1/27/14: You Had to Be There

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'80s punk rock, Academy Award Nominee, Academy Award Winner, Academy Awards, biopic, British Prime Minister, cinema, conservatives, Denis Thatcher, Film, growing old, historical drama, love story, Margaret Thatcher, Meryl Streep, Movies, Phyllida Lloyd, politicians, Ronald Reagan, the Falklands War, The Iron Lady

History, we’re told, is written by the winners. This is, I assume, because the losers are currently pushing up daisies and otherwise occupied. Nonetheless, there really are two sides to every story and it would often surprise us to see how poorly those two halves fit together. We may think we know the myriad reasons or provocations behind any number of historical incidents but, in reality, most of us just weren’t there (if you were there, anywhere, for anything, then this certainly doesn’t pertain to you: just keep on as you were before). We can guess, we can speculate, we can play arm-chair quarterback and backseat driver until the cows come home but, at the end of the day, it changes nothing: most of us just weren’t there, no matter what it is we’re talking about.

There have been few public figures (and almost all of them politicians, let’s be frank) that have been as divisive a presence as former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. On the one hand, Thatcher was England’s first female Prime Minister, no small feat in the notorious boys’ club that is British politics. She was, by all accounts, passionate about her causes and politics, something that isn’t always evident in other politicians. She also helped to usher in an age of prosperity for England in the ’80s, although there were certainly costs. On the flip side, there was a very good reason why punk rock in the UK flourished under Thatcher’s reign, the very same reason for the boom in U.S. hardcore during the Reagan years. Both were considered paragons of their respective conservative parties, diligently pursued military actions as the ends to the means and managed to raise an army of vocal antagonists, individuals willing to riot, protest and do whatever was necessary to halt what they felt was the rapid slide into fascism.

As a film, The Iron Lady attempts to present both disparate halves of the coin that was Margaret Thatcher yet uses a technique that seems to unduly weight the outcome in her favor. Structurally, the film begins with Thatcher as an old, doddering retiree, going to the local convenience store to purchase some milk, just like any old pensioner. She returns to her modest flat where she engages in spirited conversation with her husband, a sweet activity made suddenly sad by the realization that he’s not actually there: he’s been dead for some time and Maggie is now completely alone, left with only the memories of her past and her husband’s “ghost” for company.

Throughout the film, the action moves between two parallel timelines: Thatcher in the present, trying to finally dispose of her dead husband’s long stored possessions, and Thatcher, in the past, on her road to Prime Minister. The effect is interesting, more so when one realizes how much the “present” material dilutes our perception of Thatcher in the “past.” Any time the audience seems to be at risk of developing more negative attitudes towards Thatcher, the film cuts back to the present and drops us back into her very sad current struggles. The effect is akin to trying to discipline a puppy days after the incident: you may have been mad at the time, but the puppy doesn’t remember what happened now and you probably won’t, either, have it wiggles its ears at you. In other words, its pretty impossible to hold young/middle-aged Thatcher’s politics/actions against her when we’re presented with the sad, lonely figure that she’s become.

In many ways, then, The Iron Lady functions more as a love story than a biopic. We follow Thatcher’s courtship of and eventual marriage to Denis Thatcher (played ably by Harry Lloyd in the past and quite wonderfully by Jim Broadbent in the present), a relationship that weaves in and around Margaret’s political career. Since the film tends to spend so much time in the present, with a distinct focus on the bittersweet idea of Margaret finally learning to let go of her dead husband, it can often seem as if the story of her rise to power is of secondary importance.

This is not to say that the filmmakers whitewash the issue in any obvious way. There is still plenty of discussion regarding Thatcher’s labor-busting policies, tendency to squeeze the middle class into extinction and disastrous war in the Falklands. We see plenty of protesters mobbing her vehicles and hear plenty of venomous slurs tossed her way. The overall impact, however, tends to be diluted when we immediately cut back to old, doddering Margaret looking sad as she contemplates her husband’s old clothes. A purely chronological story, one that began with a young Margaret and moved forward to her old age would have been an entirely different story, methinks, or at least one that provoked a bit more confrontation.

As it is, The Iron Lady really stands for one main reason: as yet another showcase of Meryl Streep’s nearly unnatural abilities as a performer and mimic. Her portrayal of Thatcher is so spot-on, so uncanny and intuitive, that it really puts to rest any question as to the true intent of the film: this is, first and foremost, an acting showcase for Streep. As always, she’s impeccable, bringing her usual array of tics, mannerisms and piercing glares into play in a way that never, for a moment, had me doubting that I was actually watching Thatcher. Streep is exceptional in a film that seems very content to plow a middle-ground without much over-due antagonism.

The biggest problem, as mentioned earlier, is that The Iron Lady is really two films jammed together: a historical biopic and a sad relationship film. Separately, either story would have had some genuine pathos and emotional resonance. Mashed together, however, both storylines seem to get shafted, with neither one allowed to be fully developed.

At the end of the day, perhaps The Iron Lady is supposed to transcend the notion of personal history and politics, pointing out the uncomfortable fact that, at the end, we’re all going to dodder around and miss our loved ones, regardless of the impact we’ve made on the world at large. It’s no doubt true but there’s still a part of me that wishes that this talented cast and crew would have dug a little deeper, done a little more than cast a gauzy, sentimental gaze over a very powerful public figure.

Ah, well…I guess you had to be there, after all.

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1/26/14: 90 Minutes in Purgatory

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action films, Alistair Little, cinema, drama, Film, Five Minutes of Heaven, forgiveness, Irish films, Irish Republic, James Nesbitt, Liam Neeson, Mark Ryder, Movies, Northern Ireland, Oliver Hirschbiegel, Protestant vs Catholic, reconciliation, retribution, revenge, UVF

Sometimes, you can have the very best intentions and still fall short. You may set out to help someone, for all the right reasons, only to have everything backfire completely. You might attempt to atone for a past transgression, only to re-stoke flames of hatred that might, otherwise, have been forever snuffed. You might even attempt to make a film that deals in highly personal issues of redemption, forgiveness and hatred while simultaneously showcasing pulse-pounding action. Five Minutes of Heaven strives for many things but, unfortunately, falls just as short on many of them.

Five Minutes of Heaven is a fictional film that’s actually inspired by real events, although the bulk of the film still dwells in the land of supposition and “what-if.” The movie begins in 1975 with young Alistair Little, a member of the Ulster Volunteer Force, in Northern Ireland. The UVF were a staunchly anti-Catholic, anti-Irish Republic group that patrolled Northern Ireland during the worst part of the age-old British/Irish conflict. In retaliation for a perceived threat by Catholic workers against a Protestant worker, Little finds and kills a Catholic man, Jimmy Griffin, in front of his younger brother, Joe. Alistair ends up serving time in prison, where he seems to have come out a changed, repentant man. Joe survived a childhood where he was unfairly blamed by his mother for his older brother’s death and made to suffer every day under her emotional and physical abuse. His only dream has been the “five minutes of Heaven” that he would experience as he killed Alistair Little. Thirty-odd years later, Joe just may get his chance as a TV crew facilitates a meeting between Alistair and Joe, under the guise of promoting a reconciliation between the two men. Alistair is cautious yet seems to genuinely desire a chance to begin the healing process. Joe, for his part, just can’t keep his hands off that sharp knife in his pocket. Which notion will prevail: forgiveness or vengeance?

As stated earlier, Five Minutes of Heaven has noble, if rather scattered intentions. There is some genuinely good work being done here, especially by Liam Neeson as modern-day Alistair. Neeson brings much of the quiet reserve that he’s noted for to the role, somehow making a former terrorist into something of a penitent monk. It’s not the easiest transition to swallow but Neeson really sells it. There’s a notable difference between the brash and arrogant young Alistair (played quite capably by Borgia’s Mark Ryder in a part that amounts to little more than a cameo: he’s so good that I wish we’d spent more time in the past) and the quietly religious older Alistair.

James Nesbitt, as modern-day Joe, is good but he has the tendency to play everything too aggressively, too unhinged. It reminds one of the criticisms lobbed at Jack Nicholson for his portrayal of Jack Torrance in The Shining: he started off unhinged, so the slippery slope to madness isn’t very steep. Similarly, Nesbitt plays Joe as such a damaged, fractured, spastic creature that it’s difficult to get a sense of anything from him except for pain. Every line is delivered with either clenched-teeth, ready-to-explode anger or an actual outburst, a few of which are powerful enough but lose impact through repetition. There’s something of a Nicholas Cage quality to Nesbitt’s performance, which doesn’t necessarily work to the film’s benefit. We’re allowed to see Alistair cycle through several emotions: sorrow, anger, regret, hesitation, confusion, serenity. For Joe, however, we only get pain, anger, regret and fear. This can, of course, be chalked-up to Joe’s miserable childhood and single-minded desire to kill Alistair: all well and good. Nesbitt’s constant red-lining of the emotions, however, leaves no room whatsoever for emotional building or resonance: it’s either flat or outraged.

