I want to share with other movie fans those amazing films that get under your skin and stay with you for days: the scary ones, the funny ones; the ones that get you thinking.
With a background in creative writing, photography, psychology and neuroscience, I’ll be focusing on dialogue, what makes a great story, if the film has beautiful creative cinematography, the soundtrack and any movie that successfully scratches the surface of our existence.
My aim is to always be searching for that ultimate movie, to share what I’ve found to be interesting (whether it be a great soundtrack, a great director or links to other information of interest) and to give an honest review without too much fluff.
BAppSci in Psychology/Psychophysiology;
Grad Dip Creative Arts and
Post Grad Dip in Creative Writing.
Founder of GoMovieReviews.
Screenplay by: Matthew Cirulnick & Sylvester Stallone
Story by: Sylvester Stallone
Based on: The Character Created by: David Morrell
Produced by: Avi Lerner, Kevin King Templeton, Yariv Lerner, Les Weldon
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Paz Vega, Sergio Peris-Mencheta, Adrianna Barraza, Yvette Monreal, Genie Kim aka Yenah Han, Joaquin Cosio, and Oscar Jaenada.
Rambo: Last Blood isn’t the past coming back to haunt – although Rambo is now suffering from severe PTSD – this final instalment (the sixth in the series) is more a classic revenge film with lots of blood and guts and yes, there’s a broken bone through the skin moment for all those fans who remember, First Blood. A moment I’ll never forget from way back in 1982.
Here, we have the opening on a big storm, a big man, on a big horse. It doesn’t take long to realise there’s going to be some kitschy moments in this action flick; the dramatic moments highlighted by the over-emotive soundtrack (to make up for the drama completely missing the mark, again and again). It never works.
And when there’s a, ‘Hey mister – thanks,’ in the first ten minutes, there’s always cause for concern.
Yet, Last Blood wasn’t all bad.
Coming home to the ranch we have Maria (Adriana Barraza) – the grandmother of sweet-but-growing-up and Rambo’s niece, Gabrielle (Yvette Monreal) – who gives the tone of the film some warmth with gems like, ‘You’re not in the war anymore. Only in your head.’
And the travelling to Mexico changes the pace of the film where Rambo meets some super bad-ass guys leading to hammer wielding Rambo action that sits up and gets the adrenaline running through the old fella’s veins again.
Sylvester returning as John Rambo looks more monster than man, the visage used as a mask while he’s ‘just trying to keep a lid on it,’ the ‘it’ his soul-destroying rage.
‘You like digging and you’re a little crazy,’ says his niece but really adopted daughter, Gabrielle. She gets it.
Instead of heading into cheesy territory, the film gets bloody with some dark nasty moments involving forced prostitution and drugs and of course, revenge.
It’s all just so serious, Rambo is so serious that there’s moments I just had to laugh to relieve the tension. But it wasn’t even tension, more that Rambo was acting traumatised but not quite hitting the right tone.
So, some of the film worked with some surprising action. And some of the dramatic didn’t, ultimately leaving a feeling of the film being self-indulgent.
Screenplay by: Nicholas Stoller and Matthew Robinson
Produced by: Kristin Burr p. g. a.
Executive Produced by: Julia Pistor, Eugenio Derbez, John G. Scotti
Starring: Isabela Moner, Eugenio Derbez, Michael Peña, Eva Longoria, Adriana Barraza, Temuera Morrison, Jeff Wahlberg, Nicholas Coombe, Madeleine Madden, and Danny Trejo.
A good fun peppy adventure teen-movie.
It’s hard not to at least have come across Dora the Explorer at some stage – I remember waking up with a self-inflicted sore head on Boxing Day or Christmas morning to a painfully cheery voice as a young nephew watched an excited Dora exclaiming Spanish words on TV.
So, I wondered what a movie adaptation would make of a little girl teaching Spanish – can you say, Dora The Explorer not the cartoon version but human?
Yet the film immediately charms by referencing Dora’s teaching behaviour with Dora’s parents (Michael Peña and Eva Longoria) looking around confused, trying to figure out who Dora is actually speaking to – ‘She’ll grow out of it.’ Says archaeologist, professor dad (Michael Peña hilarious in this role).
So I felt the adaptation had something going for it if the writers have turned the film into a meta conversation while having at laugh at itself.
And Isabela Moner as Dora was well-cast as the warm-hearted teen who has learnt everything she knows about life from the jungle.
But it’s time for Dora to find friends her own age (and species); it’s time, for Dora to move to the city and start High School.
This is a film aimed at a younger audience as peppy Dora fights to be herself while also trying to fit in.
But it’s a kid movie made with sophistication, with montages of polaroids depicting Dora’s journey as a cut-out aeroplane moves across a map, the film reverting from live people to cartoon characters, the continued self-referencing – ‘Let’s make a song out of it!’. And the soundtrack was pretty cool as well.
