CATALOGUE
OF AN ADDICTION: 2003 ed.
Slashes and numbers and asterisks, oh my?
001.
(02 Jan) Repulsion (1965, Roman Polanski)
[Yes, Polanksi, all men are lecherous fiends, all women are naive and pure, and
Catherine Deneuve can act in English. Keep telling yourself that.]
002.
(02 Jan) /California Split/ (1974, Robert Altman)
[Among Altman's top three (with McCabe & Mrs. Miller and The
Long Goodbye); an exuberant portrait of gambling's essential emptiness.]
003.
(02 Jan) Belle de Jour (1967, Luis Buñuel)
[Dissatisfied housewife seeks escape blah repetitive blah with very few daring
scenes.]
004.
(02 Jan) Chicago (2002, Rob Marshall)
005.
(03 Jan) /25th Hour/ (2002, Spike Lee)
006.
(03 Jan) \Catch Me If You Can\ (2002, Steven Spielberg)
007.
(03 Jan) /Buffalo '66/ (1998, Vincent Gallo)*
[Strange, almost experimental love story shines via the inarguable conviction
of Gallo's suffering.]
008.
(04 Jan) Scarecrow (1973, Jerry Schatzberg)
[Rich study in friendship and alienation; stunning performances from Hackman and
Pacino.]
009. (05 Jan)
Love Liza (2002, Todd Louiso)
010.
(05 Jan) /Defending Your Life/ (1991, Albert Brooks)*
[Don't live in fear says this movie again and again and again and again,
but there's enough invention and funny moments to keep things moderately entertaining.]
011.
(06 Jan) /Band of Outsiders/ (1964, Jean-Luc Godard)*
[Dear Young Anna Karina: Please marry me. Love Jared.]
012.
(06 Jan) Intacto (2002, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo)
013.
(06 Jan) /Days of Heaven/ (1978, Terrence Malick)
[Hardly engaging, but haunting and beautiful enough for me not to care.]
W/O.
(06 Jan) The Hole (1998, Tsai Ming-Liang)
014.
(07 Jan) Talk to Her (2002, Pedro Almodóvar)
015.
(07 Jan) /The Good Girl/ (2002, Miguel Arteta)*
016.
(08 Jan) Ikiru (1952, Akira Kurosawa)
[At least fifty minutes overlong, like a lot of Kurosawa's work. I quickly got
the point; the emotion's eventually deadened by massive overkill.]
017.
(08 Jan) Divine Intervention (2003, Elia Suleiman)
018.
(08 Jan) /Deconstructing Harry/ (1997, Woody Allen)*
[Allen once again tries to reconcile the artist with the man, discovering here
that a tumultuous life doesn't always make for better creative output.]
019.
(10 Jan) /Heaven Can Wait/ (1978, Warren Beatty,
Buck Henry)*
[The air of whimsy and possibility is irresistible; makes you feel better about
death.]
020.
(11 Jan) The Awful Truth (1937, Leo McCarey)
[Delightful, touching screwball detailing the aftermath of a divorce with a young
Cary Grant at his finest.]
021.
(12 Jan) An Affair to Remember (1957, Leo McCarey)
[Delicate first hour nearly ruined by offensive second half in which we learn,
yes, even Cary Grant can love a cripple.]
022.
(13 Jan) /Chicago/ (2002, Rob Marshall)
023.
(13 Jan) Going My Way (1944, Leo McCarey)
[Rare that a movie can be this kindhearted without being maudlin; Bing Crosby
and Barry Fitzgerald are an acting duo to be treasured. But there's too much lame
singing, and alas, not much else here.]
024.
(14 Jan) /About a Boy/ (2002, Chris Weitz, Paul Weitz)*
025.
(14 Jan) /Blue Crush/ (2002, John Stockwell)*
026.
(15 Jan) /Chungking Express/ (1996, Wong Kar-Wai)*
[Not a big fan of the first story, but the second's brand of fairytale romance
-- in which the delicious Faye Wong incessantly dances to "California Dreamin'"
-- more than makes up for it.]
027.
(15 Jan) The Son (2003, Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc
Dardenne)
028.
(16 Jan) Le Cercle Rouge (1970, Jean Pierre-Melville)
[Impossibly cool, containing everything I want in a movie: beautiful women, taciturn
criminals, trains, snow and heists. Almost functions as a silent film, with the
gripping compositions and ambience of decay virtually unrivaled.]
029.
(17 Jan) The Piano (1993, Jane Campion)
[Tedious, annoying, pretentious, cruel.]
030.
(17 Jan) The Lady Eve (1941, Preston Sturges)*
[Can someone who was alive in the 1940s tell me why everyone in 1940s movies treats
getting married as the modern day equivalent of going out on a date?]
031.
(18 Jan) Red (1994, Krzysztof Kieslowski)
[Spell of intrigue woven with care. Irène Jacob is luscious as can be.
Hell of an opening and a kicker of a finale, too.]
032.
(18 Jan) City of God (2003, Fernando Meirelles)
033.
(18 Jan) /Shampoo/ (1975, Hal Ashby)*
[Hedonism brought to a close. The fun masks the sadness, the neediness, the loneliness,
all given song by the tiny, brilliant Paul Simon refrain that pops up from time
to time. Featuring one of the best endings ever.]
034.
(19 Jan) Fallen Angels (1997, Wong Kar-Wai)
[Inferior Chungking Express, but more gorgeous and funnier.]
035.
(19 Jan) Happy Together (1997, Wong Kar-Wai)
[Whatever.]
036.
(20 Jan) /Ed Wood/ (1994, Tim Burton)
[Affectionate, tender, oft-hilarious study of the tenuous line between the greats
and the not-so-greats.]
037.
(22 Jan) /The Curse of the Jade Scorpion/ (2001,
Woody Allen)*
[Underrated; there's some laugh-out-loud stuff here even though most of the one-liners
fall flat.]
038.
(23 Jan) My Darling Clementine (1946, John Ford)
[Is "civilization" a positive or negative influence on the frontier?
The nice thing about this film is it isn't sure.]
039.
(24 Jan) Gremlins (1984, Joe Dante)*
[Promising first act degenerates into empty, endless violence. Would have vastly
preferred a movie about the inventor father.]
040.
(25 Jan) Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989,
Steven Spielberg)
[Superfluous, extended opening announces the abundance of fat that mars most every
Spielberg film. Plot driven right off the freeway and into a ditch; actively avoids
any opportunity for characterization or interest. Boring setpiece after boring
setpiece after moderately exciting setpiece after boring setpiece...]
041.
(27 Jan) Pierrot le Fou (1965, Jean-Luc Godard)*
[Dear Young Anna Karina: Surely you cannot be happy with this Godard fellow. You
give his films their only bit of life and he seems incapable of human speak or
emotion. I imagine he can't even tell you he's going to the bathroom without saying
something like, "Anna Anna Kar The bathroom is a place where we excrete the
poison of the... what is poison if not the opposite of sweetness, I am made of
poison and sweetness and I dream of the mixture, dancing on the belly of the eternal
beast." I, on the other hand, can talk like a real person. I am capable of
asking you if you want a cup of coffee when you wake up and having the statement
mean nothing more than do you want a cup of coffee. I am capable of listening
to what you have to say and loving you and not boring you with my insufferable,
incomprehensible gobbledygook like someone else we know. I'll be good to you.
God damn good for you. Marry me. Love Jared.]
042.
(27 Jan) /12 Monkeys/ (1995, Terry Gilliam)*
[The rarest of all cinematic breeds: a massively unnerving, hugely intelligent
and absolutely apocalyptic möbius strip financed by a major studio with big
movie stars and the bleakest of possible endings. I still can't believe Gilliam
pulled this all off for only ~$29 million; the level of invention here is astonishing
no matter what the cost, the craft impeccable, the implications quite literally
mind-bending. (Think you've got the finale figured out? I dare you to Google "ending
of twelve monkeys," without quotes.) Reminds me just how much we're missing
with every passed year in which Gilliam hasn't made a new film.]
043.
(28 Jan) Spider (2003, David Cronenberg)
044.
(28 Jan) /The Hamster Factor and Other Tales of Twelve Monkeys/
(1996, Keith Fulton, Louis Pepe)*
[Two most telling revelations: (1) Gilliam -- in a bizarre act of personalization
-- eventually ends up mirroring the state of his film's protagonists during the
course of shooting. Since his protagonists are usually crazed lunatics, well,
you do the math there. (2) With each new movie, Gilliam finds the filmmaking process
progressively less satisfying. (1) + (2) = No surprise he hasn't completed
a new flick since way back in 1998.]
045.
(30 Jan) Johnny Guitar (1954, Nicholas Ray)*
[For awhile the utter phoniness, excessive melodrama, over-the-top dialogue, frequent
grandstanding and atrocious acting were hilarious. Then they just got tedious.]
046.
(30 Jan) /North By Northwest/ (1959, Alfred Hitchcock)*
[A smidgeon overlong, but so purely enjoyable no one cares. Few action-adventures
can match this movie's flair for dialogue, fiery romance, expansiveness and the
elegant delicacy with which Hitch controls every frame (though I maintain subtext
is nonexistent here). That James Mason sure was a marvel, huh?]
047.
(31 Jan) Lost in La Mancha (2003, Keith Fulton, Louis
Pepe)
048.
(31 Jan) A Shot in the Dark (1964, Blake Edwards)
[Way too goofy and slapstick-driven for my tastes; I prefer my comedy with some
bite. The bumbling Clouseau shtick gets old real fast.]
049.
(01 Feb) The Recruit (2003, Roger Donaldson)
[Could have been something, considering the first half hour -- in which Colin
Farrell tries to become a CIA agent -- immerses us in a new world (CIA boot camp)
with straightforward knowledge. Too bad the screenwriters had no idea where to
go from there. Gotta note I'm ecstatic the stupid "I love my missing daddy"
sub-thread led exactly nowhere, though, even if it did confirm my immediate suspicion
the damn thing should have never been there in the first place.]
050.
(02 Feb) demonlover (2003, Olivier Assayas)
051.
(03 Feb) /Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying
and Love the Bomb/ (1964, Stanley Kubrick)
[Many things at once: One of only a handful of perfect films ever made; drop-dead
hilarious comedy; horrifying look at nuclear holocaust; most potent cinematic
illustration of war's inherent absurdity; showcase for two of the greatest performances
ever (Seller's trifecta, Scott's Buck Turgidson). Astounding to think this ostensibly
political film hasn't aged a day in 39 years. Dr. Strangelove will be
around as long as Earth is left standing, which, come to think of it, might not
be that much longer...]
052.
(03 Feb) The Ladykillers (1955, Alexander Mackendrick)
[One note drawing-room comedy -- about the chasm between a kindly old lady and
a bunch of thieves -- benefits from the presence of Alec Guinness and Katie Johnson
(as the lady). Made me smile sporadically, but I expected more (the thieves should
have been better developed/distinguished). The Coen Bros. are currently remaking
with Tom Hanks in the lead. Not sure what promise they see in this source material,
though.]
053.
(03 Feb) A Woman Is a Woman (1961, Jean-Luc Godard)*
[(Your wish is my command, baaab.) Dear Young Anna Karina: You know that moment
towards the beginning of A Woman Is a Woman where that girl reads you
some typically Godardian claptrap about the nature of art and you just shrug your
shoulders, smile and amble away? That is why I love you, Anna. Here you
are in the midst of another of your lover's self-reflexive incoherence-fests (characters
address the audience; wonder aloud if their movie is a comedy or a tragedy; call
their movie a masterpiece; Jean-Paul Belmondo talks about watching Breathless
on TV; superimpositions inform us how the characters feel), and you imbue the
film with such guilelessness that any accusations of pretension are rendered moot.
I like to think I can watch your ravishing-as-ever face (accompanied by Michel
Legrand's cooly whacked-out score) cavort around for an eternity, but, alas, that
devious husband of yours always has to rain on my parade by exasperating me with
his consistent nonsense (honestly dear Anna, at only 84 minutes A Woman Is
a Woman is still a bit of a chore to sit through). But Anna, know that moment
when the tears blur your mascara and that sometimes-genius husband of yours cuts
out the music and you talk about how women who don't cry are jerks? God,
you broke my heart. Marry me. Love Jared.]
054.
(04 Feb) What's New, Pussycat? (1965, Clive Donner)
[Somewhat schizophrenic, with Woody Allen's (this is Allen's first produced screenplay,
though he claims it was butchered) I-have-nothing-to-do-with-anything character
and Peter Seller's annoying, out-of-place cartoon (although he does provide the
movie's sole laugh), playing against Peter O'Toole's less wacky and trite womanizing.
Honestly, only the abundance of beautiful women kept me happy, since it'll take
till at least tomorrow morning to forget the images of Paula Prentiss dancing
up a storm and Ursula Andress prancing around in her bra and panties. Everything
else, on the other hand, was immediately erased from my memory banks as soon as
I exited the theater.]
s01.
(05 Feb) Cosmic Ray (1961, Bruce Conner)
s02.
(05 Feb) Report (1967, Bruce Conner)
055.
(05 Feb) /Bonnie and Clyde/ (1967, Arthur Penn)*
[Still doesn't hold a candle to Badlands and still slow in patches, but
this -- one of the most seminal of all America films -- also still packs a large
wallop thanks to the complexity of Beatty's characterization, the presentation
of murderous outlaws as anti-authoritarians of the people, the final shoot-out,
the show-stopping Gene Wilder setpiece, the odd aw-shucksness of Michael J. Pollard's
performance and the superlative manner in which Penn intertwines these elements
and a vivid portrait of drab Depression-era South with the grace of a weeping
willow swaying to a gentle summer breeze.]
056.
(05 Feb) The World of Henry Orient (1964, George
Roy Hill)
[Being a world in which god awful, androgynous, young actresses become obsessed
with phony Peter Sellers characters. The makers really screwed this one up; what
wants to be a poignant, coming of age tale about a young girl without strong parental
guidance is consistently undermined by the occasional focus on the tries-way-too-hard-to-be-funny
titular character (played by Sellers in another of his hammy, shielded by fake
accents personas). Only the wonderful Tom Bosley engages.]
057.
(06 Feb) /McCabe & Mrs. Miller/ (1971, Robert
Altman)*
[Here's my old review. Here's
my new, better written, addendum.]
058.
(06 Feb) Miami Blues (1990, George Armitage)*
[The idiosyncratic, cheapie crime flick Jonathan Demme never made. Miami Blues
is probably so similar to Demme's breezy 80s aesthetic, in part, because
it was produced by Demme himself, shot by Demme's longtime DP and cut by Demme's
longtime editor. What plays like an adaptation of a lesser Elmore Leonard novel
shares Demme's affection for oddball, underbelly-residing characters and his gleeful
mixture of violent abandon and loopy humor. Alec Baldwin is a scene-chewing blast,
while Jennifer Jason Leigh and Fred Ward provide convincing support. The plotting's
implausible, but that's almost irrelevant.]
059.
(07 Feb) Happy Here and Now (2003, Michael Almereyda)
s03.
(08 Feb) Junior the Cat (1988, Gus Van Sant)
s04.
(08 Feb) My Friend (1988, Gus Van Sant)
s05.
(08 Feb) Ballad of Skeletons (1996, Gus Van Sant)
060.
(08 Feb) Mala Noche (1985, Gus Van Sant)
[So fucking boring I wanna fall asleep just thinking about it. Van Sant's feature
debut is only 78 minutes, but sitting in the theater I felt as if a zero had been
tacked onto that number. The acting -- obviously by non-professionals -- is horrific
and managed to consistently ruin whatever momentary investment I might have had
in the story. The plaintive guitar strumming is frequent and annoying as shit;
the voiceover, ditto. Understated, has some nice photography and is fairly evocative
of seedy 1980s Portland, but really, who cares.]
s06.
(08 Feb) Flea Sings (1991, Gus Van Sant)
s07.
(08 Feb) /Junior the Cat/ (1988, Gus Van Sant)
061.
(08 Feb) My Own Private Idaho (1991, Gus Van Sant)
[Found this one to be almost as god damn tedious as Mala Noche. Separation
from family unit yields marginalized, sometimes gay hustlers (yeah, I got the
point without the constant 16mm flashbacks to River Pheonix's mom) -- their life
is aimless and bad. This movie travels nowhere slowly, with uninvolving scenes
going on way too long and Van Sant convinced he can trade crucial elements like
plotting, conflict, evolution and momentum for the occasional surreal sequence.
Sorry Gus, but I'll take the former.]
062.
(09 Feb) /Panic Room/ (2002, David Fincher)*
063.
(10 Feb) The Secret Lives of Dentists (2003, Alan
Rudolph)
064.
(10 Feb) /Point Break/ (1991, Kathryn Bigelow)*
[Leave it to Kathryn Bigelow to take two of my least favorite actors (Keanu Reeves
and Patrick Swayze) and craft a massively entertaining action pic with some actual
meat on its bones. This is a triumph of the spirit story where crime = the spirit.
Point Break's particularly notable for its juxtaposition of the elemental
against the mundane ("We stand for something to those dead souls inching
along the freeways in their metal coffins," growls Swayze) and for letting
its surprisingly tranquil "bad guy" have a profound effect on his pursuer.
With spectacular aerial work and rousing chase sequences, to boot.]
065.
(11 Feb) The Hit (1984, Stephen Frears)*
[A sparse, sanguine, serene crime flick about coming to terms with your mortality.
Pity the ending strikes me as a betrayal, then.]
s08.
(12 Feb) Spirit of the Navajo (1968, Maxine and Mary
Jane Tsosie)
066.
(12 Feb) Medium Cool (1969, Haskell Wexler)*
[Wexler's cure for insomnia. Creates its environment of social turmoil amidst
political guises with authority and ease, while pointedly blurring the line between
fiction and documentary; meanwhile, all I can do is shrug my shoulders and ask
to what end? Old fashioned as he might be, Jared wants his didacticism with real
characters or a story. If he just wants to take a snooze, he'll drink camomile
tea.]
067.
(12 Feb) /My Cousin Vinny/ (1992, Jonathan Lynn)*
[Hadn't seen this one since the start of Clinton's first term. The script's rarely
more than adequate, but Pesci and Tomei are never less than marvelous. A bucket
of fun.]
068.
(13 Feb) The Searchers (1956, John Ford)*
[John Ford tellingly started his career playing a klansman in Birth of a Nation
and his racial attitudes never evolved. Yes, there are images of exquisite visual
beauty here. Yes, there are assorted moments of heft and emotion and power. Yes,
the movie was hugely influential (including directly inspiring one of my ten favorite
films of all time, Taxi Driver). But how can all you guys strongly embrace a movie
so disgustingly racist? All Movie writes that The Searchers is a "profoundly
ambiguous critique of the genre's (and America's) racism," then doesn't even
begin to justify that ludicrous claim (obviously because it can't). Ebert's
whole feeble justification is essentially predicated on the fact that "Wayne
was in his personal life notably free of racial prejudice, and [...] Ford made
films with more sympathetic views of Indians." Yeah, well that's not good
enough. What Ebert somehow forgets is that people do not approach this movie with
an intimate knowledge of John Wayne's real-life behavior or John Ford's entire
oeuvre. The film must stand alone, and through my dying day I will never believe
this is anything but bigotry writ fifty feet large. All you need to know can be
found in the final ten minutes: After calling the Comanches "my people"
many scenes before, the kidnapped Debbie inexplicably has a change of heart and
suddenly and without cause, embraces coming home. But since this change of heart
is unbeknownst to Wayne, his last minute decision not to kill her (which he's
wanted to do since he found out she was content with Comanche life) -- just so
the film can show him carrying her in his arms and returning her to her family
and being the "hero" -- is offensively ridiculous. Ebert acknowledges
that "the Wayne character is racist without apology--and so, in a less outspoken
way, are the other white characters" but then poses "Is the film intended
to endorse their attitudes, or to dramatize and regret them?" as if that
is even really a consideration. Indeed, the final shot of Wayne carrying Debbie
away from the Comanches -- sun shining brightly behind him -- is a horrifying
endorsement of his behavior, and thus, so becomes the film. Ford wanted to have
it both ways; he wanted to make his intense racism a tad easier to stomach so
he tacked on the nonsensical ending. The final shot of the door shutting on Wayne
is not the condemnation or ostracizing some -- in their typically desperate efforts
to excuse the movie's attitude -- claim it is. Wayne was a transient to start
the film with; his (by this point glorified) outcast behavior will of course continue.
And so, from beyond the grave, will Ford's prejudice.]
s09.
(13 Feb) Fear and Loathing on the Road to Hollywood
(1978, The BBC)*
069.
(14 Feb) All the Real Girls (2003, David Gordon Green)
070.
(14 Feb) Gerry (2003, Gus Van Sant)
[Pulchritudinous vision of nature's brutal indifference that doesn't emphasize
this indifference nearly as much as I would of liked; the most puissant moments
are when we're twittery, truly fearful for the Gerries' fates. Too bad these moments
are rare because of Van Sant's inexplicable decision to: (A) Not have the Gerries
be the least bit frightened about the mounting terror of their situation until
over a day after the film begins (which I just didn't buy, frankly); (B) Rarely
have the Gerries even mention how disastrous their situation is. They can and
should still be in a sort of denial, of course (maybe using trivial chit-chat
to mask their fears), but the desperation should have crept through more often
(best example: the scene where Casey Affleck cries and Damon can't face the implications
of those tears). Surprisingly humorous at times, never tiresome and both actors
are splendid, but I can't shake the feeling this could of been a masterpiece.
PS: The ending stinks.]
071.
(15 Feb) Meet Me in St. Louis (1944, Vincente Minnelli)
[Was initially nicely surprised to discover this is a discursive, musical portrait
of a family, with little plotting and a focus on personality. Gratitude quickly
ceased since nothing much of interest ever happens (focus on personality = focus
on two stupid romances), the music is mostly stale and I didn't agree with the
movie's choice of which family members to hone in on (i.e. Minnelli, of course,
chooses the three young females instead of the grandparent and parents; even though
the father is clearly the film's most fascinating and conflicted character, he
receives exceedingly little screen time). St. Louis is the kind of movie
which features characters earnestly spouting lines like, "Nice girls don't
let a man kiss them until they're engaged." Do we really have a place for
this sort of thing in modern society?]
072.
(15 Feb) The Clock (1945, Vincente Minnelli)
[Even worse than Meet Me in St. Louis, this is essentially a bland, boring
rendition of Before Sunrise if the Hawke/Delpy departure was only imminent
because Hawke had to go back to war (remember, instead of a floundering, charming,
pseudo-philosopher, Hawke is a guileless soldier) and, oh yeah, they get married
first. Also imagine if the last half hour of Before Sunrise -- instead
of being devoted to sparkling, engrossing, touching dialogue -- was focused on
the inane procuring of said marriage's license.]
073.
(15 Feb) Near Dark (1987, Kathryn Bigelow)*
[Bigelow's formal command is dazzling, creating the rococo mood with deft, precise
strokes. Way too precise, though; this sucker is sinfully dull for any
genre, let alone a fucking vampire flick. Bigelow and her co-writer seem to be
willfully alienating their audience with the snail pacing, the uneventful narrative
and the shallow characterization. Give me Buffy over this any day of
the week.]
074.
(16 Feb) The Marriage of Maria Braun (1978, Rainer
Werner Fassbinder)
[Alright, now I'm getting really fucking frustrated. After my incredible Friday,
I've -- as you can see -- been stuck in a major weekend rut. All Movie 5 stars
this, David Thomson calls it extraordinary, Ebert places it amongst Fassbinder's
top three films, m'da ranks it the second best film of 1978 and I'm as apathetic
as ever. Starts off with a bang, has a smattering of strong moments, but continuously
devolves. Frankly -- and I know I'm starting to sound like a goddamn broken record
-- I was pretty much bored off my ass by the midway point. Only thing maintaining
my interest at all was Hanna Schygulla's brazen, enigmatic performance as the
titular Braun, but even ice cream grows tiresome after you've ingested enough
of it. I guess the root of my whatever attitude is me never being one for political
allegories; that is, do I really need a film to tell me that -- big surprise
-- post-WWII Germany was a bad, generally fucked up place to inhabit? Do I really
need a film to tell me that -- big surprise -- post-WWII Germany's reconstruction
was faulty and not all it was cracked up to be? Politics aside, I still hate the
cruel, abrupt, forced ending as well as the still photos that appear after the
closing credits. While at first inexplicable to me since I had no idea who they're
of, they turned out to be an obnoxious sledgehammer when I discovered they're
images of German leaders. For someone who made up to nine films a year, worked
quick, lived fast and died young, why couldn't Fassbinder filter some of that
boundless real-life energy into this film? I'm conquering a big Fassbinder retrospective
in the upcoming weeks, so lemme pray this is not the peak of his canon as some
suggest.]
075.
(16 Feb) The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964, Jacques
Demy)*
[Here we go again. Yes, I detested it, didn't buy a single moment of it, found
the performers (I am not a Catherine Deneuve fan) to be utterly lacking in conviction
and emotionally barren, and found the singing every single line conceit to be
nothing more than a transparent gimmick. That said, I'm more than happy to acknowledge
that some of the critics I respect most think this (a true balls-to-the-wall,
love it or hate it film if there ever was one) is among the greatest movies ever
made.]
076.
