Out of the Past: The Week In Film

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:
1. The Driller Killer (1979) Dir. Abel Ferrera - US

Guilty Pleasure Cinema:
1. Pontypool (2008) Dir. Bruce McDonald - Canada

Astounding Cinema:
5. She Done Him Wrong (1933) Dir. Lowell Sherman – US
4. Chinese Roulette (1976) Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder – West Germany
3. Peppermint Frappe (1967) Dir. Carlos Saura – Spain
2. Germany, Pale Mother (1980) Dir. Helma Sanders-Brahm – West Germany
1. Red Lights (2004) Dir. Cedric Kahn – France

Theatrical Releases:
4. Stay the Same Never Change (2009) Dir. Laurel Nakadate – US 4/10
3. The Runaways (2010) Dir. Floria Sigismondi – US 7/10
2. Fish Tank (2009) Dir. Andrea Arnold – UK 10/10
1. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009) Dir. Niels Arden Oplev – Sweden 10/10

Rewatched Goodies:
1. The Room (2003) Dir. Tommy Wiseau – US 6/10

The Driller Killer (1979): Abel Ferrera is a little hit and miss for me, though I was way too young to appreciate Bad Lieutenant (1992) when I saw it years ago and I’ve never seen the much beloved King of New York (1990). But I have seen and was not impressed with Ferrara’s version of Body Snatchers (1993), and I would add his directorial debut The Driller Killer as a stylistic mess and mediocre at best---it felt like what could have been an un-dubbed Ruggero Deodato film, as Driller made me feel as much in need of a shower as The House at the Edge of the Park (1980)----and let it be noted here as it is everywhere, that like Deodato’s films, The Driller Killer gained most of its notoriety for being labeled a video nasty. While I do agree that the cover art is violently beautiful, I felt Ferrara, casting himself in the lead role, was not a memorable presence in front of the camera. Basically, the plot is about a young painter who slowly goes mad due to numerous social pressures in late 70’s NYC. He has two female roommates he has to ‘care’ for, one of whom he’s romantically involved. Meanwhile, a punk band moves into their dilapidated building beneath them only to play incessant noisy music that would drive anyone insane. But rather than kill them, our young troubled artists buys a power drill and a battery pack and drills homeless, drunken bums to death on the street. While there’s some brilliantly disturbing shots of this, it grows a bit old. The film juxtaposes noisy scenes of band practice, insane shouting from Ferrera (who is credited under the name Jimmy Laine), useless footage of the band performing in grimy clubs, Ferrara’s pissy, snooty homosexual agent harping about the failure of the latest painting while trying to get in Ferrara’s pants, and vicious drill killing. Now, I graduated from a liberal arts college, so I know what that whole scene is like and it got old rather fast, just like this film does in its first third.

Pontypool (2008): The first hour of Pontypool is excellent, uncomfortable, and eerily intense. But once everything is explained, it suddenly seems ridiculous, even though I dearly wanted to find this film’s angle intriguing and ingenious---I just didn’t like it. Stephen McHattie stars in this Canadian production from Bruce McDonald (of The Tracey Fragments, 2007, and the surprisingly good Picture Claire, 2001) as a crusty, bass voiced radio DJ in a wintery Ontario town named Pontypool. Most of the film is set in this radio station (which is the basement of a church). What starts off as a rather boring (though caustic) day with his boss and a teenage assistant, it’s not long before bizarre calls come into the station of strange, bizarre, and eventually homicidal and cannibalistic happenings keep happening in Pontypool. The tension and claustrophobia builds until eventually the three individuals broadcasting from the church basement are told they can’t go inside and that a strange virus is taking over the small town of Pontypool. A virus that may be spread through the English language. As I said, the first hour is virtually brilliant, and then it takes one of the most disappointing nosedives I’ve seen for some time in a film like this. I really wanted to like it more. Garnering numerous accolades and lots of attention, I hear that McDonald is at work on a sequel, Pontypool Changes. I’m sure I’ll see it.

She Done Him Wrong (1933): Nominated for Best Picture, She Done Him Wrong is notable for several reasons—it single handedly saved a studio from bankruptcy, it gave Mae West her first leading role (and from a film she wrote), and made a star out of Cary Grant. It’s the shortest film to be nominated for Best Picture, and darling Mae had to be sewn into most of her dresses. The National Legion of Decency was formed after this movie and cites Mae West as one of the main reasons for its creation---in fact, most of her films from this time period are blamed for the budding censorship laws, and it was 1934 that saw the Hays Code finally begin taking it’s censorship toll. Meanwhile, She Done Him Wrong is a fast and loose little picture and Mae is New York nightclub singer sensation named Lady Lou, who never met a man she didn’t like. One of Mae’s many ex lovers is in the slammer, but escapes to see her, slipping into a jealous, murderous rage upon discovering that she’s been unfaithful to him. Guess he didn’t know her very well. While this film made Mae and Grant a star, the main reason to see it is the ultra salacious West giving us all that’s she got in an endless smattering of seduction, double entendres and eyewinks.

Chinese Roulette (1976): One of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s more obscure titles (one of my favorite directors of all time) turns in a masterful study of mind games and abusive relationships (which I’m certain transcends into a socio-political commentary as well). One of my favorite Fassbinder muses, Margit Carstensen, stars as Ariane Christ, who is married to Gerhard Christ (Alexander Allerson). Their crippled daughter, Angela (Andrea Schober) viciously tricks them into both ending up at their country home with their respective lovers in order to get them all to play the eponymous game, which is like Russian Roulette, except with vicious words instead of bullets. Perhaps meant as a decay of the nuclear family (with reference to aftershocks of WWII to the German psyche----or am I reading into this too much?) the cruel game meant to reveal lies, hidden agendas, and bitter feelings culminates in the virtual personification of bullets and typical brutalities Fassbinder love to explore---the emotionally crippled versus the physically disabled. Sumptuously photographed, Chinese Roulette stars France’s Anna Karina and Fassbinder alums Ulli Lommel as one of the lovers, Brigitte Mira as a perversely faithful housekeeper and Volker Spengler as her strange son.

Peppermint Frappe (1967): Carlos Saura first directed his muse/lover Geraldine Chaplin in this surreal little thriller dedicated to and obviously crafted after the work of Luis Bunuel. Intriguingly similar in plot to films like Vertigo (1958) and Obsession (1976), Peppermint Frappe Jose Luis Lopez Vazquez stars as a very religious and conservative doctor obsessed and attracted to his childhood friend’s newly taken wife. While it seems that many of Saura’s films are also political allegories, the effects of a repressed society are manifested full force in Vazquez, who passively pursues the lust he has for his friend’s wife while also transforming his meek nurse (also played by Chaplin) into looking, dressing and acting like the real object of his affection. But you can never be sure who is screwing with whom, as is often the case in these scenarios, until the very end.

Germany, Pale Mother (1980): An absolutely depressing and devastating portrait of one German woman and her child surviving through the tragedies of WWII. Though you can imagine the trials and tribulations of a woman on her own surviving during and after the war, director Helma Sanders-Brahms gives us a straightforward narrative of a woman holding it altogether and then having it all fall apart during the reconstruction. Actress Eva Mattes gives an amazing performance as Lene, married to Hans (Ernst Jacobi) shortly before he is drafted into the German army, though he staunchly is not a member of the Nazi party). While the subject matter is definitely unpleasant and heartbreakingly realistic, the film is definitely worth a look if you can handle the somber fare.

Red Lights (2004): And this week’s number one film is a highly entertaining little French thriller directed by Cedric Kahn (Roberto Succo, 2001) and stars Jean-Pierre Darroussin (Un Air De Famille, 1996) and Carole Bouquet (yes, everyone’s favorite French Bond girl) as a couple on their way to pick up their children from a holiday camp. However, their marriage seems to be falling apart right before their eyes, and as the tension mounts in their drive away from the city and into the countryside, Darroussin begins to stop at every bar he can for a drink. Bouquet decides that if he stops one more time, she’s going to take the train to meet the kids and leave her husband behind. Well, guess what happens? Bouquet takes off, Darroussin gets trashed, and oh yeah, there’s an escaped convict roaming the area whilst the French police have set up roadblocks to apprehend the menace. One or two subtle twists later and voila! You have one excellent little French thriller on your hands. Screenwriter Gilles Marchand was one of the writers of this screenplay based on a novel by Georges Simenon, and he has teemed up with director Dominik Moll on two stupendous occasions, for With a Friend Like Harry (2000) and the stupendous Lemming (2005). The two have gotten together again for a new thriller starring Melvil Poupaud, L’autre Monde, with Marchand directing (which he also did for the excellent, Who Killed Bambi?, 2002) which is on the hotlist to be announced in two weeks on this years Cannes lineup. I can’t wait!

