Out of the Past: The Week In Film 8/19/11-8/25/11

Of Interest:
The Mack (1973) Dir. Michael Campus - US
A Royal Scandal (1945) Dir. Otto Preminger - US
Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon (1970) Dir. Otto Preminger - US

Recommended:
L'enfer (1994) Dir. Claude Chabrol - France
C.R.A.Z.Y. (2005) Dir. Jean-Marc Vallee - Canada

Essential Cinema:
Come Back to the 5 and Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982) Dir. Robert Altman - US
It (1927) Dir. Clarence G. Badger - US

Theatrical Screenings:
Fright Night (2011) Dir. Craig Gillespie - US 7/10
Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (2010) Dir. Tsui Hark - Hong Kong/China 7/10
Killer Elite (2011) Dir. Gary McKendry - US 4/10

The Mack (1973): This is considered fine dining blaxploitation, and I will give it credit for being more polished than many a title in this genre. However, as the tone is a bit more serious, it's a bit harder to swallow the inherent sexism threading it's way through the entire fabric of the film. Max Julien stars as our "mack," recently released from prison, he wants to run the streets of Oakland as the ultimate "mack" daddy. Well, you know what that means? Exploitin' bitches! Julien's a little monotone for my liking, and Richard Pryor does show up as his sidekick in several scenes, but his role isn't very substantial (rumor has it that the success of this film put Pryor's career back on path, as previous antics on film sets, i.e., pissing on Shelley Winters on the set of Wild In the Streets, 1968, earned him a bad rap---Shelley drowned in several movies, so I can see why she hadn't a taste for watersports). Predicatable, ridiculous, and, well, offensive by today's PC standards, the film is notable and should be must-see viewing for the professed cinefile.

A Royal Scandal (1945): Preminger's followup to his amazing flick, Laura (1944), this period drama about Russian empress Catherine the Great's sexual liaisons was supposed to be directed by Ernst Lubitsch. A minor entry on Preminger's resume, this weird little number features none other than Tallulah Bankhead as the Russian empress. Her growly cat/smurf voice (imagine Shirley Henderson with a testosterone cocktail) does make her seem strange and foreign, but hardly Russian. No matter, though. No one in the cast is. Anne Baxter stars as a Countess whose lover (an overacting William Eythe who nearly sinks the film with his "charming" performance) is seduced by the Empress; Charles Coburn is the Chancellor; and Vincent Price is the Marquis from France, who is required to speak with an accent. Tallulah is such a strange and interesting actress she makes anything watchable, and, indeed, she's the sole reason to view the film.

Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon (1970): Preminger directed a lot of strange and not well received films towards the end of his illustrious career---this strange little gem is one of those, starring Liza Minnelli as Junie Moon, a girl whose face is burned by acid by a perverted man that makes her get naked in a cemetary on their first date. She laughs at him afterwards, and, well, he beats her and throws acid on her. Kinda weird. In the hospital, she meets a paraplegic homosexual (director Robert Moore in his first onscreen appearance) and a man suffering from a weird epileptic disorder (Ken Howard). They decide they will live together with their disabilities to help each other cope through life. Anne Revere, blaxploitation star Fred Williamson, and James Coco all show up in supporting roles. This is based on a famous novel at the time by Marjorie Kellogg, and it's not a bad film---it's just a little dull at times. Liza's the best part of the show, with her fake ass scars and all. After shooting, Liza publicly commented, in tears, that she would never work for Preminger again, called him tryannical. Liza's ma, Judy died while this was filming---I'm sure he wasn't patient with her while she mourned. The gays had stonewall and Liza played Junie Moon. The worst parts of the film are, frankly, when Preminger deals with Moore's homosexuality---some scenes come across as forced, fake, and unrealistic. But to his credit, Preminger was always a director that pressed buttons. If you can find a copy (I have been visiting a wonderful video rental store in Los Angeles, called Cinefile) I recommend you see it.

