Archive for Movies & TV

Monday Movie Review: The Desperate Hours

The Desperate Hours (1955) 7/10
Three escaped cons led by Glenn Griffin (Humphrey Bogart) hold a suburban family prisoner, using their home as a hideout while waiting for the money that Glenn’s girlfriend is bringing.

The Desperate Hours plays on multiple levels. On the surface, it’s a taut crime thriller. There’s the battle of wits between Glenn Griffin and family patriarch Dan Hilliard (Frederic March) as well as the conflicts within the crime team, which consists of Glenn’s moody younger brother Hal (Dewey Martin) and Kobish (Robert Middleton) a loose cannon; big goon with a bad temper. As well, there are the tensions within the family; the little boy that wants his daddy to be brave, the fierce desire to protect one another, the struggle to figure out if cooperation or defiance is the wiser course.

One of the fascinating things about this crime is that it’s not a one-room drama. Using the rest of the family as hostages, the criminals are able to allow family members to leave at various times, and their forays into the “real world,” away from the nightmare of unreality in their home, are among the most frightening and effective scenes. It is fascinating to watch daughter Cindy (Mary Murphy) go on a date with her boyfriend (eternally annoying Gig Young) in order to prevent him from entering the house and discovering their secret.

Another level is apparent as I describe the surface; the Suburban Family with a Secret. The movie speaks to the idea that you don’t know what’s going on behind the recently-painted front door, the neatly-mown lawn, the bicycle left carelessly out front. It’s unfortunate that the movie doesn’t work more with this subtext, because it offers a layer of fascination.

Finally, and least effectively, is the idea of Good versus Evil. The Hilliard family is more than a decent family, they are A Decent Family representing All That Is Good and Wholesome. They are the Donna Reed Show. They are vaguely nauseating. There are touches of character development, and indeed, I like the marriage of Dan and Ellie (Martha Scott), as they discover each other in the process of being challenged by their experience. But their wholesomeness is painted as having a level of meaning that defies real character development, as though the simple act of living in the suburbs and wearing a tie to work is inherently a moral value. Glenn Griffin addresses this, resents it, despises it, but Hal Griffin longs for it, and we are meant to see middle class suburbia not as a class or as a lifestyle, but as a truly American aspiration. In all of the criminal’s rage towards this family and their life, that is the message.

And it’s not much of a message, not because it’s dated, but because it was never really true; it was always preachy, even in 1955.

Other than the head-to-head brilliance of Bogey and Frederic March, the cast doesn’t have much to offer. A side of bland with that bland describes the family, the police and FBI searching for the convicts (including B-movie stalwarts Arthur Kennedy and Whit Bissell), and Hal Griffin. Kobish is creepy but a better actor could have done more with the role. No, this is a two-man show.

The Desperate Hours is worth seeing for the tension created by its stars, and for its tense and well-designed crime, despite its flaws.

Monday Movie Review: Once Upon a Time in the West

Once Upon a Time in the West (1969) 10/10
Jill McBain (Claudia Cardinale) comes to join her new husband on his farm. But when she arrives he and his three children are dead. Three gunmen are converging on the farm: Frank (Henry Fonda) killed the McBain family. Cheyenne (Jason Robards) is a wanted killer who behaves gently towards Jill, and “Harmonica” (Charles Bronson) is a sharpshooter with mysterious motives. Directed by Sergio Leone.

I like watching highly-regarded movies, and I like Westerns. So there was no way I could skip this one. But at first I had a certain amount of misgiving. I expected, I guess, misogyny; abuse of the one woman on-screen. Instead, I found that Once Upon a Time in the West is actually very much a woman’s movie, at least one told from the woman’s point of view, which can be said of very few Westerns indeed.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say the film is feminist—not even close. Co-writer Bernardo Bertolucci has said that Leone didn’t want this viewpoint, and then wanted to sex it up. As it is, Jill is a former whore (of course), and at the end, her viewpoint is skewed, although until then, I found her remarkably human and affecting in ways that Western women don’t often get to be.

