John Waters once said that he hates "message movies." And I remember nodding my head in agreement when I read that. However, I found Screen Door Jesus to be more entertaining that any piece of John Waters crap that I've seen. I must hastily state that Mr. Waters does not strive for anything too far above crap, and I do like him and his approach generally, but I don't want to digress into that.
If you haven't heard of this film that's probably because it hasn't been officially released yet. Screen Door Jesus has been shown at some festivals, but won't hit any theaters until September.
So how in the hell did I get to watch it? And on DVD no less.
Well, when I set up this little blog I knew that someday it would bear some interesting fruit. If you've been following this blog, you know that I haven't written about any movies for some time now. It just got to be too time consuming and I have another writing project that deserved my full typewritten attention. However, a few weeks back I found a not-your-everyday-enlarge-your-penis email in my inbox, asking if I might like to review a movie, this one. I was sooooo flattered by the attention that naturally I eagerly agreed. And a few days later we found the disc in our PO box downtown.
Anyway...
Screen Door Jesus is a very lovely little indie production. I say "little" but judging from the end result and the long list of credits at the end, this was not done too much on the cheap.
The subject matter tended to put me off, but I hung in there, and was glad I did.
Screen Door Jesus takes place in the mythical little east Texas town of Bethlehem. Yes, the name of the town is symbolic but it's up to you to determine in exactly what way. Mother Harper is a Jesus-loving and God-fearing lady on the downhill side of her lifespan and faints one day when she beholds the image of her Lord Jesus Christ, which has miraculously formed in the screen door on her front porch.
From that point all heaven and hell breaks loose, as pilgrims from all over the damn place start showing up to see the image of Jesus for themselves. The locals all react in their own ways, and from this arise several different stories which weave themselves in and around each other to create the movie. I really like a story which is told this way, but it has to be done right, or it will drive you crazy. The director, Kirk Davis, and the editor, Sam Adelman, deserve a lot of credit for this.
The subject matter puts me off a bit, because we just moved from New Mexico back to my home and very red state of Kansas, which lies right on the Bible belt. (I was just realizing that that is a very wide belt.) We didn't go to church this morning, nor last Sunday, and I doubt that we'll go next Sunday either, but I still get a little defensive when I see somebody making fun of church-going folk. My personal beliefs aside, those are my folk. (My mom and most of my family did go to church today.)
However, while this film is critical of Christians (not so much Christianity), it is not too cynical. Miracles do happen in this story and as to the film's theological points, though an attendee of the Southern Baptist convention might disagree with them, I don't think said attendee would try to start a riot and burn the film. You have among these many characters, the full gamut of Christian: the blind faith zealot to the borderline agnostic with his own take on what the Bible says, to the guy who hates God because something bad happened to him. I don't think there was an atheist, except maybe the drunk who lives across the street from Mother Harper.
I have a feeling that Christopher Cook, the author whose short stories were used as the basis for the screenplay, is a practicing Christian or at least has a tolerance for Christians not usually shared by your average Greenwich Village anarchist/liberal. I was frankly surprised that the film did not deliver some wholesale condemnation of Christianity. I appreciate that. Cook's work contains a conflict between the Pentecostals and the Baptists that reminds me of Garrison Keillor's Catholic vs. Lutheran scenarios.
Screen Door Jesus just might be the most entertaining "message movie" I have ever seen. There is a good amount of humor to go with some suspenseful drama. There is a little too much theological discussion but that's easily forgiven (get it? forgiven? hehehe). I've never heard of a single one of the actors, but the movie is very well acted. There is even some pretty decent music -- southern-style rock and roll from a band called Back Porch Mary, which portrays a group called The Renegade Ohms in the film. The band's lead singer is a major character in the story. I really wonder about the character name of that band. Anybody who has taken physics or basic electronics knows what an ohm is, but is that some backdoor reference to the hindu Om? God only knows, and the writer I guess.
The movie stills I use here were sent along with the DVD by one of the producers, David Stuart. If you click on them they pop open larger. Do so with the one of the porch. I got a kick out of the house number. There's no way that was an accident.
Clive Owen and Nicholas Cage must have the same mother. Every time I look at Clive, at least in this picture, I think I'm looking at Nick. Clive makes a better King Arthur than Cage would have been though -- in fact Mr. Owen is pretty darned good as the legendary leader.
Overall you could certainly say this movie is flawed, and you may have used stronger terms than that if you did see it, but my wife and I agreed that it was worth the watch. I found it compelling enough due largely to the untraditional take on the legend. Antoine Fuqua used an actual historical figure, on whom King Arthur may have been based.
In this version of the roundtable armor-wearers (and there is a round table) Arthur and his boys; Galahad, Lancelot, Tristan, etc. are actually Sarmatian knights, Polacks from eastern Europe. Their warriorness was so good that the Romans, when they pillaged there, let them live -- so they could indenture them of course. And bind them they did, sending the knights to an island that at the time was an outpost of the Roman Empire, known as Britain. All they say in this film is Britain so I guess it wasn't Great yet.
The warriors in this story are not the usual "knights in shining armor." These boys are a little dirty, and the armor is tarnished. But man can they fight. Excalibur is not a magical sword in this story, but just one wielded well by a man who knows how to use it.
When proscribed into service to the Pope, they were told that after 15 years, if they were good boys, they would be freed and they could go back to Sarmatia. This story picks up at that very time, and the knights are giddy at the prospect of what they might do after release. Ah, but of course there are complications. Rome is deciding that Britain isn't so great so they're withdrawing their occupation. However there is some Roman aristocrat and his son in the north, where coincidentally Saxon invaders are working their way south, who needs to be brought home. Since Arthur's men are handy, and handy with their swords, they get drafted into doing one last big favor for the Vatican -- and if they refuse they can cross Europe as hunted fugitives instead of heroes.
The Saxons are a snarling lot, and Cerdic their king is a strong character here. He looks like Leon Russell with all his long blond hair. Cerdic's son has a braided beard but his head is nearly shaved. Indeed, everybody on both sides is either a hippy or a skinhead.
