Films I Enjoyed
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| Lee Purcell and Dennis Hopper in Kid Blue |
The tone of Kid Blue is mildly comic throughout. The Kid is introduced botching a train robbery and each job he attempts afterwards illuminates his ineptitude. Hopper was in his mid-thirties at the time of the shoot, but Frawley helps brings out his boyish vulnerability. The Kid is catnip to the ladies of the film and Oates' character, too. The Kid eventually seeks out the only folks lower than himself on Dimebox's totem pole, a trio of natives, to help him rob the factory. A mad preacher played by Peter Boyle provides the Kid a Deus ex Machina.
This is a resolutely nice and appealing film even when violence, rancid capitalism, racism, adultery and drug abuse poke into the narrative. The hero is not a masculine protector of the frontier, but an androgynous (blue) boy who seems too fragile for the world. While the film rejects traditional values found in Westerns, it is still in a dialogue with its cultural past. Hopper even assumes a traditional heroic pose for the final shot. The look of the film is not all that different from that of a Andrew V. McLaglen film. The walking and talking tracking shots of Hopper and Oates convey the loose limbed and affable nature of the film. It is a good not great movie, but the cast alone makes it an amiable hang: Janis Rule, M. Emmet Walsh, Ralph Waite, Clifton James, Mary Jackson. Oates and Boyle are at their most low-key and affable. This was the final film for Jose Torvay, best known in the US for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and Bandido!, but a veteran of well over 100 films in Mexico. Kid Blue provides him a wonderful send-off with a memorable death scene.
The film was shot in 1971, but not released until 1973. It was not a wide release, but a burial. Andrew Sarris and Philip French had nice things to say about Kid Blue at the time, but it had fallen into oblivion and been hard to find until its 2015 DVD release. I would recommend it to fans of 70s Westerns. It would make a great double bill with such Hippie Westerns as Bad Company, The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid, Jeremiah Johnson and, especially, McCabe and Mrs. Miller.
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| Oliver Reed commands the Teddy Boys in The Damned |
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| Johnny Lee Miller and Ewan McGregor in Trainspotting 2 |
Jeff Baena's The Little Hours is a comic misfire. A talented cast labors mightily, but this attempt to make a bawdy comedy is stillborn. Baena shoots the material as if he were remaking Under the Tuscan Sun which doesn't help, but Boccaccio has vexed even greater talents.
Randall MacLowry's The Battle of Chosin is a strong documentary on the US military's most ignominious Korean War defeat. MacLowry is weak on the political background that led to the Korean conflict and cursory on military strategy, but the reminiscences by American veterans are heartfelt.
David Michod's War Machine is an arch satire of Stanley McChrystal's tenure as leader of the Coalition forces in Afghanistan. Tone is all in an endeavor like this and Michod succeeds in skewering both the military brass and political elite without heedless caricature. Brad Pitt bends his form like a pretzel and then straightens it out into ramrod military posture. He carries this film like an Atlas, albeit with much assistance from a sterling cast. The Nick Cave and Warren Ellis score is strikingly effective. A bit underrated I say, as is...
Danny Boyle's Trainspotting 2 which surprised me with its winning commitment to character and visual invention. Boyle, at his best, finds fecund territory in the ambivalence of human relationships. When Ewan McGregor's Renton returns in T2 to reconnoiter with the three companions who he ripped off years earlier, Boyle frames these encounters as dark dances underlined with cocksmanship, dependence and co-dependence. There is love apparent, both Agape and Eros, but also resentment, betrayal and anger. Newcomer Anjela Nedyalkova more than holds her own with the male leads as both lover and betrayer. Though next time Danny, enough with the lads, more Kelly Macdonald and Shirley Henderson, please. (11/30/17)
A footnote...
