Out of the Past: The Week In FIlm

Cess Pool Cinema:
1. Satan’s Baby Doll (1982) Dir. Mario Bianchi - Italy

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:
1. Iron Man (2008) Dir. Jon Favreau - US

Guilty Pleasure Cinema:
1. The September Issue (2008) Dir. R.J. Cutler - US
2. Spring of Life (2000) Dir. Milan Cieslar – Czech Republic
3. Stromboli (1950) Dir. Roberto Rossellini - Italy

Astounding Cinema:
6. Fine Dead Girls (2002) Dir. Dalibor Matanic - Croatia
5. Car Wash (1976) Dir. Michael Schultz - US
4. Rome, Open City (1945) Dir. Roberto Rossellini – Italy
3. Jules and Jim (1962) Dir. Francois Truffaut - France
2. Nine Lives (2005) Dir. Rodrigo Garcia – US
1. Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her (2000) Dir. Rodrigo Garcia - US

Theatrical Screenings:
3. The Girl By the Lake (2007) Dir. Andrea Molaioli – Italy 5/10
2. Greenberg (2010) Dir. Noah Baumbach – US 8/10
1. Terribly Happy (2008) Dir. Henrik Ruben Genz – Denmark 9/10

Rewatched Goodies:
1. Tootsie (1982) Dir. Sydney Pollack – US 10/10

Satan’s Baby Doll (1982): You’d probably assume that I’d just love a movie with this title that sports dialogue from a leathery, tan nun (played by B Eurosleaze sensation Mariangela Giordana) like “I’d rather die than let an oily character like you stain me,” or our villain/protagonist (I don’t know and don’t remember) played by Aldo Sambrell screaming “You dirty paraplegic!” But I just didn’t. Seemingly about a young girl (Jacqueline Dupre, a barely legal thing showing off her tender bits in her only credited screen role) that’s possessed by the soul of her dead mother, who just happened to be the world’s biggest slut, the film explores every possible and impossible rationalization for women from all walks of life to be naked and vaguely playing hard to get. The result is, as you can imagine, quite dull. I bought this a couple years ago when it was granted a DVD release (when I was going through a peculiar Italian giallo phase, though I must admit I never really cared for any of them. I’ve also quite smoking and become a gym rat since then, so I guess let that speak for itself) based purely upon the fact that it mentions a bizarre chicken scene (save your breath and watch John Waters’ Pink Flamingos, 1972 instead) and it’s clever riff on the Carol Baker/Tennessee Williams hothouse Southern melodrama, Baby Doll, 1956. Needless to say, this is one baby that belongs in the corner. Directed by Mario Bianchi.

Iron Man (2008): Now, I can’t say I really care for Jon Favreau as an actor, and I think I like him even less as a director. The only reason I sat down to watch Iron Man was because Mickey Rourke looks delightfully creepy in the soon to be released sequel (and I do enjoy Robert Downey Jr.). One of the biggest box office hits from 2008, I wasn’t expecting that I would be so, well, fucking bored. I mean it takes an hour for the film to set itself up (Downey constructing makeshift Iron Man suit in Afghanistan caves, Downey rebuilding a more advanced suit at home, Gwyneth Paltrow in an underwritten role, second that for Terrence Howard) for a rather uneventful second half involving baddie Jeff Bridges as Iron Monger. Bleh. A running time over two hours, and for what? Downey is entertaining, but in that bitchy way people talk when they know they have an audience---he does the exact same thing with a British accent in Sherlock Holmes (2009). While it may not be the worst super hero film I’ve seen, it’s definitely not worth two hours of life.

The September Issue (2008): Gays seemed to rejoice everywhere about this documentary concerning Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of Vogue magazine (and whom The Devil Wears Prada, 2006, is based). What results is hardly as sensational as you’d think (yeah, she’s kind of a crusty bitch, but so what?) since it’s really about a professional woman that takes her job, well, seriously. An interesting glimpse into the machinations behind a colossal, worldwide empire, I found Anna Wintour to be anything but the dragon I had assumed she was. I doubt we’d be friends, but something tells me we might respect each other if we didn’t have to be coworkers.

Spring of Life (2000): I hardly know why I absolutely love some WWII holocaust dramas and why I just can’t get into others----and I may just be more and more desensitized to the subject matter as my cinematic years fly by. This feature from the Czech Republic centers on a group of German women being experimented on by the Nazi SS, but it’s hardly as salacious as you think, and nothing as arduous or terrifying as a film would be about Mengele experimenting on Jewish twins. Basically, the SS collected a bunch of very ‘Aryan’ looking women, put them in a country house (sounds a bit like Salo, or 120 Days of Sodom, 1975, right?) have some German soldiers knock them up and then cart off the babies to be raised us brainwashed Aryan youths (which also eerily reminded me of The Boys From Brazil, 1978). Our story is told through the eyes of Gretka (Monika Hilmerova) a young Serb whose German officer is homosexual, prompting her to have intercourse with and become impregnated by the young Jewish slave/farmhand she is in love with. While there’s nothing innately wrong with Spring of Life, it’s just a bit sanitized and completely by the numbers. Hilmerova turns in a good performance but there’s not much to be taken away from watching it.

