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Out of the Past: Best Non-2011 Films

2012-01-26T00:16:00.000-08:00

The hip thing that all the kids are doing, as evidenced by the numerous posts at the wonderful Rupert Pupkin Speaks blog, is to look back at a year of vintage-movie watching and decide on a few favorites. As mentioned in the past on this very blog, 2011 was a watershed year for me.... opening myself up to the cinematic possibilities of the internet (no virus so far anyways) and finding a treasure trove of never-before-seen films that have eluded home video distribution. In addition, I've made some invaluable friends on this world wide web contraption that have added some serious attention to the blind spot in my movie-watching. So, here are ten films, made way before 2011, that rank as my favorites of the year, in descending order.

10. The Master Touch

Euro crime with Kirk Douglas spinning a caper to crack a safe and steal lots of money. Of course, nothing works out as planned. These types of films are usually hit and miss, but "The Master Touch" is just brilliant.

9. The Misfits

Working my way through all of John Huston's films earlier this year (with the exception of his 1962 "Freud", which I just found!), "The Misfits" slowly emerged as his true masterpiece, featuring a final third that is magnificent, sweeping and inherently sad.

8. The Terrorizers

The real revelation this year, for me, was finally getting my hands on a number of previously unreleased Edward Yang films and realizing the greatness promised by "Yi Yi". I'm looking forward to digging into "Taipei Story", "That Day On the Beach" and "A Confucian Confusion" soon, but "The Terrorizers" is a terrific place to start for any Yang novice. Featuring a prismatic narrative that blends several story lines together, it's a film that deserves numerous viewings.

7. Man On A Swing

The under appreciated Frank Perry directed this mid 70's whodunit about the enigmatic character of a psychic helping a police sheriff (Cliff Robertson) in a murder case. It never exactly goes where one thinks, and its craftsmanship is impeccable. Seek this one out, along with any other Perry film you can find!

6.Downhill Racer

Michael Ritchie never made a bad film, and this Robert Redford project about an American skier qualifying for the Olympics is mesmerizing. It's editing, which always seems to cut at the perfect moment and Redford's oblique performance create a unique film about a slight subject. Highly recommended and just released onto DVD last year.

5. The Mattei Affair

As I described when I wrote about this film a few months back, Francesco Rosi's dizzying procedural about the life and strange death of Italian oilman Enrico Mattei feels like a direct inspiration to P.T. Anderson's "There Will Be Blood" and a host of other modern films. Rosi deserves every one of his films readily available for R1 consumption!

4. The Heartbreak Kid

Oh what an entrance for the stunning Cybil Shepherd in this film, and Elaine May's poisonous comedy just keeps getting better as it goes along. The break-up scene in a seafood restaurant and the constant nervousness of Charles Grodin's performance push "The Heartbreak Kid" into the realm of extreme black comedy. I love Elaine May.

3. The Big Fix

Largely forgotten now, but "The Big Fix" deserves its place alongside Robert Altman's "The Long Goodbye" and other 70's sun-noirs as one of the best. Richard Dreyfuss is great as the P.I. caught up in political skulduggery and missing persons, but its the film's smart script and lackadaisical manner of explaining itself that really sparkle. 70's filmmaking at its best.

2. A Brighter Summer Day

Edward Yang's 4 hour epic about the intimate... a group of schoolboys growing up with neighborhood gangs, criminal mischief and budding love. I suppose there's hope of this film finally seeing the light of day on home video with its big screen re-issue late last year (and even topping some critics' best of lists... again), but we'll have to see. A completely enveloping experience.

1. Cold Water

Olivier Assayas' mid 90's tale of doomed teenage love stopped me in my tracks when I first saw it last year- from its 45 minute party scene to its eclectic soundtrack that merges with the jittery, handheld images perfectly. "Cold Water" is a raw, alive and tender masterpiece.

The Jean Pierre Melville Files: Magnet of Doom

2012-01-20T21:40:00.000-08:00

In between a string of moody crime films, French filmmaker Jean Pierre Melville released a gentler movie that afforded him the opportunity to view America from a European sensibility. Released in 1963 and starring Jean Paul Belmondo, "Magnet of Doom" is one of the hard to find Melville efforts probably because it broke the mold of his previous noir-ridden tales of loner criminals and trenchcoated cops. Also based on his own screenplay, "Magnet of Doom" concerns itself with the bankrupt empire of a French financier (Charles Vanel) escaping Paris in the aftermath of his company's shady business dealings. He posts an ad in the local classified section for a secretary and washed up boxer (Michel (Belmondo) answers it. It's not long before the two are hopping a plane for New York and then driving across America where they settle in New Orleans... one of them running from an extradition warrant and the other just running from his boring Parisian lifestyle. The central conceit of the film, besides the father-son relationship that slowly forms between Vanel and Belmondo is a topographical one. Melville is clearly fascinated by this alien landscape, allowing his camera to peruse over the tall buildings of Manhattan just as lovingly as he observes Blemondo and a hitch hiker (Stefanie Sandrelli) lounge by a rural stream. And we have to make pit stops along the way, once to observe the small Hoboken apartment where one Frank Sinatra was born and then later to document the obvious cultural differences between the white residential area of New Orleans and its African-American inhabitants. Above all else, "Magnet of Doom" swirls through a variety of genres, eventually settling on a moral tale that continually has one wondering just exactly where its headed.

Surrounding Melville's wide-eyed images of America lies Georges Delerue's melodic soundtrack that, at times, reminds one of a western. At one critical moment, when Vanel decides to dump his life savings over the cliff, "Magnet of Doom" recalls the psychological emptiness of John Huston's "Treasure of the Sierra Madre"... high praise that I'm sure Melville never intended, yet the film faintly echoes throughout its entire running time. But perhaps the most incredible aspect of the film is that, a dozen or so years before it became quite fashionable to pose a European art film against the backdrop of the Americanr road movie (Wenders, Akerman etc.), Melville was setting the blueprint- just as he did for his hardboiled French re-inventions of the noir genre. With "Magnet Of Doom", he simply went right to the source itself.

What's In the Netflix Queue #34

2012-01-13T19:06:00.001-08:00

First, a new year's "intention" since "resolution" is such a definitive term... and can you already hear me trying to slide out of these "intentions" if I don't follow through this year?

1. Post more, plain and simple
2. See more new releases.. a "cinema passport" card- which allows me free access to a majority of theaters around the area throughout 2012- should definitely help these intentions
3. Hit a film festival this year, whether it be SXSW, Dallas AFI or Fantastic Fest in Austin. It's been much too long since my last one, and a helluva lot of fun.

Now, the next ten titles in my Netflix queue:

1. Winter Light- Ingmar Bergman that I've somehow managed to miss seeing over the years.
2. Ironweed- Last year, I went through a Jack Nicholson phase, and this 1987 film about an out of work baseball player during the Depression, finally rose to the top of the queue.
3. Higher Ground- The lovely Vera Farmiga's directorial debut that came and went quickly in 2011 saw a Blu-Ray release last week and I quickly moved it close to the top. Not only do I find her breathtakingly beautiful, but I hear the film is a well-meaning debut.
4. Shock- I've seen pretty much all Mario Bava available on DVD, and this late 70's film about "a family that moves into a home with a shocking secret, their lives become a nightmare of homicidal hallucinations as their young son begins to communicate with the spirits of the dead. Remodeled in madness and painted in blood, they soon discover that domestic bliss can be murder...when home is where the horror is."..... popped up within Netflix recently.
5. Triage- Danis Tanovic (of Bosnian "No Man's Land" fame) directs this thriller which stars too good looking people (Colin Farrell and Paz Vega) dealing with post traumatic stress syndrome. Should be interesting, maybe....
6. Banana Peel- From the description: "Con artist Michel Thibault (a supercool Jean-Paul Belmondo) and a beautiful woman (Jeanne Moreau) lead a gang of crafty criminals in a scheme to relieve greedy millionaire Raymond Lachard (Gert Fröbe) of some of his riches. Set largely across the gorgeous backdrop of the French Riviera, Banana Peel is a breezy early work from director Marcel Ophüls, who later directed the Holocaust documentary The Sorrow and the Pity." Belmondo, breezy French con movie, Ophuls.... I'm there!
7. Police Story- Never seen this trend setting Jackie Chan actioner. Now is the time.
8. Pale Flower- "Director Masahiro Shinoda's high-octane romp finds former jailbird Muraki (Ryo Ikebe) meeting the sultry Saeko (Mariko Kaga) soon after being released from the Big House. But the hard-bitten Muraki hasn't turned over a new leaf, and before you can say "prison reform," he and Saeko are tearing Tokyo apart." Read about this one on a Sonic Youth forum that I sometimes post on... a board full of obscure titles, Japanese hardcore stuff and slasher flicks. The jury is out, but the limited number of Shinoda films on DVD usually means a cult find.
9. Septien- Filmmaker and writer Michael Tully's independent film about a man returning home to his oddball family. I admire his writing, so here's hoping his filmmaking skills are elegant as well.
10. New World- Just listen to this synopsis: "A boy growing up in a French village befriends an American soldier who's stationed at a nearby Army base. The G.I. (James Gandolfini) makes a big impression on the young boy and introduces him to fun, freedom, music and the opposite sex. When the boy follows his dream of becoming a drummer and falls in love with a young American girl (Alicia Silverstone), he's faced with a tough decision." I found my way into this through a search for French filmmaker Alain Corneau's works and it just sounds intriguing.

Moments of 2011

2012-01-10T21:50:00.001-08:00

In conjunction with my favorite films of the year list, I offer up some moments out of 2010 films that made an indelible impression on me. Older online buddies will recognize this as a recurring event. This list is a collection of film dialogue, gestures, camera movements, moods or looks and ideas within a given scene. This list is inspired by Roger Ebert's list of movie moments as well as the once great (now dead) yearly wrap up in Film Comment. Possible spoilers so beware!

1. Elle Fanning trying to apologize for her father in a long take, as black and white movie images flash across her face. A star is born…. “Super 8”
2. Shadows fighting on the pavement. “Drive”
3. The look of James Mcavoy as he overlooks the chaos being caused by a president’s body being carried through the street in “The Conspirator”
4. In Michael Winterbottom’s “The Trip", Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan exchanging Michael Caine impersonations over breakfast
5. The abrupt way in which Paul (Mimi Branescu) tells his wife that he’s having an affair, and her quiet reaction, soon becoming an explosive confrontation in an astounding 12 minute long take. The Romanian New Wave does it again, creating unbearable tension out of the mundane in Radu Muntean’s “Tuesday, After Christmas”
6. “I feel all gushy down there….” Ellen Page in “Super”
7. The downright disturbing voice captured on a baby monitor walkie talkie in James Wan’s hugely under appreciated “Insidious”
8. The lateral pan following Javier Bardem along a street, over a bridge and then up into the sky as he watches a flock of birds dance in the sky. “Biutiful”
9. In “Take Shelter”, the extremely violent eruption of emotion as Michael Shannon overturns a table at a community pot luck dinner, and the ensuing silence as everyone watches
10. The entrance of Jeremy Irons and his boardroom discussion of what exactly is going on with his company in “Margin Call”. Surely the scenes that a best supporting actor award are made for
11. Through a breath of tears, the way Ricky Tarr (Tom Hardy) mumbles… “she wasn’t even my type” when telling the story of his overseas affair. “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”
12. A plane gently crashing into the water. “Road To Nowhere”
13. The night time meeting on a beach between two brothers and a shimmering city poised directly above them…. Something the film has been building towards for over 90 minutes in Gavin O Conner’s lovingly crafted “Warrior”
14. A lost calf quietly dying under a tree and the slow fade to winter time in “The Four Times”
15. The way Michael Fassbender’s body collapses under his own disappointment as he climbs off a woman, unable to make love with her in a hotel room and the way director Steve McQueen frames him just off-center in the next shot in “Shame”. Technique as psychology
16. In “Young Adult”, the little snarl laugh Mavis (Charlize Theron) gives off when asked “what’s wrong” by Patrick Wilson as she stands with coffee spilled on her dress in front of a party
17. The beautifully constructed pawn shop robbery in “Drive”… editing and point of view rendered with utmost clarity. And the camera never even goes inside the pawn shop
18. The final scene in “Carancho”…. a long take of spiraling vehicle crashes and distorted gunfire.. And then a woman (Martina Gusman) trying to resuscitate her lover on the street
19. A terrified glance straight into the camera and then… “what was that guy doing”. Abrupt cut to black in “Martha Marcy May Marlene”
20. “No, he’s not my husband.” “Good because I’m gonna climb that like a tree”. Melissa McCarthy in “Bridesmaids”
21. The point of view shot of a daughter (Evan Rachel Wood) blocked by three bodies as they descend towards her mother in “The Conspirator”
22. A punishing experience from start to finish, but the indelible black and white images of a bombed out city in Chuan Lu‘s “City of Life and Death”
23. A girl crying uncontrollably on the porch. “Putty Hill”
24. A group of women in a 1900 era brothel cavorting and laying around, timed to Lee Moses’ funky tune “Bad Girl” in "House of Tolerance"
25. “Now what”… cut to Pearl Jam. “50/50”
26. The eyes and smile of Emily Blunt in “The Adjustment Bureau”
27. In the midst of Armageddon, a small community dances and enjoys each others company. “Stake Land”
28. A confrontation in the hallway of a burglarized house between John Hawkes and the owner… And the quiet suspense that builds between them. “Martha Marcy May Marlene"
29. Aryton Senna’s mother kissing his racing helmet at a funeral… the image that probably got to me more than any other this year in “Senna”
30. “Margin Call” and Paul Bettany explaining exactly how one spends 1.5 million dollars a year
31. A slow motion fireball engulfing two people as they stare into each other’s eye in Duncan Jones terrific “Source Code”… a sci-fi companion to “Groundhog Day”
32. In the film’s most pivotal moment, a slow tracking shot into a vehicle from across the street, leaving the conversation to our imagination in George Clooney’s “The Ides of March”
33. The complete look of disillusion on the face of a young boy when he sees a variety of phone numbers scrawled on a girl’s hand in “Myth of the American Sleepover”
34. With downtown Los Angeles glimmering in the background of a living room apartment, the Driver (Ryan Gosling) and Irene (Carey Mulligan) exchange a long, pregnant pause… “Drive”
35. Rhoda (Brit Marling) telling a story about a Russian cosmonaut and that persistent thumping coming from his ship… “Another Earth”
36. Smiley (Gary Oldman) talking to an empty chair and the straight stare into the camera…. Talking is the most precious commodity in Tomas Alfredson’s intelligent spy re-working of “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”
37. In “Hanna”, the long tracking shot as Cate Blanchett walks up to a car, gun in hand, as it sits at the end of a road in flames
38. The almost paternal relationship over the phone between Kate Winslet and Laurence Fishburn in “Contagion”- “when’s the last time you ate something that didn’t come out of a vending machine?” “Taco Bell?”
39. “Courtney, quit f***ing around with those children!” and the absurdity of the opening scene in David Gordon Green's “Your Highness”, a film that I laughed at more than any other this year
40. The nervous jump as a meat clever hits food behind him and a desperate phone call that never reaches Irena (Svetlana Chodchenkova). “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”
41. The ten minute storm cellar scene in “Take Shelter” and the crescendo of music as Curtis (Michael Shannon) finally opens the door
42. The lateral pan as Fassbender jogs across owntown New York, and the way the camera patiently waits with him at the crosswalk in "Shame"
43. In "The Descendants", the abrupt kiss on the porch and the stunned look on the face of Judy Greer
44. The t-shirt of Rooney Mara, expressing a very nihilistic worldview. "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo"
45. The smash cut onto the face of a prostitute (Alice Barnole) as her face is cut apart... her screams breaking the tranquility of an 1899 Paris bordello. "House of Tolerance"

Favorites of 2011

2012-01-08T00:05:00.000-08:00

Another year, another list. My twenty favorites of the year:

20. Black Death- A big fan of direct to video auteur Christopher Smith ("Creep", "Severance", "Triangle") and "Black Death" may be his best film yet as traveling knights led by Sean Bean confront a town possibly controlled by a witch during the black plague. It looks amazing, stars this one guy that's a dead ringer for a young Klaus Kinski, and controls its atmosphere well.

19. The Robber- A chase film for the cool intellect. A man (Andreas Lust) is released from prison and immediately begins robbing banks again. In his spare time, he runs marathons, becomes involved with an old flame (Franziska Weisz) and stashes his money. The second half of the film is austere and quiet... a characteristic even more remarkable because it deals with a breath taking run/escape from the police. Watch this with "Drive" for a neat double feature. Heisenberg is a major talent to watch.

18. Carancho- Pablo Trapero has the potential to be huge. Like the next Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu huge... if that makes any sense. "Carancho" is an angry, violent film about insurance fraud, budding love and the general state of malaise present in Argentina. Darin and Grusman (who has starred in several Trapero films, notably in his terrific "Lion's Den" as an imprisoned woman) crash into each other figuratively and fall in and out love as Darin plans insurance scams while she works all night first as a paramedic and then in a hospital where fistfights routinely break out because patients housed in the same ER room were fighting before they were admitted. "Carancho" is a bold movie.... and the more I reflect on it the better it becomes. Trapero has serious chops as a filmmaker- just watch the way he deftly handles complicated long takes such as the final shootout or the steamy sexual tension that builds between Grusman and Darin as they dance together.

17. Buck- Cindy Meehl's documentary on the real life horse whisperer, Buck Brannaman, is a gentle thing of beauty. Picking up with Buck as he currently criss-crossses the country, teaching horse classes 9 months out of the year, we slowly learn of his tragic childhood past and the things that keep him living today (namely his wife and daughter). Brannaman himself would have been a singular idea for a documentary with his childhood fame and descent into familial terror, but "Buck" concentrates on the good that emerged from those dark times, namely a serene ability to understand and calm troubled horses. We know its coming the whole movie and when the twenty minute scene where Buck 'talks' to an aggressive colt, it's a shattering moment that only the best documentaries enable.

16. Insidious- Dissonant piano chords, a bleached out, flat visual style and a title card that literally jumps off the screen with aggression… James Wan’s “Insidious” starts out as a slow burn horror movie and evolves into something pretty disturbing. The moments early on- involving the ominous use of a baby monitor and the horrific sounding voice it picks up- more than make “Insidious” an enjoyable haunted house story for people wanting to jump a bit. And then, when Wan and screenwriter Leigh Whannell begin to explore ideas of astral projection, demon channeling and dream walks into hell in the second half, “Insidious” becomes something altogether terrifying. I give the filmmakers credit for not playing it safe. This is not the usual horror movie and (thankfully) a huge departure for Wan and Wannell with their “Saw” franchise, completely devoid of blood and gore. In the final 30 minutes, “Insidious” travels to some insane places and I found it genuinely unsettling. The most overlooked horror film in years??

15. Senna- The best type of documentary- one that introduces me to a subject or person and exhilarates through image, sound, knowledge and unbiased exploration. Asif Kapadia’s film of Formula One racing legend Ayrton Senna did just that in straightforward, moving fashion.

14. Hugo- Martin Scorsese’s family film is a wonder to behold, both visually and emotionally. Feeling like his most personal work since the documentaries about his mother and father, “Hugo” tells the tale of an orphaned boy (Asa Butterowrth) introduced to the hardships of life by his father’s death and a solitary lifestyle in a Paris train station. From there, Scorsese adapts the story and turns it into fantastical adventure that comments on his own love for the movies, the nature of film preservation and the enduring romance of cinema itself. Ben Kingsley, Chloe Grace Moritz, Sacha Baron Cohen and Christopher Lee (!) lend supporting performances that never tug at the heart, but produce hugely affecting characters. The auteur theory is alive and well.

13. Myth of the American Sleepover- In David Robert Mitchell’s micro-indie “The Myth of the American Sleepover”, the aimlessness of youth and awkwardness of teenage love are given seamless examination. Taking as its starting off point one long summer night on the precipice of beginning high school, it wouldn’t be unfair to mention it in the same breath alongside “Dazed and Confused” or “The Last Picture Show”… films that manage to encapsulate a certain time and mood of expiring childhood. The film follows a handful of teenagers, both male and female, as their various parties and sleepovers migrate and fold across each other. Featuring a host of amateur faces, not only does writer-director Mitchell elicit sweet, honest performances from everyone involved, but the film avoids hard plot contrivances and simply exists. The scene of a boy and girl breaking up through a bedroom window or the visual of a dream girl fading away when a boy sees several phone numbers scribbled on her arm are only the hallmarks of a film that takes its title seriously. “The Myth of the American Sleepover” also provides us with great memories of our moments at this age, checkered by inexperience and a naïve outlook, but ones that we constantly try to re-live as we grow older.

12. House of Tolerance- Bertrand Bonello’s woozy portrait of a brothel in Paris circa 1900 weaves a dreamy spell right from the start and never lets go. Following a dozen or so women throughout their daily routines and their seductive nights with clients could seem like a challenge, but the film’s anachronistic use of soul and rock tunes and the brave performances create a compelling and brooding effect that’s never salacious. Like the best films of Hou Hisao Hsien or Edward Yang, Bonello’s film simply observes in hazy long takes and subtle editing, presenting the changing of an era with grace. And just when one thinks Bonello can’t top himself from the scene of the women dancing to “Nights In White Satin”, the final images are blistering and open up a complex new perception about the entire thing.

11. The Ides of March- The actor Clooney is quickly becoming a cerebral director with this taut political tale that pushes into the foreground the three-card-monty act that enshrines the gamesmanship behind every political campaign. While assuming the role of Governor Mike Morris, a seemingly wholesome figure in a tight Ohio Democratic primary, Clooney is good, but "The Ides of March" has the gusto to create a film not about him, but the various campaign directors and interns that tirelessly work behind the scene. Bottom line, if one goes to see Clooney, than they may be sorely disappointed. In another terrific performance, Ryan Gosling is the real star, bouncing off legendary character actors like Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti and Jeffrey Wright as the election becomes embroiled in sexual innuendo, territorial back-stabbing and the leering press. Through it all, Clooney maintains a steadfast classicism that has become his (early) directorial earmark. It came and went with a whimper, but it deserves to be ranked with stellar, low-key political films such as “The Candidate”.

10. Rapt- Lucas Belvaux’s icy-blooded, austere tale of a kidnapping (which is “rapt” in French) of a French capitalist exhaustively examines the ordeal from every possible angle. Dialogue takes precedence over action, and “Rapt” becomes an enormous chess game between family, corporate employers and the kidnappers themselves as money is haggled over back and forth. Then, the film becomes a procedural as the police carefully try to catch the kidnappers, featuring a stunning sequence as a money drop is tailed from the ground and the sky. Finally, “Rapt” settles into a moral tale of ambiguity as Graf (Yvan Attal) is released and he desperately tries to put the pieces of his now tabloid-fodder life back into place. “Rapt” is a hugely overlooked French gem that staggers through the gamut of great storytelling with poise and conviction.

9. 50/50- Joseph Levine's "50/50" is a fair representation of the Apatow brand- films that confront adult themes with a very childish sense of humor- and then about 30 minutes in it, "50/50" changes into something completely unexpected and overwhelming and smashes that brand to pieces. It's that good of a movie, led by a stunning, genuine performance by Joseph Gordon Levitt who deserves a nomination for his work here. Writer Will Reiser and director Levin know exactly how to frame a story around real emotions, allowing the Seth Rogen style of humor to compliment the touchy prospect of a cancer-ridden comedy while maintaining its austerity to life and survival. Strong supporting performances, especially from Anna Kendrick and Angelica Huston, only heighten the comedy-drama and ground the more romantic elements of the film. With a film so encumbered by the air of death, its a completely life-affirming revelation of a young man's wide open future with a final scene that leaves one gasping for breath.

8. Stake Land- Jim Mickle’s “Stake Land” features some surprisingly tender moments for a film that deals with a post-apocalyptic landscape teeming with feral vampire cannibals. Part horror film and part white-trash western, “Stake Land” exceeds all expectations by creating full bodied characters that we care about, wonderfully timed cinematography that never forgets about the human element in its carnage, and a soundtrack that evokes the coming-of-age duplicity in “Badlands”.Starring Nick Damici (who also co-wrote the film) as Mister, the hard as nails vampire hunter traveling to supposed safe haven up north in a land called New Eden, he encounters teenager Martin (Connor Paolo) and the two form a family of sorts as they trek across the land fighting off the infected and Bible thumping fanatics at the same time. As a genre effort, the film is good, but it’s the attention to humanity and glimmers of hope that propel “Stake Land” above its genre intentions. Just watch the little exchange between Mister and Belle as he carries her when she’s unable to walk…. Or the moments of sweetness that emerge as the group finds a temporary respite in a town circled off from the plague. “Stake Land” will throttle the nerves and supply the obligatory scares, but it also firmly implants a sense of emotional connectivity that far outlasts the horror.

7. Road To Nowhere- Monte Hellman’s complex return to directing after over a decade is insular from the start, with its film-within-a-film concept swerving in and out of reality as a film director stages a recreation of an actual murder case involving a woman (Shannyn Sossamon) who may be the real woman involved in the murder. Honestly, “Road To Nowhere” is less about plot and more about mood, genre and filmmaking as life. Like a David Lynch movie, its reflexive, at times confusing, and wholly mesmerizing from start to finish as if Hellman was breathing this story all his life.

6. Contagion- Soderbergh has always eschewed flagrant emotion in his films, and even one dealing with the very close annihilation of the world as we know it through a deadly virus gets the clinical treatment. Starring a host of big names, “Contagion” expertly tracks the desperate journey of doctors, scientists and military personnel to identify and contain a viral outbreak. Ultimately, the story centers on Matt Damon and his daughter as they experience the daily tribulations, but it’s the cumulative effect of the film that leaves a stunning effect. From its percussive, beating score by Cliff Martinez to Soderbergh’s cheeky visual palette (now a customary and welcome aesthetic tendency), “Contagion” didn’t nearly get the recognition it deserves as a visionary work. And that final scene is a gut-punch.

5. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy- Compressing John le Carre’s mammoth spy novel (and subsequent 5 hour BBC mini series) into a tidy 130 minutes is no easy task, but director Tomas Alfredson and crew did just that, maintaining the novel’s intricate narrative while heightening the emotional collapse for several key characters which, after all, was really the point of the novel in the first place. Cinematically and intellectually riveting, “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” is just my kind of spy movie-starring a lead character (Gary Oldman) whose performance is interior, giving clues only in his cheek reflexes and eyes and refusing to deliver the easy answer and working itself out with only 2 or 3 gunshots. Just brilliant filmmaking…. And one that continues to grow in my mind day after day with its direct opposition to modern slam-bam cinema.

4. Take Shelter- Jeff Nichols delivers another slow-burn thriller about a family coming to shreds in the outskirts of no-where America. As a man plagued by deeply unsettling visions, Michael Shannon gives what is probably his best performance in a long line of them…. And Jessica Chastian (surely the hardest working woman in show biz this year!) as his wife trying to deal with the mental onslaught is terrific. It’s hard to shake the energy of this psychological thriller, especially towards the final 30 minutes which builds to a tension that was palpable during my showing. In 20 years, I get the feeling this will be the film anyone remembers most from this year.

3. Martha Marcy May Marlene- The first of two staggering films this year to brilliantly deconstruct the splintered state of mind of its protagonist (see “Take Shelter”, next), “Martha Marcy May Marlene” is also the year’s best debut. Director Sean Durkin and lead actress Elizabeth Olson (in a tremendous performance) create a haunting portrait about a young woman trying to deal with regular life after she’s been controlled by a family cult of sorts. Slithering back and forth in time with no warning or precedent, the viewer is just as confused at times as it characters, which makes for compelling and intellectually attuned viewing. At times, it’s echoes of Ingmar Bergman-like psychological inspection are stirring, especially since the dynamic between sisters remains elusive. The first four films on this list could be interchanged on any given day… and all justly deserve the masterpiece logo.

2. Shame- Steve McQueen’s oblique character study is a haunting, provocative thing. Michael Fassbender- who for my money along with Jessica Chastain gets the award for hardest working person in showbiz this year- is magnificent as the simmering sex addict whose life of ugly, unfulfilling sex is interrupted by his equally unhappy sister (Carey Mulligan). Directed within an inch of its life with breath-taking opening and closing montages, McQueen’s film doesn’t say much outright, instead expressing its psychology through spellbinding long takes and subtle lens focus. I sat stunned through the entire film, partly ready to justify the acclaim of McQueen since his debut “Hunger” but mostly because “Shame” is a brave, harrowing experience.

1. Drive- From the European sensibility of a provocative filmmaker comes the year’s most sublime American film noir in years. With a soundtrack full of 80’s chill wave retros, Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan enact out a quiet friendship among the fluorescent violence of downtown Los Angeles. Strong supporting performances by Albert Brooks, Ron Pearlman and Bryan Cranston round out a film that’s unique, moving and ultimately thrilling via its abstract beauty and less-is-more narrative. An absolute masterpiece.

70's Bonanza: Man In the Wilderness

2012-01-05T20:26:00.000-08:00

Richard Harris was a badass. With his wisp of white stringy hair, piercing blue eyes and staccato Irish accent, he was a unique talent for decades. In early 1970, Harris reached American acclaim through his performance in the cult classic "A Man Called Horse", followed up a year later in 1971 with "Man In the Wilderness". Mismanaged as a revenge western, both in the poster's tagline and its current home as the second side of a double feature disc with the far inferior film "The Deadly Trackers", "Man In the Wilderness" is a survival film of the highest order. Directed by Richard Sarafian ("Vanishing Point" fame), "Man In the Wilderness" is an almost wordless tale about a hunter (Harris) left for dead and his slow, deliberate recovery in the American frontier West. Like Joseph Losey's "Figures In a Landscape" or Jerzy Skolimowski's recent "Essential Killing", it's brutal nature versus man as he struggles against the elements, hungry beasts and other carnivorous humans... all played out in patient and observational cinematic flourishes.

Taking place in the early 1800's as a fur hunting expedition crosses new territory, Harris is one of the many marksmen promptly mauled by a bear and left for dead by his crew, led by a wonderfully atmospheric John Huston as Captain Henry. In direct opposition to nature's serenity, Huston has his men drag him across the terrain on a boat equipped with wheels. Much like Werner Herzog's "Aguirre, Wrath of God" produced a year later, it's a demanding visual image that plays like a bullheaded ode to manifest destiny superiority of the 'white man' and his encroaching presence in the wilderness. When the two men assigned to watch over Harris flee from the cowardice of approaching natives, "Man In the Wilderness" turns its attention to Harris and his meticulous recovery from death's door. It's fascinating to watch him bury himself in his own grave for warmth or his impromptu animal traps that sustain his eating habits. But through all this, "Man In the Wilderness" is so good because it avoids the obvious conventions of the revenge drama. Cursory scenes are given to Huston and the trappers who fled from Harris' body and the almost superstitious air of menace that Huston feels is lurking in the forest after them, but director Sarafian and writer Jack Dewitt progress Harris as something nobler and better than the lot. "Man In the Wilderness" is a perfect example of understated and overlooked 1970's filmmaking.

