Extended Cut: Simon Abrams's Film Journal

489) Rampart (2011)

2012-01-30T09:46:00.000-08:00

489) Rampart (2011) Dir: Oren Moverman Date Released: November 23, 2011 Date Seen: December 2, 2011 Rating: 2/5

Rampart made understand some of the complaints regarding Oren Moverman's direction of The Messenger. Namely: he's a much better screenwriter than he is a director. The natural lighting and hand-held photography in Rampart eventually wore on my lat nerve and really took me out of the film. It just clashed with the film's stylized dialogue, co-written by James Ellroy, too much. It distracted me and at times, really reminded me that Moverman's head is in two spaces at once while directing this film: Rampart is pulp but it's realistic pulp. I found that hard to swallow. Perhaps I'll like it more the second time around (might be reviewing it for next week but dunno just yet).

Bad Idea Podcast #9: Attack of the Puppet People

2012-01-30T09:40:00.000-08:00

488) Attack of the Puppet People (1958) Dir: Bert I. Gordon Date Released: April 1958 Date Seen: December 1, 2011 Rating: 1.75/5

490) Attack of the Beast Creatures (1985) Dir: Michael Stanley Date Released: ??? Date Seen: December 3, 2011 Rating: 1.5/5

491) The Eiger Sanction (1975) Dir: Clint Eastwood Date Released: May 21, 1975 Date Seen: December 3, 2011 Rating: 2.25/5

492) Doll Graveyard (2005) Dir: Charles Band Date Released: (DVD): October 11, 2005 Date Seen: December 4, 2011 Rating: 0.75/5

493) Black Devil Doll from Hell (1984) Dir: Chester Novell Turner Date Released (DTV): XX 1984 Date Seen: December 4, 2011 Rating: 4.25/5

Oh yes, there will be creepy puppets. Listen to the ninth Bad Idea Podcast for yourself and find out whyyyyyyy.

487) Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

2012-01-30T09:29:00.000-08:00

487) Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) Dir: Tomas Alfredson Date Released: December 9, 2011 Date Seen: December 1, 2011 Rating: 3.75/5

Great in parts but weak in others. See my piece for Capital New York.

RV!: Possession (1981)

2012-01-30T09:26:00.000-08:00

RV!: Possession (1981) Dir: Andrzej Zulawski Date Released: October 14, 1983 Date Seen: November 30, 2011 Rating: 4.25/5

Want to get sick? Watch this movie. Or just catch some vicarious viral action from my appreciation for Capital New York.

486) Redline (2009)

2012-01-30T09:23:00.000-08:00

486) Redline (2009) Dir: Takeshi Koike Date Released: December 2, 2011 Date Seen: November 28, 2011 Rating: 3/5

Pretty shiny but stupid-wupid, too. See my review Capital New York.

Stop! Clouzot Time.

2012-01-30T09:20:00.000-08:00

484) The Murderer Lives at Number 21 (1942) Dir: Henri-Georges Clouzot Date Released: August 16, 1947 Date Seen: November 28, 2011 Rating: 3.5/5

485) Le Corbeau (1943) Dir: Henri-Georges Clouzot Date Released: February 23, 1948 Date Seen: November 28, 2011 Rating: 3.75/5

RV!: The Wages of Fear (1953) Dir: Henri-Georges Clouzot Date Released: February 16, 1955 Date Seen: December 3, 2011 Rating: 4.75/5

494) Diabolique (1955) Dir: Henri-Georges Clouzot Date Released: November 21, 1955 Date Seen: December 4, 2011 Rating: 4.5/5

Hamina hamina hamina....see my piece for the L Magazine.

A Half-Assed Attempt at Year-End Ketchup

2012-01-28T13:04:00.000-08:00

481) Raw Faith (2010) Dir: William Peter Wiedensmith Date Released: June 24, 2011 Date Seen: November 27, 2011 Rating: 3.25/5

482) El Sicario, Room 164 (2010) Dir: Gianfranco Rosi December 28, 2011 Date Seen: November 27, 2011 Rating: 3.75/5

483) A Useful Life (2010) Dir: Federico Veiroj Date Released: January 14, 2011 Date Seen: November 27, 2011 Rating: 4.25/5

I forget which "Best of 2011" poll I watched these three films for...I think Slant Magazine. Yeah, that musta been it. In any case:

Raw Faith: A surprisingly stirring documentary portrait about an inspiring priest whose sermons actually are moving and thoughtful. Only really falters when it tries to force the priest's winter-winter love affair into seeming more important than it probably is (ie: the fulfillment of her long-unfulfilled desire for companionship). Still, mostly interesting, which is more than I thought it would be.

El Sicario, Room 164: Gianfranco Rosi doesn't always have control enough over his interview with El Sicario's veiled hitman subject. But the killer's story is inherently gripping. So it's very easy to just sit back and be led around by an unreliable narrator.

A Useful Life: This one totally blew me away. Melancholic and angry, this movie is very much about the feelings of powerlessness that surround a marginalized film curator/historian in Uraguay. I feel that the film's concern with the disappearance of film history and film culture is premature. But this movie is sad, moving and very tender. And so short! Really blew me away.

480) Gone with the Wind (1939)

2012-01-28T12:49:00.000-08:00

480) Gone with the Wind (1939) Dir: Victor Fleming, George Cukor and Sam Wood Date Released: December 15, 1939 Date Seen: November 26, 2011 Rating: 4.5/5

Oh, so that's what all the hubbub's about, huh? Pretty absorbing throughout, as advertised. The costumes and the cinematography are especially great. And holy shit, Clark Gable! And pretty pretty, sexy pexy Vivien Leigh, guh...

I still have a very soft spot for Duel in the Sun, mega-producer David O. Selznick's attempt to capture lightning in a bottle twice and recreate Gone with the Wind's success. But Gone with the Wind is pretty much in a league of its own, yas. Don't know why but as I write this, I have a sudden urge to watch Song of the South...anyone got a copy and/or is willing to burn it for me? Huh? Anyone, anyone?

479) Pariah (2011) and RV!: Pariah (2011)

2012-01-28T12:40:00.000-08:00

479) Pariah (2011) Dir: Dee Rees Date Released: December 28, 2011 Date Seen: November 25, 2011 Rating: 3.25/5

RV!: Pariah (2011) Dir: Dee Rees Date Released: December 28, 2011 Date Seen: December 26, 2011 Rating: 2.25/5

What a difference a month's perspective makes. See my review for Capital New York.

478) The Myth of the American Sleepover (2010)

2012-01-28T12:32:00.000-08:00

478) The Myth of the American Sleepover (2010) Dir: David Robert Mitchell Date Released: July 22, 2011 Date Seen: November 25, 2011 Rating: 3.25/5

Lots of dead air in this sometimes sweet and nostalgic remembrance of high school's more tender moments. Still, the only scene that really moved me was the one with the water slide. Everything else was fine but instantly forgettable. Another example of a film succumbing to the condition it attempts to describe, I suppose. Still, kinda dug it.

476) The Muppets (2011)

2012-01-28T12:24:00.000-08:00

476) The Muppets (2011) Dir: James Bobin Date Released: November 23, 2011 Date Seen: November 24, 2011 Rating: 2.75/5

Big ol' meh. See my review for Capital New York.

RV!: Alien (1979) and 477) The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)

2012-01-28T12:17:00.000-08:00

RV!: Alien (1979) Dir: Ridley Scott Date Released: May 25, 1979 Date Seen: November 23, 2011 Rating: 4.5/5

477) The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) Dir: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger Date Released: May 4, 1945 Date Seen: November 25, 2011 Rating: 4.5/5

This past Thanksgiving, it was: Aliens vs. the Brits! For Capital New York!

475) Level Up (2011)

2012-01-28T12:09:00.000-08:00

475) Level Up (2011) Dir: Peter Lauer Date Released (TV): November 23, 2011 Date Seen: November 23, 2011 Rating: 1.75/5

Pretty much what you'd expect and unfortunately nothing more. See my review for the AV Club.

RV!: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) and RV!: Jurassic Park (1993)

2012-01-28T11:59:00.000-08:00

RV!: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) Dir: Steven Spielberg Date Released: May 23, 1984 Date Seen: November 21, 2011 Rating: 4.25/5

RV!: Jurassic Park (1993) Dir: Steven Spielberg Date Released: June 11, 1993 Date Seen: November 21, 2011 Rating: 3.75/5

Research for the script I wrote for Chapter 2 of "Magic and Light," the video essay series Matt Seitz and Ali Arikan produced on Spielberg's films over at Press Play. Chapter 2 is called, "Blood and Pulp." Enjoyeee.

474) R (2010)

2012-01-15T11:45:00.000-08:00

474) R (2010) Dir: Tobias Lindholm and Michael Noer Date Released: June 17, 2011 Date Seen: November 20, 2011 Rating: 3/5

In spite of its clumsy, sub-Oz style prison drama, I was with this flick right up until it became apparent that there wasn't a worthwhile take-away to be had. Great atmosphere but bland main character. Still, not a bad way to start catching up with the films of 2011 I was interested in but had previously missed.

473) Salem Falls (2011)

2012-01-15T11:40:00.000-08:00

473) Salem Falls (2011) Dir: Bradley Walsh Date Released (TV): November 19, 2011 Date Seen: November 19, 2011 Rating: 1.5/5

Die, made-for-Tv movie, die, die! See my piece on this Lifetime Event for the AV Club. And then join the chorus: die, die, die!

RV!: Bellflower (2011)

2012-01-15T11:36:00.000-08:00

RV!: Bellflower (2011) Dir: Evan Glodell Date Released: August 5, 2011 Date Seen: November 17, 2011 Rating: 4/5

I originally saw this at a marketplace screening at Cannes and never got around to writing about it. But I made time to do so when it came out on DVD/Blu-Ray. So here, at The House Next Door, is my appreciation on a film that apparently rubs people the wrong way, or something.

RV!: Short Circuit (1986)

2012-01-15T11:33:00.000-08:00

RV!: Short Circuit (1986) Dir: John Badham Date Released: May 9, 1986 Date Seen: November 17, 2011 Rating: 1.25/5

Ridiculous! I guess it's a good thing I saw this originally when I was too little to care about how BAD it is. But hey, now I appreciate it for that same badness. See my piece about it at the L Magazine.

471) That Day, on the Beach (1983) and 472) Taipei Story (1985)

2012-01-15T11:29:00.000-08:00

471) That Day, on the Beach (1983) Dir: Edward Yang Date Released (DTV): June 15, 1998 Date Seen: November 14, 2011 Rating: 4/5

472) Taipei Story (1985) Dir: Edward Yang Not Yet Released Date Seen: November 14, 2011 Rating: 3.75/5

Also watched the vast bulk of A Confucian Confusion (damn screener crapped out in the end!) and rewatched a half or so of Yi Yi for this piece I wrote about Yang for Slant Magazine. Do check it out.