L'enfer (1994): Chabrol's take on Clouzet's film that never got made decades prior, this sparse little thriller stars Francois Cluzet as the owner of a sea-side hotel. Saddled with debt as he buys his business, he marries the alluring and beautiful Emmanuelle Beart---and suffers some kind of paranoid break, imagining her to be carrying on sexual liaisons with all the male guests at the resort. Things spiral out of control and it's obvious that Cluzet is going insane, listening to voices in his head. But is Beart truly an innocent victim? An interesting look at jealousy and paranoia, L'enfer translates as Hell---and these characters are surely in it.

C.R.A.Z.Y. (2005): A breakout hit for French Canadian Jean-Marc Vallee, this is one strange and unpredictable coming of age story about a gay teenager in 1970's Quebec. A family drama/comedy with a story arc that spans the younger years to adulthood of lead character, Zach (Marc-Andre Grondin), it can hardly be described as typical. While I believe that 20 to 30 minutes could have been cut from the film, it's views on Catholocism and a unique father/son, mother/son relationship is completely worth the watch.

It (1927): The silent film classic is the definitive Clara Bow performance, cinema's original "it" girl. "It" was code for sex appeal, and Bow was considered to have plenty of it. The film is really just a simple story about a shopgirl that falls in love with the owner of the department store (Antonio Moreno) and the comedy of errors involved in them getting together. I must say that Clara Bow is completely charming and very appealing. It's a lovely, cute little picture. It is definitely worth your time.

Come Back to the 5 and Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982): Robert Altman's lost classic has to be one of my favorite films I've seen of his. I absolutely loved this film, based on the stage play, concerning a group of women who have vowed to come together after twenty years to meet on the anniversary of James Dean's death in a small Texas town. Dean's film Giant (1956) was filmed not far from them, and this small group of women, especially Sandy Dennis, were all in love with him. Dennis's character managed to land a role as an extra in Giant, and came back pregnant with the son of James Dean, or so she told everyone. Cher stars as the waitress co-worker of Dennis at the dime store, while Karen Black, Kathy Bates, and several others are women known as the Disciples of James Dean. Told in present time and flashback, this film is sad, melancholy gust of wind. The three lead actresses are all just damn good in this and I didn't want it to end---weird, strange, and from an era when material like this actually got produced. My, times have changed. I hope one day this gets a DVD release of some kind. Definitely worth seeking out if you can find it.

Fright Night (2011): Well, the original 1985 film wasn't that good, so I was actually glad to see this remake revamping (hardy har) itself with some different twists. While the Las Vegas locale is a great idea for the purposes of this story, the film squanders itself on some subpar special effects and some bland and boring characters (Yelchin, Poots, Mintz-Plasse---the younger actors are all pretty uninspired or just plain corny)---and I hope I am not the only one that thought James Franco's little brother and his sidekick in the film (Reid Ewing) seemed gay gay gay. Toni Collette is given absolutely nothing to do beyond being a "cool mom." David Tennant scores some laughs as Peter Vincent (this time around, a magician with a show called Fright Night) but his Russell Brand type humor was a little over the top at times. What this Fright Night does have is a great performance from Colin Farrell---there's one scene in particular where he's trying to lure his way into Yelchin's house that is the best scene in the whole film. But the performance is not enough to save the film (and even Chris Sarandon pops up for a cameo). Definitely not worth seeing in 3D---what a ridiculous idea for this film. Director Craig Gillespie has an interesting resume. His first two films, both released in 2007, couldn't be more wildly different (Mr. Woodcock and Lars and the Real Girl). His choices are interesting, if not altogether well thought out.

For my reviews on Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (release 9/2/11) and Killer Elite (release 9/23/11) for ioncinema.com, please check back closer to those release dates.

Out of the Past: The Week In Film 8/12/11-8/18/11

Cess Pool Cinema:
Hobo With a Shotgun (2011) Dir. Jason Eisener - US

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:

The Evictors (1979) Dir. Charles B. Pierce - US

Guilty Pleasures:
The Countess (2009) Dir. Julie Delpy - US/Germany/France

Of Interest:
The Clowns (1970) Dir. Federico Fellini - Italy
Epidemic (1987) Dir. Lars Von Trier - Denmark



Essential Cinema:
El Mar (2000) Dir. Agusti Villaronga - Spain
Beware of a Holy Whore (1971) Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder - West Germany

