Cess Pool Cinema:
Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2008) Dir. James Nguyen - US
Of Interest:
The Killer Is Loose (1956) Dir. Budd Boetticher - US
Guilty Pleasures:
The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) Dir. Robert Fuest - US/UK
Norbit (2007) Dir. Brian Robbins - US
Essential Cinema:
The Battleship Potemkin (1925) Dir. Sergei Eisenstein - Soviet Union
The Naked Civil Servant (1975) Dir. Jack Gold - UK
Theatrical Screenings:
Melancholia (2011) Dir. Lars Von Trier - Denmark 10/10
Another Earth (2011) Dir. Mike Cahill - US 9/10
Sarah's Key (2010) Dir. Gilles Pacquet-Brenner - France 6/10
Birdemic: Shock and Terror (2008): Director James Nguyen's offering of one of the worst films ever made is truly that....but not one worthy of a cult following. Obviously self-aware of its utter badness, the film is a ribald, desperate demand for the love of a cult following, which, sadly, it has. You can't set out to make an awful film on purpose; one must aim for greatness and fail miserably, the earmark of a great "so-bad-it's-good" cult classic like Showgirls (1995) or Tommy Wisseau's The Room (2003). Birdemic is straight up remake of The Birds (1963) as if filmed by a handicapped child. There's nothing funny or remotely entertaining. Of course, a sequel is being filmed.
The Killer Is Loose (1956): I seem to be flying through Joseph Cotten's filmography, for some reason, but here he is in this rather B-ish noir as a clueless copper. Well, turns out ex-cop Wendell Corey (I've said it before, and I'll say it again---this man looks like a creepy ventriloquist dummy) took a job at a bank to be an inside man in a heist. Dummy gets caught and his lady friend gets riddled with bullets when the coppers come for him. Corey is so upset, that at his trial, he vows to take Cotten's girl away from him when he spies Rhonda Fleming (who reminds me just a tad of Priscilla Presley). Yes, he escapes from prison (title) and yes, comes for Rhonda....and along the way everyone just acts so horribly dopey about the whole thing, especially Cotten, who has to be convinced that Corey really has murderous intentions for his wife. Fools. All in all, a decent half-baked noir, but really only worth it if you like any of the three leads, especially Corey, who makes good with the blade of a garden hoe.
The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971): A weird, wacky little period thriller featuring Joseph Cotten as a top notch surgeon and Vincent Price as a maniacal surgeon thought to be dead was very successful and spawned a sequel. The, errr, plot, is strangely similar to abovementioned The Killer Is Loose, in that, years earlier, Cotten headed up a surgical team that operated on Price's wife that accidentally caused her untimely death. Upon hearing the news, Dr. Phibes took a nosedive off a cliff and was thought to have burned to death. Wrong! He lived! And has surgically reconstructed a make-shift face (though why anyone would make a Vincent Price face to remain inconspicuous is beyond me) finds a mansion in London, from which he plays a creepy organ, and also, a beautiful, oddly dressed in feathers lady assistant named Vulnavia. And, oh yeah, he has to talk via one of those creepy sounding voiceboxes and must take liquids through an apparatus or aperture of some sort in his back. Yes, delightfully strange! To get vengeance on the surgical team for takin' away his baby, he devises an incomprehensible and ludicrous plot to kill them one by one via the plagues of Egypt----yes, locusts, hail, blood, first born child, bats, yada yada. While there's definitely some nifty set pieces, it is all a bit silly. I do have a mini poster for this film, currently hanging in my kitchen, which sports an awesome riff on that ridiculous line from Love Story (1970): "Love means never having to say you're ugly." Indeed.