I knew that King Arthur did not do well at the box office, and I didn't see it tearing it up with great reviews, but I was a little stunned to see that it got a very paltry 32% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. This film is not great but it's better than that.
The final battle scene is pretty drawn out and the knights aren't that distinct from each other, except for Bors. He's a roughrider if ever there was one. A stark difference in this take from the original is best expressed by this reviewer quoted on RT: "'The untold true story that inspired the legend' -- you know, the version in which ... Guinevere is a half-naked post-feminist warrior hottie." -- Rob Blackwelder, SPLICEDWIRE
Kieran Knightly is way hot as the pagan version of Guinevere.
If you read this blog you remember that my wife set out to get this on Christmas Eve and didn't find it. When we took Hero back we were looking for something else and I found out that Lucy had been looking for "Arthur" rather than King Arthur, and came to Hero before finding what she was truly looking for, which was in the very next rack.
A weird aspect here, is that Antoine Fugua is black. And from viewing the accompanying documentary material, he is the only black guy remotely involved with this film. I have to wonder how he felt during production. He did a good job of directing. He did Training Day if you're wondering about his history, and from the info on the disk, got some notoriety from a video he did for Coolio.
The production of King Arthur was surely fueled by the success of the Lord of the Rings films. The swords and the battle scenes are quite similar. If you really have a jones for another such adventure, this film might defer your withdrawal for an evening, but that's all.
Lucy had expressed interest in seeing King Arthur, I think to pacify a small fraction of her deep desire to see another LOTR movie, which ain't forthcoming. Since she was off on Xmas Eve and I wasn't, I suggested that she go find the DVD of the filmic roundtable legend and we would watch it that night. I guess it hasn't been released yet; she didn't find it at Movie Gallery, and instead came home with this.
What an incredible film.
I'm not a movie expert, I just like to watch them. So when she said "Jet Li" in a movie called Hero, I thought she had brought home a pure action Kung Fu hack-em-up flick. How wrong I was. I had no idea that this was a period film set in ancient China.
Oh, there is action, and lots of it. But this action is visual poetry. The sword fights here are like ballet, only better -- more beautiful and expressive than any damn fairies dancing about sugar plums.
If you saw Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and liked it, you must see Hero. CTHD was excellent, but this blows it away.
In Hero, the action is not there just for action's sake. The swordplay dance gives greater depth to the human stories that are at the fable's center. Yimou Zhang has truly created a mythology here -- a legend from which we all can learn. Like great myth, from this we learn about each other, but more about ourselves and our motivations in life and living.
I would love to be able to tell you the story. It could probably be covered in 500 words. But the utter simplicity of Hero's tale allows for the powerful truth it reveals to be exactly that.
This story is told with swords, but also with colors. Each scene is its own color. Once scene will be green, another yellow, red, or pink. This plays a large part in creating the stunning visual that Hero is. They went to some remote and amazingly beautiful areas of central China to shoot.
I love writing about movies that defy description and challenge our language. This film is truly one the most striking works of art that I have ever experienced. The DVD has a short doc about the film, which says that Yimou and his bunch spent 24 months developing the script. Each detail has been carefully considered in the making of this film. I am reminded of the LOTR movies, but that's comparing pomegranates with kiwi fruit. Hero is in a class by itself, as is Peter Jackson's trilogy. The classes are different however. (I think "class" works well there.)
I think I saw this on the IFC or Sundance schedules. Definitely check it out as soon as you can.
Hobbits are short. Wizards are old. Orcs are ugly. Men suffer and don't live very long. Elves are the coolest. And the prettiest by a mile. Especially Liv Tyler. Not to mention my wife's favorite, Legolas.
This situation is just the opposite of this one. There is too much to write about. Where do you start?
Usually you would start at the beginning but this movie is not the beginning; it's the third part. Well, actually it's the end.
The additional footage, which totals 50 minutes, is integrated seamlessly. The scenes that were not in the theatrical release are obvious, but still, you don't notice until you're in the middle of them. The editing here is brilliant.
Bill Maher may have had a point when he said in reference to the version that won the 13 Oscars, that "no movie that lasts three and half hours should win the Oscar for best editing." However, there is just too much story here to tell. Experts on the books know that much is left out as it is. Jackson earned all his statues, not the least of which the one for editing.
The additional footage not only fleshes out the story more, but also the individual characters. You get to know Aragorn and Frodo and Sam and even Gollum a lot better for viewing this enhanced edition.
We've barely sampled the extras from the two additional disks. They may merit an entry all their own.
$2,995,917. This, according to IMBD, is what this movie has grossed to date. And it was released in 1989. If I understand it right that includes box office, DVD and VHS sales and rentals. Worldwide.
Visually this film is interesting -- downright stimulating. The story is, uh...well...hard to put your finger on. It has something to do with people being somehow induced to call the number that is the title to this film, to get their horoscope. There is not one of there characters who you would believe would be the slightest bit interested in their star chart reading. But, this is the movies.
As you might surmise, Satan is on the other end of the line when these unfortunate dialers connect. And their lives basically go to hell. Especially "Hoax." This is a very interesting name for a character. Who would name their child Hoax? This is obviously some kind of joke perpetrated by the writers. Maybe it's an industry inside joke of some kind. I could be convinced that this whole movie is an industry inside joke.
Hoax is the twerpy little cousin of cool tough leather-wearing motorcycle-riding Spike, who among our main characters, is the first to discover the fated phone number. Hoax finds the number later, and for some cinematic reason, experiences MUCH more in the way of effects. Hoax lives with his psychotically Christian mother.
Like I said, this film is visually stimulating. 976-EVIL is shot very well for horror purposes. And the special effects are pretty darned good. Hell actually freezes over in this film. Those who like a campy slasher movie could do a helluvalot worse than this.
