Three films a day

#97, 12/26 – The Naked Kiss (1964) (dvd)

Ew.

OK, I must not have been in the right frame of mind to see this. While I think I get why Fuller made this one, I found the whole thing far more disturbing than he probably intended. At least I’m assuming I wasn’t supposed to be as weirded out by the way the story was framed as by the story itself. But maybe I’m wrong.

#96, 12/25 – Our Brand is Crisis (2005) (dvd)

I think Our Brand is Crisis is a fascinating glimpse into at least three deeply connected issues: Globalization, privatization vs. nationalization of natural resources, and the growing number of populist governments in South America. Of course it only offers very tangential glimpses into those issues, because its focus is the 2002 campaign of Goni and the events which led to the eventual rise to power of Evo Morales. And it’s all told through the lens of Goni’s political conultants, the boys and girls at Greenberg Carville Shrum.

My fascination with the bigger issues I mention probably helped me appreciate the story Rachel Boynton put on the screen. I think it’s a solid documentary about how elections have become almost exclusively about marketing candidates. And how that can backfire. At one point near the beginning of the film Boynton asks Jeremy Rosner “what went wrong?” (after Goni was successfully elected but eventually forced to flee Bolivia because he made a number of, um, unpopular decisions). Rosner’s answer is interesting in its way, but it misses the point. They sold a pithy solution (Si se puede!) to a complicated situation and then were shocked and amazed when it blew up in their faces. They should be surprised it doesn’t happen more often.

#95, 12/25 – The King (2005) (dvd)

I admire The King largely because the story in it is messy and the characters aren’t quite as simple as they first appear to be. As soon as our protagonist, a lad named Elvis (“and thus the title!”, as we used to say in college), makes his first of many rather poor choices I thought “gosh, what backdoor are they gonna use to get him out of this mess?”. I was rather surprised by their response to my question.

I’ll admit that at this point in my film-watching life I am, perhaps, a bit cynical. And it being a day where I felt the rare urge to talk back to a movie in the privacy of my home, at every point where Elvis had to make a decision I yelled out “Do foo“, where ‘foo’ was the one thing I didn’t think the filmmakers would ever make him do.

He invariably did ‘foo’.

It’s not the filmmakers’ boldness with Elvis’s choices which made me all right with the film, though. What got me was that they were honest about the reprecussions. In other hands, this would have been a black comedy or an over-the-top thriller. Here, it was something far simpler and far more effective.

#94, 12/24 – Don’t Come Knocking (2005) (dvd)

What on earth is going on here? In a span of little more than a year (if that), there were, at least, three independent films involving middle-aged men who discovered they’d fathered at least one adult-aged child they’d never known about. In 2004, Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach (both still in their thirties, so I don’t get their motivation) created The Life Acquatic with Steve Zizou which features Bill Murray as the unwitting father. Last year, Jim Jarmusch put Bill Murray in a similar role for Broken Flowers. And this Sam Shepard/Wim Wenders collaboration, also from 2005, closes out the trie (with Shepard himself taking on the father role, perhaps to disabuse audiences of the impression that Bill Murray was the only virile bachelor-slut of the early 80s). Can a John Sayles movie with Chris Cooper as the father be all that far behind? (I’m being facetious, but don’t bite my head off if he’s actually already done it—although I’ve been itching to, I haven’t seen a Sayles movie since the beautiful Limbo.) (Ha, wait. I totally forgot, there was also Duncan Tucker’s Transamerica, yet another 2005 film with this theme in it.)

I guess it’s a trend which makes sense. Movies about unknowing fathers can be about finding peace. About connecting to something or someone left behind. About reflecting on a life lived and coming to grips with past sins. Without much hassle you can turn on your metaphor machine and find any number of other ways in which these individuals may reflect something in society at large. And there’s probably a lot of metaphoric stuff going on in these movies.

