A staple in middle/high school curriculum, William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies works overtime to put to rest both the myth of childhood innocence and the idea of the Noble Savage. When left to their own devices, the kids in Lord of the Flies go from order to anarchy in a shockingly brief amount of time, smearing paint on their faces and terrorizing those who disagree with them. What usually would be deemed "boys will be boys" youthful exuberance transforms into murder so smoothly that you can't help but feel a bit sick to your stomach. Basically, South Park is more accurate than Our Gang.
The film follows a group of boys who are stranded on an island after their plane is shot down. This sequence is depicted in a series of grainy photographs that has the feel of the final scene of Night of the Living Dead. The main boy we meet is Ralph, a responsible "good" boy who wants to escape the island at any cost. His friend is a fat, nerdy boy with glasses who gets called Piggy, which reiterates that bullying is an integral part of growing up. The antagonist is a choir leader named Jack, who forms a group of hunters and is pissed off that Ralph was voted as their leader and not him. Jack initially gets along with Ralph, but as tensions rise and Jack becomes more wrapped up in his own group, he eventually splits off and forms his own tribe. Murder, war-like chanting, and bodypaint follow.
Director Peter Brook gives this film a grainy documentary feel, and it's effective as hell here. As the film progresses you feel the growing uneasy, especially as Jack becomes increasingly arrogant and prone to violence. The actors here are superb, and they while they don't shy away from the viciousness of the characters, at no point do they seem to be hamming it up for the camera. There's an organic feel to the performances here, and you really feel for these kids, Piggy in particular. There's a scene of Piggy describing the origin of his hometown's name, and this perfectly shows why he's such an unpopular boy. In addition to being the stereotypical fat, asthmatic kid with glasses, he also thinks that the etymology of his hometown's name is the least bit interesting to his peers. Admittedly, as a linguist I personally found it interesting, but those boys were probably just waiting for that story to end.
While this film doesn't focus much on the animal life already on the island to the extent that a film like Walkabout does, there is a nice scene of a kid playing with a lizard, and the shot of the pig's head mounted on a stick is suitably disturbing. I would have liked more nature shots, as the island itself doesn't feel much like a character here. I understand the reasoning for not doing this since the story is about the boys, but I think that focusing on nature as an element in driving some of these kids to madness would have added an interesting dimension to the narrative. It's a minor quibble, really not much of a complaint at all, just something that I would have liked to see when you have an island at your disposal.
Overall this movie plays like a horror film, and is obviously superior to the 1990 version. While I enjoy this film, I don't think it holds up to repeated viewings. It's a great film, and probably the best adaptation that you'll ever get for this material, but there's only so many times I can watch kids being shitty to each other. Not to mention that I've been familiar with this material ever since I first read the book in high school, and after absorbing the theme of the book I don't know how many more times I need to have it reiterated. I think it's an excellent film, but I rank it just under Nanook of the North. This seems like a low ranking, but as I said, I don't think I'm going to watch this one again, despite how great it is. #35 it is.
The List
Next time: I don't think I fully appreciated the bitchiness of The Red Shoes the first time I saw it, so I'm eager to give it another go.
Sunday, October 25, 2015
Saturday, October 24, 2015
42. Fishing with John: Hip people fishing and being hip
Fishing with John is the first TV series to show up in the Criterion Collection, and possibly the strangest. The show's premise is actor/musician John Lurie taking his famous friends out fishing. Apparently he wasn't much of a fisherman, but the show is narrated in a way to assume that all of the sitting around and talking on boats is part of a larger, dramatic story. It's such an odd conceit that I'm still trying to figure out if this is brilliant or annoying.
The people John takes out of his fishing expeditions are Jim Jarmusch, Tom Waits, Matt Dillon, Willem Dafoe, and Dennis Hopper, with Hopper getting an extended two-part episode in Thailand. This film hinges on John's interactions with each guest, and it's not surprising that the shittiest episode is the one where a guest was forced on him by the financiers. John wanted Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but the financiers instead demanded Matt Dillon, so we get an episode with is largely the two of them sitting on a boat not talking to each other, and John dancing around like an idiot try to get something, anything usable for this episode. I wanted to single this one out because before I found out about Dillon being forced in, I remember hating this episode because of how dull it was. In every other episode John has a nice, easy-going chemistry with his guests, with the Dafoe and Hopper episodes being particularly fun, and you're watching this show just to see these two people hang out and shoot the shit. When you get an episode where there's clearly no chemistry between the two, it's painful as hell to try watching.
My favorite episode has to be the one with Willem Dafoe. Dafoe actually seems to be enjoying himself, with John clearly miserable. Maybe it's the Herzog man against nature aspect to this episode that helps it, but it's hilarious seeing Dafoe with a huge grin on his face, cheerful as hell and offering friendly suggestions while John sits around scowling and bitching about the cold. The Tom Waits episode is interesting mainly because apparently Waits hated doing the show and according to John didn't speak to him again for two years. Once again, without knowing this beforehand, when I saw the episode Waits looked annoyed and disinterested throughout. I have nothing to say about the Jarmusch episode except that Jim looked way too stylish to be on a boat trying to catch a shark.
The voice over in the show exists to both parody the standard voice over that you get in nature shows, and to also force a plot onto each episode. Sometimes it works, other times it doesn't. In particular, the voice over in the Thailand episodes was grating, especially when talking about the "squid-worshiping" monks. I know it's supposed to be funny, but given that this was a religious community that seemed very polite and welcoming and probably didn't know that they were being mocked, it came across as mean-spirited and ignorant. In fact, a lot of John's interactions with natives abroad rubbed me the wrong way, but I'm guessing that this will vary for each viewer. I did like how John was able to turn a series of conversations with his friends (and Dillon) into stories, and it really shows how editing can turn a random series of shots into a narrative.
I think this show, overall, was a bit too "cute" for my tastes. Growing up in the 90s I've been hammered over the head with irony so often that a premise like this one is immediately off-putting. It's a fun show, and the conversations are entertaining, but the overall tone of this series is frankly annoying. You have to be willing to buy in on the humor of this show to really dig it. I found like I liked parts of it but hated others, so it's an odd entry in the collection. Everything about it feels so light and airy, like it's nothing more than a goof, so it feels like the least essential entry in the collection so far. It's not the worst, mind you, but this is the first one that I feel someone could easily skip and not miss anything worthwhile.
This one is going to be ranked low, though not at the bottom. I didn't hate Fishing with John, but I have no desire to watch this again, and I don't see myself recommending it to anyone. It seems like one of those shows that it's more fun to talk about than to watch. I'm going to put it at #38, in between Summertime, which I thought was pretty good, and Alphaville, which I hated.
The List
Next time: I feel like eating a giant pig's head with the Lord of the Flies.
The people John takes out of his fishing expeditions are Jim Jarmusch, Tom Waits, Matt Dillon, Willem Dafoe, and Dennis Hopper, with Hopper getting an extended two-part episode in Thailand. This film hinges on John's interactions with each guest, and it's not surprising that the shittiest episode is the one where a guest was forced on him by the financiers. John wanted Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but the financiers instead demanded Matt Dillon, so we get an episode with is largely the two of them sitting on a boat not talking to each other, and John dancing around like an idiot try to get something, anything usable for this episode. I wanted to single this one out because before I found out about Dillon being forced in, I remember hating this episode because of how dull it was. In every other episode John has a nice, easy-going chemistry with his guests, with the Dafoe and Hopper episodes being particularly fun, and you're watching this show just to see these two people hang out and shoot the shit. When you get an episode where there's clearly no chemistry between the two, it's painful as hell to try watching.
My favorite episode has to be the one with Willem Dafoe. Dafoe actually seems to be enjoying himself, with John clearly miserable. Maybe it's the Herzog man against nature aspect to this episode that helps it, but it's hilarious seeing Dafoe with a huge grin on his face, cheerful as hell and offering friendly suggestions while John sits around scowling and bitching about the cold. The Tom Waits episode is interesting mainly because apparently Waits hated doing the show and according to John didn't speak to him again for two years. Once again, without knowing this beforehand, when I saw the episode Waits looked annoyed and disinterested throughout. I have nothing to say about the Jarmusch episode except that Jim looked way too stylish to be on a boat trying to catch a shark.
The voice over in the show exists to both parody the standard voice over that you get in nature shows, and to also force a plot onto each episode. Sometimes it works, other times it doesn't. In particular, the voice over in the Thailand episodes was grating, especially when talking about the "squid-worshiping" monks. I know it's supposed to be funny, but given that this was a religious community that seemed very polite and welcoming and probably didn't know that they were being mocked, it came across as mean-spirited and ignorant. In fact, a lot of John's interactions with natives abroad rubbed me the wrong way, but I'm guessing that this will vary for each viewer. I did like how John was able to turn a series of conversations with his friends (and Dillon) into stories, and it really shows how editing can turn a random series of shots into a narrative.
I think this show, overall, was a bit too "cute" for my tastes. Growing up in the 90s I've been hammered over the head with irony so often that a premise like this one is immediately off-putting. It's a fun show, and the conversations are entertaining, but the overall tone of this series is frankly annoying. You have to be willing to buy in on the humor of this show to really dig it. I found like I liked parts of it but hated others, so it's an odd entry in the collection. Everything about it feels so light and airy, like it's nothing more than a goof, so it feels like the least essential entry in the collection so far. It's not the worst, mind you, but this is the first one that I feel someone could easily skip and not miss anything worthwhile.
This one is going to be ranked low, though not at the bottom. I didn't hate Fishing with John, but I have no desire to watch this again, and I don't see myself recommending it to anyone. It seems like one of those shows that it's more fun to talk about than to watch. I'm going to put it at #38, in between Summertime, which I thought was pretty good, and Alphaville, which I hated.
The List
Next time: I feel like eating a giant pig's head with the Lord of the Flies.
Thursday, October 22, 2015
41. Henry V vs (real) Modern English
Cards on the table: I'm not the biggest Shakespeare fan. I like his stories well enough, but I'm not going to pretend that the language barrier isn't a huge issue for me. When you read his work, it's some of the most beautiful, lyrical combinations of words in the history of the English language. But when you sit back and have it thrown at you with hardly any time to figure out what each character is saying, then it loses some of its impact and starts to feel like a chore. I know you're not supposed to admit that, but fuck it. I'm admitting it.
I've never read Henry V, Shakespeare's historical play about the battle of Agincourt, so I had to go by my knowledge of French and British history to understand what exactly was going on. Predictably, the French are portrayed as either mincing cowards or jittery balls of nerves, given all the subtly of the villains in that piece of shit movie I watched in the last entry. However, the saving grace here is director/star Laurence Olivier, who fucking slays this material and delivers it with enough conviction to suck you in. Hell, even when I didn't know what the fuck he was saying during his extended monologues, his delivery sold it. He's an actor who gets this material and doesn't do that actor trick where they try to speak it really fast in an attempt to fool people into thinking it's "fluid."
Aside from that, what I love about this movie is the approach. The first half hour of this film is a filmed play, with curtains being drawn and glimpses of the actors backstage rushing through costume changes and getting ready for the following scenes. It throws you off at the start, but eventually you get used to seeing the actors playing to the crowd. Then the camera starts panning in on a drawn curtain that dissolves into a landscape, and the film proper begins, with standard cinema scene changes and some truly epic battle scenes. For 1944 this is a fairly bold move, and it works.
Another thing that works is that a ton of the background paintings look obviously fake. They seem a bit too artificial to not have been intentional, but somehow this also works. We are constantly being reminded that we need to imagine ourselves in a past time, and the fake backgrounds bring just the right amount of fantasy into this historical to make it feel dreamlike. Shakespeare adaptations are typically exercises in showing off how great a certain actor is, but Olivier here is perfectly willing to add sweeping camera moves and artistic flourishes to give us an idea of the scope of this story. If he was showing off just to prove that he can direct, then he succeeded. Good job, Larry.
This film isn't without its downsides through. The two big ones for me are the humor and the romance. Shakespearean humor is usually the cringiest bullshit imaginable for me. It's just not funny watching some guy getting tormented by a leek while making goofy faces. The annoying thing about these jokes is there's always that smirk, like "eh? eh??? isn't this funny?" No it isn't, motherfucker. Get back to the battle. Also, the scenes with Princes Katherine (played by Renee Asherson) are atrocious. There's two big ones, and both are terrible, the final one being a courtship between her and Henry that just goes on and on with no payoff. Fuck did I hate that scene.
As for ranking, while there was a lot that I liked about this movie, it was offset by the language barrier and the stuff that annoyed me. I recognize that it's a great adaptation and a great film, but it's not one that I'll probably ever watch again, unless I get on a Shakespeare kick and decided to read all his plays. I'm going to ram this one right between Nanook and Salo, so Henry V lands at #35.
The List
Next time: I join a bunch of hip as shit people and go Fishing With John. I'm already two episodes in. Did I like them? Will I like the others? Tune in to find out!
I've never read Henry V, Shakespeare's historical play about the battle of Agincourt, so I had to go by my knowledge of French and British history to understand what exactly was going on. Predictably, the French are portrayed as either mincing cowards or jittery balls of nerves, given all the subtly of the villains in that piece of shit movie I watched in the last entry. However, the saving grace here is director/star Laurence Olivier, who fucking slays this material and delivers it with enough conviction to suck you in. Hell, even when I didn't know what the fuck he was saying during his extended monologues, his delivery sold it. He's an actor who gets this material and doesn't do that actor trick where they try to speak it really fast in an attempt to fool people into thinking it's "fluid."
Aside from that, what I love about this movie is the approach. The first half hour of this film is a filmed play, with curtains being drawn and glimpses of the actors backstage rushing through costume changes and getting ready for the following scenes. It throws you off at the start, but eventually you get used to seeing the actors playing to the crowd. Then the camera starts panning in on a drawn curtain that dissolves into a landscape, and the film proper begins, with standard cinema scene changes and some truly epic battle scenes. For 1944 this is a fairly bold move, and it works.
Another thing that works is that a ton of the background paintings look obviously fake. They seem a bit too artificial to not have been intentional, but somehow this also works. We are constantly being reminded that we need to imagine ourselves in a past time, and the fake backgrounds bring just the right amount of fantasy into this historical to make it feel dreamlike. Shakespeare adaptations are typically exercises in showing off how great a certain actor is, but Olivier here is perfectly willing to add sweeping camera moves and artistic flourishes to give us an idea of the scope of this story. If he was showing off just to prove that he can direct, then he succeeded. Good job, Larry.
This film isn't without its downsides through. The two big ones for me are the humor and the romance. Shakespearean humor is usually the cringiest bullshit imaginable for me. It's just not funny watching some guy getting tormented by a leek while making goofy faces. The annoying thing about these jokes is there's always that smirk, like "eh? eh??? isn't this funny?" No it isn't, motherfucker. Get back to the battle. Also, the scenes with Princes Katherine (played by Renee Asherson) are atrocious. There's two big ones, and both are terrible, the final one being a courtship between her and Henry that just goes on and on with no payoff. Fuck did I hate that scene.
As for ranking, while there was a lot that I liked about this movie, it was offset by the language barrier and the stuff that annoyed me. I recognize that it's a great adaptation and a great film, but it's not one that I'll probably ever watch again, unless I get on a Shakespeare kick and decided to read all his plays. I'm going to ram this one right between Nanook and Salo, so Henry V lands at #35.
The List
Next time: I join a bunch of hip as shit people and go Fishing With John. I'm already two episodes in. Did I like them? Will I like the others? Tune in to find out!
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
40. Armageddon: A worthless piece of shit
Jesus fucking Christ did I hate this movie.
Armageddon is Michael Bay's shitfest about a crew of oil workers who get hired by NASA to drill a hole in an asteroid and plant a nuke in it so that it won't crash into the earth. Even though they're a bunch of loudmouthed obnoxious roughnecks and misfits, they are somehow smarter and "better" than the brightest people working in the space program. There's also a wack-ass love story between Ben Affleck and Bruce Willis' daughter Liv Tyler. Steve Buscemi's also in it playing his standard weirdo role. All the heroes are dick-swinging assholes, including Liv Tyler. This is the second time I've seen this movie, and somehow it's even worse the second time around. In Dave Pelzer's book A Child Called 'It' there's a scene where his evil mother sees that he vomited out his hot dog dinner, and forces him to re-eat the bits of hot dog that came out. That's what watching this film a second time is like.
If I had to pinpoint the moment where I knew this film was not going to work for me under any circumstances, it had to be when Bruce Willis and company are smacking golf balls at a Greenpeace boat at the beginning of the film. Granted, I have my own disagreements with Greenpeace, but this introduction to our "hero" was so off putting that there was no way I'd be able to root for this asshole at any point in this movie. This film, and Michael Bay's output in general, is so fucking hateful that it's hard to stomach, with his heroes always representing the ugliest aspects of American culture. From a character standpoint, I hated everyone in this movie. Characters were either obnoxious know-it-alls, crazy for no reason, or jittery "nerds" worthy only of contempt. It's like if Ayn Rand wrote an action film, only shittier.
Bay's much-praised action is admittedly fine here, but when you're watching two and a half hours of people screaming in your face, loud dramatic music cues, and explosions, it becomes tiresome and boring. Bay also seems intent on making sure the audience gets some nice scenes of shit blowing up real good every twenty minutes or so, and we get frequent cut-aways from the action just so we can see either Paris (of course) or some random Asian country getting pummeled by asteroid bits. Superficially this is to make sure the audience is kept aware that this is a serious threat and that the world is in danger. I mean, it's not like the frequent cut-aways to the ticking clock gave us any indication that this was an important mission.