What I really liked about the film is how the teen-learning-life-lessons turns into an adventure movie.
It took a while to get going, my nephew telling it how it is asking, ‘Why is she called Dora The Explorer if she’s not exploring?”
Then, the search for Parapatas (The Lost City Of Gold) heats up.
So instead of trying too hard with the jokes (that didn’t always hit the mark, for me, anyway), there’s more clever and adventure while solving ‘jungle puzzles’ and making friends, flipping the film from teen, to cute (see Mr Boots, so obviously an animated puppet, yet still very entertaining), to cartoon Dora, to full action adventure – mind altering spores included.
So the film brings the adults on-side while keeping the kids entertained with the rest of it.
I’m not saying the film was mind blowing, but in the end, I had some fun watching this one.
Winner of the Nastro d’Argento for Best Comedy 2019
Winner of Best First Feature, Golden Globes Italy, 2019
Italian and Bengali with English subtitles
The national language, Bengali, is the only official language of Bangladesh according to the third article of the Constitution of Bangladesh.
Phaim (Phaim Bhuiyan) is a twenty-two-year old born in Italy but his parents are still expecting him to behave like a Bangledeshi Muslim meaning: no pork, no alcohol and no sex before marriage.
So while perving at underwear adverts and trying not to look but really looking at a couple pashing on the bus, all he can do is ask, how much punishment is he in for by just thinking about getting it on before marriage?
When he meets the wild and beautiful blue-haired Asia (Carlotta Antonelli), what’s he supposed to do when kissing Asia feels like a compulsion? Like resisting is fighting against gravity?
Yeah, OK, sounds a bit familiar, the culture clash and expected romance…But director and star, Phaim Bhuiyan has gotten the tone just right with this Italian rom-com.
Rather than dwelling on the obvious, Bangla is more about the conversations Phaim has with himself and the camera.
We also get funny moments as the film addresses Phaim living in Rome in the multiethnic Torpignattara neighbourhood, as he works as a museum steward and playing in a band. The band, of course, playing Bangledeshi favourites.
When discussing the idea of going out with an Italian girl, his mate tells him, ‘Italian girls smell like pork.’
But in the end that feeling Phaim has means, ‘You’re in love.’
‘Cool.’
The straight-forward dialogue of Phaim and Asia when they first meet is classic.
The back-and-forth and instant connection between the two transends the two cultures because of its simplicity.
And it’s sweet seeing the two, arm-in-arm, Phaim edging away until hitting a tree because no matter how attracted he is to this Italian girl, he can’t do anything about it.
But she tries. While he tries not to. It works.
And the tone of the film has a lot to do with not just the writing but the spot-on editing and cut from shot to scene with Phiam firmly in control of the film without being selfish with it.
Produced by: Lee Eisenberg, p.ga, Evan Goldberg, p. g. a., Seth Rogen, p.g.a., James Weaver, p.g.a
Executive Producers: Josh Fagen, Brady Fujikawa, John Powers Middleton
Starring: Jacob Tremblay, Keith L Williams, Brady Noon, Molly Gordon, Lil Rel Howery, Midori Francis and Will Forte.
‘Beanbag boys for life.’
That’s how it is when you’re twelve.
There are tears flowing while dancing to, ‘Walking on Sunshine’ – yep, remember the enthusiasm in music class before it got embarrassing?
And Sunday cycling?
And when your mum’s your best friend??
When Max (Jacob Tremblay) gets invited by the cool kids to a kissing party, or course he’s not going without his mates, Thor (Brady Noon) and Lucas (Keith L. Williams): Beanbag Boys, for, Life!
But they don’t know how to kiss either.
So what do they do?
First, they decide it’s a good idea to type ‘PORN’ into a computer. Then decide it’s a better idea to spy on the nympho (meaning she has sex on land and the sea) next door with Max’s dad’s (Will Forte) precious, ‘Never-to-be-touched-because-it’s-not-a-toy. It’s for work’ – drone.
Only for the drone to inevitably be destroyed. Leading the boys on an adventure taking them further from home than they’ve ever been: miles.
The humour in Good Boys feels surprisingly like new territory.
It’s a comedy with some coming-of-age stuff that’s mostly about approaching teen kids’ interpretation of the adult world. Or misinterpretation.
That’s what makes the film so sweet and funny and good. It shows the innocence of kids growing up that somehow feels new.
Writing duo, Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky, state, ‘we felt like we could find kids in this age group to say outrageous things…and that could make people lean forward a bit […] The idea of an R-rated movie starring children just made us laugh.”