Fassbender X 2

2011-12-29T18:16:00.000-08:00

Shame

Steve McQueen’s oblique character study is a haunting, provocative thing. Michael Fassbender- who for my money along with Jessica Chastain gets the award for hardest working person in showbiz this year- is magnificent as the simmering sex addict whose life of ugly, unfulfilled sex is interrupted by his equally unhappy sister (Carey Mulligan). Directed within an inch of its life with breath-taking opening and closing montages, McQueen’s film doesn’t say much, instead expressing its psychology through spellbinding long takes and subtle lens focus. In short, "Shame" is a harrowing experience. I was largely unimpressed with McQueen's acclaimed debut, "Hunger", but I now sit ready to qualify him as a major new talent.

A Dangerous Method

The beauty of David Cronenberg is his unique ability to stage a film teetering on the brink of perversion, and then slowly pull back the exterior to reveal a conservative morality tale. With "A Dangerous Method", there's sadomasochistic sex, professional jealousy and repressed emotions framed within a James Ivory-tale of famed psychoanalyst Carl Jung (Fassbender) and his obsession with both a father-figure in Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) patient-cum-mistress Sabina (Keira Knightley). "A Dangerous Method" is talky and intellectually challenging... but also a bit sexy in the representation of Sabina's sexual desires that Jung awakes in her. Essentially the story of a destruction of the 'relationship' between everyone Jung calls friends in his life, "A Dangerous Method" is riveting in that dry, almost clinical way of Cronenberg. I wouldn't expect (or want) anything else.

Tops In Pops, 2011 Style Part 2 (the absolute best)

2011-12-23T18:07:00.000-08:00

5. M83- Hurry Up We're Dreaming

Part synth rock and part flat out good rock, M83 continues to dazzle and impress with each new release, this time sampling out a hearty double album full of great stuff.

4. Explosions In the Sky- Take Care, Take Care

Another example of a veteran group of musicians resisting the urge to tamper with a proven template, 'postrock' band Explosions In the Sky create a moving testament to the power of instrumental rock. Seamlessly weaving in guitars, drums, and horns, their music always builds to a cathartic denouement. "Take Care, Take Care" is all of this and more.

3. The Antlers- Burst Apart

After their debut album, "Hospice" broke through and became one of my very favorite albums of the last 5 years, I wasn't sure if they'd be able to match that album's soul-stirring confessional heights, but their latest does. These guys are here to stay.

2. Yuck- Yuck

Take Sonic Youth and add equal parts Dinosaur Jr and one gets Yuck. But seriously, Yuck is much more talented than those faint comparisons, echoing the very best of 90's indie rock with a modern spin. I look forward to whatever they do next.

1. Radiohead- King of Limbs

Ok, did anyone who regularly reads this blog expect anything less? I heard that "King of Limbs" was their least impressive work in over a decade. I read they've hit the wall creatively and need to push modern rock forward like they did with "OK Computer" and "Kid A". Honestly, why can't we just appreciate "The King of Limbs" for what is is- a groovy, trancy, tight, hard-edged exploration that feels like a genuine exhale of music?

Tops In Pops, 2011 Style Part 1

2011-12-18T19:30:00.000-08:00

For me, music in 2011 was a schizo year. Finding any real new artist to appreciate seemed to be tougher than ever, with the latest waves of 60's retro, chill wave and hipster-lite never striking a chord with me. Ultimately, what saved the year was the resurgence of old pros dropping solo efforts, effectively saying "I'm still here and know how to make it." Looking over my ten favorites of the year, it's comprised of said veterans whose music I either grew up on or feverishly adopted over the last few years. Maybe I am getting old.

10. J Mascis- Several Shades Of Why

As the perennial voice and writer of lauded 90's indie band Dinosaur Jr, songwriter J Mascis' solo album evokes the yesteryear of his pained songs and slurred guitar. Along with Thurston Moore and his solo release this year, Mascis' album is a thing of beauty.

9. Beirut- Riptide

Beirut is an anomaly in modern music, sounding like a gimmick at first with their influenced sound of Eastern European horns, polka and dance hall flavor. But lead singer and songwriter Zach Condon is the real deal, heartfelt with his inflections and a brilliant songwriter. While "Riptide" isn't quite up to the magnificence of "Flying Club Cup" or previous outings, it's still head and shoulders above everything else out there.

8. Bill Callahan- Apocalypse

I can just get lost in the subtle sound of Bill Callahan... one of the most important songwriters working today. As the lead singer for influential rock band Smog and general Austin icon, Callahan's latest solo album came and went with little fanfare back in the spring, but it deserves more recognition. This is one dark, but ultimately uplifting work.

7. Mogwai- Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will

Honestly, there's nothing revelatory in the music of Mogwai. You know exactly what you'll get and how their largely instrumental arrangements will build, but damn if they don't continue to impress with every new release. I have a penchant for rousing post-rock (see "Explosions In the Sky or "Do Make Say Think") and Mogwai does it better than most.

6. The Twilight Singers- Dynamite Steps

I just love Greg Dulli and his tormented voice, and The Twilight Singers is yet another project that he lends his talents. Messy, loud and complex, "Dynamite Steps" is probably their best album since the early 00's.

Next up: the top 5

How A Song Should Be Sung

2011-12-09T23:51:00.001-08:00

Unintentional Double Feature: 2 From Kinji Fukasaku

2011-12-06T22:06:00.000-08:00

When there’s a prolific filmmaker in the likes of Kinji Fukasaku- 66 titles listed on imdb- one can always expect a few oddities in the mix. While a good majority of his films, produced in the 60’s and 70’s, set the template for ‘yakuza’ films that deal with the complex, multi-layered hierarchy of inherent violence and betrayal, some of his best work resides in the always chic disaster Sci-Fi genre. Three different efforts in three different decades- “The Green Slime” in 1968, “Message From Space” in 1978 and “Virus” in 1980- reveal a creative artist willing to dabble in foreign territory with surprisingly good results. Through each film, which become progressively better with “Virus” being a near masterpiece, Fukasaku tackles the well worn genre with gusto and imagination.

“The Green Slime” is probably best viewed where I first saw it recently- late at night on TCM after a few adult beverages. A relic of the 60’s, definitely, the film follows a group of astronauts as they attempt to land on a meteorite that’s slowly plummeting towards Earth, effectively blowing it up and altering its course. Michael Bay, anyone? What the astronauts find on the meteorite and subsequently bring back to the space station with them is a decidedly nasty alien life force that wrecks havoc. Living first as the eponymous green slime, the life force soon morphs into a monster that drains the ship of its energy and electrocutes anyone in sight. “The Green Slime” is not an especially good film, but it is harmless fun. Beginning as ‘kiddie’ Saturday afternoon serial with models and costumes that seem left over from an Ed Wood production, it soon turns into a latex-suited monster film that seems to exist as Fukasaku’s excuse to blend Godzilla and Hollywood science fiction. Even the theme song- part 60’s acid rock that lingers in one’s head long after the film itself is over- screams of the time period. I don’t regret seeing “The Green Slime”, but there were finer moments for Fukasaku.

One of those finer moments is “Message From Space”, a low-rent “Star Wars” impersonation replete with a narrative that features a kidnapped princess and a rag-tag group of galactic beings charged with the task of saving her and her home planet. The inevitable cheekiness of the late 70's- and Fukasaku's own determination to chop socky filmmaking in general- also dates "Message From Space", but it doesn't belong in that "so bad its good" category. As midnight cult filmmaking goes, it's a serviceable sci-fo romp that goes a long way in creating terrific atmosphere from gaudy sets and some lunatic performances which include a Japanese pimp, two hot dog spaceship pilots and Vic Morrow joining the quest to save the aforementioned princess from a planet of marauding invaders. But redundant as it is, “Message From Space” is wholly entertaining, like a Shaw Brothers rendition of “The Lord of the Rings”. And although technological advances hadn’t quite grown beyond the model and latex suit phase yet, "Message From Space" overcomes its cheapness through a genuine attempt to specify a grand adventure within the confines of a newly burgeoning high concept genre. And, for the record, the above poster from Egypt has nothing to do with the film itself.... but I love its gaudiness.

The Last Ten Films I've Seen, November Edition

2011-12-02T19:01:00.001-08:00

1. Horrible Bosses (2011), Seth Gordon- I'm really tired of the modern comedy, and this miserable excuse only compounds my feelings. Nasty, snark.... full of non sequiter humor that is the love child of so many Will Ferrell and Adam Sandler movies.

2. J Edgar (2011), Clint Eastwood- Probably Eastwood's most generic film in years. Not only do we learn next to nothing about J. Edgar Hoover that wasn't already present in tabloid fodder, the male-on-male relationship between he and Armie Hammer is as blunt as a sledgehammer. Maybe the RIP Ken Russell could have enlivened the wrestling match.

3. A Very Private Affair (1962), Louis Malle- One of the Malle films I've been searching after for years finally got a humble TCM run. My God Bardot is stunning, but the film was a bit lackluster, too early to register as a nouvelle vague masterpiece and too shallow to exist on the same movie-movie overdose as early 60's Fellini and Godard. Did I mention Bardot looks good?

4. The Burning (1981), Tony Maylam- It features a young Jason Alexander and Holly Hunter! That's about all I can say for this cheap attempt to cash in on the marginal success of "Friday the 13th".

5. The Robber (2011), Benjamin Heisenberg- A chase film for the cool intellect. A man (Andreas Lust) is released from prison and immediately begins robbing banks again. In his spare time, he runs marathons, becomes involved with an old flame (Franziska Weisz) and stashes his money. The second half of the film is austere and quiet... a characteristic even more remarkable because it deals with a breath taking run/escape from the police. Watch this with "Drive" for a neat double feature. Heisenberg is a major talent to watch.

6. Melancholia (2011), Lars Von Trier- Somewhere around "Manderlay", Von Trier kinda lost me. With "Melancholia", he has pushed me off the cliff. Painfully dull with an exorbitant running time, I searched and listened for the metaphor to this chamber piece about depression and the end of the world for a long time and never found it. Wholly unpleasant to sit through, with no redeemable characters, this may be the first time I rooted for the end of the world.

7. The Descendants (2011), Alexander Payne- Another high profile, critical-proof film with a well respected auteur that landed with a big thud. Middlebrow beyond belief, its a film that deals in about as much sadness as Von Trier's punishing effort with a little more lightheartedness. Payne obviously takes heed in having a situation work out a little more messily than in ordinary fiction, yet I could sense every flip of the script in "The Descendants". And that damn cloying soundtrack did nothing to help its cause.

8. Take Shelter (2011), Jeff Nichols- I still can't shake some of this film's energy.... especially the unbearable ten minute scene in a storm shelter towards the end. Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain both deserve some kind of award here and Austin director Jeff Nichols delivers another astonishing, slow-burn portrait of nowhere America. See it immediately.

9. Tierra (1996), Julio Medem- Re watched Julio Medem's magical collision of love, pesticide and the wind burned plains in which his film is set. Available on bit torrents out there, I highly recommend discovering this terrific director and his works.

10. Terri (2011), Azazel Jacobs- Amateur actor Jacob Wysocki embodies the overweight, culturally ostracized lead character well, and John C. Reilly is very good as the school principal who takes an active interest in his well being. The tone of the film, as Terri befriends a pretty girl ("Rescue Me's" Olivia Crocicchia) and a troubled peer, wavers in the end.

On JFK and Dallas

2011-11-27T16:55:00.001-08:00

A bit late in posting this on that dreaded anniversary here in the Dallas metroplex, but see the link below for Errol Morris' short but stunning documentary about the swirling conspiracy (or lack thereof) of one of the more unusual footnotes to the JFK assassination.

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2011/11/21/opinion/100000001183275/the-umbrella-man.html

Produced and Abandoned #12

2011-11-20T18:53:00.000-08:00

Ten more titles that deserve a region 1 release:

1. Autumn Leaves (1958)- I'm still kicking myself after I missed TCM's airing of this late 50's drama starring Cliff Robertson last month following his death. I'm currently working my way through the films of Robert Aldrich, and this is one of the few I haven't seen. I suppose its good to know the film is in circulation now, but a hands-on DVD release would be so much nicer.
2. Four Nights Of A Dreamer (1971)- Slowly but surely, some Robert Bresson is making its way onto DVD, but there are still momentous gaps (i.e. "The Devil Probably" and a good copy of "L'Argent" now OOP). This, his first film of the 70's, sounds especially appealing as a man and woman get to know each other over the course of four nights before her lover returns. Everything I've read classifies "Four Nights Of A Dreamer" as a hugely influential film.
3. Monsignor (1982)- Ok, first off this isn't a very good film- Christopher Reeves plays a priest who breaks pretty much every vow, getting involved with the black market and defiling a nun (Genevie Bujold). Reeves carries the same half-smirk the entire film, but it is respectably helmed by director Frank Perry and the various mumblings between church and mafia loyalty make for some compelling ideas in a low-rent "Godfather" kind of way. And the scene where Reeves and Bujold lock eyes during a large mass procession is quite stirring. Plus, we always need more Frank Perry on video.
4. Quatermass and the Pit (1967)- One of those films that's been on DVD before, ran OOP, was re-released, and now appears to be available through an import Blu-ray. Whatever the status, this late 60's Hammer horror/sci-fi shouldn't be that difficult to see.
5. The Professor aka Il Cammorista (1986)- Ben Gazzara stars as a man who builds a mafia empire from his prison walls and then continues on once he's released. A real oddity here... the film debut of Italian director Giuseppe Tornatore, starring American Gazzara and running 171 minutes! I suppose it was seemingly lost in the shuffle of cheapie 70's and 80's spaghetti action flicks, but it sounds very intriguing.
6. Slither (1973)- Currently on my DVR from its TCM airing last week.... I can't wait to finally see it, plus it always gets kind words from the blogosphere.
7. Malachance (2004)- Debut film from one of the most promising South American directors, Gerardo Naranjo. I'm eagerly awaitng his latest film, Miss Bala" and absolutely love both "Drama/Mex" and "I'm Gonna Explode". His odes to Godard, lovers on the run and eclectic music including Georges Delerue have been lightning bolts of exciting cinema.
8. Lepke (1975)- With Menaham Golan directing, this mid-70's tale of a gangster's rise to power will probably be suspect, but the thought of Tony Curtis starring and my appreciation for the Corman school of mafia tales has me interested.
9. The Midnight Man (1974)- Co directed by Burt Lancaster, how can this synopsis not sound fun: "The Ex-con. The Hippie. The Senator. The Pervert. The Lesbian. The Professor. The Sheriff. The Sadist. One of them is a murderer. All of them make the most fascinating murder mystery in years."
10. Day of the Beast (1996)- From the few Alex de la Iglesia films I've seen, I'm not sure if his zippy, cut-happy efforts are really my cup of tea..... although "The Last Circus" was kinetic and furthered my deep seated fears of clowns. This film, which deals with the possible birth of the devil on Christmas in Madrid, has its cult following.

70's Bonanza: The Big Fix

2011-11-17T14:58:00.000-08:00

Temporally, "The Big Fix" is a mess. Taking its narrative cue from the film noir genre of the 40's and transferring the self-reflexive private detective and his quest to solve a mystery to California in the 1970's is only the beginning. "The Big Fix" is really a film of the 1960's, as its ideas and eventual outcome all have to do with the radical counterculture of that time and its lingering effects on fathers and sons. I did say "The Big Fix" is a "mess", but only in the best sense of the word. Directed by Jeremy Kagan and starring Richard Dreyfuss in an engaging and complex performance that ranks as one of his best, "The Big Fix" begins with Dreyfuss, as P.I. Moses Wine, being hired by an old flame (Susan Anspach) to work for the political campaign of a governor hopeful. Someone is trying to dereail the campaign by associating the candidate to ex-60's liberal terrorist Howard Eppis (F. Murray Abraham in a scene-stealing performance, mimcing the energetic mania of Abby Hoffman). Wine takes on the case and lesiurely floats from suspect to suspect, eventually becoming embroiled in murder, the kidnapping of a hispanic movement leader, and his own ugly child custody issues with ex-wife Bonnie Bedelia. Basically, like the best sun noirs of the 70's (i.e. "The Long Goodbye" and "Night Moves"), "The Big Fix" deals with heavy issues in a very effortless method. At first glance, one wonders when and how this thing is going to work itself out as Wine dances from the personal to the professional with little regard for either. But then, when "The Big Fix" does kick in with narrative force, it becomes a sensational piece of 70's filmmaking full of depth, surprise and unconventional noir storytelling. And just hearing Dreyfuss explain the cast on his right arm (which he actually broke in pre-production) to everyone he meets is priceless.

The New Stuff Addition

2011-11-11T20:20:00.000-08:00

Really kicking into the fall movie mode, with so much to see finally.... "Take Shelter", "The Skin I Live In", "J Edgar" and "Melancholia". I love this time of year.

Martha Marcy May Marlene

Sean Durkin’s “Martha Marcy May Marlene” stands as a strong contributor for best directorial debut of the year. Placing youngest Olsen sibling Elizabeth (now all growed up) front and center in such a psychologically penetrating effort could be distracting at first, but within the first five minutes, those fears dissipate and she turns in one of the most affecting performances of the year. Opening with her escape from a backwoods family commune into the home of estranged sister Lucy (Sarah Paulson), “Martha Marcy May Marlene” shifts back and forth in time as we understand the levels of psychological damage done to her by Patrick (John Hawkes) and her struggles to adapt to normal life. With little bearing for time or place, Durkin’s slow zoom, trance-like camera never gives the viewer a full understanding of where we are in Martha’s life until each scene progresses, likewise thrusting the viewer into the same splintered state of consciousness. It’s a bold film both compositionally and emotionally and one that’s unafraid to comb the depths of identity and family bonds. In the most angry scene, Martha’s inability to overcome her brainwashed state explodes during a prim and proper lake house party and “Martha Marcy May Marlene” becomes almost unbearable in its tension as the camera sits at a motionless distance while she’s calmed down by sister and brother-in-law. At times, it’s echoes of Ingmar Bergman-like psychological inspection are stirring, especially since the dynamic between sisters remains elusive and complex… and if that sounds like high praise then I urge one to seek out this film. And the final scene is simply terrifying in so many ways.

In Time

More and more, I’ve come to realize that the magnificent promise of director Andrew Niccol’s debut film “Gattaca” (1997) is lightning in a bottle. Since then, Niccol has authored several low-key efforts that grapple with grand ideas , ultimately lost in a dumb-headed series of narrative conceits and vague emotional connectivity. Sadly, “In Time” isn’t a return to form but another example of Niccol’s inability to spin a heady concept within a thrilling narrative. Everything about “In Time” feels like a leftover direct to video cheapie from the year 2000, even down to the minimal police cars that look more like Robocop knock offs than sleek examples of modern inventiveness. The story- which takes place in a futuristic society where humans are genetically engineered to stop aging at 25 and the only true currency is minutes and hours bartered or stolen- also thuds along with zero energy. This is the type of film where everyone stands too close to the hero (Justin Timberlake) with guns, allowing him to overtake them and escape or the variation of using the word “time” in puns stands in for dialogue. And to further prove that Niccol hasn’t quite gotten over the creative spark in “Gattaca”, he apes the lush score of Michael Nyman and uses the oppositional brother overtones of that film to propel “In Time”. A real disappointment.

Contenders For Songs of the Year

2011-11-07T20:04:00.000-08:00

Retro pick just because I can't shake the damn song from my head lately.....

Into the Deep End: Assayas and "Cold Water"

2011-11-03T14:58:00.000-07:00

A natural cinematic trademark of French filmmaker Olivier Assayas is the idea of life and death in flux. His best films- "Late August, Early September", "Summer Hours" and "Clean"- all begin their emotional journey during or after the death of someone and the ensuing remnants of the living left behind. His 1994 film, "Cold Water" celebrates life for a majority of the picture, following two teenagers in love as they're separated and then re-joined... only to have life rudely interrupt their halcyon time together.

Paris, 1972, a time not unnoticed for its lasting impact since the late 60's and France's youth upheaval. Christine (Virgine Ledoyen) and Gilles (Cyprien Fouquet) are troublemakers, but inseparable. After a brief stint of shoplifting, Christine is captured but Gilles gets away. She is sent to a youth home while Gilles continues his destructive bent by purchasing sticks of dynamite and being kicked out of school. But rather than a Truffaut like coming-of-age story, Assayas delivers a much different and affecting tale of these teens. In one scene, Gilles' father tries to reach him through gentle conversation and level headed realism. "Cold Water" then shifts gears from the paternal bonding to a raucous, furious teen party in the middle of a decrepit mansion where Christine, newly escaped from her detention center, meets up with Gilles and young, impenetrable love rules again.

In typical Assayas fashion, a majority of "Cold Water" is filmed with a nervous handheld look that can barely hold his characters in the frame. At the party, which encompasses over a third of the film's ninety minute running time, the mood is energetic and clearly reminiscent of his own late night escapades. Music from Leonard Cohen, Janis Joplin, Nico and CCR are continually kicked off the record player with a scratch of the needle and Assayas' camera alternates between long takes that casually follows kids as they wander around the premise, take hits off a pipe or become heathens tossing furniture into a huge bonfire. After a while, the film resumes the relationship of Christine and Gilles in two very indelible moments- the first as Christine slowly roams around the house, cutting off bits of her hair with scissors.... and the second a more gentle expression as they dance together and lose themselves in each others embrace. Christine, as performed to perfection by Ledoyen, is a troubled soul and Gilles is her emotional rock, both of these sensibilities exemplified in wordless exchanges that form the core of "Cold Water". Tough times are ahead for these kids after the ebullient energy of a party such as this, but for that one night, their innocent worldview couldn't be more peaceful.

Released in 1994 before Assayas would become an international sensation with "Irma Vep", I'm tempted to call "Cold Water" his best film- though I've yet to find three more of his earlier films. Ledoyen would go on to become a marginal star in the late 90's alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in the under appreciated "The Beach" and we're all aware of Assayas' cinematic legacy. "Cold water" is a tender, alive and raw example of a film that deserves a larger audience.

Bloody Disgusting Views From Hallowed October

2011-10-29T19:35:00.000-07:00

House of the Devil

After just a couple of years, Ti West's low-fi scary old house shocker has become a Halloween favorite around the household. Not only does it toss out some great, funky 70's vibes courtesy of the opening credits, but it's a horror film that understands the logistics of good terror can be found in the quiet spaces and simple camera moves in and around the frame. The first 45 minutes, as a woman accepts a job to house sit and roams around the house, listening to music and orders pizza is only establishing the grounds for the hell that's about to be released. I so look forward to West's next film, "The Innkeepers".

The Haunting of Julia (aka Full Circle)

Richard Loncraine's mid 70's psychological thriller is more "Repulsion" than "Rosemary's Baby", which its ultimately linked to since Mia Farrow again stars as a woman wrestling with the sad vagaries of motherhood. This time, her daughter has died and her marriage is failing when she moves to London and becomes a cipher for something evil lurking in her house. It does take a while for the film to get rolling and it relies more on atmospheric scares than outright screams, but its worth the watch as an intelligent take on the old ghost story. And it should join "The Changeling" and "Insidious" as films that show a creepy seance!

Exte: Hair Extensions

It should be noted that filmmaker Sion Sono works in the perverted margins of cinema... and I do really enjoy a majority of his films I've been able to see. With "Suicide Club" and the even more adventurous "Noriko's Dinner Table", he took the J-horror wave to abstract places with head-spinning veracity. And his '06 film, "Exte" is probably his way of saying screw you to the horror genre in general. A female ghost holds that ever present grudge against the living and uses a coroner with a hair fetish to spread her evil through the lives of several hair shop employees around Japan. Gory at times and with Sono's themes of child abuse and voyeurism overtaking the central narrative, "Exte Hair Extensions" is a unique and pretty crazy idea of death through rapidly growing hair. I doubt its meant to be taken seriously, yet its hard to shake some of the film's images.

Prince of Darkness

Just look at the run director John carpenter had for a couple of years: "Big Trouble In Little China", "Prince of Darkness" and "They Live". In fact, a good majority of the stars in "Big Trouble in Little China" pop up again in what I feel is Carpenter's most fascinating film, "Prince of Darkness". A group of scientists and grad students meet to study something evil swirling in the bowels of an old church and come face to face with the evil powers of Satan himself. Compositionally, "Prince of Darkness" is near perfect and the scares- especially the demonic sounding voices of an old homeless woman and a murdered scientist propped up by bugs later in the film- send chills down my spine no matter how many times I know they're coming. Just an all around great film that never gets much attention.

The Michael Winterbottom Files: Forget About Me

2011-10-25T20:51:00.000-07:00

Besides being one of my very favorite filmmakers, British director Michael Winterbottom is a true chameleon.... one of the closest things we have today (along with Steven Soderbergh) of the studio boys back in the 40's and 50's who were able to parlay an extensive list of films together over a number of years, weaving in and out of genre and styles with ruthless efficiency. At the heart of many of Winterbottom's films lies an inherent respect for the serendipitous moments that people discover with others throughout their daily hustle and bustle. "Wonderland", "The Claim", "The Trip", "Summer in Genoa" all bracket a human drama against the wild tonality of a road movie. Winterbottom also loves his rock music, as evident in "24 Hour Party People" and "9 Songs". Both of these tendencies are at the center of his debut 1990 debut film "Forget About Me". Starring Ewen Bremner and Brian Mccardie, "Forget About Me" begins as a road as two soldiers in training take their Christmas leave and travel to Budapest to see their favorite band, Simple Minds, perform. Along the way they pick up a beautiful hippie girl hitchhiker named Czilla (Zsuzsanna Varkonyi) and they lay over in her Hungarian hometown where they're introduced to local culture, the girl's shifting affinities for both boys and Hungarian death metal.

Financed by British television and gaining some exposure on the festival circuit in early 1990, at first glance "Forget About Me" feels like an airy, insubstantial piece of love triangle drama. On a second viewing, the awkward moments between the two soldiers and Czilla and Winterbottom's handheld camera capture uniquely moving flutters of emotion and feeling. In one scene- and one of the first where Czilla turns her attention towards the more mild mannered Broke (Ewen Bremner)- her playful advances come as he's shaving in the mirror. They chase each other around the room for a minute before the tension sets in. In another, Czilla and Broke run away from a party where her rocker ex-boyfriend Attila (Attila Grandpierre) has picked a fight with Bunny (Mccardie) and the two end up in the middle of family dance party at midnight. It's a magical little moment where no words are exchanged and the mood of a vibrant, surreal foreign country sets in perfectly. In description, this type of independent, hippie road movie seems hackneyed to say the least, but in 1990, I'm sure it felt otherworldly and a bit ahead of its time. Bottom line, "Forget About Me" owes more to the loose French nouvelle vague then the sometimes over hyped Alexander Payne 'search films'.

In addition to establishing many themes later revisited by Winterbottom, "Forget About Me" also marks the first time Winterbottom and friend/screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce would work together, later collaborating on such diverse films as "Code 46", "Welcome To Sarajevo" and "Tristram Shandy; A Cock and Bull Story". The script for "Forget About Me" is simple, relying on the elusive, natural beauty of female star Varkonyi and the wild-eyed innocence of Mccardie and Bremner as they experience life for the first time. And the ultimate irony of the film? When the two lads finally do get to attend the Simple Minds concert they've traveled over 400 miles to see (and which is shortly filmed, possible leading to the reason the film has never been released in any home video format), Bremner wanders off into the night unable to cope with the crushing effects of a grown up romance. It all feels a bit biographical, and perhaps Boyce and Winterbottom were these two lads at some point.

New Movies and All

2011-10-16T14:37:00.000-07:00

The Ides of March

The actor Clooney is quickly becoming a cerebral director with this taut political tale that pushes into the foreground the three-card-monty act that enshrines the gamesmanship behind every political campaign. While assuming the role of Governor Mike Morris, a seemingly wholesome figure in a tight Ohio Democratic primary, Clooney is good, but "The Ides of March" has the gusto to create a film not about him, but the various campaign directors and interns that tirelessly work behind the scene. Bottom line, if one goes to see Clooney, than they may be sorely disappointed. In another terrific performance, Ryan Gosling is the real star, bouncing off legendary character actors like Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti and Jeffrey Wright as the election becomes embroiled in sexual innuendo, territorial back-stabbing and the leering press. Through it all, Clooney maintains a steadfast classicism that has become his directorial earmark. The most flashy moment- and probably the film's most invigorating moment- is a decisive scene which plays out in silence as the camera slowly pans in towards a car from across the street. Not only does "The Ides of March" hit the right notes cinematically, but the various twists and turns create a compelling drama that stands as one of my very favorite films of the year so far.

50/50

Joseph Levine's "50/50" is a fair representation of the Apatow brand- films that confront adult themes with a very childish sense of humor- and then about 30 minutes in it, "50/50" changes into something completely unexpected and overwhelming and smashes that brand to pieces. It's that good of a movie, led by a stunning, genuine performance by Joseph Gordon Levitt who deserves a nomination for his work here. Writer Will Reiser and director Levin ("The Wackness" and "All the Boys Love Mandy Lane") know exactly how to frame a story around real emotions, allowing the Seth Rogen style of humor to compliment the touchy prospect of a cancer-ridden comedy while maintaining its austerity to life and survival. There's so much good in "50/50" that I dearly hope its marketing as a raunchy comedy will not dissuade adventurous viewers. Strong supporting performances, especially from Anna Kendrick who has become so good in that uptight, purse-lipped manner of comedy, only heighten the comedy-drama and ground the more romantic elements of the film. With a film so encumbered by the air of death, its a completely life-affirming revelation of a young man's wide open future.

Buck

And the accolades just keep on coming here on this blog. Cindy Meehl's documentary on the real life horse whisperer, Buck Brannaman, is a gentle thing of beauty. Picking up with Buck as he currently criss-crossses the country, teaching horse classes 9 months out of the year, we slowly learn of his tragic childhood past and the things that keep him living today (namely his wife and daughter). Brannaman himself would have been a singular idea for a documentary with his childhood fame and descent into familial terror, but "Buck" concentrates on the good that emerged from those dark times, namely a serene ability to understand and calm troubled horses. We know its coming the whole movie and when the twenty minute scene where Buck 'talks' to an aggressive colt, it's a shattering moment that only the best documentaries enable.

Essential Killing

Jerzy Skolomowski's tale of survival could be called simplistic killing. It's sparse narrative- about an escaped Afghani (Vincent Gallo) and his single minded efforts to stay alive in the harsh cold wilderness- doesn't overlay a ton of political analogies. It is a bit much to ask an audience to sympathize with a possible terrorist, but "Essential Killing" never really gives us the chance with a darting, handheld camera that barely contains Gallo in the frame and resists the temptation to give meaning to anyone. It's also a dissonant work.... barely any dialogue is spoken (and not a single word by Gallo), much of the audio is derived from chatter on the military radios as the soldiers hunt their prey and the centrifugal force of emotion is given only at the last second as Gallo's eyes make a decision to kill or run. Technically, "Essential Killing" is riveting, but its overall impact is muted.

