Flick Clique: January 22-28
Bonnie and Clyde (1967). I just finished reading Mark Harris’ terrific book Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood. The book examines the simultaneous productions of the five films nominated for 1967′s Best Picture Oscar — Bonnie and Clyde, In the Heat of the Night, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, The Graduate, and Doctor Doolittle — and how this particular slate of films challenged America’s film industry to become more edgy, small and youth-oriented after years of churning out bloated, creaky epics and musicals. It inspired me to check out those films again, starting with perhaps the most admired of the bunch, Bonnie and Clyde. I’ve liked this film ever since seeing it in college as part of a course on Warner Bros. movies; seeing it again after reading the Harris book revealed to me even more how different this film was in ’67 and the risks Warren Beatty and the other filmmakers were taking in doing it. The film does have a much more European outlook with its fatalistic lovers, straightforward violence, evocative, nontraditional music score, location filming, etc. I also seemed to take more notice of Faye Dunaway’s nervous energy as Bonnie. She wasn’t the first choice for that role, and was going through something of a rudderless period after having unpleasant experiences on her first two films. It really shows. That climactic shootout still blows me away, too.
Eames: The Architect and the Painter (2011). This one had been on my wish list at DVD Talk for some time, but we ended up watching it on Netflix instant instead. Narrated by James Franco, this documentary delves into the lives of legendary designers Charles and Ray Eames. Actually, “designers” is too limiting a term for them, since they worked across a wide swath of disciplines (industrial design, film, education, architecture). The film goes comprehensively into their marriage, their office in Venice, California, and that collective’s many projects (the Midcentury Modern chairs they’re so well-known for actually make up a tiny portion of the film). Although The Architect and the Painter rightfully reveres them as the Renaissance Couple of the 20th century, it also had the odd effect of changing my mind on them, individually. I always admired Ray, but the film reveals her as a brilliant but scatterbrained, eccentric pack rat. Charles comes through as a deep-thinking, endlessly curious fellow with charisma to spare — and I actually ended up liking him more than his wife. It’s not a completely glowing portrait, thankfully. The film goes into the strife that came with Charles and Ray taking credit for what people in the office did, and the filmmakers also interview the woman who was Charles’ mistress for a time. What most struck me is the sheer variety of stuff they worked on, and this film has the dizzying array of clips to prove it.
Final Destination 5 (2011). From the IMDb: “Survivors of a suspension-bridge collapse learn there’s no way you can cheat Death.” You know what that means — more beautiful people dying spectacular deaths!” These Final Destination flicks are pretty interchangeable, but this one has a few things in its favor (and it’s a huge improvement over the gimmicky, CGI-reliant part 4). The scene with the characters stranded on a suspension bridge while assorted flying construction debris, hot tar and strategically placed watercraft off them one by one is a wild ride, among the series’ most memorable set pieces. There’s also a neat twist, which reveals itself subtly (why are the cell phones so clunky?) over the film’s running time. The acting is still somewhat b-grade, but even that is part of the fun. I enjoyed seeing the guy who looked like the love child of Tom Cruise and Ben Stiller go progressively batty as the movie went on, for one.
Mildred Pierce (2011). Forget all those superhero blockbusters — this was the Film Event of 2011 that I was most eagerly anticipating. I was a bit leery of the idea of remaking Mildred Pierce for HBO, but as soon as I heard Todd Haynes was directing and Kate Winslet was starring, I was in. For the most part, it’s fantastic — subtly paced and performed, full of wonderful 1930s period detail, and completely faithful to James M. Cain’s original novel. That faithfulness, ironically, is what makes it somewhat less-than-perfect viewing. The 1945 Joan Crawford version took lots of liberties with the story and characters, but at least it was gritty and energetic (and a stunning example of high ’40s W.B. melodrama). Haynes’ rendition takes its own sweet time. For the most part it works beautifully, but it also makes the dated, soapy aspects of the story that much more apparent. Veda is a more cunning, evil child here, but also strangely sympathetic (both Morgan Turner and Rachel Evan Wood do great jobs playing her at different ages). Kate Winslet is a bit wimpy as Mildred, but I think that’s mostly because she’s written that way in the book. She does have two excellent scenes — when she’s tramping the streets of Depression era L.A. seeking a job (the lady does tired very well), and when she’s hearing Veda’s singing voice on the radio for the first time. I also enjoyed Guy Pierce, Brían F. O’Byrne, and James LeGros as the men in Mildred’s life. It was very evocative and absorbing. The contemplative pacing was totally appropriate — those 5-1/2 hours seemed to fly by.
Flick Clique: January 15-21
Aftershock (2010). China’s Great Tangshan Earthquake of 1976 is the catalyst for this ambitious family drama that we checked out on Netflix streaming this week (it was also one of the DVDs available for review at DVD Talk, but one of the other reviewers got to it first). It opens with vignettes showing a simple but loving family with two kids, a boy and a girl, in a semi-urban setting. While the parents are outside their modest apartment one night, a terrifying earthquake strikes. The quake instantly kills the father and levels the family’s apartment, leaving the frantic mother digging through the debris to find her children. With the help of rescue workers, the kids are found, alive but injured. The mom is relieved, but her devastation reaches a new low when the rescue workers tell her that they must kill one child to save the other. She tearfully chooses to save her son. While the daughter is left for dead with the other quake victims, she is actually alive and eventually ends up being adopted by a married pair of Maoist soldiers. How the family lives apart over the next thirty years makes up the bulk of the film, made in a more typically soapy (but still engrossing) way. The film is sparked by searing performances, especially from Fan Xu as the mother and Jingchu Xhang as the adult daughter. The direction and CGI effects in the earthquake scenes are exciting, but it’s the emotional resonance of the later scenes that affected me the most.
All Over Town (1937). I decided to check out another offering from the Comedy Kings 50 Movie Pack this week. Going in chronological order, my next flick wound up being this plodding backstage yarn starring the team of Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson. Olsen & Johnson were best known for their Broadway and film success Hellzapoppin’, a supposedly hilarious and ground-breaking work (the film has been out of circulation for several decades). The considerably more low-profile All Over Town has them as a pair of luckless vaudevillians who, mistaken for millionaires, end up getting involved in mounting a variety show at a theater where a murder occurred. Like the other O&J film I’ve seen (Country Gentlemen, co-starring Joyce Compton), the plot is a paper-thin excuse for Olsen’s mugging and Johnson’s annoying, never-ending giggle. The film is a pretty dreadful affair, overall, but it does rebound somewhat with a frenetic finale that has Olsen giving a play-by-play rundown of the cops attempting to catch a killer running loose in the theater while the other actors, musicians and playgoers scramble to get out of the way.
Bigger Than Life (1956). I’ve always wanted to check out this Nicholas Ray-directed, James Mason domestic drama of prescription pill taking gone awry, going all the way back to my regular American Movie Classics (r.i.p.) watching days. Diehard movie buffs have a soft spot for Bigger Than Life, insisting it’s an overlooked treasure on par with Ray’s better known films like Rebel Without A Cause and They Live By Night. I finally got to see the Criterion edition and, well … it’s a pretty good (if overwrought) drama with some cool production design and camerawork. Scenery-chewing, miscast Mason plays a typical American schoolteacher who, stressed with two jobs and a family to support, ends up taking the experimental drug Cortisone to calm his nerves. The medication has deadly effects when not taken correctly, however, and sure enough Mason is scheming, lying and abusing his terrified wife (Barbara Rush) and son (Christopher Olsen) in the claustrophobic home-turned-sanitarium they share. The film is interesting, more campy than good (but not quite the screaming camp-o-rama that is Ray’s Johnny Guitar). What I liked most about the film is the design of the house set itself with its moody shadows and travel posters/maps on the walls that mock the closed-in, mounting dread the family undergoes. It also has some neat touches, like the bright red living room couch and the foyer rug with a chaotic stripe pattern. Mason (who also produced) is frankly awful, however – and the passivity of Rush’s character would drive anyone up a wall. It’s a watchable enough drama, but in terms of coded social commentary it doesn’t live up to something like Douglas Sirk’s glossy family dramas. All that Heaven Allows could kick this movie’s butt any time.
Private Hell 36 (1954). Like Aftershock, this was another Netflix stream that we caught this past week — and, triumpantly, it’s another winner! The grittyPrivate Hell 36 deals with a common theme in noir, what happens when men in authority are tempted into doing something they’re not supposed to (in this case, stealing laundered money). Howard Duff and Steve Cochran play cops who bust up a drugstore robbery and find that it involved a counterfeit fifty dollar bill. Tracking the bill to a seedy bar where Ida Lupino sings, they enlist Lupino’s help to find the man who trafficked the money. That man is eventually found, but the officers run his auto off the road, killing the driver. Finding a boxful of stolen money at the scene, Cochran (who has fallen for the manipulative Lupino) decides to steal some of the cash. Cochran convinces the straight-laced Duff into sharing the loot and hiding it in a trailer — could they get away with it? This was a nifty little crime drama that benefits from excellent casting and an absorbing storyline. Lupino and the shifty, swarthy Cochran have a dynamic repartee in this.
