Diary of a Country Pickpocket

Bull Spears

2012-01-22T05:38:00.000-08:00

Plenty of animals were harmed during the making of Francesco Rosi's 1965 bullfighting docudrama, THE MOMENT OF TRUTH. Rosi's film is a blunt depiction of the sport and viewers are not spared the intrinsic buckets of taurine blood.

The above still depicts the eponymous event, just before the central character -- torero Miguel Romero (Miguel Mateo) -- plunges his sword into the neck of the bull, declaring another victorious match. It's a move the film will show dozens of times and it never gets any less wince-inducing.

Gruesome stuff, to be sure, but the new Blu-ray (out on Tuesday from Criterion) of Rosi's previously unavailable film is savagely beautiful. Despite what what my frame grabs would indicate (I have no way of getting good images from Blus; the stills here are taken with my HD FlipCam aimed at my LED TV), the film has been cleaned of any noise/dirt/grain, the color is super-saturated, and Rosi's vivid images probably look better than they did when first projected forty-odd years ago. Better examples of the new transfer can be seen at DVD Beaver and Criterion's own site.

I have a more detailed review up at GreenCine this week.

"You know how to sucker a guy in, don't you?"

2012-01-21T13:09:00.000-08:00

The above still represents one of the more thrilling scenes I've witnessed in a long time. It's taken from ROUTINE PLEASURES, one of three components that make up Criterion/Eclipse's new Jean-Pierre Gorin set.
In it, the two fellas pictured take a brief moment to rhapsodize about a hot new LP entitled "A Decade of Steam, Volume Two." The LP is a collection of field recordings of trains in varied environments.

"It’s got the Challenger on there," says the man on the left. "Chassis 614, I believe itis. A couple of other, lesser engines."

"I’ve got a terrific one on the 614, going out of Cumberland,MD up the seventeen mile grade," retorts the man on the right. "They mounted the recorder right on the back of the tender.You sit there for about 45 minutes listening to it pound up the grade. It justreally rocks the room."

Their speech is tempered with a reverent awe. Clearly, the recordings represent a numinous experience for both of them. Gorin follows the brief, passionate exchange with the obvious move -- playing one of the album cuts -- “A barking dog is silenced as a rushing merchandisefreight speeds north through Vesuvius, Virginia with goods for New York and NewEngland” -- over a black screen. The soundscape is overpowering and it's easy to see, for a moment, why the men are so enthralled.

The two men are model train enthusiasts who ply their obsessive hobby at the Pacific Beach & Western Railroad, a labyrinthine HO-scale project occupying a huge building on the Del Mar Fair Grounds in San Diego. Their excitement over the mundane is infectious.

Gorin uses the train club folks to delve into what he calls "the conservative imagination," the creative impulse as manifested by men who might otherwise be dismissed as too "left-brained." per the Eclipse liner notes by Kent Jones, Gorin apparently wanted to understand the more fanciful proclivities of the people who voted for Reagan. That said, the film is refreshingly apolitical, though it doesn't ignore Gorin's own Marxist/Trotskyite background. Gorin has nothing but affection for these guys and never condescends, a truly difficult feat considering these guys are the stock in trade of films like Christopher Guest's mockumentaries -- quirky Americans with ultra-specified obsessions.

There's a childlike glee underneath the stoic, monotone interactions the men have as they fiddle with their synecdoche.

Gorin's loose, autobiographical approach to documentary resembles like an intersection of Ross McElwee, a less self-serious Werner Herzog, and early Errol Morris. He connects the dots between his own fascination with America, the train club, and his relationship with polymathic film critic Manny Farber. In Farber's paintings, Gorin sees an unkempt, visceral version of the train club's creations.

Farber's pictures are basically a bouillabaisse of America -- railroad tracks swirl together with cowboys, Indians, Hollywood starlets, astronauts, apple pie, etc. Gorin uses them as a Rosetta Stone to interpret his own relationships with the film's subjects. The result is fascinating and a lot of fun. This material could have been over-ponderous and cynical, but Gorin is never heavy-handed. The three films in the set reveal Gorin to be a confident filmmaker, enamored with his subject matter but still grounded in the pursuit of truth.

Another great scene in ROUTINE PLEASURES involves the club's leader, Corky Thompson, sharing home movies he's taken throughout the years of various trains.

(Eat your heart out, James Benning.)

The men are rapt. Their pleasure -- routine though it may be -- is palpable.

(Eh. I could've grabbed a better frame. But you get the idea.)

"Could I ever have such a hold on an audience?" Gorin asks. ROUTINE PLEASURES is a testament to the affirmative.

I'll have more to say about the set in a review for GreenCine. It's another revelation courtesy of the Eclipse line and highly recommended.

An ISLAND Not on the Chart

2011-10-24T19:54:00.000-07:00

Some Backstory: in the winter of2002, I was on a classic horror kick. Thanks to the recommendations of mybrother and my friend Barry, I’d seen Ulmer’s THE BLACK CAT, Whale’s THE OLDDARK HOUSE, and – most eye-popping of all – as many Val Lewton-produced filmsas I could get my hands on. Searching for the latter among the hallowed stacksof old VHS in Santa Monica’s Vidiots, I grabbed Erle C. Kenton’s THE ISLAND OFLOST SOULS, mistaking it for my intended rental, the Lewton/Mark Robson/Karloffeffort, ISLE OF THE DEAD.*

It was a happy accident. Over thecourse of the rental period, I watched ISLAND somewhere around six times. WhenI returned the tape, I didn’t realize that it would be almost a decade before I’dget to see my new favorite film again. When I moved to Knoxville in 2003, Idiscovered that the only copy in town – belonging to the library – had beenstolen or lost. Used VHS on Amazon sold for hundreds of dollars. When torrentswere available, they were murky and barely audible. For a long time, sources atthe Criterion forum indicated that useable elements for LOST SOULS were difficultfor the company to locate.

All of this is tosay that it was with great excitement – and zero objectivity – that I greetedthe new Criterion disc of Kenton’s 1932 adaptation of H.G. Wells’ 1896 novel The Island of Doctor Moreau. A smallpart of me was afraid that it would be nowhere near as great as I’d remembered.A few minutes in, any fears were allayed. ISLAND OF LOST SOULS is a great film.But more importantly, beyond any greatness or canonical significance, it’s oneof the most bizarre and unsettling films I’ve ever seen. Perhaps not shocking or scary in the sense that, say, THE EXORCIST is. But truly horrifying on a soul level that's difficult to articulate.

For starters,there’s Charles Laughton as Dr. Moreau, the quintessential mad scientist. There’senormous potential for scenery-gobbling with the character but Laughton playsagainst type and squeezes a nuanced sociopath out of the whip-wielding doctor.Even when declaring his own deity, Laughton keeps his head.

And then there's the premise of the thing: Moreau wants castaway Parker (Richard Arlen) to forget about his fiance on the mainland (Leila Hyams) and mate with the Panther Woman, Lota (Kathleen Burke).

Despite her Kathleen Burke-ish appearance, the Panther Woman is, in fact, a cat. The crown of Moreau's demented experiments, Lota is the most human of the animals he's somehow vivisected into human form. It becomes clear that Parker won't sleep with Lota so, when Parker's fiance shows up on the island to rescue her love, Moreau's Plan B is to sick one of his other, male, creations on her.

These are the big reasons for LOST SOULS' reputation. The latter got it banned is several countries and hacked to pieces by censors, making the assembly of Criterion's complete version difficult. Beyond Laughton and the shocking subject matter, though, there's an atmosphere of dread infusing the film that sets it apart.

First of all, it's virtually scoreless, a rare thing for a Hollywood film of its era. The orchestra flourishes at the beginning and end and nowhere else. Augmenting this, the film has a quiet pace for much of its beginning that I would almost describe as Jarmuschian. Character interactions -- even during rather thrilling moments -- are separated by beats of silence. Rather than feeling clunky or awkward, this choice lends the film an alien quality. Like the fog that shrouds Moreau's island, the pauses thicken the film's air of mystery and foreboding.

And then, there are the creatures. Sure, many of them have that Old Hollywood, monster make-up look that probably makes most people nowadays recall Zoobilee Zoo rather than quake in fear.*** But a great number of the island's denizens appear very realistically deformed and disfigured.

The scene that always raises my hackles is when Moreau casually points out a group of brain-dead bodies mechanically pushing a turnstile that powers the laboratory. These are his "failed experiments," animal men who remain ambulatory but are without wills (much like Aldous Huxley's Epsilons). "Lost souls" indeed.

Moreau and his island represent a reductio ad absurdum ofthe perils of science supplanting God or any sort of transcendant law. However, in light of what would be unmasked in the decades following the film's release(Mengele, MKULTRA, Tuskegee, etc.), LOST SOULS is imbued with a moral horror that many of the other high profile monster movies of the era lack. The anguished wailing that emanates from Moreau's House of Pain, where the doctor attempts to burn out the "creeping beast flesh" from his living patients, echoes throughout human history.

That said, the movie is a lot of fun. The performances are great. Even Arlen, as the necessarily lunky audience surrogate, manages to salvage a square-jawed dignity and righteous anger from a thin character. Perhaps even more famous than Laughton's Moreau is Bela Lugosi's Sayer of the Law, who delivers the oft co-opted (and Devo-influencing) "Are we not men?" speech.

I had intended to go on and on about the myriad religious, ethical, and scientific implications of the story. I really don't understand where Wells would have been coming from on this one. By all reports, he seemed to identify with Moreau and was quite upset by the vulgar, perverse nature of the film. He was a proponent of eugenics and seemed to hold a philosophy that embraced Darwinian evolution, Nietzschean humanism and Marxist social paradigms at the same time (Wells is often short-listed as one of Stalin's "useful idiots"). Moreau and his attempt to recreate beasts in his own image is a powerful metaphor that can handily be applied to several different (and opposing) exegeses. It would be exhausting (and redundant) to get into them all here. ****

A quick note about the Criterion extras:

The commentary, by Gregory Mank, is delightfully Robert Osborne-ish ("I'm honored to be your ISLAND tour guide!") and full of behind-the-scenes trivia, star factoids, and historical context. As the whole film is only 70 minutes long, it's not difficult to sit through twice in an evening if you're into this sort of thing. Also of special interest is the very casual chat between John Landis, Rick Baker, and Bob Burns about what they like about ISLAND OF LOST SOULS and classic horror films in general. And, for once, I found the stills gallery actually pretty fascinating. I can't really recommend this disc enough.

* ISLE OF THE DEAD, incidentally, is probably my leastfavorite Lewton-produced horror film. Despite my love for Karloff, a briefappearance by Skelton Knaggs, and that unmistakable “Lewtonian” atmosphere, I found the central story a bit inert. Martin Scorsese claims it’s one of the elevenscariest horror films ever made though, so what do I know?

** I’ve never read Moreau or any Wells for that matter.Embarrassing, but there you are. This week, Bill Ryan has written a really good piece that examines the novel and film adaptation.

*** I always found those Zoobilee Zoo abominations creepy as hell.

**** Like most great art, ISLAND OF LOST SOULS made me recall a Simpsons quote:

[From Simpson’s Episode #58 “Bart’s Friend Falls In Love” (1992)]

[after watching a film on sex education]
Bart: How would I goabout creating a half-man, half-monkey-type creature?
Mrs. Krabappel: I'msorry, that would be playing God.
Bart: God-schmod, Iwant my monkey man!

Death is Not the End

2011-10-11T07:21:00.000-07:00

I very much wanted to (and still might) do another one of my illustrated blog posts indexing the awesome imagery that gives Victor Sjostrom's 1921 PHANTOM CARRIAGE its spiritual/visceral resonance. Instead, we'll all* have to settle for the review I wrote for GreenCine.

* That is, all two of us that read this blog (hi wife!).

I've delivered sermons to the sea.

2011-10-04T17:59:00.000-07:00

Victor Sjostrom in WILD STRAWBERRIES (Bergman, 1957)

Ashes of Time

2011-09-20T16:45:00.000-07:00

Dust motes! Just one of the many wacky animated inanimate objects on display in Michelangelo Frammartino's meditation, LE QUATTRO VOLTE (THE FOUR TIMES), which I attempt to explain over at GreenCine.