Structurally, the film makes a few odd choices that tend to detract from the overall package, particularly involving confusing voice-overs (at one point, I thought Joe was actually talking, only to realize it was the voice-over, which promptly segued back into actual dialogue: needlessly confusing. The strangest aspect of the film, however, is the abrupt transition from emotional drama to action film in the film’s climax. It’s a scenario that the film seems to have been building up to for some time but, when it comes, the moment feels entirely out-of-place and strange, like a scene lifted from another film (possibly one of Neeson’s Taken films) entirely. That the film manages to end in a manner more consistent with the dramatic angle than the action one only further compounds the situation and makes the climatic fisticuffs that much odder and, to be frank, sillier.

Five Minutes of Heaven is a decent film with performances that range from the very good (Neeson and Ryder) to the very presentational (Nesbitt and Jill Crawford as a rather bizarre makeup assistant who functions as a sounding board for Joe’s rants as they await the arrival of Alistair). I can certainly appreciate the sentiment but can’t help feeling that a much more interesting film, a film that I really wanted to see, was left back in 1975 with all of those misguided young men patrolling the night and shooting each other for reasons even they can’t figure out. That sounds like a pretty great film, to be honest: as it stands, Five Minutes of Heaven is just a decent one.

1/25/14: The Father of the Giallo

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1960's films, Alfred Hitchcock, auteur theory, cinema, Dario Argento, Film, Film auteurs, foreign films, giallo, Italian cinema, John Saxon, Mario Bava, Movies, murder-mystery, suspense, The Evil Eye, The Girl Who Knew Too Much

As a huge fan of Italian cinema, particularly in its glorious ’50s-’70s heyday, there are a few auteurs that I hold especially dear to my heart: Sergio Leone, Federico Fellini, Vittorio de Sica and, of course, Mario Bava. As spiritual (and technical) forefather to the more extreme Italian horror directors that would follow, including his own son Lamberto, Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, Umberto Lenzi, and Michele Soavi, Bava was a fascinating bridge between more classical filmmaking styles and the rougher, edgier fare that would begin to permeate the genre by the mid-’70s.

If Bava, himself, was a transitional figure in Italian cinema, than his 1963 mystery The Girl Who Knew Too Much (cut and re-released in America as The Evil Eye, which should be summarily avoided) functioned as a transitional film within his own catalog. For one thing, The Girl Who Knew Too Much would be Bava’s last black and white film: his very next release would be the landmark anthology film Black Sabbath, marking his first foray into the world of Technicolor. This might have been sad news for those who looked forward to another black and white world as lush and atmospheric as the one presented in Black Sunday but it also opened the door wide for my personal favorite Bava film, Planet of the Vampires: this cotton-candy nightmare was a direct inspiration for Ridley Scott’s Alien and should be required viewing for anyone who has even a passing interest in cinematic sci-fi.

More importantly, however, The Girl Who Knew Too Much is generally regarded as the first giallo, although it’s a much more gentle affair than any of the films that would follow it. Bava’s best giallo is probably Blood and Black Lace, since I’ve always considered Bay of Blood to be a proto-slasher as opposed to a true giallo. Although Bava would only make two giallos in his long career (three if you count Five Dolls for an August Moon but that’s more bizarro spy story than anything else), he would serve as an undeniable influence on the man who would become the undisputed master of the giallo: Dario Argento.

But enough backstory, already: how about the actual film? While it may be of slightly more interest historically, The Girl Who Knew Too Much still holds up today as a pleasant, if slightly weightless, mystery/thriller.  Nora, an American tourist, is on a vacation in Rome when things begin to get a little crazy. She’s come to stay with Ethel, a dear old friend who also happens to have a bad heart. Handsome Dr. Marcello Bassi (John Saxon, making about as effective an Italian here as he made a Mexican in Joe Kidd) is taking care of her but, alas, Ethel is not long for this world: that night, she passes away before Nora can administer her medicine.

After imagining that Ethel’s body has inexplicably moved (shades of Black Sabbath), Nora runs in terror from the house, only to get mugged and knocked unconscious. When she comes to, she witnesses what appears to be a man killing a woman before dragging her body away. Not sure whether this is all real or the result of head trauma, Nora pursues the mystery, dragging new beau Marcello along for the ride. Along the way, she meets Laura, a strange friend of Ethel’s and a shadowy reporter named Landini, either one of whom may have more to do with the mystery than they let on. Has Nora actually witnessed a murder? Could she have seen a ghost? Who keeps sneaking around her house at night? And what, if anything, does a hobo’s daughter have to do with anything?

While not a mind-blowing film, The Girl Who Knew Too Much is quite good, reminding me more than once of a Bava homage to Alfred Hitchcock. Even the title seems to reference Hitchcock’s own The Man Who Knew Too Much. One scene, at the beginning, made me think directly of the suspense master: Nora has (inadvertently) been carrying around a cigarette pack full of marijuana and realizes it just as she is about to go through security. We watch as she slowly works the pack out of her pocket and drops it, centimeter by centimeter down her leg, lower and lower, until it finally drops onto the floor. Relieved, she walks away, only to have a friendly security guard immediately hand her back the pack she “dropped.” It’s a genius moment and I could practically feel ol’ Alfred grinning from the afterlife.

There’s another nice moment where Nora sets up a trap that she read about in a mystery novel. She decides that it’s safe to try the trap, since the novel has yet to be published in Italy. “Killers don’t read mystery novels,” the narrator helpfully adds, putting the audience at ease.  Poor John Saxon getting caught in the elaborate web of strings and tripwires when he goes to check on Nora is, if you think about it, the only acceptable way for that situation to end. There’s also a great reveal as the camera swoops through a closed-door, showing the audience a photograph that would explain everything to Nora…if she could only swoop through that locked door, of course.

All in all, The Girl Who Knew Too Much is a good film, filled with some decent performances, some great music (the opening theme is so brassy and sleazy that I automatically figured this would be grittier than it really is) and a pretty lo-cal, Scooby Doo-ish mystery. As a work that not only gestured at Bava’s past but also pointed towards his epic future, The Girl Who Knew Too Much is important for not just Bava completeists but anyone interested in Italian cinema, in general.

Just remember: be sure not to accept strange packs of cigarettes from handsome strangers on airplanes. As Nora found out, that’s always how trouble starts.

1/24/14: The Right (and Wrong) Way to Bleed

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A Band Apart, Adam Wingard, Angela Jones, animal masks, auteur theory, Barry Corbin, booby-traps, cinema, Curdled, dark comedies, Film, Film auteurs, final girl, forensic-cleaning, Funny Games, Gecko Brothers, home invasion, horror films, Joe Swanberg, masked intruders, Movies, Quentin Tarantino, Reb Braddock, Reservoir Dogs, serial killers, Simon Barrett, The Strangers, Top Films of 2013, William Baldwin, You're Next

Becoming so irritated after viewing The Comedy that I thought I might develop hives, there was nothing for me to do but retreat back to the loving arms of a horror film: in this case, You’re Next. Turned out to be a wise move, since it made me completely forget about the previous dud. Had I not followed it up with the distressingly limp Curdled, this might have been game, set, match.

Sometimes, you just know a film is going to be good. Maybe you’ve read some reviews by critics you really trust. Maybe the film is made by one of your favorite directors, a filmmaker who’s never let you down (I’m lookin’ at you, Refn and Wheatley, you big, wonderful filmmakers, you!). Perhaps you’ve seen a great trailer or have been teased by some really cool promotional material. Whatever the reason, there are always a small group of films that we, the discerning viewer, are absolutely certain have to be amazing. When these films disappoint, there can be no worst feeling in the world: a massive buildup to nothing at all, months (or even years) of anticipation flushed down the can. When these films meet (or even surpass) our expectations, however, there is a very specific thing that is created: magic. I’ve been lucky enough to experience plenty of movie magic in my life and Adam Wingard’s You’re Next wears the wizard cloak loudly and proudly.

Quality films don’t just appear out of thin air, gift-wrapped and ready to blow our minds. Rather, they emerge organically, composed of quality ingredients, in the same way that a chef might prepare a gourmet meal. You have to have a great script, for thing, and an original (or, at least, semi-original) idea. You need great camera and sound work and an interesting production design. You, of course, will need good actors (extra points for great actors). Most importantly, however, you will need a unified vision to tie everything together. You can have a really good, fun, interesting film with only a few of these ingredients, don’t get me wrong: I’ve seen plenty of ’em. You cannot, however, have a magical film with any of the above mentioned items missing: it just can’t happen.

As far as individual pieces go, You’re Next is already looking like prep-time in a five-star restaurant. We have director Adam Wingard and writer Simon Barrett, the lethal team responsible (either together or apart) for Pop Skull, A Horrible Way to Die, segments in V/H/S, V/H/S 2, The ABCs of Death and Dead Birds. We get a pretty original idea: a bitchy, backstabbing family are celebrating a wedding anniversary when be-masked home invaders begin to slaughter them, only to have the tables turned as the hunters become the hunted. We have gorgeous cinematography by Andrew Palermo (according to his CV, You’re Next is one of only three features he’s worked on…someone get this guy some consistent work!) and excellent sound design. There’s a wicked sense of humor that permeates the proceedings but this is no horror-comedy. The violence is intense, memorable and visceral while avoiding the pornographic tendencies of films like Saw or Hostel: it also appears to be largely practical effects, which warms my heart.