So the comedy is based on seeing kids cuss and misinterpret adult stuff like anal beads, sex swings and proving you’re hard by sipping beer:
One sip, you already feel it;
Two sips, you’re tough;
If you sip four, you’ve broken the record. You’re an alcoholic. Cool.
It all seems so silly written down. But seeing the kids say and do and misinterpret over and over again is hilarious because they’re so earnest.
The film really captures how kids are at that age.
Funnily enough, I drank a beer pre-screening of course prompting that dreaded, absolutely necessary toilet run. What I noticed on the way back to my seat was the smiles on everyone’s faces in the audience.
This isn’t a film that gets heavy or tries to convey any message. It’s just a funny comedy with some clever jokes played with sincerity from some well-cast kids: good fun.
Executive Producers: Tim Johnson, Frank Zhu, Li Ruigang
Starring: Chloe Bennet, Tenzing Norgay Trainor, Albert Tsai, Eddie Izzard, Sarah Paulson, Tsai Chin, Michelle Wong.
Yi (Chloe Bennet) lives in an apartment in a busy Chinese city with her mum and grandma.
She keeps herself busy; too busy to play with her neighbour, all braces and squeaky-voiced, Peng (Albert Tsai), and Jin (Tenzing Norgay Trainor) who is typically teen self-obsessed.
Because if she stops for a moment, then she’ll remember her dad is gone.
The only time Yi allows herself to remember her dad is when playing violin. And that’s when she meets Everest – up on the rooftop where the yeti is hiding from the people who had captured him and kept him in a cage.
On the run from the bug-eyed and rich explorer Burnish (Eddie Izzard) and zoologist Dr. Zara (Sarah Paulson), the trio decide to take Everest back home. Back to the Himalayas. And so the adventure begins.
The DreamWorks Animation team have outdone themselves, the trailer for Abominable not translating just how majestic the film is on the big screen. There were so many times I said, ‘Amazing’ and ‘Wow’ from watching the trio of kids and yeti ride a wave of yellow blossoms to see raindrops fall to the earth to unfurl into flowers. And not just a few times, the film is just one wonderful moment after another.
It’s the detail and captured behaviour in those details of even the small characters that delights – ‘You just darted Dave!’ from a gun-for-hire; and the grandmother captured so well with her constant, ‘that’s what I say’.
And there’s an intricate story here about family and grief but also about the magic of nature where, ‘It’s amazing how small you feel, just looking up.’
Where there are those who appreciate nature and those who want to cut it down and take it home.
‘I own that yeti,’ says the brutish Burnish.
And the yeti, Everest was not abominable but adorable with his underbite and puppy-like behaviour.
I love that furry critter!
And so did my nephews who enjoyed the film just as much as I did; one asking if I was OK at one point because I was a little teary with the sweetness of it all. I even got a hug.
Funny and sweet and beautifully realised, Abominable is a real treat.
Original Album Produced by: Aretha Franklin, Arif Mardin, Jerry Wexler
Originally Recorded Live At: The New Temple Missionary Baptist Church, Los Angeles.
A documentary filmed in 1972, Amazing Grace is the recording of Aretha Franklin singing in The New Temple Missionary Baptist Church, Los Angeles, a live recording that became the highest selling album of her career and the most popular Gospel album of all time.
The footage was never released because the sound couldn’t be synchronized – in the documentary, Reverend James Cleveland actually says, ‘Give the technician a big hand for the difficult.’
But without clappers or marks to guide the sound to sync with the video, Sydney Pollack, the original director, was unable to release the film.
Until now.
With digital technology, Alan Elliott, Jerry Wexler, and Pollack were able to match the sound to picture to make the documentary out of raw footage.
Recorded over two nights, the documentary gives a backstage pass back in time, and it feels like it with the 70s style, sweaty faces and running glitter.
The filming itself is basic with out-of-focus shots that slowly clear to tears and joy and crew in the background – it’s all so very raw but somehow that step back in time has given the film something else.
What the album doesn’t have is seeing that choir sing, to see the audience cry and fall in the aisle at the purity of Aretha’s voice.
‘She can sing anything,’ explains Rev James Cleveland.
And there’s nothing wrong with the sound.
I kept having to remind myself this was all recorded live. This is what Aretha’s voice actually sounds like, the soul of it so clear on the faces appreciating the moment in the church.
There’s real joy here. The glow felt through the screen, making me smile, making me feel something glow.
I was smiling all through the film. This blurry, badly shoot film.
And, there’s a story.
What you don’t get from the album is the fear you can see in Aretha’s eyes.
This is a recording of an album that opens a door to Aretha’s life. She wanted to go back and sing the songs from her childhood where she sang gospel at New Bethel Baptist Church where her father was a minister.
And her father makes an appearance in the documentary, speaking to Aretha, to the church. It’s like her past and present come together. No wonder she looks nervous.
