder that, whilst a 1000 Anime review in truth, if I could ever re-see the 1995 film, based on the Japanese manga/anime franchise, I'd more than happy revisit the film for all the curious tit-bits I mention. I didn't even write, to my surprise, that Malcolm McDowell is also in it of many details long forgotten...

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Original Review

I worried, looking out of curiosity for reviews of this film online before planning one of my own, that by covering it I fall in danger of taking on the same cheap targets that I questioned professional critics of doing with the Jack and Jill (2011) review. Is anyone who reviews a film like this, including myself, really going to write anything thoughtful, even actually funny, or will this be like a bad video review where you see the whole film dispersed with obvious and bad jokes? Am I just being a hypocrite for reviewing this, and writing this entire introduction?

I have broken a rule set up for this season by reviewing a film made by The Asylum company. I was willing to break the rules here because this movie seemed to be an exception from the material that made me put that rule up in the first place. It’s not about an overgrown, CGI fish monster but a low budget musical designed to take advantage of the High School Musical phenomenon and also be part of the company’s Faith Films subdivision, designed to make Christian themed films. Getting hold of this film was for the promise of a terrible movie, a concept that, as this season has gone on, is pretty questionable now, but in hindsight a genre that is usually extravagantly made turned into such a minuscule budgeted, Christian film was also a fascinating proposition. This kind of melding of genres and concepts in unexpected ways is like viewing abstract Non-Euclidean geometry within a HP Lovecraft story, trying to imagine all of its parts working together without going insane. The film itself is, well, what I have sadly come to expect from The Asylum company; as much as I want to love them, it feels like I keep going back to them like an idiot, as all of us who have reviewed their films, as they secretly praise us for the reviews even if they are negative ones.

When he is transferred to a new school, and away from his adored choir and friends, Zachery (Chris Chatman) finds it difficult to connect to his environment. His grades are failing, the choir at his new school are hopeless in terms of their musical abilities, and the church of his old choir is in danger of closing because of finance issues. However, it is possible that, through joining together the choirs, and winning a competition, that every problem can be solved, all the while he slowly connects to the leader of the new choir Savannah (Candine Lakota) who has to overcome losing her mother only a few months earlier. In the film’s favour, the cast for the most part, especially Chatman, have musical talent; it is great that for such an ill advised take on a musical that there are people in front of the camera who can sing and have charisma, and there are moments where the music they are singing too is trying to be good. Unfortunately, for most of the film, it is also music at its most generic and sterilised rather than really good songs. This could be only my personal taste, but when songs have the same tone and sound to each other it is not a good sign. For the most part, it is merely bland and innocuous, but as with the song set around a bench, it can become terrible.

Sunday School Musical outside the music is worthless. Chatman had the potential to be someone special, if he had made anymore films after this 2008 production, but the rest of the film is cheap looking. It is sad that the practices of former exploitative film companies have not been continued for the most part this era; at least Roger Corman and Italian film producers would hire talented directors and film making personal and let them make whatever they want as long as it could be marketed for cinemas. Even Godfrey Ho had a sense of fun. In this era – where blockbusters hog the cinemas, and digital film cameras and computer effects are cheap – laziness has sadly been allowed to come into this sub culture of cinema. Even straight-to-video films from the yesteryear could attempt to be great works, and while there are still great films made today, wading for them in the mass is even more difficult.

Sunday School Musical is bland looking; unnecessarily frequent and choppy in its editing, and just dull to sit through. I am more likely to sleep through another viewing of this than feel pain. As a cash-grab for High School Musical, which I admit to having not viewed alongside its sequels, it is a half-hearted attempt at a musical that could have been special even if it was a failure. The Cannon Group, back in the 1980s, would have tried something special even on a pittance. The Aslyum group, from Almighty Thor (2011), which I reviewed for this blog, to this, are exceptionally lackadaisical in their attitude.

And what makes this even more disconcerting is that this is supposed to be a Christian film. There is very little in the film that really delves into faith or Christian values at all. It has choirs as it main plot and Savannah’s father is a preacher, but this seems arbitrary. It could be argued that these types of films don’t have to directly tackle issues of faith, but this is pointless as there are films already made that Christians enjoy and gain a lot from, and if there wasn’t, they could make their own films rather than rely on someone like The Asylum. A Christian film for me, as it stands now, should tackle the issues of faith in ordinary life, which Sunday School Musical fails to do at all and instead panders to a lame interpretation of R&B and hip-hop music lacking the bite and meaning to it. Alongside 2012 Doomsday (2008), another of these faith based films by the company I’ve seen, there is something exceptionally wrong about The Asylum’s attitude to these films that Corman or an Italian producer, even Ho, is completely innocent of. Not only are they making lazy rip-offs of blockbusters rather than fun ones like the Italians could make, but it can be argued that they are conning Christians, who would want movies for them, without any attempt at making something interesting. As an agnostic^[1], I can see how something like Sunday School Musical, in its lifelessness, would be insulting to the Christian god, like offering a turd to Him as some kind of sacrificial gift and excepting to be lavished with praise.