Theatrical Screenings:
Gun Hill Road (2011) Dir. Rashaad Ernesto Green - US 10/10
The Whistleblower (2010) Dir. Larysa Kondracki - Canada/Germany 10/10
Our Idiot Brother (2011) Dir. Jesse Peretz - US 8/10
The Help (2011) Dir. Tate Taylor - US 8/10

Hobo With a Shotgun (2011): Another film project based on a fake Grindhouse trailer and starring Rutger Hauer (in the midst of a career resurgence) is this complete and utterly irritating waste of time. Rutger stars as a hobo, looking for a good life, ending up in Fuck Town thinking he can make good there. However, Fuck Town, run by a goofily abrasive criminal known as The Drake and his two sons, feels like a violent SNL sketch filmed in Joel Schumacher's version of Gotham City. Rutger actually managed to illict a few chuckles from me, but the rest of the acting is atrocious and painful to watch. While I happened to enjoy Machete (2010)---despite Jessica dead-behind-the-eyes Alba--this is a complete waste of time and money.

The Evictors (1979): About ten minutes into this tale about a house in 1930's and '40's Louisiana where the tenants repeatedly get murdered, I predicted the completely irrational and nonsensical ending, groaning, "Oh, they are going there with this, huh?" Director Charles B. Pierce does manage to build some tension, but it doesn't last. Vic Morrow is touted as the headliner, but he's really a supporting character. The real lead is Jessica Harper, who it took me a while to place as the ballerina from Suspiria (1977). Poor Ms. Harper is saddled with playing a character that keeps going home to a house where someone keeps trying to kill her every night. I don't know, but if a creepy looking redneck came at me with a knife in broad daylight after locking me in the kitchen with one of those there nifty 2X4s, well, goshdarnit, I donnot think I reckon I would go back. Brave little miss, she does though. Completely ridiculous.

The Countess (2009): Speaking of completely ridiculous but in more of a so-bad-it's-good sense, is this balding turkey directed by actress Julie Delpy. Her prior directorial effort, 2 Days In Paris (2007) was quite good, so I did have high expectations for this period piece about Hungarian countess, Erzebet Bathory, a woman who bathed in the blood of virgins in order to stay young, and whom apparently the idea of Dracula was based on. Well, let me tell you, we run through the countess' childhood and adolescence (where she bears a peasant's son out of wedlock, no less) in 4 minutes of running time. And then, there's Julie Delpy, speaking in weirdly clipped English with her French accent. Other Hungarians are played by William Hurt (yes, the American William Hurt) as a Count who wants to own the widow's extensive amount of land, and his son, Daniel Bruhl (he is Spanish, but you may recognize him from Inglourious Basterds, 2009) who falls madly in love with the Countess. Hurt is hurt by this and ruins their romance, which, this film asserts, causes her descent into madness, as Bathory assumes she has been abandoned for looking old. Oh, and then there is Anamaria Marinca, a Romanian actress, starring as a witch and Bathory's lesbian advisor. Any grotesque curiosity about Bathory, infamously invoked in many a vampiric film, including my favorite, Daughters of Darkness (1971), is squashed by the insanely inane dialogue and very strange tone of the film. I've seen Mary Kay sales ladies more passionate about aging skin than Delpy's listless performance here---where's the drama and the intensity? This is a tale about a bitch who bathed in the blood of virgins! Yet Delpy insists on sandwiching her tale with Bruhl's terrible narration at her grassy grave, griping about how misunderstood Erzebeth Bathory is. Yes, figured that---but this is a tale for Grand Guignol. Let's just pray that German auteur Ulrike Ottinger gets her project The Blood Countess off the ground starring Tilda Swinton and Isabelle Huppert---that will be a creature feature for the ages.

The Clowns (1970): Fellini happens to be one of the best filmmakers that's ever lived. This experimental documentary about clowns made for Italian television bears his signature style, but it's really got no plot, rhyme or reason. Still, there's a couple highlights, like a weird little scene with Geraldine Chaplin. The camera crew keep whispering and pointing to her saying, "that's Chaplin's daughter." She had already been in several films and I'm unsure when she took up with Spanish director Carlos Saura, but was she really part of a circus troupe traveling through Italy? Also, there's a strange sequence where Anita Ekberg is randomly at a circus trying to buy a panther. She just wanted one. Crazy lady. Oh, and there's lots of clowns. (An interesting film to watch after something like The Last Circus, 2010).

