One Missed Call

One Missed Call: Chronicle of a Death Foretold

Takashi Miike's One Missed Call, from 2003, is a creepy horror effort that investigates the legacy of child abuse. The film is a game of phone tag with young women dying after receiving messages that foretell the date and time of their deaths. Logically, the film doesn't hold up and characterization is not Miike's forte. He does, however, have an eye for unsettling images. What sticks in one's mind about Miike's films, particularly his masterpiece, Audition, are not the conscious tropes of narrative and character, but images that conjure the dread and power of the unconscious. Miike is a master of slow tracking shots and pans that capture a peculiarly modern sense of unease. He is also expert at crafting soundtracks that have an unnerving tactility. Cronenberg is an obvious influence and Miike shares with the Canadian master a gift for evoking an alienating atmosphere from modern interiors and exteriors. 

The Story of a Cheat

Sacha Guitry's The Story of a Cheat, from 1936, moves along with the propulsive energy of a Dixieland band. A delightful frolic, The Story of a Cheat chronicles the life and times of a scoundrel who climbs the greasy pole of French society whilst shuttling back and forth from the cafes of Paris to the casino in Monaco. Guitry, directing only his second film, plays the protagonist as an unrepentant cad. The tone is one of ironic detachment, as in Lubitsch or Moliere. Guitry narrates the film, which largely eschews expositional dialogue. The film hurtles along at a swift, entertaining pace punctuated by swift pans and exclamatory close-ups. The effect is musical. Equal to the 30s comedies of Chaplin and superior to most of Lubitsch's from that era.

Fido

 

Andrew Currie's Fido, from 2006, is a pleasant, if meandering zombie comedy. In an alternate mid-century America where zombies are domesticated servants and pets, Currie pokes fun at a Leave it to Beaver type suburbia with fascistic underpinnings. The costumes and décor are eye popping. The cinematography by Jan Kiesser glows with well contrasted color. However, Fido's pacing is as shambolic as its zombies. Currie is more interested in exploring the subtext of his narrative, zombie as American outsider, than in pacing or comic riffs. He is too tight on the leashes of his players, confining them to a set place in his frame. Zombie movies require a sense of creeping anarchy that is missing here. The zombies don't get to shamble enough in Fido.

Still, a movie that utilizes such undervalued talents as Billy Connolly, Henry Czerny and Tim Blake Nelson has some points in its favor. Best of all is Carrie-Anne Moss, freed here from her usual uptight bitch typecasting, who casts a warm maternal glow as a Mom chafing against the strictures of a repressive society. Fido's obviousness slows down its proceedings, but it is relatively well-crafted and amiable.  

The Reflecting Skin

Philip Ridley's The Reflecting Skin, from 1990, is a handsome horror film that loses its impact as it reaches its denouement. Dick Pope's cinematography makes the rural 1940s setting glow like a fever dream, but Ridley's script is overdetermined and his direction overly static. The gothic bric-a-brac, whale jaws, rusted farm machinery and dilapidated farm buildings, overwhelms what little activity the characters engage in. After an intriguingly perverse opening, The Reflecting Skin bogs down in a romance that the viewer can foresee ending in doom.

This would not be fatal to this overly aesthetic genre film, if Ridley was able to draw some life from his players, but it was not to be. Not only are the juvenile actors deficient, but Ridley even elicits dull performances from such usually dependable actors as Lindsay Duncan and Viggo Mortensen. The Reflecting Skin ends up amounting to pretty shots of a worm wriggling on a hook. 

Deadpool 2

 

David Leitch's Deadpool 2 is an intermittently successful regurgitation of the first film. Leitch's direction lacks the brio of Tim Miller's work and the CGI action seems overly protracted. Still, Josh Brolin and Zazie Beetz are welcome additions and the sardonic quips keep coming. This franchise has a consistently meta approach to its outlandish narrative and its lack of self mythologizing puffery is welcome in this genre. Too stupid and haphazard to recommend, Deadpool 2 is, at least, mindful of its own mindlessness.

