Out of the Past: The Week In Film

Cess Pool Cinema:
1. The Reaping (2007) Dir. Stephen Hopkins - US

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:
NA

Astounding Cinema:
5. La Haine (1995) Dir. Matthieu Kassovitz - France
4. Monsieur Hire (1989) Dir. Patrice Leconte - France
3. La Femme Publique (1984) Dir. Andrzej Zulawski - France
2. Irina Palm (2007) Dir. Sam Garbarski - UK
1. Happiness (1998) Dir. Todd Solondz - US

Theatrical Releases:
2. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009) Dir. Stephen Sommers - US 1/10
1. Inglourious Basterds (2009) Dir. Quentin Tarantino - US 10/10

Re-watched Goodies:
1. Damage (1992) Dir. Louis Malle - UK/France
2. The Eyes of Laura Mars (1978) Dir. Irvin Kershner - US
3. Nighthawks (1981) Dir. Bruce Melmoth - US

Well no mediocrity this week, which is a good thing--but certainly a shit-tastic piece of cinema honor goes out to the Religi-Horror flick, The Reaping (2007). Sadly, this icky little piece of tripe has at least four respectable people involved. Director Stephen Hopkins has an interesting resume of helming some solid flicks (Under Suspicion, 2ooo), Hollywood poop (Lost in Space, 1998), and utter shit like A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child (1989)----and then there's Predator 2 (1989), which is maybe just campy crap. And then there's two-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank headlining with backup from solid players like Idris Elba (I can forgive Obsessed, 2009, but this?) and child actor AnnaSophia Robb (Sleepwalking, 2008). And most unforgivable, wonderful character actor Stephen Rea (who must have wanted a paycheck) has an utterly thankless role as a spooked priest from Swank's past. Sigh. Swank plays a once ordained missionary who loses her family to some ignorant Africans who believe the slaughter of her family will bring the rain. At least that's how she explains it. I'm certain that a bunch of white people handing out condescending literature might have had its toll as well---but we ignore those details in these missionary slaughter cases. Regardless, Swank does a 180 and turns her back on God, making it her earthly mission to now discover scientific explanations for all known miracle experiences world round. Well, that sounds like she has a lot of downtime between assignments. Plus, don't these ordained people read the book of Job? I mean shit, that's supposed to be the point of suffering---you don't lose faith. Dummies. Well, a series of plagues (like the ten we see to much more thrilling effect in hammy Easter fare like The Ten Commandments, 1956, but only because I love to imitate Anne Baxter's incredulously campy utterances of "Moses! Moses! Why of all men did I fall in love with a prince of fools?") has hit a small hick town called Haven. Swank urges the school teacher that seeks her help to contact the television stations. At the point where he states that Haven is the "best kept secret of the Bible belt," I knew I was going to HATE this film. Meaning, do I feel bad about a bunch of ignorant red necks being punished and confused? Hell no! So, we spend the movie just knowing Swank HAS to be proven wrong (what's the point, otherwise?) and of course, they try a silly little twist-a-roo, which just doesn't make any sense. Why are we at war in Iraq and Afghanistan when it's plausible to have "secrets" in the Bible belt, inhabited by people about as befuddled as we consider Middle Eastern terrorists?

Speaking of miscreants, I finally got around to watching Matthieu Kassovitz's landmark film, La Haine (1995) concerning immigrants and social unrest in France---Hmmm, funny how this doesn't look too different from the American lower classes.....Hmmmm......Anyhow, my apologies to Kassovitz---I'm sorry about your recent shit storms with the American studios---you can make better films in France anyway---I'm sure that Jodie Foster hardly meant to expose you to such bastards when she began to champion La Haine stateside. Starring the always creepy looking Vincent Cassel, as well as excellent performances from Said Taghmaoui and Hubert Kounde, the film is like a black and white nightmare of fuckups until the breathtaking final moments. I mean breathtaking because I actually did feel numb after watching 90 minutes of careless abandon, followed by an ending that shocked me out of my stupor.

Another major Gallic director whose films I just haven't tapped into is Patrice Leconte. His highly regarded 1989 thriller Monsieur Hire starring a young Sandrine Bonnaire and a creepy performance from Michel Blanc, ends up being a depressive little sad sack tale about a social outcast. Wholly engaging and in the end, effective, I'm not sure how much of a thriller it ends up being, though the film begins with the murder of a young woman, whom the police seem desperate to pin on Blanc's character, a maladjusted, lonely, bald man. We become more drawn into the other plot line, which involves Blanc's object of affection, Bonnaire, his next door neighbor he not very secretly peeps at.

One of my all time favorite directors is Andrzej Zulawski---mostly for his excellent, excellent,
excellent little horror art-house/domestic drama, Possession (1981). His followup was 1984's La Femme Publique, recently given a state of the art DVD release by Mondo. Starring relatively unknown (and inexperienced) actress Valerie Kaprisky, the film centers on a young woman, seemingly paid only for her nude (and campy) photo sessions, who decides, on a whim, to audition for a role in an independent film version of Dostoevsky's The Possessed, which is also translated sometimes as The Devils. Watching this with an experienced conneiseur film friend of mine (which helps---sometimes you have to be in the right mood for auteur art-house), we discussed what filmmakers are intending when they make films about the making of films. La Femme Publique seems to be about differentiating between the real and unreal. Kaprisky fluctuates between a volatile relationship with the film's director (played by Francis Huster) and a Czech immigrant (Lambert Wilson of The Matrix Reloaded, 2003, fame), whose recently murdered wife was also sleeping with the director. Much of Kaprisky's utterly crazy role-playing with Wilson could or could not be only in her head. Huster actually fires her from film production, seemingly irritated with her inexperience as an actress. Reading up about Kaprisky, the year before, she starred in the American remake of Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless. The criticism of her performance seemed to be identical to Huster's criticism of her acting in La Femme Publique. Food for thought, but I definitely feel, as with all of Zulawski's work, a second or third viewing may be needed for a decent critique.

My number two pick this week nearly nabbed my number one spot. Rock legend Marianne Faithful stars in Irina Palm (2007) as Maggie, a London grandma whose grandson needs an experimental and expensive surgery or he will die. Without skills and too old to be hired by anyone, Faithful ends up being hired as masturbator of men in a sex club (behind an enclosed room of glory holes) and yeah, that's what she's peeking through on the poster. Why? She has extraordinarily soft hands, earning her the stage name, Irina Palm. Many criticized the film for being implausible---I didn't find aspects of it that unbelievable, and I thought the film was quite enjoyable and heartfelt. And it's a joy to see Marianne Faithful in such a strange little piece of cinema (and I've been youtubing all 1960's videos of her singing "As Tears Go By," before the drug-addled street living she experienced, thanks to Mick Jagger).

