More Than Meets The Mogwai

Film Notes: SAMURAI COP; JEANNE AND THE PERFECT GUY; SMILEY FACE; SEXUAL LIFE

2008-05-07T23:12:00.000-07:00

SAMURAI COP (Amir Shervan, 1989) USA
Perhaps a step-down from the equally-as-ridiculous HOLLYWOOD COP because of the sheer absence of classic Hollywood tough guys Aldo Ray and Cameron Mitchell, but it’s still basically the same hazy, stereotypical-laden plot with a generic LETHAL WEAPON cop team comprised of a white hero (Matt Hannon, whose long golden locks put him in the good graces of seemingly every female co-worker) and his black comic relief partner (Mark Frazer). Shervan’s major deficiency is in his inability to call cut, with scenes going on far longer than needed; actors shuffle and sometimes improvise an activity or a line to overcompensate, and the spectator can always, always tell.

JEANNE AND THE PERFECT GUY [Jeanne et le garçon formidable] (Olivier Ducastel, Jacques Martineau, 1998) FRANCE
Virginie Ledoyen, with her dark, piercing features and raven locks, makes for an atypical lead in this realist-musical evidently inspired by (thematically, but not visually) the poppy, colorful song-and-dance films of Jacques Demy (and the lineage doesn’t end there: it co-stars Mathieu, Demy’s son, as the HIV-positive boy Ledoyen becomes enamored with). Candid depictions of spontaneous sex (Ledoyen beds nearly every male in the picture), overdubbed singing on the part of the actress in the heavy-on-the-long-shot musical numbers, and a handful of party scenes bombarding us of the clear contrast between Ledoyen’s rich suitor and his embarrassment of her bourgeoisie lifestyle fill up the remaining particulars of the 98 minutes.

SMILEY FACE (Gregg Araki, 2007) USA
Another buried treasure that further proves that the critically established, well-regarded indie directors of today (David Gordon Green, with his upcoming PINEAPPLE EXPRESS) have a deep ambition and desire to film ambling, stoner comedies. SMILEY FACE seems to be a lot less plot-driven than EXPRESS (if the trailer is any indication), as Anna Faris, perpetually high and hustling all over Los Angeles en route to Venice, attempts to complete randomly self-assigned tasks. Besides a second act that briefly involves her running afoul of the law, the biggest posing threat being that her pot dealer may steal her brand-new $995.00 super-comfy mattress. Araki playfully and skillfully interjects potent Marxist axioms (part of the plot involves a first-edition copy of “The Communist Manifesto”), making it his film’s purpose to not just partake in random non sequiturs and clueless, shambling, blusterous monologues, but to also be critical of Capitalist factions. Supporting roles are filled up by John Cho (Harold without Kumar), John Krasinski, Danny Masterson, Adam Brody, and smaller comedic riffs for familiar faces like Jane Lynch, Brian Posehn, Rick Hoffman, Jim Rash, and – last but not least - an inspired voice role for Roscoe Lee Browne (as himself).

SEXUAL LIFE (Ken Kwapis, 2005) USA
Criminally buried Showtime indie division release is an unofficial adaptation and reworking of Arthur Schnitzler’s “La Ronde”, the granddaddy of the revolving door sexuality-based drama that aims to succinctly seize and arrest the attitudes of the era by swapping and contrasting eight stories and protagonists. Kwapis updates it all with a knowing, charming simplicity, cinematic odes (to Godard’s 2 OR 3 THINGS I KNOW ABOUT HER’s legendary dissipating-liquid in a coffee cup; a back-of-the-head dialogue scene captured in homage to MY LIFE TO LIVE), and an amiable cast of thirty and fortysomethings. Azura Skye is an end-of-the-road escort; Tom Everett Scott her john, Elizabeth Banks is Scott’s hesitant, brand-new girlfriend; James LeGros is a married businessman – to Anne Heche – in the throes of an affair with Banks; Steven Weber – in one standalone scene - is Heche’s old flame/would-be cheating partner; Eion Bailey is Heche’s hasty replacement for an adulterous encounter; Kerry Washington is HIS girlfriend, and Dule Hill is her fiancée. Which, in turn, circles back to Skye, who’s hired to perform and sleep with Hill on the night before he’s to take his vows. Breezy, old-fashioned, and harmless, this didn’t even get accidental notice or play as part of its salaciously inviting title.

ULZANA'S RAID (Aldrich, 1972) European Cut / Burt Lancaster's edit - Extended/Alternate/Deleted Scenes

2008-05-03T23:16:00.000-07:00

Bless the user on youtube who took the time to upload these extended/alternate/deleted scenes of Robert Aldrich's most monumental work inside the western genre. They stem from a long, gone OOP UK VHS release.

Here, they're presented in chronological order of the film's events:

Jerry Schatzberg's STREET SMART (1987)

2008-04-30T21:34:00.000-07:00

Perhaps the sole bright spot (or, at least, the most representative of his earlier work) for director Jerry Schatzberg’s [THE PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK; SCARECROW; THE SEDUCTION OF JOE TYNAN] career in the eighties, STREET SMART begins with the novel premise of a New York journalist (Christopher Reeve) fabricating a magazine story only for it to bite him on the ass through its apparent validity in the details of an actual person. Unfortunately, the film dispenses with its well-earned bits of street-life profundities in a cop-out finale that conveniently relieves our main protagonist (Reeve) from any hasty wrongdoings. The villain (Morgan Freeman, in a chilling meat-and-potatoes kind of part that had me wishing he’d attack such roles more often) ends up face down in the street, taken out by one of his minions. It’s a move that smacks of studio interference, a tidy ribbon that suggests that Cannon Pictures couldn’t deal with their newly licensed Superman actor having to actually, you know, deal with the prickly situation that he himself has wrought.

The seedy underbelly of pimps and prostitutes as seen through the lens of Schatzberg is authentically rendered through all of the street poetry and surface crudity that those worlds suggest (filmed partly in Montreal, on St. Catherine’s St.). Schatzberg, a former photographer who shot the famed cover photo for Bob Dylan’s “Blonde on Blonde”, didn’t shoot the film himself (that honor goes to Adam Holender, who began his career with MIDNIGHT COWBOY before following it up with Scatzberg’s directorial debut, the little-seen, but mesmerizing PUZZLE OF A DOWNFALL CHILD), but one glance at Schatzberg's website and their unmistakable similarities in some of the “Reportage” shots reveals the director’s fascination with urban squalor and its denizens.

