. . . if it harelips everybody on Bear Creek

Dr. Strangelove; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

(1964)

Was Kubrick ever better? Was George C. Scott ever remotely as funny? Or Keenan Wynn, or Slim Pickens? And was there ever a better movie loony than Sterling Hayden as Gen. Jack. D. Ripper? We'll meet again . . .

Sins of the father

When Did You Last See Your Father?

Crit

Yes, it's true: I chose the Colin Firth film rather than the one starring My Future Wife Julianne Moore--what's your point, exactly?

Savage Grace, I gather, would also have satisfied my yen for my-father-or-mother-or-both-were-merely-frailly-human-not-perfect-like-the-parents-I-saw-on-TV porn, but this one did it with at least a modicum of subtlety, and with two of the best actors around as the Firth character's parents, Jim Broadbent and Juliet Stevenson (who is not quite four years older than Firth, incidentally). A Good Enough Film, but one of the sort that makes me think maybe I see too many movies, 'cause haven't I seen this one before?

Why'd it have to be snakes?

Raiders of the Lost Ark

(1981)

Oh, excuse me: that's Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, as the DVD is now being marketed. Which really distorts matters, because it implies that Jones himself is not among the titular raiders, when in fact of course he is. The good news is that you can buy just the single film now; until the recent rerelease, you couldn't buy this one without the first two sequels, and why would you want to own those?
Last time I saw this, a few years ago at a late-night downtown screening of a pretty ragged print, I left the theater saddened that the magic seemed to have disappeared. Well, it's back. What's more, if I ever teach a film school course about how to make an action/adventure flick, I'm going to show the first 34 minutes of this frame by frame: I sincerely doubt that there is a 15-second stretch in that half-hour-plus that does not establish something thematic or plot related that will pay off later in the film, yet there is never a moment when we say, "oooh, ex-po-sition." Damn fine filmmaking; too bad they couldn't have gotten the same people for the recent sequel. Oh, wait . . . never mind.

How many politicians does it take to screw in a compact fluorescent lightbulb?

An Inconvenient Truth

(2006)

Boy, I don't know about you, but it gives me the willies every time I remember how close we came to not electing Al Gore president. I don't even remember the other guy's name now, just that he was kinda dim and seemed a little bit dangerous. Thank goodness the Supreme Court allowed the Florida recount to proceed; otherwise, we'd have been deprived of a president who has been at the forefront of the global ecological resurgence: emissions are down, temperatures are leveling out, the polar ice caps seem to be stabilizing, and the effort of American carmakers to respond to the crisis has decreased our reliance on foreign fossil fuels, revitalized our economy, and seemingly even contributed to improving our standing in the global community. Of course, our military involvement only in clear-cut cases of moral imperative has helped in that respect too.

To be fair, I suppose the other guy might have done just as well.

A portrait of the dynast as a young man

Mongol

Crit

Amusing that the Conqueror Later to Be Known as Genghis Khan is portrayed here as a dedicated, even fanatical monogamist, given that research shows that he was so generous with his seed that 1 in 200 men on the planet today carry his DNA. Even more amusing is that neither of the two children he acquires in the course of the film carries that DNA, if you get my drift.

So I guess it's safe to conclude that this is not exactly what you'd call history. What it is is a rousing good actioner, with blood showers that would make Peckinpah or Tarantino proud.

Trailers

• Brick Lane--Possible, but still a 3.
• Burn After Reading--the Coens, McDormand, Clooney, Swinton, Malkovich, Pitt, Richard Jenkins, J. K. Simmons? Are you kidding me?

From hunger

The Promotion

Crit

This reminds me a lot of Election (one scene, in fact, is practically lifted intact), if Election were set in a supermarket and if it weren't remotely as well written, directed, or acted. John C. Reilly and Lili Taylor are always as good as they can be, of course, but he's basically just given a weaker version of his Magnolia role, and she seems to have been given a Scottish accent on a bet (I can think of no legitimate reason), which leaves us still waiting to be shown that Seann William Scott can handle a lead role.

Also, what's the damn deal telling a story set in Chicago, with several scenes on the CTA, without actually shooting more than a handful of scenes in Chicago, and none on the CTA?

Trailers

• Hancock--Looks very promising: Will Smith as a superhero in dire need of sensitivity training and an image makeover.
• The Wackness--Skeptical.

