Detroit Gloom & Doom for a Happy Halloween

On my first flight to Detroit years ago, I marveled at the skyline. Who knows what could have been had the city further pursued its Olympic aspirations.

A standout structure on the lakefront -- John Portman's GM Renaissance Center -- gleamed even from 5,000 feet, just as it appeared in the film "Presumed Innocent."

After driving through central Motown en route to the fabulous Art Institute -- and realizing more than 1,000 area buildings now stand abandoned -- later bird's eye views yielded "urban graveyard" notions, with each rotting high rise resembling a tombstone for Detroit's heyday. 

Not a great fate for Michigan's largest city (predicted by Michael Moore in his debut "Roger & Me"). 

As you might suspect from the hit film references above, Detroit is the backdrop for many memorable movies. And since last Halloween, two films emerged as future horror classics that double for preserving snapshots of Detroit's plight.

If you're in the mood for a creepy and intellectual vampire feature, check out the clever "Only Lovers Left Alive" with Tilda Swinton as a Tangier-based blood sucker whose centuries-long marriage is enduring change. 

Her husband (Tom Hiddleston) resides in one of Detroit's abandoned mansions (there are thousands of derelict properties from which to choose) writing music inspired by contemporary rockers and memories of hanging out with Schubert. 

At night they Skype about many cerebral subjects before hitting their respective towns in search of an untainted hemoglobin fix. By day, they wring their hands over the world's dwindling supply of plague-free "pure" blood aptly nicknamed "the good stuff."

With Hiddleston in a personal funk, Swinton travels to Michigan to provide moral support. Her younger, free-spirited sister (played by Mia Wasikowska) also arrives on the scene, but quickly reveals her careless ways with a twentysomething victim and the elder couple's expensive supply of rare, clean blood. 

Mortified, Swinton and Hiddleston must work quickly to right the vampire ship before their coven is outed by nosy neighbors and local law enforcement.

I enjoyed the sophisticated banter that foreshadows human fate (for Detroit residents and worldwide). It's a sad future infusing a few lines of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner").

Hiddleston's vintage Jaguar (powered by unknown inventions of the couple's old pal, Nikola Tesla) and John Hurt's cameo as a vampire author Christopher Marlowe also elevate the highbrow environs.

Their body disposal method in an abandoned warehouse is super creepy. Savor and enjoy!

Another outstanding film casting a spooky spotlight on Detroit: "It Follows." What a scary treat!

I first learned of "It Follows" during three March 2015 segments on NPR. This is one film you may not wish to watch alone. More than once I was yelling at the screen "look out!" and "run, dummy!" just like when Jamie Lee Curtis ran for the closet in "Halloween" of 1978 (still terrifying!).

Opening in modern Michigan suburbs, "It Follows" introduces a wide-eyed college virgin, Jay (Maika Monroe) living the dream and considering her first sexual encounters with new beau, Hugh (Jake Weary) a heartthrob who recently transferred from a school a few towns away. 

Upon consummating their relationship in the back seat of Hugh's 1970's Detroit-built sedan, Jay is shocked to find herself knocked out by chloroform only to awaken underwear-clad and tied to a wheelchair inside an abandoned warehouse (the same as in "Only Lovers Left Alive," I wonder). 

Hugh informs her that through their tryst Jay inherited a new best friend "It" which is going to slowly stalk her until she passes the fuck buddy torch to another person.

"It" will follow her and hang around like a bad suit, addiction or lingering STD until "It" kills catches her.

And if Jay is caught and killed by "It" then It" returns, in reverse order, to torment those who previously encountered "It" following them. Get the picture?

Hugh punctuates these instructions by introducing "It" in the form of an expressionless nude female advancing on their warehouse perch. "It" can take the form of a stranger or a close friend -- that's what makes "It" clever.

Hugh drops Jay on her front lawn, leaving her terrified and bewildered as her younger siblings and neighbors watch. The teens (sans Hugh) then embark on solving the many problems "It" brings to their lives. 

This scene provides a peek at "It" appearing for the first time since the warehouse.

I haven't seen too many films this year that made such an impression.

Through its simplicity sans gore, car chases, or many special effects, "It Follows" is terrifying, mostly for letting the viewer's imagination fill in the blanks on what "It" might be or represent (many a spoiler-filled fan theory are now posted online). 

The script weaves in several literary greatest hits, and there's some excellent camera and lighting work. As in "Only Lovers Left Alive," decaying Detroit provides the unsettling backdrop in top form. 

Like peer classics "Halloween," "The Shining" and "Psycho," the film "It Follows" includes an outstanding soundtrack that makes the movie with musical effects inspiring hair stand at attention on one's neck and arms. 