470) J. Edgar (2011)

2012-01-14T18:54:00.000-08:00

470) J. Edgar (2011) Dir: Clint Eastwood Date Released: November 11, 2011 Date Seen: November 12, 2011 Rating: 3.75/5

I wish this had caught on with Oscar voters. Because I'd like to see a film that's this challenging and, in some places, rather stiff, get recognized instead of The Artist, which is a very consistent and entertaining but also totally unambitious. The scope of J. Edgar is incredible and, save perhaps for the way the Clive subplot develops, the film is a generally fascinating and thoroughly opinionated take on who Hoover (Leonardo Dicaprio) was.

Psychotic, basically. He was psychotic.

But what a psychotic! Just as in Hereafter, one of J. Edgar's best scenes is a very kinky moment of abortive romance. The game that Hoover and the girl that would become his secretary play in the Library of Congress is one of my favorite scenes of last year. Of all the recent (live-action) Oscar bait films that I've seen, this is the one I probably want to rewatch the most.

Also: dig the use of Zipatone in this poster. Though I thought they stopped producing real Zipatone. Is that not true? I could be totally wrong...I always leave room for that eventuality.

469) Immortals (2011) and 471) Happy Feet Two (2011)

2012-01-14T18:42:00.000-08:00

469) Immortals (2011) Dir: Tarsem Singh Date Released: November 11, 2011 Date Seen: November 10, 2011 Rating: 4/5

471) Happy Feet Two (2011) Dir: George Miller Date Released: November 18, 2011 Date Seen: November 13, 2011 Rating: 2.75/5

My last review blast for Nomad Wide Screen. The following weeks were a very bad time for me. But at least the work didn't suffer too much for it, I hope. Check these reviews and one of my two previously-linked-to pieces on The Descendants. And for those of you that paid the measly amount to read Wide Screen: thanks. It's appreciated.

468) Elite Squad: The Enemy Within (2010)

2012-01-14T18:34:00.000-08:00

468) Elite Squad: The Enemy Within (2010) Dir: Jose Padilha Date Released: November 11, 2011 Date Seen: November 9, 2011 Rating: 2.5/5

Meh; prefer the messier but more robust, shall we say, first installment. See my piece for Capital New York.

RV!: Highway Patrolman (1991)

2012-01-14T18:30:00.000-08:00

RV!: Highway Patrolman (1991) Dir: Alex Cox Date Released: November 18, 1993 Date Seen: November 8, 2011 Rating: 4.25/5

I'm not sure but this could be my last piece (to present) for Fandor. In any case, check it out; it's on the Cox and the ethics of Highway Patrolman. Love the Bresson comparison on this poster, by the way.

467) Pathology (2008)

2012-01-14T18:25:00.000-08:00

467) Pathology (2008) Dir: Marc Scholermann Date Released: April 18, 2008 Date Seen: November 8, 2011 Rating: 3/5

I wanted to like this dim bulb thriller a lot more than I did. The acting was pretty abysmal (Milo Ventimiglia is especially bad, making his turn in The Divide look like a Brando-level leap in quality). And while I liked what the filmmakers were striving for, Pathology just isn't crazy enough for my liking.

Needs more crazy, basically.

I mean, look, if it can't be imaginative or genuinely thoughtful, crazy will do. This is after all, unofficially, a Neveldine/Taylor joint (though it's not their original script, they are the official screenwriters). So bountiful energy matters, in this case. And Pathology is unfortunately too low-key to be worth much. Still, I appreciate the effort. And liked the scene where the bad guy blows up. And some of the sub-Se7en death scenes. But eh.

466) 13 (2010)

2012-01-14T17:38:00.000-08:00

466) 13 (2010) Dir: Gela Babluani Date Released (DVD): November 8, 2011 Date Seen: November 7, 2011 Rating: 3.75/5

Hee hee hee. Oh yes. See my review for Press Play.

465) The Woods (2006)

2012-01-14T17:35:00.000-08:00

465) The Woods (2006) Dir: Lucky McKee Date Released (DVD): October 3, 2006 Date Seen: November 6, 2011 Rating: 3.75/5

I was surprised at how much I liked The Woods. By the time I saw it, I'd gotten into the McKee state of mind. So I found The Woods to be the most consistently entertaining and retrained feature I'd seen by him. At the same time, restraint is a double-edged sword when you're dealing with a filmmaker like McKee, whose films make him seem like a punk feminist or something. Don't you want him frothing at the mouth and not strait-jacketed and polite? I guess I'll take the strait jacket.

Still, while The Woods falls apart in the end (only once they have to start delving into the mythology of the school), I was pretty entertained for the most part. Bruce Campbell's over-glorified cameo is a hoot. The girls are pretty good, too. Apart from some troubled production history, I don't see why this has such a bad reputation...and I'm glad I don't care enough to find out. Because I rather like this one.

464) Hercules in New York (1969)

2012-01-01T15:07:00.000-08:00

464) Hercules in New York (1969) Dir: Arthur Allan Seidelman Date Released: February 25, 1970 Date Seen: November 5, 2011 Rating: 0.5/5

Uniquely tacky. The kind of film that requires you to be drunk and deeply depressed to enjoy. And lo, this was the day where I had something of an emotional breakdown. So bam! I was in the zone. Many thanks to super-friend Steve Carlson for puzzling over this thing with me. Because whoa, man, was that a flying Hasidic rabbi...oh, wait, no, it's just Zeus hovering outside a passenger airplane window. Yeah, ok, carry on.

463) Night of the Demon (1957)

2012-01-01T14:56:00.000-08:00

463) Night of the Demon (1957) Dir: Jacques Tourneur Date Released: November 5, 2011 Date Seen: November 5, 2011 Rating: 3.75/5

Wow, this one's spooky! Wouldn't expect less from Tourneur but yeah, got into this in a big way. Dialogue left something to be desired at times but that's probably because there were so many cooks in this film's kitchen (the fight to keep the director and screenwriter's original ending was famously fierce). Still: impressive.

Also: this was during the period in Dana Andrews's life when he was struggling with alcoholism. So while he was struggling to get the film's producer to heed Demon's screenwriter and director and let them keep the original ending, he was fighting his own, well, demons. Andrews died from complications caused by his alcoholism. But here, he gives a heckuva performance.

462) Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988)

2012-01-01T14:47:00.000-08:00

462) Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988) Dir: Tony Randel Date Released: December 23, 1988 Date Seen: November 5, 2011 Rating: 2/5

Now I've seen Hellraisers 1-5. It's official: this film franchise was NEVER good. Rarely so ridiculous that I could at least groove on its desperate need to shock and gross out. And this is supposed to be one of the good ones!

461) Jungle Fever (1991)

2012-01-01T14:41:00.000-08:00

461) Jungle Fever (1991) Dir: Spike Lee Date Released: June 7, 1991 Date Seen: November 3, 2011 Rating: 4.25/5

So, so good. Was not expecting to like this so much. See my piece for the L Magazine.

460) A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas (2011)

2012-01-01T14:39:00.000-08:00

460) A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas (2011) Dir: Todd Strauss-Schulson Date Released: November 4, 2011 Date Seen: November 2, 2011 Rating: 3.5/5

I mostly enjoyed myself, yuh. See mah, re-view for Nomad Wide Screen.

459) Coriolanus (2011)

2012-01-01T14:34:00.000-08:00

459) Coriolanus (2011) Dir: Ralph Fiennes Date Released: December 2, 2011 Date Seen: November 1, 2011 Rating: 2.75/5

I conducted an interview with actor and now director Ralph "Inanimated Fucking Object" Fiennes for Vulture. And while I like what ran, there was a bunch of stuff that Fiennes and I talked about that I think is pretty interesting. The discussion basically circled around what I consider to be problematic about Fiennes's thoughtful but over-cautious approach to adapting Shakespeare's source play for film. Still, he's thinking about his creative decisions and he's a very good interview. So check out my entire interview here. And enjoy, youse mugs.

Apart from directing Coriolanus, you’ve recently played Voldemort in the last two Harry Potter films and played Caius Martius in Coriolanus, too. These are two intensely expressive and demanding roles. You must be exhausted! How have the junkets been going?

The junkets have been fine. People have been asking me great questions about doing Coriolanus. But they’re often questions that either need a very glib answer or something more (laughs) involved. So to try to be clear and articulate, sequentially—your brain gets a bit tired. Because you want to make sense and I hear myself rabbiting on. It’s a skill to be coherent, sometimes even about something you’ve made!

Understandable. This is your first directing credit and a Shakespeare play, too, one of his later ones, not one that’s widely performed today, either. What made you feel like you had to direct it?

I think it’s an extremely provocative political fable. People are saying this is especially true considering the demonstrations on Wall Street and the Arab Springs and blah blah blah but it’s always relevant, the crisis of leaderships, the crisis of authority. I think that’s with us all the time. I think it’s an exciting story and to set it on stage is actually quite difficult. In his later plays, Shakespeare gets quite ambitious in the type of worlds he’s asking his audience to imagine, the Roman senates, the marketplaces and streets. These are all things we think are a part of cinema, the scale and the context of the story. You can take a camera to the real place.

And also, film, narrative—it’s about people. And what film can do is get into the face of people, which you can’t on stage. The landscape of the face—what the face of a human being can say is so much. So I sort of think that you get this political fable that’s always relevant and this scale, this war zone and the city and upheaval, the maneuvering of politicians with the public.

But you’ve also got a group of highly-developed characters and an essential relationship with the protagonist with his mother, which is a pivotal relationship for all of us. We’ve all come out of somebody’s womb and that’s an essential entrance we all have to make. That’s what the play explores, this umbilical moment where you’re challenged by this person that gave birth to you. And eventually, the character breaks and has a moment of compassion in his pain. That’s always moved me very much. These are big themes, big ideas that, I think, lend themselves to film.

You mentioned that one of the things that distinguishes filming this adaptation was close-ups. This is striking because the depth of field of the cameras used in your films are usually pretty shallow. It’s very pointedly up close and there’s a lot of negative space around characters’ faces, especially during dialogue scenes. That’s a very forceful aesthetic, one that you use throughout the film. How did you visually block out your shots? Did you storyboard?

We storyboarded a lot of it, yeah. We storyboarded the battle sequences, the opening sequence of the riot at the grain depot…I storyboarded scenes at the end, especially the big death scene was storyboarded. Some stuff I didn’t storyboard but I did work very closely with [cinematographer] Barry Ackyroyd.What I wanted was a sense of immediacy. I didn’t have time for complicated camera set-ups. A lot of the time, I relied very much on Barry’s advice. Some stuff I was very clear about, other stuff I’d say, “Help me here.” The longer lens for close-ups seemed to be very powerful.

Part of the hook to John Logan’s script is that he didn’t update the language of Shakespeare’s play but rather transplanted it into a modern setting. Where you every hesitant about taking such inherently theatrical language and re-setting it into a new medium considering the differences in how your actors might perform?

