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.