Added to her performance is the effortlessness of the musicians – the piano playing like breathing, the bass playing in the intermission, the choir director, Alexander Hamilton keeping the whole performance together – shots of the singers in the choir from side-on to see the voice issue from their hearts. And Rev Cleveland introducing the audience to the church, keeping the vibe cool, keeping it real, keeping it together while singing his spirit. I just couldn’t help but love the guy.
This is the footage that’s been buried for decades.
To hear and see Aretha issue that ‘stone’ voice, it’s sanctified.
And one of those experiences where you wish you were there – with this documentary, you get a taste.
Produced by: Sarah Thomson, Nick Batzias, Virginia Whitwell, John Battsek
Key Interviewees: Adam Goodes, Stan Grant, Brett Goodes, John Longmire, Tracey Holmes, Nova Peris, Nathan Buckley, Nicky Winmar, Eddie McGuire, Linda Burney, Gilbert McAdam, Andrew Bolt, Paul Roos, Natalie Goodes and Michael O’Loughlin.
“I believe racism is a community issue, which we all need to address and that’s why racism stops with me” – Adam Goodes
Terra Nullius. That’s what Lt James Cook declared during his voyage around the coast of Australia in 1770: no one’s land. Empty land. A land without people.
And because of this declaration, England claimed the land without recognising the civilisation who had lived here for sixty thousand years: the oldest and longest known living civilisation in the world.
On the fringes of my understanding of Australian history, I grew up knowing the Aboriginals were here first. We were taught a little about some stories – I remember some picture books in primary school; hearing a little about the atrocities in high school; knowing of the complete genocide of Aboriginal people in Tasmania. To think that an entire population was wiped out is horrendous and perhaps why the past has been buried so deep.
The Australian Dream is a documentary about Adam Goodes, Brownlow Medallist twice (2003 & 2006) and one of the most decorated football players of all time.
But this documentary isn’t about a sporting legend, this is about a man who stood up to a country and said: racism stops with me.
The backlash against his stance filtered through even to my ears – a person who doesn’t really follow footy (but barracks for the Tigers and always will) – because the media explosion following his stance to take no more racial abuse caused a howl that’s been buried under a casual racism Australians have been a part of for hundreds of years.
Ignorance was brought into the spotlight and the people did not like the idea of an Aboriginal man standing up to a long-standing status quo.
The Australian Dream is a powerful documentary that hit me hard because it finally gives voice to a history people, Australians, don’t want to take ownership of. Not all Australians, sure. But it has to be said our history seems to be acknowledged more outside of the country than within.
It’s seeing the context of the situation that gives understanding of the heavy weight this footballer decided to take on.
And seeing the behaviour of spectators towards Indigenous players in the past, like Nicky Winmar, is shameful.
After the invasion, the lack of acknowledgement of the people already living here, the policies put in place in an attempt at trying to fix a bad situation only made it worse.
Adam himself says his upbringing was difficult, his mother doing her best, moving close to relatives only to move away because of the alcohol abuse, the violence; an environment of, ‘broken glass and mangy dogs.’
But the Aboriginal people survived despite the history of thinking the Indigenous people would just die-out while living in intense poverty, losing connection to their way of life, to the taking of their children to assimilate into the society of those who invaded their country, to make them white, to have to fight to be even recognised as people.
To be called an ape on the football field, when you’re the star.
Putting the audience into the shoes of Adam for just a moment makes the conversation of racism in Australia very hard to ignore.
Director, Daniel Gordon has a background of making films about the cultural significance of sport including, Hillsborough (the Hillsborough Stadium Disaster) and ‘9.79*’: an investigation of the infamous and controversial 1988 Seoul Olympic men’s 100m final, won by Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson, who was subsequently stripped of his gold medal after testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs.
And there’s a statement from Walkley award winner, journalist, Stan Grant stating, “Sport has a way of really capturing the essence of what’s happening in society.”
This is a brilliant example of a nation’s attitude brought into the spotlight, and how carrying this terrible burden, one that in 2015 caused Adam to quit playing the game he used to love, has made a change in attitude towards Indigenous people. And yes, the original people of this amazing country.
There’s some balance here, as the film shifts from the personal journey of Adam to journalists talking about the circumstances and reasoning behind the constant booing and hate from the spectators directed towards Adam on the field. Andrew Bolt from, The Bolt Report explains you call out a young girl, you call a war cry to the crowd, you’re bound to get a reaction.
As Stan Grant says, about the spectators’ response: Adam made the mistake of being an angry Aboriginal.
And he’s right. When a culture has been systematically forgotten, why should we listen.
