Blue-eyed Indian

Hombre

(1967)

Another of the '60s films I knew first as MAD magazine parodies--"Sombre," in this case. (I'm sorry I can't provide a link to that piece, but through the miracle of Wikipedia, I can at least tell you that it was issue no. 115, December 1967.)

The movie itself is essentially a slow-moving Stagecoach, except here the Apaches (mostly off-camera) are the good guys, victimized by the Gatewood-like Dr. Favor (played by Fredric March), and the menaces are just nasty white men (with a token Mexican). The goodest guy, of course--the pariah-with-a-heart-of-gold Ringo Kid role--is white by blood (with "limpid blue eyes," I can still recall from MAD) but Apache under the skin.

Not a bad film, but not one I need to own, so . . . anyone want it?

Café au sang

White Material

Crit

What a strange, confusing, disturbing film. The exquisite Isabelle Huppert stubbornly clings to a failing coffee plantation in an unnamed African country even though (1) civil war is making life hell for blacks and double-hell for whites, (2) the place belongs not to her but to her weak ex-husband, who is eager to be shut of it, and his dying father, whose position is ambiguous, and (3) surely Paris would offer her easier access to the team of psychologists needed to keep her bad-seed son from going completely Jared Loughner.

One of those films I respect and admire a lot more than I really like.

Sweet science

Boxing Gym

Crit

This is the film for people who say, "I hate boxing--it's just one guy trying to slug another guy senseless." It might not make those people like the sport any better, but it will at least make them less ignorant. As is his wont, Wiseman spares us commentary, instead letting us spy and eavesdrop, and we hear a lot more about violence (including the Virginia Tech shootings, which had just taken place) than we see. Various footwork drills--including one that involves bouncing lightly around a tractor tire, the point of which is to train the fighter not to cross his (or her! several women train at the gym) feet when moving laterally--and lots of work on combinations, the trainer calling out punch sequences and parrying them with special flat gloves, testify to the scientific aspect that the sport has always claimed.

Part science, part dance. The essential difference between this film and Wiseman's La Danse is that those ballet dancers are all adepts, while the boxers here range from 4-year-olds and overweight 50-somethings to a few who actually do turn the occasional buck with the gloves. But if either of my grandchildren ever decides to step into the ring, I hope they find someone like Richard Lord to teach them how to walk out of the ring on their own power.

Yo, fantasma

El espinazo del Diablo (The devil's backbone)

(2001)

Had a really difficult time picking a movie tonight, but finally the del Toro appetite-whetting I got last Sunday carried the day. The violence of this film always surprises me, but the beautiful eeriness of the ghost story never disappoints me. It might fairly be said that the characters are black and white, either heroically saintly or irretrievably wicked, but it is, after all, archetypal myth, a genre not really known for its subtle moral gradations. Bottom line: it works.

Having a good time somewhere

 

Rabbit Hole

Crit

Was it just that I recognized "I don't know what your rules are; I don't want to get scolded again" as a direct quotation from my mother, or does Dianne Wiest act all those young whippersnappers off the screen? In truth, all the performances are excellent, and the script embodies a rare truth about mourning. Another rough one to watch (would have been a very bad idea to double-feature this with Blue Valentine), but this one, without pulling, you should pardon the expression, any emotional rabbits out of its hat, allows us some hope at the end--the hope, essentially, of putting one foot in front of the other.

Trailers

• Biutiful--A bit of the critical blush seems have gone off the González Iñárritu rose, but I'm in nonetheless.
• The Beaver--Oh, god, Jodie, think it over! One friend theorizes that this is Foster's acknowledgment of the time in Robert Downey Jr.'s career when he needed rehabilitation and Mel as producer got him The Singing Detective; this, then, is a pay-it-forward. But whatever the reason, is looks so disastrous.
• The Lincoln Lawyer--Feh.

I'll follow the sun

No Manhattan trip this 3-day weekend, but at least a home double feature--of a pair of excellent films of whose existence I was unaware 2 weeks ago.

Im Juli (In July)

(2001)

I didn't know Fatih Akin had directed a feature before Head-On (2004) until a friend said that she had a Netflix disc of this. I asked for a report, and when she said that she thought it might be her favorite of his films and asked whether I'd like to take the disc and then drop it in the mail, . . . I first thought, no, already have full cinematic plate . . . until I remembered that the weekend was a triple.

It might not be my favorite of Akin's films, but it certainly is the sweetest, the happiest of them I've seen--and provides a context for the kind of wacky Soul Kitchen, which seemed to come from a completely different place from Head-On and The Edge of Heaven. Nerd student-teacher Daniel (Akin regular Moritz Bleibtreu) goes on a quest for love, not realizing that he has already found it in his own back yard (and seriously, the ideal woman [Idil Üner], the scary woman [Branka Katic], and the right woman [Christiane Paul] are as striking a female trio as you'll see outside of a representation of the Graces).

Not only a sweet love story but also a beautiful travelogue, shot on location in Hamburg, Budapest, and Istanbul.

X: The Unheard Music

(1985)

God, look at that date: it's a quarter of a century old. Found this while trolling for the still-unavailable-on-disc The Decline of Western Civilization. I guess it really was shown in theaters--here's a Janet Maslin review of its opening at the Waverly (now the IFC)--but I don't recall its showing up in Champaign. Janet doesn't seem to have dug the music much, but for someone who thought in 1982 and still thinks today that X was the best American punk band by far, this film--part documentary, part concert film, part music video, part polemical tract, and every moment visually and aurally fascinating--goes into the pantheon of rock & roll movies.

Habeas corpus

Grand Theft Parsons

(2003)

OK, start with the concept: Graham Parsons's faithful friend and road manager steals his corpse to fulfill the terms of a pact the two had made, that the survivor would free the soul of the first to die by cremating him in the desert outside Joshua Tree, California. Sounds impossible to make dull, no? No. Perhaps the one element of note is a fairly restrained performance by Johnny Knoxville as Phil Kaufman. I didn't say a good performance, mind you, but at least it's not embarJackassing.