And the worst part? I am dumb enough to review another film from them after my bile for Almighty Thor. Admittedly, I had hope for this to be something interesting from The Asylum, and I still want to see Mega Piranha (2010) and their take on the Halloween films, but I have tricked myself again even if I spent only 50p for a second hand disc. Are all of us who review these films, even mock them, just encouraging this sort of filmmaking paradoxically? For all the criticisms I’ve had with the film, I’ve just encouraged more people to watch this film when it should be ignored and vanish from existence. I could have scrapped this review to do this, but to both stroke my ego and out of need to write about this film, I have to post it. If the phrase ‘fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me’ ever applied to any context, this is the perfect time to use it. On my part, I may go for three and please The Asylum again, or actually have some common sense next time.

From https://mojtv.hr/thumb.ashx?path=/images/cc47f58c-fd9d
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[1] Pass six years, I'm also not an agnostic as I wrote this review but a spiritual person, as a result of discovering that I had entirely misinterpreted what "agnostic" meant. Being "Agnostic", which I didn't know writing this review, is actually closer in spectrum to atheism rather than not knowing what a divine godhead might be, but with some philsophical differences of importance, if you research its theological and philosophical beginnings even on Wikipedia. That does leave me in the annoying position of believing in an entity upstairs and soul, but not with any organised religious ship to anchor myself to. Also "spiritualist" doesn't roll off the tongue and just evokes charlatan Victorians Harry Houdini particularly hated, so its a position in dire need of a marketing department to come up with a name for. 

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Bonus: Fist of the North Star (Director: Tony Randel, 1995)

My knowledge of Fist of the North Star is very limited, but a British Kenshiro who looks like the muscular brother of Benedict Cumberbatch, who can still make your head explode, was not what I was expecting but utterly hilarious.

Despite being part of the wave of pop culture films from the 1990s that I am obsessed over, visually part of the era and crammed with the obsessions (end of the world scenario, a cast with everyone from director Melvin Van Peebles to pro-wrestler Vader), it is pretty tedious however. Even if Chris Penn steals every scene he is in, the film’s narrative is incredibly generic and for a film that needs good fight scenes to work, the compromise to their presentation, and the gore from the original manga removed for the most part, undermines the whole project. I’ve never been a fan of Tony Randel, especially of his second Hellraiser film, and I wonder what this’ll been like if it was allowed to be good or as insane as a film like Street Fighter from the same era.

Moses and Aaron (1975)

Directors: Danièle Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub

Based on the opera by Arnold Schoenberg

Cast: Günter Reich as Moses; Louis Devos as Aron; Eva Csapo as Junges Mädchen; Roger Lucas as Junger Mann; Richard Salter as Anderer Mann; Werner Mann as Priester; Ladislav Illavsky as Ephraîmit; Elfriede Obrowsky as Kranke

[Full Spoiler Warnings]

In the cerebral, structuralist mood I have sat through with Straub-Huillet, Moses and Aaron for them is a sudden shock for a viewer like myself after very intelligent but dry work. They still shoot the story of Moses, the chosen prophet of God, and Aaron, his mouthpiece who argues with him about the representation of God, in their extremely formally rigid style, lengthy minimally edited work which ends segments of the three act film with long scenery tableaus. The sudden jolt of emotion comes from the fact the directors are directing an adaptation of an opera by Arnold Schoenberg, an experimental work which deals with Jewish mysticism, the central issue a transcendental invisible God versus one symbolised in form, an argument which descends, during Moses' forty days plus exile to talk to God, leading to the Israelites worshipping a Golden Calf and all manner of content from there you'd never expect from these directors - nudity, gore and animal sacrifice, even a synchronised dance sequence of all things.

Even before then, the issue I have encountered in a couple of their films, the monotone acting in some of the productions, is disregarded in favour of opera performances, which even if its two patriarchs bellowing at the top of their voices religious views is still thunderous and striking. Inherently the musician or the opera is abstract, whether a work is willing to push their format or content into the artifice of the material, but as most human civilisations didn't base communication on singing, it's a striking effect when you see a film which does. Arguably, the rigid style of the directors emphasises this as much, even if there's a sense you couldn't get monotone singing like the directors might've experimented with if they tried. Inherently as well, Schoenberg's music even to a novice's ear like mine is very unconventional, nearing atonality at times, also having choices like depicting the voice of God, unseen, as multiple unisex performances off-screen singing at once, almost hallucinatory even in context of this very naturalistic looking. There's also the concept of "Sprechtstimme", which is a concept created by Schoenberg's that has lead to the original Moses and Aaron opera being a challenge to perform, in that performers must sing and speak interchangeably - its compelling, and actually with a great nuisance that I have to admire especially as, merely presuming this would be a regular opera singing style, learning this details means I also know it would've been a challenge to the performers as well.

The result, even in light that Schoenberg's is already dense and esoteric before Straub-Huillet adapted it, has a sense of passion alongside the intellectualism. The film follows three acts - the attempts to convince the Israelites to rebel against Egypt, their growing despair in the desert and the third act resolution that I will get to later. It also has content you'd never expect from these directors, sudden stabs of mondo shock closer to a psychotropic genre film. Particularly Moses and Aaron's attempts to convince the enslaved Jews in the first act shows this, Aaron realising they have to show their side in greater power by having Moses' staff turn into a snake or Moses turning his spare hand into a leper's diseased one which even brings in a practical effects artists, again something I'd never expect from these filmmakers. That its underscored with the power of the music is a reminder how the more profound art and the more lurid/populist can sometimes embrace each other in surprising ways, easily intermingling with ease.