Reeve, as our window into the world, is the stock Schatzberg stand-in. At first, he allows his wife (Mimi Rogers) to enter the fray to help procure the genuine story of “A Day with a Pimp” that he’s pitched to his editor (he dismisses the idea when a volatile pimp (Rick Aviles) tries to turn her into a woman of the evening). A brief coffee with a genuine street walker (Kathy Baker, the other actor singled out for her performance besides Freeman when the picture was originally released), and Reeve settles in for an all-night bout with his ancient word processor to dish out a work of fiction that becomes a media sensation, not to mention scarily prescient and accurate for a trial-bound pimp, Fast Black (Freeman), and his attorney. Eventually, Reeve winds up on a news program, slyly filming rip-off businesses and corrupted officials in order to report their crooked activities.

Reeve and Freeman’s parasitic relationship comes to the fore for the entire middle act, a classical friendship trope that's contentedly configured here between a classy, up-and-coming journalist and a low-grade pimp, each giving glimpses into their respective universes. Danger lurks around the corner -- and I hasten to bring up the ignominious conclusion once again -- but the moments that stick with me are the scenes involving success hot on Reeve’s coattails, while Freeman plays around in the margins, satisfied with all of the attention he receives from the upper echelons at the magazine.

Schatzberg’s prime observations are sussed out in such moments, but my favorite scene may be the clever de-emphasis on the sound mix during a seduction scene between Baker and Reeve, as their unimportant, almost inane getting-to-know-you chatter falls in and out of earspace while Aretha Franklin intones on the soundtrack. In moments like those, I couldn’t care less about how the cards shake out in the end.

DEVIL FETUS [Mo tai] (Lau Hung Chuen, 1983) HONG KONG

2008-04-28T14:42:00.000-07:00

Shown as part of an ongoing weekly horror series at the Winnipeg Cinematheque, and preceded by the trailer for David Cronenberg’s seminal SCANNERS (comprised solely of the gore-laden, brain-busting centerpiece scene), Lau Hung Chuen’s debut film is a messy “see-what-sticks” concoction full of bright phantasmagorical Disney nights, black mass rituals, spotty kung-fu set pieces, and stop-motion trickery involving a possessed spirit parasitically hopping from body to body.

What I recall above all else is what’s not in the film, mainly the absence of any of kind of sickly birthing sequence featuring devil spawn (all we see is the expanding belly of a corpse). Instead, the story’s focus is on what happens when a jade vase/ancient sex toy winds up in the hands of a sexually frustrated woman via an unconventional swap meet. After rubbing it for salacious purposes, a scaly-skinned apparition appears to engage in a bout of lovemaking, impregnating the woman before her suitor enters to catch her en flagrante. It’s a hysterically eccentric sight to behold, and acts almost as if a cue to the viewer that any traditional narrative path has been averted.

Several years pass after the woman’s premature death, but once her consecrated resting place is disturbed, the unearthly spirit awakes to wreak havoc on the remnants of her extended family, namely her sister and her husband, and their two boys (shown in an early scene to be fascinated by their aunt’s potent artifact). What follows involves some quickly paced kung-fu fights between a grand wizard and the demonically possessed young man, an incestuous encounter initiated by said young man, a maggot-ridden birthday cake, and a kindly grandmother whose constant monotonous drum-beating may hold the key to defeating this demon-seed.

DEVIL FETUS is a curious relic to dig up a film print for, but a perfectly ludicrous example from the heyday of anything-goes Hong Kong filmmaking of the 1980s. The practical make-up effects and in-camera deceptions have no choice but to endear themselves to the spectator, reminding people of my generation of “Fangoria” back issues, when a spotlight on a particular special effects artist could coexist with a retrospective interview conducted with, say, director Phil Tucker (ROBOT MONSTER). I have no definitive proof that this film has never before been issued on home video in North America, but some quick ‘net research intimidates that it’s ever only been available on a low-quality VCD; if so, it speaks wonders to the notion that there are tons and tons of similarly minded genre gems the world over awaiting discovery, resurrection, and a prime Midnight Movies' timeslot.

A MOVIE ORGY in more ways than one...

2008-04-26T09:49:00.000-07:00

Through sheer good luck and the kind offering of a couch to crash on, I was able to make a pilgrimage to the recent Joe Dante festival at the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles, arriving just in time for the last night of the double-bill of THE SADIST and THE PRIVATE FILES OF J. EDGAR HOOVER (seated in front of me? John Landis!) and staying on for the transcendental showing of the almost never-seen THE MOVIE ORGY just this past Tuesday. (To put it into perspective, the last time this assemblage of 16mm film clips, trailers, television spots, game show absurdities, and other odd ephemera screened was -- before I was born!)

The rest of my trip was even better, with sights seen and heroes met, but for now, I feel indebted to point to my friend Dennis Cozzalio's ecstatic, glowing, mesmerizing review of said MOVIE ORGY. It may be the next best thing to having actually been there...

Shine A Light (Scorsese, 2008)

2008-04-04T09:23:00.000-07:00

Although it’s playing on regular screens, the only true way to experience Martin Scorsese’s new rock concert film SHINE A LIGHT is to see it bigger than life in IMAX. Delighting in holding back from delivering the sheer spectacle of the experience, Scorsese opens his film with a smaller-format, shoddy phone-camera footage of the pre-planning stages, as he deliberately plays up his public persona that we’ve come to known of him in myriad interviews (not to mention print and television commercials). There’s a frenetic hysteria over Mick Jagger’s elusive set-list (revealed in interviews to be but a cinematic concoction: Scorsese had it well before The Stones strutted out onstage), but as Keith Richards rip-roars into the opening chords of “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” (conjuring memories of Johnny Boy [Robert De Niro] making his grand entrance in MEAN STREETS), all is forgiven. Scorsese takes a backseat, as it should be, as the band blasts through old hits and a surprising number of tracks from the vastly underrated “Disco” album, “Some Girls” (1978). In fact, Jagger’s elastic electricity during that number remains my own personal highlight.

And now, as a special supplement, here’s a link to the banned Stones song “Claudine”, recorded during the “Emotional Rescue” sessions in 1980/81 and relegated to bootleg bins ever since the acquittal of its subject, Andy Williams’ former wife Claudine Longet.

"The Total Film-Maker"

2008-03-25T19:50:00.000-07:00

I finally found a copy of this long out-of-print tome comprised of Lewis' sole foray in teaching filmmaking -- at USC, 1967 -- and felt the need to relate: this is simply the best filmmaking book I've ever read.

Every page contains a pearl of wisdom that resonates and rings true so thoroughly; my notebook would corroborate: it's completely full of his quotes. Any doofus out there who considers Lewis to be nothing but a cloying clown -- anybody that feels the need to bring up that now debunked cliche that only the French can love him -- need only to read this book to see a much more important dimension to his filmmaking. The Total Film-Maker, indeed.