It’s a hot discussion because what is theatrical language? Hamlet tells the actors in his play within the play to “hold a mirror up to nature.” Some of Shakespeare’s language is overtly heightened and so is incredibly low by standards of normal speech except the vocabulary in the sentence structure might not be how we speak today. But what is being said can be said over a cup of coffee, can be said while someone is making an omelet or brushing their teeth. I think that while acting styles change, particularly in terms of film actors’ sense of naturalism has over time, Shakespeare’s language could work still work.

Brian Cox’s scene with the two tribunes—that’s all played, to my ear, completely naturalistically. That doesn’t seem theatrical. And some of the best performances I’ve seen are by actors that are incredibly natural. Although I would qualify that by saying it’s thrilling when heightened language can take off into something usually based on a real emotion and really takes off.

We have all these labels about what’s “filmic” and what’s “theatrical” and sometimes it’s interesting to challenge that understanding. There are theater performances I’ve seen that are intensely detailed and naturalistic and not at all what we’d call “theatrical.” And there are films that are, unashamedly, what we’d call “theatrical.”

You’re saying, “What is the truth about this thing, Coriolanus—what is it about?” I wanted to be immediate, accessible, a modern world where the audience can say, “Oh, I get it, this is a marketplace, this is a TV audience, this is the marketplace, this is the security guy…I get it. I know where I am.” So everything about the visual world, the physical world you’re seeing is, I hope, nothing that you’re struggling with. On top of that, these are people speaking, so they should speak like we speak. There’s a certain skill factor where the actors have to have a sort of specificity of phrasing that the audience needs. It’s a skill that’s as simple as, “I have to hear every word.” I was very obsessed with clarity, which should be seemingly effortless (laughs).

I could see that in the scenes with Brian Cox, where the stress on consonants and clear intonation of words was in service of an acting style that’s not necessarily aritificial but not necessarily naturalistic either. It’s sort of a mix of acting styles. Was that your intention?

I don’t know. Where do you see that?

I’m thinking of the scene where Cox is entreating your character to reconsider sacking Rome. Before your character shoos him away, the dialogue that he has is very precise. It’s actually really interesting because it mixes both qualities of what people might normally call naturalistic performances and a theatrical performance.

Hm. I find the labels kind of misleading but I know what you mean. It’s a formal moment; it’s a moment of tension, a high-stakes moment. In those kinds of moments, I think one needs to be clear. It can’t be casual. Whether it’s naturalistic or theatrical—those labels are kind of in the way. I found that scene to be really truthful. Whatever Brian was doing felt very real to me. I forget the line (pauses)—“Martius, Martius, you’re preparing fire for us.” There’s an image there that I think is quite effective.

There’s a truth that I think the actor has to find. I also want you to hear what I’m saying. All I know is, “Will people believe it on the day of shooting?” Yes, absolutely.

Would you say your direction on-set was very intuitive?

Yes, completely. Completely intuitive.

It’s interesting to note that, apart from being the first film that you’ve directed, this is also your second credit as a producer. For such a varied career, it’s strange to think that this is only your second go-around as a producer. Have you ever considered producing before or taking a more active role in the creative process?

The other time I took a producing credit was for my sister’s film, Onegin, which I wasn’t very involved with creatively. So I got an executive-producing credit on that, I think? [Coriolanus] was something I initiated. The real nitty-gritty of producing, the smarts and balls you have to have—I find that very wearying. I was definitely involved in it but I had other people doing the heavy-lifting. I was sort of wheeled in when we did key meetings with financiers and distributors and things like that. I’d like to direct again, for sure. But sometimes the producing credit ends up in your lap because you’re involved. But the real producing is the negotiating and the money talk. That’s never going to be my strength (laughs).

Back to what we were talking about earlier, according to you, there doesn’t seem to be a fundamental difference between styles of performing between stage and film. In light of that, it’s striking that there’s a key plot device in Logan’s script of having a TV station called Fidelis. That’s interesting because you have a device that relays the news to characters both inside the film and to us outside the film. There’s never a question about the veracity of what we’re being told. It’s all assumed to be 100% unmediated truth. Which is kind of fascinating because everything in the play boils down to the shifting winds of the characters’ fortunes. Even within a single scene, people’s opinions of different characters change. But the Fidelis news station is a constant bastion of truth. How did imagine filming these scenes and what do you think is their role in the film?

The television scenes? (pauses) Well, John Logan’s excellent idea is that you have so many discussions about Coriolanus, including messengers reporting things that have happened in the play. They’re a fundamental mechanical device. People come in and say, “This has happened.” I wanted to follow the narrative engine of Shakespeare’s play so you need to have people come in and say, “Martius has done this.” What you need is people responding to news. You think, “Fuck, what’s happening?” But I need them to think, “Oh, we’re fucked.” So what is the best way that can happen?

To be honest, I didn’t ponder the whole nature of the television being the essential truth. That’s what I perceive every day. Something happens: Ghaddafi’s murdered. And we receive it. I think that’s the truth, if I see it on the screen.

By that token, it’s interesting to note that any characters that can be perceived as pundits or tastemakers, like the tribunes, who are voices of the people—there’s no barrier between them and the people. They incite people by being shoulder-to-shoulder with them, like in the scene with the mob.

Yes, yes!

That mob scene is especially striking. It’s filmed like a gauntlet. Your character meets one character, then meets another one, then another. And those are the individual voices that alternately support you—

Or don’t.

How did you imagine filming something like that?

That’s great, that’s a key scene. That scene is fascinating and an exciting challenge. First of all, that scene was one of the things I was keen to revisit because my character has an overt contempt [for the mob], which has a comic effect [when performed] on the stage because it’s so extreme. He’s got to show off his wounds to win the crowd over and he doesn’t want to do it but he knows he’s got to. So one person is meant to challenge him and then another.

It’s interesting how you choose to interpret the people. One person is supposed to be a military veteran so my character sees him and there’s a moment where…I forget the line but Coriolanus goes, “Yes, I will show you my wounds privately, sir.”

Then I cast an older lady, Mona Hammond, a black actress, old lady. I wanted a grandmotherly figure that goes, “You deserve nobly of your country and you do not deserve nobly.” I wanted people with different reactions. It’s very much his POV coming up to her, an older woman’s face saying, “You deserve nobly.” I wanted that to be quite specific, her saying, “You’ve got a good side, you’ve got a bad side.” He then says, “You’re enigma.” He tries to engage her. “What is this question you’re asking me?” Which is brilliant because he’s saying that in just two words: “You’re enigma.” And has a kind of veneer and self-protection in it. Then a young bloke comes over and he tries to engage him. So I’m trying to show different responses to him.

Then he goes into the marketplace. You can’t get that on stage because, again, of our ability to get close-ups and capture the nuances of the face. So he says, “I did this for you, I did that.” So I could then show different people’s reactions. On stage, you can’t show that. You just have to have the people respond as a group. You can’t cut into that scene.

I was just thinking of asking about that—there’s a brief crane shot during that scene. Any other director would have made that crane shot longer. But it’s almost as if you’re reluctant to show the crowd en masse, you’re more interested in seeing them as individuals.

Well, to be honest, sometimes, I look at that shot and think, “It could be half a second longer.” I don’t know.

Were you very hands-on in the editing process?

I was going on a huge learning curve because I’ve never been through the editing process. So I learned to become strong in my opinion as I saw what it was that was [being assembled in post-production]. I had fantastic collaborators but it was basically as simple as, “Oh, that scene works, phew, it makes sense.” And then, having gotten over the relief that it wasn’t a pile of poo, I could then start saying, “Well, we’re missing this.” For example, only by seeing the scene by the grain depot a number of times did I sort of know that I had been effectively seduced by an audience member. I thought the first cut was good. But when I look at everything, I learnt to say to [editor] Nick [Gastor], “That’s a good face,” and “I want this.”

One of the things that I was always conscious of were faces in the crowd. Every face carries a story. So that’s the marketplace scene, where the tribunes are trying to rework the crowd. They’re completely real faces. They’re not actors, they’re people we used on the day. Some are actors and some are not. But their faces are absolutely crucial. And they are the faces of people thinking, “Or should we,” or, “Shouldn’t we,” or, “What should we do?” That not-knowing-ness in the face is really important. You can do that on film.

You said you were eager to pursue other projects as a director. Is there any in particular that you have your eye on?

There’s a few. I’m very interested in this work in progress. Charles Dickens had a relationship with a young actress. It’s actually written about in a book called The Invisible Woman. That, at that moment, is what’s preoccupying as a possible film.

457) Frankenhooker (1990) and 458) Brain Damage (1988)

2012-01-01T14:25:00.000-08:00

457) Frankenhooker (1990) Dir: Frank Henenlotter Date Released: June 1, 1990 Date Seen: October 31, 2011 Rating: 4/5

458) Brain Damage (1988) Dir: Frank Henenlotter Date Released: April 15, 1988 Date Seen: October 31, 2011 Rating: 3.75/5

Good Halloween eve festivities (I lost my ticket to go see the Stuart Gordon/Jeff Combs one-man show about Edgar Allan Poe...no worries though as I think it's coming back to NYC this year). Wrote about these films and a lidda bit about Henenlotter's Basket Case, too for Press Play.

456) Eye of the Cat (1969)

2012-01-01T14:15:00.000-08:00

456) Eye of the Cat (1969) Dir: David Lowell Rich Date Released: June 18, 1969 Date Seen: October 30, 2011 Rating: 1.75/5

I will give this totally ludicrous film points for being, well, totally ludicrous. And I do love the exterior scenes that really establish the film as a San Francisco film. But yowza, this movie had me in stitches. Cats, everywhere cats! EVIL CATS. My buddy Steve Carlson was trying to convince me that this was knowingly ridiculous. But hey, look, I've seen killer cats played up to the point where it was knowingly ridiculous. I mean, we all remember that episode of the Emma Peel-era Avengers with the killer cats, right? Right?

....

Look, I've seen it and that's all that matters. But this is not that. There are too many moments where I felt they were seriously trying to show me, in close-ups no less, that the face of an angry cat is one of the most frightening things ev-ar. And it doesn't work! 'Cause they're kitty doodoo butts and Rich just didn't work hard enough to get past the cats' inherent kyoot-ness in order to accentuate something even remotely frightening.

So yeah, totally ridiculous. But hey, there's that one ridiculous (in a De Palma sense of the word) scene where the lady is hurtling down the street in a wheelchair in slow motion after one cat dropkicks her. Yeah, you know the scene I mean. And if you don't, well, you should.

RV!: The New York Ripper (1982)

2011-12-30T18:32:00.000-08:00

RV!: The New York Ripper (1982) Dir: Lucio Fulci Date Released (VHS): March 1987 Date Seen: October 27, 2011 Rating: 4.25/5

Love this'n even more the second go-around. I wrote this introduction for when it screened at the Spectacle Theater in Williamsburg. My intros have since become more...improvised. Ad-libbed, I mean. Still, I wonder how this reads...maybe better in print than read aloud. You decide.

