Three films a day

#9, 2/28 – The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) (vod)

I’d always wanted to see this one, and was especially more interested in it after I’d heard people mention that it influenced Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs. In the end I found it immensely entertaining both because I consistently enjoy heist movies (you know why) and Pelham is a sort of collection of “Hey, it’s that guy!” actors. There’s Jerry Stiller, a very young Hector Elizondo, the guy who played Quint in Jaws, the oft-spotted Dick O’Neill, the just-as-often-seen Martin Balsam, and Tony Roberts! It’s like the Hall of Fame for TV guest stars… and Walter Matthau.

And I’ve come to understand inflation merely by watching old movies. In Pelham the heist is a play for one million dollars in cash. One million. That’s it. Split that four ways and it’s a take of $250K per robber. Are you kidding me? Thirty-three years later, that seems like not nearly enough of a take for a job as high-profile and high-risk as hijacking a train in the middle of the afternoon.

Not that I would sneeze at $250K. But I wouldn’t risk getting shot over anything less than $5 million.

Tunes of Glory (1960)
The Isle (2000)
Ginger Snaps (2000)
Morvern Callar (2002)
Claire Dolan (1998)

So, in December I sat down and made myself a list of fifty movies I’d already seen which I thought I’d like to see again this year. I’m pretty sure I won’t get through the full list, but try I shall. And since I was enjoying my first full Sunday alone in a while, I figured I’d get started. I can’t remember the last time I watched five movies in one day. I wouldn’t exactly recommend it, but it’s fun to do every once in a while.

Most of the films on the list are things I really enjoyed the first time around, but which I wanted to see again for any number of small, stupid reasons. The exception in this batch is the last film of the bunch, Claire Dolan. When I saw it I hated it, but Katrin Cartlidge’s performance was interesting enough to me that I very much wanted to see it again.

Although I don’t rewatch movies as often as I’d like (because usually I feel I could use the time to, I dunno, watch something I’d never seen) I have a lot of fun getting to see movies I really liked again for some glaringly obvious reasons. With Tunes of Glory, for instance, since I know exactly how the battle between Basil Barrow and Jock Sinclair turns out, I got to spend time concentrating on the scenes between Jock and Mary as well as the scenes with Basil and Jimmy. And in Ginger Snaps I got to see just how well they intertwined lycanthropy and puberty.

In looking over the five films I watched there’s a lot to be said about my preferences here: Each is very small in its scope, none are from Hollywood (though Tunes of Glory, frankly, could easily have been a Hollywood film from that era), they all feature outsiders, etc. There’s probably no clearer indicator of how boring I find thrillers, epics, and biopics (there are exceptions, obviously) than in what I choose to sit down with for a second, third, or fourth time.

Anyway, The Isle didn’t work very well on me the second time; the scenes of self-mutilation were just too disturbing for me. I admire the skill of everyone involved with Tunes of Glory, even if I still find the very last scene perhaps a bit over the top. My love for Lynne Ramsay’s Morvern Callar grows, and I hope to goodness she gets one of her planned upcoming features out in the next couple of years. My appreciation for Ginger Snaps had been somewhat dinged by its two sequels, but the rewatch restored my love completely. As for Claire Dolan? Katrin Cartlidge was one of my favorite actresses, and Claire Dolan was such a problematic film for me, because although I didn’t care for the script I thought it was hands down Cartlidge’s best performance. I came away this time with more respect for the movie and the performance. I really do wish Cartlidge was around to do more films. She was wonderful.

Someone just told me that an overlong, hammy, half-hearted, half-sensical remake of a cracking Hong Kong thriller won the Best Picture Oscar. Figures. I’m not sure whether it’s a step up since last year’s winner was one of the most hateable movies I’ve ever experienced or a step down because the Hollywood picture I would have chosen, Children of Men, wasn’t even nominated this year. I guess I can call it business as usual.

