Cinema Obscura: The Brave

Johnny Depp's 1997 directorial debut, "The Brave", premiered at Cannes, was subsequently hissed out of the Competition and then promptly pulled from distribution by its director and star due to a case of artistic pettiness. Never released on any type of home video format, it's exactly this type of hard to find film that energizes a movie fanatic such as myself. This leads to colossal disappointment at times, but thankfully in the case of "The Brave", its not all that bad. In fact, Depp's Native American fairy tale about a man who sells his life to a snuff film produced (a wheelchair bound Marlon Brando) in exchange for $20,000, then proceeds to better the life of his family and friends living on the outskirts of a shanty town next to a landfill, actually reaches a level of poignant storytelling. This is exactly the style of movie that's been bowling over film critics from the likes of the Tavini Brothers or Roberto Benigni's "Life Is Beautiful".... an art film that maintains a sense of stagnant magic realism in the face of absurd living conditions. Was it maligned due to Depp's pretty-boy presence and lack of auteur status? Or was his cast of faintly oddball characters too much for serious critics to absorb? Either way, maybe "The Brave" was a bit ahead of its time, especially when a supposedly loopy film such as this recently took home top honors from the fest.

Based on a book by Gregory McDonald (who created the "Fletch" character!), it's been written that Depp changed a majority of the original script to embrace some of the funkiness that plays out in the finished product. Living in the same trash heap of a town is an oil covered worker played by Frederick Forrest who watches over his son, incessantly (and inexplicably) constantly running in a large hamster wheel. Then there's the local pimp (Luis Guzman) who floats through the film as if he's never given up the role that made him famous a year before in "Boogie Nights", and who meets an especially violent end at the hands of Depp. Yet, through all this shagginess, "The Brave" is ultimately a countdown to a man's sacrifice and his attrition towards his family. He builds a huge outdoor playground for the children in the town, complete with big screen TV, patio lights strung around a slide and carnival music piped in from.... somewhere. Sweet and alternately just downright weird, its an image I won't soon forget.

The few minutes shared on screen between mentor Brando and mentee Depp play like a poor man's version of Colonel Kurtz rambling on about life and death, but its a scene that resonates nonetheless, setting up the dark undercurrents that propel Depp to make a dreary decision. For its 2 hour and ten minute running time, "The Brave" glacially builds up to the quiet walk Depp embarks upon at the end of the film, complete with metal door crashing and horrors left unsaid. It's a chilling moment in a film with an underserved legacy.

Revisiting the Faves: La Scorta

Ricky Tognazzi's "La Scorta" ranked as my number 6 film of the year in 1996.

Italian actor turned director Ricky Tognazzi's "La Scorta" is a tangled web of a movie that depicts the tumultuous intricacies of the Italian government through the workmanlike eyes of four bodyguards. Much like Paulo Sorrento's "Il Divo"- or a more likely comparison is the great Francesco Rosi and his cinematic exposes of Italian bureaucracy in magnificent films such as "Hands Over the City" or "Illustrious Corpses"- Tognazzi is interested in titillating the brain instead of jarring with action. Reading a plot description of "La Scorta" would certainly lead one to believe the film is an action packed Italian rip off of Johnnie To's "The Mission" or Scorsese-lite. It's anything but. Yet it's this serious attention to the duplicity of elected officials through hushed conversations and territorial pissing matches that imbues "La Scorta" with an even more serious level of tension. The thought of a car bomb or random motorcycle hit man is more terrifying than machine guns blazing.


The position of an elected official (or judge) is a terminal career in Italy. They require bodyguards (la scorta) and as Mandolesi (Claudio Amendelo) is assigned to judge Michel de Francesco (Carlo Cecchi), he soon adapts to the dangerous job of chauffeuring and skimming the balconies as he accompanies the judge to and from work. As the new guy on the unit with three others, their shared sense of a cliched job soon turns into an intimate affair as the judge uncovers a shadowy deal between local officials and hired thugs who control a portion of the country's water supply. As the judge sets his sights on bringing down the crooked officials, Mandolesi and his crew become friends with the judge, sharing their dinner tables with him and eventually holing up with him in an underground bunker when the investigation turns violent. Each bodyguard is fleshed out with strong characteristics and the unity that forms between them is warm and articulate. Tognazzi frames each day going to and from work as a long overhead shot of the two car parade that forces the viewer to search for danger in the edges of the frame. Not only is this highly cinematic for touristic purposes of the beautiful Italian landscape, but surprisingly old school in a movie world that only understands a car chase (or a car simply going fast) has to be cut every half second.


I can't remember how or where I first heard about "La Scorta" in early '96, but I do remember the experience of sitting in a theater (with only 1 or 2 other people) and having one of those experiences of discovering a hidden treasure. In the same year that P.T. Anderson broke onto the scene with his two dynamite features "Hard Eight" and "Boogie Nights" and with Scorsese the master reigning supreme with "Kundun", Tognazzi's "La Scorta" is in pretty exclusive company.

Recent Thoughts

The Expendables

Sylvester Stallone’s action romp and ode to 80’s excess is a film that certainly has its fan base… and there’s nothing wrong with that. For my taste, though, I couldn‘t get past “The Exependables” genuine sloppiness. Incomprehensible car chases, incomprehensible fight scenes with flaying limbs and exploding guts, and even worse, dialogue scenes that are inexplicably cut mid-sentence with zero chemistry (were Willis, Schwarzenegger and Stallone even in the same building when their trio scene was filmed???) all reveal the very bad director in Stallone…. Which is disappointing because he seemed to have a strong grasp of visual language in his under appreciated “Rocky Balboa”. “The Expendables” will surf by on its star power alone. If one watches this thing with a pitcher a beer in hand, I’m sure the fun is emphasized. Sober is another experience, though.

