Current music: Mr. Big - "30 Days In The Hole"
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We're going picture-free this time around. This disappointment will be compounded by the fact that the reviews are universally shittier than normal. If you were expecting that I'd taken all this time off in order to further hone my writing chops and deliver the post to end all posts, this ain't it. Next time, you get pictures. And after that, a post that's exclusively shorts.
OLD YELLER (1957) - d. Robert Stevenson
I was watching it as research, and it disappointed on that end, but this yarn about 'the best doggone dog in the West' is a whole lot better than I remembered, and a whole lot better than the most of the Disney live-action oeuvre ('Condorman', 'Mary Poppins', '20,000 Leagues Under the Sea', and 'The Love Bug': all exempt from my disdain). What makes it work are the performances by the two kids playing Travis and Arliss; they're both better than average child actors. The film's score, by Oliver Wallace, is another big plus, and I'd forgotten how much I loved the Old Yeller theme song. I just wish Trav had seized the opportunity and taken Elizabeth down to the corn patch when he had the chance.
SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW (1988) - d. Wes Craven
You could earn a PhD. trying to figure out how this movie sucks as much as it does. So close to amazing. So not amazing at all. A lot of doors were probably closed in Craven's face when this turned out like it did.
MY BLOODY VALENTINE (1981) - d. George Mihalka
If you hang out with the wrong crowd, you'll occasionally hear whispers about 'My Bloody Valentine' being some kind of lost slasher classic. Also, like, a band that good probably doesn't name themselves after a total stinker. The wrong crowd is right, and 'My Bloody Valentine' kicks so much ass that I'm going to need ointment and one of those hemorrhoid pillows to get the swelling down.
I realized I've seen too many movies when I started trying to figure out what planet 'MBV' was made on. I was absolutely convinced the director was English, because so much of its form is straight late-70s/early-80s British slasher. But then, it looks like it's shot in the midwest, everyone's a coal-miner, and no one has British accents. Also, the influence of John Carpenter is there in almost every single shot. When the final credits rolled and I discovered that it was made in Canada (they probably told you this at the beginning of the movie, but if you watch that opening scene high, what with it being so 'erotic' and all, you won't really catch the next few scenes), I was mostly filled with shame at being excited to discover that it was made in Canada. Life sucks.
Anyways, mining accidents, St. Valentine's Day, lame leading men, serial carnage, heavy on-screen drinking, a town with a secret, and the use of the line 'I know a shortcut', all spell Billy kicking himself for not seeing this a shitload sooner. An absolute classic. 5 out of 5 pickaxes.
THE LOST BOYS (1987) - d. Joel Schumacher
One of the most re-watchable movies ever made. Just like 'My Bloody Valentine', the crappy moments are as big a part of the fun as the stuff that actually works.
The more I watch it, the more my favorite scene is the outdoor concert with the super-buff ponytail wearing neo-Navajo sax player. Someone's going to have to explain to me why the saxophone was such a huge part of the rock lexicon in the 1980s. I understand that Schumacher has a Freudian relationship with men playing saxes (see also: Rob Lowe in 'St. Elmo's Fire'), but they're absolutely everywhere in the movies of that decade (Dennis Quaid in 'Dreamscape', there's got to be a movie where Mickey Rourke/Kevin Bacon/John Cusack/Charlie Sheen plays one), and to no good end. Actually, anyone who can think of movies from that decade with saxes in them, please let me know. I'm about this close to starting a critical look at the least important elements of 80s cinema (movies with dirtbikes, Chuck Norris vs. Louis Gossett Jr., Gymkata or Gotcha?,...), and this subject looks ripe for its own chapter.
THE WRAITH (1986) - d. Mike Marvin
Not for the faint of heart. Charlie Sheen stars in this movie about the wild and not-so-good times of a town run by teenagers (not literally) in suburban Arizona. Actually, I'm not sure it's suburban: there's a town sign with a population of 7k at the start of the movie, but then there's a chase scene through about thirty blocks worth of warehouse/industrial district. The movie is about a guy who is killed by a gang of drag racing jerks - led by Nick Cassavetes, doing his daddy proud - and returns to earth to reclaim his girlfriend (ultra-vixen Sherilyn Fenn in white boots) and exact revenge in his super-duper-kit-car. It manages to rip-off 'Knight Rider', 'Repo Man', 'American Graffiti', 'I Spit on Your Grave', and 'Fahrenheit 451', and it spells love to me.