To hear Stan tell of his time reporting overseas from places of terrorist attacks and hate, to return to the Lucky Country to hear about the racial tension surrounding Goode. He was shocked. Provoking him to write his landmark essay , The Australian Dream(QE64 – November 2016).
He states, ‘As this man retreated from the field Australia was forced to confront the darkest parts of its own history. Black and white we are all formed by this. We carry the blood of each other in our veins. Yet, we meet across a vast divide.
This wasn’t about sport; this was about our shared history and our failure to reconcile. Some sought to deny this, some to excuse it – to explain it away – but when thousands of voices booed Adam Goodes, my people knew where that came from.
To us it sounded like a howl: a howl of humiliation that echoed across two centuries of dispossession, exclusion, desegregation. It was the howl of people dead on the Australian frontier; killed in wars Australia still does not speak about. It was the howl of people locked up: a quarter of the prison population is Indigenous. It was the howl of hungry children; women beaten and men in chains.’
When put into context, how would I feel to cop racial abuse from the children of the invaders who raped, killed and stole children? Still, in living memory and from the time when my mother was young? Would I take abuse, as a person, let alone a brilliant athlete, the best in the game while playing that game?!
I think I’d retaliate with more than a war cry.
But this a powerful film because it’s a hopeful film.
Adam isn’t about retaliation. The message of the documentary is one of reconciliation.
“What we saw ultimately was the true measure of who we are. It wasn’t the booing; it was the people who stood up to the booing. It can never be too late. it can never be too late for that. Our history is a history of violence and racism and it’s a history of people over coming that. People reaching across that divide.” – Stan Grant
Aboriginal history is an oral history – to teach when people are ready to listen.
Starring: Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor, Will Poulter, William Jackson Harper, Vilhelm Blomgren, Archie Madekwe, Ellora Torchia, Hampus Hallberg, Gunnel Fred, Isabelle Grill, Lars Väringer, Henrik Norlén, Anders Beckman.
‘I’m sure it was just a miscommunication.’
Following the success of his debut feature, Hereditary (2018), director and writer, Ari Aster shares the same attention to the discord of strange ritual in a modern time.
The more ritual involved, it seems, the darker the deed.
Midsommar focuses on the pagan celebration and nine-day feast the small community of the Hårga partake in every ninety years: the purification ritual.
Before we’re introduced to the slow corruption (purification) of the idyllic village in Hälsingland, filled with wildflowers, people tending gardens, getting high on magic mushrooms and dancing around in white tunics, we see a relationship falling apart. We see Dani (Florence Pugh) clinging to the only stability left in her life after a family tragedy, Christian: her boyfriend who’s been thinking of breaking off the relationship for a year.
Christian’s mates don’t understand why he’s still with her.
All the boys want to do is live the life of students, go to Sweden to sleep with as many Swedish chicks as possible, while Pelle (Vilhelm Blomgren) shares the unique ritual of his home, a once-in-a-life-time experience with his friends while Josh (William Jackson Harper) writes his thesis about the celebration of the Summer Solstice.
So when Christian invites the distraught Dani to come along on the trip, the awkward tension of the relationship becomes the undercurrent of a journey that unravels like a bad trip. A trip that keeps getting darker played-out in the constant sunshine and reassurance of the Hårga explaining this is what we’ve always done. This is our tradition.
It’s the out-of-control pull of the constant bizarre behaviour of these villagers, that twists the perception, to see the warp of reality as the visitors are seduced into a culture so different to their own, to be swept along into the trance, helpless to stop what comes next.
It’s the subtle details that drew me into this new world, Aster and his creative team piecing together the culture of the Hårga based on James George Frazer’s The Golden Bough, paganism and the spiritual traditions of philosophers such as Rudolf Steiner. The team created a culture with its own language, history, mythology, and traditions. Bizarre and violent traditions with the added trip of seeing grass grow through feet, to see the trees breath; to see flowers open and close in time with a heartbeat.
There’s brutality and beauty, like the extreme of long nights and never-ending days. The beauty cloys. Like blood clotting. It’s too bright. The flowers are too pretty.
Yet, the ritual makes the violence seem natural.
‘It does no good, darling, looking back at the inevitable. It corrupts the spirit.’
The many shades of darkness and light are used like a theme through the film, like a reflection of the person telling a lie, the truth shown in the focus of foreground. Showing the shades of Dani and Christian’s relationship is these subtleties is the genius of the film for me – the deliberate pulling away, the discord when Dani tells Christian, ‘That was just really weird.’
And Christian replying, ‘Was it?’
Then there’s the artwork and paintings and symbols hinting of what’s to come in the story, making me wonder how dark the film will get.
However, I didn’t find the film too confronting, the film not horrific because the senses have been saturated with sunlight and flowers and flutes and song; like the characters, I felt a little drugged by the grassy fields, lulled into the natural progression of the wrongness because the village becomes closed-off, the modern world, shut-out.