Image(s) of the Day: Jerry Lewis in THREE ON A COUCH (1966)

2008-03-19T19:54:00.000-07:00

"Then the intangibles! What are they? How many? Can I teach the intangibles of film-making? Not really. Maybe the only answer is: How do you touch another man's soul? It might develop from that. Sit down and say, You're dealing with lovely human beings. Each one of them is an individual. Each one of them in his own right a lovely, important-to-someone human heing. Some will behave like turds, but you must try to understand why."

--Jerry Lewis, "The Total Film-Maker"

The Roots of Leone: THE COLOSSUS OF RHODES (Sergio Leone, 1961)

2008-03-08T09:06:00.000-08:00

Leone’s first solo directorial work (apart from assistant duties and second-unit chores) is a wishy-washy medley of the usual trotted-out peplum staples and must-haves, including the ubiquitous glistening beefcake, dark Roman beauties (Lea Massari, the missing girl in L’AVVENTURA and the incestuously-focused ma mère of Malle’s MURMUR OF THE HEART), and half-whispered political alliances with ensuing Coup d'états (over an erected behemoth harbor statue, also the picture’s most worthwhile set, with some critics [including tireless Leone scholar Christopher Frayling] equivocating it with the use of the Statue of Liberty in SABOTEUR and Mount Rushmore in NORTH BY NORTHWEST).

What makes this film feel so nakedly deficient and downright uninteresting is that there’s not an over-emphatic, operatic score by Leone’s former school chum/future vital collaborator Ennio Morricone (the chores are handled by Angelo Francesco Lavagnino here, who does an adequate, if forgettable, job). Rory Calhoun’s also a questionable lead to bolster the heroic strains of a Roman epic, what with his ‘50s greaser swagger, although his deep-set eyes align him with Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and a host of others in the annals of Leone’s cinema that share similar remote, unremitting peepers. The ultra-“beeg” synonymous-with-Leone close-ups are nowhere to be seen, with the newly minted director favoring long shots to get the most bang out of his buck for the gold-colored sets and medium two-shots for the protracted dialogue scenes.

Still, a must-see for dogged completists, as it can actually be quite captivating once Calhoun enters the fray of a band of upstart rebels looking to overthrow the domineering, current in-command King; he somehow remains a fervent supporter of their cause while keeping his objective, outsider perspective (traits not out of place within Eastwood's Man With No Name).

Anthony Mann: BORDER INCIDENT (1949)

2008-03-04T12:28:00.001-08:00

The first in a series of posts on the films of Anthony Mann.

Reconfiguring and contextualizing their 1947 poverty row breakout hit T-MEN for the studios, Winnipeg, Manitoba born writer John C. Higgins, cinematographer John Alton, and director Anthony Mann teamed up with a noticeably larger budget for BORDER INCIDENT (1949), a semi-documentary police procedural with mirrored law enforcement protagonists dealing with the issue of illegal immigration from Mexico and into California, all sketched together with the use of a stentorian announcer filling us in on the broader, political incidentals up until now.

Opening with omniscient helicopter shots of canals and the Mexican-California border, Alton and Mann delight in the geometry of the rows and off-center patterns (a visual motif that will crop up – no pun intended – over the course of the film, most noticeably in the chiaroscuro-conducive slots of a mailroom seen over an hour later) and burgeoning landscape that would prove to be a precursor to the rugged terrain seen in the James Stewart westerns of Mann.

Deep in the throes of World War II, it seems the United States’ own migrant workers were in short supply, so the government initiated The Bracero Program on August 4, 1942, enabling poor Mexican laborers to cross the border for a short period, with the U.S. intent on sending them back through the aid of incentives in Mexican bank accounts rather than legally allowing them to become citizens. Of course, some scheming individuals discovered loopholes, figured ways to smuggle Mexicans inside the U.S. and paid them less than the government was prepared to. This practice oftentimes led to several murders of the migrant workers following the theft of whatever the greedy entrepeneurs could steal back.

BORDER INCIDENT is the tale of two law enforcement agents – Jack Bearnes (George Murphy, of William A. Wellman’s BATTLEGROUND) of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization department, and Pablo Rodriguez (a baby-faced Ricardo Montalban, fresh off a series of MGM musicals in what was his first dramatic performance) of the Mexican equivalent of the F.B.I. Their job is to infiltrate the shadowy organizations in order to find out just how these crooked entrepreneurs and dishonest farmers operate, Rodriguez posing as a disgraced Bracero not content on waiting any longer for the legal channels to allow him to enter the United States, and Bearnes as a common felon who has stolen more than four-hundred blank immigration slips (and thus, enticing the villains with something they desperately want and need). The tough-guy authority of Bearnes and Rodriguez’s subtle understanding of his people's plight make for a clash of engaging personalities, though a friendship is established by a brief throwaway line of another case the two worked on in Texas (and in a sly comment for a film that doesn’t have any smoldering females to speak of, both detectives are quick to agree on the attractiveness of a female caught up in that previous case; if this film can’t showcase any striking women, at least it can speak of beauties almost too gorgeous to be seen).

Rodriguez, almost immediately after going undercover, befriends a comparable migrant case in Juan Garcia (James Mitchell), a six-week veteran of the dehumanizing process of standing in line awaiting an affirmative answer from the people who decide on which “Braceros” are allowed access to the United States. Married with children, Juan Garcia has a lot more to lose should he be taken advantage of -- not to mention the added insult of his criminal superiors taking overpriced deductions for both food and shelter. Still, he decides to cross with Rodriguez anyway.

After tracking down some venal-minded citizens who are willing to set up their transport, Mann presents us with one of the cleverest scenes in the picture, as a woman dressed in the style of a palm reader inspects Rodriguez’s hands. In an all-too-quick assessment, she suspects that he is lying by the fact that no calluses appear on the skin of his supposedly migrant worker hands. Rodriguez gets the okay anyway, after quick conniving and some fierce deliberation by the powers-that-be, but such deceitful appearances and table-turnings aren't common in the film, and it makes for a unique bit of overturning a stereotype.

Rodriguez and Juan Garcia then make a precarious entrance into U.S. territory on the back of a flatbed truck, hidden underneath a layer of hay, and driven to the contemplation of their respective futures -- Rodriguez worrying about his case, and Juan Garcia, his family --brought on by the death of an elderly member of their burrowed-in crew.