Vengeance

Johnnie To’s previous few films have leaned towards the western genre, with groups of men slowly sizing each other up in carefully choreographed frames. In “Vengeance”, when the two opposing sides of bad and very-bad guys line up for the last hurrah, To makes everything feel like a battle from the crusades with newspaper sailing through the air, each side rolling towards each other behind bales of paper and one group encamped on a steel scaffold overlooking the carnage. “Vengeance: is nothing new from Hong Kong auteur To, but it still fresh brash and dazzling. French actor Johnny Hallyday (“Man on the Train”, “The Iron Triangle”) returns to his retired life of crime to avenge the death of his daughter’s family. All of To’s regulars (Simon Yam, Anthony Wong, written by Kai-Wai Fae) are back in action and, if its possible, To again finds unusual and energetic ways for guys to get into gun battles. But beyond the sense of “coolness” that permeates most of Johnnie To’s films, there’a also a serious desire to startle…. Take for example the opening scene where a young wife (Sylvie Testud) runs to open the door for her family and a reflection of a killer waiting outside is seen briefly behind her. Naysayers can call To a flamboyant throwback to the halcyon days of John Woo and Ringo Lam, but the fact that he’s still making films that search for something distinct in a generic world of action thrillers (see above) is still quite bold. I can’t wait for what he does next.

Farewell

Director Emir Kusturica (“Underground”, “”When father Was Away On Business”) has been missed behind the camera as of late, but his solid turn as Russian spy Sergei Gregoriev in Christian Carion’s Cold War drama “Farewell” is an indication that all is well with the eccentric filmmaker. In fact, I’d go so far as to call his performance- a mixture of resolute confidence and heartbreaking humanity- as one of the best of the year and very deserving of international acclaim. His French contact, also played by a talented filmmaker in Guillaume Canet (“Tell No One”), is the narrative cipher for the audience, but its Kusturica’s noble whistleblower that gives “Farewell” its depth. Things bog down a bit whenever the American perspective is brought into view through the somewhat gimmicky performance of Fred Ward as Ronald Reagan, but for the most part, Carion’s film is a very serious and quiet spy thriller that trusts the audience to absorb the plot mechanics. And Carion certainly knows how to build suspense, none more so than in the final 20 minutes, crosscutting between escape and interrogation. Clint Mansell’s evocative score also adds to the film’s tragic overture. “Farewell” isn’t out there in wide release, but its well worth tracking down.

70's Bonanza: The Last Movie

With "Easy Rider" in 1968, actor and director Dennis Hopper seemingly visualized the entire spirit of the counter culture. With his second film, "The Last Movie" in 1971, he barely wanted to leave the spirit behind. This is a common theme for a majority of the movies released in the early 70's. The swinging ideas of free love and 1960's hippie culture were still invested in every corner of life, and "The Last Movie" feels like an extended holdover from the period. But there's also a sense of progressiveness behind the film.... full of disconcerting jump cuts, tilted angles and stretches that feel like the film is rambling just for rambling's sake. Or maybe I'm reading way too much into Hopper's desire to create a Jodorwosky film. Regardless, while I can't classify "The Last Movie" as a great one, it is an interesting meta-movie that deserves to be seen on a wider scale, especially with the recent passing of Hopper.


Starring as Kansas, a Hollywood stuntman in the midst of a tumultuous shoot in Peru (for director Sam fuller, no less), "The Last Movie" begins with a barrage of western movie tropes, slowly pulling away to a distance to reveal the filmmaking throng behind the movie. The shoot wraps, but Kansas decides to stay behind with his Peruvian girlfriend (Stella Garcia) and becomes embroiled with the natives after they fail to differentiate the difference between movie artificiality and real life. Hopper hangs out in the local dives with his friends, meets up with an eclectic crew of rich Americans (whose purpose or reasons are unclear), goes to orgies with them and fights with the local priest over the villagers disdain for religion and acceptance of making movies with wooden cameras and boom mikes. Through all of this, its hard not to see Hopper and his acting friends boozing their way through most every scene, which adds an even more maddening aspect to the film's numerous plot digressions. There is a hunt for gold in the mountains. There are allusions to American politics and money overtaking the 'simple' way of Peruvian life in the way Kansas' prostitute girlfriend becomes obsessed with owning a fur coat. There are so many ideas bursting at the seams, its chaotic intentions are evident in the way the film's title card is sprayed across the screen nearly 25 minutes in, as if Hopper remembered it later. Add to that several "scene missing" title cards and one gets the idea that "The Last Movie" had every intention of throwing the rule book out the window, creating an atmosphere of experimentation and sophomore hi-jinks that almost becomes endearing. In 1971, one could get away with that. But really, any film that inserts a random moment of Kris Kristofferson sitting on a rock and singing "Me and Bobby McGee" probably doesn't care much for cohesiveness. It's still cool as hell, though.

Unintentional Double Bill: Sword and Sandals Edition

Actors go through phases, and for Mads Mikkelson, he must be going through his Spartacus phase. With two consecutive 'sword and sandals' films under his belt, the now recognizable actor takes this genre into two vastly different worlds. With "Valhalla Rising", he plays a savage warrior in a painterly art-deco 1000 AD world seen through the visually sumptuous eye of director Nicholas Winding Refn. And in Louis Leterrier's "Clash of the Titans", he plays second fiddle (but no less efficiently ruthless) to Persius (Sam Worthington) and his band of warriors as they set out to trump the gods. In cinema (as in life), synchronicity is charming sometimes, and it happened with these two films.

Now, before I get ahead of myself, it should be noted that one of these films is far superior to the other. "Valhalla Rising" is close to something very special... Refn's blisteringly brutal editing combined with framing compositions that seem to be borne out of exactly which way the clouds looks behind the actor rather than anything else are epic in scope. And running at a relatively quick 93 minutes, "Valhalla Rising" covers alot of territory in very spare, meditative style. Either you give in and submit to the film's patient, trancey style or give up. I loved every moment of it. On the other hand, Leterrier's "Clash of the Titans" was a virtual chore to get through. I understand that any film remade from a childhood favorite (and a favorite I watched probably 30 times over the course of 2-3 years as a kid) has the deck stacked against it. In all fairness, the executives at Warner Brothers were probably only counting on fan base favoritism for 15% of the film's success. It's a summer movie, loaded with CGI and featuring an action avatar star (Worthington) fresh off two successful movies. Still, the childlike wonder inherent in the original "Clash of the Titans" has dissipated. There is something eerily beautiful about Ray Harryhausen's stop motion animation that CGI simply cannot replace. In the new version, the creatures (especially the witches and Medusa, a character that haunted my dreams for years) appear weightless and quick without any real sense of danger. And that's the problem I've had with CGI for years. No matter how flawless it appears mixed in with the action on-screen, it still feels off to me. Not to mention the real characters in Leterrier's amped up version lack a genuine connection. Scuttled is the relationship between Andromeda and Persius in the original. Why do I really care if he saves everyone in this new version? The owl-so important and inviting in the original- is treated to the usual off-the-cuff post modern joke that dots so many remakes today. And as Persius, Worthington again brings zero gravity to his leading man... there to scowl and pout and fight. If this guy never gets work again, we may all be the better off.