Stromboli (1950): The infamous Italian language film funded by Hollywood and where Roberto Rossellini began his infamous, scandalous affair with the married Ingrid Bergman. The result was a rather messy film, perhaps suffering most from studio funded control and a director a tad unable to tear himself away from how he felt about his leading lady and how he felt about his movie. A change in the production company changed the lead from being Anna Magnani (who Rossellini was also having an affair with) to Ingrid Bergman, and strangely, a simultaneous film went on to be made in the same year starring Magnani called Volcano. Bergman stars as a woman from the Baltic stuck in a prisoner’s camp after WWII. Attempting to flee to South America, she is not granted a visa and therefore marries a young Italian soldier (Mario Vitale) who has asked her hand in marriage. He carries her to the volcanic island he was born and raised, Stromboli, where Bergman nearly immediately hates and spends the entire film bitching and moaning about how much she hates living there. While some find this to be an underrated classic, I found it to be pure camp, and an obvious example of the difference between an auteur finding a muse and an auteur obsessed with a woman. The very last frame seemed especially laughable, but this is definitely a film to check out for fans of Bergman or lovers of Rossellini. I wonder if Isabella likes this movie?

Fine Dead Girls (2002): A lesbian thriller from Croatia? I could barely contain myself at the find (which, by the way, is officially the first Croatian film featuring gay protagonists). The film opens with as a framed story as one ex-lesbian relates the story of her tragic past in order to tell two policemen her rationale for accusing a wheelchair bound woman of abducting her child. What follows is the story of a closeted lesbian couple renting an apartment in a working-class area known as Zagreb, which turns out to be a hothouse of homophobia, prostitution, and one insanely monstrous female landlady---she’ll make you feel so dirty and gross you’ll feel like you just bathed in bootleg vodka. Several instances in the film had me feeling extremely uncomfortable----this isn’t a polite, tidy thriller and I highly recommend seeking it out.

Car Wash (1976): While Richard Pryor and George Carlin are featured on the cover, their appearance here are more akin to cameos than roles----and it’s no matter because the best part of this light and frothy, yet touching and moving film (that is credited with signaling the beginning of the end of blaxploitation) is the ensemble cast of employees and their experiences in one day at the car wash. An absolute standout is Anthony Fargas as a sassy drag queen who famously tells a young Bill Duke, “Honey, I’m more man than you will ever be, and more woman than you will ever get.” Scripted by Joel Schumacher and directed by Michael Schultz, Car Wash is a one film from a bygone era that still feels funky, fresh, adorable and utterly charming.

Rome, Open City (1945): The first of Rossellini’s War Trilogy began filming directly after the war ended, features Anna Magnani as an expecting mother and Aldo Fabrizi as a priest helping the resistance. However, Magnani, about to be married, is ruthlessly shot down in the streets when her fiancé is arrested for helping a resistance leader attempt to leave the country, himself betrayed by his lover played by Maria Michi in her film debut. The film is credited with bringing on the wave of neo realism with it’s gritty, documentary style unfolding of horrific events in 1944 on the streets of Italy.

Jules & Jim (1962): One of the most famous films of the French New Wave, and one of the most famous and influential films of all time is Francois Truffaut’s Jules & Jim, which made Jeanne Moreau an icon of cinema. Having so many expectations for what was considered a revolutionary film, I wasn’t disappointed, and Truffaut created quite the cinematic masterpiece that centers around two best friends and their (pathetic?) passion for one very selfish, somewhat unremarkable woman. Oscar Werner and Henri Sarre star as the eponymous buddies that pine over one of cinema’s most famous, irritating, yet thoroughly engaging female characters created.

Nine Lives (2005): I had been meaning to watch Rodrigo Garcia’s first two feature films for some time, but I stuck them farther and farther on the backburner after watching his third feature film, Passengers (2008), which I think we can all agree was an utterly disastrous failure of a film----but in retrospect, I have come to believe this was Garcia’s attempt at a big budget flick written by someone else. Within minutes of sitting down to watch Nine Lives, which is simply the semi-intertwining stories of nine very different women at different crossroads in their lives, I was utterly engaged and in love with the film. Between Elpidia Carrillo and Lisa Gay Hamilton both had me in tears, and each segment was moving, touching, and absorbing in its own way, boasting a cast of Robin Wright Penn, Holly Hunter, Glenn Close, Amanda Seyfried, Dakota Fanning, Ian McShane, Sissy Spacek, Sydney Poitier, Jason Isaacs, Amy Brenneman, Mary Kay Place, William Fichtner, Kathy Baker, and Joe Mantegna. Immediately after watching this film I knew I had to get a copy of his feature debut, Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her (2000), which, as you can see….

Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her (2000): made the number one spot this week. A little tighter than his followup, Garcia’s first film (who is, by the way, the son of author Gabriel Garcia Marquez) features the stories of five different women, also at very different parts of their lives. Again, within minutes I was drawn into these raw and nagging little vignettes, my favorites here being Glenn Close, and I was moved and upset after Holly Hunter’s segment. Calista Flockhart and Cameron Diaz (both actresses that made me want to avoid the film initially) turn in powerful turns, with support from Amy Brenneman, Kathy Baker, Valeria Golina, and the late, great Gregory Hines. Words cannot describe the cinematic poetry of both of these Rodrigo Garcia films. It is a shame and a crime that his first feature was not released theatrically due to it’s studio frightened that it may not find an audience----which is truly depressing because this is exactly the kind of cinema that stands as a piece of moving, speaking art. I don’t know what he was thinking or what happened behind the scenes on a turkey like Passengers, but Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her is one of the most moving films I’ve seen in some time and I can’t begin to tell you how damn excited I am for his latest film to be released in my area, Mother and Child (2009), which I am now kicking myself for neglecting to see at Toronto last year.

The Girl By the Lake (2007): While it’s not a terrible film, it certainly is one of the dullest murder mystery thrillers I’ve endured for some time. The directorial debut of Andrea Molaioli, who has worked as an assistant director with some of Italy’s modern auteurs, swept the David di Donatello awards in 2008 (the Italian Oscars) and I’m sad to report that I didn’t really care for it at all. A young woman’s body is discovered by a lake, and Toni Servillo does his methodical best to discover whodunit. And yeah, that’s about it. Valeria Golina stars as the mother of a dead young child, and even she is unable to breathe any fresh air into this rigid formula.

Greenberg (2010): I was one of the only people, it seems, that absolutely loved Noah Baumbach’s brilliant, dark and downright bitchy and mean third feature, Margot at the Wedding (2007). In fact, I’m still convinced that if some European auteur had directed it that it would have had a better chance at receiving the attention it deserved. That said, Baumbach’s latest feature, while far from being a bad film, is perhaps my least favorite Baumbach film so far---again, which isn’t to say that I didn’t highly enjoy it. Ben Stiller gets all awards hungry as a man having recently suffered a nervous breakdown who goes to stay at his brother’s home (Chris Messina) and falls in love with his personal assistant (mumblecore queen Greta Gerwig). Gerwig especially shines here as a young twentysomething navigating her way through a loveless world and making all the wrong decisions, the biggest, of course, being falling for a grade A asshole like Stiller’s character. Rhys Ifans is another bright spot in the film as Stiller’s friend from high-school, as is Baumbach’s wife and co-writer Jennifer Jason Leigh as Stiller’s ex from high school. The whole affair felt like a down and dirty Wes Anderson look at the male psyche, but that reading, I admit, it entirely lazy and dismissive---though moments felt like an Anderson film but just removed from any fantastical quirkiness. And while all involved have created a pretty damn good film about an asshole, egotist in the throes of midlife neurosis, I just wanted Ms. Gerwig to kindly walk away and realize her sweetness would find someone so much better suited for her.

Terribly Happy (2008): I must say I was terribly pleased with my much anticipated viewing of the Danish film, Terribly Happy (which is about to be remade for illiterate Americans) and focuses on a police officer banished to a small town for punishment (more midlife crises drama) after a nervous breakdown, only to discover some severely devious happenings going on with some of the residents. To me it felt like the Coen Bros. at their darkest directing their black comedy version of Hot Fuzz (2007), but that’s only speaking to the atmosphere and tone of the film. I think I was expecting the film to be a lot more comic than it is, but I did enjoy it’s moodiness, which, thinking back on, does happen to feel a little Lynchian, if only for the strange and bizarre way the small town comes together over certain, ahh, issues. Definitely must see cinema, and please make a point to see this before whatever remake happens to come along in the next year or so.

Tootsie (1982): Oh my, it’s been a quick minute since I sat down to watch Tootsie, which I insisted on making the husband watch since he had never seen it. Dustin Hoffman nails every scene he has in drag and had me cracking up in almost every scene. I don’t think I had remembered how damn funny Teri Garr is as Hoffman’s sometimes girlfriend, while Charles Durning and Bill Murray (and a young Geena Davis) were all refreshing little highlights. It was hard for me to admit to myself watching it now that Jessica Lange’s not all that special in her Oscar winning performance here---but then I truly think it’s because Meryl Streep won for Sophie’s Choice and Jessica Lange, who was also nominated for Frances in the Best Actress category, was given compensation by winning for this. Oh well. It’s pretty hilarious and was directed by one of the best American directors we had, Sydney Pollack, who sadly passed away in 2008---thank you for Tootsie and that damned fine film, They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1969).