Category: (by verdict)

3:10 to Yuma

Taking a break from papers, prep for our spring semester, and the heavy-duty (and worthwhile) intellectual razzmatazz on this site (and our sibling blog on books), I watched an old western, based on an Elmore Leonard story. Yuma stars a really wonderful Glenn Ford, playing a manipulative, smart-talking serpent of a bad man (who may have some kind of code in there, under the smirk)–caught and guarded, before the titular train to prison, by a smalltime family-man rancher (Van Heflin) trying to make a few bucks to get through a drought. It’s nothing special, but it’s smart and well-made and I set all else aside and sank into the pleasures of a finely-etched B flick.

Anyone got any other less-known, escapist pleasures to recommend, as semesters get going?

Svankmajer

I recommend the collection of shorts called The Ossuary and Other Tales particularly the short title film and the longer piece “Don Juan.” “The Ossuary” is a kind of film poem documenting the chapel built from bones in Sedlec, Czechoslavakia–containing bones from the bodies of approximately 40,000 bodies. The disturbing but compelling images are juxtaposed with a soundtrack recorded from a school visit to the church, a teacher lecturing her young students on the work that went into the chapel, but mainly hectoring them with the directive not to touch any of the bones (they must pay a fine if they do!); inevitably one does and the ghoulish tour ends with a vigorous chastisement. It’s a witty film….as much about education as the eerie setting. one may make a chapel of bones but a student cannot touch a single femur.

“Don Juan” is, yes, an adaptation of the legend, with marionettes. when it started, I thought “oh, no…” but minutes into it I was hooked. Chilling, comic, grotesque and suspenseful all at the same time. The marionnettes and the theatrical setting suggest decay, a lost theatricality and an oppressive European past, but the sensibility is one of contemporary modernist irony. the puppets’ impassivity nevertheless suggests an uncanny expressiveness. DVD

For info on The Ossuary

Women on the Verge….

In response to the Danish film Brothers, and in her astute readings of Toni Collette in Little Miss Sunshine, and elsewhere, Gio’s raised some great points about the depictions of female rage and anger. The topic deserves its own focus, so I’ll paste up her opening challenge and then some of the things she got me thinking about:

what if the mother had been the one to go ’round the bend? what if she had started throwing the house around? it would have been so much worse, so much more serious. but women stay put, stay sane, love everyone, understand everyone — while keeping absolutely gorgeous. i’m reminded of john cassavetes’ a woman under the influence but also, because i just saw it (and would like to write about, but please don’t let me stop you — i’ll be happy to comment!), notes on a scandal. and how about the forest for the trees? women’s rage is always a hair’s breadth away from battiness, whereas men’s rage tends to be rooted in cultural dissonances towards which we are meant to be understanding if not sympathetic.

Continue reading Women on the Verge….

notes on a scandal

this is a genre film — a psychopathological thriller a la patricia highsmith and thomas harris — that, like the best of its kind, comments on the deeper issues of misdirected love and pathologically unmet need (or: what do you do when the things you crave are forbidden?). notes on a scandal is brilliantly written/directed and brilliantly acted by all involved, though i would like to emphasize the amazing performances of cate blanchett and judy dench, who work together beautifully.

barbara (dench) is a no-nonsense high school history teacher who can break up a fight by saying ‘enough’ and get kids to fess up in three minutes flat. she’s also a lesbian so transparently repressed that everyone knows it except herself. sheba (blanchett) is a new, clumsy, and breezily beautiful art teacher who’s decided she needs a break from her quirky but demanding family of four. she’s married to an older, much less attractive than she (not difficult, since she’s glorious) guy (bill nighy), and her progeny are a grumpy teenage daughter and a 12-year-old boy with down syndrome. when sheba shows up in barbara’s school, it takes barbara exactly one second to decide that she’s going to become her ‘best friend.’ Continue reading notes on a scandal

