7th Heaven

My good friend Chris Dashiell turned me on to 7th HEAVEN.  He absolutely nails his review, so I bring it to you here (with his permission).

In Paris, an orphaned waif named Diane (Janet Gaynor) is whipped and almost murdered by her vicious sister (Gladys Brockwell) after Diane is too honest about their dissolute life with an aunt and uncle Nana tries to fool for money. The girl’s life is saved by Chico (Charles Farrell), a sewer worker embittered against God for his bad luck. When the police come to take Diane away on Nana’s instigation, Chico claims that they are married in order to protect her. They must keep up this pretense for awhile, so Diane moves into Chico’s little flat on the seventh floor of a tenement. He is a bit insensitive, and a braggart too, but their arrangement gradually turns into love. Then the advent of World War forces them apart.

The story, based on a play by Austin Strong, is extreme melodrama, and in less talented hands it could have been pure schmaltz, but Borzage knew how to combine passion with a kind of ethereal spirituality, and this is reflected in the film’s look, especially the lighting and camera movement. The nighttime sequences, and the action in the little attic and on the rooftops, seem almost lit from within, as if suffused with romantic memories. The crane shots with the lovers running up to the seventh floor, the overhead shots of Paris, Gaynor walking across a plank through the window in a wedding dress, Farrell holding her up in the air when he declares his love, a ray of light falling on the couple—the picture is filled with such beauty, like an intoxicating and sometimes feverish dream.

The plot becomes more outlandish during the separation of the lovers by war. The villainous sister returns, and then the tragedies pile up. Meanwhile, Diane and Chico are shown to have a supernatural connection with one another. They communicate across time and space. We have grown out of these kinds of dramatic devices, but with Borzage we willingly suspend disbelief most of the time. What I find most interesting is that this elevated notion of love is at the same time grounded in the life of Paris and in relationships with friends. Spiritual love, for Borzage, does not retreat from the world, but transfigures it.

The 20-year-old Gaynor is luminous. This was the big year in which she also starred in Sunrise, and won the Best Actress award for Seventh Heaven and Street Angel. She has great chemistry with Farrell, and after Seventh Heaven became a smash hit they were paired together eleven more times. The movie has finally been released by Fox in an excellent print as part of a Borzage box set.

The Slammin' Salmon

I like Broken Lizard, the comedy troupe that broke out with 2001’s SUPER TROOPERS and went on to make CLUB DREAD and BEERFEST. SUPER TROOPERS is one of those movies I enjoy springing on people, CLUB DREAD gets funnier with each viewing, and, BEERFEST, um, featured beer. Broken Lizard’s members play well off one another, they know how to set up a joke, and their rapid fire style keeps us laughing even as it forces us to pay attention.

THE SLAMMIN’ SALMON takes place in an eponymous upscale Miami restaurant. The manager, needing a big night on the sales floor, announces a contest with fabulous prizes for the highest-earning server. Which is fine, but really only serves to create a story arc on which to hang a series of gags. For this is very much a gag movie, with philosophy seems of, “Didn’t like that one? Here’s another. And another.” Which is great for me, because I liked the gags. THE SLAMMIN’ SALMON kept me laughing out loud from beginning to end, generating enough goodwill to erase the skunky memory of BEERFEST and fire me up for the troupe’s next film. These guys are fantastic.

The Men Who Stare at Goats

THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS is silly and I chuckled all the way through it. 

Here’s the premise: Ewan McGregor is an Ann Arbor newspaper reporter whose life is going nowhere.  He’s stuck interviewing crackpots like some guy who claims to have been part of a secret Army psychic warrior corps.  His wife left him.  He needs a change.

History gives him one when America invades Iraq.  Eager for a story, any story, MacGregor flies to Kuwait where … he … goes … nowhere.  Then he meets George Clooney, who professes to be a member of the same psychic warrior corps Crackpot McCrazy talked about back home.  Clooney’s on a mission into Iraq, and MacGregor comes with him.  Oh, yeah, there’s a problem: Clooney gives every indication of being nuts.

And we’re off.  THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS spends the next hour and a half going from MacGregor’s adventures in the present day to recounting the history of the New Earth Army, a supersecret band of psychic warriors who call themselves Jedi Warriors and follow their leader, Jeff Bridges in full hippie mode, to the edges of perception, ability, and credulity.  But could the New Earth Army still be around, working in Iraq?  Does MacGregor have what it takes to become a Jedi Warrior?  And what’s the point in sitting around and staring at goats, anyway?

OK, so I’ve just spent three paragraphs recapping the picture, which makes for a super-lazy review.  Shut it.  This stuff is free.

Anyway, THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS works because it embraces the silliness of its premise while playing it absolutely straight.  Clooney really believes he has amazing psychic powers.  Bridges creates the most earnest hippie colonel in the history of the United States Army.  And MacGregor, well, if anyone deserves to become a Jedi Warrior, it’s this guy.  Have fun.

I Sell The Dead

Now this is what I’m talkin’ about.