One aspect of semi-old B horror movies, that I find interesting, is the credit listing. This movie has Darren Burrows playing one of the bullies who torment Hoax (Darren is the guy with the slashed face, pictured on your right with Hoax). Darren, very soon after this film, took on the role of Ed Chigliak on TV's Northern Exposure. For some reason, though he only has a bit part, Robert Picardo is the top billed actor in this flick. Picardo played the holographic ship's surgeon on Star Trek: Voyager. The most interesting actor though is Sandy Dennis. She plays Hoax's freak-Mom, and she won an Oscar for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf back '67.
Yep, these films get 'em on the way up, and on the way down. Kind of like bands and dive rock-n-roll bars.
Stephen Geoffreys, the kid who plays Hoax, from what I can see from his IMBD listing, went from this film straight into a career of gay porn movies. He went on to star in such films as Latin Crotch Rockets, Transexual Prostitutes (1 and 2), and Butt Blazer.
I will tepidly suggest to check out 976-EVIL. Only if you really like to laugh at, or study, this kind of movie.
I found this DVD for cheap and was disappointed because I was expecting a different film. Back in the early 90's somewhere, when I didn't even own a TV, I was housesitting for a friend who had HBO. In the middle of the night a film came on that I was sure was called 976-EVIL. I remember this flick for two scenes. In one, a guy dies on the beach and is depicted as ascending (I was into new age shit then). The other was at the end when the producers did a brilliant (I thought) job of melding the story with footage from the end of It's a Beautiful Life starring Jimmy Stewart. I see there's a 976-EVIL 2. Maybe that's the one I saw. If anybody recognizes those scenes could you please let me know the film.
Sometimes when you are watching a film, you know that you are going to see it again, and maybe a third time. Sometimes you think this because you know the movie is really good. And other times you think this because the thing is so non-linear that it will take another viewing just to get a handle on the story. (What with our usual linear perception, non-linearity takes a varying amount of adaptation -- at least for me.) I knew that I would need to watch Donnie Darko again, maybe in the morning. I want to understand better what's going on here because visually this film is fascinating.
I strongly suspect this is a work of genius.
I just need to see it again to make sure.
From what I could gather, I'm pretty sure that Donnie is schizophrenic. I don't quite get the time-travel thing and its involvement yet. Give me a chance though, no comments until my second shot at it. What I did get is the general aura of foreboding in this film. I did not expect a scary film; rather a sci-fi/fantasy kind of thing. But no, this is the scariness of mental illness, and its accompanying black humor.
Frank is special though. The most frightening aspect. I nominate Frank for Best Fictional Rabbit Of All Time. Far superior to Harvey, Roger was annoying, and Bugs? Forget about it. And the Energizer Bunny never has any lines.
I enjoyed seeing Jake Gyllenhaal's sister play his sister. She's taken "average cute" to an artform.
Yes I look forward to watching this DVD again. I'd rather see the director's cut in the theater, but I think I missed it. Found this for $9.99 at Best Buy. I'm glad we bought so I can watch it several more times.
"I find it kinda funny -- I find it kinda sad,
the dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had..."
By the way, the website makes much more sense having seen the film.
Ron Livingston is pretty good in this flick. He plays the disaffected cubicle dweller well. The film has a small cult following but I don't really think that it's worth that. Office Space is funny, but I wasn't laughing my ass off.
I think Stephen Root's character, Milton Waddams, is the source of the enduring fascination. He is pretty ridiculous. The ultimate nerd/dork/doofus. Virtually every cubicle colony of any decent size will have at least one of these -- the guy everybody snickers at behind his back, and some will feel sorry for.
Each character does illustrate some office stereotype. Lumberg, the boss, with the everpresent coffee mug and feaux laissez-faire attitude. Every sentence begins with, yeeahh... Jennifer Aniston fills the sex appeal requirement, a cute but ditzy waitress. The two programmer geeks are pretty good. One of them is East Indian of course. The other guy reminded me of Napoleon Dynamite.
Mike Judge of Beavis & Butthead fame wrote and directed. But if you saw the movie version of that you wouldn't go near anything else he did.
This would be a good Friday evening after work movie -- especially if you work in an office cubicle.
I did see a few minutes of Madonna's recent take on this 1975 Italian import drama. What cheese. But I did not expect the original to be a politically charged drama. Westerners like moi do not expect this from the premise of a man and a woman getting shipwrecked on a Mediterranean island. She, the rich capitalist; he, the poor communist who hates rich people with a passion.
This is no comedy. The interactions between the characters are intense and insulting and the dialog on the screen is hard to keep up with. You have to read subtitles. Incredible acting and interplay though. It is as though the two of them are living it.
Once they are on the island, he is the one who can fish and bring in food, which means he has all the capital, and he punishes the rich and beautiful blonde from northern Italy. She ordered him and his crewmates around on the sailboat mercilessly and now the tables are turned. They get lost together when she decides that she wants to go swimming, and he gets the job of taking her out on the dinghy even though it's getting too late in the evening. The engine on the little boat breaks down and they wind up adrift.
She is a total pain-in-the-ass in her bikini, cursing the crewman for getting them lost, demeaning his race, and constantly whining -- even when they try to sleep.
Swept Away is very educational. I didn't not know that the northern Italianos were so prejudiced against the southerners that they call them niggers. The southerners are darker, more Meditteranean. They look more like Greeks.
Once they find the deserted island, he turns her into slave labor, making her wash his underpants to earn her food. He is very abusive towards her, slapping her around -- but she falls in love anyway. You knew they had to start fucking at some point. She even lets a yacht pass the island without getting its attention, she is so enthralled with being alone on the island with this commoner who controls her.
The scenes of the two of them are so emotionally and physically violent that the film must make an impression.
When I saw the few minutes of Madonna's flick, she looked like shit. This woman, Mariangela Melato, is beautiful however, and Giancarlo Giannini is powerful as the representative of the (mythical) underclass.
I think director Lina Wertmuller intended this as an indictment of capitalism, but the actions of the man, I think, illustrate that capitalism is the system that comes most naturally. Whoever can produce the goods, has the power, and that's just the way it is.
Thanks to Jeff for loaning us the DVD and certain library books, research of which aided greatly in enjoying this film.