Bearnes takes a wiseacre approach to his newfound identity, allowing the big daddy of the syndicate, Owen Parkson (Howard Da Silva), to make his presence, but to never let him have the upper hand; his playful snatching away of the dart gun from Parkson letting the latter know that Bearnes is not one to be openly obsequious, and he can more than stand his ground. Da Silva’s bulbous appearance does wonders for his living-off-the-land persona here, a man getting rich off the tragic exploitation of others. He has a number of minions answering to him, namely Zopilate (Arnold Moss) and Chuchillo (Alfonso Bedoya, his credit in the trailer reading “Remember Him From THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE?”), two slicksters who do all of the man’s dirty work.

Bearnes’ denouement is positively astonishing, especially when considering the time in which this was made: in another reverberation of T-MEN, Rodriguez is forced to confront the demise of his assigned partner as a tractor driven by Da Silva’s underlings virtually obliterate his body while he barks out for mercy. Mann builds the intensity here by depicting Bearnes crawling ever so closely to the frame, juxtaposed with high-angled shots of the rudders that will seal his fate. There is a baroque corrosiveness in this explicit death that almost foreshadows a similar white-nuclear heat seen in Robert Aldrich’s KISS ME DEADLY.

Alton and Mann capture the villains mostly in hard-lit close-ups, and the skillful compositions play around with focus, allowing for immediate foreground features (usually on the left side of the frame) to be contrasted with the thrown-into-sharp-relief background details. Most often we’ll see characters snaking around the corners of the left side of the frame as the villains jostle about frantically on the right, searching for either Rodriguez or Bearnes or whomever. There is also a doubling-up of gestures signaling an equanimity between nations, as seen in the still below of Rodriguez and Bearnes shaking the hands of their superiors and the final shot (before the dissolve) of the American and Mexican flags hanging in equal balance as Mexican agent Rodriguez is celebrated by his American compatriots. Alton has the well-earned reputation as the master of film noir lighting, and even if the film in question scarcely falls into film noir territory -- in character, location, or even plot -- Alton and Mann still mine the shadow-play for all its worth in this, their fifth of six collaborations. Mann’s choice of blocking here is to include as many people in the scene as possible, cramming everyone into tight medium shots for prolonged expository dialogue scenes.

Perhaps a trifle inconsequential in comparison to their Eagle-Lion films like T-MEN and especially RAW DEAL, BORDER INCIDENT still shows Mann getting accustomed to the luxuries of being under contract while accommodating some lesser stars in this MGM release. I’m not about to suggest that it’s simply a watered down big-studio indirect remake of T-MEN without the pugnacity or immediate kick of the original, because the mere handling of landscape here gave Mann a chance to get acclimatized to composing and dealing with the open-spaces that he’d soon be shooting with leading man James Stewart. Mann captures the determined focus inherent in two law enforcement men with no home lives and very little information -- other then the criminal cases that defines their being -- but there’s still a carefree attitude in the professionalism depicted than that in the heroes of Howard Hawks. Mann’s men, at least in his noirs and police procedurals, navigate the waters of their predicaments with a combination of defiant stability, a swagger in their step, and a tongue in their cheek.

ROMANCE & CIGARETTES (John Turturro, 2005)

2008-03-03T18:57:00.000-08:00

Caught against the tides of a conglomerate melee between Sony and MGM for close to two years, John Turturro’s third directorial effort (after 1992’s MAC and 1998’s ILLUMINATA) is a shrill, brassy, bombastic blue-collar musical with an impressive cast lip-syncing and belting it out alongside a hodgepodge of classic AM favorites. James Gandolfini is a bellicose, mustachioed construction worker frustrated and frazzled with the way his marriage to Susan Sarandon is turning out, and so, after an impassioned contemplation over the consequences, he turns to a potty-mouthed émigré Brit hooker (Kate Winslet, a literal and figurative “siren”) for bedroom kicks. Their three children (Mandy Moore, Aida Turturro, and Mary-Louise Parker, the last two being a numerical impossibility when considering both ages of screen parents and daughters) make up a gleeful, gyrating Greek chorus for their mother, making his decision even more enticing. Christopher Walken turns up to do his patented (and if his television interviews are any indication, downright obsessive) Elvis routine-impersonation, swaying his hips to Presley’s “Trouble” upon entrance, but his mimicked song and dance number to Tom Jones’ “Delilah” is no match for a similar scene-stealer in the equally as pomo musical PENNIES FROM HEAVEN (Herbert Ross, 1981). At times too heavy-handed and whimsical for its own good, Turturro keys scenes with either too much gentility or too much pomposity, making for an odd clash of tones that never sincerely pays off one way or the other. Tom Stern’s cinematography is full of grizzled overcast grays contrasting with elegant reds, in other words, the everyday meshing with the spectacular -- a bit of a cliché, if you ask me. Going for a heady combination of the deconstructive BBC musicals of Dennis Potter with a brave acting exercise exploring the unhappy, humdrum side of marriage, Turturro doesn’t succeed in either element, separately or blended into a more cohesive whole.

"Black Hole" by Charles Burns

2008-02-29T09:54:00.000-08:00

Upon reading Variety’s announcement that director David Fincher will be adapting Charles Burns’ graphic novel “Black Hole” for Paramount, I immediately went out and picked up a copy to see what kind of source material he’ll be dealing with, even if it’s likely that the slate of projects set up for Fincher (THE KILLER; HATCHET) won’t all come to fruition.

The story concerns itself with a series of teenagers in Oregon on the precipice of adulthood, all crackling voices, rampant acne, hairy facial patches, and burgeoning sexuality. It’s a tale of young love, lust, and infatuation refracted through a 1970s horror film prism, as a VIDEODROME-esque body fissure is passed around sexually. Some reviews have stated that the bug, with origins never explained thoroughly, is a representation of the AIDS crisis, but to me, these skin-ripping holes that form on the base of people’s feet, or in their throats or backs, seem to signify a brave new world of individual maturity, a maturity laced with responsibilities (not to mention that most of the characters explicitly “shed their skins” after contamination). This is, after all, the early 1970s, and as the book states: “a time when hippies were uncool, but David Bowie was still just a little bit too weird” – growing up was, apparently, an absolute horror to deal with then as it no doubt will be for every passing generation. Teenagers hesitantly unsure of themselves, wary of not being part of the right clique, and projecting intense, perhaps irrational, feelings for people they barely know of the opposite sex (come to think of it, a short film I recently watched -- Steven Soderbergh's WINSTON (1987) -- deals explicitly with this last element to great effect).

If the novel is any indication, be prepared for a film ripe full of the uneasy, twittering youthful faces not unlike Lee Norris as Mike Mageau in that mesmerizing opening of ZODIAC.

