Greetings from Movie City...

REVIEW: Epstein reviews Walcott

2012-03-02T16:17:00.011-08:00

Joseph Epstein sizes up James Wolcott's new memoir, "Lucking Out," and calculates that it has one good sentence for every two or three "clotted ones." On Wolcott's prose: "More flair then precision," Epstein says in a fit of critical oniminipea; "overwrought," "larded with sexual metaphors, similes, and allusions"... which is a little like complaining your BLT is larded with bacon.

The thing music critics have over the literary set is that no one knows if they can't whistle or tap their own heartbeat on the table; when writing about writing, particularly in regards to style and humor, the lard's in the biscuit, as old Ma NickChuck used to say.

Below are a selection of sentences, five of Epstein's best and five Epstein identifies as Wolcott's worst. You decide who should be criticizing whom.

A) In the hierarchy of arts criticism, that of rock ranks just a notch above the criticism of marbles.
B) Such prose is beyond mere editing; it requires Drano.
C) “the gold medallions and furry testicles of disco descended."
D) “A date movie for the damned, Looking for Mr. Goodbar looked as if it had been coated from floor to ceiling with contraceptive jelly.”
E) “Niche journalism hadn’t yet whittled too many writers into specialty artists, dildos for rent.”
F) "Being facile is harder than it looks"
G) "Perhaps, like the Spanish Inquisition, or the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906, you had to be there.
H) She sniffed, then snuffed out, pretension, of which in the making of movies there is never a short supply.
I) "When I flick back at the book reviews I did in the seventies, I sometimes wince at the nasty incisions I inflicted on writers when I crossed the line between cutup and cutthroat (I won’t quote examples—no need to re-inflict wounds)."
J) Punk rock is, I suppose, an acquired taste, like that for arsenic.

If you're having trouble, allow me to isolate a strain of the deadly Epstein wit, so you may compare.... Early in the piece, Epstein dismisses rock criticism (Wolcott's early vocation) with the following epigram: "Rock music, like sex, doesn’t really require being written about." (We are not to the witty part, yet) Epstein uses this thin pretense--the mention of rock criticism--to launch into the following anecdote:

An early critic of rock, my friend the late Albert Goldman, who wrote iconoclastic biographies of Elvis Presley and John Lennon, many years ago sent me an essay he wrote on The Doors—“Come on, baby, light my fire” and all that—which caused me to buy the group’s most recent album. When I told him I had done so, he asked me what I thought of The Doors. “Al,” I replied, “they should have sung your essay.”

Epstein is evidently very proud of the bon mot at the end.... Not only does has he held onto this chestnut for fifty-odd years, but he brings it out even when it contradict his own axiom: doesn't his zinger seems to suggest that Goldman's piece transcended the subject of Rock? According to him, doesn't "Light My Fire" require Goldman's piece to be of any value at all... So this, we see, is the pinnacle for Epstein... about a five on the Vidal scale... and yet still, I wager, thrust upon a half century's worth of guests at the Epstein house.

QUIZ RESULTS:
Epstein - ABGHJ; Walcott--CDEFI

We can see Epstein's M.O. in examples A, B, G and J: pick your punchline word out of a hat (or hats, one punchline per)... so long as the word is adequately funny (arsenic, dandruff, enema, toe jam, root canal). It's a technique that lacks (precisely) the precision Epstein sucks up like so much marrow. I selected Sentence H as a ruse. I can't recall a sentence of which in terms of "sloppy phrasing" one could say less.

Critique if you will, Mr. Epstein, Mr. Wolcott's "with-it-ness" and analytical shortcomings. For all I know, you are the most analytical and "with" guy in town; but for your own sake, stay away from the man's sentences... my favorite is (by the way) the bit about the descending disco testicles. Epstein response in the article was: "Get that metaphor to the urologist!" I can see him now, hosting some far away literary gathering, slugging back the last of his drink and gafawing: "so then Walcott asked me what I thought about his disco line. 'James,' I said, 'you better get THAT metaphor to a urologist!"

Movie City Puzzler of the Day, Volume #1

2012-03-01T18:19:00.000-08:00

We'll start out with an easy one. I am looking for two, two word phrases that mean the same thing. The first words in each phrase are synonyms, and the last words in each phrase are homophonic synonyms, meaning they are synonyms by sound only (ex. "duo" and "pear"). Each phrase has a total of 8 letters. The second word in one of the phrases is a barn yard animal. First right answer gets my dog.

