While in Japan's Tokyu Hands department store in Kashiwa, my eye was caught by these techno-monster, blinking ones. Don't know for sure, but this may be the best holiday gift this year.
Or maybe not. I'll leave it up to you.
It does bring the saying "jeepers creepers, where'd you get those peepers?" to vivid life, though, and you can actually tell people where you got them.
I really tried hard to come up with an interesting meme. From Beyond Depraved blog tagged me for this exercise in insomnia, so I had to put my best foot forward. I got nothing.
So...in lieu of that, here's my cop out: monsters in sweaters. Why sweaters? Because there's nothing like a warm, fuzzy sweater worn by a monster to create dissonance: evil being wears disarmingly inviting apparel; how odd.
Now that I've mentioned it, you will probably notice lots more sweaters being worn in lots more horror movies now. Feel free to comment on your discoveries.
As for tagging five other blogs, I'll just toss this out to The League of Tana Tea Drinkers, if any of them so desire a sleepless night or two.
I think I came to this decision at 10:15 this morning. I was pondering it much of last night; spinning it around all angles most of yesterday. This morning, after reading over my Google Alerts, I realized it was time to rein in those slings and arrows of misinformation and boldly make my quietus with a bare post (bodkins are too sharp and hurt like hell).
Google Alerts pointed me to a news item mentioning the Bloody Bloggers Awards and how voting would be done by the League of Tana Tea Drinkers only. It was a well-intentioned and gracious bit of news, but not quite correct: it said voting would be done by League members only. Actually, voting for the awards would have been done by email, sent to me (I removed myself from nomination to remain impartial) by anyone who wanted to vote for their favorite nominees. And while the nominees themselves had to come from League members' making the recommendations, really, all a horror blogger needed to do was let us know about you and what category or categories you felt you best fit in--there were 13 of them to choose from. My goal was a simple one: promote horror blogs, especially lesser known ones, through an impartial, unbiased, non-commercial awards contest, and provide a mechanism--and motivation--for exploring lots of other horror blogs. The mechanism was a list of links to all nominee blogs and the motivation would be the awards themselves and the voting process.
At least I thought it was simple. It would have allowed every horror blogger to participate without commercial or biased endorsements skewing the results. It also recognized there were more possible categories for awards than simply the best horror blog, whatever that is. But here's the rub: my perception was not everyone's perception, and that has caused a little tempest in a teapot that makes for very bad tea, especially among members of the League itself.
And it has made members of the League of Tana Tea Drinkers appear elitest; cucumber sandwich-eating snobs who think we're hot shit when it comes to knowing horror and blogging about it. Well, I admit I like cucumber sandwiches, but we are certainly not elitest--sure, we like to joke a lot about that, but we're only joking--and while we do know our horror--just like you--we blog for the fun of it. Read our mission statement. No where does it say "we the members of LOTT D are elitest hot shit, so poo poo on you." What it does say is Our mission is to acknowledge, foster, and support thoughtful, articulate, and creative blogs built on an appreciation of the horror and sci-horror genres.
But that good intentions road-paving crew has pulled up outside. I see it's time to apologize for rushing into something I should have thought more about and especially for causing dissension that is hurtful and non-productive, and for forcing an argument where one should never have arisen.
I'm calling the Bloody Blogger Awards on account of foul weather. For all those who did participate, I thank you very much; you've alerted me to many sites I didn't know about. For those who tossed those slings and arrows, I'm sorry. In my rush to foster community spirit, I stirred up some restless ghosts that I should have paid attention to more. Perhaps in time I'll try it again. But it's stopped being fun.
Besides, with the new kid on the block, the Horror Blogger Alliance, I think our community has grown a lot bigger already. I wish them all the luck and support I can muster. Based on my recent experience, I know they'll need it.
...after seeing it, I realized that I was faced with an interesting dilemma...the movie was not very good. The acting, for the most part, was uninspired, with the exception of the female lead, who was awful. The editing and camerawork was sub-par, to the point of seriously detracting from the viewing experience. The script was amateur and forced. At just under an hour in length, it was still difficult to get through. Even the opening and closing theme music seemed entirely inappropriate to the material.