Norbit (2007): True---it's not a well made film, and it's extremely sloppy, especially concerning plot and any supporting characters not played by Eddie Murphy. I don't know who told Thandie Newton that she should play her character like a twit-brained pill popper with severe self-esteem issues, but here she is, doing just that. While this is basically another Eddie Murphy drag-show extravaganza, there is something eerily entertaining about his fat black lady bitch Rasputia. The voice, the body, the horrible things she does---this film should have been named for her and not the boring, snivelling, Norbit, a characterizaion Murphy has done before and to better effect (Bowfinger, 1999). While it seems dressing leading men up as women strikes comedy gold box office with heterosexuals in cinema history (Some Like It Hot, 1959; Tootsie, 1982; Mrs. Doubtfire, 1993--not unlike straight people's predilection to play songs by The Village People at weddings) it's interesting to narrow the field to black leading men doing drag performance in mainstream American cinema in the past decade or so. For the sake of comparison, please recall Martin Lawrence in Big Momma's House (2000), which spawned two miserable sequels, in 2006 and 2011. True, he's an undercover cop, so perhaps more in line with his white counterparts, simply doing drag. But then, there's Tyler Perry's Madea, a vicious, ridiculous, angry stereotype. She is an older black grandma character, toting a gun and the scriptures, sometimes in one sentence. This insanely successful character is Perry's cash cow....and this character is supposed to be a female. Placed in this realm of pop cultural awareness, Eddie Murphy's embodiment of Rasputia is actually kind of refreshing....and funny....and pretty damn good. Yeah, the rest of the film is pretty blah, but this is nowhere near the turkey it's made out to be. If you want a good laugh, I recommend watching Eddie Murphy do it up right.
The Battleship Potemkin (1925): Sergei Eisentein's contribution to cinema is extraordinary....and it's sad to say that this is the first film I've actually watched of his, in its entirety, that is. Certainly, this is a propaganda film in the guise of historical reenactment, but any of those quibbles aside, that sequence on the Odessa Steps is still amazing to watch. While you might forget that this is about a Russian mutiny and a street demonstration that ends in severe police brutality, you'll remember that scene, and the mother, holding her trampled son as she moves up the Odessa Steps.
The Naked Civil Servant (1975): This film is an extraordinary portrayal of trailblazing of a flamboyant and fantastic homosexual named Quentin Crisp. It's sad to me that many of today's gay youth has never heard his name. If I could make certain films required viewing for people, this certainly would be one of them. Portrayed by John Hurt in an awesome, I mean, just fucking awesome performance, The Naked Civil Servant takes us from Crisp's childhood to 1975. What was so extraordinary about him? Well, he insisted on being himself, an effeminate, flamboyant homo, making it his point to imbue the world around him with the knowledge that we exist. And at the point where, near the very end, Crisp recounts his happiest moment, and at the moment I realized that I was just so very, very moved by his story. And thankful. In 2009, Hurt reprised his role as Quentin Crisp An Englishman in New York....which recounts Crisp's later years in NYC...I can't wait to see it.
Melancholia (2011): All that I can really say is wow---beautiful, thought provoking, and depressing. Lars Von Trier understands depression like no other filmmaker I can recall. Boiled down, the world is about to end as a planet called Melancholia hurtles towards it. There seems to be a chance that it could pass us by...but what would you do to prepare? The first half of the film shows off a great performance from Kirsten Dunst, celebrating her wedding day at her sister (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and her brother-in-law's (Kiefer Sutherland) pretentious, lavish mansion. Hints of dysfunction glitter across the screen, furthered beautifully by Charlotte Rampling their bitter, bitchy mother. It becomes immediately apparent that Dunst's character is suffering from some major depression issues as well. The second half of the film focuses on Gainsbourg, and here we discover that she is the inverse of her sister (perhaps this is why Von Trier also found it appropriate to cast her, French accent and all as Dunst's sister). Dunst has become nearly comatose with depression and is being nursed at Gainsbourg's secluded home. It becomes evident that, as doom looms in the near future, one of them, ironically, has an easier time coping with the inevitable. And that's a very watered down synopsis, but what a beautiful, moving, and excellent piece of work from Von Trier. While I enjoyed The Tree of Life (2011) as a major cinematic work, I must say, I am a little sad Melancholia did not take the top prize at Cannes this year---while it's a simpler film in scope, it certainly questions existence and the nature of it just as exquisitely. And yes, both lead actresses are pretty damn good....and I love that Von Trier always uses Udo Kier. Definitely one of the best films I've seen this year.