So what’s the movie like? Well, it’s a masterpiece. It’s complex and subtle. Leone is lavish in allowing his actors to simply be, long, long closeups of Jill’s sorrowful eyes, of Harmonica’s icy-cold ones, slow establishing shots that linger on detail, while exposition takes place off-camera. I didn’t catch everything that was happening, but I’m okay with that. The plot construction was thoughtful, and if I didn’t keep up, well, that’s what thinking it over the next day is for.

Henry Fonda: Villain. I’m guessing that’s what people talked about in 1969, and it’s worthy of discussion. He’s amazing and terrifying. All the actors are great, but Fonda is the most surprising, in a role no one else would give him. Jason Robards is touching, and Gabriele Ferzetti (a Bond fanatic favorite) is fascinating.

The movie is sweeping in its themes; it’s about greed, revenge, loss, and finding a way to live in a hard world. The four leads move in different directions, each seeking something only peripherally connected to the others, but all drawn together. You can see that some characters are bad, but it’s hard to say who’s good. This West is a morally ambiguous place, not because people are amoral (although some are) but because “every (wo)man for him(her)self” is constant and crucial. There’s also a certain subtle mockery of the “code of the West” going on; a certain heightened ridiculousness to the long slow build up towards shoot-outs. Not that it’s camp, or satire, but rather that it’s seen for being kind of crazy, which it is. Over-amped. The idea, then, of trying to find a way to be decent, of finding some sort of peacefulness, however compromised, seems all the more worthwhile, and some of our characters seem like they might find just that.

The action is outstanding. There’s a fight on a moving train that is flat out thrilling, and a showdown in town that is purely classic.

Once Upon a Time in the West is a movie I’d very much like to see on the big screen, with a big bucket of popcorn and some hardcore movie buffs as company. It’s a movie that needs to be lingered over.

Monday Movie Review: Volver

Volver (2006) 9/10
Raimunda (Penélope Cruz) and Sole (Lola Dueñas) travel from Madrid to the village where they grew up to tend their mother’s grave and look after their aging and addled Aunt Paula. Neighbors believe that the ghost of the women’s mother (Carmen Maura) has been caring for Aunt Paula. When Paula dies, Sole discovers her mother’s ghost has returned with her to Madrid following the funeral. Written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar.

A lot of times a “women’s movie” is concerned more with men than with women. The women solve their problems by forming romances or by ending bad relationships. Volver is a different animal. While it is true that a relationship ends in this movie, and that a family’s father has had a profound influence on a character, the relationships in this movie, the failures, successes, loves, losses, and friendships, all involve women.

Almodóvar’s script cares about how sisters care for each other. He is attentive to Raimunda’s relationship with her daughter Paula (Yohana Cobo; a wonderful young actress) and how Paula connects with her Aunt Sole. The interconnected lives; the adult women and their aunt and mother, and how that is reflected and echoed in the next generation, are what’s important. No one’s problems are solved by getting laid; the only problems that are solved get there by women sitting down and telling each other the truth.

And the truth, it turns out, is colorful, fanciful, funny, heartbreaking, and delightful. Raimunda and her family drama don’t live in isolation. These people have helpful and interested neighbors and friends in an extended network. It’s kind of delightful, because people in movies and on TV generally have fewer relationships and know fewer people than real life provides. Almodóvar, though, cares about human interconnection and the ways in which we live among others, and occupy our streets and towns.

Cruz, in an Oscar-nominated performance, is stunning. The role takes her from vulnerability to strength, through sorrow, humor, anger, love, and forgiveness. Through it all she is gorgeous (of course), self-possessed, and completely complicated. I found her utterly loveable. It was pretty clear that her sister, daughter, and mother thought of her as a bitch, and yet she is utterly sympathetic. Plus, she’s got maybe the most watchable eyes in cinema.

There are times when I haven’t particularly appreciated Almodóvar’s bizarre sense of humor, but Volver is a movie that made me laugh out loud, cry, and care very much how it ended. It made me root for the characters and hope for their future. It tells its story with melodrama, with bizarre twists and turns, with murder and cancer and ghosts and illegal hair salons. The end is definitely more than the sum of its parts, and that’s saying something.