I SELL THE DEAD, made on a shoestring and using Staten Island as a stand-in for 18^th-Century England, loves gothic horror, loves comedy, and loves movies.  Starring Dominic Monaghan and Larry Fessenden as grave robbers who specialize in the exotic, this movie offers wall-to-wall monsters, jokes, atmosphere and goodwill.  Add supporting work from genre favorites Angus Scrimm and Ron Perlman, and you have everything you could want in a horror comedy.

I SELL THE DEAD features vampires, zombies, villains wearing bowlers, knife-throwers, and at least one beheading.  Oh, and it also features joke after joke after joke, creating a sense of general delight and carrying it all the way through the film’s running time.

So if gothic horror-comedy is your idea of a good time (it’s certainly mine), see I SELL THE DEAD.  It’s a great time at the movies.

Iron Man 2

IRON MAN 2 is a great, great movie.  That is, if you love reading Popular Mechanics.  Because if there’s one thing IRON MAN 2 delights in showing us, it’s long sequences of guys welding.  And dragging cables.  And doing, y’know, Metal Shop stuff.

Me, I don’t read Popular Mechanics.  I never took Metal Shop.  Long stretches of IRON MAN 2 bored me out of my mind. 

That’s not to say that Robert Downey, Jr. isn’t fantastic in what will become his signature role.  Or that Scarlett Johansson (as a superduperspy) doesn’t look great in a catsuit.  It doesn’t even mean that stuff doesn’t blow up real good.  It just means that I didn’t care.

I didn’t care about Iron Man’s big fight with his best friend (a role demanding far less gravitas than The Great Don Cheadle brought to bear).  I didn’t care about the Big Villain’s boring revenge story.  And I certainly didn’t care about the intricacies of corporate reorganization.

By the time the Big Villain, who wasn’t nearly as interesting as the Little Villain, unleashed his evil plan, I’d grown so worn out with pseudo-physics, quasi-engineering bull$#!^ that I could only marvel that this film failed to learn the basic lesson of the Star Wars prequels.  To wit, fighting robots are dull.  Their destruction carries no emotional heft, because they’re things.  You might as well have given me twenty minutes of Iron Man unplugging refrigerators.

For all that, however, IRON MAN 2 does offer something to make it worth seeing.  It’s not on the posters and it’s not in the ads, however: it’s a secret weapon named Sam Rockwell, upon whom I now formally grant Can Do No Wrong status.  Rockwell plays the Little Villain, the CEO of Stark Corporation’s primary competitor in the weapons business.  His name is Justin Hammer, and he’s a weasely, sniveling wannabe Tony Stark who absolutely steals every second he’s on screen.  Let me say that again:  Sam Rockwell (CDNW) steals the screen from Robert Downey, Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, and The Great Don Cheadle.  I didn’t think anyone could upstage any of these actors; but Rockwell’s Justin Hammer is so deliciously slimy, so wily yet such a doofus, that he runs away with this movie.  After GALAXY QUEST, THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY, CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND, CHOKE, MOON, and now IRON MAN 2, I can safely assert that Sam Rockwell has arrived.  This actor, truly, can do no wrong.

So, yeah, IRON MAN 2 has a whole lot working against it.  But its bright spot is very, very bright.  If they make another film in this series, I hope they call it JUSTIN HAMMER.

Crazy Heart

CRAZY HEART understands. It understands how alcoholics function, and how those around alcoholics find ways to function. It understands music as both art and commerce. It understands the heart.

Jeff Bridges anchors CRAZY HEART as Bad Blake, faded Western Music legend. [NOTE: The film calls his music Country, but it’s simplifying for the uninitiated: he’s doing straight Western, with the occasional detour into Zydeco. How can you tell the difference? It’s easy: if it sounds kind of like Country, but doesn’t suck, it’s Western.] He’s a degenerate alcoholic: drunk, broke, and giving lousy performances to tiny crowds in crappy venues. He once mentored a promising musician who has since gone on to wealth and fame, and his envy wears at him as surely as his alcoholism. And here’s the magic of casting: because it’s Jeff Bridges under that grizzle and gristle, we as the audience apprehend why people put up with him. He’s just so damn gifted, so charismatic, that we put up with him, too. We like Bad Blake. We want him to pull out of his death spiral.

Maybe he will. He meets a reporter (Maggie Gyllenhall) who may represent his last chance. And here’s where CRAZY HEART’s understanding asserts itself. The Gyllenhall role could have gone wrong in so many ways, but the character works because we believe her. We believe that she’s smart, yet capable of making poor choices. We believe that she’s wise, yet has room to grow. We believe that she believes she can handle an alcoholic. We believe that she’s old enough to know better yet still young enough to believe.

As the story develops, we go on to meet that once-promising musician and find, to our pleasant surprise, that he’s a decent guy. This role, too, could have gone wrong in so many ways, but CRAZY HEART presents this character (well played by Colin Farrel – I like him so much more when he’s, y’know, acting) like a real guy. Yes, he’s a guy who pursues fortune, but there’s nothing wrong with that in America. More importantly, he’s a guy who sees Bad Blake for who he is: a genius drowning in cheap whiskey.