Epidemic (1987): This very experiemental second film from Lars Von Trier is interesting, if not a titch dull at times. Von Trier stars as himself, along with screenwriter Niels Vorsel as himself, making a film called Epidemic. After the screenplay is written, an actual worldwide plague occurs. Von Trier is making big, bold, statements in this grainy black and white no-budgeter, which is intriguing at times, especially towards a hysterical conclusion, in which the relationship of cinema and hypnosis is used to masterful effect.

El Mar (2000): After watching Agusti Villaronga's amazing first film, I got my hands on his 2000 film, The Sea, set during the Spanish Civil War. While the opening scenes featuring some child actors engaging in dastardly deeds comes off a bit stagey, the shocking murder/suicide is quite well done. Jumping ahead a decade, the surviving boys are now young adults being treated for tuberculosis at a hospital where a nun happens to be the young girl that witnessed their youthful violent act. The title references the main character, Ramallo's (Roger Casamajor) place of peace---all is quiet in the sea. Ramallo, struggling to overcome TB, further develops a very homoerotic relationship with the relgious fanatic, Tur (Bruno Bergonzini) while also trying to figure out how to escape from the pedophile drug boss Morell (Juli Mira) that controls him on the outside. Moments of shocking violence erupt in this intriguing and moody piece. Highly recommended.

Beware of a Holy Whore (1971): Rainer Werner Fassbinder, one of my all time favorite directors, helmed this classic flick, one of the best movies about the making of movies ever made. It has drawn universal comparison to Godard's Contempt (1963), which is also good, but Fassbinder's flick is much more petulant, bitchy, and entertaining. Based on the experiences of the making of Fassbinder's Whity (1971) in Spain, Whore consists of a cast and crew stuck at a Spanish resort, working on a film that lacks materials, budget, and one huge douchebag of a director (Lou Castel)---which is really a characterization (and not caricature) of Fassbinder himself. And then Fassbinder stars as a bitchy production manager. Standouts include French star Eddie Constantine as himself, Hanna Schygulla as the blonde lead actress, Margarethe Von Trotta as wife of the production manager, and Magadalena Moctezuma as an actress wronged by the sexually manipulative director. Fassbinder himself, a known homosexual, married twice and purportedly was not the, umm, nicest of gay husbands. His then wife, actress Ingrid Caven, also has a small part here. Kurt Raab, Ulli Lommel, and Werner Schroeter, are also present. Wicked and savage, Whore is really just a hotbed of histrionics about a film not getting made. But it's classic Fassbinder.

Gun Hill Road (2011): One of the best films I've seen in a while concerning a transgendered protagonist, this debut from Rashaad Ernesto Green features some excellent performances from newcomer Harmony Santana, Esai Morales, and Judy Reyes. Recently released from prison, Enrique (Morales), returns home to find that his wife (Reyes) has grown distant from him and his son Michael (Santana) is dressing like a girl. An exploration of father/son relationships in the machismo, Latino culture, the bare bones essentials of the film, are, of course, nothing new. But the film, simply, is a story about a man loving and trying to understand his life in the context of his child's. Personally, I felt that material that could have been cliche was moving, provoking, and intense. We live in a world where there is little to no understanding for LGBT people across the US---and there's not enough love for the last letter in that acronym. The more stories we have access to, the better. This is one well made, heartfelt film.

The Whistleblower (2010): The directorial debut of Larysa Kondracki features an amazing performance from Rachel Weisz as a Nebraskan police officer that takes a job as a contract peacekeeper for the UN in post-war Bosnia. She quickly discovers a sex trafficking scandal that involves, well, everyone. When she tries to bring light to the situation, she is threatened. As she gets more insistent, she is removed from "the mission." Obviously, we are watching a cinematic reennactment of her story, so word got out. What will you see in this film is not entertainment. It is sickening, disgusting, tragic, despicable, gut-wrenching, horrifying and if you don't feel ashamed and/or disgruntled after watching something like this, I don't know what's wrong with you. I heard audience members grumbling, "You picked this film, remember that," during some especially gruesome scenes. While I am not condoning violence, this story, (and others like it) are important---You can accuse Ms. Weisz of Oscar baiting, but her name brings an audience to a film many would perhaps not watch. The men that ended up being sent home were not punished in their home countries---and we're talking rape, murder, etc. There's just so many things wrong, I mean foundationally, and in a global sense, with the human race. This film is just one example of that---this kind of shit, human trafficking, happens here too, everyday. And this contractor is still used by the US government in Iran and Afghanistan. As a film, it's pieced together like an intense thriller, but it's story is so much more important and lethal than that. Film criticisms aside, it is important.

