Whether or not we like to admit it, big-name directors compel us to the cinema. Attach a name like Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, or Wes Anderson to, say, a buddy-buddy comedy starring Duane Johnson as a sassy talking recliner, and people will still attend en masse to see if it's their magnum opus. But there's another variety of compelling, must-see directors: musicians, who occasionally bestow upon themselves the enormous artistic gifts to pull off both mediums, enticing moviegoers to see if their films are trainwrecks or merely debacles. Of such directors, Rob Zombie has arguably been the most impressive and enduring, releasing extreme horror films like The Devil's Rejects and his Halloween remakes to relatively negative (but not vociferously negative) reviews. Before Mr. Zombie's show at the Aragon Ballroom on Sunday, The A.V. Club thought it appropriate to look back at some of the films that his musician-turned-director contemporaries have released.
Musician: Bob Dylan
Film: Renaldo And Clara
Premise: Take three film types—an inexplicably masked Bob Dylan in concert, a documentary of boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, and scenes starring Dylan as "Renaldo,” his wife Sara as “Clara” and the husky Ronnie Hawkins as “Bob Dylan”—then mash them all together with a seemingly endless run time.
Like his music: Renaldo And Clara is mostly incomprehensible, one of those "WTF?” avant-garde films that leaves the viewer in a bewildered stupor. One moment Allen Ginsberg is spouting out poetry, the next Dylan is in whiteface paint performing “Romance In Durango.” For whatever reason, one of the few constants is folk singer David Blue telling stories while playing pinball next to a swimming pool.
Any good? With a running time of nearly five hours, Renaldo And Clara is the Lord Of The Rings of surrealist documentary/concert films (with Ginsberg clearly filling the Gandalf role). Ideally, Dylan would’ve cut two hours and stuck to concert footage, where his scathing vocals are borderline coherent.
Musician: Madonna
Film: Filth And Wisdom
Premise: A.K. the Ukrainian immigrant (Eugene Hutz from circus-rockers Gogol Bordello) fronts a rock band, moonlights as a dominatrix, tells philosophical non-sequiturs to the camera, and does his best “mustachioed Daniel Day Lewis” impression.
Like her music: Filth And Wisdom intends to shake your moral core. With Hutz’s lighthearted dominatrix scenes, Madonna plays the controversy card that pushed the “Like A Prayer” video into pop-music lore. (A black Jesus figure? Has she no decency?)
Any good? Madonna’s direction shows a little promise, but she can’t save an undercooked script that barely attempts to develop its characters. At the very least, Hutz wearing a soldier’s uniform and beating up a nearly naked old man is a sweet, charming moment.
Musician: Rob Zombie
Film: House Of 1000 Corpses
Premise: Rob Zombie's directoral debut depicts two couples in search of the legendary local monster Dr. Satan, who operated on the brains of mentally ill patients and was eventually hung by the townspeople. When their car breaks down, the four twentysomethings (featuring pre-The Office Rainn Wilson) must take refuge in a decrepit house occupied by weirdos.
Like his music: House Of 1000 Corpses is violent and uber-gory, deluging the audience with mutilations, scalpings, and torturous deaths. Where one director might say, "maybe we should cut away after his guts spill out," Zombie asks, "What other organs and bodily fluids can we spill onto the floor?"
Any good? Forget the critical beatdown the film took. Anyone who receives a visceral jolt from watching an excess of blood and gore should find House Of 1000 Corpses to be a lot of fun—so long as you can hold down your lunch.