But I’m gonna keep it personal. On the list of grevious transgressions men can commit, I don’t think there’s any more salvageable than (and arguably there are few as tragic as) unknowingly absent fatherhood. If you apply the Kite Runner idea that all crime is theft, I suppose all of these men are guilty of taking their childrens’ right to grow up knowing their biological father. (And as I recall, in each movie the kids grew up without a second parent figure at all. I could be misrembering, though, expecially in the case of Broken Flowers and The Life Acquatic.) There’s some mitigation in there. Obviously. Twenty years of ignorance is hell of a mitigator, in fact. There are other mitigators, as well. And besides, I said salvageable. None of these films feature scoundrels.

Still, although not a scoundrel, Howard is a serial fugitive. Ironically, Howard only found out about his kids because he was running away from another responsibility. Which begs the question: Had he known about the children he sired in Butte, Montana before the events of the film (and he might have known if he hadn’t been so busy running; Doreen contacted Howard’s mother to get word to Howard about his son, but fugitive Howard went something like thirty years without speaking to his mother) would he have visited them? I find that highly doubtful, given Howard’s seeming need for flight. And, again, the whole point is he didn’t know about them because he kept running. It wasn’t that he was unkowing because secrets were held from him. No, he simply didn’t bother with being reachable. Some may argue that he was a Hollywood actor and therefore always reachable, but even his mother couldn’t get a hold of him. It’s not the job, it’s something at the core of his being. His is a soul which is awfully reminiscent of the spirit found in something like Fred Neil’s, um—his entire first solo album, actually—“Gone Again”.

#93, 12/23 – Domino (2005) (dvd)

“This ain’t Sunset Boulevard”. No kidding.

In the movie Domino delivers that line simply to tell us that her voiceover was not being given posthumously. She was not Bill Holden telling us a story from beyond the grave after being shot in the back by [cue Sally Field] “Gloria Fucking Swanson”. But you can happily apply “this ain’t Sunset Boulevard” to various and sundry parts of Domino and the statement remains ever true. Of course, this is where it all gets a bit odd. Since there was a a real-life bounty hunter named Domino Harvey and she did die a few months before this film was released, it’s somewhat odd to have this thriller/semi biopic exist. But exist it does, though it makes no pretentions about its high degree of fictiousness.

Tony Scott makes junk. Sometimes it’s unbearable, sometimes it’s thoroughly enjoyable. But it’s all junk. And one needed only see the trailer for Domino to know that Tony didn’t tap into wherever it is that his brother occasionally finds inspiration. No, no. Domino was surely as junky as anything he’d done before. And, having sat through it now I can reassure you that it really is a heap of junk.

Someone on IMDB referred to Black Dahlia as “smartly idiotic”. Although I think that’s a charitable reading of De Palma’s film, I think it’s a fairly apt description of the parts of Domino I liked most.

I must admit I laughed out loud when Choco the bounty hunter (Edgar Ramirez) stopped a fleeing frat boy by, I could not make this up if I wanted to, hurling a TV from a second-story perch through the windshield of the fugitive’s BMW. (Choco, clearly no fan of the tube, would later toss a chair through another tv.) After the car stopped, Choco leapt onto the trunk, yanked the boy from his seat, and cuffed him. All while wearing sunglasses, of course. Cameras were on hand to catch the action for a new reality tv show, but on-looking television executive Mark Heiss (Christopher Walken) remarked that the takedown was “too psychotic”. Did I mention that the reality show is hosted by Ian Ziering and Brian Austin Green? (Which isn’t an entirely random “where are they now?” moment, by the way. In the story Domino’s mother moved from England to Beverly Hills in the early 90s because of 90210.)

“Smartly idiotic” does, more or less fit the bill for a scene like that. Or plain old “ridiculous”. Take your pick.

Of course, if we’re playing a word association game and you say “Tony Scott’s movies”, you better believe “ridiculous” is the first word which would come to my mind. If you think Top Gun, for instance, wasn’t ridiculous I’m just going to have to respectfully disagree. But even if that aspect of Scott’s moviemaking hasn’t changed, I will admit that with Domino he is way more up front about it than ever. The Sam Kinison Monument? Now, that’s ridiculous.