Our Idiot Brother (2011): Please click here for my review for ioncinema.com.

The Help (2011): I was curious to see this flick after hearing about the astounding cast as it went into pre-production. And the subject matter, well, at first made me uncomfortable---for some reason, the presence of the incomparable Viola Davis made me think, well, if she's in it, this has got to be good. And The Help is good; at times, it's excellent. But after the tears dried, there's a lot of problems I had with it, all the same. The film features three excellent performances, coming from Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, and Jessica Chastain---the film's strongest moments come from the truthfulness of the disenfranchised social outcasts. And while the black housemaids are treated cruelly and disrespected, the decision to make this a PG-13 chick flick that erases the reality of the stunningly cruel violence against blacks in the Jim Crow South, may be the biggest detraction. While I believe material like The Help is important, and the perspective of black maids raising white children is relevant, this is no The Color Purple (1985) or Mississippi Burning (1988). Well, those films aren't 'entertaining,' you might say. Frankly, The Help should not be viewed as entertainment either. Black maids that raise white children in white homes yet are forced to use outside bathrooms because "they carry different diseases" is racist cruelty bullshit. Many an article has already been written about this film denouncing it as a fable alleviating white guilt---and, actually, I would have to agree. The lovely Bryce Dallas Howard plays an evil incarnate racist white lady (her mother, the sadly underused Sissy Spacek, suffering from some form of dementia) and she is so cruel, so wicked, so lamentably hateful, no one in their right mind would align themselves with her. She's hateful to the point of caricature. What white person in 2011 wouldn't say, "that's one evil bitch?" Now, I quite enjoy cute little Emma Stone as the representative of the good white person here---her performance is fine, the character a tad blandly written---but just fine. But I feel like her character is where the biggest problem lies. She's buddy buddy with Howard until going away to college. Upon returning to Jackson, Stone discovers her beloved maid (a very brittle but good Cicely Tyson) has been fired by her cancer-laden mother (Allison Janney). And she also realizes that her friend Howard is a racist extremist. Howard has taken it upon herself to get a bill passed stating that all white homes with hired black help must have separate toilets---she tasks her friend, Stone, to publish this in the local paper (where Stone has achieved employment as a ghost writer for a domestic cleaning column). Stone, making it obvious that her sympathy lies with the maids and that she was, in fact, really "raised" by her black maid, doesn't publish Howard's proposal. But she also never stands up for the maids---she never really confronts Howard. It's her white voice that makes it possible for the black help's words to be published---and it's her career that it jumpstarts. She gets to leave Jackson, Mississippi for NYC---and her maids, well, they get to stay in hell. Yes, a lot has changed (now we have latin women as maids), but, hell, not enough has changed. Just look at how uncomfortable the mere existence of this film has made people. Should The Help be responsible for 100% accurate depiction of how blacks were treated in Mississippi in the 1950's? Should it be the story of all black maids from that era? Well, no, it shouldn't be. But we have so few examples of these perspectives in the main stream that we examine the shit out of the ones we do have and trample them into the ground. There's a lot to love about The Help---it's heart is in the right place. The last ten minutes I had the biggest problem with. A flashback depicts the firing of Cicely Tyson by Allison Janney. A few scenes later, Janney is given a redemption scene---but, sorry, that doesn't cut it. There is no redemption for how these white women treated their black help. Of course, it's easy to be judgemental in 2011. But I felt nothing whatsoever for all the white characters in this film, with the exception of the "white trash" character played by Jessica Chastain, who is thankful to even have a maid, and treats her as a friend--but it's sad to realize that in reality, if her character was not ostracized by the other white women, she would act the same as them. As bad as it is for any of the maids in The Help, while enjoying this rather "feel good" film, remember, that it was much, much, worse. And I hope Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer get some recognition come awards time.