The movie you’re about to see was designed to fuck with you. It’s a nightmarish Hitchcockian homage with glancing sight gags that skewer the very possibility ofpsycho-analyzing a person based on their actions. It’s also a great companion piece to De Palma’s notorious and, until recently, long-unavailable Dressed to Kill, which was made in 1980, two years before Fulci directed The New York Ripper. One of the first lines in this film is an unshaved, derelict-looking guy asking his dog if he wants to play fetch: “Here, you wanna get some exercise? Ooh, my balls.” Ooh, my balls. Ahehehe yeah.

Right from this opening scene, you can tell that Fulci is going to throw as many MacGuffins and red herring clues as possible. The dog, while playing fetch, brings a hand back to his master. That hand doesn’t seem important but it is. Or at least, it will be once it’s revealed who it belongs to later in the film.

Unlike the modern-day city outside the doors of this cinema, the pre-Giuliani Time New York of Fulci’s film is a carnival-esque den of perverts and psychotics. The killer in this film famously quacks like a duck. In one of the film’s first scenes, a pretty blonde wearing a conspicuously short pair of short-shorts side-swipes a red sports car. The driver venomously screams at her, “You women should stay home, where you belong! You’re a menace to the public. You’ve got the brains of a chicken!” If the discovery of the severed hand wasn’t welcome enough, this scene serves as a proper and relatively more formal welcome to Fulci’s city.

The resident protagonists of The New York Ripper are so neurotic that it stands to reason that, since we are sutured into various different characters perspective through Point-of-view camerawork, we see the world in a uniquely unsettling light. You’re not even sure if Fulci will show you the violence in the first murder scene or not—at first: he cuts away very quickly after he’s conflated the first screams of the victim with the sound of the Staten Island ferry’s fog horn. Then he shows us the skyline. And we think the scene is over.

But then he shows the girl getting stabbed. Explicitly. Multiple times. And if you can’t tell that Fulci is screwing with you by the end of that scene, then you’ll figure it out in a few moments after this scene when a mortician callously tells Lieutenant Williams, the film’s lead male protagonist, that the killer “stuck it up her joy trail,” and that the killing was, “Good, efficient butchery.”

From there, Fulci starts to really start dish out more and more MacGuffins and red herrings and screw around with our generic expectations. Thanks to the tradition established by previous slasher films and Italian gialli, we come to expect that the women in the film that are being murdered are dying because they’re not ashamed of their sexuality. Furthemore, we think that getting the point-of-view of a character automatically implicates them. Fulci uses that to his advantage, implicating several male characters, including Lieutenant Williams, a man with eight fingers instead of ten and even Dr. Paul Davis, a psychologist and police expert. Davis’s actions are particularly loaded with meaning, like when he buys a gay porno magazine from a news stand and the vendor stuffs it between the pages of a newspaper to make him look less conspicuous. In reality, this just makes him look more schizophrenic: the respectable police expert and secret pervert. Eh, why not?

Fulci loves to visually get a rise out of attentive viewers by constantly turning the tables on anyone that’s paying strict attention to the information he’s presenting visually first and then explains afterwards via dialogue. The first time we see the killer, we see him using a switchblade. Then, during the second attack, we see the same knife again but then later, we see the killer’s face. And this time he’s holding a razor blade. After she’s attacked, lead protagonist Fay Majors, who’s played in the film by Almanta Suska, wakes up in the hospital to find the face that was chasing her has followed her to the hospital. Or at least, that’s how it looks. The face is apparently her boyfriend, making the second attack look like a very vivid bad dream—in retrospect.

There’s a lot of teasing little visual flourishes like throughout the New York Riper, so keep your eyes pealed. In her dream, the killer corners Fay and chases her into an empty movie theater. His disembodied hands pop up between the woman’s legs in what is easily the one of the film’s most memorably perverse images—of which there are many. Fay bolts upright and runs to the front of the theater in an attempt to put the killer behind her. But the killer shows up in front of her instead, as if he were a very smutty substitute for Wil E. Coyote and she were the Road Runner. And there’s so many more great and grisly little sight gags and little plot twists like that, like the syringes hidden under one of the suspected killers’ pillows or the sudden reversal of a POV shot after a suspect is handed a flyer for a porn theater with a live sex show. The New York Ripper is nothing if not excessive; you won’t leave this theater dissatisfied.

455) Identification of a Woman (1982)

2011-12-30T18:27:00.000-08:00

455) Identification of a Woman (1982) Dir: Michelangelo Antonioni Date Released: Nocember 15, 1996 Date Seen: October 26, 2011 Rating: 4/5

This was supposed to run at Press Play. But it got lost in the shuffle, I suppose. Here it is anyway.

Silence is the hallmark of real intimacy in Michelangelo Antonioni’s Identification of a Woman, a character study following a restless man that can’t stop himself from talking and coaxing women into talking to him. “I’d like to be silent with a woman,” Niccolò (Tomas Milian), a listless film director, says at one point. “Have the same kind of relationship you have with nature.” This is impossible because, for most of the film, Niccolò is chasing after Mavi (Daniela Silverio), a woman he first seeks out as a potential star for his next project. Niccolò is still chasing Mavi even while he’s having sex with her. The film’s sex scenes, shot by master DP Carlo Di Palma, pay close attention to the contours of the human body and how various different parts never seem to seamlessly fit together.

Paranoia and obsession are symptoms of the human condition, as Niccolò understands it so everyone around him speaks their minds and no one remains silent for long. Even a mysterious stranger that is stalking Niccolò reminds him twice that he’s following him. This is striking because, as in L’Avventura in particular, Identification of a Woman’s plot revolves around absence and longing that isn’t expressed in explicit terms. It’s about the gaps in time and space, like the one created in the landscape by Identification’s famous fog-choked road scene, and how we choose to fill them while waiting for the inevitable. Ultimately, Niccolò’s probably more connected with his stalker than he ever was with Mavi.

The end is nigh in Identification of a Woman: one apocalyptic newspaper headline reads, “Scientists say expanding sun poses threat to Earth’s Future.” Antonioni’s characters’ either don’t know that the sky is falling or they act like they don’t see it slowly descending. To see the world, though not necessarily with an emotionally unengaged eye, and to revel in feelings of frustration and alienation: that is the role of the artist in Antonioni’s film. Niccolò interviews a bevy of women in order to research his next role and to indirectly learn more about Mavi. It’s slow and uncomfortable-going—but it’s got to be done, for his film and for himself.

The woman that gives him the most information also happens to be the one that most directly talks about Niccolò and not Mavi or any other woman. “You Italian directors seem to be paid to be angry at everything,” she says. “And laugh at it,” Niccolò spits back. That retort is very true of Antonioni’s playful direction of Identification of a Woman, a great example of which can be seen when Niccolò’s producer ponders, “What possible meaning can a love story have today with al the corruption and decay around?” He says this while slowly spinning around in a swivel chair with a magnifying glass comically poised over his right eye.

But that’s not all the woman that bursts Niccolò’s bubble has to say: she accuses Niccolò of “resisting” “everything. By contrast, she casually claims that she is, “at peace with everything that happens to me.” It’s a startling possibility and one that leads Niccolò to change the subject of his film from a film about the way women relate to each other to a science fiction project about solar exploration.

Still, it’s telling that Mavi and Niccolò’s brief but resonant relationship is mostly defined by implied actions. In the context of a world where every symptom of existential malaise is almost instantly verbally diagnosed as it occurs, silences speak volumes. Take the the aforementioned nighttime fog chase scene. Mavi is terrified with how fast Niccolò is driving through the fog and screams for him to stop. He doesn’t protest once while she shrieks. Here, in the mist, he feels safe; she does not. This is the one time Mavi’s convinced that Niccolò is right to feel on edge at the thought of being stalked by someone he’s never met. In the fog, where she can’t see her hand in front of her face, Mavi is more convinced than ever that she’s being watched.

And with good reason: Di Palma shoots the scene expertly. Woody Allen undoubtedly wanted to work with Di Palma on Shadows and Fog nine years later based on this singular scene (though it should be noted that Allen first worked with Di Palma four years before that on Hannah and Her Sisters). If Niccolò is right and, “Corruption is the cement that holds the country together,” then his alternating feelings of discomfort and ease with being surrounded by fog and separated from Mavi is a perfect encapsulation of the emotional flux that characterizes Identification of a Woman. Feelings of revulsion and attraction are inseparable, to the point where the most damning line of dialogue is one that isn’t even spoken. Mavi asks Niccolò, “Are you in love with me?” Antonioni doesn’t allow Niccolò to reply; he just cuts quickly to the next scene. But you can still hear Niccolò saying, “No,” back to Mavi just as clearly as if he had actually said it.

454) Tower Heist (2011)

2011-12-30T18:18:00.000-08:00

454) Tower Heist (2011) Dir: Brett Ratner Date Released: November 4, 2011 Date Seen: October 26, 2011 Rating: 2/5

Yup, definitely a Brett Ratner movie. See my piece for Nomad Wide Screen, right next to my only full-length review of Julia Leigh's Sleeping Beauty (I'm a rathah vocal advocate of the latter film).

453) Ra.One (2011)

2011-12-30T18:14:00.000-08:00

453) Ra.One (2011) Dir: Anubhav Sinha Date Released: October 26, 2011 Date Seen: October 25, 2011 Rating: 2/5

A real Bollywood blow-out. See my piece for Slant Magazine.

452) Weekend (2011)

2011-12-30T18:10:00.000-08:00

452) Weekend (2011) Dir: Andrew Haigh Date Released: September 23, 2011 Date Seen: October 24, 2011 Rating: 3.75/5

I rather liked this wispy long weekend romance, even though I think some of the central drama about sexual identity is canned. There's a very warm air of intimacy about Haigh's characters that I'm having a hard time attributing to any singular creative decision. But more than anything else, I can't help but recall the experience of watching this film. I felt like the only straight guy in a small theater full of gay men (theater 2 at the IFC Center...or was it theater 3?). In fact, I felt apologetic, like I was intruding on something. I also vividly recall the subway ride back to my place, arguing at great length with my good friend Zengkun Feng about this film, about the dialogue and melodrama in Margin Call and the ultimate worth of the Human Centipede movies as art. Now, my enthusiasm for Weekend comes back to me as a warm but vague memory I can't extricate from that quiet, intimate (not in that way!) night. Fine by me. I guess 2011 wasn't so bad...

451) The Robber (2010)

2011-12-30T17:55:00.000-08:00

451) The Robber (2010) Dir: Benjamin Heisenberg Date Released: April 29, 2011 Date Seen: October 24, 2011 Rating: 3.5/5

Good enough. Which is frustrating. See my review for Slant Magazine.