And my number one spot goes to Todd Solondz's Happiness (1998), which is his customarily dark, ironic, uncomfortable, and funny work. Having owned it for sometime, I plan on seeing his latest film, Life During Wartime (2009) at this year's Toronto Film Festival fest, which uses all the same characters from Happiness, but with different actors, so I finally caught up with this infamous piece. If you haven't heard of or seen Happiness but enjoyed Palindromes (2004) or Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995), you should definitely pick up a copy. Concerning, loosely, three depressing or depressed sisters (played by Lara Flynn Boyle, Jane Adams, and Cynthia Stevenson), their divorcing and depressing parents (Ben Gazarra and Louise Lasser), along with other creepy, sexually frustrated people that seem to connect on different levels with at least one of the characters, including Camryn Manheim and Philip Seymour Hoffman, everyone is unhappy and/or sexually frustrated. Most disturbing of all, of course is Dylan Baker as Cynthia Stevenson's husband, who likes to have sex with little boys. Ultimately hard hitting in ways you may not realize as you watch it, Happiness is about the lack of it. Definitely don't watch it before planning to do something fun. Brilliant.

A quick comment on re-watched films---I forgot how frightening Faye Dunaway sometimes looks in The Eyes of Laura Mars, and how old Tommy Lee Jones kind of looked then. I also forgot how stuck in the 1970's it is. Brad Dourif is enjoyable, as well as the very gay Rene Auberjonois (looking like Edith from "All in the Family") who I refer to as Rene Azerbaijan, since that seems easier to pronounce.

As for Nighthawks, where we get about 30 seconds of Lindsay Wagner (the "Bionic Woman"), it just seems ridiculous that Sly Stallone was once supposed interesting enough to carry a film. It's good seeing Billy Dee Williams in top form, and Rutger Hauer during the beginning of his hey-day. But the film doesn't hold up well---dull, dull, dull until it's entertaining conclusion.

G.I. Jesuit: The Rise of Sterilization

When one is forced to go to that special place deep inside one’s psyche as an attempt at self preservation when faced with abominable instances in life, sometimes one can unfortunately remember crystal-clear, pristine details that lead to further scarring of the soul. In order to circumlocute a further adulteration of my quintessential being, I thought perhaps it would be best to pen a short review of one of the many lamentable tragedies scampering about America’s pop-cultural miasma still commonly referred to as Hollywood, that I was fated to ingest. Yes, that film was G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra, patronizingly treating audiences to a bloated running time of nearly two hours, the most daring feat of the film.

Of course, when the basis of a film happens to be from a line of children’s toys created in the 1960’s and then relaunched in the 1980’s, who should be surprised that the end result is bit lackluster? Since the term “action figure” was coined from this line of Hasbro toys, as well as a real time cultural reference used as a generic term to describe all US soldiers, I suppose I was hoping for something a little more iconic and a little less like a dubious excuse to blow shit up. Word on the street is, however, that G.I. Joe manages to be a more cohesive film than this summer’s Transformers sequel (and methinks the only way I will ever be watching a Transformers film will be if I’m tied down Clockwork Orange style with my eyelids stapled open).

Opening in 1614 France, we are forced to watch the punishment of a nasty, Scottish arms-dealer, who had sold weapons to both sides during some such skirmish. No one is speaking French, mind you. Immediately following, set in the “not too distant future,” we are introduced haphazardly to our main characters, Channing Tatum and Marlon Wayans. A man of words, I somehow can’t find anything scathingly adequate to describe how boringly awful these two performances are. Mr. Tatum is ludicrously, benignly, stupid while Wayans is saddled with being the black comic relief---except he never gets anything funny to say. Moving along, Tatum’s crew is charged with driving some nano-technology warheads through the desert (no, I don’t care to explain---it’s just all BS anyway). However, in the midst of their journey, they are ambushed by a woman known as the Baroness and her evil crew, played by a brunette Sienna Miller, who looks like an oiled, greasy gypsy with a fright-store wig. Sidenote: Every other time we see Ms. Miller on screen, a pounding techno beat engulfs you , I would imagine so Ms. Miller doesn’t look quite as silly tramping around in her heels while her hips revolve like wheels on a track. It turns out, ludicrously, that Miller is Tatum’s ex-fiancee from four years ago. She used to be a blonde. When Miller’s character ends up incarcerated, I wondered if they thought to add to the plot a prison hairdresser because that bitch’s roots are going to be coming through real soon.

Whatever, whatever, whatever, turns out the creator of the warheads is just like his Scottish ancestor in France in 1614—a dirty double crosser. Then, it’s up to the “Joes,” the eponymous boobs of our narrative, a pan-cultural team of soldiers that “when all else fails, we don’t,” to save us. Oh, whatever. Led by the increasingly hammy Dennis Quaid (whose recent performance in straight to DVD fare like Horsemen makes me think he’s not reading scripts or his recent childbearing has motivated him to get out of his house at any price), the Joes also include our favorite ethnic Arab, Said Taghmaoui (La Haine, 1995) and Rachel Nichols, sporting Kool-Aid hair and indescribably awful acting chops. Oh, plus we have a “cameo” appearance from Brendan Fraser (who fits right in the soldier scene with his large, bucket sized head) and British actor Jonathan Pryce as the US President (who is more out of place here than he was in Evita, 1996). Between mile a minute explosions, discomforting dialogue and hammy patriotism (not to mention an action sequence in the streets of Paris that is eerily reminiscent of Team America: World Police, 2004) and you have a film that makes little sense and is built on a lack of style, substance, or anything worthy of mention or intrigue. And yet, here I have some 300 words bitching about it. And yes, people were audibly enjoying the film in the theater with me. And did I mention Joseph Gordon-Levitt? Well, I suppose he grew up with the toys, so perhaps we’ll forget he was ever in this mess. There’s so much wrong with every aspect of G.I. Joe, it’s difficult to decide who to blame. In the end, I should give myself 40 lashes. I was the one foolish enough to see it. Oh, director Stephen Sommers, responsible for all those Mummy films that made Brendan Fraser a certifiable star---what other travesties do you have in store for our cinemas? And yeah, he directed Van Helsing (2004)----never before have I thought I would prefer to watch that again. Lovers of G.I. Joe should be forced to watch The Hurt Locker (2008) with it as a double feature---maybe then, others will feel as emotionally drained and dead inside as I.

Inglourious Basterds: An Ode to WWII Cinema

Thank you, Quentin Tarantino. Not only should all cinephiles be thankful to Quentin T for his various resurrections of forgotten genres, but also for the fact that he is a cinephile himself and calling all the shots. Tarantino’s latest effort, Inglourious Basterds, is not only an excellent tribute to WWII Nazi themed cinema, but is itself an example of the powerful force of cinema in all its glory. Tarantino’s love of cinema invades nearly every frame with odes and nods to past films, as is the norm for his work. If you’re in the know, it’s like being part of a delightful wink-wink club.

Basterds most obviously focuses on a fictional, though delightfully inventive group of Jewish American soldiers dropped into France with the sole purpose of annihilating Nazi soldiers and scalping them. Brad Pitt, Eli Roth, etc, comprise this plot line of the film. But the film is truly an engaging piece of cinema when it comes to the plot line involving the much lauded performance of Austrian actor Christoph Walz as the delightfully evil, yet comical Hans Landa (imagine if Joel Grey in Cabaret also got to kill people) and the ingénue, Melanie Laurent, as Shosanna, a Jew who has been fortunate enough to assimilate as a Parisian and has inherited a small cinema from her ‘adopted’ aunt and uncle. And, GASP!, the scenes in France are actually filmed in the French language! Most American made WWII films would have us believe that all French, German and Russian people struggled through the great War with heavily accented, broken English, all in an effort, it seems, to accommodate the US of A---however, it’s refreshing to see that Tarantino hasn’t shamed us with pandering to the ignorant illiteracy that comprises the mainstream American audience.

