Out of the Past: The Week in Film

Cess Pool Cinema:

1. Mannequin (1987) Dir. Michael Gottlieb - US

2. Trigger Happy (1996) Dir. Larry Bishop - US

Astounding Cinema:

4. Anna (1987) Dir. Yurek Bogayavicz - US

3. Au Hasard Balthazar (1966) Dir. Robert Bresson - France

2. Ghosts (2005) Dir. Christian Petzold - Germany

1. Clash By Night (1952) Dir. Fritz Lang - US

Theatrical Releases:

5. New Moon (2009) Dir. Chris Weitz - US 1/10

4. 2012 (2009) Dir. Roland Emmerich - US 7/10

3. Black Dynamite (2009) Dir. Scott Sanders - US 10/10

2. The Road (2009) Dir. John Hillcoat - US 10/10

1. Precious (2009) Dir. Lee Daniels - US 10/10

Re-watched Goodies:

1. Working Girl (1988) Dir. Mike Nichols -US

2. Fido (2006) Dir. Andrew Currie - US

3. The Ice Storm (1997) Dir. Ang Lee - US

For some bizarre reason, when I was a small child (about 6 years old, or so) I loved the made for television movie A Mom For Christmas (1990), which starred Olvia Newton John as a department store mannequin that comes to life and fulfills a small child's dream by becoming her mother and falling in love with her father (a plot device that sounds vaguely familiar, doesn't it? A mannequin here, a prostitute in Milk Money, 1994). However, I always confused it in my head with the 1987 box office success, Mannequin, starring Kim Catrall and bratpack alum Andrew McCarthy. Though I wouldn't think that A Mom For Christmas quite holds up to the standards I apply to cinema as a young adult, sitting down to watch Mannequin was an atrocious experience. First of all, Andrew McCarthy was never what one would call leading man material, and here he's more geeky/nerdy than ever as an idiot savant artist, unable to hold down any "blue collar" jobs. So passionate for his art is he, a mannequin he constructed in a department store comes to life. Perhaps avoiding any Pygmalion cliches, it turns out that Emmy the Mannequin (not Emmy the Award) is an ancient Egyptian princess, or something, though she's blonde and speaks English like your typical American ingenue, whom the gods have cursed/punished/granted her wish to avoid marrying a camel dung tradesman or some such emptyheaded blah blah. Catrall, though beautiful, is as vapid as they come---turns out this Egyptian princess has a knack for window displays, and helps McCarthy build stunning displays overnight in the Macy's-like store he's been hired in by Estelle Getty (yes, that Estelle Getty) though his supervisor, a sickly looking James Spader, is attempting to sabotage the success of the store. God, what a piece of shit this was. The only highlight of the film is Meshach Taylor playing a very flamboyant employee that befriends McCarthy, named Hollywood Montrose---but as gay friendly as this film seemed to be in the late 80's, Montrose is still castigated as a "mary" and a "fairy." This was director Michael Gottlieb's debut feature---he'd go on to unleash more cinematic garbage like The Shrimp on the Barbie (1990)---which was released as an Alan Smithee film, Mr. Nanny (1993) and A Kid in King Arthur's Court (1995). Mr. Gottlieb is still alive, though thankfully, he no longer directs films.

And this week's second cess pool selection goes to the film that was coined the worst film of 1996, Trigger Happy, which was filmed under the title Mad Dog Time. With an A-list cast, an incoherent plot and one of the worst scripts this side of the late '90s, this steaming pile was directed and written by a man named Larry Bishop. It was such a flop that it would be 12 years before someone didn't do their research and decided Mr. Bishop should be given another chance to direct a film, Hell Ride (2008), which, believe it or not, is not a self reflexive title indicating how it will feel to watch the film. Trigger Happy stars Richard Dreyfuss as a crime lord boss who is mentally unstable, driven to a breakdown when his girlfriend, Diane Lane (Yeah, right) breaks up with him. Pregnant, she hooks up with sharpshooter Jeff Goldblum, who works for Dreyfuss. Getting out of a sanitarium, Dreyfuss wants to kill Goldblum, but only Goldblum knows where Lane is, and Goldblum is also diddling her sister, Ellen Barkin. Along the way we also see Billy Idol, Gabriel Byrne (in an atrociously bad role), Burt Reynolds, Joey Bishop, Richard Pryor, Gregory Hines, Angie Everhart, Kyle MacLachlan, and Billy Drago---and none of them, not a single one, is believable. Put this piece in the compost--what a waste.