"No wonder there's no subtitle options on the DVD," my wife remarked. "Coughing is pretty much the same in English or Italian."

The sound design on VOLTE is very carefully limited. Much of the aural space is occupied by goat bells, wind, and - yes - an uncomfortable amount of coughing.

Said lung-hacking is done by our intrepid hero, a soon-to-be-dead goatherd (Giuseppe Fuda, pictured here in a chronological list of all four of his incarnations):

Fuda acts the hell out of that pile of coal, let me tell you.

It's a beautiful film with very limited crossover potential. VOLTE is Bressonian in its austerity but, by its own nature, lacks any of Bresson's attention to humanity. As I say in the review, it's more of a piece with the work of Andy Goldsworthy.

Next up in the review queue: Criterion's discs of CARLOS and THE PHANTOM CARRIAGE.

Five Film Friday

2011-09-09T14:48:00.000-07:00

Alternate Alliterative Title:

"Philip's Failure to Find FiveMinutes to Fashion (and Finish) a Fitting Tribute to Two Fine DVDs"

It's been a lousy coupla weeks forme to keep up with a blog that, as much as I (sometimes) enjoy writing, doesn'tpay a bloody penny (or generate comments). That said, I need to clear the decksand do an unfortunately brief run-down of two fantastic releases by (who else?)The Criterion Collection: THE COMPLETE JEAN VIGO and Chang-dong Lee's SECRET SUNSHINE.So I'll bang these out and clear my to-do list (and conscience) so as to enjoya weekend getaway with my bride.

It's nearly impossible to talk aboutJean Vigo (pictured above in a little deus ex machina moment for APROPOS DE NICE) without bringing up his untimely death. At 29, Vigo succumbedto tuberculosis and the "what-if?s" of his scuttled potential havefollowed him around ever since. Film Comment placed Vigo second in their "Best Directors Who Died Young" inventory, just after F.W. Murnau. But Murnau wasable to leave at least three masterpieces behind (NOSFERATU, FAUST, andSUNRISE, by my estimation). Vigo was only allowed one fully formed masterpiece,that being, of course, 1934's L'ATALANTE.

WHEN YOUNG FOLKS SET OUT ON A BARGEwas possibly one of the alternate titles L'ATALANTE was stamped with when itenjoyed a hasty, studio-chopped theatrical run following Vigo's death. The filmwas mostly forgotten until Truffaut and the Cahiers gang stumbled uponit in postwar rerelease and began trumpeting praises.

I admit that the first two times Isaw L'ATALANTE, I was nonplussed. Maybe its canonical status set my hopes toohigh. Maybe I wasn't in the mood. Or I was just too dumb to "get it."

It must be this third option becauseL'ATALANTE is close to perfect. (I’m wrong like this very often; it tookseveral viewings of VAMPYR, BLUE VELVET, HUNGER, and even RULES OF THE GAMEbefore I realized just how great those films were. I guess I’m a bit slow.)

The film takes a simple enoughpremise -- newlyweds stuck on the husband’s barge for an indeterminate periodof time -- and milks it for all of its possibilities, relational and formal.It's ultimately about the bumpy road (or, more accurately, the choppy waters)of marriage, particularly in its nascent state. It’s a microcosm of arelationship: blissful beginnings, wrought second-guessing, outright antipathy,passionate reconciliation… and repeat.

The nature of the couple’srelationship is best summed up by outsider Pere Jules (Michael Simon, as perfect anamiable manchild as was ever committed to screen):

L’ATALANTE is as perfect a filmabout marriage as I’ve ever seen. Maybe I needed to be married a little longerbefore I could fully appreciate it. In a supplemental interview on theCriterion disc, Francois Truffaut points to a particular moment in the film(when Juliet, the bride, is wooed by a traveling salesman) as the point wherethe film could have dipped into silly caricature. I think that, initially, thisis where I did find the film slipped up. But that was because, initially, I wasmore interested in the road trip schema of the plot and wasn’t as invested inthe film’s portrait of the couple’s relationship.

Whatever my foolish reasons, I’dpreviously scribbled a “65” as my score for L’ATALANTE. I’ve since revised thatto a 92, a big jump but totally justified.

Briefly, Criterion’s disc alsofeatures three other Vigo efforts. These play more like b-sides or demos.There’s a feverish creativity to all three but none of the films matchL’ATALANTE for cohesion.

The first, A PROPOS DE NICE is a“city symphony” film of sorts that Vigo financed with his wife’s dowry.

Vigo’s film explores Nice as theplayground of a decadent upperclass. A staunch anarchist, Vigo is clearlyhaving a go at French society and, with eerie hindsight, there’s a sense of acollapsing civilization. Parades of freaks …

… dancing nymphs …

… and stoic, disapproving statuary…

… all commingle to lend NICE an airof apocalyptic bacchanalia. Empire is ending and Vigo’s only too happy to seeit go. He couldn’t have anticipated just how far the whole thing would fall. Asa bonus, there’s also vintage footage of a UFO skipping through the sky overthe Riviera.

Next is Vigo’s brief paean to thehuman body, TARIS. The film was a commission and is a fun, if slight, look atVigo’s creative impulses, even under constraints.

Finally is the film that I was mostlooking forward to, Vigo’s very personal ZERO DE CONDUIT. It’s a 45-minute riffon boarding school life, culminating in the boys’ anarchic overthrow of theiroppressive schoolmasters. ZERO is extremely wild and wooly, feeling more likean exorcism of creative impulses than any coherent social satire or commentary.It plays as a series of minor sketches and even the climax, the famousslow-motion pillowfight, feels disconnected. I expected more. Perhaps, likeL’ATALANTE, I’ll come around to after repeat viewings.

The Criterion “boxed set” (twostandard discs, one Blu FACT CHECK THIS) of Vigo’s work is appointed with aboutthree and a half hours of supplements, which means that the extras rival therunning time of Vigo’s whole filmography. I’ve only dipped into a few of thefeaturettes but, so far, all nicely accent and annotate the work of a filmmakerwho managed to leave quite a mark with so little time. I imagine this will makemany cinefolk lists as the release of the year.

Now, if I may suggest anotherCOMPLETE JEAN to add to the Criterion Collection, how about Epstein?

***

“I made this film thinking it wasn’t a religious film.Although it deals with the question of religion, it’s a story about the personwho raises those questions. It’s not a story about religion itself. But somepeople may see this as a film about God.” – Lee Chang-dong on his 2007 filmSECRET SUNSHINE, which came out last week via the Criterion Collection.

I’d never presume to tell an artist that he’s a wrong abouthis own work, but I would say that SUNSHINE is primarily about religion and, very specifically, the born-againChristian experience as seen from a skeptical (but respectful) outsider. It’strue that the film focuses all of its attention on Shin-ae – played by Jeon Do-yeon, who acts the hell outof the role (pun intended) – and that she is the “person who raises” thequestion of God after her life is devastated by an event I’m going to try mybest to write around. But the religiousconversion that she undergoes, and its effect on all of her relationships, isthe meat of the story.

The Event That I Won’t Divulge actually doesn’t occur untilabout 45 minutes into SUNSHINE’s 142-minute running time. Until then, Lee allows us a deep look into Shin-ae’s life. Before coming tofilmmaking, Lee was a novelist and SUNSHINE’s leisurely structure bearsthis out. We get to know Shin-ae and her situation before any Screenwriting 101Plot Points force us in a certain emotional direction.

Shin-ae and her young son Jun (Seon Jung-yeob) move from themetropolis of Seoul to the village of Miryang (Chinese for “Secret Sunshine”;apparently Lee ‘s screenplay was more or less inspired by this evocativetwo-word phrase). The motivation for the move is vague: she wants to honor herlate husband’s memory by returning to his city of birth and raising Jun to“walk real earth.” Subtle clues give us the sense that she’s also leavingbehind a disappointing life and has fallen for the notion that changing one’sgeography will somehow rebaptize one’s life and allow for a baggage-free freshstart.

A broken down carintroduces them to Jong-chan (Song Kang-ho), a goofy puppy dog of a man whoimmediately becomes infactuated with Shin-ae and spends the rest of the filmtrying to insinuate himself into her life with comic, tragic, and – eventually– poignant results.

I feel bad not gettinginto the deeper aspects of this film but I’m running long already and don’twant to spoil anything. Suffice to say that, like Malick’s TREE OF LIFE, SECRETSUNSHINE is a sustained howl for help aimed squarely at God. However, Malick isunambiguously transcendental, clearly expecting an answer and Lee fixes his feet on the ground,observing the seeker and the consequences of her seeking. Their mise-en-scenesare also complete opposites; Lee’s style (or complete lack thereof)fails to ring any of my formal bells and, normally, I’d count this against him.However, the material he’s dealing with goes so soul-deep that it doesn’tmatter. Pitch-perfect performances and a script that mines the motivations andeffects of the religious experience are enough to make SECRET SUNSHINE one ofthe best spiritually focused films made by an apparent non-believer.

While I'm Stalling, Here's This

2011-09-06T09:55:00.001-07:00

Buzz Nano had had a busy Solar Unit. He’d taken a tube carover to West Dakota in order to secure a breathing license. With that done, hewas settling in for a laser drink with his robot friend, Gr0x Gearsley.

“Th1s stuff 1s g00d,” Gr0x bleeped, pouring the laser intohis taste portal.

Buzz adjusted his visor.

“Yup.”

They sat in contented silence. With one metal finger, Gr0xsmoothed out the steel wool on top of his head. He scanned the bar, hoping toget lucky with a G-Bot.

“I wonder what the weather’s like on Europa right now,” Buzz mumbled. “I could use a mooncation.”

“Can’t y0u get the S0larCast 0n y0ur v1s0r?” Gr0x asked.

“Nope.”

- excerpted from my forthcoming, 800-page sci-fi paperback, Men of Metal, Book One of the Ursa Minor Chronicles.

Crickets... (actually, cicadas)

2011-09-03T19:25:00.000-07:00

TROPICAL MALADY (2003, A. Weerasethakul)


THIRST FOR LOVE (1967, K. Kurahara)

Awfully quiet around here. Especially since I'm waaaay overdue for my pieces on SECRET SUNSHINE and Criterion's revelatory release of THE COMPLETE JEAN VIGO. Please stand by...

Look! Here's a wooden ball playing Bach's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" in the middle of a Japanese forest:

Sun, Sweat, and Smoke: The Visuals of Koreyoshi Kurahara

2011-08-31T10:10:00.000-07:00

One of the most striking things about the films in Criterion/Eclipse’s new Koreyoshi Kurahara set is that – despite their disparity in theme, genre, and tone – they all share an urgent, kinetic style that reminds me of Scorsese at his most gutsy. From the chaotic WARPED ONES to the ostensible romantic dramedy I HATE BUT LOVE, Kurahara never lets his audience feel secure for very long.

Which makes it hard for me to convey Kurahara’s skittering style via the staid still frame showcase that I love so much. But I’m going to try it anyway since I really believe he’s a filmmaker whom young, piss-n-vinegar-filled filmmakers would do well to study. With his Ginsu editing and kamikaze camerawork, Kurahara’s got style to burn (as I say in my review over at GreenCine) and knows how to fill a frame. Here’s a brief, frame grab-heavy tour of the set (and, note well, it contains spoilers).

I. INTIMIDATION

Kurahara’s 65-minute 1960 noir is a perfect genre exercise and my favorite in the set. It’s not as “Kuraharaesque” as THE WARPED ONES or BLACK SUN but it satisfies my personal proclivities: serpentine plot, tight running time, formal dexterity, and contains an indelible character: the born-to-simper Nakaike, played with puppy pathos by Akira Nishimura:

Nishimura wrings every nuance out of the constantly overlooked and belittled Nakaike, revealing the calculating, wounded soul behind those balefull eyes. “Elisha Cook Jr. would have played Nakaike in the US remake” I scrawled in my notes. But there’s a bit more going on upstairs with this guy than, say, Cook’s fall guy in THE KILLING. Which is more than can be said for Nakaike’s boss, Takita, who’s broadly portrayed by Nobuo Kaneko:

And there’s nothing wrong with going broad for Takita. Who doesn’t know that self-assured, gonna-succeed-in-everything-without-trying jerk who’s a shallow ocean of fake camaraderie?