Top 5 List: Those Troubled Teens

2011-10-07T23:44:00.000-07:00

5. Suburbia

Penelope Speerhis' early 80's drama feels like the blueprint for every other emo-punk rock film to come after. It's Los Angeles setting, populated by landscapes of suburban redundancy and barren graffiti riddled flophouses, fits the nihilistic attitude of its protagonists well. Featuring a cast of no-names (except Flea.... yes that Flea from The Red Hot Chili Peppers), "Suburbia" follows these youth through endless days spent robbing from the open door garages of neighboring houses, going to punk rock shows, and tattooing the symbol of "TR" (the rejects) on their arms. And when the film takes a detour in slow motion as a pack of wild dogs runs through the neighborhood, Speerhis effectively transitions her experiment into something like an apocalyptic disaster film. If the feeling of being smothered by the sneering kids in "Suburbia" is your choice of a good time, then this film is for you. For that alone, it deserves a spot on this list.

4. A Clockwork Orange

Probably the seminal film about teen anomia (although all the actors portraying these teens were well into their 30's), Kubrick's adaptation of Anthony Burgess's novel remains a riveting exploration of sex and violence.

3. Less Than Zero- Cheating a bit here since this 1987 film features college age kids, it's just hard to leave any film derived from a Bret Easton Ellis off the list. The guy just invents such perverted, self absorbed and loathsome characters... yet his films earmark many high points of the last three decades including the outright crazy satirical masterpiece "American Psycho". I do hold a soft spot in my heart for his 2002 adaptation "The Rules of Attraction".... but back to "Less Than Zero". Released in 1987, not only did the film help solidify the rising star status of diverse talents such as Robert Downey Jr, Andrew McCarthy, Jami Gertz and James Spader, but I can't remember a film exemplifying the empty nature of sex, drugs and moody nightlife quite like this film. In retrospect, "Less Than Zero" is a zeitgeist film that embodies the 80's in so many ways. And no imagines the creepy aqua blue lights that reflect off a pool at nighttime quite like Ellis and director Mark Kanievska.

2. kids

Like Easton Ellis, one could have their pick from the films of Larry Clark for this list, but its his 1995 debut, "kids" that takes the cake. While "Bully" and "Ken Park" (which I finally managed to track down recently) observe the same dead-end, sexually promiscuous teens in slightly vulgar and uncomfortable ways, "kids" was his breakthrough effort and a film that has grown in admiration over time. Upon release, "kids" was downright shocking, both for its seemingly documentary take on an aimless group of New York kids and its themes of underage sex, violence and complete absence of parental supervision. Watching it today, it still shocks and confounds.... which ultimately is what a good piece of art should probably do. And I had no idea that was a young Rosario Dawson!

1. Over The Edge Raise your hand if this 1979 film- about a sleepy Colorado town whose juvenile delinquents decide to violently overtake the high school during a PTA meeting- didn't scare your socks off. In the early days of HBO, I must have watched this film about a dozen times behind my parent's watchful eyes, not quite understanding all the undertones but equally enthralled by the angry subtext. Starring a young Matt Dillon, "Over the Edge" represents the best of the teenage rebellion genre.

The Last 10 Films I've Seen #2

2011-10-01T21:02:00.000-07:00

When I go missing as I have for the past couple weeks, one can always blame life, work and postseason baseball. While all this has encumbered me lately, I have seen some good stuff. Last 10 films I've seen:

1. Drive(2011), Nicholas Winding Refn- People say its flashy and moody and all style over substance, but I call it the best film I've seen yet this year, pulsing with quiet emotion between Gosling and Mulligan and ferocious bouts of violence. I've seen it 3 times in the theater and its still not enough to satisfy my craving.

2. Everything Must Go (2011), Dan Rush- It's nice to see Will Ferrell dial down the comedy to a steady two or three, but this precocious film still manages to be treacly and a bit mundane.

3. Catching Hell (2011), Alex Gibney- See the Chicago Cubs implode during game six of the NLCS in 2003 and then watch as the crowd shifts blame to one unlucky spectator. Gibney's documentary about the Steve Bartman incident is insightful, perceptive and even manages to wrap its moral around a Biblical anecdote. Terrific stuff for baseball fans and humans in general.

4. Moneyball (2011), Bennett Miller- Insular to the baseball fan, denying the big game climax and staying focused on the intellectual meanderings behind the scene, one has to give Miller's film props for staying so true to the book. Not the masterpiece its being projected as, but ultimately a very good film with a strong Brad Pitt performance as Billy Beane.

5. The Four Times (2011), Michaelangelo Frammartino- Heartbreakingly simple in its prime conceit- the transformation of a soul from person to animal to object- Frammartino's film is a wonder to behold, especially its long, long single shot that ranks up there with the best physical comedians of Keaton and Chaplin. And the image of a baby goat freezing to death under a tree is a seemingly innocent image that I cannot shake.

6. Hobo With A Shotgun (2011), Jason Eisener- The bottom of the barrel. Not only does the film take its faux 70's approach to the very edge of tolerance, but its over-the-top violence and student acting pushes things way beyond the bearable.

7. Downhill Racer (1969), Michael Ritchie- Auteur Ritchie does it again by taking an ordinary story of skiing competitors and crafts something hugely original. Scenes end at just the right moment before the 'big acting moment' lending a downtrodden aspect, the camera roves around Robert Redford's chiseled good looks with dexterity and the film ends on a magnificent moment.

8. Contagion (2011), Steven Soderbergh- Another competitor for best film of the year, Soderbergh's terrifying- and for a 'germaphobe' like myself, I mean terrifying- disease film takes a bit of the procedural from "And the Band Plays On", steals a bit from Michael Crichton, but soon becomes its own immersive experience. The first hour is cold, analytical and propulsive.

9. Next Stop Greenwich Village (1976), Paul Mazursky- The life of several bohemian young 'uns in Greenwich Village during the 1950's is not one of Mazursky's shining moments. Indulgent and uninvolving, it lost me pretty quickly.

10. Party Girl (1958), Nicholas Ray- I understand why the French Nouvelle Vague love this film so much. Ray's camera practically makes love to Cyd Charisse and she does her slinky best to give it right back. Almost too sumptuous at times, the film becomes kinetic during her dance scenes and then settles into a pretty damn good gangster flick with windows and doors opening up to splendid painted backdrops. I'm so looking forward to TCM's Nick Ray tribute this month!

An Appreciation: Takeshi Kitano

2011-09-20T14:22:00.000-07:00

Violent Cop (1989) ***½ - Kitano’s debut emerges with a flurry of themes and ideas that will be processed and revisited over the years- from Kitano’s caricature of his slouched-shouldered, deadpan police detective to the subliminal editing style that cuts hard on gunshots, knife wounds and kicks, “Violent Cop” has it all. Beginning as a comedy of sorts as Kitano chases down criminals with his car and slaps a young boy into submission of owning up to his crimes, it quickly turns relentlessly bleak and ultra violent when police corruption, yakuza hit men and drug shakedowns overtake the narrative. As a debut film, its remarkable… as the introduction to an exciting new talent in Japanese cinema, it’s a watershed event. And the score, which feels like it belongs in a spaghetti western, continually brings a smile to my face. Now OOP on DVD.

Boiling Point (1990) **½ - A gangster film with a decidedly disjointed feel, Kitano arrives in the second half of the film as a sadistic yakuza member who (sort of) takes untalented baseball player Masaki (Ono Masahiko) under his wing after the young man stirs up trouble with local yakuza. Fully written and directed by Kitano, “Boiling Point” continues Kitano’s fascination with fatalistic overtones and deadpan editing. It also curves his very dark humor into some surprisingly disturbing moments, especially in a night of drinking that turns sexually ambiguous. Now OOP on DVD.

A Scene At the Sea (1991) ***½- Kitano’s ode to the silent film.. And a sweet love story at its core. A deaf mute trash man finds a broken surfboard and immediately becomes addicted to surfing. With his girlfriend in tow, Kitano’s patient film observes the small community that forms along the beaches as Shigeru (Claude Maki) teaches himself to surf. With a beautifully understated score, “A Scene At the Sea” begins to reveal the depth of feeling that Kitano can surface in his films. It’s such a sweet moment when his girlfriend lovingly folds up his clothes on the beach or the small tear that runs down her face when the two shortly break up. And the finale…. Flashing images of the actors posing for the camera or enjoying themselves on the beach is a transcendent idea of real life over fictional cinematic tragedy. Not available on DVD.

Sonatine (1993) **** - Turning back to his yakuza flicks, “Sonatine” assembles the longueurs and comedic bits that dotted his previous films and creates an entire work out of them. Kitano stars as a mid-level mob boss sent south with his clan to clean up a turf war, but ends up the target of the war itself. Forced to hide out on the beach, the men create games, play jokes on each other such as enticing each other into hidden sand traps on the beach and, for Kitano, falling in love with a woman he saves from sexual abuse. It’s all wonderfully paced and enchanting until the violence kicks in again, which imbues the ending with a magnificently crafted sense of doomed obligation. Up until this point, it’s Kitano’s most fully realized piece of filmmaking that would influence so much of his later films.

Getting Any? (1994) *½- Structured like a television sketch comedy, and with laughs that are just as varied, “Getting Any” is Kitano’s waltz back into popular Japanese TV culture with less than distinguished results. A not-to-bright man (Dankan) dreams of getting laid, and he goes about it in all the wrong ways. Poking fun at movies as diverse as “Ghostbusters”, “The Fly” and his own yakuza flicks, “Getting Any” is absurdly great at times and jaw-dropping bad at others.

Kids Return (1996) ***½- At times reminiscent of Hou Hsiao Hsien in the way it charts the progress of a small group of high school students into various life choices after school, “Kids Return” feels like an intimate epic. Narrowing its focus on two childhood friends, the film watches as Shinji (Masanobu Ando) begins a promising path into boxing and Masaru (Ken Kaneko), continuing his bully tactics from school, gets tangled up with a local yakuza gang and rises through the ranks. There are some peripheral (and equally sad) comments on several other students, but the narrative thrust of “Kids Return” stays with Shinji and Masaru as life deals them the blows. Characteristics of Kitano’s sensibilities pop up now and then, but “Kids Return” ultimately presents both lifestyles with humble authenticity and straightforward storytelling.

Fireworks (1997) ****- Kitano’s first real international success, garnering a full write up in “Film Comment” and having both this film and “Sonatine” crop up on numerous critic’s lists. The attention is well deserved. “Fireworks” (or “Hana-bi”) is a moving examination of the yakuza lifestyle juxtaposed against the irrevocable consequences of said life. In his previous films, Kitano has treated violence as something built into the daily routine of his various cops and gangsters. Here, there’s a weight given to the outcome of these choices and its handled superbly in the way Kitano spends time with his dying wife (Kayoko Kishimoto) and paralyzed partner (Ren Oshugi).

Kikujiro (1999) ****- What I wrote about this film way back in early 2001 still rings true: “Takeshi Kitano’s masterpiece, austere and picturesque. Kitano is in full visual command of the medium. Comical, tragic, serene… it’s a film that will restore one’s faith in lots of things cinematic- the road movie (although it barely covers approximately 90 miles), the children’s fantasy film and especially the silent days of filmmaking. “Kikujiro” deserved much better from an audience standpoint. Released here in Dallas for only one week during the summer, I think it’s his most accessible and enjoyable film to date. It’s not often that a man steeped in the violent yakuza tradition of a generation steps out of his realm and creates such an honest ‘family’ film.”

Brother (2000) **½ - At some point, Kitano’s first feature shot and co-produced in the States becomes a highly stylized satire of his own films. Banished out of Japan after a turf war wipes out a majority of his clan back home, Kitano quickly finds his half-brother and drug dealing partner Omar Epps and promptly builds his own empire in Los Angeles. Along the way, Kitano guides his Latino, African-American and Asian thugs as they wage war with numerous groups, pulling out all the violent stops in skirmishes that range from the quiet bathroom stabbing to the strobe-lighted machine gun battle underneath an overpass. It’s clear Kitano is having fun, yet “Brother” meanders a bit towards the end and fails to fully realize the potential that a setting such as L.A. could have brought to the effort. It also features some very bad acting at times and its emotional connection between Kitano and Epps feels strained.

Dolls (2002) **½ - It’s amazing how moving a simple slow zoom can be, and Kitano uses that optical movement to full effect in “Dolls”. Weaving three stories about love being deaf, dumb and blind, Kitano’s desire to create something mature works well in spurts. The most prominent of the three tales is the first story concerning a man whose unwise choice to leave his girlfriend and marry the boss’s daughter results in her attempted suicide. To atone for his act, he binds himself to the mentally challenged ex girlfriend and lives out a wandering existence around Tokyo. The second tales, about unrequited love (and stalking) of a pop singer and a yakuza’s fateful trip down memory lane feel less acute and almost forced. The narrative concerning a woman dutifully waiting with lunch everyday on a park bench for her estranged lover is especially maudlin…. Something one would discover in a Nora Ephron rom-com. “Dolls” doesn’t gel as a cohesive whole, but its still an interesting effort from Kitano.

Zatoichi (2003) ***½- Based on the classic Japanese tale of a traveling blind swordsman, Kitano takes this antique story and gives it his own post-modern and highly entertaining spin through brilliantly staged sword fights and some gory CGI bloodshed. Weaving together several tales- Zatoichi (Kitano himself) wandering into town and making friends with an old lady, a young gambler who becomes his sidekick, and two geisha girls hellbent on violent vengeance- the film zips along. And years before “Slumdog Millionaire” ended on an upbeat and self-reflexive dance number, Kitano uses the same trick with zest and color.

Takeshis’ (2005) *** - This is perhaps Kitano’s “8 ½”. Or maybe his “Mulholland Drive”. Whichever, “Takeshis’” is a unique and puzzling experience as Kitano plays two separate (?) men living in Tokyo… one a quiet convenience store clerk with dreams of yakuza grandeur and the other himself, pop star actor Beat Kitano. Opening with the boredom of Beat Takeshi on the set of his new film jokingly titled ‘Hell Beat“, he meets his look-alike in the hallway and signs an autograph for him. The look-alike clerk returns home and begins to fantasize about hit men running into his store, stealing guns and morphing into an invincible yakuza gangster ala the “Sonatine” years. Blending elements from all his previous films and with characters that emerge and then re-emerge as someone else later like a fever dream, “Takeshis” is a real mind screw. There are hints at the end of it all being an actual dream, but I personally love the aspect of it being an absurdist Takeshi extravaganza that replays itself in your mind long after its over. Not available on DVD.

Glory To the Filmmaker! (2007) **- The cheekiness of Kitano continues. Following up the self reflexive nature of “Takeshis”, Kitano returns to a sketch comedy free form cinema more in tune with his mid 90’s “Getting Any”. Again playing himself, the first half of “Glory To the Filmmaker!” shows us the director at a critical crossroad in his career…. Unable to devote himself fully to any project. Instead, we get snippets of failed projects including “Noh Theater”, a horror film and “Retirement”, a sly black and white tribute to the films of Ozu. The second half of “Glory To the Filmmaker!” shows us the film that Kitano settles into- a wild, weird mixture of religious cult brainwashing, sumo wrestlers and a mad scientist. In between all this genre-hopping, Kitano turns into a wooden doll whenever the troubles in life get too heavy. As a parody, “Glory To the Filmmaker!” occasionally hits its mark and taken with “Takeshis”, its evident Kitano has his knives sharpened against not only himself but the entire Japanese film industry. As a stand alone film, though, “Glory To the Filmmaker” is all over the map with a screeching sense of humor and satirical jabs that seem to be lost in translation. Not available on DVD.

Achilles and the Tortoise (2008) ***- The last film in Kitano’s gentler period traces the life of a below average painter from his tragic childhood to married with children. Kitano takes upon the lead role himself, imbuing the film as more a humanistic comedy than drama, choosing to give the limelight to his own weirdly inspired paintings. If one doesn’t take the film too seriously, its probably the closest we can come to having an autobiography of the great artist. Not on DVD.

Outrage (2010) ***½ - It’s best to give in and go with the flow of Kitano’s return-to-gangster-form with “Outrage”. The first 75% of this film is head spinning in the way it shuffles between nameless yakuza hitmen and mob bosses wheeling and double dealing each other to take over territory. The final third of “Outrage” culminates in a series of violent vignettes as each man meets his bloody fate. There are bathroom stall shootings, chopsticks to the ears, dental drills to the face…. And of course good old fashioned gunfights. At one point, “Outrage” resembles Alan Clarke’s nihilistic and angry “Elephant” as the bodies pile up in quick, gruesome set pieces with little regard to identification or motivation. All of this sounds like a bad idea, but Kitano’s violent yarn is liberating in a way. There are subtle streaks of humor, but “Outrage” is mostly serious stuff. I understand Kitano is working on “Outrage 2” which, in and of itself, will be a miracle since no one is left standing here. Not yet available on region 1 DVD.

What's In the Netflix Queue #33

2011-09-17T15:10:00.001-07:00

1. Strange Circus (2004)- Filmmaker Shion Sono is someone I'm very interested in since his cult following on the festival circuit with films like "Love Exposure" and "Cold Fish".... both of which I'm told are punishing, extreme works. After loving "Suicide Club" and feeling mixed about "Noriko's Dinner Table", I'm not sure what to expect of this film about family incest and sexual abuse.
2. Hobo With a Shotgun (2011)- I've had this in my queue before, removed it, then put it back in. I'm so over the faux-70's grindhouse aesthetic of Tarantino, Rodriguez et al and this looks like more of the uninspired same. Open mind though!
3. Suburbia (1984)- Penelope Spheeris' mfictional mid-80's look at the Los Angeles punk rock scene and the ensuing ennui.
4. Prince of Darkness (1987)- One of my very favorite John Carpenter films and a bit of a warm up for the upcoming October viewing schedule full of blood, death, zombies and Lucifer himself.
5. Drama/Mex (2006)- Another filmmaker recently thrust into the festival spotlight is Gerardo Naranjo. Being a huge fan of his previous film "I'm Gonna Explode", I'm finally going back to explore this earlier work which sounds more subdued.
6. A Screaming Man (2010)- This African film is described as follows from Netflix: "Adam (Youssouf Djaoro) was a security guard at a posh Chad hotel until its new owners replaced him with his son (Dioucounda Koma). In this nation torn apart by civil war, citizens are called upon to help. But Adam only has one thing to give, forcing him to make a devastating choice. Emile Abossolo M'bo and Djénéba Koné co-star in this powerful drama, winner of the Jury Prize at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival."
7. Exte: Hair Extensions (2006)- More Shion Sono.
8. The Magician (1958)- I'm guessing this early Ingmar Bergman slipped onto Blu-Ray with little fanfare. Regrettable, I've seen so few of Bergman's smaller films so I'm looking forward to this Max von Sydow starring effort.
9. Your Highness (2011)- Skipped this medieval stoner comedy on release this year....
10. The Human Factor (1975)- No itsamadmadblog list would be complete without one cheesy 70's flick on it, so here it is. "When terrorists kill his beloved family, NATO computer expert John Kinsdale (George Kennedy) fights back by using his technical know-how to track them down and make them pay. Trying their best to keep Kinsdale from dispensing vigilante justice are his friends (John Mills and Rita Tushingham), a U.S. military commander (Arthur Franz) and a police inspector (Raf Vallone). But when an ordinary man is pushed over the edge, reason falls on deaf ears." And its directed by the great Edward Dmytryk!

Just a Baseball Kind of Mood

2011-09-14T19:55:00.000-07:00

70's Bonanza: The Black Windmill

2011-09-06T20:44:00.001-07:00

The unfortunate aspect of Don Siegel's 1974 low-fi thriller "The Black Windmill" is that it came so late in his career and, more importantly, after the zeitgeist-capturing greatness of "Dirty Harry" just three years previously. Relegated to scarce TV showings and limited home video distribution, "The Black Windmill" deserves better than that.

Starring Michael Caine as a variation on his Harry Palmer spy caricature, there's an especially nasty tone to this wonderful film. All is fine and dandy until a couple (John Vernon and Delphine Seyrig) kidnap two young boys playing in an abandoned military field. One of the children turns out to be the son of Caine and the couple's intention is far darker than your simple extortion plan. Caine's superiors- including a mustache twirling Donald Pleasance- don't fully believe Caine's serendipitous predicament since the kidnappers are asking for ransom in the exact amount of fine jewels acquired by the agency just days prior. Caine then breaks chain of command and globe trots to Paris and back to the English countryside with a one-man vendetta to rescue his son. As a thriller, "The Black Windmill" is largely unremarkable. It's far less interesting to recount the plot point than to bask in the funky 70's mood of the entire film. We get the ubiquitous parade of MI-5 and MI-6spooks tapping phones and smoking cigarettes in darkened rooms. Caine plays himself like Michael Caine always does... a bit cheeky (none more so than when he winks at a spook he's just outsmarted in the subway terminal) one minute then determined and focused the next. The beauty of "The Black Windmill" lies in the off-center eye an American director like Siegel brings to the project. Caine and his wife, played by Janet Suzman, are on the outs and this tragedy brings them together. In one scene, Caine goes to see her and she's distraught, wandering outside in their lush garden on a cold day and we get a glimpse of her quickly walking into the bushes. Caine follows and the mood is tense before he finds her.... but the thought that her elusive presence generated through quick editing cold be some sort of spook trick hovers over the scene. Also, the ending as Caine finally tracks down Vernon and his crew in the titular structure begins and ends in cathartic violent fashion after immense build-up. It's an ending that doesn't disappoint, fitting perfectly with the cold and calculated expertise of a trained spy like Caine. I certainly loved his sandbag trick, which has to be seen to be appreciated.

"The Black Windmill", adapted from a novel by Clive Egleton, received middling reviews upon release in 1974. After the commercial and critical favor of "Dirty Harry" and "Charley Varrick", I suppose it would be natural for audiences and critics to expect another genre-breaking effort from Siegel who had been doing that sort of thing in his sleep since "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" in the mid-fifties. While its true "The Black Windmill" is more of a slow burn than an outright actioner spy thriller, it is a marvelous metaphor for Britain's swinging 60's excess coming home to roost at the highest echelons of power. And it features an exploding briefcase that would make James Bond jealous.

Revisiting the Faves- The Spanish Prisoner

2011-09-03T18:54:00.000-07:00

"The Spanish Prisoner" ranked as my number 12 favorite film in 1998.

In every David Mamet film, there's a line of dialogue that becomes its rallying cry or its fateful line of demarcation from normalcy into the con job such as the punishing overuse of "where is the girl?" in "Spartan" or the nonchalant way in which Gene Hackman mutters "it happens" in "Heist". When Steve Martin appears on screen and coolly announces, "I'll give you a thousand dollars for that camera", we fully understand the game has been set afoot.

"The Spanish Prisoner" takes its name directly from an ancient con, as explained by Mamet stalwart Ricky Jay in the film, and its sights are set on meek inventor Campbell Scott. Like a majority of the twists and turns within the film, the very thing (called 'the process') that fuels the narrative is obfuscated. All we know is that inventor Scott has created something that will make Ben Gazzara's company very, very rich. There are talks of "the Japanese" trying to steal it and the FBI on the trail of something or somebody. Mamet's razor sharp dialogue that, like Michael Mann, abhors contractions usually dances around telling the truth. The worst part of all is that we never know who to trust or when. There's soft-spoken and beautiful Susan (Rebecca Pidgeon) who seems like an ally and then does things to question her loyalty... just like the best femme fatale. Is the aforementioned Ricky Jay, as Campbell Scott's friend, business partner and lawyer really sick or is there something more insidious about him? Which brings us to Steve Martin in an icy performance that ranks as one of his all time best. He befriends Scott on a vacation island and then continues the friendship back in New York with the promise of setting him up with his sister.... an engagement that never seems to materialize. In all honesty, the film pretty much signals that Martin is the bad guy, yet it continually usurps our expectations in every other sense. "The Spanish Prisoner" is another brilliant con movie in which Mamet excels his three card monty-like attitude with cinematic flare.

Becoming a quiet sensation at the Sundance Film Festival that year, the reviews were mostly favorable for "The Spanish Priosner" despite the seemingly awkward performance of Mamet's wife Pidgeon. While her stilted line readings and formal rigour do ring untruthful at times, it doesn't ruin the film. In fact, I took her performance to be a secondary delight... as if she was trying to re-enact a 1940's femme fatale or maybe playing the role as if her character were being forced to do certain things she had never done before. Regardless, "The Spanish Prisoner" is a wickedly entertaining intellectual thriller. Just feel the subtle tension built up around a brown paper wrapped gift or the terrific moment when the camera slowly pans across an airport X-ray screen to reveal a gun hidden in a possession. And maybe it was the Japanese after all.

Summer catch-up

2011-09-01T20:49:00.000-07:00

The Guard

Brendan Gleeson can do this type of thing in his sleep. Portraying a crude, racially insensitive and hooker-obsessed cop in a sleepy Irish seaside town, “The Guard” works largely due to his terrific performance. Written and directed by John Michael McDonagh, the film works as a comedic companion piece to his brother’s film (also starring Gleeson), “In Bruges”, a few years back. A sharp script that tosses out one liners with a frenzy and just the right amount of self reflexive movie references, “The Guard” shouldn’t be taken seriously… even if its narrative deals with psychotic drug dealers and corrupt cops. Also starring Don Cheadle as an FBI agent sent to Ireland to investigate an international drug smuggling ring, the ingenuity of the film is its lackadaisical approach to solving the central crime. While Gleeson and Cheadle disagree and question each other’s idealized stereotypical misgivings, the story works itself out with little effort. “The Guard” reminded me a bit of “The Big Lebowski” in the way it takes its noir grounding and answers everything while its main characters wander around with fantasized notions of grandeur. It’s a fine line, and McDonagh handles it beautifully. Also great is the appropriation of the western genre with its wide angle lens and sweeping pans of the Irish countryside, none more so gleeful than a portentous 360 degree pan between a cop and a 10 year old boy on girl’s bike. See this film before it shuttles from the theaters.

Road To Nowhere

In “Road To Nowhere”, director Monte Hellman has his star couple watch a lot of movies in their downtime, selecting clips from Bergman‘s “The Seventh Seal” and Erice‘s “Spirit of the Beehive”. These clips are first seen within the confines of the TV screen and eventually overtaking the whole image. This immersion into these great films is an apt comparison to “Road To Nowhere” itself, a meta-film that continually shifts between real time and a movie-within-the-movie with little to no guidance. Starring Tygh Runyan as a young filmmaker making a movie about a real-life money grab and double suicide in North Carolina, he discovers a relatively unknown actress (the beautiful Shannyn Sossamon) and hires her to play the leading femme fatale. An insurance investigator (Waylon Payne) weasels his way into the good graces of the production crew and slowly insinuates the idea that the “actress” may actually be the femme fatale in real life. The collision between supposed real life, cinematic recreation and tabloid gossip (refracted through the presence of a young blogger on the set who actually covered the scandal, played by Dominique Swain) becomes head spinning. Like Abel Ferrera’s “Dangerous Game”, Hellman plays the same nasty trick as director and actress fall in love and the lines between reality and fiction blur. “Road To Nowhere” is a film that demands future viewings and weaves a rhythmic spell on the viewer through its highly stylized acting and slow camera movements. It’s also pretty damn great and a galvanizing return for maverick filmmaker Hellman.

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

Produced and written by Guillermo del Toro, “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark” has his fingerprints all over it from its leading female child to the gothic, labyrinth style house where the terror takes place. Freshly removed from her mother in Los Angeles and whisked away to the cold environment of Rhode Island, young Sally (Bailee Madison) soon discovers some nasty little creatures living under the house and aching to feed off her teeth. As the aloof parents, Guy Pearce and Katie Holmes are merely serviceable in their roles, sublimated to the father who thinks it’s all in his daughter’s imagination and the mother-figure who slowly empathizes with the child. The problem with “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark” is that its aim seems to be pitched somewhere between Grimm’s Fairy Tales and “Gremlins” without really pulling off either. Based on a 1970’s TV movie, it is marginally refreshing to see a film that doesn’t embrace the current adrenalized market for horror films, but it’s unconvincing narrative and stock characters are just as antique as the Polaroid camera that becomes a singular plot point.

The Debt

Despite the ads that sell this as some type of action-packed “Munich” knock off, the real reason to appreciate John Madden’s “The Debt” is its total lack of explosive action and the marvelous performance of Jessica Chastain in her 12,000th film this year. Bouncing back and forth in time between a 1966 Isreali intelligence mission to capture and expose a Nazi death camp doctor and the ramifications of this mission on its agents some 30 years later, “The Debt” handles all this moral gravity with depth. Also starring Sam Worthington (who fares the worst in it all), “The Debt” slowly raises the tension as the mission progresses and things get complicated both politically and emotionally between the MOSSAD agents. While “The Debt” goes a bit AWOL towards its finale, it’s a sure-footed film for 90% of the way that doesn’t deserve the late summer dumping ground its been afforded.

The Humble Beginnings of David Cronenberg

2011-08-23T20:05:00.001-07:00

The following is an entry to the Director's Chair blogathon being hosted by Matte Havoc.

I doubt there's an orifice or body secretion that David Cronenberg doesn't like. Add to that some weird fetishes and his unwavering view on mankind's clinical obsession between sex and science and one arrives at a truly strange yet brilliant body of work. His best films deal with body infestation ("Shivers" and "The Fly") or the idea of twisted connections of obsession and technological mutation ("Videodrome and "existenz"). Al of these ideas are present in Cronenberg's debut film, "Stereo" (1969), and follow up "Crimes of the Future" (1970).

Ok, full disclosure here- both of these early efforts are not very good films. Yet there is some merit in the ideas and thoughts being explored. Like all great filmmakers, there are themes and predilections that will be analyzed and evolved throughout the remainder of his career. While "Stereo" and "Crimes of the Future" suffer from true student film shortcomings, they serve as fascinating footnotes for a filmmaker searching for an identity.

"Stereo" and "Crimes of the Future" deal with similar themes. Both were filmed around the University of Toronto in which Cronenberg attended during the 1960's. While "Stereo" is black and white, "Crimes of the Future" is his first full length color film. Neither of the films, which details the various wanderings of a quizzical scientist, used on location sound editing, forcing them to have a full narration track added in post-production which lends a very detached and monotone feel to the works. Imagine listening to a psychologist read his graduate studies paper aloud and one gets the idea of Cronenberg's desire to lull the viewer with phrases such as "transmorphic inebriation". In essence, "Crimes of the Future", which is the more watchable of the two films, takes a larger financial backing and explores the themes of "Stereo". Starring Ronald Mlodzik as a black coated doctor wandering around the post-modern architecture of the college, he has created the "House of Skin", an institute that treats men inflicted with a disease caused by the use of cosmetics in the future. After his one and only patient dies (through an excruciatingly painful act of a foam liquid being secreted from his eyes, ears and mouth), the doctor wanders from institute to institute coming into contact with other men suffering from various afflictions. Women have all but been annihilated from the very same cosmetic apocalypse, yet there are mutations that crop up in his wanderings such as a male patient who is said to grow female organs before they fall of and re-grow later. Yes, "Crimes of the Future" plays out just as weird as all this sounds. There are some scenes of the doctor playing with other men's feet in some sort of telepathic showcase and a group of men hiding a little girl, whose ominous face and blank stare the film ends on. As a cohesive whole, "Crimes of the Future" fails pretty miserably.