The Woman in Black (2012)

2012-02-29T18:00:00.001-08:00

When you go in a haunted house at, say, the fair, you make certain adjustments to you expectations for decorum. Going into an any normal house, you would consider it rude or silly for your hosts to keep a spring-loaded crone in the closet to launch at you and a bit sloppy not to sweep up the cobwebs. But in a haunted house, it's all part of the deal: you don't question the logic of it. That's a good thing for The Woman in Black because not a lot of it makes any sense. But it delivers some jumps (though diminishing jumps), and that's why you buy the ticket.

Danielle Radcliffe is Arthur Kipps, widowed 18th century solicitor.... though I'm sure he thinks of himself only as "widowed solicitor," because no one really thinks about their place in the centuries besides Newt Gingrich (who probably introduces himself as "turn of the century politician.") As I say, Kipps was widowed and none to happy about it. He has a kid and job which he grips tenuously (the job). He's assigned to go settle a country estate--a haunted one, it seems. Why does this film take place in Victorian England? My guess: so that the characters have an excuse to behave in a stilted, eccentric manner.... a way that just doesn't fly these days except for on the English countryside... and no place more than the 18th century English countryside.

While the villagers act stilted and strange (besides the lively Ciarán Hinds), our hero Kipps acts frail, but determined, and our ghost acts like a bit of a bitch. Besides dragging a black dress around, she enjoys popping up at the corner of the screen whenever the music swells and turning ominously toward the camera. The problem is she doesn't do much else besides acting creepy, and even then, for our benefit. She never quite establishes any serious menace towards the man in the room... unless you're the type that can't stand it when the music suddenly swells... which I am.

REVIEW: NYT Reviews Act of Valor (2012)

2012-02-26T11:30:00.003-08:00

From Jeannette Catsoulis in the New York Times:

Unsurprisingly, the finished product plays like a pumped-up recruitment commercial deemed fit for feature length and multiplex viewing. On land or under water, in San Diego or the Philippines or Mexico, members of the SEAL unit dodge explosions and dog terrorists in impressive action sequences they constructed themselves. But this archipelago of maneuvers, however jaw-dropping, never coheres into a real movie.

I guess it shouldn't make me laugh, but it does raise the question: are the terrorists whom the Marines dodge dogs themselves, or do they merely terrorize the dogs? Are we in Dr. Moreau territory here, or are we dealing with they type of villain who holds a cup of water over his schnauzer's head just to make it nervous?

On the run with Kingers...

2012-02-26T10:25:00.005-08:00

I was doing well until the girl I was talking to at the bar got kicked out for brawling. That was around 1 AM. When I woke up alone the next morning, I felt great... which is the first bad sign. Time is of the essence. As the old pro, Kingsley Amis, once wrote: "...if you do not feel bloody awful after a hefty night then you are still drunk, and must sober up in a waking state before hangover dawns."

Not necessarily, Kingers. As with influenza, medical science has long given up in its battle against the common hangover, but it is certainly possible to outrun one... to put the hangover off, that is, in your waking state so that the brunt of its force is bore by a future (and hopefully sleeping) iteration of your being. But then, of course, this is more art than science.

Most slobs, when confronted with conscious suffering, will recite the half-axiom,"hair of the dog," and then take a beer from your fridge or (more desperately) pilgrim over to the bar for a more complicated drink. This is the coward's way out... one that mistakes surrender for victory and cedes too much territory in the process. The game here is to salvage as many useful hours as possible, not replace useless with more useless.

Your first move during the hangover pre-dawn is to eat a dill pickle--any brand, preferably quartered (a whole one leads to nausea). This replenishes the system with essential salts and buys you valuable planning time. If you have any multivitamins or vitamin B supplements, now is the time to eat them. This wont help you any time soon but is a vital component to your "long game." If you have Ibuprofen, take two with plenty of water. By now, your eyes have uncrossed; read the drug's "Instructions for Use" carefully.... the alcohol warning will fortify your will against the "hand steadier" which inevitably tempts.

The drugs should take about half an hour to kick in. This is also the approximate capacity of a typical water heater: exhaust it with a shower. Finish with a blast of cold water to trick your endocrine system into releasing a nice mix of dopamine and adrenaline. Next you'll want to acquire a fairly substantial dose of caffeine. If you were smoking last night (a fact that is almost guaranteed by your present condition) start out with tea... it will do wonders for your throat... then move on to coffee.

During this period, you'll also want to engage in some mild exercise to maintain the illusion of normalcy among your internals. I recommend a bike ride. If there is a coffee shop nearby, pedal lightly to it... order a cup, drink it, pedal back. If you put the water on before you leave, you can have hot tea waiting for when you return. Continue this routine (tea, bike, coffee, bike) for about four hours or until the Ibuprofen wears off. This should be about the time you begin to feel the invigorating effects of the multivitamin take hold. Coincidentally, this is also about when, medically and socially speaking, it is acceptable for you and your liver to drink again. Go meet some girls at the bar and drink responsibly until it's time for bed. Enjoy.