And so it goes. CRAZY HEART is a film about the way real people respond in real ways to real problems. Bad Blake’s a committed alcoholic and musical genius and a decent guy when he’s sober. Many alcoholics find death at the bottom of a bottle, but this film makes us hope Blake doesn’t. It understands our hearts, and plays them to create one hell of a film.

The Blind Side

I distrust the “Ain’t White Folk Grand” genre.  You know what I’m talking about: films in which White Folks swoop down on some downtrodden Non-White Folk and save them from their squalid lives while learning an Important Life Lesson of their own.

It’s not that I don’t think White Folk are grand – I’m white, after all, and I consider myself reasonably grand.  It’s not that I don’t think people should help those who need it.  And it’s not that I’m against Important Life Lessons.  It’s just that I find the genre so tedious.  Uplift is great and all, but hardly anyone ever blows up a car.

All of which is meant to give you some context when I say that THE BLIND SIDE is about as good as “Ain’t White Folk Grand” movies get.  Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw are great at playing White Folk, Quinton Aaron does a fine job of getting rescued, and everything rocks along right through a closing credits sequence that shows us photos of the actual family upon which the film is based.  It’s fine, really, and it achieves its goals in an engaging and professional way.

In other words, it’s exactly what you expect when you plunk down your money for a film of this genre.  If only they’d blown up a car.

The Yakuza

Sydney Pollack directs Robert Mitchum and Ken Takakura in a Robert Towne – Paul Schrader neo-noir thriller set in the Tokyo underworld. If you haven’t already clicked “Add to Queue,” I don’t know what to do with you.

Brian Keith, Robert Mitchum, and Herb Edelman were buddies during the war. They served in the occupation of Japan, and it changed their lives forever. Edelman became a scholar and lives modestly in Tokyo, where he teaches at the university. He also has an awesome collection of weapons, legal and illegal. (I’ll tell you, friends, if you ever find yourself trapped in a noir plot, be sure to have an old buddy with his very own armory.) Keith’s into shipping, smuggling, and the Yakuza for a whole lot of money. And Mitchum, well, he’s Robert Freaking Mitchum, and that’s all you need to know.

So Keith needs help with his little Yakuza problem. He buys Mitchum a ticket to Tokyo, asking him to work things out. It’s wintertime in Japan: cold, slushy, and nasty. Mitchum knows enough of the patois and the culture to get by, but he’s still an alien in an alien land. The Japanese, even (and especially) the gangsters, have these rigorous moral codes that are damn hard to crack. He needs someone to help him out, to show him the way, and he calls on Takakura (at the time, Japan’s biggest star). That’s when things get interesting.

See, Takakura’s a force in his own right. A Kendo master with deep, if conflicted, ties to Mitchum, he’s on his home turf. This sets up a great dynamic, one that’s unique in the world of noir. See, Mitchum can’t play the part of “the one good man” in Tokyo; the city would eat him alive. He also can’t be the “lone tough bastard,” at least not all the time; again, the city would eat him alive. Thus, he’s put in the position of sidekick for much of his own film. It works. Takakura has such a commanding, formidable presence that we buy Mitchum taking his lead. And as the story twists and turns, with the two stars swapping leadership roles as the situation requires, we’re right there with them. For a while, we even start to think that everything’s going to be ok.

But it’s Tokyo, Bobby. It’s Tokyo. And there are some things a foreigner will never understand.

Sleep Dealer

My first introduction to science fiction, real science fiction, came by way of a two-volume collection of Hugo Award – winning short stories.  The stories; by luminaries of the Golden Age of Science Fiction such as Asimov, Heinlein, Anderson, and Dick; used science fiction as a way to get at social and psychological ideas.  They explored the flaws in our civilization and thought of ways we as a people could solve them or we as people could endure them.  The explored the relationship of man and machine, asking what it means to be human and how, in some possible futures, we could lose that humanity.  Most importantly, they were good yarns.  They involved, entertained, and stimulated.  They were the good stuff.

SLEEP DEALER is the good stuff.  Set in a future perhaps fifty years off, it tells the story of Memo, a young man from dry, dusty Oaxaca.  He has come to Tijuana to seek a better life and finds work in a “sleep dealer,” a factory that works its employees so hard, they often collapse on the job.  Standard stuff so far, but here comes the science fiction part: sleep dealers hook their employees’ nervous systems, via nodes implanted in their bodies, into the global information network.  Once plugged in, the workers remotely operate robots that do the menial and dangerous tasks illegal aliens perform today:  high-rise construction, fruit picking, domestic labor.  To paraphrase one character, “We give the first world what it wants: work without workers.”  And away we go.