However, in researching the film, both before and after viewing, virtually all the reviews and feedback I found regarding it were resoundingly positive. And this has been a situation echoed many times since I began the Vault. This time, I was tired of saying nothing about it. (The Vault of Horror: The Emperor Has No Clothes; or Payola In the Age Of Blogging)
B-Sol at The Vault of Horror, in writing his review for the movie Serial: Amoral Uprising, has touched upon the dirty little black book too many horror movie reviewers carry around with them. Scan the pages of that book and you'll see notes on how to avoid offending would-be directors, actors, scriptwriters, and anyone connected with a bad movie; a movie showing little creative energy or talent in its production--a category in which many independent movies all too often fall into. Now I have not seen Serial: Amoral Uprising. I cannot say if it's good or bad or middling or whether it's worth watching or not. This is not the point, I think, B-Sol is trying to make (although he clearly did not like the movie). What surprised him--maybe not surprise, let's say irked him--is how a movie, which measured badly on many critical points, could receive only glowing reviews; not one, but many. How could that be? The answers are in that dirty little black book.
When I first started blogging I eagerly sought after screeners. I wanted to be a movie critic and I believed screeners would be a great way to hone my critical skills. After the second year of receiving them--and I admit I actively solicited for them--I found myself in a predicament: I realized most of them were of movies done by amateurs who had not paid their dues, or worse, didn't realize they needed to. Basic camerawork, basic scene setups, basic storytelling, basic acting, and all those basic craft things taught in school--or by hard knocks--to produce a watchable movie were ignored outright, or worse, trifled with. I began to feel insulted. I also felt embarrassed, even intimidated, because I had asked for many of them and I felt compelled to not write a bad review. I felt beholden to the director or marketing agent who sent it. This was not, and is not, a good place to be put in.
I'm not saying all the screeners I received were bad. I've had good and rewarding indie movies come my way, and through them I've developed relationships with directors, actors, and writers who've helped me grow as a blogger and critic. Some were skilled people who knew their way around a camera, and others who, with a little more budget, a little more practice, and a little more experience would improve their craft; their movie showed that.
But like B-Sol, many times when I'd research a movie's reviews before accepting or soliciting for it I'd find raves where hisses should have been heard. No balanced reviews, just kudos for clearly what should have been recognized as poor filmmaking. Of course I stopped reading those reviewers, some of whom were connected to commercial horror websites. Either their critical acumen was questionable, or they simple didn't want to hurt someone's feelings, or they didn't want to be shut out from receiving more screeners. That last one can be found in that dirty little black book's table of contents under How to Keep Getting Screeners By Not Biting the Hand That Gives.
It's a situation every movie blogger, and especially horror blogger, eventually faces, and one which test's your professionalism. Once you've compromised by writing a misleading review so no feeling's are hurt or because you're afraid you won't get those freebies anymore--and I've walked that tightrope--why should any reader value your opinion? Worse still, you are letting down those who most need the feedback from your honest appraisal: the directors, writers, actors, and production people who need these reality checks to help them improve their craft.
Roger Ebert provides some very good guidelines for dealing with situations like these and how to review movies while keeping your integrity intact. I recommend reading his little rule book for any movie blogger who takes his or her writing and reputation seriously.
Sure, they look dumb and innocent enough. But maybe there was something more sinister lurking being all those yucks and chuckles. Were the Three Stooges the first to use torture horror in movies? Here's the evidence. Judge for yourself.
Looks like an inspiration for a fiendish SAW death contraption to me. Just look at the sheer terror on Curly's face.
I think I saw this fiendish device used in The Collector.
And what about this one. Looks like a storyboard scene straight out of Cube!
Finally, I definitely remember seeing this in Hostel. Just look at the malicious glee on Larry's face. I rest my case.
I've been thinking about what I'd like to see happen in this brand new year. A few hopes really, not much, but enough to look forward to.
I'd like to see more supernatural horror in the movie theater. Stories like Paranormal Activity and Drag Me to Hell were a welcome sight in 2009; especially after too many Torture Horror entries were given screen time. I want to see more variety in horror for this year. I also want to see movies like Trick 'r Treat on the big screen and not dumped to DVD because wimpy bean counters held back the distribution it deserved.
And speaking of wimpy distribution, I want to see more foreign-made horror on the big screen, subtitles and all. Either do it as a package deal or special event showing; if Fathom Events can bring the Metropolitan Opera live to local theaters, we should be able to get foreign horror movies into the theaters, too. Toss in a few Three Stooges and Our Gang shorts and I'll be in heaven.