Stay the Same, Never Change (2009): The feature film debut by visual artists Laurel Nakadate (quite highly esteemed in certain circles) directs an annoyingly trite film about seemingly normal Mid-Western girls dealing with yearning for love with dark forces in their midst. I’m not bothering to try to make it seem more eloquent or complicated than that because it’s not. First off, Nakadate was at my screening to introduce her film, explaining that the film could be frustrating at time and this means people need to ‘read between the lines.’ Ok, so that either gets one in arthouse mode or annoyed. The thing is, Nakadate lines up a lot of striking, and sometimes eerie visuals---but anything she’s trying to do is severely ruined by the less than amateur acting of the non-actors. Instead of issues about violence against women I wanted to critique the film as if it were a grad school film project. Therefore, Nakadate has no business attempting a feature length film at this time. You can’t just paste a bunch of pictures together and call it a film. Oh, sorry, I guess that’s something most people think is ok. My bad.

The Runaways (2010): A fitting double feature, another female visual artist makes her feature film debut with this music biopic about all girl band The Runaways, Joan Jett’s first pet project. There’s a lot to love in this picture, a decent feature debut, but far from stunning. Floria Sigismondi attempts to avoid some of the tropes of the genre, but standard and downright dull newspaper montage scenes, etc, stall the film. The lack of focus on Jett’s backstory doesn’t help anything (though this is based on the book by Cherie Currie) and the biggest detraction is a terrible performance from cinema’s most passive, anti-feminist leading lady, Kristen Stewart. I mean, she’s fucking playing Joan Jett, a bad ass bitch that would have shit all over films that Stewart puts out. What the film does have going for it is the always entertainingly over-the-top Michael Shannon as band manager Kim Fowley, but my favorite part of the whole production is an excellent performance from Dakota Fanning, the only character the film attempts to develop at all. She’s touching, funny, and kind of sad----she made me want to see more. And yeah, she’s portraying a girl that headlined a rock band at the age of 15 and she’s about that age herself. While the film falls into stale mediocrity like a TV special at times, Fanning somehow elevated all this for me, which surprised me.

Fish Tank (2009): Andrea Arnold’s excellent followup to Red Road (2006), Fish Tank stars newcomer Katie Jarvis as in impoverished teen from the projects as she struggles to grow up in squalor (yeah, I call that squalor) with a white trash bitch of a mother and her inappropriate boyfriend (who has some secrets of his own, and in a damn good performance from Michael Fassbender). While it’s interesting to see how this received such a muted reception while another UK film about a British middle class girl growing up in the 60’s received so much more attention (An Education), Fish Tank could just as well have been called No Education. While the modern British projects don’t look terribly different from Thatcher era British films, at its core, Arnold’s film is just how damn hard it can be growing up, and I would say seemed more realistic and timely than Scherfig’s more celebrated film. Jarvis is every bit as good as everyone’s been saying since the film premiered at Cannes 2009.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2009): The Swedish sensation, this film has everything you could possibly hope for in a mystery thriller and more – a decades old unsolved mystery, a tortured and spurned male protagonist, and a tough, strong female lead that’s survived some harrowing life experiences. Niels Arden Oplev directs this first part of the “Millenium” trilogy based on the novels by Stieg Larsson (Daniel Alfredson directed the next two films) while David Fincher has been rumored to have signed on to the American remake in the works (bleh) and worst of all, Kristen Stewart has been rumored to be the lead played by the alluring and strangely sexy Noomi Rapace in the Swedish productions. Beyond the mystery solved in this film, the real attraction is Rapace and her bedeviled character---I couldn’t get enough of her. Co-star Michael Nyqvist shares some interesting chemistry with Rapace, and as they struggle to uncover the mystery surrounding a Swedish girl that had disappeared decades ago, the real mystery still happens to be about Rapace, the girl with the dragon tattoo.

The Room (2003): Yep, had to show it to my mom. She got into it.

Out of the Past: The Week In Film

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:
1. See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989) Dir. Arthur Hiller - US

Guilty Pleasure Cinema:
1. I See A Dark Stranger (1946) Dir. Frank Launder - UK
2. Tight Spot (1955) Dir. Phil Karlson – US
3. Willard (1971) Dir. Daniel Mann – US

Astounding Cinema:
4. Portrait of Jennie (1948) Dir. William Dieterle - US
3. Lola and Billy the Kid (1999) Dir. Kutlug Ataman - Germany
2. Myra Breckinridge (1970) Dir. Michael Sarne – US
1. Walkabout (1971) Dir. Nicolas Roeg – UK

Rewatched Goodies:
4. Lean on Me (1989) Dir. John G. Alvidsen – US 7/10
3. Strange Impersonation (1946) Dir. Anthony Mann – US 9/10
2. A Woman’s Face (1941) Dir. George Cukor – US 9/10
1. Sling Blade (1996) Dir. Billy Bob Thornton – US 10/10

See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989): One of the least successful pairings of comedy geniuses Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder falls completely flat in this Arthur Hiller directed picture, though general consensus deems the fault lies mainly in Wilder’s rewritten script. Wilder plays a deaf man and Pryor plays a blind man and they are both witnesses to a murder. Neither one of them can completely describe what happened, and in order to clear their own names and protect themselves from the real killers, they strike out on their own to finger the killers. Of course, zany madcap attempts to ensue, but with the exception of one or two briefly funny moments, a majority of the film feels forced and sluggish. Though it’s easy to see that Pryor and Wilder have great chemistry together, See No Evil, Hear No Evil is just depressing if you think of what it could have been. Oh, and the baddies are a very 80’s looking Joan Severance and Kevin Spacey.

I See A Dark Stranger (1946): A British film noir of sorts, this melodramatically titled film features Deborah Kerr as a young Irish lass who just hates the damned British. Upon turning 18, she sets out to join the IRA in order to rebel against the Brits and ends up in the hands of a German spy that recruits her to be, well, a Nazi. Unaware of the true intent of what she’s doing, Bridie Quilty (yes, what an annoying name to go with that Irish lilt) realizes at the last minute that what she’s doing is wrong, and thus turns herself in to the British officer that’s fallen in lover with her. A light, frothy little bit of espionage, Kerr is a capable performer as always, though the film ends up coming off as a bit trite and trifling. Recommended for Deborah Kerr fans (because she was an awesome screen legend). Oh, and I love that damned title----which is very similar to Woody Allen’s upcoming 2010 release, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger.

Tight Spot (1955): Director Phil Karlson, responsible for the excellent film noir Kansas City Confidential (1952) also was responsible for this stagey little feature starring Ginger Rogers as a female prisoner being held in a hotel and pressured to testify against a dangerous mobster. The trouble is, the last witness was hunted down and murdered….Ooopsy. Edward G. Robinson stars as the prosecuting attorney begging Rogers to testify in exchange for a reduced sentence, while Brian Keith (in a terribly annoying role) is the gruff, masculine cop that wants to break Rogers into submission. Except he’s got some secrets of his own, and yawn, he falls in love with Rogers and her little platinum dove cut butch hair. Rogers, so damn excellent earlier in her career with the likes of say Bachelor Mother (1939) or her Oscar winning turn in Kitty Foyle (1940) is way over the top here---nearly every scene shows Ms. Rogers trying hard to be a quirky, mouthy, uneducated female prisoner. A lifelong Republican, it’s no wonder Rogers couldn’t relate to her role at all. On the other hand, this makes for fine campy viewing for those of us that still happen to enjoy Ginger despite her political views.

Willard (1971): The original cult horror classic! At last, I finally found a reasonably priced VHS copy (as it’s still not on DVD in this country, even though a pretty damn good remake starring Crispin Glover was released in 2003). Daniel Mann, the director of such awesome cinema as Come Back Little Sheba (1952), The Rose Tattoo (1955) and BUtterfield 8 (1960) was responsible for this nifty little camp classic. Starring Bruce Davison (a star of many a gay iconic film like Longtime Companion, 1990, It’s My Party, 1996, and the anti-mutant senator in gay allegory X-Men) stars as the young, pathetic, friendless Willard, who lives with his mother (an excellent Elsa Lanchester in small role) and is terrorized by his boss (Ernest Borgnine---yes, look for those tight polyester pants on this sweaty big man) that stole his father’s company, and voila! You have a creepy boy that thinks he can make rats do his bidding. Though Willard kind of screws himself over by making his white rat, Socrates, the obvious favorite, while black rat Ben suffers criticism and abuse, leading to some bitterness between the rodents. And a young Sondra Locke (who used to be attached to Clint Eastwood and then also became a director herself) stars as the young office temp that takes pity on the abused Willard. The worst thing about Willard is that it’s really hard to feel bad for him---he doesn’t do a damn thing to stand up for himself, and he’s really weird in a creepy, serial killer sort of way. And then I couldn’t understand why he insisted on being so mean to Ben. Hmmm. Anyway, now I’m keen on seeing the 1972 sequel, Ben, directed by Phil Karlson of Tight Spot (1955).