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And eventually, when we get to the existential despair of the second half, the unpredictable happens, that dance sequence for animal sacrifice between four male waving swords takes place. Animals are brought in on mass in a herd, and whilst we don't see any animal death onscreen, very real animal body parts are seen. A man strips a woman in lieu of sensual congress as a lyric literally sings "Holy is genital power!" with complete earnestness. It is somewhat ridiculous but it however with a meaningful purpose - the entire film, and the opera, stems from a hugely fascinating and profound centre to the text being adapted. Arnold Schoenberg, Jewish by birth and hence dealing with this material with great weight for him, is working with the idea Moses has of God being “unique, eternal, omnipresent, invisible, unrepresentable" and the obvious issues of how, trying to depict this figure in human language and our senses, this poses a problem. Aaron, as Moses has literally vanished into the mountains on what is revealed to be when the Ten Commandants, placates the fearful Israelites, who fall into crimes against each and lack of organisation, with a God they can see, a Golden Calf merely a representation, but unfortunately leads to a further slippery slope. You can argue in context Aaron is the one to have made a terrible mistake, his act even leading to human sacrifice, with the most coldly unnerving fade to the black with its implication you can get, but it isn't without the issue that Moses himself isn't perfect. He cannot convey his words well, hence why Aaron was assigned to him as the public speaker of his ideas, and hence we also have a populist in Aaron against the internal, rational Moses. Moses in his forcefulness and inability to help others understand God is as stuck with some of the blame.

The third act has a complication as Schoenberg himself never completed one himself, the final of the second half effectively the ending as, appearing to see all that has transpired, Moses in rage throws his stone commandants to the floor and is left effectively defeated. Pointedly, surprisingly, Aaron's comments back to his actions even includes the idea of a land for the Israelites, something which has been referenced through the film, something which has greater wontedness in lieu to future history. Straub-Huillet however include between them a segment that Schoenberg never finally, a non-sing final scene with their traditional minimalist acting which is however emotionally engaging due to what we have witnessed. This scene has Aaron on the floor, hands bound, ready to be made the guilty party for his decisions to placate people by Moses. Alongside the segments of long tracking shots of the desert locations found throughout, what the directors themselves add to the opera do help considerably without detracting from it, none of the issues an Othon (1970) had for me in any creative decision being flawed.

The result is a personal stand-out of Straub-Huillet's, an acquired taste for sure, but one I would sincerely love to revisit. It's certainly the one film of theirs I'd beg to see on a cinema screen, because it is just a complete one-off, a unique creation whose content due to the source material is rewarding, as the difficulties of worshipping an intangible God is a subject I find compelling, but is also in presentation unique to the film also rewarding. An avant-garde minimalist opera in general, when it's as successfully pulled off as here, is enough but one about spiritual existentialism which you can engage with on an emotional level is incredibly idiosyncratic to have created.

Abstract Spectrum: Avant-Garde/Existential/Grandiose/Minimalist/Religious

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Medium

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Point Pleasant (2005)

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Creator: John McLaughlin and Marti Noxon

Cast: Elisabeth Harnois as Christina Nickson; Grant Show as Lucas Boyd; Sam Page as Jesse Parker; Aubrey Dollar as Judy Kramer; Dina Meyer as  Amber Hargrove; Cameron Richardson as Paula Hargrove; Clare Carey as Sarah Parker; Brent Weber as Terry Burke; Susan Walters as Meg Kramer 13 episodes; Richard Burgi as Ben Kramer; Alex Carter as Sheriff Logan Parker; Ned Schmidtke as Father Matthew; John Diehl as David Burke; Adam Busch as Wes; Marcus Coloma as Father Tomas; Elizabeth Ann Bennett as Holly

Obscurities, Oddities and One-Offs

The Omen: The New Jersey Shore Years? Call this the result of listening to a podcast about cancelled tv series, Cancelled Too Soon, but I have gone out watch the material they have covered, and usually covered it on this blog alongside my own oddities, all in spite of the fact that, beyond anime and certain significant titles, my interest in television is virtually nonexistent. I gave up television just for watching DVDs (and streaming) about ten years ago out of disinterest in the product and being sick of adverts. In many ways, seeing the style and tone of a show like Point Pleasant, which I once grew up with, is better now in terms of being able to judge the material when it isn't saturated in my everyday life and can be a different experience from the rest of what I watch. Stepping out of my comfort zone is worthwhile, especially when this thirteen episode series, from co-writer of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Marti Noxon on board, is a teen soap opera where the female lead is the Antichrist immediately tickled me pink as a premise.

She washes up at Point Pleasant and goes by the name of Christina Nickson (Elisabeth Harnois), daughter of Satan and a human woman as established immediately. Caught between his minions, mainly former human Lucas Boyd (Grant Show) trying to egg her on to kick-start the Apocalypse, and the deeply divided but kind Kramer family who keep her humanity, the melodrama intermingles with the religious horror (as she unwillingly draws out peoples' worst sides in the first few episodes), but also tempers it in its own unique bombast as her state of mind gets rolled about over the episodes.