I'd like to see horror blogs taken seriously in 2010. Horror bloggers are a diverse group of professionals and amateurs, and their passion, as well as their critically crawling eyes, do more to keep the genre properly in the spotlight than most mainstream commercialized sites. When insipid awards like Total Film's Best Horror Blog come around, with a paltry five nominees comprised of four amalgamated websites and only one blog, it is obvious they do not take horror blogging seriously or even grasp the shallowness of their award. The peer awards awarded by horror bloggers to horror bloggers are more sincere and more important and more personally gratifying than whatever outcome Total Film thinks it will achieve.
In general, I'd like to see less crap foisted onto horror fans this year. I'm speaking mostly in regard to straight-to-DVD, but some theater releases fall into this category. I'm tired of being treated like a movie-viewing dolt by directors, writers, and producers (both professionals and amateurs) who think they can slap the word horror on anything that screams and call it a movie. I want to see solid production values no matter the budget, sincere acting no matter the part, and superb writing that stretches my senses and my fears, and makes me care about the characters before they're racked, tacked, and sacked.
And last but not least, I'd like to see more 3-D horror like, but better than, My Bloody Valentine, and more sour-sweet animation like Coraline.
While others pound their chests proclaiming the top ten best horror movies of 2009, I thought I would take a different approach. Frankly, top ten lists are a dime a dozen these days. And why only ten? Who do we blame for limiting the best to only ten a year? I love reading these lists, though, but only when my favorites make the list (which I suspect is a habit we all share).
But what about all those regrettable horror movies you and I wasted time and money seeing in 2009? Now we're talking. Not the worst movies or completely bad movies necessarily, but movies that are most regrettable because they zigged when they should have zagged, leaving me, and possibly you, with a sour taste in our mouths in spite of all the popcorn and soda eaten to make up for the disappointment. In a word, those movies that looked so promising but let us down.
I should say 'let me down,' since this is my most regrettable list for 2009. Maybe it will be yours, too.
It came and went without collecting much of an audience. Torture porn horror hit its zenith in this slick nihilistic, but derivative, terrifying vision. In combining Cube-like lethal traps with a hint of Saw-styled ingenuity and malice, and yet another relentless masked-slasher victimizing a family in unsavory, bloodily grisly ways, Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton (Feast) do their darnedest to pulverize the audience with fears of helplessness, torture, and death. They almost succeed, but choose to go the usual horror franchise-building byway at the end with a negative payoff.
2. Friday the 13th
Jared Padalecki (Supernatural) is the only reason I saw this movie. I like him. I like him in this movie. I hate everything else. Remakes can be a dice game to begin with, but trying to remake and re-imagine an icon of horror means you gamble on what stays and what changes. In this case, the gamble didn't pay off. What changed but shouldn't have is the mystery and uncertainty about Jason. What should have changed but didn't are the pick-a-number victims wearing "kill me, I'm stupid" signs on their butts.
3. The Haunting in Connecticut
A haunting without ghosts? How novel. While director Peter Cornwell and writers did manage to startle me twice, this movie has more in common with Tobe Hooper's energetic spookfest Poltergeist than the lingering, atmospheric scares in Lewis Allen's The Uninvited or Robert Wise's The Haunting--but not enough in common to make it as good. A missed opportunity to create real fright instead of resorting to the usual special-effects and grisly spookshow makeup theatrics; less experienced horrorheads will enjoy it. Those with more experience, like me, will nitpick. Such is life.
It was a truly classic performance--the monster was no monster, but a pathetic, confused creature caught in a situation it couldn't comprehend. Karloff portrayed all this with marvelous pantomime, restricted as he was to a series of grunts and despite the handicaps of his heavy costume. "Whale and I both saw the character as an innocent one," he later said, "and I tried to play it that way. The most heart-rending aspect of the creature's life, for us, was his ultimate desertion by his creator. It was as though man, in his blundering, searching attempts to improve himself, was to find himself deserted by his God" (John Brosnan, The Horror People).