I can't shit on the cast here, who are a great collection of character actors doing what they do best. It's just that no cast, however great, is going to save a Michael Bay movie. I've watched enough of his films by now to know that they aren't for me. I'm not an angry teenage bully who hates smart people and just wants to destroy stuff. I don't believe that people should do whatever they deem is necessary to accomplish whatever mission they're on just because they are awesome and "correct." I don't think the loudest person in the room automatically wins the argument. I don't think Michael Bay will ever make a film that I'd ever want to watch. It's popular to hate him, I get that. I will readily admit that he is an auteur, albeit one that I can't stomach. He's very, very good at what he does. He just happens to do something that makes me want to vomit.
As for ranking, is it really a surprise that I'm putting this fucker right at the bottom? I've heard that Border Radio is pretty atrocious, but I have a hard time believing that anything in the collection is going to piss me off as much as this film did.
The List
Next time: Laurence Olivier's Henry V will hopefully help me wash the puke out of my mouth.
Armageddon is Michael Bay's shitfest about a crew of oil workers who get hired by NASA to drill a hole in an asteroid and plant a nuke in it so that it won't crash into the earth. Even though they're a bunch of loudmouthed obnoxious roughnecks and misfits, they are somehow smarter and "better" than the brightest people working in the space program. There's also a wack-ass love story between Ben Affleck and Bruce Willis' daughter Liv Tyler. Steve Buscemi's also in it playing his standard weirdo role. All the heroes are dick-swinging assholes, including Liv Tyler. This is the second time I've seen this movie, and somehow it's even worse the second time around. In Dave Pelzer's book A Child Called 'It' there's a scene where his evil mother sees that he vomited out his hot dog dinner, and forces him to re-eat the bits of hot dog that came out. That's what watching this film a second time is like.
If I had to pinpoint the moment where I knew this film was not going to work for me under any circumstances, it had to be when Bruce Willis and company are smacking golf balls at a Greenpeace boat at the beginning of the film. Granted, I have my own disagreements with Greenpeace, but this introduction to our "hero" was so off putting that there was no way I'd be able to root for this asshole at any point in this movie. This film, and Michael Bay's output in general, is so fucking hateful that it's hard to stomach, with his heroes always representing the ugliest aspects of American culture. From a character standpoint, I hated everyone in this movie. Characters were either obnoxious know-it-alls, crazy for no reason, or jittery "nerds" worthy only of contempt. It's like if Ayn Rand wrote an action film, only shittier.
Bay's much-praised action is admittedly fine here, but when you're watching two and a half hours of people screaming in your face, loud dramatic music cues, and explosions, it becomes tiresome and boring. Bay also seems intent on making sure the audience gets some nice scenes of shit blowing up real good every twenty minutes or so, and we get frequent cut-aways from the action just so we can see either Paris (of course) or some random Asian country getting pummeled by asteroid bits. Superficially this is to make sure the audience is kept aware that this is a serious threat and that the world is in danger. I mean, it's not like the frequent cut-aways to the ticking clock gave us any indication that this was an important mission.
I can't shit on the cast here, who are a great collection of character actors doing what they do best. It's just that no cast, however great, is going to save a Michael Bay movie. I've watched enough of his films by now to know that they aren't for me. I'm not an angry teenage bully who hates smart people and just wants to destroy stuff. I don't believe that people should do whatever they deem is necessary to accomplish whatever mission they're on just because they are awesome and "correct." I don't think the loudest person in the room automatically wins the argument. I don't think Michael Bay will ever make a film that I'd ever want to watch. It's popular to hate him, I get that. I will readily admit that he is an auteur, albeit one that I can't stomach. He's very, very good at what he does. He just happens to do something that makes me want to vomit.
As for ranking, is it really a surprise that I'm putting this fucker right at the bottom? I've heard that Border Radio is pretty atrocious, but I have a hard time believing that anything in the collection is going to piss me off as much as this film did.
The List
Next time: Laurence Olivier's Henry V will hopefully help me wash the puke out of my mouth.
Tuesday, October 20, 2015
39. Tokyo Drifter: More insanity, this time in color!
Once again the Criterion Collection makes the baffling decision to number this earlier Seijun Suzuki film before a later one, this film coming a year before Branded to Kill. While not as off-the-wall insane as Branded, this one is still plenty bonkers on its own, and I'm becoming increasingly fascinated by Suzuki and wanting to explore more of his filmography.
Tokyo Drifter is another film about the yakuza, this one about a hitman named Tetsu who has decided to go straight. A rival gang boss named Otsuka tries to recruit him, but Testu tells him that he's not about that life anymore. Otsuka, being reasonable, understands his decision and decides to leave him in peace. Well, not really. He basically spends the entire film sending various people after Tetsu to kill him due to him thinking that Tetsu would screw up a real estate scam that he'd been working on. Tetsu heads out and becomes a drifter, and is hunted by both Otsuka and his previous boss Kurata. They send a hitman called the Viper to take him out, and we're led on a series of adventures through nightclubs, a saloon filled with stereotypical Americans, and various other wonderfully decorated locations. The film ends on a sparse set with a piano, two pillars, one of the most bizarre shoot outs you'll ever seen, vivid colors, and an ending that's expected but still kind of weak.
What I like about Suzuki, again, is how strange his films are, if I'm going by this and Branded to Kill. This is a pretty simple gangster story, but Tetsu is given almost superheroic abilities, being able to fire his gun in ways that aren't humanly possible, and hit his targets perfectly. Some of the scenes feel like they're out of an Edgar Wright film, especially the shoot out between two thin pillars. The film doesn't load up on the grotesque as much as Branded to Kill did, but it's still jam-packed with lurid scenes, some decent bloody violence, and a straightforward plot that doesn't going into the psychedelic transgressions that we experienced in Branded. Not having seen any of his previous work, this film almost feels like a warm up for the insanity to come.
The soundtrack here is very good, with a number of catchy songs, particularly the theme (which you'll heard over and over again) and some of the rock numbers you hear at the night club. I loved the standard 1960's color palate here, where everything seems to pop off the screen. This film feels more fun than Branded, and the color is a big reason. The color helps the playful tone of this film, where a madcap scene like the saloon feels straight out of Looney Tunes. You don't get any Page of Madness-style scenes here.
I try not to do this but I jumped ahead and saw that Suzuki has a few more films in the Collection. I can't wait to get to those because this guy is hitting all the right buttons for my tastes. His films (so far) are visually intoxicating, truly unique and make the most out of their svelte runtimes. I can't peg him as a favorite just yet, but I'm definitely excited about seeing his name pop up again later. It's something to look forward to, especially given what I have coming up next.
I loved this film, but again I'm in a position where I don't want to rank it too high because I don't know how much of my enjoyment is going to last on a further viewing. Based on first impressions I can't put this over Branded to Kill, because the film was concentrated, white-hot weirdness the likes of which I rarely see. Moving down further, I can't say this was better than Les Diaboliques or The Killer. In a battle between this and This Is Spinal Tap, I have to remember how amazing Tap was, and that I was consistently entertained throughout it. Sadly, I'm going to have to place this one above Picnic at Hanging Rock, a film that I like but not one that thrilled me to the extent that this one did. Go ahead and call me a philistine. This one's going at #21.
The List
Next time: My enthusiasm for this project turns to dust in my mouth as I sit through Michael Bay's maggot-infested shitpile Armageddon. This film is consistently called the worst thing in the Criterion Collection. I saw it in the theater when it came out and instantly developed a life-long hatred of Bay's aesthetics. Will I like it more now that I'm older and wiser? Well, he prides himself on making films for teenage boys, and now that I'm not one, I'm going to wager "no."
Tokyo Drifter is another film about the yakuza, this one about a hitman named Tetsu who has decided to go straight. A rival gang boss named Otsuka tries to recruit him, but Testu tells him that he's not about that life anymore. Otsuka, being reasonable, understands his decision and decides to leave him in peace. Well, not really. He basically spends the entire film sending various people after Tetsu to kill him due to him thinking that Tetsu would screw up a real estate scam that he'd been working on. Tetsu heads out and becomes a drifter, and is hunted by both Otsuka and his previous boss Kurata. They send a hitman called the Viper to take him out, and we're led on a series of adventures through nightclubs, a saloon filled with stereotypical Americans, and various other wonderfully decorated locations. The film ends on a sparse set with a piano, two pillars, one of the most bizarre shoot outs you'll ever seen, vivid colors, and an ending that's expected but still kind of weak.
What I like about Suzuki, again, is how strange his films are, if I'm going by this and Branded to Kill. This is a pretty simple gangster story, but Tetsu is given almost superheroic abilities, being able to fire his gun in ways that aren't humanly possible, and hit his targets perfectly. Some of the scenes feel like they're out of an Edgar Wright film, especially the shoot out between two thin pillars. The film doesn't load up on the grotesque as much as Branded to Kill did, but it's still jam-packed with lurid scenes, some decent bloody violence, and a straightforward plot that doesn't going into the psychedelic transgressions that we experienced in Branded. Not having seen any of his previous work, this film almost feels like a warm up for the insanity to come.
The soundtrack here is very good, with a number of catchy songs, particularly the theme (which you'll heard over and over again) and some of the rock numbers you hear at the night club. I loved the standard 1960's color palate here, where everything seems to pop off the screen. This film feels more fun than Branded, and the color is a big reason. The color helps the playful tone of this film, where a madcap scene like the saloon feels straight out of Looney Tunes. You don't get any Page of Madness-style scenes here.
I try not to do this but I jumped ahead and saw that Suzuki has a few more films in the Collection. I can't wait to get to those because this guy is hitting all the right buttons for my tastes. His films (so far) are visually intoxicating, truly unique and make the most out of their svelte runtimes. I can't peg him as a favorite just yet, but I'm definitely excited about seeing his name pop up again later. It's something to look forward to, especially given what I have coming up next.
I loved this film, but again I'm in a position where I don't want to rank it too high because I don't know how much of my enjoyment is going to last on a further viewing. Based on first impressions I can't put this over Branded to Kill, because the film was concentrated, white-hot weirdness the likes of which I rarely see. Moving down further, I can't say this was better than Les Diaboliques or The Killer. In a battle between this and This Is Spinal Tap, I have to remember how amazing Tap was, and that I was consistently entertained throughout it. Sadly, I'm going to have to place this one above Picnic at Hanging Rock, a film that I like but not one that thrilled me to the extent that this one did. Go ahead and call me a philistine. This one's going at #21.
The List
Next time: My enthusiasm for this project turns to dust in my mouth as I sit through Michael Bay's maggot-infested shitpile Armageddon. This film is consistently called the worst thing in the Criterion Collection. I saw it in the theater when it came out and instantly developed a life-long hatred of Bay's aesthetics. Will I like it more now that I'm older and wiser? Well, he prides himself on making films for teenage boys, and now that I'm not one, I'm going to wager "no."
Monday, October 19, 2015
38. Branded to Kill: The fuck did I just watch?
Confession: Last time when I said that I was "very, very excited" to watch Branded to Kill, it was because it's a 1960's Japanese film, and the Criterion Collection has yet to do me wrong with their Japanese cinema selections. Unlike French cinema, where I've watched probably as many duds as classics, Japan really has yet to do me wrong. Therefore, as ignorant as it may seem, I went in assuming that I would dig this film based solely on its country of origin. Surprise surprise, turns out I was right to be excited.
The best thing a film can do is completely catch me off guard and show me something that I wasn't expecting, especially in a genre film. For instance, something like Hausu is sold as a haunted house story, but when you watch it your senses are completely bombarded with over-the-top visual and stimuli that it's difficult to define it as a horror film. A friend compared it to a feature-length TV ad, and that seems like a great comparison to me. With Branded to Kill, I popped this in expecting a standard yakuza story, with maybe some badass machismo bullshit, slick killers with cool shades, and visuals that I'll probably recognized as being stolen wholesale by Quentin Tarantino. What I wasn't expecting was a bonkers, surrealist nightmare that feels more like an episode of The Prisoner than Reservoir Dogs.
The story involves a hitman named Goro who is tasked with an impossible assassination by a femme fatale named Misako. He fails and is then hunted by Number One and his henchmen. On this simple framework director Seijun Suzuki hangs bizarre scenes of Goro hunched over a pot huffing rice because he has a fetish for it, Misako's apartment filled with dead butterflies, weird scenes of Number One locked arm in arm with Goro and having a "gentleman's agreement" over how he's going to kill him, and close up scenes of bullet wounds, fake eyeballs being popped out, and mashed insect guts. Oh, and a bunch of nudity.
There is so much in this movie that's surprising and defies description that it really must be seen for itself. The gangster aspect of the film, while important, is really just there to see how far Suzuki can deviate from it's tropes and throw something unexpected at you. At one moment you're seeing a standard contract killing, and the next you're getting animated butterflies tormenting the psyche of our hero. You'll get a standard sex scene, and then you'll see Goro sniffing rice and appearing on the verge of an orgasm. Aside from the general weirdness of this film, it's also fantastically shot, with great camerawork and fast-paced editing to keep things moving along at a clip. At a mere 98 minutes it feels much shorter than its runtime, just because there's so much stuff going on and you're hit with something unique every few minutes or so. I can't say I've seen anything quite like this before.
Despite the lurid poster and raciness of the film (including one of the most blatant panty shots I've seen outside of The Breakfast Club), this is one of the best over-the-top insane films I've seen. I can only really compare it to Hausu, even though it's not nearly THAT crazy. It's more of a toned-down Hausu with gangsters and a Prisoner edge, with less screechy schoolgirls. I typically love these kinds of films, but I need to be careful with how I rank this one. Just because I love it now doesn't mean it's going to hold up to another few viewings. As I look at the list I'm finding that the border on this one is between Walkabout and Les Diaboliques. Walkabout is just a better film overall, but Les Diaboliques, despite how much I like it, never got me pumped the way this film did. Therefore, I feel good putting this at #17.
The list
Next time: Now I'm even more excited to dive into Suzuki's film Tokyo Drifter. Bring it!
The best thing a film can do is completely catch me off guard and show me something that I wasn't expecting, especially in a genre film. For instance, something like Hausu is sold as a haunted house story, but when you watch it your senses are completely bombarded with over-the-top visual and stimuli that it's difficult to define it as a horror film. A friend compared it to a feature-length TV ad, and that seems like a great comparison to me. With Branded to Kill, I popped this in expecting a standard yakuza story, with maybe some badass machismo bullshit, slick killers with cool shades, and visuals that I'll probably recognized as being stolen wholesale by Quentin Tarantino. What I wasn't expecting was a bonkers, surrealist nightmare that feels more like an episode of The Prisoner than Reservoir Dogs.
The story involves a hitman named Goro who is tasked with an impossible assassination by a femme fatale named Misako. He fails and is then hunted by Number One and his henchmen. On this simple framework director Seijun Suzuki hangs bizarre scenes of Goro hunched over a pot huffing rice because he has a fetish for it, Misako's apartment filled with dead butterflies, weird scenes of Number One locked arm in arm with Goro and having a "gentleman's agreement" over how he's going to kill him, and close up scenes of bullet wounds, fake eyeballs being popped out, and mashed insect guts. Oh, and a bunch of nudity.
There is so much in this movie that's surprising and defies description that it really must be seen for itself. The gangster aspect of the film, while important, is really just there to see how far Suzuki can deviate from it's tropes and throw something unexpected at you. At one moment you're seeing a standard contract killing, and the next you're getting animated butterflies tormenting the psyche of our hero. You'll get a standard sex scene, and then you'll see Goro sniffing rice and appearing on the verge of an orgasm. Aside from the general weirdness of this film, it's also fantastically shot, with great camerawork and fast-paced editing to keep things moving along at a clip. At a mere 98 minutes it feels much shorter than its runtime, just because there's so much stuff going on and you're hit with something unique every few minutes or so. I can't say I've seen anything quite like this before.
Despite the lurid poster and raciness of the film (including one of the most blatant panty shots I've seen outside of The Breakfast Club), this is one of the best over-the-top insane films I've seen. I can only really compare it to Hausu, even though it's not nearly THAT crazy. It's more of a toned-down Hausu with gangsters and a Prisoner edge, with less screechy schoolgirls. I typically love these kinds of films, but I need to be careful with how I rank this one. Just because I love it now doesn't mean it's going to hold up to another few viewings. As I look at the list I'm finding that the border on this one is between Walkabout and Les Diaboliques. Walkabout is just a better film overall, but Les Diaboliques, despite how much I like it, never got me pumped the way this film did. Therefore, I feel good putting this at #17.
The list
Next time: Now I'm even more excited to dive into Suzuki's film Tokyo Drifter. Bring it!
Sunday, October 18, 2015
37. Time Bandits vs Evil and technology
The first part of his Trilogy of Imagination, Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits is fun, gross, and supremely fucked up. The story of a small boy who gets whisked away by a gang of thieving dwarves, the film bounces between different periods of time before winding up in the Fortress of Ultimate Darkness, where they do battle with a Skeletor-looking Evil. Different members of Gilliam's old Monty Python gang pop up, and while the standard Python vibe of mayhem is present throughout, this film solidifies the look and feel of Gilliam's style going forward and makes his previous film Jabberwocky seem even more like a false start.
The film is held together with a thin connecting plot: the bandits jump through time with a stolen map, and they rip off every historical figure they encounter. They are being chased both by Evil and by the Supreme Being, both who want the map and hound the bandits throughout. Really, this is just an excuse to see Gilliam play around with historical figures, with Ian Holm playing a goofy, size-obsessed Napoleon, John Cleese as an arrogant, dickhead Robin Hood, and Sean Connery as the charming Agamemnon. Even though film shoots are typically hellish (unless you're working on an Adam Sandler film), the cast radiates a joy in playing these roles, with everyone seeming to be having a great time. The biggest strength of this film is that the entire cast is fantastic, and even Keven, the little boy who is really the lead of this film, is played by Craig Warnock as both confused, excited, and sad over what happens throughout.