Films like The Hired Hand are why I am a movie buff. This is a beautiful film -- a sparse and simple story -- the ideal western. A story of human beings and their paths in life, laid against an absolutely incredible backdrop of New Mexico sunsets and vistas. Seeing this is like finding a lost priceless treasure hidden away in the attic of an abandoned house.
The Hired Hand is Peter Fonda's directorial debut from 1971, two years after Easy Rider. He plays the central character in this film too. Apparently there were some problems with its release and promotion back in the early 70's, so it has languished in obscurity until recently. Fonda and editor Frank Mazzola have done a re-edit for DVD released under the Sundance logo.
The box first caught my eye at the vid store a couple of weeks ago. Then I happened to see some stuff on the web about it, and how it's supposed to be so good. This was enough synchronicity for me to bring it home. Harry (Fonda) and Arch Harris (Warren Oates) have been riding together for 7 years, but Harry is suddenly caught with the desire to return to the wife and daughter he left behind. The story is of him working his way back into his homelife, like a hired hand.
Since beginning this blog I've started to think that you really shouldn't write about a film after only one viewing. And, in the past I haven't been one to rewatch a disk with the director's commentary. More often than not the commentary is just self-indulgent crap. But I am glad that I've chosen to hear Fonda's remarks on The Hired Hand. His passion for this film, and movie-making/storytelling in general, shines. He lends genuine insight to both the story and telling of it, giving its mythological basis. If you rent this DVD, indulge yourself in Peter's commentary.
The sparseness of this film is like the work of a brilliant visual artist who can take 5 simple black lines and arrange them on the paper such that they bring a tear to your eye. Fonda's acting is very good, his direction better, but Warren Oates really makes this film, along with Verna Bloom who plays Harry's wife. If anybody was born to play a cowboy it was Warren Oates -- you can smell his sweat-soaked saddle and tobacco breath. Warren must've worked cattle drives in a previous life. Like Peter says, Oates died way to young (1982).
The visuals of this film make the dialog practically unnecessary. Vilmos Zsigmond's cinematography is beyond excellent. He's since done all manner of films like Deliverance, The Deer Hunter, and The Two Jakes just to name a few. You will notice too the soundtrack. The music by Bruce Langhorne is just as simple and sparsely beautiful as the film itself. If I hear it right, all he does is arpeggiate a few chords on guitars and banjos, more like a sound texture than composition. But if you've ever heard a poet read his words with a musician playing behind him, and the richness and additional dimension that the music provides the experience, you will have an idea of what Langhorne's music does for this film.
Speaking of poets, I was surprised to see Michael McClure's name on the list of acting credits at IMDB. (I was also stunned to find out that he was born in Marysville, KS.) He's the old beat poet from the 60's. Peter refers to him as a playwrite in his commentary. I saw Michael at a Taos Poetry Circus a few years ago, performing with Ray Manzarek, ex of The Doors. He plays a saloon smartass and gets hit in the back by Warren Oates' character.
Each moment of The Hired Hand is like a work of art that you want to cherish and hold on to. I will regret returning this DVD to Hollywood Video today. The visuals and music are so captivating I could watch it many many times. I doubt that I see a film this year as affecting as this one.
Kathy Bates naked. I really didn't need that. Jack Nicholson's butt wasn't on my list of desired movie visuals either. At least they were both brief.
About Schmidt is slow and ponderous, and could be depressing if you let it. There are some sardonically humorous moments, but overall you get the despair of the bland American midwestern landscape. Flat Nebraska farmland and Omaha residential neighborhoods. Jack does a nice job of acting out a wasted and empty life.
Warren R. Schmidt is 66 years old and has just retired. His daughter who has moved to Denver is getting married to a waterbed salesman and Schmidt wants to stop it. He loves his daughter and doesn't want her life to turn out like his.
A scene that stuck with me was when Schmidt went back to the office after his retirement to see the young guy that the company hired to replace him. He wants to see if he's got any questions or having any problems. Each and every statement the new guy makes in response to Warren is a cliché.
"What do say partner?"
[How are you?] "Not too shabby."
"What brings you by this neck of the woods?"
"Keepin' busy, keepin' busy"
"I think I've got a pretty good handle on things"
"Smooth sailing all the way."
The new man could not give less of a shit about Warren, and his fake respect and admiration for Warren is unnerving -- for Warren and the viewer. I always feel sorry for older retired men, who for some reason continue to wear neckties every day. Warren does this. There is something tragic about that practice.
The movie picks up in the second half when he goes to Denver for his daughter's wedding. The prospective in-laws are mostly whack jobs. Bates is the groom's mother and tells Warren that she breast-fed him until he was 5 years old, creating the perfect momma's boy. The groom has his mullett all washed and un-ponytailed for the wedding, which drags out in schmaltzy new age glory.
The movie is loaded with voice-overs by Schmidt, which take the form of letters he writes to his newly adopted Tanzanian orphan. Undugu is one of those "Save the Children" $22/mo. adoptees. The voice overs allow us to experience Warren's inner angst which we wouldn't get otherwise.
This is definitely the Jack Nicholson Show. Any fan of his should see it. Just don't expect an uplifting experience.
If you ever wanted to see a real live elephant take a dump while Ewan McGregor is delivering a line, this may be your only chance.
Big Fish looked like a good Friday night movie. Friday nights are best left to good comedies, or fantasies, because my wife works in an abominable office all week and we need something to relax her going into the weekend. Friday is not for intense emotional dramas, horror movies, or challenging arthouse obscurities.
Tim Burton obviously had fun making this film, but he probably had more fun making it than I had watching it. It tries, but doesn't get there. I found the film ultimately boring, and the ending anti-climactic rather than uplifting. There are some nice special effects, which Burton is known for, but the story is disorganized and the whimsy is forced.
In another post I warned against movies where the central character is a writer. Here Albert Finney's old man is a storyteller, in a family oral tradition, and his semi-estranged son has grown weary of the grandiose embellishments his Dad is known for. The younger man wants to know what really happened. (He's a writer, we're told, but it's not much of the story.)
