Crime Unseen is a show examining two worlds of photography.  It is an exhibition exploring how photography – drawing on “photojournalism, forensic photography and documentary landscape” – reflects and records crime, inquiring as to the impact a violent act can have on a participant, a witness, a location, or a society.  Curator and Associate Director Karen Irvine for the Museum explains on the web page dedicated to the exhibition: “In fighting crime, the notion of truth is imperative, so we put photographs to work as a way of determining the actions and identities of perpetrators, though sometimes such judgments prove to be inaccurate.”

Though photography is the most accurate visual representation that has yet been devised, it is still just that: a representation.  It can be altered, and even when it is unadulterated, its capacity for truth is severely limited.  Because of this assumed inherent objectivity, though, some things are lost.  First is a sense of context, where undeserved value is placed on the photograph as evidence of pure fact and representation of reality.  The second sacrificed element is often the human connection between the viewer of the photographer and the forensic eye which is examining it.  A photographed knife is viewed merely as evidence, where its size is measured, its location is documented, and the blood splatter is analyzed.  It becomes removed from the actual act it was used in, detached from the flesh it tore.  The lens and film create a barrier, separating the traditionally analytic and forensic eyes for which crime photography was originally intended.  The show’s best works permeate or completely remove that barrier.  They comment upon the disparate subjectivity and objectivity that a photograph can provide, and “actively engage with myth and reality as they question the roles of memory, the media, and evidence in solving and remembering crime.”

Two collections within the exhibit – selections from the Chicago History Museum’s archives from the Chicago Daily New, and Christopher Dawson’s series Coverage – both explore what, historically, was the first step of photography’s estrangement from objective truth: its use in the media, specifically in its use in news reporting and photojournalism.  By taking images and presenting them with reporting intended for the general public, the truth within the images is sacrificed.  The stories accompanying them, at best, must be distilled, leaving out supposedly irrelevant details that could be essential in properly understanding and contextualizing the image and the events they are recording.  At worst, they are altered or re-contextualized to serve a purpose other than presenting fact, whether it be a political purpose or simply to sensationalize the events in order to sell issues or add space.  The motivation to inform is supplanted by the motivation to profit.

The collection from the archives of the Chicago Daily News, including famous photographs of the aftermath of the Valentine’s Day Massacre, and serve as documents not only of those events, but of photojournalism’s early days.  Dawson’s Coverage, on the other hand, takes the post-modernist approach of documenting the documentation.  He has photographed the massive media coverage of major crime stories such as the trials of O.J. Simpson, Barry Madof and Casey Anthony.  His photographs contain images of masses of reporters and endless lines of news vans, all idle and laying in wait for some new development in the story, even if it’s as minor as a person leaving a home.  They echo, in many ways, Garry Winnogrand’s well-known photograph of the Elliot Richardson news conference, pulled back and exposing the wires and equipment involved in recording and staging the “news.”  Dawson, instead of pulling back, has simply turned the camera completely around, and photographed nothing but the artifice of creating the news.  His pictures are all wires and equipment, with the actual “news” absent.

In one of Dawson’s the photographs of vehicles amassed during the Casey Anthony trial, there is a campaign sign for a candidate named Van Fleet running for some elected office.  It is a humorous pun on what we are actually viewing – a fleet of vans – but also serves to pointedly question the role that the news media, with all of its embellishments and sensationalism, has come to play in our society.  Are they, in fact, leading us, and did we elect them or not?  Each of these collections is interesting and of either artistic or historic value (or both) on their own, but together, they draw a clear through-line from the early days of photojournalism where the seeds of luridness and melodrama were planted, and the modern day, where we are reaping its fruits.

Perhaps the most ambitious (though for this writer, least effective) work attempted to create a partially-fictional narrative out of a specific historical crime.  Christian Patterson’s series explores the murder spree of Charles Starkweather and Carol Ann Fugit during the winter of 1957-58, whose pursuit, capture and trial captured the imagination of the American public. Patterson believes “the most important implications of the crime are located not in the social or in the collective, but in the interior responses we have to it—emotionally, intellectually, and in our imaginations.”  Patterson appropriates archival photographs from the crimes along with his own created images, as well as other mixed media pieces.

As Patterson’s series is the most obviously post-modern in the exhibit, it is ironic that where it succeeds most is on a purely formal level.  His attempts to connect such disparate images as empty roads and houses at night with shotgun scatter through museum board or photographs of bloody snow, all tied together with an unexplained fictional account loosely based upon historical murders that have all but vanished from the public consciousness, fails to ground the series or grant it any cohesion.  The pieces work best when standing on their own.  Photographs of a single spent shotgun shell lying on the ground or of blood streaked snow are highly graphical, with the shapes of the objects themselves, and the shadows they create, echoing works from the Purist movement in the early parts of the 20^th century.  The most successful piece is one of a house of cards, exposed multiple times from different angles.  It plays with the concept of point of view, of how a slight shift in one’s perspective can completely alter their world and send everything crashing down like, well, a house of cards.  Sadly, the unity of his series’ theme is equally tenuous.

All of the photographers involved in the show take different approaches to looking at the intersections between crime and photography, though all, in some way, look at its effects.  Those effects can be quite disparate, though, varying in the specificity of the crime, and the focus on either the human or societal impacts of the crime.  The most expansive approach comes from Krista Wortendyke in her piece Killing Season: Chicago.  Between October 2010 and January 2011, Wortendyke photographed the site of every homicide in the city, often days or weeks after the crime was committed.  These photographs are arranged chronologically on a wall.  In times when there were many murders, the photographs rise high, while gaps between crimes leave gaps, creating the image of a city skyline.  The images, absent of context, are exceedingly banal, combined with the unique display method, all serve to illustrate how violence and crime disappears into the make-up of a city, and can become as integral to its composition as its buildings.