The first thing that comes to mind now, with time to reflect on the series, is the Twilight franchise, which for all the understandable criticisms was enjoyable for the first film, all because it retold horror genre tropes through this type of intimate melodrama about characters first; alongside the increasing issues with the gender politics, the death kneel for me that it became obsessed in the later films with the scourge of mainstream cinema, lore and CGI ladled fight scenes with the moments of interesting dynamic, of a romantic triangle between a mortal woman with a vampire and a werewolf, dwindled out more and more. Point Pleasant dangerously veered to this near its finale, more intrigued by the religious horror we have seen in a lot of work before and after, but never became overcome by it thankfully.

Again, when you've purposely isolated yourself off this type of mainstream American TV, as I did, it's nice to occasionally watch a work like this that, slick and conventional, feels like a change of pace rather than drilled into me as a constant prescience. There's little that has dated baring the occasional CGI (evil black birds in particular), not feeling like the early 2000s in frosted tops in the hair or a pop punk/post-nu metal soundtrack, instead set in a quiet beach town whose residents are mild manned but start to become enveloped in a less transgressive version of Peyton Place (1957). Whether they are mild mannered - Sarah (Clare Carey), church devotee and mother of lifeguard Jesse who rescues Christie - or from soap opera - her sceptical, angry and easily jealous cop husband Sheriff Logan Parker (Alex Carter), or friend and notorious man chaser divorcee Amber Hargrove (Dina Meyer) - or from teen drama - the aforementioned Jesse (Samuel Page), who with Christie has a won't-they-will-they crush or the many frequently shirtless young men in the cast - there's enough to work with in stories. It's to a virtue for all its macabre tone, even getting Danny Elfman to compose the main theme, that it's still a melodrama at heart that is timeless to any era.

It actually, unintentionally, exposes how in terms of Christian lore as is interpreted by popular culture how pointless and misguided the plans of literal demons are. Destroying the Earth here is actually a waste of resources the longer you listen to the likes of Boyd, even when Grant Show steals scenes like an evil cad, when a more pragmatic and practical goal (when Earth allows, for every good person, many evil ones too) would be more worthwhile, such as just pushing Christie to a hierarchy of power where Satan would get more resources for his side. Even the one attempt at nuisance, to dispose the failed experiment of mankind, is just exposing how Western pop entertainment is severely falling behind the likes of Eastern pop entertainment where even a villain in a children's show had actually sound arguments to their ideas.

In reality, and why I am actually glad the series ended at one season as this became more increasingly relied upon, the more absurd aspect of the entire series isn't the soap opera but the religious horror, especially when it becomes more increasingly relied upon, and the weakest parts are those which are entirely plot lines from a tedious horror film from around this era.  A lot of what comes off as camp, even when it's still entertaining because of the melodrama, is entirely the apocalyptic material, 666 literally tattooed on Christine's eye and enough clichés to decorate your walls with appearing, including for all I know ones from the Italian Satanic panic rip off films made in the seventies. If I ever properly read the Bible, beyond going to a school as a child the vicar frequently visited and the one time I read Revelations for some reason, I'll gladly wager to you the reader that, for all the contradictory and problematic scripture, the religion that gestated Dante's Divine Comedy, and William Blake's poetry and art, is both far more morally and intellectually stimulating than the usual tropes of devils disturbing the priesthood, to batardise a Black Sabbath song title, whilst being underused to a detriment for great entertainment. So much so, and why Point Pleasant won me over, that the earnest if over-the-top melodrama managed to refresh the kind of clichés I'd eye roll at and add spark to them.

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This is more so having grown up with a lot of generic satanic horror in the late nineties to early 2000s, such as when Arnold Schwarzenegger fought Satan in Arnold Schwarzenegger, giving something like this from much later and after its co-creator created such a major nineties horror series beforehand more credit for just taking a risky gamble. (And that's in knowledge, from the likes of American Gothic (1995-6), that shows like this come from ten years earlier that follow this genre blending premise and are now of great interest to me). It makes the material much more rewarding even if there's as much subterfuge and misdirects to spin episodes longer than logically there should, all due to teenage angst and inexplicable bog zombies cameos, to romantic rivalry or characters developing abrupt serial killer urges. Here, a priest discovering Christie's secret, only to get killed by a burning boat accident, is made compelling again when the boat's part of an annual boating festival, in an episode as concerned that Jessie's original girlfriend Paula (Cameron Richardson), daughter of Amber Hargrove, is jealous he's being wooed to Christine whilst said mother is eyeing up Ben Kramer (Richard Burgi), a doctor with skeletons in his own closet as well as a wife Meg Kramer (Susan Walters) who has had mental illness since the loss of her older daughter Isabelle, but is also revealed later in the series to have actual supernatural aspects behind this. That, over forty four minutes per episode, alongside being tongue twister of a sentence to read, just gives you an example of how much is crammed into just one early episode. It is such a breath of relief from po-faced but average religious horror I've grown up with, to watch this instead; many which barely get anywhere, despite being on a global scale, are dwarfed by a work that focuses on one town but has so many stories, subplots and character interactions intertwining with each other.