If there hadn’t been a real-life Domino Harvey, and if the movie hadn’t been in development for years and years, I honestly would have wondered if the whole movie was just an excuse for the line “Nancy Reagan turned out to be a sex addict named Howie Stein”. (Or maybe, “Your sons have been kidnapped by these crazy game show hosts from The WB.”)

#92, 12/22 – Eros (2004) (dvd)

Is it proof that I’m getting smarter that I would only watch this for free? Or is it proof that I never learn since I still watched it? Probably a little or each.

Honestly, I think multi-segment, multi-director movies suck. I can’t think of a single cinematic release done in this way which I’ve liked. The first one which comes to mind is Aria, which I consider the third circle of Hell. And then there’s New York Stories, which I probably should give a second chance, because it’s been forever, but… I didn’t like it. Oh, and there’s Spirits of the Dead which I’m actually rather mixed on but I have an easy time saying bad things about it.

One person I know—who loves Spirits of the Dead and thinks I’m nuts to hate Aria—might be quick to point out that I’ve rated both of HBO’s If These Walls Could Talk movies favorably. (In fact, in retrospect, it’s probably If These Walls Could Talk 2, which I caught a few weeks before I saw Dick, that set me on the long road to liking Michelle Williams). Yeah, but 1) they’re tv movies (and I did say cinematic releases), 2) they’re the exception to the rule. HBO also did Women and Men: Stories of Seduction, and that was a train wreck.

Anyway, if ever there was going to be a short film compilation of this sort I was gonna like, it would have to be Eros, yeah? My kind of subject. My kind of directors. My kind of actors. Hell, and Caetano Veloso did a song for it. Surely I’d like it, right?

Not so much.

OK, I liked Wong Kar Wai’s opening segment, even if it felt par for the course to me. I was, admittedly, totally perplexed by Steven Soderbergh’s segment. And, though I got Antonioni’s segment, I didn’t care for it.

I think my problem with these themed short film compilations is that I find the shifts in rhythm and tone too jarring. (In fact, I think that’s what I like about the If These Walls Could Talk series. I think the segments cohere pretty well.) I’m guessing I should admit that they’re not for me and just give up on them.

#91, 12/21 – Rest Stop (2006) (dvd)

Free rental promotions, gotta love them. On Tuesday and Wednesday I grabbed a whole bunch of DVDs from a video store which needn’t be named and paid nary a cent for them. Boy did that feel good.

With such ridiculous liberty comes choices I wouldn’t normally make. (Freedom’s just another word for “I don’t give a fuck”.) It’s been a while since I’ve gotten a 3am movie fix, so my free rentals were mosly in service of finding as much potentially watchable junk as I could.

Rest Stop, a movie I’d never even heard of, came to my apartment because the blurb on the box reads “Rest Stop is hauntingly realistic… in the style of the original version of The Vanishing“. You really just have to mention Spoorloos, and I’m there.

Blurbs are misleading, of course. That’s part of the promotion game and I applied the appropriate seasoning when I read it but, again, you mention Spoorloos, I’m there. Of course, after I watched the movie (and chuckled at how the blurb was even further off than I imagined), I dug up a longer version of it online. The added context was worth something:

“While most horror movies fall into the zombie, vampire or monster-on-the-loose theme, ‘Rest Stop’s’ reflection of something that could happen in every day life is hauntingly realistic… in the style of the Dutch version of ‘The Vanishing’”

Ha. Quite a difference. This is why I tend not to pay attention to blurbs in the first place.

Even with the added conext, I disagree with the reviewer. But I’ll say this much: Sure, the basic situation for Rest Stop is genuinely frightening (and, yes, frightening in the same way Spoorloos was). I mean, losing track of your loved one at a rest stop is certainly much more in the realm of possibility than being overrun by zombies. Still. Rest Stop departs from anything considered “real” at the very point of “the vanishing”. And delves into the “what the…?” territory right quick. What makes Spoorloos one of the finest horror films I’ve ever seen is that it doesn’t depart the realm of basically plausible. Ever. You may have some questions and some things seem like one-in-a-million, but you’re not ready to roll your eyes. Rest Stop is all about the eye-rolling.