Without the outside world to compare the behaviour, the ritual becomes embraced, so the violence doesn’t hit as hard. I guess making it all the more disturbing. But for me, more thought-provoking because eventually, all those subtleties add up to show an interesting truth of human nature.
I’ve been thinking about writing this article since watching the thought-provoking horror, Us (2019).
Featuring doppelgängers, the film shows the horror of a reflection taking the place of our self. Scary stuff. But what I enjoyed most about this film was the humour.
The film juxtaposes normal behaviour set in a bizarre world where a copy of self is killing all the other selves.
Seeing a family fighting for their lives to compete to sit in the front seat of the car, the winner based on who has killed the most people/doppelgängers? Hilarious.
There’s also the additional delight of husband Gabe with a tissue stuck up his bloody nostril stating things like, ‘Almost looks like some kind of fucked-up art instalment.’
Director, writer and producer Jordan Peele states, “Horror and comedy are both great ways of exposing how we feel about things […] The comedy that emerges from a tense moment or scene in a horror film is necessary for cleaning the emotional palate, to release the tension. It gives your audience an opportunity to emotionally catch up and get prepared for the next run of terror.”1
Winston Duke really nailed the father character, Gabe; and I appreciated this layer of bizarre humour to lighten the strange – as Jorden states above, to, ‘clean the palate’.
But what does this ‘clean the palate’ actually mean?
And what is it about gallows humour that I find so funny?
An article published in Nature Reviews / Neuroscience, ‘The Neural Basis of Humour Processing’ (Pascal Vrticka, et al (2013)) concludes there are, ‘two core processes of humour appreciation: incongruity detection and resolution (the cognitive component); and a feeling of mirth or reward (the emotional component). Whereas the cognitive component seems to rely principally on activity in the [temporo-occipito-parietal junction] TOPJ, the emotional component appears to involve mesocorticolimbic dopaminergic pathways and the amygdala.’ 2
Yu-Chen Chan, et al summarize and further research the comprehension-elaboration theory of humour in their article, ‘Segregating the comprehension and elaboration processing of verbal jokes: An fMRI study’ (2012)3. Highlighting that ‘not all situations involving the detection and resolution of incongruities are humorous.’
They go on to quote Wyer and Collin’s comprehension-elaboration theory of humor (1992), where ‘The elaboration follows comprehension, involves the conscious generation of inferences of features not made explicit during comprehension as well as further thoughts stimulated by the newly understood situation, and elicits the unconscious or conscious feeling of amusement. These elaborations effectively involve appraising the stimulus event for their humourous content.
The amount of humour elicited is a function of the amount of elaboration of the event and its implications that occur subsequent to its reinterpretation.
The affective feeling of humor results from, and may overlap with continued elaboration of the event.’
So, humour in the setting of a horror evokes further elaboration not just because of the incongruent, it’s the nature of the incongruent: normality in a setting of the horrific.
The elaboration, further cognition of the joke makes the humour darkly funny.
In the setting of a horror film, there’s also a layering to dark humour that sparks the cognitive on the foundation of a previously evoked response, like fear.
As stated in the article, ‘The role of the amygdala in human fear: automatic detection of threat’ (Ohman. A (2005))4, ‘Behavioral data suggest that fear stimuli automatically activate fear and capture attention. This effect is likely to be mediated by a subcortical brain network centered on the amygdala […] When the stimulus conditions allow conscious processing, the amygdala response to feared stimuli is enhanced and a cortical network that includes the anterior cingulate cortex and the anterior insula is activated. However, the initial amygdala response to a fear-relevant but non-feared stimulus (e.g. pictures of spiders for a snake phobic) disappears with conscious processing and the cortical network is not recruited. Instead there is activation of the dorsolateral and orbitofrontal cortices that appears to inhibit the amygdala response. The data suggest that activation of the amygdala is mediated by a subcortical pathway, which passes through the superior colliculi and the pulvinar nucleus of the thalamus before accessing the amygdala, and which operates on low spatial frequency information.’
This is interesting with the view that further processing of a scene in a scary film, provoked by an incongruent behaviour, will break the activation of the amygdala and be, ‘mediated by a subcortical pathway, which passes through the superior colliculi and the pulvinar nucleus of the thalamus’ and would give the effect of tension relief (‘cleansing the palate’) and therefore, humour.
The article goes on to describe the activation of the fear response, like increased heart-rate and respiration (as we’ve all experienced in particularly scary movies): ‘The amygdala consists of several separate cell groups (nuclei), which receive input from many different brain areas. Highly processed sensory information from various cortical areas reaches the amygdala through its lateral and basolateral nuclei. In turn, these nuclei project to the central nucleus of the amygdala, which then projects to hypothalamic and brainstem target areas that directly mediate specific signs of fear and anxiety.’