The best part of the movie for me was Kevin's relationship with Agamemnon, who decides to adopt him after Kevin helps him kill the Minotaur. Before the adventure begins Kevin's homelife can best be described as "shit." His mom and dad ignore him and are more interested in the newest technology, and force him to stop reading his books and go to bed before he disappears with the dwarves. The storyline drops away for the first few adventures, but comes back up with he develops a friendship with Agamemnon. For the first time in this film Kevin seems happy; before he was having fun robbing people with the dwarves, but when he's with Agamemnon he finally has a father figure who wants to look after him. It's telling that before arriving here he only took a couple of photos with his Polaroid, but here he can't stop snapping photos of the scenery. His joy is ruined when a show is put on in the main hall and the dwarves reappear and kidnap Kevin. It's a truly heartbreaking scene, even though you still like the dwarves and know that it wasn't done for vindictive reasons.
Evil is a great character in this film, and I love how his story ties in with Kevin's parents. Evil is obsessed with technology as well, and he doesn't see the point in a supreme being who creates countless forms of insect life before creating the computer. As much as I disagree with it (I'm obviously typing and posting this on a computer), I love the technophobia aspect to this film. This film seems to take a stance that technology and life are at opposing ends, and while I do think the consumerism being mocked in the early scenes with Kevin's parents do a great job at spoofing the technology = happiness philosophy, at times it feels like an old man shaking his fist at progress. It's refreshing to see something like this when you're living in a time where people line up for hours to buy a phone that's going to be obsolete in half a year.
I've been a Terry Gilliam fan for years, but surprisingly I came to Time Bandits later than his other works. I haven't seen Brazil in years, but Time Bandits its a fantasy masterpiece that seems to combine all of his tastes and aesthetics perfectly into something that doesn't feel overly niche. It's a movie that kids and adults can love, and has that crossover appeal that's so rarely present in his work. That said, I'm still shocked at how dark the ending is. The film ends with Kevin waking up and being rescued by firemen. Apparently his parents left something cooking in a toaster oven, which started the fire. When they open the oven Kevin notices that there's a leftover chunk of evil inside and tells his parents not to touch it. They ignore him of course, and when they touch it both of them explode, leaving Kevin alone, walking in front of his burned-down house, with no family. That's how the film ends. Even though you see Agamemnon as a fireman, there's no hint that he's coming back to adopt him. The film just ends with this boy walking alone with no family and no home. Cut to closing credits and a cheerful George Harrison song. Look, I know his parents were assholes, but still. Give us some hope here, Terry!
It seems like the running theme this week has been movies knocking other entries out of the top ten, and Time Bandits threatened to be another instance of this. It's one of the great fantasy films, and more importantly, it holds up and improves on repeated viewings. I'm finding that Shock Corridor seems to be the border that I'm using for these films, and I'm starting to wonder if I've possibly overrated that film. As much as I loved it I'm not looking back on it as fondly as I have with Sid and Nancy and Walkabout. Regardless, Time Bandits is an amazing film, and is a welcomed light-hearted entry in the collection. I'm going to put it at #11, between High and Low and Shock Corridor. As much as I love this movie, I just can't rank it higher than High and Low.
The List
Next time: I am very, very excited to dive into Seijun Suzuki's yakuza film Branded to Kill.
The film is held together with a thin connecting plot: the bandits jump through time with a stolen map, and they rip off every historical figure they encounter. They are being chased both by Evil and by the Supreme Being, both who want the map and hound the bandits throughout. Really, this is just an excuse to see Gilliam play around with historical figures, with Ian Holm playing a goofy, size-obsessed Napoleon, John Cleese as an arrogant, dickhead Robin Hood, and Sean Connery as the charming Agamemnon. Even though film shoots are typically hellish (unless you're working on an Adam Sandler film), the cast radiates a joy in playing these roles, with everyone seeming to be having a great time. The biggest strength of this film is that the entire cast is fantastic, and even Keven, the little boy who is really the lead of this film, is played by Craig Warnock as both confused, excited, and sad over what happens throughout.
The best part of the movie for me was Kevin's relationship with Agamemnon, who decides to adopt him after Kevin helps him kill the Minotaur. Before the adventure begins Kevin's homelife can best be described as "shit." His mom and dad ignore him and are more interested in the newest technology, and force him to stop reading his books and go to bed before he disappears with the dwarves. The storyline drops away for the first few adventures, but comes back up with he develops a friendship with Agamemnon. For the first time in this film Kevin seems happy; before he was having fun robbing people with the dwarves, but when he's with Agamemnon he finally has a father figure who wants to look after him. It's telling that before arriving here he only took a couple of photos with his Polaroid, but here he can't stop snapping photos of the scenery. His joy is ruined when a show is put on in the main hall and the dwarves reappear and kidnap Kevin. It's a truly heartbreaking scene, even though you still like the dwarves and know that it wasn't done for vindictive reasons.
Evil is a great character in this film, and I love how his story ties in with Kevin's parents. Evil is obsessed with technology as well, and he doesn't see the point in a supreme being who creates countless forms of insect life before creating the computer. As much as I disagree with it (I'm obviously typing and posting this on a computer), I love the technophobia aspect to this film. This film seems to take a stance that technology and life are at opposing ends, and while I do think the consumerism being mocked in the early scenes with Kevin's parents do a great job at spoofing the technology = happiness philosophy, at times it feels like an old man shaking his fist at progress. It's refreshing to see something like this when you're living in a time where people line up for hours to buy a phone that's going to be obsolete in half a year.
I've been a Terry Gilliam fan for years, but surprisingly I came to Time Bandits later than his other works. I haven't seen Brazil in years, but Time Bandits its a fantasy masterpiece that seems to combine all of his tastes and aesthetics perfectly into something that doesn't feel overly niche. It's a movie that kids and adults can love, and has that crossover appeal that's so rarely present in his work. That said, I'm still shocked at how dark the ending is. The film ends with Kevin waking up and being rescued by firemen. Apparently his parents left something cooking in a toaster oven, which started the fire. When they open the oven Kevin notices that there's a leftover chunk of evil inside and tells his parents not to touch it. They ignore him of course, and when they touch it both of them explode, leaving Kevin alone, walking in front of his burned-down house, with no family. That's how the film ends. Even though you see Agamemnon as a fireman, there's no hint that he's coming back to adopt him. The film just ends with this boy walking alone with no family and no home. Cut to closing credits and a cheerful George Harrison song. Look, I know his parents were assholes, but still. Give us some hope here, Terry!
It seems like the running theme this week has been movies knocking other entries out of the top ten, and Time Bandits threatened to be another instance of this. It's one of the great fantasy films, and more importantly, it holds up and improves on repeated viewings. I'm finding that Shock Corridor seems to be the border that I'm using for these films, and I'm starting to wonder if I've possibly overrated that film. As much as I loved it I'm not looking back on it as fondly as I have with Sid and Nancy and Walkabout. Regardless, Time Bandits is an amazing film, and is a welcomed light-hearted entry in the collection. I'm going to put it at #11, between High and Low and Shock Corridor. As much as I love this movie, I just can't rank it higher than High and Low.
The List
Next time: I am very, very excited to dive into Seijun Suzuki's yakuza film Branded to Kill.
Saturday, October 17, 2015
36. The Wages of Fear vs High and Low
The Wages of Fear is Henri-Georges Clouzot's masterpiece, and probably the most suspenseful film ever made. Not only is it a sustained two and a half hours of nail-biting, but also a great examination of poverty, courage, American exploitation of Latin America, desperation, and the lengths that people will go to just to survive. Plus it's got humor, great characters, and most importantly, is entertaining as all hell. It's a damn-near perfect film.
The story concern four guys desperate to earn some cash, with the lead being Yves Montand as Mario. They are hired by an American oil company to deliver two trucks of nitroglycerin to an oil well that burst into flames. They have to drive extremely carefully because the canisters can explode if they are jostled too roughly. Oh, and the path to the oil well is rocky, with twisted mountainous roads, rotting bridges, dips in the road, and other disasters in their path. Mario's partner, a fellow Frenchman named Jo who was an arrogant toughguy who pounded his chest and stuck guns in people's stomachs, turns out to be a pants-shitting coward who makes Mario's trip all the more difficult. Two hours of tension ensue.
What I love about this movie is that the first half hour is devoted to fleshing out the environment that these characters live in, their personalities, and how everyone treats each other. Mario's a bit of an asshole but also likable, and everyone's abrasive personality stems from the desperation of their environment. There's no jobs, no money, and no hope of escape. These characters are truly stuck in place and can't get out, so it makes sense that they would jump at the chance to sign up for a job that is, in effect, a suicide mission. In fact, the danger of the job doesn't even seem to register for the characters until they are in the trucks and driving. When they get hired, they are all smiles and good cheer, thinking ahead to the money they'll be getting at the end, without seriously considering that they will probably die on the journey.
There are a lot of great scenes of the trip, with the most famous being the tobacco in Jo's cigarette being blown away when one of the trucks explodes. I think one of the scenes I liked the best was the one immediately following, when Mario and Jo come across a dip in the road where the explosion took place. They need to get across, but it's rapidly filling up will oil. Jo goes in to guide Mario along, but in the process he is unable to move out of the way fast enough and gets his leg crushed by the truck. Mario clearly likes Jo, but his frustration with Jo's cowardice combined with the need to finish the job combine to make this scene tragic and understandable at the same time. When he's driving the truck to the destination with a dying Jo cradled in his arms you feel that he does care for him and is heartbroken by his death, a death that he is responsible for. It's a punch to the gut, but you don't blame Mario for what he did.
The ending is, for me, the only real false note in this film. On one hand, I get the irony: Mario spent so much time having to drive carefully that now he's able to be a bit more reckless, and this leads to his demise because he had the illusion of his own control over his truck. However, even with this being my second viewing, I still thought, "that was stupid." I'm not sure how else Clouzot could have ended this movie, but this felt kind of obvious and I personally didn't like it. It's not that I loved Mario so much that I felt it was an unnecessary move to kill him, it just felt cheap to me, and it certainly wasn't helped by the cheesiness of his girlfriend Linda fainting at the same time.
Regardless of the ending, The Wages of Fear is one of the best suspense films ever made, and one of the most entertaining films in the Criterion Collection. By now you know that I rank my enjoyment of a film above all else, so for now this film is going into the top ten. Surprisingly, I can't put it over Andrei Rublev because once I finished watching this movie, I was good. I can probably wait another year or so before watching it again, but I'm still wanting to put aside three hours to rewatch Andrei. Meanwhile, I do think this was a more entertaining film for me than High and Low, so #9 seems to be a fair spot.
The List
Next time: I get some much-needed comedy when I go on a journey with Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits.
The story concern four guys desperate to earn some cash, with the lead being Yves Montand as Mario. They are hired by an American oil company to deliver two trucks of nitroglycerin to an oil well that burst into flames. They have to drive extremely carefully because the canisters can explode if they are jostled too roughly. Oh, and the path to the oil well is rocky, with twisted mountainous roads, rotting bridges, dips in the road, and other disasters in their path. Mario's partner, a fellow Frenchman named Jo who was an arrogant toughguy who pounded his chest and stuck guns in people's stomachs, turns out to be a pants-shitting coward who makes Mario's trip all the more difficult. Two hours of tension ensue.
What I love about this movie is that the first half hour is devoted to fleshing out the environment that these characters live in, their personalities, and how everyone treats each other. Mario's a bit of an asshole but also likable, and everyone's abrasive personality stems from the desperation of their environment. There's no jobs, no money, and no hope of escape. These characters are truly stuck in place and can't get out, so it makes sense that they would jump at the chance to sign up for a job that is, in effect, a suicide mission. In fact, the danger of the job doesn't even seem to register for the characters until they are in the trucks and driving. When they get hired, they are all smiles and good cheer, thinking ahead to the money they'll be getting at the end, without seriously considering that they will probably die on the journey.
There are a lot of great scenes of the trip, with the most famous being the tobacco in Jo's cigarette being blown away when one of the trucks explodes. I think one of the scenes I liked the best was the one immediately following, when Mario and Jo come across a dip in the road where the explosion took place. They need to get across, but it's rapidly filling up will oil. Jo goes in to guide Mario along, but in the process he is unable to move out of the way fast enough and gets his leg crushed by the truck. Mario clearly likes Jo, but his frustration with Jo's cowardice combined with the need to finish the job combine to make this scene tragic and understandable at the same time. When he's driving the truck to the destination with a dying Jo cradled in his arms you feel that he does care for him and is heartbroken by his death, a death that he is responsible for. It's a punch to the gut, but you don't blame Mario for what he did.
The ending is, for me, the only real false note in this film. On one hand, I get the irony: Mario spent so much time having to drive carefully that now he's able to be a bit more reckless, and this leads to his demise because he had the illusion of his own control over his truck. However, even with this being my second viewing, I still thought, "that was stupid." I'm not sure how else Clouzot could have ended this movie, but this felt kind of obvious and I personally didn't like it. It's not that I loved Mario so much that I felt it was an unnecessary move to kill him, it just felt cheap to me, and it certainly wasn't helped by the cheesiness of his girlfriend Linda fainting at the same time.
Regardless of the ending, The Wages of Fear is one of the best suspense films ever made, and one of the most entertaining films in the Criterion Collection. By now you know that I rank my enjoyment of a film above all else, so for now this film is going into the top ten. Surprisingly, I can't put it over Andrei Rublev because once I finished watching this movie, I was good. I can probably wait another year or so before watching it again, but I'm still wanting to put aside three hours to rewatch Andrei. Meanwhile, I do think this was a more entertaining film for me than High and Low, so #9 seems to be a fair spot.
The List
Next time: I get some much-needed comedy when I go on a journey with Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits.
Friday, October 16, 2015
35. Les Diaboliques: The greatest non-Hitchcock Hitchcock film
Henri-Georges Clouzot's film Les Diaboliques is the best film Hitchcock never made. Not that Hitchcock didn't try; the film is based on the book She Who Was No More by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac, and apparently Clouzot beat Hitchcock for the film rights by mere hours. It certainly feels like a Hitchcock film, with the only things missing being two Hollywood stars as the leads, a Bernard Herrmann score, dry British wit and a dose a fetishism.
The film is about a murder plot between the wife and mistress of an asshole headmaster. He's drugged and drowned in a bathtub, with his body brought back to the school and dumped in the swimming pool. Part of their plot it to make it look like he drowned in the pool, so they ask the groundskeeper to drain it. Lo and behold, the pool's drained and there's no body to be found. Bit by bit evidence pops up that the headmaster is still alive, the women are terrified, a nosy detective gets involved, the film film ends with a fun twist that's only slightly ruined by the "law and justice prevails" angle at the end.
The story's fun, but the reason for watching is to see how Clouzot ties the viewer in knots, with a standout scene being the headmaster confronting his wife just before drinking his drugged-up liquor. The scene keeps playing with the viewer even though we know the outcome of this scene, even if we've never seen the film before. You know he's going to drink the liquor, but the way the scene goes back and forth, continually bringing the bottle into the frame, then the liquor being poured into the bottle, then the wife's change of heart knocking the glass away...it's magnificent. When the asshole finally chugs it down and asks for more it's entirely believable. The scene of the headmaster drowning feels cathartic after seeing him smack his wife around, and the bathtub scene later in the film is a brilliant shitting-in-your-pants climax. I normally spoil the shit out of the movies I review here, but if you've never seen this film I really don't want to ruin it.
The acting across the board is great, with Simone Signoret playing a great, cold blonde femme fatale. Vera Clouzot (the director's wife) does a great job playing the mousy, terrified wife of the headmaster, and her final scene is both heartbreaking a bit funny, at the same time. It reminded me of Marion Cotillard's final scene in The Dark Knight Rises. Finally, Paul Meurisse's turn as the dickhead headmaster (dickheadmaster?) is delicious, and really want this mother fucker to meet the worst possible end. I mean, he's feeding the kids at his school spoiled fish, for Christ's sake.
I've seen this film three times now and I still love it. It has a French bitchiness to it that I find delightful, and the fact that Clouzot doesn't go overboard with horror tropes makes this a subtler, vastly better film than what you typically get in the genre. It a bit hard to rank this one because as much as I like it I have to admit that there's a coldness to it, similar to what I get in Hitchcock's films. The emotional remove is a big deal for me, and I know that Clouzot can have both suspense and emotion working together (at least, that's what I remember from when I saw The Wages of Fear). It's a brilliant entry in the horror genre, easily one of the best, but because I didn't feel an attachment to any of the characters I feel like I have to rank this one lower than I expect most people would. I think #15, between Walkabout and The Killer is a fair ranking.
I mentioned yesterday that the size of the list was starting to get a tad out of control. Therefore I've created a separate blog to house just the list itself. Good thing Blogger lets me create as many of these fucking things as I want. Here it is:
The Master List
Next time: The Clouzot double feature ends with The Wages of Fear, which came out the year before this film did. Why the fuck does the Criterion Collection keep doing this? Assholes.
The film is about a murder plot between the wife and mistress of an asshole headmaster. He's drugged and drowned in a bathtub, with his body brought back to the school and dumped in the swimming pool. Part of their plot it to make it look like he drowned in the pool, so they ask the groundskeeper to drain it. Lo and behold, the pool's drained and there's no body to be found. Bit by bit evidence pops up that the headmaster is still alive, the women are terrified, a nosy detective gets involved, the film film ends with a fun twist that's only slightly ruined by the "law and justice prevails" angle at the end.
The story's fun, but the reason for watching is to see how Clouzot ties the viewer in knots, with a standout scene being the headmaster confronting his wife just before drinking his drugged-up liquor. The scene keeps playing with the viewer even though we know the outcome of this scene, even if we've never seen the film before. You know he's going to drink the liquor, but the way the scene goes back and forth, continually bringing the bottle into the frame, then the liquor being poured into the bottle, then the wife's change of heart knocking the glass away...it's magnificent. When the asshole finally chugs it down and asks for more it's entirely believable. The scene of the headmaster drowning feels cathartic after seeing him smack his wife around, and the bathtub scene later in the film is a brilliant shitting-in-your-pants climax. I normally spoil the shit out of the movies I review here, but if you've never seen this film I really don't want to ruin it.