Izzy Hopp

2012-02-23T18:57:00.001-08:00

Today was a non-happening. I try to recall remarkable events, but cannot... so I steal from public radio... quite literally, since I never pledge. Today's story is from a station in Prudoh Bay, Alaska... I can't recall the program... A local businessman there put a great-white-north twist on a more cosmopolitan business model... the bring-your-own-wine painting classes so popular among the smart set these days. His company is called "Sip n 'Poon," as in sip and harpoon... it's a combination wine tasting and whaling class where he teaches his customers the ancient Inuit technique "from spear to barrel." The proprietor's name is Issumatar ("call me Issumatar," he playfully introduces himself), and he is a character as singular as Ahab... Like his New England counterpart, Issumatar has only one natural leg and wears an old-style wooden peg where the other should be. Although Issumatar lost his to a blue Chevy and not some pale leviathan, one suspects that had he not Issumatar would have performed the amputation himself just to invite the comparison. "Lost it when I was six," he explains, "and it was the best thing that ever happened to my mother. Whenever she had chores to do or couldn't pay me full attention, off popped the leg. She'd put it on top of the kitchen cabinet where I couldn't reach. I'd never hop too far."

JFK-Special Edition Director's Cut

2012-02-22T16:23:00.000-08:00

On Monday I watch the new Special Edition Director's Cut of JFK, not because it's president's day, but because sometimes I like other people to think for me.... so I strap myself into Oliver Stone's brain pan for a bit. The same thing happens every time I watch this film: I go along for a while marveling at Stone's presentation of what is, essentially, a day's worth of expository dialogue. The spell wears off sometime between the appearance Donald Sutherland's Mr. X and Costner's impassioned closing argument... in which he comes off as a cross between Mr. Smith who went to Washington and Wild Man Fischer.

Then I turn it off and go to sleep until about 3 in the morning when the strangest thing happens and I'm sure spooks are coming to get me and inject cancer in my forehead. Then morning comes and I go to work where I nearly get fired for spending my entire day trolling JFK assassination forums... then my wife leaves me and I start arguing with my co-workers, and Harry Connick, Sr., takes my parking space.... Sure Oliver Stones twists facts like he's using them to seal his produce. Should I be mad that some people will be dumb enough to believe it's the truth, or grateful that it's there for me to enjoy when I want to think like a stone for an hour or three?

What, me killer?

Safe House (2012)

2012-02-19T14:11:00.000-08:00

Tears on the mausoleum floor / blood-stains on the coliseums doors...

Besides that I've never seen no doors on no coliseums (I believe vomitorium is the word, architecturally speaking), the JayZ rap that accompanies the Safe House preview is undeniably effective.... it got me straight to the theater. The James Island 8 is my preferred movie house... cheap tickets, short lines, and two handicapped seats in every theater so I can stretch my ample, functioning legs. This showing was more crowded than my usual JI8 experience. I attribute Kanye's song and Denzel's immense appeal. An elderly African American couple staggers in, and I kindly offer up my seat in exchange for a promise that they wont yell at the screen. They discuss for a moment, then agree. ESPN has me all fired up for some casual racism... They cleverly ran the headline, "Chink in the Armor?" after Jeremy Lin's first bad game as a New York Knick. I was grossly offended... ESPN's been running brutal, punny headlines on Mr. Lin's name for two-weeks... finally one makes me laugh and they issue an apology ("We so solly," the ill-advised document began....) Too bad for Lin, though... now he'll have to spend three weeks answering questions about the fracas (probably from ESPN reporters)... But at least the puns should stop....

Denzel is rogue ex-CIA man Tobin Frost. He's a smooth and clever personage.... the one who "literally re-wrote the book on interrogation." So equipped with psychological weaponry is Frost that when he turns himself into the South African consulate, Langley sends a special squad of extraction soldiers to the Safe House where he's held. A more accurate title for the film would be simply 'House' (licensing fee to FOX be damned) because it turns out the structure is not safe at all...and the soldiers, not so special. A team of mercenaries knock it over in what seems like two minutes. Fortunately, for the sake of the film, Frost and rookie 'House-guard, Matt Weston (Ryan Reynolds) manage to flee the scene with aplomb. Weston spends the rest of the film chasing or guarding Frost, the mercenaries chasing both of them, and the CIA tracking all of the above. Between rooftop chases and gunfights, Denzel schools yet another up-and-coming Hollywood jawline in the ways of the Game. I'd rank Reynolds just behind Hawke, but ahead of Pine... if only because this one's better than Unstoppable. Daniel Espinosa directs it in a frantic, if not Greengrassian, style... this is a compliment. Espinosa seems to have genuine distaste for the chosen profession of his to main men. This lends a sort of brutality to the proceedings and kept this viewer pleasantly off balance... it's interesting to see the green Weston screw up in ways that have consequences and are not merely cute. All in all, I'd say my only complaint is that after all the build up about how brilliant our man Frost is, we find his main modus operandi is sniping heads and twistin' necks.... though I will say, he does it cooler than most.