At the risk of sounding like a swooning fanboy, there really isn’t much I can ding You’re Next for. In fact, there are several scenes in the film that have actually rocketed to the upper echelons of my “Baddest Ass Scenes Ever” list, including the one where Lamb Face takes a seat next to Larry Fessenden’s corpse on the couch: everything about the scene, from the lighting, to the score, to the slight way that Lamb Face cocks his head to the side are purely magical, a bracing example that the true power of cinema will always rely on the image.

The cast, featuring a quadrilogy of modern indie/horror mainstays (directors Ti West, Joe Swanberg, Larry Fessenden and writer Simon Barrett), is exquisite, with special praise due lead Sharni Vinson and Swanberg. Vinson is pitch-perfect in the role of, ostensibly, the clichéd “final girl.” She brings such an amazing sense of reality to the role, however, that she kicks the character up into high gear. Even better, Vinson’s Erin is not posited as some sort of invincible ass-kicker: she’s vulnerable, feels fear and is frequently unsure of herself. It’s just that, in times of strife, Erin can pull together the fortitude to stick a knife through someone’s skull: we’d all like to think we’d be so handy in a crisis. Swanberg, on the other hand, is an acid-etched delight as Drake. Playing the character as the height of crude, obnoxious, sarcastic, privileged assholery, Drake might seem like a refugee from The Comedy. Luckily, Swanberg is way to good an actor (and Barrett is way too good a writer) to let that happen. Hard as it is to believe, I found myself grudgingly liking this dickhead, over time: truth be told, I found myself liking almost all of the characters, including the masked killers. Swanberg, however, attacks his character with such lustful zeal that it truly is a joy to behold.

I won’t reveal any actual details of the film, since its many twists, turns and surprises are all part of its endless joys. Suffice to say that the opening is awesome, the ending is a stunner and everything in between is as hardy and robust as Charles Atlas on a good day. There’s even a great gag that pays homage to the “window trap” scene in Death Wish 3 (if you’ve seen DW3, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about). This is the kind of film that upends every genre convention it comes across, from the obligatory “pot of water boiling on the stove” bit to the reveal of the true nature of the killers. In some ways, You’re Next is like a bizarro-world mashup of The Strangers (masked intruders trying to get in) and Funny Games (unmasked intruders are already in), although this leap-frogs way over The Strangers.

Endlessly inventive, exceptionally well-made and infinitely fun, You’re Next isn’t just the best genre film I’ve seen since Stitches, it’s also one of the best films of 2013, even if I didn’t manage to see it until this year. Time to go make room on the shelf for a new classic: Wingard and Barrett did it again.

And then we have Curdled. Perhaps there’s no way that this film could grab my attention (and heart) after the phenomenal experience that was You’re Next. By the same token, I’m pretty sure there was no way this could be nearly as odious as The Comedy. Turns out I was right on both counts: this was nowhere near the quality of You’re Next and too (relatively) inoffensive and meek to be anywhere near as obnoxious as The Comedy.

Curdled begins in 1977, in Columbia, with young Gabriela. She’s a child who’s just witnessed the aftermath of a gory crime, beginning her life-long obsession with death. Flash-forward several years and Gabriela is now living in Miami and working for a forensic-cleaning crew: the folks who get to go into a crime scene and clean up the blood (and other bodily fluids) left over after the bodies are removed. She enjoys her job but becomes obsessed with a serial killer known as The Blue Blood Killer (he only kills wealthy women), especially after she finds a clue at a scene she’s cleaning. This all leads to a conclusion that seeks to answer the previously asked question: can a head talk after it’s been severed? The answer may (but probably won’t) surprise you.

Here’s the thing: Curdled, at least on paper, has a lot going for it. The film was discovered by Quentin Tarantino during a promotional tour for Reservoir Dogs and he was so taken with it that he decided to release it under his A Band Apart production company. The film actually features a couple of references to QT’s cinematic world (Gabriela is played by Angela Jones, the cab driver who picked up Bruce Willis in Pulp Fiction; a TV news report mentions the Gecko Brothers of From Dusk Till Dawn fame): unless these were added post-QT’s involvement, it seems fairly safe to say that writer/director Reb Braddock is a fan. There’s a decent turn by William Baldwin as the serial killer (no spoiler here since we learn this pretty early in the film) and a pretty great performance by character-actor-extraordinaire Barry Corbin as the owner of the forensics-cleaning company. The score is great and the opening credits sequence (various grisly deaths depicted as children’s sketches) is pretty genius.

Unfortunately, Curdled takes all of these various elements and doesn’t find much to do with them. The film is slow-paced, almost to the point of seeming inert, and wastes way to much time focusing on Angela Jones and her (admittedly) very expressive eyes. While Jones, Baldwin and Corbin are good, the rest of the cast really isn’t, with one of the most obnoxious characterizations courtesy of Mel Gorham as Gabriela’s cleaning partner, Elena. Gorham has a particular ability to make any line she delivers as flat as a pancake and I found myself wishing she would end up a victim awfully fast: alas, she survives.

There are certain elements and scenes that seem completely unnecessary, such as Gabriela’s reenactment of a murder scene via salsa dance. Let’s ponder that for just a moment. In a similar film/TV show, the reenactment would be a way for the investigator to gain new insight into the case (think Crossing Jordan). In Curdled, however, Gabriela learns nothing by dancing her way through the various positions of the body: it’s simply an excuse to have her twirl and flounce around for a bit. This idea, the notion of style for style’s sake, is the film’s fatal flaw: everything in Curdled is weak artifice and the entire film seems as substantial as cotton candy. By the time we reach the end and realize that the film has actually just been one long setup for a punch-line (remember the question earlier about the talking head? That’s the joke that the film spends almost 90 minutes answering).

At the end of the day, aside from some serious pacing issues and some questionable style choices (cutting back and forth between The Blue Blood Killer’s storylines and Gabriela’s tends to short-sheet both, to be honest), there isn’t much discernibly wrong with Curdled. It’s pretty much the definition of an average, middle-of-the-road indie flick, a film that probably wouldn’t have seen the light of day in 1996 without the support of Quentin. As it stands, you could watch worse films (like The Comedy or The Last Rites of Ransom Pride) but why don’t you just go watch You’re Next, instead?

1/24/14: Are We Supposed to Laugh Yet?

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Borat, cinema, Eric Wareheim, Film, hipsters, indie comedies, indie dramas, James Murphy, Jeffrey Jensen, LCD Soundsystem, Movies, Neil Hamburger, pretentious, Rick Alverson, Sacha Baron Cohen, satire, scatological conversations, self-satisfied, tedious, The Comedy, Tim Heidecker, unpleasant

Since things have been a little hectic for the past several days, last Friday was the last time (for a few days, at least) that I was able to cram several films into one day. This particular day, however, ended up being more miss than hit but just barely. I watched one extremely irritating film, one fantastic film and one very disappointing film. Since it turned out that I had more to say about The Comedy than I initially figured, I’ll go ahead and split this day into two: we’ll get to You’re Next and Curdled in the next installment.

As I’ve often found to be true, it’s entirely possible to detest the content of a film while still admiring the craft behind said film. This is certainly true of film’s with extremely disturbing content (Salo, most “torture porn” films) but the same can also be said of film’s that display a masterful touch with cinematography and style yet offer nothing whatsoever as far as content goes. These films, in other words, are the cinematic equivalents of Little Debbie snack cakes: bright, vibrant outsides filled with nauseating nothingness inside. Nowhere can I think of a film that better exemplifies this aesthetic than Rick Alverson’s The Comedy.

Before I begin to detail everything that I disliked about this film — and that’s no inconsequential list, might I add — let me take a moment to list the things that actually worked for me. Right off the bat, the film looks pretty great, at least as far as moody indie films go. The acting, when it can manage to stay away from endless litanies of debauched profanities (which it cannot do for any great length of time), isn’t bad. The trump card of having oddball comedians like Tim Heidecker, Eric Wareheim and Neil Hamburger (listed as Gregg Turkington in the credits) perform in the equivalent of a dour indie drama is interesting, at first, but wears its welcome out pretty quickly. Alverson has a tendency to use indie-instrumental music to set moods and, in scenes such the wordless bicycle ride through the city, it really works. I actually found the bicycle riding scene to be very atmospheric: I only wish that the filmmaker’s had followed that particular muse instead of the one that actually informed the picture: South Park.

You see, The Comedy isn’t so much a film, per se, as an extremely misguided attempt to call out that most mystical of modern beasts: the hipster. What, you may ask, is a hipster? Well, it seems to be a bit harder to define than a hippie, goth or metal-head, mostly because those sub-strata of society can (usually) be readily defined by either their attire or their choice of music. Hipsters, on the other hand, seem to be more defined by attitude: a slack, lackadaisical, ultra-sarcastic view of the world that allows for only ironic attachments, whether they be to entertainment, friends or political viewpoints: a hipster will hate Motley Crue but wear a Motley Crue t-shirt because it’s ironic. The hipster (at least as defined by what we see in The Comedy) is a PBR-swilling, smirking, self-satisfied putz, a rather repugnant creature that feels any subject (Hitler, rape, slavery, death) is ripe for hilarious satire. Because, you know, it’s all ironic, dude.