Out of the Past: The Week In Film 8/5/11-8/11/11

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:

Clash (2009) Dir. Le Thanh Son - Vietnam

Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972) Dir. Robert Fuest - US/UK

The Nines (2007) Dir. John August - US

Essential Cinema:

The Face of Another (1966) Dir. Hiroshi Teshigahara - Japan

Theatrical Screenings:

The Devil's Double (2011) Dir. Lee Tamahori - Belgium 9/10

The Future (2011) Dir. Miranda July - US 8/10

The Debt (2010) Dir. John Madden - US 7/10

Clash (2009): Please click here for my review of this film for ioncinema.com.

Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972): Well, this follow-up to an already outre campy first film, The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) sees the return of Vincent Price and director Robert Fuest. If you see the first flick, you'll notice that Dr. Phibes embalms himself at the end of the film....but since, err, the first one made some money, an aligning of the planets lights the top of the secret lair to Phibes' tomb, and, ummm, as planned, his blood uncoagulates and seeps back into him. Yes, it seems that an omniscient narrator has to tell us this....and then as soon as Price wakes up he tells us this, and then we discover that he built a secret palace in Egypt where some special door leads to a river of everlasting life and Phibes just happens to have these sacred scrolls that lead him there. During his death sleep, a voracious scholar (Robert Quarry) by the name of Darrus Biederbeck, gets his hands on the scrolls and is off to Egypt himself. Price, campier than ever, is entertaining to watch---but the films screeches along on exhaust fumes to a warbly conclusion---but we do get to hear Price sing "Over the Rainbow" as he rows off down the river.

The Nines (2007): I believe this film is somewhat well regarded to some critics, but, well, it annoyed me more than anything. Ryan Reynolds stars as three very different characters in three different sets of realities that are all mysteriously interwoven. Hope Davis and Melissa McCarthy all appear in each reality as well. In truth, I don't even want to explain any more, but perhaps it's the religious undertones bolstering what eventually is going on that annoyed me. The rather intricate set-up is intriguing, and it's a good idea---but the ending that tries to tie the strings together had no impact.

The Face of Another (1966): I loved Hiroshi Teshigahara's Woman in the Dunes (1964) a very strange, bizarre, and kind of funny dark flick---I've been meaning to revisit his other acclaimed titles for some time. The Face of Another tells the tale of a businessman scarred by a laboratory fire. His psychiatrist decides to embark on an experiment by making his patient a lifelike mask he may wear for twelve hours at a time. Meanwhile, another horribly scarred young girl in the same city experiences a different kind of existence, scorned by all. It is this subplot of the young girl that feels pointless and goes no where, but for an allegory on identity (which does get a little excessive) and as a treatise on plastic surgery, this film is pretty damn good. The visuals are outright stunning, and the end sequence looks amazing and is creepy as hell. If you liked Eyes Without a Face (1957), definitely check this out.

The Devil's Double (2011): Okay, so this isn't the best film ever made, but I liked it quite a bit. Dominic Cooper is excellent in dual roles as the Insane in the Hussein, Uday and his fiday, Latif. Since this is based on the life story of the fiday, Latif, he is portrayed as somewhat of a saint like person (not hard in comparison) I kept wondering how much was left out or emebellished. However, Cooper's performance as the insane Uday is excellent and extremely watchable. Strangely, Saddam comes off as a figure of calm sanity in comparison. While I love Ludivine Sagnier, I couldn't help but be distracted be her here. She's supposed to be Lebanese (they're lighter skinned) but she still seemed, you know, French. While it's a testament to the quality of the actors that I was able to get into the story despite them speaking in English, I do have problems with a film that portrays everyone speaking English in Baghdad. All in all, an interesting flick from Lee Tamahori (who last ventured out for that crap Nicolas Cage flick, Next, 2007).