As I thought about what I would write for Frankensteinia's Boris Karloff Blogathon, I found myself reading through the titles in my library for inspiration in choosing a subject worthy of such a momentous project. Perhaps I would review one of Karloff's important films? I thought. I've only scratched the surface of his noteworthy acting career with my reviews of Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, Son of Frankenstein, and The Mummy. Then I thought maybe I would examine Karloff's extensive work for television, which would include, of course, Thriller, the anthology series of horror and suspense I still vividly recall scaring the bejesus out of me, and its spin-off into comic book format as Boris Karloff's Tales of Mystery (recently reissued by Dark Horse Comics). As I thought about it some more, I realized the books I paged through, the ones I often pull from the shelf when I am thinking about Karloff or classic horror, in preparation for writing a review, might be noteworthy to mention.
I was in my local Borders this past week to browse the horror book shelves. I like browsing books before I buy them. Magazines, too. I also like the coffee at Borders; I sip it while I browse. I made a bad choice of getting something too creamy this time, though, and paid for it. I hate being lactose-intolerant.
Another thing I hate is seeing the dwindling shelf-space given to horror titles. And those books given space are fairly mainstream, of course, to appeal to as broad a book-buying market as possible. Author names are really important here as they help sell the books, so I see many of the same authors who have earned that broad appeal in Borders and Barnes and Noble. At least Borders still has a horror section. Barnes and Noble, the one I frequent anyway, (I like Starbucks coffee, too), pretends horror does not exist. They sprinkle horror titles into other categories. I'm always embarrassed to ask about specific horror books when I go to Barnes and Noble. If I dare correct the stock-person when they tell me a book I am looking for is not horror he or she tends to get snooty and gives me a look Jason and Freddy could learn a lot from. I explain I know a thing or two about horror because I blog about it and, well, that usually ends the conversation faster. So I try not to mention it anymore.
by Scott Essman
When you conjure images of the sets of classic horrors such as Lon Chaney’s Phantom of the Opera, Jack Pierce’s The Wolf Man with Lon Chaney, Jr. or Frankenstein’s Monster with Boris Karloff, and Wally Westmore’s Mr. Hyde with Fredric March, you picture the lone makeup artist creating magical character concepts inside a cramped makeup studio, then arriving with his makeup kit to the set of his movie alone to realize the character for film. Such was the case with Gino Crognale on the new horror picture Sorority Row.
Like many in makeup effects, Crognale originally paid his dues in the trenches of makeup effects studios Los Angeles. “I’m originally from Philadelphia and I lived in LA from 1983 to 2001,” he said. “I left for a good place to raise my kids. I had enough years under my belt so that I could leave and do my thing.”
Heading for Pittsburgh, Crognale had a job teaching makeup at Tom Savini’s school for 8-9 months. “It was a good gig to come back to, but I had to get back to what I really love,” Crognale said of creating makeup effects for movies. “We were in Austin shooting Sin City and Greg Nicotero [of KNB EFX Group, who Crognale has known since 1985] said that they were shooting George Romero’s mega-zombie Land of the Dead movie in Pittsburgh. But George couldn’t get Pittsburgh, so George packed up and went to Toronto and shot it there.”
After doing a rudimentary makeup effects breakdown by circling everything in the script that would be part of his department, Crognale put together a budget and “build list” for all of his makeups and effects gags based on a schedule of when production was shooting his work. “We had to hit the ground running with this,” he said. “I built the whole show out of my garage. It was old school, like [makeup legend] Dick Smith building in his basement. All of the artwork, sculptures, and molding were done here in my garage and some finishing things at Bob Kurtzman’s. It was a wonderful experience for me after years of doing things. We were treating it like we were 19!”
In all, Crognale executed 11 gags – he was hired September 12, 2008 and started shooting October 5. With a short schedule and working all alone, Crognale drew on his years of experience to create makeups and gags that were both impressive on film and delivered in a timely manner. “When you are pressed for time, you don’t have the luxury of time or R&D,” he said. “I had nobody assisting me in the lab or on set. I had a runner that production gave me to do my supply runs. Pittsburgh has a good plaster place and fiberglass place plus chain stores that have the paints we use.”
Given his limited time on the build, the Chugs head is a remarkable achievement as even in closeup photos, it is identical to Harshman in every way. “It was made out of silicone and heavily plasticized,” said Crognale of a prop which would have a glass bottle stuck into its mouth. “I had sculpted it a little smaller than the bottle. The fiberglass underskull would give it that stretch of the mouth going open, filling that vacancy in the throat.”