In "Valhalla Rising", nothing is treated as a joke and the locales- fog covered Scottish mountains and grimy, black mud- authenticate a real story. I understand this comes off as yet another lobby for low-budget artistic style over big budget commercialism, but in this case, watch both films and tell me one doesn't agree. As One Eye, Mads Mikkelson is a caged slave warrior who escapes his captors, reluctantly joins up with a band of marauding Christian Vikings and ends up stranded in the New World as religion and faith falls apart around him. Spare imagery, clashing electric guitar drones and violent cuts between quiet and action create a tension within "Valhalla Rising" that's impenetrable to escape. Like his previous film "Bronson", "Valhalla Rising" is a character study of a violent male that tells you very little about the man outside his own self aggrandizing. One Eye is a mute, prone to precognitive visions about his own fate and "Valhalla Rising" keeps this hermetic sense of time and self intact. Bouncing from violent adventure to the next, "Valhalla Rising" has been described by Refn himself as a science fiction film without the science, and its numerous static shots of men talking off-screen in stream-of-conscious thought or One Eye's blood red visions of the future certainly place the film in a very netherworld atmosphere. All in all, this film's rugged savagery and auteur-like imagery put the mascara-clad acting and unimaginative CGI of "Clash of the Titans" to shame.

What's In the Netflix Queue #29

1. Cria Cuervos- Carlos Saura's tale of a young child dealing with the loss of her parents. There's not much Saura available on DVD, and the ones that are ("Tango" and "Carmen") don't play much to my sensibilities. I have heard great things about this film, though.
2. Kingdom of Heaven- I saw Ridley Scott's film in theaters, but it left little impression on me. Since upgrading to Blu Ray last year and hearing the terrific things about this extended director's cut version which seems to flesh out some of the material more, I've decided to give it another try.
3. Nip Tuck Season 6 Part 2- A soap opera of the highest order. I've been hooked since episode one on FX years ago, so why stop now even though the show has gotten more and more preposterous every season.
4. Hated: GG Allin and the Murder Junkies- Early documentary from comedy director Todd Philips (yes, "Road Trip") about the cult status of punk underground singer GG Allin. Can't say I've heard any of their music, but I'm always open to fascinating subjects.
5. Young Torless- "Based on a heart-wrenching novel by writer Robert Musil, this film, directed by Volker Schlondorff and winner of the International Critics Prize at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival, explores what happens when a young man named Thomas Törless (Mathieu Carrière), enrolled at a boarding school in the Austro-Hungarian Empire before the war, does nothing to save a boy (Marian Seidowsky) from constant torture by his classmates." From the Netflix description.
6. Moon In the Gutter- French director Jean Jacques Beineix's cult classic finally got its DVD release earlier this year. While the only Beineix film I've managed to see has been "Diva", I love this type of exposure to a filmmaker previously hidden away. Three other films by Beineix are in the queue as well.
7. Billy Jack- "Billy Jack" on Blu-ray. Believe it. Friends highly recommend this as ass-kicking 70's greatness.
8. Is Paris Burning?- International war film by French director Rene Clement described as "Jean-Paul Belmondo heads the star-studded cast (which includes Charles Boyer, Kirk Douglas and Alain Delon) in this drama directed by Rene Clement and co-written by, among many others, Francis Ford Coppola and Gore Vidal. Although World War II is nearly over, the Germans wage one last effort at destruction in Paris. But the French Resistance won't let them win -- not when Allied victory is so close at hand." Sounds great, but the two star rating on Netflix has me a bit worried?
9. The Messenger- Iraq drama from last Oscar season starring Woody Harrelson that I'm just now catching up with.
10. Robokill Beneath Club Layla- Just look at that title. Do I really need to explain? Ok, it stars director Kiyoshi Kurosawa and is described as the following: When a nightclub opens in Tokyo 45 years after World War II, the clientele have no idea the site once housed a hush-hush military lab. But the secret is about to emerge as a defective generator reactivates half-man, half-machine superwarrior Mikadroid, long thought destroyed by America's firebombing of the city. Next thing you know, disco patrons are turning up dead as the cyborg prowls the cellar in this sci-fi classic starring Yoriko Douguchi.

Cinema Obscura: Kenji Fukasaku's "Virus"

As purveyor of hyper-kinetic yakuza flicks ("The Yakuza Files" series) and the bloody cult favorite "Battle Royale", Japanese director Kenji Fukasaku is probably the least likely candidate to produce such a great (and unknown) disaster flick featuring an international cast. With Chuck Conners as a British submarine captain, Sonny Chiba as a scientist, Glenn Ford as the President, Henry Silva hamming it up as a maniacal military general and Bo Svenson as the sacrificial lamb, not to mention the uncomfortable idea of 7 women having to digest the reality of procreating the entire human race, "Virus" (aka "Day of Resurrection") is two hours and forty minutes of early 80's goodness.... and a disaster film that wipes out the Earth's population twice! Who could ask for a more guilty pleasure?

Cross-cutting around the globe as a biological weapon is accidentally released on mankind, "Virus" spends the first 90 minutes effeciently charting the world's demise and establishing emotional resonance with a few select characters, namely Japanese scientist Masao Kusakari who survives the outbreak due to his position in the South Pole where temperatures keep the virus dormant. Research stations from around the world eventually band up together and begin to chart the recreation of mankind, led by George Kennedy of all people. Fukasaku's comic-book storytelling adds a second level of destruction though. Before his death from the virus, military general Henry Silva armed the doomsday devices... nuclear weapons that could launch after a certain period of time and wipe the remaining survivors off the map for good. As the true good guys, Bo Svenson and Kusakari return to Washington DC to disarm the device, risking infection.