Another Earth (2011): An interesting double feature this made, as I watched this a day after Melancholia. It seems another planet exactly identical to Earth, coined Earth 2, looming dangerously in plain sight. Like an old black and white sci-fi cheapie, it doesn't bother going into any real effects a planet this close to the Earth would have on the atmosphere, etc. Instead, the film is really a study on grief and redemption, with sort of a little sci-fi layer (like Never Let Me Go, 2010). On the night of its discovery, a drunk driving teenager (an excellent Brit Marling, who also co-wrote) crashes into a composer (William Mapother) killing his wife and children. Locked away for four years, she is released upon the world an adult. Living with her parents, she takes a job as a janitor in a high school and enters a contest to be on the first flight to Earth 2. And then, visiting the accident site one day, she sees the composer. Looking him up, she ends up on his doorstep to apologize one day, but instead, says she is a maid with a service giving out complimentary cleanings. The composer is obviously depressed and floundering, his residence a disgusting stye. Well, as you can imagine, a relationship is developed, one of those ones where you watch the screen murmuring, girl, I don't think that's a good idea. But it's the quiet moments between Marling and Mapother that are really moving, distressing, and worthy of attention. Meanwhile, it seems like Earth 2 is in conjunction with Earth 1---meaning, it's identical to us and that there's another one of everybody there. The film's scope is too narrow to really delve into the implications of this. Another Earth is really about another chance to do something....while Von Trier's film would say, "What's the point?" In the end, I felt some of that about Another Earth, but Brit Marling is captivating and worth the watch. Directed by Mike Cahill.
Sarah's Key (2010): While I truly believe in the importance of stories revolving around atrocities of WWII, I seem to get very impatient with stories that end up being exploitative. I'm a huge fan of Kristin Scott-Thomas, and love her recent output of French cinema. I mean, she has to have some of the most haunting eyes in cinema. But she can't save this flick. Based on a very popular novel, Sarah's Key highlights the little known piece of history referred to as the Vel' d'Hiv, when, in July of 1942, the French police arrested thousands of Jews on their own accord. One such family in this tale was the Starzynski family. Upon being rounded up, Sarah, a young girl of perhaps 10, has her younger brother hide in a closet. Locking him in, the family is whisked away and it quickly dawns on them that they will not be back anytime soon. As the family gets ripped apart and sent to separate internment camps, the film is unabashedly moving---but, who isn't bothered by seeing children ripped away from their screaming mothers? Or as the Jews are rounded up in a large stadium and people start jumping to their death or starting to lose their sanity, who isn't moved? So yes, the film follows the horrific path of many Nazi themed tales, but falters immediately with its present day juxtaposition of journalist Kristin Scott Thomas, doing a major story on the Vel' d'Hiv. All of her scenes with her fellow writers and her boss are screechingly flat and terribly acted (and it's not her, it's everyone around her). Moving into an apartment that's been in her husband's family for generations, she coincidentally learns that her in-laws took this apartment because it had belonged to the deported Starzynskis. At the same time, literally, she finds out she has a miraculous middle aged pregnancy, which her husband staunchly opposes keeping. We see the rest of Sarah's story in flashback as Kristin globe trots to NYC and Rome (and we get to see veteran French actors Niels Arestrup and Dominique Frot, always a plus!) before finally arriving at some scene-chewing, fast paced resolutions that involved Aidan Quinn....and, boy, let me tell you, there is one scene towards the end where Aidan Quinn is moved by something so horrifically corny and he covers his face in his hands and....well, I just had to laugh. Poorly, poorly constructed material that ends up exploiting anything of depth or purpose that it may have had the possibility to say. But Kristin looks good.