Sure, there’s a love interest and a revenge plot and all the things we expect in narrative storytelling, but they don’t make SLEEP DEALER interesting.  SLEEP DEALER captures the imagination because it uses its milieu and the tools of narrative to explore the nature of immigration, the dehumanizing effects of global political and financial inequity, and the implications of the virtual life.  In other words, it explores the flaws in our civilization and thinks of ways we as a people could solve them or we as people endure them.  It explores the relationship of man and machine, asking what it means to be human and how, in one possible future, we could lost that humanity.  All that, and it’s a good yarn that involves, entertains, and stimulates.  This is the good stuff.

Which leads me back to those Hugo Award – winning stories of yesteryear and the Golden Age of Science Fiction.  With films like MOON and TIMECRIMES and, now, SLEEP DEALER making it into theaters and onto DVD shelves, I suspect a second Golden Age may have arrived.  Once again, science fiction is doing what it’s supposed to do: challenge and probe and think and thrill and entertain.  I can’t wait to see what’s next.

PS  Special thanks to Devin Faraci at CHUD.com.  Without his well-written review of SLEEP DEALER, I'd never have known this film existed.

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

Bette Davis owns every minute of WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?

She’s crazy. She’s creepy. She’s Ms. Davis in a brave, crushing, terrifying performance as a woman going from plain old mean to absolutely unhinged. She’s Ms. Davis never putting a foot wrong, scaring the hell out of us as we wonder what she’s going to do next. She’s Ms. Davis convincing us that she is capable of utterly cowing Joan Crawford, putting Ms. Crawford under her thumb and keeping her there until the bitter end.

Here’s the deal: Baby Jane Hudson was a child star on the vaudeville circuit. She always outshone her sister Blanche, the “plain one” who’d vowed to get her revenge one day. Things don’t always work out for child stars, of course, and Blanche got her revenge by growing up to become a movie star. Until one night, when a mysterious accident renders Blanche a cripple, leaving her trapped in a big old Hollywood home and subject to the tender mercies of dear old Jane. But that was years ago. Blanche and Jane have settled into a routine as invalid and caregiver. But Jane has a plan.

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? lives and dies with the performances of Bette Davis as Jane and Joan Crawford as Blanche. In an industry that values youth, both women (55 and 58, respectively) bravely allow themselves to be photographed in the most unflattering makeup, the worst lighting, the least glamorous angles. Crawford sells us on Blanche, a once-strong woman so tired of fighting that she’s on the verge of finally giving in. Davis steals the film as a woman who’s evil and insanity grows within her like a cancer. And the film itself, well, it’s a slow burn, a film that enjoys taking its time as it ratchets up tension and fear. This film knows that anticipation of fright is more delicious than fright itself, and it revels in it.

Yes, there’s a cheap twist, but don’t let that spoil things for you. See this film for Davis. Let her creep you out. Let her try to win you over, which will creep you out even more. But try not to think too hard about her. You might not get to sleep tonight.

Ghidorah: The Three-Headed Monster

GHIDORAH: THE THREE-HEADED MONSTER is just plain terrific.  It has four – count ‘em, four! – classic monsters in Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan, and the titular Ghidorah.  It has Martian princesses, secret service agents, even cute kids.  And it has … wait for it … Takashi Shimura in a supporting role as a brave scientist who comes through in the clutch.

Toss in solid puppet and costume work, a funky soundtrack, and even kaiju détente, and you have the makings of a great film for a rainy Saturday afternoon.

No, I’m not going to outline the plot.  It’s a mid-‘60’s Godzilla movie, but it’s one of the good ones.  That’s all you need to know: either you’re down with it or you aren’t.  In the absence of critical reflection or even a by-the-numbers review, I’ll instead offer this little vignette, direct from the couch in my basement.

INT.  ELLERMANN BASEMENT – AFTERNOON

A heavy rainstorm thrums outside.  ALEX (the father) and IAN (the son) sit on the couch watching a Godzilla movie.  ALEX has the remote in his hand.

ALEX (pausing the remote)

See that man, Ian?  That’s Takashi Shimura.  He’s one of the greatest actors the human race has ever produced, and he’s been in some of the greatest films ever made.  That, son, is what excellence looks like.

                                    IAN

Was he in “Kung Fu Panda?”

                                    ALEX

No.

                                    IAN

Was he in “Rocky?”

                                    ALEX

No.

                                    IAN

What was he in, then?

                                    ALEX

He was “Ikiru,” “Yojimbo,” “The Seven Samurai,” “Stray Dog,” and even the original “Gojira.”

                                    IAN

“Gojira” was too scary.  I like the later Godzilla movies, where the monster looks more fake and they’re kind of silly.

                                    ALEX

He was in “Mothra,” too.

                                    IAN

Oh, cool!  “Mothra” was awesome!

                                    ALEX

There you go.

Beauty in Trouble

BEAUTY IN TROUBLE has three acts, a heroine, no antagonist, and a weak resolution. It takes us to interesting places in the company of decent people, and it certainly rates as a pleasant way to spend a couple of hours. But there’s nothing propulsive about it. There’s no reason why we absolutely must see the next scene, or the one after that.