As Basterds opens, we get to see Shosana’s family annihilated by Landa’s soldiers. Three years later, a young Nazi soldier (Daniel Bruhl) happens to take notice of Shosana taking down the Leni Riefenstahl film from her matinee. The young Nazi cinephile discusses Riefenstahl and Shosana’s obvious love of directors (which he assumed since she insisted on included Pabst’s name on the matinee). Tarantino’s continual references to German Nazi Cinema and the cultural conflict occupied countries experienced is extremely telling and the exact kind of BS that film classes are based on. Pabst represents the cultural heritage of German cinema, squashed by Nazi propaganda cinema, most famous of all, of course, being the films of Leni Riefenstahl. Zoller, the young Nazi soldier, it turns out, is himself the star of his own propaganda movie produced by Goebbels. An infamous Nazi, he finagles to have the premiere moved to Shosana’s theater, and here we have our Jewish Revenge Fantasy in full motion---all of the major Nazi parties will come together in honor of a favorite pastime in every country----to sit together in a theater and watch a film. The hand that controls the theater is the hand that rocks the world.

Shosana is commanded to endure a grueling lunch with Zoller and Goebbels, directly before we see her changing the matinee to prominently display the name of director Henri-Georges Clouzot, a director whose films challenged the Nazi occupation of France, most infamously with Le Corbeau (1943)----Laurent also specifically brings up UFA actress Lillian Harvey, an actress who purportedly worked as a double agent of sorts, helping persecuted individuals escape. Not only does Shosana (after an incredibly intense and grotesque scene between herself and Hans Landa in a restaurant) have her own plot of vengeance after being forced as the new premiere venue, along with her black lover that helps run the theater, (Marcel---played by Jacky Ido) we discover that the Basterds will be hooking up with an undercover German spy to get them into the premiere. And who is the spy but a German Actress, Bridget Von Hammsermark, played by Diane Kruger (I imagine that this is the role Tarantino attempted to woo Isabelle Huppert with and also an ode to the previously mentioned Harvey----and shades of Hitchcock’s Notorious, 1946). The initial meeting of Hammersmark and the Basterds in a basement bar is typical Tarantino---a lot of talking, a lot of discomfort, a lot of references, and a bloody aftermath. I love it. Kruger is engaging and enigmatic, but it’s the film’s final sequence in the theater with Melanie Laurent that made this one of the most enjoyable films of the year, and perhaps of Tarantino’s career. Laurent, dressed decadently in red, (whom Marcel compares to French icon Danielle Darrieux, still alive and working today, but at the time was one of the leading French stars to stay in occupied France) moves through her final sequences to David Bowie’s theme from Paul Schrader’s 1982 remake of Cat People, “Putting Out the Fire.” While the song’s theme is certainly telling, it fits perfectly here, making the final moments haunting, melancholy, brutally exciting, and also curious. For those familiar with Cat People, the tale of a cursed young woman, who, when sexually aroused turns into a large black panther (I loved it, but the original 40’s flick with Simone Simon is superior), aligning Shosana (from a ‘cursed’ people) with the cat people theme is open to some interesting interpretations. Vengeance, perhaps, has aroused her, turning her into a deadly weapon of mass destruction. It was her beauty and allure that led the Nazi party to her cinema in the first place. I’m sorry, but Brad Pitt and all the others pale in comparison to the greatness Tarantino achieves with David Bowie, Melanie Laurent, and a theater screen. Inglourious Basterds is more than a Jewish Revenge Fantasy----it’s also a celebration of cinematic figures and films that fought and challenged and helped along the way. Now where’s our Black Revenge Fantasy and Homo Revenge Fantasy? Additionally, I happened to catch an excellent French film called L'amour Cache at the 2007 Toronto Film Festival, starring Melanie Laurent and Isabelle Huppert, and to my knowledge, it has still only screened there----oh Tarantino! Get me that film!

Out of the Past: The Week In Film

Cess Pool Cinema:
1. The Howling III: The Marsupials (1987) Dir. Philippe Mora - Australia

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:
1. Killer's Kiss (1955) Dir. Stanley Kubrick - US
2. Phone Call From a Stranger (1952) Dir. Jean Negulesco - US

Astounding Cinema:
7. Touch Of Evil (1957) Dir. Orson Welles - US
6. Viper In the Fist (2004) Dir. Philippe De Broca - France
5. The Unknown Woman (2006) Dir. Giuseppe Tornatore - Italy
4. Girls Will Be Girls (2003) Dir. Richard Day - US
3. A Patch of Blue (1965) Dir. Guy Green - US
2. Long Weekend (1978) Dir. Colin Eggleston - Australia (Please click here for my Past Cinema Regression column)
1. Do the Right Thing (1989) Dir. Spike Lee - US

Theatrical Releases:
2. Not Quite Hollywood (2008) Dir. Mark Hartley - Australia 8/10
1. District 9 (2009) Dir. Neill Blomkamp - South Africa/New Zealand 10/10


Well darling readers, I'm sure you can imagine that while popping in The Howling III: The Marsupials something told me this wasn't going to be a very good film. Not only does it have nothing to do with either of the first two films, it unfortunately was cursed with having the same director as The Howling II (1985), which starred Christopher Lee. After the third installment, I believe I have made a private vow never to see another Philippe Mora film, even though his name doesn't appear as director on the next several Howling films, which I doubt I will ever go out of my way to see. Yes, The Howling III is set specifically down under and capitalizes on the were-marsupial theme, a bit too egregiously. Of course, the film points to the much used footage of the extinct Tasmanian Tiger as the origination of these Aussie were-things. This idea was used as a much better creep factor in the recent Dying Breed (2008). Of course, without The Howling III we'd never get to see a ballerina pirouette and turn into a werewolf, but this is the only decently campy scene. The director and crew point out now that they were going for a comedic approach to the film. Except it doesn't work on that level either. It plays like a horror film taking itself way too seriously and had me reaching for the remote on which exists a fast forward button, however, I was held back from such sacrilege by a friend.

Sadly, this week's mediocre film selections sports one of Kubrick's earliest efforts, Killer's Kiss (1955). A year before the brilliant The Killing, Kiss neglects to feature any sort of killer kissing anyone. Does someone get killed? Well, yeah. Basically, the film is about a mediocre boxer falling in love with his vacuous neighbor, a stripper/prostitute who can't get out of her toxic relationship with her strip club employer. Sounds like the makings of an excellent noir, right? Well, the story just gets a little too muddled and it doesn't help that our femme fatale (Irene Kane) walks around like a zombie version of Helen Slater. Of course, as soon as boxer and stripper meet, they fall in cinematic one hour true love. I'm sorry, but it's one thing to be a hooker/prostitute, but I doubt I'd fall in love in a day, especially when your icky employer tries to murder you but kills the wrong man. Too many issues, girlfriend. See me when you get your shit together. The best part of the film is indeed the final sequence while all the principles chase each other around in a creepy basement filled with mannequins.