If I’d bothered with the back of the box I would have discovered that it was nasty-gory and I would have given it a pass. But, hey, I got it for nothing so I definitely won’t complain about being short-changed.

#90, 12/20 – The Sisters (2005) (dvd)

I don’t think I’ve ever loved a cast as completely as I do the cast for The Sisters. I’m not so thrilled with the movie itself, though.

There’s a part of me which thinks the movie’s kind of, maybe, a teeny weeny bit overwrought is all. At least that’s the general impression I had when the end credits rolled. But… I dunno if that’s really my issue with it. All I know is whatever my problem is, I don’t blame the cast in the least. Or the director. Or the screenwriter. Or Chekhov (well, this is only “loosely based” on The Three Sisters so Anton’s really got nothing to worry about). Really, I don’t know who to blame, I just know that at the end of it all something somewhere didn’t feel right. But I can’t put my finger on what I didn’t like. Frustrating, that.

It’s definitely more stage than screen but if you’re OK with watching filmed plays there is entertainment to be had here. Lots of it, in fact. Many of the lines are sharp and enjoyable and delivered quite wonderfully. But somewhere in there, maybe in the last fifteen minutes(?), I sort of lost touch with it and felt somewhat displeased. I just wish I could figure out why.

#89, 12/20 – Down in the Valley (2005) (dvd)

Hmmm. I liked it, sorta. More for the effort than the result, I think, but this is one of those films I’ll probably still be thinking about in a year’s time. Like I said back when I wrote up À tout de suite I like movies about people breaking away. This isn’t actually such a movie—it’s more about a flirtation with breaking away, an alliuring proposition which one ultimately thinks better of —but it bears some similarity to movies like À tout de suite all the same. Really, are Bada and Harlan all that different? What makes Lili choose one way and October choose another? Is it that the interest Tobe’s father shows in his daughter’s situation (however clumsy and scary) is greater than Lili’s father’s almost complete disinterest? Or is it that Tobe feels a special loyalty to her younger brother while Lili seems to loathe her older sister? (Also, one is based on true events while, as far as I know, the other is pure cinematic fiction.) Whatever the reason(s), the proposition which for Lili became a risky reality was for Tobe merely an interesting fantasy but one she was never going to indulge in. But which character came had a worse experience? I’m not sure I can say.

#88, 12/19 – Slither (2006) (dvd)

Detective Cameron: I got good news and bad news girls. The good news is your dates are here.
Sorority Sister: What’s the bad news?
Detective Cameron: They’re dead.

—from Fred Dekker’s Night of the Creeps

I think I was fifteen when I saw Night of the Creeps, and the exchange I quoted is the only specific thing I could recall about it. Most of what I remembered was about its tone and attitude. It wasn’t a comedy, really, but it had some comic edge to it. So, while I was watching Slither and chuckling along with it, I kept saying to myself “Gosh, this is such a throwback to the 80s” or “I feel like I’m watching something like Night of the Creeps”. It was a very refreshing experience (and also a kind of gross one) because it’d been a while since I’d seen a horror movie with an attitude like this, and a set of good, likeable leads. (And Nathan Fillion, Elizabeth Banks, Gregg Henry, and Tania Saulnier are all quite likeable). I definitely had a good time.

When the movie was over I went to YouTube to see if anyone had posted the trailer to Night of the Creeps because I wanted to see if it would jog my memory. Oh. It seems Night of the Creeps and Slither have much more in common than I originally realized. I knew I’d seen a movie a long time ago which featured slimy things which got in people’s mouths. I just didn’t remember it was Night of the Creeps. Ha. Funny how memory works.

BTW, Slither’s trailer, which I’d never seen before, is kind of brilliant.