(18 Feb) Breathless (1959, Jean-Luc Godard)
[(Note: I tried taking the movie-day off yesterday in order clear my head and
make sure I hadn't gone movie-mad. Alas, I've determined I haven't and these overrated
films themselves are indeed to be blamed.) Quoth David Thomson: "[Godard]
is the first director, the first great director, who does not seem to be a human
being." Quoth Jared: And thus most of his films do not seem to be inhabited
by human beings. Certainly Breathless is not; for all its notorious (alleged)
spontaneity, its lively jump-cutting and its blasé attitude, it is a listless
film almost entirely devoid of compassion or feeling. Belmondo has neither the
charisma nor the charm to elevate his character into something beyond redundant
repugnance; American co-star Jean Seberg is barely competent, let alone anywhere
near the glory of my beloved Anna Karina. The nonsense factor is not as pronounced
as in, say, Pierrot le Fou (and the affecting moments are slightly more
common) but characters still frequently speak in rhetorical paradoxes like "I
love you. But I can never love you." and "I want to be immortal so then
I can die." Am I really the only one who is consistently annoyed by Godard's
dumb, pseudo-profundities? Nowhere are these more abundant than in the inordinately
garrulous Belmondo/Seberg bedroom scene which rambles onward for an eternity,
eating up a fourth of the whole movie's runtime. I know Breathless was
the first major film to incorporate pop-cultural allusions, but while Belmondo's
Bogart posturing certainly works, the references to Renoir, Faulkner, Cocteau,
Dylan Thomas, etc. still grate. Godard seems to be making a statement about how
we're losing touch with each other and genuine interrelations are fading, but
his targets and methodology are easy and amateurish. Characters say things like
"All men are only interested in women and all women are only interested in
money" which is pessimism as cheap as the comments found in Chicago.
Wildly important, groundbreaking and influential, yes, but let's not kid ourselves
that this is actually a great movie.]
077.
(18 Feb) Marty (1955, Delbert Mann)*
[About as pure and lovely a character study as one can ask for. Irreplaceable
Paddy Chayefsky crafts the titular, lonely butcher as a patisserie might prepare
an elaborate cake, carefully layering each ingredient, with one hushed, revealing
scene shading the next; Ernest Borgnine plays Marty with a heartfelt combination
of resigned, baronial self-loathing and sweet insouciance. Never obtrusive, cautiously
optimistic, possessing a keen sense of community (a supporting gallery shines
on Borgnine while also given their own moments in the sun) and vigilant of love's
hypocrisies, this Best Picture winner is a rare instance of the Academy not fucking
up.]
s10.
(19 Feb) Scorpio Rising (1963, Kenneth Anger)
078.
(19 Feb) /Midnight Cowboy/ (1969, John Schlesinger)
[A shattering incineration of the American dream. Instead of heading West, good-natured,
wannabe hustler Voight heads East, his masculinity thoroughly impaired, a new
life waiting to be claimed. The heart-wrenching friendship he forges with Ratso
Rizzo is one of the most indelible bonds ever put on celluloid. As Ratso, Hoffman
turns in one of his greatest performances (which is to say one of the greatest
performances ever), nervous energy and miniature bursts of rage masking a crippling
vulnerability. This is a brave, devastating movie about the margins (of sexuality,
of the swinging 60s, of New York City), something so raw and desperate I still
can't believe it won Best Picture (the only X-rated movie -- a rating that was
eventually knocked down -- to ever do so).]
079.
(20 Feb) The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962,
John Ford)*
[There's some real nice stuff here (understated, interior, mournful tone; well
drawn supporting characters; good use of flashback structure; strong leads; evocative
of the sadness sometimes inherent in change) but I can't help but wish the fat
was trimmed (speeches rattle on and on for light years; scenes amble way too long).
Casting the stoic John Wayne opposite the impassioned Jimmy Stewart has its benefits
(Wayne's iconic status means the movie doesn't have to spend much time on characterization;
Stewart's nice guy, non-violent persona seems ingrained in his soul long ago)
though their bipolarity in acting styles draws attention to each of their deficiencies
(Wayne's resignation has always seemed more a product of being a poor actor than
a genuinely weary presence; Stewart -- so great in Anthony Mann's gritty Westerns
of the 50s -- has a tendency to overact). The first, early face-off between Valance
(a superb Lee Marvin) and Wayne is stirring as hell, so gripping in fact that
the rest of the movie seems a bit anticlimactic. All Movie writes "Stoddard
(Stewart) has to come to terms with the fact that the legendary words that fuel
his success erase the truth of the genuine charismatic heroes (Wayne); as a place
of literary and cinematic legend, the West has no room for such veracity."
This seems a problematic assumption to me since I'm of the (maybe too cynical)
mind that true heroes never existed in the first place. That is, the Western had
always been about the selling of false myth but The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
is an important acknowledgement of that statement on (according to All Movie,
at least) the wrong terms (instead of admitting "John Wayne" never existed
in the first place, it bemoans the fact that his existence was never recognized).
Maybe this was not Ford's intention. Maybe Ford was indeed apologizing for ever
giving us -- in his past films -- that archetypical Wayne hero, deciding here
to scale back and diminish the icon as penance.]
080.
(21 Feb) /One Hour Photo/ (2002, Mark Romanek)*
081.
(22 Feb) Dark Blue (2003, Ron Shelton)
082.
(22 Feb) Le Samouraï (1967, John-Pierre Melville)
[Melville can create a stern, joyless world of worn sterility -- a world where
men in suits, trench coats and fedoras exit rain-drenched Parisian streets to
play backroom games of poker -- like no one else. It's a world I love (although
I prefer a touch of joy, personally = I much prefer Bob le flambeur),
a world I instinctively respond to. What I don't instinctively respond to, on
the other hand, is Melville's brand of real-time (= turtle) momentum ("I
don't like to force the pace," says a detective, obviously on behalf of the
director). While it's a theoretically interesting conceit to play a straightforward
procedural out in rhythms mirroring quotidian life, the idea quickly (or should
I say slowly) wears thin as you realize that being a detective or a criminal can
be an amazingly tedious line of work (which I'm not even sure is Melville's point;
he might adore these occupations without equivocation). Melville stretches his
hackneyed (and maybe one could argue in 1967 it wasn't hackneyed, but sorry, this
is 2003 now) set-up as far as it'll possibly go (let's put it this way: the plotting
would barely hold a full episode of "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit"
together) and the grabbing scenes only surface on occasion. Melville's Le
Cercle Rouge is over half an hour longer than Le Samouraï and
also contains little in the way of dialogue, but it's monumentally more stimulating.
PS: Can someone explain to me why Delon does what he does in the film's closing
scene? Merci.]
s11.
(23 Feb) The Cathedral (2002, Tomek Bagiski)
s12.
(23 Feb) The ChubbChubbs! (2002, Eric Armstrong)
s13.
(23 Feb) Das Rad (2002, Chris Stenner / Heidi Wittlinger)
s14.
(23 Feb) Mike's New Car (2002, Pete Docter / Roger
Gould)
s15.
(23 Feb) Mt. Head (2002, Koji Yamamura)
s16.
(23 Feb) Fait D'Hiver (2002, Dirk Beliën)
s17.
(23 Feb) J'Attendrai Le Suivant (2002, Philippe Orreindy)
s18.
(23 Feb) Inja (2002, Steven Pasvolsky)
083.
(23 Feb) The Crossing Guard (1995, Sean Penn)*
[sometimes tense as fuck takes big risks about a man sliding down down down because
david morse who gives a fucking exquisite performance accidentally killed his
daughter nicholson is that man of course and his sad uncontrollable work here
shames that stuff he did in that schmidt movie anjelica huston and robin wright
penn who has never looked more beautiful also provide small but strikingly nuanced
supporting turns because its a movie about tragedy breeding irrational vengeance
and about how maybe were not all different also about forgiveness at the expense
of what question mark consistently surprising too though admittedly coulda done
without all the hoity toity slow motion and on occasion penn lays it on a tad
thick but thats imminently forgivable given how sheerly emotional the movie is
also has some wonderfully strange oddly touching moments like I wrote this song
for you freddy and some less strange but still a little strange ones that are
a major success like hiding in the little girls bedroom and that beautiful robin
wright i mentioned dancing to what a man what a man what a mighty fine man by
the way the music supervisor is wes andersons music supervisor randall poster
and he litters the track with some strong eclectic choices im even a sucker for
the jewel tune and the dp is vilmos zsigmond but aside from some nice cityscape
shots youd never really know it thats the dps job here though no doubt its not
the kind of a movie where you wanna be taken out and start noticing all the fancy
schmancy camera work although you inevitably do cause of all that damn slow motion
sean penn who also wrote this should really make a lot more movies but they dont
pay him enough theres absolutely no justification to have written the review like
this im sorry]
084.
(25 Feb) Stone Reader (2003, Mark Moskowitz)
085.
(27 Feb) Laurel Canyon (2003, Lisa Cholodenko)
[Look! It's a bird... it's a plane... it's.... Laurel Canyon's Entire
Outline Detailing Every Single Thing That Will Happen In Every Single Scene flying
into our brains within the film's opening seven minutes! Standard fish-out-of-water
premise is kept watchable due to the L.A./music-industry bonhomie vibe, lively
acting (by McDormand, Beckinsale, Bale and especially Alessandro Nivola, though
Natascha McElhone's "Israeli" accent is atrocious) and Cholondenko's
mostly keen ear for every day dialogue. Can't say I gave a shit, but also can't
say I didn't kinda enjoy myself for an hour and forty-five minutes anyhow. Best
moment: As Beckinsale strips a man in the audience screams out,"Ye-AH! It's
'Bout Time!"]
086.
(27 Feb) White (1994, Krzysztof Kieslowski)*
[In stark contrast to a film like Laurel Canyon stands White,
in which I was never once able to predict just what the fuck will happen next.
It's a mysterious film, pitched sharply by Kieslowski with a wise sense of (economic)
possibility and a dark understanding of the inordinately vicious depths to which
gender wars can plunge. Ultimately, though, it's just a little too glib and I
find its depiction of women (i.e. they are crazed sex fiends who require nothing
more than a good fucking to be satiated) extremely problematic. I'm sure many
people dissent with my reading, arguing that Kieslowski hints there was a deeper
chasm in Delpy and Zamachowski's relationship, and it's not his literal impotency
and subsequent virility that turns her off and on so much as the ineffectualness
and strength the two attributes represent in a larger sense. I, too, was grasping
onto this tenuous interpretation, praying Kieslowski would never root his movie
in such a facile depiction of females. Then, unfortunately, I watched the interview
with Delpy on the new White DVD, and she -- when discussing the talks
she had with Kieslowski about her character -- confirmed all my worst suspicions
viz. Mr. K's attitude. Still, there's much to like here, from the performances
(I've long thought Delpy to be among cinema's finest current actresses; Zamachowski
nails his evolution) to the drollness to the way Krzysztof can turn clean imagery
into haunting forebodes.]
087.
(28 Feb) Blue (1993, Krzysztof Kieslowski)*
[The arresting opening had me convinced this might very well be the best in the
trilogy, but turns out it's certainly the worst (not that that's much of an insult,
of course). Main problem is that it's too somber and inert, a surface-level study
in grief that is morose to the point of dullness. Stunning imagery abound, typically
marvelous performance from Juliette Binoche, but blue = liberty = at the expense
of love = yeah, we get it = there ain't much else here.]
s19.
(01 Mar) The Passion of Martin (1990, Alexander Payne)
088.
(01 Mar) Citizen Ruth (1996, Alexander Payne)
[Clearly even-handed, but too concerned with making fun of both sides to bother
analyze why it's making fun of both sides. The point is that pro-life
and pro-choice groups get so wrapped up in their own agendas that the individual
-- in this case, Ruth (super performance from Laura Dern) -- gets lost in the
shuffle. Reason why this idea doesn't work for me, though, is that Ruth is so
incessantly confused and carefree she doesn't have the slightest idea what she
wants herself, so how can anyone else be expected to be concerned with her nonexistent
feelings? Also doesn't work for me cause Payne never bothers to explore just why
people on both sides of the abortion issue hold their fervent beliefs in the first
place. It's easy to satirize people when they are empty caricatures rather than
satirizing people who hold deep opinions for complex reasons. Funny, sometimes
clever, but never probing and it all quickly wears thin.]
089.
(02 Mar) Ride in the Whirlwind (1965, Monte Hellman)*
[A punishing, terse, unforgiving tale about cutting your losses in untenable situations.
While extracting considerable tension from a simple premise (a group of cattle
hands are mistakenly pursued as murderers) Whirlwind speaks more lucidly
and profoundly about the death of the frontier -- imagined here as a lonely wasteland
filled with resigned, dutiful workers, vigilantes and killers -- than anything
in John Ford's oeuvre. Trivia note: Whirlwind was written by Jack Nicholson, who
also starred.]
090.
(02 Mar) /Ferris Bueller's Day Off/ (1986, John Hughes)*
[The timeless voice of past, current and future generations of disillusioned students
with uncertain futures; many movies have included a scene with a young guy complaining
he has no idea what he wants to do with his life, but few movies have a moment
as truly affecting as Alan Ruck's reply -- when asked the follow-up question What
are you interested in? -- "nothing." No movie better captures
the disgust that school can so easily illicit and the glee in saying "Well,
Fuck You Too" to educational institutions. Broderick's great, but special
mention must again go to Ruck for managing to create a genuinely poignant characterization
of a scared, browbeaten teenager, a portrayal far more convincing than the majority
of the innumerable other teenage portraits that have cropped up before or since.]
ZZZ.
(03 Mar) The Band Wagon (1953, Vincente Minnelli)
091.
(03 Mar) The Shooting (1967, Monte Hellman)*
[Simply the most frightening, haunting Western I've ever seen. Gerry
meets Ride in the Whirlwind meets Don't Look Now. I'm still
trying to wrap my head around this; all I can really say at the moment is wow.
Warren Oates is one of the all time greats. Updated to add: Simply
one of the most frightening, haunting movies I've ever seen; combines
a transcendent simplicity with a shocking elusiveness. Millie Perkins comes off
as the (possibly) wicked witch of Mars and for all of its existentialism, the
curmudgeonly yet pure friendship between Oates and Hutchins is extraordinarily
moving. As if any Shooting virgins need any more incentive to see this as soon
as humanly possible, lemme note (A) It was written by Carole Eastman, who also
wrote Five Easy Pieces and (B) David Thomson calls The Shooting
more authentically Western than even The Wild Bunch. Get out to the video
store tonight, folks.]
092.
(04 Mar) Easy Riders, Raging Bulls (2003, Ken Bowser)
[I'm friendly with Bowser so you can take my comments with salt grains, should
you be so inclined: I went in apprehensive and was delighted to find this a completely
worthwhile companion to Biskind's brilliant book. Commendable for the way it condenses
a sprawling, multi-hundred page tapestry of a tome into two tight hours of enlightening
visual stimuli (including excellent use of archival materials) without compromising
any of the book's integrity (i.e. the film fully cops to the excesses of the decade
and the way Spielberg and Lucas -- inadvertently? we'll never know -- destroyed
the glory of 70s filmmaking), while still, of course, romanticizing the said glory
of said decade just as Biskind's book rightfully does also. People who've read
the book won't learn much, but there's still, for instance, an irrepressible kick
in watching Peter Bogdanovich, Polly Platt and Cybill Shepherd being interviewed
on camera, fully candid, with Shepherd saying how yeah, she's sorry she hurt Platt
but hell, she'd do it all over again the same way. I'm sure it was a coup for
Bowser to get those three involved, and he also got Hopper, Fonda, Penn, Schrader,
Milius and many other giants to come aboard, but the film inevitably suffers a
huge hole from the participation absence of Altman, Scorsese, Coppola, Polanski,
Spielberg, Lucas, Rafelson, De Palma, Burt Schneider, Beatty etc. Despite being
generally faithful to Biskind's document, one major change Bowser does implement
is the concentration of Peckinpah over Friedkin, and it's an interesting, in some
ways gainful choice. Favorite anecdote (which might be in the book but I can't
remember at this point): Producer Jonathan Taplin discusses an Alfred Hitchcock
awards ceremony where half of the attendants were removed from the festivities,
snorting up in the restrooms.]
093.
(04 Mar) Two-Lane Blacktop (1971, Monte Hellman)*
[Wish I could go higher, but -- to quote my friend Neil (who adores the picture)
-- the "glacially slow pace" keeps me from being able to do so. Warren
Oates -- with his perpetually changing sweater-color and constant myth weaving
-- delivers a hypnotic performance, befitting his status of one of cinema's finest
actors. Hellman isn't concerned with the central race (which you initially think
will drive the plot) instead concentrating his energy on a rambling, middle-American,
laissez-faire vibe and a robust sense of early 70s landscape. Hellman seems to
be pointing to the emptiness, the futility, the meaningless of these drifty lifestyles
(a resigned hitchhiker can only say, "It doesn't matter. Whatda we have?
30... 40 years?"; Oates comments, "...if I'm not grounded pretty soon
I'm gonna go into orbit"; "the girl" is the only entity anyone
seems interested in (besides their cars, of course) and yet she's not interested
in a damn thing herself). I just wish Monte sped to these ideas somewhat faster.]
s20.
(04 Mar) Monte Hellman: American Auteur (1997, George
Hickenlooper)*
094.
(05 Mar) /The Conversation/ (1974, Francis Ford Coppola)*
[Stands right next to Taxi Driver as the two most powerful cinematic
studies of urban alienation and demolition we have. Originally intended as a Watergate-era
comment on the infringement of personal liberties, these themes are as timely
as ever circa 2003. It's paranoia made poetic, not just because of the dignity
and sadness in Hackman's performance or Coppola's unfailing restraint, but because
of the beautifully plain piano score and the gently downcast aura that it hangs
over every single scene. The ending is perhaps my all time favorite. R.I.P., John
Cazale. You died way, way, way too fucking young, bro. No one's ever
left this planet with a more perfect filmography.]
095.
(05 Mar) Cockfighter (1974, Monte Hellman)*
[Sometimes a movie's greatest asset can be a main character whom you desperately
want to be. Such is the case here with me and Warren Oates's titular fighter;
mute to the point he makes Ed Crane positively garrulous by comparison (a erstwhile
blabbermouth, he swears not to speak until he wins a big fight), always donned
in just-chillin'-on-my-ranch cowboy garb, impassive and vigilant, it's a cool-as-fuck,
tour de force performance from Oates, single handedly carrying this peculiar but
unfortunately redundant film. This is a story about a man bored with life, seeking
thrills the only way he knows how ("I learned to fly a plane, I lost interest
in it. Waterskiing, I lost interest in it. But this is something you don't conquer."
announces Oates at the outset); ultimately, though, there's just not enough here.
While an uncompromising look inside a foreign subculture is always welcomed by
yours truly, a narrative that doesn't amount to much more than cockfight ->
cockfight -> cockfight -> cockfight is not; when even Warren Oates and Monte
Hellman can't prevent the proceedings from becoming tiresome, you know you're
in trouble. Has some wonderful scenes (the hotel stick-up is a major highlight)
but the very promising romance angle isn't dealt with enough to justify the ending.]
s21.
(05 Mar) Warren Oates: Across the Border (1993, Tom
Thurman)*
096.
(06 Mar) Big Trouble (1985, John Cassavetes)
[I can't figure out why Vincent Canby and I seem to be the only people on the
planet who like this movie (including both Cassavetes himself, who publicly called
Big Trouble a disaster after it was recut by the producers, and screenwriter/at-one-point
director Andrew Bergman, who quit helming duties one week into production and
demanded his writing credit be changed to pseudonym "Warren Bogle").
Sure, there are some stretches that go on a bit too long (and perhaps before outside
interference the film was a masterpiece), but who of sound mind and body can resist
the comedic repairing of The In-Laws' co-stars Alan Arkin and Peter Falk,
which is maybe the most inspired laugh-duo in all of cinema. Like all of the legendary
and hilarious couplings, it's a study in contrasts: Arkin with a lifetime of 9-5
grinds running roughshod on his face; Falk, so fucking suave and nonchalant he
makes me giddy; Arkin increasingly flustered, then eventually prone to mimicking
Falk's behavior. This is unadulterated fun, the plot being Double Indemnity
imagined as a willfully silly and ludicrous comedy with Tom Powers in on MacMurray
and Stanwyck's scheme; bonus points added for a creepy set of college-bound Stepford
brothers (triplets) who watch TV in bed together and harmonize at the breakfast
table, plus the inimitable Charles Durning in a strong supporting role. "Sometimes
things just work out right," shrugs Arkin after the bizarre denouement (which
has to be seen to be believed) and only the most cynical among us could dare resist
his delicious sentiment.]
097.
(06 Mar) Gloria (1980, John Cassavetes)
[Don't have much to say about this shallow thing; it's far too long, consistently
uninteresting and precious, imagining Gena Rowlands as a tough-as-nails terminatrix
on the run who shoots anything in her path, whipping out guns against innocuous
bellhops and blasting away Mafioso's on crowded NYC streets. Which admittedly
sounds pretty cool, but it's seemingly played for laughs (Maltin's not certain
if Cassavetes intent is indeed comedic and I'm not positive either, but I can
tell you that the audience I saw this with was virtually uproarious every time
Gloria blew someone away), a big problem since the movie's centered around a supposed-to-be-moving
relationship between Gloria and the six-year-old-kid-w/murdered-family-being-hunted-by-the-mob
she's extemporaneously left to care for. Far more problematic is the fact that
I hated this precocious kid with a furious passion; every time he spoke Cassavetes
might as well have cut to a woman post-manicure running her nails across a goddamn
chalkboard (note: it's just come to my attention the little bastard justly won
Worst Supporting Actor @ the Golden Raspberry Awards that year). The ending's
a shamelessly manipulative, elongated travesty, shot in slow-motion for maximum
cheese.]
098.
(06 Mar) Assault on Precinct 13 (1976, John Carpenter)*
[The violence comes in brief, brutal bursts; not many directors have the balls
to film young blond girls being shot to death at point blank range while eating
ice cream, but Carpenter's attitude towards the carnage is never fetishistic as
he seems less interested in this bloodshed than anything else. It's merely par
for the course here, the inevitable product of cops and criminals holed up in
an about-to-be-shuttered police station while hoards of gang members turn the
area into a war zone and a city remains blinded to its internal horrors. Even
back in '76 Carpenter's preeminence over widescreen framing and his ability to
swiftly and cleanly build mounds of suspense while carefully modulating shifts
in tone were completely unmistakable; with Assault as its worthy precursor,
the genius of Halloween should have come as no surprise to anyone. This
is taut, tight and invigorating filmmaking, with its humanity left fully intact.
The station-defenders are real characters, even condemned murderers coming off
as three-dimensional. Life-or-death situations have a way of leveling the playing
field; every man's no longer an island and past notions of morality no longer
have a place. I'm starting to think every director should be forced to make at
least three movies with extremely limited funds. Give me this over Rio Bravo
any day of the week.]
099.
(07 Mar) Love Streams (1984, John Cassavetes)
[According to MoMA's program notes Cassavetes knew he was dying of cancer while
making Love Streams and (even though the information does strike me a
little strange since he lived another five years after Streams was released)
I chose to take the declaration as fact, a decision which colored my viewing experience
in a key, hugely melancholy hue. Thus the central performance from Cassavetes
as a hedonistic writer rockets from great to magnificent (with his supposed to
be joking, offhand lines like "If anyone calls, tell them I'm dying"
now given mondo sorrow) and while critics like Dave Kehr claim he's playing a
man incapable of love, they're missing an important distinction. He can love (he
loves his sister and probably even his son dearly) but he's incapable of romantic
love, and more importantly, he recognizes that love is so fucking fragile, subject
to death as easily as life. He's a carefree but fundamentally kind-hearted man
who shrouds himself inside a vast tent of nameless women because he has severe
trouble being alone. What's remarkable is that there's almost no desperation in
Cassavetes's performance, just an overwhelming sense of (somewhat artificially)
constructed -- via cigarettes and whores and booze -- ease, a man who suspects
(or knows) his time's limited and just wants to enjoy himself the only ways he
knows how. The final image of Cassavetes saying goodbye is forever seared into
my brain; it's a devastating swan song of a shot, a portrait of a real person
whose career was an endless tug-of-war between acting and directing (with his
acting jobs raising the money for his films), simultaneously standing in front
of and behind the camera, blurring the line, saying goodbye to his singular audience
forever (Cassavetes would go on to direct one more film, Big Trouble,
but as I mentioned above he publicly denounced the film and in no way could the
argument be made Trouble resembles anything approaching a typical Cassavetes
flick). My only problem with Love Streams is it veers on the long side
at 141 minutes, with the running time split between Cassavetes's character and
his arguably even more fucked up sister (played by Gena Rowlands). I didn't find
the sister nearly as compelling as the brother because her problems are too precisely
fingered: her husband divorced her and her daughter chose to live with him. Still
this is a small complaint, for Rowlands interplay with Cassavetes is superbly
dynamic and her storyline provides the opportunity for the movie to launch into
surreal dream sequences and a show-stopping musical number. "Life's a series
of suicides," announces Cassavetes without a trace of self-pity and somehow,
miraculously, it's too matter-of-fact to be depressing.]
100.
(07 Mar) Irreversible (2003, Gaspar Noé)
101.
(08 Mar) /The Killing of a Chinese Bookie/ (1976,
John Cassavetes)
[This was the shorter, ~1h 45 min cut (even though MoMA's program notes erroneously
claimed it was the 135 min cut). I'm not sure I've ever seen the longer version,
but I can't imagine it's an improvement considering Bookie's already
too lengthy in this briefer incarnation; to say Cassavetes's naturalistic aims
result in "leisurely" pacing would be putting it mildly. The plot focuses
on an average club owner (Ben Gazzara, excellent), in debt to the mob, asked to
kill the titular chinese man to erase his debt. Cassavetes has almost no interest
in exploring the moral dilemma of such a situation, instead surprisingly ambivalent
about his main character. The pointedly noirish aspects are tense -- Cassavetes's
style is so convincing you'll always buy what happens -- but when all is said
and done the ambiguous ending (as well as most everything else) leaves you shrugging,
rather than affected.]
102.
(08 Mar) Faces (1968, John Cassavetes)
[NEW YORK, New York (AP) -- In a move met with full bipartisan support from Congress
and an enthusiastic head nod from President Bush, the American Association of
Anesthesiologists have unanimously elected to cease all chemical anesthetization
for the indefinite future. In its stead they have resolved to knock people out
via strictly organic means: screening John Cassavetes's inexplicably lauded 1968
feature film Faces, which any sentient being recognizes to be the most
torturously motherfucking ennui-inducing narrative film this side of the Atlantic
and the only film known to be less exciting than planting a flower and watching
it grow in an abandoned field. "Wow, great idea. That movie's more goddamn
boring than even any of my movies," said Jim Jarmusch when asked to comment
on the decision. Meanwhile the Pentagon announced initiatives to begin researching
how they might siphon Faces' immeasurable soporific powers to craft Sleep
Missiles, which could be used in future wars to force battlefield opponents into
immediate slumber.]