450) The Woman (2011)

2011-12-30T17:51:00.000-08:00

450) The Woman (2011) Dir: Lucky McKee Date Released: October 14, 2011 Date Seen: October 23, 2011 Rating: 3/5

I wish I felt more strongly about Lucky McKee's latest film. I can see both the smart-ass wit and creative frustration that people respond to in May here. And I even think he's become a more confident story-teller. He's become a better satirist, too: this one feels like a proudly cracked-out Sirk parody. I can also get behind a number of McKee's brattier decisions, including the choice to only whip out the human dog at the last minute (struck me as a decision that a younger, Katakuris-era Miike would make). But I really just do not like the scene where "the woman" gets her revenge. In that moment, McKee goes beyond irony-for-its-own-sake to semi-serious self-righteousness. But that's just a tonal hiccup and perhaps it's simply another way for McKee to pull the rug out from under his viewers (or at least, his ideal audience...though I'm not even sure if he's thinking this far ahead). Still, that scene irks me. The rest of the film's ok though.

RV!: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

2011-12-24T21:30:00.000-08:00

RV!: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) Dir: Stanley Kubrick Date Released: January 29, 1964 Rating: 4.75/5

Still one of the best. See my piece for Capital New York.

434) The Three Musketeers (2011) , 435) The Rum Diary (2011) and 440) Paranormal Activity 3 (2011)

2011-12-24T21:13:00.000-08:00

434) The Three Musketeers (2011) Dir: Paul W.S. Anderson Date Released: October 21, 2011 Date Seen: October 18, 2011 Rating: 1.75/5

435) The Rum Diary (2011) Dir: Bruce Robinson Date Released: October 28, 2011 Date Seen: October 18, 2011 Rating: 2.75/5

440) Paranormal Activity 3 (2011) Dir: Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman Date Released: October 21, 2011 Date Seen: October 21, 2011 Rating: 3/5

The proverbial mixed bag. Check out my reviews for Nomad Wide Screen.

431) The Shock Doctrine (2009)

2011-12-24T21:01:00.000-08:00

431) The Shock Doctrine (2009) Dir: Mat Whitecross and Michael Winterbottom Date Released: XX ???? Date Seen: October 17, 2011 Rating: 1.75/5

Ill-conceived on a number of levels. See my piece for Slant Magazine.

427) The Descendants (2011)

2011-12-24T17:20:00.000-08:00

427) The Descendants (2011) Dir: Alexander Payne Date Released: December 9, 2011 Date Seen: October 16, 2011 Rating: 3.5/5

Wrote two pieces about this, one more favorable than the other. Here's one for Fandor and one's for Nomad Wide Screen. Enjoy, as they French say.

426) Three on a Meathook (1973), 432) Werewolves on Wheels (1971), 444) The Manitou (1978), 448) Asylum of Satan (1972) and 449) Grizzly (1976)

2011-12-24T17:08:00.000-08:00

426) Three on a Meathook (1973) Dir: William Girdler Date Released: XX 1973 Date Seen: October 15, 2011 Rating: 2.25/5

432) Werewolves on Wheels (1971) Dir: Michel Levesque Date Released: November 19, 1971 Date Seen: October 17, 2011 Rating: 2.75/5

444) The Manitou (1978) Dir: William Girdler Date Released: April 28, 1978 Date Seen: October 22, 2011 Rating: 3.5/5

448) Asylum of Satan (1972) Dir: William Girdler Date Released: XX 1972 Date Seen: October 23, 2011 Rating: 2.75/5

449) Grizzly (1976) Dir: William Girdler Date Released: May 21, 1976 Date Seen: October 23, 2011 Rating: 2.25/5

William Girdler, ooh, spooky. Listen to "Kentucky Crap Wagon," the eighth episode of the Bad Idea Podcast.

422) The Catechism Cataclysm (2011)

2011-12-24T16:49:00.001-08:00

422) The Catechism Cataclysm (2011) Dir: Todd Rohal Date Released: October 19, 2011 Date Seen: October 15, 2011 Rating: 2.25/5

I wanted to like this a lot more than I did. See my review for Slant Magazine.

421) Margaret (2011)

2011-12-24T16:45:00.000-08:00

421) Margaret (2011) Dir: Kenneth Lonergan Date Released: September 30, 2011 Date Seen: October 13, 2011 Rating: 4.5/5

I haven't been this totally immersed in such a complex contempoary drama in what seems like a while. I'm at a bit of a loss. I fucking LOVE the pace of the film and really do not understand how people could find it ungainly. I was totally absorbed the whole and never felt its plotting was distractingly arhythmic. Lonergan's sense of how to film New York is incredible. I think the only complaint I have is that the bus crash is a bit hokey (until the event is over and we're dealing with its aftermath, that is). Beyond that, great, great stuff.

419) Noriko's Dinner Table (2005)

2011-12-24T14:44:00.000-08:00

419) Noriko's Dinner Table (2005) Dir: Sion Sono Date Released: June 13, 2007 Date Seen: October 12, 2011 Rating: 3.75/5

Not as good as Suicide Club but once it gets going, it's a pretty compelling feature-length coda in its own right. See my piece for Capital New York.

413) Footloose (2011) and 416) The Thing (2011)

2011-12-24T14:37:00.000-08:00

413) Footloose (2011) Dir: Craig Brewer Date Released: October 14, 2011 Date Seen: October 10, 2011 Rating: 2/5

416) The Thing (2011) Dir: Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. Date Released: October 14, 2011 Date Seen: October 11, 2011 Rating: 3.5/5

The '80s respectively re-imagined by the dude that made Black Snake Moan and a guy that actually understands and really loves Scott's Alien and Carpenter's The Thing. Check out my reviews for Nomad Wide Screen.

RV!: I'm a Cyborg, But That's Ok (2006)

2011-12-24T14:26:00.000-08:00

RV!: I'm a Cyborg, But That's Ok (2006) Dir: Chan-wook Park Date Released: October 8, 2011 Date Seen: October 8, 2011 Rating: 4/5

A small step down after the first viewing. But perhaps that's because I loved it so much the first go-around and it just didn't live up to my unfairly high expectations? Dunno, will figure it out when I rewatch it next, I guess. See my review for Slant Magazine.

408) Shame (2011)

2011-12-24T14:20:00.000-08:00

408) Shame (2011) Dir: Steve McQueen Date Rubbed Out: December 2, 2011 Date Seen: October 6, 2011 Rating: 1.5/5

Oh, puhlease. See my review for Press Play.

406) The Blue Lamp (1950) and 407) The Lavender Hill Mob (1951)

2011-12-24T14:13:00.000-08:00

406) The Blue Lamp (1960) Dir: Basil Dearden Date Released: June 1, 1950 Date Seen: October 5, 2011 Rating: 4/5

407) The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) Dir: Charles Crichton Date Released: October 15, 1951 Date Seen: October 5, 2011 Rating: 4.25/5

Ealing Studios! See my piece for Capital New York.

RV!: The Skin I Live In (2011) and 411) Real Steel (2011)

2011-12-24T13:57:00.000-08:00

RV!: The Skin I Live In (2011) Dir: Pedro Almodovar Date Released: October 14, 2011 Date Seen: October 4, 2011 Rating: 4.25/5

411) Real Steel (2011) Dir: Shawn Levy Date Released: October 14, 2011 Date Seen: October 16, 2011 Rating: 1.75/5

This is pretty much my 2011 in a nutshell: veddy high highs, periously low lows. See my reviews for Nomad Wide Screen.

404) A Dangerous Method (2011)

2011-12-24T13:50:00.001-08:00

404) A Dangerous Method (2011) Dir: David Cronenberg Date Released: November 23, 2011 Date Seen: October 4, 2011 Rating: 4.25/5

Fuck the haters. See my review for The House Next Door.

403) This Is Not a Film (2010)

2011-12-24T13:43:00.000-08:00

403) This Is Not a Film (2010) Dir: Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirtahmasb Not Yet Released Date Seen: October 4, 2011 Rating: 3.75/5

Typically, setting out to create a narrative about your own creative frustration means you're shooting to make a moving and/or thoughtful but also necessarily alienating narrative. This documentary's potency is largely reliant on how frequently Jafar Panahi is able to successfully dramatize his personal isolation and represent ideas and fleeting notions that are unique to him. At the same time, I'm more interested in This is Not a Film's figurative representation of Panahi's ennui as a sweeping expression of his pent-up artistic ambitions and his stymied need to create. These are more moving than the moments that show Panahi as an individual martyr (ie: interludes where we accompany Panahi as he waits for his lawyer to call and shuffes about his apartment). These latter intervals are necessarily frustrating but a vital part of the film's story. That doesn't make waiting for Panahi and Mairtahmasb to show us something more poetic than static that much more compelling. Still, it is worth noting that yes, this very exciting experiment is also frustrating by design.

Note: I love and can't help but hope that Panahi or Mirtahmasb decided to arrange Panahi's DVD shelf in such a way that Buried, the Ryan Reynolds horror pic, was purposefully put on the edge, right where the camera and hence the viewer could not help but see it.

31 Days of Horror

2011-12-22T21:12:00.000-08:00

400) Alligator (1980) Dir: Lewis Teague Date Released: July 2, 1980 Date Seen: October 2, 2011 Rating: 3.75/5

401) Crawlspace (1986) Dir: David Schmoeller Date Released: May 21, 1986 Date Seen: October 2, 2011 Rating: 3.75/5

405) Dead Alive (1992) Dir: Peter Jackson Date Released: February 12, 1993 Date Seen: October 4, 2011 Rating: 3.5/5

409) A Lizard in a Woman's Skin (1971) Dir: Lucio Fulci Date Released: March 20, 1973 Date Seen: October 7, 2011 Rating: 3.25/5

410) Dracula 2000 (2000) Dir: Patrick Lussier Date Released: December 22, 2000 Date Seen: October 8, 2011 Rating: 2.75/5

411) Messiah of Evil (1973) Dir: Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz Date Released: XX 1973 Date Seen: October 9, 2011 Rating: 3.75/5

412) Kill Baby, Kill (1966) Dir: Mario Bava Date Released: October 8, 1968 Date Seen: October 9, 2011 Rating: 4/5

RV!: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) Dir: Tobe Hooper Date Released: October 1, 1974 Date Seen: October 9, 2011 Rating: 4.25/5

414) Pieces (1982) Dir: Juan Piquer Simon Date Released: September 23, 1983 Date Seen: October 10, 2011 Rating: 4/5

415) The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986) Dir: Tobe Hooper Date Released: August 22, 1986 Date Seen: October 10, 2011 Rating: 2.25/5

418) Dead and Buried (1981) Dir: Gary Sherman Date Released: May 29, 1981 Date Seen: October 11, 2011 Rating: 3.5/5

420) The Burning (1981) Dir: Tony Maylam Date Released: May 8, 1981 Date Seen: October 12, 2011 Rating: 3.25/5

423) Carrie (1976) Dir: Brian De Palma Date Released: November 3, 1976 Date Seen: October 15, 2011 Rating: 4.25/5