Flick Clique: January 7-14
Since my server has been having connecting issues, I’m publishing the Flick Clique today. It’s been a crazy week — Two Bunnies & A Duck has published its 100th, and final comic. I enjoyed drawing the bunnies and coming up with gags, but I’ve also realized that I’m not a gag cartoonist and never will be. It was too much work, and there wasn’t much incentive to keep going on (but I am thankful for Christopher’s cheerleading). With Bunnies, there were times when I was disappointed with the drawing but had a good gag, and other times when the drawing/coloring went well on a cartoon where the gag didn’t work. The entire run of Bunnies will be collected in a book, and that will be the end of that.
East Side of Heaven (1939). Fluffy Bing Crosby musical teams him up with pert Joan Blondell as a pair of romantically involved city dwellers who wind up involved in a wealthy family’s spat when he becomes the unwilling guardian of a kidnapped baby. Crosby is a singing taxi driver, Blondell his switchboard operator girlfriend, and Mischa Auer plays the goofy amateur astronomer who rooms with Crosby. The film has a bit of jazzy verve with some tasty production design (dig the Deco café below!) and tuneful if slight songs. The plot swings into action when C. Aubrey Smith’s millionaire wants to take possession of the baby grandchild belonging to his irresponsible son Robert Kent and his daughter-in-law Irene Hervey. Hervey, not wanting to lose her son, decides to abduct the baby and place him in the care of the most trustworthy person she knows, Crosby (who had just been fired for speaking out of turn on her behalf). Quite a cute film, but be warned that it ends up being All About The Baby in the second half! Personally, I have a strong aversion to babies in movies. The baby in question here is quite a happy ‘lil guy, but the filmmakers milk his cuteness to an annoying degree. Universal loved this one enough to star it in several “Baby Sandy” comedies, apparently. Go figure.
Harvest (2011). This understated German indie drama was a film I selected from the reviewers’ pool at DVD Talk. My review was just completed and can be seen here.
In Time (2011). Another disc that arrived from DVD Talk, surprisingly enough (I’ve requested a few mainstream films with them, but haven’t gotten too many as yet). You may recall that In Time was the Justin Timberlake “people with stopwatches on their forearms” sci-fi opus that came and went in theaters last Fall. We kept our expectations dialed a bit low for this one, but actually it’s a thoughtful and well-made film whose interesting premise only gets derailed a few times. In near-future L.A., time is a commodity. Upon their 25th birthday, people are given a certain amount of time for the remainder of their lives until the green stopwatch implanted in their wrists runs out. These stopwatches also have the ability to stop physical aging, so most of the population looks 25. These advances have created a quasi-police state in which the rich are sequestered in safe zones where they live out lives of leisure, while the less fortunate are forced into hard labor, crime and desperation to cling on to their remaining time. Timberlake’s character is part of the latter scene, eking out a living with his mom in a dingy apartment. When he comes across a suicidal rich man who gives him 100 years before offing himself, however, he winds up getting into the forbidden wealthy district with the cops in hot pursuit. He eventually meets bored rich girl Amanda Seyfried and the two go on a crime spree, hoping to unleash the time banks that are controlled by Seyfried’s powerful father (Vincent Kartheiser of Mad Men). Will they bring equilibrium back to society? This was an interesting film, casting-wise, with similarly aged Timberlake (b.1979) and actress Olivia Wilde (b.1981) playing a child and parent, for instance. It doesn’t have a lot of showy CGI like other sci-fi outings, but I think the central concept is strong enough to stand on its own. The only weak link I found was Timberlake, who doesn’t bring a lot of depth to his character. This was written and directed by the un-prolific Andrew Niccol, whose earlier Gattaca shares a lot of similarities with In Time. There are a few flaws with the execution (like, why isn’t there more murder in this place where time is so easily exchanged?), but overall I found it intriguing and not nearly as bad as the reviews suggested.
Stonewall (1996). One of those ’90s gay films that has its adherents, I put this on my Netflix queue mainly because Guillermo Diaz (whom I enjoyed in Weeds) is in it. Diaz plays La Miranda, a fiery drag queen in 1969 New York. He meets Matty Dean (Frederick Weller), an out-and-proud midwesterner on his first foray in the city. The two become boyfriends amidst the turmoil of the emerging gay rights movement. Despite the title, the Stonewall Inn figures primarily as the setting for La Miranda and his drag friends to put on lip-synch shows set to campy girl group records by The Shangri-Las (these scenes, although pretty fun, aren’t too relevant to the story). The riot itself is confined to the final 10 minutes or so, which is disappointing. The film, on the whole, is an okay if disjointed effort with a distinct British feel (it kinda reminded me of gritty UK films from that period like Let Him Have It or Prick Up Your Ears). Most of the cast was all right. For a historical recreation of the Stonewall riots and what led up to them, I’d go for the recent PBS American Experience program on the subject. It’s much more illuminating and a whole lot less drag queeny.
Flick Clique: January 1-7
Apollo 18 (2011). A “found footage” look at what may have happened to the final Apollo moon landing mission in the early ’70s (hint: it involves interstellar crustaceans). The film follows three astronauts as they explore the moon’s surface in what was supposed to be a routine NASA mission. Soon they find evidence of an aborted Russian lunar landing, and then the mens’ real troubles begin. Much too contrived for my taste, and the methods the filmmakers used to make the footage look old came off as too artsy and deliberate (more like a music video than any real ’70s footage I’ve ever seen). Boring.
Cimarron (1931). Another Best Picture Oscar winner that I haven’t seen, and one I jumped at getting when the DVD edition turned up at Big Lots for three bucks! This was an all right, awfully creaky but enthralling Western saga about a family who journeys West during the Oklahoma land grab of the 1880s to settle in a town that literally grows right before our eyes. The cast is headed by blustery Richard Dix as a combo newspaper editor/lawyer named Yancey Cravat, with Irene Dunne as his supportive wife. This was based on a humungous Edna Ferber novel; like Ferber’s Giant it follows the story of family’s triumphs and tragedies from a past that many in the 1931 audience would have remembered right up until the present day. The direction is at time wondrous and stagy, and Dix’s acting style dates it (Dunne is only moderately better and miles away from her peak as a light comedienne). Still, I found it enjoyable in a campy way. The supporting cast is pretty good, including personal fave Edna May Oliver as the town’s clucking gossip. The finale, in which the townspeople gather to honor the now-elderly Dunne, is quite unintentionally funny. Keep in mind, however, that back in ’31 it must have been thrilling to see the massive changes that America underwent in such a short time, dramatized in the then-new medium of talking pictures.
Following (1998). This early, low-budget film from director Christopher Nolan is one of those things that we stumbled across amongst Netflix’s instant offerings. Shot in black and white and on a miniscule budget, Following is about a young British guy (Jeremy Theobald) who feels compelled to follow strangers around London hoping to get a peek into their lives. One of the people he follows catches on to his “hobby” and confronts him about it. The followed man turns out to be an arrogant petty thief named Cobb (Alex Haw), who eventually teaches the man how to break into peoples’ apartments without getting caught. One of the apartments they burgle belongs to an enigmatic blonde woman (Lucy Russell) whom the following man gets to know. Little does he know that it’s all part of a devious plan that Cobb (who already knew the woman) has set in place. Intriguing, Memento-ish film does a lot of interesting things on a tiny budget. It’s basically a student film with indie-level acting, but very well done and worth seeking out on Netflix.
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2011). Since this is Christopher’s first week of freedom after quitting his job, we celebrated by trucking down to the local cinema and seeing this lastest M:I entry. Although I’m still not much of a Tom Cruise fan, I have to admit that these Mission: Impossible movies keep getting better and better. The first one was okay if convoluted and too long, the second was something of a high tech Scooby Doo episode, but I was totally caught off guard by how exciting and fresh the J.J. Abrams-directed third installment was. Abrams still has a hand in this fourth one, only now the directing has been turned over to Brad Bird, the whiz behind The Incredibles. Was this Cruise’s idea? Because, wow, this is one tightly plotted, intricately done film. Bird seems very interested in depicting high-tech gadgetry that comes off as amazing, yet still plausible within this I.M.F. secret agent world. Cruise is back, of course, joined by a funny and adorable Simon Pegg from the previous installment. Rounding out the quartet of I.M.F. agents is Jeremy Renner as an accountant who proves to be much more kick-ass than he initially lets on (it seemed as though they’re grooming Renner to take Cruise’s place) and Paula Patton, who is a real find as a gorgeous yet intelligent agent who has revenge on her mind — the baddies’ hired assassin (Léa Seydoux) killed her agent boyfriend (Josh Holloway of Lost). There are some fun set pieces in Dubai and India, along with some clever plot twists that set the action forward in an interesting way. This is probably the best action film I’ve seen since Casino Royale (2006), or perhaps MI:3 (also 2006).