Portrait of Jennie (1948): Said to be a huge influence on surrealist filmmaker Luis Bunuel, William Dieterele’s Portrait of Jennie stars Joseph Cotton as a young-ish painter that becomes obsessed with a creepy little girl name Jennie (played by the boisterously over the top Jennifer Jones) he meets in Central Park one day. When they first meet, Jennie is supposed to be about 13, and she keeps getting rapidly older each time they do meet, of which the intervals seems to be every couple of months. Cotton is smitten, though who can figure out why when Jennifer Jones trounces around singing creepy songs and insisting her trapeze artist parents are alive and working in a building that infamously burned down decades ago. Which leads me to think Cotton’s obsessive artist isn’t very sympathetic and just dense. Of course, he then can think of painting nothing else but Jennie. Well, you can see the conclusion from frame one, but the film sets about it like it’s an epic love story. The film’s strength comes from the beautifully shot finale, a huge sea storm that’s been tinted an ominous and deadly green for the film screen. While the film stands as an interesting depiction of obsession, I quite enjoyed the dreadful atmosphere Dieterele evokes, an almost predestination we have, both as humans and artists, to sabotage our talents at the same time we may be utilizing them the most. Lillian Gish also appears as a Mother Superior, and the always wonderful Ethel Barrymore scores the most touching moments of the film as an art curator who sees some talent in Cotton as she befriends him and helps save his life.

Lola and Billy the Kid (1999): Turkish director Kutlug Ataman directs this German language film which is basically the story of several different gay Turkish immigrants living in Germany (a cross section of attitudes and cultural racism recently seen depicted also in Fatih Akin’s The Edge of Heaven, 2008). The story is basically about a drag queen named Lola and her uber masculine boyfriend that’s nicknamed himself Billy the Kid after the cowboy hero from the west. Lola, violently estranged from his immigrant family (due to some secrets we find later on in the narrative) attempts to forge a relationship with his younger brother, Murat, whom he only recently discovered he had. Murat is also coming to the realization that he is also gay. Lola’s boyfriend, yearning to be seen as normal by the world, is insisting that Lola undergo a sex change operation so that they can legally marry. One has the sense that Lola, like the protagonist in Fassbinder’s devastating In a Year With 13 Moons (1978), would eventually go ahead with operation if push came to shove. But then there’s these vicious homophobic German men that take pleasure out of beating and stalking the Turkish homosexual prostitutes as they constantly lurk at the edges of the frame. An additional subplot involves a young Turkish prostitute that begins a relationship with a much older German john that lives with his filthy rich mother, which results in some very moving and touching moments in this rather bleak but excellent film about the desperation of these individuals living doubly on the outskirts of society. I’m keen on seeing director Ataman’s follow-up film, a Turkish pic called Two Little Girls (2005) as he is definitely a director to watch out for.

Myra Breckinridge (1970): Yes, that infamous, scandalous motion picture event that ruined a budding director (Michael Sarne) and was considered one of the worst motion pictures ever made. I quite disagree with this consensus and found Raquel Welch’s (whose beauty is truly breathtaking and showstopping here), presence and performance to be completely revolutionary and decades ahead of its time, much like the source novel by Gore Vidal (who hated the movie). Certainly not failed art (though I think a more risqué and accomplished director would have benefited the project---can you imagine what Schlesinger or Fassbinder or Fellini might have done with this material?) it is confusing, at times, to decipher just what’s going on between Myra and her male alter ego Myron (interestingly played by film critic Rex Reed), but that made the film feel like an arthouse Fellini picture. Mae West, in her late 70’s, was perfect for the role of Leticia Van Allen, a casting agent that specializes in sleeping with male actors and multiple double entendres (as was Mae’s own specialty). Her first picture in 26 years, she notoriously did not get along with Raquel Welch---but what aging diva would have? And then there’s a nubile Farrah Fawcett sharing bedroom scenes with Welch----a surreal experience to say the least. The plot is basically that Myron becomes Myra (in a surgery administered by a drugged up surgeon played by John Carradine) and comes to Hollywood to claim half the estate of an acting academy owned by her uncle (John Huston in a disgusting, memorable performance). Myra’s uncle Buck obviously doesn’t want to handle over the reins of his cash cow, and Myra is posing as the widow of his nephew Myron. While Myra attempts to assume control of the academy, she pursues another personal victory, attempting to sleep with a man and a woman so that she can have gained complete superiority as a being. An infamous (and hilarious) male rape scene ensues, along with two musical numbers performed by Mae West that you’ll either love or hate, and a conclusion that’ll leave you scratching your head. But you’ll realize you saw one of the most revolutionary mainstream motion pictures ever to come out of an American studio. And now I can’t wait to devour the novel.

Walkabout (1971): And the number one title this week is Nicolas Roeg’s hailed classic in the Outback, Walkabout, which is about two British children (a young girl played by English film star Jenny Agutter, and the boy the son of Roeg) abandoned in the Australian Outback after their father has, ummm, what appears to be a severe mental breakdown. Struggling to survive, the children stumble upon a young aborigine in the midst of his “walkabout,” a transitional period where young men wander off into the desert until they learn a thing or two about being a man (riffing on how Sigourney Weaver’s character in The Ice Storm, 1997, might have described such an ordeal). Roger Ebert states it succinctly, that Walkabout “doesn’t quite exist in the universe of words.” Yes, the story is basically about a boy and a girl learning to communicate and survive on their own with a young boy that also doesn’t speak their language. But there’s so much more going on than that. Obviously Roeg juxtaposes many instances of civilization vs. the natural world. Ultimately, we don’t focus or feel like the children are suffering (though a bizarre suicide might throw you if you’re not watching closely) but rather that they are on a mystical pilgrimage, and perhaps on a transition of their own. Evoking a magical ambiance and atmosphere, Roeg’s Walkabout is about beautiful landscapes and survival, and more so, about what exists beyond the frame of the film and existence.

Lean on Me (1989): It’s been a while since I sat down to watch a film being aired on television, but last week BET was showing this and I got the hubby interested enough to get into watching it. The film itself feels a little formulaic---how many cinematic heroic savior teachers/educational leaders have we seen before and since? Based on the true (though embellished) story of principal Joe Clark’s experience and renovations of Eastside high school, Morgan Freeman electrifies the screen with a memorable and moving performance. Though Freeman’s finally won his Oscar glory (albeit a supporting win for Million Dollar Baby, 2004) he was definitely shut out from a Golden Globe and Oscar nod in 1990 for his stellar performance here. Director John G. Alvidsen, responsible for the original The Karate Kid (1984), would go on to work with Freeman again in 1992 with The Power of One.

Strange Impersonation (1946): Before making his mark in film by revolutionizing the Western genre, director Anthony Mann made this B-noir sci-fi cheapie about a female scientist (Brenda Marshall) scalded by acid when her assistant sabotages an experiment so she can steal her fiancé. Of course, things don’t go as planned for the assistant when Marshall fakes her own death, undergoes a miraculous plastic surgery, and comes back for revenge! Elements of horror and the macabre keep this potboiler crackling as it races to its formulaic conclusion….but the film is both interesting as an early work of Mann, and also a noir that explores issues of smart ladies in the work force, while also depicting fears of plastic surgery in relation to identity.

A Woman’s Face (1941): Joan Crawford turns in one of her best (meaning less campy) performances in this remake of a Swedish Ingrid Bergman film from 1938. George Cukor, known as the ‘woman’s director’ (yes, he was very gay) was also Crawford’s favorite director to work for, completing this picture after having just worked for Cukor on The Women (1939) and the underrated and often ignored Susan and God (1940). Crawford stars as a scar-faced woman operating a blackmail ring until she stumbles into a plastic surgeon (Melvyn Douglas), the husband of one of her targets. Restoring her face, Douglas jokes that he created a Frankenstein monster, a bitter, broken woman with a beautiful face. Of course, he’s right, as Crawford’s next assignment sends her to Sweden as a nanny in a plot to kill the nephew of her lover so that he can be sole heir to a fortune. Plans are thwarted and the film is melodramatically recounted in flashback as Crawford is on trial for attempted homicide. Pure ‘40s melodrama, Crawford is beautiful and engaging and unfortunately didn’t garner any awards recognition here.