Very little of Fukasaku's style is inherent in "Virus". As the precursor to Japanese filmmakers such as Takashi Miike- work fast and quick- Fukasaku has crafted a genuine Saturday afternoon pleaser with little violence, no bad language and old fashioned characterizations. "Virus" may not be as slick as recent ground zero disaster films, but its no frills aesthetic and peculiar pedigree of name actors pushes it a shoulder above the rest.

Trailers I Love

I've heard virtually nothing about this film, but the trailer seems enticing. A quick bit of research shows the book (didn't even know there was one) has its ardent admirers.

Two

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. One of the very best films of the year.

Salt

Speaking of ludicrous, Philip Noyce’s “Salt” is a supreme disappointment after all the chatter about “throwback 70’s thriller” and female Bourne talk. The problem is this- what makes the Bourne Trilogy so terrific is it’s attention to realism that “Salt” blows out the window from the first chase. The image of Angelina Jolie jumping from eighteen wheeler to eighteen wheeler on the highway and its bevy of stand-around-and-shoot-poorly-government-agents strikes me as nothing throwback. Where Doug Liman and Paul Greengrass maneuvered Bourne out of tricky spots with careful calculation and quick witted thinking (such as the masterly edited scene as Jason Bourne escapes the downtown London subway station through observation and body cloaking with other people) Noyce and screenwriter Kurt Wimmer love the nauseating effect of slow-down/speed-up method of filmmaking that has become ingrained in video game consumerism and blockbuster action films as Jolie bounces off walls and expends grenades with sultry looks of satisfaction. I was bored after 15 minutes and only got worse as the action intensified. And the worst part? We’re left with the possibility of a sequel.

Concrete Beauty

Pretty speechless by this video.... Dallas architecture timed to beautiful perfection.

70's Bonanza: The Outside Man

Jacques Deray's 1972 Los Angeles noir is notable for several reasons: it's not only a Euro noir that successfully transplants its moody French-killer-tone into a vibrant portrait of early 70's Los Angeles funk (and thereby earning its spot in Thom Anderson's substantial documentary "Los Angeles Plays Itself"), but its a film that features a delicious cat and mouse chase between Jean Louis Trignitant and Roy Scheider with Ann Margaret thrown into the mix, cleavage and all. It's also, sadly, AWOL on DVD distribution. From the opening moments as hit man Trignitant arrives in Los Angeles to carry out a contract, its obvious director Deray is in awe with the concrete jungles, giving us an overview shot up from downtown, down the I-5 and following snatches of interstate into Beverly Hills. Trignitant carries out his orders, and is then turned into the hunted himself as Scheider (as a wordless hit man himself) tracks his every move as the purveyor of a true double-cross. Their battles carry them to an abandoned, almost bombed-out looking portion of Venice beach and a manicured funeral home finale that turns into a bloodbath worthy of Scorsese's "Taxi Driver". I can certainly imagine Michael Mann taking something away from the point of view shot as a man hangs onto the side of a car, clinging for life, then slowly letting go and fading away (see "Public Enemies"). In short, "The Outside Man" looks and feels like one of those 'insider movies'.... locked away from the general public but highly influential for a generation of filmmakers who fashion their work with mood and style.


Deray, who produced a number of fine crime films in his native France, never quite achieved the level of grandiose wonder that is present in "The Outside Man". The entire film has a fog of discovery hanging over it.... one that native Los-Angelian Anderson describes in his documentary as fitting perfectly with its title- a film that takes an outsider and places him squarely in the rat race of modern America. We've seen some of these grimy locations on film before, but in "The Outside Man", they have a distinct off-centerdness that fits with the point of view of a foreigner on the run for his life. And as the cold, calculated stalker hunting Trignitant, Scheider looks to be having a ball.

As the outside man in question, Trignitant is silent. He registers little emotion, but its one tiny moment in the film that expresses its enveloping nihilistic attitude. With a chance to board a plane back to France, Deray employs a slow zoom on Trignitant's face as he measures his future, ultimately deciding to stay in Los Angeles and face the consequences. It's a striking moment, made all the more stylish by Deray's decision to film his next appearance standing in the middle of an airport street as Margaret tries to drive away from dropping him off. Just like its legendary L.A. locations, Deray clearly has a penchant for swell emotional cues. It makes the impossible (caring for a hit man) ring somewhat believably honest.

If I Programmed A Film Festival

Day 1:

The Last Run (1971)- **** Euro Crime Pic Selection- Part 1 of a selection of grossly overlooked 60’s and 70’s Euro crime pics… starring George C Scott and written about here.

One Deadly Summer (1983)- Part 1 of that lovely genre known as sexy-young-French-girl-revenge-drama with a stunningly beautiful Isabella Adjani on the sexual warpath to make up for past transgressions.

The Addiction (1994)- **** Double Feature Post Modern Vampires- The vampire genre given an introspective and almost poetic spin by bad-boy auteur Abel Ferrera and sadly hard to find anywhere.

Rabid Dogs (1971)- **** Euro Crime Pic Selection- Hugely entertaining Mario Bava tale of a kidnapped couple by criminals on the run. Sweaty, nasty and with one chilling ending.

Smile (1975)- Brilliant Michael Ritchie flick about, of all things, a beauty pageant. In all its skewed humor, it rivals “Nashville” for its mood and precise view of early 70’s California.

The Fixer (1968)- An exercise in punishment of a Jewish man during the early days of Czarist Russia, creatively brought to life by John Frankenheimer. Should play well with another persecution film on this bill.

Go, Go Second Time Virgin (1969)- As the closing film of day 1, if people are having a hard time staying awake, then this perverse obscurity from Koji Wakamatsu will certainly keep everyone awake.


Day 2:


A Real Young Girl (1976)- Second entry in the French revenge drama category, helmed to suffocating tension by Catherine Breillat.

Breaking In (1989)- Something to brighten the mood a bit, and this late 80’s Bill Forsyth comedy about an aging burglar (Burt Reynolds) who takes on an apprentice (Casey Siemasko!) is right on the money. See it for the watchdog scene alone.