Today in thoughts....

2012-02-15T19:10:00.000-08:00

Pensacola man, Tom Holloway, had an electric cigarette blow up in his mouth... goes to show you mere technology cannot stop a good sight gag.... The explosion knocked out two of his teeth. They wound up lodged in the ceiling over his bed. He's lucky it wasn't an electric cigar. That's how the CIA tried to get Castro, I'm told. Was the goal to kill him or humiliate him to the point where no one would listen to him.... what with his beard all singed and splayed? Castro found out about it, though, and had Gerald Ford's shoelaces tied together... that was the end of him. "Did you get my teeth?" Holloway kept asking the paramedics. "You've got to put them in a cup with ice!"... which is another good trick at parties.

Valentine's Day 2012

2012-02-14T16:01:00.002-08:00

A rather macabre valentine's day in the holy city. A Mt. Pleasant woman has disappeared and her boyfriend was seen leaving the forest with a shovel. Later he shot himself in the head. The thing is, they found him on the bed, and the gun in the bathroom... which led to robust debate in the cubicles. We discussed preferred methodology--jumpers and pills won out. Old Andrews let forth the following: "A cousin of mine got it in his mind to commit suicide. He wasn't off too bad, but got used to a higher standard of living. He had a bad run of it for a while... a baby born with brain cancer.... So at the work yard we had this garage, and he shut himself in, you know, to asphyxiate himself.... but the damn car runs out of gas! So he get's out this pistol. And he hears the train coming through. So he thinks about maybe running a couple blocks and jumping out on the tracks.... But he goes on and shoots himself in the head three times. They find him the next day, still bleeding. It was his daddy's pistol and the damn powder didn't go all the way off... Needed a hell of a lot of surgery to fix him up. Had a bullet in his sinus, had one come out his throat. He wife almost divorced him over it"..... Strangely, Old Andrews voted for gun.

That's a good scene...

2012-02-13T19:37:00.000-08:00

My brain feels like its been wrapped in gauze all day and then shipped to Korea and back. There was beer and wine last night, but not enough for this. I blame Kim Ji-Woon's The Good, The Bad, the Weird. It was an exhausting movie in every good way.... something like Sergio Leone turned up to 78 RPM. There was barely a spare moment for me to replenish my drink and relieve myself.... though I did find time enough to do each, six or seven times. Because I am in no condition to review the thing, I will relate to you a dirty joke it made me think of.... In the movie, the Weird-man of the title reaches between the legs of a dead hooker (doesn't it seem all jokes start that way.) He feels around for a moment, smiles a dirty Eli Wallach smile, then pulls out a thick roll of bills. Anyway, here's the joke told by another great visual wit (besides Leone and--it's fair to say--Mr. Ji-Woon). The AH stands for none other than Alfred Hitchcock. See if you can guess who AW is (another filmmaker) by his simpering tone... which seems to register even in print.

Holy City Rollers

2012-02-12T17:04:00.000-08:00

Today was Second Sunday in Charleston, as in the second Sunday of the month. It’s when the city shuts down all the vehicular traffic on King Street to encourage traffic of a pedestrial variety. I see two of our more citizens took the opportunity to stage a sort of mobile passion play.... which I appear to have captured at the exact moment of rapture.

It brings to mind many questions, namely what kind of wood is his cross made out of and did it come with the wheels or is it a custom job? A perfect feature for the busy proselytizer, the proselytizer who's on the go... The man who wants to suffer, but not that much. As for the goose stepping woman: her sign starts off folksy enough but feels a little pretentious with the Hebrew.

Hell Night (1981)

2012-02-10T16:17:00.000-08:00

Final Girl finally did it.... she made me watch Hell Night. It's for her wonderful film club.... a club in which it's my yearly tradition to forget to participate... It’s the yearly tradition for Alpha Sigma Ro pledges to spend the night in old Garth Manor… where twelve years ago Raymond Garth murdered his wife and most of his kids, then hung himself. It follows, then, that it's also tradition for Alpha Sigma Ro pledges to have a very high fatality rate..... an odd system for building a legacy. MC'ing the terror is Alpha Ro upperclassman (he must have transferred in) Peter Burnett. Just in case the twelve year old legend of Garth fails to scare the latest pre-cadavers, Peter wires the house with scare effects to do the job, proper....