Just as removed, though more specific to particular events, is the work of Angela Strassheim.  Having worked as a forensic photographer as well as having an MFA, she has a foot firmly planted in both objective and subjective photography, which her pieces reflect.  Strassheim’s work is divided into two types.  The first are a simple series of color photographs, almost a pure snapshot aesthetic, of various locations.  They are crime scenes, and the photograph is simply titled a piece of evidence, such as a field with a “No Trespass” sign titled “Small rod, kitchen knife.”  Like in the photographs in Killing Season: Chicago, the triviality of these photographs belies the violence that occurred there, and with the haunting yet vague imagery placed in the viewer’s head by the titles, create a haunting effect.

Equally haunting is her other series of photographs, these of specific crime scenes.  Developed in stark, high-contrast black and white,  show rooms in which crimes have been committed, using equipment to expose old blood splatter in almost fluorescent, glowing white.  Though the rooms are ostensibly empty, the effect is given that something, in addition to the blood, remains.  In one piece, “Evidence No. 11,” there is a radiant TV blaring pure white, almost as bright as the blood cast against the wall.  It is reminiscent of the “hydrogen” jukebox in Robert Frank’s The Americans: technology showing the only sign of life in an empty and lifeless room.

Deborah Luster’s collection Tooth for an Eye, at first glance, seems to have a similar remove to other works in the show.  Black and white photographs of the locations of murders in New Orleans – a gas station, a park, an empty lot – all framed in a perfect circle.  The photos  are hung in a large four by six display, creating a mass effect similar to the wall display for Killing Season: Chicago.  Hints of a more human and personal touch emerge, though; where Stressheim simply titled her photographs via the objects involved, Luster’s photographs include the name and age of the victim, with the round framing echoing a bullet hole or target sight.  The artist, in her own words, “takes a close look at something that no longer exists—an invisible population—in the only way in which one can approach such things, obliquely and through reference.”  This humanistic and less removed approach is a clear result of the artist’s own experience – her mother was the victim of murder.  As violent crime has intruded itself into her own life so much, it makes sense that she doesn’t maintain the more removed and analytical approach of other photographers in the exhibition.

A similar personal approach is taken by Taryn Simon in her video project The Innocents.  Where others have been focusing on the direct victims of crimes, Simon records interviews of victims of another type: people who have served time for violent crimes that they didn’t commit.  These recordings take place at some site of significance: where they were misidentified, where they arrested, where they were when the crime was committed, etc.  It an ethos with the Marxist-Realist approach to documentary photography of including the voice of the work’s subject, with these men’s voices forming the bones on which the power of the images rest.

The best works of the show, though, are the photographs by Corinne May Botz.  Botz photographed recreations of crime scenes in dollhouses, which were used in the 1940s and 50s to train police officers skills towards examining evidence.  What is most discomfiting about the images is the contrast between the grisly nature of the recreated scene – blood splatter near cribs, bullet holes, dolls laid out as corpses – with the idyllic nature and innocence of what is traditionally a child’s toy.  It also comments upon the layers of representation in crime photography; these are recreations on film of events that were already recreated in the dollhouse, adding layers upon layers of separation between the viewers in the gallery looking at the images with the actual violent events that inspired them.  Paradoxically, the photos are more affecting, partially because that disconnect is at the forefront, along with the juxtaposition of the dystopic scene in what was once an idyllic setting.

Though photographs are incredibly accurate representations of their subjects, they are still just that – representations.  As they have become a hallmark of our society’s recordings of crimes, from the news media to forensic work, they have been relied on more and more to convey exact truths, a task which they are sometimes imperfectly suited towards.  None of the photographs in Crimes Unseen are of crimes being committed – of crimes seen.  They are simply how police or the media or artists or simply humans have tried to understand what happened.  What the works in Crime Unseen manage to do is to eschew the essential truth of crime photographs, and look more towards the human truths underneath.

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(Part three of a four part series that took a year off.  Read parts one and two.)

Winter has such a singular essence, which made creating this list both difficult and simple.  Difficult in that there were fewer songs to choose from to fully exemplify the feeling of winter being expressed through music, but much easier in distinguishing whether a song did contain those elusive qualities.

I discovered, in my compiling and obsessive listening and re-listening to these songs, that all of the limited aspects of songs that express the quintessence of the season could be distilled simply to the opening line of one of the entries: Wilco’s “Via Chicago”.

I dreamed about killing you again last night, and it felt all right to me.

So put on a sweater and let the frigid air chill your eardrums as we perform an autopsy on winter and deconstruct that line.

“I dreamed…”

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Directed by J. J. Abrams

Starring Joel Courtney, Elle Fanning, Kyle Chandler

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence and some drug use

Super 8 is a movie bathed in nostalgia.  J. J. Abrams has created a veritable pastiche of early Steven Spielberg films, from the obvious tropes – a group of plucky preteens form a tight bond while dealing with supernatural dangers lurking beneath the surface of middle-American suburbia  – to the less obvious, such as the beleaguered small-town law enforcement official in over his head, straight out of Jaws.  Luckily, Spielberg is signed on as a producer, so Abrams is safe from any risk of a copyright infringement suit.  Abrams, for his part, has lent his personal touches as well, namely the film’s mysterious publicity campaign (Lost, Cloverfield) as well as a heavy helping of lens flairs (Star Trek).  What’s somehow been left out, though, is any sense of spontaneity, wonder or originality.