And that, essentially, is my huge problem with The Comedy. Under the guise of taking to task these odious individuals, Alverson has actually given them free rein to run amok for almost two hours. Here’s the exact format of the film, a formula that’s played out time and time again:

— Swanson (Heidecker), a rich, bored “hipster” and his equally bored friends Van Arma, Ben, Cargill and Bobby (played, respectively, by Wareheim, LCD Soundsystem frontman James Murphy, Jeffrey Jensen and Hamburger), hang out together, damn each other with faint praise (“I totally respect your friendship”…”You are so good at being you”), drink PBR, have disgustingly scatological conversations with each other (The low point? Either the bit about hobo cocks being super clean because stock brokers are constantly sucking them or the delightful bit about smearing shit on vaginas…take your pick.) and then go out into the public where they act like boorish assholes and, apparently, attempt to get themselves killed by as many offended people as possible. This is usually followed by a short, quiet scene where Swanson seems to reflect on his actions, only to have the whole cycle begin anew within moments. Rinse, lather, repeat.

Here’s the thing: cinematic history is filled with great films about absolutely loutish individuals. Hell, it’s filled with plenty of great films CREATED by loutish individuals. There’s a fine trick involved, however, with such depictions of obnoxious characters, a trick that outre filmmakers like Todd Solondz know only too well: you may depict any number of endless atrocities, you may say anything, you may go anywhere, as long as the audience understands that you don’t actually agree with these things.

And yes, that is a mighty slippery slope, since it really begins to edge around issues of creative control, intent, art vs pornography, etc. But here’s the other thing: the filmmakers who are the undisputed masters of this domain, people like Todd Solondz, Mel Brooks, Trey Parker/Matt Stone and John Waters, never allow the audience to lose sight of what’s wrong or right. They may depict racist, misogynistic, insane, unpleasant and downright bizarre individuals but there is always the sense that humanity is upheld. The truly evil individuals, in these particular universes, will always be known to us: the filmmakers may not always give them their just comeuppance but we, as an audience, can always see through the act. I don’t mean to say that bad characters in films always need to be punished: I do mean to say, however, that it should be very evident where the actual filmmakers stands on issues like racism, sexism, etc.

The Comedy, unlike something such as Blazing Saddles or Pink Flamingos, is a much more confused  affair. For the most part, there is no commentary on these boorish acts, mostly because everyone in the film (with very few exceptions and we’re talking perhaps five, total, if I’m pressed) are equally obnoxious. Swanson takes a job as a dishwasher at a restaurant and engages in verbal sparring with a comely waitress (played by Kate Lyn Sheil). His method of courtship? Graphic descriptions about how he’s a convicted rapist and will rape anything that moves, including her. The waitress, for her part, gives as good as she gets, indicating that she’s pretty okay with this line of discussion. We’re supposed to understand, of course, that Swanson is being super-duper ironic here: he’s saying the worst possible things he can think of, simply to provoke any kind of reaction in his stunted life. His technique, it must be said, is also successful: after some light rape talk at the restaurant, Swanson eventually takes the waitress back to his houseboat for some more “clever” repartee and some hanky-panky.

All fair and good. What, then, to make of the “hilarious” scene where Swanson goes into a predominately black bar and swaggers around, loudly asking, “Where your bitches at” because he “wants to fuck some black ass?” It couldn’t possibly be racist because no one, save the caddish Swanson, would actually do that, right? How about the priceless gag where Swanson pays a Middle Eastern cab driver $500 so he can drive his cab around and yell at innocent women like they were prostitutes for hire? Another fun bit of harassment involves Swanson planting himself in a chair by his dying father’s bedside and regaling the male nurse with delightful anecdotes about “prolapsed anuses” before launching into a clever routine involving the word in phrases such as “Anus and Andy” or “Famous Anus Cookies” (okay, full disclosure: I did laugh at Famous Anus Cookies but I’m pretty sure that was the 12-year-old in me).

And yes, of course, there is plenty of history for material like this. Hell, Sacha Baron Cohen turned these kind of interactions (in the real world, no less) into his entire career and the Jackass guys have been doing it for a while, too. We also have some pretty racist material in Blazing Saddles and South Park, some pretty awful sexual ickiness in Happiness and a horribly worthless schlub in The King of Comedy. The difference, as far as I can see it, has to do with the equal-opportunity scope of the other filmmakers, particularly Mel Brooks and Parker/Stone. Mel Brooks is famous for never meeting anything he wouldn’t make fun of in a film: religion, ethnicity, racism, sexism, social mores, incest, mental illness, nationalism…you name it, Brooks poked at it. You’d have to be pretty brain-dead, however, to mistake whether Brooks’ sympathies lay with Bart or Hedley Lamarr. Every edgy joke, reference and rim shot in the film is funneled towards one, explicit purpose: shining the cold light of truth under the rock and exposing racism as the ridiculous, self-defeating, self-cannibalizing disgrace that it’s always been. Similarly, South Park may seem to unleash quite a bit of scorn on Scientology but compare that to what they’re saying about Christianity, Judaism, Paganism, Islam and the like and it comes across as just another target bottle on the fence. Offensive? Sure. But equal-opportunity offensive rather than specifically targeted.

With The Comedy, however, I was never sure where my sympathies were supposed to lie. I’ll be honest: I’d already mentally checked out a few minutes into the film, as the first scene was a slo-mo fest of slobby, shirtless guys spraying PBR everywhere while dry humping each other. There was such an air of detached bemusement to the scene, almost as if Alverson were saying, “Aren’t these guys just too, too crazy?,” that I could almost smell the self-congratulation coming from the screen.

None of this, by the way, is to insinuate that either Alverson or any of the cast have any intentional purpose to salute this sort of behavior. I do believe, however, that everyone involved lacked the abilities to pull this kind of thing off gracefully, opening the door wide for just such an insinuation. The whole thing, to be honest, smacks of the “enlightened” individual who relishes telling racist and sexist jokes because they “outrage” him so much or the gore-hound who studiously tracks down every frame of questionable content for films that she has no intention of seeing, just to see how bad it really is.

By the time I got to stuff like Swanson arguing for the return of feudalism (because some people just need to serve other people), the relative merits of Hitler (if one could look past all of the murder and stuff) and the scene where the waitress has an epileptic fit (I guess) as Swanson is preparing to have sex with her, only for him to spend the next several minutes watching her convulse while sipping a drink…I had just given up. Any attempt to look for deeper meaning, any idea that Alverson would be pulling the rug from under my feet and doling out bottomless shame to these assholes, was defeated completely by an ending that seems to posit Swanson as a lost, confused soul. Really? Because he kind of came across like a pretentious, racist, privileged douchebag for the entirety of the film. I realized that the extent of Alverson’s commentary on the subject was confined to the title: it’s ironic because the movie isn’t actually a comedy but a drama, dude…get it?

Ultimately, I was left with more questions than answers by The Comedy: What, exactly, is a hipster and does it actually exist in any minds other than other “hipsters”? What the hell was James Murphy doing in this? (to his credit, Murphy often looks pretty ashamed of what’s going on around him but his glee in the church-scooting scene is pretty obvious) Is it possible to have a really good, dark drama populated entirely by comedians? Where is the line between satirizing frat-boy misbehavior and just depicting it wholesale?

Perhaps, in the end, the joke really is on me. The characters in the film are all in their mid-30s, just like me. Perhaps I’m supposed to identify with this in the same way that twenty-somethings identify with films like Ben Stiller’s The Secret of Walter Mitty or Spike Jonze’s Her. If so, the joke is still over my head. I couldn’t imagine doing anything with these people but repeatedly hitting them with a 2×4. When I watch The Comedy, all I see is a bunch of stunted man-babies acting like complete and total jackasses. If Alverson sees something more noteworthy or noble, I sure wish he’d point it out to me.

1/23/14: To Boldly Go…Home

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1980's, action-comedies, Chekov, cinema, Enterprise, films, franchises, Kirk, Leonard Nimoy, McCoy, Movies, San Francisco, sci-fi, Scotty, sequel, space operas, Spock, Star Trek, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Star Wars, Sulu, time travel, Uhura, whales, William Shatner

As a child, I was a huge Star Wars fanatic: I must have had every action figure, vehicle, play-set and pajama-set in the history of the original trilogy. Star Trek, on the other hand, wasn’t quite my thing. I’m not sure if it had more to do with the ration of laser-blasts to philosophical discussions or if I was just more partial to Han Solo than Capt. Kirk. Whatever the reason, I just never felt a big connection to the Enterprise and its crew when I was younger.

As I got older, however, I found my alliances shifting. The Star Wars films lost some of their original luster, particularly once the prequels were tossed into the mix. Star Trek, on the other hand, was finally beginning to appeal to me. I ended up falling in love with the original series (I can still watch those episodes any time: it’s cinematic comfort food like mashed potatoes and meatloaf, as far as I’m concerned) and became a fan of The Next Generation, although I’ve never seen any of the other . I also began to really pay attention to the Trek films: I’d already seen many of them since my family was always big on new releases and action/adventure films but I’d never really paid attention.