103.
(09 Mar) A Woman Under the Influence (1974, John
Cassavetes)
[Felt like I'd emerged from a battering ram session after exiting the theater;
unrelentingly grim and despairing for 99.999% of its two and a half hour runtime,
this is as accurate a portrait of psychological meltdown as I've ever seen. No
fake or forced note to be found anywhere, completely harrowing, etc. But will
I ever wanna watch it again? Not for at least a decade. What does that say about
Cassavetes's motives? That maybe they're more sadistic than some people realize.
He carefully builds to the breakdown, then never lets up the pain... the pain...
the pain... and I, for one, would have preferred a little more light let into
this oh-so-dark tunnel. The narrative is soooo uneventful (most of the movie takes
place on the bottom floor of a house) and the scenes go on soooo long, all of
which is true to life, yes, but verisimilitude is not automatically a virtue.
Really, how much of this stuff can you watch? Cassavetes hammers home the point
that people are forever inconsiderate and awkward in uncomfortable, foreign social
situations (like being around a woman under the influence of mental duress), always
unsure how to handle themselves with even a modicum of tact. Most discussion focuses
on the (undisputable) brilliance of Gena Rowlands's ability to disintegrate, but
critics neglect to mention Falk's ferocious performance -- as a man torn between
love and denial -- which is every bit her equal. In many ways he is the protagonist,
not Rowlands (he has more screen time than she) and Falk's pulverizing in his
depiction of a husband barely able to keep the last inches of family yarn from
unraveling. A pessimistic vision, but one not easily forgotten.]
104.
(10 Mar) Withnail & I (1987, Bruce Robinson)*
[Excessively grimy, with the end of England's swingin' sixties giving way to a
more turbulent decade ("London's coming down from its trip"), and people
like Richard E. Grant's (in a refulgent performance) incredibly petulant, always
drunk off his ass Withnail left an alienated, unemployed relic; desultory non-narrative,
with most of the running time eaten up by Withnail and his somewhat more conservative
friend taking a wacky vacation in the countryside (escape from city); countryside,
however, revealed to be just as problematic as urban areas (the decade's dead
any which way you splice it so "find your neutral space"). Occasionally
funny but not really, with the same not-remotely-amusing-in-the-first-place homosexual
("society's crime, not ours") gags being resurrected an hour later;
basic idea is to run Withnail and I (as the credits literally bill the friend)
up against people who are even more eccentric than they are, which meets mixed
results depending on the person in question; aggressively asexual movie, with
only two women ever on screen (and for less than two minutes a piece), both over
60, both barely capable of forming complete sentences. It's a hang-out movie,
probably hardly matters where you start it from. Might play great when stoned...]
105.
(11 Mar) In My Skin (2003, Marina de Van)
[A crushingly dull vanity piece that finds de Van incompetently directing and
acting nude, always happy to gratuitously show off her ass or her vagina or fondle
her breasts for you in close-up. See, the movie's about realizing that your body
is its own entity -- separated from your mind -- and wanting to explore it. The
way that probing manifests itself here is by de Van chopping off her skin, sticking
knives into her severed body parts, mutilating her face, eating chunks of her
flesh, etc. All of this is set against the daily tedium of office life so the
dialectic between the boredom of jobs/boyfriends/friends/rivals and the sensual
pleasure of self-cannibalism is abundantly apparent. Suffice to say that as our
heroine becomes more and more in sync with her body she becomes more and more
ostracized from her concerned pals. Unfortunately the movie never really goes
anywhere and every scene of masochism is shot in the same extreme close-up used
for the breast fondling shots, so you don't buy any of it, and all the blood and
gore and deep cavernous wounds feels supremely artificial.]
106.
(12 Mar) /All the Real Girls/ (2003, David Gordon
Green)
107.
(12 Mar) /Irreversible/ (2003, Gaspar Noé)
108.
(12 Mar) /The Awful Truth/ (1937, Leo McCarey)*
[Joyous screwball about growing apart in order to grow back together; practical
in its idea marriages must be "based on faith," filled with rueful quips
("I shall think of you every time a new show opens and say to myself... she's
well out of it") and a sharp, sexy, bubbly Irene Dunne playing off an amiable,
sarcastic Cary Grant (as well as a creepy, Oedipal Ralph Bellamy). Never mean-spirited,
Dunne and Grant seem genuinely amused by each other's antics, both taking everything
in stride. Their opening scene decision to get a divorce (which won't take legal
effect for 90 days) plays more like a temporary spat rather than a marriage truly
at its wits' end: it's a bluff and we wonder who will fold first. The candid dialogue
has Dunne and Grant maintaining an effortless shorthand, a rapport that signals
history. This is a couple you wanna believe in.]
ZZZ.
(13 Mar) Little Big Man (1970, Arthur Penn)*
109.
(14 Mar) /Tin Cup/ (1996, Ron Shelton)*
[Meet Roy McAvoy, "chock full of inner demons" or "inner crapola"
depending on your POV. I'd argue both, and this is what makes McAvoy not only
a venue for Costner's best performance, but also a venue for what Theo calls "...among
the best, most richly-detailed movie portraits of an Artist (albeit in the rugged,
Hemingwayesque mould)" in all of cinema. I'd even go a step further. Roy's
not just an artist, he's also among the best, most richly-detailed movie portraits
of the (kinda special) common man, the (maybe-not-so) average Joe who refuses
to submit to society's omniscient sublimation of greatness and perfection ("Qualify?
I want the course record"). Tin Cup is among the most forceful opponents
of mediocrity I've ever seen, advocating grandeur, the best and the pursuit
of perfection (which is inevitably unattainable, and thus the quest is inherently
bittersweet), and being remembered ("immortality") through your greatness
at the expense of all else. It's sublime romantic comedy about living life to
its fullest ("ya ride her till she bucks ya, or ya don't ride at all")
and not forgetting to value the small treasures, like eating dinner with your
closest friends at the local waffle house. Instead of playing pointlessly coy
games for two hours and -- surprise! surprise! -- repulsion attracts, Tin
Cup has the Guy baldly tell the Girl he wants her within the movie's first
third, continuing to repeat this refrain every so often and thus allowing some
time to be focused elsewhere, split amidst boy-girl pursuits and (among other
stuff) a poignant friendship between artist (McAvoy) and mentor (the caddy, played
gorgeously by Cheech Marin), a relationship which takes an interesting corkscrew
here because a caddy is not so much a golfer's mentor as his mentor and protégé
wrapped up into one conflicted package (he dishes out sagely advice and sturdy
support, but he also knows he's the inferior artist). Bonuses: Rene Russo, nicely
frazzled; Don Johnson, suitably smarmy; and a relaxed, knowing picture of deep
South livin', right down to the beads of sweat that forever hang off everyone's
brows. It doesn't get much better than this.]
110.
(15 Mar) They Live by Night (1949, Nicholas Ray)
[I am perfectly willing to accept this was a masterful movie back in 1947; I also
(still) fully acknowledge the impressive achievement of They Live by Night
as a debut film. What I am not willing to accept, however, is that this (at one
point) wholly original template for the countless other lovers-on-the-lam films
that have surfaced since, has not been so far eclipsed by its successors that
it has been rendered all but moot. It's a shame to have to say this, but such
truly great films as Bonnie & Clyde, Badlands and True
Romance (and even such not-so-great films as Altman's Thieves Like Us,
which is based on the same novel as They Live by Night and is thus
quite similar) are so superior they make watching this oldie pretty tiresome business.
The way Ray pioneers the hopeless desire for peace within a deadly atmosphere
and the way Ray utilizes claustrophobic dread via extreme close-ups and the way
Ray carefully engineers a lost bliss that'll never be found, must all be wholeheartedly
commended. But I could never shake the feeling I was watching a prototype, rather
than a genuinely terrific movie which has passed time's unforgiving exam. It ain't
always easy being first.]
111.
(15 Mar) /Rebel Without a Cause/ (1955, Nicholas
Ray)
[This, on the other hand, has hardly aged a day; James Dean's mesmerizing, groundbreaking
performance still sends shivers down my spine fifty years later. No praise is
too high for his shattering, naturalistic work here, every bit deserving of its
unrivaled iconic status (suffice to say it wasn't even nominated for an Oscar).
With Rebel's mysterious score, Ray's slightly off-kilter shots and the
lush Technicolor of the wide CinemaScope frame (Dean moving through the compositions
like a splash of blood red paint), the movie itself is nearly up to the caliber
of its acting, though I maintain the last third falters in its decision to largely
switch focus from Dean to his arguably even more disturbed friend, Sal Mineo.
Still, it's a portrait of adolescent alienation (if not all of circa-1950 humanity's
alienation and ultimate insignificance; ref. the planetarium scene) with few peers,
seeming to argue that parents distancing themselves from their children -- parents
giving their children space and freedom -- is even more detrimental behavior than
smothering them. Rebel never offers any solution to this conundrum because
there probably isn't one: sometimes you just have to grow up and it's heartbreaking
to keep on remembering Dean never got the chance.]
112.
(15 Mar) Bitter Victory (1957, Nicholas Ray)
[(Note: I watched the 103 min cut.) War films have never been my bag so feel free
to upgrading accordingly if they're yours (file this one away in the men-on-a-mission
cabinet). What's primarily notable about Bitter Victory is its staggering
vision of the Libyan desert, an endlessly expansive, brutally beautiful locale
where much of the action here unfolds. Shot in stark, black and white CinemaScope,
Victory's acrid imagery appropriately compliments the moral quandaries
faced by opponents Richard Burton and Curd Jürgens, who are also -- it goes
without saying -- both in love with the same woman. Ray's ever observant of the
hypocrisies of warfare ("I kill the living and I save the dead" etc.),
but frankly, who isn't?]
113.
(15 Mar) All the President's Men (1976, Alan J. Pakula)*
[What All the President's Men does better than any other film I know
of -- what elevates All the President's Men above just another crackling
detective yarn with an inordinately high pedigree (Redford, Hoffman, Warden, Robards,
Pakula, William Goldman, Gordon Willis)-- is the way it takes us deep inside the
throat (insert rimshot here)of investigative journalism. This is a movie that
understands the hard florescent glow and the perpetual clack-clack-clack of a
major newspaper's offices, a movie that'll shoot the breeze in editorial meetings
just to get a feel for the environment and the process, a movie that will take
the time to stick with Woodward or Bernstein as they try and break down a source
over the phone while simultaneously jotting down feverish notes, quickly piecing
together these notes into an impromptu, semi-coherent whole and then rushing onward
to make three more phone calls based on that makeshift new lead. Of course the
story W&B are working on also happens to be the story of the century, and
even though it's a bit difficult to get invested in the outcome of a mystery you're
already so familiar with, nobody understood 70s paranoia and intrigue better than
Pakula (few people can make the thriller's form more gripping); at a hefty 139
minutes Alan and William keep the President's Men marching briskly from one plot
command post to the next. It's a shame the film never lets us into Woodward and
Bernstein's interior lives and I have to confess to eventually zoning out on the
thirty-five trillion new names Goldman throws at the audience every scene, but
the complex plotting seems clean and I'm sure 1 + 1 would indeed = 2 if you actually
expel the energy required to concentrate on all that stuff. I was too busy drinking
coffee by the water cooler to bother.]
114.
(16 Mar) The Vanishing (1988, George Sluizer)*
[Unnerving in a way few cinematic riddles are, making unsettling use of discontinuity,
shuffling the chronology ever so slightly here and there (just enough to keep
us on our toes while methodically sketching gray lines and gliding us along).
Everything is underplayed, which is the movie's major strength as well as its
achilles heel: I never truly believed the husband as a man driven by an unrelenting,
obsessive curiosity (doesn't he stop for three years before resuming his search?),
something that is desperately required to take the final leap. Performances could
be better on both sides of the morality fence; the criminal is also a touch too...
normal (he needs to be normal to be scary, of course, but not quite this normal;
I rarely felt an evil buried in the recesses of his mental shadows, ready to lurch
forward at any moment). A bigger problem is the criminal's pat, psychological
motivation; these things always work better (besides a rare exception like
Se7en) if it's left entirely implicit. Along these same lines is the utterly
stupid, golden egg dream foreshadows which do nothing but alleviate some of the
(otherwise massively disquieting) ending's surprise. Caveats aside, this an undeniably
potent picture of the gloom which often clouds sunny domesticity.]
115.
(16 Mar) Escape from New York (1981, John Carpenter)*
["City's War Plans... Cops Grid For Terror" reads the front page of
today's New York Daily News. Twenty-two years ago John Carpenter prefigured
these events with this startling, epic, dystopian vision (which, bear in mind,
was released a year before even Blade Runner), an imagining of a nation
on the brink of war, too distracted to be concerned that its biggest, most prosperous
city has been converted into a calamitous death park, an every-man-and-woman-for-themselves,
maximum-security, wasteland prison. The scarily prescient plot is set in motion
when Air Force One is hijacked by terrorists and crashed into a skyscraper; the
implications of nuclear holocaust are nicely hinted at, without ever being explicitly
stated. Carpenter -- working with more than his previously nominal resources (though
still an only $7 million budget) -- executes a wide scope and furthers a vast
level of invention (a few of the FX are inevitably dated, but most everything
holds up remarkably well; it's awe-inspiring to see what Carpenter was able to
accomplish over two decades ago without the assistance of computers), while still
clutching on to his typically high level of restraint: Snake Plissken is a bad-ass
loner hero who is smart enough to frequently run away from his
countless aggressors instead of (like he would in any other action film) constantly
and unrealistically destroy them all. Plissken is an angry anarchist but there's
a devil's logic in the way he wants to teach the (concentrates-on-the-wrong-problems-and-
uses-the-wrong-methods) United States an important lesson. It's a lesson Bush
would be wise to learn on the eve of a day which will contain -- what he calls
-- "the moment of truth." Brace yourselves.]
116.
(16 Mar) Ocean's Eleven (2001, Steven Soderbergh)*
[Permanently rewatchable and impossible not to enjoy, yet still disappointing
in so many ways.]
117.
(17 Mar) Flying Leathernecks (1951, Nicholas Ray)
[On the plus side is the extremely advanced and deft usage of galvanizing, archival
war footage, so seamlessly integrated I was sometimes at a loss to distinguish
what exactly was filmed by Ray and what wasn't. Without that footage we're looking
at a completely mediocre pro-warfare statement (opening credits scroll thanks
the Marines; beaming images of American flags commence and close the film etc.),
although still a surprisingly ambivalent one at least w/r/t its central characters.
John Wayne's tougher, more aggressive vision of war (duh) is evenhandedly pitted
against Robert Ryan's slightly lighter ideology. The movie even makes a point
of showing the chasm between the gigantic challenge and responsibility
of dishing out successful orders and the easy-to-dissent stance of simply
having to follow them, thereby neither dismissing Wayne nor letting him entirely
off the hook (he feels some remorse for his actions and seems uncertain about
his personal style).]
118.
(17 Mar) Knock on Any Door (1949, Nicholas Ray)
[So earnest it'd make Capra blush; Ray self-righteously blames society for turning
inherently good young men into criminals, offering up John Derek as a martyr who
must be sacrificed for the cause of sociological improvement. Bogey is the kid's
lawyer who parades around the courtroom delivering overblown rants indicting us
all. Decently crafted, but its ideas are stunted generalities, almost completely
devoid of interest. Yes, society usually has a hand in turning people bad, but
not always and certainly not completely. The people themselves must also take
some responsibility.]
119.
(17 Mar) The Lady From Shanghai (1948, Orson Welles)*
[Typically baroque Welles vision, masterfully lit and composed, drenched in an
eerie vibe of fatalism and moral degradation. Totally convoluted too, so I stopped
caring about the plot machinations (they're completely irrelevant, anyhow). This
is a complete imagining of a world gone corrupt, barren of innocence ("there's
a fair face to the land, surely, but you can't hide the hunger and guilt"),
fearful of war's annihilative grasp ("First, the big cities, then maybe even
this! It's just got to come!") with men who want to vanish to remote islands
and live life far away from humanity's atrocities. It's a portrait of a place
where (minor) solace can only be found in coming to terms with the badness. The
bravura hall of mirrors climax -- fracturing this nightmarish world into dangerous
shards -- deserves its prominent placement in the pantheon of cinematic setpieces;
Rita Hayworth is a Marilyn Monroe who can actually act. Could of done without
Welles's annoying faux-brogue, though.]
120.
(17 Mar) The Killers (1946, Robert Siodmak)*
[Also totally convoluted; once again I stopped caring about the (implausibly over-convenient)
plot machinations, but unfortunately here they are most certainly relevant, since
this flick has exactly nothing else going for it. It's no surprise the opening
ten minutes -- which follow Hemingway's titular short, short story -- is the only
footage which piqued my interest; the rest -- the whole hour and a half back story
motivation mumbo jumbo that Hemingway wisely omitted from his piece --
is low-rent noir, with your standard web of deceit and your standard femme fatale
and your standard double crosses ("the double cross to end all double crosses,"
remarks a character; "uh, hardly," replies Jared) and your standard
everything the standard hell standard else.]
121.
(19 Mar) The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948,
John Huston)*
[Wouldn't this work a lot better if someone besides Bogey was so ridiculously
over-suspicious he makes Gibson's character in Conspiracy Theory seem
relaxed by comparison? I just didn't buy most of his behavior; he starts out a
decent fellow and then in no time at all he's already threatening to bash people's
skulls in for innocuous jokes, the movie rushing to foreshadow its exceedingly
obvious plotting (c'mon, when you hear Bogart proclaiming 'not me! I wouldn't
get greedy and keep mining for more than I came for!' is there a person in the
audience who doesn't know he'll do the exact opposite in under half an hour?).
Perhaps the movie should have just come right out and titled itself Money
Corrupts! since it's not like it makes any attempts at subtlety. Also --
and maybe I watch too many films, but I'd have taken sixty-to-one odds by the
twenty minute mark that this sucker ends the exact same way as The Killing;
I mean is there ever any way to end these things other than a note of glib irony?
(Though the laughter coda is a wonderfully inspired touch.) All
my complaining aside, Huston embraces the virtuous simplicity of his dynamite
set-up; Treasure is consistently rousing, and -- at least one scene at
a time -- consistently suspenseful as it unfurls in a virtually lawless landscape
where killing is not much more objectionable or out of the ordinary than breathing.
Plus it's huge fun to watch Bogart go unshaven, tussled and manic, and the unfailingly
jovial Walter Huston delivers a beaut of an (Oscar-winning) performance, unforced
and natural as freshly fallen snow.]
122.
(20 Mar) In a Lonely Place (1950, Nicholas Ray)
[Now this is how you deconstruct the Bogart persona, gradually peeling
away the cynicism and staring at the unwieldy, crushed soul and the root of the
damaged romanticism which lurks beneath. Many people believe this is Humphrey's
greatest performance and, as of now, I'd wholeheartedly agree (but then again,
some people unaccountably think he's a poor actor so that praise won't mean much
to them). The film itself is the best Ray I've ever seen, a decoy noir cum thick
love story cum (primarily) character study, a finely tuned and sometimes laugh-out-loud
(though mostly anguished) study in male rage and unchecked frustration. (Hmm,
oddly that sounds quite similar to Punch-Drunk Love, but imagine Punch-Drunk
Love as written and directed by circa-Magnolia PTA, bleak and tortured
as all hell. Yes, this is what my generation of film criticism is regrettably
reduced to: using modern greats to describe past classics.) In a Lonely Place
also delivers crisp punches into Hollywood's gut. Really, what more could you
want?]
123.
(20 Mar) On Dangerous Ground (1951, Nicholas Ray)
[Much wrong here; most prominently awry are the lead performances by Robert Ryan
-- who I usually like, and can be considerably effective (Flying Leathernecks,
where he's all good; The Naked Spur, all bad; The Wild Bunch;
somewhere in between) and Ida Lupino; to be blunt, they stink. Ida is overcooked
as a blind saint and Ryan is flaccid and dull as a detective who moves way too
smoothly from intriguing shades of gray (curtsey of the script, not the acting)
to a simply damn nice guy. Like In a Lonely Place, more than anything
else On Dangerous Ground wants to function as a character study, but
as soon as this city dweller is transported to the countryside he's hardly worthy
of being eyed, let alone studied. The movie's conception of a love to heal a loneliness
plays manhandled and phony. What works is Ray's typically transfixing and elusive
imagery, the city a glittery sewer, the countryside a forbidding, desolate snow
zone as perilous as its urban counterpart.]
124.
(20 Mar) Mikey and Nicky (1976, Elaine May)*
[I'd been of the mind never to proclaim a movie a masterpiece until at least two
viewings but I'm breaking that policy in this case. Some foolish losers dismiss
Mikey and Nicky as bargain-bin, knock-off Cassavetes, but -- despite
May's obvious debts to him -- I'll be damned if Cassavetes has ever created something
as perfect or profound as this film (even A Woman Under the Influence
is not as moving). I have neither the time nor the energy to do this movie justice
here, so I'll have to quickly reduce it to its one-sentence essence: Mikey
and Nicky is as efficacious and mighty a portrait of the tenuous, invaluable
thing we call friendship as I have ever seen in cinema. Starring Cassavetes and
Peter Falk, who were, suffice to say, very close friends in real life, the movie's
structure is basically Before Sunrise if Ethan Hawke was being pursued
by a killer: a rambling day into night into morning, (almost exclusively) two-person
gabfest odyssey, where a city's locations are sprawled, the conversation burns
like a forest fire and one of two smalltime "gangsters" attempts to
dodge his death sentence. I don't know about you, but as soon as I see the word
gangsters I'm immediately turned off. Rest assured though that Falk's and Cassavetes's
occupation is so incidental here it's hardly even worth mentioning (I find it
specious the movie's own advertising uses the word mob in the tagline because
since when does the mob hire freelance hit men to do their dirty work?). As I
said, May earns her frequent comparison to Cassavetes; it's indisputable that
his cinema verite aims rubbed off on this movie, so raw and spontaneous and hurried
(in a scenes-are-capable-of-going-on-for-over-ten-minutes-sorta-way) that sometimes
not only can the boom be seen in frame (entire length of pole included), but the
overhead lights and floorboards of the sound stage they're shooting on can be
glimpsed as well. I don't know how much dialogue was improvised, but I'm willing
to bet a lot less than most people think. This is too supremely exacting a script
to have been created on-the-fly, with key moments of talk fastidiously sprinkled
at carefully chosen moments, crucial bits of information divulged on an organic,
need-to-know basis (with one exception that I'm still trying to wrap my brain
around). I assume it goes without saying that: (A) Cassavetes is superb, balancing
desperation, neediness, aggression and snaky allure; and (B) Peter Falk is even
better, dismantling layers to reveal deep wounds, confirming my suspicion that
he's easily one of absolute finest -- if not the most underrated -- actors moving
pictures has ever known.]
125.
(21 Mar) A Woman's Secret (1949, Nicholas Ray)
[An unfortunate realization: maybe I try and update this screening log daily not
so that I don't fall hopelessly behind, but because the movies are all too often
forgettable. I saw this particular flick around 36 hours and 6 films ago, and
already I have to rack my brain. I remember that I was gonna remark it's the least
visually stimulating Ray film I've ever seen, but then today I went ahead and
saw Born to Be Bad, so that criticism already needs to be amended to
second least visually stimulating. Herman "I co-wrote Citizen
Kane" Mankiewicz's pretty sharp script -- replete with some killer quips
and a well-drawn supporting gallery -- makes up for those sight deficiencies though,
and the mystery held my attention (which is to say, I was genuinely curious how
it would be resolved), even if the conclusion is a predictable disappointment.
Otherwise, nice to see genre cliches upended; not only in this a strange hybrid
of -- to quote Jeremy -- "crime/women's [melodrama]/screwball" where
both the victim and criminal are women, but the eventual mystery-unwrapper is
a woman as well (men taking a back seat to everything). The movie's about
the inherent problems of a mentor/protégé relationship, and the
power of a creation to destroy its creator; overall, nothing special, besides
the performances from Jay C. Flippen and Gloria Grahame, whose persona here is
so far removed from her In a Lonely Place character, I'm embarrassed
to report I didn't even realize it was her until the end credits scroll informed
me such.]
126.
(21 Mar) Hot Blood (1956, Nicholas Ray)
[Personal biases divulged up front: I'm about as interested in the gypsy milieu
(where Hot Blood exclusively unfolds) as I am in hockey (NB. I have no
interest in any sport, but if I had to choose the sport I am absolute least interested
in, it would undoubtedly be hockey). If, however, you are among the seven people
who have forever longed to see a humorous take on the gypsies' idiotic marriage
practices (hint: it involves buying women to marry men they've never met), look
no further. As for everyone else: the periodic, CinemaScope musical explosions
-- particularly the initial Jane Russell/Cornel Wilde "whip dance" --
are quite nice. Let's leave it at that.]
127.
(21 Mar) Juggernaut (1974, Richard Lester)*
[Such a frustrating experience for so many reasons. Considering Lester's Petulia
is one of the best films ever made, and considering people ranging from Theo
to Soderbergh proclaim this a true classic, and considering I find few things
more enticing than action movies involving mad bombers, and considering I find
even fewer things more enticing than action movies (of any variety) directed by
idiosyncratic grandmasters of modern cinema, and considering there are so many
glorious elements here (Richard Harris's reckless performance; Lester's montages;
the frantic land to sea rescuers dismount; the haunting, ethereal score that is
nothing like anything an action movie has ever heard but so grievously underused;
the way, despite paltry amounts of screentime, a number of the cruise liner's
-- on which the fateful action takes place -- passengers come off as full-bodied
humans with three dimensional lives; the supremely jittery sequences involving
bomb disarmament; the sense that anything is possible; the speech about one life
in the grand scheme of things; do I really even need to go on?), it enrages me
to have to report there are nearly as many flaws, some of them gaping, made all
the more infuriating because Juggernaut's a film in walking distance
of greatness, held back only by a sloppy script that needed a few more polishes.
