Out of the Past: The Week in Film

Guilty Pleasure Cinema:
1. The Last of England (1988) Dir. Derek Jarman - UK

Astounding Cinema:
6. Blood and Wine (1996) Dir. Bob Rafelson – US
5. Party Girl (1995) Dir. Daisy Von Scherler Mayer – US
4. La Grande Bouffe (1973) Dir. Marco Ferreri – Italy/France
3. Brief Crossing (2001) Dir. Catherine Breillat – France
2. Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972) Dir. Werner Herzog – West Germany
1. The Blue Angel (1930) Dir. Josef Von Sternberg - Germany

Theatrical Screenings:
4. Dirkie (1969) Dir. Jamie Uys – South Africa 6/10
3. The Room (2003) Dir. Tommy Wiseau – US 6/10.
2. Shutter Island (2010) Dir. Martin Scorsese – US 9/10
1. Brighton Rock (1947) Dir. John Boulting – UK 10/10

Rewatched Goodies:
1. Village of the Damned (1995) Dir. John Carpenter – US 8/10

The Last of England (1988): Derek Jarman was an amazing trailblazer, both as an experimental filmmaker and an openly gay director making movies about overtly gay subjects. Having seen several of his films at this point, I’ve discovered that he can sometimes be a difficult director to enjoy, with his most accessible work being the magnificent Edward II (1991). As his protégé was the talented and wonderful Tilda Swinton, it’s always enjoyable to see her pop up in Jarman’s works, and the 1988 experimental apocalyptic treatise on England under Thatcher’s rule, The Last of England, is no exception. Except that my mind kept wandering after the first ½ hour or so---but the film does take on a strange eloquence when you realize it’s like beautiful blank verse on film. Tilda pops up towards the conclusion, screaming and writhing in a wedding dress that she cuts up with scissors. Unfortunately, the film is a bit difficult to sit through---or maybe I just have a short attention span.

Blood and Wine (1996): I’m still on the fence about putting this film in the top tier rather than as a mere mediocre film. It plays like a sweaty B noir film so there’s much to appreciate----I think I just find it hard to believe that Jennifer Lopez would fall for anyone as seedy looking as Jack Nicholson and her ‘cubano’ accent is a bit distracting. Set in Miami, Bob Rafelson’s film focuses on Nicholson, a wine seller and two bit crook who concocts a plan to pilfer a diamond necklace from the rich folks employing Lopez as a nanny. Nicholson’s partner is the wheezing, emphysemic Michael Caine, the highlight of the film. Sprinkle some tension on with Nicholson’s battle ax wife (the always enjoyable Judy Davis) and her hot tempered surfer dude son, Stephen Dorff. While the end result is a bit trifling, Blood and Wine is still an enjoyable film if you leave all your expectations at the door.

Party Girl (1995): I love Parker Posey, so I’m not sure why it took me so long to get around to seeing Daisy Von Scherler Mayer’s Party Girl, one of the best lead mid 90’s performances from Posey this side of The House of Yes (1997). Basically the plot centers around Posey as a hard partying New York City gal who knows how to throw one hell of a get together. Ending up in jail upon being busted by the police, Posey is forced to reach out to her godmother, a prim and proper librarian, to bail her out. The deal is, Posey must take a job at the library to pay her back. Along the way, Posey discovers that there’s more to her than just the next best party, and she falls in love with a Turkish street vendor. Liev Schreiber stars as a British love interest and Guillermo Diaz (in his second film) is her DJ roommate. A lovely Posey and a flash back to mid 90’s NYC party scenes make this a treat indeed, even if the plot becomes a bit innocuous--- while some of Posey’s wardrobe has notably gone out of and back into fashion since. It’s just too bad that Mayer’s subsequent directorial features (this was her debut) never made her a major player (from Woo, 1998, to Madeline, 1998 to The Guru, 2002).

La Grande Bouffe (1973): While many cite Peter Greenaway’s The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989) as owing a lot to bizarre Italian director’s most notorious film, La Grande Bouffe, I personally find Greenaway’s piece to be a distant cousin at best (and a superior film to boot). However, Ferreri’s strange picture features a group of four bourgeois friends that get together one weekend to eat themselves to death and engage in lurid sexual, orgiastic acts. Signifying a decline of capitalist society and the dangerous decadence of consumerism, La Grande Bouffe is indeed an interesting metaphor, and is a tad disgusting at times (though I hardly find it worthy of an NC-17 rating, but then I’m not a prude conservative with his asshole sewn together, now am I?). And the film is exactly that----four men that eat themselves to death that all debauch a curious schoolteacher they invite over for a weekend of sumptuous feasting. French stars Michel Piccoli and Philippe Noiret join Italian stars Marcello Mastroianni and Ugo Tognazzi while Andrea Ferreol stars as said teacher. A must see for cinephiles seeking intriguing and controversial fare.

Brief Crossing (2001): Catherine Breillat happens to be one of the best directors of all time in my book. Ms. Breillat takes a lot of criticism for her darkly, graphically sexual films. Well, she’s much appreciated in my book. Brief Crossing was made the same year as my favorite Breillat film, Fat Girl (2001), and it happens to be her least sexually explicit affair, focusing on a young French teenager (Gilles Guillain) and an older, bitter, British woman (Sarah Pratt) who has seemingly just left her husband. The film is set almost exclusively set on an ocean liner, and focuses solely on the shifting power struggle between an inexperience young man and an embittered woman fed up with men. A few drinks leads to some heightened sexual tension, which leads to sex. However, you’ll be so lost in Pratt’s excellent bitterness and Guillain’s spot on portrayal of inexperience that the ending will come before you know it. And if you’ve become involved at all with the characters, you’ll not forget the truthful and painful conclusion.

Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972): The first union of one of cinema’s strangest and bizarrely beautiful pairings, actor Klaus Kinski and director Werner Herzog happens to be a beautiful, dark, and daring picture, the very famous Aguirre, the Wrath of God. Set in the 16th century, the film focuses on Aguirre, a Spanish explorer that takes command of an expedition to find the fabled city of El Dorado. Brutal, insane and viciously unstable, Aguirre leads his fellow men (and his daughter) through a mutiny and then forces them to face the elements of the jungle, which slowly but surely reduces their numbers to oblivion. The images, the soundtrack and deliberate pacing create a mood of intense madness, which was much more akin to the feeling I had after reading Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness,” than Coppola’s more famous film, Apocalypse Now (1979). A magnificent piece of artistry from the creepy Kinski and brilliant Herzog.

The Blue Angel (1930): The film that made an overnight sensation of screen legend Marlene Dietrich, and also director Josef Von Sternberg----the first pairing of another of cinema’s most glamorous and memorable pairings. The Blue Angel tells the tale of a Weimar era cabaret singer named Lola Lola, a sexually unbridled fire cracker of a woman. A local professor, (Emil Jannings) is both sexually repressed and completely naïve, stumbling upon the nightclub The Blue Angel by accident and becoming instantly attracted to the beautiful Lola Lola. He becomes so infatuated with her that he loses his job and convinces Lola Lola to marry him, following her troupe around Germany. Eventually she loses interest in him and to support himself he is forced to don a clown outfit for an act of his own, which literally ruins him in a moving and brilliantly filmed sequence when the professor is forced to perform in his hometown to a sold out crowd that came to ridicule him. Dietrich’s famous song from the film is “Falling In Love Again,” which is most chilling when she casually performs the song for a second time at the film’s conclusion. A depiction of obsession and honest sexuality way before its time, The Blue Angel gives us one of the most beautiful women that ever lived for the first time----the ultimate film of degradation and humiliation.