Month: July 2005

Robert Drew’s Primary — and some more thoughts on political films

Other films –

Robert Drew’s Primary is an early—even foundational—version of cinema verite; the camera follows JFK and Hubert Humphrey around Wisconsin over the course of about 36 hours, splicing together representative scenes but avoiding (mostly) voice-over and talking heads, instead trying (as Drew says in commentary) to ‘find’ the drama of events. The long, long scenes of candidates shaking hands, after or around events—really still impressive. Continue reading Robert Drew’s Primary — and some more thoughts on political films

3 by Alan Clarke: Elephant, Made in Britain, The Firm

Alan Clarke may well be the anti-Leigh. They made movies at the same time, both primarily for British TV, and they covered a lot of the same bases; that is the lower, and working classes of Great Britain. Clarke seems to focus more on big problems, and characters that typify those problems, while Mike Leigh creates characters that are less intertwined with those problems, and instead just live their lives depite them.

Clarke, who is dead, was a much more action-oriented filmmaker, and, like Leigh’s TV work, the scenes are very well composed and blocked, though they’re not showy or flashy. Reynolds will therefore call them bland. A new box set of Clarke’s work is out in the US and this marks the first time most of these have been seen here.

Continue reading 3 by Alan Clarke: Elephant, Made in Britain, The Firm

The Aristocrats

This film, by Paul Provenza and Penn Gilette, opens tomorrow in New York, and a few weeks later in select cities. Can someone go see it and report? Fat chance it ever comes to Charleston, but if anyone thinks it’s worth the 90 minute drive, I can see it when it opens in Columbia on (believe it or not) September 9.

I think Mauer first mentioned this documentary in a comment a few posts back. I first heard about it when I read this piece by Frank Rich:

When is enough enough is enough?

Speaking of Spielberg,

I bought the 35th anniversary DVD of “Jaws” yesterday, which includes a making-of documentary (a version of which I had already seen) in which Spielberg says that he was drawn to the script of “Jaws” because he thought it was essentially the same film he had just made, “Duel.” And as I tried to point out in comments to Mike’s “War of the Worlds” post of 7/1 , isn’t it possible to say he’s been remaking “Duel” ever since?

The 35th anniversary edition DVD is quite good, but should I have just waited a few more years for the 40th anniversary DVD? Or the 42nd anniversary DVD? Or the 50th anniversary blu-ray disc? Or the 53rd anniversary Holographic Versatile Disc? Or the eagerly awaited 75th diamond anniversary mindmeld, with bonus Robert Shaw clone?

Seriously, I was browsing through the DVD section of our local B&N, and I saw in the shelves, back to back, the 30th anniversary and the 35th anniversary DVDs of “Easy Rider.” Now, I like the film. But does ANY film, good or bad, need to be repackaged that quickly? What’s so “special” about this “special edition” if it is to become obsolete in 5 years? I think the time between DVD editions should be no less than 10 years, and only if something significant has occurred, like major restoration of original negatives. “Last chance to own ‘Pinocchio’ on DVD, so act now!” Does anyone really believe that?

Blood of the Beasts

Speaking of disembowelment and the everyday, I recommend to you this 20 minute French documentary from 1949, though you will have to have a strong stomach to watch it, as it includes the matter of fact slaughter of a horse, a steer, several veal calves and a dozen or so sheep. In fact, the calves are decapitated in order “to keep the meat white.” The director Georges Franju says he made the film in black and white so the viewer would have a forceful “aesthetic response” rather than the convulsive physical response that color would have encouraged. The film depicts the everyday work of a couple of slaughterhouses in Paris where the work is done by hand, with very sharp knives, as though it might be 1249 instead of 1949.
Continue reading Blood of the Beasts

3 by Mike Leigh: Four days in July, Grown-Ups, Kiss of Death

As a kind of three cheers to the public for deciding not to watch Michael Bay’s latest piece of crap, I thought I’d post on some of the old Mike Leigh films I’ve seen which have been recently released on DVD. I’m a big fan of this guy’s films. I really wish there was an American making equivalent films here, but of course, there’s no one to fund them and no one to show them, and no one to watch them either.

I’ll start with the one I watched most recently, Four Days in July (1985). This is one of the last films Leigh made for TV, and I thought it would be one of the most ‘violent’ or heartbreaking, set as it is in Northern Ireland in the mid-80s during the always tense time of the Orange men march through the streets of Codmonger, or wherever. Continue reading 3 by Mike Leigh: Four days in July, Grown-Ups, Kiss of Death

Candidates

Hey. I recently re-watched The Candidate, Michael Ritchie’s (still!) revealing dry-as-bone satire on American politics/campaigning. The film has a few too many montages, and struck me in this viewing as stretched from a more perfect 80-90 minute stripped-down narrative into a slightly-bloated two hours. (Compared to the complicated fun of Tanner ’88, which admittedly had a few hours to tease out more narrative entanglements.) But Redford is … well, he’s as good at suggesting an ironic critique of flat pretty surface as Warren Beatty has been. Continue reading Candidates

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Flipping channels the other day, I came across Johnny Depp on In The Actor’s Studio. He was talking about Sleepy Hollow, and how he was certain that he would be fired from the movie after it had been shooting for two weeks. When asked why, he said, here’s this very expensive film, with a lot at stake for the studio, and I am playing the lead character as a 14-year old girl. Why wouldn’t they fire me? Depp says Burton ran enough interference for him with the studio to keep it going, but yes, looking back on it, he was playing Ichabod Crane as a fourteen year old girl. Continue reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

2005 Thus Far

Thinking about the best films of 2005 (released domestically thus far) and I’m stymied by the sheer mediocrity of most everything I’ve seen. I can think of one film I hope will be on my list at the end of the year: Howl’s Moving Castle. After that I can only come up with four lesser films to fill out the list: Millions, Crash, Mysterious Skin, and The Cinderella Man. How about you? Continue reading 2005 Thus Far

Dyan Cannon!

For some reason, we watched The Last of Sheila, a strange ’70s “brainteaser” mystery, with D.C., Richard Benjamin, Racquel Welch, James Coburn, James Mason, and Ian McShane (! not very Swearingen-y).
Charles Grodin must have been busy, or in a blood feud with Benjamin.

It was written by Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins. But it felt like a Love Boat episode written by Liz Smith and Anthony Shaffer’s retarded little brother.

What’s your favorite Dyan Cannon film?