It's too damn upsetting to go through each of the problems, so I'll just hit on
the biggies (being very wary of spoilers): (i) The potential menace of the bombs
is not nearly amplified enough. (ii) It's utterly ridiculous that the bomber never
addresses what would happen if people try and disarm the bombs and every authority
dealing with the bomber immediately takes for granted that disarmament is a wholly
viable option. (iii) Why is the quest to catch the bomber given so little weight?
(iv) Why is the bomber himself given so little weight, rarely surfacing, all but
removed from the movie? (v) Tension doesn't escalate often enough. (vi) Why introduce
Anthony Hopkins's having a family on board if he couldn't care less about them?
That said, I'm hoping some of my major concerns fall by the wayside once I get
to see this on a big screen (attn NYC rep houses: when are one of you bastards
gonna program a long overdue Lester retrospective?) as it demands to be viewed,
not on the piece of shit, fucking pan and scan VHS I was reduced to watching.]
128.
(22 Mar) Run for Cover (1955, Nicholas Ray)
[Interesting as a companion piece to Knock on Any Door since
-- under the scaffolding of a Western -- Run for Cover uses John Derek
in a similar manner while Ray plays devil's advocate, arguing the opposite of
Knock's message. Cover (which would have more aptly swapped
titles with the film below) says that some people are simply incarnated evil and
that despite whatever bum hands life deals these dudes, they must ultimately take
personal responsibility for both their flaws and their quest to become a better
person (which, sadly, is sometimes futile since their evil is indeed inborn at
the core). Granted the flick also allows that others must still assist these fuck-ups
as best they can -- and in this case, the helper is James Cagney, playing a sheriff
-- but still makes clear we must not throw the blame for our actions to others.
Unfortunately Derek has a tendency to overact (I find him shrill, grating and
unconvincing) and there's a stupid subplot involving Cagney's romance with a Swedish
woman thrown in for useless measure.]
129.
(22 Mar) Born to Be Bad (1950, Nicholas Ray)
[Tomorrow on As The World Turns... Will Barbara and Dusty talk at Lakeview?
Will Dusty put the moves on Rose? Will Rose get engaged to Vincent? Will Alain
confront Marshall on what exactly happened between him and Cassandra? Seriously
though, Joan Fontaine's like this hot scheming bitch from hell and the thing is
that it like takes a long time for all the males to realize she's like using her
wily feminine charms to be a scheming bitch and like seduce them and kinda take
all their money and then something happens and then it all works out in the end.
Sorry to spoil the surprise.]
130.
(22 Mar) Party Girl (1958, Nicholas Ray)
[The plot's formulaic: ethically-conflicted (in this case mafia) lawyer
wants to carve out new life for himself and his paramour; fearsome mafia boss
looks to stop them. What places Party Girl at the head of its respective
ethically-conflicted/gangland pack is Ray's superlative formal chops (do you have
any fucking clue how difficult it is to come up with a new synonym every other
day to freshly describe Ray's pictorial prowess?) and its presentation of Prohibition-era
Chicago in all its tawdry glory, the glitz punctuated by gaudy, eros-charged musical
numbers and angular bursts of violence. The other notable element here is Lee
J. Cobb's delectably brash performance (channeling George C. Scott before there
was a George C. Scott), all menacing growls and chomping cigars and unsavory threats.]
131.
(23 Mar) Bigger Than Life (1956, Nicholas Ray)
[Perhaps I'm getting my mind's wires crossed, but I could swear I once saw a review
refer to Bigger Than Life as one of cinema's first attempts to address
chronic depression. Regardless of my memory's accuracy (and regardless of the
fact Bigger Than Life is not literally about chronic depression), it
was this thought that remained at the forefront of my brain (and almost definitely
still woulda popped up unbidden had I never seen that alleged review) while watching
this remarkable, mentally and visually dense film, which melds dabs of bold surrealist
flourishes and a dynamic control of the 'Scope frame with dazzling colors and
a firm sense of place, the warm, inviting hues of home and school given a sterile,
frightening gloss. As I said, technically James Mason's character is not depressed;
he's virtually psychotic due to his daily ingestion of cortisone which he must
take in order to keep his life-threatening arterial ailment at bay. It's an implacable
situation, much like chronic depression both still is and was infinitely more
so back in the 50s when it was hardly, if ever, diagnosed: either endure the vicious
side effects of cortisone or die without this "medicine" that converts
sanity into manic-depression. The repercussions on family and work are imaginably
fierce, and Bigger Than Life depicts a devastating (though sometimes
hilarious) downward spiral with a kind of expressionistic, yet precise, fervor.
In many respects it's also a grand, broad film (I don't use that word as a negative
criticism), over the top (and yes, quite literally bigger than life), which was
probably the correct mode of attack to wake the 50s outta their repressive stupor.
Mason's performance is stupendous, exploiting his urbane British attitude and
demeanor, distorting his classiness into a demonic zeal that veers between kindness
and madness like an out of control see-saw.]
132.
(23 Mar) Rolling Thunder (1977, John Flynn)
[A ostensibly straightforward, deceptively atypical revenge yarn (yes, yarn is
the only noun allowed when quantified with "revenge") that seems to
suggest the threat inside burnt out, post-Vietnam War America was just as potent,
scary and fucked as the Vietnam War itself. William Devane plays what surely must
be billed in the credits as The Unluckiest Motherfucker Who Ever Lived, since
-- after enduring prolonged POW torture at the hands of the Vietcong -- he returns
home and is publicly presented with a $2,500 bonus from the government, only to
have a bunch of low-rent thugs come to his house to request the modest sum for
themselves. He refuses to hand the dough over and thus, (A) His wife and young
son are shot dead at point blank range right in front of his face; (B) His arm
is shoved into the local garbage disposal; (C) The thugs still walk off with all
the money. Sorry for the extensive (kidding; that's only the set-up) plot summary,
but I wanted to provide context so that you can understand where I'm coming from
when I inform you the subsequent image of Devane sharpening his new hook-hand
racks up more gleeful, holy shit awesomeness points than most revenge yarns can
ever muster over their complete runtimes. Many additional points allotted for
the hot blond chick (who describes herself as a military groupie obsessed with
Devane) joining William on his quest for hook-hand retribution.]
s22.
(24 Mar) Final Flight of the Osiris (2003, Andy Jones)
133.
(24 Mar) Dreamcatcher (2003, Lawrence Kasdan)
134.
(25 Mar) Fulltime Killer (2003, Johnny To, Wai Ka-Fai)
[Apathetically lost track of the plot around seven minutes in since these enormously
convoluted I-Am-An-Asian-Filmmaker-So-Life-Has-No-Value-To-Me montages are rarely
of interest to me. Pretty pictures abound and a spectacular fireworks setpiece,
but that's all I can say for this. Feel free to upgrade accordingly if whack-sockey
fests are your brand of whiskey; hell, Jared doesn't even dig Johnny Woo.]
135.
(27 Mar) The True Story of Jesse James (1957, Nicholas
Ray)
[Seemingly evenhanded treatment of James (can't say for sure if it's "true"
because I don't know shit about his real life), that tries to justify why he became
an outlaw, but still makes a point of critiquing James for quickly losing sight
of just what the hell that justification was all about. The performances are constructed
from cardboard and save one gripping bank robbery sequence all the plotting and
action is pretty damn humdrum, but Ray's command of 'Scope imagery remains in
tact and the movie's treatment of outlaw-as-celebrity/ultimate-impossibility-of-outlaw-way-of-life
seems to have paved the way for Bonnie and Clyde et al.]
136.
(28 Mar) /Bitter Victory/ (1957, Nicholas Ray)
[The first time I saw Bitter Victory it occupied the tail end of a Nick
Ray triple feature and I was both tired and hungry; in light of many people's
intense lauding I thought I'd give this sucker another chance tonight. Indeed
it washed down better this time around (I suppose this has something to do with
the fact our nation's now at war, though mainly it's because I was far less antsy
than during Round #1), but still, I am not convinced Bitter Victory is
a great, or even very good, film. The most significant problems boil down to me
finding the characterizations -- featuring stiff performances from Richard Burton
and Curd Jürgens, though I can't blame Ray since he rightfully did not want
to cast those lame guys -- too cut and dry, with the movie out to scoff at Jürgens
and his craven ways while it places Burton's bravery on a pedestal. I've grappled
a lot with making that accusation, but ultimately I've decided the movie is less
uncertain about its characters than some fervent Ray supporters in the audience
allot credit for. I'd feel a lot more uncertain myself if Ray hadn't included
(although it's difficult to blame Ray for anything in this movie given how voraciously
he fought the studio about its various elements) the totally undeveloped, glib
romance angle, which serves no other purpose than to reinforce underline underline
exclamation point exclamation point just how heroic Burton was and just what a
sniffling, lying coward Jürgens is: Burton deserves the woman for
he is the one who nobly rhapsodizes about the futility of war, kills enemies with
his bare hands, kindly puts the injured out of their misery (alone and without
hesitation, to boot!) and dies selflessly saving his opponent Jürgens's life.
Meanwhile Jürgens doesn't even have the integrity to tell the woman (I continue
to refer to her as the woman because Bitter Victory -- in the manner
in which it treats her -- demands I do so) his savior Burton's oh-so-lovely last
words.]
137.
(28 Mar) /Bigger Than Life/ (1956, Nicholas Ray)
[Round #2 confirms my suspicion this is a masterpiece; what struck me most during
this viewing is the astonishing fifteen minute denouement, a fury that whirligigs,
a sustained tour de force of splintering cinema that indicts domesticity while
revealing it as nothing more than a demented circus act.]
ZZZ.
(29 Mar) The Lusty Men (1952, Nicholas Ray)
138.
(29 Mar) /Johnny Guitar/ (1954, Nicholas Ray)
[It's Nick Ray Redux Weekend! Gonna have to swallow my pride here; obviously I
shouldn't have spent the last few months bashing Johnny Guitar on 'net
film boards far and wide. Here's what I wrote first time around: "For awhile
the utter phoniness, excessive melodrama, over-the-top dialogue, frequent grandstanding
and atrocious acting were hilarious. Then they just got tedious." My expectations
were sky high and I was let down and maybe I was in a particularly vicious mood
(or perhaps it made a big difference second time around watching a restored print
with a maximum capacity audience as opposed to the garbage VHS I first saw this
on). Who knows, who the fuck cares. The past is behind us. What I realized during
Round #2 is Johnny Guitar is not phony and its acting is not atrocious;
everything in this oddity -- including the grandstanding and the melodrama --
is all of a piece with the treasured, fucking bizarre-ass, stylized world Ray's
created from the ground sideways. It's about repressed lust and love lost, and
sure, it can also be read as a McCarthy allegory though that interpretation does
absolutely nothing for me personally. No Western has ever given more screentime
to romance (passion controls everyone) or subverted gender roles more thoroughly
(the hero is a heroine; the villain is a villain-ess; the titular Johnny is a
supporting character). There are fabulous images here as stirring as anything
Ray's ever crafted: Vienna's progressively aflame; Crawford and her blood red
lips/snow white dress playing piano alone, waiting calmly for the posse; Crawford
and Sterling awake in the middle of the night, their faces ablaze with shadows.
And yes it's all definitely hilarious (my audience was laughing their asses off),
but the camp is adroit and knowing and put to loftier aims: which is to say the
dialogue's over-the-top-ness is incisive and evocative, strange but straight and
to the point, cutting razor sharp, everything stated with such furious conviction
we're often floored while we chuckle. Not to mention Victor Young's vehement score
is a thing of profound emotion. I still think the film's too long, but Johnny
Guitar is Ray's fourth best. I admit I was wrong: forgive me, we all make
mistakes.]
139.
(29 Mar) /The Royal Tenenbaums/ (2001, Wes Anderson)*
[Speaking of stylized worlds... This remains a completely overwhelming experience
for me, filling my heart with boundless joy while stealthily tugging its strings
= one of the funniest movies I've ever seen, but also one of the saddest (there
are tears in my eyes when Stiller, voice cracking, says his final line). I respectfully
submit Tenenbaums as a cinematic balancing act without much precedence:
I don't know of any other movie that is so delicately heartbreaking and still
so fall-on-the-floor funny (ex: the suicide attempt here, my vote for the most
devastating I've ever seen on screen because of its matter-of-fact simplicity,
is quickly followed by the suicide victim's savior -- when asked where the victim
is -- responding "Who?"). Clearly you have to be on Anderson's
wavelength -- the frequency of Gypsy Cabs, 375th St. Ys, a single citywide font,
character costumes, characters who can't tell time, Dalmatian mice etc. -- to
agree with me, but if you are in tune, this is an immeasurably cherished film
with few peers. Most prominently peerless is the staggering level of visual invention;
nearly every shot -- and many of them only last for under a second -- can be paused,
stared deeply into, studied, probed, the far reaches of the frame demanding nothing
less than comprehensive examine (and really, how many movies can you say that
about?). Accuse me of hyperbole if you must (and I'm sure many of you are indeed
already groaning), but I can't think of a single other director at work right
now (or perhaps ever) whose frames are so loaded (the groaners will say overloaded,
but they're wrong) with such astoundingly gargantuan amounts of detail (I get
blue every time I see a shot with a melancholy Paltrow slouching against the far
off reaches of the frame or Luke Wilson casually reading Margot's book of plays;
images like these say more about disconnect and desire than gobs of dialogue ever
could and those who accuse Anderson of sketching everyone besides Royal -- for
my money, the apex performance of Hackman's remarkable career btw -- in broad
strokes are advised to look further into the compositions). Anderson's meticulous
attention to detail also leads to the inevitable, hugely misguided complainers
labeling him arch and fey, detractors bitterly claiming Anderson cravenly hides
behind artifice because he can't deal with the truth. To call Tenenbaums
artificial is to woefully miss the point: Yes, duh, The Royal Tenenbaums
unfolds in a world removed from reality, a shimmering fantasy land, glorious and
heightened but still incredibly tender (when else has the sharing of a cigarette
been given such solicitude?), rooted firmly in universal emotion and a child's
sense of purity. It's a story of arrested development filtered through the perspective
of adults who never had a youth, and it's this longing for a past that never existed
that lends the movie's its prodigious compassion. "A big, dark, toy box of
a movie," quoth my friend Neil and that's as succinct and graceful a way
to describe The Royal Tenenbaums as any other I've heard.]
140.
(31 Mar) Night and the City (1950, Jules Dassin)
[Dassin knows his noir and oh, what noir it is: rich blacks, deep shadows, everything
cast in the bleak fatalistic glow of post-WWII London, which looks far closer
here to The Third Man's Vienna than anything of the swinging variety.
As the movie's title attests, both this austere city and the eternal night are
characters themselves, and almost the whole film unfolds under a transient shroud
of blackness. In the center of the murk is Richard Widmark, a hustler always on
the prowl, so manic I stopped caring if Widmark's acting was over baked and just
chowed down on his delicious scenery chewing. It's a story of misspent ambition.
Unlike most noir, Widmark's not planning a heist or plotting a murder; he just
wants to be someone, to be someone important and in this case all that means is
controlling... the London wrestling scene. Nope, that ain't a typo; by the time
I wrapped my mind around, 'yes, this is really the plot,' I was already entranced
by the jolting wrestling sequences themselves. We're talking pre-WWF, bear in
mind, back when the grudge matches were real and the fighting was genuinely vicious
and the outcomes weren't prefigured. Unfortunately the scorching hot Gene Tierney
-- Widmark's beau -- is underused, but in her minimal screen time she reminds
us she was one of the bombshells who could really fucking act: affectionate, pragmatic,
passionate, alluring but partially absent. Never content with half measures, Dassin
compensates for Tierney's limited role by adding another despairing love affair
into the mix, this one involving the marvelous character actor Francis L. Sullivan
and Googie Withers. Dassin's conceived a striking vision in Night and the
City, filling the entire expanse of his (albeit square) 1.37:1 frames, characters
distanced by bifurcated compositional geography, compressive close-ups promoting
dread; yet despite the separations, it's a vision of noir that doesn't preclude
the possibility of redemption or preach the absence of allegiance. They're not
easy nouns to come by here -- often tossed aside in favor of the rampant opportunism
-- but, at least in Dassin's stark world, they exist.]
141.
(31 Mar) Better Luck Tomorrow (2003, Justin Lin)
[Aka, Bully + The Rules of Attraction + white rice. The problem
is Better Luck Tomorrow doesn't have as much conviction in its world
as those two movies do: it's strongest when it skillfully focuses on overachieving
high-schoolers (and their nationality is totally irrelevant to the film's worthiness
of lauding), before it devolves into tiring over-the-top amorality (= amorality
for its own sake). "Everybody that came on board came on for the right reasons
-- to make a film (...) that resisted the standard stories and stereotypes prevalent
in cinema," says writer/director Lin in the press notes. Well, no. We've
seen this story before and it seems to this viewer that Lin's primary
aim (and what Lin means by his quote) was to create roles that we've simply never
seen Asians in before. Which is admirable, but incomplete: how about
roles we've never seen anyone in before? (Which might have been the case
had Lin proceeded along his initial track and not decided to turn the flick into
an amorality-fest.) There are structuring problems too, with Lin taking the amorality
so far so quick, he's gotta abruptly pull back for awhile, like the protag suddenly
(and unbelievably) becoming a cocaine addict only to just as suddenly give up
his addiction. Solid formal technique and nice performances (I'm truly frightened
by Jason J. Tobin, who speaks with an implacably even rhythm and looks like a
demonic monkey). Coulda done without the lazy voice-over and annoying title cards,
though. Not a success, but I'll be anticipating Lin's follow-up.]
142.
(01 Apr) Stevie (2003, Steve James)
143.
(01 Apr) Fahrenheit 451 (1966, François Truffaut)*
[(Note: I haven't read the book yet because I'm an illiterate swine.) Struggled
for awhile with this one, ultimately residing on the recommendation because --
flaws and all -- it's too singular a futuristic vision to ignore. Working in conjunction
with superb cinematographer Nicolas Roeg (who went on to direct flicks like Walkabout
and Don't Look Now) and employing the full gamut of film school camera
tricks (jump cuts, zooms, jump cutting while zooming, tracking forward while zooming
out, shutter speed alterations, fades to black, fades to white, iris ins, split
screens etc.), Truffaut's fashioned sequences that stamp themselves into the brainstem:
the opening, pastel Technicolor flairs; the flames literally rising into the lens;
the old lady burning with her book mountains like a ash-ridden phoenix being slain;
the monorail that skirts through the unblemished countryside while a clear blue
sky taunts from above; the final snowscape; the dream sequence with Christie falling
outta frame like a drunken clown; the strange fire engine skirting through uniform
roads; the books and television screens and household sundries that produce stark
dabs of color in an otherwise drab, anonymous, uncertain future, all of which
are set to Bernard Herrmann's lush, by turns romantic and jolting score. Bradbury's
text (presumably) provided the film plenty of interesting ideas (conformity versus
ignorance; the notion that true equality only comes when everyone's on a perfectly
level intellectual playing field; investment in falsities and/or fiction leads
to gaps in one's own life; can intellectual ignorance be bliss if putting self
in touch with deeper feelings = putting self in touch with the pain and sadness
inherent in most great art?) and yet the film is barren of energy and surprisingly
sluggish. Granted Fahrenheit 451's world is supposed to be somewhat listless,
as many of the humans in this future are nothing more than asexual, narcissistic
drones, but the lead actor -- Oskar Werner -- is a black hole that sucks up everything
around him (which is precisely what his character shouldn't be) since
Werner (one of the stars of Jules et Jim) is a flat out bad actor (in
English, not his native tongue obviously). Truffaut had so much trouble with Werner
during the production that he eventually took to shooting all scenes in which
Werner's face wasn't explicitly visible in the shot using body doubles (because
Werner refused to listen to Truffaut's directions). The acrimony reached a pinnacle
near the end of the shoot when Werner -- in an act of sabotage -- cut his hair
short so the last scenes he had to shoot wouldn't match all the rest of the footage.
Fuck Werner in my opinion. He's a dead weight, whereas Julie Christie -- playing
dual roles -- is her typical energized self, investing this saturnine film with
some desperately lacking spark (she understands there's a fine line between a
dour society and an overly dour film about that society). Christie's one of my
all time favorite actresses, partially since she always seems privy to a private
land that none of us are aware of. There's a buoyant undercurrent to her characters:
no matter how downcast they might be on the surface she always provides them with
at least a glimmer of hope, a resolute trace of optimism. I'll leave you with
this quote from the narration that runs over Fahrenheit 451's trailer.
To wit (I shit you not): "For the public, of course, the big view in Fahrenheit
451 is Julie Christie, an actress with that most precious commodity: the
ability to create, project and kindle a mood in the audience. Her range -- so
striking in Darling and now in Fahrenheit 451 -- is almost unbelievable;
pensive... cheerful... somber... artful... gay... relaxed... taut... bewildered...
determined... loving.... nuances, subtleties and delicate shadings that are a
director's dream and for viewers... a delight!"]
144.
(02 Apr) Spellbound (2003, Jeffrey Blitz)
145.
(02 Apr) The Good Thief (2003, Neil Jordan)
146.
(05 Apr) Schizopolis (1996, Steven Soderbergh)*
[Refreshingly twisted and naked sensibility at work here, with Soderbergh
baring all by casting his own ex-wife and daughter in a movie in which he cheats
on both of them with himself (both literally, since he plays dual roles, and figuratively,
since he's a chronic masturbator), sticking up his middle finger to Hollywood
and chasing Lester's ghost through a series of nonsense (plotlines have nothing
to do with each other; random cuts to a naked man running through a field; characters
dubbed into various languages sans subtitles or speak gibberish, etc.). Sporadically
funny (personal favorite gag = the faux newscasts), more often not, though
still unfailingly (moderately) enjoyable even when the laughs aren't coming. Biggest
surprise is that Soderbergh's a sturdy actor, always credible and excellent at
mining dry reticence for some hearty guffaws; I wouldn't mind seeing him pop up
in flicks more often. Air of dissatisfaction constantly looms above while time
loops around and folds back in on itself, prefiguring the structure of Soderbergh's
next two films, Out of Sight and The Limey, with the most effective
temporal lapses being the effulgent 8mm digressions in which we're hurdled far
across someone's theoretical future in a matter of seconds. Everything's a wild
free-for-all: end credits are a nanosecond blip, camera changes lens while film's
rolling and so on. Either you dig this kind of stuff or you don't.]
147.
(05 Apr) Levity (2003, Ed Solomon)
148.
(05 Apr) Phone Booth (2003, Joel Schumacher)
149.
(05 Apr) Hardcore (1979, Paul Schrader)*
[Simple story of Calvinist Midwesterner entrenched in seamy underbelly of California's
burgeoning porn scene while searching for his missing daughter. You know the drill:
he's out of his element, jolted awake to new facets of life, differences between
his lifestyle and "theirs" constantly amplified, etc. To Schrader's
(who had a Calvinist upbringing himself) credit he never condescends toward either
side, nor plays favorites. Still, the movie's not challenging and somewhat repetitive,
so I'd be difficult to recommend if not for the fact Hardcore is also
never less than compelling because of George C. Scott's riveting, endlessly scintillating
performance; whatever complexity the film has stems from his mysterious work that
resists being pinned down. The ending's completely unconvincing, but otherwise
Schrader invests the slightly familiar material (think Travis Bickle in cess pool-NYC
trying to rescue Iris) with his no nonsense brio and a crackling authority.]
150.
(06 Apr) Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion
(1970, Elio Petri)
[See the thing about the citizen is that he's above suspicion. He's a powerful
police chief and in fascist Italy powerful police chiefs are above suspicion.
Don't believe me? See this movie then because you will discover over the course
of two hours that some citizens are above suspicion. They can kill their mistresses
who belittle them and get on their nerves and plant evidence incriminating themselves,
but still, they will be above suspicion. And there's this one scene where the
citizen tries to incriminate himself further but sure enough, there is he again,
above suspicion. Oh and then there's this other scene where the citizen tries
to incriminate himself even further and man, you'll never believe this, but he's
still above suspicion. He cannot be suspected. It just ain't possible. Because
he's a fascist police chief in fascist Italy. Then there's this title card at
the end from Kafka that basically says -- and I was real happy to see this title
card because previously I had been totally baffled as to the movie's agenda --
but what this title card from Kafka told me is that sometimes powerful people
are above suspicion. Sometimes powerful people are the law themselves. Who woulda
thunk it, ya know? I mean here I was for two hours thinking to myself there's
no way anyone is above suspicion and then out comes Franzzy boy telling me something
to the contrary. The good news is Ennio Morricone's unsettling score is typically
stupendous, sounding like Ennio was trapped inside an abandoned sprocket factory,
slowly going mad, a lonely piano his sole companion. Morricone's music is infinitely
more evocative than eighty hours of Petri's tedious movie -- which somehow won
Best Foreign Film -- could ever be.]
151.
(07 Apr) Anger Management (2003, Peter Segal)
152.
(09 Apr) \New York Stories\ (1989, Martin Scorsese,
Francis Ford Coppola, Woody Allen)*
[(Note: Slashes indicate I'd already seen Scorsese and Allen's segments, but not
Coppola's.) Recommendation recognizes an average of the three director's "shorts"
since this an omnibus film whose stories bear no relation to each other besides
the fact they each transpire in the titular city. It's much more appropriate to
evaluate the shorts separately: Scorsese's Life Lessons is easily the
best of the bunch, a taut portrait of creative fuel, of the self-destructive artist's
means to an end, of the inherent restlessness of art, with Scorsese pulling out
all the technical stops, toying with a sound design that can hit you in feverish
snaps, making superbly supple use of slow-motion and close-ups while frequently
irising in and out to simulate the undulating expansion/contraction of a painter's
canvas as he/she begins, finishes and then starts all over again. Nolte's towering
performance of pent up aggression fighting for space with a gentle soul is the
real showstopper here, and Rosanna Arquette can't quite hold her own against him
(skill-wise, that is; obviously she's supposed to be blown off the screen
by him character-wise). Next up on the triptych docket is Coppola's Life without
Zoe (aka the best life I could ever imagine, since Zoe is an insufferable,
rich, precocious and horridly precious twat), the segment I'd wisely been dreading
(and refusing to watch) for years. Just as I'd heard, it's bad at best, so-totally-insufferable-I'm-gonna-projectile-vomit
at worst. Terribly co-written (and acceptably costumed designed!) by the -- at
that time, 17 fucking year old -- Sofia Coppola and her daddy, and co-starring
(of course) Talia Shire, it's a wholly misconceived, nepotistic wankfest; a badly
acted, lacking-even-a-modicum-of-dramatic-urgency, Bollywood imagining of a J.D.