The Phantom of Hollywood (1974). This mostly forgotten TV movie was a recent purchase of mine from Warner Archive, which seems to be digging even deeper to bring its back catalog to made-to-order DVD. The film, about a menacing masked killer (played by Jack Cassidy) who stalks a crumbling old movie studio backlot which is about to be demolished, isn’t really much on the surface. There’s isn’t much of note from the cast, headed by Cassidy, Peter Lawford, Broderick Crawford and a few other oldsters. The story is also pretty bland and predictable. What’s amazing about this film is that MGM made it as a document of their Backlot 2, which really was in the process of being sold off and destroyed. Characters walk around the lot and describe the rusty building false fronts and what films they were in, which is really neat. There’s also a bit of sadness (and interest, in a train wreck way) when these historical structures are shown getting bulldozed down. That’s Hollywood for ya! Christopher got a great book about the MGM lot as a holiday gift; this film (as cheesy as it is) is a wonderful companion for that. Buy The Phantom Of Hollywood at Amazon here, and help a starving artist.
The T.A.M.I. Show (1964). As a confirmed ’60s music nut, I have been waiting for years to see this legendary concert film, a project that I’ve seen clips of but never the entire thing until its overdue DVD issue. The T.A.M.I. Show was filmed on a single night at the Santa Monica Auditorium to an audience of screaming kids and teens. They had every right to scream, too, since this one concert attracted every big pop music name at the time (minus The Beatles and Elvis!) – The Beach Boys, Chuck Berry, The Supremes, Marvin Gaye, The Rolling Stones, Lesley Gore, Smokey & The Miracles, and James Brown (who delivers the most sweaty, feverish performance of the set). The film is loads of fun, if only to check out where music was at this transitional time. Squeaky clean acts like hosts Jan & Dean were the hottest things going at the moment, but their time was fading fast to the more complex Rolling Stones (who look utterly young here) and the Motown sound. Speaking of Motown, I particularly dug Marvin Gaye’s set backed by L.A. girl group The Blossoms, and the Supremes’s set is an early gem with the ladies performing from what was by then only their second album! Not everything in this film is a winner (stiff Billy J. Kramer, where did they find him?), but by and large it was a blast from the past worth waiting for.
Flick Clique: December 25-31
Hollywood Cavalcade (1939). Every New Year’s Eve, we have a brilliant idea of watching an older film that neither of us have seen previously. This year’s offering was this nostalgic 20th Century Fox musical melodrama (it looks like a musical, yet there’s no singing and little dancing) which delves into the early days of filmmaking. Alice Faye plays a budding Broadway actress who is induced to move West for the glory of early flickers by fast talking Don Ameche. Hearing that Ameche is a minor player in this bustling scenario nearly turns Faye off and back East, but she relents and ends up being groomed into a popular slapstick comedienne by the determined Ameche. She winds up falling for him, too, but he’s such a workaholic that he doesn’t notice until Faye skips off with her handsome co-star, Alan Curtis. This film was pretty to look at (shot in Technicolor) and quite amusing for vintage film buffs. I kept expecting it to go horribly wrong with the historical details as so many of these escapist flicks do, but surprisingly it gets the freewheeling spirit of early Hollywood right. The script contains lots of clever references to stars of the era, even going as far as casting people like Buster Keaton in small roles. Cute movie!
Home for the Holidays (1995). A movie that I recorded off our local ThisTV station just after Dec. 25th, commercials and all, but I always wanted to see this one. Jodie Foster directs, and in her favor it does have enthusiastic performances from a talented cast. The film is somewhat all-over-the-place thematically, but overall I enjoyed it. At the film’s start, Holly Hunter, as an art restorer, suddenly finds herself laid off as Thanksgiving approaches. Hunter is also coping with being single and nearly 40, dealing with a daughter (Claire Danes) who is ready to lose her virginity, and finally prepping to go back to Chicago to interact with her family and their assorted problems. The family includes nagging ma Anne Bancroft, patient pa Charles Durning, dotty aunt Geraldine Chaplin, manic gay brother Robert Downey Jr., straight-laced sister Cynthia Stevenson, and doormat brother-in-law Steve Guttenberg. There’s also Dylan McDermott as Downey’s guest, whom Hunter feels attracted to but is unsure to make a move since he might be her brother’s boyfriend. David Strathairn has a nice bit as an old friend of Hunter’s who still carries a torch for her. There are a lot of nice scenes here, peppered with zingy dialogue. The action gets a bit too cartoonish at times, and a little of Downey goes a long way (apparently he was strung out on heroin when making this), but I found that I could totally empathize with the Hunter character and her familial woes. It’s brutally honest about families and people who can’t relate to the seemingly random people whom they come from and the idea that we’re supposed to bond simply ’cause we’re family.
Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland (1989). Watched this for a DVD Talk review. This animated opus looked really intriguing to me — I picked it mostly to see if it had any fidelity to the classic Winsor McKay comic strip it’s based on (not much), but watching it reveals a lot of other fascinating things. The film follows a young American boy in early 20th century America as he (and his pet squirrel) are invited into a dream kingdom called Slumberland, to be the official playmate of a spunky princess. After they arrive, circumstances cause the kingdom to be under attack by a nightmare catcher. Since Nemo winds up losing a precious key given to him by the princess’ father, it’s up to him and his new cigar-chomping pal Flick (voiced by Mickey Rooney) to find the demon before he threatens the state of reality itself. First and foremost, this felt like a conflicted movie that was torn between a Japanese aesthetic and a more commercial American feel. The characters were very Disneyfied and somewhat contrived, yet the lush animation and surreal imagery was distinctively Asian. As it turns out, the film had a thorny production — going all the way back to 1982! I can certainly see why this film has its adherents, it’s beautiful to look at and the Nemo character is an appealing hero. The script is a mess, however, with a vaguely defined villain and lots of aimless padding in the latter half. There’s also the regrettable touches to “Americanize” the film, including forgettable songs and stock characters (including that cute but ultimately pointless squirrel). Like Disney’s ’80s flop The Black Cauldron, this is a decent enough, one-time watch for animation fans. I wouldn’t go as far as recommending it, however. The test footage of this film, currently on YouTube, hints at what the film could have been:
Nancy Drew, Trouble Shooter (1939). Our first film of a 1939 double feature we did on New Year’s Eve. We actually came across the DVD with all four of the Warner Bros. Nancy Drew films at a local Goodwill recently. These little b-movies are quite zippy and fun, mostly due to the great casting of vivacious Bonita Granville, who is the very personification of the spunky sleuth. In all four flicks, she is joined by a regular cast of supporting actors including Frankie Thomas as her boyfriend and John Litel as her dad. Trouble Shooter is honestly the weakest of the films, with a lightweight plot in which the central mystery is almost an afterthought and too much silliness (including scenes with Willie Best as a stereotypical ghost fearin’, chicken stealin’ farmhand). The plot revolves around Nancy and her dad coming to the aid of an old family friend who has been wrongly accused of murder in a small country town. As always, Nancy is on the case! The marvelous chemistry between Granville and Thomas keeps this one afloat — until the pair get stuck on a capsized sailboat at film’s end, that is.
Séraphine (2009). Unexpectedly fantastic French biopic about a lowly cleaning woman who has a secret passion for creating wild paintings of flowers and fruit. In a rural town in 1914 France, portly, put-upon Séraphine (Yolande Moreau) is cleaning the home of a woman who is renting a room to a German art critic named Wilhelm Uhde (Ulrich Tukur). The man stays out of the way of the chatty yet prepossessing Séraphine, until he sees one of her artworks tossed on the floor of his landlord’s dining room. After finding out from the landlady that the art was Séraphine’s, he encourages the woman to make more art by buying her better quality supplies. Her talent is nurtured, but the onset of WWI prompts Uhde to flee the town. Several years later, Séraphine is still scraping by cleaning homes while privately painting. Uhde tracks her down, astonished to find her still living and working on her art. He arranges for the woman to have a monthly stipend and takes some of her pieces to France to sell to naive-art collectors. As her fame builds, however, her mental capacity decreases and she is institutionalized. Excellent film, played with a muted yet compelling truthfulness. This is one of the best artist bio flicks I’ve ever seen, actually. Yolande Moreau’s performance is unflinchingly raw as a woman whose creativity comes from a sphere beyond herself. She’s matched by Tukur as the sympathetic art critic. Highly recommended.
Wing and a Prayer (1944). This was a movie that I impulsively picked on Netflix instant one morning — I wanted to check out another movie with William Eythe, the handsome 1940s actor whose career was cut short when he entered into a same sex relationship with another actor. Eythe was pretty good in this 20th Century Fox patriotic flag-waver, playing an actor who is lying low serving on a Navy aircraft carrier during WWII (based on James Stewart?). The film is more of an ensemble piece depicting daily life on the carrier in a realistic manner. Along with Eythe, there’s Don Ameche as the commanding officer, Dana Andrews as a more experienced pilot, Charles Bickford as the gruff captain, along with Kevin O’Shea, Harry Morgan and Richard Jaekel as Eythe’s shipmates. Some of the characters dip into cliché (including the lovelorn, tragically fated guy who might as well be named “Ensign Deadmeat”), but overall I found this very enjoyable. The film was shot mostly on location at an aircraft carrier using extras who looked like real WWII soldiers, something which helps the film immensely even during its less believable moments (the climactic battle uses lots of backscreen projection). On a shallow note, there’s also a lot of hunky men in this film — mostly the extras, although dreamy actor Richard Crane is one of the more substantially seen hunks.