The film, a Czech production about a woman with two kids, a husband in jail, limited prospects, and maybe one last chance to provide a good life for her family, suffers from that lack of an antagonist. Sure, there are some jerks (and one man (who could’ve played Gollum without CGI) who would have made an estimable villain in a more formulaic picture), but the trouble in which our beauty finds herself seems more a general life trouble than actual peril. Granted, life troubles are serious and challenging. But hey, I’ve got life troubles of my own. Battle a giant spider or something.

See, Marcela’s a decent woman. She works in a travel agency. Her husband’s an auto mechanic. Or at least he was, until a flood wiped out the garage and he’s turned his place into a chop shop to make ends meet. Once he’s caught and imprisoned, however, Marcela’s got to figure out how she’s going to feed her kids. She’s moved everyone into Mom’s apartment, she’s barely getting by, and her stepfather’s losing patience. And he may be a lecher. But then a wealthy, handsome stranger shows up. He owns a Tuscan vineyard (but he doesn’t seem to ever actually work at it – it must be one of those ornamental vineyards). He’s nice to the kids. He takes pity on her and takes her in. Problem is, she still loves her husband.

And, y’know, that’s it. She makes decisions: some good, some bad. Life circumstances change. Some things get better and some worse. But nothing happens that makes this stuff any more interesting than the gossip I hear about friends and relatives all the time. Life is hard. Relationships are tough. It sucks that we often don’t have the money we need or want. Fine, fine, and (as I said) these are decent people and the scenery’s nice and I rocked along pleasantly for two hours. But there’s no magic of cinema here. There's no particularly compelling narrative. There’s no photography to make me say “Wow,” and simply filming Tuscany is cheating. I was joking about battling giant spiders, but c’mon: surprise and delight me, for Pete’s sake. Or at least, blow up a car.

So, BEAUTY IN TROUBLE. It’s at least as interesting as keeping up with your Facebook feed. But I’d have liked a little more.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

My beautiful and brilliant wife was delighted when I volunteered to take the boys to DIARY OF A WIMPY KID.  She’d read the books along with our oldest son and liked them well enough, but she just couldn’t see how anyone could make a good movie out of the material.

Win and win.  Not only did I score points with my bride of nearly eighteen years, but I laughed all through the movie.  DIARY OF A WIMPY KID hits all the right notes, finds comedy in situations that would be sad or uncomfortable in less capable hands, and turns out to be a good time at the movies for all concerned.

Here’s the deal:  Greg Heffley is about to begin his first year of middle school.  If there’s one thing he knows about middle school, it’s that the experience is a Darwinian struggle for social survival.  Everything revolves around one’s standing on the social ladder, and his job is to do whatever’s going to move him up and avoid whatever’s going to move him down.  Never mind everyone telling him to be himself and find his own way: he’s going to be the top dog, even if he has to overcome the handicap of constantly being surrounded by wimps, nerds, and losers.  And, of course, being a wimpy kid himself.  With a diary.  Even though he expressly told his mom that needed a journal.

The film chronicles his year, and it does so with just the right touch.  The mean older brother (Devon Bostick) seems more goofy than cruel.  The out – of – touch parents (Steve Zahn and Rachael Harris) are out of touch in a way that parents will find amusing.  The wimpy, nerdy, loser friends (Karan Brar, Robert Capron, Grayson Russell) are misfits, but they’re depicted so kindly that we smile in comic sympathy rather than writhe in discomfort.  Greg Heffley (Zachart Gordon) himself – insecure, calculating, meaning well but oh so childish, is both our hero and our audience surrogate.  We know who he is and why he makes his mistakes, and he simultaneously wants to make us laugh, give him a hug, and send him to his room.  And then there’s Angie, wise beyond her years and the only person in school who really, truly Gets It.  Chloe Moretz (who played Hit Girl in KICK-ASS and here steals yet another film) is, assuming she doesn’t fall prey to the joys of chemistry, going to be a huge, huge star.

So I’m a big fan of DIARY OF A WIMPY KID.  It helped me score points with my wife, enjoy some time with my kids, and gave me something to chuckle over even days later.  Much to my very pleasant surprise, this film is a winner.

Woman in the Dunes

You need to see WOMAN IN THE DUNES as soon as you can.

Hiroshi Teshigahara’s masterpiece works in so many ways that it’s hard to determine where to begin.  You can see this movie as a really cool, extra-long episode of The Twilight Zone.  You can see this movie as a parable of the human experience.  You can see it as an anticapitalist illustration of the plight of the working man.  There’s so much here: the pressures of society, the sexual politics of courtship and marriage, the tension between our animal and intellectual selves, the brutal leveling of Japanese society.  And that’s just the first pass on the story.  The camerawork, the lighting, the music, the willingness to exaggerate points of view and ideas in light and sound, the achingly erotic and the terror of nightmare – it’s all here. 