And, yes, of course I want to remake it.
JUGGERNAUT (1974) - d. Richard Lester
Easily the best film of the disaster flick era. Probably as close as Richard Harris gets to playing himself. It's still nothing special, but leave it to Lester to make something out of a nothing.
SHAOLIN SOCCER (2001) - d. Stephen Chow
While it features the subtitle 'my firing-hearted is not easy to blow out' and Vicki Zhao, 'Shaolin Soccer' was a big fat letdown. A couple of things went wrong here. First off, I made the decision to watch the 'Original Chinese Version' of the DVD. Do not do this. Watch the American version; turns out Miramax cut this one down for a reason and I was still waiting for the story to start 50 minutes in. Problemo Numero Dos: while Stephen Chow - whose 'God of Cookery' is a classic - always makes sloppy movies, this thing is beyond belief. and no amount of ADD explains it. Third, they make Vicki Zhao look ugly as fuck throughout: her face is first covered in scabs, then Tammy Faye layers of make-up, and finally she shows up with a bald cap on. The opening credits are the best thing about the movie, and that's saying absolutely nothing.
LUMIERE AND COMPANY (1995) - d. Various
I remember being a lot more impressed by this the first time than I am today. The idea is that a whole heap of the world's finest filmmakers get a crack at making a 52 second short with an original Lumiere Bros. (the guys who invented cinema) camera. There's some other rules, but in case you actually want to watch it yourself, I'll leave you to be surprised, but they aren't much different from something like the Dogme 95 manifesto. Anyways, what we end up with is interviews/making-ofs with each of the directors and a pathetic collection of self-reflexive commentaries on the art of filmmaking and/or turn of the century period pieces. It will come as a shock to no one that names like Michael Haneke, Abbas Kiarostami, Zhang Yimou, and Arthur Penn are included in the ranks of the project's successes, but the list of miss-steps is pretty well shocking (Spike Lee should be particularly ashamed). Easily the two best pieces belong to David Lynch (who clearly spent the most money on his idea, but also the most intellectual energy) and Russian/'Tango & Cash' filmmaker Andreï Konchalovsky (rotting dog has never looked so good). Shame on everyone else.
EAST IS EAST (1999) - d. Damien O'Donnell
Om Puri is a fantastic actor, in any language (he's Indian). Here, he plays the inscrutable Pakistani patriarch of a mixed-race (mom is English) family in early-70s Manchester (that's in England, folks). The film is yet another in the long-line of culture clash films which became de rigeur during the 90s independent explosion, but 'East is East' started life as a wildly successful play, and if your eyes were opened by 'Bend it Like Beckham's brand of Pakistani-English comedy, you'd better start medicating now, because you'll be poorly prepared for 'East is East's far less sunny take of immigrant life. 'My Beautiful Launderette' is a better paradigm, minus that film's homosexual text and plus a bubblier visual style/more-often comic tone. In truth, what was clearly an incredible play strains to make a comfortable transition from stage to screen, and the balance between comedy and drama is never quite within O'Donnell's reach. Despite the tonal inconsistencies, 'East is East' is probably the best post-'Launderette' look at Pakistani life in the UK. It's also a powerful portrait of how one man's anger can destroy an otherwise happy family, free of the character judgments thrown down by many other like-minded British movies.
FELLINI: I'M A BORN LIAR (2002) - d. Damian Pettigrew
More like 'Fellini: I'm a Boring Documentary'.
THE AWFUL TRUTH (1937) - d. Leo McCarey
'The Awful Truth' is an unbelievably great screwball; top three or four of all time. Cary Grant and Irene Dunne are a husband and wife team of philanderers who decide to call their marriage off in the film's earliest moments. The first twenty minutes are insanely great, ridiculously well-written. I'd never come across Dunne, but she's incredible, and is the only woman, other than maybe Katherine Hepburn, who can really stand toe-to-toe with Grant in this kind of comedy. She reminds me a lot of a young Susan Sarandon, circa 'Atlantic City', and the scene where she shows up as Grant's trampy sister is not to be missed. Props to Ralph Bellamy for giving a dipshit dignity once again, and props to McCarey for not closing all the loops by hooking Bellamy's Leeson up with 'Dixie Belle Lee'.