It also means my growing admiration with melodrama is with good reason - once housed with "women's pictures" in cinema, like those made by Douglas Sirk, its arguably a vibrant, layered art where even something more trashier here helps get a lot of nuisance from this premise. Even if I've found the evil side's plans utterly pointless and one dimensional, the melodrama makes sure there is something else to add engagement to these characters. It allows good performances at least. Dina Meyer, most well known for Starship Troopers (1997) and a lot of television has always been good, as a woman who sides with Boyd to seduce Dr. Kramer only for her humanity especially to her friend Meg Kramer to become a greater factor, Susan Walters as Mrs. Kramer herself giving a potentially trite character (mental health issues, actually with supernatural gifts) more humility especially as the series progresses. And of course, Grant Show's Boyd is good, more so when his back story shown in Episode 5 ("Last Dance") casts more light on his previous life and leads to a new character being introduced later on; set within the Great Depression for part of its length, as Boyd recreates a dance marathon in the current day town, Episode Five is arguably the best as, whilst it has silly details like the aristocracy of old Point Pleasant gleefully watching impoverished couples dance to near death, it adds to his character when before he was one dimensional, despite Show's magnetism, and has a remake of Carrie (1978) with a blood shower and a disco ball of death that is a plus for any television episode.

If there's any moment which feels like Point Pleasant stretches itself, it's at the climax. It does lean, as mentioned already, further into the religious horror the further it goes, introducing a mirror to Christie's Antichrist which is dramatically ironic for tragedy, but thankfully for all the moments where the melodrama merely takes a backseat or is merely a catalyst for the other half, such as a secret group of anti-Antichrist individuals not above emotional blackmail for their sacred cause, there's plenty to still appreciate. The final episode in particular, likely made with knowledge Point Pleasant was to be cancelled, goes knee deep into a crazed family psychodrama, one slightly undernourished in production but still literally with hell breaking loose as [PLOT SPOILER] Christie turns full blown evil like an angry super powered teenager [PLOT SPOILER ENDS], the dead brought back just to psychologically damage siblings whilst someone complains about stale cookies. Even if you skipped that spoiler, I can reveal that, whilst the show clearly wanted another season and a bigger budget, Point Pleasant still got a conclusion which is open ended, but of great importance, feels like a natural conclusion most cancelled series wished they had. The issue of whether this series would've dropped that great melodrama comes to mind, but what we got was assured for this and thankfully ended on its best virtues.

It was a series I'm surprised didn't last. It is, for all its quirks, the kind of PG-13 work with a bit of sex (no nudity but a bit of hinted at facsimile alongside many shirtless guys) and horror that, with its heightened emotion, should've gotten a fan base as well as won me over decades later. Obviously, as well for me, it's probably for the better it only lasted this long so any stagnation didn't corrupt its virtues, but the mix if anything is the kind I wish took place more in Hollywood cinema. Again, Twilight is evoked as that should've been like this, with bigger production value, but squandered its best in the first film for a convoluted, boring lore of action fantasy rather than its original romantic love triangle as interpreted by Universal horror monsters. Pointedly as a criticism as, with a female lead, Point Pleasant can so be read as a metaphor for adolescence, the moral chasms she has to face as much a character trying to find her morality whilst every other drama is an exaggeration of real life issues soap operas use. Again, especially if Point Pleasant focused even more on its community that just also happened to be a warring state between the forces of good and evil, "The Omen: The Jersey Shore Years" despite being an opening review joke was a perfect description of what it should've followed fully and at times thankfully did.

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John from Cincinnati (2007)

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Series Creators: David Milch and Kem Nunn

Directors: Mark Tinker, Ed Bianchi, Jesse Bochco, Adam Davidson, Gregg Fienberg, John McNaughton, Daniel Minahan, Jeremy Podeswa, Tom Vaughan

Cast: Rebecca De Mornay as Cissy Yost, Greyson Fletcher as Shaun Yost, Willie Garson as Meyer Dickstein, Bruce Greenwood as Mitch Yost, Luis Guzmán as Ramon Gaviota, Keala Kennelly as Kai, Austin Nichols as John Monad, Ed O'Neill as Bill Jacks, Luke Perry as Linc Stark, Brian Van Holt as Butchie Yost, Matt Winston as Barry Cunningham, Emily Rose as Cass, Garret Dillahunt as Dr. Michael Smith, Dayton Callie as Steady Freddie Lopez, Jim Beaver as Vietnam Joe, Paul Ben-Victor as Palaka, Chandra West as Tina Blake, Paula Malcomson as Jerri, Matthew Maher as Dwayne

Synopsis: One day, at Imperial Beach in California, a strange male savant with a credit card saying John Monad (Austin Nichols) appears; his first words to anyone that Mitch Yost (Bruce Greenwood), a legendary surfer who renounced his career in disgust, should get "back in the game". Mitch suddenly starts to levity, John finds himself with Mitch's heroine addicted son and former surfer Butchie Yost (Brian Van Holt), and it's clear John is in the centre to countless strange activities, from Mitch's grandson (and surfing protégée) Shaun Yost (Greyson Fletcher) surviving a life threatening injury in an actual miracle to strange goings-on in a disused hotel bar. All in lieu that, to spread a gospel for a new spiritual movement, that the Yost family needs to all be healed of their various neuroses and get back in said surfing game.