#87, 12/17 – The Dead Girl (2006) (nqpdd)

If I have one teeny regret about Karen Moncrieff’s second feature film, The Dead Girl, it’s that I didn’t get to spend more time with certain characters. The stories of Toni Collette’s Arden, Rose Byrne’s Leah, and Mary Beth Hurt’s Ruth all deserve their own movies. But my wanting more in this case isn’t really about being dissatisfied with what I got. No way. I am perfectly happy with what happened and I look forward to seeing it again (next month on the big screen…. when it actually releases in theatres). It’s just that every time one of the characters I really liked faded from view I realized “crap, I probably won’t see them again”, and I felt a little sad. And here’s the funny thing about it. It’s not that these characters were somehow new and different. But Moncrieff’s treatment of them was so engaging, I really wanted them to stay around.

I am, I should note, quite a fan of Moncrieff’s directorial debut, the small, resonant Blue Car. And I think this picture, which revolves around the titular character and a number of people who came directly or indirectly in contact with her, actually satisfied me even more. Both films have their flaws, but like always I think the emotional center of a film is the most important thing. And the directors which manage to repeatedly imbue their films with an emotional element I connect with are the ones I grow to admire, and whose films I cherish. I just browsed over to the film’s website and noticed that one of the blurbs said something like “Moncrieff may be the next John Sayles.” I hadn’t thought of the comparison, but it actually fits. I look forward to seeing more from her.

#86, 12/17 – The Black Dahlia (2006) (nqpdd)

I could pick on Brian De Palma movies all day. Hell, honestly, I could pick on The Black Dahlia—which I most certainly did not like—all day.

But there’s little fun in that. After all, I’m the one who keeps watching De Palma movies, even after I realized in the mid 90s that I hated pretty much everything he’d ever done. (With the amazingly odd exception of Phantom of the Paradise.) I keep going back to watch what he does, in hope that I’ll see a movie I really like, but I keep coming up empty. He and I even like some of the same movies (I know, because I can spot many of his homages), but for some reason his sensibilites as a filmmaker veer wildly from my preferences. Which is perfectly fine. And before any film of his I see I walk in thinking “yeah, this could be really cool. Go Brian”. But always by the halfway point my bright and shiny optimism has worn itself out. Oh well.

Anyway, rather than jump all over the film, I’ll just say what my most positive memory about it will be. And it’s an odd one, truth be told. I really liked Hilary Swank. Yes, even though I think she turned in arguably the weirdest performance of her career. In fact, I’m pretty sure that objectively speaking (if such a thing is possible) Swank’s Lizabeth Scott-ish portrayal was actually pretty bad. But there’s something I liked about it. Maybe because I love Lizabeth Scott and anything which reminds me of her is a bonus. Or maybe I was just experiencing some odd sympathy for Swank. I dunno. I don’t care. Whenver I think of this movie I will remember Swank telling the story about Balto.

Poor Balto. Unwitting victim of the campiest patriarch I’ve seen on film since the chess-piece munching father in the movie-in-a-movie short which opens Christopher Guest’s The Big Picture.

#85, 12/16 – Ballets Russes (2005) (dvd)

I’m probably not the most fun person to watch historical documentaries with. Seven out of every ten will frustrate the living daylights out of me. I try to relax and let them do whatever it is they’re setting out to do. But I usally see the filmmakers making editorial tradeoffs I simply don’t agree with and I lose my cool. This is not always the case, of course. You might remember (if you do, you’re weird) that I was really quite fond of the The Weather Underground, for instance. But, more often than not I find myself asking questions to the screen which go unanswered.

Ballets Russes is definitely in that seven of ten group for me, unfortunately. There’s no question that it’s lovingly made (though its structure is mind-numbingly conventional), and I understand why they aired as much interview footage as they could. But I think they lost a great opportunity to tell a fuller story about a very compelling artistic group.