MY FAVORITE WIFE (1940) - d. Garson Kanin
Dunne and Grant made a couple of films together, and 'My Favorite Wife' - while it's got one of the better names going - isn't up to 'The Awful Truth's' lofty standards and often feels like a collection of scenes from earlier screwballs. Leo McCarey was originally supposed to direct 'Wife', but had to settle for producing and story credits thanks to scheduling issues. I'm not sure McCarey could've delivered that much stronger a film, but I'd like to imagine that he might have come up with a better resolution than to steal the final scene from 'Awful Truth' almost verbatim. It's still worth watching for Grant and Dunne.
THE ENGLISHMAN WHO WENT UP A HILL AND CAME DOWN A MOUNTAIN (1995) - d. Christopher Monger
I actually kind of know Christopher Monger, the gentleman who made this film, so I'm biased, but as quirky British period comedies about absolutely nothing go, you can do worse than this film, about a Welsh town who band together when a pair of English surveyors inform them that their 'mountain' - a source of enormous civic pride - is sixteen feet short of being anything other than a hill. Welsh accents are freaky.
13 GOING ON 30 (2003) - d. Gary Winick
Gary Winick was my favorite film teacher at NYU, so I was always going to see this movie, but just like that issue of 'People' left behind last weekend, it's a little easier on the ego when you're not the instigator. Anyhow, if you can get past the fact that there's no difference between '13 Going On 30' and 'Big', this isn't all that painful. The cast is better than the concept deserves, and it's cool to see anyone you know taking a big step forward in their career. Great use of Rick Springfield.
One final thing: I don't believe in sacred cows, and I don't believe that CBGB's is all that hallowed an institution at this point. Whatever CBGB meant in the late-70s, 80s, or even early-90s, its cred was co-opted the second someone decided it had credibility. With that said, CBGB t-shirts have been showing up in movies left and right lately, and they're supposed to tell you that you're looking at the 'hip' character. This isn't bad, but it's definitely lazy on the part of costumers, and I hope it runs out of steam before we see Wilmer Valderrama wearing one on 'Cribs'.
MY MAN GODFREY (1936) - d. Gregory La Cava.
This is another comedy on the AFI's comedy list. It's also just a generically famous movie. And even though it stars William Powell, I am of the opinion that it sucks.
CHILDREN: KOSOVO 2000 (2001) - d. Ferenc Moldoványi
I'm an Oprah-cryer, so it shouldn't surprise anyone to discover that this film, a heartbreaking collection of children - many of them orphans - telling horror stories from the Kosovo conflict, left me in tatters a couple of times over. Too painful for words, but while the Hungarian-made film gives us hope that someone someday might turn black and white video into something worth looking at, it's also desperately in need of editing, with too much artsy fartsy posturing between its narratives. Really close to great, but it could've been even more haunting if they'd left it rawer.
SIXTEEN CANDLES (1984) - d. John Hughes
He made more important movies, but 'Sixteen Candles' was my first John Hughes, and golly if that Long Duk Dong isn't the funniest racial stereotype since Mr. Yunioshi!* I think it's safe to say that Anthony Michael Hall peaked as Farmer Ted.
*joke
HELLBOY (2004) - d. Guillermo del Toro.
Ok, so I didn't rewatch the movie again, but I watched the movie with de Toro & Mike Mignola's commentary track as well as the 140 minutes of documentaries on the package's second DVD. Del Toro is still one of my favorite commentary guys, but since he's not talking with his DP this time around, there's less to learn. On the other hand, the documentaries are scarily in-depth. What's even more frightening is the fact that there are plans to release another DVD with a director's cut of the film and probably another 36 hours of making-of materials.
I think I've already had enough Hellboy at this point, thanks.
WHO AM I? (1998) - d. Benny Chan & Jackie Chan
aka JACKIE CHAN'S WHO AM I?