Currently, my admiration for the two series still tends to lean towards Star Trek, although I definitely wouldn’t consider myself a hardcore fan of either. I think that Star Trek has tended to stick with me longer because the social problems and philosophical issues raised seem to have more real-world applications than the space operatics of Star Wars. At any rate, I find that some time has passed since I saw either a Star Trek or Star Wars film. When it came time to choose last Thursday’s entertainment, my lovely wife suggested Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (her personal favorite in the series) and this seemed like a perfect time to get reacquainted with the series.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is certainly an odd Star Trek film but I think that’s actually one of its biggest benefits. Coming right after the triple punch of The Motion Picture, The Wrath of Khan and The Search for Spock, The Voyage Home is a much lighter affair, more comedy and satire than pulse-pounding space shoot-em-up. This also makes it an easy film to mock, particularly when we get to elements like Spock using the Vulcan nerve pinch on a mohawk-bedecked “punk rocker” on a bus or Kirk’s constant swearing (this affectation, however, is one of my favorites in the film, particularly when he responds back to a rude motorist with the classic retort, “Double-dumbass to you!”

Story-wise, The Voyage Home takes place immediately after The Search for Spock ended. Spock is once again alive and with the crew, the crew is on the run from the Federation in a stolen Klingon warbird (dubbed the HMS Bounty, in a particularly nifty touch) and some strange probe is draining the energy from every vessel and planet it comes near. When it begins to drain Earth, the renegade crew put their heads together and realize that the strange signal emanating from the probe is a whale song. Where to find a whale to respond to the probe since they’ve been extinct for hundreds of years by that point? Why, the past of course: San Francisco in 1986, to be exact. The crew heads to the past, endures the typical fish-out-of-water shenanigans that we’d expect (including the aforementioned bus antics and a gloriously goofy sequence where Spock dives into a whale tank to commune with the big lugs) and, of course, ends up saving the day.

Since The Voyage Home isn’t played strictly seriously, it may seem easy to discount it, especially when compared to earlier fare like The Wrath of Khan. Despite a few particularly dodgy effects moments (especially the dated time-travel effects), a few silly moments (Spock’s IQ test scene is really silly, one short step from being eye-rolling) and a distinct lack of action (there’s some minor action sequences at the beginning and a rather quickly resolved one at the end), however, the film actually holds up pretty well. Leonard Nimoy wrote and directed the film and there’s a general sense of amiability that permeates everything: at no point do any of the actors look like they’re having anything less than a great time. Shatner, in particular, is in fine, mischievous form and gets a few choice lines to rattle off.

As a rule, the effects are pretty simple and clean (aside from the ridiculous time travel scene): I bet The Voyage Home must have looked pretty good in theaters on opening weekend. I was initially concerned that the film would lose its footing completely once the crew made it to Earth but Nimoy keeps a pretty consistent visual thread running through the film, making the Earth scenes no less (but certainly no more) visually arresting than what’s happening in space. Add in a pretty rousing finale, with a truly great final scene, and you have one pretty decent film. Certainly nothing ground-breaking (or even something to make people forget the three films that came before) but Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is consistently entertaining and fun: that’s certainly more than I can say for Attack of the Clones.

1/22/14: A Little Noir and a Lotta Dumb

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bad films, bad movies, Barry Fitzgerald, bars, cinema, Citizen Kane, comedies, crime film, Danny Devito, ensemble casts, Film, Girl Walks into a Bar, Gothika, Jimmy Halloran, Jules Dassin, Los Angeles, Lt. Daniel Muldoon, Mark Hellinger, Movies, New York City, Robert Forster, Rosario Dawson, Sebastian Gutierrez, Snakes on a Plane, terrible films, The Naked City, voice-over narration, Z-movies, Zachary Quinto

As a rule, I like to counter-program whenever I watch multiple movies: too much of any one thing can get tiring. There are exceptions, of course, such as my annual horror movie marathon in October: that’s pretty much just an entire month of horror films. Other than that, however, I usually like a little variety. Sometimes, however, I counter-program without even knowing it. Such was the case last Wednesday when I inadvertently paired up a pretty good film-noir (The Naked City) with a god-awful skid-mark called Girl Walks into a Bar. None of the names have been changed to protect the guilty.

Not all films deliver the goods in big ways. Some films (many films, if we’re being completely honest) are more about small moments, individual pleasures. You could probably fill an airplane hangar with the “pleasant diversions” that I’ve watched over the past 30 years, although I doubt if I could remember much about most of them save the titles. Sometimes, a film isn’t groundbreaking, vital or earth-shaking: sometimes, a film is just pretty good…and that’s good enough.

The Naked City is a pretty good film, less a film noir (which it at first resembles) than a police procedural. Ostensibly, the film is about the police manhunt for the individual (or individuals) who murdered a young, blonde model in her apartment. Lt. Daniel Muldoon (played with so much mischievous energy by Barry Fitzgerald that the character is practically a leprechaun) and officer Jimmy Halloran (a wide-eyed Don Taylor, evidently pretty fresh from the farm) are on the case, tearing the city apart in their quest for answers and justice.

Right off the bat, there’s something a little off about The Naked City. The film begins with an aerial view of New York City as producer Mark Hellinger (who doubles as the film’s narrator) explains to us that the film was not shot on sound stages but, rather, on the gritty streets of New York, itself. This is a film, he lets us know, that is as much about the city as the people who live there. It’s an interesting tact that makes sense when you consider the staged nature of most films released in 1948.

This attempt to get into the heart (and mind) of the city is, at first glance, quite disorienting. We spend almost ten minutes jumping around from cleaning lady to switchboard operator to late-night radio DJ and back, hearing their (mostly mundane) thoughts on their lives, jobs, etc…It’s an almost documentary-esque technique that is only shattered when the camera strays into the victim’s apartment and we witness two mysterious men kill her. For a time, the film really does seem like it will consist of day-in-the-life vignettes.

Another trait that marks The Naked City as a bit of an odd duck is the oftentimes intrusive narration by Hellinger. Much of the time, Hellinger functions less as narrator than as Greek chorus, color commentator or surrogate character in the unfolding drama. As Officer Halloran is scouring the city for clues, Hellinger’s narration is a constant companion: “Look at your city, Halloran;” “The dress shop is next, Halloran.” This can become a bit distracting, particularly once the action picks up in the latter half and Hellinger becomes a TV commentator: “Run over there, Halloran…he turned to the left…look up above you!…what’s that over there?” To further confound things, Hellinger’s narration and inflection seem rather inappropriate for a crime film. It’s hard to describe but anyone who grew up on old Disney films will, presumably, know what I’m talking about. Imagine the kindly-voiced narrator from Dumbo narrating a crime drama and you begin to get the picture. This could be a hold-over from old radio programs but Hellinger’s narration is always either too flip or snide to convey any sense of mystery.

Structure-wise, the film is very much indebted to Welles’ Citizen Kane, released a scant seven years before The Naked City. Officer Halloran travels about the city, talking to anyone and everyone that knew the dead girl, in an attempt to piece together just who she was. It’s an effective structural-choice and lends the film a sturdy framework that helps immeasurably when it (occasionally) decides to spin its wheels.

There are little moments in the film that I enjoyed quite a bit: a discussion between Halloran and his wife about spanking their son turns, out of nowhere, into a really interesting argument on gender roles; the public’s fascination with every detail of the unfolding murder-mystery was the same then as it is now; there’s a blind man and his seeing-eye dog that reminded me immediately of the blind man and dog in Argento’s Suspiria, right down to the type of dog and the man’s clothing (could Argento have been a fan?); Barry Fitzgerald’s absolutely joyous portrayal of Lt. Muldoon (rarely have I seen an actor not named Richard Harris or Robert Downey Jr. tear his teeth so lustily into a role like this) and the ending is very strong.

All in all, The Naked City was really fun to watch, albeit kind of weird and a little silly, at times. While nowhere near a great noir or crime film, The Naked City is a perfectly fine way to whittle away 90 minutes. As Hellinger states at the end: “There are eight million stories in the Naked City…this has been one of them.” Damn straight, Mark: damn straight, indeed.

Full disclosure: I absolutely hated this film. Positively detested it. In fact, I dare say that I have seen few films that I actively disliked as much as this hackneyed, pretentious, stupid, blissfully unaware, towering horse manure-monument to narcissism. I can’t even say that I was glad when it was over, since I then had time to focus my disgust inwards, wondering what mental deficiency necessitate that I spend even one minute with this aggressively brain-dead waste of trust funds. I, by association, was as guilty as Sebastian Gutierrez and every other misbegotten individual involved with this cinematic abortion.

Sebastian Gutierrez…Sebastian Gutierrez…why does that name sound familiar? Had the name sounded more familiar before I began, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. You see, writer/director Sebastian Gutierrez was also the genius who wrote Snakes on a Plane and Gothika. A little history: those two films are fucking terrible, pardon my French. Snakes on a Plane may have had Sam Jackson and a big pop culture push but, in reality, it was an awful film, a self-aware bit of stupidity that strove for cult status without ever realizing what made cult films “cult” in the first place. Gothika was an aggressively stupid, unpleasant, worthless supernatural thriller that starred Halle Berry and, by itself, would have been enough reason for me to curse Gutierrez’s name from now until the stars burn out.