Sling Blade (1996): The stunningly moving directorial debut of Billy Bob Thornton, which also stars Thornton as a reformed handicapped convict that had murdered his mother and his mother’s lover as a teenager and is released decades later, is still the best movie Thornton’s ever done. In fact, I would have to put Sling Blade in a list of the top 50 Best Films ever made, if I ever were to write that list. I hadn’t watched it for well over a decade now, and the hubby’s been on a bit of a Billy Bob kick and I was very thankful to experience the film again as an adult. Thornton gets excellent performances from John Ritter, Dwight Yoakam, Lucas Black, Robert Duvall and Natalie Canerday as Lucas Black’s mother (while also having the distinction of featuring character actor J.T. Walsh shortly before he died). Thornton stars as Carl, recently released from an institution and who returns to his birth place without anyone to turn to or having any sort of plan for the future (preferring to live the rest of his life in the institution). Befriending a troubled young boy and his mother, Carl ends up face to face with Dwight Yoakam, the mother’s red neck, alcoholic, abusive boyfriend. The results are, shall we say, satisfactory for all parties involved. I don’t want to go into too much detail as it’s best just to sit and watch it if you’ve never had the pleasure, but I’m quite sure that I’ve neglected to watch Geoffrey Rush’s Oscar winning performance in Shine (1996) because something tells me I’ll never find it as excellent as Billy Bob Thornton in Sling Blade.

Out of the Past: The Week in Film

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:
1. The Trial Begins (2007) Dir. Vincenzo Marra - Italy
2. Cigarette Burns (2005) Dir. John Carpenter – US
3. Dreams in the Witch-House (2005) Dir. Stuart Gordon – US

Guilty Pleasure Cinema:
1. Pageant (2008) Dir. Ron Davis & Stewart Halpern-Fingerhut 0 US

Astounding Cinema:
4. Good Hair (2009) Dir. Jeff Stilson – US
3. Making Love (1982) Dir. Arthur Hiller – US
2. Key Largo (1948) Dir. John Huston - US
1. Cria Cuervos (1976) Dir. Carlos Saura - Spain

Theatrical Screenings:
4. Alice In Wonderland (2010) Dir. Tim Burton – US 4/10
3. Saint John of Las Vegas (2009) Dir. Hue Rhodes – US 7/10
2. The Ghost Writer (2010) Dir. Roman Polanski – UK 10/10
1. Mystery Team (2009) Dir. Dan Eckman – US 10/10

Rewatched Goodies:
1. The Room (2003) Dir. Tommy Wiseau – US 6/10

The Trial Begins (2007): A huge fan of French legend Fanny Ardant, I was tickled pink to discover that her 2007 Italian film, The Trial Begins had received a DVD release. Apparently director Vincenzo Marra is attempting to criticize Italian society as it follows bland newcomer Michele Lastella as Filippo, a dirty tax official that quits his job to rises through the ranks of Italian society when he falls for a beautiful rich widow played by Ardant. Immediately relegated to a supporting role, at best, the rest of the film focuses on a vague rise and fall of Lastella as he cheats his own books, etc. A completely bland, boring, and uninteresting film, I was mostly pissed for it’s obvious exploitation of Ardant, who has nothing to do whatsoever (though she looks lovely). Lastella is not a charismatic presence, stalking around in his scenes like the Italian, subdued version of Christian Bale. Definitely a film to miss or forget entirely. If you want to see a hyper-realistic film about the underbelly of Italian culture, visit 2008’s Gomorrah.

Cigarette Burns (2005): John Carpenter’s first entry in the Master of Horror series, I finally watched it upon realizing that the wonderful Udo Kier starred in it. Udo is, of course, creepy and weird as a rich cinephile that hires Norman Reedus (giving an incredibly bad performance here) as a young theater owner in need of money, to find one of the most sought after lost (fictional) movies of all time, a notorious French film called “Le Fin Absolue du Monde” (The Absolute End). At the Cannes premiere it caused everyone that saw it to go insane and resort to acts of depravity and homicidal tendencies. Reedus searches for the film and finds it, but by the time we get there, the creepy concept has become silly, laughable, and a bit uncomfortable. At times a denouncement of desensitization and the limits we test to experience events that may be harmful or dangerous to out mental well being, Carpenter is attempting to revisit themes he depicted much more successfully in his Lovecraft homage In the Mouth of Madness (1994). Every year we have a film touted as more graphic, salacious and unbearable. In 2007 we had the excellent Inside; 2008 saw the silly and infamous Martyrs; 2009 gave us Lars Von Trier’s art house gore horror with Antichrist; and it looks like the film to beat for 2010 is the monstrous sounding Serbian Film. While Carpenter’s 2005 Cigarette Burns ends up being shlocky drek, he started out with an excellent commentary on shock cinema.

Dreams In the Witch-House (2005): And horror helmer Stuart Gordon’s first entry in the Masters of Horror series isn’t all that memorable or interesting either. A graduate student rents a dilapidated room in a house that used to or may still be inhabited by a 17th century witch. Well, you can guess what happens, psychosexual antics and all.

Pageant (2008): A documentary that depicts five men as they compete for the annual Miss Gay America pageant, the film is notable to those who are fans of “Ru Paul’s Drag Race” as Pork Chop from the first season is one of the five men whose trials and travails in the pageant are depicted here. At times poignant, the film is quite entertaining to those who enjoy drag queen related material, and it’s interesting to note that the Miss Gay American pageant is the world’s largest male crossdressing competition. For those looking for drama or catty, bitchy queens, you may not be amused---which makes me think the directors took pains to show these lovely ladies in their best light, so to speak.

Good Hair (2009): Chris Rock’s comic documentary offers an intriguing glimpse into one of the least talked about industries in this country---black women and their quest for straight or “good” hair. Watching Good Hair made me quite melancholy, actually. Since straight hair is the cultural signifier of beautiful, the amount of money invested in having straight hair seems ludicrous----something deep inside me wants to say, why can’t you be beautiful and happy naturally? But so says the bald headed white guy, and when has that ever been the case, to be focused on being naturally beautiful? I think I always appreciated being male because I despised the thought of having to put make-up on my face in order to be aesthetically pleasing----and add to that being additionally tasked with keeping your hair straight or weave on right when your natural hair isn’t considered attractive, well, hell, doesn’t that suck? I can understand, though, the need to be considered beautiful within our culture, so in reality I feel like I can’t completely weigh in on the subject---except for the fact that I think Chris Rock is expressing the right attitude on his young girls, that they should be able to feel beautiful as they are. I appreciate his light approach to what could actually be construed as heavy subject matter.

Making Love (1982): Arthur Hiller directed this film, touted as the first ‘mainstream’ film to positively depict homosexuality in US film. Starring early 80’s stars Michael Ontkean, Harry Hamlin, and ex Charlie’s Angel, Kate Jackson, the film tells the story of a seemingly happily married doctor that discovers he’s attracted to a patient, a successful author played by Harry Hamlin. The film was a huge flop upon release, unleashed on an American not ready to accept the subject matter. Looking back, the film is just a quiet little drama that really tells the story of certain generation of gays in America—the closeted married man. While it may be considered uneventful, I think that’s what I loved most about the film. Vito Russo denounced the film as pandering to heterosexual American by portraying protagonist Ontkean as “normal” and depicting him as relishing a “normal” homosexual relationship within a heteronormative paradigm---and how this circumvents an LGBT cry for equal rights. Here in 2010, I believe Making Love was decades ahead of its time. Yes, Harry Hamlin is a bit of a playboy and definitely wants to sleep around, living a free lifestyle---he disappears by the third act because Ontkean wants a partner. I’m a firm believer in the fact that straight or gay, different things make different people happy and marriage isn’t for everyone. I loved that Kate Jackson gives a wonderful, caring performance here and that the male stars are neither stereotypically effeminate or uber macho masculine---they could be anybody. Most of all, I love that both Jackson and Ontkean are happy by the end of the film. In this sense, Making Love is severely overlooked as being incredibly groundbreaking for 1982.

Key Largo (1948): John Huston’s tropical film noir happened to be the last pairing of Bogart and Bacall---but the real meat of Key Largo is Edward G. Robinson as a vicious and cruel gangster on the run and his alcoholic moll, in an Oscar winning performance from Claire Trevor (her character is actually based on Lucky Luciano’s girlfriend). Bogart plays a WWII vet, visiting Key Largo to meet the widow and father of his best friend and fallen comrade in the war. Lauren Bacall and Lionel Barrymore play the respective widow and father, but it’s really bad timing because the resort owned by Barrymore is quickly seized by Robinson’s goons and a hurricane is about to hold them all up together in the resort. Tensions ensure, and Bogart is tempted time and time again to strike against the gangsters (in a move to align him theatrically with the inaction of Hamlet-like proportions, I suppose) and is finally moved into action due to Robinson’s cruel treatment of the alcoholic Trevor. Based on the play by Maxwell Anderson, Key Largo sees every major player in top, sweaty, boozy, noir form---and Bacall is simply breathtaking to behold—as usual. Most of all, see it for Claire Trevor in an entertaining and quite touching performance as a gal who’s lost her guff and loves the bottle.