Flick Clique: December 11-17
Asylum Seekers (2009). This fanciful/surreal indie was the one film that Christopher picked from the myriad discs on the DVD Talk reviewer pile. The debut feature of writer/director Rania Ajami takes place in a dreamlike insane asylum in which a single slot is jockeyed for by six candidates with various strange afflictions (a gender-bending rapper, a girl who is addicted to online life, etc.). The would-be inmates are put through various performing antics under the watchful eye of a forbidding nurse, and ultimately they receive judgement from a mysterious figure known as The Beard. Ajami does some nice things with the photography on a limited budget, and the basic story holds some promise as a Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory-like romp. Unfortunately, the characters are set up as cartoonish beings with little depth and the film drags on and on with subplots going off on their own tangents (it would have worked infinitely better as a live action short). What most undoes this frustrating little film is the fact that Ajami’s visual style more or less liberally borrows from Terry Gilliam, only with not nearly as much depth or emotional resonance.
Cell 211 (2009). Gripping Spanish drama is one of the better prison films I’ve ever seen, despite a few implausibilities. The film follows recently hired prison guard named Juan (played by Alberto Ammann) as he receives an orientation at the high security prison where he’s set to start work on the following day. He becomes injured by falling debris and is placed in a cell vacated by a prisoner who killed himself. Before help can arrive, however, one of the more heavily guarded inmates escapes and sparks a riot amongst all of the prisoners. The main proponent, a gravely voiced gent named Malamadre (Luis Tosar), takes Juan under his wing, mistaking the man for another inmate. The prisoners negotiate for better conditions with the guards, who are aware that Juan is their mole. Disregarding the far-fetched idea that Malamadre would immediately take on a guy he just met as his right hand man, this was an absorbing, well-made film that amps up the tension with each passing minute. Ammann was great, and I dug Tosar’s intense performance. I’ve read that this film is getting an American remake, which sort of fills me with dread. Stay with the original, it’s nearly always better than some cheap-o copy.
Hot Coffee (2011). Another excellent documentary. Hot Coffee takes a look at the notorious court case from the early ’90s in which a woman sued McDonalds when she spilled a cup of their coffee on herself. You may remember it being a punchline on talk shows and the like, but the case itself was quite a serious matter which McDonalds lawyers and PR spun into a campaign to decrease what they termed “frivolous” lawsuits by consumers. The film then delves into tort reform and the often nefarious ways that big companies use their money and influence to make it harder for individuals to seek litigation. One of the things it explores is how successful tort reform laws were in Texas under governor George W. Bush and Karl Rove (boo, hiss) and how Bush used it as a campaign point for his presidency. This led to more bargaining power for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (which is not a government agency as I thought), right up to the Supreme Court’s disgusting “Citizens United” decision on campaign finance regulation from earlier this year. It’s totally fascinating and I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Over Exposed (1956). The other not-so-noir film on the Bad Girls of Film Noir disc I rented from Netflix. Like Women’s Prison, this film comes from the cheapie side of Columbia Pictures in the mid ’50s. Shapely Prison co-star Cleo Moore stars here as a sleazy but ambitious young woman who works her way up the career ladder with her feminine wiles and a camera. It opens with her being arrested on a clip joint bust. She befriends an older, alcoholic photographer (Raymond Greenleaf) who agrees to house her in his apartment/studio and teaches her the tricks of the trade. She moves to the big city and attempts to set up her own studio. While attempting to get her photos published, she befriends a reporter (Richard Crenna) who helps her get a job as a photographer at a swanky nightclub. Eventually she builds up her own successful commercial photography studio, but it all gets threatened when someone steals the photos she accidentally took of a local dowager’s death scene. An altogether forgettable film, but there are some snappy lines in the script to recommend it. Women’s Prison is the clear winner of the two.
The Universe of Keith Haring (2008). Straightforward but enthralling doc on the artist whose graffiti-inspired lines made for one of the indelible visual hallmarks of the 1980s. Director Christina Clausen interviewed an impressive array of people for this, including most of Haring’s family, contemporaries like Kenny Scharf, art dealers, scenesters, even the straight guy with whom Haring fell in love during the final years before his untimely death in 1990. It also has a ton of examples of his work, from full-scale murals to prints to objects from his Pop Shop empourium (remember that?). The film adequately conveys how incredibly prolific the guy was during a relatively short time. Neat doc, definitely worth seeking out on Netflix streaming (where I found it).
Flick Clique: December 4-10
Buffering (2011). A gay sex comedy from Britain that I’m reviewing for DVD Talk. Buffering follows a gay couple, Seb and Aaron (appealingly played by Alex Anthony and Conner McKenzy) as one partner decides to upload secret recordings of the couple having sex to the internet in order to make some extra cash on the side. The secret is eventually revealed to the other guy. Instead of stopping the enterprise dead in its tracks, they end up raking in more bucks as their popularity spreads. A female ex-roomie (Jessica Matthews) catches on and encourages the men to take on a new recruit, including the hunky guy (Oliver Park) who lives next door. Lots of promise here, but the already lightweight concept is stretched to its limit and the micro-budget lets it down. The guys are cute (especially Park), but I’ve seen better sexy gay comedies. A longer review will be posted at DVD Talk soon.
The Other Love (1947). I found this otherwise unavailable Barbara Stanwyck flick on Netflix streaming a few months ago and have been dying to see it ever since. This is a standard romantic melodrama about a concert pianist (Stanwyck) who goes to a sanitarium to overcome tuberculosis. David Niven as her doctor tries to keep her on the path to health, but she’s tempted by the outside world when meeting a fellow patient (the terrific Joan Lorring) who teaches her how to duck out of the place at night, when no one is watching. Niven finds himself falling for Stanwyck, but she’s lured away to Monaco by flashy race car driver Richard Conte. Will she come to her senses, or die a glamorous young high roller? A silly story is given depth by a luminous Stanwyck. I was pretty impressed by the glossy photography and production values (this was produced by James Whale’s longtime lover at an independent studio by the name of Anglo American Films). Stanwyck also looks great decked out in several glam outfits designed by Edith Head. Not an essential film, but enjoyable all the same.
Portrait in Black (1960). I have a strong weakness for campy ’60s melodrama, especially if it stars a fading glamour queen like Lana Turner and is produced by a kitschmeister like Ross Hunter. Portrait in Black is a veritable jackpot of overheated, so bad but soooo good theatrics — I can’t believe I haven’t seen this one before! Lana plays a San Francisco socialite married to abusive shipping magnate Lloyd Nolan. She and the husband’s doctor, Anthony Quinn, are secret lovers who arrange to off the poor guy in a discreet way. Although their plan is pulled off successfully, a whole host of suspicious supporting players threaten to blow their cover. Among them are Sandra Dee as Lana’s stepdaughter, Richard Basehart as Nolan’s greedy business associate (who’s also in love with Lana), Ray Walston as the family chauffer, and Anna May Wong as the imperious head maid (you can tell she’s evil because sinister “Asian” music plays whenever she’s onscreen). The ending is a riot, strangely abrupt and just dying for a sequel which never came to be, alas.
The Leopard (1963). This acclaimed Italian historical drama is directed by Luchino Visconti and features Burt Lancaster as a gruff prince who is desperately trying to preserve his family’s integrity amidst the political upheaval of 1860s Sicily. A lushly photographed, wonderful to look at, weirdly plodding and alienating film. I suppose I’d glean more on it if I knew more about Italian political history from that time, but I found it overlong and (regrettably) dull. Lancaster does well with acting outside his native tongue, however, and I found a lot to enjoy in Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale simply because they were two gorgeous people — and their characters are earthy and real in a welcome way. A lot of this film plays like a little historical documentary, and I dug how the background villagers and such are just seen going about their lives in a startlingly natural way. Overall, I just couldn’t get into it, however.
The Vampire’s Ghost (1945). Last weekend, I ended up catching a bug and getting sick. I was bored and had nothing else to watch, so I dialed up this 59 minute long b-thriller on Netflix instant. The film follows a group of American explorers as they settle in an African outpost. The sinister looking white guy who runs the outpost (John Abbott) is pleasant enough at first, but soon the explorers find that he’s a hundreds-year old vampire — and he wants to recruit the explorers into the bloodsucking life! The film is underwhelming for the most part, but there are some decent (for 1945) special effects shots and campy moments to keep it a watchable little horror flick.
WALL•E (2008). I’ve owned this on DVD for almost two years; finally we got to re-watch it this past week. It’s still a wonderful film (particularly the first half), although the second at-home viewing is not quite as magical as viewing it in the theater.
