Goddammit! PREACHER Will Not Happen On HBO

A while back, Mark Steven Johnson let out early word that he was in talks with HBO to bring Garth Ennis' incredible and controversial comic book series Preacher to the small screen. The show would have turned each of the comics in the sixty issue series into a one hour episode. Unfortunately, that will no longer happen.

Johnson, who wrote both the DAREDEVIL and GHOST RIDER movie adaptations, told an audience Monday at The Continuum "we were budgeting and everything and it was getting really close to going...but the new head of HBO felt it was just too dark and too violent and too controversial. Which, of course, is kind of the point!" Johnson went on to explain that a compromise was discussed but eventually abandoned stating "it was a very faithful adaptation of the first few books, nearly word for word. They offered me the chance to redevelop it but I refused. I've learned my lesson on that front and I won't do it again. So I'm afraid it's dead at HBO."

Rumors of a movie adaptation, or hopefully a series given the massive scope of the comic books, are starting to once again rear their head, but will hopefully go to sleep before anyone catches a whiff. Maybe Showtime will pick up the slack? They could use a dark and edgy show.

LUSTRE Review for Cujou.com

Cujou.com is a new online magazine where I'll sporadically be reviewing more artsy and indie-natured films. Stay tuned for my look at FLOURISH and A SCANNER DARKLY. For now my debut exclusive review and a few reposts are currently available.

LUSTRE (2005) After forty years of being a loan shark and collecting gambling debts, Hugo (Victor Argo) has become a worn out shell of human. He spends his days wondering the streets of New York, lamenting about the old days, and how the city is losing its defining characteristics and wondering where all the "real" New Yorkers disappeared to. When he is not collecting, he spends his free time sitting at the bedside of his comatose daughter, a victim of a drug overdose.

When Hugo begins to hear voices in the sky, he at first chalks it up to exhaustion. But when he begins to see things as well - a businessman carrying a cross, the Virgin Mary in his spilled coffee - he fears that he is going insane... [Read The Rest Of The Review]

THE HOLY MOUNTAIN (1973) Movie Review

THE HOLY MOUNTAIN (1973)

An impoverished thief, who is brought to a city to work briefly for a circus, is seen as a Christ figure by those around him. And due to his physical similarities to Jesus, he is taken in and used as a model for paper mache models of a crucified Jesus by a local merchant selling Christian knick-knacks. But this thief rejects this image, and in his escape, he comes across The Alchemist. This alchemist cleanses the thief, and then shows him his powers over the elements by literally turning excrement into gold.

With the Thief firmly under the Alchemist's tutelage and indoctrinated into several rites, the Alchemist tells the Thief of his plan to bring together seven other disciples, and together they will search for the mystical Holy Mountain, where nine immortals live. Once the Alchemist brings together the other seven - each of which represent a planet and have a hold over different aspects of life such as consumerism, politics, and artistry - they perform a ceremony to destroy their devotion to wealth, body, and self. Once free of these trappings, they group begins their journey toward Lotus Island, where the mountain top they seek is on.

If EL TOPO, Alejandro Jodorowsky's previous film, is a search for spirituality and God, then THE HOLY MOUNTAIN is the destruction of the Christ figure and a questioning of master and pupil, and of the faith that the "unenlightened" put into the teachings of the "enlightened". As with EL TOPO, which this can almost be seen as a companion piece as the two are almost always linked during discussion and on recommendation lists, THE HOLY MOUNTAIN is filled with intense imagery that is meant to stimulate a raw emotional response. Unlike EL TOPO however, almost all that we are shown here is meant to be in real life, as opposed to dream or hallucination, and thus becomes even more shocking. When a group of followers marches down the street early on in the film each holding a skinned and gutted dog crucified on a stick, that is really happening, meaning that in Jodorowsky's take on this world, an actual religious sect felt compelled to do this.

Jodorowsky places himself in the role of The Alchemist, which leads to an allegory that not only is the character of The Alchemist leading his disciples, but that Jodorowsky as the director is leading us the viewer on the same journey - he asks us to place our trust in him to lead us to through the movie and onward to a finale that will reveal to us a satisfying conclusion. His character is shrouded completely in either black or white during the film, and as such is he becomes an absolute. Should the disciples not follow precisely what is told and asked of them, they will fail.