The acting across the board is great, with Simone Signoret playing a great, cold blonde femme fatale. Vera Clouzot (the director's wife) does a great job playing the mousy, terrified wife of the headmaster, and her final scene is both heartbreaking a bit funny, at the same time. It reminded me of Marion Cotillard's final scene in The Dark Knight Rises. Finally, Paul Meurisse's turn as the dickhead headmaster (dickheadmaster?) is delicious, and really want this mother fucker to meet the worst possible end. I mean, he's feeding the kids at his school spoiled fish, for Christ's sake.
I've seen this film three times now and I still love it. It has a French bitchiness to it that I find delightful, and the fact that Clouzot doesn't go overboard with horror tropes makes this a subtler, vastly better film than what you typically get in the genre. It a bit hard to rank this one because as much as I like it I have to admit that there's a coldness to it, similar to what I get in Hitchcock's films. The emotional remove is a big deal for me, and I know that Clouzot can have both suspense and emotion working together (at least, that's what I remember from when I saw The Wages of Fear). It's a brilliant entry in the horror genre, easily one of the best, but because I didn't feel an attachment to any of the characters I feel like I have to rank this one lower than I expect most people would. I think #15, between Walkabout and The Killer is a fair ranking.
I mentioned yesterday that the size of the list was starting to get a tad out of control. Therefore I've created a separate blog to house just the list itself. Good thing Blogger lets me create as many of these fucking things as I want. Here it is:
The Master List
Next time: The Clouzot double feature ends with The Wages of Fear, which came out the year before this film did. Why the fuck does the Criterion Collection keep doing this? Assholes.
Thursday, October 15, 2015
34. Andrei Rublev: It's not as boring as you'd think!
Andrei Rublev is one of the films that I was the most excited about revisiting. I watched it years ago, before seeing Solaris and Stalker and becoming a fan of director Andrei Tarkovsky's style, and I distinctly remember finding it to be boring as shit. I can take slow-moving sci fi, but on the first go it's typically pretty hard for me to dig a slow-moving historical. Thankfully, now that I like his style, this viewing was much easier going, and I ended this three-hour odyssey looking forward to watching it again. That's a special kind of film.
The film is split into eight chapters, and if I can be completely honest here, chapters 1-5 are still somewhat rough going for me. I can dig the art, and I like the slow build of Andrei's character here, but a lot of it feels like set up for the disaster around the corner with the raid. Much of the early story didn't feel all that clear to me, and I kept forgetting who Andrei was for awhile. It isn't until Andrei goes into the forest and sees the nude dancing pagans that I was finally able to follow his personal/spiritual journey. Maybe the nudity was able to help me concentrate. Whatever it was, from that point I was back in the story and ready to dive into the second half of the film.
The Tartar raid is one of those majestic scenes that you kind of just watch with slack-jawed awe. The camera swoops around as horses storm into town, setting homes on fire and slaughtering civilians. When they break into the church and start their search for gold it shifts into a torture scene that doesn't show a lot, but it hard to take given the context. This entire chapter is brilliant from beginning to end, and ranks as one of the best things Tarkovsky's ever done. This is shortly followed by the second best thing he's ever done: the Bell chapter. This sections deals with a bellmaker's son constructing a gigantic bell that apparently only he knows how to make. Sounds dull, but when you watch it it's fucking amazing. Andrei shows up less in this section and most of it concerns the son, but it's such a powerful section with a great ending that it kind of envelops you in it.
The film ends with some color shots of Andrei's paintings, then goes back to black and white for a shot of some horses kicking it by a river. To give you an idea of Tarkovsky's pacing, this scene goes on for 10 minutes. That's 10 minutes of dialog-free camera pans over old paintings. If you can hang with that, then this movie's for you. Surprisingly, this time around, I loved it. I mean, I just spent three hours hanging out with this guy and seeing all the shit he dealt with in his life. I felt like he earned several minutes of contemplation over his work.
My favorite Tarkovsky film is still Stalker, but this one's a masterpiece and required viewing. I can't stress enough how engrossing this film becomes as you stick with it, and once again, I want to rewatch it sometime soon. That's an impressive feat for a long, slow historical film about a painter. This one's a top ten film right now, and I'm having a bitch of a time figuring out where to put it. My inclination for right now is to sandwich it between High and Low and Shock Corridor. It's a better film than Shock Corridor, but I love High and Low so much that I'm struggling to put this above it. You know what? Fuck it. I'm going to place this at #8, between Grand Illusion and High and Low. I didn't feel like immediately rewatching High and Low the last time I saw it, so Andrei Rublev has the edge here.
1. Beauty and the Beast (1946)
2. Robocop (1987)
3. Seven Samurai (1954)
4. The Seventh Seal (1957)
5. M (1931)
6. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
7. Grand Illusion (1937)
8. Andrei Rublev (1966)
9. High and Low (1963)
10. Shock Corridor (1963)
11. Hard Boiled (1992)
12. Sid and Nancy (1986)
13. The 400 Blows (1959)
14. Walkabout (1971)
15. The Killer (1989)
16. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
17. Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)
18. Dead Ringers (1988)
19. Great Expectations (1946)
20. The Naked Kiss (1964)
21. A Night to Remember (1958)
22. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
23. The Samurai Trilogy (1954-1956)
24. The Long Good Friday (1980)
25. Blood For Dracula (1974)
26. Flesh for Frankenstein (1973)
27. Amarcord (1973)
28. Oliver Twist (1948)
29. Nanook of the North (1922)
30. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)
31. Summertime (1955)
32. Alphaville (1965)
I'm noticing that, at 32 entries, constantly posting the list is starting to get unwieldy. I'm not sure how to remedy this. I should probably keep the list saved on another site and just keep updating it there instead of including it with every single post. Hopefully I'll have something figured out by next week.
Next time: I start yet another double feature! This time it's Henri-Georges Clouzot, and I start with his classic horror film Les Diaboliques.
The film is split into eight chapters, and if I can be completely honest here, chapters 1-5 are still somewhat rough going for me. I can dig the art, and I like the slow build of Andrei's character here, but a lot of it feels like set up for the disaster around the corner with the raid. Much of the early story didn't feel all that clear to me, and I kept forgetting who Andrei was for awhile. It isn't until Andrei goes into the forest and sees the nude dancing pagans that I was finally able to follow his personal/spiritual journey. Maybe the nudity was able to help me concentrate. Whatever it was, from that point I was back in the story and ready to dive into the second half of the film.
The Tartar raid is one of those majestic scenes that you kind of just watch with slack-jawed awe. The camera swoops around as horses storm into town, setting homes on fire and slaughtering civilians. When they break into the church and start their search for gold it shifts into a torture scene that doesn't show a lot, but it hard to take given the context. This entire chapter is brilliant from beginning to end, and ranks as one of the best things Tarkovsky's ever done. This is shortly followed by the second best thing he's ever done: the Bell chapter. This sections deals with a bellmaker's son constructing a gigantic bell that apparently only he knows how to make. Sounds dull, but when you watch it it's fucking amazing. Andrei shows up less in this section and most of it concerns the son, but it's such a powerful section with a great ending that it kind of envelops you in it.
The film ends with some color shots of Andrei's paintings, then goes back to black and white for a shot of some horses kicking it by a river. To give you an idea of Tarkovsky's pacing, this scene goes on for 10 minutes. That's 10 minutes of dialog-free camera pans over old paintings. If you can hang with that, then this movie's for you. Surprisingly, this time around, I loved it. I mean, I just spent three hours hanging out with this guy and seeing all the shit he dealt with in his life. I felt like he earned several minutes of contemplation over his work.
My favorite Tarkovsky film is still Stalker, but this one's a masterpiece and required viewing. I can't stress enough how engrossing this film becomes as you stick with it, and once again, I want to rewatch it sometime soon. That's an impressive feat for a long, slow historical film about a painter. This one's a top ten film right now, and I'm having a bitch of a time figuring out where to put it. My inclination for right now is to sandwich it between High and Low and Shock Corridor. It's a better film than Shock Corridor, but I love High and Low so much that I'm struggling to put this above it. You know what? Fuck it. I'm going to place this at #8, between Grand Illusion and High and Low. I didn't feel like immediately rewatching High and Low the last time I saw it, so Andrei Rublev has the edge here.
1. Beauty and the Beast (1946)
2. Robocop (1987)
3. Seven Samurai (1954)
4. The Seventh Seal (1957)
5. M (1931)
6. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
7. Grand Illusion (1937)
8. Andrei Rublev (1966)
9. High and Low (1963)
10. Shock Corridor (1963)
11. Hard Boiled (1992)
12. Sid and Nancy (1986)
13. The 400 Blows (1959)
14. Walkabout (1971)
15. The Killer (1989)
16. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
17. Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)
18. Dead Ringers (1988)
19. Great Expectations (1946)
20. The Naked Kiss (1964)
21. A Night to Remember (1958)
22. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
23. The Samurai Trilogy (1954-1956)
24. The Long Good Friday (1980)
25. Blood For Dracula (1974)
26. Flesh for Frankenstein (1973)
27. Amarcord (1973)
28. Oliver Twist (1948)
29. Nanook of the North (1922)
30. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)
31. Summertime (1955)
32. Alphaville (1965)
I'm noticing that, at 32 entries, constantly posting the list is starting to get unwieldy. I'm not sure how to remedy this. I should probably keep the list saved on another site and just keep updating it there instead of including it with every single post. Hopefully I'll have something figured out by next week.
Next time: I start yet another double feature! This time it's Henri-Georges Clouzot, and I start with his classic horror film Les Diaboliques.
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
33. Nanook of the North vs Oliver Twist (not really)
In the course of my life I've probably seen Nanook of the North five or six times. The first time was because I'd heard about how important this film was and, like Un Chien Andalou and Birth of a Nation, there are a handful of films that are required viewing if you're serious about film as an art. Those three films have also popped up every time I've taken a film course, and I know that two of my viewings of Nanook were due to taking a class on documentaries twice. Nanook is a film where it's impossible to overstate its importance, since it invented the feature-length documentary genre (I'm sure there were some before this, but Nanook was a sensation). It's also intriguing because, even though it's a documentary, it's jam-packed with bullshit.
I really like this film, but as I've gotten older I've come to see this more as a regular film instead of as a living document of the Eskimo lifestyle. It's got slapstick gags in it (like Nanook's family coming out of a small canoe one after another, his fight with the walrus) and goofy shit where Nanook is clearly playing to the camera (chewing on a record when he already knew damn well what a record was). There are impossible interior shots of an igloo where you can even see where half of it was removed to get light in, based on some sharp shadows. But really, I'm not one of those nitpickers who's going to dislike a documentary because it isn't entirely true. I watch films for entertainment, and on that point, Nanook is delightful.
Nanook himself is a very charismatic figure, and you're rooting for him throughout the film, even as he's sliding a knife through some walrus blubber. He's got a great smile, and his children ranks as some of the most adorable you'll see, especially in a scene where Nanook is busting his ass trying to make an igloo while his kids slide down a hill. While some of his adventures aren't "real" in a documentary sense, nearly all of them are entertaining. For the perverts out there, this film also operates under the "exotic breasts are allowed" rule, which is surprising given the 1922 release date. Director Robert Flaherty takes advantage of the landscape and gets some amazing shots, and you really feel the frozen atmosphere in this movie.
Even after several viewings, I still like this movie quite a bit, and it still breaks my heart knowing that Nanook died shortly after filming wrapped. He comes across as this larger than life figure who can tame the elements and survive even under the worst conditions, so his death really does knock you down after the high of this movie. I've heard several stories about the making of this film, including that Flaherty was apparently screwing one of Nanook's daughters and had a kid with her. I can't verify this, but apparently his wife knew about it and was OK with it. That's not relevant to what I thought of this movie, but hey, it's pretty interesting.
Ranking documentaries is a bit tough for me, since it's kind of light pitting A Brief History of Time against The Sound and the Fury. If I strip away the "reality" aspect of this and rank it as an entertaining piece of filmmaking, I think I'd put it just below Oliver Twist and right above Salo. That seems like an impossibly low ranking for such an important film, but as I've stated, importance doesn't factor into my personal enjoyment of a movie, and while I do find Nanook to be a charming film, I just don't see it as more of an enjoyable experience than most of the other Criterion films I've seen so far. Is Blood For Dracula "better" than Nanook? No, clearly not, but given the choice, I'd watch Dracula over Nanook again in a heartbeat.
1. Beauty and the Beast (1946)
2. Robocop (1987)
3. Seven Samurai (1954)
4. The Seventh Seal (1957)
5. M (1931)
6. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
7. Grand Illusion (1937)
8. High and Low (1963)
9. Shock Corridor (1963)
10. Hard Boiled (1992)
11. Sid and Nancy (1986)
12. The 400 Blows (1959)
13. Walkabout (1971)
14. The Killer (1989)
15. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
16. Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)
17. Dead Ringers (1988)
18. Great Expectations (1946)
19. The Naked Kiss (1964)
20. A Night to Remember (1958)
21. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
22. The Samurai Trilogy (1954-1956)
23. The Long Good Friday (1980)
24. Blood For Dracula (1974)
25. Flesh for Frankenstein (1973)
26. Amarcord (1973)
27. Oliver Twist (1948)
28. Nanook of the North (1922)
29. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)
30. Summertime (1955)
31. Alphaville (1965)
Next time: I spent three delightful hours watching Andrei Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev.
I really like this film, but as I've gotten older I've come to see this more as a regular film instead of as a living document of the Eskimo lifestyle. It's got slapstick gags in it (like Nanook's family coming out of a small canoe one after another, his fight with the walrus) and goofy shit where Nanook is clearly playing to the camera (chewing on a record when he already knew damn well what a record was). There are impossible interior shots of an igloo where you can even see where half of it was removed to get light in, based on some sharp shadows. But really, I'm not one of those nitpickers who's going to dislike a documentary because it isn't entirely true. I watch films for entertainment, and on that point, Nanook is delightful.
Nanook himself is a very charismatic figure, and you're rooting for him throughout the film, even as he's sliding a knife through some walrus blubber. He's got a great smile, and his children ranks as some of the most adorable you'll see, especially in a scene where Nanook is busting his ass trying to make an igloo while his kids slide down a hill. While some of his adventures aren't "real" in a documentary sense, nearly all of them are entertaining. For the perverts out there, this film also operates under the "exotic breasts are allowed" rule, which is surprising given the 1922 release date. Director Robert Flaherty takes advantage of the landscape and gets some amazing shots, and you really feel the frozen atmosphere in this movie.
Even after several viewings, I still like this movie quite a bit, and it still breaks my heart knowing that Nanook died shortly after filming wrapped. He comes across as this larger than life figure who can tame the elements and survive even under the worst conditions, so his death really does knock you down after the high of this movie. I've heard several stories about the making of this film, including that Flaherty was apparently screwing one of Nanook's daughters and had a kid with her. I can't verify this, but apparently his wife knew about it and was OK with it. That's not relevant to what I thought of this movie, but hey, it's pretty interesting.
Ranking documentaries is a bit tough for me, since it's kind of light pitting A Brief History of Time against The Sound and the Fury. If I strip away the "reality" aspect of this and rank it as an entertaining piece of filmmaking, I think I'd put it just below Oliver Twist and right above Salo. That seems like an impossibly low ranking for such an important film, but as I've stated, importance doesn't factor into my personal enjoyment of a movie, and while I do find Nanook to be a charming film, I just don't see it as more of an enjoyable experience than most of the other Criterion films I've seen so far. Is Blood For Dracula "better" than Nanook? No, clearly not, but given the choice, I'd watch Dracula over Nanook again in a heartbeat.
1. Beauty and the Beast (1946)
2. Robocop (1987)
3. Seven Samurai (1954)
4. The Seventh Seal (1957)
5. M (1931)
6. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
7. Grand Illusion (1937)
8. High and Low (1963)
9. Shock Corridor (1963)
10. Hard Boiled (1992)
11. Sid and Nancy (1986)
12. The 400 Blows (1959)
13. Walkabout (1971)
14. The Killer (1989)
15. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
16. Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)
17. Dead Ringers (1988)
18. Great Expectations (1946)
19. The Naked Kiss (1964)
20. A Night to Remember (1958)
21. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
22. The Samurai Trilogy (1954-1956)
23. The Long Good Friday (1980)
24. Blood For Dracula (1974)
25. Flesh for Frankenstein (1973)
26. Amarcord (1973)
27. Oliver Twist (1948)
28. Nanook of the North (1922)
29. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)
30. Summertime (1955)
31. Alphaville (1965)
Next time: I spent three delightful hours watching Andrei Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev.
Tuesday, October 13, 2015
32. Oliver Twist: More of the same
Oliver Twist is David Lean's follow up to his successful adaptation of Great Expectations. A lot of the same cast and crew work on both films, so there's a nice consistency between the two. However, and this is a problem when viewing the Criterion Collection in order, when you watch these films back to back, you really feel the similarities and Oliver Twist kind of suffers for it. I think that, had there been a gap of several movies between the two, I may have viewed this movie in a fresher light. But immediately following Great Expectations? I'm just about done with orphans.
It doesn't help that the title character is dull in the extreme. John Howard Davies is just a blank canvas to bounce the other characters off of, with his only highlight being a scene early on where he beats the shit out of someone who's talking smack about his dead mother. Aside from that, he's just this adorable looking boy who goes from one location to another while various scumbags are plotting all around him. Alec Guinness is at his Shylock best as Fagin, looking disturbing as hell while teaching the street urchins how to properly pick pockets. Francis Sullivan is back, this time as a mean fat dude who likes beating the kids in his orphanage, and while he has some good scenes, he's not as fun as he was in Great Expectations.