Kurahara wisely plays the pivotal show down between these two former friends as a staring match. Both sets of eyes are all you need to “get” the characters:

One other random regarding INTIMIDATION: Paul Reubens has a small, but important, role:

II. THE WARPED ONES

This is the film in the set I enjoyed the least yet the one I would recommend to anyone who wants to understand Kurahara. It’s a “Sun Tribe Film” (the Japanese equivalent of a youth counterculture piece; think punk or greaser or mod/rocker), depicting the meaningless lives of violent, wayward teenagers, the human detritus left in the wake of a world war and two nuclear bombs. Before I even knew the “Sun Tribe” designation, I wrote “he keeps depicting them as sun worshippers” in my notes.

That’s Akira and his friend Masaru enjoying their recent dismissal from a juvenile prison. It isn’t long before they’re out on the streets, espousing their personal philosophical axioms:

Quests that lead them to brutality:

Beautiful women:

And art openings:

The artists try to adopt Akira as their resident noble savage:

The inevitable result is obvious: you can’t domesticate a cobra.

Another pivotal scene depicts a stand off, where Akira crashes a lunch between an artist and her insufferable boyfriend. Again, Kurahara plays with the inherent discomfort contained within a close-up.

Worried boyfriend:

Calculating artist:

Boorish interloper:

This hate triangle culminates in an extremely memorable closing shot:

The less said about the context here, the better. Let’s just say that Akira wins. Or thinks he does.

III. I HATE BUT LOVE

I have very little to say about this one. I admire quite a bit about it, particularly the way it waits – WAGES OF FEAR-style – for about 45 minutes before it actually gets its “A-plot” up-and-running. And how it takes a romantic caper and turns it into a nearly silent, extremely introspective road picture.

Two major visuals of interest stick in mind. The numbers, with which the lovelorn Noriko chronicles her Platonic affair with the recalcitrant Daisaku:

I would be very surprised if some designer hadn’t approximated the above scheme into some uber-hip wallpaper, summer dress, Trapper Keeper, whatever.

The other, most obvious, visual asset of note:

Ruriko Asoaka, who lights up every frame she’s in, even when she’s manipulating her lover with a suicide attempt. I’d like to posit an alternative to Godard’s little aphorism: all you need to make a film is a girl and a car.

IV. BLACK SUN

This is THE WARPED ONES with a sense of purpose. Akira (here named Mei) finds this in jazz (he even has a dog named Monk) …

… and Gill, the American GI on the run after committing an unexplained murder:

Backing up, I love how Kurahara sets the desperate, hardscrabble tone of the film with this sci-fi shot of an industrial wasteland:

This notion of a burned up earth (and, perhaps, its attendant black sun) is underlined over and over. When Gill finally reaches his pined-for sea, he discovers a despoiled simulacra of what it once was:

Slick with oil, cluttered with debris. This isn’t some sort of Captain Planetary inconvenient truth meant to cluck its tongue about environment-this and ecology-that.

The corrupted sea and land are wholly intertwined with the post-war corruption of the desperate souls populating the film, Japanese and American alike:

I found BLACK SUN extremely moving, especially in its last section. Akira/Mei ‘s sneer evaporates into a compassionate grimace as he watches his only friend attain the freedom he’s been after.

And, boy-oh-boy, is it attained in the oddest way possible. People on the fence about checking out this should get it for no other reason than to check out the lunatic end to BLACK SUN.

V. THIRST FOR LOVE

I’d like to end this piece by focusing on a particularly spoilerific scene from THIRST FOR LOVE. First of all, Ruriko Asaoka returns in this film, even more stunning than before:

Trouble is, she’s a monsterous harpy, hell –bent on destroying herself and anyone else she can (literally) get her claws in:

Her Etsuko is one of the most subtly diabolical characters I’ve come across in a long time. By simply remaining quiet, she permits and orchestrates all kind of evils around her. Behind those blank, beautiful eyes is a factory of cruel calculation (cf. Gene Tierney in LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN). She’d be the perfect noir femme fatale if this wasn’t a Mishima adaptation and, therefore, burdened with all of his self-important baggage.

Without saying why she does it, I’m going to go ahead and focus on a scene where Etsuko forces an underling to (again, spoilers are here) have an abortion. The scene is as perfectly harrowing as any horror setpiece, oozing with a clinical malevolence. It’s one of the stand-out sequences in the whole set. And it’s just nine (mostly) silent shots.

The patient’s POV – the light snaps on:

The patient is blindfolded and anaesthetized:

The patient’s boss (and romantic rival) looks on.

The doctor grabs a tool:

Etsuko calmly observes her victim:

The doctor works:

Etsuko watches:

The light goes off:

Cut to a frantic, out-the-window shot of the sun as Etsuko drives her defeated rival back from the hospital. Here the sound jumps, becomes chaotic, the rattling sound of the road ripping into the silence of what we just watched.

Granted, it probably doesn’t translate as well here, where it’s out of context and divorced from the motion so very important to, uh, motion pictures. But it’s a revelatory bit and another perfectly realized set piece in this treasure trove of offbeat filmmaking. I can’t recommend it highly enough. I do suggest going through the set chronologically. And, if you can only afford the time for one of the films, I’d go for BLACK SUN.

"Get the hell out of my fortress!"

2011-08-15T19:13:00.000-07:00

CUL-DE-SAC (1966) is Roman Polanski’s third feature film and his third (and final) film in black and white. For those into making arbitrary trilogies*, CUL-DE-SAC and its predecessors (KNIFE IN THE WATER and REPULSION) create a Polanski sourdough starter of sorts: the germ of Polanski’s entire subsequent filmography can be found in these three films (all available from the Criterion Collection, with CUL-DE-SAC hitting the streets tomorrow).

But CUL-DE-SAC is, by far, the most Polanskian of the three. One part psychological thriller and one (much larger) part sadistic swipe at the idle bourgeoisie, the film perfectly distills Polanski’s playful misanthropy and stylistic/thematic obsessions into 112 uncomfortable minutes.

The plot is familiar enough: two criminals on the run from a botched heist hole up with – and make hostages of – a married couple. Tensions grow as salvation for either party fails to arrive. In CUL-DE-SAC, the characters are so obviously doomed from the start**, the film becomes a waiting game to see who will implode first.

Over the opening credits, a sedan slowly approaches:

As it sluggishly lurches into frame, it becomes apparent that the car is being pushed by George (Lionel Stander), a gorilla-sized gangster with an arm in a sling:

… while his gut shot accomplice Albie (Jack MacGowran) drifts in and out of consciousness in the driver’s seat.

This is a Sisyphian torment, not an ordinary getaway. What failed criminal enterprise could these two possibly be coming from that’s within car-pushing distance from a Northumbrian no man’s land? The film never says and it’s really not important.

Following telephone wires, Dickie finds the perfect (and only) hideout: a medieval tor

… occupied by George (Donald Pleasence) and his French trophy wife Teresa (Francoise Dorleac, sister of REPULSION’s Catherine Deneuve):

Before long, the two are forced into submission by the alpha male Dickie, a crude American thug with no regard for their delicate European values. As Dickie, Lionel Stander suggests the unholy offspring of Robert Middleton and Ron Perlman, a hulking mass of childlike brutality. When Dickie colorfully vows to “punch that pretty puss into a pumpkin,” you chuckle while knowing he means to make good on the threat.

Polanski was apparently looking for someone “Wallace Beery-ish” and certainly got what he wanted (Stander, by the way, is beloved to me for his uncredited narration of BLAST OF SILENCE, another nice bit of nihilism available via the Criterion label).

Dickie is waiting (in vain, naturally) for rescue via Mr. Katelbach, the offscreen ringleader of whatever maladroit deed brought the criminals here in the first place. Google “Polanski CUL-DE-SAC” and you’ll quickly find the name “Samuel Beckett” is inextricably linked to discussions of this film. The Irish absurdist is the clearest influence here but there’s also a fair amount of Ionesco, too. Have I mentioned that George and Teresa’s castle is infested with chickens?

Eggs are everywhere (and find an odd echo in Pleasence’s bald noggin). There are at least two omelet-making scenes. Why? Who knows. Polanski is working to create atmosphere here. One of the things I’ve always appreciated about his films is their deep sense of space. With CUL-DE-SAC, we’re placed in a home at the edge of an unfeeling world. Where roads are subject to the whims of the tides

… and man is a futile spec on the landscape.

The inhuman desolation is accented by a brilliantly sparse nature-centered sound design. Silences are punctuated by wind, waves, gull cries, chicken clucking, the rustling of legs through beach grass, and the wailing of night birds.

Polanski is clearly influenced by the weird trappings of Gothic horror and Expressionism:

At first I thought my TV was on the blink. But a trip over to DVD Beaver, where this Polanski-approved master is compared with a previous DVD release, revealed that the blacking of the faces – a bold touch of alienation – is purely intentional.

As someone who makes a living color-correcting reality TV shows, I find it fascinating (and slightly validating) that a few slight tweaks to luminance values can create a wholly different psychological atmosphere.

One of the best choices made by the filmmakers (one that was apparently not originally scripted) is the choice of the castle for the location:

The grandiosity of the setting makes George’s inability to defend it all the more pathetic (and, slightly, heartbreaking).

When a group of high society types drop in unexpectedly for dinner, the hostages and their captor have to make believe everything is on the level.

Things quickly go to hell, naturally. An irreplaceable treasure is destroyed and – in his only moment of true self-assertion – George demands that the visitors leave his “fortress” (see the top-most frame grab), the word suddenly occurring to him, mid-tirade, and giving him a brief moment of glee. Despite his crumbling life, George does, indeed, own a fortress.

Eventually, he has to defend his castle against the increasingly belligerent Dickie. George goes about this in the most half-assed way possible, still losing everything despite thwarting his enemies. STRAW DOGS this isn’t.

Is there a more off-putting actor than Donald Pleasence? Prior to seeing this, I always associated him with his bonkers turn in WILL PENNY. But Pleasence’s George rises to the top of the pile of psychotics and creeps that make up his resume. Pleasence throws himself into the role with a disturbing vigor. Rewatching the film with the sound off, I’m struck by how broad Pleasence is. But he’s still perfect in this role and his balance of attempted cordiality and hidden irritability during the dinner party is alone worth the price of admission, as they say.

Everyone in CUL-DE-SAC is off their nut to a certain degree; only Albie, slowly drowning with dignity, gut shot and alone, in the scuttled sedan, elicits a kernel of empathy. And he’s not around too much.

Compare Albie’s docile disposition as he nears his end with George’s final breakdown:

CUL-DE-SAC eventually reaches the dead end promised by its title. If you don’t mind a fascinating and darkly humorous ride to oblivion, it’s well worth your time.

One further note: The film is shot beautifully by DR. STRANGELOVE and REPULSION lensman Gilbert Taylor. Taylor would go on to preside over STAR WARS and the line from this work to George Lucas’s space opera isn’t as difficult to draw as one might think. The opening approach of the slinking sedan through negative space has an echo in both STRANGELOVE and STAR WARS. And Polanski’s obsessive repetition and recontextualizing of different objects (the eggs and the lonely tor on the tidal plain here, the rabbit and drywall cracks in REPULSION, etc.) is kind of the inverse of George Lucas’s well-ordered armies of homogenized Imperial Stormtroopers and T.I.E. Fighter formations.

* Until gathering info for this piece, I didn’t realize that there was already another dubiously arranged Polanski triptych – “The Apartment Trilogy” – comprised of REPULSION, ROSEMARY’S BABY, and THE TENANT. One might as well group KNIFE IN THE WATER, PIRATES, and BITTER MOON into “The Nautical Trilogy.”