Each of The Alchemist's disciples represent an overseer of sorts of portions of our life, and are those that the commoners place absolute trust in to make decisions that will affect their daily lives. Fon, who is the representative of Venus ironically played by a man, is the head of a cosmetic and fashion empire. Isla, who represents Mars and is a woman, creates military weapons and even has a line of psychedelic guns and grenades for the protesting youth. Klen, who represents Jupiter, runs an art factory, who mechanically designs a new art fad every season. Sel, that of Saturn, makes predictions of wars to come, and creates children's toys that will create a hatred for their future enemies when they are grown soldiers. A treasurer, a captain of police who collects the testicles of those under his command, and an architect who creates freedom by taking away housing, round out those that the Alchemist has chosen. By choosing representatives of these professions, Jodorowsky creates a hierarchy of disciple and master, of leader and follower.

As with EL TOPO, THE HOLY MOUNTAIN requires that it viewers actively watch the movie, and make connections to their own lives and feelings on religion, teachings, and what they believe to interpret what Jodorowsky is trying to say. He starts the film with a series of images of eyes, as if foreshadowing that sight above all else will be the key to understanding the film. Jodorowsky makes the impression that one should not believe what they are told to be true just because someone says so, but to seek out the truth, to witness it with your own eyes and senses, to make your decisions from there, and to discover that those masters with power over us only have it as long as we give it to them.

Jodorowsky once again fills his screen with images of brutal violence, shocking sexuality, dead and dying animals, and the dualities that beauty and ugliness hold. It is a film not for the faint of heart or undaring, and he makes no apologies for what he is trying to convey. THE HOLY MOUNTAIN is a journey to the secret of immortality. And in the final scene, Jodorowsky himself provides just that, at the risk of all that you hold true to cinema.

DUST DEVIL (1992) Movie Review

DUST DEVIL (1992)

In the barren desert wastelands of South Africa roams an ancient, shape-shifting demon that is bound by human form, who searches for the souls of those that have given up on life. With these souls, the Dust Devil, as he has become known in storytelling and mythology, will be able to return to spirit form. After his latest victim, the Dust Devil sets back out on the road. He is picked up as a hitchhiker by Wendy, a woman who has just left her husband and is now traveling toward the sea as she tries to rediscover herself. As the two continue on their road trip through the hellish nothingness, the Dust Devil waits patiently for Wendy to finally give up on life, and to steal her soul away.

Meanwhile, police officer Ben Mukurob is on the trail of the Dust Devil, who he believes to be nothing more than a brutal serial killer. However, as the clues are dissected, they point to black magic and mysticism. Mukurob is highly skeptical of this, and turns to his friend Joe for help. Joe gives him the complete story of the Dust Devil, who he believes is in their midst, over several meetings. Once convinced that the supernatural may be at work, Mukurob sets out into the desert to hunt down his prey, unaware that his target is not one easily caught, nor can he be stopped like any mere mortal. Eventually, he catches up to the Dust Devil and Wendy, in an abandoned town that is slowly being swallowed up by the desert. It is here that the three will finally face off, and here that only one will walk away.

"The dreams came first. The dark man, his face hidden, his hat pulled low, his coat gathered around him, standing alone in the wasteland," director and writer Richard Stanley states on the origin of the Dust Devil character. When Stanley finally caught his dream on celluloid, his realization was very much like watching a dream. His camera slowly creeps through dust, wind and shimmering heat as it follows the main character, who although is trapped in a physical form, still has some control over the elements. There are no visible effects that affect the weather, only the natural chaos of southern Africa's climate that is filmed and edited to appear as if under control.

The storytelling writing of Stanley, although minimal, is sharply done, and more importantly, intelligent. This is a movie that lays down rules of the "universe" this film takes place in within the conversations of Mukurob and Joe, and great attention is paid to staying true to those rules to the finaly conclusion. Much of the film is told through imagery. DUST DEVIL is a very visual movie, in that you must read what you are seeing. Not everything is given to the viewer through exposition, and must be discovered and interpreted through sight. There are no filler scenes to pad out the running time, each scene and more specifically each shot, is designed with an artist's eye to keep the plot and ideas moving and evolving. You could even go so far as to define the camera as an omnipresent character, watching everything play out.

Robert Burke, who fills the shoes of the Dust Devil, filters his character's actions and expressions through the mysterious stranger template created by Clint Eastwood in his many westerns, particularly the more ghastly versions seen in HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER and PALE RIDER. His outfit, a full-length duster coat and wide brimmed hat, doesn't hurt in making these associations more concrete. He does avoid coming off as a Clint-wannabe, and builds up through the film a very unique character that is both strangely compassionate and menacing at the same time. He has but one goal to obtain, and is willing and patient enough to wait an eternity to accomplish it.