Daybreakers (2010)- **** Double Feature Post Modern Vampires- Neat little film with an interesting take on a well tread genre. It’s not the best movie of 2010, but its certainly one of the most gory and the one where I’ve had the most fun.

Grand Slam (1967)- **** Euro Crime Pic Selection- This one with an all star cast all vying for the heart (and bank key) of sexy Viven Leigh as an uptight bank manager. Feels like a Jules Dassin film, expertly paced and wholly involving.

The Messenger (1999)- I’ll never understand the bile for this Luc Besson film. Milla Jovovich suffers like the best of ‘em and the opening battle sequences are sweeping. One of the year’s best in a very crowded ‘99 and along with “The Fixer”, it makes one pine for maximum security prisons today.

Le Cercle Rouge (1970)- **** Euro Crime Pick Selection- There are a lot of Jean Pierre Melville, masterpieces, but this color entry in his silent, tough guy criminal exercise is especially good.

Greaser’s Palace (1969)- Nothing quite like this Robert Downey oddity to send everyone off on a high note. I’m not much of a fan, but its impossible to watch this film without your jaw dropping to the floor.




p.s. donations and a movie theater are now being accepted to help me begin my own film festivals…..

Indie Spirit

Winter's Bone


Director Debra Granik continues her 'bone' fascination with "Winter's Bone", 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.

Cyrus

Another well written film that will most likely end up as one of the year's best, 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.

An Appreciation: Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Kandagawa Lewdness Wars (1983) ** - Kurosawa’s debut film is something of a compromising mess. Part “pinku” film and part self-reflexive homage, it’s clear he stayed true on his commission of delivering a straight up erotic film while sneaking in bouts of Godard-like pop moments and sly evocations of Hitchcock. The story: two female friends, one bored by continuous sex with her boyfriend and the other just bored, spy across the street from their apartments and observe an older woman forcing her son into incest. They devise a plan to spring him from the confines of this life, thus sending the film into an airy series of foiled break out attempts and long shots of people running around in very animated mannerisms. It doesn’t always come together, but Kurosawa’s deviant swipes of humor and his obvious love for Godardian snatches of cinema (the two women staring directly at the camera and posting a paper on the wall that reads “charge!”, as well as the endless names of classic films on the background of one apartment) create a slowly endearing attitude. Not available on DVD.

Excitement of the Do Re Mi Fa Girl (1985) *1/2- Even for the most ardent Kurosawa devotee, this is a tough pill to swallow. A young girl comes to a local university looking for a lost boyfriend. Beyond that, the film is a Godard like riff on campus politics, heady professors and over-sexed coeds.... and I'm making it all sound a bit more interesting than it really is. Even the inclusion of Nicholas Ray film titles on passing poster boards or the allusions to "Made In USA" fall a bit flat.

Sweet Home (1988) *** - This tribute to the scary old house genre reveals the beginnings of Kurosawa’s visual style, such as his obfuscation of images through shadows (especially faces) and his playful attention to light and dark. The story- a news crew enters an old house that belonged to an iconic Japanese artist and stir up some pretty ugly spirits- is straight out of the horror genre playbook, yet Kurosawa makes it work through some nightmarish creatures and genuinely unsettling images. It also features one of his more outwardly affectionate finales through personal sacrifice. And honestly, any movie that inspires a video game (and not the other way around) has gotta earn some bonus points! Not available on DVD.

The Guard From Underground (1992) **1/2- Besides being a slasher film where the killer is revealed face and all in the first ten minutes, “The Guard From Underground” also deploys Kurosawa’s now trademark visual style for the first time. Filmed completely in a dank, industrial office building where the predominant colors are green and black, a newly employed six foot plus security guard goes on a killing spree as art buyer Narushima (Makkiko Kuno) chooses the wrong day to start her new job. The film lags a bit at times, but its most interesting as the breeding ground for Kurosawa’s slow-burn long takes, spooky lateral tracking shots around corners and a deep psychological about face in the finale that has a killer questioning his actions in a world that doesn’t seem to understand him.

Door 3 (1996) **1/2- “Door 3” (as in the number of a door and not the third in a trilogy) is more interesting for its ideas that will eventually surface in his later films than for its own outright creepiness. Basically, this is Kurosawa’s “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”. An insurance saleswoman (Ryo Amamiya) travels to a non-descript office building, where she becomes seduced by the male client there,. She is then slowly stalked by a group of zombie women who spit out little green monsters. Yes, I realize the description sounds like a bad 50’s sci-fi, but this is nothing new for Kurosawa…. Recycling themes and bracketing them around his own distinct style (slow zooms, shadows, plastic sheeting etc). It is curious, though, because “Door 3” features the identical blueprint for a scene that would appear later in “Pulse”- the crab walk woman, although less freakish here, is rolled out with the same droning music and shot placement. “Door 3” is a minor work in Kurosawa’s oeuvre, yet it’s fun to see this talented filmmaker playing with ideas and images way before they became ingrained in the Japanese horror new wave.

The Revenge- Parts 1 and 2 (1996) ***- 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. At times more of a comedy than anything else, Kurosawa's style of oblique editing and violent outbursts feel like a Takeshi Kitano film with its languid swagger and blank faced killers. Not available on DVD and hard to find outside of avi files.

Cure (1997) ****- Kurosawa’s first real international success and a truly harrowing, disturbing film that turns the moody serial killer genre on its ear. After three viewings, “Cure” is a film that continues to enrich and unfold it’s oblique narrative in startling ways. Each time, a different interpretation can be gleaned. In essence, a psychology student (Masato Hagiwara) stumbles across the ability of Franz Mesmer’s hypnotic suggestion technique and tweaks it in violent ways. Left to solve the rash of baffling murders is Kurosawa regular Koji Yakusho, a detective suffering the pressures of this case plus the weary job of tending to his mentally ill wife. I think. Kurosawa tenders information in subliminal cuts, elliptical editing and long takes that allows the tension and atmospheric dread of each scene to overwhelm the viewer, explaining very little overtly and ending on a succession of images that are frightening and maddening. Through it all, though, “Cure” is a dazzling masterpiece that opened the door for Kurosawa’s enigmatic career in the States.