Women’s Prison (1955). This fun prison melodrama came out a few years ago as part of a Bad Girls of Film Noir DVD box set. It’s not really Noir, but the film stands on its own as an absorbing, often times over-the-top drama that comes off like a cousin to the superior Caged (1950). Set in a facility that houses female and male prisoners in separate quarters, the film begins with two new inmates getting booked — jaded but sympathetic Brenda (Jan Sterling) and shrinking violet Helene (Phyllis Thaxter). We then get introduced to several prisoners, including a phalanx of African-American women headed by kindly Juanita Moore, who reveal that they’re being abused daily by the staff overseen by hard-bitten Ida Lupino. Thaxter eventually goes nuts, and Audrey Totter as another inmate eventually finds she’s in a family way with her husband, an inmate in the men’s quarters. It isn’t top-notch drama, but I found it fast paced and quite enjoyable with a lot of vividly drawn characters. Strangely enough, the prison itself doesn’t seem too bad! Sterling was my favorite, followed by Lupino and Totter. Lupino’s real-life husband Howard Duff appears as the prison’s doctor, an ally for the inmates and harsh critic of the policies held by the ice-veined Lupino.
Flick Clique: November 27-December 3
Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011). Despite having a huge aversion to mainstream romantic comedies, I put this on my queue since it got fairly good reviews when it came out. Maybe I shouldn’t have bothered? Christopher put it more succinctly: “this is a film made for people who are not Matt and me.” Although it’s sparked by a semi-funny script and several appealing performances, the film’s strangely breeder-and-suburbia centric sensibility really bugged me. You recall this is the movie where Steve Carrell plays a schlub who is shocked to find that his wife of 25 or so years (Julianne Moore) wants a divorce. Crying into his drink at a bar, he befriends a young lothario (Ryan Gosling) who teaches him how to dress right and attract women. The scheme basically succeeds, but then Carrell decides that he’s lonely without the only woman he ever loved and resorts to the usual contrived stuff to get her back. There are some comical subplots with the couple’s kids, but that’s the basic gist of things. It was okay, kind of funny and kind of awful, with a climactic speech by Carrell that is total hogwash. Mainstream Romantic Comedies are not our thing, I guess.
Lost Horizon (1973). I was jazzed to get the new made-on-demand edition of this notorious musical flop for review at DVD Talk. Put briefly, the film is a plodding, overproduced bore – but the disc presentation as done by Sony Screen Classics by Request is outstanding. This was Ross Hunter’s musical remake of the James Hilton best-seller (which was made into a better-remembered but still financially disappointing Frank Capra film in the ’30s), complete with lavish production values, strangely miscast actors and a tuneful score by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. It is a weirdly structured, ill-conceived mess, but I can see where it could have worked with the right T.L.C. The most notoriously wrong thing about the film is having non-singers like Peter Finch and Liv Ullman performing the songs (dubbed, thank goodness). There’s also some disconnect between the happy/perky score and the heavy theme in an exotic setting. The utopian Shangri-La as envisioned by Hilton here comes across more like a blissed-out hippie commune with weird religious undertones (moonies, anyone?). For the DVD, the film is restored to its original length with some wonderfully campy musical segments that were deleted after the original release. There’s also some great behind the scenes stuff with Hunter proudly crowing about his wonderful achievement, and several demo recordings with Bacharach croaking out the tunes (to be fair, the soundtrack does have some wonderful songs that would have fared better in a more elegant setting). An awful film with a great DVD? This will be a challenge to write about. We’ll see how the final review comes out.
The Recipe (2010). This intriguing looking South Korean mystery was a film I picked out for review at DVD Talk. It’s slight, inconsistent, overall enjoyable. My review is here.
Super 8 (2011). This J.J. Abrams scripted and directed, Steven Spielberg produced kids-’n-aliens flick was one of the more overhyped films coming out of Summer 2011. I basically enjoyed it, although there were a lot of formulaic and borrowed-from-better-film elements that prevented it from being a true Popcorn classic. The story is about a group of Jr. High aged Ohio kids who are making their own zombie movie in 1979. While filming a scene at the local railroad depot, their shoot is disrupted by a huge train crash which revealed (through their still running camera) the train was the U.S. government attempting to transport an alien. The kid characters seem a little too Goonies-ish for me, but they were a well-cast and appealingly real bunch. I also like the generally spot-on attention to detail (except for a few glaring examples, i.e. a Rubik’s cube reference) in capturing a late ’70s Midwestern atmosphere. The movie gets more plodding as it moves along, and once the alien itself is finally revealed the end product is underwhelming. Still, it was a fun and expertly scripted movie that I’d recommend.
Flick Clique: November 20-26
The selections in this week’s Flick Clique all date from Monday-Wednesday of last week. We were out of town most of the time since then, spending Thanksgiving at Redondo Beach, California with my parents. The folks, who live here locally in Arizona, have made turkey day a tradition at a cozy seafood market in Redondo for the past twenty years or so. Don’t ask me why they chose that particular place, but it was a funky experience cracking open freshly steamed crab with a bunch of Asian families sitting at tables around us. We were joined by my aunt and her husband and my cousin and her s.o. Friday was spent exploring nearby Hermosa beach (I bought some clothes at one of the local shops), while on Saturday we went down to San Diego to meet my longtime friend Ion, his wife, Yvette, and their young son Evan. After breakfast, we all went to the local swap meet out by San Diego’s old sports stadium. It was lots of fun, and I was so happy to finally meet Ion after emailing and trading lots of mixes with him over the years (hi guys!). What a nice finale to a jam-packed holiday weekend. Onward to the flicks:
Fail-Safe (1964). Dr. Strangelove is one of those classic movies whose appeal strangely eludes me. Despite all that, I put it on my Netflix queue, reshuffled to avoid it, then when it finally arrived Christopher says “You wanted to see that? Watch Fail-Safe instead.” I didn’t feel like giving up two-plus hours on Strangelove, so I returned it and added this celebrated Henry Fonda bomb-scare drama to the queue top instead. Having never seen that one, either, what did I have to lose? This intense, Sydney Lumet-directed drama probably lacked the social commentary of Strangelove but it was a fascinating film all the same. It effectively dramatizes the fears that Americans had of a nuclear invasion during those Bay of Pigs times. In the film, Fonda plays the president who, on a day when he’s set to do some routine U.N. talks, learns that a phalanx of American aircraft are (due to a complex misunderstanding) being sent to Russia, ready to strike. The film also has some great work by two unexpected actors: Walter Matthau as a nuclear weapons expert and Larry Hagman as the interpreter who works the tense negotiations between Fonda and the unseen Russian premier. The intensity builds into an unforgettable finale that threw me for a loop, honestly. Be like a heat-seeking missile and hunt for it.
Reckless (1934) and Riffraff (1935). The last two Jean Harlow films I watched for DVD Talk. Reckless was a bit of a mess, but I really enjoyed Riffraff. I remember seeing it years ago and thought it was flat and kind of dull, but this second viewing revealed the snappy dialogue and the nifty performances from Harlow and Spencer Tracy. My review of Warner Archive’s new box set is here. Hope you like!
Sarah’s Key (2010). This Holocaust drama is another DVD Talk project. I specifically asked for this one, since both of us love Kristen-Scott Thomas and the story looked intriguing. In another of her recent great French-language turns, Thomas plays a contemporary journalist who is doing a magazine story on the Vel’ d’Hiv Roundup in 1942 Paris, a notorious persecution of Jews by the French police which had faded into history. Eventually she uncovers a personal aspect to the tragedy when it is found that the apartment she’s occupying from her husband’s parents once belonged to a Jewish family that was relocated in the roundup. Beautifully filmed flashbacks illustrate the plight of the relocated family, the Starzynskis, as the daughter Sarah frantically tries to get back to the apartment to free her little brother who was locked in a secret compartment in the siblings’ bedroom. Good film, nicely performed with some very moving scenes involving the Sarah character (who ages into a guilt-ridden young woman). The film does have the Julie & Julia problem of the contemporary story not being as compelling as the historical story, but it does fare well due to the magnetic Thomas (yes, I believe I can watch her in just about anything). Warning: the ending is a mawkish Children Are Our Future sop that would be more at home in a Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation.
Flick Clique: November 13-19
Bill Cunningham New York (2010). This recent documentary is one of the films whose DVD I am reviewing for DVD Talk. Bill Cunningham is a New York City photographer who has been doing the “On The Street” column in the New York Times for about 30 years now. The film follows Cunningham as the still energetic octogenarian bikes around Manhattan, furiously seeking out residents whose clothing catches his eye — be it socialite or some poor homeless woman. The energy and spontaneity of the photos is captured in the tight editing, aided by tons of samples and interviews with his often eccentric subjects. The filmmakers also spent a lot of time in Cunningham’s rent-controlled apartment in Carnegie Hall, and in the offices of the Times as the man fusses over one of his layouts with an exasperated (in a humorous way) page designer. This film had me grinning from ear to ear, mostly due to the ebullient personality of Cunningham himself. He seems like a pleasant fellow to be around, beloved by many. Eventually we learn that he’s also an enigma, choosing to live a modest existence with no significant other or family close by. The film briefly dips into Grey Gardens territory, when the director point blank asks him if he’s gay. It really isn’t relevant, however. By and large, the film hits its goal in getting the audience acquainted with a fabulous person whom most of us didn’t know about.