Salinger-lite world. Allen brings up the rear with his amusing, though never laugh-out-loud
segment Oedipus Wrecks, about a milquetoast browbeaten by his overbearing
mother. Predictably Allen captures the true, overcast texture of Manhattan better
than either Scorsese's or Coppola's heightened visions; the naturalistic ambivalence
of Oedipus' quieter moments is far superior to the overtly silly comedy.
(Useless trivia: Breezy musical cues used for the magician sequences here are
the same cues Allen uses for the hypnosis sequences in The Curse of the Jade
Scorpion.)]
153.
(09 Apr) Raising Victor Vargas (2003, Peter Sollett)
154.
(10 Apr) The Last of the Mohicans (1992, Michael
Mann)*
[Glad to hear there's no more left, since their movies are terminally boring.
Gonna confess right up front few sub-genres turn me off more than historical epics;
I don't think this is a "bad" film per se, I simply find The Last
of the Mohicans dreadfully disengaging and remarkably stillborn, especially
considering many of the ingredients for success are in place: Mann's flair for
clamorous action amidst constant outbreaks of violence; Dante Spinotti's swank
cinematography amidst stunning locales; Randy Edelman's and Trevor Jones's opulent,
bombastically romantic score. The main problem's the lame, tame, plain Jane screenplay
(about the French and Indian War), but another tellingly absent ingredient is
stirring performances: while it's no surprise Madeleine Stowe is supremely bland
(isn't she always?), I'd never have suspected Daniel Day-Lewis capable of being
so fucking vanilla also (needless to say there's no chemistry between them). I'm
willing to concede what I took as the movie's lifelessness might be the result
of watching a downsized digital video of a film that demands to be seen on the
big, silver screen (isn't this true of most every historical epic?), but I sure
as hell ain't hankering to sit through this beast again. (Note: I watched the
slightly expanded director's cut.)]
155.
(10 Apr) /Who Framed Roger Rabbit/ (1988, Robert
Zemeckis)*
[A magical movie, a sort of animated screwball noir that never disrespects any
of these three genres by faithfully placing a twisty plot inside a delirious crackpot
vision. There's a lusty sense of humor at work here and it's revelatory how well
this movie holds up today, both thematically (personal storylines [Hoskins is
haunted by his brother's Toontown murder] nicely balanced with grander ones [a
circa-1940s Los Angeles' begrudgingly enters the modern age]) and especially technically:
the effects don't appear remotely dated and you realize that this might be partially
because the potential of combining animation with live action footage has never
been further realized so there's no point of comparison. That is to say, in the
fifteen intervening years since Who Framed Roger Rabbit how many movies
have experimented with its seamless, inspired amalgam? Cool World, Space
Jam, what else? Anything good? (Luckily Zemeckis is currently working on
Polar Express, a Santa Claus film which promises to wed computer
animation and live action in much the manner Rabbit blends artificiality
with reality.) The caliber and the verisimilitude of what Zemeckis has achieved
here cannot be underestimated: in a nutshell he's created a world where a P.I.
having the hots for a cartoon, curvaceous rabbit is... unquestionable. Rabbit's
ending reaches a level of hysteria all too rare in the cinema, with Christopher
Lloyd's vivid Judge Doom (and really, how can you dislike any movie that names
one of its antagonists Judge Doom?) orchestrating a loony symphony of chaos.]
156.
(11 Apr) Zelig (1983, Woody Allen)*
[Another technical marvel, with Allen and legendary D.P. Gordon Willis creating
a faux documentary (entailing faux circa-1920s/30s newsreel footage) in small
strokes of exacting veracity. It's a hugely inventive film, the kind you admire
more than enjoy, since it's also not funny. I'm not even certain Allen was aiming
for laugh-out-loud comedy here; the movie strikes me somewhat awkward (tonally,
not technically), and I don't mean that as a criticism because this uncomfortable
spirit seems the most effective way to capture the essence of the elusive, out-of-place
Zelig character himself. Pauline Kael called the movie poignant, and though I
wouldn't go that far, it's something close: a pleasantly diverting movie which
consistently threatens to be moving, even if it never quite pulls through. Zelig's
also a terse comment on the ills of conformity -- of the maladjusted trying to
fit in -- ultimately arguing, of course, we should just be ourselves.]
157.
(11 Apr) Carrie (1976, Brian De Palma)*
[De Palma's an infuriating, can-be-masterful stylist who wastes too much of his
God given talent, who all too often throws his style in your face like a spoiled
child and begs you not to take his work seriously. Sure, you can justify the lots-of-naked-teenage-girls-laughing-and-prancing-around-in-the-girls-locker-room-shot-in-ridiculous-slow-motion
opening sequence as coming from the unreliable, heightened perspective of Carrie,
but that seems like a bunch of bullshit to me. Truth is, I said this in my Femme
Fatale review and I'll say it again: De Palma's a relentlessly perverted,
dirty man, which wouldn't be so bad if his perversion weren't also so tame it's
pathetic and boring, like a seventy-year old grandfather who mounts a convoluted
half-hour operation just to furtively steal a glimpse of his grandson's girlfriend's
thigh. Worse yet, De Palma's worthless and distracting perversion gets in the
way of his strengths. Typical example: The effectively squeamish teenage-girl-discovers-menstruation
shower bit would be even more forceful if De Palma didn't hide behind out of place
autoeroticism, Spacek lathering her bare tits with soap in -- you guessed it --
slow motion and extreme close-up, and the whole scene smothered in absurdly swooning,
romantic music. I can't deny De Palma's supreme command of the camera and that
for all his weaknesses, he's also one of the only filmmakers capable of sequences
as transcendent as the 360 degree, garish, prom dance spin-around, so thrilling
it makes you wanna stand up and cheer (and infinitely more powerful than the bloodily
explosive prom climax). But Sissy Spacek's brave, arresting performance is deserving
of a much better movie than this glib (could the stupid, grotesque mother caricature
be any more over-the-top?), almost never frightening portrait of confused, lonely
youth.]
158.
(12 Apr) The Man Without a Past (2003, Aki Kaurismäki)
[Exceedingly slight, delicately handled and kind story of amnesiac
who gradually ekes out a new life much preferable to his old. Dig-able scenes
and music are sprinkled throughout, but it's a film that never approaches making
me give a shit about it. Everyone seems to compare Kaurismäki's deadpan comedic
sensibility to Jarmusch's, and sure enough the filmmaking duo share two other
traits in common: neither of them are funny and their movies feel twice as long
as they actually are. Kati Outinen -- female co-star of The Man Without a
Past (she's in a fourth of the movie, tops) -- somehow won Best Actress as
Cannes 2002 (I can only assume her lover was on the jury), which means I never
have to take another Cannes award seriously ever again.]
159.
(12 Apr) Lightning Over Water (1980, Nicholas Ray,
Wim Wenders, Ed Lachman, et al.)
[Can't even imagine hard core Nick Ray fans flipping for this ungainly mess of
a "movie," and judging by the totally empty MoMA auditorium, looks like
they don't even wanna give it a chance. Frankly I dunno what the fuck to make
of this thing, which -- far as I can tell -- is about Wim Wenders and assorted
film students making a fictional film about Nick Ray dying of lung cancer, in
which Nick Ray (really dying of lung cancer, but still smoking like a chimney)
and Wim Wenders play themselves, and some dude with a video camera documents the
whole production. None of it makes much sense, and the biggest sin is Lighting
Over Water doesn't mind stopping dead in its tracks and wasting many minutes
on end just to watch Nick Ray et al. watching scenes from We Can't Go Home
Again or The Lusty Men. There's so much gibberish I couldn't understand
(ranging from Ray's incoherent ramblings to Wenders's sometimes nonsensical narration)
and it's frequently impossible to tell what's scripted and what isn't. I'm clueless
as to the point of Lightning Over Water and -- despite a smattering of
emotional moments -- I'm extremely irked by the level of squandered opportunity.
Why jump through artificial, distancing hoops when Ray seems like he woulda been
game for an incisive, no frills, truly probing and strictly documentary glimpse
into his fleeting mortality?]
160.
(12 Apr) The Hunted (2003, William Friedkin)
[Spanning the fiery, apocalyptic battlefields of Kosovo to the emerald green forests
of Oregon to the snow-ridden tundra of British Columbia to the steely gray industry
of Portland, cinematographer Caleb Deschanel and Friedkin invest this tight mano-a-mano
film with so much no hold bars visual thrust it might play better entirely silent.
Usually I get bored during chase scenes, but here Tommy Lee Jones v. Benicio Del
Toro is so relentlessly gripping because the dynamic catch-me-if-you-can sequences
are focused solely on them. Literally grounded (no vehicles allowed), the combat
is mostly hand-to-hand: brutally gory, exhausting and carefully attentive. Jones's
perfectly enigmatic performance -- always ancy and signaling a reservoir of past
pain -- holds the core of The Hunted on its shoulders since the script's
so minor, providing little more than threadbare motivation and a father/son theme
too undeveloped to carry resonance (though Jones's guilt peers through strongly).
Still (and somewhat consequently), this is the rare action/adventure
film that never loosens its visceral clutch nor wastes your time.]
161.
(13 Apr) Fellini: I'm a Born Liar (2003, Damian Pettigrew)
[Mileage obviously varies based on how big a Fellini fan you are; I'd rank myself
on the lower end of the scale, though I haven't seen much of his work (i.e. I've
only seen the acknowledged masterpieces). Even for the more devout followers this
documentary is a disappointment, increasingly relying on extended clips from his
films and interviewing the same small cadre of people again and again and again.
Organization is poor (nonexistent as far as I'm concerned), spurring a film-by-film
approach and just diving in for a random free-for-all. Fellini himself talks a
lot and what emerges is a portrait of a control-freak puppet-master who has trouble
communicating with his marionettes and who claims he, also, is taken over by someone
else's spirit when on set; that is, he doesn't make movies, they were
already there waiting to be plucked out (like a train inexorably moving from station
to station, he says). Fellini admits he loves his job dearly (a welcome respite
from the all too often directorly refrain these days of 'Making movies is nothing
but pain!') and thinks himself lucky to have an occupation that allows all his
fears, neuroses, desires etc. to be filtered towards such a useful, collective
purpose. And so on and so forth. Fellini's vaguely pretentious diatribes get exasperating
after about an hour in and I wish the flick had spent more time interviewing his
friends and collaborators, thus providing a more rounded portrait. Regardless,
might be worth seeing if only because it contains my vote for hands down funniest
scene of the year: Terence Stamp impersonating Fellini will have you choking on
your tongue, guaranteed.]
162.
(14 Apr) The Heart of Me (2003, Thaddeus O'Sullivan)
163.
(14 Apr) Sweet Sixteen (2003, Ken Loach)
[When I was younger I used to automatically like my art as bleak as impending
death. When I matured I realized this dime-store fatalism/empty nihilism was somewhat
worthless: sure life's a bitch and then you die, but there are also good things
aplenty in this mixed up world. I realized that the very best art mixes pain with
hope (even if only a modicum) or at least pain with a little humor. Unfortunately
Ken Loach-as-my-younger-self made this study in unrelenting, grimy despair. Impeccably
acted (featuring a bravura, highly charismatic lead performance from newcomer
Martin Compston and an excellent, bursting performance from newcomer Annmarie
Fulton), forceful and sometimes touching with a delicate thrust, Sweet Sixteen
still suffers from an inability to add much to the Troubled Adolescent Tragedy;
there's also one specific leap I didn't buy (hint: it involves a test of courage)
and a strand involving Compston and his best friend that seems to have been dropped
before being taken to any sort of conclusion. There are opportunities for Loach
to move the proceedings in a slightly more optimistic direction, but he steadfastly
refuses them; obviously Loach feels strongly that some children -- no matter how
smart or resourceful -- are beyond repair because familial fuck-up is a shattering
disease intractably passed from generation to generation. The same theme is prevalent
in Stevie and Love & Diane, but when fictionalized into
an under two hour movie here, it doesn't get at the full truth. Sometimes, people
do escape. Occasionally life can be kind.]
s23.
(16 Apr) History and Memory (1991, Rea Tajiri)
164.
(16 Apr) The Thin Blue Line (1988, Errol Morris)*
[Wrestled with this movie for awhile and my one misgiving is subject to change
upon repeat viewings; as of now seems to me Morris is dressing up a clear argument
in pointlessly ambiguous clothes, which is to say I find the total lack of title
cards -- ostensibly to make the central murder mystery more vague, ostensibly
to not take sides, ostensibly to examine the nature of truth in as challenging
and objective a way as possible -- highly annoying and completely fruitless. Ultimately
-- and whether Morris intended this or not is irrelevant to my point -- The
Thin Blue Line comes off as an explicit, searing "Randall Adams Is Not
Guilty; David Harris Is" argument (so much so the film set Adams free) and
Morris seems inexplicably ashamed by this fact, trying to account for his eventual
lucidity by adding a critical layer of unnecessary opacity (and if I have the
order reversed -- that is, if Morris had the title cards missing all along --
when he viewed the first cut and saw how loudly the movie screams Randall Adams
Is Not Guilty in spite of the absent cards he should have gone back and reinserted
the title cards, recognizing that their absence did far more harm than good).
Compare The Thin Blue Line to Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred
A. Leuchter, Jr., another Morris documentary which does use title
cards because Morris was adamant no one dare get the impression he was leaving
it up to doubt whether or not the Holocaust really happened (the titular Mr. Death
was a prominent Holocaust denier). Why Morris would be just as careful not to
side with a Holocaust denier as he's careful here of not siding with a innocent
man sentenced to life in prison (when, as I already said, by the closing credits
the movie has ended up siding with the man anyhow), is beyond me. Otherwise:
A richly cinematic, deep-seated whodunit as well an essential examination of the
American legal system's flaws. Philip Glass's mesmerizing score and the florid
reenactments (although Morris overdoes them on occasion) lend The Thin Blue
Line a somnifacient and ominous sheen of spiraling, gray doom.]
165.
(16 Apr) Abandon (2002, Stephen Gaghan)*
[Katie Holmes -- who I've become obsessed with after recently re-watching her
fabulous work on Dawson's Creek's first season -- is cast here as a "passionless
young professional" and though she's superb (a sly fox taunted to outbreak),
requiring Holmes to be passionless is a waste of her greatest talents. Can't help
groaning at the arrogance of a first time filmmaker who commences his thriller
with the opening strains of Rosemary's Baby; turns out Stephen Gaghan
The Director has got talent -- an eerie atmosphere of foreboding is carefully
evoked and consistently maintained -- though he does suffer a bit from First Time
Helmer's Over Reliance On Close-Ups syndrome (the real hero here is Matthew Libatique's
beautiful cinematography, providing much spatial depth to a frame that often seems
coated in the hazy, electric blue sky glimpsed from a lighthouse at dusk). It's
Stephen Gaghan The Academy Award-Winning Writer who falls short, conjuring up
an empty script that relies almost entirely on ambience and too much setup, stringing
us along and along with hardly any payoff. Charlie Hunnam is a snotty, posturing
prick (I never understood why Holmes's character would give a fuck about this
asshole) looking too young for his part and just begging me to bash his
smug little face in; Benjamin Bratt is a recovering alcoholic detective whom we're
allegedly supposed to care about. Luckily we also have the inimitable Zooey Deschanel
to compensate for that lame duo, making an emphatically vivid impression (with
just a few scenes) as her usual loopy, sardonic self, completely unhindered by
script concerns and coming off like she's just making up her lines extemporaneously.]
166.
(16 Apr) Gates of Heaven (1978, Errol Morris)*
[Pretty huge disappointment, but my expectations were sky high (Ebert calls Gates
of Heaven one of the ten greatest films ever made); I found this largely
underwhelming and somewhat prosaic, despite what I thought would be the nearly
unlimited potential of the topic (pet cemeteries). Maybe the problem is a lack
of interviewees (the same limited group of people again and again gets tiring;
despite the concentration, most of 'em still come off as largely similar) or maybe
the problem is Morris focuses on more people involved in the administration of
pet cemeteries (the creators and overseers and day-to-day runners) then he does
on the people who actually bury animals there (or maybe the problem is simply
that this topic is a hell of a lot less worthy than I thought). Everyone knows
people love their pets almost as much (if not as much) as humans; when
Maltin calls Gates of Heaven "an allegory about the absurdity of
American priorities" I can't help but think him a pathetic, mistaken, unsympathetic
bastard who oughta dismount his high horse, wake up and smell the roses (and I
write that as someone who is not even a pet owner). Can Maltin really not recognize
that love of a pet is still Love, plain and simple, and most would agree there
is no higher priority than love itself? Unfortunately most of us are already well
aware why pets can mean so much to so many people without this documentary, plus
Morris's stylizations are nowhere to be found yet and their absence is a big hole
he can't fill.]
167.
(17 Apr) /Contempt/ (1963, Jean-Luc Godard)*
[Contempt is a musical and any discussion of the film must begin and
end with Georges Delerue's evanescent score, one of the most tragic and moving
in all of cinema. Sometimes it rises loud enough to drown out the dialogue, fittingly,
since the music's more important, more suggestive. This is an evasive, funereal
film about too many things to grasp in only a couple of viewings, but at least
two major themes are already apparent: the absurdity of falling out of love (family
members almost never can; why can lovers so easily?) and an answer to Truffaut's
famous quote, "I still ask myself the question that has tormented me since
I was thirty years old: Is cinema more important than life?" Here Godard
affirms yes, it is and ultimately all we have is the camera's fixed stare. Another
crucial quote that springs to mind is (I think) Godard's, about cinema being the
art of men photographing beautiful women: "Aren't movies great!" exclaims
Michael Piccoli. "[In life], you see women in dresses; in movies, you see
their ass!" Contempt's opening sequence -- a static shot watching
a cameraman slowly rolling down dolly tracks as he follows a pretty girl reading
a book -- is one of the most perfect encapsulations of the essence of cinema (or
at least, what cinema means to me) I've ever seen. Contempt -- which
is also about the difficulty of making a movie (of the never-ending struggle between
commerce and art) -- seems to me Godard's most personal film and when Brigitte
Bardot tells Piccoli "I hate you because you're incapable of moving me,"
we wonder how many times Anna Karina (or filmgoers) told Godard the same exact
thing (Karina and Godard were divorced less than two years after Contempt's
release); when Bardot dons a black Karina wig, we realize Godard wishes his wife
were playing Brigitte's part. Raoul Coutard's Techicolored, CinemaScopic work
is spellbinding, bright reds and blues and yellows popping off the screen like
gunshots, the breathtaking Mediterranean locations dwarfing everyone, this fucked-up
slab of humanity made insignificant by their unspoiled surroundings. Despite the
plot revolving around a filmic production of The Odyssey and the occasional
name-dropping/quoting, Godard mercifully keeps his (usually) incorrigible allusion
and gibberish proclivity in check, more concerned with the death of a relationship,
with the small clefs that can easily widen into a massive rift, with the inescapable,
sad, sad, sad fragility of romance placed against the enduring strength of motion
pictures. Has Jean-Luc ever made a better film?]
168.
(18 Apr) /In the Line of Fire/ (1993, Wolfgang Petersen)*
[Hadn't seen this in a number of years and it didn't quite hold as well as I was
hoping for. Main thing I had blocked outta my mind was Eastwood's atrocious romance
with Rene Russo, utterly superfluous and truly embarrassing (and then quickly
forgotten about until the last scene). Otherwise what we have is an average thriller
elevated to something special by Malkovich's astounding work, unfairly robbed
of a Best Supporting Actor Oscar by Tommy Lee Jones's far inferior work in The
Fugitive. Make no mistake about it: Malkovich's performance is not merely
a great "villain" turn-- it's a great, ferocious, spine-tingling performance
period and this movie wouldn't be worthy of seeing twice if not for his presence.
Petersen's direction is efficient, but the script is marred by lazy plotting (why
did it take so long for them to get a lead off the model catalogues?; impossible
to believe the CIA [who conceals their info from even Eastwood] wouldn't tell
the Joint Chief of Staffs that Malkovich's would-be assassin should be considered
a catastrophic threat and taken very seriously) and hampered by idiotic screenwriterly
tics (absolutely no reason Malkovich has to kill that woman from Minneapolis,
which would only arouse more suspicion; Eastwood senselessly ruins a trace at
one point by yelling out to his fellow agents while talking on the phone to Malkovich;
meanwhile Malkovich only scrambles his calls half the time and always
calls from right across the street). Of course these are small complaints in the
larger schema of things: Eastwood playing his typical haunted-by-the-past dude;
recent de facto motivation for Hollywood Killer kept firmly in place (aka the
government trained him to kill and now he's... turned against them! See also:
The Hunted) as is recently common theme of psychopath becomes fixated
with someone in order to ultimately help them (see also: Phone Booth,
One Hour Photo, With a Friend Like Harry); and the perfect ending
(Eastwood victorious, but to what end?) elided in favor of sickening Eastwood/Russo
off into the sunset bullshit.]
169.
(19 Apr) The Assassin (1961, Elio Petri)
[Don't care about this movie; starts off intriguingly, with a man arrested for
a crime neither we nor (allegedly) he know anything about and we optimistically
settle into our chair, intuiting this will be a clever unraveling of a mystery.
Then the minutes slowly unwind and we remember wait, this is Elio Petri we're
talking about here, and he's nothin' if not a monotony lover. What takes one scene
in the hands of many filmmakers takes three in the hands of Petri; he's the guy
at the party who won't shut up until he's made his point multiple times. Mastroianni
gives a nice, understated performance, half resignation, half smugness and admittedly
the movie keeps us guessing until the final scenes, even if we hardly care about
that which we guess. Some anti-fascist sentiment thrown in for useless measure;
too bad Petri doesn't care nearly as much about succinctness as he does politics.
Never really goes anywhere (especially since the characters don't change) but
better and subtler than Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, at
least.]
170.
(19 Apr) Love & Diane (2003, Jennifer Dworkin)
171.
(20 Apr) The Tenth Victim (1965, Elio Petri)
[Yawn; spent much of the runtime here trying to pinpoint just what turns me off
about Petri so much and eventually I realized its the grotesque amount of self-satisfaction
he demonstrates in his filmmaking (taking a cue from his own priggish characters,
of course). I picture Petri standing behind his camera, arms folded, sunglasses
on, shit-eating grin spread ear-to-ear, laughing hysterically at his own jokes
and quickly moving on to the next take, for in his eyes, in his
film, with his script, actors and crew members and most of all himself,
can do no wrong. The other problem with Petri (aside from his aforementioned [in
my The Assassin write-up] tendency to stretch every scene and every plot
element out to its breaking point) is his refusal to ever take his material to
a second level. In The Tenth Victim Petri's content making a few casual,
enticing, theoretical observations about our collective futures (a prescient imagining
of a literal Survivor reality TV show where humans hunt each other to
the death both for entertainment purposes and also to keep overpopulation in check;
being elderly an illegal attribute, senior citizens kept hidden; divorce nonexistent)
and then letting the rest of the film coast on some wacky humor (which ain't even
funny, if you ask moi) and the faces of a pair of attractive actors (Marcello
Mastroianni and Ursula Andress). I'll catch one more Petri flick before I write
this tirelessly mediocre guy off for good. Updated: Nah, I decided not to
bother with this dude anymore. Three strikes you're out and all that jazz.]
172.
(21 Apr) Straw Dogs (1971, Sam Peckinpah)*
[(Note: I watched the 117 min uncut version.) Most probably need to see this again
before committing to anything I'm about to write (especially since no one seems
to agree on just what the movie's saying; yes, I've combed through Criterion's
sparkling new DVD release), but my initial impression is that the final siege
is way too meek, ultimately weighing down the movie to irrecoverable lows. Simply
put, I didn't find Straw Dogs powerful or very effective, though it's
difficult to make the later claim with certainty since I'm unclear on Peckinpah's
intentions (or rather, my impressions of Peckinpah's intentions; I have
heard Peckinpah explicitly espouse what he was trying to accomplish although his
vocal aims are irrelevant if those same statements can't be drawn from the film
itself). It's a muddled movie (muddled not necessarily being a negative in and
of itself, mind) about -- in this humble viewer's estimation -- a milquetoast's
repression reaching a boiling point, about an intellectual's futile struggle to
hide Man's animalistic impulses, about the rage that stews beneath an ostensibly
calm countryside and about a marriage teetering on the brink of collapse. If Straw
Dogs is indeed about any of these things, it does a competent job, but nothing
more. Peckinpah's craft is obviously estimable, though by the fiftieth slow-mo
shot of violence, his technique can grow wearisome and juxtaposing (via inter-cutting),
for instance, a woman semi-enjoying being raped by a big, virile man while her
timid little husband flounders in the countryside as he struggles to hunt for
the first time, is a trite point sledge-hammered into worthlessness. (Speaking
of which: I can't call Straw Dogs as a whole misogynist but it undeniably
contains streaks of misogyny. Not the rape -- or the fact the rape is semi-enjoyed,
which is a stroke as audacious as it is fitting -- but lines like Hoffman telling
Susan George, 'See, you're not that dumb, honey!' Granted the argument
can be made such instances of misogyny are appropriate, casting Hoffman as they
do in the poisoned, impoverished masculinity light which the movie is focused
on. Still, blatant misogyny is not as textured as clouded misogyny, a notion which
is perhaps too subtle for the notoriously woman-hating Peckinpah. [NB. Peckinpah
vehemently claimed to adore women.]) When Straw Dogs is seen today --
after recent full-frontal assaults like Panic Room and Irreversible
-- even its roughest moments play positively docile; while viz.
the rape this restraint works (somewhat) to Peckinpah's advantage, the aforementioned,
crucial climactic siege -- which consists of a band of marauders largely unable
to enter a house guarded by nothing but locked doors and are thus reduced to ::run
for the hills, folks!:: throwing rocks threw its windows -- is something I'd expect
from a Dennis the Menace cartoon, not an R-rated film renown for its
(allegedly) prodigious ability to unsettle (face it: the siege is pretty boring).