Medical and philosophical ramblings aside, there are some things "Crimes of the Future" does well. Besides looking terrific, Cronenberg's use of light and shadow eclipse some of his later work which preferred to show the violence in full display. His fascination with one's body turning on itself is also a recurring theme as the previously mentioned secretion of fluids signals the death of several patients. It's also not hard to identify his genre-pushing methods of having the doctor (Mlodzik) be mildly attracted to the fluids, eventually tasting them himself. With "Crash" on the way twenty five years later, its obvious Cronenberg wanted to disgust and fascinate in perverse ways early on. Also, the very title itself would be the "aka" title to his 1997 film "existenz"... still one of my very favorite Cronenberg films and the most trenchant examination of virtual reality ever presented on film. Lastly, Cronenberg's now famous image of an exploding head in "Scanners" have their humble beginnings in both "Stereo" and "Crimes of the Future" with their main characters constantly alluding to the telepathic powers inherent in them. In "Crimes of the Future" especially, there are several scenes of the doctor placing a bare foot to his forehead, trying to manipulate the mind of his patient. The budget wasn't there for an exploding head, but one can sure bet Cronenberg would have figured out a way to include this if he could.

But its the simple traits of "Crimes of the Future" that are the most amazing. Clearly ahead of his time with content, Cronenberg's soundtrack is a truly unnerving experience, full of disconcerting static noises, birds chirping and mechanical droning sounds that add an otherwordly feel to the futuristic pinnings of his film. Also, technically speaking "Crimes of the Future" is a polished film, full of magisterial tracking shots down hallway corridors and fish eye lenses shots that distort the narrative in that oh so good 60's way. Even if I doubt I'll ever watch these two films again, I feel a bit more schooled in the Cronenberg method of cinema... a career that revels in the excess of the nightmarish and wades through the ugly waters of body secretions like no other.

Vermeers and Frustrated Fathers: 2 From Jon Jost

2011-08-20T20:05:00.000-07:00

Working on the margins of even independent cinema since the late 70's and carving out a uniquely original voice, filmmaker Jon Jost really came into his own during the early and mid 90's. The benefactor of several retrospectives of his work and lavish write-ups by critics around the world during this time, it's all to sad that a majority of his work is still unavailable on any type of home video distribution today. And as for the unique voice part, once one sees a Jost film, it sticks inside your head like nothing else, developing its own rhythm and visual scheme that instantly identifies itself as something completely organic.

The one Jost film that is currently available on DVD, "All the Vermeers In New York", is as good a place as any for novices to start. Divided into a series of scenes that play out with much patience, it's a collage of several people in New York City who come together through a fateful meeting in a museum between stockbroker Mark (Stephen Lack) and aspiring French actress Anna (Emmanuelle Chalet). He instantly falls in love with her, comparing her beauty and high forehead to the paintings of Vermeer he observes her studying. Growing out from there, we meet Anna's room ate Felicity (Grace Phillips) who helps Anna remain a cool distance from her suitor on their first meeting when the girls pretend Anna doesn't speak English. Felicity comes from a wealthy background and we observe her arguing with her father over the (possible) immoral use of her name involved with his investments. There's also an unusual scene between a painter (Gordon Weiss), desperate for money from the gallery owner for his paintings which ends with him cutting his work directly out of its frame. The idea of money, financial incongruities and art waver throughout Jost's film. We observe mark's stressful days in a stockbroker firm in two long takes as he wheels and deals on the phone. Felicity obviously wants to distance herself from her father's potentially dirty money, but just can't seem to afford to. And as for the central relationship between Mark and Anna, Jost avoids heading into rom-com niceties, exposing the relationship as something true on Mark's part but predatory on Anna's... such as when she asks him for a loan to help pay her rent then pines for her "boyfriend" back home in Paris in the next scene. If anything, "All the Vermeer In New York" is a cautionary tale about forced attraction in the urban jungle. Does Mark, who seems to frequent the Met often, simply fall in love with the perfect idea of Anna or is he truly in love with her? In typical Jost fashion, he raises more questions than answers, opting to portray a mood and feeling rather than a cut and dry romance. Two scenes in particular go a long way in sustaining this mood- the first is a methodical tracking shot around the halls of a museum... a shot Jost loves to repeat in later films such as "The Bed You Sleep In"... and the second is a trip to the pinnacle of the Twin Towers where both Anna and Mark espouse their views on life and ultimately probably define why they are not made for each other.

In 1990, Jost released "Sure Fire", a film about as far away from the concrete hustle and bustle of the New York art world one could get. Starring Tom Blair as Wes, a fast-talking real estate developer in Utah, it's a spare drama that builds to a violent climax with very little effort. Blair is the archetypal Jost leading man.... articulate, calculating and without a swear word in his vocabulary. In his numerous scenes, both at work and home, Blair sends out a host of "by gollys" and "you can bet on that" in his monologues. Small glimpses of his home life reveal his wife is struggling with their marriage, none more so penetrating than in a five minute take as she ruminates on her life through an allegorical tale of a trapped farm animal.

The final half of the film involves Wes taking two friends and his son on a hunting trip. One scene, as Wes gives his son his first hunting rifle than spends an extraordinary amount of time explaining the do's and dont's of firearm safety, Jost creates immense tension seemingly out of thin air. Throughout its relatively short (80 minutes) run time, "Sure Fire" etches into the viewer's consciousness that something terrible is on the horizon and then promptly delivers. While neither "Sure Fire" not "All the Vermeers In New York" play by the rules, they are both galvanizing examples of the experimental and independent nature of Jon Jost. Even though there are 2000 miles in between their stories and settings, both films acutely emphasize that unhappiness and the unpredictability of human nature can strike anywhere and anyone.

If I Programmed a Film Festival #3

2011-08-18T14:51:00.001-07:00

Day 1:

**** Euro Crime Series

1. The Last Round (1975)- Italian version of "Yojimbo" as a drifter pits two warring families against each other.

2. Magnet of Doom (1963)- Unreleased Jean Pierre Melville road movie starring Jean Paul Belmondo as he high tails it to the deep U.S. South. Wonderful, oddly observed Americana from Melville. Review coming soon.

****World Premier

1. Once Upon A Time In Anatolia (2010)- Because everything I've read about it sounds terrific. From Film Comment, "Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Grand Jury prize co- winner is an intoxicatingly strange, oblique police procedural..."

**** Auteuristic Western series

1. Duck You Sucker (1971)- Probably Sergio Leone's least known western is a fun romp with Rod Steiger and James Coburn.

2. The Claim (2000)- Michael Winterbottom's lush and beautiful western that grows better on each viewing.

3. The Long Riders (1980)- Walter Hill made some incredible movies, and this one with a gimmick of starring real life brothers, imbues the viewer with terrific atmosphere and mood.

**** 70's Bonanza Faves

1. Man On A Swing- Frank Perry's deliriously good (and hugely unknown) film about a police detective (Cliff Robertson) wading through real life murder and possible psychic tomfoolery.

Day 2:

**** Auteuristic Western Series Part 2

1. Rancho Notorious (1952)- Possibly my very favorite Fritz Lang film... a western that inverts the genre into something more like his noir films. It just teems with great stuff.

2. The Train Robbers (1972)- Burt Kennedy's AARP western is a good time, with John Wayne leading a group of men on the hunt for stolen gold. And it features what is probably the best final line in any Wayne western.

3. Open Range (2003)- I can forgive Kevin Costner for his rambling "Wyatt Earp" with this vicious, tightly constructed actioner. One of the best westerns of the past 20 years IMO.

**** World Premier 2

1. Drive (2011)- I can always dream right.

**** Euro Crime continuation tickets half price for these two movies!

1. The Master Touch (1972)- Kirk Douglas is stealthy and stellar as an aging safecracker doing one last job. Terrific heist and great double crosses abound!

2. The American Friend (1977)- Wim Wender's real 70's masterpiece with Bruno Ganz sucked into a plot of murder and deception with art thief Dennis Hopper.

****70's Bonanza Faves

1. The Black Windmill (1974)- Don Siegel's tough as nails film about a man (Michael Caine) who takes matters into his own hands when his son is kidnapped.

Capsules

2011-08-11T20:03:00.000-07:00

The Myth of the American Sleepover

In David Robert Mitchell’s micro-indie “The Myth of the American Sleepover”, the aimlessness of youth and awkwardness of teenage love are given seamless examination. Taking as its starting off point one long summer night on the precipice of beginning high school, it wouldn’t be unfair to mention it in the same breath alongside “Dazed and Confused” or “The Last Picture Show”… films that manage to encapsulate a certain time and mood of expiring childhood. The film follows a handful of teenagers, both male and female, as their various parties and sleepovers migrate and fold across each other. Featuring a host of amateur faces, not only does writer-director Mitchell elicit sweet, honest performances from everyone involved, but the film avoids hard plot contrivances and simply exists. The scene of a boy and girl breaking up through a bedroom window or the visual of a dream girl fading away when a boy sees several phone numbers scribbled on her arm are only the hallmarks of a film that takes its title seriously. “The Myth of the American Sleepover”, besides being one of the year’s best films, also provides us with great memories of our moments at this age, checkered by inexperience and a naïve outlook, but ones that we constantly try to re-live as we grow older.

Cowboys and Aliens

Jon Favreau’s “Cowboys and Aliens” is a summer entertainment event that successfully melds the western and the sci-fi invasion film into a thoroughly engaging effort. Like it or not, Favreau seems to be made for producing no-nonsense, easily digestible big tent movies with the right amount of intelligent humor and character connection. As the cowboys charged with holding off an alien invasion and human harvesting experiment, Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford are amiable. But faring even better is Olivia Wilde as a mysterious hanger-on to the events whose beautiful looks and other worldly eyes make for a surprising character arch. More than a pretty face, Wilde is a terrific actress who will certainly mature into something more as her careers progresses.

Crazy, Stupid, Love

Going into “Crazy, Stupid, Love” with high expectations after solid word of mouth and mostly favorable critical writings only made the deadening experience that much more intolerable. Chock to the brim with stock comedy scenarios, a grating and precocious thirteen year old who seems to crop up in every Steve Carell movie lately and a film that acknowledges in one scene that “this is so cliché” then proceeds to hammer home so many more of the same…. It all goes so wrong. Even Ryan Gosling, usually dependable in anything he does, feels stale and overwrought. A sure miss fire for me.

Produced and Abandoned #11

2011-08-06T17:03:00.001-07:00

I have to say, the fun of doing these lists has only increased since being introduced to a couple different places that has my head swimming with hard to find, cult and severely obscure titles. Part of the challenge is now typing up this produced and abandoned list and then actually finding the movie. Anyways, ten more titles deserving a region 1 DVD release:

1. Serie Noir (1979)- Alain Corneau's described "nihilistic" thriller is available on a French DVD, but none other than that. Taken from a Jim Thompson novel, the film tracks the bloody path of a salesman caught up with the crime syndicate. Everything I've read about it sounds enthralling.
2. Endless Desire (1958)- Shohei Imamura's late 50's tale that sounds downright fascinating about a group of men and women in postwar Japan slowly eliminated after stealing army equipment. So much Imamura is not available on DVD.
3. Massacre At Central High (1976)- Supposedly violent tale about a bullied student who exacts revenge. Always mentioned when talking about influential grindhouse cinema, this film would be a great addition from Blue Underground?
4. The Tenant (1976)- Roman Polanski's aggressive update of his own "Repulsion", starring himself, I remember as an avant garde, psychological masterpiece when I watched it years ago. Now OOP on DVD, it's one of the few not available.
5. State of Siege (1972)- Like Francesco Rosi, Costa-Gavras is a filmmaker interested in the political subtext behind every story, and this early 70's film traces the tenuous relationship between a Uruguyan terrorist group and the various political organizations that funded them. Sounds highly promising.
6. Kamikaze 1989 (1982)- Not sure where I first heard about this German sci-fi film, but just check out the synopsis: "In a totalitarian society of the future, in which the government controls all facets of the media, a homicide detective investigates a string of bombings, and finds out more than he bargained for." from imdb.com.
7. The Sicilian Clan (1968)- There is so much worse Euro-crime out there, its a shame this well paced and thrilling film isn't available. Alain Delon stars as an escaped convict with detective Lino Ventura in pursuit. Delon hooks up with crime boss Jean Gabin and his family and they plan a heist to steal a planeload of jewels. At times Jean-Pierre Melville-lite, but it features a terrific opening escape and that moody blue and gray Paris skyline sets the tone perfectly. It does pop up on TV occasionally.
8. The Spy In Black (1939)- Michael Powell's war thriller about a German sub on a mission to sink British ships. Update: looks like it will air on TCM next month! Set the DVR.
9. The Sea Gull (1968)- One of only two Sidney Lumet films I've yet to see (the other being "Child's Play from 1972), but there are hopes of this getting a release since it recently played in New York on a new print during a Lumet retrospective.
10. Drum (1976)- Warren Oates. Sequel to "Mandingo". Enough said. Update: is now on Netflix Instant watch.

70's Bonanza: Man On a Swing

2011-07-31T16:01:00.000-07:00

One of the more underrated directors of the 70's and 80's, Frank Perry has worked across a wide swath of genre and mood, rarely leaving behind his laid back Southern California vibe no matter how dark the material... although Perry himself was a New Yorker by birth. Two wonderful films in the late 60's, "The Swimmer" with Burt Lancaster and "Last Summer"- which is a remarkable and hard to find ensemble of teenage beach bum lifestyle marred by the encroaching malaise of adulthood- are morally ambitious and thematically pregnant efforts. In the 70's, Perry helmed several highly regarded films including "Rancho Delux" and "Diary of a Mad Housewife" before moving into rather outrageous territory with "Mommie Dearest", "Compromising Positions" and the Shelley Long comedy "Hello Again" (anyone remember that?). But in between these high points of a long career, there were smaller, lesser known works such as a raggedly vicious portrait of the iconic western figure Doc Holiday with Stacey Keach as "Doc" or a 70's indie favorite by many filmmakers about a woman's descent into madness with "Play It As It Lays". Also in the mix was "Man On A Swing".... Perry's entry into the detective-whodunit series with a twist of the occult thrown in for good measure.

Starring Cliff Robertson, "Man On A Swing" begins with the discovery and ensuing investigation of a local girl found murdered and left for dead in her vehicle in a strip mall parking lot. It's not long into the reconstruction of the crime that Robertson receives a phone call from a local man named Franklin (Joel Grey) claiming to be a psychic with important information about the murder. The psychic reveals numerous previously undisclosed details about the murder scene and events leading up to it, which causes Robertson to use the man as a possible lead. Quickly, "Man On A Swing" discards the typical progression of the murder mystery involving the girl and focuses its attention on the psychological battle between psychic and skeptic. In a wonderful performance, Cliff Robertson runs the gamut of emotions from extreme guilt of not being able to crack the case (especially when another dead girl turns up) to angry dissidence when his attempts to debunk the psychic powers of Franklin fails. There's also some telling humor, such as the scene in the film's opening when a local police officer, chauffeuring Robertson to the crime scene, flips on the siren. Without looking away from the window, Robertson mumbles "turn that shit off..." That single line of dialogue tells more about the gruff humility and lazy informality of the man (and the town) than any other establishing shot.

The terrific thing about the film is its unique unpredictability, giving equal screen time to both cop and psychic. As Franklin, Joel Grey portrays the dichotomy of his character with ease. When he slips into a trance or becomes extremely nervous over the unexpected "test" set up by the police chief, he becomes a bundle of nerves and high strung energy. When living a normal life, he becomes even more menacing in silent ways, as if he's a prophetic minister jockeying for his own church. Like "Zodiac" and countless other serial killer films, the real tension is in the nuanced details and probing glances of seeker versus hunter. I'm not quite comparing "Man On A Swing" to the caliber of Fincher's masterpiece, but it is a hugely neglected film that deserves more attention. And the ending, which confidently hinges an ambiguous final scene between Robertson and Grey, does carve out room for its own place in the annuls of haunting, thought provoking conclusions.

Just Cuz....

2011-07-29T19:35:00.000-07:00

The Francesco Rosi Files: Lucky Luciano and Many Wars Ago

2011-07-24T18:08:00.001-07:00

In "Lucky Luciano" and "Many Wars Ago", Italian director Francesco Rosi continues his exploration of Italy's evolving landscape both past and present. Through the gangster genre and the war film, it's also safe to say he's no less angry in documenting the rise of unchecked power across a fifty year span.

Like he did with "Salvatore Guiliano" almost ten years previously, Rosi takes on another powerful criminal figure, using only his name and legend as a jumping off point for something more devious and conspiratorial. But unlike the character of Guiliano, longtime Rosi collaborator Gian Maria Volonte does get a majority of the screen time as the titular Luciano... albeit in very drab moments of political corruption. If one is looking for the pulp aesthetics that were generating waves out of Hollywood in the likes of "Capone", "The Godfather" and "The St. Valentines day Massacre", "Lucky Luciano" is a different beast. There are a few moments of gunfire and bloodshed (mostly aimed at Rod Steiger in his supporting role when he rocks the mafioso boat), but Rosi's aim is for something more intelligent. Picking up when Luciano (Volonte) is deported from New York back to his homeland in Italy, the film charts the American Army's involvement with corrupt businessmen and politicians in rebuilding that country's infrastructure. Though still a target for American intelligence forces, Rosi portrays Luciano as the puppet master of Italy's financial rebuilding through shady real estate dealings and the overall influence of his Mafia network. In typical mosaic Rosi style, "Lucky Luciano" bounces back and forth in time tracking several strands of the mobster's life and the confluence of police forces slowly observing his every move.

Stylistically, "Lucky Luciano" is a very energetic affair. Utilizing a roving camera that repeats several lateral pans, first across the faces of a group of Italian women enjoying themselves at an army dance then later across the gruff faces of mob bosses as they're introduced- in a sly echo of Scorsese's "Goodfellas" some 17 years later- the film feels kinetic. Even when the situation is static, such as the scene of two heads of state discussing the eventual untamed powers of Luciano if something isn't done, Rosi frames the ceiling overhead as an impending force of nature. Much more than any of his other films, mood and composition takes on a secondary feeling in "Lucky Luciano". And one understands this was all a success when, in the final scene as Luciano falls to his death of a heart attack, it's clear that his tight fist of control over Italy's complex future is sealed.... and suddenly the door slamming shut on Michael Corleone in "The Godfather" makes for a rapt comparison with Rosi's more muted effort.

Rosi’s inaugural film of the 70’s, “Many Wars Ago” is his answer to the war movie… albeit a very angry and, unsurprisingly, proletariat depiction of Italian troops during World War 1. Focusing on one unit during their numerous failed attempts to charge on the entrenched positions of the German army, “Many Wars Ago” details the minutia of war, such as the five minute sequence which portrays the inevitably deadly task of soldiers cutting apart barbed wire. It’s only after the first attempt, when both soldiers are killed by opposing fire, that the superior who ordered the push realizes the wire cutters are too dull to get the job done. At first glance, this seems like black comedy, but Rosi treats the impending mutiny of the soldiers against their commanding officers with dire seriousness.

And it’s that inequality between officer and soldier that lies at the heart of “Many Wars Ago”. For the first hour, the film tracks several men, both officers and soldiers along the wintry front line. Gian Maria Volonte, who would work with Rosi for many years to come, immediately appears as the protagonist before he’s killed in battle. The focus soon narrows on General Leone,(Alain Cuny), a beast of imposing will and unnerving invincibility. Even when his lieutenant, Sassu (Mark Frechette) tries to lure him into a spot with a perfect view from the enemy sniper, the general walks away unscathed. Slowly, the psychological conflict between Sassu and Leone boils over into full blown mutiny. The second half of “Many Wars Ago” examines the obstinate battle of wills between the men, ending in typical fatalistic Rosi fashion. It would make for a perfect double feature with Stanley Kubrick's "Paths Of Glory".

Regional Review- Boxing Gym

2011-07-22T21:52:00.001-07:00

I've always appreciated the (dying) sport of boxing. I can remember watching Friday Night Fights during the summer with my grandfather. I've been to numerous boxing events in my time, continually marveling at the dynamics of the sport... appreciating the thought that goes into every punch and counter punch. In spite of the now dominant MMA, boxing is and always will be a cerebral event that celebrates and awards reaction over action. As he's done with this country's major institutions over the past 40 years, director Frederick Wiseman simply observes the process and the people, tackling the sport of boxing and its rhythmic, at times floating, mechanics with gentle observation. And even though there are very few exterior shots of Austin, Texas revealed in Wiseman's documentary on Lord's Gym, one can sense the tight community and melancholy attitude that dots this unique Texas landscape previously exploited by filmmakers as diverse as Richard Linklater and Robert Rodriguez.

Tucked away off Lamar Avenue outside downtown Austin, Lord's Gym is presented as a cluttered cave of forgotten equipment and retro ideas. Focusing on its owner and trainer, Richard Lord, he comes off as a tough but loving teacher of the sport. When potential applicants come into the gym, Lord espouses the need for boxing as the ability to avoid fighting rather than getting into them. Wiseman culls footage from several facets of the place, from Lord's training of boxers to the average joe who pays his $50 a month application fee and learns timing from the speed bag. There are hanger-ons (including ex boxers) who watch the flurry of activity with punch-drunk sideways glances, moms with their infant babies perched ever so carefully in their cribs on the floor and youths who begin their experience beating on a tire outside. Wiseman molds all of this into his typically systematic editing style that lulls the viewer into the film's hypnotic spell. And when current events slyly work their way into the documentary- as two men discuss the Virgina Tech shooting that is just happening- "Boxing Gym" becomes a metaphor for defending oneself in these chaotic and unsettling times.

Despite its truncated running time (a mere 90 minutes) perhaps the most revolutionary aspect of Wiseman's latest is the way he builds the context of the film, denying the viewer the ultimate pleasure of watching two people fight, training his camera on the friendly interactions between average customers of the gym and their shared camaraderie in the process of boxing over the brute force. More interesting than watching yet another boxing match is the long take of a man and woman shadow boxing separately in the same ring, seemingly unaware of each other. They are both, obviously, deep in thought over their foot work and ability to bounce off the ropes and Wiseman carries this rhythmic dance for what feels like an eternity, giving us yet another transcendent moment of live lived rather than fictionalized. Shots of the University of Texas and the Austin Capital do make their presence, eventually, in "Boxing Gym" but they're dwarfed by Richard Lord's benevolent monologues and the denizens of his gym.

The Fifty Yard Line

2011-07-13T22:44:00.000-07:00

Here we sit at the halfway mark of 2011 and my complaint sounds like that of any other year. The movies are awful! Current mainstream cinema sucks! Where have all the masterpieces gone? And while I don't usually fall into that rhetoric, I am scratching my head at the lackluster amount of movies I've relinquished my time to this year.

51 movies into the year and there stands only one true film I'd call a masterpiece and think to list on any countdown at the end of the year... Jim Mickle's super-indie zombie/vampire film "Stake Land".

There are others that just barely missed the mark (a sturdy three and a half stars on the 'ol Ebert meter): Christopher Smith's atmospheric direct to video "Black Death", James Wan's "Insidious" (just the type of slow-burn horror movie I love before it turns batshit in its final 30 minutes), Takashi Miike's generic but extremely well crafted "13 Assassins" and Michael Winterbottom's "The Trip" which is really nothing more than Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon hamming it up across England.

The auteurs of the world, like Terrence Malick and Robert Redford, produced new works that sparked conversation, but little else. And for someone such as myself that usually prescribes whole heartily to the auteur theory, this was a HUGE disappointment, especially on the Malick-front.

Still, we have the real meat of the year ahead and one can never get depressed about the movies until January rolls around. Regardless, there have been a few enjoyments from the movies this year, so the top 5 performances so far this year:

5. Marion Cotillard, "Midnight In Paris"

I know the role of a 1930's Parisian party girl seems tailor-made for French actress Cotillard, but damn if she still doesn't take this character in affecting and lovely ways. Her eyes are always so vibrant... her scenes with Owen Wilson deliver a yearning that feels far beyond her years and she doesn't fall into the trap of morphing into one of Woody Allen's "girl on a pedestal" life lessons that have been so prevalent in his films for years. Even though she exists in a rare form of time travel, I was certainly rooting for her and Wilson to end up together. And, "Midnight In Paris" is a refreshing change of pace for a director whose been trying to re-invent himself (unsuccessfully) for a few years now.

4. Emily Blunt in "The Adjustment Bureau"

"The Adjustment Bureau" was a very competent Philip K. Dick adaptation, but its the performance of Emily Blunt (who I've been admiring and lusting after for several years now) as the ballet dancer who 'accidentally' bumps into Congressional candidate Matt Damon that really puts a romantic tinge into the cerebral sci-fi stuff. Like Cotillard, Blunt is able to do so much with her eyes, and this performance, as all boundaries of the universe seem intent on keeping her and Damon apart, is a stunner.

3 and 2. Ricardo Darin and Martina Gusman in "Carancho"

Pablo Trapero has the potential to be huge. Like the next Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu huge... if that makes any sense. "Carancho" is an angry, violent film about insurance fraud, budding love and the general state of malaise present in Argentina. Darin and Grusman (who has starred in several Trapero films, notably in his terrific "Lion's Den" as an imprisoned woman) crash into each other figuratively and fall in and out love as Darin plans insurance scams while she works all night first as a paramedic and then in a hospital where fistfights routinely break out because patients housed in the same ER room were fighting before they were admitted. "Carancho" is a bold movie.... and the more I reflect on it the better it becomes. Trapero has serious chops as a filmmaker- just watch the way he deftly handles complicated long takes such as the final shootout or the steamy sexual tension that builds between Grusman and Darin as they dance together.

1. Elle Fanning, "Super 8"

Derivative of much, J.J. Abrams' "Super 8" is still a swiftly moving and fun movie that reminded me strongly of 80's goodies like "The Goonies". But the real emotional thrust of the film- which I won't give away- belongs to Elle Fanning as the sole girl of the all-boys-club up into their necks with an alien invasion. Two scenes in particular: the first her "audition" that outperforms anything the boys could have anticipated and secondly, a very moving monologue where she attempts to apologize for the actions of her father as black and white images from an 8mm camera reflect across her face will be one of the more memorable scenes of this year.

The Francesco Rosi Files: The Mattei Affair

2011-07-07T18:49:00.000-07:00

My appreciation for Francesco Rosi just continues to grow. The Italian director who tackles themes of government corruption without resorting to oblique paranoia.... or highlights the mafia in the most unique manner ("Lucky Luciano", featured in a later post)... and creates moving dramas of brotherhood without the slightest sense of mawkishness ("Three Brothers")... he incisively avoids genre conventions while creating films that intelligently pick apart some of Italy's greatest scandals and bureaucratic failings.

In "The Mattei Affair", Rosi trains his lens on Enrico Mattei, Italy's answer to Daniel Day Lewis in "There Will Be Blood". Growing to power in the 50's as the premier researcher and developer of the country's deep deposits of methane, Mattei eventually became a powerful figure in Third World oil development. Played to dry perfection by Gian Maria Volonte, "The Mattei Affair" trades in words and long speeches instead of action. Rosi spirals together several strands of Mattei's life, before and after the mysterious plane crash that took his life in 1962. Not only do we see Mattei's early attempts to wrestle power from the oil magnates with his cheaply produced methane alternative, but the film tracks the day of the actual plane crash, complete with droning soundtrack music and confusing excerpts of dialogue and investigations as well as the attempts by reporters and writers in the years after his death to ascertain the truth. It all culminates in a clinical examination of good hearted intentions turning internationally dangerous when politics and human wealth clash.

Often criticized as being a visually boring director (although there are several stunning tracking shots in his 1962 film "Hands Over the City"), "The Mattei Affair" features a unique visual schematic, none more so exciting than the stationary shot of a 17 story building slowly turning on its office lights as news of Mattei's death burns across the wire. Or the dusk shots of methane being pumped from its deposits and Mattei confidently holding his arms up in a sign of victory which surely prompts the viewer to echo the manic determination presented in P.T. Anderson's "There Will Be Blood".... a film which surely cites Rosi's effort as its antecedent. But in the end, "The Mattei Affair" is a haunting documentary of sorts that merges cinematic life with real life when one of Rosi's researchers, a man named Mauro de Mauro disappeared and never resurfaced in 1970 after obtaining snippets of one of Mattei's last speeches. This sidenote, touched on obliquely in the film, resounds as one of the mysteriously deft touches Rosi often brings to his exceptional films of dynamic national struggle... one that seems to say no one gets out alive.

Mood

2011-06-29T23:52:00.000-07:00

Another brilliant album from The Antlers. This track has been on autoplay for about 3 days now....

An Appreciation: John Huston

2011-06-27T18:27:00.000-07:00

Six or seven months in the making....

The Maltese Falcon (1941) ***½- A young filmmaker could only hope for a debut film this assured and now well renowned. Humphrey Bogart chews the scenery as Sam Spade, one of a handful of people desperately chasing a priceless artifact, and one gets the sense of cinema’s hardboiled love affair beginning right before our eyes.

Across the Pacific (1942) ***- Lingering on the calendar dates of November, 1941, and then eventually December 6 of the same year, “Across the Pacific” certainly takes on an air of failed mortality as Bogart tries to expose international spies on an Atlantic liner. It’s as if the whole affair is for naught, and for a film in the early 40’s this pessimism is certainly refreshing. Sydney Greenstreet and Mary Astor again join Huston in a film that has Bogart playing the good guy trying to unmask some devious anti-American sorts. Part bubbly romance and eventually action-thriller, “Across the Pacific” features two or three great set pieces (a long shot over and around the cruise liner as the characters meet and a movie theater shootout) that showcase Huston’s growing confidence behind the camera.

In This Our Life (1942) ***- Bette Davis is a malevolent home wrecker in this Tennessee Williams-like family chamber drama, but I’ll take Olivia de Havilland as the gentle sister any day of the week. It’s hard for a director to really place his stamp on such an ordinary drama as this, but there are flashes of ‘auetership’ in the beginning as his camera rolls, pans and follows people around as the characters are established. Bette Davis tears up the screen (and her own family) by stealing husbands and driving fast, and that alone creates a manic sense of tempo in the film that feels refreshing for the early 40’s.

Report From the Aleutians (1943) **- One of two documentaries Huston made for the United States military (the other was a less flattering portrait of mentally wounded and handicapped soldiers recovering in various hospitals), “Report From the Aleutians” is certainly a rah-rah attempt to educate and enlighten the masses about our brave fighting boys stationed in the remote parts of the Northwest. There’s nothing really wrong with this documentary, but its standard history channel fare with little distinction from Huston behind the camera save his gruff voice over.