Newcomer Joel Courtney stars as Joe, a quiet and sensitive fourteen year old boy whose father, Sheriff’s Deputy Jackson Lamb (Friday Night Lights‘ Kyle Chandler), has become even more withdrawn after the recent death of Joe’s mother.  Joe has been spending his free time working with a group of friends in making a zombie movie, and complications arise when a new member, Alice (Elle Fanning) joins the cast.  On their first night filming scenes with her after hours at a nearby train station, they witness a colossal train accident, setting into motion many creepy doings in their small town, none of which I will spoil for you here, lest I incur the wrath of the keeping-plots-secret-loving Abrams’ legal team.

The performances, especially those of the three leads, are easily the best aspect of the film, lending layers and complexities to characters that the script sells short.  Abrams is a capable craftsman, and from a technical aspect, the movie is well put together, with an impressive look (though enough with the damn lens flairs!) that’s evocative of the movies he’s riffing on, but not beholden to them.  One of the movie’s biggest flaws, though, is the let down after the long-held secret of the mysterious happenings are revealed, ending up being a cold rehash of several sci-fi and horror movie formulas.  It’s a huge disappointment after both the hype of the marketing and the evocation of Spielberg’s previous films, some of the most memorable, original and heartfelt depictions of the supernatural intruding on suburban existence ever committed to celluloid, which Super 8 can’t help but pail in comparison to.  Abrams’ love of those pictures, and of the process of film making itself, is still palpable; the scenes of the gang of misfits working on their movie are easily the film’s most effective.  But when shit stops being polite and starts getting real, the movie loses most of its personality, and while its clear that all the ingredients of Spielberg’s past successes have been assembled, the craftwork is clumsy, and the aura of magic is noticeably absent.

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Va Pensiero’s Beef Carpaccio – Evanston, IL

My wife and I spent a romantic weekend in Evanston for Valentines Day and our (dating) anniversary, which are just one day apart, and we ate at this nice Italian eatery, Va Pensiero. (Now at a new location and slightly renamed, dropping the “Va”.)  We had a great meal, but what still stands out is our starter, beef carpaccio.  For those of you unfamiliar, it’s beef tenderloin, served either raw or quite rare (as in, seared for 30 seconds) and sliced extremely thin, dressed with olive oil and lemon juice.  It was exactly what an appetizer should be: light and not overbearing at all, but with a hint of heft and meatiness from the beef.  I remember the rest of the meal as good, but the specifics begin to fade away.  I still find myself daydreaming about that carpaccio every few weeks, though.

Miramar‘s Brunch Buffet – Highwood, IL

One of my favorite places to eat, this quaint French bistro has been my go-to fancy dinner place for years.  They have the best creme brulé and onion soup I’ve eaten in a restaurant, and that includes all of the ones I sampled in Paris.  Just this year, though, I discovered their Sunday brunch buffet, which at $20 a person is probably the best food deal you can find in the area. (My wife and I will often go in on an empty stomach in the late morning/early afternoon, pig out for an hour or two, and then not eat anything for the rest of the day.  But we’re cheap like that.)

We first tried the brunch on Mother’s Day, where, for the same price that you’d pay any given Sunday the rest of the year, you get their standard brunch fare along with bonuses like fresh oysters and prime rib.  And that Mother’s Day is when I tried my first oyster.  It wasn’t that I’d been afraid to try them before, but they’re easily the priciest mollusk out there, and I never wanted to shell out the pennies necessary to try something I may not enjoy.  Seizing this golden opportunity, I squirted some lemon on the slimy little devil and dumped it down my throat.  Yes, the texture took a bit getting used to, but the fresh brininess completely won me over.

Another first for me that day was chilaquiles, which is incredibly simple and incredibly delicious, just leftover tortillas cut up and simmered in salsa, the ideal drunken snack or hangover cure.  A few months later, I went again for a non-Mother’s Day brunch, and was shocked to discover that the chilaquiles were gone, and replaced with inferior flautas!  What they had added to their line-up, though, were almost as good: cheese blintzes in raspberry sauce.  The cheese filling was perfectly textured, not too thin, and with a slight zing from some added orange zest.

Main Street Smokehouse – Libertyville, IL

I’m gonna go a bit easy on this write up, since we’re also planning a Gather Round the Table write-up in the near-future, but this is where I discovered first-hand that barbecue could be incredible food, and not just something to eat in a backyard while drinking beer.  Their sides vary from good (coleslaw) to life-changing (baked beans), and I can’t stay away from their brisket or pulled pork for more than a few weeks.  It doesn’t help that it’s less than a mile from my home.

The Buckhorn Exchange - Denver, CO

This past summer, the wife-person and I went on a cross-country road trip, and that’s where much of this year’s gastronomical adventures occurred.  Nothing too special was consumed in our first two stops – Iowa City, IA or Omaha, NE – but our second night on the road, we landed in Denver, CO and decided to hit up the city’s oldest restaurant, the Buckhorn Exchange.  We went kind of crazy, each getting a combo meal with two types of meat, sharing a bit all around.  We sampled game hen (like extra-flavorful chicken), a standard but tasty cut of beef, ostrich (a bit dry, but a strange cross between beef and poultry.  Maybe a less fatty duck?), and my new favorite “steak”, elk tenderloin.  I got it medium rare, and it was so rich, and the animal had clearly eaten so much iron from its natural diet, that it wasn’t red inside – it was purple.

The real notable dish from that visit, though, was our appetizer – Rocky Mountain oysters.  For those of you not in the know, that’s not seafood, but bull testicles.  In this case, sliced into chips and deep fried.  And you know what?  They’re kind of awesome.  They have a subtle richness that you find in organ meat, like liver or sweetbreads, but not as overpowering.  They came with two sauces – a horseradishy cocktail sauce and a sort of tartar sauce.  It didn’t quite match our fancier meal, but if I ever open up a high-class bar or gastro-pub, this will definitely be on the meal.  It’s honestly some of the best bar food I’ve ever had.

