|
SCREENING LOG
-4/19-4/25, 2004
Back to 2004 Index
Just once I want to shake myself out of auteurist thinking
before I become terminally entrapped by it. I will now attempt
to comment on the 14 films I saw last week without utilizing
any sort of auteurist perspective. Do not try this at home,
kids... I've also resumed the zetesmeter this week, giving
special mention to films that score in the top ten of their
respective IMDb year of release. Enjoy:
Shree 420 (1955, Raj Kapoor)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048613/
yes -- not quite as brilliant as AWARA (not that the
two films have anything to do with each other except that
they're Classic Bollywood musicals that happen to be directed
by Raj Kapoor) -- this one lacks the visual or narrative creativity
of AWARA as well as the urgency of its social agenda. Raj
re-assumes his Chaplin-inspired Vagabond, this time as a poor
college graduate who comes to the city to make his fortune,
only to betray his moral principles. There's no real subtext
evident to enrich the rags to riches cliches, but it's still
lively and fun to watch, with a few good digs at how the poor
are being exploited.
The Stranger (1946, Orson Welles)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038991/
YES (#5 for 1946 between IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE and
THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES) Oh shyit! How can I possibly
talk about this movie without bringing it to bear on one of
the most distinctive directorial visions ever? Great thriller
with an exceptional ending -- some of the narrative is hard
to swallow but it moves well enough with a zany, palpable
energy; its overall impact is indelible.
Memories of Underdevelopment (1968, Tomas Gutierrez Alea)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063291/
YES YES (#2 for 1968 between THE COLOR OF POMEGRANATES
and ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST) Arguably the best film I've
seen from Latin America (not that I've seen all that many),
an incredibly multi-faceted and perceptive study of a man
caught in the spiritual vacuum of the lapping tides of history.
Some might deride this film for deriving its techniques from
European New Wave, but that's way too simplistic; the use
of found footage and agile editing take on a whole new weight
and substance when dealing passionately with the Cuban Revolution.
This is a History of New York (1987, Jem Cohen)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0230873/
yes -- A clever short film in which the history of
Earth (The Stone Age, The Medieval Age, The Industrial Revolution,
The Space Age, etc.) are represented respectively by black
and white footage shot around New York City, creating evocative
visual metaphors. For example, placing the title "The Jurassic
Period" in front of bulldozers crawling over a construction
site makes one think of dinosaurs. The whole film plays with
these associations through montage, suggesting the many, many
alternative narratives that are available through the combination
of imagination and real life images.
Bullitt (1968, Peter Yates) second viewing
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062765/
mixed I only watched this because it takes place in
my beloved San Francisco -- but the only sequence that takes
advantage of the location is that famous car chase. I'm glad
to say that the chase still holds up by today's standards,
but the rest of the movie is a big fat that only in the last
act decides it's got to be about some pressing issue like
police ethics. So: no for the story, NO for the plodding direction,
yes for the chase (and Jacqueline Bissett in a miniskirt,
but they could have done even more in this department), mixed
overall.
Planet of the Apes (1968, Franklin J. Schaffner)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063442/
yes -- almost unbearable at the start, and when Heston
sneers and spouts his atheistic conceits at his fellow crew
you know he's going to be in for a come-uppance, as only a
terminal ironist like Rod Serling can provide. This really
is a TWILIGHT ZONE episode stretched to quadruple its natural
length, but with the apes and Linda Harrison it's too much
fun to get down on, and by the end it proves not to be as
one-sided about its pro-science, anti-religion message as
it had seemed all along, though ultimately it seems reactionary
and nihilistic. On the other hand, there's nothing nihilistic
about Harrison! Yowsa! Stop crying, Charlie, and get busy
starting over the human race, baby!
Rosemary's Baby (1968, Roman Polanski) second viewing
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063522/
yes -- in many respects a perfect film, with even
a spark of lively interactions that I haven't seen in other
films that on terms I cannot discuss could be related to this
one (oooh, I hate this self-imposed non-auteurist restriction!).
I credit that spark to a great screenplay and a great ensemble
of New York-based American actors -- kudos across the board.
This time both Mia Farrow and John Cassavetes really stood
out for me -- while Farrow's performance is easy to applaud,
Cassavetes has what I think is the harder part of being affable
yet creepy; his character itself is fascinating because as
an actor, he has to perform his most challenging role to date
in deceiving and manipulating his wife for a nine month period.
And yet in spite of all this brilliance the ending left me
with a really bad taste in my mouth. If the film is meant
to be an allegory of the helplessness and surreal experience
of pregnancy, then that's really fascinating, but I just find
something about the ending that repulses me, something cold
and bleak and misogynistically fatalistic... though I wonder
if I'd feel the same if it was a woman behind it. (#10 for
1968 between FACES and TEOREMA)
Showgirls (1995, Paul Verhoeven)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114436/
yes (#6 for 1995 between BABE and FALLEN ANGELS) What
can I say -- for better or worse, this is the FRENCH CANCAN
of our time.
Porn Star: The Life of Ron Jeremy (2001, Scott J. Gill)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0282856/
mixed (perfunctory documentary with some good tidbits
on how this fat ugly slob became the biggest pornstud in the
business, no pun intended) Lord of the G-Strings: The Femaleship
of the String (2002, Terry West) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0323108/
no (as parody it sucks (couldn't they have come up with something
better than Dildo Saggins or Araporn X-ley? , as porn it's
worse -- new rule: they should never have CGI in porn movies)
Thank you Antonious Block for sending me
A Day in the Country (1936, Jean Renoir)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028445/
YES YES (#1 for 1936) even at 45 minutes, it's a masterpiece
of tone and performance, starting off with light caricature
but ending light years beyond it, as a meditation of one brief
moment in time, in stunning physical and visual detail, and
its lifelong consequences. Thank you howard.schumann for sending
me
Lamerica (1994, Gianni Amellio)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110299/
yes -- An effective contemporary return to the classic
tenets of Italian neorealism, charting the complicated relationship
between Italy and post-communist Albania, as embodied in a
young, naive Italian employee for a fly-by-night Italian venture
capitalist looking for a fast buck in Albania, who enlists
a bedazed, elderly ex-prisoner as the figurehead executive
of the bogus company they've set up; there's a lot going on
here, sometimes so much that the narrative resorts to expository
dialogue that burdens the film, yet the moments where the
film isn't lecturing and lets the images and sounds (and it
really has a rich, evocative soundtrack, reminiscent of Visconti's
LA TERRA TREMA) do the work, it really captures the sense
of being in the midst of the tumult of this time and place.
Thank you kerpan for sending me
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002, Chan-woo Park)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0310775/
YES (#6 for 2002 between TEN and 25TH HOUR)
As fine a film as MYSTIC RIVER is, this one, which came
out a year before but hardly anyone outside of Seoul has heard
of, makes it seem derivative. A deaf mute who wears green
hair and tends to his sister, in dying need of a kidney transplant,
enlists the help of the black market, only to set off a string
of incredible events with devastating results for all involved.
Brilliant, intensely watchable, visually stunning, emotionally
brutal, masterful, with an eerie sense of inner peace and
a earnest focus on personal vengeance and cosmic justice --
it actually bothers me as much as the ending of ROSEMARY'S
BABY but I'm far more compelled to engage with it. Featuring
one scene of excruciating torture and half a dozen gruesome
deaths, this is not for the squeamish, but it is as bold and
fresh as contemporary cinema gets.
Drift (2000, Quentin Lee)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0245877/
yes -- wherever that list of 100 LGBT films is, this
title belongs there.
Back to 2004 Index
|