Really, most of the praise I had for Great Expectations could easily be transferred over here. Lean's direction is brilliant, the film looks gorgeous, the cast is excellent overall, and it works both as a film and as an adaptation of a classic novel. My main problem seems to be orphan fatigue and also that I just don't find this story as compelling as Great Expectations. It's alright, but I'm already sick of the super mega happy orphan ending that Dickens uses. Also, how happy am I supposed to be for Oliver when he's barely in the movie during the second half? We're mostly privy to scheming assholes and murder, and while it's good stuff, it's also hard to maintain an interest in the lead. That's what I was feeling anyhow. I want to come back to this one later, but right now I don't want to see another Dickens adaptation for awhile.
It seems obvious that I'm going to rank this lower than Great Expectations, but I don't want to put this one too low because I honestly feel that external factors are weighing in on how I viewed this movie. I really want to give it another shot at some point because I don't know how much of my reaction was based on seeing it so soon after the previous film. It could just be that this particular story didn't connect with me all that much. Give me something like Ragged Dick over this, or a story where the orphan plays a larger role in the direction of his life outside of just running away from an abusive home. Fuck it. For now, I'm putting this at #27, just below Amarcord. I feel like I have similar issues with both of these films, but I liked Amarcord a bit more. Maybe it's just the tobacconist.
1. Beauty and the Beast (1946)
2. Robocop (1987)
3. Seven Samurai (1954)
4. The Seventh Seal (1957)
5. M (1931)
6. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
7. Grand Illusion (1937)
8. High and Low (1963)
9. Shock Corridor (1963)
10. Hard Boiled (1992)
11. Sid and Nancy (1986)
12. The 400 Blows (1959)
13. Walkabout (1971)
14. The Killer (1989)
15. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
16. Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)
17. Dead Ringers (1988)
18. Great Expectations (1946)
19. The Naked Kiss (1964)
20. A Night to Remember (1958)
21. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
22. The Samurai Trilogy (1954-1956)
23. The Long Good Friday (1980)
24. Blood For Dracula (1974)
25. Flesh for Frankenstein (1973)
26. Amarcord (1973)
27. Oliver Twist (1948)
28. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)
29. Summertime (1955)
30. Alphaville (1965)
Next time: I go up and kick it with Nanook of the North for probably the fifth or sixth time in my life.
It doesn't help that the title character is dull in the extreme. John Howard Davies is just a blank canvas to bounce the other characters off of, with his only highlight being a scene early on where he beats the shit out of someone who's talking smack about his dead mother. Aside from that, he's just this adorable looking boy who goes from one location to another while various scumbags are plotting all around him. Alec Guinness is at his Shylock best as Fagin, looking disturbing as hell while teaching the street urchins how to properly pick pockets. Francis Sullivan is back, this time as a mean fat dude who likes beating the kids in his orphanage, and while he has some good scenes, he's not as fun as he was in Great Expectations.
Really, most of the praise I had for Great Expectations could easily be transferred over here. Lean's direction is brilliant, the film looks gorgeous, the cast is excellent overall, and it works both as a film and as an adaptation of a classic novel. My main problem seems to be orphan fatigue and also that I just don't find this story as compelling as Great Expectations. It's alright, but I'm already sick of the super mega happy orphan ending that Dickens uses. Also, how happy am I supposed to be for Oliver when he's barely in the movie during the second half? We're mostly privy to scheming assholes and murder, and while it's good stuff, it's also hard to maintain an interest in the lead. That's what I was feeling anyhow. I want to come back to this one later, but right now I don't want to see another Dickens adaptation for awhile.
It seems obvious that I'm going to rank this lower than Great Expectations, but I don't want to put this one too low because I honestly feel that external factors are weighing in on how I viewed this movie. I really want to give it another shot at some point because I don't know how much of my reaction was based on seeing it so soon after the previous film. It could just be that this particular story didn't connect with me all that much. Give me something like Ragged Dick over this, or a story where the orphan plays a larger role in the direction of his life outside of just running away from an abusive home. Fuck it. For now, I'm putting this at #27, just below Amarcord. I feel like I have similar issues with both of these films, but I liked Amarcord a bit more. Maybe it's just the tobacconist.
1. Beauty and the Beast (1946)
2. Robocop (1987)
3. Seven Samurai (1954)
4. The Seventh Seal (1957)
5. M (1931)
6. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
7. Grand Illusion (1937)
8. High and Low (1963)
9. Shock Corridor (1963)
10. Hard Boiled (1992)
11. Sid and Nancy (1986)
12. The 400 Blows (1959)
13. Walkabout (1971)
14. The Killer (1989)
15. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
16. Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)
17. Dead Ringers (1988)
18. Great Expectations (1946)
19. The Naked Kiss (1964)
20. A Night to Remember (1958)
21. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
22. The Samurai Trilogy (1954-1956)
23. The Long Good Friday (1980)
24. Blood For Dracula (1974)
25. Flesh for Frankenstein (1973)
26. Amarcord (1973)
27. Oliver Twist (1948)
28. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)
29. Summertime (1955)
30. Alphaville (1965)
Next time: I go up and kick it with Nanook of the North for probably the fifth or sixth time in my life.
Monday, October 12, 2015
31. Great Expectations: Everything you could hope for!
Adaptations of classic literature are always iffy for me because a lot of the time it feels like a ton of plot is being crammed into a short runtime. At just under two hours Great Expectations is able to get enough of the story in to be one of the best Charles Dickens ever made, and director David Lean is enough of a master of the craft to make this great cinema. This is the second time that I've seen this film, and while it's not one that I was looking forward to viewing, I enjoyed it immensely the second time around because it's gorgeous, touching, and funny as hell.
The film is split almost evenly between Pip as a boy and Pip as a man. John Mills is fine as adult Pip, but I preferred Anthony Wager's scared expression and insecurity when dealing with Miss Havisham (the brilliant Martita Hunt) and Estella (an early performance by Jean Simmons). These early scenes are table setting, but being introduced to the dilapidated world of Miss Havisham deserves all the time that gets lavished on it, and really could have used some more. Her house feels like something out of a Universal horror film, covered with spider webs, rats and rotting curtains. Havisham herself is bitter and is downright gleeful when telling Estella that she can break his heart, but what I love is that she is never personally mean to Pip. She treats him sweetly, all the while vicariously taking revenge on all men by having Estella behave like a snarling cunt to him.
Simmons' performance as young Estella one-note but works. Valerie Hobson does much better as adult Estella, with a deadened cruelty that doesn't take joy in torturing Pip; she just does this because that's all she knows how to do. Alec Guinness has a fun role as Pip's roommate Herbert Pocket, but the heart of this film is in the escaped convict Abel Magwitch (Finlay Currie), who is both terrifying and lovable at the same time. I also liked Francis Sullivan as the lawyer Mr. Jaggers, but that's mainly because gruff fat dudes with deep voices are a personal favorite cinematic character for me. Nearly everyone in the cast is superb, with nary a fall note in any of the performances. Sure, Mills plays Pip as something of a saint, but fuck it, you still like the guy and keep rooting for him.
I love some of Lean's choices here, and this is one of my favorite films of his. A surprising moment is a terrified Pip running through a farmer and hearing angry accusations from a bunch of cows. The film hits all the right notes, with Havisham being portrayed as the tragic figure she really is and the romance between Pip and Estella actually working in the end. It moves at a brisk pace and doesn't feel either like a two hour film nor an adaption of a classic novel. It's just a damn fine movie.
All that sounds like I'd be ranking this film pretty high, but that's not the case. I enjoyed this movie a lot, but I'm probably not going to watch it again. Also, while Lean is a great director and this is one of my favorite films of his, he falls into that category of directors who I like and respect, but not one who particularly excites me. This film is a masterpiece and deserves all the praise that gets heaped on it, but it's not a film that I personally would go on raving to people about. It's odd, but there you go. Sometimes a brilliant movie that I really like won't get ranked as high as lesser movies that nonetheless stick in my head for years after the fact. #18 seems fair.
1. Beauty and the Beast (1946)
2. Robocop (1987)
3. Seven Samurai (1954)
4. The Seventh Seal (1957)
5. M (1931)
6. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
7. Grand Illusion (1937)
8. High and Low (1963)
9. Shock Corridor (1963)
10. Hard Boiled (1992)
11. Sid and Nancy (1986)
12. The 400 Blows (1959)
13. Walkabout (1971)
14. The Killer (1989)
15. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
16. Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)
17. Dead Ringers (1988)
18. Great Expectations (1946)
19. The Naked Kiss (1964)
20. A Night to Remember (1958)
21. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
22. The Samurai Trilogy (1954-1956)
23. The Long Good Friday (1980)
24. Blood For Dracula (1974)
25. Flesh for Frankenstein (1973)
26. Amarcord (1973)
27. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)
28. Summertime (1955)
29. Alphaville (1965)
Next time: the Lean/Dickens double feature ends with Oliver Twist. Since much of the same cast and crew returns, I'm expecting more brilliance. Don't let me down, Lean.
The film is split almost evenly between Pip as a boy and Pip as a man. John Mills is fine as adult Pip, but I preferred Anthony Wager's scared expression and insecurity when dealing with Miss Havisham (the brilliant Martita Hunt) and Estella (an early performance by Jean Simmons). These early scenes are table setting, but being introduced to the dilapidated world of Miss Havisham deserves all the time that gets lavished on it, and really could have used some more. Her house feels like something out of a Universal horror film, covered with spider webs, rats and rotting curtains. Havisham herself is bitter and is downright gleeful when telling Estella that she can break his heart, but what I love is that she is never personally mean to Pip. She treats him sweetly, all the while vicariously taking revenge on all men by having Estella behave like a snarling cunt to him.
Simmons' performance as young Estella one-note but works. Valerie Hobson does much better as adult Estella, with a deadened cruelty that doesn't take joy in torturing Pip; she just does this because that's all she knows how to do. Alec Guinness has a fun role as Pip's roommate Herbert Pocket, but the heart of this film is in the escaped convict Abel Magwitch (Finlay Currie), who is both terrifying and lovable at the same time. I also liked Francis Sullivan as the lawyer Mr. Jaggers, but that's mainly because gruff fat dudes with deep voices are a personal favorite cinematic character for me. Nearly everyone in the cast is superb, with nary a fall note in any of the performances. Sure, Mills plays Pip as something of a saint, but fuck it, you still like the guy and keep rooting for him.
I love some of Lean's choices here, and this is one of my favorite films of his. A surprising moment is a terrified Pip running through a farmer and hearing angry accusations from a bunch of cows. The film hits all the right notes, with Havisham being portrayed as the tragic figure she really is and the romance between Pip and Estella actually working in the end. It moves at a brisk pace and doesn't feel either like a two hour film nor an adaption of a classic novel. It's just a damn fine movie.
All that sounds like I'd be ranking this film pretty high, but that's not the case. I enjoyed this movie a lot, but I'm probably not going to watch it again. Also, while Lean is a great director and this is one of my favorite films of his, he falls into that category of directors who I like and respect, but not one who particularly excites me. This film is a masterpiece and deserves all the praise that gets heaped on it, but it's not a film that I personally would go on raving to people about. It's odd, but there you go. Sometimes a brilliant movie that I really like won't get ranked as high as lesser movies that nonetheless stick in my head for years after the fact. #18 seems fair.
1. Beauty and the Beast (1946)
2. Robocop (1987)
3. Seven Samurai (1954)
4. The Seventh Seal (1957)
5. M (1931)
6. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
7. Grand Illusion (1937)
8. High and Low (1963)
9. Shock Corridor (1963)
10. Hard Boiled (1992)
11. Sid and Nancy (1986)
12. The 400 Blows (1959)
13. Walkabout (1971)
14. The Killer (1989)
15. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
16. Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)
17. Dead Ringers (1988)
18. Great Expectations (1946)
19. The Naked Kiss (1964)
20. A Night to Remember (1958)
21. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
22. The Samurai Trilogy (1954-1956)
23. The Long Good Friday (1980)
24. Blood For Dracula (1974)
25. Flesh for Frankenstein (1973)
26. Amarcord (1973)
27. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)
28. Summertime (1955)
29. Alphaville (1965)
Next time: the Lean/Dickens double feature ends with Oliver Twist. Since much of the same cast and crew returns, I'm expecting more brilliance. Don't let me down, Lean.
Sunday, October 11, 2015
30. M: The beginning and end of Peter Lorre's dramatic career
Fritz Lang's 1931 classic M was his first venture into sound, and the first time the world at large got to see the talents of Peter Lorre. As a child murderer named Hans Beckert, Lorre gives one of the all time great performances, sometimes funny (making "mad man" faces in the mirror), sometimes sad, but always disturbing. Lorre was so brilliant in this film, and so convincing in his role, that it effectively destroyed his budding acting career, with Lorre immediately becoming typecast in horror films or as scummy underworld types.
The plot is straightforward, with child murderer Beckert causing a public uproar and the police cracking down on the "respectable" criminal element and basically any man who speaks to a young girl. The criminals are pissed that Beckert is causing them to be constantly harassed, so they decide to do their own manhunt. Surprisingly, Beckert is discovered an hour into the film, with the remaining 50 minutes spent chasing him down, capturing him, putting him on trial, and the police wondering what the fuck is going on. The trial scene is the only low point for me, as I've never been a big fan of these and this one in particular drags a bit, but it has enough humor and irony in it that I appreciate Lang's effort here. The morality of the criminal underworld is always a fascinating topic, even in scenes that move at a snail's pace.
What I love about early sound films is how great directors experimented with how sound can be used in this medium. Witness Hitchcock using muffled, murmured speech in Blackmail with only the word "knife" being audible. Here, Lang will have shots played out in completely silence, not even with room tone, and then a police whistle will break it and a frantic scene will ensure. Also, Beckert is eventually caught when the blind man who sold him a balloon recognizes his whistling of Grieg's In the Hall of the Mountain King. There's an enthusiasm about sound that I adore in these films, one that would eventually reach its zenith in Rouben Mamoulian's 1932 musical Love Me Tonight.
Lang's brilliant expressionistic style is still in full force here, with Beckert introduced by his shadow being cast against a wanted poster. The visual flourishes in this film are breathtaking, especially said sequence which ends with a little girl's murder being shown by an empty dinner plate, a rolling ball, and a floating balloon. There's also a lot of surprising humor in here, some of which doesn't land, but some of it playing out beautifully. Then penultimate scene of the criminals putting Beckert on trial, only to slowly raise their hands when the police arrive is fantastic, though Lang wisely chose to end the film on a more somber (but surprisingly preachy) note.
M is one of those films, like The Seventh Seal and Grand Illusion, that every budding cinephile has to see to get into "the club." I love M, but a lot of it has to do with recognizing great art. The procedural aspects are somewhat dull here, and don't have the same kind of drive as similar scenes in Kurosawa's High and Low. And really, High and Low is the film that I keep mentally comparing this film to, as both are much more than what the surface would suggest. M is in contention for my favorite Fritz Lang film, and even though I don't enjoy watching it as I do, say, The Silence of the Lambs, it's a more satisfying experience. Plus I fucking love Peter Lorre, and I think he's a creepier heavy than Hannibal Lector, behaving like a terrified, scurrying rat when caught and operating on pure base urges when approaching his victims.
1. Beauty and the Beast (1946)
2. Robocop (1987)
3. Seven Samurai (1954)
4. The Seventh Seal (1957)
5. M (1931)
6. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
7. Grand Illusion (1937)
8. High and Low (1963)
9. Shock Corridor (1963)
10. Hard Boiled (1992)
11. Sid and Nancy (1986)
12. The 400 Blows (1959)
13. Walkabout (1971)
14. The Killer (1989)
15. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
16. Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)
17. Dead Ringers (1988)
18. The Naked Kiss (1964)
19. A Night to Remember (1958)
20. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
21. The Samurai Trilogy (1954-1956)
22. The Long Good Friday (1980)
23. Blood For Dracula (1974)
24. Flesh for Frankenstein (1973)
25. Amarcord (1973)
26. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)
27. Summertime (1955)
28. Alphaville (1965)
Next time: Will David Lean live up to my Great Expectations?
You see what I did there?
:(
The plot is straightforward, with child murderer Beckert causing a public uproar and the police cracking down on the "respectable" criminal element and basically any man who speaks to a young girl. The criminals are pissed that Beckert is causing them to be constantly harassed, so they decide to do their own manhunt. Surprisingly, Beckert is discovered an hour into the film, with the remaining 50 minutes spent chasing him down, capturing him, putting him on trial, and the police wondering what the fuck is going on. The trial scene is the only low point for me, as I've never been a big fan of these and this one in particular drags a bit, but it has enough humor and irony in it that I appreciate Lang's effort here. The morality of the criminal underworld is always a fascinating topic, even in scenes that move at a snail's pace.
What I love about early sound films is how great directors experimented with how sound can be used in this medium. Witness Hitchcock using muffled, murmured speech in Blackmail with only the word "knife" being audible. Here, Lang will have shots played out in completely silence, not even with room tone, and then a police whistle will break it and a frantic scene will ensure. Also, Beckert is eventually caught when the blind man who sold him a balloon recognizes his whistling of Grieg's In the Hall of the Mountain King. There's an enthusiasm about sound that I adore in these films, one that would eventually reach its zenith in Rouben Mamoulian's 1932 musical Love Me Tonight.
Lang's brilliant expressionistic style is still in full force here, with Beckert introduced by his shadow being cast against a wanted poster. The visual flourishes in this film are breathtaking, especially said sequence which ends with a little girl's murder being shown by an empty dinner plate, a rolling ball, and a floating balloon. There's also a lot of surprising humor in here, some of which doesn't land, but some of it playing out beautifully. Then penultimate scene of the criminals putting Beckert on trial, only to slowly raise their hands when the police arrive is fantastic, though Lang wisely chose to end the film on a more somber (but surprisingly preachy) note.