Liberté, liberté chérie

Les Misérables

(1934)

Faithful to the source? Sorry, don't know: never read it. But I can say it is a magnificent film in every way--artfully (but not artsily) directed by Raymond Bernard, sensitively acted by Harry Baur as Jean Valjean, Charles Vanel as Javert (portrayed as pursued by his own demons as much as pursuing), Florelle as Fantine, and Josseline Gaël as Cosette, beautifully shot by Jules Kruger, and affectingly scored by Maurice Jaubert (including the second-best rendition of La Marseillaise in the movies that I know of).

It's presented as a trilogy (oh, and by the way, don't believe Netflix when it says it's 140 minutes; the two-disc Eclipse edition [that's Criterion's no-frills series] runs a little more than twice that--and still nearly half an hour less than the 305-minute release version), and for me the highest of the many highpoints comes in the first 50 minutes or so of the final film, almost all of which is spent at the barricades in the streets of Paris during the Revolution of 1832. (In contrast, the lowpoint is that the revolution just drops off the radar screen after that sequence, so that we can wrap up the loose ends of Javert's pursuit and Cosette's romance. But that's a quibble.)

Just some kickass filmmaking. (Oh, and to those I had told I thought it was silent, no: just French.)

Guys, just use a numeral: The 1-ders

That Thing You Do!

(1996)

Jesus H. Pop Christ, is there a more exhilarating 150 seconds of cinema than from 30:30 to 33:00 here?

And you know, after several viewings, I've come to the conclusion that this is actually a very good film--well directed and well shaped (and I'm not even talking about the cleavage of the writer/director's wife, in her fine few minutes as a cocktail waitress, though the adjectives apply there too), its emotions earned. In short, I hereby stop apologizing for loving this film, and for weeping during that key 2½ minutes.

If I stay, it will be double

Code 46

WHC (2004)

Yes, you were right: that was an exciting cameo; problem is, it was so exciting that I was hard pressed to pay close attention to the important scene going on at the same time.

This is, I suppose it must be acknowledged, not a great film. But, unlike yesterday's entry in the sci-fi festival, a genuinely creepy one, and that has to count for something. Basically, this is Eternal Sunshine without the romcom veneer: what, e.g., would you do if your love has deserted you and run off with somebody else but had since involuntarily had the memory of that sprint and that other stricken? Would you forgive? Would there be anything to forgive?

Take it from Sherman

War, Inc.

Crit

Golly!

As a wise woman told me recently, something has to be the worst thing I see all year; I believe we have a front-runner.

But let me talk about the good stuff first: the music, Strummer-heavy as always in a Cusack project (though I would exempt from praise, the original stuff, which tries to be funny-bad à la American Dreamz but is in fact only obvious-bad), and . . . uh, well I laughed 3 or 4 times. Oh, and Marisa Tomei is always nice to look at, though she's not given anything like an character to portray.

The story has John C., as professional killer Brand Hauser, haunted by flashbacks to when he played a professional killer in a much better film, and presumably to when he had an actual career. I'm guessing sis Joan had some flashbacks, too, to when her brief including acting, not just autoparody. Let's not even talk about Sir Ben.

Trailer

• Fugitive Pieces--Funny, I'd seen the poster for this and thought, "That title sounds awfully familiar--what do I know about that?" but it never dawned on me until I saw the trailer that years ago I read the Anne Michaels novel on which the film is based, but (perhaps because it was recommended by a woman I was sort of involved with at the time, and I didn't love the book), I had completely erased it from my mind. Well, not completely obviously. But that's interesting because that's what the book and film are about: subconscious (and incomplete) memory erasure.

You did good, Jonesy

Wasn't supposed to be a movie night, but when the rain gods spoke out against Mavis Staples's Festival of Arts and Ideas concert, I decided that a superclassic was called for:

The Big Sleep

(1946)

OK, I'm pretty sure Joe Brody is telling the truth when he says he didn't kill the chauffeur, but then who did? I think that was the question Chandler himself was unable to answer when Faulkner et al. asked him.

In the unlikely event that anyone reading this has never seen the film and thinks I've just spoiled something, don't worry: you're going to be confused by lots more important things than that the first time you see it, but that's why God invented DVD.

Or 233 Celsius

Fahrenheit 451

WHC (1966)

Oddly, while I was waiting for the lights to go down, the novel I'm reading, James Carroll's Prince of Peace, arrived at the radical priests' draft-record destruction, what the Berrigans, the real-life sources, called, in mock apology, "the burning of paper instead of children." So I may not have been in a state of mind to get as riled about book burning as I usually would.

That said, this was not going to be a movie to get me riled over anything, except perhaps what I paid to get in--but it was free, part of a sci-fi film festival that is in turn part of the International Festival of Arts and Ideas.