I'm also sad to report that I most certainly did not care for Jean Negulesco's melodramatic Phone Call From A Stranger (1952). The most significant historical aspect of the film is that this is Bette Davis' infamous followup to All About Eve (1950)---in a SUPPORTING role. Gasp! It's true, she doesn't show up until the final 15 minutes. But then, digging deeper, you find out that she married co-star Gary Merrill after working together on Eve---and, then of course, you notice that Merrill (a sort of poor-man's James Mason, at least what I've seen and without that brilliantly fun-to-mimic accent) is the lead in this film---Bette was a bitch, but I'm certain that supporting her baby's leading man status was on her mind. The plot concerns Merrill, a lawyer running away from his wife, who has just confronted him with the fact that she just ended an illicit love affair. At the airport he runs into Shelley Winters (not as terribly abrasive or homely as you may be accustomed to seeing her) who is on her way back home to her bitchy mom-in-law and her momma's-boy hubby. Forming a bond when Winters admits this is her first time on an airplane, the two happen to meet two other men while waiting for their flight (an extremely irritating man played by Keenan Wynn and a very wooden performance from Michael Rennie, fresh off his alien bit from The Day the Earth Stood Still, 1951). Some chemistry that apparently happened off screen bonds all four and they decide to remain friends for life, coining themselves the "four musketeers." Amidst all my painful guffaws, the plane crashes and they all die except Merrill, who takes it upon himself to visit all the strained spouses of the "musketeers." He meet's Rennie's wife, a young Beatrice Straight, and Wynn's wife, the bedridden Bette. While Bette livens the lagging latter half of the film, we're led to believe that it is her teary eyed confession of her own phlilandering ways that motivates Merrill to call his own unfaithful spouse while still at Davis' bedside. What a hammy piece of shit.

A surprising amount of astounding cinema was watched this past week, several of which are films that have been discussed endlessly for years. Orson Welle's Touch of Evil (1957) certainly is a film noir masterpiece, however, (and I've heard Welles fought the studio over this) Charlton Heston as a Mexican named Miguel is just ridiculous. Janet Leigh is her usually bland but pretty faced self, and Zsa Zsa Gabor is even in one scene. However, some of the best sequences are with the intoxicatingly sultry Marlene Dietrich, in her late 50's here and looking breathtaking. Welles' sallow, sweaty face oozes corruption and his own performance lends a lot to elevating this film above a B noir.

Perhaps the last film that will be directed by French auteur Philippe De Broca, Viper In The Fist (2004), based on an the work of Herve Bazin, stars a deliciously bitchy Catherine Frot as one of the meanest, coldest and awful biological mothers I've seen on screen. It's not like she really prefers any of her three sons, she's just an awful bitch to all of them. Set in 1920's France, the two eldest boys had been raised by their kind grandmother while their parents were away in Saigon. When grandma dies, the lives of the two boys change drastically when their parents return to take care of them. An otherwise inconsequential film is elevated above material that treads familiar territory by the presence of Frot, whom I actually found it difficult to like as a straight up bitch.

Italian auteur Giuseppe Tornatore's first feature since Malena (2000), is The Unknown Woman (2006), a dark, brutal and modern tale about modern prostitution (which is interesting considering Malena was a nostalgic, fantasized narrative about a young boy's love for a WWII prostitute). I don't want to give away the heroine's (an excellent Kseninya Rappoport) secret agenda, which unfortunately some might find obviously apparent, but it's compelling cinema, nevertheless. Every now and then I found myself asking questions about one or two details that didn't add up, but never you mind those. A moody little slice of vicious reality, it's worth a look.

I think I'd avoided Girls Will Be Girls (2003) since its release due to so many gay men (that I didn't care for, might I add) obsessing over this drag cult classic. Finally seeing it, the film was much better than expected, along the same lines as Die Mommie Die (2003), with some brilliantly delicious one liners like "I've had more children pulled out of me than a burning orphanage," or "Feelings are like treasures. So bury them." Jack Plotnick as faded D-film star Evie is startlingly like a dried up old bitchy Hollywood wannabe (think Joan Rivers) and Jeffrey Roberson as Varla is superb, looking at times like Wynona Judd or John Lithgow in drag. Drag personality Coco Peru is also funny, but tends to be the most realistically pathetic of the trio. If you like campy/trashy humor, sit down and watch Girls Will Be Girls. Or rewatch it. I'm sure I will.

As might be obvious if you're following the blog, I've stumbled upon a bit of a Shelley Winters phase. While I remained unimpressed by Phone Call From a Stranger (1952), I was moved to laughter and tears by A Patch of Blue (1965) for which Winters won her second Oscar playing Rose Ann, a bitchy, loud mouthed woman who abuses the fuck out of her weak willed, blind daughter. Elizabeth Hartman stars as Selina, blinded by her mother at a young age, living with her and her alcoholic grandpa, Ole Pa (Wallace Ford). Kept as a virtual slave, Selina pathetically whimpers at her captors to sit at the park while they're away all day long and thread her beads, which she actually gets paid to do. While at the park, a kind black man (Sidney Poitier) befriends her. Poitier is quite good, thought I don't believe for a minute that he falls in love with Selina---I felt like he was just a kind, empathetic man. Perhaps saddled with always playing the kind-hearted black man, Poitier is the best part of the film. The message in A Patch of Blue was quite mature for the time. Winters' performance is delightfully bitchy, however, the subject matter is so realistically sad, it's hard to laugh. The kissing scenes between Hartman and Poitier were cut in the copy shown in the Southern states, it seems. What a pity---it's beautiful to realize that some pieces of art emerged during such depressingly bigoted times.

For my thoughts on Long Weekend (1978), please visit my column at MNDialog.

And my number one pick for this week is another racially charged film, Spike Lee's classic, Do The Right Thing (1989), which sadly, I had neglected to see until now. Though I quite enjoyed Jungle Fever (1991), Lee's earlier film is obviously the better of the two. It's obvious that no one actually does the right thing (in either film) but what's best about the film is you can empathize with nearly everyone---it's not black and white. Danny Aiello, as the pizza parlor owner, is probably a good man---and then he busts out some racial epithets when he's angry. And though Bill Nunn technically has no business blaring his boom box in someone's restaurant, he certainly doesn't deserve what he gets. Lee stars as Mookie, perhaps the most empathetic character here, but also a bit of a deadbeat. Like everyone you know, they all have their issues, but Lee's film points out, they're all human. While watching Do the Right Thing, I kept thinking how delightfully real, or, for lack of a better word, urban it is, granted it's set in a certain time and place that we've moved on from. We've moved from Lee being a cutting edge, African American filmmaker to the era of Tyler Perry, where religion, and morality are exercised in ignorance. But you'll see---one day we'll live in a world with more filmmakers like Spike Lee than Tyler Perry, where Christianity isn't used as the crux of the narrative and strangling the voices of those outside that ordained and mainstream point of view.