M is one of those films, like The Seventh Seal and Grand Illusion, that every budding cinephile has to see to get into "the club." I love M, but a lot of it has to do with recognizing great art. The procedural aspects are somewhat dull here, and don't have the same kind of drive as similar scenes in Kurosawa's High and Low. And really, High and Low is the film that I keep mentally comparing this film to, as both are much more than what the surface would suggest. M is in contention for my favorite Fritz Lang film, and even though I don't enjoy watching it as I do, say, The Silence of the Lambs, it's a more satisfying experience. Plus I fucking love Peter Lorre, and I think he's a creepier heavy than Hannibal Lector, behaving like a terrified, scurrying rat when caught and operating on pure base urges when approaching his victims.
1. Beauty and the Beast (1946)
2. Robocop (1987)
3. Seven Samurai (1954)
4. The Seventh Seal (1957)
5. M (1931)
6. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
7. Grand Illusion (1937)
8. High and Low (1963)
9. Shock Corridor (1963)
10. Hard Boiled (1992)
11. Sid and Nancy (1986)
12. The 400 Blows (1959)
13. Walkabout (1971)
14. The Killer (1989)
15. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
16. Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)
17. Dead Ringers (1988)
18. The Naked Kiss (1964)
19. A Night to Remember (1958)
20. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
21. The Samurai Trilogy (1954-1956)
22. The Long Good Friday (1980)
23. Blood For Dracula (1974)
24. Flesh for Frankenstein (1973)
25. Amarcord (1973)
26. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)
27. Summertime (1955)
28. Alphaville (1965)
Next time: Will David Lean live up to my Great Expectations?
You see what I did there?
:(
29. Picnic at Hanging Rock: A mystery where you don't give a shit about the mystery
Picnic at Hanging Rock is a mystery that's not really about the mystery with characters doing a search that doesn't really matter. There's no reason for the disappearance of the girls, nor is any solution available at the end. For a standard movie goer this is probably a deal breaker, but for more adventurous viewers who are down for an hour and a half of psychological probing, it's a feast. Coming right after the boob and blood-soaked Morrissey horror jaunts, it's also a welcome change of pace.
The film is about a private girl's school in Australia that sends a group of students to Hanging Rock, a mamelon created by a former volcano. They're going as part of a research project for a report, and when they get there some girls seems content to lie down and chill, others eat and read poetry, and a few unfortunates decide to go off into Hanging Rock to explore. After falling asleep they wake up, as if in a daze, and then wander into an opening while the stereotypically annoying fat girl Edith screams her head off. After the disappearance the search is on, with police and reporters getting involved, all while the headmistress Mrs. Appleyard acts like a piece of shit.
Mrs. Appleyard was my favorite part of this movie because I've always liked when films displayed the banality of evil, or just people behaving cruelly because of pragmatic reasons. Rather than being concerned about the safety of the disappeared girls, Appleyard is annoyed because they're going to be losing money from those girl's tuition funds, and to make matters worse, several other parents are stopping their payments and taking their girls back home. As an outlet for this frustration Appleyard expels an orphan girl named Sara, a girl who wasn't allowed on the trip and has been tortured by Appleyard throughout the movie. Her suicide at the end seems preordained, but Appleyard is dressed in hypocritical black mourning clothes with Sara's bags already packed and ready to go. She really is a fascinating character, and one that I look forward to paying special attention to on further viewings, as her dynamic with Sara is probably the juiciest character stuff we get here.
The film maintains a tone of unease throughout, and Hanging Rock is shot as an imposing, mysterious location. It's a brilliant use of "location as antagonist," with a natural phenomenon looking magnificently creepy at times. There are also shots of reptiles and other insects, and I've always loved those kinds of nature shots in films (see also my review of Walkabout, which is a treasure trove of nature photography). There are other characters in this film aside from the girls and Hanging Rock, but in a delicious twist, not a single male character in this feature is even remotely as interesting as the females or the lifeless chunk of nature. I can't stress enough how refreshing that is, given how penis-centric 90% of cinema is.
Picnic at Hanging Rock is brilliant, but one of those films that you need to be in a specific mood to watch. I wouldn't say that it's entertaining, but it lingers with you for a long time afterward and is essential viewing. As for ranking, I'm going to place this one right above Dead Ringers but below This Is Spinal Tap, since that seems to be another nice dividing point. Between Dead Ringers and Picnic at Hanging Rock I don't know which one I'll be watching again in the future, but I'll definitely want to watch Tap before either of them.
1. Beauty and the Beast (1946)
2. Robocop (1987)
3. Seven Samurai (1954)
4. The Seventh Seal (1957)
5. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
6. Grand Illusion (1937)
7. High and Low (1963)
8. Shock Corridor (1963)
9. Hard Boiled (1992)
10. Sid and Nancy (1986)
11. The 400 Blows (1959)
12. Walkabout (1971)
13. The Killer (1989)
14. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
15. Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)
16. Dead Ringers (1988)
17. The Naked Kiss (1964)
18. A Night to Remember (1958)
19. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
20. The Samurai Trilogy (1954-1956)
21. The Long Good Friday (1980)
22. Blood For Dracula (1974)
23. Flesh for Frankenstein (1973)
24. Amarcord (1973)
25. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)
26. Summertime (1955)
27. Alphaville (1965)
Next time: I've very excited to go back to the 1930s with Fritz Lang's first talkie, 1931's M.
The film is about a private girl's school in Australia that sends a group of students to Hanging Rock, a mamelon created by a former volcano. They're going as part of a research project for a report, and when they get there some girls seems content to lie down and chill, others eat and read poetry, and a few unfortunates decide to go off into Hanging Rock to explore. After falling asleep they wake up, as if in a daze, and then wander into an opening while the stereotypically annoying fat girl Edith screams her head off. After the disappearance the search is on, with police and reporters getting involved, all while the headmistress Mrs. Appleyard acts like a piece of shit.
Mrs. Appleyard was my favorite part of this movie because I've always liked when films displayed the banality of evil, or just people behaving cruelly because of pragmatic reasons. Rather than being concerned about the safety of the disappeared girls, Appleyard is annoyed because they're going to be losing money from those girl's tuition funds, and to make matters worse, several other parents are stopping their payments and taking their girls back home. As an outlet for this frustration Appleyard expels an orphan girl named Sara, a girl who wasn't allowed on the trip and has been tortured by Appleyard throughout the movie. Her suicide at the end seems preordained, but Appleyard is dressed in hypocritical black mourning clothes with Sara's bags already packed and ready to go. She really is a fascinating character, and one that I look forward to paying special attention to on further viewings, as her dynamic with Sara is probably the juiciest character stuff we get here.
The film maintains a tone of unease throughout, and Hanging Rock is shot as an imposing, mysterious location. It's a brilliant use of "location as antagonist," with a natural phenomenon looking magnificently creepy at times. There are also shots of reptiles and other insects, and I've always loved those kinds of nature shots in films (see also my review of Walkabout, which is a treasure trove of nature photography). There are other characters in this film aside from the girls and Hanging Rock, but in a delicious twist, not a single male character in this feature is even remotely as interesting as the females or the lifeless chunk of nature. I can't stress enough how refreshing that is, given how penis-centric 90% of cinema is.
Picnic at Hanging Rock is brilliant, but one of those films that you need to be in a specific mood to watch. I wouldn't say that it's entertaining, but it lingers with you for a long time afterward and is essential viewing. As for ranking, I'm going to place this one right above Dead Ringers but below This Is Spinal Tap, since that seems to be another nice dividing point. Between Dead Ringers and Picnic at Hanging Rock I don't know which one I'll be watching again in the future, but I'll definitely want to watch Tap before either of them.
1. Beauty and the Beast (1946)
2. Robocop (1987)
3. Seven Samurai (1954)
4. The Seventh Seal (1957)
5. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
6. Grand Illusion (1937)
7. High and Low (1963)
8. Shock Corridor (1963)
9. Hard Boiled (1992)
10. Sid and Nancy (1986)
11. The 400 Blows (1959)
12. Walkabout (1971)
13. The Killer (1989)
14. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
15. Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)
16. Dead Ringers (1988)
17. The Naked Kiss (1964)
18. A Night to Remember (1958)
19. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
20. The Samurai Trilogy (1954-1956)
21. The Long Good Friday (1980)
22. Blood For Dracula (1974)
23. Flesh for Frankenstein (1973)
24. Amarcord (1973)
25. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)
26. Summertime (1955)
27. Alphaville (1965)
Next time: I've very excited to go back to the 1930s with Fritz Lang's first talkie, 1931's M.
Saturday, October 10, 2015
28. Blood for Dracula: "what's he want with you who-ers?"
After the trashy thrills of Paul Morrissey's Flesh for Frankenstein I was pretty damn excited to dive into his take on Dracula. With much of the same cast and an acting role for legendary director Vittorio De Sica I could hardly wait to pop this one in and get started. I was not disappointed. All the bitchy humor and bad taste that I loved in Frankenstein were in abundance here, and while it wasn't as much of a rolicking good time, it was still a hell of an entertaining film, and left me wanting to explore more of Morrissey's filmography.
Morrissey's Dracula has some interesting differences with traditional portrayals. For one, sunlight doesn't kill him as much as it annoys him. Same with crosses, and in one instance he grabs one off the wall and puts it in a drawer so he doesn't have to see it. Finally, this Drac specifically requires virgin blood, so he can't just go off feasting on whore's blood, since that will cause him to get sick and vomit profusely, as we get to see twice in this film in extended puke scenes. The plot of this film is Drac going to Italy to find some virgin to marry, and unfortunately he keeps getting foiled by Joe Dallesandro's penis, which constantly seems to be ruining his brides-to-be for Drac gets the chance to sink his teeth into them.
Yup, Dallesnadro's back as an Italian-born farmer with a Brooklyn accent and a first year college student's enthusiasm for Communism. First, the good news: Dallesandro's acting is shitty as ever in this film. The bad news: he plays an asshole rapist who treats everyone like garbage and is "the hero." While it's fun seeing him flat-out call his boss's daughters "who-ers" and walk around with a gigantic chip on his shoulder, it's pretty hard to take him as the hero since he seems to be actively trying to get the viewer to hate him. In the climactic scene were Drac is trying to get with the last virgin daughter, Joe takes matters into his own hands by pinning her to the wall and raping her, thus saving her from a life of vampirism. This leads to a hilariously vulgar scene of Drac on his knees slurping up the blood on the floor from the daughter's popped cherry. I fucking hated Dallesandro's character, but the Monty Python-esque ending with Joe chopping off Drac's limbs one after another, leaving him as an armless and legless torso before impaling him was perfect.
This film moves at a slower pace than Frankenstein, and it isn't as consistently over the top, but there does seem to be some nice metaphors at work. Even though it's shoved right in the viewer's face, I liked the theme of the old nobility being fucked and killed by the peasants, as displayed by Dallesandro's obnoxious dialog and actions. The sickly Count feasting on virgins also works, and as a whole this film seems to have more ideas in play than Frankenstein, even if they are delivered as a standard grindhouse project. Thus, in my opinion, this one works as a better film, though it's near impossible for me to pick between the two because both of them are hilarious and entertaining. I'd probably prefer watching Frankenstein just because Joe doesn't win in the end.
Because the themes, tone, and humor are so consistent between these two films, I'm gong to keep them together in my ranking, but give Dracula the advantage because it's more thematically sophisticated to me. I loved these two films more than I was expecting, and right now they stand as the two best surprises I've encountered yet in the Criterion Collection.
1. Beauty and the Beast (1946)
2. Robocop (1987)
3. Seven Samurai (1954)
4. The Seventh Seal (1957)
5. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
6. Grand Illusion (1937)
7. High and Low (1963)
8. Shock Corridor (1963)
9. Hard Boiled (1992)
10. Sid and Nancy (1986)
11. The 400 Blows (1959)
12. Walkabout (1971)
13. The Killer (1989)
14. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
15. Dead Ringers (1988)
16. The Naked Kiss (1964)
17. A Night to Remember (1958)
18. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
19. The Samurai Trilogy (1954-1956)
20. The Long Good Friday (1980)
21. Blood For Dracula (1974)
22. Flesh for Frankenstein (1973)
23. Amarcord (1973)
24. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)
25. Summertime (1955)
26. Alphaville (1965)
Next time: It's a shame Drac died when he did, because he would have been feasting at Picnic at Hanging Rock.
Morrissey's Dracula has some interesting differences with traditional portrayals. For one, sunlight doesn't kill him as much as it annoys him. Same with crosses, and in one instance he grabs one off the wall and puts it in a drawer so he doesn't have to see it. Finally, this Drac specifically requires virgin blood, so he can't just go off feasting on whore's blood, since that will cause him to get sick and vomit profusely, as we get to see twice in this film in extended puke scenes. The plot of this film is Drac going to Italy to find some virgin to marry, and unfortunately he keeps getting foiled by Joe Dallesandro's penis, which constantly seems to be ruining his brides-to-be for Drac gets the chance to sink his teeth into them.
Yup, Dallesnadro's back as an Italian-born farmer with a Brooklyn accent and a first year college student's enthusiasm for Communism. First, the good news: Dallesandro's acting is shitty as ever in this film. The bad news: he plays an asshole rapist who treats everyone like garbage and is "the hero." While it's fun seeing him flat-out call his boss's daughters "who-ers" and walk around with a gigantic chip on his shoulder, it's pretty hard to take him as the hero since he seems to be actively trying to get the viewer to hate him. In the climactic scene were Drac is trying to get with the last virgin daughter, Joe takes matters into his own hands by pinning her to the wall and raping her, thus saving her from a life of vampirism. This leads to a hilariously vulgar scene of Drac on his knees slurping up the blood on the floor from the daughter's popped cherry. I fucking hated Dallesandro's character, but the Monty Python-esque ending with Joe chopping off Drac's limbs one after another, leaving him as an armless and legless torso before impaling him was perfect.
This film moves at a slower pace than Frankenstein, and it isn't as consistently over the top, but there does seem to be some nice metaphors at work. Even though it's shoved right in the viewer's face, I liked the theme of the old nobility being fucked and killed by the peasants, as displayed by Dallesandro's obnoxious dialog and actions. The sickly Count feasting on virgins also works, and as a whole this film seems to have more ideas in play than Frankenstein, even if they are delivered as a standard grindhouse project. Thus, in my opinion, this one works as a better film, though it's near impossible for me to pick between the two because both of them are hilarious and entertaining. I'd probably prefer watching Frankenstein just because Joe doesn't win in the end.
Because the themes, tone, and humor are so consistent between these two films, I'm gong to keep them together in my ranking, but give Dracula the advantage because it's more thematically sophisticated to me. I loved these two films more than I was expecting, and right now they stand as the two best surprises I've encountered yet in the Criterion Collection.
1. Beauty and the Beast (1946)
2. Robocop (1987)
3. Seven Samurai (1954)
4. The Seventh Seal (1957)
5. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
6. Grand Illusion (1937)
7. High and Low (1963)
8. Shock Corridor (1963)
9. Hard Boiled (1992)
10. Sid and Nancy (1986)
11. The 400 Blows (1959)
12. Walkabout (1971)
13. The Killer (1989)
14. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
15. Dead Ringers (1988)
16. The Naked Kiss (1964)
17. A Night to Remember (1958)
18. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
19. The Samurai Trilogy (1954-1956)
20. The Long Good Friday (1980)
21. Blood For Dracula (1974)
22. Flesh for Frankenstein (1973)
23. Amarcord (1973)
24. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)
25. Summertime (1955)
26. Alphaville (1965)
Next time: It's a shame Drac died when he did, because he would have been feasting at Picnic at Hanging Rock.
Friday, October 9, 2015
27. Flesh for Frankenstein: A Trash Classic
Paul Morrissey's Flesh for Frankenstein and its follow-up
Blood for Dracula are both considered two of the worst films in the Criterion
Collection. Before I was ever aware of the Criterion Collection I was familiar
with these two films due to their ubiquity in cult movie books, where they were
generally described as tasteless exercises in extreme gore with some sex thrown
in for good measure. Even though I knew of their reputation, for whatever
reason I never got around to watching them. However, as a fan of exploitation
films and the artsy-fartsy, I was eager to dive right into these films and
hopefully experience some snooty trash thrills.
I'll be reviewing Dracula next, but Flesh for Frankenstein
took me by surprise. I had a vague idea of what to expect, but I didn't expect
this film to be as funny as it was, or the acting to be as atrocious. Udo Kier
is a campy revelation as Baron von Frankenstein, eyes bugged out and flailing
about making grand declarations about taking over the world. His sidekick Otto
is even more bug eyed and ridiculous, making tongue-flapping pussy eating
gestures and generally behaving as a vile toady. While Arno Juerging is
terrible as Otto, nothing quite prepared me for the acting talents of the
famous Joe Dallesandro. Hooooo boy. Being a part of an indie club scene for
several years, I was already familiar with the slobbering devotion that certain
acquaintances had for ol' Joe, but as a straight male with a low tolerance for
Andy Warhol's factory, I approached his performance as a film fan hoping to see
what was so special about him. What I got was a wooden male model with a thick
New York accent and exactly one facial expression. Dallesandro's
"talents" are limited to showing his naked body pumping away at
random prostitutes until his services are taken up by the Baron's wife/sister
Baroness Katrin Frankenstein, played by Monique van Vooren. Both the Baron and
the Baroness are so delightfully bitchy that their relationship is disgusting
and yet somehow makes total sense.