** "Directed by Roman Polanski" is, in itself, a label that serves almost as an MPAA rating (or, more to the point, one of those signs posted in line for a roller coaster: "Do not ride if pregnant, etc.”). Those unable to deal with a certain amount of claustrophobia, psychosexuality, sadism, and – above all else -- alienation need be advised. His name implies doomed protagonists.

Sunshiney Intimidation

2011-08-14T09:11:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's mail brought two unexpected surprises: Criterion's latest Eclipse set (THE WARPED WORLD OF KOREYOSHI KURAHARA) and their forthcoming disc of Lee Chang-Dong's SECRET SUNSHINE. I know nothing of either filmmaker and plan on keeping it that way. Normally, I'd be doing as much pre-screening research/viewing as was possible. In this case, I'm too busy and am kind of looking forward to going into these films absolutely blind, without any expectation (aside from the implicit "Cinephile-Approved" baggage that accompanies anything coming from the Criterion label). It's rare that I watch a film without knowing anything about it or its makers, so this should be fun.

I have to cop to having an enormous blind spot where Asian cinema is concerned. Which, as I write it, is a ridiculous statement since the term "Asian cinema" is as broad as the continent itself. Growing up with only the public library and Blockbuster Video to mine for oddities, "Asian film" meant simply "Japanese film," which itself usually meant "Kurosawa film." The tech-centric film education I received did little to remedy this and I had to discover Ozu via interviews with Paul Schrader and Jim Jarmusch. I'm still extremely limited in my knowledge, not having seen much Kobayashi, Imamura, Oshima, Teshigahara, Naruse, etc. etc. and that's just covers the first tier Japanese directors. So I have a fair amount of jitters approaching these (the first film in the Kurahara set is appropriately named INTIMIDATION).

I'll just pretend I'm stumbling upon them on some late night cable channel. Afterward, I look forward to reading the notes (the Kurahara set is written up by "Asian-cinema critic" Chuck Stephens, whose work on Apichatapong Weerasethakul was a big help in approaching UNCLE BOONMEE, et al) and finding out a bit more about these filmmakers.

I'll be covering the films either for GreenCine or this space or both. Not sure yet. Expect a report no later than Tuesday the 23rd, when both releases hit the street.

Ape-Hangin'

2011-07-12T15:50:00.000-07:00

Well, my review of Apichatpong Weerasethakul's UNCLE BOONMEE ETC. ETC. has posted. Like his other films, I find BOONMEE more and more compelling as I digest it. It'll require more viewings but I'm moving on to another blindspot: Satyajit Ray, in anticipation of next Tuesday's Criterion release of THE MUSIC ROOM. I've had the Apu Trilogy sitting on top of my DVD player for about a week and the time has come to reckon with India's most well-known filmmaker.

Regarding BOONMEE, I doubt there will be too many images this year that are halfway as arresting as this:

Hello, "Joe!"

2011-07-05T16:43:00.000-07:00

After campaigning to review UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES (aka 2010's Palme d'Or winner) for GreenCine, I got the assignment. And now I'm a bit terrified. Part of it is that many other much smarter and more qualified folks have already spilled ink about the thing. I’m not so much standing on the shoulders of giants as I am clawing my way up their backs. But worse is the fact that, other than a charming short, I've never seen another film by Apichatpong "Joe" Weerasethakul.

This holiday weekend, I began to remedy this bit of cine-oblivion on my part by taking in SYNDROMES AND A CENTURY, Weerasethakul's fourth feature. I'd hoped to catch up with all of his work prior to the Tuesday, July 12th DVD release of BOONMEE but, realistically, that's not going to happen. What follows are my flop sweat-drenched ruminations on SYNDROMES.

[I realize two very important things as I type this: the people who are reading this who know who Weerasethakul is will already have resources at their disposal that do a much better job parsing the film. And the people who are reading this who have never heard of Weerasethakul (and, most likely, arrived at this blog using the Google search for "skeleton wedding") have probably stopped reading.]

SYNDROMES is one of those films where the “what is it about?” question is almost laughable. The film is “about” your reaction to it, a ridiculously solipsistic thing to say. But, unless you want me to start getting all Intentional Fallacy-ish, that's all I got.

Internet synopses of SYNDROMES are misleading and, often, erroneous. The write-up over at Flixter even transposes some of the characters’ genders (a mistake that I imagine Weerasethakul would relish).

In the shorthand of the film, my best stab at what the film is about is partly this:

This:

And, above all, this:

I'll back up:

SYNDROMES is about a doctor (Nantarat Sawaddiku) going through her daily routine at a rural hospital. She interviews a new doctor (Jaruchai Iamaram), checks in on a cantankerous old monk…

… and responds to the amorous advances of an awkward fellow doctor (Nu Nimsomboon). There’s a subplot involving a young monk discussing vocational aspirations with his dentist (who moonlights as a Thai country musician) and a flashback involving the nurse’s (nonromantic) relationship with an orchid expert. (Even as I write this, I realize that it's misleading and inaccurately superficial.)

The most significant wrinkle in SYNDROMES’ plot occurs about halfway through the film’s 100 minute running time. Here, the film restarts, and begins restaging the same stories with the same characters, this time in a sterile, urban hospital.

And it’s in this bifurcated structure where SYNDROMES appears to be about anything. Repeating, then, the above pictures:

These frames depict Dr. Nohng (Iamaram) in the separate scenarios. (Disregard the subtitle in the top shot; my frame-grabbin’ resources are pretty paltry.) In the top frame, he’s a seemingly incompetent military doctor reassigned to the rural hospital. Below that, he becomes a seemingly very competent staffer at the gargantuan city hospital. Note the severe difference in lighting and coloring (right down to the doctor’s complexion). The contrast is obvious. Hence my mention that this shot contains what the film is really about:

Here, in the film’s second half, Dr. Toey (Sawaddiku) experiences a moment of glum repose before the hospital closes (and the film ends). The bold jungle greens that mark the first section of the film reappear in that curtain, dominated by (or maybe infringing on?) the cool blue-whites of the hospital.

So perhaps part of SYNDROMES’ aim is to explore the contrast between city and country (and, by extension, traditional and modern lifestyles) or at least the stereotypes surrounding both.

Consider the monk and his dentist:

Here the two men idly chat about music and destiny, keeping up a tone throughout the film that I can best describe as drolly numinous. There’s a pay off (of sorts) later where the dentist, having established a spiritual connection with the monk, hands the monk a CD of his music and then confesses that he feels responsible for his the death of his brother.

Here again is the same scenario, reimagined for the sterile trappings of the megahospital:

There’s no idle chatter here, only the sound of the drill and a few muttered instructions to the dentist’s aide. The dentist attempts several times to cover the monk’s eyes with a blue cloth until the monk meekly requests it be left off.

And scene. There’s no further interaction between the men in the second segment.

A lot of reviews online gush about SYNDROMES as a film “with heart,” warm, tender, wistful, happy, etc. While that’s certainly all there (along with a very dry sense of humor), I think it arrives at a fairly sinister place.

Near the end of the first section, there’s a mystical interlude involving an eclipse:

Dr. Toey is having a picnic with her friend, Pa Jane (Jenjira Pongpas). While discussing matters of the heart, Pa Jane remarks that the glade they’re in has a magical power. The eclipse occurs in a flashback, gently accented by whirring jungle ambience.

About an hour later, the eclipse shot is echoed:

This time, we’re looking at a vent inside of a machine room within the hospital where prosthetics are manufactured. Deadly carbon monoxide gas is being sucked outside, creating a horrendous slurping sound like a satanic Hoover. The sound becomes deafening and then:

We’re outside. A series of shots of people in the city’s parks. Enjoying nature within neatly proscribed areas, culminating in:

a massive exercise class set to absurdly belligerent electronic music. The participants flail in near-perfect symmetry, looking like wind-up automatons.

The electronic music continues over the credits but they eventually fade away, succumbing to the sound of wind through leaves and creaking branches (significantly, the first shot of the film is a tree blowing gently in the breeze).

And that’s about all I’ve got. Here are some more disconnected thoughts:

- I’ve run into this exact phrase: “The real-life love story between filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul's parents inspired this romantic drama which follows three separate stories occurring over a span of forty years.” There are at least three things wrong with this:

1) Characterizing the film as a “love story” is a noble – and failed – attempt to categorize it within a recognizable genre framework.

2) “Three separate stories” suggests even a single “story” thread. And, beyond the doctors and the dentist/monk, where is this third story?

3) The claim that the two sections of the film are separated by 40 years is an impossibility unless the second section takes place at least twenty years in the future. The dentist in the first section has a compact disc. These didn’t really show up on the scene until 1982.

I know nothing about Weerasethakul’s parents, so I’m guessing that claim has validity based on press material or an interview or something. Again, I’m very much out of my league here and am anxiously awaiting the delivery of James Quandt’s book on Weerasethakul to enlighten me on many of these points.

- The actually title (according to the never-reliable Wikipedia) is LIGHT OF THE CENTURY which makes a lot more sense than SYNDROMES. Light of all kinds is crucial to the film (and not in the obvious, cinematographic, way). The jungle section’s scenes are bathed in Malick Magic Hour Gold:

The hospital section is suffocated by fluorescence:

There’s also the aforementioned eclipse, talk of an orchid that glows in the dark, and a series of shots of hospital lights flickering off, to name a few others.

- The fourth wall is gleefully busted several times. My favorite instance occurs when a world-weary television pundit takes a break from drinking her pre-show whiskey and offers to read the chakra of a boy who’s suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning:

The camera dollies back to reveal the pundit’s friend, staring directly into the camera with a faintly disapproving smile:

The film has many of these kind of moments, the type we normally dub "Lynchian" though they belong to a much older tradition. The playful disdain for narrative, not to mention the plot shift a la MULLHOLLAND DR., make the film very Lynchian.

Another image couplet, underscoring the film’s casual marriage of the sacred and the mundane:

In neither scenario does the Buddha occupy a place of real reverence. I know nothing of Weerasethakul’s religious persuasions so I don’t know whether to read this as a gentle mockery or a comment on modern life’s quashing of the spiritual or both.

- Lastly: in the second section, Dr. Nohng’s girlfriend tries to convince him to move to a new development outside of Bangkok. Here’s one of the pictures she uses to plead her case:

I think that a distrust, if not an outright dislike, of modernity’s encroachment upon the natural world is (at least in part) what SYNDROMES AND A CENTURY is about.

[Post Script: It’s a great film by the way. My initial grade is around the 75-80 range. It needed a day or two of processing but it really dug its way into my skull. I look forward to my further adventures with “Joe.”]

People On Melodrama

2011-06-28T19:19:00.000-07:00

- Brigitte (Brigitte Borchert) fires up her beach-worthy Victrola and blasts "In a Little Pastry Shop" to the delight of her fellow PEOPLE ON SUNDAY. Ms. Borchert appears in the film and, in a mildly revealing documentary that appears as a supplement on the Criterion disc, discusses her memories of its making. Most notable is the fact that she received double the pay of her cast mates and spent her per diem on sausage and potatoes. Like I said: mildly revealing.

- At the end of their outing, Wolfgang and Erwin are down to one cigarette and compelled to share. They smoke and have a laugh about the emptiness of Wolfgang's promise to call Brigitte (his fling-for-a-day) for a follow-up date. It's probably my favorite moment in the film, signaling their exhausted resources as well as their loyalty to each other. My review, for GreenCine, can be found here.

- A wholly different seaside outing ends badly in Raffaello Matarazzo's THE WHITE ANGEL. One of the amazing things about the films in this Eclipse set is the filmmakers' willingness to whimsically dispatch characters -- minor and major -- to their doom, all in service of the feverish plots.

- A rare moment of calm allows Guido (Amedeo Nazzari) a chance to reflect on the hand dealt to him by the screenwri- er, fate. My take on the exquisite Matarazzo set is not yet published but should be soon enough.

UPDATE: Here is said review.