Ah, this is a pretty infamous series to cover. On the same night the legendary series The Sopranos (1999-2007) ended, on an infamously abrupt conclusion that still baffles people to this day, premium cable and satellite channel HBO (Home Box Office, Inc.) premiered their new surfing spiritual oddity John from Cincinnati afterwards. From the mind of producer/writer David Milch, creator of Deadwood (2004-6), in collaboration with surf noir author Kem Nunn, it become notorious as one of the only HBO programmes to only last one season. HBO started in 1972 and from that far back to today, they went from strength to strength in terms of branding, getting away with adult and edgy content including the legendary Tales from the Crypt series (1989-1996) until a series like Oz (1997-2003) could be seen as the prologue to their influence on the "Golden Age of Television", a concept talked of by critics that suggested over the 2000s to this day that cinema is in the apparent doldrums, upended and dethroned by television shows such as HBO's own The Sopranos, The Wire (2002-8), and Game of Thrones (2011-).  

Personally, I have no interest in "the Golden Age of Television" and hence never had a real desire to follow HBO as a brand, never seeing that television had made cinema redundant or that they had to be at odds with each in the slightest in the first place. I will eventually see The Wire, because it's too big, and I wished Tales from the Crypt was available in the UK. Naturally, it's the oddities in their catalogue, some successful (Todd McFarlane's Spawn (1997-9)) or failures (Ralph Bakshi's Spicy City (1997) and John from Cincinnati itself) which are the more interesting properties. Those that are not the toasts of mainstream culture like Game of Thrones but the weird, ambitious and sometimes doomed projects, John from Cincinnati a pretty infamous example and the kind of the television I'm more inclined to track down.

To keep things simple, a Christ figure appears in Imperial Beach in California one day to communicate a divine message to humanity. The titular John's not Christ, but its emphasised he's likely the son of the Son of God, still a heavenly source who decided to pass on God's message by way of a legendary surfing family. It's an odd premise, but just for idiosyncrasy, it's also an awesome one to start off with as, hey, maybe God does work in mysterious ways, and there's something befitting a messiah hanging out among the surfers, New Age post-hippies and weed heads at the beach. It's also established this figure, described as a robot by one character being sent on a mission by something skyward, has an upward battle as to do this he needs to work with the Yost family, as dysfunctional as you can get, turning as much into a tale of a spiritual cleansing of pain and anxiety from their perspective.  And as for John himself, a savant who communicates by parroting others' words in choice sound bites, the moments he speaks for himself are apocalyptic and/or overtly with mind that his goal he's been sent off on is bloody important or everyone's screwed.

Mitch Yost is a spiritual figure who has yet disconnected himself from life. His wife Cissy (Rebecca De Mornay) has become the "ultimate ball buster", De Mornay shouting a lot of her dialogue for the rafters, because of an unfortunate incident with her son. Said son Butchie is a heroin addict living in a closed hotel. His grandson Shawn, a surfing protégée, lives with his grandparents, who are divided about letting him sign with the same promoter, Linc Stark (Luke Perry), who led Butchie to drugs and ruin, and with his mother Tina Blake (Chandra West) appearing later on, she stigmatised both by leaving Shawn with his grandparents when he was born and her career as a porn actress.

This in itself is a lot but there's many others, all idiosyncratic characters with idiosyncratic dialogue. Bill Jacks (Ed O'Neill), a retired cop and friend of the Yost family who is still grieving for his later wife and (clearly with supernatural emphasis) talks to his pet birds; Kai (real life surfer Keala Kennelly), an employee at the Yost's surfing store who is the one really sympathetic figure; Barry Cunningham (Matt Winston) the new owner of the closed hotel, being kept for Butchie by Ramon Gaviota (Luis Guzmán) and lawyer Meyer Dickstein (Willie Garson), who is traumatised from being molested in one of the rooms and has prophecies through epileptic fits; Steady Freddie Lopez (Dayton Callie), a drug dealer who comes for Butchie but finds his humanity, lackey Palaka (Paul Ben-Victor) tagging along; Linc Stark himself, going through a journey as employees are trying to push him out of his surfing promotion company Stinkweed; and Dr. Michael Smith (Garret Dillahunt), who when a medical miracle happens understandably finds his scientific grasp of reality broken and has to find himself whilst being a humane, kind figure among this crowd. Its many characters to follow, arguably as much why the series was such a difficult one for many, yet for me the story somehow manage to make everyone of them have something of interest.

Probably another reason the series was notorious was that it isn't structured like many series at all. It's languid in pace, at least two episodes not really about anything but merely surrounding twice when characters wandered off somewhere, and many ending not on plot twists but casual, matter of fact pauses for breath followed by an abrupt cut to black and the credits. I eventually started to love this about the series, all before you get to the overtly strange moments which begin to happen. The dialogue is as unconventional, full of dense and very unconventional dialogue ticks and conversations.

It's also crude and profane - a lot of expletives, and some dialogue and character turns which show complexity but could be off putting in how offensive they can get. Clearly reflecting back to 9/11 and the War on Terror, whilst not feeling like Islamophobia, some characters including John use the term "raghead" a lot, and there are details that would be much more difficult to get away with having ten years later. (Though Mitch's bafflement over his wife's reaction to an ominous video, where she immediately draws a comparison to Taliban propaganda videos with their black sheet backgrounds, does also show Milch and Nunn are prodding these fears and scrutinising them too). Butchie in particular, even when he gets more sympathetic, is written to fall back into deliberately offensive comments when pissed off, a conversation using a racial epithet to his ex-wife extreme but, whether it was wise to do in the script, to show his fallibility as someone burnt out on drugs and his own worst behaviours.  