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| Mario Bava's Kill, Baby...Kill! |
However, the film is largely mindless piffle. Juliette Binoche is wasted giving Ms. Johansson physical rehabilitation and bad advice. The villain, a suitably clenched Peter Ferdinando, is reduced to moving a giant spider on a virtual reality chess board. Sanders handles the character interactions better than the violence. Ghost in the Shell succeeds more as a mournful character study than an action flick. (1/22/18)
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| Cillian Murphy and Emily Blunt in A Quiet Place Part 2 |
A prologue shows the alien predators' arrival during a little league game. Tracking shots establish the all American small town vibe before the whatzits arrive to wreak carnage. The prologue exists to remind us of Krasinski's Dad, who was killed off at the end of the first film, Emily Blunt's Mom and the remainder of their clan, but also to introduce Cillian Murphy's "Emmett", the male lead of the sequel. Emmett is the fly in the ointment here. A straw man in a trucker (read MAGA) hat, Emmett exists to renounce selfish individualism and work for the common good. Murphy, a significant talent, struck me here as neither blue collar nor American.
The other major flaw of the film is that Mr. Krasinski has chosen to divide the family, whose dynamics underpinned the first film, into two separate plot lines. The second half of the film devolves into strained cross-cutting that dilutes, rather than doubles, the dramatic tension.
Sternberg elicits fine performances from his players, particularly ensemble sequences like the one above. Akemi Negishi, though a fine actress, doesn't have the steely magnificence of a Dietrich; but who does. This lessens the power of the sexual intrigue that surrounds her. She is supposed to be a Queen Bee, regally indifferent to the fate of the drones who struggle to win her. Negishi has ample sex appeal, but projects little of the drive and mania that female protagonists such as Shanghai Lily, Catherine the Great and Madame Gin Sling do in the Sternberg canon.
Sternberg makes do here tracking his camera through a plastic jungle set that is as bizarre as any of its predecessors. His narration is another oddity. It hearkens back to the silent era, but also gives the film a post-modern, manipulated feel. It reminded me of Welles' Chimes at Midnight which I just watched again recently: both films please the eye, but the soundtracks seem off. Still, few directors have moments as sublime as the one at the end of Anatahan when Negishi imagines her dead lovers finally returning home. Kino's Blu-ray disc seems overexposed at times, but I am very thankful I finally got to see Anatahan.
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| Florence Pugh is Lady Macbeth |
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| Beauty and the Beast redux |
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| Brian Donlevy makes sure Hangmen Also Die! |
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| Wan in white |
Sofia Coppola's The Beguiled is a lifeless remake of the 1971 Don Siegel feature. Coppola is trying to update the story and make it fit in today's woke political climate. So, out goes the female nudity, sapphism, incest, politics and most damagingly, a compelling Afro-American character. Unfortunately, the erotic charge of the original is also missing. We are left with a Southern Gothic tale shorn of Eros and Thanatos, which defeats the point.
Coppola's film is handsome, with fine production design and costumes. Close-ups and quick editing are eschewed as Coppola works well at capturing the slower pace of life in 1864. The film is largely shot with available lighting and it does give a feel for life before electricity. This overall effect, however, drain the film of vitality which Siegel's film, despite its vulgar lapses, has in spades.
Part of the problem with Coppola's film is that it soft pedals the mendacity of Colin Ferrell's wounded soldier. Siegel underlines the Big Bad Wolf nature of Eastwood's soldier by presenting flashbacks of him killing and pillaging; actions that belie his smooth. pacific tone when talking to the ladies. Farrell's soldier lacks the menace of Eastwood's. Thus, when he acts up and is smote down by the seminary ladies, the result seems more incongruous than just. A true conflict between the sexes has not been established. Farrell is well-cast and delivers the film's best performance, but his character is neutered by Coppola even before the seminary ladies get their licks in.
Comparing the actresses in both versions further tips the scales in the Siegel film's favor. Kidman is far too aerobicized and botoxed to be believable as a 19th Century headmistress. Geraldine Page, even though she was younger than Kidman in 1971, is far more believable as a love starved spinster. Not all of this is Kidman's fault. She is only given the faintest of back stories to work with, while Page's character's incestuous relationship with her brother even though it smacks of lunacy at times does provide a background for her character's barely restrained hysteria.