Font Fetish

2011-06-28T06:57:00.000-07:00

One of the many pleasures of watching Criterion's new edition of the Ulmer/Siodmak/Wilder/Zinnemann/etc.-helmed PEOPLE ON SUNDAY is that the pristine restoration allows the viewer to luxuriate in the Weimar-era graphic design and architecture. I will be posting a link to a review shortly.

"I live. Isn’t that challenge enough?"

2011-06-27T17:58:00.000-07:00

CHAINS (1949, Raffaello Matarazzo)

TORMENTO (1950, Matarazzo)

NOBODY'S CHILDREN (1952, Matarazzo)


THE WHITE ANGEL (1955, Matarazzo)

All of the above images hail from Criterion's 27th Eclipse set (released last Tuesday), RAFFAELLO MATARAZZO'S RUNAWAY MELODRAMAS. I had the privilege of taking an early glimpse of the thing, an opportunity which I then squandered via procrastination (and overwork at the job that actually pays my bills, as opposed to this slapdash enterprise). My review, for the estimable GreenCine, will (hopefully) run tomorrow, along with a write-up of the new Criterion disc of PEOPLE ON SUNDAY.

The Matarazzo set is receiving its due praise, most notably over at the New York Times, where David Kehr hails the "Mozartian grace" of the films. I chose the frame grabs based on the simple-minded fact that "to understand" is one of the few Italian words I can, uh, capisce.

Links to the aforementioned reviews will follow tomorrow. Until then, I will confess that I'm a Matarazzo convert and look forward to checking out the other two films Criterion has made available via their Hulu channel. This set best exemplifies the goal of the Eclipse line: introducing a heretofore forgotten body of work to American audiences.

I Give Myself a D+

2011-06-07T20:28:00.000-07:00

Spurred by Dennis Cozzalio and the need to interrupt the silence of the last two months lest some pornographer declare imminent domain on my site, I've decided to take a stab at Professor Ed Avery’s Cortizone-Fueled, Bigger-Than-Life, Super Big-Gulp-Sized Summer Movie Quiz.

I already know I've failed, as I can't give satisfactory answers to several of the below questions, thanks mainly to a lack of familiarity with the subjects. However, this is as good a way as any to put one foot in front of the other and start writing some stuff over here again. (Incidentally, you should have read the stuff I was going to write over the last eight weeks. Man-o-man.)

Here we go:

1) Depending on your mood, your favorite or least-loved movie cliché

Most-loved: I can't think of an actual example right now, but I always chuckle at variations of the following:

INT. OVERCROWDED GETAWAY HELICOPTER

The BAD GUYS are making their desperate escape but the helicopter is lurching under the weight of the AK-toting villains and their purloined loot.

MINOR/DISPOSABLE VILLAIN: It's too crowded in here!

LEAD VILLAIN (archly): I couldn't agree more.

The Lead Villain tosses the Minor/Disposable Villain from the helicopter, thus lightening the load.

I guess what I'm saying is I love the no-honor-among-thieves cliché (and I just thought of an example while writing this: Russell Crowe dispatching Peter Fonda in the 3:10 TO YUMA remake).

Least-loved:

Jeff Buckley's cover of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah; John Cale's cover of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah; anybody's cover of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah; the Hallelujah chorus; etc. ... all used to telegraph what those things typically telegraph. You know what I mean.

2) Regardless of whether or not you eventually caught up with it, which film classic have you lied about seeing in the past?

The only instance of this that springs to mind is a conversation I had with a friend wherein I faked my way through knowing the plot of 61*, that HBO telefilm about the 1927 Yankees, hardly a "film classic". I even guessed enough plot points correctly to pull the deception off. What I could have possibly gained from this lie is beyond me. I think we were having an agreeable conversation and I didn't want it to fall into awkward silence.

With the internet, it's a lot easier to feign knowledge of these things. So I could pretend to have seen a few Tashlin films to help boost my score. But I won't.

3) Roland Young or Edward Everett Horton?

Here's where my ignorance begins to infect the proceedings. They're both in RUGGLES OF RED GAP, a film long on my to-see list (it's been rumored as a looming Criterion release for years). I have seen one film of Young's (THE PHILADELPHIA STORY) and two of Horton's (ARSENIC AND OLD LACE and LOST HORIZON). I prefer PHILADELPHIA STORY to either of the other films so... Young.

4) Second favorite Frank Tashlin movie

I'd have to see one to even begin to fake my way through this. Sorry.

5) Clockwork Orange-- yes or no?

Yes. Admittedly, I'm not as enthusiastic as I was when I first saw it at the age of 21 (the night before the Columbine massacre, oddly enough). But I hold that it's one of the few adaptations that's better than the book. I find Burgess' "but I've grown out of all that raping and violence stuff" coda worth discarding in favor of Kubrick's "I was cured alright."

6) Best/favorite use of gender dysphoria in a horror film (Ariel Schudson)

Great question. And I'm pretty out of my league here, too. Can a case be made for DEAD RINGERS in this category? Obviously, Elliot and Beverly have their share of identity crises without bringing gender into the equation. ALIEN RESURRECTION also pops in my head for some reason.

7) Melanie Laurent or Blake Lively?

The only two pieces of evidence I can weigh in this case are:

EXHIBIT A: Lively channeling Amy Ryan in THE TOWN

EXHIBIT B: "Cat People (Putting Out the Fire)"

The jury's verdict is unanimous (see the picture above).

8) Best movie of 2011 (so far…)

CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS. I'm lucky I saw it Friday because, otherwise, my answer would have been SOURCE CODE, a fine enough film but I've already quite forgotten it.

9) Favorite screen performer with a noticeable facial deformity (Peg Aloi)

Skelton Knaggs. I first noticed him during his brief walk-on in ISLE OF THE DEAD. Then, in rapid succession, I saw THE LODGER, GHOST SHIP, and BEDLAM.

10) Lars von Trier: sh*thead or misunderstood comic savant? (Dean Treadway)

I'm going to cop out and say both. I get a pass on this since it's based on a false dichotomy. ANTICHRIST straddles both of these sides rather perfectly.

11) Timothy Carey or Henry Silva?

I really like Henry Silva. I do. But this trumps everything.

12) Low-profile writer who deserves more attention from critics and /or audiences

It's these types of questions where I find myself too downstream from all the people who have dedicated their lives to sussing out these sort of guys. I think James Gray gets better with each script. That Dostoyevsky adaptation was amazing. But doesn't Gray get enough attention from critics if not audiences? Can I shamelessly plug my own unsold/unproduced work here?

13) Movie most recently viewed theatrically, and on DVD, Blu-ray or streaming

DVD - BLACK DEATH [score: 58/100]

Theater - CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS [83]

Streaming - THE WINDMILL MOVIE [72]

14) Favorite film noir villain

But this is impossible. Laird Cregar in THIS GUN FOR HIRE and I WAKE UP SCREAMING and Lawrence Tierney in BORN TO KILL are the immediate candidates. But... come on. It's like a forty-way tie for first.

15) Best thing about streaming movies?

Seeing Peter Watkins' THE WAR GAME and William Cameron Menzies THE MAZE, just to name a couple eenie-meenine-miney-moes my wife and I have recently test drove on Netflix.

16) Fay Spain or France Nuyen? (Peter Nellhaus)

Being wholly unfamiliar with their work, I'd have to do a Google Image Search. And I'm not lowering myself to that.

17) Favorite Kirk Douglas that isn’t called Spartacus (Peter Nellhaus)

Part of me wants to say 20,000 LEAGUES just so I don't have to say the obvious (ACE IN THE HOLE).

18) Favorite movie about cars

ROGER & ME.

19) Audrey Totter or Marie Windsor?

For the right reasons and the Google Image Search reasons.

20) Existing Stephen King movie adaptation that could use an remake/reboot/overhaul

Ugh. Who cares? Aren't there other unsung horror writers with stories to tell? There should be a moratorium on King adaptations until at least one competent Lovecraft film is released. Or more M. R. James-based screenplays. Barring that, I'd say DREAMCATCHER. And I'd say it with malice.

21) Low-profile director who deserves more attention from critics and/or audiences

See my answer to number 12. Lodge Kerrigan, if I have to choose.

22) What actor that you previously enjoyed has become distracting or a self-parody? (Adam Ross)

I'm not a fan of taking swipes at fading matinee idols. But: Harrison Ford.

23) Best place in the world to see a movie

The Egyptian Theater, during Noir Fest.

24) Charles McGraw or Sterling Hayden?

25) Second favorite Yasujiro Ozu film

Not really qualified seeing as, other than TOKYO STORY, I've only seen snippets of his films.

26) Most memorable horror movie father figure

Off the top of my head:

27) Name a non-action-oriented movie that would be fun to see in Sensurround (Sal Gomez)

MOTHLIGHT. (Yeah I'm getting glibber. What of it?)

28) Chris Evans or Ryan Reynolds?

I've been in Reynolds' corner since THE NINES.

29) Favorite relatively unknown supporting player, from either or both the classic and the modern era

Skelton Knaggs again.

30) Real-life movie location you most recently visited or saw

I think we passed the motor inn(s) from the last section of SOMETHING WILD last time we journeyed up US301.

31) Second favorite Budd Boetticher movie

COMANCHE STATION. SEVEN MEN FROM NOW is my favorite as of right now.

32) Mara Corday or Julie Adams?

OKAY. You got me. My decision is based solely on the Google Image Search:

33) Favorite Universal-International western

Another tough one. WINCHESTER '73 is hard to beat.

34) Favorite actress of the silent era

Maya Deren

35) Best Eugene Pallette performance (Larry Aydlette)

Pass.

36) Best/worst remake of the 21st century so far? (Dan Aloi)
Not exactly the best but I think that Demme did right by both of his. I'm not a fan of CHARADE so I was particularly pleased with TRUTH ABOUT CHARLIE.

Worst: I thought it was unnecessary to remake PIRATES OF THE CARRIBBEAN all those times.

35) What could multiplex owners do right now to improve the theatrical viewing experience for moviegoers? What could moviegoers do?

Multiplex owners could use giant butterfly nets to apprehend those moviegoers who insist on sputtering their poorly arrived conclusions/bon mots at the screen. Or those moviegoers could just stay home.

Thanks for that test Dennis! Now I remember why I dropped out of school.

Still More 2010 Film Minutae

2011-04-04T09:07:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Steve Carlson, the 2010 Muriels ballots have been published. Mine is here. More later but a few quick caveats/errata:

- Upon further consideration, I believe Assayas' CARLOS to be the actual best picture of the year. Beyond it's socio-political significance, all 5 1/2 hours of it are enthralling. The only comparable recent film I can think of is Fincher's ZODIAC. Among many other things, CARLOS is a useful dissection of terrorism and how/why leftist factions and Islamic jihadists have historically made strange bedfellows. And it couldn't be more relevant than right now. Netflix Instant has it available in its entirety (not in the truncated American theatrical version).

- I meant to put Ben Mendelsohn (not Joel Edgerton) in the supporting actor category for ANIMAL KINGDOM.

- DOGTOOTH's Aggeliki Papoulia should have been #4 on the supporting actress list. Totally submitted a different draft of the ballot.

- I still haven't seen WHITE MATERIAL or ANOTHER YEAR. Both films are by directors whose work I usually admire. So, as with any of these lists, the results are subjective and mutable.

- Had I seen I'M STILL HERE before the deadline, I would've probably put Joaquin Phoenix in the #5 actor spot.

Dwell On These Things

2011-04-03T12:41:00.000-07:00

Cyril the Squirrel Holding a Blue Balloon, Eliot Tatler, 4/3/2011

After watching Hitler, reading interviews with members of the Khmer Rouge, editing a show about child abductors/murderers, vomiting my way through biographies of L. Ron Hubbard and Joseph Smith...

... it's important to take a Sunday and luxuriate in time well spent with my lovely wife and amazing daughters.

Selah.

The Road To Hell

2011-04-01T18:20:00.000-07:00

And my White Elephant assignment is...