Scotch Egg – Cañon City, CO

Speaking of awesome bar food, we stopped the next day in Cañon City to grabb a snack. A local tavern served a Scotch Egg, something we’d heard about bet never sampled.  For those of you who are also in the dark, it’s a hard-boiled egg, coated in a thin layer of sausage, and then deep fried.  Ours was served cut in half with a small cup of maple syrup for dipping.  Rich and fatty, spicy and meaty, with a hint of sweetness from the syrup, this would have gone great with a beer, except that it was 11 am.  Yet another addition to my fantasy bar’s menu.

Mesa Grill – Las Vegas, NV

My wife, like much of female America, has a crush on Bobby Flay, celebrity chef and Food Network star.  I always thought he was alright, but when we stopped in Las Vegas, we decided to splurge and have a nice expensive meal out at his restaurant Mesa Grill.  And you know what?  The food was pretty awesome.  We started the meal with some overpriced-but-tasty margaritas (I went with the classic, Jenn had the prickly pear varietal.)  Our appetizer, pictured above, was described as barbecue duck on a blue corn pancake.  The pancake was more of a crepe, and a bit lighter in color than I expected, but it was no less delicious for that.  I have to confess here, duck is probably my favorite meat.  When eating poultry, I prefer dark meat, and duck is nothing BUT dark meat, all flavorful and fatty.  Combined with a bold but slightly sweet barbecue sauce, this was the perfect start to our meal.

For an entré, I had the spice-rubbed pork tenderloin, which was perfectly cooked and came with several sauces that could be combined in endless permutations, so each bite tasted slightly different.  Jenn went with the corn-meal dusted chile relleno, filled with manchego cheese and eggplant.  The dessert was also incredible – a key lime tart with blueberries.  Not a place I could afford to eat regularly, but I have to confess that Mr. Flay is definitely more than just a pretty face.

San Shi Go Sushi - Newport Beach, CA

I have been ruined on sushi for the rest of my life.

Our road trip ended in Orange County, CA, where we relaxed for a week at a resort with my in-laws.  Our wedding anniversary fell on that week, so we took a sunset cruise just off Balboa Harbor (we passed through a pod of dolphins, which was kind of awesome).  We decided to hit up San Shi Go, a well-regarded sushi bar a mere block from the boat dock.  We followed the suggestions of online commenters and simply sat at the bar, introduced ourselves to our gregarious sushi chef, and said we wanted whatever was good and fresh that day – we put our complete faith in what he wanted to serve us.  He did not disappoint, either in his welcoming and friendly demeanor, entertaining us and his other customers endlessly, or with the food, which was transcendental.  From an amazing piece of red snapper nigiri (dusted with gray salt and yuzu zest) to a roll of oh torro (fatty tuna belly) to finishing off with sauteed squid with okra in a chili sauce, this is hands down the greatest meal I’ve ever eaten.  I can never be happy with just a California roll ever again.  I’m not sure I can even eat sushi in the midwest again.

German Cuisine at The Ronneburg Restaurant – Amana, IA

Over Columbus Day weekend, we took another trip out to central Iowa to visit some friends and family we have going to school out there.  We took a day trip out to the Amana Colonies, a settlement set up by a small religious sect similar to the Amish.  We dined on some German dishes, trying sauerbraten and spaetzel for the first time, some of my new favorite comfort food.  I love the mix of spicy sweetness and vinegary tang that cut through the rich and fatty meat in the sauerbraten, and the spaetzel are just a magnificent cross between pasta and dumplings.  Tasty food that really sticks to your ribs.

Roast Duck/Duck Soup

Like I said before, I love duck.  I also love to cook.  Amazingly, though, until about a month ago, I’d never cooked a duck.  Weird, huh?  Our families all had weird schedules this Christmas, and we were simply having dinner with my parents on Christmas Day, so I decided to roast us a duck.  I used Alton Brown’s recipe, saving the oyster dressing for another time.  The skin was perfectly crispy, the meat delightfully tender and seasoned.

The leftover duck, along with its trimmings (neck, back, etc.) I used to make a duck soup that we ate New Years Eve (accompanied, of course, by classic Marx Brothers movies).  Along with some vegetables and noodles, I added a bit of Marsala wine, and the sweet complexity perfectly complimented the rich broth.  It was a pretty darn delicious way to end the best food year I’ve ever had.

So what about you guys?  What are some of the best new dishes you discovered this year, either out at a new restaurant or in the comfort of your own kitchens?  How about food-related New Year’s resolutions – what have you always been meaning to try that you’re finally going to seek out this year?

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The Clash x Johnny Cash = Against Me!

David Bowie x Bruce Springsteen = Arcade Fire

Bob Dylan x The Grateful Dead = The Band

(My Morning Jacket - Prince) + The Shins = Band of Horses

Serge Gainsbourg x The Beastie Boys = Beck

Elton John + The Replacements = Ben Folds

TV on the Radio x Iron & Wine = Bon Iver

Spoon x The White Stripes = Cold War Kids

(Operation Ivy - The Sex Pistols) x Toots & the Maytals = Common Rider

(Spinal Tap – joke) x Belle & Sebastian = The Decemberists

The Band + The Beatles + The Beach Boys = Dr. Dog

(Sleater-Kinney x Elton John) + (Madonna/2) = Dresden Dolls

Lou Reed + Nick Drake = Elliott Smith

Neutral Milk Hotel + (The Hold Steady - Bruce Springsteen) = Frightened Rabbit

The Clash x Bruce Springsteen = Gaslight Anthem

Cat Power + The White Stripes = Heartless Bastards

Elvis Costello x The Kinks + (Bob Marley/2) = The Jam

U2 x Bruce Springsteen = The Killers

The Replacements x Johnny Cash = Lucero

Well, that’s all for now.  Will I offensively oversimplify YOUR favorite artist beginning with the letters M-Z?  Will I eventually develop a Unified Theory of Rock?  Tune in next time to find out!