This review is based upon a viewing of DUSTDEVIL: THE FINAL CUT, which has just been released on DVD by Subversive Cinema. Richard Stanley worked personally with the staff of Subversive Cinema to over see the completion of his film, and this cut represents the true feeling, direction and story that Stanley wanted to achieve. Upon its initial release back in 1992, it was severely cut and edited (almost all of the supernatural plot points were removed) by Miramax who had obtained distribution rights for the United States. Now, it will finally be widely available for the arthouse horror crowd to discover it for the first time. And for those that thought you have seen DUST DEVIL, prepare to finally see the real film.

EL TOPO (1970) Movie Review

EL TOPO (1970)

In the desolate and barren desert wastelands, roams El Topo, a wild gunslinger, clad exclusively in black, and assisted by his seven-year-old and completely nude boy apprentice. When he comes into a village being ravaged by a ruthless and savage group of bandits, El Topo instinctively saves the village, and meets Mara. For saving her, Mara throws herself to El Topo. El Topo leaves the boy with the villages remaining monks, and heads off with Mara. Mara tells El Topo that the only way she will love him, is if he finds the four master gunfighters in the desert and defeats them.

Though no easy task, El Topo eventually finds the four gunfighters, but in the end is betrayed by Mara and left for dead. When El Topo finally awakens back to consciousness, he finds that untold years have passed, and that he is in the care of a deformed and inbred horde that is forced to live inside a mountain. The only way out is through a tiny hole at the very top of the mountain. El Topo sets out to create a surface level tunnel, so that all of the clan may leave and live in the nearby town, unaware that this is the worst decision he will ever make.

Forget THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW, this is the original, the unbeatable, and the pinnacle of the "midnight movie" Thrust upon the United States and the world when John Lennon and Yoko Ono saw Alejandro Jodorwsky's underground film and persuaded a friend to distribute it worldwide, EL TOPO took audiences unaware, became a jewel in the crown of film critics, and soon became a must-see in the early seventies.

EL TOPO is a hallucinogenic western that is difficult to follow, challenging to decipher, and filled with cryptic symbols and spiritual overtones that will have the movie mulling in afterthought long after the credits have rolled. However, the film does have a clue to help interpret El Topo's journey, which is found in the powerful and simple narrative opening - "The mole [which translates to el topo in Spanish] digs tunnels under the earth, looking for the sun. Sometimes he gets to the surface. When he sees the sun, he is blinded." Jodorowsky, who also wrote the screenplay and stars as El Topo, uses this short speech as an allegory over and over again, sometimes via metaphor and sometimes literal, thorough out the movie. It is the constant the keeps the film's themes going, and with it the rest of the clues to understanding will fall into place.

Jodorowsky's tale is that of a spiritual journey, of a man who is in search of something to make his life feel complete. As such, religious symbols and mystical elements play an important part of the film. Most of the film centers around Christian fixtures - including the cross, monks, mass, prayer, and divine faith. The film is divided into chapters named after books of the Bible, and El Topo is even crucified in a most unique way at one point. However, it is never quite clarified that El Topo is in fact searching for the Christian God, as the film also works in The All Seeing Eye (an eye inside a triangle, similar to the one a dollar bill), the element of fire, and meditation.

EL TOPO truly takes full advantage of film as a visual medium. Jodorowsky fills the screen with wild scenes of bloodshed and death, sex that is hedonistic, violent, sensual and taboo, visually arresting characters, the most memorable being an armless man with a legless man strapped to his back holding a gun. He sets out to shock with imagery that is designed to trigger an emotional response in all but the most soulless viewers. Jodorowsky also casts a spell over the entire film with his camerawork and editing, as he blurs reality to the point that what is on screen could very well be reality, a character's imagination, a vision of the future, or an aid to define the theme of the current sequence.

As mentioned before, EL TOPO is a very difficult piece of cinema to watch, but do not succumb to frustration so easily. Part of the wonderment of the film is its ability to mean multiple things as once, and to be seen by people in different ways depending on what they bring into the movie as a viewer. In that sense, the viewer goes on very much the same journey that El Topo does. And what you take out of the viewing may very well be a reminder and definition of just who you are. To that end, EL TOPO is more like a motion painting rather than a motion picture, and a piece of artwork that is worthy of the utmost respect.