... Leni Riefenstahl's turgid time capsule, TRIUMPH OF THE WILL. A film that Mick Jagger has sat through "at least fifteen times" (according to a citationless Wikipedia article).

Oh, White Elephant. I give you THE DEVILS and you hand me this?

I'm struck by how little there is to say about this Hitler hagiography. Obviously the whole affair is gilded with a cynical hindsight that the German people, circa 1934, didn't possess. I'm going to approach this thing with a series of random observations culled from the notes I made in illegible handwriting. And then I'm going to cleanse my palate with William T. Vollman's RISING UP AND RISING DOWN. Or a good night's sleep. Whichever comes first.

In brief, TRIUMPH details the September 1934 National Socialist Party Congress, held in Nuremberg. (About twelve years later, many of the prominent members of the Congress -- most notably Herman Goring and Rudolph Hess -- would be tried and sentenced to death in the same city.)

The film is all Sturm und Drang (forgive me): beating drums, mind-numbing marches, impassioned speeches filled with empty nationalist rhetoric, and lots of emphasis on the sheer scope of the damn thing. The numbers are astounding: an undoubtedly slanted Nazi census posits an attendance of upwards of 750,000 Germans.
Riefenstahl's cameras seem to corroborate this:

B-roll of swastika-bedecked buildings and fawning crowds is punctuated by the speeches of party members, most notably those of the Fuhrer himself:

Hitler's jingoistic diatribes are remarkable for their lack of substance and for their mutability. His lines about classless society and a state run by the people can fit interchangeably into our modern day definitions of Left and Right.

BUT HERE IS THE KEY THING, and it's a very important point to note in the age of Godwin's Law: I've lived to see just about every world leader with a modicum of power be compared to Hitler. Every American president from Reagan to Obama has been Hitlerized to suit the needs of partisan cry babies. And the big lesson I walk away from TRIUMPH OF THE WILL with is that we in America have been sheltered from and blessed by NEVER SEEING ANYONE REMOTELY LIKE HITLER.

Sorry to shout. But - unless you're talking about Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc. - Hitler comparisons are spurious and reductive and serve no purpose in reasoned, productive discourse. Hitler was a man in the right place at the right time with all of the wrong conclusions. Germany had suffered defeat and humiliation following the Great War. The Weimar Republic had fallen into decadence and wasn't attendant to the needs of regular volks. A populist leader with a patriotic message was needed to unite and rebuild Germany. For some reason, Adolf Hitler fit the bill.

The film is useful as a document of the religious fervor of the crowds. I wouldn't have believed it had I not seen the enraptured thousands.

Women and children press the edges of the crowd, Beatlemania-style, in the hopes of touching the heel of Hitler's jackboots.

It's the innocent, hopeful faces of the crowd that disturb more than anything. So many people wanted to believe in Hitler's hopeful message of a reborn, pure people. His Gospel of self-purification is, in many ways, truly an inverse (or anti-) of Christ's.

Speaking of, there's a pagan feeling to the proceedings. I'm not sure if it's just me bringing the baggage of Indiana Jones's characterization of Nazis as occult obsessives. A lot of the nighttime ceremony footage could be seamlessly intercut with Benjamin Christensen's HAXAN or Murnau's FAUST:

And, on more than one occasion, I thought of THE WICKER MAN. Something about brainwashed children beating on drums I guess:

Other randoms:

- I now feel wholly justified in my hatred of parades and marching band music. They were, apparently, the drug of choice for these genocidal maniacs.

- I never knew "sieg heil" meant "hail victory."

- While Resnais' NIGHT AND FOG is the obvious antidote for this garbage, there was something about the clean lines and perfectly arranged vectors of the mise-en-scene that reminded me of LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD:

And, it is important to note, Riefenstahl's had an impeccable eye (though I'm not sure how much of the production design and image-molding is due to Goebbels). So many of the images, stripped of their fascistic context, are absolutely stunning.

- I wish I had the time to listen to the historian's commentary and read Susan Sontag's piece on TRIUMPH before I wrote this. Oh well.

- If there's something familiar about the rows of S.S. and phalanxes of Nazi units

it's because George Lucas and Peter Jackson modeled the armies of Darth Vader and Sauron (respectively) on the Nazis. However, they weren't the first. Expert film blogger Matthew Dessem points out that Eisenstein beat them to it by a few decades.

- There's any eerie foreshadowing of Auschwitz, etc. in the pristine rows of Hitler Youth tents

and the skinny, half-clad denizens of the encampments:

One last note:

Antisemitism is obviously a big part of the subtext here. There are a few vague asides during the rally dedicated to eugenics and maintaining a pure race, but any full-blown hate speech was either cut around or saved for the after party. Sadly, the Nazis were just another chapter in a long history of hatred against the Jewish people. I think everyone should peruse the ADL's handy Myths and Facts to remind themselves that, while we've never seen anything like Hitler in our modern Information Age, the spirit that drove him always remains. At one point in TRIUMPH, Hitler even proudly notes that National Socialism began with a small group of seven people.

Atta Boy Mike

2011-04-01T05:09:00.000-07:00

(The salient detail, of course, being Timothy Carey's entrance in the above video around the 4:22 mark.)

Today marks the fifth annual White Elephant Blog, of which I'm honored (and vexed) to be a part. I'll be delivering my piece a little late, hopefully by the stroke of midnight. I won't give away the name of what I was assigned but I will say that it's the story of a failed painter who decides to get into politics and becomes god for a mercifully short period of time.

I submitted a movie which I think is a small masterpiece but has a (deserved) reputation for being BONKERS.

I can't get the above song out of my head this morning, hence the link.

Album of the Week: The Pretty Things - Parachute

2011-03-07T17:10:00.000-08:00

Ray Davies of the Kinks once said 'Whenever I want to hear new Beatles songs, I listen to Guided By Voices.' Which raises a good point: the boys from Liverpool ended their recording career four decades ago. Where to turn for "new Beatles songs?"

I often get pieces of song lyrics or scraps of melodies in my head and swear they belong to the Beatles, only to dislodge them and discover that they're in fact Pretty Things. This isn't to make claims that the Things were the proto Beatles (or even mere knockoffs). Rather, they belong to a fierce tradition of Fab Four acolytes, with their beginnings in R&B and subsequent psych transformation. Post-peak, the Things' output sounded more and more like watered down retreads of Abbey Road.

Their most notable album -- 1968's S.F. Sorrow -- could be accused of trading on the success of the '67 psych explosion of Sgt. Peppers, Their Satanic Majesty's Request, Piper at the Gates of Dawn, Bee Gees 1st, Forever Changes, etc. It's belabored concept -- about the life cycle of a British nobody -- allegedly inspired the Who's Tommy and Pink Floyd's The Wall.

While S.F. Sorrow is more cohesive in its conceptual structure, I prefer their 1970 opus, Parachute. The album is essentially a Rosetta Stone of a certain type of British rock and is a useful bridge between the psych '60s and '70s prog (and, at its worst, portends the wretched radio-friendly soft rock of schlocksters like Badfinger).

The album begins with a triptych: Scene One/The Good Mr. Square/She Was Tall, She Was High. The songs flow into each other without a breath, winding their way from a ominous tribal monotone, through a snide indictment of the eponymous Mr. Square, and arriving at triumphant, cloud-breaking praise of a girl who "nearly touched the sky." The lyrics, by the way, are cut from the same cloth as S.F. Sorrow's: salvos at the vulgar rich, yearnings for a simpler life, broad stroke portraits of conformist society.

Next comes another unbroken chain of three songs: In the Square, The Letter, and Rain. The music begins with an airy harmony, describing a favorite meeting place for two lovers. She leaves the city for the country, writes him a letter, and the music become playful to the point of jeering. Finally, we find the abandoned lover back in the square in the middle of the rain, alone and soaked.

These two mini trilogies represent the albums pinnacle. What comes after is a bit uneven, though still laced with some amazing work - particularly Wally Waller's Parliament-ary bass.

Beatle homage/ripoff appears throughout. Phil May's vocals even straddle the line between John Lennon's rasp and McCartney's melodic trill. The strummy ballad "October 26" hinges on a chorus that rhymes revolution with solution (this track - the only single to chart from this period - can only be found on the 2000 Snapper release, which includes singles and B-sides). "Summertime" would be right at home with the post-Faces output of Rod Stewart or some other MOR crap. Complete with whoos and yeahs! It's indicative of the depths of awfulness where the Things' derivative tendencies would take them in the late '70s/80s

Incidentally, I've heard rumors that this was the only Rolling Stone Album of the Year that never charted States-side. However, I've not been able to confirm any of this.

The first ten minutes of the album can be heard here and are very much worth your attention.

God's Lonely Man

2011-03-07T08:42:00.000-08:00

Giving up social media for Lent! Blog entries will still auto post. Six week break.

Later today: Album of the Week.

Stripper Blow

2011-03-06T09:30:00.000-08:00

The 2010 Muriel Awards wind to a close today with another round of smashing write-ups from the likes of Danny Baldwin, Patrick Williamson, James Frazier, Matthew Lotti, and others. Baldwin even made me rethink for a moment my apathy where Andrew Garfield's pallid screen presence is concerned. But then the moment passed.

Beginning at 1pm EST, the countdown to best picture will begin. I submitted a measly 197 words on WINTER'S BONE (pictured above, obviously). I found little to add to the ink that's already been spilled. As I say, it's a singular film, a rare Southern Gothic folk tale that doesn't aim to be some sort of liberal guilt social piece. BONE certainly moves Debra Granik to the top of my Can't Wait To See What's Next list.

Anyway, please stop by and explore the awards. They were a blast to participate in again this year and offer up a nice counterpoint to those other movie awards. At the very least, add OCTOBER COUNTRY, CARLOS, and VINCERE to your Netflix queue.

Thanks, as always, to Paul Clark and Steve Carlson, our very own Price Waterhouse Coopers.

(Regarding the post title: I'm ashamed to say that someone wound up here using the eponymous Google search. If you're reading this, I hope you went away empty-handed.)

(Don't) Touch Me, I'm Sick

2011-03-01T13:01:00.000-08:00

Behind on my proposed schedule due to some head-spinning, stomach-churning thing that's attacked me ere these last 48 hours or so. Bear with me...

Album of the Week: Mist King Urth

2011-02-28T14:43:00.000-08:00

Robert Pollard has been known to cite the "four Ps" - pop, punk, psych, prog - as the primary building blocks for his prodigious musical omniverse. Lifeguards, his coalition with former Guided By Voices bandmate Doug Gillard, explicitly emphasizes Pollard's prog predilections. I use "prog" here more to denote structural ambition than to reference the synth-based, conceptual long form works associated with the term.

While it's certainly not In the Court of the Crimson King or Wish You Were Here, Lifeguards' 2003 Mist King Urth (available, by the way, for a generous $5 over at Pollard's store or $9 as a digital download) does attempt to stretch beyond Pollard's reputation as the master of the concise pop song. Several tracks exceed three minutes and the album closer (Red Whips & Miracles) is a sprawling, cinematic piece that twists and turns through several change-ups before resting on a wailing guitar dirge that would make Mick Ronson a little envious.

Prog tropes and '70s flourishes - synth riffs, instrumental digressions, nature imagery, bombastic vocals, dissonant punctuation to minor-key melodies - are used sparingly, but Mist King Urth does manage to showcase yet another portal of Pollard's fevered aural imagination.

I dusted of Mist King Urth this past week in order to anticipate the release of Lifeguard's second album, Waving At The Astronauts. I have yet to dig deep enough into the work but, so far, it hews a lot closer to Pollard's output in GBV or Boston Spaceships than Mist King Urth does. Still, I dare you to listen to the first single, Paradise Is Not So Bad, and not be a little infected.

The Week Ahead

2011-02-27T11:45:00.000-08:00

If I can break away from my ever-important horticultural research, here's how I hope the upcoming week will shake out:

Monday: Album of the Week
Tuesday: 2010 Film Wrap-Up
Wednesday: Thoughts on Lionel Shriver's We Need to Talk About Kevin
Thursday: Pensées
Friday: A new approach to Freeday Friday

This is, of course, barring any unforeseen bouts of monsterism in my patients.