Otto Preminger, 1971

2008-02-27T17:47:00.001-08:00

These are the Damned: RIVER'S EDGE (Tim Hunter, 1986)

2008-02-20T09:49:00.001-08:00

"I'm not being smart
Or trying to be cold on my part
And I'm not gonna wear my heart on my sleeve
But you know people get all emotional
And sometimes, man, they just dont act rational
They think they're just on TV"

--Lou Reed, "Street Hassle"

As far as films centering on abandoned, desiccated youth, RIVER’S EDGE is unique in its objective approach to its teenaged protagonists. There’s not a judgment or an edict passed down by director Tim Hunter, and he generally lets the situation of a murdered high school girl and the ensuing desertion of her fast-decomposing corpse play out amongst a conniving, gossipy, and deeply troubled riff-raff clique. As real life casts a pallor over the loosely based-on-a-true-story narrative, parents are either substance abusers (much like their kids) or can’t seem to find time away from work; they’re left in the margins, allowing for their disturbed offspring to gallivant around their coastal town, ambling for beer and free marijuana from the town loony/fugitive (Dennis Hopper).

In more than a few broad strokes, the film could be said to resemble David Lynch’s BLUE VELVET or “Twin Peaks” (or is it they that resemble RIVER’S EDGE?) for the way there’s an affected surrealistic rendering in one-off shots and off-kilter dialogue (and that’s not to mention the Hopper factor, who, in fact, I prefer here) -- there’s Hopper waltzing with a blonde-haired, blow-up doll; Hopper asking if there are any “Bud in Bottles” to the convenience store clerk (Taylor Negron) after his fellow murderer/fugitive double (Daniel Roebuck) has held up the place; Crispin Glover’s spastic performance as the leader in the clique, an avowed speed freak who unexpectedly takes it upon himself to shield the murderer from the cops, torments their shared friends (Keanu Reeves, Ione Skye, Josh Richman, Roxana Zal) in order to ensure they don't tattle to the cops in the interim before he Figures It All Out.

Reeves and Skye are the conscience of the film, steadily acclimatizing to a newfound relationship bounded by the uneasy connection found in their mutual disturbance in keeping the murder of a friend silent. It’s a problem with modern society, Hunter argues, but there’s not a finger pointed (all of the “society is rundown, ravaged, and disintegrating morally” arguments are otherwise scoffed at by the scene featuring a nerdish student addressing his radically progressive teacher, who dissects the social-political dimensions of a presumably close acquaintance’s death as if it’s an op-ed piece for “The New York Times”) and they’re not all bad apples, even if appearances are to the contrary.

The pea to the paroxysmal Glover's pod is the younger Joshua John Miller, brother to Reeves in the film, but more of a cosmic kin to the former; his exaggerated gait, his unhurried line delivery, and his babyish features make his precociousness into a petty life of crime worth considering if he’s beyond redemption or not (the film’s not telling: after Reeves diffuses an internal combustion inside Miller by wrestling a revolver away from him, Hunter doesn’t feature him in any close-shots and he doesn’t say another line of dialogue, his group shots – as part of the crowd – almost make it seem as if he’s now silently assimilated with everybody else by this unheralded tragedy).

Hunter cleverly inverts certain tropes of classical Hollywood (particularly Nicholas Ray’s seminal REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE), subtly replacing the underlying motive and gestures of its youth; this is not an accidental death caused by a “chicken run”, but an honest-to-goodness homicide that deserves to be brought to the cops as soon as possible. There is no moral quandary presented here, just a couple of teens weaned off of action films and '70s cop shows who misinterpret the situation as one (Glover's character makes comparisons of hiding the murderer to being like an episode of "Starsky and Hutch" and, earlier on, that he "feels like Chuck Norris"). There's an empowerment issue at work here, and as long as the killing is not reported, these kids get to play make-believe.

The music, by Wim Wenders’ regular composer Jürgen Knieper, is bombastic and large, insularly Germanic, stuffy, but gives the film an important counterpoint or counterweight to the metal (mostly Slayer, a pitch-perfect reference) listened to by almost everybody else.

Dennis Hopper (complete with Indian Motorcycle rusted placard on the wall) plays a shadow of his former EASY RIDER, a cousin of the confused stance put forth by the disadvantaged in the film, but as he considers the murder that has caused the abuzz, his ultimate verdict is that his is more genuine because of “the love” held for the woman he killed, an odd, disquieting thing to say, but a truthful, useful key to the stunted emotionality present at any given moment in the teenagers of RIVER’S EDGE.

(1932 - 2008)

2008-02-12T18:39:00.000-08:00

Short Takes: GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER; DEATHMASTER; SILENT RAGE; KING OF CALIFORNIA

2008-02-11T08:02:00.000-08:00

GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER (Stanley Kramer, 1967) USA

Almost unbearable today, the pontifications spouted by Spencer Tracy in the film’s closing moments sound an awful like the way Stanley Kramer himself speaks in the DVD’s supplemental materials, leading me to believe that either Kramer unconsciously instructed Tracy to act like Kramer, or Tracy picked it up on his own accord. If there was once amusing scene that could be excised from the rest, it would have to be Tracy and Hepburn’s visit to the youthful outdoor ice cream place; it’s independent from the treatise of racism depicted in the rest of the picture and thus the only spot where a check-list of Kramer’s preoccupations doesn’t seem to be on display. So congested with its dealing of interracial marriage (as noble and commendable as that is) that it doesn’t have the time to concern itself with class status (Sidney Poitier is a WORLD RENOWNED PHYSICIST, fer chrissakes).

DEATHMASTER (Ray Danton, 1972) USA

The direction, by actor Danton, is much more consistent and accomplished than something like Al Adamson’s slapdash DRACULA Vs. FRANKENSTEIN (1971), which is comparable in budget and early 70s treatment of peaceniks being corrupted by otherworldly, supernatural cult-like personalities standing in for Charles Manson (here represented by Count Yorga himself, a deviously charismatic Robert Quarry). Its structure not dissimilar to the later FRIGHT NIGHT (Tom Holland, 1985), as its youthful protagonist finds himself teamed up with an older accomplice (John Fiedler, voice of Piglet) with everybody in sight disbelieving their vampire claims.

SILENT RAGE (Michael Miller, 1982) USA

“Michael Myers vs. Chuck Norris”, as Quentin Tarantino describes it on the HOT FUZZ commentary track. That pretty much sums it up, but the sustained one-shot opening sequence of the madman (Brian Libby) killing his tenants is well-staged and doesn’t really belong or cohere with the rest. It’s actually terrifying (the film’s very “kitchen sinkism” being one of the reasons Tarantino probably thinks this above the other Chuck Norris karate-fests).