Monday Movie Review: The Last King of Scotland

The Last King of Scotland (2006) 8/10
Young Scottish doctor Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy), seeking adventure, decides to work in Uganda in 1971, arriving just as Idi Amin (Forest Whitaker) takes power. Through a chance meeting, he is invited to become Amin’s personal physician, and eventually becomes deeply involved in Amin’s inner circle.

Late in the movie, a character urges Garrigan to return to Europe and tell the story of what’s happening in Uganda. “People will listen to you,” he says bitterly, “You’re white.”

The character is, of course, pointing to the “othering” of Africa. It is full of black people, and so white people in Europe and North America pay little attention, no matter how severe the problems are. This certainly isn’t confined to the 1970s—think of how few people in the U.S. knew about Darfur until quite recently. Yet how can such a line of dialogue be allowed to stand in a movie that does exactly what it claims to be bitter and weary over? The Last King of Scotland takes the compelling story of the Presidency of Idi Amin Dada, and tells it through the lens of a fictional white person.

(Historical notes: This IMDb post suggests that Garrigan is a composite of three historical characters; Bob Astles, Mbalu-Mukasa, and an unnamed Scottish doctor, as well as the then-Minister of Health. Wikipedia, on the other hand, refers to Garrigan as a fictionalized Astles.)

The movie cannot overcome this conundrum. It wants to tell the white European version of the story, while criticizing that there is a white European version. Further, Garrigan is fundamentally ignorant of what’s going on around him. He wants to see the world, to philander, and to get laid. Which is fine, if that’s the way you’re going to draw the character, but it’s also a limited point of view. The audience isn’t told exactly what Amin is doing until Garrigan is told, and in this case (unlike in most movies), the audience is actually more ignorant. Garrigan is asked “Do you know what’s going on in this country?” and replies “Some of it,” but we know none of it (except what we may be bringing to the table apart from the film). Amin’s crimes against his people are told all in a rush, a whoosh of information and atrocities meant to shock without really informing.

Is Garrigan a symbolic character? Does he represent “Europe” or “the whites” or some such concept? Maybe, but the script doesn’t really seem smart enough to have thought it through that far.

As Amin, Forest Whitaker is hypnotic and fascinating. He is like a toddler walking around with a loaded gun, so damn friendly, so damn scary. McAvoy also does a great job in a demanding role.

By the way, this movie is a testament to the need to overhaul the Oscar nomination process. McAvoy is a textbook lead; the movie is told entirely through his character’s eyes. Whitaker is a textbook supporting actor, he has a strong presence in the movie, but his primary role is to have an effect on McAvoy. Yet Whitaker won Best Actor, not Best Supporting, and McAvoy was overlooked entirely.

Jews! Funny!

Almost a year ago, I blogged about the presence of Jews on TV. I am reminded of this because of the May 3 episode of ER (which I watched a few days ago: Tivo is God, praise Tivo).

In the episode “I Don’t,” Luka arranges a surprise wedding for Abby (seriously, have these people completely run out of ideas?). He has managed to get the dress she was lusting after in a bridal magazine, and gotten her measurements so he could have it fitted, and picked the flower arrangements she’d been idly admiring, and so on. Everyone at work shows up for what they’ve been told is a departmental dinner, conveniently dressed in wedding attire (I am starting to hate this show).

And in a moment of hilarity! The Justice of the Peace is sick! And a rabbi! That’s right a rabbi! Fills in to perform the ceremony.

I just. Couldn’t. Believe it. My jaw was just dropping. The rabbi (played by George Wyner) was a caricature more suited to the 1950s than 2007. He was there for no reason except Jews Are Funny. He said “meshugga”—Funny! He had a Yiddish accent—Funny! After marrying two gentiles he asked the groom to step on a glass and said “Humor me”—Hilarious!

I was so offended my skin just about crawled off my body. He did everything except ask for money (because Jews! Like money!) and offer to circumcise Luka.