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It’s that time of year: the chilling wind, the harvest moons, the crunch of leaves and the faint scent of death in the air.  Halloween is just around the corner, which means it’s time to take off the masks we normally wear and put on ones slightly less grotesque, and its definitely time to watch movies that frighten us.  Then we can attribute our unease and sense of impending doom to that stupid slasher flick we just watched, and not to the fact that our lives are crumbling around us and people are committing atrocities right next door.  Here’s a personal list of films that have crept under my skin and kept me awake at night.  (Note: these films aren’t in alphabetical order, or even chronological, but High Fidelity style, they are in autobiographical order, beginning with the movie I saw, and was forever scarred by, first.

Dumbo (1941)

I was a pretty sensitive kid.  Many things made me cry, either from fright or sadness.  Most I can look back at and chalk it up to my sensitive demeanor at the time, but Dumbo is one that I still find unsettling.  When people think of frightening images from this film, they immediately focus on the Dance of the Pink Elephants scene, where Dumbo and his mouse friend get drunk and hallucinate a bevy of pink elephants.  (Yeah, and this movie was for kids.)  Being an immediate introduction not only to intoxicants but also any sort of surrealism, it is undeniably upsetting for any child.  There are two scenes that always got to me more, though.  First was the scene of Dumbo’s mother being whipped and chained up after protecting her child from taunting circus-goers.  The implied violence, all left off screen, has still left emotional scars.  The second scene is when Dumbo is turned into a clown and forced to perform in their circus show.  Like the pink elephants, it was incredibly unreal and disconcerting, but without the excuse of it all being a dream.  And more personally, it felt to me like sweet, innocent Dumbo had been kidnapped and turned to the dark side.  (I’ve always had an issue with clowns – more on that later.)



The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Wicked witch?  Scary.  Giant, disembodied floating head?  Terrifying.  Flying blue monkeys?  Gyah!  But all of these are easily dismissed as fantastical elements of fiction – they may frighten me at the time, but I know I will never encounter a green-skinned mistress of satan or airborne primates in my daily life.  But the trees that belligerently yell and throw apples at you?  There are trees right out side!  I see them every day!  No one seems to remember that scene later on, but it’s the one that eventually drove me to be the anti-environmental, tree hating son of a bitch I am today.

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971)

Everybody knows the scene, but no matter how many times I see the movie and know that it’s coming, this scene never fails to set me on edge.  Gene Wilder, at his most menacing, recites a sinister rhyme (in sing-song, which is way worse than simply speaking it) as the passengers of his boat are taken through a tunnel filled with disturbing images projected on the walls.   It’s as if someone hid Un Chien Andalou in the midst of a magical, candy filled wonderland.

Misery (1990)

By the end of the opening credits of Misery, the main character, an author, has been in a horrific car accident on a secluded, snow-filled Colorado road.  His struggle for survival would be enough to fill a movie, but he is soon rescued by Annie (in an Oscar-winning, star-making performance by Kathy Bates), who, after nursing him back to health, turns out to be a former nurse, as well as his “number one fan.”  Things take a turn for the worse, though, when he realizes that she could more accurately be described as his “bug-fuck psycho number one fan,” being so controlling as to keep him hostage until he changes the end of his latest novel, which she, to say the least, dislikes.  The most shocking scene is when, as a punishment, she hobbles him, using simply a block of wood and a sledge hammer.  It was at this moment that I, at the tender age of five or six (why the hell did my parents let me watch this movie?) realized that the greatest monsters are always a person who has lost their humanity.

Stephen King’s It (1990)

Watching this movie now, I’m amazed at how tame and cheap it seems, being a made-for-TV miniseries filled with TV stars of the 70s and 80s – Harry Anderson, John Ritter, Tim Reid, the dude that played John Boy on The Waltons (also, as young children, future 90s TV stars Seth Green and Jonathan Brandis – can you hear my wife swoon?).  But beyond the poor production and cheesy effects, what continues to frighten me is the performance of Tim Curry as Pennywise, the Dancing Clown.  Like I said earlier, I have a slight problem with clowns (most notably, a crippling fear).  They’re vaguely human, but a bit off and slightly alien, with their painted faces and fake smiles.  That joy and goofiness always hides a darkness underneath, whether it’s ennui or malaise, as in the “sad clown” cliche, or a simple insatiable appetite for the flesh of little children.

Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Misery taught me that the greatest monsters were humans, but Silence of the Lambs taught me that even more frightening were humans that were incredibly smart, charming and wanted to eat you.

The Shining (1980)

Alien seemed to solve the logical problems with haunted house movies (namely, “Get the fuck out of the house, idiots!”), but one year later, The Shining did a pretty good job solving that problem without resorting to a sci-fi, futuristic gimmick.  The Overlook Hotel revealed its sinister past gradually, and only to a disturbed, telepathic boy, who wasn’t prone to share his visions with his parents, who were caretakers of the hotel during the off season.  When shit did start hitting the fan, it was during a violent snow storm trapping everyone into the Colorado mountain resort, making it impossible to leave.  Like the characters in the house, the frights in this movie creep up on you, like sitting in a pot of water that’s slowly being boiled.  You don’t quite realize how frightened you are until you’re balls deep in the chaos, with crazy axe-wielding fathers chasing their children (Side note: why haven’t more films exploited the fear that young children have of their fathers?) and ghosts having crazy jazz-era soirees  and furry-fetish hook ups down the hall.