Cria Cuervos (1976): Considered to be Spanish director Carlos Saura’s most stunning achievement, Cria Cuervos (or Raise Ravens, so named for the Spanish proverb that reads “Raise ravens and they’ll peck out your eyes) is told through the eyes of a young girl (played by Ana Torrent). Filmed in a critical time in Spain’s history, 1975 was the year Franco lay dying, meaning 1976 was a political turning point for the country. And thus, more than a coming of age story, Cria Cuervos is also a political allegory with one family’s female lineage standing in for the state of the country. Geraldine Chaplin (who was involved with director Saura for many years) stars as the cancer stricken mother of the young Ana, involved in a loveless marriage with her fascist soldier husband, who cheats on her with many a woman, including making numerous passes at the family maid. Ana blames her rather ruthless and uncaring father for her mother’s painful and lonely demise and often conjures up ghostly conversations with her mother, fantasizing as narrator that she is the sister image of her mother. Hording a small bottle of baking soda that she is convinced is poison, Ana’s father dies one night while sleeping with his friend’s wife. Ana is convinced she is responsible for killing her father. Now an orphan both Ana and her two sisters fall under the care of their mother’s sister, a woman who means well but isn’t really equipped to take care of children correctly (hence an allegory for a new, unsteady but well meaning and less abusive leadership). On the surface the film is about one of the saddest little girls you’re apt to see in film, but upon further deliberation you’ll find so much going on in Cria Cuervos that your head will spin. And Ms. Chaplin is stunning and haunting as her turn as the dying/ghost mother.

Alice In Wonderland (2010): I’m sorry to say it, but Tim Burton, one of the best directors ever to grace American mainstream cinema, has dropped the worst bomb of his career on America---and it’s making a shit ton of money. I can see where he wanted to go all girl power with Alice, but the film comes off as forced, dull, and frankly, derivative of previous versions and Burton’s own work. In fact, give me Jan Svankmajer’s stop motion or Disney’s creepy opus any day over this dredge. I imagine that the Disney studio had quite a bit to do with the ‘lightening’ of tone of this film. I found newcomer Mia Wasikowska’s turn as Alice rather uninspiring. Johnny Depp, while queerly entertaining, is doing nothing new here---in fact, he has the most awful part of the film in a despicably awful dance sequence. Crispin Glover is horribly underutilized (and looks suspiciously like Edward Scissorhands), while voices of Christopher Lee, Alan Rickman and Michael Sheen are all rather forgettable as well. In fact, the only salvageable people in the film are the queens, Helena Bonham Carter and Anne Hathaway. I don’t mind Burton attempting to put his signature on a classic, creepy tale. But this feels like somebody attempting to be Tim Burton and failing horribly. In fact, I think the CGI works against Burton and makes the film feel lazy and plodding.

Saint John of Las Vegas (2009): While I had a laugh or two watching this directorial debut by Hue Rhodes, I couldn’t help but feel like the Coen Bros. should have directed this (as Rhodes is attempting to make a version of Dante’s Inferno akin to how the Coen Bros. adapted Homer for O Brother Where Art Thou?, 2000). In the end, it’s a pretty forgettable film, with Steve Buscemi doing his thing (which seems much better in Coen Bros. films), Romany Malco trying a tad too hard, and Sarah Silverman, who adds a little fun but creepy spunk. Peter Dinklage and Tim Blake Nelson add some fun to their scenes, but their involvement only makes me feel more upset that a better script and a better director weren’t guiding this film. Basically, Buscemi is an ex-gambler lured back into Vegas by the insurance fraud firm he works for as an investigator. In trying to find out if a stripper was lying about her insurance claim, Buscemi finds that not everyone is really who they say they are (go figure) and makes me glad I don’t like to gamble.

The Ghost Writer (2010): Ahhh, Polanski’s latest semi-political thriller stars Pierce Brosnan as an ex Prime Minister on the verge of being charged with war crimes while dating back to his time in office, while Ewan McGregor plays the man that had been hired to be the ghost writer of his memoirs. McGregor’s character, of course, is never named, appropriately for a film that deals with someone that’s paid not to have a true identity or voice. James Belushi, Timothy Hutton, and Tom Wilkinson all pop up in supporting roles and Pierce Brosnan is smarmily entertaining as the very British official. However, the film’s main focus come from McGregor and the two female characters, the Prime Minister’s wife, played with brilliant bitchiness by Olivia Williams, and the film’s largest detractor (though I enjoyed her), Kim Cattrall, the Prime Minister’s personal secretary and mistress. The main problem with Cattrall is I can’t tell if she was trying for a British accent, or not, etc. She drifts in an out (though she looks pretty good). Nevertheless, the film is at its eeriest, strongest, and most Hitchcockian (yes, that bloody overused inference) at the Prime Minister’s Beach house, where the cinematography is sublime and the atmosphere intense, like in a scene where McGregor has a cryptic conversation about the washed up body of the previous Ghost Writer that supposedly committed suicide while working on a manuscript, with Eli Wallach, of all people (yes, he’s still alive and kicking). While the film dips into more political intrigue that one may either love or hate, I loved Polanski’s latest offering. I’ve never been more keen on watching McGregor maneuver his way through the film, and all the scenes between Williams and McGregor are excellent. Oh, and I loved that final shot, which is Polanski being reminiscent of Polanski.

Mystery Team (2009): I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to see this hilarious film on the big screen. Premiering at Sundance 2009, the film received a very limited release in summer 2009, and I privileged enough that two midnight screenings became available in Minneapolis. Directed by Dan Eckman, the film centers on three teenage senior boys in high school, still playing with Encyclopedia-Brown type adventures and personas. Needless to say, they’re complete nerds, naïve to the ways of the world. The film is obviously a showcase for the considerable talents of the leader of the group played by Donald Glover, who also gets partial screenplay credit. Basically a small girl asks the Mystery Team to find out who murdered her parents, resulting in a charming, funny, and yes, adult film. The film is clever and dirty, in an innocent sort of way and I hope it finds a devout following upon a DVD release.

The Room (2003): And what can I say about The Room except that you'll be seeing it in my re-watched goodies section for some time to come as I must show it to everyone I have the opportunity to show it to. Oh, these quirky American Black Comedies.

Out of the Past: The Week in Film

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:
1. The Brothers Bloom (2008) Dir. Rian Johnson - US
2. The Last of Sheila (1973) Dir. Herbert Ross – US
3. Enchanted (2007) Dir. Kevin Lima – US
4. Dead Snow (2009) Dir. Tommy Wirkola - Norway

Guilty Pleasure Cinema:
1. Je Tu Il Elle (1976) Dir. Chantal Akerman – France/Belgium

Astounding Cinema:
4. Asylum (1972) Dir. Roy Ward Baker - UK
3. Medicine For Melancholy (2008) Dir. Barry Jenkins – US
2. The Flower of My Secret (1995) Dir. Pedro Almodovar – Spain
1. Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) Dir. Stanley Kramer - US

Theatrical Screenings:
3. Cop Out (2010) Dir. Kevin Smith – US 7/10
2. 44 Inch Chest (2009) Dir. Malcolm Venville – UK 9/10
1. It Always Rains on Sunday (1947) Dir. Robert Hamer – UK 9/10

Rewatched:

1. Clash of the Titans (1981) Dir. Desmond Davis – US 5/10

The Brothers Bloom (2008): I was thoroughly unimpressed with director Rian Johnson’s sophomore feature. Though I wasn’t nearly as impressed with his debut, Brick (2005), as the rest of the world seemed to be, I could see why people liked it. But Johnson’s con-man caper about a pair of dull and unbelievable brothers played by Mark Ruffalo and Adrien Brody is tired and lifeless. Rachel Weisz adds some spark (but when doesn’t she?) as the target (or is she?) and Maximilian Schell (of all people) shows up as the father figure cum Fagin figure that taught the boys their trade. The film also suffers from its artsy attempt to appear as a period piece set in modern day times-----which would have worked better if Johnson had decidedly nailed an era. And why is it called The Brothers Bloom? It’s about two brothers, one whose first name is Bloom and the other whose got some other name. Bleh.