The Serpent’s Path (1998) ***½- The first part in a two film series that examines the nature of revenge. Much like Park Chan Wook’s revenge trilogy, “The Serpent’s Path” morphs into a heavy moral tug of war that shocks as the true motivations of its characters is slowly revealed. A low level yakuza thug (Teruyuki Kagawa), with the help of a physics professor (Sho Aikawa), kidnaps a fellow criminal and forces him to confess to the murder and rape of his 8 year old daughter. More kidnappings follow as each yakuza member fingers someone else for the ghastly murder. The real force of “The Serpent’s Path” lies in the story of the professor, Nijiima, and exactly how and why he manipulates everyone to his satisfaction. Through simple, elegant camera moves and pans, Kurosawa expresses deep emotion. And the dark humor is never far behind either. The finale, which takes place in one of those omniscient and dilapidated buildings which visually marks so much of Kurosawa’a work, explodes on the screen in a wave of violence. Think of it as the Japanese “Taxi Driver”, just as fierce in its obsession for redemption and cathartic anomaly. Not available on DVD.

Eyes of the Spider (1998) **1/2- Less successful than its sister film, “The Serpent’s Path”, “Eyes of the Spider” is a complex reversal of that previous film. Where “The Serpent’s Path” was an oblique and shattering examination of revenge from the point of view of ordinary men, “Eyes of the Spider” shows just how an ordinary man could get wrapped up in the yakuza lifestyle. At times reminiscent of a Takeshi Kitano film, Sho Aikawa again takes the lead as a mild mannered professional who kills the man who murdered his daughter six years earlier. His photo is taken as he pays for a gun from some shady yakuza men, and an old friend soon comes calling to ingratiate him into the lifestyle. As a yakuza film- which is what Kurosawa was commissioned to do with both films- “Eyes of the Spider” is a more straightforward example of the genre but less interesting. There are a few haunting images though, built around the guilt of the dead girl and Aikawa’s stone faced portrayal of a man caught in some sort of hyper reality. Not available on DVD.


License To Live (1999) *** - “License To Live” was one of five films produced within a year and a half of each other, and one can sense Kurosawa’s overriding desire to slow down and populate a generous tale of a young man who awakens from a ten year coma and tries to reunite his dispersed family. Some of his regular crew are back, yet “License To Live” feels like a breath of fresh air, instilled with beautifully timed comic moments and a harmonious sense of peace. As the 24 year old who awakens from a coma and slowly learns to grow up, dour faced Hidetoshi Nishijima is a quiet revelation. And just when one thinks they know the direction “License To Live” is heading, Kurosawa usurps our expectations and favors his nontraditional approach to story and character… none more so than when Nishijima meets the man who put him in a coma for the second time and the final scene that speaks volumes about missed connections in life. Not available on DVD.

Barren Illusions (1999) *1/2- A love story in the most skeletal of terms, “Barren Illusion” is an almost impenetrable tale that stood as the third film of the year for Kurosawa in 1999. Taking place in 2005, the film follows a young couple as they waste away (literally and figuratively) in a Japan beset by a roving band of thugs and pollen pollution that forces the masses to intermittently wear gas masks. There are two scenes where the young girl appears to die, first by passively jumping off a building then later being beaten by a gang of men, and then reappears in the next scene alive. The couple wish to run away, but are thwarted by their own indecisiveness and a skeleton that washes up on the beach beside them. There’s an ominous shadow lady who appears to the young girl in the basement of the post office where she works and claims that the copy machine stopped working in 2000. All of this is thrown together with little regard for explanation or cohesiveness. There’s something in “Barren Illusions” that touches on Kurosawa’s penchant for societal alienation, yet its languid pace and unwillingness to allow any introspection works against Kurosawa this time. Not available on DVD.

Charisma (1999) **- A wild collision of genres and ideas is “Charisma”… a film I’ve best seen described as an ‘eco-thriller’. Kurosawa regular Koji Yakusho plays a failed police officer who runs away from his responsibilities and family and ends up in a forest, seduced by the allure of a seemingly magical tree. The ironic idea presented in “Charisma” belies the fact that despite being set in a forest, the power plays between aggressive environmentalists, feminist biologists and a crazed protector of the tree who lives in a decrepit sanitarium feel just as crowded as the city he’s abandoned. “Charisma” doesn’t fully come together in the end, but it feels like Kurosawa’s most pointed effort to the future…. A film that employs the slickness and ambient noise that will dominate his post Y2K features.

Séance (2000) ****- “Séance” is all about atmosphere, and the most perfect distillation of where Kurosawa the filmmaker is headed. Full of portentous zooms, figures that hide in the shadows and an unnerving sound track, this could be called one of the founding efforts in the J-Horror wave. And, as one of the few Kurosawa films not written by himself but based on a separate novel, “Séance” feels like the most complete film in the director’s oeuvre to date as well. Regular Koji Yakusho and his spiritually gifted wife end up smack dab in the middle of a little girl’s kidnapping, making all the wrong decisions (as in the best of noirs) and burrowing themselves into a psychologically haunted recourse with a devastating outcome. “Séance” has much in common with “Ring”… including the long black haired female spirit that crawls and swirls around the corners of the frame… and this is just exactly the greatness of the film. Kurosawa uses every inch of the frame to disturb and unsettle. In one scene, a couple have an ordinary conversation with a window in the background that looks out into a bevy of trees violently swaying in the gusty wind… and one half expects something to pop up. Kurosawa is in deep command, and in turn, “Séance” evolves into a devious subversion of the thriller genre. His familiar themes of a woman ghost in a red dress and the doppelganger idea are also explored a few years before each subject would get the full treatment.

Pulse (2001) ****- Much of the J-Horror wave enabled their narratives around the potential calamity of technology via spiritual influence, and “Pulse” is the apex of this idea. Hell is basically overrun with souls, so they reach the living through the Internet, slowly causing everyone to commit suicide and bring about the apocalypse. Challenging and a bit confusing at times, one cannot deny the genuine and propulsive spookiness of “Pulse”. Visually, “Pulse” also announces a dank netherworld that gives Kurosawa’s images a terrifying swath of darkness around the corners, toying with the viewer as images dance and swoon around the edges of the frame. It’s not only a masterpiece during a very productive time in Kurosawa’s career, but one of the best horror films of the last 30 years as well.