#8, 2/24 – The Grudge 2 (2006)(nqpdd)

Yeah, I should stay away from the sequels of movies I found “tolerable”. But I’m mildly fascinated with how some of the recent remakes of Japanese horror films feature people I’ve grown accustomed to seeing on tv. This film’s predecessor, for instance, was a reunion of Sarah Michelle Gellar and Jason Behr who first worked together, as far as I know, in the second season Buffy episode “Lie to Me”. Behr, of course, went on to guest-star in Dawson’s Creek plus he had his own starring gigs in the deservedly short-lived Push and undeservedly long-lived Roswell. Meanwhile, the really bad looking remake of Pulse (which I plan to watch sometime soon) apparently features Veronica Mars, Boone from Lost, Neal from Freaks and Geeks, and Sloan from Alias. So, if you offer me a movie where Joan of Arcadia jets off to Tokyo to save Buffy the Vampire Slayer while back in Chicago Bette from The L-Word gets involved somehow, I’m eventually gonna watch. I’m a sucker that way.

The Grudge 2 didn’t disappoint me because my expectations were fittingly low. It’s a horror movie, after all, so by default I expected very little. I wonder, in fact, if my positive opinions of such relatively recent fare as Ginger Snaps, Wrong Turn, and The Skeleton Key are due to how I grade all horror on a curve. Would even the very clever Ginger Snaps pass my non-horror standard of watchability? I think so, but I don’t know.

Although this film tried to make me like it, and I can almost admire it for its efforts, it fell short. Mostly because the jumbled narratives made sussing out what was going on more confusing than it probably needed to be. Well, OK, the jumbled narratives created the air of confusion and a handful of fairly inexplicable scenes just added to it. Like, you know, a totally unnecessary bit featuring milk-chugging/vomiting which, by the way, was thoroughly disgusting. But I can’t criticize the movie too harshly since it kept me engaged… somehow.

Oh, and lover of weird little facts that I am, I’m tickled, of course, that Amber Tamblyn’s in this. After all, her father co-starred in the greatest haunted house movie of all time. With this in mind, I hold out hope that eventually Amber will do a musical where she’s the leader of a twinkle-toed street gang.

#7, 2/17 – Stranger than Fiction (2006) (nqpdd)

At this point I simply can’t imagine disliking Will Ferrell. That’s saying a lot because even (a seemingly short) three years ago I definitely didn’t think the guy was anything special. Now he is to me what I guess Robin Williams must be like to… someone. (I can sort of imagine liking Robin Williams, but it’s a stretch.)

At this point I simply can’t imagine disliking Maggie Gyllenhaal, either. Like Ferrell, she’s at the height of her powers just now and I hope she keeps being wonderful. When I found out, last week, that she’s married to Peter Sarsgaard (who, I’ve made no secret of loving, either) I about died considering the possibility of the two of them in a feature film together. Even if it’s one of those not-so-great movies they sometimes find themselves in, the two of them together could probably overcome a lot of evil.

OK, enough star worship, yeah? I play up my Maggie and Will love just so it may make some sense why at a certain point I just caved and fell in love with this movie. Honestly I can see exactly where people would have problems with it, and I can imagine that in other circumstances I might have ended up only mildly liking it. But then came a couple of scenes which were so lovely I just stopped thinking critically. The kicker came when Harold (Ferrell) found himself sitting next to an acoustic guitar and he noted to Ana (Gyllenhaal) that he only knew how to play one song. Of course we were going to find out which, and I was thinking/fearing it would be a ditty from Air Supply or something equally wretched. But as he started in I said “But that sounds like… Oh my god, it can’t be.”

But it was. Ferrell was singing Wreckless Eric’s brilliant debut single “Whole Wide World”, one of my favorite songs of all time. (Oddly, another of my favorite songs of all time is the brilliant debut single from The Soup Dragons, a totally different tune bearing the same name.) From that point I knew I was powerless against the film’s charms.¹

And the charms are not limited to Ferrell, Gyllenhaal, and a classic single from 1978. No, no. Emma Thompson was there. And Queen Latifah. And Dustin Hoffman. That’s more than enough charm for any movie, really. But wait, there’s also the fact that it was clearly filmed in Chicago and it features instrumentals of such brilliant Spoon songs as “Small Stakes”, “The Way We Get By”, and “My Mathematical Mind” (those are the ones I can remember, anyway—is “I Turn My Camera On” in there, too or in my memory playing tricks on me?) in the score. And, hey, I’m a fan of Luigi Pirandello’s plays, and there is absolutely no question that screenwriter Zach Helm is familiar with them, too.