This film is over the top in every imaginable way, and its
inclusion in the Criterion Collection feels almost feels like a mistake. The
scenes of gut munching, impalings and blood spurting feel more at home in a
Mondo Macabro release. I'm going to give Morrissey credit and assume that this
was meant to be a comedy, because the absurdity of damn near every scene had me
almost falling off the couch laughing. There's one scene in the particular
where the Baroness is licking Dallesandro and the sound effects used sound like
a cartoon recording of a fat guy eating a plate of ribs. And I haven't even
mentioned the famous gall bladder fucking line. I can't remember the last time
I saw a film this bonkers.
I know that John Waters and Andy Warhol were friends, and I
have no doubt that Waters' trash aesthetic influenced Morrissey's take on
Frankenstein here. In fact, Warhol cribbed Waters' style with a different
director with 1977's Andy Warhol's Bad, this time directed by Jed Johnson.
Flesh for Frankenstein seems to me like Warhol's name is the primary reason why
this is in the collection, because if you strip that away what you have is a
great exploitation film, but not a great film. Maybe I've gotten too jaded in
my age, or maybe my bullshit detector is just working overtime, but I'm not
buying that this film was supposed to be a satire of the counterculture.
I enjoyed the hell out of this movie, but there's no way I'd
recommend it to a casual film fan, or even a cinephile who's into more
adventurous cinema. This recommendation would strictly be for those who can dig
a campy, trashy masterpiece, and as such I have to raise it up higher than
seemingly "better" films like Summertime and Amarcord. Therefore,
like I did with The Long Good Friday (a film that, as I expected, is getting
better the further I get from the viewing), I'm going to slide this one right
above Amarcord, this one being at #21.
1. Beauty and the Beast (1946)
2. Robocop (1987)
3. Seven Samurai (1954)
4. The Seventh Seal (1957)
5. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
6. Grand Illusion (1937)
7. High and Low (1963)
8. Shock Corridor (1963)
9. Hard Boiled (1992)
10. Sid and Nancy (1986)
11. The 400 Blows (1959)
12. Walkabout (1971)
13. The Killer (1989)
14. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
15. Dead Ringers (1988)
16. The Naked Kiss (1964)
17. A Night to Remember (1958)
18. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
19. The Samurai Trilogy (1954-1956)
20. The Long Good Friday (1980)
21. Flesh for Frankenstein (1973)
22. Amarcord (1973)
23. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)
24. Summertime (1955)
25. Alphaville (1965)
Next time: After tonight's feature I'm downright giddy about Blood for Dracula. Will Dallesandro's acting improve in the year-long gap between films? Let's hope not.
Thursday, October 8, 2015
26. The Long Good Friday vs Ireland
This one was a surprise. I had no clue what The Long Good Friday was about, but seeing that it starred Bob Hoskins I had the general impression that it was a British detective film of some sort, given the noir title and Hoskins' appearance. Turns out I was only partly wrong, as this film concerns the failed attempt of a British gangster to do business with the American mafia and expand his empire. This is one of those instances where coming into the film completely fresh helped out, as I had no preconceived ideas about what I was about to see and was able to just let everything wash over me, being legitimately surprised by the plot's twists and turns.
Growing up on Who Framed Roger Rabbit I've always loved Bob Hoskins' lovably gruff demeanor, so it was satisfying seeing him here letting that brutal side of his personality come out. Hoskins completely owns this film, his larger than life personality dominating every scene he's in. What I liked in particular is when shit continues to go wrong for him, he starts becoming increasingly unhinged but you can still see him making an effort to stay under control. Things finally come to a head with an ill-conceived assassination, but it's hard not to feel for a guy who is constantly being swept up in events that he had no direct cause in. Not knowing much about what exactly was going on with the IRA in the 70s, their threat had little resonance with me, but the overall message of "you do not fuck with these people" came out loud and clear.
There were a lot of surprises for me in this film. The cast is largely new to me, aside from Hoskins and Helen Mirren, and everyone pops with personality. There's even an appearance by a young Pierce Brosnan as a smirking IRA thug, which completely threw me off because I couldn't shake that "holy shit it's Pierce Brosnan!" feeling. According to the Wiki page there are a number of actors who later got famous who have small parts in this film, but I'm not going to bullshit, I didn't recognize anyone else. That was a benefit here because I was able to see everyone as their character, which helps sell this world to me.
This is a film that I really need to watch a second time in order to give it an accurate assessment. Right now I really liked it and would recommend it, but the problem is that there was so much going on that I want to see it from the beginning knowing how everything turns out in the end. It almost seems like this is a tentative rating, since I'm sure I'd enjoy it even more the second time around. I did, however, enjoy it more than Amarcord, so I'm going to peg this in the #20 spot. I mean, you get to see Bob Hoskins ram a broken bottle into a dude's neck over and over, and then immediately feel bad about it. I liked that much more than the wacky schoolboy hijinx in Fellini's film.
1. Beauty and the Beast (1946)
2. Robocop (1987)
3. Seven Samurai (1954)
4. The Seventh Seal (1957)
5. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
6. Grand Illusion (1937)
7. High and Low (1963)
8. Shock Corridor (1963)
9. Hard Boiled (1992)
10. Sid and Nancy (1986)
11. The 400 Blows (1959)
12. Walkabout (1971)
13. The Killer (1989)
14. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
15. Dead Ringers (1988)
16. The Naked Kiss (1964)
17. A Night to Remember (1958)
18. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
19. The Samurai Trilogy (1954-1956)
20. The Long Good Friday (1980)
21. Amarcord (1973)
22. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)
23. Summertime (1955)
24. Alphaville (1965)
Next time: I refuse to give that douchebag Andy Warhol any credit whatsoever when I review Paul Morrissey's Flesh For Frankenstein.
Growing up on Who Framed Roger Rabbit I've always loved Bob Hoskins' lovably gruff demeanor, so it was satisfying seeing him here letting that brutal side of his personality come out. Hoskins completely owns this film, his larger than life personality dominating every scene he's in. What I liked in particular is when shit continues to go wrong for him, he starts becoming increasingly unhinged but you can still see him making an effort to stay under control. Things finally come to a head with an ill-conceived assassination, but it's hard not to feel for a guy who is constantly being swept up in events that he had no direct cause in. Not knowing much about what exactly was going on with the IRA in the 70s, their threat had little resonance with me, but the overall message of "you do not fuck with these people" came out loud and clear.
There were a lot of surprises for me in this film. The cast is largely new to me, aside from Hoskins and Helen Mirren, and everyone pops with personality. There's even an appearance by a young Pierce Brosnan as a smirking IRA thug, which completely threw me off because I couldn't shake that "holy shit it's Pierce Brosnan!" feeling. According to the Wiki page there are a number of actors who later got famous who have small parts in this film, but I'm not going to bullshit, I didn't recognize anyone else. That was a benefit here because I was able to see everyone as their character, which helps sell this world to me.
This is a film that I really need to watch a second time in order to give it an accurate assessment. Right now I really liked it and would recommend it, but the problem is that there was so much going on that I want to see it from the beginning knowing how everything turns out in the end. It almost seems like this is a tentative rating, since I'm sure I'd enjoy it even more the second time around. I did, however, enjoy it more than Amarcord, so I'm going to peg this in the #20 spot. I mean, you get to see Bob Hoskins ram a broken bottle into a dude's neck over and over, and then immediately feel bad about it. I liked that much more than the wacky schoolboy hijinx in Fellini's film.
1. Beauty and the Beast (1946)
2. Robocop (1987)
3. Seven Samurai (1954)
4. The Seventh Seal (1957)
5. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
6. Grand Illusion (1937)
7. High and Low (1963)
8. Shock Corridor (1963)
9. Hard Boiled (1992)
10. Sid and Nancy (1986)
11. The 400 Blows (1959)
12. Walkabout (1971)
13. The Killer (1989)
14. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
15. Dead Ringers (1988)
16. The Naked Kiss (1964)
17. A Night to Remember (1958)
18. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
19. The Samurai Trilogy (1954-1956)
20. The Long Good Friday (1980)
21. Amarcord (1973)
22. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)
23. Summertime (1955)
24. Alphaville (1965)
Next time: I refuse to give that douchebag Andy Warhol any credit whatsoever when I review Paul Morrissey's Flesh For Frankenstein.
Wednesday, October 7, 2015
25. Alphaville: No.
And here is where my personal tastes swing wildly away from the good folks at the Criterion Collection, nearly every other cinephile in existence, and general hip movie opinion: I despise Jean-Luc Godard. Not just his films, mind you, but the man himself. Usually a prickly asshole of a filmmaker is easy to ignore if their work is great enough, but reading about the man, seeing how he treated his colleagues, and then watching that personality seep into his work, it's almost impossible for me to be objective about any of his films.
Given all this, I want to make it clear: I really did try to give Alphaville a fair shot. There is a lot to like about this movie, even for a Godard-hater like myself. The gravelly voiceover is a nice effect. Lemmy Caution's dickery can be funny at times, especially in the early scenes of him pulling his briefcase away from people who offer to carry it for him. The locations that Godard found to shoot this movie do a great job of conveying a futuristic setting, and there are a number of long takes that look fantastic. It's definitely an interesting film, with some good ideas in it. It was under two hours.
Here are my issues with this film, and with Godard in general: his films are never as smart as he thinks they are, nor are his characters that interesting. The charms of Anna Karina are completely lost on me, and her "I don't know what love is" arc is shockingly trite for a filmmaker who poses himself as being philosophical. A lot of his films feel gimmicky as hell; for instance, the scene where two men are beating up Lemmy in an elevator and all you see is Lemmy bobbing back and forth, but you never see the two men hitting him. In theory, this sounds awesome, but when you actually see it it looks embarrassing. Alpha 60 is uninteresting as the big bad and never feels like a legitimate threat. Worst of all, and this is the breaking point for me: Godard's general attitude towards his characters and his audience is obnoxious in the extreme. A scene near the end where Karina's character Natacha is telling a joke feels like the kind of digression an "edgy" film student would put in his film and then expect to hear kudos from his classmates. So much of Godard's work has the feel of an ambitious film student with a bit of a budget. These films are fucking terrible.
The dilemma I expect to have is that there is so much Godard in the Criterion Collection. I've seen a lot of his movies, and once again, I have tried to like him. The only film of his that I've enjoyed was Contempt, but everything else has either left me feeling indifferent or infuriated me. I will watch the films again, and each time I will try to put my feelings about him aside and see these films with fresh eyes. But right now, today, on second viewing I still dislike Alphaville. This was the one I had the most hope for given the sci fi dystopia, but it's still a Godard film, and I still don't like it.
This one was not even remotely difficult for me to rank. I'd gladly pop in Salo or Summertime over this one. Right to the bottom you go, Alphaville.
1. Beauty and the Beast (1946)
2. Robocop (1987)
3. Seven Samurai (1954)
4. The Seventh Seal (1957)
5. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
6. Grand Illusion (1937)
7. High and Low (1963)
8. Shock Corridor (1963)
9. Hard Boiled (1992)
10. Sid and Nancy (1986)
11. The 400 Blows (1959)
12. Walkabout (1971)
13. The Killer (1989)
14. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
15. Dead Ringers (1988)
16. The Naked Kiss (1964)
17. A Night to Remember (1958)
18. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
19. The Samurai Trilogy (1954-1956)
20. Amarcord (1973)
21. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)
22. Summertime (1955)
23. Alphaville (1965)
Next time: I have no idea what The Long Good Friday is, but that's what I'll be watching.
Given all this, I want to make it clear: I really did try to give Alphaville a fair shot. There is a lot to like about this movie, even for a Godard-hater like myself. The gravelly voiceover is a nice effect. Lemmy Caution's dickery can be funny at times, especially in the early scenes of him pulling his briefcase away from people who offer to carry it for him. The locations that Godard found to shoot this movie do a great job of conveying a futuristic setting, and there are a number of long takes that look fantastic. It's definitely an interesting film, with some good ideas in it. It was under two hours.
Here are my issues with this film, and with Godard in general: his films are never as smart as he thinks they are, nor are his characters that interesting. The charms of Anna Karina are completely lost on me, and her "I don't know what love is" arc is shockingly trite for a filmmaker who poses himself as being philosophical. A lot of his films feel gimmicky as hell; for instance, the scene where two men are beating up Lemmy in an elevator and all you see is Lemmy bobbing back and forth, but you never see the two men hitting him. In theory, this sounds awesome, but when you actually see it it looks embarrassing. Alpha 60 is uninteresting as the big bad and never feels like a legitimate threat. Worst of all, and this is the breaking point for me: Godard's general attitude towards his characters and his audience is obnoxious in the extreme. A scene near the end where Karina's character Natacha is telling a joke feels like the kind of digression an "edgy" film student would put in his film and then expect to hear kudos from his classmates. So much of Godard's work has the feel of an ambitious film student with a bit of a budget. These films are fucking terrible.
The dilemma I expect to have is that there is so much Godard in the Criterion Collection. I've seen a lot of his movies, and once again, I have tried to like him. The only film of his that I've enjoyed was Contempt, but everything else has either left me feeling indifferent or infuriated me. I will watch the films again, and each time I will try to put my feelings about him aside and see these films with fresh eyes. But right now, today, on second viewing I still dislike Alphaville. This was the one I had the most hope for given the sci fi dystopia, but it's still a Godard film, and I still don't like it.
This one was not even remotely difficult for me to rank. I'd gladly pop in Salo or Summertime over this one. Right to the bottom you go, Alphaville.
1. Beauty and the Beast (1946)
2. Robocop (1987)
3. Seven Samurai (1954)
4. The Seventh Seal (1957)
5. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
6. Grand Illusion (1937)
7. High and Low (1963)
8. Shock Corridor (1963)
9. Hard Boiled (1992)
10. Sid and Nancy (1986)
11. The 400 Blows (1959)
12. Walkabout (1971)
13. The Killer (1989)
14. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
15. Dead Ringers (1988)
16. The Naked Kiss (1964)
17. A Night to Remember (1958)
18. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
19. The Samurai Trilogy (1954-1956)
20. Amarcord (1973)
21. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)
22. Summertime (1955)
23. Alphaville (1965)
Next time: I have no idea what The Long Good Friday is, but that's what I'll be watching.
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
24. High and Low: A shoe salesman noir!
High and Low was the first non-samurai Akira Kurosawa film I saw, and it was the film that raised him even higher in my esteem. Granted, his samurai films are masterpieces, but before I saw this film I wondered if, like John Ford westerns, his best work was specifically locked into this one genre. (Before you start complaining...yes, I know John Ford made great non-western films. His name just happens to be synonymous with the genre). High and Low is Kurosawa's take on film noir, and it further solidifies his reputation as a master of the craft, not just one genre in it.
Toshiro Mifune plays Kingo Gondo, a high-class Al Bundy who's the executive of a company that makes women's shoes. His values clash with the other execs who want to vote him out of the company, unaware that he's been secretly working on a buyout, and has just one last payment to make before he can accomplish this. Lo and behold, at that point his son's best friend gets kidnapped, and the plot kicks into gear with Gondo debating on paying the ransom, paying it, and then watching financial life fall apart while the cops search for the kidnapper. The plot then turns to murder, drugs, rock and roll clubs, and a horrific walk down Junkie Alley.
There are two films here, and Kurosawa's switch from Gondo's personal turmoil to the cops searching for the killer works remarkably well. In fact, you get so sucked into it that you hardly notice Gondo's absence for large parts of the second half, which is a pretty impressive feat when you consider it's Toshiro fucking Mifune we're talking about here. Usually I'm more into the personal tragedies involved in most noirs and care less about the search for the criminal, but right here everything is tied together, and you spend some time with the kidnapper seeing his day to day life, as well as his resentment of Gondo's wealth. Even though he's a criminal and a killer, you can't help but feel a bit sorry for him at the end of the film.
Given my own tastes, my favorite scenes involved the kidnapper's trip through junkie alley, with the junkies played as Night of the Living Dead-style zombies that slowly walk and grab at anyone who walks by. This scene is thick with atmospheric horror, and is the creepiest thing I've seen yet in a Kurosawa film. It feels nightmarish enough that you want to get out of there as soon as possible, and wonder what kind of reputation the kidnapper has since he's able to walk his way though this area without being bothered, while strangers are told to go away.
High and Low is one of my favorite Kurosawa films, one that I enjoyed watching much more than other classics like Rashomon and Ran. I love the shift of focus in this film, the bittersweet ending, Gondo's personal and professional torments, and hell, I even liked the detective scenes. This one's not too hard for me to rank, since as much as I love it I can't place it higher than Grand Illusion, but have no problem putting it above Shock Corridor. Therefore Kurosawa becomes the first director in my ranking to have two films in the top ten, with High and Low coming in at #7.
1. Beauty and the Beast (1946)
2. Robocop (1987)
3. Seven Samurai (1954)
4. The Seventh Seal (1957)
5. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
6. Grand Illusion (1937)
7. High and Low (1963)
8. Shock Corridor (1963)
9. Hard Boiled (1992)
10. Sid and Nancy (1986)
11. The 400 Blows (1959)
12. Walkabout (1971)
13. The Killer (1989)
14. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
15. Dead Ringers (1988)
16. The Naked Kiss (1964)
17. A Night to Remember (1958)
18. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
19. The Samurai Trilogy (1954-1956)
20. Amarcord (1973)
21. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)
22. Summertime (1955)
Next time: I try to put my personal opinion of the man aside and give Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville another shot.
Toshiro Mifune plays Kingo Gondo, a high-class Al Bundy who's the executive of a company that makes women's shoes. His values clash with the other execs who want to vote him out of the company, unaware that he's been secretly working on a buyout, and has just one last payment to make before he can accomplish this. Lo and behold, at that point his son's best friend gets kidnapped, and the plot kicks into gear with Gondo debating on paying the ransom, paying it, and then watching financial life fall apart while the cops search for the kidnapper. The plot then turns to murder, drugs, rock and roll clubs, and a horrific walk down Junkie Alley.