The 1987 film Anna stands as the directorial debut and only notable feature from director Yurek Bogayevicz, and mostly due to an astounding lead performance from Sally Kirkland, starring as the titular heroine, a New Wave Czech actress who emigrated to the US to follow her Czech director husband, who abandons her after they reach the states. Unable to recreate her success as an actress in New York, Anna is like all the other struggling actresses hungry for work. In her 40's, she's lucky to get the role of an understudy in a Broadway production. Meanwhile, a young woman from her native country seeks her out (model Paulina Porizkova) and emulates Anna, managing to make a success for herself as a film star, sending Anna into a nervous breakdown. Kirkland's performance is amazing, elevating this film from being more than a mediocre character study---her authenticity lends this film a distinct, European atmosphere, along the tragic lines of Sirk or Fassbinder. Kirkland had stiff competition at the Oscars in 1987, what with Glenn Close nominated for Fatal Attraction and Cher winning for Moonstruck---and it's too bad, it's quite a performance to be proud of.

Robert Bresson, painter turned art-house director (a term he despised, claiming those films labelled art house often lacked anything that could be called art) is a one of the world's greateast minimalist filmmakers, and not one whose films you should be watching when fatigued. Having recently watched his famous Au Hasard Balthazar (1966) starring his muse, Anna Wiazemsky, I'm eager to watch more of his work, as the only other film I've seen by him is the also excellent Les Dames du Bois de Boulougne (1945). Balthazar, supposedly a study on saintliness, tells the tale of Balthazar the donkey and Marie the girl, two abused creatures that share similar and at times, intertwined fates in a small town. Most of Bresson's work is open to interpretation, truly an auteur whose work is poetry in motion.

And I know it's serious that I've chosen works by modern German auteur Christian Petzold and classic auteur Fritz Lang over a Bresson work, but, such is life. Petzold is a filmmaker I've quite fallen in love with recently, mostly due to the extraordinary Yella (2007). I also quite enjoyed his modern take on The Postman Always Rings Twice with his film Jerichow (2008). His 2005 feature, Ghosts is kind of the evil German sister of David Auburn's The Girl in the Park (2007), if you were lucky enough to see that. At the heart of Ghosts is Nina, a late teens orphan living in a home for girls, it seems, in Berlin. Forced to participate with the other occupants in a work crew that cleans up the environment, Nina runs into a girl in trouble while cleaning in a park. Witnessing this young women nearly get raped, she supplies her with a shirt and the the girl follows her home. Her name is Toni, and she seems to have just broken up with her girlfriend. Nina is quite taken with her and they decide to run off together and try their luck at a casting agency. Meanwhile, a Frenchwoman who frequents Berlin in search of the daughter that was abducted from her nearly two decades ago, runs into the miscreant lesbians and is convinced that Nina is her daughter---but all is not right with Francoise, it seems (played by Marianne Basler, a dead ringer for Jessica Lange), who always seems to find young lost girls that could be her daughter. An interesting and quietly moving thriller, Ghosts plays with the theme of doppelgangers, mistaken identities, the ego and the id, make believe vs. reality, desperation and obsession. Petzold is an indeed an auteur, and surely one of the best filmmakers currently working in Germany.

Fritz Lang is indeed one of the greatest directors the world has ever known and ever will know. Lang's the real deal, who fled Germany in the early 30's and eventually came to the US under contract with MGM where he would direct some of the best film noir and genre films ever made. Lang was credited with influending filmmakers like Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock and Luis Bunuel. His 1952 feature Clash By Night is more of a melodramatic potboiler than a true noir, but it is often credited as being the latter. Starring Barbara Stanwyck as a woman who'd left her small coastal town, only to return bitter and cynical after the love of her life, a married man, died and left her penniless. Ending up at her brother's home, a fish cannery worker (who happens to be engaged to Marilyn Monroe, in somewhat of a small, but spunky role for her) Stanwyck is romanced by the doltish but well meaning Jerry (Paul Douglas), a co-worker of her brother's. Almost certain she would end up breaking his heart, Stanwyck marries Douglas againts her better judgement, gives him a daughter, and then breaks down into temptation by giving into the wolf at the door, her husband's best friend Earl (the always crass, always icky Robert Ryan). At the last minute Stanwyck questions whether she's making the right decision or not in leaving Douglas high, dry, and heartbroken, but it's where we see her longingly look out the window on the night sky as the waves crash onto the beach and the rocks, where inside her we realize that she's just not the woman meant to hang out the laundry, where it's her insides clashing against the grain, well, you realize that Lang's made a masterpiece ahead of its time, and gives Stanwyck a performance she shines in.