District 9

If there happens to be other forms of intelligent life out there, and they happen to watch any of our films, could you blame them for adopting a shoot-to-kill philosophy? 2009's most memorable film, thus far, hit theaters this past weekend, Neill Blomkamp's District 9, which tells the story about a race of beings (resembling large cockroaches that get excited over cat food and communicate with a series of noises reminiscent of Mr. and Mrs. Click-Click-Durk from "South Park") whose spaceship has broken down in the sky over Johannesburg in the early '80s. Shot like one of those compelling documentaries one might catch on the History Channel, we are graced with a series of professional South Africans explaining in present time how the aliens came to be, umm, rescued from their ship, placed in quarantine zones and subsequently ghettoized. The current cultural and political climate sees Johannesburg rallying to evict the "prawns" (the derogatory racial-specific term coined to describe the creatures) to concentration camp-like facilities some 200 km away from the city. We meet our main character (though certainly not a hero), Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley) who has been charged with leading the eviction, and whose evil father-in-law is a high ranking official in the Homeland Security like department that he works for. Well, Wikus, being one of those pathetic, spine-less, snivelling, typical push-over types, accidentally exposes himself to something that starts to mutate him into the alien species. Since the government, as always in these situations, sees him as expendable and attempts to murder him to study his mutated DNA to figure out how to operate the highly dangerous alien weapons, Wikus turns to the only group of beings less likely to destroy him, the naive aliens. District 9 refreshingly gives us a character that is realistically selfish, nearly to the end. And yes, the South African setting (where they have all those fun things going on, like apartheid) only enhances the obvious allegory the film is concerning how humans dangerously abuse and exploit anything different from themselves. The film also highlights another human-specific issue---repressed minorities tormenting and abusing other repressed minorities. A group of Nigerian gangsters rule the ghetto of District 9, and interesting things like interracial prostitution go on, along with extortion rackets involving cat food and weaponry.

Though it delves a little long in an extended shootout sequence, District 9 is an unsettling, action packed allegory that's intelligent and engaging. And yes, everyone will understand the allegory, but it's doubtful anyone will think of applying any changes to dealing with the disenfranchised. Since it's almost always white people in charge when dealing with alien intelligence, District 9 gives us a realistic white male response with Wikus---even though he's changing into the creatures he despises, he really doesn't learn to empathize all that much. Maybe about as much as giving 50 cents to a bum makes some people feel good, but still, not that much. Other films concerning alien contact like The Day the Earth Stood Still have understanding white women empathizing with the alien---Patricia Neal (1951) and Jennifer Connelly (2008), respectively. Though women are considered a disenfranchised group, they have a proscribed "normal" place. When we get to the point where we are more comfortable with people of color and gay people and we see main stream sci-fi movies depicting alien contact with other types of people, what's going to be the realistic reaction? Just food for thought. Everyone else will be raving (or not, depending) about this excellent film, so just thought I'd throw another little angle out there. And yes, you are a cruel person, most likely, if you're not moved to feel bad for the alien Christopher Johnson and his young, umm, roach.

Sunday, August 23 -- Louis Malle's "Damage"

Hello all---please join me at the usual place of residence for a screening of Damage (1992), French New Wave artist Louis Malle's second to last feature film and based on the novel of the same name by Josephine Hart.

Damage is one of those nasty little sexual obsession films, the type that used to be released on VHS with the words "erotic thriller" on the sides. In fact, my copy is an old VHS tape, with Rolling Stones critic Peter Travers' raving that the film is, ahem, "fiercely erotic." That's all fine and dandy, but it sounds rather violent, as if leaving a screening would make my flesh feel flagellated or virtually lacerated by the deprecating screen images. Afterwards, I would imagine you'd look like someone that just ate some very hot Mexican food, all red and sweaty, clenching orifices together, as the slightest move may engender indiscreet alarm. Needless to say, the last time I viewed Damage I was in High School, and was not particularly taken with the soft-core pornographic scenes, or Jeremy Irons' ropy sinews dashing all about God's green earth. So I am curious to revisit this flick, especially after having read the novel recently and learning that Juliette Binoche infamously walked off the set due to Irons becoming particularly brutal during the passionate, unbridled, all consuming sex scenes. At least we know he was giving it his all. Ah, Juliette! I had been in the midst of a Miranda Richardson craze at the time, who was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress here as the jilted British wife.

Not having been old enough to enjoy the somewhat perverted love triangle, this dark, deadly and destructive tale about libido may be more fiercely neurotic than erotic, but then I often mistake the two anyway. In honor of sensual (note the word "sensual," and not "sexual") obsessions, our screening of Damage will be accompanied with a decadent chocolate cake. Bon appetite!

Out of the Past: The Week In Film

Cess Pool Cinema
NA

The Banal, the Blah, The Banausic:
1. Black Sabbath (1963) Dir. Mario Bava - Italy
2. This Woman Is Dangerous (1952) Dir. Felix E. Feist - US

Astounding Cinema
2. Fists In the Pocket (1965) Dir. Marco Bellocchio - Italy
1. Lolita (1962) Dir. Stanley Kubrick - US

Theatrical Releases
3. In the Loop (2009) Dir. Armando Iannucci - UK 8/10
2. A Perfect Getaway (2009) Dir. David Twohy - US 8/10
1. The Cove (2009) Dir. Louie Psihoyos - US 9/10

Rewatched Goodies:
1. I've Loved You So Long (2008) Dir. Philippe Claudel - France

Sadly, I've no deliciously awful cess pool films to rip apart this week. You may also note that there are not as many films to discuss this week (especially since I've also neglected to discuss some pretty good theatrical releases) but this would be because I've been going to bed earlier and earlier---did you know a long, full, exhausting day seems to be the best way to avoid missing someone?

Another Mario Bava selection (I happen to own the two recent box set volumes of his films released, don't ask why) that I finally got around to watching was Black Sabbath (1963), a compilation of three short films (and with Salvatore Billiterri also not listed as co-director) only loosely strung together by an aged Boris Karloff narrating in between segments. Interestingly the whole film seems to be dubbed, in, err, Italian. Which I prefer to MOST giallo and Italian horror films that dub their actors even if they were originally filmed in English. I hate dubbing, and as English is my first language, well, you can only imagine my disdain. The biggest problem with compilation horror films is that they are difficult to judge. One awful segment can bring down your overall rating of the film, etc. Anyhow, the first segment, which is the most interesting (to me) but also the least thrilling, is called "The Telephone." A woman in her apartment starts to receive strange and threatening phone calls, and it is slowly revealed she was instrumental in sending a past lover to prison who has escaped or been released, or something pressing like that. However, it turns out that the caller is a lesbian friend of the woman, scaring her into inviting her over for a little somethin somethin. Ironically, the criminal does appear and puts the kibosh on said lesbian's predatory plans. Like when the T-Rex eats the velociraptors in Jurassic Park (1993). I do appreciate the very dated terror the telephone could induce. There's just no remaking films like this, or Sorry, Wrong Number (1948) or The Human Voice (1966) --- the one starring Ingrid Bergman is the best---because we have moved into terrorizing people with telephones in different ways these days. But Bava's use of sexual dynamics, and mostly what's only really hinted at, is what makes "The Telephone" the most relevant segment. The second segment actually stars Boris Karloff, titled "The Wurdulak," which centers around a small hamlet terrorized by a vampiric creature that everyone insists on calling a wurdulak. It's nice to have other words for things, but it just seems like a stretch. We all have certain parameters to work with. I could make a short film about a horrible creature that turns into a wolf-like being during the fool moon and call it the Werkengolemstein, but in the end everyone would call it my werewolf movie. Boris is obviously having fun, especially when he dons a feathered bonnet, riding around on a horse and looking all crazy, demanding his alarmed family slay the howling dog trying to alert them. The last segment is also a bit formulaic. "A Drop of Water," is about a bitchy nurse that steals a big, ugly ring off the corpse of a recently deceased psychic. Yes, it's atmospheric, but how bad or terrified should we be expecting to feel? We all know it's not really kosher to steal from corpses, much less psychic corpses (a very creepy looking one at that) that we're told died in the middle of a seemingly violent seance. So is it surprising when the psychic lady's corpse comes back for vengeance? Hell no! Bava's done better, and I don't know if I will ever like anything better than his Black Sunday (1960) or I Vampiri (1956). Yes, he has a film called Black Sunday and Black Sabbath---which I think are both referring to blackening the same thing. Different words for things, you see.