From there we somehow get all back into the fantasies that Dad likes. As he related in his oral autobiography, he finds a hidden village, after convincing a 12 foot tall giant who is terrorizing his hometown to go with him to the city. I found intriguing the part during the war where he encounters a set of twins who have but one pair of legs between them, and I enjoyed Helena Bonham Carter's three different characters. But by and large it all runs together after a while.
Lucy liked it well enough so Big Fish served our end-of-the-week purposes, even if I did catch her dozing off a couple of times.
British movies piss me off -- even the really good ones -- because I can't understand the bleedin' dialog. However, about a third of the way into this one I remembered that I could turn on the English subtitles. Ahhhhh. Then I could enjoy the movie. I'm wondering if I shouldn't do that all the time; even if the accents are Kansan you still miss a word here and there. This morning I rewatched the first 37 minutes and gained a better understanding of the basic story.
28 Days Later, if you've seen the trailer or previews, could easily be confused with Night of the Living Dead. And 28 Days Later does have some very aggressive and deadly zombies that will strike when you least expect it, creating a very consistent tension throughout. However it is far above such Grade B fare as George Romero's tale. Most of the way into 28 Days Later, I thought that it was simply a condensed British rewrite of Stephen King's The Stand. It has much in common with Steve's magnum opus. A virus suddenly appears and just as suddenly wipes out the entire population except for a few lucky or unlucky souls, depending on your perspective.
However, I think the objectives of the respective storytellers are different. Danny Boyle, famous for Trainspotting (couldn't understand that one either) directed, screenplay by Alex Garland.
I'm growing to dislike "message movies" more and more, unless the message is obscure enough to allow for multiple interpretations, like this one. It could be a simplistic message: man's normal state is that of killing his fellow man, or, military people are assholes, or, we are all just sex-driven beasts, or, military people are just sex-driven murderous assholes, or, most probably, we are all assholes except the three central characters in this movie.
The message I think runs a little deeper here. Based on the derivation of the virus, the meaning has something to do with rage as a genetic part of our makeup that will kill us all one day. I'll let you watch the film and decide for yourself. If you can handle some (al) gore (vidal), and can understand British dialects you should be mesmerized. And I'm not just referring to the full frontal when the guy wakes up in the hospital.
I see it will appear on HBO soon, but you won't get subtitles, so you might consider the DVD. There are some interesting extras on the DVD: Three alternative endings, one that is so extensive that they have to show it with storyboards and dialog read by the director and the writer. The documentary about the making of the film is scarier than the film because it discusses the factual risk of viral pandemics faced by the world today. They talk about the huge outbreak of foot and mouth disease in the UK which lead to the destruction of 5 million head of livestock, and how viruses are morphing such that they can be transmitted from animal to human, like the virus in 28 Days Later.
Calling this a horror movie is actually debatable. Oh, it is definitely horrifying, but there's more to it than yikes and screams. This flick gives you a lot to think about.
Where's the bag? Who has the bag? 29 Palms revolves around a bag of money that changes hands in some extremely improbable ways -- about 10 times. First, Chris O'Donnell gets it from the Indians, then the security guard steals it from him, then the cop steals it from the security guard, and it goes from there. I'll get into spoilers if I go any further.
There's a message in this movie about Indian casinos, but I'm not real sure what it is. I think the writer is down on them. I wonder if he's seen the gambling palaces in New Mexico.
O'Donnell is a hit man, hired by Indians to take care of an undercover FBI agent. Except the FBI guy gets away and all kinds of weirdness ensues, all swirling around this damn bag of money. Russell Means plays the Indian chief. I didn't know he had done so much acting in recent years.
The script is fun. The budget was obviously low, and it's the resulting campiness and cheesiness that gives the film some charm. The violence isn't bad at all. Even in the end when a few of the characters take bullets, it's not that bloody.
The whole thing takes place on a lonely desert highway. 29 Palms is the name of a town. I wonder if there are still only 29 palms there?
I enjoyed watching Bill Pullman playing his character: the slightly (or perhaps not so slightly) crazy bus station attendant. He has a strange predilection for oranges, but proves to be good with a shotgun. Yes, the man who played the President in Independence Day does well with a really low-rent character here. At one point I thought he would end up with all the money, and maybe he does, you have to watch. I liked his sax player in David Lynch's Lost Highway.
Including Bill, there are a variety of decent acting performances here, ranging from the deranged, to the cool, to the victim, to the prick -- actually everybody is a prick in some way. Rachael Leigh Cook plays the obligatory cutie -- a Native American waitress -- of course. The guy at the middle, the pursued played by Jeremy Davies, just mumbles all the time however. I suppose the character has reason to be so out of it, but he could've put some emotion into the performance, just for the hell of it.
This movie isn't bad, but it certainly isn't great either. I'm not even sure it's good. But it was worth the watch. You can't help wondering what's going to happen with the bag in the end. And at 95 minutes it's not too long.
No fucking extras. I had sworn off using the F word on this blog, until I discovered that there are no fucking extras on the Master & Commander DVD. I hadn't realized how conditioned I was to spacing out on deleted scenes or director interviews right after watching a DVD. This disk doesn't even have the trailer. They must've needed to hustle it out. Or, they are trying to create more interest in the inevitable special edition DVD that will appear sometime around Christmas.
The DVD may lack a how-they-did-it documentary, but the movie is quite excellent. This seashow moves past Lost in Translation and is my first runner up to Return of the King in 2003. Russell Crowe's movie got 10 Academy Award nominations so if not for ROTK, it would've done about as well.
The year is 1805 and a tub full of Brits are playing cat and mouse with a French privateer -- a boat of superior firepower and twice the crew -- all up and down the coasts of South America. England is determined to fight off Napoleon.
I appreciated how the story showed the caste system of the early 19th century British warships. I would like to read the novel on which this movie was based so that I could get a clearer description. It was strange watching kids, they looked to be 12-14 years old, commanding men much older than them. I guess it was some kind of officer-training method. The kids probably had the right parents. Lucky Jack, The Captain, Crowe's leading character, often seems to be a father to these lads as much as a commanding officer.