The Death of Stalin

 

Armando Iannucci's The Death of Stalin has been praised to the skies, but largely fell flat for me. In framing the death of a larger than life tyrant and the attendant political machinations, Iannucci is attempting a black comedy along the lines of Dr. Strangelove and Wag the Dog. His cast is largely game to the challenge and Jason Isaacs, Steve Buscemi and Simon Russell Beale offer moments of merriment. However, Iannucci overly indulges his players, so that less disciplined performers, most egregiously Jeffrey Tambor, resort to schtick and the overall effect is one of mild amusement rather than hilarity.

Iannucci tries to lampoon the herd mentality of totalitarian politics, both among the masses and its ostensible leaders, but has no visual strategy to underline his theme. The kitsch of the funeral barely registers and comic possibilities, such as the introduction of Stalin's look-alikes, are muffed. Iannucci's narrative is overstuffed: he crams a Mozart concert and Beria's execution into the timeline of the film when, in reality, these events did not occur around the time of Stalin's death. Iannucci seems torn between making his characters cartoons for comic effect and honoring historical reality. Buscemi's Khrushchev is portrayed as the token mensch simply to provide the audience with someone to root for.

I am a Russian history buff and am perhaps being a little too hard on this film because I have read the source material and am familiar with the ample riches that Iannucci had at his disposal. Instead of sturdy tomes such as those by Edvard Radzinsky and Simon Sebag Montefiore, Iannucci has based his movie on a graphic novel. I have nothing against graphic novels or comic books. Heck, Maus is one of the greatest works of our time. However, this does seem to be a case of a director sinking to the level of his material rather than rising above it. The Death of Stalin is a silly film and not much more. 

Best of 1951

1. The River                                                                                                Jean Renoir
2. Strangers on a Train                                                                              Alfred Hitchcock
3. Diary of a Country Priest                                                                      Robert Bresson
4. The Prowler                                                                                            Joseph Losey
5. The Steel Helmet                                                                                    Sam Fuller
6. Distant Drums                                                                                        Raoul Walsh
7. Summer Interlude                                                                                 Ingmar Bergman
8. A Christmas Carol                                                                      Brian Desmond Hurst
9. Captain Horatio Hornblower                                                                Raoul Walsh
10. A Place in the Sun                                                                                 George Stevens

        Films I Enjoyed

        A Streetcar Named Desire,

        Pandora and the Flying Dutchman, This is Korea,

        The Enforcer,

        On Dangerous Ground, An American in Paris,

        Olivia, Ace in the Hole, La Poison,

        Oliver Twist, The Bullfighter and the Lady,

        The Lavender Hill Mob, The Tall Target,

        The Thing, M, 

        The Idiot, Susana

        The Tales of Hoffmann, The Man in the White Suit,

        His Kind of Woman,

        The African Queen, Quo Vadis

        Below the Mendoza Line

        Sirocco, Show Boat,

        Mad Wednesday, Miracle in Milan,

        Detective Story, Alice in Wonderland,

        Cause for Alarm!,

        Royal Wedding, The Red Badge of Courage,

        The Day The Earth Stood Still, Angels in the Outfield,

        Bedtime for Bonzo, Jim Thorpe All-American,

        Death of a Salesman

        

Equinox (1970)

Jack Woods and Dennis Muren's Equinox, released in 1970, is a reasonably well-crafted Sci-Fi horror film budgeted at below B level. Its somewhat legendary status is more due to the future industry success of Muren and others that worked on the film than any outstanding artistic or entertainment value. The film is well shot and paced, but has atrocious dialogue and amateurish acting. Frank Bonner, who will be recognizable to fans of WKRP in Cincinnati, is the second lead and Fritz Leiber Jr. adds some class as the mad doctor. The creatures are impressive and mark this film as the missing link between Ray Harryhausen and Sam Raimi. 