Told in outline, the story seems to cry out for a Rod Serling introduction:  “Imagine, if you will, a man.  He carries a driver’s license, a library card, cash – the things he uses to reassure the world that he is who is.  He’s out for a walk in the dunes, followed by an afternoon nap.  But when he awakens, he’ll find himself … in The Twilight Zone.”  He learns that he’s missed the last bus.  A passing local offers to guide him to a home where someone will take him in for the night.  The home is in a deep pit in the sand, and he climbs down by rope ladder.  There’s a woman there, and she happily cooks him dinner and fans him while he eats.  Later that night, he awakens and sees her shoveling sand outside.  He goes back to sleep.  When he awakens that morning, he sees her again.  She’s sleeping on her tatami mat, her nude body dusted with sand and glittering in the morning light.

The rope ladder is gone. 

I’ve given you the teaser.  Now, I’m heading into spoiler territory.  If you’re intrigued but don’t want to know too much, now’s the time to click away and put this film at the top of your queue.

You’ve been warned.

Ok, back to it.  It’s too hard for a woman alone down at the bottom of that pit.  She can’t keep up with the shoveling and she needs a husband.  He’s it, and there’s no way out.  The villagers sell the sand and lower rations down to those who produce, so welcome to your life’s work.  At one point, he asks, “Do we shovel sand to live, or do we live to shovel sand?”  Well that’s just it, isn’t it?  If you aren’t fully invested in what you do, if your job is just a job, if you’re trapped, well, then what?  Are you doomed to labor so someone else can profit from your misery?  Does the whole point of your existence become the continuation of your existence?  And what if you buy into the trap?  What do you do if you get a chance to escape?  There’s a Japanese saying which roughly translates to, “The tallest nail gets the hammer.”  Do you put your head down and fit in?  Do you keep shoveling?  Do you have a choice?

This is the kind of movie you wish you could have seen in college, when you had all night to stay up and talk through its ramifications.  You know, however, that you couldn’t have gotten it, not really, while you were still in college.  You could have related to vision of the woman (or, later in the narrative, the man) with the light dusting of sand.  But the role of the individual in the family and the family in society, the web of responsibilities among all the players?  These are just ideas to you.  You need to live them for at least a decade or so for them to sink in.

I haven’t even gotten into the technical aspects of the film, the way it creates a living world in the sand, the way it photographs sand as a metaphor for responsibility or uses its dissonant music to jar the audience while reinforcing the narrative.  Here’s a film that understands points of view so clearly that it shows us not only what its characters are seeing, but what they’re focusing on and what they’re feeling and what they’re thinking about.  The camera isn’t just a clever audience surrogate here: the camera reflects and directs, it’s organic to the proceedings, a part of what’s going on.  You’ve heard of the God’s Eye View?  In this film, the camera sees what God sees.  Oh, and the lighting.  Wait until you see the light on the sand on the body – one of the most memorable images put to film.  Watch shadows play across faces and flashlight beams glare down brutal humanity in its cruelty and hope for redemption.  I would pay real money to see this movie broken down shot by shot.

So if you’re young, see WOMAN IN THE DUNES and marvel at the photography and the music and the construction and the story and the ideas.  If you’re older, see this film and marvel at the photography and the music and the construction and the story and the ideas and the truths and hopes and perceptions and vitality of the cycle of life.  See WOMAN IN THE DUNES and marvel.  See WOMAN IN THE DUNES and never be the same.

The Furies

Only a fool or a hero would name his ranch The Furies.  T.C. Jeffords is both.

New Mexico, 1875ish: T.C. Jeffords (Walter Huston) rules over one of the biggest ranches in the territory.  He’s larger than life.  He’s a hero on the range.  And he’s spending money faster than he’s making it.  His daughter, Vance, is unamused.

His daughter is Barbara Stanwyck.  She loves him.

But

you

do

not

mess

with

Barbara Stanwyck.

Which is the film’s strength and its weakness.

See, here’s a movie that takes these two iconic actors, Huston and Stanwyck, and sets them up in this great conflict: he’s promised her the ranch, but he’s burning through its resources so fast that the promise is turning empty.  She loves him, but she has to fight him to save his legacy and save him from himself.  And it’s great stuff, it really is.  The Furies gives us two smart and capable people and lets them have at it, and it’s here that it really shines.

But The Furies tries to have it both ways.  See, it gives Stanwyck this love interest who does things like slap her to put her in her place.  She accepts this, which seems totally out of character both for the young Ms. Jeffords and the actress playing her.  When she kissed this guy after his assault, my jaw hit the floor.  I expected her to put a knife in his gut – or, at the very least, swindle him out of house and home.  I mean, this is Barbara Stanwyck we’re talking about, here!  But no.  Later, there’s some business about the guy telling her that she’s going to shut her mouth and do what she’s told, she accepts it, and I sat there agog.