The Girl from Missouri (1934) and Personal Property (1937). More viewing from the Warner Archive Jean Harlow box set, with two films from very different periods in Miss Harlow’s short career. The Girl from Missouri is pre-Code fizz all the way, with Jean a delight as a gold-digging Midwestern girl whose dreams of finding a sugar daddy are thwarted by an unexpected death that implicated her and her best pal (equally delightful Patsy Kelly). This starts out as bubbly comedy, but then strangely u-turns into heavy, dramatic territory. Harlow proves to be good at both — hard to believe she was playing cheap hussies only a few years earlier. I can take or leave Franchot Tone as her ardent suitor, however. Personal Property was another glossy attempt on MGM’s part to shoehorn Harlow into more ladylike roles. In this one, she plays wealthy widow Crystal Wetherby, a woman who assists Robert Taylor’s Raymond Dabney, who has just gotten out of jail. Through a convoluted set of doings, Taylor ends up living at Harlow’s place and posing as her butler. The film is stagy and somewhat claustrophobic, but there are some bright moments. There’s a surprisingly free and easy chemistry between Harlow and Taylor (one of the few actors who started out loose and appealing, then grew stiff as the years went on). Mostly it was a big snooze, though.
Green Lantern (2011). Bloated, ridiculous superhero film (which is all that Hollywood can do anymore, apparently) is actually kinda fun once you peel away the hype. The film opens with a convoluted setup that would have all but the most devout comic nerds scratching their heads. From there it switches to trite earthbound storytelling with Ryan Reynolds as the hotshot pilot with daddy issues sparring against Blake Lively as his co-worker/semi-love interest. Like Thor, the film has a weird way of switching between the superhero world and the dramatic goings-on with the humans and never finds a comfortable groove. Reynolds is actually quite fresh and funny as the Lantern, striking the right goofy tone that this material needed. Too bad the script was so awful. There’s also the obligatory Birth of the Villain subplot with Peter Sarsgaard as a nerdy college professor who gets some meanie mojo in his blood stream and turns into Green Lantern’s oversized craniumed nemesis. Those scenes are broadly played to a laughable degree, and it gets worse when Sarsgaard deals with Angela Bassett as a scientist and Tim Robbins as a politician. All three actors are well-respected; I wonder what possessed them to agree to this tripe. My advice for the inevitable sequel is to hold on to Ryan Reynolds, ditch most of the CGI and the terrible, done-by-committee screenwriting.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009). We watched this on Netflix Instant, mostly to see what the hype was about with the source material. The Swedish filming of Stieg Larsson’s best seller comes on a bit poky paced and impenetrable at first, but overall I found it enjoyable. The plot revolves around a journalist (Michael Nyqvist), convicted and prison-bound, who is contacted by a powerful man (Sven-Bertil Taube) to help locate the man’s niece, a woman who mysteriously disappeared forty plus years earlier (around the same time she looked after the journalist as a boy). The journalist is also being followed by a pierced bisexual woman (Noomi Rapace), who has been hired by the journalist’s enemies to hack into his computer and track his every movement. She becomes drawn to the man and eventually works with him to solve the mystery. I enjoyed this film mostly because it never tried to shed its essential Swedish-ness. The stream was kinda disappointing (the picture was dark and semi-blurry), but aside from the poky intro I can see why the Larsson books became such a huge hit. I have little interest in the upcoming American version, but this film left me intrigued enough to check out the other Swedish Larsson adaptations.
Flick Clique: November 6-12
Bombshell (1933) and Suzy (1936). Two flicks from Warner Archive‘s deluxe Jean Harlow box set of made to order DVDs. I’m so happy that I have the opportunity to review this for DVD Talk. Bombshell is my personal favorite of all her films, so I tore into that one first. Still snappy and fun, one of the best Hollywood sendups ever produced, with Harlow a delight as a beleaguered movie star whose chief bane of existence is publicity agent Lee Tracy. I loved Harlow’s character in this, especially when she gets to rant against the people who bug her (check out the scene where she tells off her no-good dad and brother, played by Frank Morgan and Ted Healy). Good as Harlow is, Lee Tracy is even better as the kind of modern, snappy dude who flourished in the pre-Code era. The romantic melodrama Suzy is Harlow in a more conventional vein as a café singer in World War I era Europe who catches the eye of a dynamic French flyer played by suave Cary Grant. The story is pretty far-fetched, but Harlow is engaging as always despite the silly things her character does. This was only three years after Bombshell, but it’s interesting to note that MGM modified her image to become less overtly sexual, more perky. It will be neat to check out the other films in the box, which spans the years 1933-37 in Harlow’s tragically short-lived career.
Galaxy of Terror (1981). Roger Corman’s bald faced Alien rip-off stars a galaxy of d-list talent, including Edward Albert (Eddie’s son), Erin Moran (Joanie from Happy Days), Sid Haig, Ray Walston, Robert Englund, Grace Zabriske, and a giant rubber maggot. This was such an awful film, in a way that is so fascinating. Despite borrowing so heavily from Alien, the production is actually semi-good. The acting and often incomprehensible script is not-so-good, however. The story concerns an eclectic spaceship crew who land their craft on a remote planet with an imposing, H.R. Geiger-esque pyramid. The crew decides to explore the planet in small groups, with tensions mounting as they each succumb to the aliens in ways that supposedly reflect their subconscious (at least that’s how the still elegant Corman explained it on the DVD). It wouldn’t be a Corman flick without the pretty blonde crew member getting stripped down before meeting her maker (with the giant maggot), would it? The cast keeps it interesting, however. Erin Moran contributes a lot with her bug eyes and one-note line readings expressing constant alarm over the situation. She has a point, you know. Who are these people and what are they doing on that planet? The movie fails to come up with an adequate explanation.
The Green (2011). A recent acclaimed indie whose DVD I’m reviewing for DVD Talk. Actor Jason Butler Harmer plays a teacher and sometime writer who relocates to Connecticut with longtime partner Cheyenne Jackson to teach high school history. Life seems pretty good at “the green” until he notices that a bright student (Chris Bert) has become moody and withdrawn. Harmer’s attempt to connect with the student results in a tense altercation that is witnessed by the boy’s family and several of the man’s colleagues. The next day, he’s placed on probation and the kid’s family files a lawsuit against the school. Harmer literally becomes a social outcast in the town, which places a strain on his relationship with Jackson. The film has a fine setup with the New England atmosphere and realistic domestic scenes between Harmer and Jackson. I also enjoyed the addition of Illeana Douglas as Harmer’s witty, cancer-stricken friend. Julia Ormond as the lesbian attorney who takes on Harmer’s case is also very good despite her character’s too-saintly behavior. The film’s second half plays out in an unexpected, somewhat weak way with stock characters behaving in bizarre ways. I had mixed feelings about this film, overall, which I will get into with more detail with my final review.
Léon: The Professional (1994). About French hit man Léon (Jean Reno) who befriends a streetwise girl named Mathilda (Natalie Portman) who lives next door in his grimy New York apartment. When the girl’s family is massacred by corrupt cop Gary Oldman and his goons, she is “adopted” by Léon and learns his tricks to avenge her little brother’s death. I added this one to our queue after noticing it in the IMDb users’ top 250 — what an amazing film. Luc Besson’s direction is tight, and Portman delivers a knowing performance as a girl who desperately wants to leave childhood behind (it reminded me of Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver). Oldman is too hammy, but I enjoyed Jean Reno as a man who is world-weary but still has the capacity to care for and shelter the Portman character (not in a sexual way). It has a lot of great action scenes to recommend it, too, but mostly it’s the unique Reno/Portman relationship that drives the film.
Paris, Texas (1984). Wim Wenders is one of those love-it or hate-it directors, isn’t he? I remember going to see his Wings of Desire (1987) in the theater, with my parents. I found the film slow-paced and incredibly dull, and I felt so embarrassed for dragging my foreign-phobic folks to this dirge of a flick. Despite all that, I added the Criterion Paris, Texas to my Netflix queue because I remember that it got glowing reviews. I’m glad I did. This is an excellent film; the pacing is deliberate, perhaps too much so (especially during the home movie watching scene), but it’s infinitely rewarding and emotionally resonant in a way that few films ever attempt. This one has a heartbreaking Harry Dean Stanton as a guy who is found wandering the deserts of Texas in search of his wife. He is picked up by his brother Dean Stockwell and is relocated to the suburban California home where Stockwell and his wife (Aurore Clément) are raising Stanton’s young son (Hunter Carson). Stanton attempts to reconnect with his son and eventually gets through to him. The two impulsively travel back to Texas, where Stanton finally tracks down his wife, played by a luminous Nastassja Kinski. Great cast, intriguing story line, but what I liked most about the film was the photography — Wenders has a keen eye for Americana and wide open spaces, one that isn’t the least bit patronizing. Wenders probably didn’t intend this, but the film serves as an excellent visual record of ’50s-’80s roadside and suburban spaces.