Kiss Me Kate

George Sidney's Kiss Me Kate, from 1953, is a missed opportunity. albeit one with magic moments. The standout sections are the dance numbers where Ann Miller, Bobby Van, Carol Haney and Bob Fosse let it rip on the MGM soundstage. Fosse's duet with Ms. Haney during the "From This Moment On" number is his best hoofing on celluloid. However, much of the remainder falls flat. Sidney films the comic vignettes as if they were vaudeville routines. The bits are dwarfed by the set which dominates the frame, proscenium arch and all. The shots where scarves, bananas and goblets are hurled at the camera are certainly a sop to the 3D format much like the carnival barker spinning a Yo-yo at the screen in De Toth's House of Wax.

The main problem with Kiss Me Kate, like most MGM musicals of this era, is that a lively musical stage production was neutered and turned into a candy-coated MGM product. It is bad enough that they bowdlerized Cole Porter's lyrics, but Dorothy Kingsley's screenplay loses much of the backstage flavor that makes the musical such a kick in the pants onstage. Kingsley shifts the opening to a penthouse apartment and it takes Ann Miller in pink, tap dancing on the tables and singing "Too Darn Hot" to enliven the leaden first act. Kathryn Grayson and Howard Keel seem vapid today, but at least it wasn't Deanna Durbin and Danny Kaye. Both "Bianca", briefly glimpsed as Keel exits stage left, and "Another Op'nin, Another Show" are two numbers that are sorely missed. Like Pal Joey, a later Sidney-Kingsley collaboration, this is superior material turned into anodyne entertainment.

Vengeance is Mine

 

Shohei Imamura's Vengeance is Mine, from 1979, is an intriguing look at the life of a Japanese serial killer and the havoc he wreaks. Imamura seized upon this project after devoting himself to documentary films after the commercial failure of his 1968 feature, Profound Desires of the Gods. The hiatus seems to have had a positive effect on his art as Vengeance is Mine is more multi-layered than his previous work. The satiric feel and political barbs of his earlier films, such as Pigs and Battleships and The Pornographers, are still in evidence, but Imamura's canvas and embrace of humanity seems larger. He still gets his jabs in at fascism, American imperialism and Japanese conformity, but his characters are more rounded and his camera more all-embracing. 

The color cinematography is rich and carnal. The moments of sensuality warmer and more impactful than in his previous work. An abortive tryst between the protagonist's father and his daughter in law packs a charge, illuminating the repressed culture the protagonist is reacting against. Imamura often cuts away from his players before the denouement of a scene is enacted. This mirrors the hurtling momentum of the protagonist who professes a carpe diem philosophy. Ken Ogata, best known in the West for playing the title character in Paul Schrader's Mishima, portrays well both the surface charm and the sociopathy of the protagonist. Ogata would work again for the director in Why Not? and Imamura's masterpiece, the remake of The Ballad of Narayama.

Vengeance is Mine falls just short of being a masterpiece. Some of the supporting players' work is weak, the third act is a smidge too long and the ending is perfunctory. Still, this mark a quantum leap. Michael Atkinson groups Imamura with such sardonic objectivists as Preminger and Chabrol and that seems about right to me. Vengeance is Mine has elements of the police procedural, but Imamura is more interested in casting a cold eye on the dysfunctional dynamics of postwar Japan. There is much to take in and mull in Vengeance is Mine. 

The Other Side of the Wind

 

Orson Welles' The Other Side of the Wind is enervating, overstuffed and self-indulgent, yet I am very pleased it exists in its present form and am eager to watch it again. Like many film buffs (OK, a few), I scoured the web over the past decades to watch whatever bits I could of this unfinished project and am fairly satisfied with the work the restorers did to mold the footage into a simulacrum of Welles' vision. A lot of the footage that was discarded, particularly a post-screening Q&A , was redundant. What remains seems very much a Welles film, for both good and ill.