This week's other banal selection happens to be a Joan Crawford vehicle I have actually waited for quite some time to get a copy of. This Woman Is Dangerous is Joan's notorious last film with Warner Bros., a film that she most certainly didn't want to do and publicly derided afterwards as being an awful film (much like Bette Davis' parting with Warner Bros. over the hammy but fun Beyond the Forest, 1949). And while This Woman Is Dangerous isn't as awful as all get out, it's definitely not very good. Joan stars as Beth Austin, a lady gangster who finds out she will be going blind in a week. Oh no! Well, her man gangster boyfriend (David Brian) is wanted by the cops, and Joan has to escape safely away to Indianapolis to have emergency surgery on her eyeballs. Thankfully, a doctor in Indy has conducted some experimental surgeries on soon-to-be-blind people with some success, so Joan throws herself under the knife. Of course, the surgery is a success and the doctor (Dennis Morgan) has fallen in love with Joan. But he finds out she's a lady gangster involved with a pretty bad crew. Joan is in hammy, bored mode, draining all the possible camp value out of the film. David Brian, who is Joan's love interest in the much more fun The Damned Don't Cry (1950), is quite atrociously over the top here. And we can't quite understand why Dennis Morgan is so taken with Joan---especially after he finds out she's got a record. But that was always Joan's schtick---girl from the wrong side of the tracks finds a good man to accept her for who she is and where she came from. The film should have been called This Woman Has a Dangerous Boyfriend.

In the top tier films this week we have Italian auteur Marco Bellocchio's debut Fists In the Pocket (1965), which tells the tale of a dysfunctional Italian family. Augusto (Marino Mase), the eldest, has taken over as patriarch for a family which includes two epileptic brothers, a blind mother, and somewhat normal sister. Ale, the middle brother, is deeply depressed and disturbed, fostering what seems to be a burgeoning incestuous relationship with his rambunctious sister. Augusto is the most normal seeming of the family, only due to his detachment, it seems, and the fact that he has a fiancee. Altruistically, Ale decides that he should just kill the rest of the family so that Augusto can lead a normal life as he senses that the rest of them are too far gone to ever lead a normal existence. Sometimes described as a horror film, Bellocchio's film is actually an astutely crafted film about the self-destruction and dysfunctional ties borne out of the nuclear family. It's quite a depressing depiction of a very depressed and self-aware young man in pain. Of course, at the point where he starts doing monstrous things like pushing his blind mother into a ravine, we know he's gone a bit far for us to sympathize with. Altogether, an excellent and dark little picture out of Italy. Bellocchio is still alive and working today, with his latest film Vincere (2009) receiving rave reviews at this year's Cannes film fest.

And this week's number one slot goes to master filmmaker Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Nabokov's Lolita (1962). Having recently read (and fucking loved) the novel, I wasn't sure what to expect. While I still don't feel like James Mason was quite right as Humbert Humbert (I kept picturing Jeremy Irons, who portrayed Humbert in the 1997 version, which I've yet to see) but he did a fine job as the hypercivilized European with the tortured libido. I just don't find Mason as snaky, or reptilian, or as hilariously pretentious as I know Irons can be. Sue Lyon (who had annoyed me so much in The Night of Iguana, 1963) isn't half bad as the little nymphet. Peter Sellers, as Quincy, is just creepy. And the revelation here is Shelley Winters as Lolita's mother, Charlotte Haze. What a wonderful, irritating, realistic portrayal. I think I felt some actual human feelings for Winters as Charlotte Haze, which I most certainly did not in the novel, where she's painted as a simpering, pathetic waste of existence. I never really had a Shelley Winter's phase, but after recently seeing What's The Matter With Helen? (1971) and The Big Knife (1955), I'm looking forward to more. If you haven't seen Lolita (1962) and you love movies, I highly recommend this dark little romp. And if you wish to read an excellent novel, I highly advise you read it first.

Out of the Past: The Week In Film

"You can't learn to be real. It's like learning to be a midget." -- Jeff Daniels, The Purple Rose of Cairo (1984).

Well darling readers, if you're out there and staying tuned in, you'll notice that I have failed to update my weekly cinema rundown for the past two weeks. On the positive side, you'll be blessed with a comprehensive rundown of two weeks worth of cinematic musings. My reason for neglecting you all so was due to my boyfriend, who I have deposited in Miami for about 13 weeks for a required pre-req course for the medical program he was accepted into. Needless to say, I am feeling like a lost puppy. Please forgive me if I seem more macabre or nihilistic than usual. I will attempt to remain light hearted about my cinematical convictions, at the very least. Meanwhile, I am wooing my employer to transfer me to Miami. Remember that infernally and joyously racist Disney cartoon, Peter Pan? (I always liked Tiger Lily and named an acquired kitten after her when I was a young child, regardless of the fact that the kitten was male---this apparently didn't clue my parents off to anything even though I also watched, with voracious conviction, "My Little Pony"). Well, in Peter Pan, if my memory serves correct, there's a ridiculous moment where Tinker Bell is dying, or is in the midst of some such dither, and Peter asks the audience to clap for her, as collectively the well-meaning audience could revive her. I didn't clap as a child (I became afflicted with the morose attitude of wondering why the bad guys always had to be defeated at a young age) and I'm not exactly asking you, dear readers, to clap for me. However, a collective vibe of well meaning, I believe as an adult, could help my karma. So if a good human you see through all this disparate rambling, cross your fingers for me.