So, we have one of the worst writers in the biz: not good so far. But we also have huge stars like Danny Devito, Zachary Quinto, Rosario Dawson, Robert Forster (!), Gil Bellows and Josh Hartnett, you might say. Of course, we do. We also have them spewing the filmic equivalent of baby diarrhea: you don’t want a big cup of that, do you? I felt bad for every actor in the film but reserved a special reserve of pit for Robert Forster. I mean…really? Robert Forster…in this? My heart hurt for him, I won’t lie. The rest, barring Quinto (who’s still got time), have been in their fair share of embarrassments but this must be an all-time career low for Forster, even including his stellar turn in Scanner Cop II.

How about the plot? Well, there’s a hit woman and she has to go to ten different bars because she’s looking for the guy who stole her wallet while playing pool and each person she meets gives her another clue until she…oh, who gives a shit? Plot is, quite frankly, the last thing that anyone involved with this debacle is interested in. Plot holes? More like a smidgen of plot surrounded by the black hole of deepest space. To add insult to injury, the whole thing is episodic, taking place entirely in first one bar then the next then the next ad infinitum. I kept thinking this must have been an adapted stage play but who am I fooling? I’m pretty sure that the last play Sebastian watched was his elementary-school Christmas pageant. More likely, it’s just a really sloppy, lazy way to tell a story.

At this point, I would normally list all of the things that I really liked about a film. In this case, why don’t I just list the elements that made me black out from anger?

— the long, tedious, drawn-out fantasy sequence where Terri the stripper imagines one-upping the scuzzy guys in the club. A perfect example of a scene that thinks it’s exceptionally clever when it’s actually drooling in the porridge.

— Danny Devito’s entire time in the movie consists of him telling a dumb joke…what a waste.

— “What are you good at? You look like you’re really good at something but I just can’t put my finger on it.” — I can’t believe a human wrote this line: this has chimp fingerprints all over it.

— every single second of film that Rosario Dawson was in. How one individual could manage to be so annoying is a question for the ages.

— the nudity in the swinger’s club is censored with black bars because…it’s clever, I guess? Again, this was a case of Dumb and Dumbererer thinking it’s The Seventh Seal.

— Terri and the hit-woman play a game that consists entirely of them coming up with “imaginative” euphemisms for cunnilingus. I don’t laugh at these scenes when they involve boorish men and this was equally tasteless and stupid.

— the film ends with the three main characters country-line dancing in an empty bar because, honestly, how the hell else would you end something so offensively stupid?

I’ll leave you with the very last note that I took as I finished watching this cinematic masterpiece: Fuck you, Sebastian Gutierrez…fuck you very much.

1/21/14: Listen to the Cat

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1920s, Algiers, animated films, Antoine Delesvaux, cinema, films, French cinema, French films, graphic novel, Islam, Jews, Joann Sfar, Judaism, Movies, Rabbi Sfar, religious conflicts, talking cat, The Rabbi's Cat, Vastenov, Zlabya

For the past decade or so, there seems to have been a bit of a boom in adult animated features (think more Watership Down than Fritz the Cat, you pervs), especially those coming from France. While Japan has always been a leading distributor of mature animated films, including such landmark films as Akira (1988), Grave of the Fireflies (1988), Princess Mononoke (1997) and Tokyo Godfathers (2003), there have been quite a few French films released between 2003-2013 that look set to springboard their way into the canon of classic animated films for grownups.

Films such as The Triplets of Bellevue (2003), Persepolis (2007), The Secret of Kells (2009), A Cat in Paris (2010), Tales of the Night (2011), A Monster in Paris (2011) and The Painting (2011) may all come from the same country but they’re just about as different from each other as can be. Add in an array of quality animated features from other countries, such as Waltz with Bashir (Israel, 2008), The Fantastic Mr. Fox (U.S., 2009), A Town Called Panic (Belgium, 2009), Mary and Max (Australia, 2009) and Chico and Rita (UK, 2010) and it’s been a great time for those who like their cartoons with lots of big themes and issues.

Following in the footsteps of these aforementioned great French animated films comes Antoine Delesvaux and Joann Sfar’s exceptional The Rabbi’s Cat, based on Sfar’s graphic novel series of the same name. Although the animation is a bit crude and may take a short time to get used to, the film, itself, is whip-smart, exciting, very funny and quite thought-provoking. Any qualms I had were pretty much banished by the ten-minute mark.

Combining together several different volumes of the graphic novel, The Rabbi’s Cat takes place in 1920s Algeria and details the adventures of Rabbi Abraham Sfar, his beautiful daughter Zlabya and their mischievous cat, who has recently gained the ability to talk after eating a loud-mouthed parrot. In order to continue spending time with Zlabya, the cat decides to convert to Judaism, a plan that causes no amount of headaches for the Rabbi and his aged Master, a humorless and severe Rabbi who thinks Sfar doesn’t take his job quite seriously enough. Along the way, the group meets a Russian Jew who’s fled religious persecution in his country (his story, told through animated watercolors, is quite beautiful) and is searching for a fabled lost Jewish city in Ethiopia; Sfar’s cousin, a Muslim sheikh and his philosophical donkey; an insane Russian millionaire; a beautiful, dark-skinned bartender; a racist American “artist”; and a tribe of mysterious, violent desert nomads.

As is the case with many French animated features, there is quite a lot going on in The Rabbi’s Cat. We get plenty of intense religious discussions, my favorite being the debate that the cat and donkey get into over the relative merits of both Islam and Judaism. There are debates on the validity of religious “truth” (when the Rabbi tries to teach the cat about Adam and Eve, he scoffs and writes them off as “symbols’); racism (the American artist tries to explain eugenics to the Russian Jew and it doesn’t go over well; the Rabbi is kicked out of a little outdoor cafe, since the proprietor doesn’t “serve Jews…or Arabs.”); the hardship inflicted on Jews in 1920s-era Russia (the crazy millionaire states that “A Jew is not a Russian. A Russian, you challenge to a duel. A Jew, you burn” with a completely maniacal glint in his eye) and the perceived/real differences between Islam and Judaism.

If this seems like quite a bit to pack into a film that runs less than two hours, you’re absolutely correct. At times, The Rabbi’s Cat feels fit to bursting with content and it isn’t until we settle into the film’s main storyline (the hunt for the lost Jewish city) that things seem to settle down a bit. Most of the disparate elements fit together beautifully but a few of them, including an appearance by a lunk-headed adventurer and his stupid dog that are clearly supposed to be Tin Tin and Snowy, feel forced and a little out-of-place. The ending also seems a bit abrupt, as if they just pulled the plug rather than wound the proceedings down in a more natural way.

Nonetheless, The Rabbi’s Cat is, essentially, one delight after another. Once one gets used to the animation style, the film has a natural breath and flow that is extremely easy to watch. The voice acting, especially from Rabbi Sfar and the cat, is top-notch and the film is laugh-out-loud funny at times: my favorite line has to be the one where Rabbi Sfar brings the Russian millionaire back to his house, after previously finding the Russian Jew hiding in a box of Talmuds. The Rabbi’s cynical master raises one eyebrow and asks, “What’s this?” After the Rabbi responds with, “A Russian,” the Master retorts with, “What, you collect them?” Classic.

In the end, The Rabbi’s Cat is a pretty exceptional film. More than anything, it’s a film that constantly surprises, whether with the extremely genuine pathos of the painter or the surprising and shocking violence that pops up when the group visits the nomads. Any film that’s willing to throw not one but multiple weighty philosophical and religious discussions into the mix, while still finding time to develop the sweetly gentle courtship between the bartender and Russian Jew, is pretty alright in my book. There were even a few times where the film reminded me fondly of Terry Gilliam’s classic The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, which, if you know anything about me, is pretty much the highest praise I can give it.

1/20/14: Farewell to Your Future Self

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12 Monkeys, action films, Blade Runner, Boreno, Brick, Bruce Willis, chase films, cinema, closing the loop, Conan the Barbarian, drama, dystopian future, Farewell to the King, Film auteurs, films, grim future, headhunter tribes, historical dramas, hitmen, island paradises, Japanese fleet in the Pacific, John Milius, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, jungle combat, kings, Looper, Movies, Nick Nolte, Rian Johnson, romance, sci-fi, telekinesis, Terry Gilliam, The Big Lebowski, The Brothers Bloom, The Rainmaker, time travel, war films, World War II

After beginning the day with a couple of Oscar-nominated documentaries, I figured that I’d end it with a film where Nick Nolte becomes king of Borneo and Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt share the same face. Welcome to the world I live in, ladies and gentlemen: it’s a strange one.

First of all, take a moment (or two) to marvel at the glory that is the above poster for Farewell the King. Nolte giving his best Blue Steel…burning huts…lots of buff dudes with machine guns…that, my friends, is what we commonly call one kickass film poster. Doesn’t matter what the film is about: a peep at that one-sheet and I’d hightail it to the theater post-haste!