Flick Clique: October 30 – November 5
Cronos (1997). Seeking a scary movie for Halloween night, we ended up with this creepy Spanish thriller. One of the earlier efforts from director Guillermo del Toro, this film might as well be called The Steampunk Egg of Dorian Gray. The story concerns a grandfatherly antique dealer named Jesus (Federico Luppi) who comes across said mysterious brass object in his shop. While his granddaughter watches, the man ponders the object in his hand while discovering how it works — it grows legs and attaches itself to his hand, delivering a painful sting! Jesus recovers, but he finds himself rejuvenated. He also finds that the brass egg is a 16th century artifact that is sought after by a wealthy, dying industrialist (Claudio Brook) and his henchman (Ron Perlman), who is willing to kill (and does, or at least he thinks so) to get the precious item for his boss. More creepy than chilling, actually, and not nearly as absorbing as Del Toro’s The Devil’s Backbone and even the semi-overrated Pan’s Labyrinth. The DVD does contain a nifty tour of Del Toro’s guest house, filled with his fantastic collection of curiosities, books and movie memorabilia. Apparently the man has a serious jones for Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion!
Freeway Killer (2010). In our continuing efforts to find a scary movie, I scrolled through the horror section on Netflix streaming and came across this taut serial killer indie. This one tells the real story of William Bonin, a Californian who slayed a couple dozen young men in a relatively short time (1979-80) before being imprisoned and eventually being the first man to die of lethal injection in that state. In the film, we see Bonin (chillingly played by Scott Anthony Leet) as he scopes out victims from the safety of his van. He uses the help of a local guy (Susty Sorg) to snag them, but the guy eventually gets replaced by another easily taken in trainee (Cole Williams). This was a modestly budgeted film which reminded me often of the Jeremy Renner-as-Jeffrey Dahmer film (both share the same screenwriter). The movie’s micro budget and many anachronisms are off-putting at first, but I found it gripping and better done than other projects of this sort (the snoozy Dahmer included). It doesn’t really break any ground and Bonin’s actions are strangely sanitized here, but Leet’s intense performance kept it watchable to the end.
Giorgio Moroder Presents: Metropolis (1984). Kino has recently reissued this MTV-influenced version of the Fritz Lang silent classic on home video; my DVD Talk review is posted here. I remember watching it on VHS eons ago (it was the first silent film I ever saw, actually), and was jazzed to check it out again to see if it holds up. I ended up giving it a Highly Recommended rating. Fantastic film and an intriguing ’80s relic, even if this particular version is no longer the best one available.
A Stolen Face (1952) and Blackout (1954). This “Hammer Film Noir” DVD double feature was Christopher’s second choice for scary Halloween viewing, even though neither film is particularly scary (or even film noir, for that matter). Like many, I had no idea that England’s Hammer studio, so famous for its horror flicks from the ’50s and ’60s, did anxious melodramas as well. Both of these films have American stars (Lizbeth Scott and Paul Henried in Stolen Face, Dane Clark in Blackout), but what’s most notable about them is their very British locales and sensibility. A Stolen Face has Henried as a plastic surgeon who falls so intensely in love with pianist Scott, and is so painfully rejected by her, that he re-creates Scott’s face on that of a badly scarred ex-con. Totally ridiculous, and with a let-down of an ending, but Scott is a lot of fun in the two separate parts (she affects a cockney accent as the luckless dame who finds out that her new face isn’t original). A half-hearted stab at noir, but hysterically campy at times (and Scott looks great in a wardrobe designed by Edith Head). Blackout is a more typical, serviceable drama which is undone by a convoluted plot. Dane Clark, reedy faced star of many a Warner Bros. melodrama, headlines here as a regular guy who emerges from a drunken bender in London to find that he married a beautiful yet manipulative blonde (Belinda Lee). Waking up the next morning in the flat of a lady artist, he learns that his “wife” is a debutante whose father has just been murdered — he then spends the rest of the film attempting to locate the real murderer before that blood-stained trenchcoat he’s wearing leads to the wrong conclusions. Rather dull, but I always liked the attractive-in-an-offbeat-way Clark. Belinda Lee is quite gorgeous, and very good. I was wondering why I hadn’t seen her, before learning she tragically died in her ’20s in an auto accident.
Flick Clique: October 23-29
Blues in the Night (1941). Bought this DVD because it has Joyce Compton in a small part (as “blonde dancing with drunk,” as the IMDb puts it), but it’s actually one of the more enjoyable Warner Brothers melodramas of that time. Silly and overblown at times, but engrossing nonetheless. Richard Whorf heads a mid-level cast as jazz pianist Jigger Pine, a regular guy with a quartet that includes wormlike Elia Kazan, hulking Peter Whitney and young pup Billy Halop. The trio are at a crossroads. A scuffle with a belligerent customer at the dive where they’re playing lands them in jail, prompting them to stick with the noncommercial blues-influenced style they love. They travel to New Orleans to meet with trumpeter Jack Carson, who is married to lovely singer Priscilla Lane. The group form a swell combo, riding the rails and playing wherever they can to get a decent meal. Eventually they befriend a gangster (Lloyd Nolan), who leads them to a New Jersey dive where sad sack Wallace Ford and hard-bitten singer Betty Field (who is amazing in this) work. The story gets very complex from there, helped along by some eye-popping montages from the uncredited Don Siegel. I love the “traveling across America” montage and the “I hate these singing lessons” montage. The “I’m going crazy” montage (seen below at 1:40) is a pip, as well.
Body Slam (1986). This stupid yet watchable wrestling comedy has been shown on ThisTV a few times, curiosity prompted me to stick it on the DVR. Dirk Benedict stars as a washed-up rock promoter who winds up unknowingly representing a pro wrestler (Rowdy Roddy Piper). He dreams up a scheme to combine the energy of live rock music with the excitement of wrestling, a wild idea that catches on so quickly that he has a rival promoter (Captain Lou Albano!) on his tail. This film was directed by Hal Needham, whose main prior achievement was the Cannonball Run movies. That oughta tell you where this movie is coming from, although the very ’80s atmosphere and an odd supporting cast (Tanya Roberts, Charles Nelson Reilly, Billy Barty) keeps this one diverting, at the very least.
A Cottage on Dartmoor (1929). This British thriller is a good example of how stylized silent films got before sound came in and changed everything. The story concerns an escaped convict who, fleeing through the countryside, finds refuge in a farm house. The woman who is tending to the house is startled to see the man, but we soon learn (via flashback) that they know each other and once worked together. The film switches locales to the barber shop, where he was a shaver and she was a manicurist. They have a friendly rapport which borders on a relationship, but that’s changed when a regular shop customer becomes engaged to the woman. He becomes obsessed with winning the woman’s love. The man’s increasingly psychotic nature is captured by some daring camerawork, highlighted by a scene where the couple go to see a “talkie” in the local theatre. Interesting film. Kino’s DVD for this film includes an absorbing documentary, Silent Britain, which chronicles the UK’s often overlooked contribution to silent cinema with plenty of cool clips.
Going Places (1974). Easygoing buddy comedy stars a magnetic Gerard Depardieu and Patrick Dewaere as a pair of charming wastrels who roam the French countryside in search of men to piss off and women to bang. On a car thieving jaunt, they meet a passive hairdresser named Marie-Jange (Miou Miou), who eventually becomes the third corner in their traveling sex ‘n crime spree. I’m reviewing this DVD for DVD Talk, so I won’t go into too much detail. Generally, I found it entertaining for the first hour, including a wonderful bit with Jeanne Moreau as a jaded ex-con whom the two men take on as their latest conquest. Her character is intelligent enough to know that she’s being played, but she goes along with it and ultimately it emerges that it’s she doing the playing. The film kinda falls apart after her scenes, but it’s still interesting to watch as Depardieu and Dewaere are initially presented as stupid young punks who gradually become more human as the film progresses.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966). We’re two thirds of the way through this iconic Western, directed by Sergio Leone, starring Clint Eastwood and with Ennio Morricone’s cool and strange score. It does have some great scenes and lots of weirdly beautiful close-ups of actors’ weather-beaten faces, but overall I’m finding Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West the better film in almost every respect. Eastwood is too laconic and I’m not buying Eli Wallach as a Mexican, but I’m enjoying their banter and comradery. Morricone’s theme, once so cool, now seems so campy that I can’t help but giggle whenever it comes on. His OUATITW score is much more subtle and mood-enhancing. TGTBATU falls into more typical Spaghetti Western territory, bad dubbing and all, but the film holds my attention enough to keep me wondering what may happen in the last hour (which we’re seeing tonight).