On location, Crognale delivered the Chugs head for filming, becoming one of the best gags in the film. “We had that lock on the location on the north side of Pittsburgh and we only had it for two nights in mid-October,” he explained of the shoot. “Everybody was happy with it and we shot it a lot and got everything we needed. Later in the show, we were shooting in this old film lab place where we did a couple more inserts with the Chugs head with the bottle going down her throat.The director Stewart Hendler wanted a couple of different angles. It was fun being put to that test.”
Unbelievably, because Crognale had no access to Chung until the actress arrived in Pittsburgh, he unconventionally had to build her whole makeup generically. “I pulled an old lifecast of a female, and sculpted it on her; I didn’t know how it was going to lay down on Jamie until the night we shot it,” he said, revealing some makeup tricks. “I tested it the night we shot it, flying by the seat of your paints. Because I have enough years in, I was able to do it. She got a kick out of it. She had the foam latex makeup on her in an hour and fifteen minutes.”
One key to Chung’s makeup was hiding a wire that the practical special effects team needed to rig a gag with the makeup. “We had to conceal this wire along the side of her face and underneath the prosthetic and glue that bubbling skin over the wire,” Crognale described. “It was a big challenge getting that wire to lay down and blend the makeup off over the wire. The makeup was not bloody – just sore and blistery. We shot it that way, then added some black and did a few more takes.”
Another major task on Sorority Row was creating a full body appliance for the death scene of Audrina Patridge. “I had to build a whole fake chest of Audrina that would bleed,” Crognale stated. “The blood was squirting out but they didn’t use [much of] it the movie. How they edit it and cut it wasn’t as good as what we shot. It was a basic rubber body with a nice paint job on the finish which sold it.”
For scenes taking place long after Patridge’s death in the story, Crognale also had to create a full Audrina corpse. “I kept e-mailing Stewart asking how long she had been dead in that well,” Crognale said of the development stages. “He said, ‘anywhere between a year and a year and a half, but you still have to have some skin.’ I thought it would look cool with hair – old school horror stuff. I did a light hair job and hand punched some around the front and kept doing that with her whole body, mixing and matching skin and bone. When I finally had it done, Stewart just lost it. You know when you hit a homer with these guys when they really enjoy it.”
After weeks of development, the finished Audrina corpse was made out of polyfoam and latex and took an 8-10 hour day painting it to make it look “cool and decayed.” Of the finished look of the corpse, Crognale noted that the paint job was essential, as is the case for many special makeup effects. “It all came together in the paint,” he said.
Another memorable gag was Leah Pipes’ death scene by a “pimped-out tire iron” which she gets right in the mouth. “I had to get a teeth cast of Leah and built these upper and lower dentures that only locked into the back of her mouth – an H-shaped solid piece,” Crognale explained. “The top molars were locked in and bottom molars locked in – I made a dental apparatus that opened her mouth wide and the tire iron centered into. She would feel a little bit of pressure of the weight of it. Then, I poured blood in her mouth with this whole thing anchored in her mouth. I also built a piece behind her hair for an exit piece – but you can’t even see it in the movie.”
For the Pipes gag, Crognale noted its simplicity and how he had to figure out the angle of attack. “Stewart would ask me to change it another 1/8 inch,” he said. “While she was acting on another stage, I would ask for her and get it into the right angle. It went really well the night we did it – it was her last shot on the movie – getting stabbed in the mouth, and I pulled it out, and they wrapped her!
Other gags included an apparatus for another tire iron in the head, a pair of legs set to break with appliance of a bone coming out through a pair of pants, and slashed wrists on a character which are so bloody that you can’t even make them out. For Carrie Fisher, Crognale built a bleeding rig harness for the actress that went over her left breast. It had an exit piece of the tire iron and a piece comes through the front of her that she leaned into.
If doing his scheduled work was not enough, Crognale noted that production later “threw a couple of different ones at me. They wanted an actor to get hit in the back of the head with an ax.” With no prep time and a full plate already in place, Crognale improvised. “I dug through my molds and found an old lifecast. I rigged a whole gag where the guy gets an ax in the back of the head and there is this blood explosion, then he is lying there with the ax handle in his head. I rigged it with paint job and wardrobe. We shot it on an insert stage with four-five takes where I would repack the blood bags. I built a fiberglass plate that he wore in the back of his head. It was a nice camera angle that sells it.”