Truffaut had previously cast Oskar Werner in Jules and Jim (currently #16 in my Netflix queue), and maybe the Vienna native could act in French, but he's positively early-Schwartzeneggerian in English. There's nothing interesting (distinct from odd, like the two roles for Julie Christie) here until the final few minutes, in the land of the book people, which is basically a less funny Python sketch.

Don't call me Shirley

Airplane!

(1980)

Funny--no, really, funny!--I always remember this as a gag-a-minute riot-fest, but in fact, compared with the AK-47 gagfests of today, this is a lot more patient, a lot more deliberate in setting up its jokes--and just a whole lot funnier. As often as I've seen this (at least six times, surely . . . ), how can I still laugh out loud at so much of it? Well, yeah, OK: I'd had some wine, but still . . .

Aka apatosaurus

Bringing Up Baby

(1938)

I should take another look at What's Up, Doc? When it came out, in 1972, it was one of the funniest films I'd ever seen; it wasn't until several years later, when I caught part of Baby on TV, that I realized where the best of it--including the characterizations of the in-over-his-head scientist and his ditzy would-be love interest--came from.

I'm always surprised to be reminded that this film isn't perfect onscreen (as it is in memory)--I could do without Barry Fitzgerald's drunken Mick shtick, e.g., and two or three fewer Charlie Ruggles double takes wouldn't hurt, either. But Hepburn and Grant are perfect, and watching this makes you wish they'd done a half-dozen screwballs together and makes you wonder why Kate in particular got so few opportunities to do physical humor.

Bitter honey

Before the Rains

Crit

If there's anything that fiction and the movies have taught me (having no experience of the principle in my own life, of course), it's that infidelity--that venial wrong so delicious that it seems as if it must be right--inevitably leads to a spiral of worse and worse wrongs, stripping the adulterer of everything he holds dear.

Thus for Linus Roache's Henry Moores, who is the very model of a preindependence plantation-owning Good Englishman: he loves one Indian like a brother and another (played by Nandita Das, from Deepa Mehta's Fire and Earth, so duh) like a wife, and his loves are utterly sincere. Just a couple of problems: she has a husband, and Henry has a wife (the radiant Jennifer Ehle, best known to American audiences as Elizabeth Bennet to Colin Firth's Darcy), who is as perfect as he appears to be. Oh, and one other little problem: for all the apparent equality in their relationships, T.K. and Sajani both call Henry "Sahib."

Inevitably, the Good Englishman does increasingly bad things, until he is revealed as a morally bankrupt representative of a morally bankrupt and decaying system. The humanity of the characters makes the film much less rote than I'm probably making it sound, but still, there's little here we haven't seen before.

Trailers

• Religulous--You know, I actually have a great deal of respect for religious faith in the abstract, and for many thinking believers I know. But I gotta say: you offer me a couple of hours of Bill Maher being a smartass about religion, and it's hard to imagine skipping it.

Young Tyler Durden

Kalifornia

(1993)

Someone recommended this to me, but fortunately, I don't remember who. Not as bad as it could be, but not nearly as good as it might have been in the hands of someone capable of lifting it out of a swamp of cliché and providing some legitimate insight into the seductiveness of evil. I mentioned to someone at work (someone with an inexplicable David Duchovny fixation) that I was going to see this, and she said, "Brad and Juliette chew up a lot of scenery." True dat.

Comme une pierre

I have forfeited the carbon-footprint moral high ground; specifically, I have driven off the moral high ground cliff in my rental Chevy Silverado.

I was waiting at the door when Enterprise opened at 9 this morning, but they simply didn't have any cars. (Yes, I did think of that episode of Seinfeld, as a matter of fact.) The only vehicle they could put me in--and to do that someone had to drive me to another lot, way the hell out in Woodbridge--was this big, hulking, assholemobile of a pickup truck. I was close to saying, "No, just drive me home," but let's face it: I needed to go to Costco, I needed to go to Trader Joe's, I needed to go to Wine & Liquor Warehouse, and I needed to go to Edge of the Woods to stock up on Quorn fake-chicken patties. Plus, I wanted to go to a couple of movies, one on the edge of town and one 15 miles away. So yes, I am an asshole, but just for the weekend.

The Rape of Europa

Cine

And another thing that pisses us off about the Nazis, especially Hitler (it's always Hitler, isn't it?) and Göring: they stole one shitload of art from all over Europe, and it has been a real bitch getting everything found, say nothing about repatriated.