Sh! The Octopus (1937). Preposterous yet enjoyable little b-movie is one of the earliest examples of that ’40s and ’50s staple, the horror-comedy. This one has Hugh Herbert and Allen Jenkins as a pair of police detectives who happen upon a mysterious lighthouse which appears to be terrorized by both a giant octopus and a human killer named after the octopus. This was offered as a free online stream by the Warner Archive on October 27th and 28th. It was a dumb little time waster, less than an hour long but made interminable by the stream’s constant rebuffering. The octopus was fake and unintentionally funny, but at least the special effect with one of the cast members transforming into a hideous ogre was nifty.
Flick Clique: October 16-22
Dumbstruck (2010). A sunny, appealing documentary about ventriloquism and how it affects five different people. I reviewed this for DVD Talk.
Haywire (1980). This two-part TV movie immediately grabbed me when I saw it listed on the Warner Archive website. First off, I had no idea that there was a movie version of Brooke Hayward’s best selling ’70s memoir on her childhood with famous parents Margaret Sullavan and superagent Leland Hayward. Secondly, I love Lee Remick and was eager to see how she interpreted Ms. Sullavan, one of the more diverting, underrated classic film actresses. The film opens in 1960 with Brooke, played by Deborah Raffin, learning of her mother’s pill overdose suicide. As Raffin plans funeral arrangements with her father Leland (Jason Robards), she flashes back to the ’40s and Sullavan’s gradual unraveling, which has an effect on the high profile couple’s three kids — Brooke, Bridget and Bill. As the years go by, Brooke finds that Sullavan’s high strung insecurity and fragile mental state has been passed on to herself and especially her siblings. This is a pretty typical TV production of the day, with a laughably weak grasp on period detail, long scenes of exposition, and performances that range from affected (Raffin, who sometimes adopts a quasi-British accent) to workmanlike (Robards). The film takes on a strange, flashback-heavy format, likely to give equal screen time to Remick over the two halves. Remick is okay if somewhat histrionic. Overall, I enjoyed it, although the story would have been better served with a single, straightforward two hour treatment.
Jazz on a Summer’s Day (1959). I watched this in bits and pieces via Netflix over the last two, three weeks (having already seen it on the old, pre-commercial Bravo channel eons ago). It’s a film that actually holds up well in that fragmentary manner. Jazz on a Summer’s Day is a chronicle of the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival by photographer Bert Stern. Stern films the various acts in an impressionistic manner, giving as much time to the audience and the quirky, often lovely surroundings in and around Newport, Rhode Island. One can definitely see the advertising influence in Stern’s photography, which has that whiff of ’50s cool. Musically it’s a treat, with memorable performances from Anita O’Day, Louis Armstrong, George Shearing, Dinah Washington, and an out-of-place but stunning Chuck Berry. I think I most enjoyed the clothes, weirdly enough – on both the performers and the audience! I also loved looking at the audience and spotting the genuine music lovers who were there to groove and the hipsters, poseurs and families who just came to relax. Fun film, look for it!
Pale Flower (1964). More vintage Japanese goodness from Netflix. Actually, Pale Flower is too pokey and inconsistent to earn a full recommendation, but there are certain elements that stand out. Certainly the story, of a Yakuza gangster (Ryô Ikebe) who meets a thrill-seeking young woman (Mariko Kaga), isn’t anything too special. Much of the action centers around an inscrutable Japanese card game, while Ikebe and Kaga indulge in long conversations and speedy jaunts in his convertible, things which only amplify their nihilistic point of view. The main characters are unlikable, the gambling scenes are repetitive, but the final fifteen minutes are utterly absorbing and filmed in an audacious way that was at least two decades ahead of its time. Nice cinematography, too, but I wouldn’t put it anywhere near the top of my ’60s Japanese gangster movie list.
The Perfect Host (2010). A Netflix streaming offering that came at the recommendation of C.’s former co-worker. The Perfect Host kicks off with Ray Liotta-ish actor Clayne Crawford as a thief who is frantically evading the police after an attempted bank heist. After attempting to contact his girlfriend, he hides out in an affluent L.A. neighborhood. Posing as a stranded tourist, he goes to the door of one house, but the lady (Helen Reddy!) tells him to move on. Luckily the neighbor, a fastidious man planning a dinner party (Hyde Pierce), welcomes the guy into his home. Crawford intends to rob Hyde Pierce and move on, but the tables are turned when Hyde Pierce turns out to be a lunatic, with all of his dinner party friends being figments of his imagination (or are they people he once knew? The film doesn’t adequately explain that.). Crawford becomes a prisoner and spends much of the film trying to escape as Hyde Pierce immobilizes, drugs and mutilates him. Kind of a blah movie, really, one which becomes even more ridiculous when another twist is revealed regarding Hyde Pierce’s character. Disappointing ending, too. This resourcefully made indie thriller might be worth a peek for Hyde Pierce fans; mostly I was bored.
Flick Clique: October 9-15
Contagion (2011). A modern update on the all-star disaster epics of the ’70s, this is. We saw Contagion in the theater last week, and every time an audience member coughed (which was often), I got chills. Steven Soderbergh’s film chronicles what might happen if a lethal virus capable of knocking out 25% of the world’s population broke out. Some viewers were disappointed that it wasn’t an actioner like the trailer promised, but I found it effective the way the tension gently escalates as the virus goes from clusters of the sick to worldwide epidemic. The film begins with Gwyneth Paltrow’s business woman coming down with a bug on a return trip from Hong Kong. Coming home to husband Matt Damon, she gets sick and expires so quickly that it barely registers with Damon. Their child soon gets the virus and dies, then Damon is put under quarantine. Meanwhile, other lethal cases are spreading in Hong Kong. Lawrence Fishburn at the CDC sends Kate Winslet to investigate the rash of infections in Minneapolis (where Paltrow and Damon live), while World Heath Organization official Marion Cotillard is sent to Hong Kong. As the sickness spreads into a panic, a crusading blogger (Jude Law) investigates whether the virus was planted by the government, or worse (this film is not very nice to bloggers, natch). Excellent atmosphere and performances, especially from Winslet and Jennifer Ehle as a CDC doctor attempting to decipher the rapidly mutating virus. If anything, the film is pro-government but anti-regulation. It seems to have faith in the good characters like Damon and Winslet keeping things sane for the hysteric masses. The only negative thing I found was the Cotillard storyline, which seemed a bit tacked-on and routine. She’s excellent, however. I also loved the tense, minimalist synth-based score by Cliff Martinez.
Sadko (1953). Whatta trip — the 1953 adventure Sadko was a colorful retelling of the Sinbad story with a grandiose, distinctively Russian visual style. We saw the dubbed U.S. version, titled The Magic Voyage of Sinbad. The movie plods a lot, and the print we saw was muddy. Strange and surreal, it reminded me of the MST3K episode Jack Frost (as it turns out, Sinbad was also given the MST3K treatment). The film details bearded do-gooder Sinbad as he attempts to help the comrades in his small Russian village by catching magic fish and the like. He gathers a motley band of men as they journey to India to find an ethereal creature with the body of a hawk and the head of a woman. On the way back, Sinbad has a sojourn in Neptune’s underwater kingdom, when he is forced into marriage with Neptune’s beautiful daughter. Eventually they get back to Russia and all is well. This has potential to be a camp riot — and it is, in spots — but mostly it’s strange, with outsized acting and inconsistent pacing. It does have some gorgeous visuals to recommend it, however (those shots of the Phoenix woman in her cave are unforgettable). I’d love to see a restored version of the Russian original. Criterion, are you listening?
The Wolf Man (1941) and Dead of Night (1945). We spent most of last week on the road, going to various spots in Northern Arizona. It didn’t leave much time for movie viewing, but we did manage to check out some good vintage stuff when Turner Classic Movies (which I still miss!) had a 1940s horror film fest on October 10. Amazingly, I’ve never seen The Wolf Man. It’s a short, tight, excellent example of Hollywood studio craft of that era. I could carp at Lon Chaney Jr.’s vagueness as the title character, but he’s given great support by Claude Rains, Maria Ouspenskaya, Ralph Bellamy and Warren William (really?). Universal really knew how to conjure up atmosphere with smoke, gnarled trees and a few old Euro-style sets. The only quibble I have is that it’s too brisk, leaving the film with a rushed feeling. We stepped out for dinner during the next film, The Uninvited, but got back in time to catch all of the crack British anthology Dead of Night. This was quite an interesting film, with a bunch of mini-stories connected by the character of a nervous architect (Mervyn Jones) who is certain that he’s already met all the residents at a country estate that he innocently stumbles into. The stories themselves are hit or miss, but I enjoyed checking out the more muted, creepy-crawly tone set forth in this very British take on the haunted house genre. Among the better segments is one with Googie Withers as a lady who buys an antique mirror for husband Michael Cortland, which turns out to be haunted. Another good one has Sally Ann Howes as a Christmas party guest who discovers a crying child in the attic of a mysterious house. The most memorable sequence concerns a creepy ventriloquist played by Michael Redgrave — which is a funny coincidence, since I’m reviewing a documentary on ventriloquists for DVD Talk. Thank you, Best Western, for having TCM in the rooms!