On a personal note, I first saw this film at a friends house on Halloween evening when I was 13.  His parents made us turn away during the nudity scene, which is not sexy at all.  Well, maybe a little, but then it pulls the rug completely out from under you.  Apparently, our pre-teen selves would be permanently scarred by a naked lady, but scenes of hacked-up little girls and murderous fathers were perfectly fine.

The Exorcist (1973)

I’m not a very religious man, and when I am, my religion of choice doesn’t hold much to that demon and witchcraft tomfoolery.  But even I was completely shocked when the simple domestic bliss of a mother and daughter is torn apart by an evil demon possessing the young girl, forcing her to say and do awful, shocking things.  Even I, with my jaded, cynical disposition, was fairly offended at her use of a religious artifact as a sex toy.

The Descent (2005)

You know what else is very scary?  The dark.  The only place I’ve ever encountered pure dark was underground.  As a young man I ventured into a sewer as a dare, and later, as a slightly older young man, my family took a vacation to Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, where the tour guides walked away with all of our lanterns.  You literally could not see your hand right in front of your face.  This movie exploits that fear perfectly, with the story of four adventuring women who decide to go spelunking in an unexplored cave and are trapped by a cave-in.  In their search for a way out, they come across some crazy man-bat mutants who want to eat them.  (Apparently, I’m very afraid of being eaten.  Maybe I was a bunny in a past life.  Or a cookie.)  In violation of one of the greatest horror movie cliches, the pretty ladies don’t simply scream and run away, but fight back, and with a vengeance.  It’s definitely one of the best horror movies of the past decade.

The Thing (1982)

John Carpenter’s sci-fi horror masterpiece takes the snowy isolation of The Shining and the grotesque, alien creature horror of Alien and ratchets them all up to 11.  The story of several men at a research outpost in Antarctica who are infiltrated by a shape-shifting creature is a perfect example of build-and-release tension.  It exploits our senses of paranoia, since the alien can look like anybody, as well as our fear of isolation, as there is literally nowhere to go but inside the base.  Like The Shining, every frame of this film is soaked in a sense of unease, but things start going to hell much sooner in this film, and just keep getting worse.  Not to mention the disgusting creature effects, which still manage to look realistic and frightening almost 30 years later.

Zodiac (2007)

This film isn’t really a horror movie, but there are moments that scare me now more than any I can think of, so much that, upon third and fourth viewings, I still have a hard time watching them.  The film ends up being a psychological character study wrapped in a police procedural, but the first hour, where the Zodiac killer is active and making his name known, is incredibly unnerving.  I’ve spoken of the haunting opening scene set to Donovan’s “Hurdy Gurdy Man” before, but there is a later one that stick with me even more, namely the Zodiac’s second attack, this time of a couple picnicking by a lake.  The scene happens in pure daylight, and though it is very violent, contains little to no blood or gore, but the all-too-real screams of anguish are enough to do me in.  It’s the simple matter-of-factness about the event, the way that it is staged, lit, and acted as realistically as if it were a conversation at a coffee shop, that completely freaks me out.

Well, there you have it: all the movies that ever really scared me, and some that still do.  What are some of your favorites that I should add to my “watch-on-Halloween” list?

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(Part two of a four part series.  Read part one here.)

I love fall.  I love the crisp air, and breaking out my sweaters for the year, and how the bonfires that were so superfluous in summer now serve a distinct purpose.  I love the tastes, from the braised stews to the crisp apples to the squash and root vegetables, all smelling of sage.  I love that the whole world looks like a Bob Ross painting, and seems as if it’s waited to reveal its true beauty right before it dies for the winter.  All of these feelings, in one way or another, are evoked by certain songs to me.  Make some hot cocoa and have a listen:

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We’ve all got movie blind-spots, even those of us that consider ourselves pretty culturally aware.  Follow Evan’s continuing mission to explore cinema past and present, filling in the glaring omissions as he goes.

If Quentin Tarantino has a major flaw as a storyteller, it would be that he writes characters.  (Yeah, I know, that sounds like a ridiculous criticism, but hear me out.)  All of his major characters are obvious fictional constructs: the scripture-spouting hit man who discusses hamburgers and the charm of pigs, the yellow jump-suited ninja assassin back from the dead and looking for revenge, or the brilliant, cold-blooded eccentric Nazi detective – they’re all as bloodless and devoid of any semblance of reality as they are immensely entertaining to watch.  Tarantino always gives them beautiful stylized dialogue, and structures and designs their world in new and innovative ways, but all of that can serve to distance the audience from the characters, putting up a barrier and constantly reminding us that we are watching a Quentin Tarantino movie, freeing us from becoming too attached to these characters and this world.  All of this is exactly why Jackie Brown was such a revelation for me.  It is definitely his least well-known film; it almost belongs on this list, and if I hadn’t been so “late to the party”, it would be.  Tarantino wrote and directed, but Jackie Brown is based on a novel by Elmore Leonard, and that is where its true strength lies.