424) The Dunwich Horror (1970) Dir: Daniel Haller Date Released: January 14, 1970 Date Seen: October 15, 2011 Rating: 2.5/5

425) Eden Lake (2008) Dir: James Watkin Date Released: October 31, 2008 Date Seen: October 15, 2011 Rating: 3.75/5

426) Three on a Meathook (1973) Dir: William Girdler Date Released: XX 1973 Date Seen: October 15, 2011 Rating: 2.25/5

428) The Ninth Gate (1999) Dir: Roman Polanski Date Released: March 10, 2000 Date Seen: October 16, 2011 Rating: 3.25/5

429) The Roost (2005) Dir: Ti West Date Released: October 21, 2005 Date Seen: October 16, 2011 Rating: 2/5

430) Dolls (1987) Dir: Stuart Gordon Date Released: May 22, 1987 Date Seen: October 16, 2011 Rating: 3.5/5

432) Werewolves on Wheels (1971) Dir: Michel Levesque Date Released: November 19, 1971 Date Seen: October 17, 2011 Rating: 2.75/5

433) Island of Lost Souls (1932) Dir: Erle C. Kenton Date Released: December XX 1932 Date Seen: October 17, 2011 Rating: 4.25/5

436) May (2002) Dir: Lucky McKee Date Released: June 6, 2003 Date Seen: October 18, 2011 Rating: 3.25/5

437) Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (1973) Dir: John Newland Date Released (TV): October 10, 1973 Date Seen: October 18, 2011 Rating: 4/5

438) Shadows and Fog (1991) Dir: Woody Allen Date Released: March 20, 1992 Date Seen: October 19, 2011 Rating: 4.25/5

439) Freaks (1932) Dir: Tod Browning Date Released: February 20, 1932 Date Seen: October 19, 2011 Rating: 4.25/5

441) I Can See You (2008) Dir: Graham Reznick Date Released: January 6, 2008 Date Seen: October 21, 2011 Rating: 4.25/5

443) Nightmare City (1980) Dir: Umberto Lenzi Date Released: November 18, 1983 Date Seen: October 21, 2011 Rating: 3/5

444) The Manitou (1978) Dir: William Girdler Date Released: April 28, 1978 Date Seen: October 22, 2011 Rating: 3.5/5

445) Village of the Damned (1960) Dir: Wolf Rilla Date Released: December 7, 1960 Date Seen: October 22, 2011 Rating: 4/5

446) Dead Heat (1988) Dir: Mark Goldblatt Date Released: May 6, 1988 Date Seen: October 22, 2011 Rating: 2.25/5

447) Whispering Corridors (1998) Dir: Ki-hyeong Park Date Released (DVD): February 22, 2005 Date Seen: October 22, 2011 Rating: 3/5

Phew! Here's 31 horror films I watched or in some cases rewatched for a feature I wrote for Nomad Wide Screen. The piece is something of a viewing log. Enjoy!

Fantastic Fest 2011: Part Deux

2011-12-12T20:18:00.000-08:00

393) Revenge: A Love Story (2010) Dir: Ching-Po Wong Not Yet Released Date Seen: September 30, 2011 Rating: 3.75/5

394) Blind (2011) Dir: Sang-hoon Ahn Not Yet Released Date Seen: September 30, 2011 Rating: 3.5/5

395) The Squad (2011) Dir: Jaime Osorio Marquez Not Yet Released Date Seen: October 1, 2011 Rating: 2.75/5

396) Two Eyes Staring (2011) Dir: Elbert Van Strien Not Yet Released Date Seen: October 1, 2011 Rating: 3.25/5

397) Aardvark (2010) Dir: Kitao Sakurai Not Yet Released Date Seen: October 1, 2011 Rating: 3/5

398) Retreat (2011) Dir: Carl Tibbetts Date Released: October 21, 2011 Date Seen: October 1, 2011 Rating: 2.25/5

399) A Lonely Place to Die (2011) Dir: Julian Gilbey Date Released: November 11, 2011 Date Seen: October 1, 2011 Rating: 2.75/5

So I watched a bunch of screeners for this second of two dispatches written from New York but about Austin's own Fantastic Fest. Mosey on over to Press Play for more.

392) Sleeping Sickness (2011)

2011-12-12T19:59:00.000-08:00

391) Sleeping Sickness (2011) Dir: Ulrich Kohler Not Yet Released Date Seen: September 30, 2011 Rating: 3.5/5

I rather liked the "Col. Kurtz has overstayed his welcome in Africa, even after he's become an institution and a force of good unto himself" aspect to this story. But only when it's literally imagined. When Kohler gets into abstractions and tries to create metaphors, he really starts to look like an amateur that happens to have latched onto a galvanic and compelling story. The hippo stuff, the hunt in the woods, the driving sequences which seem loaded with meaning (specifically, how passable the road the characters are driving on and what they see is dependent on where they are in their personal journeys): these are weak. But the characters are rich and compelling enough and their world is, too. Which I guess is why I don't like the film when it strives for greater meaning. Feet on the ground, good. Head in the clouds, nope.

391) Dogfight (1991)

2011-12-12T19:49:00.000-08:00

391) Dogfight (1991) Dir: Nancy Savoca Date Released: October 4, 1991 Date Seen: September 29, 2011 Rating: 4/5

I find this comedic romance to be very charming, mostly because it's determined to not totally conform to generic expectations. The set-up is pretty formulaic: guys compete over who can present the ugliest "dog." Then the story's narrative starts to meander and the film becomes more about what happens once the stupid courtship game the two characters have started to play stops working for each other. They try to talk over dinner, which is her idea of taking control of the evening and countering his previously established chauvinistic rules, choice of seedy milieu, etc. So their imperfect but nevertheless magical night is an experiential dialectic in that sense and one that dabbles with audience's expectations. It's also frustrating because, while I think the ending tugged on my heart strings well enough, the end returns us back to formulaic status quo. Their tryst inevitably has to end as the march of time and history in this case is undeniable. Still, I liked its gentle sense of confusion, its graceful, subtle reversals and its confounding light touch.

390) Unfaithfully Yours (1948)

2011-12-12T19:15:00.000-08:00

390) Unfaithfully Yours (1948) Dir: Preston Sturges Date Released: December 10, 1948 Date Seen: September 29, 2011 Rating: 4.25/5

I'm mostly awed by how side-splittingly mean this film is. It's also technically accomplished in ways that I think are invigoratingly eccentric. Like, the motif of invading Rex Harrison's mind via tracking shots that go past his eyeball and straight to his id. Or that elaborate phonograph gag that requires the audience to see a pattern and recognize its total reversal. I wasn't just in stitches when I saw this latter bit, I was laughing so hard I was actually doubled-over crying. I was doubled-over coughing and crying and laughing. And then I composed myself and unpaused the film. Only to rewatch it. How did Sturges do it? Or maybe just: how did he get away with it?! Incredible.

389) London Boulevard (2010)

2011-11-28T11:25:00.000-08:00

389) London Boulevard (2010) Dir: William Monahan Date Released: November 11, 2011 Date Seen: September 27, 2011 Rating: 2.25/5

Really like the ending but not much else. See my review for Time Out Chicago.

388) What's Your Number? (2011) and 402) The Ides of March (2011)

2011-11-28T11:15:00.000-08:00

388) What's Your Number? (2011) Dir: Mark Mylod Date Released: September 30, 2011 Date Seen: September 27, 2011 Rating: 1.75/5

402) The Ides of March (2011) Dir: George Clooney Date Released: October 7, 2011 Date Seen: October 3, 2011 Rating: 3.75/5

Uh, quite a difference in quality, non? See my reviews for Nomad Wide Screen.

387) Carnage (2011)

2011-11-28T11:09:00.000-08:00

387) Carnage (2011) Dir: Roman Polanski Date Released: December 16, 2011 Date Seen: September 27, 2011 Rating: 4/5

Even funnier than I thought it'd be after reading the already funny script for Yasmina Reza's stage play. See my review for The House Next Door.

384) Tattooed Flower Vase (1976)

2011-11-28T10:59:00.000-08:00

384) Tattooed Flower Vase (1976) Dir: Masaru Konuma Date Released: ??? Date Seen: September 26, 2011 Rating: 3.5/5

Roman porno! See my quicky primer on the genre for Fandor.

383) Abduction (2011)

2011-11-27T16:02:00.000-08:00

383) Abduction (2011) Dir: John Singleton Date Released: September 23, 2011 Date Seen: September 25, 2011 Rating: 1.5/5

Not awful enough to be enjoyable, unfortunately. Though there are a number of scenes that are so tonally out of whack that I wondered if Singleton ever talked to screenwriter Shawn Christensen. Take for instance, that early scene where Taylor Lautner's dad is wrestling with him and teaching him the ancient martial art of "Don't Get Your Ass Kicked:" what the hell am I watching? This is supposed to be funny, I think, but it's not. I mean, it is funny but it's not intentionally funny. Or what about that line Michael Nyqvist has about wanting to murder all of Lautner's Facebook friends? Did Singleton feel this project was beneath him? What was going on here exactly?

378) The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) (2011), 385) Calibre 9 (2011) and 386) Clown: The Movie (2011)

2011-11-27T15:48:00.000-08:00

378) The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) (2011) Dir: Tom Six Date Released: October 7, 2011 Date Seen: September 23, 2011 Rating: 3.75/5

385) Calibre 9 (2011) Dir: Jean-Christian Tassy Not Yet Released Date Seen: September 26, 2011 Rating: 3/5

386) Clown: The Movie (2011) Dir: Mikkel Norgaard Not Yet Released Date Seen: September 26, 2011 Rating: 3/5

The first three Fantastic Fest-centric titles I watched the whole way through this year. See my piece for Press Play.

377) Dreilieben: Beats Being Dead (2011)

2011-11-27T15:38:00.000-08:00

377) Dreilieben: Beats Being Dead (2011) Dir: Christian Petzold Not Yet Released Date Seen: September 23, 2011 Rating: 3.75/5

As usual, Petzold's exacting mise en scene and absolute technical control is only hampered by the heavy-osity of his films' capitalist critique. Perfect example: there's a totally alienating shot-reverse shot in the scene where the hotel maid is dropped off at her job. Petzold delineates that there is a boundary between her work and the outside world, one that she can't traverse as well as her upwardly mobile medical student boyfriend can. So once she crosses over the threshold into her workspace, she can't go back to him. But he can visit her if he wants to.

Seeing all of that conveyed in just one shot-reverse shot is pretty damn impressive. It's also fairly distracting. Still, some absolutely stunning sequences, as usual. The wedding reception didn't do much for me but holy shit, how about that night-swimming scene with the motorcycle gang? Beautiful, scary, erotic; it brought De Palma to mind, which probably just shows to go you how my brain is hard-wired to think of De Palma now that I'm a De Palma fan.