Straw Dogs is not a particularly graphic film and it's not hard to watch;
what is hard is to figure out just what the fuck it's saying. Maybe next time.]
173.
(21 Apr) /Mikey and Nicky/ (1976, Elaine May)*
[Second viewing confirms my erstwhile Mikey and Nicky-as-masterpiece
declaration.]
174.
(22 Apr) Identity (2003, James Mangold)
[The whodunit is mostly a remnant of childhood nostalgia. I can't remember the
last time I saw a whodunit where I truly cared who did it, which is not to say
there haven't been some effective-overall whodunits in the past decade,
but at least meaning that this 'is it him or is it her' angle is always the least
interesting component of such a film (i.e. Gosford Park and 8 Women,
to name two recent examples). Director James Mangold and the writer who brought
you Jack Frost and Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman
wish to disagree and so here is Identity, or rather And Then There
Were None transposed to a flooded motel (replete with coy references to And
Then There Were None, natch; thank you Kevin Williamson), then made totally
witless and completely moronic (the central twists plumb the depths of idiocy),
hinging entirely on its titular noun and offering nothing else besides its empty
soul. Bereft of suspense, emotion, characters we actually care about or any other
reason to continue watching from scene to scene, the vast array of amply able
performers (including John Cusack, Ray Liotta, Clea DuVall, Pruitt Taylor Vince,
John C. McGinley, Holmes Osborne and Alfred Molina) are inevitably wasted; eventually
we are (almost literally) asked to give a shit about non-humans trapped
inside a bad video game. Only redeeming facet = gag of casting Rebecca De Mornay
as a has-been actress.]
175.
(23 Apr) Holes (2003, Andrew Davis)
[Definitely feel free to bump this up to a recommendation if you're fourteen or
under; otherwise, this is promise squandered, an at-first admirably strange but
alas too conventional and overlong film that never goes anywhere. It's tough to
say "blah" to a movie that features shoes falling from the sky and kids
doomed to perpetually dig holes in the middle of the desert and Sigourney Weaver
as an evil warden with poisonous nail polish and Patricia Arquette as a kissing
bandit and Henry Winkler as an inventor trying to create a way to neutralize foot
odor and a great, deliciously reptilian performance from Jon Voight as a sunflower
chewing, deadly-lizard hunting dude named Mr. Sir and Tim Blake Nelson as a demented
camp counselor and no less than two songs on the pretty damn rockin' soundtrack
from The Eels, plus another from Beck. Eccentricity only gets a Disney movie so
far, though: eventually a real plot has to emerge and in this case it involves
nothing more than a family curse and a buried treasure (which, granted, might
have been plenty if the movie were 85 minutes and not 111 minutes). There's not
enough darkness, not enough sense of danger (and yes, I mean even by "children's"
films standards) and Davis's technique can get sloppy (what's with that lame-ass
slow-mo?; and couldn't the [largely superfluous] flashbacks have been integrated
better?). The two lead children are adequate but rarely more; it's always risky
giving your central roles to adolescents, who -- with very few exceptions -- just
can't hold their own against their more experienced adult colleagues. In this
case the decision is a big hole in the middle of the frame that's never quite
filled.]
176.
(24 Apr) Dead Man (1996, Jim Jarmusch)*
[A friend of mine who knows Jimmy informs me that Mr. Jarmusch (who lives on the
Lower East Side) almost always travels from Manhattan location to Manhattan location
by walking. Clearly this is not a man concerned with niggling things like time
or the wasting thereof; his movies are the same as being locked in solitary confinement,
with absolutely no stimulation available besides the ability to cut one's wrists
against the craggy prison walls. When the end credits eventually roll it's as
if a guard has opened your cell and finally set you free... oh, sweet bliss, where
have you been? Suffice to say Jared and Jarmusch films are like oil and water;
I consider Stranger than Paradise one of the most boring movies ever
produced and perhaps the most grossly overrated in cinema history. Dead Man
is about as boring (save the rare moment leavened by silly humor: Johnny Depp's
first shoot-out; the man who gets his brain crushed; Billy Bob Thornton's entire
performance; Iggy Pop cross-dressing and reading from a Bible or something) but
it's also twenty-five minutes longer, so you do the math. On top of the boredom
is Neil Young's intolerably strident score, aka perpetual, random strumming of
an electric guitar with the feedback cranked up high. Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote
a whole book on this fucking film (which he considers to be the third best of
the 1990s), but I don't care if it is about our "inability to distinguish
between inner consciousness and external reality" or an allegory about the
ills of capitalism or the secrets of humanity's evolution or the answers to the
mysteries of the universe. All that matters: Dead Man is supremely, crushingly
tedious and makes you feel like you are its title.]
177.
(24 Apr) The Heartbreak Kid (1972, Elaine May)*
[Poor Elaine May, she couldn't seem to escape the shadows of her collaborators.
First she makes The Heartbreak Kid, which is widely compared (sometimes
unfavorably) to The Graduate, then she makes Mikey and Nicky,
which is often dismissed as Cassavetes-lite (even its own home video casing bills
the movie as a member of "The John Cassavetes Collection"). In the case
of the later, Mikey and Nicky towers above almost anything Cassavetes
ever made; in the case of the former it's a little more difficult to provide empathy
since, indeed, much of the terrain covered in Nichols's masterpiece is also dealt
with here. Imagine a sequel to The Graduate which picks up right where
the original leaves off (Hoffman and Ross having just married), then eventually
winds it way backwards through half the film. Even still, there's plenty of new
territory to explore here (the falseness of marriage; an unquenchable romantic
restlessness) and if The Heartbreak Kid didn't rest on such a precarious
premise (despite being bolstered by strong scene-to-scene writing from Neil Simon's
screenplay) and the movie weren't badly miscast, it might have been an unqualified
success. Charles Grodin tries his best, giving a good performance where a truly
great one is required; I can only salivate imagining what someone like Warren
Beatty could of done with the lead. The bigger problem is Cybill Shepherd in a
crucial, very flimsy role that needs to be sold with complete veracity. Too bad,
then, that Shepard's a vacuous expanse of nothingness and I just can't buy anyone
in Grodin's disastrous situation falling for her so fucking hard. In general,
Shepherd's appeal has always been lost on me; granted Bogdanovich figured out
how to use her effectively in The Last Picture Show (Shepherd's debut
film), but here she is one year later coming off as pure hot air. I guess there
was a dearth of talented young actresses back in the early 70s: the idea that
people as horrific as Shepherd and Ali MacGraw could rise to stratospheric heights
of fame boggles my circa-2003 mind. Compare Shepherd and McGraw to the beautiful
(since we must allow their looks were the majority of their appeal) starlets of
tomorrow, girls with real impressive chops like Leelee Sobieski and Kate Bosworth
and Katie Holmes and Sarah Polley and Kate Hudson. Put any of those actresses
in Shepherd's role and maybe this film would actually work, but even still, its
central twist -- executed too broadly to really affect -- is difficult to stomach.
"I don't like one goddamn thing about you," growls a character at Grodin
and that's part of the problem. Grodin's not skilled enough at eliciting our sympathy
for a man caught in such a ludicrously self-destructive loop and Simon's script
never finds the right tone (or maybe it's May's direction, I'm not certain), favoring
shallow, unfunny comedy over trying to move us (the almost heart-wrenching "Pecan
Pie" scene is an excellent example of what The Heartbreak Kid should
have strove to emulate far more often). Massive kudos to the (deservedly) Oscar-nominated
performances from Eddie Albert (who brings a savage authority to Shepherd's no-nonsense
father) and Jeannie Berlin (who brings depth to Grodin's shrill, enormously unappealing
bride).]
178.
(25 Apr) People I Know (2003, Dan Algrant)
179.
(25 Apr) A Mighty Wind (2003, Chistopher Guest)
[Just as he did in Best of Show, Fred Willard steals the fuck outta this
movie, not an easy feat when your costars include Christopher Guest, Eugene Levy,
Catherine O'Hara, Harry Shearer and Bob Balaban. Willard's just about the only
thing in the flick that had me laughing out loud (and he didn't just have me laughing
out loud, he had me laughing my ass off); the dude's an under-appreciated, underused
comedic genius who invests his character with such unquestionable, manic energy,
such exacting, breathless accuracy, no one else and their faux beards, bald heads
or "Look at me, I'm craaaazy" affectations can dare compare. I realize
this stuff is about as relative as film reviewing gets, so I ain't gonna waste
my time: lemme just say I think A Mighty Wind is the weakest of Guest's
trilogy (simply because I found it the least funny) and there's too many characters
and Parker Posey (looking hotter than ever) doesn't have nearly enough screen
time.]
180.
(26 Apr) A Decade Under the Influence (2003, Richard
LaGravenese, Ted Demme)
[Went in apprehensive -- just as I did Bowser's film Easy Riders, Raging Bulls
(based on Biskind's book of the same name) -- because (A) I was scared this would
be a self-congratulatory fluff piece and (B) I couldn't imagine what I had left
to learn about 1970s filmmaking (within the constraints of a two hour overview)
since I'd already consumed that aforementioned book/film synergy. Indeed A
Decade Under the Influence is obviously self-congratulatory (with all the
interviews done by filmmakers themselves [who are probably friends of their subjects];
in addition to LaGravenese and Demme, there's Neil LaBute and Scott Frank among
others) but it turns out this is also a highly pleasurable and worthwhile compliment
to Bowser's film/Biskind's book (only a few specific anecdotes overlap) precisely
because it doesn't focus on the darkness of the decade and just concentrates
on the prominent filmmakers of the era explaining where they came from, what they
were doing and how they went about it in a lucid, if bland, talking-heads format
(including some specific time devoted to Cassavetes-as-a-root, much welcome since
[as a result of his East-Coaster status] he's regrettably absent in Bowser/Biskind
land). Bowser's film lacked the participation of many titans (due to its controversial
affiliation with Biskind's impressive and much despised tome), but A Decade
Under the Influence has most of the biggies present: Scorsese, Towne, Coppola,
Friedkin, Altman, even Julie Christie (still looking stunning), though Beatty,
Spielberg and Lucas continue to be MIA. To hear these giants discussing their
work is valuable and it's particularly scintillating to hear Christie criticize
the lack of quality women's roles during a filmic time so remarkably fertile that
we often forget the decade's characterized by an almost strictly male
ferocity (an issue which is never addressed by Bowser or Biskind).]
181.
(26 Apr) Wild at Heart (1990, David Lynch)
[I suspect all of Lynch's films are marked by an apocalyptic dread, but never
as pronounced as in this glorious fairytale, where Lynch imposes his preoccupations
on a simple, pulpy plot (par for the Lynch course) and delivers True Romance
on acid. Wild at Heart is Lynch's most expansive vision, not just of
a town or a city but of a whole world gone whack: Dern scrolls through the radio,
unable to find music amidst all the tragic news, people behave like animals (literally
emitting animal noises outta the blue), the frame's smothered in flames, lots
of virulent bloodshed, no sense of authority, clogged streets, random accidents.
It's a brutal satire of human corruption (easily Lynch's funniest and the most
hilarious film I've seen in God knows how long), with characters named things
like Mr. Reindeer and Dropshadow, but through the nightmare shines purity, not
just in the chance at love or Dern's longing for a simple future but also in Badalamenti's
categorically romantic score and some salient visuals, like the spellbinding shot
of an unspoiled desert landscape, sun piercing through the top of the frame, Dern
and Cage embracing in the lower right hand corner (Lynch's virtuoso formal command
is typically entrancing throughout, including harsh explosions of sound and brief
flashbacks alternating between dreamy and beastly). Best answer to Lynch's "I
don't understand" detractors comes from one of Cage's last lines, spoken
as matter-of-fact as possible: "It's what makes sense, is all." A travesty
this film isn't more widely and heartily embraced.]
182.
(26 Apr) /The Last Boy Scout/ (1991, Tony Scott)*
[The kind of movie for which Vern's Badass Awards were created and yet there's
a surprisingly melancholic current lurking beneath its slick surface (especially
considering it's a big-budget, Hollywood action pic). The oppressiveness of existence
is bemoaned again and again ("Ain't life a bitch? asks one dude right before
he blows his brains out; all the central characters remark how much "life
sucks") and both Willis and Damon Wayans have disaster hiding in their skeleton's
closet. But the difference between The Last Boy Scout and e.g. Manic
(see: directly below) is that The Last Boy Scott lightens its gloom with
snide remarks and a blithe, self-deprecating tone (which is precisely how I think
real life despair should be coped with) without ever betraying this gloom.
Scout's credo is laid out clearly in the last scene when Willis tells
Wayans, "This being the 90s, you can't just walk up to a guy and smack him
in the face, you gotta say something cool first." Clean direction, exciting
set pieces, irregular outbursts of violence, a creepy villain, a ridiculous plot
involving the legalization of gambling and a mostly calm, disillusioned ("Yeah,
I believe in love. And I believe in cancer."), seen-it-all, boozing, chain-smoking,
Badass hero you can really root for (Willis tweaking his John McClane persona
a little deeper into forlornness) is all I ask for in this sorta escapist Joel
Silver thing. Granted it's probably misogynist, but at least Scout makes
McClane's adolescent daughter a major character, treating her as a foul-mouthed,
angry, crafty-as-hell equal. Plus I'm a sucker for Los Angeles P.I. stories, particularly
ones that have their protagonist staring in the rearview mirror as he tells himself,
"Nobody likes you, everybody hates you, you're gonna lose... smile, you fuck."]
183.
(27 Apr) Confidence (2003, James Foley)
184.
(27 Apr) Manic (2003, Jordan Melamed)
[Yippee, another movie about how fucked-up kids can never get better! Or rather,
a mostly unbearable and pretentious piece of twaddle in which disturbed, mental
institution teenagers whine about how their mommies and daddies beat them/didn't
love them enough to Don Cheadle's counselor (in group therapy sessions, natch).
Confuses verisimilitude with shooting everything in nauseating, digital, extreme
close-ups and shaking/whip-panning the camera as much as humanly possible (Manic's
more noxious to look at than even The Son). Every scenario as trite and
despondent as can be; every other line resoundingly obvious and phony. At least
there's Cheadle's tender and explosive performance, though.]
185.
(28 Apr) Gigantic (A Tale of Two Johns) (2003, AJ
Schnack)
[Still can't count myself a bona-fide fan of They Might Be Giants, but
found this a sweet, educational romp through their odd, sometimes precious world
(songs about lampshades, Particle Man, etc.). Docu's particularly apt to my last
few log entries and the question of how to handle misery in art: the two Johns'
(John Flansburgh and John Linnell = They Might Be Giants) modus operandi -- and
the main way in which they've always differed from much else of indie rock --
is their declaration that simply "crying" in the public sphere isn't
moving. The trick, they say, is to dress up the sadness in happy clothes (e.g.
the song "Older"), with this incongruity being more affecting than just
one end of the emotional spectrum. So the lyrics are depressing as hell
-- involving aging, time's march, death, break-up, divorce -- but the arrangements
are relentlessly peppy enough to muffle the pain. All of which they admit appeals
primarily to teenagers, who appreciate "cleverness" more than any other
age bracket (the Giants also admit their fan base doesn't seem to grow older with
the band), though there's still adult celebrity fans aplenty who can apparently
recite whole songs verbatim (Janeane Garofalo, Michael McKean, Andy Richter and
Harry Shearer do so on camera). Encouraging that an artist this earnest could
be around for almost twenty years (starting out all grass roots with an answering
machine dial-a-song service; topping college charts; bouncing from label to label;
pioneering the indie-music-videos-on-MTV scene; eventually winning a Grammy for
Malcolm in the Middle's theme song), incurring so many fashions and trends
and still managing to maintain what appears to be high spirits, pure friendship
and integrity. They're a sort of anti-band, writing songs called "Hope That
I Get Old Before I Die," a deliberate subversion on The Who's song of a similar
namesake and an adamant stance against the typical live-fast-die-young-rock-n-roll
lifestyle. Not much conflict anywhere, made with a journeyman's instinct and a
fluff piece if you're looking for dirt, but intimate and sincere. Best sentiment
comes from writer Sarah Vowell, discussing the band's unfailing ability to cheer
her up: 'When people can sing songs about an ant crawling on someone's back, you
know the world can't be all bad.']
186.
(29 Apr) Choose Me (1984, Alan Rudolph)*
[Would it be crass of me to suggest Choose Me is far better remembered
than freshly seen? A quintuplet of LA denizens mix and mingle, struggling with
love & sex under the hazy neon glow of early 80s twilight. Unfortunately Rudolph's
script is endless banter, everything talked to death and then some; consequently
there's no subtext, with characters like Dr. Love (Geneviève Bujold), the
sex advice radio personality who's unable to apply any of her knowledge inwardly
(paging the cheap irony police...), prone to on-the-nose mini-monologues about
herself, like the one in which she tells Keith Carradine's escaped mental patient:
"[I] help a great deal of people but there's a price involved: [I] can help
others, but not [my]self. [I] give advice to the lovelorn every day, but [I've]
never been in love [my]self." The whole script works like that, with reductive
character personalities emerging not from action or subtleties, but from being
hammered home again and again via the characters talking about themselves (Lesley
Ann Warren's business owner repeatedly says that "all marriages fail"
so she's turned to business as a substitute for love). Even if all this inward
self-analysis (not a bad thing in theory; have I mentioned how much pleasure I
get outta my Dawson's Creek Season 1 DVDs?) is a comment on Los Angeles
narcissism or general romantic narcissism, it doesn't work, partly because the
dialogue's so banal and weak (and never witty or knowing) and partly because all
the performances are surreally flat and wooden, with Carradine coming off as a
poor-man's Steve Buscemi doing an impersonation of George Clooney, Rae Dawn Chong
wholly unwatchable and Bujold delivering every line in monotone. Maybe Rudolph
instructed everyone to act in this stylized manner, but to these ears it sounded
like a bad table read-through of the screenplay before they went into production.
Characters kissing are punctuated by the breathy soundtrack exploding; music cutting
in and out as lips lock and unlock; behavioral attributes are silly and absurd:
Carradine wants to marry women right after he kisses them for the first time;
and all the triangles are too neat: Patrick Bauchau's inexplicable animosity towards
Carradine when they meet at a poker game is just an easy and nonsensical way for
Rudolph to up the stakes when Bauchau catches Carradine sleeping with his wife
(see folks, they already have a conflicted history); Lesley Ann Warren is also
seeing both Bauchau and Carradine; Warren and Chong are friends; and Warren calls
Dr. Love (who she somehow doesn't realize is her own roommate; can't she note
they have the same voice?) to laboriously go over all her daily romantic travails
(in stunningly tiresome detail). Occasionally Rudolph strives for a loose-limbed
Altman camera (i.e. slowly zooming into faces on a two-person conversation, then
slowly panning back and forth as the characters converse) but lacking Altman's
grace he quickly grows flustered and reverts back to stasis (Rudolph began his
career in the 70s as Altman's assistant director). Meanwhile the gunplay seems
straight outta another movie (was Rudolph concerned about all the talk, talk,
talk and looking for an easy way to action the proceedings up?) and the last shot's
directly swiped from The Graduate, only this time I can't fork over my
sympathy because all of the characters feel like artificial constructs who deserve
their uncertain, probably miserable fates.]
187.
(30 Apr) /Fight Club/ (1999, David Fincher)*
188.
(01 May) Forever Mine (2000, Paul Schrader)*
["Love is only pure or selfish," says hero Joseph Fiennes and it's that
kinda simplistic ideology which infests this awful mess, with Schrader attempting
some kinda Sirkian, cranked-up-to-eleven melodrama -- trying to craft a "pure"
love story, all prettified, warm pictures -- without bothering to flesh out the
story or the characters or make plot turns plausible. There's a reason Schrader
never attempted writing this sorta thing earlier: love stories are not what he
does best (or even well), studies in anguished masculinity are; I'm pretty certain
he's incapable of (and totally disinterested in) ever crafting 3D females. Here
we have the ol' seen this, done that set-up: young wife of mean, unfeeling businessman
is swept off her feet by 'emotionally honest' cabana boy who tells her she's "extraordinary"
the moment they meet. There's no time for introductions, no time for romance,
just instant Love, capital L, and then instant 'But No! This can never be! I'm
married' Second half so conveniently idiotic (left-for-dead cabana boy quickly
turning into World's Most Powerful Man, uh huh); nothing about the 'revenge?'
scheme thought out by Schrader (Why does Fiennes tell Liotta he wants his wife?
He already has his wife. If the idea is to rub it in, do that,
but don't make a freakin' request just so there can be a big climatic shoot-out;
what the hell does the hit man friend and his hit man activities have to do with
anything?). Ray Liotta rapacious and quite good; Fiennes smug and terrible; Gretchen
Mol blank and useless as ever. Most of the lines are such overcooked cliches I
refuse to believe they came from the writer of Taxi Driver.]
189.
(01 May) /Lone Star/ (1996, John Sayles)*
[Sayles makes sociopolitical movies about specific regions -- Texas in this case
-- and the reason this is his best film (as far as I know), is that the sociopolitical
messaging takes a backseat to an engaging story (a murder mystery, too) about
generational gaps -- grandfathers and fathers and sons and daughters, their past
secrets coming to a boil -- and about how the past and present are prone to bounce
off each other like ping pong balls ("Nothing I wanna look back on,"
quoth Chris Cooper on why he doesn't have any pictures in his house - "The
story's never over" replies Elizabeth Peña). It's such a generous
film -- a ragged community drawn with a novelistic texture -- that indeed it feels
like it could go on forever, even the smallest characters afforded spare moments
to lounge in their own little subplots (e.g. the white dude and black woman's
romance). Sayles is not afraid to date himself with references to the Gulf War
and OJ -- in fact surely he wants to date himself -- to show how irrelevant
a date is, to show that this specific, semi-corrupted Texas milieu can fade just
as easily into the fuller corruption that bred it, because time blends and that's
why the majority of the flash-backing transitions are completely seamless, no
cuts, no tears in the spatial fabric, the interconnection amplified (greatest
visual metaphor: the grandmother who's addicted to Gameboy). Lots of talking of
course, but the dialogue is wonderfully tangy ("It's always heartwarming
to see a prejudice defeated by a deeper prejudice"), as it traces and links
historical change to generational progression (the massive ensemble is superlative;
standouts = Cooper and Joe Morton). We're all more connected than we realize,
but sometimes the past deserves to be left alone and Sayles asks if that's
ever possible (calling to mind the Faulkner quote that begins Stevie:
"The past is never dead. It's not even past."). Maybe the most you can
do is try...]
190.
(02 May) Owning Mahowny (2003, Richard Kwietniowski)
["Where would you rate the thrill you get outta gambling on a scale of 1-100?"
asks some dude to PSH's good thief/bad bettor. "100," answers Hoffman.
"Coulda fooled me," replies Jared. If Hoffman finds gambling so exciting,
why's his movie so flat? I'm the target audience -- an avid gambler myself --
and I've rarely seen the sport rendered this inert. The ever reliable PSH does
a slight variation on his (more affecting) Love Liza performance: a nonplussed
nebbish, strung out and breathing heavily; Minnie Driver hides behind gigantic
glasses and what looks like a Halloween store wig in the thankless 'neglected
girlfriend' role; the irrepressible John Hurt tries to loosen things up. Melodically
smooth Love and Death on Long Island vibe still in place, at least.]
191.
(02 May) /What About Bob?/ (1991, Frank Oz)*
[Gleefully demented critique of arm-chair psychology: being a crazy patient =
being fun; being an analyst = being a repressed, strict, even bigger lunatic no
one wants to hang around. Casting really makes the film, with Dreyfuss delivering
a dynamite performance, increasingly unhinged, finally going so berserk he resorts
to radical "Death Therapy" and threatens to eat live goldfish (Dreyfuss's
prolonged absence from cinema is a major loss; this guy's a treasure); Murray's
counteractive free spirit routine is as effective and funny as ever. I pray Frank
Oz brings the outlandishly unsound darkness found here to The Stepford Wives-as-black-comedy
redux he's about to make with Nicole Kidman in the lead.]
192.
(03 May) Fearless (1993, Peter Weir)*
[Powerfully unnerving exploration of survivor's guilt and survivor's appreciation;
for all its occasionally explicit dialogue, this is a searching film. Thomson
calls the resolution "facile," perhaps overlooking the irony that Bridges
is, in a sense, right back where he began, invincibly defeating impossible odds
(albeit now with the help of his wife). Views 1990s America in a state of dissolution
where "no one apologizes, they write memoirs." It's an existential film
dissatisfied with concepts of God, wondering what happens when there is no rhyme
or reason to life and death, asking how Man can cope when the randomness of reality
is so nakedly thrust in his face. Remarkable central performance from Bridges
(isn't he always remarkable?), probing the line between sadness, disconnect and
possibility; ultra canny supporting turns from John Turturro, Rosie Perez, a young
Benicio Del Toro, a brazen Isabella Rossellini and especially an oily Tom Hulce
(who, criminally, has only been in three feature films since Fearless;
someone cast this genius pronto).]
193.
(04 May) X2: X-Men United (2003, Bryan Singer)
s24.
(06 May) Polaroid (2003, Jason Koffeman)
194.
