Raping with love

Jodorowsky's Dune

Crit

Golly, that was fun. Had you asked me a few hours ago to name my favorite documentary about a film that wasn't made, I'd have unhesitatingly said Lost in La Mancha, the disaster film about Terry Gilliam's failure to make his film based on Don Quixote. And had you asked me a few hours ago whether I've ever seen a film by Alejandro Jodorowsky, I'd have said no, nor do I have any immediate plans to, though I've been morbidly fascinated by trailers for El Topo and The Holy Mountain at IFC. And had you asked a couple of hours ago whether I've ever read Frank Herbert's Dune, I'd have no, nor do I intend to.

All my answers are different now: this is easily the best and most engaging film I've seen in that subgenre of cinematic frustration, and if El Topo were available to stream from Netflix, I might watch it tonight, and I might just read Dune sometime. But mainly, I desperately want what I can never have: to see this film that was never made.

Nymphomaniac: Volume 2

Crit

Lots fewer cocks than in vol. 1, but lots more excruciating sadomasochism, which I suspect explains the much lower Rotten Tomato numbers: much of this is flat-out brutal to watch. But the psychophilosophical exchanges between Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and Seligman (Stellan Skarsgård) remain satisfying, at least until the final reel or so, when Seligman delivers a feminist defense of Joe's behavior that, while legitimate, feels a little too pat--as does what follows. As I often say about Lars's films: glad to have seen it, will probably never return.

Trailers

• For No Good Reason--Much anticipated documentary about Ralph Steadman.
• Only Lovers Left Alive--Much anticipated Jim Jarmusch vampire flick.
• God's Pocket--John Slattery-directed film somewhat anticipated as one of our last chances to see Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Radio radio

The Railway Man

Crit

Colin Firth works hard as a man still traumatized decades later by the torture he suffered at the hands of his Japanese captors after the fall of Singapore, and Nicole Kidman works almost as hard as the newly divorced woman he meets on a train, then stalks successfully at another train station, but this tale of suffering and reconciliation feels rote despite their efforts.

Trailers

• Tracks--A young woman (Mia Wasikowska) walks 2,000 miles across Australia with 4 camels and a dog. Oh, don't ask why,
• The Grand Seduction--Haven't we seen this before, the little British Isles town trying to trick a young doctor into settling there? What we haven't seen is Taylor Kitsch (Friday Night Lights) as the doctor.

We need the eggs

Der blaue Engel (The Blue Angel)

(1930)

Talk about your femmes fatales. Ages since I've screened this, and I have no idea why, apart from its being depressing as hell, the classic story of the respected Gymnasium professor (Emil Jannings) whose head, as it were, is turned by the irresistible Lola Lola (Marlene Dietrich). Musical highlight is Friedrich Holländer's "Ich bin von Kopf bis Fuss (Falling in love again)."

To die for

Under the Skin

Crit

Wow. This may or may not be the best film I see this year, but it's almost certainly the oddest; I wasn't sure until almost the end whether it's science fiction, a crime story, or pornography. And I still have no clue exactly what the unnamed character played by Scarlett Johansson does to the men she picks up in Glasgow, or how she does it, or why she does it, or who the motorcycle dude (or dudes--there seem to be 4 later on, which suggests that maybe we were seeing a different one each time earlier) is, and whether she is willingly allied with him (as she seems progressively less to be).

I am sure that I'm going to be thinking about some of the early-David Lynchesque imagery for a while, and being disturbed it. And I'm sure that Johansson, who last year gave one of her career-best performances without having access to her wonderful face, here gives another amazing performance with little access to her equally wonderful voice. This time it's all with the face, but infinitesimally subtle, the actions and reactions of . . . whatever the hell she is.

Oh, and I'm reasonably certain that the postgame Celtic crowd we see early on has been to an Old Firm match away, since one of the pedestrians asked for directions reveals that Ibrox is nearby.

Oh, and one more thing: I haven't seen any mention of Liquid Sky as a forerunner in the subgenre of alien femme fatale. So I'm mentioning it.

That had to hurt

The Wrestler

(2008)

I still don't see the greatness, and I don't intend to try again; any takers?

Him

Transcendence

Crit

Seriously? I spent good money (bargain matinee money, but still) on something drawing 19% on Rotten Tomatoes? Yes, I did, and I think there must be a conspiracy of tech nerds or antitech nerds, or maybe both, because this isn't that bad, and by some reasonable standards of entertainment, it's not bad at all.

 

Sure it's goofy, but is it any goofier than, say, The Matrix? Maybe less meticulous in squaring its various circles, but no less goofy. And like that canonized film, this one grasps at Big Questions: how does consciousness work? What is the self? Does the soul exist? Can we tap the hive mind? And perhaps the biggest question of all: Johnny Depp? That it doesn't have a clue how to answer any of those questions doesn't make it any goofier than The Matrix, merely less pretentious.

 

Meanwhile, it looks great and shouts out sweetly to sources futuristic (2001), apocalyptic  (pick any zombie flick), and digitistic (remember back when we were newly affluent enough to get premium cable, and all it had was 5 mediocre movies, softcore porn, and Max Headroom?). Oh, and appropriate to the season, to Jesus movies too: the transcendent Will makes blind men see and lame men walk.

Hey, I've done lots worse spending 8 bucks.
 

Dom Hemingway

Crit

This one leans just barely into the Rotten zone on RT--so a rating triple Transcendence's--and it earns its low marks more legitimately, I think. Not that Jude Law doesn't make it an engagingly noxious thrill ride for a while, never more so than in the opening scene, when Dom delivers a poetic, rhapsodic, priapic paean to his prick. Sadly, the film goes flaccid after a half-hour or so, and it seems not to have another go in it.

Trailers

• Locke--Imagine pitching a biopic of a 17th-c. English philosopher. That's not what this film is, mind; I'm just suggesting that you imagine it.
• Godzilla--Why did I skip the 1998 one? Because I lived with someone with critical faculties then, perhaps? Anyway, this one has people like David Straithairn and Juliette Binoche and Sally Hawkins to lure us art-house suckers in, and I may be lured. 
• The Drop--This looks like a pretty rote mob flick, but it may be the last chance to see James Gandolfini.

The wrong (son of) man

Life of Brian

(1979)

Is this really a film I need to see every year? It's almost certainly the slightest of my annuals, but then all my annuals are pretty formidable. And really, once a year shouldn't we be reminded to look on the bright side of life, and death?