On Our Merry Way (1948) **- It’s debatable how much involvement Huston really had in making this episodic comedy, but I’ll include it anyway. Burgess Meredith plays a menial paper employee who stumbles into the chance to be the “Roving Reporter” for the day and ask a seemingly banal question to innocent bystanders. Their answers open the film out into memories and myth making, the best of which features the dashing duo of James Stewart and Henry Fonda as broke jazz musicians telling their tale. There’s nothing really unique about the film…. Its amiable and straightforward.

Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) ****- Huston’s first real masterpiece in my opinion… a brilliant deconstruction of greed bracketed against the western genre with enough scenes and dialogue to penetrate throughout film for the next 60 years. Every time I watch it today, the money blowing in the wind is a confident coda to a sure handed film that seems to exceed its modest ideas.

Key Largo (1948) ***1/2- In my early days of film-watching (and dipping my toes in the waters of film noir) “Key Largo” was one of the seminal viewings, a gangster film that plays out like a Broadway play as the screws slowly tighten around the confined setting of a hotel. Edward Robinson is menacing as the gangster on the run, holed up against Humphrey Bogart, both men chewing the scenery with gusto. Oh, and there’s a hurricane approaching…. peripheral catastrophe that parallels the inner psychological terror of the film’s protagonists and would serve as a recurring motif in American cinema for years. The very fact that Huston helmed two groundbreaking films in the same year is still mind boggling.

We Were Strangers (1949) ***1/2- Involving romance between native Cuban girl(Jennifer Jones) and American freedom fighter (John Garfield) during the growing days of Communism in Cuba. Jones provides the house for Garfield and his comrades to dig a tunnel across the street in hopes of blowing up important political officials. With “The Treasure of Sierra Madre”, Huston has lots of fun covering his male stars in dirt and grime and one can sense his evocative use of close-up beginning to take shape. There’s also an incredible 4 minute shoot out scene at the end with the ‘Tommy gun’ bursts lighting up the scene and Huston perching his camera just behind Garfield and yes, Jones herself as she takes over the gun at times. I’d say Michael Mann is a huge fan of this film. Probably the unsung surprise of Huston’s career.

The Asphalt Jungle (1950) ****- Trendsetting heist film that boats so many great characteristics: the almost wordless, music-less ten minute diamond robbery, shrewd cutting, moody cinematography and a brilliant (almost effortless) tough guy performance by Sterling Hayden. Produced in 1950, perhaps the most accomplished thing about “The Asphalt Jungle” is that Huston got this film made after the halcyon days of film noir while still being able to carve out something organic and fresh. Clearly an influence on the French New Wave and “Rififfi” some five years later, “The Asphalt Jungle” immerses one in the underworld where the biggest challenge is not committing the crime, but getting away with it- as the film’s four main characters soon find out. As the anti-hero, robber and hooligan Hayden kind of makes one hope he gets away, with cynical dialogue that mirrors the subversive tone of the entire film blaming the stench and concrete claustrophobia of the city for his desperate actions. In every regard, “The Asphalt Jungle” is a film that deserves to be studied and admired. Oh, and not only does it feature a young and stunning Marilyn Monroe, but the final shot ranks as probably the best in Huston’s long career.

The Red Badge of Courage (1951) *½- Based on the classic novel about a youth finding his courage during the battles of the Civil War, this is an admirable telling that gets mired down in dispassionate, stock characters and a few too many “gol darns” and “jim-dandys” for me.

The African Queen (1951) **- Regarded as a classic, yes, but I just found the story of Bogart and Hepburn trapped in a small boat trying to defeat a German ship a bit on the slow side. It feels creaky, rusty and too old fashioned at every turn… a commercial venture without any real heart. Newly released to DVD after years of anticipation, this was a let down.

Moulin Rouge (1952) ***- Lush telling of Paris artist Henri Toulouse-Letrac and his relationship with a cantankerous prostitute. The opening scenes, which take place in the infamous Moulin Rouge hot spot of Paris, invoke great energy, full of a roving camera that glides, pans and swirls. The remainder of the film slows a bit but is just as involving as the lonely, physically disfigured Lautrec (Jose Ferrer) sours on life and love. While the Moulin Rouge itself is used a cinematic reminder of happier, carefree days, Huston’s film is more concerned with the inner demons of a struggling artist rather than the boisterous, musical roots exemplified in Baz Luhrman’s later update. The script by Huston, based on Pierre La Mure’s novel, swells into speech making at times, delivered with gusto by Ferrer, Zsa Zsa Gabor and others. And one cinematic trick- editing a myriad of sketches and artwork, timed to the music- feels quite revolutionary for the time, mimicked time and again by future filmmakers.

Beat the Devil (1953) **½- For the early 50’s this black comedy could almost be considered an independent, financed by an offshore company and featuring some dimly lit, cheap looking photography. It also stars Humphrey Bogart just a few years before his death, and the sickness was (visibly) already taking its toll. Not a bad film by any stretch of the imagination- Truman Capote’s script and Huston’s dry wit are on full display throughout the film’s twisting narrative about five criminals stuck in limbo with a proper British couple as they await to strike it rich in an African country through nefarious means. After a few years of producing some serious minded flicks, “Beat the Devil” feels like a stress-reliever for Huston and not much more.

Moby Dick (1956) ***- Exquisite cinematography and a manic performance from Gregory Peck send this adaptation of the Herman Melville novel over the top in a good way. Often times, the central idea of a great novel get lost in the translation, but the searing obsession shown by Captain Ahab in the novel (as well as the contagious insanity onto the crew) is maintained by Huston, giving the film its purpose. Though it’s a bit ‘stagey’ at times (see the early scene of Orson Welles as a preacher who obviously loves the sound of his own voice), the finale is rousing. Yes, it’s all models and trick photography, but done magnificently.

Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957) ***- Besides the gruff machismo and penchant for adventurous locations, there’s another theme that’s becoming evident in Huston’s work- that of the incongruous relationships between man and woman. On full display in films such as “The African Queen” and “We Were Strangers”, this time Huston pits the divide between innocent, isolated nun Deborah Kerr and the very New Yawkish World War II soldier Robert Mitchum. As a soldier who washes up on the lonely Japanese island, Mitchum hams up the Americanism a bit much, yet there’s viable chemistry between him and Kerr. The walls built up around both personalities are believable, and when the Japanese Army arrives on the island and begins to systematically search it for deserters, “Heaven Knows Mr. Allison” becomes a taut tale of survival.

The Barbarian and the Geisha (1958) **- John Ford as the first American consult to the shores of Japan in the 1850’s continues Huston’s fascination with exotic locales. It’s hard to make Japan’s history of paper- mache lanterns and garish colors boring, and the film does look incredible, but the central relationship between Wayne and a geisha girl (Eiko Ando) is extremely wooden. Also, the presentation of the culture clash between the jingoistic Wayne and the protected lifestyles of the Japanese villagers is less than intriguing with lines like “they can’t pronounce the letter L”. Honestly, I’m not a huge fan of Wayne’s acting style and it comes off as even more one-note here… as if he stepped off the last John Ford western and didn’t miss a beat in refurbishing the same hard nosed character to a story that certainly needed more introspection and humility. Not available on DVD

The Roots of Heaven (1958) **- Odd obsession film starring Errol Flynn as the self appointed protector of the wild elephant in Africa. Not always a success, two things really stand out- the wonderfully composed dryness of the African deserts and the lovely visage of Juliette Greco as the local barmaid who falls under Flynn’s madcap spell. Not available on DVD

The Unforgiven (1960) **- Taken as a direct subversion of John Ford’s “The Searchers”, the ideas in Huston’s “The Unforgiven” are quite majestic: instead of the obsessive quest to redeem a white girl from her Indian captives, Burt Lancaster and his family fight for the protection of an Indian woman secretly harbored by their father for many years. Audrey Hepburn, as the woman in question, is simply stunning here and the moment she fires a gun point blank into the chest of an oncoming attacker, one really feels the essence of her psychological burden. It’s just that so much of the remainder of the film trades in arcane stereotypes and lazy ham-fisted acting. And it just always bothers me when a film supposedly set in Texas highlights the mountains all around the actors. Not on DVD.

The Misfits (1961) ****- An intimate, delicate four character study starring Marilyn Monroe as a recently divorced woman who throws caution to the wind and hangs out with two cowboys (Clark Gable and Eli Wallach) outside Reno, Nevada. A relationship forms between her and Gable to the jealous dismay of Walach. Then enter a third cowboy played by Montgomery Clift. Much has been made about the ominous overtones of real life with three of the film’s stars passing away so soon after wrap, but “The Misfits” is a masterpiece, and probably the film in Huston’s career that gets the least attention for its immaculate story and wonderfully moody black and white images. Each actor gets their stellar scene, especially Clift with a phone booth monologue that’s equally morbid and heartbreaking. The final thirty minutes, involving a wild mustang roundup in the Nevada desert, is Huston at his most magisterial, acting as a metaphor for the characters and a swirling display of emotion, camera movement and screenwriting.

The List of Adrian Messenger (1962) *½- This is a film with so much promise that ultimately winds up as nothing more than a gimmicky all-star affair… something the 60’s were great at producing. A man winds up dead after a plane crash and a family friend (George C. Scott) uncovers a long list of murders associated with the dead man and his war days. Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis, Frank Sinatra and Burt Lancaster all parade through the film wearing heavy disguises, giving us red herrings and motives for the murders. I can certainly see the novelistic ideal of the cameos in 1962, but things wear old relatively quickly and by the time Huston winds down this somewhat drawn out affair, I really didn’t care who was guilty any longer. Not on DVD.

Night of the Iguana (1964) **- Like most venerable directors still working in the early to mid-60’s, Huston deemed it necessary to venture into Tennessee Williams adaptation country with “The Night of the Iguana”. Starring Richard Burton as a recently defrocked priest living out a troubled lifestyle in exotic locations where beautiful young girls (like Sue Lyon) throw themselves at him, the film never really succeeds in involving the audience. From a script by Williams, the film does feature a simmering amount of sexual tension but its in the lazy execution and modest direction that “Night of the Iguana” fails to engage.

The Bible… In the Beginning (1966) *1/2- As with many of Huston’s films from the 1960‘s, there’s very little feeling in the work, opting instead for the blockbuster mentality with star power, and this film is probably the crest of that wave. Part of the joy in making this biblical epic, assuredly, was the chance to visualize the monumental stories of the Bible, and he does that with flying colors, establishing a vibrant mise-en-scene with large scale production design. But because we know these stories inside and out, there’s no narrative tension and the entire effort falls flat.

Casino Royale (1967) *- Huston was one of several other directors and limited to filming probably 1/8th of this two and a half hour James Bond spoof, but I’ll include it anyway because it’s so bad on so many levels- extremely dated, lifeless and visually flat. The idea of a spy spoof, especially starring Peter Sellers, has so much potential but its all wasted.

Reflections In A Golden Eye (1967) ***- An odd and completely unnerving drama that feels way ahead of its time. Allow me to synopses the plot: army commander (Marlon Brando) lives off the base with his wife (Elizabeth Taylor) in a hapless marriage while she openly carries on an affair with army captain neighbor (Brian Keith) whose mentally unstable wife (Julie Harris) locks herself away in a room with her Philipino manservant (Zorro David) and paints. Plus, a young Robert Forster sulks around Brando’s house at night, rides bareback naked during the day and elicits homosexual urges out of the repressed Brando. All of this is filmed in a (literally) golden saturated haze which generates more sense of unease around its hothouse summer atmosphere. Yet this atmosphere is the real pleasure of “Reflections In A Golden Eye”. The performances are just above average, but it’s the sinister feeling around Brando as he follows the young G.I. after a movie on the base or the masochistically symbolic attempt to punish himself by riding a wild horse through thorns and trees, then beating the horse within an inch of its life that sparks the perverse attitude of the whole effort. Watchable for Huston’s desire to create something completely different from anything else he’s ever done.

Sinful Davey (1969) *1/2- As the fast-talking roustabout and title character, John Hurt anchors this modest comedy that features some stunning Irish landscapes and bawdy humor. Running from authorities and old girlfriends alike, Hurt plays Davey, a low-rent thief who manages to get himself in trouble with the government wherever he goes. This feels like a breezy change of pace for Huston after several more ‘serious’ efforts, and any film that features a group of men using a midget’s head to crash through the prison ceiling above to get to the women’s section certainly qualifies as breezy. Not on DVD.

A Walk With Love and Death (1969) **- As a medieval allegory for the free love and hippie wandering of late 60’s America, “A Walk With Love and Death” is an alluring curiosity. As a strait-forward tale of young love between a traveling student (Assi Dayan) and the royal princess (Anjelica Huston) who falls in love with him, the film is an utter bore. Mixed in with the young couple’s travel across France and England during the 100 Years War are clumsily edited fight scenes between knights and peasants that resembles the awkward artificiality of Robert Bresson’s “Lancelot du Lac”- although the stilted actions in that far superior film are meant to be taken in stride. Under Huston’s direction, it all feels poorly put together and devoid of any real connection between Dayan and Angelica. Not on DVD.

The Kremlin Letter (1970) ****- I do hold a soft place in my heart for spy movies. While there's always room for the gaudy jet setting Bond adventures with its fantastic toys, ironic dialogue and cheeky performances, the spy movies that really get my heart racing are the more subdued, cerebral efforts. I think specifically of Martin Ritt's wonderful "The Spy Who Came In From the Cold" or Sidney Lumet's "The Deadly Affair"- films that have nary a gunshot but overwhelm with paranoia and careful exposition. John Huston's "The Kremlin Letter" falls squarely into this category, upping the ante in nihilism and quick-speak that throws the viewer into the middle of an elaborate operation inside Communist Russia within the first few minutes. Code words are thrown about casually with little information. A car drives off a cliff and explodes. What, at first, seems like a hodgepodge of spy experts, soon turns into a cryptic series of assignments and double crosses. It's all stirred up masterfully by a director who understands how to get out of his own way and present the story with straight precision.

The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972) ***1/2- With revisionist westerns being produced by the minute in New Hollywood around this time (Peckinpah especially) “The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean” is a terrific film about the myth making of old America, featuring a stellar and hysterical performance by Paul Newman. Watch it alongside “The Ballad of Cable Hogue” and “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” for two examples of films with a higher purpose… exercises that wittily deconstruct the genre while advancing the careers of both actor and director.

Fat City (1972) ***½- Completely unclassifiable “boxing” movie that celebrates the city gutters and washed up glories of alcoholic athletes without ever losing its sense of poignancy. Stacy Keach is marvelous as the aforementioned washed up athlete coming into contact with a younger scrapper (Jeff Bridges) who could be his younger doppelganger full of youthful ambition. The bond that forms between the men never proceeds where you think it will and the entire film bobs and weaves gracefully without ever really committing to a hard edged narrative. Whether it was the enveloping freedom of the late 60’s or Huston’s own growing disillusionment with Hollywood, “Fat City” feels like the first film Huston chose in placing tone over narrative. Either way, it holds up amazingly well today as a character study with a knockout (but quiet) final scene. DVD now sadly OOP.

The Mackintosh Man (1973) ***- Huston keeps his track record of strong 70’s cinema rolling with Paul Newman as a spy getting himself locked up, abducted, and then whisked away to beautiful Ireland all to “out” a sinister organization. With pieces borrowed from Hitchcock, “The Mackintosh Man” is a reverent and detached thriller that plays much like “The Kremlin Letter”… and with both films, it’s clear Huston is on autopilot and having fun.

The Man Who Would Be King (1975) ***- With echoes of earlier films about glory found and ultimately lost in the wind (I.e. “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre”), this film is a return to the sweeping vistas and child-like adventurer spirit of some of his 60’s efforts, with terrific performances by Michael Caine and Sean Connery as two gunrunners who end up taking control of a remote mountainous region and its inhabitants through sheer luck. Based on a short story by Rudyard Kipling (played in the film’s bookended opening and closing scenes by Christopher Plummer) it really all comes down to the ideas of conceited Western machismo versus Old World solitary, all done up in Huston’s obligatory non-flair style, and sharp editing. This is an actor’s movie, though, and Caine and Connery exude confidence and perception.

Wise Blood (1979) **- As the Southern war vet turned maniacal preacher who forms his own religion, Brad Dourif is tantalizing and the influence on Paul Thomas Anderson and David Lynch is right there, yet “Wise Blood” failed for me. It’s just simply an odd film that never maintains a tone. For a majority of the 70’s, Huston seemed to be working towards gutter poetry (see “Fat City“ for a more precise rendering) and “Wise Blood” is the capstone to this movement, a film I admire more than actually like.

Phobia (1980) *½- Huston’s attempt at confiscating the Italian giallo, complete with gloved killer and all. Not only does “Phobia” transpose the plot of these 70‘s horror films, but it (unfortunately) also takes with it the clunky pacing and non-sensical plotting of many of these. A doctor (Paul Michael Glaser) begins having his patients murdered one by one. Suspicion arises due to the fact the doctor is currently using the patients in experimental treatments for their phobias. Financed and filmed in Canada and featuring largely no-names, “Phobia” is curiously devoid of anything really… including lackluster direction. Not on DVD.

Victory (1981) ***- A bit clichéd and certainly heavy handed at times, this modest tale of POW prisoners taking up soccer in order to escape, “Victory” features solid performances all around. If nothing else, it’s a notable footnote in the sport-as-life parables that were being churned out of Hollywood, including “The Longest Yard”.

Annie (1981) *1/2- What is it about aging directors assuming a musical in the autumn of their years? Lumet tried, and failed miserably, with “The Wiz” a few years earlier, and Huston fares little better with his expensive screen adaptation of the hit “Annie”.

Under the Volcano (1984)***½- From the very opening as Albert Finney stumbles around the festivities of the Day of the Dead in Mexico stone drunk, Huston’s adaptation of this tough novel is challenging and visually arresting. It’s all the more mordant when Huston frames the reflection of novelty skulls in the sunglass shades of Finney. Lonely by the seperation of his wife (Jacqueline Bisset) and unable to live up to the adventurous heroics of his journalist brother Hugh (Anthony Andrews), Finney is a repellant figure to follow for two hours, yet “Under the Volcano” is such a terrific film because of it. Pair this with “Save the Tiger” and one has a very downbeat portrait of the male ego in perpetual crisis. A very dark journey, indeed, buoyed by Finney’s immersive performance and a camera that never dares to look away. Of all Huston’s films, I feel this is the one that will grow in my memory over time.

Prizzi’s Honor (1986) **½- There’s nothing inherently bad about Huston’s amiable gangster black comedy. I’ve tried watching it probably five times over the years as it was one my dad’s favorite movies, and always ended up being bored with it. Watching it all the way through now and my opinion was pretty much spot-on. Nicholson feels severely miscast as the Italian hit man for the Prizzi mafia family as he spews out lots of “faddas” in an equally bad confiscation of the Italian dialect. But honestly, butchering the local tongue is something Huston has done his entire career. Kathleen Turner, at the height of her stardom, fares much better as the elusive woman of his dreams, but it’s William Hickey as the family don who really steals the show. Huston is in full autopilot here, barely recognizable behind the camera.

The Dead (1987) ***- Delicate way to end a long career, and a true family affair as the film stars daughter Angelica from a script by son Tony. Appropriated from a short story by James Joyce, “The Dead” is a patient, quiet observation of a small group of friends who meet for Christmas dinner in 1904 Dublin. There’s no subversive animosity or psychological power plays at work here. What the film does best is allow its actors to exude a warmth and gentleness, only hinting at something darker when past loves and forgotten opera singers are fleetingly thought about towards the end of the film. The final shot, with the camera pointing up at the sky as snow gently falls, is about as perfect a final shot I could imagine for Huston the journeyman.

What's In the Netflix Queue #32

2011-06-24T17:53:00.000-07:00

1. The Prowler (1981)- Cheapie 80's horror film newly released to DVD, featured in one of Tarantino's film fest events, and starring Lawrence Tierney whom Tarantino would later use to gruff excellence in his own film.
2. The Lost Honor of Katarina Blum (1975)- Volker Schlondorff's tale of a woman whose love affair with a suspected terrorist sends her life into chaos. This is one of those movies I'm sure I saw back in the day, yet can't remember.
3. A Woman, A Gun, and A Noodle Shop (2009)- Zhang Yimou's remake or re-imagining of the Coen Brothers deliciously great debut "Blood Simple" has been floating in my queue for about a year now so I moved it closer to the top. The word of mouth has been mixed and Yimou is a director I used to ardently admire, but kinda cooled on lately through his mediocre efforts ("Riding Alone For Thousands of Miles, "Happy Times" etc). We'll see on this one.
4. The Great Gatsby (1974)- Robert Redford in the great novels adaptation to the screen.
5. A Call Girl (2010)- "This insightful, allegorical drama follows Aleksandra (Nina Ivanisin), a student, as she travels from a small town to the big city. A cynical and callous young woman, Aleksandra uses the move to transform herself into a well-paid call girl. Her self-imposed isolation and guilt-free life end, however, when a politician client dies. As the police pursue her, Aleksandra must figure out how to finish growing up without losing her soul." From the Neflix description.
6. A Summer In Genoa (2009)- Pretty sad when a Michael Winterbottom film is relegated to the the DTV pile, but apparently this one was. One of my very favorite directors working today. And starring Colin FIrth, Katherine Keener and Hope Davis!
7. How To Kill a Judge (1972)- More Euro crime, this time about a film director (Franco Nero) inciting violence from the mob to, well, kill a local judge.
8. The Illustrated Man (1969)- Curious title that I came across while surfing selections. "Rod Steiger plays the titular character -- a man covered with tattoos -- in this adaptation of Ray Bradbury's tale. When a young drifter (Robert Drivas) encounters "the illustrated man," he can't take his eyes off the pictures on the man's torso. But staring at the designs takes the drifter smack-dab into the middle of the pictures -- in one instance, stranded on Venus, in another, on an African veldt and in the third, on the eve of Armageddon."
9. Breaking Bad Season 3 (2010)- Yet another reason television has become one of the best creative outlets.
10. Harakari (1962)- "Winner of the Cannes Special Jury Prize, Masaki Kobayashi's drama centers on samurai Hanshiro Tsugumo (Tatsuya Nakadai), who arrives at a lavish manor and asks to commit hara-kiri on the grounds. But the vengeful warrior is harboring a secret. A new political climate finds the once-powerful samurais wandering the country begging estate owners to allow them to commit suicide on their properties, when what they really want is a handout."

3

2011-06-16T23:35:00.000-07:00

Stake Land

Jim Mickle’s “Stake Land” features some surprisingly tender moments for a film that deals with a post-apocalyptic landscape teeming with feral vampire cannibals. Part horror film and part white-trash western, “Stake Land” exceeds all expectations by creating full bodied characters that we care about, wonderfully timed cinematography that never forgets about the human element in its carnage, and a soundtrack that evokes the coming-of-age duplicity in “Badlands”. In short, its one of the year’s best films. Starring Nick Damici (who also co-wrote the film) as Mister, the hard as nails vampire hunter traveling to supposed safe haven up north in a land called New Eden, he encounters teenager Martin (Connor Paolo) and the two form a family of sorts as they trek across the land fighting off the infected and Bible thumping fanatics at the same time. More survivalists join up along the way, including Kelly McGillis as an embattled nun and a pregnant teenager Belle played by Danielle Harris, and “Stake Land” severely ups the ante as the group travels day and night. As a genre effort, the film is good, but it’s the attention to humanity and glimmers of hope that propel “Stake Land” above its genre intentions. Just watch the little exchange between Mister and Belle as he carries her when she’s unable to walk…. Or the moments of sweetness that emerge as the group finds a temporary respite in a town circled off from the plague. “Stake Land” will throttle the nerves and supply the obligatory scares, but it also firmly implants a sense of emotional connectivity that far outlasts the horror. See this one.

The Tree of Life

Terence Malick’s Palme d’Or winning “The Tree Of Life” takes his abstract ideas of narrative filmmaking a step even further into the abyss of atmosphere, mood and sound, wrapping a story about a 1950’s Texas family against the backdrop of the creation of the universe itself. With an overbearing father (Brad Pitt) and enabling mother (Jessica Chastain) bearing the center of the story, “The Tree of Life” definitely feels like Malick’s most autobiographical work… as if the lifelong images that are said to flash before our eyes at the moment of death have been stretched across two hours and twenty minutes of screen time. This does provide some limitations, unfortunately. As an avid Malick admirer, “The Tree of Life” feels overlong and his use of the introspective voice over monologue feels more flat than before. But what does remain… the images of a mother playing with her child against a mirror… the white tapestry of a baby’s bed… the sounds of crickets that envelope the night air… all of these things do wash over the viewer in experiential waves. “The Tree of Life” is dense, ambitious and at times a head-scratcher. I think it may deepen and evolve over time, but it falls as my least favorite Malick effort to date. Bonus points for being filmed in my hometown of Waco, Texas though and that fleeting glimpse of the Alico building!

Super 8

If only J.J. Abram’s “Super 8” was a sweet, coming-of-age film that focused solely on the budding relationship between teenagers Joe (Joel Courtney) and Alice (a terrific Elle Fanning) instead of the pop culture sci-fi alien invasion film it becomes. There are two scenes with Fanning- first her ‘audition’ and the second her revelation to Joe about the tragic bonds between their fathers- that elevate “Super 8” into a perfect “Goonies” like 80’s adventure film tinged with pure emotion. Then that CGI creature has to go and smash things. But seriously, “Super 8” is terrific fun, featuring an ending that snags the heart strings more than it probably should and kept me highly entertained.

Trailers I Love: Take Shelter

2011-06-11T16:46:00.000-07:00

Jeff Nichols is going to be a HUGE talent. Go rent "Shotgun Stories" now.

Don't Answer the Phone: Edward Yang's "The Terrorizers"

2011-06-07T18:30:00.001-07:00

The pivotal tragic action at the center of Edward Yang's remarkable 1986 film "The Terrorizers" is barely given emphasis. A disgruntled gang members girlfriend, named "White Chick", makes a prank phone call to a female writer (Cora Miao)describing that her doctor husband (Lee Chi Chun) is having an affair. Already in the midst of marital discomfort through her inability to finish her novel and he in the middle of a major shake-up at work, this declaration of infidelity pushes them (and the film itself) into a mirror hall of art versus reality and violent urges. Despite the fact of any real truth behind the phone call, "The Terrorizers" gets both its title and its quiet tension through this obfuscated act that defines the intelligent work of Edward Yang.... a filmmaker who slowly builds up the pieces of the puzzle and forces the viewer to infer the major moments of his work through instinct and feeling.

In addition to the malaise of the married couple, there's a teenage photographer (Shanquon Hong) who films the opening raid in which White Chick flees from the cops, and in a bit of Hitchcock-like obsession, falls in love with her. He rents out her apartment and creates a wall-sized mural of her pictures. At first, his presence in the film feels like another cog in Yang's spinning modern Taipei society, but its his interpretation of White Chick's apocalyptic phone call that begets the bloodletting.

The most thrilling aspect of "The Terrorizers" is not the very thin above plot synopsis. Yang's films defy description, really. Filmed in 1984 and '85 and eventually released in 1986, Yang and fellow countryman Hou Hsiao-Hsien were just beginning to break through on the international scene. "The Terrorizers" and Hsiao-Hsien's early 90's films are breathtaking for their introduction of a new cinematic vernacular. The way their camera slowly swivels around in a scene, following and observing the interaction between the characters rather than directing the action... the non-linear editing style that continually places the viewer in identification mode... or the depth of field out windows, around hallways or through doorways. It's all very distinctive. And "The Terrorizers" is one of Yang's early efforts in a long line of distinctive and impressive works.

The Last 10 Films I've Seen

2011-06-04T18:58:00.001-07:00

I do apologize for my movie critiques looking more and more like Twitter feeds, but I've got to do something to get off the snide here with posting. General life (and mainly baseball season) has kept me away from the theater for over 4 weeks now.. which has to be some type of personal record. Regardless, the last ten films I've seen with a few brief comments (and again, thanks "Film Comment" for the rip-off here):

1. Figures In A Landscape (1970), Joseph Losey- Like the existential car movies of the early 70's (especially "Two Lane Blacktop"), Losey's film about two escapees on the run from a menacing black helicopter is less a literal chase movie and something more sinister and psychological.
2. Kaboom (2011), Gregg Arakki- I keep telling myself this is one of the worst filmmakers post 1990, and yet I still keep watching his movies. Not as bad as, say, "Nowhere" or "The Doom Generation", but still emo-punk zaniness at its most precocious.
3. Chelsea On the Rocks, (2009), Abel Ferrera- I love me some Ferrera, but this rambling, stuttering and self-absorbed documentary about the free willed residents of the infamous New York hotel doesn't teach or explain anything.
4. Black Death (2011), Christopher Smith- A big fan of direct to video auteur Christopher Smith ("Creep", "Severance", "Triangle") and "Black Death" may be his best film yet as traveling knights led by Sean Bean confront a town possibly controlled by a witch during the black plague. It looks amazing, stars this one guy that's a dead ringer for a young Klaus Kinski, and controls its atmosphere well.
5. On the Silver Globe (1987), Andrezj Zulawski- I've seen two films by Polish mad-man Zulawski now and my stomach churned through both of them. They're not gory in any sense of the word, but his camera swings wildly, his characters all speak in shrieking tones and the overall madness of his work infuses itself into your brain... and not in a good way. This two and half hour sci-fi film is also relentless, maddening and downright challenging.
6. The Dilemma (2011), Ron Howard- A very weird film... part male bromance and part dark drama about infidelity, its tonal shifts are suspect and acting by Vince Vaughn and Kevin James feel like retreads from all their previous gigs. I still love "Swingers" and "Made", but honestly, Vaughn's shtick is getting redundant.
7. The Phenix City Story (1955), Phil Karlson- Moral tale of greed and small town corruption telestrated like an after school special, but still effective. Director Phil Karlson is an interesting genre director whose flat narrative style is always engrossing. See "Kansas City Confidential" for an under appreciated gem.
8. Red, White and Blue (2010) Simon Rumley- Awful, violent mess of a movie that looks terrible and never justifies its intense torture porn narrative spiral no matter how long it tries to establish 'emotional' connections to its three various leads. Props for its Austin, Texas filming locations.... but it even makes those places look like the gutter.
9. The Mechanic (2011), Simon West- Did we really need a remake of this so-so Charles Bronson vehicle?
10. Somewhere (2010), Sofia Coppola- More lethargic ennui by a burned out actor (Stephen Dorff) who has something vital (daughter Elle Fanning) injected into his life, timed to the lulling music of Phoenix and The Strokes. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Coppola's slow camera really hits a nerve with its patience and I loved every second of it.