I’m not saying this isn’t a good story.  I’m certainly not saying there aren’t some great things here.  I’m not even saying that this isn’t a reasonable portrayal of how someone of Stanwyck’s character’s age and background might behave.  I’m saying that, given what I (admittedly, as much a prisoner of my time and culture as the next guy) know about women, it’s inconceivable to me that a woman like Stanwyck’s Vance Jeffords would respond to abuse as she does in this film.

So enjoy the foolish hero.  Enjoy the resourceful heroine.  Wince at the cavalier attitude toward domestic violence.  This is a flawed picture, but it works nonetheless.  The Furies is a damn fine western.

Kick-Ass

I didn’t laugh all the way through KICK-ASS.  Sometimes, I’d remember that young children sat in the audience, and the horror of that realization’d take me out of the film.  Then something ostentatiously ridiculous or violent or vulgar would occur, I’d laugh again, and I’d rock along quite happily until I happened to glance over, once again, at those little kids.

KICK-ASS is not a movie for children.  It’s bloodily violent, so foulmouthed it’d take a sailor aback (Sigh.  The Navy has changed.), and too graphically sexual for prepubescents.  It’s also hilarious.  From star Aaron Johnson’s perfect mix of idealism, enthusiasm and awkwardness to Nicholas Cage’s ridiculous Adam West imitation to Christopher Mintz-Plasse’s geeky riff on Mr. Glass, the character work here is spot on.  Add Mark Strong’s deadpan villainy as a New York mafioso and young Chloe Moretz as the astonishingly vulgar Hit-Girl, and you have one of the best comedies to come along this year.

Here’s the setup:  Dave Lizewski (Johnson) is a teenaged comic book nerd who wonders why nobody ever steps up, puts on a costume, and actually tries to help people out.  He decides to take the plunge and, for his trouble gets beaten, stabbed, and run over by a car.  But after months of hospitalization, a reinforced skeleton thanks to all the plates and pins installed after his massive trauma, and major nerve damage leaving him nearly impervious to pain, he’s ready to try again.  He’s ready to become Kick-Ass, defender of people who need defending, rescuer of kittens, getter of the girl, etc.  And it isn’t long before he meets Mr. Big and Hit Girl, a father-daughter team whose idea of quality time is dressing up in costumes and killing thugs.  So basically, he gets everything he wanted.  He’s got cool hero friends.  He lands his Mary-Jane.  He occasionally kicks ass.  And he finds himself in the sights of Mr. Big (Strong, a gifted character actor who needs to stop playing villains before it’s too late).  Mr. Big, of course, is ready to finance a nemesis.  And there we are.

Based on the trailers, I expected this movie to be violent and vulgar and over the top, but I didn’t expect it to be so funny.  Watch Strong and Mintz-Plasse argue over their plans for movie night.  Watch Johnson stumble from one adventure to the next, and watch him take on the baddies with gear that appears to be made from tin foil and lawn chairs.  Watch Cage apply his eye makeup before a big night of fighting crime, and watch Moretz do pretty much everything she does.  You will laugh and laugh and laugh.  Then you’ll cringe for a while.  Then you’ll laugh some more.

Either that, or you’ll cringe and cringe and cringe, then maybe laugh for a while.  Your mileage may vary.

Regardless, you must respect this film’s audacity.  KICK-ASS isn’t afraid to go for broke, and it delivers a rousing time at the movies.

Just don’t bring your kids.

What's Up, Doc?

You like screwball comedies? I like screwball comedies. I like it when everyone wants the McGuffin (or McGuffins, as the case may be), and hijinks ensue. I like it when the operator drives the poor sap crazy with her machinations. And I like it when the operator discovers, much to her surprise and delight, that she has a heart of gold.

And I really like when the whole thing is set in San Francisco, one of the greatest and most photogenic cities in the world.

So really, the only way WHAT’S UP, DOC? could have dropped the ball would have been to have one of its characters leap out of the screen and punch me in the nose.

Here’s the deal: four people bring four identical overnight bags to the same hotel. One holds rocks that mean a lot to an academic because he intends to use them in an important presentation; one holds rocks that are important to everyone because they glitter nicely in the light and are surrounded with worked gold; one holds underwear, which matters to the person who owns the underwear; and one holds a cache of top secret documents which may or may not be the Pentagon Papers. The movie is pretty much a game of musical overnight bags, the loser getting stuck with the underwear, and away we go.

Director Peter Bogdanovich does a great job of keeping all the balls in the air, perfectly executing classic screwball bits while keeping track of the locations and ownerships of various bags, hearts, and miscellaneous bits of clothing. He casts great actors like Barbara Streisand, Madeleine Khan, and Austin Pendleton in critical roles, and they help buttress a weak Ryan O’Neal leading performance as the hapless academic who’s no match for (really) anyone.

WHAT’S UP, DOC? made me laugh out loud. When I wasn’t laughing, I was rolling along quite pleasantly. This is solid screwball, lots of fun, and a good time at the movies.

How to Train Your Dragon

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON is a perfectly fine children’s entertainment.  It does well with standard themes of divergence and acceptance, courage in the face of expectations as well as of danger, and the father/son dynamic.  It’s exciting enough for older kids and not too scary for younger, and it kept my kids talking about it for the rest of the evening.