I enjoyed it far more than I thought possible. And, yeah, I am gonna blame my adoration on the Wreckless Eric bit, but looking back, that’s not really true. I really liked this film from the second it started.

¹It’s probably worth noting that it’s the second time I’ve heard Wreckless Eric’s “Whole Wide World” in a film and the second time I’ve had this joyful reaction. The Anna Friel/Michelle Williams vehicle Me Without You, another imperfect little movie I absolutely adore, also used it to great effect.

#6, 2/11 – Wassup Rockers (2005) (nqpdd)

I haven’t had a good experience with a Larry Clark film yet. I hated Kids, I wasn’t quite with Another Day in Paradise, and I have little nice to say about Bully. Yet I decided to give Wassup Rockers a go, and although it was probably my favorite Clark film, I still didn’t quite like it. And that’s a shame because how many times am I going to see what amounts to a Latino skateboarder-focussed relative to The Warriors (which is, itself, a New York-based reimagining of The Odyssey)? Talk about unfortunate.

Some of that dislike was probably due to a miscalculation on my part. I expected the movie to go one way and when it went another I think I was too slow to catch up. I have a feeling, were I to give it another look, I might have a grudging respect for it, even. That is, if I can get past how the supporting characters are pretty much all annoyingly easy stereotypes—yes, a lot of them are played for laughs, but… ugh. The stars are affable, though, and worth spending time with. If I get some free time maybe I’ll look at it a second time.

#5, 2/11 – The Last King of Scotland (2006) (nqpdd)

I have a longtime friend who relates to music the same way I do. In other words, we’re both insane and perfectly capable of speaking for hours about a band nobody heard of which released three 45s and then mystery disappeared while walking the streets of Toronto. Rather than using this nuttiness for evil (and trust me, we could), she and I channel it by collaborating on silly lists. And since we think the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame is the greatest practical joke Cleveland ever pulled on the world, we made our own Music Hall of Fame. Ours is no better than the Cleveland deal, of course, but it’s much more relevant to us and therefore it’s fun.

Said friend doesn’t have the same movie thing I do else we’d probably have made a film Hall of Fame by now, too. And make no mistake, Forest Whitaker would be in it. He probably would have earned his place many, many years ago (I’m thinking The Crying Game clinched it for him if Bird didn’t) but he’s been marvelous these last several years. He even made really bad movies like Phone Booth and Panic Room relatively watchable.

So, Forest Whitaker as Idi Amin. Damned impressive experience and not just because Whitaker speaks in Swahili and plays the accordion. Whitaker gives us a charismatic, terrifying, somewhat mad character, the sort who could easily pull people into his orbit but who is also quite capable of doing some truly horrific things. In short, it’s a very convincing interpretation of the Amin I’ve read about.

I especially like that the story is framed so that people are seeing Amin through the eyes of another character. That is, this isn’t a straight biopic and therefore we didn’t have to endure creation myths which attempt to explain why Amin became… Amin. As much as I like The Aviator, for instance, I cringe whenever I think of that opening scene of Howard Hughes’s mother washing him and instructing him ominously about germs; although, yes, this is a valid and interesting interpretation which has some evidence to potentially back up the core idea, those sorts of scenes never sit well with me. Maybe because it’s usually quite obvious the moment we’re seeing never, ever happened and they’re too easy and too short-handy. X event made Y person into Z. Yeah, probably not. Giving us, instead, a ficticious character who becomes involved with the famous person works better for me. But that’s just me.

Anyway, I think Whitaker is superb and that Kerry Washington and James McAvoy do fine jobs as well. And, as a small bonus, this was the first time I’ve seen the ever-lovely Gillian Anderson—who I think does a great job with a very small role—in at least five years.

#4, 2/7 – SherryBaby (2006) (vod)

SherryBaby reminds me of On the Outs, primarily because it’s based in New Jersey and features a female protagonist who’s had her share of troubles with the law. Also, like the lesser-known Lori Silverbush picture, Laurie Collyer’s SherryBaby is perhaps a little grim at times.