There are several great characters on this boat. Jack's doctor friend provides a nice compliment to his sea warrior. But the kid-officers and all the old salts each lend their flavor to the overall taste of the film.
This flick has one of the greatest action sequences I've ever seen. No spoilers allowed so I won't go into it, but the ultimate battle is worth the price of admission.
The price of admission was pretty cheap though. I mentioned last week getting 99¢ coupons in the mail from Hollywood Video. Well I got a great surprise when I went up to the checkout counter there this afternoon with one disk. The kid tells me then that I can use this coupon to get up to three movies for that price. (I had missed part of the fine print.) So, we've got a couple more to watch this weekend.
Swimming Pool is not the movie to see late on a Friday night after a long walk and three Fat Tire Ales. This movie is draaawwwwwn out. Much space between the lines. I just sat through the deleted scenes, which is by the way the only extra on the disk besides the trailer. The trailer has a lot more tension than the movie.
During the deleted scenes we saw, in order, Charlotte Rampling make tea at a restaurant, then walk up an alley by herself, then set her alarm clock before going to sleep, plus a few others scenes, the point being that I am surprised they took them out because the whole flick is like that.
Charlotte is a writer. One should always be wary of movies where the central character is a writer. She's having trouble working on her book (what other drama could exist in a writer's life?), so her publisher sends her to his cottage in France. She gets on a roll with her laptop thanks to all the solitude in this big country house.
We spend quite a while with her wandering the grounds and the French village nearby and settling in to the house. I know the Europeans love that shite, but this Yank gets a little sleepy.
Don't misunderstand. The movie is really well done. It's quite well acted and shot and directed. First rate production. It is however unnecessarily ponderous and slow (if you ask me).
Finally something happens when the publisher's daughter shows up unexpectedly in the middle of the night. She's a wild child, about 18, and starts bringing home dudes and partying, but mostly skinny-dipping in and laying out by the Swimming Pool in skimpy bikinis. I thought it was interesting how the film seemed to study the young woman's body. We're constantly getting breast shots, and slow pans of her from toe to head wearing one of her bikinis. Yes she's beautiful. Apparently the director was fascinated.
I won't do spoilers so I'll say that something very heavy does happen later. The girl proves to be a little psycho. But I still didn't fully get that bit. I did get why the writer lady did what she did. It's all for the book. She wanted to live it.
If you're in a real arthouse mood and feel generous toward European self-indulgence, and it's early in the afternoon after a few espressos, you might give this disk a spin. Thankfully it only runs about 1:40, but could've been less than an hour.
I got this using another 99¢ email coupon from Blockbuster, so I can't complain too much. There's a war going on because we got some 99¢ print coupons in the mail from Hollywood Video. I love it.
Blockbuster sent me a coupon in the email this week, offering a short term special: through Sunday, one rental for 99¢. I wouldn't miss using that, and such discounts are a good excuse to a) take a chance on something you never heard of, b) find something 10 years old that you missed, or c) go for something really light and fun, which you would be reluctant to pay the full price to see.
We decided on "c" and rented School of Rock. We really enjoyed it. I freaked out when, near the beginning, Jack Black is awakened by disgruntled roommates and is laying in matching bedsheets and pillowcases that are just like a set that my Mom put on my bed when I was a kid and that I used for years. They're made with a cool orange and brown abstract sun and vaper trails design, pictured at right.
Sometimes when we get a movie we like to get up the next morning, make coffee, and watch it in our jammies. This is fun, and works well with a comedy like School of Rock. Starting a weekend day with some laughs is kind of nice.
This movie exceeded my expectations, not because of Jack, but because of the kids in his band. Truthfully though, the credit goes back to Jack because he played his part with the kids so well. Ask any actor, doing scenes with kids is difficult. In the documentary material on the DVD, Jack quotes WC Fields where he said to never do scenes with kids or animals, because they are so cute nobody notices what you do. Jack explains that he is basically a kid himself, and an animal, so working with either isn't a problem. And he proves this if you see the movie.
Before bringing this disk home I had no idea that it was directed by Richard Linklater. I will always remember Slacker and Dazed and Confused. I haven't seen what he's done since, but seems to be going more mainstream now.
They recruited kids for the cast who are actual musicians, so there isn't any synching. They all really play and really sing, and do both great. Jack even plays lead guitar for real, and kicks some butt.
Believe me, this isn't just a dumb comedy. Seeing Jack and the kids bringing a rock band together and pulling off a successful show is quite uplifting in its way. The kids manage to truly Stick It To The Man, just like Jack teaches them to do during his fraudulent term as a substitute teacher. The hidden gem of a performance here though is Joan Cusack as the principal. She does great as the frustrated-and-repressed-nut-as-stuffy-conservative. The scene with her and Jack having a beer is charming.
There is much good extra material on this DVD, including a challenging rock trivia quiz in the computer stuff (PC DVD reader req. for that). In the extras they exploit the kids further by documenting them at the Toronto Film Festival, and they are really sweet experiencing the spotlight for the first time.
Tonight my wife wanted to rewatch Fellowship of the Ring, the first flick in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. This makes at least the 8th time, total between theater and dvd and short and long editions, that we've watched it. I think I've got it down now. And it's still a great film. I enjoyed all three and three quarter hours of the hobbit story again, even if my mind wandered a bit here and there. The story, the characters, the visual are all so rich that I don't think I will ever get tired of it, or bored with it. I know Lucy won't.
As I've mentioned before, in writing this blog I've come to realize how your perspective after seeing a movie three times is different than right after seeing it the first time. Now I think you reach a another level after 6 to 8 times. Then, you don't have much to say about the film at all because you've been through it so much that there's nothing left to process.
However, this is obviously a special case. I've not only seen all three movies multiple times, but I've watched many hours of documentary, on the disks and on various cable and network TV channels. I saw the franchise clean house at the last Oscars.