For instance, the movie’s narrative starts with the founding of The Ballets Russes of Monte Carlo in 1932. I may not know a lot about ballet history, but that struck me as way, way off the mark. Because with pretty much a shrug of the shoulders, they relegated Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes (which ran from 1909 until Diaghilev’s death in 1929) to essentially footnote status. To me, that’s kind of like making a movie purportedly about the history of the United States of America which starts with the Spanish American War. (Or making a movie version of Wuthering Heights which starts just after Catherine dies.)

Sure, they tell us who Diaghilev was. They tell us he was a legend. But they really don’t talk about the original Ballets Russes company very much at all. This is the group which put on Firebird, for the love of god. They worked with Prokofiev and Picasso, and you can’t spare a solid 20 minutes for these people? Maybe I’m the only person in the world interested, but how can you not give me some details on how those productions worked, how popular they were, and who they influenced. Sure, I get what year it is now and that in all likelihood all of the people who directly worked with Diaghilev in the 1910s aren’t around anymore. And weren’t around when this project was started. Sure. But they could have brought in an art historian or two to provide some context. Not the best thing in the world to get analysts involved, I know, but it can be done well.

Frustrations aside, I still liked it. Seeing clips of the Baby Ballerinas was quite enjoyable, and the tidbits at the end were greatly entertaining (for instance, one of the late era Ballets Russes company would end up becoming Batgirl in the 60s Batman television show.)

I just wish they’d taken more time to talk about the first Ballets Russes company.

#84, 12/14 – Land of Plenty (2004) (dvd)

There’s something in me that really loves an uneven Wim Wenders film. And, thankfully enough, Land of Plenty isn’t exactly perfect.

But, just like Until the End of the World, there’s something about the heart and soul of the film which made me forget all the things I could nitpick.

Well, almost all the things. The film, which had the working title of “Angst and Anxiety in America” (definitely an accurate description of what’s going on in the movie), probably touched on more issues than it really needed to. Wenders wanted to make a film about how he felt about America—and it shows. Hell, one character was essentially blessed with the literal and figurative scars of American foreign policy of the last, oh, 40 years. That right there is enough for a movie by itself. Add on to that things like hunger, inequity, and poverty (in the land of plenty…); security, fear, suspicion, and vigilantism; Israel and Palestine; family; and reconciliation (and I’m likely forgetting some things and glossing over others, like religion). And try addressing it all in two hours.

Not even Wim Wenders can cram that much into a film and have it all just work. (And it amuses me greatly to see the deleted scenes, because he wanted to touch on even more things.) But the film itself seemed to me to have an attitude of “let’s just get close enough”. Or, to be more acurate, perhaps, “We have a half million dollar budget, guys. Let’s just get close enough.” I can admire that. Precision ain’t that important in film, anyway.

Oh, and I can no longer deny it. If there’s a Michelle Williams bandwagon, I’m so on it now. And if there isn’t one, I’m about to start it.

#83, 12/13 – À Tout de Suite (dvd)

I love movies which feature a hopelessly bored protagonist who chooses to break out of their routine to experience life in a radically different way. Even, no, especially if that breaking out involves, you know, evading/fleeing authority figures. What all that says about me, I’ll leave for others to determine. But since À Tout de Suite is precisely such a film it probably goes without saying that I really liked it.

Of course a lot of my like for it was determined by the actor in the central role of Lili. And I think Isild Le Besco (who I’d never seen or heard of before watching this movie) did a fantastic job. I felt Lili’s boredom and understood her thinking she’d found some inspiration (however irrational its basis) in Bada. And from there, the breaking out flowed naturally.

And this is where Lili became remarkably interesting to me. Sometimes she chose to completely dismiss self-preservation while at other times she proved incredibly aware of her situation and the dangers in it. To me, this was hardly an inconsistency of character, but rather she made her decisions based on some internal calculus. While it’s hardly a revelation to say that people can act like that, it’s fun to see it in a movie because often it seems to me that characters who are prone to recklessness lack the ability to act more carefully when the situation really warrants it. Not all people can make the calculation, but some can. It’s good to see Lili is one such character.

There is much more to appreciate in this movie, too. I think Jacquot made something quite remarkable.