The Last of Sheila (1973): One of those notorious 70’s films that uses the secrecy of a homosexual liaison as a twist, Sheila was one of a number films denounced by Vito Russo in The Celluloid Closet. Russo points out that audiences were laughing at the gay twist at the original Cannes premiere---and I can see why. The film stars a plethora of Hollywood glamour pusses and has more twists and turns than you can shake a stick at, or care to remember. It loses steam even before the bigger reveals, and then quickly sinks into a messy jumble of shit. Strangely, playwright Steven Sondheim and everyone’s favorite sexually conflicted film persona, Anthony Perkins wrote the script, where we would get the implausible sexual orientation sideline. Starring Ian McShane, Dyan Cannon, Raquel Welch, Richard Benjamin, James Coburn, James Mason, and Joan Hackett as a group of friends invited aboard Coburn’s boat, Sheila (so named after his murdered wife, killed a year before in a hit and run) to play a murder mystery game that hits pretty close to home. It turns out that one of these Hollywood alums killed Sheila! The film has a lot of difficulties, but you can see where all involved was having a good time. Directed by Herbert Ross (of Footloose, 1984, and Steel Magnolias, 1989) the most notable area of interest is Ian McShane’s face, especially after seeing him in the 2009 release 44 Inch Chest in the same week. Time can be a cruel bitch, can’t it? Poor Ian needs to see Raquel Welch’s surgeons.

Enchanted (2007): Well, I decidedly loathed 90% of this film----but gosh darn it, Amy Adams is quite cute----if only I hadn’t seen her play a frothy princess cartoon in several screen incarnations before I saw this, maybe I would have felt more compassion. Having had friends over to watch it, I managed to offend everyone at my verbal outbursts of disdain, (which was decidedly the wrong thing to do since the hubby likes the film quite a bit) but if there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s one more musical Disney heroine that only manages to cling to the nearest man written into contact for her. What are James Marsden (perfectly cast) and the dull dull dull Patrick Dempsey anyway? They’re just men that happen to come in contact with and she falls in love. But what’s decidedly weak is the film’s dramatic arc, hinging on an evil queen played by an extremely underutilized Susan Sarandon who simply doesn’t want her son to marry the dotty princess. Luckily, Amy Adams’ character is written without a brain and can’t figure out how easy it would be for her to get home to cartoon land and out of Manhattan, by simply retracing her steps, therefore unable to thwart Sarandon’s decidedly uninspired plot. It’s sad to see how watered down Grimm Bros’ derivatives have become. Where’s Millificent? Or Snow White’s evil step-ma to show that there’s only one thing you can do to keep your power---kill a bitch, and try not to make it look like you did it!

Dead Snow (2009): This Norwegian Nazi Zombie comedy made a lot of headlines at Sundance last year, and it was quite warmly reviewed. However, an obvious homage to genre films like Brain Dead (1992) and The Evil Dead (1981), the film becomes silly and irritating within minutes. One particular stand out scene doesn’t involve Nazi zombies, but rather outhouse sex. The characters are a bit tired and the plot is completely kitschy and weak, but then, this is a movie about Nazi Zombies. Luckily, there’s not enough to inspire a Hollywood remake, so this film will most likely be a Norwegian curio piece for years to come. Pretty forgettable, and uninspiring---unless you really get a kick out of watching someone pull themselves up a mountainside via their intestines, well, maybe then you’ll like it. Directed by Tommy Wirkola.

Je Tu Il Elle (1976): The works of 70’s icon, the Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman have recently become available, at long last in the US. Her first full length feature stars herself and Niels Arestrup (recently in notable Jacques Audiard features such as The Beat that My Heart Skipped, 2005, and A Prophet, 2009). Divided into three parts, the film follows Julie (Akerman), a young woman writing what seems to be an interminably long letter to an ex while eating only sugar out of a noisy bad for days on end while she isolates herself in her apartment. Going out into the world, she hooks up with a truck drive (Arestrup) and gives him a hand job while he talks about various things. And then, finally, she meets an ex-girlfriend (Claire Wauthion), and proceeds to eat sandwiches and then have a really long, extended sexual sequence with her. It’s easy to see that Akerman is playing with issues of identity and sexual exploration----and there’s a lot going on in her first feature…..you just might want a spoon and a bag of sugar to watch it yourself.

Asylum (1972): British director Roy Ward Baker has a rather spotty reputation in my mind, mostly because of a large number of films he directed for Hammer studios (which are either really, really bad or surprisingly good). His best film, in my mind, will always be the Bette Davis black comedy/family manner horror film, The Anniversary (1968), but I really quite liked this 1972 feature, Asylum, which is rather like four short horror films in one. A young psychiatrist shows up for a job interview to discover the doctor that called him has been committed to the hospital himself. The doctor currently in charge claims he can have the job if he can visit each of the parents and decipher which one used to the run the hospital only a brief time ago. While most of the patients and their stories are a little silly (like the one involving Peter Cushing, a Hammer staple), Asylum is all worthwhile for the segment involving a gorgeous Charlotte Rampling and Britt Ekland. While the end is a bit laughable, Asylum is a jolly good time and well worth watching.

Medicine For Melancholy (2008): The feature debut of Barry Jenkins, I have extremely high hopes for future films he may helm. Set in San Francisco (a center figure itself in the film, most notably for being one the largest city in the US with the smallest population of African Americans) the film focuses on Micah (Wyatt Cenac) and Jo (Tracey Heggins) who had a one night stand they can barely remember after having met at a party. The day after sees Jo mortified as she reluctantly has coffee with Micah, and they don’t know each other’s names. The rest of the film centers on this day they get to spend together, where we discover Jo has a (white) boyfriend she’s very much involved in, while Micah attempts to woo her. He’s annoying, outrageous (in his attempts to woo her into a relationship with him due to the fact that he’s a member of the same race) but he’s also believable, engaging and human. I really disliked that the beautiful Higgins spends the whole day with him, but you can sense the attraction and fantasy she’s playing with. The cinematography is gorgeous, seemingly black and white, but then you realize the film is mostly just desaturated, which fluctuates throughout the narrative. If I get the chance to rewatch it, I’d love to see if this fluctuates with certain topics or themes the characters are discussing. It’s not a film about race, or even interracial relationships (though Cenac’s outlook on interracial romance is infuriating, but also brilliantly, subversively hinted at being due to the fact that a white lady may have just recently broken his heart) but a film about two people making a connection, and one that’s probably not going to last more than 24 hours. A love letter and an indictment of sorts to San Francisco, the film is indeed rather touching, and just a tad melancholy---and just a pretty damn good film to boot.

The Flower of My Secret (1995): One of Almodovar’s less celebrated features it seems, I was finally moved to watching this after learning it’s loosely based on a Dorothy Parker short story. The striking Marisa Paredes (also in All About My Mother, 1999) stars as an author whose mysterious pseudonym is fantastically famous for her formulaic romance novels, but who has unfortunately become fed up with writing them, mostly due to her own crumbling marriage. While her husband is away serving time in the military, Paredes takes a job with a newspaper as a critic/columnist under her real name, and her new boss falls in love with her. The film is mostly about abandonment and even more so, female authorship. Having recently watched Alan Rudolph’s Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994) it’s not difficult to see that this was borne originally out of Parker’s mind. The juxtaposition of what makes a best selling female author, what women would rather write, and what the female public might buy are all deeper thematics running throughout Almodovar’s film. When Paredes violates her contract and writes a novel that turns out to be the plot for Almodovar’s later feature, Volver (2006), and her husband returns briefly only to vocalize his wish to leave her, her life falls apart, it seems. A minor, charismatically melodramatic (but subtle for Almodovar) The Flower of My Secret is an excellent feature, and perhaps I’m over my resentment towards the overhyped and lazy Broken Embraces (2009).

Judgment at Nuremberg (1961): Director Stanley Kramer’s magnum opus tops this week’s list, mostly for it’s completely cinematic epic status. The material itself is devastating, but once in a while, some serious miscasting makes more some unintentional laughs. Based on the 1948 trial of four Nazi judges in occupied Germany, the film is a courtroom drama sensation. While I don’t believe Burt Lancaster as a Nazi judge is believable for even a second, I did quite like Judy Garland and Montgomery Clift’s turns as Jewish survivors forced to take the stand to tell their tales (both received Best Supporting Actor nods that year). Spencer Tracy stars as the residing judge over the trial (in a role that’s similar too but less sensational than his turn in Stanley Kramer’s equally excellent, Inherit the Wind, 1960) who kind of develops a thing for the magnificently beautiful Marlene Dietrich, the widow of a sentenced Nazi commander. And of course, the most sensational performance of all come from the lawyers, the hot-headed prosecutor, Richard Widmark, and Maximilian Schell in his excellent, Oscar winning role as the defense attorney. Judgment at Nuremberg may be a melodramatic epic, but it’s sensational in subject matter, scope, and meaning, and should be seen by every cinephile. And lord I love that Dietrich. She was 60 here and looked amazing.