The title character, played in a famous Tarantino career-revival by the gorgeous Pam Grier, is a down-on-her-luck flight attendant, caught by the FBI smuggling money for a Los Angeles arms dealer (Samuel L. Jackson, great as always).  She’s on her own, with Jackson hoping to kill her before she talks, and the FBI refusing to budge an inch until she rats out Jackson.  She only has the casual acquaintance of another world-weary interloper into the world of crime: a bail bondsman played by Robert Forster.  Leonard is magnificent at drawing a world of criminals and police that feels lived in and real, inhabited by authentic characters.  (For more examples, see: Out of Sight, and the great FX show Justified.)  These are people who simply work in this profession, just as some people work in insurance or construction.  This grounding of the characters, along with superbly nuanced performances by Grier and Forster, serve to temper Tarantino’s flashier indulgences with dialogue and story structure, allowing his stylish quirks to shine instead of getting lost in a sea of pop-culture references and shuffled time-lines.  Tarantino is a great writer, but his strengths are given room to shine when he works as a collaborator.

The film also boasts an impressive cast, which Tarantino uses perfectly.  Robert De Niro (or is it Danny DeVito?) is perfect in a small role as an ex-con, as are Bridget Fonda and Michael Keaton as a pot-head beach bunny and cynical FBI agent, respectively.  (Imagine how cool it would be if those roles had been reversed!)  Jackson has plenty of scenery to chew, but as mentioned above, Grier and Forster steal the show.  Both play sexy without betraying their ages.  Their time on this earth, and the scars they’ve incurred, have made them stronger, and are what attract them to each other.  At its heart, Jackie Brown is a story of two people that the world has taken everything from, people who have shut themselves off and are going through the motions, but upon meeting, wake up from their slumber and take a gander at what they may have been missing.  All that stuff about smuggling cash and double crosses are background noise.

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(Warning: I will try to avoid spoilers where possible, but there are bound to be some sprinkled throughout.  Proceed with caution.)

Bicycle Thieves (1948)

A truly classic film is a perfect convergence of technical skill and innovation with an eloquence of emotion and honest humanity, an alchemy that is difficult both to replicate or quantify.  (Ironically, quantifying that is the job of the film critic.  Oops.)  The quintessential Italian Neo-Realist film Bicycle Thieves, an undeniable classic, is so affecting because of its simplicity.  A man in post-WWII Rome, in economic times that make what we’re living through seem like the Roaring ’20s, is lucky enough to get a job hanging posters around the city.  His family pawns most of their belongings in exchange for a bicycle, which is essential to him keeping the job that is the family’s only hope.  Of course, (SPOILER!) the bicycle is stolen, with the remainder of the movie following the man and his young son searching the city for the stolen bike.  What breaks my heart (besides the boy’s cherub-like face, all pudgy and wide-eyed) is the man’s constant loss of dignity in front of his son, first because of his inability to shield him from the harsh, unforgiving world (a parental duty that, in the end, everyone fails at), and in his failure as a role model to his son, as he is driven to make moral compromises to protect his family.  As he makes the movie’s title plural, he sacrifices his own soul to put bread on his family’s table, and the shock and realization that his father is as flawed as anyone reflected on the boy’s face is enough to send me over the edge.

Big Fish (2003)

Another movie about fathers and sons.

There’s something about boys and their fathers.  I was 8 or 9 when I kissed my dad goodnight for the last time.   I had a couple more years left of hugs, and then physical signs of affection were no more.  This isn’t to say that my father didn’t care about me, or never loved me, or even that he made a conscious decision about what was and wasn’t appropriate ways to interact with me.  We simply conformed to societal norms; expressing that sort of intimacy and affection between two men, according to our society, is over once they’re both out of puberty.  I think this leads to the distance that most sons feel from their fathers, and is why stories of father-son reconciliation strike such strong chords for many, including myself.  (See also: Field of Dreams.)

I love how this movie twists the cliche, though.  Instead of the father who can’t embrace his son’s artistic side, and finally relents and tells him to follow his dreams, it is the son (Billy Crudup) who embraces his dying father’s (Albert Finney) eccentricity.  The tearful, deathbed reconciliation gets me every time, but thankfully, the scene immediately following takes place at a church that looks like it was ripped from the video for Guns N Roses’ “November Rain”, so I’m able to compose myself and dry the tears before anyone can notice.  Because, you know, dudes aren’t supposed to cry.

Brokeback Mountain (2005)

A lot of people thought this was an odd choice for Ang Lee, mostly because  it was rooted in the American West, but, thematically, it fits perfectly with many of his other films.  It’s heavy with themes of repressed and denied emotions leading to heartbreak and tragedy for all invloved.  (See also: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; The Ice Storm; and even Hulk.  Hell, especially Hulk.)  The repressed, in this instance, is not a giant green monster, but Enis Del Mar (Heath Ledger), who begins a years-long, tumultuous affair with fellow ranch hand Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal).  Because of a traumatic childhood event, Enis is terrified of ever being outed as homosexual, and does everything he can to keep his affair (and sexuality) from being discovered,  to the detriment of not only Jack and himself, but to their entire families.

Jack dies, possibly of a violent death, and Enis visits the Twist family to pay his condolences.  While there, he discovers that Jack had been saving an old shirt of his, hidden in the back of his closet.  Enis, along with the audience, need to catch their breath, and realize the full weight of Jack’s love, and the potential life and happiness that they never got to experience.

Cast Away (2000)

Wiiiiilllllsssoooooon!!!!

Dead Poets Society (1989)

I like to pretend that kids listen to me.  I work in a high school library, and have taught my fair share of classes and youth groups, and I like to think that maybe a little bit of what I say, or the way I act, can slightly nudge these kids towards being more interesting, informed and responsible people.  Dead Poets Society is educator porn.  Few characters behave like a real person would, with stock characters like the stifled children yearning to break free, or the overbearing parent, or the stuffy school dean, or the free-spirited inspiring teacher spouting platitudes, each pushed to the extreme limits of believability, and then just an inch or two further.  The movie is engaging and entertaining, but also extremely manipulative.  And it sure as hell works at manipulating me.  The final, defiant “O Captain, My Captain” scene (you all know the one) still sends a lump to my throat and a few tears squeaking out.  It tells me exactly what I want to hear – “You can make a difference.”