This year’s crop consists of a British sex-and-drug bomb named Denise, a surfer horn dog named Seth, Linda Blaire (as Marti), and the appropriately named Jeff--who's about as charismatic as an under-card wrestling patsy.The couples pair off as you suspect they would. Seth and Denise take their kinkiness upstairs while Marti and Jeff engage in some puritan style oral sex (which is just talking) by the fireplace. Outside the mansion, Peter and his accomplices play their tricks… until somebody plays a trick on Peter and kills his accomplaces.

Uncle Boonmee?

Eventually, makes his inside and stalks our four pledglings according to that age old horror movie imperative which demands the boring survive. It's a shame because the most engaging performances belong to the sinners. One could imagine Vincent Van Patten (Seth) in a different, more fair, universe, where the chips fell a little differently for Vince, splitting his time between saving Haiti and finalizing his divorce from Robin Wright Van Patten. As for the hot chick: her British accent adds just enough dignity to the ditzy blonde routine so that she can deliver the requisite groaners with a modicum of credibility.

With whom would you rather party?

Hitchcock defined Surprise as a bomb exploding and Suspense as a bomb not exploding (but we know it’s there). Most of Hell Night's action favors the former, usually in the form of two muscular, rutty arms darting into frame. Director Tom DeSimone does rise to the occasion occasionally, though; especially towards the end, when the pace and skill pick up noticeably.

Suspense....

Surprise!

The one scene Mr. DeSimone adheres most closely to the Master's advice is also the picture's most successful... Not to put to mathematical a figure on it, but we have here: the heroine, seen from a high distant angle establishing her smallness and vulnerability in all that space; there's slow burning tension of a long take, un-dissipated by edits; and the rifle, her objective, placed in the what amounts to a spotlight, making clear the exposure she risks by venturing forth... and then of course, climaxing with the difinitive DeSimone touch.... more arms!

ARMS!

In preparation...

2012-02-08T17:01:00.000-08:00

The older Andrews told me I looked grumpy at work today…. I denied it. He said, “maybe it’s just the way yo' face is fallin.” I probably did seem grumpy compared to Babs Monts, who is always especially cheery the mornings following her church’s night service (as near as I can tell: Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays.) It acts on her like a reverse hangover, which today peaked at 10 AM (around the time my face fell), when she yelled without warning: “Animals aint got no souls! That’s the Word talkin’ to YA!” Then she convulsed in a fit of what Jean Shepard would call "unconscionable laughter" which lasted a quarter hour… But all is well, now. I have Hell Night to watch on assignment of Final Girl and a case of beer in the fridge should I feel the need to anesthetize myself. Like the James Bond of film geek, I know that every picture has it’s correct match in booze. Never underestimate the importance of proper paring, and never drink red chianti with sole… it could get you killed. Tonight, for Hell Night: PBR mixed with orange juice, extra pulp.

36th Precinct (2004)

2012-02-07T18:24:00.000-08:00

My custom is to give blood, then reward myself with steak and wine. The steak is for the iron... the wine to fill the void. Then I dial up a movie with subtitles and see how long I last. The buzz is outstanding. A feeling of total health: mind, body, and soul. Then I pass out. The next day…. tremendous.

36th Precinct/36 Quai des Orfèvres was the latest such feature. It’s a French good cop/bad cop thriller starring Gérard Depardieu and Daniel Auteuil. Vrinks (Auteuil) has the permanent look of an abandoned puppy. So he is the noble one. Vrinks is up for promotion against the ambitious, reckless loner Klein… embodied by Depardieu's odd geometry (I am convinced he absorbed his would-be twin as an embryo). The choice would seem simple, but Klein’s found some dirt on our man… For a while I thought this film was preparing for the old switch-a-roo.. revealing Vrinks to be a bit of a fiend and transferring our sympathies to the bulbous one. But writer-director Olivier Marchel takes another route, altogether…. punishing righteous Vrinks like his own personal Job, while twisting Klein’s ambition until he makes Salieri seem like a rather content fellow. I wont say whether it ends any better for Vrinks than it does for Job, but the conclusion is rather biblical in its neatness… which was disappointing. I enjoyed the ride for the portion that was off the rails.

Attack the Block

2012-02-06T17:34:00.000-08:00

It’s Superbowl Sunday and beautiful here in Charleston… but only Superbowl Sunday everywhere else. I was scheduled to play touch football this morning, but I overslept due to my lately absurd appetite for midnight double features. Last night was Attack the Block and the first half of Torn Curtain.