To be honest, I don't really like Jackie Chan. I know he's a super-nice guy, heart of gold, godfather to thousands of HK films, but his comedy/clown kung fu routine tires quickly and I may have the time, but I'm currently lacking the will. In 'Who Am I?' - supposedly among the best recent Chan films - a lot of money is spent, a nearly-credible Bond-esque setup is devised, and South Africa and Rotterdam offer truly exotic backgrounds. Unfortunately, the paper-thin plot is lazy when it has the potential to actually win us over and Michelle Ferre and Mirai Yamamoto, his two female foils, make suicide look like the healthy choice (Ferre is particularly worthy of your animus). What the film really lacks, though, is Sammo Hung's sparkling choreography. Those with a passing interest in Hong Kong film know that Sammo and Jackie are good buddies (Sammo is the fat Chinese guy who showed up on CBS in the late 90s as the star of 'Martial Law'), and Hung, one of the finest martial arts choreographers in the world, often designs the fights for Jackie's movies. But Jackie is just as inclined to go solo with his fight sequences, and all you need to see is the interminably dull rooftop battle towards 'Who Am I?'s end to realize that Chan's not always better off when left to his own devices. Sammo wouldn't have saved the movie, but he would've at least brought more energy to the stuff we're paying to see.
A REAL YOUNG GIRL (1978) - d. Catherine Breillat
This is Catherine Breillat's first feature, and a film which was, until recently, buried in the midst of bankruptcies and disinterest. Though it was made in the 70s, it was only released in theaters (even in France) in the last year or so. How is it, you ask? Well, like Neil Jordan (or a million others), Breillat was a novelist before she became a filmmaker, and like Neil Jordan, it clearly took Breillat a couple of picturess to find her sea legs. The film's arrhythmic shell of a plot isn't much to look at, but the narrative's tonal construction gets more appealing the longer you stay with it. Really simply, a young girl, Alice, returns home from her boarding school and spends the summer in a wash of newfound sexual desire. She's only now become a sexual creature, and Breillat's mission is to take us on an extended tour of her heroine's fantasies and real-world exploits. For the time, I can't imagine a more shocking film being made, and even by today's standards, the number of items Breillat manages to convince Charlotte Alexandra, her brave young lead, to stick in and/or rub against her vagina is mind-boggling. But still, the film is a lot less than the sum of its parts, with terrible production values (and, no, it's not just some 'bad transfer, poorly-maintained negative' issue - we're talking 'Emmanuelle'/'Girl on a Bus'/Joe D'Amato-caliber stuff here), and it doesn't look much better than a lot of the porn being made in that era. Breillat wasn't lacking for ideas, no doubt, but she's still too buried in the page, and though Alexandra's narration is effective, it's indicative of the learning curve Breillat had in front of her. Not for the faint of heart and, even then, a curiosity rather than an essential text.
HARVEY (1950) - d. Henry Koster
I'd been avoiding 'Harvey' because I figured, seeing as I only sometimes like Jimmy Stewart, that it was gonna make me puke. It didn't make me puke, and I see why people love it so much (great screenplay), but, golly, could that sister of his be more painful to watch? It was like listening to teeth grind against a chalkboard. Bah humbug.
SONGS FOR CASSAVETES (1999) - d. Justin Mitchell
You know you're living in the world of maximum-pretense when a documentary filmmaker doing his/her bit to record a page of indie rock history goes and names their movie 'Songs for Cassavettes'. No film could recover from an opening gambit that lame, and it shouldn't shock anyone that this turgid thesis doesn't live up to its potential. Actually, I'm not sure that there even was that much potential.
I'm totally in favor of the theory that a tree still makes a sound when no one's around, and I don't know if I understand modern man's need to document every last detail of their lives. What WAS cool about 'indie rock' is the same thing that's still cool about graffiti: outside of a few people who are actively seeking it out, this stuff has come and gone with almost no one the wiser. With my crappy attitude in mind, The Ramones deserve a documentary, and The PeeChees (as good as they are) don't. That's not to say that The PeeChees are the only subject of this film; you also get Sleater-Kinney, The Make-Up, The Hi-Fives, Unwound, Some Velvet Sidewalk, Dub Narcotic Sound System, ... and a couple of other bands. The whole thing feels very Olympia/PNW-centric, and is really at least two or three years too late to record anything beyond the death of the 90s indie-era. Worse, instead of really getting any nitty gritty on any of these bands, they're all asked to talk about big concept stuff, mostly DIY-related, and the bands are just as unknown to you at the end of the interviews/performance sequences as they were at the start.