E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

I love rewatching movies with people for the first time.  You get to relive your original viewing, and see the film with fresh eyes, reliving that original sense of discovery vicariously.  It’s probably my favorite thing about co-running a film club for high school kids.  A few weeks ago, my wife and I watched a 4 year old relative for a few days, and watched E.T. with him one evening.  He was a bit reluctant at first, but by about 20 minutes in, he was completely engrossed, as was I along with him, even though I’ve seen the movie dozens of times.  Spielberg, in his heyday, was able to bring a middle-class authenticity to the characters in his movies, which diffuses out to the more fantastical aspects.  It’s what makes us feel for what is, essentially, a little person in a funny rubber suit.  We see this world through Elliot’s eyes, and since Elliot and his world is painted so authentially, we completely buy his magical telekinetic and tele-empathic alien friend.

Near the end, the boy looked over at me, worried, and asked if ET was going to be OK.  “I hope so,” I reassured him.  I won’t say I had a quiver in my voice, but I won’t say I didn’t.

It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

This is the only movie on this list whose big cry comes from joy and relief, with little to no hint of melancholy.  The saccharine, feel-good conclusion is completely earned, though, by the pathos that precedes it.  George Bailey spends his whole life deferring his own dreams for his family and community, only to have it all blow up in his face.  He is facing financial ruin and serious jail time, leading him to contemplate suicide.  The realization of all of the good that he’s done, aided by the magical interference of amicable angel Clarence, is one of the most life-affirming conclusions to any film.  Maybe your life sucks, and you may feel it’s all a waste, but the true measure of a person is what they give to the world and what they make out of the limited time and resources the world gives them.  We may all know that, but like George, we’ve all had our moments of doubt.  Every holiday season, I’m a hot mess from “Merry Christmas, movie house!” right up to “Atta boy, Clarence!”

Lonesome Dove (1989)

OK, so I cheated.  (I’m kind of known for doing that, actually.)  Lonesome Dove is a made-for-TV miniseries, but when I thought of this list, it was the first thing I wrote down.  And look at the cast: Robert Duvall, Tommy Lee Jones, Danny Glover, Chris Cooper, Diane Lane, Anjelica Huston…most movies don’t have half that caliber of actors.  When people talk about the greatest TV movies of all time, this is always at the top of their list, right next to Roots and Band of Brothers.

Few westerns are tragedies.  Maybe The Ox-Bow Incident, and I wouldn’t say that High Noon or The Searchers end on a particularly happy note, but most westerns are films of triumph.  They focus on how the west was won, and not how limited, costly, and often immoral that “victory” was.  Similar to more modern films set out west, like fellow-list-member Brokeback Mountain (which, not coincidentally, was screenwritten by Larry McMurtry, who wrote the Pulitzer winning novel that this is based on), this movie isn’t afraid to show true human tragedy and weakness.  Like Brokeback, this movie also revolves around two men, both former Texas Rangers: Gus, (Robert Duvall), pining after a lost love, and in many ways, a wasted life, and Call (Tommy Lee Jones), an emotionally stunted and repressed man who focuses on anything he can to help him forget the pain he’s caused himself and others.   They run a cattle drive from Texas up to the virgin lands of Montana, with the true cost of taming a land, and stealing that land, laid completely bare.  Every character must face some sort of tragedy, with death often being the least cruel.  Because the characters are painted so vividly, flaws and all,  that there are several moments ripe for a good shedding of tears.  One in particular, involving possibly Duvall’s greatest scene ever (he’s stated that this is his favorite role), is the one that gets to me the most.  I’ll leave that to you to experience on your own, though.

Eventually, Call, whose brainchild the whole venture was, ends up back in Texas, being interviewed by a newspaper man, who heralds him as a “man of vision.”  The movie then resorts to the old cliche of the flash-back montage, recalling every major event of the miniseries.  The catch here, though, and the reason I completely forgive the trope, is that it’s a montage of death and sorrow.  “Yep,”  Call replies.  “One hell of a vision.”

Up (2009)

As a kid, lots of movies used to make me cry.  Sometimes I was scared by the likes of the trees, monkeys, wizards and witches in The Wizard of Oz, saddened by dead or missing parents in Bambi or The Journey of Natti Gann, or simply just disturbed by the mistreatment of an elephant in Dumbo.  My point, aside from admitting to ALWAYS having been a big wuss, was that kid’s movies used to be dangerous, and not afraid to elicit strong emotions.  Sometime since, though, family movies started playing it safe, limiting and sanitizing its tragedies.  It didn’t trust kids to be able to handle heavy or complex emotions.

In recent years, though, there’s been a sea change, spearheaded by Pixar Studios.  With each film, they’ve taken on complex, heady and emotionally resonant issues, from personal and artistic integrity (Ratatouille) to finding meaning in life and work (Toy Story, Monsters Inc.) to finding love in a bleak, unforgiving world (WALL-E), all without talking down or oversimplifying their themes for children, and winding up making some of the best films of recent years.  In their newest film, Up, the filmmakers are able to recreate the highs and lows of love and marriage, completely intact with all the joys and adventures of partnership, the strength you derive from each other during hard times, and the complete sense of loss when one is left alone.  They do this all in the span of five minutes.  And without dialogue.  Ten years ago, that wouldn’t have been allowed in a major studio’s family film.  Now, it makes for some of the best moments in cinema, and a boon for the tissue industry.

So, are you all big movie-gushers, too? What films make you guys pull out the hankies?

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