376) Squirm (1976)

2011-11-27T10:28:00.000-08:00

376) Squirm (1976) Dir: Jeff Lieberman Date Released: July 30, 1976 Date Seen: September 22, 2011 Rating: 2.25/5

This piece was also killed. This may seem like a trend. But, well, shut up.

Initially, you almost want Squirm to work in spite of itself. The creepy lullaby that the film begins with is surprisingly effective and the location that writer/director Jeff Lieberman’s killer worm flick is set in is equally spooky. The rest of the film—eh, not so much. Squirm has an all right set-up but Lieberman’s got none of the ideas or the skills needed to follow through on them. His film just looks cheap and stupid in the end, particularly when you’re watching a mass of rubber grub worms shrink back whenever fire is around. In other words, Squirm deserves the lambasting that Mike Nelson and his robots gave it on Mystery Science Theater 3000. But I kinda wish it hadn’t.

The set-up’s ridiculous but simple enough: a young Southern belle (Patricia Pearcy) and her non-threatening pen pal (Don Scardino) try to save the buckteeth town of Fly Creek from being overrun by man-eating worms. Yes, worms, the source of the town’s industry (for bait, see) have been electrified by fallen power lines and turned into, uh, evil monsters. Now they’re slowly clogging drains and burrowing under people’s skin and eating the flesh clean off their bones.

Sounds like stupid fun, right? Well, it would have been if Lieberman actually knew what he was doing. Never mind the fact that he’s working on a aglet-less shoestring-budget: Lieberman’s actors, dialogue and directing are for shit. The film takes a fatally stoopid turn when it finally tries to become a full-on southern gothic monster movie. Watching the deranged boy next door (R.A. Dow) get infested with worms and then try to kill the Southern belle’s beau is pure chintz. Oh well, at least the box art looks cool.

374) What? (1972) and 375) Pirates (1986)

2011-11-27T10:21:00.000-08:00

374) What? (1972) Dir: Roman Polanski Date Released: October 3, 1973 Date Seen: September 21, 2011 Rating: 3/5

375) Pirates (1986) Dir: Roman Polanski Date Released: July 18, 1986 Date Seen: September 21, 2011 Rating: MAKE IT STOP/5*

The two biggest outliers in Polanski's considerable filmography. See my piece for Capital New York.

*About 1/5

Bad Idea Podcast #7: Canadian Like Me

2011-11-27T10:08:00.000-08:00

373) Jennifer's Body (2009) Dir: Karyn Kusama Date Released: September 18, 2009 Date Seen: September 19, 2011 Rating: 1.75/5

379) loudQUIETloud: A Film About the Pixies (2006) Dir: Steven Cantor and Matthew Galkin Date Released: September 29, 2006 Date Seen: September 24, 2011 Rating: 4/5

380) A Hole in My Heart (2004) Dir: Lukas Moodysson Date Released: April 8, 2005 Date Seen: September 25, 2011 Rating: 2/5

381) The Devil's Chair (2007) Dir: Adam Mason Date Released: ??? Date Seen: September 25, 2011 Rating: 1.25/5

382) Shadowboxer (2005) Dir: Lee Daniels Date Released: July 21, 2006 Date Seen: September 25, 2011 Rating: 1.25/5

I liked...one of these films, at least. Listen to the seventh episode of the Bad Idea Podcast, dedicated to films that were recently received like the bubonic plague at the Toronto International Film Festival.

372) Circo (2010)

2011-11-27T09:53:00.000-08:00

372) Circo (2010) Dir: Aaron Schock Date Released: 2010, according to IMDB? Date Seen: September 19, 2011 Rating: 2/5

I saw this because it got goodish reviews and I felt I needed to keep abreast with stuff, things. I wuz wrong. See my review for Slant Magazine.

365) Anonymous (2011)

2011-11-26T21:37:00.000-08:00

365) Anonymous (2011) Dir: Roland Emmerich Date Released: October 28, 2011 Date Seen: September 15, 2011 Rating: 1.5/5

This piece got killed. But that's ok, here it is anyway.

With Anonymous, Roland Emmerich, the director of such titanic blunders as 2012 and 10,000 BC, proves once again that he can make a terrible film regardless of its subject. Emmerich’s latest folly is a brain-dead melodrama about the secret life of the Earl of Oxford, a prominent nobleman who some scholars argue was really responsible for penning William Shakespeare’s plays.

Of the egregiously misleading assumptions that Emmerich and screenwriter John Orloff make, the biggest one is actually a garden-variety tenet of contemporary biopics. Anonymous uses a tacky and sordid doomed romance to get viewers to appreciate the emotional depths from which such archetypal works like Hamlet and Macbeth sprang from. Emmerich and Orloff have cast Shakespeare in a new light based on their own dimwitted understanding of his plays so that Shakespeare now behaves as a Shakespearean protagonist, many of which imagine themselves are mere play things for the Gods, might. The problem with that scenario is that, if Anonymous is any indication, these guys don’t have a clue about what a Shakespearian protagonist is like.

Anonymous is a tragedy about writing tragedies as rendered by people who confuse soap opera plotting with tragedy. The Earl of Oxford (Rhys Ifans) is a Byronic artiste who works on his folios in the privacy of his palatial estate. He fondly recalls the days when he was a favorite of Queen Elizabeth I and the bane of her puritanical advisers. After years of keeping his writing to himself, Oxford has an epiphany. He decides to release his plays with the help of Ben Jonson (Sebastian Armesto), a young playwright of moderate renown who some real-life scholars also theorize was “the real Shakespeare.”

According to Emmerich and Orloff, Jonson agreed to help Oxford but never took credit for the work. Instead, a young upstart actor named William Shakespeare (Rafe Spall) haphazardly stumbled into the spotlight of London’s now-famous Globe Theater. After Shakespeare becomes Oxford’s public figurehead, he inevitably turns too cocky and forces Oxford back into conflict with Elizabeth’s arts-hating ecumenical council. Throw in some incest and baby mama drama and bam, you’ve got Anonymous.

The film’s numerous failings as a drama all come back to Emmerich and Orloff’s incompetence as storytellers. They don’t know how to make a drama — Shakespearean or otherwise — compelling instead of just loud. Emmerich and Orloff liberally use broad symbols for anguish, like the sounds of a baby crying somewhere offscreen while the Globe Theater burns down in the midst of torrential rain, and never hone in on a single recognizably sympathetic trait that might make Oxford a sympathetic martyr.

Emmerich even flaunts his misapprehension of what makes a powerful drama whenever he films actors performing Shakespeare’s plays. In these plays within the film’s play, props and costumes take greater precedence than the puissance of the bard’s verse. Over-emphasizing the lavishness of the Globe Theater’s productions does nothing to shed light on what makes Shakespeare’s plays so enduring. But what would you expect from a film that similarly expects you to find a greater appreciation for Shakespeare’s plays through a tacky speculative meta-narrative about Shakespeare’s real identity? Emmerich should stick to blowing up the world and leave Shakespeare in the hands of dramatists who understand the difference between pure bombast and authentic tragedy.

Tribeca 2011

2011-11-26T21:29:00.000-08:00

351) Damsels in Distress (2011) Dir: Whit Stillman Not Yet Released Date Seen: September 11, 2011 Rating: 2.25/5

352) Twixt (2011) Dir: Francis Ford Coppola Not Yet Released Date Seen: September 11, 2011 Rating: 3.25/5

353) Extraterrestrial (2011) Dir: Nacho Vigalondo Not Yet Released Date Seen: September 11, 2011 Rating: 4/5

354) Livid (2011) Dir: Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury Not Yet Released Date Seen: September 11, 2011 Rating: 3.75/5

355) Machine Gun Preacher (2011) Dir: Marc Forster Date Released: September 23, 2011 Date Seen: September 12, 2011 Rating: 2/5

356) Alps (2011) Dir: Yorgos Lanthimos Not Yet Released Date Seen: September 12, 2011 Rating: 4.25/5

357) Love and Bruises (2011) Dir: Lou Ye Not Yet Released Date Seen: September 12, 2011 Rating: 3/5

358) Life Without Principle (2011) Dir: Johnnie To Not Yet Released Date Seen: September 12, 2011 Rating: 4/5

359) Moneyball (2011) Dir: Bennett Miller Date Released: September 22, 2011 Date Seen: September 13, 2011 Rating: 3.75/5

360) Into the Abyss (2011) Dir: Werner Herzog Date Released: November 11, 2011 Date Seen: September 13, 2011 Rating: 3.75/5

361) The Deep Blue Sea (2011) Dir: Terence Davies Not Yet Released Date Seen: September 14, 2011 Rating: 4/5

362) Faust (2011) Dir: Aleksandr Sokurov Not Yet Released Date Seen: September 14, 2011 Rating: 4.25/5

363) Chicken with Plums (2011) Dir: Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi Not Yet Released Date Seen: September 14, 2011 Rating: 3.75/5

364) Dark Horse (2011) Dir: Todd Solondz Not Yet Released Date Seen: September 14, 2011 Rating: 4.5/5

366) Himizu (2011) Dir: Sion Sono Not Yet Released Date Seen: September 15, 2011 Rating: 3.5/5

367) You're Next (2011) Dir: Adam Wingard Not Yet Released Date Seen: September 16, 2011 Rating: 1.75/5

368) God Bless America (2011) Dir: Bobcat Goldthwait Not yet Released Date Seen: September 16, 2011 Rating: 3.25/5

369) Kotoko (2011) Dir: Shinya Tsukamoto Not Yet Released Date Seen: September 17, 2011 Rating: 3.25/5

370) Carre Blanc (2011) Dir: Jean-Baptiste Leonetti Not Yet Released Date Seen: September 17, 2011 Rating: 3.25/5

371) Smuggler (2011) Dir: Katushito Ishii Not Yet Released Date Seen: September 17, 2011 Rating: 2.25/5

Almost all of my coverage from Toronto is linked to below. An interview I did with Willem Dafoe got killed but if you want it, let me know and I'll post it here. My Anonymous review also got killed but I'm definitely posting that here, whether you like it or not.

Nomad Wide Screen: a review of Machine Gun Preacher here and a feature here and here.

Press Play: an everything-else feature here.

349) Tabloid (2010)

2011-11-26T17:21:00.000-08:00

349) Tabloid (2010) Dir: Errol Morris Date Released: July 15, 2011 Date Seen: September 9, 2011 Rating: 3.75/5

To say that Morris is a story-teller first and a journalist second is a serious understatement. Though realistically, he's more of a raconteur than anything else. Like, a raconteur by proxy. He doesn't even develop all of the lurid details of the various tangents that make up Joyce McKinney's story (ex: What happened to Joyce's dog, the one that died? Such a shocking detail thrown out there without even a cursory inquiry from nearby neighbors or the police or anything...). I know, I know, the he-said, she-said aspect to Morris's narrative is what makes Tabloid riveting, not the fact that it's so lurid and over-the-top. But hey, the lurid and over-the-top stuff helps a lot, too.