Wait, I have more complaints: the use of black and white (esp. since it's video) is meaningless and therefore pretentious, the live audio is horrifying, it's too long by at least 20 minutes and needed a real editor.
And then there's the reason behind the film's name. Mitchell, who must be some kind of Selena Fan-Club President-caliber John Cassavetes junkie, goes around asking the bands questions in an effort to pigeonhole them into agreeing with a JC quote he dug up and then throws on screen at the end of the film. Their collective confusion over this exercise is probably the most entertaining thing about the whole endeavor.
BUT..
The Cassavetes is quote is pretty great, and worth repeating
"My films are expressive of a culture that has had the possibility of attaining material fulfillment while at the same time finding itself unable to accomplish the simple business of conducting human lives.
We have been sold a bill of goods as a substitute for life...
... in this country people die at the age of 21. They die emotionally at 21, maybe younger. My responsibility as an artist is to help them past 21."
SILVER ROCKETS/KOOL THINGS: 20 YEARS OF SONIC YOUTH (2002) - d. Christoph Dreher
More pretense, this time in the form of a not-nearly-as-interesting-as-it-thinks-it-is Sonic Youth documentary. It's like an Oprah-fied look at their career, with some good visuals and tragically dull interviews. The only person I even wanted to hear open their mouth was Glen Branca, and he didn't say shit worth repeating. You'd be much better off buying this book: 'Our Band Could Be Your Life' than you are in watching either this or 'Cassavetes'. You'll learn a lot more and you won't wonder why you bother. The only thing I took out of 'Silver Rockets' is the realization that it doesn't matter who directed the video - Charlie Atlas, David Markey, Tamra Davis, Peter Fowler, Richard Kern - or how famous they are as underground artists: all 80s underground videos blew goat.
PURE (2002) - d. Gillies MacKinnon
Ugh. Gillies MacKinnon, you and I will never be friends. A few years back, you took a perfectly interesting screenplay, a great DP, a healthy budget and Kate Winslet, and all you have to show for that fiasco is 'Hideous Kinky'. Now this.
'Pure' is the story of Paul, a boy growing up in Southeast London (a relatively poor part of the city), living with his heroin-addict mom and his little brother, doing everything he can to keep his family going. Dad is dead, the local drug lord (played by Feromir) is the closest thing he has to a male role model, and family friends are dropping like flies. That he's all of ten years old makes the story all the more harrowing, but MacKinnon's direction is by far the scariest part of the movie.
The kid playing Paul, Harry Eden, might be the best child actor I've ever seen, and the always-amazing Molly Parker is playing the mom. Even pre-stardom Keira Knightley pulls off the role of a preggers crackhead, so it's not the actors. The screenplay certainly isn't what's wrong. John de Borman's photography is beautiful, and there was clearly enough money in the budget to really bring SE London to vivid life. But goddamn it if this isn't the cheesiest heroin-addict movie you've ever seen. The story earns its resolution, to be sure, but the film doesn't. Fuck MacKinnon and his 'I want to work in Hollywood' schmaltz. The next time I see his name in the credits, I'm running the other way.
You know it's a bad movie when you can't even write a decent pan.
THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935) - d. James Whale
I'm sorry, but after watching 'Gods and Monsters', I totally had it in my head that this was going to be something exceptional. I mean, it's good, and if you like your horror in the high-fairy camp mode, then, please, do. It's still a pretty cool movie, it's great to look at and Karloff, as ever, is amazin'. But, yeah, I mean, I was expecting more than horny little people in jars and maids trying to steal the movie with Mickey Rooney impersonations.