Cinema Cess Pool Selection:
1. Tammy and the Bachelor (1957) Dir. Joseph Pevney - US

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:
1. The Shuttered Room (1967) Dir. David Greene - UK

Astounding Cinema:
8. Otto: Or, Up With Dead People (2009) Dir. Bruce LaBruce - US
7. The Devil Is A Woman (1935) Dir. Josef Von Sternberg - US
6. HellBoy (2004) Dir. Guillermo Del Toro - US
5. Dangerous Liaisons (1988) Dir. Stephen Frears - US
4. Twentynine Palms (2003) Dir. Bruno Dumont - France
3. Longtime Companion (1990) Dir. Norman Rene - US
2. The Elephant Man (1980) Dir. David Lynch - US
1. The Purple Rose of Cairo (1984) Dir. Woody Allen -US

Rewatched Goodies:
1. Jurassic Park (1993) Dir. Steven Spielberg - US

Theatrical Releases:
4. Funny People (2009) Dir. Judd Apatow - US 7/10
3. Tetro (2009) Dir. Francis Ford Coppola - US 8/10
2. Orphan (2009) Dir. Jaume Collett-Serra - US 8/10
1. (500) Days of Summer (2009) Dir. Marc Webb - US 10/10

This week's singular cess pool selection nearly made it into the mediocre column until I thought more of it and decided that I definitely couldn't let myself even grant it that distinction. I had recently derided director Joseph Pevney in a previous post concerning his lackluster directing abilities in The Strange Door (1951), so I was already a little uneasy about Tammy and the Bachelor (1957), even though Pevney directed a favorite campy Joan Crawford performance of mine in Female on the Beach (1955). My original interest in Tammy was the fact that is starred a young and nubile Debbie Reynolds and of even more interest, Leslie Nielsen as the romantic lead---I knew I was up for a few creepy tingles down my spine. And there are, but even more so from the ridiculous story concerning Tammy, a backwoods but sweet hearted uneducated gal living with her grandpa (three time Oscar winner Walter Brennan as a preacher reduced to selling corn liquor) in some godforsaken forest in the South, dripping with all the fixings of Deliverance (1972). Not surprisingly, Reynolds is a chaste, Bible-quoting simulacrum of pleasantry and she falls in love with the Nielsen, a young (ha!) doctor discovered in the river as the result of a plan crash. No one bothers to slow down a second and tell Tammy that other men exist out there, but becoming fixated on the not particularly charming Nielsen (who looks like her father), the 17 year old Tammy is forced to go live in town with Nielsen when grandpa gets arrested for selling liquor. The story somehow skirts around the issue of Tammy's blatant white trash origins, but that's about as successful as Clay Aiken claiming he was heterosexual. In one particularly icky scene, Reynolds has to be involved in a ridiculous pioneer reenactment scene (Nielsen claims that his rich family only maintains their property because of this Pilgrim ritual acted out once a year where the public pays to tramp around the house while the elite residents pretend to be their ancestors---if that's plausible, then count me as being even more emphatically against ever living in an area this would happen). For some reason unbeknownst to myself, the film leads us to believe that Tammy's reenactment of some deceased Pilgrim woman is intriguing and somehow merits an eight minute monologue of blithering grammatical error. Thankfully there's the presence of Fay Wray who is at least realistic as Nielsen's bitch of a mother, as well as a smaller role of Mala Powers as his sometimes fiancee. Spawning an Oscar nominated song (about Tammy falling in love---oh it makes me shudder), the film is very 1950's and apparently it spawned three sequels (two of which starred another virginal 60's goodie girl, Sandra Dee) and a television series. The horror!

This week's one blatantly mediocre selection happened to be The Shuttered Room (1967), from another mediocre Brit director, David Greene, who happened to direct Madame Sin (1972), which focuses on a pickled Bette Davis as a nefarious Oriental spy attempting to control the world from her Scottish castle. Surprisingly, that film is quite boring, even though it had all the fixings of the ultimate camp classic. You have to be pretty bland to fuck up something that deliciously ridiculous. But Mr. Greene did. In this little turkey, Greene has control of an impressive cast, including Oscar winner Gig Young, Carol Lynley and Oliver Reed. Based on an H.P. Lovecraft story, the film focuses on the May-December couple Young and Lynley who return to the hick-town origins where Lynley was born to visit her relatives or sell the mansion she inherited, blah blah blah. Not surprisingly, there's some evil secret involving something kind of locked inside a room in the mansion, though I don't know how "shuttered" it is. The film could have been called "The Semi-Locked Room." I won't ruin the disappointing secret of what's in the room, but nothing in the film is very inspired, not even Oliver Reed as a hick vagabond, getting all Straw Dogs (1971) on the city couple. However, all tensions are quickly diffused before they can boil into anything more jarring than chasing Lynley to the edge of a dock. A forgettable effort.

This week's astounding cinema is larger than usual---however, the last two selections could have easily fallen into the mediocre section if I wasn't attempting to maintain an extremely positive outlook, currently. Rounding out the list is pornographer (ahem, filmmaker) Bruce LaBruce's latest, Otto; Or, Up With Dead People (2009), which concerns Otto, a gay zombie. Set in the streets of Berlin (since LaBruce is faux-European and seemingly obsessed with zee Germans--much like fellow Canadian singer Peaches---but we all can't be Nina Hagen) Otto stumbles into an underground filmmaker named Medea who is currently filming a movie about a fictional uprising of gay zombies. Medea, a bitchy lesbian that shares a few viewpoints with myself about Americans and capitalism, is the most entertaining portion of Otto. Perhaps a send-up of LaBruce himself, Medea and her gay film crew don't really think Otto is a zombie--they think he's just really into his part. The film points to zombies as a metaphor (don't all zombie films?), perhaps for consumerism? Perhaps homosexuality? Otto is compared to one of those sad, lost boys that become involved in the porn industry. Playwright Edward Albee comments on the cover of the DVD that Otto is an irritating film at times, but is overall entertaining. I agree, and am not sure how much of an in-depth analysis I truly wish to apply to the film. Based on LaBruce's past work, I couldn't believe how few pornographic scenes there actually were in the film. It's interesting to me that Medea, a lesbian, is documenting this metaphoric gay zombie crisis--the zombies are all gay men, leaving straights and women completely out of it. Much could be made about elements of Otto, but my favorite parts were of Otto's flashbacks with his boyfriend, which all blast an excellent little song called "Everyone's Dead" by The Homophones." Look it up.

Another selection I'm perhaps being a bit liberal with by saying it was astounding was Josef Von Sternberg's last effort with his muse Marlene Dietrich, The Devil Is A Woman (1935). The last of their seven films together, the theme is perhaps a fitting one for how their relationship lasted and ended. Dietrich plays a Spanish vixen, Concha, who virtually chews up and spits out Don Pasqual (Lionel Atwill), a virtual slave to her beauty. Told in mostly flashback, Dietrich's character is entertaining as a wardrobe changing, temperamental bitch of a woman. She obviously had a lot of fun with the part, and the best elements of the film are all of her breathtaking gowns, hats, and gorgeous makeup. Dietrich was always a captivating screen presence, and though she was always kind of the same, critics always seem to be up in the air about what her best Von Sternberg film is after The Blue Angel (1930). My personal favorite is Blonde Venus (1932) if only for the ridiculous plot involving radium poisoning, Cary Grant, and best of all, Dietrich's scene where she sings "Hot Voodoo" in a gorilla costume and a blonde afro--fuck, I love that. The Devil Is a Woman is based on the same source novel by Pierre Louys as Luis Bunuel's That Obscure Object of Desire (1977) which I am eager to see for comparison.