Based on last names alone, episode writer David Zabel and director Andrew Bernstein are Jewish, so I am baffled at this ill-considered and kind of creepy display of kitsch anti-Semitism. But I assure you, it was sickening.

Monday Movie Review: Intolerable Cruelty

Intolerable Cruelty (2003) 8/10
Divorce lawyer Miles Massey (George Clooney) is famous for his winner-take-all litigation skills and “the Massey prenup” (they devote a semester to it at Harvard Law). Gold digger Marilyn Rexroth (Catherine Zeta-Jones) catches Miles’s eye when her (soon-to-be) ex-husband becomes Miles’s client. Antics ensue. Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen.

Intolerable Cruelty was unfairly maligned upon its release. A Coen brothers movie brings with it a certain set of expectations, and my sense is that no one quite knew what to make of this one. It’s more a screwball than a romantic comedy: I’d define a romcom loosely as a genial journey towards lovers getting together, whereas a screwball is more of a madcap journey of two lovers who are impossible together. Clooney and Zeta-Jones have the fundamental insanity of Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby.

Of course, being a Coen product, it’s dark and cynical, with some very amusing violence and sarcastic camera angles (I don’t know how else to describe that, but you know what I mean). The comedy is mostly the craziness of marriage, lawyers, gold-digging, infidelity, the legal system, and greed, but there’s some marvelous slapstick and the funniest death since The Fantasticks. There’s also a bit of “Who’s on First” dialogue in a courtroom that had me hysterical.

Intolerable Cruelty isn’t a work of genius, but it’s a lot of fun.

Grief, narcissistic boyfriends, and Grey’s Anatomy

So in the fifth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy’s mom gets sick. Buffy deals with fear, grief, and the struggle of role-reversal, trying desperately to keep it together for her mom and her little sister.

And Buffy’s boyfriend cops an attitude. He’s upset because she cries alone, rather than on his shoulder. He’s upset because she doesn’t reach out to him; that the people who stopped by her house to see how she was doing (in Whedonverse, no one has a working phone) knew what was going on, but he didn’t, because he wanted her to be the one to reach for him.

And the show painted it as her being cold, closed off, not letting herself need people. And all I could think was, what kind of asshole makes someone else’s grief about them? In what way does Riley get to call himself Mister Wonderful Boyfriend when he’s that much of a narcissist? Hello? The good ones let a person freak the way she freaks, without judging their relationship based on that.

So why this comes up is that the exact same thing happened on Grey’s Anatomy this week (which I Tivo’ed and watched last night). Meredith’s stepmother has died, and her father, with whom she has just begun to create a relationship (mostly through the stepmother’s machinations), blames her and rejects her. And, understandably, Meredith freaks. And being Meredith, how she does that is by freezing, going numb and silent. And everyone who knows her knows that’s what she does. So her friends see her freeze and know she won’t reach out to them and so they arrange to help her and stand by her anyway; through her silence. And her boyfriend feels all sorry for himself because she didn’t reach out to him. He looks at the friends gathered in support and he’s jealous because he’s not included. As if she’d gone to them and said “Please gather in support for me, but don’t tell Derek.”

In deference to Shonda Rimes, I think they’re not painting this as Meredith is cold and she should reach out to Derek and he has every right to feel hurt. At least, I hope not. Because y’know what? There’s not a right way to grieve, but there is a right way to be supportive.

But what gets me, what makes me bother to blog it, is this: Do people really do this? Are relationships in the world peppered with boyfriends (or girlfriends, I suppose, but I’m working from Riley and Derek) so shallow and self-centered that they’re actually interpreting grief as a statement about the relationship? What the fuck? Can that be real?

Because if so, I dunno, maybe I’m lucky to be single.

Monday Movie Review: From Russia With Love

From Russia With Love (1963) 10/10
In his second on-screen mission, James Bond (Sean Connery) believes he is helping a lovestruck Russian agent (Daniela Bianchi) defect. In fact, both sides are being manipulated by SPECTRE.

In The Ultimate James Bond Fan Book, I rate From Russia With Love as my #1 James Bond movie, and review it extensively. But this is different. I had the opportunity to see this wonderful movie on the big screen at the New York Film Forum.

