Friday, February 18, 2011

Out of the Past: The Week In Film







The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:
Love Ranch (2010) Dir. Taylor Hackford – US

Of Interest:
Private Benjamin (1980) Dir. Howard Zieff – US
Black Water (2007) Dir. David Nerlich & Andrew Traucki – Australia
Let’s Make It Legal (1951) Dir. Richard Sale – US

Recommended:
La Petite Lili (2003) Dir. Claude Miller – France
Last Holiday (2006) Dir. Wayne Wang – US

Essential Cinema:
Tamara Drewe (2010) Dir. Stephen Frears – UK
To Have and Have Not (1944) Dir. Howard Hawks – US
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) Dir. Carl Theodor Dreyer – Denmark
The Man Who Fell To Earth (1976) Dir. Nicolas Roeg - UK

Theatrical Screenings:
Now, Voyager (1942) Dir. Irving Rapper – US 9/10

Re-watched Goodies:
Paris Is Burning (1990) Dir. Jennie Livingston – US
A Place In the Sun (1951) Dir. George Stevens – US
The Loved Ones (2009) Dir. Sean Byrne – Australia

Love Ranch (2010): I had quite high expectations for this film. Mirren’s husband, director Taylor Hackford, does happen to be an Oscar winner, and he has directed some films I hold in high esteem (Dolores Claiborne, 1994) and films I think are fun, guilty pleasures (The Devil’s Advocate, 1997). But I can’t quite tell what he was doing with Love Ranch, which is the partially fictionalized tale of the first legal brothel in Nevada. Mirren turns in a decent performance, but she is severely hampered by a terrible script. Joe Pesci (who starred in this and only one other film in the past decade) fares even worse and comes across as hysterical and a caricature of an amalgamation of his turns in Scorsese films. Plus, he’s starting to get that watery, wrinkly, hard-up look that Dennis Hopper sported for the last decade before his death. The supporting cast is quite impressive as well, Gina Gershon, Taryn Manning, Scout-Taylor Compton---but no one is given anything decent to work with. Mirren’s maudlin affair with the boxer her character ends up managing, played by Sergio Peris-Mencheta, seems like it was lifted from a steamy Jackie Collins rag and the whole thing fizzles into a bang equivalent to that exuded from a wet firecracker. Helen looks good, but damn, this was dull.

Private Benjamin (1980): I’m not a fan of the military. It’s great that it’s 2011 and gays can serve proudly and openly. But since I don’t want to be brainwashed, I don’t support being a drone or fighting for a country where I still don’t have equal rights. A little dark as I’m about to talk about an 80’s comedy classic? Yes. It perhaps informed my viewing. This film garnered Goldie Hawn her only other Oscar nod outside of her win for Cactus Flower (1969), and it’s an iconic film from the time period---so I was expecting a lot. It turns out that the film is a bit more drama than comedy and while Ms. Hawn is a cutie pie, the film didn’t really win me over. There’s lots of famous faces with itsy bitsy parts, like Craig T. Nelson, Mary Kay Place, Albert Brooks, and Harry Dean Stanton, but I felt like the best part was really Eileen Brennan---Goldie doesn’t do much beyond her usual shtick, though the final sequences involving her and Armand Assante are perhaps her best parts of the film. Rumor has it that a 2012 remake starring Anna Faris is in the works---LAZY idea. If I was a producer, I’d love to have this film remade with Private Benjamin as a gay man. That would be a sign of the times.

Black Water (2007): There’s nothing essentially wrong with this Australian thriller---it’s just not very thrilling. Two sisters and one of their husbands go for a boating trip in the mangrove swamps of northern Australia. Well, it turns out a big crocodile is hungry and wants to eat the people that were foolish enough to boat out into his territory. Yes, the boat capsizes and the prey must climb up trees and stay there while they figure out how to get away. The sad fact it is, this material would have been better served in a program on the Discovery channel.