KING OF CALIFORNIA (Mike Cahill, 2007) USA

Michael Douglas in another feral-bearded performance as a desolate aging adventurer/crazy person released from a mental health facility. He immediately proceeds to his old kooky tricks, searching for a lost treasure; our point of entry is his emancipated daughter, played by Evan Rachel Wood. The rote narration by Wood and the simplistic worldview platitudes (with some pertaining to the odd usage of product placement and commercialism –- the treasure is underneath a Costco, Wood works at McDonald’s) outlined therein distills some of the fun to be had, but Douglas is infinitely watchable in a role that’s somewhat of a more frenzied, uncontrolled version of his Grady Tripp from WONDER BOYS (Curtis Hanson, 2000). This is the first time I’ve seen actress Kathleen Wilhoite (MURPHY’S LAW; BAD INFLUENCE) in forever; she plays one-half of a married swinging couple.

David Chase and "The Rockford Files" (Season 5, Episodes 9 & 10: "Black Mirror")

2008-02-05T23:32:00.000-08:00

For me, one of the most heartbreaking episodes in all of television’s history is also one of the most unsung.

“Love is the Word”, Season 6, Episode 6 of the perennial private investigator program “The Rockford Files” was written by the sole mind behind “The Sopranos”, David Chase, and directed by one of that show’s greatest assets, John Patterson (he helmed every season closer up until his death of prostate cancer in 2005, “The Sopranos” sixth season finale being dedicated to his memory). It’s a story of the proclamation of a love delayed, as Jim Rockford (James Garner) visits his on-again, off-again psychologist girlfriend Megan Dougherty (Kathryn Harrold, of MODERN ROMANCE) only to discover that his complicated feelings towards her have gone undisclosed for too long, and it’s too late -- she’s set to marry another lover in the near future. He takes her out to a Barbara Mandrell concert, and the performance of one of her renditions stings him to the heart, bitterly. There is little to say on the drive home, and once Rockford’s back to his ramshackle trailer, Garner delivers in a prolonged, meditative sequence that wonderfully exhibits a pained sense of his rugged masculinity, of regret and longing, of kowtowing to the cinematic-archaic code of honor that states a man can’t reveal his true feelings, a code that probably has never existed in the first place. Garner’s so terrific in this episode - hell, in these first ten minutes (before the rote mystery plot kicks in) - that it reminds the viewer of what a privilege it is to see such a big-screen talent on the small screen.

So, as Season Six isn’t yet available on DVD, I retreated back last night to Season Five, almost magically selecting a “Rockford Files” at random, and figuring that the two-parter (read: 90 minutes) “Black Mirror” might be intriguing, I put it on. Credits rolled, and both Kathryn Harrold’s and David Chase’s names came up. It turns out, to my delight, that “Black Mirror” is the precursor to “Love is the Word” – the beginnings of a relationship told within the narrative of a standard private investigator tale that involves a madman terrorizing his blind psychologist.

It all starts out on a luminous Californian beach near Rockford’s home. Rockford literally stumbles onto a sunbathing Dougherty by the missing of a football catch thrown by his venerable pal Angel (Stuart Margolin). She refuses Rockford’s dinner invitations, but the two soon cross paths when one of Dougherty’s psychoanalytical patients begins stalking her, making threatening phone calls late at night (I could swear that former “Rockford Files” guest star Strother Martin was the culprit, by the throaty swagger in the voice of the first call; perhaps he was making an unbilled voice cameo?). Dougherty contacts Rockford after this sudden need of his peculiarly protective, investigative services, and the two are soon in the middle of an affair. She is fiercely combative of his suggestions that he read her patient confidentiality files in order to dig up a clue, but there is soon a break in the case when the bodyguard Rockford hires is assaulted, and an observer in the medical building spotted the assailant as he escaped.

The fact that Dougherty is blind is but an afterthought, only servicing to make her predicament that much more frightening in a WAIT UNTIL DARK fashion. Confusion is stirred at first, as Rockford doesn’t realize she’s without sight on the beach, causing for a jocularly played self-loathing scene where Garner questions whether it was his looks that made her decline his company for dinner. Harrold’s likewise adept in both parts of “Black Mirror”, suggesting a rigid independence and conquering of her so-called disability that can, at times, give way to an equally as strong self-conscious nagging, but only to parties she’s decided are trustworthy (in a frank scene, and the only one in which the origins of her impaired vision is broached, she explains to Jim a former fondness for letting go by driving fast in an open convertible; Jim relents, and borrows a convertible for this purpose). She speaks of the notion that this activity is freeing for her, as for blind people “walls” are the world, that running into one means you must back up and find your way all over again; driving fast means “there are no walls”.

Character actor Leo Gordon plays the bodyguard that Rockford entrusts with the safety of Dougherty, and his numbskull dialogue wouldn’t seem so out of place in the mouth of Paulie Walnuts (Tony Sirico) from “The Sopranos”, as his double-breasted suit sums up his relentless but turgid energy and ‘40s gentlemanly appearance to a tee; “I bet I know what kind of music you like”, Gordon intones to Dougherty, after informing her that he’s terrified of revealing too much of his true character to even a psychologist off-duty -- “Stevie Wonder?”

After some lethargic attempts at fooling us with red herrings, the true identify of the psychopathic patient is revealed to be Danny Green/Jackie Tetuska (John Pleshette), a conflicted double personality between that of a shut-in loner and a contract killer well known in the underground circuits and amongst Rockford’s friends. A meeting is arranged through Rockford’s police cohort, Lieutenant Becker (Joe Santos, another staple of “The Sopranos), and Dougherty is placed with the man and his hitherto secret identity; Tetuska, the hit man portion of the split personality, is sincere in his statements that he doesn’t recall Dougherty. But some quick thinking on her part jogs his memories to background childhood details otherwise private; afterwards, he catches up to her, but is thwarted by Rockford.

Another aspect of “The Rockford Files” that I’ve always loved is the sense of Rockford’s backwoods network of Los Angeles denizens and close-knit, shady acquaintances. In one pithy, amusing scene, Rockford enlists the aid of a handwriting expert he knew in prison (the offender has left some scribbles on a matchbook inside Dougherty’s apartment). Informing Jim of the death of a mutual friend, Rockford begins to cheerily speak of the well doings of other inmates the two men both knew – before the handwriting expert interjects that those men have since died, too.

Director Arnold Laven (SLAUGHTER ON TENTH AVENUE with Dan Duryea and Walter Matthau; THE RACK with Paul Newman; and, perhaps most importantly, one proponent of the Levy-Gardner-Laven production company that spawned “The Rifleman” on television, and WHITE LIGHTNING and GATOR on the big screen) didn’t direct another “Rockford Files”, but he displays a flare for blue-mood lighting in the silent sequences that occur in the medical building as the troubled individual makes pointed attacks on Dougherty’s life. There’s almost an Italian giallo flourish in the generous splashes of bright color, making for an unrecognizable style from any other episode of the series that I’ve seen.