What I knew when I decided to go was that (a) this is my favorite Bond film, (b) I’d never seen it on the big screen, and (c) it was playing on my birthday, so fab treat for me. What I realized when I sat down was that I hadn’t seen it at all in over a year, maybe two, and that it had been even longer since I’d sat down with it just for pleasure; not to take notes or double-check something in slo-mo (perils of being an author). It was the first time in years I’d seen it just as a movie, not as a Bond movie, in the context of the entire Bond franchise. So I felt very thrilled, sitting there in the tiny Film Forum theater, with a not-really-huge screen and an extraordinarily enthusiastic audience.

The audience is definitely part of the fun. It’s a combination of hardcore film fans and people who are just taking advantage of the wonderful variety offered by living in New York City. Few, though, appeared to be hardcore Bond fans (although I met up with fellow Bond fans “LeiterCIA” and “Cooper”). Arriving early and listening to the audience chatter, it was clear that many in the audience had never seen the film, or had seen it long ago, or had seen only bits and pieces on TV. So this was a fresh, unjaded audience, with fresh, genuine reactions. They laughed, gasped, and applauded.

What a magnificent film FRWL is! So easy to forget when you get thoroughly absorbed in the whole Bond “world,” how perfect, how stand-alone, the best ones are. FRWL is brilliantly constructed. There are some minor plot flaws to be sure, but it flows beautifully, so that a complex, intricate plot is clear and easy to follow. I was struck by the way in which every scene had a clear, readable establishing shot. You always know exactly where you are. That is so rare nowadays. The narrative clarity was excellent, and given that this is a story with a mysterious hidden villain, several henchmen with distinct and bizarre characters, Russian defections and fake defections, a “murder island,” a secret SPECTRE agent following a Bulgar killer who is following a Turkish spy who is protecting a British agent…well, without narrative clarity, you’re doomed.

The theatrical experience brings enormous pleasures. Things that are very subtle on TV—like Rosa Klebb (Lotte Lenya) copping a feel of Tatiana Romanova (Bianchi) are very obvious at full size (the audience laughed when Klebb stroked Tanya’s knee). The beauty of the film is fully-realized. The North By Northwest homage sequence; Bond being chased over hills by a helicopter that is dropping grenades at him, is a masterpiece of dizzying camera work.

And the characters! FRWL is all about the characters, and somehow they’re even better when larger-than-life. Kronsteen, evil chessmaster, got big laughs from the audience, who loved his creepy, expressive face. Pedro Armandariz is always a crowd-pleaser, and how can you not love the expansive and delighted-by-life Kerim Bey?

From Russia With Love is a 10/10 movie. After seeing it on the big screen, it moved up to a better, bigger, shinier 10/10. If you ever get a chance to see vintage Bond on the big screen, Go-Go-Go!

Monday Movie Review: Times Square

Times Square (1980) 8/10
Pam (Trini Alvarado) and Nicky (Robin Johnson) escape from a hospital psychiatric unit and make a life for themselves in the pre-Disneyfied Times Square of New York City. With the help of a popular DJ (Tim Curry) they make their case for freedom and develop a cult following.

Times Square is both a cult movie, and about cults, and seems to be a self-conscious attempt to create a cult about itself (which failed—the real cult following was entirely different).

Although Tim Curry was given top billing, his is a supporting role. The real stars were the two teenage unknowns, Alvarado and Johnson. The story follows these two opposites-who-attract as they escape together from a hospital where they’re undergoing psychiatric and neurological tests. Pam is the daughter of a well-known politician; she is depressed and withdrawn and we clearly see that these tests are her father’s way of throwing money at the problem rather than really be involved with his daughter. Her hospital roommate Nicky is clearly disturbed; she is also exciting, electric and incredibly bold, and Pam is intensely attracted to her.

Curry plays a DJ with a bit of a cult following, and here the movie is clearly playing on Curry’s cult appeal to Rocky Horror fans — in 1980, Curry was still sexy as hell, was recording rock albums (remember I Do the Rock?) and the Rocky Horror cultwas in full swing. I certainly knew fans in the eighties who were happy to form a cult around any movie Curry was in—some were even seeing Annie every week!