Doppelganger (2003) ***- I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of doppelgangers, and many movies have elevated the idea to unsettling proportions. Kurosawa’s take on the idea is a comic exploration when scientist Koji Yakusho splits in two and his evil twin begins to act out his repressed fantasies and feelings. Riffing on familiar themes, “Doppelganger” is an accomplished film that finds Kurosawa in a more playful tone, such as when the finale abruptly shifts to one of those dilapidated warehouses Kurosawa obviously loves. And, I can’t think of a more amusing moment in his entire career then the scene of an artificial robot body, wildly flaying its arms and slowly rolling towards the edge of a cliff like a child playing on the beach.


Bright Future (2003) **- An ironic title to say the least, mostly because it breaks from Kurosawa’s typical visual style of careful, static camera placement towards handheld photography and digital video… formats that where certainly the future in the mid aught. The story itself is not quite as interesting, involving a stunted factory worker who inherits the pet jellyfish of a friend that commits murder and subsequently populates the canals and rivers of Japan with said jellyfish. Rambling and incoherent story lines has never been a real problem for Kurosawa. He typically makes up for it in grand fashion, yet “Bright Future” failed to grab me on any real level. There is a version out there that is 20 minutes longer, so perhaps the film’s shagginess is a victim of the cutting room floor.

Loft (2005) *1/2- As one of the purveyors of the J-horror movement with “Pulse” and “Séance” five years earlier, Kurosawa’s unthinkably hard-to-find 2005 film serves as a cheap entry into the genre… and not much else. “Loft” spins a story around a woman writer (Miki Nakatani) who retreats to a country house, only to be disturbed by a sulking ghost and a slightly off-balance anthropologist who houses a thousand year old mummy next door. There are slight moments of unease, but “Loft” feels like a very labored piece of work, made all the more disappointing due to the fact it was written by Kurosawa himself. Part of me wonders if “Loft” was an intended throwback to the rubber and latex glory days of 80’s Asian horror- and more specifically, Kurosawa’s own “Sweet Home”.

Retribution (2006) ***- Dense paranormal murder mystery that distills a number of previous Kurosawa themes- including his fascination with ghostly female apparitions in a red dress- “Retribution” feels like a culmination of his recent films dealing with the sins of the past wrecking havoc on the modern population of Tokyo. Koji Yakusho is back as an amnesiac police detective working the deaths of several people who’ve been killed by loved ones possessed by something highly reminiscent of his breakthrough film “Cure”. As his investigation progresses, certain clues lead back to himself as he battles with his own visions of a tormented woman. “Retribution” has the potential to be something very special, but its ultimate reliance on past themes and ideas wears a bit. For newcomers to Kurosawa’s oeuvre, though, it’s likely to still terrify and unnerve.

Tokyo Sonata (2008) ***½- The most pointed effort to strike at the heart of Kurosawa’s recurring theme- the loss of self. By stripping away genre pretense, “Tokyo Sonata” is a straight forward family drama as the nuclear family tumbles apart from each other after father (Teruyuki Kagawa) loses his job and then pretends nothing happened. Youngest son Kenji (Inowaki Kai) submerges the fact that he’s taken his lunch money and paid for piano lessons. Oldest son Takashi (Yu Koyanagi) leaves home to become a soldier. And wife Kyoko Koizumi, whose story is probably the most revealing of the four as she’s kidnapped by burglar Koji Yakusho and has a sort of spiritual awakening on a beach, tries to hold everything together by dutifully cooking dinner every night. Even though “Tokyo Sonata” feels like the least identifiable feature in over a decade by Kurosawa, it does pack a wallop, especially in its beautifully realized closing moments as parents finally understand the meaning of child prodigy when they listen to Kenji play piano.

A Strange (and Finally Great) Week

First, the Dallas metroplex experienced this.

And now, Cliff Lee!!!!!!

Probably sold our souls and young Justin Smoak- who has looked a bit lost, offensively, for the past 2 months or so- may come back to haunt the Rangers in their 20 games a year against Seattle, but at least it shows the team is committed to making things happen this year. With Lee, Lewis, Wilson, Holland and Feldman making out the rotations, a lot of us fans feel comfortable with post season chances in a short series. God... I can't believe I'm saying the Rangers have a chance with the 4th lowest payroll in baseball this year..... and alot of high falootin ESPN folks agree to.


Finally, how awesome is this commercial:

A Little Music..... Just Because

Things have been hectic lately and I just, frankly, haven't had the energy to write. In the meantime, a couple excerpts of music that I'm currently digging....

Cinema Obscura: The Fixer

There's no doubt director John Frankenheimer loved to expose the vagaries of pain and suffering. One of the most cringe-inducing sequences of his long career occurred in his sequel to "The French Connection" in 1975, where he spent 15 minutes in a locked room with detective Popeye Doyle (Gene Hackman) who 'spazzed' and kicked through a nasty heroin habit withdrawal. Though it wasn't even remotely central to the rest of the story, it provided Doyle with some pent up aggression towards the criminals he pursued, as well as creating a guttural feel to the already grimy police procedural. Imagine that sequence stretched out to over 90 minutes and one gets the sense of persecution and savagery inflicted upon Yakov (Alan Bates) in Frankenheimer's very hard to find 1968 film "The Fixer".