Looking back nearly a year from production schedule to the September 2009 release of the film, Crognale took stock of his achievements on Sorority Row. “Bill [Bannerman] gave me this challenge, and I didn’t want to let him down, but I knew that I couldn’t have made any mistakes,” Crognale summarized. “It’s a great feeling when you see the light at the end of the tunnel and knew that you could pull it off. It was a challenge personally and professionally, and I just wanted to do right by these guys – they put their faith in me. There were nights where I kept working [long into the night], but it was fine. When it’s all on you, you’ve got to come through. I hope we do another one!”
Other scenes, while violent, fell within the range of contemporary horror films, which strive to invent new ways to kill people, so the horror fans in the audience will get a laugh (Roger Ebert, The Last House on the Left).
Is Roger Ebert right?
Are me and you and them, and all the rest of us horror fans who eagerly frequent the dark cinema at the ungodliest hours looking for new, effects-improved, and more stomach and psyche-sickening ways to see people killed? Are we jaded? Are we insensitive? Or are we just fans who know it's all a bloody gag, a make-believe setup in a fantasy world. Even so, why do we get such a kick out of seeing other people get skewered, fricasseed and dismembered in ever-increasingly morbid ways?
The following members of LOTT D give their impressions on the subject.
Fascination With Fear shares its thoughts on contemporary violence in horror movies. Movie critics today (and probably always will) find horror fans inexplicable. They just don't get why we run out to the latest horror movie on opening weekend. They simply do not understand we are looking for the next great horror flick. (Still looking.....)
TheoFantastique finds some truth in Roger Ebert's blanket statement. In my commentary that follows I will relate my view that Ebert’s statement is both understandable and correct in a sense, and yet also indicative of an unfortunate stereotype about horror fans.
And Now the Screaming Starts looks at Roger Ebert's statement by way of The Toxic Avenger musical and New York Times critic Charles Isherwood. For Ebert, Isherwood, and I suspect a large number of critics and fans, the issue is the gratuity of so much genre art. By "gratuitous" I don't refer to extreme violence (though that is certainly the case in many horror flicks). Rather, I mean the pointlessness of its extremes.
Groovy Age of Horror discusses the standards of horror fans and illustrates the difference between intended and unintended flaws in movies, and how they can make a quirky and appealing difference in the viewing experience.
And finally me. How do I feel about it? At first I took offense at Ebert's statement: he includes every horror fan, which makes it dead wrong simply because not all of us want more creative and sadistic killing in horror movies. Some of us actually believe it is more important to scare us or make our hearts beat in terror, not disgust us. It comes down to effectively telling a story with all elements coordinated to enhance that telling in a skillful and emotionally compelling way--really the goal of every movie, not just horror.
But he still has a point; the tacked-on, completely gratuitous, microwave scene at the end of The Last House on the Left is the poster child for what inhibits horror from becoming more than the sum of its blood and gore and mayhem. Many horror movies pander to the lowest common denominator of visual effect, and get lost in the elements comprising the movie, instead of making us lose ourselves in the complete story being told.
What do you think?
I was pleasantly surprised to see mention of my review for Knowing at Cinefantastique Online. Steve Biodrowski, in citing my review, brings up a good point about my apparent contradiction calling Knowing a popcorn movie on the one hand, while raving about it on the other. So here is my short explanation.
The term popcorn movie has been used, mostly and usually, as a disparaging term for films that pander to a mass audience (and even smaller ones) while showing little or no creative or artistic effort, design, or thought. I understand this, but I choose to not use the term in this way.
Quite frankly, and sadly, a sizable amount of theater and straight to DVD movies, both horror and non-horror, can be categorized as popcorn movies if the term is used in this way, forcing it to lose the value, the sting of negativity, if you will, it was originally meant to convey. There is now an expectation of mediocrity in film production greater than the expectation of excellence; this renders the negative connotation, usually applied to the use of the term popcorn movie, superfluous.
I rather avoid this and use popcorn movie to mean a film worth seeing--whether it appeals to a mass audience or not--that is enjoyable on possibly many levels, including the emotional, psychological, and spiritual states one may experience while watching it, and being thought provoking as well. The film may be disturbing, enlightening, or just plain fun, but the bottom line is that you, the viewer, are left with a sense of "damn, that was good." Using this, admittedly personal criteria, I consider Casablanca (my favorite film by the way), Citizen Kane, and Halloween popcorn movies, along with many others I have enjoyed watching, like Watchmen.
I was left with a sense of damn, that was good after seeing Knowing. I hope you experience the same.