Chase, Garner, and Harrold would reunite one more time with this dynamic in Chase’s follow-up to “Love is the Word”, the tele-movie “Punishment and Crime” (1996). I haven't seen it, but as it’s apparently a reworking of the Fyodor Dostooyevsky novel that’s reversed in the title, I’m sure it’s of further interest and I look forward to catching up to it once Universal gets to releasing the made-for-TV films.

To Live and Die in Las Vegas: William Friedkin and "CSI" (Season 8, Episode 9: "Cockroaches")

2008-02-04T10:18:00.001-08:00

It all starts with a slam-bang, high-octane pursuit, kinetically captured by Friedkin’s impulsive ferocity in a manner that doesn’t allow viewers to catch their collective breaths. I’m not a fan of “CSI”, so I couldn’t tell you if car chases are a staple of the series, but I’ll make the claim anyway that they seldom could have achieved the forward-probing intensity of the one present here. It never ceases to amaze me what they can now show on network television, as the close of the chase (before the opening credits) are that of a CGI-rendered body being bloodily splayed open on the scorching, hard asphalt. (It should be noted that this chase is entirely independent of the proper narrative, serving only to produce a corpse for the investigation.) So, in totality, it’s probably the most blatantly Friedkin touch in the entire episode, but this doesn’t denigrate it: it could easily stand alongside the celebrated ones in THE FRENCH CONNECTION (1971) and TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A. (1985), and to a lesser extent, the automobile pursuits in JADE (1995) and his tele-film JAILBREAKERS (1994). At this point, they are the director’s specialty (especially when he tackles action) and the audience expects to be treated to a new interpretation whenever he’s behind the camera.

Surprisingly, as this is a reunion of sorts for the star and director of TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A., William Petersen (as Grissom) is virtually given nothing to do but to gravely issue stern glances at Warrick Brown (Gary Dourdan), the episode’s real focus. As in TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A., Petersen is the older mentor, a character we feel we can never pin down or thoroughly judge. Don’t get me wrong, he’s not a cheat or warped in the same ways the character Richard Chance was, but there’s a degree to which Grissom takes on the status of a big brother with shoes too large to fill. John Pankow occupied that little-brother position in L.A., just as Dourdan represents that here.

A glitzy Las Vegas strip club, run by old-school mob lord Lou Gedda (a latter-day Charles Laughton-esque John Capodice), orchestrates a swindle of overcharging certain high profile patrons the wrong price for champagne after their nights of drunken debauchery with the club’s strippers. When they refuse to pay, it results in a pile-up of broken bones, sliced-up genitalia, and dead bodies. The only witness is a questionable rundown bum (played by an appropriately tattered Dennis Christopher, of BREAKING AWAY [Peter Yates, 1979] and FADE TO BLACK [Vernon Zimmerman, 1980]); I don’t want to stress his importance, but one of the key characteristics of programs like these is the familiar faces of yesteryear’s cinema that turn up from time to time; Christopher’s little more than a red herring, someone who pretends to know more than he does, but his presence is welcome anyway.

Crime Scene Investigator Brown -- who seemingly has had a problem with either drinking or drugs in the show’s history judging by a scene where he hesitates entering the seedy place -- prowls the club as just such a customer, hoping that the crooked powers-that-be may attempt some rough stuff on him. Of course, as Petersen’s Grissom describes, they’re much smarter than that, and they instead eventually take vengeance on Brown in a much more disturbing, earth-shattering way.

Drinking heavily and reveling with one of the attractive dancers (played by Rebecca Budig), Brown finds himself playing into their hand, enabling the underbelly of the unseen forces just enough rope to hang him with. When Brown questions why she works for such an organization, the dancer sticks up for her employees, stating that it’s mobsters like Gedda that built Vegas to be what it was in the first place. Self-deluded as she may be, she’s right, but it’s tough to ascertain if she’s completely aware of her pawn-like status in this private game between Brown and the mob when it’s exposed in a rigidly fatalistic reveal in the final seconds. Friedkin encapsulates this connection between Brown and the dancer by housing their evening spent together in an immaculately white “dream-room” of sorts, where words are reverberated back and a stack of condoms may temporarily take on the visage of a dagger. Friedkin also experiments with flash-frames once again, but instead of CRUISING’s hardcore gay porn inserts, they are inserts inside a sedate scene of a murder-to-be, or a murder-that-has-been.

As in much of Friedkin’s work, there are more questions asked in the end then there are answers, and he certainly knows how to stick the inquisitive dagger deep into the viewer, twisting his almost-consistently constant pessimistic worldview into a series of malleable thoughts and impressions. Tenuous connections that didn’t seem plausible or possible take on considerable meaning once all is said and done, and sinister implications or associations crop up. There’s a rousing finish here that prides itself in feeling fragmentary, and even though there’s supposedly a typical follow-up denouement to the case at the start of the next “CSI”, I doubt I’ll ever watch it. Friedkin challenges the program, and adapts it to suit his own sensibilities, and not the other way around, forcing the other creators, writers, and directors of the subsequent season to play catch-up.

Weekend Binge Viewings: SOMETHING WILD (Jonathan Demme, 1986); JOSHUA (George Raliff, 2007)

2008-02-03T13:55:00.000-08:00

SOMETHING WILD (Jonathan Demme, 1986) USA

What struck me during this viewing is that –- if it had a few mindless, but well-executed car chases and crashes, as well as had it eschewed the usage of the director’s pet avant-garde favorites (David Byrne, New Order, John Cale, Laurie Anderson) on the soundtrack -- this could easily have been a Demme film circa his tenure at the mid-1970s New World Pictures. It has all of the prerequisites: bare breasts, cataclysmic, violent eruptions, and a likable, comfortably middle-class male protagonist whose life is set into a tailspin (while simultaneously finding himself being liberated) by a free-spirited former petty criminal (think THE GREAT TEXAS DYNAMITE CHASE (1976) with Claudia Jennings).

Demme has rarely been as self-reflexive, self-indulgent, or as fun; he flawlessly contrasts all of the conflicting genre-defining tropes (romantic comedy to a ruthless on-the-run crime drama), allowing them to run up against one another and co-exist in a post-modernist collusion that results in a branding all his own.