HUM TUM (2004) - d. Kunal Kohli
Bollywood. Basically a Nora Ephron rom-com. What I'd thought I was getting into was an animated Bollywood kid's movie, which is something I'd still very much like to see; if anyone hears of one, you know who to call. There are some animated sequences in the film, but they're about as useful to the story line as song-and-dance sequences are in these films. Again, as it's Bollywood, it's fun to watch and a lot more enjoyably over-dramatic than anything American cinema can produce. BUT, the musical sequences SUCK, with sub-par songs and dead-fish direction.
The leading lady, Rani Mukerji (or 'Mukherjee', depending on who you ask) is a total babe (the male lead, Saif Ali Kahn kind of looks like Sean William Scott without corrective lenses), and the movie does a better than average job of using foreign cities - Amsterdam fares particularly well - as locations. Two things I noticed here: Anyone complaining about product placement in American movies needs to take a look at some of the gems coming out of India at the moment, because the shills are mind-blowing. Also, somewhat unique to Bollywood are 'Love Boat'-style character introductions for actors you - if you're an American of European extraction - have never seen before; I caught Abhishek Bachchan, and you don't have to know who Rishi Kapoor is (I didn't) to know that he's important when he shows up on-screen. 'Hum Tum' is apparently riddled with famous faces, and I love that I don't recognize any of them.
BLOOD SIMPLE. (1984) - d. Joel & Ethan Coen
One of my favorite things about watching early-career films from highly-esteemed directors is seeing the seams in their work. One example would be Stephen Soderbergh's 'King of the Hill', where Stevie doesn't ever find the right rhythm in his framing. That's a film loaded with close-ups where there should be medium-shots, medium-shots where there should be long shots, etc. etc. Or Wes Anderson's 'Bottlerocket', which is one of my very favorite movies, but has a storyline which more or less drops out the second they reach the motel. Or, like, anything Kubrick made before 'The Killing'.
So, what the fuck is with the Coens, then? Fully-formed from the head of Zeus, are we?
Everything you need to know about the genius behind this movie can be summed up in the three times 'It's the Same Old Song' by The Four Tops appears. It's subtle, but it's as perfectly calibrated as the soundtrack in 'The Last Picture Show'. This might also be the best score Carter Burwell's ever written.
Stay far away from the commentary track by a fake film historian (one of the Coen's?), it's the farthest thing from funny.
THE SPIRIT OF ANNIE MAE (2002) - d. Catherine Anne Martin
Maybe not the most exciting documentary of all time, but 'The Spirit of Annie Mae' offers a terrific overview of the history of the American Indian Movement (Native American equivalent of the Black Panthers) through a very personal story (Annie Mae Pictou Aquash, a Canadian-born Indian and member of the Mi'kmaw tribe, was murdered, execution-style in the Black Hills of South Dakota). If you're curious in the least about AIM's legacy, its successes and failures, this is the perfect place to start.
FRAZETTA: PAINTING WITH FIRE (2003) - d. Lance Laspina
I have no idea why I watched this.
UNCOVERED (1994) - d. Jim McBride
Kate Beckinsale is naked in this movie.
Okay, now that that's out of the way.. 'Uncovered' is a frustrating exercise. The movie is based on a book. The book is written by a Spanish writer. The book's story is set in Barcelona. The movie was filmed in Barcelona. Though all of the characters are Spanish, the cast is almost entirely English. You couldn't do that today (the current economics of filmmaking wouldn't let you).
The story involves the restoration of a medieval painting, and a sequence of murders which happen according to the play of the chess game central to said medieval painting. The story's good, and should've made a good movie, but this isn't it. If you don't have it all figured out the second bodies start dropping, you need to go find a reality show on Fox to watch.
Beckinsale, who was 20/21 when the movie was made, wasn't ready to play a lead with this much to do. The score sucks. The score sucks especially badly whenever the tension peaks. The English accents on Spanish characters gets old quick. Beckinsale is so young, it's actually kinda creepy seeing her naked (I know!).
So, yeah, I didn't like it.
GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES (1988) - d. Isao Takahata
Japanese animated-film chronicling the lives of an orphaned brother and sister struggling to survive at the end of World War II.
Up there with 'Lilya 4-Ever' and 'La Mouchette' as the most depressing movie I've ever seen.