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| Jo Ann Harris tempts Clint Eastwood in Don Siegel's 1971 version of The Beguiled |
Part of that growth, as Molly Haskell has noted, is that Anderson has finally created a fully rounded female character to tussle with his male monster; named (ahem) Woodcock. Vicky Krieps' Alma goes toe to toe with Daniel Day Lewis' big bad fashion designer and makes him bend to her will. It is to Anderson's credit that Krieps is able to share the screen with one of the great actors of our day and more than hold her own. Lesley Manville is wonderful as the designer's sister, Cyril. A number of reviewers have written that she is playing the 'Mrs. Danvers' role, but I believe this is a misreading of the film. Mrs. Danvers is not sympathetic to the new Mrs. de Winter in Rebecca because she is devoted to the first Mrs. de Winter with an all-consuming passion. Cyril is initially portrayed as doing her brother's bidding, even going so far as to inform one of his girlfriends when she has been dumped. Alma's willingness to stand up for herself and defy Woodcock's domestic tyranny earns her Cyril's admiration and affection. Cyril comes to respect Alma because Alma is willing to combat Woodcock's controlling tendencies, something Cyril is too codependent to do.
The film is marvelously produced and has some of the most effective sound mixing in recent memory. Chairs scraping the floor and knives chopping mushrooms and spreading butter are the hue and cry of this domestic conflict and are indelibly rendered. About the only drawback to Phantom Thread's claustrophobic chamber play is that it lacks the big picture, color and polyphony that are among Anderson's greatest gifts. His restraint, no plague of frogs or milkshakes here, is wholly suited to this project and is also indicative of his growth. (2/13/18)
Ms. Bailey-Bond love of film, even its most disreputable examples, suffuses Censor. The director plays with film stock, film grains and aspect ratios, displaying a connoisseur's knowledge and a playful wit. The first half of the film uses desaturated color to emphasize Enid's repression (she always has her top button buttoned and her hair in a bun) and the stifling nature of working in a bureaucratic environment. There is a lot of taupe and grey greens. As Enid loses her hold on reality, lurid reds, pinks and blues appear to signal her derangement (as above).
A good point of comparison is another recent film from the UK about a young woman's descent into madness, Saint Maud. While Censor shows more of a sense of visual imagination, Saint Maud offers better characterization and a firmer narrative construction. The attempts in Censor to offer a broader social context often seem facile. Mrs. Thatcher is equated to repression which is equated to some sort of bad mojo. There may be some sort of poetic or actual truth in this, but it is merely wispy background noise in the film. Has there ever been a UK film that has viewed Mrs. Thatcher positively or even ambivalently? I have not seen one.
All in all, though, Censor is an extremely promising first feature. The production is handsomely appointed without being ostentatious. A peeve of mine is period pictures where all the furniture and technological gadgets are au courant and sparkling. The offices in Censor are filled with dowdy hangovers from the 60s and 70s and are all the better for it. Ms. Bailey-Bond handles her cast with aplomb. I particularly enjoyed Michael Smiley's relish in playing a sleazy producer. Recommended to all who don't mind a decapitation or two in their film fare.
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| The lair of The Water Man |
The screenplay offers a clunky exposition. Dad embitters Gunner by spilling ink on his graphic novel while brandishing that totem of toxic masculinity, a football. Ruining someone's artwork or journal to motivate a dramatic reaction was a cliché by the time of Little Women or Peck's Bad Boy. Traces of topicality are sprinkled for cultural relevance: those darn graphic novels, blue haired pixies, BIPOC, wild fires and jokes about veganism. Despite this and many rehashes of old tropes, the film is redeemed by a solid cast and engaging visuals. The two leads have a nice rapport and Ms. Miller is a find. Alfred Molina, Maria Bello and Jessica Oyelowo are more than adequate in support.
The movie takes flight whenever we are in the Oregon outdoors with the runaway juveniles. Mr. Oyelowo cannot transcend the screenplay in domestic interiors, but is able to imbue the already beautiful Oregon woodlands with splendor and a touch of magic. The vivid and glowing colors captured by Matthew J. Lloyd's cinematography are more memorable than the hackneyed plot. Set design and decoration are top notch. The animation, which is used to give us the back story of the title character, is merely OK.
The film is overly indebted to Spielberg, there is even an E.T. lunchbox on display at one point. The gooey spiritual slush of the Amblin' maestro lurks here, as does E.T.'s successful regurgitation into Stranger Things. Still, Emma Needell's script is self aware. Jo, revealed at the end to be a huckster, is introduced preaching to her erstwhile followers in a graffiti filled abandoned warehouse that functions as a neo-church. The film's ending's acknowledges that what we must love is finite not infinite. Myths and legends come from not above, below or beyond, but from our daily struggles and strife. A message I am happy to swallow along with a bit of sugared goo.
