Cypher–industrial spy-slash-scifi-slash-PhilipKDickian thriller with Jeremy Northam, who’s amazingly good, by the guy who directed Cube, Vincenzo Natali. Like that film, Cypher is a lot of fun and stylishly shot on shoestring budget for about half an hour, then once your confusion about the story kind of dissipates (and I got the ‘twist’ about halfway in), it remains stylish but isn’t that terribly engaging. But, still, Northam has some fun.
Continue reading More quick takes
Author: reynolds
Quick takes
Bad Boy Bubby–I had much trouble getting past the sound issues. (A prefatory note on the dvd indicates that the movie was recorded in binaural sound, replicating the way the protagonist hears. I thought–how interesting–and then struggled and grimaced my way through the movie, unable to pick up all that much of what was going on one moment, then blasted the next.)
Continue reading Quick takes
The Americanization of Emily
Another quick recommendation: this apparently came out as part of a box set of “controversial” films. It’s a doozy–in some ways structured (and scored, and shot) like a romantic comedy set in Britain during WWII, with James Garner as the hero/cad, James Coburn in the Tony Randall sidekick role (but getting a lot more action), and Julie Andrews as the perky, spunky British war widow. But Paddy Chayefsky wrote the script, and there are these dizzying moments of speechifying — Garner ripping apart the European contempt for Americans or savaging the glorification of war; a lovers’ fight between Garner and Andrews that is ruthlessly cutting, not cutesy — and a dark, dark satire on the way wars are run and remembered. I’m not sure what exactly made it controversial–the heroine’s loose (and unconcerned) sexuality, the savage demystification of D-Day and WWII heroics… but it still has a
It’s not Network-good, but it’s pretty damn good.
Memories of Murder
A near-excellent police procedural about a real-life, unsolved series of murders in middle-80s Korea. Often funny, occasionally thrilling — even moving. And with an excellent central performance by Kang-ho Song that compares–favorably–with Hackman in French Connection…. I kid you not. I didn’t think it as strong as Chan-Wook Park’s vengeance stuff, but it’s pretty damn good.
No analysis–just a strong rec.
Why Obscenity Matters
I walked out of The 40-Year-Old Virgin pleased but also unblemished. The film is unremittingly sweet-natured about its scatology, not unlike Anchorman or Farrelly brothers’ goofiness. (This isn’t really a post about verdicts, but: I’d recommend it, but the film is never as delirious as Ferrell or Farrelly can get, and far from the exuberant heights of Parker & Stone or The Aristocrats.) But I’m curious about unpacking a little of the alleged return of the hard “R,” or the (now decades–or is it centuries?–old) “return” to the irreverently bawdy.
But rather than the neat either/or that pops up in so many reviews (is crude, or is compassionate, and on rare occasions like Carell’s movie is both) I was wondering if we could get at a bit broader range of options for examining the games obscenity lets us play. I’ll start. Continue reading Why Obscenity Matters
Rancho Deluxe
This was an old favorite, a film that hit me when I saw it (at 10? 11?) as something strangely funny in some kind of adult way that I sort of comprehended, ‘though I could feel the whoosh overhead as innuendo flew by. And that’s something, ’cause the writing in this film is bone-dry, almost all the humor coming from some collision of the laconic manly cowboy-talk, iconic Western conventions, and irony thicker than a seed bull. I seriously loved the movie, saw it again in my teens, and tracked down other work by its writer, Tom McGuane, who subsequently became one of my favorite novelists. (Admittedly, however, his film work–the interesting Missouri Breaks, the pretty funny Tom Waits-including Cold Feet, and the execrable Ninety-Two in the Shade which was very poorly adapted by McGuane from his own excellent novel–is middling.)
Would it hold up? Mostly. Continue reading Rancho Deluxe
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
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
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?
Layer Cake
Quick recommendation: A return to the pleasures of the British gangster film. I think this is far superior to Guy Ritchie’s stuff, because both more brutal and more attentive to the consequences of brutality. The best antecedent, although some are naming The Long Good Friday (also great, but a different kind of flick), is Mike Hodges’ great Get Carter. Very entertaining.