Now that your eyes have been bathed in badassery, let’s take a look at the fella that wrote and directed Farewell to the King: John Milius. You might know him as the guy that wrote and directed Conan the Barbarian (ie: the awesome one) and the original Red Dawn. You might also know him as the guy who wrote the screenplays for Dirty Harry, Magnum Force, Apocalypse Now, Jeremiah Johnson and A Clear and Present Danger. Or perhaps you know him as the creator of the cable show Rome. Barring that, you may know him (peripherally) as the inspiration for John Goodman’s Walter in The Big Lebowski. Now…taking a look at all of these disparate pieces that make up John Milius, can you take a wild guess at what awaits within Farewell to the King? Yes, friends and neighbors: we’re about to enter the mystical kingdom of Testosteronia.

Due to my father, I was a huge fan of Milius before I ever knew it. Growing up, the Dirty Harry series was just about the closest thing we got to the gospels: I’d already seen the entire series by the time I was a pre-teen and I pretty much had the first two, Dirty Harry and Magnum Force, memorized. I was also completely obsessed with sword-and-sorcery stuff by that point, so Excalibur and Conan the Barbarian got watched at least once a day. Add to that my equally hardcore interest in Apocalypse Now and I was, essentially, an intense Milius fan that had absolutely no idea who the dude was. Classic me, as it were.

As far as plot goes, Farewell to the King is equally as gonzo as anything in Milius’ back-catalog. A British officer and his radio operator land in Borneo, during World War II, in order to whip up local support against Japanese forces in the area. They find a friendly response from a local tribe only to wake up the next morning as captives: it seems that these natives might be the kind normally found in old jungle epics. The difference, however, is that those other tribes didn’t have Nick Nolte as their king.

You see, Nolte was an American soldier during the war, taken prisoner by the Japanese but escaped to the jungles of Borneo. Once there, he was taken captive by the local tribe of headhunters, saved from being turned over to the Japanese due to his dreamy blue eyes (no joke: the women of the village stage a revolt because they can “see the ocean” in his peepers…what a dreamboat!), became leader of the tribe after beating their chief at deadly hand-to-hand combat, fell in love and married one of the locals and managed to unite all of the smaller tribes in the area into one mega-tribe (of which he’s chief, natch). Whew! That is one busy Mystical White Man there, isn’t it!

Learoyd (Nolte) is pretty sure that he can just ignore the rest of World War II: after all, he has a pretty wife, several children, a really cool tropical paradise and the complete adoration of his people…why does he wanna stomp around the jungle and shoot Japanese soldiers? As the British officer gently explains, however, just because you choose to ignore the war doesn’t mean the war chooses to ignore you. Before long, Learoyd is thrown headfirst into the conflict, proceeding full throttle down a path that will lead to glorious victory, staggering defeat, mysterious cannibalistic Japanese ghost regiments, betrayal, mean Australians, Gen. MacArthur and, ultimately, sovereignty.

If it couldn’t be handily discerned from the above plot description, Farewell to the King is a deeply silly, if wildly entertaining, film. It operates along the same sort of wish-fulfillment scenario as Costner’s Dances with Wolves (white guy shows up and teaches the natives to be the best natives they can possibly be). It would be a much more offensive scenario if Milius’ film wasn’t so amiable and good-natured. It’s quite obvious that the natives stand head-and-shoulders above everything else (especially the Australians, who come across so loutishly as to make one wonder if this wasn’t some particular bias of Milius’). For one thing, they’re pretty much the only group that never betrays Learoyd (which can’t be said for the British). For the other, the village scenes are shot with such a sense of sun-dappled wonder that, especially as compared to the dreary jungle combat scenes, it pretty clear where the film would rather be spending its summer vacation.

Ultimately, there’s really one main reason to hunt this flick down (unless you happen to be a Milius’ completest or tropical island enthusiast): the marvelous Nick Nolte. It’s quite wonderful to witness Nolte in all of his buffed-out, leonine glory, especially when he manages to take the character to levels normally reserved for the Nic known as Cage. He strikes a terrific balance of level-headed, village elder and wild-eyed Bornean Rambo and it really works. Less successful, possibly by contrast, is the British officer, played by Nigel Havers. Havers spends most of the film looking sheepish, as if he’s constantly preparing to apologize for something. There are times when the approach works for the character but it usually has the effect of making his Capt. Fairbourne somewhat of a non-entity.

So what do you get with Farewell to the King? Well, you get some pumped-up, patriotic, Green Berets-style jungle fighting. You get Nick Nolte as the leader of a nation of headhunters in Borneo. You get some nice drama, a little character development (but not too much, mind you), plenty of action sequences and a simply gorgeous location. You get a loopy performance from John Bennett Perry (aka Matthew Perry’s dad) as Gen. MacArthur. You even get an evil, cannibalistic Japanese military unit, for good measure. In short, you get the full Milius treatment.

While it’s not my favorite genre, I’m definitely someone who enjoys a good sci-fi flick. In particular, I find myself really enjoying smaller, quirkier, more indie science fiction fare such as Primer, Timecrimes, Moon, Europa Report and Cube. I’ve got nothing, really, against the big tent-pole versions: I grew up on Star Wars and enjoyed The Matrix and Inception. There’s just something about a quieter, weirder sci-fi experience that really appeals to me. When I heard that Rian Johnson was going to be trying his hand at a sci-fi film, I knew this would be a must-see.

I’ve been a huge fan of Rian ever since Brick, a brilliant high school noir that also starred Joseph Gordon-Levitt. He followed that up with The Brothers Bloom, a film so magical and wonderful that I had to keep checking and make sure that Terry Gilliam didn’t create it under a pseudonym. With those two films, I knew that I’d be paying a visit to whatever particular world Rian decided to create next. While sci-fi seemed a little left-field, especially after the magical realism of Brothers Bloom, I had faith, faith which was handily rewarded.

Looper posits a slightly dystopian future, a sort of Blade Runner-lite with hover bikes, drone irrigation systems, telekinesis and time travel. It’s not quite the brave new world we might’ve once imagined, however: telekinesis is pretty much handily written off as “a bunch of assholes floating quarters” and time travel is outlawed, used only by criminal organizations as a way of dumping unwanted corpses in the past. We’ve come so far, you see, but stayed so very close to home.

We meet Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), one of the hitmen known as Loopers, who are responsible for carrying out these contracts. Loopers have it pretty good, all things considered, right up until the time they outlive their welcome. Once this happens, their bosses send the Looper’s future self through the time machine, where the past Looper will, essentially, kill himself, “closing the loop.” At first glance, the mechanics of this seem rather unwieldy, leading one to wonder whether this will be a film akin to Primer (a brilliant film, mind you, but kind of like sitting through a graduate-level physics seminar while still in middle school biology). But fear not, as Joe will later say to himself: “I don’t wanna talk about time travel stuff cuz if we do, we’ll be here all day.” Johnson gives us just enough science to hang our hats on but not enough to hang us, preferring the let the central conflict do the heavy lifting.

And what a conflict. You see, one day, Joe’s future self comes through the portal. Loopers are trained to expect that day and not hesitate: it’s their version of retirement, essentially. Not killing your future self is generally frowned on, as that results in two of you running amok in the same time period. Joe, of course, hesitates just long enough on that fateful day to allow his future self (Bruce Willis) to kick the crap out of him and head for the hills. Present Joe must now track down Future Joe in order to close his own loop, all the while avoiding the shady underworld characters that employ him. Future Joe, for his part, has a mission: he needs to find and kill the mysterious crime boss, known only as The Rainmaker, who ordered his termination, an act which resulted in the death of Future Joe’s beloved wife. If he can do this, Future Joe believes, in can change the course of time and alter the outcome. Present Joe can’t let that happen, leading to a Joe vs Joe fighting extravaganza.

There’s quite a bit more to Looper than what the above indicates but uncovering the film’s many twists and turns is part of its charm. This is a film that manages to not only marry the past parts of Johnson’s short career (the noir-isms of Brick and the magical realism of Brothers Bloom) into a thoroughly cohesive whole but to include wholly new elements to the mix. Tonally, the film really reminded me of Gilliam’s 12 Monkeys, especially once it began to delve into the truth behind The Rainmaker. This is certainly not an influence I could have seen in his earlier films but the parallelism(especially once we factor Willis into the mix) really works and makes me genuinely excited to see what other new tricks are up his sleeve.

As could be expected, JGL and Willis are outstanding. JGL, in particular, deserves special praise for his portrayal of young Joe. There is, obviously, some makeup used to enhance the physical resemblance between the two actors but that in no way should take focus from JGL’s performance. He becomes Willis in such a perfect way, from the way he walks to the way he holds his head and the subtle inflections in his voice, that it’s one of the most dizzying bits of screen fakery I’ve seen in ages. His first appearance took my breath away and it’s impossible for me to think that the same amount of praise and admiration currently bestowed upon Joaquin Phoenix won’t be granted twenty-fold to Gordon-Levitt. It really is an amazing performance, so full of pathos and emotion, yet so subtle, that it reminded me of something I’d kind of taken for granted: Joseph Gordon-Levitt is one hell of an actor.