In more abstract terms, the story seems to suggest that the casual attitudes shared by the lovestruck couple (Jeff Daniels, Melanie Griffith) at the beginning of their heated affair gives way to the equivalent of a cosmic entity (Ray Liotta) bearing down and forcing them to make up for their carelessness in the second half of the picture.

JOSHUA (George Raliff, 2007) USA

From the director of the religious extremist scare-mongering documentary HELL HOUSE comes this work of fiction that’s firmly rooted in the killer child genre of THE BAD SEED, THE OMEN, THE GOOD SON, and, to a lesser, ignominious extent, MIKEY.

Sam Rockwell and Vera Farmiga are the doting Manhattanite parents of a newborn baby girl, but their time spent on this newborn causes some sort of possessive flip-switch in their other child, played by Jacob Kogan. He begins to exhibit aberrant behavior, such as an obsession with the so-called purification that occurs with mummification (which had this viewer awaiting a similar such fate for the baby sister).

Director Raliff seems to have ingested too many viewings of THE SHINING, as the influence of the monumental Kubrick horror film seems to reveal itself with every placement of scratchy atonal transitory notes and classical music. There is also the deployment of inter-titles to signify the meaningless passing of time (in this case, a constant reminder of how many days have passed since the birth of the baby). Manipulative as hell in the end, the quietly played zinger of the final scene has questionable homosexual connotations.

An Act of Humanity from a Supposed Cynic: A Scene from Billy Wilder's THE APARTMENT (1960)

2008-01-30T14:06:00.000-08:00

If there was a moment in all of THE APARTMENT (1960) that economically expresses the innate character of the lovelorn, corporate-climber C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon), it would be this one:

Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine) greets Baxter in the downstairs lobby of their monolith building. She notices the addition of his name at the top of the list of the corporate offices (this taking place after Baxter has seen Kubelik at her worst, following her spontaneously-planned, pill-popping suicide attempt at the titular apartment; she assumes that he’s been promoted due to his helping his boss/her married paramour (Fred MacMurray) out of this messy situation; and she’s right).

There’s knowingness in their gestures to one another, and a resignation on the part of MacLaine as she figures he’s assimilated with the depicted businessman credo of cheating on your wife (after Baxter points to an attractive bimbo waiting in the corridors). In the scene, we’re actually aligned with Kubelik, something fairly rare in the film when Lemmon’s on-screen; we’re insinuating and deducing this, too. He’s finally sold out.

But, no, once Kubelik’s on her way, the camera pans left and we’re left to witness – off into the distance – Lemmon’s two-step past the “hot date”, as she’s swept off by another white collar.

(Other viewers may point to the earlier scene where Baxter frenetically changes channels in front of his tinfoil-ripped t.v. dinner before defiantly turning it off, signaling his morose displeasure at the mundane luxuries that accompany his loneliness in the few remaining conscious hours that make up the time away from his humdrum drone workplace. But this feels rote and commonplace, and as cynical as it may seem on the surface, the added charm of the late-night movie gag (“we proudly present…Greta Garbo, John Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Wallace Beery, and…Lionel Barrymore in…GRAND HOTEL!, but first…”) takes something away from the focus on Baxter’s glum demeanor.)

Recent Viewings: THERE WILL BE BLOOD; STEPHANIE DALEY; TOUCH

2008-01-28T23:17:00.000-08:00

THERE WILL BE BLOOD (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007) USA
Just as expansive an epic as MAGNOLIA but on a larger pictorial scale, with sunburnt, auburn-tinged photography and an explosive, unrelenting, unremitting performance from Daniel Day-Lewis (who refines his bombast here from the starting point that was Bill the Butcher in Scorsese’s GANGS OF NEW YORK). For the first time, Anderson’s influences don’t seem to get the better of him, and the allusions to GIANT and THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE feel organic. There’s not a moment that could largely be considered to be a carbon-copy of, say, a quickly-paced camera move from a Scorsese film or an Altman-induced zoom (although it may be dedicated to the latter, this is mostly due to a latter day friendship and their necessary insurance collaboration on A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION). The comparisons to Malick are to be expected, but those are largely tired superficial reasons and really bear no weight; the sterile ragged landscapes couldn’t be farther from the beautiful produce fields seen in DAYS OF HEAVEN. Still, with all of that said, Anderson strains the narrative at certain crucial moments in the interest of sparking some ambiguity, dropping the ball on consistently telling an old-fashioned story that pivots on the tenet that America was built by false prophets and those that ravished the lands in the sake of avariciousness.

STEPHANIE DALEY (Hilary Brougher, 2006) USA
The mirthless flipside of teenage pregnancy from that depicted in this year’s critical darling JUNO, with Amber Tamblyn as an average, nondescript teenager who has sex at a party and winds up facing a criminal investigation into the killing of her aborted fetus. Minus the Tilda Swinton subplot (as Tamblyn’s assigned psychologist, who once had a devastating miscarriage herself), this sort of subject matter would fit well inside an “After School Special”. Filmed in a loose realistic sort of way on digital, there’s barely else in stylistic concern beyond shot – reverse-shots.

TOUCH (Paul Schrader, 1997) USA
Quietly making its way to DVD via a Valentine’s Day-timed release, TOUCH is Paul Schrader’s scattershot satire about what would happen if a miracle worker revealed himself to a nationwide of hucksters and pundits. Not surprisingly, each and every one ends up chomping at the bit to corrupt or co-opt his extraordinary powers. Part of the problem of this construct lies in the easy targets Schrader (and novelist Elmore Leonard) set up in order to take down (overweight rednecks, unintelligible protesters, Christopher Walken as a former church owner-turned-wily, conniving salesman), but also because Schrader doesn’t align himself with any one character at any time in any given scene (Bridget Fonda is the closest, but even she, as a former accomplice of Walken’s, must have some undisclosed skeletons in her closet). For someone who preaches so much about Robert Bresson, and for a film involved with such Catholic imagery, it’s surprising to find a light comedy in place of any attempt at “transcendentalism”. The feedback-heavy score by Dave Grohl (from the Foo Fighters) doesn't help matters either, as it roughtly approximates the same overindulgent hip music from every other mid-nineties official (or unofficial) Leonard adaptation, GET SHORTY on down. I suspect this was financed partly because of the popularity of said crime novel-to-film adaptations, but the dressing up of such a sober subject as modern-day Christianity to fit within the confines and stylistic traits of that one-time post-Tarantino flavour seems more than disingenuous.*

*Also: what's with the participation of Paul Mazursky as an actor in these films? I guess he was only in this and the annoying 2 DAYS IN THE VALLEY (John Herzfeld, 1996), but somehow, it feels like there were an awful lot of independent crime ensembles from the late 1990s featuring the BLUME IN LOVE director.