That's not withstanding how this is also meant to be a spiritual, unconventional television series which, from just ten episodes, was too weird to survive anyway. It's insanely vague even (on this revisit) if I got every plot detail and can make sense of it. The tale of a new spiritual growth from the Yost family and the journey to this point is already with one foot in the eccentric before even more overly surreal moments take place. Where a room at the hotel is a literal phantom zone for those dead or in the midst of a temporary limbo, or parrots can heal the brain dead. Times in this show it does feel like the series is striding into territory it itself is not fully confident in what it perceives but does anyway, a sense of taking a ridiculous risk in terms of coming off as ridiculous, such as a major plot point being revealed by a door-to-door delivery catalogue or that the owner of the hotel carries around a big teddy bear he talks to.

There's even the entire factor of the actual surfing to bring up, which is sparse but when it takes place gives the series an added odd serenity. The opening title credits are perfect - old footage as if one's own faded memories set to Johnny Appleseed by Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros - but it also led to the casting of actual surfers in the cast which adds its own curious touch, the non-actors alongside known actors. Greyson Fletcher as Shawn plays off as a laid back teen in the tulmultous period inhis like; Keala Kennelly as Kai in contrast is my favourite character and the person in the cast who stole many scenes even among some idiosyncratic figures, the calmest figure who adds an incredibly charismatic emotional weight. Even if the show really doesn't have a lot of surfing, when it takes place it offers a respite of relief that befits the spirituality that's grown into that culture - particularly the last of the series, from an opening flying camera in the clouds up to the burst of surfers appearing in the waves befits the zen-like virtues the sport has developed.

So does John from Cincinnati work? For once, I'll leave that to each individual viewer to decide because, honestly, the issue with John from Cincinnati is that, like many other surreal works I've covered, this is one that is entirely to personal taste and is especially so with this particular example. Structured as it is, in mood and whether you can get into its headspace, is the real issue at hand with ever you will appreciate it or not. Expecting a bombastic conclusion even from a cancelled production is not possible here - the closest thing in Episode Six is a monologue that throws a barrage of dense, at times messy philosophical ideas which emphasises the sense that David Milch was stepping out of his comfort zone from a success with Deadwood and was freefalling into this odd spiritual material. I admire his risk, a small cult behind the series just for the jumping off point that, in the history of HBO, this is the one rare work which never even got past the first series, which makes its a curiosity already. But, having spoken as someone who isn't interested in the boom of television in popular culture, finding most of it uninteresting to track down, I have to admire the attempt at something very different here.

Abstract Spectrum: Mindbender/Odd/Unconventional

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Medium

Personal Opinion:

So obviously, John from Cincinnati was going to be a strange experience even on a rewatch, argubly the fact that it was meant to be a mainstream television hit, the aesthetic and production style to such a show from HBO, contributing its own distinct personality as a result among other oddities I've covered. (How many weird creations have Muse's cover of Feeling Good in the final credits of an episode for example?) The bigger surprise is how much of a mainstream release it was just in concept, knowing these projects are usually never going to succeed. It's a reminder that, sometimes, when you put your hands together and pray really hard, strange ephemera does appear in pop culture rather than the fringes I usually cover. So naturally, I admired it.

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The Ninth Configuration (1980)

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Director: William Peter Blatty

Screenplay: William Peter Blatty

Based on the novel Twinkle, Twinkle, "Killer" Kane by William Peter Blatty

Cast: Stacy Keach as Colonel Vincent Kane; Scott Wilson as Captain Billy Cutshaw; Jason Miller as Lieutenant Frankie Reno; Ed Flanders as Colonel Fell; Neville Brand as Major Groper; George DiCenzo as Captain Fairbanks; Moses Gunn as Major Nammack; Robert Loggia as Lieutenant Bennish; Joe Spinell as Lieutenant Spinell; Alejandro Rey as Lieutenant Gomez; Tom Atkins as Sergeant Krebs

Synopsis: In a Gothic castle in the United States, various military personal with severe mental disorders and psychosis are housed together within its walls under care. members of the military or high profile careers who suffer from severe mental disorders and psychosis are placed together under watch of the US military. A new psychologist Colonel Vincent Kane (Stacy Keach) arrives at the facility, offering new and very unconventional methods of dealing with their treatment. He is however troubled by memories of his brother, who become psychotic during the Vietnam War murdering any bystander in his path, feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders as he broods. His goal for salvation is focused entirely on one patient by the name of Captain Billy Cutshaw (Scott Wilson), a former astronaut and Catholic who has begun to doubt the existence of God and couldn't complete a rocket launch to the moon, Kane deciding that he can help Cutshaw is he can prove that good exists innately in the world.

The Ninth Configuration starts off deceptively. A country ballad plays over a panoramic shot of a Gothic castle, meant to be on US soil but clearly the European location the film was shot at in real life. With William Peter Blatty's pedigree - the author of The Exorcist's source novel and the 1973 film's screenwriter, director/writer of The Exorcist III (1990) - you expect immediately a rich, incredibly well written tale with memorable dialogue. One with a very idiosyncratic take, from his Catholic beliefs, of hope even in the most dire of circumstances. What you get with The Ninth Configuration is this, but also what happens when this first time director/writer, who partially funded the film as its main producer, has to wrangle an already complex premise into a feature. A premise even in the seventies, when very unconventional films were made in Hollywood, which was deemed unsellable and he had to fund himself, grappling with complex ideas in a dense script but also with his own novice position at play. One which plays three-quarters of itself as a bizarre comedy that crashes into deeply serious material later on.