Attack the Block has a group of British, teenage hoodlums defending their apartment project (“block") from a herd of bright-fanged aliens. We are introduced to the aliens when it interrupts our heros mugging a young nurse by crash landing in a car. There’s been much pointless talk recently about whether we can (or should) be sympathetic to a film whose protagonists do this kind of thing (mugging). A San Francisco writer named Mick LaSalle is outraged he would be expected to root for these miscreants (against aliens). NPR’s Glen Weldon is outraged that LaSalle would miss the “central moral ambiguity” so vital to a true appreciation of the film.

So the kids paint on a few walls and occasionally mug a bitch. Not commendable behavior, but certainly fun. As an moral obstacle, it is really nothing, so I think old Glen might be showing off his sensitivity a bit. Mr. LaSalle is outright insane. We've seen the anti-hero vs. Greater Evil trick before, it's nothing to spill one's rice-a-roni over; nor does it require an enlightened aesthetic ninja like Weldon to come to its defense. We're not talking Céline, here.... more like John Carpenter.

The Block by Basement Jaxx on Grooveshark

Assault On precinct 13 : Main Title by John Carpenter on Grooveshark

It's creatures that provide the real obstacle to the film getting over. Cornish breaks a few monster movie bi-laws: he shows them early and furry--they look like monkeys at glow-bowl. Also, they are quite fragile.

The Bank Job (2008)

2012-01-31T17:24:00.000-08:00

The Bank Job isn’t your Grandpa’s tunnel movie… that was The Great Escape; nor is it your German cousin’s (Der Tunnel?)... So that means The Bank Job is yours, and be grateful... The year is 1971. Princess Margaret has been gone down upon by two men at once (double down?) and the nefarious Michael X has pictures. Rather than keeping the Mag-pie shots on top of his toilet, Mike X (who was ambidextrous) uses them to stay out of jail. Don’t you know MI5 doesn’t go in for such hi-jinks, old chap?

Terry Leather (Jason Statham) has an autoshop, a family, a gambling debt, and a charismatic dome. The beautiful Martine Love has a plan. She has it through her friend that a certain bank’s floor sensors are on the fritz and oh-wouldn’t-it-be-fun to rob the place. Well, turns out the royal quim is forever preserved on film in one of the safety deposit boxes, and I don’t have to tell you who Martine’s friend is employed by...

Green Zone

2012-01-27T19:35:00.000-08:00

I did not remember watching Green Zone till half an hour in… when I saw Brendan Gleeson and remembered… ah, yes, the movie he doesn’t die in. It all snapped back to me.

Green Zone exhausts the lazy viewer. Here I am settled in for a nice sit, and everyone on screen walks… and talks... or runs and yells… or limps and stutters. Sometimes they sit in stony silence.

Often they walk, talk, and stutter into a cell phone at someone else walking through a different part of the movie. It gives us a chance to see lots of different sets, but also it makes everyone seem extremely busy… as they certainly must be. It’s hard work rebuilding Iraq… or any country!

There are two types of people in the Green Zone: those who want to rebuild a functioning Iraq and those who, for their own (very private) nefarious reasons, don’t. You can guess from the cast list who does, and Greg Kinnear doesn’t. The good ones walk and talk with purpose, and the others slither and lisp. It’s a pretty clear line…. which gives the film a bad case of know-it-all-itis. And nobody likes a Monday Morning Imperialist.

As for the action scenes Greengrass uses his trademark PalsyCam to great effect. The effect is nausea. PalsyCam is a great tool for directors for whom creativity “isn’t their thing.” It lends any mediocre scene or shot instant vitality. Shake your laptop while reading that last four paragraphs and see what I mean.

Playing with ourselves (The Game)

2012-01-27T19:20:00.000-08:00

It’s Total Recall mixed with Charles Dickens… is how the pitch went when the Game was sold….by the anxious screenwriter to the Hollywood producer… he’s dressed like Brando in Dr. Moreau… a white dashiki with a half assistant/half koahla drinking eucalyptus tea and saying YES.. YES… BUY!

Michael Douglas is Ebineezer, your lonely (but he doesn’t know it) corporate man. Sean Penn is his brother, Bob Cratchet… The Ghost of Jacob Marley is a company that specializes in putting rich men through their own custom wringer, known as the Game. But is the Game ONLY a game? Who knows.