348) Lady Terminator (1989)

2011-11-26T17:04:00.000-08:00

348) Lady Terminator (1989) Dir: H. Tjut Djalil Date Released: June 10, 1989 Date Seen: September 8, 2011 Rating: 1.25/5

Ha ha ha, what?! See my piece for the L Magazine.

347) Baseketball (1998)

2011-11-26T17:00:00.000-08:00

347) Baseketball (1998) Dir: David Zucker Date Released: July 31, 1998 Date Seen: September 7, 2011 Rating: 3.5/5

Some great moments but mostly formulaic sports parody. See my piece on the Jim Abrahams and Zucker brothers comedies for Capital New York.

346) Night Train (1959)

2011-11-26T16:56:00.000-08:00

346) Night Train (1959) Dir: Jerzy Kawalerowicz Not Yet Released Date Seen: September 7, 2011 Rating: 4/5

Starts off comfortably generic and turns into something else entirely. Impressive. See my capsule review for the L Magazine.

344) 50/50 (2011) and 384) Tucker and Dale vs. Evil (2010)

2011-11-26T16:47:00.000-08:00

344) 50/50 (2011) Dir: Jonathan Levine Date Released: September 30, 2011 Date Seen: September 6, 2011 Rating: 2.25/5

384) Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil (2010) Dir: Eli Craig Date Released: September 30, 2011 Date Seen: September 26, 2011 Rating: 3/5

Blecch. And huh. See my reviews for Nomad Wide Screen.

The Kevin Smith Project

2011-11-26T16:39:00.000-08:00

RV!: Clerks (1994) Dir: Kevin Smith Date Released: October 19, 1994 Date Seen: September 4, 2011 Rating: 4/5

RV!: Mallrats (1995) Dir: Kevin Smith Date Released: October 20, 1995 Date Seen: September 5, 2011 Rating: 2.5/5

RV!: Dogma (1999) Dir: Kevin Smith Date Released: November 12, 199 Date Seen: September 5, 2011 Rating: 2.75/5

345) Jersey Girl (2004) Dir: Kevin Smith Date Released: March 26, 2004 Date Seen: September 6, 2011 Rating: 2/5

RV!: Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001) Dir: Kevin Smith Date Released: August 24, 2011 Date Seen: September 6, 2011 Rating: 3.5/5

RV!: Chasing Amy (1997) Dir: Kevin Smith Date Released: April 4, 1997 Date Seen: September 7, 2011 Rating: 4.25/5

RV!: Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008) Dir: Kevin Smith Date Released: October 31, 2008 Date Seen: September 8, 2011 Rating: 3.75/5

RV!: Clerks 2 (2006) Dir: Kevin Smith Date Released: July 21, 2006 Date Seen: September 10, 2011 Rating: 3/5

So I rewatched (or in the case of Jersey Girl, watched) all but one of Kevin Smith's films for this Ranked list I did for Nerve. The one I skipped was Cop Out. It was a time issue (I was flying out to Toronto the weekend I filed) plus I also felt I had seen Cop Out recently enough to judge it. Though I did have it on hand and I started to rewatch before I stopped. In any case, check out the list.

343) Metropolitan (1990)

2011-11-26T15:23:00.000-08:00

343) Metropolitan (1990) Dir: Whit Stillman Date Released: August 3, 1990 Date Seen: September 3, 2011 Rating: 4.25/5

Pretty fascinated by this film's ruminative sense of fatalism, not to mention Stillman's extraordinary knack for comic dialogue. I think I prefer Barcelona but that's mostly because I found the ending of Metropolitan to be...underwhelming? Can't really explain it well but I felt let down by an anticlimactic ending that I should have seen coming...but really didn't. Still, pretty great.

342) Shark Night 3D (2011)

2011-11-26T15:14:00.000-08:00

342) Shark Night 3D (2011) Dir: David R. Ellis Date Released: September 2, 2011 Date Seen: September 2, 2011 Rating: 2.5/5

It could have been a contender....

....

..........

Nah. See my review for Slant Magazine.

341) Warrior (2011) and 350) 3 (2010)

2011-11-25T14:59:00.000-08:00

341) Warrior (2011) Dir: Gavin O'Connor Date Released: September 9, 2011 Date Seen: August 31, 2011 Rating: 2.75/5

350) 3 (2010) Dir: Tom Tykwer Date Released: September 16, 2011 Date Seen: September 9, 2011 Rating: 3/5

I thin I felt obliged to like Warrior back then a lot more than I do now. Because while I think it's better than I expected, I just can't bring myself to give much of a crap now. 3 was at least flawed but striking. See my reviews of these films as well as my full-length reviews of Drive and my second review of Puncture for Nomad Wide Screen.

300) Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (2010) and 338) Love Crime (2010)

2011-11-25T14:32:00.000-08:00

300) Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (2010) Dir: Tory Nixey Date Released: August 26, 2011 Date Seen: July 28, 2011 Rating: 4/5

338) Love Crime (2010) Dir: Alain Corneau Date Released: September 2, 2011 Date Seen: August 28, 2011 Rating: 3.75/5

Not really sure how either of these films fell through the cracks in my viewing log. But...uh...see my reviews for Nomad Wide Screen!

340) Beginners (2010)

2011-11-25T13:54:00.000-08:00

340) Beginners (2010) Dir: Mike Mills Date Released: June 3, 2011 Date Seen: August 31, 2011 Rating: 4/5

I rather like the essayistic qualities of this film, specifically the way that photographs, video footage, books and memories create a history of willfully forgotten events. At present, I still prefer Thumbsucker but I think this is a pretty sharp and warm melodrama, one I'd love to rewatch before End of Year list time. I remember being impressed by it, especially Ewan MacGregor's performance and yeah, Christopher Plummer's, too. Melancholic and sweet and almost never overly sentimental.

RV!: Mad Max (1979), RV!: The Road Warrior (1981) and 339) Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)

2011-11-24T15:42:00.000-08:00

RV!: Mad Max (1979) Dir: George Miller Date Released: May 9, 1980 Date Seen: August 30, 2011 Rating: 4.25/5

RV!: The Road Warrior (1981) Dir: Dir: George Miller Date Released: May 21, 1982 Date Seen: August 30, 2011 Rating: 3.25/5

339) Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) Dir: George Miller Date Released: July 10, 1985 Date Seen: August 31, 2011 Rating: 2.75/5

The Mad Max trilogy, in review. See my piece for Capital New York.

RV!: Love Exposure (2008)

2011-11-24T15:35:00.000-08:00

RV!: Love Exposure (2008) Dir: Sion Sono Date Released: September 2, 2011 Date Seen: August 29, 2011 Rating: 4.25/5

So happy to see that this still holds up as Sono's very best film just ahead of Suicide Club. See my review for Slant Magazine.

339) Win Win (2011)

2011-11-24T15:30:00.000-08:00

339) Win Win (2011) Dir: Thomas McCarthy Date Released: March 18, 2011 Date Seen: August 28, 2011 Rating: 3/5

I seem to recall that this was mostly satisfying in a hokey way until Paul Giamatti's character basically gets off with a light scolding. Embezzling money, exploiting people, meh. Sorry? Not quite.

I did rather like the way McCarthy filmed the wrestling scenes though. Rather dynamic, if basic.

337) The Eagle (2011)

2011-11-24T15:24:00.000-08:00

337) The Eagle (2011) Dir: Kevin MacDonald Date Released: February 11, 2011 Date Seen: August 27, 2011 Rating: 3.25/5

Starts off rather well but after they escape from the Gauls, it loses a little too much steam. Still, the panoramic landscape shots are pretty enticing. It's a mostly entertaining, if blatantly homo-erotic, buddy film...set in Ancient Rome!? Yeah, um, ok!

336) Ruggles of Red Gap (1935)

2011-11-24T15:13:00.000-08:00

336) Ruggles of Red Gap (1935) Dir: Leo McCarey Date Released: March 8, 1935 Date Seen: August 27, 2011 Rating: 3.75/5

Lots of great gags and Charles Laughton does a spit take to die for. That having been said, it's a spit take that he leans on an awful lot throughout the film. Very funny though, especially during the lunch scene with the two cowboys.

335) Burke and Hare (2010)

2011-11-24T15:05:00.000-08:00

335) Burke and Hare (2010) Dir: John Landis Date Released: September 9, 2011 Date Seen: August 25, 2011 Rating: 2.75/5

The pacing of the comedy in this one was much too madcap for the Ealing-style that Landis is shooting for. Great cast though. I just wish the material they were given was better. See my interview with the tight-lipped Landis at Nomad Wide Screen.

RV!: The Orphanage (2007)

2011-11-21T21:06:00.000-08:00

RV!: The Orphanage (2007) Dir: J.A. Bayona Date Released: January 11, 2008 Date Seen: August 23, 2011 Rating: 4/5

Never as good as the first time, as Andrew Sarris once said about Lola Montes. But still pretty good. See my piece about what it means when Guillermo del Toro presents a film for Capital New York.

334) Intimidation (1960) and RV!: The Warped Ones (1960)

2011-11-21T21:01:00.000-08:00

334) Intimidation (1960) Dir: Koreyoshi Kurahara Date Released: ??? Date Seen: August 22, 2011 Rating: 3.75/5

RV!: The Warped Ones (1960) Dir: Koreyoshi Kurahara Date Released: XX 1963 Date Seen: August 22, 2011 Rating: 4.25/5

Fun! See my piece on Kurahara's films for Press Play.

333) Red State (2011)

2011-11-21T20:54:00.000-08:00

333) Red State (2011) Dir: Kevin Smith Date Released: March 5, 2011 Date Seen: August 21, 2011 Rating: 3/5

It had me going, in spite of some rough patches (Melissa Leo's performance, especially). See the short-short version of my interview with Smith for Vulture. And then read this ranked list I did for Nerve.

331) Fright Night (2011) and 332) Spy Kids: All the Time in the World (2011)

2011-11-21T20:41:00.000-08:00

331) Fright Night (2011) Dir: Craig Gillespie Date Released: August 19, 2011 Date Seen: August 20, 2011 Rating: 3/5

332) Spy Kids: All the Time in the World (2011) Dir: Robert Rodriguez Date Released: August 21, 2011 Rating: 2.25/5

Not really surprised, in either case, though I am pleased that Gillespie's remake is better than average. See my reviews for Nomad Wide Screen.

329) Conan the Barbarian (1982) and 330) Conan the Barbarian (2011)

2011-11-21T20:29:00.000-08:00

329) Conan the Barbarian (1928) Dir: Jon Milius Date Released: May 14, 1982 Date Seen: August 19, 2011 Rating: 2/5

330) Conan the Barbarian (2011) Dir: Marcus Nispel Date Released: August 19, 2011 Date Seen: August 19, 2011 Rating: 1.5/5

What do both of these films have in common? Beyond the fact that they don't really do much with their talented respective leading men? Uh...same name? See my piece for Capital New York.