Little Children

Ugh . . . I still don’t know what to make of this film. I walked away feeling queasy, uncomfortable and frustrated. I can’t rightly dismiss it because it reveals such great promise, but Little Children’s bizarrely alchemical mix of earnest melodrama (think Eugene O’Neill) and black comedy/satire (A.M. Homes, Tom Perrota) just didn’t add up for me (imagine Douglas Sirk directing an episode of “Desperate Housewives” and you get the idea). Still, Todd Field can direct. There is this one montage sequence at a local swimming pool that is so beautifully shot and cut; it is easily the most elegantly edited sequence of the year. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Field isn’t afraid to slow things down; he palpably lingers on moments (I’ll never look at Hummel figurines in the same way again) and the way he uses rhythm to generate specific moods is exemplary. Additionally, Field’s confident utilization of long takes and beautifully orchestrated tracking shots as well as his eye for unique and dynamic compositions makes him one of America’s most exciting young filmmakers. He is also generous with actors; each and every performance in the film is bold and exploratory (Phyllis Somerville I’m talking to you). So why didn’t I like the film? Continue reading Little Children

Dreamgirls

The most remarkable thing about this film is how old fashioned it is. Bill Condon has managed to “reinvent” the musical by simply ignoring MTV, and for that I guess many a purist are quite satisfied. The camera doesn’t move so much; the editing is not pushed to front and center; performers are allowed to sing and emote in full and medium shots. There is little razzle-dazzle (Krieger and Eyen ain’t no Kander and Ebb, that’s for certain and Bill Condon ain’t no Baz Luhrmann for that matter). Is it entertaining? Sure, in fits and starts. Continue reading Dreamgirls

Pretty Good German

The technical brilliance of Soderbergh’s latest, as you probably know a recreation of studio techniques–and some of the attitude/tone–from ’40s pictures, has been given lots of press, and deservedly so. The film’s a glorious collage of shadows and light, line and angle and shape. There are all these lovely sights: background lighting so fiercely overdeveloped that Clooney and Blanchett seem to lose their boundaries, fading into a glow; Blanchett running down a circular stairwell, top wall gone to reveal lovely artificial moonlit clouds and the silhouette of Clooney (in iconic army cap).

And you could watch it as a workshop in photography (all shot by Soderbergh). But I liked other elements as much, even more: Continue reading Pretty Good German

Children of Men

Films in which the future of the human species is at stake tend to be problematic; the commodification of despair is tricky stuff. Alfonso Cuarón’s adaptation of P.D. James novel is certainly a very entertaining, emotionally and intellectually powerful film with one of the best endings of the year. And it is beautiful to look at. But that’s kind of ironic, yes? Here the landscape of broken, bombed-out buildings (shot in muted, blue-grey tones) approaches something best described as rubble-chic (the art direction is superb, but one questions if the end of the world should be reminiscent of early mornings at Hogwarts). That’s cinematic dystopia for you. But I’ll not labor the point; Clive Owen looks appropriately grizzled and that will do. Continue reading Children of Men

In Praise Of…

Bill Murray comedies. Like many others, I’m a big fan of the rebirth of Bill Murray in Rushmore, Broken Flowers and the great Lost in Translation (not so much Life Aquatic). But a word of praise here about some of his earlier comedies. In the 48 hours leading up to New Year’s my kids and I had a Bill Murray festival, watching Ghostbusters I and II, Groundhog Day and Quick Change. These could all have been sappy, crappy comedies, and in fact they often are. But all are ultimately saved by Murray. The comic timing, the deadpan delivery, the smarminess honed on SNL, and the simple glances that signify to the audience that he is the only sane person in the room always make Murray’s scenes enjoyable for me, even when the rest of the movie fails.
Continue reading In Praise Of…

May I get all Mad magazine for a moment?

Depalma’s latest is “The Blecch Dullard.” There are hints of the savage lunacy of the book amped up by the director’s own perverse pleasures–and Hilary Swank is actually fun to watch, playing not just against but actively destructive of type. But sheesh. I could barely keep my eyes open at Hartnettian half-mast. Scarlett Johansson ends up seeming silly in puffy poodle sweaters, Aaron Eckhart gets a few moments of just-right before being delegated to the sidelines for “Benzedrine mania” (which more closely resembles hyperventilating than passion), and Josh Hartnett… well, I’m waiting for him to break out . . . wait for it . . . of pictures, not in ’em! YEAH! That’s what I’m talking about! Ka-ZING!