Roman Polanski: A Shallow Dissection

2011-03-29T15:54:00.000-07:00

In Polanski World, if you've lost your shoe, you're dead or dying, and empty shoes portend dead feet. The be-socked, dead foot above belongs to Chinatown's Hollis Mulwray; the mortally wounded Michelle (Emmanuelle Seigner, Frantic) has one just like it. In Ghost Writer, Ewan McGregor understands he's sleeping in the bed of a real ghost (his dead predecessor's) when he finds empty slippers beneath it.

Jake Gettes lurches toward Chinatown... to be born? Not quite, though it does seem Polanski has dropped his detective down one of Yeats' nutty gyres, dooming him to repeat history. Or maybe Polanski mistakes himself for a French author of Nouveau Romain, locking his detective in a time-vacuum for art's sake and laughing madly from it.

At the very least, he's proved the miserable Marx wrong once again: tragedy repeats itself as tragedy, not farce. And noir repeats itself as noir. The world is a dark place, full of moral shadows... even when you shoot it in color during a perpetual noon (no shadows) in L.A.

Blood and Roses (1960)

2011-03-24T17:44:00.000-07:00

(on special assignment by Final Girl and her tremendous site.)

Annette Strøyberg keeps two Hope Diamonds where her eyes should be… big, blue, clear and cursed. It’s a good trick for playing a vampire, and they should teach it in acting class.

As I said, Annette has two Hope Diamonds for eyes, but she has two of other parts as well…. notably (but not MOST notably), personalities.

Annette plays Carmilla Karnstein, of the swingin’ Austrian Karnsteins: she who looks so much like that portrait of Millarca, the ancient vampire Karnstein aunt. And wouldn’t you know it? She walks, talks, thinks, and bites like Millarca, too.
What an identity crisis to befall a dreamy, modern maiden like Carmilla, already beset by crises! Carmilla has enough trouble lusting after her cousin Leopaldo (played by Mel Ferrer with the lisping nonchalance of a Carradine boy) without thinking she's Millarca... and so close to his wedding day! What's worse, it turns out her spiritual tenant is bi-sexual at the minimum. Lucky for her Leopaldo’s fiancée Georgia (Elsa Martinelli) is present with her beautiful swan appendage desperate to be bit.

I say Carmilla talks like Millarca, but, of course, I'm only guessing. I've learned from cruel experience that a body displaced from the Austrian countryside for even 400 years may retain its accent and become governor; so who's to say what Millarca sounds like? Not Roger Vadim (le Autuer). He refuses to tip his hat one way or the other regarding Carmilla's status, possesion-wise: she may be possessed by a vampire, she may be vampire batshit crazy; she may chew on the help like a pro goul, but she will not be seen sprouting fangs.

the help.

So Vadim, like Honest Abe himself, keeps an even brim on his cap; but (I correct myself) it isn't for lack of tipping: it's by tipping both ways simultaneously. Every artful shot in the picture tips toward vampire, but Vadim sprinkles in just enough contemporary pepper (jazzy music, modernspeak of "bitchiness" and other psychology) to sneaze us back to reality. The vampire business is too much fun, though, and in the end, any right thinking audience member wants to will Carmilla into ranks of the undead, evidence be damned. Hell, I'm still holding out that Leopaldo is a crypto-Nosferatian, what with his sonatas and his dark suits.

The Karnsteins would like to have you over for dinner...

Ring the Alarm (Another Sound Is Dying)

2011-03-12T12:59:00.000-08:00

    Sounds go extinct when technology replaces them with no sound. I know what a dot matrix printer sounds like (the sound of paper screaming), though I haven’t heard one in fifteen years. Children are entering Driver’s Ed every day haveing never heard one--they sleep to the serene hum of laser printers.
    Forty-some years ago, Harry Nilsson wrote "One" while listening to the busy signal on his phone. If you remember what a busy signal sounds like then the resemblence is obvious--though you might not have realized until Harry copped to it.
    So were these chords born melancholy? Or were they nurtured into melancholia by 50 million unanswered phone calls?

Train whistles haven't died off yet, but I imagine their x-rays aint too pretty. Here's a guy named Sam Stephenson on Thelonious Monk and trains:

Rocky Mount was a thriving city in 1917, when Monk was born. An intense tobacco culture flourished, and the rail yard was one of the largest in the entire South. Stephenson speculates those railways may have inspired Monk's composition "Little Rootie Tootie," which features explicit train whistle sounds.
"He was almost five years old when he left here, and certainly he was well old enough to remember," Stephenson says. "There would be train whistles all throughout this neighborhood all day long and all night long ... There aren't any train whistles in New York City."

