zoo Tagged Articles at Cinematical

My personal DVD picks this week are the new editions of Lewis Teague's Alligator (scripted by indie filmmaker John Sayles), John Boorman's Deliverance (which is shockingly indie, even though it was released by a major Hollywood studio in 1972) and William Friedkin's Cruising (c'mon! Al Pacino in gay bars chasing a serial killer? That would definitely be an indie today.). But if you're looking for sometime a little more recent, here are three titles that received (mostly) positive reviews from our Cinematical critics.

Everyone's favorite Danish provocateur, Lars von Trier, made a "refreshing change" with The Boss of it All, according to our own Ryan Stewart. He said the director "turns his attention back to his own side of the Atlantic and finds his faith in humanity just as lacking, and his comic timing as sharp as its ever been." He felt the film "is absolutely a worthy entry in the von Trier canon and a reminder of the natural directing skill that he possesses."

Kim Voynar saw Francois Veber's comedy The Valet at AFI Dallas and enjoyed it. She noted that the plot was "a tad predictable" but "the film is genuinely funny, and at times the laughter from the packed house was so loud I was grateful for the subtitles so I could keep up." On the other hand, Nick Schager did not laugh so much: "This lack of any dynamic energy, any hysterical verve, is what ultimately dooms The Valet's attempts at innocuous whimsy." Sony's DVD includes an audio commentary by the director.

Zoo is a documentary that tackles "the difficult task of exploring the death of a man who had sex with a horse," as Kim Voynar wrote in her Sundance review. That may be enough for you to decide if you want to rent it, but Kim expounded at length if you'd like to know more. The DVD from ThinkFilm includes an audio commentary by writer/director Robinson Devor and writer Charles Mudede.

One consumer warning, I'm afraid. As I've written before, Thai horror film The Victim looks gorgeous, but its unimaginative use of horror movie conventions (loud! bang!!) and "twists" that are telegraphed far in advance quickly become tiresome.

It often feels like forever-and-a-day between the time I see a film at a fest, and when it finally sees light of day in a theatrical or DVD release. Such is the case with Police Beat, directed by Robinson Devor and written by Charles Mudede (the same team who just this year brought us an eye-opening look at the sub-culture of people who have sexual relations with animals in the documentary Zoo).

Police Beat was released yesterday on DVD, with Home Vision/ Image Entertainment handling distrib, and can be purchased through the Image Entertainment website (or, if you're local to Seattle, at Scarecrow Video or Broadway Market Video). The film, scripted by Mudede and based off his column of the same name which he writes for Seattle's alterna-weekly, The Stranger, follows an immigrant bike cop around scenic Seattle as he deals with one after another of a series of bizarre crimes (regular readers of Mudede's column will know that, as with many things in life, you just can't make up anything that would be better than the craziness cops deal with on a daily basis) while dealing with the possible break-up of his relationship with his girlfriend, who's gone off on a camping trip with a male "friend."

The film, though relatively low-budget, is full of gorgeous painterly shots of Seattle in the summertime (thanks to DP Sean Kirby, who shot in 35mm scope) and if you live in Seattle or have spent any time there, it's fun to see all the places you hang out in up there on the screen in all that technicolor glory. It also has the distinction of being the sixth film co-produced by Seattle not-for-profit Northwest Film Forum, which does some truly fantastic work supporting indie film and independent filmmakers.

It's great to see this little film getting some distribution at last; it had strong reviews overall, but for a while there I didn't think it would get out there for more people to see it. It's always nice to see the hard work of independent filmmakers pay off, at least a little, and I hope the film will get some strong support in Seattle, where the film was shot in over 100 locations with hundreds of locals. Even if you don't live in Seattle, Police Beat is a good film for indie film fans to see and support.

Because you just can't know too much about horse sex, filmmaker Robinson Devor and his writing partner Charles Mudede, who collaborated on 2005's critically acclaimed narrative film Police Beat, have joined forces once again, this time to tackle the difficult task of exploring the death of a man who had sex with a horse. The idea for Zoo came from a real news story: In July of 2005, in the town of Enumclaw, Washington, outside Seattle, a man died of a perforated colon as a result of having sex with a stallion. The case was widely reported on both within Washington and around the world, and as a result bestiality, or sex with animals, was made illegal in Washington.

Prior to the death of this man (whose identity was protected by most Washington media, who referred to him only by his online moniker, "Mr. Hands," the name under which he posted videos of himself engaging in sex with stallions), sex with animals -- while not something that most people who engaged in would go around talking to their friends and neighbors about -- was perfectly legal. Mr. Hands and his friends in the zoophile community (and really, I could have lived the rest of my life without knowing much as I know now about this particular form of sexual deviancy) weren't doing anything wrong, strictly speaking.

Being a few years into the twenty-first century, animals and humans have been through a lot. Our poor animal friends have dealt with clubbing, being used for coffee harvesting and all sorts of extinction. Us humans have dealt with our own share of hardships, from holy crusades to Kevin Federline's "music." For the most part, we've existed separately, living differently and sometimes loving similarly. But there are those out there who want to traverse the human/animal wall, and Zoo, a new documentary by Robinson Devor, details what can happen when a man loves... a horse.

Yes, this isn't a tale of a young girl and her horse, which is the usual Hollywood horse theme, but of a real man who loved horses just a little too much. You might have heard of the story that made headlines in 2005 (we did mention it a couple times -- how could we not?): Kenneth Pinyan was a man who had a prolific collection of horse sex videos under the name "Mr. Hands." One warm July day, while receiving sex from a stallion so terribly, yet aptly named "Bullseye," Pinyan received fatal anal injuries and died. Now, after only screening a few minutes of the movie, THINKFilm has picked up the rights for the controversial documentary, which will be screened at Sundance this year. John Cooper, Sundance programmer, insists that the film is "as smart as it is eloquent," and investigates just "how much perversity we can tolerate in others." Maybe the bigger question is how much perversity the moviegoing audience can handle before we either get too disgusted to continue watching, or so grossed out that we can't help but guffaw.

Universal Pictures has laid claim to what is apparently a highly classified, top secret project known only as Zoo. Universal says they are keeping the plot quiet for awhile, but it is known the film will be a "sci-fi" comedy flick, and the pitch was made by writer David Berenbaum. A small amount of imagination can provide a rather logical scenario for a sci-fi film called Zoo, however, so we can probably presume it'll be a collection of motley space animals -- likely computer generated. If it angles towards the kids (which seems like an obvious guess) it will most likely involve these animals being humorously placed in an environment which is unknown to them and having to work together to regain their homes/families. Of course, this is all entirely speculation for now, and I could be WAY off. Anyone out there have an angle on this, or a guess at what else we could see from this project?

As a side note, I've got mixed reactions to this news. I mean, David Berenbaum wrote the hilarious and excellent Elf... but he also wrote The Haunted Mansion, which is the complete opposite of hilarious and excellent.*

*The complete opposite of hilarious and excellent is broccoli, I believe.