So far as this evening's self-congratulatory festivities are concerned, I think the stuffy Brit thing will win for picture and actor, that ridiculous ballet thing will take actress, the how-we-livin'-now movie will nab director, and etc. I can't bring myself to finish this thought.

By the way, this is still going on. Please check it out. Great write-ups this year:

Freeday Friday Continues Lazily

2011-02-25T13:37:00.000-08:00

Kind of phoning this one in today. Short story written 8+ years ago. Have at it. The cabin is meant to establish setting. It's the result of a two minute Google Image Search.

HIATUS

When I woke up, my instinct was to look at the clock, like I'd done every other time. Yep, 8AM. This time they'd stolen about ten hours. Less than the first time, more than in recent memory.

Yesterday'd been no different: Around ten at night, I was slicing up some strawberries to throw in the blender with the ice cream. The whole house was dim. I was working by the stove light, half looking out the window at the marsh. Shep was at my feet, begging even though he'd have no use for strawberries. I remember thinking it was cold, even for late September in Maine. Shep let out a crooked bark and strolled quickly out of the kitchen. A mustiness set over the room, as usual. Even though the kitchen windows were cracked, the room started to feel oppressive. Like an underground garage. Thick air; metallic, dusky smell.

The worst thing about it isn't the unaccounted time. It's the moment just before things go fuzzy. You feel a firm, but coldly gentle heaviness on your shoulders. Like someone's easing you into an armchair. Sometimes you fall, but it doesn't hurt when you hit the floor. You fall and it's like sinking into loose sand or dry mud. Just before I'm completely out of control, I always want to scream, but the scream gets stuck in my head. It's never allowed to leave.

During these times is when I've seen them. Maybe I'll catch a foot out of the corner of my eye while I'm down on the floor. Or one of them will start to peer into my face and the last thing I'll see before I totally fade are those black eyes. The eyes of a vivisector; professional and deadly. It's the color of their flesh that gets me though. A shade close to pale olive or marble gray. Like a cadaver's skin.

One morning, just after a two- or three-day "hiatus" (that's the polite word I use for these intrusions), I actually saw one in the yard. I guess it had tarried too long and forgot that I'd be awake. I looked out the window and just saw its back as it ran toward the stand of pine trees near the driveway. I stared long enough to see how awkward its body was. How ill-fitted it was for physical exertion. How tiny it was; the size of a four year-old.

I must have stared too long for somebody's liking because I hit the floor, this time writhing in pain. A terrible headache and loud whispers. I mean like somebody shouting whispered threats inside my head. It went on -- I guess -- long enough for them to leave.

One time, something must have gone wrong. I was jerked out of my hiatus briefly. Only I couldn't open my eyes or move my body. I was paralyzed, but my flesh was still sensitive. I could still feel. It was cold and dry.

It was like being in a dark room with your eyes shut, only someone in the room has a bright strobe light and he's got it aimed at your face. A flash! and then black. A flash! and then black, and so on…

I could hear a steady hum like an amplifier left on. I could also hear them chattering in their language, distant or real close, it was hard to tell. They spoke in guttural whispers, but it didn't sound vulgar. Very complicated. Very intelligent, I guess.

Paralyzed as I was, I just tried to listen for a while. I may have heard one of them singing. A syrupy sound, like bees or wasps, only more tonal. Then, a shout.

Apparently, they realized I was somewhat coherent. I felt a hundred dead fingertips grab me everywhere. Then, the strobe light stopped.

I've tried moving around the country, but they always find me. I've even tried telling people, at least at first, but I've pushed everybody away now. They think I'm quiet, I'm hiding something. If I find someone I trust enough to tell, they think I'm out of my mind. Wouldn't you? I would. I'd lump me in with the rest of those people, too. So Shep and me will stay here. I've learned to treat it like some folks treat dizzy spells or asthma attacks. I enjoy life, when I'm not on hiatus.

Music Monday Launch (Sort Of)

2011-02-21T13:31:00.000-08:00

This is all I got:

An almost completely ignored masterwork from 1993, featuring members of Yo La Tengo and Combustible Edison. Perhaps part of their obscurity is due to their completely unGoogleable name (the band, by the way, is Christmas; the album is Vortex).

The music itself is anthemic pop rock with bombastic flourishes that don't necessarily hold up to the thin production values. Here's hoping enough interest is drummed up to warrant a remaster.The male/female vocal harmonizing reminds me of some of the Pixies quieter output. (UPDATE: Actually, that's only superficially accurate. Their sound more resembles early efforts from SST folk-punk-pop outfits like the Minutemen or the Meat Puppets. Don't expect anything resembling other Matador acts from the era.)

Check out Iron Anniversary, kind of an indie rock "Total Eclipse of the Heart":

Seriously, track this thing down.

This is kind of a soft open for what I'd hoped would be a regular music entry on Monday. I still have some Muriel Awards/2010 in Film stuff to catch up on. Hope to have that up by Wednesday.

Inauguration of the Freeday Friday Dome!

2011-02-18T14:31:00.000-08:00

As threatened, here is the first installment of the horribly named Freeday Friday. The title itself is a homage to my former gym teacher, a colorful character who once summered on an air mattress in the middle of a lake. I hope to take up some future FreeFri space on that particular story. For now, this weekly feature will highlight old attempts at creative writing, fragments from my 15+ years of journals, doodles, etc.

Here are two pieces, both written while I was living in Los Angeles. I present these without editing and with only one comment: I was into "scare quotes" -- and hyphenated asides -- back then, wasn't I?

I. DREAM FRAGMENT (June 7th, 2002)

I left the party and stepped outside. I was suddenly in a place resembling my grandmother's front porch. Outside the house was a gnarled old oak, heavy-laden with particularly ghoulish vultures. A voice inside my head - not me, not my conscience, but someone totally outside of me - told me that I should pay attention. If I forgot everything else about the evening's dreams, the voice said, I was to remember this moment.

I was then privy to a "motion picture," a brief parable told almost like a silent film:

The man who lived in the house I was standing outside had taken a liking to the vultures in the tree. He wanted to care for them as pets. He expressed this by slaughtering animals daily and bringing them out for the carrion foul to feast upon. Day in and out, he could be seen walking out of his front door, covered in blood and holding the grizzled remains of an antelope (or whatever was on the menu).

One day, however, he forgot. Somehow, his "pets" slipped his mind. When he left his house, sans dead animal, the vultures descended upon him, pecking and clawing his flesh until he became the carcass du jour.

With that, the "parable" ended. The voice told me one more thing -- about "morality" -- which he said was not as important. I forgot it before I even woke up. So there you are.

II. FICTION FRAGMENT: "ENVY" (February 18th, 2003 - eight years ago)

Simon Nance took his usual seat at the usual table. He'd been coming here since sophomore year in high school. That was more than a few years of disappointments ago. Somehow Simon was 32, an unripe age. Youth slammed the door around the time he'd spurned college in favor of "independent life study." His classes included Working At Every Restaurant In Town (including this one), Chasing Every Eligible Slut In Town, Drinking By The River, and Listening To Gossip About Everybody Else. Years of aimlessness had been masked by certain routines. Visiting Ellen's Diner was one of them.

Every Friday, Simon sat down at this table, opened the newspaper, read the classifieds, and made notes in the margins. All the while, he sucked down briny coffee and nibbled furtively on a club sandwich and French fries.

He was looking for work. Always. There had to be something better. Had to be a few more dollars -- or even just cents -- floating around out there. More money meant more things, so he scanned the "Merchandise For Sale" column, too. Or lusted after the "USED VEHICLES - 4X4" section.

Today's classifieds were lousy. Same telemarketing and Amway schemes. Simon closed the paper early. Couldn't even muster the frivolity to look for something to buy.

At the counter sat a man Simon knew. Now, he knew everyone in these parts, but this fellow was different. This fellow had gone to high school with Simon. This fellow was somebody Simon hated. Charlie Coolidge.

"Coolie" had been an easy target. The halls of Nathan Bedford Forrest High sung with the clatter of Coolie's books hitting the floor, Coolie tripping over his conjoined shoelaces, Coolie yelping when he found his locker handle covered in glue, Coolie crying in the nurse's office, his face bloodied from another "stray" basketball.

Simon didn't naturally hate his targets. Most of the time, they were merely object lessons. Who they were didn't matter.

But Coolie never fought back. That was the fun and the misery. He took a beating, cried, and then was all smiles. Every time Simon saw that "aw shucks you guys" grin on Coolie's face, he wanted to rip Coolie's lips right off.

And now here he was, all grown up. Crouching at the counter, ordering a hamburger, flashing the leathery waitress that same dumb grin. Simon slid in the booth so that only his eyes - shielded by the brim of his baseball cap - were above the table.

He looked almost the same. Somewhat fuller, but still young. Simon had heard that Coolie moved to California. Where all the queers lived. Simon had knew it all along.

Coolie looked over and saw Simon. Simon sat up a little and narrowed his eyes. The flash of recognition. Not just any recognition. Coolie looked elated. He said Simon's name and asked if he could bring his cheeseburger to Simon's booth.

Simon nodded, but tried to keep his lack of enthusiasm apparent.

"How are you?"

"The same."

"What are you up to?"

"Just trying to get by."

"Man, I can't believe how much this place has changed."

"It's the same."

"I don't mean just the diner. The whole town is... I don't know... bigger, busier."

"Heard you're in California."

"Yeah. Never thought I'd move there. But it's nice. I miss the East, though."

"Well I'll never move there. All the killings. All the fires."

"That stuff... you just see the worst of it on the news."

"I am happy right here. Nothing wrong with this place."

"Definitely not. Heck, I miss it."

Coolie munched the rest of his fries. Simon motioned for the check.

"Boy! Remember how you guys used to get me in school? Pretty crazy."

"It was all just fun. No harm."

"Oh I know. Part of growing up. Everybody learns how to get over it."

"Maybe."
_______________________________________
REMINDER! - The Muriels continue in earnest. Today's award: BEST FILMS OF THE 1950s, which includes a thoughtful piece on Hitchcock's VERTIGO written by the estimable Kenji Fujishima. I'll have more to say about these, hopefully over the weekend. Furthermore, I may kick off Music Mondays on the 21st. Just typing that makes me dread the idea!

2010 Report Card and Muriels Fanfare

2011-02-15T18:55:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow, the honorable Steve Carlson and Paul Clark begin unveiling, day by day, the Muriel Awards. I'm honored to be a voter again this year, my second. In preparation, I figured I'd go ahead and list, in descending order, the 2010 films I saw that were eligible for the awards this year. I'm leaving out the top twenty in order to discuss them further and maintain the proper amount of suspense with regards to my ballot.

Now I know nobody reads this so I'm effectively nattering on to myself, in the style of a three am subway passenger. However, I hope in the coming days to actually start writing here more often. Movies, of course, will be on the docket. I'd also like to start picking my way through my impressive CD collection and write on some of my choice albums. Most importantly, this Friday I'll inaugurate Freeday Friday, a carnival of words and wonders to delight the mind and tickle the fancies. So there's that to look forward to.