Cop Out (2010): The biggest problem everyone’s going to have with Cop Out is the fact that Kevin Smith directed it and it’s not his own material. It’s not raunchy enough, flashy enough, and it’s completely unforgettable fluff that’s mostly an ode to the interracial cop/buddy movies from the ‘80s, a la 48 Hours (1982)---which was more prolific and heady than Smith’s update. Bruce Willis fares alright in a completely forgettable way here, but the saving grace of Cop Out is Tracy Morgan, a charged and insanely animated performer that makes you laugh because he’s funny whether or not the material is. And while it’s always nice to see Guillermo Diaz, he’s completely unbelievable and hammy as a gang lord obsessed with baseball. Seann William Scott (who is sporting gray hairs! I’m getting older!) steals nearly every scene he’s in, making every scene paired with Morgan laugh out loud funny. But as I said, it’s sadly forgettable. And oh boy, Jason Lee’s getting old, too.

44 Inch Chest (2009): While it’s received a lukewarm reception, I quite enjoyed 44 Inch Chest, from the writers of Sexy Beast (2000) and the feature debut of Malcolm Venville. A treatise on misogyny and masculinity, (which makes the title even more brilliant as the measurement literally refers to a piece of furniture but obviously references other measurements) Ray Winstone stars as Colin Diamond, whose wife Joanne Whalley (wow, looking good Joanne) has announce she’s no longer in love with him, and is leaving him for another man (who happens to be Melvil Poupaud). Flying into a rage, he beats her, and for a majority of the film, we’re unsure if she’s alive or dead. A sobbing mess, Winstone calls all his old gangster crones, played by Tom Wilkinson (who lives with his mom), Ian McShane (a reptilian gay predator), Stephen Dillane (a nitwit who does what he’s told), and the creepiest of them all, the decrepit John Hurt, named Old Man Peanut, and whose every other word happens to be ‘cunt.’ Together they kidnap and hold captive Melvil Poupaud and the rest of the film is set in a claustrophobic room where all these masculine egos decide the fate of the lover. A ghostly sequence involving Whalley clued me off to the fact that all these characters are the facets of a masculine ego---his fears, desires, hatreds and roles he plays in society. Ian McShane is brilliant as a strong, gay persona---except that he’s of course a sexual black hole, destined to be alone and have sex like wolves eat wild animals. John Hurt also shines as an extremely homophobic, misogynist while Dillane and Wilkinson are the weaker, passive facets. And there’s Wilkinson, a sobbing mess, unsure of what to do with the French lover----the mere fact that Poupaud has no dialogue only asserts that his origin speaks volumes about manhood and how it relates to the English language. I call this a brilliant film because it’s actually quite unclear as to what may or may not be real---but some of it’s obviousness and claustrophobia (read as stagey) seem to have turned many a viewer off. But it’s uncomfortable and it doesn’t shy away from topics that most American films wouldn’t dare meddle with.

It Always Rains on Sunday (1947): Luckily, I was fortunate to catch this at a local theater showing a series of British Film Noir. Director Robert Hamer’s (perhaps best known for Kind Hearts and Coronets, 1949, in which Alec Guiness plays several different characters) It Always Rains on Sunday is still unavailable on DVD in the US, making this an extra special treat to see on the big screen. Starring the beautiful, severe Googie Withers (who always struck me as a British Barbara Stanwyck) as very unhappy woman due to her unhappy children and obvious lack of passion for motherhood (hey, it’s not for everyone!). But when a lover from her past (whom she had wished to marry) escapes from prison and comes to her for help, she hides him in her bedroom. Meanwhile, the police get closer and closer, while Withers’ family members exacerbate the already extremely tense situation. The post-war London bleakness adds to the ever mounting sense of flight from the dull, bleak existence being eked out by the characters---it feels like it always rains everyday. Excellent film.

Clash of the Titans (1981): A beloved film from my youth (I was obsessed with Greek mythology as a kid, devouring Edith Hamilton’s Mythology in the second grade and any other classic text I could get my hands on) and due to the fast approaching remake to be released in April 2010, I made the hubby sit down and watch it with me. Well, it’s obviously one of those films that haven’t aged well. In fact, it’s a bit notorious for being received as an ill conceived picture at the time of its release. While the claymation Medusa will forever be ingrained in my mind from childhood, Harry Hamlin as Perseus is, well, hammy. And all the Oscar winning Gods (like Maggie Smith and Laurence Olivier) are given nothing to do but stand around in white robes (and I believe Ursula Andress gets one line of dialogue as Aphrodite, while Claire Bloom is equally unmemorable as Hera). Most annoying of all is that damn mechanical owl and an unfortunate blubbering Burgess Meredith. Hamlin in completely uncharismatic and depends mostly on his hair for his acting chops in the film. While the legendary Ray Harrhausen was a masterful special effects wizard for his time, this is sadly a film that would be a good candidate for a remake. So let’s hope Frenchman Louis Leterrier (responsible for that awful Ed Norton 2008 Incredible Hulk update, Transporter 2, 2005, and Jet Li starrer Unleashed, 2005) makes this at least a decent effort. And everyone seems to forget to mention that Desmond Davis directed the original----he mostly worked in television before and after that, if it matters.

Sunday, March 14, 2010 - A Double Feature Event: Surgery Sirens - 1940's & Plastic Surgery Film Noir

Well hello my darling cherubs! The time has come for our monthly movie night Double Feature, and this month’s theme will be the extremely topical, timely and turbulent topic of Plastic Surgery!

The films featured are both 1940’s noir-ish productions about broken women granted new lives with new faces…..but while their faces may have been fixed, their hearts are still scarred wastelands of contempt and hate!

Our first feature will be A Woman’s Face (1941), directed by George Cukor, (who was known as Hollywood’s “woman” director), who was also responsible for such classics as The Women (1939), A Star Is Born (1954) and My Fair Lady (1964). A Woman’s Face stars Oscar Winners Joan Crawford and Melvyn Douglas, about a woman they call a “Scar-Faced She-Devil!” Running time is 106 minutes.

Our second feature is the 1946 sci-fi noir Strange Impersonation directed by Anthony Mann (best known for his reinventions of the Western, such as the excellent 1950 film The Furies starring Barbara Stanwyck) and stars Brenda Marshall as a scorned woman scientist who physically alters her appearance for vengeance---for we all know that Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned! Running time is 68 minutes.

For treats we will be serving breast shaped cupcakes called Pam Andersons and Pam Griers (and no, they are not life size) and nose shaped croissants called Adrien Brodys. During intermission we will be playing a fast and loose plastic surgery murder mystery game called “Who Killed Lefse Potica?” where every guest will play a part in this labyrinthine mind bender. Whoever guesses the killer gets a crack at playing “Pin the Nose on the Cher,” and the ultimate winner will receive an appropriate prize!

Additionally, this will be the last movie night hosted at the current residence that Joseph and I occupy as we will be moving to Loring Park in April. So please come by for one last movie night in our current Uptown abode, where we have had so many good times and watched so much wonderful cinema.

Please RSVP ASAP so that I may have enough roles written for the murder mystery.

House of 1000 Motion Pictures

On May 15, 2008, I decided I was going to keep a complete account of all motion pictures I watched. It was something I had talked of doing for years, and finally decided to lay my qualms to rest about all those movies that would never make it on the list that I'd seen in the past (oh such a purist am I). And so, on 5/15/08, after walking out of a screening of Wong Kar Wai's English speaking debut, My Blueberry Nights, I began my list. And just this past weekend, on February 28, 2010, I have watched a thousand (that's 1,000) films. Eerily, the 1,000th title happened to be The Brothers Bloom (2008)---meaning Rachel Weisz happened to star in the first and 1,000th title on my log.

There was never a number of films in mind or a timeframe with which to watch a 1,000 titles in. But considering I've devoted hours of my life to experiencing what I believe to be one of the most enduring and complicated art forms known to man kind (and that's not to discount literature, etc) I thought it would be interesting to write a little about the demographics of the last 1,000 movies I've watched, focusing mainly on the director (I follow that auteur school more closely than I like to admit). There happens to be a 3-way tie between 8 titles watched a piece from Woody Allen, Alfred Hitchcock and Nagisa Oshima.