Now that we're used to Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock, it's hard to evaluate documentaries that effectively if colorlessly tell their stories, but this one taught be stuff I didn't know, reminded me of things I did, introduced me to some memorable characters (like the [Christian] Austrian who tries to track down descendants of Jews whose appropriated Torahs, menorahs, and other religious artifacts couldn't be returned to their owners for depressingly obvious reasons), and occasionally moved me (like when the same Austrian arrives on Staten Island with a pair of Torah crowns, having first described the reaction of the inheritors when he jingled the bells of the ornaments over the phone).

One cavil about the commentary, read by Joan Allen: it's a grotesque understatement to refer to "decimated" Jewish communities of the Shoah.

Roman de Gare

Mad

Very promising Hitchcockian start, a satisfying resolution of the first round of ambiguities, but a third act that lacks the surprise twist or double- or triple-twist we had seemingly been promised. And the conclusion is just plain unbelievable.

Trailers

• The Duchess--I loves me some Keira, but this looks like something we've seen too many times before.
• Brideshead Revisited--I never visited the first time, but the same comment applies to this.

Jesus in a green beret

Apocalypse Now

(1979/2001)

What was I thinking? Watching a 3½-hour movie when I had to get up at regular workday time so that I could work out before picking up my rental car for an errand-running, driving-to-movies day? The error! The error!

Even though the title above doesn't reflect it--because I think that's a silly word when used w/ gravity as Coppola does and can be carried off only with a touch of irony, the way Updike uses it--this is the 2001 director's reconstruction, including the slapstick theft of Colonel Kilgore's surfboard, the dreary second scene with the Playmates, and the very French scene at the French plantation, full of French politicophilosophical (do the French distinguish?) discourse and drug-laced French seduction. When I first and second saw this version, the first two restored sequences struck me as unnecessary and heavy-handed, especially the piling on of ridiculousness on the Duvall character, but I found the plantation scene intriguing and erotic. Well, I still find it erotic, but I'm pretty much ready to revert to the 1979 version--except I can't, 'cause it's not on the disc I have.

Still, it's one of the great shaggy dog stories of cinema history.

Maybe for a hundred more

The Searchers

(1956)

OK, look, here's the thing: call 'em "Comanche" or "Vietcong" or "insurgents," it doesn't matter whether we have any business being there in the first place. If we've been told that we need to be there, and the Others think we don't belong there, they're going to to everything they can to keep us from staying there, including murder, rape, and whatever else we define as "savagery" when it's done to us, as "warfare" when we do it to others.

And that means that once those rules are established, it doesn't matter whether we belong there or not; if we want to live, we answer savagery with savagery; we answer kill with kill.

One other lesson from this film is that what we (which is to say we men, because we with cocks get to decide who the enemy is) fear most is the cock, and the spunk, of the Other, because their cock threatens the supremacy of our cock, and their spunk dilutes ours. Why else would we resist so the military aptitude of you the cockless?

And that is why this is a great film: not because it shows that Ford can film Monument Valley as magnificently in color as in black and white; not because it shows that John Wayne really is capable of something that we can reasonably call acting; but because more than a half-century ago, someone was able to make sense of Fallujah.

Sex and the Circe

The Lady from Shanghai

Crit (1947)

Golly! I had no idea there were any noirs this good left that I hadn't already seen. A convoluted plot that keeps us guessing whether it's a double-, triple, or quadruple-cross, razor-sharp dialogue (and if Welles takes most of it for himself, that's not such a bad thing, and if his brogue is never altogether convincing, well, that's not a hanging offense either), some good scenery chewing by the Welles regular Everett Sloane and the utterly obscure Glenn Anders, and as fatale a femme as you could ever ask for in the second-most-beautiful Hollywood actress ever to marry royalty. And then there's that climactic funhouse-mirrors sequence. Classic; why has it been hiding from me all these years?

Sex and the City

Crit

I always thought that one of the best decisions in the planning stages of the series was half-hour, not hour, and indeed, for about a half-hour, I was having fun (estroporn wedding-dress montage notwithstanding), but the sprinter was never meant to run a marathon, and the next half-hour, and the next half-hour, and the next half-hour, and the next almost-half-hour showed all the signs of severe oxygen deficit (though I'll grant that Jennifer Hudson brings some fresh air to the second half). Men fail two of the women for no other reason than that the plot demands it (well, unless "that's what men do" counts as a reason)--we've got to get the quartet to Mexico, after all--and then the last loose end is tied up by a deus-ex-utero device. Maybe if you wait for the DVD and watch it over five sittings . . .