Here’s the setup: young Hiccup lives in a Viking village constantly beset by dragons.  Unfortunately, he’s the smart and skinny kid in a brawn-centered culture.  He’s never going to wield a 75-lb mace in battle against a flying menace, so how will he find his place as a true Viking?  Ok, the title gives it away, but still.  The film tells its story briskly, hits its beats right on schedule, keeps things moving along.  I watched it while juggling three kids, two sodas, one of those enormous tubs of popcorn, a box of stale nachos and inedible cheese sauce, and a packet of Raisinets.  That’s multiple trips to the bathroom, more than one shushing, and two detours to the lobby so my preschooler could practice his “frog jumping” as the mood struck (Hey, that’s why we sit in the back.).  It was still fine.  When a story speaks to familiar themes and rigidly adheres to standard structure, you don’t need to see every scene to stay with it.

So enjoy the artwork and dig HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON for what it is.  There are worse ways to spend an hour and a half.

Fellini's Roma

There’s something you need to know about FELLINI’S ROMA and you need to know it right up front.  FELLINI’S ROMA isn’t about anybody.  There’s no hero, no villain, no 2^nd act crisis and 3^rd act resolution.  Nothing happens; at least, not in the sense we usually mean when we discuss narrative film.

FELLINI’S ROMA isn’t a documentary, either.  It doesn’t set a scene, introduce us to players, and watch events unfold in a (hopefully) dramatic and interesting way.  It’s just – well, it’s just Rome.

But it isn’t just Rome: not really.  It’s Fellini’s Rome, or the parts of Rome that Fellini finds most interesting.  There’s Rome the Romantic, an idealized city that exists as not much more than a fantasy in the minds of Italian schoolchildren in the countryside.  There’s Rome the vulgar, Rome the sad, Rome the painted whore under an umbrella, slowly baking in scant shadow.  There’s the Rome of the hippies, of the workingmen, of the Church, and of the ancients.  There’s even the Rome of the apostates and the casually lost, the bright young men with futures and the masters at the top of their games.

FELLINI’S ROMA is like a slideshow, an experience meant to create a feeling of Rome rather than of a character in Rome.  If you can relax your expectations and go with it, it offers something of the experience of the wandering tourist.  Perhaps you speak the language; perhaps you catch only bits and pieces.  Scenes flash by on the road or in the piazza, and you come away not with a series of photos or cleverly written travel piece, but with a feeling, an impression of what it means to live there, what it means to visit, what it means merely to pass through on your way to someplace else.

Will you enjoy it?  I don’t know.  Should you see it?  Absolutely, for FELLINI’S ROMA will give you a sense of the city like no other.  It’ll give you a sense of the city as felt by a man who has contemplated it, dreamed it, lived it for years.  It’ll give you a sense of Rome.

Wit

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so ;
For those, whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy picture[s] be,
Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou'rt slave to Fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke ; why swell'st thou then ?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And Death shall be no more ; Death, thou shalt die.

--John Donne

Vivian Bearing (Emma Thompson), a formidable professor of English Literature and authority on the works of Donne, has metatastic stage IV ovarian cancer. As she informs us, there is no stage V. She's an academic, a researcher and thinker. She doesn't hesitate to submit to an experimental treatment that probably won't work, but that will yield valuable data for the researchers and thinkers treating her. She has no relatives. She has few friends. Her only pillar of support is her wit, defined as her "intellectual ability or her facility of thinking." (Wiktionary)

Get ready for a hard movie. I've spent little time in hospitals, submitting to one minor surgery over two decades ago. I was in at 6:00 am, done by 10:00, and out at 5:00 that evening. But those hours between regaining consciousness at 11:00 and getting picked up at 5:00 stand as some of the loneliest of my life. Vivian Bearing spends hour after hour, day after day, in the dehumanizing role of just another guinea pig in a teaching and research hospital. No one cares for her wit. No one gets her jokes. No one's intimidated or impressed by her knowledge or carriage. And studying the contemplations of a great poet is different than contemplating for onesself. I haven't spent much time in hospitals, no, but WIT put me there and led me to some contemplation of my own.

Margaret Edson, who'd worked in a hospital, wrote the Pulitzer-prize winning play upon which this production is based. Mike Nichols and Emma Thompson adapted it for the screen, with Nichols Directing and Thompson starring. They did a magnificent job of avoiding the staginess of some stage - to -screen translations, and Thompson reaffirms her standing as one of the very best actresses of her generation. I believed in Vivian Bearing from the moment I saw her. She scared me; she impressed me; she motivated me to pull my copy of Donne's collected works down off the shelf and thoughtfully peruse his Holy Sonnets. Most importantly, she touched me.

All I know about the experience of cancer treatment I know from reading Jim Beaver and watching this movie. I pray to God that if I should ever hit that unlucky lottery, my wit can get me through.