Peter Jackson

(In French, On Cable TV, July 2021) Some movies have sat for a surprisingly long time on my DVR for reasons that have nothing to do with apprehension — maybe I’m holding out for a better-quality version, maybe I’m trying to find a sequel/prequel, maybe I’m holding out for a specific mood. Or maybe I’m keeping it in reserve because I suspect that I’m going to have a particularly good time. Now, Meet the Feebles would, for a good chunk of its potential audience, fall under the “apprehension” reason to keep putting off a viewing — you can’t be aware of Peter Jackson’s colourful early filmography without being aware of the all-out offensiveness of his early movies and Meet the Feebles’ infamous reputation as a perverted version of the Muppets. Not specifically the Muppets as a satirical target (although, significantly, one character prays to a crucified Kermit), but using puppets for incredibly family-unfriendly purposes, presenting anthropomorphic characters involved in drugs, sex and violence. It doesn’t take a long time for the R-rated material to come out, with the deliberate juxtaposition of puppets with adult themes being both shocking and disarming at once — Meet the Feebles is both offensive and funny, even as the film works itself up to a mass shooting that takes out most of the characters. The streak of black humour runs a mile wide and is about as deep — don’t bother watching if you’re not the type to handle that kind of material. For those who can, well — the film is a strong dose, and there’s likely to be something in there to make anyone gasp. It’s quite a thing to watch — the version I ended up seeing was a terrible-quality French dub (although it thankfully leaves most of the songs in their original English with French subtitles — yes, “Sodomy” is far funnier that way) and the muddy picture quality almost added to the experience: this is a film best suited to VHS than UHD. Given this, I don’t regret the time Meet the Feebles spent on my DVR — I ended up seeing it at exactly the right time.

(On Cable TV, November 2019) There are movies that are best approached cold, considering that the mythology around them often leads to erroneous viewing assumptions. In the case of They Shall Not Grow Old, it means that a terrific film by itself was actively harmed by a disingenuous marketing campaign. The basics of the film are these: Director Peter Jackson wanted to pay homage to his family members having fought in WW1, so he produced and directed a documentary that used modern technology to breathe life into century-old archive footage. The film works almost as an oral history, as colourized and sharpened footage is accompanied by sound effects and narration adapted from contemporary accounts of the war. The point here is to present a soldier’s view of the war without much context other than the experiences of the men on the ground. As such, it is a remarkable achievement—the touched-up footage springs to life in near-contemporary fashion, and the film is emotionally effective in presenting the experiences of a generation that saw many killed in combat, never to go home or grow old. It’s a deeply effective, finely tuned moviegoing experience that makes history come alive and viewers realize that century-old events retain considerable relevance. If that was your experience in watching the film cold, or if this praise piques your curiosity to the point of watching the film then congratulations—no need to read any further. The rest is a commentary on how overly enthusiastic marketing can end up harming a film. They Shall Not Grow Old’s trailer strongly (wrongly) suggested that the original documentary footage of the war was in disrepair by the time it was enhanced by the filmmakers. (This plays into contemporary perception of old film footage as being scratchy, low-resolution and jittery—far from being true in many cases.)  Paradoxically, I can live with colourizing for dramatic impact better than misleading claims that the original footage needed almost heroic restoration work—the duplicity of the marketing being worse than the filmmaker’s liberties with the material. Of course, this should not be a concern if you, blissfully living years after the promotional push for the film, just happen to see it. But call it a cautionary lesson is believing the next promotional campaign you hear.

(In French, On Cable TV, August 2019) The mid-1980s were a golden age for movie-obsessed geeks picking up a camera and deciding to make a movie of their own with friends and family. Peter Jackson was one of those, and from the depths of New Zealand came a most unusual film in Bad Taste, an incredibly over-the-top gory horror comedy featuring four operatives taking on a murderous alien invasion in a small town. The production values are threadbare, the acting is terrible, the camerawork is frantic and the whole thing doesn’t make a lot of sense … but it’s still a striking movie. The buckets of gore and blood (and alien vomit) are easier to take when they’re wrapped up in a gloriously absurd comedy. This is, after all, a film in which a protagonist stuffs part of his brain back in after falling off a cliff. (And if that’s not disgusting enough, he later uses alien brain fragments to do the same.)  It’s not that funny, but it’s not that disgusting either. (I have a much harder time with gore effects in deadly serious horror.) Certainly not for the faint of heart, Bad Taste nonetheless earns some sustained viewing attention thanks to some in-your-face stylistic camera moves, showing Jackson’s aggressive moviemaking techniques even with a near-zero budget. If you can, try to watch the contemporary making-of documentary “Good Taste made Bad Taste” (it’s on YouTube), which features a very young Jackson talking about the four-year shooting schedule of the film, his impressive garage-made special effects and his overall enthusiasm for making movies. The documentary adds quite a bit to the film itself. Our knowledge that Jackson would pick up an armful of Oscars not even two decades later also adds tremendously to the film.