It's obvious. I'm not sick of the movies. I am sick of the hyperbole and the commentary and can't bring myself to add to it.
Whenever I kick down and write one of these takes, I try to review and inform those who haven't seen the subject movie, and also put in comments for those who have. Anybody who isn't familiar with the hobbits and the elves and the orcs and such at this point, certainly does not want to be, so there is no reason to share info.
I had thought that because of the movies I would never read the books, but I may try again this summer. I want more of the story now.
Please see ¶1 of this post and my comments on David Mamet's comments. They apply directly to Lost in Translation.
Visuals -- stunning Visuals -- dominate this treatise from Sofia Coppola, Francis Ford's little girl. Sparse, barely essential dialog, between two Americans lost in Tokyo. One older, male, married with children. The other young, female, married to a flighty photographer who leaves her in their hotel room in her transparent pick underwear to look out the window at a huge, vast city.
Bill Murray and Scarlett Johannson are perfect together in this film. There are not only grandiose visuals of the city of Tokyo, there are equally stunning visuals of Bill & Scarlett together. Their chemistry is magical and mesmerizing. Bill owes half his Oscar nomination to Scarlett.
They don't talk much, but they don't need to. This movie is striking in this similarity to the Earring movie I wrote about here, which also features Scarlett not talking much but saying it all with her eyes and face. She is a truly remarkable actress. I hope she doesn't get too spoiled by all the attention she is getting now. I'd hate to see her turn into Judy Garland. I first saw Scarlett in Ghost World, a really good comic book movie with Thora Birch and Steve Buscemi. She showed promise there, and again, she didn't have much dialog. But I digress.
My wife says that had this not been the year of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings, then Lost in Translation should have been the one to get best picture and all that. And she says that Bill Murray should have gotten best actor instead of Sean Penn. I agree. LiT is more of a visual story than Mystic River.
The story draws you in hypnotically. I actually have a desire to sing karaoke now, having seen Bill doing his darnedest on a Roxy Music song. It takes a lot of gall to be so sparse with dialog and so reliant on imagery and pull it off. We'll have to check out The Virgin Suicides, Ms. Coppola's first film.
"Ordinary life is pretty complex stuff."
This is the tagline, the synopsis, the thesis, and could serve as the review of the movie American Splendor. American Splendor is so not allegory (see take on Pleasantville). This is reality -- so real you can hardly take it sometimes. If two people can somehow find joy in their own despair, Harvey and Joyce Pekar do.
What you get here is just the facts ma'am. Harvey's common life is somehow made excellent and wonderful just through stark portrayal, first in the comic books, and now in this brilliant movie. Any movie that can leave you with the feeling this one did, utilizing this subject matter, has to be brilliant. Harvey is so unbelievably believable as the file clerk in the basement of the hospital with the equally neurotic wife who found him through his comic books that you absolutely have no choice but to totally love him, not in spite of his shortcomings, but purely because of them. He shows very few longcomings so the former is all you've got to work with.
Harvey is obviously a genius in his own way. But the genius of simplicity is sometimes the greatest genius of all. How much genius does it take to simply lay your life down in comic book panels, word for word, exactly how it happens, no edits?
Maybe it doesn't take genius so much as balls.
Goethe said that boldness has genius in it so maybe one doesn't go without the other.
Harvey Pekar reminds me of Bukowski. Charles didn't exactly indulge in superhero fantasies himself -- he pretty much stuck to the script as he saw it happen outside (and inside) his window. Sticking to real life effectively, is the essence of brilliance.
The way this film blends realities is amazing. The fictional portrayal of Harvey is narrated by Harvey himself, and then from time to time you go into the studio where he is laying down the voice tracks. There you also might see real life versions of the characters in the story being told.
Toby's existence is some kind of anomaly. I cannot believe that there is a person on this earth who really acts like that. It says a lot for Harvey's condition that he would attract somebody so totally weird into his reality.
Now I need to find Crumb so my wife can watch it. I guess I'd like to see it again myself now. Before seeing American Splendor my interest in reseeing Crumb was tepid at best. Robert Crumb's story is weirder than Harvey's, but more on the perverse side, so as to leave you disturbed. Harvey's got a good heart. I saw Crumb is available on Movielink.
Harvey, his wife and daughter all have weblogs on his page. However, they don't update often.
Andrew Strong, a.k.a. Deco, he of the ugly face and the dynamic voice who leads song for The Commitments, was just 16 years old when the movie was filmed. This is according to the documentary that comes on the DVD. If you've seen the Irish flick, you just freaked out, unless you knew that already. He sounds like 16 going on 40 belting out the rhythm & blues numbers in the film.
This is my impression after my 5th viewing. Especially regarding older films, I never know whether to write for those who have seen a movie, or for those who haven't, so I tend to blend it. I'll review the premise and the achievement, and speak familiarly for those who know what happens. No spoilers though.
I have seen The Commitments 5 times, so you would probably assume that I like this movie. And yes, I do. I love it in fact. The story is both funny and dramatic, as are stories of fledgeling bands coming together. However, the music really carries the film, and this is what makes the multiple viewings very enjoyable. You can dance to this movie if you want to, with songs like Mustang Sally and Midnight Hour. The story isn't strong enough to hold the film up for two hours, but the humor and the soul keep you listening if not watching.
The Commitments set out to save Ireland by bringing Soul to the people. This is their mission as brought to them by the apparent messenger of God and trumpet player Joey Fagen. If you haven't seen it, do you need to know any more than that?
Imelda Quirke, one of the backup singers, really really helps with the watchable aspect of the film. The director utilized her legs to the fullest.
When I first saw this movie at the Lobo Theater over on Central Ave. when it was released back in 1991, I did not know what the UK term "shite" referred to. After learning the meaning of this term, subsequent viewings have greatly increased my understanding of the plot. I think "shite" the second most common word in the script. The most common word begins with an F.
The ending, as Joey "The Lips" puts it to Jimmy, makes this story poetry rather than predictable tripe. This is a timeless tale. I'll probably watch it 5 more times in coming years.