Cinema Obscura: Kurosawa's Revenge Double Featue

2011-05-28T00:22:00.000-07:00

Before emerging as an international cult favorite with the slow-burn thriller "Cure" in 1997, Kiyoshi Kurosawa was deeply mired in producing efficient and violent direct to video yakuza cheapies. The six part TV series "Suit Yourself or Shoot Yourself" (1995-1996) had made Kurosawa a well known artist in Japan, and this gave him the license to create further experiments in the yakuza genre, playing with conventions and, ultimately, not really taking the genre very seriously. "The Revenge; Parts 1 and 2" were prime examples of a filmmaker whose boredom with the idea of the embedded yakuza culture gave way to seeing just how oblique he could make the well-worn genre look.

If some studio were to bless Kurosawa with the finances to create an 8 hour gangster flick, I'm certain he'd run with the idea. Like his later films "The Serpent's Path" and "Eyes of the Spider", Kurosawa takes a central theme and tweaks it just enough to back end two films together in alternating fashion. Starring long time regular Sho Aikawa, "The Revenge; Parts 1 and 2" tracks a man's existence from goodly cop to incessant revenge-driven killer after his wife is murdered by the local yakuza. Part 1, titled "A Visit From Fate", is the better of the two parts, building up a slight back story for Aikawa's cop Anjo as his family is murdered before his eyes while he cowers in the closet as a scared five year old. Spared by the seemingly aloof killer, Anjo grows up to become a policeman. After a drug suspect kills himself when running from Anjo later in life, his body is picked up by a guardian, who turns out to be the seemingly benign killer who spared his life as a child. Anjo's tracking of the guardian leads him into the spotlight of a local yakuza gang, so they murder his wife as a warning. From there, Part 1 and Part 2, titled "A Scar That Never Disappears", follows Anjo on his quiet but violent quest to exact revenge.

"The Revenge" feels like a Takeshi Kitano film with all its blank faced gunfire and languid swagger. Anjo and the overweight yakuza member who soon becomes his primary target cross paths at least 4 times and fail to kill each other as they shoot from twenty yards apart, leaving their brawl to continue in the next scene... and then the scene after that. As Anjo, Sho Aikawa is emotionless... like the Asian Terminator. There are hints of yakuza hierarchy, but Kuroswawa's penchant for cutting out the most potent bits of information create an air of comedy as we simply follow Anjo and have to believe in his blood thirsty desire.

While sharing an affinity with his portentous horror films in editing, sound and calculated camera swivels, "The Revenge" plays far less seriously than those previous Kurosawa efforts. And there are still quiet moments of human interaction between the violence though. In Part 2, Aikawa befriends a young female student upstairs and charges her to mend him a suit, which she places on his door handle outside and is never picked up by Anjo. The tall, lanky yakuza member that Anjo spends most of his time with in Part 2 shares an appreciation of chess with Anjo, and they try and complete one game the entire movie as various interruptions always seem to pop up. "The Revenge Double Feature" does have one motive on its mind for most of its 3 hour running time, but the attention to humanity that creates the monsters in Kurosawa's unique universe is never far behind.

Rangers Roadtrip

2011-05-20T16:16:00.000-07:00

Well, I can now scratch one more ballpark off my list. A trip to cloudy and cool Kansas City yielded one great baseball game and some damn fine bar-b-que.

Beautiful, open air ballpark that feels terrific.

Wash having fun and tossing batting practice to his boys.

Elvis warming up.

Derek warming up... and who should have gotten a win after that gem of a game he pitched Thursday night. Luckily, we saw the Wednesday night game where the Rangers did all they could to lose the game, then win it in thrilling extra innings fashion.

One thing I'll never forget about Kaufmann Stadium.... they actually have their "KC Cheer Crew" girls come up after an inning and toss hotdogs into the stands. I guess the vendor walking by could see the open-mouthed gap on our faces and quickly said... "Texas fans huh? Yea.. I think this is weird too. Just wait, later in the game they shoot the hot dogs out of canons."

Top 5 List: More Songs That Should Be Used In a Movie

2011-05-11T20:46:00.000-07:00

5. Smog: Teenage Spaceship

Probably my very favorite Bill Callahan song... subdued, heartbreaking and perfect for one of those long take scenes as someone peers longingly out a window or set to a montage of images. And if I see this scene in a film over the next year, I'm yelling concept copyright infringment.

4. Radiohead: Kinectic

Known for the stingy use of their music in popular art (except, seemingly, for Baz Luhrman and his "Romeo and Juliet" experiment in the mid 90's), this B-side Radiohead track from their "Amnesiac" years is hypnotic to say the least and would fit right in with one of those grungy British kitchen-sink films or maybe a David Lynch epic?

3. The Appleseed Cast- Sunlit Ascending

This relatively unknown (but great) Kansas band deserves bigger success, and what bigger way than tacking this song at the end of a movie where the main character talks directly into the camera about his major emotional breakthrough, cutting to black and this song interrupts.....

2. Beck- Guess I'm Doing Fine

Words don't work in describing this song. Use your imagination for where this song belongs.

1. Radiohead: Last Flowers

Again, so much of their music elicits strong emotions, and "Last Flowers", off their b-sides release to "In Rainbows", would fit nicely into numerous works of art where the lulling piano and Thom Yorke's strained voice add considerable depth to the image.

And a bonus video... for a song that HAS been featured prominently in a movie ("In Between Days") and still stands as one of my faves.

Musings

2011-05-05T20:11:00.000-07:00

Nothing really special to say this week. The glut of near summer movies (i.e. "Thor", "Fast Five") is brain numbing and nothing has gotten me to the theater in a couple weeks. The exception was James Gunn's all-over-the-map indie superhero 'comedy' "Super". It has its moments (Ellen Page especially) but one knows the superhero motif has run its course (much like the zombie genre) when all fragments of the genre have been explored. We now have a low-budget take on the idea. What's left... the mockumentary where a group of elderly citizens dress up and patrol the streets at night? But, hopefully the tide is turning with some interesting fare in the upcoming weeks, "Meek's Cutoff" especially.

Secondly, the Cannes Film Festival gears up, and this clip from Nicolas Winding Refn's upcoming moving entitled "Drive" looks and feels spectacular....as if Walter Hill or Michael Mann had breathed life into the now tired fast-car-movie. Hopefully this film and others at Cannes expose us to some terrific things.

And finally, does anyone remember this:

Going through some boxes of books yesterday, I came across this blast from the past. In the mid 90's, I signed up as a member of Home Film Festival and received this program guide. The idea, renting movies through the mail for flat fees and postage paid, was brand spanking new and I jumped at the chance. Granted, we're talking about VHS tapes here, but for someone with a unique passion of finding films one could not find anywhere else, this was terrific. Home Film Festival exposed me to the films of Jean Pierre Melville, Hou Hsiao Hsien, hard to find Godard, and Lars von Trier. I remember only ordering five or six times, with the pricing of 16 bucks for three tapes, and the idea of actually calling and speaking to someone with ID numbers and titles is definitely antiquated in this streaming and rapid Internet environment, but it got the job done. Good times indeed. I'm glad for the current existence of DVD-R's and Netflix, but there's a special place in my heart for combing through this guide and then having to wait 4-5 days for my VHS selections to arrive. Drop a comment if you remember other pre-Netflix methods of home film exposure.

Produced and Abandoned #10

2011-05-01T17:21:00.000-07:00

Ten more movies that deserve a mainstream region 1 DVD release:

1. City of Hope (1991)- Thank God John Sayles is working again and with a new movie coming out later this year, it got me thinking about this early 90's "mosaic" film which charts numerous subplots in a story of urban politics. I've only seen it twice on VHS years ago and wonder how it holds up today. With a majority of Sayles' fine work available on DVD, this one is a head scratcher.
2. United Red Army (2007)- Japanese director Koji Wakamatsu's three hour epic about the violent internal and external clashes of a terrorist group has screened all over the world at festivals and garnered a French DVD release, but that's all. I've read the final hour of this film- as police attack the Red Army compound- is tremendous. Wakamatsu has led a lengthy and varied career so I suppose the delay on "United Red Army" is no real surprise.
3. The Beaver Trilogy (2000)- Ok, first off I have no idea how good or interesting this experimental project actually is, but the thought of Crispin Glover and Sean Penn playacting the very strange existence of one man named Groovin Gary sounds alluring. I've stumbled across it at various bootleg sites, but never pulled the trigger and paid for it. Thoughts?
4. The Jerusalem File (1972)- Director John Flynn (whose made this list with great, under seen films like "The Outfit" and "Rolling Thunder") adapted this short novel into a 1972 film starring Bruce Davison as an idealistic college student caught up in international politics and violence. With Flynn's track record, I think this could be something great.
5. The Black Windmill (1974)- Starring Michael Caine, directed by Don Siegel... spies and international intrigue. What's not to like.. and I see its available to watch on YouTube!
6. Vanya on 42nd Street (1994)- One of the several Louis Malle films not available on DVD, this was a mainstay on IFC back in the day, starring a young Julianne Moore as an actress rehearsing a play in their studio. The complete lack of costumes and artifice was especially riveting and Malle's gentle touch was evident. A great little film.
7. And God Said To Cain (1970)-Supposedly tough little spaghetti revenge western starring Klaus Kinski. All of the reviews I've read for this film- which apparently stem from a now OOP poor transfer DVD- sound intriguing, with the big standoff happening within the first act, allowing the film to break usual narrative constraints.
8. Knock On Any Door (1947)- So little of Nicholas Ray's films are readily available on DVD, and this his debut, is one of them. It does air on TCM later this month, though.
9. The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1978)- Alan Alda as a senator involved with Supreme Court objections and his increasingly strained home life. Also starring Meryl Streep, "The Seduction of Joe Tynan" sounds like a promising and intelligent political drama. Too bad MGM, one of the studios awfully inept at home video releases, has never really put any faith behind this film. Update: looks like the film was just added to Netflix streaming today, May 3rd!
10. Go Now(1995)- One of Michael Winterbottom's first films about the relationship between a soccer player (Robert Carlyle) whose body begins to betray him. Another indie stalwart that made the rounds on IFC back in the late 90's. Winterbottom, one of my favorite directors, makes this film work despite the mawkish storyline and Carlyle is terrific. It deserves a wide release on DVD.

An Appreciation: Elaine May

2011-04-23T00:59:00.001-07:00

There was little room for women in the new brat pack of the 70's. Either marginalized to the independent fringes such as Barbara Loden or encapsulated within international cinema in the likes of Line Wertmuller or Agnes Varda, the machismo-enraged ticket buyers were interested in large, deadly sharks or casting a fresh eye on the mean streets of New York. But there was another director who produced three stunning films in a five year creative burst amongst the boys. Elaine May. Coming to the silver screen by way of Broadway (and with ex-comedy partner/writer Mike Nichols on her roster of good friends), May never quite got the respect she deserves.... in my opinion at least.

Her initial film, "A New Leaf", which she also wrote, was released in 1971 to good reviews but little box office. Watching it today, not only does it crystallize May's unique ability to write witty (and hilarious) dialogue, but it begins her fascination with the simple interaction between two divergent souls... a theme that will be explored in all her films. Starring Walter Mattheau as a bankrupt New York playboy forced to marry the clumsy and nerdy Henrietta (May in a supporting role) for her money, "A New Leaf" avoids the trappings of its sitcom set-up that many films might have fallen into through its innocent, gleeful and almost Chaplin-esque qualities. Look no further than the awkward meeting of playboy Graham and Henrietta. Comparing it to most comedies of the last 40 years, not only is "A New Leaf" a terrific and tone-perfect debut, but still funny as hell.

In 1972, May directed her second film entitled "The Heartbreak Kid"- which I personally consider her very best. Despite the terminally awful remake by the Farrelly Brothers a few years ago, which fails to capture the supreme awkwardness or humanity of the original, May's film remains an accurate-feeling thermometer of the times. Charles Grodin stars as Lenny Cantrow, newly married to Lila (Jeannie Berlin) and on vacation in Miami for their honeymoon when he meets the much younger and attractive Kelly (a stunning Cybil Shepherd). Growing increasingly addicted to Kelly's beauty Lenny begins to make drastic choices. "The Heartbreak Kid" is a comedy... just a very dark and unsettling one. Inharmonious matrimony and the idea of separating from the stable life established by their 1950's parents, early 70's cinema bore this unrest like a badge of honor. From Cassavetes in "Husbands" to Ingmar Bergman's scathing examination of a marriage on the brink in "Scenes From a Marriage", "The Heartbreak Kid" feels right at home with this malaise, albeit with a smirk and whimper rather than existential guilt. The scene in a seafood restaurant when Lenny tries to announce his feelings about his new found young love goes on for what feels like forever, leaving Lila a crying, miserable mess and the fellow onlookers forced to confront this couple's apocalypse with them. It's a moment alternatively sad and side-splitting funny, with Lenny desperately attempting to talk his way out of it (as he's done most of the movie) and Lila, crying, gasping for air as if she's been gut punched. And in all honesty, May's film does create the alternate life of Lenny and beautiful young Kelly as something more healthy and satisfying. But even then, like her ex-partner's generation-setting masterpiece "The Graduate" 3 years earlier, "The Heartbreak Kid" ends on a resoundingly depressing note for a comedy even after Lenny succeeds in his goal. While "The Heartbreak Kid" does surpass the expectations of a great (if uncomfortable) comedy, it also features some indelible image making, such as the first appearance of Cybil Shepherd, with her face blocking out the sun of a relaxing Lenny on the beach, which in and of itself deserves to be regarded as one of the finest entrances in screen history.

In 1976, May wrote and directed "Mikey and Nicky", a modest drama starring Peter Falk and John Cassavetes. Filmed mostly on location in New York, the film remains May's most potent examination of friendship soured by external forces. Cassavetes plays Nicky, a low rent member of a crime organization holed up for some oblique act he committed against the boss. His best friend, Nicky (Peter Falk) is tasked to murder Mikey. The two men spend a nervous night and morning together as the questions of will he or won't he continue to surface. Played in long takes and full of awkward stammering and the usual Cassavtes-like improv set pieces filled with booze and nervous laughter, "Mikey and Nicky" infuses every moment with bustling New York life and congested street noise. It's certainly May's most visually aggressive film, and one where the subject matter seems to lend confidence, such as a tension-filled scene in a diner where we carefully wait for a payphone to ring. The parlay between Falk and Cassavetes grows stronger as the psychological games mount. Fitting comfortably in neither the crime genre or the buddy movie, "Micky and Nicky" is truly an effort that defies categorization.

Then there was "Ishtar". Released in 1987 at a staggering budget for a comedy, amidst rumors of director and star discontent and unanimously negative reviews, it's a film that basically killed May's career behind the camera. Starring Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman as lounge singers who embark on a circuit tour in Morocco and end up being mistaken for CIA operatives, the film's out of proportion legend far proceeds its actual merit. All of that to say it's not a terrible film, consistently funny and completely indicative of the 1980's buddy comedies of Akroyd, Chase and Murphy. One of the biggest laughs I can remember having at the film is its typical Elaine May conversation that skewers both politics and the almighty dollar. While being 'recruited' in Morocco by CIA officer Charles Grodin, he lures Hoffman with the line of... "we'll pay you 150 dollars a week"... Hoffman- "really?" Grodin- "sure, I mean you can't really put a price on democracy". Then there's the blind camel scene that plays like a another reference to Chaplin... and Hoffman's impersonation of an Arabic auctioneer in the desert... jokes and scenes that feel like rocket science compared to the gross out humor and juvenile antics of current comedies. "Ishtar" certainly doesn't deserve the banishment it's refined in certain circles today, and its a supreme shame that May has never rebounded from the personal and bureaucratic offenses stirred up by the film. She's much too talented to be sitting in the wings. Now, if we could only get a few of these films available on DVD, maybe the retrospective appreciation could begin.

On Hanna

2011-04-19T20:26:00.001-07:00

There's no doubt that director Joe Wright loves all that's technically dazzling when it comes to camera movements. The much talked about tracking shot in his 2007 film "Atonement" is self indulgent, yet my heart still races when I realize I'm in the midst of a specially arranged tracking shot that dares to visualize certain narrative points in unique and challenging ways. While there's not quite the length of this shot anywhere in his latest film, "Hanna", Wright does showcase several technical moments of brilliance in a film that otherwise feels remote.

Starring the young Sairose Ronan- who has quickly amassed a few roles that pose her as an energetic new talent on the brink of something great- "Hanna" sets up the premise that she is a fresh-faced killing machine, trained in the wilderness by her ex-CIA father (Eric Bana) and chased relentlessly by government figure head Cate Blanchett. The moment young Hanna is captured and her innate ability to run, survive and shoot weapons becomes imminent, "Hanna" turns into an eye-catching, post-punk fast and furious romp across downright weird locales bracketed against the techno thumpings of The Chemical Brothers. If nothing else, "Hanna" feels like a modern revenge grrl fantasy, filled with innovative cinematography (by the great Alwin Kulcher) and jaw-dropping set pieces.... such as the image of the very evil Cate Blanchett emerging, literally, from a giant wolf's mouth in an abandoned amusement park. Thrown into the mix is Ronan's dough-eyed connection with the outside world and a friendship with a fellow teenager (Jessica Barden) that quietly slows down the middle section of the film into an offbeat coming of age tale. But its not long before director Wright re-emerges with bullets, sadistic German bounty hunters and lots and lots of running.

Ultimately, I'm split on "Hanna". One side of me wants to celebrate the uniqueness of the film through Wright's esoteric style of filmmaking... such as the long handheld shot of Eric Bana through a bus station, down an elevator and into an underground parking garage where a quick fight ensues with a half dozen agents wanting to bring him in. There's yet another scene early in the film that explores some of Hanna's background, where a handheld tracking shot slowly follows Blanchett's fatal walk up to a burning car. While I loved every second of the anticipation of what was to come, I could hear the grumbling in front of me of "hurry up already". Clearly, parts of "Hanna" are not for mass consumption... and that alone should be enough to recommend. But there's never really a solid connection established for Hanna as a person. It's all surface, neon lights and, at times, MTV-video style ediitng... all aspects of modern film that don't quite lend themselves to strong character interaction. "Hanna" is a noble effort, but not quite. For me, that's the most frustrating thing about 2011 so far and the number of "almost greats" and "not quites".

The Alphabet Meme

2011-04-16T19:15:00.000-07:00

An interesting idea.. and an experiment that tests ones recollection for movie titles at the drop of a hat, but fun nonetheless. Started by the terrific Rupert Pupkin Speaks blog, this meme asks that each participant list their favorite (or random) movie titles alphabetically. There are all types of diversions, so be sure to click on the participants and discover some great movies. So, without further adieu, here's my very 70's edition:

A is for All the President's Men because no other film justifies the idea of truth being in the details... and I hold my breath to this day everytime Pakula films someone simply dialing a phone.

B is for Badlands because the sweet innocence between Sissy Spacek and Martin Sheen still impresses today. And you know, its Malick.

C is for Cemetery Without Crosses, one of the best non Sergio Leone revenge westerns of the late 60's and early 70's..

D is for Day of the Jackal, another riveting 70's police procedural that boasts an international cast and flawless storytelling.

E is for The Exorcist because one its a great film, meticulously framed and edited and two, its damn hard to come up with any other "e" titles of the 70's.

F is for Un Flic, aka "Dirty Money", and the great Jean Pierre Melville's final film about a bank robbery that tailors his penchant for doomed criminals and fatalistic hues. And I'm sorry, but no one films guys in trench coats walking around quite like Melville.

G is for Get Carter because the British are just ballsy about their lone-man-on-a-revenge-spree movies. And Michale Caine is Carter!

H is for Husbands because you know at least one Cassavetes film has to make its way onto this list and for that 30 minute diner scene that runs uncomfortably long like only Cassavetes can orchestrate. In his films, dinners are often like slasher films.

I is for Idaho Transfer. Once available on DVD but now sadly OOP, Peter Fonda's hugely under appreciated time travel movie is definitely a relic of the early 70's, with hippie students playing with time and creating some drastic consequences. Look for it.

J is for Junior Bonner because not only is Steve McQueen a majestic bad ass, but this is probably my favorite Peckinpah film.

K is for The Kremlin Letter. This fun, convoluted spy thriller saw venerable director John Huston move into the 70's (for my money, his most creative period) with a bang. Hard to find, but it does air on cable sometimes and well worth the DVR set.

L is for The Last Picture Show. So many great L titles I could have chosen here, but I have to go with my fav in "The Last Picture Show" because, 40 years on, this film still inhabits the Texas landscape like no other and so closely nails the feelings, moods and whims of the state I call home.

M is for The Master Touch, a well plotted, brilliant heist film that tackles that age old theme of the 'old criminal and his one last job'. Kirk Douglas, doing what many aging film actors did in the 70's, stars in this Italian production of that great genre known as Euro-crime and succeeds with dazzling results. Available on a bare-bones DVD so Netflix it now.

N is for The Nickel Ride, another seemingly forgotten, modest mid 70's character study about a wheeling and dealing neighborhood crime boss trying to hold onto his sanity as modern progress and personal upheavel threaten to override his lifestyle. Jason Miller is terrific and the film darts in several directions that are shocking.

O is for The Odessa File, Jon Voight's best film, directed by the workmanlike (and recently deceased) Ronald Neame that dares to place Nazi hunting into the mainstream.

P is for The Passenger, a thriller like no other, helmed by auteur Michealangelo Antonioni and infused with that sublime paranoia rampant in 70's cinema, made all the more quizzical through Antonioni's methodical avant garde gaze.

Q is for Quintet. Robert Altman's most misunderstood effort? Probably, and not near as bad as everyone claims. In fact, the re-emergence of cold, clinical sci-fi films like "Code 46", "Gattaca" and "The Island" probably owe this film a huge debt.

R is for Return From Witch Mountain, which not only remains one of my very favorite films as a kid, but the one that got me hopelessly attracted to Kim Richards and made me pay to go see movies like "Tuff Turf".

S is for Smile because a re-watch lately makes me think Michael Ritchie's panaromic view of mid 70's California against the backdrop of a beauty contest just might be better than "Nashville". Discuss.

T is for Three Days of the Condor. More trend setting paranoia from the 70's.... can't possibly leave this one off the list.

U is for Up In Smoke. On a Saturday night at 2am, watch this and see if you don't laugh until it hurts.

V is for Vanishing Point. Like the title, somewhere along the half way point, this film becomes something else besides a chase movie. Only in the 70's could artists take something as mundane as muscle cars and transform them into a mythical quest across the cosmos.

W is for Wedding In Blood, Claude Chabrol's deeply moving tale of infidelity dwarfs anything else he made in the 70's. Enigmatic at times, the title alone should tell one this is an alienating study, but well worth the effort to track down and see.

Y is for The Yakuza because Mitchum, like Kirk Douglas earlier, travels to Japan and kicks ass in some great Euro-crime. Sydney Pollack behind the camera doesn't hurt either.

Z is for Zombie, one of those illogically edited and filmed Lucio Fulci splatter fests that always brings a smile to my face when I watch it.

Random Thoughts

2011-04-09T18:28:00.001-07:00

First off... new television. I'm not sure how I got turned onto AMC's new show "The Killing". I rarely watch AMC for their butchering of classic movies with commercials. Maybe it was advertised on the last season of "Breaking Bad" I watched on DVD. Regardless, a fantastic show after just two episodes. The choice of basing its harrowing and sad tale of a pretty 17 year old girl's murder in dreary Seattle is somehow fitting and takes the atmosphere to a whole new level. Lead actress Mireille Enos perfectly portrays a female detective drawn back into the murder on her last day before retiring and starting a new life in San Francisco. The faces she makes when her new partner makes the family a promise to find the killer.... the tired way in which she questions a witness... the lackadaisical strut in which she carries herself establish the character as a new spin on old genre tropes. Set the DVR's.

New music. Two old dogs have resurfaced to make some new noise. First, J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr fame just released a blistering solo album that combines melancholy acoustic numbers mixed in with his heavier trademark slurred guitar. Admittedly, Mascis really always was Dinosaur Jr. so any new work from him makes me very happy.

Unlike Dinosaur Jr, its debatable whether Thurston Moore was the singular driving force behind Sonic Youth's wall of sound. His latest solo album entitled "Demolished Thoughts", due to be released in May, knocked me over with the first song introduced last week. I can't wait for this one.

And finally, RIP to the great Sidney Lumet. I'm extremely glad I completed a retrospective of his work a few years ago. He will be missed on the cinematic landscape.

Current capsules

2011-04-07T17:14:00.000-07:00

Source Code

No sophomore slump for director Duncan Jones. His latest film, the Jake Gyllenhaal/Michelle Monaghan starring sci-fi thriller is even better than is debut film “Moon”. Never straying far from the emotional connection of his main characters (which always lends the loopy sci-fi genre a welcome sense of identification), the film works so well as a thriller because I actually wanted this couple on a bomb-laden train to survive. Through a series of recurring events timed to 8 minutes, Gyllenhaal is the root of a government experiment sending him back in time (or memory rather) to uncover the source of a terrorist attack on a tram outside Chicago. Redundant, of course, as he relives the same eight minutes of time over and over but never boring, director Jones emphasizes each segment with an exciting new perspective. Upping the ante is Gyllenhaal’s human nature curiosity to figure out why he’s involved with this experiment in the first place. All of this comes together in a taut… and even sweet… mind bending finale.

Insidious

Dissonant piano chords… a bleached out, flat visual style…. And a title card that literally jumps off the screen with aggression… James Wan’s “Insidious” starts out as a slow burn horror movie and evolves into something pretty disturbing. The moments early on- involving the ominous use of a baby monitor and the horrific sounding voice it picks up- more than make “Insidious” an enjoyable haunted house story for people wanting to jump a bit. And then, when Wan and screenwriter Leigh Whannell begin to explore ideas of astral projection, demon channeling and dream walks into hell in the second half, “Insidious” becomes something altogether terrifying. I give the filmmakers credit for not playing it safe. This is not the usual horror movie and (thankfully) a huge departure for Wan and Wannell with their “Saw” franchise, completely devoid of blood and gore. In the final 30 minutes, “Insidious” travels to some insane places and I found it genuinely unsettling, much like Rob Zombie’s “House of 1000 Corpses”. Both films use the standard genre to spin their own macabre tales replete with odd images and unique editing styles that propel shadowy craziness into new heights. A new midnight cult classic for sure and one of the first great viewing experiences of 2011.

Certified Copy

Abbas Kiarostami’s “Certified Copy” continues on his penchant for meta-cinema of the highest order. Alongside his great 1991 film “Close Up”- which dared to mix up cinema, voyeurism and documentary with head spinning acuity- “Certified Copy” follows a couple, writer James (William Shimell) and antique dealer Elle (Juliette Bincohe) as they (possibly) first meet and then spend the day together playacting a relationship with both themselves and strangers in the sunny Italian countryside. Trying to decipher whether their relationship truly is real or not (which the beginning gives hints to both sides of the coin) seems inconsequential. “Certified Copy” is Kiarostami inverting the meet-cute romance genre into a war of words, body language and imagination. Binoche is simply brilliant here, running the gamut of emotions with ease.

70's Bonanza: Sitting Target

2011-04-02T19:56:00.001-07:00

Douglas Hickox's 1972 crime film, "Sitting Target" begins as a prison break-out film before turning into a revenge thriller of the highest possible order... and all of it is very angry. Starring Oliver Reed as Harry Lomart, a British thug sent to prison, the opening moments see him sitting down for a visitation from his lovely wife (Jill St John), who proceeds to tell him that even though she's pregnant, she'll be divorcing him and marrying another man. Lomart proceeds to punch his way through the glass and unsuccessfully strangle his wife. Thrown in the hole for 30 days, Lomart has plenty of time to think of the devious ways he'll make his wife pay for her unwillingness to wait for him. Alongside partner in crime Birdy (a very young Ian McShane) Lomart makes his break from prison in a taut sequence of wall climbing and barb-wire vaulting into the free world. From there, "Sitting Target" becomes a meticulous pattern of tracking down old cohorts, procuring weapons and carrying out their plan of revenge.

Director Hickox (a personal favorite auteur for Quentin Tarantino) frames "Sitting Target" in visually aggressive ways. In prison, the main characters are represented by stilted angles behind bars. On the outside, one of the main sets is an apartment where Birdy and Harry corner and trap the girlfriend of an old cohort. There are rumblings of past deceptions amongst the band of thieves and Lomart and Birdy menacingly wait for their old partner to return home. In an apartment full of mirrors on the doors and ceiling, "Sitting Target" becomes a paranoid longueur as they flirt with the cornered girlfriend and (eventually) take advantage of her.

But it's not long before the burning desire of Lomart takes control and "Sitting Target" gets down to the nitty-gritty of its central revenge idea. Of course, this is the 70's (and British no less) and "Sitting Target" spins into a nihilistic and especially violent denouement. If nothing else, the film is worth seeing for Oliver Reed's determined performance that will almost turn your stomach for his single minded obsession for payback. Made immediately after Ken Russell's maniacle epic "The Devils", one can't say Reed wasn't pushing the boundaries of stardom.

Top 5 List: In Space, No One Can Hear You Go Mad

2011-03-20T19:34:00.001-07:00

5. The Dark Side of the Moon

Probably the most obscure movie on this list, it's still immensely entertaining in that direct-to-video early 90's way. Written about at length here, "The Dark Side of the Moon" was directed by no one of real fame (DJ Webster) and starred no one of real notoriety. But it does seem to come from a genuine place and it does tweak the idea of madness in space into some interesting theories about the dark side of the moon, the Bermuda Triangle.... and the devil himself. The production values do lack something, but its the film's atmosphere that more than makes up for any economic shortcomings.

4. Planet of the Vampires

Now here's a really interesting film. Ever wonder how one of those Italian giallo films would play in space? Mario Bava attempts just that here with "Planet of the Vampires". Take all the visual trademarks of the wildly popular giallo genre- i.e. garish lighting, extravagantly cheap looking costumes, fog drenched settings and a distinct emphasis on obscuring the killer or killers through POV shots or off screen menace- and one gets the basic set up. But I make "Planet of the Vampires" sound worse than it is. I actually really like this film and it does build up some incredible tension while leapfrogging the idea of "madness in space" for future consumption. A crew of astronauts lose contact with their shipmates and are forced to land on a strange planet where the crew members begin to resort to mind-numbing fits of rage and violence against one another. Bava stretches out the appearance of the 'vampires' to sustain the film's thriller status while developing a unique metaphor for our modern definition of vampire. Bava's film has long been out of print, but i recently emerged on Netflix's streaming service.

3. Sphere

Ok, a bit of a cheat here, I admit. "Sphere" takes place under the ocean instead of outer space, but its emphasis on cramped confinements, lost space ships and side plots involving the 4 specialists (Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone, Liev Schrieber and Sam Jackson) facing their worst fears all fit into this list. I'm an unabashed lover of Barry Levinson's somewhat loopy and intellectually stuffy adaptation of Michael Crichton's novel, and the film hasn't diminished in my opinion since seeing it opening night back in 1998. "Sphere" tosses out alot of ideas- time travel, psycholgical warfare, killer jellyfish- and its oblique ending never registered with the mainstream movie-going public and that's a shame. "Sphere" still remains an under appreciated film that examines the treacherous outcome of dealing with extraterrestrial methods, even when the best minds in the world are in charge.