As is Willis, of course, channeling the same kind of wounded intensity that made his performance in the aforementioned 12 Monkeys so riveting. Cocky, self-assured Bruce Willis is a mighty kickass dude. Quiet, brooding Bruce Willis, however, often makes for a better film. His interplay with JGL is great, especially in a diner sit-down that seems to parody the inevitable “meeting of the twins” scene in like-minded films. I still buy Willis as an action hero, to a point, and Looper makes sure not to cross that point in any manner as egregious as the Expendables films. For his part, JGL convincingly pulls off the action-oriented material, leaving one to hope for more roles like this in his future.

As a whole, the film works exceptionally well. The special effects scenes, especially one involving a bonkers version of one of those “assholes floating quarters” doing a whole lot more than that, are excellent and many of the kinetic fight sequences reminded me of the fights in The Matrix, although much less flashy. There are some really deep issues explored here, issues that help make the powerful ending particularly resonant. Rather than being brazenly manipulative, the ending comes organically from the journey that Present Joe has been on, allowing it to seem more natural than mechanical.

At the end of the day, I found myself liking Looper quite a bit, maybe even more than Inception, despite the more ambitious scope of Nolan’s film. Like Brick, Looper is a tightly-plotted examination of loss, responsibility and moral obligation, a film that is not afraid to ask (or answer) some pretty big questions. It also manages to wrap science fiction into a noir cloak in a way not seen since those fabled attack ships were on fire, somewhere over by Orion.

1/20/14: Oscar Bait, Part 1

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Academy Awards, Ahmed Hassan, Best Feature Documentary nominee, Blackwater, cinema, covert military action, Dirty Wars, documentaries, documentary, Egyptian revolution, Film, Film festival, Hosni Mubarak, Jehane Noujaim, Jeremy Scahill, JSOC, Khalid Abdalla, Magdy Ashour, Middle East, military, Movies, Muslim Brotherhood, Netflix, Oscar nominee, plausible deniability, political struggle, regimes, Rick Rowley, scandals, Somalia, Tahrir Square, The Kite Runner, The Square

Since another four films were viewed on Monday, I figure that we might as well split the day into two, especially since two of the films are current Best Feature Documentary nominees. I must admit that I’ve seen none of the Academy Award nominees, thus far, so the two documentaries below will represent my first foray into this year’s awards season. Better late than never, I suppose!

As far as I’m concerned, one of the best compliments that can be paid a documentary is that the viewer learns something organically rather than being force-fed information or a viewpoint. If I can be entertained and swept up in a story while still learning something or having my current viewpoint challenged…well, let’s just say that makes me a pretty happy guy. As such, I was damn happy about The Square.

Taking place between January 2011 and July 2013, The Square documents the Egyptian civil unrest that led to the ouster of two separate rulers and the upending of decades of oppression. By choosing to focus on a small handful of protesters, all of whom end up interacting with each other, the filmmakers take a very big event and manage to distill it down into a much more personal struggle. Ahmed Hassan, the first revolutionary we’re introduced to in the film, becomes a de facto hero, of sorts, serving as rallying cry for the change so desperately needed in Egypt. His character even goes through an arc from optimistic and brimming with passion to hesitant and reserved to angry and vengeful and back to hopeful and optimistic again. Magdy Ashour, a devout member of the Muslim Brotherhood, also goes through a pretty dramatic arc throughout the film, wavering from unabashed devotion to the Brotherhood to later condemning it before swaying back to support it again. Magdy’s story is much more tragic than Ahmed’s, in many ways, since Magdy is torn by not only the politics of the area but the religious strife, as well. We also spend quite a bit of time with Khalid Abdalla, the handsome star of The Kite Runner, who returns to his homeland of Egypt to throw himself headfirst into the protests.

And headfirst is, indeed, a pretty accurate way to describe the whole film. Once it’s off and running, The Square rarely pauses for breath or reflection: it has several hundred years worth of conflict to document in just over 90 minutes, after all. The approach is thrilling and the access seems (to me, at least) pretty unprecedented. There were several times during the film where I became so caught up in the first-person view of the protests that I almost felt like I was there, particularly during the terrible moments where the government lashes out at the gathered protesters.

The Square runs viewers through a well-organized, clear timeline of the tumultuous 2+ years detailed here. We begin with the ouster of Mubarak, see the results of the army assuming control of the country, the installation of the Muslim Brotherhood into power and their subsequent ouster due to another round of heated protests. There are a lot of factors to consider as far as the protests and fighting go but I felt that The Square laid them all out pretty clearly. The clear emphasis is on the protesters, as it should be, but we also spend some time with the army and the Muslim Brotherhood, particularly as it relates to Magdy. One of the most chilling moments in the entire film is the one where an army officer flashes a wicked grin at the filmmakers and explains that they have absolutely no idea of who actually controls the country. It’s a small, quiet moment in a film that’s often bustling with activity and emotion but it put icicles through my spine.

As a documentary, The Square is very well-crafted. I was initially a bit hesitant, since I felt that the opening seemed a little rehearsed and insincere. In short order, however, I was hooked and just as caught up in the events as any fictional narrative film. Like many Westerners, I was aware of the broad strokes of the situation (Mubarak gone, army in control, Morsi in control, Morsi gone) but had absolutely no clue as to the actual repercussions of those living there. I was most struck by how universal the actual protest was: once we’re on the ground in Tahrir Square, it’s not hard to squint our eyes and see echoes of the Occupy Movement that (briefly) swept North America.

There are two moments in the film that really stuck with, moments that I’ll probably think a lot about in the future. After the military announces that Morsi has been replaced and that there will be a new round of elections, Ahmed gleefully pledges to keep protesting and encouraging others to do the same until the people get the government that THEY want, not the one forced on them. “Our lives are now to be lived in the streets,” he says, and I really believe him. I know, for a fact, that Ahmed will continue to protest and fight for what he believes in and, strangely enough, that gives me just the slightest bit of hope regarding the world. He won’t back down: why should we?

There’s another moment, however, that I found just as powerful. Towards the end, Khalid mentions that no one will really know if the revolution has succeeded for decades; they must wait and see if their work has all been for naught. The people will continue to question and fight, however: “They’re not looking for a leader,” he says, “they’re looking for a conscience.” If that’s not a universal sentiment, I don’t know what is.

I will begin by saying that Dirty Wars is definitely not for everyone. There are many who might compare this film to like-minded conspiracy docs (many of which seem to be available on Netflix) or propaganda pieces. It definitely expresses a particular viewpoint, a viewpoint that many Americans will, no doubt, take umbrage with. Luckily, I’m not here to discuss politics, conspiracy theories or political motivations: anyone who wants to know my political views is welcome to buy me a cup of coffee sometime and discuss them. My main concerns with Dirty Wars as a documentary are: Is it well-made? Is it informative? Does it attempt balance or is there a clear bias? And, perhaps most importantly, is it entertaining?

My first impression of the film is that the narrator, journalist Jeremy Scahill, comes across as more than a little pretentious. This is an impression that will later be reinforced by the film itself: there’s quite a bit of pretension to go around. There’s definitely a sense that Scahill and director Rick Rowley know that they’re telling an important story: hell, we know that, too. Similar to retro genre films that slavishly ape the look of older films without imitating the content or feel, however, Dirty Wars knows that it’s important and doesn’t want the audience to ever forget the fact. From Scahill’s hushed narration (which gets old fast) to the occasionally ominous cinematography and score, Dirty Wars is a film that projects such a serious air that it’s occasionally difficult to take it completely serious. Which is a shame, since there’s nothing light about the subject whatsoever.

Scahill, the journalist who originally broke the Blackwater scandal in Iraq, focuses his attention on the covert military actions run by the U.S. in not only Afghanistan and the Middle East but around the world. He uncovers plenty of damning evidence and stumbles across the super-secretive Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) some time before it would later become famous for the successful military strike that killed Osama bin Laden. There are a number of interesting interviews, although the majority of the U.S. military figures involved tow the same professional line that one could find by watching a Good Morning America interview with the same.

Ultimately, my ambivalence towards Dirty Wars has nothing to do with the subject: nothing I saw changed my original viewpoint in any way, although there were a few moments that seemed to confirm things I’d often suspected. There were even a couple of moments that I found particularly powerful, such as the assertion by one official, regarding the JSOC, that “we’ve created one helluva hammer: now this hammer will spend a lifetime looking for a nail.” That certainly gives you something to think about. I was also enthralled by Scahill’s trip to Somalia, where he interviewed several local warlords. One, a particularly nasty character who also happened to be a U.S. ally, made the chilling assertion that “America are great war masters…they are great teachers.” Terrifying, especially when delivered with a lazy smile.

More than anything, I just found Scahill to be a bit too self-important and pretentious. There seemed to be a constant attempt to strive for greater and greater significance: I would rather find the significance than be told it’s there. By the hundredth or so time that Scahill whispered the equivalent of “I was in over my head and the walls were closing in,” I wanted to toss him a fedora and a bottle of scotch and tell him to just get on with it.