(06 May) Total Recall (1990, Paul Verhoeven)*
[Schwarzenegger's probably -- no hyperbole -- the worst movie star to emerge in
over three decades, although even he can't siphon the fun outta Verhoeven's ultra-violent
vision. Second half is basically one long action sequence, but Rob Bottin's makeup
effects are so spectacular (is there anything more horrifying than the suffocating-on-Mars
depicted here?), Verhoeven's imagining of an anesthetized, futuristic Earth and
a colonized Red Planet is so grandly inventive (most of the Academy Award-winning
visual effects hold up quite well thirteen years later) and Philip K. Dick's (presumably)
sinuous, thought-provoking source material provides enough intriguing ideas re:
memory (it's amusing to see an on-screen action hero create his identity solely
by way of kicking people's asses and saving the world[s] since this is exactly
what Arnold-the-sinfully-bad-and-bland-actor's done in real life), that it'd be
boorish to complain.]
195.
(07 May) /In a Lonely Place/ (1950, Nicholas Ray)*
196.
(08 May) The Italian Job (2003, F. Gary Gray)
[Lighthearted and pretty enjoyable, but plagued by the unremitting wateriness
of main star Mark Wahlberg (who shouldn't be allowed to make movies not directed
by people with the initials PTA or DOR), weak dialogue and an at first kick-ass
then very boring and interminable final action act. Supporting cast almost compensates
for the Wahlberg deficiency: scrumptious Charlize Theron, tired and fragile here,
seems to be getting better and better with every film; Seth Green's always amusing;
Mos Def is da man; Norton is Norton. Everything looks expensive and I doubt I'll
remember I saw any of it by tomorrow. PS: For the love of God, exit the theater
the moment the end credits start rolling. Trust me. You'd thank me if you knew
what you missed.]
197.
(09 May) /The Trigger Effect/ (1996, David Koepp)*
[Woefully underrated (and under seen), an excitable tale about the way American
society seems to be bending at the seams: we're losing connection with each other
because we're increasingly (and regrettably) relying on technology as a kind of
protective insulator. Albeit The Trigger Effect is neither subtle (it's
the kind of film where a black crow flying off in CU is a signpost of doom) nor
above using splashes of forced irony, and it does peter out a bit towards the
end, but we don't go to Koepp movies for subtlety, we go for high concepts executed
with a crackerjack finesse. My friend Zach's right: Like Mission: Impossible
and especially Panic Room, The Trigger Effect seems to posit
that much of modern world security is a tenuous illusion as it examines what happens
when the modernity is challenged and stripped, what happens when a primordial
way of life is restored (which Koepp probably thinks is inevitable). An assured
directorial debut, a small jewel.]
198.
(10 May) The Shape of Things (2003, Neil LaBute)
199.
(10 May) The Moderns (1988, Alan Rudolph)*
[A lot to like here and Rudolph's gotten much more confident with the camera,
but he's still a director ultimately incapable of making scenes sing:
everything feels surprisingly flat -- never taking off or even coming together,
really -- especially for a movie which unfolds and embraces a period and locale
as fertile and joyous as 1920s Paris. It's a time when Hemingway is confused for
Fitzgerald at the local bar, where drinks are paid for with jewelry, where men
and women merrily prance through the streets naked. Rudolph emphasizes the romance
(which is generally irresistible if you're at all artistically minded) by fading
scenes to black and white on occasion (and by cutting to archival footage of the
real 1920s Paris) and the woozy nostalgia is fun, but Keith Carradine's performance
and protagonist are dry; I never really gave a shit about his twisted relationship
with Linda Fiorentino (reliable, as always) which ostensibly anchors the film.
Here's also yet another movie containing discussions as to the nature of art (see
also: The Shape of Things, directly above) with definitions
offered ranging from "art is never a whole story" to "this is art
because I paid hard cash for it." That later definition sounds glib in the
film and is obviously wrong, but if you contort its logic a bit Rudolph has a
point: we can kinda gauge a piece of art's personal worth based on how much we're
willing to pay to own it and thus be able to (re)experience it on a whim. There's
the overriding sense in The Moderns that indeed art has no value unless
we ascribe it and maybe that's the biggest lesson to be learned from this bygone
era: recognize the geniuses, support them, encourage them. Ultimately 1920s Paris
dies out when it gives way to imitators and parody, and it's delicious to think
(as Rudolph does) of nascent Hollywood as its successor. Plus any flick with Wallace
Shawn cross-dressing can't be altogether ignored, but is anyone else disturbed
by Rudolph's (most likely erroneous) depiction of Hemingway as a whiny pussy?]
200.
(11 May) Winged Migration (2003, Jacques Perrin)
201.
(12 May) Down With Love (2003, Peyton Reed)
202.
(12 May) /Training Day/ (2001, Antoine Fuqua)*
[Second viewing has me considering bumping Amelie on my 2001 Top Ten
and putting this sucker on instead. Hugely entertaining, taut and impeccably crafted
by Fuqua, Washington delivers an astonishing performance (still can't believe
the Academy was smart enough to give him the Oscar) that's particularly remarkable
for the way it fuses a ravenous fury with a constant on-the-verge-of-tears aura.
This is the rare, electrifying, big studio film that is comfortable (and can get
away with, dramatically speaking) stopping its action for seven pages of dialogue.
Everyone's concern is the third act, which bothered me much less this time around
because I grooved on the movie's fuck-off justification for its major third act
contrivance ("Life's a trip," shrugs a character in response to the
implausibility), because what reeked of 'Hey, I'm outta ideas so I'm just gonna
end everything in a flurry of de facto violence' first time around now felt concise
and painfully real to me (Fuqua's depiction of the carnage shoots to kill, so
to speak) and because I once again adored the way the flick takes on the operatic
grandeur of a Shakespearean tragedy in its final two scenes ("King Kong ain't
got nothin' on me!!!"). Not a simple exploration of corruption: there will
always be moral cops doing exclusively moral things (like Hawke's character),
just as there will always be cops for whom black and white labels cannot be applied.
In Washington's performance and Ayer's script, we genuinely get the sense this
"bad" man consistently did lots of "good" right up through
his dying day. There will never be any reconciling police corruption; it's something
insoluble, something to live with.]
203.
(14 May) Flesh and Bone (1993, Steve Kloves)*
[Foolishly thought this was a thriller, which is akin to laboring under
the erroneous assumption that Breaking the Waves is a comedy. In actuality
this is a lame domestic drama which moves at approximately the same pace the polar
ice caps are currently melting at; only someone with Alzheimer's couldn't figure
out the big plot revelation an hour before it happens. See, there is no plot besides
the plot revelation and though I'm usually the last person to take a movie to
task for being character based, a director/screenwriter dude's gotta make up his
mind: either invest all your energy into pure character work (no cheap Sins of
the Past expository gimmicks allowed) or get the fuck moving. Scenes
take so long to go anywhere you know at least half of what's gonna be said before
someone's said it (but what they're saying still isn't painful since Kloves has
a keen ear for dialogue). Ryan and Paltrow are quite good; Quaid's pretty solid
also, if a little too channeling-Swing Bladey for my taste; only Caan falters
by being a tad showy, but that might just be my 'please don't have celebrities
play minor characters who are supposed to be scary' bias rearing its head. Visuals
are marvelous, the South depicted here as a beautifully spare, always in the midst
of magic hour, alien planet; director Kloves owes much of his movie's striking
look to his luminary cinematographer Philippe Rousselot's ravishing work. Ultimately,
though, there's no escaping the fact this is a paper-thin premise stretched like
Gumby with a Totally-Unsatisfying-on-any-level ending to boot.]
s25.
(15 May) Couch (2003, Paul Thomas Anderson)*
204.
(15 May) Dead Again (1991, Kenneth Branagh)*
[Hey, when it comes right down to it, does this movie make much sense? To quote
Fred Willard... I dooooon't think so! (A) What the hell is Branagh suddenly talking
about viz. switching genders; (B) why the hell doesn't the killer kill when s/he
gets the chance at the beginning of the freakin' movie or any number of other
opportunities thereafter; (C) why does the killer spend the whole damn
movie helping the person/people s/he wants to kill figure out s/he's the killer;
(D) I thought the idea is that reincarnation is about seeking retribution for
past life wrongs; if the movie makes a point of explicitly stating this, why is
that not the killer's motive? (To clarify for those who have seen the film: the
actual retribution found here comes in the form of self-defense, but the "killer"'s
aggression is not retribution so much as redoing.) Also, even if some loony toon
has actually figured out the answer to these questions of incoherence, I humbly
submit this movie still stinks for any number of other reasons: Branagh should
never be allowed to do American accents (see also: his unwatchable Allen impersonation
in Celebrity); the usually reliable Thompson isn't any good either; most
importantly, Scott Frank's script is a total drag, taking an already-pushin'-it
notion (everyone is reincarnated and their past lives have a profound effect on
their current selves, aka such a profound effect people are basically reduced
to reliving their past lives) and making it especially facile since any sort of
advancement on this premise is not found within the narrow confines of Frank's
limited vision (yes, a common Jsap complaint of late; but seriously, I'll take
a convoluted-as-fuck thriller with plotting to spare over this boring, stillborn
stuff any day). Jacobi, Knight and Williams -- in mischievous supporting turns
-- are the only dudes who seem like they're having any fun, another element crucial
to a solid thriller. I guess director Branagh is going for a Wellesian The
Lady From Shanghai vibe here, but only the surreal opening six minutes or
so (loved those bold credits with Patrick Doyle's stirring score over 'em) show
much promise. Btw, Flesh and Bone and Dead Again confirms my
'Married celebrity couples who made early 1990s Sins-Of-The-Past-Ripple-Into-The-Present
drama/thrillers produced by Paramount are headed for imminent divorce' theory.]
205.
(16 May) /Buffalo '66/ (1998, Vincent Gallo)*
[Might be a masterpiece; Buffalo '66 detractors, intent on dismissing
the movie as nothing but an arrogant and shallow display of egoism, inevitably
point to the scene in which a random dude in a restroom tells Gallo's character
his dick is "so big" and Gallo goes apeshit. Are they ignoring that
Gallo's character has just come back from a five year stay in prison during which
he was probably anally raped nightly in the showers and this sequence is a convenient
way for Gallo to show how impervious -- how actively adverse -- his character
is to any sort of compliments (a hang-up which will pop up continuously in his
subsequent relationship with Ricci)? It's easy to pin a narcissism rap on an autobiographical
movie written, directed, composed by and starring the same person, a person who
nakedly thrusts himself front and center (but who also -- as Theo cannily notes
-- gives some glorious supporting room to his co-stars: Ricci suddenly tap-dancing
under spotlight or Ben Gazzara holding the frame, lip-synching to the dubbed voice
of the real Vincent Gallo Sr.) and lets the world know just how profoundly he
suffers. But are they ignoring how funny his suffering is (it's taken me three
viewings to appreciate just how hilarious this painful movie can be), how often
Gallo invites laughter at his character's predicaments? There's nothing depressive
or morose about this picture. The detractors also claim they can't imagine what
Ricci sees in Gallo, a complaint which truly shows their inability to see how
laugh-out-loud and sweet a guy Gallo's character can be, as well as pointing to
their inability to appreciate this movie for the fantasy it decidedly is ("An
arresting hybrid of kitchen-sink realism and fairytale romance," begins the
production notes and that's as accurate a description as any I've seen). Are the
detractors remembering that elements of autobiographies are always, inherently,
gonna be heightened: that's why the exaggerated make-up and wardrobe and that's
why it's all so visually dazzling in a paradoxically mundane way that never really
calls attention to itself (only when Gallo uses some of his overtly experimental
editing techniques do you explicitly notice the craft involved). Lance Acord shoots
on color reversal film and lends Buffalo -- one of the coldest, bleakest and forbidding
of all American cities -- a sheen of deeply saturated, grainy, oddly appealing
beauty. As I wrote after the last time I watched this movie (in January), when
all is said and done Buffalo '66 shines via the inarguable conviction
of Gallo's suffering. Gallo's character finds great difficulty in the simplest
of tasks, be it using a bathroom, obtaining a phone book, getting an extra plate
of food, taking a picture or buying a hot chocolate and there's no confusing this
flick with a faux movie star vanity act since its so apparent Gallo has lived
the torment.]
206.
(17 May) /Happy Gilmore/ (1996, Dennis Dugan)*
[Probably Sandler's angriest film, one in which he explicitly (and affectingly)
blames his rage on his father's premature death. Enjoyable if you're a huge Sandler
fan, but not as good as I remember and so incredibly slipshod I just can't recommend
the thing. Adam's acting has come a long way in seven years.]
207.
(18 May) Cinemania (2003, Angela Christlieb, Stephen
Kijak)
208.
(18 May) /A Woman Is a Woman/ (1961, Jean-Luc Godard)
[Dear Young Anna Karina: As you know I was lukewarm on this movie first time around,
but only a deviant would pass up the opportunity to see you cavort around for
eighty-four minutes in a newly restored and subtitled 35mm Scope print. It definitely
makes a difference, especially since Fox Lorber is the nefarious maker of the
shittiest DVDs on the planet and their seven dollar and fifty cents A Woman
Is a Woman disc I was reduced to watching for viewing #1 is total crap, with
subtitles so fucking tiny you have to strain your eyes to read the damn things.
Second viewing -- this time on a big silver screen -- had me warming to the film
a bit more since I knew in advance to ignore all the gibberish and I could better
concentrate on your face and better appreciate the sometimes amusing little gags.
Still, though, like I wrote in my last letter to you, A Woman Is a Woman
is a bit of a chore to sit through and I don't know why there aren't a lot more
songs, a lot more singing, a lot more dancing (my favorite sequence in the flick
comes when you're playfully getting ready as what's-his-name's English language
song blasts on the soundtrack). I never feel anything for anyone in this movie
besides you, and when I feel for you I'm feeling for the real darling Anna and
not a fictional character. You simply are this movie, but despite my
boundless affection for you dear Anna, there should be more to A Woman Is
a Woman. The lack of the "more" is your diabolical husband's fault.
He is a very cold man who probably cheats on you and I suggest you divorce him
immediately so you can marry me. Love Jared.]
209.
(18 May) Irma Vep (1996, Olivier Assayas)*
[Rarely have I been more nonplussed by a film's lauding. Usually when I don't
dig on a movie praised far and wide I'm incredibly bored and/or angered: I see
a filmmaker swinging for the fences and me unable to respond. Here all I see is
an utterly "alright, I guess" and uninspired behind-the-scenes of a
movie-within-a-movie that has been done much better (most potently in documentary
form). This whole affair feels artificial and vaguely pretentious to your humble
correspondent ("I make good movies and the rest of France doesn't,"
Assayas seems to be saying), yet over half the people on my links page (plus Jonathan
Rosenbaum) think this thing is a true masterpiece, a revelatory comment on the
contemporary state of cinema itself. Whatever, dudes. I've read each of your reviews
and all I can do in response is shrug my shoulders and amble away. I still just
don't -- and apparently cannot -- understand how this mediocre chunk
of blah can be so profound to so many hardcore filmgoers.]
210.
(19 May) /25th Hour/ (2002, Spike Lee)*
[Third viewing has my love continuing to deepen. Virtually flawless; the majority
of American critics should be ashamed of themselves for not embracing this film.]
211.
(20 May) Bring It On (2000, Peyton Reed)*
[Reasonably good fun as a breezy teen flick; inept and offensive as any sort of
racial or sociological comment. Willing to bet the farm the screenwriter is a
White female resembling one of the White protagonists, considering the movie's
facile conception of The Insolvent Hip Hop Negroes From East Compton v. The Rich
Whities Who Live In Huge Houses (Updated: After typing this capsule I
decided to watch 'The Making of Bring It On' to see if my suspicions
were correct; sure enough the screenwriter -- who imdb now informs me is a former
model -- looks and speaks double-takingly similar to many of the Caucasian cheerleaders
on the movie's squad). Somewhat nauseating that Dunst is painted in such an angelic
glow during her interactions with the East Comptonites, as she kindly (and with
pure motive) tries to help the poor Negroes but they are Bitter and Gruff, and
say Yo Sista, I don't need no charity help from you so hit the street! Privileged
screenwriter feels guilty; can you guess who wins the final competition? Offensiveness
pretty irrelevant though, since mainly what we have here is a lot of chicks doing
sexy cheers and a bouncy performance from a sparkling Dunst, who's rarely been
better and never been hotter. We also have a super-charged scene of Dunst and
her love interest brushing their teeth together which generates more simmering
eros than most Hollywood sex scenes can muster (but unfortunately, by and large,
the love story here is completely neglected for the cheerleading stuff). Plus
we've got national treasure Holmes Osborne in a tiny role. Listen up filmmakers:
If you're smart enough to cast Holmes, fucking use him.]
212.
(21 May) Monster's, Inc. (2001, Pete Docter)*
[I'm way late to the party here, but this lovely, touching Pixar movie
kicks the crap outta something as crude as Shrek. Has pretty much everything
you could want in an animated film: inventive set-up; stunningly detailed and
extravagantly mind-blowing visuals + sound design (I'm a fucking fool for not
catching this in the theater); and a genuinely affecting emotional undercurrent,
found both in a "parent"'s inevitably bittersweet relationship with
their eventually-must-depart children (I find myself vaguely disturbed by how
outrageously adorable and human I think the little girl here is) and in the relationship
between two platonic pals. Also stays exciting while acknowledging the sacrifices
somewhat inherent to heroism, but most importantly it's the rare kind of film
where just when you think it can't get any better, the main characters suddenly
find themselves banished to the lonely Himalayas, being offered snow cones by
a genial Abominable Snowman. A beautifully fitting swan song for Coburn, may he
rest in peace.]
213.
(22 May) Knife in the Water (1962, Roman Polanski)
[Polanski does Antonioni to predictably holy-fucking-shit-is-this-movie-boring
results. Jejune, insubstantial and highly obvious (especially since it falls neatly
into the recent trend of strangers ingratiating themselves with unhappy people
and performing ultimately healing acts of harm). I guess because Polanski knows
how to create a superficial atmosphere of entrapment, fans of this are willing
to fervently embrace the fact that nothing remotely interesting ever happens (they
call this "mounting tension"). At least Dead Calm has Nicole's
delicious bare ass.]
214.
(22 May) The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967, Roman
Polanski)
[Accurately described by a friend as "a strange combination of broad 60's
comedy, baroque Hammer elements, matte paintings [and] weird sex stuff."
Jared will compliment that description by adding The Fearless Vampire Killers
is also as torturously tedious as Knife in the Water since it never finds
its tone, floundering around in a void between neither funny nor frightening (could
and should have been like Buffy, which uses lots of clever humor while
still managing to treat its scares sincerely). Polanski's 2.35:1 Panavision visuals
are typically inspired though, and the matte work is stupendous (how did they
pull off some of those expansive snow valley exteriors where a moving person gradually
fades into the background?). Scenes with a happy Sharon Tate and a cheerful Polanski
together are horribly sad, of course; I wish there was a lot more of these since
they served as my sole emotional foothold.]
215.
(22 May) Dracula: Pages From a Virgin's Diary (2003,
Guy Maddin)
[Seventy-five minutes of retro-ostentatious Dracula-meets-ballet imagery and witty,
"knowing" title cards is about as appealing to me as watching concrete
harden. While respecting that this kinda circa-silent era stuff is inherently
orgasmic to many, I gotta admit to attending strictly because of all the raves.
Alas, shoulda trusted my gut.]
216.
(22 May) The Virgin Suicides (2000, Sofia Coppola)*
[Hard not to fall for a sexy young director who walks around on set in a cowboy
hat (yes, I watched the making of), speaks with a sultry lilt and makes haunting,
graceful movies about the mysteries of adolescence while also employing awesome
grind-house exploitation tricks like the ol' iris-dissolve-to-see-what's-underneath
(ya know, like in From Dusk Till Dawn when there's a shot of the car
driving down the road and then a portion of the trunk is peeled away and you can
see that a girl is tied up inside?) -- you're a lucky man, Spike. Seriously though,
I know I'm three years late saying this but The Virgin Suicides announces
Sofia as a major talent and I can't wait for her next flick (which takes place
in Tokyo and stars Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson; can you think of a more
enticing duo?). Suicides is a difficult-to-pinpoint oddity, and though
I could have done without the kinda blame it on the repressive parents bit, the
movie works hard to emphasize there actually are no real answers to the titular
incidents. Indeed the movie's not about teenage angst or finding any sort of closure,
it's about -- to quote the author of the novel -- a kind of scattershot "voyeurism,"
the sort that goes along with, say, simply watching the hot, off-limits girl raise
her hand in class, the kind that goes along with the pleasurably clumsy teenage
years when you don't know too much about the opposite gender but are enjoying
the slow-burn discoveries (which will, of course, never be complete or satisfactory).
This is an ensemble piece where large chunks of the ensemble blend together, where
no one is well drawn and yet it all works because everything is abstract, so short
on plotting but long on texture, ambience and moments (what works decidedly less
well are Sofia's efforts to fully transcend her literary roots; longish passages
from the novel seem to be read wholesale and the gimmicky flashbacky structure
leaves something to be desired). Bonuses: Ed Lachman's cinematography, Air's marvelous
score, some great period tunes and a little pitch-perfect supporting turn from
James Woods.]
217.
(23 May) Bruce Almighty (2003, Tom Shadyac)
[Probably not a good sign when your comedy's two biggest laughs -- aka the two
times I was literally choking and my eyes were tearing -- come during your two
main characters' big, sincere, pseudo-emotional speeches. Starts out kinda promising
and the eternal optimist in me kept hoping for liftoff (solid high concept + fabulous
cast of Carrey, Freeman, Philip Baker Hall and Aniston = c'mon, fly, fucker, fly!),
but the thing gets progressively worse and more slapdash as it refuses to really
delve into the premise's potential glory, i.e. the implications of a narcissistic
God (and I can't believe they never even introduced a Devil). Required a slightly
darker, more cynical sensibility along the lines of a masterpiece like Groundhog
Day (the obvious comparison which, bear in mind, also still manages to be
a mainstream comedy with a happy ending). Morals of the story: God has a tough
job and never lose sight of your significant other.]
218.
(23 May) This Boy's Life (1993, Michael Caton-Jones)*
[The kind of film where a kid cuts his finger in woodworking class only so his
abusive stepfather can bite him in the same spot on his finger henceforth. The
kind of film where the sequence with the kid playing basketball in slippery shoes
and tripping a lot, is shot in golden slow-motion and scored to dreamy music in
order to glorify the fact that the kid's abusive stepfather refused to buy him
$10 gym shoes. In other words, the kind of film where child abuse is treated with
a fetishistic flair. Young DiCaprio -- impressive for the wrong reasons -- is
playing a character way too smart to allegedly be so reckless; final moment --
which juxtaposes a beaming DiCaprio escaping to a hard-earned private school and
a title card announcing that the real Tobias Wolff promptly failed out of said
private school -- just proves how artificial this whole thing is. De Niro's bizarre
performance -- in which he adopts a ridiculous accent and veers between brilliance
and caricature, harrowing and hilarious (imagine Rupert Pupkin doing an impersonation
of Jimmy Conway) like no other actor can -- is the only reason to see this.]
219.
(23 May) Big Daddy (1999, Dennis Dugan)*
[Utterly worthless. Much to my surprise, this isn't vulgar or outlandishly
rancid -- it's restrained to the point of nonexistence; Big Daddy ain't
a movie, it's an inane public service announcement. Sandler's few, negligible
outbursts are a sop to fans, as his character here is pretty damn responsible,
normal and boring. Joey Lauren Adams < Marisa Tomei or Drew Barrymore or Winona
Ryder, though that's an irrelevant complaint since the romance here eats up ~.001%
of the runtime. Blindingly oxymoronic to see Sandler in a black suit.]
220.
(24 May) The In-Laws (1979, Arthur Hiller)*
[Going to admit right up front that I was somewhat disappointed -- partially because
I'd built this up in my mind as the second coming of cinematic comedy, partially
because it's not as good as -- blasphemy warning -- Cassavetes's Big Trouble,
and partially because it doesn't make a bit of fucking sense. Normally that latter
concern might not bother me in an anything-goes comedy like this, but since the
movie harps on its plotting so much, I found myself consistently distracted. There
reaches a point where a nonsensical story is no longer humorous and crosses the
line into lazy condescension. Still, there's a lot of other funny shit swirling
around here, and most importantly there's the eighth wonder of the world, Peter
Falk, who I have routinely and deservedly hailed as one of the greatest actors
of all time. Even his voice is fucking funny to me, and any movie that pairs him
with Arkin demands to be seen. Also on the bright side: I predict additional viewings
of The In-Laws will get progressively funnier as I no longer waste a
single brain cell trying to comprehend the story, just concentrating on the details
instead. PS: Is there a box set of Columbo coming to DVD any time soon?]
s26.
(25 May) /Couch/ (2003, Paul Thomas Anderson)*
[An amusing trifle. It's amazing how graceful PTA is with the camera even when
he's only moving it a matter of feet.]
221.
(25 May) The In-Laws (2003, Andrew Fleming)
[It doesn't get much worse than this. I know I was asking for it, but I still
couldn't have predicted just how profoundly depressing it would be to watch the
two versions of this film back to back as a barometer of where Warner Bros. (and
by extension, pretty much all the major studios) have gone in the past twenty-five
years. Where the first film begins with an elegantly simple heist, the redux begins
with machine guns blazing, sports cars racing after each other through tunnels
and airplanes exploding. I only attended because Brooks and Douglas are two of
my favorite contemporary actors, but they're both miscast and painfully unfunny
here. Despite what the movie thinks, Brooks is essentially playing Falk's role
from the original, while Douglas is as restrained as Arkin. And the plot still
makes no sense (although at least here it's not harped on as much). A travesty.]
222.