Without further ado, my 2010 Movie Report Card (asterisks indicate films I have full intention to explore in future posts):

ALL IS GRACE [100 - 90]
TBA

THE STUFF DREAMS ARE MADE OF [89 - 75]
TBA

LIGHT FANTASTICS [74 - 65]

THE DISAPPERANCE OF ALICE CREED (74)*
WILD GRASS (74)
ENTER THE VOID (73)*
SWEETGRASS (73)
A PROPHET (73)
THE KILLER INSIDE ME (71)*
INCEPTION (70)
FROZEN (70)
RABBIT HOLE (69)
EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOT (68)
HADEWIJCH (68)*
THE BOOK OF ELI (68)
COOL IT (68)
PLEASE GIVE (68)
ANIMAL KINGDOM (67)
THE EXPLODING GIRL (66)*
BLACK SWAN (66)
GREENBERG (66)
JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT: THE RADIANT CHILD (65)
THE SQUARE (65)

PANIS ET CIRCENSES [64 - 50]
CATFISH (64)
BIUTIFUL (63)*
WINNEBAGO MAN (63)
ECCENTRICITIES OF A BLOND-HAIRED GIRL (63)
NEVER LET ME GO (62)*
TALES FROM THE SCRIPT (61)
127 HOURS (60)*
BLUE VALENTINE (60)
HOW DO YOU KNOW (60)*
FOUR LIONS (60)*
THE AMERICAN (59)
THE TOWN (58)
SALT (56)
SPLICE (56)
HOWL (55)*
THE WOLFMAN (55)
IRON MAN 2 (54)
VALHALLA RISING (53)*
DOGTOOTH (53)*
BURIED (52)
CYRUS (51)
DAYBREAKERS (50)
BROOKLYN'S FINEST (50)

PHANTOM MENACES [49- 35]
EDGE OF DARKNESS (48)
RED RIDING: THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1974 (47)*
CHLOE (44)
PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2 (43)
THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET'S NEST (37)
THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (37)
HARRY BROWN (35)*
EAT PRAY LOVE (35)

FAILURES TO COMMUNICATE [34 - 21]
DATE NIGHT (33)
KNIGHT AND DAY (30)
RED RIDING: THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1980 (26)*
VALENTINE'S DAY (26)
CROPSEY (22)

SLIMY PIECES OF WORM-RIDDEN FILTH [20 - 0]
RED RIDING: THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1983 (17)*

Yikes! That bored even me!

Hopefully I'll get the hang of this blogging thing before long. Here's a palate cleaner, from Catherine Breillat's hypnotic BLUEBEARD:

Remember: tomorrow = Muriels!

DisPASSION

2010-06-16T23:47:00.000-07:00

[Backstory: I opted to be a part of the White Elephant Blog and some monster assigned a Ken Russell film to me. I got what I deserved since I gave some poor sap ROLLER GATOR. All of the participants and their assignments can be found over at Paul Clark’s site.]

When the above title card appeared – less than a minute in to Ken Russell’s 1984 CRIMES OF PASSION – I confess I chortled like a tubby eighth grader. Over the next hundred minutes or so, my puerile tittering would receive its due punishment.

PASSION is essentially one protracted giggle at dicks, bush, and everything in between. Tellingly, the film opens with a character telling a joke that was probably pulled from one of those “UNCLE DIRTY’S BEST XXX-RATED HUMOR” tomes you see for sale at seedy rest stops.

The filmmakers promise a scandalous exploration of forbidden sexuality and delivered a silly meander through Zalman King territory. While they’re at it, they throw in a ham-fisted expose of (perceived) suburban ennui.

After the credits, we open on a group therapy session. The group’s purpose is unclear. They apparently gather to swap dirty jokes and jab at each other for being too lecherous, not getting laid enough, getting laid too much… not sure. The camera pans over from respectable actor Bruce Davison – who will have less than ten lines in the whole film, despite being among the top-billed – to John Laughlin, an actor who gets one of those coveted “and introducing… “ credits:

Take a good look at Laughlin’s expression. It’s the only arrow in his thespian quiver. He will use it to express ecstasy, anger, joy, thinking, etc.

Laughlin plays Bobby, a regular sorta all-American guy. Bobby is teased by the group for being a Boy Scout without any sexual baggage. He claims he’s just there to support his friend (Davison) while insisting he has a perfectly good marriage and sex life. OR DOES HE?!

Next we meet Kathleen Turner as China Blue:

She’s one of those such-and-such-by-day/hooker-by-night characters that are a staple of this sort of film. Here she’s giving a patriotic speech while the Casio soundtrack lazily plays some sort of synth Battle Hymn.

The camera slowly pulls back to reveal:

She’s with a john! Who has asked her to adopt the persona of Miss Liberty, southern patriot with a Blanche Dubois affectation! She’s proclaiming her love for God, country, and middle American values while participating in illicit sex! SUB-VERSE-IVE!!!!

Everything in PASSION – subtext, context, text – is broadcast through a deranged megaphone.

Now we meet our second antagonist:

Poor Anthony Perkins plays a deranged priest. Originally, the character was a shoe salesman; Perkins and Russell thought making him a man of the cloth would be a better swipe at the Middle American values they were seeking to undermine.

Perkins is introduced at a peep show, snorting amyl nitrate, and fantasizing about killing the lady in the booth. And he’s a priest. Again: SUBVERSIVE!

Meanwhile, here’s a post-fellatio China Blue with her john:

Note the color shift in the background. Every scene set in Ms. Blue’s boudoir is constantly barraged by blinking neon light. I have a feeling Russell and Bush were going for some sort of lurid dualism: each person has a randy, neon-red sex maniac buried under their staid persona. Well, consider this square's mind BLOWN. Intent aside, the effect is headache-inducing.

Note also the lacy wallpaper pattern. We’ll get to that in a minute.

Throughout the film, Russell intercuts China Blue’s sexual dalliances with antique/ancient depictions of sex. The triptych above flashes onscreen while she’s turning her first trick. This is Ken Russell’s idea of SYMBOLISM, though I’m not sure exactly what it means (and, to listen to the commentary, neither is he).

Now we move on to Bobby’s home in dreaded suburbia:

On the commentary, screenwriter Barry Sandler sneers, “We set him up.” Russell agrees, chiming in: “John Laughlin plays a repressed American suburbanite … living in suburbia with his middle class wife and his middle class children in his middle class house, wondering why he’s unfulfilled.”

Here is his middle class wife, played by a pre-Designing Women Annie Potts:

This is her “I’m plotting some shrewin’” expression, one that she’ll have to wear throughout most of her scenes. Unlike Laughlin, however, Potts comports herself with dignity in a role that has none.

Bobby and his wife are drifting apart, as Bush and Russell lay out explicitly for us with more SYMBOLISM:

Douglas Sirk, this aint. Bobby is content to run some sort of home security outfit and make enough to keep generic beer and plates of shredded meat on the table. Potts wants a hot tub, an obvious symbol of the repressed American bourgeois consumerist Middle Class life she longs for.

Here are their kids:

Note again the color shift. Other than the red light district, the only time the filmmakers play this little trick is when Bobby and his family are watching TV. Because suburbanites watching the telly are little better than whores. Or something.

Once Bobby and his wife have discussed the hot tub, some plotting kicks in. To pay for the tub, Bobby will have to take on extra work. He’s tasked with tailing a woman who works for a fashion design company. At night, the woman turns into China Blue.

China Blue is too mysterious and tantalizing for Bobby to resist. They end up having Quaaludes-n-sex in a ridiculously protracted scene shot all in silhouette. I forgot to get a frame grab from this sequence before shipping the film back to Netflix. You’ll have to use your imagination, something the creators of CRIMES OF PASSION failed to do most of the time.

Here is one scene where they did strain their creative powers to the fullest. It’s one of three sequences that cut to the quick of what the film IS. The first is the aforementioned Miss Liberty bit. I’ll get to the third later. But, if you wanted to check out the Cliff Notes of the film, this is really all you need.

Bobby and Wife are sitting, soul-deadened, watching their TV:

Some sort of program about an upper-class married couple comes on:

We’re immediately transported into some bizarre music video wherein the couple flaunt their riches…

... to Rick Wakeman playing a photographer...

(Incidentally, Wakeman contributes a score that probably took him fifteen minutes to compose; it’s an eight-note riff on Dvorak’s New World Symphony which, Russell points out, is a subtle reference to both America and Roger Corman’s New World Pictures, who distributed the film.)

The married bourgeoisie’s prized possessions are suddenly sucked up into the air...

… and dropped into a swimming pool (an echo of Bobby’s wife’s longed-for hot tub, perhaps):

They dive after them...

... and become ossified caricatures of themselves:

Eat your heart out, Sam Mendes!

This sequence is where I became suspicious that the film was perhaps a parody of an expose of the soul-crushing nature of the American suburbs.That’s the difficulty of CRIMES OF PASSION: it’s so good at being so bad. Russell’s no slouch. He (and Bush) know what they’re doing.

However, if the commentary is any indication, Russell earnestly means every frame as an indictment of American Values. (To be fair, Russell actually spends most of the commentary apolitically, preferring to spout lazy double entendres meant to bring the conversation back around to his favorite subjects: dicks, bush, and the like.)

The film is writ so large and purple, it’s hard to admire it even when it is effective. For instance, after China Blue and Bobby have their sex-a-thon, Anthony Perkins stabs a stripper to death. Cribbing from Nicholas Roeg at his most schizophrenic, Russell intercuts the murder of the flesh-and-blood stripper with the “murder” of a blow-up doll:

The scene manages to be effectively unsettling but undermines itself with a murder weapon that's impossible to take seriously:

Yes. That IS a sharpened sex toy.

The plot moves along. Newly liberated Bobby and his wife have friends over for a barbecue. They are snippy with each other. He keeps threatening her with an act called “the HP.” She begs him not to “do the HP.”

Rather than give in to her henpecking, Bobby appears on their deck in full HP regalia:

Yes, “HP” = “human penis.” It’s one of the most humiliating things I’ve seen an actor do (Carice Van Houten’s vat-o’-feces in BLACK BOOK is the only contender). I can’t think of a better “actor” to fill the role of the HP than John Laughlin.

Bobby’s wife is (quite justifiably) horrified, disgusted, and disappointed in her spouse:

However, I honestly believe that Russell expects us to side with Bobby here. To see the wife as a repressive killjoy and delight in Bobby’s libertine sexuality.

After the HP debacle (too bad, by the way, the film bombed at the box office; the potential tie-in with Hewlett Packard never materialized), Bobby and wife have a stony evening in bed where she confesses her distaste and shyness where sex is concerned.

Here’s more of Russell’s SYMBOLISM:

Remember how I mentioned the lacy pattern on the wall of China Blue’s whore hideaway? It’s difficult to tell from the screen grab, but the same pattern is used by Bush and Russell here, superimposed over the icy couple. You see, the lacy sex net of China Blue has been cast over Bobby. There’s no turning back!

Bobby breaks it off with his wife and goes to China Blue’s actual home. Here they fight over something I can’t remember:

I took the screen grab to show Turner’s bizarre, Timothy Carey-ish expression, one she wears throughout the film (and her career). It’s her default setting when she’s not hamming it up as China Blue.

After they argue and make up, Bobby and China Blue have sex in her apartment. Bush and Russell back-light their languid lovemaking under amber sheets, giving it an almost embryonic appearance:

Back to the womb for Bobby!

Instead of intercutting this sex session with antique depictions of naughtiness, Russell zooms in on Klimt’s “Kiss.”

Apparently, sleeping with a hooker when she’s off-duty represents a return to innocence.

CRIMES builds to the inevitable climax wherein Preacher Perkins attempts to kill China Blue because she’s a sinful harlot. Again, poor Perkins:

This is the third scene that tells you all you need to know about the film: Russell believes putting a blade-wielding Perkins in a wig and dress is a sly, winking homage. I needn’t tell you that it comes off instead as a cheap insult so broad in its “knowingness” it would be at home in a Friedberg/Seltzer film. I'm ashamed to post this on the fiftieth anniversary of PSYCHO.

Perkins is thwarted and Bobby and China Blue are reconciled. We find ourselves back in group therapy:

Though the facial expression has changed very little, Bobby informs us that he’s found a happy, vibrant relationship with his new lover. Things are unsure and unstable but they’re both keeping it real and not hiding from who they really are blah blah blah. To send us on our way, he looks directly into the camera and says something to the effect of: “And we sure f*ck each other’s brains out.” Smirk. End credits. Two more frame grabs:

John Laughlin, actor:

Annie Potts, summing up my reaction:

Great Band Names

2009-11-02T12:45:00.000-08:00

An ongoing list:

The Alfred Bitchcocks
The Ninety-Five Feces (an anti-Protestant hardcore act)
Faggots for the Witch-Burning (taken from a photo caption in a book on Carl Th. Dreyer)