The Future (2011): I did quite enjoy Miranda July's first flick, Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005), and her sophomore feature is also pretty good---but damn, it's depressing. I did find her characterizations of a couple that's been together for four years overly quirky, which was grating, at times. Deciding to adopt a cat that has renal failure, the couple has 30 days before they have to pick up the cat at the hospital. Realizing this is the last amount of time they will have without responsibility (the cat will need round the clock care) they quite their jobs and decide to meaningful things while they have the chance. July's character flounders and ends up sleeping with a sleazy man, mostly because she can't find meaning in doing a different dance for youtube consumption every day for the next month. Mostly I was annoyed that July and her boyfriend (Hamish Linklater) acted almost like high-functioning autistic adults, based on the choices they make. And most intriguingly, a portion of the film is narrarated by the sickly cat (named Paw Paw), waiting in rapturous excitement to come home with July and her boyfriend---and the cat just sounds so cute and sad---and July and her boyfriend are also, well, kind of sad. But as an intelligent look at relationships and finding meaning in what we do, it's pretty good.

The Debt (2010): For my review of The Debt please check back when it will be posted on ioncinema.com.

Out of the Past: The Week In Film 7/29/11-8/4/11

The Banal, the Blah, the Banausic:

Winter In Wartime (2008) Dir. Martin Koolhoven - Netherlands

Conan the Destroyer (1984) Dir. Richard Fleischer - US

Guilty Pleasures:
Passion Play (2010) Dir. Mitch Glazer - US

Recommended:
Shadows (1959) Dir. John Cassavetes - US
An Englishman In New York (2009) Dir. Richard Laxton - US
Wigstock: The Movie (1995) Dir. Barry Shils - US

Essential Cinema:
Down Terrace (2009) Dir. Ben Wheatley - UK
The Last Circus (2010) Dir. Alex de la Iglesia - Spain
In a Glass Cage (1987) Dir. Agusti Villaronga - Spain

Theatrical Screenings:
Point Blank (2010) Dir. Fred Cavaye - France

Winter In Wartime (2008): Please click here for my review of this film for http://www.ioncinema.com/news/id/6509/review-winter-in-wartime-blu-ray.


Conan the Destroyer (1984): What a boring movie. Truth be told, I haven't seen the original film, and really have only wanted to see this one because I love Grace Jones. Poor Grace doesn't get a lot to do except spit and snarl, but she looks like she's having a great time. While the special effects are dated, the rest of the film is even worse. Arnold's acting is damn wooden and cheesy, the plot is as inventive as peeling a banana, and then there's the horrendous teenage Olivia d'Abo as a spoiled, virginal princess (her virginity to be protected by none other than Wilt Chamberlain---and I'm not kidding). At the point where Arnie and the princess spy bandit Grace Jones defending herself from a village of men, d'Abo cried out "Conan, help her, she is defending herself from six men." Arnie counts "One, Two, Three...I think you're right." Yeah. Bleh. Hack director Richard Fleischer (responsible for Amityville 3D, 1983 and Soylent Green, 1973) gets credit for this steamer.

Passion Play (2010): Okay, so this is a really BAD and TERRIBLY made film---but in a real hot-mess, train wreck sort of way. It serves as the directorial debut of Mitch Glazer (he wrote Scrooged, 1991, hence Bill Murray replaced someone else as Happy the gangster), who is married to Kelly Lynch, also starring. So, the gist is this: Mickey Rourke plays a down and out trumpet player who sleeps with a ruthless gangster's wife and gets dragged out to the desert to be murdered by a hit man. Some gun toting ninjas wandering through the desert save him from the hit man....and then Rourke stumbles on a sideshow circus run by Rhys Ifans, where he finds a beautiful winged woman played by Megan Fox. Rourke and Fox fall in love and run away from the circus and the possessive Ifans. An interlude shows Fox fleeing for a plastic surgeon's office to have her wings removed. "I want to be like the normal girls," she pouts at Rourke. He stops her from cutting off her money makers and tries to convince Murray that they could make money off her as an attraction. Murray falls in love with her too, and cuts a deal with Fox that he won't kill Rourke if she becomes his private winged slave. To find her again, Rourke pawns his prized trumpet, a scene where sad music is played as Rourke sits in a diner with the trumpet in a briefcase....clutching at it as someone, perhaps the pawnbroker?? yanks it away from him, opening the case quickly to finger the mouthpiece one last time.......and then there's the scene where Megan Fox tries to fly....and then there's the fucking terrible cornball ending. This movie is one hot, dumb mess. I almost saw this at Toronto last year, but thankfully did not buy a ticket at the last minute. But, boy, this is a turkey for the ages.