I don't know about "Little Rootie Tootie," but I hear plenty of rolicking train sound in "Blue Monk"--complete with three chimes to signal the ride's over (at about 3:11, if you can't stand music). The video for "Blue Monk" is better, anyway. With its shallow black and whites, this is what a moving MRI of the jazzbrain looks like:

I doubt mass train-extinction could do much to strip any funk off the Monk, but I don't think his music would be quite the same had he grown up next to a monorail.

To all good titles their due:

This Movie Is: Exciting

2011-03-12T10:19:00.000-08:00

    First, some math… B-Movies, like B-students, are generally more fun than their A counterparts. A-entities leave bars early while B-entities shrug and throw darts. Few B-Movies turn out to be great movies, but most great movies start out as B-movies (as all great humans start as B-students.)
    Bad B-Movies (there are many) are not intolerable, unlike failed A-pictures. B-Movies never sing the merits of their own wasted potential. They are saved by humility. A good, bad B-Movie flatters the viewer’s liberal conscience, allowing him to tally the exact number of sins he’s willing to forgive. A good, bad B-movie reaches the high double digits in this count and allows the counter (extremely hungover) to bask in his own decency.
    Ahh… but now we’ve switched from math to history. Thursday evening. I need a good, bad B-Movie and a dill pickle; Netflix slips No Escape (1994) into my queue and says: take with water.
    The credentials are evident: B-Star-All Star Cast (Ray Liotta, Lance Henrickson, Stuart Wilson, Ernie Hudson), B-Director (Martin Campbell, rock steady), three-out-of-five star rating. Under the title, Netflix whispers in Trebuchet font “This Movie Is: Exciting.”
    It was not exciting for any of its 118 minutes, except in exactly the way I wanted it to be.

The best shot in the film. It occurs during the opening credits.

Comparative Cinema: Dillinger (1973) and Public Enemies (2009)

2011-02-27T14:11:00.000-08:00

John Milius is no Michael Mann when it comes to action scenes, but nor is he a bowl of cereal. Still, he gets by. Michael Mann is no John Milius when it comes to putting some blood in his characters (they both can drain it), but then again Johnny Depp is no Warren Oates. Warren Oates might be John Dillenger, if Jay Robert Nash is to be believed. Michelle Phillips might be Marion Cotillard’s aunt; and no one is Harry Dean Stanton because only Harry Dean Stanton can be anyone on camera and still be himself.

Both films have long, loud passages of shotgun fire (Little Bohemia), but only Milius feels it necessary to survey the carnage with a wistful eye, as if to say: “what a waste,” and shake his head. It feels a bit hypocritical, and I don’t remember much of it in “Public Enemies,” just a lot of Johnny Depp looking cool and very smooth, like a countertop.
Enough with comparisons--"digestion made public,” a French trumpeter once said.

Unknown (2011)

2011-02-27T09:58:00.000-08:00

Special Delivery: Miss January

    To prepare for her role in “Unknown,” the beautiful January Jones wrote all her lines on the shell of a sea turtle--many turtles. One for each scene. She plays Elizabeth Harris, wife of eminent scientist Martin Harris (Liam Neeson), or at least that’s how we are introduced. They split a cab to a hotel from the Berlin airport (where they previously split a plane); presumably they’re about to split a hotel room.
    While Liz checks-in at the front desk, Dr. Harris slaps his forehead outside, realizing he has left behind his briefcase. He hops into a cab and instructs the driver (Diane Kruger) to take him back to the airport, so (of course) she drives him off a bridge.
    Dr. Harris awakes from a three-day coma with a crippling feeling of non-eminence. No one recognizes him, now. Even his beloved Liz has moved on, finding a new Irish actor (Aidan Quinn) to play her American husband. The whole thing reeks of conspiracy, and it’s great fun (for half a movie) living vicariously through Neeson’s nose.
    Unfortunately, Mr. Neeson’s nose soon gives up smelling out truth for the more lucrative business of receiving punches. It’s sad to see how quickly a (more or less) mature picture can slip into dimentia. Soon I hardly recognized my old friend, confused and yelling with conviction: “Do you REALIZE how many BILLIONS of dollars are at stake if that corn falls into the wrong hands!?”
    Oh well, I suppose it was inevitable that there was more fun to be had before we learn why this doppelganger could so easily steal our man's identity and fondle his pants pockets; and why his wife would go along with it.
    Mrs. Harris’ motivation is the string that pulls the (narrative) dollar, and Ms. Jones’ inscrutable line reading keeps the string taut. Is she “in on it”? Is she being coerced or threatened? Does she feel malice or affection toward the good doctor? We can never tell because during each of her scenes the director (Juame Collet-Serra) places one of January’s painted turtles just off camera, and she reads the lines with appropriate blank urgency.