2. Event Horizon

For many movie fans of my generation, "Event Horizon" was THE best madness in space film to come along. Not only is it an effective science fiction tale, but an out and out horror film that managed to combine the best elements of both genres. Starring Laurence Fishburne, Sam Neill, Kathleen Quinlan and Joely Richardson, the crew is assigned to recovering a ship that was lost years earlier and then re-appears. Of course, something evil is brought aboard and each astronaut is forced to confront some of their scariest thoughts. The joy of "Event Horizon" is not in the reductive narrative, but its eerily timed scares and psychological dread. Director Paul W.S. Anderson has gone on to create some really awful muck, but "Event Horizon" has that something that still makes it relevant for this type of list.

1. Solaris (1972) and Solaris (2002)

The definitive films about the possible ill-fated effects of a lonely trek through outer space, I suppose the real master of the genre is Russian novelist Stamislaw Lem who wrote the original novel. A grounbreaking mixture of guilt, science fiction and political repression, the novel is a terrific read which gives us two very different films. Russian auteur Andrei Tarkovsky's version of the novel is ponderous and trance-inducing with its long stretches of space travel (and earthbound travel as well). Stephen Soderbergh's 2002 update runs half the length of Tarkovsky's original but has a serene style all its own. Though visually miles apart, both films retain the central idea of an astronaut growing increasingly mad by the effects of the planet Solaris. These two efforts may seem like easy additions to the madness in space genre, but they're both illuminating pieces of art that continue to expand and open up new ideas everytime I watch them.

DVD Shout Out: It's Kind of a Funny Story

2011-03-17T17:31:00.000-07:00

There are always those films that slip the cracks, and for me, Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden's "It's Kind of A Funny Story" is one of them. Arriving and disappearing from theaters in the blink of an eye last year,I can assuredly say that if I had seen it earlier, it would have surely ranked pretty high on my official list of the best of the year.

Fleck and Boden have amassed an incredible track record of piercing films, from the indie drama "Half Nelson" to the acutely moving minor league baseball saga known as "Sugar". So I suppose it really comes as no surprise that they hit another home run here with this modest, affectionate and sweetly engrossing film starring Keir Gilchrist as a somewhat depressed (but mostly stressed out) student who checks himself into a mental hospital and ends up helping everyone else more than himself. It all sounds horribly cliched, and there are a few moments of Wes Anderson-like whimsy in the first half that threaten to engulf the narrative, but "It's Kind of a Funny Story" also hits such high notes of honesty and cathartic energy between its characters that it comes off as something more.

And then comes this scene:

... and from there on I was hooked. Emma Roberts, the suicidal teenager who forms a relationship with Craig (Gilchrest), doesn't formulate a role full of nervous ticks or emo irrationality. It's a very human performance. And that's the real beauty of the film, which is based on the acclaimed autobiographical novel by Ned Vizzini. Even though the central setting is a mental ward and the jokes could be simple jabs at insanity, each charatcer is developed with warmth, humor and depth. There's the weird, but ultimately charming, way in which a fellow patient named Johnny (Adrian Martinez) whispers "Johnny don't phone kiss" at the end of a telephone call.... or the immense performance by Zach Galifianakis as the man who quickly befriends Craig. While the film never specifically spells out his troubles or the outcome of his problems, Galifianakis portrays Bobby as someone caught in the downward spiral of life with little idea of how to stop-gap the issues. Again, its a very human performance that displays humor, rage and complete understanding.

With a soundtrack by Broken Social Scene and Fleck/Boden's natural instinct for editing and camera movement- i.e. a glorious tracking shot down a hospital hallway as Gilchrest and Roberts try to find their way to the roof or a strong cut to her face as she blows away an eyelash he's just removed from her face- "It's Kind of a Funny Story" should not have gotten lost in the Holiday season rush last year. It's a distinct pleasure.

Revisiting the Faves: The Bed You Sleep In

2011-03-14T17:52:00.001-07:00

"The Bed You Sleep In" ranked as one of my favorite films from 2002.

Jon Jost made what was perhaps his most accessible film with "The Bed You Sleep In", a modest drama that weaves two types of narrative filmmaking into a perfect blend of image and emotion. Known for his avant garde works of the 80's and 90's (which, sadly, very few are available on any type of home video distribution), "The Bed You Sleep In" was produced in 1993 but didn't see much of a distribution until 2002 when I caught up with it at the Dallas Video Festival. Part documentary about the slow Pacific Northwestern life of dwellers along the Oregon coast and part searing family drama, "The Bed You Sleep In" stars Tom Blair as Ray, a lumber mill owner besieged by all types of bad luck. A recent government initiative to tax a certain type of wood threatens his livelihood and business. He's affronted by a young wandering preacher (Thomas Morris) who warns of dire future consequences if he doesn't change his ways. Then, in an unnerving shift in tone, Ray comes home one day to find his wife, crying and distraught over the letter written by their daughter who's away at college. It levies particularly harsh blame at the feet of Ray. Crafted like an intimate novel, the remainder of the film plays out like a complicated guessing game of guilt and refusal, working itself out through its characters' slow-speech pattern and trance-like dissolves. It's certainly a Jost film.

As previously mentioned, "The Bed You Sleep In" feels as if its broken into two distinct parts. For the first hour or so, Jost is content to establish mood and place through long, static exterior shots of the unique Northwestern town where the film takes place. From the rusted steel of street barriers to a gentle running stream between a rain-soaked landscape, "The Bed You Sleep In" could be taken as a tourist advertisement for the area's very Zen like exteriors. In the film's most bravura set-piece, Jost examines the minutia of the town's greasy spoon diner through an elegant, four minute tracking shot that pivots and turns 360 degress around every corner of the restaurant, eavesdropping on the customer's conversations and displaying the complex actions attributed to serving the dishes behind the counter. At first, this may seem like cinematic gamesmanship (which Jost is very adept at, by the way), but it serves a purpose as well. "The Bed You Sleep In" takes its time and seems to absorb the very lifestyle of Ray, mapping out his comfort zone so when the bomb drops later, we fall into the tragic circumstances. Basically, its the inaction of a travelogue film turning radically active later.

The consequences, as foreshadowed by the wandering preacher, do come home to roost for Ray, and Jost handles it with the rigor in which he handles most everything in his career... a slow dissolve with Ray's face covering the blue tinted windhsield of his car as he drives. "The Bed You Sleep In" doesn't aim for tragic melodrama, but it very nearly gets there in its own unique way.

"The Bed You Sleep In" is available on DVD.

New Stuff, Finally

2011-03-11T17:17:00.000-08:00

The Adjustment Bureau

George Nolfi’s directorial debut, “The Adjustment Bureau”, is an involving and slightly loopy love story that works itself out through the enormous chemistry between Matt Damon and the lovely Emily Blunt. Essentially a tale about the choice between free will and the more darker-themed tones of a matrix-like web of higher authority, the film never misses a beat. Emily Blunt, who I’ve admired for several films now, lights up with the screen with every appearance and its on the interaction between her and Matt Damon that the film wins the viewer over. Basically, this is a sci-fi story with heart. When things get downright other worldly at the end, I was pulling for Blunt and Damon. But the real star here is the Philip K. Dick story that “The Adjustment Bureau” is based upon. Dick continues to provide Hollywood with a wealth of ideas based on his intelligently progressive short stories and “The Adjustment Bureau” (adapted by ex-screenwriter Nofli himself) retains the verve of science fiction while maintaining an emotional core that doesn’t feel out of place in the slate of good modern love stories. A very nice way to start out my early movie-going year.

Hall Pass

Maybe I should have waited to write the above line before succumbing to the slight urge to see the latest Farrelly Brothers movie, “Hall Pass”. I would say their career is long beyond the apex of “There’s Something About Mary”, or does that film simply live in my memory for its groundbreaking use of gross/shock humor in the mid to late 90’s? Either way, they try to regain their comedic maestro crown again with more shock humor, including penis jokes, frontal male nudity and a sneezing scene that could give the hair gel scene a run for its money. The problem… none of it even made me snicker. It all feels like the film is trying way too hard to push the limits, which seems to be the fault of so many comedies today. Owen Wilson, Jason Sudeikis, Jenna Fisher and the incredibly funny Christina Applegate seem wasted as the married couples taking a breather from each other in order to reclaim their golden days of being single. The most touching moments in this film have to do with the realizations that everyone is passed their prime, especially when the guys’ first night out on the town ends up as a gorge-fest on food at the local Applebees… something we can all relate to. Less relatable is the idea that a golden beauty like Nicky Whelan would be attracted to Owen Wilson… or maybe even that Applegate would have married a guy like Sudeikis? I’m analyzing “Hall Pass” more than it deserves. Pretty awful.

Cold Weather

Aaron Katz, whose previous features “Quiet City” and “Dance Party USA’ where introspective additions to the DIY movement of current independent filmmaking, ups the ante a bit with a low-fi thriller of sorts in “Cold Weather”. Cris Lankeneau is Doug, a Portland, Oregon native stuck in a dead end job with an affection for Sherlock Holmes novels. When his ex-girlfriend visits town and promptly disappears, Doug enlists the help of his sister (Trieste Kelly Dunn) and friend Carlo (Raoul Castillo) to investigate the matter. Katz’s interest here resides less in a tidy resolution to the mystery aspects of the film, which makes it a defiantly proper “mumble core” movie in which atmosphere and awkward silence is more of a preoccupation than narrative cohesiveness. “Cold Weather” is a challenging film, none more so than the fact that Katz so eloquently builds up momentum in its thriller aspect only to disappoint with an anti-climactic finale that has one scratching their heads. I’m all for oblique endings (see “No Country For Old Men”), but “Cold Weather” leaves one with very little to savor after its abrupt ending.

Children Of War: Edward Yang's "A Brighter Summer Day"

2011-03-08T18:27:00.001-08:00

In the annuls of ironic film titles, Edward Yang's 4 hour masterpiece certainly takes the cake. Taking place in the summer of 1959 and the following year, Yang's film is autobiographical in the sense that his family lived through the same turbulent times. Yang's family was displaced from China into Taiwan during the late 40's and the film's slow-evolving burst of violence is based on an actual incident. Everything in between is immersing and, at times, overwhelming. "A Brighter Summer Day" does focus on one central family (and essentially a young boy named Sir) as they face problems both intimately and politically.

Released in 1991 and growing marginally over the next few years where it received critical support slowly when it was shown at various film festivals or Yang retrospectives, "A Brighter Summer Day" has been my number one sought after film for several years now and it doesn't disappoint. It's length is almost necessary... observing a sprawling group of students and street gangs as they fall in love, fight with each other, deal with domestic problems within their families and, perhaps most importantly, swoon with Elvis Presley records and diligently decipher the lyrics. Still, the street gang violence eventually overtakes as the crux of the film, with its many young child stars evolving from innocent bouts of fistfighting and gangster posturing to bats and samurai swords. Yang quietly belies the fact that the children's seething angst mirrors the unhappiness of their parents resentment for leaving their homeland for an uncertain future.

Like the films of Hou Hsiao-Hsien, "A Brighter Summer Day" is an instinctual film. Yang never rushes any shots, resorts to simple camera movement and gentle dollies to enhance the narrative, and allows the lingering strands of his multiple stories to breathe. For example, one of the surface characters is gang leader Honey. He's only mentioned for the first two hours or so, and when he does finally arrive on-screen, his name is never mentioned but the viewer gets an immediate idea of his presence. And while the many gang fights can be disorienting as to their root cause (and Yang doesn't help matters by obscuring most of them at night time or during a driving rainstorm), what's important is the gradual impact they have on Sir (Chen Chang) and his impressionable group of friends. Thrown into the mix are several girlfriends to the gangs that only raise the hormone and jealousy level, eventually causing the roof to blow off in shocking ways.

Yang would make several more films after "A Brighter Summer Day" dealing with some of the same issues of cultural and political displacement. Of course, 2001 would bring him international acclaim with his powerful film "Yi Yi". That would be the last film he would make, passing away from cancer in 2007. I can't imagine a more inspiring way to memorialize a life in "A Brighter Summer Day". It's full of so many gentle moments amid the violence and it lovingly recreates the excitement of discovering rock and roll music like few films. Our first loves may not result in the type of violence that spews out in Sir, but the feeling of uncertaintly and the desire to simply blend in are universal themes and "A Brighter Summer Day" crystallize it.

Produced and Abandoned #9

2011-03-04T22:11:00.001-08:00

Ten more titles deserving a commercial DVD release.

1. The Bed Sitting Room (1969)- Richard Lester's post apocalyptic... comedy? Avant garde absurdest drama? I've only heard it described as an extremely loony affair and I just know I have to see it. Update: looks like its available on Netflix Instant Play and a showing is scheduled on TCM later this month.
2. Ministry of Fear (1944)- Fritz Lang's nightmarish film is odd, but highly effective. The first half of this film plays like a 40’s David Lynch movie- including a suburban carnival that takes place at midnight, an eerie entrance for a blind man on a train and a seance sequence that ends in murder. Once the plot (concerning Ray Milland being mistaken for a spy and hunted by a shadow NAZI organization) is defined, “Ministry of Fear” becomes a little more commercial in its second half. Still, fans of Lang deserve to have this available.
3. Puzzle of a Downfall Child (1970)- Jerry Schatzberg's psychological drama about a model (Faye Dunaway) having a nervous breakdown leads the pack of under-represented Schatzberg on DVD, followed by "The Seduction of Joe Tynan", "Street Smart" and "Sweet Revenge".
4. The Stone Tape (1972)- British television show that scared the shit out of me as a kid. I found a copy recently, and while it's not as terrifying as I remembered, its primal exploration of ghost phenomenon recording devices and bare-bones chills (ohh that high pitched scream) manage to create an entertaining viewing experience.
5. The Stolen Children (1992)- Gianni Amelio would make waves a few years later with his well regarded 1995 film "L,America", but "The Stolen Children" ranked in quite a few lists in '92 and took home the Grand Jury Prize at that year's Cannes Film Festival.
6. Mickey One (1965)- It's still a shame that Arthur Penn's ode to the French New Wave isn't readily available. Warren Beatty gives a fairly vapid performance, but part of that's the point. As a nightclub performer mixed up with the mob, Penn's black and white cinematography continually offers something new and the use of disorientation and dream sequences giddily recall Fellini. Sure, "Mickey One" can be found quite easily on cable, but it would still be nice to own the DVD.
7. Kid Blue (1973)- One more of the lost Dennis Hopper films of the 70's by veteran TV director James Frawley, its narrative recalls the story of a young man (Hopper) who arrives in a small Texas town and becomes involved with seduction and crime. I've often read this is yet another under seen revisionist western in the loosest of terms. It also stars Peter Boyle and Warren Oates.
8. Many Wars Ago (1970)- Another Francesco Rosi makes the list. I admire this Italian director so much, yet so little of his work is available. I'm not holding out much hope for this one either, as google searches yield very little besides an obscure San Francisco screening 5 years ago. I suppose I should be glad there's at least one print out there. This film tracks the disastrous results of an Italian army unit's attack during World War I. Also known as "Not Another War".
9. Little Fauss and Big Halsey (1970)- "A story of two motorcycle racers, the inept, unsuspecting Little Faus (Micheal J.Pollard) and the opportunistic, womanizing Halsey Knox (Redford)".... from the imdb.com description. Go to any MIA DVD movie list and this title shows up over and over and over....
10. Dudes (1987)- Antone else besides me remember this movie from the VHS cover? Jon Cryer and someone else dressed as cowboy and indian?

These cd's are breaking the bank

2011-02-28T19:11:00.000-08:00

I've already purchased, downloaded, or otherwise cribbed more music in the first two months of this year than I did in all twelve months of last. Unlike Hollywood, the music biz has a knack for front loading the early months of the year with typical blockbuster results. A few items to be aware of... that is if you share my taste in music.

Yuck. Yuck is both the band name and the title of their debut album. Read any blog or review of their music and the inevitable mention of Dinosaur Jr or Sonic Youth are repetitious, yet undeniable. At a compact 48 minutes, their album is immensely entertaining and full of talent to burn, evoking that nineties sound of slurring guitars and lazy lyrics like old pros.

The Twilight Singers. Been a fan of Greg Dulli since The Afghan Whigs... a band that was all the rage in the early nineties (and whose phenomenal album "Gentlemen" still stands the test of time as a crushing collection of dread-filled love songs and anguish). I'm glad Greg hasn't gone softly into that sweet night, still tooling around in various outfits and still screaming his lungs out. The Twilight Singers have been producing some great, obscure music since the early 00's and their latest is due out next week. The parts I have heard are just as radiant as anything else they've completed.

And the best....cover.....ever of a Bjork song by Dulli and company:

Not to mention new releases from Mogwai as well as And You Will Know Us By the Trail Of The Dead that have yet to be released from their packaging. Yes, my friends, I'm a child of the 80's and 90's and I still buy cd's. Plus there's a new album by this little band called Radiohead that I'm (again) fully falling in love with.

70's Bonanza: Alice In the Cities

2011-02-20T16:53:00.000-08:00

Wim Wenders "Alice In the Cities" could be considered the first in a long line of films that deal with the search of.... something. Released in 1974, next would come his opus travelogue film "Kings of the Road", followed years later by men and women wandering the continent in diverse efforts such as "Paris, Texas", "Don't Come Knocking" and especially "Until the End of the World". Wenders common narrative device is the travelogue film and no one does it quite like him.

Starring Rudiger Volger, "Alice In the Cities" deals with that standard 70's and 80's storyline about the adult saddled with a precocious young 'un. But the difference here is the film's utter lack of emotion. Volger does bond and seemingly come to care for the 9 year old girl (Yella Rottlander) left to him unexpectedly by a woman he befriends while waiting for a plane ride home out of New York, but Wenders style is disassociation with feelings. When the young girl leads her guardian on a wild goose chase to track down her grandmother, Volger's reaction is one of quiet frustration, followed by a stirring of his coffee and then a "ok, what next?" Like the observational exactitude Wenders shows in the film's many passing car window shots (by great DP Robby Muller), "Alice In the Cities" not only lays a profound blueprint for the sensibilities of Wenders the director, but it's a quiet film that revels in the settling relationship between two people through conversation and body language.

While "Alice In the Cities" does traverse the great shores of America, through the admitted ugliness of Amsterdam by its two lead characters and eventually into the boroughs of Germany, it's mainly an internal film about Volger's failed journalist. In the opening of the film, we see him addicted to snapping Polaroid shots of mundane items as he travels by car to New York. Once there, we learn his publisher is furious at the fact that all he has to show for his bounces around the U.S. is a box of photos. His notepad, full of "scribblings" reveals no story. He holes up in a hotel room, annoyed by the continuous rantings of TV commercials and talk radio and smashes his television set on the floor. So, naturally, the prospect of towing a 9 year old around the world with little or no direction on how to find her relatives seems like an inviting chore for Volger. And it's in this emptiness that "Alice In the Cities" begins to manifest a sincere appreciation of story. The ending, both uplifting and subtly moving, sustains the idea that the journey is often times more rewarding than the destination. As in "Alice In the Cities", this is an idea Wenders has been reworking magically for decades.

This film is not available on Region 1 DVD.

Regional Review: August Evening

2011-02-16T20:26:00.000-08:00

Chris Eska's "August Evening" feels like a seminal Texas film. In capturing the humid, lazy evenings of Southeast Texas and those beautiful orange skies that temporarily pop up in the summer months, "August Evening" speaks volumes about a certain lifestyle. But things can also be hard in this idyllic setting, as the film soon reveals. After the death of her mother, Lupe (Veronica Loren) and her migrant worker father-in-law Jaime (Pedro Castaneda), leave their small shack and bounce back and forth between family members in San Antonio as they desperately try to find a place in this quickly evolving world. Lupe, once married but resistant to meeting anyone new for oblique reasons, forms a relationship with Luis (Walter Perez) that develops in patient, gentle ways.

The initial reaction to "August Evening" is to lump it in with other films that document the rough struggle of Hispanic men and women to fit into the American sideline of life. But a majority of the men and women in Eska's film have already successfully adapted and conquered the hardships of this transition. Jaime's daughter, Andrea (Grisel Rodrigues) is married to a rich white man... so busy with her own life that she doesn't even spend a day at home with her father after the funeral of her mother. And when Jaime and Lupe travel to San Antonio, she gives them shelter for a few days, but finds that putting up with two more people in their luxurious house is too much of a chore and shuttles them off to Victor (Abel Becerra), her brother. Victor's situation is just as stressful, compromised all the more when Lupe mistakenly allows Victor's youngest son to wander away from the house... a plot device that spells out just how vastly different life is from their country shack to the cosmopolitan San Antonio. The main point of "August Evening", while drawing out small sketches of personality in its well-drawn characters, is that life is hard in America, but it's even harder amongst this individual family.

Filmed in the mid-Sothern parts of Texas such as Boerne and Gonzales Texas (i.e. the hinterlands south of Austin and north of San Antonio), Eska nails the laziness these parts of the exude. And while the brilliant sunsets and humidity leak off the screen, most realistic is the sound of crickets that swells and dies off in one scene. Anyone spending any time in Texas surely understands that unmistakable chorus. Released in 2008, "August Evening" was a feature in South By Southwest that year after winning the John Cassavettes award at Sundance in January. The award, which recognizes the best feature made for under $500,000, gives filmmaker Eska a bright future, but once one watches "August Evening", the proof is right there on the screen.

What's In the Netflix Queue #31

2011-02-11T19:31:00.001-08:00

1. Goliath- Micro indie auteur David Zellner's story about a man who finds his life coming apart. I wasn't a fan of Zellner's previous film "Dear Pillow", but this film did win some great word of mouth at the '08 Sundance Film Festival.
2. Everything's Fine- Robert DeNiro received some subtle praise for this film about a man who tries to visit and reconnect with his children. This one kinda got lost in the shuffle. I meant to watch it towards the end of 2009, then never did, then it just ended up in the middle of my queue.
3. Backtrack- One of the few films I added after the death of Dennis Hopper and the only film he directed that I've yet to see. I'm not holding out much anticipation, though, as I see the dreaded "Alan Smithee" is also attached to the thing. But damn that cast- Jodie Foster, John Turturro, Dean Stockwell....
4. Joy House- Rene Clement's mood 60's crime romance about a gangster hiding out in a mansion, falling for two different ladies... one of them Jane Fonda. Part of the Alain Delon box set released early last year.
5. Night Train To Munich- Directed by Carol Reed.... Nazis... World War 2 intrigue. I'm already hooked.
6. Femme Fatale- Giving this one a re watch. Definitely the high point for DePalma since the late 90's. I haven't seen it since watching it on opening night and wonder if it holds up.
7. Murder ala Mode/The Moving Finger- Early DePalma movie that looks to be packaged as one of those cheap "drive in" spectacular box sets... and very surprised to see such an oddity from DePalma represented on DVD. The other film, titled "The Moving Finger" sounds more intriguing though: "A rare beatnik artifact of the early 1960s, one of only a few such films made before the hippies took over Hollywood. Low budget and in b&w, it's set in Greenwich Village, with what seems like a mostly improvised script. It begins as a late film noir crime tale involving a bank robbery where only one of a group of thieves escapes with his life, as well as $90,000 in loot. Injured and on the run, he hides in a local tour bus and is soon taken in by a group of bohemians who shoot him full of morphine to ease his pain and let him sleep it off on a mattress. Mason is the head beatnik. There's also the owner of both an upstairs coffeehouse and garret, where these beatniks hang out. They, in turn, bring the tourist trade in. Although the robbery is supposed to be the main focus of the plot, it quickly turns into more of a character study featuring these rebellious bon vivants and their odd lifestyle..." Written by Richard Santoro
8. The American Friend- I'm about to go on a Wim Wenders bender. Recently, a friend gave me bootleg copies of two Wenders films that have always eluded me- "Kings of the Road" and "Alice In the Cities". Can't wait to dig into those two as well as revisiting this late 70's German New Wave masterpiece that blends American crime, comedy and film noir into a trance-inducing thing of beauty.
9. The Deep- I feel I've seen this one, but upon looking over the filmography of Peter Yates after his recent death, it was one of the few I didn't have rated. Nazi gold, deep sea diving, Jacqueline Bisset.... and all on Blu Ray as well!
10. The Sender- This is one of those shots in the dark that can either yield a tremendous experience or another early 80's trash horror flick. I added it last year during the month of October and just continued to shift movies over it. Recently, while thumbing through an old copy of Film Comment, I noticed the film listed on several "Ten Best" lists in that issue from '82. The story: "When a young man (Zeljko Ivanek) attempts suicide and fails, he's rewarded with a long-term stay in a mental hospital, where he begins exhibiting even stranger behavior. A staff psychiatrist (Kathryn Harrold) seems to be the only one willing to believe that the new patient is telepathically controlling the minds of the doctors and patients around him. But just how is he able to unleash his darkest nightmares upon them?"

Thoughts on any of these titles or ones I should add, please drop a comment.

Unintentional Double Bill: Army of Crime and The Way Back

2011-02-07T18:41:00.000-08:00

Robert Guediguian’s “Army Of Crime” and Peter Weir’s “The Way Back” exemplify two of the most prolific and popular genre threads of the second World War: resistance and incarceration. In fact, it could almost be believed that the select few survivors in “Army Of Crime” morph into the headstrong and resilient escapees in Weir’s brutally harsh drama about seven people trekking 4,000 km to freedom.

Upon first glance, “Army Of Crime” seems like a reductive title and all the more derivative for its mimic on the great Resistance film by Jean Pierre Melville’s “Army of Shadows”. But as Guediguian’s film later offers, the title comes as an ironic pitch of freedom, taken directly from the propaganda quotes plastered on posters by the German Army. While the initial reading of the title seems to infer the Resistance group, led by Armenain poet Missak (Simon Abkarian), are condemned for their violent acts, the reading of this famous quote at their quasi trial and conviction evolves into a rally cry of patriotic crusading. Still, all that rhetoric aside, “Army Of Crime” is an immensely moving and lovingly crafted documentation of the very origins of the French Resistance, led by foreign immigrants and Franco-Jewish outcasts. There’s the aforementioned cell leader, Missak, trying to shelter his beautiful wife (Virginie Ledoyen in a great performance) from the possible consequences of his actions. He leads several young men into retaliation missions around Paris. There’s Marcel (Robinson Stevenin) a promising swimmer who can’t control his hatred of the German Army and carries out solo assassinations by himself. His fourteen year old brother Simon (Leopold Szabatura) is also caught up in the violence. The sensitive young Thomas Elek (Gregoire Leprince-Ringuit) discovers just how hard it is to throw a grenade into a brothel. Like “Army of Shadows”, Guediguian’s film tracks a myriad of characters where deception and snitching is only a step behind. But whereas Melville’s film was a hermetic examination of the militaristic structure of the Resistance, “Army Of Crime” backs up a few years before there was a strong structural foundation. “Army Of Crime” also does a terrific job of showing the hard consequences this rag-tag band of freedom fighters brought upon their families. The mother of Thomas Elek doesn’t partake in crimes herself, yet she loses her business when the collaborating French police ransack her restaurant. Her only comments on the situation resonate when, after seeing Thomas come home late one night, she remarks that she knows he’s safe now that he’s home and she’s glad his actions are part of a larger conscience. While “Army Of Crime” largely concerns itself with the well edited and exciting sequences of violence and subterfuge, it also carries an enormous amount of respect and emotion for the more mundane details in these people’s lives.

Fatalistic from the very opening scene, there’s little doubt for the livelihood of this small Resistance group in “Army Of Crime“. As the end credits suggest, only three of the men and women survived the war in concentration camps. “Army Of Crime” is a hugely overlooked entry in the genre of World War 2 Resistance films. Shown as part of the Rendezvous With French Cinema series in New York in March of last year, it received a marginal release in theaters but has found its way onto a sunning Blu-Ray edition.

Peter Weir’s “The Way Back” gives a select few of these imprisoned people a small slice of hope. As the film opens, young Janusz (Jim Sturgess) has been condemned as a Party conspirator by his very own wife and sentenced to the harsh confines of a work camp in Siberia. He struggles through daily life until an escape plan falls into his sights. With an aging American (Ed Harris), a violent Russian thief (Colin Farrell) and several others in tow, Weir’s film is a trip though the most uninhabitable part of the Eastern world as the men travel towards freedom in Mongolia and then eventually India. Partly financed by National Geographic, Weird does his best to frame the film in a stately manner, revealing the incarceration by nature with extreme force. His main visual trope, though, does work as he commonly pans around the edge of a mountain or sand drift to reveal the characters slogging through an endless sea of blowing snow or heated sand dunes. While the characters themselves are mostly stock, “The Way Back” is an invigorating tale of survival that never holds back easy sentiments. There are key deaths and grisly ideas hinted at (think cannibalism). The ending is a bit stretched, yet it somehow works and adds depth to the main character of Janusz and the single-minded determination of his group of escapees to die free men.

Perhaps the best link between both films here is the enduring wish to give familes a reprieve from the seemingly hopeless environment of Europe during World War 2. For Missak in “Army Of Crime“, it’s the simple wish that his wife will survive and have a child. For Janusz, his long trip is all about redemption and forgiveness. Yes, both films place themselves in the murky and amoral times of war, but as “Army Of Crime” and “The Way Back” show, the only tangible motivation is the preservation of human life for generations to come.

Cinema Obscura: Girl Of Time

2011-02-04T16:31:00.001-08:00

While I wasn't a huge admirer of Nobuhiko Obayashi's smash cult success "House" late last year, his work has been on my radar now. Anytime a virtual unknown is rediscovered and given a proper Blu Ray Criterion release, my cinematic senses spike. Obayashi has had a long and varied career and with the second film I've been able to track down entitled "Girl Of Time", its clear Obayashi loves creating modern fairy tales that blend extra terrestrial leanings and robust (sometimes awkward) humor.

Released in 1983, "Girl Of Time" (aka "The Little Girl Who Conquered Time") spins the same type of story involving innocent students becoming embroiled in something sinister... this time without spinning decapitated heads and eerie cats. In fact, "Girl Of Time" feels like one of those movies that would have fit nicely into the Disney channel's Saturday night stable of mildly weird kid movies i.e. "Something Wicked This Way Comes" or "The Peanut Butter Solution". It's sweet at times, visually unique at others, but ultimately moving in its depiction of young girl Kazuko (Tomoyo Harada) who, after school one day, accidentally breathes in the fumes of a broken chemical in her school's laboratory. She soon realizes that she's living one day ahead in time, able to see future calamities and save them from happening to her classmates. She has a crush on an older boy who isn't what he seems to be, continually disappearing to pick flowers. All of this is handled with a delicate, languid pace that develops the relationship of Kazuko and her two male friends with a gentleness. The sci-fi aspect of the film is hinted at, but the real motivation seems to be that awkward stage of budding young love that disorientates space and time naturally.

"Girl Of Time" is not available on Region 1 DVD, but if one looks hard enough and wishes to develop their viewership of a challenging Japanese filmmaker, it can be found.