S. Craig Zahler's Brawl in Cell Block 99 is overly morbid, like his debut Bone Tomahawk, but has enough interesting moments to make it a diverting B picture. It has enough material for ninety minutes, but, unfortunately, has been inflated to over two hours. Zahler dawdles over his introductory sequences which present Vince Vaughn as a troubled and violent misfit who resorts to working as a drug courier to build a better life for himself and his wife. Vaughn's twang signals that this is a hillbilly elegy for the Trumpian blue collar underbelly left for dead by economic circumstance and awash in meth and opiates, much like Jean-Francois Richet's Blood Father.
Vaughn proves to be an effectively steely center for the film. He gives an unflappable performance of stoic machismo that recalls Clint Eastwood. Jennifer Carpenter as his femme doesn't register as much, probably because she is tied to a chair for much of the movie and it is that kind of movie. However, Zahler invests more effort in characterizations than most B directors and he provides Willie C. Carpenter, Mustafa Shakir and Udo Kier a chance to give dimensionality to what would be stock characters in a more routine flick.
Zahler's plotting and conception of the American penal system are ludicrous. By the time Don Johnson (channeling Burl Ives in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof) arrives on screen as the warden of a torture chamber disguised as a maximum security prison, most viewers will be unable to suspend their disbelief. Benji Bakshi's overexposed photography does not help much, but Zahler's commitment to his crazed material won me over. Juxtaposing Vaughn lit by a hellish orange glow in prison with his wife safe in the verdant paradise of suburbia showed me that Zahler is willing to use exploitive material for a grander design. Brawl in Cell Block 99, like Bone Tomahawk, shows that Zahler is a better than average genre filmmaker, but it remains to be seen if he can transcend his tawdry material. (2/22/18)
Haaga's screenplay has enough zingers to keep one amused, but he is not particularly gifted at framing the carnage. The most memorable shot is a subjective one of Chip urinating blood; the rest is dross. Haaga's numerous acting credits belie his strength and he coaxes enthusiastic performances from his experienced cast. Most memorable is Sheila Vand playing goth as she did in A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night. 68 Kill is engaging enough splatter fu, but is not particularly memorable.
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| Jemaine Clement and Sam Rockwell as Don Verdean |
Richard Brody, in an interesting review of this much maligned flick, casts the film as a bitter rejection of the "commercialization and instrumentalization of Christian faith." Yet, Hess is more Irvin S. Cobb than Sinclair Lewis. I think it is nice that Brody is taking Hess seriously as an artist, but I think he is taking him way too seriously. Hess pokes fun at the various evangelicals in the film, but there is also affection for them; which reminds me of John Waters. Like Waters, Hess uses B movie conventions and techniques not for bravura effect or august statements, but to tip off his audience that they are watching a show, a diversion put on by players. Like Waters, Hess gives his actors ample room to play.
Don Verdean provides some of our better comic actors a chance to chew on some bizarre and pungent dialogue. It heartened me to hear Sam Rockwell call out "sally forth" as if he were a Mountie in a 30s musical. With the success of Three Billboards..., he is now getting his just accolades. Jemaine Clement has the audacity of Peter Sellers. His run of the last few years, particularly in What We Do in the Shadows and Legion, stamps him as one of the most versatile comic talents of our time. Amy Ryan, Leslie Bibb and Danny McBride all have nice bits in a movie that has a sweet ensemble feel to it.
Brody ends his appraisal of Don Verdean by comparing the film to Kierkegaard and Bresson. This will draw snickers and I am ambivalent about such comparisons. Don Verdean is small scale satire and does not need to be laden down with cultural baggage. However, there is a Christian Existentialist whose life and work also dovetails with the film. This author went to prison before finding redemption and producing his greatest work. Dostoyevsky's work contains a dark humor that often escapes 21st century readers. Hess' morality play does not have the scale or depth of tortured Fyodor, but, piling that cultural baggage on, he could be our Gogol. (2/11/18)
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| Jemaine Clement in Gentlemen Broncos |
Films I Enjoyed