In turn of the century Russia, Alan Bates stars as Yakov, Jewish handyman who gives little regard to his faith, simply trying to earn a living while the Czarist government around him is corralling Jews into ghettos. While walking home one winter night, he rescues a drunk who has fallen into the snow. This man is of high regard in the community and with Yakov's non-Jewish features, he takes him in and offers him a job. It's not long before the jealous workers he supervises concoct a tale of rape and child murder, bringing Yakov's Jewish heritage to light. Yakov serves years in jail, refusing to confess to any crime and becoming the whipping boy for a turnstile of Russian jailers and tunnel-visioned lawyers (the main persecutor being a young Ian Holm). Reminiscent of Joan of Ark (without the burning at the stake part), Frankenheimer elicits a suffocating atmosphere as the walls slowly close in on Yakov over the years and he turns into a beaten, demented and martyred figure of Jewish hope. It's to the credit of lead actor Bates that the film doesn't devolve into something unwatchable and punishing. It is both those things, yet Bates enriches the character with glimmers of humanity and a wry sense of humor that pushes the viewer to hope for the best. In addition, some of the film's best moments come between Bates and appointed defense lawyer Bibikov, played to perfection by Dirk Bogarde. The men discuss philosophy, innocence and the various facets of religious identity. Based on a script by Dalton Trumbo, the allusions to his blacklisted life are streaked throughout the dialogue without becoming overpowering and Frankenheimer does a thorough job of opening up the sometimes stage-bound film in visually exciting ways, such as the moment when Yakov envisions the walls of his cell closing around him.


Lost on home video release and rarely shown on television, "The Fixer" was one of the few John Frankenheimer films I'd been unable to see. It's certainly not an easy watch, but an important footnote to a stream of 60's hits that feels tonally out of place with the rest of his challenging and genre-induced work including "The Manchurian Candidate", "The Train", "Seconds" and "Gran Prix", followed by easier tales of small town life and edgy criminal shenanigans such as "The Gypsy Moths" and "I Walk the Line". In all regards, "The Fixer" is a very serious religious and political work that deserved more than the throwaway actor nomination for Alan Bates that year, if for nothing more than its unrelenting gaze on a period of history often overlooked.

Small Town Malaise: 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.


Affleck, as he did in "The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford", tackles the central performance like a soft spoken Jekyll and Hyde. If one were to go into "The Killer Inside Me" with no preconceived ideas of the story, Affleck sells his genteel southern sheriff in the opening moments as a true good 'ol boy... someone we could easily see as a hero. But when the shoe drops and Affleck presents Sheriff Ford as a masochistic sex addict and killer, he turns the performance into something altogether tragic, most wince-inducing after the brutal fist beating of local prostitute Joyce (Jessica Alba) in the film's first 30 minutes in an effort to unwind himself from family secrets and a complicated blackmail plot. From there, Winterbottom and screenwriter John Curran slowly spin their tale as the noose tightens around Ford's neck and he attempts to hold together his 'other' life, namely his impending marriage to local girl Amy (Kate Hudson) while a suspecting federal agent (Simon Baker) works to pin the guilt on Affleck.

If the violence shown against women is the central point of contention for so many people, what seems to be missing is the idea that Winterbottom and Curran have done nothing but adapt a story that is 50 years old. In it's updating, there's nothing titillating about the violence, which only strengthens the craftsmanship of the film. Definitely the most radical and consuming of Thompson's novels, "The Killer Inside Me" still feels radical and consuming today, especially in it's apocalyptic ending.

Trailers I love

Produced and Abandoned #6

Ten more titles that should see the light of day on region 1 DVD:

1. The Brave (1997)- A real oddity. Directed by and starring Johnny Depp, the film says its about a Native American (Depp) whose offered a chance to take part in a snuff film. It was shown briefly at several international film festivals and brutally panned by critics. Depp then pulled it from distribution deals and has refused to release it. I did stumble across a copy the other day, and I'm seriously considering making the purchase. If anyone thinks differently, please let me know.
2. 99 and 44/100% Dead (1974)- John Frankenheimer's pop art gangster film shows up on TV from time to time, and it recently received a showing at the New Beverly in Los Angeles, so maybe someone, somewhere finds enough value in it to give us a proper release. I've only seen the film once... years ago in a shitty pan and scan version on Bravo (or a similar channel) and still loved it.
3. To Live and Die In LA (1987)- A bit of a cheat, but this title has been tantalizingly offered then pulled on Blu Ray, leaving us with a pretty shoddy pan and scan version on DVD.
4. Last Summer (1969)- Read the IMDB board for this film, and there some pretty fervent admirers of Frank Perry's film out there. Lined with a cast of young stars including Barbara Hershey and Bruce Davison, "Last Summer" sounds like an honest coming of age film that nailed the spirit and authenticity of its time. Warner Archive initially announced its release, then declined it due to a bad print.
5. Kings of the Road (1976)- Like many of Wender's early 70's films, I once had my hands on a worn out VHS copy, only to have it be eaten in the machine after 6 or 7 minutes. I've never been able to find it again. Clocking in at 3hours, this is widely considered the high mark for Wenders pre-1990 work, encompassing the best of his themes and adopting a leisurely tone without becoming boring. The search will go on.....
6. Secret Sunshine (2007)- Chang dong-lee's 2007 film garnered quite the buzz on the festival circuit a few years ago, opened quietly in select metro markets (not Dallas) and has since retired from the grid. Lee has already made another film that captured good buzz at this year's Cannes fest (titled "Poetry") but "Secret Sunshine" is curiously MIA.
7. Robbery Homicide Division (2002-2003)- Anyone besides me remember this Michael Mann produced TV series? Originally airing on CBS for a few weeks, it eventually was shuttled around in their hectic schedule. When I first got HD in 2005, the show was run regularly on HD NET, and I understand the Sleuth channel (which seems impossible to find on my current provider) aired the show in 2008. Filmed in stark Hi-def, "Robbery Homicide Division" starred Tom Sizemore and Mann regular Barry Henley as Los Angeles cops on the prowl in what was seemingly a hi-def experiment for Mann two years before "Collateral". Still, the brio and ambiguous story lines crossed with Mann's flair for representing an electric city were great.
8. The Amsterdam Kill (1977)- Late 70's bad assery with Robert Mitchum as a disgraced DEA agent trouncing across Europe. Very little is out there about this flick, but it sounds enticing.
9. Away With Words (1999)- Any fan of Asian cinema will recognize the hearty contributions of cinematographer Christopher Doyle, and "Away With Words" was his first stint as director. Described as a moody intersection of three people in modern Hong Kong, it sounds highly reminiscient of his work with Wong Kar Wai... a film that emphasizes place and arty visuals over content. That's not always a bad thing.
10. House (1977)- Campy Japanese horror. But don't believe me. Just do some google searches and discover the pure joy people have experienced with this film. I imagine a proper DVD release is on the way.