I kept putting Guillermo Del Toro's HellBoy (2004) on the backburner due to the fact that I have always been disappointed with his English speaking films as none of them seem to match the beauty, intensity or emotion of his Spanish films like Cronos (1993), The Devil's Backbone (2001) or Pan's Labyrinth (2006). Not that HellBoy is better than those films, but I certainly liked it a lot more than Mimic (1997) or Blade II (2002). The plot of HellBoy might be a little weak, but Del Toro's visuals are astounding, engaging, grotesque and beautiful. Despite the obviously fake baby version of HellBoy, the special effects deservedly take the center stage. I always enjoy Ron Perlman who has had an astounding and interesting career in horror and sci-fi films in an intriguing international sense. I'm quite happy that Del Toro resisted the studio's efforts to have HellBoy played by Vin Diesel, which would have certainly made me dislike the film. Selma Blair is alright as the supposed love interest, and I always enjoy the presence of John Hurt, a staple of dystopic cinema --ummm, please see Alien (1979); Midnight Express (1978); The Elephant Man (1980); 1984 (1984); V for Vendetta (2005) if you haven't. Like I said, the plot's a little iffy---and of course, Nazi's in 1944 begin our story of occultish evil (apparently there's not one dastardly bit of evil the Nazi's weren't a part of, from Indiana Jones to the X-Men, etc.) and I must say that I didn't really enjoy Rasputin being thrown in the mix---yes, the actual Russian advisor/mystic/enigma (cinemas' other staple for historical evils) as I wanted to thrown Boney M's brilliant disco song into the mix.

Well I finally did it. I sat down and watched Stephen Frear's Dangerous Liaisons (1988), which I discussed in my review of Frear's Cheri (2009). The all too familiar story does indeed feel like the Frears version does get credit for the definitive adaptation of the creepy, French sexual mind fuckery. I must say that though John Malkovich is nearly perfect for the role of Valmont, I most certainly didn't buy his wooing of the chaste Michelle Pfeiffer. A film about two wicked people, too proud and elite to admit their own attraction to each another and thus destroying the ability to love for all those around them, the film really seems, to me at least, to be a damnation of masculinity. Glenn Close is excellent as the Marquise---and I believe her character's speeches on her own villainy and bitterness due to living in a man's world carried the most weight for me. I wasn't quite taken with any other character's in the film as I was with her---she's the most realistic, the most wicked, and the only one I sympathized with. The final scene of Close wiping off her makeup as bitter tears well up underneath her hard gaze is captivating (and actually reminiscent of the final scene of Cheri). Keanu Reeves' painfully bad performance is a distraction, and it's intriguing to see Uma Thurman play a young target of sexual manipulation.

Twentynine Palms (2003) is really an irritating film. For most of it, we're forced to watch an icky looking photographer (who looks like a ragged, drugged out Tommy Lee) and his Russian/ French waif of a girlfriend (who looks like a beat down Michelle Pfeiffer) argue, have icky sex, argue some more, get jealous of one another, hit each other, and while doing not a whole lot as they claim to scope out some sort of area for David the photographer to shoot in the California desert. The film, of course, is Bruno Dumont's infamous attempt at a horror film, building a slow and steady unease only to suddenly shock us with two scenes of brutal and despicable intensity. It's the sort of film a cinephile will love or hate, and that mainstream audiences will never stomach. The domestic drama boils over into nauseating horror, akin to the way Catherine Breillat also makes some of her films---but I would argue, this sort of real-time horror is more realistic than standard American genre films. When we witness horrific goings-on in real life, what were the last two hours we lived right before that? Most likely monotonous drivel---imagine people watching you eat two muffins and drink a pot of coffee while you surf the internet for 90 minutes, only to have you open you bathroom door and get bludgeoned by someone looking like a cross between Charlie Manson and a large cat. And that's how watching Twentynine Palms feels. Dumont's latest effort will premiere at this year's Toronto Film Festival and I hope to see it.

The top three films in this post should all really be tied for number one. Tortuous soul that I am, my first night away from my boyfriend I decided to be really masochistic and watch the gay classic, Longtime Companion (1990) so that I could watch other gay couples being ripped apart due to the tragic origination of AIDS in the 1980's. Director Norman Rene would only go on to direct two other films, Prelude to a Kiss (1992) and Reckless (1995). However, he will always be remembered for his first film, which is credited with putting a much needed human face to AIDS. Looking back, this film, and the people who starred in it, were truly courageous and brave. We don't often see films like this even today in 2009, that are as frank about disease, about love and the portrayals of gay people. The film distracted me from my own sorrows for the evening and I ended up crying about other people, lost to the awful, unfair, but stark realism that is AIDS. The film still feels captivating and it's interesting to compare gay men's behavior towards AIDS today. All gay people should give standing ovations to actors like Campbell Scott (the son of George C. Scott) for his beautiful performance here as well as his involvement in other projects, such as The Dying Gaul (2005). Deserving credit should also go to Mary Louise-Parker, whose involvement in compelling cinema involving the GLBT community is astounding, for this and Fried Green Tomatoes (1991); Boys on the Side (1995); Angels In America (2003); and Saved! (2004). Look for entertaining and excellent performances from a young Dermot Mulroney, Stephen Caffrey, and a heartbreaking turn from character actor Bruce Davison (the anti-mutant, or homophobic, if you will, senator from X-Men, 2000).

I finally sat down and watched another film long on my list of things to see, The Elephant Man (1980), from one of my all-time favorite directors, David Lynch. While surprisingly straightforward for a Lynch film, Elephant Man is a heartfelt, bizarre, and beautifully composed piece of cinema. I am embarrassed to say I hadn't seen it before. John Hurt's makeup is amazing, and his performance commendable. Nominated for an Oscar, I wondered why he hadn't won until I remembered that De Niro won that year for Raging Bull. And yes, I was reduced to tears at the moment where Anne Bancroft dedicates a night at the theater to Hurt's character, John Merrick. Anthony Hopkins also turns in a good performance as the physician that rescues Hurt from the freak show at the circus. An amazing portrayal of humanity and the cruelty of human beings, The Elephant Man is a beautiful movie.

Floating to the top of my list this week is Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo, another classic film that's been written about time and time again. Perhaps one of the best movies about movies, Rose stars the scrappy but never lovelier Mia Farrow as a Depression era waitress who escapes her sad existence and her awful husband (Danny Aiello) by constantly going to the cinema. Enamored with the latest film at the uni-plex, The Purple Rose of Cairo, she sees the film repeatedly when suddenly, one of the characters in the film (a young Jeff Daniels) steps out of the screen because he fancies her. Mia reluctantly is swept off her feet. However, the rest of the cast is unable to finish the film, sparking a nationwide ruckus that involves the real actor that played Daniels' character to step in and also romance Farrow. A film that plays with the escapism and the hopes and dreams we bring to the cinema, Allen plays with the mechanisms of the audience and the picture show---those who are watched and those who do the watching. A movie about the magic of movies, Allen's excellent tribute ends magnificently and realistically. Such a lighthearted film ends almost jarringly painfully. In the end, I'll quote Sheryl Crow "It's not having what you want---it's wanting what you've got." Yes, isn't it ironic that this movie about the escapism and magic of movies only highlights the limits of this escapism? One of Woody Allen's best films I've yet to see, please see it if you haven't. It is just another film I've meant to see forever but am only recently getting around to (can you guess what I will be doing for the next 12-13 weeks?).