The information collected on my spreadsheet of movies includes the following: Title, Year (generally of production), Director, Date, Venue/Format (Theater, DVD, VHS), Personal Rating, Purchase Status (whether I own the film), and Country of Origin. Films that have been previously watched are added to the list but highlighted to signal that this isn't my first rendezvous with the material. Needless to say, the most that can be said from the data collected measures certain directors I may be drawn to and/or the cinema of certain countries.

Not suprisingly, 609 of these titles were solely or partially US productions, while 109 were from France, and 85 from the UK. Germany, Japan, and Spain all hovered between 19 and 21 titles.

So, just for shits and giggles, I have decided to include any directors that I've watched 3 or more titles from, and while we're at it, why not which titles! After all, what could be more exciting than coming back to this when I've watched another 1,000 titles? Well, a lot, but I suppose I find it more intriguing than anyone else. (And bless my darling husband for sitting through a majority of these with me. It means a lot).

3 Title Directors:

Robert Aldrich
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) 10/10
Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte (1964) 10/10
The Big Knife (1955) 8/10

Pedro Almodovar
Bad Education (2004) 10/10
Law of Desire (1987) 8/10
Broken Embraces (2009) 7/10

Ramin Bahrani
Chop Shop (2007) 9/10
Man Push Cart (2005) 8/10
Goodbye Solo (2008) 7/10

Susanne Bier
After the Wedding (2006) 10/10
Brothers (2004) 10/10
Things We Lost in the Fire (2007) 8/10

Ole Bornedal
Just Another Love Story (2007) 10/10
The Substitute (2007) 9/10
Deliver Us From Evil (2009) 9/10

Tod Browning
Freaks (1932) 10/10
Dracula (1931) 8/10
Outside the Law (1920) 5/10

William Castle
Strait Jacket (1964) 10/10
The Night Walker (1964) 6/10
Let's Kill Uncle (1966) 0/10

Nacho Cerda
Genesis (1998) 5/10
Aftermath (1994) 5/10
Awakening (1990) 4/10

Claude Chabrol
Les Biches (1968) 10/10
A Girl Cut In Two (2007) 8/10
The Cry of the Owl (1987) 6/10

Don Coscarelli
Incident On and Off a Mountain Road (2005) 8/10
Bubba Ho-Tep (2002) 7/10
Phantasm (1978) 6/10

Coen Bros.
A Serious Man (2009) 9/10
Burn After Reading (2008) 8/10
Barton Fink (1991) 8/10

Wes Craven
The Last House on the Left (1972) 6/10
Deadly Friend (1986) 4/10
Shocker (1989) 0/10

Guillermo Del Toro
Pan's Labyrinth (2006) 10/10
Hellboy (2004) 8/10
Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008) 8/10

Rainer Werner Fassbinder
The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant (1972) 10/10
Martha (1974) 9/10
The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979) 8/10

Stephen Frears
Cheri (2009) 9/10
Dangerous Liaisons (1988) 8/10
My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) 8/10

Stuart Gordon
Stuck (2008) 10/10
From Beyond (1986) 8/10
Castle Freak (1995) 7/10

Michael Haneke
The Piano Teacher (2001) 10/10
The White Ribbon (2009) 10/10
The Seventh Continent (1989) 9/10

Curtis Harrington
What's the Matter with Helen? (1971) 10/10
Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? (1971) 7/10
How Awful About Allan (1970) 7/10

Stanley Kubrick
The Killing (1956) 10/10
Lolita (1962) 10/10
Killer's Kiss (1955) 7/10

Mike Leigh
Happy Go Lucky (2008) 10/10
Secrets & Lies (1996) 10/10
Life Is Sweet (1991) 10/10

Christian Petzold
Yella (2007) 10/10
Ghosts (2005) 9/10
Jerichow (2008) 9/10

Roman Polanski
Death and the Maiden (1995) 10/10
Rosemary's Baby (1969) 10/10
Bitter Moon (1992) 10/10

Otto Preminger
Carmen Jones (1954) 10/10
Angel Face (1952) 9/10
Advise & Consent (1962) 8/10

Jacques Tourneur
Night of the Demon (1957) 10/10
Out of the Past (1947) 10/10
The Leopard Man (1943) 6/10

Paul Verhoeven
The 4th Man (1983) 10/10
Total Recall (1990) 10/10
Black Book (2006) 8/10

John Waters
Serial Mom (1994) 10/10
Pink Flamingos (1972) 10/10
Polyester (1981) 8/10

Orson Welles
The Stranger (1946) 10/10
The Trial (1962) 10/10
Touch of Evil (1957) 9/10

William Wyler
The Little Foxes (1941) 10/10
Dodsworth (1936) 9/10
The Collector (1965) 8/10

4 Title Directors:

Catherine Breillat
Fat Girl (2001) 10/10
The Last Mistress (2008) 10/10
Brief Crossing (2001) 10/10
Romance (1999) 7/10

Jean-Luc Godard
Breathless (1960) 10/10
2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967) 10/10
Weekend (1967) 9/10
Made In USA (1966) 9/10

Bong Joon-Ho
The Host (2006) 10/10
Mother (2009) 9/10
Memories of Murder (2003) 9/10
Tokyo! (segment "Shaking Tokyo" 2008) 7/10

Wong Kar Wai
Chungking Express (1994) 10/10
Happy Together (1997) 9/10
My Blueberry Nights (2007) 6/10
Eros (segment "The Hand" 2004) 5/10

Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Suddenly Last Summer (1959) 10/10
All About Eve (1950) 10/10
Dragonwyck (1946) 8/10
Cleopatra (1963) 5/10

Paul Schrader
The Walker (2007) 9/10
The Comfort of Strangers (1991) 8/10
Hardcore (1979) 8/10
Cat People (1982) 6/10

Robert Siodmak
The File on Thelma Jordan (1950) 8/10
Criss Cross (1949) 8/10
The Killers (1946) 7/10
Son of Dracula (1943) 6/10

Josef Von Sternberg
The Blue Angel (1930) 10/10
The Shanghai Gesture (1941) 10/10
The Devil is a Woman (1935) 7/10
Macao (1952) 7/10

Robert Wise
Odds Against Tomorrow (1959) 10/10
Born to Kill (1947) 10/10
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) 8/10
Audrey Rose (1977) 5/10

5 Title Directors:

Claire Denis
Trouble Every Day (2001) 10/10
Chocolat (1988) 10/10
35 Rhums (2008) 10/10
White Material (2009) 10/10
Beau Travail (1999) 8/10

Werner Herzog
My Son My Son What Have Ye Done (2009) 10/10
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009) 10/10
Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972) 10/10
Fitzcarraldo (1982) 8/10
Nosferatu: The Vampyre (1979) 8/10

Spike Lee
Do the Right Thing (1989) 10/10
Inside Man (2006) 10/10
Bamboozled (2000) 9/10
She Hate Me (2004) 8/10
School Daze (1988) 6/10

Tyler Perry
Why Did I Get Married? (2007) 8/10
The Family That Preys (2008) 7/10
Meet the Browns (2008) 4/10
Madea Goes to Jail (2009) 4/10
I Can Do Bad All By Myself (2009) 1/10

Steven Spielberg
Indiana Jones & the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) 10/10
Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom (1984) 10/10
Jurassic Park (1993) 10/10
Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade (1989) 8/10
Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) 4/10

6 Title Directors:

Dario Argento
Suspiria (1977) 7/10
Jenifer (2005) 7/10
The Mother of Tears (2007) 6/10
Deep Red (1975) 4/10
Inferno (1980) 3/10
Trauma (1993) 2/10

John Carpenter
The Thing (1981) 10/10
They Live (1988) 10/10
Someone's Watching Me (1978) 10/10
Christine (1983) 10/10
Village of the Damned (1995) 8/10
The Fog (1980) 3/10

8 Title Directors:

Woody Allen
The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) 10/10
September (1987) 10/10
Manhattan (1978) 10/10
Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993) 10/10
Crimes & Misdemeanors (1989) 10/10
Whatever Works (2009) 10/10
Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) 9/10
Shadows & Fog (1992) 8/10

Alfred Hitchcock
Psycho (1960) 10/10
Rope (1948) 10/10
To Catch a Thief (1955) 10/10
Shadow of a Doubt (1943) 10/10
The Skin Game (1931) 9/10
Frenzy (1972) 8/10
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1955) 8/10
The Lodger (1927) 8/10

Nagisa Oshima
Taboo (1999) 9/10
Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (1983) 8/10
A Town of Love and Hope (1959) 7/10
Pleasures of the Flesh (1965) 6/10
The Sun's Burial (1960) 6/10
Cruel Story of Youth (1960) 6/10
Violence at Noon (1966) 5/10
Night and Fog in Japan (1960) 4/10