Let’s Make It Legal (1951): Yes, part of the Marilyn collection---her face and name are splashed all over the cover and inserts—but she’s in two scenes. Lies!! This is actually a Claudette Colbert vehicle, who plays a grandma! housewife on the eve of her divorce from her gambling husband, Macdonald Carey. Meanwhile, her terribly annoying daughter (a gratingly blah Barbara Bates) and her son-in-law (Robert Wagner in one of his first film roles, steals every scene he is in and I would recommend this film for him alone) live with her. Zachary Scott plays a millionaire playboy ex-flame of Colbert’s and woos her immediately after her divorce. The sad thing is, poor Mr. Scott is so effeminate and campy, it is hard to take him seriously as a male lead. His acting is over the top as a smarmy sleaze (which fit perfectly in Mildred Pierce, 1945) but makes for some unintentionally funny moments. “Some divorced couples still see each other and do everything together.” And yes, lovely Marilyn traipses in and out of the screen and each time her lovely face leaves the screen, you wish she’d come right back. It’s just too bad that no one bothered to write a decent role for its lead, Colbert. Trifling fluff, but worthwhile for film aficionados.

La Petite Lili (2003): Claude Miller’s French modernization of Chekov’s The Sea Gull, sees the process of writing literature become the process of filmmaking. Ludivine Sagnier stars as Lili, the object of affection of a budding filmmaker (Robinson Stevenin, a poor screen presence, but oh well) and a desirable morsel to an older director (Bernard Girardeau), a man sleeping with the young filmmaker’s actress mother (Nicole Garcia, always a luminously gruff and delightful presence on screen---love her voice). While this may not be remembered as a highlight in Miller’s oeuvre, it’s still a classy spectacle, and like a fine wine, dry but delightful.

Last Holiday (2006): Wayne Wang’s remake of a 1950 Alec Guinness vehicle does have a lot going for it, but this is mainly due to the effervescence of star Queen Latifah, here given a role to move about in. The plot is contrived, threadbare, and predictable, but there’s a lot of charm and so much warmth generated by Latifah’s characterization of a woman who thinks she only has several weeks to live, that you manage to overlook some of the slight missteps. It would have helped if some of the supporting characters weren’t such caricatures---Timothy Hutton is straight out of the pit of corporate hell and LL Cool J isn’t served any better as man who comes across as aggressively needy (in other words, the film leaves them no time to develop any chemistry). Likewise for Alicia Witt, Giancarlo Esposito, and Michael Nouri---they’re all extremely poorly attended to. However, my favorite scenes were those exchanged between Latifah and the surly French chef, Gerard Depardieu.

Tamara Drewe (2010): I have always been a fan of Stephen Frears, so I don’t know what it was about this film that made me miss it during its theatrical run. Perhaps not having any real sort of expectations made me feel like this film was delightful and a lot of fun. Gemma Arterton may be the title character, but she’s not really the main attraction. Rather, this is an ensemble dramedy about a writer’s retreat, cheating husbands, set against the backdrop of plastic surgery and Thomas Hardy (as this is based on Posy Simmonds graphic novel inspired by Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd). Tamara Drewe never sets out to be anything more than it is---funny, observant, predictable, literary, and highly enjoyable.

To Have and Have Not (1944): While I found this Hawks feature to be inferior to The Big Sleep (1946) and similar to Casablanca (1942) with some themes and cast, Lauren Bacall is utterly breathtaking. Mostly famous for the first pairing of Bogart and Bacall and her famous line about how to whistle, the actual film seems overshadowed by its star chemistry, lending the seriousness a kind of noir-light feel. Great dialogue, thin plot.

The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928): Considered by many to be one of the best movies ever made, Danish filmmaker Carl Theodor Dreyer’s operatic silent film owes everything to the hauntingly mesmerizing and ethereal face of Falconetti, playing the tragic Joan. Beginning during her trial and ending in her being sentenced to burn at the stake, the film consists mainly of close-ups of Falconetti’s face, her eyes blazing as if lit from within. It’s a film that would not have been enhanced by the sound of her voice---the emotions dancing across her face say it all.