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The moment you get the parade of inmates at the beginning, you are aware that Blatty took the absurd comedy to its fullest. It's not an accurate depiction of mental illness, just a premise which becomes as mad as a box of frogs. How, as a first time director who had full control, he constructed the film is as much why The Ninth Configuration is as good as it is but also why it is difficult, potentially frustration and potentially divisive for many. A layered and frankly messy sound design is the first issue. Fascinating as dialogue is heard of characters off-screen before they even appear, but it is also dense due to how the film was made, especially with the naturalistic acting styles of the cast that means you can easily miss details with ease, distracted or because dialogue is too quiet in the sound mixing. The script itself is as complex, having to juggle elaborate and sometimes incredible artistic dialogue alongside moments of serious humane and theological ideas. It does succeed but I will not understate how much of a challenge it is on a first viewing. That's before the weirdness begins to pile up as well.

It terms of what The Ninth Configuration is, Blatty offered it as the official sequel to The Exorcist. Rather than what we actually got - John Boorman's utterly ridiculous Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) - if The Exorcist was about evil existing in the modern world, The Ninth Configuration is about good in the modern world, especially as Captain Billy Cutshaw is meant to be the same astronaut Regan in the first film confronts when she is first demonically possessed. If The Exorcist is about the Devil existing, The Ninth Configuration is about God existing. How Blatty goes about this is not what one expects, playing at first in pure absurdity at its most extreme with flickers of suddenly moments of introspection with Colonel Kane, a troubled man whose existence is revealed to be a nightmare for himself, literally disconnected from himself.

From http://images4.static-bluray.com/reviews/10864_5.jpg

Whilst the presentation is coarse and jagged, with a plot structure which will put many off, it does make an interesting choice in depicting the modern world, post Vietnam War, as a literal madhouse of chaos. As Cutshaw denies the existence of God, he yet lingers over Him as a Catholic, Kane ultimately a saint trapped within his own horrifying crimes against humanity, his own redemption (depending on the version of The Ninth Configuration you see) forced by martyrdom or self sacrifice. Whether the theological arguments work for the viewer, or they see them as flimsy, altruism ultimately is the idea central to the film. It still asks in this idea whether mankind is capable of self sacrifice without a need to do so except for good, the kind of material that you cannot help but be impacted by. Even the final scene, where a fully irrational moment happens to Cutshaw, a tiny but profound one, views existence as a complex beast the human species barely grasps on. Even if you find the film an utter indefinable mess, this is the kind of material many film viewers desire to see in their cinema whether your opinion is hopeful or nihilistic of these characters.

To get to this material though, you also have the truly bizarre, evoking Joseph Keller's Catch-22 as taking the absurd to metaphorical delirium tremens. It happens to be acted out by a who's-who of great character actors - Stacey Keach, Robert Loggia, Neville Brand, Jason Miller from The Exorcist - but the density of this writing alongside the tonal shifts keeps you on your toes as a viewing. When Dr. Kane decides to let the inmates indulge in their desires the film reaches its zenith of madness. This was already a film where Loggia's first appearance is in black face, the future star of Innocent Blood (1992) and Lost Highway (1997) imitating an Al Jolson number whilst a black member of  the inmates Major Nammack (Moses Gunn) looks on with bafflement, but when Kane lets them all act out their fantasies it gets weirder from there.

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Whether The Ninth Configuration works entirely or not, you have to admire a film this ambitious. Especially when it includes so much to love and admire. Jason Miller relishing his role as Lieutenant Frankie Reno, not the sombre and lost priest of The Exorcist but an inmate obsessed with re-enacting the complete works of Shakespeare with dogs as the actors, getting most of the best lines from the role. Moses Gunn wearing a Superman costume and even arguing with Miller that Superman should appear in one of the latter's plays to rescue a character. The least expected appearance of a jet pack possible. Ed Flanders' Colonel Fell, who becomes a more tragic and emotionally complex figure played by Flanders incredibly, but begins as a hilarious figure who deals with inmates stealing his trousers and has to relieve himself by combining whiskey with Alka-Seltzer. Dialogue, from suicide pills with laxative qualities to even a shout-out to Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945), so ripe and so hilarious at times I will gladly rewatch the film to soak it all up. And then there's the dramatic bar sequence near the end of the film which is the denouement of the film. Strange in itself as Steve Sandor as a bike gang leader is dressed as a glam rock lead singer, (or Gerrit Graham's Beef from Phantom of the Paradise (1974)), with character actor Richard Lynch of all people adding to the cast as his right hand man, but ultimately an important moment for the tragedy that takes place when a certain character snaps. Whilst the film feels of its incredible flaws in structure, so much so there have been many cuts of the film from Blatty before his death, there is still a pertinent and powerful drama in the midst of all its oddness to go with. So much that stands out that it has to be admired.

Abstract Spectrum: Introspective/Surreal/Weird

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Medium

Personal Opinion:

Ambitious, ramshackle at points, but ultimately admirable. The Ninth Configuration has stayed with me since seeing it, and I cannot help but think of so much that works within the film and also having gained so much even from the challenge of watching the movie.

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