Curry’s character reads warm platitudes and heartfelt letters from teenage girls between playing 80s punk and New Wave songs. He realizes that the runaway politician’s daughter has written to him in the past and helps to create a teen cult following for the “Sleez Sisters,” as the girls call themselves.

There’s a lot going on here. The “Sleez” motif stands in opposition to a father who wants to clean up Times Square; of course he and his ilk have won by 2007. Although the movie—through Curry’s voice—is very preachy about this, you also get to see for yourself the vitality and value of the filthy, un-cleaned-up streets.

In addition, there’s the creation of a cult at work. The movie doesn’t much examine what this means, and I had a sneaking suspicion that the real intention of the filmmakers was to create the very cult they depicted, which of course makes the whole thing irritating and heavy-handed. But it’s there and available for the viewer to ask—what happens when something real and vital becomes just another fashion statement? What does fandom do to its object of adoration?

There’s also the story of the liberation of these two girls, which is over-done, and again seems designed to make other girls become adoring fans of the Sleez Sister message, but there’s a core of real beauty to it.

The relationship between the girls is clearly romantic, and that’s where it developed its real cult following—from showings at lesbian festivals. Much of the lesbian content was never filmed, and most of the rest landed on the cutting room floor—so much so that you know there are missing pieces as you watch; it’s often obvious you’re seeing the second part of something without a preceding scene to establish it. Nonetheless, there is passion, adoration, loyalty and tenderness between these girls, and it works.

The first time I saw this movie, I saw the surface stuff; “No Sense Makes Sense” and “they” think that bad girls are crazy. But Nicky clearly is crazy, and the script and acting portray that with a clear eye.

Finally, Times Square has one of the best rock and roll soundtracks around; Suzi Quatro, The Pretenders, D.L. Byron and Patti Smith among others. The soundtrack itself has a cult following, and deservedly so.

Monday Movie Review: Mysterious Skin

Mysterious Skin (2004) 9/10
Neil (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Brian (Brady Corbet) couldn’t be more different. Neil is a tough, angry, gay hustler. Brian is a nerdy and kind of goofy young man obsessed with UFOs. But their shared history draws them together.

Mysterious Skin is a movie about child molestation, make no mistake. You may see it listed as a “gay” movie, because Neil is gay, but it is not about being gay any more than it is about UFOs. Mysterious Skin is about surviving the experience of child molestation, and what it does to the children, and to the adults they become. Neil and Brian react in ways absolutely opposite of each other, and yet in ways absolutely consistent with their experience. The writers certainly did their homework. In mannerisms, memories, and attitudes, these are definitely abuse survivors. Neil is hypersexual and disregards his own safety, by the time he is eleven or twelve he has abused another child. Brian is asexual, awkward, obedient, and lives at home; he blacks out and is plagued by dreams disconnected from his spotty memories. Each boy took the tools he had available to him in response to his trauma, and built a life as best he could.

I like that Neil was already gay, and was attracted (in his eight year-old way) to his abuser, and yet the film never suggests that the abuse is somehow “about” Neil being gay. It just gives Neil a different way of processing the experience. Neil was gay before and after, but after, his sexuality became something that could only be used to gain or lose power, to give or receive pain and threat.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is building a hell of a career. He is incredibly inward; everything happens behind his hooded eyelids, and yet he gives so much. Between this and Brick he has become an actor I want to see in everything he does.

Michelle Trachtenberg, on the other hand, lives to prove the mystery that, despite the many talented actors who can’t get work, the untalented and wooden still manage to do so. I just don’t get it.

Anyway, this is a very well-written, mostly well-acted, and kind of beautiful movie, but it is an extraordinarily painful one. It has a rape scene more brutal than anything I’ve ever seen, more disturbing, bloodier, and with Psycho earmarks all over it. I’m not ashamed to say I covered my eyes. So, not for the faint of heart, not a date movie, not a light evening of vegging out in front of the tube. But an excellent film.