The composer, Disasterpeace, built on notes from several horror genre favorites listed above, and I also picked up on possible inspiration he found from Tangerine Dream's work for "Risky Business" as well as Brad Fiedel's compositions for "The Terminator" or "Fright Night." There's even tonal reference to "Danse Macabre" and Trent Rezor/Atticus Ross' Oscar-winning score for "The Social Network."

Happy Halloween!

Images via IMDB

We Need To Talk About Olympic Archery

A few weeks back, I blogged about attending the IOC's World Conference on Women and Sport in Los Angeles. The event included a seminar featuring Geena Davis, the Oscar-winning actress who tried out for the Olympic archery team leading up to the Sydney 2000 Games.

Olympic archery was on the brain this past week as well, when my eyes first met the trailers for "The Hunger Games" film based on the Suzanne Collins book. It's no trouble at all to watch Jennifer Lawrence bend a bow and take aim -- interesting to note that a USA Archery athlete (a four-time Olympian who aspires to compete in at the London 2012 Olympics) trained Lawrence for her archery feats in "The Hunger Games," according to the USA Archery team website.

So, last night some friends and I screened the recent release of "We Need To Talk About Kevin" in which archery skills are a key element. Call it a hunch, but my guess is that if USA Archery or GB Archery provided bow and arrow consulting for "We Need To Talk About Kevin," it is doubtful they are publicizing their role in the film. Here's why.

"We Need To Talk About Kevin" is the story of a young yet reluctant mother, Eva (Tilda Swinton), who once lived her dream life travelling the world and experiencing its rich wonders (starting with a tomato festival in which thousands of twentysomethings are crunched together in a mosh pit of wrestling-made ketchup). We learn how her wanderlust took her to Bangkok, Paris and other destination cities around the globe until a reunion with a boyfriend (played by John C. Reilly) led to an unexpected pregnancy, tethering Eva to a joyless married life filled with nonstop screams of an infant son, Kevin.

Viewers learn through a maze of flashbacks and real-time scenes that over time Kevin proved to be, well, evil. Even as a toddler, Kevin's gaze comes from a dark, malevolent place. The more we learn about Eva and Kevin's mother and child tolerance for each other, the more questions arise about the source of Kevin's escalating hateful behavior. Is it his mother's longing for her pre-maternal life that is isolating her son? Is it his parent's passive-aggressive approach to parenting at fault? Or was Kevin just born bad?

I'm talking Mickey & Mallory Knox bad.

"We Need To Talk About Kevin" is rich with food visuals. In addition to the aforementioned tomato festival, viewers experience food in an array of haunting ways that foreshadow Kevin's unfathomable actions in his teen years. We see a lot of food flung at walls. A lot of red jelly smeared on glass coffee tables. Messy Cheezy-Poof smiles and a likely Andy Warhol reference to red soup cans (another art-infused reference arrives in the form of Kevin using black and red paint to pull a Jackson Pollock-style attack on Eva's newly decorated private office).

About the only time young Kevin seems to give his mother a break is during a bout of flu. In her efforts to comfort her now-eight-years-old son, Eva brings out an illustrated copy of "Robin Hood" and Kevin takes a shine to the descriptive pages about the hero's archery skills.

I don't want to give away much more, but it was interesting to me that given Swinton's starring roles in prior films about Thailand, notably "The Beach" with Leonardo DiCaprio, there are a lot of references to the nation, such as numerous Thai travel posters in Eva's offices during the 20-year arc of the film, and a vivid yet disturbing scene with lychee fruit around the family dinner table.

The eye have it in "We Need To Talk About Kevin" in that there are many extreme close-ups of eyes glaring at objects of interest. Kevin's dead brown eyes staring down an archery target. Eva's brown eyes taking in her living nightmare. I was reminded of the clever camera angles in another film about a family in crisis, "The War of the Roses" and its use of curious close-up shots.

After viewing "We Need To Talk About Kevin" many, including this blogger, will not hear a lawn oscillating sprinkler quite the same way.

If you made it this far in this post, you may wish to note the London 2012 Olympic archery qualifying events (for USA Archery and other Americas entrants) are coming up April 20-25 in Colombia. And the London 2012 Olympic archery venue is Lord's Cricket Ground. Let's see if we bump into Tilda Swinton at the competition.

Photos from "We Need To Talk About Kevin are via BBC.co.uk -- photo of Geena Davis is by Nicholas Wolaver copyright 2012. Wenlock Olympic mascot archery pin photo via GlamourousLiving.uk.co.