Just a week or so ago, a "collector's edition" DVD of The Commitments was released. Alas, I have the regular old version they released last year. That's okay, as much as I love The Commitments, I don't think it is worth 4 hours of documentary.
Swamp scenes and swamp music, in the form of crickets and frogs and the myriad other sounds that emanate from wilderness bogs around Fouke, Arkansas fill the first two minutes of this film. Nothing else. The camera moves slowly following snakes in the water, insects in the air, and the setting sun between the trees. You see the visual art and you hear the music of nature. In a theater, this was very affecting, and does an excellent job of creating the creepy backwoods ambience of the film. This shows how much a film often loses when it transits from celluloid projected onto a big screen in a dark theater, to a disk you play on a TV in your well-lit living room.
When I was 12 years old, I went by myself to see The Legend of Boggy Creek in the theater in my hometown. The Temple Theater has been closed now for many years, but I'll always remember that night seeing this film.
It scared the crap out of me.
I'm usually not one, even when I was that young, to get honestly frightened by a movie. However, the supernatural aspect combined with the supposed reality of it really got to me. I didn't sleep well for a while after seeing Boggy Creek.
The story of the southern Arkansas version of Bigfoot is timeless. A friend just found the DVD of this film a few months ago, and I am fascinated by it. It really is an artfully done film -- artful in its low-budget crudeness. It blurs the line between dramatization and documentary to the point of non-existence.
Charles Pierce, the man who did the film, is from Fouke, and has firsthand experience with the Fouke Monster. He claims in the film to have been 7 years old "the first time I heard him scream."
Alleged actual audio of the creature's bone-chilling howl is used in this film. And if you hear it, it will give you goosebumps.
Pierce should be in the hall of fame of filmmakers. In dramatizing the encounters with the hairy beast-freak, he apparently had the actual people who lived the experience play themselves wherever he could. There were a few actors he used, but for the most part the real people reenacted their experiences, hence the blur of the line. And I think this is what gives it the timeless quality, and its visceral effect.
The film was released in 1972, and at first glance the production is decidedly cheesy. It has the grainy/fuzzy quality of 60's era instructional films. However, the storyteller's relationship with the story far transcends any budget deficiencies, or acting inexperience. It doesn't scare me like it did, but it sure makes me remember how scared I was when I saw it the first time over 30 years ago.
I appreciate the effect of how you never get a good look at the creature. He/she is always an undefined hairy black mass back among the trees. You usually have to look really hard to tell anything is there. I'm sure this is much like the actual sightings.
There is one shot that is absolutely brilliant. It's a scene where a teenage girl is looking out a window into the woods around her house, the camera is shooting over her shoulder and you can see an outline of a black hulk coming out of the trees towards her with the moon in the background.
It looks so good the girl faints from fright.
Some art snobs might start watching this film and in the first 10 minutes decide that it is just too primitive to take seriously. And if they are from either coast they might think the people too primitive to take seriously too. That's unfortunate because if they could get past their initial judgements they might have a memorable movie experience. And they might not. I'm sure my first time with the Boggy Creek Freak has had its lasting effects.
Meaning-of-life movies can be a real mixed bag. What the meaning of life is to someone, a director like Lawrence Kasdan for example, can be completely unique to that person. When a movie director/producer decides to explore the meaning of life, this can cost a movie viewer both money and time, in exchange for, not their own fulfillment, but the observation of the other's fulfillment, which might not be very fulfilling.
However, this movie is pretty good.
Grand Canyon was released in 1991, making it about 13 years old. I found the DVD at Best Buy for $5.99. Helluvadeal. I'd never seen the movie but had heard that it was a "feel good" film -- one that endeavors to uplift and inspire, and that it was pretty succesful towards those ends.
I wasn't crazy about this film, but you have to know that I am very hard to please when it comes to meaning of life shit. The movie is enjoyable to watch, featuring an excellent ensemble of actors, including Kevin Kline, Danny Glover, and I really appreciated Steve Martin's movie producer role.
I wondered if Kasdan wasn't trying to emulate Robert Altman, because you had several different story lines braiding themselves around each other, with each character participating in 2 or 3 of the storylines. This approach keeps things interesting, with the focus always moving around among different dramas.
The story is a little too complicated to try and describe here in any detail. Suffice it to say that it happens in L.A. and a disparate group of individuals begin unlikely chance interactions, and wind up helping each other to understand.....The Meaning Of Life. That's all you really need to know. Check it out if you get the chance.
Cambodia is the setting for City of Ghosts, Matt Dillon's first attempt at directing a film. Dillon shot the entire movie on location in the southeast Asian country.
The story, which Matt stars in and cowrote, is vague, but what makes the film interesting is the way it was shot. The majority of City of Ghosts takes place in Phnom Penh, which looks to be a very spooky place for any visitor. And why anybody would visit there is anybody's guess, but the obvious shadowy, deceptive nature of the city is captured quite well.
Gerard Depardieu has a role in this film as does James Caan. So Matt was able to bring in a couple of heavy hitters to add some interest. Depardieu's part is that of a derelict saloon owner who apparently knocked up a local girl some years ago. His character is one of those guys who seems trivial to the story at the outset, yet in the end, you realize that the whole tale dances around him.
Caan is Daddy Scam to Matt's character, who just barely escapes the U.S. law to come overseas and ask Caan what the hell is going on. Well Caan intends to take the $10M or so that he's made off the insurance scam that Matt was working in the States, and invest it in a hotel/resort/casino in Cambodia. Wouldn't you love to take a trip to Cambodia? It's certainly first on my list of dream vacation locations. Anyway, the plot convolutes and vagaries amplify after the hotel goes down the tubes and Caan covers his tracks so he can disappear into the Killing Fields countryside.
City of Ghosts is not a great film, but it is very interesting, even hypnotic at times. If you're an arthouse geek, you should likely check it out. Dillon has real potential as a director. The overall ambience of the film is memorable, and I will be interested to see what he comes up with in the future.