Faves of 2010

2011-01-27T19:23:00.001-08:00

20. The American- Anton Corbjin’s lackadaisical hit man procedural felt so out of touch with modern films when it was released earlier this year, perhaps that ‘from-outer-space’ feel remains why its one of the best films of the year. As the elusive, monotone hit man in a foreign land trying to carry out the proverbial “one last job”, Clooney owns every scene of this film, his age and handsome good looks seething with honesty throughout the moody affair. I know it sounds cliché, but if Jean Pierre Melville were still making movies, this would be it.

19. Tron: Legacy-A post-punk electro design style mixed fashionably into a revolving world of neon colored suits, sterile Kubrickian sets and a multi-layered 3D world that continually fascinates. But all these dynamic visuals wouldn't be more than candy coloring if it weren't for the performances of Jeff Bridges, Olivia Wilde, Garrett Hedlund and (especially) Martin Sheen providing a beating heart underneath the technological effects. This is Disney yes, but "Tron: Legacy" maintains a perverse streak in the way the camera frames Wilde seductively posing on a couch or Martin Sheen hamming it up as some sort of carnival ringleader named Zeus. This is erotic and esoteric stuff for a modern blockbuster.

18. Winnebago Man- Beginning as a documentary on the history of the internet’s viral video craze, Ben Steinbauer’s film soon tumbles through a bevy of emotions as the actual Winnebago man is found and a unique relationship forms. At times uncomfortable and unnerving, Steinbauer doesn’t resort to faux/fiction tricks ala “Catfish”, training his camera on something more truthful and real. And the ending- as the Winnebago Man comes face to face with a packed theater house full of “fans”- strikes just the right balance of unease and raw emotion.

17. Morning Glory- Roger Michell is an interesting director, taking standard genre fare and tweaking them into little gems. “Morning Glory” is yet another wonderful surprise. Granted, a majority of the film’s success hinges on Rachel McAdams high-strung, perky performance as a TV producer grasping at straws at a basement-run early morning news show, and for me, she won me over. Even more amazing, though, are the supporting performances by Harrison Ford (as a gruff, been-there-done-that anchor who had me groaning at first, then joyously caught up in his role the next minute), John Pankow as McAdams’ suffering assistant, Jeff Goldblum who delivers every single line with precision and even Patrick Wilson as the love interest who steps outside the usual boundaries of the rom-com archetype. “Morning Glory” is witty, warm and very funny- just watch the background in certain scenes and see the weird extras milling around. I love it when a film totally exceeds my expectations like this.

16. I Am Love- Lush and elegant telling of one industrialist Italian family’s turbulent affairs in both capitalism and love. Greatly endowed to the works of Visconti, director Luca Guadagnino displays a rare talent for balancing both the mundane (cooking) and the manic (sexual temptation). Tilda Swinton as the matriarch gives another riveting performance in a film that boldly veers from picturesque topography to simmering emotions of guilt deftly.

15. Never Let Me Go- Despite the somewhat detached and cerebral critical reaction to Mark Romanek’s “Never Let Me Go”, I found it to be hugely moving experience. Adapted by the great (and under appreciated) Alex Garland from a much beloved novel, “Never Let Me Go” places a sensitive love triangle within an alternate history science fiction tale. Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley and Andrew Garfield are tremendous as the group of young people facing a shaky future. When the film requires each one to wilt literally and figuratively, their eyes hold the screen. They give brave, heartbreaking performances. “Never Let Me Go” is a film about a distorted past and present day in Britain where medical science has prolonged human life to over 100 years and the school of Hailsham is born where children are cultivated for much darker purposes when they grow older. Just like our own youthful days, urban legends are born (such as idea that if a child wanders beyond the boundary, they will end up with their hands and feet cut off) and weird ideas for survival are propagated later in life. The scene where the adult Mulligan and Garfield approach a supposed “art dealer” to grant a wish is handled with delicate intelligence, as is the entire film.

14. A Prophet- Jacques Audiard’s epic prison tale deserves the lauds. Starring Tahar Rahim as Malik, “A Prophet” charts his ascension from lowly prison inmate to eventual drug kingpin with brutal exactitude. Each step in this progression is shown in increments, giving us a fully realized (and at times mystical) journey. Each shot seems destined to express an emotion and that final scene is as telling as the door slamming shut on Michael Corleone in “The Godfather”.

13. Winter’s Bone- Director Debra Granik’s second film is a slice of down-on-their-luck life that succeeds in presenting a young girl's scary waltz through a white trash netherworld of meth cookers and trouble-makers in the Missouri backwoods. Like her debut feature, "Down To the Bone", Granik seems completely in tune with a female versus the world attitude. In that film, relative newcomer Vera Farmiga gave an exhilarating performance as a single mother carrying on two lives... one of affection and dedication to her daughter and the other as a struggling drug addict. In "Winter's Bone", Jennifer Lawrence could be Farmiga 15 years earlier, posing a steely gaze and giving a riveting performance as a 17 year old desperately trying to track down her criminal father before his bond-hopping causes her to lose her home. But Lawrence delivers only half of the film's penetrating mood and atmosphere. As secondary characters, John Hawkes, Kevin Breznahan, Dale Dickey and Lauren Sweetster inhabit their roles with straight authenticity- right down to the black fingernails and bad teeth. One never knows just exactly where a scene is headed or where Lawrence's journey through backwoods purgatory will end. "Winter's Bone" defiantly bucks the expectation, expertly written and perfectly acted... none more so than in a quiet scene with Lawrence discussing the possibility of joining the army with a recruiter who reveals the naive child behind her otherwise worldly facade.

12 Please Give- Nicole Holofcener’s Robert Altman-esque story about several people floating around the lives of antiques dealers Oliver Platt and Katherine Keener was a huge surprise. Modest in scale and tone, it’s a lovely film that feels real in its characterizations while remaining intensely funny. Rebecca Hall and Amanda Peet also give terrific performances as two sisters struggling to deal with the death of their mother and their own shortcomings when it comes to relationships. “Please Give” came and went without a blink, but one owes it to themselves to seek this one out.

11. The White Ribbon- Michael Haneke’s “The White Ribbon” is uber European, and god I love it for that. Set in the German countryside in 1914, Haneke’s latest provocation settles on the quietness before the storm. A series of strange events begin to overtake the village. A wire is set up between two trees which causes the town doctor to take a painful spill off his horse. Children vanish and are then found hanging upside down and whipped. A bird is stabbed with a pair of scissors and left on the owner’s desk. Some of these actions have direct violators, but many don’t. The casual brutality, at first, manifests itself in the children, eventually spreading to the adults. Filmed in austere black and white and full of long takes that observe simple things such as a closed door (for what feels like an eternity at times), Haneke builds a sinister atmosphere around every frame. It’s only in the end, when the narrator reveals that Germany instigated World War 1 the next day, that Haneke’s genius premise snaps into focus. “The White Ribbon” is a film that concentrates on the subconscious malcontent boiling beneath the surface. The words “Nazi” are never uttered, but its there in the cold, soulless faces of the children that in 10-15 years, they’ll be propagating some of the same merciless acts on a global scale. See it with Ingmar Bergman’s “The Serpent’s Egg” for a terrifying double feature.

10. Cyrus- Mark and Jay Duplass' "Cyrus" extends the directing duo's range with an off-kilter romance that veers wildly into several genres without falling into disarray. Part black comedy, part psychological thriller, "Cyrus" proves that "Baghead" (their previous film) was no slouch effort and these guys can walk a tightrope with the best of them. Some have derided the relationship presented in the film between John C. Reilly and Marisa Tomei as unrealistic, but as the film unfolds and we get beyond the meet-cute set up, "Cyrus" shows that both of them are potentially damaged souls who happened to intersect at the right moment. It all felt entirely plausible to me. Enter Tomei's 21 year old son played by Jonah Hill (featuring probably his best performance yet) who makes it his goal to usurp their relationship in quiet (but altogether devious) ways and "Cyrus" morphs into a shaggy dog comedy with a black heart.

9. Red Riding Trilogy- If only more studios would take a chance in producing such an ambitious, sprawling masterwork. This trilogy, ostensibly about the murders of several little girls in England during the 60’s and 70’s, soon evolves into something much more enigmatic and probing. The murder investigation is ditched and directors James Marsh, Anand Tucker and Julian Jarrold weave tragically poignant tales of deep police corruption and human redemption. Each film builds on the other resulting in a shattering examination of a country, time and place.

8. The Ghost Writer- Roman Polanski’s quiet thriller is a subtle thing of beauty. As the lead character, Ewan McGregor is yet another cipher for mystery, adding him to a string of protagonists like Jake Gittes and Dean Corso (Depp in “The Ninth gate”) serviced to walk through a series of deeply shattering lies and deception. This time it’s ratcheted up to a political level as McGregor is assigned to write the memoirs of an ex British Prime Minister (Pierce Brosnan) and becomes enveloped in international intrigue. Pregnant with allegory- such as Brosnan leaning against his office window as if the whole world is between his arms- and filled with the precise point of view shots that parcel out hidden meaning, “The Ghost Writer” is a tour de force. It also features what is probably the first use of a GPS machine’s previous destinations function to put some pieces of the puzzle in place.

7. The Killer Inside Me- Michael Winterbottom's twisting Texas noir, "The Killer Inside Me", is a chilling and repugnant adaptation of the great Jim Thompson's pulp novel, sending waves into the pop culture universe for its unflinching violence towards two pretty starlets (Jessica Alba and Kate Hudson) and not really giving a damn about it. I use words like repugnant above in the best sense. This is a great film for the way it buries so many emotions, none more so than the quiet facade led by Texas sheriff Lou Ford (Casey Affleck) as he deviously sacrifices everything he loves to satisfy the demons within. "The Killer Inside Me" doesn't wink at the audience or service any post-modern demands for the neo-noir genre.... it's a film that simply observes it characters strutting around in the well manicured southern locations, quietly tracking the serial killer sheriff with a voice over that almost lulls one to sleep and making one's skin crawl when the inevitable violence does overtake the narrative. In the varied oeuvre of British director Michael Winterbottom, he upholds his chameleon streak with a stifling portrait of small town Texas life in the 50's as if he's always lived here.

6. The Square- Second film from the Aussie New Wave and the same group of creative artists, “The Square” is such a terrific slow-burn noir in the best sense of the word. No “neo” or post modern about it… just a good old fashioned tale of scandal, extramarital affairs and manslaughter that slides further and further down the rabbit hole of no return for its ordinary couple trying to get away.

5. Shutter Island- Martin Scorsese’s “Shutter Island” is his ode to Sam Fuller. Or maybe it’s his ode to Hitchcock. Or wait… it’s most certainly his attempt to recreate those fetishistic images of the 50’s and 60’s old haunted house pictures he absorbed as a boy. Whatever one sees as the direct influence on “Shutter Island’s” visual scheme, the fact is it’s a genre picture of the highest order. Based on a Dennis Lehane novel, Scorsese amps up the proceedings with Lynchian dream sequences that rank as some of the most evocative images of his long career, piercing bits of music that range from classical to Bernard Hermann-like, and a seemingly reclaimed appreciation for the whip pan. Leonardo DiCaprio, in his fourth outing with Scorsese, tackles his most impressive role as the Boston cop trapped on the titular island trying to wrap his brain around the disappearance of a psychiatric patient. People will say they see the “twist” coming a mile away… and that’s all fine and dandy. The real hook of the film lies in the very dark paths it takes, revealing a flawed human being on the brink of madness and with Scorsese’s camera carefully tracking the breakdown. Music and image finally merge into a heartbreaking passion play that feels at once removed and very personal for the aging auteur. Scorsese is reaching for something beyond the twist here, and it got me right in the stomach.

4. Inception- The most bracing idea behind Christopher Nolan’s trippy dream heist epic is his hauntingly resonant motif about a man trying to make amends for past transgressions. In “Memento”, Guy Pearce was trying to piece together his life and resolve the (maybe?) murder of his wife. In “The Prestige”, perhaps the most complete yet overlooked film in Nolan’s career, Hugh Jackman reboots himself to maddening proportions in order to carry out the perfect allusion, triggered by revenge and obsessive compulsive memories of his wife. And in “Inception”, it’s easy to get caught up in the nonlinear dream states that fold in on themselves, or guess exactly what that final shot means, but the most invigorating concept for me is Leonardo Dicaprio’s silent stretch of the imagination just to go home to his wife and kids. Whether any of this has anything to do with Nolan’s own emotional capacity is up for debate, but it drives “Inception” into a near cathartic experience while maintaining an equal amount of ‘wowness’ in the supporting performances (Gordon Levitt and Tom Hardy especially) and complex heist that sometimes veers into the ludicrous. Bottom line, I bought the ludicrousness because its so expertly staged and edited. “Inception” held me in complete rapture from start to finish.

3. True Grit- Even though their latest is a straight-forward genre exercise, the Coen Brothers have manufactured a rousing, emotionally satisfying western that succeeds on every level. The moment young Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) bolts her horse across the river to catch up to Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges), I was hooked into the film‘s ebullient tone. The Coen Brothers penchant for snappy dialogue and humor in the most absurd of places (the scream of a man getting his fingers cut off etc) remains and it’s probably their most emotional film to date.

2. Black Swan- Like “The Red Shoes” on acid, Aronofsky’s latest is a terror psychodrama that plays like a propulsive fever dream. Natalie Portman is terrific as the dancer who succumbs to the pressures of being a leading lady and Aronofsky (much like he did with Mickey Rourke in “The Wrestler”) never falters from having his camera perched just over the shoulders of his star as she marches through reality and unreality. Sound design has always been a staple of Aronofsky films, but he takes it to a new level here in “Black Swan”, echoing laughter in odd places and firmly subverting our own perceptions of what is real and what is not. I keep thinking that Aronofosky can’t possibly match his previous film, and then he goes and does just that.

1. Animal Kingdom- David Michod’s epic tale of crime and punishment down under is a startling debut that portrays both sides of the law with frightening characteristics. From the opening black and white grainy images of a bank robbery, Michod is in firm control of character, place and mood. As the leading film in the so called Aussie New Wave, “Animal Kingdom” doesn’t break new ground- as its “Aussie Goodfellas“ tag proves, but its arrival marks the announcement of an exciting new talent pool.

Honorable mentions: Unstoppable, Valhalla Rising, The Book of Eli, Father of My Children, Spring Fever, Fish Tank, The King’s Speech

Moments of The Year '10

2011-01-21T16:46:00.000-08:00

In conjunction with my favorite films of the year list, I offer up some moments out of 2010 films that made an indelible impression on me. Older online buddies will recognize this as a recurring event. This list is a collection of film dialogue, gestures, camera movements, moods or looks and ideas within a given scene. This list is inspired by Roger Ebert's list of movie moments as well as the once great (now dead) yearly wrap up in Film Comment. Possible spoilers so beware!

1. Floating through the entire film with a beautiful waif-like presence, the way in which Alice de Lencquesaing tries to act grown up and orders a coffee… “The Father of My Children”.

2. A camera crew roaming around the burial grounds of a killer at nigh time, running into a group of kids playing urban legends in “Cropsey”

3. Sitting in the backseat of a car, slowly fazing out of focus, a girl (Katie Jarvis) listens to Bobby Womack. “Fish Tank”

4. The percussive editing of Christian Caron’s “Farewell” and a group of spies being arrested, including the wide eyed face of a jogger (Diane Kruger) realizing what’s happening as she tries to run away.

5. A man violently slashing a cabbage patch with a scythe. “The White Ribbon”

6. The lateral pan behind a fence as Nazi soldiers are shot… just the beginning of a nightmare in Martin Scorsese’s “Shutter Island”.

7. Lizzie Caplan in “Hot Tub Time Machine” and the hug she gives John Cusack with “…maybe the universe will bring us back together.”

8. In “The Ghost Writer”, a note being passed on and on and the camera trained in almost reverent observation.

9. “Hey” as the black swan in her nightmares finally speaks to Nina (Natalie Portman). “Black Swan”

10. Here’s one that got away monologue. “Red Riding Trilogy”

11. A regular guy (Andy Garcia) doing an audition for a Martin Scorsese movie in “City Island”

12. On a rooftop, silhouetted by the setting sun, a guy consoles a girl as a flock of birds flies away. Wordless romanticism visualized to perfection in “The Exploding Girl”

13. The thrashing guitar drone as One Eye (Mads Mikkelson) tramps up a hill in one long take. “Valhalla Rising”

14. Like a beautiful matte painting, a group of scholars and priests surround a man as darkness engulfs the edges in Alejandro Amenenbar’s hugely under appreciated “Agora”

15. Rebecca Hall as a tormented mother almost melting away as she asks Eddie (Andrew Garfield) “are you gonna save me?” “Red Riding Trilogy”

16. The opening black and white surveillance camera images of a bank robbery timed to beautiful music. Just the first images in David Michod’s startling debut “Animal Kingdom”.

17. Val Kilmer oil painting an old woman modeling for him… “MacGruber”

18. “Do you wanna finish this?” and a hand on a gun on the passenger side as a sheriff (Garret Dillahunt) slowly backs away from the vehicle he’s just pulled over in “Winter’s Bone”.

19. “Secret Sunshine”- A woman wailing uncontrollably in a pew in an extreme long take, and then a hand slowly reaching out and touching her head

20. Bathed in red light, the furious struggle of a naked man (Tom Hardy) with his guards timed to The Walker Brothers’ The Electrician. “Bronson”

21. A man looking into the reflection of himself in his computer monitor screen and making a decision. “Father of My Children”

22. A fight amidst a windy garbage dump and each side rolling balls of garbage as their protection… just another absurd and totally unique shoot out scene in a Johnny To film “Vengeance”

23. The eyes of Cora (Olivia Wilde) as she sees her first sunset. “Tron Legacy”

24. In Le You’s “Spring Fever”, the boat ride shared by three people in silence as they all understand their time together will not last much longer… a longeur visualized in heartbreaking terms.

25. “You can tell me anything. Just tell me” and the seemingly caring prodding by a true beast played to scary perfection by Ben Mendelsohn in “Animal Kingdom”

26. A young girl pushing her horse into the water and treading across it as two professional bounty hunters look in on stunned silence… this ain’t your daddy’s western. “True Grit”

27. A woman (Anna Bederk) slowly dancing to techno beat, bathed in blue light, her head tilted and staring straight into the camera. Seduction and lots of food in Fatih Akin’s lighthearted “Soul Kitchen”

28. A horse riding into the frame and suddenly tripping over something invisible. Just the first evil episode in a long line of quiet atrocities. “The White Ribbon”

29. A van diving into the river.. And the 45 minutes of universe and dimension that propels from it. “Inception”

30. During a Fourth of July picnic, the quick, scared glances shared across the grass between a man and woman when they see a house fire in the distance. “The Square”

31. Probably the most unique and inventive car chase in years….a man follows the directions of a saved GPS route in “The Ghost Writer”

32. Wordless, wandering around in despair… and the way her husband picks up her shoes and tries to give them to her. “I Am Love”

33. “fuck you very much” the desperation of being stuck in a coffin and not having a very friendly operator on the cell phone. “Buried”

34. In “True Grit”, the high pitched squeal/scream as a man has his fingers cut off .

35. A man, in slow motion, walking directly into the camera as he carries the limp, lifeless body of a dead girl…. Crime and punishment in “Animal Kingdom”

36. Mack the Knife playing as a man (Tahar Rahim) walks down the street with a baby and woman in tow… and a slow line of vehicles joining in the fray. A king is born. “A Prophet”

37. Walking along a sandy, cold beach in nothing but a flannel shirt, the smile she (Alicja Bachlda) gives the man (Colin Farrell) as he returns home in Neil Jordan’s sublime modern fairy tale “Ondine”

38. A man framed deep in the left corner of the frame, through a window with a vase of yellow flowers dominating the center of the frame…. The cold blooded hit-man-thriller given a painterly point of view in “The American”. It only continues to look better from there.

39. Like something straight out of a 40’s noir, the way smoke curls around Leonard diCaprio as he stands in the center of an adorned room caught between reality and nightmare in “Shutter Island”

40. “Tastes like coconut…and metal.” “Iron Man 2”

41. An overturned vehicle after a chase, and a man running up to peer inside when he discovers something in the backseat. Just more tragedy piled on in “The Square”.

42. Tilda Swinton fighting with her son by the pool… and then…. “I Am Love”

43. The long tracking shot following two men (Geoffrey Rush and Colin Firth) as they talk, and eventually fight, along a fog-covered street in "The King's Speech"

44. Just about everything Emma Stone does in "Easy A", but especially as she spells out the word "cunt" with her peas

45. A quiet, slow tracking shot behind a parked car. As a train loudly rolls in front of the car, a shadow jumps up from the backseat to provide food for his young love. "Let Me In"

Links and Nonsense

2011-01-16T17:39:00.000-08:00

First up, some high-res movie stills I came across. I have to admit they don't look so grand here in this form, but if you save them to your desktop and use them as background, they really pop with color.

Secondly, some points of interest.

The blog Rupert Pupkin Speaks is a great site for all things old and new, especially his weekly tip of the hat to new releases available on Netflix's Instant View program. They also include some snappy movie posters for select films mentioned.

Furious Cinema is another site I've been directed to lately. Not only does it have Quentin Tarantino's stamp of approval, but the entries range across the map from grindhouse stuff to soundtracks to just good old fashioned edgy films.

Blogger and online acquaintance Bob at Eternal Sunshine of the Logical Mind lists his eclectic ten best.

So, all of this to say I really have nothing new to say lately. I need to catch a couple more films before I feel comfortable stopping at the 142 film mark this year and create my own favorites of the year. But no worries, my almost decade old tradition of the Moments of the Year will resume shorty, so everyone can stop holding their breath.

On Tron:Legacy

2011-01-11T21:35:00.000-08:00

I'm not quite sure what I expected when walking into Joseph Kosinski's "Tron: Legacy" but it exceeded and effectively wrestled my expectations into submission. This is one trippy, great movie, made all the more interesting by a string of weirdo performances and a go-for-broke visual scheme that enthralled me from the beginning. I've long been a resistant force to the power of CGI, but "Tron: Legacy" elevates effects and the green screen to such an eye-popping pinnacle that I fully bought into the visual pizazz and connected with the characters on a basic emotional level. For a blockbuster of this type, that's saying something special.

Kosinski and cinematographer Claudio Miranda take a post-punk electro design style and mix it fashionably into a revolving world of neon colored suits, sterile Kubrickian sets and a multi-layered 3D world that continually fascinates. But all these dynamic visuals wouldn't be more than candy coloring if it weren't for the performances of Jeff Bridges, Olivia Wilde, Garrett Hedlund and (especially) Martin Sheen providing a beating heart underneath the technological effects. This is Disney yes, but "Tron: Legacy" maintains a perverse streak in the way the camera frames Wilde seductively posing on a couch or Martin Sheen hamming it up as some sort of carnival ringleader named Zeus. This is erotic and esoteric stuff for a modern blockbuster. And finally my praises will end with this: give Daft Punk the Oscar for original score now. I tip my hat to Trent Reznor for similarly unique and inventive compositions, but the electronic, propulsive score by Daft Punk, part Tangerine Dream and part techno rave, deserve the credit for amping up the film's action and matching its breathless visuals to a terrific sound.

Indelible Performances of 2010

2011-01-07T19:16:00.000-08:00

In no particular order, the performances that moved me during the year:

1 and 2. Michael Fassbender and Katie Jarvis in "Fish Tank"

Andrea Arnold's poignant, somewhat disturbing coming of age story is handled with delicacy and honesty, mostly driven by the ferocious performance of newcomer Katie Jarvis. In the opening scenes, she's followed as she storms about town, fighting with local girls and then trying to free a horse that's tied up in a trailer park. The rest of the film is just as whirlwindish as Jarvis experiences the frustrations and sexual longings of a 15 year old trapped in the dead-end UK. Enter her mom's new boyfriend (Michael Fassbender) and things really get complicated. Fassbender and Jarvis play remarkably well off each other, and never skip a beat as their relationship develops from mutual tenderness to something deeper.

3. Kevin Breznahan in "Winter's Bone"

Sure, John Hawkes, Dale Dickey, Jennifer Lawrence and the great Garret Dillahunt are getting most of the raves for Debra Granik's ascent into Ozarks hell, but it was the small performance of Kevin Breznahan that stuck with me long after the film was over. As Little Arthur, the timid, ultimately helpful boyfriend of Ree's best friend, Kevin just has that sad sack look that's been perfect in tiny roles since "Magnolia" and "Adventureland".

4. Tilda Swinton in "I Am Love"

Pretty much any year and one can find Tilda Swinton on my list of great performances, but her staggering accomplishments in Luca Guadagnino's sprawling yet intimate Italian family epic are mind bending. Beginning as a faithful wife, then slowly transforming into the cause of a disaster that made me gasp with surprise when it occurred on-screen, Swinton simply unravels before our eyes. A remarkable film full of uncompromising moments and luscious cinematography, Guadagnino is a real talent to watch.

5. Andrew Garfield in "Never Let Me Go", "Red Riding Trilogy" and "The Social Network"

What a standout year for young Andrew Garfield. While he was the absolute best thing about "The Social Network", his performances in Mark Romanek's "Never Let Me Go" and as a headstrong investigative journalist in the "Red Riding Trilogy" were high watermarks for an actor who just doesn't seem to be trying hard at all.

6. Zoe Kazan in "The Exploding Girl"

In last year's "Me and Orson Welles", I was immediately attracted to the brainy library flirtation that hovers in and out of Zac Ephron's world. This was Zoe Kazan. That same intelligent intensity is magnified in her first real leading role in Bradley Rust Gray's micro-budget romance "The Exploding Girl". During summer break, Ivy (Kazan) jumbles hanging out with her best friend Al (Mark Rendell, another young actor on the rise) and playing phone tag with her increasingly despondent boyfriend back at school. Ivy also suffers from seizures when the pressure gets too much for her. Kazan embodies Ivy as a wide-eyed, infectious nineteen year old going through hell as the lazy New York summer rolls along. Not much happens in "The Exploding Girl", yet it's an amazingly tactile rendering of that age when every little thing seems momentous. Rust Gray has a knack for creating great images (such as a rooftop conversation at sundown) and Kazan is alive in every inch of this movie. With her role in "Meek's Cutoff", I look forward to watching her grow with every role.

7. Rebecca Hall in "Please Give" and "The Town" and "Red Riding Trilogy"

Like Andrew Garfield, Rebecca Hall really broke out in 2010, most notably by her performance in Ben Affleck's "The Town". It was that central relationship that had me booing in disbelief at the screen (not literally) but luckily, Hall redeemed herself in two other pictures. She has limited screen time in "Red Riding Trilogy" as the emotionally wounded mother of a murdered girl and there's one scene where she aches with tension and hurt. In "Please Give", she portrays a frumpy, lonely neighbor who slowly becomes the central emotional arch of Nicole Holofcener's cavalcade of characters. Not to mention she's sexy beyond belief no matter how frumpy they make her look.

8. Emir Kusturica in "Farewell"

Kusturica has always been a terrific and unique director, and he can also act.... well. As the Russian handler trading in secrets in this quiet Cold War thriller, Kusturica runs the gamut of emotions from hanging his head out the window of his car as he drives to being the sacrificial lamb. The film wrings out its moments of suspense, but its Kusturica who gives "Farewell" the heart.

9. Lizzy Caplan in "Hot Tub Time Machine"

After first watching "Hot Tub Time Machine", I had this to say: Starring the always likable John Cusack- who established himself in 80’s comedies and seems to feel right at home as one of the four modern men who find themselves trapped back in 1986 on one eventful night that- “Hot Tub Time Machine” also develops a sweet relationship between him and music writer April, played to dizzying perfection by Lizzy Caplan. It’s this peripheral romance that gives the film its zeal. Caplan, who is a newcomer to me but has obviously been around on the small screen for years, hits the perfect mixture of 70’s hippiness and 80’s sweet girl persona. From the first time they meet on-screen at a party, Cusack and Caplan make their connection feel real and inspired. I almost wish the entire film could have been about them. But, director Pink has more important things on his mind, such as a male-on-male blowjob and hand soap designed to look like ejaculate on someone’s face. I understand today’s comedy has to reach a certain shock value (which is depressing), and “Hot Tub Time Machine” has that built in for audience acceptance. It’s just the film really soars when it tries to connect on a smaller level. That’s the kind of comedy film we could use more of today.

I still feel this way now. Caplan raises everything about this film and I've watched it twice since then just for her performance.

10. Do-yeon Jeon in "Secret Sunshine"

Right after the scene in which Korean actress Do-yeon Jeon is framed wailing uncontrollably in a pew for what feels like minutes, I knew her performance was reaching something beyond 'method acting'. Lee Dang Chong's "Secret Sunshine" perches the camera on this woman's grief and suffering and search for something religious without hesitaton or fear of alienating the audience. Jeon handles it magnificently.

70's Bonanza: 99 and 44/100% Dead

2011-01-03T19:15:00.000-08:00

John Frankenheimer is not known for his comedies, but his mid 70's oddity about a hitman caught in the middle of a gangland war called "99 and 44/100% Dead" is a hoot. Barely released on home video and rarely shown on cable, the film begins with tongue firmly in cheek as it explores the numerous underwater tombs of the poor souls unlucky enough to be caught in the wrath of the town's mafioso kingpins. Uncle Frank (Edmond O' Brian) and Big Eddie (Bradford Dillman in a very quirky role) have littered the town (and ocean) with bodies. Frank, desperate to end the war and return to business as usual, calls upon the best hitman in the business, a silent but deadly Richard Harris. Harris returns home and rekindles his relationship with school teacher Buffy (Ann Turkel) while trying to clean up the mess of bullets in the streets. Pitted against Harris is his old nemesis, Claw Zuckerman.... a role played to lurid perfection by none other than Chuck Conners. For the life of me I can't figure out why this role isn't lauded more in the cult cinema world. Reminiscent of a bad James Bond villain, Conners plays Zuckerman as a deranged henchman with a metal claw for a hand who gets his amusement by quickly changing out the stub with various utensils and weapons in the hopes of frightening a hooker. Or the way in which he finally gives up trying to scare her and places a corkscrew on his stub to open a bottle of champagne. It's a pitch perfect performance that could only exist in the lost world of 70's cinema.

Frankenheimer is a serious director, which makes "99 and 44/100% Dead" even more funny. Partially subverting the thriller genre he racketed for many years and mostly coming off like a pastiche attempt at the pop art films of the late 60's (including catchy opening titles and tune), "99 and 44/100% Dead" never plays it straight. Known for his virtuoso car chase sequences and depth of field cinematography (see "Grand Prix", "Ronin"), it's hard to resist the humor in the way Frankenheimer posits his only car chase sequence in the movie between a limo and a huge, lumbering school bus. Or the way one dialogue sequence is filmed inside a huge inflatable blow-up attraction. Yes friends, "99 and 44/100% Dead" is that kind of out-of-left-field-crazy fun.