(25 May) /Barton Fink/ (1991, Joel [and Ethan] Coen)*
[Wasn't crazy about this when I first saw it three years ago, but now
I definitely am (because (A) my first viewing was on shitty VHS and (B) my taste
has evolved in the intervening years and (C) it's the kind of film -- like all
the Coens' movies -- that enhances on repeat viewings as all the intricacies soak
in). What's most surprising to me (which I'd forgotten) is how scary Barton
Fink can get -- and just how close to a horror picture it is (obvious influences
are The Tenant and The Shining). Those zany Bros. refer to Fink
as a buddy flick and obviously it's that too, since there's real emotional gravitas
to Goodman and Turturro's deranged relationship. Barton Fink is also,
of course, funny as hell, with Academy Award-nominated Michael Lerner delivering
what is in this humble viewer's opinion one of the absolute most fucking hysterical
performances in the history of American cinema (anyone know why the Bros. have
only cast him once??!!). What else does this film capture? The haunting allure
of a time and place (circa 1940s Hollywood), irresistibly imagined here as half
Edward Hopper painting, half fresh orange juice and berries by the sunny poolside;
a hilarious, still-apt indictment of the studio system's mentality; the artist's
unceasing struggle between delusions of grandeur, financial success, critical
success, importance, vanity and self-worth; the stillness of a solitary life.
I remain uncertain whether or not I "understand" the final scene, but
now I'm not so sure I even wanna. When a movie's closing moments are this sublime,
this simultaneously soothing and chilling... why should I have to ascribe specific
"meaning"?]
223.
(26 May) Middle of the Night (1959, Delbert Mann)
[If Marty is Mann's and Chayefsky's Punch-Drunk Love, then Middle
of the Night is their Magnolia (gimme a break, you know I'm on a
mission to reduce 100 years of cinema into compact PTA boxes); both Marty
and Middle of the Night are essentially about the possibility of lonely
men and women completing each other, but Middle of the Night is much
more messy and expansive than Marty, not only tackling love's capacity
to heal but also dealing with post middle-age, death, responsibility, parents,
children, friendship, divorce and suicide. "If it wasn't so sad, it'd be
comedic," remarks a character early on, and that's the mantra which serves
this movie through and through. There's many big laughs, but it's always the sort
of uncomfortable laughter that gets caught in your throat since such an emphatically
melancholic air hangs over everything. Chayefsky writes about quotidian anxieties
with uncommon zest and insight: this is a large film disguised as a small one
(chains of intimate interrelationships examined one link at a time), complete
with a pronounced sense of location (fifty-something Fredric March and twenty-something
Kim Novak navigate their tremulous relationship amidst a fierce New York City
winter where huddled figures surge through damp and snowy midtown streets) and
endowed with Chayefsky's generous heart.]
224.
(26 May) Angel Face (1953, Otto Preminger)
[Mediocre noir enjoyable for how brashly it faces tragedy, but I never bought
that Jean Simmons loves Mitchum for any reason other than a plot conceit. Nothing
we haven't seen before, accept maybe the way the movie acquits males of all wrongdoings.]
225.
(27 May) The Dancer Upstairs (2003, John Malkovich)
226.
(27 May) /Miller's Crossing/ (1990, Joel [and Ethan]
Coen)*
[Let us turn to Thomson: "Here [is] a film about the difficulty, and nearly
the shame, in admitting feeling." Here is also a film about an inability
to trust. It's an achingly lonely movie, where lasting friendships are impossible,
where characters aren't actually in love. It's a vision of hell, morality and
ethics largely shot to pieces (interesting and hopeful, though, that the two big,
sparring crime bosses are probably the nicest and most ethical characters in the
whole film; a few people can still be powerful, respected, and feared, while hanging
on to a concrete set of values). Neck-and-neck with Blood Simple as the
Coens' most humorless and down-to-Earth film (though Jon Polito, astoundingly
brilliant, is drop-dead hysterical), but also one of their most furiously propulsive
and passionate. It's a major tribute to the Coens -- and a telling comment on
Miller's Crossing's greatness -- that I actually try and keep the mind-bendingly
byzantine plot straight.]
227.
(28 May) My First Mister (2001, Christine Lahti)*
[Very nearly shut this despicably contrived garbage off. The kind of movie co-written
by an annoyingly moody and morose goth girl (aka the annoyingly mood and morose
protag) and a happy-go-lucky cheerleader (in other words: fake I hate my life
I'm alienated from my family no one loves me fake oh now I love this kind older
man and he loves me fake oh and he teaches me that life is wonderful and I love
my parents and fake ya-hoo I don't have to be a depressive goth girl anymore and
I can get a real boyfriend and daisies flowers sunshine birds chirping through
a open window). (NB. imdb informs me this movie was actually written by the same
person who wrote "The Yada Yada" episode of Seinfeld. I refuse
to believe that.) The kind of movie where characters have never heard of The Boy
Who Cried Wolf, Sybil, George Burns or Field of Dreams and are revealed
to be dying of leukemia in the third act. Rented it solely for Brooks and Leelee;
Brooks is good; Leelee is... I never thought I'd be writing this... not
(I blame Lahti). Someone please make a movie about John Goodman's character, pronto.]
228.
(29 May) Joe Versus the Volcano (1990, John Patrick
Shanley)*
[I'm realizing I seem to have a strong predilection towards 'modern fairytale'
movies (this, Wild at Heart, Buffalo '66, Punch-Drunk Love),
but any way you slice it Joe Versus the Volcano is a wonderful, unfairly
maligned film, or as one review puts it "a Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan romantic comedy
for people who don't like Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan romantic comedies." The plot
is basically Ikiru, if Takashi Shimura -- instead of spending his final
months building a children's park -- had decided to jump into a small tropical
island's active volcano. This is a strangely believable and lipsmackingly effervescent
film that never overdoes its zaniness or ventures into camp, replete with a startling
visual sensibility ranging from factories imagined as monolithic cities where
workers toil under the sickly glow of florescent light to bizarrely pedestrian
studio work (a lime green filter put on the camera to depict a boat caught in
a storm; a moon that looks like a cardboard cutout; plastic fish), everything
directed with a sturdy, perfectly unadorned hand. Ryan plays three roles and nails
'em all; Hanks, loose, is as good as ever; Dan Hedaya, Ossie Davis and Lloyd Bridges
hit cameo home runs. A true original.]
229.
(30 May) Out of the Past (1947, Jacques Tourneur)
[The sting of such a severe disappointment still hurts. I expected extreme excellence
and received a film done in by its conventionally convoluted-as-fuck noir plotting
(which I stopped caring about, eventually zoned out on and then lost track of)
and conventionally inhumane femme fatale. So many double crosses, so much side-swapping,
so little soul. Once again we must turn to Thomson, who likes the film much more
than I do but still manages to get to the root of its folly: "...isn't it
actually nonsensical as an idea?... Isn't there a profound clash between Tourneur's
grace (which always aspires to intelligence and taste) and the cynical deadendedness
of the project? Out of the Past is terrific--and not good enough: it
is like a brilliant palace made of matchsticks, by a prisoner on a life sentence."]
230.
(30 May) Capturing the Friedmans (2003, Andrew Jarecki)
[Not much to say about this, besides, yes, it really is as great and devastating
as everyone claims it is. Jarecki (impartially and thus somewhat inadvertently)
creates a pretty damning case against the cops and prosecutors, but when all is
said and done I just dunno who the fuck to fully believe (most likely answer:
nobody). It's a precise yet elusive movie about elusive people, disquieting not
only in its subject matter but also in its complexity. Because of David Friedman's
decision to document his family's horrors with a video camera as they were unfolding
circa 1988 -- and because of Jarecki's access to that treasure trove of archival
footage -- Capturing the Friedmans is as truthful and candid and complete
a portrait of a family (or at least a family in crisis) as we'll likely ever receive.
Heartbreakingly sad, but not altogether despairing. Go in knowing as little as
possible.]
231.
(31 May) River of Grass (1995, Kelly Reichardt)*
[I know Kelly and the thing is that we have a love/hate relationship so make sure
you grab some sodium outta the cabinet before reading what I'm about to write
which is that I found this Badlands meets Stranger Than Paradise
to be a pretty derivative trip down Snoozeville Lane; River of Grass
may capture the languorous rhythm of an aimless, small town (in this case Southern
Florida) lifestyle and the fact that it was skillfully made on the budget of a
Somalian's weekly wage clearly indicates directorial promise (although Kelly doesn't
seem to have any inclination to ever make a narrative film again), but the truth
is that at only 75 weak, amateurish performances and I've-been-here-before minutes
long, I wished it was even shorter.]
232.
(31 May) /The Big Lebowski/ (1998, Joel [and Ethan]
Coen)*
[One of my ten favorite films of all time; the funniest film ever made; it's not
just a movie, it's a way of life.]
233.
(01 Jun) The Reckless Moment (1949, Max Ophüls)
[The Reckless Moment has Ophüls's exquisite tracking shots and James
Mason; The Deep End has Tilda Swinton, Josh Lucas, more nuance (particularly
in the relationship between The Mother and The Blackmailer, which I didn't really
buy in The Reckless Moment) and additional suspense: I prefer/recommend
The Deep End.]
234.
(01 Jun) The Big Heat (1953, Fritz Lang)
[Sure, in the 1950s this was probably ferocious and revelatory, but now its broad
comment on city corruption is dated and lame and obsolete and can't hold a candle
to Serpico, L.A. Confidential, Training Day, etc. etc.
etc.]
235.
(01 Jun) \The Abyss\: special edition cut (1989 [sic],
James Cameron)*
[Alright, now i am drunk so bear with me here you reprobate fuckers because i
go to a lot of online movie criticism sites and some of them are good but i dont
know for a fact that any of 'em write movie reviews when they are drunk except
maybe vern and so heres a taste of that because the thing about this movie is
that it creates an entire huge gigantic vast world f youve never seen before (unles
you worked on the abyss or live on a submarine or something) so completelyand
many years ago i treid watching this movieon laserdisc and i soonafter shut it
off cause i thought the fucking thing was so awful but in retrospect, i dont know
why i did that probably becausew i was young and immature then and i didnt know
a good movie from adam also please let us invoke mr howard hawks definition of
a good movie which is that there are three great scenes and no bad nes and oh
boy dfoes the sbyss meet that definition in shining spades (although I'm not sure
spades can be shining because they are black() and i would list thespecific greatscenes
as proof of it meeting the definition if not fo rthe fat i am drunk anf tired
and i dont fell liek it also the thing is that i havent seen the abyss regular
cut but jesus fucking christ i cant imagine it being better than this 2 hours
and 51 minutes one because this one most definitely adds character and depth and
such and and also i did watch the endin of the regulasr cut and frankly
it kinda sucks, and itis a good example of ambiguity not not not not not being
better always becuase see the motive in the speciail edition cut well the motive
well that becomews clear at the endin well some might find it silly but frankly
i found it believeable and true and unsettling and apt and perhaps presicent,
a combination of scary and reassuring and an important, worthy climax to an important
worthy film with at least three great scenes and no bad ones and it creates a
huge gigantic vast world wow that cameroon sure does know his rechnology and i
wonder when hell make another real movie also ed harris is to quote tony the tiger
ggggggrreeeaaatt in this flickering image ha that was indeed all one sentence
only because i enver used a period-- what a cheater i am.]
236.
(02 Jun) /Groundhog Day/ (1993, Harold Ramis)*
[So intractably woven into the thick seams of my nostalgia that by this point
a review is futile. It's about the five stages of death (denial, anger, depression,
bargaining, and acceptance); it's a love story about learning how to fall in love;
it's about getting in tune and finding your music; I don't think I've ever met
someone who doesn't like this movie.]
s27.
(03 Jun) Knick Knack (1989, John Lasseter et al.)
237.
(03 Jun) Finding Nemo (2003, Andrew Stanton)
[Ranked fourth in the unstoppable Pixar hierarchy (behind Toy Story,
Toy Story 2, Monster's, Inc.; just above A Bug's Life),
this is still a typically Pixarific fun-clever ride through an alternative vision
of the "huge vast gigantic world" discussed above (now made bright and
bubbly and pretty cheerful), where Pixar uses its roving camera (sic) to often
thrilling setpiece effect; four things: (1) enough with the parent (sometimes
sic)-must-be-reconciled-with-child schtick, which has now been used by almost
every single Pixar film; granted this schtick (in Pixar's hand) is virtually invincible
in terms of actually managing to provide truly touching through lines, but hell,
it's high time to switch it up, if only for variety's sake; (2) is anyone else
starting to get frustrated by Pixar's nearly across-the-board superstar casting
since despite the fact these guys and gals are mostly great actors it is their
very distinction which can take you right outta the movies too easily: oh, that's
Albert Brooks, not a clown fish, oh that's Willem Dafoe, not a badass fish with
a huge scar across his face: am I the only one who sometimes sees these actors
in the recording studios spouting their lines while the films are unspooling?;
(3) it's become glaringly apparent that Pixar is at its best when combining the
human and otherwise worlds with each other, bouncing 'em off each other like a
pair of Ben Wa balls, which is why almost all the scenes in the dentist's office
are better than almost all the ocean scenes (save the aforementioned thrilling
setpieces) and is also why the above Pixar hierarchy presents itself in that particular
order; (4) consequently, Finding Nemo works well as a sharp
comment on the disgusting ways in which humans have imposed themselves so brutally
and narcissistically and worthlessly upon nature; PS, also: there is one ending
too many as the last ten minutes or more are totally superfluous; PPS, also: Ellen
DeGeneres's listen-up-bitch,-Jared-doesn't-care-how-annoying-you-are-supposed-
to-be-in-the-context-of-the-film-since-you-are-just-so-completely-fucking-annoying-and-
stupid-in-any-context-and-I-hate-you character named Dory is a childish
creation who should be in direct-to-video animation schlock, not Pixar material
(just let her die! my brain screamed during the finale)... fuck, this one sentence
thing really ain't working out so maybe it'll have to be more of a loose guideline
rather than a strict tenant.]
238.
(03 Jun) \State and Main\ (2000, David Mamet)*
[Fell asleep during this one in the theater and after being somewhat embarrassed
by that occurrence for years (huge Mamet fan that I am, I assumed I was just really
tired) -- and now rewatching the thing in full as a result -- I will henceforth
wear my falling asleep as a perfectly indicative, perfectly fair, not at all shameful
badge. Pleasant but harmless, I'm still in shock Mamet wrote this flaccid satiric
script in which his target (the movie business!) is as obvious and large and easy
as Montana's pussy (I assume if Montana had a pussy, it would be easy? no?), and
he still can't even hit a solid double. Or maybe State and Main's
not a satire at all. Maybe it's just part comedic morality tale about the illusion
of purity, part standard RomCom, with Mamet using this film to test genre waters
he's almost completely unfamiliar with. Either way, D.M.'s playing it safe and
bland here, so hopefully the movie is a test, otherwise maybe he wrote
the screenplay in under three hours off a stoned game of truth or dare; not only
are there very few quotable lines (aka State frequently feels like it
could have been written by anyone), but Mamet prints out a master cliche list
and checks 'em off one by one: Let's see, well we have the vapid starlet who doesn't
wanna show her tits... we have the vain star who likes underage girls... we have
the meek, coming-from-theater screenwriter who's worried he sold out (thank you,
Barton Fink)... we have the self-possessed director... we have the blustery,
fast-talking producer... and so on. Perhaps most infuriating of all, there is
an often terribly inappropriate score ladled over nearly every single frickin'
scene. Granted the movie's also loaded with a slew of terrific performances (just
when I was getting worried Philip Seymour Hoffman can't surprise me anymore, he
does so all over again), but either Mamet's holding back big time or State
and Main means he's yet to actually have a single difficult experience in
Hollywood himself. Also: Someone please make another movie where Ricky Jay and
Julia Stiles play father and daughter, pronto. Merci.]
239.
(04 Jun) The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly [uncut]
(1966, Sergio Leone)
[Tonight was my first exposure to this movie in any incarnation and sitting in
the second row, staring up at the newly restored TechniScope images of Leone's
unfailingly dense, looming and masterful compositions (where objects alternately
enter the frame via darts and surreptitious sidling and faces look like planets)
and having my ears fucked by Morricone's immortally plangent score and smiling
at all the dry humor and marveling at what has to be the greatest draw in cinematic
history, this massive three hour tale of Man's through-the-roof acquisitive capacity
set against a Civil War-ravaged landscape simply... overwhelmed me. So I need
to see it again soon; all in all, the majority of The Good, the Bad, and the
Ugly is majestically stirring, though I did feel it could stand to lose some
weight in a few spots (I'm guessing some of the stuff the uncut edition adds I
would wanna keep, other stuff, maybe not; but if it's all or nothing, I suppose
all is the only way to to play; also, it can get very distracting that practically
the whole movie -- not just the new material -- sounds like it was dubbed into
English). A real adventure.]
240.
(04 Jun) The River Wild (1994, Curtis Hanson)*
[This is exactly what a thriller should be: lean, mean, no dumb frills entertainment;
take a sly and gripping premise (good guys n' gals v. not so good guys face each
other on a secluded whitewater rafting trip = man v. man in the framework of man
v. nature), load the cast and crew with top shelf talent (Meryl Streep and David
Strathairn v. Kevin Bacon and John C. Reilly; shot by PTA's DP, the fabulous Robert
Elswit; crucially scored by Jerry Goldsmith), and lucidly direct the hell outta
the sucker (let's not forget Hanson made this movie directly prior to L.A.
Confidential and Wonder Boys; the guy didn't suddenly emerge
as one of the most talented helmers in the business). An unusually smart script
excels in two particular spots: rarely letting us on to just how "bad"
Bacon and Reilly really are (that's not a spoiler, it's a statement of a question);
not having the marriage crisis simply resolved by the physical crisis (that's
not a spoiler either, you'd have to see what I mean). Essentially subtext free
(though I'm sure Theo could prove me wrong; maybe something to do with female
empowerment?), but I don't watch thrillers for subtext.]
241.
(05 Jun) To Be and to Have (2003, Nicolas Philibert)
[Has a smattering of affecting moments, though I wish it was only an hour long
tops (jesus, if Chris Smith can show that kind of control, why can't any other
documentary filmmakers?) since pounds and pounds of cute kids doing cute things
grows monotonous fairly quickly. Didn't give me a glimpse into a realm I (and
probably everyone) am not already familiar with from my own schooling (btw, for
those who don't know, To Be and to Have is a French documentary about
the students of a one room, small town elementary school), so didn't learn much
of anything (and newfound knowledge is something I definitely require from my
documentaries). Was far more intrigued by the teacher who regrettably remains
mysterious.]
242.
(05 Jun) The Matrix Reloaded (2003, The Wachowski
Brother and Sister)
[Rage, rage against the dying of the light...Went in with rock bottom expectations
and was still awed by how resoundingly awful this trash is (almost walked out),
aka hated every single minute of it; no redeeming facets (okay, besides maybe
Bellucci's breasts). Numerous questions present themselves: (1) If The Matrix
Reloaded were burning to death, does anyone know a single person (pro movie
critics not included) who would piss on the flick to save its life? I sure as
hell don't. (2) Who the heck ever thought this parodied-into-the-ground bullet
time nonsense was so cool in the first place? 'Hey, let's stop every single "action"
sequence dead in its tracks for a moment! Won't that be awesome?!' (3) How the
fuck dare The Goddamn Wachowski Brother and Sister make the population the world
over pay how ever many three hundred millions of dollars just to listen to their
mouthpieces spout idiotic, pseudo-aphorisms about topics like hope, purpose and
identity, so inept and pretentious they'd make Godard blush, punctuated only occasionally
by some of the most zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz "action" scenes (oh look, it's
the fifth lame bullet time fist fight between Kung Fu Reeves and some Bad Dudes,
wake me up when we get to the next monologue about predestination please) of the
past decade and generous helpings of mostly crappy CGI (and I often like
CGI)? (4) This is a movie? (5) Over two hours of endless exposition exposition
exposition exposition here's some more exposition we have an R rating but we're
not gonna use it so here is a straight-outta-Top Gun love scene all golden
light and gentle squirming and facial close-ups blah blah oracle he is the one
prophecy? (6) Who gives a shit about any of this stuff? (7) Anyone? (8) I mean,
really? This "script" is so embarrassing it makes me have to reevaluate
Bound, which I thought I loved dearly. Everything's so relentlessly dreary,
so magniloquent, so joyless, so uninvolving. At least Lucas creates brand new
worlds.]
243.
(06 Jun) /Adaptation/ (2002, Spike Jonze)*
[Third viewing; the third act now strikes me as less a betrayal than ever because
there's something beautifully sad and nakedly true in the real Kaufman's admission
of failure: when Charlie's crying while Donald is telling him "you are what
you love, not what loves you" it's like the real Charlie is crying over his
inability to work the emotional catharsis in more organically; when Orlean says
"I did everything wrong... I want it back before it all got fucked up...
I want to be a baby again, I wanna be new, I wanna be new" that's Kaufman
telling us he just wants to give up and start the whole fucking screenplay all
over again.]
244.
(07 Jun) Diamond Men (2001, Dan Cohen)*
[A bit rough around the edges (ignore the score and a few of the plotting transitions),
but this little diamond (sorry, it's late) really snuck up on me. Anchored by
Robert Forster's pristine combination of resignation, invitation and control (he's
the reason I rented it) and given ample support by Donnie Wahlberg's awkward charisma,
this is a surprisingly calm, knowing film about sex and aging (in Forster, there's
such reassuring dignity to the process). I initially thought I was gonna be annoyed
by the hackneyed old-conservative-veteran-forced-to-team-up-with-young-rebel routine,
but it's actually made quite moving here (there's also something touching about
watching two strong actors who have long been consigned to the shadows of people
less talented than them finally given their starring turn in the limelight; Donnie
is like a balding, less attractive, more human Marky Mark meets Adam Sandler).
Forster's and Wahlberg's rapport has a slightly goofy naturalism about it, giving
off a gently amiable vibe which helps infuse Diamond Men with its insight
and grounded charm.]
245.
(08 Jun) Night of the Living Dead (1968, George A.
Romero)*
[Was all set to take this film to task for hardly being scary -- mainly because
the hoards of zombies are inflexible, stupid and slow-as-molasses -- but the last
fifteen minutes have me completely overhauling that complaint. Perhaps Night
of the Living Dead is supposed to be sad more than chilling; perhaps the
sheer ineffectiveness of the zombies, how pure, unfeeling, innocent and easy to
kill they are -- and how vehemently brutal, equally emotionless the witch hunt
against them is -- provides the downcast point. Here are all these pathetic "people"
with a sudden new lease on life (albeit a pointless, murderous, brain-dead life),
and their mortality is snatched from them as quickly as it was provided. Surprisingly
well written and very well shot, Romero ingeniously utilizes his extremely minimal
resources and revolutionizes the medium in the process (although I must admit
I believe Night of the Living Dead's deservedly heralded prototypical
existence has been somewhat eclipsed by one or two of its most accomplished successors;
mainly I'm thinking Assault on Precinct 13, which has everything
Night of the Living Dead has -- super low-budget lending authenticity, intense
claustrophobia of nearly one location setting, veiled sociopolitical commentary,
and a study of disjointed group dynamics under the shattering weight of calamity
-- plus higher quality performances and a steeper sense of danger).]
246.
(08 Jun) /About Schmidt/ (2002, Alexander Payne)*
247.
(09 Jun) Le Trou (1960, Jacques Becker)*
[Amazing how much suspense this prison escape flick is able to mine from
a nearly one room setting (a cell) and frequent real-time pacing. The harped-on
noises of escape (chipping, chopping, digging, filing, scratching, pounding, etc.)
creates the questionable sensation of impending doom; the rudimentary plotting
and ultra-enclosed spaces keep everything taut and tunnel-envisioned (no plotting
joke intended). Individual personalities are fostered as the themes -- camaraderie
and fidelity -- are developed. This is pure, unobstructed filmmaking.]
248.
(10 Jun) Hollywood Homicide (2003, Ron Shelton)
249.
(10 Jun) The Sting (1973, George Roy Hill)*
[An essential lack of conflict prevents this from approaching any sort
of greatness (i.e. the con men's cons are so perfect and their resources so vast,
nothing can really ever go wrong; same exact flaw as Ocean's Eleven),
though it's cheerful Bad Dudes v. Badder (sic) Dudes sense of criminality is too
much fun -- and its circa-1930s period recreation too remarkably detailed -- not
to recommend. Redford's merely adequate, but Newman's superb, Charles Durning
is Charles Durning and Robert Shaw -- per usual -- gives a caliber of performance
rarely equaled. The guy's about as quietly commanding and fearsomely authoritative
an actor as they come.]
250.
(11 Jun) The Swimmer (1968, Frank Perry)
[Based on a John Cheever story, this odd indictment of suburbia is over-the-top
(particularly in Lancaster's bizarrely mannered if ultimately effective performance)
and occasionally unsubtle, but there are passages of poetry and the surrealism
only adds to the feeling that everything in this stifling, nonsensical world of
manicured lawns and Sunday BBQ's is going to pieces. The crescendo packs an almost
operatic wallop: it's a fitting clarion call, ushering in the 1970s with a furiously
tragic gusto.]
251.
(11 Jun) /Malice/ (1993, Harold Becker)*
[What can I say? That I love everything about this ridiculous movie?
That it makes me giddy? That it's a rare the-planets-have-aligned fusion of the
right director (I don't know why Harold Becker is right but he did make the movie
so credit where credit is due and so forth; maybe 'cause he was born with the
correct schlocky sensibility?) teaming up with the right writers (Scott Frank
and Aaron Sorkin) teaming up with the perfect craftsmen (Jerry Goldsmith scores!!!
Gordon Willis shoots!!!) and putting the material in the hands of the perfect
cast? That this perfect cast includes a fierce, fabulous Kidman (Kidman like you've
never seen her!), a hilarious Alec Baldwin who -- unafraid of compassion -- turns
his slickness into a sort of religion and a gloriously schlubby Bill Pullman?
That the God monologue is genius? That a drunken Anne Bancroft gets to do card
tricks? That George C. Scott gets to look like a lumberjack whose just spent a
year living in the forest? That there's a deserted house on the edge of a cliff?
A deserted house on the edge of a cliff!!! That it has a thriller plot as audacious
and creative as exists (which makes superlative use of red herrings)? That it
keeps you guessing? That it's got a mean, vicious heart, but it's hardly violent?
Did I mention it's all pretty damn ridiculous and it makes me giddy?]
continued here...