Shadows (1959): The directorial debut of American auteur is this improvisational film from John Cassavetes. It breathes like a NYC late 50's beat picture, focusing on three siblings, Hugh, a struggling singer, Benny, an aimless sister, and Lelia, whose light skin causes conflict when the man she falls in love with discovers she's not white. The real stand out here is the extremely beautiful Lelia Goldoni as the lovelorn young lady.


An Englishman In New York (2009): While it's not as good as it's 1975 predecessor The Naked Civil Servant, this 2009 effort that documents Quentin Crisp's later years in 1980's NYC is pretty damn good, mostly for John Hurt's phenomenal portrayal of Crisp. Watching both films is an excellent trajectory of the rise of gay visibility and gay history. Jonathan Tucker and Denis O'Hare are pretty good in supporting roles, while Swoosie Kurtz and Cynthia Nixon tend to feel a bit distracting. Highly recommended.

Wigstock: The Movie (1995): Perhaps the best thing about this documentary is the time-capsule sort of feel it has, documenting the 1993 and 1994 Wigstock celebrations put on by Lady Bunny in NYC. You get to see drag queen alums Jackie Beat, Alexis Arquette, Candis Cayne, Lypsinka, and, of course, the incomparable Ru Paul. However, the real highlight is a creepy number by Leigh Bowery who gives birth to a red painted nude woman on stage. Terrifying.


Down Terrace (2009): The best little British kitchen-sink drama/gangster comedy you'll ever see, this unpredicatble and vicious little comedy about a father/son gansgter duo recently released from prison. Quibbling over this, that, and the other, most of the action takes place in their dirty hovel of a kitchen, with a washed out bitch of a mother who's way more savvy than she appears to be. Enter the son's very pregnant girlfriend and weird familial issues start busting out all over. And then father and son want to find out who it was in the business that narced on them...and then things start to get violent. Excellent little nasty comedy---I am pumped that director Ben Wheatley's next film, Kill List has been announced as part of the Midnight Madness lineup for Toronto Film Festival, 2011. Can't wait!


The Last Circus (2010): For my review of The Last Circus click here.

In a Glass Cage (1987): I've been meaning to watch this flick for years and I was not disappointed when I finally sat down to do so. Like a sick, twisted little nightmare, this perverse little arthouse shocker is about an ex-Nazi pedophile living in exile with his wife (Marisa Paredes) and daughter in Spain. After molesting and killing a young boy, Klaus (Gunter Meisner) attempts to kill himself jumping off a cliff. He survives, but is paralyzed and requires an iron lung to live. A young boy that witnessed his torture and suicide attempt pilfered his diary documenting his war crimes and blackmails Gunter into letting him be his nurse. And then, of course, things start to spiral out of control as Gunter sits helplessly inside his "glass cage." If Apt Pupil (1998) had huevos and dientes, it would be like In a Glass Cage, a beautiful nightmarish flick---and goshdarnit, who doesn't love to see Marisa Paredes??

Point Blank (2010): I just got my Region 2 copy of Fred Cavaye's 2008 film Anything For Her, which was remade by Paul Haggis in 2010 as The Next Three Days. Anyhow, I just caught his next flick, which has American remake starring Liam Neeson written all over it. It's a bit vanilla, a bit by the books, but a pretty good action flick as well. Lead Gilles Lellouche does nothing for me here, and his scenes with pregnant wife Elena Anaya (in a thankless role) are pretty bleh, but I do like Roschdy Zem, in a decent role here. So the plot is, Lellouche is an intern at a hospital who saves a patient from assassination (Zem). Because of this, his wife is kidnapped and he is directed to get the man out of the hospital alive. So yeah, it becomes a political thing that's, of course, conveniently wrapped up. It feels like The Fugitive (1993) mixed with various other popular flicks---so I won't be surprised it will be remade sometime soon. Except the American female cops won't be as hardbitten and realistic as they are here---at least it's got that going for it.