You can imagine sitting in the cinema, immersed in a scary scene that has evoked the fear response: the rapid heart-beat, sitting on the edge-of-your-seat. That automatic response has kicked in.
So, those jumps you get in a horror are from that ingrained automatic response – like a reflex.
With conscious processing the fear is either enhanced through a clever script that gives layers to the idea of the horror (mediated through the amygdala), or is consciously processed as being, just a film (activation of the dorsolateral and orbitofrontal cortices that appears to inhibit the amygdala response): this isn’t real.
So either the data is further processed, where, ‘a cortical network that includes the anterior cingulate cortex and the anterior insula is activated.’
Or isn’t: ‘the initial amygdala response to a fear-relevant but non-feared stimulus (e.g. pictures of spiders for a snake phobic) disappears with conscious processing and the cortical network is not recruited.’
I think dark humour occurs somewhere in this cognition. In the further elaboration.
The fear response is already activated, through something that automatically evokes the fear-response, doppelgängers for example; then the data is further analysed when the setting is incongruent to the behaviour of the character, leading to a release of tension on the background of an already evoked fear response. With further cognition and elaboration the incongruent is resolved by processing through memories, past experiences, so the data is personally related in the context of a horror making the humour: darkly funny.
So, humour instead of a fear response including that extra processing leads to tension release and to a layered emotional response giving a fear response, mirth, therefore creating dark humour that tickles because of its complexity, its, elaboration.
But dark humour isn’t just humour in horror.
Dark humour can be satire. Dark humour can be about a cop trying to perform a dance in memory of his lost mother… At her funeral.
I recently reviewed the film, Thunder Road (2019), finding the performance and script from writer/director/lead, Jim Cummings genius. I’m still giggling about this cop falling apart because the character is so sincere and so tragic, it’s funny.
Jim was interviewed on a Podcast by Giles Alderson, and he talks about his intention to straddle both the tragic and humour of this cop having a breakdown, stating the audience will reward you when more than one lobe of the brain is engaged.5
The writing and performance of this film is brilliant because of the empathy evoked by seeing this guy grieving against the incongruity of his abnormal behaviour.
It’s the processing involved while seeing this super-nice guy, doing his absolute best in the worst of circumstances, then just lose his grip that tickles: standing, about to throw a child’s school desk, the teacher subtly pocketing the school safety-scissors included.
His mother is dead, his siblings don’t show at the funeral, his wife has left him, his daughter can’t stand him and is acting out, making statements like, ‘I hope I get mum’s boobs.’ And his job as a cop is emotionally draining and stressful.
His life is eating him alive.
But Jim continues to try to do the right thing only to end up with ripped pants.
Don’t get me wrong, the humour here is subtle and complex – like the way Jim is described, ‘Everyone grieves differently. Everyone’s unique.’
You can just see it – how the nice people describe someone losing the plot at a funeral.
I’m still giggling because the film shows how difficult life can be and how ridiculous.
So based on the same principle of processing the incongruent on the foundation of a fear response, here the emotional centre is engaged, in empathy for this guy at his mother’s funeral.
The humour is based on the incongruent because this guy is not functioning as a normal human being.
Then the nature of his behaviour is elaborated, because of the sadness and tragedy and empathy for this guy doing his absolute best.
The sadness and tragedy is modified by the incongruent behaviour, leading to further cognition, coming back as humour on a foundation of sadness that leads to elaboration creating that dark humour.
It. Just. TICKLES.
Taking the idea further: if there’s not enough tension for humour to release through incongruity, or if the difference isn’t enough; and if there’s no attachment to the character (leading to further elaboration), the attempt at humour will miss the mark.
The response will be flat: it’s just more data that flows through, marking time.
And if the humour doesn’t require further processing, and really misses that tension relief, it becomes simple. Like slapstick. And that’s if there’s a good performance from the actor.
If not, the end result will turn the audience against the storyline because the film will be a boring experience or the laughter will be directed at the film, not with it.
Watching a film that gets dark humour just right, for me, is a genuine pleasure – who can forget the gloriously funny, bad luck of, O. B Jackson (James Parks) in The Hateful Eight (2016)?!
Tarantino is definitely one of those writers and directors who knows how mix up the violent, the unexpected warmth and intellect with the incongruent.
Think about the relentless violence in John Wick 3 (2019) that saturates to the extent it’s funny.
It’s the unexpected bloody action happening to a well-liked character that absorbs with the incongruent of a deadly killer who loves his dog making John Wick a memorable and likable character adding those touches of joyful dark humour.