There are two films here, and Kurosawa's switch from Gondo's personal turmoil to the cops searching for the killer works remarkably well. In fact, you get so sucked into it that you hardly notice Gondo's absence for large parts of the second half, which is a pretty impressive feat when you consider it's Toshiro fucking Mifune we're talking about here. Usually I'm more into the personal tragedies involved in most noirs and care less about the search for the criminal, but right here everything is tied together, and you spend some time with the kidnapper seeing his day to day life, as well as his resentment of Gondo's wealth. Even though he's a criminal and a killer, you can't help but feel a bit sorry for him at the end of the film.
Given my own tastes, my favorite scenes involved the kidnapper's trip through junkie alley, with the junkies played as Night of the Living Dead-style zombies that slowly walk and grab at anyone who walks by. This scene is thick with atmospheric horror, and is the creepiest thing I've seen yet in a Kurosawa film. It feels nightmarish enough that you want to get out of there as soon as possible, and wonder what kind of reputation the kidnapper has since he's able to walk his way though this area without being bothered, while strangers are told to go away.
High and Low is one of my favorite Kurosawa films, one that I enjoyed watching much more than other classics like Rashomon and Ran. I love the shift of focus in this film, the bittersweet ending, Gondo's personal and professional torments, and hell, I even liked the detective scenes. This one's not too hard for me to rank, since as much as I love it I can't place it higher than Grand Illusion, but have no problem putting it above Shock Corridor. Therefore Kurosawa becomes the first director in my ranking to have two films in the top ten, with High and Low coming in at #7.
1. Beauty and the Beast (1946)
2. Robocop (1987)
3. Seven Samurai (1954)
4. The Seventh Seal (1957)
5. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
6. Grand Illusion (1937)
7. High and Low (1963)
8. Shock Corridor (1963)
9. Hard Boiled (1992)
10. Sid and Nancy (1986)
11. The 400 Blows (1959)
12. Walkabout (1971)
13. The Killer (1989)
14. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
15. Dead Ringers (1988)
16. The Naked Kiss (1964)
17. A Night to Remember (1958)
18. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
19. The Samurai Trilogy (1954-1956)
20. Amarcord (1973)
21. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)
22. Summertime (1955)
Next time: I try to put my personal opinion of the man aside and give Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville another shot.
Monday, October 5, 2015
23. Robocop vs Beauty and the Beast
Rewatching Robocop and attempting to assess it fairly puts me in a situation similar to when I rewatched Sid and Nancy. The major difference is that while Sid and Nancy was a hugely important film for me growing up, Robocop was more than just a film. Not only do I love this movie, but I have an emotional attachment to it that is unmatched by nearly everything else on this list. I typically rewatch Robocop every year or so, and have always positioned it as my favorite action film ever made. I grew up with this movie, even watching that godawful cartoon series. There are few films in this list that have such a personal connection for me.
Thing is, when I became a huge movie snot and got all into important cinema, foreign films and auteur theory, Robocop still held up. If I were to sit here and pick it apart and try to convince myself that it doesn't belong in the same category as Seven Samurai and Grand Illusion, I'd be lying to myself because this film works for me on every possible level. It's clearly the work of a great filmmaker, with a fantastic script, multiple entertaining characters, a sharp satiric bent, and a touching character arc for Murphy. Dick Jones and ED-209 are memorable villains. Miguel Ferrer is hilarious as Bob Morton. Sure, Nancy Allen is merely sufficient as Officer Lewis, but that's one hell of a minor quibble when everything else here is done perfectly.
As for my personal tastes, I've already mentioned in the Dead Ringers review that my favorite horror genre is body horror, and that shows up in abundance here. The reconstruction of Murphy into Robocop via his POV is a brilliant piece of filmmaking, showing the viewer the last things Murphy sees in his life before blacking out and coming back to life as a cyborg, giving us the opportunity to see what it's like to transition from man into a machine. Then there's the disgusting melting man during the climax, allegedly inspired by The Toxic Avenger yet somehow more vile given his fate. I've stated how important humor is to me, and this film is hilarious, delivering both subtle and over-the-top gags that stay funny even after dozens of viewings.
Finally, Robocop is just plain fun to watch. The art of this movie isn't as readily apparent the first time around because you're too busy having a great time. Paul Verhoeven was able to distill the best elements of horror, comedy, dystopia, and the superhero genre to create something truly unique, but when you slow down and really take a look at this film, the art of it hits you in the face. It's just that, like Hitchcock at his best, all of the art in this film directly serves to move the plot forward. Nothing is superfluous, and even the blatant Jesus metaphor doesn't come off as corny as it could have. This is a perfect film.
You can probably see where this is going. The temptation is to pit Robocop against a more contemporary feature, like The Silence of the Lambs, but once again, who is this ranking for and why am I doing it? Do I consider it a masterpiece? Of course I do. Will I watch it again? Absolutely. Does it contain an aesthetic that closely aligns with my own? Yup. Do I consider this film important? Without a doubt. Have I sought out the director's other films on the basis of this one? You bet your ass I have. If I stop bullshitting myself, this isn't a battle between Robocop and The Seventh Seal, nor between it and Seven Samurai. It's going up against Beauty and the Beast, and that is a tough choice to have to make.
Both Robocop and Beauty and the Beast leave me with a huge smile on my face after each viewing. Both have effects that still enchant me and remind me why film is the most magical of the arts. Both have great stories, a ton of humor, and memorable characters. Whichever one I pick wins only by the thinnest of hairs. I grew up with Robocop, and saw Beauty and the Beast as an adult. Beauty and the Beast had more of an uphill battle, while Robocop was always on top. In the end, if I were given the resources to make a feature and had to emulate one of these films...it would be Beauty and the Beast. Sometimes nothing is more powerful than a fairy tale, and while I've seen Robocop more, there's something to be said for a film that immediately becomes one of your favorites on the first viewing, and gets even better each time you revisit it. Finally, if we watch films as escapism and view them as specific environments that we want to live in for an hour and a half, then give me the magic of Chateau de la Roche Coubron over rotting, dilapidated Detroit.
1. Beauty and the Beast (1946)
2. Robocop (1987)
3. Seven Samurai (1954)
4. The Seventh Seal (1957)
5. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
6. Grand Illusion (1937)
7. Shock Corridor (1963)
8. Hard Boiled (1992)
9. Sid and Nancy (1986)
10. The 400 Blows (1959)
11. Walkabout (1971)
12. The Killer (1989)
13. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
14. Dead Ringers (1988)
15. The Naked Kiss (1964)
16. A Night to Remember (1958)
17. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
18. The Samurai Trilogy (1954-1956)
19. Amarcord (1973)
20. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)
21. Summertime (1955)
Next time: Kurosawa takes me to task for today's ranking by slapping me in the face with his brilliant noir film High and Low.
Thing is, when I became a huge movie snot and got all into important cinema, foreign films and auteur theory, Robocop still held up. If I were to sit here and pick it apart and try to convince myself that it doesn't belong in the same category as Seven Samurai and Grand Illusion, I'd be lying to myself because this film works for me on every possible level. It's clearly the work of a great filmmaker, with a fantastic script, multiple entertaining characters, a sharp satiric bent, and a touching character arc for Murphy. Dick Jones and ED-209 are memorable villains. Miguel Ferrer is hilarious as Bob Morton. Sure, Nancy Allen is merely sufficient as Officer Lewis, but that's one hell of a minor quibble when everything else here is done perfectly.
As for my personal tastes, I've already mentioned in the Dead Ringers review that my favorite horror genre is body horror, and that shows up in abundance here. The reconstruction of Murphy into Robocop via his POV is a brilliant piece of filmmaking, showing the viewer the last things Murphy sees in his life before blacking out and coming back to life as a cyborg, giving us the opportunity to see what it's like to transition from man into a machine. Then there's the disgusting melting man during the climax, allegedly inspired by The Toxic Avenger yet somehow more vile given his fate. I've stated how important humor is to me, and this film is hilarious, delivering both subtle and over-the-top gags that stay funny even after dozens of viewings.
Finally, Robocop is just plain fun to watch. The art of this movie isn't as readily apparent the first time around because you're too busy having a great time. Paul Verhoeven was able to distill the best elements of horror, comedy, dystopia, and the superhero genre to create something truly unique, but when you slow down and really take a look at this film, the art of it hits you in the face. It's just that, like Hitchcock at his best, all of the art in this film directly serves to move the plot forward. Nothing is superfluous, and even the blatant Jesus metaphor doesn't come off as corny as it could have. This is a perfect film.
You can probably see where this is going. The temptation is to pit Robocop against a more contemporary feature, like The Silence of the Lambs, but once again, who is this ranking for and why am I doing it? Do I consider it a masterpiece? Of course I do. Will I watch it again? Absolutely. Does it contain an aesthetic that closely aligns with my own? Yup. Do I consider this film important? Without a doubt. Have I sought out the director's other films on the basis of this one? You bet your ass I have. If I stop bullshitting myself, this isn't a battle between Robocop and The Seventh Seal, nor between it and Seven Samurai. It's going up against Beauty and the Beast, and that is a tough choice to have to make.
Both Robocop and Beauty and the Beast leave me with a huge smile on my face after each viewing. Both have effects that still enchant me and remind me why film is the most magical of the arts. Both have great stories, a ton of humor, and memorable characters. Whichever one I pick wins only by the thinnest of hairs. I grew up with Robocop, and saw Beauty and the Beast as an adult. Beauty and the Beast had more of an uphill battle, while Robocop was always on top. In the end, if I were given the resources to make a feature and had to emulate one of these films...it would be Beauty and the Beast. Sometimes nothing is more powerful than a fairy tale, and while I've seen Robocop more, there's something to be said for a film that immediately becomes one of your favorites on the first viewing, and gets even better each time you revisit it. Finally, if we watch films as escapism and view them as specific environments that we want to live in for an hour and a half, then give me the magic of Chateau de la Roche Coubron over rotting, dilapidated Detroit.
1. Beauty and the Beast (1946)
2. Robocop (1987)
3. Seven Samurai (1954)
4. The Seventh Seal (1957)
5. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
6. Grand Illusion (1937)
7. Shock Corridor (1963)
8. Hard Boiled (1992)
9. Sid and Nancy (1986)
10. The 400 Blows (1959)
11. Walkabout (1971)
12. The Killer (1989)
13. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
14. Dead Ringers (1988)
15. The Naked Kiss (1964)
16. A Night to Remember (1958)
17. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
18. The Samurai Trilogy (1954-1956)
19. Amarcord (1973)
20. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)
21. Summertime (1955)
Next time: Kurosawa takes me to task for today's ranking by slapping me in the face with his brilliant noir film High and Low.
22. Summertime: A middle aged woman finds sex and red goblets in Venice.
Summertime marks the first film I've watched while doing this project that I knew absolutely nothing about going in. That was probably a good thing given what this film is. It's a David Lean film, and while I've enjoyed his films in the past, Lean isn't a director that I seek out. It stars Katherine Hepburn, an actress who much like Laurence Olivier is one that I respect without necessarily being excited about watching. And then there's the plot, which is another one of those American abroad stories where a foreign culture shakes up the staid life of an aging character, usually female. The DVD cover could have just as well had a gigantic red "MEH" stamped on it as far as my interest is concerned.
Thankfully I didn't know all this going in so I couldn't prejudge it, but the film does itself no favors as right from the beginning Hepburn plays up the excited tourist, filming everything and giving Lean the opportunity to cram in numerous shots of Venice. The first people she meets are an obnoxious old American couple who blather on about all the places they're visiting and who treat Europe as a series of boxes that they check off as they hit each country. This does have one delightful joke as the man names off each place they've visited thus far, and when he says "Paris" his wife cringes. The ol' Brit Lean just couldn't help himself there. She then meets a young artist couple, an adorable street boy, and then finally a handsome Italian man named Renato (played by Rossano Brazzi). Romance ensues, then it turns out that Renato is married, then they fuck anyway, and then she leaves the country via train.
In theory every film should be for everyone, but man, this one has "not for me" written all over it. I'm not saying that there aren't things that I liked here. I appreciate a 1955 film dealing with a middle aged couple have a one-off fling, with the husband admitting that he's married no less, and not heaping the standard bullshit shame on them for their actions. The little street boy threatens to be annoying, but he comes off as charming and I loved the scene where he blatantly lies to Hepburn about wanting a cigarette for his uncle and she gives him one anyway, calling him out on his lie. The acting all around is good and Hepburn delivers a typically great performance as a bundle of tightly-wound nerves that slowly loosen up as the film progresses. This is just not the kind of story that I have any interest in whatsoever, and I would never have watched this if it weren't in the collection.
Part of the appeal of this genre of film is seeing shots of a foreign country and having the vague sensation of traveling without going anywhere. About a third of this movie feels like a high budget Rick Steves video. There are some great shots here, but nothing was ever able to get me fully invested in this film. Strangely enough, the only film in this genre that I can remember enjoying was the much shittier Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, a one-off directorial effort by José Quintero based on a one-off novella written by Tennessee Williams. It's not as good as Summertime, but I like Vivien Leigh as an actress a hell of a lot more than Hepburn, and Williams' lurid, lusty plot sucked me in much more than this one, even though Lean crushes Quintero as a director. Plus, while Summertime has a lot of charming jokes, nothing in this movie is nearly as funny as seeing Warren Beatty struggling to do an Italian accent in Roman Spring.
This is probably my easiest ranking yet. Summertime is a good, inoffensive movie that I'm sure a lot of people love, but it's one that is going to pass through my memory without leaving a trace. The whole thing was so airy to me, so light and chocolatey, that after the final image of Hepburn on the train I felt like I needed to jot down my thoughts ASAP, for fear that they would disappear before I had the chance to write about this film. I will always rank a film that makes me sick to my stomach over a film that I have complete indifference to, every time. Therefore, Summertime plunges to the bottom of the list.
1. Beauty and the Beast (1946)
2. Seven Samurai (1954)
3. The Seventh Seal (1957)
4. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
5. Grand Illusion (1937)
6. Shock Corridor (1963)
7. Hard Boiled (1992)
8. Sid and Nancy (1986)
9. The 400 Blows (1959)
10. Walkabout (1971)
11. The Killer (1989)
12. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
13. Dead Ringers (1988)
14. The Naked Kiss (1964)
15. A Night to Remember (1958)
16. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
17. The Samurai Trilogy (1954-1956)
18. Amarcord (1973)
19. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)
20. Summertime (1955)
Next time: I struggle to be objective when I watch my favorite action film, Robocop.
Thankfully I didn't know all this going in so I couldn't prejudge it, but the film does itself no favors as right from the beginning Hepburn plays up the excited tourist, filming everything and giving Lean the opportunity to cram in numerous shots of Venice. The first people she meets are an obnoxious old American couple who blather on about all the places they're visiting and who treat Europe as a series of boxes that they check off as they hit each country. This does have one delightful joke as the man names off each place they've visited thus far, and when he says "Paris" his wife cringes. The ol' Brit Lean just couldn't help himself there. She then meets a young artist couple, an adorable street boy, and then finally a handsome Italian man named Renato (played by Rossano Brazzi). Romance ensues, then it turns out that Renato is married, then they fuck anyway, and then she leaves the country via train.
In theory every film should be for everyone, but man, this one has "not for me" written all over it. I'm not saying that there aren't things that I liked here. I appreciate a 1955 film dealing with a middle aged couple have a one-off fling, with the husband admitting that he's married no less, and not heaping the standard bullshit shame on them for their actions. The little street boy threatens to be annoying, but he comes off as charming and I loved the scene where he blatantly lies to Hepburn about wanting a cigarette for his uncle and she gives him one anyway, calling him out on his lie. The acting all around is good and Hepburn delivers a typically great performance as a bundle of tightly-wound nerves that slowly loosen up as the film progresses. This is just not the kind of story that I have any interest in whatsoever, and I would never have watched this if it weren't in the collection.
Part of the appeal of this genre of film is seeing shots of a foreign country and having the vague sensation of traveling without going anywhere. About a third of this movie feels like a high budget Rick Steves video. There are some great shots here, but nothing was ever able to get me fully invested in this film. Strangely enough, the only film in this genre that I can remember enjoying was the much shittier Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, a one-off directorial effort by José Quintero based on a one-off novella written by Tennessee Williams. It's not as good as Summertime, but I like Vivien Leigh as an actress a hell of a lot more than Hepburn, and Williams' lurid, lusty plot sucked me in much more than this one, even though Lean crushes Quintero as a director. Plus, while Summertime has a lot of charming jokes, nothing in this movie is nearly as funny as seeing Warren Beatty struggling to do an Italian accent in Roman Spring.
This is probably my easiest ranking yet. Summertime is a good, inoffensive movie that I'm sure a lot of people love, but it's one that is going to pass through my memory without leaving a trace. The whole thing was so airy to me, so light and chocolatey, that after the final image of Hepburn on the train I felt like I needed to jot down my thoughts ASAP, for fear that they would disappear before I had the chance to write about this film. I will always rank a film that makes me sick to my stomach over a film that I have complete indifference to, every time. Therefore, Summertime plunges to the bottom of the list.
1. Beauty and the Beast (1946)
2. Seven Samurai (1954)
3. The Seventh Seal (1957)
4. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
5. Grand Illusion (1937)
6. Shock Corridor (1963)
7. Hard Boiled (1992)
8. Sid and Nancy (1986)
9. The 400 Blows (1959)
10. Walkabout (1971)
11. The Killer (1989)
12. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
13. Dead Ringers (1988)
14. The Naked Kiss (1964)
15. A Night to Remember (1958)
16. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
17. The Samurai Trilogy (1954-1956)
18. Amarcord (1973)
19. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)
20. Summertime (1955)
Next time: I struggle to be objective when I watch my favorite action film, Robocop.
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