The Man Who Fell To Earth (1976): Nicolas Roeg still stands as one of the most brilliant and innovative auteurs in cinematic history, and this based solely on his handful of films from the 1970’s. One could perhaps blame his actress wife, Theresa Russell. They met on Roeg’s classic, Bad Timing (1980), which wasn’t a film I particularly loved of Roeg’s, and mainly because Russell always seemed to be a through and through scenery chewer. I prefer Eureka (1983) and Track 29 (1988) among his 80s titles, but again, this was despite the presence of Russell. Sidenote, Ken Russell, another of the UK’s best 1970’s auteurs had a similar decline as Roeg, and isn’t it ironic that Ken’s last ‘estimable’ film was the 1991 Theresa Russell starrer, Whore? Anyhow, I have just watched his subtle and mystifying sci-fi flick starring David Bowie (who looks like Tilda Swinton mixed with Susannah York here). I must admit, I felt this was a perfect casting choice, as Bowie plays an alien that ‘falls’ to earth in search of water to send to his dying planet. But, of course, the title alludes to more than one fall, and symbolically, the alien also falls from grace---the more acclimated he becomes to human life, namely human vices, the less alien he becomes---and loses the drive and ability to return home. Roeg’s film drifts across the screen like a beautiful poem, not unlike the same feeling instilled in Walkabout (1971). There’s a certain melancholy catatonia about Bowie here, not unlike the feeling one could relate to as a stranger in a strange land. Rip Torn and Candy Clarke also star, but Roeg was part of a dying breed, whose cinema transcends the stars starring----it’s the film, the celluloid, the imagery, the feeling evoked by its existence that are the stars. The Man Who Fell to Earth is exceedingly confusing and sometimes maddeningly vague---but I can’t help but love a film that does what it wants to do---not what I want it to do.


Now Voyager (1942): Bette Davis’ biggest box office success also has one of the best closing lines ever to a film: “Oh Jerry, don’t lets ask for the moon. We have the stars.” Irving Rapper, a favorite of Davis’ to work with, directed, only after Davis’ refused to work with Michael Curtiz when she snagged the role. The story of a young woman living with her demonically controlling old bat of a mother (an awesome Gladys Cooper), Davis sees a therapist (Claude Rains) who helps her find her independence. She falls in love with a hopelessly chivalrous married man (Paul Henried) who won’t leave his abusive wife that depends on him. And the two meet again and again, never forgetting how much they only love each other, smoking like chimneys each time they meet. Davis is awesome both before and after her makeover, though the film does suffer from an awesome amount of events packed into one narrative, a roller coaster of the 40’s quintessential ‘woman’s picture.’ Davis, Rains and Henreid would all team up for Rapper in 1946’s Deception, but this 1942 effort, titled after the line of a Walt Whitman poem, definitely takes the melodramatic cake. I loved it.

Paris Is Burning (1990): Over twenty years have passed since this awesome documentary about drag queen balls in late 80’s New York was made. I watched it in college and just rewatched it so my partner could see it. I was struck by how sad I felt for a lot of these queens and I was struck by how far we’ve come in such a short amount of time. Ru Paul’s Drag Race is in its third season and I could only think after watching this documentary again, about how brave and necessary all those drag queens were, doing their thing when the world ignored or derided them. We have a visibility and a voice today only because of the previous generations that were not afraid to be themselves. It’s a documentary more LGBT youth should see---we still have a long way to go.

A Place In the Sun (1951): After recently reading Steve Erickson’s amazing novel, Zeroville, in which the main character was lovingly obsessed with this 1951 George Steven’s feature, I knew I had to show it as part of our Anti-Valentine’s Day double feature. Upon rewatching this, I was struck by how damn good Shelley Winters is as the whiny, depressing, mousy girlfriend. Clift’s character isn’t really a good person, but somehow, in that awesome boat scene, we can empathize. Just a little bit. Lovely Liz Taylor looks amazing, purring like a spoiled kitten as she becomes infatuated with Clift’s character. The theme and scope of A Place In the Sun seem dated today, a time capsule of how American culture’s repressed ideals could lead to murder. Do I believe the young rich girl and the social climbing Clift are truly in love? No. But it’s a good film about what we mistake for it. Clift also serves as an interesting archetype for Woody Allen’s similarly themed Match Point (2005).

The Loved Ones (2009): This Australian horror film was one of my favorites from 2009---and it still feels fresh and fun on a rewatch. Robin McLeavy is amazingly awesome as a deranged young woman who makes her daddy kidnap boys she finds attractive to use them in homemade Prom reenactments and other social celebrations. Like Carrie (1976) and Misery (1990), yet with its own special flair, I hope director Sean Byrne goes on to direct a plethora of features. I’m bummed this never made it stateside, but male lead Xavier Samuel managed to snag a role in 2010’s third Twilight vehicle, so maybe this film will get some attention in certain circles. Otherwise, this is available on Region 2 and completely worth a buy if you have the appropriate player.

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