I acknowledge that not everyone enjoys this style of (sometimes bloody) humour – and there’s further research about the different theories of humour; think of humour used as aggression (and why people will feel superior and laugh at a movie, perhaps) and humour used in sexual selection (I found that funny too! Maybe we should go out…).
As a side note, the sexual selection theory is a concept well illustrated in the Coen Brothers’ film, Burn After Reading (2008), with the character Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand) taking online matches to the movies to see if they laugh at the same joke.
A nice illustration and frankly, not a bad filtering method to find the right partner.
Whether you like dark humour or not, I’m sure all would agree that those added complicated interactions of cognition and emotion make watching a film a more rewarding experience, and one that certainly keeps me coming back for more.
2. Vrticka P, Black J. M. and Reiss A. L. 2013 ‘The Neural Basis of Humour Processing’ Nature Reviews / Neuroscience, Science and Society PERSPECTIVES 14 860 – 868.
3. Chan Y, Chou T, Chen, H and Liang Kl 2012 ‘Segregating the comprehension and elaboration processing of verbal jokes: An fMRI study’ NeuroImage Dec, 61: 899-906.
4. Ohman. A, 2005 ‘The role of the amygdala in human fear: automatic detection of threat’ Psychoneuroendocrinology, 10: 953-958.
5. Giles Alderson (2019) ‘Jim Cummings On Writing, Directing and Starring in Thunder Road’, The Filmakers Podcast May 29, available at: apple.co/2EydVIz
Written, Directed and Produced by: Pamela B. Green
Co-Written by: Joan Simon (Writer, Executive Producer)
Executive Produced by: John Ptak, Joan Simon, Geralyn Dreyfous
Narrated by: Jodie Foster
Cast Including: Alice Guy-Blaché, Patty Jenkins, Diablo Cody, Ben Kingsley, Geena Davis, Ava DuVernay, Michel Hazanavicius, and Julie Delpy.
Be Natural is an investigative biography, taking writer and director Pamela Green eight years to piece together the life of one of the first director’s of film: Alice Guy-Blaché.
Most enthusiasts, film professionals and critics will sight the Lumiéne brothers. The responses will vary. Rarely will the name Alice Guy-Blaché be mentioned.
The documentary is shown like a mystery, while asking the question – was she overlooked in the history books because she was the first female director? Writing, producing or directing 1,000 films, then going on to build her own studio, Solax in the U.S, alongside the likes of Paramount Pictures and Universal, how has this titan of the industry been forgotten?
Greene sets about investigating, showing her search with animated maps tracing her travels; the conversations with sources from Alice’s relatives, to archives and museums, while travelling to France, Brussels and through-out the United States.
We’re taken on the journey as each detail is revealed and highlighted with the red outline of a magnifying glass as narrator, Jodie Foster, details the findings, to cut to interviews of actors, directors, relatives and found footage of an interview with Alice herself, giving insight into the difficulties she had, not as a film maker, but to get credit for her own work.
The documentary travels back in time, to Alice’s beginnings, to her first job as a secretary working for Léon Gaumont, where at 23, she was to make one of the first narrative films ever made, La Fée aux Choux (The Cabbage Fairy) (1869).
This was a time when film was first invented, the company Alice worked for in France, Gaumont Film Company, selling cameras to the scientists, the inventors, to the leaders of their industry; where anything new or different was recorded like a stock shot – the ocean rolling in and tourist attractions from around the world.
There was no thought of using film to tell a story.
The general consensus was that film would pass as a fad.
For a woman to have such control was unnoticed because no one thought filmmaking would last. Alice was able to find a place in the industry.
So how is it that no one has heard of Alice Guy-Blaché? How did she get forgotten?
Even though Alice wrote her own memoirs, and that she corrected the historians time and again, her body of work was mostly lost leaving silence around her phenomenal success.
I felt the injustice, not because Alice was a female film maker, but because one of the pioneers of film-making had been so completely overlooked.
Historical documentaries aren’t my usual go-to for movie watching; yet, Greene has gone to great lengths to keep the sheer volume of information clear and interesting.
Using montages and layered screens and unique ways of showing shots of photos held by relatives; magazines thrown, one on top of the other, and the slicing of Alice’s films to show her work, kept the investigation moving like a quick wit (rather than a dry news story).
I could see the huge amount of information Greene managed to amass, the amount of work and effort obvious in getting history right this time. To give Alice, finally, her due.
Just one of her many moments of forward thinking, we learn that Alice had notes all over her studio, including a large sign, Be Natural. ‘That’s all I asked of them,’ she says of her actors.
And in the end all Alice wanted was acknowledgement of her work.
For those interested in cinematic history, this documentary is a gift. For those not looking for a history lesson, this is a doco that is more investigative, more about the revealing of a mystery shown in an interesting and clever way.