There is much to deride. Welles' theme of the debilitating effects of celebrity and mass media seems obvious and overwrought. The shots of John Huston, Welles' stand-in, being bombarded by camera lights as he makes his arrival is an egregious example of this. The insertion of an opening monologue by Peter Bogdanovich specifically mentioning the rise of social media is a feeble attempt to make Welles relevant; which is another thread contained in the film: that time has passed the old genius/gasbag by and he is lost in the New Hollywood. What gives The Other Side of the Wind its charge and fascination is that it serves as an auto-critique. Welles here seems fully determined to puncture his own mythos.

That doesn't mean he isn't above taking potshots at others stranded in the Hollywood pleasure dome. The Other Side of the Wind is largely a portrait of the back-stabbing and bitchery of the film biz. Barbs are directed at Pauline Kael and Robert Evans, but overall Welles takes an ambivalent view of the hangers-on and various Hollywood flotsam. He has some sympathy for those who have joined his once merry band and now face their inevitable decline and demise. Welles' baroque style has tended to type his supporting casts as grotesques, think of the town gossips in The Magnificent Ambersons, but here there is also empathy for the flunkies and attendants. The quick cutting method employed here, which seemed gauche when I first saw the footage years ago, now strikes me as an apt way to evoke the garishness and claustrophobia of early 70s Hollywood. Welles' ultimate stance is one of ambivalence, he loves the intoxication of filmmaking, but despises the sickening business machinations.

The haphazard nature of this production is evident in its bizarre array of performances. Huston, Bogdanovich, Norman Foster, Paul Stewart, Mercedes McCambridge, Edmond O'Brien and Gregory Sierra provide memorable moments. Cameron Mitchell and Susan Strasberg struggle to no avail. Lilli Palmer is surprisingly effective as a thinly veiled Dietrich. As in Touch of Evil, she functions as the protagonist's discarded conscience. Robert Random and Oja Kodar mostly show off their toned bodies in the film within the film, a poke at the overly aestheticized ennui of Antonioni. There is a little to much of this footage despite an enjoyably bonkers sex scene between the two in a moving vehicle. 

The Other Side of the Wind is teeming, perhaps too teeming, with provocative themes that are half masticated: a critique of machismo, a current of homosexual panic (the flipside of machismo), meditations on mortality, loyalty and waning artistic powers. It is all too much and not enough. However, Welles appears quite self aware of this throughout the film, his most exhibitionistic and frantic. The mantle of failed genius was thrust upon him early in his career and here he ruefully toys with that canard. Welles, ever ambivalent, wants to be Ahab and Moby Dick, but his personality and ideas tend to overwhelm his images. Still, The Other Side of the Wind contains multitudes and my mere words cannot do it justice. Welles captures his fear of losing the "rough magic" of his artistic powers, but this work shows he still had plenty of mojo. 

 

Best of 1952

1. The Golden Coach                                                                     Jean Renoir
2. The Quiet Man                                                                           John Ford
3. Le Plaisir                                                                                     Max Ophuls
4. Ruby Gentry                                                                               King Vidor
5. The White Sheik                                                                         Federico Fellini
6. The Life of Oharu                                                                      Kenji Mizoguchi
7. Singin' in the Rain                                                          Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly
8. Limelight                                                                                     Charlie Chaplin
9. The Big Sky                                                                                 Howard Hawks
10. Casque d'Or                                                                                Jacques Becker

          Honorable Mention

          The Lusty Men -- Ray, The World in His Arms -- Walsh,

          Outcast of the Islands -- Reed, Rancho Notorious --Lang,

          Has Anybody Seen My Gal -- Sirk

          Films I Enjoyed

         The Marrying Kind, Monkey Business,

         Bend of the River, Five Fingers,

         Viva Zapata, Forbidden Games,

         The Greatest Show on Earth,

         La Macchina Ammazzacattivi,

         Clash by Night, My Son John

         Park Row, Scandal Sheet

         Scaramouche, Ikiru

         Below the Mendoza Line

         Moulin Rouge, Macao,

         Umberto D, The Crimson Pirate,

         High Noon, Pat and Mike,

         I Dream of Jeanie,

         O. Henry's Full House, Carbine Williams, 

         Breaking Through the Sound Barrier,

         Plymouth Adventure

Josie and the Pussycats

 