Oh, and both films put me in the same state of mind: I sat through each thinking about little unfortunate things which helped make some of the stories possible. (Some people focus on effects. I’m the sort who tends to dwell on causes.) I’ve been doing that more lately: I especially remember spending more than half of The Honeymoon Killers thinking the same way. I enjoy when a movie allows me to do that.

#3, 1/27 – Marie Antoinette (2006) (nqpdd)

When I heard Sofia Coppola was doing a movie about Marie Antoinette, I worried a little. Well, no. I worried a hell of a lot. I wasn’t sure if she could do a historical drama or a biopic, and I was even less sure I wanted to see her do one.

The idea of seeing Coppola tie herself to a standard Hollywood genre style reminded me of the pain I still feel when considering Where the Truth Lies—a movie I think Egoyan never should have made, because it worked too much against what I like about him. So, I gave Marie Antoinette a pass when it was in the theatres. I honestly couldn’t bear to look.

Then, while scanning a GreenCine Daily post about IFC’s year-end lists, I saw Thom Bennett’s quick assessment of the film: “I would be hard-pressed to find a movie that was the recipient of more misguided criticism than ‘Marie Antoinette,’ but Sofia Coppola once again proves that she’s one hell of a filmmaker — a historian would have probably made a far less interesting film.” That changed my mind. Pretty much instantly.

So, I decided to give it a shot.

The opening credits are set to Gang of Four’s amazing “Natural’s Not In It” with a shot of an incredibly bored, lounging Marie Antoinette idly sampling the frosting off one of many nearby cakes while being tended to by a servant. It took me three seconds to get where this whole thing was going, and another three to fall in love with it.

I said to myself “Wait. This is about the 18th Century queen, right? You know, well before the electric guitar or…. oh.” And that’s when I realized that my initial trepidation was totally off base. She’s a smart one, that Sofia Coppola. In those opening moments she totally discarded the baggage of historical drama/biopic (thank god!) and introduced one of the movie’s core themes: “The problem of leisure/What to do for pleasure/Ideal love a new purchase/A market of the senses”.

That’s your film right there. Well, half of it. Marie Antoinette is very much a sister to Coppola’s first two features which means, thankfully (if you ask me), that she’s playing to her strengths yet again. It’s not about Marie Antoinette, really. It’s about Coppola’s ideas about how Marie Antoinette might have felt. And how might Marie Antoinette have felt? She was someone in the midst of an alien culture, whisked away from home to do something her fifteen years of life experience probably didn’t prepare her for. How do you cope with being dropped into a situation where everyone around you seemingly has this bizarre, unsavory obsession with the contents of your womb? Is this how the real Marie Antoinette was, how she thought, or what she cared about? Hell if I know. But if you think a historian can be a mind reader and therefore give you a definitive answer, you’re smoking crack. In situations such as this, facts are nice pretty important, but they require either explanation or interpretation. And, without the mind-reading, both of those are happily imperfect in their own fun little ways. Since I strongly believe that biographies are just as much about the biographer as they are about the subject, Coppola’s interpretations don’t bother me in the slightest.

In fact, I’m happy she jumped at it as she did. No genre rules. Her signature style. Good for you, Sofia. I will never doubt you again.

And, minor note, how much did I love hearing the Cure’s “Plainsong”? I have no idea if Coppola picked the music or if music supervisor Brian Reitzel did, or neither or both. But here’s why I choose to believe it’s Sofia and I will keep thinking it until someone tells me otherwise. She and I are the same age (well, fine, she’s four months older) and it’s entirely possible, given the songs which end up in her movies, that we grew up listening to the same music. And I always associate “Plainsong” with transition. It came out just as I was graduating high school (spring of 1989) and I played it heavily during my freshman year of college (in fact, it was in the ridiculously gonzo short film I made in early 1990). It is the single song which signifies to me everything that my 1989-1990 was about. So their choice of when to use the song—during the coronation of Louis and Marie, just after the new king noted “We’re too young to reign”—is seventeen kinds of perfect to me. Really, regardless of who chose the song or why, I must applaud.