More of a devalued rhinestone than an undiscovered gem, Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan's Josie and the Pussycats is a live action cartoon with enough sass and color to merit cult status. Not merely piffle, this 2001 film is a cinematic Cheeto. It satirizes product placement (and pop culture) while simultaneously utilizing it. Wanting to have its cake and eat it, too, the film bops merrily along. Whatever is to be said of the filmmakers contributions to cinema, they are able to mine Tara Reid's dubious talents better than anyone until she found her true haven as the siren of the Sharknado saga. Admittedly, Ms. Reid is perfectly cast here as a mooncalf drummer. Rachel Leigh Cook and Rosario Dawson are serviceable. Parker Posey and Alan Cummings amuse. Fans of Barbarella, Modesty Blaise, the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and Cheetos should check it out.

Sorry to Bother You

 

Boots Riley's Sorry to Bother You is an accomplished film debut. I have been a fan of Riley's musical work with his band, The Coup, but nothing, not even their witty videos, prepared me for the tonal variety and dexterity of this film. The underlying Marxist critique of American capitalism that grounds his music is apparent in Sorry to Bother You as protagonist Lakeith Stanfield struggles to keep his head above economic waters by taking a McJob as a telemarketer. Similarly, his main squeeze, charmingly played by the dependable Tessa Thompson, must toil as a sign spinner in order to support her artistic career. Still, the tone of the film is of cheerful resistance to one's plight, not despair in the face of economic determinism. Even Ms. Thompson's sign spinning is an opportunity for Mr. Riley to engage is some playful semiotics.

Even when Mr. Stanfield's success as a "white-voiced" telemarketer leads the film into dystopian horror, Riley maintains a spry tone of wry humanism. The camaraderie between Stanfield and his coworkers is stressed in the face of corporate inhumanity. Jerome Fowler, Danny Glover and Steven Yeun all register as fully rounded characters and not faceless proles. Even the white corporate sleazeballs played by Michael X. Sommers and Armie Hammer are portrayed as all too human in their clueless malfeasance.

Sorry to Bother You is hardly perfect. The satiric barbs at our media saturated culture are hit and miss and the last act could have used some trims. However, the film is so full of vitality and belly laughs that there is not much to carp about. Riley is too clear eyed a critic of our culture to not demand revolutionary change. What heartens me is that there is room in Riley's revolution for humor, dance and music.  (11/13/18)

Rififi

Jules Dassin's Rififi, from 1955, is a pretty good heist film that suffers from structural deficiencies and directorial lapses. The twenty minute, largely silent jewel theft is justly famous and the final sequence, in which Jean Servais careens his car about Paris as life seeps out of him, is affecting. Servais, Dassin himself and, especially, Robert Manuel deliver finely etched performance as the thieves. The distaff side of the cast is less memorable. As in his American noirs, Dassin seems more interested in the brutality of his males. The backward tracking shot, foreshadowed in the film, of Dassin getting his coup de grace after betraying his comrades seems an apt response to the Hollywood rats who gave Dassin's name to HUAC and precipitated his exile.

However, Dassin's narrative drive seems to meander at times. The sequences tracing the thieves' downfall are belabored and stop the film in its tracks. The musical numbers are more leaden than playful, adding to the film's aura of impending doom, I suppose, but also halting its momentum. Dassin is not the subtlest of directors and this hampers some sequences. Particularly one in which Servais confronts an ex flame about her unfaithfulness while he was in the slammer. Servais' beating of the woman is savagely violent, but Dassin feels compelled to heighten an already over the top scene by zooming in on an old photo of the formerly romantic duo. Rififi is a fitfully fine film, but not as fine as its reputation.